#I continue to study him beneath my microscope

[mostmagical]

there are a lot of things that endear garrus to me, but easily it’s the way that he tells shepard about a sexual conquest with full confidence, only to get up to her room and act like he’s never touched a woman a day in his life that really sells it for me

[casspurrjoybell-31]

The Consort's Fate - Chapter 1 - Part 1

*Warning Adult Content*

Brayden

Wind whistles across the field of grass.

Each blade bends to its whim, the collective movement like a fluid picture beneath the summer's sun.

It's graceful, as a whole but if a single blade was pulled and subjected to the breeze, it would tremor in disarray.

Beneath the microscope of Nature, it would endure the humbling experience of isolation.

A single blade plucked away from the rest.

Exposed and alone.

Hidden, yet longing to be threaded into the earth once again.

My thoughts continue on in this fashion, poetically macabre in their own right.

They press down on me like a weight, heavier and heavier, until the feeling of isolation turns inward, caving into my still heart and forcing splinters of proverbial ice to form around its border.

I shoulder through the threshold of the door.

The wind continues its song around me, beating the flaps of my coat and coercing the tendrils of my hair to participate in the dance of life.

I bend down and trail my fingertips atop the green foliage.

It is soft, like velvet.

Nature's gentle coat of fur.

I pluck a single blade.

Then another.

I lift them both until they're eye-level and study their unique flutters, side by side.

Each one alone but still, alone together.

One for me and one for him.

Two surviving vampires on earth, removed from the dance of life and thrust into... this.

One hides in darkness, while the other remains trapped beneath the spotlight, yet their lives are tied together in a way that will stand the test of time.

A low hum rumbles in my throat as I allow the thought to run its course.

It is the silent reminder which keeps me believing this is not the end of our story but merely a dark chapter I must overcome, for the both of us.

I give Nature a final, cursory glance before slipping back into the shadows, tucking the blades of grass into my pocket.

The door puts up a fight as I shut it behind me.

Just minutes ago, what sounded like nothing more than a gentle breeze becomes a painful howl against the wooden blockade.

Yet, this is how it must be for now.

Quiet.

Hidden.

The modest home and its minimal furnishings seem to hold their breath as I move my gaze around the room.

It's our newest abode, the third house to mark our third year in hiding.

Each year, Kelly assures me, will be the last.

"This is it, B-D," he will say, grinning from ear to ear.

"We'll get the backing we need to rescue Finn. This is our year, man. You wait and see."

Each year, I do wait.

I wait and watch as time slips by, the world we once knew shedding its skin of the past to make way for the Era of the Secondaries.

I see how much has changed, how much continues to change in three, short years.

A new world has blossomed in the blink of an eye.

On the contrary side of the token, there are moments when three years feels like an eternity.

These fleeting moments seem to occur whenever I oblige myself the opportunity to admire the moon.

I have always preferred the moon to the sun.

Its radiant beauty is often overlooked and unlike the sun, you can gaze at its splendor head-on, with the galaxy as its backdrop.

Its rays are radiant in their own regard, so much subtler than the sun but powerful enough to illuminate the earth in a thin layer of iridescent light.

It is in these moments that my thoughts drift to delicate fingers, doe-like eyes and an everchanging expression to mirror a myriad of barely contained emotions.

It is in these moments that I wonder if, somewhere, he is enjoying the view with me.

Yes, it is in these hidden moments that the years feel like centuries.

"No no no..." he mutters, grunting and cutting a sharp glare in my direction.

"I've got it. Don't you worry, B man. I know, what with your superhuman strength and all, how troubling it must be for you to help me with the bags."

I arch a brow as he plops each bag on the table.

The wooden legs creak beneath their weight.

He brings an arm up to wipe away the sweat from his forehead.

His heartbeat thrums against his veins, an inviting sound to most vampires.

It used to be for me, as well.

Now, unfortunately, all human blood tastes the same.

Tasteless.

What used to be an enjoyable pastime is now nothing more than a necessity to keep myself nourished, simply consuming to fill the emptiness of hunger.

I imagine it is what humans experience during the worst days of a cold, eating yet not tasting the flavor.

"Nothing?" Kelly asks, leaning against the counter.

"Not even a witty retort?"

[choclemon]

Wow, who's that handsome goofball??!

🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥 

Let’s kick off to a blazing start on this KNY writing blog with an in- depth character analysis of everyone’s favourite fire- type human...

Rengoku Kyojuro!

A.K.A. That one annoying weirdo who shows up for a single arc, makes the entire audience fall hopelessly in love with him forever, then dies! ~

Power move tbh.

[Insert gigantic disclaimer here that all the posts on this blog will be my personal headcanons. Interpretations always vary from reader to reader- so let me know anything you agreed with, or felt completely differently about; I love that kind of thing! This whole blog is basically just a self- indulgent space for me to analyse the crap out of this series for fun, so come join me in my spiralling demon slayer brainrot!! The more the merrier :D]

🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥

No, but seriously, who is that guy?

Kyojuro is a shining mentor figure, courageous and supportive; a brash, unforgettable character lovingly crafted by Gotouge to make the Mugen Train arc as excruciatingly painful as possible.

The thing is, my kneejerk reaction when he first showed up in canon was: “this guy is dangerous”. Lurking beneath that amicable smile is a professional killer who will not hesitate. We were given a brief glimpse into this side of Kyojuro during his initial encounter with the Kamado siblings at corps headquarters; upon being confronted with the traumatised orphan boy and his demon sister, he was the very first hashira to object, calling for Nezuko to be beheaded and vehemently declaring “no trial is required!!”. Sure, he was far from alone in chomping at the bit for child murder back then, but that reaction was a telling indicator that Kyojuro’s particular brand of passionate loyalty is more than capable of driving him to make brutal snap decisions. Even if deep down he felt uncomfortable about the outcome, he acted rashly because the situation directly contradicted his even deeper- rooted morals. Had things been left to the flame hashira alone, the story of the Kamado siblings would have ended right there and then.

What would have happened if Kyojuro had been the one to discover them in the forest that fateful day instead of Giyuu? I’m not totally convinced, but I’m inclined towards that same bloody outcome he immediately called for before the trial. Perhaps Tanjiro’s tenacious defense of his sister would have persuaded him... but I suspect Kyojuro’s quick- fire judgement would lop that demon's head off “to protect the civilian from being eaten!!” before the poor kid even had a chance to explain who she was.

Love him or hate him, the flame hashira is an intense character who invariably leaves a lasting impression on the reader. In all his canon appearances, Kyojuro is unabashedly vocal about anything he feels strongly about, even to the point of rudeness- but still remains sensitive and attuned to the needs of others. He demonstrates an impressive capacity to change his opinion on the fly, yet stubbornly sticks to his core ideals- even if they sometimes get in the way. In other words, this is a character who gleefully contradicts himself at every turn... which of course makes me want to stick him under a microscope to study like a bug! 🧐

***continued under the cut***

I think Kyojuro is a highly emotionally intelligent individual who knows he’s fucked up to the bone as a result of all the pressure he’s under, but is reluctant to share any of this heavy emotional burden with others. After all, such a show of vulnerability would likely have been met with silence, rejection, or outright mockery by his family growing up. Shinjuro being a depressed alcoholic father with his own grief and self- worth issues is an obvious culprit here, but I’d argue Ruka inadvertently did a lot of harm too. By placing so much emphasis on the importance of using his strength to protect the weak and upholding the family tradition, she planted a brave, wholly self- sacrificing heroic ideal in her young sons mind. She was fully aware of the harsh realities he would face if he followed in his father’s footsteps, so in addition to preparing him to be mentally resilient, she sought to protect him from the temptation of misusing his strength and status as a hashira, instilling a sense of noble purpose in her son. In doing so, however, she failed to teach him an important nuance: when devoting yourself to a life shouldering the burdens of others, it’s vital that you take proper care of yourself too. Which can occasionally mean prioritising your needs over others, sharing your own burdens when they become too heavy.

If she had lived longer, perhaps Ruka would have corrected his path as he matured, serving as a backbone of motherly emotional support that would’ve allowed him to be a little more forgiving towards himself. Given that he was still very young when she died, it almost seems like the naive child Kyojuro internalised that straightforward “be a brave hero and use your strength for others!!!” lesson initially, and because it was the precious advice given to him by his late mother (and at the surface level it is sound advice), in his developing mind it grew into something almost irreproachable, an unbreakable life motto. Follow that up with a decade of grieving alongside an abusive alcoholic father who tells him over and over that he’s “useless” and will “never amount to anything”… it’s only understandable that he clung so hard to the memory of his mother’s shining hopes for his future. The recently- bereaved young Kyojuro would have quickly learned to be adaptable in stressful situations, smoothing over volatile arguments to maintain open lines of communication within his broken family. His mother’s words kept him motivated despite his father’s toxic criticism, simplifying the overwhelming pressure and conflicting expectations weighing on his small shoulders into an easily- digestible heroic ideal he must strive to become.

This brings us to the complication of Kyojuro being the eldest son throughout that early grieving period; he was uniquely positioned to prevent Senjuro from falling too far into the lonely emotional pit he suddenly found himself in. He couldn’t ask for mutual support in return; he would never expect that from anyone in the first place, let alone from the precious brother he was attempting to shield from the very same turmoil hidden within himself. There was a full ~6-7 year age gap between them, which would have only enhanced Kyojuro’s instinct to coddle his junior as much as he was physically able. When Shinjuro fell into his inevitable drunken decline, you bet the young Kyojuro did everything he could to redirect the brunt of the abuse away from his little brother, even taking responsibility for his father’s behaviour in public on his back too.

As Senjuro grew older, he’d naturally have become more capable of understanding his brother’s situation, so their relationship would probably have evolved into something more mutually supportive than the “reassuring mentor- student”, and I hate to say it but “replacement- father” dynamic we were presented with in canon. I’m sure they goofed off together plenty as normal siblings do, but for the most part- at least from the brief glimpses we were shown of them interacting- Kyojuro viewed his brother as a precious source of familial love and happiness (that he must work hard to raise well and protect at all costs!!! :>), while Senjuro deeply admired his older brother in return, leaning heavily on him for all the emotional and practical guidance their father was no longer able to provide.

At the tender age of ~13-14 post Mugen Train, Senjuro had to grow up fucking fast. I don’t doubt that one of the most agonizing things for him would have been the knowledge of how much Kyojuro had privately sacrificed for him growing up, but now that he was finally old enough to fully understand and support him in return… he was gone forever.

With the above mess in mind, what is the ever- suffering big brother supposed to do with all his bottled up trauma and insecurity? Kyojuro’s answer was simple: passionately burn right through it!!! Project a straightforward, irreproachably heroic persona to the world, wholly embodying the selfless ideal his mother encouraged him to be. He follows corps rules to the letter, becomes almost universally liked by his peers; after all, years of practice smoothing over awkward family interactions no doubt made him an expert at keeping everyone happy. Adopting a selfless, hard- working approach to life that must not be deviated from under any circumstances.

This is because Kyojuro is all too aware of the damage it would cause his loved ones if he were to let himself go, having witnessed and been a victim of Shinjuro’s violent depressive outbursts. In his determination to avoid falling into the same trap, he goes to the opposite extreme, throwing himself whole- heartedly into everything. Not just out of loyalty to the corps, his acceptance that a warrior could die tomorrow, or even the memory of his mother’s words; it’s because deep down he’s terribly afraid he’ll end up spiralling like his father if he ever puts in less than his all. His inner world is literally on fire; this guy is so damn passionate about meeting an impossible standard he violently rejects his own self. Kyojuro sets his figurative self- worth ablaze and uses it as fuel to help others even more! High- functioning depression, full power let’s go!!!

One other important thing to take into account is that the Kyojuro we first meet in canon is only 20- barely into adulthood- and over the preceding couple of years would have shouldered more responsibility than ever before by taking on the mantle of a hashira.

Perhaps I’m over- projecting here, but I can remember having a tendency to think in absolutes at that age, angrily shutting away childhood traumas and plugging the gaps with a confident front, all so I could focus on handling what were suddenly very adult- sized responsibilities. Acknowledging and processing my feelings was too dangerous to be worth the risk of burdening others; not to mention the prospect of being seen as anything less than perfectly self- assured at all times felt like a catastrophe.

Kyojuro’s selfless hero character archetype takes that very human response to the absolute extreme, since easing off training and “wasting time” taking care of personal needs in his profession would mean death; either his own, or that of the people he’s trying to protect. The smallest display of weakness is met with dire consequences. Not so different from the punishing environment of his childhood, right? Yikes, I’m starting to see a pattern here…  

The scene where his father rejects the news he has become a hashira is probably the clearest demonstration of Kyojuro’s immense empathy and his willingness to listen to others- and his careful avoidance of ever voicing his own needs. He accepts Shinjuro’s callous lack of support, knowing that trying to defend his position would only upset his father more, which in all likelihood would worsen the fallout later for him and everyone else involved with the household. He immediately proceeds to pour out all the reassurance he really, desperately needed to hear himself… to comfort his beloved little brother.

Even if he knew he was hurtling towards certain disaster on that train, I’m convinced Kyojuro wouldn’t do anything to save himself. This is a character who would solve the trolley problem by physically stopping the thing with his bare hands and getting run over in the process, simultaneously saving everyone and a random person that happened to jump off the bridge overhead at the exact same time, who goes on to have a change of heart after witnessing such a heroic display. All this without crushing the eggs of a dumb bird that made its nest in the trolley tracks ahead…

You get the idea.

Kyojuro was a man who truly didn’t care about himself. He expected to die young; probably to a demon in a grotesquely violent fashion. That that was the reality of his job, and it suited him. He kept himself functional by throwing 100% of himself into every day, using his warrior’s strength to protect the weak just as his mother taught him. After all, why even bother worrying about personal feelings, when you believe yourself to be utterly disposable- when your entire purpose in life can be boiled down to suffering so that others don't have to?

From Kyojuro’s perspective, examining those rejected emotions too closely only causes him further pain, and he would run the risk of overburdening others if they became so inflamed they were allowed to rise to the surface. That would distract from the mission at hand, and the consequences would surely be dire!! Yes, ignore them, squash that stuff back down right where it belongs- set your heart ablaze slaying everyone else’s demons instead! It’s the only way to live!!!

Of course, the one mentor figure left alive who was best placed to steer Kyojuro off this noble path of self- destruction… was trapped in the pit of despair that lies at the very end of it.

At least his kid died before joining him in that pit, right?..

Nah, I reckon Kyojuro spent his life there, with a beaming smile plastered across his face 😄

[lazysublimeengineer]

Umbrella Man

Summary: “My umbrella.” He intoned in a placid voice.

“Huh? Oh. H-here you go.” Takemichi stammered as he handed the umbrella to him, inwardly cursing himself for being a stuttering mess.

“I don’t wanna get wet.” Senju replied in a matter of fact voice as he studied silently the young, nervous man in front of him.

—Or how Takemichi is being a hotshot in the eyes of the other deities and wants to recruit him but Senju won’t let them get their hands off of this former 1st Division Captain of Toman and wants him to get him on his gang even if he has to be the one getting out of the shadows and recruit him himself.

Characters: Senju K., Takemichi H., Akashi T.

“I’m not here to deal with Rokuhara Tandai! The one I want to deal is…Hanagaki Takemichi! I’ve come to scout you.” Akashi announced with a confident smile on his face.

“M-me? Why me?” A look of surprised and incredulity crossed Takemichi’s youthful yet expressive face.

Takemichi had just been shot by Mikey three times earlier before he time leapt into the past. And now he just landed into the fray unexpectedly with the former Tenjiku members! Recruiting him out of nowhere? The worst generation were all assembled here! From this point forward, maybe shock and surprise should now be on his default facial expression on his face as the unexpected events kept ploughing directly at him. He already gave up questioning on why Kaku-chan was here as well.

He can’t really catch a break, does he?

With the addition of dangerous people and the onslaught of tension right now, a war was definitely going to break out on this place.

Nevertheless, Takemichi could only gaped and sport an awestruck expression on his face on the next turn of events as an umbrella suddenly flew towards Terano all of sudden to which where he barely managed to dodge it but a kick landed on the side of his face afterwards that knocked the wind out of him.

The umbrella fell down into the ground unceremoniously afterwards before a person shrouded in a thick hoodie landed gracefully in front of him. Under a close observation, it was a glimpse of a young man with a lithe frame and possessed a short yet wavy locks that seemed to defy the gravity upon taking down his hoodie to reveal his face. His thick, long eyelashes brought out the intensity and shape of his deep set of eyes that were trained on Takemichi’s frame.

Takemichi swallowed thickly as he could feel his penetrating gaze boring into his soul.

Was this Senju Kawaragi…? The gang leader of the Brahman and one of the deities?

“My umbrella.” He intoned in a placid voice.

“Huh? Oh. H-here you go.” Takemichi stammered as he handed the umbrella to him, inwardly cursing himself for being a stuttering mess.

“I don’t wanna get wet.” Senju replied in a matter of fact voice as he studied silently the young, nervous man in front of him.

So, this was the infamous Hanagaki Takemichi huh? The former 1st division captain of the Toman gang and the 11th generation captain of the Black Dragons.

Takemichi tried not to squirm under his intense stare. Why did it feel like he was being judged under a microscope? He couldn’t help but to shrink inwardly from his gaze and his heart beat wildly inside his chest.

What the hell was happening to him?

Senju continued to observe him with a blank expression on his face. There was nothing remarkable or interesting about the man in front of him except for his short, flaxen locks which seemed to glisten under the faint rays of the sun and his startlingly blue eyes which reminded him of the ocean. He was a scrawny, ungraceful lad who possessed a bundle of nerves that could make him easily topple down with a raised voice and sharp glare.

However, he could also see something beneath those azure irises. The lurking determination, resilience and sharp candor which could spring out wildly if ever the situation arises from it. So, this is the one that he’s been hearing about from Akashi and the others. That infamous battle against the Tenjiku in the past where he was the acting leader of the Toman for the brief absence of Mikey and the other powerhouse captains. This was also the man that made Taiju kneel in that holy battle inside the church.

It reminded him of an innocent puppy with sharp fangs underneath that harmless face. That thought made his mouth quirk ever so slightly before his features settled quickly into an emotionless face.

“Let’s do this.”

He’ll make sure to recruit him into Brahman to see and experience those skills of that young man for himself until his curiosity and intrigue is satisfied.

After all, it would be interesting to see how Hanagaki Takemichi could add value and advantage to his own gang by his valor and firm morality.

He can’t wait to see on what this promising young lad has to offer him.

(A/N: I don’t anything from this franchise. I still believe in the Takemikeyhina supremacy. But chapter 212 happened. And it was wild. I had to get these thoughts and ideas out of my head before they melted away from my brain. Apologies in advance for any grammatical mistakes as English is not my native language. I tried to keep all of them in character although I still had trouble deciphering the exact nature of Senju given that he’s the newest addition of the character from the franchise. So, I tried to connect the possibilities of his nature from the few panels of the manga. Reviews are amusing. So, let me hear them from you.)

[starr-fall-knight-rise]

HASO, “Patient 0″

I finally had a day where I was motivated to write something! :) yay, hopefully I am getting back into my stride. I hope you all enjoy!

Dr. Kell examined the brown soil before him, and the little red plants that sprouted up around it. There was definitely something important here, something that the others definitely didn’t know about. The thought made him almost giddy with anticipation as he took samples and began to bag them in little clear tubes with bright labels on the side.

He had been teaching for as long as he could remember, a geologist in the fourth city of the Vrul inner ring, and in all that time he had neer once received a commendation for his work. The thought made him bitter as he plunged the little digging tool into the soil for another sample. Years and years of hard work and not once had it ever been acknowledged. That was because the Vrul didn’t value teachers like they should. They only valued those people who made important discoveries. 

When he had originally approached the head of their college in an effort to remind him what kind of important work he did, sure that they had just forgotten, though the reaction he had received was one of derision and even derisive laughter.

You’re a teacher not a researcher. They don’t make medals for mediocrity.

The thought made his antenna tremor in absolute rage.

The nerve.

He was not mediocre.

Ok granted, everyone on this planet had a doctoral level knowledge of their specific field, but that didn’t mean that his contributions weren’t important! He had even heard rumors that he was being considered for termination! The thought scared him, and so he had gone out to do something no Vrul had ever done before.

He had walked out of the city wall and taken a transport out into the surrounding countryside.

It seemed strange, the wall was very thick, and the ground around it was shored up with concrete and a very thick foundation. 

 The outside of the wall was very smooth.

He knew that they kept the wall there to keep the wildlife out or something…. But as a geologist he knew that a wall twenty feet deep was a little bit overkill, and forty feet high? No known animal species on their planet was dangerous over about ten feet.

But he just rattled his antenna and kept going.

Bitter about his situation.

Not everyone could be some great genius about a subject, not everyone would have opportunities to do stupid irrational things. Not everyone was like the “legendary Dr. Krill” and his stupid and useless papers about humans. 

He huffed, yeah dr. Krill, some doctor. Mister SO important that the council had a termination order out for him, and not for the same reason there was a termination order out for Kell. Apparently the population wasn’t ready for what Dr. Krill was spouting off, apparently it was TOO revolutionary, and threatened to change the social fabric of the Vrul nation.

Yeah right.

Like some paper on a two legged snot nosed carnivore was nearly as important as the study of the very earth beneath them.

It was ridiculous.

Outrageous.

He was the one who deserved some real recognition, and not that Dr. Krill.

He had seen the pompous little creature speak once at some sort of medical conference he had been forced to attend during his younger years, and he honestly thought the little creature was a self important, pompous little lecturer.

Yet no one else seemed to have seen it.

Everyone else was fascinated with his work, and though they thought his bravery was strange and overdone, they still admired him!

Yes, “admired” him, a complete and total nutcase braggart with an inflated sense of self importance, and the audacity to refuse his termination order, the nerve of him.

And now here he was standing under the hot sun of mid morning on dirt that no one had stood on in over a thousand years.

The council said that the city walls were for their protection, and no one ever questioned leaving their walls. It wasn’t illegal or anything but most Vrul had a survival instinct so intense it verged on cowardice. Generally he himself would be in that category, but his anger and obsession had driven him to take a step outside the city.

Looking at the ground, and examining the local wildlife, he honestly couldn't see why they had needed to build a city with such intense fortifications. The largest animal he saw was a surprisingly vrul-like creature with eight stumpy legs slowly trundling through the undergrowth.

WHen it made it to a nearby patch of sun, it opened up a large fan on it’s back and hunkered down to sit and soak in the radiation.

Nothing inherently scary.

He wasn’t even sure why the outside of the city had bothered him so much.

His confidence grew as he kept walking.

Maybe he would talk to the council about that at a later date, tell them about his time outside the cities and let them know how safe it was. Maybe then HE would be the one changing things, maybe then HIS name would be something important to be remembered. Imagine that, Dr. Krill, coming home and expecting the cities to be walled off, but instead find spreading metropolises like there were on his precious Earth, and not because KRILL said anything, but in fact, because Dr. Kell had been the only one brave enough to walk outside their own city walls.

Wouldn’t that be the ticket.

He stepped into a thicket of bushes and trees. They weren’t much taller than he was, about six feet in height maybe, but they still provided him with some shade as he worked. THey had large transparent orange orbs on the end of their branches, full to the brim with hydrogen. That was one thing that might be a little bit dangerous out here…. The trees had the potential to explode.

He would have to keep that in mind.

Still, the way the light filtered down through the orange orbs and fell on the ground below him was quite something to behold leaving behind a dazzling array of glowing orange spots to create an ethereal and delicate pattern over the little thicket floor.

Working here would be fine for the moment.

He set down his case of tools in a little clearing in the middle examining the dirt and placing it away in test tubes. The dirt was pretty cracked and rather dry, most of the planet’s water being stored in underground aqueducts which the Vrul had been smart enough to tap into. This was the equator of the planet after all, and their climate tended towards desert, though it wasn’t nearly as extreme as the Rundi home planet. He could see most of that from the dirt that he picked up, dirt that hadn’t seen water in a very long time.

Out of the corner of his eye he watched a few creatures pass outside his little thicket of trees, though they tended to avoid him, skirting around the edge of the trees and not daring to venture in.

He didn’t see himself as much of a threat to them, but he was glad anyway. The last thing he needed was an encounter with some kind of animal.

He moved his case, feeling the vibration over the ground as he did so.

He put a small slide under his travel microscope and found there to be an unusual amount of organic matter in the soil. Not in the way of worms or bugs or some other small creature but…. Animal matter it looked like. He couldn’t really distinguish what kind of creature it had been before it began decomposing but, there was something, strange about it. He took another sample of dirt, his little collection tool piercing through the top soil and sending a wave though the ground.

He looked at another sample.

That all seemed very strange. The ground her was very fertile, and surrounded in these strange trees, but for some reason, no trees were growing here? He couldn’t see why not, the seeds would generally fall here, and there was enough sunlight coming into the clearing  that it would be a perfect location for growing.

Overhead, a flock of kinlits took to the air squalling.

He heard a high pitched chirp, and turned to look as a few passing animals turned on their tails and ran off across the ground.

Dr. kell stared in confusion, not sure what to think.

And then the soil below him began to vibrate.

He looked down in shock and surprise stepping back from his work as the soil below him began to churn.

Fear overtook him, and he turned to go in the other direction, back to his transport, but no…. He needed his equipment.

He hurried forward and began to gather up his things as the ground before him continued to churn. 

And then that churning set off more rumbling and more churning right next to it, until the entire clearing was unstable. 

He tried to step away but as he did, something shot up out of the dirt and grabbed at his leg. He screamed high and shrill, dropping his case again, which thudded softly on the mulched earth.

He dragged his foot away from what looked like a hand!

The hand continued to wave and wille in the air, grasping for him, as it slowly emerged from the soil below.

He staggered back as, all around him, hands began bursting from the soil and into the air.

THe first hand that had appeared had now clawed its way far enough out that kell could see the joint of an elbow. The hand was grey and covered in dirt, and as kell watched, a shoulder broke through, followed by a head.

He was frozen in shock and fear at the tree line as the creature heaved itself from the dirt.

It…. it was a DELTA, or at least it looked like one, with four thick legs and a set of just two arms. The creature was big, almost a foot taller than he was and very heavy around the torso. It lurched forward over the ground it’s feet not used to walking. It lifted it’s head, and its eyes were a strange glassy white. Little yellow bulbs, like pockets of infection under its skin pulsed in the morning light.

It’s head turned and then stopped locked on to Dr. kell.

They stood there staring at each other for a long moment before it jolted forward, rushing towards him at incredible speed. Dr. Kell screamed, turned and ran. He had never ever tried to run a day in his life, and his legs soon got caught up in each other, he pitched to the ground listening to the thudding of scuttling feet behind him on the cracked earth. In a panic he inflated his helium sack, and shot into the air just as the creature reached for him.

He floated upwards but was stopped in the upper branches of the tree, maybe only nine feet into the air his feet dangling only two feet over the clutching fingers of the THING.

It’s grasping fingers clasped at his feet.

Kell continued to scream, though no one could hear him and those fingers still clasped at him. The creature did not speak, and the white overlay of its eyes made it clear the thing couldn't see either, but it knew exactly where he was.

Slowly a few more of its brethren began to filter in from the trees clustering together below Kell as his screamed and screamed, but then when his screaming intensified one of the creatures began trying to climb up the back of another. It’s fingertips brushed the bottom of his feet and he screamed even louder, clawing his way through the branches of the trees and towards the clearing where his communicator was.

If he could get back he could call for help.

Behind him the strange pile of creatures flopped back to the ground and slowly began to follow him through the trees.

He was almost to the clearing when.

Something snagged against his Helium sack.

There was a sharp pinprick of pain, and then.

He slowly began to sink.

Cold hands reached up for him as he flailed and kicked desperately trying to plug the hole that had been torn in his helium sack, but it was too late.

Hands clasped his feet and pulled him downwards. 

***

The Betas stood on the wall staring out at the open plane that ran for distant miles in every direction. Everyday they stood here from morning until night when their shift ended, and every day there was nothing to see. The Alphas thought it was ok to leave them up here in boredom, even despite them having cognitive abilities enough to do more meaningful tasks.

Most of them were bitter about it, but the Alphas were smarter than them, and had turned back every attempt at making some sort of fair arrangement.

So they were mostly negligent in their duties. 

It’s not like anything happened here anyway.

There was a visiting Alpha today, walking the walls with them. They were pretty sure this one was some kind of psychologist, and was likely looking for signs of mental distress in their demeanor. He was alright as far as Alpha’s went, he talked to them like they were intelligent beings and asked how they were, which is more than they expected from most visiting Alphas.

“Anything of note this morning?” The psychologist asked.

They shook their heads, “No, well accept for that professor.”

“Professor?”

Yeah, guy dropped down over the wall and took a transport into the middle of nowhere.”

“You didn’t stop him?”

“Leaving the city is ill advised but not illegal.” They pointed out, and the Alpha just nodded. It was a strange bodily expression, which demonstrated that this particular Vrul had spent some time with humans, how much time that had been was questionable, but they had still managed to rub off on him.

Humans tended to do that.

Looking out into the desert, the Alpha stopped, “hey, isn’t that him?”

The turned to look over the wall.

Well it did seem to be true, though he appeared to be walking rather than using the transport, and the couldnt be sure, but from this distance, it didn’t appear that he was carrying his case either.

How strange.

The alpha moved forward a little bit to watch him as he approached, perplexed and unsure what he was looking at.

Even the alphas could see that something was…. wrong . The way he moved was ungainly almost disjointed, and he stumbled from side to side in a manner of confusion. As he got closer, they noted the clear fluid glistening on his shoulders.

The Vrul equivalent to blood.

Sweet Nebulon the Alpha said, and then inflated his Helium sack, floating over the side of the wall and slowly lowering himself to the ground to intercept the staggering form.

He grabbed the doctor by the shoulders, “Dr. kell, are you alright, Dr. Kell?”

The head jerked up, and Dr. Kell stared at him with glassy and confused eyes. Looking up the psychologist watched as five more forms appeared on the horizon. Something about them seemed very wrong.

“HELP US UP.” He ordered, and a small platform was lowered down to them. He hurried the catatonic Dr. Kell onto the platform and they rose into the air just as the forms solidified themselves on the horizon.

Dark grey, glass white eyes, and the lumbering forms of Deltas.

“What in the hell.” The psychologist muttered not noticing his use of the human language as the creatures clustered at the base of the wall looking up towards them with wide white eyes.

“What the hell are those things.”

“I don’t know.” he said, “But call for a doctor, and an isolation unit.” He stepped back from Dr. Kell who stood wobbly at the center of the platform staring out into space with glassy eyes.

***

“What did I tell you!”

“I know-”

“What did I tell you!”

“I know, I know, but in my defence, it was an underwater plant.”

“It WaS aN UndERwAteR PlaNt.” 

Krill looked up at the Admiral with an expression of derision and scolding, “Have you BEEN to EARTh at any point, sea urchins, coral reefs, poisonous fish, what made you think that touching an UNDERWATER alien plant was going to be any different. You big, stupid idiot! 

The big stupid idiot in question just sighed and gave up on his argument. He wasn’t going to win this one and he knew it. Krill turned back town to the human’s swollen hand, skin stretched glistening and red over joints that had swelled up to twice their normal size. Looked like some sort of contact allergic reaction, and luckily it hadn’t spread to the human’s body while he was underwater.

The sheer stupidity.

Though a  little medicine would do him just fine.

He pulled up the sleeve of the human’s shirt and depressed the plunger on the syringe with great malice.

The human winced, but krill thought it was only fair.

“You moron.” He muttered

Admiral Vir rubbed his arm with his good hand, “Ouch, vicious little creature.”

From where she leaned against the wall, Sunny looking up from examining her knife, “You are kind of an idiot.”

“Thank you Sunny, that is very helpful of you.” he muttered

Krill turned back and was about to finish with his lecture, when there was a sudden pinging on his implant. He had gotten one only a few months ago, and had found it to be relativity more convenient than taking calls in his office.

He held up a hand to the other two as he took the call.

“Dr. Krill here.”

“The council requests your presence urgently.”

Krill frowned, “I do not deal with the council. You know how I feel about my termination order.

“Your termination order has been dissolved. We need our help immediately. Bring the humans.”

“Bring the humans?” He was a bit shocked at that,. The council was not particularly a great fan of humans, but this seemed rather serious, and he knew if anything were to happen to him they would have hell to pay.

And they weren’t that stupid.

He turned to look at the other two who stared at him very curious.

“Admiral, I think the Vrul homeworld is in need of our help.”

The Admiral nodded and stood holding his swollen hand to his chest, “Very well, i will go make the roder.”

Krill nodded and watched him go.

He wondered what this could be all about.

[rahbid]

        someone not long for this world. the choice of words hum inside the confines of her skull. some part of her, the deepest, sickest part of her wishes that were true. that her body were not so beyond humanity, her life still sprawling out in decades before her while her body clings to youth, to an unsurpassable physical peak. she is timeless, something less and more than human, removed from this world entirely. maybe he’s right. maybe she isn’t long for it, if only because she slips past its grip to exist somewhere parallel, just beside the world where others walk. maybe it’s not quite that she isn’t long for this world. more that she was never meant for it.

        her legs are long, limbs deerlike in nature with bony joints connecting each piece. beneath the table, her knee brushes his. maybe without meaning. maybe just the silent message   :   we are so much closer than you think, i am here, i am here.

      ❝   i don’t bruise. they don’t last, anyway.   ❞   a careful, literal answer. the kind that makes her look away from him momentarily, a casual side - eye glance at anything that isn’t his face. then, she looks back with those endlessly curious grey eyes. breath hitches for a moment in her throat. i remember you, i do, please know i do   ---   the place where my head stops at your shoulder, that care you take when you move, the silent way express your tenderness. i know you. i want to say thank you for showing me, for allowing me to memorize each piece that ties you together.

        she looks at him with such intensity, the kind that would frighten off anyone less brave, less understanding of the creature she is. there’s something near feral in her eyes at the exposure of his violet bruise   ---   she longs to touch it, press it down, see him wince in pain. oh, that violent expression of adoration that has become the only language she speaks anymore. he trusts her. she wants him to trust her with more. wants to crack his ribcage open and wrap her french - tipped fingers around the beating heart inside. his throat is bare and her incisors long for it. she does not know if she wants to study him under a microscope or eat him alive   ---   or if she only wants to care for something, someone without making it bleed. she likes his laugh, subtle and breathy and real. she commits every bit of texture along his skin to memory, breaking it down into pieces to re - assemble in her thoughts later until no detail escapes the trap of her hippocampus.

        don’t ask me why i intend to keep him so. i couldn’t tell you. very few things i’ve done demand explanation, even fewer still that have one at all. i think, maybe, there’s something kindred about us two. 

     ❝   do you   ...   want to know me ?   ❞   words come out slowly, delicately, as if   ---   for once, for one rare moment   ---   she isn’t quite certain. to be wanted, in any capacity, is a new, uneasy feeling. she chokes down her own spit before she touches the coffee. she’s always been more of a tea person, but now she holds it in her grip for the warmth alone, even as it begins to fade.         

        ❝   the bruises that did stay   ---  ❞   there’s a new thickness hanging in the air between them. she seems unsure about the words coming out of her mouth, the honesty she’s committing to. her pink lips wrap around the cup of coffee, leaving behind a sparkling pink gloss stain when she pulls back to speak.   ❝   well, they’re more than skin deep, so to speak.   ❞

@inkshach​ continued from here. 

[vesuvian-american-fics]

better with time. Ch 18

i'm home.

You ride with Reiner to Conny's village, exactly where the titans are coming from. (AO3)

Words: 1,841

Hours earlier within Wall Rose .

Panic shoots through you like ice. Goosebumps raising on your neck and a steady tremble overtakes you. Cold sweat dampens your forehead, your eyes dart between your friends. You can call Sasha and Conny that now, friends. Conversation with Bertholdt and Reiner was a bit strained and forced but interesting nevertheless. Historia and Ymir were damn near strangers to you but that didn’t stop you from turning to them and gauging their reaction to the bad news. They looked stressed of course. You breathe in deeply through your nose and slowly out your mouth.

Calm down. Just breathe.

You can handle this, you had nightmares of this day coming. Of course, they always ended in your painful death, but you’re not alone now like you are in your dreams. These are trained professionals. That also happen to be children much younger than you, even despite being a hundred years their senior. Stuck in your own haze of anxiety and panic you’ve missed everything Nanaba said, all the instructions she just gave.

“Y/N! Stick with me!” Reiner shouts, already headed out the door with the others. You almost trip over your own two feet in your haste to catch up to him. He is as reliable as he claims. You don’t know his history with Bertholdt, but you trust him. Bertholdt is intelligent and his quiet nature is welcome in the sea of young boisterous teens. He’s got a good head on his shoulders, so you’re happy to stick with these two. Even if Bertholdt would rather keep you at arm's length. A twinge of relief calms your jitters, that is until, Conny being distracted bumps into you. You snap your head to him, waiting for an apology before that look of horror much like yours moments ago is mirrored onto his once cheery face.

“My family is to the south... And the titans are... Coming from the South...” He says, large owlish eyes unblinking, mouth slack, unshed tears budding on his lashes. Your heart sinks. You have no words to offer him, you can imagine what he’s thinking and there's no way you can comfort him the way you’d like when you all are headed to board your fleet or horses and head South towards said titans.

You just gave him a sad look, a look he seemed to recognize through his fog by the way his bottom lip trembled in the way they do when you know someone's about to let loose and cry. You were about to speak before you were cut off by Nanaba’s voice cutting over the crowd.

“Get those horses ready, stat!” She barks, before using her gear to shoot up to where Miche is on a rooftop overhead. They looking towards the south. Can they see them from there?! Awkwardly you twiddle your fingers and bounce from one foot to the other, watching helplessly as Reiner saddles up his stallion. He’s quick with his work, he gets on the horse and pulls you up behind him without waiting for you to be ready. With that he snaps the reins and the horse pulls away from the base you all are abandoning.

You wrap your arms tight around his middle, turning your head to get one last glimpse of the safe haven that was just shattered. What will the day bring? Will you survive it with what little skill you possess? You feel like a burden, you miss the you that was locked away in the dungeons for only a moment before steeling your resolve. You can't waste your new life feeling useless. You don't want to be worthless to Hange... To Levi.

I’m not dying before I see them again.

...

Hours later within Wall Sina.

Only minutes after Levi was alerted of the situation in Wall Rose.

“Damn those things. Nothing for weeks and weeks on end and the second-–” Levi cuts himself off with a grunt as he forces open the door to Hange’s makeshift lab here.

“There's titans in Wall Rose. They came this morning and only now are we finally hearing about it, get ready to go...” He says, a cold bite to his tone but it doesn’t faze Hange. It stressed them a bit of course, the rush, and complications of it all. They’re worrying most about you, but at the same time in their gut they know your safe. Or so they hope at least. As a friend, they’d hate to lose you. Fuck the scientific advancements that could come from studying you, now in their heart, Hange just wants to see you safe by sunrise.

“Any word on where Y/N is?” Hange asks, their large brown eye still staring down into a microscope eyeing a piece of the wall at a molecular level. They hear Levi click his tongue in annoyance, probably upset that Hange can read him like a book. He’s worried about you.

“Everyone headed south and after that, if any of them are still alive they’re doing a perimeter of the wall to find the hole.” He informs, grimacing at the prospects of your survival and the rest of the scouts.

“They’ll be okay, those are some of our best out there and Miche is with them of course.” Hange muses, changing out the slide in the microscope with one that holds some of that odd crystal Annie is encased in.

“They haven’t seen Miche since this morning... He was holding off the titans.” Levi mentions, voice flat, an octave deeper than usual. Hange’s lips form into a flat line, and their brows furrow in concern, but they don’t speak. They silence between to two is understood. They hope he’s okay, only time will tell.

“Anyway,” Levi clears his throat to change the grim subject. “I’m going to get the priest ready to come along with us.” Levi says, pulling his coat closer over his shoulders.

“The priest?” Hange asks, confusion lacing their words.

“I want to show him what his silence can bring...” Levi said, and without another word he was stalking down the hallway.

“Be ready in half an hour or we’re leaving without you.” He calls, not bothering himself to wait for an answer, Hange knows well enough that time is ticking.

...

Back in Wall Rose.

The early afternoon sun was torturous on the back of your neck that was exposed to its rays. You could see the beginnings of a sunburn on Reiner’s neck, his cheeks were flushed from the heat, his shirt was starting to feel damp against you. Gross. Miche spoke in hushed tones to Nanaba and the others at the head of the formation. Nanaba looked stressed but she quickly regained her composure and gave Miche a curt nod before he pulled away from her and towards the crowd of titans running now in a full sprint towards you.

The thought of sacrifice made your mouth grow dry. Miche was heading towards the titans to buy everyone some time. You had heard previously, from Hange of course, that he was second only to Levi himself. Being clueless as you are to how things work here; you don’t know if that’s a good enough or not. You just hope that he’ll survive this. He seems strong, and Levi seems even stronger. Something about the way he carries himself make you feel like he could protect you. Protect the scouts, rather... you’re more of a burden to him right now, you think. He wouldn’t waste whatever skills he has to help you, someone who's hardly any help to him, right? You pouted at the idea of being abandoned, it was a recurring though you had recently. Just cooking and cleaning horse stables wasn’t enough to secure your life here. You needed to be more useful to them all, especially now, seeing as Reiner was so kind as to carry your extra weight around and keep you safe. You want to repay he scouts, Erwin, Hange... and repay Levi. You want him to see you as useful. You wanted him to need you around-––

You were taken from your thoughts as Nanaba gave orders to split up. Since you were on the back of Reiner’s horse you had no choice but to go where he wanted, and he wanted to follow Conny to his home town. Conny was grateful, and so was Sasha as she would break away to go back to her home deep in the woods. You prayed she’d make it back to you safe by the end of the day. Somehow, seeing her brown hair grow blurry the farther and farther she rode away gave you anxiety. You didn’t want this to be the last time you saw her.

You too were moving in another direction, pulling around the titans’ flank and heading straight to Conny’s village. You watched as he stumbled over his words, describing how to get to his home, his Adam's apple bobbed up and down as he swallowed loudly.

“Please! Can I check on my family first?” He pleaded, of course he was allowed to go find his home first. Any sane person would want to run straight to their house with news like this and see if his family was alright. It would be cruel to deny him that right, seeing the way he is now. A shadow of him former, childish self.

You were studying his features as you noticed his large eyes widen just a fraction more. He snapped the reins to rush his horse forward, Reiner and Bertholdt did the same. The village was eerily quiet, the homes were destroyed and your heart dropped so hard it felt as if it had fallen onto the beaten path beneath your feet.

Conny rush to the center of the town while Reiner and Bertholdt follow the sound of Conny’s voice. He’s calling for anyone to come out, his family, a neighbor, hell even a stranger to show themselves. You watch as he pulls his horse quickly around a corner and out of sight.  Reiner nearly crashed into Conny’s horse, not expecting him to just be frozen here, staring up in horror at what you could only assume was his old home.

His childhood home that now was a blonde-haired titan flattening it.

And it might be crazy, but this titan’s eyes, they’re so round and golden they look so much like Conny’s...

“Conny! Get back!” Reiner barks, pulling on Conny’s arm. But he’s ignored, Conny just continues to mumble incoherently.

“Conny...” You say, quieter now, you rub his back to coax him out of whatever haze his mind is in right now.

“It’s... My house. This is my house...” He finally whispers, his eyes glossed over as unshed tears begin to build up in his eyes. His voice is trembling as he fights to hold his composure. Your heart sinks, you swallow thickly as you try to gather your thoughts. You share anxious eye contact with Reiner, sweat is beading at his brow.

“It’s... my house....”

[masterjedilenawrites]

The Sniper and The Medic: Chapter 5

Starring: Crosshair, OC Joan Vo, Hunter, Wrecker, Tech

Chapter Warnings: Mention of injuries/pain

Taglist: @proadhog @skippyhopperwisdom

AO3 Link (In case you like it better over there, it’s okay, no judgement)

< Previous Chapter | Masterlist | Next Chapter >

Chapter 5: Sick and Tired

The next several weeks were filled with activity. Even if Crosshair wanted to improve his sleep schedule, he couldn't with the amount of training and preparing Hunter was having them do.

They were more or less on their own now, free to do whatever they felt necessary to prove themselves for deployment. Commander Cody had accompanied a troop of injured soldiers returning to the planet for treatment, spending one day with the Clone Force to go over expectations and progress before heading back out into the warring galaxy. After that, it was all on Sergeant Hunter to push them. And boy, did he ever.

Every day focused on a simulation run, where Hunter would make them start the mission over any time someone missed their mark or made the wrong call, and refused to let them leave until they had run it through perfectly at least five different ways. In their "free time," they practiced with their own weapons and gear, trying to best their own scores, learn new tricks, and just nail down a personal rhythm.

Evenings were mostly spent learning various strategies, and occasionally cleaning up or decorating their gear. They'd settled on some skull imagery and a black-and-red color scheme that not only looked cool, but also made them really stand apart from the regs. There was also talk about them getting a specially-outfitted ship in the next week. Their dedication kept them from getting a decent amount of sleep each night, but Hunter argued that's how it would be out in the field, so might as well get used to it.

Outside of their group and a few protocol droids that assisted them with odd errands, there was only one other they saw on a regular basis. Doctor Vo. Sometimes it was scheduled visits to the examination room, other times she observed their training sessions. If the others were nervous with her watching, Crosshair couldn't tell. He tried to play it cool, too, and only focus on the mission. But any shot he missed made him flush beneath his helmet in embarrassment. He really, really wanted to impress her.

It was starting to distract him.

* * *

After a particularly grueling day through the simulation room, where they'd pretended to be rescuing hostages from a temple on the forest moon of Endor, the four of them lay panting and sweating on the tile floor of the locker room. Tired, but satisfied. They were getting really good.

"Tomorrow we're running the Mon Cala sim," said Hunter, the first to catch his breath and stand back up. He started peeling off his blacks, heading for the refresher.

Crosshair and Tech shared a weary look, and even Wrecker let out a little groan.

"Um, Hunter," Tech sat up to catch him before he left the room. "We really ought to take a day to rest."

"No," the Sergeant immediately disagreed. He wadded up his sweaty clothes and tossed them like a ball into the hamper on the other side of the locker. "War doesn't rest, and neither should we."

"Actually, we should."

Tech rose to his feet, his face screwed up in what they all recognized as a sign he was about to info-dump. Crosshair and Wrecker started to get up as well, knowing this would be too good to watch from the floor. Hunter had proven himself to be a capable leader, but he wasn't perfect. And now was the first time one of them was challenging him.

"According to leading studies, on both human and humanoid bodies, rest is a critical part to ensuring continued performance. It is essential that our bodies have time to recover and repair before we push them again."

Hunter had his arms folded over his bare chest. "Is that so?"

It was more of a rhetorical question, but Tech took it as permission to really spew forth all the details he had on the topic.

"Yes. See, any type of physical exercise creates microscopic tears in the tissue of your muscles, which then needs rest in order for fibroblast cells to repair them and create stronger tissue. If that repair isn't done, it can result in muscle fatigue and soreness and even actual injury."

Crosshair shifted uncomfortably. He had actually sustained an injury earlier that morning, one that he hadn't told any of them about, not only because it was embarrassing, but because it actually hadn't bothered him at first. But as the day drew on, the pain near his ribs grew worse. Now he felt almost sick to be standing up.

"In addition to that," Tech was still rambling on, "there's the glycogen carbohydrates that are broken down to be used for energy, which also needs to rest to replenish. That energy is needed for both physical and mental performance. However, physical exertion also boosts other hormones such as cortisol and adrenaline, which, when they are overproduced through over-exercise, can interfere with getting quality sleep. So a double-whammy."

Tech seemed ready to continue making points but Hunter finally held up a hand.

"Okay, okay, Tech. I get it. I know it's important. But we're not always going to have the luxury of taking days off once we're out of here. I don't want us getting used to doing whatever we want whenever we feel like it."

Wrecker groaned loudly. "What do you mean? We haven't done anything we've wanted to do. We don't get to pick the sims. We can't go to bed without your permission. If anyone's doing whatever they want whenever they feel like it, it's you."

Hunter's eyes flashed dangerously and he pointed an angry finger up at his large brother. "That's not true, Wrecker, and you know it. I'm busting my ass off, same as all you. You don't think I want to take a break too? My head hurts all the time now. There's no relief anymore, just constant... stimulation...."

His voice petered out with a heavy sigh. The three of them looked amongst each other but said nothing. Hunter pinched the bridge of his nose in thought for a moment. "I just... I want us to be prepared. All those stories we hear, from Cody and Joan and everyone, about what it's really like out there.... Brothers, the galaxy needs us. We need to be the best."

Tech nodded his head sympathetically. "We understand, Hunter. We know you're working hard. All I'm saying is if we want to be the best, we have to take what breaks we can get. While we can still get them. Otherwise, we risk running ourselves into the ground before we've even had the change to get out and help anyone."

Hunter chewed it over before conceding, just a little bit. "Fine, we can take the rest of the evening. I won't open the strategy manuals, and it'll be lights about by 8."

Wrecker let out a satisfied holler, starting to head for the showers himself. But Tech looked at him suspiciously.

"And tomorrow...?"

Hunter chuckled darkly. "Oh we're still running the Mon Cala sim. I've been looking forward to that one all week. You boys will be fine."

The Sergeant clapped Crosshair on the back as he turned to leave, causing the sniper to immediately double over in pain. He'd been quiet the whole argument, despite having many points to contribute himself. The pain in his abdomen had become too much. All he could do was focus on his breathing.

"Oh kriff," Hunter cursed, catching him by the shoulder.

"Cross, are you injured?" Tech scurried over, concerned. "Why didn't you say anything?"

"I'm fine," Crosshair spat out. He shook Hunter's grip off and mustered up whatever strength he could to stand up straight again. He was not giving them any reason to ask what had happened. "I just pulled a muscle but I'm fine. It's nothing."

Tech was trying to catch Hunter's eye, mostly likely to continue arguing against tomorrow's training now that a new reason had presented itself. But Wrecker spoke up first.

"You should see Joan," he suggested.

"I'm fine," Crosshair growled again. He definitely didn't want her to know about the injury, either.

"Just go," Hunter huffed. "Even if you are fine, at least you get to see her."

Crosshair looked back to find the three of them all had knowing smirks on their faces. He wanted to punch them, but he also couldn't argue. It would be nice to see her.

Even if she was the reason he'd gotten himself injured.

[harcourtholmesii]

A Strange Meeting

Fandoms: Dead by Daylight

Pairings: None

Warnings: - Reference to Violence - Referenced Gore - Referenced Death and Torture - Implied, Stated and Referenced Prejudice - Pretty Poorly Written

Words: 2019

I wrote this sometime ago, but I felt like posting some of my older works to Tumblr to get them out there. In this one, to clarify, I have this little headcanon that the Entity would want to get the most it can from its survivors and killers before tossing them into the void. So, the Entity forces some killers to be survivors and some survivors to be killers, so it might leech as much emotion, hope and fear out of them all.

Enjoy!

She had found a quiet place. It was hidden deep into the woods, far from the campfire’s warm glow, and out of sight of those judging looks. She could hear, carried along by the chilling wind, the faint cries of Dwight and Kate’s hollers as they searched for where she had hidden herself away. With her back pressed firmly to the chipping bark of the ulmus- elm behind her, she brought her knees up to her chin, muting her sobs. The cold wind swept through her, and beneath her long sleeves she could feel her hairs rising in horripilation.

 Goose-bumps. It was what everyone else called it. But why not use the scientific term? She didn’t understand. According to David, and everyone else probably, there was a lot she didn’t understand. Her father called it a ‘brilliant mind’, an ‘inquisitive mind’, but her mother referred to it in much the same way as everyone else. ‘Special’. ‘Unique’. ‘Unusual’.

 When the world around them began to collapse, everyone else ran to the door. When she was alone in the collapse, she just had to collect that one insect. Where one should run for a teammate, she had to collect the sap and take notes. She couldn’t help herself. That was what she knew; botany and entomology were her video games and childhood toys. She didn’t understand these trials. Never had she wished to be swept into a life or death game, and whilst other survivors lived for the chase, she despised having to run around. Her legs ached so much at the end of a trial, she would rarely wait to reach the campfire before collapsing to her knees. Even when those black, arachnid-like appendages tore her away from the safety of the fire, she could rarely find the strength to continue these trials any longer.

 Claudette’s head snapped up, hearing heavy footsteps approaching. It sounded much like David or Bill’s heavy boots; the last people she wanted to talk to. As she brought a hand up to the tree behind her, gaining some purchase on it so she might stand quickly and run, she was interrupted by the face of a man she had not met out in these woods. She had never run into another lost soul on her own before. She had always been by Dwight or the others, but now, she was caught out and unsure how to react.

 He was enormous. Like an ursus arctos horribilis- Like a grizzly bear in size, he was packed with muscle with wide grey eyes. He turned a dark gaze down to onto her; those grey eyes filled with mild curiosity. They carried a familiar weight to them, like the gazes she had seen many times when their group met survivors who had been there just as long as themselves (or perhaps longer). They were weary, exhausted and yet they looked at her with aroused suspicion. She noted the faintest dark stains on his clothes; there was blood, yes, like there always was, but a black powder mixed with mud and dirt caked the white of his collared shirt. He wore dark overalls with one strap snapped on the right side and, much like everyone else, his clothes were in such a disarray. How could a man like this be one of them? It was much like when she met David; just how could a man of his size, strength and temperament be a survivor?

 A crunch of leaves and twigs alerted her, Claudette’s eyes travelling up to the man’s face as he ducked down beneath a branch and with his back pressed to the tree, slid down to sit on her left side. He dropped heavily into the mix of dirt and roots, but kept quiet. She didn’t like this. She wanted to speak up and tell him to go away. This was her spot. But, instead all she felt was the urge to stand and return to the campfire.

 “Please stay.” Claudette hadn’t realised she had already started making a move to stand. His voice shocked her. It was a growl. Not like a threatening growl, but his voice was deep and broken that when his plica vocalis- vocal cords produced his words, it reminded her much like the deep bellows of a bear. She swallowed around a lump in her throat, feeling how her body tightened in fear. Her joints were strained, prepared for her to jump up and run like her body had never done so before. Even when she was in a trial, she had never felt so terrified. Nervously, she let herself slump back into her place at the base of the elm’s trunk. She was shaking.

 “W-Who…” She swallowed again, trying to gain the nerve to speak. “Who are you?”

 He turned his head to look at her; a slow, bored motion, with his grey eyes meeting hers. Even like this, he was still at least a foot taller. He was just… so… big…

 “Someone like you.”

 “H-How do you kno-?”

 “I guessed.” He interrupted her, turning his head away, his right hand brushing lightly at the dirt between them. She bit her lip to keep herself from yelling at him at how he was getting her jean pants dirty. What did it matter? They were dirtied from mud, blood and torn to shreds at the calf and knees. He glanced back up at her, one large finger beginning to scratch a pattern into the dirt. “Lost.”

 “W-What?”

 “You seem lost.” His eyes turned back to the dirt, glowering at a mistake he brushed away with his knuckles. His attention returned to dividing his gaze between her face and his picture.

 “W-Well, I’m not. I know where I can go and-”

 “It is not what I meant.” He said, stopping his digits from digging into the dirt. He turned his body, angling it towards her, a foot between them. He was uncomfortably close for her liking, but he didn’t push further. “Your mind seems elsewhere.”

 “And how do you know that?” She pulled her lips tight into a frown. She didn’t appreciate how he was analysing her. It was like how her mother tried to send her to a therapist, except instead of a sense of duty to her mother, she was kept there by her fear rooting her feet to the ground.

 “I know.” He hummed, returning to a relaxed position around the tree. “No one runs from the fire except for a few reasons. Since you are not screaming…” He trailed off, letting Claudette fill in the rest.

 “I… I just can’t deal with this any longer.” Well, he was certainly doing better than her therapist and actually getting her to spill something personal. Whether out of fear or not, it didn’t really matter. “I’m constantly afraid. I can’t keep up with this. I just… I just want to go home.” The world around her grew blurry, her eyes beginning to sting as tears welled up and then rolled tracks down her hot cheeks.

 He didn’t speak. He had stopped drawing in the dirt, and kept his eyes trained on her and how she rose her hands up in fists to wipe away the tears. “I just want to go home to my parents. To my microscope and studies. I want to go back to college. If anything, people whispering behind my back is nothing compared to a hook going through it.” She bawled, bringing her body into a curled position.

 “What is a m-micro-… ma-icro-scopp?” Her wide eyes turned to look up at him, surprised to find him tilting his head like a giant dog. He was curious, and the thought that this man didn’t know what a microscope was… It was a welcome distraction.

 “A-…” She wiped the tears from her eyes, trying to gather herself. “A microscope i-is a tool used to analyse samples. Like being able to see… Um…” She reached down to the grass and dirt, pulling up into view a single leaf, crumpled, but otherwise intact. “Inside a plant there are cells. By having a sample like this leaf under a microscope, you can see them.”

 “How?” His growl of a voice caused her body to shudder. Despite her discomfort, his being there as a stranger just listening to what she had to say reminded her of how someone would message the forums asking a simple question she could answer. At least over the internet and in the college chatrooms, people appreciated her knowledge.

 She expanded on how it all worked, and felt herself go on and ramble. What could have been answered in fifty words had ended up becoming an entire thesis. Then came the questions about how she got into college studying science as a woman and what the internet was. Like Ashley and Laurie, it seemed he had been ripped out of a time long before her own. How long had he been here? Still, who knows how much time passed, but through it all, whilst he sketched into the forest floor, she answered all of his inquiries and explained how it all worked. She appreciated how he didn’t seem to have any prejudices despite his time, and when bringing up the topic, he simply shrugged his shoulders.

 “It never mattered to my father. It doesn’t matter to me.”

 When Claudette felt her rump and tailbone beginning to ache, she stood slowly, feeling a little better to talk to someone other than her teammates. As she stood, so did he; carefully sidestepping around his sketch until he faced her. She felt a little trapped just due to his sheer size and might, but when she moved, he did not reach out or follow behind. Instead, he took a step back in the opposite direction.

 “Come with me.” She said, feeling a flush enter her cheeks. It was a little embarrassing saying that so quickly, but after their hours (she had to presume) of talking, she didn’t want to return to the group without him. Who knows? A man of his size might be able to help them in the trials.

 “No.”

 “W-Why not?” She felt a little astounded. Why wouldn’t he want to come? “I-It is okay. No one is going to run you off. I just needed time to myself. You should come with me. I’m sure the others will be happy to meet you.”

 “No. I have my own to return to.”

 “There are other campfires?” He looked over his shoulder, back through the thick woods from whence he came.

 “Hundreds.”

 “W-What?”

 “Hundreds, scattered all about. We can’t go very far, but you are not the first person I have met out here.” He stepped away from her, the shadows over his form hiding his face from sight. The moonlight streaked that streaked through the woods refused to move and just grant her one last look at him. “I have to return to my own. In time, may we meet like this again.”

 “Wait!” But already, he had vanished back into the dark. How a man like that could move so quickly and quietly, she had no clue. But apart from his patch of dirt, there was no sign he had even been there. In the dirt, what she saw drawn there was a truly nice sketch, if a little primitive due to the lack of tools. It was her face. Her face was in the dirt, with a small smile on her face. She bit back a huff of laughter- not out of actual amusement, but out of sheer irony that he would predict the outcome of their conversation.

 She turned on her heel and went back the way she came, noting the carvings of Mashtyx in the bark of the trees, reminding her of her path. Now, as she returned to the safety of Kate’s lullaby and the warm glow of the campfire, she came to realise what was stained on his clothes. What gave him such an earthy smell. It was coal dust, much like what she smelt in the coal mines of the Macmillan estate.

[ellewritesathing]

Infernal  -  IV

Summary: In your sleepy little town of Greendale, nothing ever slept for long. And ever since October, everything felt like it was waking up. Everything except for you, that is. One teensy trip to Hell (and an infuriatingly cute guy) later and suddenly you felt wide awake.

Word-count: 5.5k+

Masterlist Prev. | Part 4

A/N: okay okay i know you guys hate cliffhangers and i’m sorry!! hopefully this makes up for it tho 👀👀 also i’m working on some other caliban fics to post once this series is over, would you guys still like to be tagged in those??

tumblr’s formatting has been shit these past few days as well, and i think i’ve gotten most of it ironed out but let me know if there’s anything i missed!

“When she comes back to life, she won’t be scarred, will she?” Harvey asked. His voice was still full of concern, but it was softer now. A quiet kind of anxiety.

“She will not,” Caliban said. 

“Oh, that’s a relief,” Sabrina breathed. 

You had to admit, looking at Roz all broken and put back together again was unsettling. Not any more unsettling than finding out your mom was a demon and your dad was a psychic (maybe?), but unsettling nonetheless. 

“What do we do now?” you asked, arms folded over your chest and leg bouncing to distract from how uncomfortable you felt. 

“You say the spell, but first, you make your offering,” Caliban explained. Eyes rolling over from Sabrina to you. He seemed to zero-in on your nerves like a hawk would a field mouse. 

“To whom?” Sabrina asked. 

“Aphrodite or Eros,” Caliban said. 

“What am I offering?” Harvey asked. 

“Your love for Rosalind,” Caliban said. “Give it up, and she’ll be restored to flesh.”

“Give it up? What are you talking about?” Harvey asked.

“Aphrodite is the goddess of love,” Caliban said. “She’ll grant your wish, but demands your heart’s desire: Rosalind.” He looked down at the statue of your friend. “Vow to forsake your truest love, then to complete the spell … kiss her. She’ll restore to flesh once more. But if you betray your vow - if you kiss her again - she’ll return to stone and will remain that way until the end of days.”

“Wait, no! Harvey, there has to be some other kind of offering,” Sabrina said, reaching out to comfort him. 

“It’s a Pygmalion spell,” you said. Your voice was still full of anger, so you made a conscious effort to soften it. Taking a breath, you went on, “The myth is that to bring his statue to life, he gave up sculpting. His true love. So there isn’t really a way around that.”

“Exactly,” Caliban said. You hadn’t met his gaze when he cataloged your unease before, but now you accidentally caught his eye. Your leg stopped bouncing. Your anger flickered for a moment. “Love for life.” 

“I’ll do it,” Harvey said, not leaving any room to talk him out of it. He walked towards Caliban and took the paper from his hand. 

“Say the words to Aphrodite and give her a kiss,” Caliban said. 

Harvey knelt down and said some heartbreaking words that you wished you hadn’t overheard before saying the spell written on the piece of paper. He gave her a kiss but nothing changed. She was still stone.

“Nothing happened!” he said, looking up. 

“Caliban?” Sabrina asked, sounding equal parts accusatory and panicked.

“His offering was rejected,” Caliban said.

“What does that mean?” Harvey asked. “Why?” 

“You must not truly love her,” Caliban said, like it was obvious. Unexpected, tragic, but obvious. 

“That’s bullshit!” Harvey got to his feet, squaring up in front of Caliban. 

“Oh, crap,” you mumbled as you uncrossed your arms and moved around Roz to get to Harvey. You slipped your hands around his arm but it didn’t stop him from simmering in place. “Harvey, calm down.”

“Aphrodite would only accept your heart’s true desire,” Caliban said, either unbothered by Harvey’s anger or uncaring toward it. Still, he pushed. “That must not be Rosalind. Must be something or someone else.”

“Shut the hell up!” Harvey yelled as he slipped out of your hands. In one quick motion, he grabbed the collar of Caliban’s shirt and threw him against the wall. 

“Harvey, enough!” you yelled. You maneuvered your way between them and outstretched your hands, one palm splayed on Caliban’s yellow t-shirt and your other fingers pointing dangerously at Harvey as Sabrina pulled him a few feet back. 

“What does he know? Him and his bullshit spell,” Harvey spat. “How do we know if any of this is real?”

“Why would I lie?” Caliban asked. His heartbeat was slow and steady under your hand, more interested in your intervention than Harvey’s outburst. 

“Harvey,” you warned before he could say anything else. Sabrina’s attention slipped for a second and Harvey’s hand got free. He got ready to aim it at Caliban. Your voice was sharp as knives and twice as deadly as you snapped, “Harvey, drop it.” 

He looked at you for a second before unclenching his fist. The frown on his face deepened as he collected himself. Sure, you picked on him the most out of your friends, but you were always the first one on his side in a fight. You weren’t sure if your shifting alliance was making him frown or the fact that he’d actually listened to you. 

“I should kick your ass,” Harvey mumbled, looking over your head to Caliban again. 

“Try it again and I’ll grind every bone in your body to sand,” Caliban said, tone back to being vaguely threatening and unhelpful as he straightened up under your hand. 

You pushed him back slightly and turned to tell him to knock it off, but Sabrina’s voice stopped you. “Tell us what, Robin?” she asked, clearly having a conversation that you weren’t listening to. 

“Among the pagans, there’s that witch, Circe,” Robin explained. “The one that turned your friends into pigs? She has powerful magicks of transformation. She could turn your friend back into flesh.”

“For someone who’s trying to earn our trust, why would you only tell us this now?” Sabrina asked. 

The lull in arguing made you very aware of how close you still were to Caliban. His heart continued to beat faithfully under your palm as yours rose in your chest. Taking a breath and a step back, you reached for Harvey’s hand in an attempt to put some distance between the two of you. Caliban gave you a curious look as your hand laced into Harvey’s, tilting his head to the side ever so slightly.

“No, it’s too dangerous,” Robin said, snapping you out of your thoughts. “I mean, Circe’s power resides in her hands. All she’d have to do is touch you, and she could turn you into any creature she’s ever seen before. And without magick, you’re no match against her.”

“I don’t have magick, it’s true,” Sabrina said. “But I know where I can borrow some.” 

She told you about the hedge-witches and her plan to borrow their magic in order to attack the Carnival and bring Circe to the Academy. That way, she could fix Dorcas and Roz. How she was going to convince them to help her, you weren’t sure. You were tired of placing faith in people that didn’t deserve it.

“Okay, but I’m still going to look some stuff up,” you said when she was done. She gave you a hurt look as she readied herself to argue. “Brina, it’s not that I don’t think you can do this, but I don’t like putting all our hope in this one plan. That hasn’t really been working out for us lately.” 

“Fair enough,” Sabrina said with a small sigh. “Ambrose is busy but you can look in the Academy’s library as much as you want.”  

“Hell’s library is endless,” Caliban said, still leaning on the wall where you’d left him. He’d been so quiet that you’d almost forgotten he was there. Almost. “It’s knowledge is infinite. If there’s another way to return Rosalind to flesh, it’s in there. Not in some coven book club.” 

“You’re inviting me to Hell?” you asked. Your voice betrayed you by sounding too interested.

“Only if my queen allows it,” Caliban said, gaze moving to Sabrina. His voice didn’t. 

Looking next to you, you found Sabrina pulling a face. She didn’t like Hell at the best of times, and you doubted this qualified. “You’ll protect her from whatever’s down there?” 

“As if my life depends on it,” Caliban promised. 

“Oh, it does,” Sabrina said before turning to look at you. She cupped your hands in hers before giving you a warning. “Be careful and don’t listen to a word he says.” 

“Trust me, that’s not gonna be a problem,” you said with a sigh as you looked over to Caliban. He wore an amused smirk as he held his hand out to you. 

“Shall we?” 

Against your better judgment, you put your hand in his. It was warm, hard in some places and soft in others, and the only thing you focused on as the hellfire burned the edges of vision and the world gave way beneath you. 

--- 

“You know, this would go a lot quicker if you helped instead of just looking at me like that,” you said, not looking up from the millionth book you’d taken out that night. 

But he wasn’t looking. He was studying you under a microscope and you were trying not to squirm. Curious.

When you’d gotten here, the first few minutes had been painful retching - hell was not made for humans. Then they were nervous butterflies and shaky hands - you were not made for the attention Caliban gave you. Then they were frantic sprints from shelf to shelf - hell’s library was not made for someone with a very specific problem.

“I’m admiring,” Caliban corrected, leaning closer in his chair. “For instance, did you know that when you’re focused, your forehead creases right there?” He touched the spot between your eyes, just next to your eyebrow. “Exactly like it’s doing now.” 

You took a breath and slammed the book shut on the table, turning to give him a harsh look. “Did you know that when I’m annoyed, I have a nasty habit of choking nearby demons?” 

“Is that a promise?” he asked, not having moved an inch from where he leaned in to touch your face. The two of you were so close now that it felt like there wasn’t enough air. His eyes dropped to your lips. A second passed and all he did was shake his head and collapse back in his chair. “The Pygmalion spell had the greatest chance of curing your friend, any of the spells we find now are likely to be too obscure to hold any practical weight.” 

“Then why did you bring me here?” you asked, actively trying to put out the fire inside you and not be the first to look away. 

“I have to admit that my motives were purely self-serving,” Caliban said as he stretched out, hands interlacing behind his head and elbows spread wide. “I wanted to spend some time with the person who risks not one, but two trips to Hell for her friends. Is that such a problem?” 

“Considering you want to dethrone my best friend and enslave everyone I’ve ever met, I’m going to go with yes,” you said. You didn’t think that you could take him looking at you like that any longer, so you started piling books together to shelve later. A petty defeat. 

“What if that was something I no longer wanted to do?” Caliban asked, sounding genuinely interested in your answer. 

“You’d forfeit your claim to be king?” you asked, hands frozen in the air over a book of ancient curses.

“Hardly,” Caliban scoffed. You shook your head, telling yourself that you knew better, and kept piling up books. “But I’d be a more benevolent ruler.” 

Disappointment warped into anger again. Your shoulders bunched up as you turned to him, and you tugged them back down as you threw the books in your hand back onto the table. “Yeah, of course, you think that’s better. That it makes all this better! You know, that’s your problem. You and Harvey are the exact same, you know that? You’re both so full of-” 

“Shh.” Caliban raised a finger to his lips, looking around, which only made you angrier. Screw him for thinking he could tell you what to do. You were about to start snapping at him again when he whispered, “There’s something in here with us.” 

Your arms fell back to your sides as you quieted down. You couldn’t see anything as you looked around the room, but the shadows seemed to grow darker. Darker and darker. They swirled into unnatural shapes as something rasped around you, wind blowing the pages back and forth on the table in front of you.

A plague upon all mortals who enter Hell.

It wasn’t so much spoken as it was whispered directly into your head, rattling around angrily as it ransacked your skull. 

Death to the daughter of the winged and taloned demon of the night. 

Caliban grabbed your hand so quickly that you barely had time to process the words he muttered furiously as the shadows crept closer. He pressed his other hand to the open book on the table as he finished and everything melted into a familiar white light. 

You were retching on the edge of a forest by the time your sight came back again. Clutching onto Caliban’s yellow t-shirt to keep your balance, you tried to stand up straight again. 

“What the hell was that?” you asked, still out of breath as you frowned at your surroundings. You didn’t recognize any of the trees or the way the land crested and fell to knit together. “And where are we?” 

“Those were the wraiths of reapers,” Caliban said. He held onto your arms to keep you upright as he assessed the forest in front of you. He looked back down at you, a little more coldly than you were used to. “I told you that day on the shores to be careful in Hell or you’d draw something out.” 

“It’s not like I was trying to!” you snapped, anger giving you the strength to push him away and stand on your own. You shot him a glare and crossed your arms over your chest. 

“Could have fooled me,” he said. Anger tinged his words and you pulled back slightly. Cold was one thing but anger was another. “With such a dark cloud around you, it’s amazing you didn’t call the hounds themselves on us.” 

“Okay, you know what, why don’t you just-” A sharp pain shot through your head and your threat died on your lips. You took a breath and rubbed your face. Humans weren’t made for back-to-back teleporting. But you weren’t human anymore, were you? “Let’s just try to get out of here in one piece, alright? Now, where exactly is here?”

Caliban clenched his jaw and his gaze flicked back to the forest before settling on you again. “When the wraiths appeared, the quickest way to get out of here was to place us in the safe haven of the spellbook. The only problem is that with all the wind … I'm not sure where we ended up.”

“Well, what was the book about?” you asked, shifting your weight from foot to foot as you looked around the forest. You couldn’t tell if the forest felt wrong because something was off or because of how things were between you and Caliban.

“Petrifaction in Greek myths,” Caliban answered. “So chances are we’re either in the myth of Pygmalion-”

“Or Medusa?” you guessed, eyes settling on his. He nodded and you bit the inside of your cheek. “So how do we get out of here?”

“We wait for the story to run its course,” he said. “We don’t have to get involved?” you asked hesitantly. He shook his head and a knot in your upper back untangled. You could get out of this safely as long as you let Medusa turn some long-dead people to stone. It felt too easy. “Then let’s find a place to wait this out.”

You chose a direction and started walking, part of you waiting for Caliban to say something and another relieved that he was letting you walk in silence. It gave you the chance to think about everything Lilith told you earlier.

“The cloud is starting to come back,” Caliban warned after maybe an hour of walking. “Are you going to tell me about what’s bothering you or are we going to wait and see what comes out of these woods?”

“I’ll take my chances with the wolves,” you said, looking at him over your shoulder. He cut the nonchalant smile you threw at him in half.

“No.” Caliban caught your arm before you could swing it back around and then stopped walking. “We’ve got nowhere else to hide if something comes after us.”

Maybe it was his steely resolve or the fact that he actually did seem concerned under that well-worn apathetic safety blanket of an expression, but you felt some part of you cave. You couldn’t tell him about Lilith - you couldn’t tell anyone about Lilith - but maybe you could talk about something else. 

“What did you talk to Sabrina about when you went to Hell?” Caliban leaned back slightly and frowned for a second before recovering. 

“That’s what this is about?” he asked. He must have realised that his voice came out too gently because then he added, “It almost sounds like you’re jealous, love.” 

“I knew this was pointless,” you scoffed, looking him dead in the eye as you pulled your arm back. “And I’m not jealous, by the way, I’m frustrated.” 

“Sexually?” You rolled your eyes and ignored the heat in your cheeks as you started walking again. A pretty trainwreck was still a trainwreck, and you had no desire to buy a ticket to ruin. Well, you had a little desire, but you stomped it down. 

“I asked her to marry me.” 

You stopped dead in your tracks, but you didn’t turn back to look at him. 

“The challenges would end, balance would be restored.” The undergrowth crunched as he closed the distance between you, slowly and deliberately. “We’d wipe out the pagans and your life would go back to the way it was.” 

A final crunch as he stopped next to you - waiting for you to say something, probably - and lifted a hand to move the hair off your neck. Slow, deliberate sparks skated across your neck where his fingers touched. If he saw the necklace, he didn’t say anything. 

“That is still what you want, isn’t it?” You turned to look at him, accidentally making his hand cup your neck in the process, and said in your well-worn apathetic security blanket of a voice, “Let’s find shelter before the sun sets.” 

Something flashed across his face, but all Caliban did was take a step back and let his hand fall to his side. “As you wish.”  

He was infuriating. 

After what felt like another eternity of walking, Caliban stopped, holding a finger to his lips. It sent shivers down your spine, reminding you of when he did the same thing in Hell’s Library. He nodded his head to the man on the other side of the lake. 

Caliban dropped his head to whisper in your ear, “You were right about being in the tale of Medusa, but we were wrong about which part that is.”

“So where are we?” you asked quietly, doing your best to keep focused on the fact that he wanted to marry your best friend and not on the fact that his lips were dangerously close to your face. 

“Just before the end. Where Perseus slays her and returns a god among men,” Caliban said, turning his head to look at you. So close. 

“What?” you whisper-yelled, moving back in the process to look at the guy across the lake. There was no way that guy, with armor too big for him who still hadn’t noticed your presence, was going to slay Medusa. Caliban rolled his eyes at the dramatics of your outburst. “We can’t let him kill her.”

“Why not?” he asked. “The sooner it happens, the sooner I get back to Hell and you get back to your friends.”

“Because she didn’t deserve this. Any of this.” You gestured vaguely at the forest she’d been exiled to. “Poseidon was the one who raped her in Athena’s temple, but Medusa was the one who got cursed while he just got to go back to surfing or whatever the hell it is he does.” You shook your head. “We’re stopping this.”

“Y/N,” Caliban warned. “Messing with time is a dangerous thing.”

The warning was earnest enough, but that didn’t stop you from leaning in and giving him a once over before saying in a low voice, “I thought you had an affinity for dangerous things.” 

He seemed dismayed for a moment. Clearly, whatever he expected you to say wasn’t nearly as manipulative as it had been, and you couldn’t tell if he was impressed or betrayed by the change of heart. 

“If we intervene-” his voice was soft, like he was trying on a new way of talking to you “-we may be stuck in this time forever. Is that a risk you’re willing to take?” 

You didn’t know how to answer, but something in your face must have indicated that you were on board with the risk because Caliban took a breath and continued. 

“You need to do everything I say, and you can’t go off on your own. Understand?” 

“Don’t step off the road, got it.” 

Caliban looked at you with another inexplicable expression - maybe because you wanted to intervene, maybe because you were echoing words from the first conversations you’d ever shared - before heading off in the direction of the soldier. 

“Excuse me, traveler.” His voice boomed in the near-silent forest and you held your breath. “My betrothed and I seem to be lost. Could you spare a moment to guide us out of this infernal wood?” 

Perseus straightened as Caliban spoke, the mental assessment of the situation clear on his face. You shrunk behind Caliban, trying to hide your jeans and sweatshirt and anything else that didn’t belong in this time period behind his jeans and t-shirt and anything else that didn’t belong in this time period. But everything about Caliban fit, no matter where (or when) he was.

“Afraid not, sir,” he said, deciding that the oddness of your appearance wasn’t worth the risk. “I’m on a predestined quest. Best of luck on your travels.” 

Perseus started collecting his things to walk away but Caliban leaned down and put out a hand, careful not to make physical contact with him. While Perseus focused on the outstretched hand, Caliban touched the helmet on the ground with his other hand. “Tell us about your quest, soldier.” 

“The demon Medusa has nested in these woods. I’ve been tasked with hunting her down by the gods,” Perseus said. His face was set in a hard line, his knuckles white around the satchel in his hand. 

“Surely there have been others who’ve tried to slay the Gorgon,” Caliban said, laying on the demonic charm like only a boy with his bone structure could. 

“None like me,” Perseus said with a knowing smile. “Now, I’ll be on my way. Careful through the woods.” 

“Of course,” Caliban said, taking a step back and holding both hands palm-up to show he meant no harm. 

Though you couldn’t see it from behind his back, you knew he was giving Perseus that smile that meant he knew something the receiver didn’t. Neither of you moved as Perseus shouldered his belongings and disappeared into the trees. 

You smacked his arm lightly as Caliban turned to look at you again. “What was that?” you whispered angrily. “That wasn’t stopping him!” 

“You’ll remember Perseus was given three gifts to complete his quest,” Caliban said, in a way that (correctly) implied that you didn’t remember. “That was stealing the most important one.” He closed his eyes and held out his hands. When he opened them again, there was Perseus’ banged up helmet. “Hades’ helm of invisibility.”

“Now what?” you asked, voice quiet. The anger had completely dissipated from your voice; it had to or it would break whatever held the helmet together. 

Caliban smiled at you as he lifted the helmet over your head. He eased it down slowly, making a clear attempt not to tug at your hair. “Now we follow him straight to the Gorgon.”

---

Even though he seemed very sure of himself, you weren’t entirely sure Caliban knew what he was doing. He kept checking over his shoulder to make sure you were still there but he was met with the emptiness of the forest instead. After the first two attempts to see where you were, you reached out and curled your fingers around his to let him know you were right there. 

There. Now we won’t look suspicious.

I’m afraid that ship has sailed, love.

Then he stopped walking and raised a finger to his lips, a gesture you were slowly starting to find more endearing than annoying. “Perseus has reached the mouth of the cave,” he whispered. “Stay here and I’ll put an end to this.” 

“How will you stop him on your own?” you asked, tightening your grip on his hand when he tried to slip out of your grasp. 

“You almost sound concerned,” Caliban said, annoying smile forming on his face again as he tilted his head. You were glad he couldn’t see you blush under the helmet. “Have faith, love, I’ll be back soon.” 

If you didn’t let him leave now, you’d never live it down. Hesitantly, you let go of his hand and watched him start towards the cave, wringing out your hands as you did. How were you supposed to wait here when rule number one was to stay together? 

Technically, you thought to yourself, rule number one was to do as Caliban said, but that was never going to happen and you both knew it. Deciding that not splitting up was more important, you started following after him before you lost your nerve. 

When you eventually made it to the cave, you found Caliban and Perseus in the middle of a fistfight. Caliban dodged a blow from the sword, but it left him open to Perseus’ attack with his shield. 

“Yield, heretic!” Perseus yelled as he knocked Caliban to the floor. 

“Oh, piss off,” Caliban spat, clearly unconcerned about the sword aimed at his chest as he started pushing himself to his feet. 

You, however, were very concerned that Perseus looked ready to run him through, so you rushed forward and slammed his arm with your elbow. You managed to knock the sword out of his grip. He didn’t seem to process it for a second, but then he growled, “That helmet belongs to me, thief.” 

Perseus lunged at you, and you were caught off-guard by the accuracy of his attack. He grabbed you by the throat and had you pinned against the wall. Only a few seconds passed while he strangled the life out of you, but they were a few too many before Caliban skewered Perseus with his own sword. 

He choked out a few asphyxiated words as he dropped his hands to look at his wound, and you used his surprise to headbutt him into next week. 

“Ow!” you whined, shaking your head as Perseus fell to the ground. “I thought the helmet was supposed to protect my head.” 

“Helmets forged during the Titanomachy are hardly foolproof,” Caliban said, stepping over Perseus’ body to check on you. Or at least, where he thought you were.

He was a few inches off, and your heart melted at his attempt to touch the empty air. Lifting your hands to his, you guided him to the side of the helmet. He slipped it off gently and his bloody face broke into a smile when his eyes met yours. 

“Thanks for not letting him kill her,” you said quietly. 

A voice in your head politely reminded you that Sabrina hated him.

“Thanks for not listening to me,” Caliban said. 

You reminded the voice that Sabrina wasn’t here right now.

There was a moment where the two of you held the helm between you in silence, hands on fire at the touch. A moment where your heart raced and you hoped he’d do something more - where you thought he’d kiss you - but it disappeared as soon as the hissing started. 

“Perseus lives,” a woman said as she stepped out from the darkness of the cave. There was something in her voice that you couldn’t place. “Despite your best effort, Prince of Clay.” 

“Those really weren’t my best efforts,” Caliban said, lifting the helmet so quickly that your hands were still frozen in front of you as he set it back on your head. He shut his eyes once he was sure you were invisible.

“How noble. If I can’t see her, then I can’t turn her to stone,” Medusa cooed. You turned to look at her, praying that she was right and you wouldn’t turn into a statue. She was beautiful; soft, olive skin and round brown eyes, delicate hands and a striking face. The snakes in her hair seemed to think she was pretty, too. “But I can see you.” 

“We mean you no harm,” Caliban said. There wasn’t quite fear in his voice, but there was clear apprehension. “Perseus will rot if not treated and his quest will die with him.” 

“No, it won’t,” Medusa said. That’s when you realized what was in her voice: sadness. “There will be Perseuses as long as I petrify the ones I love. You’ve delayed this one but you haven’t stopped my fate, and you’ll be here for as long as it takes.”  

“So what do you want us to do?” Caliban asked. He opened his eyes to look the spot you were supposed to be, to make sure that you knew he was asking you, even if he spoke to Medusa. Your voice caught in your throat. “Do we go free? Leave the woods and start new lives - together?” 

Medusa was close enough to you now that she reached out a perfect hand and ran a finger along his jaw. “To return home, you need to kill me,” she said, choosing not to entertain the idea of you running away together. What a nice idea it had been. “A death with dignity is better than what these heroes have in store.” 

“The whole point of this was to make sure you wouldn’t die,” you argued before you could stop yourself. You didn’t know why; you needed to go home, but you still wanted something more. Medusa deserved something more.

“Everything dies, daughter of night,” Medusa said. She gazed where you should have been, but her eyes found nothing but the cave walls. “And everything gets reborn, if you wait long enough.” 

“Are you sure this is what you want?” Caliban asked, already gripping the sword in his hands. 

“Yes,” she said. She took a step back and closed her eyes so Caliban could look at her safely. 

“Caliban, you can’t-” 

“Don’t fear for me, little one,” Medusa said. Her snakes hissed in your direction as she comforted you. “You’ll see me again.” 

You didn’t know what else to say as Caliban raised Perseus’ sword. With one great swing, he cut off her head. The snakes’ scream shrieked in your skull as the cave faded into white, distorting everything around you again. 

“Y/N?” Caliban asked once you were back in Hell’s library. The reaper wraiths were long gone, books torn apart and strewn throughout the room. He called out for you again, this time louder and more frantic and snapping you out of your stupor. 

“I’m here, Caliban,” you said, taking off the helmet and reaching out to him. “I’m right here.”

He was still bloody and bruised, but relief flooded his face as he looked at you. “I feared I lost you to the pages in the book,” he said. His voice was softer than you’d ever heard it. 

“You almost sound concerned,” you said, tilting your head just like he had earlier. 

Caliban smiled like he knew something you didn’t and looked down at the sword in his hands, both covered in blood from the gashes in his forearms. “Perhaps I should take you back to your friends before the wraiths return,” he said, taking slow, deliberate steps towards you. 

“Perhaps,” you repeated, shifting the helmet to one hand and closing the distance between you. 

Looking up at him, you were asking him to do something. Daring him to make a move. Challenging him to let you know he felt. All these questions, and you asked them without words. 

He was looking down at you, too. Challenging you in his own, infuriating way. 

“Would you really have run away with me back there?” 

Your words hung in the air for a moment before Caliban lifted a bloody hand to the side of your face. 

Sabrina hated him.

“Funny, I was going to ask you the same thing.” 

He was looking at your lips, fingers light as they kissed your cheek. 

“I asked you first.” 

You looked at his lips, fingers less delicate as they rose to his chest. 

“Yes, you did.” 

Sabrina wasn’t here right now.

Part 5

Tag List: @peachesandknives  @caliban-is-my-girl  @t-a-i-l-o-r-m-a-d-e​  @music-movies  @miss--moose​  @marrypuffsstuff​  @harryscarolinaa​  @igorsbby​  @foji2000​  @mschfavngz​  @artaxerxesthegreat​  @thxmagic​  @luquincy  @xealia​  @hotmessindisguise​  @olivia-west-allen

[detrisnano]

It was the crack of dawn when Y/N woke up to the familiar warmth of her partner’s arms, holding her close and securely, vaguely remembering that last night Kakashi came home late after a joint team mission with his team, Team 7 and Gai’s team. Rolling over in his arms slowly, sleep still heavily in her system, she gazes contently at his peaceful face, still sound asleep at this time of day.

Blissfully unaware of his surroundings almost, though Y/N knows if any such danger were to enter his presence, he’d be up in a moment's notice to defend himself and her to get rid of the threat. As a proud shinobi of Konoha, Kakashi takes pride in his skills and protecting his village to his utmost ability.

She too loves Konoha and all it has to offer as a Jōnin rank kunoichi helping at the hospital with her exceptional Medical Ninjutsu abilities rivaling that of the Legendary Slug Queen Tsunade. Y/N also, from time to time, would drop in on Kakashi’s training sessions with Team 7 to help or just to heal them after a particularly rough day of training.

Now here she was studying Kakashi’s face in the comfort of his arms, from his diamond-shaped face, his wild but stylish silver hair, and sharp but thin silver eyebrows. Let’s not forget his cute but sexy mole near the bottom left of his sweet delectable lips. Raising her hand gingerly, she caresses the smooth skin of his cheek, relishing in the model worthy sight Kakashi unknowingly blesses her with each morning she wakes up before him.

Steadily she raises her head to look over his shoulder and sees what time it is and decides to leave the bed without waking him up knowing Kakashi has had a rough night when it comes to working with Might Gai on missions and his vast amounts of energy. Doing her daily routine of washing up, brushing her teeth, and making herself a small but filling breakfast, Y/N got dressed to go to the hospital in her uniform. It consisted of form-fitting green shinobi pants, a long sleeve mesh shirt with a black sports bra on, and a long white doctors coat over it all.

Ready for a day of work, she places on her black shinobi shoes at the entrance of their house, grabbing her weapon and medical pouch and leaving the dwelling to head to work.

“Finished! Now Mr. Kozogami, I need you to lay off the extreme ANBU missions, get plenty of rest and make sure to keep the blood flowing in your right arm by moving it from time to time, alright?” Y/N said with a closed eye smile.

Hearing no response, she opens her eyes to see Mr. Kozogami looking somewhere else other than her face. The area he was staring at unblinkingly was her chest. Fuming silently, Y/N clears her throat loudly with a fake smile directed towards her patient, “Excuse me, are we clear Mr. Kozogami.” Mr. Kozogami looks up rapidly, shaking his head yes with a nervous smile on his face.

Relaying her farewells to him, she leaves the room swiftly, not noticing the stare on her as she left. On the way walking to her office, Y/N wondered why regularly she’s been getting stares from both men and women, but mostly men. Such intense and invasive stares she almost felt uncomfortable walking the streets of Konoha resorting to using the Shunshin no Jutsu (Body Flicker Technique) to escape it.

She still doesn’t quite understand why all the stares wherever she goes, so she always finds herself looking down at herself discreetly, praying there’s no stain or that her clothes are out of place. Only to see nothing wrong, but most of the observant looks always seem to gravitate to her backside, hips, or her breasts. Which annoys Y/N to no end having to always glare at those responsible for the probing looks as if she were a specimen under a microscope or some rare disease.

Hopefully, the rest of the day does by quick.

Walking through the front door, Y/N comes to find Kakashi leaning quietly at the kitchen, reading his Icha-Icha Paradise book, vaguely hearing him giggle like a schoolgirl.

What’s so fascinating about that book anyway? Not like I’ll ever find out.

Greeting him with a sigh tiredly, Y/N pulls off her doctor's coat at the door, flinging it on the couch and she goes to get undressed in their bedroom when an arm shoots out to stop her. She hears from Kakashi, “What’s the matter had a bad day, Y/N?” He questions her worriedly.

“Not much, just people keep gawking at me a lot lately as if I’m some foreign object. Am I perhaps ugly or fat?” She whispers brokenly near the end.

Pulling her to his chest, he wipes the tears that started to fill her eyes, proclaiming profusely, “Of course not baby, you're not ugly or fat. You’re the love of my life who I look forward to seeing every day I come home and wake up to your alluring face. Never say that.” He firmly proclaims to her.

“Do you mean it?” Y/N asks looking into his warm black eyes. Kakashi nods in assurance while pulling down his mask as he leans forward to lock his lips tenderly with Y/N’s. At that moment, all her worries wash away as she wraps her arms around his neck, one hand at the back of his neck and the other tangled in his hair.

As Y/N kissed him, his arms tapped at her thick thighs, signaling her to jump, where he then proceeded to walk with purpose in his steps to their bedroom while caressing at her big round ass. Moaning in his mouth, so many thoughts of love and affection filled her with warmth as he pushed her against the bed after kicking the door shut with his foot. Panting softly, he stares down at Y/N fondly, cupping her face with both hands telling her, “No matter what anyone tells you or thinks I’ll always love, and you and I’ll show how much I do.”

“K-Kakashi...” she moaned as he kissed down her neck, marking her neck affectionately, licking his way up to her neck. Y/N grabs at the back of his shirt, fisting it slightly as he pushed her mesh shirt and bra to suckle and nibble at patches of skin near the valley of her breast and collarbone leaving a trail of dark marks on her skin. Trailing his hands down to her ample hips.

Y/N shuddered as heat spread throughout her body, throwing her head back when Kakashi proceeds to take her left nipple into his mouth. Groaning when it gradually hardened in his mouth. She couldn’t take much anymore, so Y/N bucks her hips up, accidentally rubbing against his throbbing member. “Shit, Y/N.” He whispers against her breast, grunting when he responds to her movements by snapping his hips forward to meets hers, nearly cumming at the intense heat he feels between her legs.

“K-Kakashi please, more...” she pleads heavily. Groaning wantonly, his hands skillfully pulled off and discarded her mesh shirt and bra. Then he goes for her pants, progressively leaving hot wet kisses the closer he gets to womanhood. Once off, his loving eyes soak in the exquisite sight of her heavenly curves in all the right places and her big round breast. “You're so beautiful, Y/N, never think otherwise.”

Y/N pants heavily, seeing the passionate look in his eyes and brings his face down to meet hers in a scorching kiss that molded both their lips together while they fought for dominance. During the exchange, hands grab at his pants, and one grabs his length, stroking it gently, leading Kakashi to pull away from the kiss saliva connecting them still as he almost chokes on his spit. “Y-Y/N...” he gasps heavily, looking her straight in the eyes taking in her unspoken message.

Discarding his pants, he lowers himself between her legs hit with the scent of her arousal and takes a hand to hook both her long luscious legs over his shoulders. Where he begins to rub circles around her clit and use his tongue to taste her juices. Eventually, using three fingers to fuck her lower lips, delighting in the cries of pleasure released from her lips and the erotic look on her face as she rides his tongue and fingers. Almost locking her thick thighs around his head. “Mmm, Kakashi, n-no more...” she pants erratically, feeling something in the pit of her stomach about to burst. When suddenly, he picks up the speed of his fingers, watching her thrash beneath him, experiencing her high. “K-Kakashi!” Y/N yells out eyes rolling back while her body arches up into his fingers, riding out her orgasm. Coming down panting, she looks up dazed.

Y/N finally gathering herself sits up and quickly pins Kakashi to the bed underneath her, smirking at the grunt that leaves him when her lower lips rub against his member. Taking advantage of this, she quickly gets to work steadily moving back and forth on him. “Y-Y/N, please... Don’t tease.” He says in between moans. Instead, she moves against him faster, bending down to lick behind the shell of his right ear whispering, “Are you sure, cause your friend says otherwise.” Panting softly in his ear while simultaneously rubbing the tip, smearing the pre-cum around it. Kakashi grips the sheets a growl erupting from his throat as she played with his tip on top of feeling her warm center coat his member in her arousal.

Stopping, he’s broken out his primal need to pin her down and claim her when her mouth moves south continuously. He began to wonder, Where is she going? Only to groan, “Mmmmm!” As her warm mouth surrounded his throbbing length. From the tip down to the base of it. Bucking his hips slightly in euphoria at the feel of her mouth beginning to bob up and down on his shaft. Y/N basks in his pants and pleas as she sucks and runs her tongue around his tip, messaging the rest of his shaft, eyes watching his reactions intensely.

“Oh, kami more! If you keep this up Y/N, I won’t be able to-” She watched as his face scrunched up in unrestrained pleasure before he quickly pulled himself out of her grasp, flipping them over to place himself at her entrance grabbing at her hips right below her lush love handles. Waiting for the go-ahead, he swiftly entered Y/N.

“Ooohh~”

“Ahhh~”

They moaned together. Kakashi had to stop himself from cumming right then and there. Waiting patiently for Y/N to look at him, he starts thrusting into her rough but slow to drag out the pleasure. “K-Kami, Kakashi, what are you d-doing to m-me?” She pants wickedly, laying her hands on his biceps as he leans down to pick up the pace. Watching as her breast bounce, he continues going in for a bruising kiss that causes her thighs to shake around his hips while he dominates her mouth completely.

Her hands reached up his arms then to his back, raking her nails down them hard enough to leave red lines. Foreheads pressed together; their eyes are locked both viewing the passionate gleam in each other’s eye, she follows his hips thrust for thrust. Positioning his hands on the headboard, he thrusts into her harder, snapping his hips sharply into hers he clearly sees her jolt momentarily knowing he hit her g-spot. Smirking wickedly, he starts pounding up into her, observing her gasp, choke and throw her head back all at once as he ruined her insides.

Y/N’s insides pulsed wildly signaling her second orgasm, which he pushes harder for her to reach first, bringing a hand down to rapidly play with her clit. She chants his name over and over as her walls were tightening, almost milking him when she cums again for the second time. She grasps the pillow blindly seeing only white, while Kakashi places both her legs over his shoulder for a new angle allowing him to go deeper into her.

“Kakashi, just like that, please. Harder! Faster!” Y/N arches her back, clawing at the sheets beside her, probably tearing holes in them. Tossing her heads at the angle and meeting his hips for every thrust, he grits his teeth about to cum. “Oh god Y/N, your killing me.” Feeling her walls clamp like a vice around him, he slammed their hips together cumming so hard he saw stars.

Taking a couple of deep breaths, he releases her legs and rolls over to hold Y/N tight as she too comes down from their past activity. Pulling the covers over them both as he watches her slowly drift to sleep. He places a sweet kiss on her forehead and murmurs softly, “Goodnight, Y/N.”

[loveafterthefact]

Love After the Fact Chapter 50: The Dust in my Lungs Stings Like Home

Home is where your heart is.

First  Previous  Next

They leave for Daibazaal in the morning instead of the afternoon, Keith’s mounting distress prompting quicker action than the princes had originally planned. Lance’s fussing and fretting only make Keith irritated, the combination of concern and coddling grating on his nerves. He’s in pain, and his instincts tell him to keep others at a distance because he’s vulnerable.

At least Lance is busy for a moment, he and his fathers trading a slew of last minute instructions as Adam tries in vain to pull him onto the shuttle. Pidge is sitting on the floor with a couple of datapads and a bag full of tablets.

“He’s just worried about you.” They’re inspecting a blue crystal with microscopic lens. “And the kingdom, of course, but mostly you.”

“I know. I’m just-”

“In pain. I know. I can hear it in your heartbeat and breathing.” Pidge’s feelers creep up his arm, trying their best to explore his internal transformations. Their ability to 'interface with biological hardware’ is still developing, but- “Keith, you’re in a lot of pain.”

“Yes, thank you. I noticed.” A little clipped, but like the Olkari kit said, he’s in tremendous pain.

Pidge is untroubled by his attitude. “Used to it, huh?”

“Pretty much.” He strains his ears to hear what Lance and the Kings are discussing...

“If you do not call us, I will track you down and drag you home by the point of your ear, do you hear me?” Coran drags his son into yet another hug. “And you take good care of that boy. He needs you right now.”

“I know. I’ll be good. I promise.”

To Lance’s surprise, Alfor embraces him too. “You’re a good man, son. That’s a hard thing for a royal to be. Be careful.”

“I will.” Lance releases his father, pulls back with squared shoulders, graceful poise. “I’d best be going. We’re expected.”

“Farewell, son,” Coran says, smiling at his son.

“Farewell, and take care.” Alfor inclines his head.

“Love you too!" Lance runs onto the shuttle, cloak flying behind him, before Coran can fuss over him and Alfor can drill him any more than they already have. He turns to whisper to Adam, “Get us in the air before they start throwing extra socks at me!”

“Yes, your Majesty. Did you say goodbye to Hunk?” Adam starts up the shuttle, more than capable of flying, though he rarely does it. As the ground pulls away, Lance sighs with relief. A bit of separation from his parents might do him some good, no matter the love between them.

“This morning, before breakfast. I said goodbye for you too, beloved.”

“Thanks.” Keith hadn't been able to make the trip into town in the early morning vargas. It hurts when he moves. He hisses as a spasm of pain shoots up one of his legs. Quite suddenly, he does want Lance.

And, because he’s wonderful, Lance delivers. One thing about Lance is that he knows the difference between want and need. He’s been here since yesterday, keeping his distance, because he knows he’s needed, but not wanted. And he’s here now, bringing Keith up front to the window, pulling him close, soothing his pain as best as possible, even if there’s only so much his limited alchemy can do.

Adam tried, but it didn't take as well as Lance's. Even Alfor made an attempt to help, but only got so far despite the power and skill behind his efforts.

Lance takes him up front and to a seat, which means that Keith has the perfect opportunity to watch his spouse experience space for the first time. His eyes are wide, lips parted in an awed smile. Those pointed ears twitch with excitement, scales glowing ever so faintly.

“It’s wonderful, isn’t it?”

“Do you know how much of space is still unexplored?”

“Almost all of it. At least by us,” Keith whispers. “My father was an explorer. My name… it comes from a planet he discovered.”

“Which planet?”

“The people simply called it ‘Earth’. At least, in Common. Dad never documented it. The people were weak and primitive. They hadn’t even discovered electricity. He was worried about what might happen to them if he reported the discovery. But still, he named me after a friend he made while there.

“He was going to take me to meet them. He’d always tell me about it, how one day we’d explore the stars together… He’s the only one who knew where ‘Earth’ is. Now, nobody knows.”

“Keith…”

“I know. Parents tell stories. But-”

“I’m sure he was-” Lance sits up straight. “Telling the… truth… Oh.”

Daibazaal. Daibazaal is bigger than Altea, and it doesn’t have rings. Lance can see mountains and stone, red earth, a vast forest of deep green, and a massive body of water. Lance isn’t even sure what to compare it to; he’s never seen so much water!

“What are those wispy things?”

“Clouds,” Keith whispers, settling against Lance’s side as another spasm creeps up his legs and spine. “Evaporated water. Like fog, but up in the sky.”

“Wow.” A quick glance revealed a sort of wonder on Adam’s face as well. "I've never seen clouds before. Only studied them."

The Imperial Compound comes into view, the Great House and Hall carved into a crater in the very peak of the mountaintop. Warrens and buildings are carved from a mountain, layers upon layers of red rock covered in carvings and paintings creeping up the mountain in terraced levels, villages wrapped around like a layered skirt.

“Holy fucking quiznak,” Lance breathes. Keith’s keens, a soft, longing sound constricting his throat. He feels Lance’s lips brush the shell of his ear. “Welcome home, beloved.”

“Welcome-” Keith breaks off. This isn’t home for Lance. “Welcome.”

Touching down on a landing pad of the compound, Keith hesitates before getting up. Adam and Pidge march off like visiting their neighbors means nothing to them. Or rather, it means something less profound.

“Do you need help?” Lance whispers, still holding him close.

“No, I just-”

“I want to see everything. Everything we can, while we’re here.” Lance’s lips brush against Keith’s temple. “Not the most impressive things, but the most beloved. The things that fill your heart.”

“Promise you won’t hate it?” Keith studies their hands, which are still joined more often than not. “Lance, this is my home. It’s rarely been kind to me, but I love it more than anything.”

“Daibazaal made you. I think I will like it just fine.”

Keith shoves his husband away, scoffing. “Suck-up.”

Lance laughs as his spouse stalks down the ship. “But it worked!” He follows, catches Keith around the waist, kisses him soundly. “It worked and I-” A pause. “I will continue to flatter you whenever possible.”

Close. So close. Too close. Lance’s tongue has never been quite this prone to tripping.

“Come on. The first thing I want to see is the medical center. Let's go before I have to spend the rest of my life shorter than you.”

“A time will come when you’ll miss me being bigger than you.” Lance keeps a supportive hand around his waist, chuckling at his spouse's skeptical hum.

The warm sun breaks over the cloaked and furred princes, and red dust plumes up beneath their feet. The courtyard is mostly deserted, just the two of them, Adam, and Pidge.

So when red dust gets in Keith’s eyes, and chokes him in his throat, and tears are slipping into his fur, it’s perfectly safe. He only has a brief moment to wonder whether Lance planned it like that, before he’s falling to that red stone kissed by the sun- Oh gods, he’s missed that feeling so much. He lays his palms upon it, feeling the grit that the winds are always scattering, the polished stone of an ancient monument beneath. The warmth soaks into his hands, something so simple, so precious.

All Keith wants to do in this moment is curl up right there and let his skin absorb the gentle heat his ancestors sang of to chase away the fear of new moons.

“Shh, beloved. I’ve got you. I’ve got you.” Lance never lets him go.

It’s only after a few doboshes that Keith’s able to look up. He stiffens, wide-eyed, at a familiar-faced, slightly-built figure in front of him. Sharp, wide-arcing curls fight against a knot at the base of her neck, lithe, gracile body lighter-hued and less furry than Keith, but unmistakable. The glint in her eyes could mean only one thing.

Lance’s head turns too, and his arms slowly drop, though they pause to unclasp Keith’s cloak for him, letting it fall to the ground. Because what does it matter? What do silks and furs matter when he’s standing on a red planet beneath a golden sun? The Altean helps Keith to his feet, steadies him, then steps away with a gentle word.

It’s all Keith needs. Even on the cusp of adulthood, he still desperately wants one thing more than anything else. And he finally has it, if only for a phoeb.

His mother.

[nicolewrites]

We Stand, Fate-Tested - VII

Mystery. Intrigue. Plot Parallels. Enjoy. 

My last final is tomorrow and I should have studied instead of writing this, but oh well. 

Rating: T+ Genre: Mystery, Friendship, Romance Characters: [Byleth/My Unit, Dimitri B.], [Byleth/My Unit, Claude R.] Words: 6,488

A trip to Fhirdiad meets an unexpected end. / Where there are friends, there are enemies hiding beneath.

AO3 | FFN

VII - What’s A Little Fear

Fhirdiad National Museum of Unification, Fhirdiad - 22 Pegasus Moon, 733 AU

“It’s a beautiful sword, isn’t it?” 

Byleth tore her eyes from the relic of the old ages to glance at Claude who had just joined her. He was studying the artifact in front of them with a now-familiar analytical gaze. Byleth nodded and turned back to it. She had been to the museum in the capital once before, but the Guardian’s Sword was such an iconic relic that the room it was kept in was always completely packed solid, so she hadn’t gotten a chance to get a close up look at it. 

“It is,” she agreed with Claude. 

He glanced around the room, noting its emptiness, and then looked back at the sword. “This isn’t exactly how I thought I would be seeing it for the first time. I had imagined more people and much more noise.”

Byleth smiled faintly at that. “What? You don’t enjoy the quiet of this place before it’s open to the public?” Claude shrugged. “It’s almost disconcerting.”

Byleth nodded. “Last time I was here I didn’t get to see many of the things that I wanted to see because there were too many people. I didn’t think we’d get to be in here before opening today while they prepared the supplies for us.”

Claude hummed his agreement. “It’s strange, for sure. I spent a fair amount of my childhood in the capital, but there was a part of me that never wanted to come here.” Byleth was surprised at that. “Considering how much time you told me you spent in the galleries, that’s surprising to me.”

Claude shrugged again. “I don’t know, maybe I just preferred Almyra’s description of them, not this blurry, half-assed monument to their accomplishments.”

Byleth considered his words. There was certainly a stark difference between the Almyran and Fódlani representations of the Unification Era. Almyra seemed set on preserving and respecting the ages while Fódlan was always more interested in analyzing it and interpreting things. It made for interesting contrasts in records of historical events, especially since so much of Fódlan’s precious written history had been destroyed in two disasters: the Scorch and the Riots. 

“Where are Edelgard and Dimitri?” Byleth asked Claude after another moment. 

Claude turned and pointed at the doorway to the room. This room wasn’t a particularly large exhibit as it held the Guardian’s Sword and a few things that were supposed to be personal relics that had belonged to the Guardian of Order including an old, rust-speckled silver shield and a very old, very worn leather diary in a glass case. The words on its pages were far too worn to read and Byleth was still shocked that the pages hadn’t turned to dust a hundred years ago. 

Byleth walked in the direction Claude was pointing, heading back into the main room of this particular exhibit. True to his word, Edelgard and Dimitri were standing on the far side of the room studying a few of the artifacts in particular. Claude kept pace with her as she walked towards them, glancing at the room’s artifacts as she went. 

This was the Relic Room. Not counting the Guardian’s Sword, every single Relic that had been created was supposed to be stored here. There were 12 of them in total and each had a name and a history. They were almost frightening to look at with their bone-like design and Byleth knew they had likely been incredibly powerful in their time. 

Dimitri and Edelgard both appeared to be studying the three Relics that were the centrepieces of the exhibit: a bow, a lance, and an axe. Neither of them noticed Byleth coming so she cleared her throat, catching their attention. 

“The Lords’ Relics,” she explained. “Failnaught, Areadbhar, and Aymr.”

Edelgard nodded and Dimitri turned his gaze to Byleth as if he was waiting for her to explain more. “Supposedly wielded by the King of Dawn, the Saviour King, and the last Emperor of the Adrestian Empire.”

“This one looks slightly different,” Edelgard mused, assessing Aymr with a careful glance. 

“It is,” Claude agreed. “Records show that Aymr was supposedly the only one of these 12, including the Guardian’s Sword, that was not wielded by one of Fódlan’s Ten Elite,” he explained.

“I wonder who created it,” Dimitri pondered thoughtfully. 

Edelgard frowned. “And why.”

Byleth nodded. “Both good questions. Unfortunately, those answers likely burned with Garreg Mach in the Scorch.” She glanced at the Relics, noting the brutally sharp edges that remained even after more than 700 years of not being used. “They would have been something else in their time.”

Dimitri looked hard at Areadbhar. “I’ve been to this museum half a dozen times in my life and yet this is the first time I can truly say that this feels familiar,” he said quietly. 

“Familiar?” Edelgard pressed, her lips pursing. 

“It’s like you’ve seen it before but you can’t place when or where,” Claude supplied for Dimitri. “Like you have some memory of holding it, but you don’t know why.” 

Byleth glanced at Claude who seemed fixated on Failnaught, the bow. His gaze was analytical and almost the tiniest bit wistful. She looked back at the weapons and considered the strange dreams of the throne and the vivid vision she’d had during the dig. 

“I feel the same,” Edelgard admitted after a moment. 

Byleth looked between the three students and the weapons of the Lords from the Unification Era. “The Guardian of Order was the one who called for their collection together,” she explained. Dimitri looked at her, but Edelgard and Claude remained fixated on the Relics. “What is it about them that caused her to call for their collection after her husband died?” 

Claude hummed. “You’re saying you think the Relics played directly into how the Saviour King died?”

Byleth considered his words. “I don’t know,” she replied. “If the Relics were truly the weapons of trusted companions and allies of hers, I don’t see why she would have had any reason to call for their collection except if they were dangerous.”

“There were always legends in my family that it was an attempt at a centralization of power,” Edelgard added. Her nose wrinkled in distaste. “But, then again, my family apparently had never been particularly fond of the Church or the former Holy Kingdom of Faerghus.”

Byleth raised an eyebrow. “Really?”

Edelgard shrugged. “Apparently I’m descended from some distant former Adrestian nobles.”

Her surprise must have shown on her face because Claude laughed. “Come on, Teach, didn’t you know? You’re standing before the next generation of the old lords,” he said teasingly. 

Byleth swept her gaze to Dimitri who had taken a sudden interest in his shoes. He felt her gaze and his shoulders tensed imperceptibly. “It’s true,” he agreed. “I, myself, happen to be able to trace my own lineage back to close relatives of the Saviour King.” Dimitri looked back at Areadbhar. He shook his head. “Maybe that’s why all of this feels familiar.”

Before Byleth could comment further, someone cleared their throat nearby and the four of them turned to see one of the museum curators that had let them into the exhibit early standing a few feet away. 

“Miss Eisner, we have the supplies that Dr. Cichol requested ready for you now.”

Byleth straightened. “Great, thank you.” The curator turned to leave and Byleth followed him. Something in her stomach twisted as she walked past the Guardian’s room of the exhibit. She glanced through the doorway towards the ancient sword before shaking her head and continuing after the curator. 

The supplies that Seteth had requested mostly included extra tools and marking supplies since the University wasn’t well-equipped for a dig of the scale that they were proceeding with. There were five boxes of tools and Byleth immediately sent the three students to work carrying them out to Edelgard’s car while she signed off on the transfer with the curator. 

As she scrawled her signature on the last line on the clipboard, the curator gave her a warm smile. “The museum is very excited by the work your mentor is doing,” he said idly as Dimitri grabbed the last box and headed out the side door again.

Edelgard didn’t reappear, apparently having stayed in the car, but Claude reappeared in the doorway and watched the interaction curiously.

Byleth smiled faintly. She had the beginning of a headache pulsing at the back of her head, but she shook it away. “It’s exciting to be a part of,” she agreed. “History deserves to be preserved.”

She was about to walk away when the curator continued: “We’re glad you’re a part of it too, getting to continue your father’s work.”

She tensed and turned back to him, biting her tongue so sharply she almost drew blood. “My father?”

Claude stepped more fully into the room, looking deeply intrigued. The curator gave a tight smile. “Your father did quite a bit of security work for our sponsored expeditions. We were sorry to hear of his passing.”

Byleth frowned and felt another pang of pain in her head, closer to her temple. “Yeah,” she murmured. 

“Anyway, it was nice to meet you, Miss Eisner,” the curator said as a farewell, turning back to the microscope on the desk in front of him. 

Byleth swallowed hard at the clear dismissal and turned to head out to the car. Claude gave her a concerned look that seemed to ask her how she was feeling. Byleth shook her head and brushed past him to the exterior of the museum where Edelgard was parked in the loading bay. 

Since it was her car, Edelgard was driving. Dimitri had claimed shotgun, citing his long legs and the need for more space. Claude had complained during the trip to Fhirdiad, but both of his friends had ignored him, relegating him to the backseat with Byleth. Byleth slid into the backseat again, careful of the box of trammels and shovels balanced on the middle seat, and pulled out her phone. 

She shot Seteth a text saying that they had the supplies and were about to head out on their return trip. Claude slid in next to her and Byleth ignored the looks exchanged between him, Dimitri, and Edelgard in regards to her sudden mood change. She worried her teeth against her bottom lip as Edelgard started the car and pointedly looked away from Claude. She didn’t particularly feel like having Claude dissect her current mental state. 

The trio managed to keep an easy conversation for the first hour of the trip out of the city, chatting about the classes they were taking that semester and what their plans were for their first summer as graduates. Byleth listened, but she didn’t contribute. Apparently Edelgard and Dimitri were both planning on being in Fhirdiad and looking for work in the capital. Claude, on the other hand, seemed particularly evasive, not committing to either staying in Fódlan or returning to Almyra. 

As they finally managed to maneuver out of the Sunday morning traffic in the capital and onto the main road back towards Garreg Mach, Edelgard looked at something in the rearview mirror and frowned. “What is it?” Byleth asked, noting the troubled look. 

Edelgard sighed tightly. “I’m probably imagining things, but I could have sworn I saw that black SUV behind us back at the museum.”

Byleth glanced out the rear window and noted the large car that was tailing them. It wasn’t particularly close or threatening, but she did note that both the driver and the passenger were wearing dark-coloured baseball caps. She narrowed her eyes. “Weird,” she muttered. 

Claude had also taken a look out the back window and he scowled. “I recognize the license plate. You’re right, Edel.”

“Maybe they’re just headed in the same direction as us,” Dimitri said, but he didn’t sound entirely convinced of his own words. “It is a Sunday,” he excused. 

Nothing more was said on the black SUV as Edelgard focused back on the road, but there was an undeniable blanket of tension that had settled around them. Byleth found herself glancing back every few minutes to check on the vehicle, but it had followed them onto the southbound highway. 

It kept a safe distance, so eventually, Byleth conceded that Dimitri had probably been correct in assuming that it was just more people headed back towards the University at the end of the weekend. After another hour had passed, they managed to slip back into a lighter conversation. Claude quizzed Byleth on the dig and Seteth’s developing plans for moving out of the main room. 

Edelgard poked fun at Dimitri and Claude and Byleth ended up hearing her fair share of stories of the three of them from when they were younger and some of the stupid things they did as kids. Dimitri talked about his childhood friends Felix, Sylvain, and Ingrid and Claude explained the first time that he visited Fódlan and some of the shenanigans that had occurred when he had first met his friend Hilda. 

The SUV behind them disappeared after about hour four, taking an exit going east instead of continuing south. They stopped for lunch at a rest stop and picked up a few snacks to eat for dinner. Dimitri had offered to drive for the remaining half of the trip, but Edelgard had waved him off, claiming she wanted control of her own car. When they had been stopped, Claude commented that since they had gotten out of the city earlier than expected they would be back before dinner. 

Dimitri had brightened up and suggested that they take the lower road which would take them a bit further east before continuing south since it would allow them to skirt the edge of the mountains on a bit of a scenic route. Claude had been indifferent, but Edelgard had seemed interested in the detour, mentioning she had never spent much time in the northeast. Having done some travel with her father years ago, Byleth knew the road Dimitri was talking about and agreed it might be a nice break. 

They had set out around one in the afternoon and had driven for a few hours before reaching the lowest parts of the mountains. The views were beautiful and they reminded Byleth of the times she had come camping with her father in these parts. She smiled faintly as the hills rolled by and Claude poked her in the arm. 

“You look happy,” he said quietly so that Dimitri and Edelgard didn’t hear him over the radio and the hum of the engine. 

Byleth shrugged. “I did this drive with my father almost ten years ago,” she confessed. “It’s pretty.”

Claude smiled. “Yeah,” he agreed. He looked out the back window to admire the view behind them and his expression slackened into surprise. 

“Claude?” Byleth prompted. He didn’t reply so she turned to look out the back herself. There was a black SUV on the road around 50 metres behind them. She made eye contact with Claude and felt her mouth go dry. 

“Edelgard,” Claude began calmly, “you should pull over and let this guy pass us.”

Edelgard and Dimitri both glanced back and Edelgard went tense immediately. Byleth watched her swallow tensely. “Yeah,” she muttered, flicking on her signal light and pulling into the shoulder. 

A roar from the road ahead of them caused all four of them to go rigid. Byleth’s hands shot to the back of Dimitri’s seat as she watched in horror as a second black SUV raced to meet them head-on, driving on the wrong side of the road. Edelgard jerked the wheel sharply to the left, swerving into the wrong lane to avoid the car as she swore loudly. The oncoming SUV screamed past, swerving back into its lane. 

Before Edelgard could right the car, Claude let out a cry of alarm as he looked out the back window. “Look out!” 

It was too late to react as the SUV behind them had accelerated to smash the back half of Edelgard’s car. Byleth’s knuckles tightened violently on Dimitri’s seat in front of her as the car spun. Edelgard frantically turned the wheel, trying to control the spin of the vehicle, but the SUV rammed them again and she lost control. 

The car spun back across the correct lane and into the shoulder before the front of the car on the driver’s side clipped the guardrail and the tires squealed out. The rail groaned from the impact as the rest of the car spun violently around the pivot point, colliding with the guardrail. Claude’s arm shot out and his hand landed on top of Byleth’s on the back of Dimitri’s seat as someone in the car screamed. The guardrail gave out this time, sending the car spinning dangerously into the ditch on the side of the road. 

There was another heavy screech of the tires on the edge of the pavement and gravel before the box in the middle of the backseat rose from the force of the bump and slammed into Byleth. The impact slammed her head against the window hard enough that she saw stars. The car rolled with a sickening crunch and Byleth’s head cracked against the window again and her vision went completely dark.

-

It felt like someone was using a jackhammer on the inside of her skull when Byleth forced her eyes open again. Her whole body ached and she blinked heavily. The window next to her had shattered, but at least the vehicle was the right way up. Ignoring the sharp pain in her neck, Byleth assessed the rest of the car. 

They had swerved clear off the road and past the barrier, landing in the ditch which had triggered a small rockfall that had landed mostly on the driver’s side of the car. Edelgard’s airbag had deployed and Byleth’s stomach twisted as she noted the other girl was limp against the deployed bag. She turned her gaze to Claude who appeared mostly pinned between the heavy box of excavation supplies and the mangled door of the car from the rocks. He also appeared to be out cold

With shaking hands, she removed her seatbelt and leaned forwards to try and check on Dimitri. From directly behind him, she couldn’t see his face, but she let her hands grab at his shoulders. After a brief pause, one of his hands came up to touch her hands. Byleth exhaled in relief. 

“Are you alright?” she asked him. 

Dimitri didn’t reply and Byleth’s gaze flickered out the broken windshield of the car. There was a faint trail of smoke emitting from the front of the car and she let out a string of curses. She immediately released Dimitri’s shoulders and tried to force her door open. She ended up having to swivel in her seat to kick at the door but eventually, she applied enough force to get the door open. It groaned on the hinges and Byleth scrambled out of the car. 

She ripped the passenger side door open and her blood ran cold at the vacant look on Dimitri’s face. His head was bleeding from a nasty cut at his hairline, but his blue eyes were blankly staring straight at the smoking engine of the car. Byleth swallowed and grabbed his arm, trying to pull him out of the car and back into the moment. Dimitri was dead weight and Byleth cursed again. 

She recognized the particular look of despair and dissociative emotion on his face and something in her memory clicked. She had felt the same when she had seen Monica Ochs had been found dead. He was relieving the darkest moment of his life when both of his parents and a close friend of his had died in a brutal car crash in Duscur. 

“Dimitri!” she practically yelled. She grabbed his face and turned it towards her. He blinked slowly and she watched him come back to himself partially. She shook her head vigorously. “I’m not strong enough to get them out of the car alone, I need your help.”

Dimitri blinked slowly one more time before his expression steeled and he basically snapped his seatbelt in half before crawling out of the wreckage. He was littered with scrapes from the shattered glass and Byleth imagined she looked similar, but they circled the car, trying to find an opening in the fallen rocks where they could free their friends. 

Dimitri managed to shove one particularly large rock away in a burst of almost inhuman strength and Byleth was able to squeeze close enough to the car to drag Edelgard’s door open. With trembling hands, she felt for a pulse on Edelgard’s slim wrist and nearly collapsed in relief when she found it. She looped her arms awkwardly around Edelgard’s and pulled her from the crushed driver’s side. Edelgard was limp against her and Byleth slowly extricated her from the crushed driver’s side. 

Just as she was pulling her fully free, she heard a low groan and her gaze snapped to where Claude was coming to in the backseat. 

“Teach?” he muttered weakly as he forced his eyes open. 

Byleth let out a terrified and breathy laugh as Dimitri squeezed himself through the rocks enough to take Edelgard’s weight from Byleth. He carefully maneuvered himself and Edelgard back out of the rocks and Byleth set to work on trying to force Claude’s door open. She coughed against the dust and growing smoke from the front of the car. Claude rammed his shoulder against the door as best he could and glass tinkled as it broke further. 

“On three,” she instructed. “One, two, three,” she jerked the door at the same time Claude slammed into it from the inside and they managed to pry it open enough that he could slip out. He buckled onto his hands and knees and gasped in pain, curling his left arm into his chest as soon as he was free.

Byleth practically grabbed him around the middle and hauled him away from the car and they collapsed together a few feet away from the wreckage as more smoke wafted up from the front of it. Strong arms lifted Byleth to her feet and she dragged Claude with her. Dimitri steadied Byleth and guided them both over to the guardrail where he had laid Edelgard’s prone form. 

Byleth released Claude and started assessing Edelgard. She was alive, thankfully, but soundly knocked out as a result of the force of the impact. She turned back to the boys and saw them both sitting staring at the car in shock. Claude looked winded and in pain and the vacant look had crept back into Dimitri’s expression now that the immediate danger of the crushed and smoking vehicle had passed. 

Byleth let out a strangled laugh as she watched the smoke from the car grow. It was going to catch fire and they were going to be incredibly glad they had crawled away from it. Claude’s head tipped towards her as she laughed incredulously. He gave a breathy chuckle and then winced at the pain it caused. 

Byleth fumbled for her phone and dialled the emergency number as adrenaline pumped through her strong enough to ward off her pain. 

- ~ - ~ -

Garreg Mach Monastery - 28 Pegasus Moon, 7 AU

Byleth was taking tea with Petra and Ashe in the courtyard when the news arrived. The couple was newly returned from Brigid and had brought a small contingent of their Blue Sun knight’s order to receive Byleth’s blessing. Byleth had been honoured that both of her former pupils still valued her opinion so greatly even after over a decade since she had been their teacher. They had spent some time in Fhirdiad first for political negotiations, but they had come by the monastery to see her after the fact.

Shamir was the one who interrupted them, tapping her knuckles against the latticework of the garden to draw their attention. Byleth stood immediately, acknowledging her friend. 

“Your Grace, scouts report a party riding for Garreg Mach under the King’s banners,” Shamir reported. 

Byleth was surprised. She was due to return to Fhirdiad in a week and she certainly wasn’t expecting a visitor on behalf of her husband before that point. Ashe also looked surprised, but Petra just sipped her tea once before rising to her feet. 

“Dimitri is coming, then?” the Brigid Queen asked. 

Ashe tilted his head towards Byleth curiously. “I didn’t know Dimitri was coming,” he murmured. 

Byleth pressed her lips together. “Neither did I,” she admitted.

Shamir led the three of them towards the market at the front of the monastery to receive the party riding under the banners of the king. As soon as the party broke from the edge of the woods Byleth exhaled in surprise. She recognized the lead rider immediately as the tall frame of her husband. On his right was Felix, and Annette was riding just behind her husband. Dedue was at Dimitri’s right and Mercedes was behind them. 

Byleth laughed in delight as she hurried down the monastery steps to greet them. The beat of wings above her announced the presence of Ingrid and Sylvain as well as Ashe let out a cheer as he hurried after Byleth. Dimitri barely managed to stop his mount before he was leaping off and lifting Byleth off her feet with a sweeping kiss. 

She laughed into it and pulled back, framing his face in her hands as she smiled broadly. “What are you doing here?”

Dedue answered her as the rest of the party dismounted. “We heard Ashe and Petra were coming for a visit and knew that it would be nice to get everyone together while we still could.” He tipped his head to Ashe and Petra, who had joined her husband and was smiling.

“Plus, even when these two were in the capital last week, they didn’t get to see all of us,” Ingrid called out from above as she landed her pegasus beside Annette’s horse. Sylvain’s wyvern landed next to her and he grinned broadly. 

Dimitri kissed Byleth’s hair. “And I think everyone needed a break from the parenting craziness as well,” he murmured lowly and she smiled. 

“I suppose I better get a case of wine for the dining hall tonight, then?” Byleth asked. Though she had been enjoying Petra and Ashe’s visit as it was, there was no denying it was wonderful to reunite the original Blue Lions. 

“That sounds wonderful,” Mercedes said brightly as she took Dedue’s arm. She glanced around the market entrance briefly, noting the individuals who had paused to watch the reunion. “Where are Flayn and Seteth?”

Byleth’s lips parted blankly as she realized Flayn’s departure wasn’t commonly known information. Seteth had gone on a brief trip to the Eastern Church, but had been due back that afternoon and was still nowhere to be seen. “I’m not sure,” she confessed. “They’re supposed to be back by now.”

Ashe shook his head. “Don’t worry, Your Grace, I’m sure they just got a bit held up. I heard Raphael, Leonie, and Ignatz were around those parts. Maybe they just got caught up with familiar faces.”

Byleth nodded, hiding her guilt in a plain smile. “Of course. Anyways,” she turned back to the rest of the newly arrived travellers, “I imagine you are all exhausted after that journey. I’m sure we can get some more tea set out for everyone.”

Dimitri’s hand curled around Byleth’s and he squeezed it. “That sounds wonderful, my love,” he said. 

-

It was late in the evening by the time that Byleth finally spotted Seteth’s wyvern returning from the east. She excused herself from Annette’s vibrant story and the listening former Blue Lions to go and greet him at the stable. She didn’t see Flayn’s pegasus and a seed of worry planted in her chest. 

When she reached the stables, Seteth was removing the saddle from his wyvern in stiff, choppy motions. Flayn was, as she expected, nowhere to be found. 

Seteth must have heard her footsteps on the stonework because he called out to her before she even reached him. “She was there.”

Byleth’s steps faltered, but she shook it off and stepped to the other side of Seteth’s wyvern so that she could make eye contact with her friend and advisor. “She was?”

He looked tired and almost years older than he had when he had left for the Eastern Church. He reached into his bag and passed Byleth a folded piece of paper over the back of his wyvern. He turned to lead his mount into its pen, leaving Byleth to read the letter in Flayn’s curling handwriting. 

“At least she met with you,” Byleth murmured as she reached the end of the letter. 

Seteth sighed heavily. “I am not surprised anymore. She cares deeply and always has.”

Byleth smothered an ill-timed giggle. “I still can’t believe I never saw that during their time at the academy.” Seteth smiled faintly, but Byleth detected the sadness in his expression as well. “I have always liked Ignatz, so there could have been much, much worse choices she could have made. She tells me that she’ll find me again, and I don’t doubt it.” 

Byleth glanced down at the letter in her hand. “She’ll outlive him, won’t she?” 

Seteth nodded. “Yes.”

“Maybe next time she’ll be able to call you Father instead of Brother,” she offered gently. 

Seteth’s eyes softened. “Perhaps,” he conceded. 

“She’ll be okay,” Byleth assured. 

Seteth nodded. “I know.” His lips tightened. “There’s nothing easy about losing a child, no matter if it’s temporary or not.”

Byleth’s chest tightened and she looked down, blinking fiercely against the sudden sting in her eyes. “No,” she agreed faintly. She swallowed and looked back up at her advisor. Seteth’s gaze had wandered towards the stables that were notably fuller than when he had left. “The others are here,” she said. She held out Flayn’s letter to Seteth again. “They’ll be sad to have missed her.”

Seteth took the letter and looked between the main monastery and Byleth. “Are you alright?” he asked after a moment’s pause.

Byleth forced a smile. “Yes,” she said. “I’m going to go to the cathedral. I have some prayers to make tonight.”

Ever insightful, Seteth’s eyes narrowed, but he didn’t protest. Byleth turned and immediately headed for the cathedral before he could press her any further. She didn’t particularly feel like talking about children, especially since many of the stories her friends were telling back in the dining hall were about their own children. 

-

Byleth had only been in the cathedral for maybe ten minutes before she heard heavy footsteps enter. She kept her head down as if she was praying and hoped to blend in amongst the few monks that were in the cathedral this late at night. Her attempts were in vain as a warm presence sat next to her on the bench. She tilted her head slightly and saw Dimitri watching her patiently. 

Wordlessly, she slid closer to him and rested her head against his shoulder. His hands cradled hers in her lap and he kissed her temple lightly. He waited for her to speak and didn’t press her to open up. The silent communication was a wonderful reminder of the good times they had spent together in the 12 years they had known each other and the nearly 7 years they had been a pair. 

“I recognized Seteth’s pain before he had to explain anything,” Dimitri said cautiously. 

Byleth let her eyes close and nodded slowly. “I wish I could go with you when you leave.”

“You’ll be in the capital soon,” he assured her, but she knew he understood her sadness. 

She stirred against him and shifted so that she could look at his face. One of her hands slipped free from his grip and touched his jaw gently. “What could we have been like with no responsibilities or duties to separate us?” she asked quietly. 

Dimitri smiled at the thought. “A pair of inseparable fools in love,” he suggested lightly. 

Byleth felt herself smile. “I would have loved that,” she admitted. “But, we wouldn’t have been us without the responsibilities, would we?”

Dimitri turned his face to kiss the palm of her hand. “The nation wouldn’t be where it is today either, without you in the church and myself on the throne.”

“I don’t think I’ll ever stop wishing that it went differently,” Byleth said quietly. She glided her hand up to brush lightly against the strap of Dimitri’s eyepatch. He once might have flinched against the touch, but he just leaned into it. 

“Have you been happy?”

She stilled in her gentle exploration and levelled him with a firm look. “Of course I have. Dimitri, I love you,” she assured. “I have been so, so happy with you.”

He nodded and another smile curled up his lips. “Let’s walk,” he suggested. 

They strode, hand in hand, out the west side of the cathedral into the open air. There were a few monks in dark robes speaking quietly around as they strolled, but they gave the royal pair a wide enough berth that it felt private. 

“It’s hard to listen to everyone talk about their kids,” Byleth confessed. 

“Mercedes tried to steer the conversation away,” Dimitri pointed out. 

Byleth nodded. “She and Felix were trying, but it’s hard. They’re all parents and Ashe and Petra are newly married. Besides, Mercedes and Dedue are the only ones who know about everything,” she reminded.��

“We are so lucky to have them,” Dimitri agreed. 

“Mercedes has been so wonderful that I had hoped Rhea was wrong.” She laughed bitterly. “I would have given anything for Rhea to be wrong.”

“Beloved,” Dimitri said slowly, his gaze heavy as he pulled them to a stop. 

Byleth’s next phrase caught in her throat as a monk in dark grey robes walked by them. A sense of wrong washed over her so quickly that she went completely tense. She didn’t recognize the robes, she realized faintly. All of the monks in the cathedral were wearing dark robes that she didn’t recognize. 

She pulled out of Dimitri’s grip and summoned a burst of white magic just in time to catch an incoming dark magic attack and deflect it to the side. The magic scorched against the stone and Byleth scowled fiercely. Dimitri’s hand dropped to the sword at his waist and he drew it without further prompting. 

One of the stained glass windows above them exploded in a burst of coloured glass and Byleth flinched at the rain of shards around them. Dimitri pulled her along by the arm as they jogged south along the balcony towards the main monastery. Their attackers were sticking to the shadows of the monastery and Byleth was completely tense, holding a condensed Nosferatu in an open palm as she waited for a sign of movement. 

Another window shattered and Byleth didn’t see the incoming burst of flame until Dimitri practically dragged her out of its path. Her Nosferatu dissipated in her palm. The heat of the flames licked against the stone and her dress, but she hurled a bolt of lightning in the direction it had come from. Behind her, Dimitri cursed as he shook out his non-sword arm. The edge of the flames had caught him. 

They fell into step easily, pressing their backs together as they circled, staring into the night’s gloom to try and find their attackers. A rolling fog had settled around them, further obscuring their opponents and Byleth knew it was a product of dark magic, just as it had been all those years ago when they had faced Lonato’s rebellion. 

Dimitri cried out suddenly behind her and Byleth spun, blasting more lightning. There was a wail of pain as she hit her target, but Dimitri had buckled to a knee beside her, his arm crossed over a nasty burn from a dark magic attack. Before Byleth could send another attack out, she felt her limbs seize in incredible pain. The crawling pain seared her limbs in a manner that was horribly familiar. She had felt a weakened version of this pain when sparring with Lysithea years ago, but she had never been on the receiving end of this spell at its full strength. 

Byleth stumbled away from Dimitri as she tried to shake away the crawling pain as it sapped her strength. Dimitri cried out roughly as he was blasted with another spell and Byleth screamed. She threw her arms out and the dark magic gripping her was instantly dispelled as she released a wave of pure white magic. Dimitri was crumpled against the stone limp and Byleth’s white magic instantly dispelled the fog rolling around them. 

She stumbled with a sudden loss of energy and fell to her knees. Her whole body was burning  and she felt so intensely nauseous that she collapsed sideways, barely managing to save her head from cracking against the stone. Paralyzed by the gripping pain, she could only watch as a figure crept from the fog towards Dimitri’s body. She tried to cry out to him, but a sharp pain erupted in her stomach and she rolled onto her back as her breath was torn from her chest. 

A hooded figure stood above her, a curved sword plunged into her side. She couldn’t see any features beyond the hood, but she did recognize the Sreng lettering on the blade before it withdrew and she was left to lie limply on the stone. Her head lolled to the side as she watched the figure who had stabbed her join another person looming over Dimitri’s prone form. 

The curved blade lifted in the air, but before it could come down, the figure snarled in pain, withdrawing from the king. Byleth spotted an arrow in the attacker’s arm and she recognized its fletching: it was one of Ashe’s. There were shouts nearby and a few more arrows before the two figures looked between Dimitri and Byleth on the ground before they retreated into the fog. 

“Dimitri,” she whimpered. She tried to claw her way along the ground towards him, but the pain from her injury and her drained energy meant she had barely moved at all by the time Ashe emerged from the fog, his expression set into a firm line. 

Ingrid was at his side, wielding Lúin as she was on the alert. Ingrid spotted Dimitri and Byleth and gasped in horror. “Mercedes! Annette!” She collapsed at Dimitri’s side to check his vital signs and Ashe ran to Byleth, kneeling over her with terror written across his face. 

Byleth heard more footsteps approaching and her eyes drifted closed as the pain continued to wrack her body. Help was coming. 

[little-writings]

Jumin Week: Day 3 {AU}

Desperate to bring your wish to life, you summon a demon in search of a trade. 

Word Count: 1,489

Ah! I’m so sorry I missed Day 2, the wip is still in my drafts so perhaps after all this, I’ll post it or do a double upload at some point but I did manage to finish this! I really like the result and might consider continuing the AU in a multi-part story series! Let me know if you like the idea! :)

Anyhow, I hope you enjoy and have a marvelous day <3

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“Alright... that’s it... I’m done.” 

You took a few steps back from the sigil painted in dark crimson along your floorboards. It hurt a bit to think about cleaning up the mess later, but you shoved it to the back of your mind. 

Scrambling for the sheets of paper on your counter, you only worried for a second about how exceedingly easy it’d been to find a supposed demon-summoning spell on the internet. 

But then again, it was the internet. 

The website was old, maybe from the very dawn of desktop computers, but your friend told you that if you really wanted to meet a demon, this was the way to go. 

“If I... if I want to summon a demon...” You took in a sharp, nervous breath, crumbling a bit of the paper between your fingers. 

You stared back at the sigil, puffing out your cheeks indignantly. 

“If I’m going to spend all day tomorrow cleaning this up -- may as well have someone to help me!” 

You lit the candles surrounding the symbol and your dimly-lit lamps sent light dancing about your apartment in warm ribbons. You settled down before the sigil and sighed. 

Time to get started. 

Your voice began slow and steady, little confidence, but little else to do otherwise. Your ancient Latin could’ve been better, admittedly, but who was about to shame you for not learning a dead language? 

Eventually, your confidence grew. Your words became louder and your heart pounded with excitement. And soon enough, with fear. 

Your lamps started to rattle, the ground beneath you trembled, and glasses stumbled from your cupboards to shatter to a thousand pieces on the ground below. 

Every inch of the Earth -- each nook and cranny to the most insignificant detail -- shook. Like an earthquake destroying everything in its path, you thought your home would be in shambles at any second. 

But instead, there was light. It streamed from the candles and warped around the sigil like a blanket, secure and shielding to the world around it -- rushing like wind and as fierce as a storm. 

Yet despite it all, for the briefest moment, you could see something -- someone. 

And they could see you. 

In a burst of light, you were slammed back against the counter. A scream barely managed to escape you before whatever air remained was snatched from your lungs.

You sputtered up coughs in the surprisingly well-kept together remains of your apartment. 

It was a mess, yes, enough to make tears brim in your eyes if you let the thought fester, but it was still clearly your apartment, and that was enough. 

You sat up, heaving in exhaustion, the papers you’d clung so fervently to now sprawled down the hall in disastrous clusters. 

Yet that was far from the thing that caught your attention. The demon in your living room won that competition. 

Of all things, the demon wore a pinstripe suit, a purple tie slipping from the collar of his shirt to beneath the jacket. Inky black veins crawled along his skin, not quite bulging, but rippling and pulsing beneath the flesh in a way that sent a chill down your spine. 

Horns sprouted from his head, consisting of the sort of twists and turns a stag might have in all its ornate grandeur, a deep jet black devolving to a dusty gray upon its end.

The demon’s eyes of platinum stared you down curiously, his hands mindlessly fiddling with his cuff-links. 

“You...” Barely a single, coherent thought came through your head. Maybe you were petrified by his steely expression and overwhelming presence -- or there was always the possibility that you were an idiot -- but you spoke on impulse. 

“You trashed my apartment!” 

The being’s brow furrowed and he looked around, observing. 

“Well, what do you expect from such a sloppy summoning.” He gestured to the red paint, his voice deep and silvery smooth with a rumble almost akin to a purr. “You didn’t even use proper blood.” 

“Oh sorry, I’m not some weirdo who harbors blood for a hobby!” 

The demon pursed his lips, frowning. “No, you’re simply someone who summons a demon for a hobby?” 

You tried to snap back but found yourself at a loss for words. 

“Touche,” You wrinkled your nose. “but I summoned you for a reason!” 

“Of course you did,” He knelt down, settling his chin in his palm, studying you. “Why else do humans call us for but in hopes of a deal?” 

“Well...” He leaned closer, just before the end of the sigil but just close enough for his breath to brush your skin. 

Everything else ceased to matter. You couldn’t focus on anything else even if you tried. 

“Y-You’re not even going to give me a name to call you by?” 

“It’s usually irrelevant,” The demon remarked. “Why do you care?” 

“It’s just manners!” You huffed, folding your arms across your chest. “You know, a good first impression can only do good! T-That’s what I-I was taught!” 

“Hm...” 

You felt like an ant under a microscope, so utterly tiny and defenseless in his wake. 

“I suppose that’s fair enough.” He ran his fingers through his hair, his gaze glinting with interest. 

“You can call me Jumin.” The ends of his lips tipped upwards just so to reveal fangs, sharp and sleek. “And you?” 

You swallowed hard. “MC.” 

“Well MC, what is it that your heart desires?” 

You took in a deep breath, your nails raking against the floor in your splintering nerves. 

“I...” You forced yourself to lock eyes with him as you spilled out your confession. “I want to be your friend!” 

Jumin’s collected expression broke in an instant and he gawked at you in sheer, total bewilderment. “What?” 

“Well I-I started researching about you -- demons in general, I mean -- last year! I-It was just out of interest at first but the more I read...” You bit the inside of your cheek sheepishly. “the more I understood how absolutely lonely you must be.”

 He watched you but didn’t speak in return. 

“All you do is look for the next soul to take -- you don’t even get a second chance at life -- the life that failed you!” You softened and a true sincerity painted your words. “The life that put you in the exact same position I am; bargaining my soul with a demon for a dream.” 

Jumin tensed, like a needle seeping into the skin you pricked him at just the right spot. 

You eased forward, closer to the sigil. 

“I want you to have a chance at the life you deserve -- a life you can enjoy, appreciate, and remember -- for all the right reasons..” 

Jumin found himself utterly vulnerable as you offered him a smile, sweet and kind in a way almost foreign to him. 

“And everyone deserves a friend in their life.” 

His eyes widened and he stared at you like one may gaze upon a sunrise or fireworks -- awe-inspired. 

It was as if for the first time in ages, Jumin could feel his heart beating. 

“Why would you want to do that? You’ll simply end up in the same place I am. If this existence truly is so lonely, why are you so ready to accept it for a complete stranger?” 

You grinned. 

“Because hopefully by the end of this, I’ll have a friend to make my new life... not so lonely.” 

His lips parted in an effort to speak but he couldn’t even begin to find the words to say. 

“You’ll take my soul in ten years, but we’ll have each other for the rest of time.”

You reached out your hand, past the sigil and into his space. You were at his mercy and of all things, Jumin was taken aback, shifting away.

“And what if I prefer my empty eternity?” He asked, just barely above his breath, hesitant. 

“Then I guess I’ll get used to my own. My soul is still yours.” 

“You can’t be serious.” 

“What more can I do here?” You laughed. “You don’t have to take my soul if you don’t want to.” 

His expression knotted, glancing at your outstretched palm, opening his own but not quite closing the distance. 

“Are you sure you want this?” 

You nodded. “As long as you want another chance at life, I want to help make that happen.” 

You reaffirmed yourself, mustering all your remaining courage. 

“So... Jumin, do we have a deal?” 

The demon became reluctant, staring at the throbbing coal veins under his skin, the inhumanity consuming him from head to toe. 

A second chance at life? 

A second chance at a life worth living? 

How could anyone reject that? 

He took your hand and clasped it tightly, like the last tether clinging to him upon the edge of a cliff. Light overtook the room in a swell of warmth once more. You couldn’t see a thing, but you most certainly heard him speak. 

“Deal.” 

[darnedchild]

Everything that Kills Me - Part 2

Here’s where we start to earn that M rating, friends.  Consider that a fair warning.

Part 2

“I was beginning to think you didn’t want to see me again.”  Molly’s voice wrapped around him like a sheet made of the softest silk.

He slowly opened his eyes, fully expecting to see the lab at Barts where he’d spent the afternoon bent over a s microscope.  Molly had checked in with him off and on while he’d worked.  Had he become lost in his thoughts waiting for her to return?

However, it wasn’t the lab he saw.  Instead, it was the tiny room he’d discovered while exploring the old horse tunnels near the Stables Market, not far from the Camden Lockes.  He’d left an electric lantern on when he’d lain down on the cheap mattress that some of his people had smuggled down more than a year ago.  

Clearly, he must have fallen asleep at some point, because there was no feasible way that Molly Hooper would be standing in front of him.  She was wearing the same thing she’d been in when she’d said good night as he left the lab.  There was no mistaking her current favourite jumper.  Mustard yellow and at least a size too large, it hung nearly to her thighs and completely obscured her firm breasts and tiny waist.

He shook his head and promised himself, once again, that he would be deleting the memory of Molly in that little black dress from his mind very, very soon.  There was no reason to continue to remember what her body looked like under her bulky, over-sized clothing.

“You’re not Molly.” Sherlock was positive of that. Wasn’t he?

“Ah, but what if you’re wrong?” she countered with a hint of laughter in her voice.

“Why would Molly be lurking around here in the middle of the night?  Or back in that shed at the cemetery?   She has a house with a very comfortable bed.  I know, I’ve slept in it.”  It occurred to him that, perhaps, he should have left that last bit about the comfort of Molly’s bed out of his argument.

“And you have Baker Street.”  She gestured around the nearly empty room.  “Yet here we both are.”

He studied her for a long moment and she calmly let him, without a hint of unease in her expression.  “What are you?”

“I could have sworn we worked this all-out last time.  I’m a figment of your exhausted mind.  Merely a dream.  You really do push yourself far too hard, Sherlock.”  

He almost believed she was actually concerned about him.

“If this is all a dream, then it won’t matter if I wake myself up.”  He watched her face to see how she reacted to that.

“If that’s what you want.”  She pointed to mattress he was still curled upon.  “May I?”

After a moment Sherlock nodded and sat up to make room for her.  The low-quality mattress shifted under her added weight, sagging in the middle and tilting them close enough that their shoulders touched.  He quickly pulled away from the contact and tried to cover the action with a sarcastic verbal jab meant to distract her. “No plans to throw yourself into my lap this time?”

“You didn’t seem to like it.”  Her mischievous smile told him that she knew what he’d done, but she was willing to let him get away with it for now.  “Have you changed your mind?”

He was quick to reply with an indignant, “Of course not.”  Seconds later, he couldn’t stop himself from asking, “Wouldn’t you have already known that, without needing to ask?  You acted as if you could practically read my mind before.”

She shrugged.  “You didn’t seem to like that, either.”

When he thought about it, her earlier knowledge made a strange sort of sense.  Of course, his dreaming mind would know what he was thinking.  Matter settled.  Perfectly logical explanation.  Nothing to worry about.  

Except something still felt off.

“Is that important, doing things I like?”

“Mmmhmm,” she hummed.  “It’s very important.”  She leaned toward him and practically purred, “I want you to like me.”

Sherlock caught himself watching the way her lips moved and hated himself for it.  He forced himself to look into her eyes instead.  “But I don’t.  Won’t.  I can’t. Not while you’re wearing Molly’s face.”

“I don’t need to read your mind tonight to know that’s not true.”  

He pulled himself off the mattress with an indignant huff, and began to pace.  

She let him circle the room twice before she spoke again.  “This is just a dream, Sherlock.  You don’t have to lie to yourself here.  I certainly won’t tell.”

His scoff echoed against the stone walls, but he reluctantly turned to listen to her.

“Anything can happen in your dreams. Anything, anywhere … with anyone.” She held out her hand to beckon him closer.  “With me.”

“But you are not Molly!”  He ran his fingers through his hair and pulled at the strands, hoping to force himself awake.  It didn’t work.  

“I am.  I’m your Molly, if you want me to be.”  She spoke softly, as if she were trying to sooth an agitated beast. “You can talk to me, hold me, love me without worrying about the consequences in the morning.”  She extended her hand just a little bit further. “Sit with me, just a little while. Please.”

Sherlock took a deep breath and hesitantly took her hand.  She slowly pulled him closer, wordlessly urging him to settle beside her.  This time, when the mattress dipped, he didn’t pull away.

She leaned her head against his shoulder and whispered, “Thank you.”

Almost on instinct, he put his arm around her when she released his hand and burrowed closer to his side.

He’d always know that Molly was petite, but he hadn’t quite understood what that would feel like if they were ever this close, this intimate.  How strong and dominate it would make him feel to curl around her small body.

The first soft brush of her lips against his neck made his skin prickle.  He couldn’t contain his sharp inhale of surprise.

Somehow, impossibly, she even smelled like Molly.

“I-This isn’t-“  He stumbled over his words as her lips trailed upward along his jaw.  

His eyes fluttered closed and he moaned when her teeth gently nipped his earlobe.  Her voice was husky when she reassured him that nothing would happen that he didn’t want.

She flicked her tongue against the curve of his jaw.  “Do you want to stop?”

It took less than a second consider it. He shook his head.    

“I need to hear you say it, Sherlock.” She pressed a soft kiss against the corner of his mouth.  “Tell me what you want.”

He brought his hand up to her cheek and nudged her back so he could see her face.  “I don’t want to stop.”

Her eyes flashed that golden brown that he remembered from before.  He wondered what it meant, what his subconscious mind could be trying to tell him. Then she smiled and said, “So kiss me,” and he could think of nothing else but her.

The taste of her.

The delicious sound she made the first time he parted her lips with his tongue.  

The softness of her skin when his hand slipped beneath that awful yellow jumper.

His groaned “Molly” was barely audible; but, somehow, she heard it.

She shuddered in response.  “Yes, love.  I’m right here.”  Then she leaned her weight into him, and he allowed himself to be pushed down onto the mattress.

He felt her teeth pull at his lower lip as she settled over him.  He protested when she sat up to begin tugging at the buttons of his shirt, but the way she ground her arse against his rapidly hardening cock took his breath away and cut off anything else he would have said.  She flicked his shirt open and licked her lips at the sight.  The scratch of her nails against his chest was electric.  His back arched as she teased the skin just below his navel, so close to where he craved her touch the most.

When she finally pressed her palm against his clothed cock, he growled.  

As much as he wanted this, wanted her, he had to make a half-hearted attempt to stop her when she slid between his legs and reached for his fly.  “You shouldn’t-“

She looked up at him with those odd golden brown eyes, silently asking for permission to continue.  He swallowed and gave her one more chance to back out. “If you’re sure?”

Her answer was impossible to misread as slipped the head of his cock into her mouth.  

“Fuck!”  He’d received and given oral sex before, but this was nothing like he remembered.  It was more.  So much more. Almost overwhelming.  He curled his hands into fists and dug his nails into his palms in a vain effort to temper the urge to beg or to thrust his hips up every time she swirled her tongue against his glans.

At some point she pulled away with an obscenely wet sound and he ground his teeth together to muffle his whimper of protest.  

“Don’t hold back.  I want everything you can give me, my love. Everything.  I want to drain you dry.”  She took him back into her mouth and he willingly gave up his tenuous hold on his control.  

He took her at her word and trusted that she would let him know if he was too rough.  

Sherlock sunk his hands into her hair and urged her to take him a little deeper.  “That’s it, just like that.”  He let her set the pace for a while, until he felt the first familiar tingle at the base of his spine.  “Gonna come soon,” he panted.  “And you’re going to swallow every drop like a good girl. Aren’t you, Molly?”

She moaned her very enthusiastic consent around his cock and somehow managed to take him even deeper until he was certain that he was touching the back of her throat.  “Fuck.  Christ. So good.”

He gripped her head and held her still as he used her mouth to chase the orgasm that was just out of reach.  “Use your tongue.  Don’t stop.  Don’t. Stop.  Don’t.  Molly!”

Sherlock came so hard that his vision whited out.  He tried to reach for her, perhaps to offer to reciprocate, but his hands grasped at empty air.  “Molly? What about you?“

“Shush.”  He felt her hand brush a sweat dampened curl off his forehead.  “Next time.  You’re tired now.  Sleep.” She kissed him, soft and gentle.  “Dream of me, love.”

Eventually he opened his eyes again to find that he was sprawled out on the mattress.  All of his clothes were still in place, properly buttoned and zipped. There was a small, still sticky patch of drying semen in his boxers; a humiliating reminder that he must have come in his sleep like a hormonal adolescent.  

[brokemultidotexe]

Second Chances Pt.5 | JJK

↬ Pairing: idol!jungkook x reader

↬ Summary: Even though it scared you, you knew you couldn’t walk away again. Big Hit allowed you to go on tour with the boys but with the promise to keep your relationship with the boys hidden from the public eye. The saying “good things never last” rings true as rumors of a secret romance makes its way online and suddenly the boys lives are put under a microscope and threats start pouring in. Jungkook does everything in his power to make sure you’ll stay, but what happens when the one thing you feared most comes true? [sequel to Unexpected]

↬ Word Count: 3.3k

↬ Warning/Rating: None/T

↬  Genre: Romance/Friendship

↬  Part: Trailer | Prologue [1 / 2] | 1 | 1.5 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 |

You enjoyed the few days you were able to steal with JK. You ended up spending quite a bit of time alone while the boys finished promoting while they were in America. Their growth in popularity surprised you. The six months you spent trying to escape everything BTS, ended up being when they exploded globally.

You found yourself missing JK more and more, and the more time you spent with him you didn't know how the two of you could handle the distance. When the boys had interviews you stayed at the hotel waiting for them to come back. It was during one of those times that Bang PD dropped by JK’s room to talk to you.

“Are you enjoying your time here?” he asked with a smile as the two of you sat at the small table off to the side.

“Very much so...It’s been nice being able to see everyone again.” you gave him a hesitant smile. You weren’t sure why he had stopped by and your mind was thinking of all the worst scenarios. Would he ask you to stay away from JK and never talk to him again? The thought alone made your stomach sink.

“I know everyone has enjoyed seeing you again, especially Jungkook. The change in him since you’ve been here is astronomical. It’s been nice to have him smiling again and showing the passion he had lost during the time you two have been apart.”

You felt the need to interrupt, “Please know that I never meant to cause such a disruption within the group and staff. I thought I was doing the right thing for the both of us.” you looked down at your hands folded in your lap.

“I’m not trying to make you feel guilty Y/N. I see why you did it and if it was anyone else I would have said that you probably did the right thing, but when Jungkook is passionate about something he’s all in. He doesn’t do anything halfway and when it comes you, you are everything to him. We had many talks throughout the whole time he was struggling and I came to realize just how important you were to him and that this wasn’t some meaningless relationship that wouldn’t last.” he gave you an encouraging smile. “I’m not here to be the bearer of bad news Y/N. It’s actually the opposite. I had a meeting with the staff about our next destination during this tour and all of them were very happy with the way you had handled the award show for all of us. I wanted to ask you if you would be interested in being a part of our team as an interpreter for the duration of the tour.”

Your eyes went wide with shock. A job offer was the last thing you expected to hear “...wait, what?” you stuttered.

He laughed, “I’m asking if you want to be the boy’s interpreter for the rest of the tour. This would mean you would travel with boys and the staff and help out anyone that needed it.”

You leaned back in your chair as you continued to try and wrap your head around what he was asking. Being an interpreter for Big Hit was a huge opportunity and you knew this type of opportunity didn’t come around very often. You were so excited to be able to have the opportunity to do something you loved and that would allow you to travel.

“Y/N this would allow you to be with Jungkook instead of having to be apart again, but I feel the need to remind you of my original request when the two of you came to me. If you do decide to be part of the tour then you both will have to make sure that the public doesn’t find out. We don’t want a dating scandal to surround the boys. We want the spotlight to be on their music and who they are as people, not about the fact they are dating someone. Please don’t misunderstand this as I don’t want the two of you together because that’s not what I'm saying. I think the two of you are great together, but I'm requesting this from a CEO standpoint.”

You understood why he requested that from the two of you, but it didn’t suck any less. Would going on tour with him cause distractions? Would you be able to handle the fans and what they say? Would the stress of the tour cause strain on your relationship? A million thoughts were going through your mind to the point that forming an answer was difficult.

“How about you think about it and you let me know?” He stood up and you looked up at him.

You watched as he turned to leave, “Wait!” his hand hovered over the door handle. “I’ll do it. I’ll be an interpreter for Big Hit.” you blurted out. Apparently, your heart knew what it wanted because you felt like you hadn’t decided yet, but the thought of giving up the opportunity and not seeing JK for a while scared you.

Bang PD turned and smiled at you, “I will tell them to get the paperwork ready and you can sign it later today.”

“Is it okay if I'm the one that tells him?” you felt excitement at getting to see his face when he found out.

“Of course. I’ll make sure to tell the staff to keep it a secret for now.”

“Thank you.” you stood and bowed deeply.

He smiled and left the room after telling you that the boys are done with the schedules and should be back soon. You decided to lay on the bed and let everything that just happened sink in even more. You couldn’t believe that you just landed your dream job and it allowed you to be next to JK. It didn’t take long before you sobered up and realized that you were going to have to tell your parents that you were leaving again and you weren’t sure when you would be back since Big Hit was constantly adding more dates because the demand for tickets is so high. You closed your eyes and sighed, hopefully, your mother would take it better the second time around. You still remembered her break down over you no longer living there after you decided to stay even longer than you originally planned. You couldn’t help that you fell in love with more than just Korea.

You heard a beep and knew that JK was back from the interviews. Both of you smiled when your eyes connected. You still had a flutter in your stomach every time you saw him. The saying ‘absence makes the heart grow fonder’ is totally true. JK dropped everything he was holding and crawled on the bed and pulled you to lay down and wrapped his arms and legs around you. “I feel like my brain is mush after all those interviews. I really should have studied English more.”

You laughed and ran your fingers through his hair. You knew the struggle of foreign languages and their sudden rise in western popularity caused all of them to have to sharpen their English skills in a short period. “It gets better, plus you have me here.”

JK buried his face in your neck, “Having you here is the best thing ever, but I can’t take you to interviews with me.” His head shot up startling you, “Oh! We can lock the interpreter in a closet somewhere and you can pose as our interpreter.” he nodded to himself, “I like this plan.”

You looked at him with a knowing smile and it solidified your feelings over going on tour with them. “When do you guys leave?” The smile and happiness fell from his face quickly as the awful truth came up.

JK ran his fingers through his hair and sighed, “Tomorrow.” you felt bad for making him feel this way but you really wanted to surprise him and giving such good news after bad news was the best thing you could think of. “Can we go and beg the staff to find some more interviews? I’ll torture myself with English for a whole day if it gave me just a few more hours with you. He looked in your eyes and your heart skipped a beat. He had always made you feel so loved even when he wasn’t trying.

“Well…” you let your statement hang in the air until he raised an  eyebrow waiting for you to continue, “what if I just accept Bang PD’s job offer of being an interpreter for Big Hit for the rest of the tour?”

He sat up quickly and looked down at you, “What?”

You sat up so you were eye level with him, “Bang PD came here to talk to me less than an hour ago. He offered me a job to work as an interpreter for the staff during the rest of the tour. I mean I don’t know what will happen after that or if--”

You were surging forward before and before you could completely register what happened your lips crashed into his. You expected words from him but the feeling of his lips moving on yours spoke louder than words. He pulled you closer and broke the kiss to put his forehead against yours.

“Please tell me I didn’t hear you wrong,” he whispered desperately.

“You didn’t hear me wrong,” you said squashing his worries.

You had been surprised before when he pulled you into a kiss but that seemed miniscule compared to now. He pulled you closer and flipped the both of you over so he was on top of you. He caged you in underneath him and the air around the two of you changed when your eyes met. “I love you.” He leaned down and placed his lips on yours. This kiss was different than any of the other kisses the two of you had shared. Most of them being rushed but passionate kisses or quick pecks here and there. Instead of you being against a hotel room wall your back was pressed against the bed and kissed you deeply. As if all the feelings he had kept stored away because of the circumstances was now flooding out and you felt overwhelmed.

He positioned himself so he could slide his fingers into your hair and you felt a light tug causing you to moan and you could feel him fisting the comforter beneath you. Your fingers were itching to touch him so you ran your hands up his arms as he continued to kiss you deepening it even more. This is what happiness felt like and it felt good to finally feel at home again. You had never been so sure of a decision as he pulled back and looked down at you and smiled. Seeing the pure happiness in his eyes made everything the two of you went through to get to this moment worth it. You knew that you never wanted to be a part from him again and made a promise that you would do everything to make sure the two of you never had to experience that pain again.

AN: I know it’s been forever since I updated this story and I’m so sorry! I had major writer's block with it. I'm going to do my best to try and not have so much time between this and ch.6. I hope you all enjoyed it and it was worth the wait!