#I physically can’t do the latter I am a light weight despite wanting to be a Tough Guy

[mossywizard]

For once I’m not the stoner in the neighborhood let’s gooo

[meat--grindr]

another trans man fixated on Martin here!! 💕

could i request some NSFW of an ftm S/O teasing Martin while hes on the phone trying to do another interview as The Count? not a lot of talking from the S/O while hes on the phone, mostly physical stuff & feeling him up thru his clothes. the rest is up to you >:)))

(def going to use as a drawing prompt im just so so embarrassed to request off anon 😔😔😔)

Alright, so, this prompt has been living in my head rent-free ever since I first read it and I am so freaking excited to finally get to it. I’m sorry it took so long. I will admit this was a bit of a challenge for me because I am notoriously bad at writing dialogue. But I feel like it was good practice. Sorry if it sounds a little stilted in spots, I’m still learning.

Please, please, please link me to that art if you ever get around to it! You knocked it out of the park with this prompt and I’d love to give the art some love if you’re comfortable with sharing!

The Count Didn’t Count on This – Martin Mathias (Trans-Masculine Reader) – NSFW.

·       It’s late, and for once, you’re exactly where you feel you should be at this late hour—not sprawled across a chair reading, or gazing out of the window, watching the cars pass and counting the neighbours’ lights as they flick on and off in lieu of stargazing. And for the first time in at least a week, you’re not trapped at your desk, frantically typing the final draft of a paper, hindered by the slow keys of a typewriter that does not care a whit about the deadline steadily hurtling toward you. No, thankfully, this night has brought with it far more comfortable circumstances—you find yourself in bed, tired bones sinking into the plush mattress, consciousness caught in the bleary space between sleep and not.

·       Even better, you aren’t alone.

·       Tonight, your bed is warmed by another body, long and thin, curled tightly against your own, as though it were some sort of crime to leave even an inch of space between you. A bony hip digs into your thigh and you’re sure the press of your head and shoulder against his chest must make breathing difficult for him. But he’s made no attempt to shrug you off or shift your weight to a more comfortable spot, so you likewise let it be. In all honesty, you’re simply too comfortable to bother and you feel it’s safe to assume the same is true for Martin too.

·       The slow, even beat of his heart pulses against your cheek, and his long fingers stroke absently over your bare shoulder. The rough texture of burgeoning callouses catches against your skin—the sensation, though not wholly unpleasant, makes you shudder. Sometimes, you forget Martin works with his hands. When you hold them, they seem so delicate—his long fingers better suited to playing the piano than tightening screws or hammering nails. But he’s good at repairs and more importantly, he seems to find enjoyment the work. It certainly keeps him busy enough on the few afternoons that Cuda isn’t running him ragged in the shop, much to your personal dismay. But his nights—the nights like this—belong to you and you alone.

·       Your eyelids flutter closed, and for the first time in what feels like weeks, maybe even longer, you feel like you can rest. Really rest. Dimly, you find yourself wondering if it had more to do with finished papers and diminished responsibilities, or the reintroduction of the physical intimacy you’ve been missing so dearly. Though you can’t say for certain, you have a sneaking suspicion it’s the latter.

·       The longer you know Martin, the more you’re convinced that there is a preternatural bubble of calm that hangs around him. You can feel it in the way even the grouchiest old women in the store seem to soften toward him—hiding small smiles behind their sleeves, sometimes even calling him ‘dear,’ or in the way Cuda’s volatile temper deflates when his cruel words slide off Martin’s back as though he’s heard it all before from people who frightened him far greater. You’ve seen it at work on the feral cats that roam the neighbourhood—while they hiss and swipe at the children who chase them through the dusty streets, they sit willingly at Martin’s feet, rubbing against his legs with a familiarity that borders on friendly. And it’s in the way he looks at you—looks into you with those dark eyes that seem far too old for that handsome, youthful face—intense and all-seeing, but never judgemental. He is a point of unflappable calm in a world which never seems to slow for even a second. That calm has settled into you now, seeping into your bones as you lay there, listening to his heart thumping in the darkness.

·       The low crackle of the radio hovers at the edge of your hearing, a burst of static cutting through the droning voices. You’d stopped listening properly ages ago—the third time the DJ had made an attempt to dismiss his latest caller. It was an old man who was seven shades of pissed about the ‘teen-age hooligans’ who were ‘tipping over his bins every night and eating his trash.’ Of course, everyone with half a brain, including the host himself, knows it’s an animal—probably a raccoon, or a family of raccoons, but this old geezer has somehow convinced himself it’s a gaggle of ‘Satan-worshipping teenagers who have been brainwashed by heavy metal music and Pepsi Cola.’

·       Okay. Sure.

·       It’s utterly ridiculous, and just the sort of thing you’ve come to expect from the people who live in Braddock. Or the ones who call in to a show like this anyhow.

·       In a way, you feel bad for the poor DJ. Sure, he welcomes strange callers of all kinds, from alien abductees and bigfoot hunters to bereaved parents who teenagers are ‘just growing up too fast,’ or ‘a little too interested in the works of William Shakespeare.’ He even encourages them at times, but you’ve got to draw the line somewhere, and in your mind, this, funny as it may be, is probably it. You’re sure whatever the station is paying the guy, it isn’t enough to suffer through being called a ‘brainless sack of human garbage’ by a crazy old man.

·       “And that’s about all the time we have,” Despite his cheery tone, the poor guy sounds exhausted. “Thank you for calling!”

·       Another burst of static drowns out the old man’s reply, but you’re sure that whatever he’d said, it was not ‘radio-friendly.’

·       “…our next caller. You are on the air, Sir!”

·       “Yeah, uh…hi, Barry.” The man sounds young—probably not much older than yourself—and very nervous. He must be a first-time caller. As he and the DJ share opening pleasantries—what’s your name, how old are you, where are you calling in from tonight, is that a cat I hear in the background? —your attention begins to drift again. You teeter for a moment on the edge of sleep, the clean scent of your linen sheets and Martin’s shampoo filling your nose.

·       “I was just wondering if you’ve heard from the Count again since last time?”

·       And just like that, you’re awake again, attention fully focused on your radio and the funny little show that whispers through it.

·       The caller is asking about Martin. A cold shiver rumbles through your body. People ask about Martin on the show all the time—of course, they don’t know that’s who they’re asking about, but you do. It’s so strange, to hear a stranger talk about someone you know so well—even worse when they speak about him like they know him too. Sometimes, they make you laugh with their outlandish theories, but sometimes they make you sick—sick with worry: when he’s threatened with violence or exposure, sick with fear: when they make guesses that hit a little too close to home, and sick with jealousy: when they claim to have had an ‘encounter’ with him, or worse, try to set one up on air.

·       You know about Martin, of course—that he is a vampire, or at least he thinks he’s a vampire. Whether or not you believe him is another question entirely. He certainly does not abide by the ‘vampire rules’ as you know them from stories and television—he doesn’t sleep in a coffin, filled with dirt from his homeland or otherwise, rather he sleeps in a bed (curled up beside you more often than not these days). He cuts a handsome figure in mirrors and the photographs that you have pinned up above your desk. He walks about in the sun most days without complaint despite his pale complexion, and though he may not be a sleek. Predatory creature that oozes confidence, grace, and sex appeal, he’s no slouch either—lithe and handsome in a boyish sort of way, all knees, elbows, and wide dark eyes.

·       In fact, the only requirement he seems to meet on the proverbial ‘vampire checklist’ is his fixation with blood—and the need to consume it. Maybe that means something, maybe it doesn’t. You’ve come to the conclusion that what you think really doesn’t matter in the end—your opinion isn’t going to sway him on the subject one way or another. This is a truth about himself he believes perhaps more deeply than anything else. Who were you to try and change that?

·       So, you do your best to take everything in stride, and when you can’t, you humour him. Still, every once in a while, something will trip you up—you still can’t quite decide if he’s joking about being over eighty years old or not. But you do your best. You had even let him feed on you once. Though only once. In the end, it was Martin who had decided the experience was not one he would like to repeat.

·       He had laid you out on your bed, “I don’t want you to get hurt if you faint.” Though you’d told him nearly a hundred times that you’d be just fine, that you’d had blood taken before at the hospital, he had insisted.

·       You had expected things to be different. For a start, you had expected him to climb into your lap, to press his lips against your neck, seeking your pulse the way it’s done in the movies. Instead, he’d taken out a little white kit from his bag. He had unzipped it and laid it out on the bed, revealing a little bottle of clear liquid, a row of sterile, hypodermic needles, and a pack of fresh razor blades.

·       His long fingers fell upon the needles, caressing them lovingly one by one. Much to your relief, he did not pick one up. As if he could sense your apprehension, he’d said, “Don’t worry, I won’t need these.” He’d glanced up at you, measuring your reaction, “I won’t need them because you’re not going to fight me. Are you?” It wasn’t really a question. You shook your head, and the corners of his lips quirked up into a smile, “Good. It’s so much easier when they don’t fight me.” Those words had made you shudder. He really had done this before, then. Part of you hadn’t believed him—he seemed so…harmless

·       He’d picked out a single blade from the package, meticulously removing the white paper wrapping, taking extra care not to tear it, or let the blade cut into it. When he was through, he folded the paper into a neat square and dropped it onto the comforter. He lay the blade flat on his palm for you to see. “I don’t have pointy teeth, you see.” He took your hand, opening his mouth and guiding your fingers along the edges of his flat, dull teeth. “They aren’t sharp, so they don’t cut deep enough. You understand?” You’d nodded and he had kissed your fingertips gently, one by one.

·       “I’ll be careful, I promise,” He’d said, “I’ll only take a little. Just enough to take the edge off.” Despite the hungry glint in his eyes, you’d known he was telling the truth. He didn’t need to reassure you of that. You trusted him. Besides, you had asked for this. At least, he’d stopped asking if he still had your permission every five minutes. Of course he did.

·       And yet. Your heartbeat had kicked up, jittering like a frightened bird when you’d seen the needles and the razor. It was as though actually seeing them had made the whole situation feel more real. There was no denying you were afraid, but you didn’t tell him to stop—you didn’t want to. You had made up your mind. You wanted this; wanted to help.

·       He’d held your hand in his own like it was a thing made of glass. His fingers gripped the razor with a practiced grace as he held it just above your palm. Watching him, you were struck for the second time by just how rehearsed this seemed. How many times had he done this, with or without permission?

·       “Take a deep breath for me, okay? There’s a good boy.” Did he talk to the others too? Even the ones who fought back? You could picture him, chattering softly against the skin of some poor soul, sprawled limp across the floor.

·       Limp or lifeless?

·       The thought unsettled you, but you did as you were told, filling your lungs nearly to capacity as the sharp edge of the blade bit into the meat of your palm just below your thumb. As promised, he had been quick, pressing only as hard as was necessary. Even so, the sting of it made your flinch, your hand jumping in his own. His fingers tensed around yours, the tightness of his grip reflected in the grimace that flashed across his face as he bent his head to seal his lips around the wound.

·       You had expected to feel him pulling the blood from you, but he simply let it flow into his mouth, the coppery taste heavy on his tongue. He exhaled through his nose, long and low—a pleased sound. Something about that set you more at ease. He hadn’t recoiled or wrinkled his nose at the taste of your blood. You hadn’t even realized you were worried about how you tasted until that moment.

·       You had started to feel dizzy beneath him—dizzy not from a loss of blood, but the wet heat of his mouth against your skin. Your heart had stuttered in your chest as his tongue probed gently around the edges of the wound, soothing your sparking nerves, even as the blood continued to drip down his throat.

·       When at last, he pulled away, his face was flushed, and his breath came hard; his chest heaving as though he’d just run a great distance. Immediately, his hand shot to his front pocket, fingers searching for the roll of gauze bandages he’s swiped from Cuda’s first-aid kit.

·       He’d wrapped the clean white fabric around your hand with such care it made your heart ache almost as much as the wound itself. When he was finished, he’d flipped your hand over and pressed a gentle kiss against your knuckles. Then, he spoke. His voice was small, barely more than a ragged whisper, “Thank you.”

·       “Was that…was it okay?” Your skin felt feverish, as though the heat of his mouth had seeped into your flesh and was burning you from the inside out. And the dizzy feeling had only grown worse, forcing you to squeeze your eyes shut for a long moment.

·       Martin was still struggling to get his breathing under control, “Yes. I-It was good…better than good, actually. But…”

·       “But?” Had you done something wrong? Had you tasted bad after all? You cracked open one eye, then the other. The spinning had mostly subsided, but you still felt unsteady. “What can I do better next time?”

·       He’d gone stiff all over then, and his reply had come sudden and sharp, “No!” He cringed, the force behind his words clearly surprising himself as well. When he spoke again, his voice was softer, “No ‘next time.’ I…I can’t stand hurting you like that. I won’t do it again.”

·       You’d gazed up at him, blinking in confusion for a second. Then you realized what he’d meant—you had flinched when he’d cut you. Oh.

·       You reached up, cupping his cheek, “Oh, Martin. You didn’t hurt me. Not really.” It wasn’t strictly true—it had hurt a little, but you had been prepared for it to. You brushed a stray droplet of blood from the corner of his mouth with a careful swipe of your thumb.

·       “Yes, I did. I saw it.” You had tried to protest further, but he’d cut you off, much to your surprise. Martin almost never talked back like this, though perhaps you’d simply never given him a reason before. “I saw you flinch. I won’t put you through this again.”

·       And he hadn’t. Though you’d brought the idea up more than once, he had dismissed it each time with the same stubborn shake of his head. If Martin was anything, he was true to his word.

·       “…and it’s been such a long time since we heard from the guy.”

·       The DJ hums in agreement, “It has indeed, my friend. Maybe we’ll hear from him later tonight. If you’re out there listening, Count, don’t be a stranger! Give us a call,” He begins rattling off the stations toll-free number. “We’re all dying to hear from you again!”

·       You feel Martin stiffen up against you. You knew about the interviews he had done; you’d even heard one of them, back when Martin was little more to you than a silent, sullen face behind the counter at Cuda’s shop. And even when he’d started talking to you, he sounded different over the radio—his voice was deeper, and he sounded so confidant, so sure of himself when he talked about his ‘sickness.’ He almost never sounded like that in day-to-day life. You weren’t embarrassed to admit you found it attractive.

·       Martin on the other hand, was mortified to know you had heard him. He had known that people were listened to him, obviously, but they were supposed to be strangers. You actually knew him, and he’d talked about sex. Of course, reminding him you’d done a lot more in your time together than simply listen to him talk about sex did little to lessen his horror.

·       Of course, you also knew he’d been doing fewer and fewer interviews now that he had you to talk to and share his life with. But on occasion, when the pleading from the DJ gets too desperate, or he was simply that bored, Martin could be coaxed back onto the other end of the phoneline once again.

·       You glance up at him, but in the darkness, his expression is unreadable, eyes cast down toward the end of the bed, long lashes throwing feathered shadows across his pale cheeks. From the very beginning, he’s been hard to read. As you’ve come to know him better, you’ve needed to get comfortable with the idea of asking when you want to know something you could easily intuit if speaking to anyone else. He’s very good at hiding his thoughts and feelings behind a neutral expression and placid silence, but he would tell you almost anything if you asked him directly; so long as he had the words to explain it to you.

·       Do you want to make a call, Martin?”

·       For a long moment, he’s silent, turning the idea over in his mind a few times. You had never actually been with him when he’d done an interview in the past. He’d usually wait until you were three days deep in an assignment with no quick end in sight, or out of town with family. Maybe he would be too embarrassed to do it with you here or maybe he’s just not in the mood tonight. But, after a minute, he tilts his head down toward you and says, “Why not?”

·       The radio crackles out a jaunty tune—a commercial for some small business or another. “I’ll call in a few minutes. He doesn’t seem busy tonight.” Martin sits up, bracing his back against the headboard of your bed, and dislodging you from your perch. You grumble a little, irritated by the loss of your comfy spot, but you crawl into his lap anyway.

·       You press soft kisses into his skin, beginning at his hairline, and trailing down over his forehead, the bridge of his nose, his cheeks—the right then the left—the very tip of his nose, and finally his lips. He smiles against your mouth, leaning into the kiss with his whole body.

·       When you pull away only a moment later, you can practically hear the pouty turn of his mouth. He whines softly, but you pay him no mind, trailing kisses down his chin. “Are you nervous, Martin?” The question comes out muffled by the soft curve of his jaw.

·       “Not really, no…” He trails off, eyes cast to the ceiling, “I like the attention, I s’pose.”

·       You pull back to look at him, barely stifling a snort of amusement, “Don’t I give you enough?”

·       His eyes slide from the ceiling, falling upon you dark and wide. For a moment, you think he’s taken you seriously, but the pouty turn of his mouth breaks into a blinding grin, “You give me lots, sure, but I’m a creature of the night, remember? We always want more.”

·       The two of you sit there for a moment, gazing into each other’s eyes, the silence stretching on into the night. Then, you collapse into each other in a fit of giggles. Martin buries his head into the crook of your neck, shaking with quiet laughter. Sure, when he’d said wasn’t untrue, but when he put it like that, it was hard not to laugh.

·       “Welcome back, everybody. It’s almost the top of the hour at 01:57! I’m your host Barry…”

·       You hadn’t even heard the ads end! Martin scrambles for the chunky landline phone that rests on the beside table, nimble fingers punching in the numbers at speed. Though his calls had become less and less frequent, he evidently kept the number somewhere in his memory.

·       Martin’s voice is hushed as he speaks to whoever manned the phones down at the radio station, muttering something about ‘the Count.’ As he speaks, he winds the coiled phone cord around a delicate finger. It’s a simple, distracted habit of Martin’s but it makes your heart flutter whenever you catch him doing it.

·       You stretch your arm as far as you can, reaching for the radio, unwilling to give up your perch in Martin’s lap for even a second. Your fingertips brush the cool metal—once, twice—then you manage to curl your fingers around it. Pulling it into your lap you turn the volume down low so only you can hear it.

·       “I’m just getting word that we have a special guest on the line,” the DJ sounds positively elated, “Folks, it looks like the Count is back in town. Hello, Count! Where have ya’ been?”

·       Martin hesitates for a moment, his jaw working as he searches for the words, “Around.”

·       There is a definite lag between the words in his mouth, and those same words coming through the radio. The dissonance confounds your ears and makes your head ache in a dizzy sort of way, but you want to hear both halves of this conversation, not just Martin’s.

·       “So, what trouble have you been getting into since we last spoke, Count? Murdered any pretty ladies recently?”

·       There’s a smile in Martin’s voice, “Not ladies, no.”

·       “Oh really? Any men then?”

Martin glances down at you, though he makes a non-committal noise. The DJ takes a breath, as though he’s going to say something, but Martin cuts him off, “I wouldn’t call what I do murder, anyhow.”

·       “No? But you still need to drink blood, right?”

·       “Oh, yes.”

·       “How have you been getting your food, then? Don’t vampires uh…kill with every strike?”

·       Martin laughs, a soft, breathy sound that sends a shudder through you. “I’ve been managing.” His tone is damn near conversational. You gaze down at him, marvelling at how easy this seems to be for him. The Martin you’ve come to know and love rarely (if ever) speaks to strangers, and when he has no other choice, he’s never this talkative. It’s strange, but by no means an unwelcome change. You nuzzle against him, letting his voice thrum through your skull as it vibrates around in his chest.

·       “Enough talk of blood and guts, Count. What about your other problems, huh? Tell me, are the streets of Braddock safe at last from the real terror stalking them? Have you…” He pauses conspiratorially, “Found yourself a girl yet?”

·       Those words drive an icy spike of hurt deep into your guts. No, he had not found himself a girl. Martin must have felt your jaw clenching, as his free hand begins to card through your hair—soothing and soft.

·       “I’ve found…someone.” The implications of that word settles you almost as much as his touch. ‘Someone.’ Not a woman, but someone of significance, nonetheless. He bends down to press a quick kiss into the crown of your head. “Someone special.”

·       The DJ gasps, sounding scandalized. “Someone special! Well, I never. Good for you, Count.” You can’t say you’re a fan of the man’s tone—pleasant enough, but with a sharp edge that borders on condescending. But there’s little you can do but grit your teeth and bear it. “How long until you suck this one dry and move on?”

·       Wow. Fuck this guy. On some level, you’d known he was an asshole—sure you felt bad for him when people were rude, but he could dish it out just as well as he could take it. Every once in a while, he’d push a caller too hard or make a snide comment the conversation could have done without. You didn’t like hearing it when strangers were involved, and now that you were the subject of such a comment, you like it even less. He makes it sound like you’re some random conquest, or worse, little more than a meal to Martin. How wrong he was.

·       Suck this one dry and move on? Fat chance, Buddy. Though, his wording did give you an idea…maybe you could make this night just a little more interesting for the both of you.

You sit back, uncurling your legs and dropping your knees to either side of Martin’s hips, straddling his lap properly. Settling your weight back into his lap, you pull a face, pointing to the radio in your lap and mouthing, ‘What a jaggoff!’

·       Martin’s lips press into a thin line as he tries to stifle his laughter. He nods sympathetically but doesn’t say anything about it to the DJ. He’s slow to anger, preferring to divert the conversation rather than cause a scene. You can’t help but admire him for that. You lean forward, stamping a kiss against his collarbone.

·       “I…uh…try not to eat the things I love.”

·       “Ooooh, so it’s love, huh?”

·       You roll your eyes at the DJ, though you can’t deny hearing Martin say he loves you sends a little thrill through you—it was the same thrill you’d felt the first time he had said it to you, and the same thrill you hoped to feel for years to come. You trail little, open-mouthed kisses up the column of Martin’s throat, your mouth feverishly warm against his skin. A shudder jolts through him like an electric shock as your teeth scape across his Adam’s apple. You grin against his flesh, sliding up to nip along the underside of his jaw. There is a sensitive spot at the very corner that you love to exploit, and now seems like the perfect opportunity to do so.

·       Your teeth graze over the spot and his body jitters beneath you. His voice catches in his throat, though if the DJ notices, he doesn’t comment. You nip gently at the spot, reddening the pale skin as you worry it with your teeth. You long to suck a bruise there—the purple-blue hue would doubtless look stunning against the pallor of his skin, but you knew Cuda would have a conniption if he saw it, and you didn’t want to put Martin through that again. Not after last time. The pair of you had agreed that perhaps in future, it would be better if any hickeys you left remained under your clothes.

·       Pressing one final kiss against that spot, you pull back to look at him. You can tell he’s getting flustered—there’s a flush beginning to creep up his neck from beneath the collar of his t-shirt, deep pink and blotchy. You know, given time, it will reach his cheeks, the colour blooming high on his cheekbones. When you get him worked up enough, you could make Martin blush to the very tips of his ears. It was adorable.

·       Your fingers dig into the fabric of his shirt as you drag your nails down his chest. His teeth catch his lower lip. You can almost hear the whine trapped behind those pearly teeth.

·       “Why don’t you tell us a little about this special someone, Count?”

·       Martin hesitates, “I don’t know about that.”

·       “Nonsense! You can tell your good ol’ pal Barry. Who am I gonna tell?”

·       Martin isn’t that stupid. He knows Barry doesn’t need to tell anyone anything—he’s live on air, he’d be telling them himself. His eyes flick down to yours, searching for something, be it permission or resistance. He pulls the phone away from his ear, resting it against his shoulder as he waits for you to make up your mind. You know he’d hang up in an instant if you asked him to—he’d likely do you one better and never call in again if the DJ was just going to ask questions about you all night long. But you trusted Martin not to give too much information away—he’d managed to stay hidden all this time, after all.

·       You nodded at him, smiling and thumbing gently over a nipple. Though your touch is light, and the sensation is dampened by the fabric of his shirt, Martin makes a sound as though he’s been punched in the stomach. He shifts beneath you, tucking the phone underneath his chin as he moves.

·       You grip the striped fabric of his shirt, working it in your hands. You lift it a little, fingers slipping just beneath it to splay against the flat plane of his stomach. His skin is warm and soft beneath your hands. You look down at him, arching a brow and asking for permission with only your eyes.

·       “Fine.” He says, and though the word is an answer for the DJ’s pleading, he’s talking to you, looking directly into your eyes—granting the permission you were so hoping for.

·       “Great! So, how long have you been together?”

·       You fall into him, hands pushing the soft cotton of his shirt up over his chest. Your lips are on his skin in a matter of seconds, trailing kisses across every inch of exposed skin—stomach, ribs, hips, and everything in between.

·       “It’s been ahh—” His words are cut short by a tight little moan as you bite down hard just below his left nipple. However, he manages a solid recovery as your tongue laves over the spot soothing the sting, playing the whole thing off as though he had needed time to stop and think about it, “—bout a year, maybe a little longer.”

·       Clever boy.

·       You drag your tongue a little higher, flicking over the sensitive skin of his nipple. He arches into your touch, hips canting up against yours, threatening to buck you from your perch. He tilts his head, trapping the phone between his cheek and his shoulder, reaching for you with both hands.

·       He takes your cheeks into his hands, pulling your head away from his chest. You grin up at him, taking in his expression—his pupils blown so wide with want they swallow all but the slimmest ring of brown iris, his lips parted and shining in the semi-darkness, flushed to the tips of his ears.

·       You surge up to kiss him, remembering only at the last moment, he needs to keep his mouth free to carry on the conversation. With a huff, you divert your course, and fix your lips back against the skin of Martin’s neck.

·       He swallows hard as you press your lips back against his pulse, pushing his hips back up into yours. You can’t keep the grin form your face as you feel him pressing up against you—the outline in his pants far more noticeable now.

·       His hands tremble slightly as they search for yours, dragging them down to the front of his jeans. You grin widens as you press down. Even through the thick denim, you can feel his cock throb under your palm. Someone’s excited.

·       You look down at him and he turns his head away, flushing a shade darker. He was so easy to wind up like this, it was almost unbelievable. A few kisses here, and gentle touch there, and he was a blushing, whining mess spread out on your sheets for you to enjoy however your pleased. You had chalked the over-sensitivity up to a lack of experience, and had expected it to fade after a few months, but it hadn’t. He was just that reactive, not that you were complaining.

·       With deft fingers, you pop the button of his jeans, quietly dragging the zipper down. He lifts his hips, wriggling helpfully as you drag his pants and underwear down over his thighs.

·       His cock bobs free, flushed and leaking already. You ghost the pads of your fingers over the soft skin of his shaft, and he shudders, his whole body tensing. His knuckles are white where he grips the phone, and his jaw is tight with the struggle of keeping quiet.

·       You wrap your hand around him, stroking gently from base to tip. His back arches off from the headboard, and he falls forward, burying his head in the crook of your neck. The phone receiver bumps against your collarbone, hard and hollow. The plastic is pleasantly cool against your feverish skin.

·       “Is it different being with a…uh…forgive the expression, normal person?”

·       “They’re a…” His laugh is breathy, almost a moan as he glances down at you, “a real handful.”

·       You barely stifle a laugh. You glare down at him in mock disapproval, and he sticks his tongue out at you. Cheeky little bastard. Though the colour still sits high on his cheeks, and his breathing comes through parted lips in short puffs, he seems to have adjusted well to your pace.

·       “Nothing you can’t handle though, I’m sure. Do they know about your…condition, shall we say?”

·       “They are aware, yes.”

·       The DJ laughs, “And how did that go? Can’t be an easy thing to hear—that your boyfriend might vamp out and eat you whole!”

·       Martin sighs, “I already told you, I don’t eat people…” His voice is much steadier now, even as your fingers brush along the sensitive spots on the underside of his cock. That means its time to switch things up. You can’t have him getting too comfortable. Where would the fun be in that? You tighten your grip—something that usually makes Martin thrash against the sheets and sob into your pillows—and begin to swipe your thumb gently over the tip of his cock with every upward stroke. He almost drops the phone as he yanks it away from his mouth. He covers the receiver with a shaking hand just in time, as a soft whine slips through his teeth, “Oh, fuck…”

·       You press a finger up against your lips, reminding him to be quiet. He presses up into your fist, his hips stuttering as your thumb traces a lazy circle around his head. His free hand flutters nervously about his mouth, as he tries desperately to keep quiet. His breath comes sharp and quick though his nose as he struggles to keep control. You shift your weight, pinning his hips back down with your thighs, and though he tries to buck back up against you, you hold him firmly in place. He whines high in his throat, shooting a pleading look up at you, but you just shake your head and point at the phone, ‘Keep going.’

·       Slowly, Martin brings the receiver back up to his ear. His tongue flickers out over his lips and he lets out a shaky breath, “S-Sorry, I didn’t catch that?”

·       “I said, ‘let’s circle back to what you said before,’ about not eating what you love. Why not? If you don’t need to kill to feed, why not feed on this special someone? Surely if they love you back, they’d be willing.”

·       You slow your hand, wanting to give Martin a fighting chance at answering. You were momentarily intrigued by the DJ’s line of questioning. You knew why Martin didn’t want to feed on you, but you were curious as to what sort of excuse he would give.

·       “W-Well…it’s come up mo-ore than once but…” Martin goes silent as you squeeze down on him, his posture going rigid, his head thrown back against the headboard.

·       The DJ lets the silence hang for a moment, but when Martin doesn’t finish his thought, he cuts in, “But…? You still there, Count?”

·       You let up, and Martin takes a big gulp of air, as though he had only just remembered he needed to breathe. “Y-Yeah, I’m here. It’s…it’s complicated.”

·       “Oh yeah? How?”

·       “Well, it’s not about whether they’ll let me or not…” He takes a shaky breath, his eyes fluttering closed for a moment as he steadies himself. When he speaks again, his voice is low, barely more than a whisper, “It’s that I want more.”

·       He tries in vain to buck up into your fist, his hips rolling in shallow, abortive little thrusts. His teeth are sunk into his lower lip, his eyes boring deep into your own.

·       ‘I want more.’ Those words were meant for you.

·       You blink down at him, momentarily dumb founded. Then a grin spreads across your face, sharp and hungry. If he wants more, you’ll give it to him—you’d give it to him until he was begging you to stop.

·       Sliding down his body, you know this is risky. Martin has never been good at keeping quiet, especially not when you’ve got your mouth on him. But the idea is simply too enticing to pass up on. When were you ever going to get the change to suck his cock live on air again? Besides, this might be good practice for him in the art of keeping his voice down—not that you didn’t love to hear him, it just might be nice to keep your…activities a secret from the whole neighbourhood for once.

·       You wriggle down onto your stomach, bringing your face level with Martin’s cock. Settling yourself into a comfortable position between his knees, you bend your head, pressing a gentle kiss against the tip of his cock.

·       He makes an involuntary choking sound in the back of his throat. You look up at him, resting your chin on the tops of his thighs. You want to give him the time he needs to make up his mind. If he tells you ‘no,’ or pushes you away, you’d gladly go back to stroking his cock and kissing his neck. You would get just as much pleasure from the shivers and whimpers you could wring out of him that way.

·       But he doesn’t tell you no, rather he pushes his hips up against you, pressing the tip hard against your lips. You flick your tongue out, ghosting for only a moment over his sensitive flesh, but it’s enough to make his eyes roll back, his long lashes fluttering against his cheeks. You do it again, and his mouth falls open. Though no sound escapes the look on his face is just as glorious.

·       This is going to be fun.

·       You crane your neck, opening your mouth and gently taking the head inside.  Martin’s free hand shoots to his mouth, and he bites down hard on the meat of his palm to stop himself from sobbing out loud. You press your tongue flat against him, dragging it slowly against his hot flesh. He thrashes beneath you, jostling the phone against his cheek.

·       Carefully, you sink further down on him, taking him in inch by inch. He lets out a long sigh around a mouthful of palm.

·       “What was that, Count?”

·       “Oohh…nothing,” Martin grinds out, “Just…closing a window.”

·       The lie was flimsy, but the DJ, despite his skeptical tone, didn’t seem interested in pressed him on it further, “…Right…so how is your control around this person, huh? Do you ever get the urge to just go to town on them?”

·       Martin’s laugh comes out as a low purr, and he bucks into your mouth once, “Mmm, sometimes.” Ever so slowly, as you’ve sunk down onto his cock, he’s been curling in on himself. His head now rests atop your own, and you can feel the heat of his cheek radiating against your scalp. If that heat is anything to go by, he must be positively scarlet.

·       “And what does that entail for you exactly?”

·       With a little jolt, his cock brushes up against the back of your throat. You swallow down a little choking noise, breathing steadily through your nose in an attempt to calm your gag reflex.

·       The warmth of Martin’s cheeks is suddenly gone as he straightens up again. His head hits the headboard with a thump. “I-I just wanna…” He swallows thickly, his breath coming hard, “Push into…p-push my teeth into their throat and just,” He bucks up into your throat, either unable, or simply unwilling to stay still any longer, “just take what I want.”

·       “Their…blood?”

·       You swallow around Martin and his back arches so far he practically lifts off the bed “Yes! Yes, everything they have to give!”

·       “Right…for a moment there it sounded a bit more, uh, sexually motivated than that.”

·       Again, your throat contracts around him, and a hiss of air escapes through his teeth, “No difference really…”

·       The DJ is silent for a moment, “Now that’s an interesting tidbit about you, Count. I’m sure all the ladies out there would love to hear more about that.”

·       Marin fucks up into your throat again with a soft groan, “I’m…I’m sure they would but,” His breath is coming harder now, “unfortunately, I’m taken.”

·       The DJ laughs, “Hear that, Count? That’s the sound of hundreds of hearts all over Braddock breaking. Sorry, folks but it looks like you’re out of luck.”

·       Oh. He’s taken alright. You can just imagine the anguished looks on their faces when you learn he gets taken almost every other night by another man.

·       Though you’d love to keep him in this position, you’re struck by the sudden, possessive urge to have him on his back. You tap his thigh thrice in quick succession and Martin withdraws almost immediately. He’s always so respectful of your wishes, even if he whines a little when his cock slips from the wet heat of your mouth. The sudden chill of the air on his wet cock sends a shiver through him.

·       You scoot back, grabbing Martin by the calves, and pulling him down into a more horizontal position. He fumbles with the phone, as it slips from his grasp, landing on the bed near his shoulder.

·       “What’s going on, Count?”

·       “S-Sorry, I just…I just dropped the phone is all. I’m…I’m feeling awful shaky these days.”

·       “Oh, yeah? How long has it been?”

·       Martin’s tone is distracted, “Ages.” He is far more focused on you, his dark eyes trained on yours as you loom over him.

·       The DJ asks another question, but you’re not listening as you slip Martin’s slick cock into your mouth, wasting no time in taking him back into your throat where he belongs.

·       Though you can’t make out his words so well over the rushing in your ears, Martin’s voice sounds strained, slightly higher than usual. He’s fighting the pleasure hard.

·       His free hand fists itself in your hair, pushing you down tighter against his cock. You swallow hard, trying desperately not to gag as he rolls is hips into your mouth. He’s come such a long way since the first time you asked him to fuck your mouth. He’d been so nervous that you did most of the work, bobbing your head faster and faster until he’d spilled deep into your mouth. He had apologized for almost an hour after, thinking the rasp in your voice was all his fault. Now? He’s practically asphyxiating you, and you hadn’t needed to say a word.

·       Martin is shaking—his thighs tremble on either side of your head, and the phone in his hands nearly slips from his grasp again with the force of the tremors passing through him.

·       You hollow your cheeks and he’s forced to cover the receiver again as a series of whimpers tear free from his lips. You press your tongue flat against the underside of his cock, and he sobs, his hips canting up off the bed.

·       “I-I’m close,” His frantic whisper comes tight through his teeth, an edge bordering on panic creeping into his voice. You grip his thigh and redouble your efforts, gaining a high whine in return.

·       “Hey, Count? Count there’s a lot of interference on your end…I can’t really hear you. I think this is where this conversation has to end, but call back another night, huh?” Martin doesn’t even respond, he simply slams the receiver back into the cradle, ending the call.

·       Almost as soon as the call has disconnected, he’s a whimpering mess. “Oh, fuck! Your mouth…I-I can’t! Is it okay? Is it okay if I…?”

·       He can’t bring himself to say it, but you know what he means and hum a soft affirmation around his cock. He cries out as the sound vibrates around his over-sensitive flesh.

·       With a whimper, he fucks up into your mouth, once, twice, then he shudders, his whole body going rigid as he cums. His knees clamp around your ears, squeezing your head as he shakes with the pleasure. His fingers pull at your hair, any tighter and you’re sure he’ll pull some out. But you press on, hollowing your cheeks, letting him ride the high for as long as he can.

·       The sound he makes as you swallow around him is nothing short of wrecked. His fingers claw the sheets as though he’s trying to drag himself away from you, from your mouth, but his body remains locked in place beneath you.

·       His cock twitches against your tongue as you slowly pull back, the wet drag of your tongue digging raw little whimpers from his throat, and a shudder passed through him when you pull of and his cock is again exposed to the chilly air of the room. His hips press forward, seeking the tight heat of your throat again. It would seem almost desperate if the motion wasn’t so sluggish, almost sleepy.  

·       He reaches for you then in the dark. His hands, hot and sweaty from exertion and gripping both the phone and the sheets for so long, grasp either side of your face as he pulls you up for a kiss.

·       The salty taste of his cum still coats your tongue, but he doesn’t seem to care as he presses his lips against yours with a desperation you rarely see in him.

·       Pulling back, you whisper against his lips, “Was that enough attention?”

·       He smiles, “For me? Yes.” He presses another soft kiss against your lips. “But now it’s your turn.”

[timextoxhajima]

Grounded: Level 4

Level 3 | Level 5

Member: Minho (Lee Know)

Genre: idol minho x idol trainee reader

Taglist: @jaehyvnsvalentine​​ @licorice526 @lolwhatameme @felixn-recs​​

[A P R I L 2 0 1 9]

The date was the 4th of April, 2019. It’s almost like Yeonjun knew, and that was exactly the reason why he had invited you to go watch TXT’s Inkigayo stage. 

They were used to it, being nominated for top two but never winning, even after two years. It sucks to watch them wait nervously for the results to come out, the thought ‘it won’t be us’ floating about in their heads despite those stage smiles and those strong fronts. 

You were finally pulled to your feet with your hands over your mouth when the results were finally broadcasted, and Jisung’s face gave it all away. Then, there was your ex-classmate, whose lips were hung agape, and Chan’s eyes that were filled, not with surprise but with the sheer amount of gratitude he had for the job he was finally doing after 7 years of training. 

You were here for TXT, but Yeonjun knew you were rooting for Stray Kids. 

A frown comes over your face when the desire to just break out into ugly sobs overwhelms your entire respiratory system. The camera pans, and all you see is Seungmin jumping with joy with his arms around Changbin and Minho.

The smile on his face was irreplaceable. The same way Earth’s moon could never be replaced. Not by Jupiter’s Moons, not by Saturn’s moons, nothing. It’s like the stars aligned based off their hard work and God finally said, you all deserve to reap the rewards of your efforts. 

The tears tumble over your lower lids when you see Chan cry, then Jisung cannot regain his composure, with Seungmin and Changbin following suit. But your eyes cannot leave Minho. 

He is happy. 

He is proud.

He is standing where he was born to be. 

Each scene plays out like life was running in split seconds, and you could absorb every moment of it, and yet before you know it, TXT comes back to their dressing room where you were waiting. 

It is written all across Yeonjun’s face that he’s just satisfied with himself that he didn’t invite you for nothing. But something surprising surges through you, and it motivates you to throw your arms around Yeonjun in a bid to express your gratitude.

“Whoa!” Your weight shoves him back a few steps, and his arms come around your shoulders. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing,” Shaking your head, you can hear his racing heart beat from the adrenaline of being on stage. The other members are packing up, so you aren’t really bothered when your tears start to stain his shirt. “Just... thank you, for inviting me today.”

“Aw, come on. It’s nothing. I just had a gut feeling they’d win today, thought you would like to witness that for yourself.” 

The panic starts dripping into the warmth he’s providing you. It’s the same feeling you got when Minho had encouraged you to persist on for your performances. 

You pull away, eyes tilting upwards to meet his. 

It takes you exactly two seconds to realise that you’re more comfortable looking into his eyes than Minho’s, which is alarming. 

“But anyway,” He releases you, and the lack of physical contact sucks some disappointment out from you. “It’s time to go, unless you want to wait for Stray Kids.”

“I...” Minho has his career now. I can’t make him choose, right? It’s time to let go. It’s time to move on. It’s time to forget about him. “No, it’s fine. I can text Hyunjin later.”

“What?” There’s a gentle frown on his forehead; you already know what’s running through his head. “What about Lee-”

“I can ask Hyunjin to forward the congratulations to the whole group, it’ll be fine.”

It’s not fine. Because I know how much Hyunjin is going to hate it. 

Back in the comfort of your bed (though you would very much prefer the one you have at home), you scroll through your chats, searching for Hyunjin, and unironically noticing that your chat with Minho was almost non-existent anymore. 

You stare at the screen for so long, it blacks out, now feeding you with your own dark reflection. The light from the corridor that’s the only thing illuminating your room was a speck white in your irises, even in the reflection. 

Shutting your eyes, you let the content of the texts sink in - who was Hyunjin kidding? Who were you kidding?

Had there anything between Minho and I, it would’ve happened, right?

Now that he’s an idol, there’s nothing that could happen between the two of you. 

What’s JYP going to do if one of his newly debuted idols get into-

No. 

It’s not going to happen. Because Minho doesn’t have feelings for me the same way I had feelings for him.

I don’t need Minho anymore.

You put your phone on airplane mode and await the next day. Training, training, and more training. 

It’s not like he ever needed me anyway, right?

[J U L Y 2 0 1 9]

What the fuck am I even looking at?

Just what the fu-

What the fucking-

“y/n,” Soobin wraps his fingers around his phone despite it still being in your hold. “Can I- Can I have my phone back- Please-”

Just who does he think he is? Prancing around in that stupid white top to some deep jazz music-

He finally snatches his phone away from you, and you’re left with the rigidity of your knuckles folded and crumpled like you were still holding it. 

[Stray Kids : SKZ-PLAYER] Lee Know "DAWN(���벽)"

“What, cat got your tongue?” Beomgyu snickers, just missing a harsh swipe of your hand from you. 

“Cut it out,” Yeonjun comes from behind and shoves his head forward playfully into a head lock, ruffling his hair. The sight of both Yeonjun and Minho stirs the lazy, but very difficult-to-put-to-sleep creature in your heart. Though one of them was just dancing in a space in a video on the screen, it feels like both are yearning for your attention. 

Of course, you’d never admit it to anybody. Not even yourself. 

“No, I’m just... Surprised.”

Taehyun’s in a game with Kai, but he still manages that sneaky look at you above his phone. “Surprised that he’s got individual content or surprised that you still get affected by what he does?”

Kai sucks his lips between his teeth, the attempt to hide his cheeky grin futile. Soobin watches you roll your eyes and shake your head to yourself, empathising with you. 

“I’ve got an idea-” 

“I don’t think I want to hear it, Gyu-” Aggressively shaking your head, you throw him the meanest glare you can conjure from your eyeballs. 

“How about you go to JYP and surprise him? Congratulate him on his individual content?”

It piques the members’ interest. Now, even Yeonjun was giving you those eyes that said “hey, that’s not such a bad i--”

“No,” The leather sofa creaks a little when you push yourself off it, removing yourself from the dressing room where they were having rehearsals for KCON 2019. 

“Aw, come on,” Yeonjun’s groan sounds like a puppy begging to go on a walk. Ironic that it’s coming from an older boy that much taller than you, that much more respectable than you. “It’ll be fun. They’re going for KCON in LA in August and I’ll be back by then. We can bring them a basket of fruit or something.”

“I might just go with ‘or something’-”

“Let me rephrase that,” Yeonjun points to you with that mischief in his eyes, coming between you and the door of the dressing room. “We can bring them a basket of fruit, you can have a chat with Lee Know, wish them good luck on their trip to LA and we’ll be on our way. All you gotta do is order that basket and by the time we come back from KCON New York, we’ll be good to go.”

You squint at Yeonjun, slightly suspicious of how hard he’s selling you the idea, until you remember that he’s got a heart of gold, the kind that’s making you feel confused and at an absolute loss of words. 

“I’ll go with you,” He leans forward a little, hands on your shoulders and slightly shaking your frame. “I’ll ask Changbin for this favour, tell him we’ll be dropping by and keep it a surprise for Lee Know, how does that sound?”

No. I don’t want to be in the same room as you and Minho, God damn it.

Your lungs deflate and your shoulders slump, gaze avoiding his for a split second before they resign and turn back to him. 

“Yes!” Yeonjun clenches his fist and holds them before his chest, his head thrown back in triumph. “You’ve all seen it!” Suddenly acting like he was in a play, he wraps an arm around you and gestures out into the air, not engaging any of his members who were all occupied with their own phones. “On the road to redeeming your friendship with Lee Know!”

Finally releasing you, he runs his hand through his hair and struts across the room. The words reach you, despite him walking away and they still somehow sink into your bones, but you can no longer contain the whirlpool of emotions swirling around like a tornado in your gut. 

“Man, y’know how frustrating it is to watch that conversation between you and Lee Know go down? Time to set this right...”

And his voice fades out slowly, only because you can’t help but compare the likes of Minho and Yeonjun. Both boys have your heart, but one doesn’t need you, and the other’s trying to push you to the latter. 

What a fucking mess. 

After TXT leaves for the stage again, you are left to return to BigHit to continue training - you scored an A for dancing the last evaluation round, but a B for rapping and a C for vocals. 

Not a great start.

The trainee manager comes to pick you up, updates you on the progress your fellow trainees have made, but none of it gets into your head. 

Your phone’s just given you a reminder of your private Instagram’s memories, and all you can process are Minho’s face appearing over and over and over again back when you were both back-up dancers for BTS. 

First, the only thing that’s running through your mind was how precious memories are. Grains of sand that fly away in the wind or get washed away by the ocean when it comes by the shore - always existing but never always around. His little bunny teeth that shone under the light of the back-up dancer’s dressing room, and his habit of sticking a napkin to his forehead so his facial oil wouldn’t glisten with the sweat. He’s taking his time to munch on his burrito while scrolling through his Instagram, completely unaware of your mindless zooming in on his face - it’s something his members like to do now too. 

When you see a picture of yourself on his back on the last day of being BTS’ backup dancer though, that’s when the tears start to gradually covet the surface of your eyeballs. The pinches in your chest present themselves as deeper breaths when you try to control and maintain your composure. The trainees’ manager probably going to look at you weird when he sees you crying at your phone silently. 

But how can you not, when all the memories with Minho seems so far away, they feel unreal? They feel like dreams you had that were forgotten over time; they feel like cotton candy when they melt in your mouth. Sweet, then nothing. 

Maybe he’s just another chapter in your life that’s ended. He was just here to show you what you could do, and not stick around to watch you succeed at it. 

Maybe this was it. 

[A U G U S T 2 0 1 9]

“Is that the one and only Choi Yeonjun standing in JYP territory?!” Changbin’s loud voice echoes down the hallway before your sunbae can complete his request to the lady at the lobby of the building. 

“Having fun training for KCON?” Yeonjun pulls back from the counter, previously leaning on it.

“They’re with me, thanks,” Changbin leans over one of the barricades and informs the lady, who presses a button and the barricades whir open. “Tell me about it. It’s been such a busy year. How have you been? You just came back from...”

“New York.”

“Right, right. Ours is in LA so,” Changbin trails off as he presses the lift button before turning to you. “You are... Hyunjin’s classmate, right?”

“The one and only,” You extend your palm to Changbin, who takes it with some slight surprise. 

“Do your members know we’re here?” Yeonjun’s innocent question was short of being interrupted by the lift arriving. 

“Nah, you wanted it to be a surprise right?” Changbin grins at the both of you through the reflection of the lift doors. The plastic wrap of the gift basket in your hands crinkle under the pressure of your grip. 

“Man, isn’t this fun? You get to show up, unannounced, give everybody something and then make up with Lee Know!”

“Lee Know?” The name draws a frown upon Changbin’s face. He looks lost for some moments before you can imagine the lightbulb that brightens above his head. “Ah- You’re that trainee that got casted by BigHit who was in the back-up dancer’s dance crew for BTS.”

A weak smile helps you ease his guess.

“Right, right, right, right,” He nods, eyes slowly gravitating to the ground, then the words are so low, you don’t think you were supposed to hear it. “Ah... so you’re her.”

The lift doors open to a floor where you can hear the booming - though muffled - music from inside a studio, and you can hear the makings of a group of boys trapped in four walls. Changbin had barely gotten the door open when you hear Jisung yelling at someone for pinching Jeongin’s cheeks. 

“Oh!” The maknae was the first to see you coming through the door behind Changbin, and before Yeonjun. “Noona-”

“Surprise!” Yeonjun yells from behind you, raising both his arms into the air. “I hope we aren’t interrupting anything important. Changbin said today was just a more chill training day for you guys.”

Chan is the first one to greet Yeonjun. “No worries, we were just having a break.”

“This is y/n, in case you didn’t already know her. We brought something for you,” Yeonjun nods to the gift basket you almost forgot you were holding. 

“Oh! Yes, right. This- This is for you to share,” Awkwardly handing the leader the gift basket, Felix and Seungmin come by to help with the gift, thanking both you and Yeonjun at the same time. 

“You didn’t have to,” Chan watches his younger members scramble to the pot of gold. “I’m surprised you even have time to come here.”

Yeonjun grins and rubs the back of his neck with some slight exasperation. “No, we had time. It’s fine. Also, do you happen to know where-”

“Yah! I leave for 10 minutes and you guys just sto-” 

The entire’s room attention is drawn towards the second door on the far left of the studio, and Minho enters with some bottles of water with Hyunjin trailing behind him. There is a heavy, awkward silence in the air when everybody watches you lock eye contact with Minho, whose feet are slowly but surely inching forward to the crowd. 

“Hyung!” Changbin is the first to break the tension, dashing over and throwing an arm around him. “y/n and Yeonjun just dropped by to hand us a gift basket to wish us luck on our LA KCON trip.”

“You,” Hyunjin leaves the bottles of water on the floor and heads for you, pulling you into a head lock and ruffling your hair. “When were you planning on visiting?” He whispers into your head, only loud enough for you to hear. 

“I didn’t know I was expected, dipshit,” You struggle a little before you feel his grip around your neck loosen, standing straight up again to comb down your hair. 

Hyunjin crosses his arms across his chest and glances at Changbin introducing Yeonjun to Minho whilst Chan was busy handling the younger members. 

“Well, for one thing, I know nobody was expecting Yeonjun. I can’t say the same for you.”

Your hair slaps your face when you whip your head to look at Hyunjin, whose attention is now smugly stuck on Minho. 

The man did not look happy for some reason. 

[xplrerdolan]

an analysis on and rant about what stan twitter did to grayson dolan:

as i mentioned earlier, i have quite a bit to say about the twitter stans trying to cancel the twins because of something they talked about on their podcast. not only do i have my own personal opinions on it, i also want to shed some light on the direction cancel culture has taken and why it’s so vile.

for context, here’s a transcription of what a very small but loud group of people are “upset” about: “people just want you to not be sober and not be on a diet, because, y’know, they-they kinda feel like shit that they’re not.” - ethan. also during the podcast, grayson mentions, vaguely, that he’s had an unhealthy relationship with food in the past, as did ethan. ethan later identified the problems as being eating disorders. from what i’ve seen on twitter, people mention either/or rather than both aspects when talking about why it should have had a trigger warning. for some people, the whole issue was the nine second clip of what ethan said. others said they were triggered by the mention of eating disorders.

let’s get into this, shall we?

first of all, let me identify myself as a fat girl who is the furthest thing from sober. my entire life, i have been criticized by my family and the world around me for my weight. i’m at a point in my life where i embrace being fat, and i am comfortable with it, which i constantly have to justify. i am directly affected by diet culture, fatphobia, and eating disorders. i personally struggle with disordered eating—different from an eating disorder in that i have a generally unhealthy relationship with food—and what they said does not warrant a trigger warning.

why? because they’re not talking about needing to be on a diet. they’re not shitting on people who aren’t on a diet. they aren’t forcing their diet & healthy eating onto us as an audience. they also didn’t talk about their eating disorders on the podcast; they said they might talk about it later. what they are doing is being condescending—but let’s unpack that quickly.

their condescension is not targeted or directed at us. it is directed toward people who try to pressure them to do things for instant gratification. specifically, other influencers and hollywood as a whole. not to mention, he’s clearly suggesting that people who try to get them to break their sobriety or their diets are the ones who probably feel shitty about themselves for not doing those things. idk about the rest of y’all but i’ve never seen any fans trying to pressure them into getting off their diet or drinking. so, it’s clearly not directed at any of us.

hollywood is hedonistic. the whole aesthetic of youth, the advertisement of satisfaction is rooted in indulgence. maintaining a healthy diet, just like sobriety, is the complete opposite of that.

the snark and the comparison to sobriety are there because he’s annoyed with others trying to pressure him into enjoying his youth “like he should;” a standard set by culture that he & grayson don’t want to participate in for personal reasons. let me remind you that we do not know what they hear from other influencers. we have not been surrounded by a group of other influential people—really influential, not your peers in high school—who are trying to get us to just have one little drink, or just have one little milkshake, or just eat one little burger. connections matter in hollywood. consider how separate the twins seem from other influencers—do you think that’s merely coincidental? i can almost promise you it’s not. they likely avoid people who pressure them one too many times or who put them at risk of disappointing themselves because they might succumb to peer pressure.

what i’m saying here is ethan was projecting. he was projecting his annoyance, frustration, and perhaps some amount of bitterness or general bad feelings in a way that protected himself. yes, it’s a little condescending because a lot of his fans—including myself—might struggle with diet culture or sobriety, or some of us might make choices in our lives that differ from theirs so it feels mildly offensive or just makes you feel bad. i’ll admit that when i first heard it, i was a little put off for a second. but then, i did precisely what so many twitter stans need to do: i got the fuck over it. because i’m not so unsympathetic that i can’t imaging that maybe their life looks a liiiittle different from mine, and i’m not so self-centered to believe that one passing comment applies to me or was ever intended to hurt me personally.

yes, delivery and effect matters more than intention. and if anyone was genuinely offended or triggered, yes, that warrants apology. but it doesn’t obliterate intention. intention matters.

onto my next point: responsibility. i believe people are responsible for correctly labelling potentially triggering information. BUT that doesn’t necessarily mean that you put a trigger warning on a podcast because of one passing comment and the mention of eating disorders. it’s not as though the twins were mocking them or carelessly talking about their experiences—which i note would be careless because eating disorders are a social disease and they get stronger with validation from others as well as through normalization of the disorder. by normalization, i mean saying things or making jokes that encourage one to restrict or to binge. knowing that they did none of that, and that people’s primary issue (what ethan said) was a major misunderstanding, it’s pretty clear that they were under no obligation to put a trigger warning.

now, let’s consider the following: the twins have recently been being more open with us about their insecurities, especially ethan. while talking about what helped him get to a point where he’s comfortable with his acne, he mentions that working out and taking care of himself physically played a huge part in that. in addition to the last two recent points of discussion on their platforms and channel, they have also been sharing their journey through veganism and are very excited about how great they feel because of it.

taking all of that into account, if you know that you’re at such a sensitive point in your recovery or your disorder (which is nothing to be ashamed about, i’d like to note) that someone mentioning their own diet, their view of their own diet, or just the general existence of eating disorders is enough to trigger you, you have to understand that you have a responsibility to avoid potentially triggering content. excluding their eating disorders, we all knew about their recent healthy vegan diet and their devotion to maintaining their physique. i mention this because it seems as though the people who are upset would’ve been triggered by the latter two things regardless—it’s not the words “eating” and “disorder” that suddenly break you like a hypnotic command, it’s the whole premise of two guys talking about how physically fit they are and how healthy they’ve been eating. since this is what they’ve been talking about recently and this is what’s going on in their life, you have to be responsible enough to not seek out or engage with something that could be triggering to you. you need to step away from those things yourself and come back to them when you are capable of hearing about someone else’s healthy choices without internalizing that information and inflicting it upon yourself.

i find it also incredibly important to note that the language ethan uses is very clearly a way to defend himself and ward off anyone who disagrees with his dietary choices. it’s his way of validating himself. which, if you’ve been paying attention, is a sign that he’s insecure about his diet to begin with; if you have more than three brain cells, you should be able to figure out from that fact alone that even if he didn’t have an eating disorder, he clearly has issues with eating. which is why i think nitpicking a nine second clip out of a 45-50ish minute episode of a podcast is absolutely disgusting to me; look at what’s happened now. in their lack of consideration for what he might be going through, despite them literally telling us that they have struggled with eating disorders in the past, they essentially ended up “outing” him. at least, i’ve spent enough time listening to that clip and typing up this analysis of the situation to see it that way.

the last overarching thing i’d like to talk about here is the how this whole situation demonstrates the dangerous and frankly disgusting turn that cancel culture has taken in recent times. cancel culture is no longer expository; it has evolved to be exploitative. people take any opportunity to cancel someone in the hopes that they get attention and validation from others. i believe—and i urge you to read this part carefully and to not misconstrue my intentions or meaning when i say this—that we have pushed the idea that we should support, trust, and listen to the disenfranchised to a degree that we no longer allow any space for critical thinking and analysis of a certain claim. LET ME BE PERFECTLY AND COMPLETELY CLEAR. this does NOT mean that a white person can analyze a BIPOC’s experience with racism to dismiss it, it does NOT mean that nonvictims can analyze a victim’s allegations against someone to disprove it, and thus, it does NOT mean that any oppressor of any kind can apply their ignorant, blind assumptions to any oppressed person’s claims to disqualify what they have said.

with that being said, the reason i mention this is because there are going to inevitably be people, like whoever started this whole mess, who make claims that are either false, dramatized, or that are based on misunderstandings. a part of me wants to believe that the person who initially claimed to be triggered by what ethan said misheard him or took what he said personally when they should not have. if we encouraged people to have discussions about these things, then perhaps someone would’ve pointed out to them that no where in that statement does he shame people for not being on diets or for not being sober. rather, he was projecting his feelings of being criticized onto those who criticize him.

now, the other possibility (that i would rather not believe) is that this person—the first person to say something—picked out a nine second segment of the podcast where ethan said something less than positive and went out of their way to make it seem like an issue. still, the same problem ensues: we’ve created such a culture that if you challenge the position of the accuser then you’re simply brainwashed by the accused and you’re part of the problem.

i can say with utmost certainty that even if the first person to complain about the clip hadn’t intended to make something out of nothing, a fair 90% of them who said blatantly disrespectful things to ethan and grayson DEFINITELY just wanted to hop on a bandwagon. there was one girl who replied to grayson several times, claiming that what they had said was VERY triggering to a lot of people, but within her frantic outcry for an apology from him, she admitted that she herself wasn’t triggered and didn’t even struggle with an eating disorder, before proceeding to tell someone else who does have an eating disorder that if they weren’t triggered it’s not their place to say the twins don’t have to apologize.

......................since the girlies from the bird app like to lurk here, let me spell that one out for y’all:

✨stop demanding apologies that you cannot accept✨

hopefully that gets through to them. because this is the second time in a row that they’ve gone ahead and demanded apologies from the twins that they cannot accept. the heteros were down their throats about the f-slur (which i use in reclamation as it has been used against me personally but i won’t repeat here on the off chance that someone is hurt by it).

it’s so painfully obvious that they’re doing it for likes, retweets, and replies. whether they want people to argue with them or just want attention, they’re hiding behind the guise of caring about a very serious issue and speaking FOR the people who might be offended. i believe people like this noticed a pattern under celebrity tweets when BLM was the center of discussion on twitter. if a celebrity wasn’t talking about BLM, people were under that tweet demanding that they did. those tweets would often get a lot of interactions from people who agreed that someone with a platform should speak up. and since local stan twitter does nothing but regurgitate what’s “trending,” they’re trying to find any reason to be the social justice warrior precisely no one asked them to be and absolutely no one needs them to be.

i don’t think that anyone really needs me to explain why they should be ashamed of themselves, but in case one of them is floating around: it’s because when a bunch of people demand an apology for a non-problem, gang up on that person, flood their replies with nothing but those demands in hopes that someone with as much sense as them on twitter-dot-fucking-com will engage with it and maybe join their futile efforts, it leads to people having to expose a part of themselves that they wanted to keep private. it’s a violation not only of their privacy, but of their emotional consent and the boundaries they had set up.

i’d like to leave anyone guilty of contributing to this situation with this to consider: they start to open up to us more, they start to be more honest with us, they try their best to show us their appreciation for support, and as soon as they mention having an eating disorder it’s a personal attack on you and they need to apologize for it? or worse—someone else said that it was a personal attack on them so you reply five separate times even though it’s not your apology to accept and therefore is not your apology to ask for. it’s bitches like you who make them keep everything vague and private. i don’t even want to consider what they’re going through right now; it breaks my heart to imagine how badly they’re hurting. all for likes and retweets on the fucking bird app. let me know what that gets you in five years.

[theonceoverthinker]

A Good Night’s Sleeping Snag (Fair Game Week Day 2)

Summary: Clover and Qrow are sent off on a mission that pits them against both ferocious Grimm and the very worst of the elements that Atlas has to offer. When the latter of Qrow’s battles is compromised, he and Clover decide to work together to stay safe through some rather...intimate means.

AO3

A/N: So, apparently this is happening now. I’m making fics out of some of my favorite HC’s, and this was my first pick! I’ll admit that it doesn’t connect to today’s theme that tightly, but I’d argue that as Huntsmen, a mission like this can be kind of normal, and thus does hold some inherent domesticity, so there you go! (...I also realized I had to justify that more to myself than anyone because I am pedantic with no one more than myself! XD ) Also, tagging @fair-game-week !

Before we begin, I want to give a big ole’ thanks to my beta @whipped4qrow. Toko, I’ve been fortunate to have some great betas in the past, and enjoy the pun, but TOKO-ing out all of our thoughts on this fic has provided me with some of my favorite times working with one ever. Your advice and pickups were too helpful for words, and I can’t thank you enough!

-------

Grimm are the easiest part of Qrow’s incredibly complicated life and at the same time, the most annoying pests this side of Remnant. 

The trouble is, despite his and his fellow Huntsmen’s best efforts, they’re always around.

Of all the things to stick around across humanity’s two lifespans...why did it have to be them?

Well, at least their existence means a living for him.

Less than an hour after Qrow’s first cup of coffee, a report comes in. There’s a small pack of Grimm making their way towards the communication’s tower. They’re as ferocious as Grimm tend to come, but it’s apparently not a job that will require more than two skilled Huntsmen to get it done.

That’s where he and Clover come in, according to Ironwood’s soldiers. 

This mission has probably the most pre-departure preparation he’s ever received before a Grimm fight. He’s even given a large backpack of camping essentials to work with. Clover tells him the reason for that. Apparently, the part of the tundra these Grimm are making their way through is prone to strong wind storms and blizzards alike. These conditions are said to be too severe for a transport to get all the way through, and despite the dangers posed by letting even trained Huntsmen whether them, it’s still better to take the Grimm out now than to wait for them to get any closer to the tower -- something about the tower’s wiring. 

Clover says that their mission is expected to run into the next day, and Qrow’s uncertain how he feels about that. 

Qrow’s done overnight missions before, tons of them.

But he’s never done one with Clover before.

Sleep is...it’s personal in a way most things aren’t. He can control how he acts when he’s awake and what he divulges to the world. When he sleeps, who knows what can be told about him? Even to have someone sort of near him while he’s sleeping makes Qrow feel far too vulnerable for comfort.

And now, he and Clover are going to be sleeping in the same vicinity.

It bothers Qrow, both because of that sense of vulnerability, but also because even that threat of subconscious vulnerability doesn’t scare him where Clover is concerned.

Clover’s odd, but he’s someone Qrow likes having around. He makes missions interesting, if nothing else, and he even finds himself opening up to Clover every now and then, too.

Qrow guesses that just makes them both oddballs. Go figure.

But being oddballs along with someone else has proven to not always be a bad thing.

So really, who knows what this mission will bring?

They depart early the next day. Qrow’s decked out in a long thick-ish, black winter coat, and he can barely believe his eyes when he sees Clover enter the transport wearing the exact same thing.

Who knew Clover Ebi would ever be caught dead wearing something with actual sleeves?

Clover’s clearly aware of how much the change of clothes sticks out, shooting Qrow a not-too-serious, yet all the same present warning look while entering the transport, as if daring him to laugh.

Qrow laughs. 

He laughs a lot.

He’s in stitches, though he’s certain the look Clover’s giving him is more to blame for that than anything.

It’s not that Clover looks bad in it -- quite the opposite, really. The coat fits him well, and while Qrow likes it about as much as he likes Clover in his standard uniform -- if not, a little less -- the different clothes are a nice change of pace all the same.

And Qrow -- never a monster -- doesn’t rag on him too much for it, even going so far as to compliment it after he’s gotten a good couple of quips in. Clover’s frown dissolves into a grateful smirk, and their usual banter proceeds as it always has as the transport takes off.

Still, gratefulness for the compliment aside, it’s apparently not enough to stop Clover from hastily removing the coat as soon as the automated transport gets far enough away from their other coworkers at the base to do so without scolding, prompting even more laughter from Qrow. 

The trip between the base and the dropoff point is three hours. Clover tells Qrow they should sleep before they begin their trek, and Qrow honestly tries to, but he finds that he just can’t.

So Clover stays up with him. Qrow tells him he doesn’t have to, but he quickly learns that Clover Ebi may as well have his picture glued next to the dictionary’s definition of ‘persistence.’

If it wasn’t one of the kindest things done for him in recent memory, if not, ever, Qrow might be tempted to gag from the corniness of it all.

 They fill the time with cards, exchanging interests and stories, and rifling through their camping bags. The Atlas military clearly likes to be prepared. They each have a few rations of disgusting-looking food, a steel canteen, an emergency flare, a flashlight, matches, some kindling for a small fire, and a sleeping bag, all adorned with the symbol of Atlas. Qrow teases Clover about it, but with a smirk, he just attributes the abundance of symbols to pride in their country.

Loud clunks grow in frequency and volume, signaling that they’re closing in on their location. Their transport isn’t equipped with a window, so all the two of them have to go off of to get any idea of what’s outside of it are Clover’s past experiences of the relentless frigid air and snow. 

Those experiences turn out to be rather accurate. A harsh gust of wind that nearly blows an unprepared Qrow to the back of the transport greets the two of them once the doors separating them between themselves and the tundra open. 

Qrow revises his stance and footing as to best handle the new expectations of his body. He puts more of his weight onto his feet, stepping harshly. Clover does the same, and within five minutes, they’re well off on their journey into the tundra.

()()()()()()()()()

Hours pass, but unlike previously, they’re impossible to fill with each other’s company. It’s all Qrow’s efforts to safely move step-by-step, and he knows while Clover would never admit it -- and to be fair, he wouldn’t either -- it’s the case for him too. It would be too much to focus on talking while keeping the snow out of their mouths as well, so silence rules them. 

Even still though, there’s something at least a bit reassuring that Clover’s there, even if only his physical presence serves as an indicator of it. Maybe Clover feels the same way about him. He wouldn’t be surprised. 

In fact, scratch that -- he wouldn’t even doubt it for a second.

The sky grows dark as they come upon a small cave that forms a half dome over the tiny piece of the landscape that it covers. They approach, but just as they near the entrance, Qrow feels the ground shake. Then, as if only to stop the question of whether or not that movement was just in Qrow’s head before it is even asked, howl after howl pierces through the winds.

Looks like they’ve finally found those Grimm. 

Qrow grabs Harbinger, and he hears Kingfisher’s string whip as Clover pulls it out.

They take two slow steps towards the Grimm.

The Grimm take three quick steps towards them.

And then the battle begins.

Clover attaches Kingfisher to the top of the cave, swinging into one of the Grimm with a powerful kick. Just like that, it goes down.

Wasn’t this supposed to be hard?

But before Qrow can celebrate Clover’s victory, he’s forced to deal with a battle of his own. 

Harbinger becomes a scythe and slashes two Grimm’s faces with the first swing alone. The second one does both of them in with a transparent slice. 

It’s only as they disappear into nothingness that Qrow realizes that there’s one more left.

He turns and halts his scythe’s momentum mid-swing, but while he does get the Grimm, the Grimm gets its revenge just before it leaves the mortal coil.

Instantly, Qrow feels himself dropping weight by the pounds. 

The only thing is though that he’s not injured. 

With his free hand, Qrow feels for his backpack, only to find torn fabric and air instead. He turns in the opposite direction just in time to see the contents of his backpack flow in the tundra just before disappearing from sight.

Qrow looks behind him, and upon seeing no more Grimm, immediately takes off his backpack, which is now about as light as air.

Almost everything is gone. His canteen and a single ration remain, only bound to the pieces of fabric on his backpack still left intact by pure chance.

But everything else?

The flare, his matches, his flashlight...his sleeping bag?

They’re not just gone -- they may as well not even exist now for all the chance Qrow has of getting them back.

Just his luck.

And speaking of…

Clover approaches, telling him that the Grimm are gone. He gives Qrow a puzzling look upon seeing him standing so forlornly, but it only seems to take a moment for him to connect the dots. His mouth forms an ‘o’ shape, but he doesn’t say anything, simply signaling that they should enter the cave. Despite his frustration, Qrow appreciates it. What honestly could he say? Clover’s the problem solving type, but some problems don’t have solutions. 

Most of his bag is gone now, and unless there’s a crazy twist of fate that not even Clover’s luck could manage, none of it is coming back. There really isn’t much to say there, much less solve.

So they go inside the cave, just as the darkness of the cloud-filled night grows deeper. 

Clover uses the matches and kindling in his own bag to light a fire, and he and Qrow sit across from each other.

Qrow wraps his arms around himself, feeling tatters in his jacket and feathers flying off into the tundra, just as most of his supplies did.

Grimm really are the worst pests this hellhole they call Remnant have to offer.

Crap. He’s freezing, and the night’s only getting darker and colder.

Though Qrow takes pride in his strength and endurance, a night in freezing temperatures like this would give anyone a case of frostbite they’d never forget. 

For God’s sake! Even Clover’s unashamedly clinging to his own jacket!

If that isn’t telling of the direness of their situation, nothing is.

Qrow knows Clover’s going to offer him his sleeping bag, but he’s not comfortable at all with taking it. It likely wouldn’t even keep him warm enough, and there’d be no point in both of them freezing to death out here. 

Speaking of, his sleeping blanket is the next thing Clover pulls out of his bag. It’s large and when it’s removed from his bag, it deflates like a balloon.

Clover begins to unravel the sleeping bag from its bindings, and Qrow can tell he’s just about to offer it to him, but as he unravels it, it begins to show that it’s far larger than expected. Surprised, Qrow and Clover look at it in disbelief, then at each other, and then back to the sleeping bag. 

Now, out of room to safely spread it out, Clover drags the sleeping bag further from the fire and continues opening it. When it’s finally fully unraveled, they see that it is indeed rather large.

In fact, it might even be large enough to fit two people in it. 

They’re both housing the same thought, and Qrow silently nods at the proposal Clover gives him with only his eyes.

There’s no room for debate – the cave provides shelter, but it’s minimal. If Qrow isn’t given more protection against the winds, who knows what will happen to him?

Qrow’s got too much to live for to refuse whatever will keep him alive. 

Maybe one of those things is the very man he’ll be sharing a sleeping bag with tonight. 

It doesn’t make the idea of sharing one feel any less awkward than it is. 

But neither speak of that very awkwardness that this arrangement brings, least of all Clover. He’s as casual about it as he ever is about anything. Qrow’s sure Clover knows by now how much of a comfort that is for him. He can’t state enough how much he appreciates Clover for not making a big deal out of it. 

There’s not much of a preamble before it’s time to get in the sleeping bag. They share a quick meal, consisting of one of the rations they have each and a few swigs of the water in their canteens. The entire time, Qrow feels his head practically buzzing, but pushes back against the sensation -- just enough to keep it at bay, at least.

When it’s finally time to get into the bag, with a wave of his hand, Clover offers Qrow the chance to enter first and get settled in. Qrow nods and crawls inside. Instantly, two feelings hit him: warmth and disappointment in the lack of warmth relative to his expectations. It’s fine, but he imagined the sleeping bag would make him feel just a bit toastier. 

Of course, there’s no doubt they’ll both survive the night in its confines, but he has to wonder just how much of the chill will make its way through the flimsier-than-he-hoped bag.

But any further questions Qrow has about their resistance to the elements dies in his throat as Clover makes his way into the sleeping bag beside him. 

Fuck, he’s warm.

He’s so, so warm.

It’s literally the difference between night and day, as if Clover’s sheer presence teleports them from the frigid hellhole that is Atlas to the sweltering heat of Vacuo. 

And now, rather than worrying about freezing solid, Qrow’s more worried about melting into the ground, because if Clover Ebi provides him with so much as another degree of heat, he gives himself about a 50% chance of turning into magma.

Because of the strength of the winds and still-piling snow, the weather all but dictates for them to face each other as they sleep. Though there’s some space between their bodies, Clover’s arms can’t help but make casual contact with his own as they settle into their position. Clover tries to apologize for this, but Qrow casually dismisses the concerns.

How Qrow manages to do that would impress no one who has ever known him more than it does himself.

The distance between them, or rather, lack thereof, deprives Qrow of breath for a good ten seconds.

Physically speaking, they’re closer than they’ve ever been before. If they were to both push back as far as they could, they would probably have nearly a foot between them.

But neither of them do this, so they’re at most six inches away from each other.

There’s no hyperbole in saying that it takes each and every survival instinct Qrow has to will his blush away and resume normal breathing.

Qrow thanks Clover for sharing the sleeping bag, space for him or not. To this, Clover grins and drops a charming line like he always does, a line that prompts Qrow to give one of his own. For the next few minutes, they repeat the process, banter flowing between them like it has dozens of times by now. 

It’s nice.

Eventually, their quips relax and they wish each other a ‘good night.’ Not long after that, Clover falls asleep.

Qrow’s anxious. He’s almost too anxious for words. 

He supposes that’s a good thing, since he can’t say any of them with Clover so close to him.

This wasn’t supposed to happen. Qrow was just barely getting used to the idea of sleeping in the same close vicinity as Clover. 

And now they’re sharing a sleeping bag.

How does someone who barely feels like he can sleep in the same room as another person now do so while sharing a sleeping bag with one?

For God’s sake, Qrow can feel Clover’s hot breath on his even hotter face.

Everything feels intense. It’s like everything he imagined he was going to feel has been accentuated, but new emotions are now added to the pile. It’s not just worrying over what vulnerabilities he can unintentionally reveal to Clover in his sleep, it’s a more profound fear over how Clover will receive those vulnerabilities now that they’ll be literally shoved in his face, and how their relationship will change as a result of that, for worse...or possibly for better...

That fear releases an acknowledgement of blossoming feelings of every kind that Qrow’s not sure he’s ready to confront, not just yet.

But it doesn’t change the fact that they’re there nonetheless.

Why can’t this just go slow? 

And why does part of him not want it to?

Damnit, he’s overthinking things, clearly an effect of his exhaustion. 

Qrow forces himself to calm down. He hasn’t slept since before they departed, and he needs to start now. Otherwise, their return to the transport tomorrow will be impossible, no matter what he does in his sleep.

Slow, deep breaths paint Qrow’s nose with Clover’s scent -- strong, hot, largely composed of sweat but still uniquely Clover-smelling, and omnipresent due to their circumstances.

All the same, it’s good. 

It shouldn’t be good. 

It utterly bewilders Qrow that it’s good.

But it is, in fact, good, good enough that it helps Qrow settle down so that he can at last start to welcome sleep to his tired, tired eyes.

And what little Clover’s scent can’t accomplish in sending him off to sleep, Clover’s body heat wraps up with a neat little bow. Laying beside Clover, even in the tundra, is like laying beside a fireplace. If not for the now scarcely present view of the snow he still has, Qrow could imagine that they were anywhere while in this sleeping bag together.

So, lulled by the symphonic mixture of the harsh, abrasive winds and Clover’s loud, yet gentle snores, Qrow at last falls asleep.

()()()()()()()()

While quite a few sounds sing Qrow to sleep, neither are present as his crimson eyes make contact with daybreak.

Qrow doesn’t know how long he slept for when he wakes up, but it was clearly quite a long amount of time. A bright yellow hue from the sun sparkles against the snowy walls of the cave and any smoke from last night’s fire is long gone. 

Clover’s awake. Without even turning to look at his sleepmate, Qrow knows this to be true. There’s a tension Qrow feels in Clover’s back that’s indicative of his regular posture. 

He’s about to tilt his head and talk to Clover, but is stopped in his tracks. 

How is he able to feel muscles in Clover’s back? 

A stark realization hits Qrow. He hasn’t paid mind to his hands nor arms yet since waking up, but he has a worryingly strong suspicion as to where they are.

With all the lightness of a feather as to not clue Clover into what he’s doing, Qrow softly wiggles a finger on his left hand and a finger on his right. 

Both touch a very familiar piece of fabric, one Qrow knows he’s also currently wearing on his person.

But unlike his coat, the coat his fingers feel is in an untarnished state, still just that little bit poofy.

He can feel his elbows and palms form gentle curves around places that make a lot of sense to form curves around.

His arms are folded atop Clover’s backside and his hands are perched upon the upper edges of his torso.

And now that Qrow notices this, he also notices that Clover’s belly and his own are ever-so-gently pressed together.

Oh Gods...

He’s holding Clover.

Screw holding Clover -- he’s full-on cuddling Clover.

Even from within the shock of sharing a sleeping bag with Clover, Qrow developed some semblance of expectations last night. Vulnerabilities and bad habits are hard to mask when one can’t control their actions. Qrow was mentally preparing for that. Maybe he’d accidentally whack Clover in the event of the nightmares he more often than not had. Maybe he’d toss and turn a lot in his sleep. Hell, he’s been told by his nieces and former teammates that he has a tendency to drool from time to time, so that wasn’t entirely off the table. 

But of all the things he was willing to anticipate he’d do, at the very bottom of that list of expectations was to cuddle up to Clover.

That doesn’t change the truth though -- he did cuddle him all the same, and he still is.

Neither he nor Clover have consciously engaged with each other yet. Qrow begins to calculate how he can use that to his advantage. 

With a fake yawn and a “reflexive” stretch, he could free Clover from his grasp without inviting any further awkwardness. 

That’s what Qrow hopes, in any event, and it makes enough sense to be worth a try.

Qrow begins to shift a little in preparation of his plan, but is stopped in his tracks by something pressed up against his back -- two very muscular, and very familiar arms.

It only takes him half a beat to realize they and the hands attached to them are holding Qrow the same way Qrow is presently holding him.

Clover’s cuddling him too.

That realization is at once both a relief and a terror.

The discomfort he sought to escape with his plan is now simultaneously warded off and stronger than ever as his plan lies in ruins, and feelings he elected to ignore last night are just a little bit more insistent in their presence now.

Qrow quickly decides he’s only one man, and thus can only directly take on one of these Remnant-shattering revelations at a time. 

As the fact remains that he and Clover are awake, and neither have addressed the other about this yet, he elects to at last do so.

Whether it’s the right choice or not, especially when he and Clover have each other to themselves in such a way, is a topic to be handled another day.

But all the same, Qrow swallows his shocked features and turns to face Clover directly, finally crossing the threshold of avoidance between them.

Clover looks shocked to see him make the first move, but upon studying Qrow’s relaxed expression for a moment, however artificial it is, relaxes himself as well. 

There’s a certain sense of breathlessness between them in the seconds that follow, as if they’d both just climbed a mountain and not just woken up from an, all things considered, decent sleep. It all feels contradictory -- exhausting, and yet exuberant, calming, and yet vigilant. Mostly though, it all feels a bit awkward, and yet a bit comfortable too because they both feel that same awkwardness. 

And within those contradictions, there’s something nice, something Qrow can’t explain. Maybe, like those feelings that now massage his brain, he doesn’t want to explain it -- not today, anyways -- but he’s content enough just living and relaxing in whatever it is that he and Clover are sharing. 

After all, his worst case scenario just played out, and nothing bad happened between them. 

It could be nice just to kick back and enjoy things for the little time they have right now. 

A long moment passes before their wordless exchange is finally given voice, but it does happen. They do have a tundra to traverse today, after all, and they’ll get no closer to the transport home just lazing around.

Qrow would be lying if he said that he found prospect to be one all that awful.

But all the same, they greet each other for the new day, and he can tell that there’s just a twinge of reluctance in each of their eyes as they leave the sleeping bag. The chill from last night returns in the absence of Clover’s body heat, albeit less harshly now that the previous night’s storm has dispersed.

Looking ahead at today’s challenge, Qrow sees that the outskirts of the cave are bright with a blanket of shimmering snow that stretches as far as the eye can see. It’s beautiful, though the songs the winds sing expose the dangers hidden within that beauty.

It’s going to be a long day.

Still, he’s not alone with Clover by his side, and somehow, that fact makes all the difference.

After years of never even considering such a sentiment, it now permeates Qrow’s every step as he and Clover walk through the snow.

He could get used to a partnership like this.

[foxcantswim]

Take My Hand 2 | Thoschei

Take My Hand Part 2 | 13 x Dhawan!Master https://archiveofourown.org/works/23059720

The Master needs to deal with the Doctor's fam

Some more soft Thoschei

-x-

"Doctor!" the Master's voice echoed throughout the TARDIS, "If you don't get in here right now, I-!"

"Keep him down," Yaz said as she looked down at Ryan and Graham who were currently sitting on top of the Master to stop him from moving.

The Master groaned as he felt the uncomfortable TARDIS floor rub against his cheek, "Will you get off?!" he closed his eyes in annoyance, unable to do anything.

"I thought you would at least put up a fight, mate," Ryan laughed. The Master could easily overpower these two... But truthfully, he just couldn't be bothered.

"We ain't lettin' you leave until you tell us what you did with the Doc," Graham informed him.

"I have told you... for the past thirty eight minutes and twenty four seconds... that she is resting," he grit his teeth, his annoyance and frustration was slowly turning into anger. He heard the TARDIS hum happily, "Oh, don't you start," he warned as his eyes shot open.

His hearts had started to beat fast, out of annoyance and the slight tingle of pain he was feeling.

"You're lying," Graham decided, "You just want us to go look for her so you have a chance to escape."

"Doctor!" the Master called again. He physically felt his brain cells dying one by one as he listened to these infuriating pets that the Doctor called 'friends'.

Yaz stepped closer, the Master could see her if he strained his eyes, "Just tell us."

"I have."

"Don't make us use... T-This thingy on ya," Ryan stuttered, his hand clutched the TCE as he dangled it in front of the Master's eyes.

The Time Lord groaned, "Don't be foolish. What would the Doctor think if you used that?"

"Stop messing around, Ryan," Yaz grabbed the TCE before placing it on the console - out of the Master's reach.

"You really do make me want to kill you..." he muttered. He decided to close his eyes and clear his mind in order to drown out the next line of questioning. He simply ignored the 'fam'.

His mind searched the TARDIS, wishing to connect with the Doctor.

'Having fun?'

'Very funny, Doctor.'

'You're the one who told me to stay in bed. If anything, this is completely your fault,' the Master could practically feel how smug the Doctor was right now.

'I must say, I'm not exactly fond of your pets-'

'Friends,' she corrected.

'They stole my precious toy, Doctor,' he tried to reason, 'You can't let them do this.'

'Some time away from it will do you some good.'

'Theta, if you aren't in here in the next five minutes. I will throw your pe- friends into an active volcano,' the Doctor knew it was an empty threat... Well, she hoped it was an empty threat.

Their connection was broken as the Master felt a sharp pain run up his spine, he groaned, "Can you get off!? Imagine me having to regenerate because of a broken back! How humiliating that would be! That would definitely go down in history!" he tried to ignore the ache near the back of his neck as Ryan shifted slightly.

If Gallifrey was intact, he was sure that everyone on that planet would mock him for eternity. Forever known as the first Time Lord to regenerate because humans sat on his back.

"Tell us-" Yaz was soon cut off.

"Hey, fam," the Doctor's soft voice caused the gang to turn their heads, "I see you're having fun without me."

"Doctor!" the three humans shouted. Ryan and Graham quickly stood, ignoring the cracking sound coming from the Master's back. The three ran towards the Doctor, pulling her into tight hug.

The Master rolled onto his back, glad that he was finally free from the weight and pressure. His eyes shut softly as he allowed his hearts to stop their rapid beating. The happy chattering from the others was slowly driving him insane. He would have to get used to these tiny humans if he were to stay on this TARDIS...

He wasn't too fond with the idea of sharing the Doctor with her companions.

He hardly even registered that the Doctor was by his side, he cracked an eye open to look up at her. She offered a hand, "Take my hand," she smiled.

"Haven't we already been through this before?" he said with a smirk, deja vu hitting him hard. He grabbed her hand, allowing her to help him up. The Doctor's hearts skipped a beat, shocked that he took her hand so easily without any resistance.

The Master was more than happy to hold it, but he pulled away once the Doctor's friends approached, "Hey, Doc?" Graham started, "Why is he here?"

The Master's hands twitched, itching to reach for the TCE. He resisted.

"Yeah, wasn't he like proper evil on that planet? With all those Cybey timey things?" Ryan questioned.

"Cybey timey things?" the Master muttered in utter disbelief, he wanted to explode right then and there. Anything to get away from these humans.

The Doctor had to stop herself from smiling as she saw the Master's reaction, "Well... He's staying with us for a bit... Or a while. We don't know yet."

"What?!" her friends exclaimed.

"You can't be serious?" Yaz hoped.

The Master grinned at that as he moved to the other side of the console, his fingers brushed over the TCE as he did - so eager to pick it up... He was happy that they hated him. He didn't know why he felt so satisfied.

The Doctor's eyes followed the Master as he walked, "I know you think he doesn't deserve another chance..." she started.

He really didn't. The Master knew he didn't. He couldn't even begin to figure out why the Doctor had allowed him onto her TARDIS. Allowed him back into her life even after destroying Gallifrey out of pure rage.

"But I couldn't leave him there," she sighed.

His eyes stayed focused on a flashing light on the console, his hands gripped the edge of the console hard. He hated emotions. He hated them. He couldn't let them show.

"Despite everything that's happened..." she continued, her eyes left Koschei to look down at the floor, "We're still the last of our kind."

Time Lords. The Master needed to start embracing it. A piece of him still despised the Doctor for being his purpose of creation... But he couldn't pin the blame on her forever. He just needed time to heal.

"Doc..." Graham said, he could feel the sadness emanating from the Doctor. Ryan and Yaz could easily feel it, too.

But the Master... Oh he could literally feel it. The sadness had taken over his anger and frustration. He felt the powerful emotions wash over him. The connection they shared earlier was still lingering.

"I don't intend for all of us to travel together," she inputted before looking up at her fam, "Us four can have our own adventures," she then looked over to the Master who was still focused on the console, "Then the Master and I will travel alone. We can work through this. We'll all come meet up on the TARDIS every now and then and go from there."

The Master was surprisingly okay with this predicament. Travelling alone with the Doctor... And then coming back and spending time with her friends. He shuddered at the latter. But he was willing to give it a try. Willing to actually try and stop wanting to kill them.

"If the Master plays nice," the Doctor smirked at him, "Then we can all travel together."

"If you're sure, Doctor..." Yaz said, not entirely comfortable with having an insane blood-thirsty Time Lord on the TARDIS with her on a regular basis.

Ryan nodded, "If you're cool with this, Doctor. Then I am, too," he assured.

The Master felt the happiness rise within the Doctor.

"Really?" the Doctor asked, full of hope.

Graham smiled at her, "Course we are, Doc."

Yaz sighed, "Yeah. If this makes you happy. Then we're with you all the way."

The Master almost threw up after hearing all these kind words. He never thought he would be caught in the middle of such a disgusting conversation.

The Doctor clapped her hands together in excitement, "Perfect!" she exclaimed before bouncing over to the Master's side. His glare moved up to her face, "You okay with this?" she asked sincerely.

"Do I have a choice?" he muttered.

"Not really," she smiled.

He couldn't stop himself from smiling back, "Okay, Doctor... I will put up with your..." his eyes drifted over to the trio, "Friends," he didn't exactly intend for his words to carry so much venom. He couldn't help it.

The humans shifted uncomfortably.

"I will let you three take the first trip," he decided, walking over to them. He grabbed the TCE on his way.

"Master," the Doctor warned.

He aimed it at her friends, "Because I'm such a nice person," his free hand came to rest on one of his hearts, "I won't kill you. This time," he lowered the device. He grinned, "Have fun."

The four watched him as he danced off down one of the corridors.

"Is he... Is he going to kill us, Doctor?" Ryan asked, his nerves getting to him.

"No," she shook her head, "He won't. He's just trying to get under your skin."

"Literally or...?" Graham said, worried.

"I won't let him hurt you," she promised, her hands messing with some of the dials on the console, "Now... Who wants to see something really cool?"

-x-

The Master fiddled with the TCE in his hands as he lay on the sofa.

Take your shoes off. You're getting the place all dirty.

"Oh, shut up," the Master replied, annoyed at the TARDIS. He had come to the library with the intention of finding something interesting to read. But no matter what he looked at, his thoughts of burning up a planet or taking over a civilization kept invading. He tried to distract himself.

His eyes then looked to the coffee table, staring at the miniature Judoon he had placed, "This is a brilliant start to my collection, don't you think?" he chuckled up at the ceiling.

You will do this no more. The TARDIS warned.

"You're no fun," he said, allowing his head to flop back onto a pillow.

The Doctor had been gone for the past three hours. Time moved slowly. The Master never pictured himself to be in this situation... Patiently waiting for his Theta to return. But here he was. Bored beyond belief. Waiting. And waiting. Stopping himself from killing. From invading races.

And then... He felt it. He felt her. Her mind growing closer. Finally.

"You're lucky she's here," the Master spoke to the TARDIS, "A moment longer, and I may have blown the console up."

A hum of discomfort echoed throughout the TARDIS.

"I would appreciate it if you stopped threatening her," the Doctor's soft voice filled his ears as she entered.

"I wasn't actually going to do it... Maybe," he mumbled the last part, his eyes followed her as she walked over.

She patted his legs causing him to move into a sitting position, allowing her to take a seat next to him, "What have you been doing whilst I was gone?" she reached forward to pick up one of the Judoon.

He sighed, leaning back into the sofa, his eyes stayed focused on the TCE in his hands, "Looking for books. Reading the books. Then throwing them once I was finished."

The Doctor's eyes drifted over to the corner, now noticing the pile of books. She sighed, "So you've been busy, I see," she carefully placed the Judoon back down, a sad smile played across her lips.

"Well, I haven't killed anyone in the past few hours. Must be some sort of record," he chuckled. He looked at the Judoon once the Doctor leaned her head against his shoulder, "Was thinking about painting them," he joked, "Would help pass the time the next time you leave."

She rolled her eyes, "Whatever helps you."

He pocketed the TCE before allowing his arm to wrap around the Doctor's shoulders, pulling her closer as he rested his cheek against the top of her head.. He hummed, "So... Did your humans mess up? Please tell me they did."

"No," she rolled her eyes before curling up into his side, "They were fine. We had a few close calls. But we're okay."

"What did you get up to?" he questioned, "Didn't have too much fun without me, did you?"

"Well... I did intend to show them a quiet planet. You know? The one covered with snow with those fireflies that build tiny snowmen?"

"I'm familiar," he nodded against her head. That reminded him... He needed to burn that planet at some point.

"Don't you dare," the Doctor warned, hearing his thoughts.

He smirked, "I'm joking! Kind of..."

She couldn't stop herself from smiling, "Anyways... the TARDIS took us somewhere else. I must've got a coordinate wrong. We ended up in the middle of a Dalek fleet. Not exactly what I had in mind."

"And you didn't think to come and tell me?!" he exclaimed, a slight pang of anger rose up within him.

"It was fine! We handled it!" she tried to calm him.

The thought of the Daleks killing the Doctor made his body freeze.

"We went in. Saved the hostages. Destroyed the ships. Was quite handy that they all had a self-destruct system on board. Just a quick blast with the sonic and they all exploded."

"Mmm that is handy," he grumbled.

She lifted her head off his shoulder to get a better look at him, she immediately noticed the rage in his eyes, "You weren't worried, were you?"

He quickly denied it, "Of course not. Just didn't want them killing you. That's my job," he winked at her with a devilish smirk. He inched his face closer to hers, "Next time. You get into trouble like that. You come straight to me. You know how much I like to show other species how much stronger I am in comparison."

She gulped, "I'll consider it."

His hand cupped her cheek, feeling their connection rise, "I'm deciding where we go next time," he announced, "Somewhere fun."

"Has anyone ever told you that you talk too mu-?" the Doctor was cut off by the Master's lips against hers. A soft kiss, yet it was full of want.

The Doctor pulled away, "Koschei... You know the TARDIS doesn't like it when we-" he ignored her again, pushing her down onto the sofa. He hovered over her before pressing his lips to hers once more.

The TARDIS groaned in annoyance. More concerned about the pair getting the sofa dirty.

"Th-The fam are still in the TARDIS, you know?" she stuttered nervously as he pulled away.

His smirk grew, "Does it matter, Theta?" he leaned down, capturing her lips - he wouldn't admit it... But he was jealous that her friends got to spend so much time with her.

She felt the rush of jealousy pass through her, she smiled into the kiss as her hands found their way to the back of Koschei's neck. She found it cute that he was jealous.

He pulled away without warning, standing up, "If you call me cute again, Doctor. This won't end well for you."

She sat up slowly, allowing her hearts to calm down and her mind to stop racing, "But-"

"No buts," he stopped her, "I'm not cute. I'm strong, evil, devilishly handsome," he smirked down at her.

And cute.

Her thoughts invaded his.

He rolled his eyes, "You're lucky I don't hate you," he muttered.

She didn't expect to hear that... She smiled softly up at him, "You don't?"

"Don't push your luck," he held out a hand, "Take my hand, Theta."

Always.

-x-

I'm tempted to make this into a series. Because I really want the Master to interact with the fam more!

[sugar-petals]

; sublime (m) ║ reader ✕ merman!jjk

↳ summary: only you can save him.

8k words | smut, action, fantasy

⚠️ angst, themes of persecution & violence, unprotected sex, graphic.

a/n | Needed to reupload, it’s been in an ask format. Second chapter included. request: “Would u be willing to do a merman jk x reader smut?” (rosewell-love​)

There’s a dead body on your private beach.

Or so you think. You’ve spotted it going out for your early morning walk with a bottle of water and light trainers. Busan’s late summer has been merciful with the weather so far, so you wanted to tick your two-mile goal on the schedule again. 

From afar you already knew that whatever laid there in the silt was nothing of the regular. The colors that struck you against the mellow rising sun seemed blueish, strangely vivid. If it was a water corpse, sure it could be decaying like this. You dare to tread closer, crossing into muddier seafloor now. 

Normally, you preferred to stay where the sand was dry and solid to walk on. There is no foul smell as you approach, or scraps of cloth, anything like that. Just algae all around. A few feet away, you begin to understand: This is not a human body. 

You’ve heard about sightings of stranded mermen in the news. Authorities were quick to dismiss rumors of violent interventions. They assured that the police would take care of the situation professionally without citizen being able to watch. 

The senior locals thought of merpeople as threats or oddities of nature, too peculiar to interact with. There were stories about women who interacted closely getting abducted, bitten, or strangled to death by such creatures. It was treated like a myth while the tabloids and fisherman’s accounts said otherwise.

Mermen were usually described with distorted complexions, crooked bones, and blood-shot eyes. They stink abominably, one reporter said. The universal instruction by the mayor had been equally hideous: Kill, or run. The latter being less preferred because they had to be chased, exploited, and wiped out collectively when you read between the lines. 

Last year, there had been gossip about a group of men - designated hunters - sawing off a living merman’s tail and selling it on the black market. Any chopped off hair would bring half a million, too. A million with the scalp attached. The mayor propagated the extermination of these “slimy beasts” when an issue surfaced, all while keeping a trophy fin in his living room, that you were sure of.  

But the motionless boy right below you does not appear monstrous at all. His features are almost resemblant to what can be considered human despite that he came from the sea. The upper body, at least. Who knows what kind of world is out there. The contrived stories made you mad, they had been all lies. 

Even if your trainers are now completely sunk in, you close the distance entirely.

You look at him with concern. Why is he here, like this, so close to the coast? Your eyes roam up and down, up and down. The cerulean little scales splattered all over his large tail, the sapphire beads around his neck, next to coral lobster claws. 

His beauty erases everything in your mind. The teal and silver mane that falls in soft waves and purple braids. They are really, really long and gleaming with an enigma that you fail to grasp. How could anyone be cruel enough to maim him. Everything about this boy had to stay wherever it was. 

You inspect his body closer to look for injuries, but there are none. He plainly seems drained, but impossibly beautiful at the same time. His chest is still moving, but both eyes remained closed. You don’t know if mermen can get unconscious. 

Perhaps he is just asleep. So ethereal. It all proved the envious locals very dirty liars. They’re conspiring because they know very well how alluring they look like. Since only mermen have been spotted, all efforts to deter every woman in town from getting just one glimpse were rampant. 

No human male could quite compare. Except maybe your gay friend and neighbor Taehyung who might just drop dead if he were here. If your female friends saw this boy, the ones who were married would file for divorce. The truly despicable vermin were the conservative men of this town. 

Certainly, there are different rules of anatomy and physics that apply to mermen that nobody has ever talked about on shore. You only see that the gills at the sides of his torso flutter hectically. It takes some time until you put two and two together. The falling tide that’s now miles away, it must have left him here. Maybe he lost a sense of direction and got caught by surprise. What an odyssey. 

He needs water, desperately. Of course he looks drained, and that’s more urgent than you assumed. You have to hurry up and do something not to see him fade away in front of your eyes. But, where to get it. It would have been straightforward if you hadn’t forgotten carrying a water bottle all along. 

You’re hesitant to touch him, but eventually get yourself to rub the sides of his torso, pouring water bit by bit. His skin is so delicate that you don’t dare to apply pressure. His eyes flutter once, and you think he can see what you are doing. 

But you did not bring enough water to sustain this moment. At least you know there’s still a chance.

There’s no other option, then. You sprint back to your house, pulse working overtime until you find the long-ignored supply closet key. 

An old plastic cover splattered with color comes into sight. It has been formerly used by Taehyung who asked to depict the scenery at your beach. He’s a painter, but too much of a literal fine artist to leave anything sturdy at your house. You keep searching. 

At the back, there’s a soiled, but still functional sailcloth with rope running through its eyelets. Hauling that to the beach would not be possible if you weren’t pumped with adrenaline and sheer panic. It has been a huge risk having him left alone out there. This all takes too damn long.

The relief finding him untouched gives you more assurance. The sail sticks to the ground in no time spreading it out next to him. An attempt to roll him onto there using a shove of two hands fails. Only a rope tied around his waist gives everything a decent impetus. Once he’s in place, you pull the canvas tight with the rope and start dragging. But oh my, is he heavy. It’s the colossal tail that probably weighs the most, gravity has no mercy on your arms today. 

It takes a few painstaking feet until the cloth starts to run smoothly on the wet ground. Through the dewy lawn of your property, it works much better until your trainers go on a strike. Next time you’ll go to the beach with heavy boots. It’s better with bare feet then, though you encounter another problem. The grass isn’t particularly even, so you have to maneuver around a bump or two. The 10 x 20 feet swimming pool comes into sight quite tardily.

He slumps into the water with a dull splash. You made it by the skin of your teeth and everything hurts. It’s a miracle. The water is uncomfortably icy as you enter, grabbing hold of his shoulders. You have to remind yourself to be careful, washing away all remnants of sand and dirt. The filtration system will take care of it. Again you note how silky the texture of his skin and scales is, clearly not made for life ashore. Before the water starts to paralyze you more with its frostiness, you decide to submerge him completely at the bottom of the pool. Different laws of physics, you remind yourself. For a human, air would basically be like water for him. His own weight sustains him down there well as of now. Begrudgingly, you leave to change clothes.

It’s good that your backyard is surrounded by copious palisades. You do hope nobody observed anything, thinking you transported some carcass or worse, and check back just three minutes later. The garden gate is firmly locked already but doesn’t do much to pacify your feelings of imminent paranoia. So the balcony is a good place to stay where you can sit with your laptop to catch up with pressing work. Any concentration is still out the window though, and any noise snaps you out of typing in emails. 

The pool water rouses after the nearby church bell strikes 11 am. You return to the gazebo next to the pool to look if you’re not hallucinating, met with huge, dark eyes. They’re Prussian blue and almost doe-like. He’s leaning at the edge, two arms propped up.

“Thank you, madam. You didn’t have to do this,” he dabbles quite gently, stirring the water with his tail to cause ripples. His voice is very pleasant and friendly, youthful. Never did you think he would be able to speak your language. Everything comes unexpected today.

“Nevermind,” you respond, trying not to show both incredulousness and unease. There is no way in making this sound like a proper conversation, but you try. He called you madam, after all. 

”I came to pry for shells and lost my sense of time. It’s my bad.”

You squat down at the edge of the pool at some distance. This seems all too much at once. Yet you have to gather words to let him know.

“Don’t, don’t say that. I can’t let you die out there. To see you become food in a tin can if a hunter or the police come along.”

It strikes a chord with him, and you instantly regret saying it.

“I know who they are. Their prejudice has killed one of my brothers not long ago.” He’s downcast now, impossibly sad. You know who this brother was. A little glistening tear makes its way down his cheek, he picks it up with thumb and index finger. It has turned into a small pearl. “You’re not like them. I can be glad you picked me up without fear or reporting it.” 

You enclose the shiny gift with two palms as he passes over the bead. When you tuck it away, it rests in the breast pocket of your blouse. The merman looks very relieved to see you accept it.

“It’s not over yet. But I guess I did the right things so far. You’re alive. I hope I can drag you back at high tide. Or do you need more time?”

“My body regenerated. But my mind, I feel very strange and dizzy, still. Tomorrow.”

“Shit… it’s the chlorine in the water. I don’t think that’s good for you.”

“Chlorine?”

You wonder why he speaks your language perfectly but doesn’t know this.

“To disinfect bacteria dangerous to humans. For you, it might just be nauseating. Maybe because you’re not used to it, or sensitive. Wait, I’ll use the pool filter. I have one.” 

While you take care of the pump and also clean away some debris, the curious merman lingers closely. 

“Did I tell you my name yet? I’m Jungkook. I have a question, actually. It might sound weird.”

You look up from your task. Jungkook. It’s fitting.

“Just go ahead. I’m Y/N.”

“Why do you have a pool next to the sea?”

He’s a bright guy. You understand where the query is coming from, too.

“I do love the sea like you. But the waves are too high. It’s dangerous to bathe there without a vigilant eye. You’ve seen what happened. I prefer to swim here, especially when it’s warmer.”

“Oh, I forgot,” he marvels at you, “humans can’t swim that well in the cold.”

“It’s true. We have trouble moving around mermen as well,” you chuckle, glad your work at the pump is completed. You stand up to return to Jungkook. His presence is soothing, almost familiar. 

In that very moment, hasty knocks and rattles resound from the garden gate.

Jungkook immerses himself in water within a split second. He’s diving down faster than you can say anything, in fact. The pool’s surrounding bushes have saved you from being seen with him, thankfully, but your feeling tells you to hurry to the gate as soon as you can. But you have to stop yourself from being in a rush not to be suspicious. It’s painfully obvious who it is from a distance already. You’re in trouble. 

It’s Taehyung.

“Oh hey, hey! I rang the doorbell — nobody responded. Figured you’re here! How ya doin’?”

A hurricane as usual. You keep the gate locked. He’s looking at you through the metal bars with inquisitive eyes.

“What do you want, Kim… I’m busy.”

“Sorry, just looking for my painting cover. Do you still have it? Am gone in a minute.”

“Sure.” 

You spin around and race inside without further ado. Taehyung must think you have gone completely mad now, but knowing Jungkook is likely having a heart attack down there you would waste no second. You return breathless, red blotches all over the face. He rolls his eyes.

“Slow down, slow down, Noona. It’s Sunday. God, heterosexual people. Always caught in such a fuss.”

“They are. Now, here. Take it. Just, buzz off now, Kim. Got things to do.” 

And again, you spin around on your heel and hear him trot away sulking, but clenching his long-lost cover tight. He said he’s gone in a minute, then he has to deal with it. You’ll have to come up with something very intricate to appease him next time when he mocks you for it. And you are sure he will, because Taehyung notices when something’s off. Telling him the truth would be like being Taylor Swift’s boyfriend, he would just broadcast everything.

You dash back and lean over the pool for Jungkook to recognize you. But nothing moves. He’s right about staying where he is. If the police coerced you to be their decoy, luring him out, he’d be dead. Jungkook, that is indisputable to you, continues to prove being very sharp save being aware of tides. The media never talked about merpeople being this people-conscious and easily intimidated. They’re just drawing them as evil to get hunting permission. Vicious pigs. 

You want to make them fall. 

There’s something else that strikes you, watching for activity in the pool. There must be a way that merpeople gather excessive knowledge about humans. Or it might be a contact person. But you don’t want to know, it might be a way to trace them back. Such a secret must never be revealed, you know you’ll take all this to your grave to protect him. It would be good to tell your story to everyone so they would change their mind. But the police was hawk-eyed and knew how to press for information. 

They’d be hellbent and relentless to slit his throat as soon as they could. Officials and hunters had methods to find him if it was not too far out in the ocean. Or they would just wait until he came back to you sooner or later. You are sure that he will. He’s feeling indebted. And attached. You’re too. You dread the day, and tomorrow’s goodbye if it actually comes. 

You have to admit it: This propelled you into a gigantic mess. You already felt your heart burst when Taehyung knocked. You have to guard Jungkook from a greater fuck-up, come what may. 

With the entire government of Busan or even Seoul against you when your secret ever goes public. Because they want to keep it on the low, too, and would stop at nothing. You did not go against the law but social customs and conservative morale, and those are by far more powerful. 

You rip off your blouse and pants and toss them on the balcony. Your tank top is hardly suitable for the temperature, but the pool water is slightly warmer as you get in slowly. The chlorine has faded. The first good news for today.

Diving down, Jungkook appears curled up in the deepest, darkest corner, holding his hair together so it won’t float up and betray him. Most of the fright on his face dissolves when you give an intent thumbs up. These mermen understand so much about your culture. You cannot let go of this thought. How could he know?

Swimming closer, you seize him by the hands, nodding your head toward the surface. He pulls you up with ease, fast and agile. Emerging, you have to draw several breaths. He looks around frantically. You hope this didn’t traumatize him.  

“It was my neighbour friend asking for art supplies. He left and didn’t see anything. Nobody else around. We’re good. Jungkook, it’s alright. It was just a friend.”

It’s Sunday, thankfully.

“I was so afraid… There was a vision, I was bleeding!”

“It’s okay now. There’s no blood. I protect you, nothing will happen.”

It’s of no use. He can’t stop looking around. Jungkook needs something to ground him. 

A little kiss on the forehead. 

It makes his cheeks turn cobalt blue. You feel how his tail sways back and forth a bit quicker. You part your legs wider so they won’t crush his fin in between. 

“I will handle it. If I can pull you out of the mud, then I can subdue them when they ever show up. You just have to hide. Jungkook.”

It’s self-persuasion and hoping for a self-fulfilling prophecy. But you’re beaming at him, and his smile grows just as large.

“Y/N, you’re very strong. I wouldn’t know where I’d be without your help. You hardly knew me, just my kin.” 

“So did you. But you didn’t freak out when you were awake.”

He nods emphatically.

“I felt your hands on my gills. It was very nice. Like waves. I knew you were benevolent, you resemble the sea when you move. No bad person does this. Can you… again? Only if you want, I—”

What he said stuns you for seconds. Your hands move to his upper body on autopilot. 

“Like, like this?”

Jungkook sighs a mellowed yes when you start to stimulate his sides. His gills are much more relaxed than at the beach. After some strokes, you’re leaning in so much that his arms virtually just have to close an inch around you for an embrace. 

He clings to you in a tight hug, your lips coming up to meet his. Whatever magic or trick he is using, they feel curiously sparkling and slightly saline after a while. It’s magnificent. Meanwhile, your breasts are squeezed flat against his chest, feeling how Jungkook’s heartbeat accelerates. Much like his fin that’s bringing more of his tail between your legs. You pull them upwards a bit, but inevitably he brushes against your pubes. You thought it would be awkward. But something about his body infatuates your skin like an ancient charm. 

“Apologies Y/N, I didn’t mean to!”

“Don’t be sorry. Just, fuck… do it again. Feels awesome. You can be yourself with me.”

He understands, bringing his tail stark forward this time. Shit. Your clit says yes to that. So does your face judging by how he reacts, a lot keener than before.  

“Jungkook, I have a weird question, too,” you brush back against him, “Is it possible, I mean. Can you penetrate me somehow, or…?”

He’s blushing a second time.

“I can peel the scales apart at the front.”

And he does it. 

Oh wow.

He has the most gorgeous shaft you’ve ever seen. Clad in lustrous, thin scales sprouts forth a splendid length tinted in jade. It sojourns hard and upright, poking heavy at your clit and entrance only separated by your underwear. 

“You can’t impregnate me, right?”

“I can’t. Human egg cells are too small and not receptive.”

That has you wondering, and quite amused how he said that. It means something big is coming. Sounds like fun.

“Can I ride you then?”

“You can do anything, really.”

It can’t get any hotter. Thankfully, you’re half undressed already. The panties you had left on soon float elsewhere just below the surface, and you’re shoving up the hem of your tank top. His chest feels ten times as invigorating when you’re naked against it. There’s hesitation when you reach for his cock. You don’t want to do anything wrong to hurt him. But Jungkook is encouraging the initiative. And the way he’s dipping at you flicks a plethora of switches. So it’s easy. You slip him in and start to move your hips. Soon you realize it’s a bit difficult to go down further.

“Can I use a spell? It helps.” he exhales. You knew it, he has those abilities.

“Mh, love to see it.”

There he goes. You catch Jungkook whispering a convoluted spell to himself before your walls pop open without further trial. He’s dipping in first, then going half the way already. That’s not normal at all. He knows what he’s doing, though. It’s so, so damn good. 

Jungkook is completely ecstatic. 

Your experience so far has been that sex in water generally… doesn’t go well. No lubrication, no fucking. But no, this has to be the best exception. The practically seamless scales, they’re really doing the trick. The plunge is slick and exciting, going in clean with every bounce. And there’s a quite a stunning lot to slide up and down on, that you get to welcome soon. He’s getting confident to echo the thrust with eyes fixated on yours. 

“Give me more of that,” you insist, leaving both legs wrapped around his wavering tail. It’s almost too slippery to hold on to. But good to sink down smoothly while squeezing deeper inside. You’re pushed upwards the more he fucks into you. His tip is broad enough to anchor you, not letting you glide off easily. But you’re dangerous close to it. So you’re letting yourself drop down on him with more momentum which he has to cushion first, causing your belly to bulge out considerably. You’re obsessed. 

“Lift my legs more, Jungkook!”

Like that, the insides of your thighs graze at his gills, abrasive and brisk. To your surprise, it eventuates in sharper thrusts going for your sweetest spots. The depth that he pursues now starts to stretch you hard and wide on the glossy scales. Jungkook keeps murmuring spells. If this goes on for any longer, that’s a cock riding that would send not only you but Taehyung and the entire neighborhood to the gates of heaven and higher. 

You keep shoving him straight up to dent out your abdomen, and he’s making it so salacious with his little moans. When you’re grabbing for hold at his shoulders, Jungkook warns you about his precum. Indeed it’s not to underestimate when you feel it, making everything two times as sleek. You slump down completely now, surprised not to feel any trace of balls against your ass. 

Different anatomy. 

Normal men need cooling for their sperm outside of their body, otherwise they would not survive. Jungkook? He’s got something else going on. Busan’s sea is not notoriously warm.

“Intertwine your fingers in my hair, Y/N—”

“What? Can I really do that?”

It sounds like heresy to your ears. 

“It’ll stimulate you, do it quickly,” he persists, and your fingers seek a place in his silky mane. And Christ, he’s right. There’s a rapid sedation of the anxious thoughts at the back of your mind. Instead, you’re feeling an immense euphoria descend from your spine down to your loins. Jungkook whimpers while you’re drilling him deeper with all your power. Slowly but surely, you lose yourself in his dazzling ocean hair. You’re so happy now. Nothing matters. Just you together within the blur of everything else. 

Fuck society. Fuck it, fuck it, fuck it. 

Jungkook’s moans have grown incomprehensible. Both of your hands soak up more of the sky blue energy. And once you grab the strands tighter, an overwhelming current verberates in your back until you’re ready and cumming. The world is so elated, nothing can bring your hands away from his hair. It’s pushing you to the limit incessantly. Better than any drug trip, better than the feeling after you ran your second marathon. You’re climaxing so vigorously on him that twenty seconds in, something effervescent and tingly begins to pour into your womb like a bursting well. His unearthly groaning gives you an idea of how much it shatters and empties him. You get filled to the brim and it won’t stop. Of course, he’s significantly larger than the average human — much semen to store then, by your logic at least. You do get a glimpse of the proportions as Jungkook keeps cramming loads and loads past your cervix while your orgasm keeps electrifying even the last corner of your body.  

The well won’t cease. He keeps moving until you’re entirely pumped full with an all creamy, tickling substance. You try to keep everything in not to leak it into the water. But it’s too much. With each of his last thrusts, the bulk of it just comes spilling out. A shimmering, dark cyan liquid rises to the surface in gradient plumes, mixed with streaks of your cum. It looks like fluid shapes of orchids showing as a supple iridescent foam. 

And it turns golden.

The scent gives you a feeling of the hours after rain in spring. Jungkook picks up a decent bit of the foam with two fingers, slipping them into his mouth. He leans in to kiss you again as you reach the aftermath of your peak that threatens to leave you bland. But what happens now makes you tighten around his dick once again, seizing out more to splutter inside.   

On your tongue unfold an explosion of jasmine blended with peppermint, thyme, fresh raspberries, wild honey, and even something like caramel. There was no way you would have been prepared for this. You had expected something like a sea breeze, but this beats all that you could imagine. Because beyond approximation, you can’t really describe what it is like. 

You swallow fast and retreat one hand from his hair to pick up something yourself. This is the best thing you’ve ever tasted. It can’t be called an actual thing, in fact, it’s more than that. It has to be an artifact. A magic potion that you want to bottle up and drink all day, sweet and glowing. 

It’s like alchemy. 

And you’re so deliciously stuffed with that now.  

Before you pull him out, all the negative pressure culminates. Then, the rest of his seed bubbles up placidly. The gaping feels like you just jammed a baseball bat inside of yourself, reckless abandon with a Himalaya of premium coke up your nose. Complete inebriation. 

Water streams in and flushes out the final strands of cyan when his following spells seal you tight. Jungkook holds you firm until you detangle his hair with your remaining hand, then place it on his cheek. If there were mermaids out there, they’d be the luckiest women on the entire planet. 

“Kook”, you whisper with an unwinding tremble, “you’re amazing.”

Anchoring an old khaki tent next to the pool takes some time, but you remember something about the manual. This goes here, that goes there, and this is how you zip up a sleeping bag. Jungkook giggles along. You can’t afford to sleep inside tonight. You only move your blouse to the safety of your wardrobe and get a snack, switch on the lights of the balcony to illuminate the garden for the rest of the evening. He’s singing for you.

The next day is grueling because you have to go to work. But before leaving, you relocate Jungkook to the bathtub as fast as possible, leaving him your phone with a short explanation so he can call you and vice versa. The anxiety comes back.  

He gets lighthearted leisure magazines and books to spend the time, and devours them. History, art, fashion, beauty, celebrities, health, sports, food, philosophy, fantasy, comedy. He also asks for a globe and celestial map, saying his uncle vaguely told him about it. Maybe it’s good that he knows a bit more about the mainland when he returns. You don’t want to let him go with the same ideas he had before, give him a bit of faith in the good things you had here. The other side of the coin, even if it was just a glimpse of hope. 

Though you didn’t expect him to return to your mansion in any way. Humanity is already terrifying enough. Especially after his loss. This should not happen again. You decide to leave him your trusted chef knife and a word of caution. He doesn’t know how to use it so you teach him the technique. He says he wouldn’t be any better than his attackers if there were some. You try to clarify that it’s the way humans act sometimes. Tit for tat. And he has all the right and responsibility to defend himself under threat, otherwise, he would never be able to see the stars again. 

At 10 am you give him a short call. He’s fine, quite mesmerized how the phone works, and just a bit hungry. You decide not to spend lunchtime in the city, but speed your car to a local supermarket and deli, looking for seaweed. Returning home Jungkook is still in his place, having managed to drop Terry Pratchett and J. K. Rowling into the water. But all else is as before. In the afternoon, you call him twice. He talks about the invention of the lightbulb, pasta salad, Kant, and how nicely Tolkien writes about Hobbits. Work passes torturously slow, the keyboard in front of you blurs each time your mind drifts away. You go home early, leaving your subordinates Jimin and Seokjin a bit puzzled at a shallow excuse. If only they knew.

It’s way after dawn when you move him out of the bathroom. Jungkook gets the idea that you could just use a wheelbarrow this time, knowing you own one after having had enough hours to glance around your garden already. You fill a bit of water into it and pick boots with a sturdy profile. And it works, the leverage is much better on the arms. You arrive at the beach laughing and joking together how silly of a duo you must look like. Jungkook has already given his word to come back in two days around the same time. 

The tide is close enough for you to take him to the water. He parts reluctantly with five, six, seven sublime kisses. You hope he wasn’t missed by his family. Busan’s nocturnal skyline radiates from afar when you watch him swim east ever so elegantly.  

It’s hard to find any sleep later. Your arms still ache like hell from dragging him. And so many things are going through your head. You end up outside in the tent after taking a quick shower, pretending he’s still there. Jungkook has last started a chapter from the Chronicles of Narnia, and you put yourself in a tired daze finishing it. Work tomorrow is going to be so hard.

Jimin asks if you’re okay while he organizes some files, but doesn’t comment anything further. You resume typing with the feeling that you are now leading a double life. Taehyung’s words come back: Slow down, slow down. And you do. Wednesday you will see him at the bay, everything is alright. Who knows what you will do afterwards, how often you will meet. Maybe it’s good not to make him cross into dangerous territory regularly, or at least you should look for more hidden places. You’ll make it.

Two days after, you receive an early mail. You’re drowsy but startled, Taehyung and Jin haven’t sent anything for months. It has to be one of them.

It’s only a red envelope and some strangely filled paper bag. You peel open the red letter first.

It was made with a typewriter. 

“A million and you get the fish back whole. He has a nice buzzcut already. Friday 1 pm, quay. Pull up with the money or you’ll see him on the news. Tell anybody and we will do the same to you.”

Below, the paper is embossed with a saw and hook symbol. 

You drop the bag as soon as you open it. 

There are hundreds of tiny pearls on the floor. 

chapter two ║ i’m no angel (m)

↳ summary | who do you have to become to get him back?

⚠️ graphic violence, threat of drowning, car accident, aftermath of torture.

There’s an old cage.

Bars bent and crooked.

Not abandoned, just empty since this very day. You know he must have been inside, nothing else makes sense. The lingering smell around here, it belongs to him. The air is spiked with thyme, the scent of grass after it rained. It’s familiar. It’s so painful. You go on searching every corner of the hangar in a fever. It looks like a warehouse from the inside, stuffed with tools and other miscellaneous equipment.

Some wood, nails. Discarded tires. You’ve seen some of them on the SUV you followed to Busan city limits. You try to memorize the letters and numbers on them. AZ1-5986. Whatever that means. It could be of help later since you don’t know the SUV’s license plate.

As you remember that it’d be straightforward to just photograph the tires with your phone, a faint knocking sets your world on fire. It keeps repeating, they are fast and erratic knocks. Not mechanical ones. Not calm ones.

You hurry into the direction where you suspect they are coming from. There’s no doubt in your mind that you should not go. It’s the only sign of life, or whatever it is in this building. Somewhere, somewhere at the back behind two parked up seaplanes, timeworn and half deconstructed, there you locate it. A moss-covered fish tank is jammed between a humongous workbench and a freezer. A tail rests and winds grazing tight against the glass inside. Oh my god.

Yes, it’s him. You unbolt the lid, bring it down crashing on the freezer. Jungkook spins around inside the tank until his face comes to the surface. Pale grey eyes. Charcoal hair, cropped short. Pursed lips and a tapered chin. An Ingenue look. He’s agitated.

“I’ve heard you calling for him, you’re the one Jungkook’s talked about!”

No. It’s not Jungkook. Not his voice, not his face. Too lean, not sturdy at all. It’s definitely not him. His scent is much different, too. Sweet chestnuts, basil. It’s not familiar.

“Who are you, where is he?”

“Yoongi,” the merman blinks, “I’m his friend. They got us both at once at the beach.”

That’s what you feared. Jungkook’s friends and family getting dragged into this. You wish you had just sent him out as far away as possible where the hunters wouldn’t get him.

“I’m his—”

You don’t know what you are to him. A girlfriend? Hardly. An affair? More than that. It sounds weird anyway. Affairs are not that serious.

“He loves you.”

There it is. Jungkook told him. Lovers might be what describes you best.

“Where is he?”

“They’ve taken him to another place from here this morning. This is just the decoy. They told you to follow the car and fetch him here after paying.”

“They did. And now?”

“These are not the headquarters,” Yoongi props himself up at the edge of the tank. “The shipyard is. You have to go there!”

Of course. This hangar is as good as useless for a permanent stay. It’s just for the dirty work.

“And what happens with you? I won’t leave you here like that. But I can’t transport you in my car, there’s nothing like this tank.”

“It takes half an hour until I can’t go without any water. If you drop me at the sea it’s fine.”

“So I can take you with me?”

“I’ll be grateful forever. Jungkook didn’t lie about how you treat us.”

You steer your car into the hangar backwards, get out again with the engine on, rip the trunk open. The size has to be enough.

The high walls of the fish tank don’t permit you to lift Yoongi out of it. He tries to push himself up with the help of his fin several times, but he’s too large, the glass to slippery, and the tank too narrow. As a last resort, you grab a sledgehammer from the workbench to impact and shatter the glass. The handle is long, maybe 17 or 18 inches, allowing you to step back and lunge quite far. The glass doesn’t break right away. You are not used to wielding something like this. It takes three more strikes until you demolish the front wall. You have to be careful not to hit where Yoongi’s tail squeezes against the glass.

The gush of water Yoongi pushes you back, everything goes into splinters with fragments of glass bursting to the sides, then floating everywhere on the ground. Yoongi cuts himself several times at the arms and lower back before you can pick him up. His chest is flat and cold against yours, his body heavy and close to glide far from your grasp. Less so than Jungkook, but still it feels like the weight is tearing off your arms. His skin is like you’re touching soap.

There’s no sailing cloth or Taehyung’s art supplies this time. You try to heave him up as much as possible so his fin won’t touch the ground, glass cracking under your boots until you reach the car. Yoongi howls with pain when you try to tuck him in. His wounds scratch hard at the trunk’s plastic inlet. You show him how to open and close the tailgate from the inside, then shut it and set off.

It takes ten minutes to the bay.

The boatyard towers over the cranes and docks of the harbor. You speed in order to drive around. And there it is. AZ1-5986. They didn’t park the car inside, no. It stands blazen at the rear entrance. And they met you at 1 PM in the middle of the day. You’ve been tricked by absolute amateurs.

Or not.

There’s a scream coming from the inside. Sharp, heartbreaking.

No time to bring Yoongi to the sea.

You seize the sledgehammer from the passenger seat. And go.

You recognize them at one glance. It’s the small man and red-head woman you saw driving the SUV, the woman being the one you gave the ransom to. She gave cold instructions. The man is currently wearing large gloves, dripping with water. To your surprise, they seem to be alone. The vast silence of the dockyard seems too large to house them here. The woman sneers at you, patting the front of her black leather jacket.

“Your envelope’s still right here, Miss.”

“It will be here soon,” you point towards your own jeans pocket at the front.

She only tugs at her necklace in return. It’s made of colorful hair. Gold, turquoise. Teal and silver. You realized something. Only one thing drives them: cash. And since the government still wants the monopoly in the equation, that will be their eternal aim. Hunters are only tolerated for doing the messy jobs. The profiteer is elsewhere. And with the sums that they trade the mermen, your ransom money is only a temporary achievement, gone tomorrow. It’s not what Jungkook is worth to you anyways. Money can’t measure Jungkook. If only you could hold him.

What your instinct tells you at the sight of the hair is: Killing. No matter if it would alert authorities sooner or later, or bring a gang to your garden. But Jungkook’s words are still at the back of your mind. You don’t know if you’d be ready to be just as bad as they are. Maybe you’re no angel in all of this. You’ve infringed on the circle of life the minute you decided to pour water on Jungkook’s body at the beach. But there’s no way back. You have to be as bad, even worse. For him.

Because there he lies, in a giant tank with another merman with orange tail and skin. It’s close enough to see what’s inside. Pearls are piling up at the ground, and well from his eyes when they lock on you. His hair looks auburn, the long vivid strands are gone. They picked a lot of scales off his tail, too, leaving bloody spots. All the jewelry is nowhere to be seen. Instead, a heavy chain is wound secure around him several times, weighing his body to the ground. The other merman doesn’t have a chain. His scales and hair are removed entirely. They sawed one of his arms off, too. If you can judge by his face, the decaying process has already started. He’s been here for longer.

Your anger is boiling up. The woman’s shallow smile pushes you over the edge at last. She pulls out a soiled drop point knife. You hate her so much. This place has to be wiped out. Erased, cauterized. The entire gang if you have to. You charge gripping the hammer at the top with the right hand, at the bottom with your heft. Before you reach her, the man is wrapping his hands around your neck from behind, pulling you back from her.

One foot, two feet, three. You can’t breathe, panic. The feeling of his gloves is terrifying on your skin, in your mind. But the thought of Jungkook burns inside. Again you focus all energy in your arms. Finally. He takes your elbow to the stomach, cries out, and topples down. Before the man catches himself, you follow your impulse. It’s good that he dragged you away. This is the only chance. You withdraw your right hand from the handle and take a long swing back with all the might in your left arm. You hurl the hammer forward and send it flying towards her legs. The spin knocks her over right away. This tree got cut down. If you could, you’d make wood briquettes. But not now.

He’s coming at you again. Now that she’s unconscious, your job is easy even if your hammer is gone. Men have more frontal weak spots to hit.

He has his gloved fists up. Going towards you slowly. First he tries to suffocate you, now he’s playing fair, doesn’t he. You’ll floor him faster than her. Suits him, he’s the minion. The prick probably sawed apart Jungkook’s brother.

You wait until he comes close enough, put your fists up in return. Shit, shit, shit. Your arms hurt so much. You play the game despite the ache, dancing from foot to foot as he comes in. Then boot nasty fucker in the groin aimed from below, explosive and direct. He stumbles backward with a yell, falling agonized and twitching. You dive after him, leg extended to land a second kick under his chin. His head snaps back. That beats him senseless for once.

But you worry about Yoongi. The trunk. He’s still in there. Since twenty minutes or more. And even if he knows how to get out of there, it’s of no use. He can’t go anywhere. This has to be fast. At the other end of the scene, you pull the envelope from the woman’s jacket, along with a metal key and her necklace. She doesn’t deserve it.

You hurry to Jungkook, hammer all too heavy in your hands again. At one point, your arms are going to fall off your torso. But now you know better. You dash the tank to pieces in one final hurl towards the right spot, entirely graceless but effective. The water swipes you off your feet in a large outpour. Exhaustion is coming.

The splinters are much larger this time and the float glass appears to almost detonate under the pressure released. Jungkook is too heavy to get carried off by the surge. He lands just feet away next to you crying, repeating your name until you manage to stand up leaving the hammer behind.

“I missed you, Jungkook, what—”

“You, you came,” he winces, “are you fine?”

“Don’t ask about me,” you fumble at the lock of his chain, “we’ll get this off, talk is for later.”

“It hurts.”

He’s looking at you from dulled eyes. They might have put him into water, but the life is still drained out of him. You don’t want to imagine what happened. They bound the chain around him so tight that it left purple traces. After it’s off, you already know what to do with it. Jungkook picks an orange scale from his dead friend in the debris, whispering a last goodbye.

The thirty minutes are long over. The trunk is closed when you come out of the backdoor with Jungkook.

You open to a smiling Yoongi the second he sees you and Jungkook in your arms.

“Yoongi, you okay? Left you waiting.”

“Sure, but you?” he ruffles his hair a bit. You blink twice, seeing that it has grown a bit longer and darker since you saw it in the hangar. You noticed that with Jungkook as well, but didn’t put two and two together, or actually believed your own eyes. It must be magic at work. Or different physics.

At a second glance, there’s a decent layer of water in the trunk.

“Yes, they’re in chains. Where does the water come from?”

“You had several bottles of sparkling water in the corner. I like how it tingles, we don’t have that out there. My wounds... it seems they regenerate.”

Of course! The water. You bought it when getting groceries for Jungkook.

“And what do we do with the two?”

“We could take them out with us. But they’re affiliates, they all know about each other.”

“I’ll decide later by myself,” you guide Jungkook onto the rear bench seat. “We need to go...”

You kickstart the car, turn to head for the one-way lane to the docks. As close as your car permits, you maneuver toward the edge where water towers high. The tide is in favor. But there’s commotion at the end of the street where you came from. It’s a truck.

“Hurry!” Jungkook cries, “That’s the rest of them!”

You can’t drive away with them now. If you’re able to drop both off, then you’re already lucky. You drive closer to the water, preparing to unlock the car with your electric key so Yoongi gets the sign to open the trunk. But you soon feel that the car gets out of balance. You look into the rear-view mirror, estimating how much you could still drive backward, or forward. But it’s futile.

The weight in the back drags the car over the edge. You’re screaming. Jungkook tries to counterbalance. The car tips over anyways. It enters the water.

The door won’t open. Water keeps rising. The signal of the keys won’t unlock the car no matter how many times you press the button. Jungkook can’t manage to open the doors either, his strength has faded. The water level has almost reached the ceiling when he stops trying. You’re so far down and out of air, even if you managed to escape now diving upward would make you run out of air already. Maybe a few seconds left and you can say goodbye to this life. You can’t tell Jungkook how much you love him. It’s all too late. Everything, absolutely everything went wrong. Only failure remains. Fucked up from start to finish. Four lives ruined, two dead. You feel a thumping at the back of your head.

Jungkook intertwines his fingers with your hair from behind, whispering something between bubbles before you can’t hear anymore. An immense heat glues your legs together in an instant, melting the fabric of your jeans. A rousing bolt darts through your scalp, your feet stop moving. It feels like your body is bloating everywhere, soaking up water. Webbing springs forth between your fingers, fiery scales around your hips. Your hair starts growing out scarlet and thick, curling large before your eyes. The sides of your upper body start to open up wide, then close again. A burst of air expands in your lungs.

Now you know why Jungkook knew so much about civilized life.

Merpeople used to be human.

⁕ sequel: dauntless (m) | m.list in bio

Do not repost, modify, or translate my work. © 2017-2019. submissive-bangtan. All rights reserved.

[knives-out20]

Magnetic Pull - Erik Lehnsherr x Male!OC - Part 4

Fandom: X-Men: First Class (2011)

Pairing: Karmel Rosenstein (OC) x Erik Lehnsherr

Warnings: Spoilers for X-Men: First Class, Swearing, Internalized homophobia,

Notes: Welcome to Part 4! I really hope you guys are enjoying the series so far.

The following morning, Karmel found himself outside a covert CIA research base with the people he had only become acquainted with the previous day. He looked at the front of the building from inside Moira's car, ignoring the thoughts brewing inside his mind with Erik sitting so closely beside him. Karmel opened the door and got out, leaving it open for Erik, who nodded at him. He spared Erik a quick smile, hands balling into fists because he hated how he was getting so worked up over a man. Karmel stood between Charles and Erik glancing over at the latter.

"Welcome to my facility" the agent spoke."My mission has been to investigate the application of the paranormal powers in military defense" he explained, leading the way towards the front door. 

Erik lagged behind, Karmel doing so as well but trying to stay discreet about it, like he would when chewing gum on the job."Or offense.”

"Or offense" Karmel and Erik spoke in unison, looking at each other after it happened.

Charles raised his eyebrows, turning away to let them have their moment.

"Karmel, correct?"

"Yea. You're Erik, right?" Karmel asked, as if he didn't already know. He happened to have spent the past night beating himself up over the strange feelings and thoughts he received when Erik came to mind. 

Erik nodded.

”I, uh, I like your leather jacket” Karmel complimented.”I have a black one kinda like it.”

”I know, you’re wearing it” Erik pointed out.

Karmel looked down at it; he was indeed wearing the same black leather jacket from the day before.”So I am” he mumbled, slightly embarrassed for forgetting.

Erik turned away.

"This guy Shaw, Schmidt, whatever you wanna call him, he's working with the Russians. We might need your help to stop him."

"Marvelous" Charles commented, looking around."So we're to be the CIA's new mutant division, yes?"

The agent paused."Something like that."

They group was led inside the building, into a huge room and in front of an on-display plane of some sort. There, they met a young worker with small glasses and a thin-built frame.

"It's a supersonic" the worker clarified, as Karmel stood between Erik and Raven."The most advanced plane ever built. You should see it in real life, it's incredible."

"Hank, these are the special recruits I was telling you about" the agent introduced, gesturing to the mutants at his side."This is Hank McCoy, one of our most talented young researchers."

Karmel instinctively crossed his arms, nodding in greeting.

"How wonderful," Charles smiled, quick to approach Hank and shake his hand."Another mutant, already here, why didn't you say?" He asked, turning to the agent, unaware of the faltering smile on Hank's face.

Karmel noticed."Shit..." He breathed.

"Say what?" The agent looked confused.

That's when the light bulb in Charles' mind turned on."Because you don't know-" he shakily breathed, turning back to Hank."I am so, so terribly sorry" Charles apologized, gaze going soft.

Hank shook his head shyly.

The agent approached him slowly."Hank?" He called.

"You didn't ask, so I didn't tell."

"So your mutation is what?" Raven piped up, coming forward, "you're super smart?"

"I'll say. Hank here graduated Harvard at the age of fifteen" Charles hummed.

"I wish that's all it was" Hank muttered, Karmel leaning back where he stood as everyone, except for Erik and himself, crowded around Hank.

Erik nudged him."Karmel."

Karmel instantly looked over."Yea-?" He answered a little too quickly. Karmel cleared his throat, shifting a bit."Hmm?" He hummed instead, arms still crossed."Calm down, you're a man, he's a man. These feelings don't exist" Karmel thought to himself, wondering why Charles glanced over at him.

"Thank you for your mutation last night. Being pressed up against a stranger while soaking wet...wasn't pleasant, but I can’t really think of any easier way we could've gotten out of the water there" Erik spoke, looking Karmel up and down.

Karmel shrugged, fighting back a blush and a smile."I was simply doing what Charles told me to. But..." he went to fix his tie, "no problem, Erik."

"You can control them quite well."

"If you're who whipped those chain-links yesterday, I gotta say the same about you" Karmel chuckled, turning back over to him. He repeated his earlier thoughts, reminding himself that Erik was simply being nice: nothing more.

"You Jewish?"

"That obvious?"

Erik shrugged."Many Jews I know happen to have surnames ending in '-stein'. A trend of some sort."

Karmel chuckled."Guilty, I guess. How 'bout you?" He asked, noticing when Erik tensed."If- If you don't wanna answer that, that's fine-" Karmel told.

"No, it's just..." He sighed and glanced at his wrist, "being Jewish hasn't landed me anywhere nice in the past."

"I could say the same on my parents' behalf. I'm not a fan of rocks" Karmel turned away.

Erik looked over at Karmel, eyebrows furrowing. He decided against further questioning, attention back on the group gawking over Hank's feet mutation.

Hank jumped up, his big feet gripping onto a wing of the plane.

Karmel pushed himself off of the railing, following Erik's slow steps over to further inspect Hank's mutation.

"Ta-da" Hank sheepishly told, as Raven approached him.

"Jeez..." Karmel breathed.

"I know" Erik agreed, hand accidentally brushing against Karmel's.

"Sorry-"

"My mistake" Erik glanced down, though neither of them stepped away from the other.

***

That night, Karmel stood at the front entrance of the base. He leaned against the wall, taking swig after sip of a bottle of gin. Karmel felt he was in dire need of a moment alone with the cool winds...and a bottle of gin, his favourite alcohol. He did not expect to hear the front doors open, nor did he expect to see Erik rush passed, carrying a suitcase. Karmel wiped his mouth on his sleeve, pushing himself off the wall and stepping onto the pavement."From what I know about you, I'm surprised you've managed to stay this fucking long" he spoke, Erik freezing in his tracks.

Erik slowly turned around, Karmel taking another cool step towards him."What do you know about me?" He asked."Are you drinking-?" Erik then asked, squinting.

"Yea. Gin's my favourite. It also calms me down." Karmel closed his eyes, repressing down the ways Erik's voice made him feel. He took a sip of his gin."Everything Charles had the audacity to tell me...for some reason" Karmel hummed in thought, shaking his head to regain his attention on the- devastatingly- good-looking mutant.

"Then you and him would know to stay out of my head."

"Oh, no, Charles does all the mind games, that lil’ fucker. The extent of my powers are these bad boys" Karmel corrected, slowly raising a hand. 

Vines emerged from the bushes, one wrapping around his gin bottle to hold it, another vine twisting the cap back on. 

Karmel grinned for a moment, eyebrows raised proudly. He glanced down at the suitcase.

Erik looked at them, turning back around to continue walking away from the base.

"I'm sorry, Erik, but Charles informed me that he knows what Shaw did to you" Karmel slightly outstretched an arm, as if reaching out to stop him; but he was too far away. He couldn't bring himself to make his vines grab Erik and physically stop him, for them to wrap around him and hold him like a doll. Karmel took the advantage of Erik stopping to walk a few more steps towards him. He stuffed his hands into his pockets of his leather jacket."He felt your agony, and needed me to fish you guys out of the water. He can help you- we, can help you. Each other, too" Karmel planted most of his weight onto his hind leg, not complaining about the view he had from behind Erik. But, he was sure to cuss himself out for feeling like this, later.

Erik stayed silent, and didn't even move. He then huffed, turning to face Karmel."I don't need Charles' help.”

"Beware, it goeth before the fall, Erik. And Charles' help, sure, but you'll probably want mine. When was the last time you interacted with a Jewish man of your kind, with, I'm assuming, similar morals?" Karmel questioned, looking around at the vines bobbing behind him."You think I’m all for Charlie’s sunshine-rainbows co-existing fantasy?” He scoffed.”If you don’t want his help, you’ll at least want mine.”

“I don’t need your help, either.”

“Don't kid yourself, Erik, you very well needed my fucking help in the waters last night, you even thanked me for it, earlier." Karmel felt himself grow heated with the way Erik was looking at him, and hated it."You're men" he thought, "fucking control yourself."

Erik didn't answer, looking down in thought.

"That's what I thought" Karmel chuckled."It's not just Charles you're walking away from. Not just me either, Erik" he advanced towards Erik."Charles told me that here, you have the chance to become something much bigger than yourself" Karmel explained, stopping again.”As dim-witted as it sounds, I’m as in as I can be Especially if it’s with you- with- with someone like me.”

Erik blinked.”I always thought I was alone” he confessed.

"You’re not alone, Erik.” Karmel shook his head, a certain sureness in his blue eyes that shone despite the night sky dimming their surroundings.”You’re not alone. You’ll never be alone again.”

Silence followed, until Karmel spoke up once more.

“I won't stop you from leaving" Karmel's heart hurt as he said that, viciously grabbing the gin bottle and opening it. He took a much-needed chug, since he desperately wanted to stop Erik from leaving, but refused to acknowledge why."Believe me on that. I know what it's like to be forced to do something you don't wanna do. I know what it's like to hide something you don't wanna hide. I know what it's like to be angry, and not in control, Erik. But, still..." Karmel took another sip."I won't stop you from leaving. Physically, with my vines, I could. I also want to, really” he blinked his gaze away, looking down sadly.

Erik kept staring at him, gears slowly turning in his head.

“Charles stopped me, but I don’t fucking know if he was in my head controllin’ me while doing it or not. See those footprints?” Karmel asked, pointing over at a bush he was standing beside, just about an hour ago. He remembers, word-for-word, everything Charles and him said to each other in that hour, when Karmel was sure he was set on getting outta there and going back home to his mansion. Getting Erik out of his head, and these despicable (to Karmel) thoughts about him.

Erik turned his head, seeing semi-fresh footprints in the mud. He looked back over at Karmel, at the bits of dirt visible on his shoes.

Karmel looked down at his shoes.”But I won’t stop you.” He slowly started to walk backwards."Think about if you want me to be the only mutant to show the world what Jewish people are really made of" he called, waving his bottle of gin."Shaw has got friends. You could do with some, as far as I can tell. Friends of your own kind, even" Karmel forced himself to turn back around, vines retreating from back where they came from."Don't tame your demons, Erik: always keep them on a leash."

Erik watched him go, the two Jewish mutants blissfully unaware of the fact that Charles listened to- and watched- the whole thing from a window of the base.

Charles smiled softly at Karmel walking back into the building, smile growing when he saw Erik walk in pretty soon after.

[violaswimmer]

Apologies - A Witcher Fanfic

Jaskier, having been told to never appear in front of Geralt of Rivia again, tries to distract himself from losing a decade long friendship. But as Jaskier vows to avoid Geralt as he requested, destiny has other plans.

"You can't keep doing this, Jaskier." Calpurnia said for the third time that week. Or was it the fourth? It was hard to keep track after so many ales. 

Jaskier nursed his fifth ale as he stared past Calpurnia's left ear. It wasn't his fault that he couldn't look into her eyes, she had far too many of them. Her green eyes danced away from his vision as her duplicates swirled around her. Her curly brown hair blended in with her pale complexion which was covered in freckles. Her white shirt left little to the imagination, not that Jaskier complained, she liked to look that way and he liked to look.

"I can do whatever I please, Callie." Jaskier stated and he hoped it sounded more convincing but was surely slurred. The look on Calpurnia's face suggested the latter. Especially realizing that he had said that to her chest. Calpurnia snorted at him as she tried to hide a laugh behind her hand. 

Jaskier went to roll his eyes but it caused the world to spin too much and he promptly laid his head on to his arm to make it stop. Normally Jaskier could hold his liquor better than men twice his size, despite his small stature. Years of drinking can give you that kind of ability (whether impressive or sad, that's up to you) but drinking pretty much nothing but ale for a week was causing some ill desired consequences. He groaned into his arm, the ale left the most terrible sour taste in his mouth. 

Calpurnia, bless her, placed a comforting hand on his back, rubbing it up and down. It made the world a bit more solid and a bit more gentle. 

"Come now, my dear and very drunk bard. Let me help you to your room." She said gently, already placing her arms around him to help him stand. 

Jaskier did his best to stand but noticed he wasn't doing a great job as Calpurnia kept a very steady grip around his shoulders. She had always been the strong one between the two of them so it wasn’t really a problem. The world could be very cruel to women, but Calpurnia refused to let it be cruel to her, her strength went far beyond the physical and Jaskier knew that well. 

The two of them made their way through the bar to a small set of stairs. The tavern was noticeably less full now, as it was quite early in the morning. The stairs were considerably more difficult as Jaskier’s spinning head did no favors to navigate them. Calpurnia made up for the lack of mobile ability but accidentally jammed one of Jaskier’s toes which he couldn’t feel anyway.

“Oops.” Calpurnia hissed, “Up you go.” She continued, guiding Jaskier up the final step as they entered the small, cramped hallway of the inn. 

Calpurnia fished through Jaskier’s jack pocket as he did his best not to fall over, retrieving the key to his room and unlocking it. She hefted his weight across the small chamber, the back of his knees hitting that bed as his body suddenly became horizontal which caused his stomach to protest quite violently. He had not laid down for more than a couple of seconds before he surged into a sitting position. Calpurnia shiftly produced the chamber pot which he promptly vomited into. Well there goes his dinner. 

After Jaskier’s stomach finally stopped it’s dry heaving, he sat back against the headboard with a moan. Calpurnia placed some pillows behind him and brushed some hair from his forehead, her touch was soothing and he leaned into it.

“I’m sorry.” He whispered. She continued to gently pet his hair. 

“There’s nothing to be sorry for, we all have our moments.” She assured.

“Not a weeks worth, not a months worth. I’m a mess.” Jaskier sighed, opening his eyes to look at her. 

She still spun, but her green eyes were in focus. He loved her eyes, like grass in the height of summer with little flecks of gold in the center. He loved her little freckles too, like little stars across her skin. She wasn’t the most beautiful woman Jaskier had met. She had too many muscles, too many scars, her hair was never brushed, her lips a bit too small and her nose a bit too big. But she was beautiful, sincere, kind and strong in ways that Jaskier rarely saw in others. 

“You’ve been hurt, you’re in pain, it’s a normal reaction considering the circumstances.” She reasoned.

“Right, having a man tell me to fuck off is enough reason for this behavior. I’m acting like a spoiled child…” He complained, pushing himself into a better sitting position. Calpurnia’s hand hovered a moment before dropping back into her lap. She eyebrows furrowed together.

“It wasn’t nothing Jaskier! You and Geralt have been friends for over a decade, you two were very close…” She reasoned.

“He didn’t think that, apparently.” Jaskier grumbled.

“You were! You always said that Geralt wasn’t good with his words. It would stand to reason that he would be bad at navigating relationships too.” Calpurnia continued, her hand reached out and grabbed Jaskier’s hand and held it lightly. 

“I don’t think he meant what he said. But either way what he said to you was wrong. You didn’t just cause him grief Jaskier, you aren’t to blame for the things that cause him plight.” She reasoned. 

Jaskier looked at their hands. Calpurnia was good at this bit, comforting people, reasoning with them when they were being unreasonable. She hadn’t always been, and he had done his fair share of comforting her in the past. Part of him wanted to give into the fantasy that Geralt would come to him one day and say he was sorry, that it was all a mistake. But she didn’t know the White Wolf, or the way he had looked at Jaskier that day. 

If life could give me one blessing, it would be to take you off my hands!

Even though it had been so long, a month almost, the words still stung every bit as when they were first said. Jaskier really had thought all this time that Geralt viewed him as a friend, but perhaps he only saw him as a nuisance. Perhaps Jaskier was the one who was mistaken. 

Jaskier smiled sadly as his vision got a bit too hazy, don’t cry! Calpurnia squeezed his hand.

“I wish that were true, Callie. I really do. But I think maybe I was mistaken. Maybe I thought we were friends, or companions or whatever you want to call it. I thought we were and apparently we weren’t.” He confessed softly, his voice a little shaky. 

“Oh Dandelion, I’m sorry.” Calpurnia whispered.

There was a pause as Jaskier registered what she said. He snorted, wiping his nose and looked at Calpurnia’s face who grinned. 

“Here I am, vulnerable, broken, depressed and you pull out that horrendous nickname! Ugh can we stop? It was one time!” Jaskier begged.

“One time is enough, my flower. I can’t believe you thought that eating a whole bucket would make your skin better.” She said with a laugh.

“Hey! There are benefits to dandelions in skin care! I was a teenager and desperate!” Jaskier protested.

“Yes when you put them in an oil. But when you eat them they are a laxative.” Calpurnia clarified, “You were chained to the privy for days it was all the temple talked about for weeks!” She giggled.

Jaskier opened his mouth to protest, or say a joke about how he probably lost five pounds due to the incident but Calpurnia continued to giggle and he ended up just watching her with a smile. When she gained control of herself she smiled at him too.

“It’s okay, whether or not it was a funny incident, I think dandelions suit you. They’re a bright yellow like the sun, and when their time is done their seeds are spread through the wind. Much like your stories, they live on and never truly die.” Calpurnia said, giving his hand a squeeze. 

And that of course caused his tears to return. 

“Seeds? I thought instead of stories you were going to talk about all my illegitimate children.” Jaskier laughed, though it was undermined by the tears going down his face.

Calpurnia snorted and smiled sadly as she wiped one of them away. 

“Alright, enough of that. Time to sleep, I’ll send up some water for you.” She said, pushing him onto the bed and promptly taking off his booths to tuck him in. She placed a kiss on his forehead, it reminded him of what a mother would do. His never did, but this was better.

“I love you, you know. I don’t know how you put up with me.” Jaskier said as she still leaned over him. She kneeled next to him for a moment to look him in the eyes and smiled. 

“I don’t put up with you, Jaskier. I love you, and I always will. Now, sleep, my flower.” She whispered. She brought the blanket up to his chin, blew out the candle on the nightstand and left the room. 

Jaskier closed his eyes, and for once his mind was not filled with Geralt’s voice but rather Calpurnia’s laughter. Even if he couldn’t see Geralt of Rivia again, at least he had Calpurnia and that was enough for him.

________________________________________________________________

When Geralt entered the tavern, it was approaching noon. He and Ciri were in desperate need of supplies, the journey to Kaer Morhen was long and the two of them needed to stock up before the rest of the journey there. Geralt came into the tavern with Ciri in tow, it was a dank place of wood and stone. A few patrons here and there, some of them stared, some of them didn’t. 

Geralt sat the two of them at a table, finishing out some coin. It had been awhile since he took a job, the coin would be enough for supplies but he wasn’t sure if he had enough to get a room for the night. He looked at Ciri with her new brown cloak, replacing the tattered blue one she had been traveling in before. She looked cold and exhausted, like she could really use a bed before they only camped for weeks. Geralt considered the options as two plates of food were placed in front of himself and Ciri. 

A woman with curly brown hair, light green eyes and freckled pale skin stood before them with a smile. She wore no armor, or so it appeared. But her corset was reinforced with hardened, studded leather, her pants had similar qualities. She carried two daggers and a long sword at her side. Notably, one of the daggers she carried was made of silver. Interesting, Geralt thought.

“We didn’t order this.” Geralt said. 

“I know.” The woman replied, pushing the plates to the two of them. Geralt halted Ciri’s eager hand as she went for the spoon.

“Ah, suspicious I see. Here, allow me then.” The woman said, reaching for the spoon in Ciri’s bowl, taking a taste of the beef stew in it. She swallowed, and seemed to be fine. She did the same with Geralt’s. She then gestured to the two of them, taking a seat on the opposite side of the table. Ciri looked at Geralt and once he nodded, dug into her food. 

Geralt on the other hand, didn’t proceed as eagerly, though he had a bite or two. The woman remained seated, watching them.

“And who am I to thank for a free meal?” Geralt asked.

“Calpurnia.” She answered simply, “Though it is hardly free.” Calpurnia clarified. Geralt smiled ruefully.

“It rarely is.” He replied. 

Calpurnia smiled as well, on closer inspection of her, Geralt noticed that she had an air of confidence. It wasn’t undeserved, even her long sleeves couldn’t hide the fact that she was well built. Her outfit and weapons were subtle enough that people would overlook her; yet they looked well used which suggested that she was not an opponent you would want in a fight.

“I’m here to ask for your help. You are Geralt of Rivia, yes?” She said.

“I’m not currently taking jobs.” Geralt clarified. She continued like he hadn’t spoken.

“It’s about a bard you were once traveling with…” She continued.

“I am not traveling with Jaskier anymore.” Geralt said. 

“For a witcher you’re quite chatty. Do you intend to continue to interrupt me? Or am I allowed to speak?” Calpurnia said sharply, like a mother scolding her son. There was a pause. Even Ciri stopped eating for a moment. Geralt pressed his lips into a hard line before grinding out.

“Please. Continue.” He growled. 

“Thank you.” She said with a smile before continuing, “Like I said, I’m here to speak to you about Jaskier. I’m a friend of his, and he’s in a bad way at the moment.” She said.

Geralt looked at her sharply.

“Is he hurt?” He asked, his voice not as calm as he would have hoped. Calpurnia shook her head.

“No, he’s fine. Well not exactly fine, he’s probably very hung-over.” Calpurnia said.

Geralt relaxed, and Calpurnia seemed to study his reaction. He shifted uncomfortably, trying to look nonchalant. 

“Well then he seems fine.” Geralt said, looking at the table instead of the woman across from him.

“Fine is a relative term. He’s been drinking himself to death since a certain someone said some choice words to him a month ago.” Calpurnia said sharply. 

Geralt’s eye twitched at her tone, it was angry with a hint of venom. This Calpurnia seemed to care for Jaskier very much, enough to confront a witcher she doesn’t know. 

“And what is it exactly that you want me to do about it? I’m a bit busy at the moment.” Geralt said, gesturing to Ciri next to him who was now cleaning her plate with a hard piece of bread.

Calpurnia bristled and leaned across the table, her green eyes grabbing his attention as they were lit on fire. 

“Listen here, Geralt of Rivia, you clearly care about Jaskier. That much was obvious when you thought he was injured and everytime I say his name you get a pained expression on your face. Now you aren’t the first witcher I’ve met, and you won’t be the last. I know perfectly well that witchers aren't stone cold monsters that people think they are. You feel just as much as everyone else, what you lack is a way to control it. So you hide behind a stone face and a cold exterior until all those feelings build up and explode at the first person you see when you’re hurt. This time it was Jaskier.” Calpurnia spat, her voice was low.

Ciri’s eyes were large orbs as she watched this woman, considerably smaller than Geralt give him a talking to. Geralt bit the inside of his mouth as he felt his own anger rise. But none of what she said was wrong, so he remained silent. 

“Now,” Calpurnia said, leaning back from the table, “What I want you to do is sit here and wait for poor hung over Jaskier to make his appearance.” She said, taking a swig of her ale. 

“He’s here?” Geralt asked quietly. 

“Yes, sleeping it off upstairs. Stay here, I’ll pay for as much food and drink as you and your companion would like. Just stay here, and talk to him when he comes down.” Calpurnia commanded.

“What… what if he doesn’t want to talk to me?” Geralt muttered. 

Calpurnia looked at him for a moment and smiled sadly. 

“Oh Geralt, Jaskier isn’t the type to be angry at you.” She said softly, “When a relationship falls apart, Jaskier always assumes he’s the one at fault. Even if he isn’t. Just wait for him, please.” She begged softly. 

Geralt looked at her and nodded. She smiled and stood going to the bar and placing down some coin. He heard her say that she’ll pay for whatever the two of them wanted before she left the establishment. Geralt watched her go, feeling strange, nervous and shocked at the conversation he had just had with a complete stranger. He was only pulled back into reality when Ciri tapped his arm. 

“Are you going to eat that?” She asked sincerely as she pointed to his food. 

He thought it over for a moment. 

“No.” He said, pushing the now lukewarm plate over to her. She ate it eagerly, though Geralt didn’t notice her, keeping a close eye on his pensive face, wondering who this Jaskier was.

________________________________________________________________

It was nearly an hour later when Jaskier finally made his appearance. When Calpurnia said he was in a bad way, she had not been exaggerating. His brown hair, which he normally kept clean and styled was a mess, sticking to his forehead in places and standing straight up in others. He was normally pale but seemed almost translucent in the early afternoon light which emphasized his unshaved face. He had dark circles under his eyes as they squinted in the general direction of the bar. His clothes were rumpled, and to Geralt’s surprise he was still wearing the red outfit he had seen him in last. Jaskier had more clothing changes than Geralt had horses, which was saying something. So to see him in the same outfit a month later was as concerning as the rest of his appearance. 

Jaskier walked to the bar, taking no notice of Geralt, sitting down as he requested a drink and some food. He laid his head against his arms as he waited. Geralt swallowed, turning to Ciri who held a cup of water between her hands.

“I’ll be right back.” He said. Ciri nodded and watched him go to Jaskier at the bar.

He stepped up behind him, Jaskier was quiet and unmoving. Geralt cleared his throat. Jaskier sighed, raising his head.

“Look, I’m hungover, I’ll sing for you in the ev-” Jaskier’s voice cut off in the middle of his sentence as he focused on Geralt’s face. There was a moment of complete silence between the two of them as they just stared at each other.

“Geralt.” Jaskier whispered. 

“Jaskier.” Geralt said, unsure of how to continue this conversation.

“I-I’m sorry, I should go and leave you to whatever business you have here.” Jaskier said quickly, standing quite abruptly.

“What?” Geralt said, “Wait, Jaskier.” Geralt begged as Jaskier continued towards the stairs, although he paused a moment.

“You made it quite clear that I was never to show myself to you again.” Jaskier clarified, continuing up a step, “I’ll just gather my things and leave you to- Shit!” He cried as he stubbed the same toe on the same step as last night. He really felt it this time. He placed a hand on the railing as he bent over his foot in a bit too much pain to move. 

Geralt hastily crossed the room so he was at the bottom of the stairs. 

“I- are you alright?” He asked.

“Yeah I’m fine, just give me a moment.” Jaskier sighed. There was a pause as Jaskier straightened but before he could continue up the steps Geralt spoke.

“I came to talk to you.” Geralt admitted, “I came to apologize.” He said softly. 

For several seconds there was silence, just Geralt staring at Jaskier’s back as he said nothing. Suddenly he turned around, looking at Geralt with a strange expression on his face. 

“Really?” Jaskier asked. 

“Really.” Geralt said, scratching his neck, “Would you like to join us? We can talk over there.” Geralt said, pointing to the table were Ciri sat. She waved. 

“Us?” Jaskier asked, looking at Ciri and whispered, “Is that the child of surprise?!” He hissed. 

“Yes!” Geralt hissed back, “Just, will you come please?” Geralt asked. 

“I- Um, yes. Please, lets.” Jaskier said, trying to regain his composure. The two of them went to the table and sat, Jaskier smiling at Ciri as he took the place that Calpurnia had sat not long ago. 

“Hello.” Jaskier greeted. 

“Hello, I’m um, Fiona.” Ciri said with a small smile of her own. 

Jaskier raised a brow at Geralt who gave a shrug as if to say, just go with it.

“Hello, Fiona. I’m Jaskier, it’s good to meet you.” He said sincerely, glad that she was with Geralt and not dead in Cintra as he had feared when he had heard of the fall. 

“Same to you.” She answered, taking a drink from her water glass. 

There was a pause until Geralt cleared his throat. 

“So um- I wanted to say that I was sorry for the things I said to you on the mountain. I didn’t mean it, I was frustrated and upset that Yennefer left and you were the first person I saw. So I just, let all my frustration out on you.” Geralt said, “But either way, it wasn’t right. I should have found you sooner to properly apologize, but I had to see to Fiona’s safety.” He clarified. Jaskier nodded.

“I understand, I mean it wasn’t like what you said wasn’t entirely valid. I had dragged you to that banquet and interrupted your djinn quest…” Jaskier said with a sigh.

“It doesn’t make what I said right. You didn’t cause what happened after, to happen. That was all my own decision, I was the one who invoked the Law of Surprise. It was I who made the wish, you did none of those things. It was wrong of me to blame you for it. I’m sorry.” Geralt said sincerely if sounding a bit unsure. It had been a long time since Geralt of Rivia apologized for anything.

Jaskier was silent for a moment before he smiled.

“I accept your apology.” He said. Geralt’s shoulders visibly sagged as the tension rushed out of him, he too smiled at his old friend. 

“How did you end up finding me anyway?” Jaskier asked, as the food he was ordered was placed in front of him as well as his drink. He thanked the barmaid as she left.

“I didn’t, we stopped for supplies and came into the inn for a meal when your friend Calpurnia approached us.” Geralt said, raising his hand at the barmaid and pointing to Jaskier’s plate. She nodded and returned to the kitchen to fetch Geralt some food as well.

“Calpurnia was here?” Jaskier asked between bites, “I thought she had already left for the day…” He wondered. 

“Yes, she said she’d pay for our food and drink if I agreed to wait for you and talk to you. I thought you’d be angry with me as well, so I hesitated to speak with you. Calpurnia convinced me otherwise. She left not an hour before you came down.” Geralt said, taking a swig from his drink.

Jaskier laughed.

“That does sound like her, I hope she didn’t leave town today. I should thank her before she leaves again.” He mused, continuing to eat. 

Geralt watched him a moment before he spoke, curiosity getting the better of him.

“You know her well, right? She mentioned I wasn’t the first witcher she’s met, she also carried a silver dagger.” Geralt asked. 

Jaskier smirked at him between bites.

“I thought Yennefer was your one true love?” Jaskier teased. Geralt glared at him, “Alright! I’m just kidding.” He laughed as he took another bite before continuing. 

“Calpurnia and I went to temple school together, she and I became fast friends. We parted when we graduated, I went on to University and she traveled for awhile. As I understand it, she met a witcher in her travels. The two of them were quite close and he gave her the dagger. Eventually they had to go their separate ways, but he promised to meet her again after a job in Temeria. He never returned.” Jaskier said sadly, “I was there with her, we met up in a tavern like this one. She waited and waited, for weeks. He never showed up. She was heartbroken. I think his name was Remus.” Jaskier finished. 

Remus, Temeria, Geralt thought before he remembered. The witcher who took the coin for the striga, Princess Adda and never came back. The one that Triss spread the rumor that he had ran off with the coin. Geralt closed his eyes briefly, feeling for Calpurnia in a way he wouldn’t have understood unless he was experiencing it himself. Yennefer was still missing, and it tore him to pieces. He couldn’t imagine going years without knowing what had happened to someone you cared about. When he opened them again Jaskier continued. 

“After that we traveled together, I tried to keep her mind off of it. We separated when I found you again. Honestly when I don’t travel with you, I’m traveling with her. She’s good company.” Jaskier said with a smile. 

As if destiny was playing a funny game, the door opened and Calpurnia stepped in. The tavern had a few more patrons present so it took a moment before she spotted the two of them, Jaskier waving her over. She grinned upon seeing them at the same table and made her way over quickly to meet them. 

“I hope everything is well?” Calpurnia said, eyeing Geralt. 

“Why yes it is!” Jaskier exclaimed, “I hear you have something to do with that?” He asked. 

“Nonsense, I just simply pointed Geralt in the right direction.” Calpurnia said with a smile. 

Geralt snorted, taking a swig of his drink. 

“I’ll need to repay you for the food.” Geralt said.

“No need, it’s a gift from a friend.” Calpurnia said. Geralt paused at the sentiment, but saw a genuine look in Calpurnia’s eyes. Jaskier watched the two of them as Geralt rummaged through his sack. 

“Then maybe this will do.” He said, producing the wolf medallion of Remus. He was going to return it to Kaer Morhen but perhaps it was meant to go to someone else. 

Calpurnia stared at the medallion, taking a rather rough seat on a stool by the table. Jaskier watched as a single tear came down her face.

“Callie?” He asked with concern.

She didn’t answer but reached out for the medallion as Geralt placed it into her open palms. 

“Where did you get this?” She whispered turning it over in her hands. Each medallion was nearly identical except for the back, which had carved into it the chosen name of the witcher. Calpurnia traced Remus’s name with her finger. 

“Temeria. I’m sorry to say that he died trying to save some workers from a striga. Though he didn’t know it was a striga at the time.” He paused, “Jaskier told me about Remus when I asked why you carried a silver dagger. When he mentioned it, I remembered that I still had the medallion. It’s yours. I’m sure he would want you to have it.” Geralt said softly. 

She pressed it between her palms, and held it over her heart. 

“Thank you. I never thought I would see it again. I never thought I would hear what had happened to him. So, thank you.” She said, green eyes glassy. She scrubbed her eyes and face with the back of her sleeve and smiled sincerely. She took the medallion and wore it, placing it underneath her shirt just over her heart. 

Geralt smiled at her as well, and Jaskier watched with a smile. There was a moment of silence before it was Ciri who spoke.

“I’m sorry Miss Calpurnia, but if you feel up to it… I’d love to hear how you and Remus met. Geralt never tells me about his work as a witcher.” She said. 

Jaskier looked like he was about to say something when Calpurnia interrupted. 

“I would love to tell you, Miss?” Calpurnia asked.

“Fiona.” Ciri answered

“Fiona, Remus and I met in a small village. He was a dark haired, handsome witcher with a gruff personality and a smoking pipe. And I was young and completely smittened. Earlier that week, a terrible monster had attacked the village. It liked to hunt things and seemed to be hunting a specific person. That person was me. You see I had been in the woods…” Calpurnia began, her tale spun of just enough imagination to make it exciting but enough truth to be believed, a skill she no doubt picked up from Jaskier. 

Food was brought for Geralt, and drinks were had. Jaskier watched Calpurnia as she told the tale to young Ciri, a tale he had never heard before. When Remus had disappeared so had his story, Calpurnia refused to speak of him, his disappearance too painful. But with the mystery solved, it seemed like Calpurnia couldn’t tell his story fast enough. Jaskier’s eyes were drawn to Geralt as he watched Ciri, who was enthralled by the story. He had a soft smile on his face, which he gave to Jaskier when he noticed him staring at him. Jaskier smiled back. 

He could make a ballad out of this. 

    - FIN -

[akemiozawa]

Free Writing

Okay, yea, during the games announcement and during my college class time, I had my creative writing go wild, and these are some writing pieces I’ve thought up of. Enjoy!

—•—•—•—•—•—•—•—•—•—•—•—•—

Writings no. 1

I glanced around the room, until I stop at my desk. There sat a yellow and red toned apple, the size of a magic 8 ball.

“Hello, what’re you doing here?” I ask aloud. Walking over, I pick it up. The skin felt cool and smooth again at my fingertips.

Hang on. Who put this here? I didn’t even grab one of these when I went to the dining hall. Did Mia put this here?

“Hey Mia!”

“Yea, Charlie?”

“Did you leave this apple in my room?” I turned just as she walked in.

Her teal eyes darted to the object in my hand. Shaking her head, all that spilled from the ratel-hybrid’s lips was, “Nope. Wasn’t me.”

The way her ears tilted to and fro, and eyebrows curled in a confused manner confirmed it.

“Then what the hell-?”

“Beats me, Dude.” She shrugs.

Meanwhile, watching through his ornate mirror, Vil Schoenheit watched the exchange between the two girls. He clenched his hands into fists as he sees Charlie stuff the apple into her bag.

“Let’s go walk around the courtyard till class starts.” The other girl, Mia, requested.

“Sure. Let’s go.” Charlie smiled, and grabbing her bag, fled from the room with the ratel. The mirror warped back to how it was as the scene faded.

“Blast it all! She didn’t bite into it like I hoped!” Vil muttered under his breath. Pacing around his chambers, he let his thoughts fly. “Well, it’s only a matter of time. Besides, it’s in her possession now....and soon will she be, too.” A sly smirk swept onto his lips.

Gaining ahold of his hand mirror, the glass’ reflection wavered and Vil’s face changed into that of Charlotte’s. The latter was smiling and laughing at something Mia said.

“Oh my dearest Charlotte. Very soon, your beauty will be mine for the taking. Enjoy your freedom, little dove. Before you know it, there’ll be no escape from my gilded birdcage of beauty!”

Writings no. 2

The doors clicked open, and I barely managed to slip through the space it made. I quickly sprinted for the staircase as fast as I could with the sandaled feet. My heart kept hammering in my chest. Was it the adrenaline? Maybe fear? Or pure excitement? I couldn’t tell over these black starting to creep in to the corners of my vision. 

“I have to hurry! He’s gonna catch me!” I panicked. The skirt of my gown fluttered against my legs as I hiked up the skirts in order to run faster. If Vil saw me now, he’d be screaming like a banshee at my actions. But he wasn’t here, and I was in a fight to save myself and the others.

I heard a whisper behind me, and out from a cloud of mist, Grim was floating at the same pace I ran.

“You do realize you’re acting like a victim in a horror movie now, right?”

“Not now, Grim!” I spat.

“Hey, I’m just pointing out facts.” He shrugs nonchalantly.

“I gotta find an empty room to hide in until I can get a clear plan going!” I mutter, ignoring him for the time being.

Nothing in the hall so far. But I’ve still got to keep my hopes up.

Writings no. 3

Pushing open the door lightly, I bolt into the empty room. My jaw drops at the sight.

Furniture overturned, smashed windows and shredded curtains, ruined decor littered the entire room. Walls were scratched up and broken. Shit, don’t tell me that’s blood on the floor!

Covering my mouth, I survey the damage that is now the Heartslabyul dorm. If this was what Nerine, Morganna and Xander had done to this place, I’d hate to see how the others turned out.

Crap! The guys! What happened?! I don’t know what I’d do if they died. Just the thought of seeing their lifeless bodies brought tears to my eyes.

“Charlie!”

Wait...that voice... please tell me-

“Where are you?!”

ACE!!!

I smiled when I saw him run through the door with Trey, Deuce, Cater and Riddle in tow. They’re all here! And safe!

“Guys...” I smile, fumbling forward, the tears finally coming down.

Ace was the first to catch me in a hug. I felt small drops on my shoulder, and fierce mutterings of ‘you’re alive!’.

I felt more weight when the others decided to join in on the hug, and Riddle placed a warm hand on my shoulder for reassurance.

Writings No. 4

The entire place was pitch black. Forcing down the ball of spit in my throat with force, I try to keep calm as I walk forward.

A chilled breath runs along my neck. I yelp and swing back around. No one. Brushing a lock of hair behind my ear, I turn back forward.

My footfalls creek with the old floorboards the more I move. So much for trying to be stealthy. 

A Shriek resounds.

Okay scratch that, I can’t stay calm! 

I tried to scream, until two gentle but firm hands grab me by the forearms, dragging me into the shadows.

One hand clamps down on my mouth, to stop my voice from slipping.

“Charlie, it’s me!”

Oh my fucking God. HIM???

My eyes dart to the side, and all I see are Lilia’s blood irises.

“mmmmm?! (Lilia?!)” I shriek, despite my voice being muffled with his hand. 

“Well who else? Mal-Mal? Uh, no! You’re lucky that I saved you before something else did!” He retorted. I resisted the urge to roll my eyes.

“Mmmm mmm thmmm mmmmrm?!” (Where are the others?!)

“Don’t worry, they’re safe. Mal sent me to find you before trouble sparked up!”

Little too late for that, Lil. I’ve yet to find Vil, Leona, and Riddle! Now that Morganna has the vice heads locked up, who knows where she might be on the hunt for us. 

He seemed to send my distress, thankfully, and releases me from his hold. 

I shook my head rapidly, “I’m fine!” Fine?! Really?! Why’d I choose that word over something else?!

“Now Charlotte, you know better than to lie to me.” He teased. Damnit.

With nothing else, I spilled the beans.

“Well, that’s certainly not good.”

No shit, Sherlock!

“We have to warn Malleus and the other leads. I’ve managed to locate only half of them.”

“I’ll go with you to find the others before Morganna does.” Without resisting, I agree and we run for it.

(Note, these next three include songs. Links are listed underneath. Two are actual songs I know by heart, the last is inspiration from a certain musical)

Writings no. 5

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=oavr9Bj94Vk

Sighing, I clasp the golden pendant around my neck. The cool metal warms up in my palm. The melody of the music box gently tings out the tune. Without missing a beat I lull out,

A gentle breeze from Hush-a-bye Mountain

Softly blows o’er Lullaby Bay.

It fills the sails of boats that are waiting

Waiting to sail your worries away.

The faint memory of my mother singing that same song to me as a child was embrazened within my mind. Her touch...her voice...Her smile...her warmth.....

It isn’t far to Hush-a-bye Mountain and

Your boat waits down by the key.

The winds of night so softly are sighing

Soon they will fly your troubles to sea.

Epel snuggles into me, grasping what warmth I’m emanating from my body. His tears have long since dried and he closes his eyes.

So close your eyes on Hush-a-bye Mountain

Wave goodbye to cares of the day!

Enclosing my own arms around his fragile body, the melody turns into an orchestra of strings and winds. I felt their haunting song play and resound through the hollow air, filling the dead space with a symphony of soothing tones. I held him close to my heart, letting the song lull his soul to sleep.

And watch your boat from Hush-a-bye Mountain

Sail far away from Lullaby Bay.

His breathing grows slow and soon, soundlessly, he succumbs you sleep.

Writings no. 6

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=6D8tPJEyqbI

Walking down the dim halls, my thoughts grew bleak. And yet they keep going back to the same symbol that was embedded in the key, the same key which led to the mirror and matched my necklace.

Am I more connected to this world and what’s led on? Is the headmaster hiding something for me that I shouldn’t know of? Whatever the reason, I’ve yet to know... and I’ll find out for myself if no one’s going to help me!

Without thinking, I start to sing an old tune. A song about a poor wayfaring stranger going back home through so much turmoil and danger, but only for a lifetime of happiness back home.

The stranger and I are the same. We’re trying to find our way back, and will do everything to do so, even suffering ordeals, physically and mentally alike. But there’s a dividing line. Between my world and the one I’m trapped in.

I pass by a mirror and stop. I see my reflection: my dark locks were down, a Dutch braid framed my forehead keeping any stray hairs out of sight. My skin glowed under the candle light, giving off a warm beige halo of health. Pink lips in a soft pout. Yellow-brown eyes vibrantly shined through the golden-yellow glow of fire, and tiny freckles lined the apples of my cheeks.

“Charlotte...” I froze. That’s the same voice that called to me when I first found the mirror.

I started to shake, goosebumps prickled my arms and I felt a shiver go down my spine as I back away slowly. No...not again...anything but that!

I was a good few feet away when I bolted down the hall, never once turning back, the feeling of eyes on my figure continued to prolong.

Writings no. 7

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=PkB7hfC8aYM

Weeping silently, I let the tears fall into my hands. 

Riddle’s words kept stabbing at my heart like daggers. I could only recall his cold stare before he left with a swish of his cape. 

Despite Trey and the others trying to comfort me, all I wanted was to be alone. They left, regarding my wish.

Why was I always like this? Why was I the one to take the fall? Why?

“Poor Lotte.” “Poor sweet Little Lotte.” Two voices rang out. I gasp sharply and turn to where the voices sang creepily. And involuntary shutter flew down my back. I shivered. The atmosphere felt so...eerie now....

“She’s got a very serious problem, doesn’t she, brother?” One sang and a hum followed in agreement.

“If only-” “-there were something-” “-we could do!” “But there is something....!” The voices kept bouncing left and right. My tears have dried as I kept trying to pinpoint where they were coming from. I scanned the area. Not another person was in sight. 

“Who’s there? Who are you?” I call out in the darkness. I was getting a bit tired and pissed now. “I’m not in the mood for games! Now show yourselves!”

Suddenly from out of the shadows, two identical figures had appeared. They wore the same attire, yet while one was done up perfectly, the other was partially loose fitting. What set them apart more were their looks. Teal hair with a dark strand framing either the left or right of their faces. An earring with three blue stones were worn on the same sides. The two possessed  heterochromia iridium. One eye a dark beige, the other a gleaming yellow. 

The Leech Twins, Floyd and Jade.

“There’s no need to be hostile.” Jade spoke, smiling lightly.

“We know someone who can help you.” Floyd picked up, showing off sharp teeth in a sly grin.

I back up slightly, my hips hitting a chair, my eyes never leaving them. Yet when I blink, they’re gone. I whip my head behind to see where they’re at.

Then there was an arm around my waist.

I shriek and throw my hand back in a backhanded fist, praying for a clean strike. But got caught midair. By another, white-gloved hand.

“Someone who can help you find what you’ve lost long ago.” Cold lips were on my wrist and pointed teeth gently scratch the surface. I held my breath. Shut my eyes in paranoia.

The same feel of gloved hands take ahold of my other hand, lips gently trace the back.

“Just think of it,” they blended as one. “You and your family....reunited....forever....”

My eyes open, staring at one spot. “I-I don’t really understand.” Why with the stuttering, Charlie?!

“Azul...has extraordinary powers.” A voice coaxes on my right.

My eyes widen at that name. “Your...your lead?!” Riddle told off nearly all the dorm leaders (or more in his case every last one of them) that he can’t stand as soon as he took me in. Then again, he’s always like this.... telling ordering me constantly NEVER go join them. Especially Diasomnia’s.

But he’s not here! Yet...why do I still feel hesitant...?

Oh for the love of god, am I seriously letting that midget’s words get the better of my decisions?! He’s not the boss of me!!

“But that’s...I couldn’t possibly....”

“NO!” I scream, ripping myself away. My heartbeat shot up tenfold when the space was extended. “Doing that would be like selling my soul to a demon! I just couldn’t!” Burying my face in my hands, the tears sprung up again.

They seemed to sense my distress. “Very well.” Jade shrugged one shoulder in surrender. “It was just a suggestion.” Floyd finished. With a small bow and tip of the hat, they slipped back into the shadows.

When I felt they had left, I let my hands fall, but now there was a mirror, tall enough for a self portrait. I see my reflection: tear tracks lined down my cheeks, eyes red and hair ruffled. At least I didn’t look like a complete mess.

My eyes trail down to the necklace. Trey had given me a cleaning cloth for my pendant, to always keep it shiny.

Just one look sent me to my thoughts on my aunt.

Aunt Sam...Mom and Dad...I wonder how they’re doing.

Fuck it. I may or may not regret it, but at this point, what other choice is there?

Without thinking, I blurt out, “Wait a minute!”

“Yes?” I could’ve sworn I saw their eyes glow in the darkness.

Looking them dead on, the only thing that left my lips was what sealed my fate: “When’s the soonest I can see him?”

—•—•—•—•—•—•—•—•—•—•—•—•—

That’s what I’ve got 😅. And long story short: Mia was another potential OC of mine alongside Charlie. She’s in Savanaclaw, and a Ratel-Hybrid. I dunno if I should bring her into the fam...

[amyscascadingtabs]

i’ll walk through hell with you

chapter 4: i’ll crawl with you on hands and knees

read on ao3

read previous chapters

A medical process begins, bringing with it a rollercoaster of emotions.

may

“If this had been a crime scene,” Jake says, looking at the medication vials lined up on their meticulously cleaned kitchen table, “my first impression would be that the people in this home are drug dealers.”

“And if you’d been a better detective,” Amy counters, “you’d have done a quick search of the names to find out they’re fertility drugs.”

“Hey! I’m a great detective!”

She points to the engagement ring on her finger and then to herself. “But I’m the best detective. No take-backs.”

“If I’d known you’d be using my proposal speech against me six years later, I would have written it down first.”

She laughs, shaking her head and unfolding the instruction paper from their doctors to reread the information for the fifteenth time. If Amy had to do a theoretical exam tomorrow on how to administer these injections, she’d get a solid A+, but, gathering the actual courage to do it isn't something you can study for. She's feeling increasingly shaky at the thought.

 It's been over a month since they made their decision. Getting insurance papers in order takes time, as does binder-making, as does confirming each micro-decision with the clinic. For an entire month, Amy's been itching with anticipation and nerves, and she’s both bursting with excitement and sighing with relief over feeling in control for the first time in seven months, but she’s also being struck by the realization of what she’s about to do. As many borderline-insane experiences as she’s lived through, she’s never done this before, and she’s clueless what to expect.

She reads through the instructions yet another time before she starts.

 Jake doesn't look much more stable. He's eyeing her carefully, biting his lip as she prepares the injection, measures up the medication and twists the needle on with minute, precise movements.

“You look like a professional,” he comments on her focused expression, and she makes a doubtful grimace. “Are you sure you haven't done this before?”

“Shot hormones into my stomach? It’s a first.”

“Are you nervous?” It could have been a teasing question, a reason to make fun of her, but when she meets his eyes she sees only concern. It peels away the tough facade - which she was barely grappling onto as it was - instantaneously.

“I'm really nervous,” she says, feeling her heart thundering in her chest like it’s about to break through her skin, and he nods.

“Me too.”

“Do you think you could give me the shot?”

Jake blinks. “You want me to do it? I… are you sure, Ames?”

“Please?” She gives him a pleading look as he looks from the syringe to her and back again, twisting his hands in his lap. “At least the first time, before I know what it feels like?”

 And we said we’d do this together, she opens her mouth as if to add, but the words feel superfluous. They’re a given, and from the way he reaches out his hand to gently hold hers, stroking his thumb over her wrist as he nods, she knows that he knows, too.

She folds the hem of her tank top to sit underneath her chest and grabs an alcohol wipe before there’s time for either of them to change their mind.

“I don’t like this,” Jake confesses as she gives him the syringe, quickly instructing him on the procedure another time. “It feels like I’m hurting you. ”

“You’re not.” She closes her eyes, grabbing the disinfected skin with both hands. “Just inject me.”

“Title of your sextape?”

“Absolutely not.”

“Fair,” he says, and then she feels the quick pinch.

 The injection burns. It’s better than she feared, but far from pleasant, and she tenses for the few everlasting seconds it takes before it's over and Jake presses a bit of gauze to the area.

“Wow,” he laughs, drawing a relieved breath when she opens her eyes again. “I can't believe I did that. I am so brave.”

She glares at him. “Excuse me?”

“Kidding, kidding.” He chuckles again before wrapping her in a tight hug. “You did great, babe.”

 She can feel the liquid stinging beneath her skin. Despite the discomfort, Amy already prefers this over the frustration of the last seven months - at least it means they’re actively doing something. The physical pain is a drop in the ocean compared to the mental agony of endless disappointments she's gone through, and she’d choose it above the latter in a heartbeat.

Maybe, she lets herself think, a timid but golden glimmer of hope shining through the grey clouds of hesitance. Maybe this could actually work.

 Jake kisses her cheek before his head moves lower. Just as she's about to ask what he thinks he's doing, she feels his lips brush against her skin, once, twice, a few inches from the injection place.

“Better?” He asks, and she manages a weak smile.

“Much.”

 -

 The second shot is easier than the first one, the third easier than the second. By the fourth night, she's gathered enough confidence to do the procedure all on her own when Jake has to stay late at work, and by the fifth night, she no longer winces at the stinging sensation.

It's absurd, she thinks as the burning slowly fades, the things you get used to.

 She plans their schedule around level checks at the clinic, taking blood tests and doing ultrasounds while Leah happily lays a puzzle on the floor of the examination room. A nurse compliments the toddler’s skill and Leah shines up like the sun itself, and after Amy’s told her body’s reacting perfectly to the stimulating hormones, they both leave the clinic grinning. She’s in such a good mood, she can’t even bring herself to say no when her daughter points to the frozen yogurt place across the store and looks at Amy with the pleading puppy-eyes that are so hard to resist. She’s not too proud about breaking their rule of ice cream being a weekend treat, but she has to admit that watching Leah shine with pride as she makes varyingly successful attempts of feeding herself without spilling is both an awesome celebration and happiness boost.

 Even without the level checks, she would have been able to tell the injections are taking. She’s sore, her head wrecks, and she feels bloated enough to consider changing into yoga pants several times a day. She’s exhausted in a way she hasn’t been since she had a newborn, nearly falling asleep at her desk in the afternoons and being nudged awake by a worried beat cop, and it takes every ounce of her willpower not to start crying herself when Leah has her third breakdown for the day over the disappearance of a puzzle piece. On day eight of injections, Amy falls asleep on the couch before it’s time to take them, and when Jake wakes her up there’s a part of her wishing he hadn’t.

“We could still change our minds and get a cat instead,” he suggests in a half-hearted attempt at a joke as she mumbles a curse when she feels the stinging. “Way fewer needles, just saying.”

“Please don’t tempt me right now,” she mutters. He laughs nervously before repeating the same action he’s taken to each time they do this together, leaning down and placing a feather-light kiss right above the injection area.

It’s transient, but for a second, she allows herself to think there’s a certain beauty to this process, too.

 -

  The night before their egg retrieval, she scratches that thought.

It’s the first evening in twelve days she’s not taking any injections. It should be a relief, a long-awaited and much well-deserved break after the previous night’s final trigger shot, but she’s too nervous about the next day to enjoy it. Jake’s working late - something about a time-sensitive lead he promised would be handled in a couple of hours - and Leah falls asleep with her head on Amy’s shoulder somewhere around their fourth reread of Guess How Much I Love You, leaving her alone with her thoughts. She brews a cup of green tea and goes to change into pajamas before sinking down on the couch to watch Jeopardy!, and she’s doing okay until she catches a proper glimpse of her body in the wardrobe’s full-length mirror and breaks down.

 The bloated feeling isn’t just in her head. She’s swollen, looking three months pregnant for the wrong reasons, and it's painful on so many levels. She thinks it would have been fine if it’d been the sole notable difference, because a bit of temporary weight-gain rarely bothers her, but it’s not the worst thing. What makes her do a double-take is the bruises scattered across her lower abdomen, an uneven pattern of dark violet, red and yellow marks after the needles. The reflection in the mirror looks like it’s been beaten up, literally punched in the stomach with a knuckle-duster, and Amy feels as if she’s entirely separate from the person she sees.

This isn’t her.

This isn’t what she’s supposed to look like.

This isn’t how it was supposed to be.

 She doesn’t feel brave or beautiful, doesn’t recognize even a shadow of a stubborn fighter in the reflection staring back at her. The only thing she sees is sheer exhaustion, a person tired of fighting for control over the uncontrollable, and it’s a haunting image nowhere close to how she’s used to seeing herself. She throws on an oversized NYPD sweatshirt and closes the wardrobe door in a swift moment before she can stare any longer, but it’s too late - the sight is etched on her memory, and the silent tears take several minutes to stop falling.

There’s no beauty in this process. If there was, surely she wouldn’t be feeling this way.

 -

 Amy doesn’t get much sleep that night. She’s tossing and turning, lying awake and staring at the ceiling between short bits of light slumber. When her alarm finally sounds, she feels less rested than before she went to bed. On top of that, she can't have coffee because of the anesthesia, and has to be satisfied with casting longing looks at Jake's takeaway Starbucks cup. She swears the paper mug is ogling her by the time they reach the clinic’s parking lot.

“Ames, I’m sure one sip won't matter if the alternative is you staring at it like a psychopath.”

“It's not a clear liquid. I'm not risking it.”

“Fine. But if you murder me for this, I will tell people I gave you the offer.” She snorts, the corners of her mouth twitching, and there's a look of pride on Jake's face when he realizes he’s made her smile. “How are you feeling? Aside from the coffee-abstinence?”

“Tired. Disappointed.”

“Ah, yes, something gave that away.”

“Not because of the coffee,” she says, rolling her eyes. “I mean of this whole thing. It's not at all what I was picturing when I suggested we’d have another baby.”

 Jake doesn't reply immediately, twisting the cup’s plastic lid back and forth while he stares out the window, watching another couple enter the building with hands intertwined.

“I know it wasn't, babe.”

“I'm sorry I suggested fertility treatments,” she mumbles, and he looks at her with a curious countenance. “I bet it's not even going to work.”

“Hey, you don't know that yet.” He places a hand on her thigh, getting a bit of coffee foam on her jeans. “We’ve gotten this far, right? Shame to give up hope now.”

“The eggs could be bad quality. They might not fertilize, they might not implant. So many things could still go wrong.”

“Sheesh. Ever the optimist, aren’t you?” She glares at him, but he’s unbothered by her bitterness, a confident smile on his lips as he finishes the last of his coffee. “If you bet it's not going to work, I'll bet it will. Mind you, I have a history of winning most of our bets.”

“You do not.”

“Agree to disagree,” he laughs, tucking a few strands of hair behind her ear and stroking her cheek. “Let’s just do it and see what happens, okay? You wanted to give this a try, we’re giving it a try.”

“You have to hold my hand.”

“I’ll hold your hand.”

“We’re going for coffee as soon as they release me.”

“I thought we were trying to save money?”

“We are going for coffee.”

“Okay, so non-negotiable. Cool.”

 It might be the cup of coffee she finally gets to consume when they stop by Starbucks on the way, or that she’s feeling less like a hormone-inflated alien after the procedure, but Amy’s mood is much improved by the time they’re back home. For a few days, it’s all out of her hands. She can’t do anything but hold onto the thought of six eggs, less than ideal but more than the zero she feared, about to be fertilized and left to grow in perfect lab conditions for at least five to six days. On the one hand, she’s powerless, but on the other hand, it’s outside her realm of control, literally taking place outside of her body. In a certain sense, it's relieving.

 She’s dizzy after the anesthesia. She claims she’s fine, because dizziness is nothing compared to the pain and crushing anxiety she felt before, but she stumbles over their doorstep and nearly loses her balance, so Jake takes a careful grip of both her shoulders as he leads her to their bed and helps her lay down.

“You should take a nap,” he whispers, stroking her hair as she gives him a faint smile.

“I’m not that tired.”

“I have to pick up our two-year-old from daycare in two hours.”

“On second thought I will be taking that nap.”

They end up taking it together. Jake’s arm is wrapped around her waist, their heads are resting so close together that the tips of their noses touch, and when she wakes up a punctual thirty minutes later, she wonders if it’s the first romantic thing they’ve gotten up to this month where needles haven’t been involved.

“If I get pregnant,” she whispers in his ear, daring to pronounce the word for the first time in weeks, “I promise you we’ll take an honest-to-god babymoon or something. Just the two of us on a beach somewhere.”

He responds with a loud snore, and it takes more of Amy’s self-control than it should not to laugh at him.

 She must have both fallen asleep again and slept through Jake disentangling himself from her, because the next time she regains conscience, it’s to the feeling of her favorite three-feet-tall human climbing on top of her back while giggling uncontrollably.

“Carefully, bumblebee, I said carefully,” she hears Jake’s exasperated voice, and then a high-pitched complaint from her daughter as he lifts her off of Amy. “Most people like it when you wake them up more calmly.”

“It’s okay,” Amy says, sensing without opening her eyes that Leah's close to bursting out into tears. “Do you want to snuggle with me for a bit, Lee? You're invited too, Jake.”

“Oh, yeah, Lee, what do you think?”

“Go to the park,” the toddler insists, shaking her head. “Swinging!”

“If you cuddle with us in bed for two minutes, I will take you to the park after.”

“Swinging,” Leah repeats grumpily.

“But first cuddling?” Jake tries.

“Swinging!” Her expression softens, lower lip pouting and eyes widening like she's learned to do so masterfully. “Please?”

She can't yet pronounce the word correctly, so it comes out more like a pleath, but it's the cutest thing in the world and has both parents exchanging meaning looks, knowing they've already lost.

 It must be Leah's lucky day, because there's a toddler swing free already when they get to the park. Amy thinks it must be her lucky day as well, because there's also a bench free with a perfect view of the swingset, meaning she can watch Jake and Leah play while she soaks up the afternoon sun. The toddler is squealing with joy, her excitement getting louder with each push of the swing. Jake’s asking her if she wants to go higher, urging her to hold on tight while he pushes the swing slightly higher than Amy would prefer, but Leah’s thrilled and Jake is beaming as he watches their daughter have the time of her life.

 Amy doubts she’ll ever tire of watching the two of them interact. Part of her always knew he’d make an amazing father - despite his own doubts, she’s never wavered. Still, she could never have imagined just how present, loving and dedicated of a parent he would become, and she feels blessed to get to see it in action day after day. Although she wishes she was hanging out in the shadow and pushing a sleeping baby in a stroller, or feeling them move around inside her, she has this. She’ll always have this. Nothing can take the family she already has away from her, and as difficult as it is to feel grateful for anything after nearly two weeks’ worth of needles, she's indescribably thankful for them.

 “Monkey!” Leah exclaims, pointing at a squirrel rushing between trees while Amy tries to feed her small pieces of dried fruit-bar. They’re taking a snack break to replenish their energy, but the toddler is distracted to say the least.

“That’s a squirrel, baby.”

“Monkey,” Leah repeats, pointing to another squirrel.

“Still a squirrel. Monkeys are bigger.”

“Also much less commonly found in New York,” Jake adds. “Presumably. I’ve never been sure about Hitchcock.”

“Monkeys!”

“Ames, did we ever teach her animals?”

“We must have. I distinctly remember reading those god-awful books about animals at the zoo over and over for three months.”

“Oh, right!” Jake lights up. “How could I ever forget your incredible dolphin voice? Truly haunting. You turned her against SeaWorld from the start, babe.”

“Shut up, your gorilla voice wasn’t much better.”

“Monkeys,” Leah repeats in a serious tone as if to remind them of the matter at hand, and then she’s almost up and chasing after another squirrel before Amy catches her and tickles her. She falls back against the picnic blanket, squirming to get away while she keeps laughing her infectious toddler laugh, and Amy’s trying hard to keep a poker-face but she’s overtired and relieved and so absolutely happy, it’s worthless. It’s mere seconds before all three of them are laughing uncontrollably, and for a moment, every bit of heartache she’s felt over the last days is cured.

  -

  The day before the transfer, they have to go in for a meeting to decide how many embryos to transfer. It’s an interesting discussion, with Amy and their doctor arguing in favor of one and Jake hung up on the idea that an increased chance of twins would be the coolest thing ever and they should do two, but they eventually end up making the decision to transfer one and freeze the remaining two embryos.

“Chicken,” Jake tells her when they’re leaving the clinic. “Two for the price of one, right?”

“You try being pregnant with one child before deciding you want to try two.”

“Fine,” he laughs. “So you think it’s going to stick, huh?”

Amy blushes. “Maybe? She did say they were high-quality.”

“I'm sure she'll give you a gold star if you ask.”

“Ha-ha.”

“Keep up the optimism,” he says, and the wide grin he gives her makes her want to follow his advice. “You know, in two weeks you might be pregnant.”

 Hearing the words makes her heart flutter with joy, making her halt suddenly to wrap her arms around him, kissing him so hard it takes him by surprise. His hands wave, hesitating before they find their spot on her waist, but then he’s as wrapped up in it as she is. She cups his chin with one hand, stroking her thumb over the light stubble and pouring all of her cautious hope into this kiss, soaking him up, taking him in. The moment is short-lived, but it’s enough to bring out the spark she hopes they’ll never lose.

“What was that for?” He asks when she pulls away.

“Luck,” she smiles.

 -

  It feels like a monumental day when they pull into the parking lot the next morning. Amy supposes if everything goes well, it will be, and then she reflects upon how in that case, she'll always know the exact date and hour for when something could have started to grow.

Her first pregnancy had been such a shock in the beginning; not unplanned, but happening way faster than she’d anticipated. Amy wonders if she glorified the welcome surprise in her memories, romanticizing the feeling that this little person had, in a sense, chosen them. If their first round of IVF works, it's going to be a result of medicines and treatments and them being so proactive about wanting this, and although she places no value in the discrepancy, it feels clearly dissimilar. Equally as beautiful, but in an entirely different way.

 She clings to the beautiful parts. The long hug Jake gives her before they go in because he can tell she's shaking, and how nice and considerate everyone who introduces themselves to them is. She focuses on Jake's hand squeezing hers throughout the short procedure, and on getting to see the quick flash happen on the ultrasound screen. The giddiness between them as they drive home after, the way he insists on tucking her into bed for her advised day of bed rest, and the buffet of snacks he runs and gets them.

Most of all, she clings to the monochrome printed picture of the embryo, looking like nothing but a tiny bubble against some light background but giving her hope all the same.

Please, she thinks before they turn out the light that evening, clutching the thin paper over her heart.

Please, please, stick.

  ~

  june

If Amy found the days between egg retrieval and transfer were nerve-wracking, the ten days between her transfer and blood test prove to be yet more agonizing. She tries her best to stay distracted, letting the days pass by in a flurry of work shifts, toddler meltdowns and even a visit to Shaw’s Bar for a sense of normalcy on a night when Karen is babysitting. Charles gives her bottle of non-alcoholic beer meaning looks throughout the whole night, and she mumbles something about her low alcohol tolerance to which he just nods, one eyebrow raised in disbelief. She tries to ignore the persistent thought in the back of her head, reminding her his suspicions could technically be correct.

 Hope is a dangerous thing, Amy thinks as she goes through the first pages of the diary she kept during her first pregnancy, desperately trying to remember what early signs she felt the first time. Hope makes you crazy. Hope is what’s making her overanalyze her every sensation and shift in mood until she barely trusts herself anymore. Is she experiencing the first hints of first-trimester fatigue, or has Leah just woken up at four-thirty a.m. for the last three mornings? Is she nauseous, or did she simply drink coffee on an empty stomach and forget to eat until early afternoon? Is her sense of smell heightened, or did Charles bring an extra eye-watering lunch today? The question marks are endless, and they make the ten days until her blood test feel eternal.

 The day before the test, Leah and the rest of the kids in her daycare group put on a little show for the parents. It’s the sort of thing Amy always suspected parents lied about or greatly exaggerated, but it turns out watching her daughter proudly march in uneven circles while happily singing along to songs about numbers and letters all while waving to her parents is more than enough to ensure there are tears of pride in Amy’s eyes throughout the performance.

“You’re not going to stop crying, are you?” Jake teases her as they’re pulling out of the parking lot, Leah still singing a song about cows.

“I’m emotional,” she laughs through the tears, and she can tell from the way his eyes narrow that he’s thinking it, too - even more than usual.

-

  The following night, Amy jolts awake at 3 a.m.

She tries to fall asleep again for a good thirty minutes, tossing and turning and snuggling closer to Jake to make herself calm down, but nothing works and she's as awake as if she’d just chugged a thermos of black coffee. She solves a crossword puzzle on the Times app on her phone, hoping for it to either distract her or tire her out, but it manages neither. She is physically unable to relax. There’s no way for her to stop thinking about how today’s the day, today’s the day they’ll find out whether or not the money, time and bruises led to somewhere, if they’ll be adding another member to their family in nine months, whether or not she’s finally pregnant.

There are five hours left until her scheduled appointment. It’s not a long time, not when Leah will be up in three hours, but it feels like forever. She wants to know now, and she’s not going to fall asleep again before she does.

One at-home test can’t hurt, she decides.

 Grabbing her phone and a sweater Jake must have thrown on the floor yesterday, she crawls out of bed and pads into their modestly sized bathroom, praying there’s an unused test left somewhere.

It takes her a couple of minutes to find one. The package is stashed deep in their cupboard behind bottles of shampoo, its hiddenness former evidence of a moment’s weakness when she must have been unable to even see it. It’s been a long and frustrating eight months, but as Amy places the plastic stick down on the floor to let the result develop, washing her hands carefully before starting a timer and putting in contact lenses, she can’t help but wonder if their struggle has come to a much yearned-for end.

A small hourglass flashes on the little digital display, and her heart is full-on racing, pounding with each appearance and disappearance of the symbol.

Then, with thirty seconds left on the three-minute timer, the result appears and she swears fireworks go off outside.

 There aren’t any actual fireworks, of course. To anyone else, it’s an ordinary night in early June, but to Amy, it’s the night of a forthright miracle. It’s an indignity there are no fireworks.

 The screen reads Pregnant, 1-2 Weeks, and she feels happy tears form in her eyes as the relief floods her, a maelstrom of emotions coming at her without warning.

Pregnant.

They’re having another baby.

Her hand goes instinctively to her lower abdomen, where the bruises from the injections are still fading, and something unimaginably small but existing, has started to grow.

 “Jake.” She shakes his shoulder as she repeats his name. “Jake. Babe.”

There's a low groan and a sigh, but he doesn't open his eyes. She shakes him carefully again.

“Jake, please wake up.”

“Hmm. No.”

“I promise you're going to want to wake up for this.”

He makes another gruff sound, somewhere between a grunt and a yawn. “S’the middle of the night. S’ anything wrong?”

“No, no. The opposite,” she says, and he looks at her for a second before his eyes fall shut again.

“What d’you mean?”

She leans closer, kissing the back of his neck before she whispers the words. “Babe, I'm pregnant.”

“What?” He sits up straight so quickly, Amy almost flies back on the bed as she loses her balance. “Wait - how d'you know - what?”

She laughs, because she's barely believing it either, and hands him the minutes-old test so he can see for himself. “I couldn't sleep, so I took one to see, and… it's positive.”

“Oh my god,” he blinks, twisting the test in his hands while a wide grin takes shape on his lips, his expression morphing from sleep-deprived toddler parent to overjoyed child on Christmas morning. “Oh my god, Ames.”

“I know!”

“This is - we're having another baby?”

“Yeah! It worked!”

“I can’t believe it.” He shakes his head, and then he wraps her in a tight hug while pressing kisses to her cheeks, her neck, her shoulder, every spot he can reach. “You did it, babe.”

“You helped.”

“Eh, barely. You were the one who took all those shots.”

“I did,” she grimaces. “They were worth it, though.”

“We’re having a baby,” he whispers, and the smile on her lips grows impossibly wider.

“We’re having a baby.”

It’s dusky inside their bedroom, but the world has never felt brighter.

  -

  Neither of them gets more sleep that night. All they can do is lay next to each other, watch the sun rise through the window and repeat their shock and immeasurable happiness to one another.

They’re having another child, and they are going to be the two-kid-family she always pictured. She is going to experience the few magical parts of pregnancy and times with a newborn she couldn't accept never experiencing again, Leah will have a sibling to grow up next to and possibly an automatic best friend for life. For the last few months, Amy's been scared to death it wouldn’t ever happen to them again, and now she's blessed with the knowledge it will.

She's not broken. Her body can still do this, albeit with a bit of help to get there, but it can and it is, and she feels like the luckiest woman in the world.

 It's the first time she's purely confident when they park outside the fertility doctor. A quick little blood test to confirm what she already knows to be true, and she can move on with her life, pregnant, and put all this behind her.

“Did you take a home test?” The friendly nurse asks as she adjusts the tight band around Amy’s upper arm. Amy’s not even making an effort to hide her proud smile.

“Maybe,” she confesses, and it makes the young woman chuckle.

“Congratulations.”

The results will take a couple of hours, she's informed, and the clinic will call and leave a voicemail when her numbers are in. The screen lights up when she's in the middle of a conversation with Detective Alvarado later in the afternoon, and it takes a lot more self-control than it should for Amy to not instantly reach for her phone. The last hours of her workday seem to stretch forever, and by the time she meets up with Jake in the precinct’s garage to listen to the message, she's bursting with excitement and joy.

 He’s not much better, looking at her with the heart-eyes that still make her blush as she gets into the passenger seat. The happiness is infectious, so she leans over to kiss him a few seconds longer than she'd deem appropriate for technically being inside the workplace.

“I was thinking we should celebrate with pizza tonight,” he says when they break it off. “Both because well, pizza, and also because I couldn’t have pizza at home for months last time you were pregnant or you’d be sick. I figure I need to take my chance while I can.”

“Planning ahead.” Amy raises an eyebrow. “Impressive.”

“Well, I’m a super-experienced dad now, right?” He leans back in the seat, crossing his arms behind his head. “I’m going to have two kids! That’s grown-up for realz.”

“As opposed to having one?”

“I’m just saying it’s next level,” he remarks and it makes her laugh. “Let's hear the voicemail, shall we?”

She nods and reaches for his hand before pressing play on the voicemail recording.

 It only takes the few seconds their nurse takes to say who she is and why she’s calling for Amy to realize something is wrong.

 It’s in the worried tone, the hesitant atmosphere emanating from the speakers, and it feels like her heart has stopped dead in her chest when she hears it.

“So you’re in a bit of a gray area,” the nurse explains, pronouncing each word with great care. “Your level showed up at a 13. As you know, any hcG level above 25 is pregnant and anything below 5 is not. Anything in between needs a retest.”

Jake squeezes her hand harder, and she can sense his eyes on her as if he’s trying to read her reaction. She tries to squeeze back but finds she can’t move her fingers or turn her face, can’t do anything but stare straight ahead with her lips pursed.

“This could, of course, be nothing and your pregnancy could just be slow-starting,” the message continues, each word still being spoken as slowly. “But since we would prefer to see your levels above 50 to be certain, you’ll have to come in for a retest in two days to see if they’ve increased.” The nurse sighs. “I am so sorry about this trouble. You two take care and I’ll see you again soon.”

There’s a click and a dial tone as the message ends, and they’re left with a silence that seems to weigh tons.

 She notices her tears first when Jake wipes them away with the pad of his thumb, his hand warm against her cheek.

“It’s just slow-starting, babe. The test said you’re pregnant.”

“Not pregnant enough, apparently.”

“You don’t know that yet,” he says, decisively. “Our kids are stubborn as hell. It’ll be okay.”

“You really think so?”

“I do.” The hand still intertwined with hers squeezes harder again. It’s an effort, but she manages to squeeze his back. “Somehow, we always end up okay.”

 She nearly makes a snarky comment about death threats and witness protection, trials and prison sentences, but stops herself. It’s not comparable, and she knows the Amy who stayed up all night working on her boyfriend’s case before crying herself to sleep in the early hours of the morning would probably have been content with never having any kids at all if it meant Jake could come back home, but times have changed since then. It doesn’t matter that she knows they’ve been through worse, because the level of pain and worry still feels unbearable when they’re in the thick of it, the letdowns and disappointments so present here and now.

“I hope so,” she whispers and lets his warm smile give her an ounce of comfort, a sliver of sparkling hope. “Can we go pick up Lee now? I just… need to think about something else, for a while.”

“Yeah, of course.” His lips brush against her forehead for a second. “I love you.”

“I love you, too.”

“It’ll be okay, Amy.”

She nods, undecided as to whether or not she believes him.

 -

 She knows the next day must pass, because she wakes up two mornings later when it's time for the retest, but there aren't any memories there when she tries to think back at. It's like she's been sleepwalking for the entire day. Nothing feels real except the overwhelming worry and the voice in her head repeating you’re worthless, a failure, your body can't even do this.

She peels away the skin on her lips and fingertips until both are bleeding in an attempt to feel something. She doesn't remember this, either, but there are bandaids on her fingers when she wakes up the next morning and her lips are all cracked even though it's summer.

 “You know it’s not over yet,” Jake mumbles as they’re waking up and she gets stuck on the edge of the bed, unable to tear her eyes away from the embryo picture on her nightstand.

It looks like a foggy soap bubble, she thinks, and wonders how she could pour so much hope, love and blind faith into something that might never make it past the very first steps of existence.

She nods and abstains from telling him what she’s really thinking.

It feels like it is.

 There’s a dull ache in her stomach as she takes the blood test. At first, she chalks it down to nerves and that all she could get down for breakfast was coffee and half of an apple, but as the pain level increases and begins imitating an all too familiar sensation, she realizes what it could be. There aren’t any tampons in her bag, so she curses her past, temporarily optimistic, self for not putting new ones there the last time she ran out, and drives to the nearest CVS.

 When they were starting the procedure, she was worried and desperate, clinging onto the little bit of faith that came with knowing they were at least being proactive about it. After the transfer, she was cautiously optimistic, reading into each sign and even daring to feel hopeful about the outcome. Now, she’s just numb. She can’t think, can’t feel, can’t react to what’s happening around her if so somebody slapped her in the face. Amy has lived her life being anxiously alert to every shifting detail around her, but as she browses the CVS aisles in a coma, she’s never felt more cut off from reality.

She does note how the cashier in the checkout has a pronounced baby bump. It feels like a sick joke.

 The joke continues, because she’s just stepped out of the building when her phone vibrates with the call from the fertility doctor’s office.

“Amy Santiago.”

“Hi, yes.” It’s a different nurse than for the previous call, Amy notes, but the serious tone is the same. “I’m calling with your results from today’s blood test.”

She bites her lip, tasting blood from the already broken skin. “They’re not good, are they?”

“Your hCG was down to an 11.”

“Oh.”

“Unfortunately, it means you’re going to lose this pregnancy.”

“Yeah. I… figured.”

“I truly am so sorry about this,” the nurse assures her. “If it’s any comfort, know this means the pregnancy wasn’t ever viable, and your body simply did what’s best and terminated it before anything ever fully implanted. You’ll possibly get a bit of a more painful period, but after, nothing should stop you from trying again as soon as you feel ready.”

“Okay.”

“I know that might not make it feel better, but this is not uncommon, and it’s not something you could have prevented, either. Sometimes it isn’t meant to be.”

“No, I understand,” Amy manages to get out, and the nurse hums at the other end of the phone.

“You can take as much time as you need, and then get back to us about whether you’d like to start another cycle. Does it sound okay?”

“Sure.”

“Perfect, then. Take care,” the voice advises, and two repeated beep-sounds signal the end of the call.

 There aren’t any benches nearby. Thus, when Amy feels her legs give way in the next second, all she can do is slide down until she’s sitting down on the sidewalk outside the store, her back against the wall and her arms around her knees as the panic crashes over her. Her lungs feel tight, getting tighter as she gasps for air between the ugly crying that’s slipping out of her before she can control it. Although she’s cried her fair share of tears in the last few weeks, it’s been a long time since she cried like this, forceful and broken in a wounded animal-type of way that earns her weird glances from the people walking past, but she resolutely shakes her head when a stranger tries to come closer. With trembling hands she manages to press the favorites button, calling Jake, and then she tries to take a deep breath and force air into her lungs while she waits for him to pick up.

 “Ames?”

She can’t get out a single word before her voice breaks. Instead of a comprehensible pair of sentences comes a blubbering string of words, not one of them sounding the way they’re supposed to, and she can hear his confusion as he repeats her name in a questioning tone but she can’t explain. Her head hurts, her lungs hurt, and hearing the sudden worried edge in Jake’s voice hurts.

“Where are you? Send me your location.” She stutters a vague description. “Okay, stay where you are and I’ll be there in ten.”

 It ends up only being seven minutes before he’s kneeling in front of her, still wearing his badge and all out of breath as he helps her stand up and leads her to their car without asking a single question of what she’s doing here or what’s happened. She figures he understands - or at least, has drawn the conclusion from her wrecked appearance. She makes several attempts of opening her mouth, trying to apologize for her shattered state as the traces of her eye makeup are smudging on her cheek and she’s fighting for breath, crying so hard it feels like she’s going to throw up from the mix of snot and hysteria stuck in her throat, but it's impossible to speak.

“Ames, can you try to breathe for me, please? In for three and out for three.” He’s holding both of her hands as he guides her, his thumb rubbing soothing circles over her knuckles. She manages to hold her breath for two seconds, shaking as she exhales, and he nods. “Good, you’re doing great. Try another time.”

They go on like that for several minutes. Eventually, the vigorous bawling calms into a quieter sobbing, and she nearly collapses into his arms as he strokes her hair, whispering soft I love yous to which she can only respond with more crying.

“Let’s go home,” he suggests, his voice stable and solid even as everything is crumbling around them.

 -

 “Are you sure you don’t have to go back to work?”

“Yeah. Rosa owed me one.”

“Did you call Holt?”

“I will.” His lips brush against her neck. “Later.”

They're laying on the bed, Amy being the little spoon for once. The waves of intense panic have quietened down thanks to exhaustion, and she's breathing properly, in and out as Jake holds her. Rays of sunlight are shining through the curtains, alerting her to the beautiful summer’s day outside, and she wishes Jake would close them. She doesn’t want to be reminded of the outside world. It means nothing to her, anyway.

 They should have been celebrating, making sure to get off work early, picking up Leah from daycare and going for celebratory ice-cream in the middle of the week. Now they’re here, her wrapped in an extra blanket because she couldn’t stop shivering, Jake playing with her hair in a fruitless attempt of making her feel better. He’s made her coffee and a sandwich, too, insisting she needed to refill her energy after the panic attack, but she hasn’t managed more than a couple of bites. The picture of the embryo she’s about to lose still sits on her nightstand, and she’s tried but she can’t stop staring at it.

“I’m so stupid,” it slips out of her without thinking, and Jake freezes.

“You’re not stupid, Ames.”

“I really thought it was going to last,” she continues, unaffected by his protest. “I really did.”

“So did I.”

She ignores that too, finally tearing her focus away from the picture and rolling on her back so she’s looking up at the ceiling instead. “You know it barely counts as a miscarriage at this point?”

“Hmm?”

“It’s called a chemical pregnancy because it didn’t get far enough to be visible on an ultrasound. Chemical. Like it’s just… an error.” She snivels. “That’s what I feel like. An error.”

“You’re not an error,” he says, in a low voice like it’s hurting him to hear her say it. “We’ll try again.”

“How many times, Jake? How many damn times do we have to try again?”

“We said two before we reevaluate - “

“I know what we said,” she cuts him off. “But I’m exhausted.”

“We could take a break?”

“No, we’re trying again.”

“Okay.” His fingers move over her cheek, cupping her jaw and pulling her towards him so they’re face to face. “I love you.”

“I love you, too.” She swallows the tears that seem to be on their way back. “I can't believe I thought it was real.”

“It felt real.”

“So real,” she breathes, and he hugs her tighter.

 She's gotten so tired of crying.

[ashleyswrittenwords]

How To Be A Queen

Note: This is my debut LoZ fanfction! Yay! I really want to explore a deeper part of Zelda’s character, and eventually Link’s later on. I think it’s interesting to explore the mental and physical toll of what it is to have a planned fate. I just think it’s neat. Also hopefully a slow burn somewhere in there, well, a lot in there. Lots of ZeLink slow burn. Is it obvious I like those sorts of things? Anyway, please critique. It’s going to be very AUish because the games don’t exactly spit out Link’s personality, but it will be heavily based off of BOTW. Let me know what you think!

Summary: Princess Zelda is at a loss. Her handed royal responsibilities have begun to weigh heavily on her and she is eventually backed into a corner. Live a life she loathes or run away from everything she's ever known? Navigating life is hard, and Link forces her to learn that she doesn't have to do it alone.

Warning: Some mentions of body weight and general mental health.

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How To Be A Queen

“Princess?”

Goddesses spare me.

Please, what did I do to deserve this.

Just a few more sips and I’ll be done. That will be it.

Oh, Hylia, end this suffering soon.

“Princess?” Old Grog Guildford sounded concerned.

“Oh! Yes, Lord Guildford?” I replied attentively, trying with every once of my will to not sound adverse. Lord Guildford is a minister and a relatively good friend to Father. Don’t get me wrong, he’s well-meaning but Goddesses in heaven can he make awful bread pudding. I can’t even remember why I’m here to taste it.

“How is it?” He looked at me eagerly expecting. One look at the old man’s face and I realize why no one has been truthful to him. He’s like a little boy asking if his art is good, only the cold-hearted can say anything negative. But, wouldn’t it spare the other poor bastards that would fall victim to it if I spoke up? I cleared my throat, trying to find anywhere else to look at beside the brown puppy dog eyes of Old Lord Guildford. Alas, I couldn’t escape.

“It’s delicious!”

Hylia, forgive me for I am weak.

“Oh, joy! I must share it with the chef for the next festival! Your Father comes up with the most fantastic ideas, Princess.”

I smiled weakly and nodded. I watched as he talked his way into the kitchen. Something about the winter solstice festival. I stood slowly, afraid to upset my stomach anymore. The dining room was one of the largest in the castle, and here I was alone and possibly poisoned by bread pudding. Well, it wouldn’t be the worst fate. I grinned up at the large, stoic murals. Here I am laughing at my own jokes as I stare up at ancestors who were able to do so much more than I ever will. Somehow I feel at ease, it’s been a while since I was alone today.

“Princess Zelda!”

The irony of it almost hurts.

“There you are!” It’s one of the head maids. She looks relieved to see me. “You must come for a dress fitting for the solstice, Your Highness.”

A feel myself politely smile and my hands grip themselves behind my back. So close. “We should be on with it, yes?”

This has been amongst the many things that have conspired in the recent weeks. As Father grows older, he’s believes that more responsibility should fall onto me. Whether it be bread pudding taste testing or short discussions about land disputes, it has indeed begun to take a toll.

It’s been so hectic that I’ve barely been able to think. Learning who the ministers are, their wives, their political leanings has been one thing. I can deal with simple studying. An entirely different venture is the world of pandering.

Forget physical activity, trying to suck up to people is by far the most exhausting activity I have ever experienced in my life. Oh, Lord Hicks how impressive it is to learn how to differentiate milkwine by simply looking at it. Lord WhatsYourName, how is the mistress you’ve been having an affair with? And the kids?

Can you believe I was taught how to laugh properly a week ago? And here I thought I laughed just fine. Oh no, how wrong I was. Last week I was introduced to a woman who told me I sounded like an old rat stuck in drain pipe. I still haven’t recovered from it.

A middle-aged blonde woman pulled a measuring tape around my waist. I looked at myself in the mirror as she focused. It’s been a while since I was last measured. I stood there in my shift and stared. The old woman made a weird noise, “It’s been a couple months since I last measured you, girl.”

“I believe so, Mrs. Bea.”

“You’ve widened by a few centimeters, Highness. Tsk tsk,” she shook her head.

My cheeks lit up in embarrassment. Did she have to say that in front of two other maids? I didn’t really know what to say. Sorry? It was the bread pudding, I swear. I have a feeling if I told her the joke wouldn’t land well.

I looked at the mirror again as she took measurements elsewhere. It wasn’t like I was overweight, but I suppose my cheeks did fill out a little. It wasn’t awfully noticeable, but being the person that stares at themselves every other hour – it was more apparent now.

The day trudged on, and my thoughts moved elsewhere. To say that my head wasn’t with my body was an understatement. Too much was going too fast. Between the pudding and the Mrs. Bea incident, the day was already becoming bigger than I can take on. With the sun now descending, I was able to slip away from preparations to climb the staircase. My quarters were on the fourth floor and what a long journey it was. I started to reconsider if I should exercise more.

Once I made it to the hallway, I saw a man standing next to my door. He stared straight ahead as if studying the lines on the opposite wall. There was a law somewhere in the books that soldiers were not to make eye contact with royalty. One of the many questionable rules that leave me wondering “What’s the point?” Link always stood very straight. It’d been a couple years since he was promoted to my guard and the man had said a handful of sentences to me since then. There wasn’t a law about talking to royalty, so instead I suppose he doesn’t like talking. Or maybe just talking to me. It makes the relationship as awkward as you can expect. The castle walls aren’t as thick as you think and I’m positive he’s heard me ranting to imaginary no ones more than a few times.

I tried catching my breath before speaking, but the words came through breathless anyway.

“Um, Link,” I spoke.

Much to my disappointment, he didn’t answer. But the small shift in his step told me he was listening. As I looked up at him a thought occurred to me. We could easily have that forbidden Princess/Knight relationship. It’s not like I lock my quarters anyway, with having one of the top men in this society outside to protect me and all.

Oh, Hylia, I need some sleep.

Not without a light flush, I responded to his lack of, “Link, could you keep anyone from disturbing me? It’s been an awfully long day.”

Again, he didn’t move to say anything. So, I continued, “Tell them something along the lines of how I’m planning out my solstice speech.” Which wasn’t a complete lie. I’d at least think about it. And Link didn’t disagree, I assumed it sounded alright. He was dressed in the traditional royal guard uniform. It was plated in a type of metal and I wondered if it weighed down on him.

You know… there’s nothing wrong with a man in uniform. Or one without for that matter.

I told myself to shush and smiled a little, “I trust your day went well?”

Again, no response. Oh well, a girl can try. I walked past him and went for the door handle, “If another guard in your squadron comes by, you should tell him to cover your shift tonight. I know it’s not the most thrilling job.”

With that, I went into my quarters and shut the door behind me. I want to say we were close despite the lack of words, but we aren’t. I don’t know too much about him other than that he came from a small village in the southeast, my father trusts him, he talks to his peers often (those thinner-than-you-think castle walls), and that he’s a prodigy in his profession. He also tends to fidget with his holster sometimes when I have a one-sided conversation with him. It’s quite the resume.

I put down whatever journal I was holding for my manners courses and try to undo the outer layer of my dress. The laces have a tendency to tangle if I don’t focus. The dresser mirror only gives so much visibility.

So what I have eaten a little more than I usually do? I’m a little stressed, okay?

I frown at my inner dialogue and shift my thoughts away from Mrs. Bea. Finally, the laces come apart and I lift the mess of fabric over and away from my form. What is left is my white shift. I sigh and sit in a red cushioned chair. It’s in front of my desk filled with small trinkets. This is when I realize the fatigue in my legs and I almost slump over. I swear aloud at the relief and fumble through my things to find a small book.

Meanwhile I hear conversations outside. All I can make out is Link’s deeper tone and a lighter, more uplifted voice – probably Anju, a personal maid. I can’t help but smile a little, she’s probably just checking in, but I appreciate Link’s attentiveness. I don’t think I can handle another interaction now. I grasp the metal ink pen and wipe off dried ink from the tip with a loose garment. The lid of the ink pot always gets a little stuck. I flip through my diary to find a blank page and fill my lungs with a breath.

“Dear Diary,” I mouth, it does make me spell better if I do so. What follows is a recap of today’s events and general frustration. Much of how I hated that bread pudding, the fake laughter, fake smiles of the court, Mrs. Bea’s comments, and my inability to be able to connect to people on a personal level. The latter concern bothering me the most. Based on the books I’ve read and the interactions I’ve witnessed, every person I’ve talked to has been on business terms. The lords, the maids, and even Father at times.

I frown deeply as I spell out my thoughts in whispers, “One night many years ago, not long after Mother’s passing he told me after hours of drinking that my conception was for the state’s sake, and only for the state’s sake.” My throat closed, but I continued scratching the words into the paper.

“I’m starting to believe him.”

[thegreenfairy13]

A Gotham Ghost Story - Part 5

When Oswald shoots Jim on the pier, his ghost is doomed to haunt the mobster. You can read the full story here. 

Thank you @mexican-texican for the beta! <3</p>

What follows feels like an onslaught. Jim is left with no choice but to follow the woman down gloomy corridors as he’s being pulled around corners and up the stairs. He wonders if death will always remain like this, being reduced to a sentient being that only observes but is unable to act.

A door behind him slams shut and the blonde hurls around to lock it. Finally, the cop can take a better look at her and gasps. He knows her, recognizes without a single doubt on his mind Gertrud Kapelput’s face however it can’t be . It’s a cop’s curse, being unable to forget a face, and even if he only ever saw her once he’s still absolutely certain.

But when looking closer, he notes how it can’t be, mustn’t be. The fragile woman might resemble Gertrud, they share the same nose, cheekbones, lips…but it can’t be. This woman is in her twenties, at most, and most notably, she’s got a ferocity and purposefulness to her that Oswald’s mother always lacked.

This young lady might be terrified but she’s not helpless. Jim observes her shoving a couple of dresses and some personal belongings into a bag before turning towards the window, for sure assessing the height and her chances should she be forced to leave the house by jumping through it.

They both freeze at the sound of steps coming down the hallway and before Jim can react, the woman does. “Hold the door!” she shrieks, looking directly at the Commissioner. When he doesn’t budge she repeats her request, more commanding this time.

Unable to process what’s happening, Jim does what he does best: saving someone. Turning, he drops his entire weight against the door. Closing his eyes, all he focuses on is the task at hand. James Gordon is still a cop and this woman is an innocent citizen demanding help. All he has to do is keep this door closed - at all costs. He sinks into the wood, feels each and every little atom, breathes the scents of wax, wood, and metal, imagines the lock fusing with the frame, imagines this single door holding up entire armies because if he doesn’t, whoever makes it through will kill her. He knows that with the same certainty he knows he’s dead, and he knows he won’t allow for it to happen.

The woman glances at him from the other side of the room, smiling gratefully. Jim smirks back at her and it suddenly hits him. She’s resilient, she’d make it without him too, but he buys her the time she needs. Another item follows the ones already in the bag and for a reason unknown, it makes him incredibly happy she’s able to gather everything she requires.

“I’m ready,” she states, already opening the window, preparing herself for the jump from the first floor. Holding out her hand, she invites Jim to follow her. Dazed, he takes it and for the second time today, he actually feels anything . He senses her warmth, picks up on her scent, which is also vaguely familiar, and vows to protect her.

“We’ll land softly,” she orders and Jim nods.

“You can see me,” he states, slightly awed and noting how his state of mind resembles being drunk. Not that he minds - it’s wonderful, as if someone had taken his brain and wrapped it up in clouds.

“Of course I can see you, silly,” she responds. “I conjured you,” the woman declares matter of factly. “I prayed for a guardian to watch over me and my child, I made the sacrifice - what good would it be if you’d appear and I couldn’t see you?” She shrugs as she tries ushering Jim toward the window.

Someone’s banging against the door already. However, Jim is certain they have all the time they need. Not a single second extra, but not one less, even. It’s a funny thing of her to say that though, that she made a sacrifice when he’s the one who died, he muses.

Jim already wants to contradict her when remembering he still has to get his facts straight first. “You’re Gertrud, indeed,” he asserts, waiting for her to confirm.

“Who else would I be?” she laughs a little bit, probably wondering what type of third-class guardian her magic procured. Given the circumstances, Jim accepts the concept of conjurings with shocking ease. Compared to dying, it’s not that outlandish though.

The lawman wants to laugh out loud. When truly taking in her physique, Jim wonders how he possibly could have missed her circumstances in the first place. Gertrud is delicate, way too thin for it to be healthy, therefore the slight swell of her belly should have caught his attention earlier.

“You’re pregnant,” he points out, feeling a bit foolish for stating the obvious the second time in a row.

Instinctively, she covers her belly with her free hand. “You’re here to protect him first,” Gertrud orders. “My safety is secondary. We made the deal, demon!”

“Demon?” Jim chuckles bemused and Gertrud’s face falls.

“You’re not…?”

“A demon?” the dead man finishes. “Hardly. I have no idea what I am. I only know I died and it was because of the baby you’re carrying.”

The women’s eyes open almost comically as she backs away from Jim in sudden horror. She grabs her bag, makes for the window once more, however backs down in sudden desperation.

“But you helped me,” she cries out, frantically looking for another way out. Feeling guilty, Jim raises his hands placatingly.  

The door behind Jim rattles again, louder this time, and the cop feels a sudden wave of urgency, as if he was forced to carry on, else he might give away his chances.

“I’m a cop, I help people,” he says matter of factly, opting for a soothing tone.

“You’re a liar, demon!” she accuses instead, eyes rolling wildly from here to there and suddenly, it hits him. Jim didn’t recognize her right away but now, as she’s pacing the room hysterically, running her hands through the strands of her hair, he perceives the madness.

In later years, her mental decline will be clear for everyone to see, but today the illness is nothing but a small seed. One day, she’ll seek salvation in the illusions her mind will gracefully procure for her and the thought alone saddens the cop. How must it have been, being raised by a mother gradually unable to differ fiction from reality? Is it the reason Oswald never told her about his true profession? It must have been easier, leaving her to her delusions and letting her see whatever she chose to.

Stomping her feet, she focuses all her rage towards the cop. “I’ll raise a good boy!” she declares with conviction. “I’ll have a beautiful baby boy, and he will be happy, he’ll be honest, he’ll be generous, and he’ll know nothing but love. I swore,” she almost screams and Jim shakes his head.

There’s something about Gertrud that makes arguing quite difficult, impossible even. “I said your baby is the cause for my death,” Jim sighs wearily. “I never said he’s responsible for it.” That’s not entirely true, but it’s a lie Jim can live with. Everything considered, dealing with men like Oswald on a daily basis is like playing Russian Roulette; he had it coming, especially after meddling with his freedom the way he did. Heck, he got ten good years, even.

Jim wishes he could close his eyes for a second, escape this new reality for a second. The only grace he’s being given is the ability to stare at a stain on the wall. He wills himself to focus.

“So it was an accident?” the future kingpin’s mother inquires curiously. “And even after your death, you’re here to help?”

“One could put it that way,” Jim admits drily.

The door rattles for the third time, a warning for the both of them to hurry up as a vivid image flashes before the cop’s inner eye: he observes himself stepping away, sees a lock breaking and wood splintering, he sees an outraged man storming inside, Gertrud screaming. Jim sees blood and he feels nauseous. He never could, could he?

Taking a deep breath, he imagines Gertrud’s lifeless body, a baby never born. It feels wrong and terrible, this death.

‘I will faithfully serve and protect anyone in need of a helping hand. I will never kill unless there is no other option to fulfill my vow.’ Jim silently recites the oath he took when joining the force, pushing away an image of his daughter running joyfully towards him. All of this is just a test, Jim tells himself. None of this is real and the past can’t be changed, he remembers his physics-teacher from fifth grade saying so.

Face lighting up, Gertrud claps her hands. “He’ll be exceptional, won’t he?” she muses. “What a man he’ll grow up to be, how much he’ll be loved when his friends even seek to protect him after their death?”

“You are friends, aren’t you?” she urges after a moment, giving him the same treatment he received the first time Barbara introduced him to her parents. It’s a look of pure scrutiny as she carefully sizes him up, for sure wondering if he’s good enough for her precious Oswald.

“We’re friends,” Jim rushes to clarify, fully aware he’s finally saying the words her son longed to hear for years.

Gertrud opens her mouth, indecisive. Jim isn’t sure why he’s secretly proud of the fact that she seems to be slightly disappointed in the statement before her demeanor changes again. It’s slightly endearing how much she and her son have in common.

Narrowing her eyes suspiciously, she assesses the dead man once more. “You said you’re a cop,” Gertrud recalls. “If you are indeed a cop, why would you , the corrupt scum of Gotham, be friends with my baby boy?”

Rolling his eyes, Jim prepares for his well-studied not-all-cops speech, the very same he bestows upon hesitant witnesses.

“I’d teach my child better than to hang out with cops and robbers,” Gertrud declares furiously and honestly, Jim can’t blame her, yet he’s got a trick up his sleeve that works even better than any type of persuasion.

“All honest cops have either quit or died,” he snaps back. “As we both can see, I’m the latter,” he adds drily.

Despite herself, Gertrud chuckles. “Can’t argue with that, darling,” he declares warmly.

“We should leave now,” Jim reminds her when he feels something pressing against his back. There’s no urgency though. He feels it again, this floating, unearthly sensation of being a mere pawn in a greater game, unable to act but to follow the path of destiny.

“Do you think you can help me?” he wonders out loud when taking Gertrud’s hand, leaping out of the window together with her.

He hears the wind rustling through the trees the very second she shouts her answer. They land on the grass, both chuckling in delight when she brushes off the leaves from her dress while Jim is still completely unaffected.

“Who was that lunatic anyway,” Jim wants to know, already running into the woods with her, admiring the long strands of hair dancing through the air. She looks so alive , like that, not even knowing how close indeed she’d been to death. If just one tiny thing had turned out differently, if she had tripped, if she had been silent instead of loud, if the door had not been made from oak, if…

Life always beats death, Jim decides. There’s no hidden romanticism in a life cut short, in a heart stopped from beating. Gertrud is gorgeous, and full of hope and love for her son’s future. He couldn’t take that from her even if there might have been a chance it would have stopped his own suffering.

Laughing in sheer relief, Gertrud runs through the trees, the bag flapping over her shoulder. “Who should it have been,” she grins. “My baby boy’s grandfather, of course.”

Even Jim has to giggle. For Gotham’s standards, that sounds like such a mundane family-drama.

“I need your help, though,” he shouts in lieu of an answer. “I need to be alive again,” he adds and Gertrud stops.

The good mood from mere moments ago is lost instantly and Jim swears he can almost feel the temperature dropping himself when his stomach falls.

“Oh, my poor baby,” Gertrud says, cupping his face lightly between her hands. “My poor, poor baby,” she repeats sadly. “The dead can’t return to life. Not like that. Either, they are gone, or they need to fulfill their purpose.” Jim hopes it’s only a trick of the light she suddenly sounds crazed.

After pondering for a moment, her face suddenly lights up. “But I can do one thing for you,” she proposes excitedly. “I told you I’d make sure my son stays away from cops. I’ll teach him not to befriend one, maybe…”

The gunshot echoes through the woods, cutting her line of thought short. That has been the last warning and Jim can practically feel the time running out as his mind is getting dragged through space and time, hurled mercilessly through the void back to where he started.

The feeling is similar to a cramp, only worse, and a hundred times more painful. Here goes his only chance for help, Jim thinks, as Gertrud leaves him behind, taking his ability to communicate with another living being with her. He screams after her, begs her to call him back, to help him however possible.

Turning, she reaches for him, tries grabbing his hand again yet they both already know she can’t follow. “I promise,” she shouts after him and Jim wants to weep.

[ephemeral-afterlight]

a personal analysis of deceit, deception, lying, and morality: an essay that’s literally almost 4k words for no reason other than that i like to make my sentences as obnoxiously long as possible

i just want to preface this post by saying i’ve been working on this for a little while, and then it got deleted, so i had to start all over. it is a huge weight off my shoulders finally getting this posted. 

PLEASE please please take heed of the trigger warning: if you are triggered by talk of domestic violence, abuse, or alcoholism, do be wary of this post. i go somewhat into depth about my experience with abusers, and there are quick mentions of things such as strangulation, so this post is not intended to be light-hearted or funny. this post is serious, and very important to me, enough to want to post it, so please proceed with caution if you feel like you may be uncomfortable reading about these things. the rest is under the cut, so make sure to read the tags to know if this one is a skip for you! now, onto the analysis!

first off, i’d like to say that i personally don’t jibe with using “redeem” or “redemption arc” in reference to deceit, because that implies that dee has done something that needs to be redeemed, and he hasn’t. a redemption arc is used to right a wrong, if you will, and dee hasn’t done anything that can be classified as a wrong, at least nothing more than the other sides have also done (such as passive-aggressive teasing).

in my opinion, some fanders’ perception of deceit and “the dark sides” is somewhat skewed. there seems to be this overarching theme and/or agreement that they’re all bad and/or evil purely for being either 1. stuck with their purpose (that they didn’t exactly choose—it’s quite literally their job. who’s to say that dee likes lying, or remus necessarily enjoys his intrusive thoughts despite having the heavy and frequent impulses to act on them? they can’t easily control their dishonesty and impulsivity respectively, after all, but feel free to discard that notion if it’s too hypothetical for you) or 2. labeled as a “dark side”. 

as for the latter, the name is purely something roman made up to further separate the two groups, but imo it’s quite easy to separate each side into a “moral group” based on their actions and behaviour at the time that is very different from the one roman (and the others by proxy, given that they go along with it’s usage) has imposed upon everyone, so that shouldn’t be used as an unchallengeable metric to determine which sides are either purely good or purely bad; everyone has their strengths and their flaws, and you could argue some more than others, but that is also subjective to one’s own perception of each side’s behaviour. pure good and pure bad just… doesn’t exist. 

now, onto deceit. something i’ve noticed when briefly delving into sympathetic/unsympathetic dee discourse is that most people who say that dee is interminably bad/evil usually bring up the fact that dee lies as their main point; he lies, and lying is bad, so therefore he’s bad, which in my opinion is a woefully simplistic view of the sides and the world in general. i think a lot of fanders and people in general don’t realize that lying is not the only form of deceit, and you don’t necessarily need to lie to deceive someone. to deceive someone, by definition, is to lead them to a conclusion that is not true or not comprehensive of the truth, and that’s where it starts to get a bit muddled. by definition, deceit typically implies that the conclusion you’re leading someone to is a lie, but that’s not necessarily always the case; colloquially, deceit is much more than that, and it doesn’t just mean falsifying the truth, it also means concealment of the truth, which i don’t think is talked about near enough in these discussions. deceit’s main function isn’t necessarily to get thomas to always lie, but rather to cause someone else to draw a specific conclusion about something using any means possible. so while yes, deceit can often involve lying, the main purpose is to cause someone to draw an intended conclusion; the means to get there are not inherent, which is why reducing deceit’s purpose down to “just lying” is somewhat ignorant (i don’t mean that in a hostile way or to offend, i mean it in the basic sense of the word), and doing him a great injustice. 

the discussion of whether lying is good or bad is an extremely difficult one, and a lot of arguments from either “purist” side of the spectrum are already out there, so i don’t really feel the need to go in-depth with that aspect of it. for this, i’ll just go with my own experiences and perspectives, to sort of bolster my main point about deceit and his purpose and how he should be treated, as opposed to how he’s being treated now. 

now, in my experience, lying is not an inherently bad thing, nor should it be completely disregarded and viewed as something that makes you a terrible person. in fact, for me, lying has been mandatory, and something that quite literally meant the difference between potentially getting hurt or even dying. i know a lot of people haven’t had to deal with extremely volatile situations or grow up with abusive people around them, so let me explain this as clearly as possible: when you’re dealing with an abuser, in almost every instance the best thing to do is lie or be as submissive as possible to diffuse the situation and avoid being hurt. i know it doesn’t sound ideal, but especially when dealing with someone who has very manic, spastic mood changes or are severely alcoholic, making sure the situation stays de-escalated can quite literally save your life. lying to reassure the abuser and placate them is one of the safest and most efficient ways to prevent them from getting angrier or lashing out. in a lot of these cases, you also lie to stop an outburst or argument before it even starts, because once an abuser gets set off, there is little to nothing you can do to stop their chaotic rampage; they will try to destroy everything in their way, and that includes you. 

domestic violence is something i’ve had to struggle with seeing from the sidelines and up close on an endless assembly line of abusive, toxic, manipulative users all my life, and although my mother tried her best to keep me away from it, there were times where i couldn’t stay out of it. there were times i’d get into arguments with the one i consider the worst of the bunch (let’s call him j), and those arguments ranged from me hatefully antagonizing him in response to his alcoholism and terrible decisions to screaming matches in which i genuinely feared for my life. i was an idiot, and i’m lucky that he was never stupid enough to try to hurt me physically. but the common denominator in this was that once i learned to shut up and remove myself from the situation, the arguments lessened in frequency for a while. whenever i sensed that j was irritated (he was irritated when he was drunk, and he was always drunk), i would hide things. if i had to lie, i would. if i had to lead the conversation away from what he was angry about, i would. if i had to stow away in my locked bedroom until he passed out, i would. because that was all i could do. and when i didn’t do that, j got angry. and violent. near the end, in one of the worst arguments we had ever had because my mom didn’t lie well enough or misdirect his focus, he blasted loud music (to purposely spike my anxiety), pounded on my locked bedroom door where my mom and i were hiding from him until the frame cracked, and he smashed a bunch of lightbulbs in front of the doorway in a drunken attempt to keep us from leaving. he snapped, because my mom wasn’t successful in deceiving him, misdirecting him to diffuse the situation. i found out later that on the last day she ever saw him, they had yet another an argument about something. j flipped from normal to hateful and vicious like a light switch, and he tried to strangle her. my mother could have almost died because she couldn’t diffuse the situation. because she couldn’t deceive him.

i know this is a heavy example to use, and it’s hard to read for me even now, but i can’t be satisfied with myself without putting my and so many others’ reasonings for lying in this post. lying isn’t always to pull yourself up at the expense of others. sometimes it’s to save your life, and i heavily empathize with people who are unfortunate enough to have to do so. you are strong, and you will get through it, and it’s okay to do whatever you have to do to keep yourself safe. even if it means lying or fighting back.

that was long, and i know i went off on a bit of a tangent, but my point is that lying isn’t always used in selfish ways, and even when it is, it doesn’t mean those selfish intentions are always necessarily bad or wrong or immoral. self-preservation is not inherently immoral. it is a basic human instinct to keep yourself out of danger, to excel and succeed, and to live the best and safest life you can. 

i personally am very neutral on where i stand with how often you employ usage of deceitful means to get what you need. while yes, i do believe that lying should not always be used in every situation/altercation nor be used to always get what you want at the expense of others, i also think that lying is an essential part of a human being’s survival, and it deeply troubles me that it has become a necessary tool to keep yourself safe in the modern age. and while i did it in a roundabout way, this brings me back to my overarching point: deceit is not inherently bad or wrong or evil for wanting thomas to deceive people to help himself, it’s just the matter of regulating him that needs to be addressed and changed. this can be made very abundantly clear with virgil and how he fits into this whole narrative.

virgil and deceit are different in what exactly they want for thomas, but i don’t think they’re different at all in terms of their intentions. while virgil wants to keep thomas alert to danger and his control of the fight or flight reflex is testament to how thomas impulsively handles those situations, with logan’s influence, that impulsive reaction is tampered down, leaving virgil as almost an alarm system. he identifies problems and possible dangers, and then suggests a way to subvert said dangers (whether those suggestions are viable options or not). deceit, on the other hand, is who comes out when thomas decides to confront that danger. he’s thomas’ filter in every sense of the word, and therefore is an important variable when thomas is met with a potentially dangerous situation that can only be resolved verbally (and whether lying is employed or not is subjective to the situation). he is also needed in less intense ways, such as not letting every single thought that pops into thomas’ head get said aloud (remus would have a fucking field day with that one), which also brings us back to keeping yourself safe from volatile people and dangerous situations. you can’t always be completely honest and transparent with them, because that can set them off, and then they can hurt you. 

in less dangerous matters, such as the wedding/callback scenario, deceit truly believes that he’s doing what’s best for thomas. (i agree that the callback is the obvious choice here, but that’s a whole other essay.) while yes, it could be argued that deceit wants thomas to gain at the expense of others, i’d counter that by positing that that’s not the point of the whole dilemma. deceit believes that doing something that would hurt you just to placate others and strictly adhere to your overbearing sense of morality is a terrible, harmful choice. it was acknowledged and brought up multiple times that it’s not just that thomas doesn’t want to go to the wedding, it’s also that he would hurt himself by doing so, and deceit doesn’t want thomas to do something that would cause an “increase in depression” because it harms thomas. 

yes, deceit wants thomas to lie to get out of it, but you could also bring up the point that deceit is actually being kind by doing so. he’s sticking with what he believes is the right thing to do, and suggesting a means to do it in a way that would spare mary lee and lee the potential disappointment or hurt of thomas choosing the callback instead. after all, “what you don’t know can’t hurt you.” and yes, while logan is right, knowledge is extremely important and you should always strive to remedy your own ignorance, that doesn’t mean you’re always ready for that information, or that it’s safe for you to know such things, especially when they’re deeply embedded in a highly emotional and impulsive reaction. 

you can debate whether it’s better for mary lee and lee to know the real reason why thomas wouldn’t be going to the wedding or not, but it still doesn’t change the fact that going to the wedding would not only harm thomas mentally and emotionally, it could also cost him a huge opportunity to better his life and reach new heights, and they would understand that. if mary lee and lee are as good of friends as patton says they are, they would not prioritize their wants over thomas’ needs. and that, folks, is the big misconception that i feel a lot of people don’t address—it’s not just about thomas wanting to go to the callback, it’s that he needs to, to prevent a worsening mental state or bad emotional reaction. any good friend would never force someone they care about to do something that would hurt them, no matter how much you want them to do said thing. this is where patton is going severely wrong right now; like i’ve said a million times before, patton is holding thomas to an impossibly high standard of purity and perfection and selflessness, and it’s the most harmful thing to thomas right now. just as extreme selfishness isn’t good, extreme selflessness isn’t good either.

that was another tangent, but i’d like to get back to virgil. now, i do agree that virgil’s arc is different from deceit’s, but in different ways, and they’re far more similar than i think some people realize. virgil’s arc was all about being viewed as a terrifying villain, the monster in the closet, the one who weighs you down and prevents you from moving forward. he was viewed as wrong and bad purely for his purpose, and ostracized because of it. he was treated badly by the others, not listened to, and disregarded. he was misunderstood, and forced into a box, so he lashed out in fear. the only way to get them to listen to him was to be scary, to force their attention just long enough to get his point across. and when they others finally realized how much he actually did for thomas and how important he is, they learned to work with him, and virgil learned to work with them.

referencing the yerkes-dodson curve, and even to basic concepts such as yin & yang, everything has to exist in a balance, and having something too much or too little can and almost certainly will be detrimental to the thing it affects. in this case, virgil can be over the top and scary and irrational at times, but his input is sorely needed, and an important tool to keep thomas safe and alert to potential dangers around him. with the help of the others, especially logan, they can sift through any of virgil’s more extreme reactions and lay out the condensed version that has the information and perspective they need without a lot of the panicky and overbearing aspects that can come with overwhelming anxiety. they found a balance, a way to work with each other, and the result settled a certain disquiet in thomas. it bettered him as a person to accept his anxiety and listen to what it has to say rather than push it away and suppress it.

now, look at deceit. he’s portrayed as a scary villain, the ghost underneath the sheet. he’s the mysterious sinister force that controls the flow of information from thomas’ subconsciousness to his consciousness, and therefore holds power. he’s being treated as a bad, dark part of thomas purely for his purpose, and has been separated on the other side of the “black and white” line between morality and immorality, pushed away from the others and from thomas. they’re constantly antagonistic and hostile towards him, doubly so in virgil’s case (which is where a lot of the hypocrisy comes out that i can’t ignore, because virgil treats deceit exactly how the others sides treated him before he was accepted, and virgil obviously hated being treated like that, so why in the world does he think it’s okay to do it to deceit?), and they disregard his opinions and very valid points backed up by painstakingly thought-out arguments (that i have a feeling deceit took a lot of time strengthening so that he could convince thomas to do what he thinks is right and to show them that he’s not trying to hurt thomas, he’s trying to help him, which could be why logan was benched during svs. deceit knew that they’d listen to logan, but if he had let him take over the conversation, they wouldn’t be hearing deceit’s points and opinions, they’d be hearing logan’s, and it wouldn’t bring deceit any closer to being accepted or listened to than before) just because oooOoOooOoOO scary dark side! he’s a liar, so everything he says is wrong and invalid! oOooOoOoooO he’s so edgy and extra so we obviously shouldn’t listen to him! he’s just dramatic oooOoOooOOoOOOOOOOO /s

sound familiar? deceit and virgil’s arcs are so painfully similar, it baffles me how people insist that they’re completely different. i think the worst argument i’ve ever seen for this is that virgil is just a pure soft uwu boy and he never deserved what happened pre-aa, but deceit is terrible, awful, evil, and abusive and he deserves to get cut off and isolated from the others and told his opinions don’t matter and his valid concerns and fears are just him being edgy. that one almost made me fly off the handle in a salty rage, but i have suppressed it until now, where i can vent my points in a more logical, organized manner than just me screaming internally.

what needs to happen with deceit is nearly the exact same thing that had to happen with virgil: the other sides and thomas need to understand that he doesn’t do the things he does because he wants thomas to be this bad, horrible, immoral, extremely selfish awful person who takes what they want when they want in the express intent to harm others. he is self-preservation (albeit in a different way than virgil exists as self-preservation), and just wants thomas to always make the best decisions to keep himself healthy and safe, even if it means doing something like lying to skip a friend’s invitation to a life event. this comes right back around to virgil and how they learned to work with him; they need to work with each other, and balance everything out. they need to take into account deceit’s opinions and concerns and suggestions, and consider each one carefully between themselves, vetting ones that have been thoroughly picked apart and shown to be flawed, just like what they do with virgil and every other main side.

(apart from patton right now, but that is also a whole other essay, and i won’t derail this just to talk about that.)

this post is getting really long, so i’m gonna try to start winding to a close. generally, i know that the debate on whether lying is good or bad can be tedious, and complex, and seems almost looming at times, just because of how much you can take into account. there are so many arguments and reasonings and examples and evidence and thoughts on the morality behind lying that finding a way to satisfyingly come to a conclusion can be difficult for most, and even when you have a somewhat set belief on where you stand with its usage, certain points and expostulations can shift your view on lying very quickly. morality is also a very nebulous thing imposed upon us as a society, a set of values to believe in and adhere to, but things that are viewed as moral, immoral, or somewhere in the middle can change their standings very quickly, and can be influenced harshly by society and how we grow as people over time. things like being gay were viewed as immoral and wrong and terrible many years ago, but now, people realize it’s a very normal thing and it doesn’t make you a bad person to be different.

because like logan got cut off from saying, morality in terms of good and bad is nearly impossible to quantify given that each person imposes their own subjective rules of good or evil on actions, words, and behaviours. there is no way to objectively say that someone or something is morally good, morally evil, or morally grey without also having to also assert the fact that your view of morality is, in itself, a subjective opinion based largely around your upbringing, environment, presence/non-presence of religion, and many other factors. what you view as morally grey can be vastly different from my definition of morally grey, and that comes to light very easily when i find myself torn between agreement and disagreement when reading more in-depth analysis posts on the sides and their intentions with what they do and represent. 

not every opinion here necessarily applies to everyone. i just wanted to add as much as possible from as many opinions and perspectives i could find that would help to contextualize my points and hit as many bases as possible with this one post. i thought it would be beneficial to put down the thoughts of a person from a different walk of life, so to speak, and how that greatly impacts the perception of the sides and their purposes/intentions. i know that a lot of this stuff is more in-depth and less in relation to the sides, but i think it’s really important to go into deeper discussion on these topics and themes, and relating them to the sides and what they represent is only a plus because it makes them easier to understand and sympathize with, whether you accept my interpretation of them or not.

anyway, sorry this turned into an actual essay (i can write nearly 4k in a couple hours about philosophical perspectives on the innate morality or immorality of deception, but i can’t write a single paragraph of the draft fics i’ve been working on for months? i see how it is brain), but hopefully you got to the end without getting grey hairs in the process! i’m not trying to invite the Disc Horse™ with this one, but i’m always open to discussion, and i’m in no way saying that my interpretation is a fact, because it’s just that—an interpretation—and it’s up to you to research and understand and to ask yourself those complex questions about what you believe. thanks for reading!

[samsexualdeancurious]

Many Dark Places | Chapter 1

Pairing: Thor x Reader (Eventual)

Words: 1,363

Warnings: hurt!Reader, trauma/PTSD, references/flashbacks to past torture, emotional and physical hurt/comfort, past and attempted kidnapping, Thor being a darling.

Summary: When cleaning up a camp of dark magicians near the new Asgard, Thor stumbles upon Y/N - the daughter of an Asgardian nobleman, who disappeared before Thor first traveled to Midgard in 2011.

A/N: I started writing this fic pre-Endgame and, as such, it exists in a strange world where they didn't make new Asgard on Earth and also maybe Thanos didn't win? Idk. (Loki's still dead, though. Sorry.)

Betaed by @samsgoddess and @the-soulofdevil

Header by me

Check out Thor's scent!

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The raid comes late in the evening.

You can hear the shouts of warriors and the clash of weapons. A deep voice is calling out instructions but you can’t make out any specific words. Just his voice. You can't do anything, really, except kneel in the center of your wagon-cage and try to lift up enough to not irritate the rope burns on your wrists more than you already have. The sounds eventually die down and you can hear distant, muffled conversations accompanied by the tramping of feet around the camp.

The raiders won, you decide sleepily, wondering who they are. Perhaps they're bandits. If so, they'll either keep you as a slave, sell you for cheap, or just kill you. You can’t bring yourself to stifle such a treacherous yearning but nonetheless, part of your heart hopes for the latter.

The lock on the wagon door rattles, startling you from your thoughts and sending your heart racing in a panic. Whoever it is gives up trying to unlock it and you hear the smash of metal against weaker metal. The sound draws an involuntary shudder up your spine and you instinctively try to squirm away.

The door opens, light from torches and the dying fires of your captors spilling into the small space. Silhouetted against the warm light is a huge figure.

“May I take your torch?” he says to a smaller figure that passes, his voice the same timber as the one giving orders earlier. He must be the leader, then. Good. Better to get this over with as soon as possible.

The torch is handed over and the man is lit up, as well as the interior of your wagon. Your stomach knots and you twist your body away before you can stop yourself, a base instinct telling you to cover your nudity despite how normal it's become.

He is handsome, that much you know even after all this time. His strong jaw is bearded and his hair is short, shorn close on the sides and a little longer on the top. He wears armor that seems somewhat familiar to you- in all honesty, all of him seems familiar but your tired and frightened mind can't place him. A long red cape hangs from his broad shoulders and he wields an enormous ax in his other hand.

His eyes go wide when he sees you fully, and he rushes forward to cut your wrists free with a small knife he pulls from his belt. You yank yourself beyond his grasp with a frightened noise, scrambling away until your bare back hits the wall. He steps forward but stops when you try to make yourself seem even smaller. Instead, he crouches- even then he is huge and when he reaches out a hand, you shrink away with a whimper you can't hold back.

The sound seems to startle him and he freezes a second before turning his palm towards you in a placating gesture. Slowly, he sinks back until he sits cross-legged like a child.

“Hello,” he says, his tone soft. In the torchlight, his eyes are warm and endearing. “What's your name?”

What is your name? You stare for a long moment, trying to dredge up memories locked away long ago. They're slow to come but eventually, you find what you're looking for.

���Y/N,” you croak, the word strange on your tongue. Your voice is hoarse from not doing much besides screaming, and it surprises you to find that speaking now hurts. The dark magicians must have liked your screaming, for they never decided to remove your voice as they did to many others who came and went over the years.

“Y/N,” he rumbles, and a tiny part of you likes the way your name rolls off his lips. “Y/N, daughter of Lord Týr, betrothed of Bjǫrn?”

The names are familiar and conjure images of loving smiles and embraces and home, the memories sparking warmth in your chest. You nod.

He smiles at you, sweet and a little boyish. “Do you know who I am?”

You wish you did. His identity is on the tip of your tongue but your mind is sick of digging through the past and refuses to relinquish its hold on the memory. You shake your head.

He doesn't seem hurt. “I suppose it's been many years and I did look a bit different. I am Thor Odinson, King of Asgard.”

Thor. How could you have ever forgotten? He's older- obviously- and there's something in his face beyond age that has changed him- you're not sure what yet. But he is unmistakable.

You curl your arms around your body even tighter, suddenly very aware of your nudity. “My King,” you mouth, digging your fingernails into your biceps hard enough that you're going to find little red marks later.

His smile is kind and welcoming and his hand is still outstretched. “May I come closer?”

You hesitate a moment before giving a small nod. Thor lifts up and scoots a few feet closer as a smaller, more female figure appears in the doorway.

“My King,” she says, silver-grey armor gleaming in the firelight.

Thor throws up a hand to stop her, though. “Not yet, Brunnhilde.”

She huffs, cocking a hip, and you can feel the tense fear creeping through your body again.

“Y/N,” Thor says softly. “Look at me. Don't look at her.”

You turn your eyes back to his face and the tension slips away a little.

“You're shivering,” he observes. “Are you cold?”

Are you? Probably. You weren't paying attention, to be honest.

“Here.” Before you can respond, Thor is unhooking his cape and swinging it around to offer it to you. “You can use this until we can get you something decent.”

You eye the rich fabric a moment before reaching a tentative hand out. Part of you is still afraid it's going to be pulled back, even though you know in your heart that Thor would never be that cruel. As soon as you get a hand on the cape, you dig in and yank it close.

“There you go,” he murmurs, smiling as you cover yourself the best you can in your position. “Better?”

You nod and can feel yourself relax even further.

“Sire, we need to move,” Brunnhilde says, a little impatient.

Thor nods. “We do. Y/N, can you walk?”

You don't want to but it's probably unavoidable, at least for a little while. “Yes,” you whisper, gathering the cape close and beginning to rise. Your feet are covered in tiny cuts, despite the calluses from going barefoot for so long, and you remember too late the damage that was done to your ankle during a particularly brutal punishment yesterday. Said ankle gives out as soon as you put weight on it and you find yourself crumpling with a cry.

Thor is suddenly there, powerful arms encircling your body and supporting you. “No, don't hurt yourself. I'll carry you, if that's alright?”

You nod, fighting the roll of your stomach at his touch. He murmurs soft words, though, as he helps you adjust the cape so it's wrapped around your shoulders and the turmoil in your belly calms.

When you're sufficiently covered, he helps you limp to sit on the edge of the wagon before hopping down himself. Brunnhilde is holding the torch now and Thor is free to loop his arms behind your shoulders and knees and lift you against his chest. You squeak, a little caught off guard even though you knew it would happen, and some bruises protest but you don't voice that. This is considerably better than walking.

“Rest a little,” he encourages as he begins his journey to wherever- you don't particularly care. “We found the dark magicians because they wandered so close to our camp. It's not far. Once there, we'll get you cleaned up, your wounds dressed, some proper clothes, and a place to sleep.”

He continues to speak, both to you and to the warriors who cluster around. His voice rumbles through his chest and into your body, deep and soothing, and you find your eyelids drifting shut.

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Team Forever: @mrswhozeewhatsis @manawhaat @laughing-at-the-darkness @tumbler-tidbits @imsuperawkward @books-and-icecream​ @emoryhemsworth​

Team MDP:

[roemyheart]

Double Trouble

A/N: for @marvelmymarvel bc she really wanted a reader x babe x malarkey love triangle but I am so BAD at writing anything remotely angsty (I am committed to fluff) so idek what this is, I just kind of went with it. Also I’m super sleepy so I barely proofread this rip but I hope you still enjoy! Based on the HBO show characters, no disrespect to the original heroes.

When Winters handed out weekend passes and told Easy company to enjoy the nice weather, you did not imagine that you’d be enjoying the nice weather on a Friday evening outside a cozy Bavarian pub with Edward Heffron’s hands tangled in your hair. 

That’s not to say you weren’t enjoying yourself. In fact, you thought this situation might be a little too enjoyable as Babe trailed kisses across your jaw, pressing his hips against yours. His mouth was soft and hot but when he pulled back to gaze at you, all heavy breathing and flushed cheeks, his eyes were a blazing inferno. “Babe,” you breathed softly, chest heaving, fingers digging into his clean uniform. Babe smiled gently, in stark contrast from the way he’d all but ravaged you against the side of this building. He wound one arm around your waist and the other cupped your cheek gently, calloused palm against warm skin. “You have no idea how long I’ve waited for that.” You smiled coyly, standing on your tiptoes to brush another searing kiss to his mouth. When you nipped at his bottom lip playfully, he made a surprised noise at the back of his throat. “I kind of have an idea of how long you’ve waited for that.” He cocked an eyebrow. “And how’s that, Y/N?” You leaned further into his space, grinning. “Lucky guess?” Babe titled his head down. “That’s a load of malarkey.” He murmured against your lips. You tried to avoid jolting in surprise because malarkey had taken on a meaning very different from bullshit. “Maybe a little birdie mentioned that you’re always staring at me like I put the moon in your hands. Maybe I got a little curious.” His hands, splayed wide against your back, began traveling downward. “There are some other ways you can keep my hands occupied…” You caught his wrists, bringing them up to your mouth to kiss his hands sweetly. “I have no qualms about making out with you next to a bar, but I do have standards, Private Heffron.” He pouted, resting his forehead against yours. “Yes, ma’am.” “We should head back in.” Babe sighed, looking at you mournfully. “How am I supposed to go inside and enjoy myself now? Nothing is ever gonna be as good as kissing you outside in the middle of the night.” You smiled at him, shaking your head. “I’m flattered but let me buy you a few drinks. You might change your mind.” Babe did indeed change his mind once he downed a few more beers and Luz dragged him onto the dance floor. You watched him from a booth, smiling fondly. He threw his head back and laughed at Luz’s antics, lighting up the tiny pub with his infectious, intoxicated energy. Sometimes, you wished he would change his mind about you. Babe was fiercely devoted and incredibly charming. He was no longer boyish and reserved; he had blossomed into a fine young man with a heart that radiated honor and compassion. He was sweet, he was hardworking, and he deserved more than you thought you could give him. If he changed his mind about you, you wouldn’t feel so guilty that Donald Malarkey spent more time than appropriate on your own mind. 

A goodnight kiss couldn’t hurt too much though, right? Not when Babe wrapped his arms around you securely, his mouth featherlight against yours. 

“Babe,” You whispered hoarsely, fighting the whimper in your throat as he trailed his lips down your neck, dragging his teeth against the sensitive skin at the crook of your neck. “Hmm?” He continued his slow, sensual assault. “Y-you have to go sleep. In y-your own room.” You warbled, inhaling sharply. He pulled back slowly, looking at you much more like a sad puppy than a guy trying to get into your bed (in every sense of the term). “I guess…” He sighed, pouting at you for the second time that night. You squeezed his hand. “Can’t have you getting in trouble.” He grinned at you crookedly through the dark shadows of your room. “I’m in plenty of trouble.” Babe kissed you once more before heading to his room, leaving you reeling and your heart aching. Babe was already in trouble because of how deeply he adored you but one day later he got into even more trouble. Trouble that came in the form of an awful head cold after going for an unwise late night swim with Tab and Bull. Though the latter two men suffered only from a runny nose, Babe was bedridden (Doc’s orders) with a wicked cough and a fluctuating fever. You visited him several times throughout the day, bringing him tissues and newspapers and hot coffee. It was hard to believe that the sulky bundle of blankets was the same man that made your knees wobbly with smooth words and wandering hands. So, you left Edward Heffron and his addictive kisses in the room down the hall to recover. But that left you yearning for physical affection. Before the war, you’d never given much thought to the intimacy of simple human touch. You worked hard for your family and studied even harder for your classes – getting a boyfriend seemed like a world away, along with all the tender touches and sweet words entailed in a relationship. When you joined the war effort as a medic, human touch became less simple. Saving wounded men was often complicated, and you woke up restless many nights as the memory of bloody hands and anguished screams plagued your dreams. Your hands had been remarkably less bloody throughout your time in Berchtesgaden, but sometimes you felt like they could never be completely clean. As you neatly folded your clothes, barely noticing the chaotic rumble of the men downstairs and outside, you wondered if maybe that’s why you were so drawn to Babe. Despite the horrors of war, every scar jagged and deep, he still seemed to retain his wholesome light. Your conscience could never be clean, but you were pretty sure Babe’s soul was. When he smiled, it was impossible to believe in hopelessness. A knock against the doorframe startles you out of your thoughts. 

“Jesus, Malarkey, you scared the crap out of me!” “What’s really scary is that you’re spending our free Saturday night folding clothes.” You wrinkled your nose at him. “Folding clothes is the most fun way to spend a Saturday night, you just have no taste.” “I couldn’t agree any less.” You rolled your eyes, laying your pants in the wardrobe that was much too big. Malarkey moved his hands from behind his back to reveal a case of beer and a deck of cards. You cracked a smile. “Is that all for me, Don? You didn’t have to, really.” He smirked at you, light eyes dancing, and shook his head. “It’s for me, actually. But I like you so I’m willing to share.” You shrugged. “I’ll take what I can get.”

You could only take so much. Don barked out a laugh every time he beat you, leaning into your space, and you felt like you were absolutely burning. He smelled like summer and fancy beer and clean laundry. You desperately hoped he was too drunk to notice the way you ogled at the dog tags glinting against his collarbone and at his muscular arms when he tugged off the top of his uniform, leaving him in tank top that nearly had you drooling. 

He was killing you, and not just in this game of Speed. “Oh come on, Y/N, you’re not even trying!” You frowned at him, teetering just off the edge of tipsy as you took a long pull from the bottle. “I am trying. Just not as hard as you, apparently.” His mouth curled up into a devious smile as he shuffled the cards. “I’ve got a deal for you, doll.” You narrowed your eyes at him. “What?” “If you win, I’ll do whatever you want me to for one hour. If I win, you do what I want for an hour.” “Hmmm.” You pursed your lips pensively. “Whatever I want?” You tried to ignore the way your stomach flip-flopped when he practically purred, “Anything your sweet heart desires.” Flustered, you could only laugh nervously. “Even run around butt-naked through the dining room?” He nodded solemnly. A little voice at the back of your head told you that this was only headed in one direction. “You’re on, Malarkey.”

Several minutes later, it was Malarkey who was on you. He caged you against the bed, radiating heat and kissing you like his life depended on it. You couldn’t even really remember who won – did anyone win at all? It was Malarkey, wasn’t it? Or did the late night and strong beer finally take hold of your good sense? The way Don growled when you tangled your fingers in his hair sounded dangerous, but honestly, he was the person who always made you feel the safest. You often found yourself wrapped securely in his space. He’d held you close when you got hit in Carentan and Arnhem. He’d clung to you throughout the raging firefights and awful casualties of Bastogne. He’d tucked your head against his chest the night after you found the camp. In the moments when the world seemed to crumble around you, Don made sure to keep you from getting swept up in the rubble. Though, you did feel like you were drowning in his hot and heavy kisses – in a good way. Despite the haze of sleep and alcohol, you couldn’t help but notice how different this was from kissing Babe. These kisses and caresses held the weight of the world. It was more intense, every sigh, every gasp, every touch. It was strong and it scared you, but he murmured your name tenderly against your skin and nothing had ever sounded so right. “You have no idea how long I’ve waited to do that.” You tensed up involuntarily because you’d definitely heard that before. “How long?” You asked softly. Malarkey hovered above you, gently brushing the hair out of your face, still breathing hard. You couldn’t tell if your heart or his heart was pounding loudly. He smiled, almost bitterly. “Since Toccoa. Since you took my spaghetti.” Your eyes widened. “That’s…a long time.” He kissed your nose, resting his weight against you comfortably. “Tell me about it.” “And it took you this long to tell me?” You playfully pinched his arm, disregarding the toned muscle and how your stomach lurched. “Hey, getting shot at is scary. But telling someone you like them while getting shot at is even scarier. I had to wait until I knew it was completely safe.” His smile was softer the flower petals and his gaze sweeter than honey. You squeezed him to your body, burying your face in the crook of his neck. “You’re safe here.” “You know who isn’t safe here?” You pulled away to look at him, raising an eyebrow. “Who?” Malarkey looked at you sternly. “Heffron.” He pinched your waist and you squeaked, becoming so flustered you were nearly lightheaded. “W-what?” “You heard me right. If he comes in here asking for Y/N to be sweet to him, he’s got something else coming. I’ll sock him right in his pretty face.” You wound your finger around an orange curl and tugged gently. “Don’t get so bothered about Babe. Just be sweet to me.” You rubbed your nose against his affectionately and he smiled softly. His voice washed over you like the Atlantic ocean. “I can only be sweet to you, Y/N. You make everything about this bitter world a little better.”

(Apparently this bitter world had it out for you because you ended up on a bus ride squeezed between a fuming Malarkey and a snuggly, sick Heffron soon after.)