#I like the longer one so it doesn’t bleed into existing tag circles

[prawn2ned-out]

some bonus time travelers while I wait for my pc to reset!

these guys are grouped in with my characters from “New Front” or what I like to affectionately call “Travey vs The Complications of the New Frontier” (it was the original title before I decided I liked something simpler)

Travey is the protagonist (given the original name), she jumps from different timelines to train heroes to fight pirates

Exodus is like her Shadow the Hedgehog. Also a time traveler. Trains evil pirates. (not the ultimate lifeform, unfortunately)

[writeshite]

Would you be alright with writing some Mark angst where Mark and the reader are exes, and they didn’t end in good terms. Mark is trying to change his ways to be a better man to prove he wants them back but the Reader has a lot of anger towards him still. Mark gets hurt really bad, and has to be taken in for an emergency procedure since he’s between life akd death. The ex is the only one who can perform it since he’s the only specialist in the area. After successfully finishing the surgery and waits for Mark to wake in recovery, he thinks about all the times Mark made an effort to fix things and actually meant it so when Mark does wake, they talk things out amd start over.

Not A Day Goes By, I Don't Think Of You

Summary:

“I’m sorry for wishing you’d break your neck,” you apologized, “I’m also sorry for wishing I could strangle you sometimes.” You shuffle forward so your hand can touch his cheek, “And I..uh...I’m sorry I tried to shove the apology letter down your throat….” You laugh to yourself, “I know you think I didn’t notice, but I…I did, and I…I’m ready to talk.” You sniffle, wiping away tears, “Shitty timing, right?”

Pairings:

Mark Sloan x Male!Reader

Tags:

Angry Reader | Hurt Mark | Surgery | Talking About Feelings Like Adults (✨le gasp✨)

Words: 1180

Author's Note:

I'm sorry for taking a long time to write this, but I'm going through all the asks in my inbox too 😭🫡

You and Mark are, or rather were, the hospital’s it couple, next to Shepherd and Grey; you walked side by side into work, held hands, kissed, all that good shit. Then you weren’t; then, you were moving your things into a new apartment and ignoring each other like the plague. You don’t remember who said what, though really you’d prefer not to, but now the two of you couldn’t go one moment speaking without picking apart the wounds of your relationship. And after some time, it was easier to look into Mark’s eyes; it was evident that whatever was there still existed, tucked away in a little corner of your hearts. For Mark, it wasn’t as he seemed to have started a crusade to, as Burke had put it, better himself for you.

Which, at times, did butter you up, but there was still some leftover anger that slowly dissipated the longer you stared at him lying in the hospital bed. The idiot got himself hurt, the stupid, brave, imbecilic…you try not to dwell on the thought as it just makes you squeeze his hand harder. “Of all the ways to get hurt, you decide to do it in my specialty? You’re a damn fool Mark.” The bandage around his head had been rewrapped just an hour ago, and the ones around his neck had stopped bleeding, but Mark was yet to open his eyes. “The next time you want to risk your neck and head, don’t,” you mutter, rubbing circles on his skin. 

You’d been keeping sane these past weeks by visiting him every chance you got; after the first week, the chief relieved you of duty and had you take a break to be with him. Your nerves were fried, and your senses were all over the place, “Grey and Shepherd might be getting engaged, so you should wake up. Burke and Yang might also be breaking things off, but I’m not sure about that one.” You’d talk about the latest going on in the hospital and the world; sometimes, Mark’s chest would rise as if he was holding his breath, ready to surprise you with a laugh, then he’d breathe out, and his eyes would stay closed.

“By the way, your neck muscles are shit,” you jest, “your ears were fine though, at least operation-wise. You’re lucky I didn’t make them smaller or anything in surgery.” There’s a brief smile on your face, but it doesn’t last long as you remember when Mark was wheeled in that day, your beeper had been going off like crazy; before you could even walk in to assess your patient, Dr. Bailey had stopped you, her hands on your arms.

“Before you go in there, I’m going to need you to take a deep breath,” she’s told you.

“What? Why?” you’d asked, face drawn into confusion.

“Just take a deep breath for me, please,” she’d insisted until you did so, “Dr. Sloan’s in there.”

You had scoffed, “Oh god, what does he want now? Can’t he just let me work?” Grumbling to yourself, “You’d think he's about to die with the way he’s clinging around me.”

“He is about to die.” You’d turned back to her, and Dr. Bailey pursed her lips, “Remember what I said about those deep breaths?”

“No, Mark…he can’t, he was fine…he’s not dying….”

Dr. Bailey directed you to the window, nodding at the nurses and doctors in the surgical room, they lifted the curtain, and there he was. Mark, attached to a breathing machine, blood pouring from his ears and neck, laid up on a pillow, his head was bandaged, but even that was still bleeding profusely. “I’m sorry to have to ask you to do this, but as our only ENT specialist, we don’t have much of a choice. Dr. Shepherd has assured me there won’t be any neurological damages, but that leaves the rest of his head.”

You remember feeling a sense of nausea, then guilt at all the times you’d let the anger take over and cursed Mark, “I hope you get hit by a bus,” or “God, can’t you just leave me alone?!” or any other wish of injury to his person. But it had been more out of angry endearment, but looking at him, you felt like curling up into a ball. “We can have another ENT come in, but—”

“You’re not sure if he has that much time,” you finish for her, “he might get more infections, or develop worsening after effects or…” you shake your head, pushing the thought away; you pick the scrubs, slipping them on with Dr. Bailey’s help, your trembling hands go under the water, and as you clean them, you retake those deep breaths. Counting numbers until you walk into the surgical room and up to Mark, you turn up to the gallery and thank every god you can think of that it’s only Dr. Bailey up there. You’re not sure if you could do this with onlookers commenting on every detail.

The surgery had gone well, and now all that was left was for Mark to wake up if he would wake up at all. You tried not to listen to the latter half of that; the chance of him waking was significantly larger than not. 

“I’m sorry for wishing you’d break your neck,” you apologized, “I’m also sorry for wishing I could strangle you sometimes.” You shuffle forward so your hand can touch his cheek, “And I..uh...I’m sorry I tried to shove the apology letter down your throat….” You laugh to yourself, “I know you think I didn’t notice, but I…I did, and I…I’m ready to talk.”

You sniffle, wiping away tears, “Shitty timing, right?” Your answer comes in the form of coughing and laughing, the tears haven’t really stopped, but they’ve blurred your sight slightly; you blink them away and find Mark smiling at you.

“If I knew getting into a car accident would get me this–”

“Don’t you dare joke about that,” you interrupt. He tries to sit up, but you rush forward to stop him; placing your hand on his chest, you push him back lightly, and he puts his hand on yours. He’s not as strong as he would be, but he still grips your hand, “I hate you.”

“I know,” he responds. “And I’m sorry about the fight; I shouldn’t have said what I said.”

You shake your head, “You’re not the only one who was a dick; I was one too; I said what I said, knowing it would hurt you,” you lament, “I was probably the bigger dick.”

Mark grinned, “Doubt it; besides, I’m pretty sure physically….” You bite your lip to try and stop your laughter, but Mark’s joke has you smiling. “There’s the smile I love to see.”

“All jokes aside, I know it’s probably a bit late to say it, but I’d like to start over,” you say. Mark reaches out his arm, you lean forward, and he kisses your nose; he holds your hands and nods, smiling.

“I’d love to.”

End Note:

I hope you enjoyed reading this shite, stay hydrated.

[amethyst-dreams-and-candy-canes]

Pain

AN: My humble submission for @cockslut-padalecki A Decade Under the Influence writing challenge. Here’s to another decade enjoying our hobbies 💜🖤. My song was Pain by Three Days Grace. I interpreted the song as a toxic relationship and honestly the first person who came to mind was Ranson Drysdale 🤷🏿‍♀️. The lyrics will be italicized. 

Warnings: toxic relationship, domestic abuse (emotional and physical w/ injuries), infidelity, non-con/dub-con (tagging both just in case), destruction of property, somnophilia, I’m not joking yall, heed the warnings this is TOXIC

Word Count: 1,569

I do not own the rights to the song nor the lyrics of the song

Pain without love

Pain, I can't get enough

Pain, I like it rough

'Cause I'd rather feel pain than nothing at all

Sitting on the side of the bed, you survey the damage. A hole in the wall. Shattered lamp near the nightstand. A bloody hand print on the pillow to your right. It draws your attention as you try to figure out whose blood it is. Doesn't matter, you're both bleeding. A cough to your left in the corner of the room makes you wince; he'll never admit it but this fight took a lot out of him. His breathing is labored and you wonder if you may have broken a rib. Good. 

You sigh as you rack your memory to figure out how you got here. They say no relationship is perfect but yours was pretty close. In the beginning, Ransom Drysdale was a perfect gentleman; always held the door open for you, brought you flowers and even watched that TV show with you that you knew he didn’t particularly care for. The first year was a dream. But then things started to go downhill. Fights with his family would result to him coming to your apartment and taking his frustrations out on you. You allowed it then; thinking you’d be a good outlet for him. But soon his ranting and raving turned into him degrading you. When his grandfather passed, the flood gates opened and your head was on a spindle, waiting for his next mood swing. Still you stayed even if you knew it was no longer a healthy relationship. Naively you continued to stand by his side telling yourself that at least he was physical with you and that had to mean he cared for you even if he could’t expression himself in a loving manner.

Then came the cheating. Openly flaunting his conquests in your mutual circles. At first you didn't want to believe it. You trusted him and he reciprocated your trust or so you assumed. But the pitied stares and crude whispers at your expense began to chip away at you. You'd confront him and at first, he denied it. You were the only one for him he had proclaimed and like a love sick puppy, you were his again. But when videos and photos were sent to your phone, hard evidence of his betrayal, he didn't even bother to come up with a good lie. He knew you loved him and used that to his advantage. But there was only so much you could take. So much you would take.

This life is filled with hurt

When happiness doesn't work

Trust me, and take my hand

When the lights go out, you'll understand

Another cough and a groan. He was attempting to stand up. Curses left his lips as he stands on wobbly legs, no doubt as dizzy as you are. You stare straight ahead, hoping that he wouldn’t want to continue the fight and leave you alone. He mutters to himself before he spits, blood and saliva landing on the tile next to your foot. You see his foot for a split second before he moves away from you and to the bathroom door. 

“Fucking bitch.” he quite literally spits. You want to retort, a scathing insult on your tongue but the throbbing in your head is too distracting to care. The door slams and you close your eyes, the exhaustion settling in your bones. And soul. 

"So, what? It's over? Give me a break." He laughed incredulously at you. The smirk that you had once found so handsome now was the bane of your existence. "Like you can find someone better, sweetheart."

"I can and I will!" You rant, pacing back and forth. He's perched on your counter-top, legs swing as he regards you with a humorous expression that only pisses you off more. 

"Yeah sure. Good luck with that."

You're sick of feeling numb

You're not the only one

I'll take you by the hand

And I'll show you a world that you can understand

The running water brings you back to the present and your heart breaks at the memory. He was right. No matter how many dates you went on, how many you invited into your bed. No one could compare. As much as you hated him, you loved him. Love him. 

You weren't expecting to see him sitting on your bed after your date. It was lackluster at best and you honestly just wanted to lay down and forget the whole ordeal. You sat your purse on the dresser and crossed your arms waiting for his tirade but when the silence stretched longer than you were comfortable with, you moved to go to the bathroom. He was on you in seconds, left hand secured firmly around your throat. "Really? You replaced me with that tool?" 

Anger and agony are better than misery

Trust me, I've got a plan

When the lights go up, you'll understand

You couldn't ignore the thrill that went through you at his anger. Serves him right. Too many nights you sat up and cried over his infidelity, his cruelty. About time he felt even an iota of the pain he put you through. Your eyes meet his as you stared him down. You knew he wanted an answer and your defiance would be the response. 

"You're such a cunt, you know that? Pathetic. I fucking hate you." You strike him before you know it. The slap resounded around the room. His hand leaves your throat as he grabs his face, eyes wide in shock. You didn't mean to hit him but your body moved faster than your brain, his audacity triggering your fight or flight. He lunged at you quicker than you thought he could and gave you a hard smack in return. His hand found your throat again and he shoved you against the wall, the back of your head smacking it loudly. 

"So you wanna be tough now, huh? Finally fight back?" He snarled too close to your face. You tried to shove him off but he was stronger and leaned his body in towards you. Your vision began to wane, either from the lack of oxygen or the hit against the wall you weren't sure. He was speaking, that much you were certain of but his words were lost in your determination to breathe. Grabbing at his wrist, you dropped your body weight and pulled him down with you. You both hit the floor and as soon as he released you, you crawled away from him and hit the nightstand causing the lamp to rock on the floor. He was on his feet quicker than you had expected and you grabbed the lamp and swung, the metal connecting to his side. 

"I hate you too, asshole." 

I know, I know, I know, I know, I know

That you're wounded

(You know, you know, you know, you know)

That I'm here to save you

(You know, you know, you know, you know)

I'm always here for you

(I know, I know, I know, I know)

That you'll thank me later

Hot air suffocated you and a heaviness settled over you so forcefully that you found it hard to draw a breath. The throbbing in your head had dulled but was present and you groaned. You tried to move away from the weight but you were pinned, unable to wiggle away. Consciousness ebbed and flowed but a sharp jolt on your lower body forced you towards awareness. A soft moan above you made you frown as another sharp thrust to your groin made you open your eyes. It was dark but you could see Ransom, lips parted and face contorted in pain or pleasure, you weren't sure. His face hovered close to yours and for a moment, a wave of panic washed over you at the thought he might kill you. Another thrust made you gasp and your fuzzy brain fought to catch up. 

"Don't fight it." He whispered almost uncharacteristically gentle as his hips rolled into yours. Gritting your teeth, you attempt to move away from him but he has your arms pinned to your sides. His lips find yours and the stunning pain of the cut makes you whimper. Another thrust and your legs part on their own accord and you writhe under him, the feeling of him inside of you a cruel comfort. He takes it as your submission and speeds up as he trails kisses from your jaw to your neck where he buries his face. Your head swims as you once again try to figure out just how you got here. He moans your name and bites into your neck, the small spark triggering your orgasm unexpectedly. His pace falters at the feel of you clenching around him and it isn’t long before he comes with a broken hiss of your name. 

“I love you.” his soft admission barely heard over his labored breathing. Tears sting your eyes as he nuzzles against you and wraps his arms across your torso. You don’t know who you hate more, him or yourself. As the tears fall into your hairline and his breathing evens out, you realize that the answer is yourself because you know the truth and can do nothing about it. 

“I love you too.”

Rather feel pain than nothing at all

Rather feel pain...

I’m not tagging a lot of people because I don’t want to offend: @avintagekiss24 @sapphirescrolls @cockslut-padalecki 

[ayatosmlktea]

A/N: The things you think of while cutting tomatoes. @bakugoustanaccount​ this is for you because you deserve some Bakugou fluff. Sorry if it’s kinda shit. Getting back into writing was way harder than I thought. Culinary School Bakugou AU

Word count: 3.1k

Warnings: None, fluff

Pairings: Bakugou x reader

Disclaimer: I know nothing about culinary school. So don’t roast me. I tried my best!

Tags: @babybabydoki​, @thesecretnerd27​

Bakugou was not a man of words, at least not when it came to expressing his feelings. Sure he had no problem giving people a piece of his mind when they pissed him off or when things were not up to his standards. But talking about his actual feelings, like the crush he’d harboured on you for a little over a year? Not a chance in hell were the words coming out of his mouth.

In all honesty, Bakugou wasn’t sure why you stuck around him. He had been such an ass to you the first month of classes, constantly ragging on you for your lack of coordination and time management in the kitchen. In his defense, you were amateur at best and probably shouldn’t have wasted all that money to get into one of the finest culinary schools Japan had to offer.

‘It looked like fun’ was all you had to say. Your reasoning had shook the blond to his core, and he had been certain that you’d drop out within the first week or two if he was being generous. However, much to his surprise you’d been persistent in trying to succeed.

You eventually got fed up with his incessant criticisms and had bit the bullet to ask for his help. Bakugou wasn’t sure what to say, the image of you clearly distressed and face slick with sweat, chef’s coat covered in stains tugged on heartstrings he didn’t know existed. Begrudgingly he agreed, after all it was a boost to his ego.

 He held it over your head ever since, constantly bringing up the cause for your sudden improvement due to his culinary genius. The two of you somehow grew closer after that, more often than not you found yourself over at his apartment until almost four in the morning coming up with new recipes, trying out different flavour combinations and inevitably eating way too much.

“I think this is the best one so far” you manage to get out in between bites of cake.

“Don’t talk with your mouth full, dumbass.” He grumbles, flicking your forehead roughly. Sticking your cake clad tongue at you burst into a fit of laughter as Bakugou cringes.

“That’s disgusting,” he muttered carrying empty plates to the sink and running hot water over them.

“Seriously Bakugou, I think you’ll get an A plus with that cake.” Scoffing loudly Bakugou is grateful his back is turned so you can’t see the huge blush spreading across his cheeks.

“Shut up and help me clean up, brat”

“Always so eloquent Katsuki” you grin unaware of the way the sound of his name rolling off your tongue sent his heart into cardiac arrest.

.·。.·゜✭·.·✫·゜·。..·

You were always clumsy, something that Bakugou knew all too well. The amount of times you’d almost cut yourself trying to catch your knife that was about to slide off the counter was enough to guarantee early heart failure in the explosive blond. 

You shared the same workstation as Bakugou and while he was always one to throw himself head first into their assignments for the day; he was finding it harder and harder not to get lost in watching you bite your bottom lip while you read the day’s recipe.

 The dark circles under your eyes a testament to how hard you’d been working to catch up with the rest of the class. Bakugou probably wouldn’t directly tell you but your pairing skills had drastically improved since the first month of classes.

Your knife work was becoming more seamless and uniform and the smile you’d flashed him when your instructor had complimented you on it made his stomach clench with butterflies.

“Thanks I guess” you smirked later that evening. It was now routine for the two of you to hangout after class, going back to either of your apartments to try and get ahead for the next lesson. Plus it helped that you always managed to whip up dinners that rivaled any pricey restaurant you’d ever been taken out to.

“You guess? If it wasn’t for me your ass would be failing” Bakugou retorts hottily, his gaze watching your fingers as they glide a potato across the madalin a little too carelessly for this liking. Your eyes were focused on him, attention not on the extremely sharp blade that was capable of slicing your fingers in half.

“Watch your fingers dumba-” before he can even finish his sentence you yelp in pain pulling your hand back dropping the potato and cradling your fingers against your chest.

“Fuckfuckfuck”  you hiss repeatedly squeezing your fingers together to try and stop the blood from seeping out.

“I fucking told you to be careful!” Bakugou growls grabbing a paper towel and running it under water before wrapping it around your fingers.

“I was being careful!” You shot back through gritted teeth. It was obviously a lie, but you were in pain and your pride was hurt at being called out on your bullshit.

“Tch you’re bleeding all over my floor dumbass, this is careful to you?” Your recklessness annoyed him, and the fact that you weren’t taking it seriously made him even more angry.

“Okay whatever! I’m an idiot, glad we worked that out” you snapped back, the painful throbbing of your fingers was making it hard to match Bakugou’s sarcastic energy like you usually did.

You didn’t want to look at your fingers as he unwrapped the soaked towel from around them, the sight of all that blood was making you light headed and before you knew it you were hyperventilating.

“Oi, stop freaking out! It doesn’t look that bad! I don’t think you need stitches.” He shouts and while it would have made anyone else freak out more it helped you calm down. If Bakugou was calm, something was definitely wrong.

“Hold this tightly” he grumbled before disappearing into the bathroom.

Against your better judgement you looked at the gash across your pinky and ring finger. They were fairly large cuts but at least you couldn’t see your bone...right?

“Didn’t I tell you to hold it?” Bakugou’s voice makes your shoulders jump, a guilty smile on your face as you press the wet towel over your fingers. It made you squeamish but you knew that bleeding out was far less appealing than a few minutes of pain.

“Since when did you get a first aid kit?”

“Since I became friends with your clumsy ass” he muttered under his breath.

“Did you just call us friends? Wow, I truly have peaked. Thank you God”

“Shut up or I’ll kick you out”

“You wouldn’t dare” you were right, he wouldn’t have. But you didn’t need to know that.

.·。.·゜✭·.·✫·゜·。..·

Throughout the next year your friendship with the blond only grew. You had met his close group of friends who he would never call his family, but you had learned to read between the lines with Bakugou. Mina often commented on you being the only other girl he’d managed to get close to in his life, and while you blew her off every single time it made your stomach flutter with butterflies at the possibility of something more.

Bakugou paid attention to a lot of things, even if it didn’t seem like it. Small pieces of yourself that you revealed in passing casual conversations stuck to his brain like glue. 

The longer you stuck around him, the harder it was becoming to push down the growing feelings he had for you. There were only so many times he could watch you bite your lip without imagining tugging it between his own teeth. It was the last class before you would have two weeks of in between semesters. Two weeks where Bakugou wouldn’t see you on a daily basis, he wasn’t even sure if you wanted to keep practicing together although he hoped you’d ask him to rather than having to bring it up himself.

“My fingers are about to cramp in this position forever” you huff, adjusting the grip around your knife before continuing to peel potatoes. A stray piece of your hair had fallen from your bun and without thinking Bakugou reached out and tucked it behind your ear. 

You stopped mid-sentence as the tips of your ears turned bright red. When his brain finally caught up to his actions Bakugou didn’t speak to you for the rest of the class, the pounding in his chest was almost painful. He had left before you had finished cleaning up your station.

.·。.·゜✭·.·✫·゜·。..·

He ignored your texts and calls, he needed to sort out his feelings. He hadn’t expected to let you this close to him, to worm your way into his heart and become a part of his routine. He didn’t want to fall in love with you, but everything about you that he had found annoying quickly turned into everything he loved about you. 

The crinkle of your nose when you didn't understand something, the way you wandered over to his station to steal extra pastries off of him. Your compliments always made his heart skip a beat, it shouldn’t have been so important to him but Bakugou found himself craving your praise more than your instructor.

Slamming the door closed a little harder than was necessary he dumped his bag on the floor and headed to the bathroom to take a shower. He needed to get your smell off of him, his fingers still tingled with electricity if he thought back to the feeling of skin under his touch.

Bakugou couldn’t deny that he had more fun with you than when he was working alone. Even if you did get distracted every five seconds. It was stupid, you occupied every waking thought he had. He couldn’t even cook without turning to you to get your opinion on a recipe before realizing you weren’t there.

 The empty pit that dropped in his stomach every time he thought about messaging you only grew as the days dragged on. You hadn’t messaged him since last week and it was a little pathetic to admit that every notification ping had his heart racing, hoping that it was you. 

But why would you do that when it was him who had started this war. Bakugou’s pride was going to be the death of him, he would have rather died than admit that he was in love with you. His stubbornness wouldn’t allow himself to admit that he needed you more than he had wanted to believe. So what if time passed slower without you, he’d find things to fill the void. So what if he missed the sound of your laugh, it didn’t matter. He had other friends.

Nothing tasted good anymore, there was always something missing in everything he cooked. He couldn’t be bothered to try anymore, most of his nights ended with the kitchen in a mess and him cursing loudly in frustration. You were missing. He couldn’t fight it anymore, he needed to apologize. Everything felt incomplete without you. Classes were starting in a few days and he knew he needed to fix things before then.

Come over for dinner. At 8. If you’re late I’m not letting you in.

Wow, not even a hello.

It’s free food, dumbass.

Fine.

Bakugou’s hands trembled slightly as he put his phone down, it was far from perfect but it was a start. Throwing on his jacket he felt a surge of excitement and passion that he hadn’t felt for nearly two weeks.

He would make it up to you.

.·。.·゜✭·.·✫·゜·。..·

Your stomach growled as you stepped foot into Bakugou’s apartment. You were still mad at him for ignoring you but God if his cooking wasn’t enough to make your resolve crumble.

“7:59, you’re really cutting it close huh?”

“I was debating whether to come or not” you replied smoothly, hanging your jacket on the coat rack. Your answer felt like little needles poking him in the chest, this was going to be much more difficult than he had anticipated. 

Bakugou noticed that you looked more put together than one the days he’d invited you to come over and cook before and he couldn’t help but wonder if it had anything to do with your feelings towards him. Not that he was complaining, the outfit you had chosen hugged your body in all the right places, not to mention your lips were looking extra kissa-snap out of it. If he messed it up now there would be no going back.

It’s not a date. You repeatedly told yourself, and yet you had still put in more effort than you should have. Maybe you had worn your sheer lacy black top on purpose, it was just a confidence boost after all. And most definitely not because you were trying to give him a sneak peek of what was under it.

It had been far too long since you had invaded his personal space and the smell of his cologne had your body buzzing with nervous energy. You had hoped that after the hair incident something would have happened between the two of you. But you hadn’t expected him to ignore you. You shouldn’t have been surprised, it shouldn’t have hurt, but all the nights you had spent at his place had you feeling like maybe there was room for something more.

“Whatcha making?” You asked peering over his shoulder.

“It’s a surprise” he muttered, turning around to push you out of the kitchen.

“Well I can still smell it” you retort, swerving around him to turn on the oven light but before you could reach it Bakugou grabbed your waist and tugged you backwards.

“I said it’s a surprise! Don’t go and ruin it”

“You’re no fun Katsuki” you sigh, trying to act as nonchalant as possible while his palms burn their imprint against your skin.

“Trust me Y/N! Stop making this harder than it needs to be!” There was no winning against Bakugou when he was in a stubborn mood. Pouting you make your way back to the couch because you weren’t allowed to be in the kitchen until it was time to eat.

 It felt oddly comfortable being in his apartment, you’d never really been left to entertain yourself before. If you closed your eyes it almost felt like he was your boyfr-nope. You were not going to go down that road. Every rational thought was screaming at you that it was stupid to believe he harboured any feelings for you, especially after what had happened two weeks ago.

“Oi Y/N! If you wanna eat, get your ass up” Bakugou shouted from the kitchen and you snapped out of your daydream. Definitely not your boyfriend…

You were ready to whip out a snarky comment but the words caught in your throat at the sight before you. It was...dare you say romantic. Bakugou’s eyes were watching you intently while you struggled to gather your thoughts. The room was dimly lit with a few candles, your eyes glued to the dish of pasta in front of you.

“Are you just gonna stare or are you actually going to eat?” Bakugou pulls out your chair and the cage that were guarding your butterflies was threatening to break open.

“I’ve never seen anyone make lasagna look so...romantic” You laugh, letting him push your seat in for you.

“It’s your favourite isn’t it?” He asks with a smirk tugging on the corner of his lips. Your heart is hammering forcefully against your ribcage, in the entire year you’d been friends with Bakugou you’d only mentioned it a handful of times. To be honest you weren’t even sure he had been listening to you, the reasons behind  his motives for making your favourite dish had your cheeks heating up.

“I didn’t think you’d remember that” you mumbled.

“I remember a lot of things” For some reason the way he says it has you clinging onto a hope you know you shouldn’t. Bakugou was not in love with you, it was purely coincidence that he’d made your favourite meal.

It didn’t mean anything.

At least that’s what you tried telling yourself, until he brought desert out. Conversation had eventually begun to flow easier than it had in the beginning, probably due to the two glasses of wine that you’d consumed. You weren’t tipsy but you were definitely feeling bolder than before.

“Is that what I think it is?” you gasp as Bakugou sets down a pie tin. The surge of pride he feels at your wide eyed stare was comparable to nothing else. You can feel your mouth watering as he cuts you a piece of cheesecake.

“Ohmygod Katsuki this is so good!” you moan as you take a bite of cheesecake. It’s salted caramel, your favourite.  Something weird was happening, something you might not have had the balls to pursue under normal circumstances. Liquid courage igniting your veins, you force yourself to make eye contact with crimson orbs and ask the question you weren’t sure you wanted an answer to.

“Why did you ignore me?” You can almost see the wheels turning in his head, and for a second you wish you could melt into the floor and disappear. The silence was suffocating and you seriously considered just grabbing your coat and dashing out of his apartment.

“It’s okay if you do-”

“I have feelings for you”

His words shock you and for a moment you can’t tell if what you had heard was a figment of your imagination.

“What?” every nerve in your body is on edge, fight or flight system ready to bolt the hell out of his apartment if things go wrong.

“I have feelings for you, dumbass! For a whole year, and I didn’t want to deal with it because I’m scared to fuck it up! I’m not good with words, the only way I can express myself is through cooking.” It takes a moment for it to click in your mind but his amused scoff and eye roll when your eyes light up with recognition are almost endearing.

“Wait, so you did all this...to confess?”

“Isn’t that just what I said?”

“So, what if I said I liked you too?” Your voice was barely above a whisper, your throat suddenly felt way too dry.

“Then I’d kiss you” Your stomach was doing somersaults and you were sure that under normal circumstances the nerves alone would have made you puke.

“I like you too Katsuki” the look Bakugou gives you is almost feral and before you can react he’s already moved to cup your face in his hands. The second his lips touch yours, the cage inside your stomach breaks open and butterflies are spreading throughout your body. Your hands tangle themselves in soft blond locks, angling your face to deepen the kiss. His tongue swipes along your bottom lip and you respond without hesitation. You can taste salted caramel on his tongue and it has your head spinning. Who knew Bakugou Katsuki was such a good kisser. Maybe he was boyfriend material after all.

[thespianbooks]

A Court of Nightmares and Starlight //Chapter 6//

(Chapter one) (Chapter two) (Chapter three) (Chapter four) (Chapter five) (Chapter six) (Chapter seven) (Chapter eight) (Chapter nine) (Chapter ten)

(tags: @thron3ofbooks, @df3ndyr, @courtofjurdan, @art-e-mis, @herondamnn, @the-third-me, @im-still-trying-here, @emikadreams, @paytin77, @mis-lil-red)

“Are you absolutely sure it's a boy?” Rhys asked me as we lay entangled in bed, his ear pressed against my bare stomach and his hand splayed just below my navel.

I giggled as I ran my fingers through his raven locks. In the week since I announced my pregnancy, he asked me different versions of the same question. His hands also seemed to have become permanently glued to my stomach; along with his ears and lips. Every chance he had, Rhys would try and get as close to the baby as possible—which I welcomed, absolutely content with how devoted he was. The morning after Starfall, Rhys insisted we visit Madja’s clinic in Velaris—determined to learn anything and everything there was to know about pregnancy and what it would entail for me. The healer happily obliged, and informed us both of what the next eight and a half months would look like. Not only was a high fae pregnancy longer than a human’s, but as with other fae ailments, any symptoms and risks I faced might be amplified.

There were the normal symptoms I was already accustomed to: nausea, vomiting, fatigue, and others I would soon face: backaches, swelling in my hands, face, and feet, and occasional headaches. Hearing about those symptoms didn’t cause any alarm, they were common and unfortunately came hand-in-hand with creating a new life. Madja also said that every female experienced her pregnancy differently; some had severe complications and had to be on strict bed rest, while others hardly experienced anything other than a few minor discomforts. I hoped for the latter of the two.

It was hearing about the risks, which included a small chance of bleeding that could lead to a miscarriage while we were still in an early phase, that made me nervous and caused Rhys to enter in a full-blown defensive mode. Any prior protective behavior he was experiencing before now intensified with his innate need to safeguard me and the baby. Madja assured us that this behavior was expected and normal between mates; with females in such a vulnerable condition, a male’s instinct was always to protect his mate and their offspring. To his credit, Rhys offered a sheepish grin along with an apology in advance. Having already witnessed what he was like after we were freshly mated, and how he managed to reign himself in, I knew most of it was beyond his control.

However, I welcomed some of his coddling after my unpleasant symptoms returned a day after our visit with Madja, and fluctuated throughout the week. The extreme fatigue seemed to be a permanent state I would stay in for the duration of my pregnancy, but I pleaded to the Mother that my nausea spells would soon cease. It was torture being unable to leave my room for periods of time throughout the day. Unfortunately, there was no predicting when the queasiness would hit, so for the time being I would have to bear with it and hope none of the others would notice and wonder why my seemingly mysterious illness still remained.

Rhys and I decided to hold off on revealing the news to our friends and my sisters until we were out of the realm of possibility for a miscarriage. Madja reassured me that the chances were slim and divulged that although it was difficult for high fae to conceive, it was also difficult to lose a pregnancy. In spite of my relief, I didn’t want to take any chances and asked the healer for all recommendations on how to stay as healthy as possible.

So, along with the prenatal herbal teas she initially prescribed, she also ordered that I immediately put a halt to my morning training sessions with Cassian—which Rhys whole-heartedly agreed with, much to my chagrin. As much as I enjoyed being active, however, I knew fainting after only a couple of minutes of basic punching forms was a sign that I should be taking it easier. My body was now working overtime to provide not only for myself, but for a baby that was growing more and more by the day. Instead, Madja suggested I take more time to rest and relax, to allow myself more free time for leisure activities like my painting. Knowing my concerns, and guilt, over becoming stagnant, Rhys promised my duties as High Lady wouldn’t be affected—which left me relieved.

However, as much as my mate knew how capable I was of tending to my regular duties as High Lady, I couldn’t help but be amused at how much he insisted on spoiling me. He now reserved the right to tend to my every want and need; whether I was weary or not, Rhys began to wait on my hand and foot under the guise that since I was carrying his child, he would carry everything else. I appreciated it most whenever I was feeling particularly nauseated or drained, but I drew the line whenever he tried to spoon feed me my meals—I still maintained my irritation for it, no matter how much of a mother hen he was going to be for the duration of my pregnancy. I also valued it on morning’s like today when I had awoken with little to no desire to leave the comforts of our bed—whether it was from my overwhelming fatigue or not.

“Yes, the Bone Carver appeared to me as our firstborn. A miniature version of you,” I answered with a sigh of mock exasperation.

“And you’re sure this mini-me didn’t happen to actually have long hair or maybe more feminine features? It is dark in the prison, afterall, maybe you missed a couple of details,” he tried to reason, raising his head to look at me.

“I showed you what he looked like,” I laughed.

“Ah yes, but I saw through your eyes Feyre darling. So to clarify the vision, I have to rely on the original source. In this case, that’s you,” he said, his grin positively feline.

I grabbed a pillow and smacked him with it as I laughed, “Smartass.”

His grin remained as he braced himself against my stomach playfully, “Careful darling, you’ll hurt the baby,” he teased.

I rolled my eyes and hit him again as he laughed, “It’s a boy. Maybe the next one will be a girl.”

“Next one?” He asked, his violet eyes lit up as they met mine with raised and amused brows.

“We’ll see. Let’s focus on our son first,” I said.

His chuckle reverberated through me as he pressed his ear to my still-flat stomach. Despite no growth progress being made on my pregnant belly, he was obsessed.

“I want him to know I’m here,” Rhys answered before I could ask; double checking to make sure that my mental shields were intact.

“He knows,” I said as I continued to brush my fingers through his hair. “He was calling out to you for weeks before either of us realized he was there.”

During our visit, I had Madja explain the mystery behind the faint glimmer that fluttered between us. The ancient inkling that existed between mates as a confirmation that they had successfully procreated. Rhys was in awe of the information, and hoped the glimmer would remain throughout the months. So far, my little glimmering baby was silent—perhaps reveling in finally being noticed.

“Still, it’s never too early to bond with my son,” he said with a grin as he pressed a chaste kiss to my stomach before subsequently moving from his spot and hovering above me. “Are you feeling well enough to have breakfast with everyone, or shall I bring you breakfast in bed?”

I sighed as I held his arms, lightly tracing the pattern of his tattoos as I debated, “I could honestly sleep for another couple of hours. You should go, let everyone know I’m okay,” I answered.

“I’m beginning to run out of excuses to explain why their High Lady has been so inclined to not leave her room.”

I hesitated, realizing how hard it actually was to keep up the deceit. A part of me knew Mor was suspicious of something already, having guessed Cauldron-knew-what on Starfall. The others I couldn’t even begin to guess what assumptions they made.

“Should we just tell them?” I asked. “I know we wanted to wait a little while longer, but it just doesn’t feel right to keep giving excuse after excuse.”

Rhys nodded in agreement, “I’m pretty sure Cassian and Azriel know something, but they have too much respect for your privacy to pry it out of me.”

I laughed and sighed tiredly, “Do you think they’ll be excited?” I asked.

He smirked, “Well I don’t think they’ll be disappointed.”

I rolled my eyes and pushed him away before sitting up as he chuckled. He caught my wrist carefully before I could get up from the bed, “I think they’ll be more than happy to hear there will soon be a new member of our Inner Circle,” he said.

I smiled, “He’s going to be spoiled, isn’t he?”

“Rotten, my love.” He replied as I laughed.

X

I didn’t realize how nervous I would actually be until we sat down for breakfast. Our morning routine was proceeding as normal—everyone gathering in our grand dining hall, another room I was particularly proud of in the estate. I planned for it to be large enough to fit all of us comfortably, and took extra consideration for the Illyrian brothers and their mighty wings.

I took comfort in seeing everyone in their customary morning moods; Amren and Mor chattering over a new line of jewelry on display at their favorite shop at the Palace of Thread and Jewels, Elain displaying a book of pressed flowers she had been collecting to Azriel—who actually requested to see it the night before, and Nesta keeping a watchful eye on the pair while Cassian engaged her in some kind of boastful conversation. I was actually surprised to see how close they were sitting together without Nesta having a sneer on her face. I tried to remember the last time it was she even looked at him with a sneer at all.

Getting distracted, my love? Rhys asked down the bond.

I glanced at him and took a sip from my glass of orange juice. What, should I just blurt it out while they aren’t paying attention?

Why not?

I paused. Really?

If you don’t, then perhaps I will.

I blinked and opened my mouth to say it, but when the words refused to come out, Rhys grinned mischievously before simply turning in his seat and said, “Feyre darling is pregnant.”

Everyone’s eyes instantly turned to me and I blushed under their collective gaze. There was quiet for little more than two heartbeats before Mor and Elain’s high-pitched squeals met the air and the sounds of chairs scraping the floor filled the room as everyone moved. Mor was the first to reach me as she threw her arms around me in a warm embrace.

“Oh, I knew it, I knew it!” She cheered as she hugged me and my eyes burned as she pulled away, Elain wrapping me in her arms next.

“I can’t believe it, Feyre, you’re going to have a baby!” she exclaimed, and out of the corner of my eye I saw Azriel and Cassian congratulating Rhys with clasps on the shoulder.

I laughed aloud when Cassian wrapped an arm around his shoulder and wrestled him around, “I knew you had it in you Rhysie!” he exclaimed as Azriel nodded his approval.

Just as the shadowsinger turned his attention to me and took a step in my direction to congratulate me, Rhys was out of Cassian’s hold and in his path—blocking him from getting to me with a deadly snarl on his lips.

Cassian barked a laugh and slapped a hand on Rhys’s tense shoulder, “Is this a second version of that mating bond rearing its ugly head?” he taunted.

Before Rhys could turn that snarl towards Cassian, I touched his other shoulder gently in an attempt to calm his feral temper. Almost instantly, he relaxed as his gaze drifted to my stomach and shrugged Cassian’s hand away.

“Madja warned us that this might happen,” I said, “But I’d prefer you two not destroy this room.”

“We can always have it out in the training pit later, Rhysie.” Cassian goaded, cracking his knuckles with a wicked grin.

Rhys squared his shoulders as his hand came to rest on the small of my back, “I’m fine here.”

“A typical male guarding his offspring,” Amren said coolly, and I was grateful for the attempt to lighten the animosity that briefly began to brew. “Congratulations girl. It’s about time our group is graced by a youngling’s presence, it’ll be a welcome change around here.”

“How far along are you?” Nesta asked, and I was surprised to see her standing beside Cassian, not realizing she had made her way over during the hostile interaction with Rhys, instead of attempting to shield Elain.

“Almost three months now,” I answered, my hand coming to rest on my flat stomach. “I found out the day before Starfall.”

“Aha! I told you!” Mor cheered as she turned to Cassian and Azriel.

Cassian swore under his breath and Az dipped his head in acknowledgement, and I balked. “What’re you talking about?”

“We all made a bet on how long it would take for you guys to announce it. I gave it a week, Cass bet two, and Az bet you would be half-way along before you told us. Which means I won!” Mor sang excitedly.

“I lost the minute his darkness over here didn’t shout it from the rooftop after you told him,” Amren revealed nonchalantly, motioning to Rhys.

“Wait, you all knew?” I asked, bewildered.

“Are you kidding? I smelled it on you the minute we came back from the mountains,” Cassian admitted, “I’m surprised Rhys didn’t, with him being your mate and all.”

“To be fair, a part of me did know, but until Feyre was fully aware herself, I wasn’t going to raise any suspicion,” Rhys said nonchalantly, and I could feel his attempt to tame his preternatural instincts in order to avoid giving into Cassian’s baiting.

“So, this wasn’t really news then?” I asked, unable to hide my disappointment.

“It was for me,” Elain interjected, grabbing my hands gently with a smile, “I had no idea, and I’m so happy Feyre.”

“I didn’t know either,” Nesta added, and I was astonished to see a formal look of support on her lovely face.

Elain embraced me again as my eyes burned. They were all happy for us, and as Amren mentioned earlier, a baby would soon be welcomed by everyone here. I tried not to let the tears fall as I imagined my son being held in each of their arms. I sniffed as I stepped back from Elain’s arms and blinked in surprise when I saw Amren, Mor, Azriel and Cassian standing together before me and bowed with their hands over their hearts—just as they had done years ago after Rhys and I were newly mated.

“Our vow of service and protection is extended to the child you carry; our future High Lord of the Night Court.” Mor explained before I could question them.

“Or the future High Lady,” Cassian said with a wink.

I glanced at Rhys as he slid his hand back onto the small of my back, and without the need to communicate through the bond we knew we would keep that revelation a secret.

“This is normally a tradition sworn to the High Lord, but seeing as you are our High Lady, and the one who is actually doing all the work, we pledge our vow to you and your child.” Amren continued.

My heart tightened and my face flushed as they all stood as one, their hands still on their hearts. I captured the image in my mind, imagining what colors of paint I would need later and the exact canvas I would use to commemorate this moment forever. Sworn protectors of the Night.

“Thank you,” I said, my voice still thick with the unshed tears.

Mor grinned and came up to envelop me in another hug, “Your emotions are going to be all over the place now! You don’t have to worry about holding back, we all understand,” she crooned and I laughed with a sob.

“I’ll admit, I’ve never really been around pregnant females outside of the ones in the Illyrian camps, but I’m willing to learn,” Cassian reassured.

“We all are,” Azriel added.

I sniffed and wiped at the few tears that escaped, “I guess we’re all experiencing this for the first time,” I said.

“I’ve at least held a baby before,” Mor said proudly.

“Before it burst into tears and reached back for its mother,” Rhys remarked with a smirk, earning a glare from the golden-haired beauty.

“Hey, I’ve held a baby before,” Cassian defended. “You forget, I’ve taught younglings how to fly. Sometimes that required holding them when they cried.”

“Your idea of holding a youngling included patting them on the back until they calmed and tossing them, sometimes in mid-air,” Azriel smoothly cut in.

“That happened once, and it was an accident!” Cassian barked.

“So, you dropped a baby in mid-air?” Mor asked.

Elain gasped in horror at the thought, causing Amren to burst out laughing and Nesta rolled her eyes as Cassian fumbled over his words to try and defend his actions. I squeezed Rhys’s hand as my heart swelled and his eyes met mine with an easy grin, his free hand coming to rest on my stomach—happy to finally be able to do so in front of everyone. I returned his grin when that familiar glimmer fluttered excitedly beneath his touch, our son happy and no doubt feeling right at home with his family.

[thebigqueer]

fic prompt: a vibey group of friends (all diff aesthetics but they fit) being very swaggy and then they engage in THIEVERY and get away with it like the cool peeps they are - for flavor throw in a bunch of androgyny and no romance but instead they are very good friends

at first i was considering using my OCs but then i remembered that i really wanted to do a fic with the Art Hoes TM so thank you for this perfect prompt (also lakjsdljkdf yes this is very late but in my defense i also could not figure out how to write this one) thanks for the prompt! i hope y’all like this! and, as always: I do no editing on these, so please don’t be too judgmental.

The light overhead flickers, brushing strokes of darkness over the ceiling intermittently. A low hum emanates from the packed freezer, showcasing the variety of expired milk and sweet ice creams. Perhaps they shouldn’t do this to the poor twenty year old at the counter, but in their defense, the cashier seems like they’re too dead to even notice what’s happening. They should really be focused. In the quick flash of darkness, two beings flicker into existence in a corner, shadows coiling like snakes behind them. They balance themselves against the wall to fight off the wave of dizziness and wait for the signal of Lou Ellen. She stands by the candy aisle, browsing through an assortment of teeth-rotting delicacies, all the while brushing her hand over the air to pull them all under the guise of invisibility through the Mist. The beings step into the light once again but there’s no anxiety in doing so; the cashier won’t see them. They whisper past the shelves of snacks and junk food and approach Lou Ellen. Alex pulls out a dark green bag and quietly shifts through the snacks, pushing only his favorite ones into the sack. Nico opens a rip of darkness between the bottom and top shelf and shoves Twizzlers, gummies, and a wide assortment of chocolates in. They’re careful to keep silent; the Mist can only really hide the most bizarre of scenes, most incomprehensible of scenes. It’s not created to hide the image of three shithead teenagers very obviously committing shoplifting. A bead of sweat pops over Lou Ellen’s forehead as she shoves a pack of Starbust into Nico’s rip of darkness. “We’re gonna need to hurry,” she hisses, fingers trembling as she pushes Sour Patch Kids into Alex’s sack. “I don’t know how much longer I can hold it.” Nico sighs as they scrutinize a bottle of Coca-Cola. “I knew I should have brought Hazel with us. She would be able to help you. Sorry, Lou.” “Less talky, more stealy,” Alex mutters, opening his arms wide and shoving almost an entire shelf of candy into the tear of darkness. He fixes Nico with a glare. “Honestly, it’s like none of you have stolen before.” Lou Ellen mutters, “Sorry we haven’t exactly mastered the art of thievery.” “Speak for yourself,” Nico whispers, a smile creeping over his lips. “I’ve had my fair share of thievery when I was rogue.” Finally, when it seems like Alex’s back can’t hold anymore and the ripple of darkness that Nico opened is bursting with stomachache-inducing goodies, the three stop shoving food in. Nico tilts his head and frowns. “I think we have more than we even need.” “It’s fine,” Lou Ellen says, face turning a little red. “We don’t have time to pull it back out. We can just give it to Will and Magnus and Percy and maybe the Stolls. They’ll find a way to sell it off.” Nico snorts, eyes glimmering in amusement. “Can’t believe we’ve become candy dealers.” Alex laughs silently. “Oh, we are so bad. Maggie’s gonna be so scared of me.” Lou Ellen glares at the two of them. “Okay, yes, ha-ha. Can we go now? I’m not sure how much longer I can keep this up.” As if on cue, her eyelids flutter and her hands drop. She sways on her feet and almost collapses, but Alex is there to hold her steady. Lou Ellen wipes her face over her palm. “See? Let’s go.” Alex and Lou Ellen hesitate, watching Nico. But he gazes ahead to the cashier with his eyebrows furrowed as if deep in thought. They pull their hand into their pocket; the clinking sound of money chimes from his pockets. 

Alex raises an eyebrow. “Nico, let’s go.” 

“Hold on.” And before Alex can protest, Nico disappears into a nearby shadow, leaving only the darkness lingering behind them like smoke in the air. Alex’s heart punches against his chest with anxiety. What is wrong with him? he asks himself. Turning abruptly, Alex discovers Nico standing before the cashier, placing a pile of coins over the counter. The cashier doesn’t seem to notice Nico, perhaps fooled by the mist, but he certainly notices the new money appearing before him. His eyes widen in surprise, a panicked look overcoming his face. 

Alex facepalms. “Of course. Nico just has to go ahead and be a noble hero.” He sighs. “At least he’s quiet. Maybe the poor cashier will think it’s just a ghost giving him money.”

But then, right at that moment, Lou Ellen gasps and stumbles to the ground. A large whoosh flows through the convenience store, the sound of the Mist slipping away from her grasp. For a second, everything stills. There’s a tense hestiation in the air, as if everyone’s waiting for something to happen. Alex bites his lip.

And then the cashier screams, pushing against his chair, a look of pure fear erupting in his eyes. Nico’s eyes widen and they step back into the shadows, melting away. A second later, they pop up right next to Alex, skin pale.

He glares. “Is there something-”

Nico shakes his head and pulls a finger to their lips. “Come on, we gotta go,” they whisper. They lean in for Lou Ellen’s arm, who’s panting on the ground, and reach for Alex’s arm with his other hand. Then, before Alex can even process what’s happening, the world melts into darkness. Shadows surround them, licking their bare skin like cold flames. Nothingness surrounds them. Time is nonexistent.

And then they pop up in a cold area, darkness envelops them. The three collapse onto the ground, exhaustion spilling into their bones. 

A figure steps before them, hands on their hips. “Well, look who’s made it to the party.”

~ 

About twenty minutes later, the group has made itself comfortable on the grass of Central Park, scavenging through the loot that Alex, Nico, and Lou Ellen managed to pick up. Midnight bleeds over the sky, the only source of light being the stars that poke through the encompassing darkness. A cool breeze flows past them. Nico lies on their back, staring at the sky, trying to fend off the exhaustion threatening to pull their eyelids down. 

When the three demigods finally came to, Alex had his fair share of scolding: “Are you stupid? Do you realize what you’ve done? We could be caught! Why did you do that? Do you realize what robbing is? Putting money on the counter defeats the entire purpose!” 

It went like that for fifteen minutes, just enough time for Nico to regain his stability and stand. They shrugged and smiled. “Hey, it’s not our fault that the poor dude had nothing going for him. Besides, he’ll forget about it.” Opening a Twizzler packet, the child of Hades smirked and said, “They always do.”

Now, as he and Alex, Hazel, Rachel, and Lou Ellen circle around each other on the grass, all the anxiety of earlier fades away, replaced only by a tranquility. Alex has his arm around Rachel, the two of them munching on some Twix; Hazel leans back on her arms and watches the stars with Nico. Lou Ellen rummages through their candy pile. A comfortable silence surrounds them. 

When Rachel snorts, Nico sits up and offers her a confused look. She laughs. “I can’t believe you really threatened the entire mission. You’ve fought monsters and can’t even rob a store for just candy?” 

“Hey, fuck the rich,” he replies, stealing a gummy from Hazel’s hands. She protests but they ignore her. “The dude deserved some money. He looked like he was barely living.” Raising an eyebrow at Alex, he adds, “And that’s saying something, because we literally have a dead person here.”

“Aren’t we all dead inside, though?” Lou Ellen reasons, frowning.

“Yeah,” Nico agrees, pulling a Twizzler out from a packet next to him. Placing one end to his mouth, he says, “But he looked even more dead than the average person.”

Alex scoffs and leans his head against Rachel’s, the green locks dramatically clashing with her bright red. “As much as I want to agree with you, it was so incredibly stupid.” He lays his palms out in a placating manner. “I mean, yeah, fuck the rich, but... come on. Now the rich are gonna fuck us.” 

Nico shakes his head and chews a piece off the candy, feeling the bland sweetness of the candy sweep over his taste buds. “They won’t see anything. These things usually fix themselves with the Mist. Percy once crashed his stepdad’s car and he got away with it.”

Rachel rolls her eyes. “Yeah, only after he was chased halfway across the country.” 

“Hey, now, no need to get into the specifics.” 

Hazel laughs, her voice tinkling in the eerie quiet. “Can’t believe I’ve got an accomplice for a sibling.” Edging her toe against the grass, she adds, “Almost wish I was there.” 

“Hey, no wishing!” Rachel exclaims, frowning. “You and I had a blast robbing my dad’s car from his house. Let’s not forget that we were the most important mission. We literally got all the tagging supplies.”

“Yeah, but who got all the candy?” Alex asks, raising his eyebrows. “We got the nutritious food for you children. Honestly, Rachel, it’s like I’m the only one who cares about keeping the roof over the house.” 

“Okay, shut up.” Rachel’s fingers clamp over the ground. “Say one more word and I will throw dirt at you.” 

A daring look comes over Alex’s eyes and he raises an eyebrow. “One more word-” 

Rachel throws a fistful of muck against his face and he stumbles backward, spitting and groaning. His laughter echoes, and soon Rachel’s own giggles sprinkle into the air. 

A car blares in the background. Lights from the city blaze against the sky. Streetlamps glimmer over the outskirts of the park. The familiar electricity of New York buzzes in the air, making Nico’s blood simmer with anticipation. Euphoria fizzes within him. It’s something about hanging out with these four that makes their heart pound with excitement, makes their body glow with superfluous joy.

They lie back down again. Grass prickles the back of their head, tickles his bare hands. Laughter continues falling over him in a waterfall of sounds.

They smile. 

[banashee]

Part 14/25 of my second round of @badthingshappenbingo​

please mind the tags and warnings on AO3! This is a heavy one with an open,potentially unhappy ending!

  Entirely useless

 The noise of his own breaking bones will haunt Tony forever.

 The agonizing crumble of small, delicate finger bones under the weight of heavy boots is shooting through his entire arm, and if he wasn’t trying desperately to keep breathing, Tony would have screamed bloody murder. But as it is, gasping like a fish out of water around the piece of dirty cloth they gagged him with, is pretty much all he can do.

 There isn’t even any time to get to terms with the fact that his left hand is now a mangled, broken, painfully throbbing mess. One of the captors steps around him, casually and uncaring like none of this is a big deal at all. He stops just inches away from Tony’s other hand. The threat is clear.

 Tony forces himself to keep calm and       not panic.  

 “So, here is what is going to happen, Stark. You can choose to oblige and build the weapon. You’ll get to keep your other hand, but in exchange, he will suffer for your mistakes. Past, present and future.” The guy nods over to Clint, who is out of it and chained to the ceiling. Despite everything, he seems to be listening to every word he can catch.

 Tony's head snaps around to look at his friend.

 Clint is barely conscious, by some sort of miracle. These bastards have worked him over quite well by now. He is pale, way too pale, and the only patches of skin that are not ghostly white, are the places where blue and black bruises are turning into ugly yellow. Dried up blood is crusted just about everywhere, staining his clothes in way too many places.

 He’s got broken bones in several places and two bullet wounds; only entries, no exits. The bullets are still stuck in his legs, and there is no way of knowing how long he’ll be able to hold on. Clint has lost a lot of blood, and there is no way for him to do anything but take more and more hits. That, and taunting their captors, keeping their attention on him rather than on Tony.

 It’s how Tony managed to secretly build       other things     than requested. He might have gotten away with it if there was no time. But time is, unfortunately, not in their favor here.

 Now, he’s paying the price. His broken hand is still throbbing painfully.

 Despite everything, Clint is eerily calm. Maybe he is just out of it from pain and blood loss, which is entirely possible, but there are moments where he seems to be more alert. It is unnerving, but necessary to survive this sort of situation as often as he has.

 His eyes meet Tony for a moment, and despite everything, there is determination in the archers gaze. He can’t talk, or sign - neither of them can right now. But they have known each other for long enough and well enough to know what they would say.

     ‘Stay alive.’  

 The masked man in front of Tony moves, just a bit, but it is enough to interrupt the eye contact between the captives. There is no way this isn't deliberate.

 “One wrong move, one single attempt to do anything else than ordered, and you can say goodbye to your other hand. After that, you will watch me blow your friend’s brain out of his skull. Is that clear?”

 It’s painfully easy, and yet, it works.

 Tony swallows a thick lump, and if there was any way he could kill these men quickly enough to get away with it, one handed or not, he would. He would do it in a heartbeat.

     -  

     The really sad part is, this mess isn’t even part of their mission. Not even remotely. But as it happens, like it does way too often for their taste, they are in the wrong place at the wrong time. Suddenly Tony finds himself attacked from behind. Inwardly cursing himself that he doesn’t wear his suit, he starts throwing punches. He does so out of sheer instinct, but his efforts are entirely useless. Whoever is behind him just grabs him, effectively holding his arms locked behind his back. Cold metal is shoved around them - handcuffs. As they close, it pinches some of his skin because whoever does it clearly doesn’t care if they hurt him.  

     Then, he finds himself pushed forward and stuffed into the trunk of a car.  

     Only a split second later, a sharp elbow collides with his guts and Tony can barely swallow the bile that rises up his throat  

     .“What the - oof!”  

     “    Fuck      .”  Clint’s curse is short but passionate.    

     He is right on top of Tony now, their bodies pushed uncomfortably against one another in the cramped space. As soon as the trunk closes over them, everything goes dark around them. This looks bad, really bad.  

     “Did you see their faces?” Clint asks, whispering just loud enough for Tony to catch it. He can feel him shake his head against him.  

     “No. You?”  

     “One, but only for a second. I don’t know who he is.” And this of all things, bugs him the most. They know nothing about their captors.  

     The drive takes hours - or at least, it feels like it does. It might very well be that these bastards take turns and drive in circles just to throw them off, making it impossible to trace the way.  

     In the privacy of his own head, Tony keeps repeating as much of it as he can, taking note of every turn and the time passing in between. He knows that Clint is doing the same, entirely silent just like him. It is a useful skill to have, exactly for cases like this one, but the way is so long and impossibly erratic - there is no way they don’t do it on purpose.  

     They only stop twice, for roughly twenty seconds - whether that is for a reason or just another ploy to confuse them, they wouldn’t be able to tell.  

     Occasionally, their hands brush over whatever they can reach of each other. It’s a quiet, solid comfort. It’s not the first sticky situation they’ve found themselves in together, and knowing their luck, it certainly won’t be their last.  

     “We can do this, shit happens.” Neither of them says it out loud, but the sentiment is clear.  

     When the car stops again, the trunk is pulled open so suddenly and violently, the light blinds both Clint and Tony for long enough to be distracting.  

     “Shit!”  

     “Ah! Motherfucker!”  

     Wíth much less coordination than he usually would have, Clint tries to attack whoever is closest. He kicks out, hard, and his booted foot collides with something soft and probably human.  

     The guy cries out of pain, but before he can react, one of the others fires his gun twice - both bullets find their target, and Clint folds in half. Both shots hit him in the legs, and there is no way for him to walk any more, let alone attack. His hands are still cuffed, and there is no way he could free himself fast enough without causing more damage or making the situation worse - at least, they haven’t shot at Tony. Clint refuses to think the word “yet” at the end, even in the privacy of his own head.  

             There is barely any time to react, anyway, because they are being held down, blindfolded and gagged with reeking, old fabric. It makes him want to hurl, and the touch itself is cold, uncaring and efficient.  

     These men aren’t some fumbling idiots, they’re professionals.  

     As much as Tony wants to lash out at them, he doesn’t. If they want a way to get out of this, he’ll have to be the one to take care of it. His only hope is that Clint won’t bleed out until then, and that he can find out what they even want from him.  

     -  

 The masked man is still waiting for an answer, and he starts pulling a knife from his belt.

 “Answer. Or we’ll start this all over.”

     ‘How the fuck am I supposed to talk when you gagged me, you asshole?!’    Tony thinks, and glares at their captor for just a split second, then his head nods over to the table where, up until a few hours ago, they had forced him into work on the weapon they wanted. Or, at least they thought it to be a weapon - Tony had managed to bullshit his way through it for way, way longer than he originally thought he’d get away with, hoping to hold them off for long enough until they either find a way to escape or until help arrives.

 Unlucky for them, their captors are not nearly as clueless about the technology as he’d hoped.

 As a result, they decided to wreck his hand and threaten Clint. It always goes like this, does it?

 “Do what we tell you to or we’ll kill your friend.”

 It’s the most uncreative, yet most useful threat in existence, and Tony hates them for it. He hates them with everything he’s got.

 His broken hand is throbbing as Tony cradles it close to his chest, trying to breathe through the pain. With a mouthful of bile, Tony stands in front of the desk and stares down on it without really seeing anything.

  One of the captors stands behind him, close enough for him to feel the hot, stinking breath in the back of nis neck. This is almost worse than the nozzle of the gun that is pressed against his head. If he were to look up - he doesn’t dare risk it - he would see that they’re doing the same to Clint.

 He is no longer awake, a dead weight in the chains that hold him up. It must be painful, it must be dislocating his joints. There is a fresh tickle of blood on the side of his head, dripping to the dirty concrete floor beneath him.

     ‘I will find a way out. I don’t know how, but I’ll get us out of here.’     Tony keeps thinking this over and over again, a feverish mantra hammering against his skull from the inside.

 He hopes and wishes, with everything he’s got, that it’ll be enough.

    *+~

Prompt: Hand Stomp

                             Notes:  

Warnings: - Blood, violence, torture - graphic desciption of broken bones - kidnapping, hostage situation - gun violence - threatened murder of a friend

[setsuna-maru]

Chapters: 3/? Fandom: InuYasha - A Feudal Fairy Tale, 半妖の夜叉姫 | Hanyou no Yashahime | Yashahime: Princess Half-Demon (Anime) Rating: Explicit Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings Relationships: Rin/Sesshoumaru (InuYasha) Characters: Rin (InuYasha), Sesshoumaru (InuYasha), Zero (Hanyou no Yashahime), Riku (Hanyou no Yashahime), Jaken (InuYasha) Additional Tags: Pre-Hanyou no Yashahime, Canon-Typical Violence, Established Relationship, Dreams and Nightmares, Angst, Pregnancy, Horror Elements Summary:

Rin and Sesshoumaru have embarked on the life of expectant parents to hanyo twins but not everyone is happy for the devoted couple. In the shadows awaits a spider whose venomous bite will both rekindle old nightmares and create entirely new ones.

Zero, still resentful from the Inu no Taisho's rejection and death hundreds of years earlier, schemes to bring down his son Sesshoumaru and his human bride.

All the while, the ill-fated pair will make the most of their fleeting time together, forging a unique path and dancing to their own rhythm.

Chapter 1: the night bandits/venus; the star love, who waits for the moon

nocturne one: the night bandits

(in the darkest point of night, I want you to be here like before...)

 It’s as though Rin has been sent back in time, for she finds herself walking around her old village; a small child once again. She's having trouble coming to terms with the sudden reversal. Looking down at her body she sees tiny, bare feet and a distinct lack of womanly curves. Her kimono is one she remembers well but hasn't worn in many years. A pinkish-red garment that wraps around her lithe, diminutive frame as she brushes her now child-sized hands across it in confusion and disbelief. Her view of her surroundings is that of a child’s too; once more knee-high to the rest of the world, she must gaze upwards at seemingly everyone and everything she comes across. 

  This isn't right  , she thinks. We're all those years just a dream? Had she never really grown up? Had  Sesshoumaru-sama  been merely a dream? All of her adventures? The time spent living with Kaede-sama in the miko's village? It's heartbreaking to think that the entire life that she lived since leaving this place might never have actually happened at all. She wonders, sadly,  what about her babies? An expectant mother—the last she remembered—at the age she's regressed to, motherhood could be enacted only with dolls and her own imagination.

 She idly wanders the village, re-visiting all the old landmarks of her childhood. She passes the paddy fields, the fish preserve, the drunken old hermit who always sat beside the same rock with a bottle of sake clutched in his hand. When he drank he liked to sing songs about the good old days and he sings the same one each time she passes. “ That’s the sound of a million ships/ just sailin’ away/it can feel like before/comin’ through, either way.”  At one point, Rin even comes upon the dilapidated shack that she'd lived in after becoming an orphan. She enters it and there’s a wolf, curled up asleep on her bed of straw and she swiftly but silently backs away until she’s on the main pathway again.

 She remembers how to get to her childhood home; knows the path like the back of her hand. She chooses to avoid it; backtracking or taking a sudden swing in the opposite direction when she realizes she’s getting too close. It’s as if returning there would mean accepting that her life since the death of her family had been nothing more than an illusion. She’s not ready for that. She’s still in denial, thinking that if she turns the right corner she’ll end up back under a tree; her head in Sesshoumaru’s lap, their hanyo twins growing in her womb. It’s as if the village itself is waiting on her to accept her retrogradation; the villagers do not speak to her or seem to even acknowledge that she’s there. It’s like she’s caught in some strange limbo; unable to rejoin this world but prevented from moving on. She floats through the village like a spirit who does not belong there anymore. A stranger in a body she can't accept as her own; merely the puppeteer of it's bird-like, underdeveloped limbs.

 Eventually, the world gets tired of waiting for her while she wanders around in circles and Rin is deposited into her childhood home. She had taken a left at the singing hermit (“ That’s the sound of a million ships/just sailin’ away/it can feel like before/comin’ through, either way.”) and walked directly into the cozy wooden house of her youth. Her mother is sitting in the middle of the room,  tending to the fire pit. Her brothers play a game in the corner. Her father has dozed off on the straw mat, exhausted after a long day.

 Her mother adds another log to the burning flames and addresses her daughter. “Rin, don’t be lazy. You’ve been mucking around for years now. Enough is enough. Come help your  Oka .”

 Rin’s cheeks flushed in embarrassment. Her mother  knew; knew Rin had been gone for  years. How could she have let her mother think she’d abandoned the family like that? What kind of daughter was she? Why would she ever—

  None of this makes any sense. She’d had every reason to believe that her family were dead and gone forever. She’d  watched  them die. It had seemed so real; her most painful memory. The one that had continued to haunt her for long after. She'd watched these people  die  but here they were, nonetheless.

 She looks at her now-living family and wants to feel happy. That horrible night; the screaming, the stabbing, the blood—It had all been just some terrible dream. And now, they’ve been given a second chance. She could look forward to the future where her family was alive and they could all be together again.

 But, despite telling herself this, Rin can’t muster up a single feeling of happiness at the sight in front of her. It was like looking at ghosts. Ghosts that don’t even realize they’re ghosts.

  Dead dead dead.  All of you are  dead, she thinks.

 A bright, orange light starts to emit from outside. Rin turns around. There’s light emitting from the lone window at the front wall and from a bright square that has formed around the doorway.  She goes over and pushes the doorway curtain aside to see what’s going on but the light is so bright it nearly blinds her. She reaches an arm up to cover her eyes as she lets the curtain fall.

 When she opens her eyes again, everything is dark. She's still in her family's old house but it’s almost pitch-black and she struggles to make out the forms of her parents and brothers, asleep under their covers. The orange glow begins to peek through the window again and the room is gradually illuminated with the color—the color of flames, she realizes.

 Against the far wall, the orange light begins to morph into distinctive shapes. Hulking men in armor with weapons in their grasps. Behind her she can hear the stomping of horse hoofs and the cries of the neighbors. The orange glow illuminates the entire room now, in a mockery of daylight. The light is oppressive and overly luminescent and makes it seem as though the house could explode into flames at any second.

 The stomping noise is now dangerously close and Rin dives out of the path of the doorway moments before men on horseback crash through the front wall of the house. It's instant chaos as the horses neigh loudly, the men shout and her family screams as they scramble out of bed.

 Rin’s only instinct is to escape. It makes her feel like a terrible coward but she knows she'll surely be killed if she stays. The bandits have already started on her parents. One of them roughly grabs her mother, yanking off the kimono she'd been sleeping under and stabbing her with a long spear. The painful howls emitting from her mother’s mouth are even more awful to hear than the sight is to witness.

 She needs to get away. Praying the chaos will be enough to allow her to get out of the house unnoticed, she props herself up on her hands and knees and crawls as quickly and quietly as she can to the doorway. As soon as she makes it outside, she climbs to her feet and breaks into a run.

 Her escape doesn't bring safety though. It did, once. In a memory she no longer trusts was ever real.

 The bandits are everywhere. 

 There's no direction she can run to avoid them. While she stands immobile in the middle of the village, desperately considering her dwindling options, the bandits begin to notice her. They point and yell. "The little girl, let's take her too!"

 "Grab her before she gets away!"

 "Kill her if she tries to resist!"

 "Kill her anyway!"

 They begin to advance on her and Rin can think of only way she could possibly be saved.

 "Sesshoumaru-sama!" She screams. But it's too early. He doesn't know her yet. If he ever really existed at all. If he wasn't just a dream she'd made up in her mind.

 "Sesshoumaru-sama!" She screams again. She screams his name over and over again until she feels the bandits blade in her side and the moist flow of blood as it drips down her skin.

 tarantella one: venus; the star love, who waits for the moon

(when you go, do you miss me?)

 Rin's eyes snap open and in her first few manic moments of consciousness, Rin bolts to a sitting position and pulls her kimono up to examine her leg. The sensation of something wet on her thigh is still there. A quick exploration with her fingers confirms this and her heart drops. She pushes more of the fabric out of the way to get a better view and her eyes land on the trail of blood running down her leg.

  Real, real, it was real, she thinks as she frantically searches for a wound. Something had really hurt her,  stabbed her,  and now she was going to bleed out on the forest floor. In her distressed state, she ignores what should be the curious lack of pain if she had indeed suffered a flesh wound. Instead, she continues to look for evidence of the deep cut she’s convinced is somewhere on her body.

 "Rin," a low, deep voice breaks into her panicked thoughts.

 "Calm yourself.” Sesshoumaru leans down on one knee beside her, his clawed hand coming to cradle her chin.

 “The bleeding just started. I smelled it and was about to wake you." The voice is measured but laced with concern. She was one of the few people who have recognized the nuance.

 It’s such a relief for Rin to hear that voice. Just hearing his voice and being in his presence grounds her and she allows herself to accept that the experience had only been a nightmare and she's now safely back in the real world.

 She  was  bleeding, though. Rin examines her leg closer. She's calmer now but still disorientated from the nightmare. Not completely back to reality just yet.

 "Rin was having a nightmare," she says. "Someone stabbed me in my leg. There was so much blood," she explains.

 "There's no wound," Sesshoumaru reassures her. "It was just a dream. The bleeding; it’s from your cycle.” His keen sense of smell meant he could accurately judge the difference.

 She gulped nervously. “Do you think the babies are alright?”

 “It’s probably nothing to worry about,” he reassures her again, although they’re both well aware that he’s hardly an expert in the subject.

 This isn’t the first time this has happened to her. Rin had been a midwife-in-training and knew that women were supposed to cease bleeding during pregnancy, so when she’d bled the first time after knowing she was with child she’d panicked, believing she was having a miscarriage. Sesshomaru had had to rush her to the nearest human village so she could be told by a jaded local midwife with an obvious distaste for human-yokai relations that she hadn’t suffered a miscarriage. Apparently, continuing to bleed even while pregnant was normal and didn’t necessarily indicate a problem. Though, even with this information, Rin still found herself becoming anxious each time it happened subsequently.

 “Rin is going to the pond to clean up,” she says, rising to her feet. “Will you wait here until I come back?” Her nightmare had greatly disturbed her and she really doesn’t want to return to find herself alone.

 Sesshoumaru nodded and Rin began to walk toward the pond. Another stream of blood rolls down the length of her thigh and she holds her kimono and her underlayer up and away from her body. They were already slightly bloodied and she doesn’t want to risk staining them further.

 It’s still very early in the morning. The sun has yet to come up and Rin has to strain her eyes to tell where she's going and walk slowly so she won’t trip over anything. Treading barefoot across the lush field at such an ethereal hour, she’s able to relax slightly. The stark, cool sensation of dewy blades of grass catching between her toes is refreshing compared to the warm, sticky blood that drips down her legs.

 Rin wonders if the nightmares about her family’s death will ever go away completely. They had become significantly less frequent over the years and she’d gotten to the point where she could go months without having one at all. But they always returned. There seemed to be no comfort in the entire world, not even the devotion of Sesshoumaru-sama himself, that could keep them at bay.

 She reached the pond and stripped off her kimono, leaving herself clad only in her hadajuban. She carefully rinses the blood out of the cloth and then sets it aside. Splashing some of the pond water onto her legs, Rin cleans the sticky liquid from her skin. Once she finishes, she picks up her kimono and begins to walk back before pausing to admire the sky. Dawn would be breaking soon; the first hints of sunlight were peeking out over the horizon, leaving only the brightest stars still visible.

 “Beautiful, isn’t it,” a man’s voice, unfamiliar to her ears, breaks into her reverie.

 Rin jumps a little, startled. She’d had no idea anyone else was even out there. Even though it’s still quite dark, she pulls her dampened kimono back on. It would be improper for a married woman like herself to be seen in her hadajuban by someone who wasn’t her husband. Once she’s convinced she’s decent enough, she darts her head around in search of the voice's origin. Blinking into the fading darkness, she spots a figure perched atop a rock at the edge of the pond.  Had that person been there the entire time?

 Rin could just make out the man’s appearance. He was fairly tall, with chin-length hair and wearing a dark kosode under a lighter colored haori and a pair of striped hakama. Despite addressing her, the man wasn’t looking towards her. Instead, his gaze was fixed on the lightening sky.

 “That bright planet that hangs up there on early mornings like this; do you know the name of it?” he asks her.

 Rin looks back to the sky, where one star burned bigger and brighter than any of the others.

 “Oh,” she says, “‘that’s ‘the metal star’ isn’t it?” That was the name that Rin had known it by, although Miroku-sama had told them other names for it he had been aware of, like Jīn-xīng and Shukra Graha.

 “Venus; the morning star,” the man says, eyes transfixed on the celestial object in question.  “The star of love.”

 Rin was intrigued by the man’s description. She could understand why it would be called ‘the morning star’ but...

 “Why, ‘the star of love?’”

 “There exists a far-off land called Rome,” he tells her, “where they ‘do as the Romans do’ as they say!” He says this with a laugh but Rin doesn’t get the reference and isn’t sure what about it is supposed to be funny.

 “The ancient Romans worshipped Venus as their goddess of love and named the brightest star in the sky in her honor.”

 “Ah!” he continues, “but the Romans aren’t the only ones who associate this star with love. Travel west towards the continent and you’ll find those who refer to it by two names; sao Mai, the morning star and sao Hôm, the evening star. Because they’re considered distinct entities, existing at different times, they’re likened to separated lovers. They also have another word for the same star, sao Vượt—The climbing star.”

 The sky was becoming lighter and lighter as the man talked and Rin could make out his physical appearance more clearly now. He looked young and not really like any human Rin had encountered, with his auburn-colored hair. But he didn’t look like a yokai either. Perhaps he was a traveling foreigner; it would explain how he knew so much about far-away lands and cultures.

 “The climbing star?” she inquires.

 The man nods. “They have a poem about it; ‘When you go, do you miss me? I am the climbing star waiting for the moon in the sky .’”

 “That’s beautiful,” Rin says. It reminds her of a song she used to sing.  ‘I will wait, all alone/For Sesshoumaru-sama’s return.’

 That was what she was, Rin thinks. A climbing star. A morning star. Venus, with all her love, who waits for her evening moon.

 “It is?” the man asks. “Beautiful?”

 “Yes,” Rin nods. “It reminds me of a song I used to sing.”

 “Oh?” he says, finally turning to look at her. There’s a peculiar expression on his face. “What did it sound like—Your song?”

 Rin feels a sudden sense of unease at the tone in his voice.

 “Was it…” he hums a brief melody, “the sound of a million ships, just sailing away… ”

 Rin can feel her heart sink. She  knows  she’s heard that before. But  where had she heard that before? It sounded so familiar to her but try as she might, she just couldn’t place it. She racks her brain, trying to come up with the memory.

 The man continues to stare at her, vacantly. All the friendliness from before has been drained away.

 “Rin,” Sesshoumaru’s voice says from behind her. “Is this man bothering you?”

 Rin turns around to see him standing there, eyes slightly narrowed.

 “No, Sesshoumaru-sama, everything is fine. This man was just telling Rin about—”

 She turns back to the mysterious stranger but there’s no one perched atop the rock and the man is nowhere to be seen.

[sevenincubistolemyheart]

Tainting Purity

Au: Demon Au!

Tag list: @bangtans-apollo @xsmilebitesx @wilhelminalucinda @xsunnyhoseokx @okgoogul @mariacorbi @spiritualotaku @littlekitten8590  @felic-ci  @saturated-pink  @fckyouartclass  @saraisthoughts

Rating: I’m gonna stay safe and say M for this entire series!

Summary: If someone told you that demons would be an everyday part of society a month ago you would have called them crazy.  But now that they actually were, you were surprised to find them much more docile than you would’ve initially assumed. In fact, it was the Humans who were hurting them, more often than not. So when you get fed up and stand up for an innocent demon being attacked, you shouldn’t have been so surprised when your own species turned on you, including your own parents, and left you to fend for yourself. Luckily, the newly made treaty calls for a Human to live with demons if there’s 5 or more, and so, you’re now rooming with 7 demons. But not just any kind of demons. Incubi. Your life has suddenly just gotten a whole lot more interesting.

Potential triggers: Mentions of being turned on and other sexual topics, as in this au the boys are all incubi. Brief cursing, kinks including a bit of thigh riding, oral fixation, and a fair amount of dirty talk. I’m gonna go ahead and add dubious consent as well.

Pairing: BTS x Reader/OT7 x Reader

Genre: Supernatural, Drama, Romance, Angst, Fluff, Hurt & Comfort

Length: 6.2k

To say that demons were not very accepted when they came out was an understatement.

People were understandably terrified, and there was a lot of questions to be had. The demons, to their credit, were actually very accommodating. They'd been sent up here to gauge our reactions to them, and were to live here. They explained the different types, because yes, different types existed. From Incubi to Fallen Angels to Ifrits.

According to the demons, the rest were merely grunts, soldiers with supernatural abilities. As for Lucifer, and where religion fit in with all of this, the man who asked found himself pinned by the throat with the warning to never ask again. That was the one question they vehemently refused to acknowledge. They wouldn't even say if angels or God existed at all.

As for you? You actually thought it was some elaborate hoax at first. You'd always believed in the Supernatural, very strongly in fact, but the idea that demons suddenly just decided to reveal themselves was just too unbelievable. Until you saw their powers first hand, anyway. When you saw fire burst forth from an ifrits hand right before your eyes to light his cigarette, it hit you all at once.

This was real.

It took you a few more days to fully come to terms with it of course. You did a lot of research and unfortunately weren't surprised to find many hate-based groups, determined to hate them in the name of “good” or “God”. Many protests and fights had broken out, both from demons, fed up from being discriminated against and Humans, scared of the unknown and in defense of beliefs that were now called into question.

But in addition to the hateful people, there was another group that fetishized them, especially the succubi and incubi. Since they fed on sexual energy, it was often a win-win but some of them were disgusted by it. After being the ones to use Humans and manipulate them for millennia, it just wasn't the same to have themselves be used as sex objects. Others still, felt it was a give and take, and many incubi and succubi liked it that way, rather than merely being used for their abilities. Many found amusement in it, but the ones that didn’t were often shunned by the fetishists just as much as those that hated them.

Then, of course, there was the largest group, made up of the ones that were afraid or caught in the middle, unsure of what to believe, and how to act around these new, intimidating creatures we’d all been taught to fear. Eventually, a representative stepped forward for the demons, and talks began with the united nations. Experiments were shot down, immediately, but low-grade demons who underestimated what Human technology was capable of were sometimes able to be subdued. Sex trafficking was a booming market for demon slaves. Sometimes, demons turned and helped Humans capture them, either for their own safety or even for food, in the case of Nogtisunes.

Eventually, a compromise was reached. The demons would not kill any Humans, and only fight back if genuinely threatened, and the Humans wouldn't exclude them from establishments or try to harm them. Needless to say, both sides weren’t exactly happy with the arrangement, especially the Humans, and the law was frequently broken.

You were on your way to your favorite cafe to meet up with your parents for a late brunch when you saw it happen. There was a person being kicked and attacked by a group of surrounding people, men, and female alike. You stood in shock for a moment, surprised that people were walking past this like nothing was happening before you huffed and sprang into action, pushing past the people forcefully and standing in front of the person to shield them. “What the fuck is wrong with all of you!? Who do you think you are to pick on this innocent-” You checked behind you at the male struggling to get to his feet. “Boy?”

A boisterous male stepped forward and shouted at you.

“Boy? As if! That thing’s a beast in Human form, it deserves nothing but the pain and suffering they gave us for so many years!”

You looked over as you felt a hand on your shoulder, gently pulling you back a bit, seeing the bloodied male rising to his feet. He spat some blood out of his mouth and grinned at the man. “Actually, my kind gave you nothing but pleasure. Just because you get off on inflicting pain on others, doesn’t mean we all do.” He said cheekily, eyes glinting as the man’s face turned a brilliant shade of red. You gasped pulling him behind you in panic as the man lunged. “Watch out!” You winced as the hit of the man's fist met your stomach, doubling over in pain as he scoffed.

“You stupid bitch! Why would you stand up for this disgusting creature?”

You rolled your eyes, even as you grit your teeth at the pain, forcing yourself to stand up straight again, even as your stomach pulsed in pain. “The only disgusting creature I see is standing right in front of me. This incubus didn’t do a damn thing wrong, and you had no right to assault him like this!!” You hissed at him in return, eyes alight with anger.

“Jungkook! There you are!”

You looked up towards the unfamiliar voices only to gasp as you were violently pulled into the crowd by your hair. You tried to get free but heard a voice you knew all too well scoff. “Can’t believe I actually raised a filthy monster fucker.” You wretched yourself away from the hand even though you lost some of your hair with a pain that had your eyes tearing.

“Dad!? I know you don’t like demons, but abusing them when they haven’t done anything to deserve it is wrong! The treaty was made for a reason!!” You said back coldly. “And I’m not “fucking” any of them, I just have the basic common sense to know that hurting anyone innocent, whether demon or Human is wrong. I thought you did too. Clearly, I was wrong.”

You turned towards your Mother, expecting her to be on your side as she typically was only to find her looking on in terror at something behind you. You turned and watched in awe as the injured boy, Jungkook’s wound healed, despite being openly bleeding when you’d jumped in to help him.

“Leave, and never come back.”

You abruptly turned back to look at your Mother in total shock, eyes wide at her quiet words.

“W-What?”

She shouted then, voice louder than you’d ever heard it. “I said leave! You’re no longer welcome in our household! I can't believe my own flesh and blood would betray her own species like this!! If I ever see your face again I’ll personally make sure you regret it!” She stormed off with your father in tow as you stared at the spot she’d once occupied, numb with shock and fear slowly creeping in.

“She’s right! You’re on your own now little girl, and you deserve the same as the filthy monster you stupidly tried to protect.” The few remaining people of the mob turned their attention to you, and you couldn’t even find the strength to bring your arms up to try and protect yourself as another boy lunged at you, about your age.

“That’s where you’re wrong.” A deep voice spoke from behind you, close enough that you could feel the warmth of his skin as he held the boy's wrist in an ever-tightening grip beside your face. He must’ve stopped the boy before he could hit you.

Another voice spoke up to your right.

“Try and hurt her again, any of you, and you’ll never get off again, got it?” This voice spoke in a cheerful, more high pitched tone, and you turned to look at him, causing the shortest male of the bunch to smile kindly at you. You finally processed what was happening and backed up further, going towards the group of incubi and sighing in relief as they circled around you protectively. You mumbled a “thank you” but you saw Jungkook nod out of the corner of your eye, so clearly he at least heard you.

The attackers were clearly on edge now at the shortest boy’s threat and reluctantly backed off though not before shouting at you one more time. “That’s right you filthy whore, run back to your demonic sex toys!”

One of the boys huffed a breathless chuckle and you could’ve sworn his eyes flashed fully black before he snapped his fingers and hissed back to the boy spitefully. “Have fun trying to cum now you little shit!”

This was all a lot to take in and you were starting to feel a bit lightheaded, as it all hit you.

“Hey, Seokjin hyung, are Humans supposed to be that pale?”

You shook your head, trying to clear your mind and get your bearings as you groped for something to hold onto, taking a deep breath to keep calm as your hand was guided to a muscular arm which you squeezed gratefully. Eventually, you managed to come back to yourself fully, and blinked a few times, thankful you could see properly without the world spinning as it had been.

Once you looked around you flushed as you realized the men who’d stood up for you earlier were now observing you intently. You looked to your right and quickly released the tall boy beside you’s arm, blushing further in embarrassment. “I’m so sorry! I just got a bit dizzy is all.” You apologized to him, sheepishly rubbing the back of your neck.

He smiled at you, but it seemed forced. Your attention was brought to the one you now know was Jungkook as he bounded confidently over to you. “Thank you for standing up for me. I can definitely make it up to you…” His voice trailed off into a seductive growl that had you swallowing, and you stepped back in surprise as his nimble fingers briefly slipped beneath your t-shirt to skim your bare sides, making you jump away. “AGH, n-no that’s really not necessary!!” You squeaked out nervously.

You gasped sharply as you felt someone nibble playfully on your sensitive earlobe from behind, and you quickly surmised it was your savior from earlier, as his deep voice clued you in. “Oh, but we really wouldn’t mind princess. It’d be our pleasure, and yours too if your currently soaking panties are anything to go by~” He purred in your ear, grinning as you wrenched yourself away from him and put a bit of a distance between you and the other boys, suddenly dizzy for a much different reason.

“That’s enough, I mean it!” Your voice cracked and you nervously avoided their gaze, not used to boys being so...direct like this. It was flustering beyond belief, and if you were being 100% honest with yourself, hot as Hell. You finally looked up and felt another rush of pleasure go through you at the sight of one of them tonguing the inside of his cheek as he looked you up and down. His intense gaze suddenly met yours and he smirked, causing you to blush a darker shade of red as you ducked your head once again.

“I-I don’t even know all of your names.” You pointed out meekly, hating how submissive these 7 men were making you feel with just brief touches and looks.

The one whose arm you’d been clinging to snorted in amusement at your dazed state but obliged you nonetheless, with a simple nod. “Fair enough then. I’m Kim Namjoon.” He motioned to his friend beside him and he took over with a grin. “I’m Kim Seokjin!” He blew a kiss your way and chuckled as you looked away shyly. “The name’s Yoongi, Min Yoongi.” Your attention was brought to the person who spoke and you found it was the one who’d cursed the boy earlier. “Hello!! I’m Park Jimin, and you don’t need to be so shy cutie!” He giggled as you smiled his way, realizing he was the other one who had stood up for you. “I’m Jeon Jungkook, though I think you know that by now.” The youngest spoke up with a smirk.

“Aww you’re so adorable!!” you tensed before forcing yourself to relax under the sudden attack hug, returning it before he pulled back. “Hi!” He chirped. “My name’s Jung Hoseok, but you can call me Hobi if you want!” His cheerfulness did wonders or your nerves and you found yourself smiling back as you nodded, stepping back and turning to face the last boy in the bunch. He looked you up and down slowly before he chuckled in that deep voice of his. “Kim Taehyung, but you can just call me Tae sweetheart.” The way that nickname sounded coming from him was not helping your arousal and judging from the way his smirk widened, you guessed he knew quite well what effect his words were having on you.

You waved quickly, offering them a smile, along with your name even as you were trying not to clench your thighs and give away how truly horny you were. “I really should be going but I’m glad I could hel-” You were abruptly cut off by Yoongi.

“Going where, exactly? We all saw what happened back there, do you have a place to stay?”

You winced at the blunt reminder but hesitantly shook your head. “Well, no, but I’m sure I’ll find someplace!” You scrambled for an excuse to leave, trying to brush it off but Jungkook intercepted your path before you could go any further. “I can’t just throw you into the streets after you stood up for me, and lost your home because of helping me. Please, come stay with us.”

You opened your mouth to protest but Seokjin spoke up before you could. “We need a Human anyway. You may not know this since it wouldn’t affect a Human such as yourself, but in the fine print of the treaty, it was made clear that groups of 5 or more demons need to have a Human live with them if they want to obtain lodgings. They...heh.” He shook his head with a sarcastic snicker. “They don’t trust us demons as it is, and they don't like the idea of us banding together without Human supervision.”

You saw Namjoon roll his eyes at that, and you mulled it over. You checked your phone and quickly came to the conclusion that you didn’t have much choice. You were just about to start college, and you’d dropped out of contact with your high school friends after you’d graduated so it wasn’t as if you had many options. “Well...alright, fine. But we’ll need to set some ground rules when we get to the house, okay?”

Namjoon spoke up with a nod. “Sure, that’s fine. C’mon, you can just sit on someone’s lap in the back of the car.” He said casually, beginning to lead the way. On the way Hoseok slung his arm around your shoulder once again, making you notice he was quite the touchy-feely type, not that you minded. He was pouting though, which made you tilt your head in confusion. “Something wrong Hobi?” He seemed to perk up a bit at the nickname and nodded, if a bit nervously. “Well...why do you want to set rules? Do...Do you not trust us?” His voice is quiet, but resigned, like this is something he was used to.

Your eyes widen in surprise and you look up to see the others, while still walking, had an ear tilted towards your conversation. “Is that what you guys think? Oh my God, no, nothing like that! It’s just because there’s 7 of you guys and 1 of me. Plus, even though I know a little about demons and such, I really don’t know too many specifics. I didn’t even realize you guys were incubi until Jungkook pointed out that one guy was a sadist. You are all incubi, right?”

You jumped back as you accidentally bumped into Seokjin’s back as they’d all stopped out of the blue.

“What’s-?”

Your mouth went dry as you saw every one of them glaring at you intensely.

“You want to make rules? Fine, here’s the first one. Never say that name in our presence again. Got it?” Seokjin’s voice was a low rumble, a clear warning held within his words as he looked you up and down.

It took you a moment to put it together before your eyes widened and you nodded in understanding. Of course they wouldn’t want to hear God’s name come from your lips...they were demons after all. “Sorry I really wasn’t thinking…” You mumbled, shrinking beneath their gaze. At your frightened form, the boys all softened a bit, and Hobi squeezed your shoulder reassuringly, as Jimin spoke up to the left of you.

“No worries sweetheart, we just really don’t like hearing that name. Especially from those that belong to us. It may not make sense to you as a Human, but it brings out the worst parts of all of us when we hear it. The last thing we want to do is lash out at you when you haven’t truly done anything wrong.”

Namjoon piped up from aways in front of you as you all began walking again. “Anyway, to answer your last question...yes, we’re all incubi. We have a few friends who are other species but the 7 of us like to stick to each other most of the time. Safety in numbers and all that. Not to mention the amount of trouble some of our other kind cause.” He said conversationally.

You nodded in understanding and got lost in your thoughts as the boys bantered between each other. Your arousal was finally calming down to your utter relief, and you jumped in surprise as Taehyung waved his hand in front of your eyes, an amused grin tugging at his lips as he startled you. “Sorry for frightening you, but we’re here and you didn’t hear us calling you...” He chuckled.

You smiled apologetically as you shook your head to shake away your leftover thoughts, laughing sheepishly. “Sorry about that guys, guess I’ve got a lot on my mind. Where should I sit again?” You asked, feeling shy all over again as you remembered you’d need to sit on someone’s lap so there’d be enough room.

3 voices overlapped as they spoke at the same time. “You can sit with me!” Jimin chirped, while Jungkook leered at you. “My lap’s always open for you angel~” He purred with a smirk, and the irony of him calling you angel after just telling you not to say God in their presence wasn't lost on you. Taehyung meanwhile, looked you over unashamedly, before he shrugged. “Whatever will make you more comfortable.”

Seokjin huffed at the three youngest. “You three are shameless. Give the poor girl a second to breathe, she just calmed down.”

Jungkook’s smirk only widened and he met your eyes when his tongue darted out to wet his lower lip. “Exactly. Makes it all the more fun to get her wet for us again…” His voice was low and seductive and you found yourself blushing again as you pouted at him, even as you felt yourself growing slick. “Cut it out, this isn’t fair!”

Jungkook merely raised a challenging eyebrow in response. “Oh? Am I getting to you that much?” He huffed a breathless laugh as you crossed your arms in addition to pouting. “You’re so easy. I’m not even really trying you know.” He boasted.

You scoffed at that, and rolled your eyes, ignoring the way you saw his own narrow. “Whatever. Would you mind if I sat with you Jimin?” He’d been the one to mess with you the least out of the younger ones, so you were praying he’d have more self-restraint than the other two and show you a little mercy. You’d definitely need a nice cold shower once you were alone.

Jimin perked up at the sound of his name and sent you a boyish grin that had you smiling back unconsciously as you ignored the glare you felt burning into your back. “Of course you can!” You all piled into the car then, even though Taehyung pouted and you could still feel Jungkook’s eyes on you.

You hesitantly sat on the edge of Jimin’s leg in between Jungkook and Taehyung, barely sitting at all due to nerves as you held the handle tight enough that your knuckles cracked audibly. It wasn’t Jimin that you didn’t trust, he was nothing but sweet to you so far, but damn, if you weren’t still a horny mess from Jungkook working you up again. You yelped as Hoseok suddenly stopped short, causing Jimin to instinctively grab your waist protectively and pull you into him, and also rubbing your clothed core right into his thigh in the process. You couldn’t help your whimper and 6 pairs of knowing eyes were on you in seconds.

A loud honk at the back of you confirmed that it was actually 7 though Hoseok reluctantly returned his eyes to the road. You could still see his gaze flicking to look at you in the mirror anytime he could though.

You ducked your head in embarrassment as your cheeks burned, the intensity of all of their gazes not helping your dripping arousal any as you crossed your legs, and cleared your throat, trying to at least maintain some of your dignity.

The atmosphere of the car was thick with sexual tension, and you could distinctly feel how much from Jimin’s boner at your back.

“You don’t need to be ashamed, it’s us who should be. We're typically much better at controlling ourselves than this. I'm sorry babygirl.” You flinched as the sound of Namjoon’s voice broke the silence after a few minutes. You met his gaze and he suddenly inhaled sharply as your pussy clenched at the nickname that left his lips, cutting himself off. “You’re just-” He let out a chuckle and bit his lip, trying to fight his urges. Noticing his struggle, Seokjin piped up from beside him. “You smell so good, and because you’re a virgin in so many ways, that’s only enhancing every sensation, and making us want you more.” He admitted, voice a quiet mumble.

You blushed at Seokjin’s crude words. “How did you-?” Yoongi cut you off. “We innately know any Human’s sexual experience, and their biggest desires typically as well. Even the smallest kinks, things you want to experiment with, even if only once...we know it all, at just a glance.”

Hoseok suddenly stopped short again as someone cut in front of the black SUV, making you cry out in a half-whimper, half-whine, without conscious thought.

“Hoseok please-!”

A few groans emitted from the boys as they fought desperately to hold themselves back, but others were quickly starting to lose their composure. Hoseok met your eyes in the mirror at the next light, eyes hooded with lust, but with a dangerous glint you hadn’t seen before. “Sweetheart, if you call my name like that again, there is absolutely no way I’m going to be able to stop myself from pulling over and fucking you raw.”

Yoongi snickered huskily, and hummed, knuckles white from how hard he was clenching his fists. “Calls your name? If she makes another fucking sound I’m personally going to make sure she screams instead.”

The dirty words made your mouth dry and you swallowed, but nodded obediently, biting your lip hard to hold back God forbid Hoseok stopped short again. You started as Jungkook and Taehyung suddenly decided to teasingly walk their fingers up each of your thighs, making you try to lunge for their wrists, only for Jimin to easily hold your hands back, with a strength that took you off guard. When you looked back at him in surprise, it was like he was a different person entirely from the sweet boy you’d met earlier. You’d taken his silence and stiffness for control, and clearly, that was a mistake. He smirked at your shocked expression, leaning forward to leave a kitten lick on your ear that made you squeak before you quickly bit your lip harder than before at the warning looks Hoseok and Yoongi sent your way as he continued to toy with your sensitive ears, driving you absolutely mad.

Your ears, neck, and inner thighs were all highly sensitive areas for you, and it looked like the three boys were going to take full advantage of it.

Jimin's lips moved from your ears to your neck and began to leave playful nips and kisses on the exposed area while Taehyung and Jungkook's fingers reached the top of your pants. They shared a long look for a moment before you heard Taehyung let out a quiet huff, and abruptly his mouth took over Jimin's previous position, nibbling and teasing your ear, not unlike he had done in front of the cafe earlier.

Your attention was quickly brought back to Jungkook as he slowly pulled back the waistband of your pants, making eye contact with you and smirking as his hand slipped into them. You glared at him, opening your mouth to protest when he let one finger caress your clothed core teasingly, making you flinch violently enough that Jimin had to tighten his grip on you while Taehyung giggled quietly in your other ear, sending shivers down your spine. "I almost forgot how sensitive virgins are...ah, it's just so fun to tease you like this!" He mumbled, before returning to attacking your ear with renewed vigor. Your breathing hitched, the pleasure becoming enough to really make you want to cry out, as you tried to squirm in Jimin's iron grip.

You felt him smirk against your neck, but were once again distracted by Jungkook as he leaned forward to tease your other ear, whispering quietly. "Aww, is it too much for you? Scared you're gonna bring attention to yourself?" When you nodded, starting to turn submissive as your situation finally hit you, you felt Jungkook's teeth suddenly pull teasingly on your earlobe in unison with Taehyung, making you slam your eyes shut at the pleasure and frantically kick the air, while desperately trying not to vocalize how you were feeling. "Look what a good girl you're being for us princess." You registered that it was Jimin's voice by your neck now speaking. "Don't worry we'll help you be quiet~" Taehyung's deep voice at your left ear was the only warning you received before he offered you his index and middle finger. "Open." His command made you want to obey but your stubbornness won out at being humiliated like this and you instead tried to move your head away from him...and went right into Jungkook. "I'd do what he says little girl. You don't want to have us force you, and then punish you do you?" His voice was teasing but when you scoffed and turned to glare at him, the seriousness in his gaze made you shudder.

By now, your panties were completely soaked through, thank God you chose to wear black pants today so it wouldn't be too noticeable. You gulped, but tried to stay strong in your decision. You couldn't let them win, not when they'd decided to play dirty like this. "F-Fuck all of you." Your voice was a hoarse whisper but they all clearly heard it. Taehyhung let out a positively bone-chilling chuckle by your ear. "Oh, you're going to wish you didn't say that." Jungkook merely hummed. "I had a feeling you were a brat when you rolled your eyes at me earlier but to think you'd use such language? Tsk..." His hand cupped your core so unexpectedly that you couldn't hold back your gasp as he hissed in your ear. "We'll fix that." Jimin was oddly quiet and it was only when you'd calmed down and Jungkook pulled his hand away that he spoke, voice even and gentle. "That wasn't very nice of you to say, you know. We were even going easy on you." That made your eyes widen. Easy!? You'd never been so horny in your life, he had to be joking!

"Oh well, guess we'll just do this the hard way. Open."

This time, you heard his voice in your mind as well, and when you tried to fight it, you found yourself steadily growing more and more turned on. You tried to squirm in his grip but Jimin simply giggled and forced you still again with his superior strength, voice still deceptively light. "Bad girl. I said open." It was steadily growing harder and harder, and you were fighting desperately against his instructions until your eyes were literally tearing from so much pleasure. Jungkook relished in this, wiping away one of your tears as it fell and cooing at you. "Aww look how cute she is, trying to fight us. C'mon little girl, it'll only get worse the more you resist." His voice turned serious, as he growled. "Give in...Open your mouth." His voice merged with Jimin's in your mind, and you finally crumbled under the power of their suggestion. But you didn't just open your mouth. You begged, the second your lips separated. "Please stop it!!"

Your eyes opened wide as you panted...and locked eyes with the other 4 boys, all watching your predicament. When had the car stopped? You couldn't remember or focus on anything besides the pleasure the 3 younger demons had been giving you.

Now that you were back to yourself though, it hit you like a train what had just happened and you scrambled out of Jimin's now lax grip, desperate to get out of the vehicle you'd been trapped in. You caught your breath, completely humiliated and eyes teary for a reason much different than pleasure. You felt a hand on your back and actually jumped away. "Don't touch me!" You demanded, even as your voice shook with held back emotions. You saw Hoseok looking at you guiltily and looked away from him to glare at the three who'd put you in this state.

"What the Hell did you do to me? You...You were inside my head."

Truth be told...that made you feel more violated than any of their other touches.

Jimin looked genuinely sheepish as he stepped forward to explain, frowning when you took a step back, but staying where he was. "It's an ability of ours. We can suggest ideas in Human's minds. We typically disguise it better by tricking your mind into thinking it's coming from yourself but we didn't do that this time."

That made you scoff. "There won't be a next time, make no mistake of that. You had no right to do what you just did okay?" You snapped, clearly irritated, though truthfully, you were also disgusted with yourself, because part of you liked it and you just didn't know what to make of that. As if he'd read your mind Jungkook spoke up as he saw Jimin's face fall.

"You're overreacting. We made you feel good and deny it all you want, but you liked every minute of it."

You blushed but shook your head. "Even if I did, that's not the point! You need my okay first, you can't just overwhelm me like that without any notice!"

"So we're okay to do it if we ask you first?" Taehyung asked, eyes hopeful.

You sighed, shaking your head in exasperation, "I can't do this right now. I need a cold shower and a pair of clean clothes first and foremost. Then we're setting ground rules. Alright?" Taehyung, Jungkook and Jimin all reluctantly nodded and you turned to check on the older one's responses. Seokjin spoke up as you thought he would.

"I'm sorry, I should have stopped the-" You shook your head, holding your hand up with a tired smile. "Jin, I appreciate it, I really do. But I mean it when I say I can't do this right now. I feel absolutely disgusting, and I need a shower stat. Please tell me this house has a shower I can use to clean myself and calm down?"

"Oh, so you're still-ow!" Jungkook winced as Yoongi smacked him over the head for the suggestive comment he was about to make and you nodded at him in thanks.

"Yeah, I know where the shower is. C'mon, you can follow me inside." Namjoon interjected, starting to walk to the gate. It was only then that you bothered to take in where exactly you were. This place was so charming! "Woah...how the Hell are you able to afford this quaint little place?" You asked as you followed after him, trying to push what just happened to the back of your mind, at least for the moment. Namjoon smiled a bit despite himself at your childlike awe as he led you into the entry hall, the other boys not far behind, though they quickly separated to do their own things. "We've been demons for way longer than most, and while we've never had a need for Human money, whenever we recieved it, we kept it. You'd be surprised just how many of your kind tried to pay us for our services. It came in handy when we came to the surface, and let us get this place and any other necessities or things we wanted. We've got more than enough between the 7 of us to last us several mortal lifetimes."

You nodded in understanding as he led you further into the homey cottage, taking in its simplistic beauty as he opened a door and let you go first before closing the door behind himself. "I know you don't really have any clothes yet so I'm going to lend you some of mine for now. They'll be big on you for sure, but we'll go out and get some proper clothes with you tomorrow. The bathroom is right there to the left of you and there are fresh towels inside. I'll leave the clothes outside on the bed for you." He bowed his head and turned to leave when you asked him the question that'd been plaguing you since you'd first interacted with him.

"...Do you not like me for some reason Namjoon?"

He turned to face you with a smile that was a little too wide; eyes a little too perceptive.

"Why do you ask? I haven't given you any reason to believe that, have I?" He asked, voice calm.

You shook your head and shrugged. "No, admittedly, you haven't done anything outright. But all of the others have either shown explicit interest in me somehow or made an effort to be friendly, and you haven't really done much of either. In fact, the few times you have spoken to me, it's been very..." You searched for the right word. "business-like, I guess."

Namjoon observed you for a moment with an unreadable expression before he suddenly strode towards you, backing you up until you hit the wall behind you with a light thud. Your cheeks heated as he placed his hands on either side of your head, bending down to your height to look you in the eyes. He observed your expression for a moment, before he smirked suddenly, something you hadn't seen before. It changed his entire demeanor, making him seem much more intimidating, and suddenly you were hyper-aware of the fact that he was close enough that you could feel his breath on your lips. It smelled like cinnamon, and his cologne was intoxicating.

"Do I seem business-like now?"

His words snapped you out of your stupor as your gaze jumped from where you'd been observing his lips to looking into his eyes. You felt meek under the borderline possessive glare he was giving you and shook your head stumbling over your words as you were taken aback at his sudden change in demeanor. "I-N-No you don't!" His lips twitched into a smile then, and you found your mind going blank as his tongue darted out to wet them.

'I really want to kiss him.'

The thought came as your gaze flickered to his lips again, your thoughts drifting to how nice and plush they looked, and would surely feel against your own...you went to lean in, but he pulled away just as you were about to close the last remaining inch. Just as suddenly as he'd cornered you, he was leaving with a simple wave of his hand. "Go ahead and take all the time you need in the shower, the clothes will be there when you get out, and we'll have lunch once you’re ready."

You blinked once. You blinked twice. Then, you let out the breath you'd were holding and sank to the floor, cheeks blushing a ruby red as you recalled just how close his lips had been to your own. Your fingertips brushed against your lips and you sighed. You'd been so close to losing your first kiss. Seokjin wasn't wrong when he said you were a virgin in more ways than one. It was a bit embarrassing for you to be entering college, never even have experienced a real first kiss yet. Though living with these boys, you had the sinking feeling that wasn't going to be the case for much longer, no matter what rules you put in place.

What the Hell had you gotten yourself into, agreeing to stay with these people?

A/N: And that’s a wrap on the first chapter! I really, really hope you guys enjoy this, since I kid you not I stayed up until 5am last night typing all of this out lol. I worked really hard on it, so I hope it paid off! I think this’ll be a really fun world to play in so I’m excited to continue the journey with all of you guys! 

Please send me an ask and let me know your thoughts since I crave validation and praise as much as Jimin! Also, feel free to tell me who you like the most so far, or who you’re looking forward for the reader to have interactions with! Kinks you potentially want me to explore would be super cool too! I take all of your feedback into account when I write! 

Okay, bye-bye thank you so much for reading!

[damienthepious]

ah shit we broke 50k on this beast. happy Lizard Kissin’ Tuesday

Scattered on my Shore (Chapter 12)

[Ch 1] [Ch 2] [Ch 3] [Ch 4] [Ch 5] [Ch 6] [Ch 7] [Ch 8] [Ch 9] [Ch 10] [Ch 11] [ao3] [Ch 13] [Ch 14] [Ch 15] [Ch 16] [Ch 17] [Ch 18] [Ch 19]

Fandom: The Penumbra Podcast

Relationship: Lord Arum/Sir Damien/Rilla, Sir Damien/Rilla

Characters: Rilla, Lord Arum, Sir Damien

Additional Tags: Second Citadel, Lizard Kissin’ Tuesday, Pre-Relationship, (for the three of them. it’s established r/d), Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Injury, Injury Recovery, Hurt/Comfort, Slow Burn, (this will also be), Enemies to Lovers, (for damien and arum eventually lol)

Fic Summary: Strange things wash up out of the lake near Rilla’s hut, on occasion. But this monster… this monster is certainly the strangest.

Chapter Summary: Damien and Arum, Arum and Damien, and Rilla- Rilla is having a difficult evening.

Chapter Notes: Yesterday was the one year anniversary of the day I first started writing Penumbra fic. Oh, how time flies. Oof. Also. Hm. I've been mentally calling this the emotional whiplash chapter. Be gentle with yourself? Warnings for blood, violence, fighting, canon-typical deception, canon-typical monstrous horrors and canon-typical monster-horror deaths, including some upsetting imagery that I wrote at like two a m and then was a little perturbed by the next morning. Uh. I think that's everything? I swear this fic is soft sometimes.

~

Rilla still tastes sticky pink at the back of her sinuses, reeking strange but somehow vaguely sweet, and Tal's voice calls out through the jungle. Tal's voice is not the only noise, though. There is crashing, tree limbs cracking, shouting and roaring and rattling that makes Rilla's stomach twist with familiarity she doesn't want to place.

She clings to Marc's shoulders as Dampierre runs them towards his brother's voice. She catalogs symptoms, catalogs coincidences in the back of her mind, and she hopes that the twinge of instinctive terror in her gut is wrong.

~

Time sighs past them, tortuously slow, and Arum is beginning to suspect that the knight is deliberately attempting to drive him out of his skull. Eventually Arum's thin patience snaps, and he sits up straight in the bed, tail thrashing as he scowls.

"Must you do that?"

Damien doesn't seem to hear him. He paces in a tight circle on the other side of the room, seemingly unaware of the book still clutched tightly in his hands, unaware that his knuckles are going pale with that tightness. "Saint Damien above, please," he murmurs to himself, for perhaps the eighteenth time, "oh I cannot lose her, I cannot- how can I remain here, still and unharmed while she flies towards danger with a smile, my Saint? How can I endure the torturous burden of safety while my beloved could be in any peril, any peril at all? Perils unknown! Perils unknowable, teeming in the dark of night, and with my forever-flower accompanied by so untrustworthy a companion-"

"Songbird, honestly, the squawking-"

"The Salamander, of all companions, and I must remain behind, must either leave her unprotected- or precariously protected, at the very best, or else I shall break my word to her! To act otherwise would be to break not only the bond of my word, but to break her heart in the same moment-"

Arum barks a laugh. "Oh please, honeysuckle. I do not think Amaryllis' heart is quite so fragile as that." He snorts. "Not quite so fragile as yours, that is, always aching and cracking within you."

Damien pauses his pacing, then shoots the monster a scathing look. "What business have you, beast, in discussing either of our hearts?"

"You certainly won't shut up about it in earshot," Arum growls. "Forgive me for misconstruing a conversation out of your ceaseless heartsick blather."

"I would not expect a monster to understand the value of prayer, Lord Arum," Damien says through his teeth. "Nor the ache of love."

Arum opens his mouth, meaning give a biting retort, and then he remembers Amarayllis' eyes, and how soft they were when she asked-

He closes his mouth again, sighing, and Damien eyes him suspiciously for a few moments before he resumes his pacing, resumes his muttering.

The poet's heart speeds again as the minutes continue to pass, his breaths growing more shallow. Arum does not know what else he is meant to focus on, besides Sir Damien slowly twisting himself to pieces. His words are running so fast that they have begun to bleed together, almost too panicked for Arum to parse into individual thoughts, and when Damien chokes on a breath and his eyes go bright Arum cannot keep his mouth closed another moment longer.

"You are not helping, Damien," he says, and the knight turns towards him, his lips curling in something that could have been a scowl, if he did not look so otherwise distressed. "If your prayer has value, so be it, but it does not appear that it is doing anything at this moment beside causing you to pull your own feathers out. Stop- stop thrashing about and find another thought to worry on. Threaten me again. That certainly seemed to amuse you, before."

Damien startles, oddly, somewhere in the middle of Arum's words, and then he goes still. "I…" he pauses, coughs. "I suppose… I suppose I have been- twisting and drowning in the mire of this misery for far too long," he mutters, pressing his hand over his mouth. "Tranquility is… so terribly far from me, this night," he says, even more quietly, more to himself than anything.

"Amaryllis is clever and ferocious. I very much doubt she would bolt off in foolishness at the risk of her own neck. Do you imagine that she would wish for you to drive the both of us to madness in your worry? If your words are not helping, find other words, or other action. Do something useful, honeysuckle. If you continue as you are, you will simply distress yourself further." He pauses. "And continue to give me a headache."

"Something useful," Damien echoes, his gaze distant. "What … I cannot compose in this state. I cannot- I do not know what to do. I am…"

Enough tension pulls at the poet's frame that he looks as if he may crack in two.

Arum sighs. "Here," he says quietly. "Give me that book, at least. Before you go ahead and snap its spine in your little talons."

Damien looks at his own hands, then, as if he had forgotten that they existed entirely, his grip on the book finally loosening. "Ah-"

"Amaryllis was going to share the notes with me anyway. I may as well begin work on my translation. Perhaps I can have a page or two to share with her when she returns."

"When she returns," Damien whispers. "When she returns. Yes. Of course, when she-" he shudders out a breath, and then he steps close enough to Arum to pass the journal to him.

The leather of the binding feels warm from Damien's hands, and Arum brushes his thumb over the label on the cover, written in Amaryllis' impatient but neat scrawl. "Excellent," he says, because he does not wish to say thank you. "Now, perhaps you should check the food, as she asked, honeysuckle. Perhaps it will be easier to calm yourself if you have a moment where you need not share the room with so foul a beast as I."

Damien opens his mouth, his cheeks darkening, and then he snaps his jaw shut again, looking away. "The food. Yes," he murmurs, and then the poet retreats.

When Damien leaves the room Arum leans back, sighing and allowing himself his own moment of worry.

A couple hours. Amaryllis is- Arum's words were in no way false, she is both clever and ferocious, and he does not know this other human she has gone into the wilds with, but he cannot imagine that she would trust her protection to someone unworthy of that honor. This is her home. Certainly she knows the territory that surrounds it. Certainly she will be in no danger at all.

Certainly.

He composes himself before Damien returns with their meal, and Damien is tense and stiff but he finishes his bowl without another muttering collapse, which Arum is learning is as close to a success as he is likely to manage. He resumes his translation, then, poring over the thin botanical tome and trying not to notice as Damien's heart gradually begins to race again.

The poet straightens, suddenly, standing from his lean against the counter, and then without a word he goes back out to the front room again, leaving Arum watching his back in alarm. When he returns he is clutching what appears to be- his bow, his armor, his quiver and packs and all manner of miscellany. Damien crouches to drop the lot of it on the floor, somewhat close to Arum's bed, and then he sinks to sit beside the pile, pulling his bow out first and examining it with keen, narrowed eyes.

"What are you up to now, honeysuckle?" Arum asks, lowering the books in his hands.

"Something useful, I hope," Damien warbles in response. "I have been meaning to restring my bow for weeks, now. I cannot do much else, at the moment, so I may as well perform the tasks I have been delaying in favor of more pressing matters, as I am being currently pressed to stillness instead."

Arum certainly cannot complain about that. Damien's expression has gone focused, poised, as he carefully and skillfully bends his bow into the proper position for him to remove the current (apparently unsatisfactory) string. Arum eyes the rest of the pile curiously, observing the well-battered armor, the quiver which looks both old and loved, patched with many careful mendings.

Arum narrows his eyes at the rest of Damien's packs as the knight carefully begins the process of restringing his bow, and a small plain leather sheath catches his attention. He reaches with his tail to pull it out from the rest, lifting it to take into his hands, setting Amaryllis' book and its translation aside on the sheets for a moment.

"Hrm…" Arum notes that this leather is vaguely tattered, but not mended with care as the quiver is. He slips the knife out, and Damien turns towards him and tenses at the edge of his vision but Arum is far too distracted to care because- "Honeysuckle, have you no respect at all for your weaponry? I understand that you favor your bow but-" he turns the blade in the light, noting the dullness of the edge, the light speckling of rust across the metal. "This is a travesty. It is dull as a branch and it looks as if it went swimming with you. You would be more likely to harm yourself with this mistreated thing than any enemy." He growls low, scraping his claw along the edge of the blade, bringing it closer to his snout to inspect more closely, clicking his tongue in disappointment. "Careless. Negligent. You must have a whetstone somewhere, oils and the like, honeysuckle. Bring them here this instant and I will give this little blade the care it has been denied."

Arum continues to turn the blade close in front of his eye, and it takes him a long moment to realize that Damien has not moved. Arum blinks, shaking his head, and then he looks over the metal and Damien meets his eye, his seated stance tense, his hands on his bow gone slack and his eyes bright with worry and with- something else Arum cannot interpret.

Arum frowns, unsure for a long moment precisely what the issue is, before he realizes-

A knife in his hands. An armed monster, and a knight with his bow unstrung.

Of course.

Arum looks away from Damien, his breath rattling in discomfort, and his hands flex against the hilt of the blade. He inhales around the strange weight in his chest, and then he hisses the breath back out through his teeth. "Don't be foolish, honeysuckle," he manages in a growl. "What could I do with this wretched knife that I could not do with my claws already? If I wanted to hurt you, there would be cleverer ways than this. Bring me the tools. I do not care to watch you oil and polish and spoil your favored toy over there while this little edge remains in disrepair. Besides," he gives a short, stilted laugh, "a dull knife is far, far more dangerous than the alternative. I will protect you from your own negligence, have no fear."

Arum does not look back towards Damien, so he does not see whatever expression it is that the poet wears as he stares for another long moment. He manages not to look when he hears Damien rise to stand, as well, though when the knight leaves the room he cannot keep his shoulders from sagging.

Damien does not have the first clue what Arum is capable of, with any sort of blade. Damien does not have the first clue what Arum is capable of at all. But obviously, obviously the knight's instincts are sound. He is more correct than even he knows.

Damien returns, and without a word he hands Arum the requested tools, and then he goes to resume his own tasks.

Without a word, Arum turns the blade in his hands, and then he begins the slow, gentle work of restoring it to its proper sharpness, and shine.

 ~

The false Rattlepanther is a puddle of melted spores behind them, and Dampierre bursts out from a tangle of bramble and glossy leaves. Their entrance into the clearing scatters the thick pink mist enough that Rilla sees the source of the noises immediately, the shouting, the fighting-

Damien and Arum, trying to kill each other in the mud, just beneath the enormous thumping threat of the Numb-Cap.

They're both bloody already. The bandages on Arum's midsection are soaked through with red beneath the dirty brown, his frill is worse off, even, than it had been when she found him in the first place, and Damien- Damien's arms are totally sliced up, obvious claw wounds, and there is a similar gash across one cheek, too, bleeding brightly over his chin and down his neck as they grapple with each other, their legs caught tight together in the sticky grip of a writhing pink slime mold beneath them.

"Damien! Damien stop-"

They do not pull away from each other, but both of them glance towards her for a moment as she leaps down from the saddle, Arum with his teeth bared and bloody, Damien with his eyes flat and hard and blank.

"Of course," Damien says in a cold murmur. "Of course. I begin to doubt and- and you, my precious flower, you come like dawn to show me my true path. To remind me of my duty. This creature has twisted your mind, has pulled your heart from me-"

Her heart plunges like a stone, actually, at the accusation. "Damien, that's not-"

"Has upset the order of our very lives. It is for you, my love, that I must kill this monster. I must slay this beast."

"If you even can, you boasting little fool-"

"Don't! Stop! Just- don't do anything, I'm coming over there and-"

"Rilla, wait-" Marc grabs her shoulder, and Rilla fights back an urge to smack him. "Remember how it was with Talfryn. They're knee-deep in slime, and for all we know they could be more of those spore illusion things, right?"

"I-" Rilla looks back towards them, and then she meets Marc's eyes. "I don't know. I don't know if- I don't know why they would-"

"If you go over there you're gonna get stuck in it too," he says, and Rilla grits her teeth together tight.

"If they're real they're going to kill each other!"

Marc's brow furrows, but he shakes his head. "So what do we do, then? Maybe we can pull Damien out, but that monster's not gonna make it easy, and we gotta do that without getting sucked in in the meantime."

"I know, I know," Rilla chokes, her mind spinning in helpless circles as Damien and Arum fight. "I just- I'm thinking, I'll-"

"Do you think they're real?" Marc presses, squeezing her shoulder, and Rilla looks up at him for a moment before she looks back towards the grappling pair. "Talfryn- those things he said. All of that- it was on my mind today. Would Damien fighting a monster like this, would that have been on your mind today? Or- is there any chance Damien would even be out here?"

She and Marc have been turned around enough- Rilla doesn't even know how far they are from the hut, anymore. Could Damien and Arum actually be out here? Is that possible? Rilla doesn't have a clue. Possible or not, though-

Real or not. Rilla's heart is pounding and pounding and pounding. Louder than the Numb-Cap. Twice as fast, too. Damien and Arum trying to kill each other- would they? Would they really, or is Rilla just so scared, does the idea hurt her so much-

Arum isn't evil. Arum wouldn't hurt her. She knows that. She's been hoping that Arum not hurting her would extend to Damien, too, but- but Damien still thinks-

Rilla can't even tell who's winning. Damien's bowstring is snapped, it looks like he's just trying to stab Arum with one of his arrows instead, and Arum is holding him back from completing the strike with two clawed hands digging into his wrists, his other hands swiping towards Damien's stomach.

"Stop!" Marc's hand on her shoulder is the only thing that keeps her from bolting towards him. "Saints- stop it! Stop fighting! You're going to kill each other-"

"I will slay this beast," Damien snarls, his muscles straining as he twists, barely avoiding the claws and barely having his own strike held off. "I must do my duty-"

"Get on with it, then, honeysuckle," Arum snarls, claws drawing blood at his wrists, and Damien cries out-

"Arum!"

"I told you, Amaryllis. I warned you that you would not be able to collar him-"

"Be silent, beast," Damien shouts, wrenching his arms back from Arum's resisting hands, "and die-"

Damien's hands bring the arrow down, and Arum's hands swing his claws up-

And Rilla isn't even sure which terrifies her more.

Damien plunges the arrow into Arum's shoulder and he gives a pained, gasping snarl that stretches into almost a howl, and at the same moment Arum's claws find Damien's ribs, making him scream.

Rilla could scream too. She can- she knows- the angle of the arrow, the depth of Arum's claws, she can still fix them, both of them, she can still make this okay if she can get them away from each other-

If they're real.

Arum digs his claws in, twisting his wrists. Damien shouts, and grits his teeth, and pushes the arrow deeper, and behind them, the Numb-Cap beats like a giant exposed heart.

Rilla takes a breath. She digs her hand into the satchels at her belt.

"Step back, Dampierre," she says, and as the horse moves she moves with him, until they are just barely far enough, and then she throws the explosive.

It catches quickly. The slime mold races with fire as if it is soaked with oil, and the fighting figures are caught within it, so-

They burn beneath the mushroom, screaming and writhing, and Arum does not pull his claws from Damien, and Damien does not release his grip on the arrow. Not even when the both of them melt and pop into a flurry of burning spores, as the Numb-Cap's horrible beating heart finally scorches out.

Death grip, Rilla thinks grimly, and then she leans heavy against Dampierre.

She guessed right. It wasn't them. She didn't kill them.

The light of the flames is still burnt into the back of her eyes, two twisting silhouettes, intertwined.

She guessed right.

That doesn't make her feel better. Not at all.

~

"There," Arum says softly, and Damien, who has long since finished with his bow and has now resorted to rearranging the entire contents of his traveling packs, looks up.

"There?"

"It has been treated as well as possible, with the tools provided. I hope it shall not be so neglected again."

He holds the knife out between them, then, hilt first, and Damien-

Damien stands, slowly, and steps close enough to reach out and take the blade back.

Arum drops his hand and his gaze once the knife is in Damien's hands. Damien lifts it closer, inspecting, and-

It is beautiful. Arum even polished the hilt, even cleaned the grit from the engravings. Damien can see the surprise in his own eyes reflected in the new shine of the metal, and he can tell when he tests it against his thumb that it is sharper, perhaps, than it has ever been.

"It is nearly as sharp and dangerous as I am, now," Arum hisses low with a flick of the tongue, and something about his tone coils in Damien's stomach, and his breath catches and his fingers twitch and-

"Ah!"

Damien only barely manages not to drop the blade, though he has run the curved tip across his palm, below his thumb, pulling open a shallow red line.

"Honeysuckle-" Arum sits up straighter, his tongue darting in the air again, and then his brow furrows deep. "Foolish creature. I sharpened it. Did you not think it would then be sharp? "

"My- my hand slipped, Arum, I assure you it was not some intentional testing of your word. Ah, ah-"

Arum slips from the sheets, rolling unsteadily to his feet. "Let me see- ah, not too terribly deep, then." He reaches a hand out, taking the blade back, and then he pushes Damien so that he stumbles to sit on the bed instead. Damien makes an instinctive noise in protest, but Arum narrows his eyes sternly. "Sit, you delicate little songbird." He turns away then, limping to the counter and then reaching to rummage through the cabinets, grumbling to himself as he goes.

"Arum, I-"

"Hush. I have seen the doctor work enough that I believe I can manage so small a wound as this." He returns with disinfectant and a roll of bandages, and when Damien opens his mouth to protest again he scowls. "I should certainly love to see you attempt to apply all of this one handed, honeysuckle. It was my efforts that you managed to damage yourself upon, allow me to fix it so you may not lay this blame on me as well."

Damien feels his cheeks darkening as Arum kneels heavily beside the bed, and then he takes Damien's hands in his own with an inarguable sort of gentleness, turning his palm upwards and hissing low. His eyes glitter as he examines the injury, as he begins to treat it.

Lord Arum does not work with the same smiling sort of care that his Rilla does, but he is efficient and attentive, even as he growls under his breath. When he slices through the bandage with a claw to separate it from the roll, Damien's pulse jumps oddly, his breath catching, and Arum meets his eye for a moment.

"Careless little honeysuckle," he murmurs as he finishes the wrapping. Then he draws his claws over the white of the bandages on Damien’s palm with a delicacy that makes Damien's skin race with something that feels like lightning. "If I did not know any better, I would think you were trying to have your petals plucked…"

Damien feels heat rush through him like a furnace door thrown open at his back, his hand flexing in Arum's grasp. "I… Lord Arum, I…" he pauses, and Arum's eyes are so vivid, so strange. "Th-thank you."

Arum blinks, and then his vivid eyes drop. He releases Damien's hand, then shifts to grip the bed so he can pull himself to stand. "Don't thank me," he mutters, his tone so entirely blank after the strange warmth that came before. "It was my sharpness that cut you. I was simply ensuring that you would have no evidence to throw in Amaryllis' face to push further towards my death, little knight."

The coldness of the words pushes Damien to stand, far more than Arum climbing back into the bed does.

"Arum-"

"What?" Arum is already curled onto his side atop the blankets, already turned away, but he shoots Damien an irritable look over his shoulder. “What, knight?”

Damien feels his mouth hanging open. His eyes draw slow along the strange, elegant curves of Arum's snout, his teeth, his horns, but he cannot find the right words.

The pause hangs too long, and Arum drops his eyes with a sigh, rolling to face away.

Damien feels his heart, thudding like a stranger at the door. He lifts his bandaged hand, cupping it to his chest, and he feels the wound pulse too, with each unceasing beat.

~

The jungle is darker, after all that fire, and there is a glass jar rattling heavy (in metaphorical weight) in Rilla's pocket, and Rilla has enough Numb-Cap to make Marc's medicine for years, now, and she's so tired that she feels like she could collapse. And Marc-

"So… Rilla… do you want to-"

"No."

"You didn't even let me finish!"

"You were gonna ask again if I wanna talk about it, and I don't, Marc."

"But, Rilla-"

Rilla scowls and starts walking faster, pulling ahead of Marc and Dampierre for a moment or two.

"Rilla! C'mon, don't- don't be like that. You can't honestly expect me not to be worried! That- that whole thing-"

"We handled it, Marc. It's done with."

"We did and don't get me wrong, any adventure with that many explosions is gonna wind up featured prominently in my memoirs, but seriously, what the hell was that?"

"A bunch of big, gross, mutated fungi with shitty magic metaphor powers," she gripes, but Marc pulls Dampierre in front of her, making her stumble to a scowling stop. "Marc. I want to go home, finish your pills, and go to sleep."

"You know that's not what I meant, Rilla." He stares down at her, his eyebrows furrowed with uncharacteristic gravity. "That fake-monster that fake-Damien was trying to kill. You called it by name, Rilla."

Rilla's muscles tense. She hadn't- she didn't realize that-

"If you're doing something dangerous- we're family, Rilla. I just want to know that you're safe, okay? It's been … things have been dangerous, lately. More dangerous than normal, I mean. The monsters have been pulling stuff like that fungus, you know? Stuff that gets in your head, uses your fears against you, turns you against each other, and I just- I know you won't take a break from your work, but I need to know that you're at least looking out for yourself."

"I'm looking out for myself, Marc," she grits out through her teeth, and then she pushes her way around Dampierre. They're close enough to the hut that she can see the light through the underbrush, and she just doesn't have the energy-

"I'm just- c'mon, I'm not being unfair here, I know I'm not," he says, trotting after her again. "Just tell me why you seemed just as freaked out about Damien hurting that lizard as you did about it going the other way, Rilla, because I just can't-"

She spins back, scowling. "Drop it, Marc!"

"Just give me something to go on, here! Give me something that lets me know you aren't doing something illegal and dangerous again, because right now I'm scared that the next time you get caught red handed, they're gonna skip the exile and go straight for execution!"

Rilla's breath catches. "I- I-"

"Rilla," Marc says. "Please. You know that I love you. You gotta talk to me, because if things have gone so wrong that I'm the one worrying about you? We're breaking the natural order of the universe, here. Water's gonna start flowing uphill next thing you know."

A laugh pushes past her panic, choking but sincere. She hesitates, then steps closer to Marc again, reaching a hand to rub Dampierre's ear as she meets Marc's eye.

"I love you too," she says, first, and then she sighs. "I wish I could explain, Marc, I really, really do, but- but I don't know how to. You just have to trust me. You have to trust that I know what I'm doing."

"You say that even when you don't know what you're doing, though," he points out, raising an eyebrow.

"Yeah, well." She shakes her head. "This time I mean it, okay? Look, just- I didn't know for sure that they were fake when I burned them, Marc. I had a solid theory, but I didn't know, and I still did it because I knew it was the right thing to do. Because I knew Damien would rather burn than kill himself with guilt, and because I knew if I was wrong about A-" she stumbles. "About the monster, if he would hurt Damien or anyone else, it would be my fault. So- so I burned them."

"Rilla…"

"You have to trust me," she repeats. "I know that I'm right. That I'm doing the right thing. But- but if the evidence doesn't bear that out, I'll … I'll face those consequences. I'll deal with the situation. I'll fix it."

Marc's frown eases, just slightly, and after a moment he sighs, reaching out to pat the back of her hand. "Alright, Rilla. Okay. Just… be careful? And- and just- let me know, y’know? If you need help, if- if things get out of hand."

Rilla sighs, too tired to bristle properly at the suggestion that she might need help, and then she nods. "I know, Marc. I will. Now c'mon, we're almost there, and I still gotta make your medicine."

~

They hear Rilla come in through the closed exam room door, and she calls out very clearly to Marc through the outer door before they hear her pull the window open so she can continue to talk to him as she starts to mix her ingredients together.

It takes about an hour, all told, and Damien does not relax that entire time. From the way Arum keeps forgetting himself and growling low, from the way his tail continues to flick and thrash, neither does the monster. Eventually, though, Rilla passes some quiet words to Marc, and then she finally, finally closes the window again. Even through the door Damien can hear Rilla sigh so deeply it makes Damien's heart pull, her exhaustion a physical sort of pain within him.

Once he hears the hoofbeats fade away from the hut, Damien pulls the door of the exam room open and Rilla is already standing just outside, her legs muddy to the knee, her hair pulling from her braid and clouding around her, her eyes bright, and she looks at him and then over his shoulder at Arum and then her shoulders sag and her face splits with such relief that it looks as if it may crumple her.

Damien takes her into his arms instantly, without thought, guiding her back out into the front room. "Rilla, my dearest, my Amaryllis, you aren't hurt, are you?"

"No. I promise, I'm not, I just-"

"What happened?"

"Monster mushrooms, basically," she mumbles, shrugging, and Damien tries not to feel it like ice in his guts, his failure to protect her. "We- we dealt with it."

He inhales, exhales, prays for a silent moment, and then he asks, "And you are certain that you were not hurt?"

"I'm just-" her voice is too thick, but she gives a laugh through it, waving a hand in the air and pushing her hair out of her face. "Tired, that's all. I'm just- exhausted and covered in gross fungus slime and- and I've got about a thousand sticks caught in my hair, and- and- and I'm glad," she laughs again, a little wild. "I'm glad you didn't f-fight, while I was gone."

"Of course not," Damien says, as soft as he can manage, and then he pulls her closer, squeezing tight for just a moment before he spins, turning her as if they're dancing for only a breath. She chokes a surprised laugh against him as he gently maneuvers her to sit by the table, leaning down to press a kiss to her forehead. "Now. I can help with at least one of your dilemmas, my love. Let me fetch a brush, and I will at least help you comb the jungle from your hair before we sleep."

She inhales a shaky breath, then nods. "Alright. I'm- I'm not gonna argue if you wanna- if you wanna spoil me a bit," she murmurs weakly.

"Always," he murmurs through a smile, "I always do." He kisses her temple again before he straightens to go fetch the comb.

When he returns, Arum is in the doorway of his room, peering out at the herbalist with obvious concern, leaning heavily on his crutch.

"You are- not injured?"

Rilla sighs, and that more than anything assures Damien that her exhaustion is no small thing. Ordinarily, she would at least scowl at having that question asked of her a third time.

"Merely weary, she assures me," Damien says, and Arum flicks his eyes towards the knight for a moment before he frowns, and then nods. The monster watches as Damien steps close again, sinking to sit behind Rilla so he may take the tie from her hair, and slowly begin to comb out the tangles, the leaves and- and bits of ash that seem to have stuck there.

She sighs again, deep and tired, leaning back into Damien's hands, and he slowly, soothingly, quietly combs out her hair. He's nearly forgotten Arum watching them by the time the monster slowly crosses the room, sinking to sit at the other end of the table, watching with suspicious, curious eyes. When Damien is finished, when he has managed the worst of the tangles and brushed out the soot and debris, he sighs, and then he starts to separate out the sections to pull her hair into a new braid, but-

"Ah. Hm."

His hand. The hurt is almost entirely dulled, by now, but the placement of the cut and the resulting placement of the bandages make it so he cannot quite bend his thumb in the way he needs to. Rilla glances over her shoulder, blinking at him muzzily, and then she finally seems to notice the injury herself, sucking in a startled breath.

"Damien, what- what happened? " She pulls his hand into her own, her thumbs gentle on his skin, and over her head Damien watches as Arum cringes, drawing his shoulders up towards his chin, clearly expecting-

"Simply a cut, love. I was going through my packs, and I was careless, and I cut myself. I assure you I am fine."

She frowns, and then she shoots him a look. "This bandaging is too neat. You didn't do this."

Brilliant, Damien thinks helplessly, his heart pooling with bright, sparking love. "No," he says. "It would have been too difficult, of course, with only the one hand. Lord Arum was… generous enough to assist."

Lord Arum hisses under his breath at the mention, his frill raising and his face turned decidedly away from the both of them, now, hidden by the folds.

"He was, huh?" Rilla says, and her amusement manages to push through the layer of exhaustion that hangs upon her. Amusement, and a clear note of fondness, as well. "Well…" she pauses, gently turning Damien's hand in her own, biting her lip. "I… my hands are a little… shaky, at the moment. Maybe he'd wanna be generous again, just for a second?"

Arum freezes, and then his frill presses to his neck and he glances towards the pair of them with a look of alarm.

"Wh- what do you mean? What do you want?"

Rilla ducks her head, and then she glances up at the monster and Damien knows what she means, even if Arum does not.

Damien feels, perhaps, that he should be… concerned, at the very least. Disgusted, perhaps. But…

"Do you… do you know how to braid, Lord Arum?" he asks, tilting his head, and Arum blinks, and then scowls.

"Of course I do. Don't ask foolish questions."

"Would you… perhaps… would you help me to braid Rilla's hair, again? With my hand…" Damien frowns gently at himself, and he fully expects the monster to snap, to laugh, to bolt.

Arum stares, his violet eyes wide and stunned, and then he drops his gaze, pulling his hands close to wring awkwardly in front of himself for a moment before he seems to become aware of what he is doing, and then without answering he- he crawls closer, bringing himself beside Damien and stubbornly not looking at Rilla as she smiles, breathing a soft laugh.

"Fine. Helpless little thing. Move aside, will you?"

Damien shifts, moving to sit beside Rilla instead, and then he gestures for Arum to take his place, and the monster does so with a graceless grumble. Rilla exhales, her eyes closing again as three of Arum's hands (the fourth, his broken wrist, apparently not quite dexterous enough for the task just yet) sink into Rilla's hair, parting and sectioning it off before he starts to weave an elegant braid slowly down.

Arum's shoulders are stiff, at first, but Rilla is quiet in front of him and the monster seems to ease into the pattern of the motions, eventually, and Damien is quiet as well as he watches, the movements of Arum's scaled hands almost hypnotic in their rhythmic consistency.

Rilla falls asleep before he is halfway done. Damien thinks that Arum notices that this has happened as well, considering the way that his motions grow slower and more careful as his claws carefully twine her hair together. When he reaches the last few inches, Damien passes him the little leather band for him to tie at the bottom of the braid. Damien tilts his head to better see the rippling whole of it, a complex and beautiful weave, even if it was only done with three of the monster's four hands. Damien is unsure if he could replicate it with only his two. He finds himself wondering what sorts of complexities they could create if he and Arum were both to…

Arum is staring at the braid as well, and he lifts a hand as if to drift it down the softness of Rilla's hair, but he stops himself just before he makes contact. He pulls his hand back to his chest, clutching the scales just over his heart, and Damien feels his own heart skip, oddly.

Arum glances towards him then, his tongue flicking.

"What… ah… she has-" he pauses, hissing a low, concerned noise. "Amaryllis is sleeping on my legs, honeysuckle. What- what- what do I do?"

Damien barely manages to muffle his laugh so that it does not bubble bright and loud. He does not wish to wake her, if he can help it, but it is- ridiculous, utterly absurd, for Lord Arum to be so thoroughly trapped merely because he does not wish to wake Rilla. Damien has some degree of practice in this arena, however.

"Just be still for one moment, Lord Arum," Damien murmurs, and then he comes closer, eyeing the both of them and taking a moment to determine his approach. He leans down, slipping one arm beneath Rilla's knees, the other behind her back. It is impossible not to touch Lord Arum in this, too, since she is leaning back against the monster, and his scales are cool and strange against Damien's arm. Arum hisses low at the contact, and his chest is rumbling in a way that vibrates against Damien's skin. Damien tries not to notice. Tries not to feel the way the contact makes his stomach twist, the odd contrast of Rilla's gentle warmth in his arms beside Arum's coolness, and then he carefully, carefully lifts.

Rilla, safe in his arms, her head slumping to rest against his shoulder with her monster-woven braid rippling down her back, and Arum stares up at the both of them with his head tilted, his expression focused and wary, and Damien smiles without meaning to.

"Thank you," he murmurs, and Arum scowls but does not deflect this time, and Damien drops his gaze from the monster as he carefully carries Rilla to the bedroom.

When he reaches the doorway, however, he hesitates, and then he glances back towards Arum, still sat amongst the cushions by the table.

"Can… can you manage back to your room on your own?" Damien asks, after a pause, and Arum looks away.

"In a few minutes, perhaps," he mutters. "I believe the doctor put my legs to sleep along with herself."

Damien stifles another laugh, pressing his lips softly to Rilla's hair to hide his smile. He hesitates again, but then-

"When I have settled her… I will come help you to your feet again, at least," he murmurs.

Arum blinks, his thin lips parting in surprise, but Damien simply nods and carries Rilla into her room, before Arum can thank him. Before Damien can memorize that precise look, flustered surprise shaping Arum's inhuman face.

[->]

[somethingjustsouthofbrilliance]

Cold and Broken Hallelujah (chapter 3)

Oof, sorry for the long wait, folks. Here it finally is, the conclusion. (As promised, I fixed it as best I could. Hopefully, you’ll enjoy the ride)

Link to Chapter 1 (masterlist)

Tagging  @blujicky @saphirawaffle @swanheart69 @ojedieu @gryssenielsen @totallysilvergirl @stiicck @stonequiet @giulisetta @livgg15 @collgeruledzebra @tonystark5ever @imposter-human @sharoto @guess-im-a-good-omens-blog-now @saphirawaffle @ginpaa @erdediekatze

_________________________________________________

Chapter 3

 “Crowley?” The name is a hesitant, pleading whisper that catches somewhere in the middle as it slips past his lips.  

 “Crowley!” The second call of his lover’s name rips from his throat in a harsh, broken sob, steeped in denial.

 A hurried snap of his fingers, and the holy bindings pinning Crowley to the wall fall away, leaving behind a mess of burned, bloodied skin.  The demon drops, limp and boneless, into Aziraphale’s trembling, waiting arms; the hilt of the sword that still protrudes grotesquely from Crowley’s chest pressing uncomfortably against Aziraphale’s ribs.  

The angel yanks the sword out, unthinking.  Tosses it away as if the very touch of it burns.

 Crowley doesn’t react. Doesn’t so much as twitch in response. Only his blood begins to gush faster, unimpeded, from the gaping wound.

 “No,” Aziraphale murmurs – a futile moan of protestation against the merciless truth of reality, “no, no, no….”

 And, suddenly, his legs no longer seem to have what it takes to hold up his earthly corporation, and so he sinks heavily to the floor, his precious burden cradled protectively in his arms.

 He tries, oh, God Almighty does he try.  Presses his hand against the gushing hole in Crowley chest, trying his best to ignore the blood that coats his fingers, seeming to seep under his very skin, branding him like the murderer that he is.  And he pours all of his healing energy into it, channels every particle of his angelic being into one single mission – heal, heal, heal.  And he prays, and he prays, and he prays.

 “You don’t… really think it’s going to work, do you.”

 He doesn’t turn around at the sound of a familiar mocking voice.  He doesn’t need to.  He knows what he’ll see if he does: the looks of glee, the smiles of depraved pleasure. He remembers them.  Remembers them all too well.

 “You’re almost as ridiculous as that demon of yours.”

 He hears footsteps behind him, measured, deliberate, slow – a predator circling its prey, moving in closer and closer with every pass.

 “Do you know that this pathetic creature pleaded with us to spare you?  Begged me to keep you ignorant of what you’ve done?”

 Gabriel laughs behind him, sharp and grating, even as Aziraphale hunches in on himself, crushed by the weight of the damning words.  His fingers tremble splayed out against the awful wound, his focus slipping. He flicks his gaze up to his beloved’s face – ghostly pale now, its features hopelessly slack.  Blurred for him by the ever-thickening veil of tears that fogs his vision.

 “Why would you do this?” he whispers brokenly, pulling his hand away from the wound to brush a blood-covered finger against Crowley’s cheek. Flinches, his lips trembling, as he stares at the smudge of crimson his gentle touch left behind – so vivid, so nauseatingly stark against the near-translucent skin.  “Why would you–?”

 Another sob rips from his throat, cutting off the rest of the words, and he squeezes his eyes shut, tugging his lover’s too, too still form tighter against his chest.

 He knows why.  Of course, he knows.  Because it’s Crowley.  The demon who burned his feet on consecrated ground to rescue him.  The demon who defied Heaven and Hell time and time again for his sake.  The demon who… who loved him.  Enough to forgive him, enough to let him go.

 “It’s quite amusing, really.”

 Gabriel’s voice slithers once more into his grief-clouded consciousness, and he feels something inside him stir and shudder in response.  Something dark and ugly and terrifying – a dangerous savage beast, awoken after a millennia-long sleep.

 “Watching you skewer the serpent was entertaining enough, but watching you torment yourself over it now is just… well, it’s just so delicious!”

 There’s a loud, obnoxious cackle above his ear, a horrifyingly tasteless expression of perverted pleasure at the expense of his grief.  

The beast inside him roars in agony, slashes wildly at the chains of restraint holding it hostage within the shattered confines of his bleeding soul. He moans in anguished pain, arms and wings wrapping tighter around Crowley in a futile attempt to shield them both from the waves of twisted, noxious glee that permeate the room, poisoning its very air. Tries his best to ignore the archangel, to tune out the cruel words, his whole body trembling with the effort of reigning in the dark tempest of grief, rage and despair that brews inside him.

 It’s of no use.

 The metaphorical chains snap – the sound so loud in his ears, he’s sure everyone around him can hear it – and the beast breaks free in a powerful, blinding explosion of Light that bursts forth from him in every direction, furious, scorching, decimating.  A flashover of smiting angelic vengeance.

 He thinks he hears screaming, loud wails of pure agony. Gabriel’s, the other archangels’, perhaps even his own….  But it’s all lost, swallowed up in the searing maelstrom of Light, and the angel sways and cries at the epicenter of it, white wings wrapped protectively around a lifeless form that no longer requires his protection, shielding Crowley as Crowley had always shielded him, while the world around him burns, and burns, and burns.

 And then it’s over, and the Light goes out like a candle snuffed out by an abrupt gust of wind.

 Aziraphale slumps, drained, his cheeks wet, his throat raw from screaming he doesn’t remember having done. He isn’t aware of the sudden absence of their tormentors, of the scorched emptiness of the room.  Nothing exists for him anymore but Crowley, pale and lifeless in his arms. Dead.

 Three years.  Three years is all he’s been given to experience the true joy of living he hadn’t known in all of the millennia that came before it.  The joy he’d been denying himself and Crowley all that time.  Because he was a coward! A bloody coward who foolishly believed that what he was always taught was true; that Heaven was always right, as was the Great Plan they blindly followed; that demons were all inherently evil, soulless creatures, incapable of compassion, of empathy, of love…

 He knew… in his heart of hearts he’d always known… that Crowley was an exception.  No soulless creature would challenge so bluntly the Great Plan, appalled by the idea of wiping out thousands upon thousands of the human race, drowning everyone, including the…

 “Not the kids. You can’t kill kids!!!”

 Wouldn’t look so devastated, so sickened by the sight of that young carpenter from Galilee getting nailed to the cross for nothing more than trying to get humans to love one another.

 Wouldn’t risk his own life over and over to save Aziraphale’s.

 Wouldn’t… wouldn’t have that look in his eyes whenever he glanced toward Aziraphale, the look of love – pure, unadulterated, beautiful love. The kind Aziraphale was always told demons weren’t capable of.  And yet Aziraphale felt it from Crowley. In abundance.

 And he pushed it away. Pushed Crowley away.  Despite the fact that every fiber of his being longed to be closer. Warded himself away from both Crowley and his love because he was too afraid of what Heaven would do if they ever found out.  Cowardly protecting himself from what he was sure would be a wrathful reprimand.  

 And he hurt Crowley in the process.

 He wasn’t blind. He saw the brutal impact his rejections had on his then friend.

 “Friends? We’re not friends. We’re an angel and a demon. We have nothing in common. I don’t even like you!”

 Saw every poorly hidden flinch, every dejected droop of the thin shoulders, every pained twist of the lips that didn’t quite manage to form a smile, every note of anguish in the tired voice disguised by the ever-crumbling mask of sarcasm.

He saw.  And he hated himself for every moment of pain he had inflicted so cruelly on the demon.  Vowed to himself, once he finally worked up the courage to do what he should have done thousands of years ago, that he would spend the next millennia making it up to him.

 He got three years...

 His hand trembles as he cups the back Crowley’s head.  Gently, reverently lifts it up to press an equally trembling kiss against the sweat-stained temple.  A benediction, a plea for forgiveness, a final goodbye.

 “I’m sorry, my love,” he chokes out, taking a moment to bury his tear-stained face in the matted auburn hair, to breathe in Crowley’s scent for one last time.  “I am so, so sorry…”

 He doesn’t know what he’s going to do next. Doesn’t know if there’s anything left for him to do. His one true constant, his anchor in this vast, tumultuous universe, the heart and soul of his existence is gone, and there’s nothing tethering him to this earthly world.  Nothing left for him in Heaven either. Not anymore. Not after this.

 Perhaps it would have been better if he Fell.

 “Aziraphale.” The voice that calls his name is achingly familiar and one he hasn’t heard in over 6,000 years.  One he yearned to talk to all those years he’s been on Earth.  One he begged would answer him when… before it was too late.

One he no longer wishes to hear.

 “Aziraphale,” She repeats, softer this time, and he can feel Her heavenly light even through his tightly squeezed eyelids, “angel of the Eastern Gate.”

 Slowly he raises his head, squints toward Her with a tired glare.  “Why are You here?”

 She smiles at him – a soft crinkle in the otherwise flawless glowing skin.  “It isn’t often one of my children erases three archangels from existence,” She says, and his eyes widen momentarily in stunned disbelief.

 He glances behind him, as if to make sure, even though he knows She wouldn’t lie to him.  Not about something like this.  

Turns back to her, head raised in defiance.

 “You’re here to cast me out then?” he challenges. Because he’s ready for this. Willing even. Would gladly embrace the pain that comes with the Fall with both arms if it would drown out even a little bit of the agony that’s tearing apart his soul.

 She raises an eyebrow at that.  “No,” She denies, sounding surprised.

 He shakes his head. Raises his hand to wipe away another errant tear that trails down his cheek.  “I believed in You,” he murmurs dully.  “I trusted in Your Plan, in the goodness of it, even when others… when he…” He glances briefly down at Crowley, tucked safely against his chest. Blinks away another tear.  “…when he questioned the goodness of destroying thousands of innocent souls.”  Admits in a quieter voice, “Even when I myself questioned it.”

 He looks toward Her again, a bitter smirk twisting his lips. He knows he’s pushing it.  Knows he shouldn’t speak like this to Her. And some part of him wonders with morbid glee whether She might just smite him on the spot instead if he pushes hard enough. He finds himself craving the instant relief that would bring.

 “I believed in Your Love and Your Mercy.  But I was a fool.” His chin wobbles ever so slightly, words sticking in his tear-swollen throat. “You’re not merciful… at all.  You’re cruel.  You watch humans commit atrocities against one another, and You do nothing.  You encourage your archangels to be callous and vengeful, allow them to go about plotting the destruction of an entire human species just for the sake of settling an old score. And You do nothing! And the one archangel who loved Your creations, the one archangel who cared… You cast him out and tossed him into a pit of boiling sulfur for nothing more than questioning the righteousness of Your actions.”

 He sucks in a breath, arms tightening impossibly around Crowley’s still form, and words continue to pour out of him – an unstoppable torrent of rage and grief.

 “And when he came to Earth, a demon, and You saw that he still cared despite all odds, that he still had the capacity to love, which You told us none of the demons do, You abandoned him!  You made him think he wasn’t worthy of Your love.”

 “I won’t be forgiven. Not ever. … Unforgivable, that’s what I am...”

 “You let Your other children torture him and… and kill him and… and I... I…”

 “I won’t make you Fall, Aziraphale.” Her calm, soothing voice interrupts the sob-broken ramble of his words.  

 She’s standing right before him now, Her warm, motherly gaze soft and inexplicably, apologetically sad. She seems tired somehow, he thinks absurdly as he watches Her shift Her attention to Crowley, reach a delicate glowing hand toward him.

 He tenses despite himself, moving to pull Crowley out of harm’s way, but Her touch doesn’t burn the demon, doesn’t engulf him in smiting, punishing Light.  She merely smoothes Her fingers over the unruly flame-red locks, slowly and lovingly as a mother would when she soothes her child to sleep for the night.  Smiles down at him with that same gentle, wistful smile.

 “I never meant for him to Fall either,” She confides, Her smile growing brittle as She rests her hand against Crowley’s cheek.  “It was a different time back then.  I was… young. I thought I knew everything, had it all figured out, everything set in motion as it was to be.”

 Absently, She runs her thumb along the smear of blood on Crowley’s cheek, the stain disappearing underneath her touch.

 “And this… bright, bright child of mine, he challenged me, asked me questions no one’s ever asked before, questions I realized I wasn’t ready to answer. And it… embarrassed me, made me angry.”

 Her hand drops back down to Her side, softly shimmering blue eyes rising to meet Aziraphale’s, and he’s surprised to see a hint of tears there, a pained flash of remorse.

 “I reacted poorly,” She admits, regret creasing Her features, making Her appear older, careworn.  “And it took me a little while to realize that.”

 “A few millennia?” he quips, but there’s no bite to his words, just an overwhelming weariness. Because none of this matters anymore, does it. Because Crowley’s still dead.

 Her lips twitch again, sorrowful.  “Something like that.”

 Aziraphale nods, closing his eyes against that unbearable softness he sees in Hers, a softness that looks and feels too much like pity. Swallows thickly against an ever-present bitter swell of tears.  “Why tell me all this now?” he wonders, voice empty. “Where were You when I… when he… when we both needed you,” he thinks, bitter.  “What is the point?”

 Warm fingers brush the side of his face, the touch – a soothing balm against his ravaged nerves, and he jolts, his eyes flying open in surprise as he feels that divine warmth flood into him, melting away all traces of anger and despair and filling those spaces with reassurance and hope.

 “I can’t change the mistakes of the past, Aziraphale,” She acknowledges in a regretful murmur, her fingers still lingering against his skin as flecks of golden light fall from Her hair, dancing in a shimmering mesmerizing veil in the air around Her.  “But I can make a clean slate for the future.”

 She leans down a bit to Crowley’s level, brings her lips to the demon’s forehead, pressing a light kiss against the cold, pale skin.  Gentle and chaste like the blessing of a mother’s love.

 She pulls away, the skin around Her eyes crinkling with contentment as She watches a speckle of golden light dance on the surface of the demon’s skin where Her lips have touched him a moment ago.  The light lingers for another heartbeat or two before it slowly begins to seep deeper into the skin until it disappears altogether.

 She nods, pleased; turns Her gaze back to Aziraphale, who’s been following Her movements with bated breath and desperate timorous hope.

 “Be well, my children,” She tells him, “be… Loved.” And then She’s gone – a blinding supernova that flashes instantly out of their plane of existence, leaving behind a halo of golden flecks that flutter about, shimmering, as their light, too, slowly fades away.

 Aziraphale pays them no heed.  For in that moment, in that very moment, he feels a small shudder go through the lifeless form in his frantic embrace, and his breath hitches on a sob of gasp as he watches the deadly wound knit itself closed, the gaunt chest beginning to move, haltingly at first, but steadier and steadier with every subsequent breath.

 “Crowley?” he calls, a pitifully hopeful squeak of a whisper. “Crowley?”  And nearly chokes in giddy, dizzying relief when the dark eyelashes flutter weakly in response, a thin sliver of yellow peaking out.

 “Oh, Crowley, oh, my darling, oh, thank God!”

Crowley shifts slightly within his grasp, his hand rising feebly to touch the angel’s face, a barely audible moan of frustration slipping past his lips when his hand drops will-lessly back down before making contact.

 Aziraphale catches it mid-fall, captures it gently in his own. Raises it to his lips to press a deep, reverent kiss into the trembling palm.

 “I love you,” he murmurs, leaning in to lay more grateful, tearful kisses on the dear face. “I love you s..so much!”

 His voice catches, unsteady, and he buries his face unashamedly in Crowley’s neck, his body shaking so hard, he barely registers the equally unsteady, clumsy brush of Crowley’s fingers against the back of his head as the demon tries to comfort him the best he can.

 “S’okay now, angel,” he huffs out breathlessly above Aziraphale’s ear.  “S’a…all gonna be okay.”

 He nods mutely against the side of the demon’s neck, feeling the reassuring hum of life underneath his skin.  “Thank You!” he whispers fervently in his mind, hoping that She can hear him, hoping She knows, sees how much it truly means.  

He lifts up his head once more, hungrily drinking in the sight of his beloved – still weak, still alarmingly pale, but alive, alive, alive!  Moves in to seal an embarrassingly wet, lingering kiss against his lips, his soul quivering with pure, unbridled joy when those lips move feebly in response.    

“Thank You!”

[poeticsandaliens]

A Pirate’s Life for Me Ch. 12

Pairing: Stella/Scully

Rating: Explicit

Summary: Heere there be smut. Also some swords, some necessary conversations, and a trip to Tortuga. I know that updating this story is slow going, but it’s going. I love it and I’m determined to finish it.

Tagging @rey-thelast-jedi and @smol-scully because they’re the two people I know still keep up with this story and I suck at updating consistently.

Previous Chapters: Part 1 , Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, Part 6, Part 7, Part 8, Part 9, Part 10, Part 11

On AO3: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11405793/chapters/52477267

She wasn’t sure when it happened, but at some point, as Stella’s heart was tucked back beneath her ribcage, she began to bleed. Her chest had been hollow, her ribs pale, like they’d been left to bleach in the sun. Her heart fit straight into the hole. For a moment, her body was still. Then, blood spilled from the gaping wound like it hadn’t when John Jack shot her three times. And Stella, who leaned nonchalantly against the wall of her cabin finally tensed and groaned, as she remembered what pain felt like after ten years without it. She bit down on the linen Scully had given her and closed her eyes to the scene.

Scully clenched her jaw. It was easy enough to perform a surgery on Stella when she knew it wasn’t hurting her. But now, looking at the wound, the blood, what it had to be doing to Stella now that her heart was pumping life into her again, she swallowed bile in the back of her throat. She had to work fast.

“Mulder,” she snapped. He dropped to her side. His eyes were on the ground, afraid to look the carnage head-on. “Give her your hand.”

It was something she’d seen midwives do. Give the woman stick to bite on and a hand to squeeze through the pain. It couldn’t be that different, with what little doctor’s training she’d had. Mulder hesitantly offered his hand to Stella and she caught his wrist in a vice grip. Scully thought of what Anderson had told her—of the first time Stella had done this, singing ‘Hoist the Colours’ in her cabin, bearing the knife herself. She wondered if this was easier for Stella, or if it was harder, not to be alone in pain.

Scully pressed the wound closed as best she could. Stella’s open shirt stained red as she bled into the cabin. But as it left her, it thinned and lost its color, and Scully breathed the smell of salt as the ocean itself spilled from Stella’s veins. Mulder stared wide-eyed at the pool of water that now soaked into the knees of their trousers. He gaped at her, and Scully tried to focus. It was one thing, she knew, to believe in Davy Jones. It was another to see the Dutchman’s curse ebb away and a leave a living woman behind. To feel Stella’s body sew itself shut beneath her palms, the scar that once adorned her chest reform into a thick line. To see Stella breathe like she actually needed the air.

It seemed hours before Scully sat back on the cabin floor, her hands covered in seawater and her hair sticky with sweat. The iron tang of blood had long since faded into the air. Stella leaned against the wall, her chest bearing no open wound but another ugly scar across the first. Her eyes were closed, and she breathed evenly, and to Scully she seemed asleep. The stick was on the floor, bitten into two pieces. She had certainly earned the rest.

Craning her neck, not bothered to get up off the floorboards, she saw Mulder sitting in a dining chair. He snored softly, his head lolled to one side. She didn’t know when exactly he’d left the scene, but somewhere in the slow transition from blood to water, pain to rest, biting down to slow deliverance, he had grown tired. They all had, once it was clear Stella would live. Scully looked down at the knife in her hand. Yes, that was it. Slow deliverance. And she too fell asleep to the rock of the boat.

                                                         *  *  *

The days hummed by like the piano at a rowdy bar. She fell back into the routine of the Flying Dutchman, but this time it took hours of labor to keep the Dutchman sailing. They took turns at the wheel, hauled sails, prepared rigging, all of the tasks Padgett’s crew of trapped souls had once performed at the snap of Stella’s fingers. Mulder navigated them slowly back to Port Washington with a lucky tailwind nudging them along.

“We need a crew,” Scully huffed as she lowered the sails and the tattered Jolly Rodger. Their ship was tucked away near the Port of Tortuga, and they had prepared the barrels for fresh food and water. They waited only for sundown.

“I know.” Stella stood behind her, the taut rope wrapped around her fist. It took at least two to move a sail—all three of them in a heavy wind. But Mulder was high in the crow’s nest, studying his charts and presumably keeping a lookout. He needed those moments to himself, Scully suspected, and she didn’t blame him.

“Maybe the Ophelia is docked there again.” Even as she said it, she knew it was a long shot.

Still, Stella hummed wistfully. “Maybe,” she allowed. Her hand slipped over Scully’s. “Knot it like this,” she instructed, “with an extra turn, just to be sure it won’t come loose.”

“That’s now how my father did it,” Scully muttered.

“Pirate’s life,” Stella said matter-of-factly, as if that sufficed as an explanation. Then— “The Navy doesn’t need the extra turn. We do.”

“Psssshh,” said Scully. “Superstitions.” Mulder had yet to tease her mercilessly for her skepticism—no “I told you so” or “I was right about curses” since the day she’d rescued him. He was still solemn, and she supposed the danger and death were still too near for joking. His capture and the wearing months of his life had changed him irreversibly, but his mood was slowly lightening.

She still felt some way about the curse of the Dutchman. The first time she’d touched Stella’s skin after waking, she had nearly jumped at the warmth. The cold of death, the handed down name of Davy Jones had become such a part of the character that was Stella, that it was strange to see it gone. But now, without the ghostly hum of the Dutchman’s crew doing its duties, she sometimes forgot the change. She had kept the knife, just to remind herself it existed.

Stella’s rough hand on hers shook her. “Don’t just sit here worrying yourself until dark,” she murmured hoarsely. She tugged Scully’s hands off the rope and lifted them over her head.

It was an open invitation, impossible to resist lately. She shifted, encouraging Stella to pin her wrists against the mast and closed her eye to the feel of Stella’s body pressed against her. Stella was warm now, and Scully no longer shivered at the touch of her skin. She kissed hard and quick—it wasn’t always that way, but it was when they were outside. They didn’t feel untouchable anymore.

Stella unbuckled the scabbard from Scully’s waist and untucked her shirt, sliding her hands underneath the loose white linen. “Comfortable here?” She asked, running her fingers along the waist of Scully’s trousers.

“Comfortable enough,” she said breathily, “but a little discomfort is part of the fun.” There was something undeniably sexy about being pushed against a pole and ravished at some ungodly hour, with the slightest threat of being discovered. She blushed as Stella’s hand slipped into her trousers and teased her inner thigh.

“We should be quick,” she whispered.

Stella chuckled, her breath tickling Scully’s throat. “Who would catch us?.”

“Mulder might wake up.”

He won’t. But it’s the transgression, the risk-taking that makes her tingle.

“Then I suppose—”Stella pressed two fingers inside her.— “that we should hurry.” She pulsed, and Scully’s knees trembled. She locked her arms around the mast as Stella’s other hand slides behind her head to cushion it against the wood.

“Quick enough?” Stella asked, thumbing Scully’s clit. It was sudden and intense, sending a brief shock through her nerves.

“I don’t know,” Scully said between quick breaths. She leaned into Stella’s touch. Her head crooked forward, chin resting on Stella’s collarbones. She barely carried her own weight; it was Stella and the mast that held most of her up. “We might still be caught.”

“Oh?” Stella’s hand curled inside her, and she gasped. Then, Stella pulled away, angling her body so they were shoulder to shoulder. Stella’s forehead touched the cracking wood as she let her catch her breath, just for a second. They huffed unevenly and watched the hot mist rise. Scully closed her eye. She was still throbbing, still sensitive, and she moaned quietly.

Stella circled her labia, starting slow but speeding up before Scully had fully understood the feeling. She shivered and knew she was far gone. It was funny; Stella finished her so much quicker now that she was living. They acted touch-starved, despite the many nights they’d fallen into bed together before they reached the island. She wondered what Stella’s heart had changed about her body, that Scully felt but couldn’t see.

She cried out as Stella traced her clit, bracing herself on the pole. It was a sharp orgasm, dizzying but quick to subside, and her muscles trembled upon relax. She rested her forehead on Stella’s sternum. Stella withdrew her hand from Scully’s trousers and wrapped it around her waist instead. They stood out of alignment, not quite facing each other but tucked together at an angle like jigsaw pieces. Scully breathed heavily into Stella’s chest. She felt the scar brush her cheek.

When Scully had recovered, she had returned the favor of a quick orgasm. It had been loud and visceral, and when she finished, Stella tried to look into Scully’s eyes the way she always had but instead had thrown her head to the stars.

“The sex is better now,” Stella mused after, tossing her head Scully’s way and smirking impishly.

“What was it before?”

“I didn’t need it the way I had before the curse, or the way I do now.” She fiddled with the loose folds of Scully’s shirt, tucking them back into place. “I felt it more in the chest than between the thighs,” she quipped. But her face had turned almost grave.

These days, Stella was almost methodical in lovemaking, and rarely spoke but to ask if it was good. She always saw to Scully’s needs first, letting the heat and sweat of her love squirming beneath her bring her to the edge. Only then did she allow Scully to finish her, roughly and sloppily. And she’d let out a breath she’d been holding in for ages.

When they finally went to bed, sleep didn’t come. They sprawled on their backs, bone-tired but unable to rest. It was too hot in the cabin to lay in each other’s arms.

                                                        *  *  *

“Sail with me,” Stella murmured one day, almost absently. The noonday sun blazed. The Dutchman glided on a lucky tailwind, and Stella held a scope to her eye, hoping to catch Tortuga by sundown.

“Where?”

Stella lowered the scope. “Wherever you want to go.”

Scully bit her lip. “What about Port Washington?”

“We’re on course for it. But—”

“But you can’t stay there,” Scully finished. “I wouldn’t ask you to. I have family I need to see, lost time I need to make up for. But after that, if the Dutchman is willing to come back for me…”

“The Dutchman will always come back for you.”

Scully chuckled, letting her head roll back on the rail. “Stella Gibson, are you asking me to become a pirate?”

“You already are.”

“I’m the daughter of a Navy man.” She was almost teasing, but there was weight to her words. If she chose this life, she couldn’t be honest about it, not even to her mother.

“So am I.”

She’d forgotten that about Stella. Suddenly, everything she’d refrained from asking poured to the forefront of her mind. My father loved England. And I loved my father.

“Ten years at sea,” said Scully, “and you came to Los Barriles.”

“What?”

“After ten years on the Dutchman, why didn’t you go back to England? Why didn’t you see your father?”

Stella stood stone still, squinting into the horizon. “I worried that I’d be coming back to a different home. I couldn’t imagine how it had changed since I had been gone, how much older everyone had grown, and left me behind. It was easier, I suppose, not to see him at all. I—I wasn’t certain my father was even living, and if I stayed away, I could just imagine him as old and happy. The same as I imagined the feel of dry earth and the bustle of a port.”

“Would you go back now?”

“Perhaps.” Stella’s eyes glistened. “In many ways, Miss Scully, you are braver than me.”

                                                      *  *  *

They took turns rowing to shore. None of them spoke, just huffed and strained their muscles against the waves. Only Stella broke the pact of silence to mutter between breaths, “It was easier when a ghost did it.” The full moon glanced off her shoulders, polishing her days-old sunburn. Their little boat would never be noticed in a busy port like Tortuga; still, Scully felt exposed. Mulder shifted uncomfortably beside her, his long legs folded awkwardly in the tiny boat.

They hauled the boat onto a secluded shoreline just beside the only spring in Tortuga and tucked it into the pricker-bushes. Stella winced as she disentangled herself from the branches. She reached for a stem and jerked back her hand at the touch. Blood sprung in beads from her fingertips, and for a moment she just stared at it. Then she sucked the tip of her thumb and shook away the blood.

Stella set down the first empty barrel and waited for Mulder to carry in the second. “If we fill these up we’ll have enough water to take us to Los Barriles,” she said, popping open the lids on the barrels. Then she adjusted the strap on her holster, bringing her pistol into plain view. “I’m going into town to find us a crew. Or rather, one or two delinquents looking for a job.”

Scully furrowed her brow. “It’s dangerous to bring strangers aboard.”

“Not if they’re strangers we can take in a fight,” Stella retorted. “It takes all of our manpower to stay on course in fair weather. Without a crew, we’ll be thrown adrift if a storm so much as breathes on us.”

Scully crossed her arms. She opened her mouth to protest, then stepped back. They had talked about hiring a crew when the ropes blistered their hands, when the wind changed and everyone rushed to make the proper adjustments, but doing it—inviting a couple buccaneers from Tortuga to sail with them—was another hurdle.  Stella was right, though. Without ghosts, they needed more people to keep the Dutchman sailing.

“Don’t get John Jack,” Scully said flatly, in lieu of a real protest. “And be careful who you trust.”

“You don’t have to tell that to me, Scully.”

“I’m just reminding you that you’re no longer invincible. Or alone.”

Stella’s lips tightened, and she offered a curt nod. She stepped forward with intention, and cupping Scully’s cheek, kissed her quickly. “I’ll be back.” Then she vanished into the bush.

Scully pushed her first barrel under the spring. The water splattered loudly, and she felt almost self-conscious watching it. Mulder sat down next to her. He wore the tattered button-down of his Navy shirt, wrinkled and stiff even after he had washed it. Several buttons were missing on the coat, and the insignia were so tattered they were unrecognizable. His hair had grown out, and he’d lost the hat long before Scully found him. He no longer looked a Navy man, even from afar.

“We’ll be getting home soon, Scully,” he said, but he didn’t sound sure. He wrung his hands at his lap.

“We will.”

Mulder rested his hand on her knee. “Are you going to stay?”

She opened her mouth, then closed it again. Would she stay? She pictured the bustling port, the Governor’s hall, her home on the cliff. Her mother, a grey shawl wrapped around her shoulders as she hurried out of the house to meet her tattered, one-eyed pirate daughter. Would she gasp? Would she even recognize her, at first? She was nervous, almost embarrassed to think of it.

“Not for long,” she said. She turned to look at Mulder, and tears sprung in her eye. He too was weathered by the sea. Neither of them could go contentedly back to Port Washington and return to life as usual. I have to see to my mother, she’d told Stella. She has to know I’m all right. But she couldn’t imagine staying for too long, waiting in her father’s office for a good husband to find her. If she stayed at all, she’d have to do something productive. She’d have to ruffle some feathers to get what she wanted.

Mulder grabbed the rim of the water barrel and hoisted it out of the spring. Water sloshed over his boots and trousers. He steadied it on the shore with a huff, and Scully knocked the lid tight with her elbow.

“What are you going to do?” she asked, fetching the second barrel and placing it under the spring. “You left home once with a case of wanderlust. Will you be content there when you get back?”

Mulder frowned. He sat against the full barrel and drew his knees to his chest. “No,” he confessed. “but I don’t know where else to go. I found the legends I was looking for; I witnessed the curse of Davy Jones broken, but I was kidnapped, betrayed, and nearly killed. The truth is out there, Scully, but after what I’ve seen I’m not sure the life of a pirate is for me.”

“Mulder, we’re both adventurers at heart. I’ve learned that, in the last few months. And you have a full archive of adventures. If you dig up another legend, I’m coming with you.”

Mulder sighed. “It’s not that simple, Scully. You can say that because you’ve built a life at sea, a life that doesn’t fully involve me. And I don’t begrudge you that. You should have a life that doesn’t involve me, even if you are a right proper pirate.” He chuckled fondly. “But it’s not fair to any of us if I spend my days with only you and Stella. I need something else—someone else, just the same as you. It doesn’t mean we part ways, at least, not for good. When I stumble on new cases, new legends, you’ll always be the first person I talk to. But I don’t think this adventure will end with the three of us on the same ship.”

He was right, of course. If she wanted to be with Stella, she had to live like a pirate. She could be arrested for loving a woman, much less a woman who escaped death row in England and captained a notorious ship.

Scully wrung her hands. “How do I tell my mother?” she blurted out. “How do I tell her I’m going to disappear for months on end, just the way my father did, but there will be no commanding officer to deliver the news if I die?”

“It sounds like you’ve made up your mind after all.”

Slowly, she nodded. “I’ll go home for a time. Stella will disappear. And when the Dutchman comes back for me, I’ll climb aboard.”

“Will you now?” Scully’s hair stood up on the back of her neck. The voice didn’t belong to Mulder. It was too smooth, too punctuated, and suddenly Scully was aware of the crackle of boots on undergrowth. The puffing breath, the rustle of clothing, a third shadow stretching ghast-like in the moonlight. She swallowed and met Mulder’s eyes before daring to face the intruder.

She stared down the barrel of Jim Burns’s pistol.

[emiwrites3reads]

Hybrid, chapter one

Seris Summary: Reader is part shapeshifter part which, she runs away from her cultist family before they try to sacrifice her familiar, Whisper to some deity she never bothered to learn the name of. She no longer wants to be part of that life. Doing so, she finds herself looking for a job. Her last resort is Lux, a night club that was all the way at the bottom her job list.

Warnings: cult stuff mentioned, sacrificing mentioned.

Characters: in the tags

Chapter summary: applies for a job at Lux, before she even starts the job she runs into some trouble with her past.

(Cat for reference)

______________________________________________________________________

“Whisper! Even McDonalds denied my request” you say looking to her grey tabby familiar. The feline chuckles and puts his paw on the next job on your list. You let out a stiff sigh and look to your cat. He looks amused. “Really? I guess your right, it’s my only option”

You grab your stuff and slip on your favorite band t-shirt. You check to make sure you look semi-decent and fix your hair. You doubt you’ll need to look that fancy for this night club. The people there might not even wear clothes half the time.

“Let’s head out” Your cat turns into mist and manifests into a tattoo of a cat paw on your wrist. It glows your favorite color and then stops, turning to a solid black. You do this every time you leave to a non-pet friendly place. Other times you grab a harness and leash.

It’s not uncomfortable in there. Whisper is basically on a floating island. He tells you its a forest with a meadow and it’s pretty big. You two can still communicate through telepathy like this.

~~~

Your uber drops you off at the night club. The music is shut off and so are the lights as it is the afternoon. There is still a security guard at the front. You walk up to the place, studying it’s glorying. The large sign must look so divine at night.

“Hi sir, may I go in to ask about a job position?” The officer speaks into his walkie-talki and gives you a nod. He opens the door and you step inside. You’ve never seen such a night club. There is a grand piano in the middle, comfy booths, and a big dancing area. Your eyes land at a bar where a fairly attractive man and woman sit awaiting you.

Maybe they are both prostitutes as well, Whisper says in your mind. You ignore him and walk up to the two.

“Hi, I’m Ms. Black, I’m interested to see if you have any job positions,” You say as well-mannered as you can.

“Depends, what positions can you do?” The woman says with a smirk. You almost choke on air.

“Uhh, what?” You simply reply.

“This is a nightclub sweetheart, we don’t have many waitress positions opens, plus guys still want to get in your bed” He says. This is not how you expected it to go. You nod and start walking out. You start going up the stairs when Whisper pops in your mind.

Don’t give up, go back and tell them, not ask

“Umm actually, are you sure there isn’t anything else opened?” You turn. Whisper is right, you can’t just give up. The two study you and take glances at each other as if they are speaking as you do with Whisper. The man then turns to you and smiles.

“I’ll open one up for you, how about… bartender?” He grins. You gladly except.

~~~

You put on one of the most revealing things you ever wore. A crop top and booty shorts. Both black. You don’t even recognize yourself in the mirror. You turn to see Whisper looks with the biggest and most humanly grin a cat has ever done. “I need the money… “You say to yourself. You pull out your phone and call an Uber.

When you get there, it is 8 pm. Your boss, whose name you found out was Lucifer is waiting for you. This time with a girl with blonde hair and doesn’t look like a hooker. A detective.

“Detective Decker wants to ask you some questions” Neither you or Whisper are happy about this. You follow the woman over to a table, incredibly self-conscience of how you look.

“Where were you Tuesday night, 5:00 am?” She says clearing her throat. Whisper seems very silent.

“Sleeping, I didn’t get up till 11:00 am that day, I stayed up till 3:00 am that night” You answer. What are you being accused of?

“Do you know a Tommy marshall?” She pulls out a picture of a man. It’s a boy maybe your age, 20’s. He has curly brown hair and blue eyes. You study him. You’ve never seen him before.

“No” You simply state.

“Were you ever involved in any ritualistic activities” By this time, Lucifer is right above her shoulder. You freeze, unsure of what to say.

Just tell the truth, Whisper says.

“Yes…. but I left that, my parents…. Were umm-- they liked that sort of thing,” You say, very uncomfortable. Lucifer’s curious eyes fall on you. This pecked his interest, he was just bored of it before.

Do you think they did it? Whisper says.

“Do you know who did it…. The poor boy… I- I hope you find who did this, I’ll help in any way I can” You say. Decker looks to Lucifer. She knows something else.

“Your DNA was found at the scene” You stare, shocked. You know who did this. The only thing that could is magic. Your parents. They could alter the scene using magic and replace any DNA. At least if you need to go on the run, it’s fairly easy. But you don’t exactly want to spend the time 100 years as a wolf.

“How?” You say, you can tell Lucifer sees right through you. This is the last thing you need. You have to keep cover. If a mortal finds out witches exist, not only your parents would be after you, but the whole council.

“You know how this goes, stay in the state” She says and starts walking away. You get up, standing while unsure of what to do with yourself.

“You know how your DNA was there don’t you?” His tone scares you. He thinks you killed that boy. You have no motive, but rituals can be just as fitting. You bite you tounge.

“I didn’t do it if that's what your thinking, it has to be my parents, at least my mom,” You say. Your dad, biological dad is a shifter, who also is dead. The dad now could care less for you.

“Why would she do this? Hm?” He says. His eyes have a slight shade of red. They would scare any mortal. But your not one. “What is it you desire?” He adds.

You hear a high pitched ring. You ignore it the best you can. You look at Lucifer who looks baffled upon imagination. He seems to try to get a closer look. “How are you not affected? What are you?”

“Human” He sees through that lie.

“My family are all witches, that’s how my DNA is there, they did a spell” You sigh. It’s your only choice. He would have killed you if you didn’t tell him. You still have to kill the hybrid part a secret. You're not supposed to exist, with your dad being a alpha shifter and all.

“A which? Now that's enticing! You have a familiar still I bet? That’s why you ran, I knew I recognized your last name!” He says spinning around in circles. Your family has a reputation. They don’t think you should depend on a familiar so they sacrifice them.

“And i’ll have to be on the run if my parents don’t get caught….” You say. Something sparkles in his eyes.

“Want to make a deal?” He smirks. The more and more you talk, the more you think he’s the actual devil. You shake your head, you don’t want to fall into this trap. Who knows what he might have you do and you don’t want to get into any more trouble, you also don’t think you should go with this job.

Get out of there, there is an angel on his way from the silver city who won’t take too kindly to you.

“I have to go” You start to rush up but he grabs your arm. You hear the flapping of wings and see a dark-skinned man behind Lucifer. He doesn’t look happy but Lucifer looks thrilled.

“Ahh brother” While he was distracted you took that chance and run. Lucifer turns and tries to go after you but you turn a corner and run down an alley where you turn into a rat, which is extremely painful. Turning into small animals hurt, or new ones, and when you turn to fast into an animal you haven’t been before. Luckily, he didn’t see you. And since your in a animal form, he probably thought you did some spell to disappear.

You hate being rodents. At least the ones like mice, rats, and moles. They feel so disgusting and you hate the instincts that come with them. So you turn into a hawk once Lucifer left.

You fly to your house but don’t go inside as there are police going in and out. They must have gotten a warrant. They aren’t going to find anything. At least you hope. You land somewhere on the ground far away and turn into a cat that looks like Whisper. You need to see whats going on. You walk out of the trees around you and greet an officer by rubbing against his pants. “Dan, leave the cat be” You see Decker come over. She picks you up and carries you into the house.

“Lucifer, I think this is the pet you were talking about her having” Crap, you try to scramble out, especially since you see the angel from before looking at you with daggers. You barely manage to move an inch.

“How did you know she had one?” Dan says, coming from behind. You whisper sorry and use your claws to get out but she still doesn’t let go. You don’t dare bite her though. You don’t want to end up in a lab.

“She told me about him, wonder if it has any evidence on it?” You glare at the two angels. You bite Decker and she lets you go in a fit of pain. You run but Lucifer’s angel friend picks you up. He has a much stronger grip. He also isn’t nice about it. Ohhh he is going to be having a bear after him someday.

“Should we crate it?” The dark angel says. You hiss and try to move. But his grip threatens to break your ribs. You're already going to be sore from all the shifting in the morning if you can escape then.

“It doesn’t look to have any evidence on it, but we can use it to bring her in if she’s as close to it as you said it was” Oh no. You really need to get away. You take the risk and bite the angel, which does nothing. You bite again, with more force and taste some blood. He drops you in shock, one that you actually share in the fact you made him bleed. You race into the woods and turn human and release Whisper. He knows what to do. He walks around some as you go off into the woods. You don’t think you can turn anymore, you could risk breaking some limbs.

~~~

The next morning once you get back you get a call. You are relieved. Witches get worried if their familiar isn’t around for a while and their magic can act up, that is if they are alive. “Yes?” You say, you don’t need to fake the worry.

“If you want your cat, we need you to come in, doesn’t look good that you disappeared yesterday” Decker was on the other side. You didn’t waste anytime. You took some ibuprofen, even though they barely work for your shifting pain. You race out the door and call an Uber. It comes in 10 min and takes 45 min to get to the LAPD.

You walk in and Lucifer walks you to the questioning room. The new captain, pierce is there along with Decker. They don’t look to happy. There seems to be something going on between them.

Decker is quick to start. She asks the same questions, gets the same response. Then Pierce comes in and asks the same, making sure I don’t change up my story. Since I didn’t, they are discussing my fate outside. I know if I’m desperate enough and they try to aresst me, I’ll turn into a fly or something right in front of them, and let me tell you, insects hurt a lot.

“Amenadiel walks to speak to her” I hear as the door opens. It’s Lucifer and the angel from before, who I now know is Amenadiel. They turn the camera off and walk over to you. Lucifer is carrying the crate Whisper is. He doesn’t look happy, you’d make it up to him by going on a hunt with him.

“Tell me why I shouldn’t kill you right here and right now” Amenadiel says.

“Cause it’s illegal and your surrounded by cops?” You say sitting back, crossing your arms. Your still a little afraid of him, but since he doesn’t seem to have silver on him you should be fine.

“You think I care? I can stop time” He says. Lucifer leans against the wall, wondering what you’ll do. You simply shrug.

“Can I have my cat back now?” You say with annoyance in your voice. It’s the best way to hide your fear. He already wants to kill you and you barely know each other.

“I didn’t know the Blacks had a daughter, we would of slaughtered you as soon as your were born!” He says. You chuckle, no one was supposed to know. If they did, everything would be after you.

“An angel would kill a baby?” You say as menacing as you can. Angels didn’t use to scare you. But when one nearly killed your mom, who always scares you, that changed. Of course you were kinda hoping the angel finished her off. You were hiding then so they couldn’t see you.

“No, I’d kill a witch,”He growls through his teeth. He turned to Lucifer who if he had popcorn, would be eating it. He looks so entertained. You hope Lucifer doesn’t hate your guts.

“Fare enough” You get up and take the crate from Lucifer who looks stunned. You open it up and a angry Whisper jumps out. You pick him up and walk out. Decker looks in and sees Amenadiel. She looks even less happy. She walks in past you and goes in, slamming the door. None of the cops gave you any trouble.

[scintillating-galaxias]

i’ll be the wind beneath your wings (ch. 4)

and here is chapter four of my swap gift for @peppervl​! the fifth and final chapter will be posted tomorrow :D i was thinking of going back and adding links to navigate chapters easier, but i know that screws up tags,, oh well ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ enjoy!

(read it on ao3!)

-

London, 1860

The next time Aziraphale was permitted to touch Crowley’s wings was after several hours of easy drinking and chatting. Bottles crowded their feet and the legs of the coffee table. More surrounded Aziraphale’s armchair in a sloppy semicircle. They’d given up on drinking from their glasses long ago and were now taking swigs straight from the bottle. Aziraphale had his cradled to his chest; Crowley was using his to gesticulate heatedly about Hamlet. 

Everything felt a good deal more complicated now—more complicated to articulate, more complicated to think, more complicated to—to—yes. But it was an equally good deal easier to simply forgo thinking altogether and focus on Crowley. He was nice to concentrate on in a purely aesthetic sense, with all of his sharp angles smoothed out by his slouch, and his drawling voice going on and on about Shakespeare’s most recent sensation, and the way he used his hands to talk as though he were conducting the world's most chaotic orchestra, and how graceful he was as leaned forward to snatch a new bottle of wine off of the table—

Aziraphale blinked. Something was off. As Crowley settled back into the couch, he refused to move his right shoulder from its stiff posture even as he struggled to open the bottle. It remained stubbornly stuck to his side as he brought it to his stained mouth.

The question slipped right through Aziraphale’s wine-soaked lips. “Are you feeling alright?” 

“‘S stupid, could’a just talked to her an’—No!” Crowley exclaimed. Aziraphale closed his eyes against the volume. “No, of course not, Hamlet’s a bloody—bleeding dumb”—Crowley flailed his arm in a nonsensical gesture, though the wine in the bottle obediently stayed put—“idiot! Should’a just talked!”

Aziraphale nodded and hummed, though he didn’t know what Hamlet’s communication issues had to do with Crowley’s arm. It must be something if he was so passionate about it. He should be a good friend and at least sit supportively next to him in these trying times. Crowley did not pause in his rant as he scooted a few inches over to make room. 

“But Horatio—brave boy,” Aziraphale said somberly after he took another sip of wine, “he was all he had. Or so he believed. Would’ve ruined the story, I say. At least he wanted to help.”

Crowley weakly slapped his palm against the couch arm. “‘Cos Hamlet’s a self-destructive little—wha’s the word? Prick. ” He smacked his mouth distastefully. “What’d you say?”

“I said, Horatio—”

“Nnno no, no, before, before.”

Aziraphale stared into the rippling depths of the wine. It was a pretty jewel color in the lamplight, all purple and red and purple-red. “I’m not sure,” he eventually said. “Asked if you were alright.”

“Sure. Why wouldn’t I be?”

In all of his infinite wisdom, Aziraphale poked Crowley’s arm. He blankly stared at Aziraphale’s finger.

“This doesn’t hurt?”

“No? Why would—why would you poke it if it hurt?”

“I’m not sure,” he said again. He put his hand in his lap. “You were holding it funny.”

Crowley blinked a couple of times. “It’s my back,” he said carefully. He shifted over some so that their legs no longer touched. “Must’ve tweaked it.”

Aziraphale furrowed his brow. He wanted to say something. Something about how he’s sworn he’s seen this exact motion—the bizarrely applied posture, the walk, a wince of pain when he forgot and he reached with the wrong arm, but all of those memories were playing through a foggy window. Movements smeared together, details blurred, colors faded in and out of vividity.

He took too long to answer. Crowley was working to sit up, a sign that Aziraphale knew meant he would sobering up, and sobering up meant he would be leaving soon.

“Is that so,” he said.

“Yeah. Been like that for a while.” Crowley made a face. “What time is it?”

Aziraphale asked, “How long?”

“How long what?”

“Your back. How long has it been hurting?”

Crowley looked distinctly uncomfortable as he blandly said, “I dunno.”

Usually, Aziraphale would stop here. He wasn’t the prying type, or at least not the maliciously prying type. Crowley had made every clear sign short of telling Aziraphale to stuff it that he didn’t want to talk about it. But Aziraphale wanted to talk about it, so his drunken mind decided that was enough reason to say, “Oh, don’t lie to me.”

Crowley scowled. “‘S not that big a deal, I dunno why you’re so pressed about it.”

“I’m not depressed.”

“ So pressed. You’re on my back about it. Up my arse.” 

Aziraphale blinked. “But you’ve been in pain.”

“I’ve been worse.” Crowley drummed his fingers on the cushions. The very same cushions of the very same sofa Crowley had slept on when he came to Aziraphale, seeking refuge. A memory of Crowley sitting and rubbing his wing with his bandaged hand pushed through the fog.

Aziraphale attempted to straighten indignantly, but it was more of an aggressive sway. “Is it—is your wings? Are they bothering you?”

Crowley, finally caught out, slumped back into the sofa. “Ugh, dammit, angel. Fine. Yes. They have been since they had their way with me. Happy?” he said dryly. 

“Not really.” Aziraphale leaned towards him. “You’ve been in pain. How could I be happy about that?”

Crowley shrugged one shoulder. “I’m gonna sober up.”

He shut his eyes tightly and exhaled slowly. Aziraphale watched as around half of the bottles littered at their feet began to refill. He decided to follow suit, wincing as the alcoholic fog was whisked from his mind, and every thought hidden beneath returned with sharp clarity. A snap, and any wine that had managed to spill onto his lovely rug untangled itself from the fibers and zipped droplet by droplet into the mouths of the appropriate bottles. 

Aziraphale said softly, “I don’t mind helping you, you know.”

Crowley turned, and suddenly, Aziraphale was back again beneath yellow searchlights, piercing through even the darkest patch of brine. Two breaths went in and out. In, and out.

“No?”

With that single, wary word, a familiar ache flooded Aziraphale’s body. At once, he recognized it as the very same one from all those years ago, and his voice nearly caught as he said, “Not at all.”

You’re my friend; of course I wouldn’t mind.

A series of unidentifiable emotions flickered across Crowley’s face. Then, a shimmery veil of reality lifted, and two great wings were presented to Aziraphale. 

“It’s along here,” Crowley said, reaching back and running his hand along the top of his right wing. It seemed Aziraphale was correct; he was sure this was the same wing Crowley had had issues with but left before Aziraphale could do anything about it. “It’s—It never healed right. It hurts all the time, but I can’t—” Crowley closed his mouth with a snap of his teeth. “Can’t reach it anymore,” he muttered, ducking his head.

“You poor thing,” Aziraphale murmured. Crowley curled in on himself even more and looked to be regretting coming here at all. Aziraphale bit his lip. “I had something similar happen once,” he began earnestly. “I earned a rather nasty break after a spar with Gabriel. It was an accident, of course,” he amended when Crowley jolted. “He apologized and everything.”

Crowley tilted his head. “Why were you even sparring in the first place?” he asked.

Aziraphale pursed his lips. “I think he took an interest in my duties as the Guardian of the Eastern Gate. It wasn’t every day an angel had to go defend anything. That meant there was something to fight. Look here,” he continued. He unfurled his white wings—too big, too cumbersome for this space—and pointed at a completely innocent looking spot towards the end. “He knocked me down, and then tripped on his robes and fell on me and—well, I couldn’t open it up for ages! It wasn’t until I discorporated for the first time and had to sit in the healing pools for a bit that it was restored”

He folded his wings over each other on his back, but didn’t hide them away altogether. Crowley idly watched him with mild curiosity. 

“Do you think I’ll need a healing pool?”

“Goodness, I hope not. There’s no telling what it would do to you.”

“Good point.” Crowley hefted his wing and pushed it into Aziraphale’s lap. Better get on with it, then.

Aziraphale kept talking as he worked. He wasn’t a good story-teller; he frequently split off from his current story, which led to a dozen other related tales or even led to somewhere else entirely. 

“When She created us,” he said as he smoothed over a patch of feathers over the injury and began pushing small circles into the flesh with his thumbs, “do you remember how we all looked more or less like a human child?”

“Not really.”

“Ah. Well, we did, and our wings were meant to be proportionate with our appearance. But mine never were. They were the same size then as they are now. I looked ridiculous, dragging them around everywhere. Oh, how Saraqael laughed when I tripped over them.” Aziraphale chuckled. “Oh, that reminds me…”

At first, Crowley stayed quiet as Aziraphale spoke. Eventually, he began to offer his own commentary without prompting, and then his own experiences too, and just like that, the stories started to flow.

It was remarkable that even after knowing each other for so long, they still did not know every single thing about the other. Aziraphale was endlessly amused by the recounting of the time Crowley spent five years scouring mountainous Japanese forests for a creature named ‘Tsuchinoko,’ only to realize there was a reason for its existence to be touted as legendary.

“Stop laughing,” grumbled Crowley. Aziraphale mimed zipping his mouth shut, but he still earned a light thumping with Crowley’s wing since he smiled the whole time. “How was I supposed to know? I don’t speak Japanese.”

“I do. You should have asked me to come with you. I would have said yes.”

Crowley, in turn, outright cackled when Aziraphale told him about the time he wandering about in a marketplace and accidentally tripped a gentleman into an enclosure of some particularly malevolent goats in his rush to try this new sweet.

“Marzipan,” he said with a gleam in his eye as Crowley laughed himself into a coughing fit. “It was hardly even worth the hurry. I’m sure it’s better now, though, the first batches of anything are rarely any good…”

“Oh, I’d expect nothing less from you, angel.”

Eventually, the words trickled away until they were sitting together in a pool of silence. Neither of them felt the need to go beyond it, so they didn’t. Bathed in the golden glow of his lamps, Aziraphale let his mind drift away from where his hands were rubbing at the tense knots of muscle running all up and down Crowley’s wing. Sharing his adventures with humans never was as fun since he had to revise his story as he told it to redact details that would certainly get more than a few raised eyebrows. It reminded him he had to be ever vigilant, which was plain exhausting. But with Crowley, he could relax.

It was the most natural thing in the world, relaxing, when it was with Crowley.

But, as everything was wont to do, it had to end. After all, Crowley must be uncomfortable. If last time’s experience was anything to go by, then Aziraphale had long since overstayed his welcome. The persistent ache confirmed this. Yes, the circumstances were almost violently different, but it still boiled down to the same stuff, didn’t it? 

“This is nice,” he said softly. “My apologies for taking so long, but you’ll be just about finished here in a moment.”

Crowley did not answer immediately. This was not unusual when it came to their conversations, but when he continued not to respond a whole minute later, Aziraphale had to nudge him. “Crowley?”

“Mmyeah.”

“I’m almost fin—”

“I heard you.” Crowley deeply inhaled as though steeling himself for something, and then pushed himself upright. He stretched and yawned unnaturally widely. “That’s better,” he mumbled. He shook out his wings and gingerly spread them wide. “Oh, much better.” He flashed Aziraphale a sharp, genuine smile and tucked his wings away. “Thanks, angel.”

“Of course,” Aziraphale said. With a wave, he zapped their glasses clean and sent the wine bottles marching back to the rack. “Well, I suppose you’ll be on your way then?”

“What? Why? I mean—You can’t be serious.”

“Why ever not?” Crowley made an offended gesture at something behind Aziraphale. He twisted around, confused. “What is it?”

“Your wings!” he exclaimed, waving one hand up and down vigorously. “They’re a disaster! How have you never noticed?”

“Oh,” Aziraphale said mildly. His feathers were admittedly much more unruly than Crowley’s, but that wasn’t his fault. He was a busy being. Grooming his wings was never a priority. “I don’t know. I don’t pay much attention to them.”

“Obviously,” muttered Crowley. “Come here, I’m fixing this mess. Can’t have a demon owing one to an angel, anyway.”

Aziraphale scoffed even as he let Crowley reach for his left wing. “You don’t owe me anything. I couldn’t bear it if I allowed anything, human, angel, or demon to think they had some due to pay back to me when they were in mortal—or immortal—danger. That includes you, Crowley.”

“Well sheesh, angel, ya could’ve just said ‘no,’” said Crowley after a bashful pause. He sounded amused, but Aziraphale could have sworn there was some relief in there too. “Alright, fine then. We’re even.”

“Indeed,” Aziraphale said proudly. “With that out of the way, I can take offense to what you’ve said about my wings.”

“Took you a while,” Crowley teased.

Aziraphale huffed. “You distracted me.”

“Part of the job description, angel.”

“Is grooming an angel’s wings also part of the job description?”

“I mean— No, but—” Crowley sputtered a little more before admitting defeat. Aziraphale hid his smile. “Okay, touché. But for your information, demons take way better care of their wings than you do.” 

“Really?” Aziraphale said with genuine surprise. Crowley rarely offered up tidbits about the culture of Hell, if one could call it that. Granted, Aziraphale offered even less in terms of Heaven, but it was enlightening all the same.

“Yep. More of a thing between the younger ones, though. They still want to hold on to something that sort of connects them with Her”—Aziraphale made a sad noise in his throat—“so they’ll come together and fix each other’s wings up like some troupe of monkeys. It’s terrible. Most of ‘em get bitter enough when they’re older to let it go, thank Satan, but they still menace some lesser demon into doing it for vanity points.”

“What about you?”

“What about me?”

“Why do you do it? You obviously care about it more than I do, and there aren’t any—what did you say, gremlins, up here to do it for you.”

Crowley’s hands slowed to a stop, warm and steady on Aziraphale’s wings. A distant sheen glossed over his eyes. “Same as anyone else,” he said. “It looks good.” A pleasant prickle washed over his skin as Crowley combed and picked away stray bits of fluff and let them drift to the ground. “And… I guess I sort of miss the tradition. Not because I miss Her that much, just—”

He pressed his lips together in a thin line and resumed his work in determined silence. Aziraphale stayed quiet, focusing on the light tugging on his feathers and an odd, light feeling that followed each vane as it was moved back into its proper place. Back in Heaven, before he was commanded to safeguard humanity, grooming was done strictly out of necessity. It didn’t mean something, especially not in the way it meant something to Crowley.

Like a troupe of monkeys. Not because I miss Her. There was something missing. Something vital to the core of Crowley. And in his own backwards and wildly indirect ways, he needed Aziraphale to help him replace it. 

A flood of want took him aback at first, just because of the sheer amount of want there. And then he relaxed because it felt so right, there was no reason to be afraid. The ache, which had been hiding behind his heart this whole time, alleviated a little.

He quietly offered, “We should do this again sometime.”

Crowley’s hands physically stuttered, but his hum of, “Should we?” came out nonchalantly.

“Well, probably not.”

“That’s not a no.”

“This is true.”

“But it isn’t a yes.”

“This is an excellent display of your observational skills, my dear.”

“Shuddup.” There was an audible smile in Crowley’s voice. “When?”

“I don’t know. I haven’t thought quite that far ahead. Whenever we feel like it, I suppose.”

“Pretty hedonistic for an angel.” Before Aziraphale could formulate a response, Crowley finished, “I knew there was a reason I liked you. Oh, that reminds me, there was the horrible little bow-tie I saw at the market the other day. It’s that—what’d you say it was? Tartan? Tartan pattern, I had to get it for you…”

[collecting-stories]

Snap - Sam Wilson

Hello lovely! ^^ My favourite writer! How are you doing?? Can I request a Sam Wilson one shot with either of the prompts 89 or 101, or both? Something angsty but with a fluffy ending? Or it really can be anything, because I love my boi. Thank you, you amazing sunshine, I love you and I hope you have an amazing day!!

Snap - Sam Wilson (SPOILERS FOR ENDGAME BELOW THE CUT)

Trapped beneath a collapsing building you had to consider for a moment how you got there. Well, you knew how you got there. The snap had worked, as far as everyone could tell. And then the sky opened up and Thanos’ ships rained fire down on you. As you came to, trapped beneath what used to be a piece of floor, you couldn’t help wondering if this was worth it. The same thought had run through your mind in Wakanda, as you stood on the plains, was all this really worth it? What did all this fighting matter if you just kept losing?

And yet, when Steve approached you about helping them bring back the ones who had disappeared in the snap you hadn’t hesitated to join the effort. You hadn’t needed to be asked five years ago, you’d willingly gone to Wakanda. What was the saying? “Where you lead...”

“Hey!” Someone called your name and you recognized Rhodey’s voice over the ringing in your ears. You could feel the blood marring the right side of your face, mingling from a cut on your forehead and your ear, which was bleeding freely. “Stay with me.” He tore the ear piece from your right ear as he held you against him.  

“Sam...” your voice wavered as Scott spoke over you, telling them he had a way to get out of the collapsed building.  

“It’s James kiddo.” Rhodey replied, keeping his arm around you as Scott clicked over the panel on his arm.  

“No...I heard him, I heard Sam.” You replied.  

“Okay.”

“No I did.”

“It’s okay, I believe you.” Rhodey reassured but you could hear the disbelief in your voice and could imagine what he was thinking. Maybe you hit you head too hard when you were buried inside the Avengers Compound. Maybe you were hallucinating. There had been plenty of nights that you woke up in a cold sweat, convinced that Sam was still there, that if you walked into the kitchen you would find him at the refrigerator sneaking orange juice from the container.  

“Here we go.” Scott held you close as he enlarged himself, bringing you through miles of rubble to the battle above ground. The air felt like it was choking you and you took a few deep breaths as you landed, trying to figure out where you were and what was happening. The overwhelming sound of blasts took over and you could make out something forming in the air around Steve.  

“Shit...” Rhodey breathed beside you, “shoulda stayed underground.”

“Where’s the fun in that?” You tried to joke but your voice sounded hallow even to you.  

As the energy around Steve revealed itself to be Dr. Strange’s rings you headed down the slope to join Captain America, regaining your footing as you reached him. The ringing had gone down, now it was only the sounds of the ships in the sky that assaulted your hearing. “It worked Steve.” You said, watching as Okoye walked through a portal with T’Challa and Shuri. “It worked.”

You helped Steve to stand as something flew passed, drawing your eye as it circled back around to land beside you. Sam. You would have loved to say that the sake humanity had driven you to Wakanda five years ago but it was Sam. You had to be there with him, you’d do anything for him, including going up against a titan. Attempting time-travel, going to space, fighting for five years. It was all worth it. Everything you had done since the incident on the Potomac had been for him first. And when you lost him you’d felt like it had been for nothing.  

But there was no time for happy reunions in the middle of a massacre. There was only one thing that governed you in that moment, the defeat of Thanos. It was like a whirlwind, all the parts of you that felt like they were breaking down or bleeding were only lending to your determination. Hit after hit, you existed just to fight and so did Sam. You couldn’t even allow yourself a moment to look his way, knowing you would falter. But you could hear his voice over the fighting and you knew he was there. Really there. Not just an apparition at midnight but a real person, back from the dead. Back from the snap.  

You felt like you were drowning in the battle but you tried to hold on. Tried to follow the instruction in your ear...breath. Breath.  

“Looks like we can finally breath.”  

You turned toward the voice, arm raised to shield your eyes from the sunlight. How you got here from yesterday was hard to say but somehow you had. You had been sorting through debris with Maria, everyone still in their gear, exhausted but too afraid to rest. It was over but you couldn’t quite trust that knowledge...not anymore. You looked down from the pile of debris you stood on to see Sam standing at the bottom, wings tucked away but his pack still on him.  

You slid down the debris and quite literally launched yourself into his arms, throwing your arms around his neck and hugging him to you. “God, I missed you so much.” You said, feeling the tears in your eyes.  

“Hey, hey, it’s okay. It’s alright babe, I’m right here.” He tried to sound reassuring and tough but his voice wavered and when you pulled away you could see he was teary-eyed as well. It had been a whole five years of emotional build-up to this moment for you but for him it’d felt like no time had passed at all. One moment he was in Wakanda fighting Thanos and the next Doctor Strange was pulling them through a portal to the Avengers Compound and he was still fighting Thanos.  

When it was over, when it was clear that Thanos was defeated Sam had hesitated in finding you. Everything happened so fast and Tony became the main focus in the minutes and hours immediately after the battle. He’d seen you, sure, but he couldn’t bring himself to approach you. He couldn’t explain it, even to himself, but there was this underlying feeling of guilt gnawing at him. How could he have let the snap happen...how could he have dragged you into all this with no guarantee of a win and then abandon you for five years.  

“There was nothing any of us could have done to stop what happened, it just needed to play out this way.” Steve had been quick to point out when Sam mentioned his hesitance to his friend.  

“I let her down.” Sam replied honestly, “I can’t shake that feeling.”

“It could’ve just as easily been her that disappeared.”  

Sam shook his head, he couldn’t think like that. He wasn’t entirely sure that if she had disappeared he could’ve done everything she had done to get everyone back. It was hard wrapping his head around everything that had happened let alone the what-ifs that plagued him too. He hadn’t been able to talk to you for a while. Fighting Thanos took less nerve than trying to figure out what to say to you. But he knew he couldn’t wait any longer when he saw you standing with Maria, surveying the damage.  

He had been relieved when you hugged him and he nearly cried to feel your arms around him again. It hadn’t been five years for him but it still felt like an eternity. He tried to be reassuring but he felt unconvinced, the tension from the fight was still in his body, as if the sky would open once more.  

“I’m sorry.” He heard himself apologizing as he brushed the hair out of your eyes, trying not to worry about the blood that was dried to the side of your face and neck. There’d be time to clean up. You both looked like hell. “I’m so sorry baby.”

“It doesn’t matter. It worked, you’re here.” You replied, turning your face just enough to kiss the hand he had on your cheek. “When I heard your voice in the earpiece...I thought I was gonna die in that building but it worked and you came back. You’re here.”

“I’m always gonna come back to you.”

“I didn’t know if this would work but...I had to try. The whole time, you were always first priority to me. Bringing you back...” You choked as your voice wavered, tears spilling as you tried to get out the words to explain to him.  

Sam only shushed you again, pulling you in to him and kissing your forehead. “There’ll be time for that, I promise.” He whispered. “We’ve got time.”

I like, rewrote this twice. 

taglist: @thinkingsofamadwoman @mixedwiththemoon @titty-teetee  @queenmissfit @marvelismylifffe @iluvmesomemarvelndc @glopsifum @my-life-as-a-fangirl @gigilme @mysticthinking 

If you want to be tagged in any of my marvel stuff...or anything in general let me know!

[imyourliquor-youremypoison]

Big Spook (Peter Parker x Reader - Part 3)

Synopsis: Aged Up!Peter thinks he’s done well with leading a double life. He’s studying what he likes, he has his own place, he’s dating the girl he loves… but that doesn’t mean life is easy all the time. Even superheroes have bad days - and sometimes worse days.

Tags: Aged Up!Character, College AU, Established relationship, Whump, Angst. Does not take FFH into account. SPOILER FREE.

Word count: 2.6k

Part 2 <<< >>> Part 4

MASTERLIST

When (Y/N) woke up – she couldn't remember when or how on earth she managed to fall asleep in this situation – she was lying on a couch in what she could only assume to be the Avengers' compound, a blanket draped over her, the blinds hiding the sun. It was about ten in the morning, and she quickly rubbed the sleep away from her eyes and threw the blanket away.

She had never even dreamed of stepping into this place, let alone spend the night. But she didn't have time to gush over being in the Stark Tower, because she knew Peter was somewhere on a lower floor, half dead.

“F.R.I.D.A.Y,” (Y/N) called, hoping she worked the same as E.D.I.T.H and thanking heaven that Peter was a huge nerd who had gushed over his glasses for ages when she asked him about them.

“Miss (Y/N),” the A.I. Greeted her, waiting for her to speak.

“I need to see Peter,” she said, a stone dropping to the bottom of her stomach as she said his name. Let him be alive, let him be alive.

“Right this way, Miss.”

The panels of a seemingly normal looking wall moved to reveal an elevator and dinged when the doors opened. She stepped in and the doors closed on their own, F.R.I.D.A.Y taking care of letting her off on the right floor.

She ran out as soon as the doors opened again, and she recognized the white walls of the medical wing. Thanks to muscle memory only, (Y/N) found her way back to the surgery room Peter had been brought in, but the sign next to the door said it was currently empty.

Going back, the looked at the sign on every door, trying to find someone, anyone, who could point her in the right direction.

“(Y/N),” an all too familiar voice called her name, cutting short to her increasing panic. When she turned around, she saw a puffy-eyed May Parker standing by a door down the corridor. “He's here.”

She jogged over to her and the two women crashed into each other for a tight hug. (Y/N) heard May cry softly, but she found she could no longer shed a tear. She had cried so much yesterday, and the shock of it all finally hit her, numbing her to everything around her. She needed to see Peter.

“He'll be okay, he'll be fine,” May whispered against her head, placing a kiss on top of it. (Y/N) knew she said it for herself, she tried to speak it into existence.

“Happy called you?” (Y/N) croaked out, clearing her throat.

“As soon as you passed out,” she said with a nod, gently stroking her hair. May always showed her maternal love, and (Y/N) often wondered why she had never had kids of her own. “We're waiting for Dr Cho to tell us what's going on.”

When (Y/N) looked over May's shoulder, she saw Happy standing beside a bed, where she knew Peter laid, though she could only see the shape of his legs under the white sheets. May quickly filled her in on what she missed and told her he came out of surgery around six this morning. Dr Cho went to sleep, having earned her rest and left Peter in the capable hands of the nurses.

The three of them waited inside Peter's room, silently watching his chest rise and fall and finding comfort in that, and that alone. Because they didn't know anything else. Most of Peter's body was hidden under the sheets, but what little they could see was not reassuring at all. Half his face was bandaged up, because of the head wound (Y/N) had nearly lost her mind over, and he had obviously gotten several stitches for other open wounds on his upper body. That was without mentioning the purple bruises littering his arms, or the split lip, the small gash on his left eyebrow, or the swollen black eye.

There was a growing emptiness in the pit of (Y/N)'s stomach, and she was afraid it would consume her like a black hole. May squeezed her hand when Dr Cho entered, holding a pad in her hand with a few papers on it, startling (Y/N) out of her daydream.

“Let me put your worries to rest,” the doctor started, walking around the bed and taking a small flashlight out of her pocket to inspect Peter's eyes. “The surgery went well, I was able to stop the bleeding and stitch him up without causing any brain damage, and his vitals are good.”

Happy stood beside May now, and (Y/N) drank in Dr Cho's every word.

“That said, he sustained a great number of superficial wounds all over his body, and it will take time to heal, superpowers or not. It's difficult to assess the full extent of the damage his head wound has done since he hasn't woken up. This is the bad news: Peter has fallen into a coma.”

Her face became serious, and she stopped her examination of Peter to look each of them in the eye, meeting their distressed gazes with a neutral face.

“A coma?” May croaked out. (Y/N) could tell by the sound of her voice that she was close to crying again, while she did not even feel the usual tingle behind her eyes.

“Yes. It's the body's natural response to the physical trauma,” she explained. “As long as he doesn't wake up, I cannot do anything else. I have treated every other wound. He’s lost of lot of blood,” Dr Cho said and paused, then looked at (Y/N). “We don’t know how long he stayed on your bathroom floor before you found him, but he was in severe condition when you brought him in, and his head wound must have sent him in shock.”

“How much blood?” (Y/N) squeaked out, feeling her throat tighten to the point of discomfort. It was her fault. If she hadn't fallen asleep...

“Enough,” was the only answer she got out of Dr Cho. “I’ve transfused him blood, so he should regain some colors very soon. He does also appear to have several shattered ribs and a broken cheekbone too, but there’s no internal damage, which is good.”

The list of bruised, cut, shattered and broken body parts Peter had made (Y/N) want to vomit all over again, and she hadn't even eaten or drunk anything in over sixteen hours.

“What can we do now?” Happy asked the doctor just as she was about to leave.

She stopped in her tracks and showed them the shadow of a smile – a sad one.

“It's out of ours hands now. Peter will wake up when he's ready.”

*

(Y/N)'s finger tailed along Peter's arm, following the veins running from his wrist to his elbow, lost in her contemplation. It felt like she hadn't moved in forever. She vaguely remembered Ned and Betty coming by to see Peter, but they didn't stay for most than a day – she thinks – because Peter wasn't technically family and they couldn't leave work on ground that a friend was in a coma.

God knew how long coma could last, no one could get off work for this long. (Y/N) saw them off – she thinks – and it was only her and May again. Happy came and went again, checking in whenever he had a chance, and making sure the psycho who had put Peter in this bed would get what he deserved.

(Y/N) didn't care. (Y/N) didn't care about anything. She barely found enough strength to look away from Peter, let alone care about other things. Sometimes she went to the bathroom attached to this room, and that was it.

May had to bring her food or she would forget to eat altogether. It had been days now, but (Y/N) couldn't tell how many because she hadn't moved, she hadn't slept properly, she hadn't watched the news since the first day.

She had been sitting still on a wooden chair next to Peter's bed, eyes fixated on the TV screen hanging on the wall across from the bed. She had clutched Peter's hand in hers, like she had been doing for the last few hours – she wasn't even sure she could move it anymore – while listening to the news.

They had gotten him. The criminal Peter had been chasing for days and days, they got him. The police found him tied to a lamp post, covered in blood that wasn't his, and knocked unconscious on the same night Peter came back half dead. (Y/N) had smiled when she heard the anchorwoman say that he had been arrested, she had turned towards Peter to celebrate the news, but reality had hit her like a ton of bricks.

Peter wouldn't be celebrating his latest arrest any time soon.

Feeling ill again, (Y/N) had turned off the TV and unplugged it, for good measure, and since then, the hours spent in Peter's room had been silent for all of them. May didn't sleep here but she came in the morning and left late at night. She brought yarn with her and knitted, or a book to read, or pictures to look at. She had tried to show (Y/N) the album she brought on the fourth day, but (Y/N) merely stared blankly at the pages, as if she couldn't see the pictures at all.

May hadn't tried to gain (Y/N)'s attention anymore after that, she merely made sure she was fed and got some sleep. She slipped a sleeping pill in (Y/N)'s coffee on the fifth day because the girl looked a fright! She hadn't had any shut eye in days and her eyes were dry and red because she stared at Peter all day long, wordlessly urging him to wake up. He needed to wake up.

On the seventh day, May saw a change in (Y/N)'s behavior. It was as though she received an electric shock – or perhaps the lack of food and sleep was getting to her finally. She stood up, and took her phone, and she spent the day answering all the worried text messages she and Peter had received since he came here, she also called their faculty and internship supervisors to keep them updated.

“Yes, yes I know,” she said in her phone, her back turned to May.

Her voice sounded fake, it was a customer service voice, May noted, eyes darting from her knit-work to the young woman's back. She knew (Y/N) was on the brick of insanity, she was driving herself mad with worry and her health suffered from it too. She bore dark circles under her eyes and her cheeks were hollow.

“I'm sorry about that, I know I should have called but I barely leave the hospital room,” she sighed in the phone, clearly arguing with her supervisor about her prolonged absence from work. “I'll come back as soon as I can, and I will catch up on my work. No, I-”

May waited, curious to see what she was going to say to this person who so clearly had no idea what (Y/N) currently endured.

“Well I'm sorry if it's an inconvienience to you, but like I said, I will not be able to come back to work as long as my fiancé hasn't recovered from his accident. What's so hard to understand? Would you go to work if your wife's life was in danger?!” (Y/N) shouted in the phone, holding it away from her ear and simply yelling the words to the screen. “Have a good day!” she snapped before ending the call.

May's eye slit up and she stood up, leaving aside her knit-work.

“Honey, don't let it get to you,” she went and took (Y/N) into her open arms, rubbing her back when the young woman buried her head in the crook of her neck. “Everything will work out, you'll see. Peter wouldn't want us to lose hope so soon. We have to believe he will wake up.”

“I know, I know this,” (Y/N) hiccuped. “But it's so hard. I don't know how much longer I can do this- I- I feel like I'm holding my breath, and I just- I can't breathe, May. I can't- I can't breathe.”

(Y/N) was slowly crumpling down, her breathing becoming uneven and sharp. May recognized a panic attack when she saw one and held (Y/N) in her arms, lulling her gently and whispered reassuring words into her ears while she gave in to the daunting sadness crushing her heart. A dam broke inside her, and the tears began to flow again, and she cried and cried and hiccuped against May's flowery blouse, wishing her own mother was here with her.

“Shh”, May said in her ear. “It will be fine. I know my Peter, and I know he won't abandon you, he'll fight to come back to you,” she told her in a soothing voice before pulling away.

(Y/N) had calmed down a little, only silent tears ran down her cheeks but she had regained her breath and her body had stopped shaking. May tucked a strand of her hair behind her ear.

“You need to go home, honey,” May told her, meeting stubborn refusal. “You haven't had a full night's sleep in a week now, you'll end up in a the hospital if you don't take care of yourself.”

The rational part of her brain knew that, but how could she leave Peter? How could she leave her boyfriend alone in this sterile place, between these lifeless white walls while she was in their home?

“Oh, please don't cry anymore.” May pulled her in again and wrapped her arms around her. “He'd hate for you to torture yourself like this. You know it's not your fault. The one responsible has been arrested and will answer for his crimes.”

“It is. It is my fault. I should have stayed awake, then I would have been there when he needed me. Instead I let him bleed out on the floor, like a- like a-” a hiccup again, and she burst into tears once more.

“No, no, you can't think like that. You just fell asleep, it happens! No one could have predicted what happened that night. Peter leads a dangerous life, and you have nothing to do with this.”

There was no point in arguing. (Y/N) knew she was at least partly responsible for Peter's current state. If she had woken up a little sooner, maybe...

“Please, just go home. Have a bath, go to sleep, eat a real meal,” May urged her. “If anything new happens, I'll call you right away, I promise you. But in the meantime, do not come again until you've had at least ten hours of sleep. You need to rest.” She tucked another wayward strand of hair behind (Y/N)'s ear, who, like an obedient little robot, nodded.

She took her jacket that she's threw on over her sweats the day Happy brought them here, and was about to leave when May spoke up once more.

“Oh, and honey!” she called her. (Y/N) turned around and saw her smile. “I'm so happy for you two. Peter finally proposed, huh? I know he was waiting for the right time to ask you, I'm glad you said yes.”

Swallowing thickly, (Y/N) tried to reciprocated the smile, but quickly turned around to leave, before May could see the horror on her face.

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A/N: This is by far the angstiest piece I’ve ever written. *Pokes my readers with a stick* y’all still alive? How ya holding up? Hang in there

TAGLIST: @palindrome-teddy @complete-trash-101 @keeperofhopesanddreams @i-love-whumperflies @golden-guide @marauderette130

Comment if you wanna be tagged in part 4 :)

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