#I chose a slow-ass method of getting my boy home

[revenantghost]

HE’S BEEN SPOTTED IN THE WILDS OF JAPAN!!!!!!!

HE’S COMING HOME SOON, LADS

[kadeu]

Accepted — Wainwright Rook

♣     Rook Wainwright aka Hyena looks like Colson Baker (musician/actor) ♣     He was born October 13th, 1966; making him 58 years old, but he appears 26 ♣     This Concubus is Bisexual and a King of Clubs ♣     He is a Tavern Owner and Resistance Informant

Biography

tw: child abandonment

 “I’ll keep a razor in my wraps to slit your throat at the gates.”

 Rook Wainwright was doomed to be a menace from the start. Memories not eroded by drugs or head trauma of his childhood are few and far between, but what he remembers in fleeting moments is the cold, the ache in his stomach as he struggled to keep himself fed, both on meager scraps of bread and small amounts of water, and the emotional stimuli of the world around him, drawn to anger and misery like a moth to a brilliant flame for his own survival. An orphan with no awareness of his true lineage, Rook knew only that one of his parents had been a concubus- and that if they had once lived in the slums of Club, they had long since left it, and him, behind. Little more than a child, Rook had no awareness of the concepts he’d fallen victim to, homelessness, abandonment- He knew only that he wanted to- no, needed to survive, and so, he fought tooth and nail to do just that.

 Club was unkind to him, brutal and lawless, but he found his comfort in a few kinder hands and hearts, a warm meal here and there, a mend on his dirty sweater or a hand me down coat to fight off the biting cold of the winter, and as he grew, he came to understand his position better- he was a one. Lowest of the lows, sooner to be spat on than offered a helping hand, but there were others, people who certainly looked just like him living lives a thousand times better. What made them different? Made them greater than Rook himself? What had they done to deserve their comfortable homes and three square meals? What had they done to sit in the warm glow of the taverns while Rook wasted away in the streets? He learned soon enough that they’d fought for those positions, tore their comfort from the teeth of their opposition, of their ‘greaters’- and had reaped the benefits. Now a teenager with a lithe, muscular frame, the young concubus was no whelp, and with nothing but a miserable excuse of a life to lose, he threw his hat into the ring of Club’s constant power struggles, practically gorging himself on anger and fear before each fight to grasp his single edge over those he faced: Head games.

 “The cuts won’t kill you, but hesitation just might. Don’t let him get in your head.”

 Oh, how Rook loved watching his opponents squirm, every little emotion, their trepidation, their concern, their fear of losing their status to some young upstart made him bloodthirsty. From the first unlucky two he’d challenged to a fight, his method rarely changed: shake them to their core, break their focus. He’d taunt them, infuriate them into making a foolish mistake- the only mistake he needed to put them down. Weaponless and unable to afford one, he chose instead to hone his fists, torn fabric wrapped around shards of glass and rusted nails to make each swing a more deadly hazard, cutting his own hands to pieces in every clash, wrists slick with blood each time he placed a foot on the neck of his fallen opponent. Each promotion was that one step closer to no longer living with the shameful gaze of those who thought he was nothing, something he had now come to loathe.  By 18, Rook was a three of clubs, and had garnered the respect of those beneath him, somewhat renowned for his uncharacteristic kindness to his fellow lowrankers, it was his own bread that he broke now for the Ones struggling to get by, he held no ill will toward those he’d stepped on to climb up- it was the way life worked, after all, and those he left alive always had Rook’s respect. At least, most of them.

 “...A Scavenger, you know that’s what you are, right? Scrappy little fucker picking fights you can’t finish?”

 Rook’s promotion to a seven was unintentional, at least, as unintentional as the boy could manage. Now in his early twenties, Rook had comfortably settled at his position as a five, a dagger strapped to his hip and several tattoos marking his arms denoting his history and previous wins, the closest thing to a journal that the illiterate concubus could maintain to remember his experiences over the years. He’d liked the position, respected by the lowrankers and rarely bothered by the face cards, and most importantly, able to feed his newfound thirst for the emotion of lust, he likely would have held his position for the rest of his life, no hunger to climb higher than somewhere he felt comfortable, if not for the fact he had gotten brave and made a move on a pretty Seven at the tavern, satisfied to simply be rejected for acting out of his position, to feed on the disgust and shock at his mere implication he might be worthy- what he got instead: was stabbed.

 The young man’s lover had seen the exchange, and not particularly pleased at the implication he could be replaced by a five of all things, had drawn his weapon and immediately challenged Rook. With no opportunity to prepare, and largely untrained with his own dagger, Rook was staggered, forced into fighting with a wound and a much more capable foe, his saving grace was liquor, their fight moving into the street before his competitor staggered on the steps, falling back just enough that he could close the distance. It was the same young man he’d flirted with who’d pulled him off, and it was the barmaid who tended to his wound that he celebrated with that night. He was a highranker now, and once more, that voice in the back of his head reminded him that he was still, in the eyes of some, unworthy- a fly to swat, a waste of air and turin. The drive that he had been able to abandon for so long had roared back to life, he would be antagonized no longer, made to look weak by those around him never again. And so, he trained.

 “Fights like a man possessed, I tell you. Doesn’t even use a weapon half the time.”

 His further climbing of ranks was slow going, but brutal. Unlike those he fought to ascend to Seven, he left none he fought for his next position alive, ten bodies of his fellows falling at his feet. He’d known what they thought of him, his promotion a fluke, that his rank never would have changed, if he hadn’t been aided by the mead coursing through the other Club. he proved them wrong over and over again, and as his rank ticked to eight, then nine, then ten, each one hard fought and won with fists more often than his weapons, his body became a network of ink and scars, each mark a new chapter in the story he’d committed to his flesh. By the time he challenged the position of King, Rook had come to be known as “Hyena,” a scavenger with a taste for blood and a brutality not to be underestimated. Now in his late thirties, Rook had stopped aging, and reached his full potential as a concubus, he fed like a king on lust and desire, low ranks and high alike charmed into his bed, honeyed words and drugs shared on wicked tongues in the dark, anger and fear fueling him in the ring. He had long played smart, his position of Jack taken from the hands of the foolish, the Queen rank choked out of a human who simply couldn’t withstand the physical onslaught- But his opponent for the position of King would offer him no such ease, a Strongarm with a history as bloodied as Rook’s own standing between him and his goals.

 “Concede. Concede and we both walk out of here Kings. It’s a fair trade, Rook.”

 Rook eventually stood over the bloodied body of the other King, planting his foot on the back of his neck with a primal howl, bones sore and broken, armor chipped and busted, but alive, alive and victorious. He was a King, standing now in the upper echelon of face cards with wounds that would eventually heal to show for it. He had proven with no uncertainty that he was no whelp, no refuse of the streets, and for the twenty years that followed- he would hold that position with a brutal efficiency. Rarely challenged for his title, Rook eventually ‘retired’ from his desperate climb for the top- and from his mercenary for hire work for extra coin. He settled on opening a tavern and working on learning how to read, the time not spent cleaning the bar spent reading and writing, practicing skills he never gave himself the peace to embrace as he was growing up. Still addicted to anything he could chew, smoke or drink, Rook’s tavern soon became a well known hideaway for those less… upstanding than most, an uncomfortable kind of peace formed in the awareness that the King running the place would sooner kill a troublemaker than huck them out on their ass. It was through the Tavern he became privy to, and eventually joined the Resistance, an ear to the ground in High Rank circles and many low ones given his position and occupation, Rook is an information broker, collecting and trading information to those who know how to stay on his good side. His hatred of being looked down upon eventually becoming a lust for true anarchy, no loyalty to Club or anyone but himself, for that matter. In Rook’s mind, there are two kinds of people, those worthy of and willing to work for  their survival, and those who are better off crushed beneath the cogs of change.

In Recent Years

Rook has maintained his position as the owner of the Thronebreaker Tavern, so called for one of his early nicknames. He continues to pass information between members of the resistance and operates within High Rank circles only to gather intel, otherwise preferring to be left to his life of excess. Infrequently called to defend his position as a King, Rook has no interest in becoming the Ace of Clubs, and is satisfied to hold his place under a fellow member of the resistance, but he maintains his training regime, and is well known for his brutal removal of those who break the peace of his tavern for anything other than a fight for rank. His addiction to Chrono when he was younger has caused damage to his mind, making him quick to anger and difficult to predict in recent years, and while no longer using it specifically, he still partakes in most other drugs, usually while running the Tavern itself. His taste for anarchy continues to grow, and he’s reveled in the recent attacks performed by those in the resistance, the fear and uncertainty more than enough to sustain him and the general promise of more to come exciting to the concubus.

Personality

Rook has never had any love for the rank system, he climbed it simply because he had to, used it to get where he wanted to be, and treats those around him with that thought process in mind, the gangs and ranks mean nothing to him, a Spade One is as respected as a Heart Ace in his eyes, so long as they respect him in return. Those who are unfamiliar with his past find him generally polite and jovial, a bartender with hundreds of stories and a proclivity for offering drinks on the house if the patron’s got a story to share in return, an imposing man with a heart of gold, at least on the surface. Those with a familiarity with Rook know that his kindness is as much of a play for power as his climb toward King was, that he’s a cunning, calculated sort who never acts without thinking twelve steps ahead, and that telling him too much could get you in the sights of someone you don’t want looking in on you. While often calm and measured, Rook is not above his anger, and often allows it to overtake him with little warning, though if this is because of his drug addictions or his history is up for debate.

  A horrendous flirt with a winning smile and a silver tongue, Rook’s truest vice is in the sins of the flesh, willing to trade more than a few things for a rendezvous in his bedroom, he isn’t picky about who he throws his chips in with, a behavior that’s gotten him in trouble before, and earned him an even more distasteful gaze than even his species has. Despite this, he’s warm and inviting, and keeps his friends close, loyal to the death to those willing to risk a friendship with the Hyena.

Congratulations Ring your app has been accepted and your invitation to the discord will be sent to you soon.

Please follow and welcome @crookxdrook to Kadeu!

[johnkrrasinski]

𝐄𝐱𝐢𝐥𝐞

Chapter 2: Those Eyes Add Insult to Injury

full masterlist // series masterlist // commission open // support my work

Pairings: Dark!Steve Rogers (in future chapters) x Reader

Word Count: 2,554

Summary: Steve Rogers; a Hollywood A-lister and your clandestine occasional hookup. Best friends since childhood, but people change and friendships fall out. Now you were merely strangers with benefits. What happens when one day you stopped being his doormat to be a better man’s queen? The selfish Steve Rogers would not like it. How far is he willing to go to get his favorite possession back?

Warnings: smut, non-con/dub-con, dark Steve (in later chapter), angst, Steve Rogers is an asshole in this one, no redeeming qualities. (MUST BE 18+)

A/N: this series is dedicated to the lovely @belovedcherry​​ who commissioned this story and developed the concept. thank you for being a friend when i truly needed it. i’m really glad that you trusted me to write this story for you. with all my heart, i sincerely hope you like it. this series will be updated everyday, there will be 4 more chapters ahead.

Several years had passed since you graduated. You and Wanda remained close despite the bustle of life would get in the way sometimes. She got accepted in Yale University and she chose to study Psychology. Maybe that’s why she and you got along so well. You both were humanitarians at hearts.

College was a lot more fun than high school but that also meant the bigger pressure would come along in one package. Nothing that you didn’t expect. You went into social study major to groom yourself for the future you had set for yourself. Life went along as methodically as you originally designed.

But fate was a comical thing sometimes. When it has settled its decision to place two people who have such a rich history in their past together, it would be inevitable and inescapable one way or another.

The past couple of years of high school, you and Steve were practically strangers who went to the same school. He never greeted or talked to you anymore in class and he abandoned every ritual you had in the good old days. He stopped calling or texting, he stopped answering and he stopped coming over.

He just… stopped knowing you.

There wasn’t a day that passed by without you pondering about where did it all go wrong? How did the fair-headed friendship that bloomed like the flowers in spring slip away as briskly as a bottle of wine? A million questions rushed through your nostalgic head and as the season changed, the gap between you and Steve kept extending wider and wider.

You didn’t even know whether he really went to college or not. Or perhaps, he decided to go straight into auditions and found himself a good agent who was willing to manage his career. You still remember when he was so eager to do whatever it takes to study in NYU but you assumed that things had changed since then. He was a different person, after all, maybe he had new plans to pursue his dreams. But of course, life deprecated its surprises being spoiled.

Who would’ve warned you that you would get accepted to New York University as well as Steve?

You didn’t know until you ran into him at a sorority party that you were reluctant to go at first because you were never that much of a party gal, but your roommate, Natasha coerced you to.

Natasha was a kind person but she could also be a little bold than you were used to. You were grateful that she was your roommate though, you were a little worried that you might have to live with someone who was mean or untidy, everything that Natasha was not. You could imagine the relief when you learned how organized and sensible Natasha was. You had a feeling that the friendship you and Natasha had was going to last a lifetime.

“My sweet girl, y/n, I love you but you really gotta put yourself out there, okay? Forget that motherfucker Steve Rogers. He ain’t shit. If you go to the party with me, you might actually find yourself a decent guy who’s a lot cuter than him and who will treat you right. Because if he doesn’t then I’m gonna kick his ass and he will think twice before cheating on you.”

“I’m not looking for a boyfriend, Nat. Besides, I don’t care about Steve anymore,” you lied. “It’s not even about him, I’m just simply not much of a partier.”

“Bullshit. You are now. Let’s go. I won’t hear any more excuses.”

So you had no other choice but to put on a simple dress and went to the party with Nat. There was no saying no to her when she had made up her mind. Plus, you thought it would be a good idea to familiarize yourself with the vicinity and your potential classmates.

You also wrote a new resolution in your invisible diary that you were going to expand your connection in college and socialize more. You were only really friends with Wanda back in high school. You also shared a few classes with Pete Parker who was nice and smart, despite being a little gauche sometimes and you would often talk to him but that was it.

You also lost your childhood best friend who knew you better than anyone else before Wanda did. It truly deteriorated your trust issues and that’s why it was difficult for you to insert yourself in social situations and just effortlessly talk with any stranger.

You stood in the corner with a red plastic cup in your hand that was still almost full of beer. You didn’t drink either so you had no idea why you even bothered holding it. Maybe it gave you a sense of comfort that you wouldn’t be totally alone in this party.

Natasha had asked you to dance but you knew you’d look like an untrained clown at a circus, so you refused to join her. Natasha was currently lost in the music, dancing with a guy named Clint. You had no idea who the hell he was but he seemed nice, and you knew that if Clint had bad intentions with Natasha, he wouldn’t stand a chance and you wouldn’t let him so you assigned yourself the job to watch over Natasha and bring her home safely in case she chugs down a little too much alcohol.

Your eyes wandered around the room, trying to recognize and learn some faces. It felt like you were the only lonely person in the room as the exuberant music faded into the background. Everything felt slow and steady until the person who just walked through the door made your heart stop.

It was Steve. Steve Rogers.

The person you had incessantly wondered about. You hadn’t seen him in over a year even during the gap between graduating and starting your freshman year in college. You were too occupied in moving out, spending as many time as possible with Wanda and your family and filling out college requirements. Steve would emerge in your mind every once in a while but you tried to erase him away as quickly as possible when it happens because you didn’t want to waste your time missing a ghost and someone who probably never spared a second of his life thinking about you too when you are surrounded with your loved ones for the last time.

You didn’t know when you were going to be able to see Wanda again. She was going to New Haven and that means, it would take at least at two hours drive to visit her so you cherished the last moments that you had with her. She was like a sister to you. You still talked to Wanda nearly every day through texts but you also didn’t want to intrude her study too much. Besides, you had your own duties too as a college student now.

So why did it feel like your lungs stopped functioning when you saw his gorgeous face and those familiar pair of cerulean blue eyes? He had a grin on his face as he walked in with five other college boys. You didn’t know who they were but you assumed they were his new group of nitwit friends. Steve was wearing a brown leather jacket with a black shirt underneath.

He walked to where the kegs were with the boys trailing him along like they were his security team. They joked with each other boisterously as if they owned the place. Typical. Nothing you hadn’t seen in high school. But you couldn’t avert your sights from Steve. You were too riveted by the fact that Steve was here, at a sorority party of NYU.

It couldn’t really be him, right? I mean, is this serious? You two really attended the same university? This must be a joke.

Your thoughts were quickly interrupted when Nat pat your shoulder with her energy still blazing from the dance floor. “Whew, that was fun but I need some drink now.”

You didn’t respond as your lips were still agape, not knowing what you were supposed to say to her.

“Y/N? You alright? You look like you saw a ghost.” 

“He’s here.”

“What? Who?”

“Steve Rogers. The guy that I told you about.”

“Where?!”

You pointed in his direction where he was surrounded by a bunch of pretty girls in skimpy dresses now. One of them was groping his bicep shamelessly and Steve had his arm around her waist. She threw her head back as she laughed cheerfully at something he just said.

“You gotta talk to him! Have some closure.”

“What? What the hell am I supposed to say to him?”

“Tell him that you and him are through and maybe, throw a drink at him afterwards. That scumbag deserves it.”

“Nat, no! Are you insane? I don’t wanna cause a scene.”

“But you can’t just let him get away with whatever he wants, y/n!”

“No, let’s just go home and forget it, okay?”

“Alright, if you’re not gonna talk to him, then I will.”

“No, Nat! Stop! What are you doing?! ” But she was already approaching him with ardent footsteps and fire in her guts as she brazenly inserted herself into the middle of the scene.

“Excuse me,” she sarcastically greeted the group. “Yeah, hi, I just need a minute. Are you Steve Rogers?”

You followed behind her but you stood just a few feet away from the incident so that Steve wouldn’t see you. But you could see from over Nat’s shoulder that Steve had a perplexed look on his face. His eyebrows were furrowed and all the girls around him were staring at Nat like she was a crazy person who just randomly popped up uninvited.

“…yeah.” He answered.

“Oh, so you’re the asshole that my roommate has been talking about. Man, she really didn’t lie.”

“Excuse me?” The puzzled look on his face turned into an offended one.

“Yeah, my roommate y/n. Does that ring a bell?”

He was aghasted at the mention of your name. Before he was given a chance to answer, Natasha filled his silence with more of her venomous words. “You really have the audacity to show your face here, huh? I swear to you, the next time I see your irritable face again, I will make you regret for ever breathing in my direction, but for now, I think this will do.” She threw the beer in her cup onto his face, humiliating him in front of everyone who was entertained by the drama.

Steve wiped his face with his hand and he was too stupefied by the information that had just been dumped on him like a cold water. Well, it wasn’t entirely figurative though.

Before Natasha walked away, she sneered with a sly smirk on her face, “enjoy your party.” She shoved the empty cup to one of the girl’s chest as she reflexively caught it, with a flummoxed expression, her eyes didn’t stray from Natasha.

She walked away vauntingly from the flock towards you, “let’s go, y/n.” as she kept walking towards the entrance. You were still frozen in your spot as she was already going for the door. But before you could follow her, your eyes landed on Steve’s doused face as his eyes were already fixated on you.

For a moment there, there were only you and Steve and the intimacy of unspoken farewells and muted longing that were encapsulated in one bubble of silence that comes when two people understand each other. It was like the drawer of Steve’s things that he left with the memories and he never asked you to return came hurdling back like ocean waves and everything just evaporated in the ticking time.

There was no need for words because your eyes delivered more than both of your lips had in the past couple of years.

“Y/N?” He uttered your name. That was perhaps the first time he had called you in years. And with that, it was like every broken piece you had intensively woven back together ruptured and there was no safety net that would prepare you for this fallout.  

He was bewildered by seeing you here and you had no clue what you were supposed to say. So you threw him a poignant smile, forcing yourself to put on an impassive facade in front of him. You were good at that, you had years of practice from all those times you found Steve making out with Janet in the parking lot. You wonder if they were still together?

You wordlessly walked away and joined Natasha to the front porch. Steve watched you turn your back on him, not knowing whether he should call your name again, follow you or he should just let you go. You on your way back home were filled with so many thoughts. You couldn't help but wonder, what would’ve happened if you had stayed and talked to him at the party? What would he say to you? Would he even care at all?

But on the other hand, you were relieved. It’s like, you truly got the closure Natasha said you deserved. Never in a million years, you would ever dream about standing up to Steve like that. Hell, you weren’t even brave enough to tell him how you feel back when you were younger. But may God bless Natasha and her parents for creating her, she defended you in a way that you could never do. And she showed you that maybe, it’s time you hold on to your promise that you vowed to yourself, that you were finally going to move on and bury him into your memory dump.

You were in college now. You had no time to wallow in sadness and heartbreak caused by a douche like Steve Rogers. So you made peace with the fact that it was probably the last time you were ever going to see him. You might run into him around college but you weren’t going to let it shake your ground. You unlocked the door of your dorm with a contented smile on your face as you sat on your bed.

Natasha instantly went for the small closet to change into her pyjamas but was briefly delayed by your mumble. “Thank you.”

“Pardon?” Natasha turned her head into your direction.

“Thank you. For doing that… At the party.” You smiled at her. You sincerely meant every word.

“I’d never let a man walk over a good woman like you, y/n.”

You nodded as she carried on with what she was doing. She went into the bathroom to wash herself off and you laid in your bed, feeling lighter than you had ever felt in years. Maybe she was right. It was time you realize your worth. You spent too many years doubting yourself just because Steve was too much of a reprobate to cherish you.

You closed your eyes, relishing in the comfort of your bed without fearing a ghost looming in your sweet dreams anymore now.

Letting tomorrow surprise you with whatever it has in store. Sometimes it involves a charming devil standing on the other side of your door with flowers in his hands and a wicked scheme to accomplish.

[livingmybestfictionallife]

What He Kept Secret

Anon Request: Ya know what I crave? Those moments in klaus’ kidnapping we didn’t get to see. For example: how did hazel take him? Did he knock him unconscious? Did he drag him to the car kicking and trashing? Did he threaten him with his gun so that klaus had to follow him to the car and get in the trunk? And also aaaall the stuff they did to him that we didn’t get to see! I crave that. I want that. (And yeah, klaus is my baby and YEAH, I WANT TO SEE HIM S U F F E R)

A/N: here’s a short Klaus, offscreen torture request.

All I wanted was a fucking bath, Klaus thought to himself as he stared up in the darkness of the enclosed space he was stuffed into. I wanted to melt away in a peaceful and warm bliss and forget the bullshit that’s constantly circling my mind. How did it end up like this? Why am I always the one locked in small, dark places?!

He knew he was in a car’s trunk. The consistent jostle back and forth from accelerating and stopping was enough for him to figure out his whereabouts, but knowing where he was didn’t do anything to subside the pain in his head or make breathing easier.

He had been as oblivious to his surroundings as his siblings had been to his presence. Those two factors put together were the pivotal points of success in his kidnapping. Klaus hadn’t known two crazed assassins had broken into the home, or that all his siblings had the shit beat out of them trying to free their home of the intruders, all he knew was that Five was adamant about the end of the world being days away...well, that and the fact that Five owed him twenty bucks. Klaus’s oblivious nature made it all too easy for Hazel to sneak up behind him, cup his hand over Klaus’s mouth, and press the gun’s barrel to Klaus’s temple in a single movement.

“Kinky, Diego, but I could never think of you that way,” Klaus joked; his voice muffled by Hazel’s hand. It wasn’t until Klaus tried to turn to face who he thought was, for some unknown reason, his brother playing a prank on him, that he caught a glimpse of the heavy set man restraining him. For some reason, seeing his captor led Klaus’s muscles to, momentarily, lock up and his posture became rigid. 

Once Cha-Cha had given Hazel the all-clear, she returned to tie restraints around the third Hargreeves brother’s wrists and ankles. Hazel then threw the bound and gagged, tweaked out Hargreeves sibling over his shoulder, huffed a few expletives in the process, and carried the now panicked Klaus to his current resting place. To Klaus’s discomfort, Hazel chose the same tactic to remove him from the trunk. Ass in the air, unable to breath due to the amount of smoke that had damaged his lungs since adolescence, and the fact that Hazel’s shoulder dug into his diaphragm, Klaus coughed out a few pleads for help, which were utterly pointless. 

Cha-Cha was quick to lock the door behind them and even quicker to untie his restraints to use the rope to bind him to a chair she had positioned in the center of the room. Klaus tried to kick his way free and struggle against Hazel’s grasp, but a sharp sting to his face stunned him. After that, he had a hard time disassociating Cha-Cha with his father, who had also been all too quick to resort to a slap here and there to improve behavior. Looking back, Klaus was most ashamed of the role he played in letting himself being taken and abused. He’d been too used to the pains other people could inflict on him that it didn’t seem wrong when these strangers set out to do the same.

“Where is he?” Hazel asked in a gruff voice.

“Who?” Klaus could only respond.

“The boy?” He could only assume he spent too much time processing the words leaving the other man’s mouth and thinking of a quippy and sassy response, because before he could begin speaking, Cha-Cha’s hand came down on his face again. This time however, a twisted laugh escaped his lips, which only drove anger into the hearts of his captors. 

"You could at least buy me dinner first!” he called through his chuckle. Hazel’s eyebrows furrowed in confusion--obviously he hadn’t been expecting someone to respond to torture as erotica--but Cha-Cha was colder, tough, and more determined than her partner.  She lowered herself in front of the man tied up before her, placing her hands on her knees as she bent herself to be eye level with Klaus, and spoke in a slow, steady, and assured tone.

“It’s in your best interest to tell us what you know and quit playing dumbass. Give us the information you have, and we will let you go,” she said before turning around to grab some sort device that appeared to be a type of rod with two electric prongs positioned at the end held opposite of her body. “Refuse to cooperate, and we will have to resort to other methods to coerce information from you,” she finished before jabbing the rod’s prongs into Klaus’s rib cage. At first, the only sound that could escape his lips was a yep of pain, but he was quick to turn that expression of pain into a howl, curl the corner of his mouth, run his tongue across his bottom lip, and tilt his head up at Cha-Cha.

“Let the fun begin!” he said in an almost singing voice as before he turned his attention to Hazel. “Come here and get in on this! Or does the idea of seeing a man writhe below you frighten you?”

“Prick,” Hazel muttered as he made his way back over and grabbed a fistful of Klaus’s hair. “Tell us what you know!”

“Harder, daddy,” Klaus whined at Hazel’s grasp tugging his head backward over the chair’s backrest. Again, the jolting pain seared through his core as the electric prod jammed into his ribs. “Don’t worry, I didn’t forget about you,” he called back over to Cha-Cha, whose face revealed nothing but utter disgust.

“Tell us about Number Five!” Cha-Cha demanded as she began to lose her composure and allow her anger to overcome her not even ten minutes into their “interrogation.” To keep from any smartass responses from leaving Klaus’s mouth, she drove the rod into his skin, just above his collarbone and listened to the grunting response.

“Small...feisty...bit of an asshole,” Klaus said between gasps for breath through the pain surging through his neck and nervous system. After a long moment, Cha-Cha subtly dug the prongs deeper into Klaus’s tissues before subsiding as the sounds of his manically twisted and dark laughter echoed in her mind and throughout the room. He let out a loud gasp of relief and said, “you’ve got a lot in common with him.”

And so it went for hours, electric prongs, hands and fists flying to his face and stomach, switches to his legs and back until small streams of blood trickled down his body, mixing with the cold sweat that began to over come him as the effects of substances wore off and his body began to crave another hit. If he had a moment away from the pain and arousal, his body would crumble beneath the desperation he was experiencing in the form of withdrawals. They’ll give up soon, he told himself as the clock ticked past the three hour mark. Focus on the pain, he would remind himself every time he caught a glimpse of the hour hand ticking past the large number twelve, signaling another hour had passed and he fell even lower off his high. Funny enough, it was the physical pain that carried him through the long, ten hours of inadvertently detoxing cold turkey. He’d been so accustomed to emotional pain, that into adolescence he turned to drugs to alter his emotional state, to hide the pain. Physically, he turned to sex. It truly was a kink, and one that he was thankful for, not just in this moment as strangers tortured him for information, but because he knew if pain wasn’t arousing, he’d have resorted to self-harm decades ago.

“Don’t stop,” he gasped as a lamp’s cord cut of airflow from his windpipe, no doubt leaving a ligature mark in the process. He squirmed slightly in his restraints as Cha-Cha barked another command into his ear while tightening her grip on the cord and, subsequently, the pressure placed on his neck. “I’m...almost...there!” For what felt like the third or fourth time, Cha-Cha found herself catching a glimpse of something she wasn’t fully convince she was seeing.

“Is that a--?”

“Yup,” Hazel confirmed as he glanced toward Klaus’s lap while he sauntered back toward where Cha-Cha still determinedly attempted to obtain information from the most useless hostage imaginable. The audible release of her disgust was greeted with Klaus’s gasp of air upon finally being able to breath properly after what felt like ten minutes of restriction.

“Nothing like a little strangling to get the blood flowing,” he grunted each word in a huff while his body shook and shuttered as the cold sweat slipped down his back and his heart seemed to beat irregularly. “Am I right?” That certainly served as enough of a distraction, he thought to himself while still reveling in the thrilling sensation of being completely submissive and under someone else’s complete control. Another laugh slipped from his lips as he tried to catch his breath.

“What’s so funny, you asshole?” Hazel snapped and Klaus’s momentous relief from the chills and shakes was gone once Hazel’s hand collided with his face. Instantaneously, Reginald’s disappointed face once again appeared before Klaus just as clearly as Ben appeared the moment after.

“Well, for one,” Klaus said in a shaky voice, trying to keep himself from screaming out his need for a high. “You spent the last ten hours beating me senseless,” he continued to mutter helplessly. Somehow, even though he was the one tied up and restricted, he had the most power. His refusal to endure the torture and refuse to divulge any information about his brother meant he had control; it was that feeling of control and power that he held on to as he pushed his desperation from his mind. “And you’re learned absolutely nothing,” he said and tried to force a laugh to leave his throat, but instead found himself choking back tears. “I mean, nobody tells me shit! The truth is, I’m the one person in that house nobody will even notice is gone,” Klaus said. His voice was beginning to fade and the hopelessness was returning to his body as he vocalized the voices in his mind that continually resurfaced to remind him he needed something to feel numb. “You assholes kidnapped the wrong guy!” he laughed again only to be slapped yet again.

Cha-Cha gave up in entertaining any hope of Klaus cooperating and was torturing him to feel as if she were punishing him for his overall existence. She jerked his head back over the chair’s backrest and held a washcloth over his face before growling, “Let’s waterboard him.” Klaus continued to comply with their desires to know he was suffering, but only for a moment before he started gargling water he had collected in his mouth.

“Ahh, I needed that,” he sighed. “I was so parched, thank you.”

“Maybe we’re not hitting him hard enough,” Hazel suggested to his partner.

“Good luck with that one, big guy!” Klaus said with a cocky smirk playing on his face while pain struck his heart at the realization that he would have to continue this ruse until they released him or until he was dead...because it was a simple fact that no one was looking for him.

______________________________________________________________________

[dinomight]

all the stars in all the skies: a playlist for Home and a Half by @echodrops

the chain - fleetwood mac // sorrow - the national // nothing’s gonna hurt you baby - cigarettes after sex // child i will hurt you - crystal castles // constant craving - the cat and owl // run boy run - woodkid // female robbery - the neighbourhood // sleepsong - bastille // small things - ben howard // iron - woodkid // greens of june - neko case // mars - sleeping at last // iscariot - walk the moon // human - daughter // body - mother mother // i come with knives - iamx // all these things that i’ve done - the killers // an angry blade - iron & wine // all the stars - the wailin’ jennys // i’ll be good - jaymes young // slow wake up sunday morning - mountain man // someone to stay - vancouver sleep clinic // it’s alright - mother mother // this is home - cavetown

Song explanations under the cut!

First I’d like to clarify: I’m not insane. I’m just a huge ass dork for this fic. (For a lot of things, really, but irrelevant.) HaaH is one of my favorite written works ever, fanfiction or not, so I really, truly should not have been surprised that this playlist ended up being so much longer than I meant for it to be, and it probably could’ve been even longer if I’d let myself keep going. In my defense, I can’t art, so this is one of my only ways to show my appreciation.

Anyways, I’m not gonna wax poetics about how much I love this story because we would be here all day and this post is too long as it is, so down to business: this playlist is very loosely structured. It’s hard to give the songs a significant order when only a few correspond to specific moments or lines; most of them I chose to focus more on bigger picture themes and concepts from the story. So the order isn’t that important, I just organized them so they’d transition relatively smoothly sound-wise and tried to keep similar concepts together. Additionally, I did use both quotes from the fic and the songs in some of my explanations, so fic quotes are bolded and song lyrics are in italics. Some of these are short, some are a bit longer, some are just the quotes because I didn’t feel the need to explain further, but hopefully all of them give a good idea of why I chose the song. I thought about just posting the playlist by itself, but I felt weird not explaining the thinking behind it, so uh, here it is I guess? 

1) The Chain - Fleetwood Mac: The best song in existence. Objectively speaking, of course. The first time I heard this while thinking of HaaH though, it just fit so well, and I haven’t really been able to un-associate the two since. (Not that I want to lol) It just has such a desert vibe to it that matches with the story, and I think it represents Keith’s desperation to avoid rejection from the team so well. It’s like...if I were to picture a trailer for HaaH, this is the song I would hear in the background, y’know? 

2) Sorrow - The National: This one’s a bit of a weird one because I can’t quite put into words why this is on here. Like, I added it back when I was just throwing some songs together for background atmosphere while reading HaaH, but when I was working to make this into something more thought out, I couldn’t bring myself to take this song off. So here it is, I guess. 

3) Nothing’s Gonna Hurt You Baby - Cigarettes After Sex: This one is here more for its sound and atmosphere, not really the lyrics. It just sounds like...nostalgia, I guess. Like it’s supposed to be reminiscing about something comforting, but it’s not quite there because the pain of the present is keeping you rooted. The way I hear it, it’s like Keith is thinking about his mom and her love and comfort, but it’s tainted by the loss of all of that. (I might be slightly insane. I’ve come to terms with that.) 

4) Child I Will Hurt You - Crystal Castles: I don’t know how else to phrase this so I’m just gonna say it: this song gives me the heebie jeebies, just like Keith’s flashbacks to his earlier times with the Garrison. I swear, every time he says replacement mother or father it gives me chills. Or makes me want to cry a bit. It just feels so wrong, and that’s why I picked this song, ‘cause it gives me the same feeling. The music is so soft, like it was supposed to be a lullaby, but the lyrics and the feeling underneath is...disturbing. Plus, “Hide all that you could / Done for the greater good / It’s later understood” reminds me all too well of the Garrison scientists and what they did to Keith. 

5) Constant Craving - The Cat and Owl: So while I was searching for songs to add, it suddenly occurred to me that despite the fact that one of Keith’s major problems is that he can’t put his thoughts and feelings into words properly, every single song I’d added did exactly that. And so began my search for some instrumental songs that unfortunately only turned up this one, mostly because I realized this playlist was getting far too long lol. Though now that I’ve thought about it, an all instrumental HaaH playlist would be an interesting challenge. Hm. I already knew I wanted to add Constant Craving as a sort of representation for Keith’s own craving for love, acceptance, and family, but when I heard this version I knew it was right. Keith knows he desperately needs all these things, but he can’t put it into words, can’t communicate it right. It’s made even better by how well known the original song is, because you can feel the familiarity in it, feel what’s missing and what should be there, but it’s different at the same time, like that absence has created something strange, something off-kilter from what it should have been. Plus it’s sorta a lullaby version, which I like since Keith’s childhood is an often reoccurring topic. 

6) Run Boy Run - Woodkid: Seems to me like there’s a lot of shit Keith’s been running from. (also...running makes me think of “escaped from the Garrison”. Escaped. Escaped. ESCAPED.)

7) Female Robbery - The Neighbourhood: There’s some really fucked up stuff in Keith’s past in addition to the whole Galra thing, and he really does not want the team to find out any of it. This song makes me think a lot about that. 

8) Sleepsong - Bastille: “You go to sleep on your own / And you wake each day with your thoughts / And it scares you being alone, it's a last resort” & “All you want is someone onto whom you can cling / Your mother warned of strangers and the dangers they may bring / Your dreams and memories are blurring into one / The scenes which hold the waking world slowly come undone.” ...yeah.

9) Small Things - Ben Howard: Another song that’s on here more for the sound than the lyrics, though the lyrics could possibly fit. I just love the dreamy, suspended feeling that this song exudes and how well it fits with the feeling that Keith’s flashbacks and memories give me. 

10) Iron - Woodkid: “But Keith was gone—every reflex retuned for battle, every nerve sparking under his skin, and all there was fight, win, refuse to be killed.“ - “I'm waiting for the call, the hand on the chest / I'm ready for the fight, and fate” So the lyrics don’t *exactly* match up, but the underlying themes are there, I think, and the atmosphere of this one was more important to me anyways. The intensity of it just screams fighting and death and red to me. 

11) Greens of June - Neko Case, k.d. lang, Laura Veirs: “Just in the moment / Everything's changed / My dark disposition / Has been rearranged” The arrival of the kids is certainly not a very happy time considering the circumstances, but it brought a change that Keith desperately needed, one that will hopefully help him actually be happy. (My other reason for choosing this song is, for whatever reason, it also gives me desert vibes.) 

12) Mars - Sleeping at Last: “We let the end goal blind us to the means. We’ll have to re-evaluate before we take on any more missions. If violence is our go-to method of beating the enemy, we’re no better than the empire ourselves.” -  "Lay your weapons down! / They're calling off the war / On account of losing track / Of what we're fighting for." The team has taken up an immense and necessary duty to protect the universe, but that doesn’t mean they don’t get caught up in the grey areas of war, and it doesn’t mean they get to come home without scars. 

13) Iscariot - WALK THE MOON: Broganes, anyone? For real though, this song is about betrayal between two people who are essentially brothers (specifically Jesus and Judas but I didn’t pick it for the religious references). While I don’t think Shiro is gonna see Keith being Galra and hiding it as a personal betrayal, Keith clearly does. “How long did he have left before…Before Lance said he’d known all along there was something wrong with Keith, before Pidge threw his hypocrisy back in his face: no secrets between paladins, huh? Before Allura turned her back on him. Before Shiro couldn’t, and Keith had to meet his eyes, watch betrayal dawn white-star bright and burning.” Ah. That sweet, terrible angst.

14) Human - Daughter: “Underneath the skin there's a human / Buried deep within there's a human / And despite everything I'm still human / But I think I'm dying here.” I think this song works on two levels. One, you can take “human” to be quite literal and interpret it as Keith’s desperation to hide his Galra heritage and keep pretending that he’s entirely human, even though it clearly has awful emotional repercussions for him. Two, you can look at “human” with a metaphorical lens to talk about how even though Keith seems like a cold tough guy on the surface, underneath that is a complicated mess of emotions and trauma, and not being able to properly deal with all of that is killing him. 

15) Body - Mother Mother: One of the things about HaaH that I find most interesting is Keith’s relationship with his body. Between the whole Galra form vs human form, the fact that his human form is not how he was born, and everything that the Garrison did to him...it’s a goddamn mess. Hence, this song. can I please give this boy a hug 

16) I Come With Knives - IAMX: First and foremost, I had to include this song for the irony, because Keith did, in fact, come with a knife. However, I also included it because I really like how on the surface, it can be written off as just another angsty emo song, but if you take the time to really listen to it, it’s filled with genuine emotion and hurt. (Almost like a certain knife-wielding alien boy I know...)

17) All These Things That I’ve Done - The Killers: I have a few different reasons for why this song is here, but the main one is pretty much “I got soul, but I’m not a soldier”. I mean...yeah. That screams Keith to me. He’s driven and angry and passionate and willing to fight so hard to protect the people he loves, but...that doesn’t mean he’s emotionally okay with being a soldier, even if the rest of the team seems to think otherwise.

18) An Angry Blade - Iron & Wine: Another one that immediately earned points for Keith irony in the title. Seriously though, I love the tone of this song for Keith. It’s got desert vibes to it, and maybe it’s just because my hearing isn’t fantastic, but I like that the lyrics are a bit hard to make out. You really have to listen. (Again, almost like...hmm...) Plus: “You’re an angry blade and you’re brave / But you’re all alone”

19) All the Stars - The Wailin’ Jennys: I swear I didn’t just pick this for the title. It was a little bit for the title though, sue me. Nope, it was more for “So open wide your wounded heart / Feel yourself be blown apart” because for the love of god, Keith, please open up a bit more to the people around you. On a more serious note, I was also struck by “You don’t know me / You know one side of a story” because it’s true for both Keith and his mother. The Keith part is obvious--the team, with the exception of Shiro, only really sees the Keith that’s on the surface. But it’s kinda true for Keith and his mom too, right? He’s missing so much information because of his spotty memories. Up until the kids arrived, it seems like he didn’t even consider the idea that she might be, y’know, not evil. So...yeah. Also “All the stars in the sky / Say goodbye say goodbye” because I didn’t need my heart, it’s fine, it’s okay, I’m not crying over a fictional character and the death of his alien mother, there’s just dirt in my eyes--

20) I’ll Be Good - Jaymes Young: “But if there was a way to stop the blood flowing down his glove, the sound a sword made when it struck bone, the way her breath came in pieces between the shocks her sobs, then he definitely would have... “ - “I've been cold, I've been merciless / But the blood on my hands scares me to death / Maybe I'm waking up today”

21) Slow Wake Up Sunday Morning - Mountain Man: “It's lucid dreaming; he knew it wasn't real, not anymore, but still he couldn't focus his eyes, couldn't see past the fall of her hair in the pale morning light...” - “The light / It moves / Across this room / Like it could reach us, honey” & “We are already there, it seems / (I know I can't stay in this place)” I don’t quite know how to explain why I connected this song with this moment beyond the whole early morning thing but...this moment was an especially emotional one for me. It felt like something Keith wanted to hold on to, wanted to go back to, but just like the sun continues rising, the world keeps moving, regardless of whether we want it to or not. 

22) Someone to Stay - Vancouver Sleep Clinic: “You were alone left out in the cold / Clinging to the ruin of your broken home / Too lost and hurting to carry your load / We all need someone to hold” I just...yeah. There’s not much I need to say about this one. Just Keith and the kids, man. 

23) It’s Alright - Mother Mother: Whenever I listen to this song, I feel like I’m getting a hug. Since I cannot project myself into fictional stories and hug the characters myself, I instead gift this song to Keith. Please, someone give this boy more hugs. Please.

24) This is Home - Cavetown: “Get a load of this monster / He doesn't know how to communicate / His mind is in a different place / Will everybody please give him a little bit of space / Get a load of this trainwreck / His hair's a mess and he doesn't know who he is yet / But little do we know the stars welcome him with open arms / Oh / Time is / Slowly / Tracing his face / But strangely he feels at home in this place.” <3

This got way too long, so to anyone who actually made it through all of that, I sincerely apologize. >.<

[fanfoolishness]

and the steel gleaming

(Hawke almost died dueling the Arishok.  Maybe a part of Varric really did.)

***

Funny, for a dwarf with an eye for scene and detail, there was sure a fucking lot he missed that day.

He didn’t hear the cheers, raggedly drawn from the throats of the terrified nobles.  He didn’t hear the Qunari terms of peace, laid down in slow methodical words over the Arishok’s corpse.  He didn’t hear the footsteps of the people, Qunari and Kirkwaller alike, leaving the chamber.  

Instead a ring of words pounded in his head, a steady droning rhythm.  Someone had said them forever ago, but Varric still hadn’t managed to parse the meaning.  Wasn’t he supposed to be good at wordplay?  He couldn’t figure these out, though.

She’ll be all right.  She’ll be all right.  She’ll be all right.

But how the shit could he believe that when he’d seen the Arishok’s blade run her through?

Varric shuddered, a vicious, whole-body roil that almost ended with him getting sick on the floor.  He swallowed his gorge back, sucking in deep gulps of air -- but the air itself seared with the metallic tang of blood, and he gagged again, barely keeping it together.

Think of something else.  He glanced back at the Arishok’s crumpled body, forgotten in the far corner where he’d fallen.  Someone had covered him with a tapestry, some half-assed attempt at decorum.  Varric could still see the old bastard’s horns sticking out from under the woven wool.  It made him smirk for a second.  That helped.

He looked away from that mess and caught Anders’ eyes.  He’d been afraid to look after --  But Blondie crouched on the floor with Hawke’s dog beside him, Min cradled tenderly in his arms.  She looked calmed, her cheeks a warm brown once again instead of that drained, terrible paleness they’d worn a few minutes ago.  She was still covered in blood and swollen-eyed, but she looked alive again.

Definitely better than the alternative.

“She’ll be all right,” Anders said again, and this time Varric realized it wasn’t his own thoughts repeating the phrase, but the real man.  Anders was white-faced, dazed, looking as shaken as Varric.  “But we need to get her home.  She needs rest.”

“Let me help,” Fenris said, his face settling into a grim, tense mask.  “Healing her has nearly killed you as well.”

“You suggested the bloody duel --” Anders began, fire glinting suddenly in his eyes.  At his side Molossus whined, sensing danger.

Varric stepped between them, waving arms that felt improbably heavy.  He was exhausted, even though he hadn’t been the one dueling.  He supposed the events of the past twenty-four hours had finally caught up to him.

The effort it took to speak was surprising.  He managed anyway.  “And she chose to fight it,” said Varric.  “You got a problem?  Take it up with her.”

“The dwarf is right, as usual,” Hawke murmured, stirring in Anders’ arms.  “It was the only way.”  She coughed, blood flecking her lips, and Anders’ focus immediately returned to her and her alone.  She blinked owlishly when Anders kissed her on the forehead.  “Why do I feel so fucking awful?”

“Come,” said Fenris, his voice softening.  “You need to rest, Hawke.  As do you, mage.”

“I’ve got her,” said Anders roughly.  “Just help me up.”

Varric followed after them, his head swimming, weird patches of detail piercing his fog intermittently.  There was Molossus, nosing Hawke’s cheek and woofing gently.  Fenris and Anders, each gripping the other’s hand, the shorter elf hauling the gangling mage to his feet.  The way Hawke’s arm slung over Anders’ neck with a practiced familiarity.  Fenris stopping, bending, carefully collecting Hawke’s daggers from the floor.

The floor.  Varric stared at the carpet where Hawke had lain: stared at the wine-dark pool of blood on its surface, redolent of rust and copper.  There was so much blood that its sheen reflected flickers of torchlight like an oil slick; so much he could see the heavy curve of it resting atop the carpet, too thick and clotted to soak in.  

So much blood, and all of it hers.

***

He tried to sleep.  Honestly, he did.  

He knew rest would be good for him after the madness of the attack on the city, the horror of what had happened to Hawke.  He and Fenris had both retreated from Hawke’s estate to go recover once Hawke and Anders had gotten safely inside.  It had sounded good on paper.

But it wasn’t in the cards tonight.  Not with snatches of memory jostling in his mind’s eye every time he tried to drift off, flashes crowding out the darkness.  Images like blood vessels burst in the whites of Hawke’s eyes, the rattle as she’d tried to breathe before Anders’ magic saved her; images like her mouth open in a wordless scream, the wicked blade running through, and the steel gleaming, gleaming red --

So here he was in Hightown in the gray pre-dawn light, cold and cursing himself and his stupid vivid imagination.  She’s fine.  Blondie said she’d be fine.  It was just that he couldn’t believe it, tossing and turning in the wide bed at the Hanged Man.  

Gallingly, the bar had been looted so he couldn’t even drink himself to sleep with Corff’s worst whiskey.  The stuff could take down a bronto, it was said, though all Varric had wanted was to knock out one uneasy dwarf.

He shook his head, cursing his luck, then rapped his knuckles against the door of Hawke’s estate.  After a few moments the door opened to reveal Bodahn with a lamp in hand.  “Well, good night to you, Messere  Tethras!  Or is it good morning?”  He peered outside.  “Hard to tell right about now, isn’t it?”  

“It’s both way too late to be staying up, and way too early to get out of bed,” said Varric, shrugging.  “I hate to bother you right now, Bodahn --”

“But you’re worried about Messere Hawke.  Of course, of course.  Come on in.”  He ushered Varric inside and gave him a sympathetic smile.  “We were all so worried about her when we saw the state she was in.  Orana wept, and I don’t mind saying I was frightened myself.  My boy Sandal was inconsolable until we knew she would be all right.  He’s always looked up to her so.”

Varric knew there was a joke in there to be made about dwarves and heights and humans, but he wasn’t in the mood.  He simply nodded.  “How’s she doing?”

“She did ask for you earlier, now that I recall,” supplied Bodahn.  “Perhaps she’s still awake.  Messere Anders is with her now.  It’s been very hard on him, of course.  Why, I couldn’t believe it when he said she fought the Arishok.  In single combat?  You’ll have to forgive me, I wasn’t expecting Kirkwall to be so -- well, violent!  Never thought I’d have to worry about keeping my boy safe from Qunari.  And here I thought Ferelden during the Blight was a challenging place to live.”

“Ah, come on, Bodahn.  You and I both know Kirkwall’s a shithole,” said Varric mildly.  It was simple inescapable fact.

“Now, though, it has its charms,” Bodahn began.  He paused for a moment, deep in thought.  “It’s got very interesting architecture, for one!”

Varric chuckled, a dry, papery sound that hurt his throat.  “You’ve got me there.  Interesting’s definitely one word for it.”  He considered.  “You said she asked for me?  Hopefully she’s awake again.  I’ll just go on up and say hello, if she’s doing better.”

He took the stairs quickly, hardly noticing his surroundings.  He’d only been up here once before, after Leandra, but he knew the way.

“Hello?” he called, heading to the room with the candlelight spilling through the cracked door.  He poked his head in to see Anders, bent over the fine four-poster bed, deep in concentration.  A faint aura of golden light surrounded him, but it was much dimmer than that of his usual healing state.

“Hallo, Varric,” said Anders, not taking his gaze from the bed.  Varric edged inside, noting that Hawke was bundled up in the covers, the only visible part of her a mop of dark tangled hair against a pile of pillows.

Words erupted from his mouth.  He tried to temper them, to tamp the sudden rising panic down.  “She’s still okay, right?”

“She’s doing better.  Though I’m afraid she’s fallen asleep again,” said Anders, straightening up.  He looked exhausted, a smear of Hawke’s dried blood on his cheek, his hair at odd angles, rips in his robes.  Blondie’d taken a beating in the fight up to the Viscount’s Way, but Varric suspected it was the strain of healing Hawke that had hit him the hardest.

“I thought she was just asking for me,” said Varric, trying to hide his disappointment.  She’s all right.  Isn’t that enough?  He knew the answer, though.

Anders huffed ruefully.  “She was, earlier.  Something about how you owed her a pint for doing something incredibly stupid.”  He gave her a fond, if almost teary, look.  “Don’t worry.  It’s normal, you see, after healing of this magnitude.  She’ll be in and out of a deep sleep for a few days, I predict.  I’m sorry if Bodahn got your hopes up.”  He sat down heavily in one of the chairs by Hawke’s desk, then nodded at Varric.

Varric settled into the other chair, his feet failing to reach the floor.  “Mind if I wait around for a bit?  Just in case she comes to again?”

Anders gave him a weak smile.  “Of course, Varric.”  He leaned over in his chair, resting his elbows on his knees and his face in his hands.  “That damned Arishok.  Why she thought she could best him in a duel--”

“She did, though.”  Got to remember that.  Don’t think about what almost happened.

“Watching it was excruciating,” Anders mumbled.  “Knowing they would kill her outright if I moved to help her -- I was going mad.  It was torture, and I don’t use the word lightly.  This was torture.”

“I know,” said Varric, looking down at his boots.  The floor between them was clean, pristine, plush carpet with a nice pattern.  No blood here.  “Scared the shit out of all us.”

“How could I have let her do it?” he choked.  

“Come on, now.  She’s Hawke.  She does what she wants.  Think she’d let you get in the way if she thought she was doing the right thing?”  Varric reached across, jostled the mage’s arm with his elbow.

A weary chuckle.  “Fair enough.  But I keep wondering about what might have happened.  I did everything I could for her.”  His voice dropped.  “It nearly wasn’t enough.”

“Don’t say things like that, Blondie,” said Varric warningly.  It was one thing for Varric’s imagination to run away with him.  It was another thing entirely to hear the healer say it.  Because if Anders thought that, Anders, the one who’d held her life in his hands -- Varric thought he might never sleep again.

“But it’s true.  I almost lost her, you know,” Anders whispered through his hands.  “I could feel her slipping away.  I reached for every bit of mana I could muster, but I couldn’t staunch the bleeding, not at first, and I could feel her growing fainter and fainter --” There was a rough, muffled sound, and then Anders’ shoulders shook, seized with sobbing breaths.

Varric quickly averted his eyes, wildly searching for something else in the room to look at, ending back at his boots again.  Shit.  It made sense -- all that pent-up terror and guilt and worry and care, it had to come out somehow --  but the fact remained, he wasn’t good at dealing with shit like this.  Hawke was always so much better at this.

For a moment longer than he liked to admit, he thought of just getting up and leaving.  Maybe it’d be better to let Anders figure it out on his own; maybe he’d just be embarrassed to have Varric stick around.  If it was him, he wouldn’t want one of the others fussing over him --

But it’s not you, is it?

He sat still for a moment.  Smoothed the cloth of his trousers beneath his gloved hands.  Stretched the fingers out, watched them still until he could no longer see a tremor.

He reached for Anders and gripped him by the shoulder, his leather glove firm on the feathered accents.  “It’s all right, Blondie.  She’s gonna be fine.”  He took a breath.  “She’s got you, doesn’t she?”

****

He sat in his room in the Hanged Man, oblivious to the noise downstairs that meant Corff had discovered a forgotten barrel of his terrible whiskey.  The resultant cheers and bellows faded into the background, as did a lot of other things.  He’d lit a fire some time ago, he knew that much.  How long had it been?

The fire sputtered, guttered, gave itself to soot and ashes.  Candles on the table dripped wax on the wood in crimson puddles.  He wished they weren’t red.  He made a note to purchase white ones tomorrow.

He’d finally slept a little during the day.  He’d come back home after Hawke woke up again, insisted on hugging him, and winced from the contact, then tried to punch him in the shoulder and winced again.  He could still feel her tap on his shoulder, weak as a kitten’s.

“Not even you can get away with that kind of bullshit, Sparrow.  Taking on the Arishok single-handedly?  How am I going to make it sound convincing?  Nobody’s going to believe it.”

“That’s your greatest concern, is it?  The story?”

Ahhh, he could never lie to her.  At least, not about that.  “Come on, Hawke.  Just… try to be a little more careful next time, all right?”

“So you were worried about me?  Oh Varric, I’m touched.”  A sweet sentiment, followed by a lazy wink and a racking cough.

Blondie had shooed him away, citing Hawke’s need to rest, always the attentive healer.  But she’d called out, “Don’t forget, you owe me a pint!” as he left.  And Varric had smiled, even while Anders led him further away, even while Anders was the one to stay.

He gazed at the cooling fireplace, then returned his attention to the matter at hand.  Ink stained his fingertips, visible even in the dimming light.  Clumsy of him. It wasn’t surprising, though; this wasn’t elegant work.  It was cheaper than that.  More desperate.

He thought of blood clotted on the carpet.  He thought of panic, and terror, and the way Hawke looked so peaceful, sleeping in Anders’ arms.

It’s not you.

He sighed, ignoring the ache in his chest, the sudden sting in his eyes.  He’d known that for a long time.  Knew it where it bit him deep.  

The ache grew, a gnawing burn.  Still, though, it didn’t matter.  He was fine.  Well, he was going to be fine eventually.  He knew he wasn’t particularly good at feelings.

But he was very good at denial.

He set ink to paper.  Dear Bianca, he wrote, nib scratching against the vellum, and the steel gleaming in the candlelight glinted gold.

[404botnotfound]

Deliverance [2]

Careful when you’re swimming in the holy water.

SERIES: Far Cry 5 WORD COUNT: 7,557 SHIP: Quinn/John Seed CHARACTERS: quinn leonis, john seed, eli palmer, wheaty, jacob seed

HERE TAKE THIS IM SICK OF LOOKING AT IT

It had never been apparent to her just how debilitating losing her sense of time’s passage could be until now.

She imagines it’s been weeks since she’d fled the Whitetail Mountains, but between the lack of sunlight and the hours that crept by so slowly they felt like days instead she had no idea how much time she’d been stuck here in the cell she’d been thrown in after the baptism John had performed on her.

Part of her still found that amusing. She’d been raised Catholic (her mother’s insistence, not her father’s), and that meant she’d effectively been baptized twice. It’s not technically unusual and she knows people sometimes chose to have another, but it wasn’t something she would have ever chosen herself—she hadn’t been any semblance of religious since her pre-teens.

A breath is huffed out as she lowers herself on bent arms, chest almost brushing the ground before she pushes herself back up again.

For the first time since escaping Jacob’s clutches Quinn can feel herself regaining the strength and good health she’d had before her initial capture in the mountains. Being stuck in a cage once again was hardly a great feeling (dehumanizing, at best) but unlike his older brother John seemed to actually give somewhat of a damn about keeping her healthy. It was probably some kind of manipulation tactic, but she could hardly complain about not starving and having a cot to sleep on rather than the ground.

Whether or not that applied to his other prisoners, she wasn’t sure.

It was slow going and she knows she won’t be back to peak health for a while, but she was on her way and that was good enough for her. The degrading health had been the worst aspect of her time with Jacob—not the starvation itself or the deplorable conditions they were all kept in or even the mind-fuckery, but the fact that she could feel herself weakening with every day that passed.

His methods hadn’t made any sense to her while there; what was the point of trying to train soldiers when you were keeping them too weak to so much as throw a halfway decent punch?

She’d gotten John to clarify it a bit after she’d discovered that once he’d found out she gave as good as she got in wordplay he could be sufficiently distracted from pulling her metaphorical—hopefully metaphorical—teeth.

(maybe she’d batted her eyelashes a few times and maybe Jacob’s demeaning question of if she abused flirting to get her way all the time drifted into her head whenever she did, maybe Jacob Seed could go fuck himself)

Jacob’s game was deprivation of sustenance and rest, keeping the ‘trainees’ weak and demoralized until they were physically and mentally pliable enough to push and twist in the direction he wanted. Classical conditioning. Pure psychological warfare confirmed.

There wasn’t any comfort in having her suspicions validated; it had almost made her less comforted when she again heard a faint echo of come home, kitten whisper through her mind like a passing breeze.

The cat and mouse games her and John had started up from the moment he first strapped her to the chair in his workshop was something she hadn’t expected to get away with, but he’d actually seemed to enjoy it—at least in the beginning. His patience for it had begun to wear thin, if his increased threats and agitation as the days passed were anything to go by.

Though she managed to dig a few more things out of him during their ‘sessions’, he was talented at swerving around questions and idle comments that would have given her something to actually work with; in itself, that was telling. He’d probably been in a white-collar profession judging by the well-kempt appearance and intelligence, but that assumption had a wrench thrown in it every time he slipped and let the monster of Wrath loose.

Jacob had been easier to read even considering the cool and distant demeanor. Posture and vernacular said military career, careful speech patterns spoke of both intelligence and pointed restraint, and Darwinian beliefs combined with the classical conditioning he was employing meant he was well-read and clever.

John, on the other hand, switched gears so frequently and with such ease that whenever she thought she had a grasp on him it slipped through her fingers. All she knew about him was that she didn’t know a Goddamn thing about him. One minute he played the calm, considerate man of God and the next he was the embodiment of rage and hate, another he was charismatic and likeable, and the next he was a grotesque caricature of a human being.

They had to have been masks, but the question of which one was the true John Seed remained. Were they just techniques to bend people the way he wanted them to bend, simply more subtle than the closed-fist punch of Jacob’s? A way to drag out the answers he wanted to hear from the people he brought into what amounted to a torture room?

Whatever it was, it was effective—some days she’d seen him pry a confession out of a begging victim before he’d even begun to cut and carve into them.

If she thought about it long enough those confessions actually seemed to aggravate him and she couldn’t put a finger on why, since it was confessions he was after in the first place.

The sadism combined with the chameleon nature of his personality made it easy to ignore the stories of his childhood that she overheard him impart to his victims (and to her, once) as well as the sympathy they dredged up in her, but there was something raw to his anger every time the people he interrogated refused to play by his rules. He would insist that he was trying to help them, that he could free them from the bonds of lies and sin, and why were they fighting that freedom?

Psychotic behavior at its finest, but how much of that was true disposition, and how much of it was a direct result of upbringing, provided those horrific stories were true?

A grunt of exertion leaves her mouth with another push-up; she needs to stop psychoanalyzing the bastard, she knew, but there wasn’t really much else for her to do while she was stuck here waiting for her turns in that chair.

Humming and singing tunes when she was left alone with the rusty smell of blood and phantom screams seeping from the walls around her was her only other pastime aside from trying to pick apart the brain of a madman like she’d been trained to do back at Quantico. Sleeping too much just gave her headaches, and though exercising to the best of her ability gave her something to do it really didn’t do much to stop her from thinking and thinking and overthinking.

Maybe the Rolling Stones had it right, she muses, a strained hum of a familiar tune about sympathizing with the devil leaving her mouth as she continues her routine.

At least she was getting practical experience she could boast about if—when—she got the chance to appeal for her badge.

She wonders if Stevie was having any more luck with figuring out how to stop the Seeds while she counted out her repetitions; so far, she’d had no luck staying away from the bastards long enough to even breathe.

Pausing with her body flat to the ground as the unmistakable, skin-prickling sensation of being watched hits her, she purses her lips.

Wordlessly she resumes, not happy with the burn she was beginning to feel telling her she wasn’t going to be able to do much more. Her captivity with Jacob had taken more out of her than she had realized. “What is it with you boys and staring? It’s fucking rude.”

Sure enough, the voice that responds is exactly the one she expects, preceded first by a disapproving tsk. “That Pride of yours again. Hadn’t you thought that, maybe, I was just waiting for you to finish?”

“I know the feeling of eyes on my back, John.” She replies, her next push-up more strained and slow than the rest; she was shaking with the effort now. “I also know the feeling of eyes on my ass.” With a heavy sigh she pushes herself up to her feet to stretch, lamenting that she’d barely counted half of what she’d been capable of before coming to Hope County.

Baby steps.

John scoffs at the accusation as he crosses the floor towards her. “Every day you make me more certain of the sin my brother suggested you suffered from.”

“Oh, I’m not suffering from it.” Her back pops nicely when she stretches upward as best as she can with the low ceiling of her cell. “You seem to be taking a hell of a lot longer to commit to mine than any of the other victims of your insanity here. Why the delay in mutilating me?”

Not that she wants it—fuck, it’s the last thing she wants.

“Because you have to willingly acknowledge it. You have to want to atone for your sin. You have to say yes.” He says, and she lifts an eyebrow at his failure to deny the mutilation comment. Considering his convictions—otherwise decent—she’d have expected him to defend his methods.

Her shoulder begins to ache, aggravated by her exercising in spite of the injury he’d given her by tipping the chair she’d been bound to over in a rage. She rolls it, folds her arms over her chest, and then in a completely deadpan voice says: “No.”

The change is immediate; he steps closer to her cell, fury in every hard line of his body.

She goes rigid. It’s a miracle she manages to not step away in reflex, but her knuckles go white where they grip her upper arms and she has to swallow the sudden stone in her throat.

John was nowhere near as physically imposing as Jacob was but his unpredictability made him every bit as dangerous—not that her constant and conscious attempts to provoke him were doing her any favors in that regard. Stop playing with fire, Quinn.

Their tense staring contest is broken by him first, and she watches as he storms over to the workbench she’d grown painfully familiar with in the last few days as he lost patience for her glib attitude and games. With an angry roar he places his hands on the edge of the bench and shoves, tipping it over and sending it crashing to the floor. All the tools stacked and lined up on its surface clatter to the ground and either roll or bounce away.

Her eyes are wide as she stares at the workbench. Silently she scratches out her previous mental assessment of his physical capability; clearly, his lean frame was deceptive.

Then a quiet ting near her feet catches her attention and she looks down, blinking at the sight of a thin screwdriver that had rolled from the bench and bumped into the bars of her cell. Adrenaline pulses through her veins at the sight and she quickly lifts her eyes back to John, schooling her features and praying he wouldn’t notice it lying there. Please, for once, let my luck turn out in my favor.

He doesn’t turn away from the workbench immediately, but once he’s apparently collected himself he returns to her, smile all teeth. “This could be so much easier if you just bared your Pride and let me free you from it.” He hisses.

“I already told you,” she says carefully, licking her lips and not missing the way his expression flickers and eyes follow the motion, “I’m not interested in being saved and I’m definitely not interested in baring myself to you.”

Wait—fuck.

She wastes half a second hoping he didn’t notice the accidental entendre, but the way his fury is fully doused and replaced by a heat of a different kind has her swearing a blue streak internally. He leans forward, hands on the bars of her cell and expression now an open leer. “My, my, Agent, where did your mind go just now?”

Oh, no, he was not going to stick her with the Scarlet fucking Letter. “Get bent you son of a bitch.”

“And Wrath makes an appearance as well! My dear, you must have a lot to own up to that’s just aching to come out.” He laughs, and her skin prickles. “I could help you with that. You just. Have to. Say. Yes.”

Christ, he’d circled through about half a dozen personalities and attitudes within the span of just five minutes—whether she’d been napping in the dirt and starving or not, she was starting to miss Jacob. At least he was consistent.

Her mouth opens, scathing comment ready to go, but before she can get the words out there’s a hiss of loud static from the two-way attached to his belt. “John. You there?” Gooseflesh ripples over her skin and she shivers, recognizing Jacob’s voice and trying not to wonder what the odds were that he’d contact John right after she’d thought about him.

The smile on John’s face drops and his jaw ticks; without breaking eye contact he reaches for the radio and clicks the receiver. “I’m busy, brother.”

“Stop being busy.” Jacob says, and Quinn has to chew on her lip to keep the mild laughter that bubbles in her throat from the flat disregard in his voice. “You’ve got a problem heading in your direction.”

A lightness settles in her chest at Jacob’s words that she fights to keep from showing; the only real problem the Cult had been dealing with in recent events, so far as what she’d heard from Eli and the Whitetails, was one determined as hell and very pissed off Stevie Brewin, who had in just two months managed to light a fire under the local Resistance’s ass.

John stares at her for a long moment before finally stepping back, pointing at her with the antenna of the radio and smiling easily. “I have business to take care of, it seems—don’t go anywhere. I’ll be right back.”

She says nothing, watching him with sharp eyes while he leers at her and hoping that karma would smack him in the face in the form of tripping over one of the tools he’d sent scattered across the floor while walking backwards. When he finally turns away, unfortunately skipping the delightful opportunity for schadenfreude, she listens to his footsteps fade away as he disappears down a stairwell beyond a grated dividing wall.

There was no way for her to tell if he’d just been fucking with her by saying he’d return, but either way she was going to be balancing a fine line here. If she waited too long, she risked running into him on his way back, and if she didn’t wait long enough she risked running into him before he’d even really left.

She won’t let herself consider he wasn’t planning on going far at all and she’d have nowhere to slip past him anyway.

Tense as a board she counts out two minutes before scrambling for the fallen screwdriver at the foot of her cell and then setting to work on forcing the lock on the door open. It’s a long shot, but in a relieving upturn of her luck it works.

Resisting the urge to toss the tool away and just book it, she instead slowly slides the door open and gently sets it aside. There’s a knife on the floor ahead of her, tossed along with all of John’s other tools, and she quickly snatches it up. There was one other door in the room opposite the direction he’d left in, but it’s locked fast and requires some kind of key—one that John probably kept on his person rather than floating around.

Unhappy about it, she turns and follows after John.

The landing at the bottom of the stairs leads to an industrial room like his workshop, this one packed with crates and shelves of stored tools and supplies. All of it was stark and military in appearance, an orderly form of chaos, adding to her confusion as to where in the hell she was; this hardly seemed like the kind of place a man like John with his fancy shirts and designer shades would willingly spend time in.

It sort of made sense considering his clear and disturbing fondness for torture, but that left the supplies—she doubted he needed so many just for getting his rocks off by cutting a few people open. Her gut feeling said that, no, this place had nothing to do with John’s extracurricular activities.

There’s an open door up ahead, blocked by a cultist looking out into the hall beyond; she waits, watching and hoping she didn’t plan on standing there until John returned. Luckily, she turns around and Quinn quickly doubles back, ducking under a shelf at a near-crawl and bypassing the unaware cultist entirely.

Exposed pipes, stark metal, and solid concrete walls that almost reminded her of manufacturing facilities and laboratories, hoses and power wires crisscrossing the floors, and a few open pipes large enough for her to crouch and move through to dodge more cultists all became familiar sights to her as she moves through the facility quietly and unseen.

A lot of the Peggies were working, packing away boxes and taking inventory of their contents, moving equipment into different rooms and occasionally stopping to gossip about their boss. Much as she’d like to stop and snoop, she wasn’t about to risk her chance at getting free. Learning about the Seeds wasn’t at all worth getting found out and either shot full of holes or dragged back to John’s workshop. She’d already pushed him far enough, and that would just give him an excuse to get even more aggressive in forcing a confession out of her.

What gives her heavy pause and leaves her with an ill feeling in her stomach is the sight of repurposed sections of hallways, blocked by metal gates, with groups of shaking people huddled with in. If she weren’t a lone woman armed with nothing but a knife and her wits and had some idea of where she was going, she could take the time to try and free them.

Her stomach twists as she does, but she ignores them all and continues moving, careful to stick to the shadows as she moves up a flight of stairs and filing away a growing suspicion that whatever this place was, it had something to do with the Collapse the Cult seemed so obsessed with.

Sneaking around Jacob’s operations up in the mountains with Jess had served her well—save for a few close calls where one of the cultists catch a glimpse of something skulking around she manages to avoid confrontation through a dozen rooms and up another flight of stairs without much struggle.

Any of them that did happen to spot her moving around in the shadows just mumble something about too much Bliss before simply returning to work. Apparently the Cult’s best brainwashing weapon was also a double-edged sword.

As she passes another doorway a familiar voice catches her attention and she pauses; ultimately it’s the sight of the bow and quiver she’d nicked from one of Jacob’s hunters in the room beyond that alters her path into the room. It’s empty save for a few pipes stretching from the floor to the ceiling in one corner and a workbench up against the wall, next to which sat her recurve and quiver.

Her radio is nowhere to be found, but that doesn’t surprise her.

She carefully slinks past an open doorway with a soft glow lighting the floor from within and quietly slings both her bow and quiver over her back.

The she refocuses on the voice, John’s smooth tone coming from the room she’d just passed by and now returns to, hiding just beyond the frame and peeking inside. His back is to her as he leans over a desk in the center of the room, a single desk lamp illuminating whatever it was he was staring at and throwing enough ambient light for her to see what looked like a facility map taped up between the rows of obsolete screens and computers lining the walls.

Some kind of security hub, maybe, but all she cares about is the map and it’s what she focuses on with intent as she listens in on him.

“—is why Joseph is so insistent these two need to be converted to our cause, or why they should be important to us at all. We’re expending a lot of effort and people trying and all the while they’re helping the Resistance undermine our efforts.” She’d missed the first half of his statement, but she frowns at the half she does hear.

Joseph wanted her and Stevie to be part of the Project? Well that had a snowball’s chance in hell of happening—Quinn would sooner stab herself in the eye, and she knows Stevie well enough to know they’d be in agreement on that front.

“It doesn’t matter. You know how he gets when the Voice is involved.” Jacob says, clear disinterest in his voice even through the wash of static that distorts it. That catches her interest, however—did Jacob not actually believe in Joseph’s overarching goal for the Project?

It was far beyond a long shot, but she wonders what the possibility was they could convert him.

John lets out a scoff. “Your lack of faith in Joseph’s gift never ceases to astound me, Jacob.”

“You’re the one asking why.” Ever the dutiful soldier, it seemed, if Joseph gave the order and Jacob followed whether he believed or not. “The Deputy’ll reach the south gatehouse in the next few hours unless she deviates.”

“Hours? I thought you said your hunters last saw her by the ranger station?”

“Apparently she knows how to hotwire.”

Damn. Quinn makes a note to ask Stevie to teach her that trick; spending three days dodging Jacob’s hunters on foot just to reach another section of the County had been the exact opposite of fun.

Speaking of—

She stands from where she’d been crouched by the doorway and lets out a sharp whistle just as John presses the receiver on the radio. He whirls around and she grins at the look of bewilderment on his face. “Hey, you mind pointing me in the direction of the restroom? I think I’m a bit lost.”

This was so fucking stupid, but totally, one-hundred-percent worth watching the gears in his head struggle to get back up to speed.

The second his expression turns some mixture of impressed and wickedly amused she shoots him a cheeky two-fingered salute and then turns and bolts, a wild smile on her face as she goes. He gives chase immediately, heavy footfalls following after her as the industrial architecture of the facility blurs around her.

She jukes around cultists on her way through, following the map to the best of her memory and hoping she’d gotten a long enough look to be heading for the entrance; they all shout in alarm as she passes, silenced shortly after by loud thumps and crashing that tells her John wasn’t bothering to be nearly as careful as he followed her.

He was taller than her and had longer strides, but even with her diminished health and knowing she was on an endurance clock that would’ve made her instructors cry, she was faster and had freerunning—one of her hobbies—on her side.

The distance between them begins to grow, and he seems to realize he was losing ground. “You’re only making this more difficult, my dear!”

“Difficult for who? You sound out of breath!” She calls back, darting through a doorway and nearly running over another Peggie; they were starting to look more urgent, and that meant the ones they’d already passed had radioed ahead. Things were about to get more difficult.

Without slowing she jumps directly for the solid wall that greets her past the open doorway and plants a foot on it, pushing off at an angle and taking the sharp turn without losing speed.

“I will catch you!” He yells. She’d expected him to sound angry or frustrated, but instead he just sounded invigorated. He was having fun.

Her intent had been to piss him off and the fact she’d misjudged and failed spectacularly should have frustrated her.

It didn’t. She was having fun, too.

A doorway halfway down the hall up ahead would take her to the facility exit if her memory served her well, but she’s forced to skid to a complete halt to make the turn with no wall to bounce off of. Even with the immediate push forward she still feels a rush of air just behind her as John misses her by inches.

Alright, so he was bad at cornering but really good at open sprints. Noted.

Through the doorway she sees a large room littered with stacks of more crates and boxes, and the sheer size of whatever operation this was suddenly occurs to her; they were really digging in for something, and Quinn wonders where the line blurred between paranoia and preparation.

Two Peggies are startled at her sudden appearance, both standing on opposite sides of a stack of crates half her height.

John yells for them to grab her and the two step forward to intercept, ready for her to try and dodge around—instead, she leaps directly for the stack of crates, slapping her hands down onto the surface and expertly vaulting right between them.

Maneuvering around the rest of the room slows her down, but when she breaks through the organized chaos into the open landing, only one cultist between her and a stairwell that would lead her to freedom, she’s still moving fast.

Fast enough for her to drop her shoulder and body slam the cultist into the wall near the stairs. He collapses, wheezing and nearly dragging her down with a desperate grab for her shoulders but she skips back, spinning and taking the stairs two at a time.

Her lungs were starting to burn uncomfortably. Just a bit further, she reminds herself.

Footsteps echo after her up the stairs, and those four simple words become a mantra.

When she reaches the final landing of the absurdly tall stairwell—no windows, industrial, tons of bulkheads, were they underground?—she sequesters the bud of victory that starts to form in her chest. A false sense of security would be her worst enemy when this would be the most dangerous stretch of her escape.

Brilliant sunlight nearly blinds her as she bursts through a final bulkhead, thick metal door ahead of her ajar and beckoning her forward.

She nearly tumbles right over the edge of the raised landing outside the door, forced to quickly redirect and move for a ramp that led down to the flat, open ground of the yard in front of her. It’s a loading bay, littered with even more scattered supplies and a semi-trailer parked back up against the raised landing. A trio of white pickups were lined up ahead with their sides facing her.

She could risk checking for keys in the trucks, but she’d already gone beyond pushing her luck by taunting John rather than fleeing silently and without attracting attention. If her dad were here, he’d definitely be giving her one hell of a disappointed stare for the impulsive decision.

“There! She’s there!”

“Don’t shoot her, the Father wants her alive!”

“Aim for her legs!”

Not only did that sound hellishly unpleasant, one good shot to her legs would put her right back at square one, incapacitated and ready to be dragged back down into the depths and right back into John’s hands.

She glances around, noting the wire fence penning in the area, the opening flanked by gatehouses up ahead, and the trio of heavily-armored cultists blocking the exit—and her eyes settle on the line of trucks.

Alright, so this wasn’t her most brilliant of ideas, ever, but it was better than making a fool of herself by getting all the way to the end of the line only to have nowhere to run.

The first shot rings out across the yard and spurs her forward.

A stack of crates unloaded next to the nearest truck is used as a springboard to launch her up onto the wall of the truckbed, and from there she hops up onto the cab and then across each of the trucks with the thought in her head that Frogger was a hell of a lot less fun than she remembered.

“What the fuck is she doing?”

“Go! Go around!”

When she reaches the third truck she braces herself and then leaps, clearing the barbed wire topping the yard fence by scant inches. Her heart drifts into her throat as the freefall grips at her, the sound of more gunfire breaking the silence of the surrounding forest and sending nearby flocks of birds into panicked flight.

Pain flares up her leg as she lands, the force of her fall sending her sprawling; a noise of pain leaves her, but she forces herself back to her feet and keeps running, pouring every ounce of speed into her burning limbs and ignoring her tiring lungs.

One of the cultist’s bullets finds its mark and she stumbles as fire erupts in her arm, more pain that through sheer force of will is ignored in favor of running. It’s not a bliss bullet, or she wouldn’t have made it to the trees—the only dizziness she feels is purely the result of a tiring body begging her to slow down and stop.

She’s pursued into the woods, frantic shouts and barked orders and gunfire that causes her to instinctively duck as she runs as quickly as she dares down a slope following after her. The forest thickens as she goes, giving her more cover as she ducks in and around trees and bushes as often as possible.

After what felt like an eternity the sounds of pursuit leave her behind, fading farther and farther back until she feels comfortable enough to duck and hide under a rocky outcropping in the sloped landscape; the shade does little to ease the inferno in her blood from so much exertion and sweat drips down the side of her face.

It’s a struggle to calm her breathing as she waits, hating the way her tired limbs start to shake.

Five minutes pass. Distant but still too-close-for-comfort shouts from John’s followers reach her ears. Their hair raising calls of “come out, little girl!” and “play nice and we will!” do nothing to assist in calming her.

Ten minutes. Footsteps crunch in the underbrush on sticks and dry leaves nearby. None approach.

Fifteen.

“She’s gone.”

“Damnit. I’m not telling him.”

“Quit complaining. All of you head back, I’m checking ahead.”

The other voices drift off along with the groups of footsteps she’d been hearing until only one is left; her body is starting to shake more with the adrenaline fading and it’s a struggle to keep upright as she listens with bated breath.

The steps drift towards her hiding spot. Her eyes narrow.

With her body so unsteady she has no idea if she’ll be able to accomplish what she needs to if she’s found, but she steels herself for it anyway. The bow would make too much noise if she tried to slide it off her back in the quiet woods, so she instead reaches for the knife she’d tucked under her belt back in the bunker.

She holds completely still, keeping her breathing as even and quiet as she possibly can when a pair of booted feet enter her vision to the left of the rocky outcropping.

What she assumes is one of John’s Chosen steps fully into her sight, passing her completely without even bothering to check behind the outcropping. Fucking idiot. He stands there scanning the area; her knuckles are white where they grip the knife.

When he does finally turn around his gaze settles on her with a startled expression; she springs forward with a snarl, jamming her knife into his throat before he can lift the gun in his hands, surprising both him and herself for two very different reasons. His eyes widen and the gun drops from his hands, clattering to the loose dirt and leaves between them, one of his hands fisting in her hair in dying fury and yanking.

A yelp of pain leaves her and her fingers slip from the knife when his other hand snaps around her throat—a single painful squeeze is all he can manage before his grip on her slackens and gaze goes distant, her hair and her throat both released as he collapses to the ground on his back in a twitching heap.

She stumbles back on unsteady feet, falling back onto her ass and watching with something she can only describe in the moment as horror while he grasps furiously at the blade in his throat until his movements slow and eventually stop, blood still leaking around the sharp edge of the weapon and bubbling in his throat.

Nausea rises in her own and she sucks in a sharp breath, pressing her lips together tightly to keep herself from retching at the sight of the still body and glassy eyes laid out in front of her.

She’d wanted to be an FBI agent since she was a teenager—still did. She’d known from the beginning that there was a more than high possibility that her choice of field would lead to her having to kill someone at some point, but she hadn’t ever expected it to be like this. Not even when the stories Eli had told her gave her an idea of what Jacob might have been trying to do with her, not even when she’d been up in the mountains helping the Whitetails—that had been at a distance, cold and impersonal. It still made her sick at first, but it had been getting easier to deal with.

Suddenly, that decent ease she’d begun to grow with killing meant absolutely nothing, and she felt like she’d just made her first kill again. This was up close, she’d been near enough to see the life leave the man’s eyes, and she decides immediately that she does not fucking like it.

Worse was knowing that, sooner or later, she was going to have to get used to this as well. She’d been lucky up in the mountains and had a partner watching her back, both of them taking enemies down at a distance.

This wasn’t going to be the only time she was going to be on her own and at risk.

Swallowing, she gathers her wits and stands, moving forward with palpable hesitation and reaching down to grasp the handle; her shoulder flares with pain as she pulls it out with a sickening, wet noise. More bile rises in her throat at the immediate gush of more blood from the wound without something blocking it.

Pulling arrows from corpses was no different. It wasn’t, but no matter how many times it runs through her head her skin still crawls.

It’s only knowing that the longer she sticks around the likelier it is she’ll be found and that she was up shit creek without the metaphorical paddle—paddle being supplies—that gives her the constitution to search the body for anything she can use. She has to avoid looking at the man’s face in order to do so.

A pair of throwing knives are both tucked into her boots. Nothing in the way of food or water are on his person, but she’s not surprised considering she’d caught them all of guard.

It was still worrying. She was who knew how many miles from any semblance of civilization, and between the marathon she’d just run and the bullet wound on her arm she risked dehydration at least.

Hell, she’d be lucky if she could make it anywhere between the wound and the ache in her ankle that was more prominent in her mind without the adrenaline and urgency keeping her focus elsewhere, and that wasn’t taking into account the exhaustion that was going to settle over her quickly now.

There’s a radio clipped to his belt, and having decided that she’s not going to find anything else truly useful, she snatches it off him with quick fingers and steps away. Her eyes drift around as she tries to get her bearings and decide a direction to go; if she keeps lingering, it was tantamount to her just turning around and walking right back into John’s hands.

And she didn’t go through all this for nothing.

She lingers long enough to rip a strip of fabric from the bottom of her shirt and tie a makeshift tourniquet around her bicep just above the bullet wound, and ultimately she decides to simply follow the ravine she’s in downhill. Ravines meant water erosion, and if she was lucky she would wander across a body of water at some point. The question was whether or not she’d get to one before passing out.

After an hour of walking, her ankle slowly paining her more and more, she was struggling to motivate herself to keep going rather than finding a bush to just lay down and rest. Despite the tourniquet there’s a slow trickle of blood that’s doing her no favors, either.

Come home. Come home. Come home.

She hesitates, staring with blurry, blinking eyes up at the bridge spanning the gap of the ravine fifty feet above her. The sun was starting to set and more than the exhaustion itself—or maybe a direct result of it—the thought kept creeping into her head. Come home. Jacob’s voice was like a ghostly whisper in her ear and she sways with indecision.

She sure as fuck wouldn’t be able to make it back to the Veteran’s Center from here, but maybe if she went back to John—

Holy fucking shit.

Her head shakes rapidly to break the thoughts in her head, a shaky breathe leaving her and the motion making her even dizzier. Jesus, Tammy had been right. He gets into your head, she had told her, venomous and warning, there’s no avoiding it. No matter how long you’re with him. He gets into your head.

The knowledge that within three weeks he’d been able to plant control into her brain leaves her disturbed. What would he have been able to accomplish if she’d been there longer?

She’s too tired to be ashamed of the startled yelp that leaves her when a voice crackles through static on the radio clipped to her belt. “Brayden, do you copy?” It’s not John, just another of the Peggies.

Her fingers grasp the radio and unclip it, and she wars with the same thoughts—come home come home come home—as she stares at it and debates on responding. She could be a petty little shit and taunt them, but she has no idea how far she’d actually managed to get away from John’s bunker and she didn’t want to give them the idea that she was still nearby.

The voice that wasn’t her own told her that was exactly what she wanted to do.

“Brayden, do you copy? We need an update. Are you tracking her?”

Definitely the guy she’d killed. With him not responding they were probably going to suspect foul play and send a group out to look for him—and, by extension, her. Ignoring the voice that sounded suspiciously like a red-haired, blue-eyed wolf of a man, she decides she needs to get oriented and find somewhere safe that wasn’t with John.

With the sun setting she’d be at one hell of a disadvantage if they were still out looking for her. She’d never been taught to navigate by stars, and she was alone with no supplies and no idea if there was any shelter nearby.

It was looking more and more like her luck had been used up by managing to dodge Jacob’s hunters for nearly a week after this nightmare had begun, and Lady Luck had wiggled a glimmer of it in front of her nose with this escape only to take it away again.

Blinking down at the radio, she switches the frequency to one she hopes wasn’t too far out of range. “Eli, this is Quinn. Are you there?”

Only her footsteps as she resumes her unsteady and slowed walking pace answer her at first, and she starts to doubt that she could still reach the Militia out here. She’s about to press the button to try again when she finally gets a response. “Shit, Quinn, is that really you? Jess told us what happened, we’ve been trying to get in contact with you for weeks!”

His voice is slightly garbled, likely a result of the distance, but it’s unmistakably Wheaty on the other end. She sighs in relief. “It’s me, Wheaty. Good to hear you.” Then what he said gives her pause. “How long was I dark?”

“A little over two weeks, after that ambush. Hey, you’re breaking up real bad—where are you?”

It couldn’t hurt to share the wildly general area, considering she truly had no idea. “Somewhere in Holland Valley, I think.”

“You don’t know?”

“I just spent two weeks held captive underground, so no. That’s why I’m contacting you guys. I need help getting my bearings.”

There’s a longer pause and she assumes that Wheaty was processing what she’d told him or looking for a map, but the next voice that speaks is the one that she’d called for in the first place. “John got hold of you?” Eli must have been listening in and had chosen then to cut in. She feels a momentary pang of regret for interrupting whatever he might’ve been working on, but the concern in his voice soothes it somewhat.

“He did. I’m okay, Eli, just exhausted. I gave him a swift metaphorical kick in the nuts on my way out, so it was worth it.”

“You and the Deputy are something special, Quinn. Been at this resistance thing for years but none of us have been able to kick over the Cult’s sandcastles the way both of you have in just a few months.” Eli says, amused and relieved in equal measure. “Can you give me some landmarks to work with? Get to high ground if you can.”

She’d already anticipated the request and had—with difficulty thanks to both her leg and arm—begun to scale the hillside of the ravine she’d been traversing, wary of the open road and bridge she’d just bypassed. Once at the top she squints at the mountainside to her right and the waning colors of sunset. “I’m facing south right now, been traveling through a ravine down the mountain I think.”

She’ll need to get moving as soon as Eli gives her a direction to go in, now. This was an unsecured frequency the Whitetails monitored, and anyone could’ve been listening in.

Scanning her environment, she lists off anything noteworthy she can see; a lone church down by a small lake, spire just barely peeking up over the top of the trees, what looked like an airfield somewhere to her southeast, plus the bridge she’d just passed, and—

She blinks, having turned around to see if there was anything behind her and suddenly wondering if the blood loss was causing her to hallucinate visually as well as audibly. There above the trees was a massive Hollywood-style billboard featuring exactly three letters: YES.

What. The. Fuck.

When she realizes she’s keeping Eli waiting she clicks the receiver down, unable to tear her eyes away from the sign. “I—there’s a big ‘Yes’ sign up in the mountain northeast of me.” Really, John?

Eli doesn’t comment on the billboard and she almost wishes he would—it’d make the surreality of what she was looking at make her feel just a bit more grounded. “Can’t tell exactly where you’re at, kid, but in a general sense keep heading southeast. I remember right, Grace Armstrong is holed up somewhere near the foot of the hill you’re on.”

She winces, heading carefully back down into the ravine. “Thanks, Eli. Hey, I’m on a stolen radio right now ‘cause John took mine, so I don’t have the encryption channels anymore. Until you can swap out the keys, avoid details on the radio.”

“Got it. Damn miracle they haven’t intercepted us yet.”

“Yeah.” She says. “I’m sorry.”

“Not your fault. Put a bullet in John and help your friend put a few in Jacob and we’ll call it even.”

She laughs, feeling light in her chest and unsettled by the fact she can’t tell if it’s from the blood loss or exhaustion or she was just happy to hear from someone friendly. “Will do, Eli. Quinn out.”

[rowan-buzzard-whitethorn]

Control- Rowcan Part III

I was finally able to finish this bad boy. Fun fact: did you know what I literally look at every single reblog of these fics and see if anyone says something in the tags? That’s how much of an attention whore I am. I have a problem.

Rating: Explicit

Tags: Kinkier and Kinkier

Word Count: 4.3K

Part 1, Part 2

AO3

Rowan jerked awake, immediately stiffening and hissing in a breath at the sharp agony in his arm. He forced his body to relax, to not pull against the chains. He had somehow succumb to the weight of exhaustion, falling into a form of unconsciousness that was in no way restful.

The iron was wrapped around his neck, his chest, each thigh, each ankle, each bicep and each wrist. It felt like a castle was resting on his chest. He couldn’t lift his head, but he had a shadowy sense of awareness toward his right arm. He couldn’t see what they did, but considering the tools they had used and the cut they made... the sounds- the cracking and squelching, the grinding sensation, the screaming of his muscles- he knew that both of the bones in his forearm were bulging from his skin, twisted far past their normal rotation. That was where they had started. They had done the same thing to the left calf. His torso and thighs were striped with welts, burns, and cuts. Though both of his eyes were almost completely swollen shut, they opened just enough to look over to the nearest lantern. He stared at the flame. Begging it to flicker, to bend under the force of a breath, a whisper of wind. Nothing.

His vision swam and he knew that in a moment he would succumb to another round of fever induced nothingness. His heavy lids had almost collapsed when the door to the dungeon slammed open, nearly coming off the hinges. He didn’t bother trying to turn his head. He expected a taunting voice, a cold sneer to enter his vision, but instead he saw the faces of Lorcan and Gavriel. He must be hallucinating- he knew the fever would develop into madness at some point but this seemed far too soon. They were saying something to him, but he couldn’t hear it. His lids were about to close again when he felt a hand smack his cheek. Hard.

“Don’t you dare, asshole."

“Rowan, we’re getting you out of here, we’re going home.”

Home. His home was gone. He hadn’t had a home in over one hundred fifty seven years.

Gavriel, Vaughan, and Lorcan sat in the back of a wagon. Gavriel and Vaughan trailed their fingers over Rowan’s wounds, methodically addressing the infection swimming in his blood. They left the bones alone, the damage comprehensive enough that they wanted to wait for the professional healers to address them when they got back to Doranelle. Lorcan had half a mind to stay behind. They had destroyed the fort, leaving a river of blood behind them. This Eastern kingdom was already weak, grasping at scraps of power already, and Lorcan had a foggy plan in his mind to come back and wipe it entirely off the map. For now though, they had to get back to his Queen as fast as possible. Rowan was still unconscious on the bench, and Lorcan resisted the urge to wipe away the hair sticking to his face. He was not a whimpering nursemaid and he refused to worry. They were going to go home, Rowan would heal, and they would both be back to bring this kingdom to its knees. Everything would be fine.

The carriage gave a harsh jerk to the left, and Rowan’s limp body listed to the side. “Watch where you’re fucking going will you?!” Lorcan snarled.

Gavriel glanced up from his work, giving Lorcan a look. “We’ll be there soon enough.”

“Yeah and preferably in one piece,” he growled.  

Gavriel’s tawny eyes slid down to Lorcan’s hands, which he then realized were holding the grip of his axe, rhythmically pounding the head on the floor of the wagon. He chucked it aside and kept his eyes on the road.

Six months later

They did return to that kingdom. Rowan had spent two weeks with the healers, repairing his ribs and the bones of his arm and leg. Replacing the missing bits of muscle. Restoring joints. A week after that, Lorcan showed up to Rowan’s door to drag his ass to the yard. They worked to restore the strength in those new muscles, had ensured that his wrist and ankle had returned to their full strength and range of motion. Being blessed with fae blood didn’t mean that there weren’t consequences from being tortured for two weeks. The rest of the blood-sworn had helped. And they had decided to go together, regardless of the fact that the whole lot of them was more than enough to cripple that little Eastern kingdom. Maeve had given them leave to do as they wished. She had no interest in the east. By the time they were done, they were absolutely no threat to anyone.

After they had decimated the army, they had all celebrated. However, Rowan only showed a grim sense of satisfaction that had barely lasted. Even during the journey back to Doranelle, Lorcan had noticed that Rowan’s eyes seemed somehow even deader than before. His face was set in a constant mask. His lips and shoulders all set in tight, fixed lines. When they returned, Rowan said the bare minimum in every meeting they had before immediately returning to the yard or to his quarters. He could only be seen during mealtimes, where Lorcan tried and failed not to notice that he was eating less than usual.

It was during one of these meals, dinner at the table they always shared, that Lorcan noticed that Rowan kept bouncing his leg under the table. In the many years that Lorcan had known Rowan, he had had never seen him without a tight sense of control over every movement he made. He might use that control to train for hours on end, to use the last dregs of his magical reserves, or even to lash out in rage, but the sense of ownership over every muscle remained. This bouncing thigh showed a crack in that command. He shared a look with Gavriel who just shook his head. Gavriel had told him that he tried to have a conversation with Rowan several of days ago and it had...not ended well.

When Rowan stood from the table, leaving almost half of his food on his plate, Lorcan counted several breaths before standing up to follow him. He caught sight of him when he turned down an empty corridor.

“Whitethorn.”

“Whatever it is it can wait until tomorrow.”

Lorcan caught up to him and decided to be at least somewhat smart about this and abandoned the urge to grab Rowan by the arm and spin him around. Instead, he sped up so he could stand in front of Rowan to simply block his path.

“What.”

“What do you need me to do?”

“I don’t need anything from you.”

“Since when has being alone ever worked for you?”

“It’s gotten me through this far.”

Lorcan dared a step closer. “No, it hasn’t. The only thing you’ve had under control is your own body. And even that was taken from you.”

“So what- you think fucking you will help?” Rowan sneered.

“I think you need a better way to get through immortality. But I also think you need to gain back that sense of control.”

Rowan considered him for a moment, distaste still painting his features. Then, something shifted, and he almost smirked. He closed the distance between them, every movement predatory. “You know what, Commander? Fine. You think i need to feel in control again? Come to my quarters tomorrow night. And you better come prepared, inside and out.”

The next night, Lorcan made his way to Rowan’s quarters, walking at a deliberately slow pace. When he got to the door, he paused for a moment, steeling himself. This might not work. Hell, Rowan might decide to punch him in the face and slam the door. He may stay the same way he’s been. Present in body but not in mind. Lorcan knew that if Rowan actually followed through with… whatever this was, that Lorcan could take it. He was used to being the one in charge of these types of situations, so he felt the awkwardness of putting himself out of his comfort zone. But he was willing to accept that Rowan needed to have an equal and opposite experience to drown out the mental warfare that occurs after going through the type of torture he went through. So, he lifted his fist and gave two swift knocks on the door.

He only had to wait two heartbeats before the door opened and he was dragged into the room by the front of his shirt. Rowan pulled him inside and shoved him against the door. Their mouths crashed together and Lorcan opened his mouth immediately. Rowan lifted Lorcan’s arms above his head and devoured his mouth, his teeth scraping against sensitive flesh.

When his mouth moved down to his throat, Lorcan said, “is this what your control looks like? It looks a lot like more of the same.”

Rowan squeezed Lorcan's jaw and snarled in his face. “Shut. The fuck. Up.”

He spun them around and began pushing Lorcan towards the bed. His legs hit the edge of the mattress and Rowan shoved him down onto his back. Rowan climbed on top of him and they slid their way to the head of the bed. Rowan straddled Lorcan’s hips, occasionally grinding against him as their tongues entwined again. Rowan’s hands slid up under Lorcan's shirt, pressing up his torso until Lorcan lifted his arms to allow Rowan to yank the shirt over his head and throw it behind him.

“I know what I want. What I need to get past this,” Rowan breathed.  

Lorcan’s eyebrows lifted, waiting. Rowan reached over to the bedside table and held a rope in front of Lorcan’s face. He looked Rowan in the eyes. They both knew that this kind of rope would offer resistance, but that Lorcan could break through bonds like that if he wished.

Lorcan just nodded and Rowan began looping and wrapping the rope around one wrist until he was able to drag Lorcan’s arm across the bed to secure the end of the rope to the bedpost. After Lorcan watched him finish with the first one, he focused instead on Rowan’s face. It was set in a mask of concentration, but his breathing was ragged and uneven. No doubt thinking of a different set of bonds. Iron ones. No doubt the very reason he chose to do it this way. He was still trying to analyze Rowan’s features, to figure out where his mind was at, when his other arm is stretched towards the other post and secured there.

Rowan slid down his body, resting between Lorcan’s legs. Quickly, roughly, and efficiently, he pulled at the ties of his trousers and yanked everything off him until Lorcan lay there naked and ready. He grabbed Lorcan under his knees and spread his legs. Rowan ignored his cock completely as his mouth dove for Lorcan’s hole, licking and probing and devouring him. Lorcan’s eyes lost focus as he stared at the ceiling, luxuriating in the touch, feeling Rowan’s breaths through his nose tickle the hair of his seam. He lifted his head only to be able to see the top of Rowan’s head, his long hair tied at the base of his skull. He wanted to reach down and grab it, to pull it free and wrap it around his fist, but instead all he got to do was pull against the ropes.

Rowan pushed himself up and started to come towards him again, only to reach across him again to the bedside table. Lorcan finally took a moment to look over to see what else rested on the table and his jaw dropped. There was a jar of oil...and…

The wood was polished to a perfect sheen, making the fire light dance off the conical shape- perfectly round in the middle and narrowing to a soft point at the top. The bottom narrowed quickly before flaring again to the base which held the piece upright. A plug.

Lorcan’s eyes snapped back to Rowan’s, but the male didn’t even look at him, just opened the jar of oil, smearing it on the plug before getting another generous dip on his fingers and leaning back to reposition himself between Lorcan’s legs. This took a turn.

“You do enjoy surprising me don’t you, Prince.”

“Don’t tell me you’ve never used one before.”

“Oh i have, I’m usually the one using it on other people...but I’m more scandalized by the image of you going out and purchasing one”

Rowan just snorted and began rubbing his slick hand against Lorcan’s puckered hole, circling the edges with the tip of his finger. “Did you prepare like i asked?”

“Yes.”

“Good.”

Rowan placed the tip of the plug against Lorcan’s skin and pressed lightly, no preamble. It was a good thing that Lorcan did indeed follow his orders, and did some… preliminary stretching. Then again, Lorcan had only used his fingers. So, as the widest part of the plug pushed past that ring of muscle, Lorcan had to devote his concentration and control his breathing to slightly push against that wide end, allowing it to be fully engulfed before resting against his skin. It had been quite some time since he used one of these and… he had forgotten. Forgotten how mind numbing the constant pressure was inside him. How that wide end pressed against that one spot every time he shifted or clenched. He widened his legs and grunted at that sensation, trying to get his breathing under control, but Rowan moved his still slick hand up to Lorcan’s cock and gave the head a hard, tight squeeze that had his eyes rolling to the back of his head. It didn’t escape him that he was laying here in Rowan’s bed, completely naked, tied and helpless- with a plug inside him- while Rowan remained fully clothed.

“And here I thought that preparation was so that you could bend my legs up to my ears and fill me yourself. What’s your plan now?”

“You aren’t the only one who prepared.”

Rowan allowed himself a brief moment to take in Lorcan’s wide eyes, the utter stillness of his features, before he ripped off his own clothing in rough tugs. Once naked, he straddled Lorcan's hips again and reached for the oil, bending awkwardly between his legs to swipe the oil across his entrance.

“Rowan…” Lorcan growled and Rowan looked up to his face. He gazed at him while he reached again between his legs, taking hold of Lorcan and guiding him, sliding him up and down his cleft, breathing in rough gasps as he started to slide down onto his cock. He paused for a moment to relax into the blunt, wide head of him. He squeezed his eyes shut, needing this and only this right now. This moment. He was eager to return to that memory of bliss, that all encompassing sensation of being filled, stretched. Fucking was one thing. But this... It was like a flood, drowning every thought, silencing the words in his mind: that he was alone- that he deserved nothing and no one. That thought had echoed and reverberated in his mind for those two weeks on that table. He didn’t understand it. He had been tortured before. Why had this time been so different?

He sank lower and lower onto Lorcan’s cock, until he was sitting again on Lorcan’s hips. He sat there for a moment, bracing his hands against Lorcan’s chest, feeling the powerful muscles and bones expand with each gasping breath. He looked down at himself, at his hard length aching and throbbing. When he mustered the strength to move, he lifted up slightly, shuddering at the smooth glide of their skin against one another. The movement felt foreign and uneasy. He hadn’t considered the fact that this position meant that each movement of his hips was different than what he was used to.

His mind drifted to memories of women atop him, their hips grinding and bouncing against him and he suddenly had a moment of doubt. He had meant for this to be a moment of power, of taking, and suddenly he felt very vulnerable and out of his element. His eyes found one of Lorcan’s wrists- his arm straining against the bonds, hand in a fist. He reminded himself that every sensation and movement was under his control. This moment belonged to him and only him. He forced his muscles to move, to grind against the fullness inside him. He registered that Lorcan was growling and grunting on each exhale, and he used the sound as a measure, a way to modulate each movement of his hips- finding a way to teach his hips and legs how to seek out his pleasure this new way. A harsh breath gusted out of him and he picked up his pace as he threw his head back and groaned.

This was quite possibly the best view Lorcan had ever seen in his gods-forsaken life. Segments of hair had fallen out of Rowan’s tie and hung in his face, tucked hastily behind an ear, and clung down the side of his neck, sticking to the sweat running down him. Every muscle was taut and rippling with each movement he made. He couldn’t remember a time when he had every one of his senses under such assault. His arms were under continual tension, feeling the slight panic at not being able to reach out and touch. Deep inside him, he felt the plug pressing with constant demand against the base of him. And Rowan’s ass was squeezing his dick so hard he was certain that if rowan lifted off him for a moment he would be able to see that it was alarmingly red and full.

His neck was straining but he didn’t care, not as he watched Rowan’s cock bob up and down, feeling his sack press against him every time that Rowan fully seated himself against his lap. Rowan continued to neglect himself, his hands having moved to brace against his thighs, his head still tilted back, exposing the strong column of his throat. Gods, Lorcan wanted to lick that neck.

Through the haze of sensation, his instincts began to pick up on an insidious undercurrent in the room. Rowan’s hands were pressed against his legs so hard that the fingertips were wholly white. His shoulders were locked and bunched. When he looked again to Rowan’s throat, he could see that his jaw was wide open and he was panting like an animal, seemingly unable to take in a full breath.

“Rowan.” He didn’t respond, didn’t look at him.

“Rowan,” he snarled. “Look at me you bastard.”

He was still rocking his hips, but Rowan looked down at him like he was just remembering he was here.

“Where the fuck are you.”

“Nowhere,” Rowan responded, and then his hips finally stilled, the words sinking in.

“Be here. I’m right here. You aren’t alone."

The words hit like a physical blow. Rowan fell forward, his hands braced on either side of Lorcan’s chest. He bowed his head, long hairs hanging in Lorcan’s face.

“Rowan. Come here,” he commanded. Rowan fell to his elbows, allowing his chest to fall against Lorcan’s. They sat there like that for a long moment, their sweat sticky and hot between them, Rowan’s breathing was possibly even more labored and fast than before.

“Rowan, my hands.”

He lifted just far enough to allow one arm to reach over and tug against the knot, sliding it along the length of the rope far enough that Lorcan could slide his right hand through. Then Rowan shifted his weight to do the same to the other side before falling again, his forehead braced on Lorcan’s shoulder. Lorcan wrapped his arms tightly around the Prince, crushing their bodies together, a part of him still registering the way they were still joined. He lifted his head, almost alarming himself at the gentleness of the kisses he placed against Rowan’s neck. They were in foreign territory, neither knowing the words to say in this moment but both feeling the tide shift, feeling their bodies no longer in a state of primal need but shifting into something more subtle and layered.

He ran his hand up Rowan’s back, grabbing a fist full of ponytail and gently tugging Rowan up to look him in the eye. The Prince’s eyes searched furiously between his own, clearly at war with his desire to appear the master of himself and this new sense of vulnerability. He settled somewhere in between as he said, “kiss me.”

Lorcan only need to lean up a little further so that their lips could touch. The kiss was slow at first, only the tips of their lips brushing against each other. Then Rowan’s hand slid up and he grasped the back of Lorcan’s head, his fingers sliding into Lorcan’s hair as the kiss deepened.

This heat was different somehow, a silent conversation. Lorcan’s other hand moved down his spine to stroke one cheek, barely lifting his hips to slide a little deeper. Rowan lifted his head, his eyes blazing as he rocked his hips back, a counterweight to Lorcan’s movements. They did not look away from each other as they found a slow, luxurious rhythm. Rowan’s eyes drooped, his forehead coming to rest against Lorcan’s, sharing breath.

“Like this,” Lorcan said, softer now. “Stop fighting everything. Just let go and be here in this moment.”

Rowan groaned, keeping their heads together as his hips responded in a deep grind. Lorcan made every push a focused communication, gaining speed without losing purpose. Rowan’s cock was a solid weight between their bodies, sliding between them easier and easier as each bead of precum slicked their skin. His head dropped to Lorcan’s neck- seemingly unable to continue holding it up, directing each moan and intake of breath directly to Lorcan’s ear. Lorcan felt every ounce of tension from the night begging to release, his body roaring at him to let go, but he wouldn’t allow himself to until Rowan did.

“Rowan, come with me.” Rowan lifted on his elbows again, arching his back only enough so there was a bare separation between their torsos.

“Do it for me.”

Lorcan eased a hand between them, grabbing Rowan’s cock and stroking him the exact way he had seen Rowan do it, eager to get him to come quickly. He was focused on his task enough that he was surprised when Rowan’s lips found his again, his tongue sliding into his mouth. He could feel the vibrations of Rowan’s groan against him, and then Rowan pulled his lips back a hair’s breadth away to sob out his release, coating both of them in wetness. Lorcan kept up his stroking as his hips finally faltered under the weight of his own release, the plug making his climax even more intense. They both collapsed, Rowan’s full body weight pressing against him.

Rowan finally felt his breathing slow, his body and mind still under the effects of euphoria. It was different this time. Instead of the silence he had been hunting, he was overcome by a sense of calm . He felt calmer and more at rest than he had… in a long time. It wasn’t complete. No, he would never feel complete again. He knew that. But still, this was like blessed relief. Like coming up for a breath of air while in the throes of a harsh current.

He brushed his lips against Lorcan’s one last time- the only gratitude he could offer, before rolling to the side. Lorcan rolled towards him, reaching behind himself to gently ease the plug out, then he turned and slid out of bed.

“You’re staying here tonight,” he said. Not a question.

Lorcan snorted. “Of course I am.”

He got up and walked towards the bathroom and Rowan felt a smirk tug at his lips at the sight. When lorcan was done, they passed each other in the center of the room while he was making his way to bathroom as well. A loud smack reverberated against the stone walls as Lorcan smacked his ass.

Rowan didn’t even turn around, just said, “you’ll pay for that,” before closing the bathroom door behind him.

Lorcan lay in the middle of Rowan’s bed, feeling ridiculously pleased with himself, as he usually did after nights like this. He watched as Rowan made his way back to bed, enjoying the ability to see him naked this way- casually and without the cloud of lust around him.

“You’re in my spot,” Rowan said as he climbed on the mattress, and Lorcan shifted away from the middle only enough so that Rowan could lay down before falling against his chest, throwing a leg over him. They lay there in silence for a good while, neither wanting to disrupt the peaceful quiet they had found somehow. Eventually, Rowan’s arm came up and rested against Lorcan’s back. There were no sweet nothings whispered, no idle stroking, just their bodies relaxed against one another, their breathing synced.

Lorcan felt his eyes droop at the sensation of their chests rising and falling in unison. The sound against Lorcan’s ear like a gentle tide. It was enough to pull him under into a heavy, dreamless sleep.

[thefragileblackdahlia]

It’s the Great Pumpkin, Sam Winchester: Part two

Chapter Summary

The brothers and Ariel deduce a witch is sacrificing people to summon a dangerous demon. Dean struggles with the consequences of Ariel’s behavior.

Pairing(s): Eventual Dean x Ariel, Castiel x Ariel

Warning(s): Heavy Angst, MAJOR Character Death, Fluff (if you squint), Typical SUPERNATURAL Violence, Mild Language

A/N: This episode will focus heavily on Ariel’s POV. It is still in 3rd person but centered around her experiences. So it won’t involve much of the episode besides the parts i find crucial. Please feel free to leave feedback.

Beta’d by no one

Word count: 2,737

Ariel’s outfits

MOTEL

OCTOBER 31ST, 2008

Sam had only left the room for about 2 minutes before the angels came flying in. A pair of shackles were slapped around her wrists, Enochian magic etched into them to prevent her from going anywhere.

"Castiel?" Ariel queried.

"I'm sorry." Castiel threw the blade at Ariel; it plunging deep into her chest. The soldier flew behind the angel and grabbed the edge, plunging it deeper into her before pulling it out and penetrating her side.

"Cassie?" Ariel whimpered, wrapping her hands around his that held the blade in place.

Cas removed the blade and cocked his arm back, sinking the blade between her shoulder blades. He knew that it wouldn't kill her, just fatally wound her to the point where she couldn't depend on her grace to heal quickly.

"I had no choice."

Ariel's whole body went lip and crashed to the floor by the bed. Blood spewed out of her wounds.

A loud thud came from a particular room upstairs.

"GET THESE OFF OF ME!!"

Sam and Dean looked up from the parking lot, confused.

"Ariel?" Sam questioned, pulling the motel keys from his pocket. He glanced at his brother, whose face went from puzzled to worry in under one second flat.

Dean started for the stairs, briskly walking and then jogged. Sam was close behind with the keys.

Once Sam got the door open, he immediately drew his gun. "Who are you?!" The frightened hunter demanded, training his weapon on the offending man who had Ariel kneeling beside him, with blood pouring onto the homely carpet.

Dean immediately rushed in and tried to stop Sam from almost shooting the man. "Sam! Sam, wait! It's Castiel." The older brother put his hand on Sam's gun and pushed it down, Sam stood there, anger still written on his face." The other Angel." He added.

Dean spotted another figure in the room, standing by the far window. "Him, I don't know."

"What did you do to her?" Dean breathed. He glanced down at the fallen Ariel and a triumphant Castiels still sitting on the bed.

Ariel pulled her bloodstained lips into a lopsided grin, "He stabbed me- Three times to be exact. I guess that's how siblings greet each other now."

Castiel stood to his feet, stepping around the fallen woman, "Hello, Sam."

"Oh my God- uh- I didn't mean to- sorry. It's an honor, really, I've heard a lot about you." Sam stepped forward as he spoke and held out his hand for Castiel to shake.

Castiel glanced at Sam's extended hand, unsure of what to do. Was he supposed to pull it? Chop it off? Squeeze it?

Ariel let out a small cackle, blood dripping from the crease of her lips and trickling down her chin into her cleavage. "You're supposed to shake it, ass." She hacked and glanced at her wounds.

Sam shook his hand a little, and Castiel finally understood, sliding his hand into Sam's and returning the gesture.

"And I, you. Sam Winchester-" The soldier turned over the hunter's hand and placed his own over the back as he resumed talking. "The boy with the demon blood."

"Castiel..." Ariel wheezed as she heard him address her friend in such a rude way.

Dean, who had returned from closing the door, gazed down at his angel. He could see that one of her shoulders had a giant gash. The righteous man's expression hardened at the view, a vein popping out of his neck.

Dean averted his gaze when Castiel resumed talking.

"Glad to see you've ceased your extracurricular activities," Castiel affirmed, letting go of Samuel's hand and returning his arms to his sides.

The mysterious figure finally spoke, "Let's keep it that way."

"Touch Sam Winchester, and I'll devour you, and you'll not only feel my wrath but Father's." Ariel sneered, digging her nails into the carpet as more blood gushed out of her wounds.

Uriel chuckled, "Following in your beloved's footsteps, huh? First, you rebel just like him, and now you've fallen in every way imaginable. I'm not frightened by an atrocity like you, especially not in those cuffs."

Dean stepped forward and clenched his fist, "Yeah, okay, chuckles." The human looked back to the trench-coated angel. "Who's your friend?"

Castiel glanced down at Ariel with a pang in his vessel's heart. "This raising of Samhain- have you stopped it?"

"Why?" Dean replied.

"Dean- Have you located the witch?" Cas questioned, turning his attention to Dean and him only.

Ariel spoke for Dean. "Yes, we've located the witch."

"And is the witch dead?"

Sam tilted his head, a bit confused, "No, but-"

"We know who it is." Dean cut him off.

Castiel walked over to the side table, "Apparently, the witch knows who you are too." The soldier retrieved a hex bag and showed it to the hunters. He sighed, "This was inside the wall of your room. If we hadn't found it, surely one or both of you would be dead. Do you know where the witch is now?"

Sam and Dean exchange a look of uncertainty, a bit sheepish. "We're working on it."

"That's unfortunate," Cas said flatly, looking up and at the back of Uriel's bald head.

"What do you care?" Dean grumbled.

The soldier looked down at his fallen sister, "The raising of Samhain is one of the 66 seals."

Dean pulled his lip into a thin line, "So, this is about your buddy Lucifer."

Again, the mysterious man spoke when no one wanted him to, "Lucifer is no friend of ours- Heard he's pretty close with Ariel though, jealous?"

Ariel sniffled, clenching her teeth at Uriel's behavior. "It's just an expression." She huffed.

"Lucifer cannot rise. The breaking of the seal must be prevented at all costs. Ariel knew of this. I'm not understanding why she didn't inform you." Castiel gestured to the broken archangel, who was still bleeding on the floor.

Dean's blood ran cold when hearing of this newfound information. Ariel knew all of this but chose to keep it under wraps, for what? Was she really on their side or just there to slow them down?

Dean turned to the archangel, ignoring her glossy eyes. "You knew?" He queried, hoping it was a lie."No- We'll talk about this later." The hunter shut his eyes, and inhaled deeply tried his best to recollect himself.

"Why don't you tell us where the witch is, we'll gank her, and everybody goes home." Dean pointed to Castiel.

"We are not omniscient. This witch is very powerful, and she's cloaked even to our methods." Castiel walked back over to the brothers, the hex bag still in his hand.

Sam took a deep breath, "Okay, well we already know who she is, so if we work together-"

"Enough of this." The man's voice boomed.

Dean, who has had enough of Angels being unbelievable, took a few steps toward the dark skin man. "Okay, Who are you, and why should I care?"

Uriel finally turned from the window, glaring at Dean and Sam.

Castiel subtly rolled his eyes and dreaded introducing Uriel, "This is Uriel, he's what you might call a....specialist."

Uriel marched toward the group with his hands behind his back like he was something important.

The imprisoned angel pushed herself to her feet with the help of Dean. "No..." Ariel murmured, clenching her fist.

Dean began to panic, "What kind of specialist?" He looked to his angel companion and then toward Uriel, who donned a smug smile. "What are you gonna do?"

"You- uh, both of you- you need to leave this town immediately." Castiel murmured.

"Why?" Sam took a step back.

Ariel gritted her teeth, anticipating Castiel's response.

Castiel hesitated, "Because we're about to destroy it."  

There was a long beat, filled with worried glances and small panting from the injured woman.

"You are not about to smite these innocent humans! They have no clue on to what's going on, and if you plan on killing them, you're going to have to worry about more than Lucifer rising." Ariel spat, glaring at Uriel, who didn't even bat an eye.

"This isn't the first time I've...purified a city. Come to think of it, weren't you the one who gave out a command similar to this one?" Uriel grinned, challenging the woman.

Ariel held a hand to her side; blood still oozing out of her shoulder. "And I regretted it ever since I saw the pain it caused them."

Castiel held up his arms, "Look, I understand this is regrettable but-"

"Regrettable?" Dean jeered.

"We have to hold the line. Too many seals have been broken already." Cas countered.

Dean glowered, "So you screw the pooch on some seals, and this town has to pay the price?"

"It's the lives of one thousand against the lives of six billion. There's a bigger picture here." Castiel replied.

Ariel took a step forward, clutching the chains. "Right, 'cause big brother Michael knows best."

Dean stepped back from his angel, giving her the space that she needed if she wanted to kick some ass.

"Sister-" Castiel started but was cut off by a substantial blow to the face from Ariel.

"You don't get to call me that, not you!" Ariel's voice boomed, reverberating off of the walls. "When I get out of these chains..."

Castiel whirled with the force of the punch, licking the blood from his lips. "Listen, Ariel. You know yourself that Lucifer cannot rise- Not after what he did to you-" The soldier inhaled deeply and cleared his throat; emotions weren't permitted. "If he does, Hell rises with him. Is that something that you're willing to risk?"

There was a long pause.

"Ariel, are you willing to risk your life, plus the lives of six million people because of one measly town." Uriel stepped to the woman.

"I am."

"What?" Dean's eyes met with Ariel's. "No..." He gruffed.

Sam observed his brother and Ariel. The way they looked at each other, it was like they were already saying goodbye- in their own way. In the distant future, Dean could be happy with Ariel. She didn't have to die, not today, not ever.

"We'll stop this witch before she summons anyone. Your seal won't be broken, and no one has to die." Sam pleaded.

The specialist sneered, "We're wasting time with these mud monkeys."

"I won't hesitate to kill you." Ariel growled, her wings twitching with anticipation. She was eager to feel the stinging cold metal of the angel blade, sinking into Uriel's warm flesh.

Castiel looked to his former best friend, hurt in his eyes but hate in his voice. All he could do was turn away from her, his hell-fire scorched wings draped against the floor, displaying his sorrow. "I'm sorry, but we have our orders."

"No, you can't do this, you're angels, I mean- aren't you supposed to..."Sam curled and unfurled his fingers, unsure of what to do with the bubbling anger rising inside of him. All he knew was, this wasn't okay. "You're supposed to show mercy."

Uriel smirked at Sam's ignorance, "Says who?"

"We have no choice." Castiel murmured.

Ariel gritted her teeth, "No choice...Of course, you have a choice. We watched the humans grow together, from the fish, and you betrayed me. You were so young...Where did he go?"

The trenchcoated angel furrowed his brows and frowned at the archangel. "Would you rather me be like you, sister,  homeless, fallen and lost? You think you mean well here, but you're nothing but a burden on their shoulders."

Ariel's face contorted at his words, each one wrenching what little hope she had left in her heart. "You don't mean that...you're just hurt."

Castiel's expression hardened. "Why do you think Michael locked you away? Because you couldn't obey simple rules. You were a burden that Father left him because your counterpart is evil incarnate. And it won't be long until you're just like him."

The archangel lowered her gaze, his words stinging in her ear. She didn't expect him to go that low. They used to be best friends, and now he was speaking about so horrible to her.

"HEY!" Dean stepped to Castiel, protectively pushing Ariel behind him. He glanced back at his angel with a finger pointed at her."You have a home." The righteous man whipped back around with a glowering visage. "She has a home, and it's here with us. Now you can take that, and you can shove it up your ass."

Dean's jaw stiffened as he felt Ariel's soft hand grasping his forearm, her attempt to calm him down failed. "I mean, what you've never questioned a crap order, huh? What are you both, just a couple of hammers?"

"At least Ariel's got the balls to do what you dickless wingbags couldn't do. So you leave her out of this. Now you can insult me and Sammy all you want, but don't call her a burden." The enraged hunter inched closer to the soldier, chest to chest with him.

"Look, even if you can't understand it, have faith. The plan is just." Castiel muttered, scowling at Dean.

Samuel and Ariel spoke in chorus, "How can you even say that?" Sam had a disgusted tone, but Ariel's anger overshadowed him. Her wings were now flared, and there was a faint ringing noise filling the room.

"Because it comes from heaven, that makes it just." Castiel declared.

Dean tilted his head down and gazed up at the angel, "Oh, must be nice- to be so sure of yourselves."

Castiel sighed and gazed at the wall, "Tell me something, Dean, when your father gave you an order, didn't you obey?"

"Don't you dare try to justify your horrific 'orders' by bringing John Winchester into this." Ariel hissed.

Dean shifted on his feet and licked his lips. "Looks like plans have changed." He uttered.

"You think you can stop us?" Uriel queried, an amused look plastered on his face.

A muscle in Dean's jaw twitched as he thought it over. "No," He started. "But if you're gonna smite this whole town...then you're gonna have to smite all three of us with it." The human gradually came closer to the specialist angel, still not done with his speech. "Because we are not leaving. See, you went to the trouble of bustin' me out of hell. I figure I'm worth something to the man upstairs. So you wanna waste me, go ahead, see how Daddy digs that."

"Tch," Uriel scoffed at Dean's outlandish behavior. How dare a human talk to an angel of the lord as if they were on the same level. "I will drag you out of here myself." He sneered.

The lights in the room began flickering, a loud ringing filling the vicinity. All the men turned to find Ariel standing behind Dean; her wings projected onto the wall, the room not big enough for her to spread them out further. She rolled her shoulders back as her head hung low, but a bright red glow surrounded her eyes.

"I dare you to touch Dean Winchester." Ariel's voice carried through everyone's head, echoing and causing them all to recoil.

Sam swallowed hard, taking a few steps away from Ariel and closer to the desk by the mirror.

Castiel clenched his jaw as he took in the sight of his once bright and cheery sister. Her entire essence was shrouded in darkness, and now he wasn't sure if they could undo any of this. 'Damnit,' He thought.

Ariel slowly made her way to Uriel, taking her rightful place next to Dean, who hid his fear well, masking it with anger. Her charcoal and blood-red wings formed a shield-like shape around her and Dean as she resumed talking.

"Touch him and so help me, Dad I will waste every last Angel in heaven- and I won't hesitate any longer the more you stare at me with that glower. I will wipe it off your insightful face." Ariel growled her last words through clenched teeth.

The cuffs began turning red, the Enochian warding glowing a vivid red.

Before she could melt the handcuffs, Castiel unsheathed the archangel blade he was lent and plunged it deep into her throat.

Sam and Dean flinched at the sudden movement, "No!" They cried in unison.

Ariel looked up to Dean with an agonized expression, before all three angels disappeared.

FINAL PART

SERIES MASTERLIST

[fire-lark]

(in)convenient coincidences

In which Ace is a thief, Marco is a thief and Sabo is...not quite a thief but he’s still robbing a house so it’s about the same when all three of them decide it’s a good idea to break into a house at the same time. 

a fanfic for @marcoacesabo, kind of not quite MAS yet? pre-MAS?

The distance wasn’t too far, but this was pushing his abilities a bit. Taking a steadying breath, Ace crouched low on the tree branch and made a great leap towards the second-floor balcony. The branch chose that exact moment to snap under his weight and he flung out an arm just in time to catch himself on the edge of the gilded railing. There was a loud creaaaak and he winced instinctively – though there was no real need, the asshole noble that owned this place was off on vacation (that was the whole reason he was here after all). 

Pulling himself over the railing, he grinned as the balcony door slid open without any trouble, pleased at his own cleverness. Those dumb nobles never bothered locking their balcony doors. Once in the house, he gave the room a quick once-over, grabbed the jewelry box from the dresser and moved on. When he’d finished looting every one of the ridiculously opulent rooms on the second floor, he took the stairs two at a time into the spacious living room. 

There didn’t seem to be much worth taking here – the furniture was probably priceless sure, but it wasn’t like he could lug the antique table out the door. About to go for a quick rummage through the drawers, he startled and then dove under the sofa (fucking gold-embroidered, honestly) as he heard footsteps. What the fuck? He knew for certain there was no one home, he’d staked this place out for most of the day! Listening more carefully now, he realized the footsteps were coming from…above?

There was no third floor. 

Just as it dawned on him, there was a rasp – cloth against brick – echoing from the… chimney. Wide-eyed, his mouth hanging open, he shot a wild-eyed look at the hearth and watched as a pair of sandaled feet braced themselves on the sides of the fireplace. 

Then, slowly – (whoa that is a nice set of abs also is this guy aware his shirt is riding up?) – a blond, bird-masked man dropped into the unlit fireplace, landing in a crouch with barely a noise. Unbidden, a dry croak of utter shock escaped his throat, and the masked man’s head jerked up. They both froze as their eyes met, Ace peeking out from underneath the sofa and the man (Phoenix Marco, because who else wore a gaudy-ass feathered bird mask and managed to make it look good – bad thoughts, Ace, bad thoughts) squeezed into the fireplace. It wasn’t a small fireplace, but this guy’s shoulders were broad enough to make it seem cramped. 

Ace blinked rapidly a few times, became aware his mouth was still hanging open – then anger welled up. He abruptly straightened to his full height, knocking the overly fancy sofa over.

“Are you kidding me? The great mystery method the Phoenix uses to get into houses that people have been guessing at since forever is the chimney?!” Ace was offended that this guy was…making a joke out of thieves everywhere. It had absolutely nothing to do with the fact that he might look up to the Phoenix, just a little…well, not anymore! “The fucking chimney, man! Like fucking Santa!”

The man closed his eyes and let out a long-suffering sigh, clambering to his feet and brushing clumps of ash off his shoulders. Ace frowned at that – how had people not caught on if he was tracking ash everywhere?

“I don’t suppose you could be persuaded to forget you saw this, yoi,” Phoenix didn’t sound particularly hopeful. With a last futile sweep at his purple shirt, he flared up in a burst of blue-gold flames and stepped out of the hearth, clean of any trace of the ash that had coated him before. Ace’s mouth fell open.

“No,” he said, appalled. “No fucking way.”

The man appeared somewhat exasperated, opening his mouth to say – something, whatever it was Ace wasn’t paying attention because no fucking way.

“You’re – that – you’re not even a logia!” This was a goddamn outrage was what it was.

“Well, I could be, you never know, yoi-” Ace cut him off again.

“You’re not, because I’m the fire logia! That should be my thing but nooo, the one time I suggest it I get laughed out of the house!” Sabo had just about died laughing, his uncontrollable guffaws chasing Ace out of the house. He still brought that up sometimes – well, suck on that Sabo, someone was worse than he was because they’d actually done it. He glared at Phoenix, whose eyebrows were raised so high he could actually see them over the mask.

“…I’m assuming you’re Fire Fist Ace, then?” Ace bristled as the man gave him a long, slow once-over, piercing blue eyes taking in every inch of him.

“Yeah, so what?”

“I wasn’t expecting you to be so young,” said Phoenix, lips curving in a slow smile. Ace spluttered.

“Y-yeah, well, I wasn’t expecting your hair to look like a pineapple eith-”

“Or quite so handsome.” The blond was definitely amused now, a tiny grin on his face. Ace opened his mouth and closed it again, feeling heat burning up his cheeks and at the tips of his ears – he hoped he wasn’t on fire, god would that be embarrassing.

“I-I! Y-y-you! I- wha?!” 

Phoenix threw his head back and laughed, husky and full-throated, something that should not have been so attractive, goddamn his hormones. 

“Well, first come first serve I suppose,” the man still looked infuriatingly amused. “I hope you won’t mind if I join you, yoi.”

With that, he strode into one of the adjoining corridors, completely ignoring the way that Ace was gesturing at him in wordless fury, unable to figure what to say to that. “Wait, you bastard! Come back here and explain what you meant-!”

There was a startled yell from the corridor. Ace blinked, stopped, and ran for the passageway (it was so long, why did nobles need this?). That yell wasn’t Phoenix, but it was definitely familiar somehow. “….You’ve got to be kidding me. Sabo?!”

“Ace!” Sabo was standing there caught in the act of rummaging through a file cabinet, gaping between him and Marco the Phoenix. “How did you get in? Who is this? What are you doing here?”

“You know each other, yoi?” Even the Phoenix, fucking professional phantom thief sounded confused at this point because what were the chances that three people would decide to rob the same house on the same fucking night oh my fucking god (1). 

“What am I doing here? What are you doing here?! You’re not even a thief! How did you get in, you can’t even sneak properly!” 

Sabo gestured at the filing cabinet. “Revolutionary business. And I walked in through the front door, I have manners thank you.”

That was…Ace had no words. “You’re robbing someone’s house, there’s no way that’s polite. You definitely picked the lock, don’t lie!”

The sly, smug smile on Sabo’s face told him that yes, this faux polite asshole had picked the lock.

“What is going on, yoi.” The masked man was clearly becoming impatient. Ace paused for a second, staring at Marco and trying to figure out what to say – then he grinned because boy did he have a good idea.

“Let me introduce you! Phoenix, this is Sabo, the guy who laughed me out of the house for suggesting coming into houses through the chimney!” His grin widened until it felt like it was splitting his face. The Phoenix blanched. “Sabo, this is Phoenix Marco, phantom thief extraordinaire! He came in through the chimney!”

They had to ditch and run for it without looting the rest of the house because Sabo’s howling laughter brought the attentions of the guards, but Ace later considered it to be completely worth it if only for the priceless look on Marco’s face.

(1) The prompt for this fic was ‘How did all three of us decide to rob the same fucking house on the same fucking night oh my fucking god.’

[dungeonsnderp]

The Plot So Far

Sessions One Through Seven

You asked for it, and here it is. For a note, Kat didn’t jump in till session three (I wanted to start with just one player and see if we were even ready to commit to D&D). Each session will have the actual plot...and some notes from me as DM on what was actually prepared vs what happened. It gets less coherent as we go, whoops.

TL;DR:

Session 1: Half-elf ranger/cleric Eirlys had one of those dreams that really sticks with you, that urged her to leave her temple of Selune and explore the world looking for a place she could call home. She promptly hopped on the road with her faithful cougar sidekick Clay. 

They headed south from Luskan towards Neverwinter (we’re using the map loosely at best, just as starting point for me for basic places) but didn’t get far before encountering a farmer in a bit of a pickle; Rhondor’s wagon had been run off the road by “some kind of creature” and the axle had snapped. After a tense conversation Eirlys was able to repair the wagon and get him back on the road, to his deep thanks (apparently his wife would not have been pleased to find him stuck). 

DM note: Voices for NPCs are super hard when you suck at acting? I think I oversold it and ended up barreling over KH, who’s a slow speaker by nature, so Rhondor kept cutting Eirlys off. My mistake, and I’m glad it happened so early, but still. NPCs are hard. 

Eirlys continued on the road before finding an interesting branch and following it...only to run into a Bugbear ambush. Facing up against two bugbears we both quickly realized that a) she was a lot more fragile than I had prepared for, and b) Clay needed some kind of healing...thing. Enter Healing Lick. It’s gross, but super effective! One of the bugbears escaped, the other was killed. Eirlys died twice, Clay three times. It went super well. 

Session 2: Longresting in a tree nearly went badly when they got ambushed by a single rat, Eirlys went to kick it and kneed Clay instead. I continue to be amazed by how rigged Roll20′s dice are. By this point KH has gotten a good 8 nat 1′s.

They eventually stumbled on an old graveyard and completely ruined temple. I wanted to test out dungeons and we spent the whole session bumbling around underground. It went decently despite both of us rolling poorly, but the only thing of note was that there was a tapestry with nagas being killed on it and Eirlys ripped it down (rolling too low of a perception to notice the hidden doorway behind it, I might add) and made it into a cape. For Clay. Her cat.

I’m gonna make her pay for it later.

As a DM sidenote; these two first sessions were ROUGH. Neither of us had played before and for every 20 minutes of actual play there was probably 10-15 minutes of googling and flipping through the rulebooks to learn how stuff worked. I’m still pretty sure KH rolled attack rolls wrong both times, and I kept fucking up perception rolls. We also couldn’t stop laughing and had to pause a couple times to resume breathing before continuing on, so my best advice is just to chill and not take things too seriously. 

Session 3: I knew I was ready to fold Kat in, so I actually took the time to do some planning to give us something to do. This was actually super rough; I knew Eirlys was going to be given a map so I started drawing it and let it just kinda flow. I figured fuck it, I’d build a game around whatever I came up with. I...don’t actually recommend this method, but it’s worked pretty well for me so far. All I really had planned was how to pass the map to Eirlys, and how Kat was going to make her entrance. The rest I left up to chance.  ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Somewhat recovered from all of the death, Eirlys and Clay got back on the road, and quickly discovered that not only had Rhondor made it past them, his wife Tiria (half-orc, very grumpy and sparse with words and emotions both) had caught up with them. One only kind of awkward interaction later and Eirlys had been (grumpily) thanked for her help and given a cape cloak. In one of its pockets was, you guessed it, a map. 

I’m so creative.

She just so happened to have spotted a tower in the distant distance earlier (you can totally see where I went NOW KISS with my plot ideas, oh well) and jauntily set off through the most boring plains known to man. A good couple hours of traveling later and she stumbled into the middle of a battle with a couple giant rats and her accidental new travel mate, half-orc fighter/rogue Mirasha. 

They “bonded” over the world’s longest and most awkward walk to the tower known to man. I’m just kinda sitting there listening to them interact like

Points for being in character for both of them, for sure, but good god. Hilariously awkward.

They reached the tower finally and I got a good chance to step back and let them drive. I had loosely planned the “puzzle” of this tower as that it was very tall, had a secret room up top, and the only way up was through one of four identical trapdoors in the floor which contained some kind of mechanism to get them upstairs. I had phrased the rhyme for this area to indicate the west door (sleeping sun) and figured I’d make the rest up on the fly. 

Seriously this rhyme is so bullshit, let me break this down for you;

A spire tall and hidden feet a message for the snoozing sun beneath the floor a giant sleeps wake him gentle to rise as one

I went, OKAY IT’S A BIG TOWER WITH A SECRET IN THE FLOOR THAT BRINGS U TO THE CEILING and this was born. Super subtle. 

Eirlys hugged the phallic tower to get a feel for it, and also decided she was going to ring the bell if it killed her. Mirasha tried to actually solve the puzzle but picked the wrong door and I went “shit I didn’t prepare for the wrong answer” and went HEY magic animated possessed scarecrow yay! They did manage to kill it.

Seriously about 80% of each session is me realizing I didn’t prepare for something and scrambling to come up with a result. I gripe and bitch but it’s honestly where the fun is for me. 

Session 4: We had to stop shortly after the battle due to time constraints but picked it back up a day later. They cracked the (admittedly laughably easy) puzzle to ascend the tower (I hadn’t planned on there even being a “puzzle” down there, but after the break it seemed super anticlimactic? I don’t regret putting it in but it was very lame.)

Up top was a trapped chest containing a strange shape, and the bell. Oh god, that fucking bell. Eirlys absolutely had to ring it and I was admittedly kind of sad when she succeeded her checks to ring it with her body and then cling to it as it swung back and forth. Flinging her off the tower would have been hilarious. 

Session 5: This was an accidental sudden session and I had zero prepped. I had already picked out a couple of enemies in case I needed a sudden battle and decided to have a griffon swoop in on the attack. They brought it down to like 2 health and then chose to knock it unconscious, tie it up, and then interrogate it once it woke and I’m just here like 

Pulled a griffon voice and plot out of my ass yep okay. Incidentally, griffons totally know when you’re lying. Or at least when Eirlys was lying. They did a great job talking it around to revealing that it didn’t remember how or why it had chosen to attack them. (It also had a family and kids, just saying.) Our heroes pieced together that both the scarecrow and griffon had had an identical flaming eye thing going on and correctly deduced that something was possessing them into being hostile. 

I say possessing like I planned this or had any idea who or what was doing the possessing ahead of time. I did not. I do now, because I had to back my claims up somehow, but that was a plot point I had not planned lmao

Session 6 & 7: (These two were back-to-back with no plot break in the middle so I’m lumping them.) I’m here like yep I have this under control now. We’re going to Spiderweb Vale, I actually planned a puzzle this time around, AND a dungeon, this is totally under control.

Boy was I wrong.

Eirlys attempted to fling herself off a clifftop, they nearly turned around at the dungeon entrance because spiders, and then got stuck on the puzzle and needed a bunch of hints. I had planned a maze based on a sort of crosswords-style puzzle and had no idea how well it would go.

All that being said, it was a blast. I had such a good time adapting things on the fly for them. Kinda forgot to plan anything for the dead ends and played that super fast and loose, and had also forgotten to theme the dungeon and so pulled a description out of nowhere, but we muddled through.

Side note, dungeons are really big. And kind of repetitive. I used a lot of DM power to slide us as smoothly as possible through the whole dungeon (we might have skipped like half of it through handwavey magic)

But we got through it and they did fairly well against the phase spider mega boss and got the second shape bar thing! 

I’m learning more and somehow prepping less every session as we go, but as long as everyone’s having fun I consider it a success. I have more of the end-game fleshed out and some loose ideas for each landmark and we’re just gonna chill and see what happens. 

So now, onward and upwards to the Dead Man’s Cave!.