#(does it still count as a static if there are like a dozen of us plus a rotating cast of helpers?) | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

toyotacorrola · 1 year ago

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radio static chapter 6 is fashionably late lol

Chapter Summary: "Rumors are spread and, naturally, make their way back to their subject."

Chapter Word Count: 3,365

Links: ff.net | neocities

can also be read below the cut:

What he was doing to himself was bad, and he knew that. But how could he stop, how could he let himself rest when his brother might still be out there?

Ever since he and Elesa had had their talk, Emmet had been searching practically every second that he wasn’t working. She had clearly noticed, and had already made her concern apparent to him. Each time, he had assured her that he would be more diligent in taking care of himself. They both knew it was a lie.

He did his best to remember, if only not to worry anyone. He’s already caused them, especially Elesa, so much grief. But sometimes, it felt like if he stopped for even a second, even just to sleep for a few hours, he wouldn’t be able to start back up again. It was hard to remember even the most urgent of his own needs when he had that weighing over his head.

He knew it was wrong, maybe even selfish. But he couldn’t stand the thought of giving up on his brother when he felt like he was finally close to some kind of hint, sign, anything.

A passenger glanced at him nervously. He realized how tight the expression on his face was, and tried to relax his brow, and to instead focus on the sound of the train thundering through the tunnel around him.

Just breathe, he thought to himself. Remember what you talked about.

Emmet’s brother was missing. This was a fact. He had no clue where he could have been. All of the reasonable places he could have been found had long been searched dozens of times over. They had not even found the smallest clue as to where he had gone. This was also a fact.

Another fact: Emmet had thought his brother was dead for months, and had recently begun to think he might not be. And yet…

He is probably already dead, anyway, if he wasn’t at first, he couldn’t help but think. He is already dead or he is going to be soon, because you are wasting your time and you are not going to make it and-

Stop, he thought. Take a breath.

Three in, three out; just like he used to tell his brother.

Panicking will not help you find Ingo any faster. Think about the facts. Think about what you know for sure.

Deep breath in. One, two, three. Deep breath out. Okay.

Ingo had been missing for almost half a year, and Emmet had been conducting his own search for about half of that time. His worries had not gotten any easier to handle with time.

Dragons knew he was trying, but as much as he knew, logically, that the best way to help his brother was to calm down and just focus on the facts, he just couldn’t stop his mind from going through all of the worst possible scenarios.

It had been a bad habit of his for a very long time.

“Being prepared for the worst is good,” Ingo had once told him. “But getting too wrapped up in hypotheticals can only lead to derailment. It would be best to focus on what is happening in front of you. Just take a breath, it’s alright. Disaster has not struck yet, and we know what to do if it does.”

Except for this time, he thought woefully. And how could they, even with their meticulousness with most everything they did?

Ingo had usually been able to tell when Emmet got too far off-track, be it from worry, distraction, or anything else. He was usually able to bring him back down when he started to spiral into such thoughts, and Emmet would do the same for him.

Now, though, Ingo wasn’t there to help Emmet stay in check. He was trying, but it was very difficult. His brother was missing, without a single lead as to his whereabouts even with all of the time that had passed, to the point where he had been convinced he wasn’t anywhere to be found at all. To say he was worried would be a gross understatement.

Somehow, though, his own fear was not his largest obstruction.

Here was another fact: Emmet had been the last person to see Ingo. This was not surprising. They worked together, they lived together, and they were arguably the most important person in each other’s lives.

The two of them had gone into the tunnels, as they had seen something strange on the cameras and had decided to investigate it together. Somewhere along the way, they had gotten separated.

Emmet had not found anything, and assumed the same for Ingo. He had called out for him, and had gotten no reply. He hadn’t thought very much of it at the time; the tunnels were quite expansive, and he may have already left them. Not very long later, his brother disappeared.

From an outsider’s perspective, the story was as follows:

The two of them went into the tunnels. Emmet came back out. Ingo did not.

Emmet had not initially believed that this specific detail held very much importance. Others, however, seemed to disagree.

Despite how hard he had been working to help find Ingo, or even just the smallest hint at where he might have gone, some believed that he was to blame for his brother’s disappearance.

Personally, Emmet did not take much offense to this, despite how much it hurt to hear. The first suspect is almost always either the one who last saw the person in question, or the one personally closest to them. Emmet just so happened to be both. If he was anyone else, he would not have entirely written himself off as a suspect, either.

Besides; they were right, in a way.

The train pulled to a stop, and he disembarked with the rest of the passengers. Despite the way the muffled mess of sound around him made his head pound, the way the bodies accidentally brushing against him felt like sandpaper even through his coat, it felt nice.

In the thick of the crowd, he felt that, for a moment, he could be no one. Just another person in the sea of people that flowed in and out of the station each day. Free from scrutiny and the public eye.

But he was never truly free from it, because he could never be without himself. Himself, to blame and to be blamed by. Sometimes he made himself so sick, he thought it a miracle he was even functioning as suboptimally as he was.

If he had only made sure to stay by Ingo’s side, if he had only thought to find him sooner, to reach out, or had just done something, anything differently, then he might have still been with him. He would have done anything just to know that his brother was safe and alive.

Please be alive.

He had to be. Somewhere, he had to still be alive, and Emmet would find him and bring him home. That had to be the truth, because if it was not, then Emmet would not know what to do with himself.

He could already feel himself coming apart at the seams, more and more with each passing day, hour, each minute that Ingo was still gone.

So, no, he would not have hurt his brother. He could barely live without him while knowing it was temporary (and it was, because it had to be). He knew this. Others, who did not know him, who could not see into his mind, did not. And Emmet did not blame them, nor did he think it was a very big issue, despite how their numbers were growing more and more by the day.

Not everyone agreed with this.

As the crowd parted, spreading out towards different destinations, the spell was broken, and reality hurtled back into him at lightspeed. He thought he spied a familiar figure, but it seemed a bit early. As he moved out of the way of the other arriving people, he checked his watch. Yes, it was almost noon, and Elesa typically came to the station closer to two in the afternoon.

While he was distracted, she had weaved between the groups of travelers and made her way over to him.

“Hello, Elesa,” he greeted. “Not that I’m unhappy to see you, but isn’t it a bit early for you to be here?”

She scratched at a spot just below her ear, and glanced about. Nervous.

“We finished the shoot early,” was all she offered. She said something else; he thought she might’ve asked him something, but it got lost in the noise around them.

“I’m sorry, could you repeat that?” he asked.

“I asked if we could go somewhere less crowded,” she said, her voice raised quite a bit but still barely audible. He didn’t even want to try to shout over the din, so he simply nodded and beckoned her to follow him to his office.

As they made their way there, he was suddenly very glad she had asked it of him; he hadn’t much time to spare, but he realized then just how much he needed to be away from all the noise and the swarms of people.

As he gently closed the door, it felt as though they entered a vacuum chamber, shutting out everything beyond those beige walls. Unfortunately, the sudden silence only seemed to accentuate his headache.

He gestured for Elesa to sit down; he and his brother technically had their own offices, but it was simply easier to work next to each other, even if they didn’t actually need to be together to communicate.

As she gingerly took a seat in the chair adjacent to his desk, he settled into the one behind it. It felt like a strangely clinical affair, quiet and sterile. He wasn’t typically one to break the silence, but Elesa must have come for a reason, and it was clear she wouldn’t offer it on her own.

“So, Elesa… Was there something you needed to tell me?” he asked, hoping it sounded genuine and not impatient.

She clasped her hands in her lap, over her rapidly bouncing leg.

“Yes, actually,” she said. “It’s just… well, it’s not easy to say. It’s probably even harder to hear.”

“I’m sure I can handle whatever it is,” he said. He figured that nothing could really make their situation any worse than it already was. They were already living the worst-case scenario. Still, he was nervous; Elesa wasn’t one to make a fuss over nothing.

“If you’re sure,” she said, fidgeting with her hair. She took a deep breath, but it didn’t seem to help. “Emmet, there’s… well, you know better than anyone how the investigation is going,” she said.

He stood up straighter at the mention, and leaned forward, paying her his full attention.

“...Go on,” he said, flat even by his own standards.

Her fingers drummed an anxious beat against her knee. “Well, lately, there’s been some… rumors. About you, specifically,” she said, looking as though she feared saying it too loud would summon those spreading it.

“Oh, that? I already know,” he said. Was that all it was?

She gaped at him. “You knew? For how long?”

“Of course I knew,” he said, confused. “No one’s exactly subtle about it. Really, it’s the natural conclusion to draw, even as silly as it is in reality.”

“So you’ve known people were saying that about you the whole time?” she asked, disbelieving. “And you never thought to bring it up?”

“What is there to say? People lie about other people all the time,” he stated.

Her leg bounced faster. “This is different. This could get you into serious trouble,” she said.

He couldn’t help a small laugh. It felt condescending, but his guilt was mostly covered by his incredulity.

She bristled. “I’m serious, Em! I really think-”

“I am aware, Elesa,” Emmet interrupted, something he usually tried to avoid, especially with someone he cared about and respected as much as her. Unfortunately, Emmet really didn’t have the patience to sit around discussing rumors that they both knew were untrue, not when he could be doing… well, pretty much anything else.

He wanted to say that he appreciated her worry, even if he believed it to be unfounded. But he was not a liar, even with the things he told himself.

“We both know that what they are saying is wrong. I do not see the point in discussing it further. I need to go now,” he said shortly (another thing he typically tried to avoid; he would have to apologize for his manners later), and got up to leave.

Quicker than he, she stood up with him and blocked his exit. If he pushed past her to leave anyway, he knew she wouldn’t fight it. Still, the naked concern and heartbreak in her eyes gave him pause.

He sighed. He knew she meant well, but they were wasting time. Still, he stopped. He felt guilty, seeing how visibly relieved she was by that; ever since Ingo had disappeared, she had seemed to be anxious whenever he was out of her sight, as though she feared he might vanish, too.

He owed her so many apologies, and so many thank-yous.

She took a deep breath, and sighed.

“I know that it’s not true, and I know that dwelling on it isn’t going to help us find Ingo,” she said. Emmet almost asked what her point was, but she looked him in the eyes and spoke over him. “But, that’s not the point. The point is that this is going to have serious consequences for you if it starts spreading further around.

“If a large enough group of people starts to believe that this… theory has any validity, they’re going to want answers, and they won’t be happy with any you can give unless it’s what they’re already expecting to hear.”

Emmet blinked.

“I do not see your point,” he said, confused (and somewhat impatient).

Elesa eyebrows shot up, before furrowing again in frustration. “You-” she cut herself off with a groan. “Emmet, you need to take this seriously. What happens if something else comes up, and it starts to sound legitimate? What if investigators start getting in your way instead of helping you? What if it starts getting media attention? There’s no doubt you'll be hounded and harassed at every turn.”

“I am Emmet. I still do not see your point. Say it does get more attention. So what? As of now, there is no body, or anything else to suggest that any sort of crime took place here the night Ingo disappeared. I could not have been involved in a crime that, by all means, never occurred,” he pointed out, pushing down his nausea at his own flippant way of discussing the incident in favor of a neutral tone.

“Maybe so,” Elesa said. “But that’s just based on what we know right now. Something else could always come up, legitimate or not. They could search your apartment. You could get questioned again.”

“I have nothing left to tell them. Nothing would change,” he said.

Elesa was growing visibly agitated. Clearly struggling to avoid raising her voice, she said, “It’s not as simple as that. Do you really think every single person who confesses to a crime is guilty? How do you think that ends up happening, if they aren’t? And I’m… I’m already worried about you, and there aren’t too many people invested in this idea yet. If it keeps up, if it gets bigger, who knows how it’ll affect you.”

He knew what she was implying. It almost hurt to hear from her. But he also knew she meant well. He was not offended. Mostly.

“And- and- look,” she said, gaining back his attention. “Let’s say that doesn’t happen, or there’s not enough other evidence, or the validity of it is questioned. Let’s say there’s no legal ramifications for you. It doesn’t necessarily matter to everyone else what a courtroom decides, if you really did anything or not, or if, legally at least, Ingo may as well have simply got up and walked away. They’ll believe what they want to, regardless.”

She moved to grab his shoulders, wanting to get his full attention, but thought better of it. Emmet was grateful for that. His skin was crawling and his stomach was churning; he didn’t think he could have handled being touched at that moment.

“Just… there’s just more to it than that. Reporters, everyday people who want information that you just don’t have, or Dragons forbid want to take justice into their own hands. Even if you didn’t do anything, this could get dangerous for you. I just worry,” she finished.

Emmet hated being wrong. But he was not sure how to refute that. Emmet had meant it when he said he understood where the rumors were coming from. They would have been the same had his and Ingo’s positions been switched. But he would have been lying if he had said that some of the things he overheard did not get to him, sometimes.

“...Even so, what am I meant to do about it?” Emmet asked.

Elesa sighed, though this time she seemed more relieved than anything, her shoulders sagging as if a weight had just been lifted from her. “Just… try to lay low for a while. No reporters, no media, no nothing. Just- just stay safe, alright? I know you want to find Ingo - we all do. But don’t put your own safety at risk,” she said, then hesitated. “He wouldn’t want that.”

Emmet was almost insulted. Her phrasing made it sound like he was dead. She had been the one to convince him not to believe that in the first place. He bit his tongue, though, and nodded; he knew what she meant. And besides, she was right.

More importantly, though, he couldn’t help Ingo if he let those people and their theories get in his way. He didn’t have time to waste entertaining their paranoid suspicions, and anything he said would only be interpreted in the worst light possible.

Elesa was right. It would be best if he laid low for a bit while he worked to bring Ingo home. He already had his hands full with his regular responsibilities at the station - he couldn't afford to have anything else cut into his time spent searching.

For as long as he could, he would do what he could to avoid publicly discussing it, and just try to fulfill his duties - both as Ingo’s brother, and as a Subway Master.

For Ingo, he told himself.

For Ingo.

Emmet glanced at the clock. He would need to head back to work, soon. She had caught him in the middle of his break, and he’d need to leave right about then in order to make it on time. Elesa followed his eyes, and understood.

Before he left, she hugged him tight, and he leaned into it. She wiped her eyes as they parted.

“Just… take care of yourself, okay?” she asked.

“Okay,” he said, and this time, he meant it (but didn’t he always?). “You as well.”

He didn’t like how surprised she seemed to hear that.

He held the door open for her as they both exited the room. He straightened his cap and headed off, waving one final goodbye.

He took a deep breath, and headed off toward his assigned platform.

It would be alright.

#break was crazy busy and finals r coming up so next chap will probably be delayed as well :((#txt #fic #pkmn #radio static au #submas #subway master emmet #subway boss emmet #gym leader elesa #fanfiction

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hellobunny044 · 1 year ago

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Panels. | Series

panel. in manga art, panels refers to the frame that wraps around one moment in time.

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an original Haikyu AU pairing Udai Tenma (the og little giant

warning!!: containing some manga content.

word count: 6937

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Panel - 6

Tokyo, Present Day

A coincidence to be thanked for... or is it more to be cursed at? Along the way, Udai only thought about that.

It was not that he regretted that of all the things that could have happened to him he had to meet Tsubasa. It was precisely because it was Tsubasa of all people that Udai wavered between cursing or thanking this coincidence. Really, of all the things that could have happened, why did it have to be another encounter with her? Of all people, why her?

But even so, there he was, and ended up following Tsubasa in her lunch.

When she asked about lunch, Udai honestly said that he had already had his lunch. But even after that, Tsubasa still asked him to join her. She said it was to repay him for the other day.

What made Udai so pissed off about it, was that he didn’t refuse the offer at all. A part of him was reluctant to leave, greedy to grasp this opportunity, greedy that he would have time to be with her again even if it was just to be there.

Time is cruel.

So is the fate.

In this panel, fate, in all its cruelty, has drawn little lines to bring to life a new story between him and Tsubasa, the last thing he wanted to happen.

Of all things, does he, who once deliberately walked away from the panel where they used to be connected, deserve to be here?

Even if fate eventually let Tsubasa decide, Udai hoped that this time, she would be the one to walk away.

But...

Damn. Even nine years couldn’t change anything about how comfortably warm it was when he was around her. It felt safe, soothing. Cruel.

“Udai-san, you will order dessert, right?”

Udai only answers with a hum.

“The Hokkaido cheesecake here is famous for being very good. How about that? Is that enough?”

And another.

The glimpse of what he was looking at was his first love. Sasaki Tsubasa, whom he remembered as the girl who completed the story of each panel in his youth with her presence. She was the one who brought an unforgettable blush of pink into the panels of his youth that had been dulled with dreary, static colors.

Sasaki Tsubasa, who nine years ago looked like a typical high schooler, now looks like a well-developed adult woman. She was beautiful, seemed competent in her work that he forgot to ask before. Then like any other mature woman, she wore just enough makeup with colors that only added to her beauty like magic, high heels that had a unique beat every time she walked. In truth, the high school girl of his first love had completely disappeared from what he could catch of her. But from her eyes, her voice, the atmosphere she brought with her, it was all Sasaki Tsubasa, his first love.

Sitting before her, it was like waiting for a big wave that carried all the memories of his youth to wash him away. The very first encounter, the confession, the first date, the first kiss, all the things that Udai first tasted in a dozen years of being a whole human being, were spent with Tsubasa. It was also about the first big mistake he made, the first regret, the first heartbreak. This very woman before him had it all packed with her.

Facing her, Udai felt helpless amidst the rushing of emotion that filled all his senses.

He shouldn’t have come back, he repeated mentally many times.

He doesn’t deserve to come back, he repeated.

“Udai-san wa—”

His reverie was over and the world returned to what was before him.

“— are you going to be quiet-for-some-time-before-you-finally-speak too this time?”

Her eyes were on him, looking at him kindly. Still like the old days, she still feels so near, really. Udai almost forgot that she was waiting for her answer.

“Are you really okay with the dessert we ordered earlier?”

“Hm?”

“You just answered it so casually when I told you the menu… like you somehow didn’t even mean answering the question. It made me think that maybe I was too pushy that you didn’t have time to decide or even consider.”

“No. I’m fine.”

“Really?”

“Really.”

Finally, Tsubasa was convinced and stopped.

“Okay then.”

Udai actually wasn’t so sure that he was good enough at small talk. However, Tsubasa had insinuated it. Throwing a sign that he should talk. At the very least, asking something about the weather perhaps?

“It’s pretty sunny today, don’t you think?”

He was stupid.

Tsubasa’s gaze still trapped him, leading him further into the abyss of awkwardness. For real, what’s the point of saying clichéd things about the weather? What century is this?

To his surprise, a smile spread across Tsubasa’s face. Amusing. This time, it was Tsubasa who had the nerve to answer. Then she looked out the window to make sure.

“Sunny and hot,” she added.

They were seated at a table in a row near the transparent window that gave them closer access to the streets surrounding the restaurant.

Udai caught a faint smile that she rolled back before Tsubasa turned back to him. “But the summer is coming to an end.”

That smile was different from what he saw after she returned. Maybe it was just in his head, but there was something there that he shouldn’t have caught.

“You’re still so picky about the seasons?”

Tsubasa’s question was followed by a huffing laugh. Amusing. Like mocking, but a little more polite than that.

“I thought, as years passed, you might have matured a bit.”

Simply put, Udai did not like summer very much. The only thing he liked about summer was that during that time, they would get a holiday. And Tsubasa remembered that. Oh, he forgot to add one thing. Eight years ago, he loved his summer and everything that revolved around it.

“Well... summer is… hot.”

Tsubasa stormed off after that, “That goes without saying! Where is there a cold summer?”

There is. Sometime during the summer of eight years ago, when you were there. At least, even though it wasn’t cold, with you around, things became a little more refreshing. “Right.”

Tsubasa sighed, her smile staying. Amused at the fact that Udai still didn’t get along with summer. Deep down inside however, in a part of him that he was trying to avoid, Udai wished that the reason her smile still remained was because he was still the same.

“What about you, Sasaki?”

In the past, he could just casually call her given name. Tsubasa.

Now... well... It’s the little things like this that give connection its essence. That, one day when you’re parting ways, you’ll go back to the time when everything was back to scratch, and that all the time that was drained away back then, can never come back no matter how desperately you reach for it. That, from the pain it brings when you look back, will make you realize that in the future where you stand, it will never again involve the person you used to always involve in the first place.

In the panel where her world evolved, Tsubasa no longer involves Udai like she used to. And Udai, in a different panel where his world runs, had long ago deliberately closed off the path to involving her as well.

It was all his fault, he knew. Just like he knew that Tsubasa liked summer, unlike him.

“Do you still like summer?”

“Sure.” Her answer came smoothly without losing a single beat. Her smile was still, her gaze steady.

In contrast to Udai, Tsubasa loved the summer. Udai still remembered why. She liked summer because the days would last longer than in the other seasons, the sky would look bluer, brighter than usual, and she said, the scent of the earth would be more sniffable — that was surely an odd one. Udai couldn’t remember if he had any memory of Tsubasa being so melancholy about such things, but she did.

Udai also remembers the winter being her least favorite season. The reason was simple: it was cold. Well... you don’t get warm winters anywhere in the world. He still remembered about Tsubasa who didn’t like her hands getting cold, didn’t like padding, and especially about her always losing her hot pack almost every five minutes. Seriously, though. Udai had to stop thinking before he fell into a forbidden desire and said something nonsense.

Soon after that he changed the subject. This time, however, he started over quite nicely.

“You work around here?”

He didn’t know if it was just in his mind, but for a moment, Tsubasa looked lost. Her answer was also a little off, a nod. However, she soon smiled. An answer followed shortly after,“Yes.”

Udai nodded his head. “Close around?”

“Ten minutes by walking.”

“Oh?”

“I often have lunch here.”

Exactly what she wanted to ask.

“Are you stopping by the Weekly Shonen office?” Tsubasa asked back.

“Oh? Yes.” Udai nodded.

Humming, Tsubasa added a new question, “Dropping off the latest volume’s manuscript?” She quickly continued after that, “Or perhaps something else?”

“The first one. Yes. I have a little business related to manuscripts and publishing.”

Tsubasa responded with a hum while nodding slightly.

Seconds rolled by, slowly but surely. Between them, silence slowly settled in. However, Udai did not let it linger too long as he continued their little question and answer session.

“Are you on your lunch break?”

Stupid. Of course She is. What do you think she was doing here?

“As you can see,” Tsubasa smiled as she replied. “I guess you’re not too familiar with the strict schedules and rules of office workers like me.”

“Hm?”

Tsubasa chuckled, “You work and rest on your own accord, right? Even if for example you’re in a high demand zone this month, and the sketching of the latest volume of your manga is only given a month or two, you still have a higher level of flexibility in your working hours. You don’t have to deal with anything about long and hectic working hours or relatively little break time. You can rest all day or work all night to your heart’s content—”

Udai raised his eyebrows when Tsubasa suddenly stopped midway.

“Ah? Sorry! I didn’t mean to say anything about your work. I’ve talked too much.”

Confused, Udai quickly searched for something to say in response. “U-uh? No. It’s alright. It’s not that you said anything disrespectful about my work here.”

“I said everything as if I understood everything.” Tsubasa sighed, almost wincing. “Sorry for being rude.”

“Hm. No problem.”

The atmosphere returned to silence. The awkwardness returned between them. After seconds spent wondering what to talk to Tsubasa about next, the atmosphere was thawed by something Tsubasa said.

“You... haven’t asked about my work, Udai-san.”

“Huh?”

He remembered that he had never asked her anything about her work. But it wasn’t because he forgot or didn’t want to know about it, but rather realized that it was something too silly to ask, not to mention rude.

Udai wanted to know about her job like how she knew that he was a manga artist from one of the best-selling manga series. He wanted to know what office work she was referring to, like how she knew that if he came to the Weekly Shonen office, it meant that he had some business related to manuscripts and publishing. He wanted to know what time she worked and what time she would end, like how she knew that he had much more flexible working hours than she did. He wanted to know all that, so he was showered with guilt for being too inquisitive.

What was more surprising, however, was that Tsubasa suggested that he ask. It was as if she was giving him a way to satisfy all the questions piling up in his head.

“O-oh... well... Um... Yeah.”

“You should have asked that from the start. There was no need to be reluctant.”

Tsubasa paused, chuckling slightly, “Your face says it all.”

Everything? Even about the way I was overwhelmed when you were there and smiling like that, Tsubasa? Lie to me, please lie to me. Don’t let my hopes grow bigger for something I shouldn’t wish for. This is a catastrophe, especially for Tsubasa. Of all the people she should not have invited into her world, Udai should have been the first one she should have avoided. Of all the people who didn’t deserve half of her time, it was Udai who had the opportunity to sit with her today. He should really stop. You should stop before I break your heart again.

Their talk was interrupted by the lunch that had joined them on the table. For a moment, their worlds were distracted by the smell of the menu. Tsubasa ordered the main course, while Udai got the dessert that Tsubasa recommended. The Hokkaido Cheesecake.

For a moment, he wondered if all stores that served this menu really baked the cheesecake in a water bath or if there was another way to replace that process while maintaining the quality of the taste?

It was a silly pondering that would lead him nowhere. Not to find new inspiration for his manga, nor to take him away from the awkwardness that clung in between to fill the space between him and Tsubasa.

“Have a good meal!”

“Have… a… good meal.”

Really, everything was still the same.

The way she enjoyed her food, her little habits, everything seemed to be something pulled from every shard of his memory of her.

“Too bad you already had lunch before,” Tsubasa said between pauses, drawing Udai’s gaze back to her, “otherwise, you could try this menu for lunch. They sell this very well every day. It’s very delicious.”

But perhaps, Udai would prefer it this way.

“Next time, I guess,” Tsubasa said, not quietly and not reluctantly. But Udai didn’t miss how her fingers gripped the spoon a little tighter. Her smile came, a friendly greeting before what she was about to say followed. “You can invite someone to come here and make sure to order this.”

Subconsciously, Udai chuckled. “If I had time for something like that.”

Catching a gyoza with her chopsticks, Tsubasa muttered, “Right?”

Then, Tsubasa continued, “But you know... rather than about having or not having time, you can spare a little of your time, right?”

Udai stopped. No, the world stopped. Or, no, he stopped. His gaze was fixed on Tsubasa who slowly widened her eyes. Just as Udai was stunned by her words, it was either he was delusional or, Tsubasa looked more surprised than anyone else.

“Ah- I didn’t mean to—”

“No—”

“Really, I’m really sorry.”

There you go. Sasaki Tsubasa was still Sasaki Tsubasa at the end of the day. She looked down, her palms closing in front of her furrowed brow.

“It’s alright.”

Tsubasa sighed and immediately raised her head. “The weather must have made me think of all sorts of things. Again, sorry for being presumptuous.”

“Hm. It doesn’t matter. After all, some of what you said is true. But in my case, not only do I have no time, I also don’t have a special person that I have to set aside time for in particular.”

Udai did not know that she would say that much before she finally reached the end of her sentence.

“Oh?”

Yes, he was a freak.

Awkwardness crawled over every inch of his skin. Quickly wanting to get out of the awkward embrace before it clung even tighter, Udai racked his brain for something better to talk about. Staying there was not going to get him anywhere.

“Speaking of the work,” in a split-second pause, his brain spun faster to think of how to phrase the question a little more politely, “about your work…”

“Ah?”

Udai echoed Tsubasa’s nod, automatically following along as if it had been programmed.

“Ah, yes. I work for a startup company that specializes in IT,” Tsubasa then mentioned the name of the company.

“Ah? It’s that one, huh?”

“Right,” Tsubasa smiled.

“Ah, right. If I’m not mistaken, I saw the company building with their logo around here.”

“You know about our company?”

“Well… Yes, it was the talk of the town in the newspapers and on television.”

“Right?” Tsubasa’s smile expanded, sweet and pleasant.

Distracting himself from Tsubasa’s smile—as well as from the tightness in his chest—Udai quickly changed the subject, “How long have you been in Tokyo?”

“Almost three years.”

“Ah? Three years?”

Tsubasa hummed. “Um… Udai-san, I’ve been meaning to say this for a while,”

Udai paused, both eyebrows raised in anticipation of Tsubasa’s words, “Hm?”

“When I first met you…” Udai almost mistakenly thought Tsubasa was talking about the past if she didn’t immediately continue, “the other day on the mall, I barely recognized you.”

“Hm?”

“You know, your hair…”

Subconsciously, Udai immediately touched his hair when Tsubasa said that.

“They’re long,” Tsubasa continued, but now with a smile that followed right before she ended with, “very long.”

Suddenly, Udai was very worried about how he would look. Would he look like a beggar rather than the manga artist that he is, or would he look pathetic or weird with long hair. Tsubasa’s smile was sweet and pleasant, but it also brought out the nervousness in him. Was that pleasant smile really pleasant or pleasant in another sense…

Subconsciously, Udai had brought his hand to tidy up his hair a little. Nothing significant, just tucking the strands that almost covered his frame behind his ears.

He swore it was just a little, until he finally realized that he was paying too much attention to his appearance when, before him, Tsubasa was taking point about that. Something in her eyes quickly went away after he peeked there, quickly replaced with the sparkle of a pleasant smile that came as soon as she returned.

“I’ve noticed your hair since our first encounter,” Tsubasa continued, “but it seemed rude to say anything about it then. And I also wondered, even though summer is almost over, if you were okay with your hair being long— which of course you don’t have to think about.”

Tsubasa refocused on her lunch.

“Ah right, your friend the other day,”

Although of all the things he wanted to talk about, this was the last one, Udai had run out of topics.

Tsubasa looked back at him, a look of confusion.

“Your coworker,” Udai continued, followed by an understanding response from Tsubasa.

“Ah! Yes. Hatakeyama.” Tsubasa nodded, distractedly looking at Udai.

“You guys didn’t have lunch together?”

“No.” Tsubasa immediately followed with something that made Udai regret asking. “We usually have lunch together, but today he has some business with the deputy. It might take a while for him to join me.”

“Ah…”

Ten, no, a thousand times better if he didn’t ask.

“Hatakeyama,” Tsubasa continued, “he’s been at the company longer than I have. He had been working for almost a year when I joined. In a way, I’m basically his Kohai.”

Udai forced himself to smile, echoing Tsubasa’s smile that came afterward.

“Could it be because of that? Sometimes he really treats me like his subordinate and is all bossy, so annoying! Sometimes, he acts like a dictator too. But in his work, Hatakeyama is very reliable.” At the end of her sentence while expressing Hatakeyama, Tsubasa smiled. Udai knew that he had lost every right to feel uncomfortable when Tsubasa said something about another man, but it still felt unpleasant.

“Hatakeyama is truly a reliable Senpai—”

The world stopped right there.

Udai had noticed that before, about how in between the main course that she ordered were small pieces of octopus. He still remembered everything about Tsubasa, including that she had a severe octopus allergy. He also remembers that despite having a severe octopus allergy, Tsubasa sometimes forgets that she can’t eat octopus.

Now, she almost caught a small piece of octopus meat with her chopsticks. But with Udai there, who was quite thorough about it all, Tsubasa stopped.

Udai was holding her arm, gently gripping it to stop her.

“Octopus,” he muttered, “you... have allergy.”

“... hm?”

“You should have picked all the octopus aside before eating.”

For a moment, there was silence. Their hands were still touching each other. Only then, when Tsubasa said something, did Udai finally, immediately pull away, chest heavy.

“Oh? Octopus!”

Tsubasa’s gaze turned to her lunch. She sighed, “I almost got into big trouble,” she muttered, still inaudible, “you idiot!”

Then there was silence again. Udai and Tsubasa were both still working to process what was happening. Between the two of them, however, Udai was diligently outlining what had happened.

First, their hands touched at the most unexpected time. Her skin was soft and slightly moist, lotioned. Udai wondered if the scent of her lotion today would be the same as it was nine years ago—

Secondly, about the octopus that was always there while she was having her lunch like this, would Hatakeyama get rid of it all for her before she ate? He seemed to be so diligent to ruin his own mood.

Thirdly, it was either he was hallucinating or Tsubasa didn’t want to pull away. As his world came to a halt, he wondered if the same thing was happening to Tsubasa... or if she was really reluctant to break away—

“Udai-san,”

“Huh? A-ah, Yes?”

“Thank you for paying attention,”

It took Udai longer to take that one in. Her words were ambiguous.

“though I’m usually confident enough to eat by myself because I can handle things like this... well... maybe I forgot that I should have taken out all the octopus pieces first before eating.”

Udai only gave a short response.

“I’m surprised you could see that it was octopus.”

“Well... I just looked pretty well.”

“Is that so?”

“Well…”

“I thought you’d actually have problems with your eyesight because... you know what I mean... your job requires you to be awake in front of a computer for long periods of time— ah! But of course not always, right?”

“Hm. But you’re right about the staying-awake-in-front-of-the-computer-for-a-long-period-of-time part.”

“And?”

Udai shrugged, “Maybe... just not yet?”

Tsubasa frowned, her laughter following. Udai couldn’t help but smile, not when before him, Tsubasa was laughing so pleasantly.

“Please... are you really looking forward to when your eyesight gets bad because of your job?”

“Ah— of course not with the looking forward part. That would be a bit inconvenient.”

“Right?” Tsubasa sighed, “You always talk carelessly, Udai-san.”

Udai just laughed softly under his breath.

Tsubasa returned with a faint smile in her words after that, “I’m surprised you still remember.”

This meeting had been disastrous.

Udai’s smile faded. The amusing curve lost its glow, replaced with a pain laced with awkwardness.

“Thank you.”

Being there would not be good for him. If he stayed there, Udai would fall into a pit of hope. However, suddenly leaving would certainly not be polite. Perhaps, stepping away for a while would do.

“Hm.”

Udai mustered the courage—and honestly, the will—to excuse himself. “Excuse me a moment,” his hand awkwardly gestured in whatever direction was behind him, “I— the toilet.”

Tsubasa nodded. “Hm. You may go.” In fact, there was another smile after that.

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

By the time he reached the restroom, the roar of water rushing from the faucet couldn’t even distract Udai’s world from his fast-roaming mind processing everything that was happening.

Truly, this encounter was a catastrophe.

Udai had no intention of thinking of Tsubasa as a catastrophe in his terms, however, her being there right now threatened to make him greedy and of all things, that was the worst that could happen.

Has it been eight years? Since the last time he saw Tsubasa, since the last time their panels connected almost as if they were melting into each other. Since then, since the moment Udai had decided to be the first to walk away and move on to a new panel without taking his feelings for Tsubasa, it was over. As for the two of them, they had already lost.

Rather than keeping Sasaki Tsubasa who had been like the sun against his eternal winter, Udai decided to elevate his ego. He was too proud to turn back, to simply admit that he was wrong. Or... to admit that he couldn’t if she wasn’t around.

At times like this, when time seemed to stand still on his watch, Udai couldn’t help thinking that if only he had stopped that day... but, for now, it was too late.

Staring at his reflection in the mirror, Udai returned to the flashing of memories that passed quickly.

“If I keep thinking back like this, and the same thing happens to her, what makes me think that she was alright?”

He had decided that his greed should not go beyond this. And at the very least, after this, he should apologize for everything and then disappear.

Udai washed his hands, washed his face and shifted his gaze to his reflection in the mirror. He was silent for a long time, wandering back to what Tsubasa had said earlier. Something about his long hair.

With his hands still wet, Udai smoothed his hair a little. At the very least, if he was prepared with a meaningless apology, he should at least try to look a little better, right?

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

Returning, Udai stopped at the end of a table when he saw a familiar man join Tsubasa. Hatakeyama Jiro.

Hatakeyama Jiro. Itachiyama High graduate. Tsubasa’s coworker who had been working for almost a year when Tsubasa joined the company. And lastly, Hatakeyama is a reliable Senpai, she said. Oh, that last one is very helpful.

From where he stood, Udai, who was watching the interaction between those two, underlined a few things about Hatakeyama Jiro from his perspective: Unlike him who came in with a t-shirt and disheveled hair, Hatakeyama Jiro was neat in a shirt and a fine necktie even though their blazers were both black. His hair was neat, showing the dignity of a senior office worker.

He looked like a very dependable man.

Although Tsubasa found him annoying at times, he was warm to her. From the last time, the way he spoke to Tsubasa showed how familiar he was in Tsubasa’s terms.

Tsubasa smiled happily at something he said, then their hands met for a playful high five. Not to mention afterwards their fingers intertwined to celebrate whatever it was. Maybe it was just as he thought.

For a moment, Udai thought about leaving. He thought, even if he left after that, Tsubasa would no longer look for him if her lover was right there. But... he didn’t want to leave.

Tsubasa was smiling.

Was he greedy if he wanted to be there to share that smile? Even if this was the last time, was he too greedy?

Udai finally had an excuse to come back because he forgot his bag. Hopefully that would be a reasonable excuse.

“Oh? It’s Tsubasa-no-Senpai-san!”

“Oh? Udai-san, You’re back?”

Hatakeyama Jiro’s voice was the first to greet him, then Tsubasa followed. Udai answered them both with a hum.

One other thing he also underlined was that they were sitting separately. At a time like this, he should be sitting on... Hatakeyama Jiro’s side, right?

“Sasaki, move aside.”

“Hm?”

“You have no manners, do you? Are you planning to let your Senpai stand there?”

“A-ah... O-oh... Okay.”

Udai knew that Tsubasa moving aside was a sign for him to join her there, but he just didn’t expect that even now, he would have to sit side by side with her. Seriously? He was even convinced to immediately exclude himself from this panel, convinced that he would be the disrupter of Tsubasa and Hatakeyama Jiro’s lunch.

What after this?

It was quiet after Udai sat down next to Tsubasa until he heard Hatakeyama Jiro say something until after he finished ordering.

“It’s good to see you here again, Udai-san.”

“Hm. Me too.”

“Did Sasaki force you to join?”

Beside Udai, Tsubasa almost choked at Hatakeyama Jiro’s question.

“You really forced him to join?” Hatakeyama Jiro’s gaze turned to Tsubasa. His hand preceded Udai’s intention to shift the drink to Tsubasa. Despite his words, teasing, his actions spoke of all things considerate. Shifting the drink, handing her a tissue, and something about 'there, there. Drink slowly or you’ll choke again'.

Oh, he regretted coming back.

“— I- invited him to join to pay for the other day, you know! Besides, I didn’t force him to join.”

“Oh? Is that so?”

“Of course!”

Tsubasa sighed. She turned to Udai-who was scratching his head about the best way to leave this place right now— and said, “Earlier you asked about Hatakeyama. He made it to join me for lunch, I suppose?”

“Ah…”

“Oh? Udai-san asked about me?”

Welcoming Hatakeyama Jiro’s gaze that turned to him, Udai tried to smile despite having to force himself.

“Hm. He just asked why you didn’t come to lunch.” Tsubasa answered on Udai’s behalf, “Then I said you had business.”

Returning from Tsubasa, Hatakeyama Jiro added, “Yes. I had a little business before. Well, this kid is not so reliable—”

“Hey!”

“— so I have more responsibility to do this and that.”

“What are you talking about? I’m doing my part just fine!” Tsubasa fumed, almost throwing the chopsticks at Hatakeyama.

Hatakeyama sneered after hearing Tsubasa’s self-defense.

Udai didn’t feel like he belonged here. Rather than witness this lovely interaction between two lovers flirting with each other, he would a thousand times prefer to listen to Akaashi’s thundering critiques in the office. He regretted, truly regretted coming back instead of leaving when he had the chance.

“Say, Udai-san,” Hatakeyama Jiro’s call surprised him.

“Huh?”

“Was Sasaki really this annoying back in high school?”

“Huh?”

“Ha? Why do you ask such things, Hatakeyama?”

“Say, Udai-san, has she been this childish since then?”

“Huh?”

“Hatakeyama—”

“Ah, right. Udai-san is your Senpai, there’s no way he’ll be able to answer that objectively.”

You’re wrong. I was her boyfriend.

“Ah! You’ve talked way too much!” Tsubasa grumbled, catching a gyoza with her chopsticks and immediately feeding it to Hatakeyama Jiro forcefully.

“H-hey! Can you do it a little nicely?” With his mouth full of gyoza, Hatakeyama Jiro covered his mouth with his hand while grumbling to Tsubasa. “You really don’t have any manners to a Senpai— you could hurt my mouth!”

Still grumbling, Tsubasa muttered, “The gyoza is good. You should try it.”

“Sasaki,”

The other two returned to Udai.

“she’s kind.”

There was silence after Udai’s last words. A statement that answered Hatakeyama Jiro’s previous question. A late answer.

“Also... she is very bright.”

Udai couldn’t dare look at Tsubasa after saying his answer. It was nothing. Just a pure natural urge that came from within him to defend Tsubasa from all those accusations of having been the one who knew Tsubasa so well even if only briefly, the sentence passed his lips. Voiced softly without regret.

There was silence.

Hatakeyama Jiro was there to break the silence with his response. A hum, which was then followed by another questions. “Then, has she always liked reading manga? Like... have you ever caught her spending time reading manga?”

Now–

“Manga?”

– that’s new.

“Yes. Manga. Has she always been a manga maniac—”

“H-hey, Hatakeyama—”

“You know, Udai-san, this kid sometimes steals time to read manga in between her work breaks. She has a stock of manga in her desk drawer to read every break.”

“Oh, come on!”

“I don’t know about the details, but, clearly it’s something about Zombies…”

“This is your last warning, Hatakeyama.”

“Hora, something recommended to me, Sasaki.”

“What?”

“That manga you recommended— was it called Zombie Knight or something else?”

Tsubasa sighed, his eyes glancing at Udai before she said. “You know, we should talk about your timing next time, Hatakeyama.”

“Huh? What do you mean?”

“Hatakeyama-kun, let me introduce you once again to Udai Tenma-san; the creator of Zombie Knight Zomb’ish manga that you were talking about.”

There was silence after Tsubasa introduced Udai to Hatakeyama Jiro once again.

Udai glanced at Tsubasa before he returned to Hatakeyama Jiro, deciding to lower his hand again after raising it awkwardly to greet Hatakeyama Jiro. Waving was certainly not a good choice. His laughter was thin and awkward, almost insincere.

“Ah! So Udai-san is the mangaka of Zombie Knight?”

“Well…”

“So what?” Tsubasa replied, “After this you’re still going to say that manga is only for kids?”

“Hey, come on! That one’s because you’re childish.”

“Ha!? Don’t make so many nonsensical excuses for your insulting statement!”

“Exactly.”

Hatakeyama Jiro turned to Udai, “Speaking of manga, it’s an honor to know that you’re the very author of Zombie Knight, Udai-san,”

“A-ah... thank you.” Udai said awkwardly.

Hatakeyama Jiro turned back to Tsubasa, “That’s why you’ve been reading Zombie Knight so diligently, apparently.”

“This kid,” Hatakeyama Jiro’s hand pointed at Tsubasa as he turned to the stunned Udai, “she really likes your manga.”

The world stopped once again.

“Not only that she kept it in her drawer, one day, she wouldn’t stop talking about your manga and gave everyone the hassle of having to listen to everything she said. Not to mention how every week she would go to the bookstore just to buy the latest edition— ah, last time you, remember? She also got the latest series of your manga to bring to the office.”

“H-hey! What’s so wrong with that? I have taste, you know! Besides, the story is that good!”

Udai created Zombie Knight Zomb’ish with a little hope that people—anyone—would be able to enjoy the stories and drawings he created with pleasure. Although something about zombies was definitely not something that would make someone read with a beaming face, he still hoped that there were those who looked forward to the manga wholeheartedly.

So far, through the small inspections he had done, seeing the public’s enthusiasm for his manga was something to be proud of. That his hard work was welcomed with open arms by manga readers.

About whoever’s part it was, no matter what age, Tsubasa was the part of it. However, that was before he realized that she was actually one of them. When he finally come to a realization, it only further fed his greed for something he couldn’t reach, shouldn’t.

Crap. Udai would never stop thinking about Tsubasa when he worked on his manga.

This encounter had brought too much catastrophe, truly.

His world was about the woman beside him, his eyes caught her. For a moment, he forgot that there was another pair watching them. His chest was tight. His heart throbbed painfully, desperately wanting to get out and leap into her palm, eager to be held tight like before. He had crossed the line. He was Greedy, too greedy.

In the world that go by on the outside of Udai’s momentarily dead world, realizing that he had been staring for too long, Tsubasa quickly shift her gaze away from Udai. Looking too confused to respond to anything that was going on.

“W-well... it’s not that it’s odd if I’m supporting something that my Senpai’s working hard about, right?” Tsubasa added, feeling uneasy, “After all, it’s written for everyone, all ages and I just like that it’s well-drawn—”

A second later, something happened.

Perhaps because of being too flustered, Tsubasa became nervous and accidentally nudged her glass and ended up spilling the ocha onto Udai’s t-shirt. A white t-shirt.

“Ah! Geez— I’m sorry! I didn’t mean to! I really didn’t mean to!”

“There you go,” Hatakeyama Jiro said lazily.

“A-ah, it’s alright, it’s alright.”

Hatakeyama Jiro picked up the tissue box and hand it to Udai.

“Thank you, Hatakeyama-san.” Udai took the tissue and started wiping his t-shirt.

“Ah, what should I do about this? Udai-san, I really didn’t mean it, I’m sorry!”

Udai gave Tsubasa a glance. Compared to this, the fact that you read and liked my manga so much was still ten times more surprising. So, “Ah, it’s okay.”

Hatakeyama Jiro sighed, “That’s you, Sasaki. Always so careless.”

Tsubasa bit her finger, feeling guilty at what she had done to Udai’s T-shirt. Then, she decided to grab a tissue and help a little, but Hatakeyama Jiro held her back.

“You, stay still,” his hand held Tsubasa’s, as the other grabbed the tissue from her hand and helped wipe the remains of the ocha on her table.

Udai’s hand movements slowed down watching that.

“You might spill the rest later. That would be twice as troublesome.”

Then, he heard Hatakeyama Jiro sigh again, “You’re as clumsy as always, Sasaki. What a mess you’re causing now.”

“Ah~ It was a white T-shirt.”

Hatakeyama Jiro’s words added guilt to Tsubasa’s shoulders, the next second, she began to shower Udai with words of apology until finally Udai was almost impatient when he answered. However, he quickly brushed it off and said, “It’s alright. I’m okay.”

It was nothing compared to what was going on the inside.

Tsubasa felt her cheeks flush with embarrassment as she watched Udai dab at the green tea stain on his shirt with a tissue. She had been so absorbed in her work that she hadn't noticed her ocha was precariously perched on the edge of her desk, and had accidentally knocked it over with her elbow.

Tsubasa hung her head in shame, mortified at her mistake. However, Udai was quick to come to her aid. "It's alright. It was just an accident," he said.

Hatakeyama Jiro, however, had other plans about it, “You should at least do something about it, Sasaki,”

“Huh?”

“Well, like for example, you take it home and wash it yourself. It’s only fair,”

“Oh, it’s alright. No need to bother.” Udai cut in immediately. “After all, there aren’t that many stains.”

That’ll be a very bad idea.

“... Very well, I’ll… I’ll do it.”

Udai paused for a moment, almost tempted by the idea. But he quickly shook his head, “No. There’s no need to be bothered about it. This is enough.”

“But as Hatakeyama said before, it’s only fair that I wash your t-shirt after spilling the ocha.”

But Udai shook his head, insisting it wasn’t necessary. Before Tsubasa could argue more, Udai’s phone rang.

The phone was on the table. Udai spent a few moments thinking before taking the call. His hand was careful as he picked up the phone, as if hiding something evident there.

At a glance, he saw Akaashi’s name on the phone screen so he immediately answered the call. Another matter was waiting for him somewhere. That day, Akaashi was his savior. He would thank him later.

That was how Udai had finally been able to exclude himself from that panel, forgetting that he had not been able to offer any apologies.

—

Extension.

Some minutes before

“Excuse me for a moment, I— toilet.”

“Hm. You may go.”

After Udai’s back disappeared from her sight, Tsubasa slumped limply in her seat. After quite a while just burying her head in her palms, also cursing herself, she finally lifted her head and straightened up.

Her eyes moved from the pile of small pieces of octopus meat on a small plate to her wrist. Something in her eyes spoke of the intense sadness that was going on inside her chest, like the rain before a storm. The warmth of his touch enveloping her wrist was, inexplicably, colder than the last time she could remember.

But just a little, Tsubasa was happy. At least, Udai still remembered some things about her.

In the middle of her reverie, her phone rang. Hatakeyama Jiro’s name on the screen. “Moshi moshi?”

—--------------------------------------------------------

“Sasaki? Where are you? At the usual restaurant? I’m near, I’ll join you.”

—--------------------------------------------------------

“Eh? Weren’t you going to have lunch with Matsuda?”

—--------------------------------------------------------

“She went to have lunch with her team. She said they are going to talk about the month-end project.”

—--------------------------------------------------------

Talk about bad timing.

Tsubasa sighed, “You know, Hatakeyama, about that, you should pay attention to your timing after this.”

—--------------------------------------------------------

“Ha? What are you talking about? Just wait right there, I have good news.”

—--------------------------------------------------------

Perhaps, with Hatakeyama around, the atmosphere between her and Udai would be better. After all, she also wanted to know what good news her coworker had brought after a conversation with their vice director.

Putting away her phone, Tsubasa’s eyes wandered to where she last saw Udai’s back had disappeared. Making sure he hadn’t returned from there or from any other direction, she checked out what she was carrying in her small bag. She pulled out a small mirror and began to tidy up her appearance.

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

Udai closed the water faucet after drying his hair and face with a tissue. One last check to make sure his appearance was a little better than before, and he confidently walked out of the restroom.

Just before he rejoined Tsubasa, Udai stopped. Then he changed his direction. Instead of joining Tsubasa right away, Udai decided to stop by the cashier.

“Can I help you?”

“Ah,” Udai mentioned the number of the table where they were seated, “If that woman sitting right there orders the lunch menu like she ordered today on the other day, please tell the chef to remove the octopus pieces from the menu. She has a very bad octopus allergy.”

“Ah, alright then. I’ll let the chef know right away.”

“Thank you.”

“You’re welcome.”

Udai and the cashier bowed to each other.

5 notes · View notes

patchyparrot · 1 day ago

Text

A dev...log??

Did some more learning today. Figured out partially how does theme editor works (pretty easy in fact; reading their docs was sufficient). You can even pick 9patchrect for your buttons! It may be a very common function, but I have no idea if it is since I'm super new here. I've also set fonts and colors here and there.

It's a little bit non-intuitive to set margins in a margin container. If I forget about it, it's in the dropdown menu to the immediate right from the theme editor. You can also pick there other unpickable sections, like panel for example.

After setting up buttons, colors, margins and sizes, this is how my test menu looked like. Still clumsy but hey, it's only the start.

After that, I returned to the freecodecamp tutorial. I've done everything before script polishing and collectibles, and then got distracted by questions popping into my head. Like, the author mentions death animation, but does not actually get to it. How do I do that? He also mentioned animation tree, but again, skips that. What is that? What is it for? He makes lives count as a number, which is the most easy way possible. But it's not too pretty. How do I set them as a sprite, or a bar? I have some cute pixel bars, would love to use those. I made a list on trello of all the things I would like to make.

There are bugs already! I've set some ledges and platforms and placed enemies on them to see how they act if I am underneath. Expectation: they chase the player, still. Reality: They chase the player. But there is a catch. The catch:

There is also another bug(?). As you jump on the enemy, it dies, and plays death animation. So at some point closer to the end of said animation the player is standing on air. I do not understand what to do with it yet, how to turn off collisions for this short moment. Maybe replace the enemy completely with some animated sprite? This may actually be good, since many enemies may share the same animation.

Watched some other tutorials. At this point I start to notice how many people write really weird code. Some delete default movement functions and replace them with their own code, changing just a couple of parameters. Hopefully it's to show it to newbies and explain what does what, but...I have my doubts. People with unnecessary if statements where signals do the job just alright. People doing UIs through a Node2D with static Sprite2Ds inside. Idk, I do not see any sense in those. Even the tutorial mentioned above placed damage function into the enemy scene, not the player scene. I can see some future problems with that. What if we have dozens of enemies? They all do the same - deal damage. Writing the same func again and again would be obscure. Obviously there should be a better solution. Placing it into the Player scene, and define enemies by a class or boolean? Here is one more question to find an answer to.

For the lives as sprites I found this video:

youtube

It's not 100% what I am looking for, but very close to.

As a wrap-up, some plans I have for this tutorial project. In the files you download for the tutorial, there is A LOT of stuff. It's huge! There are swamps, mountains, different forests, winter and smaller "unfinished" sets like lava or castle. I just want to turn it all into something actually playable. Even if the game will be small and clumsy.

Some things are missing though. Like there is no good transition between the grass tile and the earth tile; border between the two is way too sharp and obvious. There is no tall grass and only one crooked tree. Some enemies only have one move. I'll have to draw some of them.

#godot #gamedev #indie game dev #devlog #newbie #2d platformer #Youtube

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jcmarchi · 8 months ago

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Crow Country Review - Comfort Food Horror - Game Informer

New Post has been published on https://thedigitalinsider.com/crow-country-review-comfort-food-horror-game-informer/

Crow Country Review - Comfort Food Horror - Game Informer

The Resident Evil series has redefined and refined survival horror in recent years, arguably single-handedly. However, as the venerable series continues to push the genre forward, a growing number of indie games are looking back to survival horror’s late ‘90s heyday for inspiration. Crow Country joins those ranks, offering a respectable nostalgic homage to the past. Veterans won’t encounter anything they haven’t seen, but the experience is comforting in its spooky familiarity.

Developer SFB Games clearly understood its self-imposed assignment. Crow Country’s grainy, low-polygonal presentation faithfully evokes the PS1/N64 era while still establishing a unique charm, thanks to its doll-esque character designs. Thankfully, the studio stops short of replicating more archaic elements like the static camera angles of the time, opting for a much preferred 360-degree camera and free movement instead of tank controls. The presentation adds a nostalgic sinisterness to the game’s setting, a derelict amusement park called Crow Country.

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As agent Mara Forest, you arrive in search of the park’s missing owner, Edward Crow, and quickly find it overrun by grotesque monsters of an unknown origin. Despite the game’s eerie vibes, scaredy cats shouldn’t fret; Crow Country isn’t anywhere near as terrifying as its Silent Hill/Resident Evil influences. That may be disappointing to horror aficionados – I count myself among them – but I didn’t mind. Outside of a few decent jump scares, the game is more about establishing an intriguing, oppressive mood, and that’s enough for me. The creatures look appropriately gross and unsettling despite having a strange cutesy charm due to the art direction. The writing has a good sense of humor that contrasts nicely with an otherwise dark and generally enjoyable mystery highlighted by a cool story twist.

Blasting monsters with various firearms, such as a pistol, shotgun, and, if you search well enough, a magnum, feels adequate, and attachable laser sights add a contemporary assist. Evading enemies to conserve ammo is relatively easy, and the game is generous about keeping your clips full. This speaks to Crow Country’s wide approachability. It’s not challenging in regards to combat and inventory management, making it a great introduction to the genre for newcomers or a good option those wanting a lighter take on a typically tough gameplay style.

Another aspect in which SFB Games commits to Crow Country’s old-school approach is exploration and puzzle-solving. The game’s elaborate puzzles are generally clever and well-designed, but the real challenge is keeping track of over two dozen notes containing hints or solutions. That’s because you can only view these messages in save rooms, which creates a lot of backtracking to double-check an employee memo. The game’s condensed level design means a save room usually isn’t too far away, but running around did feel less convenient as my notebook expanded. To mitigate this, expect to jot down notes or take photos of clues with your phone.

Additionally, intentionally cluttered environments easily hide useful items and clues, meaning it’s easy to miss things. Expect to hug the walls of every room to thoroughly comb them of their interactable elements (though the game does track how many secrets you find). As a long-time fan of the genre, I didn’t mind this nostalgic approach, and it never became a true hindrance. Consider this less a critique and more of a PSA to those hoping for a streamlined experience.

Speaking of save rooms, the game’s intentional lack of autosaves means dying results in losing progress between your last visits. I was burned by this initially, having died before reaching the first save room and replaying the first 20 minutes. Again, your tolerance will vary; losing chunks of progress rarely becomes an issue if you’re diligent about saving. But if you’d rather not deal with that, Crow Country may be too faithfully retro for you.

As reductive as it sounds, when it comes to delivering a classic survival horror experience, Crow Country is a good “one of those.” Familiar elements and tropes are well executed, and the succinct runtime of five to six hours is perfect for its smaller scope. I had fun reliving the genre’s golden years through Crow Country’s eyes; playing it feels like relaxing under a warm, blood-stained blanket.

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binniesthighs · 4 years ago

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what you heard | reader x changjin

a/n: hi. its missing changjin hours also now I am addicted to poly r/ship fics so here is what my brain came up with hehe (pic creds to OPs!)

what you heard | reader x changjin

Pairing: self insert, hwang hyunjin x gender neutral reader x seo changbin

Genre: smut w/ fluffy tones

Tags: poly r/ship, comfort fic, outdoors sex, friends to lovers, discovery of feelings, idiots in love, with a lil bit of comedy, college au, teehee switch!changbin, switch!hyunjin, switch!reader, they’re all kinda fighting for dominance muhaha (its those bestie vibes ahaha), bratty behavior on all sides, jinnie kinda flips a switch when he gets in the mood (hehe pun intended), spitroasing (r), unprotected sex (stay safe!), sex under the stars hehe, penetration and fingering (r), oral (r & m), face fucking, cumshot, cum eating, that good, good makin’ out, soft and intimate body touching hell yeah, fluffy ending

Word count: 6.8k

Recommended listening: what you heard by Sonder

If there was something that you and your two bestfriends were the best at, it was getting your heart broken.

Hopeless romantics you all were, in one way or another. In fact, it would take even more than your set of three hands to count the number of times that the three of you had come over with a broken heart, seeking ice cream, hugs, or plates to break.

Changbin was the kind to fall in love slowly, but when he did, it consumed him, and everything that he was. He would become convinced that there was no one better for him in the whole world. He would spend sleepless night writing songs and poetry about those who would occupy his mind. Changbin would write love letter after love letter to never send them, or to have them crinkled into papery balls, and slam-dunked into his waste bin. He would often joke that he was ready to love someone, but he just didn’t quite know how to. Under it all, you and Hyunjin knew that he must’ve been scared if they didn’t love him back.

Hyunjin fell in love with people at the drop of a hat. It was his “fatal flaw” as he liked to to joke about too. The gorgeous blond man would fall in love over hearts scribbled on coffee cups, smiles in passing, and compliments on days when he had caught the bus late. This man was the kind to sing love songs loudly in the shower no matter who heard him, and would often have a new crush by the week. Unlike Changbin, he had no fear when it came to confessing, but had even worse luck getting someone to take his words seriously. Hyunjin had too much love to give, and never received enough back.

You, on the other hand, delayed love for as long as you could, no matter how much that you would dream of it. Love came to you in the forms of movies and books, fictional characters and song lyrics. You wrote about the love you had to give in countless journals and on the back of sticky-notes that had been used on the front-side. Love was more of an abstract concept to you. It was never something that you could touch but rather dream about. However, while this wasn’t the worst way to view it all, you still thirsted for something more. A hand to hold, a warm body to tangle up in the sheets with you.

On this day in particular, you and your friends had gathered for a meeting: your “Unofficial Lonely Hearts Club” as you called it. You couldn’t recall who had called the meeting after the long week that you had, but it was likely what each of you had needed.

These nights would often start the same: the three of you shoved into Changbin’s pickup, windows down, night air in your lungs, some song on the stereo that Changbin had been into these days. The three of you lived in the typical college city nestled into the side of some mountainside--a stark contrast to where you had come from before. It was the kind of place where people went to forget about who they were before to become new people. For some reason, some crazy fraction of the people who moved there, never left.

First chance you got, you would move the hell out of there: a place full of so much heartbreak and disappointment…who could dare to stay?

Hyunjin stuck his hand out the window, making little waves with his palm in the wind. You wondered what he had been thinking of that night; if he was sad or if he was happy. After knowing him for nearly four years now, you knew there was nothing in the world that he deserved more than to feel all the warmth that he had conveyed to others. It was a crime that he never got it back.

Changbin’s free arm held to the handle above the car door frame, and he flexed and relaxed his muscles as he hung his fingers there. You too wondered what thoughts floated on his mind: if he was making up lyrics or if he was putting together some grad story or gesture only for it to never see the light of day. He too deserved all the love the world could offer.

Changbin’s car sped up the dirt road to the lookout spot where kids would go to get drunk, high, or possibly both. It was a dreary and empty Wednesday evening, and secretly you hoped that no other rambunctious students would be there to shatter bottles on the craggy rocks. His headlights lit the path ahead, and the car bounced on the rough road with dusty orange rocks. The higher you got to the mountainside, the more static-y the stereo would buzz until soon all that was left were broken lyrics.

There was one spot you liked particularly: it was a ledge that would jut out horizontally, giving a clear view to the whole of the land below: you would see the white lights from the nearby hospital, and the stadium lights from that god-awful football stadium that had sucked up your student loans. Further, you could see river on the edge of the city-line, and how it would ripple in dark blue sparkles under the moonlight.

Your two best friends would grab the blankets that were habitually kept in the backseat made of scratchy wool, but this only made them warmer. Changbin also kept a couple camping lamps in his car to light up the dark space of his cargo bed. The weight of your bodies would shake the space and make the car bounce a bit on its wheels when the three of you would cuddle up between eachother to take in the scene.

On nights like tonight, neither of you would say much, but just look out and feel it all. There was a kind of beauty in the simplicity of the way that everything seemed so still up there, or how time had appeared to stop somewhat. If you were lucky, you could hear the hoot of an owl, or some other critter rustling in the bushes.

Hyunjin was always the one to sit in the middle, and he would take turns resting his head upon your shoulder or Changbin’s sighing deeply into how they would rise and fall. You hugged your knees to yourself and wondered how many more times you would come up here with them, or if after graduation, it would happen at all. It was painful to consider, but you even wondered if they would be in your life at all after everything ended.

“I’m sick of being lonely.” Hyunjin said into the cold air. He shifted, looking both you and your other friend in the eyes. “Its depressing and exhausting.”

“What are you talking bout ‘Jin?” Changbin threw his hoodie over his head.

“I mean moping about people who don’t ever feel the same...feeling sad when it doesn’t go my way...I’m sick of it!! I just wanna like, give up!! Would it be so hard for me to just like, stop feeling??”

“Oh Jinnie...don’t be ridiculous. You can’t just stop falling in love with people. It’s impossible. Not just for you but...” You exhaled out, “...for all of us.”

“Yeeeah, I don’t think that you have much control over that.” Changbin agreed.

“No, seriously!! It’s shit!!”

You wrapped your arms around him lovingly, nuzzling into his shoulder to sooth him, “I know, I know.”

“Aren’t you guys sick of it?? The three of us must be cursed or something.”

Changbin laughed out his little trademark chuckle and ruffled up his friends blond locks. “You’re being dramatic again Hyunjin. It’s not that bad.”

“Psh! Says you who hasn’t gone on a date in months!”

“Hey!!”

You flicked both of your friends on the sides of their heads. “Cut it out, will you? We came up here to relax and forget all that stuff, remember?”

Hyunjin gave out a sign in his exasperation, turning to fiddle with his little Bluetooth speaker that had definitely seen better days. The last crickets of the season chirped in the early fall air, and the little device booted up with the tiny ringtone that you knew well.

“Anything we want to listen to in particular?”

“Whatever you feel like Jinnie.”

The little blue-white light of his phone illuminated his face, and Hyunjin picked a song that you had likely heard dozens of times before. It was from that artist that he had adored to bits, but only really listened to when he was feeling down.

“Oh Jinnie.” You hushed, then wrapped your arm around his wide shoulder. “No one deserves you.”

Changbin let his head fall on the other boy’s shoulder too. When the three of you were close like this with your body heat shared between you, it was cozier than anything imaginable. While you and your two friends weren’t the most touchy of people, there were still times when you could huddle up, and it was no secret that it felt safer than anything.

Hyunjin chuckled a bit, causing his shoulders to shake. “You know what they say in those movies about people who can’t find love after long?”

“What’s that?”

“They say, “By the time that we turn thirty, if neither of us have found love, lets just marry eachother.””

Changbin scoffed, “And you’re bringing this up why?”

“Well, I guess it wouldn’t be the most ridiculous idea if the three of us decided to do that, right? Seeing how the current trend is going?”

You exchanged adoring and teasing glances with Changbin over your adorably naïve friend.

“I think you’re missing something out of that equation Jin.”

His doe-eyes widened, “What’s that?”

“In all of those movies, it was usually two people who made that promise.”

“Two people, three people, what does it matter? As of right now, its looking like the only people that we’ve got is eachother.”

Hyunjin stretched out his hands into his sweater paws and made a little squeak when he cracked his back.

“What do you say?”

“Hm.” Changbin cleared his throat, “So you’re being serious?”

“What’s so crazy about it?” Convinced as ever, he counted out the points on his fingers, “We could all live together like we’ve always talked about, we’ll never be lonely and have someone to do things with, we don’t have to be second guessing ever, waiting for someone to call us back...we all already know eachother really well so there will be no surprises...”

“Oh, so you are being serious about it then?” You ruffled his hair up a bit, just to get a rise out of him like it usually would.

“I mean...it’s not like it would be hard...right?”

Changbin sucked at his teeth, “Mm. I guess not.”

“But isn’t a marriage supposed to be like, having kids, being in love, being...partners?” You added.

Hyunjin stammered with frantic hands, “W-well, we don’t have to do everything!! Marriage is so conventional these days, we don’t have to follow all the rules, especially since there will be the three of us anyway.”

Changbin sighed, casting his head up to the ocean-blue sky dotted with silvery constellations and the red blinking lights of airplanes overhead.

“You’re still forgetting something Jinnie.”

The blond tiled his head.

“The part about being in love?”

The tallest boy shied his hair behind his ear, then tucked his chin into one of the blankets.

“I mean...I know that I love you guys. I wouldn’t mind spending the time...”

Your chest buzzed with warmth hearing your friend say it for the first time. It previously had been somewhat of an unspoken phrase between the three of you, but now that he had said it out loud, it felt even more real.

“Awww, I love you too Jinnie.”

Changbin scoffed once more and picked with the fraying ends of the blanket. “I guess I do too.”

The cargo bed grew silent while the three of you chewed on the idea. The longer you thought about it, it started to make sense bit by bit. After all, through all the confusion and the broken hearts, ice cream and broken plates, your little group understood each other better than most. When there were tears to dry, each of you knew exactly what to do. You had loved them all along, you always had.

“I really love you guys...I think.” Hyunjin finally said, and linked his arms with yours and the other man’s.

“What are you doing getting all cheesy for, huh?” Changbin nudged him with a smirk.

“I don’t know, I guess I just never really thought about it like that before.”

“Like what?”

“Out of all the people that I’ve “loved” I don’t think that I’ve ever loved them like I have with you both.”

“What do you mean?” Under the swath of blankets, your knee nudged against his, and he jumped a bit from the feeling.

Both you and Changbin looked at him attentively and how his lip quivered, and soft eyes glistened from the glow of the lanterns.

“M-maybe all along...I’ve been in love with you?”

“Like, in love, in love?”

“I don’t know...maybe?” He rubbed his eyes like he would’ve had they been lured with sleep. “Maybe I’m just, making things up...I don’t know. It’s getting late.” He laughed out with a tentative breath, “I’m saying things that don’t make sense.”

Changbin looked out at the stretch of city lights as if he was contemplating the idea himself.

“I guess that it wouldn’t be impossible.” He said blankly.

“What!?” You tried to look at both of your best friends as seriously as you could. While your heart started racing, it was as if it was against your will.

“It’s kinda funny,” Changbin began, “The three of us always complain about how love never really comes our way when we’ve already got it...right here.”

Logically speaking, it made sense. You and your two best friends really did know eachother better than anyone else ever had. When you had met as scared little 1st years without a clue in the world how to be your own people. You had figured it all out together. The ways that you had showed love to each other had been a bit different--but it was still all the same. If you were to have not met them all those years ago, your life would’ve been drastically different. You couldn’t even picture it.

Perhaps in all of your little rambles in journals and daydreams, was what you were looking for...them?

“Maybe we were just looking in the wrong place?” You offered, and both of them shrugged.

“It’s possible.” Hyunjin pulled both of your arms closer to him, and rubbed his cheek into the top of your head, then Changbin’s dark curls. He giggled out, tackling the two of you to lay flat on the cargo bed. It crinkled with a plastic sounding thud, then he wrapped his legs up in both of yours the best that he could.

Under his arm, you choked a little from his tight grasp, but you eventually let yourself mold into the curves of his body and soak up his warmth. The scratchy wool tickled at your cold fingers, and you soon felt Changbin’s hand come searching for you under the blanket too. It was a bit startling at first, but he reached out to hold your arm, then rubbed small circles into it with his thumb where you rested them on Hyunjin’s chest.

It was as if he was a bit delirious, but Hyunjin chortled with laugher until he had lost his breath, and his lyrical sounding voice bounced off the cavern of the mountain and echoed up into space.

“Why do I...weirdly...kinda...wanna make out with you guys right now?”

Changbin pinched his friend with a teasing grin, “You mean it?”

Hyunjin pouted with his plush pink lips, “I thought we all just agreed that we were in love with eachother??”

“Jinnie...” You settled your head into the crook of his neck, right by his collarbones.

“Damn. Glad I’m not the only one.” Changbin bit a smirk into his lip, then propped himself up on his forearm to gain better ground on you and the other man.

Your fluttering heart beat it’s way up your throat and into your ears, and your two friends looked at you expectantly.

“O-outside? Right now?”

“Yeah, I guess. Why not?” Changbin traced his thumb and index under Hyunjin’s smooth jaw.

“Aha! So you admit that you want to too!!” Hyunjin beamed and tugged at the sleeves of your own hoodie.

“I-I didn’t say that...”

Hyunjin leaned over on his side to face you. “Y/n, how about lets make a deal. We try it out, see how it feels, if it feels weird, we stop and pretend it never happened?”

“I don’t know Jinnie...this seems pretty friendship ending to me.”

“Isn’t that the point?” Changbin said with a sly grin.

The tallest boy pleaded to you with nearly needy eyes. “I think that it would feel nice? Besides...none of us have really...felt that...in a while.”

Changbin’s creeping hands came surveying over Hyunjin’s deep green pullover, and the other boy shivered out a little feeling the touch.

Hyunjin’s own curious hands reached out to hold both sides of your face gingerly with pink fingertips.

“I know that I’d like to kiss you...if you’ll let me?”

Both of your friends waited for you as you took turns checking with both of them. The whole prospect was unimaginable, but now...with both of them in front of you, both more real than anything you could have ever thought up, it started to make all the sense in the world.

“What do you say?” Hyunjin asked with a dreamy air. It was chilly on that early fall evening, so he tucked up the blankets even higher. It was a simple gesture, but still held multitudes of his care.

“It doesn’t hurt to try...”

You felt your face pulled closer to his, and all at once his warmth flooded your lips. It was a strange feeling your friend’s lips on yours like this, but while it was new, it was comfortable. Your friend relaxed himself over you, smiling with the corners of his mouth, and slowly sucking at your lower lip like he didn’t want to startle you with anything too fast. His glossy lips stuck with his favored strawberry flavored Chapstick, and you only wanted to taste more. He hummed with a little happy sound, and his larger hands nearly covered your whole face where he helped tilt your head a little so that he could gift deeper kisses to it.

Beside him, Changbin shook with a sigh watching the two of you, a different kind of passion growing within him seeing the two of the people that he loved most do something like this. He was a bit unsure at first, but he tucked back his friend’s blonde edges to free the skin of his neck, then sucked little kisses there too. He to was careful, and didn’t want to leave marks, but rather feel the way that Hyunjin’s skin dotted with goosebumps from the feeling and then let kitten-sounding whimpers go from the pressure on his neck.

While the night itself was nearly too cold to bear, the three of your bodies heated instantly, and you nearly felt as if the sweater that kept you warm was even too much. Hyunjin parted his lips slightly to enter your mouth with his tongue, and it was a feeling so indulgent that you tried to hide from your friend how good he could make you feel out of your own embarrassment.

Your name slithered from his lips to yours, and you tucked your hands under his sweater, finding Changbin’s hands there too on the other boy’s bare skin. Hyunjin flinched from feeling both sets of hands on his muscles. His abs flared from the attention, and he accidentally bit into your lip feeling the cold pads of fingers on him.

Now that you had one taste of him your body could only crave more.

Changbin tilted Hyunjin’s gasping and swollen lips to his own where he took his own turn gifting the other boy his affection. Hyunjin pressed his whole chest into the other man in an attempt to get closer and Changbin’s hands splayed across his back to hold him tightly. The two of them giggled a bit as they roughly worked their way around each other’s mouths. Changbin, a little smaller in the other man’s wide and long arms appeared to swim in him, and the two of them melted between the thick fabric of their clothes.

Once more your hands went journeying up Hyunjin’s shirt, and you ran your fingers over every curve and twist of his back: from the little dimples above his hips, his ribs, his sweeping shoulder blades and each swelling bit of fleshy dorsal muscle you could get your hands on. You had never realized how curious you had been for him in this way, but it delighted you to feel him this close.

Legs became anxious under the wool blankets, and tangled up with little regard for personal space, and hips writhed asking for attention that had been kept for them for far too long.

Changbin moved down Hyunjin’s jaw to give him more kisses to his tender neck, sucking harder this time to imprint little purple marks. You had never taken Changbin to be one to do so, but something told you that he was one to take pride in those that he loved, and wanted them to be his only.

“B-Bin...” Hyunjin’s voice wavered, no longer loud enough to bounce off the rocks surrounding you.

From the way that Changbin kissed the other boy, you instantly craved for him to do the same for you. Across the width of your gorgeous blond friend, you tossed around Changbin’s dark and curly strands, and soaked up his warmth to your hand cracking from the cold.

You called out for him too, and found your hips grinding into Hyunjin’s back, becoming more impatient by the moment. The way that both of them touched you, and each other was...different. There was no fear, no heartbreak, no uncertainty or loneliness. When you thought of it later, it was if the three of you could actually heal from it all for the first time.

Changbin’s eyes softened hearing you beg for him, and he helped you slide closer to him.

“Hm. You’re so cute.” He muttered before filling your mouth with his own kisses. Changbin appeared to channel everything that he had in him to give to you--it was no surprise considering the romantic that he was. He was attentive and slow; rough at first, but then melting into something much more infatuating. Hyunjin took his turn swiping his hands up and down your thighs, kneading into the skin, and then tucking up your sweater. He shimmied down your body, pressing soft lips into your belly to make you tremble from the pleasant gesture. He made his way up higher, up to your chest where he exposed even more skin to the cold, but was sure to make up for it by keeping the blankets close.

Changbin swiped his thumb over both of your lips, smiling as he did so.

“Have I ever told you that you’re really breathtaking?” He said with a tone so sultry it was a bit laughable.

“I don’t think so?”

He too took a greedy hand down your chest where Hyunjin nipped lightly, admiring the way that you had looked under the moonlight. He brought his fingers back to your lips, giving you a tiny and accidental taste of his fingertips, then promptly resumed the kisses that you had asked for.

Hyunjin worked his way back up your body, stopping at last to lap lightly into your neck with tiny fleeting love bites and delighted in the way that he could see them fade onto your skin--almost like you and him were a matching set now.

Changbin broke his lips from yours, creating a tiny wet sound with a thin string of his saliva on your your bottom lip.

Hyunjin played with the elastic of your sweatpants, gasping out a bit once he saw your legs rub together in the absence of friction. His eyes wandered slowly to his other friend who had grinded his hips down into the cargo bed with a quivering length.

“Are we about to do what I think we are?” He asked, both thrilled and shocked.

“Seems like it.” Changbin said simply after going to caress the other man’s cheek.

“Damn. I was not expecting this night to go like this.” Your voice shook, either from anticipation, or from the cold--you couldn’t quite tell.

“Me neither...but I’m not mad about it.”

“Friendship offically ruined?” Hyunjin said with a mischievous little smile.

The breeze blew through, wrapped up in the smell of the crisp mountain air. Hyunjin’s little speaker played on with his songs that you still knew the names of. There wasn’t too much light, just the glow from the inside of Changbin’s car and his lanterns, but it was just enough to take in your friends fully--the ones that you had cared for so much, you didn’t even known how much you had. While you would’ve been worried about getting caught on that Wednesday night, this mattered little.

“I’d say so.” You answered, and it was exactly what they had wanted to hear.

The three of you opted to keep your tops on to fight off the elements, but under the covers, you each jiggled off pairs of joggers, jeans and sweatpants. The car bounced once more as the three of you readjusted. As soon as bare legs intertwined and the thin fabric of undergarments got thrown into the mix, you each got louder and more desperate for wandering touches that could quell your desires.

With twisted and oversized socks, Hyunjin straddled both sides of Changbin’s head, letting the other man palm the outline of his dick and squeeze at it harshly until he shivered over the smaller man’s frame.

“Damn Jin...” Changbin groaned seeing the other’s length. “You’ve been packing and didn’t feel like sharing?”

“S-shut up.” Hyunjin whined as the other teased him.

You worked bite after bite down Changbin’s torso, sucking lightly, then harder. After long, you found that it tickled him a little--this knowledge you would save for another time.

He wore baggy boxers which hid the full girth of his dick that swelled with his erection that bopped and only appeared to grow larger once you and released him. Thick veins wrapped around his length, and his tip flared where you grabbed him into your palm.

“I could say the same to you, Bin.” You teased your friend.

Hyunjin turned to see for himself, laughing out, seeing the way that it looked in your smaller hand.

“Bin, what the fuck?”

“...Intimidated are you?”

The other boy tossed his head back, hair getting caught in his hoodie. “No...”

Changbin snapped the elastic to Hyunjin’s briefs just because he liked the sound, then pulled the other’s member out to pump at the considerable length with his fist. The blonde boy choked out a gasp at the strong grip, and Changbin dug his fingers around the other’s waist to bring in him closer.

“What me to suck this pretty dick of yours?”

“Do I even need to answer that question?” Hyunjin snarked.

Further down, you worked your own hand around Changbin’s cock which you had lathered at first with your spit. Obscene sounds of the liquid cupped in your hand, then you worked your mouth down to his gloriously thick thighs. Something overtook you then, and all you wanted to to was ravage them, make them all yours, mark them as yours, and make the quiver all because of you.

Your fingernails dug into the fleshy and squishy skin, and Changbin moaned out forcefully feeling the sting.

“Feels good?” You asked with a wicked grin, then returned to sucking bruises into the inner parts of his thighs.

“You’re gonna...gonna distract me.” He sighed out, still jerking the other boy away.

Hyunjin swiped away the other man’s curly bangs so he could see him fully. He guided his length over Changbin’s mouth, teeth clenched with a tight exhale once he felt the warmth of the other’s tongue lapping up the sides of his shaft.

Your teasing was enough, and you finally granted your friend what he wanted. With a girth as wide as he had, it was somewhat of a challenge, but a challenge that you gleefully expected. He had puffed up your cheeks fully, and you could barely take in half is length without it testing the back of your throat. Still, you focused your breath coming out of your nose, and swallowed him down deeper. Your eyes wetted from the simulation to your gag reflex, but you held on for as long as you could. At last, your wish was granted, and his marked up thighs shook just for you.

“Bin...fuck.” The blond shuddered upon coaxing himself fully into his friend’s mouth. He moaned out sinfully feeling the twist of the other man’s tongue.

To give yourself a moment’s pause, you stopped, gasping over your friend’s slit, teasing your tongue around his head, dipping down to the place where he dripped with beads of precum.

Changbin laughed out breathily, swearing easily and calling out your name too with a rasp to his tone. “S-shit...”

“Getting too distracted?” Hyunjin purred, seeing the other man made a wreck by you. “What about me?”

“S-sorry.” Changbin admitted, wetting his lips and taking back Hyunjin’s cock into his hollowed cheeks.

As you swallowed around him, your friend rutted his hips just slightly, his lust overtaking him.

“Oh fuck, just like that, mm--” Hyunjin cooed, getting lost in his own ecstasy with head thrown back, and his sweater paws melting down to Changbin’s quaking chest where he supported himself.

You worked your hand and mouth up and down around the pulsating vein’s of your best friend’s length, lazily letting him feel your flattened tongue, then switching to let him feel the tightness of your throat.

Hyunjin sighed out heavily as looked down at his friend who had taken him so well. It was almost as if he felt cheated from the crappy head that he had been getting in dirty bathrooms and semi-public dressing rooms. It was dangerous in the way that Changbin would stroke him languidly, then let his drool wet his tip.

Further down your hips, the pent up heat from your own sex ached on the cool plastic of the cargo bed, and you grinded your hips down for any simulation you could get.

The blonde man whimpered out after long, feeling even hazier the longer that Changbin continued on. “Binnie...you’re...feels really--fuck--so, good...”

It was as if the words hand been a trigger for him, but your friend pulled his length for your mouth, panting out like a dog, while also robbing Hyunjin of all feeling.

“Don’t-don’t wanna cum yet...” He laughed out, “I was really fucking close.”

Hyunjin pouted, then turning back and look at you with a bit of your own saliva running down your neck.

“Your turn now.” He nearly whispered, then crawled down the other man’s body to jerk at him lightly.

“Jin! I-I--” He clenched his teeth.

“Lay down, y/n. Is there any way that you want it?”

“A-anything. Anything that you want to do. I-I don’t care.” You begged, falling under his spell.

“Aw. Cute.” He added once he had seen the purple marks on Changbin’s thighs.

You fell back under the two of them, opening yourself up for them to do as they wished. First, Hyunjin crept down your body with as much care as he could--beautiful in the way the he looked close to you like this.

Hyunjin’s hand cascaded down your chest, then belly, all the way down to your own twitching and wetted sex, and you keened directly into his touch.

“Wouldn’t you like my fingers? Filling you up...” He asked softly, finally sinking down far enough so that you could feel his words swirl over your exposed arousal, then pressing light kisses into you. “...as deep as you can take it?”

“Mm-yes.” You squeaked, opening your legs further for him.

Your other friend settled beside you, tilting your chin nearer to him. Just barely, his lips grazed over you, breathing in your air with his hooded eyes glued to your weakened form under the hands of the other boy.

“You’re that excited?” Hyunjin mocked, “We’ve barely touched you.”

“Quit talking and just get to fucking me, got it?” You demanded, mustering all of your strength.

“Oh-ho! I didn’t take you for one to bite back.”

Changbin bit a proud little smile into your lip, wrapping his arms around you. The blond man then toyed with your entrance, licking his fingers, wetting them, then pushed them slowly into your needy hole.

“Ahhh, look at that, so fucking tight around my fingers, You want it that bad?”

His long and lithe digits filled you up where he started to thrust them in and out, using his free hand to push your jolting thighs back. Your right hand traversed it’s way under the blankets which you had readjusted, all the way down to Changbin’s leaking length which still blushed red. You wrapped around him carefully, promising his to lips that you would go easy on him.

As Hyunjin curled his fingers, the other man then reached down to rub at you fervently, matching the pace at which Hyunjin flicked his wrist. Your hips lurched feeling the combination of each sensation, and you cried out loudly for the two of them--the sound itself bounced off that empty space where the three of you existed, almost as if you were calling out for the whole starry sky to hear you.

“I-I think that we were really missing out on something...” You joked with an airy breath and both of your friends joined you.

Changbin’s teeth caught his lip as your hand squeezed and twisted, and you could see with every ounce of restraint that he had, he was holding back.

“Way to make me want to fuck you sideways, huh?” He said with a little grin, observing the size difference between your hand and his member.

Your back arched when Hyunjin reached in even deeper, and you dissolved into the pleasure that he brought you--an amazing kind of all-consuming feeling that shattered your will, and sent you mewling out into your other friends mouth.

“I-I can’t wait anymore,” You begged, clawing right into Hyunjin’s golden trellises.

Changbin scooched up quickly, taking half of the blankets with him, thankfully giving the other boy a nod when he let him be the one to use your entrance. With his brutish hands, he flipped you to your stomach, and hiked up your hips too, cold fingers holding them in place. Hyunjin kneeled permitting you access to his cock which as softened slightly, so he pumped himself back into place with his eyes holding yours.

At first, Changbin teased you with his tip, adding pressure to your twitching hole, then guided himself in bit...by bit.

The blonde tapped his dick to your lips, holding firmly the back of your neck as you took him in and choked out at the way that the other stretched your walls. Changbin grabbed at your ass in handfuls starting slowly, grinding his hips in little circles to simulate you deeper.

“Hm. Who would have known that your pretty little hole would be so perfect for me? Guess we really were missing out on something.”

Hyunjin growled lowly feeling his cock slide down to the back of your throat, brows crossed, and the bottom of his hoodie resting just above his hips.

“Squeeze my leg if it becomes too much, okay? ...I’m gonna fuck your mouth, okay?”

You nodded best you could, and he started to thrust carefully, every few seconds you would hold his member to drag it against the sides of your cheeks, causing him to huff out loudly at the fleshy bits of your mouth.

Changbin quickened his pace, doubling over your back as he lost himself in you, grunting out in his rhythm. From both sides, your best friends used you, resorting to something much more feral as they edged themselves closer. From the motions, the car rocked back and fourth like a bed and it’s headboard.

You too felt the tension build deeply in your core, and it begged with reckless abandon at your dizzy mind that drew itself closer and closer into the feeling of being utterly all theirs.

In many ways, you guessed that you always had been--while it had been unspoken at the time. Now, having the two of them wholly like this under the silver sheen of the moon, the cold biting at your skin, then furiously met with your heat, you could no longer see them as the two broken souls whom you had bonded with at first. They were now everything, everything that you had wished and hoped for.

Even now that you had become much more to each other, there was nothing that could take away the closeness that you had shared with them.

“F-fuck--gonna cum--” Changbin announced while he pounded frantically. The other man rolled his hips into your mouth quicker too, seeking the same kind of release.

“Y/n?” He said with a broken breath, and you muffled out a moan to let him know that you were nearly there too.

“Oh shit, oh shit--”

Changbin grunted out, with a bit of panic to his voice, forcefully removed himself from you seconds before he spilled his white seed onto your hole, then sending it dripping down your leg.

“Oh fuck--s-sorry--” He gasped out, still jerking his cock while he pulsed.

“Bin!! What the fuck??” Hyunjin yelled out, his words quickly turned into mumbles of nonsense when you took him down as deeply as you could manage without gagging, focusing only on him even though your sex ached feeling so empty.

When he had come down after a few moments, Changbin took to fucking your walls once more with his thick fingers, not even caring that he had fucked his white warmth back into you at the same time. Meanwhile, he returned to rubbing of your sensitive flesh, trying to replace the feeling he had robbed you of.

“Cum for me baby, cum for me.”

On cue, you came in waves, shuddering over Changbin’s fingers slicked with his cum, just as your other friend released down your throat and the warm liquid painted your tongue.

His blissful moans turned into light chuckles as he milked himself into your mouth, giving you every last drop. Changbin drove you further, overstimulating you to the point where your knees nearly gave out, and you had to beg him to slow.

After each of your bodies collapsed weakly to the bed of blankets and rejected clothing, you drew the covers back up over yourselves, feeling the cold seep in once more. Both of your friends kissed perfect adoring kisses into your raw lips, tasting the both of themselves on your skin. While your thighs still stuck with your friend’s cum, it didn’t matter as much now that you had huddled up cozily into their arms.

“Bin, you asshole!!” Hyunjin jested, and flicked the other boy’s forehead. “You fucking finished before you were supposed to!!”

“What the hell was I supposed to do?? I’d already edged myself enough!!”

“You could’ve tried!!”

“Whatever, it felt fucking amazing, don’t blame me.” He added with a smug smirk, “You felt fucking amazing, y/n.”

“Did it feel good for you too, y/n?” Hyunjin gingerly asked, falling right back to his soft and adorable composure that you knew well.

“Like Bin said, it was fucking amazing.”

“So we all agree then? We won’t forget that this happened?”

You gave Hyunjin a little nod to say yes, and your group of three hugged eachother even closer. You hadn’t noticed it, but at some point, Hyunjin’s music had turned off.

“So, this means that we’re like, a thing now?” Changbin asked, playing with the drawstring to your hoodie.

You peppered Hyunjin’s forehead with a tiny kiss. “I’d like to be.”

He nuzzled into the crook of your neck and reached out for Changbin across the expanse. “Me too.”

~🌹~

Bunch of (Ro)ses!

@minaamhh @dazzlehoseok @synnocence @jjewibeans @hyunsluvv @unexceptional-h @bobawithchaitea @lechanters @sailorhyunjinz @silencefavarchive @eunaeiekim @lunarskzzz

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jungwonenthusiast · 4 years ago

Text

Friend's Don't Lie Ch. 3 & 4

Pairing: Jungwon x reader

Warnings for this chapter: Jay trying to smoke lmfao, swearing

Word count: 2.6k

Based on: Stranger Things

Jungwon

“No fucking way.” Jay shakes his head. “I swear she did it!” Jungwon voices. “You know him right? Sunoo?”

You nod.

“This is insane. How would she know him?” Jay scoffs.

“Have an open mind.” Jake says.

“How can we trust her?” Jay argues.

“Why not?” Jungwon says.

“No, she’s crazy.” Jay climbs up the stairs and opens the door to leave but it slams in his face. “What the fuck.” he opens it again just for it to shut again.

They turn to look at you.

“No.”

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“I’m telling you, she’s a psycho.” Jay sighs.

“No she’s not, she has super powers.” Jake sits next to her and she smiles.

“So where’s Sunoo?” Jay asks and you look away. “See? She doesn’t know.”

Then, you stand up and walk over to the table where the Dungeons and Dragons game lays. They’re eyes widen. You pull the board out and flip it upside down so that the board is just black.

You point at the board. “He's here.”

“What do you mean?” Jungwon asks.

“He’s here.” you point again.

“No he’s not.” Jay groans. “Sunoo’s been kidnapped.”

“No he hasn’t,” Jungwon sends him a stern look. “Something fucked up has happened. I can feel it.”

Jay scoffs. “What are you? Psychic?”

“Shut up,” Jungwon rolls his eyes. “Things have just been… off ever since that night.” “So what does this mean?” Jake comes up to the table. “She just flipped the board upside down.”

“Upside down.” you pick up the wizard character, Sunoos character, and place it on the board.

“Shit,” Jungwon says. “Is that where he is?”

“This is kind of crazy.” Sunghoon chuckles.

“Kind of?” Jay exclaims.

“Listen, they obviously have some kind of connection. She recognized him in the picture and she knows who he plays.”

“So what’s he doing in there?” Jake furrows his brow.

“Hiding.” you say quietly. Jungwon can tell that you’re scared.

“From what?”

You pull the demogorgon out of the box and slam it onto the board.

Jungwon makes eye contact with Jake.

“What. The fuck.” Niki says.

“What- what does that mean?” Jungwon looks at her.

“Monster.” you say quietly.

“Monster?” Jay bleats. “What are we in Alien now?”

“You don’t understand.” you say. “The world is more than you know.”

That silences Jay pretty quickly.

“So you know where he is.” Jungwon confirms and she nods. “Can you take us there tomorrow after school?”

“After school?” you tilt your head.

“Yeah, at three fifteen.” he says.

“Three fifteen.”

“Mhm, here,” he takes his digital watch off and fastens it onto your wrist. “When it says three one five, come meet us out by the power lines.”

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“Okay, don’t forget, three fifteen.” Jungwon tells you the next morning.

You nod but you seem blue. Your eyes are duller than usual.

“You okay?” he asks and you shrug. He sits in front of your fort.

“Jungwon-ah! Time to go!” Mrs. Yang calls out.

“One second!” he yelps. “What’s up?”

You hesitate. “I don’t like being alone.”

“I know, being alone is boring, but I can’t stay here again, I’ll get in trouble.” he sympathizes.

“Will they hurt you?” you ask, worried.

“My parents?” he cocks his head and you nod. “No no, they won’t hurt me, they'll just be upset.”

You nod and look down.

“I’ll be back soon though, just stay put until my parents go to work, okay?” he reaches to grab your hand and you flinch. “Shit, sorry.”

You shake your head. “It’s okay. I’m just not used to it.”

He smiles at you. “See you soon El, don’t forget, three fifteen.” he says as he walks up the stairs.

Everything is strange. The carpet feels weird on your feet. You’ve only ever walked on cold tiles.

You venture up to his room.

His room is dark and lived in. There are science fair trophies on his dresser and the walls are covered in band posters.

You touch one of them.

“The Cure. Boys Don’t Cry.” you say softly.

He has a bookshelf full of cassettes tapes and novels with the spines peeling off. There’s a couple baskets of vinyls on the floor and you squat to look at them.

You read them all outloud. “New Order, The Police, The Human League, Black Flag, Duran Duran, Devo, Misfits.”

You don't know what they are. You remind yourself to ask when you see him again.

You climb under his covers and snuggle into his pillow.

You notice that he still has a stuffed animal on his bed and you smile.

Jungwon

He finds you standing tensely by the powerlines. Your arms crossed and your shoulders hiked up.

“El!” he jogs up to you. “You okay?”

You smile a small smile and nod.

“You ready to take us there?” he asks.

“Yes.”

You hop into the Camaro and tell him every time he needs to take a turn until they arrive at their destination.

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“Are you serious?” Jay scoffs.

You had brought them to Sunoo’s house.

“What?” Jungwon says to himself. “He’s not here, El.”

“See? She’s a liar.” Jay groans.

“I’m not a liar.” you say.

“This doesn’t make any sense.” Sunghoon sighs.

“You don’t understand.” you grumble.

“Then help us understand!” Jay says, agitated.

You shake your head in annoyance.

You all slump into your chairs when the blaring of sirens catch your attention.

You all twist to check out what’s going on. It’s a dozen police cars driving at the speed of light.

Jungwon puts the car into drive and follows them.

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CHAPTER 4

Jungwon

He can’t believe his eyes. He feels his knees buckle as Sunoo’s limp body is pulled out of the water.

He doesn’t remember anything that happened that night except the way he screamed at you.

“You liar! You fucking liar! I trusted you!”

Words couldn't explain how he felt. He felt cold but there was a fire building up in him. He’d never been that angry in his life.

He doesn’t understand. That body is fake. Sunoo is breathing. You can feel it.

Jungwon

You try to sit next to him on the basement couch but he scoots away.

“Jungwon,” you say but he ignores you. “Won.” that gets his attention. “I am not lying to you.”

“You keep saying that,” he groans. “You expect me to believe you? I saw him with my own two eyes.”

You shake your head. “It’s fake.”

He scoffs.

“I’m not lying.”

“I’ve had enough of this-” he stands up to leave but you grab his hand.

“Jungwon, please listen to me.” you pull him back down to sit.

You reach to the table and grab his walkie talkie. Your eyes shut and the basement light flickers.

Jungwon’s about to get up to leave again when he hears static, and Sunoo’s soft voice.

“Darling you got to let me know,” Sunoo sings, as quiet as ever. “Should I stay or should I go?”

Jungwon’s jaw nearly drops.

“If you say that you are mine, I’ll be here ‘till the end of time-” his singing is cut short.

You look at him, waiting for a response.

“Was that?” he looks at you, dumbfounded.

“Sunoo.” you nod.

“How’d you..?”

“Friends don’t lie.”

He pauses for a moment to process everything that just happened, then his head drops. “I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay.” you say and he shakes his head.

“No it’s not. I shouldn’t have yelled at you last night. I’ve been so rude.” he looks up at you for a second just to look away again.

You pick up his chin and his eyes widen.

“It’s okay. People make mistakes.” you say and he smiles.

You want to hug him, but you’re not sure how to. He looks so small right now. He looks like he needs a hug.

Jungwon

You hold onto his hand for a quick second and his heart leaps into his throat.

“What’s wrong?” you say and he looks up at you.

“What?”

“Your cheeks.” she points. “They’re red. Are you angry?”

He touches his cheek. “No, no, I’m just…” he giggles. “No, I'm not angry.”

“Your ears too.” you point and he grabs at his ears.

“I-it’s nothing.” he stutters and you shrug.

“I wanted to ask you something.” you say and he nods. “What are those things in the boxes on your bedroom floor?”

He ponders for a moment. “Oh, my vinyls?”

You shrug. “What's a vinyl?”

Has she never listened to music? He wonders.

“They’re like these discs that you put onto a player and they play music.” he explains.

You furrow your brow but nod.

“Maybe we can play them sometime when my parents aren’t around.” he smiles.

“And the papers on the wall, The Cure, Boys Don’t Cry.”

He sighs and grins. “The Cure, they’re the greatest band ever. You have to listen to them, they’ll change your life.” He begins to drum on the air and sing a tune. “I would say I’m sorry if I thought that it would change your mind, but I know that this time I have said too much been too unkind.”

“Pretty.” you say and he looks down, blushing again.

A moment passes before he speaks up again. “I have an idea.”

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“How are we gonna sneak her in?” Jake asks. “She doesn’t have any normal clothes.”

“She can borrow some from Jooyoung noona.” Jungwon says.

“She’ll fucking kill you if she finds out.” Jay says.

“I know, so none of you say a peep.” Jungwon orders.

“It’s kind of funny watching her beat you up to be honest.” Niki chuckles and Jungwon glares at him.

“Remember the time she gave him a swirly.” Sunghoon chimes and the whole group breaks out into laughter.

“Yeah I remember, I almost died.” Jungwon sneers.

“Honestly I wouldn't mind if she gave me a swirly if her tits were pressed up on my back like that.” Jay jokes and Jungwon pounces on him. “I’m kidding, I’m kidding!”

“Don’t fucking talk about her like that man.” Jungwon huffs and rakes a hand through his hair.

“Is it so wrong to say your sister is hot?” Niki holds back a laugh.

“You wanna be next?” Jungwon raises an eyebrow and Niki playfully gallops away.

“You guys are weird.” you say quietly and Sunghoon nods in agreement.

“You’re all getting off track, how are we gonna sneak her into our classes?” Jake finds comfort in your fort.

“Do you think we can say she’s a new student?” Niki suggests.

“No, no one can know about her.” Jungwon says.

“Why not?” Jay asks and lights a cigarette.

“Dude, what’d I tell you about fucking smoking?” Jungwon groans.

“Just light an incense.” Jay says and Jungwon grabs the cig.

“My mom’s not an idiot.”

“Maybe we can just get her in during lunch.” Niki suggests.

“How is she gonna get on campus?” Jake asks.

“She can hop the fence and meet us by the gym, no ones there during lunch.” Sunghoon says.

Jungwon turns to look at you. “Do you think you can jump a fence?”

You stare back at him. “I’ve never tried.”

“We can meet her at the fence and then help her over.” Jay says.

“Wait, how’s she even gonna get to the school, it’s not like she can drive.” Niki says.

“Fuck you’re right.” Jungwon sighs. “Do you think you can bike there?”

You shrug.

“Of course she can’t, she can barely talk properly.” Jay grumbles.

“Stop being a fucking dick head.” Jungwon snaps.

“Okay bitchy Betty.” Jay jokes.

“Maybe I can just give you biking lessons tonight?” Jungwon turns to you. “What do you think?”

“Okay.” you say and he smiles.

“Here, hop on,” he holds the bike steady for you. It’s late at night and it's so cold that clouds puff out of your mouths every time you talk.

You hesitate. “What if I fall?”

“You won’t, I’m holding on tight.” he assures you.

You grab the handles and try your best to get on. You wobble and let out a small squeak.

“This is scary.” you say to him and he chuckles.

“It’s scary at first, but you’ll get it soon.” he says.

He gives you a moment to regain your balance. The moon is shining bright in his backyard and it’s illuminating his face.

“Ready to peddle?” he says and you shake your head. “Come on, it’s easier than you think.”

“Fine.” you mumble.

He holds on the back of the seat and one handle as you slowly push forward.

“I’m gonna fall!” you yelp.

“No you’re not, look how good you’re doing.” he says as you pick up speed.

And soon, he’s jogging to keep up to you. You don’t even notice that he took his hands off the bike until he points it out.

“Let’s leave the backyard,” he says and points to the gate. “Go through there.”

You follow suit.

Riding the bike is invigorating. The wind is cold and crisp against your skin. You’ve never felt anything like this before.

Eventually you look back; you see Jungwon jogging after you, his smile as bright as ever. You smile back so big that it almost hurts your face.

You let your leg down to stop yourself. He catches up to you.

“That was awesome.” he says, a little out of breath.

You giggle and his eyes widen.

“What?” you ask.

“I’ve never heard you laugh before.” he says and you look away sheepishly.

You’re all alone on this dark road and the only source of light is the moon. The scene would be eerie if Jungwon wasn't there with you.

“Well, now you know how to ride a bike,” he says. “Do you think you can make it all the way to school?”

“I think so,” you nod and he nods back.

A moment of silence passes before he speaks again.

“So how’s the fort? Is it too small?”

“Only a little, I like it though.” you reply.

“I wish I could build you your own room or something,” he says. “You could sleep on the basement couch but that’d be pretty risky.”

“What about your room?” you ask cluelessly.

“My room?” his eyes widen. His eyes are already so big and when he widens them they basically take up half of his face.

“Why can’t I sleep in your room?” you say blatantly.

“Uhm, I guess you could. That’s kind of risky don’t you think?” he says and you shrug.

You rub your arms from the cold.

“Let’s go inside,” he nods to his house. “It’s freezing.”

Jungwon

You both sneak back into the basement and he waits for you to wash up in the bathroom. He sticks his hand through the door and gives you a fresh set of clothes. Today it’s plaid pajama pants and a sweatshirt.

“Do you ever get bored here?” he asks as you change.

“Not really,” you say.

“What do you do when I’m gone?”

“I go to your room and look around.” you say and he goes beet red.

“What do you look at?” he asks, suddenly embarrassed. It's not like he had anything to hide, but the thought of you being in there makes him feel like he should’ve cleaned up or something.

“Everything,” you pull the sweatshirt over your head and exit the bathroom. “Is that bad? I’ll stop if you want.”

“No, it's fine,” he says. “I wish we could hang out more.”

You nod and scoot into your fort.

“Winter break is soon, I’ll be able to see you more then.”

“Winter break?”

“It’s this three week vacation all kids get during the winter.” he explains and you nod.

“Well, goodnight El.” he says while walking to the stairs.

"Wait," you run up to him and he whips around to look at you. You gently wrap your arms around his neck. "Thank you for tonight. It was very fun."

He stands there for a moment, too shocked to move. But he quickly snaps back to reality and rests his arms around your waist.

"Yeah, uhm, no problem." he says, trying his hardest not to sound shaky.

Your cheek feels smooth against his neck. There's this foreign electricity racing through his veins and it just makes him want to hold you tighter against him.

You pull away (to his disappointment) and smile before walking back to your fort.

He watches you get comfortable before heading up the stairs. He knows he won't be getting any sleep tonight. ┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈

taglist: @shawkneecaps @enhypenengenebea

#enhypen fluff #enhypen imagines #Jungwon fluff #enhypen angst #Jungwon angst #kpop fluff #kpop angst

109 notes · View notes

scriptaed · 4 years ago

Text

his side, her side finale | 00:00

genre: angst/fluff/implied smut;

pairing: reader x jungkook;

length: 4.6k;

synopsis: a collective snapshots in time shared between two, whose fates were undeniably intertwined and futures would never come to be.

No matter how infinite the pages could write itself, in the way that he catches her stealing glances from across the room or the scalding spark imprinted on her hand by the touch of his own, there really are only three versions to every story: his side, her side, and the truth’s side; and in your unsolicited albeit self-justified defense, the truth is, what was once seemingly perpetual is now merely trivial. The imagery that once had you kicking and screaming into your sheets at night, the fleeting moments that were shared by both but valued by one, and the inevitably incessant burden of jealousy brought upon by a fervent want that could never be had could only have been falsified by a break—spatially, temporally, and heartfully. The mind can only tug so much at one’s strings; and yet, to be bent, only time could prove possible.

...and that time is exactly what is needed by all.

her side;

“Are you joining us for dinner tonight, Y/N?”

“Huh? What?” your ears perk at the sound of your friend’s call.

“Oh, there she goes again,” your other friend interjects with the roll of her eyes. You almost collapse when she swings a hand over your shoulder. “Are you sure you don’t want to get your ears checked?”

“No, but I might have to get my eyes checked,” you joke, despite pulling in all the performance points you could win with a disdainful scan up and down her less than professional attire. Thankfully, your act is gleefully extended by her cheesy gawk of an expression. Putting up a merciful pair of hands in the air, you laugh, “hey, in all seriousness, it’s not my fault you guys keep drooling over boys.”

“Uhuh, so you’re trying to tell us that boy talk is what’s putting you to sleep?” your friend’s accomplice crosses her arms, raising an accusatory pair of brows.

“Yeah,” you say much too seriously so you throw in an airy laugh, “I mean, there’s more to life than boys, y’know?”

“Right, like…?”

“Like…” your voice trails off because, for some reason, your mind goes blank as you attempt to recall your lifestyle from your previous hometown. “Like… hanging out with friends! With you guys!”

“Gah! You’re only able to say that because you have dozens of boys chasing you around the office. Us, on the other hand, time just… it just keeps ticking…” the two of them sigh in synchronization and you feel the heat of her arms retract as she shakes the hand of her one and only sympathizer.

“Psh,” you can’t help but grin throughout the frown elicited by their vivacious performance, “you guys have plenty of time. Just enjoy life for now and I’m sure you’ll find someone along the way.”

“Wait, but seriously,” her voice suddenly rises from her previously sullen state, as does her head on her friend’s shoulder. She looks you dead in the eye, and, honestly, you almost feel as though your privacy had just been invaded. “You really haven’t ever liked anyone before?”

“Uh…” you scatter through the disarrayed files that were your buried memories, eyes squinting at the sun that peeks through the clearing sky after a day full of rainfall. “Elementary and middle school don’t really count… too busy studying in high school… college was full of fuck boys I couldn’t care less for… and at work…”

The more that you hear yourself ramble, the more the reality of your lonesome future settles into the already burdened shoulders of yours.

“At work? You mean here? Or do you mean your last job?”

“Well,” you frown, trying to recall every male colleague that had piqued even the tiniest of interest in you; and as the two of your friends lean in, you start to lean back, despite the charging light bulb that flickers from the unlocked recollection of two years ago. “There was a guy who liked me and told everyone at work that he liked me, which I thought was really weird… nice guy, kind of a nerd, but I didn’t like him that way. Who else? Uh, hm—”

—bzzz.

The vibration against your back pocket pulls the plug from your train of thought.

“Aw man,” you hear your friends curse in the background, “just when we were finally getting her to spill something.”

The name on your screen has your heart skipping with delight.

Yezi [5:20 PM] Hey, I know you’re gonna forget, so you before you do, we’re having dinner together tonight :)

“It’s okay,” your friend pats the back of the other, “there’ll be some cute enough boys for her at tonight’s barbeque, I’m sure.”

“Ah shit,” you curse under your breath, hastily typing a response before peering up at your friends like a deer caught in the headlights, “actually, guys, turns out I already made plans with my friend from home. I’m sooo sorry.”

“Oh, really?” the two of them gasp. “Isn’t that a two hour train ride from here?”

“Yeah, so I really got to go now,” your phone tumbles into your bag as you begin to widen your strides like a woman on a mission.

They shake their heads in unison, “no, no, it’s okay!”

“I’m seriously so sorry guys,” you say as you pant, the distance between you and your friends widening by the second and forcing you to whirl around as you pace backwards. “I’ll make it up to you next time and do whatever you guys want, okay?”

“Really? Anything?”

“Yeah,” your hands draw a wide, inclusive circle into the air, “anything.”

“Even a blind date?”

“You know what? Why the hell not?” you chime, whirling back around with your back on them and a smile hidden away. Skipping off into the opposite direction toward the train station, you exclaim nonchalantly, “new year, new me!”

Lately, either through a stroke of luck or a reset of a life in a new town, there’s been something spectacularly whimsical about tonight’s air; and when a zephyr passes by, lifting you to the tip of your toes to an invincible high and relaying the confuzzled whispers of your friends—

“—wait, it’s not a new year, it’s already April—”

—you finally acquire a two year long-sought sensation: golden.

“I can’t believe you almost forgot about our plans!”

“Hey, I had a reminder set on my phone just ten minutes after your reminder” you quip with pursed lips, “and I still made it on time, didn’t I?”

“Yeah,” Yezi prims with a stern look plastered across her face, gesturing, “with your hair and clothes damp in rain and your face smiling like a wagging, clueless beagle.”

“Well… beagles are cute, so I’ll take that as a compliment?”

She frowns, ignoring your remark, “did you not check the weather forecast?”

“I did.”

“So why didn’t you bring an umbrella?”

“I forgot.”

“Ugh, you forget everything these days,” she plants a palm to her forehead before returning to her plate, “well, I’m glad that at least you’re so carefree nowadays. You’ve finally settled into your new workplace, huh? You look so happy now.”

“You talk—” it’s difficult to speak with food being stuffed into your mouth “—as if I lost a loved one.”

“Well,” she grits her teeth, as if biting her tongue, and proceeds to slice the slab of steak, “I wouldn’t say that’s too farfetched.”

Frowning, your words come out muffled through puffed cheeks, “whaddya mean by dat?”

“You can’t tell me you forgot about what happened last time you were in town.”

“Uh…?” you furrow your brows, tracing into a forgotten yet familiar field you had long neglected for your own wellbeing. Last time you were in town, last time you were working here, last time you went out on a company party, last time you walked through this town’s treacherously embracing frosty breeze, last time you were dining here, last time you got wasted, not just here but anywhere, last time you shed tears… all the last times of this town shared only one similarity, a similarity you had subconsciously left behind at some point in your transition between the past and the now.

“Do I really have to say it myself?” she leans in, concerned. “I don’t want you bawling your eyes out again…”

Did she possibly mean… him?

“Jeon Jungkook,” she blurts, “there! I said it!”

Her utensils clatter onto her plate as she tosses her hands in the air in mercy, almost as if bracing herself for the storm after the calm, observing you intently but warily; that supposed storm, however and ever so fortunately, never arrives.

“Oh,” you utter, words slipping from your lips like sand through a palm, “I’m not crying.”

“You’re not crying,” she confirms, astonished.

“It doesn’t… hurt anymore?” you almost ask yourself.

“It doesn’t?”

“It doesn’t,” you utter, shaking your head. Just as she’s caught off guard, you lurch across the table to pinch her cheeks, “but that doesn’t mean I appreciate you bringing him up during a perfectly lovely night!”

“Sho—” she furrows her brows in combination to her squished cheeks “—he doesh make you shad shtill?”

“Well, he doesn’t make me elated,” you finally release her from your wrath, returning to stare downward at your food, “but I guess it makes me reflect fondly on the past. It’s kind of like a scar. I know how much it once hurt but I can’t feel it to the same magnitude anymore. Actually, instead, the happy, jittery moments are more vivid to me than the tears that were shed. Is that… odd?”

“Like… like what? Examples?”

Like when his arm bumped into yours for the first time on the walk after work, like when he discretely went out of his way to ensure your safety across the bridge home, like when he enamored over the ‘ripped abs’ of a fully nude female character design of an upcoming project whilst you stood awkwardly with a set of breasts in full display for the two of you, like when the two of you escaped to become the aloof, static noise of an unbefitting party, or like when he held you in his hands and kissed you at the stroke of midnight, the butterflies live on—even today—to shield you from the dampened blows struck by dull weapons of jealousy, insecurity, and remorse.

With time, the silver lining finally showed itself like a sun shining through after a stormy night. You’ve finally accepted the truths behind every weapon. She was pretty. They were pretty. She never wronged you. They never wronged you. They deserved his love. His heart belonged to whomever he desired.

He never badmouthed his peers and, as blunt of a man as he was, he never pointed out your flaws, even if that meant you would later return home only to find mascara flakes on your cheeks. He treated women like a gentleman, as contradictory as it may seem from his appetite demeanor; and while you fell for him for that, you also cursed him for that very reason. He didn’t owe you anything… up to a certain point until the lines were too blurred to decipher between the truth, the deserved, and the faulty. Be it Ji-eun or Jennie, you’ve come to terms with his relationships.

As much as your relations with him seemed to run on a fragile thread of fate, your time had run out and the window of opportunity had been shut—but hey, at least you had fun.

“Are you… smiling?”

“Hm?” you look up to find her staring at you in concern. Blinking blankly, you quickly clear your throat and retract the smile you had subconsciously adorned. “I am?”

“I… don’t know if I should be worried or not,” Yezi downs another glass of iced water and you’re about to follow suit until she almost chokes on her water, “hey—isn’t that Jennie over there?”

“Jennie?”

You almost curse at Yezi for teasing you over bygones that should’ve been left as just that, but she really wasn’t lying. You can’t believe your eyes when you whirl your head around to look through the darkened tint of the restaurant’s window panes. You might have never really spoken to Jennie, but that figure is undeniably Jennie.

“What is she doing?” you squint, struggling to grasp a clear vision of her silhouette under the dim, orange street light beside her. You could only catch a hint of her side profile but those cheeks and unique sense of fashion definitely belonged to her; on the other hand, the constant stumbling and the hand to her head, almost as if she’s about to collapse at any second, did not resemble her. “Oh, oh, hold on, wait, whoa—we should help her!”

You scramble to your feet and bolt out the door whilst Yezi takes care of your abrupt leave with the restaurant staff. A freezing blast of wind welcomes you as soon as you step into the sidewalk but you waste no time. Abandoning the cold behind you along with the past, your mind is set on aiding the collapsed woman on the streets.

“Hey! Jennie, hey!” you call out to her as you sprint to her side, dropping to the floor without caring to notice the shards of glass that consequently cut your knees as you carefully roll her limp body onto its back and away from the sharp hazards. The pain has you wincing and seething under your breath, but the conditions of the person lying before you has you even more concerned. Her skin is even paler than usual. Her chest rises and falls rapidly in an evident struggle. Your taps against her shoulder gradually become frantic shakes until all you can hear is your voice and the whispering commotion of bystanders behind you. “Jennie! Can you hear me?!”

“Y/N!” you turn around to find Yezi peering down at you from above. “What happened?”

“I don’t know but something’s definitely not right,” you say as calmly as you could, “call 911. I’ll call her family.”

“Got it,” Yezi nods, immediately dialing the numbers on her phone but pausing in the midst of the ring to face you, “wait, do you know anyone from her family?”

Gritting your teeth, you frown as you dig into your memories, “...no, I know she might have had a boyfriend back then, so he might know, but I don’t know if they’re still together and I don’t even know his number…”

“Do you know anyone who might know her boyfriend then?”

“Well…”

The ending trails of your voice are whisked away into the returning wind of that fateful night. Hands gripping at your phone and eyes staring at the stranger yet familiarity of a name that glares off the screen, it’s an inevitable force that has you stupefied yet marveled at the revival of a tugging string that ties you to him through the strangest, most meandering paths.

his side;

It was almost like a fever dream. Her name plastered across his screen and his eyes squinting through the glaring light that illuminates his room. It had been two years since he had any contact nor mention of her; and now, out of the blue, in the midst of a nap after gym session, she calls him for help. He couldn’t believe his ears when he first heard her voice, believing it all to be another one of those numerous dreams that had him regretting his past or questioning his choices. He shot straight up in bed, phone grasped and glued to his ears that blocked out the computer fan that ran in the background.

Even now, after throwing on a sweater and jacket and bolting out the door in a state of rescue, he can’t quite believe his eyes; because there she sits on the hospital bench, in the signature slumped boyish manner and the confused blank stare off into the distance that still has him quirking a smile in remembrance every once in a while. In her favorite white blouse and her only slack of black dress pants, it’s almost as if nothing had changed, almost as if she had never left.

It’s almost like time had bent to his incessantly subconscious pleas and reversed its works; but the almost will always be an almost, for as long as those hallmark vivacious eyes and those rekindled mien of ambition lives. As far as Jungkook knew, she left with a dreary heart and returned with a fiery purpose.

Despite all that, he can’t help but notice the way she fidgets in her seat, nearly sinking and avoiding all contact the second his presence had been noticed. Instead of the sheepish flickering stolen glances of the past, he finds himself at odds with the way she fights to return the locked gaze of his eyes. She fought so hard that she might have forgotten how to speak, rendering a soft chuckle from his lips because the girl he endlessly dreamt of might still live after all; and for the first time in a long while, Jungkook has to put forth the effort to fill in the silence.

“Why did you call me?” he asks plainly as he stands before her.

“Well, I didn’t know any of her friends except you…” he watches as she fidgets with her hands, gaze falling to the floor before returning to him, “are you going to visit her? I think the doctor should be okay with it if you’re her close friend.”

“No, Kai will be here soon,” he explains, finally bending down and placing the bottle of rubbing alcohol beside her on the bench. “I have other shit to attend to.”

“Oh, right,” she mumbles. The evident surge in annoyance amuses him that he just can’t quite wipe the smirk off his face. Turning her head, she continues, “you must’ve had plans with Ji-eun tonight. Sorry for the trouble.”

This is it. This is the moment that replayed on repeat like a broken tape in his dreams. This is his chance to mend the wounds he had inflicted upon the confessing girl who cried her eyes out on the cab home that one, indelible night.

An uncomfortable silence fills the air with the exception of the unscrewing of a plastic bottle and the gentle return of the bottle against the metallic bench, which is then followed by another staggering silence.

“We’re not that close and I’m not dating Ji-eun now.”

The girl turns with the quirk of a brow, especially when she spots him kneeling before her with a soaked cotton ball. “W-Wait what? Wait, shit, ow.”

“I don’t talk to Jennie as much as you think,” he states as a-matter-of-factly and continues to gently pat the cotton against the wounds on her knees. After hesitantly placing a band aid over the wound—something he had never done for anyone else nor for himself who just “sucked it up”—he finally lifts his gaze to interlock with hers, observing intently as if to soak the reality of it all in now before the inevitable tape begins to replay for the near future. “I broke up with Ji-eun before you left.”

“And...” she utters slowly, “why are you telling me this?”

Just like in the pool on that one night, her challenging eyes never budge and neither do his.

“I thought the past you would’ve liked to know,” he states. Head tilting to the side as if to get a better look, he remarks, “shit, you don’t look away anymore, huh?”

“Why would I?” she quips, snorting and finally breaking contact to stare off to the side. “It didn’t matter if I knew or not. It’s not like we were a thing.”

“Really?” Jungkook hums, gathering the scraps of cotton and paper before standing to his feet with a genuine soft sigh. It’s hard to brush off the two year old sinking sensation in his chest for something so nonchalant, but he manages to do it like he always does with that stoic look on his unreadable face. “Cause I thought we were.”

“What?” she gapes and he only gazes firmly back at her. “Why? It’s not like I… liked you.”

“Really?” Jungkook’s eyes flicker up at the ceiling for a brief second, lips pursing as he concludes the cards on the table: the unapologetic albeit risky truth or the defensive albeit purposeless self-deception. Unbeknownst to her, Jungkook had all the cards in his hands.

“Yeah,” she mumbles, avoiding his gaze and shrugging, “and it’s not like you liked me.”

Peering down at her from above, the boy’s crooked grin gradually settles into the silence along with the usual unreadable mien that he wears on the daily. “How would you know?”

Finally turning to return his gaze, she raises a brow at him before uncrossing her arms and standing to her feet. One step, two steps until she stands before him as close as she could recall on that night, she utters the one mutual truth of the night.

“Because you never told me.”

The brief silence filled with tension seems to last an eternity, yet neither of the two could take their eyes off the other. A rush of thrill intermixed with panic floods his blood. His fight or flight system screams at him to obey the very laws he had followed all these years but his mind warns him that change is a necessity for this euphoric heat that radiates from this very moment. He’s never quite felt like this before: throat knotting and heart leaping nearly out of his chest.

“Let’s—”

“—I need to catch the last train home,” she blurts, quickly taking a step back to distance themselves.

Like a magnetic force that she is to him, her retraction almost pulls the breath from his lungs along with it.

“What?” he frowns, trying to steady his breath. “It’s 10 right now. My last ride is at midnight.”

“Yeah, well mine is at 11 and I still have to walk there,” she shrugs indifferently to the entire ordeal—something that Jungkook takes to the heart.

“What?” he mutters, “the station is right next to this hospital.”

“What can I say? I’m a slow walker,” she prims, bowing her head and waving her hand to bid farewell. “Thanks for the band aid and all the help today. It was nice catching up. See y—I mean, take care.”

He stands there in silence, too stunned by the constant turn of events. Distracted by the crestfallen weight in his chest elicited by his shattered hopes, Jungkook raises a hand in response to her pressed, upcurved lips. He can only mumble a seemingly indifferent, “...see ya.”

There she goes—as gracefully as she had reentered his life and as fleeting as she had left for a second time. All this time he knew his side of the story: growingly regretful, discovering a yearning he never knew was within his capabilities, and helplessly pondering over a past he could not change and wondering if she did the same. At some point in time, those feelings became a fragment in time and that person he wished she knew became a version of his present self. He moved on, he forgot the magnitude of the pain, but he never quite came to terms with what it all could have been.

And all at once, the very moment he stands before her, the past him whomst he had perceived to be temporary comes flooding back into reality—flesh, fervent, and feelings of an immensity he could never have been prepared for—and if he were to be honest, he thought it would have been the same for her.

He never really knew her side, after all; but at the very least, he desires to hear it from her, herself. She never missed him, she never thought of him from time to time, she never woke up from a dream of him so vivid that it felt so real that she was left with a melancholic loneliness in the air—those words would close the gap in his chest.

If there’s one thing Jungkook had absolute control over at this very moment, it’s the last chapter of their shared novel in time and this is not the conclusion he imagined.

Before he knew it, Jungkook finds himself sprinting down the train station. Across the coldly lit hallways, up and down the stairs instead of the ‘shitty, slow escalators,’ and cutting through the nearing midnight breeze of the platforms until the breeze finally brought him to the last unvisited area, his daunting final destination.

Checking his watch, Jungkook’s chest heaves as he holds his hands to his knees in an attempt to catch his breath. It’s well past 11 now, nearing midnight, and he’s standing at the platform in the opposite direction of her new hometown. To the mere bystander, this platform really didn’t make any sense; but to Jungkook and his inkling, perhaps by a disheveled and desperate state, every twist and turn of the wind brought him right where he believes he belongs.

Puffs of his breath mark the airy night as he watches his last ride pass by the rails before him. Every cart, every seat, he scans them all. No one. His heart sinks with each check, each flicker of the eyes, and he begins to curse himself for his state of delusion until the last cart of the train flashes by to reveal his finale.

And as if by some sort of invisible string, life had somehow led him to her once again.

Because there she sits, across the wide yet surely crossable gap of the railway, legs crossed and hands folded in her lap, as if she had been waiting for him all this time.

Jungkook stands there, stupefied by the works of fate, “why are you—”

“—hey, Jungkook!” she calls out to him, voice echoing across the vast, empty station. “What were you going to tell me back at the hospital?”

Taken aback by her question, Jungkook chuckles to himself in utter amusement; and as if by the magic sifting through the night, the nearby tower bells ring across the remaining distance between the two at the precise stroke of midnight.

“Let’s date!”

The boy’s zestful holler resembles more like that of a cheerful proclamation, for the way he holds his hands to his lips before throwing them freely into the air garners a giggle from his spectator. His voice projection accompanies the bells, perhaps too softly and thereby physically undetected, but she could hear him nonetheless.

“I liked you and I still like you so damn much, you dumbass!”

After witnessing the boy’s courageous display, the words she’s been waiting for but never knew she needed until their paths crossed once again for a limitless nth time slips from her like second nature, almost as if she’s practiced it in her dreams all this time. Her loud proclamation, however, slips beneath the bells like an accompaniment to a ceremonious work of fate.

The two of them stand on opposite sides of the platform, their confessions are far and wide and perhaps inaudible, but the dorky smiles adorning their lips as they gaze across at their inevitable final chapters serve to prove an undeniable fact.

Whether by sheer will or by this invisible string, whether by his side or her side, the truth is: their eternities will be forever tied, forever golden.

352 notes · View notes

di-kut · 5 years ago

Text

Fairy Dust

Pairing: Fem Reader x Ezra (Prospect)

Word Count: 16k i kNOW

Rating: MA (Extremely explicit sex scenes I don’t know what else to tell ya)

Summary: While collecting rare gems on an unpopular prospecting planet you are both infected with a sex pollen. (Porn with a mild attempt at plot?)

Warnings: Ok saddle up boys here we go Dirty talk, oral sex (m/f receiving), sex pollen, elements of dub con implied (although they do not do the do while under the influence!), non-established dom/sub dynamic, masturbation, orgasm denial, pharmaceutical drug use, saliva/cum play, nipple play, breath play, overstimulation (sorta), multiple orgasms, vaginal fingering, clit slapping, unprotected sex, pleading, general kind of explicit sexual things

A/N: This is 29 A4 pages of absolute porn. I really can’t make a single excuse for this. As always this started as something much smaller and got way WAY out of hand. There is lots of yearning and pining in this for a sex pollen fic, and also lots of sex so there’s that. Um pls be kind to me?

The ground is soggy from the downpour. Your boots sink into the mud and stick. It’s hard going to climb out of the valley, even now, long after the rain has ended. You hike your case higher against you, have to pause and flex your hold around it. Heavy with a cargo which has made the whole descent worth every sodden footstep and fighting against the rain. A rare aquatic gem encased in a bloom which only surfaced during complete submersion. A field of water flowers, nothing but green swaying grass under the sun, suddenly appearing after the rain flooded the valley. The whole planet covered in flora which changed with the weather, almost terraformed with the climate.

The hill is steep, green except for the worn path of mud you had tracked into the grass on the way down it. The peak is near now, grass swaying lazily against a brilliant blue sky. The pod is over the rise, down in the next valley. You dig your feet into the sliding earth, feel it try to pull you back down the hill and into the gorge below, still filled with crystalline pools of clear water. No longer glistening with the purple heads of the gems, those are stowed in your cases. Enough to set you up for months. A year maybe. Rare enough that they will fetch a high price, high enough to have a holiday even. You smile at the thought, forget to check your steps and you shift your weight onto a patch of sliding mud. You stagger, yell, nearly drop. The earth beneath you keeps shifting down, pulls you with it. A hand catches your elbow, stops you from your inevitable fall back down the hill.

“Are you alright, Starlight?”

Ezra’s voice sounds distant through the earpiece. Crackles with static. Your heart is pounding, you can feel it sitting at the back of your throat. You twist your helmet around far enough to look at him and nod. He helps you right yourself, lets you hold onto his arm until you get your balance again.

You continue your climb. The hill wants to slide out from beneath you. Every footstep less steady than the last as you reach the top, the landscape more battered by the rain so close to the peak of the hill. But you don’t slip again, and Ezra is steady on his feet behind you. When you crest the top of the peak the sun emerges from the clouds still curled around the horizon, a halo of threatening grey, the cracking of thunder just audible, carried over the endless lulls of valleys and peaks. A surface of craters – each one filled with a forest, or a lake, or a jungle, on and on, disappearing into the distance. The storm seems far away, but the planet is not just unpopular for prospecting because the gems are hard to find. The weather systems fluctuate quickly, and change can happen in minutes. You eye the clouds with distrust, even as the valleys all around you are bathed in golden afternoon light.

Your breathing bounces around between your headsets, the echo of your own breathing reverberating back to you through the Ezra’s mouthpiece. He stops beside you, balances his case between his feet and sighs. Puts his hands on his hips and stares out with you. A beautiful planet, really, if you can forget the threat of the weather.

“One certainly does crave for the smell of dampened soil.”

“Ezra…” You warn.

“The atmosphere is perfectly breathable, I checked multiple times.”

“Don’t – ”

But he is lifting his arm and releasing the helmet. Movements sure and easy with his only remaining hand. He had been clumsy at it still, when you had first met him, just months after he had lost his right arm. But he no longer avoids your offers for help – doesn’t need them. He holds his helmet against his cocked hip and makes a show of sucking in a long breath. Turn his head to peer at you from the corner of his eye.

You sigh. “It might not be safe.”

“You shall have to take your helmet off, Starlight, without the assistance of our earpieces I cannot hear you.”

“I know you can hear me,” you mutter.

He chuckles at you and the sound curls the familiar sensation of tingling deep in the pit of your stomach. Ezra lets his eyes slip closed, a light breeze ruffling his hair, pushing it up and away from his face. Without the helmet you can see the shape of his profile, strong against the distant clouds. Skin glowing golden in the sunlight, blond streak almost white. You study the lines of his brow, the hook of his nose. Give yourself this moment while he is distracted to commit this memory of him to the same place you keep all precious memories of Ezra. Secret and deep. Almost let yourself think for a moment what it would be like if you took your helmet off too, if you gave in to him. But his eyes are fluttering open and you turn away.

You start the trek back down the other side of the slope. The pod is within sight now, nestled in against the tree line, facing out over a sodden field. Ezra is laughing at you, at your stubbornness. He calls something teasing you ignore, do not let the flood of colour rush to your cheeks. Concentrate on the squelching of your boots through the mud, and the sounds of his joining you as well, never far behind.

His voice marks a constant melody behind you, a soothing sound after almost two years. It’s deep and clear without the static of the helmet to interfere, rings out around you as he chatters. Content mostly just for you to listen, as he always is. The way down is easier than the way up had been, not so steep as the other side of the hill. Your case is heavy enough that you have to lean against its weight at steeper parts. The gloves of your suit are covered in mud from the extraction, so are the knees and fronts of your legs. You are glad a second trip won’t be required to make the journey worthwhile. Glad you will be able to wait out the departure safe from the rain and the storms from the inside of the pod. You glimpse at Ezra, can’t help the fond smile you don’t let him see. Think he was made for this, really, to be always exploring under the shine of the sun.

“We shouldn’t stay out here too long, Ezra.”

He has stopped at the base of one of the trees. Almost fifty metres from the pod. It’s not a tall tree, only Ezra’s height twice again, but its trunk is thick, broad enough that if you stood on either side of it your hands would not touch his. The bark is a smooth grey, covered over with glistening moss, still wet from the downpour. He’s close to it, staring up at something in the canopy above. His helmet pressed between his arm and his hip, the case hanging from his hand below. Small droplets of water occasionally fall from shuddering leaves, catch the light as the drop, the air filled with gems all around him.

“The flora of this planet truly renders one speechless.” He ignores your warning. “A blossoming kaleidoscopic gallery which changes with the weather.”

He places his case on the ground, then his helmet. Tilts his head at you to come closer. You step towards him, close the distance between you with sticky steps. He points up at something, whatever had caught his attention. You stop next to him and turn to see it. The canopy is not far above your heads, a dark leafy green shade from the blue of the sky. Drooping under the weight of the rainfall. Nestled in the green there are buds, yellow and small. They are what has captured Ezra, flowers unopened. Invisible when you had passed through hours before on your way from the pod, but now under the bloom of the sun they are opening. You stand together, shoulder to shoulder under the leaves, watching as dozens, hundreds of them appear above you. More of the local plants which change with the weather, just like your gems. Hidden away, something secret and magical. You can’t deny him this, this little piece of wonder in such a cruel world. Couldn’t deny him anything, not really. You will never tell him that, because the world is cruel, and has been cruel to you both. And you trust him. Know you will never find another partner like him. So it stays within you, locked away, with the little pieces of happiness you find with him. His smile, face turned towards the sun.

He’s watching you, when you turn. His skin golden in the sunlight. Magical himself. And then the blossoms open above you, not flowers after all. Petal-less buds which release a floating snow of yellow pollen which drifts through the air. Settles against his shoulders and into his hair. His smile is soft, changes when you catch his eye. He lifts his hand and knocks his fist gently against your helmet.

“Rather like fairy dust,” he says quietly. Pinches some of it from where it’s settled on your suit and holds it up between you. Blows it away. The pollen in the air between you comes to life, from a drifting snow to a dance, twisting and writhing through the air on his breath. “Do you think it would heal our wounds, Starlight? Bless the paint which brushes our lives with luck as well?” His eyes glimmer, playfully conspiratorial. Drawing you in towards him, in the way Ezra has of making you feel a part of something. A confidant. “Shall we bottle some, do you think?”

“We’d need a lot.”

He laughs. “That we would.” He closes his eyes and inhales. Exhales. Makes the yellow clouds of pollen chase each other through the air. “The aroma is divine. You ought to smell it.”

You sigh. “Just because the atmosphere is breathable…”

“The helmets were merely to protect our persons from the deluge and keep us from discomfort.” He hikes his own helmet up on his hip as if to demonstrate. “I have not come to harm from the removal of my own.”

“Yet.”

You fidget for a moment, think about saying no. But you can’t, not when he is smiling at you like that, like maybe if you remove the helmet you can make him happy. Like you are someone important. He doesn’t hide his emotions like you, he wears them open and honest on his face and in his eyes. A trait so at odds with his profession. You think he might want you, sometimes, when he looks at you like this. But know him well enough to know he is a wanderer, and that craving your body, after weeks alone in space, is very different to wanting you forever. The way you might know you want him, if you would ever let yourself think about it.

So you place your case carefully between your feet as well and lift your hands to your helmet. It releases with a soft hiss of the pressure and a click and you pull it away. The air is cool and sharp. The soil smells of rain. Ezra is right. The smell of the pollen is incredible. Sweet and sharp and bright. Unlike anything you’ve ever smelt before. Intoxicating, almost. Even more after the staleness of the air in your helmet and in your pod. You can smell him as well, a more familiar smell through the pollen. His eyes are catching the sunlight, the brown shifting between shade and light, sometimes golden sometimes orange and sometimes almost black. More beautiful than the trees and the dancing yellow pollen and the gems in your cases.

“Wonders of the universe, hey?” Ezra murmurs. He’s studying your eyes as intensely as you are studying his.

You throat closes a little. He leans towards you and you shrug away from him. Turn your head to hide your blush. “We should get back to the pod.”

You pick up your helmet in one hand and your case in the other. Ezra is quiet the rest of the walk. Your hair becomes coated with a fine yellow dust, your eyelashes, the tip of your nose. It lands on your shoulders and sticks to the mud on your suit. You feel the gnawing of guilt in your stomach, know you were too quick to turn. Too sharp with him. You turn back several times, get so far as opening your mouth to apologise. But he is staring at the ground beneath his feet, brows furrowed. As he has been other times when you have broken away too soon, when there has been a moment building between you. Only for you to shut it down. Close yourself off.

The pod is cool inside. You brush off the worst of the pollen outside it in silence. Awful, unfamiliar silence. Step inside and remove your suits without a word. But the tension breaks when you giggle at the cloud of yellow which puffs into the air when Ezra shakes his head. He laughs with you, and you settle back into normal, fall into your easy routine. Ezra stores the gems away while you pack the suits, try to get the worst of the pollen off them by shaking them out the door. Pack them away. Dinner; protein bars and supplements and flasks of water. Ezra has a field guide up for the planet, is flicking through the local flora and telling you anything which catches his fancy, reads out descriptions with a melody they do not deserve. It lulls you, makes your stomach turn more than normal. You catch his eyes resting on your face or your body several times before he looks away. It makes your skin break out in goosebumps.

“Ah look,” he says, kicks his feet up onto the bunk. You are still wearing your undersuit, a thick warm lining, but Ezra has shucked his, is wearing only his compression clothing. Your eyes linger where his shirt has ridden up and reveals a sliver of skin over his hipbone. “Our magical tree outside. Not a remnant of some fairy civilisation I’m afraid, and rather well documented.”

You hum encouragingly, distracted.

“Wide trunk… short height… a wider family of flowering trees which covers the planet’s surface. Names after a botanist… species is known for its pink flowers – ”

“It’s flowers weren’t pink.”

“Let me finish, if you would be so kind. Known for its pink flower which do not pollinate, as the pollen is enclosed in a separate yellow bract rather than the sepals of the petals. The pollen is of renown – maybe we should have bottled it – due to its – ”

He cuts himself off. You are fiddling with the zip of your undersuit, still staring at the gap between his shirt and pants. It takes several long moments of silence for you to be able to draw your gaze away from his skin and up to his face. “Renown due to?”

He is gone pale. Stares blankly at his screen.

“Ezra?” You straighten. “Ezra, what’s wrong? The pollen, what is it?”

He doesn’t say anything.

“Is it poisonous?” You are oddly calm. Start running an inventory of the contents of your med kit, try to remember how long since you’d been exposed to it. “Ezra, are we in danger?”

“No,” he croaks. “It’s not poisonous.”

You deflate back against your bunk. Throw an empty protein bar packet in his direction and huff. Want to kick him in his shin for the dramatics. “You scared me. Don’t – ”

“It’s an aphrodisiac.”

You blink at him. “A… A what?”

“An aphrodisiac. It’s harvested for its high potency but it difficult to acquire because of the plant’s unique quality of blooming in certain conditions. The buds are only visible when exposed to extended periods of rainfall, and release pollen only under UV light.” He’s still reading the article aloud. His face slack in horror. “It contains hallucinogenic properties, and is known to create both psychological and physiological – ”

“Ezra, plain English, please.” You say. “So it’s – it’s what? We’re going to be horny?”

“Incomparably aroused.” He looks at you and then away again. Starts to flick through other articles with desperation. “It’s a hallucinogenic. It will not simply make us feel horny, we will be unable to think of anything else. It will make us feel things, phantom sensations, we will experience corporeal responses without other stimulation.”

You blanche. “Maybe it’s the wrong tree, maybe it’s – ”

“It’s not the wrong tree.”

“So what do we do?” You feel too hot, the space around you is suddenly too small and your undersuit too heavy. You think it must be a trick of your mind, but paranoia makes the flush worse.

Ezra clicks through article after article. He estimates you have maybe an hour before it takes effect, maybe less. The pollen was generally harvested, and the chemicals extracted to use as additives for drugs. There is next to nothing on direct inhalation. Not documented, not tested. He tells you it should only last a few hours – three to four. But you can feel your hands shaking, are only half listening. He’s speaking so quickly now, and you curl your feet onto the bed in front of you, wrap your arms around your knees. Was the flush from nerves or from the pollen? Were you shaking because of it as well? Ezra is still talking.

“What?” You say. Head shooting up.

“It does not seem to matter if you… if you finish. The effects of the pollen will not dissipate until it leaves your system.”

Your face colours. “Okay. Okay. Four hours though, that’s what you said.” You think you must look sick. You feel sick, as if all the blood has left you. “We’re both adults, we can just,” but you can’t even finish the sentence. Stare down at your knees.

Ezra makes a pained noise in the back of his throat.

It’s getting harder to breathe. Harder to see. The walls around you have started to blur. The bright white lights in the pod are too much, hurt the space behind your eyes. You shuffle to the edge of the bed and swing your legs to the ground. Feel the buzzing in your hands and feet. The switch has never felt so far away, and yet the air around you keep compressing, the walls closing in. It hasn’t been anywhere near an hour. Twenty minutes at most and you feel like your mouth is full of wool and your head too. Ezra has turned on his side, his back to you, the quiet sound of his long deliberate breathing the only noise he makes. You finally reach the switch, grasp at it with shaking hands. Ezra turns over his good shoulder, and you catch the sight of his hair – wet and flattened to his head.

“Don’t – ”

But you already have the lights dimmed. Still bright enough to see, but not painful anymore. Ezra seems vivid even in the dim, like he’s brought into hyper-focus, safe and solid in the pulsating world around you. Without thinking you begin to shuffle towards him. Lick your lips. Think maybe it would be better to stay close to him. Would make you feel better.

“What are you doing?” He pushes himself up on his arm, half facing you. The prominent muscles of his neck straining at the twist.

“I – I – ” You shake your head. Try to clear it of the fuzzy feeling which has settled over your thoughts. Suck in a deep breath which doesn’t reach your lungs. “I don’t know.”

“It’s the pollen.” He’s short. You can hear the tension in his jaw. See the ticking of the muscle under the skin. It distracts you. He kicks his foot to get your attention. “Lie down. Over there.”

You listen without question; the commanding tone sends a lick of heat up your spine. Your knees buckle when they hit your bunk, and you fall against it, boneless. Suddenly weak. It’s so hot. You can feel sweat forming along your top lip, sink over your brow and into your hair. You push the strands away with shaking hands, shove it back off your face. It’s too hot in the pod. Your mouth is so dry. So hot. The undersuit, you’re still wearing it, and your compression clothes beneath. Ezra has lowered himself back to the mattress, stares at the wall ahead of him, but his whole body jerks when he hears the pull of your zip. You turn your head to the side to watch him, stare at his back. Watch his shoulders pull tight through his thin compression shirt, damp with sweat. Watch the muscle tense. Catch your tongue between your teeth. His neck is so tight you can see every dip, see the veins stand out beneath the skin.

You get the zip undone and start to wriggle your arms free. The cold air of the pod is a relief until Ezra groans, deep and pained. The sound shoots down your spine, sparks across your lower back and into your stomach. Makes your cunt pulse. You echo the sound back at him, feel your body temperature climb again, impossibly. You slump, half out of the suit, your skin feels like the crackle of static, alive and humming. You are on fire. Can feel your chest and stomach and the creases beneath your breasts growing slick with sweat. You shift in the suit, still halfway down your waist, and the inseam of the crotch catches against your underwear. Without thinking, without meaning to, you are bending your knees, digging the heels of your feet into the bed and pulling yourself down. Feel the thickness of the seam, too much and not enough all at once dig into you and your back curves. Relish in the feeling of friction, and the release which dribbles, stick and warm, down your slit.

You choke on another moan.

Ezra is so stiff he is almost shaking. Pulled so taut he might snap. You can’t take your eyes off him, watch the way his ragged breathing fills him and rushes out again. Like he’s been running. Sweat soaking through his shirt now, making it cling to him. His voice is cracked and hoarse. “Be quiet.”

You can’t help it. Another moan slips out before you can stop it, louder at the sound of his voice. You bend your knees again and work your hips against the inside of the suit. Become aware of how swollen your cunt is, tingling. Worse than tingling. Somehow better. Your legs are shaking, breath coming in fast pants. It’s too loud in the pod, bounces around and comes back to you. Makes you dimly embarrassed, a small place in the back of your mind is mortified. But you can’t concentrate on why, can’t hold any thought in your head long enough to remember why you shouldn’t give in. Can’t remember why you’re holding back from the throbbing need in the first place.

“Ezra.” It’s too breathy. Too soft. That’s what you want, you realise. The taste of his name in your mouth makes it fill, hot and wet. Ezra, Ezra, Ezra. “It’s hurting.”

“It’s the pollen.” His voice is tight. He turns his head enough that you can see a sliver of cheekbone. “A few hours, remember? Then it will be over.”

The pod is getting hotter. You are getting hotter. Your breasts ache, you feel your nipples hardening, feel them catch against the sweat drenched fabric of your singlet and it stings. Another throb, so long you think it won’t end, makes you whimper. And then. Wet. Not dribbling, leaking. Flowing. The suit is still tangled around your legs. Your hands are shaking so badly you have to kick at it to get it off, manage to catch it and have it twisted around one ankle. Finally kick it onto the floor. Your compression pants are slick, and you are vibrating. Weak. The heat is still growing even now the suit is gone, like you are on fire. You still haven’t looked away from Ezra.

“You were in it for longer,” you say. Barely get the words out. Can’t think. Can’t breathe. “You had – had – ” a barely stifled moan “ – had your helmet off. For so long. Why aren’t you like this?”

He swallows loud enough that you can hear it. “I am well practiced. This feeling is one I am quite used to concealing from you.” His voice is like honey. Fills your head and your mouth and your body with syrup. But the words. The words make you weak. Make you utter another quiet whimper. “The effects of the pollen will wear off in a few hours, Starlight.”

You have to put a hand over your mouth to muffle the sound which threatens to escape from it. Tears prick at the corners of your eyes. You realise you can smell yourself. It makes you dizzy. And him. The sharp scent of his sweat on hot skin. Familiar. Unbearable. You kick your legs out, hit your head back against the bunk and fist your hands into the sheets. Struggle to hold on to the embarrassed part of your mind, feel it slipping away. Try to stop your hands from reaching between your legs at his confession.

“Ezra.” It’s almost a sob. “Ezra, please.”

“I ask of you only that you are quiet,” he says. Tight, pained. “Whatever you do to deal with – with this, just do it quietly. I can’t – it’s – ”

You have never heard him stumble before. Not with words. Never with words. You think sometimes that he must know them all, certainly knows many more than you. So much of your time together has been filled with his voice, wrapped in them, the way he rolls them in his mouth and holds them. But now he has none. And instead of being filled with his words, the space between your is hot and pulsing. Fills with other things. Aching.

You forget your embarrassment.

“We could, we could help each other.” You lick you lips. Pull yourself up onto your elbows with shaking arms. “We could deal with it together.”

“No.”

“Ezra!” It’s a petulant wail. His chest is heaving. The smell of him is everywhere, all around you. Mixing with the smell of you. “Please. Please, please, please.”

“I said be quiet.” He snarls at you. Full of venom. This is the Ezra he is with other prospectors. The Ezra that steals and kills. Cruel. Mean. The sting of tears in your eyes well and slip and fall. And still you feel your cunt weep with you.

“Do you… do you hate me?”

“No.”

“You do! Why else would you make me hurt like this?” A full sob works its way up your throat. Nearly chokes you. Makes your breathing stutter. “I only want you to touch me. You hate me so much you won’t even touch me.”

He says your name. Not Starlight. Says it with a bite which stings and clears your head long enough for you to finally wrench gaze away from him. You turn your head, press it against the cool wall of the pod nearest you. Close your eyes so tightly white bursts behind your lids and crushes your lashes against your cheeks. You try to breathe, but every mouthful is full of the taste of you both. You try to concentrate. And Ezra is panting as well, ragged and loud. Sounds closer, and you turn your head back to him, and realise your mistake. He has pushed himself back up onto his good arm and twisted to stare at you over his shoulder. His eyes are dark, face dripping with sweat, hair wet with it. Compression shirt almost transparent against the heaving mass of his chest. His mouth hangs open with his breath. You have to bite your lip, roll it into your mouth and dig your teeth into it hard enough to sting.

He is furious. “Do not speak to me as if I have no heart. It is because of my heart I am denying you.”

“Why?” You don’t understand him. “Why don’t you just – ”

“Stop.”

He twists fully now. Rolls onto his back. Your eyes follow his length, slip over his chest and stomach and – you think you might die. Think you will explode. His cock is tented in his compression pants. Even in the dim you can see the shape of it pressed against the grey fabric. The thickness of it. See the dark patch around the head where it leaks precum. Such a huge patch you think surely, truly, he must have already come. Know he hasn’t. You press your legs together with a strangled moan.

“Be quiet!” He squeezes and his eyes shut at the sound.

You writhe against the mattress. “All I want is for you to touch me Ezra, please, please, why don’t you want – ”

“Do you know how badly I crave you?” He cuts you off. “Do you know how often I have dreamt of you, like this, begging me to take you? How many times I have dreamt of fucking your cunt? Of the taste of you? God,” he makes a sound, half deranged. It might have been a laugh in a different time, a different place. “Have you any conception of the ways I have imagined having you? How many nights we have laid here while you sleep, and I bit my fist to stop myself from waking you while I come all over my hand?”

You heart must have stopped. Must have swollen until it was too large for your chest and been crushed. Outgrown its place. Blocked your lungs as well because you can’t breathe.

But he’s still going. Still talking.

“I have had to fuck my hand for months. Pretend it was your pussy. Or your mouth. Your pretty little mouth. And every night you are there, not four feet from me, oblivious and dreaming. I think of you licking up all my cum, cleaning it off my fingers. Fucking it straight down your throat. Fuck.” His words become lost in the deep groan which forces its way out of his mouth. His dick jumps in his pants. “Fuck.”

You are clenching around nothing, the tightness in your stomach and centre coiled so badly now it is painful. You pull your feet up nearer to you so you can lift your hips off the bed and grind them into nothing, into the air. Tears of frustration slip, never so frustrated before, so desperate and shaking. You hold the sheets tighter, know once you touch yourself you won’t be able to stop, but coming won’t help. The symptoms won’t stop until the pollen leaves your system. You drop your hips back to the bed with a harsh sound, something between a sob and a gasp. Ezra is breathless, groaning in response to every sound your make. You are so wet it has soaked through your compression pants, down around the crux of your thighs and into the seat of your underwear. Mixing with sweat. Sliding between your lips and your cheeks and making the drag of the fabric against you almost painful.

“Keep going. Ezra, please.”

“Don’t. Don’t make me… not fair.”

“Love your voice.” You twist. Jerk your hips forward against the bunk. “Could… could come to just your voice. Wouldn’t – wouldn’t even need to touch myself.”

The sound he makes is tormented. Guttural and deep. Sparks through you. “Fuck. Fuck. Shit. This is torture, it must be. Condemned for every lascivious thought I have had of you. Punished more my lewd cogitations. Every time I have pictured your pussy. Thought of what my dick would look like filling you up.” He chokes on the words. “I have imagined fucking you on every surface of this damnable pod. And the pod before that and the one before that.”

“Please Ezra. Please. I want you to fuck me. Anywhere, anywhere you want.”

You are looking him when he opens his eyes. He looks wild. Almost unhinged. He sucks his lips between his teeth and hisses when he rolls them back out. Is staring at the hardened buds beneath your drenched singlet. His breathing cracks, and for a moment, a second, you think he is going to break and move towards you.

“No.” It’s drawn out. Hard for him to say. He closes his eyes and faces the ceiling. “No. Do not make such requests of me. Not now. It’s not fair to ask me to take you now when you will surface from this haze and hate me for it. You will hate me for all of it.”

“I won’t.” Quiet. Timid. Desperate.

“You wish to hear my fantasies? Do you want to know what all of my fantasies of you have in common?” He waits. He is looking at you again, and he waits until you have focused on him. “In every way I have imagined you, in every way I have dreamed of taking you, you have wanted me as badly as I want you, Starlight.”

You can’t say anything. Your tongue is lead in your mouth. You are throbbing so relentlessly it’s almost impossible to think of anything else. The pain at the base of your stomach is growing, spreading, and you feel like your limbs are beginning to lock down. You have to roll onto your side and curl around yourself. More fluid moves at the action, leaking over your lips and thighs and soaking into the sheets below you. It somehow makes everything worse. It’s too much. So much. You are too full and not full enough. All you can think about is the feeling of him pushing inside you, tearing you apart, pounding into you as relentlessly as your cunt throbs for him. You sob again.

“I want you Ezra. I do, I do want you.”

“You would want anyone,” he spits. “It’s the pollen. You’ve been drugged.”

“But I want you! I always want you!”

“You think you do but you will live through this and then you will not want me anymore.” He turns over his good arm again and rolls onto his side. Faces away from you again. “This is torture enough for a lifetime of sins. I can’t – ”

You aren’t sure where the strength comes from, but you know you must move. Your body screams to move towards him, almost convinces you he will make the pain fade. You hold onto one thought, the sound of the pain in his voice, hold it tight as you can and roll yourself out of your bunk. He flinches away from you at the sounds of movement, and you almost forget yourself when you see his hips jerk involuntarily. Mouth-watering, knowing he must feel the need for you as desperately as you need for him. But you can’t. You burn the sound of his pleas across every thought you have and stumble to the corner of the pod, struggle to open the compartment with shaking hands, and when you do you drop the med kit on the floor. You are vibrating, and if you had thought you couldn’t see before then now it is blindness. You blunder through the kit, splaying its contents half onto the ground around it before you find the packet. A packet full of pills the size of pin heads, but powerful. Meant to be for adjusting to new planets time cycles. Getting back to Ezra’s bunk is easier than moving away from it, invisible strings inside you pulling you to him.

“Here,” you say. Voice hoarse like you’ve been screaming. Grates at your throat. “Ezra.”

“What?” He doesn’t turn.

“Sleeping pills. They… they can knock us out.”

He turns his head, just enough to see you. Up close he looks worse. Better, so much better. His pupils are blown so wide the brown around them is barely visible. His pillow drenched in sweat. His face is flushed, the back of his neck and ears and forehead are red. His mouth open in wet pants. You crumple, drop to your knees in front of him, or risk throwing yourself into the bed with him. You drop the pill on his pillow, think if you touch him you will snap and give in. He’s looking at you the same, like if you move wrong he will not be able to stop himself. You lift your pill to your lips.

“Wait – ” He says. “The pollen, the pills, we don’t – we don’t know if it’s safe.”

“Ezra.” You feel a hot tear slip down your cheek. Your singlet and your compression tights hurt your skin where they touch you. The cold of the floor is burning against your legs and hand. The air around you is almost too much. “I won’t get through this. It hurts too much.”

You swallow the pill before he can stop you.

He says something, but the sound of his voice is too much. You stumble off your knees and towards the wet room. Your control is stretched taut within you, about to snap. Kneeling next to his bunk you can smell more of him, see more. You get to the door and it takes your shaking hands two tries to get it open. You catch him slip his pill between his lips and swallow, and the flex of the muscles in his neck nearly has you trip over yourself to get back to him. But you slam the door closed between you. Slump immediately into a cold wall and slide down it until you’re crouched against the plastic floor. The wet room is tiny, nothing more than an insulated storage cupboard with a hose and shower nozzle. The pills are strong, you lean back against the wall, feel them mixing with the effects of the pollen so that the world swims before your eyes. You close your eyes. Try and count your breathing. You try to count three times and lose count every time. You can’t feel the floor beneath you. Can’t feel the wall behind you. The world is slipping so that it is only the fire of your muscles and the throbbing between your legs. Time warps into a tunnel, feel like you are suspended and falling through it at the same time.

There is no world around you when you finally shove the heel of your palms between your legs. Don’t care when you start moaning, writing against it. You couldn’t remember your own name if someone asked, where you were. Anything. Your knees drop out, one against the floor and the other shoved against the wall in the tight space. You head knocks hard against the wall behind you. You shove your other hand down, unwilling to stop rocking your hips into your palm until you can get the tips of your fingers down your compression pants and find your clit. The first roll over the bundle of nerves makes you scream. Forces it up out of some place in your stomach and up, up through your chest and throat. You do not ease yourself forward, you rub against the throbbing spot with enough force that your arm shakes from the effort. Stop long enough to pull the tights down your thighs so you can rub your clit and sink your fingers into your pulsing cunt at the same time. The knot in your stomach becomes unbearable. Your cunt spasms and clenches around your fingers, three of them, and still you feel empty, and yet somehow so full you are almost sick with it. Keening. Desperate. You are speaking, blabbering nonsense. Your hips jerk off the floor.

But there is no release.

You have no idea how long you lie there, rubbing yourself, fucking yourself with your fingers before you give up. Boneless and whimpering. Sobbing. You can feel how wet you are, feel it all over the floor beneath you and smeared up over your wrist. You drop your hands, the blackness closing around your peripheries enough to dull the burning. The sleeping pill clouds the last of your consciousness and you slip.

When you wake the first time it is sweating and with the dream taste of Ezra in your mouth. An imaginary taste you have conjured many times before this but made to feel so real by the pollen. You’re panting so fast they begin to run together, your body trembling and shaking. The wall of the wet room is hard and cold against your back. You don’t even have to touch yourself to come when the memories of your drug induced sleep return to you, the dream of Ezra’s cock heavy on your tongue and full to the back of your throat. Your release is so long and intense you slump further into the ground. Your forehead against the door. You are barely conscious of the shock tremors afterwards, of the jolting aftershocks of the pollen and dream induced orgasm. The place just below your stomach is still as tight as before.

You fade in and out, the sleeping pill enough to keep you under most of the time. You wake a few more times, coming or on the edge of it. Have slipped into a dark place where everything except the buzzing of your body does not exist. The pollen continues to conjure hallucinations, the feel of hands all over you, impossibly hot and rough, of being filled and fucked, again and again. Ezra. Always Ezra. Haunting you.

Hours after crawling into the wet room, your sweat has broken. Shivering, drenched and pressed against the cold walls in the tight space. You are dizzy, can taste the sourness of dehydration coating your mouth and the back of your throat. You yank the door open again, can’t walk, so you fumble on hands and knees to the water and raise a flask with shaking hands. Drink three of them. You get to your bunk and pull of your clothes – wet and dripping with cold sweat – throw them at the foot of your mattress. Defeated and exhausted when you pull the sheets over yourself. Cold. Ezra is quiet, a still ball on his bunk, still facing the wall. You wait until you see him breathe, watch his chest rise and fall. Let yourself give into the relief of exhaustion.

When you wake next it is to the sound of rain against the roof of the pod. There is a deep aching in your limbs and the muscles around your stomach, but no burn of satisfaction to ease the pain. You are still dehydrated. Eyelids like sandpaper against your eyes, so you don’t open them. You can barely roll over you are so stiff. The rain sounds heavy. Another torrential flood.

You drift for some time in the place between wakefulness and sleep. You can hear Ezra, awake and moving around the pod, bare feet against the floor. He stops near you and he pulls the sheet higher over your shoulder where it has slipped, covering your bare back from the cool air. Pulls a heavier blanket over you as well. You continue to wander, sometimes dreaming. Sometimes listening to the sounds of him moving about, the hose turn on in the wet room. Turn off again sometime later. Smell the soap when Ezra emerges and feel the waft or warm, steaming air against the top of your head. Not long after his hand is on your covered shoulder, gently shaking.

“Starlight.” He says. “You need to drink. Wake up.”

He waits until you start to move, wraps his arm beneath you to help you to sit. Holds up the blanket when it falls and tugs it tighter around your shoulders. Gives you water and a protein bar and leaves you. You stare at the things in your hands, then at his back. Feel like you are floating.

And then the day before begins to bleed into your thoughts like a poison, and as you wake the horror of embarrassment makes it impossible to sit still. You can’t look at Ezra, where he crouches with his back to you not three feet away. Digging through the med kit you had left on the floor. You force yourself to eat but the protein bar tastes like cardboard in your mouth. You are hyperaware of your nudity, feel small and exposed, and you pull the thin blanket around your shoulders as high around you neck as it will go. Think of Ezra opening the door to the wet room to find the mess you had undoubtedly left there. Think of yourself begging him to fuck you while he desperately refused. You feel sick.

He brings the med kit to you. You can’t look at him, can feel his eyes searching your face. He sighs and gently reaches for the blanket. You flinch before he can reach it and he drops his hand.

“I will not hurt you. I assure you.” He shows you his empty palm. “I only wish to ensure you are well. I need to check if you are still suffering any effects of the pollen.”

You shake your head, hold your hands against your chest beneath your shield of bedding. “I’m not.” Your voice is raw from screaming and then hours of sleep. You think he must hate you. Must hate you for being so weak.

“I need to check.” His voice is so gentle. So soft. “May I please have your hand?”

You do not move, can’t look at him. And then you slowly release your hold on yourself and worm one hand out through the blankets, careful to keep yourself covered and let him take you by the wrist. Lay your hand palm up on your lap. His fingers make your blood spark where they touch you and you wish he wouldn’t. Wish you hadn’t been so awful to him while he tried to refuse you. He clips a small device to your fingertip, warns you of the prick of it taking your blood. Checks your pulse, checks your temperature. When the device beeps he removes it and compares the reading with a small manual in the med kit.

“The pollen is out of your system.”

“How… how long has it been?”

“Nearly two days since we were infected.”

You look up in shock. He is staring at you, warm eyes soft and tired. Marred by the dark circles around them. His hair still damp from his shower. You burn red and look away again.

“Two days?”

“You’ve been unconscious for some time.” He packs everything away and moves. You glance at his back when he goes, watch a droplet of water from his hair drip a slow path along the back of his neck and disappear under his soft clean shirt. Images of the days before rise behind your eyes before you can stop them, memories of dreams. Memories of hallucinations and fantasies. Your stomach churns. “Do you need more water?”

You shake your head. “No.”

He nods and comes to sit opposite you on his own bunk, his arm braced across his knee. You try to hold his gaze but humiliation crawls its way up your throat and you squeeze your eyes shut. Keep remembering trying to convince him to fuck you through the effects of the pollen, remember the hazy, sordid details of everything you said to him. You don’t know how you will ever face him again, every be able to meet his eyes. Its all made so much worse by the memory of how badly you wanted him, a desperate need which tore you apart. Feelings which you had supressed and kept dormant before now refused to be ignored and you are full of guilt and affection, tearing you apart. Feel them push up against your heart when you look at him and twist.

“Ezra…”

You hear him sigh, lift your eyes to look at him. He’s smiling, soft and sweet and sad. “It’s quite alright, Starlight. We do not have to talk about it if you do not wish to.”

You fidget you fingers beneath the blanket. “I… I think.” You pause and swallow. “I think we have to talk about it, Ezra. I said – I said – ”

You wish you didn’t have to think about what you said, but you do. And Ezra’s words chase each other around and around in your mind and tangle inside your head. You can’t ignore those. Can’t ignore everything said between you and go back to the way things were. Can’t look at him without remembering the throbbing ache between your legs at the way his voice wrapped around his words and filled you up with fantasies of fucking you in the pod. You need to apologise to him.

Ezra shakes his head. “The pollen was very strong. It put us under extreme duress, and we acted against our natures.”

“Against our natures?” You stomach drops. You know you should not hurt so badly at the implication but your heart begins to crack. Of course he did not want to tell you those things.

“I quite understand.” He looks to his hand, clenched into a fist on his knee. “And you do not need to explain your words to me, I understand they were brought on by the pollen. I shall consider the things which you have said to me to be banished from my mind if,” he releases his clenched fist and inhales slowly, deliberately. “If you will extend to me the same courtesy.”

Your mind goes terrible, horribly blank. Your head begins to throb and you lift your hand to press against it, massage the tightness between your brows. Ezra wants to you forget it all, to forget the whole thing ever happened. Everything said between you was a terrible mistake, and it was, and he is giving you an out. You understand that much – no apology required, no rehash of the painful events. Ashamed when the burn of tears threatens behind your eyes. You should say yes, you think. You should agree to forget it and move on with your lives. But there is the awful feeling, a gnawing in your gut, that if you turned away from him this time it would be the last time. That the space between you would grow and grow until you could not find your way back together. And you owe him an apology.

“Ezra I… I don’t know if I can.” You pick at the blanket in your lap. “I don’t think I can just forget.”

He’s silent. Unnervingly silent.

“I have spent so much of our time together trying to forget.” You whisper. “I don’t want to forget anymore.”

He frowns. “What have you tried to forget before this?”

You shift in your spot. Glance at him and then away. “You know. You must know. All the times… all the time when we could have,” your nerves fill your throat and you have to pause. “Like before this. When we were outside. When you helped me up the hill. When you said – when you said we were seeing the wonders of the universe.” Every moment I could have told you I loved you. You can’t say it. “I can’t forget them anymore.”

Ezra is staring at you. You look to him, find his eyes, because he deserves you to look him in the eye while you say this to him. He deserves more than your cowardice – the cowardice you have given him for the better part of two years. His face is slack at your revelation and then crumples. Collapses in on himself. He looks like he’s in pain.

“These are moments you wish to forget?” His voice is hoarse.

“No! No, Ezra they aren’t!” And you realise what he has thought. “I… they are my favourite memories. But I can never let myself have them because – because – ” You suck in a shaking breath. “I’m not good with words like you. I don’t know.”

“Tell me. Try.”

He is leaning towards you, guarded. Hopeful, maybe. You feel your heart beating so hard you can barely concentrate. “Every time there is something between us, I try to crush it. Because – because I’m scared. But I save them all and I think about them later. I – I think about what you look like when you’re smiling in the sun, or what words you use when you’re happy. Or when you… when you look at me like how you looked at me under the trees outside.”

Ezra pushes himself from his bunk and crosses the space to you. Sits close enough to touch you, but he doesn’t. You are looking into his eyes and can’t look away now. Transfixed. He is so wide and open now. His eyes so warm. You did that, you think. And you swell with the pride of it. So you take a breath and continue.

“I’m scared one day you’ll leave me.” You confess. “Or if I… if I say anything then you will want me to go. And I can’t – I don’t want another partner. I just want you.” Your cheeks go brilliant red. And Ezra smiles, blooms, so bright it’s like looking at the sun. Your hands are shaking again. “I’m scared if I let myself feel everything all at once I might break. And I don’t want to break. And I don’t want to lose you. I want to – I want to have you forever.” You’re talking faster now, more urgent. Your voice drops almost to a whisper. “That’s why I try to forget them, every moment, and its chipping away at my heart Ezra, and I’m worried I won’t have any heart left. I think it…” You close your eyes. Breathe. In and out. Open them again and look at him. Really look at him, and let yourself be seen. All of you. The parts of you which you try to hide. “I think my heart already belongs to you.”

Ezra shifts again. His thigh presses against yours now, burning and hot. He twists his body towards you. Stares at you, his face crinkled in a blinding smile. “Your heart belongs to me?”

Your breath shakes on your exhale and you nod.

He inches closer. “I find myself without words, Starlight. Of course, it would be you that renders me speechless.”

You lean towards him again, pulled by his gravity. His body leans to yours. Not touching anywhere except along your thighs, still pushed together below you. But you grow towards each other, closer and closer, until you can feel the almost press of his body against yours. His face is so close you can see every line, every freckle and mark.

“Surely you know how I feel for you,” he says. His quiet words wash over your face, you could catch them on your tongue you are so close, but you do not, you hover. Just away. “You conceal your heart so well, but I have not concealed mine. Every word I spoke to you while under the influence of that pollen was true. I only wish I could have told them to you in some different way.”

Your heart kicks in your chest. “Ezra, I’m so sorry, I tried to make you – I said awful things when you told me you didn’t want – ”

He shushes you gently. Closes his eyes and shakes his head so minutely. “You did not act on them. I said far more depraved things to you.” He sighs softly. “I truly am sorry it had to happen that way.”

You hesitate. Nod and relax back towards him. He smiles so softly, opens his eyes.

“I dream not only of your body. Everything that I am is yours. The pieces left of me belong to you. Only to you, Starlight. They have for some time now.”

Ezra presses his forehead to yours, his hair tickling your skin. You let your eyes slip closed. Twist slightly and push back against him, rub your nose closer until his cheek brushes the tip of yours and you feel his eyelashes flutter on your skin. His lips close and open and trace the shape of a kiss ghosting against your mouth. Not quite touching. His hot breath mixing with yours. Less than a hair between you. You push you chin just enough to catch his bottom lip with your teeth, tug it down and let it go with a sigh. Lick against the imprint of the bite to soothe it.

He groans your name.

“Ezra,” you say into his mouth. Try to catch him in a kiss but he shifts and move away. Retreats from you so that his eyes can find yours.

“Are you sure?”

You carefully move your hands, touch them against his chest and move them up, lightly over his shirt. Clutch the back of his neck. “I don’t need pollen to want you, Ezra. I never have.”

He stares down at you, his eyes fill up everything around you, until he is everything. Just Ezra. Only Ezra. For a moment you are worries he doesn’t believe you but then he surges forward. Teeth and noses clash. His mouth hits yours hard enough to bruise, is hot and open. His tongue inside you, no building, no warning. He pushes against you and you let him, twist your hands into the damp hair at the nape of his neck and pull him to you. Tighter. Nearer. Can’t get him close enough. He yanks himself away and you gasp at the sudden loss. Remember to breathe. His arm readjusts its hold around you back and he shifts himself, uses his knee to shove your legs apart and move between them. You lift yourself off the bed to your knees and he pulls you forward again so that you fall into his lap, still wrapped in blankets. Brings his mouth back to yours. Kisses you until you’re dizzy.

He moves his mouth sideways, open and wet and drags it down your jaw to your neck and back up again. Panting. “Can I touch you?”

“Please.”

He leans all his weight forward and tips you backwards. You fall against the bed, the blankets bunched under your back. Naked. He is staring, transfixed, between your legs. You try to close them, but he catches your knee, pushes his body into the space and forces them open. You burn, conscious of the dried mess which must still be there from the pollen.

“Don’t try and hide yourself from me, Starlight.” He is still staring at your cunt. Uses his torso to push against one of your legs and his arm to move the other. He forces your leg down by the inside of your knee, so slowly, until it touches the bed. Pushes it outwards slightly just to watch your pussy better. “And the other one.”

His hand stays on your knee, his eyes stay between your leg as you do as he says. Watches as the stretch makes your lips part and reveals the almost purple inner flesh of your pussy. He coos, and the sound changes to a groan when you flutter around nothing, a bead of fluid forming at your hole and then dribbling outwards. Your hips jerk at the sound and when your knees lift away from the bed Ezra holds the one he can with such forcefulness that you make a soft cry.

“Can I still touch you?” He asks. His voice surprisingly soft, at odds with the iron grip he has around your leg.

You nod.

You think he means your cunt. You think his hand will dig straight into you with the way he is staring at it. Hungrily. Instead he releases you knee, draws around it with just the tip of his fingers, a featherlight circle over the soft skin and then trails his hand along your thigh. Your hips lift when he approaches the crux of it, traces the crease between your centre and your thigh and then back up over your hipbone. Makes you whimper when he leaves you aching and untouched. He flattens his palm over it, grabs a handful of the flesh of your hip and kneads it gently, before releasing it, moving his flattened palm over the curve of your stomach. Feels it move with every shortened breath. Drifts up slowly and spreads his fingers over the shape of your ribs. Up again and beneath the crease of your breast.

“I imagine you all the time,” he says idly. His eyes look up finally, sees that you have twisted your head to the side and squeezed your eyes closed, trying to hold yourself together. “Look at me, Starlight. There’s a good girl. I imagine you often, when we are outside and you are covered by your suit, and I think of what you look like beneath it. Think about the shape of you when we are supposed to be harvesting our livelihoods.”

You keen. Writhe upwards and try to lift yourself towards him. He shushes you and flattens his palm over your sternum, long fingers push up between your breasts and his thumb and pinky hook beneath them. Not touching them. Forces you back to the mattress, keeps his hand on you and smiles as you gasp. Feels the vibrations of your moaning, exposed beneath him. He waits until you still and look back to him. Dark eyes watching you.

“Keep your legs open.” You realise you have pushed them up off the bed again. It makes you pink and splotchy over your chest and neck and face but you slowly, shakily part them again. Let them drop on either side of him. “You are more than I deserve, Starlight. More beautiful than I could have ever painted you in my mind’s eye.”

His hand moves again, up over your chest and along the lines of your collarbones. Out over your left shoulder and then down the length of your arm. Lets his fingers rest still at the velvety soft skin at the inside of your elbow and then follows the path of your veins through the skin to your wrist. Encloses his hand around yours and brushes his thumb over the pulse point at your wrist. Presses in and feels your blood sing in response. And then he lifts your arm up over your head and rests it above you. Presses it once into the mattress and fixes you with a look. Do not move it, he doesn’t have to say. He releases it again and this time his fingers trail the other side of your arm down and gently through your armpit and over your ribs to your other arm. You are already lifting it and he catches it to and finishes the motion for you. Holds your wrists together in one large hand. Surprises you by pushing up onto his knees and pressing a soft kiss to your mouth. Sweet. Chaste.

He pulls away. When your eyes flutter back open, he is close and smiling. “Starlight does not do justice to how bright you are,” he whispers gently. Presses a kiss to your temple. “There is no star in any galaxy which could pit itself against you and come out the victor. You would put them all to shame.”

Your eyes are wet. You have to swallow the lump in your throat. “Ezra.”

His mouth brushes your temple again. Your brow. The bridge of your nose and your cheekbone. Hovers hot and open over your mouth but when you move towards him he is gone, his mouth open along your jaw. He tongues the length of your neck, dipping into the pit at the centre of your clavicle. You lift off the bed again and his mouth moves down, finally to your breasts in wet kisses until he reaches your nipple. Looks up to catch your eyes when he gathers saliva in his mouth and licks it. Makes your toes curl into the sheets. He coats you until the bud is shining with wetness and then pulls away and blows on it, a gust of cold air, freezing against your wet flesh. You groan, both watch the way it grows hard and pebbled, the skin around it pulling together. Then his hot mouth is around it, burning after the coolness and you whine and arch into his mouth. Use the leverage of your knees on the bed to push yourself into him.

He releases you with an obscene noise, deliberately wet. Lays his cheek against your heaving breast so that your nipple is being brushed by the tip of his nose and smiles at you. Saccharine, like he hadn’t just been suckling at you. Like he wasn’t forcing you to stare at the painfully hard nipple between you. And then he moves and gives the same treatment to the other side. Warm and cold and hot. Until you are desperately trying to lift your hips against his stomach and roll your centre against him for any relief. Can feel the wetness dripping from you, running down your slit and back. Probably staining the already ruined sheets.

“Please Ezra,” you are panting. “Please.”

He chuckles and pulls away from your tits. Admires the two wet and hard peaks of them. Leans down to peck your right nipple so lightly you might not have felt it if he hadn’t just driven you to the point of overstimulation.

“I am sensitive to your plight, my sweet Starlight. But I hope I cannot be expected to rush this. I have many months of painful imaginations to fuel this encounter and I want to enjoy you.”

He lowers his mouth to the centre of your breasts. The heaving, solid spot there and leaves another wet kiss there. And then licks a long, hot stripe through your middle and readjusts his one arm beneath your middle, and you lift to make room for it, his forearm completely covered to the elbow beneath the mass of your body. Has to wrap it up under your right thigh and pulls the leg up higher to your side, stretching you so far open your thighs shake in protest. Then resumes his path of kisses over your stomach and down. You are clenching viciously around nothing, hips jerking even though you try to still them. His chin tickles the hair at the top of your slit. His eyes look up at you, smile at you even though his mouth is open beneath your naval, his tongue making lazy circles against the skin.

“Don’t move,” he says. “Or I will lose my balance.”

You bite down on your lip. Can’t speak, because you can feel another desperate noise building at the back of your throat. You nod.

He finally returns his gaze to your neglected cunt. Watches your hole flutter and spasm at the attention, watches as it leaks more wetness out and as it sinks down your slit and your crack. Makes a patch of wet beneath you. He leans closer and breathes you in. Smells you. It makes your head spin, makes your face so red you have to close your because you can’t think. You feel his nose almost against you and then his breath, hot and his tongue wet, so close to your hole you jerk before you can stop. But he doesn’t enter you, instead just barely lets the tip of his tongue run the length of your inner lips, all the way to where they encase your clit, stopping agonisingly just before it. First one side and then the other. Almost the same feeling as his fingertips had been over the rest of your body. But so much more.

You choke his name and he wraps his lips around your clit. You think you might black out, the attention so much more intense after the neglect. You feel a sob work its way from the back of your throat, force your hips to stay flat on the bed, try not to clench your right thigh around his arm in case he falls. He alternates sucking you, drawing patterns with his tongue and sometimes, when you release more wetness, he will lick a long broad stroke up your whole length and moan with his mouth stretched around as much of you as he can. Gather you on his tongue and dribble it back over your clit and pull away just to watch it slide back down your pussy. And then his mouth will be on you again, relentless. You feel his teeth more than once, grazing, experimental nips. Never hard enough to sting but enough to make you clench at the promise of it. Makes you leak more.

He pulls away.

“I have dreamed of the taste of you many times, Starlight. It is one of my favourites, one which I will often indulge myself. Look at me.” You have to force your eyes open, heaving from the effort of breathing. Tilt your head down and the sight of him makes you clench again and cry out. His hair is a mess, his blonde streak stuck straight up, and his face coated from his nose to his chin in your juices. The pink of his lips gleaming with fluid. “I will lay in my bunk long after you are sleeping and I will conjure ways in my mind to imagine how you will taste. I will try not to look at you, but I always do. And my hand is never enough when I think of how perfect I know you are, and so close, always so close to me, that I can hear the gentle undulation of your breath. I like the imagine you like this, beneath me, coming for hours so I can taste you and imprint the memory of it forever in my mind.”

He ducks his head back and licks up your length again, gathers you up and works his cheeks to mix you with his own saliva in his mouth, and then leans over your clit. Dribbles it over your clit, lets it land on the bundle of nerves and the skin and hair around it. And then blows on it like he had on your nipples. You let out a shriek and your head falls back at the cold air. Makes you draw up deep in your belly. Pulling tighter and tighter. So close. So close.

“My other favourite is that you will sit on my face, allow me to let myself be of use to you, let you fuck yourself on my tongue and rub yourself against me until you come.”

“Ezra,” you can barely speak. “Ezra, I’m going – I’m – ”

Your thighs are shaking so badly it hurts. Your arms straining above your head.

“Come.”

He latches his mouth over you as you do. Finally puts his tongue inside you and his nose brushes against your clit. Laps at you as you finally break and release over his face. You see white burst behind your eyes. Your whole body shakes at the force of it. You sob, hot tears streaking down your face. But Ezra doesn’t stop his ministrations, fucks his tongue in and out of you the whole time and when you think you might finish he moves his mouth back to you clit and moans against it, the vibrations of the sound pulse through your cunt and you scream.

“Ezra, no, I can’t – I can’t – I won’t – ”

You break again, not sure if it’s a second orgasm or the first. So, so wet. You can feel your pussy weeping. It lasts somehow, impossibly, longer than the first. You are boneless when it ends. Legs jerking, shoulders twitching off the bunk. Ezra laps at you until it almost hurts and when you flinch, he pulls back. Kisses your clit gently and slowly extracts himself from beneath you. Eases your leg around his body and pushes your knees together so you are on your side with your back to him. Kisses your thigh, and then your hip. Your shoulder. Lowers himself onto the bunk behind you and wraps his one arm around you and tucks his knees up behind yours. Flush and warm against you. Cradles you through the aftershocks of the orgasm with soft kisses to your neck and shoulder.

You turn slowly. Feel like you’re moving through water. You twist to face him and nuzzle you face into his neck. Let his arm pull you closer and his leg wrap over yours. “I love you,” you say into his skin. “Ezra. I love you. So much.”

He kisses the crown of your head, his hand gathers your hair and brushes his thumb over your scalp. “I would pour all that I am into you if you would give me the chance. I have spent my life in the pursuit of collecting treasures and now I have found one which I wish to keep always for myself. I would hoard you away from the world. I would give you the world if you asked for it.” Another soft kiss. He hums against your head. “I love you, my Starlight. My beautiful girl.”

And you are content to lay there, listening to the rain outside and the sound of his breathing, laboured at first but evening out into a gentle rhythm. You let your eyes close, press yourself between his neck and the mattress and sigh against his skin. Feel him tighten his arm around you and press his mouth into your hair. He’s wearing clean underclothes. Smells of soap. You know you should move and clean yourself from days of sweat and cum but you can’t bring yourself to leave him.

You jolt when you feel him unwind his legs from yours, had almost fallen asleep against him. There’s an awkward moment of shuffling before he can get untangled enough to push himself to sitting. You moan, reach for him and he chuckles. Leans over you again so that he can press another lingering kiss to your shoulder. And then he pushes himself from the bed and pads away. Comes back with a small towel, damp with hot water and settles himself by your feet. Tells you to sleep with a gentle voice and begins to gently scrub your skin. Your feet, your ankles, up and around your calves. All the way up your legs to your centre, wiping away the sweat and then very gently the cum which is drying between your legs and over your thighs. Your hips jerk away from the action, still sore and oversensitive, but you settle and allow him to work. He rinses the towel and returns. Sits you up and rubs your torso and your arms. You are aching from coming and twitch at the rub of the sheets against your centre. But your nipples still pebble at his touch and he chuckles.

“Come now, Starlight. To the other bunk. The sheets are clean.”

He helps you to stand and catches you when your legs buckle. Seats you in his bunk, against the clean sheets and leaves to discard the towel. You can see the tent of his dick in his pants when he returns, another patch of precum on the clean fabric. Your mouth fills at the sight.

“Ezra,” you breathe. “Ezra. I want to – ”

You fidget. Can’t say it. Years of keeping your feelings bottled deeply within you make the habit a hard one to break. Suddenly shy even after he had just made you scream. Made you orgasm twice. He stands before you, cock at your eye level and you can’t look away. Tiredness fading, soreness fading into something else. You lick at your lips and he groans.

“Can I please, Ezra?” You look up at him. Shuffle yourself closer to the edge of the bunk, and closer to him. Back down at his cock and then to his eyes. Dark and hungry and watching your mouth. “You’re not the only one with fantasies.”

He lets out a pained noise and nods. Chest heaving. “Yes. Yes.”

You scoot forward and slowly, carefully brace your hands on his thighs. Watch his dick kick slightly at the contact. Squeeze the thick muscle in his legs and bring yourself closer to him. Glance up at his eyes once more and he is watching you. Transfixed. You graze the head of him through his pants with your nose and then your mouth. Soak up the choked groan he makes, let it fill you up. Press open mouthed kisses to the already wet fabric, make them loud so that he will hear them. Let your mouth fall open further and further until you can almost close it around him. Hum in quiet satisfaction. He’s big. Just the tip of him makes you shiver.

You pull away and reach for the waistband of his pants, slung low on his hips already, and pull it slowly down. Take your time watching as his smooth skin is revealed, the patch of thick, dark hair at the base of him, and then the length of his cock. Just enough that he comes over the top of his waistband. Stare at it, slack jawed and nervous. Eager. Your mouth watering. He is big, bigger than you had realised. You hear the slap of skin against the pod and look up. Ezra has braced his elbow and forearm against the low roof and is leaning towards you, seeking your mouth.

You grant it to him. Lick the slit at the tip of his dick and then around it. Make sure you look into his eyes when you open your mouth and suck him in. Pause while you work your jaw to accommodate for his thickness and test the heavy weight of him against your tongue, taste him. Feel against him and massage your tongue against the shape of the prominent vein on the underside of his cock. He groans, stutters his hips forward into your mouth. You slacken your jaw as best you can, have to open your mouth so wide to fit him you can feel it stretch at the corner of your lips. You pull back, try to relax, take him back in again. Watch the way his head tilts back and the soft shape of his stomach heaves under his shirt. You lift your hand to work at his base, easing it up over the path of your mouth to spread the mixture of saliva and pre-cum down to his base. Bob your mouth over as much of him as you can, relish the feeling of his stuttering hips trying not to choke you. Trying to allow you to set the pace.

You move your hand from his thigh, up around to his ass, dig your fingers into the firm muscle hard. You push him forward from behind, force his hips forward and his cock deeper into your mouth, almost into your throat. More than is comfortable, but it makes you hot and aching, the feeling of the thick head of him pushing into you so hard you can barely breathe. You push again when you feel him try to fight another jerk of his hips, use your hand to show him you want him to fuck into you, still your head when he gives in to the feeling of it and groans. Lets his head all back and sinks himself into your mouth. His whole cock pulses hard and you moan, as loud as you can, to make him feel it. His hips hold in your mouth, almost too long, almost stops your breathing for too long. And then he pulls out and thrusts in again and again and again.

He’s cursing softly, using your mouth, his thrusts becoming stronger and deeper. Hitting the back of your throat. It brings tears to your eyes. He pulls out, rests just the head of his dick inside your lips and the sight of him, of his dick hanging just over the waistband of his pants and his thermal shirt covering him while you sit before him naked makes you thrill. You swallow him down, so far back it stings your eyes and makes you choke on him, sputter.

His knees half buckle and he yanks himself away. His dick falls from your mouth with a wet noise and a trail of saliva connecting you. He stares at it, swearing and panting until the string of fluid breaks. You whine, reach forward, try to pull him back again but he twists away.

He is breathless. Heaving. “I need… but a moment to collect myself.”

“I don’t want you to collect yourself.” You push yourself up onto both knees and sit on your ankles. Grip the clean sheets on either side of you. “I want you to fuck my throat. Please Ezra, please.”

His dick jumps again. Leaks a steady track of precum down the underside of its length and you moan again, twitch in your spot and mourn the loss of tasting it. Of the feel of it running down your throat. He closes his eyes and breathes, his fingers gripping against the ceiling so hard his hand turns white at the knuckles.

“I want to taste your cum, Ezra.” You blink up at him. Tears of frustration in your eyes.

You reach for him again and this time he catches both your hands in his. Yanks you from the bed with a yelp and pulls you to your feet. Turns you both and shoves you back, lands you on your own sullied sheets. Your bare ass bounces against the covers and you scramble backwards. Ezra is kicking out of his sweats and tugging off his shirt. Joins you on the bed. Bronzed skin exposed and dick hard and pink and pointed upwards. Shining with your saliva. You pussy begins to leak again.

“I want to cum down your throat, my beautiful Starlight,” he says, kneeling in front of you. “I want to fuck your throat until you cry and I want you to drink down everything I have to give you.” He grabs your ankle and yanks it towards him. You slide across the covers. “But first I want to cum inside your pretty little pussy. Is that okay?”

You nod. Nod so fast you dizzy yourself with it. He sits back onto his feet and yanks your ankle again, shoves your legs apart with his hand. Then his hand is on your clit. He is not soft or gentle this time. He pinches the bundle of nerves hard enough to make your cry out in shock. His hand leaves you, spans the width of your chest and forces your back to the bed. Then he is at your clit again, drawing harsh circles around it which make you scream. He doesn’t stop, not even when you can barely breathe, except to scoop your own juices from where they leak and smear them across your lips and clit. His finger is inside you, fucking you, and then back out. His hand disappears and you blubber, crying and humping your hips towards nothing at the loss.

The light slap against your clit makes you yelp. Makes you jerk your whole body in surprise, and then utter a low moan, feel the dribble of wetness down your slit and over his fingers.

“You have the prettiest pussy I have ever seen, Starlight.” Ezra grits. Sweat beading at his forehead and dripping around the curve of his brow. “I could watch your spasming little cunt clench around nothing all day. I could rub you like this and see how much your pretty pussy wants my dick in it. I could not give it to you, just make you lie here for hours and watch you and every time you almost come I could stop.” You are uttering fast, breathy little moans. Feel your pussy sputter and more wetness ooze from it. Your thighs jumping. He slaps your clit again, the sting much harder this time. You think if he doesn’t stop you will come again without having him inside you and the thought makes you want to scream. “You like this, don’t you? You like hearing me say what I wish to do to you. You like me spanking your cunt.”

“Please, Ezra.” You’re blubbering. Shaking. “Please, please, please!”

His hand lifts away from you again and you cry out. It comes back, but not between your legs. His hand is on your hip, holding you down. You start to push against him, start to whine.

“How long?” He asks. His voice almost conversational.

You’re panting too hard to answer him. Can’t figure out what he means. “H-how… how long w-what?”

His fingertips dig into your skin. “How long have you wanted me to fuck you?”

You groan. Leak. Can’t think, can’t form any words. Everything is bright and buzzing around you, your clit throbbing. And he wants – he wants – you toss your head to the side, screw your face up, try to think.

“S-since Arla-7,” you gasp. “Arla-7.”

He goes still. His hand turns to stone, pressing into you so hard. You sob, loud and needy. But he doesn’t move at all, just sits there. You turn your head back and open your eyes, have trouble seeing him through the tears caught in your lashes. He is not how you expect him to look. He is no longer harsh and snarling and telling you what to do. His face is soft. His hand moves from your hip to brush a tear from your cheek and then cradle your face. Tender and sweet.

“So long?” He whispers. “Arla-7 was – ”

“Nearly two years ago.”

He groans and then is crowding you into the mattress. Looms over you, his weight skewed, so he has to slide his arm beneath your head to keep himself balance. You feel the weight of his dick rest against your lower stomach. Let out a whimper. He rubs himself slowly along you, catches himself between your wet lips and drags his dick between you. You lift your hips to help, seek out the tip of him. Realise his arm is shaking in exertion. You drop back to the bunk.

“Would it – would it be easier if we swapped?”

He blinks down at you. Then nods and rolls onto his side and the back, over his good shoulder. Uses his arm behind your neck to pull you up off the bunk and with him. You swing up and gingerly sit yourself next to him. Loop your leg over his hips and balance your hands on his shoulders. For a moment there is a settling feeling, something softer and more peaceful works its way between you. Ezra lifts his arm and pushes your hair from your face and he smiles at you. One of his rare, small smiles. Like you are the centre of the galaxy. Makes you feel like maybe you actually are starlight. You smile back, press your lips to his wrist.

He drops his hand, grabs himself and you feel the blunt head of his cock push up against you. You moan, test your weight back and forward slightly and start to sink slowly. Feel the stretch of him inside you, so, so big. You sink lower and have to stop, feel your thighs shaking, your eyes fill with tears. Then lower again and you feel him at the back of your throat. You still, both hands on his shoulders, quaking at the effort of just having him inside you. The burn of the stretch doesn’t stop, and holding yourself up hurts too, so you lower again, couldn’t go any faster even if you tried, the friction of his dick against your walls so intense from the tightness of the fit. He’s murmuring to you, telling you to breathe, asking if you are okay. You keep sinking, feel a sob break your lips as you finally, finally cover him completely. Sit your thighs over his hips.

He’s holding your hip, his thumb drawing light circles against you. Still talking, still saying something. Your brain has blacked out, completely shut off.

Slowly you start to swivel your hips, gently rocking forward and back again. Feeling the burn turn slowly to something easier, something better. His words of concern turn into words of encouragement. You lift yourself off him just slightly and drop again. Feel his moan reverberate through his whole body. Feel his dick twitch inside you. You lift again, further this time and drop slowly, start to feel your toes curl again, start to ride him properly. He shifts beneath you, starts to match your strokes. Follows your pace with every thrust of his hips. Gentle at first and then faster. The wet sound of slapping skin fills the pod, drowns out the sounds of the rain outside. When you can finally open your eyes Ezra is staring between you at where his dick disappears inside you, brow furrowed, face red and damp with sweat. You groan and he grunts beneath you, tightens his grip on your hip and steadies you. Holds you still. He braces his feet against the bed and starts to thrust into you. Each hit jolts your body, you feel the slap of him under your thighs, against your ass. Bouncing your whole body at every impact, moans turn to sharp cries as he fills you, pumping into you.

“Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck,” you pant with each thrust.

He’s out of breath. “Touch yourself.”

You do. You lean to one side so you can reach a hand between your bodies and rub at your clit. It makes you cry loudly and buck into your hand, back against his cock. He’s staring at your bouncing tits, down at his dick sinking into you. You rub vicious little circles around your clit so hard your arm is shaking.

“Where – ”

“I-in-inside me.” Your words break with every slap of his balls against your ass, sending you scooting forward on your knees. “Inside me. Please Ezra, please, safe – ”

He yanks your hips down over him, not humping anymore, almost vibrating. You watch him come undone beneath you. His jaw locks, neck bulges and tips back. Covered in sweat, slick with it. His chest heaving. You feel the hot pumping of his release inside you and tweak your clit, panting until you join him. Stars burst behind your eyes and you slump forward. Clenching so tightly around his dick you wonder how he fits. It only makes Ezra groan beneath you, surprisingly quiet when he comes. You slump into him.

You lay panting together, chests heaving and slipping, pressed against each other. His dick still inside you, your trembling thighs wrapped around his hips. You can’t think anything, except for his twitching length inside you, the last of his release mixing with yours and starting to swell at the place where you meet but trapped, because his cock fills you so completely that there is no room for anything else. You let your head fall into the crook of his neck, drop completely into him. Feel his arm slowly lift and wrap over your shoulders. Hug you into him while he tries to catch his breath. When you gain enough sense to think anything it is that you must be in heaven with him. He is hot and alive beneath you. And in love with you. You sniffle and kiss his collarbone, hug your arms around him as best you can.

You must lie there for some time because you feel the sweat dry and cooling against your skin and Ezra tugs the meagre blanket over you both. You are boneless against him, happy at the feel of his warmth trapped beneath you and inside you. He tries to shift, and you feel him start to slide out of you. You tighten your thighs around his hips and squeeze your cunt around him with as much force as you can muster. He groans and stills. Hot breath fanning against your cheek.

“Stay,” you whisper. Face burning hot with embarrassment at this request. At admitting how good he feels, soft inside you. “Just for a little while.”

He hums and stills. Drops his hand to your hips and pushes you down further into his crotch. Lifts his hips a little to sheath himself inside you to the hilt. You groan into his neck.

“Who am I to deny you anything,” he says into your temple.

“Was – ”

He waits, and when you don’t continue. “Was what?”

“Was it…” You squirm, and still when you both groan at the feeling of your releases trickle out of you and trail down his dick and over his balls. You still before anymore can escape, red at how much you resent any of it leaving you. You suck in a deep breath. “Was it as good as you imagined it?”

“Better, Starlight. Better.” He brushes hair back over your shoulder, lets his hand linger on the skin and trace the length of your spine. You feel his smile when your skin lifts into goosebumps beneath his fingertips. “No phantom conjuring in my mind will ever compete with you.”

Your eyes well with tears and you are as usual left without words. So unlike Ezra. So you show him in your own way. You turn your head to press a kiss to the thick column of his throat. A chaste one first, and then open your mouth and breathe over the spot. Press another wet kiss to the same spot. You feel his dick, still inside you, jump.

“You are truly fortuitous we have made our fortunes worth on those aquatic gems.” His fingers trail further down your back. Lower. Ghost the bump at the base of your spine and lower still. Almost, almost touching. Glimpsing against the top of the crack of your ass and then retreating. Tracing over the swell of it and back over your hip. His breath his hot against your hair. “I do not think I could be convinced by anything to leave you. I have two years of craving to account for, my Starlight.”

Permanent tags: @btillys @vercopaanir

#I have been shamed forever #i cannot ever leave my house again #will never be able to face my family and friends again #ezra (prospect)#ezra prospect #ezra x reader #ezra (prospect) x reader #fan fiction #prospect #smut #pedro pascal #fic #my fic #my writing

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impossible-rat-babies · 3 years ago

Text

tuesday, two in the afternoon

fallen hero / 2.1k words / chargestep (nb!sidestep + m!ortega) / cw: smoking

mostly below the cut!

“Why did you bring me down to the beach? It smells awful down here...”

Pollux kicks a rock across the barren sand, watching it roll into the lackadaisical waves lapping at the meager shoreline. The sand squishes beneath his shoes, water leaking through the crappy canvas.

It rained not long ago—almost caught the both of them in the downpour.

His head is still damp from the few fat drops that landed from between the slats in the boardwalk they used to take cover. He runs his hand across the fresh buzzcut, forgetting for a second there’s no curls to tuck behind his ears.

“I thought you liked the beach.” Ortega comes up beside him, keeping pace as they wander through sand and rock, passing by tiny tide pools refreshed by the rain. The sun will dry what the waves can reach soon, but for now they thrive under the cloudy grey sky.

“I don’t mind the beach, but it always stinks like garbage and wet dog down here after it rains.”

“At least it keeps the place private.”

“If you don’t count the seagulls.”

“They’re worse than the tourists.”

Ortega smiles and Pollux turns to walk backwards, cocking a brow over his sunglasses. Of course Ortega is overdressed to be taking a walk on what passes for a beach these days—a fancy shirt and slacks and the watch he’s got on costs more than four months of rent on Pollux’s shitty apartment.

(Disregarding the sunglasses he’s toting around that are without a doubt the third most expensive thing he owns and even then they were a gift. From Ortega, obviously. He disregards the invading thought that the most expensive thing Ortega has won’t ever be his clothing or a watch, but his spine. Pollux thinks *if*—not *when*—he dies if they’ll pry it out and stick it inside someone else; a replacement for an accident of their own.)

Ortega is always dressed to impress, the silly man. Pollux it’s a habit, or he doesn’t have anything else to wear that isn’t something higher class or luxury, or if he genuinely enjoys silk shirts. The tailored slacks with fancy watches and Italian leather shoes. There’s no one to impress but Pollux and he hasn’t fallen for that trick in years.

“Worried about your shoes?”

“They’re...squishy.”

“You’re gonna ruin them.”

Ortega kicks another rock off towards the waves, stuffing his hands in his pocket as an answer. Pollux snorts, rolling his eyes, and he turns back around, falling into step beside him. He’s always been a fast walker--a faster runner.

Silence stretches out between them and apprehension feels like just another word for awkward, this gap between them. The few pointed inches—enough for static electricity to jump between them, for Pollux to anticipate Ortega’s touch and deftly pull away, leaving air beside his fingertips.

It’s still so hard to let him close.

“Why did you want to meet up here?” Pollux asks just to have something to say, anything to avoid Ortega looking like he’s going to throw his arm over his shoulder and pull him in to mumble something fond, or a terrible joke.

“Just to go on a walk?” Ortega tries and oh he tries so hard. More than he used to.

“Since when did you start walking for fun?”

“When you decide to come along with me. It’s fun, Lux.”

Pollux frowns—he knows this game. Ortega’s got this little tell of looking away just the right way.

“You just wanted to get me out of the house then.”

Ortega shrugs—he’s avoiding, nor is he saying no...

“Okay so I lied. I don’t have anything to talk about. But, if I just wanted to spend time with you then you would’ve said no.”

“True...” Pollux hates how he’s right more often than not. Asshole. “So you picked the beach?”

“I didn’t plan on it raining.”

Pollux sighs, tired of the sand and he wanders away--further out of reach--towards the rocks near the pillars holding up the promenade.

It’s deserted right now, the rain and the fact that it’s two in the afternoon on a Tuesday keeping the crowds away. Give it a Saturday on a cool summer’s evening and it’d be packed to the gills; people screaming on the small roller coasters, the stink of fresh fried food and the lights--the dizzying array of red, blue and yellow. All the people and all the thoughts buzzing through his head; there were so many bombarding him--all of them, just as aggressive as the lights. He’s braved that terrible crowd--all because Ortega asked.

He used to do that, do things because Ortega asked nicely. Because they were fun--he had fun. Does he still remember what that felt like? Being on that promenade, breathless and young, laughing like he knew how to laugh?

They walked down to the very end once, away from the bright lights where it was just the ocean stretching out in front of them like a black abyss. All alone. Ortega asking him, pleading for one ride on the ferris wheel. “Come on Lux just one little ride.” Pollux calling his bluff, shoving his face away because it was all just a ploy for a kiss. Like this is some snapshot romance movie still.

It’s stupid to think about bygones.

There’s no temptation to jump into old times down here, just the water swelling against the rocks and the concrete walls. Trash hiding in the crevices, old green beer bottles that will break and turn to sea glass; left to wash up on the shores of Hawaii.

The beaches there are still nice--worthy of memories. Not this smog stained grey sand.It’s just a hop skip and a jump up onto the slick brown rocks smeared with algae and something that shines like oil. It stinks like it.

Pollux stops, shaking a cigarette out of the package and he cups his hand to protect the fragile flame, watching Ortega clamber up onto the rock beside him. He flops down on a relatively dry spot, free of the worst of the gross.

“What are you doing?” Pollux asks with a faint laugh and a cocked brow, letting his cigarette go unlit. It droops between his lips.

“What does it look like? I’m sitting down.” Ortega replies, smoothing a strand of hair back into the salt and pepper waves at his temples.

“Mr. Ralph Lauren is gonna be pissed you ruined your pants?” A raise of the brow and Ortega looks up at him with a look in those brown eyes.

“My shoes are wet, Lux.” Ortega whines and Pollux is *this close* to kicking him off their rock.

“I think you’re getting old.”

Pollux squats beside him, arms draping over top of his knees.

“Now you’re just being cruel...”

Ortega adjusts, grimacing when he inevitably puts his hand on a wet spot. He untucks his shirt, and he’s rather reminiscent of those “aged like fine wine” men on old magazine covers he found in shitty motel lobbies. He’d fit right on a sandy beach in Florida. These aren’t the right beaches for any of that anymore, still mostly rock. Their original glory immortalized in photographs on the fronts of travel brochures.

But they are healing—slowly. The sand creeps up the shoreline more and more each year.

“I’m not cruel. You just an oversized sun hat and a lounge chair. Maybe a nice hot beer.” Pollux teases and Ortega grimaces.

“It’s January.”

“That doesn’t stop people in Florida or Hawaii.”

“Have you even been to Florida?”

Ortega asks so harmlessly and Pollux pauses.

He’s been there half a dozen times before—fuzzy memories from over a decade ago. Rooftop gardens on top of high rise builds off the coast of Miami, galas with thousand dollar dresses and caked on makeup in the low light from crystal chandeliers. It was all for work, watching and scanning, nimble mental fingers coaxing and teasing truth from the mind’s eyes. He would watch, take in the sights and the sounds through other people’s minds. Take the truth and puzzle over the rest. Ask the dangerous questions: why and how?

He still believes the biggest mistake they made was allowing him to learn.

“I’ve watched movies.” He says instead of lying and he knows he isn’t getting away with it. “Besides, have you ever been to Florida? Or Hawaii even?”

“No, but I’ve watched movies before.”

Ortega grins and Pollux groans, resisting the urge to yet again so shove him off his rock and into one of the tide pools below.

“You’re an asshole.”

Pollux fishes around in his pocket and grabs out a matchbook, flipping it open and fuck he grabbed the wrong one. There’s nothing but the empty packaging in this one, uneven lines from tearing out matches without much grace. He flips it over onto the back and nothing--even the striker strip is shot to hell. Fuck.

“Are you out?” Ortega peers over and he grumbles.

“Grabbed the wrong matchbook” Pollux huffs, about to grab his carton back out and stuff the poor cigarette back in.

“Wait, I still got--here.” Ortega pulls a small matchbox out of his shirt pocket, holding it out to him. It’s much nicer than his ten cent books he frequently gets for free from the gas station because the cashier thinks he’s cute.

“You...still carry them around?”

His voice stalls in his chest: it’s meant to be more of questioning incredulity, but it comes out much softer. Forlorn and sticky at the front of his mouth.

Ortega sheepishly looks down at the matchbox, flipping it between his index and forefingers.

“Old habits die hard.”

He ran out of matches a lot, even the crappy little packages where the matches broke more often than actually struck. Ortega started carrying them around, little inch and a half boxes of matches tucked in his coat or shirt pocket. He doesn’t remember when the habit started. But it evolved into a habit of stealing them, seeing how easily he could sneak one away without him noticing.

Ortega protested whenever he caught him and the two of them scrambling for the box until Pollux tucked it away like magic, or Ortega tried tickling him enough times to get an elbow to the nose.

He got him back: a sufficient enough shock and Pollux complained about having a numb hand for the next week.

Pollux had a little stacked collection of them all lined up against the baseboard next to his mattress. He kept the fun ones, the brightly colored and eclectically designed ones--neon blue and mustard yellow. Held onto them until they were falling apart and he painstakingly cut them apart and glued or taped them in the pages of notebooks.

Even now, seven years later Ortega still carries them around and that tugs sharp in the back of his throat and deep in his belly—a sort of nausea that stings his eyes.

He blinks several times and fuck there’s the logo of the cigarette shop Ortega dragged him to once in a blue moon. The floor was some cheap old green motel carpeting--the windows covered in layers of advertisements and wood paneling everywhere else. But god it smelled fantastic--like a humidor stuffed to the brim with anything from cheap cigarettes to fancy and illegal cigars in glass cases.

(Fuck, it was the best place to buy cigarettes--they still had the little machines with the tokens he’d pay five bucks for at the counter.)

“Yeah...” Pollux mumbles, tearing his eyes away. “Kinda literally, you know. Dying.” He chuckles bone dry and Ortega cringes.

“You still recognized the matchbox. I can’t call you a lost cause yet.”

He looks over at him, salt and pepper black hair blowing in the breeze, the little white spots where the scars cut through his beard. The soft smile on chapped lips. Even with all the anger in the world rushing under his skin, he can’t be mad.

There’s just that wistful empty ache and he blinks, looking away. The distant shoreline etched on the horizon of a dark ocean and the patchy grey sky above. He lights the cigarette with a single match, the sharpness of the sulfur and the sweet menthol cloud of smoke the breeze dissolves into nothing.

“Here...” Pollux offers the matchbox back to him.

“Keep it. You need it more than me.” Ortega says, pushing his hand back towards him and he pulls his hand away.

Pollux fixes him with a with a long look before he heaves a sigh and looks back out towards the coast and the ocean further beyond. Smoking the cigarette, filling his lungs on the menthol and tobacco until it burns out at the filter. Ortega sitting beside him, bouncing a leg but he’s quiet. And he doesn’t look over at Pollux.

The sun barely peeks in through the clouds and it looks like this is all the rain they’ll be getting.

#fallen hero #chargestep #fallen hero: rebirth #fallen hero: retribution #fhr #owen writes #oc tag #oc: pollux #i tried to keep it under 2k but! we failed folks #anyway two fics in one week? WILD #i have more stuff i'm gonna spice up lmao but for now. there's this #the lets go to the beech beech fic lsdjlfsd #this is going in the queue hopefully it. shows up lmao

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polaroid15 · 4 years ago

Text

With Great Power

FINAL CHAPTER!! 🥳'With great power comes saving the world'

Summary: Endgame, but with a lil' Peter-weilding-mjollnir twist :)

Read on Ao3 HERE

---------

Peter is back.

Peter is alive.

Tony looks at him in detached amazement. Because it’s really him, enthusiastic and animated as the day he had lost him.

“Do you remember when we were in space...”

His kid. Peter. Everything is a blur.

“...and then he started doing that yellow sparkly thing that he does all the time-”

Unable to prevent it another second, he pulls Peter into a hug, pressing his cheek into the kid’s hair. Peter stills under his touch, his light breaths filling Tony’s ears. It feels like a miracle.

“What are you doing?”

His throat is too tight to respond.

“Oh. This is nice.” Peter returns the hug, completing the orbit. And just like that it’s all worth it. Every damn sacrifice.

Everything clicks into place.

“God kiddo. I sure missed you,” he croaks. Peter curls his fingers into Tony’s back.

The battle rages on around them. Destruction, fear. It’s not over. They’re a spark in a dark room, a single seed of victory.

“I missed you too.”

They separate and a physical pain rips through Tony’s chest. The world around him is blurry and he works quickly to blink the moisture out of his eyes.

“Thanos can’t win,” Peter says.

“He’s strong.”

“We’re stronger. Together.”

Struggling to swallow his emotion, Tony places his hands on either side of Peter’s face and wipes his thumbs across his cheekbones. Not dust. Solid. Real. “What’s your plan kiddo?”

Because now, more than ever, Tony has something to fight for.

-----

Tony tries hard to stay with Peter, but they're too outnumbered, too outgunned. He loses him to the chaos not even fifteen minutes after their reunion and tries to ignore the building panic in his chest.

“FRI. Keep me updated on the kid.”

“Yes sir.”

He fights alongside his family and prays that Peter is right- that they can win. That soon, it will all be over.

Across the field, through dozens of falling alien soldiers, he sees Peter and his heart catches in his throat.

Because he’s carrying the gauntlet. It’s in his arms, and Tony can’t breathe. He turns to blast to the boy’s aid and is intercepted by half a dozen opponents.

Peter is on his own.

-----

Peter can count on one hand how many times he’s been more afraid than the moment he’s living right now. Sprinting with all his might with all infinity stones tucked against his chest.

The stones that had stolen five years from his life.

The stones that he doesn’t fully comprehend the consequences of yet.

Holding the gauntlet makes him a priority target. He flips and dodges and shoots webs, but he still gets hit.

Hard.

One particularly rough attack has him slammed into the earth, creating a crater with the sheer force of his body. Karen lights up his screen in ugly alerts about his health as he blinks stars out of his eyes. The alien that had landed him there appears above him, snarling and raising the hand to finish him off.

Peter closes his eyes.

The blow never comes.

Slowly, with every muscle in his body shaking, he opens his eyes. A woman stands above him, practically glowing with strength. Captain Marvel.

“Hi,” he wheezes. “I’m- I’m Peter Parker.”

“Hey Peter Parker. You got something for me?”

Though his body begs him to stay down, Peter forces his limbs into cooperation until he’s on his feet, grunting when it makes him dizzy. “I don’t know how you’re going to get it through all that.”

But the smile on Captain Marvel’s face gives him renowned confidence. He hands over his burden and sags when its weight leaves his hands.

-----

FRIDAY pushes Peter’s vitals in front of Tony’s eyes and he curses, feeling acid crawl up his throat. “Connect me to his com.”

There’s an explosion somewhere to his right. He hits the tail end of the blast and rolls across the rock, the breath knocked out of his chest. An alien falls out of the sky towards him and he shoots it away before it can hit him.

“Mr. Stark?” Peter gasps through the line. “Are you okay?”

“I’m fine. You on the other hand- what were you thinking? Grabbing the gauntlet like that-”

“I had to! There was no other choice!”

“There’s always a choice, Pete. And you always choose the dangerous one.”

Peter’s laugh fills his ears and it’s almost enough to ebb away the biting edges of his anxiety. But then it tapers away into a shout, followed closely by webbing and clanging metal.

“Kid?” Tony prompts urgently. “You okay? Where are you?”

“F-fine. Ow. I’m fine Mr. Stark. I got him.”

“Where’s the gauntlet?”

“Captain Marvel.”

Tony dips in relief, trying to navigate the kid’s location. “Good, that’s good. Try and find somewhere safe, okay?”

“What? No! I- I have to help.”

“Kid, tap out. You have fifteen broken bones!”

“But Mr. Stark- that means I still have 191 working ones!”

Tony gapes, lost for words as he dodges another attack. “I’m going to pretend you didn’t just say that.”

If Peter responds, it’s lost to his ears. Something hits him hard in his side, so hard that for a moment it whites out his vision. He lands ungracefully, skidding and moaning. Peter’s voice is distant static in his ears and he tries desperately to hang onto it.

When he opens his eyes, Thanos stands above him.

-----

“Mr. Stark? Oh man. Can you hear me?”

Peter’s pulse is threatening to shoot straight through his skin. Tony’s ragged breaths fill his ears, sending shivers down his back. “Mr. Stark! Crap- Karen. Plot me a route to Mr. Stark’s location.”

The LED display maps out the route and Peter wastes no time. He slips through the battle like an arrow through water, his worry dulling every other instinct. When he crests a hill he sees his mentor pressed into the ground, Thanos’s boot grinding down on his chest.

“MR. STARK!”

Peter swings faster than he ever has in his life, heartbeat in his ears and his adrenaline giving him the strength he doesn’t have. With another violent scream he swings straight into Thanos’s side, kicking him in the head and effectively knocking him away from Tony’s writhing body. Thanos hits the ground hard, scrambling for purchase before rising to his feet. He stares at Peter with a sadistic sense of admiration.

Trying to block out Tony’s fight for air, Peter stands in front of him, arms splayed out wide. “Don’t touch him.”

“A fighter. I can respect that.” Thanos takes a step forward and Peter tenses. Behind him, he sees Captain America and Thor fighting a ten-foot tall giant. He thinks he sees Thor catch his eye. “But I am afraid your efforts are useless.”

“I won’t stop. I’m not afraid of you.”

But he is. Terrified.

“You would give your life for that man?” Thanos drawls, eyes darkening. From behind Peter, he hears Tony trying to get up and failing.

“Yes.”

“P-Peter. Go-”

But Peter doesn’t move. He blocks Thanos’s first punch and spins away from the second. The third he isn’t so lucky. It hits him hard in the chest and he flies back, skidding towards where Thor and Steve are fighting. Tony cries out. It’s the only thing keeping him conscious.

Thanos looms over Tony’s body, a look of victory on his face. “This man is the reason for this fight. He deserves to die.”

Peter can’t breathe. Thanos picks up a broken spear off the ground.

He raises it above Tony’s head.

“I am inevitable.”

A tug in Peter’s gut gives him what he needs to do next. In a blur of emotion and panic, he shoots to his feet and instead of looking at Tony, he turns to look at Thor. Surprisingly, the man’s eyes are locked onto his own. A millisecond of silent communication is all they need.

Thor throws his hammer. Peter reaches out his hand.

He catches it, the weapon feather-light in his hand. Before he can process the success he leaps forward with all his strength, swinging mjollnir as if it were destined, in this very moment, to be wielded by his hand.

Thanos’s eyes light in surprise. He shifts the spear towards Peter in futile defense, something like real fear in his eyes. Mjollnir, sparking with lightning, cracks hard against his head and he falls to the earth as if in slow motion. Peter stands above his body, limbs numb, chest heaving, and mjollnir curled tightly in his hand. Thanos doesn’t get up.

“P-Peter-”

Spinning around, Peter finds Tony fighting for air against a slab of jagged rock, his eyes wide and mouth hanging open. He moves his eyes from Peter’s face to the hammer in his hand, looking just as disbelieving as Peter feels.

“Mr. Stark!” he drops to his knees beside his fallen mentor, hands shaking as they reach out to assess the damage. “Are you- oh god- are you okay?”

But Tony merely blinks, his eyes still trained on the hammer.

“Mr. Stark?”

The shock on Tony’s face morphs into a smile. It makes a split on his lip bleed. “I always knew you’d be worthy,” he says softly.

And then he passes out.

-----

Peter defends Tony with the rest of his energy, Thor and Steve by his side. They fight until the army dissolves.

“Someone snapped,” Steve says, looking in awe over the battlefield. “It’s over.”

Over.

Peter falls back to the ground by Tony and shakes his shoulders. “Wake up Mr. Stark. We won.”

We won.

After more prompting, Tony groans and opens his eyes into slits. They widen after connecting with Peter. “Kid?” he whispers.

“We won Tony,” he says.

Tony chokes on a sob. Though obviously painful, he sits up and pulls Peter into a hug, and Peter returns the gesture with equal force. The dying embers of the battle fall around them, cries of victory still ringing out over the field.

“You called me Tony.”

Peter laughs, though it ends in a relieved sob. “Don’t get used to it.”

“Nope,” Tony interjects. To Peter’s surprise, he presses his lips into his hair. “You broke the seal. It’s Tony now, kiddo.”

Peter relaxes more fully against Tony’s hold, his adrenaline fading, the aches and pains of the battle starting to hit him like a freight train. “I’m really glad you’re okay,” he says quietly, so only he can hear.

“Oh kiddo-”

They hug with the intent of never letting go.

-----

Later that night, safely back on earth, Tony finds Peter in medbay. Though bandaged head to toe himself, he’s running around busily by Bruce’s side, helping treat the rest of the team. Tony stands by the door, crossing his arms and admiring the sight with a warmth in his chest.

Thor comes to stand by his side. “Your son saved the world today.”

Your son. Tony doesn’t bother correcting him. “He did.”

“And by lifting Mjollner. That is no small feat.”

Tony smiles. He can’t help it. “I know.”

-----

When the chaos dies down, Tony tracks Peter to a vacant couch in the lab. He’s sprawled out on his back half asleep.

“Pete? What are you doing down here?”

Blinking sleepy at him, Peter shrugs. “S’quiet down here. Familiar. I missed it.”

His eyes sting again. God, Stark. Pull it together. “Mind if I sit?” he asks.

Peter shakes his head, moving to accommodate Tony with a smile. “I talked to May,” he tells him. “She’s safe. I’ll be able to see her tomorrow once the roads open back up.”

“That’s great news.”

“Yeah. Ned and MJ too. Everyone- everyone is safe.”

Tony smiles. It really is over. “I did it all for you, you know.”

A short silence. Peter shuffles to sit up further, his hair disheveled. “What did you say?”

“I did it all for you,” Tony repeats, looking stubbornly at the wall. “Time travel, I mean. I invented time travel to get you back.”

Peter chokes. Doesn’t speak.

“I wasn’t going to do it at first,” Tony continues, “when they first asked me. But then I saw this old picture of us and- and I knew I wouldn’t be able to live another day without at least trying.”

“Tony-”

“Five years was too long. I should have done it sooner and I’m sorry.”

“Tony!”

Finally, he looks. The kid’s eyes are glistening, his cheeks flushed red. Then, he smiles. “I can’t- I don’t- I don’t know what to say.”

Lips quirking, Tony pulls Peter into his side and ruffles his hair. “You don’t have to say anything, kiddo. You saved my bacon today more than once. By wielding a magic hammer, for the record.”

Peter makes a disbelieving noise in the back of his throat. “That was pretty cool, wasn’t it?”

A phrase pops into his head, something that Peter had told him years ago. “With great power comes great responsibility,” he says. “Your Uncle would’ve been proud.”

Peter moves to look at him, brown eyes impossibly wide. “You remember.”

“Of course I do. Don’t insult my memory. I know it’s been five years but I’m not that much older-”

Peter chuckles. For a moment, they sit in perfect silence. Tony could live in it for a hundred lifetimes.

“Thanks for bringing me back,” Peter whispers, eyelids drooping.

“You’re family Pete. Family stays together.” He pauses, smiles. “Speaking of which… you have a little sister.”

“What?!”

#peter parker #tony stark #protective peter parker #endgame #endgame fix it #mjollnir #peter is worthy #hurt peter parker #peter parker whump #found family #irondad #irondad fic #my fic #tony stark acting as peter parkers parental figure

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theharellan · 4 years ago

Text

Written for Stories of Thedas Volume II. Pairing: Solas & Cole (platonic) Prompt: Library

Masks upon masks. The Winter Palace is strange to Cole, who attends at the Inquisitor's bidding and finds himself at a loss for how to help. Solas comes upon him with ideas for how to cope with the deadly Game.

Read on AO3.

Couples spin on the dance floor, turning and turning, going nowhere and everywhere at once. Their heads fill with daydreams, one gazes into her partner’s eyes through their masks, imagining the hidden corners they could lose themselves in. Another, all he sees is the faint outline of a knife in his companion’s skirts, so all-consuming he almost forgets the steps. A third, their eyes bore holes into the other’s heads, hate springs from love eternal. His eyes dart from one couple to the next, glimpses into minds fraught with thoughts of a Game no one ever really wins.

He breathes in and feels the air catch in his throat. Honeyed words mask the taste of poison, cold compassion, they understand only so they can hurt. It isn’t right, it isn’t fair, it isn’t–

In the blink of an eye he’s in the library, surrounded by pages that whisper the words of yesterday. Not so sharp against his skin. Below, a dead man in the shape of a Warden pretends to stare at a plaque, praying no one will look at him twice, fearing they might see his valourous wings are clipped. It’s still a hurt, a tangle, but he’s trying to help. Cruelty does not become him. He lets out a breath he forgot he was holding, hands coming together to pull at his sleeves.

Oh.

He had forgotten about the uniform. The fabric doesn’t come away at his touch, no matter how hard he tugs.

And he misses his hat.

Cole wonders how long he will wait here, alone with his panic clawing at his throat. In the Spire he spent months isolated, forgotten by all save the one who no longer cares to know him. Suddenly the soft, inviting lights which illuminate the halls of the Winter Palace seem as cold as the dark cells they had kept Rhys in, clapped in irons for crimes Cole committed. Anxiety squeezes every inch of him. He counts the beats of the music that drifts from the distant dance hall, just to assure himself only minutes have passed since he came here.

A door opens behind him, and he nearly jumps into shadow, the Veil waiting to envelop him, drawing him from prying eyes, but a familiar face waits on the other side. “Solas!” he gasps, relieved and ashamed that he had doubted, but grateful most of all.

Solas shuts the door behind him, turning the handle so the latch doesn’t make a sound. “I thought I might find you here.”

That gives Cole pause. He hadn’t known he would find himself here, until it happened. “But I don’t read.” The books here are newer than those kept in the Pit, some hum with the occult, others recount poems about the shape of a woman’s hips, but he still doesn’t read. There isn’t a question in his tone, but Solas hears it, all the same.

“This place can be overwhelming for anyone, even without accounting for your abilities. Books carry meaning, but without eyes upon them those meanings are static. Far easier to take in,” he answers as he walks towards him, gait stiffer than usual. His feet had forgotten what it was like to wear shoes. Solas has been quiet that evening, quieter than usual, the stem of a glass glued between his fingers, bottomless. He lets his hat do his talking for him, the Drasca’s dissent lived on atop his head. He stops beside Cole, leaning upon the marble rail, gloved hands bearing weight. His eyes turn upon him, no brimmed hat to hide behind. “Are you all right?”

He pulls on his sleeves, this time he thinks he feels a thread come loose. “Yes... No? There are two faces for every person.” The Left Hand smiles and laughs, she comes alive, but inside it’s cold and cruel. The rose withers upon the vine. He finds the thread with his finger and pulls, but it doesn’t break. It unravels, further and further, if he keeps going his whole sleeve will be an unspooled mess on the floor. “I don’t know which to look at. I-I don’t know how to help.”

Solas reaches out, subduing his worrying hands with a single, steady touch. A gentle gesture, despite the blood which stains them. Sometimes they do not seem so different from his own, they remember the bodies because forgetting would be worse. Killer’s hands, but there is no deceit in their tenderness. Solas wraps the thread around his finger, string bright white against his brown glove, and he tugs. It snaps, suddenly brittle, and falls to the floor to be swept away by a servant who will never know they were here. A comforting hand is placed deliberately on his shoulder blade, and Cole stills. He inhales, eyes snapping from the abandoned thread to Solas. There is kindness in his eyes, quiet assurance. He has seen this all before and he will make it easier to bear. So many tricks just to make it through a day, an evening, an hour. “You will not find much compassion in these affairs, any help you offer will be perceived as duplicitous, a means to get what it is you desire.”

“Then I… shouldn’t help?”

He hesitates, delaying his answer with a moment’s deliberation. “The choice is ultimately yours, but their comfort should not come at the cost of your peace of mind.” His hand slowly falls from his back as Cole turns his advice around in his head. “While we are waiting for the Inquisitor to call upon us, rather than mend the missing pieces in strangers’ lives, perhaps I may help you.”

“Help me?” He searches Solas’ eyes for answers, compassion seeking solace in pride. They are quiet, revealing only as much as intended. Cole chips at the cracks in the rock and hopes for water to spring forth, but he guards his sorrows like a wolf guards her den.

“Would you care to learn how to dance?”

A dozen thoughts pile into the spirit’s head, most too quick to catch, but he grasps one by the tail. “Do spirits dance?”

Solas claims spirits are people, and each day that belief is realer in Cole’s own mind, reinforced by the Herald and Solas himself. He need not change to be loved, or understood, he need only be himself. But if he is a person, then he is not a person the way Varric is, or Cassandra, or even Solas. There’s a touch of sadness in the corner of his smile, as though he is sorry the question needs to be asked. “I suppose it falls to us to answer together,” he replies patiently with an offered palm.

Uncertain how it will help, but ready to trust that it can, he takes Solas’ hand.

“Listen closely,” he says, but he declines to speak again. Cole’s instruction takes a different turn, a manicured glimpse through a window into Solas’ soul.

“Delicate hand folded like a paper crane between my shoulders, her eyes shine like the gold she deals in when I take to the dance.” Josephine had poured so much into tonight, all her smiles and favours, anything that will see the Inquisition prevail. “She didn’t think you would be asked to dance, but she was afraid if you didn’t learn, someone would.”

“Her time was likely better spent elsewhere,” he agrees, “though nothing would have given me more pleasure tonight than refusing one of Celene’s court. Listen again, parse the thoughts which cloud the memory and see how we move.” Cole nods, and concentrates. He remembers the palm tucked in the valley between Solas’ shoulders, and he moves his there. His feet, too, he moves in line with his hips. It’s strange, focusing upon his own body and the space it takes up in the world. Lighter now that he has chosen compassion, but still very much real, empty only in the seconds the air rushes from the chambers of his lungs.

He feels eyes upon him, questioning, searching for confirmation before the music dares move them. “I’m ready.”

When Solas steps forward, Cole steps back, like they’re two puppets on the same musical string. He clips his strides, travelling farther faster than Solas can hope to without magic to carry him there. Awkward at first, but with each beat he feels him join with the dance that exists in his head. Old melodies, half-remembered, play in distant memories. Like the sky he knew it, once, but made himself forget. Dancing wasn’t always this way, was it?

Solas remembers. Feet too full of motion to keep his thoughts safe in his head, they spill onto the fabric of the world where Cole breathes them like his own. Memories of moving on a dancefloor to a familiar tune, swaying with the stars themselves, spinning until they parted from the earth. He swells with pride, a beast alive beneath his ribcage, it thrives and fights and inspires. When they dance the heavens and the earth move, and an empire holds its breath. It fears what dread the dawn will bring, but his People find freedom in the impromptu steps.

“What are you two doing here?” A voice snaps the string. Halamshiral looks different than it did heartbeats ago, all the magic hidden in dark corners (all the elves, too). When Cole turns to see the servant who disturbed them, he’s surprised to see a bare face behind her plain mask, and a second later cannot recall why.

With silver eyes she stares at him, unblinking. “She can see me.”

“A consequence of our dance, I believe.” Yes, he can feel it. Solas fades with each passing second, growing distant as his hand falls from his waist. “It will fade in a moment.” He speaks as though she is not there, but he’s waiting. It’s another dance, only it’s Cole’s turn to lead.

Cut loose, he turns his attention to the woman. Fear flows through her veins, the dagger beneath her sleeve is ready to open theirs. Beneath the steel, her heart wavers. Stranded between duty and love. “I’m warning you-”

“There’s still time,” he says. “She waits for you beside the fountain where you wished away Your Lady’s collection.” There were wiser things to do with gold, but oh how they’d laughed with every dream plunged into the water.

Cole steps forward and she braces, but not fast enough. “Forget.”

Time is unmade behind her eyes, and she slips the mask from her face to rub the last place she’d been kissed. Gone as quickly as she came, with new purpose in her step.

“It seems you found a way to help someone, after all,” Solas remarks after the library door has shut behind her. “You never fail to impress.”

Something in him shines brighter, bolstered by his pride. “Thank you.” He falters, looking down at his feet, curling his toes inside their boots. “I’d like to try another dance, if you think there’s time.”

A laugh coloured wine red parts Solas’ lips, punctuated by a snort that makes Blackwall down below look around for its source. “I believe there is time for one more,” he says, outstretched palm seeking Cole’s hand. “Since you have devised a way to put off intruders, I daresay we have all the time in the world.”

It isn’t a lie, but neither is it true. Like the golden caprice coins that shine beneath the lovers’ reunion, Solas’ words glow like wishes.

#dragon age #solas #cole dragon age #cole #storiesofthedas2 #storiesofthedas #a pain you can't heal ( cole )#( my writing )#wicked eyes & wicked hearts ( quests )#[ this was actually started like a year ago as a warm-up for adding cole to my multi so i figured i'd finally finish it... ]#[ pls dont make me repost this tumblr ]

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babbushka · 4 years ago

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Can you write about how handsy a jealous Flip would get when his friends start friendly flirting with you (not cheating!)

(1.6k ; NSFW: possessive behavior, groping in public, bathroom sex, mirror sex, come-as-lube, spit-as-lube, fingering and rough sloppy PIV!😌)

Another successful case closed, finally. This one had been a long one, a series of criminal activity all culminating on Halloween night. Your Flip hated Halloween on a good year, but having to spend the night in the emergency room questioning a victim who was lucky enough to survive and running around in the middle of the night in the freezing cold rain to catch the sonofabitch? Worst year yet.

It was done now though, and like the end of most cases, you find yourself at your favorite little dive bar with Flip and the gang. And the gang, it seemed, had gotten the party started a little earlier, because they’re just drunk enough to wolf whistle at you when you and Flip come walking through the door.

“Hot damn Mrs. Z!” Ron lifts up his beer to greet you from where he’s sitting in one of the booths in the back. You and Flip make your way over there, and Ron gives you a teasing once-over. “You didn’t come to play tonight.”

You only laugh, you know you look good and you know Ron wouldn’t be so bold if he didn’t have some beer in his system. Jimmy though, well, Jimmy’s another story, he was always crass – it’s what you liked so much about it.

“She never does, Flip’s one lucky sonofabitch isn’t he?” Jimmy elbows Ron playfully, before turning to you and beckoning you over with a, “Why don’t you come sit over here honey next to me, give your ol’ man a break for a minute.”

Flip’s got his arm around you faster than the crack of a whip, cigarette clenched so hard between his teeth that you can almost hear the crunch of the tobacco in his molars. He’s got both arms around you actually, one winding tight across your middle, and the other smoothing his palm across your left chest, cupping your breast and shielding it from sight.

“I don’t fuckin’ think so.” He cuts in, voice deep and dark and angry, and Ron and Jimmy sober up real quick.

He never has much cause to be jealous, Flip knows. But still, there’s something about the way your tits are pushed up and together in that pretty bra you’re wearing, something about how Flip knows he has to defend your body from the gaze of a dozen men in the bar that aren’t playful, that sets his blood on fire.

“Aw come on Flip we were just – ” Jimmy immediately puts his hands up in surrender, big goofy smile gracing his face.

“Just what? I saw the way you were staring.” Flip snaps, loud enough that everyone in the bar can hear. Just like that, everyone in the bar looks away.

“They were just messing around Flip that’s all, you know that.” You look up at him, your head leaning against his chest to try and catch his eye, “Right?”

“Right.” Ron and Jimmy say in unison.

Still, it doesn’t sit right with Flip, he doesn’t like it, even teasingly, even playfully. He knows you’re the most gorgeous woman this side of the mountains, you always have been. That ring on your finger glints beautifully in the low light of the bar, but it would seem as though some of these fellows hadn’t had a chance to see it.

“Well find another woman to mess around with, this pretty little lady’s taken.” He growls finally, before growing too impatient and leaning down so only you can hear, “Bathroom, now. You go first, I’ll follow you in.”

Without hesitation, you excuse yourself to the ladies room, and Flip goes to the bar to order a couple beers. Ron and Jimmy apologize again, but Flip waves them off; he’ll unwind soon, he blames the case. They don’t need to know he’s ready to punch someone’s teeth out, they’d tease him for it until the end of time.

After he counts to one-hundred, Flip goes to the bathroom, finds you and you alone in the women’s, leaning over the counter to apply your favorite shade of red to those pretty dick-suckin’ lips of yours. You toss a smile over your shoulder, and put the cap on the tube of lipstick as Flip storms his way over and hikes your skirt up.

“They think they can get away with that shit,” He grumbles, a hand on your back and pushing you down onto the counter even farther, making you brace yourself on your forearms as he kicks your feet open, “Fuckin’ eyein’ my girl. Bet they want to bend you over like this but they can’t, not in a million years.”

He had fucked you right before coming here, and your cunt was still full of it, he can tell by the way your folds suck him up easily as he pushes his fingers into you. You’re tight, he’s always got to work you open, but it’s not long before you’re pushing against his hand.

“No Flip I’m – oh! – I’m all yours.” You sigh happily, letting your head loll back and your eyes close, hips opening for him.

“This tight pussy’s got all it wants with me, isn’t that right?” Flip undoes the button on his jeans with his other hand and pulls his cock out, rubs it through your folds and slicks himself up.

Some of his come from earlier leaks out of your pussy and coats his dick, making him groan. He pushes it back into you, shallow thrusts until he bottoms out – which doesn’t take long from how you’re shoving your ass back flush against him.

“Yes!” You’re grinning, mouth dropping open into the prettiest O, as Flip wraps a hand around your hair and fists it tight, using that as leverage to pull out and thrust back into you hard. “Yes that’s – oh fuck Flip, right there!”

He grunts in your ear, breath hot and thick with smoke as he breathes out the last few drags of his cigarette he stubbed out on his way to the bathroom. His cock splits through you, fills you so completely with that delicious curve it has that finds it’s way knocking right up against your cervix.

You’re whimpering for it, whining, throat clicking from all your drool, and Flip almost wants you to blow him. Not as badly as he wants to fuck you, though.

“Look at me ketsl, baby girl.” Flip pushes your head forward, and through lidded eyes you stare at the reflection of you and your husband through stained, greasy, finger-print smudged glass. “Look how good you look taking my cock.”

Your tits bounce form it, from his pace, and your toes are curling in your boots from how he finds your gspot easily. You make eye contact, watching him through the mirror, watching yourself go stupid from his dick. Flip pulls out and spits, thick and viscous right onto his shaft, and groans when he fucks it into you, come dripping and slipping down your thighs, fresh and old.

Your eyes glaze over and you bite and lick at your lips, smudging your lipstick just enough to make Flip shove the two fingers he opened you up with right against your tongue. You suck on them, and the bathroom is filled with the sound of his balls smacking your ass, and your cheeks hollowing out.

“Harder, more, please.” You moan around his fingers, and he adds a third. Loud, you’re too loud, even with the music they’ll hear you outside, and it turns Flip on just as much as it makes his heart thud.

“You gonna let them hear? Gonna show them just how much you love when I fuck you like this?” The words tumble from his mouth as he tightens the fist in your hair some more, arching your back.

“Yes!” You gasp, and he lets go of your hair to drop his hand to your pussy, cupping you and rubbing your front while he plows you from behind.

His fingers push into you, and you bend yourself forward more more more onto the counter until your tits are pressed against the cold metal, his fingers finding your swollen clit and rolling it. You whine and gasp and moan his name, and he feels his stomach tighten.

“Making everyone hard in their fucking pants is what you’re doing right now, moaning like a whore for me, fuck I love your pussy ketsl.” He snaps, fingers and cock moving in time to pull an orgasm out of you, not the most mind-numbing thing in the world, but pretty damn good for a quickie in the bathroom.

“Come in me? I’m yours Flip, only yours. No one else gets to have me.” Your body shudders around him, under him, and Flip’s breath comes in hard and fast, harsh like static in your ear.

“Say my name.” He demands, and you grin, so happy to comply.

“Flip, oh honey, yes! Phil!” You shout, and Flip blows another load into you, forcing so much into you that it leaks around his cock, smears and trails down the inside of your thigh.

“Who’s your man?” Flip grunts, fucking you through his orgasm, milking it.

“You’re my man.” You stare at him through the mirror with a seriousness that Flip knows you mean it, just the same way you always mean it.

And if one thing’s for sure, when you and Flip leave the bathroom unashamedly together and rejoin the party of detectives, Flip’s confident that not a single damn soul will forget it.

#flip zimmerman #flip zimmerman x reader #flip zimmerman/reader #flip zimmerman x you #flip zimmerman/you #flip zimmerman smut #blackkklansman #adam driver fanfiction #Anonymous #cowboy answers

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mayihavethisdanse · 4 years ago

Text

Stress Response

Waypoint Echo, 2288

We are left alone, without excuse. That is what I mean when I say that man is condemned to be free. Condemned, because he did not create himself, yet is nevertheless at liberty, and from the moment that he is thrown into this world he is responsible for everything he does.

Jean-Paul Sartre, “Existentialism is a Humanism” (1946)

"Ready, Paladin?"

“Just about.”

Danse shielded his eyes and squinted through the half-light. These clouds would probably send a radstorm somewhere else in the Commonwealth, but this close to the Glowing Sea, the drizzle had the opposite effect. The terrain was irradiated to hell, of course, but the rain actually seemed to keep the rads at bay. Slightly.

It wouldn't last, but that was one reason they wore Power Armor.

"Equipment's good to go. We should be at the site by noon," he tossed off in the sergeant's direction. "If you don't hear from us by nightfall, assume something's wrong. Air support might be—what is it, Haylen?"

"Orders for you, Paladin."

"What? From the Prydwen?"

"Yes, sir. Here."

Haylen tapped at the terminal and then stood back, letting Danse take her place to bend his neck down at the dim screen. It was a pain to use these things in armor, but at least the message was brief. A terse order to remain on site and see the munitions safely back to headquarters. Which meant…

Maxson knows.

It was the only thing Danse could think. The orders would have been unremarkable except for the explicit and unambiguous instruction that he return alone. Something was wrong. A reassignment? A reprimand?

He tried to keep his face neutral despite the hot flush of humiliation. Knight Williams stood across the outpost and it seemed there was still some mercy left in the wasteland, because her headlamp illuminated the woods in the opposite direction. Her armor glinted dully, a sheen of radioactive rain still clinging to the steel, but for once Danse's thoughts weren't on the possibility of rust.

Yes. It had to be about Cecily Williams. Maxson must have suspected Danse was getting too attached to his knight. Or he'd determined that Danse's priorities were out of order, just as he'd warned him against at the outset of this experimental partnership. Either way, Danse wasn't looking forward to explaining himself.

It would still be better than letting Williams take the blame for his own folly. The Elder had always been suspicious of her motives. But Maxson didn't know her the way Danse did. And he couldn't know that nothing else had happened between the two of them.

Honestly, Danse was a little offended that anyone would think it might have. He might have been quietly enamored of one of his soldiers, yes, but he was first and foremost a Brotherhood paladin. He'd die before he jeopardized the mission. And—it stung to think, but he suspected it was true—it might be for the best if he and Williams went to separate teams. He thought he was in control of his feelings, but he was hardly objective. If there was a risk of favoritism impairing his decisions in the field...

Damn. He'd have to face the music.

But there was no time for distractions. Their objective was of the utmost importance and he'd chosen their time of departure carefully. There was another hour before sunrise, and Danse wanted to be well into the Glowing Sea by then.

He stepped away from the terminal and snapped on his helmet.

"Ready now?" called Williams a second time from her spot at the perimeter, her voice filtered through the respirator.

"Ready," he asserted as he strode to her side. It might be the last time they set out on a mission together, but he'd be damned if he gave her any hint of that. She didn't need any more distractions.

"Good luck out there, you two," said Haylen. "Don't come back as ghouls, okay?"

"We've got it, Haylen. See you."

A final chorus of Ad Victoriam all around, and they were off.

(Continued under the cut. Also on AO3.)

The trek through the Glowing Sea was less miserable than their first had been. It wasn't scorchingly hot, for one thing, and they'd left the bulk of their gear at the outpost. A lighter burden let them move faster. If the maps were accurate, they were a few hours' hike from their destination.

"Less miserable" was still pretty damn miserable, however. Williams led the way and Danse turned frequently to check their backs. The rain impeded visibility and soaked through the gaps in their armor. He kept his headlamp on.

The edge of the Glowing Sea reminded him more of the Capital Wasteland than anywhere else in the Commonwealth. In a way, the outskirts were worse than the crater itself. That might as well have been an alien landscape or the site of some natural disaster. It held few reminders of anything to do with mankind, but here… as they passed a church, then a battered Red Rocket and an isolated bit of highway, there was no escaping the thought that humanity had brought this hell down on itself. His furiously clicking Geiger was a constant reminder of the rads they were subjecting themselves to. The Power Armor offered decent shielding, but this terrain really wasn't fit for human travelers.

Even if certain other things seemed to thrive. Danse caught a glimpse of a familiar and ominous shadow on the horizon—or what passed for the horizon when visibility was so poor. It was probably only a few dozen yards away.

"I don't think we're alone," he told his partner over his helmet radio, reaching for his rifle and searching the cliffs for movement even as he switched off his headlamp. "Reduce illumination levels."

"What is it?”

"Deathclaw. Seven o'clock. Might be stalking us."

She dropped into a crouch and swore. "We should detour."

"No. I don't want to get too far off course." Forget the wildlife, the terrain and the radiation would do them in. "If we get into trouble out here, that'll be it."

The knight let out a puff of laughter. "A deathclaw doesn't count as 'trouble'?"

"Just advance cautiously. Don’t engage if we can avoid it.” He checked the terrain again, assessing the threat, before turning back to Williams. "Let's move out."

In the dim light, she was just a silhouette in Power Armor. "All right, Paladin. Watch my back."

"Roger that."

The sun was rising around them, but the only real sign of it was the brighter glow of the fog. The two of them kept down and moved at a slower pace than before. Danse's nerves hummed with uncomfortable and competing desires to either flee or face the threat outright. He hated creeping along like a radroach.

As they advanced, an old radio tower emerged slowly from the fog ahead. He tracked their progress against its position, still monitoring their surroundings, until Williams dropped into a low crouch four paces ahead. Then she held up her arm in a signal he knew.

Danse reached for his rifle.

Fire and maneuver. Williams stayed in place, Danse looped around, and luck was on their side today because it was only a few minutes later that they stood over the body of a Deathclaw. The thing was glowing with radiation; it sent his Geiger into a new frenzy.

"We can't stay here," Williams said.

"No."

They moved away from the corpse and continued on south. Really, they couldn't reach the site soon enough for peace of mind. Danse's heart rate was still faster than it ought to have been, and it wasn't just the excitement of combat. This place set him on edge. It was... haunting. It was impossible to ignore the grimness of it as he scanned their surroundings.

Hard to imagine that Williams had seen the bomb drop. Hell, half the time he forgot where she'd come from. She was so sure of herself, so steady in the face of the world's horrors, that it put him to shame.

Danse glanced back at his partner. He couldn't see her face behind the helmet, but he could hear her when she said, "We're getting close."

"It's right there." He pointed ahead to a series of shadowy shapes through the fog. Broken towers, radioactive pools—and a large, blank pyramid behind them. That was their destination.

They skirted the radioactive pools and paused, staring in unison at a pair of abandoned bomb crates lying out in the open.

After a long moment, Williams started and checked her six. "Excuse my lapse in attention, Paladin."

"It's all right." It was his fault as much as hers, anyway. "Let me try to reach Haylen."

But as he'd expected, there was too much interference on the main Brotherhood frequency. Only an occasional gurgle broke the static.

Danse shook his head. "No go."

"Oh, well. It was worth a shot."

He looked back one last time when they reached the door.

The weather conditions had worsened significantly. A distant bolt of lightning lit up half the sky and whether it was his imagination or his laser rifle, he could have sworn he smelled the ozone even through his respirator.

"Let's swap positions," he said. "I'll take point."

She laughed a little wryly. "After you, Danse."

This facility had definitely been more than a disposal site. He said as much to Williams.

“Launch silo,” she repeated dully, leaning over the edge of the railing and peering down into the darkness. “Fantastic.”

"All right. Let's see what's down there."

The light was dim inside the silo, and the air was stale and almost immobile. Even through the filters of his helmet it was oppressive. That he was not imagining. But even the stale air was preferable to the stench that filled his lungs whenever they caught an updraft: standing water and dry rot, ferals and whatever rancid prey they'd dragged in from the Sea.

"Ugh," said Williams over her suit's radio as they passed a picked-over carcass of the latter. "This is disgusting."

"I'm in full agreement with you there, soldier."

He couldn't see her face, but he could hear the smile in her voice as she said, "We never go anywhere that isn't."

"There's always the Prydwen."

"The Prydwen is disgusting, too. We don't all have our own private quarters like some people. Have you forgotten how rank it gets in the barracks?"

"No," he said dryly. The distinct odor caused by too many feet in close quarters with insufficient ventilation was a common observation of new recruits. And old ones. "It's almost as bad as the mess hall."

"Was that... a joke? Paladin, I'm ashamed of you."

Before Danse could respond, a pale shadow flickered in the corner of his eye—

"We got ferals!" he shouted.

The site was full of ferals, in fact. They mowed through them diligently as they descended further into the structure. It was unpleasant work, but not difficult from their position, and the two of them worked well as a team. Battlefield cohesion had never been a problem with her.

With the premises cleared, they removed their helmets. Her face was averted, but she seemed to be holding up all right. Cecily Williams really did make a natural soldier. And she'd learned in the field: she searched the bodies of the ghouls with a professional detachment that she hadn't quite had when she joined the Brotherhood.

"Anything of interest?" he called as she crouched to inspect a corpse.

She looked back up at him, and for all his good intentions it was a struggle not to stare; it wasn't normally his way, but he was only human. She really was beautiful, despite—maybe because of—the scars that streaked down her face and twisted her lip, or the faint bruises that lingered nearly a year after her injuries. She just looked like… home.

Which was a preposterous thought. They were on a mission and home was where he'd be sending her shortly. It wasn’t for Danse to question Maxson’s decisions.

"Nothing," she said with remarkable good cheer. "Unless you're interested in a toothbrush or an extremely outdated newspaper."

"I think we can pass."

"Seems like these people were settled in here for the long haul, doesn’t it?"

Whatever preparations they'd made hadn't helped them survive the apogee of human arrogance. Danse shrugged off the observation as he and Williams made their way further back through the tunnels. The underground complex was a maze, but he thought they were heading back the way they’d come, away from the pyramid and toward the silent towers. At one point Knight Williams clambered through a hacked-out hole in the wall. He followed a moment later.

"Something like a control room down the hall," she said in a low voice. "And I see a blast door. I think we found the place."

"Outstanding."

Danse paced a few feet away. It was unexpectedly difficult to look directly at her.

"You should return to the airport immediately, Williams. I'll remain on watch until the vertibirds arrive."

He forced his eyes back to find her staring at him in apparent disbelief.

"You want me to go back on my own?"

"Without that deathclaw, the route we took should be clear. I know you can handle yourself out there. Here."

Williams stared at the assortment of supplies—extra stimpaks, RadAway, water—he held out to her. "That's ridiculous. Why don't I wait with you?"

He couldn't think about the dangers. Orders were orders. "I don't have a choice."

"But—"

"Dismissed, Knight."

She stared at him for another half a second. Then she nodded, collected his supplies, and turned to go. The heavy steps of her Power Armor echoed through the empty silo, followed by the distant bell of an elevator.

And then there was nothing but the clicking of his Geiger counter to keep Danse company.

That and a stockpile of nukes.

He swallowed the faint pang of distaste and directed his thoughts to the greater good. Overwhelming force was the most efficient way to secure the Commonwealth and ensure the long-term survival of its people. Liberty Prime would give the Brotherhood the upper hand against the Institute—and then some. That was all that mattered.

It would take a while for the message to be relayed. He kept his rifle at the ready, just in case; they'd dealt with the ferals, but there was still that cultist and his robot in the control room. Cecily had pacified the lunatic for now, but God only knew if he'd stay calm. And it was critically important to keep those bombs in Brotherhood hands.

He kept his safety off, too. Just in case.

An hour passed without incident, then another. Danse paced in growing disquiet, keeping half an eye on the control room above, but there was no sign of activity. His head was starting to ache. Williams should have reached the edge of the Sea by now, and Haylen should have relayed their position to the Prydwen. All he had to do was wait and try not to lose his mind.

As the minutes ticked by and turned into yet another hour, Danse began to find that task harder than he should have. He should have let Williams wait with him. Orders were orders, but he could have used his discretion as a field officer to make a different call than sending her back alone.

What if she had run into trouble outside? The Glowing Sea was a damn nightmare. Had he sent her out alone just to prove to Maxson—or to himself—that he could? That he wouldn’t let personal attachment get in the way of sending yet another person under his command to their death? He'd had so many close calls with Williams already. He should never have allowed himself to form such an attachment in the first place.

The throbbing in his head grew stronger. It had been too long. The vertibirds should be here by now. Danse shifted his weight uneasily and turned into the shadows to watch the door.

And then the chatter of static came on the radio in his helmet.

"Check—come in, Danse—"

Adrenaline flooded his body. The signal was so distorted he didn't recognize the voice. How was a signal even reaching him down here? Had Williams come back after all? He snatched for the switch of his transceiver.

"This is Paladin Danse. Go ahead."

"You need to get out of there. There’s an alert out for you. Over."

"What the hell are you—is that Haylen?"

But the voice on the radio didn't answer. From this location, it was impressive he'd picked up that much: the pulser beacon relayed his position, but that was all.

"What do you mean, an alert?" he said to the empty room.

But there was a sick feeling in the pit of his stomach. He'd known something was wrong—but this didn't seem like…

He tried the secondary Brotherhood frequency, then another. This time his radio picked up a clearer signal. Local.

The constriction in his throat eased, replaced by annoyance at the sloppy security protocol. He'd have to have a word with these soldiers' commanding officer.

And then the words they were speaking came through.

"I still can't believe it. How did Quinlan find out?"

"Some intel Danse's new pal brought up from the Institute. Bet he regrets bringing her on board now."

“Double-crossing traitor."

Danse paused on the verge of pressing the push-to-talk button on his transceiver.

"A synth. Who'd have fucking thought it."

"I don't know. I always thought there was something a little off about Danse.”

Down at the loading bay, Danse stood at a loss for words. What kind of sick joke—what were they—

The voices continued. "Pulser's going nuts. Definitely the place. Tracker on his suit says we’re close. Where the hell is he?"

"Must be further down. Look at all these—argh! Disgusting ferals."

“All clear?”

“Looks like. Try the tunnel.”

Danse switched off his radio with haste. And he listened. It was only a moment before the heavy clanking of Power Armor on metal walkways echoed through the silo. It was still distant, but they wouldn’t be long now. Not with that trail of feral corpses to follow. And the blast door was open.

It didn't matter. If it was a mistake... it had to be a mistake... they could sort it out later. But he wouldn't be able to do that if he was killed before he could speak to Maxson. To someone who could explain what was going on.

The Geiger counter clicked as furiously as his racing thoughts. They'd find him in a matter of minutes. He wasn't going to fight his brothers, and he couldn't…

What the hell could he do?

It was probably less than a minute before he decided, but it felt like longer. Even the Geiger seemed to slow as his thoughts converged. His mind focused like a scope on a target. One target, one thought: he had to get out of the godforsaken Glowing Sea.

There was nothing else worth taking from this site. Ferals with their rags. Some ancient debris, the crazed cultist upstairs…

He suddenly regretted giving Williams his extra supplies.

Survival was a long shot, but it was a calculated risk. He'd have better odds facing a Deathclaw naked than a vertibird full of Brotherhood soldiers set on capturing or killing an enemy combatant.

And there was no doubt they'd been given one order or the other. Any synth in the Brotherhood would be bad enough, but Danse was a paladin. If they thought he was an infiltrator... hell, he knew the order he'd have given.

There was nothing for it. His hazmat suit was back with the rest of their gear at the outpost with Haylen. His flight suit and hood provided a limited amount of radiation shielding. If he was lucky, they’d keep him alive. He could only avoid any obvious hotspots and hope not to encounter any hostiles.

It wasn’t impossible, even here in the most dangerous part of the Commonwealth. Danse could be stealthy if he had to. As a Brotherhood soldier, he rarely had to. It was one of the things he liked most about his job.

Had liked. One way or another, this would be the end of his career.

Danse pressed the hydraulic release valve and stepped out of his Power Armor.

Sentinel Site Prescott, 2288

When a man commits himself to anything, fully realising that he is not only choosing what he will be, but is thereby… deciding for the whole of mankind–in such a moment a man cannot escape from the sense of complete and profound responsibility.

Jean-Paul Sartre, “Existentialism is a Humanism” (1946)

The clicking of the Geiger counter stopped. It left an unsettling stillness in its wake and for an agonized moment, Danse wished Williams were still here.

No. It was better she was gone. Better she didn't know anything. If Danse had to go down, the last thing he wanted was to drag her with him. And right now, with Brotherhood soldiers approaching, he needed to keep his head more than ever.

He stepped away from the empty suit of Power Armor, leaving it to stand silently in the shadows between walls of munitions crates, and secured his weapons and pack. Then he crouched low and crept to the door of the loading bay, trying to stay out of the light. His uniform suit allowed for better stealth than Power Armor did, but the damn thing was still bright orange.

He waited, still keeping low, and hardly jolted at the first blast of laser fire overhead. So much for pacifying the cultist.

The momentary distraction of the soldiers gave him the break he needed to make a run for it. But which way? The freight elevator would take him the way Williams had gone, out of the silo and into the Sea, but it was exposed. Bright light, the creak of the lift mechanism—there was no way they'd fail to notice his escape.

His body insisted run, but he forced himself to think it through. The blasts of laser fire from the control room would cover the noise from the lift mechanism.

Danse hit the call button just before the firing stopped.

He froze. And then he moved, staying low, away from the creaking elevator and back the way he'd come in. It was still a maze of shadowy tunnels, but perhaps this time that would work to his advantage. It was good for him that they'd killed the cultist, actually. No one else could say they'd seen Danse flee. Not even Williams. He rounded a corner to—

More Brotherhood soldiers, racing in as backup. Of course there were more. If they weren't looking for him yet, they would be in a moment. Danse ducked behind a drainage pipe in the nick of time and found himself knee-deep in a pool of rancid standing water.

If he'd thought the stench of bloated mole rat corpses was bad before, without his helmet it was all but unbearable. But he stayed there, letting the tepid water soak into his boots and trying not to breathe too deeply, until the main tunnel was clear.

It looked like he'd have to take the elevator after all.

Danse had one stroke of luck, which was that no one had reacted to the clattering arrival of the elevator. It was still there, waiting for him, so he crept aboard and hit the button. And took a deep breath.

When he turned around, he found himself face to face with the grinning corpse of a Glowing One, splayed over a pile of crates in a macabre sort of invitation. Danse cursed, hoped there was still a remnant of Rad-X in his system, and nudged the grotesque thing away with the butt of his rifle.

Probably just as well he didn't have the Geiger. All it could do was tell him exactly how quickly he was killing himself.

At the top, he left the platform as quickly as he could and braced himself before the last door to the outside world. If he'd gauged his position correctly, he was in one of the towers northeast of the pyramid. Depending where exactly the vertibirds had landed, he might still have a chance to escape.

Slowly, he pushed open the door.

He wasn't in the vertibirds' direct line of sight. Good. Their propellers were visible over the crest of the hill, but that was fifty yards away at least. Danse breathed slightly easier. He'd still need to move carefully, though. It was highly probable they'd set a sentry.

A loud creak spurred him into action. Someone below had just called the elevator back. It seemed his streak of luck was over.

Danse stepped out onto the landing and felt the hot air hit his body like a wall. A flash of lightning revealed, just for a second, the shape of the Prydwen hovering over the horizon. A cruel irony. Well, at least he could orient by it.

He moved cautiously out further on the ancient grille, but the metal didn't even creak under his weight. That was abnormally jarring. Danse wasn't a small man, but he was accustomed to moving in Power Armor in the field. His proprioception was all off.

Dropping from a height wasn’t as easy as he was used to, either. But the ground was soft under his boots. He hoped it was from the rain and not from the radioactive sludge that circled the base of the concrete tower like a moat. Since there was nothing to be done about it either way, he didn't take the time to examine things more closely.

He just ran.

When he looked back, he regretted it. One, then two knights in Power Armor stood on the metal platform, scanning the terrain.

So he ran faster.

He didn't keep up the pace for long. Just far enough that he was out of firing range. It was enough to start. They didn't seem to have identified his direction.

He wasn't sure of the time, only that it was past sunset. The Glowing Sea never fully darkened, and the rain had stopped while they were inside, but the clouds lingered and visibility was still poor. Under the circumstances, that might work to Danse's advantage. Speed and stealth were the only way he'd get out of here. He only had a few things on him besides his guns. Food, less than he'd like. Ammo, less than he'd like. Two cans of water and that was it. He didn't even have his damn radio.

He stumbled over more signs of Williams: bloatfly corpses, half dissolved in plasma, and the familiar footprints of T-60 that disappeared into the dunes. He'd been right: his knight could take care of herself. It didn't keep the cold sweat from his skin, knowing he’d left her to face this hellscape on her own. Knowing why, exactly, he'd been ordered to wait alone.

He could hear the familiar rumble of a vertibird circling overhead. It had been a very long time since he found that sound menacing. Now, taking cover behind a boulder, he squinted up at the sky. What the hell were they doing? They needed to get those nukes back to the…

They were searching for Danse. Not just searching: hunting. If he’d had any lingering doubts as to their objective, the fact that it was a gunship rather than a transport would have eliminated them.

But his cover held. The lancers flew low and then they moved on.

Danse moved on, too. He counted his breaths. Paced himself. He knew how to survive in the wasteland. When he scrambled over rubble and crept past mutant-infested ruins, it was with thirty-something years of experience in doing just that.

...wasn't it?

No wonder they were hunting him. He'd gone AWOL. Deserted, even. He'd left his power armor—he'd even left the fusion core, goddamn it—and he'd abandoned the bombs in express defiance of his orders. Never mind that the Brotherhood soldiers had arrived before he left. He'd made a snap judgment to flee and now he had to live with the consequences. If there hadn't been a price on his head before, there would be now, even if it proved that Danse was exactly who and what he thought he was.

It didn't matter. All that mattered was getting out of here before he turned into a damn ghoul instead. He could assess the situation fully once he was in a secure location. He couldn't spend the night here in nothing but a flight suit. He’d have to power through.

He even had a destination in mind. A fortified bunker near Malden–a fallback point for his recon team. They'd never used it. Haylen knew about it, but Haylen knew all the same fallback points he did. And if that had been her on the radio earlier… well. It would make as good a safehouse as any, and better than most.

The route was another decision point. Danse had two options: the brackish marshes and fens south of Boston, which would require traveling through the city itself and skirting uncomfortably close to the airport, or following the highway north past the Brotherhood waypoint and God knew what else.

He went north.

He still didn’t have enough water. He eyeballed a pond but passed it without stopping. If the radiation didn't get him, he'd be lucky if stomach cramps were the best of it.

Fortunately, he did scavenge one single can of water at the relay tower. The relay tower that was… operational? They’d passed it on the way in. He didn’t remember seeing any lights before…

Knight Williams. Of course. She'd brought the relay online. That was how he'd been able to pick up Haylen’s signal: Williams. Was there anything she couldn't do?

He'd asked her that question once and been startled by her response. It was one of the only occasions he could recall her snapping at him. She usually brushed off the things that bothered her with a light quip.

Not that time.

"What can’t I do? Take your pick. Save my husband. Find my son. Turn back time so none of this ever happened."

He didn't know what to tell her.

She looked away. "Do you have a family, Paladin Danse?"

Danse shrugged. "I have the Brotherhood," he said.

He didn’t make it as far as he would have liked before the storm showed signs of returning. He had to find cover before the rain started up again. Fleeing unarmored and unequipped was one thing; doing it soaking wet was another. Every crack of thunder reminded him of the damage his body was taking. Even machines could only stand up to so many rads before the damage was irreversible...

Drawing on every bit of training and every year of practice controlling his emotions—fighting every natural inclination he had—Danse shoved the thought from his mind. The question of his identity could be dealt with later. Right now, he needed shelter to survive.

He found a semblance of it, eventually, in an ancient church half-sunk into the ground. He climbed in through a hole in the roof. He was probably still taking more rads than he ought to, but this was better than being out in the open.

Unfortunately, he wasn't alone. Stirrings of movement caught his eye just in time before he dropped to the lower level. He didn't have his headlamp, but he didn't need it: those scrabbling sounds meant more damn ferals. If he'd had the ammo to spare, he could have fired on them from above. If he'd had his armor, he could have gone down there and gone hand-to-hand with the mob. But he had neither.

Which meant he couldn't stay here long. If one of the disgusting things figured out how to climb to the upper level where Danse stood, the others would follow.

Maybe he could just… sit for a moment. The weather might be clearing: peering up through the broken rafters, Danse could even see a few stars through the luminous, omnipresent clouds. He must be almost to the edge of the Sea. He could afford a moment’s rest.

But his mind was blurring. He drank his last can of water in a few gulps but it didn't quench his thirst. He was hot, but he found he was shivering. Dehydration? Bad sign. Running a fever? That wasn’t a good sign, either.

Neither was vomiting over the railing into the nave of the church. It had been some time since Danse had last felt the symptoms of radiation sickness, but they were unmistakable. He'd never make it out of here if he didn't keep moving and get some help. It couldn't be far to the Brotherhood waypoint…

For a moment, confused by fatigue and radiation, he forgot who he was fleeing and why. And then memory struck like the lightning that illuminated the sky through the rafters.

He crawled up the stairs, as far away from the wakeful ferals as he could get, and his fumbling hands hit something in the darkness with a familiar metallic ting. A first-aid box. There had to be something inside. Maybe more water, maybe some stims—Rad-Away if he was lucky—

Frantically, he peeled off his gloves and pried it open, scraping his knuckles on the raw-edged steel to find...

Nothing. Not a damn thing.

The Capital Wasteland, 2286

The hum of the Prydwen's engines was quieter in the sick bay than in his own quarters. After a sleepless night, Danse resented the relative silence. His head was still throbbing and the lights were all too bright.

"I don't see a date of birth here," remarked Cade finally. "You're how old?"

"About thirty-four. Give or take."

"Wastelander, right?"

"Yeah."

"Recent radiation exposure?"

"No more than usual."

"Hmm. Any intimate contact with the civilian population lately? Non-humans?"

Danse almost laughed. "No."

Cade lifted a brow at him. "You know I have to ask, Paladin. You drink?"

"Sometimes."

"How often?"

The questions went on and on. Danse responded with as much patience as he could muster. The tapping of keys and the Knight-Captain's low, off-pitch hum wore on his nerves.

"Hm." Cade examined the terminal yet again. "You say you've been experiencing these symptoms for some time, but I don't see any previous mentions in your notes, Paladin."

"I didn't consider it worth bringing up until recently."

"Next time, let me be the judge of that," said Cade, looking up from the screen. "I'd rather do an exam than an autopsy. All right. Let's draw some blood."

Danse was starting to regret his decision to stop by the sick bay. When Cade came at him with a phlebotomy tray, his stomach churned and he barely resisted the urge to flinch away. "Is that really necessary?"

"Yes," Cade said wearily. "If it wasn't, I wouldn't have asked."

It hadn't been a request, but Danse rolled up his sleeve anyway and braced himself against the pressure of the tourniquet.

"We'll do a full workup," continued the doctor. "Results will take a few days."

"I don't have a few days. I'm back on the ground tomorrow."

Cade shook his head, fitting a needle into his syringe. "Where are they sending you this time? If you can tell me, of course."

"Up to the Commonwealth with a recon team. Could be in the field a while." Danse glanced away as the needle pierced his skin.

"All the more reason you should have come sooner. I'm tempted to deny your medical clearance."

"You don't have the authority to—”

"But I won't," Cade continued severely, "provided I have your word you'll follow your medic's advice out there."

Danse took a deep breath and shut his eyes against the lights. His head was still spinning. "I'll do so if... at all possible," he said, choosing his words with care.

"That's as good as I'm going to get, isn't it?" Cade withdrew the syringe somewhat less gently than he might have and dropped Danse's arm back onto the cold metal. "At least get some damn rest before you go, Danse."

"I'll try." He rose gratefully to his feet. "Knight-Captain."

Cade sighed and waved him out.

Danse doubted the tests would turn up anything useful. He'd get by, regardless. He always did.

Later, he wasn't quite sure how he'd made it to the edge of the Sea. Parts of the last leg were crystal clear, others hazy; he'd fought off a radscorpion, he thought. Or two. Maybe he’d only killed the one and the other had given him up as a worthless catch.

He certainly felt like a worthless catch. He'd rid himself of everything in his stomach and then some, but the waves of cramps kept coming. His head spun and he wiped his mouth on the back of his hand. His face felt hot, like he'd been in the sun too long, even though the sun was just now rising. He'd been in the Glowing Sea a full twenty-four hours.

The Brotherhood waypoint wasn't far. With his head spinning the way it was, he could almost have given himself up just for some reprieve. But he didn't. He steered clear of the waypoint and kept to cover as much as he could and finally, just when he started to fear he'd lost his way, the Sea began to yield to scrubland and he emerged just south of Lake Cochituate.

Still, when he saw a Brotherhood checkpoint ahead, it was a struggle not to run forward and hold up his arms. Explain what had happened—explain there had been a mistake.

But the checkpoint wasn’t manned by people in the uniforms he knew. That was unanticipated. Their manner of dress was vaguely familiar, however, and Danse squinted at them until his mind made the connection: Minutemen.

"Hey," one of them said. "Hey, buddy. You all right?"

Danse nodded, but his mouth felt thick and slow as he said, "Too many rads. Got… meds? Water?"

"Oh, yeah,” said a man, nodding at the woman next to him. “Ramos does."

The woman rustled around in her pack and produced a pouch of Rad-Away. Danse saw the moment she recognized his uniform: the extended hand paused in midair.

"You get lost or something?"

"I…" Danse’s mind went blank. He hated lying, not least because he wasn’t very good at it. “Yes. On patrol.”

Fortunately, he must look as terrible as he felt, because the Minutemen seemed to take his confusion as symptoms of the radiation sickness. Ramos shook her head. "I think maybe they left you behind, pal. They all pulled up stakes from that checkpoint last night and flew out in a vertibird.”

It was more difficult than usual to find his tongue. “I… see. Thank you.”

"How long have you been out here? All night?”

Danse nodded again. Even he could tell it was a jerky and erratic motion.

“Shit. You got real lucky. Human body’s not meant to take that kind of beating.”

A statement he really didn't need to hear just then. “They’re all gone?”

“'Fraid so. Anything else we can do for you?”

They helped him inject himself with the medication. They gave him the supplies he needed. They even showed him to an abandoned suit of Power Armor, and Danse felt his first flicker of hope since leaving the Sentinel site. It was X-01, not T-60, and devoid of markings. The Brotherhood wouldn't know he had it—it would suit his purposes perfectly—but there was no fusion core. Damn. No help at all.

But there was a Brotherhood terminal tucked under a makeshift shelter. At least Danse could see the details of the order against him.

He paused in front of the terminal. If he used his official credentials, the scribes would be able to track his location. But Haylen had set up a private communication channel when they'd first arrived in the Commonwealth. If he remembered correctly, besides himself, only Haylen and Knight-Sergeant Dawes had been given the access code. And Dawes was dead, whatever he'd known lost in a wet smear of brain and hair.

Danse didn't really expect to find a message, but he entered the password anyway. The connection went through. The inbox was empty, as he'd expected. But just as his finger hovered over the escape key—there it was. A new message.

I might be putting my own neck on the chopping block by sending this, but the situation is unbelievable. Danse, they're saying you're an Institute synth. Neriah ran some tests and they must have been pretty damn conclusive because there's already an alert out for your head.

l don't know what to believe. I hope to hell you're not a traitor. I don't know why else a synth would join the Brotherhood, but I know you. You must have had your reasons.

You know they won't care. If you see this, you need to run... and fast.

Danse's mind raced. The message could be a trap, but that seemed unlikely. He trusted Haylen. Moreover, the message didn't appear to anticipate a response. There was also no mention of a rendezvous point or anything else that would lead a searcher to him.

A second message followed the first. Reflexively, he checked to make sure no one was looking over his shoulder.

Got into the files Quinlan decrypted. Here's the evidence. DNA matched yours.

Danse stared at the attached report. His own face stared back at him—maybe younger, unscarred, but unmistakably himself. M7-97. Unit at large. Location unknown.

He couldn't have composed a response if he'd tried. But the confirmation filled him with a strange sort of calm, too. He'd been right to flee.

He left the Minutemen behind with only a brief word of farewell. He had to get away. Keep moving. Run. Maybe there was still some mistake.

That thought got him past a Mass Fusion disposal site, past a super mutant camp, into the dry wasteland at last. It was another mile before he let himself think about it again.

What if it wasn't a mistake?

His steps slowed and his knees went weak. He didn't feel like a synth. He felt human. But what did synths feel like? He could feel his heart beating. He could taste the blood in his mouth.

Sure, he'd always been a little removed from the others, but who the hell wasn’t? Danse was acquainted with plenty of senior officers in the Brotherhood. None of them were known for their healthy and enriching personal lives. The Brotherhood came first because that was how it should be. And Danse had fit right in.

He had no way to check. But…

It seemed absurd. It felt absurd. But looking at it objectively, it made a horrible kind of sense.

Danse didn't know his last name. He didn't know how old he was. He'd grown up alone… and all in all, if you were going to implant false memories in someone's head, his made for a damned convenient set. Was there even anyone he'd known before Cutler who could vouch for him?

But I remember, part of his mind cried out. I remember. I'm real.

Damn it.

This mission, the Commonwealth, it had changed him even before this. He’d been lurching from one crisis to another for so long. He’d spent ten months watching his team die one by one. Williams had pulled them out of what would have been their final stand but until the Prydwen had shown up, he hadn’t been certain he’d see the rest of the Brotherhood again.

Even when the Prydwen arrived, his relief was laced with a thread of anxiety. It was good to see them, but they’d come prepared for an occupation. For conquest. The culmination of their years of preparation. He was glad of it, but he hadn’t felt quite ready. It had passed him by, literally and figuratively; his mind struggled to keep up even as they watched and cheered from the police station. He slapped Rhys on the shoulder and got a hint of a grin out of him, but Haylen’s smile mirrored his own anxiety.

He hadn't taken the time to indulge their nerves. They’d gone to the Prydwen, Maxson had rallied the forces, and Danse had been inspired in the cause all over again. Whatever infrequent, private doubts he might have harbored about their young leader's decisions were dwarfed by the enormity of their mission, and with Maxson at the lead, a Brotherhood victory seemed… if not inevitable, at least within their grasp. There was hope for humanity after all.

Except Danse wasn’t human.

When it truly struck, he felt winded. He was shaking harder than he had with the radiation sickness; he reached out to an ancient petrified tree for support, clutching the branch like a lifeline until the brittle wood snapped under the pressure of his hands. He couldn’t fill his lungs.

He wasn’t human.

Listening Post Bravo, 2288

Man is nothing else but that which he makes of himself.

We mean that man first of all exists, encounters himself, surges up in the world—and defines himself afterwards. …to begin with he is nothing. He will not be anything until later, and then he will be what he makes of himself.

Life is nothing until it is lived; but it is yours to make sense of, and the value of it is nothing else but the sense that you choose.

Jean-Paul Sartre, “Existentialism is a Humanism” (1946)

Danse snuck past a raider encampment. It made him sick to just move on, to leave them to prey on innocent civilians, but alone—without his armor, without his team—he was nothing. The helpless, worthless feeling he'd spent his whole life trying to escape had finally caught up with him.

He'd been on high alert since the Sentinel site and that was catching up with him, too. He made sloppy errors. He almost lost a leg to a pack of snarling mongrels through his own damn carelessness. A disgrace to the Brotherhood of Steel in more ways than one.

It wasn't politic to say in civilian company, but Danse normally enjoyed combat. Not the death or the horror or the stench, but the excitement of the struggle and the satisfaction when it was over. The security of knowing you lived another day while your enemy didn’t. The pride of doing something you were good at for a cause you believed in.

Not this. This was just survival. He felt like a damn radroach all over again—except that even a radroach was a natural creature, not something... manufactured. Artificial. A hunted animal had more right to its freedom than Danse did.

But he wasn't helpless. Not really. Survival was what he knew: it was all he'd known, before the Brotherhood.

He just couldn't help anyone else.

There was no way out of this. The words on that display were incontrovertible. If Quinlan was convinced…

He passed Lexington. The Corvega assembly plant was another reminder of his failures. Malden. At this point he barely cared if he ever made it to his destination. His head throbbed. How long had it been since he slept?

The sky was darkening again by the time Danse stumbled over the hillside to the old listening post.

He cut the power to the elevator. It wouldn't stop anyone. But he'd have enough warning to decide what to do. They'd probably find him eventually.

It was so damn unfair. He'd given the Brotherhood everything he had only to wind up here, a hole in the ground with U.S. government paraphernalia everywhere. Reminders of another lost cause. The fact that coming here felt like coming home… well, the irony wasn’t lost on Danse.

Why had this happened to him? All he'd ever wanted to be was exactly what he'd thought he was. God. He was a living lie. He was a damn fool and he didn’t know what to do. How the hell could anyone escape their own self?

Slowly... inevitably... the reality of his situation began to sink in. And the room grew colder.

He'd made it this far on pure instinct. Now that his rational mind was engaged, he could turn and face the truth he dreaded: that there was no way out. That the enemy was inside him—that he was his own worst enemy, whether he liked it or not.

The Commonwealth was at risk. Humanity itself was at risk. Nobody could look at the wasteland and think otherwise. Nobody who'd seen the Institute's work firsthand. Certainly no Brotherhood soldier worth his salt.

Most recruits found the restrictions of military life uncomfortable. Danse had never complained. A bed in the Citadel—or later, a berth on the Prydwen–beat the doorways he'd slept in as a child or a sorry bunk in the Rivet City common room. But all that had been secondary to what else the Brotherhood gave him: a place to belong, people to call his brothers and sisters. And more than that, more than anything else, it had given him a purpose in life.

Danse had done things he regretted as a soldier, but the things he'd done to survive as a civilian filled him with a different kind of shame. The humiliation of knowing you weren’t worth shit.

He'd been on good terms with Arthur Maxson, but their backgrounds kept them on opposite sides of an invisible line. He hadn't been all but a prince, carefully sheltered because of the blood that ran through his veins, aware at every moment of his privilege and his responsibility. Danse had come from nothing, been nothing, and the Brotherhood had welcomed him anyway. Made him into someone he could be proud of.

He'd wanted to do something of value, and he had. He'd wanted to be part of something and he'd done that too. If his life was the cost, so be it. He wouldn't betray the Brotherhood. Not when it had given him everything that mattered. What else was he going to do—flee the Commonwealth? No. When they came after him, he wouldn’t resist.

He just hoped it would be quick.

He could speed things along. This site was set up for communication. He could radio the Prydwen right now—turn himself in to Haylen or Maxson or the entire ground force—but all he did was stare at the knob.

Maybe he should just do it himself.

It felt like the walls were closing in. Like all the air was leaving the room. He'd lived this long on stolen time, lived a life that was never meant for him, taken up space in a world he had no right to.

Even surrendering himself would be too much of a risk. Who knew what the Institute had programmed him to do? He could have sabotaged the Brotherhood from within, all the while serving his order with pride and thinking all his decisions were his own. Maybe he’d turn on whoever showed up first. Too much of a risk.

Trapped.

He's trapped.

He's been trapped before.

Another one. God damn it, another one.

There's no way out. How many waves of the things can they hold off without Keane? The ferals just keep coming. Rhys is already out of commission. Haylen's doing her best, but she's not a knight. It's up to Danse... and he's going to let them down. All of them, this time.

But it isn't just up to him, after all. There's someone else here. A stranger, suppressing fire—

“Civilian in the perimeter,” he calls.

Williams isn't coming to save his ass this time. There’s a pang of regret that he won't be able to say farewell. He thinks, vaguely, he might love her—not that it matters now. Not that it could ever matter.

Still... he wants to remember the look on her face the last time he saw her. But he can’t. His mind can only scrabble from one fragmented memory to another: Haylen’s devastation after euthanizing a brother on his orders. Krieg reprimanding him in front of the entire squad for slovenliness. Laughing over drinks with Cutler the day they signed on as Initiates. The flicker of surprise in Cutler’s eyes the moment Danse put a hole between them.

He looks down.

He’s standing in front of an ancient terminal. There’s an old holotape still in the slot. He tugs it out and runs his fingers over the smooth plastic casing, mind circling in the same endless loop. Over and over.

He's wondered how it will happen, of course. They all do. This isn't the glorious battle he once imagined; it isn't the honor of laying down his life for his brothers and sisters. But it's as close as he can get.

All he wonders now is if anyone will find his body. Probably not. What's one more set of bones in the wasteland?

No matter what he does, the Institute is one step ahead. He’s never been able to get away from their scheming and now he knows why: the same people who set the goddamn mutants loose on humanity are the same people who made him. He's an abomination. A mistake. A case study in man's hubris, not a man in his own right.

He refuses to be a part of their schemes any longer.

He records his final words, if that's what they are, and walks slowly into the back room. He sets the holotape on the filing cabinet. Tidies the desk. Checks the safety on his rifle.

The Brotherhood will take down the Institute. He has every faith in that. No more mutants, no more synths, no more sick experiments on the innocent people of the Commonwealth. His friend Williams will have her closure. Danse's own closure is simply arriving earlier than expected.

He lays out his weapons and stares at them. It isn’t an important decision. Any of them will perform the job adequately. He can't die a hero, but at least he can die like a human.

There's no way out.

So he'll add one more synth to the dozens he's already taken down. One small success to the record of Paladin Danse's failures.

He'll shut his eyes. He'll reach for the pistol.

He'll do it. He's doing it now.

When the Protectron blared an alert, Danse's first reaction was irritation. Couldn't the intruders have waited ten damn minutes? He was so close to finishing the job. It wasn't easy, fighting your own instincts that screamed survive, even if you knew better. Even if you knew those instincts weren't real.

Danse didn’t reach for his weapons when the firing started. He should never have been given the honor of carrying arms for the Brotherhood in the first place. His entire life was either a conspiracy or a mistake, and he wasn't sure which was worse. The only thing he knew was that it didn't matter.

He rose to his feet and moved to the middle of the room, empty-handed, and waited. He was calm. It was almost a relief. She'd finally come to finish what he couldn’t—and it was her. Of course it was her.

The shots didn't last long. His half-hearted defenses were no match for Williams. Danse was proud he'd brought such a worthy soldier to the Brotherhood. He was glad he could leave her behind in his place.

And there she was. Nothing felt right, but she was here. That was good. He didn't feel so alone anymore.

In an abstract, distant sort of way, he knew he should regret that she'd be the one to do it. It wouldn't be easy for her. But he was glad. She’d been his friend and he'd get to say a proper farewell.

Yes, this was better. It felt like an ending.

She got straight to the point.

"I wish you'd told me the truth, Danse." Her voice was so weary. So sad.

"I might have, if I'd known what I was." He might be a soulless machine, but he'd never have lied to her. "Does Maxson even want me alive?"

The bitterness in his own words was foreign. He didn't feel bitter. He didn't feel much of anything, actually.

"No," she whispered. "But I don't know what to do."

If he were capable of it, he might have been astonished. Didn't she have her orders? Dragging her heels would just make this harder for her.

"The right thing," he said. "Isn't it obvious?"

She wasn't in Power Armor, but she was carrying the rifle he'd given her. Strange how things had come full circle. Strange, but fitting: Danse had used that same weapon to destroy his closest friend. Now that it was his turn to be put down, he could hardly object.

"No," she gasped. "My God, Danse."

Maybe that was why he'd faltered before. Williams was the missing piece. He'd felt that the night they met and that feeling had never gone away. Now she was struggling, and yes, he was sorry. But it was time.

Danse swallowed. And then he dropped to his knees and put his hands behind his back.

Williams only stared down at him. Her eyes were bright and unblinking. Once again he noticed, in a detached way, how he felt when he looked at her. It was irrelevant. It wasn't for him. But his mind diligently recorded it anyway.

Maybe when he was dead, they'd look at his memories the way they had Kellogg's. Maybe they'd learn everything he’d ever felt about her, every inappropriate thought and—

“Can we just talk?” she said softly. “Just for a few minutes. Please.”

More than anything else, they'd find his shame. Not just about Williams. For all the things he’d thought and done, for everything he hadn't done but wished he had. He didn’t want to undermine Maxson. He couldn't.

"What are you waiting for?" he snapped.

"No," she said. "I won't do it, Danse."

Her voice cracked on his name and her eyes gleamed with unshed tears and it was like coming to the surface of a murky pond. He was suddenly aware of their surroundings when a moment before he'd only been conscious of her eyes. The stale air of the bunker overlaid the acrid smell of recently fired laser weapons. The miniscule tremble of Cecily Williams's beautiful mouth as she reminded him of everything she'd lost.

She didn't want to lose him.

They did talk. Not just for a few minutes but for hours, until the clock on her Pip-Boy said it was nearly sunrise. They debated and they strategized. He handed over his holotags and slowly the shards of his life took on a new form. She was right. Whatever sick plot the Institute might have intended, he'd done nothing but serve humanity. And there was nothing he could do to hurt the Brotherhood now. He wouldn't let it happen. Neither would she.

It wasn’t perfect—it was a hell of a long way from perfect—but there was a way out. He might have his own path to follow, but he didn’t need to find his footing alone.

And he was worth something. He’d worked for something. He could start over somewhere else and she could continue the fight here. They both deserved that much.

To his surprise, he found he was smiling at her.

"Let's get the hell out of here."

#paladin danse #fallout 4 #brotherhood of steel #sole survivor #blind betrayal #(aka danse's existential crisis fun time)#tw suicidal ideation #my art #my writing #my attempt to be compliant with a rather plot-holey canon

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litwitlady · 4 years ago

Text

with you i serve, with you i fall down

Read on AO3.

Angst Prompt #3 - ‘Is that blood?’ (I PROMISE IT HAS A HAPPY ENDING)

Warnings: blood, minor physical violence, guns, gunshot wounds, mind games, mind control

‘We don’t have to do this today,’ Michael begs, eyes shifting back and forth between Isobel and Alex.

Isobel places her hand on his shoulder and tilts her head slightly, trying to make him understand. ‘There are innocent people inside, Michael. At last thirty heat signatures. We might be their only hope. We can’t wait for Max. He’s in California.’

‘We’ll be okay.’ Alex knows that’s not really enough, but it’s all he’s got at the moment.

Michael turns to him slowly. ‘You don’t know that. Me and Iz will go, Alex. Please stay here.’

‘You know that’s not the safest option. We’ve been over this already.’ Isobel tugs Michael’s eyes back to her. ‘There’s no cell reception in that building or even outside of that building. Leaving Alex here by himself cuts us off from communication. But having you out here means I’ll be able to reach you if something goes wrong.’

He makes a strangled noise and shakes his head. ‘Then you stay. Alex and I will go. You cannot ask me to watch the two people I love most on this planet - or any other fucking planet - walk into that building.’ He shrugs his shoulders and takes several steps away from them, needing the space to breathe. ‘I will not do that.’

Alex watches him walk away, kicking at the ground in frustration. Michael has never said the word ‘love’ to him. Not in the present tense, anyway. It makes him slightly dizzy. They’ve only just started finding their way back to each other. A friendship blooming gradually and finally able to talk to each like grown adults. Their future open and waiting for them.

Michael climbs into his truck and slams the door. But he doesn’t start the engine. Alex and Isobel watch him lean his head against the back glass and close his eyes. ‘He’s never going to agree to this.’ Isobel crosses her arms and stares at Alex. ‘It’s a terrible thing we’re asking him to do.’

‘None of us have a choice. I’m not willing to risk someone else’s life to keep my own safe. So, there’s no calling anyone else for help. And like you said, we can’t wait.’ Alex squares his shoulders, frowning. ‘I’ll go talk to him.’

‘No.’ She moves in front of Alex, blocking his way. ‘It needs to be me. Wait here.’

She slides into the truck next to Michael. He doesn’t acknowledge her presence. Just keeps his eyes shut and stays silent. ‘You know it has to be me and Alex, Michael.’ No reaction. ‘I’ve worked on my abilities more than you have. So, I’m better equipped, better armed. You know I’m right.’

Michael’s eyes open and he blinks several times at truck’s the rusting roof overhead. ‘I feel it deep in my gut, Isobel. Something bad’s going to happen if you leave me behind. We don’t have enough information.’ He turns his gaze out the window, focusing on Alex. ‘I love him too much, Iz. And you too.’ Angry tears burn down his cheeks.

‘You’re willing to risk all those lives - more than two dozen people - just because something might happen to me or Alex?’ She squeezes his knee. ‘I know you’re not. And we both know how this ends. So, if you want to sit and watch from the safety of your truck, that’s okay. But Alex and I are leaving.’

Isobel rejoins Alex by his Explorer, one last look over her shoulder at Michael. ‘We better get going. I don’t want to be inside that place after sundown.’

Alex checks that his gun is fully loaded. ‘What did you say to convince him?’

‘Honestly? Not a whole lot and I’m pretty sure he’s not convinced.’ She stuffs several bottles of acetone in Alex’s backpack next to his extra bullets. ‘He loves you, you know. I’m never sure how clear that is between you two.’ They hear a door slam shut and turn at the sound. Michael is on his way to them, sadness etched deep in the lines of his forehead. Alex sighs. ‘It’s much clearer these days.’

He’s left his hat behind and his curls swirl in the wind. ‘I don’t want you to go, but I won’t stop you either. But Isobel? At the first sign of trouble you scream for me. Do you understand?’

‘I promise. The first sign of trouble - even the inkling of trouble - and we’re out.’ She pulls him into a tight hug and whispers in his ear. ‘I’ll keep him safe. As best I can.’

Michael nods into her neck and watches Alex slip the backpack onto his shoulders. Isobel unfolds herself from him and Alex gives a little wave as he turns towards the concrete warehouse. But Michael reaches out and grabs his elbow, spinning him back around. ‘No, you don’t get to just walk away like that. Not anymore.’

He pushes the backpack off Alex’s shoulders and onto the ground. And then they fall into each other’s arms - Alex’s wrapped around Michael’s neck and Michael squeezing at Alex’s waist. Noses buried in hair and fingernails clawing at naked skin. So many words left unspoken but not a single one left unheard.

‘Don’t go playing hero, Alex. Sometimes running away is the right choice.’ Michael holds on tighter and glances towards Isobel who’s already at the electric fence, giving them their space. He pleads with his eyes and she mouths I promise one last time.

They pull apart. Hands lingering at collars and hemlines. Eyes blurry and hearts worried. Alex takes a couple of backwards steps, grabbing his backpack and then turns away. Joining Isobel at the fence and setting off together to whatever fate awaits them. Michael looks on completely and utterly helpless. He knows they are competent and well-armed. Smart and desperate to return to him. But that knowledge does absolutely nothing to ease the ache in his chest.

Once they disappear from sight, Michael heads back to his truck. He stands with his hand on the door handle for a long time, trying to convince himself to open the door and not do the thing his heart wants him to do. But his heart wins. Unlocking Alex’s Explorer with his telekinesis, he slides into the driver’s side seat and shuts the door behind him. It’s the most pathetic thing he’s ever done in his life, but he doesn’t care. That nagging feeling is still punching at his stomach and the smell of Alex surrounding him helps to calm his nerves.

The interior is immaculate. So clean it makes Michael roll his eyes. There’s nothing in the center console but two pens and a roll of quarters. The glove compartment offers only the owner’s manual and a flashlight. But when he reaches around into the seat pocket, he strikes gold. Michael smiles down at the cd case he pulls free. The title is written in Alex’s too-perfect script and black-inked sharpie - Desert Mix.

Starting the engine, Michael slides the cd into the disc player and waits. Static crackles through the speakers and then the soft strumming of an acoustic guitar, followed shortly by Alex’s own voice. And Michael knows these songs - remembers the lyrics scratched across the various notebooks tucked under the futon in the toolshed. He’s listened to Alex sing these songs over and over again in the bed of his truck underneath the starry sky more times than he can count. When they were still teenagers with all their dreams still alive and close enough to touch.

Thirty minutes pass and Alex’s songs have nearly lulled him to sleep when he feels the first twinge of fear. It’s faint and distant enough to not immediately alarm him. He just shifts into a more comfortable position and recloses his eyes. The second wash of fear is much stronger and arrives accompanied by Isobel’s screams echoing in his head. Within seconds he’s running harder than he ever has in his life, straight into his worst nightmare.

No doors exist in the building’s central door frame. Just a gaping hole daring him to enter. Which he doesn’t hesitate to do, especially once Isobel begins to chant help us help us help us through his thoughts. He checks behind every door he passes, but finds nothing until he arrives at a large open space. Bleak and gray, the roof leaking water onto the concrete. Isobel on her knees and Alex sitting flat in the center of the room. Farmer Jones behind them, deviant grin spread wide across his face. ‘Welcome, Michael. So glad you could join us.’

Michael’s heart sinks to the floor. He tries using his telekinesis but knows if Isobel has been rendered powerless, so has he. And with that reality before him, whatever hope he’d been trying to hang onto flees. ‘There were never any hostages, were there?’

Alex and Isobel shake their heads.

‘Front and center, Mikey! We’re going to play a little game.’ It points to a spot between Alex and Isobel. Michael has no choice so he steps forward. Stopping when he’s commanded to. ‘Well done. Now, take a good, long look at Isobel and Alex. Spend some time thinking about how much you love them. Let me know when you’re finished.’ He steps back, arms crossed over his chest and still grinning like a madman.

That’s when Michael sees the gun.

It’s Alex’s personal weapon. The one he keeps for protection. Protection he’s needed more than once in his life from those supposed to love him most.

Dragging his eyes down to Isobel, he can tell how broken she is despite the way she holds her shoulders back, strong and proud even in her despair. Her eyes are wet with tears, her chin lifted in rebellion. But he can no longer find her in his head, so Jones must have cut their communication.

Beside her is Alex. A dark red stain soaking the shoulder of his t-shirt. ‘Is that blood?’

‘Oh, don’t worry about that. Just a little scratch. Alex didn’t like my methods at first. But he’s since come around to see things my way.’ Alex’s jaw flexes and Michael watches him try to speak. But no sound leaves his mouth in spite of how hard he’s straining, veins in his neck throbbing with the effort.

‘Let them go and I’ll do whatever it is you want.’ Isobel and Alex both violently shake their heads. Michael ignores them. ‘Please.’

‘Can’t play the game with only one other person. Sorry.’ Jones rocks back on his heels, stuffing his hands in his pockets and shrugging.

‘Then let Alex go. He’s not one of us. Just a human who doesn’t belong here.’ Emotion chokes Michael’s voice which makes Jones’s eyes light up. Alex continues to shake his head, tears now trailing down his cheeks.

‘Everybody stays, Michael. Are you ready? You’re going to need this.’ He yanks the gun from the waistline of his pants and holds it out to Michael. ‘Go on, take it.’

Dread seeps deep into Michael’s bones, making him dizzy. He keeps his hands at his side and gulps loudly. Brain frantically searching for some way out of this horrific situation.

‘Now, Michael. Before you make me angry.’ Jones steps between Isobel and Alex, shoving the gun into his chest.

Michael takes the gun, hands beginning to shake. Eyes pleading with the monster in front of him, eyes avoiding the two people he can’t afford to lose at his feet.

Jones begins to walk in circles around the three of them. Slow and menacing. Taking his time and enjoying every sick second. ‘The game is simple. The rules easy to follow.’ He stops and puts one hand on Isobel’s shoulder, the other on Alex’s. ‘Your mind is a fascinating place, Michael. An electric minefield of love and suffering. Never a dull moment.’

He pauses for effect. Basking in his control and breathing in their terror. ‘This backwater planet has made you so soft and pliable. Imagine what you could have been had you grown up on our marvelous star.’ He feigns pity and then laughs. ‘But instead, you are this. Pathetic. Now you will pay the price for your mother’s wicked hubris. And the choices she made.’

Jones uses his power to raise Michael’s arm. The one whose hand is holding the gun. Michael fights like hell but it’s no use. The gun wobbles as Jones swings his arm back and forth. Pointing the gun first at Isobel and then at Alex. ‘So that’s the game! Your mother once had to make a decision and now her son will do the same. Isobel or Alex, Michael. You have five minutes or I shoot them both.’

Michael knows the moment his voice returns to him - his arm under his own control again as well. Jones smiles at him and Michael shakes his head. ‘I won’t do this.’ He tries to turn the gun on himself, but Jones just takes control again and laughs.

‘You will do this, Michael. Losing one is better than losing them both. And you’ll make it quick. I’ll make it sweet and so very slow.’ Jones tenderly cups Isobel’s cheek and runs his other hand through Alex’s hair. Michael watches as they both wince and shiver under his touch. ‘It’s not like we don’t know who you love the most. I mean, it’s no contest really.’ With a strike quicker than a snake, Jones backhands Alex square in his jaw, sending him crashing to the floor. Michael shouts and tries to go to him, but Jones holds him in place.

‘The lover. Well...the ex-lover, anyway. And the purest love you’ve ever felt.’ Jones wraps his fingers in Alex’s hair and yanks him back into a sitting position. His lip is split, blood flowing freely down his chin and dripping onto his t-shirt. All three of them are panting and openly weeping. Michael’s entire body covered in a cold sweat. None of the thoughts in his head coherent with no last minute save-the-day solutions presenting themselves. Wordlessly, he begins to pray.

Jones goes back to lapping the three of them. ‘In case you were wondering, they both desperately want you to choose themselves. Alex is begging you to pick him. Isobel is maybe less enthusiastic about offering herself, but that’s still what’s inside her head. Noble, really. And Max, well - he’s enjoying the show all the way from sunny California.’

He sits between Isobel and Alex like he’s preparing for some grotesque kindergarten story time. ‘It disgusts me how weak the three of you are. Born to wield such power and instead you’re this - something lesser than even toddlers back home. I blink and you can’t move. I blink again and your minds are easy to crawl inside. Another blink and you’ll do whatever I say.’ He tsks with his tongue and shakes his head. ‘And to think you were meant to save us all, Michael.’

He releases Michael again. ‘Choose. Your five minutes start now.’

Faced with an impossible choice, the decision is easy to make in the end. He’s able to talk but decides not to. Not with words anyway. Michael raises his eyes to Alex and then the gun. And Alex smiles. Because he knows it was always meant to end this way.

Michael thinks back to the first time he’d seen Alex in the hallways of their middle school. An unremarkable moment. Alex and Valenti laughing in a classroom doorway. Valenti grabbing his arm, ‘Who are you?’ And Alex smiling, waiting for his answer.

But the next barrage of memories collapses his lungs. The first time Alex had come to school with his ear pierced, the septum ring hanging from his nose. Always with Maria and Liz, right in the middle. The occasional what’s up, Guerin. Valenti slamming him into a row of lockers after the first rumors started to spread. And eventually, a stolen guitar.

His hand shakes violently. But Alex softly and nods his head. Resigned and ready for what comes next.

Michael takes a moment to step back inside the UFO Emporium. Bright Eyes playing through the speakers overhead. Not a soul in sight. Other than the prettiest boy he’s ever seen with a bigger heart that he could have ever dreamed. A flood of quick flashes - Alex naked beneath him, making out at the movie theater, the desert sky as Alex strums his guitar, Alex’s hair shorn to regulation, letters written and never sent, first glances after long absences, hands on hips and lips on necks, harsh words and bitter tears, i loved you and i think that you loved me, the toolshed destroyed, another soft smile and would you come home.

Michael pulls the trigger.

The gunshot ricochets around the cavernous warehouse, reverberating off the back of Michael’s molars. And then everything falls silent and time stops. Alex crumples to the floor, blood leaking from the hole in his forehead. Eyes dead and lifeless. Michael’s heart claws its way out of his chest and throws itself on Alex. Alongside a screaming Isobel who can move again, hand covering Alex’s wound trying to staunch the bleeding.

But it doesn’t matter because Alex Manes is dead.

Jones tugs the gun from Michael’s hand and pistol whips Isobel on the temple. She collapses across Alex’s unmoving chest. Then Michael is thrown through the air, landing with a thud against the cylinder block wall. He hears the crunch of his skull and then mercifully blacks out. The gunshot playing one last time through his mind before the world disappears.

Time inevitably continues to pass. Alex growing colder and colder as the seconds tick by.

Michael reawakens to Isobel’s gargled cries. Shouting his name over and over again, hoarse from the effort. Michael has no idea how long he’s been out. Looking around, Jones has vanished. A ghost in the night. He squints into the darkness, Isobel slumped over Alex still trying to save him. Beating at his chest and pressing her hand over his wound.

Alex remains dead.

And to think you were meant to save us all, Michael. That line replays in Michael’s head as he sits watching Isobel’s struggle. It’s those words that convinced him to choose Alex. He closes his eyes and goes to the place deep in his gut where his power lives. An electric minefield of love and suffering. He rests his mind, truly hushing it quiet for the first time in his life. Laying the love and suffering aside long enough to connect his brain with his power. Completing a circuit that his trauma had never allowed before.

Energy flares in his nerve endings, clearing all the muck and grime. He thinks of Isobel and easily slides into her mind. There’s chaos and panic and an overwhelming gut-wrenching fear. Bile rises in her throat. She’s convinced that both of them are dead and that she’s all alone in this hell house. Michael reaches out for her and settles her nerves. Sends his own energy through her arm and down into the palm of her hand. The one pushed tight to Alex’s forehead.

Michael concentrates on picturing Alex’s face, whole and happy. Warmth from his belly travels through his connection with Isobel and begins to weave Alex’s brain back together, one fiber at a time. He can feel Isobel gasp when the wound under her palm slowly smoothes away. Her fear subsides and big, choking gasps tear from her lungs the minute Alex’s eyes reopen and his chest rises. She starts to scream Michael’s name again, but this time for a very different reason.

He climbs to his feet and is amazed at how good he feels. Not drained at all - slightly light headed in a pleasant way. Alex sits up and Isobel pulls him into a tight hug, waving at Michael wildly with her free hand.

It takes Michael a moment to take that first step forward. Questions twist in his mind and he knows in his gut that his relationship with Alex will never be the same again. And while he’s excited for what comes next, he’s also terrified of what it might all mean. The overwhelming desire to feel Alex’s heartbeat eventually tugs him forward, though, and before long he’s dropping to his knees beside them.

Alex paws at him, crawling into his lap with Isobel not far behind - clinging to the both of them like she never intends to let go ever again. ‘I felt you, Michael. You did this. How?’

Michael feels Alex bury his nose in the crook of his neck and reaches out to pull Isobel closer. ‘What he said about me being meant to save everyone. It just clicked in my brain and I knew I could save us.’ He presses his lips into Alex’s temple. ‘But I had to choose Alex in case I was wrong and needed help.’ His voice cracks and falters, a sob catches his breath and Michael collapses into them. They hold him close while he cries. The crash of adrenaline and the weight of his choice catching up to him.

They sit tucked tight together for a long time while the sun sets outside.

‘Is he going to have a handprint on his forehead?’ Isobel asks, pushing Alex’s hair aside to see if his skin has started to glow.

‘I don’t know - I don’t think so.’ He cups Alex’s cheeks and inspects his face, finding nothing. ‘Do you feel any different?’

‘Yes. I feel you everywhere. All over me. Inside of me.’ He wraps his fingers around Michael’s wrists, gently knocking their foreheads together. ‘It’s hard to breathe around, actually.’

Michael laughs. ‘Well, I’m having a lot of feelings right now.’

‘About me.’ Alex smiles.

‘Yeah, baby. About you.’ Michael hovers his lips over Alex’s, waiting. Alex doesn’t hesitate to answer, instantly closing the gap between them. And when their mouths finally lock together, both whimper at the touch, kissing each other like it’s the first time all over again. Eager, a little shy, and once again filled with so much hope for their future.

Isobel stumbles to her feet to give them space. She’s still covered in Alex’s blood, needing fresh air. And desperately wants to call Max to explain everything. Reaching out with her mind, she searches for signs of Jones somewhere nearby but finds nothing. Glancing back at Michael, she supposes Jones must know what he’s awakened inside her brother. Michael - the savior. Honestly, she’s not really all that surprised.

Michael hugs Alex flush against him. ‘I’m going to do something, Alex. And you’re going to feel it.’

But Alex shushes him. ‘I already know. Are you sure?’

He nods and shuts his eyes as Alex pushes them as close together as they can get. Offering Michael everything he has to give. Michael smiles and whispers. ‘I love you.’

And Alex responds, ‘I know.’

Michael searches across the desert, not knowing exactly what he’s doing. But before long, he spots what he’s looking for - a mind signature frantically fleeing from his wrath. Alex puts on a hand over Michael’s heart and Michael snaps Jones’ neck, his mind signature blinking out as he crumples to the dirt. He reopens his eyes and looks down at Alex. ‘Let’s go home.’

They rejoin Isobel and Michael informs her that Jones is dead. She nods her head. ‘It was the right decision, Michael. I guess I just wish we’d been able to find out more about where we come from.’

‘We don’t need him for that. I took his mind from him, Iz, before I killed him. I know everything he knows. And we have a lot to talk about. But first, I’m taking Alex home and crawling into his bed for at least a week.’ He hugs Isobel and she looks at him like the marvel he truly is and always has been before climbing into her SUV and leaving them alone.

‘I haven’t said I’m sorry yet.’ Michael turns to Alex. ‘And before you say I don’t have to,’ he holds his hand up to Alex who is already trying to stop him, ‘let me finish.’ Alex reluctantly nods. ‘I know I made the right decision. But I’m so sorry that means you can close your eyes and picture what it looks like to watch me hold me a gun to your head and pull the trigger. Because I can’t fix that part.’

Saying it out loud breaks something inside of him. Something he’s not sure will ever heal. So, he doesn’t bother trying to stop the tears that burn down his cheeks.

Alex grabs his hands. ‘Look at me.’ He waits for Michael to meet his eye. It takes a while but eventually he gets there. ‘I have seen a lot of horrible things in my life. My father’s fists aimed at my face, his hammer breaking your hand. Friends - brothers - riddled with bullets and bleeding out in my arms. Innocent people dying at my hand, riddled with my bullets. My leg shredded to pieces on the side of a dirt road in Iraq.’

He pauses to take a breath. Michael threads their fingers together to give him comfort. ‘You pointing that gun at my head? It is an image that will stay with me. Forever. But not for the reasons you fear. Because you didn’t get to see your face in that moment. The steel and certainty in your eyes. The courage and the love. And the defiance, Michael. I knew I could trust you. I knew I’d open my eyes again and get the chance to tell you how much I love you.’

‘But it’s even better than that. Because now it’s like you’re tattooed underneath every inch of my skin. You’re the oxygen expanding my lungs and the blood pumping through my veins. Yes, you shot me, Michael. But when I opened my eyes, I was so much more than I was before. You gave me that and only you could have given me that.’

They push against each other, chest to chest. Fingers clawing at whatever purchase they can find. Nose in necks and the first flares of arousal spreading through their hips. The scent of rain and Alex’s shampoo mingling together for the first time in over a year.

Michael feels something insistent pressing between his shoulder blades. Reluctantly, he pulls away from Alex and turns to find his cell phone floating freely. He concentrates on his power and realizes it’s not coming from his mind. Alex laughs behind him as Michael yanks his phone out of the air, stunned into silence.

A death. A homecoming. Something bright and new.

#malex #malex fic #angst prompts #alex manes #michael guerin #a happy ending i swear

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ollieofthebeholder · 4 years ago

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leaves too high to touch (roots too strong to fall): a TMA fanfic

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Chapter 34: Jon

Sasha apparently has a particular New Year’s Eve tradition involving a karaoke club and far too much alcohol, and the Primes are understandably not enthusiastic about the whole concept, so in the end it’s just Jon and Martin and Tim who venture out to the celebrations. Martin manages to coax Charlie’s grandmother into allowing them to take him along, and they have a grand old time. Jon manages to actually get a decent picture at one point, and now his phone background is of Charlie perched on Martin’s shoulders, arms folded on top of his head, with Tim standing beside them, all three of them looking up at the sky with expressions of absolute delight and wonder. It makes him smile every time he looks at it.

Back in the Archives, they all buckle down to an individual project, in addition to their regular duties. Tim, of course, is still attempting to get a handle on his newfound ability to see the color of fears. It’s slow going, since Jon absolutely forbids him to practice in the Archives, or anywhere on Institute property, until he’s got a better handle on it; the sheer overwhelming presence of the Eye means he can’t look around without nearly passing out, so he finally agrees to hold off until he gets to a point where he can target it to a single person or object, or at least narrow down his field of vision. Jon Prime warns that that’s something that will only come with time, but Tim is determined. He at least makes some small progress.

Martin starts working on a cross-index of the statements they’ve studied—not just which ones relate, or seem to relate, to the same entities, but ones that have common names, locations, circumstances, or even dates. Honestly, it’s the sort of thing they should have been doing from the beginning; it’s just that Martin is the only one with any kind of library training, so he’s the only one who thought of it. And now that they know more about what’s going on, he has something to work with. Wisely, he saves it to a flash drive rather than on the Institute’s servers, so there’s no chance anyone outside the four of them or someone they approve to help out can use it.

Sasha focuses on the Institute, or more specifically on its Heads. While the four of them know that it’s actually been Jonah Magnus the entire time, or at least his eyes, she’s interested in the apparent successors—why they were chosen, how they were chosen, where they came from and what happened to them when Jonah Magnus was ready to move on, at least ostensibly. Jon cautions her to be careful, and she reassures him with a flurry of technical terms he loses track of halfway through, but there’s a crackle and pop of static that makes them both wince but leaves them with the Knowledge that she’s right. Her research is as secure as can be.

For his part, Jon digs into Gertrude.

He knows Jon Prime has some knowledge of her—of her travels, her past—but he wants to find out as much as he can on his own. Besides, he isn’t sure Jon Prime has the answers he’s looking for. Really, he’s not sure what answers he is looking for, but whatever it is, he’s going to do the research himself. It just feels like it’s cheating otherwise. So he tries to find out as much as he can about where she came from, how she came to the Institute, and what sort of things she might have been up to.

In doing his research, he comes across the startling information that Gertrude’s flat is still unlet. Apparently there were some legal complications due to the nature of her disappearance and death, and she was paid up for several months, so the agent simply never bothered to clean the place out. Something about this nags at him with a sense of wrongness, but—perhaps unwisely—he ignores it and keeps looking.

He tells his team that he plans to break into the flat. Tim and Martin both protest, and even he has to admit it’s not the world’s best idea, but he can’t think of any other way to gain access. Sasha rolls her eyes and tells him to give her twenty minutes.

Two hours later, he presents himself at the lending agent’s office as Gertrude Robinson’s grandson and asks, all innocence, what they’ve done with her things.

The agency is only too happy to let Jon clear the place out, even providing Jon with a couple of boxes in case he wants to take things with him. Jon’s not sure what he would want to take, but he accepts anyway. If nothing else, he can take it all and they can sort through it with the Primes’ help. The agent brings him up to Gertrude’s flat, lets him in, and tells him to just lock it behind him when he leaves, then wishes him luck and leaves him alone.

Jon gives the agent to the count of ten to get well away while he unwinds his scarf and unzips his jacket, then reaches into his inner pocket. Once upon a time it’s where he kept his cigarettes, but what he pulls out now is his new tape recorder. Not that he went out and bought one, of course, or that anyone on the team bought it—as far as he knows. They all came back from the holidays to find a neatly-wrapped package topped with a black-and-white striped bow on each of their desks; when they, with some trepidation, unwrapped them, they found separate and distinct tape recorders—a pretty clear sign, as Sasha says with what Jon considers unnecessary enthusiasm, that they’re all meant to be recording statements. And probably everything else they do. Since Elias doesn’t seem to know about them, they’re not using them for anything official, but Jon knows they’re all dictating their supplemental research onto them. He checks to make sure the tape is properly loaded, then thumbs the RECORD button.

“Right,” he says. “I’m standing in Gertrude Robinson’s flat. Former flat, I suppose I should say, but it hasn’t been relet and all her things are still here…such as they are. Thanks to Sasha, and some technical maneuvering I am not going to ask about on the grounds that she is an excellent and able assistant and I don’t want to have to visit her in prison, I was able to gain access by plausibly claiming to be her grandson. I’m here to look around and…hopefully get a better idea of her. So…let’s begin.”

He keeps up a running commentary as he searches the apartment. Gertrude’s life was an austere one; the kitchen contains nothing but a collection of teabags, a pot, a kettle, and a single mug. Jon goes ahead and packs it all into a box, especially the tea, which is Martin’s preferred variety. The bed is neatly made, as if she expected to be back soon—which, well, of course she must have—and she has no more than a dozen different outfits. Three suits—two skirt, one pant—and a red silk chiffon evening gown of a style popular in the 1970s hang in the closet, along with two pairs of sensible brogues and a pair of pointy-toed high heels; the drawers contain a few pullovers and a couple pairs of more casual slacks, beyond the usual assortment of undergarments.

The bookshelf draws his attention. It’s a single shelf, filled with books, but there are no others in the apartment. Quickly, he scans the spines, narrating a few of the titles into his recorder, before stopping and sighing.

“It’s…it seems to be mostly nonfiction,” he says. “Some fiction, but most of these appear to be books on history. I don’t have time to go through them all here, so I’m going to do the next best thing. The agent did tell me to pack up and take what I wanted and they’ll throw away the rest. There might be something useful in here. And if all else fails, we’ll have some new books to read, I suppose.”

His first box is relatively full, so he sets up a second box and begins layering the books in it, muttering to himself as he does so. “I have no idea if all of these will fit in this box or not, but we’ll see what we can do. For that matter, I don’t know if I’m even going to be able to pick it up myself. And if I have to carry more—”

The lightbulb goes out overhead with a faint, metallic pop.

Jon blinks the spangles away from his retinas and glances up with an exasperated sigh. It was late in the afternoon when he arrived here, and the sun has set by now, so with Gertrude’s unexpectedly thick, dark curtains drawn, there’s no light coming from outside. The ceiling light is too high for Jon to reach; he has a brief moment of wishing Martin was there, or Tim, before heaving himself to his feet with a sigh. He gives his eyes a second to adjust, then makes his way carefully towards the end table with its small china lamp. It’s not optimal, but it will at least give him enough light to see.

“You don’t want to do that,” a sing-song voice says from behind him.

Jon nearly leaps out of his skin. Footsteps sound behind him—sharp and crisp and ominous—and he turns around to make out a tall, slim shadow moving towards him.

“I mean,” the same voice continues, “you can if you really want to, but you’re not going to like it. Sometimes not being able to see is a good thing.”

“Wh-who are you?” Jon stammers out. He tries to tell himself that it’s simply one of Gertrude’s neighbors, that this is perfectly harmless, but he doesn’t believe it. The last eight months have knocked most of his capacity for deliberate self-delusion right out of him.

He can’t actually see the grin in the darkness, but he can hear it. “Well, my father named me Nikola, and then I killed him, so I thought I rather deserved to have his second name, too. Which makes me Nikola Orsinov. Pleased to meet you at last.”

Jon now wishes Tim or Martin were here for a completely different reason. He swallows hard. “Y-you, ah—you killed Gregor Orsinov?”

“Yep!” Nikola Orsinov says brightly. “He was really boring, and I’m a monster. What did you want me to do—not pull him to pieces? I did use all the bits.”

Jon can feel the bile rising in his throat and mingling with the terror, threatening to choke him. “How—how did you get in here?”

“I followed you, silly! You didn’t even lock the door.” There’s a slight creaking noise as the shadowy figure shakes its head. “Gertrude would be so disappointed in you. You let me into her house!”

“There’s nothing here,” Jon says. He fervently hopes that’s true. “N-nothing important…”

“Oh, I don’t believe that. And neither do you, or you wouldn’t be here! That nasty old Eye wouldn’t have told you to come if there wasn’t a reason.”

Jon wonders if it was actually the Eye’s idea that he come here, or if it was his own idea, or a conflation of the two. He also wonders if anyone will hear him if he screams, if he can make it past Orsinov to the door or if he’ll need to use the window, and if he’ll manage to survive if he passes out. Irrationally, on top of all of this, he finds himself trying to remember the name of that girl in his Intro to Drama class with the gift for fainting on cue without hurting herself. Slowly, he reaches for the lamp.

“Don’t turn that on,” Orsinov orders, somehow managing to sound sharp and intimidating while at the same time never losing the high, lilting, almost childish sweetness to her voice.

Jon freezes. The name Ellie Hall slams into the front of his brain and he desperately tries to clear it away. He refuses to let his last thoughts be ones of regret, refuses to wonder if he’d still be trapped in a dark flat with a manifestation of the fear of the unknown if he’d stayed on the theatre track, certainly refuses to waste any more brainpower on the stereotypical prima donna who’d been the reason he switched his degree path in the first place. Think, he tells himself. He needs to pull up something to give him strength, or at least the courage to face his doom.

His hand falls away from the lamp and hits his pocket; his fingers trace the outline of his phone through the fabric. He thinks of the picture on the background—of Martin and Tim with Charlie, watching the fireworks display. The people he cares about are waiting for him to come home. Whether they need him or not is immaterial. They’re waiting for him and he can’t let them down.

The wrong shall fail, the right prevail.

“Are you here to kill me?” he asks, and he manages to ask it without his voice shaking. Small victory, but he’ll take it.

“No!” Orsinov says, sounding absolutely aghast. Jon relaxes, marginally, until she adds after a moment’s thought, “Well, yes, but not now. That would spoil everything. It would be a shame for you to go to waste.”

Unbidden, Jon wonders how, exactly, she used all of Gregor Orsinov’s “bits” and what she plans to use his for. He really and truly does not want to think about it, but he can’t seem to stop. He decides to put the blame for that on the entity of fearful and forbidden knowledge looming over his shoulder. “Wh-why are you here then?”

“I’ve heard so many interesting things about you, Archivist. I decided it was finally time for us to have a good old chat,” Orsinov says. “Face to no face! Eye to…well.”

Face to no face. Okay. Jon is definitely not turning on the light now. “What have you heard?”

“Well!” Orsinov says with relish. “First my friends came to make a delivery for you, and they said you called on all sorts of nasty powers to send them away. That wasn’t very nice, Archivist. It’s rude to chase away your guests.” She gives a delighted little laugh—not a giggle, not like Michael’s, but unnerving in its own way. “And then it turns out we have a friend in common! Isn’t that nice? Only he’s very sneaky. He came to visit Daniel and Sarah, and they thought he was coming to join us in our dance, but then he was…unmasked. He ran away! So very rude.” She sighs. “But then, what do you expect from the Eye? No manners.”

Tim. Oh, God, she knows Tim was at the Trophy Room, of course she does. And if Breekon and Hope are her “friends”, then she knows about Martin and Sasha, too. Jon’s terror compounds. “Leave them alone.”

“Oh, I’m not interested in them. Maybe. Or maybe it’s all of you! But if you can do it by yourself, that would be fine, I’m sure.”

Jon takes a deep breath and squeezes his phone—for luck or comfort, he’s not sure which. “What do you want from me, then?”

“I want you to find that old skin for me,” Orsinov says cheerily.

“The sk—the gorilla skin?” It’s the only thing Jon can think of—the gorilla skin missing from the Trophy Room when Tim went to investigate.

“Mm-hmm! We thought nasty old Gertrude had destroyed it, but your friend came asking so many nosy questions, so now we think maybe she was just very good at hiding,” Orsinov told him.

“I’m sorry, you want me to find it for you?” Jon’s tongue seems to have become temporarily disconnected from his brain, because he cannot seriously be talking like this to something that has already made no bones about telling him it tore its creator to pieces.

“That would be lovely. And a lot nicer for you than our other ideas.”

The idea that Gertrude might have stolen a skin from the Trophy Room never occurred to Jon, but now that he thinks about it, it makes sense. He’s beginning to realize that she likely did read all of the statements, at least all the real ones; if he and his team can sense a true statement, surely she could, after forty years. She kept the Archives in disarray in hopes of slowing down Jonah’s plan, but he realizes she had to have read the statements to know they needed to be misfiled, and oh, God, why is he thinking about this now instead of getting out of this alive?

Because, a small voice in the back of his head says, if Gertrude stole the skin, it must be important to the Stranger.

“Wh-why—why do you want it?” Jon stammers out.

Orsinov’s hands clap together twice with a disturbingly hollow, plastic sound, and Jon can’t explain why that’s somehow more terrifying than his initial thought that she was an animated piece of taxidermy like Rawlings and Sarah Baldwin. In a voice of childish glee, she says, “I want to wear it when I dance the world new!”

Jon wonders if he can borrow some of Tim’s wit—what, you’re going to turn it into a dress or something?—but as the thought crosses his mind, another one meets it halfway and strikes him momentarily dumb with terror. The painting Martin Prime described all those months ago—the figure in the warehouse with the manic grin, the man tied to a chair. I thought you’d make a lovely frock.

Oh, God.

“But—but wh—” he begins, but gets no further. A shadowy arm shoots out of the darkness, faster than he can move, and seizes him around the throat in a powerful grip. It is, as he surmised from hearing the clapping, made of plastic—or at least something hard and unyielding—smooth, firm, and cold. He finds himself both wishing he kept his scarf on and glad he didn’t, as the plastic joints would probably pinch at Charlie’s inexpert and uneven stitches and unravel them.

That thought quickly takes second place to the fact that his feet are not touching the floor, followed by the fact that his flow of oxygen is very definitely being cut off.

“Question time is over, little Archivist,” Orsinov says, still in that same sing-song voice. “Find the skin. You have until…well, until I change my mind.”

She opens her hand, and Jon drops to the ground in a graceless, undignified heap. He gasps and sputters, struggling to force air back into his lungs, and looks up at the silhouette looming over him, equal parts terrified and angry.

“Shh,” she says, the sound far eerier than it has any right to be. “Save your energy for the dance.”

The plastic footsteps sound on the laminate again, and Nikola Orsinov is gone, leaving Jon alone in the darkened apartment.

He spends a few minutes greedily gulping down air. Tears stream down his cheeks and he’s not sure if it’s from the near-asphyxiation or from fear or maybe a little bit of both. Rubbing at his sore throat with one hand, he fishes out his phone with the other, activates it, and stares at the picture for a long moment, hoping to draw on that sense of peace and happiness he felt in the moment he took it.

He doesn’t. All he feels is a renewed sense of terror, because everything he loves is in this picture. It’s a reminder of what he stands to lose if he fails—of what can be taken from him in an instant if he’s not careful. He has to find that skin. Somehow.

He thumbs over to his contacts, hovers over the button to call Martin, and stops. He can’t. He’s still coughing and gasping for air, so if he tries to call, Martin will know by his voice something is wrong and try to come after him, and he can’t put him in danger. Can’t worry him, not like that.

Instead, he switches over to the group chat Tim has arbitrarily labeled Team Archives Happy Fun Times And Doomsday Prophylactic Society Executive Committee and sends a text. [Almost done. Where are you all?]

Sasha replies first. [Still back at the Archives. Cleaning up for the night.]

Tim is the next to respond. Rather than words, he sends a picture he obviously took at arm’s length, crammed between Martin and Sasha and with the time and date on a laptop screen behind them prominently displayed. Jon smiles, briefly. They’ve all grown a bit less trusting of text messages since the whole Jane Prentiss incident; he’s pretty sure the next step is going to be code phrases that change on the daily.

[Stay there. All of you. I’ll be back shortly.] Jon struggles to his feet and switches on the lamp. He contemplates the boxes for a moment, then sweeps as many of the books as he can into one and folds it up. The other he unpacks and unfolds again, then tucks the box of tea into his jacket along with the tape recorder. He puts the scarf back on carefully, hoping it’ll hide any bruising, hoists the box in both arms, and remembers to lock the door on his way out.

He drove today. Thank God he drove today. After carefully checking the backseat, the boot, and under the car for stray clowns or mannequins or anything else, really, he climbs into the car and drives the exact speed limit back to the Institute. It’s well past the end of the day by the time he arrives, and it’s a Friday to boot, so he’s pretty much the last car in the parking lot. Jon leaves the box of books in the boot, double-checks the locks, and practically runs down the steps into the Archives.

His team is there, standing by the cluster of desks. Martin is the first to notice, and he makes a small noise that alerts the others to turn around. Jon doesn’t slow down, just charges straight across the Archives floor and all but flings himself at Tim and Martin. As their arms wrap around him, he relaxes for the first time since the lights went out, even though he’s very aware of the fact that he’s still shaking.

“Jon? Jon, what’s wrong?” Martin’s voice is sharp with anxiety. “Are you hurt? What happened?”

“We’ve got you. We’ve got you,” Tim murmurs. “It’s okay. You’re safe. What happened?”

“Orsinov,” Jon croaks out, and damn, his voice is still raw. He doesn’t pull back from the comfort of his friends’ embrace, though. “Gregor Orsinov—his, his daughter, I suppose—calls herself Nikola Orsinov—she was there.”

“Oh, God.” Tim pulls both Martin and Jon closer to himself. There’s a brief rustle, and then Jon feels someone else join the embrace; he sincerely hopes it’s Sasha. “In Gertrude’s flat? Was she waiting for you?”

“No—no, she followed me.”

“What did she want?” Sasha asks, and thankfully her voice is right where he’d expect it to be if she was the fourth member of this hug.

Jon tries to take a deep breath and accidentally gets a mouthful of fluff from Tim’s sweater, so it takes a second before he can answer. “The gorilla skin—the one from the statement. The one that Rawlings told you had been stolen. She wants me to find it.”

Some of the pressure eases up; Jon clings harder to Martin and Tim, feeling a little foolish but not really caring. He’s scared, damn it, he needs the comfort, and while sometimes when he’s afraid he wants to be given space and left alone, more and more lately he’s found himself only feeling safe when he’s being held. He decides not to think too hard about what that says about him.

“Why does she think you can find it?” Sasha asks, sounding puzzled.

“A-apparently Gertrude stole it. Orsinov thought she’d destroyed it, but…” Jon hesitates. He doesn’t want to make Tim think it’s his fault.

Tim groans. “But I was asking leading questions, so once Breekon and Hope outed me, she thought we were looking for it, too. God, Jon, I—”

“No, it’s not your fault,” Jon insists. “I-it—it’s not your fault.”

“Did she hurt you?” Martin asks quietly. “Or just try to frighten you?”

Oh, Jon is tempted to lie. Martin didn’t force him to answer; he can just stay silent. But his options don’t exist in a vacuum, and he can’t do that to Martin.

“She grabbed me,” he admits. “By the throat. J-just for a minute, but—”

“Oh, God. Let me see.” Martin tries to pull back, but Jon grabs him tighter and shakes his head.

“I’m all right. I’m all right,” he insists. It’s not quite the truth and not quite a lie. “It’s not—I’ll take a look when we get home. I just don’t—right now I don’t want anyone going anywhere alone. Sasha, are you—do you want to spend the night or—”

“I really need to go home,” Sasha says, and when Jon looks over at her, she seems regretful. “Visiting hours tomorrow, and I promised Uncle Wade I’d be there.”

“Okay. Then I’m driving you, at least.”

“I’ll accept a ride.”

Jon nods. “Just…give me a minute.”

He knows it’s silly. Knows it’s a lot to ask of Tim and Martin. But he just needs a few more minutes in the safety of their arms before he has the strength to move.

They don’t talk about it further that night. They drop Sasha off, bring the books into their house, and have dinner. Martin makes a soothing tea and Tim carefully tends to the bruises forming on Jon’s throat and Jon makes tomato soup despite the other two saying he doesn’t have to cook. They end up going to bed early, snug under a quilt and a knitted afghan and cuddled close together. Jon falls asleep safe and warm in Tim and Martin’s arms, and for the first time in over a year, he doesn’t dream.

#ollie writes fanfic #leaves too high to touch (roots too strong to fall)#tma #the magnus archives #time travel fix it au #intimidation tw #mannequins tw #choking tw #darkness mention tw #also the jonmartim is getting less and less subtle #hashtag it's not unrequited they're just idiots

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