#(I was frothing at the mouth when I finally got my hands on a translation of the Gospel of Judas)

[writingsbychlo]

home for christmas | mitch rapp

word count;  10,665

summary; mitch is happy to settle down with the simple life, and he just wants to celebrate christmas with his fiancée, for the first christmas he’s had home since before he joined the army. 

notes; I know this isn’t stan’s farmhouse in the movies, but this is the kind of farmhouse I picture them having, so you’re just gonna’ have to use your imaginations!

warnings; smut, thats about it.

“Mornin’, soldier.”

Mitch simply huffed, a smirk forming on his face as he rolled over, raising his brows a little, sleep still evident across his face, the crease from a pillow being pressed into his cheek, the red mark disappearing into the dark stubble-smattering on his jaw, and you reached out a hand, rubbing over it as he blinked himself a little further awake. “Not anymore, sweetheart. You think if I was still a soldier I’d be getting to sleep in this late with a pretty woman by my side?”

“I should hope not, you were with me for the most part, so if you had another pretty woman in your bed, you should fess up now. I’d hate for that to come out on the altar.”

He growled, rolling you over until you were pressed back into the bedding, nipping a little at your shoulder as you broke out in a fit of giggles, albeit strained as the weight of his frame pressed into you, 200lb of solid muscle crushing you lovingly. “Don’t even insinuate it.”

“Yeah, I know.” You mumbled, a hand threading into his hair, and the teasing nips became soft kisses pressed to your bare skin, and he eventually gave up, rolling onto his side, and letting you cuddle up into his side a little, exhaustion no longer claiming either of you, but laziness in the bliss of the morning was. “Merry Christmas, Mitch.”

“Merry Boxing Day.”

“Technicalities.” You whispered, pecking at his cheek, the closest spot you could reach, before you were pushing yourself to it up a little more, legs crossing on the mattress, and stretching your arms up above your head to loosen the muscles.

“What was that?”

“What was what?” You repeated, head rolling from side to side, before you were shaking yourself down slightly and revelling in the numbness slipping out of your bones and muscles as energy surged through you instead.

“That pathetic excuse for a good morning kiss.” He tapped at his lips, pouting them slightly, brows raising as he watched you move to press your feet to the cold floors, standing up only a moment later. “Where do you think you’re going? Get back here and kiss me!”

“Nope. If you want kisses, you can come and get them.”

He gaped, watching you disappear into the bathroom, and you ginned to yourself, hearing the floorboards of the bedroom creak from a room over, running your toothbrush under the tap as you squeezed a dollop of the paste onto the bristles, raising your eyebrows at the man behind you. He had braced himself on either side of the doorframe, large shoulders and tall stature all but filling it, messy bedhead and unshaven jaw making him a vision of morning laziness, and he raised his brows at you as he returned your stare, a smile on his face as you scrubbed at your teeth.

Pacing across the bathroom, he pressed you up against the counter from behind, hands finding the edges of the sink as your hips pushed up to the cold porcelain, and he hooked a chin over your shoulder. One hand came up, on the other side of your jaw, twisting your face towards him, and you lifted your brush down long enough to press your lips against his, hearing him hum happily finally got what he was after. Your lips moved softly against his, a slight foam build-up getting stuck in his stubble as your mouths worked together, but neither of you could find it within yourselves to care, the first kiss of the day still feeling just as special as it had the first night you’d stayed a night together, all those years ago.

When he pulled back, he licked at his lips, wiping away the froth stuck on the spiky hairs around his face, grinning a little, and pecking a kiss to your temple. “You taste minty.”

“Of’ious’y.” You mumbled, the word getting confused in translation through the workings you were doing, but he raised his brows at the sass, gasping slightly, and you grinned, spitting and rinsing, before turning to look at him “Captain Obvious over here.”

“You’re sassy this morning.” He teased, pinching at your ass and snickering as you yelped, smacking away his hand and fixing him with a false glare. “Don’t be so sassy on Christmas.”

“I thought it was Boxing Day?” You retorted, watching him roll his eyes fondly, and as you wandered back into the bedroom, you noticed that he’d made the bed, blankets pulled straight, and you appreciated the gesture

“It’s our Christmas Day. Is that really what your Christmases were like these last few years?” His hand found yours from the second you had a jumper pulled on over your shoulders, tugging you toward the staircase and down the rickety steps that were in urgent need of repair, but those weren’t on the list yet.

So far, the two of you had made some pretty grand progress on the house that you were now calling your own. Your father had returned to duty, and you were in charge of renovating an old farmhouse, and making it truly liveable once again. The broken pipes, squeaky doors and splintering panels were no longer cutting it, and in the couple of short months since your lover had returned from the front lines, and stayed here with you.

The first week after your father had left, had been entirely spent in bed, properly celebrating the engagement you’d made, the way it should be celebrated when you were young and in love. The following month and a half leading you up to where you were now had been spent planning, clearing out the junk of old furniture and stripping the insides of the house, all the work you couldn't do alone, finding yourself now with a partner.

The porch was being extended into a wrap-around, and the outside had been stripped. The flaking paint had been sanded off, the wood underneath smoothed and repainted, before the weather had turned too cold and wet, glazed over and perfected, an off-white colour that complimented the darks of the landscape around it. Mitch had spent almost a week straight fixing broken and cracking tiles on the roof, a week when your heart had leapt into your throat every time he went up the ladder, fearing that he’d fall or injure himself, and yet the real injured had come inside.

As the final fall warmth had slipped away and the bitter and biting cold had started to come in, you’d thrown out all the moth-bitten and broken furniture inside, plans to replace it all, and sell what you deemed worthy, raising funds for the major project you’d undertaken. Splinters, torn nails, and grazes from tripping over and scraping your knees and elbows on rough flooring. However, it had all been worth it, and you shivered a little as you stepped into the kitchen, feeling the squeeze on your hand, before looking up to the man standing behind you.

“Sorry, I got lost in my thoughts. What dd you say?”

“I said, is this how you always spent your Christmases for these last few years?” The sounds of the kettle filling up as it sat on the top of the old gas stove sounded the metal clanging a little as it filled, the two of you waiting patiently over the racket, before settling it over the flame to begin heating. “Y’know, celebrating late, the video calls, all that?”

He was referring to the real Christmas Day, yesterday, having been spent waiting for the time when you’d get to talk to your father over a somewhat glitchy video chat call for your twenty-minute slot, having no idea when it would actually be. “Yeah, pretty much. Except, for the last few years, I had to do it twice.” You poked at his stomach as he stood before you, a grin on his lips, before he was catching your hand, pulling it up to press a kiss over the ring shining on your finger.

“Funny, to think that for years, I’ve been excitedly waiting to facetime my superior’s daughter, just to get a Merry Christmas and a kiss through the screen while I was out in the middle of God knows where, defending our country, and we never even knew.” His arms looped your waist, pulling you in close against the cold of the late December chill in the air, and your own arms wrapped around his neck. You leaned in, enough that he thought you were going to press a kiss to his lips, before you were lifting yourself up, and standing on his feet, grinning when he grunted, before he was looking at your curiously. “What’cha doing, kitten?”

“The floor is cold. I don’t want to stand on it.”

“Well, it would be considerably less cold if someone had just picked which tiles they wanted before the store closed over Christmas, I could be getting on with installing them, and we would’ve had heated kitchen flooring by New Years.” He tutted, lifting you to sit on the counter as the kettle began to whistle, and he worked around you to fill up the teapot on the side with the perfect brew, two mugs being gathered from one of the cupboards, before it was being pressed into your hands.

“I wanted real stone! All the samples of tiles just didn’t seem right, and-”

“And you want to have a rustic and authentic farmhouse feel, I know.” He finished your sentence for you, heat flushing your face at just how many times you must’ve said it for I’m to have memorised the statement, and he chuckled, letting you hope down and back onto the cold and stripped flooring of the kitchen to make your way to the table. The scraping of the wooden chairs over the flooring rang out, and you sat in beside him, blowing the steam away, and picking up one of the catalogues that were stacked up, opening it up to the last dog-eared page and taking a look at it all. “What do you want for breakfast?”

Despite asking the question, Mitch was already rattling around in the drawers for a frying pan, seeming to have made up his mind on what he was going to eat, and so you hummed a little, sipping at the herbal mix in your mug. “Whatever you’re having is fine.”

“Eggs and bacon it is, then.”

You only nodded, unsure whether or not he could see you, but you weren’t looking at him, falling into a comfortable science together as you examined the conversions and extensions laid out on the glossy pages before you. The sizzling and popping of the eggs and bacon faded into the background, ideas swirling in your mind as he worked, the cogs brushing off the dust as you took in what you were seeing.

Most of them were small conversations, sheds and garages, all with ideas on how to save heating and conserve energy, but your mind was wandering your own home. You’d already done so much, knocking through the wall of the small guest bedroom beside your own to turn it into a closet, and tearing up the flooring in the downstairs of the house, to replace it with newer and polished solid oak slats. How much harder could be building a wall, and converting something a little bigger than a shed?

A plate landed in front of you, making you jump in shock, before the magazine was being pulled away from you, and the smell of the meal was enticing you in. “Should I be concerned that you spend more time looking at renovation magazines than wedding ones?”

He was smiling as he spoke, no heat to his words, but you scoffed nonetheless, tapping your finger against another pile of magazines, and you felt as though your entire house was spilling over with them, filling the house in piles from top to bottom. You had more magazines than yo id furniture at this stage, the small and slightly dull Christmas tree in the corner being a sad excuse, an old TV propped up on cardboard boxes and cushions along the floor with a blanket put down, the rest of your ‘living room; being barren, waiting for its decorating to be complete.

“Have you even chosen a dress, yet? I already have my suit.”

“I’m excited to marry you, Mitch, I really am. I couldn't imagine anything that would make me happier, but that is one day of our lives. The best day, but just one day. This house is where we’re going to live, it’s the future you want, and where we’ll grow old. If something goes wrong on our wedding day, that sucks, but we’ll fix it.” He paused his chewing, staring at you with wide eyes across the table, before swallowing his mouthful thickly and reaching out with one hand to lace your fingers together to sit atop the wood. “I want our home to be perfect.”

“It will be, we’ll take our time.”

You smiled, letting him mirror the action, squeezing his hand in your own, before pulling your hand back to pick up your cutlery, and beginning into the meal he had made. “For the record, I have a few dress ideas.” You tapped the cover of one of the furthest magazines from yourself, the pages worn and folded, evidently having been used, and his brows shut up, a grin on his face as he ate.

“Can I see?” A few crumbs flew from his mouth as he spoke through the food stuffed between his cheeks, and you tried to hold in your chuckle at the sight.

“Please don’t do that at our wedding.” You grimaced, and he swallowed his mouthful, sticking his tongue out at you childishly, the playful manner between you both being more than comfortable, it was perfect, and you kicked at his shin under the table as he wiggled his brows cheekily. “No, you can’t look at them, it’s bad luck.”

“Don’t be superstitious.” He scoffed, pulling the magazine over to himself, and holding it out of your reach when you leaned across the table to snatch it back. “Besides, it’s bad luck to see the bride in the dress before the day, not to see some random model in a dress.”

“Yeah, well, don’t you want it to be a surprise?”

His eyes flicked down, smirking a little at the swell of your breasts hanging from the robe your wore that was falling open the more you reached to get the brochure back, and you gave up on that tactic, rounding the table instead to try and grab it from him. He scooted back, the chair legs scraping against the bare concrete floor, a loud laugh on his lips to match the giggles you were letting out as the war became a game.

“Mitch! If you keep this up, I’ll purposefully buy a really awful dress! Something from the eighteen hundreds with frills and layers, and I’ll look like Little Bo Peep!”

“Baby, I’d marry you even if you were wearing a potato sack.” As you reached for the folds of paper, he snatched your wrist in his other hand, tugging you into him until you were perched across his lap, a leg dangling on either side of his on the chair, and he wrapped that same arm around your waist, connecting them behind your back to hold you securely, and your own looped his neck. “But, please don’t wear something with frills and layers and a thousand buttons, because it’ll make it way harder to have our first dance if I can barely reach you over a puffy gown.”

“I’ll wear something a little bit more modern, then. I’d hate to miss our first dance.”

You brushed the tip of your nose against his, lips brushing together as he smiled, and you heard the magazine drop away to the ground, before both hands were splaying out over your back, and pushing you closer, until your chest was pressed to his, and you were looking down at him, sharing a breath. “Besides, kitten, don’t you think you should wear something that I’ll be able to get you out of easily when we get to be alone, afterwards?”

“Well, I think I should get something cheap, because I have a feeling you’re going to rip it.”

He growled under his breath, catching your lip with his teeth and tugging gently, before pressing a kiss to the edge of your mouth, hands moving down to sit on your ass, as he pressed another kiss to your jaw, and then your cheek. “Don’t tempt me.”

“Not tempting, I just know you too well. If previous experience in pretty gowns is anything to go on.”

He chuckled, nodding his head, before wrapping his arms around you fully, face resting in your neck as he settled in to hug you, prompting you to squeeze yourself a little more firmly around him in response, a hand coming up to brush through the long and messy tendrils of hair on his head. “I love you.”

“Love you too, Mitch.”

Your food was growing cold, half-eaten and still sitting out, but you were much more invested in soaking up every second of the loving embrace he was offering you, and so you were more than happy to remain this way, wrapped up in his arms, for as long as he would take it.

The time slipped by, mumbled conversations taking place, and the hands on the clock ticking over the o’clock marker and beginning the afternoon, the late lay in that the two of you had indulged in giving a glorious delay to the day. Lazy and relaxed, it was exactly how you wanted to spend your late-Christmas, and when he finally shifted to check the clock himself, he merely huffed, the hot breath fanning over your neck and making you twitch a little as it tickled, and he loosened his hold on you to let you go.

“Do you still want to have a Christmas lunch? I can set everything off, but it’ll be more like dinner with this timing.”

“I think it’ll be fun to have it later, we can eat while watching movies. We can drag all the blankets and cushion we still have down onto the floors and make it cosy.” He merely nodded, before standing with you still in his arms, stealing a final kiss from your lips as you giggled, the grip on your thighs loosening as you sank to the ground, finding him now looking down at you, lips pressing to your forehead once he let you go. “Go light the fire in the living room, it’s a little cooler today. We should get the heating going earlier.”

“You got it, soldier.”

He smiled bashfully, nudging you towards the empty doorway, knocked through to make it all more open plan, and you could feel his eyes still lingering on you a little as you wandered through to the main room. Settling before the cold fireplace in a comfortable position, you assessed what you were seeing before you, noting that it was filled with old ash, days having passed since the two of you had emptied it. Dragging out the collecting tray underneath, you tipped it into the bucket, the edges stained, trying not to let the dust escape into the room too much, and tipping it carefully so that it didn’t cloud in the air.

While the house did have heating, it had all been disassembled and the heaters taken from the walls for the renovations, the two of you seeming to have missed that when planning your work to take place inside over the Christmas period, leaving the house cold unless you lit the fire.

When the grates were clear once again, You began to scrunch up the pages of the old newspapers and letters that were no longer in use, creating a range of tight and loose balls of paper form them, and beginning to stack them in the fire. Small kindling followed, twigs and little chunks of wood, coal to follow, to keep the heat going for longer, burning quietly. It didn’t take much longer of patting around yourself and searching to find the matches, the almost empty box being revealed to you, and with a single strike, a flame was taking up at the end, and you buried it within the pile. The newspapers took a light quickly, flames roaring up within seconds as they burned brightly, the paper becoming ash after only a minute or two, but it had been long enough for the smaller wood to catch.

The flames were duller, but the heat was already beginning to pour off of the fireplace as the smaller wood caught fire, crackling a little as it went, the black chunks of coal starting to smoke slightly, turning ashy grey where flames touched, and there was no way it would go out now. Adding some logs on top for a longer burn and more enjoyable smell, you deemed it a job well done, wiping your hands clean on the rag hanging beside the fireplace, and placing the grate over the front, hauling yourself up to stand.

Eyes closing in on the ash bucket, you were tempted to leave it there, but foreseeing the accident of tripping over it and spending house cleaning up ash was more than enough to motivate you, the images flashing behind your lids when you closed them. Mitch was tinkering in the kitchen, the dull clashes of pots and pans, the sink occasionally switching on and off, hearing him shuffle around and chop as he prepared you both a meal, and you moved across the room, swapping your robe out for one of his hoodies and a coat to combat the cold air.

Grabbing the bucket and taking it with you, a shiver ran down your spine at the cold air that swept over you from the second that you stepped out and onto the porch, the swing bench squeaking as it rocked in the slight breeze, and you looked around for a pair of boots. Tugging on wellies for the trek through the slippery mud and frosty grasses to the compost pile at the end of the first field, you set off towards it, arms tightly wrapped to your body to seal out the heat.

A short walk all things considered, but it felt like miles in the biting cold, and your fingers were trembling against the cold metal of the bucket as you tipped it all out, stomping it down a little with your foot and covering the dry dust over so that it wouldn't blow away all over the place, knowing just how good it all was for the fields.

The two of you hadn't quite decided what you wanted to do with the land yet, but you still had plenty of time to make up your minds. Mitch wanted to go for the full traditional farm life, with animals and agriculture and the whole shebang. You wanted to take a more modern turn, with pretty gardens and orchards, maybe grow fruits and vegetables, something simpler but not requiring the work that potatoes and pigs would take. After all, it was just the two of you, right now. That little collection of books and leaflets was still sitting unopened, the two of you having agreed to leave that decision until after your house was finished, and everything else was settled, instead of burdening yourselves with too much at once.

As you made your way back, you took in everything around you. While the area may look a little barren and empty right now, you had big plans for it all, the house being the main feature, standing out like a sore thumb as it looked beautiful and prominent with all it’s redecorating in opposition to the abandoned and somewhat desolate landscape around it, even the barn still needing redoing.

Placing to bucket down on the edge of the porch, you spun, hands tucked into your pockets as you considered the tall wooden structure.

It hadn't been used much since your grandparents had owned the farm and all of the land around it, keeping it traditional, back when there had been a tractor and plough that would park inside with hay bales and spare supplies, all of which would contribute or the farm, but had eventually broken or been sued up, never replaced. You could barely remember what it was like inside now, not having been in there since you were a child, your father telling you all about how he’d play and hide in here when he was a child, but your memory was fuzzy.

As you approached it, you found chains locked tightly through the weakened handles on the chipping wood, a large coded padlock keeping them closed, and you smirked to yourself a little, lifting the freezing metal up to examine it. The numbers were almost worn away, yet still just enough visible for you to work with, and you tried your birthday on it, finding that the lock didn’t budge. Your birthday had always been your father’s passcodes and passwords, a fact you’d discovered when you were twelve and never told him about, so you had unimpeded access to everything, but clearly not this.

Despite your peaked curiosity, you had almost given up, before remembering that this was your grandparents’ barn, and likely still had their code on it unchanged from when they realised their son was going into the army, and wouldn't run their farm. Trying your dad’s birthday, the lock popped loose, enabling you to untangle the chains and leave them hanging open as a muffled ‘aha!’ fell from you. The doors were heavy as you pulled on them, large wooden frames that were stiff from years of disuse. The hinges were rusted, and so you were just about able to get one open enough to slip inside, the musty smell of farms and equipment overwhelming your senses, bringing back memories you didn’t know you had forgotten from when you were a child.

There was lighting, but you didn’t think it would still work, flicking your hand over the switch, and as expected, they didn’t light up. The stairs were damaged, floor was strewn with old hay and broken equipment, useless bits of equipment, and you could see just enough of it all from the gaps in the wood that served as windows. It was large, even larger than you’d remembered, the wooden framework appearing smaller on the outside than it was on the inside, and the pipes along the walls were broken.

Following the trail along, they met at a sink in the corner of one room, a large bathtub that was caked in mud, and you assumed that it had always been the place where your grandparents would wash up after a hard day’s work, before going back up to the little farmhouse, as not to trail mud through the home. The wood of the walls rattled slightly, doing nothing to keep out the cold as some wood even began to give way, looking as though it was in desperate need of repair, but a little TLC would go a long way into transforming the space.

Upstairs was far more exciting, or it had been, when you were younger. The balcony overlooked the lower floor, a higher platform where the centre missing to look down on the main floor, and you’d loved to play hide and seek up here when you were barely above hip-height on your father, feeling like an adventure just for going up the steps. The bannisters and barricades were snapped and broken now, years of misfortune taking them, but it was a simple fix. The space would be infinitely better once all the leftover crap had been hauled out of it, and it was stripped bare for renovations.

You were wound up in your thoughts, jumping a little as the main door scraped some more, your lover squeezing his way inside, looking around the lower floor, before dragging his gaze up to find you at the top of the steps. A warm coat wrapped around him, feet shoved into wellies like your own, pyjamas pants ruffled from the action and he looked adorable, a grin taking over his face as he looked at you.

“Thought you’d be up in your closet sorting out our clothes and keeping warm, or something. Didn’t expect to have to hunt you down in a barn when the temperatures are dipping so low.”

“It’s freezing out here, right? There’s absolutely no insulation in here.” He chuckled, unsure of where that statement was going but watching as you came darting down the steps, and meeting you halfway, producing a hand from his pocket to take your own, fingers weaving together, before he was hiding them both back in the warmth it had once been, holding you tight to his side and following your gaze to look around. “It would be better, with some insulation and panelling.”

“Much better, I agree.”

“If we did it up real nice, painted it like the main house, it’d make a pretty great living space, don’t you think?” He hummed, eyes narrowing as he looked around, clearly not seeing the same thing you are but not wanting to voice it, and you grinned, the hand that wasn’t joined with his and tucked in his pocket waving in front of yourselves. “It has a water supply, so there could be a kitchen and bathroom down here, in the far corner, and some couches. A TV set up, a little coffee table, a whole load of nice rugs to keep the floors warm. Upstairs, a bed, and all the storage, a simple but effective living space.”

“I guess so, but we don’t really need it.”

“Of course, we don’t.” You bumped your shoulder against his, and he lifted his arm up, keeping his hand held with yours but letting you snuggle under his arm, instead, drawn close to his body for warmth. “But, it would be great for dad. He’s not home a lot, but it would be a great place for him to know he can come back to when he’s not on deployment, and inevitably retire to.”

A warm laugh bubbled up beside you, the man shaking a little as the sound rumbled from him, and you turned to face him, quirking a brow. “We’re kicking your dad out of the farmhouse, now? He’s not gonna’ like that.”

“Yeah, well, we’re going to need privacy when he’s home.” You poked his side lightly, watching a cheeky expression filter over his features as he stared out at the barn, cogs working inside his mind as he began to picture it like you were, and you turned to look at it all yourself, mentally constructing the perfect home for your father. “Besides, his room and the guest rooms might want to be something else, someday.”

You heard his breathing hitch, his gaze locking not you, and two fingers hooking under your chin to turn your gaze back to him. He choked down the lump in his throat, seeming a little nervous, nibbling on his lower lip before finding the words. “Do you mean as, like, baby rooms? Nurseries and kids rooms?”

“Yeah, I do.”

He let out a shaky laugh, sniffling a little as tears lined his eyes, your brows furrowing as you twisted to face him, bringing your hands up to his cheeks and cupping them, using your thumb to wipe away the first tear that fell. “We’re going to have our own little family? I get to have that, with you?”

“Oh, ‘course you do, honey.” His vulnerability was making you emotional yourself, tears burning in your eyes at the bright expression on his face, and he pressed a series of needy and quick kisses to your lips, between short gasps of breath, wet cheeks and lashes sticking together as he did, unable to contain his smile.

“I’ve always wanted kids, my own family, to be a dad.”

“I know.” You whispered, fingers stroking delicately over his skin as he still trembled a little under your touch. “You okay?”

“I’m so much better than ‘okay’. Every moment with you just gets better and better, I’ve never been this happy before.” You stood for a few moments longer, before the chill was becoming too much, and he was dragging you back to the main house, pausing only to redo the lock and chains on the rickety barn doors. It had a lot of work to do, but you had more than enough time, not planning to have a baby any time too soon, too much for the pair of you yet to do, but the day would come along one day, and now, you had a plan.

As you reached the door, kicking off your boots together and standing them up neatly, he took your coat for you, hanging it up inside and sealing the door against the cold, your skin tingling ad the warmth of the house embraced you, and he rubbed his hands up and down your arms, pressing a kiss to your head as he stood behind you, warming you up a little, and you wiggled your toes in your socks as you regained the feeling within them.

“We have a couple of hours to kill before dinner is ready.” He mumbled, the feeling of his voice vibrating along your skin making you grin a little, ticklish assault drawing giggles out of you as you tipped your head back a little further for him. He took the access granted to him, wet mouth closing further over soft and exposed flesh, his teeth beginning to join the mix, scraping enough to make you shiver. “Any ideas on what we could do?”

“Yeah, I have a few..”

He hummed happily, hands on your hips to turn you around, until your nose was bumping against his, and he could flick his tongue out just enough to tease at your lips, a smirk forming on his face. “What did you have in mind, kitten?”

“Something dirty, we haven’t done it in a while. We can get all the stuff out.”

“I like where this is going.” He whispered, leaning down to catch your lips with his, whining when you pulled back enough to keep him chasing, puckered lips forming a growl as you denied him affection. You gave in, leaning in enough to peck at his lips, dragging your kisses along his cheeks as you cupped his face in your hands, and he let out a soft and breathy laugh as you did.

“Is that a yes?”

Your lips were brushing the shell of his ear, and you flicked your tongue out a little, just over the shell, feeling him tremble slightly underneath you in response, fingers flexing against your hips. “Absolutely it is.”

“So, you agree? We should do some cleaning?”

He huffed, pulling back, an unamused look on his face as he stared down at you, and you beamed up at him, thoroughly entertained by the way a moody was look was flashing over his features, and he pouted, not wanting kisses but instead wanting attention instead, and his hands pulled away, dropping down to his sides as you laughed at him.

“Oh, c’mon, baby. I’m just messing with you.”

“It’s Christmas.” He mumbled, grouchy as he tried to readjust himself through his pants, an uncomfortable look passing over his face as he did, and it only made you giggle more. “You’re not supposed to be a tease at Christmas.” You dragged your hands over his chest, pushing one up until it was tangling in the grown-out hairs that were deeply in need of some brushing and cutting, nails scratching at his scalp. Despite how much he wanted to keep up this act, he was already beginning to crumble, head leaning a little to press into your touch, and features softening the more you soothed him.

“It’s always a good time to be a tease, I have to keep you on your toes. Keep it exciting!”

He chuckled, rolling his eyes and bringing his hands up to find your cheeks, pulling your mouth up to his. It wasn’t the kiss you were expecting, it was a lot softer, more romantic and passionate, his tongue never dipping out to find yours, but simply your mouths working together in sweet and delicate exchanges. Thumbs were brushing over your skin, rubbing calming patterns and you sighed out happily against his mouth, stepping in closer until you could feel the warmth radiating from him, barely an inch between your bodies, and you wondered how it was possible that after all the time you’d been together, he still managed to make your heart race like this.

“I love you, Mitch Rapp.” Your words were whispered into his mouth, and he nodded his head, not breaking away long enough to return the words, before everything about the moment was changing. Sweet and romantic was crashing into a burning inferno of passion and need, teeth nibbling at your lower lip as he tempted them apart, wet articles tangling together as the desperation between you arose.

Hands were circling around to your back, lower and lower along your body, until he was taking handfuls of the fleshy mounds of your ass, pulling you in so close that your breath was knocked from your lungs at the impact of colliding, arching up into his chest with each drag of blunt nails over your covered skin. His bruisingly tight grip was making you whimper just at the touch, and his mouth continued to dominate over yours, a delicious attack that was leaving your lips stinging and raw as you kissed him back with equal force.

The moment that his hands slipped to your thighs, his legs bending as he braced himself, you took your queue, familiar with the unspoken signals between you both by now, and your legs wrapped around his waist as he lifted you into his arms, your own looping his neck. He was able to navigate the home expertly by now, knowing his way around without even a single hitch, and the first you knew of it was when your back was meeting cold sheets.

You gasped, arching up into him, and with the break in the frantic kisses came hickies along your neck. A wet mouth, descending along your skin to suck at your neck, teeth teasing and lips sucking until you were so tightly wound up with need that you thought you may burst at any moment.

He took his time, marking you up as though the two of you had all the time in the world, and while technically you did, you wanted to rush through to the main event, the drawn-out build-up making your head spin as it drove you wild, needing to feel him more than you wanted to simply imagine it. There were times when the foreplay excited you, when you’d spent hours kissing him, teasing him, rocking your hips down into his lips he was doing to you now until every part of you was sparking with excitement, making every touch he gave you even more thrilling.

This wasn’t one of the times, though. This was a time when you needed him now, when you needed to be joined to him in the most intimate way that you possibly could. You weren’t sure why, maybe it was just because it was the most wonderful time of the year, festive activities and jovial emotions heightening everything. Or, maybe it was the revelations that had come to you today, the two of you planning for your future always made you overflow with adoration for him, because he was committing himself to you in every possible way he could.

Every inch of your skin felt itchy, like you craved to be connected to him with every fibre, each cell in your body lighting up with the need to connect, and with your legs locking around his hips, you flipped him over, until he was staring up at you through wide eyes, cheeks flushed and a smirk painted in place of his usual endearing smile.

Your hands found the hem of your jumper, tugging it up and over your head, throwing it away to the floor as you felt like you were burning up with heat, and he sat up quickly enough to be able to help you with your t-shirt as that was next, lifting over your arms once you had it over your head.

“Y’know, I usually like to be the one getting to undress you.”

“You were taking too long.” You retorted, your hands dragging along his stomach, finding the hem of his shirt, and he raised his arms up over his head to let you peel it from his skin, hot to the touch as your fingertips as you traced the faint scars and hairs littered along and between his pecs. The muscles jumped under your touch, and you pushed him back down into the bedding, a breathless chuckle sounding from him, and he bent his arms, propping them under his head. The veins along his biceps made your mouth feel dry, and you leaned down, the tip of your tongue tracing along one until it disappeared at his shoulder, and you placed a kiss there, feeling him twitch a little at the featherlight touches.

“Forgive me, darling. I was trying to make it romantic.”

“No, you are getting back at me for being a tease.” You whispered, using one finger to push his head to the side, and he growled a little as you did, the sound cracking and breaking off as you sucked against the pulse point on his neck. His heartbeat was racing, the patch of skin throbbing as you worked to leave a large mark on his skin that would glow dark purple for days to come, and his breathing went shallow as you worked at the patch.

It was rare that ever let you have control enough to leave lovebites on him, the marks you littered on his skin were usually red marks along the skin of his back or nail prints on his shoulders, bite marks littered along his flesh as you tried to quiet yourself. It was the same way he would to you when you got so desperate that he’d fuck you wherever you were the honeymoon phase of your relationship lasting right up to your actual honeymoon, the two of you still driving one another crazy by a single lingering glance.

It was exactly how you knew that he was the one, that he meant the world to you and would always be your other half, because no matter what, the love and passion between you never dulled.

“Maybe I was getting back at you a little bit, but does that make you think you can take over?”

“Maybe it does.” His hands found your hips, and you rocked in his touch, grinding yourself back along the strained length that was tenting his sweatpants, and he bucked up into you as you did. Every roll you made back along his length, he met you with an equally forceful thrust, moans beginning to leave you as the pace picked up, and your fingers were curling into fists within the bedsheets as you simply tried to control yourself. “Fuck, Mitch..”

“Well, that’s exactly what we could be doing.”

He flipped you back over, and undignified and unaccepting sound on your lips as he took the power once again, the battle between you both becoming more erotic with every twist and turn of your bodies. He kissed all the way along your chest until he could sip his tongue below the hem of your pyjama pants, hot breath fanning over your skin, before he was peeling those down your legs.

You stood, sinking to your knees slowly as you dragged his sweatpants and boxers down his body, hands massaging your way back up his legs, fistfuls of his round ass making him jump, groaning under his breath and cheeks flushing pink at the attention that you gave to his body, the blush spreading right along to his chest. Kissing along his hips, he tangled a hand into your hair, stealing your thunder because as the strands were tugged, stinging against your scalp, you were putty in his hands once again.

Instinctually, your mouth fell open, a wicked look flashing across his features as he pushed the head of his cock between your lips, that dripping tip being all he let you have to begin with.  Sealing your mouth around him, he let out a string of appreciative noises in the forms of curses praise, your tongue dragging over his slit, a moan rippling through you at the salty taste of his precum spreading through your mouth.

You focused your attention there, tongue swiping and circling him, making sure his skin was soaked, and as you made to sink down further, he pulled away, wet cock smearing across your cheek and his thumb slipping into your mouth instead.

As you suckled on the digit, his fingers spread out over your neck, tips digging into the flesh, and your thighs clenched together, rubbing needily to try and quell some of the fire threatening to burn you up.

“You horny, baby? You need my cock, hm?”

You nodded, knowing he didn’t want you to use your words to reply, and he let out an approving sound as you did, pulling his thumb back, and sinking his index finger between your cheeks. This time, as you lapped at the finger, he continued to go, prodding back until you were gagging around him, tears lining your eyes and you were certain that the panties you were wearing would be ruined, because the feeling of being so completely and utterly under his control was something that always made you crazy.

He cared for you, he was dedicated to you, and every single time that the two of you had been together, he’d given you his sole focus, making you the most important thing in the world to him at that time, giving you everything you wanted, and now, you wanted to care for him.

“Want t’ make y’ feel goo’.” Your words were muffled, his brows raising, and he pulled the wet finger back, trailing over your skin and leaving it wet as he tipped your head up to look at him. He was prompting you to repeat yourself, and you licked at your lips, smiling at him a little as you tried to steady yourself. “I wasn't to make you feel good.”

“Trust me, kitten, I always feel good.” There was a smirk on his face, and despite having no instruction to do so, you scratched your way lightly up his thigh until you were taking his cock in your hand, pumping him slowly. His jaw dropped, eyes fluttering to half-lidded when you squeezed, and he thrust lightly up into your hand to meet you. “Mhm, good girl, just like that.”

You grinned, hand shifting further down, and you took him back into your mouth. The hand in your hair loosened a little, going lax as he relaxed under your touch, eyes sliding closed as your mouth worked along his length, sinking further and further down with every bob of your head. When you no longer needed to pump him, reducing him to a grunting and moaning mess above you, your hands were finding his thighs, gripping on tightly enough to leave imprints of your nails in the solid muscle.

Your cheeks hollow, sucking along his length tightly, and the vein along the underside of his cock throbbed along your tongue as you flattened against hit, a moan echoing through you and vibrating along is length, the fingers in your hair twitching. “Touch yourself, baby.”

Your eyes snapped up, finding that at some point he had lifted his head to look down at you, brows raised, and he lifted one heavy arm to brush the hair back out of your face, gathering a more competent ponytail out of your hair, a firmer grip, and he began to control the speeds of your movements once again. You adjusted yourself, legs widening when his foot tapped against the insides of your knees, and your hand slipped down to prod at your folds.

You moaned around him once again as your fingers brushed over your swollen clit, his hips bucked up and into your face and making you gag around his length, and he nodded approvingly as he watched you begin to please yourself. Working slow circles over the nub, electricity shot through your body, and you let him guide your head slurping and sucking at his cock, wet and filthy as you pleasured him, and the sounds he was making above you were enough to fuel your own bliss.

Working your fingers in tandem with the pace of his bobbing, the feelings racing through your veins was enough to dull the ache in your jaw and hide the tears beginning to spill down your cheeks as he tapped continuously at the back of your throat. Wetness was building up, slick pools within the cotton of your panties that were making it hard for you to move as the material restricted you, and you whined at the lack of available options, wanting more but unable to obtain it.

“As much as I love getting to watch you swallow everything I give you, that’s not right now. I want to fuck you first, kitten. Get up here.”

As he pulled you off of his cock, your head tipped back to face upwards, strings of saliva snapping as his shining cock pointed upwards, angry and red and needy for a climax, and you took gasping breaths, clambering to your feet on shaking legs as he supported you. Hooking his fingers into your panties, he snapped the elastic against your skin, and you grinned, turning in his hold and ignoring the huff he made, because he was moaning loudly a second later.

Pressing up and into him, you bent at the waist as you dragged them down your legs, wet core rubbing along the length of his cock, and he gripped at your hips, one hand smoothing across your back halfway through standing up, keeping you bent over. “Y’know, I was going to do this romantically. Fuck you real good, wrap you around me, kiss you while you came. But now, I think I want you on your hands and knees.”

He placed a rough spank to both sides of your ass, a cry sounding from you before he was pushing you toward the bed, and you stumbled a little, kicking off the panties wrapped around your ankles to be able to crawl back onto the bed. The mattress dipped underneath his weight as he crawled up onto the space behind you, groping at your ass, the head of his cock sliding through your folds and gathering in your wetness.

He lined himself up, cock stretching your entrance as he sank into you, and your forehead dropped down to your folded arms, a loud whine of his name being all that sounded out into the room to accompany the dragged out sound he was making, pleasure surging through him.

As soon as he was fully encased within your walls, he gave you a moment to adjust, and when you were ready, you began to rock your hips back into him. It was slow movements at first, rocking your hips into him, small circles as you adjusted. His large girth always required you having a minute to acclimate, and he was more than happy to waist, but by the flexing of his hands on your waist, you could tell he was scarcely holding himself back from going wild.

“You can go. Please, Mitch, I need it.”

He chuckled, pulling back almost entirely out of you, setting a slow and steady rhythm. “I know you do, sweetheart, I can feel it. You’re clenching around me so tight.” Your walls fluttered at his swords, the raspy voice in which he praised you was enough to make you whimper, sounds muffled as you bit down on your lower lip, and he tutted. “Did I tell you to be quiet? You know how much I love to hear all those pretty noises you make.”

He pinched your side, making you squeak a little, before a hand was wrapping around your middle, and pulling you up until your back was pressed to his chest. Fingers spreading out wide over your stomach, the other slipped up to your throat, pressure being applied lightly, and the rhythm of his hips was becoming more aggressive and deep with every second that passed. You were squeezing around him, every roll of his hips that slammed into you with enough force to drag against your sweet spot made broken calls of his name sound out.

“If you want to be quiet, though, maybe I’ll keep you quiet, huh?” His fingers tightened, squeezing enough to make your vision spot, and you cried out his name, but it was barely a whisper when it was voiced.

You tried to move back into him, meet his pace, but he was slamming his length in and out of you with motions that you couldn't keep up with. Your eyes were rolling back in your head, no thoughts able to be processed as the inside of your head was chanting a mantra of his name, alongside begs and please that you weren't even sure what for.

Reaching a hand up behind you, you held onto him, hand in his hair and tugging, until you could twist your head to catch his lips. It was a messy and rough kiss, all tongues and teeth, pent-up need and pure love shining through as the two of you fucked your way right through your connection. You almost missed the hand on your stomach slipping lower, until he was rubbing uneven and jagged patterns onto your clit, your entire body jerking as you crashed into your orgasm.

He choked on his breath, biting down roughly on your lip as you clamped around him, and the peak caught you both off-guard. You Cried out, both in pleasure and pain, and he released your lip from his touch, licking soothingly over the patch and whispering an apology into your mouth while his eyes rolled in his head. Your foreheads were pressed together, and when you became too weak to hold yourself up anymore, your body dropped forwards.

Your cheek pressed to the mattress, and he followed after you, one hand beside your head curling in the sheets as the other held onto you with a vice-like grip, sloppy pounding and erratic thrusts making you claw at the bedding. The overstimulation was too much, and tears were once again finding your eyes. Those screams you’d denied yourself earlier were coming to claim you in full ails now, his name a loud sob on your lips as the coil in your stomach continued to wind up, fire burning over you.

Your entire body was sparking with energy, and as he stiffened above you, pulling himself out, you collapsed down into the bed. You were still twitching, body hanging on the precipice of your second climax, and you were granted it only moments later.

Two fingers, slamming into you without warning, pumping so quickly that stars flashed behind your eyes, and your throat was raw with the sudden scream that you let out. Our legs thrashed, arms cramping and knuckles aching with how hard you gripped into the bedding, riding through your peak on his hand.

“Mitch! Hold on!”

“Again.” He hissed, giving you only a seconds reprieve as he flipped you over, a hand on your stomach to hold your hips down, wet fingers finding your weeping hole again, and your cheeks were stinging with tears as a pleasure so strong began to wash over you that you forgot how to even breathe. “Are you going to come? You are, I can feel it, walls like velvet grippin’ me so tight.”

“Please!”

“Please what, kitten? You want my cock, that how you want to come? Want me to fill you up, fuck this pretty little pussy full of cum, huh?” You let out a ragged moan at his words, barely able to nod your head, and he pulled his fingers back, hands spreading over your thighs to push our legs apart, settled back into the dip and sinking his cock back inside of you. Your legs wrapped around his waist, his hand trapped between your body as his fingers, soaked with your arousal stayed nestled against your bud, rubbing frantic circles onto it as you ascended into the clouds.

“Oh, fuck, Mitch!” With a final shout, you came, the bedsheets around you soaking as you gushed, hips bucking up wildly and body spasming in the bed, his form crushing you as he found his own high. Bliss was encasing you both, a bubble that only the pair of you existed within, and as ropes of hot cum filled you, he collapsed down on top of you.

He licked at your earlobe, lips brushing your ear and you shuddered, whimpering at the electric racing through your body from the action, your fingertips tingling, and he was still sitting snugly within your walls, throbbing and leaking with the aftermath. “I love you too, kitten.”

Your heart beat strongly, arms wrapping around him as you laughed weakly, catching his lips in a light kiss. It was gentle, just enough to confirm everything that had been shared between you both, before the sticky and wet feelings around you both were growing uncomfortable. He lifted you up, your body shaking as he slipped out of you, an ache that you were accustomed to taking place, and he pressed a kiss to your shoulder before standing up. He offered you his hands, helping you to stand too, and your knees almost gave out on you as you peeled yourself away from the sodden covers, the remnants of your final orgasm still dripping down your thighs.

“Go clean yourself up, baby doll, I’ll grab you some clothes.” Heat flushed along your body as something thicker than your own cum was leaking along your skin, smearing between your thighs with every small step you took, and you could hear mitch shuffling in the bedroom. The wooden floors were cold under your foot, every foot chilling you back down a little more, shivering a little with goosebumps, and your body was relieved to sit back down as you reached for the paper roll, cleaning yourself up and slumping into the seat.

Washing your hands and smoothing down your hair, you felt considerably cleaner, almost as though you were drunk as you continued to float through the skies on the high that being with your fiancé had given you. When you returned, still a little wobbly but much more stable, he had stripped the bedding and replaced it, a more Christmassy set than before laid out in its place, and he had pulled on some clothes.

Padding his way over to you, you raised your arms lazily, letting him pull on a fresh set of clothes, before shimmying you into some pants, giggles and laughs muffled between kisses and gasps when you stumbled, before finally, you were cosy and dressed again.

“That was awesome.”

“Bet your cute little ass it was.” His hand found yours, tugging you along behind him and into the corridors, the smell of the meal that was being made for the two of you floating around, and you let out a groan as yous stomach rumbled. The scent grew stronger as you moved through the house, enticing you deeper and deeper, and you stood beside him as he began to check everything over, leaning against the kitchen counter. “I had a thought about the wedding.”

“You could sound more optimistic about that.”

He chuckled, shaking his head and pecking your lips in confirmation. “I can’t wait to marry you, love. You know that, I’m just not sure how you’ll react. I know you’ve been looking into places for the wedding, and we’ve gone to look at a few venues, but none of them really felt right. Right?” You hummed, eyes narrowing to him a little, and he busied himself with poking at the turkey to check whether it was done, nudging the over door closed again. “Well, what if we had it here?”

“Like, the farmhouse here? Because it’s kinda’ in shambles at the moment. A lot of work left to be done.”

“Well, yes and no.” He sighed, still avoiding your eye a little, and you tried to shuffle a little closer towards him as he worked. “Not in the farmhouse, but what if we had a summer wedding? Something simple. We could have it outside, picnic benches in the fields when they fill up with daisies and dandelions. You’ve sent me some pretty pictures of those fields before. We could do it picnic style.”

His voice trailed off a little as he spoke, and you could tell he was beginning to doubt himself, and so you pressed up behind him, arms around his waist and pressing a kiss to the patch between his shoulder blades, feeling him relax a little under your hold. “I love it.”

“You do?”

“You’ve let me make every decision about our wedding, our house, and our future so far. You deserve an equal say, and if you want a picnic-style wedding on the farm, then that's what we’ll do. I think it sounds lovely.” He twisted to face you, hands holding onto your cheeks and thumb smoothing over your skin, a stare fixed on you that felt as though he was boring into your soul.

“I just want us both to be happy. I don’t have an opinion on a lot of it, my interior design choices are limited to bunk beds and camo.” His joke made you scoff out a laugh, brushing your lips against his.

“That’s okay, soldier, I can make the tough choices on paint colours.” He rolled his eyes, closing the gap for only a moment, and you relished in the loving touch he held you with. “Oh, my bad. You’re my farmer, now.”

“That I am.” He mumbled, a few more shirt kisses pressed to your lips, before he was pushing you backwards. “Go choose a movie, I’ll plate us up some dinner.”

You lit up, and he seemed to see it sparkling in your eyes as his lips pursed. “No.”

“You said choose a movie!”

“I meant a Christmas movie! I’m not watching ‘The Mummy’ again this week.” Your arms folded over your chest at his words, a pout on your lips and he frowned, holding sting for only a few seconds before he was whining, turning away from you to reach for plates. “I know the whole script by heart now. I’m growing to hate that film.”

“Yeah, but you love me!” Your words were sung a little as you made your way through to the living room to load up the television, hearing him mumble his reply, words you couldn't really hear, but you knew he was only confirming your sentiments. As the Christmas lights twinkled, the fire still burning and in need of new logs, the television flickering to life as your soon-to-be husband served up dinner in the farmhouse kitchen, you knew there was no place you could possibly be that would make you any happier than right here.

[honeysidesarchived]

WHERE THERE IS NO TEMPTATION, THERE IS NO GLORY.

⊱ a santino d'antonio / oc short-fic

euphemia volpe has never wanted for very much; a safe place to sleep, a soft place to land. to love someone, and be loved back. she has all of those things now, but it's most unfortunate for her that she has fallen in love with a man who will never be satisfied with what he's got.

pt. i: contact is crisis

words: 3.3k

warnings: language, some depictions of a relationship that is not entirely healthy, extensive use of my very basic knowledge of italian (padded with google translate, thank you google!), and an unfortunate amount of endearments and pet names. this does not deviate from john wick chapter 2's canon ending, so please bear in mind this will contain major character death.

rating: m for mature language ??? probably closer to t, but will change later on.

notes: as some of you may know, this has been (unfortunately) sitting on my drive since i first watched john wick chapter two almost a year ago--maybe over a year! i can't remember. all i remember was seeing santino and going "SOMEONE has got to kiss that man". so you know, here i am. this short-fic (only a few, short parts) will take place over the span of the events of john wick chapter 2. yes i built some tiny amount of lore for the camorra. yes i had the opportunity to write a fix-it fic and did not. no i am not taking criticism at this time !

special uber big thank you to my beta and my wifey @starcrier who read this a year ago and when i casually said, "hey, so what if i posted this" told me to do it. also @faithchel, who through the occasional sly prompt slid in from ask games (i see you) has been a true angel while i sort through this, and equally as encouraging!

and of course thank you to you all, who read this. i know this is not the usual content you followed me for but i appreciate you all the same. <3

“I cannot believe that I will marry a man so stupid.”

Euphemia is practically frothing at the mouth, she’s so mad; she storms into the chic New York loft, tossing her purse onto the nearby counter, her heels clipping against the polished floor decisively. It’s late; the silk slip of a dress draped across her body brushes the floor in a sweeping train, and she balances herself on the counter with one hand while she steps out of the stilettos with the assistance of the other.

“Euphie, luce della mia vita,” Santino says, striding in after her and completely at ease. He is, infuriatingly, as he always is; perfectly composed, his dark curls in place and his suit immaculate. Euphemia eyes him through the mirror of her vanity as he sidles up behind her. “We’re not married yet, princesa, so you have nothing to worry about.”

“Luce della mia vita,” Euphemia drawls mockingly. She drips the words in honey on the way out of her mouth, sliding a dainty, glittering bracelet from her wrist and dropping it on the counter. “You sound like a fucking idiot, Santi.”

His gaze darkens, but his voice is still silky when he says, “Watch your tone, cara mia.”

“What for?” Euphemia thinks she wouldn’t be able to watch her tone even if she wanted to; not anymore, not with this hanging over her head. She turns to stare at her fiancé, pressing her index finger to his chest. “You’re going to get killed by Baba Yaga anyway. No point in behaving myself, is there? Idiota.”

“Euphemia.”

“You leave John Wick alone, Santino,” she bites out. “You don’t ask for a thing from him. Of him. About him. I don’t want John Wick near my life.”

Santino grabs her wrist, the hand with the engagement ring sitting on it—snatches it out of the air like a cobra striking, grips it with hands that usually are much kinder.

“Everything that you have now is a gift from me,” he warns her, voice pitched low. “You like your nice engagement ring? Your nice dresses? This nice loft we live in?”

His fingers grip, nearly bruising; these are the only times that he doesn’t handle her with care, that his elegant fingers don’t splay against her skin reverently—when she’s pissed him off.

“I’ve given it all to you, all of these things, this life that you like having and don’t want John Wick near, so I would suggest watching your tone for that.”

There is a brief moment where Euphemia thinks she might finally, right now, resort to the violence of slapping Santino in the face. The threat is not lost on her; it’s Santino’s favorite thing to do when he’s angry. And for her to commit an act of violence against her fiancé would be unthinkable almost every other time, in any other situation. Euphie would not have considered it in the least, but there are times—on occasion—where she thinks for a second that she doesn’t recognize him; that he’s become some amalgam of all of the men who have grabbed her too hard or told her she owes them. Men who have used her meanly.

And Santino has divulged his plan to push John Wick for a favor.

So, yes: she thinks she might, but then her hand is moving of her own volition, sliding the engagement ring off of her finger and stuffing it into his jacket pocket, the more pacifist choice than what her mind is screaming for her to do.

“You have never had nothing, Santi,” she says, biting out the words, “so allow me to enlighten you; I have had nothing before you, and I will be just fine having nothing again.”

His eyes narrow, gemlike slits that sit heavy on her. She yanks her wrist of his grip and says, “And it is a good thing we are not married, si? A divorce would have been so messy.”

“Euphie,” Santino says in a sigh that lacks venom, as though he weren’t just threatening to take everything from her, as though she were the hysterical one, “don’t fuss.”

Don’t fuss, he says, because Santino has only ever had women before that bend themselves over backwards until they break for him; don’t fuss, he says, because he likes and maybe loves her, she thinks, but he doesn’t like or love when she talks back. Santino has always had someone to wait on him, to serve him, and Euphemia has never seen his parents together but she would that his only vision of marriage is that of a subservient, dutiful, loving wife.

“Oh, but my darling,” she coos, very undutiful and decidedly not subservient, “I wouldn’t want you to have to worry about all of the nice things you give me. You can enjoy them all yourself, for the brief time before Baba Yaga kills you for asking him to do a job he does not want to do, when he has announced his retirement.”

It’s a terrible way to feed the monster inside of her. That monster is a pusher, a puller, the kind that picked and chipped away at Santino until he lost that shred of his manicured control and gave her something, anything she could work with. It was impossible to love a man who was so buttoned up there was nowhere for her to put her love.

His expression tightens in the way that she recognizes as his controlled fury; bottling it, merchandising it, saving it for later. Santino is not incapable of killing his sister himself, but for some reason—a reason that Euphemia is sure is only known to him—he won’t. Some stupid shit about blood and family, probably.

“Take the ring back.” Santino’s voice is smooth, belying the danger lurking just beneath. He fishes the engagement ring out of the pocket of his suit jacket, where she’d dropped it, and picks up her hand again; this time, his fingers don’t grip with bruising force, but cradle. Euphemia thinks she might have pushed him, then, right to the line, because his eerie calm is unsettling as his fingers meticulously slide the engagement ring back into place.

He says, “There, you see? This is where your engagement ring belongs and will stay. Here, on your hand. Just like this is where you belong and will stay—here, with me.” His hand comes up to her face; she turns away, and he catches her chin and forces her to look back at him.

“You know I will get you anything you want,” Santino murmurs, “but you have to ask.”

Nicely, is the implied word. A good fiancé, a good wife, wouldn’t storm out of the car after he mentions John Wick in passing, ripping through the loft, calling him names. She knows all of this and she thinks, then maybe I’m not a good anything.

But she can tell when she’s pushed Santino’s buttons just enough—enough to make a point, and not enough to incur his wrath. Not entirely.

“Please, Santi,” she says, her voice still hard but softer than it was before, and already Santi is shaking his head so she plunges on recklessly, “do not cash in John Wick’s debt to you. Ascoltami, I know you—I know you will do something to put yourself and John Wick on opposite sides of the playing field.”

Santino’s gaze is sharp and clear. He drops his hand from her face, shrugging, and says, “So what? I will be playing chess, and John Wick will be playing checkers. You worry too much, Euphie.”

“What you mean to say is that I think before I act.”

He shrugs, and threads his fingers through her hair, reaching up with the other to brush loose strands of it from her eyes. He rumbles pleasantly, “Don’t you trust me?”

Euphemia grits her teeth. Her hands come up to grip his wrists, watching him with a prickle of dread in her chest. “Don’t you trust me, Santi?”

Santi’s gaze darkens. Like that, he drops his hands from her, tucking them into the pockets of his slacks as he turns and wanders further into the bedroom, taking all of his warmth with him and leaving Euphie to marinate in the cold glow of the vanity’s lights.

“You can say no,” she says after him, frustrated. “You don’t have to keep an air of mystery about it.”

“What do I do then, tesora?” Santino demands, turning to look at her from the foot of the bed where stands. “Kill her myself? You know I can’t. You know that you cannot ask me to do that.” A pause, and then, with an added air of entitlement: “And Wick owes me.”

There are complicated feelings wrapped up in the whole of it, she knows; Santino, who wants what his sister was given, but cannot bring himself to end her. Euphemia, who only wants Santino, who doesn’t care if he has a seat at the High Table or if he’s a sister-killer or not, who only wants him to look at her longingly like he did when they first met, just for forever instead of a brief moment in time.

And both of them, intrinsically linked, because Santino isn’t wrong when he says that he’s given her everything she has now and Euphemia isn’t wrong when she says she would be okay with nothing again.

She doesn’t ask it of him; he is right, that she can’t, that she wouldn’t. Gianna has only ever been kind to her, at least face to face, and if Santi’s sister had any reservations about Euphemia, then Euphie would find herself in a completely different situation. Not engaged to the only other heir to the D’Antonio empire, that was for certain.

Instead, then, she says, “I cannot ask you to do it, you’re right. I cannot ask you to do it, and I cannot keep you, and I cannot throw you away, Santino. I was less tired when I had nothing.”

She turns away and walks herself into the bathroom, fingers trembling as she undoes the delicate zipper of the gold dress, letting it pool at the floor in a whisper of fabric. The engagement ring sits heavy on her hand. It’s beautiful—and just what she wants, and also the thing that she fears the most, because she doesn’t know what it means to Santino and only what it means to her.

“Euphie.”

His voice comes from the doorway of the bathroom. She turns on the hot water in the tub, a beautiful porcelain clawfoot that she picked herself. It was one of the first things that Santino gifted to her, the first essence of her in the loft that is now almost entirely half-and-half the two of their tastes.

Euphemia doesn’t say anything, because she doesn’t know what to say, so she ties up her hair and shimmies out of the last of her clothes. She can feel his eyes on her, waiting for her to flower into submission and turn around and beg, oh, please Santino, forgive me, but he should know better because she has never and will never do that for him.

“Cara mia.”

“Do not.” Euphemia’s voice wobbles. She slides into the bathtub before it’s full, the water stinging her skin where it touches. “I can’t stand to hear your voice saying sweet things to me when you are willingly walking yourself into your grave.”

“You are being a little dramatic.” He makes his way over to her, kneeling down beside the porcelain tub, ghosting his fingers over her forehead and then the bridge of her nose, fluttering in a way that treasures her and causes her grief all at once. “Just one job, Euphie. That’s all I’m going to ask of him. And then it’s done, and you won’t have to be worried about the Boogeyman.” The pads of his fingers dip into the hot water and then skim along the slope of her collarbone, raising goosebumps on her skin. “And John Wick, whose lifelong peace you are very concerned about, can go back to his dog and his car.”

Euphemia thinks, it’s never just that, with you, because she knows Santino—she knows he’s hungry, has always been hungry, a boy magicked into a man’s skin all hurt and needing and starved, unable to inhibit himself properly. No self-preservation telling him when to stop, never telling him when enough is enough. Not really.

I see you, though, she thought, her gaze flickering over Santino’s face to trace the handsome lines of his expression. She would have never agreed to marry a man before she saw him without his face off; without knowing the monster underneath.

But while she knows this, and she sees Santino D’Antonio for what he really is, she is an idiot and a fool and loves a man sick with the magic of his own perceived destiny, a destiny he believes he is owed, so she says softly, “Promise me, Santi.”

“On my life,” Santino replies with that boyish charm she knows so well. He speaks as though he is not going to leave her in the morning to visit Baba Yaga, as though she doesn’t fear he won’t ever come back. “Now give me a kiss, princesa.”

“I mean it, Santino—”

“I do, too.” He cocks his head to the side. “I won’t ask twice.”

Euphemia acquiesces; not because she fears what he’ll do if he does feel he has to ask twice—because he does hate that—but because as much as she says she would be happy to have nothing again, she is content to bask in the something that she has now, while she has it.

She kisses the corner of his mouth. He slides his damp fingers into the hair at the nape of her neck and says, “Do you love me?”

“Of course.” Her voice feels rough with an emotion she doesn’t want any of. “Of course, Santi, that’s why I—”

“All I need is a yes or no, my little fox, not an essay.”

Her eyes narrow. She turns her face from him; he shifts his position at the end she’s leaned against, dragging his hands along her shoulders to ease the tension in her muscles. Her body reacts instinctively to him. She is a long cry from the girl scamming rich men out of their wallets and time, but there are some things she is still weak to; touch, the acknowledgment that she has a body, that she is real, to be reassured that she is alive.

Santino is so very good at that. He leans over the end of the tub and kisses her cheek, fingers working into the knots of her shoulders.

I am so afraid, she thinks, her eyelashes fluttering shut. I am so afraid that I will never see old age on you.

“Tesora.” His voice is a lull. Pulling her back in, pushing her back under, reminding her that to relinquish herself to someone is a luxury she does not want to go without anymore. To let someone else take control, to not have to worry about making decisions all the time; this is something that she always wants.

“Yes,” Euphie says, “of course I love you, Santi.”

She can feel his smile against her cheek.

“Good girl.”

━━━━━━━━━━━━

“Tell me your favorite words.”

It’s both early and late; the clock’s cool blue numbers are keeping her awake; Santi’s hand slides along the curve of her hip admiringly above the silk of her nightdress, and his nose brushes the bump at the base of her neck. Euphemia shifts. When she does, the edge of her engagement ring catches on the silky pillowcase, but she doesn’t care—it will always do that, because Santi won’t pick another and Euphie won’t ask him to.

Goosebumps prickle along her skin with the air conditioning, cranked as high as she likes, whispers across it when her shoulder slides out from underneath the comforter. She rolls over to look at him. It’s unsurprising that he’s still awake, and he doesn’t look surprised to see she’s awake, either.

“My favorite words?” she prompts. Santino brings his hand to her face, his thumb dragging absently along her lower lip.

“Si,” he replies. “You are always reading. You can speak a few languages. You must have favorite words, no?”

His request does bring a smile to her face, tired as it is. They may have spent the rest of their waking evening wandering around each other like wounded dogs, wary and licking their wounds, but they are here now, together, in their bed.

Euphie says, “It is late, Santi.”

“And I cannot sleep.” He brushes his nose along her jawline. “But perhaps the soothing voice of my one greatest love will lull me.”

She laughs. Her hand finds his, their fingers interlacing, woven together. He pulls back from her and kisses the engagement ring, but he is waiting. He means it.

“Tendresse,” Euphemia says, the word rolling soft out of her mouth from misuse. Santino quirks a brow expectantly and kisses the pulse point of her wrist. “Tenderness.”

He nods sagely. Against the soft skin of the inside of her wrist, he murmurs, “You are a most tender creature, Euphemia D’Antonio.”

Her fingers slide out of his, running along the slope of his cheekbones and then the bridge of his nose. “That is Euphemia Volpe. If you’ll recall, we’re yet to be married.”

Santino leans in, captures her fingertips playfully with his teeth, and then kisses her palm with a warm, rich chuckle that sends pleasant heat spiraling down her spine. “You will never forget that I was fool enough to say that to you, will you?” he asks. “Tell me another.”

His eyes are just as warm as his voice, and twice as earnest. In these moments, Santino is the most charming; boyish and quick-witted, unburdened by the elements of the world, by his own desires. He thinks of nothing except them. Euphemia feels like she’s in her own little world with him, in their bedroom at three in the morning, while the air conditioner whirrs and ticks and he asks her something so unimportant, like what her favorite words are.

And then, Santino leans in and kisses her cheek, the corner of her mouth, and the underside of her jaw to prompt her.

“Amore,” she murmurs, feeling like the breath has been sucked out of her lungs by his longing. His tenderness.

“Oh,” Santino says, against her temple, “I know that one.”

When his stubble tickles her neck, she squirms, shifting away from him so hat she can take a breath; but he chases her, leans in and captures her in his arms so that he can nose the hair by her ear and kiss there.

“Euphie, my gorgeous girl,” he says in the way that wrenches her heart; drenched and drowned in adoration. “Perfetto e tutto mio.”

Santino wraps his arms around her and pulls her to his chest, his fingers tracing constellations on her back where the night dress slips away from her shoulder blades. Sweet Santi, covetous Santi; she is his greatest art piece, his favorite collector’s item, and in these moments she has never felt more treasured. There is something equal parts safe and selfish in wanting someone to treasure you.

“Say it for me, Euphie. You know I love when you do.”

She buries her face into his neck. Her eyes burn. He will go to Baba Yaga tomorrow, and she will have to pretend not to know, or it will wreck her. Euphie considers ways to keep him in bed in the morning; delay him, make him forget about John Wick and this glory that he is chasing forever.

“Sono tuo,” she murmurs. Tears sting at the corners of her eyes If he feels them against his skin, Santino makes no indication than to card his fingers through her hair. “Always, Santi.”

Always, always, always yours.

[poptod]

The Breeding Kings, pt. 20

Description:

Notes:  WC: 7.4k

+

It wasn't long at all until he realized something was different––not specifically in you, or in his environment, but within his thoughts. Things had shifted, and the constant anxieties of where food and water was coming from next were turned to empty slots in his mind, slots you happily filled.

Against his will, he could think of little else besides you. He tried many things as well––staying away from you, keeping close to you, but he had yet to touch you in any way that really mattered. Fluttering glances and barely-there graces didn't count, nor did misplaced kisses on saner, safer areas. No, his dreams offered him no break from the annoyingly insistent thoughts, and instead supplied him with the endless imagination of an unchecked mind. Drowning in the image of your closed eyes slotted next to his in soft kisses, of your fingertips trailing across his bare waist.

But you would never do that.

He stared longingly at you through the gate he guarded, leaning on his wooden and bronze spear as you dug in the garden. Zakiti, your work partner, was travelling back and forth between where new trees had been dropped off, and where you were told to plant them.

In fact, he was so absorbed in your moving lips that he barely heard his own partner talking to him from across the gate.

"What are you, in love with Zakiti?" He asked, but he spoke in Akkadian, and Ahkmen had yet to pick up more of the complex words. One phrase you taught him was –

"I do not speak Akkadian," he said.

Luqa––or at least that's what Ahk thought his name was––just sighed, rolling his eyes and turning back to face front. Ahkmen frowned softly but turned to attention as well.

That was generally how he spent his working hours. Much like he had in the House of Life in Egypt, he wasted away the time by staring at you or thinking of you, phasing out at the thought of knowing you. He was sure his coworker was tired of his shenanigans, but he couldn't find it in himself to care about what Luqa thought.

Fortunately, neither of you had work that often, and after asking the stewardess, your schedules were matched up to have the same amount of free time at the same time. The two of you took full advantage of that, spending many of your days strolling throughout the city and trying the new foods and beers created throughout the mud brick landscape. Strips of gardens were scattered throughout the city, but none more grand than the terraces of flora making up the Hanging Gardens, whose trees leant over with their plentiful fruit. Deep green vines twisted around blue tiled ledges and tall, white pillars, the especially long ones brushing up against the people who came and went from the gardens. You had yet to actually enter any of the Hanging Gardens, but they remained a constant in the background of the city.

Many morning and evenings you spent in the brewery. Sometimes Ahk would follow you, but other times he left to temples and taverns, socializing with the locals in hopes of absorbing more of the language. His favorite time was coming to visit you at the brewery after letting you work for a few hours, as you always lit up like a beacon whenever you caught sight of him.

This time was no different––you raced up the steps, taking his hand and dragging him back down. Today, tarps had been raised above the workshop, blocking away the blearing sun, and allowing a little more comfort in the already-heated environment. Not all of the stations were filled, but your friend Tiamat was still there at your side.

"I am – I am doing a, uh, a way to make my beer, but with the barley," you stuttered out, barely coherent enough for him to understand.

"So... the really alcoholic kind?" Ahk asked uncertainly.

"Yes!!" You exclaimed, and Tiamat laughed.

"Here," Tiamat said, gesturing Ahk over to her. She dunked the cup in her hand into the frothing beer, and handed it to him when it filled with the golden liquor.

You and Tiamat waited in baited breath as Ahk slowly lifted the cup to his mouth, sipping at the warm drink with a critical look in his eye. It was sweet––almost like cider, but it burnt his throat on the way down, warming his stomach pleasantly once it was there. He looked up, and you were still watching intently.

"What do you think?" You asked, your hands clasped tight together in front of your chest.

"It's good," he said, nodding. "You know what would go great with this?"

"What?"

"Cardamom. It's a spice, I'm sure they have it here," he said, but your brow furrowed as you looked away, a confused look on your face.

Ahk looked to Tiamat and repeated, "cardamom."

Tiamat, who look equally confused, said something to you that you had to translate.

"We do not know the word in Egyptian," you said.

"Shit," Ahk muttered. "It would taste so good, though."

"Is it sweet?"

"Well, it is used in desserts," he said with a shrug.

"That is good for me. We can – uhh, we can go to a spice shop, and we can, or you can, find it," you suggested, and repeated it to Tiamat, who nodded with a brightening smile.

"Good idea," she said.

The three of you set off quickly with Tiamat leading the way, as she knew the city best after the years she'd been living within its walls. Bustling chatter filled the streets, accompanied by shuffling feet, wooden wheels, and the jarring calls of sheep and goats. Bells sometimes rung as merchants shouted out their wares, and you ducked beneath their raised arms, giggling as you followed Tiamat, while Ahkmen trailed close behind, almost always reaching out for your hand.

Tiamat was a good deal taller and buffer than you, reaching Ahkmen's height and surpassing his strength, so she was stopped by large crowds that suddenly crossed your path. You panted as you caught up to her long-striding legs, followed by Ahk also appearing and panting.

"Since the drought, a lot of our trade lines have been cut... of course, the Kassite takeover didn't help, so we've only got a couple spice shops left," Tiamat told you as she tried to look over the moving heads of the crowd. "I think most of it is grown in the King's garden now, actually."

"That is good," you said, positing it was better than nothing.

"Yes, but... I do miss cinnamon," she said with a chuckle.

You relayed what she said––minus the cinnamon––to Ahkmen as you waited for the people, who were dragging along a group of goats, to pass by.

"That ought to make our search easier," Ahk said, and no sooner had he'd finished the phrase than he was being pulled on again, your left hand clasping his and your right held by Tiamat.

Frequent turns led you from the northern-most side of the city and into the south, where the streets were less disorganized than they had been. You tried to stop Tiamat several times to look at some of the cuisine and textiles within the scattered markets, but to Ahk's relief she didn't notice you, and kept on her quick-footed pace headed for the spices.

Both you and Ahk fell into heavy pants as Tiamat finally drew to a stop in front of a large, clay storage house, staring up at the symbol carved above the entrance. Through the archway you could spy a few people moving about amongst the massive pots and jars of sandy colors.

When Tiamat made to enter, the two of you followed gingerly, looking like twins with your hands curled in front of your chests to avoid touching anything. You scanned the room as a whole before your eyes fell to one of the merchants, wrapped up in white desert attire and a large turban set on his head. He was speaking quietly to another man, so you ignored him for the time being, and returned your attention to Ahkmen.

"What is the spice you did name?" You asked in a whisper.

"Cardamom," he repeated. "It's just kind of... vaguely brown. Like split wheat."

"That is a good help," you said flatly, looking at the pyramid-like structures of spice nearly overflowing out of the tall clay vases, most of which could qualify as 'vaguely brown'.

"Cardamom," Tiamat tried the word, rolling the word unnecessarily. She turned to you and said in Akkadian, "it's a strange word, isn't it?"

"A little," you agreed with a giggle.

You and Tiamat watched as Ahk sniffed each spice individually, often having to bend down to get a full whiff of the scent. Each time he did so, he wrinkled up his nose, stepping away with a frown.

"Is it bad?" You asked on the first time he did this.

"No, it's just really strong," he said.

That was his continuing excuse for doing it at least ten more times throughout the 15 presented jugs. By the end of it, you were no closer to knowing cardamom's Akkadian name, much less actually having any cardamom.

He backed away from the jars with a frown, crossing his arms as he scanned over all of them once more.

"Nothing," he said.

"How may I help you?" Someone behind you asked, and all three of you turned to see the shopkeeper––the darkskinned merchant who wore a turban. He spoke in Akkadian, but he had an accent, one only Tiamat could pick up on.

"We're looking for a specific spice, but we only know the name in Egyptian," Tiamat said, gesturing vaguely in Ahk's direction.

"Alright," he said with a heavy brow, glancing between you. "What is it?"

You nudged Ahk and he said, "cardamom."

"Ah," the merchant nodded, "qaqullu."

Tiamat asked for him to say it again, but she didn't know the spice, and reported so with a confused look.

"I wouldn't expect ye' to, it's off from Kuru in the east," he said, gesturing out the door with a hand holding round bottle. "Route's been cut, so I haven-been able to get it."

Before you could do it, and to your immense surprise, the merchant repeated what he'd said to Ahkmen in Egyptian. Ahk had a similar look of surprise on his face.

"Do you know of any place that might have it?" Ahk asked with wide eyes. He almost didn't notice the way you grinned toothily up at him.

"You are so intense," you whispered to him.

"How do you even know that word? You asked me what soup meant just yesterday –"

"The King's garden, probably," the merchant interrupted. "But it would cost much."

"That's not a problem," Ahk said before Tiamat could respond.

The three of you bid a hasty thanks and good-bye to the merchant, who gave you an odd look as you raced out of the shop. Crowds had only grown more thick during your time indoors, meaning you could barely see past the moving bodies, and had to rely on Ahk and Tiamat for where you were supposed to go.

Tiamat led the way once more, winding back through the streets from the way you came. According to her, the King's palace was somewhat near to the center, but the gardens were held closer to the largest temple, which marked the exact center of the city. Ahkmen spied through the tall buildings a stretching tower, reaching into the sky in white stone and dark, green leaves. The closer you got, it became easier to realize that the garden resided in a massive temple complex that took up nearly half of the city dwelling on the western bank.

You stopped at a large bridge hanging over the wide Euphrates that split the city down the middle, staring at the sheer size of the rushing water compared to the thin stretches you and Ahk had travelled down. Travellers and chariots marched down the large brick street, wooden wheels pulled by strange creatures you'd never seen before. Most chariots carried one or two passengers, as well as a carriage for goods, such as food, stone, and cloth. A couple carried massive bushels of reeds. On either side of the bridge were familiar statues––the lions with the heads of men, of which you'd learned earlier were titled Lamassu. Soldiers with spears and sheathed swords stood at their sides.

The frequency of soldiers and guards increased as you approached the walls surrounding the temple of Marduk, whose name you only knew after extended conversations with both Tiamat and Zakiti. Ahkmen wasn't aware of the name, but that didn't stop him staring at the temple's might, six terraces building the material of humans into the unearthly heavens.

However, the temple ended up not being your final destination. Tiamat led you past the tower and to the south, running down a wide street that led directly to one of the city's outer walls. Once you stood at the wall's base, she took a sharp turn to the left, and took you to one of the city's entrances across the moat of water.

Across he bridge lay farms and smaller houses, as well as another wall––though much smaller––that had been built to fortify the growing city. The sun shined a bright white overhead, allowing the dewdrops on trees to shine and glitter across the small, town-like reaches.

"There," said Tiamat, pointing out to a shaded area protecting rows of plants. Some of them had tarps set out above them, but others had more permanent shade, effectively hiding a good number of rows from view.

Ahk squinted in the bright sun to try and make out the different types of plants growing there.

"Are we allowed to actually go into the garden?" Ahk asked, a question you relayed to Tiamat.

"I've never been," she said, and began forward across the bridge. "So I'm not actually sure."

You translated the general idea again.

"Well, I've run this much now," Ahk said with a sigh, placing his hands on his hips. "Ought not to give up now."

The overbearing scent of mixed spices was quick to hit you, and the three of you slowed down as your noses burned. A few people were standing outside an open archway, the darkness inside containing several more people, and barrels worth of spices. To the left of that the growing continued in shadow, while sunloving plants enjoyed the last light of the day.

Ahkmen accidentally met the eyes of one of the people flanking the entrance, causing his gaze to shoot back down to the ground. The doorway, like many in Egypt, was raised partway off the ground to avoid tracking dust and sand into the building. He stepped over the frame, and stood blindly while his eyes adjusted to the major change in light. His squinting was disturbed when you bumped into him, muttering some sort of apology before you pressed your side to his, scanning the quiet room with a look of near menace.

Tiamat appeared to be in a similar state of apprehension, scanning the room in hopes of finding out whether or not you were allowed to be in there at all. You and Ahk hadn't noticed, but the symbol of the King was carved clearly above the small house, and those who stood nearby were dressed in deep colors of red, purple, and green––a stark difference from the farmers who dwelled in much simpler homes outside.

Your awkward glances eventually caught the eye of a much older man, whose beard curled magnificently between robes of green and silver silk. His dark, bushy brow furrowed as his eyes fell specifically to you––a sort of anger, or perhaps confusion, overtook his curiosity and he stepped forward.

"My name is Sagar," the man said, taking your hand and bowing his head slightly. You stiffened, and Ahk quickly came over to your side, wrapping an arm around the back of your waist.

"Hello, I, uh – I am here with my friends," you replied in Akkadian, joined soon on the other side by Tiamat.

Compared to you and Ahk, Tiamat looked a great deal older as well––neither of you had gotten the chance to ask her age, but considering you were about as short as a 10 year old, and Ahk was twiggy as a 12 year old, it created a considerable difference. You assumed this was why Sagar very suddenly averted his attention to Tiamat, taking her hand and kissing the back of it. Like you, Tiamat grimaced, her shoulders tightening.

"How may I help you?" Sagar asked, his voice low and weathered against your softer ones. Tiamat stuttered before she found an answer.

"We are looking for a spice, qaqullu," she said slowly.

"You must be a woman of noble bearings," he said with a smile.

"Well –"

"No," you answered for her. "But he is."

You pointed to Ahk with your thumb, who shot you an offended look before he confronted Sagar.

"I do not speak Akkadian," Ahk said, easily recalling the only phrase he knew in Akkadian.

Sagar looked him up and down, almost hesitant to speak.

"Egyptian?" He asked.

You nodded, somewhat impressed considering Ahk was trying to wear more Babylonian clothes, but Ahkmen just looked unsettled, shifting his weight between his feet.

"I've been helping them look for cardamom for their beer," Ahk explained quietly.

"If you have the means to pay for it, the King does have seeds. The price has gone up, though," he added, "due to some... outer pressures."

"You mean the trade network?" Ahk asked, kinking a single brow.

"I'm afraid so. It'll be several gold bands or sacks of grain."

Several?? Ahk's eyes bulged as he heard the price. While he was regaining his words, his mouth fallen open, Sagar translated the sentence back into Akkadian for Tiamat.

"Mother of Gods," Tiamat blurted out. "We'll, uh – we'll be right back."

She herded the two of you out the door––which wasn't a very hard task––and took you round the corner so the doorway was no longer visible.

"I don't think I have that much grain and I certainly don't have that much gold," she said quickly, her eyes flickering between you and Ahk despite the fact that he couldn't understand her.

"We have many gold," you said, retaining most of your optimism easily.

"Okay, wait, we don't have that much gold," Ahk said as soon as he vaguely translated what you said. He turned to you and continued, "we still need to get through Elam and into Harappa. And we'll still need a lot of money once we get there so we don't starve after, like, three days of being in the city."

"Hmm..." you hummed quietly, your brow knotted together as you picked at the skin on your chin.

The two of them waited for you while you thought deeply, staring at the ground.

"We can steal," you suggested after a moment of silence.

"Again??"

"You say it all the time, that it is fun to steal, and from Kings," you said rather loudly, causing Ahk to shoot forward and silence you with a hand held tight over your mouth, simultaneously pushing you against the nearest wall.

"That man in there knew Egyptian, and I'm pretty sure he works for the King," he said quietly.

You stared at each other, iron in your gaze and steel in his.

"What is happening right now?" Tiamat asked, and at that point you recalled that, once more, you were not alone. Ahk had a similar reaction, backing up as his hands zipped behind his back.

You explained the short conversation to her, at which point she nodded with much the same expression as Ahk's when he thought deeply.

"What's the King like?" Ahk asked, knowing little more of the man other than his name. You translated.

"His name is Gidar," she began, allowing you to translate each sentence before she continued. "He is quiet, keeps to himself. He has funded building and farming projects, though, and he upholds the law, so no one really bothers him."

"Are his punishments violent?"

That one took you a little longer to figure out––you didn't know the Akkadian word for 'violent' or 'punishments,' so instead you said something more along the lines of 'does he kill or hurt people who do bad'.

"Like stealing?" She asked.

"Sure," you said with a shrug.

"He will cut off your hands and kill you."

"... oh," you mumbled, grimacing as you turned to Ahk and translated.

"Well, then we better not get caught," he said, placing his hands on his hips.

You glanced to Tiamat with an odd look.

"I do not think that is something we can ask her to do," you whispered, leaning into Ahk.

"Probably not," he said after a moment's thought. "Tell her to go back to the brewery. We'll be back there soon, I think."

"Today?" You asked, your eyes wide.

"Tonight," he nodded.

Late afternoon, and the warm, fiery colors it brought sunk into the horizon, and the stars chased after that light, appearing easily in the sky surrounding a simpler town than the centers of Karanduniash. Only small torches burnt outside the main walls, usually hung by entrances to the clay huts built up from the earth. Some houses were illuminated brightly by fire places, casting squares of light onto the ground from windows, but many were climbing up onto their roofs with rugs and blankets.

You watched the evening progress from a spot near the King's spice garden which, now that you'd stared at it for a couple hours, looked incredibly inconspicuous for such a rich store. An alleyway hid you from sight of the caretakers inside the garden, and a silver earring from Ahk allowed you a hearty, thick stew, steaming with warmth in your bowls.

With a grin you clinked your wooden bowls together before raising it up, forgoing your spoon in favor of slurping the soup. He chuckled, matching your behavior as he glanced past your shoulder, to the garden, and then ultimately to one of the nearby houses in his line of sight.

More people up on the roof––smoke billowed into the air, long shadows and brightly lit faces indicated the bonfire now burning on the rooftop. A couple louder shouts, though still not loud enough for him to understand, and laughter came from there. Ahk recalled with jarring suddenness nights spent on his friend's roof's, cooking fish and warming beer over flames. Fireflies sometimes drifted through the streets below, but what always stood above were looming palm trees, silhouetted against the evening sky rife with stars.

All he could see of the stars was through the thin gap between the houses where you now sat, as anything outside of looking directly up was fuzzed by torchlight. At least the scent of stew still tempted him; he turned his direction back to his food and felt considerably better after finishing.

"I think we take hot stew for granted," he said after a full minute of staring at his empty bowl.

"It is hard to make when we move," you said quietly.

"Really?"

"Yes, you... you need spices, and – and wheat, or barley, or it will be hot fish water," you said in complete seriousness, looking up to him with a critically thinking eye that sent him into laughter.

"Hot fish water??" He repeated, a wide, sweet smile across his face that had you blushing.

"That is what that is!"

"Okay, okay," he chuckled, "keep quiet, my dear."

"I am not your deer," you said flatly, and returned to the last of your stew.

His heart beat painfully, warmth following that pulsing depth. His smile fell, as well, as imagination––and longing––seized him, and he very nearly pulled you into his lap. Instead he dug his nails into his palm, and proceeded to thoroughly imagine the entire scenario, were he not a coward.

He would take your hands and pull you in. You would follow without hesitation, slotting your knees on either side of his hips, and resting yourself on his thighs. Then you'd ask why he did this, and he would say something suave––something like 'just wanted to see you better'. He'd raise his hand and push the hair out of your face to see your dark, inky eyes, and the red mark above your brow. And he would ask–

"How did you get that mark on your forehead?"

You paused your eating and Ahk stiffened, realizing he just spoke aloud his thoughts.

"My parents did give it to me," you said quietly as you set your now-empty bowl aside. "It was... on my mother, not there forever. It – it came off, but they did want me to always have my third eye open. And they hit it in with sindoor."

"Sindoor?"

"It is from Harappa, I think... I do.. I remember that, in that time, I was in stone homes, with flags of red and gold, and the food.. was very sweet. I think that it is Harappa, what I remember," you said, slowly coming to terms with your own memories.

"You remember your time there?" Ahk asked, raising his brow.

"Only a little," you said with a shrug. "But the mark is where everything is made, by Gods, by us. It is..," you sighed deeply, "I do not know how to say it in Egyptian."

"Oh," he said. His knees pulled ever so slightly closer to his chest, scraping his sandals on the rough gravel. "Can you draw it?"

"... maybe?"

You moved to your knees, searching your immediate surroundings for a stick or rock.

The stick dragged through the loose dirt, forming shapes that soom became ideas––one triangle to represent bread, beside two, and then a blank, empty space you circled.

"It is... nothing. It is when you have no bread, that is a number too," you said, watching Ahk carefully to guage if he fully understood. "Because the life does not.. fully live, without our math."

"The absence of something isn't a number," Ahk said with a frown, his intense gaze switching from the image to you.

"I do not know," you mumbled, pulling your knees to your chest. "It is only what my parents did say."

The stray expression on your face was solidified with wandering eyes, trailing off to the side of the alley wall. Ahk was still in a state of stupefaction, staring at your features––the curl of your lashes, or the warmth of your lips, whose mirage always found his cheek in dreams and fantasies.

Before he knew it he was leaning forward, at last reaching out for you, fingers numb with nervousness scraping against the earth. You still wouldn't look to him, but he continued, thoughtlessly, to creep closer, his hand hovering close enough to your waist to feel your heat.

"The man is leaving," you whispered, the words acting like ice over Ahkmen's brain.

He quickly withdrew, clearing his throat and tracing your eyeline back to the King's garden. There was, in fact, a silhouette of a man leaving the garden hut, settling a tarp over the door and its' symbol before he disappeared from view.

"Give it a few minutes," he muttered back, his eyes set dead upon the disappearing figure. "He might come back."

Ahkmen sat back down on his butt, the pebbles beneath him scratching as he adjusted himself against the wall. You glanced to him for a moment, offering a small smile when you saw his furrowed brow, lessening his anxiety if only minutely.

The two of you talked quietly for a little while longer, keeping up your cover as vagrant friends, until Ahk was assured the guard wouldn't be returning. He kept a continuous eye on the garden, and was quick to move to his feet after he decided it was safe. Your hand slipped into his without him asking, a grip he solidified as you jogged, looking up and down the street you crossed.

No one.

The flap the man set over the doorway was a meek form of protection, and was easily bypassed with nothing more than your hands. It rippled behind you as you entered, but soon fell silent, hiding you and Ahk from view of the street.

Inside the garden's storeroom was even darker than the night outside––the flap blocked out the light of torches, and a ceiling concealed the sky. You squinted as you tried to see, eventually making out the shaky forms of closed caskets and containers. Most of them had lids made of pottery, but some had nets wrapped around the high necks, secured tightly into place with complex knots.

"You must see for it," you whispered to him. "I do not know the smell, or the look."

"I don't really know how it looks either, I'll be honest with you," he said. "I've only ever seen it fully processed in one of the kitchens."

"Why did you not say that?!" You hissed.

"I didn't think it would be a problem!" He whispered harshly.

"You –" you sucked in a breath, "– you find the thing, I will go see that we are not found."

"Yes, dear," he said in a drawling tone he had used many times for those two words.

Before he knew it his back was slammed against a wall, sending pain shooting up his spine and into his cranium. He nearly let out a pained cry, but your hand zipped up to cover his mouth, your other arm keeping his chest pinned to the wall. He stared wide-eyed down at you, shocked at the force you so easily used.

Your fingers over his lips.

Your hand on his chest.

Your leg slotted between his.

His cheeks were set ablaze.

"You do not get the bad part of the times in Egypt, when you did steal and make fun with guards," you said, glowering up at him. "But this is not a place where you are rich. You can not pay for innocence. Not here. And this price is death if we are seen, like it is always for me, in Egypt and Babylon."

He gulped down the knot in his throat, only breathing when you gently pulled away. You still glared at him, but it was less intense, and you put more distance between you.

"Do see the cardmoms," you mumbled before you left.

The flap settling back into place was the last sound he heard from you, your fabric shoes allowing you to pad quietly away without making any noise. An intense, overpowering silence followed, darkened hands rubbing it like lavender upon his skin, familiar and uncomfortable.

He spent the following hour or two searching through the assorted jars, carefully raising up mud lids or untying thick rope. Many of the spices were ones he'd tried before––some reminding him of Egypt and others bringing memories of the few countries he travelled to during his time as Prince. Now he was stealing not just for fun, but because he had to. He couldn't afford what he was taking.

Cardamom, who carried a sweet, fruity scent, ended up being at the opposite end of the room, making it one of the last he inspected. Its' scent was also incredibly distinct, and the moment he found it he knew most certainly it was cardamom. He grinned.

It wasn't the seeds, either––it was the actual powdered spice, meaning it was already ready to put in the beer. But there was very little of it, the whole of the container being around the size of his head.

He sighed almost wearily, leaning sideways against the wall.

If you were still here, he could've apologized, and you'd both probably be gone by now. As he phased out at the thought of you, he mindlessly stroked the clay pot.

Approaching footsteps broke his trance. His eyes shot up, automatically tucking the cardamom into his clothes and running off into the night garden, in which the medicinal herbs were grown. He sucked in a sharp breath, realizing acutely that he was now ankle deep in wet earth, though fortunately, in-between the rows instead of on them.

The tarp at the garden's entrance flapped again as the stranger entered. There was little protecting him from being discovered now, and he fled off to the sun garden, careful to not slosh his feet in the mud. It was then, when mud had splattered up to his calf, that he remembered his leather shoes were still inside the storeroom, waiting to be discovered.

Thoughts flew wildly around his head, his quick-thinking talents melting away into timed panic. Wide eyes flickered from the archway between the shadow garden and the storeroom, and then to the arch leading into the sun garden, then back to the stranger, who pivoted on their heel.

He fled into the next room the moment the steps even hinted of growing louder, pressing his back against the opposite wall, his chest heaving up and down.

Again his frantic eyes searched the room for anything that might aid his escape. Tarps were stretched taut between wooden poles, blocking access to the outside, but allowing sunlight to stream in. He looked up and realized with sickness that the only way out was up.

Digging his teeth into the inside of his cheek, he tied fabric around the clay pot, ensuring it wouldn't fall from his grasp. He tensed his muscles, preparing himself mentally before he jumped up and grasped the top of the pole with his fingers.

Steps continued to get closer, now treading through the silted earth and sparking a dreadful terror that shivered down his neck in much the way it had when you slammed him against the wall. He scrambled up, his bare feet digging into the splintered pole before he threw himself over the other edge of the tarp. A loud thud came from him as he fell on his back––once more injuring it––bringing from him a pained groan.

Footsteps grew even closer, marking the sign of running feet that had Ahk clambering to his legs, cradling the cardamom to his chest as he ran. Bits of gravel and hay dug into his bare feet, bringing with them sharp pains that had Ahk convinced he was bleeding. When he looked behind himself, however, he found no trail, and slowed his sprint as he crossed the gate into the main city.

Deep breaths wracked his chest and he collapsed partways, leaning the weight of his upper body on his knees, fingers splayed out on the heated skin. He quickly looked behind him to be sure, and after finding nothing continued on into the city. It would take a while before he reached the brewery.

He paused in an alleyway for a short few minutes, checking the state of his heel and finding it alright. Reddened and dry, but unpunctured, despite the pain being sent through his muscles. With a sigh he leaned back, closing his eyes.

What a nightmare.

He could not pull his thoughts from the image of you angry, blazing with an inequality that had clearly been irritating you for a while. Even with his lie he alienated himself from you.

You would forgive him, but not for the reasons Ahkmen wanted you to. You'd forgive him because you had to, because the only other option was fending for yourself through another country and a half until you got to Harappa, where even there safety wasn't assured. But you wouldn't forgive him because you loved him, or because you knew he could do better. Horrible guilt flared in his chest, turning to bile in the back of his throat.

Whether or not you intended this reaction, it was there nonetheless, and Ahkmen did his best to force it down with logic. It wasn't a big deal. He could do better. And, he supposed, he got the cardamom, so that had to count for something.

His hands were still wrapped around the pot discreetly when he entered the vacant city plaza, heading quickly down the steps into the brewery. From the entrance he could hear the soft sounds of burning fire, and when he pulled away the door he noticed immediately warm light and soft voices, stirring with a mixer that clunked gently against the side of the cauldron.

The two of you went quiet when Tiamat noticed Ahk standing awkwardly at the doorway. He glanced between you before reaching into his clothes, pulling out the cask of cardamom so highly coveted in the last couple hours.

Tiamat gasped, a wide grin instantly spreading across her face. Your mouth fell open in shock.

"You did get it?" You asked, stepping around the boiling pot to stand in front of Ahk.

"Yeah," he said, still reeling from his escape. "Almost got caught. I had to jump over the tarps 'round the sun garden."

"Jump??" You asked.

"Well – more vaulting over them," he said. That didn't clear it up at all, but you were grateful anyways.

He sat in the corner of the limestone room, watching you and Tiamat mix a handful of the spice in the large cauldron, and testing the scent as you stirred. You continued to talk in hushed whispers of Akkadian, your shadows casted long against the low fire. Sleepiness was already beginning to take over him, leaning his head back against the cool wall, and letting his eyes slip shut.

When he came to, Tiamat had gone, and you were left alone to tend to your beer. You still stood atop a box that lifted you up to look over the jug, slowly stirring the thick mixture. Your face was flushed from the heat, and the strands of your hair that fell in front of your eyes casted shadows on your cheeks and brow.

After a yawn and a stretch, he lifted himself to stand, and shuffled over to your side.

"I'm sorry for endangering you," he said quietly, hesitant to look and even more hesitant to touch.

"I do not know that word," you said without looking up.

"Putting you in a place where you might get hurt."

"Oh," you glanced up to him, but didn't linger before you returned to the vat. "It is okay. I know you do not know very much better."

"It's not really okay, I should've thought beyond my own nose."

"A little," you agreed before falling silent.

After a minute he asked, "is there a way I can make it up to you?"

"You had the cardamom, that is good," you chuckled. "But you almost got caught?"

"Ah, that," he said with a long sigh that made you giggle again.

He recited to you the events of the evening that progressed after you left. He conveniently left out a few details––such as almost crying because he'd upset you––but included how he'd injured himself, how the garden official was hot on his trail, and how he accidentally left his shoes in the storeroom. You nodded along.

A beat of silence passed after his story ended, broken only by the bubbling of beer.

"You are filthy," you said.

"Thanks," he said with a frown.

You set a lid over the cask, feeding the fire only a little more before you stepped down from the pedestal.

"I know where we must go," you said, stopping in front of him to look up and meet his eye.

"To bed?" He asked hopefully.

"No."

His heated skin finally calmed down enough to feel a cool breeze as you led him out of the brewery, and back into the empty town center. For a few minutes you walked in silence, and every now and then you'd turn down a street, directions he thoughtlessly followed.

The scent of water hit him before he saw it, and soon the brick path led out to a crystal-white terrace, holding descending steps on either side of the raised platform. Below sloshed the inky waters of the canal, reflecting his warped features. He opened his mouth to ask a question, but was halted when you took his hand, gently pulling him down the glazed brick steps. Their tops were white, and the rims beneath carried a familiar shade of blue.

Olive-colored trees grew on the riverside, barely reaching any taller than the platform that now stood proud above him. Only a single other person was there––a bald man drifting on a skiff at the other bank of the river. He was easy to ignore, which you did gladly, and continued to pull Ahk to the riverside.

"You have dirt," you said, scanning him up and down. "And here is where you do clean your body. This is your forever. No more of the home baths, and your smelly things."

"You mean my lavender?"

"Etuvaka. You know what I say," you said with a stern look.

"I know," he said quietly, sitting on the ledge of the stone dock with his feet swinging in the water.

You took a seat beside him, slipping off your shoes and rolling up your pants before you dipped your legs in beside his.

"How are your feet?" You asked.

"Alright," he said as he massaged the bottoms of them. "I thought they were bleeding, but they aren't, so I must be alright."

"Take your clothe off," you said, suddenly moving up to your knees and scooting behind his back.

He chuckled but undid the tie around his waist, pulling the green shawl off his shoulders. It fell easy to the crook of his elbow, and you tugged it down further, eventually pulling the fabric out from being tucked into his skirt, and tossing it aside to the marble floor.

"You have... color," you said quietly after a moment of just staring at his back.

"Sort of dark? Like dirt?" He asked, attempting to look over his shoulder at you, but settling for staring at the wall beside him.

"A little," you said.

Your fingers touched the top of his spine, trailing down the bumps and ridges showing prominently through the skin of a man overworked and weary. When you pressed harder, even slightly, he hissed and jerked away.

"Careful there," he said, clearing his throat to mask his whimper.

"Sorry," you mumbled.

Ahk continued to wash his feet and legs free of the mud while you stayed knelt behind him, your touch brushing against him every so often. He finished rather quickly, but enjoyed your hesitant fingers so greatly that he pretended to keep washing himself, hoping to feel you at his back and shoulders again.

"You are Shu fully equipped," you began to murmur, your palms settling on his shoulders and digging softly into the skin. "You have not been taken to the God's place of execution, for you are covered with the kenu-garment. You were not made to enter into the God's place of execution, for you are the Great One, baboon-shaped; you have not entered into the God's place of execution, the knife has no power over you."

He sat in silence for another moment, his mouth hanging subconsciously open.

"That was... perfect Egyptian," he turned around, dragging water on his leg, "where did you learn that?"

"My time in your class, in Memphis, was not for nothing," you said with a giggle, as though it was inconsequential, as though you were normal. "It is one of your spells, for being killed by a King. It is best, because that is your crime."

He could do nothing but stare, confounded.

"I could fall in love with you," he blurted out, watching with dread as your expression fell.

You pursed your lips softly, your gaze falling to the river behind him. To his credit, he hadn't given everything away, though by the look on your face he might as well have.

"I am not a person that people fall in love with," you said quietly.

[bellatrixobsessed1]

In Chrysalis (Final Part)

Pure terror claws at him when he hears two bodies hit the floor. The burst hadn’t done his nerves any favors. He really doesn’t want to open the door. So he doesn’t, he lets Pidge do it. And his world is so quiet. Everything is so, so quiet.

 The witch is only a skeleton. He doesn’t want to see Acxa’s condition. If she had initiated the burst, it was probably worse. But then, Acxa had armor and a helmet, Haggar had only a robe. “I’m sorry Keith.” Pidge says and the lump in his throat grows.

 Acxa’s body is charred, mostly on the left half. The suit has preserved skin, but it is burning at it. Keith ignores the white hot pain that shoots through his hands and tears the uniform off of her before it can burn her any worse.

 He had practically told her that he hated her. Is that the last thing she thought of before smashing the quintessence dome. Her body is so hot and so bloodied. He cradles it against himself regardless and a scream tears from his throat. He strokes what is left of her hair.

It must have hurt so horribly.

 He can’t process it. “You can’t leave me, not on that note.” He pleads with her.

 He sees Pidge wince because he is speaking to a corpse.

 “We haven’t listened to the rest of my CD’s. I never showed you how to use the radio.” He mutters as if that would wake her up. He holds her closer and he squeezes her hand with his free one.

And she squeezes it back.

 He snaps back to himself. “Pidge, find me those research notes.”  The girl doesn’t hesitate and he doesn’t either. He feels terrible leaving her without an explanation, but he doesn’t have time to explain. She doesn’t have time for him to explain. He tears through the draws with no regard for their former positions. He only stops to scan them for a translation.

 “I found them!” Pidge runs up to him after some time. Too much time.

 He instructs her to hang on to them and lifts Acxa. She shrikes, a sound that he doesn’t think he’s ever heard her make. He fights the unease in his belly, right now he can’t afford to be gentle with her. He hopes that she knows it.

 He can’t afford to do anything but rush because he knows that human Acxa won’t survive. But half-Galra Acxa would have a chance. His expression grows grimmer. Half-Galra Acxa had a chance, but full-Galra blood will give her a better one. If he has to make her into a full-fledged Galra, so be it.

 She is crying now and it shatters his soul to pieces because this is only the second time he has seen her do it. He knows that she is in complete agony and he wants to take that away from her. But he has a feeling that what he is about to do will only make things worse.

At least until the Galra blood is back in her veins.

 He knows that she remembers the procedure. At least to some degree.

God, he hoped that she’d be awake by the time they got to the UV room.

God, he hoped that she could help walk him through this.

 With every fall of his foot, with every bump he causes, Acxa cries out. And each time she does, a part of him breaks until he is back on floor four.

Floor, only one level above the chaos down on floor three. He doesn’t know what he will do if the calamity below branches out to floor four.

 He finds an empty UV room and carries Acxa in. She breaks down completely, screaming at him to not turn her human and he knows that she is no longer in the present. He winces because her body doesn’t have the energy to fight and thrash but she does it anyways. At this rate she will take herself out.

 “I have to do this, Acxa.” He whispers. “Look, I’m not even going to strap you in.”

 Her thrashing slows and he isn’t sure if it’s because she has worn herself out or because he has said the right thing. “You’re in control this time, I promise.” He says. “It’s probably going to hurt, but that’s why I need your help—so it’ll go quicker and hurt less.”

 His heart breaks a little more because she is trembling all over. It breaks further because he can see that her eyes are dimming and she is losing her fight.

 “Help me, help you.” He squeezes her hand, “please.”

 She lifts a week hand and points at a rolling cart of supplies. “The third syringe, with the green liquid.”

 He rolls the cart over and picks out the mentioned syringe. “What do I do with it?” He asks.

 Pidge looks at the research notes as Acxa says, “inject it into my neck.” She sucks in a labored breath. “If you…can’t find the right spot…arm…works too.”

 Her neck is a bloody fucking mess, even if he could find the right area, it’d be to slick. So he takes her right arm and sticks the needle in. Her fingers wrap around the operating table and her face twists into an expression of pain and something like rage.

 “You’re going to…have to…” she struggles. “strap me down.”

 It isn’t just a warning, it’s an order. He gets a sense that she will either move too much or hurt him. Maybe both if he inflicts enough pain. So he obeys her command. He can see in her eyes that she is even more afraid now, that she regrets allowing him to do so.

 “Trust me, Acxa.”

 “I wouldn’t be bound if I didn’t.”

 Pidge speaks, “Okay the medication—we’ll call it that for the sake of time—has settled by now. Pick up the syringe with the purple solution. Inject that too.”

 “What is this stuff for?”

 “We don’t have time to discuss the details, but basically it’s preparation. The green stuff opens the bloodstream to absorb the quintessence. The purple stuff is a small dose of quintessence to get the body warmed up for the full procedure. And the blue stuff is going to help protect the body from dying as it tries to fight off the quintessence. The orange stuff is going to help the transition take place.”

 He injects all of them in the order Acxa tells him. He hears her mutter something about how it feels like her blood is turning to acid. The sound of her desperate weeping is becoming unbearable and he wonders how she is still able to talk to him at all.

 “Okay,” Pidge says for her, “now we have to activate the UV lights.”

 Keith hits the switch.

 “You have to leave now.” Acxa hisses.

 “What?!” It is the last thing he wants to do.

 “You can’t be in here…you don’t have…the protection.”

 “She’s right, if we stay in here, we’re probably going to get fried. Or, our DNA will…something’ll get fried.” Pidge tugs him out as the bulbs heat up and the room grows hotter.

 “How long do we leave her in there?”

 “Technically we’re supposed to do this for ten minutes every five hours until the transformation is complete. But we don’t have that kind of time.” Pidge flips the page. “Haggar was in the middle of testing longer sessions with no time in between. According to her its also easier to turn a human Galra anyways.” Pidge taps her chin. “From the looks of it we can get away with leaving her in there for an hour and the transformation would be nearly complete.”

 “Nearly. In other words…”

 “Unless you really want to push it and shoot for two whole hours…”

 He cuts her off, “we’ll have our Acxa back.”

 Pidge nods, “she should make it to the half-blood stage.”

 He bites his lip. He just hopes that her body will last another hour and then some, as her Galra blood kicks in to save her. He punches the wall, he can’t stand waiting on something like this. “I’m going to go crazy.”

 “She’s a fighter.” Pidge reminds him. “She pretty much kicked your ass that one time you fought.”

 Pidge sets a timer. “While we wait we can help stabilize the situation downstairs.”

 Keith sighs and looks at the closed door. There was no sense dwelling on it, he may as well make himself useful. “I don’t hate you.” He calls before Pidge can pull him away. What a lame thing to say, he wishes that he had told her he loved her.

 .oOo.

 She has just woken up and she can barely keep her eyes open. Her stomach is queasy and she feels dizzy. She can hear voices but they are distorted. All sounds have the quality of an echo. An underwater echo. She wants to sit up but her body refuses it is weak and somewhat sore. She wants to speak but her mouth is dry and she can’t seem to force the sound out. She is awake, but apparently, only in mind. She fights to wake the rest of her up but the effort only throws her back into darkness. Her head hits the pillow and her body convulses, her back arches stiffly, and she is limp again.

A froth of magenta taints her lips and spatters the pillow.

 Her face had been wiped and cleaned by the time she awakened a second time.

This time both of her hands are held. By two different people, she thinks. One hand is smaller and warmer. The other is much larger than her own hand and rather cold. “Zethrid?” She pauses. “Ezor?”

 “You’re half right.” She recognizes Ezor’s voice. But it comes from across the room.

 She looks to her left and sees Zethrid and to her right is Keith. He smiles and pulls her into a hug. She still feels sapped of all energy and struggles to return the hug, but with some somewhat strenuous effort, she manages.

 And to Zethrid she says, “you’re safe.” She brings a hand to her pounding head. “I thought I lost you.”

 “You thought you lost us?” Zethrid laughs.

 “Did we defeat Haggar?” Acxa asks.

 “You did that, remember.” Keith says with a smile.

 Acxa closes her eyes. “No.” It is all so fuzzy in her mind. Try as she may she can seem to recall much of what happened after blasting open the laboratory doors.

 Keith strokes her hair. “You killed the witch.”

 “I did?”

 Ezor nods. “After that we started working on fixing the damage she caused.”

 “We’ve managed to stabilize the quintessence.” Veroinca says, drawing Acxa’s attention to her for the first time.

 “What was kind of a pain in the ass because of you.” Zethrid puts in. “You caused a pretty bad leak of it. I mean, don’t get me wrong, I like explosions, but that one was dangerous.”

 “After we stabilized the quintessence we collected a lot of Haggar’s research notes and we’re trying to put them to good use.” Veronica continues.

“Right now we’re working to help Galra turned humans go back to their original species and vice versa.” Keith adds. “We’ve gotten through a lot of them.”

 “You’ve had a busy week.” Acxa remarks.

 For a brief moment, but not one that Acxa misses, Keith’s eyes go wide and then his face settles back into something more neutral. Veronica, Ezor, and Zethrid, their expressions are more stern. Perhaps with a touch of pity from Ezor and some concern from Veronica.

 “Remember when Zethrid said that we thought we lost you?” Keith asks.

 “She said that five minutes ago.”

 “Acxa, it’s been a month.”

 She feels faint all over again, shock is plain on her face. “What?” She rakes her fingernails through her hairline. “It hasn’t been that long…”

 “You were in a quintessence coma.” Veronica notes. “That’s what Pidge was calling it.”

 Keith resumes, “we—rather the doctors—were getting ready to…uh…”

 “To put you out.” Zethrid finishes bluntly.

 “But you woke up for a moment about a week ago.” Keith explains. “So they decided to give you more time.”

 “A month…” Acxa trails off, her gaze drifts to the ceiling.

 “That’s probably a good thing.” Veronica tries. “You weren’t in good condition.”

 “Yeah, you were pretty fucked up. The whole left side of your face was burned I didn’t even recognize you because it was…”

 “Zethrid!” Ezor gives her arm a sturdy nudge.

 “Thanks, Zethrid.” Acxa grumbles. She brings a hand to her left cheek.

 “It’s mostly healed now, the Galra blood helped.” Keith notes.

 She moves her hand from her face to her head, combing her fingers through her hair until they find her horns. She had missed them so terribly. “I’m half-Galra again.” There is a falter in her voice. It is there because deep down she had been hoping that their side mission would fail.

 “Human Acxa would have died.” This time Keith is more direct. “I was ready to make you a full Galra but we didn’t have that kind of time and I didn’t know how much quintessence you could take.” He paused. “I know you might have wanted to be fully Galra…”

 “Yes, that would have been ideal.” She admits.

 “But I’m glad I didn’t do that.” Before she can chide him for the decision he adds, “you’d probably still be in that coma if I used that much quintessence.”

 She is distraught, perhaps a little angry, but she knows that he is right. Her body wouldn’t have taken to that much quintessence exposure—not for such a prolonged period anyhow. Perhaps in intervals. “Can you still do it?” She asks.

 “Make you a full blood Galra?” He questions.

 She nods.

 “Probably.” The smile she offers fades quickly. “But I won’t.”

 It is fine, she can probably do it herself after she recovers in full.

 “Acxa, you’re alive because you’re a half-blood.” He points out. It is a bold declaration. “Human Acxa would have died and making you a Galra would have killed you or, at least, have put you into a coma for good. Half-Galra was the perfect in between.” He doesn’t have to say it for her to know where he is going to take the conversation. “The real you, is the perfect in between.”

 Still she wants to shed frustrated tears. Because she was so close…

So close to being a full blood.

So close to fully belonging…

 .oOo.

Epilogue

 It is hard for him to gauge what she is thinking. Even with a good two years further into their relationship. He has come to accept that that’s just another aspect of her. She is hard to read. But he gives her time, because usually she ends up opening up to him.

 She sits at the dinner table, and she is very quiet. It isn’t exactly a tense quiet, but it is an awkward quiet. And he knows that it has nothing to do with her being confused about the meal choice. No, she has adjusted rather well to Earth. Granted he still has a lot to teach her, but she is assimilating well.

 “What are you thinking about?” He asks, hoping desperately that it isn’t about her half-blood heritage again.

 Even two years in, she still got stares. The people of Earth were still doing some adjusting themselves, but seeing aliens among them was becoming much more commonplace with each passing day. Even so, it isn’t lost on him that the constant ogling makes Acxa at least a hint discomforted.

 She sets her fork down and stares out the window.

 “Just tell me when you’re ready, okay?”

 She nods. “I’ll let you know when I figure out how to tell you.”

 “That’s fair.” He watches her push her chair in.

  .oOo.

 She makes her way to their bedroom. She pauses to realign the pictures on their wall; there aren’t many but somehow, they always end up lopsided. She first adjusts the one of she and Keith on the beach. He had taken her on vacation to a place he called, Cancun. The second is of the day they’d attended Lance’s family’s 4th of July barbeque. She hadn’t known what a barbeque was and she didn’t know why the fourth was so important. Lance tried to explain it but apparently there was a lot to unpack. But she had a good time. Next to that is a picture of she and Veronica and then one of she, Ezor, and Zethrid. The one next to those is a picture of Keith and Lance and then one of all of the Paladins.

She only pauses to observe their wedding picture. She had worn a traditional Earth gown and Keith was dressed in Galra attire.

In the picture she is smiling. In the picture he holds her, his forehead pressed against hers. He looks proud. His mother was proud.

She straightens the picture.

 She stands before the mirror on the closet door and picks out something to wear to bed. She gets side-tracked as she often does, while standing there. Her skin is a familiar shade of blue. Her hands are clawed again and her eyes glow faintly in the semi-dark of the bedroom. She has her almost intimidatingly tall stature and her hair has grown out, draping over her shoulders some in a graceful cascade of deep blue. Her horns are also longer now, more pronounced—these days they have been growing at a rather rapid rate. She runs her fingers over the length of them, and, so many years later, she is still just as glad to have them again. So many years later and she is, at last, used to seeing the scars on her face. The deep blue that the left side of her face takes on. It is a sort of vitiligo. It had taken a lot of adjusting to. On one occasion Keith had to remind her of something she had told him; that scars were a staple of beauty among her people. And she apricates the mark of bravery. Even so, between her undeniably half-blood appearance and those scars, she draws a lot of looks.

 The research notes are hidden within a hole she has carved into the wall along with various syringes. It would only take a quick trip to the lab to stop the stares. She makes her way to that hole in the wall and boxes the supplies up. She supposes that the Garrison research labs wouldn’t mind a little extra samples.

 She returns to the mirror and dresses herself. The supplies are so very near but she sees her reflection and she can’t imagine herself any other way. All those years go, Keith had been right. She is the perfect in between. A comfy in between.

 The hard part would be telling Keith that she had kept the syringes hidden at all. The hardest part would be sharing more urgent matters. She doesn’t notice him slip into the room, not until she catches sight of him in the mirror as he approaches her. His hands wrap around her middle and his chin rests on her shoulder, she knows that he wants to rest his chin on her head, but her height no longer allows for that. So he settles.

 “What’s in the box?”

 “Open it.” She feels his hands slid out from under her arms. She watches him rummage through the box.

 “You weren’t going to…”

 “I’ve had them for a while, but I don’t need them. I was planning on shipping them out to the Garrison facility.”

 He smiles. “So you’ve finally accepted that the half-Galra you is the best you?”

 “Something like that.” She replies.

 She wanders up to the radio and picks a CD. She has branched out some and has acquired a collection of her own. Mostly European metal. Therion and the like strike her fancy. Haggard is a good band but their name puts them off limits. But she isn’t in a metal mood today and instead plays Celtic Women, which Keith had to build up a tolerance for. Apparently, he isn’t a fan of Celtic music, she would get him there though.

 On cue, he comments, “man, you’re making me wish that you only know classic rock.”

 Acxa makes herself comfortable on the bed next to him. She rubs a thumb over his ear, “you’ll live.”

 “Don’t make me put on the country music station.” Keith threatens. “I’ll do it.”

 “And you’ll have us both suffer?”

 “You’re ears are bigger than mine, it will hurt you worse.”

 “That is exactly how it doesn’t work.” She rolls her eyes. Granted her sense of hearing has been sharper since reverting back to her old self. But it has nothing to do with the length of her ears.

She lets Keith playfully ruffle her hair.

 For a long while they lay there in silence. A much calmer sort of quiet. He strokes at her horns like he had done so long ago. He is the one to interrupt the silence. “They’ve gotten really long.” It is spoken with a soft laugh. It takes Acxa a second to realize that he is referring to her horns.

 “Yes.” She agrees.

 “I didn’t realize that they grow so rapidly.”

 “They usually don’t.” She replies, much to his confusion.

 He speaks now with a hint of concern. “Is this a side effect of the quintessence.”

 Acxa supposes that now is as good a time as any to share what has been on her mind. “Why is everything always so sinister with you?”

 He apologizes. “I’m a bit of a pessimist.”

 “Still?”

 “Hey! I’m working on it.” He pauses, “if it’s not because of the quintessence, then what?”

 She pauses. “I am going to tell you a little bit about Galra mating and physical development.”

 His mouth falls agape. “You want to talk to me about Galra puberty and sex ed?”

 She nods affirmatively and gives a solid, “correct.”

 “I swear, we’ve already talked about this.”

 “We touched on it, yes.” She agrees. “There are two times when a Galra woman’s horns grow and one time when a Galra man’s will. The first time for a Galra woman and the only time for a Galra man, is when they are maturing.” He probably could have guessed that. “During which time the horns will grow from small bumps to about ten inches. That is the average. Some Galra end up with smaller horns, like myself. Some end up with bigger horns. The shape and positioning varies. Are you following?”

 He nods.

 “When reproducing, a Galra woman’s horns can grow another few inches. You can usually tell how much a Galra woman has reproduced based on the size of her horns. During the reproduction process Galra women tend to sleep more—the further into the process, the more she will sleep.” She is about to explain more when Keith burst out laughing.

  “Sorry, sorry.” He wipes away a tear. “It’s just that…I’ve never heard anyone break the news like that. You could have just told me you’re pregnant.”

 So, he preferred the direct approach. “Should I be blunt when I tell everyone else?”

 “Probably.” He rubs her back. “But if you want to give Galra reproduction fun facts, I’m sure Pidge wouldn’t mind.”

 She nestles her head against his chest, taking the care to not jab him with her newly extended horns. “Do you think he will look more Galra or more human?”

 “He?”

 She motions to her horns again. “If they grow up it usually indicates a boy, if they grow downward, it indicates a girl.”

 “So what happens if there’s a set of male and female twins?”

 “The horns will be asymmetrical.”

 “And what if the second child is a boy and the first is a girl.”

 “Typically, that is when the horns develop branches, so to speak.”

 “You’re joking!”

 “Yes.” She admits. “It’s actually just a myth. But I feel like we are going to have a boy.”

 “Your sense of humor is always a trip.” He notes. She feels his hands wrap around her middle. “How far along are you anyways?”

 She rests her hands atop his. “About two months.” She doesn’t know if she should be seeing a Galra doctor or a human one. She thinks that she will consult both. “Do you want to be a father?” The way he tentatively rubs circles on her belly tells her that he does, but she wants a vocal confirmation.

 “I didn’t really think about it to be honest…” He trails off. Kissing the crook of her neck he says. “I’d like to be a father.”

 It is reassuring to hear.

 And even more reassuring is the reaction she gets from everyone else when she finally finds the courage to make the announcement. Coran and Allura in particular seem pleased; it would seem that Alteans have soft spots for offspring, even if the offspring isn’t their own.

It is more than a relief to know that no one seems to mind the prospect of another half-blood baby.

 For the first time, it dawns on Acxa that she finally feels secure.

Safe, secure, and accepted.

  Keith holds her close and caresses her scarred cheek. She had certainly fought to feel that way

[enbysaurus-rex]

ALRIGHT MOTHERFUCKERS it’s time to buckle the fuck up bc what do we have but another surreal historical rabbit trail and this is the BEST website for that shit so

Enter this suggestion from google!! It thinks I should read that article, which, cute!!

(Context: I’m an USAmerican who speaks moderately shitty Chinese but loves me my Chinese history okay?)

So I’m reading the headline and it boils down to “1967, how ‘hitting chicken blood’ became a whole nation trend” and alright, that’s got my interest! So I send the screenshot to some friends and I try to move on because the last thing I need is to get some weird sort of cockfighting ring comrade shit (my Chinese isn’t very good and I hadn’t looked up the idiom so I think it might be something about gay sex which is possible)

Spoiler alert: not gay sex! Somehow BETTER

I get through the intro of the piece and it’s all “Chiang Kaishek was bamboozled into injecting chicken blood into his veins whilst he commited evils” which is ALREADY interesting and I’m enjoying the communist flavor so I keep translating, or trying to anyway

The turn of phrase started in 1960s Shanghai which sounds about right honestly, bc Shanghai (with all the affection in the world) loves to start shit!! Cool!!

We then get to the point where I start frothing at the mouth. Why, Dyou ask? Because 1. My Chinese wasn’t doing a very good job and 2. The things I CAN read are very concerning??? I can read that there’s something going on in Jiangxi Province (which is an important place at the time we’re talking about) and something about the internal temperature of a rooster being very high

Obviously I’m hooked, so I Google translate the shit out of it bc I refuse to wait any longer for my chicken blood injection trends!! And by Jove it was better than I fckn thought it would be bc here’s this dude who isn’t a doctor but he knows enough to pretend to be a doctor well enough and has some experience bc *hand waves in mid 20th c chinese healthcare* named Yu Changshi who went “y’know chickens are warm inside so they must be REALLY FCKN GOOD at what they do?” Okay. “also we use chicken blood to treat some gynecological diseases in traditional medicine” that’s MORE reasonable so alright

This mans INJECTS IT INTO HIMSELF bc he thinks “y’know topically applied is good, but what’s better is IN MAI VEINS” and he claims he feels energetic, has a really high appetite, and it cures his dandruff and athletes foot. Feet?

Nice. Cool. That’s a perfectly reasonable and not at all unhinged thing to do.

So when he got out in charge of a factory as their health coordinator/clinic guy, what do you think he did? If you guessed “injected everyone who came to him with any problems with chicken blood,” you’d be right

And that’s when shit started to gain traction cuz he made himself a pamphlet which got picked up by some folks in Shanghai which got a special research team formed which-

Yeah. (Now there were reasons for why the government was pressing so hard to have new discoveries and why they were so willing to try anything that might give them STEM innovations to announce, so that’s a lot of the background here)

The problem came when like YEARS later, it was finally announced as unsafe by the government and Yu Changshi refused to back down. Not only that, but people were SO HERE for this fckn treatment that they’d show up at the hospital with their rooster in the morning so someone could give them their injection! This lasted well into the 70s, when the treatment was originally a 50s thing

[percontaion-points]

Nanowrimo Day 2

Words today: 4241

Words total: 8404

I had a much more productive day today. I don’t know if it’s because I was somehow able to better prioritize “what needs done right away”, “what should be done”, and “unnecessary garbage tasks”. But here we are.

So maybe I lied a bit about the next chapter moving things along... Because this chapter was a lot of padding, too. But hey! I introduced the Libra character, finally. So... you know. There’s that.

And at the end... Yes. I can almost guarantee that there will be talking about the plot moving forward and maybe even some fighting tomorrow.

But we’ll see.

Click below for a sample and how you can read the entire thing:

“You like to draw?” “Yeah. And to paint. Mostly self taught, though. Not exactly a lot of encouragement for the arts in bible study.” She rolled her eyes. “Where are we going? To look at the art?” “No, here’s good,” Alex said. She stopped and turned around to face Vera. She looked at the girl, and suddenly realized that she knew when Vera’s birthday was. October 21st, 1994. She was a Libra… which just happened to be one the signs that was missing. Nettie had said that they tended to show up in order… more or less. So it would make sense if Vera was the Libra. “Excuse me,” Alex said as she stepped closer to Vera. In one swift move before the other girl could say something, Alex lifted up Vera’s blouse to expose her belly. “What? What are you doing!” Vera swatted at Alex, who dropped Vera’s shirt and pulled away. “I’m sorry, but how long have you had that mark on your belly?” Vera’s face flushed, although Alex couldn’t quite tell if it was from embarrassment or shame. “I thought that it was a mark of my lack of faith to the church,” she whispered. “That my body would become more and more marked the further I strayed.” Alex stared at her. “Come on, Vera. Even I know that that’s not a thing that happens in the bible.” “No, but neither are aliens…” Vera muttered. Alex chuckled slightly before she dropped her transformation. Vera stared at her. “I…” She trailed off and shook her head. “I don’t even know what to think. I’m one of you, aren’t I? A super hero?” “Yes. The Libra.” Vera gave a bitter laugh and half-turned away from Alex. “I don’t know if this is God punishing me for straying or a test of my faith or… or just proof that none of what anybody believes in is real!” “Hey now, I’ll have you know that there are a lot of sci-fi nerds out there tonight who are popping boners over the fact that aliens are not only real, but that they’re actually visiting us,” a voice said. Barb stepped into the room, followed by Christy and Nettie. “Right, and then they lost their boners in a heartbeat simply because of the truth of those aliens,” Alex said with a roll of her eyes. “That is true,” Barb said with a smirk. “But that doesn’t mean that they aren’t frothing at the mouth about this entire thing. Because the Dape have been going around and destroying other planets for fun. Which means that there’s more than just the war-hungry Dape out there. Hey, I’m Barb. The Leo.” “Vera,” she said as she shook Barb’s hand. “And this is Christy, the Virgo, and Nettie, our mentor and former Virgo,” Alex said. “I’ll leave you to share the good news with Alex,” Nettie said. “Come on, Vera. We have a lot to discuss.” The two of them walked away, but they could hear them talking in the next exhibit over. “What’s that?” Alex said as she turned her attention to Barb. “After I got back from the TV station, I started to comb the internet. You know how I like to stay on top of the news.” Of course, Barb’s definition of “news” usually included some celebrity or fashion designer. “But I found a weird forum where people were talking about everything that had happened. A bunch of people had analyzed the broadcast that the Dape first sent down, and managed to translate it. From that, they were able to work up a pretty good Dape to any language that you care to speak translation.” Alex stared at the chart that had been posted on the forum. It didn’t look like Ron’s weird writing system, but that made sense. Nobody but the eight of them had been up there to actually see it. “Did you show it to Ron?” Alex said eagerly. Because the chart wouldn’t be much help if it wasn’t at least somewhat accurate. “I did, but it didn’t do him much good because he doesn’t read our written language. However, I was able to string together a few basic sentences, and he said that I was clunky, and that there were some linguistic ticks, but that it was the gist of it.” “Together, we made this up,” Christy said as she held up a notebook. The first third of the page was filled with the Dape writing, and the other two-thirds was filled with the neat but overly-large writing of a child. It was a more comprehensive translation chart. “This is great! He’ll be able to tell us so much more now that we can communicate better!” “We’ve been talking with him to try and figure out what our next step should be,” Barb said. The three of them turned to go down to the basement. “But we’ll need the others here for a full discussion.”

Read the rest by becoming my Patreon! Still just $3 a month!

Join today!

[geekgirlnavigatingtheworld]

I’ve been excited about seeing “The Dark Tower” adapted since the announcement ages ago which attached Javier Bardem to the project. Alas, the wheel of ka turns and the world moves on, so the great scribe says. Rumors continued to fly, then, they announced the casting of Idris Elba and Matthew McConaughey and filming finally started. 

I was curious to see how a saga like The Dark Tower series could be translated to film. It’s eight books long now and packed full of references that circle back to other King works. There are comic book adaptations and expansions by Marvel and several books dedicated to explaining what, exactly, the fuck we just read.

I’ve noticed an interesting trend in the days following my viewing of “The Dark Tower”. I went with a friend who had not read the books. He really liked it. I didn’t mind it, but I was surprised how many books’ worth of material they tried to cram into an hour and thirty-five minutes.  Quite frankly, the runtime makes me a little angry. 

The geeky movie-going public has become accustomed to near three-hour visual spectacles, and, given the love for the Dark Tower books, I’m pretty sure the audience wouldn’t have batted an eye. We all know how many pages are involved. We read them, and I consider King to be a very visual writer. He invokes images, many of them terrifying, that ought to provide a wealth of fodder for concept artists and screenwriters alike.  There was easily enough to make a well-scripted, fast-paced three hour (or almost) flick. 

The friends who have read all or part of the series aren’t exactly happy with the movie. They’re disappointed by the short length and the amount of material stuffed into the plot. Friends who haven’t read the books, on the other hand, have really enjoyed it. They’ve liked the pacing and the plot. 

I was surprised by things they left out and surprised by things they added in. I could understand the creative decisions in light of the shorter movie, but, honestly, I hope there’s a director’s cut floating around out there somewhere I’m going to get to see so I can be a bit less frustrated with this condensed and heavily distilled story. 

What saves this one, for me at least, is the casting. Idris Elba is Roland the Gunslinger, last of his kind, weary of a dying world, and struggling through it the only way he knows how, by sheer force of will. He is a good man ridden hard until he’s consumed by a need for vengeance. Elba gives his character presence without overselling confidence. Roland is no cocky warrior striding heavily through the world. His boots are weighted by the grief and guilt he carries and he’s been turned from his true purpose by what he’s witnessed. Elba makes Roland a sympathetic character without making him a victim. He keeps Roland’s strength believable and his motives as uncomplicated as Roland’s moral compass. I like him as Roland, even if he’s nothing like what King described. It doesn’t matter. In this spoke of the wheel, Roland is Elba, and Elba is Roland.

Matthew McConaughey is Walter O’Dim, the Man In Black. While he’s still got his trademark accent, he talks much slicker and much smoother as Walter than he does in real life. He’s quietly sinister, which I appreciate far more than a frothing at the mouth batshit insane psychopath when it comes to my bad guys. I think it’s a lovely nod to the source material that Walter’s evilness is never explained. He simply is. Neither Rhyme nor reason is offered. Walter wants to destroy the Dark Tower and with it, the entire universe, seemingly because he can. He’s not an idiot. One assumes he’s intelligent, because he’s running a fairly successful endgame. It’s done a number on Midworld and the effects are leaking into other worlds as well.

There are pop culture references (including some references right back to King’s other works) which fit perfectly into the world-building I’ve come to associate with the books. There are also moments of humor, another touch I often associate with King’s work. Everything can’t be bleak all the time, people make jokes at the oddest times, even if they’re only funny to the person making the joke at the time.

I don’t feel like I wasted my money, again, the actors in their roles are great to watch. I was itching to see them go toe to toe. I suppose, as a fan of the books, I have to accept there are many worlds connected by the Dark Tower, and this is but one of them.

[mrwilliamcharley]

A Trip To The Forest : Electric Forest 2018 [Review]

To many, Electric Forest is much more than a music festival. Within 10 minutes of arriving to the camp grounds, you will find festival-goers meeting for the first time, hugging, and beginning a friendship that very well might end on Monday morning when you’re packing up to go home. This is just part of the beauty of Electric Forest.

For the second year in a row, Electric Forest called Sherwood Forest home for two weekends in a row. Just like last year, the lineups were mostly similar with each weekend having their own set of unique acts.

Unlike last year, Weekend 2 sold more tickets than weekend 1. During the day weekend 2 had to deal with temperatures close to 95 degrees but that didn’t stop music hungry fans from celebrating at their favorite music festival. The weather finally changed sunday afternoon when a storm caused an evacuation of the venue. Festival goers were instructed to go to their cars for the time being 0 but just as the storm came fast, it left fast and people were ready to party.

Electric Forest MVPs

There is no clear definition for my Electric Forest MVP. It can come from a variety of different aspects. context, sets played, and did they live the forest motto?

Louis The Child

It was almost impossible keeping track of how many sets Louis The Child actually played across the two weekends. When they weren’t playing Sherwood Court or Ranch Arena, these two young producers were constantly looking for renegade sets to play throughout campsites, VIP sets and even the This Song is Sick secret set weekend 1. It was like a wonderful game of “Where in the world is Louis The Child” and if you won, you got to see an awesome set.

JAUZ

After a certain incident that led to an artist being taken off the lineup, everyone was wondering who would be taking his spot. With pretty big shoes to fill, Jauz was up to the challenge. When he was first announced, people were worried that he wouldn’t be able to match the heaviness of the artist he was replacing…and oh boy were they wrong. Jauz performed on the bass rush stage both weekends and left fans hungry for more at the end of his set. It’s never easy replacing an artist on a lineup, but Jauz proved why he was the perfect artist to do it. Not to mention a couple of renegade sets and a “Jauz and Friends” off the deep-end set in VIP weekend 2. Well done, Jauz.

The Set That Fed Off The Crowd’s Energy The Best 

(I know, that’s a mouthful)

Marian Hill

I wasn’t sure how Marian Hill’s pop forward sound would translate to an environment like Electric Forest – but to my satisfaction, it worked perfectly. For the first few songs of their second weekend set it felt like they were just performing songs – as they got comfortable with the crowd an pulled the crowd into the performance – the energy inside Jubilee Tent could be felt from Indiana. They had the crowd eating out of the palm of their hand, and if you didn’t know the words you wish you did by the end of this set.

Best Late Night Sets In The Forest

Every stage at Electric Forest has something special about it – but there is a certain magic to witnessing sets at The Forest Stage or The Observatory. You are surrounded by trees, and the forest lights up with beautiful production and a certain all-inclusive magic that is only found deep within the forest.

DROELOE

DROELOE were tasked with closing The Forest Stage on Friday night of weekend 2 and what a fantastic way to end the night it was. They played through their collection of songs from The Bitbird imprint while injecting absolute heaters that could be found at any self-respecting house party. It was sweaty, it was fun, and DROELOE was thriving up on that tiny stage.

Medasin

Medasin was one of my most anticipated acts of the weekend. His originals and track selection are the perfect soundtrack to a place like Electric Forest and I am so glad I was right. His closing set at The Observatory on Saturday night was absolutely packed from front to back. Everyone had the same vibe, and were frothing at the mouth for more songs from Medasin when his set ended a bit after 3 am. He sat on the edge of beats and bangers throughout the entirety of his set – a perfect combination for a set at 2 am.

The Best Set You Probably Weren’t at

ZHU (Blacklizt Set)

Sunday Night’s schedule featured a ‘Special Guest’ at the Grand Antique Trading Post, a small stage deep within the forest at 11:30 pm. Around Saturday afternoon I caught wind that it was going to be a special ‘Blacklizt’ set from Zhu, just shortly after his main set at The Ranch Arena. If you don’t know what Blacklizt sets are, it gives Zhu a chance to flex his DJ skills and show a deeper side of house music – and it was incredible. The small, intimate crowd were there from start to finish even after Zhu came on stage a half hour late. The small house-hungry crowd was on the same wave length for the entire 90 minute set and gave Zhu a chance to showw off his deeper side. What a forest memory.

The Best Weather Assists

I want to preface by saying that these sets would have been just as incredible without the help of the weather, but these circumstances helped make their sets that much more special.

Lane 8

Lane 8 was definitely in a position to succeed. He had a full two hours to showcase his beautiful take on melodic, progressive house from 11 pm – 1 am. His set was more than a collection of songs, it was a journey. If you turned away from the stage and looked up you were greeted by an incredible display from mother nature. Heat lightning lit up the sky and rivaled the stage production. The crowd was split – half in tranced by Lane 8’s theatrics on stage and the other half glued to the sky’s supplementary light show.

Manic Focus

Because of the storm and evacuation later in the day, Manic Focus’s set was changed from 6pm at The Ranch Arena to a 1 am set at Sherwood Court – across the forest from Bassnectar’s set. In all my years of going to Electric Forest, I have never seen a crowd that big at Sherwood Court that into the music. The later it got, the more the crowd grew as they journeyed on over from Bassnectar’s set. Manic Focus could not be more appreciative of the crowd and blasted through a set with his band worthy of the new set time. What an incredible turn of events.

Honorable Mention

Elohim

It was hard for me to find a category for Elohim – but I just knew I had to highlight her performance. I had no idea what to expect from an Elohim set. The singer/songwriter fresh off her second album took to the pitch black stage and took the crowd on a musical experience completely different from anything else. Think Sleigh Bells combined with Tune Yards combined with Purity Ring. Her solo set featured all of her incredible songs, along with exclusive remixes. People danced, people sang along, and more importantly, people connected. Elohim’s sound was a perfect fit for Electric Forest, and I can’t wait for her to come back.

'A Trip To The Forest : Electric Forest 2018 [Review]

The post A Trip To The Forest : Electric Forest 2018 [Review] appeared first on Run The Trap: The Best EDM, Hip Hop & Trap Music.

from Run The Trap: The Best EDM, Hip Hop & Trap Music https://ift.tt/2Jxk2Nj