#(to be clear i assume i live nowhere near this event and there was never any chance of me going)

[hippo-pot]

was clearing out my instagram follows also and came across this event. the more i think about it the more i'm like :/ would that really be fun though

[lovings4turn]

୭ 🗝️ ✧ ˚. 🪩 don't delete the kisses . . . (l.n.)

— you and lando walk a fine line between ‘just friends’ and something more. but sometimes, it seems like love just isn't meant for you (2.6k words)

+ mentions of drinking and clubs, a lot of miscommunication and pining but i promise it's somewhat fluffy. based on don't delete the kisses by wolf alice.

+ part two | divider from cafekitsune

lando: where r u???? 02:43

lando: y/nnnn:(( 02:45

lando: charls told me you left 02:48

lando: get hmome safe 02:49

you didn't mean to pull an irish goodbye, honestly. but the club was far too loud, and you were nowhere near drunk enough to tolerate the remixed house music and overpriced drinks for any longer.

the easiest option was simply to slip out unnoticed, send a quick text to let everyone know you were okay, and head home alone. if you'd mention your wanting to leave early, no doubt at least three of your friends would decide to leave with you in solidarity, no matter how much you insisted they stay and enjoy their night. that way, everyone was happy.

after confirming that the car you were about to climb into was your uber, you sank into the plush seat, offering your driver a tired half-smile through his rear view mirror. you were thankful that he seemed to understand you weren’t quite in the mood for conversation, and the rest of the ride was silent save for the music playing from his radio.

pressing your forehead to the glass of the window, you allowed your eyes to flutter closed as you thought over the events of the night, replaying every last detail in your head.

it had all started with the fucking shirt. 

official galas and nice dinners meant that you were no stranger to lando wearing nice shirts, the sleeves cuffed and a tie usually hanging around his neck. but when lando greeted you with a hug, his ironically named black button-down unbuttoned to the point that it could be considered obscene, you almost forgot how to function. warm skin pressed against your own, and you hated yourself for realising just how perfectly you moulded against his chest. 

never had you been more thankful for the presence of max verstappen, whose offer of heading to the bar allowed you the perfect chance to slip away and regain your composure. the red bull driver made small talk with you as the bartender took your orders, and you responded politely, nodding when you were supposed to and laughing along to the odd joke. 

but like a moth to a flame, you couldn’t keep your eyes from falling back onto lando. 

somehow even in a packed, lively club, lando’s presence shone the brightest out of all the partygoers. worst of all, he didn’t even have to do anything special. he was simply standing there, nimble fingers wrapped around a cup that you assumed contained a vodka soda as he laughed with his friends. dark curls had started to slip into his eyes, whatever he’d used to style them clearly wearing off as he began to sweat a little. 

even doing nothing, he managed to look like he’d fallen from heaven right into your life. 

someone up there clearly had it out for you, as lando scanned the room and caught your eye. to look away would only incriminate you further, make it look like you had been caught doing something you shouldn’t be, so you smiled. lando shot you a toothy grin back, eyes scrunched shut with the enthusiasm of it. 

a cold glass thrust into your palm stole away your attention, and you turned to meet the knowing smirk of max. he nursed his own drink, and one thick brow was raised in a silent question. though he never spoke, it was clear that he knew something was going on between you and lando.

maybe he didn’t want to embarrass you, or maybe he truly didn’t care, but whatever the reason max didn’t vocalise any of his thoughts to you. he simply nodded back over to where your group was standing and gestured for you to walk ahead of him. as you made your way back to the group, you suppressed the urge to worry your bottom lip between your teeth.

to anyone else, the interaction wouldn’t be much to think about. max had caught you, what, smiling at your friend? it was hardly criminal activity. you were just overthinking, the rational part of your brain insisted. but the other part took max’s expression and ran with it.

if max had noticed you harboured certain feelings for lando, then who else had drawn the same conclusions? the last thing you wanted was to be caught staring longingly over at lando, stars in your eyes and a far away look. 

in circles like these, people talked, and where formula one drivers went, gossip’s eye was never far around the corner. you’d seen it happen before to other drivers, countless tweets and headlines about who they were caught talking to or dancing with, and the last thing you needed was the speculation of the public on your relationship with lando.

sobered by this thought, you brought the paper straw to your lips, taking a long sip of your gin and tonic and hoping the alcohol would calm you down a little. much to your relief, almost upon arrival you were dragged into a nonsensical conversation with george, alex and lily. george’s slurred speech and alex’s loud laughter granted you a distraction, though it would be a lie to say that your eyes didn’t constantly wander back to lando.

but the heart wants what it wants, and so you couldn’t ignore him forever.

not even a second after an upbeat, bass-heavy song reverberated through the club’s speakers did lando appear by your side, grinning wildly.

“y/n! i’ve been looking for you, come dance w’me!” he shouted, dipping his head down to position his mouth next to your ear.

hot breath tickled your skin, and you shuddered slightly as lando’s larger hand enveloped your own, allowing him to drag you through the crowds towards the dance floor. every now and then, he’d peer over his shoulder to ensure you were still with him, the smile never leaving his lips. everything around him seemed to fade, the bright lights and crowds eclipsed by his radiance. 

the crowd seemed to open up around him, blooming like a flower to grant you both more than enough space to dance comfortably without the threat of being hit by stray limbs. lando didn’t even let you get your bearings before he spun you around, high pitched laughter managing to meet your ears even over the pounding music. 

it was impossible not to laugh too. you reached up onto your tiptoes, hand still in lando’s own, and spun him around in return. thanks to his height advantage, lando had to duck a little to make the move work, but his hair still brushed against your bare wrist as he passed under it. the tickle travelled along your skin like lightning, leaving goosebumps. 

dancing had never been either of your strong suits. even after years of clubbing together, it seemed that each night out was another chance to try to learn exactly what it was you were supposed to do on the dancefloors of clubs and bars, yet you never cared too much.

around lando, everything felt right.

you two continued to dance, mirroring each other's sloppy movements. lando shot you a faux insulted look as you imitated his default dance move, awkwardly moving one arm around to the beat and pointing to the ceiling.

"i do not look like that!" he protested, struggling to keep up his irritated act.

you only shrugged, smirking slightly as you continued to mock him.

another bass-heavy, sultry song began to play, and you dropped your hands. a re-evaluation of how you were supposed to dance was much needed, but lando was one step ahead of you.

without a second thought, lando's hands came to rest on your hips. he took a step closer to you, moving to the beat and prompting you to move along with him.

how you were still breathing was a miracle. 

lando was so lost in the music that he was oblivious to your abrupt change in demeanour. suddenly, everything was heightened. even the slightest brush of lando's thumb burned through the fabric of your dress, and you'd gladly bear the marks of the searing touch if it was proof he'd been there at all.

delight soon turned to nerves, as the butterflies in your stomach quickly evolved into wasps, prickly and angry. you'd gotten carried away, dancing with lando like this, and it was beginning to catch up with you. 

"i need some air!" you blurted.

lando's eyes snapped open, roaming over your face in concern. he lifted his hand to your face, but to do what, he was unsure. you cursed inwardly at his reaction, his kicked puppy look making you feel even worse.

before he could question you, you forced a wide smile, waving your hand dismissively. "i'm fine! go have fun," you promised, patting his shoulder firmly.

after lando had turned his back, you’d wasted no time in making your way to the club’s exit. just before you could slip through the doorway, you made eye contact with charles. the man only gave you an understanding nod, deciding it wasn’t worth it to pester you to stay.

cold wind whipped your cheeks, and for the first time in hours, you felt like you could breathe properly. haphazard texts were sent to a handful of people you’d seen tonight, and you’d ordered an uber straight after.

all that was left to do now was sit with your thoughts.

maybe romance wasn’t meant for you. maybe lando wasn’t meant for you. like some sort of divine intervention, your apartment came into view before you could spiral too far.

the familiar sight broke you from your daydream, as your focus now lay on getting out of the car and into your apartment without falling over or dropping anything. it was a welcome distraction from the thoughts of lando that plagued your mind.

it’s like your own head was conspiring against you: even when he wasn’t physically around, you still found a way to gravitate towards him.

there were few sights better than that of your freshly made bed, the sheets practically begging you to slip beneath them and go to sleep. unfortunately, you still needed to change out of your club outfit. and take off your makeup. and text lando back. 

fumbling around in your bag for your phone, you let out a triumphant noise and perched on the end of your bed to type out your reply.

y/n: sorry lan, i just-

[MESSAGE DELETED]

y/n: i'm home! sorry for leaving like that, it was-

[MESSAGE DELETED]

you groaned, pressing the palms of your hands into your eyes in an attempt to ground yourself. there was no reason you should be overthinking a text to lando, of all people. after a deep sigh, you let your fingers dance over the keyboard, rewriting yet another poor excuse for leaving unannounced.

y/n: home safe! sorry for disappearing, couldn't find u before i left and the uber was outside xx

your finger hovered over the 'send' button before you made one final, crucial revision to the text.

y/n: home safe! sorry for disappearing, couldn't find u before i left and the uber was outside:( 03:24

checking the time at the top of your screen, you figured that lando probably wouldn’t respond until morning. well, afternoon, more likely.

you’d been on countless nights out with lando before; by now his drunken behaviours were engraved into your brain.

like clockwork, lando would hit a certain level of drunk and abandon his phone altogether, opting to sling an arm around someone’s shoulder - usually yours - and drag them off to dance. he wouldn’t even think about his phone until the next morning, checking his messages after finding the device tangled somewhere within the sheets of his bed.

sleep quickly became your top priority. as tempted as you were to just lay down in your current state, you knew that the future, sober you would regret it. in your eyes, you deserved an award for dragging yourself to the bathroom and removing your makeup carefully, not without performing a shorter rendition of your skincare routine and brushing your teeth.

yes, your clothes were bundled up and thrown into the corner of your room, and you opted for an old t-shirt - frustratingly, one of lando’s - instead of a set of pyjamas, but you were only human. 

exhaustion seemed to take over you the moment that your head hit the pillow, and you let out a soft sigh of relief as sleep began to take its hold. messy curls and a bright smile was the last thing on your mind as you finally lost consciousness.

meanwhile, the other drivers were still in the club with no intentions of slowing down.

lando squinted at the bright screen of his phone, vaguely able to decipher the letters that made up your text. a sigh of relief escaped him as he realised you had gotten home safely, but disappointment still sat heavy in his chest.

“she’s home,” he shouted in oscar’s ear, though his teammate hadn’t asked.

oscar didn’t have to ask who lando was talking about to understand. he’d noticed that lando’s head had operated on a swivel from the moment he’d realised that you were nowhere to be found. he was like an owl, spinning around in a way that dizzied him, all in the hopes of catching a glimpse of you.

if ever questioned about the pout that settled on his lips, lando would probably blame the alcohol for causing his dramatics to be heightened. of course he wasn’t actually that upset that you’d opted to leave a little earlier, not at all.

“that’s good! she say why she left?” oscar shouted back, dipping his head down so lando could hear him a little better over the chaos of the club.

his question made lando frown further. 

“no.”

though it was in response to oscar’s question, lando’s answer was directed more towards himself, voice barely above a mumble. he’d only just realised that you hadn’t actually mentioned why you’d left the club early, just why you didn’t say goodbye.

deep in thought, lando’s brow furrowed as he tried to piece together some sort of timeline. last he’d seen you, you had been dancing together, having what he thought was a great time. okay, maybe his hands had wandered a little further than he’d expected, but it didn’t mean anything. he just got caught up in the moment, the fabric of your clothes beneath his hands far too tempting for him to be able to think clearly. 

fuck, what if he’d made you uncomfortable? 

lando knew that he became more touchy when he was drunk, his desire for affection growing exponentially as his propensity for shame decreased. your personal space became his, too. it was common for him to sling his arms around your waist, or rest his head on your shoulder as the night grew longer, but he’d never gripped your hips like that until tonight.

it would explain why you were in such a hurry to leave, not stopping to say goodbye to anyone and give them the chance to persuade you to stay for just one more dance. he’d overstepped an unspoken boundary in your friendship, and panic began to bubble in the pit of his stomach. 

lando swallowed thickly before standing up, garnering a confused look from the australian sitting next to him. 

“i need another drink. i’ll be back.”

before oscar could even speak, lando had disappeared into the thronging mass of the party without another word.

🏷️ tags : @faerieroyal @starriesworlds @itscrzy @srrcsm

[urdepressedslut]

Stray

♡ Pairing: The Winter Soldier x Fem!Reader/Bucky Barnes x Fem!Reader

♡ Summary: Just hours after the events in DC, you find The Winter Soldier unconscious, leaning against a gravestone in a cemetery near your home. Being sheltered you don't recognize who he is, and you care for him.

♡ Warnings: dark themes? light angst, fluff, vomiting

A/N: If you’re confused at the start, good. I tried to make the buildup very mysterious on who you are 😂

Part 2

His mind raced with questions that he knew would stay unanswered. The image of the blonde soldier defenseless, lying just out of the river.

I'm with you til the end of the line

Those words had ignited something in him, the foreign feeling of a fractured memory trying to come to life. He wasn't sure who he was anymore, he wasn't sure where he was, or where he was going. But his legs had a mind of their own, leading him far away from the smoke clouds.

10 hours later Location: Riverside, WA

You watched the dirt disappear from your hands, streaks of brown merging with the river. Taking a deep breath, you felt at peace, the ambience of the wind and water being the only noise you could hear for miles.

Your mind was finally clear, the static the lurked in your head gone. You were surprisingly doing better than you thought, considering what had happened. Maybe it was just the calm before the storm.

Long story short, no one would ever control you again, you were finally your own person.

Taking one last look at the river, you hoped that the calm that found you here would follow you back to the house. The house used to be a place you called home, but now the air was poisoned. Although you didn’t have a choice, it was the only place you had to live. Plus people would be looking for you now and you had to stay hidden.

The walk back to the house gave you time to think, gave you a moment to yourself before you reentered the poisoned air.

As you were passing through the cemetery as a shortcut, you noticed the angel gravestone had a real man leaning up against it. His form was unmoving, and could easily pass as a statue from how still he was.

Your body tensed up slightly, considering that this cemetery was private, nobody ever came out here.

He seemed to be a very large man, but from the way he was trying to make himself look smaller broke your heart.

You had always heard that “Two broken people will either fit together perfectly, or destroy each other beyond repair.” Whatever that means anyway.

Not that you were assuming he was a broken man but a normal person wouldn’t be sleeping against a grave in a cemetery… especially this cemetery.

You felt like you haven’t been living your life the way you want to live it. You were in control now and you wanted to do something good— be good.

Your bare feet tip toed through the overgrown grass, walking slow enough, sizing him up. He was dressed in military tatical pants with a black tactical vest covering his upper half.

He looked like a soldier, and you didn't understand how someone like him would be wandering around a cemetery in the middle of nowhere.

Finally getting close enough, you kneeled down into the grass, your dirtied dress flowing around you. The strangers shoulder length hair was covering the full view of his face. With careful fingers, you reached out, pushing the curtain of hair off his cheeks.

You were speechless as you revealed the strangers face, at a loss for words at his beauty. His skin was neutral, sweat mixed with water layering his face with a glow. His eyes were peacefully shut, while a crease stayed in between his brows. His left eye was ringed with an irritated bruise, one that seemed too fresh for it to be an old wound. His face had been shaved recently, but stubble could be spotted up close. His dully defined cupids bow guided you to his plump lips, beholding a pinkish color.

You had never witnessed such raw vision this close before, and you couldn’t help yourself from thinking that he was a fallen angel.

You couldn’t stop yourself from reaching out, smoothing his stubbled cheek with your knuckles. It had felt like forever since you’d last touched a man, let alone a man this handsome.

His lip twitched at your feathered touch, making you rip your hand back to your chest in fear you'd woken him. The man groaned painfully in his slumber, and it was then you noticed his right arm cradled awkwardly to his chest.

This man was clearly hurting, and from the looks of it, he was running from something. It wasn't your job to care for him, but you knew you couldn't just leave him here. Without knowing his true intentions yet, you started your trek back to the house to gather some supplies for the stranger.

__________________________

Bucky woke with a groan, the discomfort in his shoulder still present. Without setting his arm back in place, he wouldn’t be able to heal himself. He’d forgotten how he ended up here, only remembering his chaotic mind trying to piece everything together, resulting in him collapsing. His head felt less cloudy, his mind able to create clear thoughts without the looming shadow of HYDRA.

HYDRA. Surely they were looking for him now, and as much as he hated to admit it. They still had power over him, even out of their clutches. His stomach knotted up, sweat beads forming on his exposed skin, the mere thought of being found by HYDRA enough for him to empty the contents of his stomach on the grass next to him. Although it wasn’t much, just remains of his last nutrient packet.

After moments of dry heaving, his body relaxed back onto the stone. It was then he noticed the supplies placed in front of him.

He found, two water bottles, a medium sized bag of fruit and vegetables, a pile of clothes, and sitting on top of the clothes lastly was a flower.

The supplies had sparked something inside of him, and he wasn’t sure if it was confusion on where they came from, or if it was guilt that he didn’t deserve such kindness.

Glancing around the vacant cemetery, he saw no one in sight. He sensed nothing, heard no heartbeat, or breathing. The water and food were too tempting to ignore, despite the possibility of it being poisoned lingering in the back of his mind, he gulped the water down. Despite his stomach growling, he nibbled on the food, knowing the effects of eating too fast, especially after living off of nutrient packets.

Suddenly, a paper ball landed near his legs. Startling him, he whipped he head up, scanning the area for the being. After finding no one again, he picked up the ball, uncurling it to reveal a scribbled message.

Walk 206 steps to your right for shelter

Storm coming tonight

Furrowing his brows, he was more confused than ever. After all the blood stained in his hands, the universe still thought he was worthy enough for a guardian angel? Surely this was all a sick joke, and the person behind these words were HYDRA.

Amongst all his chaotic thoughts, the one had stuck out, ringing loud and clear for him to hear.

What more do I have to lose?

__________________________

You were sitting on the front porch, training your eyes on the field where the earth curved. It was silly to trust a stranger, you knew that. It was even sillier to be waiting for said stranger to appear. Maybe it was because you were lonely, maybe it was pure curiosity.

You suddenly spotted the faint figure of someone far away walking in this direction. Doubting if you had made the right decision leading him here, you wrung your hands together nervously.

The stranger had seemed to spot you, with the way he was avoiding your stare. His hands were full with your supplies you had gifted him, even his awkwardly bent arm was cradling the bag of food. He hadn’t bothered to change into the new clothes, but you didn’t mind.

It felt like forever by the time he stopped plenty of feet away, obviously keeping distance between you both. You watched him sneak a glance at you, analyzing your expression with the way his brows furrowed in concentration.

Deciding to break the thick silence, you cleared your throat. As well as holding your palms out for him to see, to show you meant no harm.

“Uh… I’m not going to hurt you or anything… You probably figured that I mean— The water, food… Uh,” You rambled, forgetting everything you had planned to say, “I found you in the cemetery and I was just gonna leave you the supplies and that’s it. But then I heard about a storm on the radio back home and… Well, I felt bad thinking about leaving you there.”

The man watched you intently during your whole speech. Half listening, half taking in your features. He hesitated taking off in the middle of your rambling, but when you mentioned you had felt bad for him, and were thinking about him. It ignited a foreign feeling within him, one that made him feel important, something he’s lacked for god knows how long.

He was complete stranger to you, and here you were offering him supplies, thinking about his wellbeing and now you were offering your home to him? You really were an angel.

“You can stay if you want. You can stay out here on the porch, or you could come inside,” You offered, feeling embarrassed by your desperation for human interaction, “It’s just me here.”

He thought about your offers, knowing he could easily overpower you if the situation called for it. He was enchanced and could run faster than you, if he had to. He felt secure that if the worst came, he could handle it.

“Why?”

His voice startled you, you weren’t expecting him to respond considering his mysterious silent vibe he was giving off. His question confused you though.

“Why what?”

“Why let me stay?” He asked in almost a whisper, holding you gaze confidently. Although his eyes were haunted, holding a look of someone that had seen too much.

Your heart ached at what this man had possibly been through. His tone was sad, and it sounded like he almost didn’t believe he should be allowed to stay.

“Uh… I don’t know,” You told him softly, and he didn’t seemed pleased with your answer, lowering his eyes to the ground again. “Like I said, it’s just me here.”

You hinted, hoping he’d understand that you were desperate enough for human interaction that you were willing to invite a stranger into your home.

You glanced up to him, finding an empathetic expression upon his face.

“Okay, just for tonight.” He agreed, and you smiled.

A/N: part 2?? 🤔 let me know what you think

[priestessofspiders]

The Plainsfield UFO Incidents

The Plainsfield UFO sightings, as they are referred to by enthusiasts of Fortean phenomena, occurred during the summer of 1998 and, perhaps unsurprisingly, took place in the farming community of Plainsfield, California. Plainsfield was, and still is, a very small settlement, with perhaps a couple hundred residents at most, and an hour and a half drive to the nearest large town. This perhaps accounts for the unusual degree of obscurity that the sightings have enjoyed over the decades, though some of the more paranoid students of UFO folklore insist that information surrounding the incidents was purposefully suppressed by the federal government.

The subsequent documents represent countless hours of research into the unusual happenings of that summer, and should conceivably display a clear timeline of events.

---

Newspaper clipping from the Thompson County Tribune, July 8th, 1998

Earthquake Leaves Huge Sinkhole in Plainsfield

This past week, the sleepy town of Plainsfield received quite a rude awakening courtesy of a series of hitherto unprecedented earthquakes. At approximately 4:30 PM on Sunday, July 5th, Plainsfield residents experienced a series of intense tremors lasting about 15 minutes. There was minor damage to some buildings, and a handful of temporary power outages, but more striking was the surprise found by local farmer Theodore Albertson.

"It was like nothing I've ever felt in all my years of living here", says Albertson, 57, "It was real odd. The ground kind of pulsed all rhythmically, you ever see one of those kids with a subwoofer and they've got the volume cranked all the way up, so you feel the bass in your bones? It was like that, but everywhere, and without the sound. Just the feeling of shaking, pulsating like a heartbeat. Anyway, after all the rumbling was finished, I went out to the field to check to make sure none of the fences collapsed, only to find this massive hole! Must be over a hundred feet across at least. I can't really get a good look at the bottom, it's like it's at an angle or something, so the shadows cover it up, but it looks deep."

Theodore has expressed some interest in turning the hole into a tourist attraction, but some Plainsfield residents have expressed doubts as to its profitability. "I don't see what's so interesting about a great big hole in the ground", says Rebecca Carlton, 65, "Besides, just being near it makes me feel sick, and if I look down there for too long it sets off my tinnitus something awful, Lord knows why. If you ask me he ought to get it filled up with cement."

Statement of Jessica May, mailed to the California Unidentified Flying Object Society, July 10th, 1998

To whom it may concern

I was out stargazing in my backyard last night and I experienced something most unusual. There's not too much light pollution around here, thanks to it being so remote, so you can really get a good look at the milky way. I was peering through my telescope, when I noticed something odd. There was a star that shouldn't be there, just under the big dipper.

Now of course I double checked my star charts, these things don't just appear out of nowhere, but try as I might I couldn't find anything that corresponds to it. I was starting to get a bit excited, I mean, who gets a chance to find a whole new star? But before I could go put in a call to the nearest university, the damn thing moved!

Now I don't want you thinking I'm just some nitwit farmgirl who's never seen a plane before, I mean this star was sitting completely still one moment, and then the next it was rushing around like some sort of whirligig! Couldn't have been a helicopter either, there wasn't any sound of whirring or anything like that.

Anyway, I watched it bounce around the sky for a bit, hardly knowing what to think, until eventually it started coming towards me! Now I'd assumed this thing was real high up, since I couldn't hear anything at all, but it must have only been a couple thousand feet at the highest! As it got closer I saw more of a definite form to it, and I swear on my life it was saucer shaped!

Now I didn't really get a good look at the thing, I was so panicked I bolted back inside, leaving my telescope behind in my rush. There was a bright light like a searchlight, and then it passed over the house. I remember it was headed over in the direction of the Albertson place.

When I finally calmed myself down and went back outside to get my telescope, the thing was gone. I felt nauseated, and I remember dry heaving a bit but I can't tell if that wasn't just from the stress of the whole ordeal. In any event, I figured you UFOlogy folks would be interested.

Newspaper clipping from the Thompson County Tribune, July 15th, 1998

Flying Saucer Sighted In Plainsfield

Still recovering from the unusual earthquake that occurred earlier this month, the little town of Plainsfield is once again flung into the spotlight with yet another strange event. Multiple residents have reported seeing a strange light in the sky night after night, which some have claimed is none other than a spacecraft of extraterrestrial origin.

"People don't like the phrase flying saucer", says Jessica May, 23, "but if you ask me there isn't a more apt description. It's not a case of mistake identity with a weather balloon or something like that."

Theodore Albertson, 57, says "Darn thing keeps appearing in the sky every night! It wouldn't be so bad, really, but then after it's all done with its zipping and zooming it comes down in my field! Not landing in the field, mind, but it goes down that sinkhole left over from the earthquake. Call me crazy, I don't mind, but I bet there is some sort of secret base down there or something. I'd go down there and check, but the angle of the pit is much too steep at my age."

Skeptics have claimed that the event is a hoax, or perhaps even a publicity stunt. Rebecca Carlton, 65, a neighbor of Albertson, says, "I bet Teddy just got one of them remote control toy helicopters and tied a flashlight to it or something. Easier to drum up visitors for his weird pit if he makes people think there's a spaceship down there."

Letter written by Alejandra Valdez to her sister, Felicia Valdez, July 23rd, 1998

Dear Felicia,

I'm writing you today because of some very unusual news! Do you recall that old plot of land with the barn on it that I've been trying to sell for the past couple years? Well I've finally secured a buyer! Paid in cash too, the whole thing only took a week or so to get squared away.

Now that in of itself is a bit strange, but the really weird part about all this is who bought it. The gentleman who toured the property said his name was Jupiter Seven, and that he represented the "Church of Intergalactic Brotherhood". Quite a strange fellow he was! Dressed up in a shiny silver suit like something out of one of those science fiction movies I know your husband loves so much, and his head was shaved down bald as an egg! He had a funny little goatee too, at the very end of his chin.

Now of course I got to asking him about his silly name and what on Earth the "Church of Intergalactic Brotherhood" could be, and bless his heart he was just as polite as could be, but goodness gracious was the answer he gave strange. He started talking all this nonsense about how aliens from outer space have been visiting Earth for millions of years, and that all of our religions are just misinterpretations of their visitations. He said that he himself was a reincarnation of one of those aliens, and that's why he changed his name!

Now you know me Felicia, I'm not one to go judging folks for their faith or lack thereof, but I'll be honest with you, it took a lot of effort to keep from laughing. I managed to keep my sense of decorum, for politeness's sake, but wow!

Anyway, I asked him what he and his so-called church (more of a cult if you ask me!) wanted with my barn, and he said that our little town of Plainsfield was in the middle of a "visitation" from beings from another world! Now I bet you've already heard about how recently some of my more impressionable neighbors have claimed to see some strange lights up in the sky recently, but I never would have guessed that it would lead to our very own UFO cult!

Anyway, the amount this Jupiter character was offering was so generous that I just had to accept, regardless of his attire and beliefs. I signed away the deed later that week, and that was that!

Since then I've seen a few of those CIB fellows gathered at the barn, with a bunch of RVs, camper vans, and tents set up over there. The folks there seem polite enough, hippie types mostly, they don't really say much when I see them at the general store or out around town. There's only about two dozen of them or so, Mr. Seven included.

Anyway, you ought to stop by sometime! With the money I got from the sale I've been able to fix up the house a little bit and get a few nice things. I even bought a brand new television, and switched over from cable to satellite! There are so many new channels I don't even know how to keep up! I keep getting interference something awful though, but only at night. Must be some quirk with the damn thing.

With love,

Alejandra

Complaint letter sent by Alejandra Valdez to a certain television provider (company name withheld), July 24th, 1998

To whom it may concern,

I recently switched over to [company] as my television provider, and at first I was thrilled at the wide selection of channels and high picture quality, but I've been having a lot of difficulties at night specifically.

Oftentimes I'll be sitting there, watching one channel, when suddenly it will change to a different one, without me doing a thing! Sometimes the whole screen will just become a mess of static, with this positively awful shrieking sound! It's gotten to the point that I just have given up watching TV at night.

At first I thought maybe it's just that I live in a somewhat remote area, but that doesn't make sense! Why would it only stop working at night? I don't pretend to know much about how television works, but that just doesn't sit right with me. Besides, I see the satellite in the sky at night sometimes. Much too bright to be a star.

The worst part is that sometimes the static isn't entirely static. There are these blurry half-images of what I can only assume are distorted faces, and these weird garbled words in some foreign language. I must be partially picking up some other broadcast.

One more thing: sometimes the TV set will turn on by itself in the middle of the night, and when it does I always get that weird half-broadcast with the faces and the babbling.

Please send someone around to fix this issue as soon as possible, otherwise I want a full refund!

Sincerely,

Alejandra Valdez

Diary entry of Brandon Adams, July 25th, 1998

I don't even know where to start with this. I have to write it down though. I have to get it out of my head otherwise I feel like I'm going to go insane. I hope I'm just crazy. I really just want to be crazy.

I was out watching the moving star last night. The one that's got the whole town worked up and that weirdo "church" is focused on. It was very strange to watch, to see it just zip around overhead, then stay still, then move somewhere else. It moved like a hummingbird, or a bee. But it was completely silent.

This went on for a few hours I guess, just me sitting in a lawn chair watching the sky, that distant orb of light zooming about overhead. I don't know why I didn't get bored of it, Lord knows it wasn't that interesting. But there was this constant sense that I was seeing something truly out of this world. Something beyond the normal scope of things.

My property borders on Pete Richards's place, the cattle rancher. There's no animals dangerous enough around here to threaten a cow, so he just leaves them outside at night. Most of them were just asleep in the field, but a couple were grazing. Insomniacs getting a midnight snack I suppose. Some of them joined me in looking up at the star that moved.

I started noticing that the star was getting bigger. Brighter. It took me quite a long time for me to realize it was coming down. Falling from the sky like Lucifer expelled from heaven.

There was no sound, no hum of extraterrestrial engines. It just got brighter and bigger, till I could see the vague outline, flat and circular. A saucer.

Just writing it out makes me feel like a lunatic. Everyone knows there's no such thing as a flying saucer. Everyone knows it's just made up stories repeated by idiots who want so desperately to feel less alone in the universe. But that night the universe seemed to have other ideas about what is and isn't real.

As soon as I could see the thing for what it was, I hightailed it to my porch and hid underneath it, scraping my knees a bit. I'm still not sure why I did that instead of just going inside and locking the door. I guess I was worried it would see me through my windows.

From underneath the porch I didn't get too good of a view of the sky above, nor that baleful false star, but I could see Pete's field just fine. I wish I just went inside and hid under the covers until it went away. A bright light, like the warning gleam of a lighthouse, shone down upon a cow in the field, one of the insomniacs.

The animal froze, instantly, as if it were spontaneously turned to stone. Slowly, it began to be lifted by some unseen force off the ground. It didn't struggle, it didn't cry out, but I could see its sides began to heave in and out quickly, hyperventilating from stress, its eyes widening. Then came the cutting.

Thin slices like a surgeon's scalpel, peeling through layers of hide and into the flesh beneath. A flap of skin pulled softly by invisible fingers. Perfectly precise, as deliberate as calligraphy. And the blood. Oh God the blood. It flowed up and out from the geometrical wound towards the light above, shimmering like rubies.

I would have vomited, if I could have worked up the strength to move. Organs began to be extracted from the wound, fleshy objects which I could not identify. I'll admit am a stranger to the butcher's charnel art. All the while, the cow's eyes spun maddeningly, its breathing sharp and swift, but there were no cries, no screams.

The other cattle kept their distance, but didn't panic. They seemed more confused than frightened, the total alienness of the present danger not clear to their animal brains.

Eventually, the levitating cow's breathing and eye movements ceased, and I knew it was finally quite dead. I watched as a handful of organs and an enormous cloud of crimson ichor were sucked up above my sight, until finally, as abruptly as the light appeared, it vanished. The exsanguinated corpse of the cow collapsed to the ground in a heap of pallid flesh.

I skittered out from under the porch and got back inside my house. I knew I wouldn't be able to sleep, so I didn't try to. Instead I just sat on the floor in silence until morning.

I'm going to make some arrangements to stay with friends, I don't want to be in Plainsfield right now.

Transcript of a statement given by Robert Hebert, recorded by the Thompson County sheriff's department, July 30th, 1998

HEBERT: I've already told you all this, what do you mean I have to go through it again?

DEPUTY: Just one more time if you please Mr. Hebert, just so we can get it all on tape.

H: Fine, but after this I want to go home.

D: Of course. Please, give your statement.

H: I was driving back home from the city, I'd been spending a few hours on the road, so it was pretty dark, something like 10, 10:30 maybe?

D: We got your call at 10:23. Please, continue.

H: Anyway, I'm getting a little tired, since I've been driving for so long. Nearly dozing off if I'm being completely honest here. Must have closed my eyes for a second, because all of the sudden there was this... pile in the center of the road. God, I don't want to think about it.

D: Please continue. We just need it on tape, then you can go home.

H: Alright, alright, just give me a second.

D: Take your time.

H: I didn't really know what I was looking at at first. I was pretty out of it, you know? But I get out of the car to try and get a better idea of what I was seeing, and, it was, well, it was a mound of bodies. About a dozen of them. Human ones. All broken and bent like a pile of puppets with their strings cut.

D: Did you recognize any of them?

H: Not by name, but they were all those cult folks, the Church of Intergalactic Brotherhood or whatever it's called. It took me a while before I realized one of them was still breathing. A girl, maybe 17, 18, on top of the rest. She looked like every bone in her body was broken, but she was still alive. Anyway, you know the rest. I called you guys, she was taken over to the hospital, and now we're here. Can I go home now?

D: Give me a moment to talk with the sheriff, but after that you're free to go. Thank you for your time Mr. Hebert.

Newspaper clipping from the Thompson County Tribune, July 31st, 1998

UFO Cult Mass Suicide Leaves 13 Dead, 1 Injured

Last night, the Thompson County Sheriff's Department identified the bodies of 13 members of the religious movement known as the "Church of Intergalactic Brotherhood", an organization that some have characterized as a cult. Authorities have not revealed the cause of death, but are tentatively labeling the event a mass suicide. The bodies were discovered on a stretch of highway just outside of Plainsfield, apparently in the middle of the road.

There is reportedly one survivor of the event, who authorities have identified as Alice Brown, though according to Plainsfield residents, Brown currently goes by the name Venus Five. Brown has not yet awakened since being recovered on top of the 13 dead bodies on the highway, and hospital staff describe her as being in critical condition. The remaining 12 members of the Church of Intergalactic Brotherhood have not been located.

The sheriff's department investigation into the Church's compound have turned up no significant leads. According to reports, the site was entirely empty, with a number of vehicles and tents left behind. The building used by the Church as a place of worship, a repurposed barn, is reportedly in extreme disrepair.

"It's damn eerie", says Deputy John Higgins, "so far we have no leads as to where they ran off to. The barn they were using as some sort of temple has no clues either, it doesn't make a lick of sense. The roof looks like it was torn off or something, we found some bits of smashed wood on the ground nearby. It looks almost like a bomb went off, but there isn't any signs of an explosion. We found some sort of broadcasting equipment in there, but nothing that could explain what on Earth blew the darn roof off. The damnedest thing though, are the scratches. All the way up the side of the wall, like someone was being dragged up and clinging on for dear life. Gives me the willies just thinking about it."

Journal entry from Melinda Flanagan, researcher for the Californian Unidentified Flying Object Society, August 1st, 1998

I arrived in Plainsfield a little past noon. It is a ludicrously tiny town, little more than a main street and a few acres of farmland. It's one of those places that might be completely left off a map and nobody would even notice.

I had a conversation with Ms. May about her UFO sighting in a run-down old diner that looked like it hadn't changed since the mid 50s. The discussion was neither particularly illuminating nor particularly interesting. She didn't tell me anything she hadn't already said in the letter she has previously sent, and when I asked her if she'd seen the object since her initial sighting, she reported that she hadn't, and had in fact been avoiding stargazing since the incident. She claimed that others had seen the UFO as well, but didn't feel comfortable sharing their names with me. Apparently she was worried that the others might think she was "off her rocker" if they found out she was talking with "people like yourself, no offense".

I thanked her for her time and was about to chalk up this whole trip as a huge waste of time before I noticed the headline of an article peering up at me from the newspaper stand next to the door. "UFO Cult Suicide Leaves 13 Dead, 1 Injured".

I paid for the newspaper and read it quickly in my car. The article didn't specify which hospital the survivor, Alice Brown (AKA "Venus Five" according to the article), was being kept at, but a quick peek at my map showed only one nearby; Shaver Memorial Hospital.

I gave the hospital a call on the single payphone in the entirety of Plainsfield, and put on my best impression of a worried relative. I claimed that Ms. Brown was a cousin of mine, and that I wanted to see her if possible. Fortunately for me, it appeared that she had since woken up from her unconscious state, though they warned me that she seemed far from lucid. I thanked the hospital staff for their time and started on the long drive to the hospital.

When I arrived I once again presented myself as Ms. Brown's cousin, and was swiftly escorted to the room in which she was being kept. The nurse who guided me there then left to give us some privacy.

She didn't look good. Two broken legs, cracked ribs, a shattered pelvis, and a fractured arm. IV drips and all manner of wires covering her in a tangled mess like cobwebs. I have no idea how the cops thought something like this could be the result of an attempted suicide. Maybe a jump from a high building, but she was found on the highway in the middle of the flattest landscape I've ever had the displeasure of driving across.

"Who are you?" she asked, justifiably confused, "Are you with the police?"

I did some quick thinking, trying my best to guess how well she would cooperate with the police. Given what little I knew about her membership in a cult, I figured it maybe wouldn't be the best move. I decided to give her the truth.

"No Venus", I said, purposefully using her chosen name from the Church, "I'm with an organization called CUFOS, I wanted to ask you if you remember anything about the night they found you on the highway?"

"Don't call me that name", she muttered before coughing slightly, "it was all a bunch of crap. They aren't angels, or gods, or whatever the Hell Harold wanted them to be."

"Harold?"

"The real name of that idiot who called himself Jupiter Seven, the guy who ran the Church of Intergalactic Brotherhood. He's probably dead now though."

"What happened?

She looked at me for a moment. Sizing me up. "You wouldn't believe me" she finally said after a few moments.

"Try me. I can guarantee I've heard stranger things." I quietly turned on the tape recorder in my purse, which she didn't seem to notice. With a sigh, she began to tell her story, which I have transcribed below in full.

Statement of Alice Brown, abductee

I joined the Church of Intergalactic Brotherhood because I was lost. I just got out of a bad relationship, and didn't really have anywhere to go. I suppose I was going a little crazy I guess. This guy, Harold, though he preferred to be called Jupiter Seven, promised a life of happiness and peace, and helped with giving me a place to stay and food to eat.

I guess Harold was independently wealthy or something, some trust fund kid. He had the money to rent or buy property in places where weird stuff happened. UFOs, bigfoot sightings, alleged miracles, you name it. He claimed that those places were where "visitors from the stars" have made their mark on the world.

Nothing ever really came of it. We'd stay there for couple weeks or months, make ourselves pretend we saw something of note, and move on. I believed all this nonsense at the time, of course. We all want to believe in something, whether it be God, aliens, whatever. It gives us hope.

Anyway, Plainsfield was different. Like clockwork, every night we'd see that moving star in the sky. Too quick and agile to be a plane or helicopter. Dead silent too. And every night it would zip down over  at the Albertson property and disappear, like it was landing there or something.

Harold made a bunch of offers to buy out Teddy Albertson's land, but it never went anywhere. Eventually he threatened to get a restraining order, and Harold stopped bothering him after that.

Harold got this idea in his head that he should try and make contact with the star. He bought a whole bunch of radio equipment and set it up in the barn we used as a church. He'd spend all night fiddling with the frequency, trying to find the right one to "commune with the visitors" while we watched that distant ball of light zooming around in silence.

One night he called us into the barn and told us that he had made contact. We were all excited of course, and believed him. You've gotta understand, he convinced all of us that we had some sort of alien soul inside of us, that those things that piloted the UFOs were our kin in some way. To us, this was a big deal, like coming home to your family afters years of being away.

Harold started turning on the radio equipment and began to speak into a microphone, giving some speech about universal friendship. We waited in the pews patiently while he gave his sermon. Then we felt the rumbling.

The ground felt like it was heaving beneath us, and a bright white light started to shine through the gaps in the wooden roof. There was tinnitus in my ears and my hair started to stand on end, like someone was rubbing a balloon against it. Then the roof just got clear ripped off and we saw it.

A flying saucer. Just like they show in the movies. Gleaming chrome, bright lights, the whole deal.

We started to float up into the air, and I don't know exactly what I was expecting to feel, but it wasn't pain. It hurt as we started getting pulled up into the air. It felt like someone had stuck a meat hook in our guts and started tugging. Most of us started crying out, I even saw someone trying to claw his way back to the ground, though he only succeeded in leaving scratches from his fingernails against the barn wall. There was no escaping it, it was stronger than us.

Before we knew it, we were inside. It was as dark on the inside as it was bright on the outside. We were in a circular room, with metallic walls and no visible doors or windows. Harold tried to calm us down, telling us that we were going to be taken to some sort of utopia, and that we should all be grateful.

After a few minutes we all stopped hyperventilating from fear, and managed to calm down a bit. It was then that a panel of the wall receded and slid to the side, like some sort of door, but I could have sworn there were no seams when I last looked. Out of that door came... a being.

Based on what Harold had told us about the beings which visited this planet, I was expecting a tall, beautiful creature, shining with radiant light. This was quite the opposite.

The room was far too dark to get a good look at it, but it seemed stunted, shriveled even. It stood at about the height of a child, and was wearing some sort of grayish uniform. Its bald, nearly featureless head seemed too large for its body. The main thing that I noticed were its eyes. Dark, soulless, and unblinking.

It waved a thin, stick-like arm in a signal to something behind it, and that same agonizing tugging sensation from before forced us against the wall. We were held in place, completely immobilized and unable even to speak. It walked up to each of us, pulling some sort of device off of its hip, and pointed it at our heads one by one. When it reached me, I felt an intense burning pain in my skull, like someone was branding my brain. I wanted to cry out, to scream, but I couldn't.

It eventually passed me over and moved on to the rest. When it was finally finished, it jabbered something in some language I didn't recognize, and pointed to 12 of us, including Harold. The ones who it pointed at seemed to be released from their paralysis, slumping to their knees. The thing pointed to the doorway where it came from, and barked an order of some sort. The ones who were set free from their paralysis began filing out through the doorway in mostly silence, though I think I heard one or two of them swallowing back tears. Finally, that short thing in the uniform exited the room through the same doorway, and the wall sealed up behind it.

The remaining 14 of us were released from our paralysis, and a few of us began to sob. We didn't know what was going on. Then the floor began to open up.

It was like a camera aperture, but slower. We heard metal scrape on metal as we saw hole in the center of the room expand, revealing the landscape far below. We all clung to the rapidly diminishing edge, screaming to be saved, until finally there was nothing left to cling to.

I remember falling, watching the saucer speed away in the distance, rapidly descending towards the Albertson farm. I recall wondering to myself as I fell, time seeming to slow to a crawl, If they're supposed to be from outer space, why do they keep on flying down to that sinkhole? That's all I remember before I woke up here.

Journal entry from Melinda Flanagan, researcher for the Californian Unidentified Flying Object Society, August 2nd, 1998

After my exciting conversation with Ms. Brown yesterday, I had to retire to a nearby hotel. The nurses insisted she needed her rest. If what she told me was true, she certainly did.

The next day however, I came across an unusual sight as I pulled into the hospital parking lot. Ms. Brown was in a stretcher, evidently either sedated or comatose, and being carried into the back of of an unmarked black van by two men in suits.

I got out of the car quickly and approached the men, asking what they were doing with my "cousin". The taller of the two men, bald with a well kept goatee, turned mechanically towards me and smiled blandly, though I could tell there was no mirth behind the black sunglasses that obscured his eyes.

"She is very sick sir or ma'am. We are taking her to a special facility. She will receive excellent care. Do not be afraid." Those were his exact words. He spoke them with all the warmth and sincerity of a meatgrinder. I was dumbfounded as he and his companion finished loading Ms. Brown into the back of the van. I could have sworn there seemed to be something wrong with the top of the man's head. It looked like a very thin white line around the circumference, but it was far too faint to tell for sure.

I tried to protest as they shut the doors to the back of the van and clambered into the front seats, but they acted like I wasn't even there. They drove off and I was left alone in the parking lot, with a pit at the bottom of my stomach.

I'm heading back home tonight, and I hope to God I never have to come back here. Something about those men makes the hair on the back of my neck stand on end just thinking about them. I have a feeling that Alice Brown is gone for good.

---

After the disappearance of Alice Brown, there have been no more UFO sightings in Plainsfield. The sinkhole in Theodore Albertson's field collapsed, seemingly of its own accord, on August 4th, 1998. The location of the missing 12 members of the Church of Intergalactic Brotherhood remains unknown.

Certain elements of the incident, such as the unusual earthquake, appearance of the entity encountered by Ms. Brown, and the bizarre behavior of the man encountered by Ms. Flanagan, correspond closely with the Stevensville incidents of 1987, but the significance of these similarities is unknown.

[awkwardgtace]

Full Size

More Knight AU. Melody goes to check on Kyrie after the events in her house...she gets a lot more than she bargained for.

Full Size

Melody sighed as she walked through the woods. Kyrie lived out in the middle of nowhere, it made sense now. He avoided being in crowds or near the city in case that happened. She had no idea how big he was and somehow that was more terrifying. There were so many giant races; some only a few bodies taller and others felt like a stack of buildings. Facing him alone, telling no one might not be her best idea. After all their time together this was the least she could do. Go see him and let him explain what’s going on. At least assuming he was even in the area still.

“God, maybe this is a bad idea,” she mumbled. He could just grow and make sure she kept quiet. She forced the thought away. Kyrie wasn’t like that. He wouldn’t hurt her. She just knew he’d never look at her like she wanted once this was settled. If she was human there was at least a little bit of a chance, that wasn’t unheard of humans and giants.

Melody paused to look around. It hadn’t been long since she’d last visited his home, but the path had changed drastically. Huge landmarks she didn’t recognize surrounded her. They had an odd curve and strange coloring. If she didn’t know better she’d think it was some kind of metal, but at that size it was impossible.

“I hope I didn’t get lost,” she sighed. “Of course talking to myself isn’t going to help when no one else would ever come out this far…”

It looked like the end of the strange landmarks was coming up. It also looked like a clearing was there. She ran her hands through her hair and checked the satchel she carried was completely closed. She didn’t want to go to the market a second time, there wouldn’t be a good explanation for it. A nod to herself and she began to move towards the clearing. Kyrie had lived in one so that had to be where she was. If she was wrong she’d just head home. The light from the sun blinded her for a moment as she stepped up to the opening. 

The clearing ahead of her wasn’t empty, but it wasn’t the home she expected either. Some massive object that seemed to stretch from end to end sat in front of her. She studied it, the material looked like fabric. Stepping out of the trees, she accepted it was meant to keep others away. A small sigh escaped her, of course he assumed she’d send the knights right away.

“I’m really going to do this…” she mumbled. Cupping her hands around her mouth she took a deep breath. She wouldn’t let this end with him assuming the worst about her. “Kyrie! I’m here to talk!”

All the confidence she had fell away when the wall of maybe fabric in front of her moved. Fear gripped her heart as something underneath seemed to tense. It moved. Shock made her fall, tripping over her own feet as a shadow appeared over her. She’d barely made it back under the trees before whatever it was slammed down nearby.

“Melody?” Kyrie’s voice sounded gruff with sleep. She’d heard it on trips for jobs before, but never this loud. She couldn’t see a sign of him, but that made her more scared. Her voice was trapped in her throat. That huge something made the trees fall nearby. The only coherent thought in her head came down to how did he know she wasn’t under it. The panic added that it could have been the goal.

The part in the clearing started to move again. Melody nearly cried as she realized she’d been staring at a part of his leg. The speed that it slid through the clearing made her start shaking. She slowly climbed to her feet, struggling to think as the massive being moved. The only thing in her mind were the stories she was told. The gods that had supposedly changed centuries ago. The gods the fae still didn’t trust.

A scream escaped her as a shadow covered her. It wasn’t the thing that slammed down, but that didn’t make it any better. She stumbled away as the shadow grew darker. She tripped on a root forcing her to stare at the sky. The sun and clouds were replaced with a face she knew, a face she was usually happy to see. She scrambled away from where she’d screamed. The leaves would hide her as long as she stayed silent.

“Melody…” he whispered. It was hard to imagine how loud he’d be speaking normally. “It’s just me… No one else is home right now. They’d try to help you calm down if they were.”

Her mind was filled with images of others like Kyrie. She’d never considered the idea of more like him. She needed to get away from here. Kyrie wasn’t just a giant. He was something more, something bigger. She felt tears start streaming down her face as she considered him finding her.

“I didn’t hurt you, did I?” he asked. That made her pause. Huge things, they had to be his hands, cast shadows over the forest. “I need to look for you if you won’t answer… I just need to make sure I didn’t hurt you. It sounded like you were closer to the clearing when you called my name. I just need to know I wasn’t wrong.”

Her voice was caught in her throat. She couldn’t make words even start to form if she wanted to. She heard and felt his sigh blow warm air around her. Slowly the trees all around her started to move as those massive fingers slipped below the leaves. The ones where she screamed moved first. All she could do was watch as the hands moved more and more. When the fingers stopped just above her she held her breath. There was a faint hope he’d stop, be glad she was gone and move on. Instead she watched those impossible fingers move the treetops protecting her.

Staring at the blue orb above her made her feel close to fainting. It was him, the same person she’d been embarrassed over when Aisling asked if they were together. She watched the massive face change, a look of relief. It wasn’t possible to tell what made him relieved, finding her safe or finding her at all. The hand above her moved closer, like he was about to grab her. The warmth of the fingers started to waft from his skin.

“Don’t touch me!” she shouted. The fingers froze a twitch away before the hand pulled back. They settled on holding the trees to the side so he was staring down at her.

“I won’t…” he whispered. Something in his face changed, he looked more sad. It was almost funny when she gave it a bit of thought. The only creatures she dreaded facing and Kyrie was bigger than them. “Can you stand? I… I can put on my armor and take you home.”

“A-armor?” That huge face nodded. She watched him reach forward, towards the path she took. She managed to follow his hand to see him lifting one of the things she thought was a strange landmark. “Th-that’s your armor?!”

Kyrie lost his grip when she shouted. His armor landed on the ground with a loud thud. He frowned as she yelped. He never wanted this, he always hoped she wouldn’t be afraid. He brought his hand back from his armor slowly. All he could do was keep his movements slow, let her try to predict what he was doing. It all felt surreal. He’d imagined this for so long, expecting to tell her on his terms. Where she’d see him growing, have confirmation it’s actually him. He’d promised he’d tell her before he mentioned his feelings. He wouldn’t start something on a lie about who he was.

She continued to shake on the ground. It would be best if she was gone before Pel and Byssal got back. He didn’t want them to try and make her forget. He didn’t want to scare her, but talking here wouldn’t help anything. He brought his hands down around her, the trees cracked from his attempt. He winced as they started to break, Pel was going to be upset with him again.

“Stop!” she screamed. He didn’t bring his hands any closer, just watched her. It wasn’t as bad as his dream at least. She was just a little smaller than Byssal. All the hope he had that she’d accept him was dying out. She was terrified, terrified he’d hurt her. He just needed to get her home.

“Sorry,” he breathed. He couldn’t see the details he admired like this. He knew doing anything to try to see her better would be selfish. She was scared of him, just like his birth family. He’d never stop being-

“No, no I just need a minute,” she said. He widened his eyes, the shaking had started to calm down. She wasn’t looking at him, but his hands. Slowly she climbed to her feet before looking up at him again. He imagined it hurt to crane her neck like that. He brought one of his fingers closer, she didn’t scream this time. Gently he touched her head. Her hair was soft like he thought it would be.

“Your hair is soft.” She started laughing, he didn’t think she’d laugh. It didn’t sound like the times they spent nights up talking, but it was better than screaming. He wanted to hold her closer, to see just how different she felt to him now. He wanted to tell her so many things he couldn’t say before. One being how beautiful he found her, even now when he was sure she’d been covered in dirt and leaves.

“So… what are you? A god playing with humans?” He heard the bit of hatred in her voice. He didn’t think before bringing his hands together and forcing her onto his palm. He pulled her up close to his eyes, where he could truly see her. He just started shaking his head.

“No! I’m not that. I… I don’t know what I am.”

Melody was shaking in his hands, worse than on the ground. He realized just what he did, how he treated her. His own eyes started to burn as he took in her fear. “Shit, I’m sorry I wasn’t thinking. You’re the second human I’ve met when I’m this big…”

“Human…” She said it so quietly he could barely hear her. 

It made sense she’d be stuck on that, he just made it clear that there’s a difference between them. He knew he shouldn’t, but for the moment he decided to be selfish. He brought his hand to his chest, cupping her against him. Slowly he climbed to his own feet, he could feel the way she tensed in his hold. He wouldn’t risk Byssal and Pel finding them talking. For now he would tell her all he could. Just his secrets, not theirs.

Carefully he walked away. He knew she would be terrified, but he wanted, needed to talk to her. He wanted to see her and not be in total control. She wouldn’t risk going to see a giant without a way home if they took her. He trusted she came at least that prepared to see him. He found a cliff not too far from where they were, but far enough no one would see him. Sitting in front of it made her yelp. 

Taking a deep breath he curled his fingers around her. She was so small, he wanted to hold her forever. A light tug and she was held only in his hand. He wasn’t excited to see her face, but this was better than holding her or staring down at the ground. He slowly moved forward so his chin sat on the cliff before moving to set her down. Once he let her go she stumbled back and stared up at him.

“What are you going to do?” she asked. He hated it, the suspicion and fear she resonated. He just offered her a sad smile.

“Talk?” he said. She crossed her arms, at least that came across clear. “I… The others might try to make you forget, they have spells for that after all this time. I don’t want you to… I’d rather us both know you’re scared of me.”

“Why?” She stepped back from him and he knew it was more fear. Of course he had to be planning something if he wanted her to remember. He let out a sigh, her long brown hair getting blown back.

“Because I’d been planning to tell you for a long time. I’d been trying to find the best way for a while… Honestly I…” He cut himself off. Dropping this on her now wasn’t fair to her. Not when he’d walked off with her, he was exactly how she saw him right now. A monster.

“Why tell me? I’m part of the order, I could turn you in. Help them kill you…” 

He smiled a bit, the idea that they could kill him was a bit funny. He knew humans weren’t a danger to him. He brought a hand up next to her. He didn’t like doing this, but they both knew how likely it was she could hurt him. She wasn’t even close to reaching the top of it.

She stared at his hand. He knew this was only proving to her he was something to fear. She didn’t back away like he expected, instead stepping closer to his palm. A single hand was placed on his. That one hand was nothing next to him, but he felt like the world had come to meet him.

“I guess that’s proving it then, that you could make sure I don’t talk. So is that why we’re here? So you can ‘convince’ me to stay quiet?” she asked. The voice she had didn’t sound like when he’d heard her angry before. He shook his head as he curled his fingers near her.

“I’d never hurt you or threaten you,” he sighed. The shudder she had from just that made him feel worse. “I’d considered this for months now. I wanted to do this right. I couldn’t think of how to tell you without scaring you, making you hate me… I don’t really know what I am, something giant adjacent maybe, but I know I love you.”

“L-love?!” He’d never seen her face turn red before. He couldn’t help moving to lean closer. Everything about her made him wish he’d been born human. “That… you don’t mean that. We… I’m…”

“I mean it.” He brought his forehead to rest on his hand. Leaning over her, taking in the small woman he’d loved since they met. He never understood it, but the fire in her had amazed him. He always wanted to be there to see it burn. “Since we met. I thought you’d leave after training, but you stayed. I fell more in love with you everyday. I didn’t want to tell you like this… I wanted you to know before I told you. Have a chance to decide if you could even accept me as a friend first. I had so many ideas of how to tell you after I’d let you see me like this.”

Melody turned away completely. He watched everything she did, trying to see any detail he could. She felt so small, she was next to him. He wrapped his fingers around her more, pressing them into her back. She stiffened, but she didn’t squirm to get out of his hand. He smiled a bit, hope started to fill him. She might just understand.

“What if I am scared?” she mumbled. Her voice was quiet enough he barely heard her. He stared at her, one finger was almost as wide as she was tall. She should be scared. “What if I still want to tell the order? What if I still think you’re a god playing games?”

He closed his eyes, just taking in the feeling of her in his fingers. Then he let go, uncurling his fingers. He leaned back, sitting straight up to stare down at her. Like this it felt like he was making a move to intimidate her. It wasn’t that, he just wanted to show he’d back off. He closed his eyes, taking a few deep breaths. He didn’t want the pain he felt at losing her to make this worse. Once ready, he opened his eyes to her small face staring up at him.

“Then I won’t bother you. If you call the order I’m not going to hurt anyone, if you don’t believe I’m not a god I can’t change your mind. I just… wanted you to know me before I asked you to consider me as something more than a partner and friend,” he whispered.

Melody heard the words, still stunned. He was big enough to wipe out anyone sent after him. He didn’t know, the order barely knew, the things she could do. He still saw her as someone he could love and that made this harder. He was planning to tell her, planning to reveal all of this to her. He wanted her to know even at the risk to his safety. She stepped forward and held out an arm to him.

The face above her changed quickly. It was like the idea she wasn’t running off changed his world. She wasn’t sure what she wanted from this. He brought a hand up to her arm, meeting her palm with the pad of his finger. She closed her eyes, this was Kyrie. He let her take the risks to talk any and everything down. He felt bad when she failed and they had to fight.

The groove of his fingerprint felt weirdly comforting. She’d wondered why he always wore the armor. Digging her fingers into his skin elicited a gasp. The fact he could feel that made her shiver. She looked back up at him, at his eyes. She saw the good in him, the things that she saw each time she took a risk.

“What if I have my own secrets?” she mumbled. He leaned forward until she couldn’t see anything else. His other hand came up and trapped her. She didn’t feel as scared as she should, something bigger than the biggest gods holding her captive. “What if you don’t know me the way you think you do?”

“Then I want to learn,” he whispered. His voice was loud even then. The way he spoke seemed like in a moment she’d disappear. She heard this voice for months, he had given her time to run before all of this. He hasn’t hurt her. “I want to know everything about you.”

“What if it’s bad?” She knew what it meant to be her. The thing that made everyone terrified. Her name… no one could use her name against her. No one except.. “What about Caprice?”

“What about him?”

“He knows… I have to tell him this. Is he-”

“I always knew once I told you he’d know. I don’t want you to lie for me.” She closed her eyes and stepped closer to the hands around her. He didn’t know what that meant, how important the freedom to avoid a lie was. Her fingers dug into his skin again, he didn’t seem to care. She knew he felt it.

“Why…” The fingers around her closed in. “Why tell me now… why not just move on? I’m…”

“You’re you, that’s enough.” She felt tears start to sting her eyes. She finally faced him, his face was close enough she could touch it. He moved his hand though, wiped away the tears with a fingertip. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said it now… I can take you closer to home if you want or just back to my own home.”

“I want to see you standing.” She didn’t know why that was what came out. That wasn’t what she meant. She wanted to tell him that she had her own secrets to tell. That he might not feel the same once she’s told him. He nodded, the motion reminded her just how big he was. He wasn’t going to question her. It made her heart flutter, the trust he gave her.

The huge hands slowly moved away from her. The heat disappearing made her shiver. He sat up straight, replacing her world with his shadow. A scream wanted to worm its way out of her throat as he started to stand. It was normal, the way he’d picked himself up more than once. At this scale it became horrifying to watch. 

He started off kneeling, a hand on his knee to hold his weight. When he raised his other leg, the wind blew past her. As he set his weight down it knocked her off her feet. She bit her tongue to keep her silence as he continued to stand. She forgot to breathe once he was actually standing. She didn’t realize just how much he’d been hunched over before. Hundreds of feet. She was looking at someone hundreds of feet tall.

“Melody?” he whispered. It sounded as clear as when he was right next to her. She tried to see his face, one covered in shadow. Her heart was pounding, fear and anxiety bundled into one. It was almost worse watching him move, taking an actual step away, while this close to his feet. 

“You’re really tall,” she breathed. Her cheeks flushed as she realized he wouldn’t be able to hear her. Taking a deep breath she prepared herself to shout. “You’re really tall.”

Half expecting an annoyed response, she stiffened. Instead she heard the sound she’d loved hearing time and again. He started to laugh, quietly at first, just a chuckle. Soon it was the booming laugh that she adored for so long. The way he laughed when they spent late nights traveling. The way he would try not to be too loud only for her to laugh just as loud with him. A smile grew on her face as he hunched over to be near her.

“Is that really what you have to say?” he asked. She could hear the mirth in his voice. “I don’t know if you remember… nevermind.”

“If I remember that’s the first thing I said to you?” she asked. Despite the shadow covering his face she saw his smile. Human teeth, a part of her wondered what fangs would look like on him. Huge hands came down next to her, the fear of them bled through her. She knew he was safe. She saw how much she could trust him. She just had to make her heart believe it too.

“I didn’t think you’d remember, it seemed like you hated me back then.” He crouched, the wind that blew past made her shake again. His hands were next to her. She climbed to her feet walking over to one. Positive he’d listen she set one hand in front of her and the other above her on his palm. She pushed the higher one, smiling as his hand tilted.

“I didn’t hate you.” Once it seemed tilted enough she took a deep breath. Gathering her courage she climbed on the palm in front of her. He gasped, the hand twitched, but she kept going. He tilted his hand more until it was flat beneath her. She sat in the center of his palm before looking up at his face again. A tear fell near her, she managed not to flinch from it. “I never hated you. It took a bit, but I wound up having feelings I wanted to tell you. Ones I can’t say yet…”

“Melody… I can wait, I will, I mean. Unless you’d rather I le-”

“No!” She was stunned she could even cut him off. 

Kyrie’s hand moved, she barely kept the scream in her throat. He brought her up higher and higher. It didn’t stop until he was standing up straight with her in front of his eyes. She could read the hope in them like a book. If only he’d not hate the truth she had to say. One she couldn’t say until she spoke with her brother.

“I need some time… I’ll come back then and we can talk again,” she said. The confidence in her words didn’t match how she felt. The eyes in front of her brightened enough to make her heart ache.

“I’ll wait forever for you.”

[levi-my-beloved]

Birds of a Feather

Chapter 3

Pairings: Canon!Levi x F!Reader

Content warnings: Violence, implied torture, two pining idiots being two pining idiots, probably ooc Levi cuz oof i suck

Word count: 8.2K

Summary: You were the most notorious criminal in the Underground City. With your organisation of highly skilled professionals, only one man could take you down. He also happened to be Humanity’s Strongest… and your ex.

Previous Chapter

First Chapter

A/N: y’all these chapters are getting real long now… and they only get longer as i keep writing. just wanted to a say a quick and huge thank you for the amazing support i’ve had so far. i honestly didn’t think anyone would read this little story and it’s so heartwarming to see people enjoying it

i love every one of y’all so much 🥺

𖣔𖣔𖣔𖣔𖣔𖣔𖣔𖣔𖣔𖣔𖣔𖣔𖣔𖣔𖣔𖣔𖣔𖣔𖣔𖣔𖣔𖣔

If your hands were free, you would have shielded your eyes as the blinding sun greeted you. You weren’t quite expecting it to be so bright. You knew the overhead world was nowhere near as dark as it was in the Underground City, you’d seen the rays of light spilling down from the toll gate but never in your life had you expected life to seem so..,

Vibrant.

Blinking a few times, you almost had to force yourself to remember your circumstances, gently pulling against your chains. The look of awe on your face was unmistakable.

“Holy shit…” you breathed, eyes now wide as you took in your surroundings. It was warm up here. Really warm. The sun gently beating down on the busy streets. Levi appeared next to you, pushing you forward to continue up the stairs.

“Don’t get used to it, you’ll be in a cell before long,” you were expecting to catch some satisfaction in his tone, but there was nothing other than contempt. You took a breath, managing to resist attempting to kick his shin as you kept climbing the stairs, now fully embraced in the sun’s light. Though it didn’t last as long as you would have liked. Sooner than you deemed necessary, if you were honest, a carriage clattered up in front of you. It was surprisingly lavish considering you were a criminal. Squinting in suspicion, your hesitation only earned a rough push against the back of your head.

“Get in.”

“You never were one for manners were you?” you drawled after stumbling clumsily into the carriage. The plush leather seats squeaking against your own getup, leather on leather disagreeing with each other.

“Not when it comes to people like you, no,” the raven haired man took up a seat opposite you, immediately folding his arms as staring out the small, curtained window. A muscle in your jaw flickered in irritation.

“People like me? You mean people like you? Or have you really forgotten where you came from? Did you lose brain cells as well as your sense of self?” god you just wouldn’t let up, would you? Levi rolled his eyes, successfully masking how much he hated the way you spoke to him. Like nothing ever happened between you. He understood. Of course he did. He knew why you were so upset. Why you were trying so hard to hurt him. He knew you wanted him to hurt the same way you did, but knowing what you were doing wasn’t going to stop the spear you kept repeatedly driving into his heart.

You attempted to shift ever so slightly, just so your hands weren’t painfully crushed against your back. Once again the thought of kicking him crossed your mind, but the situation wasn’t exactly in your favour right now.

It was only a few moments of awkward, deafening silence before you two were joined by both Erwin and Hange, the latter opting to sit next to you, seemingly not worried about whether or not you could still skin her alive even with your wrists bound. Erwin sat a respectable distance from you, despite the size of the carriage. The man barely fit, it was only because of your own size and the size of Levi did you assume you were all able to travel together. That still didn’t stop the man opposite you from throwing you a disgusted look as your knee grazed his. Just to piss him off, you did it again.

“SO! Raven, you’re joining the Scouts?” Hange blurted out, earning her a glare from Levi, a sigh from Erwin and a baffled scoff from you.

“Yeeeaaah… no. That’s not happening.”

“I’m afraid you don’t have a choice in the matter,” Erwin chimed in, almost defeatedly.

“Why don’t you just do what you usually do with criminals? Hang me as some sick entertainment for the public.”

“That can be arranged.”

“Levi…” Erwin warned lowly, to which Levi simply clicked his tongue in response.

Shit, that one hurt. He really didn’t care for you anymore, did he?

Once again, if you had your hands free, you would have run them through your hair. Joining the Scouts? That was never really something that ever crossed your mind. It didn’t seem to make sense. Why on earth would they want to draft you in? The question was swiftly pushed from your mind, replaced by another. Something you’d been burning to know ever since you realised the Scouts knew your location.

“Who was it?” you asked quietly, staring at your feet. Levi stiffened, shifting his eyes from the window back to you. Your demeanor struck a chord with him. You looked defeated, shoulders hunched over. “Who betrayed us? I just want to know.”

A heavy silence settled over the trio, none of them wanting to be the one who broke the news. The bond and connection between you and your Nest was strong. Trust ran through your veins, so to have it broken by any one of them was already shattering your very being.

“A woman. Brown hair, blue eyes. Scarlett, I think her name was,” at that moment, everything seemed to stop. Your world froze. It was Scarlett. Your own lover. Your wife. The woman you trusted more than any of them. She had betrayed you. Betrayed all of you. She was the one who put Una’s life in danger. The one who was responsible for the scar across her neck she would carry forever.

The three Scouts looked at each other, each not really knowing how you would react. Not even you knew how you were going to react. You were stuck in limbo. Everything and nothing was going through your mind. You didn’t know how long you’d sat there staring at nothing, simply trying to process this information, but it must have been an uncomfortably long time, if Erwin’s awkward throat clearing was any indication, gently bringing you back from your thought spiral.

“Oh.” was all you could manage, still not able to raise your head. Your eyes started to burn after not blinking for seemingly too long. How could she? How could she betray you? To the Military Police, of all people. You hadn’t cried for a very, very long time, but damn you were close.

Shit this entire ordeal had been difficult, but seeing you so defeated was next level. Levi dug his fingernails into his palm to stop himself from holding you. From comforting you. He still knew you well enough to tell when something was wrong. Very wrong. And although his stomach twisted slightly with the ideas of who this woman was running through his head, it was all he could do to tear his eyes from your hunched shoulders, returning his gaze to the window as the world passed him by.

“Did you know her?”

“Why would I tell you?” you tilt your head, glaring at Hange next to you, your jaw clenched. You may have just felt the last remaining fragment of your heart shatter, but that didn’t mean you would give them any more information than you had to.

“Raven, I give you my word, we will leave The Nest be,” Erwin tried his hand at reassuring you. None of this made any sense. Why were they being nice? Don’t they know how many soldiers you and your people had slaughtered? How much you had stolen from their warehouses?

You raised your eyes, seeing Levi glancing at you cautiously. Silver hues flicking over your defeated form with that same, cemented expression of boredom, before slowly looking back to the window. You spent the rest of the journey in silence, going over all the events that had led to this moment. How you could have possibly let this happen.

You trusted Prongs. You knew he would take care of your family. But Scarlett…

The bony claws of betrayal grasped your throat, gently squeezing until it became difficult to breathe. The walls of the carriage started closing in around you. Helplessness tainting the corners of your mind. You were stranded. Captured and soon to be forced into the military. To face those titans you’d heard so many people talk about.

You’d found the first man to ever hold your heart. You’d lost him, and then you’d found him again. And you could almost feel his hatred for you.

And though you put on a brave face. Though you put on an act to convince him you felt the same…

You couldn’t find it in your fractured heart to return his hatred.

The gentle, rhythmic clopping of hooves came to a slow stop, the door opening outwards to let the four of you out. Hange hopped down the step with seemingly boundless energy, before immediately engaging in conversation with a taller, worried looking man. Erwin stepped down, but once again you refused to move. If you could make their lives as difficult as possible, you would. Pure spite was fueling you now, your only current reason to carry on.

“Oi, move,” it was a blunt command, and one you paid no mind to. Not even raising your head to acknowledge Levi had said anything. “Hey. Did you lose your hearing on the way here? I said move,” a sharp kick to your shin prompted you to tilt your chin just enough to shoot another one of your glares in his direction. He too had to keep up his charade until he could get you alone and finally have a proper conversation.

“Go to hell,” was your only response, heavily debating spitting in his face as his hands once again grasped your arm. You flinched ever so slightly at the contact, something that didn’t go unnoticed, but it appeared Levi didn’t care.

Levi did care. Holy shit did Levi care. What the hell had happened to you to prompt you to flinch in such a way? Who the fuck had laid their hands on you? Who the fuck had hurt you like that? He allowed the rage to course through his veins, before letting it simmer down. He would deal with that later.

You stumbled as you were almost thrown from the carriage, knees colliding with the stone beneath you before you were dragged back to your feet

That fucking hurt. You started to think that maybe you could return his hatred. The next chance you got, you were driving you knee into his fucking gut. But for now, you decided to settle your glare on Erwin as he was talking to a darker haired man who kept glancing in your direction. It’s only now you realised your condition. You were filthy, mud and grime greasing your hair, blood and small cuts littering your face and knuckles, a dark bruise blossoming on the underside of your chin. Levi’s hand still held you firm, preventing you from even attempting to escape. Not that you would. You really couldn’t see the point, other than running into titan territory yourself. You tensed as the tall, haggard looking man approached you, apprehension mixed with disgust clouded his eyes, but it was an expression you refused to flinch away from.

“The Raven?” you couldn’t help raising a brow.

“Stupid fucking question. No, I'm just an innocent bystander dressed like The Raven for a costume party. I just so happened to think a pair of manacles clasped around my wrists completed the look,” you hissed sarcastically, and you could have sworn you heard something that could resemble a laugh from behind you, but it was so miniscule it was difficult to tell. If only this had been ten years ago.

You watched with satisfaction as a muscle twitched in his jaw, before the man managed to compose himself.

“My name is Niles Dok, Commander of the Military Police soldiers you seem to have so much fun slaughtering,” he introduced himself in a way that made it seem like the last thing he wanted to be doing was introducing himself to you right now.

“So? Do you want a written apology or something? Have to take these chains off me first,” you spat, with the innocent smile of an adder. This seemed to rile the man up more, to the point where he fisted your hair painfully, yanking your head up. His voice lowered to a dangerous murmur.

“Listen you little whore, I don’t know which door to hell you crawled out of, but I have men specially trained to deal with rats like you. They take pleasure in every agonised scream they can rip from your filthy mouth,” you refused to let your panicked, racing heart rule your mind, using every ounce of mental strength to hold his stare, firing back with a nasty glare of your own. And it took all of Levi’s willpower not to launch himself at the MP Commander.

“Go fuck yourself,” the retort came so naturally as you actually spat in his face. It gained you a much more satisfying reaction than you imagined you would get from Levi.

Swiftly removing his hand from your hair, you slumped back, staring up at the man between the now dishevelled strands. Wiping your saliva from his eye. You flinched as the back of his hand came up to strike you. Quicker than you would have expected, Levi was immediately by your side, eyes glinting with murderous intent. But before anything could happen, Niles’ hand was caught by Erwin behind him.

“Now, now Niles. Don’t go harming my soldiers,” his voice was borderline condescending as the MP Commander turned to look back to Erwin with an expression of disbelief.

“You can’t be serious? Erwin, this wasn’t part of the deal. You said—”

“I said we would aid you in capturing her. What happens to her after, is up to us. Think of it as collateral,” he reminded Niles of the deal they had struck before their meeting earlier.

“I didn’t think you would force her to join the Scouts. Are you insane?” It was a question Erwin had heard many times before.

“She’s just another calculated risk,” —he explained, before turning to his Captain— “Levi, take her to where she’ll be staying for the next week,” you had absolutely no idea what the hell was going on, but honestly, you were just glad Erwin stepped in when he did. You didn’t fancy whatever strike was about to land on you, and didn’t want to deal with whatever trauma it would drag up from your less than agreeable past. You didn’t have nearly enough time to unpack Levi’s own movements.

“Tch, why me? Why not Four Eyes?” his eyes slid to the scientist, who seemed to be engaged in an increasingly elaborate conversation with that poor, poor soldier. Even you felt a pang of pity for him.

“Because I’m afraid if I let Hange take her, she’ll end up in her lab rather than the cell,” Erwin sighed tiredly, looking at Levi with almost pleading eyes as the conversation behind him got louder and louder.

“Fine. But you owe me,” he responded, before tugging you away with him. You were almost sorry when you no longer felt the warmth of the sun on your back as he led you inside.

It was a walk full of disgusted glares and crude remarks. Clearly everyone had heard who you were by now, if that wasn’t evident by the snarls of “Bitch” and “Underground rat.” It didn’t really phase you. What these people thought about you was their issue, not yours. Though, you wouldn’t mind beating every single one of them within an inch of their lives given half the chance.

You failed to notice Levi’s ever darkening expression behind you. The glares promising a painful death thrown in every direction. The way a muscle flickered in his jaw at every passing comment. It was only until the hallway was empty did he feel that tension ease a little.

“Down here,” Levi instructed, leading you down a narrow staircase. As if you could go anywhere else.

“Yeah, no shit,” you snapped, earning you a harsh shoved down a few stairs.

“Don’t get smart with me.”

“Why? Afraid you won’t understand me?” that feigned sweetness to your tone was one you had perfected over the years he was gone, and was possibly your favourite form of sarcasm. He clearly didn’t dain your retort worthy of a response, the only sound to be heard being the echoing of your boots against the stone. It reeked of damp and rust, a different stench to the filth of the Underground. Speaking of which…

“You’re disgusting,” a flatly delivered insult was thrown your way as Levi guided you into one of the cells.

“I’m so sorry, I forgot to have a shower before you ambushed us. I’ll be sure to remember next time so I can smell like a fresh forest. I’m sure it would be a more homely smell for you,” you couldn’t help the sarcastic remarks that flew from your mouth. But you fell silent as he began removing your manacles. Instantly a plan formulated in your head. This could be your only chance at escaping. You just had to wait for the right moment.

As soon as the chains were removed from your wrists, you thrust your head backwards, in hope of catching his face. But you were met with nothing but air, and the sounds of quick footsteps behind you.

“You’re even easier to predict now you’re in a cell. Don’t try stupid shit like that,” did he forget how to change the emotion in his voice? He was never the most emotional person you’d met, but he would at least sometimes change his voice from ‘bored’ to ‘slightly irritated’. You were starting to wonder what else he had forgotten during his time here when the iron bar door to your cell was slammed shut, the key clicking in the lock. Now you were certain you couldn’t escape, you took in your living space for the next week. The bare minimum had been provided. A bed with no bed clothes, a rustic sink you weren’t even sure worked, and a broken mirror. Great.

The scraping of a chair behind you piqued your curiosity, turning you head to see Levi had taken a seat in front of your cell door, elbows resting on his knees.

“The fuck are you doing?” you asked, rising from your knees to turn and lean against the wall, arms folded.

“Waiting,” god damn his single word responses. You huff in frustration.

“Waiting for what?”

“You.”

“I could strangle you with my bare hands and feel absolutely nothing right now.”

“You’d have to escape first.”

“What makes you think I can’t?”

“What makes you think you can?”

As much as you hated to admit it, he was right. There didn’t seem to be any way you could escape these walls, you’d already done a quick run down. Threading your hands through your hair in irritation, you cross to sit on the pathetic material they thought was a bed.

“So?” you ask, still no closing to knowing what the hell he wanted. Once again, he didn’t deem your question worthy of a vocal response, opting instead to raise a thin eyebrow. You briefly fantasise about driving one of your long lost daggers into his goddamn eye, before simply brushing it off with a roll of your eyes. “Fine. Stay there and stare at me. It’s your time you're wasting,” you shrugged, flopping back onto the bed, arms thrown out either side of you.

“What have you been up to?” you couldn’t help the bark of sour laughter at the question.

“Seriously?”

“What?”

“After all this time, the first thing you ask me is what I’ve been up to?”

“Would you prefer me to ask you something else?”

“What’s on the menu?”

For a moment, it almost felt like no time had passed since you’d last seen each other. It felt like only yesterday did he have you in his arms, curled up in his bed, gently running his hands over your exposed waist, revelling in how soft your skin was against his.

Running a hand through his dark locks to bring himself out of his thoughts, he changed the trajectory of his questioning.

“Who taught you to fight like that?

“Self-taught.”

“Bullshit,” you winced at his response, raising your head slightly to stare at him, wondering who gave him the audacity to doubt you.

“Oh yeah? Not all of us had the advantage of stupidly strong genes, shortstuff,” shit, you hadn’t said that nickname in a long, long time. Clearly he hadn’t heard it for a long time either, judging by the way his eyes widened his body stilled. Neither of you were able to comment on the irony of the name, considering you were just as vertically challenged. Managing to shake yourself from your daze first, you realised that was a lot for both of you. “Sorry,” you murmured, averting your gaze.

“No, it’s… fine,” there was no malice in his voice. No hatred, a surprise that caused you to turn your head back to face him. Levi cleared his throat before continuing. “How’d you get that scar?” the second question caught you off guard, not expecting anything so personal so quickly. Naturally, you responded with something sarcastic.

“Tea party gone wrong,” an irritated sigh echoed off the dank walls, clearly not satisfied with your answer.

“What happened to you, Raven...?” if it wasn’t for the acoustics of the room, you would have missed the comment, but your heart clenched painfully as the third question reached your ears.

“You left, so I moved on,” you didn’t mean to sound so small or vulnerable. You didn’t mean to drag your knees up to your chest and clasp your arms around them. You didn’t mean to turn your head again, avoiding his gaze.

Levi mentally begged you not to look that way. He’d never seen you so insecure. And that itself broke his resolve.

Standing from his chair, Levi crossed the small space to the barred doors, not thinking twice about unlocking it and leaving the key in the lock. His body was almost acting on a it’s own. Years of taking you into his arms and holding you suddenly came back to him and he wanted nothing more than to take you in his arms once again.

But he hesitated.

You both did.

After raising your head to look at him, you watched as he stopped in the centre of your cell. Almost as if he was silently asking for some sort of permission to just do something.

You shifted slightly so you were leaning against the iron bars rather than the stone wall to the back, Levi taking this as the silent permission he needed to take a seat next to you.

Shit, the instinct to throw yourself into his arms was almost overwhelming, but you refrained, not wanting that kernel of hope to smoulder into nothing when he rejected you.

Levi was the first to break the silence.

“Hey.”

“Hey,” you responded, looking up to him between the loose, mangled strands of hair now obscuring your face just a bit. Age had been kind to him. His features, now much more defined. He was still the same man you knew back then, but this one was more chiseled. You looked away when his eyes found yours.

“You look like shit.”

“I feel like shit.”

“I’m sorry.”

“I know.”

It wasn’t the exchange you were expecting, this quick back and forth, but you wouldn’t say it was unwelcome. A familiar warmth started to spread in your chest.

“How’s the jaw?” you asked, eyes wandering to the now hefty bruise against his pale, soft skin. You remembered when you used to leave marks of similar colour all over his body. His neck, collarbones, abdomen, thighs…

“‘S’fine. How’s the chin?” his own eyes slid back to you, silver irises scanning your face briefly.

“Yeah. Fine,” you let the silence settle for a moment, before breaking it again. “Sorry I kicked you,” Levi grunted in quiet amusement.

“It was a damn good plan. Sorry I knee’d you,” it was only when he heard your gentle chuckle did he realise just how much he’d missed you. Every fibre in his body was begging him to roughly tug you into his body. To cup your face in his hands and seal your lips with a burning kiss. But all that changed when he shifted slightly and you flinched at the sudden movement. He stilled, waiting for you to relax again before he too settled back down.

“You knew her, didn’t you?” it was a rhetorical question. Your reaction after the reveal told him everything. Not only did you know her, but she was somebody close to you.

You stayed silent for a couple moments, not really knowing how to respond to his shift in conversation. You decided to match it.

“Yeah. I did,” you wouldn’t tell him. Not unless he asked. You wouldn’t tell him who she was to you. What she was to you. That still fucking hurt like hell.

“‘M’sorry.”

“You say that a lot,”

“You’re one to talk,”

You didn’t even try to quell your small laugh, letting it echo off the stone walls. Even Levi couldn’t stop a small chuckle at your amusement, feeling himself completely at ease in your presence.

“Did you really move on?” it was his turn to feel small. His turn to feel a little vulnerable. He couldn’t bear the thought of you just moving on from what the two of you had. Just throwing it all in the past and leaving it there.

“Yes and no.”

“The hell does that mean?”

You sighed, tightening your grip around your knees. You hoped this wouldn’t be as painful for him to hear as it would be for you to say, but you didn’t hold out much hope.

“Yes, I moved on. I’m not the same girl I was. Trust me on that. I’m not the same girl you fell in love with, nor the girl who fell in love with you,” you had to take a breath, suddenly finding the air down here far too thick. “She wouldn’t have survived down there. That girl would have been killed by some pig the moment you left. So... I killed her myself. You already know I’ve been part of The Nest for a while, but I wasn’t really one of them, if you get what I mean. I didn’t stay with them, I didn’t eat with them. Sure, Viper took me in after my—“ you stopped, burying that can of worms before you even opened it. That wasn’t something you wanted to bring up right now. “Viper took me in, taught me a few things, but I stayed with you. I didn’t have to be one of them when I was with you. But when you left… I didn’t exactly have a choice. I couldn’t be so naive anymore. I couldn’t be so hopeful. I had to be realistic, and to be realistic, I had to hurt a lot of people. I had to see a lot of things,” you allowed the weight of your words to settle before you continued. “But that girl. That girl you knew. She never stopped loving you. Up til the moment she drew her last breath and I took over. She loved you. But I moved on,” you fell silent, realising that yes, this had been just as painful for him to hear as it was for you to say.

It was a long while before Levi spoke again, nowhere near as confident as he was.

“That’s who she was to you,” just as he thought seeing you again couldn’t get anymore painful. Just as he thought your words couldn’t get anymore painful. “You loved her?”

“Yes, but not completely. Part of me was still devoted to you. I think that’s why she did what she did. Scarlett was never a spiteful person, but she did hold one hell of a grudge against you. And I suppose, in a way, me,” the silence was so thick you thought you could cut it with one of your blades.

“She’s still there.”

“Hm?”

“That girl. She’s still there. You’re still in there.”

“Now look who’s being naïve,”

“You’re trying to tell me this new, supposedly ruthless killer would kick the shit out of some soldiers for hurting a kid. You’re trying to tell me this new cold hearted thief would bring medicine to an elderly woman and her son?”

“I—”

“You’re telling me this new, heartless little dealer would earn the respect and thanks of thousands of Underground rats? Because to me, that sounds like bullshit… (Y/N),” he wouldn’t accept it. You weren’t gone, he could see it in your actions. You were still there. His (Y/N) was still in there.

Hearing your name in his low, warm tone after all this time sent a jolt through your system. And when he turned to look at you, he could see silver lining your eyes. It took everything in him not to reach up and gently wipe them away.

“I’m not going to stop until you see what I see. I’m not going to let you think you’ve become this heartless, mindless killer just because you had to adapt. Because you had to survive. I’ve finally found you again. Do you know how long I searched for you? How many hours I spent tracing every single path I knew you would take. Asking every filthy mongrel I could find. Most of them said you were dead. Some of them said you were missing and hadn’t been seen in months. Years, even. But until I found a body, or some kind of proof you were dead, I couldn’t accept it,” well this certainly caught you off guard. Levi was never one for long, heartfelt speeches, or verbal communication at all, actually. So this was a little overwhelming. Two tears slipped down your cheeks, sliding through the sudden cracks in your defenses and leaving a trail through the thin layer of grime and dirt.

Levi kept his eyes trained ahead, knowing that if he saw you crying, his restraint would break and he wouldn’t be able to stop himself from holding you. But he knew he couldn’t. From the way you’d reacted to his small movements, he knew suddenly tugging you into him would scare you.

“I’m sorry,” your small voice wrapped around his fragile heart, both settling it and cracking it. He went to extend his hand towards you with the intention of smoothing down your hair, but the way you winced, almost anticipating something much more intense, made him stop. Shit, you really did look like a husk of your former self. He remembered the way your eyes used to glint even in the low lighting of the Underground.

“You should rest,” it was an appealing enough suggestion. Enough to draw a barely concealed yawn from you. Leaning your head against the iron bars behind you, you swore you could have fallen asleep there and then. Comforted by his presence.

You immediately missed his presence as soon as he stood, tempted to reach out for his hand but not wanting to push him away.

As if he felt your confliction, Levi stopped to turn back to you.

“I’ll be back in the morning. Rest, (Y/N),” it wasn’t like you could disobey when your mind and body was so eager to sleep.

“Fuck…” you muttered, running a hand down the side of your face, exhaustion hitting you like a punch to the gut. This wasn’t exactly how you saw your day going today, but you couldn’t exactly say you weren’t thankful. You didn’t know what you were, honestly. So much had happened, you knew you would need time to process everything.

The screech of metal against metal alerted you to the key once again locking you within the cell. Dipping your head, you watched the dark haired man return the keychain to a small nail in the wall.

“Hey…” Levi turned to you as you called out, his expression as soft as it was a few moments ago. “It’s really good to see you again,” a thousand butterflies suddenly exploded in his stomach. How long had he been waiting to hear those words? And suddenly, he found himself unable to reply.

“Tch, go to sleep, Raven,” he reveled in your amused hum as he turned on his heel, leaving you to recover after today.

꧁ꨄ꧂

Levi ran a hand through his hair. Sitting at his desk in his orderly kept office, he could barely focus on the reports in front of him. That haunted look in your eyes had left a significant mark on him. The way you now spoke was so different to the bubbly younger girl he knew.

With a shake of his head, he attempted to divert his attention back to the account of the mission today. You’d taken down a few of his men yourself, he recalled watching your blades find purchase in his makeshift squad. A few others hadn’t returned from where they’d chased your Shadows. Actually, most others didn’t return.

As predicted, it was a bloodbath.

Leaning forward, he reached for his tea, continuing to scan over the document until his eyes settled on your alias, and he couldn’t help but wonder why you hadn’t told anyone your name. It prompted a memory he wasn’t expecting. He’d tried so many times to bury his past. Thinking about it saved him from thinking about his lost friends. But it was unavoidable.

“Hey! ‘Re’ya gonna buy anything? Or you just gonna keep staring?” Levi peaked out from behind the legs of a taller man, peering at the young girl who seemed to be giving his father figure sass. He couldn’t understand it. Didn’t she know who he was? She didn’t look much older than him. Maybe eight? Nine even?

“Listen little missy, I don’t think you wan’ to rush me,” the southern lilt of Kenny’s dangerously low voice didn’t seem to deter the little merchant. Levi’s eyes widened as she folded her arms, her grubby face creasing as she frowned. For someone so young, she certainly had an impressive glare.

“Or what? You gonna kill me? I sell to the whole street, mister. You kill me, they starve,” Wow, she really seemed to have this whole thing going for her. Levi looked up at Kenny, able to just make out the subtle smile under the shadow of his hat.

“What’s your name, little girl?

“Hmph. What’s it to you?” she retorted, stepping closer. It was only then she seemed to notice his presence. Her glare seemed to soften almost instantly, head tilting in sheer curiosity. Her sparkling, (E/C) eyes widened upon seeing him there. He only occupied a fraction of her attention, before it returned to Kenny, that scowl also returning.

“You’ve got guts kid, I’ll give you that. But maybe that’s simply cuz you don’t know who I am,” he mused, picking up one of the loaves of bread you were currently selling. They weren’t fresh. Nothing ever was. But it was the best your family had to offer.

“Kenny the Ripper, right? Yeah, I’ve heard of you. Seen your ugly face in the newspaper when those shits up top toss their trash through the grates. And you better buy that now your filthy hands have been all over it,” Levi couldn’t tell if this girl was brave or stupid. He’d never heard anyone speak to Kenny like that and actually get away with it.

“(Y/N) (L/N)! Watch your language young lady! And what have I told you about mouthing off to customers?!” her face quickly morphed from a glare to something he could only describe as sheepish. An older woman leaning out from the door behind you. Her hair colour was different to yours, but those eyes… they were your eyes.

“But Maaaaa, I was just—“

“No buts. Inside, now,” her voice was stern, but Levi was perceptive from a young age. He could see the softness in her eyes as the girl pouted. Turning back, he watched her send a cheery wave goodbye in his direction, pausing slightly as it wasn’t returned. Her brows furrowed, before she darted inside.

“Quite the brat you got there,” Kenny remarked, handing over a coin in payment for the bread he’d picked up.

“Yeah, sorry about her. Pain in my ass but her heart’s in the right place. I hope,” Levi wasn’t really paying attention to the conversation, too distracted by watching the same girl clamber out the open window and onto the ledge above. Only using her right hand to climb, she paused, as if calculating something before shimmying along the wall, round the corner and out of sight. Before Levi even had time to question what the hell he’d just witnessed, her head popped round the corner, eyes searching for him. He raised his brows in question when she gestured for him, whipping back round the corner. Seeing Kenny still caught up in conversation, he quietly left the two adults, heading for the narrow alleyway she’d just ducked into.

“Hey,” the whisper made him whirl, stopping to see her cautiously step from the shadows near the wall. “You looked hungry, so I stole this from our stocks,” it became apparent as to why she was only using one hand to climb when she presented another, slightly smaller loaf of bread. It wasn’t as stale as the ones on the stall. “We got fresh ingredients yesterday. My father’s a baker but we only sell the stale ones because we wouldn’t be able to keep up with the demand for fresh bread,” she explained quietly, her eyes wide in earnest. If it wasn’t for his ravenous hunger, Levi would have declined the offer. However, the smell was too good to pass up on. Slowly, he reached for it, half expecting her to snatch it back. But her honest expression remained, only retracting her hand after he’d taken a bite. “Don’t talk much, do you? That’s okay, I get a lot of people who are shy.”

Crossing her legs, she lowered herself to the floor, resting her back against the wall to what he could only assume was her house. He followed suit, sitting opposite her in the damp alleyway.

“Your dad’s an asshole, by the way. Very obkonshus,” Levi assumed she was trying to say obnoxious, but didn’t correct her. He almost found it endearing.

“He’s not my dad,” his blunt response had her head whipping back to look at him, almost in disbelief that he had actually spoken. A small blush blossomed across her cheeks at her mistake.

“O-oh. Sorry. I didn’t know,” an awkward silence settled over them, before she spoke up again. “Your not-dad’s an asshole,” Levi glanced at her, noting her cheeky smirk. His own lips twitched in amusement. She wasn’t wrong. Kenny was an asshole.

They stayed there until he’d finished his bread, (Y/N) simply talking about everything and nothing.

“Where’d that little rat scurry away to?” Kenny’s drawl interrupted your little conversation, prompting the both of you to shoot to your feet. The girl shot him a worried look, not knowing how this was going to play out. Levi was never one to offer reassurance, never really needing to, until now. He tried his hand at a reassuring expression, before stepping out the alleyway a little.

“Here, I was just—” he looked back to the narrow street where she just was, only to find she’d completely disappeared. His eyes widened ever so slightly, attempting to peer further down the alley. How had she done that? She was right there. Maybe you’d already started your climb? His eyes travelled up the side of the wall, but found nothing.

“The fuck are you lookin’ at brat? C’mon, we’re leavin’,'' Kenny strode past him, roughly tugging him along. But Levi wasn’t looking where he was going, silver eyes still glued to that alley, waiting for her to emerge. But she never did.

A harsh knock on his door snapped him out of his memory spiral. How long had he been sitting here? Usually he had a good grasp on time but right now it could have been four in the morning or two in the afternoon. Running a hand down the side of his face, he went to sip his tea, grimacing as the now cold liquid graced his tongue. Setting it down almost immediately, he would have forgotten anyone knocked on his door in the first place had they not knocked again.

“Levi? Are you in there?” Erwin. Great.

“The fuck do you want Eyebrows?” Erwin clearly took that as permission to enter. Not that he needed permission.

Levi raised his eyes as his Commander strode in, pushing the door closed behind him.

“I was wondering if you managed to get information out of our little criminal.”

Levi’s jaw flexed.

“No.”

“Nothing?” Erwin seemed a little surprised and Levi couldn’t for the life of him think why. He didn’t know about your relationship, and it wasn’t like he was well practiced in his social skills.

“Nothing. She’s refusing to say anything other than annoying, sarcastic quips.”

“You two aren’t so different then.”

“Oi,” Erwin chuckled at Levi’s low warning, holding up an apologetic hand.

“Apologies, forgive me. It was just a joke,” Levi rolled his eyes, clicking his tongue as Erwin took a seat on the leather sofa, crossing an ankle over his knee. “I’m surprised. I thought you two may get along. Considering your shared upbringing,” if he wasn’t talking to Levi, anyone else would have thought it was an innocent enough assumption. But over the years, Levi had learned Erwin’s tells, and knew when there was something deeper going on. But still, there was no way he could know about your literal shared past.

“She’s abrasive, rude, cocky and thoroughly unpleasant. Why on earth would we get along?” Levi knew he was lying through his teeth. Whilst yes, you were in fact abrasive, cocky and rude, you were far from unpleasant. He wouldn’t have shared his heart with you if you were.

Erwin pinched the bridge of his nose. Suddenly he looked incredibly tired, like he hadn’t slept in weeks.

“Did you know her? From your time down there. Did you two ever run into each other?” straight to the point, it seemed. Erwin hadn’t missed the Captain’s flash of recognition back when you’d taken your mask off. He hadn’t missed the way he froze to the spot.

But Levi wasn’t about to open up to anyone, especially not the same Commander that had dragged him kicking and screaming into the Scouts.

Truth be told, after that first interaction, Levi had tried his damndest to see you again at every opportunity. He’d never been shown that sort of kindness since his mother died, and he didn’t want your little spark to be snuffed out by the Underground. He didn’t speak to you very often, only silently offering to walk you home at night, warding off any unwanted attention a young woman would draw.

He offered to share his small home with you when you were both around fourteen. It had been two years since Kenny abandoned him, and he noticed you looked directionless, and though it had taken a while for you to open up, he was happy for you to stay with him until you found somewhere else.

He just never expected to fall in love with you, or for you to fall in love with him.

“No. I’ve never seen her before,” Levi lied, keeping his eyes trained on the same document he must have been staring at for the last god knows how long, too lost in his own mind to concentrate.

Erwin wasn’t quite as good at reading Levi, and so accepted that as his truthful answer.

“Very well, I bid you a good night, Captain,” ah. So it was nighttime. Noted.

“Yeah yeah, see you tomorrow,” Levi waved his hand dismissively, once again earning another chuckle from Erwin as the door was pulled shut.

Levi almost instinctively reached for his tea again, only just remembering it was stone cold. He sighed in irritation, rising from his chair. He didn’t think there was enough tea in the world to help him sort through his thoughts. But damn if it didn’t make it easier.

Rolling his now stiff shoulders, he picked up the cold brew and headed to the kitchen. It was going to be a long night.

꧁ꨄ꧂

Sleeping in the Underground City was a luxury. Despite your exhaustion, sleep didn’t come easily. You assumed you must have dozed off for an hour at least before the faint sound of multiple footsteps had you sitting bolt upright, your muscles barking in protest. You were always aware of your surroundings. Always ready, even when you may look like you were resting.

You didn’t quite know what to expect, quickly running through several scenarios and possibilities in your head. One of those possibilities rounded the corner from the stairs. Four MP soldiers now stood outside your cell, one jiggling the keys into the lock. Immediately you stood, not going down without a fight. Though it wasn’t much of one. Before you had even landed a proper blow on any of them, you were harshly kicked to the floor. Your body having not woken up properly yet, you were easy enough to subdue as they clasped your wrists together in front of you with rope. Not what you were expecting but it was more comfortable than behind your back.

You stayed silent as they dragged you further deeper into the complex of jails and cells. You didn’t imagine they would span this far beneath what you assumed was the headquarters, but nonetheless you kept walking until you were faced with a wooden door. The same soldier fiddled with the lock until it swung open and you were kicked inside.

Raising your head, you saw the room wasn’t exactly empty. An array of bats and blunt trauma objects rested against the far side of the wall, but that wasn’t what threw the spear of terror into your heart.

A single, iron hook extended down from the ceiling. It looked like it would be used for bleeding or drying meat, but you could think of several other uses for it. For example, your current situation.

The door locking behind you had your head whirling, eyes darting from the man with the key to the wood that now trapped you inside.

“Ah, Raven. I’m sure our commander forewarned you about this, I don’t really know why you look so surprised,” you shivered at the fake pleasant tone, a stark contrast to the way you were now being tugged to your feet, arms thrown up above you. You realise now why they used rope instead of chains, your wrists being hooked up above you. Your feet now only just grazing the floor, head falling between your shoulders with your loose thin shirt riding up your stomach. You suddenly regretted shedding your leather jacket earlier, wanting to be a little more comfortable as you attempted to sleep.

“We have strict instructions not to permanently damage you, however we have various other methods,” one of your torturers stalked behind you, reaching up to twist the hook so you spun with him, now facing the wall of weaponry. The other three who had accompanied you all leant against the wall to you right, as if waiting for their turn. “I thought I would be kind enough to let you choose which we start with. Since you’d be the one on the receiving end,” the sick fuck. He was really enjoying this wasn’t he?

“At least tell me what you fucking want,” you spat, thrashing slightly in your bonds. The man simply laughed, crossing to the selection.

“Oh, we don’t want information. Just for you to suffer as much pain as we did when you killed our comrades,” ah, so they had personal connections. Understood.

“I’d do it again in a heartbeat,” your crooked, satisfied grin faltered as his expression darkened, crossing the room towards you in a few strides. Roughly grabbing your chin, he forced your head up to meet his gaze as you writhed in his tight grip.

“You know, you were quite the formidable criminal down there. Slaughtering and murdering whoever you pleased. Harming those who had done nothing to you. But look at you now, strung up like a squealing pig. Fuck, if it isn’t satisfying to see,” he threw your head back down before driving his foot into your gut. The impact sent you swinging backwards, saliva flying from your mouth.

Raising your eyes, you shot him a visceral glare as he browsed his collection of weapons as if he was picking out a pastry at a bakery. Opting for the classic wooden bat, you braced yourself for the night to come, knowing it was going to be a long one.

[gisellelx]

Since tomorrow is Father’s Day (and also Edward’a birthday I think?) can you share some sappy headcannon moments about Carlisle and Edward?

Ohhhhh anon. Thank you for this. My heart, here it all is spilled out on paper. I am making NO APOLOGIES for the length of this post. You knew what you were getting into, here. And have I got a treat for you about my headcanon and this particular date: First, you must understand that because of the ole' sideblog, I have a very detailed headcanon about where Carlisle is at any given time so that there aren't continuity errors. This is actually one of the fun things about fanfic vs. profic--in profic, at least in contemporary YA, my genre, you are trying to minimize references to actual events and time lest your work not be timeless. But I have a really detailed outline of when all my characters exist; I find I can't write any other way. This is why SM is so baffling to me--it's so clear she just has like, blank gray clouds for any time any given character isn't on screen. Nah. I have backstories for days on even my minor characters. I always know where all of them are. In fic, I get to fully indulge that because no one has to figure out if the fic will still sell five or ten years from now if it makes a dated reference to the new iPhone. So I can set the characters precisely in time, and imagine how exact dates and events affect their lives right then. Carlisle and Esme have been in Wisconsin; the children are all living as individual couples in southern France. You can thank Foi Pur for the headcanon that the Cullens own a home in Toulouse. They were stationed there while Carlisle was practicing in Bergamo early in the pandemic, and the children stayed there while Carlisle followed the outbreaks and Esme refused to leave his side (even though he begged her to). They came to the U.S. last summer; they haven't lived here since they left Forks 8 years ago. The borders have been closed; they haven't seen the rest of the family since then. On June 9, 2021, France opened the borders to vaccinated Americans. As case counts have receded, Carlisle has shifted to being a more standard hospitalist, with the usual 7 days on, 7 off schedule instead of taking off to say, Mumbai, because he bought Esme their old house and she's busy with it. He's working that schedule at two hospitals though, so basically is never off-duty. As soon as France announced their change, he went to both CMOs and said he was taking time off to see his family. He had to finish working that week, and then had to work his next "on" week at the other hospital, which meant that June 19 was the earliest he could possibly travel. In other words, the actual world, and the very real constraints of the kind of work I envision Carlisle to be doing, have converged on the fact that Carlisle and Esme touched down in their private jet at Castres airport early this morning Central European Time. On Father's Day. And Edward's 120th birthday. Everybody met them. There were lots of non-liquid tears. Edward hopped on Sotheby's the moment the news dropped on June 4 and rented an estate in Saint-Tropez that is costing them a quarter of a million dollars a week but it's private and they can all be outside. They got there this morning and are throwing Edward an extravagant party this evening, and Carlisle hasn't been more than six feet from Edward for the last twelve hours. Edward's patience with this is going to tire by midday tomorrow, but for now, he's enjoying Carlisle's attention. (It's 7:30 PM in Saint-Tropez as I write this; they're in the thick of gift-giving.) In other words, these boys could not possibly be happier this particular Father's Day.

So that's the big, fun, sappy, timely hc. Here's some others:

Edward is an only child. There, I said it. Carlisle and Esme talk about having six children and will never in a million years admit, even to themselves, that they actually only have one child. But they treat Edward like he is their only child, and Carlisle thinks of him as separate from the rest. He certainly loves him more.

Edward gets very pouty if anyone but him celebrates Father's Day. Most of the others are very "whatever" about it but Carlisle and Rosalie do have a very father/daughter relationship and so she also likes to honor him on Father's Day. Because Edward is Edward, he assumes she's doing this just to annoy him and it's one more hash mark on the "Rosalie is a bitch" bingo card.

They are best friends as well as father and son. Their relationship is always both/and. It often turns on a dime--they're having a raucous, bawdy time one moment and then something triggers Edward and they are in full-on father/son comfort mode the next. Everything in their relationship happened very offhandedly. The first time Carlisle told Edward he loved him, it was by accident: he thought it while they were playing in the woods a few months after Edward's turning. Edward came to a stop so fast Carlisle almost crashed into him. Carlisle then said the words aloud for the first time.

Edward didn't return those words for nearly a year. Again, it was almost an afterthought: he was thanking Carlisle for a new phonograph and the words "I love you" just slid out. Carlisle almost spontaneously combusted.

The first time Edward called Carlisle his father, they were still living as a man and his brother-in-law. He came home excitedly, having bought tickets to the new moving picture house in town. He was telling Carlisle the story, excited that he felt confident enough to sit in a closed room with a crowd of humans, and mentioned he had bought two tickets because as he'd told the ticket seller, he thought his father would like to come. He was surprised when Carlisle started crying. Edward and Carlisle almost never fight. When they do, it is vicious. Edward is the only family to have ever seriously injured Carlisle; Carlisle has a long gash across his left collarbone and down his left scapula from the most serious attack in 1927. Edward hates it when Carlisle thinks about them. Carlisle has never broken Edward's skin, but there've been a handful of times they've had very tense conversations while Carlisle had him in a half nelson.

Nothing, and I mean nothing, can wound Carlisle more than Edward having a teenaged fit and screaming, "You're not my father!" Edward knows this, but sometimes his brain short circuits and he does it anyway. This has happened only a handful of times and each time it's taken years to repair.

Carlisle was touch-starved for so long that he is very touchy-feely with Edward. Edward is perpetually seventeen and does not like to be cuddled, hugged, or kissed. They met in a place that is nowhere near the middle where Carlisle occasionally puts his arm around Edward. Like, once or twice a year.

This changed a little bit when Renesmee became a teenager and started rebuffing Edward's physical affection. He came to Carlisle and complained about how she never wanted to be hugged anymore and Carlisle laughed so hard he choked. Edward has gotten a little better about being hugged since then. Renesmee has been very good for their relationship in lots of ways, not the least of which has been that it has helped them both view Edward as more of an adult. Anyway. I could go on for days. These details are always lurking, and they're sprinkled throughout any fic I write. Love these boys so much. They are such a fantastic duo to write. Happy Birthday, E.

Happy Father's Day, C.

[blinder-secrets]

Between Palms

fem!reader x michael gray

warnings: power imbalance, role play, mild nsfw (its a slow burn but hang in there trust me)

wordcount: 4,125

It seemed silly really, a birthday meal at Arrow House, but here you were. Invite accepted and fulfilled, even though you were just there as a plus one. An almost family member. Michael had you living in his house, accompanying him to every event, and yet your finger was still empty of the ring you both knew would come eventually. He’s waiting for the right moment, you suppose. It doesn’t really matter. Everyone knows he’s yours, and you’re his. Even Polly is starting to treat you like a daughter.

‘Is it his actual birthday today?’ you ask Michael, as he takes your coat in the entry way.

‘Don’t know.’ He passes it to Mary, who you’ve only just been introduced to. 'Tomorrow I think.’

You hum. This was the family version then, they’d spend his birthday alone, just the two of them. ‘It’s quite sweet, isn’t it?’ you muse. You’d never have marked either Tommy or Lizzie as the sentimental sort.

Michael snorts. ‘Sweet, yeah.’ From his smirk, you know he doesn’t even remotely agree.

‘The meal is being served,’ Mary tells you, careful in her interruption. ‘If you’ll follow me?’

‘Oh, course, sorry.’ You nod and gesture for her to continue; you’d almost forgotten that the both of you were late. ‘Come on,’ you say to Michael, offering your hand.

He takes it readily, his palm warm and soft against yours. From the look of him, his sharp suits, his set hair and his square jaw, you’d always assumed he would shy away from touches like that. That he’d keep his hands in his pockets and his character professional, impenetrable. But, he never does with you. Whenever you give your hand, he takes it, locks his fingers around it. He’d let you pull him half way across the world, you think. If you tried.

In the main dining room, you’re met by the rest of the family. They’re seated already, talking and drinking around the platters of food, the plates already filled with some expensive cut of meat. The conversation stills as you enter, a few of them beginning to stand to greet you.

‘No, no don’t,’ you say quickly, waving them down again. ‘We’ve got time for that later.’

‘Tommy,’ Michael says, acknowledging him with a nod. ‘Happy Birthday.’

‘Yes,’ you add, ‘we left your gift with Mary.’ You’re sure he doesn’t care what it is, you don’t even know that he’ll ever open it. It’d had felt wrong to go to a birthday party without taking something.

Tommy almost matches your waiting smile. It’s as much of a response as you’ll get. ‘Please,’ he says, gesturing to the two empty chairs, ‘sit down. Get a drink.’

You take your seat which is, of course, next to Michael. Your Michael. He’s holding the chair out for you, ready to tuck it in as you sit. Always the gentleman like it’s second nature. Like he doesn’t even notice he’s doing it. You smile up at him in thanks, but he just touches your shoulder briefly before sitting himself. ‘Looks great,’ he comments, eyes down as he scans the lay of food and alcohol before him. His accent’s stronger when he’s with them, like he picks it up at the door. At home it almost disappears, melts into something softer, some remnant of his upbringing. You haven’t decided yet which it is that you prefer. It’s what he says that charms you.

‘It’s nice of you to have us, Tommy,’ you say, leaning around Michael to smile at him.

He’s sitting at the head of the table, as uninterested in the food as you’d expected him to be. His eyebrows raise in response to your comment, and he half-shakes his head, as if to say, oh it’s no problem, no trouble. From the way Lizzie’s smiling beside him, you know that it was all her really. Her idea, her planning. She wanted him and the family to have something nice for once and so here you were.

‘And Lizzie, of course,’ you add. ‘Thank-you.’

‘Our pleasure,’ she replies gently, lifting her glass. ‘Please, eat. Before it gets cold.’

You nod and bring your focus back to Michael, who’s lit a cigarette and is now resting between drags. It sits between his fingers on the table, smoke pulling up and over his plate, swirling his meal in grey. How he doesn’t mind, you have no idea. He may as well peel it open and eat the tobacco instead.

‘Michael,’ you scold quietly, knocking your elbow against his. ‘Put it out.’

He clears his throat and sits straighter, lifting the cigarette for a final taste. ‘Was in my head,’ he comments on the exhale, before taking another sharp, final drag. ‘Think we should do something like this.’

You watch him lean forward and stub the cigarette out, into the ashtray in the middle. ‘Do what?’

‘Have a dinner,’ he says, sitting back again. ‘For you, for your birthday.’

Snorting, you shake your head and turn to pick up your cutlery. The house you have together is nowhere near big enough to accommodate for the Shelby side, let alone your family too. Not that you would invite them anyway. They’d see Arthur and go running, hear Johnny Dogg’s jokes and flush red with shame.

‘Yeah? And who would arrange that?’ you ask. You take a bite and throw him a closed-lip smile between chews. ‘I’m not doing it.’

He shrugs. ‘Well, I will.’  

The beef is cooked perfectly, you cut another piece off as you reply. ‘You’re good with numbers, Michael, not parties.’

‘Alright.’ He picks up his fork limply, too focused on the side of your face to even consider eating something himself. ‘Mum will,’ he says to you, then, turning to her, ‘you’ll help, won’t you?’

Polly scoffs from opposite. You hadn’t realised she’d been paying attention, but of course she had. She never misses anything of interest. ‘Not bloody likely,’ she chides. ‘You’ll have to do something for yourself one day, Michael.’ She’s smiling, teasing with her lips soft and curling, but it still sours him.

‘Fine,’ he says, slouching. ‘No party, then. Christ.’

You almost roll your eyes, but it isn’t often that he suggests something like this. Something flashy. Normally, any gesture of affection he has for you is quiet, private. Tucked away just for the two of you. A big party like the one Lizzie’s thrown for Tommy is entirely new; you hadn’t meant to shoot him down so quickly. Sighing, you soften your voice and say, ‘We can have a party, baby.’ He hums. You put your hand to his face, thumb angled for his chin, but he tilts his head away in the last second.

Before you can complain, Polly catches your attention again. ‘Here, love,’ she says, ‘have some more potatoes.’ She holds the dish up for you, over the centre of the table and the glasses between.

‘Sure, thanks.’

You take the offering and when you pull the dish toward you, the bottom catches on your wine glass. It tips quickly, spilling red over the table, over you. You half expect it to shatter against the edge of your plate.

Cursing loudly, you abandon the dish into Michael’s waiting hands. ‘Sorry, fuck, sorry.’ You stand quickly and the commotion hushes every conversation that had been rolling within the room.

‘You’re meant to drink it, love,’ Arthur laughs, from whichever end he’s sat at — you’re too busy patting your napkin frantically onto the tablecloth to check.

‘God, sorry, sorry Lizzie.’ It’s stained, it’s definitely stained and ruined.

‘It’s on your dress,’ Michael comments, like you hadn’t noticed.

‘Never mind the dress,’ you snap back. ‘The sheet’s ruined.’

Tommy clears his throat. ‘Its just the tablecloth, [y/n], sit down.’

‘It’ll do more damage to your dress, love,’ Lizzie adds, sympathetically. ‘It’s alright.’

You pause, huffing slightly, then sit clumsily back into your chair. It’s always you, it seems, to stand out like this. To be un-calculated, accidental. Every Shelby is so precise, and so careful, and so in control of everything at once, somehow. Michael’s a Gray but he’s got it too, the grace. Lizzie isn’t even blood related and she holds herself the same. What is it about you? What do you lack?

‘Don’t worry,’ Michael says quietly, interrupting the thought by pouring words into your ear. ‘Don’t get yourself worked up.’

You don’t answer him, you just pout and dab at the stain on your lap. The wine’s sunk in deep already. It looks purple, not red, against the fabric.

‘Mary could help,’ he offers, after sighing at your silence. ‘She’ll be in the kitchen.’

You nod and stand, clutching the soggy napkin in your palm. ‘If you’ll excuse me,’ you say to the table. Your voice only catches the attention of Polly and Finn, but no-one else challenges you when you turn to leave. It’s just another of your quirks, they must think, just something you do. They either don’t care, or didn’t see.

You hurry from the room with your ears turning hot. Michael will tell you later that you were being silly, worrying over nothing, but right now it feels mortifying. Leaving the room to see a maid about a stain. In the middle of a dinner party, no less.

When you reach the kitchen, Mary startles. Her eyes widen at the sight of you, like your presence alone means she’s done something wrong, like she’s forgotten something and you’re here to chase her up on it.

‘Don’t worry,’ you tell her, gesturing to your dress. ‘I just wanted to see if you had something for this.’

Her expression softens. The gentle folds in her face fall slack and for a moment she reminds you of your grandmother, though she never had the gall to be a gangster’s housekeeper. ‘Is it wine, miss?’

You sigh. ‘Tragically, yes.’

‘There isn’t much we can do for that.’ She hums. ‘But I’ll try, please sit.’

She gestures to the table, and the chairs which are wooden, and bare, and much plainer than the dining set upstairs. It’s welcoming in a way elegance will never be. You sigh into the seat and watch her pull bottles from various cupboards, busying herself quickly. Her dress folds as she does, creasing at her waist, comfortable enough to not restrict her movements. If only yours was like that. The dress you’re wearing is too expensive, and too tight, to be any good for anyone. Now, it isn’t even pretty.

‘Mary,’ you start, stilling her as soon as the idea strikes, lighting itself as a match would. ‘Do you have any spare uniforms?’

Her brow arches slowly, like she’s unsure of your intention and even more unsure of asking for it. ‘Miss?’

‘That I can wear,’ you explain. The thought is rolling, piling up and catching speed in your head. It makes sense really, a worker’s fit for the working woman, an apron for the spills. If the Shelbys can’t find the humour in it, you certainly will.

‘Only the ones the maids wear,’ she says.

You smile. If Michael could see you now, he’d accuse you of plotting something. He’d be right. ‘Perfect,’ you tell her, ‘that’s perfect, Mary.’

If your exit was quiet, unnoticed, then your return may as well have been an explosion. A great tremor to the room and all its inhabitants. You’re barely through the doorway before Arthur’s laugh is bursting from his chest, barking over Johnny’s head toward you. From the noise of it, the rest turn in your direction. Conversation is tossed out the window and onto the lawn. Lizzie laughs, more out of shock than anything else, Polly mutters a ‘Christ’, and you’re sure you catch Finn swallowing his beer like it’s running out. How Tommy reacts, you don’t know, you don’t look.

‘Fucking hell, woman, almost lost me drink over that,’ Johnny says, speaking before anyone else has chance to.  

You reach the table and give a half-confident bow, with your gaze sitting easily on Michael. ‘Would you like a refill, mister?’ you ask falsely, twisting your voice high enough that it hardly sounds like you at all.

His eyebrows lift, eyes widening, and then they drop again, quickly, like nothing’s happened. His face hardens slightly. Then, he turns away, facing forward, and he goes very still, and very quiet, and you don’t quite know what he’s thinking. You thought he’d laugh, or at least make some snarky comment about not mingling with the help. Instead, his eyes sit on the whiskey in his hands like you aren’t even there.  

‘What the hell you got that on for?’ Arthur asks, amusement in the crinkles by his eye. ‘Eh?’

You force a smile at him. ‘Thought I’d give you something to dream about, Arthur.’

There’s few snorts in response and then Tommy puts them to rest. ‘Alright, alright, sit down,’ he says, lighter than you’d expected, ‘unless you’d like to help serve pudding.’

‘If it gets me on the payslip, I’ll consider it,’ you reply, pulling your chair out to sit.

Michael doesn’t acknowledge you still. The plates are cleared, your wine glass is upright again, refilled, and then dessert is brought out. Everything in order as Lizzie’s itinerary no doubt demanded. By the time everyone’s eating again, your outfit is entirely forgotten about. There’s no comment on the plain black dress, no jokes on the white apron that pulls it tight to your waist, no awareness of it at all. You almost regret not wearing the matching hair-band, maybe if you did Michael would have had something more interesting to say.

When the other guests are suitably distracted, he finally leans into you, whispering harshly by your ear. ‘What’re you wearing?’ he asks. You don’t have to see his face to know he’s frowning.

Your eyebrows pinch, gaze on the spoonful of tart that you’re chasing around the plate. It’s very obvious that you’re wearing what the maids wear. It’s a joke, Michael, ever heard of that? ‘My dress is ruined,’ you answer. ‘I’ve left it with Mary to work on the stain.’

‘And you couldn’t find anything else to wear?’

‘No,’ you say firmly. ‘I couldn’t.’

His jaw flexes. He downs the last of his whiskey like it’s laudanum and you’re the ache. He wants to say something, you can see it, but he holds himself back. He shakes his head like he’s knocking it down, forcing it into his throat with the liquor.

After that, the pair of you eat in silence, and when Tommy invites the party to move into one of the more comfortable rooms, you stand in silence too. You let the rest of them go ahead of you. When Polly passes on her way out, she says, ‘That’s something I’d have done when I was your age,’ and even though she’s being friendly, you wish she hadn’t. The last thing you needed now, was to be told that you were acting like your boyfriend’s mother.

You follow the crowd out of the dining room with Michael behind you. Before you can get much further, he catches your wrist, tugging you back and sideways into one of the shorter hallways. It’s dimly lit, a hardly used corridor between rooms that you’d never been to, never even noticed. He sets you against the wall, careful despite the firmness of his grip, and then his hand lifts from your arm to sit flat on the wallpaper by your head.

‘Are you trying to embarrass me?’ he says sourly, words forced over sharp teeth.  

You frown. ‘No? Why would I?’

‘This.’ His chin dips and lifts again, gesturing to the uniform. He isn’t sneering but it’s implied.

‘I had to wear something, Michael.’ You had no idea it would offend him so much. You hadn’t even considered that it’d upset him, embarrass him. It was a stupid joke and a way out of a wine-stained dress.

He breathes heavily through his nose. He’s close, very close. The heat coming off him is warming you too, making the skin beneath your collar sticky with sweat. He lets his gaze sink down your body, then drags it up again, slowly.

‘What’s the problem?’ you ask.

He doesn’t answer. His eyes find yours and harden, the angles of his jaw setting like he’s forcing it to. Oh. Oh, you think, oh, that’s what this is. It doesn’t offend him, he isn’t insulted. He’s embarrassed because you’ve found something out about him, you’ve brought something to the surface that he hadn’t even known himself, and you’d done it in front of his family, without warning.

You smile. It stretches slowly across your cheeks as the realisation solidifies. ‘Does this turn you on, Michael?’ you tease. ‘It that what it is?’

His eyes squint slightly but he says nothing. That’s a mistake — his silence just encourages you, dares you to push it further. You’re right. Now you know you are. You see it in the sharpness behind his expression, in the weighted breaths against your skin. In the way he steels himself before you.

‘Who would have thought?’ you purr, tilting your hips forward.

You catch the material of your dress at the waist, pinching it, so that your movement pulls the hem up your legs. His chin drops. The dress is bunched enough to reveal your thighs, just high enough to show the top seam of your stockings. With his free hand, he pushes carelessly under the apron and lifts, scrunching it by your hip to give him a better view. The air puffs out of his nose like he’s breathing manually, like if he doesn’t force it he’ll stop all together.

‘Have I embarrassed you, Mr. Gray?’ you drip, honey pouring from your mouth, sinking into him like an opiate. It’s new, but it’s easy. It comes naturally. Perhaps it’s always been like this; without you realising, without you caring. A power imbalance that you both liked.

You’re looking at his lashes when his eyes dart back to you. ‘Stop it,’ he warns. The apron falls down again, his hand pulls away from the wall. ‘Don’t.’

‘Why?’ You’re enjoying it too much to pay any attention to his order. ‘Would you prefer I call you Sir?’

He swallows. You bite down on your lip as you wait for a response, half-convinced that he’s about to storm away and leave you there. Then, slowly, slowly like he’s fighting and losing, letting it flood the cracks, letting it pull him under, he leans into you. His palm cups your cheek. His head drops to put his mouth just below your chin, angled and ready by your neck.

‘Say it again,’ he coaxes, voice rough over your throat.

Your breath shakes, quiet, fragile from your mouth. ‘Say what, sir?’

He exhales sharply but it catches, and for a moment it sounds like he’s growled. Your Michael, growling, with his breath hot and heavy against you. If you took drugs, this would be yours, this would be your fix. You run your hand up his side, under the jacket and over the waistcoat.

‘Do you like it, sir?’ you ask.

‘Fuck.’ The words drags out of him, scrapes through his teeth like he hasn’t realised. ‘Bring it home,’ he says, pulling his face up to look at you. He looks serious, so serious, and so desperate that it should be ridiculous.

‘What?’

‘The dress,’ he answers tightly, ‘the outfit. Bring it home with you.’

You’ve won. Somehow, you’ve won. You’d put on a uniform you had no right to wear, and now Michael was begging for you to bring it home. Desperate to have you like this, again, just for him. And you would, of course you would, you’d be an idiot to deny him something like that. To deny something so mutually beneficial. You’d get your dress back from Mary, and thank her kindly, and then take the maid’s clothes home without saying anything else. But, that was no fun now, that didn’t see to the ache that had started to build between your legs. That didn’t feed the hunger. You had Michael alone, in a darkened corridor, needy and tightroping between disciplines, teetering on the edge of his restraint. That’s too rare, too good to lose. You won’t let it end yet.

Instead, you pout your bottom lip and say, ‘Don’t you want me now? Did I do something wrong, sir?’

He groans, eyes rolling to the ceiling.

You’re impatient so, tiring of the gap, you pull him forward so that your hips are together. He’s hard, you realise, taut against his trousers. You’ve barely touched him and already he wants you, his body craves the way yours does. ‘Kiss me,’ you say messily, quickly, forgetting all about the persona you’d adopted. ‘Kiss me, Mikey.’

‘Hm?’ he hums, putting his other hand to your face, holding you still as he settles his attention on you again. He pushes back until your spine is straightened along the wall. ‘What was that?’

The slip in character hadn’t gone unnoticed. It’d broken the tension enough to give him the upper hand, to finally let him make his play.

‘You don’t talk to me like that,’ he says. ‘Do you?’ The words pour out of him thickly, whiskey and languid control melting across your cheeks, over your lips.

‘Sorry, sir,’ you reply.

Now, it was your own breath that came stiffly, unwilling to move of its own accord. Your chest rises against his because you tell it to. The pressure from his crotch grows, firm and wanting against the dip in your hip.

His tongue runs between his lips once. He’s following your expression carefully, noting each shift, each hesitation. He can see you’re cracking, you’re sure of that. The look he has is the look of a man who’s already won. One that has want he wants, but enjoys the sport of taking it. He puts his nose to the hair by your ear and breathes in deeply, sending goosebumps along your skin. ‘Ask properly,’ he says, his voice low, rumbling.

You swallow quickly. You’re flushing hot. There’s fire in you, flames curling and rising, pulling upwards from your thighs, your stomach, swallowing your heart before it can stutter a beat. ‘Please,’ you start, ‘please kiss me, sir.’

‘Better.’

His eyelids flutter once, as he looks to your lips, and then he’s kissing you. Hard. Harder than he has for a while.

Your hands go to his wrists, hanging onto him as he holds you, as he kisses you into the wall, into the house, through the brickwork and into Elysium. You moan against him and he pushes his tongue into your mouth, wanting more. Needing more.

‘Not a sound,’ he pants as he pulls away. His grip on your face disappears and then his hands are on your thighs, roughly, desperately. His palms settle behind your knees and tug them up, lifting your legs off the ground and putting them around his waist instead. He takes your weight like it’s nothing; uses his hips and his own body against you to keep you upright, between him and the wall. ‘Not a fucking sound, right?’

You nod, frantic, already reaching for him again, already pushing your mouth to his for the taste. For the whiskey. For the heat and the need, and the tongue between your teeth, for his cock, hard and ready against the softest part of you.

He pushes the dress up abruptly, piling it and the apron over your stomach. ‘I want to hear you say it,’ he breathes, forcing it between kisses. ‘Say you’ll keep quiet.’ His touch is searing, alight with something so untapped, it’s raw. Primal.

‘I’ll be quiet, sir,’ you answer pliantly. Willingly. He could ask anything of you now and you’d give it to him, you’d bleed it into his palm like molten silver. ‘Please fuck me,’ you beg. ‘Please, sir.’

He growls again and this time it’s on purpose. His face buries into your neck, into the base of your throat. He kisses the skin hungrily, wet and biting, lustful. He takes you and you let him, you invite him to, because you always have wanted it, the imbalance. The game was fake but the power is real, the submission is honest. Cultivated. It was him over you, always, and you liked that. You wanted that more than anything and now you had it, scorching between your fingers. Burning you into the wallpaper.

You moan; his hand goes to your mouth firmly, flat palm against your lips. An order without words. Quiet, he says, stay quiet. All you have to do is oblige.

[leviiattacks]

Two Faced | Chapter Seven

↳ levi ackerman, the very person who was about to kindly behead you by a surprising turn of events manages to become your loving husband? you would be elated if this was true love, but it’s all thanks to a mysterious magic spell that your life is spared, for now at least.

pairing :: duke!levi x duchess!reader genre :: royal au ??? (at this point idek) angst, fluff, slice of life etc ?? word count :: 2.6k author note :: ofc the reader would still be considered to be a duchess which is why it’s duchess!reader but i guess there’s just more themes of war and titans etc than i expected. so i guess it’s also cadet!reader ?? i promise i have a plan OK! T___T. anyways i hope that’s alright and not very confusing the original premise very much still stands!! :D also i promise levi gets better maybe soon who knows... → click here for the next part ! 

It's understandable why she's noticeably alarmed by the shift in behaviour, the concept of Levi showing any inclination towards caring about you is foreign to the both of you.

"The Duke has also been asking me and Mikasa the most peculiar questions too."

You blink. "What sorts of questions?"

"Ones concerning your past" She begins and your curiosity piques. "Asked if you ever mentioned anything about your old life. Basic information, I don't understand why he would ask now."

"He asked about me?" You question incredulously. This is surreal.

Bobbing her head up and down you stare closely at her trying to figure out if she's serious and she passes your test with flying colours.

You don't know if you should be nervous or afraid, perhaps he shifted back to his loving self for a while? Thousands of explanations surge past you but you can't pinpoint what exactly could have caused him to ask such questions. As far as you know, he's never been interested in you unless a transaction has been involved. That's all it's been since he snapped out of the spell. A purely transactional relationship.

Sasha places a firm hand on your shoulder "Talk to him, figure out what's going on." Her suggestion makes you shudder, frankly you're fearful around him after the events of yesterday night.

Whatever sick and twisted mind game he's playing at you won't let yourself become prisoner to it.

"No," You shake your head simply. "This is another one of his stealthy tactics, I won't give into it out of desperation."

"All the more reason to question where his morals lay." Sasha is persistent. The anxiety is burning itself into your body and it's tough to disregard its presence.

If there's one thing you have learnt in your lifetime it's to put trust in as little people as possible. You have your confidants and are dedicated to keeping your friendships with them. Sasha and Mikasa are loyal at heart and their steadfast nature is incomparable. But, they are anomalies. As much as you would like to admit that there are many diamonds similar to those two you can't.

It's rare to find reliable individuals in this harsh reality full of wealth, jealousy and power hungry survival. Levi, is a man you refuse to put even an ounce of trust into.

Putting any faith in him is hazardous. His unflappable demeanour, self-control, the knack he has for long-winded and gradual manipulation. Distant, bitter and calculating. You think he wouldn't care less if you were to drop dead this instant. In reality you aren't a human being to him, simply a problem out of the very many he already has. So why the sudden interest? Why? What is it he's after this time?

You've signed your life away to this empire under the ruse of becoming an informant. You're risking your life for him. What more does he want to coax out of you?

Those are the thoughts that scuttle past you as you pace in one of the very many hallways within the estate. Your initial destination had been his office but you retreat. For now you choose to withdraw from a battle of words. You aren't prepared.

But life has a way of never letting you pick when you encounter him.

The sound of footsteps behind you is a blunt indicator he's near but you let your naivety pray it's simply a maid. "Cadet." And there he is. Snarling behind your ear, breath blazing.

Cadet?

He must be able to tell you don't recognise the name which rolls off his tongue, especially when the two of you aren't in a professional setting, its placement is odd.

"What? Do you think you're worthy of a better term?" He's taunting you, disgusted that you're dense enough to think you're deserving of any other title.

Arms clasped behind his back he takes a long stride forward, you take a step back in response, he steps forward again and you move in the opposite direction again.

"I'm not used to it that's all. I know I am no Duchess."

His raspy voice creeps into your ear "Get used to it. You are my subordinate, don't assume this is a level playing field."

"Do you hop into all of your cadet's beds very often Sir?"

The question comes out of nowhere and as soon as the words have left your lips you slap your palms over your mouth taken aback just by how easy it is for the impulsive side of your brain to defy him.

"Really?" He asks darkly, and when you narrow your eyes in bewilderment, he coughs, clearing his throat to begin again. "Are you willing to bring this up right now?"

He's as close as ever now, if he moves an inch closer his nose will brush against yours, it suddenly feels difficult to breathe but you swallow the struggle away still unsure if you can force yourself to reply to his question. Is there a right or wrong answer?

For once, you choose to be selfish and put your interests before anyone else's even if that means risking your safety in the process. You just want to understand for once how his brain works.

Balling your fists into two you manage to squeak out what you've been holding back "Do you pry into the personal life of each and every one of your cadets or does that special rule only seem to apply to me?"

"Do you give all of your cadets random days off?"

"Do you-"

He grabs the back of your ponytail with his gloved hands, his skin isn't directly touching yours but the firm grip he has on you doesn't stop your cheeks from flooding with warmth. Fumbling around you're about to scream when he pulls at your hair again jestingly, his other arm moves to securely hold you keeping you stuck in the position you're in.

"Levi." You squirm around awkwardly trying to escape his grasp but he doesn't find this at all amusing.

"Captain." His firm correction catches you off guard.

"Sorry. Captain." Your throat is dry as you croak out the short reply.

Straightening your back you try to shake off the hold he has on your hair but he only tugs your head backwards warning you. Your bare neck is exposed and his eyes slip to your half done buttons. Rolling his eyes he knows if it were any other male member of the corps even the oh so respectable and mature Erwin Smith who caught you like this they would fantasize about how you look underneath that flimsy button up. It's now slipping down one of your shoulders.

Moving the arm that has been holding you down he jerks the fabric back up your shoulder.

"I was under that spell of yours. You're naive to think there's any other reason." He returns venomously, his voice is dripping in poison determined to exterminate any of the attitude you've shown him in the past two minutes.

"Why all the questions about my personal life? I was informed you interrogated a few of my friends."

He tugs at your hair again, you tilt backwards. "What do you hope to get out of this? Find out I have some sort of secret feelings for you?"

In the blink of an eye your bubble has been burst, deep down you did hope that was what this was about. It's not that you would like for him to love you, you wouldn't mind it but, if he loves you your safety is guaranteed that's all that matters. That's what you tell yourself. You don't miss the old him no you don't.

The colour drains from your face when you hear what he has to say afterwards.

"Adorable." His tone is spiked in mockery. "How fond you are of me, but I have no interest in the likes of you."

Heart leaping to your throat the simmering rejection settles.

"And. If you must know, you were given a day off today because Hange insisted every cadet have a day of rest before we all relocate to the training facility's dorms." You curse yourself, the transfer had slipped your mind completely.

"Got it? Fucking prissy princess." The expletive makes you wince.

Then he's silent, it's deafening and bizarrely you find his silence all the more daunting and menacing than when he speaks.

Wrestling yourself out of the grasp he has on your hair is your next move but he loosens his grip without being told to.

Levi allows for you to retreat with no further arguments.

And just like that the rare day off goes past as quick as it happens.

You learn that ignoring Levi is your best bet at living a peaceful life within the walls of this Kingdom. Follow the orders he gives you and you almost always guarantee your own safety. Living. Even if it isn't a happy life you are aware there will be some pleasant moments. Living to experience those moments is the only motivation you have.

Erwin has said you would benefit from working with the rest of the cadets more often. It stops them from questioning why you receive personal training - after all they are unaware of the deal stricken up between you and Levi, it's understandable for the influx of questions.

You don't mind, after all training with Mikasa by your side for most of your days sounds more appealing in the long term. It usually gets lonely and tedious being alone. The prospect of being around the other cadets appeals to you too. You haven't actually had the opportunity to speak to very many of them and a few new members have apparently joined the ranks as of today.

Curiosity is kicking in, everyone is mumbling about the new cadets joining the squadron. You count as one of the new additions you suppose, there's no other explanation for why everyone whispers and murmurs as you stroll into the crowded training area with Mikasa by your side.

"Isn't she the one who banged her head?" muffled chuckles are heard but you pay no mind to the expected response, they'll soon be done talking about you when the next person in line embarrasses them self in your place. Levi's sharp tongue has conditioned you to pay no mind to the commentary of the other cadets. Nobody seems to be able to humiliate you in his fashion.

Mikasa doesn't take the same approach as you when greeted by the unwelcoming whispers, instead she whips her head in the direction of the insults, it looks as if she's thinking about careening one of her steel blades at the group just to instill some respect into them but the simple jerk of her body facing them is enough to make them rotate away in panic and curve the topic of discussion elsewhere.

She mutters something unclear under her breath, you would ask her to repeat her sentence but you're sure all she's done is call the boys infantile and stupid for the way they conduct themselves.

Everyone is introducing themselves and you familiarize yourself with some faces. Krista, the human embodiment of a dainty flower, she's as sweet as honey, A brunette ruffles her hair, she seems close to Krista, she doesn't even bother to introduce herself until she tells her too. Ymir, is her name.

Next you acquaint yourself with Connie, he's friendly and more than happy to converse with you, a breathe of fresh air from the cramped nature of the gossiping group from before.

Everything is going smoothly but then you feel a shoulder slink over your arm, it's not Mikasa it doesn't feel like her.

"You know Jean?" Connie is obviously very surprised.

That's when your eyes bulge out of your sockets in complete and utter shock at the slim chances of this possibility ever occurring, of all the people in all of the places, you just so happen to encounter Jean Kirstein again. He's a wildcard that's for sure.

It doesn't even cross your mind to think he could easily rat you out and ask why a noble woman such as yourself is here of all places. In fact, that concern is at the back of your mind far from your attention. You simply smile, happy to see a familiar face. You barely know him personally but from your last encounter you've been able to discern that he's welcoming and sociable.

He's incredibly friendly patting your head and completely bombarding you with questions "I would have never expected someone like you to show up." If it were anyone else you would have taken it as an insult but he's genuinely curious what brings you here, that much is obvious by his tone.

"Likewise Kirstein, I suppose we live in a small world."

You purposefully choose to not reveal much, you don't know who you can and can't trust.

He seems to catch on because he doesn't follow up on his inquiry. Instead he and Connie ask what part of Paradis you're from, what your parents do, all sorts. You're so engrossed in making up a somewhat believable story you don't even realize Kirstein's arm is still slung over your shoulder.

It's only until Hange yells "ATTENTION!" at the front of the training grounds do your notice the close proximity between you and your fellow cadet.

Slowly edging away from him you're swiftly able to detach yourself with no disturbances.

Hange is introducing themself, hands flailing in all directions and eyes wide describing how their additional role is investigating titans, they say if you're lucky enough maybe one day you'll be able to help with one of their secretive experiments. A towering blonde brute nearby whispers that Hange is eccentric and odd, a few others say it's surprising they're a superior.

Sensibly, you bury the frustration you feel down your throat, but God would you love if those childish fools kept their false opinions to themselves.

Erwin and Levi exchange looks probably deciding who speaks afterwards, it seem begrudgingly Levi agrees to take the stand.

The training ground abruptly falls silent.

Levi taking a step forward surveys the area and not once does he bother looking at you.

"Rules." His voice rumbles. "Which you all must follow." His gaze unusually centers in on Jean, you bear witness to how his form begins to tremble. Just one look from the Captain and he's about to dissolve.

The majority of his rules are basic and can easily be predicted, "You are expected to help with the cleaning. If your personal hygiene is that of a pig you may as well walk yourself out of the door now." His silver eyes are stabbing into the front row, most likely because Eren is there. He's apparently missed cleaning duty for two weeks now, it's miraculous how he's escaped unscathed.

After Levi is done wordlessly threatening Eren he rubs his hands together expectantly. Lips quirking up into one of his sharp cut-throat smiles he stares right at Jean. After a moment of silence he speaks with clarity. "No dating between cadets is permitted. No fucking either, sorry to disappoint Kirstein."

Metallic eyes are piercing into his wobbly form again and all of the cadets burst into a rupture of giggles. You too are about to join them. Truthfully, it is laughable that his notorious womanizing reputation is known even to the Captains.

But before you're able to laugh your breathe falters, you can practically feel jagged daggers twisting and digging into you. Quickly before he swiftly looks away you’re able to note Levi's eyes deliberately flick up in your direction, gaze boring into you, it burns.

You feel guilty but don’t know what it is you’ve done to produce such a hostile response.

Nevertheless, you can feel his scrutiny impale you.

[jean-kayak]

Chapter 6

Summary: A relaxing summer at home after your second year of college sounds nice, until someone comes back and makes it anything but

Pairing: Eren Jaeger x black!fem!reader

Warnings: none really, a little suggestive, cursing

A/N: This is once again a filler chapter sort of, but there will be more spicy parts i promise 😂

Word Count: 1753

Tags: @her-majesty-kiara, @iwascrybaby, @styxtm, @bigdaddyzawa, @germfart3, @erensblackgirlfriend​

Chapter Summary: You’re feeling more than conflicted about what you did last night

When you wake up, the first thing you register is the tingling soreness between your legs when you stretch, and it makes you jolt, grimacing slightly before opening your eyes. Which widen when you see where you are.

Your head snaps to the side, not even registering the arm wrapped around your waist, which tightens when you move, and Eren grumbles beside you before nuzzling in his face in your neck, and you stay still until you're sure he's asleep again.

You fight the urge to slap a hand against your forehead, opting to squeeze a hand over your mouth. The events playback in your head and you rub a hand over your face slowly. You slept with him. You fucking slept with him.

You bring your other hand, rubbing both of them down your face, pulling your face with them. God, how could you let this happen? Do you regret it? The fact that you can't answer the question easily is bad, and you have to get out of here.

You carefully slide out from under his arm, freezing to make sure he doesn't wake up, and you get dressed to the best of your ability with the throbbing feeling at your core, thankful that your shirt somehow made its way into his room. You walk to the mirror to make sure you look somewhat presentable, not look you just got fucked by the best dick of your life, and your heart drops in horror when you see marks covering every inch of your skin.

You fight the whine that wants to come out as you fix your twists over your shoulders, hoping that they cover enough, and you collect your stuff before giving Eren one last glance, quickly looking away, knowing that if you look any longer, you're not going to leave.

All you have to do is sneak out. Should be easy enough. You slip out the door, closing it softly behind you before hightailing it to the stairs, your steps quick but light.

"Y/N?" You freeze when you hear Jean's door open, and you pray that most of the marks are covered. "You disappeared last night."

"Yeah, I was feeling a little tired," you respond quickly. "And I'm going to go get in the shower at home, so I'll talk to you later, yeah? And thanks for the party, I really appreciate it." You barely give him time to respond as you practically run down the stairs, grabbing your shoes at the door before rushing out the door, breaking out into a run when you make it outside, and you don't stop running until you're in your room.

You fall down onto your bed, rolling over so that you're facing the ceiling. You just had sex, amazing sex, with someone you were not supposed to, and--shit what about Jean? He saw you walk out of Eren's room or at least saw you coming from that direction. Does he know? He can't know, he'd probably flip the fuck out.

You rub a hand over your face, sighing heavily. You decide that you need to get in the shower, clear your head, and let the warm water run over your body, and every time you close your eyes, images from last night pop into your head, making you open your eyes instantly.

Your fingers brush over the bruises on your hips, and you rest your forehead against the cool tile. Screw Eren and his dick, but the more you think about the more you want to sleep with him again--No!

You don't want to sleep with him again, you can't sleep with him again. That's a bad idea. You're supposed to have a stress-free, dilemma-free summer, and that's nowhere near happening anymore, it hasn't been happening ever since you found out Eren was back.

You let the water run down your face, trying to metaphorically erase the feeling of his hands and lips on your body, and you've never felt more conflicted in your entire life. Your body wants him, and you hate it, it's like it's trying to overrun the voice in your head telling you that it's not a good idea.

The wound that you thought was healed was just opened back up again, and it leaves a weird feeling all over your body. Your brain tells you to drop it so that you can heal again while your body wants to be sadistic and put salt on the wound.

You sigh when you step out of the shower, wiping off the steam on the mirror to figure out how in the hell you're going to cover the marks.

You haven't spoken to Eren since that night, telling Jean to hang out at your house, your reasoning being that you're always at his house. Eren doesn't even text you, call you, or anything. That makes a pit in the bottom of your stomach, and that pathetic feeling from four years ago resurfaces once again, it feeling like a punch in the throat. You certainly don't miss this feeling.

"Hey, you okay?" You jump out of your thoughts, your face meeting Jean's with a look of concern over his.

"Yeah," you say, nodding quickly. "I'm just trying to figure out what else we can do, we can't spend the whole summer at each other's houses."

He shrugs, seeming to take the bait. "I mean, I'm pretty sure we can come up with something."

You shift on the couch, folding your legs under you as you face him, resting an arm on the back of the couch. "You know, you could tell me about Marco." His face turns pink instantly as he shakes his head. "Come on, Jean, it has to be going somewhere," you push, and he shrugs as he rubs the back of his neck.

"I don't know," he says cautiously.

"Hey, you never know unless you try. It seems like he likes you too," you tell him. "Do I need to play matchmaker?" you tease, and he shakes his head. "You sure? Pretty sure I could text him right now," you say, pulling out your phone, and he reaches over the couch to stop you.

"Y/N," he warns, and you chuckle softly as you put your phone down.

"Okay, okay, I'm done," you relent, and he gestures towards you.

"What about you? Anyone in the picture?" You shake your head fast as you wave your hands.

"Absolutely not. I was in a relationship, I guess you could call it, but that ended nearly as soon as it started," you remember, and Jean nods before looking away from you.

"Look, about Eren--"

"It's fine, don't worry about it," you cut him off. "I'm okay now, and it's in the past."

"But he shouldn't have--"

"It was my fault because I fell for it," you cut him off again, and he shakes his head.

"He shouldn't have led you on like that." You sigh, looking at him before you respond, ignoring how this conversation doesn't help the wound close.

"It doesn't matter. It was a while ago, and I'm over it. It'll never happen again," you reply firmly, and he drops it at that. The conversation confirms one thing. That you really won't let it happen again.

You're at Jean's house a couple of days later, and you haven't heard from Eren so you're pretty sure he's either not home or he's just ignoring you. Jean doesn't seem to suspect anything, he's not reacting in any way to indicate that he knows, and you release a breath of relief.

You're playing card games on the floor of the living room, a movie that the both of you occasionally paying attention to playing in the background. You hear the door open, and you assume it's Jean's mom, but his reaction dreadfully tells you differently. You don't turn around, pretending that you didn't hear anyone come in, keeping your attention on the cards in front of you.

Jean does the same thing, and you actually feel like you could do this. It actually doesn't seem that hard to achieve. "I'm going to the bathroom," Jean tells you before he gets up. You didn't take in the fact that you couldn't do it by yourself. You take a deep breath as you nod your head before turning your attention to the movie and your phone.

"So, it does work," you hear come from behind you, and your face changes to confusion, but you don't look at Eren. "I thought your phone was messed up or something."

"What made you think that?" you ask, keeping your back towards him.

"You haven't texted me, like, at all." At the audacity of his words, you turn around, standing quickly to face him.

"You don't get to say that to me. Your phone is working perfectly fine." You feel irritation rising in your chest at his words, shaking your head in disbelief. "What do you want?"

"Aww, come on, you're smarter than that." He smirks, walking towards you, and your tough demeanor starts to shrink. He pulls you into him, the look in his eyes sending a shiver down your spine. "I want you," he says, his voice saying duh.

"Well, I don't want you," you counter, but it comes out weaker than you wanted it to, and he raises his eyebrows at you.

"Really? Well, you were definitely singing a different tune the other night. Screaming, I should say," and you release a deep breath through your nose. "I think it was to the tune of Eren?" He poses it as a question even though he knows it's the truth, and you're more than having a hard time keeping your resolve up.

The sound of footsteps coming down the hallway makes you jump as you push away from him, quickly sitting on the floor as Jean comes into view. You rub a hand over your heated face, keeping your gaze on the cards.

"Eren, could you like, I don't know, fuck off?" you hear Jean say, and Eren responds with a chuckle. You can see him in your peripheral as he walks up the stairs.

"I'll be in my room if you need me to relieve some tension."

"We won't." The innuendo goes over Jean's head, knowing those words were meant for you, and you clear your throat as Jean sits down in front of you.

"How about another round?" Jean offers, and you nod your head as you hand him your cards.

"Sounds good."

|Chapter 5|Masterlist|Chapter 7|

[therosefrontier]

Whumptober Day 5

No. 5 - I’VE GOT RED IN MY LEDGER

betrayal | misunderstanding | broken nose

+++

Genshin Impact | Zhongli and his memories

(crossposted to AO3)

+++

“I met with Azhdaha again yesterday.”

Zhongli started his story while seated on an old stone platform in Guili Plains, a low crumbling stone wall behind him, an ancient tablet the only company by his side. “Virtue grows tall like a tree, though there be shade it will flourish forever,” the dome-shaped tablet read. At times like these, he often wondered at what all the author of those words had in mind when she wrote that.

“I…assumed this would happen, one day. Elemental spirits are nigh immortal beings, and it would be foolishness to assume that a sealed spirit won’t some day find their way out.” Zhongli paused for a moment, his words feeling heavy on his tongue, as if someone really were here that he had to explain this too. “He…left, of his own accord,” he finally said. “His spirit is once again sealed in the mountain. Although, we may very well meet again. I simply might dare to hope that next time, it would be under better circumstances.”

“My life is nigh on eternal. I will go on with the infinite flow of time. And you, Morax... You too will live for many a day to come.”

But Azhdaha would never again be free. This…this was their contract.

Zhongli looked down at his hands and at the ground, the events of many centuries earlier being all too clear in his mind. The events of yesterday were but a brief addendum to what already happened. Azhdaha’s roar of rage and pain, his accusations of treachery, the underlying grim reality of knowing that all of Liyue could be in danger if he didn’t end this here and now…all of that happened, already. Yesterday, Azhdaha was divided, his rage and his benevolence split into two beings. The first time they fought, the benevolent and wise Azhdaha that he once knew was nowhere to be found.

“I never thought I’d be able to speak with him again, like he was. Well, it wasn’t his form necessarily: his consciousness had possessed a random human, but still, once his memories were regained, the words and the voice were most certainly his.” Zhongli smiled weakly. “I must admit, that despite the inherent peril of the situation leading up to this meeting, I was glad. To see him, that is. It…was as if he were still alive.”

 “Rex Lapis, we are at your command,” Moon Carver assured him with great gravity, he and Mountain Shaper and the other watching the approach of the rampaging earth dragon with a steeled gaze, ready to fight.

Rex Lapis hesitated only for a moment. Only for a moment did he allow his heart to twist in pain, did he allow his eyes to lose their vivacity as he looked down from the sky at the dragon who cursed his name through his own unfathomable anguish. There was no solution, he knew. Erosion was something that could not be reversed. But he didn’t want to believe it. Not for Azhdaha. He didn’t want to lose him, too.

“We will lure him into the cave underneath the mountain. Follow my lead.”

 Zhongli found Azhdaha as a spirit sealed deep in the earth, a simple but unique rock without sight or motion. His stirrings had been the cause of many earthquakes and tremblings, so Zhongli thought it fit to draw the spirit of stone up from the earth and grant his wish, to give him a chance to be free in the world outside. They made a contract, then. Zhongli always made a contract, with those he invited to join him. There was only one for him for which such an agreement was delayed…only because at first, he did not know what their partnership was even to be called. It was one of many ways that Guizhong confused him.

But for the great stone dragon, their agreement was clear. If Azhdaha ever endangered Liyue and brought ruin to order, he would once again be sealed in the dark.

Zhongli always kept true to his contracts.

 “Come, I wish to show you something,” Morax beckoned him with a slight smile, bringing his friend up to a ledge overlooking the waters, the sun setting over the mountains in the distance and washing the sky with color.

“What is this?” Azhdaha asked in a deep and booming voice, although its powerful aura was perhaps mitigated by the way he spoke with the curiosity of a child. “I have seen this water before; now it is different?”

Morax chuckled softly. “Take a moment and have a look.”

Azhdaha came up over the ledge with thundering steps. “Your sun looks different. The color has changed. Is it nearing death?”

“No, no, not at all,” Morax explained with a slight touch of amusement. “This is a sunset. The sun will soon disappear over the mountains. You asked last night why the light leaves the sky in such a way. So, I thought I’d bring you here to watch. Of course, the motion of the sun can be observed anywhere, but it carries a different effect, in some locations. The sun will change its color now, but after it disappears, it will come back the next day just as it was before.”

Azhdaha hummed in acknowledgement, then plopping down onto the grass with a shaking of the earth. “So now, we sit and watch?”

“Yes, I say we shall.”

 “Morax, how do I look? Unimposing? Like a true human?”

“You look very well,” Morax agreed with a smile. It was in an elemental spirit’s nature to be able to change shape and form, but this was Azhdaha’s first time doing it on his own. His human form wasn’t exactly all that ‘unimposing,’ being that of a man quite large and broad-shouldered, but he looked enough like a human, at least.

“Mm, that is acceptable.” Azhdaha put his newfound fists on his hips and looked down at the Guili Assembly plaza down below. “It is time to interweave myself with humankind. I wish to first try the foods that people keep telling me about. I do not see the appeal of this ‘Grilled Ticker Fish’ that Pervases speaks of, as it is merely a single fish, but I wish to obtain this first, so that I may give him my full opinion!”

“Sounds like a suitable plan,” Morax agreed with a nod. “Then, let’s not keep our human and adepti friends waiting.”

 Zhongli remembered his form then, strong with a youthful wonder that wizened into ancient wisdom over the passage of time. It was so startingly unlike the form half of him took yesterday, of a child with a bitter glare in her eyes.

“So here lies the wisdom of the gods? Destroy all deemed redundant, enlist tyrants to ravage the wilderness!” Jiu mocked in her (his) fury.

Zhongli had a contract to keep. He had to seal Azhdaha away. There was no choice.

“Is once not enough!? You would forsake me again!?”

It wasn’t what he wanted. But was there…really nothing he could have done? If he had stopped the humans from mining in the Chasm, if he had noticed the change in Azhdaha, if he had just taken the time out of his duties to pay him a visit, then maybe…

“Erosion ground Azhdaha’s consciousness into oblivion. Slowly, he forgot the face of his old friend, and his memories of defending Liyue Harbor disintegrated,” Azhdaha in Kun Jun’s vessel recounted his own story with a faint smile of regret.

Zhongli couldn’t stop erosion.

And yet…he mourned what came to pass.

Zhongli had known, for a very long time, that he would never again be able to mourn as a mortal would. Azhdaha was far from the only one he has lost to time and conflict. The name he called him, “Morax,” was a stark reminder of this, that name which he had walked away from a long time ago but never truly shed. Morax was a god of war, a slayer of thousands. Morax had for a long, long time grown used to the bloodshed that was Liyue’s reality, as god fought against god in the Archon War and sacrificed hoards of soldiers as pawns. Morax felt no disgust or horror when he walked through a battlefield after the fight was over, stepping over bodies and walking through pools of blood and entrails as he coldly assessed the damage done.

In some ways, Rex Lapis was no different. For that matter, neither was Zhongli. Although his thoughts on war had changed—he would avoid it through the employment of contracts and words, if at all possible—he could never feel the same revulsion towards death and bloodshed as a human would.

Rex Lapis saw many scores of yaksha and other adepti swear fealty to him over the millennia. They would give him their loyalty, and he would make a contract with them, and he would know, because of how many times it had happened already, that they might give their lives in his service. They might fall to the evil that plagues the land in battle, or they may be consumed by the very filth they faithfully eradicated. Rex Lapis did not consider their deaths to be meaningless, nor did he ever wish to sacrifice his subjects as a pawn of war, but…he might have accepted, at some point long ago, that such deaths were inevitable and necessary.

He could not mourn as a human would—or rather, as a human without authority might. A war god had to know, lest he be blind, that he was sending his people to possible death.

He bore that weight, and he accepted that responsibility.

But in that responsibility…what did that mean for Azhdaha? Whose soul was crushed not by the many battles they fought together, but by the erosion of the earth itself?

He was sealed forever by Zhongli’s own hands. That was their contract. That was justice.

He always kept his contracts. No matter the price, no matter what he had to do…even if it was a pact paid in blood with Celestia, he did what he must for the sake of Liyue…

But was it true? Did Zhongli, in that near-final meeting, betray Azhdaha?

“I did what I must,” he spoke again to the stone tablet, cold and motionless despite the warm words inscribed upon it. “Virtue grows tall like a tree, though there be shade it will flourish forever.” But how did one define what “virtue” meant? How much of this “shade” was acceptable? This increasing debt, made in blood…

“His anger, however, does seem justified, in a certain way.”

“Guizhong?” He looked up, a small drop forming in his near-human eyes. “Did I do the right thing?”

[elyvorg]

Maki Harukawa: What She Wants Matters

As much as I love Maki and her character arc, I didn’t use to think there was any need for me to do a big analytical ramble about her like the one I did for Kaito. After all, Maki’s arc is very clear and in-the-open thanks to Kaito encouraging her to talk about things. Look at her opening up and making friends and learning to trust people and be trusted herself! It’s lovely to behold.

But I realised as I thought more about Maki that there is a part of her arc that’s a lot subtler and likely gets noticed and talked about a lot less, which is a shame when it’s possibly the most interesting aspect of her issues and development. I’m referring to how difficult it is for her to believe that her own feelings and desires are important in any way, and the series of events that pushes her into finally acknowledging this and beginning to embrace what she wants for herself.

So let’s talk about this. Because just like everything that goes on inside Maki’s head, it matters, and it deserves to be talked about.

Her feelings don’t matter

Throughout chapters 3 and 4, Maki gradually makes a lot of progress in opening up to Kaito and Shuichi about herself: the people she’s killed, the horribly gruelling training she’s been through, and eventually even her happy days back at the orphanage before her life became hell. But one aspect lags noticeably behind compared to her just talking about these things, and that’s her ability to acknowledge how she feels about any of this.

Maki repeatedly calls her stories about her horrible past “boring”. Really, they couldn’t be further from that – it’s heartbreaking learning how much suffering she’s been through – but she genuinely doesn’t expect Kaito and Shuichi to be having any kind of emotional response to hearing it all. She has so thoroughly convinced herself that her suffering doesn’t matter that it doesn’t occur to her for a second that anybody else might think it does – not even the people she’s just about beginning to accept are seeing her as a friend. There’s also the way she has a habit of calling Shuichi’s expression “gross”, specifically whenever he shows signs of caring about her feelings and seeing her as a person. She’s trying to write off his concern for her, because no, that’s not a thing he’s supposed to be doing. Her feelings don’t matter. Nobody else – not even someone who might be her friend – is supposed to care.

You’d think, when people found out her talent and became afraid of her, the most obvious way for Maki to defend herself would have been to explain that she never chose her profession and was basically forced into it against her will. Yet it never even crosses her mind to say that. It’s only more than a chapter later, in the chapter 4 training session where she talks about her past at length, that Maki finally fully admits for the first time that she never had a choice in becoming an assassin. But even then, she says it offhandedly, like that fact doesn’t ultimately matter or change anything.

There’s also a comment Maki makes in early chapter 5 about how killing for a living makes her no better than the evil sadist that they’re assuming Kokichi is. She genuinely doesn’t think the fact that she didn’t choose this and doesn’t enjoy murdering people counts for anything in terms of judging how good of a person she is in light of all her murders. That’s so heartbreaking? Of course that makes her a significantly less terrible person than a hypothetical sadist who kills just for fun!

There’s no way out

This whole problem is illustrated even more clearly in Maki’s final free time event. It might seem like a positive sign of progress that the event ends on Maki saying that maybe she’ll be able to quit being an assassin one day, but the way she approaches this possibility is so painfully telling about how messed-up she still is. And this FTE takes place as late in the story as chapter 5’s Daily Life, because Maki still isn’t going to get anywhere with this part of her issues until the fifth trial.

In the FTE, Shuichi offers to use his detective skills to investigate and maybe take down her assassin cult so she won’t have to kill people any more, and Maki instantly tells him that’s impossible. She explains that assassins are currently a necessary evil in this world and suggests instead that Shuichi should try to change the world enough such that nobody ever resorts to murder any more. Only then, Maki concedes, she might be able to stop being an assassin.

Which is a monumentally worse way to approach getting her out of her profession than what Shuichi was suggesting, and completely missing the point. Some assassins exist who actually willingly chose that job for whatever reason, and they should be the only people who “need” to do it. Even if assassins might be necessary, child slave assassins who never had a choice in the matter are very decidedly not. Taking down Maki’s one single child-slave-assassin-training cult is absolutely the simplest and most achievable way to help her.

But Maki doesn’t see it that way, because the fact that she personally never wanted this has never crossed her mind as relevant at all. If Shuichi asks her “but are you okay with this?”, Maki tells him that question is unreasonable and cannot answer it. It’s really a very simple question – the answer is no, obviously! – but Maki has trained herself to block out her own feelings about her situation and write them off as unimportant and irrelevant, so thoroughly that her mind just short-circuits and returns an error message when she’s asked about them.

The reason Maki’s like this, the reason that this is the hardest thing for her to change, is that this is the coping mechanism she’s had no choice but to develop. Trapped in her awful situation with absolutely no possible way out of it as far as she could see (she was ten years old), all of her thoughts and feelings about how badly she didn’t want this would have been just too painful for her to deal with. The only way she could cope was by locking those desires and feelings away and convincing herself that they don’t matter. She’s just had to resign herself to this. When there’s genuinely no escape, nobody could bear to keep fighting against it forever. It’s so much easier to just stop trying, and to forget that you ever wanted to try in the first place.

Maki has grown up telling herself that the impossible is just impossible, so she should accept it and get used to things the way they are. Trying to make it possible is futile and will only lead to more pain.

This is precisely one of the many reasons why Kaito is such a good influence for her and exactly the kind of person she needs to help her out of this!

She killed Kaito, and she definitely doesn’t care

…Or, at least, he might have been, perhaps – if she hadn’t gone and killed him.

After what I imagine was a huge emotional breakdown over the events in the hangar, Maki pulled herself together and suppressed that pain as hard as she could. She’s so well-practiced at doing so that the next morning – the morning after she killed her closest friend – she appears to be just about the same as ever. Even as they find Kaito’s body even more horrifically dead than she was expecting to see it, Maki firmly insists that his death doesn’t bother her.

It’s that same coping mechanism she always uses, for exactly the same reasons. This reality can’t be changed, and thinking about how she wanted things to be different only causes pointless unnecessary pain, so she doesn’t. She can’t. She just accepts things the way they are and convinces herself she’s fine with it.

Maki refuses to investigate with Shuichi not only because she doesn’t want him to figure out she’s the culprit, but also because Shuichi keeps infuriatingly talking as if Kaito might be alive – and as if she should want Kaito to be alive. She just can’t bear to be brought anywhere near those kinds of thoughts about what she might want when she knows that it’s already impossible.

Later in the trial, while fervently arguing that having broken into the hangar doesn’t mean she’s the one who killed Kaito, at no point does Maki ever try to defend herself on the basis that she would never want to kill him. Nobody has brought up the possibility that Kaito’s death could have been accidental at this point, so it would be a sensible argument to make. Granted, arguments about someone’s character and motives aren’t the most concrete ones to make in a class trial, but Maki has to know that it would be likely to give Shuichi pause, because there’s no way he’d want to think that Maki would do that either.

But no. Of course that’s an irrelevant argument to make. What Maki wants never matters, especially when it comes to her having killed someone. She’s just a murderer, and Shuichi should accept that she could just as easily have murdered anybody at all, even if it’s Kaito, no matter how she might hypothetically feel about it.

Even as Maki is confessing to the truth of what happened in the hangar and it becomes clear that her shooting Kaito with the poison arrow was an accident, she never actually directly mentions that she didn’t mean to kill him. She talks only very indirectly about the panic she felt while rushing to get the antidote, without properly expressing why she was so desperate. It’s only “I knew I had to do something about the poison,” and not, “I couldn’t let Kaito die.”

It just hurts too much for her to think of it that way when Kaito still died anyway because of her, and nothing will change that truth.

…Kaito’s alive!?

Until, out of nowhere, maybe something can.

If Shuichi still thinks it could be possible for Kaito to be alive, then maybe it actually is. The fact that Maki listens to him as soon as he expresses this is a subtle but huge testament to how much she believes in her friend’s detective skills. She only ignored Shuichi’s optimism earlier because she knew a lot more than he did about what happened in the hangar, and she didn’t see any possible way out for Kaito from where she was standing. But now that he knows that same information, Shuichi can still see a way out after all.

Maki puts her faith in his judgement and latches onto that tiny possibility that Kaito might be alive with everything she has. She refuses to let it go, despite Exisal Kokichi – aka Kaito himself – continuing to insist it’s totally impossible. I bet Kaito made a point of claiming it was impossible in a deliberate attempt to spur Maki to argue otherwise, and he must have been bursting with pride in her when she went and did exactly that. The impossible is possible! Maki Roll is finally believing that for herself! She’s finally trying to claw and fight her way into a better reality instead of just accepting the awful one she’s stuck in!

An equally important and absolutely lovely part of this is Maki finally expressing the fact that she didn’t want to kill Kaito, that she hates the thought that she did that. Based on her wording and her hesitant tone, it’s still difficult for her to admit it, but she’s finally doing so. It’s not quite so unbearably painful to think about when it might not be the truth after all. And it’s so wonderfully appropriate that this is the first moment we ever see Maki cry – she’s finally letting herself acknowledge and express her painful emotions and feel like they matter.

She also openly admits for the first time that she likes the nickname Maki Roll, not just begrudgingly accepting it, but actively asking Himiko to call her that! She’s desperate for anything that’ll remind her of Kaito and help her hold onto what she felt like back when he was alive, so that she can keep believing that maybe he still is. Maki is finally beginning to embrace how much she cares about Kaito and treat that fact like it’s important and deserves to be acknowledged, and it’s adorable.

Half a lifetime’s worth of forcing herself to just accept her lot as an assassin and ignore how desperately she wants to be a normal kid was always going to be nigh-impossible to break through on its own. But caring about Kaito and not wanting to lose him are new feelings that Maki hasn’t spent half her life suppressing. She only had a single night to shut away her pain over Kaito’s death and accept that he’s definitely gone – it’s far easier for that to be undone. The moment a tiny glimmer of a possibility opens up again thanks to her belief in Shuichi, Maki couldn’t ignore it if she tried.

Maki’s arguments for Kaito’s survival aren’t even all that logical. Her statements in the Nonstop Debate about the video are too caught up in what if it wasn’t Kaito? to make any meaningful suggestions like everyone else is; she insists the weird video angle “proves” a trick was used when really it only opens up the possibility; she’s the first one to hastily summarise everyone’s discussion about the video trick and just get to the point that this means Kaito’s still alive, right? Maki’s usually one of the best at taking the rational approach in trials and focusing on all the logistical details, but right now she doesn’t even care about any of that stuff, not when Kaito being alive is what she wants to be true, more than anything else in the world.

It would hurt so much for this to all be for nothing and for Kaito to turn out to be dead after all. Holding onto this hope is such a huge risk, and it’s terrifying – but it’s worth it. Even the tiniest chance of Kaito being alive is infinitely better than the alternative, no matter how terrifying it is. Whether she likes it or not, or even realises it at all, this experience is teaching Maki that fighting for that tiny possibility of something better, no matter how much it hurts, is always worth the pain.

Maki’s desperate defence of Kaito leading into her Argument Armament, though she doesn’t admit it and keeps trying to insist her argument is logical, is also her acting on her emotions. Her only real reason for it is simply that she doesn’t want to believe Kaito could have killed anyone.

And the only way for her to run away from that is to insist that she really did kill Kaito after all – which incidentally forces her to express a narrative of “this happened even though I didn’t want it to,” and not brush that latter part off like it’s irrelevant. This time it’s just a lie, but this is nonetheless a very important kind of narrative that Maki needs to learn to understand and accept. Sometimes things happen that she wishes never had, but that doesn’t mean that the fact she didn’t want it never mattered!

Losing Kaito after all

Maki is forced to learn this even more harshly at the end of the trial. Kaito’s alive, she didn’t kill him, he’s right here – but he’s dying anyway and there’s not a thing she or anybody else can do about it.

The Maki from before all this happened would have just given up, accepted it, and immediately begun insisting to herself that she doesn’t care in order to cope. Kaito is clearly a dead man walking on two separate levels – his illness and the execution – and changing his fate at this point really is completely and truly impossible. Maki is a smart and pragmatic person; she knows this perfectly well.

But the Maki who’s here now refuses to let that stop her from trying. She’s furiously determined to fight the Exisals to protect Kaito, despite knowing that even her assassin skills aren’t enough for that, despite knowing that Kaito is sick and dying anyway no matter what she does. She doesn’t want this, so she’s going to claw and scream and fight against it with everything she has, no matter how futile her efforts will be in the end. I love her line, “I don’t want this to end… I just… don’t…” – the only reason why she’s doing this is that she doesn’t want Kaito to die, and that’s the only reason she should ever need.

Amongst all this, Maki desperately admits to her romantic feelings for Kaito, because even if this can’t do anything to change his fate, her feeling this way about him still matters and she’s still feeling it and it deserves to be said. She’s not even really saying it for Kaito’s benefit like she expects a response from him about it; she’s just saying it for her own sake, because she wants to make it real.

Usually I’m the first person to roll my eyes and lose interest when romance rears its head. Yet I can actually appreciate the fact that Maki’s feelings for Kaito have a romantic aspect to them, because it makes this moment work for Maki’s arc in ways that it wouldn’t if her feelings were purely platonic.

Kaito was obviously always trying to get Maki to consider him a friend, so her having done that is still essentially her just doing what someone else wanted of her, like always, albeit at least someone who has her best interests at heart for once. But Kaito never asked or expected Maki to fall in love with him. Maki’s romantic feelings came from nowhere but herself. And while that in itself can’t quite be called her “choice” because that’s not how romantic attraction works, Maki accepting and embracing those feelings to make them a part of her and let them drive her actions is entirely her own choice. It’s a choice nobody else, not even Kaito, encouraged her to make. That’s such a huge, huge deal coming from her.

Maki caring about Kaito as a friend is something that was already pretty apparent from her actions and never really needed to be said. But her caring about him romantically was something that nobody would have known (Tsumugi’s incidentally-right-for-all-the-wrong-reasons amatonormative bullshit aside) if Maki hadn’t decided that it mattered enough to want to express it.

Maybe she manages to admit to all this now because she hated having to suppress all her feelings about Kaito like they didn’t even matter the last time he “died” on her, helping her realise just how important these feelings are to her and that she can’t bear to just ignore that any more. Kaito has been so, so good for her; of course she wouldn’t want to lose that, nor brush it off like it’s nothing.

Seeing him about to die for real this time with no way out, Maki’s probably also driven by some desperate irrational sense that if she just explodes with all of the exact reasons why she doesn’t want this to happen, maybe it somehow just… won’t? This is the very opposite of the lock-it-all-away coping mechanism she’s been employing for a lifetime, and even as it’s heartwrenching, it’s also so lovely to see her doing this.

Maki partly tries to cover up these emotions of hers at first with her fierce assassin mask. She’s still instinctively using her usual defences to try and block out some of the pain, but it’s not enough to stop her expressing things, nor to stop her from crying as she does so. As Kaito responds to it all by showing his usual painfully selfless pride in how far she’s come and can keep going from here, making it all about her and not himself, Maki finally seems to fully accept that there really is nothing she can do to save him, and she drops the assassin mask and just breaks down completely.

Kaito is inescapably about to die, even though she doesn’t want this, and both of those facts are allowed to co-exist. She lets it hurt; she lets herself cry over his death, because no matter how painful it is, it’s worth it. It’s so much better than pretending she never cared about Kaito and all the things he did for her. Maki tried doing that once, and she’s never going there again.

In their Kaito memorial training session after the trial, it’s such a big deal that Maki is the one to nudge Shuichi into talking about how he’s feeling and how much it hurts. She’s finally realising and learning for herself that opening up about her painful feelings can help, and by sharing that with Shuichi, she’s helping him deal with his grief, too. She resolves to honour Kaito’s memory by showing how grateful she is for everything he did for her, not even because that’s what Kaito would have wanted her to do, but just because she wants to for herself.

It’s all “fake”

But losing Kaito isn’t quite the end of Maki’s arc regarding all this. There’s still a little further for her to be pushed in trial 6.

When Shuichi reveals in the trial that Kokichi wasn’t actually a Remnant of Despair, Maki is subtly the most shocked out of anybody to hear this. She never explains why, but knowing what we know about her issues with never having her own desires and always being used as a puppet by somebody else, it’s clear that that’s what this is about.

Maki thought that her decision to kill Kokichi was her own. She even still basically kept thinking of it that way even after learning he wasn’t the mastermind, and even after realising that the Flashback Light was a motive designed to make her target Kokichi. After all, she’d have chosen on her own to kill a Remnant of Despair anyway; the Flashback Light just happened to let her know Kokichi was one, right? But upon realising that none of that was true, that there was no genuine, non-fabricated reason for her to kill Kokichi at all, it shakes Maki to her core.

It wasn’t really her decision, on any level. She was finally beginning to feel, after Kaito’s trial, that her desires were her own and they meant something – but here’s a sudden revelation proving that this action of hers that she thought was entirely of her own volition was never that at all. It was nothing but her being manipulated and used as a puppet to kill by someone with far more power than her, just like she always has been.

(Maki also overlooks the implications of Kokichi’s motive video during the investigation, even though she’s in the room when Shuichi watches it, meaning she should have seen it and been able to figure out what it meant by herself. The sad truth is that because of her background of suppressing her own desires and ideas, Maki is very susceptible to manipulation. She was quite happy to believe that Kokichi was a Remnant of Despair, because it justified her decision to kill him and made the whole situation easier to deal with. There was no way she was going to question that assumption on her own.)

Similarly, when Tsumugi boasts that the Flashback Lights were being used to control everyone’s emotions and motivations, Maki again sounds more distressed by this idea than anybody else. She thought her determination to “defeat despair” was her own desire, but really, none of it was. In this instance, that’s basically true, but hearing as such is especially painful for Maki. It hits her right in her issues and the progress she was beginning to make about feeling like her own person, making her wonder if she really even is at all.

This gets even more painful for her a little later, as Tsumugi goes right for where it hurts and insists that Maki’s romantic feelings for Kaito were just artificially implanted by a Flashback Light, never truly “real”. Tsumugi probably did this because she thinks that ~romance~ is so much more important than friendship and obviously Maki must be soooo sad to lose that – but that’s not the reason why Maki’s distressed by it at all. It’s because, as I went over before, Maki’s romantic feelings for Kaito were supposed to be hers and something nobody else wanted of her and that she chose to embrace and make a part of her, all by herself. Hearing that actually they just came from some evil asshole manipulating her and using her as a puppet yet again – it tears right into all of the progress that these feelings themselves had been helping her begin to make. Maki’s emotions and desires matter after all? No, they don’t. They were never even hers in the first place. They were never even real.

Someone more self-assured than Maki (such as Kaito) would have been able to stand up for their own feelings here and call Tsumugi’s claim out as the bullshit it obviously is. Even if her feelings were implanted, they would still matter just as much because she’d still be feeling them now – but also, there’s a mountain of evidence for the fact that Maki’s romantic feelings for Kaito were in fact completely real and organically arose throughout her interactions with him. She made it very clear as she confessed to them at the end of trial 5 that this is all about the kind of person Kaito is and the things he’s done for her. That’s where her romantic feelings arose from, and all of that was entirely real and happened after everyone was created from fake memories. Maki is the only one who was inside her own head when she began to feel that way about Kaito, so she of all people should know better than anyone else just how very not-fake her feelings are!

But she can’t realise that on her own. Despite the progress she’d been making thanks to Kaito’s trial, Maki had still spent a lifetime (a fake lifetime, but those fake memories clearly still wired her brain to think this way) suppressing her emotions as thoroughly irrelevant and feeling like she was nothing but a puppet for other people’s whims. She began the killing game with absolutely no self-assurance in who she is or how she feels; of course it would be heartbreakingly easy for her to lose faith in herself and revert back to thinking that way again when given the slightest reason to.

So Maki just buys Tsumugi’s claim completely, without even questioning it. Her feelings for Kaito were fake, as was her desire to defeat the mastermind, as was everything else about who she is. Nothing about her matters, and it never did. She doesn’t even get to be a person at all.

Believing in herself at last

We don’t see Maki reacting much as Shuichi begins his impassioned argument that the pain and emotions and desires everyone felt in this killing game were still thoroughly real. But it must have helped her begin to overcome this. If you feel something, that feeling is real and important, and that’s all that matters. She believes in Shuichi’s judgement; she must have been listening to him.

Perhaps even more helpful for her is how, as Shuichi encourages Maki to stand with him on this, he urges her to believe in herself. It might sound generic at first glance, but really, that’s exactly what Maki’s arc and her struggle with these issues always needed to come down to in the end: her believing that she has worth as a person. Not only in terms of not hating herself and accepting that she deserves to have friends, but in terms of embracing the fact that her feelings are real and important and hers, and they always have been.

It’s so hard for Maki to do this. It goes against everything that’s been ingrained into her throughout her whole life (a “fake” life, but what does that matter when it’s having a real effect on her?), and everything that Tsumugi’s been spouting for half the trial. But she can do it now. Thanks to everything Kaito’s done for her, and the things she felt as she lost him twice, and Shuichi’s continued support, Maki finally makes a conscious effort to believe in everything she’s feeling. She chooses for herself to make her existence as Maki Harukawa matter.

It’s such a wonderful culmination to her character arc, right at the end of chapter 6. She’s finally reached a point where she can fully accept and embrace that she wants to believe in herself like this. Kaito would be so, so proud of her – like he once said, “The only thing that matters is what you want to believe!”, and now Maki Roll is embodying that perfectly! But as much as Kaito would have loved to see this, the best part is that she’s not even doing this to make him proud. She needed her friends’ help and kindness to be able to reach this point, but now she’s not doing this for anyone else’s sake. Maki’s doing it purely for herself.

[plus-size-reader]

Rejection

Percy Jackson x Plus size!reader

Word Count: 1572 words

Warnings: none

Summary: The reader confesses to Percy but is rejected and kinda embarrassed and ends up ignoring him. It isn’t until they aren’t talking that he realizes how much he cares about her.

—��————————————————————————————————

You had never really bonded with any of the other campers before. 

You just remained as distant as humanly possible, because you never felt that the other demigods understood you. You weren’t strong like Annabelle, or vicious like Clarisse. 

If you didn’t have any of those attributes that would be useful on a quest, or in battle, no one seemed to care…

And you just didn’t have it. 

If anything, you were soft, and cautious, doing your very best to keep your cool from moment to moment. However, there was one person who made you rethink all your decisions. 

Percy. 

Percy Jackson came into your life like a whirlwind, practically slaughtering a minotaur right outside the gate of the camp, and taking your heart with it. 

Though, you hesitated when it came to talking to him, and actually communicating the way that he made you feel because you felt like you couldn’t. 

It was pretty clear that he had his eye on someone much better than you, but you knew that if you didn’t tell him soon, you never would and you would always regret it. 

...And that just wasn’t in your nature. 

If there was one thing you had learned from your father, or the stories that were told about him, it was that he was never afraid to go after what he wanted and you needed some of that today. 

You needed that courage to actually tell Percy the truth, and this morning you had made up your mind...Today was the day. 

You were going to confess your feelings over the bonfire tonight, and it was all going to be perfect. Percy wouldn’t care if you weren’t the most brave, or athletic, or confident. He would see the things about you that were worth it. 

He would understand your value, and he would love you for you, assuming that everything was going to go the way you wanted. 

For once, you would feel worthy of the things you wanted.

Though, perhaps you should have known better than to believe that. 

Bonfires had always been the lifeblood of demigods around here and they were the one thing that you really enjoyed more than anything else. Outside of training and constantly fearing for your life, you could let loose and not worry about anything. 

You actually got to be normal for once, and it was all you could have wanted.

All you had to do was harvest the smallest bit of confidence and you would no longer have to worry about anything. At least, that was what you were hoping. 

You actually thought that if you could figure this all out with Percy, that you would be happy. 

...You should have known better. 

It was a total fail. 

You thought that in the noise and hype of the bonfire, no one would be paying much attention to you as you made your way over to where Percy was standing but that wasn’t the case. 

In fact, when you approached him, you could practically hear the surrounding teens whispering in shock. After all, you didn’t ever really talk to anyone at all, and now you thought you could just make friends with Percy Jackson. 

It was crazy, but no one stopped you anyway. 

Looking back, you wished that they had. 

Instead, they stood where they were and just watched the events unfold. They watched as you found your way to his side through the crowd. They watched as you stuttered through your words, but more than anything, they watched as Percy rejected you. 

You had never been more humiliated in your life. 

Even now, as you sat in your cabin, sitting on the ground with your knees brought up to your chest, you were sure that it was the worst thing you’d ever done to yourself. 

Who were you to think that someone like him would ever want to be with you? That a hero like Percy Jackson would waste his time with you when he could have someone like Annabeth. 

She was everything you wished you were. She was beautiful, strong, and slim. She was perfect, and if you had been in Percy’s position, you wouldn’t have chosen you either. 

...But that didn’t make it hurt any less. 

You had been stupid enough to think that all this time, maybe Percy felt the same way about you but that just wasn’t true. No amount of wishful thinking would ever change that. 

You two weren’t even friends to begin with, only talking once and a while in passing or when he would help you adjust your form in training. There was no real reason for you to believe he cared for you. 

That was just the truth in the matter. 

By the time that you’d finished thinking it all over, you came to the conclusion that you would just never speak to him again. If you never addressed what had happened, eventually everyone would forget. 

They had to. 

It would hurt to never talk to him again, sure, but it would be nowhere near as painful as being rejected had been. If anything, it would be easier to just never draw attention to it. 

That was all you could do, the only way that you could retain any amount of dignity in any of this and you were going to do anything it took. 

You couldn’t let them see you cry. 

~ 

You didn’t see anyone until lunch the next day and by that time, you had decided to act as if the events of last night never happened. 

Which, of course, lasted all of seven seconds. 

“Hey Y/N, I think I have feelings for you” someone called from the crowd, eliciting a gaggle of laughter for everyone else. It was hilarious, or at least, it might have been if you cared. 

You didn’t care anymore, no matter what they threw at you, you were determined to not let it affect you. It was all you could do and you weren’t about to let that facade crack. 

Though, it did take some damage when you saw Percy across the way. 

He had been looking at you since you’d made an appearance, just thinking about how everything had gone down last night. If he had given it any thought, perhaps he would have reacted better but you just caught him by surprise. 

That was the last thing he’d expected you to say. 

However, he had clearly hurt you last night, and something had to be done about that. So, before he could talk himself out of it, Percy got up from where he was sitting and made his way over to you. 

“Hi Y/N” he started, sitting down across from you, at the picnic table you’d decided to have lunch at. 

Nothing.

“I just wanted to tell you that I feel really bad about last night. I should have handled it better” 

Again, nothing. 

You wanted to talk to him of course, but you had already made up your mind. Percy had made it very clear how he felt about you, and now it was your turn. 

If you let yourself accept his apology, you were letting yourself be walked all over and that was something you just couldn’t do. Times like this made being Ares’ daughter all worth it. 

If you had to, you could just turn that pesky desire to comply off. You didn’t have to do anything to make anyone feel better, especially not after they hurt you. 

It just came with the territory. 

Should have handled it better? What was he talking about? You had poured your heart out to Percy and he just laughed at you. It was ridiculous, but he didn’t mean to hurt you. 

You knew that. 

Still, you weren’t in the mood to deal with his feeling guilty right now. Instead, you were going to just keep living, in the only way that you knew how. 

You were going to keep quiet and pretend not to know what he was talking about. 

*Bonus*

You hadn’t spoken to Percy in three days, and he’d had just about enough. 

For whatever reason, you had decided that night at the bonfire was the last night you were ever going to speak to him or look in his general direction and it was starting to bother him. 

Perhaps he just didn’t say the right things, but whatever it was, he was over it. 

“Y/N, I need to talk to you” he decided finally, catching you off guard with his sudden approach. He had no idea where he was going with this or how you would react. 

He just knew that he had to give it a shot. 

“I’m sure we’ve done all the talking that we can do” you huffed, over it already. You had nothing to say to him, not really and he needed to understand that. 

Percy had made a fool out of you, and you weren’t going to forget about that just because he felt bad. 

“I have feelings for you too, I just didn’t realize it before” he gasped, catching you by the wrist before you could leave his side entirely. It wasn’t as smooth as he would have liked, but it had to happen. 

If he didn’t come out with it, you would have left and he may not have gotten another chance. 

If he lost you, Percy would never forgive himself. 

[calligraphist-artemisia]

Soul of a Lion (Chapter 8)

Sequel to The Smallest Blade.

Summary: After the Red Lion steals them away from the Marmora base and takes them through a wormhole, Shiro, Keith, Katla, and Lance find themselves in front of a majestic castle with nowhere to go but inside. The events that unfold while they’re there will change the fate of the universe.

Also posted on AO3 under the username “kishirokitsune”.

☆ - ☆ - ☆ - ☆ - ☆

8 | Picnic on the Shore

Lance was pretty sure that he looked as miserable as he felt, but after his nap with the four mice he didn't have time to do more than splash some water on his face and smooth out his borrowed clothing in an attempt to make it look a little less rumpled. (It only slightly worked, but Lance couldn't bring himself to feel too upset about his disheveled appearance at that moment.) At least Allura was the only one who would see him in such a sorry state.

The room was easy enough to find, especially with the Princess waiting for him at the door and taking away his one final chance at escape.

“Uh, hey,” he greeted, lamely lifting his hand before dropping it back to his side.

Allura turned and faced him with a smile. “I'm glad you joined me, Lance. I'll admit, I was a little worried that you would change your mind.”

“Yeah, well, it doesn't sound like I have much of a choice. Not if we want to find another Lion,” Lance said, knowing his tone was flat and unable to bring himself to fix that. He took a deep breath. “What do you need me to do, princess?”

The answer turned out to be meditation, which seemed simple enough. At least it meant Lance wouldn't have to try and carry on a conversation with her, though it did mean sitting still and trying to clear his mind enough for her to connect with him. Which was a problem, because he didn't truly want her to connect with him.

Mostly it was the fear that she'd get a clear look into his head and find out the truth, and he was far from ready for that to come out.

But he'd promised himself and Keith that he would try his best, so Lance uneasily settled down in the center of the room and held Allura's hands. Clearing his mind long enough to properly meditate was more of a challenge than usual, but after a half-varga or so he felt that familiar floating sensation. He breathed out slowly as a form began to take shape in the unfamiliar inky darkness and soon Allura was there in front of him, her long hair billowing around her as though they were underwater.

(Lance wondered if it was the result of their combined mental landscapes. His was normally much brighter, as though he were high in the clouds and resting on a floor of reflective water.)

Lance looked up and saw a web of brightly colored string crisscrossing above him. “Huh, so that's what that looks like.”

“Oh, good! Katla and Shiro already told you what we're looking for!” Allura said, sounding pleased.

“Uh, yeah,” Lance lied. “We're... looking for a string?”

“Specifically, a glowing one,” Allura said, turning her gaze to the web. “It may be faint and rather difficult to see. The two unclaimed Lions are the Blue and Yellow ones, which should make things easier for us.”

Lance took that to mean that the strings would be the same color. Good. That would help it go more quickly and then he could go and... and do something else. The temptation to retreat back to his room was strong but it also wasn't helping him feel any better. He thought back to the quick list he made, trying to remember if finding Katla or talking to Hunk was the second step. After a moment, he picked Katla, if only to give his frazzled nerves a quick break.

“...the outer ones.”

Lance guiltily snapped his attention back to Allura, who didn't seem to have noticed his lapse. What was she saying? Something about “outer ones”? Was she still talking about the strings?

He looked up again, taking note of the way the web formed. Everything eventually linked up to a hexagonal shape in the center, crisscrossing and wrapping around to form what looked very much like a spider web, including the supporting strands that stretched out into the distance. There was a massive and bright cluster that Lance assumed led to his home, a smaller cluster that was possibly the Blade of Marmora HQ, and then a few rogue ones that were all by themselves. (Maybe the members of the Blade who weren't at HQ?)

Lance walked until he was standing beneath one of the single blue strands, taking a moment to examine it and see if he could spot a glow around it. He moved on after a few ticks, checking each and every one of the blue or yellow strands along the way. Out of the corner of his eyes, he could see Allura doing the same.

And then, finally, he saw it. A soft haze of pale blue around a dark blue string.

He was a Paladin.

Lance's breath caught in his throat as he reached out to the strand and then suddenly the world shifted around them. The other strings vanished into the distance as they were whisked along through space, rocketing past galaxy after galaxy. He could hear Allura struggling to name each of them as they whipped by.

And then everything began to slow. They passed by a massive gaseous planet with rings. Another with swirling red clouds. A dusty red one.

The string led to a pretty blue planet with wisps of white clouds and bursts of green from landmasses.

That was where the Blue Lion was hidden.

“It's beautiful,” Allura said softly. “I wonder what it's called. This is far beyond the range of space we explored ten thousand years ago. I hope I can find it on the star map.”

Lance didn't know what to say to that. He almost volunteered to help her, but was that something he could handle? It wasn't completely awful to be alone with her – not the way he thought it would be – and it wouldn't be the end of the world if they spent a little more time together. He sighed and shoved his hands into the deep pockets of his pants. Baby steps, he reminded himself. “If it does give you trouble we could just do this again, couldn't we?”

Allura's eyes lit up. “We could! Actually, would you mind if we follow the strand back to the center point? I want to make sure I'm remembering everything correctly.”

Lance took one last look at the mystery planet and then nodded, once again reaching up as though to touch the glowing blue string.

☆ - ☆ - ☆ - ☆ - ☆

Arus was easily one of the more beautiful places Keith had ever had the privilege of setting foot on. (Not that there were many of them.) The wildlife within the bubble was sparse, with just a few birds and some short greenery, maybe a tree or two, but beyond the cliffside where the Castle of Lions rested were beautiful fields and a sprawling forest. There was also a village full of tiny beings that Keith and Lance had taken to calling the “Arusians” but it didn't seem like they strayed too far from the plains where they built their homes.

It was only because Keith thought it was safe that he invited Katla out for a picnic. Being in a new and unfamiliar place was no excuse to ignore their courtship and he wanted to start it out the right way.

Katla looked equal parts intrigued  and unimpressed with being “out in the wilderness”, as she phrased it, for the first time. She'd gone her entire life living in synthetic environments and surrounded by technology, so it was a complete change of pace for her and one that Keith intended to make memorable.

“I guess it's kind of pretty,” Katla murmured as they passed by a flowering bush. She slowed down and breathed in, smiling at the pleasant scent before immediately sneezing – it was a tiny, delicate sneeze and Keith had to turn away so she wouldn't see his grin and think that he was making fun of her for it.

“I'm glad you like it,” he said. “We don't have to go much farther. The spot I picked is just up the hill and under that big tree.”

Katla rubbed her nose and looked at the flowers with a little more wariness in her gaze. “I wouldn't say it's going to become my favorite thing, but I don't hate it.”

Keith grinned at her. “We've only been out here for five doboshes. Give it a little more time.”

“Fine,” Katla agreed, crinkling up her nose. “But only because I trust you.”

He'd know that for a long time, but hearing her state it in a way that was so matter-of-fact brought a flush to his face. He looked away and adjusted the basket he was carrying into a more comfortable position.

They walked to the top of the hill in comfortable silence. Once they got there, Katla unfolded the thick blanket they borrowed from the Castle and spread it out across the grass before she eagerly sat down in the shade. Keith set down the basket near one of the edges and then joined her before opening the basket and pulling out the food and drinks that he pilfered from the kitchen that morning. (Okay, so Hunk caught him halfway through packing everything up and insisted on helping, so it wasn't really pilfering but Keith could pretend.)

“Please tell me that isn't nunvil,” Katla said, dread creeping into her voice as she pointed to the bottle of reddish liquid.

Keith quickly shook his head. “It's some kind of juice that Hunk made. I tried some before I packed it and it's pretty good. Mostly sweet with just a bit of tartness. Hang on...” He paused to retrieve a pair of cups and handed one to Katla, who immediately poured one for each of them.

She took a cautious sip and her expression melted into one of bliss. “Never tell my mom I said this, but the food here is so much better than anything we grow back home.”

That was one secret Keith was happy to keep. He liked living.

He picked up a basket of berries that had a slight coating of some sort of sweet and thickened sauce. Hunk had insisted on making them for him, saying that it was a staple of romantic dates and that Keith should hand feed one to Katla. It sounded silly to Keith but he figured that there was no harm in giving it a try.

“Here, try one of these,” he said, plucking one out of the basket and holding it up.

Katla reached out to take it and raised an eyebrow when Keith shook his head and pulled it away.

“I, uh, I'm supposed to feed it to you,” Keith said.

Katla still looked a little puzzled, but lowered her hand to her lap and leaned forward, opening her mouth once Keith pressed the berry near her lips. She took a tentative bite, humming a little as she savored the flavor, and then finished off the rest. “Interesting... Your turn now!”

Keith held out the basket so she could choose one for him and then obediently leaned forward to accept the berry from her hand. The coating was sweet, with a slight bitterness to it that only served to compliment the natural flavor of the berry; altogether a tasty treat. It was only the act of eating it from Katla's fingers that felt strange.

He sat back and put the basket between them so they could enjoy the rest at their leisure.

“So, what brought this on?” Katla asked, gesturing to the food around them.

“I...” Keith's voice faltered for just a moment. He took a deep breath as he met her eyes. “Katla, two decaphoebs ago I asked if you would accept my courtship once you came of age and earned a place as a member of the Blade of Marmora. I was going to ask you after your Trial, but then we ended up here in the Castle and have been busy ever since. Now that we have some time to ourselves, I am officially asking: may I court you?” Without taking his eyes off of her, he held out his hand.

Almost immediately, Katla slid her hand into his, an effortlessly bright smile upon her face as she nodded. “Yes!”

And with that great weight lifted from Keith's shoulders, their picnic continued on.

They kept the conversation light and casual as they enjoyed the food and pleasant weather, both needing a break from the constant talk about the Lions and whether or not the Alteans would ever be able to trust them or how they would maintain contact with Kolivan and her family. Instead, they brought up old stories and joked about what lengths Slav would go through next in order to see Shiro again.

“I just don't get it,” Katla remarked, shaking her head. “Shiro's cool and I feel lucky to have him as my mentor, but sometimes Slav invents these ridiculous reasons why it has to be Shiro who flies him to another location.”

Keith chuckled as he finished off the last of his juice. As he reached out to put the cup back into the basket, movement from the pond down the hill caught his attention. He looked a little closer, watching the ripples on the surface of the water, one hand reaching for his dagger, and relaxed when a massive fish jumped out of the water and landed with a heavy splash.

Katla jumped in surprise. “What was that?!”

“Some kind of fish,” Keith said, continuing to track its movement. If it stayed near the surface, maybe they could go down and catch it. It wouldn't be the most romantic activity for their first date, but it would be nice to have some tasty fresh fish.

It jumped again and Keith caught sight of a ribbon of purple painted across its side. In that moment, Keith realized what he was looking at and knew that they weren't going back to the Castle until it was flopping in his arms.

“Wait, is that...?” Katla trailed off, her voice full of wonder. “I've never seen one that big. We're going to catch it, right? That's enough to feed us and Shiro for days!”

“We don't know for sure if it's a daagti or not,” Keith pointed out.

Daagti were a type of rare fish that were a delicacy to the Galra. They had soft flesh that had a melt-in-your-mouth quality once cooked and a high amount of protein that was especially valuable to young cubs. For the Blade of Marmora, it was a dish saved for those who needed it most – particularly those who were recovering from injury and occasionally for a young cub who needed the nutrients.

Keith had the privilege of eating it more than once upon his arrival to their Headquarters, but it stopped once he reached the proper weight and height for a half-Galra his age – not that he was underweight before, but apparently the nutritional needs of a human child and Galra cub were very different. He remembered going with Kolivan to pick out which fish he wanted and seeing how small and how few they all were. There were only so many they were capable of raising at once and while they were fairly fast growers, they were also in high demand.

Katla was already on her feet, her tail twitching in interest as she began walking down the gentle slope towards the pond. Keith was fast to follow in her footsteps while keeping a close eye on the fish. The pond was a decent size. If they lost sight of it, they were unlikely to find it again.

“We need a plan,” Keith told her. “How are we going to catch this thing?”

Katla slowed down a little. “Good question. Maybe we could use our blades? If we come at it from an angle and herd it towards the shore then it has less opportunity to slip away from us. Stabbing it might be our best bet.”

“Worth a shot,” Keith agreed. He removed his dagger from its sheath and, in one fluid motion, transformed it to its sword form.

Katla drew her stiletto blade and held it in front of her for a moment before flicking the point and smiling as it shifted into a curved sword with an ornate guard. With unspoken agreement, she moved to the left while Keith went left and they slowly entered the water.

It was all very anticlimactic after that and both Keith and Katla agreed to embellish it for all of their retellings because it all went exactly as Katla planned. They drove the fish towards the shore, which made it flop around more in a futile escape attempt, and then Keith speared it through the head until it stopped moving.

It was too big for either of them to lift on their own, so once they hefted it onto the grass Katla ran back up the hill for the blanket and they used it to drag the fish back to the castle with minimal effort while also carrying the basket.

Shiro spotted them on their way to the kitchen and came to a dead stop. “What's going on?”

“Nothing!” Keith said defensively.

“We caught dinner!” Katla chirped.

Shiro raised an eyebrow as though he didn't believe them  - which was only fair after all of the shenanigans they got up to as cubs – but rapidly changed his tune once he got a look at what they had dragged back to the Castle. He stepped in to help them take it the rest of the way and then helped filet it into more manageable pieces, some of which were set aside for dinner while the rest was put away into stasis. (That didn't stop him from eyeing the smallest of the cuts, wishing he could try a piece then and there instead of waiting.)

“Where did you find this, anyway?” he asked instead.

Katla left it up to Keith to explain how they were picnicking near the skinny end of a massive lake. She would jump in if he needed any help with their embellished tale about wrestling the massive fish onto the shore, but he didn't seem to have any problems.

She smiled to herself as she began moving the fish into the stasis chamber.

She and Keith were officially courting.

It felt - well, not inevitable exactly - like they were on the path that they'd always been heading towards. Their transition from friendship to courtship was easy for them because they already knew where they stood with one another. It was something she'd been dreaming of for years, even before he promised to ask once she passed her Trial and there was a part of her that thought they would have to push it back thanks to their untimely arrival on Arus, but Keith managed to surprise her in the best way possible.

In their world of uncertainties, it was nice to know that there was one constant she could rely on.

☆ - ☆ - ☆ - ☆ - ☆

Allura called everyone to the Bridge for a meeting just before dinner.

There were no looks of surprise or curiosity as they all shuffled onto the deck, which left Allura to assume that they all expected a meeting of some kind. Lance, who had been with her when she decided to make the call, had picked a wall to lean against while they waited and it was to him that Shirotak, Katla, and Keith flocked once they arrived. Hunk stood somewhere in-between and was joined by Coran, who was the last to arrive simply because he had been in the lowest part of the Castle of Lions, where he continued his examination of the engines.

Allura serenely folded her hands in front of her as she looked over the future Paladins and hoped that she was doing the right thing by trusting them.

Once she had everyone's attention, Allura activated the star map to show off the carefully placed markers she'd taken the time to set up. Each one showed where one of the Lions were located – all but the Yellow one. The Black and Red Lions were shown on Arus, which was in the center of the map. The Green Lion wasn't too far away on a planet lush with flora, but on the other side of the room was the planet holding the Blue Lion.

“As you can see, we have successfully found two more of the Lions. This leaves only the Yellow Lion without a Paladin.” She paused to let her words sink in as well as to brace herself for the aftershock of her next idea. “I've given it some thought and it is my belief that the Yellow Paladin is in this room.”

Allura noted with some interest that Shirotak's gaze slid to Hunk. Good. She could use someone to back her up. She took a deep breath and also looked at Hunk, whose gaze reflected confusion at first but swiftly turned to mild horror. “Hunk,” she said softly, even as he started to shake his head in denial.

“You're wrong,” he croaked.

“Hunk, there could be no better choice for the Yellow Lion. You share many of the qualities that Gyrgan...” She choked up a little but plowed on. “Traits that the previous Yellow Paladin exemplified. Your strong will and mighty heart make you the only one right for the job in my eyes and I do not doubt that the Yellow Lion feels the same.”

Coran gently placed a hand on Hunk's shoulders when the dark-haired Altean continued to struggle with the idea. “He would be proud to know that you are here to follow in his footsteps.”

Hunk looked around the room in search of help but found only friendly, smiling faces urging him to give it a try. Even Lance gave him a nod and attempted a smile. Hunk's shoulders slumped in defeat and he nodded. “Okay... but only if this is what the Yellow Lion wants.”

Allura clapped her hands together in relief. She'd honestly been expecting a drawn out battle, filled with plenty of pleading looks and perhaps a hint of bribery.

“So, does this mean you guys are going to the garden?” Katla asked.

Allura shook her head. “No, if you don't mind waiting, I believe Hunk and I will be able to connect here. This won't be the first time we've connected our mental landscapes, so I don't think it will take us long at all.”

“Why don't I show you all some of the controls while we wait!” Coran said eagerly. “Each of you has a seat around the main console from which you can control small drones for exploration and reconnaissance!”

Allura and Hunk left the others to their new task while they retreated to a corner so they would be out of the way. They decided to sit on the floor rather than stay standing since neither of them were sure how long it would take.

Luckily, it wasn't long before Allura found herself in a familiar hallway lined with old-fashioned, wood shuttered windows. Each one had a letter and a symbol embossed on the surface – Hunk's preferred way of organizing his mental landscape. The windows represented the people around him and he could open or close them at will, depending on whether or not he wanted a better “look” at their emotional state. The one nearest to her had the first glyph of her name and the image of a Juniberry flower in full bloom.

She didn't touch it, despite the temptation to do so, and instead made her way to the end of the hall, which branched off into numerous winding directions. Hunk was standing just inside one of those branches and was nervously shifting from foot to foot.

“Do you feel drawn towards a particular direction?” Allura asked.

“I... maybe?” Hunk sounded unsure. “It feels like there's something over this way, but I haven't wanted to go look.”

Allura nodded in understanding. He'd mentioned in passing that his mental shields weren't in great shape after sleeping for so long – even if that amount of time felt like nothing to them in stasis, it still had an effect on them. (She wasn't back to her full strength either.) It was reflected in the way the halls of his mind darkened as they progressed away from the main area.

The shutters of the windows were broken. Cobwebs were strung across the corners where the walls met the floor. The starry sky above them grew dim.

Allura shivered and tried not to look too hard at the windows they passed by – the windows that showed a broken connection to all of those they had lost. She only stopped when Hunk's sharp inhale broke the silence and his footsteps stuttered to a halt.

There was one window that wasn't broken. The shutters were painted a cheerful yellow and in the very center was the raised, detailed face of a Lion.

They had found him.

☆ - ☆ - ☆ - ☆ - ☆

But of course, it wasn't as easy as immediately leaving to retrieve all of the Lions. They needed a plan first and ideally, a full night of sleep before any of them set off for far-away planets. Katla's disappointment was palpable in the air, but luckily Shirotak found a way to distract her. (Something about a fish for dinner? Clearly, there was something Allura had missed.)

“In order to reach each of these worlds I will have to create wormholes,” Allura told them, gesturing broadly to the star map glowing around them. “The only downside to this is that we will also have to lower the Castle shields, which will leave us vulnerable to the enemy. They will be able to pick up on the energy signature the Castle gives off. We will have to move quickly to retrieve the Lions and bring them back here. I need each of you to be prepared for a fight.”

“The Castle of Lions isn't ready for flight, but the weapons systems are all in tip-top shape and ready to provide support,” Coran said.

Allura nodded. “Good. We may need it.” She paused and looked over everyone, who looked a little dismayed with the idea of needing to immediately fight upon finding the Lions. It wasn't an ideal situation by any stretch.

“Go and enjoy your evenings,” she said. “Tomorrow morning we find the Lions.”

Maybe she should practice giving more inspirational speeches. No one looked particularly enthused as they left the Bridge. Allura sighed and took her time turning off the star map, allowing herself a moment to get lost in her thoughts.

As she turned to leave, she caught sight of the four mice tumbling in from one of the vents near the floor. She could feel their excitement as they raced over to her and she knelt down to pick them up, all the while trying to make some sense of what they were trying to communicate. She could understand them but since they didn't speak using words it took a little bit of creative interpretation on her part.

“A picnic?” Allura asked. She smiled when Chuchule twirled around in her palm and fell against Platt. “That's really sweet. And you say Shirotak and Hunk bonded over the training deck? Ah, over Hunk showing him how it functions. Yes, that makes more sense. And... wait, slow down. What are you saying about Lance?”

There was so much squeaking, so many different thoughts bombarding her at once that it was hard to parse through. Finally, Chulatt elbowed the others aside and they went quiet.

Allura's eyes went wide and she sucked in a gasp, struggling to accept what he was telling her. “Lance is... Lance is a what?!”

[agoracactus]

Pt. 9.5 - The Blood Mage

so im here to explain what happened after reader left Geralt, but it gets pretty dark (see warnings), if u dont wanna read it but still wanna know what happened, ill do a family friendly summary at the very end, scroll and look for this ▲△▲△▲△ dividing line

Pt.1 Pt.2 Pt.3 Pt.4 Pt.4.5 Pt.5 Pt.6 Pt.7 Pt.8 Pt.9

Pairing: Geralt of Rivia x reader

Word Count: 4110 - summary excluded

Warnings: besides the standards, blood, gore, indication of sacrificial ritual against children (yes im a monster)

Tag list: @theojuicee @ayamenimthiriel @imthesnowinthedark @distinguishedkryptonitecreator

§

You stood there, watching him disappeared into the woods, cold air wrapping tightly around your body.

Was it getting cold? Or was it your blood drawing away from the surface of your skin, wanted to crawl inside and hide there and never come out?

When you realized it, you were already walking away. Tears blurring your sight, hitched breaths blocking your hearing, you stumbled forward, don’t know where you’re going--- you just wanted to get out, you had to.

You tripped and fell, and you just lay there, panting from the emotion that’s gripping your chest.

How could he say such things? You cared about him so much, yet he returned it with sharp blades of words. Manipulating him? How dare he? You were merely helping, trying to steer him away from the tragic events that would happen to him! Did he ever say ‘thank you’ for your effort of trying? No. He complained. He Accused you for being a ‘jinx’.

You sat up. The darkness had already crept in in between the trees. You wiped your eyes with the back of your hand, the shock and the sadness faded into anger. You stood up.

Fine, you’re leaving. You don’t need him anyway. You could go back to Yen, she would take you in. You would live a way better life than before- Hell, you don’t even need Yen. You can take care of yourself. You will go on your own adventure and perhaps meet someone better than that stupid, stubborn asshole.

You didn’t know how long you’ve been walking, or where were you walking to. It was dark everywhere, and your human eyes could barely made out anything- probably even less than what you usually could due to your now puffy eyes.

You started to hear the different sound of the night forest, the cracking of the dry twigs, the chirping of what you assumed of the crickets, the rustling of the trees, and perhaps the howling of some wolves far away.

Suddenly, a scream pierced through the darkness of the forest.

You tensed up, ready to run if any danger come towards you.

“HELP!”

You heard it loud and clear. You quickly drew out your shotgun, ran to the source of the sound.

It wasn’t hard to locate where you should go, there was a faint glow not so far away in the woods. As you were getting closer, you saw a circle of glyphs giving out a brown-ish red glow, in the center lay a shape that seemed to be a body of a child. Beyond the circle, not too far away, was a ghoul.

“Help me! Help!” Someone up in the tree shouted desperately, seeing you appeared from the dark. You stopped in the circle of glyphs, aimed the shotgun at the ghoul that was growling up at the poor man and pulled the trigger.

The ghoul took a few shot before it went down and stopped moving completely.

“Are you ok?” you poked the dead ghoul with the gun barrel to make sure it’s really dead, and said to the man, “You can come down now, it’s dead.” “Oh thank you kind stranger!” the man swiftly climbed down, he was wearing a cloak with dark stains at the bottom edge. “I would have been dead if not for you, I owe you my life!” “What happened here?” you asked, stepped into the circle once again to check the pulse of the child. You noticed the boy had several cuts on his arms and legs, and a mark of branding on the inside of his wrist that you couldn’t quite make out the design with the dim light from the glyphs.

“...Fascinating...” You heard the man gasped in awe. “Hm?” gotten distracted from inspecting the branding further more, the thought slipped from your mind, “The kid is dead.” you stood up. “Yes yes, poor child. His parents brought him to me for treatments, but the monster showed up. I tried to put up a protection sphere for him but he’s badly wounded...” the man lowered his head with remorse. “You’re a healer?” you stepped out of the circle. The man glanced at your feet and the glyphs, “I’m a worshiper of the arcane, a student in the knowledge of unknown.” he bowed his head slightly, “Sadon Olbrecht, at your service.” “Y/n.” you replied, found yourself having some trouble trusting him, but couldn’t put your finger on it.

“What a lovely name! And what brought you here deep in the woods in such late hours?” “Um, well, I um, lost.” you avoided the eye contact, remembering the reason why you were deep in the woods late at night. “Oh I live near by! You are more than welcome to come stay overnight, and I can show you the way to the highway tomorrow!” he lit a lantern--- that came out of nowhere. “It’s this way!” he lift up the lantern to see better ahead. “...” you took a look back at the direction you assumed you came from--- it’s too dark to tell--- “Sure. Lead the way.”

It didn’t take long before you saw that stone made house. “Here we are!” Sadon picked up the pace, “We don’t have much, but it’s our humble home.” “We?” you glanced at the dark windows. “Yes. Come come!” he quickly pushed open the wooden door. You hesitated, one hand reached back and clutched on the pistol.

You stepped in. It was dark, the smell of decay and dampness rushed into your nostril. “Sadon?” you couldn’t see anything. Something wasn’t right. You turned, wanted to walk back out.

Then a heavy strike hit you in the back of your head. You fell unconscious.

§

It was cold, dark, humid, stank of dirt and mold.

And blood.

So much blood.

Fresh, not fresh, they all mixed together into a protruding smell.

You were leaning against the cold stone wall, hands chained to the wall, another pair of heavy manacles on your ankles. There’s no window in this room, the only time when you could see anything was when Sadon were in the room, then he would light all the candles--- there were so many candles, black and red. When there’s no light, it’s pitch black. So dark that you often wondered if your eyes were actually opened.

It hurt everywhere, to a point that you couldn’t feel pain anymore. You used to complain so much about even the smallest cut, would wine about your sore back every few minutes. But you stopped thinking about the pain now. Your brain learned to ignore it after a while. You tried to get some sleep, but your body was aching and stiff--- in fact, your brain couldn’t even tell if you’ve slept.

And the noises. The sobbing and crying and moaning from below.

The kids.

You didn’t know who they were, but you know there were several of them. Sadon kept them separated from you, in the camber below. You saw him carrying sacks downstairs a couple of times, took some time before you realized that those were the kids. He probably kidnapped them somewhere, put them to sleep for transportation.

You’re glad that you didn’t know these poor children.

You heard the rustling of the keys, and the squeaking of the metal door. Light poured in from the door at the far side of the chamber, a pair of feet came down the stone stairs.

“Good evening!” he greeted you delightedly and started lighting the candles with the candlestick he brought down. There was a large stone pedestal in the middle of the chamber, few metal hooks sticking out on the sides, with runes carved all around it and it was covered in deep maroon. The runes ran down the pedestal, to the stone floor, and formed a circle.

Sadon finished lighting up the room, set the candlestick down on the side of the pedestal “I really have a good feeling today, perhaps success is near the corner!” You could hear the sincere excitement in his voice, and it only sickened you more.

He took the chain of keys, and unlocked the hatch to the basement. You chewed on the inside of your mouth, hearing the children crying. You saw a little boy being dragged up, manacles chained on his skinny wrists and ankles. The boy was trying all he can to fight, but Sadon as a grown man was way stronger than him. He threw you desperate gazes, but there was nothing you could do. You watched him being dragged to the pedestal, manacles on his wrists hooked to one side and the ankles were hooked to the other side.

Then Sadon brought a dagger and a small goblet to you. He knelt down beside you, took the dagger and cup a deep slit in your upper arm. You turned your head away, gritted your teeth so hard you felt like you were going to shatter your jaw. He caught your blood in the goblet and brought it back to the boy, who was laying on the pedestal, panting in fear.

You shut your eyes, trying to close off all your senses.

§

The pure one.

That’s how Sadon addressed you. How disgusted you were when you heard that.

He said he’s a blood mage. You knew that’s bullshit from the time you’ve spent with the witcher and the sorceress, and the knowledge they fed to you.

Sadon was just a demon worshiper, who was deluded about how he has a connection with the “demon lord”. He told you that he would one day break the barrier between the two worlds and bring his lord to this realm, and together they would bring the world to greatness. And he believed that your blood is the key to his grand plan.

You didn’t even care about the sanity of his mind.

How long have you been in here? How many rituals have you witnessed? How many young lives were perished, tragically and painfully in front of your eyes? The scenes, the sounds, they haunted your dreams. Sometimes you couldn’t tell if you were dreaming or the ritual was actually happening.

At first you were so mad, you screamed, you struggled. You tried to fight your way out of this, but you were nothing without your weapons.

You were nothing without your witcher.

You overflew your mind with the witcher.

His voice, his frown, his grunt, his smirk. What was he doing while you were stuck here, suffering? Did his mind ever come across you after you parted ways? Was he worried about you?

Then you banned him out of your mind, kicked the image the sound the phantom warmth of his out of your brain as many times as you needed.

You prayed. Prayed for all these were just a bad dream, prayed that Geralt would be looking and saved you from this hellhole. You cursed, cursed your bad luck, curse your immunity, cursed for you trusting a stranger and take him for his words. Disappointed- desperate about the absence of

Till there’s nothing left for you to do but to wait.

Wait for the final fate to find you.

§

The chamber has grown cold.

You were the one laying face up on the pedestal, staring up at the ceiling. There hanged a rusty chandelier, covered in dust and webs. The thought of it falling and killing you and ruining the ritual flashed through your mind, brought you a slight amusement. You were even more amused at how you were coming up sick jokes when death was staring you right in the face. In fact, you had to suppress the urge to laugh.

Few kids were kneeling on the ground, forming a circle around the pedestal. You couldn’t tell how many of them were there--- you were too weak to turn your head to look--- you guessed that they were probably the last ‘stock’ Sadon had in his little basement. You could hear them sobbing, the silver instruments Sadon made them held were making soft tinkling sound with their shaky hands.

The temperture dropped more. Or maybe it’s you losing blood.

You heard Sadon’s chanting, heard him moving around in his elegant robe. You fought to keep your eyes open, but the eyelids were growing heavy.

You were scared.

Is this it? Are you really going to die? What’s beyond ‘death’? Will you return to your world? Would Geralt miss you, at all?

You were not ready to go. But the darkness was creeping in from the corner of your vision.

A voice crept in as darkness consumed you. It souded like several people talking at the same time, in different pitch, but merged in one.

“What do you wish?”

You found yourself standing--- or perhaps, floating, in this darkness. The voice seemed to be coming from everywhere.

“We could give you anything you want.”

You looked around, then you weren’t sure if you were actually looking.

“I want to live.” you found yourself talking, heard your voice coming from all around you.

“Pay the price.” 

The voice echoed in the space.

“I have nothing.”

“Give us what’s most precious to you.”

A dark shape emerged from the dark. You didn’t know how you’re seeing it without light, but the presence was strong. You saw it extended it’s hand, expecting a hand shake.

You closed your eyes, still seeing the darkness.

“Give it.”  “Give it.” “Give it.”

The voice now split into several whispers, coming from different directions.

You saw yourself slowly raising your hand, slowly, reaching that extending arm. Faintly, you heard your voice, telling you to stop, to think this over, to be smart.

A face flashed into your mind, the pair of eyes that would usually filled with warmth were painted in cold bitterness.

You held onto the arm.

A burning sensation burst out on the inside of your forearm. A shape was glowing, and eating your flesh away. You screamed.

The whispers ceased.

“You are ours now.”

§

The darkness faded. You were on your bare feet, panting. Most of the candles were out, the only ones still burning were the ones on the pedestal behind you.

Your saw your shadow casting on the ground, and drew up to the wall, swaying, with the low burn candlelight. The thick substance that’s covering the ground, glistening with the flickering light. You tried to move your feet, but your foot kicked something.

An arm. Children’s.

You slowly glanced around, eyes barely made out the scattering pieces of what you assumed, human body. The smell of gradually decaying flesh filled your nostril, your brain slowly started working.

What happened?

You saw Sadon, half of his head were by the wall, expression frozen on absolute horror.

The metal door screaked. You turned, and saw two figures standing at the top of the stairs. In their eyes, were those horror? Shock? Perhaps wonder?

You didn’t get to find out. In a flash, the smaller figure of the two rushed towards you. And before you could react, a blunt hit in the back of your head. You were back into darkness again.

▲△▲△▲△▲△▲△▲the family friendly dividing line▲△▲△▲△▲△▲△▲△▲

Summary

You left Geralt after the fight when the night was falling. Frustrated and disappointed at what happened, you got lost.

Deep in the woods, you came upon a man who named Sadon, he was being attacked by a ghoul, after killing the ghoul, he offered somewhere safe to stay for the night in return. He attacked you and knocked you out after arriving at his stone made house.

It turned out that he was a demon worshiper, and claimed to be a blood mage. He made sacrifices of children who he kidnapped at the nearby village to pay tribute to his dark lord. He believes that the rituals he’s doing granted him power, and one day he would be powerful enough to summon the demon king to this realm, and together they would rule the world. And when you saved him in the woods, he found out that magic doesn’t take effect on you. He believed that you were the key he needed for his grand scheme. So he kidnapped you, and was waiting for the right time for his final ritual.

Sadon wasn’t wrong. Your blood was desired by the demons, as it could grant them power. The ritual was successful, just wasn’t as expected by Sadon. You made a deal with the demons, giving them your memory in exchange of immense power.

You woke up and found yourself standing, around you were Sadon and all the children who met a horrible death. Helvi’tar and Eyle opened the door to the basement of death, found you in complete confusion.

Then Eyle knocked you out.

[ieattaperecorders]

Notes on Causality - Chapter 4: Gerry

A favor for an old friend.

Read on Ao3

As he fell away for the final time, he felt that all-consuming fear, and his only thought was to cry out for his mother. But with the last vestige of his stubborn will, he refused. She would not claim his last moment. He was silent.

And so Gerard Keay ended. But there would be no rest for him. 

The recitation came to an end, the agony of being pulled through his own demise faded into dull awareness. He remembered himself, the negative space where a person had once been. Gerard had never liked ghost stories. He liked them less now that he was one of them.

The man holding the book was a stranger. He was old, though probably not as old as Trevor. His hair had been black once but was far more salt than pepper now, and his face was creased around the forehead and mouth. A pattern of scars on his face and neck made Gerard think instinctively of filth, and of burrowing things.

So. Either this was someone who’d taken the book from the Van Helsings, or more likely someone they’d threatened into using it so they didn’t have to look at him directly. Pricks.

“. . . Are they dead?” he asked tiredly.

“You mean the hunters?” the man shook his head. “No, I sincerely doubt I would have been able to manage that. But I took pains to cover my tracks.”

“You stole the book from them?"

“Well, it was stolen to begin with, wasn’t it?”

“Hmm,” Gerard tilted his head, smirking grimly. “Condolences to your family, then. Aren’t many in the world who can cover their tracks enough for those two.”

“I’m well aware,” the man sighed. “I’ve done what I can, nothing left but to wait and see now.”

They were in a small bedroom, inside what was probably a cabin. Gerard saw dark wood walls, oil lamps, and a tattered rug that bore some kitschy pattern he couldn’t be bothered to identify. Any view there might have been through the window was obscured by white-out snowfall. There was a fire in the fireplace, not that he could feel it.

“Who’re you, then?”

“My name’s Jon. I used to be the Archivist, until I took your father’s way out.”

He gestured towards his face, and Gerard finally noticed the scars crossing over his eyes -- false ones, probably. The implications sank in.

“Hard to tell how much time’s passing in here,” he said. An echo of an emotion, something that was almost sadness. “But unless you’re a hell of a lot older than you look, I don’t think you’re Gertrude’s predecessor.”

“No. No . . . I was her successor.”

“So she’s dead?”

“I’m afraid so,” Jon said. “She died holding a can of petrol, daring a man to shoot her.”

The thought warmed something in the absence of Gerard, and he smiled. “. . . Good.”

For a moment, he pictured Gertrude standing on a chair to disable the alarm in his hospital room so that he could light the cigarette she’d snuck in. A phantom ache came from where the IV had been in his arm. The hole was still there, still unhealed. It would never have the chance to be otherwise.

He took another look at Jon, tired resignation coming over him.

“So . . . ‘used-to-be-Archivist,’” he sighed. “You went to the trouble of getting the skin book from a pair of homicidal maniacs. I’m guessing you have questions.”

“Not really. I assume you want me to burn your page, I suppose I just wanted to talk to you first. Tell you what’s coming, and confirm that it’s what you want.”

“. . . It is,” he said adamantly. “Being like this hurts , there’s no real life in it. Whatever else there is, even if it’s nothing? I’ll take it.”

“I understand.” Jon paused. “I . . . if you want, I can let you go. Get it done right away.”

To his surprise, Gerard hesitated. He didn’t know what made him do so. Maybe it was fear, the thought of facing a second end, one that would hopefully be final. Maybe it was reluctance that he sensed in Jon, what was left of him reflecting the emotions of the living like the moon to sunlight. Or, hell, maybe now that he knew it would all be over soon he just wanted to linger a bit longer. He didn’t know, and he supposed it didn’t matter.

“Nah. I’ll stay a while. Got all eternity to not exist, right?” he shrugged. “Don’t suppose you’ve got a cigarette . . .”

“Sorry. Quit some time ago. And you couldn’t smoke it anyway, could you?”

“Guess not.” Something occurred to him, and he frowned. “Hey, how’d you read it?”

“What?”

“My page. You said you took my dad’s way out, right? He had to blind himself, and the book’s not exactly in Braille. How’d you read the page?”

“Oh! That’s uh . . . sort of a long story, actually.”

There was a pause, during which it became clear that he wasn’t going to follow that with anything.

“Well, summarize then,” Gerard said. “I’m not going anywhere.”

“All right . . . I’ve actually met you before. I lived through a, hmm ---” he sighed, looking annoyed. “Well, Melanie insists on referring to it as an alternate timeline, which I really don’t care for. But I have to admit it’s a useful way to conceptualize it, so . . . .”

“Right, right,” Gerard waved a hand. “The whole ‘it’s not really this but we’re calling it this’ thing, I got it.”

“I was trying to continue Gertrude’s work of stopping rituals, which is how I met you originally. I burned your page that time as well . . . which, incidentally, did not go well for me. They did notice it was missing.” 

There was a snippy edge to Jon’s tone, and Gerard smirked, unable to shake the feeling that he was on the receiving end of a cross-timeline ‘I told you so.’ 

“Better luck this time. Maybe the Van Helsings have gone soft,” he said without conviction.

“Oh yes, clearly they’re winding down to retirement,” Jon’s voice dripped with sarcasm. “Regardless, things got pretty bad in those years. And, um . . . the world ended.”

“. . . Fucking hell.”

“More or less, yes.”

“Was it as bad as we thought it’d be?”

“Worse. Whatever you imagined, it was worse,” he said grimly. “Eventually, I found a way to pass my own memories onto my past self, and with that knowledge I’ve changed the course of events so that none of it ever happened.”

“Hence the world still being here.”

“For the time being. It took a long time to find the Hunters, even longer to put a plan together to get the book from them without leaving a trail. By the time we’d worked out what we’d be doing they’d moved on and we had to find them again, and so on,” he waved his hand. “But eventually . . . well, here we are.”

“Huh.” Gerard paused. He ran all that over in his head again. “Didn’t really answer my question, did you?”

“Oh, right,” Jon laughed softly. “Well. As it turns out, holding the book and reciting from memory is good enough. If that hadn’t worked, I’d have had to call my husband in here.”

“. . . Where is here, anyway?” Gerard looked around at the small room. “It feels strange. Couldn’t quite tell at first, but this place isn’t normal, is it?”

“It’s not, no. We found an artifact of the Vast, a snow globe that traps you inside if you look at it too long. Time passes at a different rate here . . . minutes become decades, hours multiple centuries. You don’t age or die, but you feel the passage of time, and you’re only released if the globe is broken. By then if there’s anything left of you you’ll return to a world you barely remember, a blip in your memories that are now eons long.”

“Right. And you’re here on purpose?”

“A friend of ours was holding it when we went in, she’ll have let it go the instant we disappeared. A few milliseconds for reaction time, then a second or two of freefall before it hits the concrete floor. Time enough to erase any trail that the Hunters might follow.”

Gerard frowned. “How does that work? Won’t it be just a second for them too?”

“Well, yes. But whether they find us has more to do with us than with them? You know how these things are.”

“Inside-out dream logic, yeah.”

“While we’re here we’re not running, and we’re in the grasp of another power that will greedily consume any fear we feel. If our theory's correct, when we return our tracks will be obliterated, and any breadcrumbs eaten by birds.”

“Yeah, I get it. What d’you think it is about the Hunt that makes everyone go for the fairy tale metaphors, anyway?”

“Couldn’t say. We should be here a few months, maybe close to a year if it doesn’t break immediately and Tim needs to use the baseball bat,” he smiled wryly. “We brought quite a few board games.”

“Sounds like a cozy holiday.”

“Yes! We’re trying to think of it that way,” he smiled, perking. “It’ll still be rough near the end, I’m sure. These things don’t come without consequences, you can’t throw yourself into something touched by the Vast without a taste of the horrors of eternity. But we’re good at keeping each other grounded. And I consider this worth it.”

“Unless something goes wrong and you’re trapped for all eternity.”

“True. It would definitely not be worth that. No offense.”

“None taken. Eternity’s a long time.”

Gerard tried to think of the last time someone had done something for him, with nothing to gain for themselves. Then he started to wonder if it had ever happened. 

Something in him became still, then. Quiet, and cold.

“I . . . think I’m ready to go.”

". . . All right,” Jon hesitated, as if he might say something else, then nodded. “All right, then. Goodbye, Gerry. I dismiss you.”

Something flickered in him, and then he felt himself fade. The room slipped away, and he was once again nowhere and nothing. 

He felt himself being torn from the book, felt leather split, waxed linen strain and snap as he was pulled from the binding that held him. There was a moment of breath, there was relief, and then there was only the fire.

It was nothing like being burned alive, and he would know. The pain was more insult than injury. What he felt instead was a frightening dissolution. Whatever was left of him – his thoughts, his memories, his feelings – he felt them disappear as he was being burned away. 

The fear of his own end, the terror he had been bound in for so long threatened to return and drag him into oblivion screaming. But as the last vestiges of what had once been Gerard Keay were consumed, his mind drifted away from itself. He thought instead about Jon, about the last person he would ever speak to. 

He didn’t think much, really. Just wondered if his plan would work, if he and his husband would escape the trap they’d put themselves into voluntarily. If they did this sort of thing all the time – burning Leitners and making enemies of Hunters – or if it was even remotely possible that they’d done it all for him.

Then Gerard Keay was gone. For good, this time.

---

Martin dropped the quartered logs in a pile next to the door, pausing to stomp the snow off him, take off his boots and brush the worst of it off his clothes. The endless snowstorm being what it was, he supposed there wouldn’t be much wandering around outside. Cabin fever was the whole point of this place.

The sounds of muffled conversation from behind the bedroom door had stopped just before he went out to the woodshed, and they hadn’t started up again. He decided to give the door a knock.

“Come in,” Jon’s voice came from beyond. “I’m . . . it’s done.”

Opening the door, Martin was greeted with the sight of Jon knelt in front of the fireplace, wrapped up in the soft flannel blanket from the bed. The book sat on the floor beside him, and he was shifting the logs with a long, metal poker. He turned in Martin’s direction and smiled. Lit by warm firelight, nestled in the blanket and one of Martin’s old jumpers, he made for a remarkably homey sight considering where they were.

“How’d it go?” Martin asked, coming to sit beside him.

“I think . . . Well. I hope that he got some peace, in the end.” Jon reached a blanket-swaddled arm across Martin’s back, pulling himself closer and drawing the warmth around him. “Thank you for doing this. It . . . means a lot.”

“You’re welcome,” Martin kissed the top of his head. “But it’s not just for you, you know. It’s a good thing we’re doing, setting them free. It’s the right thing to do.”

Jon nodded, nestling into him. "Did you take a look at the other pages?"

"Yeah. There's only a couple in English, so I figure we'Ll do them first, then I'll start breaking out the books and tapes we brought. If reciting it from memory worked, I might not even have to properly learn Sanskrit if I can pronounce it. Could be fun to try anyway, though."

"I'm still doubtful there'll be anyone who wouldn't rather have their page burned."

"Maybe, maybe not. Seems rude not to ask. And it's not as if we're on a tight schedule here."

"True enough," Jon smiled. "Time is something we'll have lots of. And . . . you're right to want to give them a choice. Even if they choose staying bound to a skin book for eternity."

"Mmm," Martin tried not to think too much about what the pages were made of, knowing he'd need to be handling them. "Anyway . . . looked around the place a bit while you were having your reunion. Whole cellar full of canned goods downstairs, easily a year's worth."

"I doubt they'll ever run out . . . fear of starvation would just distract from the dreadful creep of the endless aeons, after all."

"Mmm. Can always count on you to dispense these little nuggets of sunshine."

"Sorry. Too grim?"

"S'fine."

"We won't be here that long. A few months, a year at most. The others will get us out."

Martin looked into the fire. Any trace of the page thrown into it was long gone now. He hoped that whatever came next for Gerard Keay, it was kinder than what he'd been through.

"Well, if they don’t," he said, wrapping an arm around Jon. "I can't think of anyone I'd rather slowly go mad with than you."

"Nor can I."