#I vaguely imagine the running tree to be Judge

[crepes-suzette-373]

(read the comic left to right for once)

More random chill/fun AU.

I'm not entirely sure what I was gonna do with this, honestly... I was reading a typical isekai manga with nature spirits, and I randomly thought of this. Japanese folklore does have tree spirits too.

Some artistic liberties taken, obviously, so some of the stuff I say here has nothing to do with folklore.

The tree spirits can wander around freely, they're not attached to the physical tree. They just prefer having the tree nearby because if anything happens to it, they lose their human manifestation. They can get it back by finding a new host tree, but it's not that easy to do.

Those with strong enough spiritual power can pull out the tree and move it around freely too.

The more I drew the more I regretted making all those flowers and leaves on their heads. It was a super cool design, but a pain to draw like 10 times over.

Ichiji and Niji are wearing leaf masks, they don't grow leaves on their faces.

Also random flower trivia (nothing to do with the characters, honestly).

Tree/plants assignment for the other characters pending (especially because I don't know what to do with this AU yet). Nami is easy because she's obviously a mikan tree.

[sapphirelass]

In my Blood ~ Will Solace x Sister!Reader

Hi you guys! Wow, it's been over a year😅 I'm still working toward my uni degree (physics, maths and upper secondary school education for those of you who don't know), spending time with my boyfriend, hanging out with friends, and visiting my family as often as I can. I promise I have done a fair bit of writing this past year, just not finished anything... But, here we are! Really looking forward to the PJO-series, but while we're all waiting, here's a Will imagine because Will is great <3

----------------------

To read as xOC, click here

Words: 2500 ish

Warnings: injury, blood, wounds, angst (normal demigod stuff really, but you know)

Please note that English isn't my first language! I have studied it for over a decade, and speak it fluently, but there might still be some grammatical errors and a mix of British/American expressions - thanks for understanding :)

y/n - your name

y/n/n - your nickname

she/her reader

Enjoy! :)

----------------------

“Get down!” she shouted, as a giant, angry, terrifying cyclops approached them. “Listen closely now; do you see that huge pine tree over there? And the statue? Run past them, and you’ll find people who’ll help. I’ll try to buy you as much time as possible!”

The two seven-year-old half-bloods that had just been saved and brought to camp (well, almost anyway) sat off towards the border, as (y/n) Solace, daughter of Apollo, stayed behind and pulled her sword out. She was a way more advanced archer than swordfighter, but the one bow she had brought with her had fallen out of her firm grip as she jumped behind a boulder for cover. She had made an attempt at getting it back, however, that just resulted in her body coming crashing to the ground as the cyclops’ hand collided with her chest, while the bow ended up in between the hard ground and the monster’s massive foot… (Y/n) threw her head back and sighed at the sight of her trusty old weapon in pieces, and it wasn’t until she tried to push herself back up on her feet that she noticed a terrible pain spreading through her left arm from her elbow. It hurt badly, but since she didn’t have much of a choice, (y/n), suddenly feeling slightly dizzy, pushed herself back up with her other hand and looked for another road to victory. 

After a few minutes of trying to attack the monster with her sword, but repeatedly failing since getting close enough without getting hit herself proved to be very difficult, (y/n) quickly ran in a circle around the monster causing him to stumble - if only for a second. She wasted no time launching herself at the cyclops with her sword and - *SPLASH*. The sharp, metal blade bore deep into the slimy eye, and the cyclops staggered backwards, slowly disintegrating. (y/n) was just about to take a deep breath when she felt a stinging sensation in her abdomen. Briefly glancing down, she winced as she realized what had happened. The monster must have grabbed one of her arrows from the quiver she had thrown onto the ground, and, rather violently judging by the amount of blood oozing through her orange t-shirt, pushed one into her side. 

Being a demigod, (y/n) had obviously suffered multiple injuries before, though never quite ones as bad as this. The bottom half of her shirt was now more red than orange, and she could feel the world spinning slightly. Groaning, she sat down against a tree and inspected the wound carefully. She wanted to pull the arrow out, but her twin brother Will had always strongly argued against doing something just like that. A vague memory of him saying something along the lines of “the weapon possibly being the only thing keeping you from losing too much blood”... Sighing, she started to slowly make her way toward camp but didn’t make it very far before stumbling over her own feet and falling forwards on the cold hard ground. (Y/n) coughed up something that looked like a mixture of spit and blood before pushing herself to her feet again with the help of her sword. It wasn’t a speedy process, but she kept walking in the direction of the infirmary, stopping to catch her breath every few steps.

---

“(y/n/n)?!” She only had a few hundred meters to go when two of her closest friends - Travis and Connor Stoll - came running towards her with worried faces. Typically when the brothers approached someone together in this way it was with mischievous smiles on their faces and usually followed by a prank of some sort, but not this time. “What in the name of the gods happened to you?”, Travis asked, as Connor carefully placed (y/n)’s right arm across his shoulders to help support her. “We ran into some new kids who said you’d picked a fight with a giant?”

“Oh hardly…”, she demonstrated. “If anyone picked a fight it was him! And besides, it was just a normal cyclops, and not even a very big one.” She winced slightly when Travis smiled and grabbed her other arm, but started walking more steadily thanks to the brothers. “But my bow broke, and - friendly advice - don’t try to take out a cyclops with nothing but a sword.”

“You should put that on a T-shirt.”, Travis joked but shut up quickly when (y/n)’s knees buckled and she stumbled again. He sent her a worried glance as Connor spoke up.

“So, what happened? How bad off are you really?”

She told them the story as they walked slowly down the hill and across the volleyball court. They were right by the big house when (y/n) finished the story.

“Gods…”, Connor mumbled, changing his grip around his friend’s shoulder to give her even more support. “You know Will’s gonna kill you himself this time, right?”. (Y/n) was about to answer him when someone opened the door to the infirmary and beat her to it.

“Who do I have to kill? I swear, if Nico is shadow travelling like a madman agai- Oh Gods!”, Will interrupted himself, a look of horror on his face as he was met with the sight of his twin sister barely able to stand up, and covered from head to toe in blood, mud, and dirt. “(y/n/n), what happened?!” He examined her quickly before holding the door open so the Hermes boys could get in and slowly lay (y/n) on one of the bunks.

“It’s a bit of a story, and I don’t know if I feel like repeating it again right now”, she said weakly, wincing a bit as Will swiftly pulled her worn jean jacket off, “but the short version is that a cyclops punched me and I have an arrow through my stomach… And probably a broken arm too. And I might have hit my head when I fell… it, eh, hurts a bit…”

“Gods…”, Will sighed, “Well, do you feel nauseous? Disorientated? Can you see clearly or is anything blurry?” 

“Eh… a little dizzy maybe, and a weak headache, but my sight is fine and I’m not feeling sick.”

 “Right”, Will mumbled as he wiped a small amount of blood from his sister’s forehead and briefly inspected the small wound. “Something positive I suppose…”. He put a small bandaid on it to slow the bleeding down at least momentarily, before moving to look at his sister’s arm which was indeed bent in a rather weird way. “Well, head-related injuries are always scary, I’ll have to examine it further to know how bad it actually is. The arm is absolutely broken - annoying, but fixable - though this arrow…” He grabbed a pair of scissors and cut through her T-shirt so that he could get to the wound.  “Jeez, (y/n/n)… How long have you been bleeding?”

She took a deep breath before answering. “I’m not sure, it feels like an eternity, but an hour maybe?”

“AN HOUR?!” Will tried to stay calm, but his now pale face told another story. “Holy… Okay, eh, (y/n/n), I’m gonna… I have to get the arrow out and stop the bleeding as fast as I can, you- you’ve already lost way too much blood. Let's just hope that it missed anything vital.”

He whispered the last part, but (y/n) hardly heard the rest either, as she slowly but steadily started drifting off to sleep. “Sure thing… You do that, I’m just gonna doze off for a quick sec…”

“Oh no, you’re not!” Will dropped what he was holding and grabbed her shoulders to shake her gently. “(Y/n/n), I get that you’re exhausted, but you have to stay awake. As I said, you lost a lot of blood, and you may have a concussion. Sorry, I’m not even gonna argue with you - you’re not falling asleep.”

He turned back to the brothers who were watching from afar, wanting to know what happened but also not being in the way. “Connor, Travis, you have to keep her talking while I work, okay?”

“Sure”, Travis nodded, as Connor grabbed (y/n)’s right hand again. “Wanna tell us about the new kids?”

“Yeah”, Connor added. “They seem cool!”

“They are…” (y/n) moved a bit, carefully letting Will remove the piece of her T-shirt that he had cut off to get to the wound. “Only seven years old, fighters both of them. They ran away from different orphanages in Vermont and took down a basilisk together in Albany and have taken care of each other si- AHHHHH.”

She let out a harsh scream as her brother swiftly pulled what was left of the arrow out of her chest, and would probably have rolled off the bed if not for the Stoll brothers holding her down as Will apologised profusely. 

“I’m so sorry, (y/n/n)”, he mumbled sadly, as he handed Travis a big piece of ambrosia, “but that was the worst of it. You’re doing really well, just hold on. You should try to have some ambrosia now that the arrow’s out.” She struggled to take a few shallow breaths as the extreme pain slowly began to fade again, but nodded and accepted the small piece of godly food Travis was offering her. The pain instantly lessened even more as the flavour of her mother’s gingerbread cookies combined with a touch of magic consumed her whole being. (Y/n) finally took a really deep breath, but when she exhaled it felt as if every single drop of energy she had been grasping onto left her at once. She allowed herself to close her eyes and immediately began drifting off to sleep, the worried voices of Will, Travis, and Connor simply fading into silence.

---

(Y/n) was desperate for a few hours of peaceful rest, but unfortunately sleep and nightmares tended to almost always go hand in hand for demigods. She relived the last 24 hours in her sleep, everything from leaving camp in the early morning feeling excited to bring some new kids back to the exhausting battle that could have ended badly if not for the cyclops’ inability to stay on its feet. During the actual fight, it had happened so quickly that she hadn’t even noticed it at first, but this time she could clearly see how the monster roughly yanked a sharp arrow from her quiver and began making his way back towards her. She lay flat on the ground, desperately trying to move out of the way, but she couldn’t. It was as if all her muscles suddenly decided to to take any more orders from her brain. The cyclops lifted his arm, getting ready to deliver the final blow, as (y/n) closed her eyes, starting to accept her fate.

It felt as if time itself stopped. All she could hear was her own shaky breathing - until suddenly it wasn’t… There was a also voice, far away, sure, but still clearly there…

“(Y/n/n)? Please wake up! C’mon!”

It sounded familiar, but she couldn’t pinpoint who it belonged to. She focused and tried to listen for the voice again, but she was so exhausted… Giving in to the darkness felt so inviting… And simple. She could do with simple for once.

“No, no, no!” The voice cracked, panic and desperation shining through. “Don’t you dare give up now! C’mon, (y/n), I’m here, I’ve got you! Don’t give up… please…”

She was so close to slipping away, but something about that seemed wrong, and the reassuring words plus the comforting feeling brought to her by the sound of the familiar voice gave her precisely the boost of energy she needed. Shaking herself out of the nightmare, (y/n) inhaled sharply before shooting up, her eyes darting around the room until someone gently placed their hands on her shoulders, causing her to meet their gaze.

“(y/n)!”

She blinked a few times, shaking violently as she began realizing where she was. “Will?”

“Oh Gods!” He hugged her tightly, perhaps a bit too tight, but it didn’t matter in that moment - the 16-year-old was just so incredibly relieved to see that his sister was alright. “You’re alive!”

(Y/n)’s breathing evened out again as she leaned into her brother. “I’m sorry, Will. I’m so sorry…”

He didn’t let go of her arms, but moved back slightly and sent her a questioning look. “What do you mean?”

“I… I just… I didn’t mean to worry you.”

“Gods, (y/n/n), I always worry.” He moved closer again. “I’m just happy you’re okay! I mean, it’ll be a while before you’re back doing quests of course”, he sent her a serious look, “but the fact that you woke up is a good sign”. 

(Y/n) accepted the ambrosia piece Will offered to her before answering. “All thanks to you.”

“Well”, he shrugged, “your body did most of the hard work...” (Y/n) shook her head at Will’s modesty before starting to push herself off the bed to stand up.

“Whoa, whoa, whoa!! Stop! What do you think you’re doing?!”, Will exclaimed, swiftly pushing her back down. "You have been unconscious for over four days and lost so much blood, and that’s not even mentioning your head, arm or other random scratches. You’re staying here at least until Friday, no discussion.”

(Y/n) rolled her eyes, secretly feeling very lucky to have a brother as caring as Will. "Okay, I'm sorry. I just need to stretch my legs for a second, please? Help me out?" 

Will didn’t look too happy with the idea, but understood how stiff she must be feeling after so many days and nodded. It wasn’t like (y/n) wanted to get up and run, she still felt really tired and weak. However, after that horrifying moment of helplessness that she experienced in her dream, just the confirmation that she could in fact still move her arms and legs was incredibly comforting. When everything felt normal, she tried a few careful steps and immediately stumbled, but didn’t fall thanks to Will’s support.

“Light-headed?”

“Yeah, a bit…”

“Alright, that’s enough, back you go.” He guided her back to the bed, and she lay her head back down on the pillow.

"There we go!", Will smiled, "can I get you anything?"

"A cup of tea, please? Red, no honey?"

"You’ve got it!"

Five minutes later Will returned, balancing two cups of tea and a cheese sandwich on a tray. "Who ordered the tea and sandwich?", he asked jokingly as he sat the tray on the bed. He placed some pillows against the wall and slowly helped his sister sit up against them. “That would be me", she smiled. Will also sat down on the bed and put an arm around (y/n). She took a small bite of the sandwich and leaned her head on her brother's shoulder. The siblings drank their tea in silence, enjoying the feeling of being together and safe, if only for the night.

<3

//L masterlist

[lilacmingi]

THE HOURGLASS

My works are 14+ ONLY. If you’re under 14 DO NOT interact with me or any of my works

Pairing: Pirate!Guerilla!Wooyoung x fem reader

Word count: 7,921

Note: This was the first lore-inspired imagine I ever wrote! There’s so much from Ateez’s storyline in here. I had read through the diary versions of my albums a few months before Guerrilla was released because I wanted to understand their lore better and I was SO inspired to write something after I read it. And so, this imagine was created. To this day it’s one of my absolute favorites!

It had been months since you last saw them. Your friends. The boys you'd grown so close with over the past year. The ones that felt like home.

They were home.

Then, they disappeared.

Like many other things in your life, they were here for only a brief moment, leaving far too soon. Unlike the drifting people that weave in and out of your life, your eight close friends had seemingly disappeared and you didn't know where they went. It's almost like they vanished from existence. You missed them all dearly, but you missed Wooyoung the most. He was always so cheerful, easygoing, and full of effervescence. Like the others, he enjoyed cutting up and joking around, always messing with you or one of the other guys. You missed that. What you would give to hear one last teasing comment.

Standing alone in the middle of the abandoned metal building you used as a hangout, you reminisced on good memories and stress-free times. A time where you could all forget about the dismal aspects of your pathetic lives and just be in the moment. You found yourself coming to this place often. You weren't sure why, but you found yourself being drawn here, pulled by some invisible force. All you ever did was walk around the empty space, looking back on memories that were now ghosts from the past, haunting you.

Your fingers trace absentmindedly along the dusty lamp that sits atop a stack of wooden pallets used as a makeshift table. A baseball bat lay propped against a stack of crates and an abandoned skateboard sits idly on the dirt floor. The couch and other worn out furniture had been left behind like everything else in the building.

Everything was left as it was, as if time was frozen.

As you moved about the building, you noticed boot prints in the dirt floor of the warehouse, one's that were't there previously. The only people in that warehouse were you and your eight friends, and they hadn't been around for quite some time.

Curiosity got the best of you and you ended up following the footprints outside. They overlapped at some point, first leading to a cluster of boot marks imprinted in the dirt just outside the entrance, then going away from the building.

Judging by the multiple shoe prints outside the entryway, you concluded that whoever the tracks belonged to was standing just outside the door for an unknown period of time.

Someone was watching you.

You continued moving beside the tracks until you arrived at a grassy area where they ended. That's when the sound of leaves rustling nearby caught your attention. Bushes that dotted the edge of the tree line rustled in the wake of someone running through them.

Whoever was in the warehouse had been lingering nearby.

A small voice in the back of your mind told you to let it go and get out of there, but a louder voice told you to run into the woods.

You chose the latter.

Dead sticks and leaves crunched under your shoes as you trekked through the dense undergrowth of foliage and vines, unsure of which way to go.

You nearly trip over your own feet, stumbling to a stop when you spot an hourglass lying in the undergrowth. If you hadn't been paying attention you would have stepped on it. Your head tilted in curiosity as you bent down, reaching for the out of place object.

"Find them."

You sharply stood upright at the sound of the foreign yet vaguely familiar voice that rang out through the air, the hourglass left sitting in the vines and plants. Your head turned. Standing in the distance was the silhouette of a man in a fedora. His face was covered and he was too far away for you to see him well.

Was this the person that was watching you?

"Who are you?" You asked.

No answer.

Turning back to the abandoned hourglass, you recall what the strange man in the fedora just said moments prior.

"What do you mean find th—" You were cut off as you turned back to him, seeing that he had vanished.

Reaching for the object again, you picked it up off the ground, turning it in your hand, watching the sand shift inside as you examined it.

What could you possibly do with an hourglass?

Your fingers came to rest at the top of the hourglass, debating on what to do. These were incredibly strange circumstances and you weren't left with many options. The only thing you knew to do was to turn it, so you did. Your brows pulled together as you rotated the timer, a bright light shining from within it as the sand began to move backwards.

"What the—"

There was a sudden flash of light so bright it stunned you, your eyes squeezing shut in response to the flare.

You landed with a hard thud on a wooden surface, the sound of the ocean reaching your ears almost immediately. It didn't take long for you realize you had somehow been transported away from the warehouse... far away. You lifted your head just as a gun was drawn and pointed directly at you. Your eyes followed the barrel of the weapon, moving up to see who was holding it, your breath immediately catching in your throat when you saw who it was.

There's no way.

"Wooyoung?"

The look on his face was one of disbelief as he stumbled back a bit, unable to believe what he was seeing.

"I can't believe it. I found you." You breathed out, getting to your feet. You wasted no time engulfing him in a tight embrace, squeezing him slightly, silently praying he wouldn't disappear.

"How..." He trailed off. "How did you get here?"

You didn't have time to answer as another voice cut in, making you pull away from Wooyoung.

"What's going on?"

Moments later, San came rushing onto the deck of the ship, his eyes widening in response to what he was seeing.

"Y/n?"

"San!"

More footsteps thumped against the wooden boards as the rest of the boys stepped out, their faces showing pure shock at the sight of you. Clearly, none of them had expected you to show up and honestly, neither did you.

You were so overwhelmed seeing your friends again that tears began to well in your eyes.

"Y/n, is that you?" Hongjoong asked, breaking the long silence that hung in the air.

"It is." You nodded with a smile, your voice trembling. "I never thought I'd see you guys again."

Unable to stop yourself, you rushed forward, embracing them in a hug, happy to finally be reunited.

"I can't believe you're here." Yeosang breathed out in disbelief.

"Me either."

"How did you get here?" He inquired.

"Actually—"

"Is that the Cromer?" Mingi asked before you could finish your sentence. His mouth hung agape as he pulled away from the hug, his eyes drawn away from the group.

"The what?" You questioned, turning your head.

"The Cromer."

A few feet away was the hourglass that brought you here, lying on its side. It appeared to have rolled away from you when you landed.

"Is that what it's called?"

"Where'd you get it?" Wooyoung asked.

"I found it in the woods by our hangout. Some man in a black fedora left it."

All eight boys shared a look that told you they knew something you didn't.

"What?" You questioned, your brows pulling together as you looked around at the group.

"Did you get a look at his face?" Asked Hongjoong, answering your inquiry with another question.

"No. He was too far away."

"Did he say anything to you?" Seonghwa cut in.

"Find them."

The oldest glanced over at Hongjoong and the others, all of them sharing perplexed expressions.

"I don't understand what's going on."

No one said a word as Hongjoong stepped forward, retrieving the fallen Cromer and holding it in his hands.

"Do you guys know what this means?" He asked, turning to the group with glossy eyes, a look of longing and hope on his face. "We can finally go home."

Wooyoung then stepped forward.

"You need to put that in a safe place." He advised almost sternly.

"I will. We don't want them coming after it."

You turned to Hongjoong with a bemused expression.

Who's them?

Wooyoung could tell you were confused about the whole situation, so he decided to step in.

"Why don't we talk?"

"Yeah. That's a good idea."

He grabbed your hand, pulling you to a shallow deck located at the back of the ship where the two of you could talk in private.

Ever since landing on this ship, the only thing you've been met with is confusion, leaving unanswered questions to pile up and swirl around your mind like a violent storm.

Wooyoung dropped your hand, moving to lean against the ship railing, you followed suit, watching him as he stared out at the open waters, a wistful look on his face.

"I thought about you guys a lot." You spoke up, cutting through the silence. "Every day, actually."

"We thought about you too, Y/n. We've been trying to get back."

"What is this place? How did you all get here? Why haven't you been able to get back? Who are these people you're trying to keep the Cromer from?" You asked only a few of the many questions that weighed heavily in your mind.

Wooyoung let out a long sigh as he turned to you. "Y/n, there's a lot you don't know."

"Clearly."

"No." His face became serious, something you didn't often see on Wooyoung. "This is much bigger than you know. Did you not think the man in the fedora in the woods was odd? Or the fact that an hourglass of all things just transported you to a different place?"

"Of course I did, but as soon as I saw you guys, I couldn't be bothered to worry about anything else."

Wooyoung's gaze softened for a moment, your statement pulling at his heartstrings. He missed you so much, probably more than you missed him, however, you've fallen into a world much worse than the one you came from. You didn't know anything about Strictland or the horrible things happening in it.

"The man in the black fedora, we've met him before." Wooyoung finally spoke up. "He came to see Hongjoong."

Your brows pulled together as you processed his words.

"Things were starting to fall apart. Yeosang's parents didn't like that he was dancing, Jongho and Mingi were mad at each other, everything was just crumbling to pieces."

"I remember." You nodded, thinking back on those gloomy times that you tried your best to forget.

"Well, it wasn't long after we kinda split up, Hongjoong was at our old hangout when this man showed up and brought him the Cromer. His face was covered, so Hongjoong didn't recognize him, but he later found out that man was himself."

"What?" You breathed out in disbelief.

How could it be?

"When Hongjoong turned the Cromer, we all came back to the warehouse. We were all together again, but we weren't alone. A fleet of men in white came to attack us. We had to flee and along the way, the Cromer got taken from us. Things have been so crazy since then." He shook his head as he recalled the events that had taken place. "Yeosang... he risked his life for us. We lost him for a while. The android guardians, the men in white, got him and the Cromer we had got broken in order to save us."

"What happened? Yeosang is here, so you obviously succeeded, right?"

"After some time, yes. Yeosang got captured by the androids after tossing the Cromer to Hongjoong. The android threatened to break Yeosang's neck if he didn't get the Cromer, so Hongjoong tossed it over. While Yeosang made his way back over to us, he caught the Cromer and turned it before smashing it on the ground. Hongjoong tried to grab his hand, but he didn't make it."

"So Yeosang was left with those... things?"

Wooyoung nodded, somberly. He admired his friend for risking his life the way he did in order to save them, especially considering the circumstances. However, he hated that something like that even happened in the first place.

"What happened to you guys? Where did you go?"

"The past."

He explained to you that they felt stuck with no Cromer and no way to get Yeosang back. That is, until Seonghwa shared a news article with them about a group going to steal a Mayan relic from a museum—the Cromer.

"So what did you do?"

"We stole it."

You gaped upon hearing this, unable to imagine them doing such a thing.

"Yunho wanted to stay behind because in the past where we were, his brother was still alive."

Your heart ached a little. You knew of Yunho's situation and how dear his brother was to him. You also knew how his death weighed on Yunho and how he carried that grief with him, so you didn't blame him for wanting to stay behind.

"The plan fell through when I tried to get the Cromer from the leader of the group. He had a knife held to my throat and was holding us hostage. That's when Yunho showed up on his motorcycle with his friends and caused a distraction. They helped us make an escape. Unfortunately, the group leader got into a vehicle and chased us, which essentially ended up crashing into the sidewalk."

Your heart sank in your chest as you felt a sense of dread looming over you, being able to assume what happened next.

"Yunho's brother had seen him on TV and left to find him. He was headed to the museum when the crash happened."

A frown pulled at your lips as it clicked into place. Yunho had to experience his brother dying all over again.

"Is he okay?" Your voice came out quieter than you expected.

Wooyoung nodded, which brought you some relief.

"Yunho's brother found his journal and saw where he wrote about him dying. He told Yunho it wasn't his fault and that he needed to move on and stop letting his death hold him back."

"So he got closure."

"He did."

"And what about everyone else?"

"We were able to make a narrow escape and get back to Strictland to save Yeosang."

He told you about the Grimes siblings who had helped them escape their first run in with the android guardians and a man named Left Eye who they were able to recruit, filling you in on everything that had occurred since their disappearance from the dystopian Strictland.

"This place... it's not like our world. It looks the same, but it's not the same—it's much different. The government is trying to control everyone. They're taking away people's biological energy. They have no emotions and there's bans on everything. No art, no music, no singing, nothing. These men in the black fedoras are freedom fighters—guerrillas. They go performing in the streets to help break people from their trances. The people they recruit are part of an underground alliance called The Black Pirates. The men in the black fedoras are us from this dimension and they're the leaders of The Black Pirates. They're rebelling against the government of Strictland and fighting to change things."

"You said the Grimes siblings and Left Eye came with you to the android bunker. Where are they?"

Wooyoung's expression seemed to fall a bit, making you assume the worst.

"When Yeosang was stuck in that glass tube at the abandoned gallery, he saw them. They had gotten their biological energy taken."

You frowned at this even though you'd never met the kids.

"And Left Eye?"

"He lost his right arm, but he made it out."

For some reason, you breathed a sigh of relief.

"So, if the men in the black fedoras are you guys from this dimension, then who was it that left the Cromer for me?"

"It could be any one of us."

"Why?"

"I don't know, but one thing I'm sure of is that he saw purpose in you. You're obviously here for a reason."

"You think so?"

"Yes. He wanted you to find us."

"And I did." You added. "So, now what?"

"You stick with us."

Hearing that sent a tidal wave of relief through you. You'll never allow yourself to be separated from them ever again, especially Wooyoung.

You watched as the rest of the guys moved about the main deck, Jongho and San working to raise a sail. It appeared that they knew what they were doing, most likely having practice over the last few months.

"So are you like, a pirate now?" You asked Wooyoung.

"Sort of." He chuckled. "We've been using this ship to get around. It seems safer this way. Because of that, we've had to learn how to do certain things."

"So, what happens next? Where are you heading?"

"To The Black Pirate's hideout. We sent a Morse code message to Left Eye to let him know we're back and we're ready to fight."

"Fight?"

Wooyoung nodded.

"So, this is a rebellion?"

"A revolution." He responded, his eyes cast upon the horizon where the sun was slowly dipping down into the water. His expression was hard and determined, his brows creased in thought.

This situation was much more serious than you initially thought it was. These boys, your friends who were always smiling when you were together, were willing to fight against these guardian things. They'd changed since you last saw them. Their personalities had been slightly altered from what they once were. Everyone seemed serious and perhaps even more mature.

"You've changed." You commented aloud.

"What do you mean?"

"You've all gotten serious."

"We're just determined to change things, that's all." He responded, his eyes cast down, fixed upon his hands that were clasped together. "Is it bad that I've changed?"

"Well, no. Not necessarily. Considering the circumstances, you all kind of had to grow up and become more mature. I understand, but I'll admit, I was looking forward to seeing all of you happy and smiling. You know, how we used to be when we were all together."

"Sorry to disappoint you."

Wooyoung couldn't help but think about how his personality had changed since coming to Strictland. Had he changed? He wasn't sure.

Perhaps he was still the same Wooyoung and just wasn't in the right circumstances to be as lively and upbeat as he usually was. That's what he liked to think. Even so, did you not like that he had changed? Did it make you feel differently about him?

"Hey!" Mingi's voice cut through the air, catching Wooyoung's attention. "Hongjoong needs everyone in his quarters. We need to discuss some things."

After sharing a brief glance with Wooyoung, the both of you trailed behind Mingi, following him through a doorway that led to a large room. Inside was the rest of your friends, all of them gathered around a table with maps spread across it, the Cromer sitting in the middle.

Hongjoong glanced up at you through a pair of glasses perched on his nose.

"Has Wooyoug caught you up?"

"Yes, he has. I do have a question, though. What happened to the Cromer you stole from the museum?"

The boys shared a look before Hongjoong addressed you with an answer.

"We're not sure. We think it went back to its dimension."

"It just... disappeared?"

"Yes. After we saved Yeosang, we couldn't find it. We know the guardians didn't get it, so we just assumed it went back to its rightful dimension."

The explanation didn't sound quite right to you. How could it have just disappeared? It didn't make any sense. Then again, nothing made sense. An hourglass that allowed you to travel through dimensions? That's wildly illogical, but it's real. The very item is sitting before you and it's already proven it's abilities.

"None of that matters now, though." Seonghwa chimed in. "We have the Cromer now and that's all that matters."

"He's right." Mingi nodded. "Once this is all over with, we have a way to get back."

Get back. Back home. Wooyoung liked the sound of that.

Once everything was back to normal in Strictland, Wooyoung and his friends could return back to the world they came from and things would be better. This time, the group wouldn't split up and he would finally confess to you. He would do everything in his power to make sure you all were happier.

One thing he regretted when first getting brought to Strictland was that he never got to tell you how he truly felt. He was too scared and kept putting it off. One day when I have the guts, I'll tell her. He said that to himself so many times. One day... but one day never came because the group started to drift apart, then they were all brought here to Strictland with no warning—without you.

"Wooyoung told me you're heading for Left Eye's hideout." You mentioned.

"We are." Hongjoong nodded.

"How will you find it?"

"He told us."

"He sent us the coordinates via radio." Yunho told you.

"We'll be safe there." Yeosang mentioned.

"How long have you guys been on the ship?"

"Three days. If my calculations are correct, we have at least one more day of sailing before we get there." Mingi stated.

As night descends upon the ship, the guys decide to drop anchor at a nearby island to rest and make dinner. Turns out, learning how to raise sails and work on a ship wasn't the only thing they learned how to do while sailing.

The fire burned brightly in front of you, the orange glow from the flames flickering across everyone's faces as they sat huddled around it. They'd stocked the ship with plenty of rations and supplies, so you had some decent food to eat as well as plates and silverware to eat with. On top of that, Jongho and Seonghwa had caught some fish for you all to eat that night. Wooyoung was currently cooking said fish over the flames. Yeosang had opted to open a bag of chips stashed on board the ship while he waited for the food to finish cooking. Wooyoung scolded him for doing so, complaining that he always eats while he's cooking and that he'll ruin his appetite.

"You guys have been through so much in such a short amount of time." You commented over the crackling fire. "I can't believe I was off living my life while you were stuck here fighting for your lives."

"It's not your fault." Wooyoung shut you down immediately. "Don't blame yourself, especially for something you couldn't possibly know about."

"Yeah." Mingi spoke up. "It's the worst thing you can do."

You shot Mingi a curious gaze, prompting him to continue.

"Remember that stuff I said about the time we spent together being meaningless?"

You nodded, thinking back on the moment. That was when Jongho threw a punch at Mingi.

"I only said that because I thought I was going to lose my grandma. While I was having fun with all of you, she had collapsed. I blamed myself for not knowing even though there wasn't any way I could have been aware of what was going on. So please don't say stuff like that."

This whole time you thought he truly didn't care about the times you all shared, but it was just him blaming himself for something out of his control.

"You're right." You nodded.

"Come on, guys." Yunho nudged Mingi. "Let's lighten things up."

"Yeah." San grinned. "We've been reunited with Y/n. That should be something to celebrate, right?"

As he glanced around the group, everyone began to nod in agreement. San was right.

It was then that he jumped up and started doing a silly dance to help lighten the mood, which prompted the group's resident dance machine Yunho to do the same. The two began to bust out some dance moves, which made everyone laugh. Yeosang began dancing in his spot on the ground, one hand in the bag of chips he was eating. It didn't take very long for him to finally stand up and start dancing. After taking the fish off the fire, Wooyoung quickly joined the three, all of them doing the same dance move while Yunho sang. You recognized it as the chorus of a popular Korean pop song they used to sing and dance to.

Wooyoung pranced around the fire, the orange glow lighting up his face. You're reminded of all the times the guys had dance practices in the warehouse and the way their eyes glimmered, especially Yeosang's. He loved dancing. He was forced play the violin like his parents wanted him to, but his true passion was dancing. And Wooyoung... he had stage fright, but you were all there to help him get past that. You remembered he once admitted to you that when he got nervous, he thought of you and it helped him calm down. You never forgot that. It stuck with you.

His squeaky laughter fills the air as him, Yunho, Yeosang, and San dance together around the fire, Hongjoong watching with a fond expression.

You're relieved seeing Wooyoung in good spirits, knowing he hasn't lost his spark. He was still the same bright-eyed Wooyoung. The one who wasn't fighting against the government in a different dimension.

Seeing him having fun with the others felt like old times.

"Maybe we could just stay here." You find yourself suggesting before you can stop yourself.

The group goes quiet and the dancing ceases, making you mentally scold yourself for allowing your tongue to slip like that.

"It's too dangerous." Hongjoong said, turning the idea down immediately.

"Yeah. Why would you want to stay in a place like this?" Jongho added.

"I'm sorry. I got caught up in the moment. It's just that we're all having such a good time right now. If we go back, who's to say we won't split up again?" You voiced your concerns aloud.

"We won't split up again." Mingi told you, his gaze sincere. "I'll make sure that doesn't happen."

"Me too." San agreed.

The rest of the guys began to nod their heads, saying they'd all do whatever it takes to make sure you stick together.

"If we can't stay here, then, why not just leave right now? You have the Cromer. Let's just get out of here." You suggested.

"We can't." Yunho spoke up.

"We have to stay. It's what they want." Seonghwa stated.

"Exactly. We have a job to finish and until that gets done, we have to stay. No matter how long it takes." Hongjoong added.

"I see." You murmured, staring at the flames before you as a long silence settled over the group.

"You know, even though we're in a really bad situation, I feel a lot better knowing you're back with us." Yeosang broke the silence, taking a seat.

"Me too." Wooyoung agreed.

"We should eat before it gets cold." Seonghwa mentioned.

Right. You'd almost forgotten about dinner.

Wooyoung plated the fish and helped serve it while San prepared the side dishes, which were just canned goods.

"I promise we'll eat something better once we get to the hideout." He assured as he spooned out canned corn for everyone.

You didn't mind. In fact, you were grateful none of you had to fend for yourselves and find food out in the wild, besides the fish.

After a somewhat decent meal, you decided to take a walk down the beach, Wooyoung offered to come with and keep you company.

You stuffed your hands in your pockets as you walked along the shore, making sure the water didn't get on your shoes.

"Dinner was terrible, wasn't it?" Wooyoung spoke up.

"Not at all. It was a lot better than I thought it would be."

"That's good to know." He glanced down at his feet, watching them sink into the sand with every step.

A sigh slipped past your parted lips, your hands moving up to run through your hair as you stared out at the ship anchored out in the water.

"I feel like I ruined everything." You admitted suddenly. "I just missed you so much. I though me coming here would be a good thing, but it seems like I just walked into something much bigger than myself."

Wooyoung reached over and grabbed your hand, giving it a light squeeze.

"It is a good thing. You brought the Cromer to us." He offered up a smile. "And I missed you too. In fact, I thought about you more than I'd like to admit."

"You did?"

He nodded. "The day we were all brought back to the warehouse and we found out we weren't in our world anymore, I thought about you. I wondered what would happen to you and how you would react if you never saw us again."

"When you guys disappeared, I didn't know what to do. I didn't know what had happened or where you'd gone. It always felt like you had all just vanished, turns out you did." You took in a deep breath. "Even though things are bad here, I'm thankful the man in the fedora gave me the Cromer. If he hadn't, I'd still be wondering where you guys were."

Wooyoung couldn't help but smile. He was overjoyed that you found your way here. However, he cares too much about you and because of that, he didn't want you to get hurt—or worse.

"You should take the Cromer and go back."

His sudden suggestion made you do a double take.

"What? I'm not doing that. You said that fedora guy saw purpose in me and that I'm supposed to be here."

"I know, but..." He trailed off. "What if you get hurt? What if they capture you and your emotions get taken away?"

"I won't. If this gets used, we're using it together." You stared intensely into Wooyoung's eyes, your gaze burning into him in order to convey how serious you were.

You could see his resolve crumble almost immediately as he let out a sigh.

"Alright." He caved. "We'll use it together."

You gave a nod of finality. "Good."

With that, you both made your way back down the shore, returning to the fire, which appeared to have died down a bit while you were gone.

Seonghwa was leaned over on Yunho, both of them looking a bit drowsy. San was stretched across their laps with his eyes closed, appearing to be in the process of dozing off. You couldn't blame them. They've been running, hiding, and fighting nonstop since arriving at Strictland, and after a long day at sea and a nice meal, they're more than likely ready to rest.

Hongjoong stood up, dusting off his pants as he glanced around the group.

"Should we call it a night?"

"Mhm." San hummed, sleepily.

Jongho took it upon himself to put the remains of the fire out as everyone stood up and headed to the small row boats left on the shore, piling in. The boats were rather cramped, because of that, you found yourself sandwiched between Wooyoung and Mingi. Thankfully, the ride was fairly brief, as the ship was anchored just beyond the sandbar.

The members worked to tie the boats to the ship and pull themselves back to the deck.

Wooyoung stepped out of the small vessel and onto the bigger one, extending his hand to you. You took hold and stepped back onto the ship.

"We should figure out sleeping arrangements for Y/n." Yeosang spoke up.

"She can sleep with me." Wooyoung offered almost immediately.

No one argued, they merely nodded their heads and went their separate ways.

The thought of sharing a room with Wooyoung had you feeling a bit nervous, or perhaps you were excited. You weren't sure.

His room was exactly how you would have pictured it: small with a few tiny pieces of furniture and a bed. You knew the rooms would be small, even with your limited knowledge on ships.

"Well, here we are." He gestured before rummaging through the drawers of the tiny bedside dresser. "You take the bed."

"Where will you sleep?"

"The floor."

"Wooyoung, I'm not letting you do that. We can share the bed. I have no problem doing so."

He couldn't find it in him to argue, so he agreed to share the bed with you. It wouldn't be so bad. Wooyoung was a cuddly person anyway... with the members, at least. When it came to you, even though you were close, he found himself being hesitant, not wanting to do anything that would make you uncomfortable.

You were given some clothes to sleep in and a few moments alone to change into them. Once both you and Wooyoung were in your sleepwear, you got in bed. The sheets were rather soft and the comforter brought more warmth than you thought it would. The bed wasn't all that big and barely fit the both of you. Your shoulders were touching, pressed against each other as you both stared at the ceiling.

"Do you have enough room?" Wooyoung asked quietly.

"Not really."

"Maybe we should try something else."

Hesitantly, Wooyoung shifted, turning on his side as he worked to readjust himself.

"Can you roll on your side?" He requested.

You thought nothing of it, nodding and repositioning yourself. It was then that you felt an arm wrap around your midriff, pulling you into a warm, firm chest. An involuntary gasp left you in response. You didn't mean to, but the action surprised you—it also made butterflies erupt in your stomach.

"Is this okay?" Wooyoung asked softly, his voice so close to your ear it gave you chills.

You waited a moment to answer, afraid your voice would give out on you. "Yeah."

It was the only thing you could say.

The ship bobbed with the waves, the vessel creaking every so often as it was moved by the water. You could see the half moon outside through the porthole in Wooyoung's room, a faint beam of moonlight streaming in through the circular window. You found yourself staring at it, trying to distract yourself. Having Wooyoung hold you like this was something you dreamt about for a long time, but now that it's happening, your insides were a mess. You're so very aware of his arm around you and his chest pressed against your back.

Wooyoung had his eyes closed, still unable to believe he made such a bold move. He hoped you couldn't feel his racing heart. Like you, he was struggling to go to sleep, his mind swarming with thoughts and what ifs. He wanted to keep you safe and close, just like right now. If he were to lose you, he didn't know what he would do.

"Y/n?"

"Yes?"

"I have to tell you something."

You turned your head, glancing at him over your shoulder. "What is it?"

"It's really important and I'm afraid if I don't say something now, I won't get to say it later."

A million different things popped into your head at once, your heart jumping in response. The urgency and seriousness in his voice had you on edge. Because of this, your turned around in his hold, moving to face him. The room was dim, the only light in the small space was being provided by the half moon hanging in the night sky outside. Even in the low light, you could see Wooyoung's features, including his nervous eyes.

Sensing his unease, you spoke up, hoping to give him some solace. "Whatever it is you need to say, just say it. Don't overthink it. You know I won't judge."

Wooyoung took in a deep breath, your words bringing him very little comfort, but only because you didn't know he was about to pour his heart out.

"Alright. I'll just say it then. I like you, Y/n."

Your breath hitched slightly upon hearing his sudden confession.

"As in like like?"

"Yes."

This was news to you—big news.

"For how long?"

"Almost since we met."

"I can't believe this." You chuckled softly. "I like you too. In fact, I've liked you for about as long as you've liked me."

"You're joking." He breathed out in disbelief.

"I wish I was."

"I can't believe I waited this long to tell you and you felt the same the whole time." His head dropped as he let out a sigh of exasperation.

You gently put your hand under his chin, lifting his face up.

"At least you said something now. Better late than never, right?"

A small smile tugged at his mouth. "Right."

The room became still after that, a heavy silence hanging in the air, save for the faint creaking of the ship. You could feel Wooyoung's shallow breaths fanning lightly against your cheeks, making you realize just how close you were to him.

"Can I kiss you?" He asked in a quiet voice.

"Yes."

The next thing you felt was his lips on yours. His soft, velvety lips, the ones you've always admired and daydreamed about kissing. Now that you were actually experiencing the moment, it doesn't come close to how you imagined it—in fact, your fantasies about kissing him paled in comparison to the real thing.

Wooyoung's hand now rested on your waist, his thumb rubbing up and down in a soothing and loving manner as he kissed you, his head tilting to the side, slotting your mouths closer together. The feelings you were experiencing in the moment were indescribable. Your face was on fire and your body felt like absolute mush as well as your brain. The only thing you could think of was Wooyoung.

Wooyoung, Wooyoung, Wooyoung.

Your hand unconsciously moved towards his hair, twisting your fingers around the dark strands, tugging every once in a while in an attempt to ground yourself. In response, Wooyoung drew you in closer, pulling you by your waist until you were flush against him. This only clouded your mind further.

"Woo." You sighed against his lips.

"Y/n." He responded, sounding just as dazed and out of it as you were.

He pressed his lips firmly against yours once more before you parted ways, both of you left breathless. You huffed out a laugh, dropping your head on his chest, both of you panting in an attempt to catch your breaths.

"Wow." You chuckled.

"Yeah. Wow."

"That kiss gave me so much energy, I feel like I could take those android guardians by myself."

Wooyoung let out a soft laugh in response, holding you closer. You closed your eyes, wrapping your arm around him. Suddenly, the cramped bed felt much more comfortable with you in Wooyoung's arms.

You woke up the next day with a pep in your step. Wooyoung confessing the previous night was quite possibly the best thing that ever happened to you. The kiss you shared still had you reeling as you moved about the deck.

"Morning, Y/n." Yeosang greeted, appearing to hold back a smirk. "You seem chipper."

"You could say that."

"Did something happen last night?" He questioned.

"You could say that."

Yeosang let out a short huff of laughter through his nose. "I knew it. I can see it on your face. He finally let the cat out of the bag, didn't he?"

You nodded shyly, holding back a smile.

It was then that Wooyoung emerged, stepping out of the crew's sleeping quarters and onto the deck. Yeosang gave a glance at him, then you before grinning and walking away.

Your roommate sauntered over to you, his arms sliding around your waist from behind as he rested his chin on your shoulder.

"Morning, love." He hummed, nosing at your neck.

"Morning."

"Did you sleep well?”

"I did."

You fell asleep wrapped in Wooyoung's arms and woke up still snuggled into him. His sleeping face was the first thing you woke up to.

"You hungry?" He asked.

You nodded.

"I'll go start on breakfast. We've got a long day ahead of us. We'll need all the energy we can get."

After a rather large breakfast, everyone was feeling awake and energized. The ship was set to arrive at Left Eye's hideout later in the day and everyone was more than ready to get there. The wind had picked up, so you helped Jongho and Yunho raise the sails a bit higher, pushing the ship forward.

After that, everyone was able to meander about the vessel and wait until you reached land. Mingi sat atop a crate, watching the waves while Seonghwa busied himself by sweeping trash off the deck. Yeosang sat in the rigging with Jongho and Yunho, all three of them pushing each other every once in a while in an attempt to scare one another. San was on the forecastle deck with Hongjoong, you could hear him singing every once in a while, the wind carrying his voice down to the main deck. As for you and Wooyoung, you were both leaned against the wooden railing of the ship watching the horizon.

"Y/n!" Yunho called.

"Yeah?" You shielded your eyes from the sun with your hand as you glanced up at Yunho who was in the rigging.

"Come up here with us."

"Yeah, it's fun." Jongho added with a gummy grin.

"I don't know." You responded, unsure of wether or not you wanted to be on flimsy ropes with the three of them.

"We won't push you. We promise." Yeosang told you, though you didn't really believe him.

"I'll go with you." Wooyoung whispered. "If they harass you, I'll push one of them overboard."

You chuckled at that, moving over to the ropes and joining the three rambunctious boys.

"Hey, Y/n. Watch this." Yunho laughed, letting go of the ropes, allowing himself to fall back, hanging by his legs, which were looped into the rigging.

You squeaked in response.

"I wanna try." Wooyoung spoke up, doing exactly what Yunho had just demonstrated.

"You're both going to give me a heart attack if you keep doing that." You groaned.

They only laughed, swinging their arms with reckless abandon.

You spent your time hanging out on the ropes for quite some time. Thankfully, no one fell and no one was pushed overboard.

San extended the telescope, peering out at the horizon ahead.

"What do you see?" Hongjoong asked from the helm.

"I see land!"

A smile pulled at Hongjoong's lips. "Fellas, we made it! Left Eye's hideout is straight ahead."

The crew erupted in cheers as both happiness and relief washed over the group. Wooyoung and Yeosang were so excited they started shaking the rigging, causing you to clutch onto the ropes in order not to fall.

You were helping to set up large speakers in the streets, Wooyoung, Jongho, and a couple other Black Pirate members, making sure the cords were hooked into the large spherical speaker.

After arriving on land, the group located Left Eye's hideout where you all made plans on how to make a move against the government of Strictland. This plan included setting up speakers in the streets to play music through in hopes that it would help break people from their trances and being back their emotions.

"This one's done." Jongho said. "Let's move on to the next one."

You nodded, following behind the group, pausing when you saw a familiar silhouette in a shaded alleyway. You would have ran had it not been for the black fedora on the shadow's head.

Giving a quick glance towards the group, you turned down the alley, approaching the man. Once you stood before him, you were able to properly look into his eyes. Like his voice, something about them seemed familiar.

"You found them." He stated.

"Who are you?"

The man brought his hand up and slowly pulled down his mask to reveal the face of Wooyoung.

"You..." You trailed off, unable to finish your sentence on account of the shock you were feeling.

"Yes. It was me that brought the Cromer to you. It was also me who took it."

"You took it? I thought you were trapped with the other men in black fedoras. The ones who look like my friends."

"I was. While your friends were saving Yeosang, my group was able to make an escape. We knew what was coming and I made the decision to take the Cromer from your friends when they weren't looking. I brought it to you and you brought it back to them."

"I have so many questions." You shook your head. "How did you find me? And why me?"

"Your Wooyoung had mentioned your name when they found us trapped in the abandoned art museum belonging to the android guardians. He said he wanted to get back to you. Your friends need all the help they can get and so when I escaped, I went in search for you. It was just dumb luck that you were at the warehouse when I arrived."

"You escaped. Did the others get out too?"

He nodded.

"You have to come with me back to the hideout. We need you."

"No." He shook his head. "They mustn't know me and my team made it out."

"But you guys are the ones who started this."

"And you'll finish it."

"What? No—"

"We're watching you all. There's no need to worry. You're doing exceptionally well."

"What if this doesn't work, though? What if it backfires?" You questioned.

"You and your friends will figure something else out."

"Y/n!"

You turned to see Wooyoung standing at the end of the alley.

His shoulders sagged in relief when he spotted you.

"What are you doing?" He asked.

"I was just talking to..." Your voice faded out when you turned to find the space in front of you empty. The man in the black fedora was gone.

"No one." You added, quietly.

"Well, come on. We've got more speakers to set up."

Giving one last glance at the empty space, you turned and joined Wooyoung, heading down the vacant streets to your next destination.

You almost brought up your brief chat with the man in the black fedora, however, just as you were about to speak, something held you back.

"They mustn't know me and my team made it out."

Your words died on your tongue before they could even come out.

You should do the right thing.

"Were you going to say something, Y/n?" Wooyoung asked.

"No." You shook your head.

He glanced at you for a moment before bringing your hand up to kiss the back of it.

"Come on. Jongho and the others got ahead of us. We need to hurry and get back with them."

"Right." You nodded.

As the two of you went to catch up with the group, you glanced over your shoulder, the man in the black fedora standing idly in the street. He held his hand up, giving you a small wave. You weren't sure if he would see you, but you gave a nod towards him as a way to let him know: "Your secret is safe with me."

Hongjoong ⟡ Seonghwa ⟡ Yunho ⟡ Yeosang ⟡ San ⟡ Mingi ⟡ Jongho

Masterlist ᝰ — enjoyed this imagine? reblogs & comments are very much appreciated!

DO NOT steal, plagiarize, copy, repost, alter, or translate my works in any way

🏷 @h3arteyes4mingi @weird-bookworm @poppy2007 @parkjennykim @evidive @mxlly143 @lizzymizzy-blogg @minhanbyeol @dinossaurz

[blackjackkent]

I tend to assume that distances are a little further apart in the Lower City than they actually appear in game, so Jaheira probably doesn't ACTUALLY keep her house full of vulnerable orphans a block away from the regional headquarters of the Cult of Shar.

But nevertheless the image amuses me.

In any event, Jaheira has her ear to the ground enough that I imagine she has some idea of what the "House of Grief" is, even if she didn't specifically know it was a Sharran installation. So she's able to direct the group in roughly the right direction based on the information that Ferg gave us.

The whole group is definitely on edge long before reaching the door, because the people hanging around outside the place seem to be having a bit of a weird day.

"Hmm.... hum hmmm hmmm hum... Pardon my singing. That lullaby's been stuck in my head since... Funny, I can't recall..."

"Wonderful little beast... nimble as anything!"

[INVESTIGATION] Study the man's appearance.

Narrator: A man of means, judging by his attire. He looks like a merchant or a junior council member. But right now he's without care, entranced by a tree.

"What are you looking at?"

"There was a squirrel in the tree. Marvelous creature. Inquisitive and nut-crazed!"

Rakha blinks slowly at the man, then towards the tree. She remembers the squirrel she spotted in the Grove, how the beast took over and slaughtered it. She would like to see a squirrel and not want to kill it. But there's nothing there.

"I don't see any squirrel," she says cautiously.

"Give it time," the man says happily. "I had to wait for - oh, I don't even know how long - to catch a glimpse." There's a pause, and then his smile fades in favor of a mildly troubled expression.

"You... wouldn't happen to know where I live, would you?"

Rakha goes still, her eyes narrowing. "No,"(*) she says after a long, uncertain pause.

"I see. It must have just... slipped my mind," the man says vaguely. "These things happen."

Narrator: This is more than a lapse, you sense. Something's been done to the man's memories.

Rakha draws a sharp breath. Of course it isn't really a surprise to find people with tampered memories outside of the place they are going to pursue Shadowheart's history. But it's unsettling, seeing that blankness in another's eyes. She rubs involuntarily at the long, jagged scar from Orin's knife at the back of her skull.

"What *do* you remember?" she asks after a moment.

The man thinks about that for a moment. "Well," he says at last, "I remember I was sad. But in truth... I'm not quite sure what caused it. I'm not even sure I know what sad *is* anymore." He cocks his head and looks towards the large building to his right. "And I came from that building over there. They were very nice to me," he adds brightly. "Seemed very helpful. Though... for the life of me, I can't recall what I was doing there in the first place."

Well, that seems definitive. The Sharrans wiped the man's memory for some reason. But why?

I'm not even sure I know what sad is.

Rakha reflects sardonically that the Sharrans did a better job than Orin did; many other things are beyond her reach, but she is altogether too aware of what sad is.

She catches Wyll's troubled expression out of the corner of her eye and breathes out slowly, thinking. "Is there anyone you can go to?" she asks gruffly. "Anyone who could help?"

"There must be, you would think," the man says, his head slowly tilting to one side. "You know, I can swear there is someone, but their name escapes me. Hells... even their face escapes me... a figment of my imagination perhaps." He trails off, then smiles distantly. "It will come back to me. Or not. I'm content enough here in either case."

Rakha feels a strange shiver run up her back. She can see the shape of what might have happened here. Memory loss not by the traumatic ripping that Orin performed but a surgical, deliberate obliteration. Meant to remove a face, and a grief associated with that face.

Would she let someone take the memories of Wyll, if things had gone badly? Of her friends? The idea troubles her deeply - she has few enough memories without losing what little she has - and yet the man seems... happy. Happier than he was before, to hear him tell it.

Perhaps it only troubles her because it makes her wonder far too much about the miseries of her past that she has forgotten.

-----

(*) In-game line "Can't say that I do."

[infiniteorangethethird]

anyway here's part 2 to my paracosm snippets

(previous / next)

ignore the fact it took me more than a month to post this

-

It was exactly midnight when Mike opened his eyes.

At least, that’s how he would’ve written it, if his life was a book. It would’ve been a headstrong introduction. But alas, his life was not a book, and he had no idea if it was actually midnight.

All he could tell was that the sky was clear, the stars were beautifully visible, and that there definitely was no second nor third moon the last time he went to sleep.

He would’ve kept admiring the sight, if not for the head appearing right above his own.

“Hey there! Are you alright?”

Mike stirred at the question. He tried to recall the last thing he saw before waking up. He remembered Leo’s message with a “call for adventure” (his words, not Mike’s), how they were supposed to meet at a cave entrance of all places. Strange place for a first ever meeting in person, but Mike wasn’t one to judge. He remembered entering the cave with Leo, wondering how many people have died following strangers into weird caves. He remembered getting lost, he remembered the weird berry bushes inside, the ones that then began moving around and that spoke to them about stories and dimensions and imagination coming to life, he remembered Leo’s friend showing up alongside Rowena, then a flash of light and-

A wave of dizziness hit him at that last memory. He swallowed a groan.

“…yeah, sure. Just admiring the stars. Although, if you ask me, some of those constellations have changed place since I last went stargazing.”

“Oh thank god,” Leo sighed, vanishing from Mike’s vision as he straightened up. “For a sec I thought I accidentally teleported your internal organs separately, or something.”

“Certainly would’ve made for a much different evening, don’t you agree?” Mike couldn’t help but smile. Leo was a nice guy, but he had a habit of worrying just a tad bit too much at times.

Except when he was about to plunge himself and his friend into a completely different reality, apparently.

“Speaking of teleportation.” Mike sat up, taking in his new environment as much as the moonlight allowed. “Where are we anyway?”

He turned around slowly, inspecting his surroundings. On his left, the edge of a coniferous forest, sparse enough for him to see the stars between the trunks. In front of him, a large clearing rolled into a low hill, rising lazily until its dark form became indistinguishable from the inky sky. To his right, the other edge of the forest continued.

And behind him, the midsection of the forest, in front of which he could vaguely make out Leo’s thin frame.

Leo’s eyes glinted with excitement. “I have no idea,” he whispered.

“Well, that sounds like a surefire way to get lost and then starve to death,” Mike noted, taking Leo’s hand to stand up. His words had no venom, though.

Leo chuckled. “Between my magic staff and your willar abilities, I supposed we could easily come up with something if need be. Plus, who knows? We might even run into civilization at some point.”

Mike dusted himself off, shaking his wings and using his fingers to comb out the grass blades from between his feathers. By the time he deemed himself clean enough, Leo already stood by the edge of the trees, waiting impatiently for his companion.

“Ready whenever you are, princess,” he said as Mike caught up. Mike ignored the bitter taste in his mouth at the nickname.

“So, uh, just to be absolutely and definitely sure,” he began instead. “Is it true that we’re currently in a book?”

“A book, a movie, a series – anything that counts as a fictional story,” Leo replied nonchalantly. He walked with a spring in his step, lighting the way with a magic flame at the end of his staff. “But, yes. This alternate reality – this dimension – is, in fact, the same as one of our stories in our homeworld.”

Mike pondered the idea for a moment.

“Can you imagine?” Leo continued enthusiastically. “The worlds we will see! The people we’ll meet! All this time, an infinitely vast universe hid right under our noses – and now we finally get to be the first ones to explore it all! The limit is, quite literally, only our imagination!”

He turned back to face Mike. “Can’t wait to see one of yours in person, too. I mean, can you?”

Mike didn’t know what to say to that. Despite a writer himself, he appeared to have run out of words to properly express the swirling tornado of emotions within him.

“Uh, sure,” he replied.

[duskowithapen]

Naruto's Voice

Part One of Who Knows

January's Rambles Day Four

Word Count: 644

Summary: What if Naruto made contact with the Kyuubi years before canon? What if the Kyuubi cared?

Naruto's Voice

The voice was one of the few things that lasted in Naruto’s life. The food sold to him by the grocer would rot away in a day or two. The things the drunks would throw changed by day or hour. Naruto never knew how long he’d be able to play with the other kids before their parents pulled them away. But the voice was always there – always rumbling in the back of his mind.

When the grocer’s handed him milk past its use-by date, the voice would grumble about how, one day, Naruto would get to taste milk fresh from the goat. When the meat squished alarmingly in his hands, it promised to teach him how to catch his own meat, taste the rich flavours of goat and steer and fish. When Naruto travelled home with two weeks’ worth of ramen for a month’s worth of yen, he didn’t think about the repetitive meals in his future, but of sweet berries plucked straight from the bush, fish caught fresh from the stream, crisp vegetables pulled ripe from the earth. Sometimes, while eating his ramen, Naruto imagined he was eating berries and fish and vegetables instead of soggy noodles and broth. Sometimes he could almost taste it.

If the drunks threw rocks, the voice would judge their aim. If the drunks threw half-finished bottles, the voice would scoff about the wasted drink. If the drunks threw harsh words – demon, murderer, freak – the voice would drown them out with nicer ones – treasure, precious, mine. But it was when the rocks and bottles and fists connected that the voice would get angry. Get livid. The voice would howl about those spineless worms, daring to harm my vessel, my treasure, and how they were a waste of chakra and air, not worthy of being in our presence. It would vow to avenge Naruto, to return the pain they caused you a hundred-fold before allowing them the peace of the Shinigami’s embrace, often at a volume that drowned out the violent fantasies of his attackers.

The voice was quieter when Naruto played with other kids. It would stick to deep rumbles as he ran, high yips when he got close to catching someone during tag, a low croon when he tripped and fell, a rolling chuckle when he missed his target. Loud snarls would warn of the parents’ approach. Every cruel word was answered by kinder ones – talented child, brave warrior, precious treasure. Every mean look was answered by a warmth in his stomach and whispered reassurances – you are loved, you are adored, you are wanted. And when Naruto was left alone in the playground, the voice would encourage him to play anyway. See how fast you can climb the tree, it told him, see how many times you can run around the clearing, see how many cartwheels you can do. In the sandpit, Naruto would try and sculpt the voice from its vague instructions – I have four legs, like a cat, and no, my ears are longer, like a pointy rabbit, and my face isn’t so flat, it’s longer than that. It was quiet for a moment when Naruto tried to make a tail. There was an upset feeling in his stomach that didn’t shift until he added another tail, and another, and another – until there was a somewhat-cat shaped creature curled up in the middle of the sandpit, long nose touching the tips of nine tails. By its belly, Naruto placed a tiny little sand-Naruto with tiny seeds for eyes.

The sand-Naruto looked cozy. It looked like it belonged there, protected in the circle of the voice’s body. Longing caught in the real-Naruto’s throat. In the back of his mind, the voice purred and rumbled and promised.

One day, my treasure. One day, I will no longer be caged, and I will grant you everything you deserve.

To be continued... eventually

[mcmorare]

“Really? Jesus. I bet I spent half my childhood in the woods.”  It isn’t the first time she’s run into the city-small town divide, but it’s always one that she finds interesting. Before moving to Vienna, she’d never given it much thought, other than a passing joke or two or a vague wondering whenever they visited a city. But especially since starting to play professionally, in the big leagues, it’s become something she notices. So much of who she is comes from where she grew up, she can’t imagine who she would be if she’d lived somewhere closer to a city.  “Next time you’re in Austria or Germany I’ve got to show you one of the national parks.”  Even if not everyone would appreciate it, she thinks everyone should at least have a chance to get out somewhere like that. At least once. As she explains about Brentford, she smiles and nods in understanding.  “Ah.”  That makes more sense. She’s certainly been a bit of an asshole in her fair share of matches. No doubt that had frustrated some opponents, but, as she would so bluntly say, tough shit.  “Nothing to prove.”   She says again.  “You should. Trees don’t judge, they only listen.”  Yeah, maybe that sounded like some hippie crystal garbage, but she does mean it. It’s one of the reasons she thinks it’s so calming out there - no opinions or judgements to worry about. Just the trees and the birds.

"Erm - no, I mean, like..." he trails off, lips pursed up together, then shakes his head again. "Lived m'whole life in cities, and when I'm on holiday, I go t'other cities. Paris, Barcelona, Rome." Jamie's not good with isolation. He's someone who thrives in crowded spaces, where he can hide, or where he can be in front of a massive amount of people all cheering his name. He likes attention, he likes the sounds of other people existing around him - it's less alienating to think about the fact that he's not the only one with his problems. That there must be other people around him who are stressed about work, or their love lives, or the fears that they'll never live up to their full potentials. He snorts a laugh when she asks about the Brentford fans. "I mean, I'm sure some of us could go there during the day, but when you're me, and I may or may not've been a prick to 'em last derby before I scored a brace, it's probably not wise." Jamie's always been incredibly competitive during derby days; he still treats playing United like a derby day, despite the fact that he's long gone from his days at City. He knows better than to just waltz into that territory and act like he's the shit [ even if he is the shit ]. "Nothing t'prove..." he repeats slowly. Weird. The only times he'd ever felt like he'd had nothing to prove was when he's at home with his mum. Georgie has always made it very clear that, no matter what happens, he's loved. "Yeah. Yeah, might do, yeah," he finally agrees, thinking about it a little bit harder. It might be good for him.

[corriegardenia]

Amatakka - How to Write in the Tattooine Slave Language

For anyone not running in these particular fanon circles, Amatakka is the fake language of the star wars slave people, Amavikka, like Anakins family at birth. It was originally made by @fialleril, adapted by a whole lot of fan authors like @blue-sunshine-mauve-morning, and grew a life of its own from there.

It has a community dictionary with several hundred words, (https://at.tumblr.com/booklindworm/amatakka-dictionary/0dvnmuhlusq3) and a very basic phoneme dictionary (https://conworkshop.com/view_language.php?l=AMAT ), but absolutely no script, other than the vague idea that it'd be written in the Tusken script... which also does not exist. This is my attempt.

(The conlang fundamentally can't be separated from the slave experience, if anyone is disquieted and wants to step off. The way canonical star wars treats slavery is... weird at best; this is supposed to be a language of empowerment. I'll link some folktales at the end!)

In spite of being a communal conlang for an oral language, and my linguistics training being... sporadic, and mostly based on what helped me pick up my current four languages, and two pick-and-drop-and-pick-again languages.

I'd start with something like the inuktitut script (https://youtu.be/xW4hI_METac ). Amatakka is very polysynethic, and the idea of basing my script cataloguing an extant language off of another script cataloguing an extent language tickles me. But a lot of sounds have a specific cultural meaning that is used almost every single time that sound is used in the entire conlang. (Which is desperately impressive, considering it was primarily created by one author, extended by another, and then absorbed into damn near every fan work concerning Tattooine, but I digress.)

For that, i'd use something like Japanese's mixture of three writing systems: kanji, complex and symbolic pictograms; katakana, phonetic representations of loan words; hiragana, phonetic representations of original Japanese words.

In my Amatakka script, I'd put certain heavily symbolic sounds, like ur (wrong) ama (mother, heavily connected with their main goddess) and ani (rain/freedom) into 'kanji', which allows them to be represented as a concept even if the pronunciation changes a little (ani as raindrop and an- as rain, anumakkar as rainstorm, all symbolic of freedom)

Then, I'd put the remaining sounds in an inuktitut based system of syllables, based on the conlang dictionary of phonemes and an analysis of the Google sheet collection of amatakka words.

A system like this seems to fit the language we have well, which would make sense as - both in Canon and in fandom - the words came first, then the writing down of them. Multiple 'kanji' with one component being the same could represent different words, like how levrukka and er-amma are both names for ar-amu, and 雨、雪、電 (rain, snow, electricity) all contain the same radical. (There are probably better examples from folk more fluent in Japanese than me).

Example of this in practise, Depurekta, a slave who enslaves others. This is made of dep, chain, plus ur being something like twisted / wrong-but-less-morally-judgemental, which together is the word for slave owner, plus ekta, healer, one who heals the chains that bind.

Lets look at just that ur in the middle. It appears in japur, a scraggly and twisted native tree where ja- is being native to tattoine; also in kotovur, skin hunger, where ko- is mere skin contact; kusur, sarlacc, where kus- is nourishment; murek, a purple that also symbolises wealth and otherness, where me- is you, yourself; nuro, judge, where no- is son <twisted son who cooperates with slavers judgements>; tovur, starvation, where though we don't have a translation for to- specifically we have torazu and toris, both forms of edible seed; urs-gillig, a tusken relic cave, where I imagine gillig is a regular cave.

This said, when placed inside larger words, ur loses its symbolic meaning, eg shursu, root or foundation, where shulku is suitability; suru, puddle, where sudu is spinning/whirling air movement; kurra, strengthening food where ku- itself is nourishment; kurio, with the same root, appears more in line with ur as a symbolic sound.

(The third person pronoun tur has interesting connotations in this model, but I digress.)

So! Depurekta would probably be fully kanji, with ur being one radical in the kanji for depur, since that's such a key word for the amavikka people.

Kotovur, skin hunger, would have that ur kanji after an inuktitut style descriptive of its first two syllables, with ko- possibly getting its own kanji, as it is also used in words relating to skin contact with less desperate connotations.

Murek, purple associated with otherness, would probably be entirely inuktitut with the kanji in the middle.

Perhaps the system would, in the interest of becoming compact, turn into a hybrid model, with the symbolic pictogram in the middle and small lines off of it representing the inuktitut syllables, so that the whole word could be compressed small and hidden. Amatakka is an oral language, so any amount of writing they do have is likely to be hidden and special, like japor snippets or carvings worn close to the heart.

I am NOT planning on fleshing out the entire writing system, because that would take either hours of manual labour or an understanding of how to make a database spit out the symbolic sounds in words, both of which are not possible for me right now. I MAY write some of my favourite words, after my exams. I only have experience with the celtic and romance language families, barring a spattering of Greek, my Japanese, and English as my native tongue. I'd love to see someone else try and puzzle out how to write in amatakka; this is my attempt.

And, for those who are curious, the folk tales promised - I absolutely recommend a deep dive!!

https://archiveofourown.org/works/4678835

https://archiveofourown.org/works/3510809

https://archiveofourown.org/works/206521

(This one is a good sample of amavikka culture, but is part of a larger fic. Its a good larger fic!) > https://archiveofourown.org/works/18538078?view_full_work=true https://archiveofourown.org/works/19087303/chapters/45669586

[rocorambles]

Trapped

Pairing: Sakusa x Reader

Prompt: Fantasy

Genre/Warnings: Yandere, Toxic Relationship, NSFW, Fantasy AU, Sorcerer Sakusa, Rape/Non-Con, Mind Control, Manipulation, Obsessive and Posessive Behavior, Degradation

Summary: You should have trusted your gut instincts, the lessons you had learned the hard way about just how cruel powerful men could be. 

Author’s Note: This is my contribution for my HQ Discord Server’s NSFW collaboration. There are so many talented writers on the server and I highly encourage you to check out the collaboration masterlist here to see how everyone decided to run with this prompt. (Masterlist goes live Friday, October 30th 11:00pm U.K. time!)  

You splutter awake, laughing, but also groaning as a wet tongue slobbers all over your face and you lightly shove the fox that’s currently standing beside your resting head, intent on waking you up to play. Blearily you blink your eyes, trying to gauge what time it is based on the light seeping into the cave you’ve come to call your home. Judging by the bright rays of sunlight, it’s already mid-morning and you stretch your arms above your head, petting your furry companion behind its ears before standing up and treading out into the forest, your friend walking right beside you, its tail brushing against your leg. 

The familiar peace and quiet of the wind rustling past branches and the faint chirping of birds wafts through the air and you smile as you continue making your way to the nearby waterfall, various four-legged animals that have come to be your family and friends popping their heads out of grassy patches and from behind trees in greeting. You can’t even remember the last time you’d seen another human being and you grimace at the thought of your last encounter. 

Orphans, especially female orphans like you, rarely survive for long and you bitterly remember the years of being a street urchin, never knowing when your next bite of food would come, never knowing who to trust in a world full of both humans and magical creatures who’d do horrible things to an unclaimed child and you shiver at the thought of possibly being eaten or harvested for ingredients for countless dark magic spells. But life had only gotten harder the older you became and as a single, vulnerable woman, you began to attract a different attention, no longer able to blend as seamlessly as you once had with predatory eyes trailing after you, resting too long on parts of your body that you desperately wanted to hide from the world. 

You tried sticking it out, finding ad hoc jobs here and there as a maid, as a seamstress, as a waitress. But corruption ran deep wherever you went and disgust makes you recoil when you remember all the times you’d been cornered by all types of men and creatures, received unwanted touches in hidden corners and degrading remarks of what your only purpose in life was. And after being left to sob, pain lancing between your legs, your clothes ripped to shreds, knowing no one would ever take your side, knowing that this would just continue happening over and over again, you vowed to never have anything to do with another sentient being ever again. 

You’d heard rumors of the forest, about its enchantment, about the stories of terrible things hiding away in its heart, but you couldn’t imagine any monster worse than the ones you’ve already encountered and you determinedly march forward, never turning back to look at the city you’re leaving behind. And as you step past the border of trees, even you, someone who’s never had anything to do with magic, can feel the surge of power, feel the crackling energy as you delve deeper and deeper. But maybe the forest could sense that you meant it no harm, maybe it knew that you were just a lonely, helpless soul, maybe it felt generous, felt pity for the damaged woman seeking refuge. Whatever the case was, it left you alone and in all the years you’d made a home in its lush vegetation, not once had you met any of the ghastly creatures you’d heard so many horror stories of. And maybe that’s why you let your guard down when you meet him, finding a false security in the wood and grass-filled world you now live in. 

You don’t bother being quiet or stealthy as you walk. Why would you when there’s never been anyone else around? So imagine your shock when black human eyes are staring at you as you round the corner and reach the water’s edge and panic laces through you when you see how masculine and strong he looks, overwhelming fear making you tremble when you take in the staff you see laying next to him. 

A sorcerer. 

You’d learned the hard way that men were never to be trusted and that men with power and wealth were the ones to be even more wary of. Fortunately you’d only dealt with vile wealthy men and as awful as they had been, you know men gifted with an affinity for magic make those nobles seem as harmless as kittens in comparison. You’d seen firsthand the havoc sorcerors could wreak, seen the charred, mutilated, disfigured bodies put on display at the city gates as an example of the fate for anyone who rebels against the crown. To your knowledge, all sorcerors worked for the royal family, rarely leaving the walled fortress unless sent on a mission or task, but never in a place like this so-called cursed forest. So what was he doing here? 

The urge to flee thrums through your veins, but when he makes no move to stand or get any closer to you, curiosity gets the better of you and you stay rooted to your spot and before you can stop yourself, you find yourself asking the first question that comes to mind. 

“Who are you?” 

When Sakusa had ventured outside of the castle walls for a break from the irritating humans inside the cramped corridors and bustling courtrooms, he had purposefully chosen a place where no other soul would be. His hand had immediately wrapped around his staff as the sound of approaching rustling interrupted his thoughts, but when you had made your presence known, he could only stare in awe, staff forgotten as he took you in. 

You’re different from the usual noble women he sees on a daily basis. For one, you’re barely wearing anything, a makeshift dress of strung together leaves, flowers, and grass the only thing covering you and he can feel his face grow hot as he tries not to blatantly stare at your bare legs and arms. But as he really regards you, he can’t help but feel something wild, something primal in you and he blinks in shock when he realizes that you have the same energy as the forest, as if the forest has claimed you as one of its own and he’s so entranced by his realization that he’s startled by the sound of your voice.

From anyone else, he would have scowled at the forwardness and bluntness of the question, but for some reason, coming from you, he finds himself easily answering. 

“Sakusa Kiyoomi” 

People, conversations, human interaction. Those are all things Sakusa abhors and yet, as you tentatively draw closer to him, staring at him in wide eyed curiosity while the two of you exchange words, he thinks he doesn’t mind any of those things when you’re involved. He comes to visit you as often as he can, something warm blooming inside of him as he sees your hackles relax, notices how you inch closer and closer to him every time he arrives, and he can’t help but compare you to a wild animal and behind the warmth in his chest, something darker lurks, and he wonders what it would be like to tame you, claim you back from the wooded forest that had taken you in, mark you as his own. 

And that thought festers and grows inside of him. 

He does his best to keep it at bay, play it off as just a fleeting idea, but when your eyes and body begin to seep into his dreams, into his every waking thought, he can’t keep the desire down any longer and when he strides towards you once more, he drops to one knee in front of you, asking for your hand in marriage. 

In hindsight it probably was foolish to think that you were as smitten with him, foolish to think that someone who had been scarred enough to escape from civilization would easily just return to the place full of painful memories, and yet red hot anger blazes through him when you turn him down. It doesn’t matter how sweet and kind you are about it, gently letting him down and telling him you’re sure he’d find someone much better suited to being his wife, someone prim and proper, someone educated and knowledgeable of court intricacies. 

Humiliation only fuels his rage as he rises back to his feet and he can feel his magic churning, waiting to be used, dancing at his fingertips, and he has half a mind to forcefully drag you back with him, but he retracts it, pushes it down deep inside of him as he takes a deep breath. No, he wants you to come back and grovel at his feet, beg him to take you in, to help you. He wants you to feel the same need for him that he feels for you and he bites his tongue and restrains himself as his mind begins to plan and strategize. 

He tries to remain as normal as possible, still going to visit you as often as before, but his nails dig into the palm of his hands at the pity in your eyes and he clenches his teeth at the way that you tread around him like he’s a wounded animal. But he takes those feelings and lets them drive him late through the night as he chants strange words, flips through old scrolls, experiments with different spells and ingredients and a rare smile stretches across his face when the pieces finally come together. 

It’s time to take set his plan in motion and in the middle of the night while most of the city is fast asleep, there’s a strange flashing light, a rush of something sinister in the air, and the murmurs of masculine chanting swirling in the air, lingering, and foreshadowing the dark days ahead. But you remain asleep, peacefully ignorant of the shift in the atmosphere, naive to just how much your life will change.  

 You wake up, surprised by the lack of a warm furry body or tongue lapping at your face, and you vaguely wonder if you’d woken up in the middle of the night, but the sunlight filtering through tells you a different story. You feel strange, warning bells beginning to faintly clamor in your head, and you gingerly step outside of your lair only to freeze at the dead silence surrounding you. It’s always quiet and calm in the forest, but where there is usually the sound of nature and creatures, now there is only a deathly silence and you stare in horror as the forest seems to decay right in front of your eyes. What used to be green grass is wilting and brown. The trees you’d spent years climbing and picking fruit from are completely bare. But what makes a choked sob get caught in your throat is the corpses of the animals who’d you come to be so fond of littered around you and your slow stuttered amble becomes a frenzied run, as you race through your dying home, hoping to see any sign of life left. 

But days pass and the state of your home only gets worse. Your throat is parched without clean water to drink, all the water sources near you murky and littered with fish corpses indicating just how toxic they’ve become. Your stomach aches with hunger, no vegetation, fruits, or animals nearby for you to ingest. And a deep loneliness churns inside of you and once again you feel as alone as you did when you were just a dirty street urchin trying to scrape together a living off the streets. 

So when Sakusa comes for his regular visit and finds your weakened body slumped on the floor of your cave, it just makes sense to you, survival instincts kicking in, to drag yourself over to his feet, fling your arms around him when he finally bends down, and sob into his chest. You don’t question the way he’s slow to crouch down to your level and comfort you. You don’t see the cruel smile on his face when he sees you pathetically laying at his feet. You don’t notice the glee in his eyes as you beg him to take you with him. And when he asks you if you’d like to come and be his assistant, you eagerly nod your head and cling tighter to him, burying your face in his comforting and familiar presence as he teleports the two of you back to his living quarters. 

Months pass and despite your initial wariness of returning to live among other beings, you find that Sakusa seems to dislike being around others just as much as you, and the two of you find a comfortable way of life mostly holed up in his living quarters with only the other as company. You’d never really been exposed or taught anything about magic growing up, so you’re genuinely fascinated as you watch Sakusa chant, attentively listening as he tells you what each ingredient is, eagerly following his every step as he shows you firsthand how to mix different potions. And Sakusa thinks that your aptitude for learning, the perfect synchronization the two of you have as you seamlessly work your way into his rhythm, preparing and setting things up before he even needs to tell you, speaks volumes of just how perfect the two of you are together, speaks volumes of how you were meant to be together. 

He continues strategizing, gaining your trust, letting you grow accustomed to his presence, smiling at the way you don’t even bat an eye when his hands linger on yours a bit longer than normal when he hands you something, at the way you don’t tense up anymore when he presses his body against you from behind as he physically guides and shows you how to do something. And he knows he’s on the right track when you take the initiative to swipe a strand of his hair behind his ear as he concentrates on a task at hand, when you perch your chin on his shoulder, peeking over his shoulder as he jots down notes. 

But even the greatest minds make mistakes and when he sends you off to find a certain piece of text for him from the bookshelf in the corner of his room, he forgets to clarify where on the shelf to look and not wanting to bother him, you meticulously comb through every book, forehead scrunching in curiosity when you find a notebook tucked behind, as if it was meant to be hidden. You consider just passing it over, not wanting to intrude on Sakusa’s privacy, but having gone through most of the books and not finding what you need, you wonder if perhaps the thing he’s looking for is in here and that this had just been misplaced or accidentally pushed towards the back of the shelf. 

As you flip through the pages you quickly realize this is a book of Sakusa’s own spells and you stare in awe at how much work he’d done, how extensive his own self-created spell repertoire is, but suddenly your heart freezes when you flip to the last few filled pages. You’re not as fluent as Sakusa is when it comes to the ancient magical language, but you know enough after the time you’ve spent with him, the lessons he’s taught you, to recognize ‘plague’ and ‘forest’ and your throat and heart feel both heavy and panicked when you realize the implication of what you’d found. And suddenly you remember the day he had proposed to you vividly, ice cold shock and realization making you shudder when you remember a flash of something dark in his eyes when you had rejected him. And your hands tremble when you see the very last page, taking note of the phrase ‘mind control’. But before you can dwell on it, you squeal in surprise when the book is plucked from your hands and you’re rooted to the spot by dark eyes pinning you down. 

You want to scream angry words at him. You want to escape. And yet, you do neither, frozen with fear when you remember exactly what happened to the victims who’d defied sorcerers.

“Hmm. This spell’s not quite ready yet, but I guess we can test it out early.” 

And before you can even register what’s happening, a firm hand is placed on the top of your head, the other wrapped around your throat to keep you still as magic surges through the air and you vaguely hear yourself pleading for him to stop, until suddenly you feel trapped in your own body, the connection between your conscience and physical figure severed and you stare in horror as your body goes limp and docile in his arms. 

Sakusa peers into your eyes in interest, humming in thought as he scrawls a few more notes in his notebook. 

“The end goal of this spell is for me to be able to completely control your mind, but right now it looks like I only have control of the section that handles your physical functions if that ugly hate-filled look in your eyes is any indication. But let’s test my theory shall we?”

And it feels like a bad dream as your body submissively makes its way to his bed, seductively swaying your hips as you sprawl out on his bedsheets, eagerly wrapping your arms around the back of his neck as he joins you, bringing him down for a kiss. He’s rough and invasive as he tears your clothes off, calloused hands touching and contaminating every inch of you and you feel disgust as he examines you like you’re a piece of prime meat he’s purchased, coldly and meticulously pinching and prodding you as he observes what makes your body react. And for once, you hate how observant he is, how in tune to your smallest shifts he is, how sensitive your body is as your nipples perk up, as little moans escape past your traitorous lips when he pinpoints your weak spots. 

But what you hate most is the triumphant grin on his face when his dexterous fingers swipe against your lower lips and you internally flinch at the glistening slick that coats his fingers when he holds it to your face, evidence of the heavy arousal mixing with your humiliation and hate. And you try to think of anything else, imagine you’re anywhere but here as he begins to wonder out loud while his fingers twist and turn inside of you, reaching and touching places you’d never been able to explore yourself, if he even needs to tweak his spell anymore seeing how you’re a slave to your body’s natural desire for pleasure. Maybe there wasn't a need to completely control your thoughts and emotions as well.

He hadn’t realized what a slut you are, getting off to anyone using your body, and he leers down at you while he continues questioning you, knowing full well you can’t answer or retort to his crude remarks. And he idly wonders if your mind would naturally break without additional magic if he pleasured you enough, transformed you into a warm body that constantly seeks and craves his touch.

The fear in your eyes at his words only fuels his need to completely dominate you and he grits his teeth as he slides into your drenched hole, eyes closing shut as he just stays still and revels in how tight you are, how perfectly you wrap around him. And when he opens his eyes and sees the glassy-eyed lustful look on your face from being filled, he finally releases himself from the controlled facade he so carefully always wears and lets himself dive headfirst into the sultry, dizzying, primal embrace of lust as he pistons his hips in and out of you at a brutal pace, dark eyes never straying from your face as your eyes begin to roll back and your wanton mewls fill the air. 

He can feel his end approaching, but he’d be damned if he didn’t make you fall apart with him, drown you in inescapable pleasure, and his hand slips between the two of you, fingers finding your aroused clit and all it takes is a few rubs and thrusts before your body is tensing up, back arching, mouth opening in a silent scream, body convulsing and writhing underneath him, your cunt milking him as you’re forcefully brought to your peak. And he joins you over that edge, thick white spurts coating your twitching walls. 

You pray that he’s done, that he’ll release you now that he’s thoroughly tasted and had you, now that you’re just sloppy seconds, used goods. But you’re startled when he lovingly kisses you and tenderly strokes your hair, and your stomach churns at the genuine affection you see in his eyes. And your heart drops, any last bit of hope you had extinguished as he holds your body close to him in a mockery of a loving embrace and whispers in your ear about the future he has planned for both of you, a future where you stay by his side as an obedient, submissive housewife, a future where you’re willing and eager to please him, to love him. 

That was always his goal for the both of you, he insists, and a flame of anger burns inside of you at the exasperated and patronizing sigh he directs your way as he blames you for forcing his hands, for forcing him to do this the hard way, for forcing him to resort to magic when you could have saved everyone the hassle by just accepting his proposal all those months ago. 

Hate and anger twist and coil inside of you and yet, when he kisses you once more, your body instinctively leans into the soft touch before obediently going lax as he tells you to sleep, eyes automatically closing at the command, and Sakusa smiles at your slumbering figure. It’s not exactly how he had planned to go about this, the mind control spell being more of a back-up option he had been trying to avoid, but you’re finally irrevocably his and that’s all that matters.  

[somedrunkpirate]

learn the dead | Arthur/Eames

Read here on ao3 or continue below Tags: Presumed Dead, First Time, Angst with a happy ending, pining Rating: T Wordcount: 5,4k 

------------------------------

Everything checks out. 

The hospital records, the police report, even the fucking local news because, to quote scruffy looking anchor, with a stutter no less, “There has— sn’t been an lethal acc—sident for over ten years on this s—street.” 

The information is bare-bones, but that isn’t remarkable for an open and shut case like this: drunk driver meets tree trunk. Happens a thousand times a year, and will continue to happen whether you make a fuss out of it or not. Write down the licence plate, try (and fail) to inform relatives, do the paperwork and get home on time for dinner for once. Simple as pie. 

Except. Except Arthur wouldn’t have. He wouldn’t have driven drunk. His stick reaches too far up his ass to do something so utterly reckless in reality. 

That thought is what had spurred Eames to begin his search— there had to be something, anything, that could explain the whole bullshit situation. Even if that something is a hit, covered up like an accident. Then at least Eames would have some to blame— Someone to kill. 

But everything checks out. 

Even that initial discrepancy. Arthur couldn’t have been drunk, but after many phone calls and bribes, Eames had learned what Arthur could have been. 

He could have been high. 

His last job had been an experimental trial. Not with a chemist Eames knew. An academic who had shit his pants when Eames barged in with a smile as sharp as a knife— and a knife in his hand, of course. Wouldn’t do to be less than intimidating in this case. The chemist had spluttered into a rant Eames had understood half of, so he’d called Yusuf and held the phone up without responding to the cursing at being awoken in the middle of the night. But he’d caught on quickly, started to ask questions Eames wouldn’t have thought to ask. Then more, sharper. With a hiss.  

“What is he saying?” Eames had asked, after the chemist had run out of breath. 

“Eames—“ 

The way Yusuf sounded, a sigh more than an utterance. The tone of his voice as it tried to fold in pity— badly. Yusuf was never quite made for compassion. Though the attempt had been enough to haunt Eames’ nightmares since. 

“Eames. He’s dead.” 

The confirmation had come without fanfare in the end. Eames didn’t even kill the chemist, after. It hadn’t been his fault that the mix Arthur had taken voluntarily turned out to suppress reflexes when tired. Not tired as they would call it— after a rush job, when exhaustion nipped at your heels. Just tired; about to drink a cup of coffee tired. Arthur probably hadn’t even felt any different until it was too late. But it had been raining, and he’d been driving for more than six hours. It was no one’s fault that Arthur had lost control over the vehicle just in front of the only tree in a three mile radius.There had been a rabbit flattened between the car and the bark. He’d probably been trying to save it. 

A fucking rabbit. 

Eames had hung up on Yusuf without a word. It had been the last time he’d spoken to anyone for a long time. 

Except that isn’t quite true. 

“Well, darling, you’ve gotten me in quite a pickle.” 

The grave doesn’t respond. It never does. 

— — — — —

If someone had told him that his reaction to Arthur’s death would be to stand before his grave every day for a month straight, he'd have laughed his lungs out of his chest. 

It would’ve been sad, of course, to see such a talented colleague go. He might even have gone on a bender for a week— drinking away the sorrows that come with a lost acquaintance— maybe a friend. But he’d have better things to do than indulge himself for longer than that. He’d been indulging himself with Arthur for far too long, and death should have been the end to it. 

Because he had been thinking about it, sometimes, when he was feeling fanciful. You would have had to be blind not to see the chemistry. The push and pull that led to delicious flirtation — as much as Arthur wanted to deny it — and even more delicious dreamsharing. They made each other better and that was honestly the only thing Eames ever looked for, when, if ever, he thought about that nebulous concept of ‘settling down’. 

So yes, there would be something more to losing Arthur. Eames had known even then. It was losing that slight hint of potential. Though that is always a treacherous word. 

Because he never truly believed he’d make it that far— not just with Arthur, who would’ve laughed even harder if Eames were ever to confess his vague future plans for them — but with life in general. Why plan for something that would be cut short anyway? Even if Arthur could be persuaded to make something out of the spark between them, it would’ve been cruel to do so. Eames knew himself well. He wouldn’t have stopped taking risks, stop wanting more-- craving freedom like a drug. The idea to set Arthur up for inevitable heartbreak had been enough to avoid thinking about practical steps. A fantasy was fine. Eames got paid to live in them. He didn’t get paid for reality. 

So, Arthur’s death would of course be sad. But it shouldn’t have been more than another scar on his back— the punishment of the trade he chose, along with a whisper of nostalgia at losing a construct of his imagination. Even he wouldn’t have had the heart to keep the fantasy of a dead man alive for his own entertainment. A week, a few drinks, and it should’ve been over. 

It shouldn’t have destroyed him. 

“I just never thought I’d be the one left behind, darling,” Eames says to the wet dirt below him. It feels off to tell the headstone itself— the name is fake. Aaron Fister. Arthur had thrown a knife past his head when Eames had shown him the forged papers. To say he regrets the joke now is an understatement. 

“In all fairness, it should’ve been you here, it would make more sense for you to fall in love with me, once I’m not there to bother you anymore. Absentia makes the heart go fonder, hmm?” 

The dirt seems to be judging him. It’s good that some things never change. 

“I know— I know it's hypocritical. I didn’t even— I didn’t even love you. It was just a game. A fun thing to theorise about when the goings got tough. Would you be as snappish if we lived together? Would you forgive me faster if I sucked you off? Would you kiss me goodbye in the airport?” Eames stops himself, and rubs a hand over his face, groaning. “It’s humiliating, darling. I should’ve just gotten off at the thought of you like half of the dreamshare community was doing. Hand on or in their whatever and imagine you moaning next to them. But I had to be pathetic about it. Though this is reaching new heights, I must say.” 

He leaves, abruptly sick of himself. He comes back the next day, as always. 

Some days, though, Eames doesn’t devolve into confessions that make the little old ladies passing by their lost friend’s grave raise their eyebrows and linger by a random grave to listen anyway. 

Some days, Eames is angry. 

The first time, he breaks his toe in the process. 

“You bloody cunt!” He’s aware that he’s shouting, but he doesn’t stop. “Never experiment alone! Isn’t that what you fucking say to the newbies? You need someone to be a baseline. Someone who can bring you home safe. You fuck. Why didn’t you call me. Why didn’t you fucking—“ 

Kicking the gravestone had not been his best idea, but the pain of it brings a rush of satisfaction. There is— so much, inside of him. Eames is drowning in it, and the throb in his feet cuts right through it. Clarity. He kicks again. 

“You fucking bastard.” 

The old ladies have gone from curious to concerned now. Eames hobbles away, hissing, before he gets a restraining order on a grave. 

The next day he’s back, a bottle of whiskey in hand, and finds himself apologising. 

“I know— I never made it quite clear that you could call me, for stuff like that. That I would pick up. Maybe I wouldn’t have. Or no, I would have, but I might not have bothered for that. The jobs— I knew how to handle you on the job. But outside of that. I don’t think I would’ve had the courage. I wouldn’t think that way then, of course. Convince myself that I’m above errand runs like that. Throw you a bone recommending some up and coming kid I knew or something— intern type, for all that we have those here. But I don’t think I would’ve come. So it isn’t your fault. You made a mistake, not getting back-up, but it isn’t your fault. You didn’t know you had any. And I didn’t dare to believe I could be yours. That you would let me. That it wouldn’t end in disaster.” 

Eames leans against the cold stone and sighs. “’Suppose it has, already. Would’ve been too good to have it end any other way.” 

— — — — —

When Eames isn’t in a graveyard, or in a bar, he’s in the warehouse. 

It had felt too… personal, to get a hotel room for this. To do his research in a living room, as opposed to the dreary, dusty and echoey spaces where most of their professional relationship had flourished. It’s too big for a one-man job, but Eames had managed to fill it up anyway. Boxes upon boxes of information, any trace of Arthur he could find. Every email, record, police report, college paper— printed and archived. Eames can find his way through the documents blind and drunk. Arthur has taken over every nook and cranny of the warehouse— and every nook and cranny of Eames’ mind. Eames has read everything, twice over. 

If Arthur had been alive to know, he would’ve killed him. 

Because Arthur had always been a private person, for all that he pries in the lives of clients and collaborators both. He was the one who asked the questions and rarely answered them. It had always been a luxury— a rare reward, to be thrown a scrap of information. He’d always said something with that slight subtle smile, like he knew the power his breadcrumbs of personal life held over others. Everyone ravenous for more intel on one of the greatest pointmen of their generation. 

How horrible is it then to revel in the mountains of information that Eames had been able to gather after his death. He’d always known he’d had enough pull to find something, and after the inception job he’d had more than enough cash to buy the rest. But he’d never done it; at first because of the wrath that would quickly follow. Then because he’d known it would tarnish Arthur’s trust in him— something he’d wanted to protect at all costs. And then lastly — but maybe from the start — because it was so much more thrilling to learn bit by bit, piece by piece. To earn his knowledge of Arthur, and to ensure that his curiosity would never run out. He’d become slightly addicted to the feeling. 

But now, with no one left to tell, it had only taken the excuse of the suspicious circumstances of his death for Eames to turn into the hoarder he’d always known he could be. It had gotten to a point where new packages arrived every so often— criminals even beyond dreamshare having caught wind of an individual willing to invest heavily on any information. Someone had even hacked the pentagon to get classified documents. From the message on the box, the hacker thought they were helping a spy of some kind. Eames had sent him enough bitcoin to blow wind in the direction of that particular fire hearth of urban legend. He’d rather have people think there is a whole network of people digging into this, than anyone realising it’s in truth only one pathetic man. 

So Eames drinks. Eames talks to a grave. And Eames reads. It only takes him two boxes until Arthur makes him laugh for the first time since the car crash. It was due to a spirited essay on the importance of open source information that was clearly written to spite the professor leading the course, who’d been forced to give it an A+ regardless. Eames had chuckled, imagining the self-righteous satisfaction of this young Arthur as he got his grade back, and then began crying. Not to grieve the loss of a future he hadn’t realised how much he wanted, as is his wont, these days. But from the unfairness of it all. That a person like this, who had so much to say in this world, should’ve been taken so early, and in such a meaningless way. 

Arthur would’ve denied it, but Eames knows he’d only be content with a death from sacrifice . He’d shown that side of him clearly when he jumped into Cobb’s mess headfirst and without hesitation. If Arthur had died from a bullet taken for Cobb, Ariadne, or maybe even Eames, he would’ve been at peace— or as much as you can while bleeding out. 

Eames had known that, but as he learns more and more of Arthur, he realises how true it is. How, despite everything, Arthur cannot stop himself from being a silent hero. There are so many instances where Arthur, behind the screens, helps someone. Whether it was connecting the right people to each other under the mum of a potential project, or taking jobs way below his pay grade because he sympathised with the client, Arthur did not let their line of work destroy the possibility to be kind, every once in a while. 

It’s not like he advertised it. He didn’t do it in a way people would recognize his actions— which was smart, as it could be seen as a weakness in their circles. But whenever the chance came along, even if it was to his own detriment, Arthur chose the rough road home if it would ease someone else’s way. 

And this, Eames realises, is the secret to his competency. All other pointmen are expert researchers through and through, but no one had the reach Arthur had. Arthur knew everything, and if he didn’t know, he knew someone who knew— and most importantly, someone who would tell him. Eames doesn’t even know if Arthur ever realised that it was his kindesses, in and out the community, which led him into such a position of power. His actions are too random and inconsistent to be a strategic scheme to build an empire. Some of his biggest successes are results of a nicety five or ten years ago, something that he might have forgotten doing, but the people receiving it definitely haven’t. 

On the surface Arthur had been known as cool and effective— someone with a distance to the rest of the world that resulted in a highly detailed overview of any situation, even if it brought a side of professionalism to even the most informal of interactions. The people who witnessed a more casual side of him were few and far in between, but even those came away with the impression that to Arthur, doing the job in the best way possible was the only drive to his actions. 

No one had seen every little thing he did that had no other reason at all besides that he could do them for someone.

Eames maps out everything on the walls of the warehouse. And when he stands back to take it all in, he realises that more than anyone, the person Arthur had silently helped was him. 

Everything he’d done for Cobb had been grand and obvious, but more out of loyalty to Mal and her children than kindness without any other motivation. And Ariadne’s training had been as much for the inception job than for herself— maybe introducing her to the life hadn’t been a kindness at all. Continuing after could be seen as one, even if you could argue that her honing her raw talent would directly result in better and more stable dreams in later jobs. 

But Eames— what Arthur had done for Eames—

Eames can’t think of a single reason besides just being plain nice. 

Because it hadn’t been like he needed to. Eames had made him very clear that he’d be down for almost any job Arthur put in front of him. Just him being himself had always been enough, he didn’t need to do him any favours to persuade him like everyone else did.

And maybe Arthur had gotten the memo, because he’d done Eames favours without ever telling him, and those you can’t pay back. Eames had no idea the reason he got out of that trouble in Chicago was because Arthur bailed him out— it was presented to him as a procedure mistake. And then there was the Telula job, with an extractor-architect team Eames had wanted to work with for ages, but the chemist they’d been looking to hire was someone from Eames’ not so smooth first years of dream-share and he’d almost cut out of the job to not be forced to confront that past. That was until the chemist suddenly dropped out with an offer he couldn’t refuse— an offer Arthur had been behind. 

There were so many things like that. Little things, small things— warehouses next to Eames’ favourite restaurants; nuggets of information given anonymously through the channels of dreamshare gossip to hit Eames’ ears right on time before a betrayal; a job a week delayed because of Eames’ mother’s funeral. 

It’s not like Eames had been the only one, but he was by far the most frequent of all of them. More and more so over the years, like Arthur had been finding more reasons to be nice to him, while Eames had still been stuck in his pathetic imaginations, blind to what was already in front of him. 

A friendship. 

He’d been so preoccupied with his own flights of fancy, that he only realises how close they had been all this time until it was too late to experience it. Too late to thank Arthur for everything he’s done. 

The agony of it— the longing. His heart thundering with the sudden need to have Arthur in his arms, alive and real and—

“Oh god. I love him.” 

Eames drinks until he can’t remember. He manages to avoid the grave for a little while, but he doesn’t last long. Inevitably he’s pulled back to the grave yard, whiskey in hand, ready to talk to the love he lost again. 

— — — — —

His cemetery  routine— because he has one of those now — is usually to be at the grave around noon. Late enough to roll out of bed reasonably comfortably after a long night of drinking and/or reading, but early enough for there to be time left to check the new documents coming along and pay the right people before they send thugs to his hideout. 

But this time the afternoon light shines golden over the rows and rows of headstones and Eames shivers in the Autumn breeze. The old ladies are all dressed in fur coats. He recognizes some of them, and wonders if they noticed he was gone. None of them greet him as he passes, so he assumes not. 

Eames takes another sip of his bottle, allowing his feet to lead him over the familiar path up the hill, and then he drops his bottle all together. 

A man is standing before the grave. 

Tall, hunched a little in the wind. Long coat and thick black beanie. Nondescript. Anonymous. 

He does not turn as Eames nears. 

“You’re late.” 

Eames’ hand is on his gun at the first syllable, but before he can put it on his temple a leather gloved hand snatches it from his fingers. The clip ejects with a decisive click. 

Arthur gives him an unimpressed look. “Don’t be dramatic. We don’t need a scene.” 

His face— a little gaunt. His eyes— tense, intent, darker than they should be. Eames doesn’t recognize the coat. But he’s there, pressed in close to hide the gun between their bodies. His breath— warm, hits Eames’ cheek. It isn’t— It can’t. He can’t be breathing because he’s—

Eames squeezes his eyes shut and thinks of metal against the palm of his hand, the smell of gunpowder. 

A sigh falls between them. “It won’t work. This isn’t a dream, Eames.” 

The hell it isn’t. “Experimental somacin, three levels.” 

Raised eyebrows shouldn’t be audible only through speech. “Do you remember how you got here?” 

Eames opens his eyes and says, “Deep immersion dream.” 

Arthur huffs at that. “Do you really think they’ve been keeping you under for years? Fine. When have you last lost memories?” 

Oh, that’s easy. “Two days ago.” 

There is a pause, and Eames hates the fact that he can see the exact moment of tension in Arthur’s jaw that signals him suppressing a question. It’s too detailed, too precise, too re—

“Later,” Arthur murmurs under his breath, almost to himself. Like later is a given between them. He seems frustrated. His eyes keep flicking to the side and his hand hovers near Eames’ arm, like he’s trying to keep himself from hurrying Eames along and is annoyed that Eames is stalling them. 

“I’m sorry darling,’” Eames drawls, “but in case it has escaped your notice: we are having this discussion on your fucking grave, so forgive me for being reasonably sceptical about the reality of this situation.” 

Arthur breathes out a deep sigh, clenched teeth. “Eames, think about it, is there any forger you know capable of forging me in a way you can’t see through it? Or for that matter, is there anyone who would dare to try steal from the fucking person who invented the craft?” 

No. The answer is no. It hits Eames with a muffled weight. He wonders what his face is doing, but whatever it is, Arthur responds to it with a curt nod. It suddenly strikes Eames as absurdly hilarious, in the way only the most traumatic experiences can. 

“You know, complimenting me really doesn’t help with the reality argument. Never mind doing it twice. Death changed you, darling.” 

Arthur stills in the middle of putting the clip back in Eames’ gun. There is the slightest flicker of his lips, and he huffs. “Maybe it did— can I trust you not to shoot yourself the moment I hand this back?” 

“Come on now Arthur,” Eames says, “Don’t be so dramatic.” 

And there— there it is. Arthur rolls his eyes as he presses the gun into Eames’ waiting hands, and a part of Eames’ breaks with it. Still muffled, still numb, but something is lumbering closer. He can almost hear its laboured breaths. 

“There you are,” Eames says, smiling. “You don’t know how much I missed that.” 

It is a miracle he doesn’t choke on the words. 

“Glad to be remembered for something,” Arthur is saying, and now he’s pushing Eames— gently but with intent, away from the grave. “And I’d like to keep it that way, so we need to talk before your insatiable curiosity ruins everything I worked for.” 

Eames doesn’t know if it's the words, or the press of Arthur’s hand against his back— barely sensable beneath all the layers but even the slightest hint of pressure sets him alight— but all at once everything falls into place. 

“You faked your death.” 

“Have you always been this slow on the uptake?” 

Eames barely hears him. Reality is roaring and there is space for nothing else. Arthur isn’t dead. Arthur isn’t dead. They’re standing on Arthur’s grave— an empty grave. A lie. A trick. He’s been fooled because Arthur isn’t dead, he’s right here. He’s touching him because he isn’t— 

Arthur isn’t. He isn’t. 

He’s alive. 

Eames doesn’t say anything the rest of the way to wherever. If Arthur speaks, he doesn’t strain to listen. Because Arthur isn’t dead and if he hears anything at all he’s either going to scream or kick the shit out of him just like he did on that stupid fucking grave— just to check that this one isn’t made of stone but flesh and blood and he is alive.

His fists hurt from clenching by the time they enter a hotel room. Something of the turmoil must have reached Arthur because he’s gone quiet. The roar lets off the very moment the door clicks closed and Arthur stands before it, uncertain, almost as if he regrets closing off his only exit. His expression is one Eames knows very well— preparing himself for a fight he saw coming too late. But he isn’t reaching for his gun. He just stands there. 

He’s just waiting to take it. 

Eames kisses him. 

He’s alive, he’s alive, he’s—

A heartbeat feels more real when it’s underneath your lips. A pulse against a jaw— up, up to feel breath against breath. To hear the rush of it— a hitch of— of surprise. 

Strength— dead people don’t have strength and Arthur is pushing him so he can’t be dead. 

“Eames—“ 

Alive, alive, alive. 

“Eames! Wait!” 

Eames pushes closer. He places his forehead against Arthur’s, presses them both against the door. Arthur isn’t pushing him away anymore but his hands are still on his chest. Eames wonders if he can feel the beat of his heart. He hopes, quietly insane for a moment, that Arthur will never forget to make his heart beat as long as he is feeling one. As long as he’s given an example on how to live. 

“Eames,” Arthur says. A word, a question, a name. All in one. His eyes are wide. Breathing heavy— breathing, breathing, breathing— and he’s flushed. Sharp cheekbones stained red. Lips wet. 

Eames’ hands move of their own accord and cradle each side of Arthur’s face. 

“Let me, darling. Just let me.” 

Arthur breathes again. 

Eames trembles, trying to hold himself back. Trying to breathe. But one more moment and he will collapse and he can’t— he can’t risk it. He can’t risk losing another chance. He needs this as much as he needs Arthur to be alive. He needs to stop regretting not having done this when he could and now he can again and how can he let this undeserved second chance slip through his fingers. He has to. Please. He has to. 

Arthur’s mouth falls open. “Eames. Eames, it’s okay. You don’t have to— You don’t have to beg. It’s okay.” 

“Let me, Arthur,” Eames repeats, “Let me.” 

Arthur lets him. 

Arthur lets him do everything. 

— — — — —

It’s after when Arthur whispers, “I didn’t know.” 

His head is on Eames chest, moving ever so slightly when he breathes. In and out. Eames has his fingers tangled in his hair. The strands slip away when Arthur turns around to look up at him. 

“I didn’t know,” he says again. There is a rasp in his voice and his eyes are wet. Eames has never been apologised to like this before. Arthur sounds as if he believes sorry would be an insult, the word too small to encompass his regret. There is guilt there, in the flush of his cheeks, and the way he can’t seem to hold eye contact. His pupils flickering, microscopic twitches of shame. 

Sometimes he’d dream of this. Arthur’s return. A fantasy, a different one, yet still addictive like a drug. He’d expected to be angry, to want to spill his pain onto Arthur’s feet and watch him try and walk through it; burn in it. A stimulation of the magmatic life Eames has been living since his death. 

But now, face to face with an Arthur who is alive, Eames doesn’t want any of it. 

So he leans down, and kisses Arthur on the forehead, like a benediction, trying to extract the regret from his face. And he tells him, honest in a way he’s learned to be in the last scant weeks, “I didn’t either, darling.” 

Arthur doesn’t relax, but there is something about his misery that is easily pushed to the side for curiosity. 

Eames smiles at him and continues. “You were— you were a fantasy. A what if. Something amusing to think of when I was bored, or something  life saving to dive into when reality drew a knife and stabbed me with it— literally, sometimes. But it was always a fantasy. An escape. It— it couldn’t have become real, if you’d given it a chance back then.” Eames takes a breath, shakes his head. 

Arthur reaches up with a hand, frowning, but he doesn’t interrupt.

“But the trouble is, darling, it is incredibly hard not to fall in love with you the more I learn about you.” Eames smiles under his finger tips. “That is what changed. You never let me learn you. But who is to stop anyone from learning the dead?” 

Something flickers over Arthur’s face— guilt, again, but different. “I didn’t know you wanted to learn about me— I thought you only gave a fuck about what I could be for you.” 

Eames lays his hand over Arthur’s. “You’re right. I was blind— too blinded by the possibilities and too selfish to do anything about it. Maybe I needed to lose you in order to learn how to see .” 

“No— No I should’ve,” Arthur shakes his head sharply. “I should have told you. There would’ve been another way without— How long have you been drinking?”

“Don’t ask questions you don’t want the answer to darling.”

“Eames.” 

Arthur takes his hand off and moves off of Eames’ chest, sitting up straight. Eames follows him, struck by a sudden vision of Arthur slipping out of bed— out of his life, dogged by misplaced guilt and regret. He curls his hands around Arthur’s wrists, as gently as he can. Don’t trap him. Don’t chase him away. 

“No. It’s fine. We’re fine,” Eames hurries to say. “Why would you tell me? I was a colleague at best, bane of your existence at worst. I had— I have no right—“ 

“I should have told you because I did know you,” Arthur interrupts him. “I was supposed to know. You said possibilities? I am supposed to be the one who sees them— all of them. I’m the one who has to prepare for all scenarios, know the players, do the research and put the pieces together. That is what I do, Eames. And I missed something.” Arthur takes a shuddering breath, looking forlorn and tired. “I’m so sorry for missing the most important part.” 

“You can’t apologise for missing something that wasn’t even really there yet.” 

“Yes, I can. I’m sorry for missing our potential. For underestimating us. Underestimating you.” Arthur laughs. “I’m so fucking stupid. I thought you kept searching for me out of— curiosity. Or that I fucked up, left a trail somewhere and you wanted to prove to me that you found it, you figured it out. Fuck. I never thought it was because you missed me.” 

“I did,” Eames says, and it almost chokes him. “Every day.” 

Arthur looks at him then, eyes flicking to the side, his hair covering half of his face, but his smile is visible. “You know, I did too. That’s why I knew you were looking for me. Kept tabs on you, even though I’d promised myself I wouldn’t.” 

Eames swallows at the sight— at the hope it instills in him. Arthur let him, yes. It could have been a kindness. But this smile, shy and bashful, and the words that follow it. Maybe potential comes in twos. “I didn’t keep looking because I missed you,” Eames tells him, because he has no time for secrets anymore, no time for regret, for either of them. “I kept looking because I couldn’t accept it. I couldn’t bear it. Darling.” Eames slips his hands from Arthur’s wrists and puts them on either side of Arthur’s face instead, bracketing the smile. “You’re my future. You couldn’t be dead.” 

“I’m not,” Arthur tells him, like a confession of his own. “I’m not dead, Eames.” 

“Good.” Eames pulls him in closer, and Arthur lets him. He lets him trace the smile with his thumbs, lets him breathe close against his mouth and whisper, “Next time darling, when decide to you kill yourself. Kill me too.”  

The grin that blooms doesn’t fit between Eames’ fingers, so he kisses Arthur instead. Deep, possessive. Loving. Arthur lets him, and he never stops. 

[angelicmichael]

living after midnight

Brooke Thompson x Montana Duke

Summary: Brooke and Montana get a bit intoxicated and get a bit carried away while going night swimming. Based off this post I made a week ago hehe

Words: 3.1k+

Warnings: mentions of alcohol and also vague mentions of weed, stripping (no nudity tho LOL), lotssss of sexual tension, lots of fluff, slowburn, friends to lovers, weird yearning angst for like .02 seconds lmao

A/N: Hey guys, sorry if this is random but I got random inspo for brotana so.. here this is lmao. Believe it or not I did try to make this under 1k words but.. I got carried away so I’m sorry that’s it’s long 😭. But the fic happens sometime after Brooke and Montana meet but before any camp redwood fuckery happens lmao. Anyway I hope y’all like this!! This is also probably the fastest I’ve ever written a fic so I hope it’s atleast decent haha. Anyway enjoy <3

A gentle breeze danced against Brookes exposed skin. The midnight air cold on its own regard but it seemed to blend perfectly with the extensive heat that radiated from the bonfire she sat in front of.

The night was entirely pitch black. The moon was vacant from the sky, leaving the only source of light to come from the giant fire that sat at Brookes shoes.

It was admittedly a bit unsettling being in almost the total darkness, especially with how many girls had recently gone missing in L.A as of late but the beer in her system had mostly put those thoughts to rest. Plus, being with three men and Montana was also reassuring. Even if she didn’t exactly know Xavier, Chet or Ray that well but.. she knew Montana.

It was nearly impossible to forget about how they met.. in the girls locker room in the showers and well; it’s not as if things were any less weird now. Showers or not.

It’s not as if Brooke and Montana were best friends or super close, because that definitely wasnt the case; but they weren’t acquaintances either by any means. The weird tension and ‘playfulness’ that lied between them ruled out being friends.. or that’s Brooke liked to think anyway when she had one too many things to drink. Like now.

Her legs twitched a bit restlessly; content at the ambience that surrounded her but not content with her current state of being. Like how she knew she should be enjoying herself, drunk, not caring about particularly anything at all but instead all she could do was fucking care. Her thoughts were purely infiltrated with Montana and it was embarrassing, to say the least but now that she was intoxicated there was really no harm in fighting it. No matter how annoying and taunting those thoughts truly were.

After all, Why should she not think about how nice it would be to feel Montana’s hands (which she knew had to be soft and delicate) on her waist and down her back? Why should she not think about Montana’s soft lips moving against her own, a few strands of her bleached hair (which definitely had lost it softness due to excessive over bleaching) brushing up against her face accidentally?

That was a rhetorical question; because she knew exactly why she avoided those type of thoughts on a normal day to day basis. Not because it would make things awkward between them but because it was beyond fucking painful to imagine scenarios that would never happen.. Never.

The smell of the fire and the sounds of the wood crackling, which was far too dry and poorly stacked (neither Xavier, Chet or Ray could build a proper fire to save their life), helped bring Brooke out of her thoughts and bit more into reality. So did the gentle sway of the tree branches which she could see in her peripheral vision, since they were right on the cusp of a forest that cut off to a beach. Ocean waves which slowly dragged across the sand were also soothing to listen too, albeit distant over the sound of Brookes friends screaming and laughing and being heavily intoxicated over what was more than just alcohol and weed.

Brooke reached down and swiftly grabbed the beer can which was previously lodged upright in the sand. Lifting the can up to her lips and cringing and unconsciously tensing up as she swallowed until the can was nearly weightless - wiping her mouth with the back of her hand just to see-

“Montana?!” Brooke nearly yelled. Both alcohol and temporary shock making her speak way louder than what was realistically needed.

Montana, who was previously standing several feet away with the boys was suddenly seated right next to Brooke on the log with no warning. Probably having moved over while Brooke was poorly chugging the alcohol she hated.. but she couldn’t help but to notice that their thighs (as well as basically their entire sides) were touching as she tried to wipe the alcohol that had embarrassingly dripped down her front in a frenzy.

Chet and Xavier looked back at them from a few feet away as they smoked what Brooke knew had to be a joint. Briefly laughing and giving the pair of women an amused glance before turning around and immersing themselves in whatever conversation they were previously having.

Brooke sheepishly met Montana’s gaze, feeling her cheeks grow nearly unbearably hot at the awareness that she was now being watched.. studied almost.

“Sorry,” Brooke added with a giggle.

Montana responded with a slight upturn of her lips; amused with Brookes actions not because she found it necessarily funny or pitiful, but for the sole reason that.. it was cute and endearing that Brooke couldn’t really hold her alcohol for shit.

It made her unique and different from everyone else Montana acquainted herself with. People that Montana had to basically learn to keep up with.. but Brooke on the other hand was different.. She was a breath of fresh air, and that’s why Montana assumed she was so attracted to her (besides her looks, of course).

Montana tried her best to ignore and not be bothered by the fact that Brooke was wasting perfectly good alcohol by wiping it off herself (alcohol that Montana wouldn’t necessarily mind licking off Brookes lips.. or her neck, or really anywhere else off of her). Instead focusing on how suffocated she felt here.

It wasn’t necessarily anyone’s fault. After all; she loved Chet, Xavier and Ray dearly but.. they were also undoubtedly preventing anything from happening between her and Brooke.. and that needed to change.

Montana huffed. Her deep brown eyes quickly flickering at the flame and then Brooke before speaking.

“Im bored,” she announced. Suddenly standing up and not letting her eyes break the gaze she suddenly held with Brooke.

Brooke responded with a simple hum. Her jaw quickly dropping once she noticed that Montana’s bright red nails quickly darted down under her own shirt. Hooking the material under her fingertips before quickly raising the shirt up and over her head. Throwing it back somewhere behind the log Brooke still sat on.. somewhere where Brooke was almost certain Montana wouldn’t be able to locate later.. which was probably done on purpose.

Brookes jaw still stayed ajar when she saw Montana’s hands automatically fly down to the small jean shorts she was wearing. She could do nothing but watch as she saw the button unhook- wait.. what exactly was happening?

“Montana, what are you doing?” Brooke asked with a laugh.

Brooke tried her best to fight the urge to look at her friend who was now well.. in her bra and underwear, out of what she was trying to convince herself was respect, but it wasn’t working. She knew for a fact her cheeks had to burnt bright fucking red; she tried to laugh off the feeling but Montana still stared.. her smile slowly growing wider until sudden laughter momentarily broke the tension again.

Brooke and Montana both looked behind them just to find the boys laughing and whooping as well at Montana’s sudden lack of clothes.

Brooke smiled back at them but it only lasted a second before she found herself overtaken with a emotion she never really felt around Montana before.. was it jealousy?

Just the sight of them staring at Montana (who obviously didn’t give a fuck, or was thriving off the attention more than anything) was enough to make Brooke stand up.

“Go swimming with me?” Brooke suddenly proposed. More than certain that her sudden impulsivity was coming from the alcohol more than anything.. it had to be, right?

Brooke looked Montana in the eyes again as she watched the other woman’s expression suddenly change at her words; looking utterly shocked and.. maybe a bit thrilled.

“You want to go swimming?” Montana nearly sneered, her tone reeked off utter disbelief, “and what are you gonna wear?”

Brooke laughed at what the other woman was implying. Her dark brown eyes slipped down to admire the rest of Montana’s body that she dared not to look at previously. Only looking for a second at the matching cherry red set that Montana wore. A bra which was most definitely too tight and cut a bit small, along with a thong with sat a bit high on her hips which only accentuated her figure even further.

She didn’t have time to think; her eyes darting back up to meet Montana’s which she knew were watching her.

“I’m not going naked-“

“You don’t have too. It’s not like their gonna see us anyway once we get away from the fire. Here.”

They both spoke in hushed whispers. Weirdly paranoid that maybe the boys would overhear and wanna join which- was something they both clearly didn’t want, although unspoken.

The distance between them was minimal enough due to alcohol (and other substances in Montana’s case) running high in their systems. Making personal space something that was now nonexistent.

Montana extended her hand out to Brooke to take. She quickly grabbed her hand, hoping desperately it wasn’t sweaty from how close they were to the fire and also.. just from the situation she was bound to find herself in. But due to Montana’s reaction (or lack thereof) she knew she had nothing to worry about.. sweaty palms or not, she knew Montana wouldn’t judge her. No matter how insane the circumstance; Brooke always felt safe around Montana. That’s why she supposed she was currently following her into the pitch black - her vision getting more and more sparse as they walked away from the fire and into some nearby trees that framed the beach..

“Are you sure they can’t see me?” Brooke asked, trying her best to look through the trees and see if any of her friends happened to be looking but - she couldn’t really make out anything besides the subtle outline of her surroundings which included Montana.

“They can’t see you. Relax,” Montana said with a giggle. “Now do I need to help you undress? Your taking forever and I’m hot- and it’s not like I haven’t seen you wearing less-“

Brooke tried her best to look offended and shocked by her reference to how they met. She knew that normally with nothing in her system she would’ve easily sidestepped Montana’s ruthless flirting but.. something felt different about tonight. After all; why should she keep trying so hard to resist something they both felt? And it wasn’t like anyone could see them anyway..

Brooke quickly turned her head to where she knew Montana was and stepped closer until they were barely a foot apart. Her feet nearly stumbled on Montana’s from the proximity; biting her lip to prevent herself from stupidly giggling once she felt hot breath on her cheek.

She grabbed Montana’s hands which first held hers back limply but briefly held hers tighter before Brooke directed her hands on her shirt.

“Take it off,” Brooke uttered. Her voice barely audible but not quite loud enough to be discerned as a whisper.

Montana didn’t hesitate as she quickly took Brookes shirt off, barely feeling the soft fabric against her fingertips before she quickly threw it behind them into the forest. Montana didn’t wait for Brooke to say anything before her fingers were quickly undoing the button and the zipper of her jean shorts which were only thrown somewhere in the forest as well (hopefully near her shirt.. Brooke could only hope).

Brooke tried her best to not look bothered by her sudden lack of clothes but she also knew that was purely idiotic since they were in the pitch black.

Nevertheless she looked down at herself, trying to discern whether her figure was actually visible or not but Montana grabbed her hand again. Making her gaze snap upward as she led her out. She knew they were going out to the water now; the sand under her feet and the fire now visible from a distance as they continued to go out. The sand becoming more grainy and nearly painful to step on as they got closer to the water.

Brooke quickly looked over her shoulder before she took the first step in - still holding onto Montana’s hand. She quickly glanced to see if any of the men they had came with were watching but surely enough they were still talking and laughing as if they didn’t even notice they had gone missing.. and they probably hadn’t given how fucked up they were.

Perfect.

She continued to hold onto Montana’s hand as she went further and further into the water; not phased by the sudden coolness she felt as the water wrapped around her legs.. submerging her further and further until they both finally stopped. The water lapping around Brookes waist, and well, nearly Montana’s chest since she was a few inches shorter than Brooke.

The water seemed to be a perfect temperature despite them being at the ocean; and the rocks had since disappeared under their feet and changed back into soft sand which also made the current situation a bit more enjoyable.

Brooke tilted her head back a bit, worried momentarily that her hair might get wet but it was worth it. It was absolutely breathtaking.

The night sky which previously looked completely black and void of any light whatsoever was now painted with what looked to be a million stars.

“Do you see this?” Brooke asked.

“What, the stars?” Montana answered, her voice holding a bit of amusement to it and almost as if she was trying to hold back a laugh.

“Yeah,” Brooke affirmed with a nod. Still keeping her gaze fixated to the night sky.

“What about them?” Montana asked.

The water rippled a bit as Montana started to a take a few steps closer towards Brooke, dissatisfied at the distance between them.

“Nothing. I just- it’s beautiful. I never do things like this,” Brooke responded, tilting her head down to make eye contact with Montana as she finished her sentence.

Montana smirked.

“Never?” She asked with a laugh. “C'mon. I’m not wet enough, let’s go deeper.”

Before Brooke could protest, Montana grabbed both of her hands and pulled her deeper in the water.

“But I didn’t bring a towel!”

“Your not gonna need one. We can warm up by the fire, remember?”

They continued to keep wading until the water almost spilled over Montana’s shoulders. The water barely touching Brookes collarbones but getting some of her hair wet regardless.

She hesitantly let go of the other woman’s hand in the water, intent on using her hand to help her gain balance since a few rocks were still on the ocean ground but - the exact opposite happened.

Brooke didn’t even have time to gasp or scream before her left foot quickly slid on a random rock that just.. of course.. had to fucking be there. Her hands quickly landed on Montana’s shoulders; the rest of her body accidentally falling into the other woman’s but she only felt Montana’s hands suddenly grab gently at her back. Holding her in place against her body.

Brookes eyes instinctively closed shut but when she slowly opened them and reluctantly lifted her head higher up (silently cursing herself for accidentally getting her hair almost entirely wet now) she noticed.. how close they were to each other.

Her nose was only centimeters away from Montana's shoulder.. which meant-

“Are you okay?” Montana asked softly, speaking unintentionally right next to her ear which made a shiver run up Brookes spine.

“Mhm,” Brooke responded.

She rose her head up further - her vision fully black now due to closing her eyes so tightly and being disoriented from slipping, but she knew from hearing Montana’s voice that she had to be close. Very close.

Moving her head a bit to the left.. almost microscopically, not wanting whatever ‘this’ was to necessarily be clumsy but she knew she didn’t necessarily have a choice in the dark.

“What are you doing?” Montana continued to whisper.

Brooke couldn’t help but to smile and let out a giggle that made her sound far more drunk than she actually was. She knew exactly where Montana’s lips were now due to her speaking. Thank god.

“You’ll see.”

Brooke leaned in slowly. Briefly bumping noses before catching Montana’s lips with her own. The feeling so heavenly and overdue - not enough but simultaneously far too much to take in all at once.

The taste of dull, gut wrenching beer started to flood her mouth. It was all that Montana basically tasted like.. that and a bit like smoke but Brooke didn’t mind. If anything it made the feelings of infatuation temporarily stronger. Brookes nails started to pierce the other woman’s back; wanting nothing more than to just have.. more. More of Montana; her taste, her hands, her touch.. the feeling was both pathetic but impossible to fight any longer.

The mere thought that this was something she was previously holding herself back from having was almost laughable but- that would be something to think about for another time.

Montana’s lips softly broke from hers.

“Eager.. aren’t you?” She teased.

Brookes eyes still refused to adjust but she knew Montana had to be grinning.

“Sorry.. I just-“

“Don’t be sorry. You have no idea how long I’ve been wanting to do that,” Montana said lowly.

Montana suddenly leaned in with no warning. Her hands softly grabbed Brookes shoulders; leaning in to pull her bottom lip with her teeth.

After she let go, the feeling to kiss her again was strong but.. she thought of something better. The thrill of the chase was something Brooke always enjoyed, after all.

Brooke took a few steps back suddenly before quickly heading for the shore. Not really going that fast at all due to the resistance of the water pushing up against her legs but she laughed regardless.

She could hear Montana laughing and calling her a jerk in the distance but it was all just noise at this point. Her voice, the water rushing, the fire and their friends (which grew gradually louder as she approached) all started to sound the same.

Maybe the alcohol was finally kicking in.

Even though Brooke definitely felt tipsy, she still felt nervous the closer she got from being fully submerged out of the water. Maybe it was due to the fact she wasn’t certain what was going to happen at the fire, or if their friends had even heard anything but she knew atleast now she would have Montana. Exactly how she had Montana was something to be determined later, but as she finally stepped out and away from the nearly black ocean waves and ran up to the fire to go wait for Montana - she was comforted by the thought that things would now never be the same and forever would be different between the two of them.

Which had to be a good thing; right?

Taglist: @michaellangdonstanaccount @langdonsexual @jimmason @blakescoven @dark-mei-rose @9layerdevilfoodcake @prophecy-is-inevitable @matildaofoz @beautyiswithinchaos @frenchlangdon @king-with-no-crovvn @melodylangdon @littledemondani @celestialrequiem @sojournmichael @ritualmichael @waitinvain @twilightzone24

Let me know if u would like to be added or removed to the taglist hehe

[sam-and-buck]

At Home With Captain America

Fandom: MCU

Pairing: Sam Wilson/Bucky Barnes

Rating: G

Words: 7.7k

Also on AO3

“What can you tell me about how you got to know the Winter Soldier?”

Wilson chuckles. “The first time I met Buck—Sergeant Barnes—he ripped the steering wheel out of the car I was driving on the freeway. He got on the roof, punched through the windshield, pulled the steering wheel off. Just like that.” He mimes with his hands as he describes it.

This doesn’t sound like an auspicious beginning to me, but Wilson is laughing.

At Home with Captain America

By: Adrien Davis

Published: February 2, 2026, 3:35 PM 

To say I’m intimidated by interviewing Captain America in his own home would be an understatement, and I would never have thought to ask if I could do that if he hadn’t personally invited me. Normally, I’d start one of these articles by describing the location, maybe even throw in an anecdote or two about how I got there, but that’s not going to be possible here.

Sam Wilson lives on [REDACTED] in [REDACTED]. It was a windy day.

Here’s what I can tell you: it’s an apartment. A nice one. Two bedroom, two bath.

“Am I allowed to describe the inside of your house?” is one of the first things I say to him, after getting his permission to turn on my recorder.

“Go right ahead,” he laughs, arms crossed over the worn USAF logo on his gray t-shirt. “Just don’t put the street name in there or anything.”

Wilson gives me a moment to poke around. Whoever decorated this place has good taste; it’s no haphazard bachelor pad. There’s an exposed brick wall in the otherwise slate blue living room, several plants (which I assume are fakes—albeit convincing ones—since Wilson is, by his own admission, not home as often as he’d like to be), a sturdy walnut coffee table, and a magnificently squishy-looking red couch.

It’s unmistakably lived in, though. I don’t get the sense that the place has been scrubbed spotless or particularly arranged for my visit. There are two abandoned mugs on coasters sitting on the coffee table, along with several different remote controls, and a stack of half-finished books with dog-eared corners. A pile of mail has been pushed to the side. Next to the door, a wall-mounted coat rack holds several leather jackets in shades of brown and black, and at least as many sweaters, mostly navy blue, charcoal and maroon. The shoe rack underneath houses multiple pairs of black combat boots, worn running shoes, house slippers. And next to that, on the floor, a large, gleaming silver case with red detail that could only contain Wilson’s Falcon wingpack. The legendary shield is propped up against it, ready to go at a moment’s notice.

I’m trying to imagine how it would be to leave the house for him. Got my keys, wings, phone, shield, wallet?

There are pictures on the walls and the mantle above the fireplace, under the television. People who I can only assume are Wilson’s relatives by their similarly gap-toothed smiles. Veterans. Wilson in full air force gear next to a blond man I don’t recognize. Then Captain Steve Rogers, in the 1940s with the Howling Commandos, and in the twenty-first century by himself. Wilson with Rogers, and Natasha Romanoff. One conspicuously empty nail where a large frame would clearly fit. 

Scattered among these are several very old, dour black and white photographs of a dark-haired family. The first shows a mother, father and two small children, a boy and girl. The second is the mother and children only, taken some time after, judging by their apparent ages. The third is several years later still; the same children with light eyes and dark hair, but they’re teeangers now, and without parents. They look haunting and out-of-place among the glossy prints of Wilson’s big, happy family in matching 80s colorblocked tracksuits, or Wilson and his sisters in front of a Christmas tree, surrounded by wrapping paper and toys.

There’s also a wood-framed painting that stands out: an idyllic watercolor of a little farmhouse with a green roof and shuttered windows in a field. A small pile of lumber and a white mailbox make up the foreground. The most distinctive feature is the signature at the bottom: S.G.R. I know those initials. 

“Captain Rogers painted this?”

“Uh huh,” Wilson nods fondly, hands now in his pockets. “Man of many talents. Maybe every talent. Having a hard time thinking of anything he wasn’t good at.”

I hear the unstated in that. A tough act to follow.

I think, for purposes of journalistic integrity, I should probably insert my bias before we go any further. We had never met before this interview, but I am and have always been enormously supportive of Captain Wilson and the work he’s done, and have written myriad articles and think pieces about him over the past several years. He’s shown himself time and again to be a man of unshakable integrity and endless emotional intelligence, and frankly, I’m more worried about the poor sucker who’s going to have to follow Wilson. Rogers did a lot of great things, but among the best of them was choosing a successor.

I tell him as much and he smiles, looking down at his shoes.

“Yeah, I know that’s how you feel,” he says. “I requested you for this piece, actually, because of that. People are going to accuse me of wanting a softball interview here, and maybe they’re right. For this one, I think that’s what I need.”

I’m not sure what he means by that, but he continues before I can ask.

“We should probably do this in the kitchen.” Wilson indicates behind us with his thumb, after I’ve stood silently in his living room for probably way too long. “That couch is too comfortable. I end up falling asleep every time I sit on it.”

The kitchen is, perhaps, a little cramped. There’s a large, dark marble-topped kitchen island that just fits in the center of the room with four bar stools tucked under it. The cabinets are tall, with glass doors showcasing a massive collection of healthy, but non-perishable food. The shelf nearest us holds several well-used bags of pantry supplies: chickpea flour, arrowroot starch, raw sugar. There’s a pasta shelf above it, but no Kraft Mac in sight; everything is lentil-based, chickpea-based, black bean-based.

“Have a seat,” Wilson says, inclining his head towards one of the barstools. “Can I get you something to drink?” He opens the refrigerator.

“We have…” he pauses. “Water. Sorry, just got back from Ecuador this morning. Sparkling or still?”

I accept a glass of still water from Captain America. He sits down on the stool next to mine.

His house, or what I’ve seen of it, is homey in a way I can’t imagine any of the late Tony Stark’s buildings ever were, and I mention this.

“I lived at the Avengers Tower briefly,” Wilson tells me. “Tony liked everything streamlined, really modern. Kinda sparse for my taste. I needed some real furniture when I got out of there, you know? Like, things that were made by human beings. Stuff with ‘character,’ that’s what Steve would call it.”

“So you decorated this place?”

“I think it’s about fifty-fifty,” Wilson says, indicated with vague hand motion.

This is my in.

This interview, as you may have read on the cover description, is actually intended to be an exposé about the working partnership between Wilson and Sergeant James Buchanan “Bucky” Barnes, but I didn’t want to be the one who brought him up first. 

All I knew going in is that they’re a package deal in the field, a unit. We’ve all seen the footage.

Also, Barnes lives here too, but evidently, he’s not home.

“What can you tell me about how you got to know the Winter Soldier?”

Wilson chuckles. “The first time I met Buck—Sergeant Barnes—he ripped the steering wheel out of the car I was driving on the freeway. He got on the roof, punched through the windshield, pulled the steering wheel off. Just like that.” He mimes with his hands as he describes it.

This doesn’t sound like an auspicious beginning to me, but Wilson is laughing.

“I hope he apologized to you for that,” I tell him, because I’m not exactly sure how else to respond.

“Oh yeah, of course he did, even though he knows I don’t blame him for it. He doesn’t remember it at all,” says Wilson. “There are a lot of gaps, to be honest. Most of it is gaps.”

What Wilson is likely referring to here is the decades-long period in which Barnes was under the complete mental and physical influence of the Nazi splinter group known as HYDRA. If you’re unfamiliar with the history of Sergeant Barnes, I’ll list a couple of great articles for you to read at the end of this one. I assure you, it’s worth your time. 

Wilson has without a doubt been Barnes’s most ardent supporter. He’s spoken out many times about not judging Barnes based on the actions he couldn’t control, and has masterfully refocused the national conversation towards Barnes’s invaluable contributions in World War II and in the recent war to bring half the universe’s population back into existence. Wilson has been quoted as saying, “The least extraordinary thing about Sergeant Barnes is his vibranium arm.”*

But perhaps Wilson’s most effective act towards building public confidence in Barnes was his decision to designate him as an almost exclusive mission partner. Even if the general populace has been reluctant to trust the Winter Soldier, it is abundantly clear that Captain America does, absolutely. Barnes is a constant in the footage of Wilson’s exploits. The moment he touches down on the ground after a successful arrest or negotiation, Barnes is right there. He’s been sighted treating Wilson’s minor injuries, tightening straps on the Falcon wingsuit before Wilson takes flight, and he stands quietly behind Wilson during almost all of his many public appearances.

Despite his ubiquitous presence in Wilson’s company, Barnes has remained elusive for comment. He has no social media, and the only public statement he’s made to date was in November of 2023, in support of Rogers’s decision to pass on the legacy of Captain America. Barnes expressed his categorical agreement that Wilson is “the best and only choice for this job,” describing him as both “worthy of the honor,” and “equipped for the burden.”**

“Is it fair to say that Sergeant Barnes almost comes with the shield?” I ask.

Wilson makes a face.

“No, it isn’t,” he shakes his head. “The shield is an accessory; my partner is not. I really don’t like it when people lump him in with the shield. It sort of minimizes how Bucky and I have made a series of conscious choices to be the way we are now. Especially because he’s experienced being fully stripped of his personal autonomy—as a veteran, I can say I’ve had a taste of that, but nothing like what he’s been through—and I think it cheapens his choice to do what he does if we imply that he, as a person, is a package deal with my title, you know?”

The therapist in Wilson is showing. In addition to his decorated military history and service as Captain America, he has a background in psychology, and a Masters degree in Social Work with a focus on Veterans’ mental health issues. He’s worked extensively with the VA as a leader in group therapy.

“So Sergeant Barnes is by your side day in and day out because he wants to be?”

This, Wilson has another unequivocal answer for. “Yes. He wants to be there, and I want him there. And here at home.”

“Tell me a little more about that,” I say. “After the...steering-wheel-stealing incident. Once he was more or less himself. Did you two hit it off right away?”

Wilson laughs again. “Not at all,” he says. “I think there was this resentment, kind of, in the beginning. Like I’m Steve’s best friend and no, I’m Steve’s best friend. Real elementary school stuff. He really got on my nerves; just everything about him annoyed me, and the feeling was mutual. Looking back…”

And here Wilson pauses for a moment. He chews on his bottom lip, and I notice all at once how nervous his body language has become. His fingers are drumming on the table, the line of his shoulders is taut, his leg is bouncing. He clears his throat though, and seems determined to continue.

“Looking back, I can see where it was coming from. It wasn’t clear to me at the time, but now I get it. There was this one time, it was during the fight over the Accords. We barely knew each other at this point. Buck and I, we’re fighting Spider-Man—who neither of us had ever even heard of before, like, that afternoon—and he pins us to the floor of this hangar with that goo he shoots out of his wrist. Really gross. I manage to get Redwing [Wilson’s drone] to fling Spider-Man out the window. So we’re just laying there, me and Bucky, stuck. And he goes ‘you couldn’t have done that before?’ And I just turn to him, and I’m like, ‘I hate you.’”

At this, Wilson really starts cracking up. He relaxes visibly, just a little.

“Did you mean it?”

“I sure thought I did,” he says, still chuckling. “Like, I wasn’t about to take it back.”

He continues: “Anyway, so after Steve, you know, passed on the shield to me, that’s when things really changed. Actually, back up a second. After the whole Accords incident, we ended up sending Bucky to Wakanda for like… to hear him describe it, it’s like we sent him for a two-year spa retreat. They unscrambled his brain as best they could—and really, I think it’s a good thing they couldn’t do any more because I wouldn’t wish some of his memories on my worst enemy—and he spent like months meditating in a hut and milking goats and going to therapy every day. When I met up with him again, I barely would’ve recognized him.”

“So that’s kind of when you guys reconciled? The arguing stopped?”

“Oh, it never stopped,” Wilson says with a grin. “We still argue all the time, about all kinds of things. Just ask Rhodey [Lieutenant Colonel James Rhodes, aka War Machine] or Scott [Lang, Ant-Man] or anybody. But the dynamic shifted a little, I think. Bucky’s got… Like I can’t imagine some of the stuff he’s been through, but he’s just kind of learned to roll with it. He is hands down the most resilient person I have ever met. Easily. It was real hard to keep hating him when he was so dead set on getting me to like him, too.”

“Can you walk me through the process by which you two decided to live together?”

“Yeah,” he says, and the nervousness is back. He smooths his hands on his thighs over his jeans. “So, basically, once I got the shield, we’d just barely come back. Like everyone else who got… I—I still don’t know if this is like an okay question to ask people. Do you mind me asking if you were dusted?”

I don’t mind. “Yeah, I was.”

“So you get it,” Wilson says. “Might be the most vulnerable I’d ever felt. I got nothing. Nowhere to go, just the clothes on my back. Then Steve hands me this shield and this enormous legacy—and I look back and there’s Bucky, standing a couple of yards behind me, nodding like, yeah, it should be you. He was the first person who knew, and he’s been right by my side ever since.”

“So you decided to stick together?”

“The original conversation about it was pretty logistical,” Wilson says, rubbing his beard. “There was so much going on, it’s hard to remember exactly what was said, but I think it was along the lines of him offering to fetch the shield for me while I learned how to throw it, and stuff like that. Just easier to do when we’re together 24/7.”

“So rooming together didn’t actually grow out of field partnerships?”

“It was definitely the other way around,” says Wilson. “Basically, I’d get a call from the powers that be that there was something I had to go check out, and it was easier to just walk across the hall than to pick someone else, try to wake them up, and then have to rendez-vous and strategize.”

“I’ll bet,” I say.

Wilson nods. “Easier and faster. Bucky can go from dead asleep to fully geared up in under three minutes. The first few times were like that, with me just knocking on his bedroom door like ‘hey, I need—’ and he comes barreling out covered in knives thirty seconds later like, ‘where are we going?’ We just… clicked. And I’ll be honest; I was really surprised. He’s got my six, I’ve got his, and I never question it. I started asking for him specifically on all my assignments after that, and Fury [Nick Fury, Director of S.H.I.E.L.D.] and everyone caught on quick that that’s how it was gonna be. I don’t have to ask anymore.”

“Do you see this continuing long term?” I ask.

Wilson doesn’t hesitate. “Definitely.”

“How would you describe your relationship with Sergeant Barnes now?” I ask. “Clearly you’re partners in the field, and roommates, but…”

Wilson takes a deep breath. His hands are shaking, but he clasps them together in front of him and looks me straight in the eye.

“As of last month,” he says slowly, “Bucky and I are married.”

In the spirit of my interview with Captain America, who stands for honesty and justice and integrity, I think you deserve to know the truth. I want to say that I didn’t drop my recorder, but I did. It clatters to the floor, luckily undamaged.

That startles Wilson into a laugh. For the second it takes me to retrieve my recorder from under my seat, I wonder if he’s kidding.

“Come on,” he says. “Say something. I’m getting nervous.” He’s smiling, but not joking.

“Congratulations,” I blurt out. “I...really?”

“Yeah.” The tension leaves his body in a rush. “We, uh, it’s official.”

I’m struggling for questions at this point. The talking points I was planning on hitting in this interview are all suddenly moot, and I decide to throw out my mental to-do list entirely. I finally settle on, “How long have you two been together?”

“A little over two years,” Wilson answers. “About three months after I took up the shield.”

“How did it happen?”

Wilson grins. “Uh, well. I had sort of been…having feelings about him, you know, for awhile. Actually, it’s more like I had noticed that I was having more-than-friendly feelings in the few weeks leading up to that. I think the main reason we had so much trouble getting along in the beginning is that it took some time to process those feelings as attraction. So in a way, I was interested on some level right from the get go.”

“Even if that person wasn’t...behind the wheel of their own brain, so to speak—” I start, but Wilson interjects.

“I see what you did there.”

“—I think it would take a lot for me to be attracted to someone who had previously tried to kill me.”

“Less than I would’ve expected, that’s for sure,” Wilson says. “But it’s not like I was checking him out while he was busy tearing my wings off my back; I’m talking about once he was mentally present in his body. That was like...two years after the whole steering wheel incident, and I hadn’t seen him at all in the interim. I didn’t even know where he was during that time.”

“So it had at least been awhile since he had tried to kill you?”

“Oh yeah. And plenty of other people tried to kill me in those two years, and they weren’t even sorry about it. You gotta adjust your standards, you know?” he says with a laugh.

“Anyway, if you ask him, he says he’s been all in since the moment he saw me back in Wakanda after his little vacation. Now we’re talking about four years since the steering wheel thing. Me, Steve, Nat and everybody; we landed in Wakanda and Bucky’s there. He and I look at each other over Steve’s shoulder, and like, bam, that was it for him. 

“And then there’s five years where neither of us exist. We get back, we fight the monsters, Steve gives me the shield, and while all this is happening, apparently Bucky has come to the conclusion that he’s in love with me. After that, he was just waiting for me to catch up.”

“And he just knew you’d get there? Did you give him any indication that you were interested, or…?”

“I definitely did, but not intentionally,” says Wilson. “He’s very perceptive—like way more than I was giving him credit for—but I think it’s a combination of that and me not being as subtle as I think I am.

“Because, see there’s this invisible line I’ve drawn here—at least that’s how he was thinking about it—and I keep dancing a little closer to that line every day, the line being the no homo line; the point where you can’t take it back. The flirting, I mean. I, of course, think he has no clue and that I’m being slick about it. Actually, lemme ask—how much detail are you looking for here? Like do you want to know the whole story or just—”

“Lay it on me,” I tell him. “Just however you want to tell it.”

“Alright. Where was I? So I’m just there going back and forth on whether or not it’s a good idea to risk this roommate-partner-buddy thing we’ve got going here by trying to make a move that, frankly, I have no clue if he’s gonna be receptive to. You have to remember we’re talking about a guy from the Great Depression here, like that’s the time period he grew up in. I’m no historian, but I think it’s common knowledge that if you were a man who was attracted to men back then, you mostly kept that to yourself. The chances of him bringing up his sexual orientation unprompted are very low. And like, I’m 90% sure I’ve caught him looking before, but that’s never a guarantee, you know?

“So, instead of sitting down and having a mature conversation about my feelings, I keep doing this thing where, for example, say he’s trying something new with his hair, and I’ll say something nice about it. And then I follow up immediately with, ‘Almost makes up for your ugly mug,’ or whatever, which—I mean, he’s such a good-looking guy, like what ugly mug, obviously I don’t mean that. And he’s not stupid, he knows what he looks like. So he picks up on what I’m doing, doesn’t say anything, and lets this go on for months.

“Eventually, there’s one night… We’re on the couch, watching like, I don’t know, Seinfeld or something. Whatever was on. He’s reading a book on my tablet, looking all relaxed and handsome. I can’t have that, so I start egging him on like I usually do, and I guess I got close enough to the line that he just puts the tablet down, turns to me and says, ‘Sam, you know there’s no line, right?’ 

“And I’m going, okay, what does that mean? Like, is this a conversation I was previously a part of and forgot or...? Where is this ‘line’ thing coming from? And so I ask him—I think I just said, ‘What?’ At that point he looks me right in the eye, and he goes, ‘You can kiss me if you want to.’” So I did, and he was ready for it, like no hesitation. Like I said: waiting for me to catch up.”

This, as you can imagine, is far beyond the level of detail I could have ever imagined I’d get about Captain America’s love life in my wildest dreams. I decide to ask a new question, because I feel like I’d be pushing my luck to delve further when he’s already been so open about this experience. 

“Who proposed and when?” 

“Ooh,” says Wilson, “I guess technically I did, but I’m gonna go on record saying that one was a group effort.”

“Well, now you’re gonna have to explain that,” I tell him. “What’s a ‘group effort’ proposal look like?”

“Hmm. I backed myself into that one, didn’t I?” he says. “First, I want the record to show that before I called you guys to set up this interview, I specifically asked Bucky if there were any us-related topics or whatever that were off-limits to discuss and he said ‘No,’ and I said, ‘Are you sure?’ and he said ‘Yes, I’m sure,’ and I said, “You better be sure, because whatever I say is gonna be public knowledge after that,” and he said “I know, I get it, Jesus.” Then I dropped it because he sounded like he was getting kinda irritated. If he didn’t want me to tell you any of this stuff, that would’ve been the time to speak up, so here we go:

“We were at… Well, I can’t tell you exactly where we were, but let’s just say we were working. There was nobody else in the room, but we were getting ready to go out in the field; seemed like it was gonna be a pretty...intense situation out there. I had my whole suit on, he was calibrating his arm, and the conversation ended up at living wills. As you can imagine, that’s an important thing to have when you’re in this line of work. So he proceeded to tell me that the last time he’d updated his was never and that his next-of-kin was nobody. And I was like, ‘So what, your grenade launchers are all gonna go to the state? I don’t even get the red one?’ and I’m just giving him a hard time, you know, and he’s like, ‘Sam.’ 

“And then, my god, he just goes all the way off about how much he loves me and trusts me and I—we don’t usually go there. I mean, we’d been on the same page for a long time as far as, we’ve established that we’re in love, this relationship is going well, but it’s not something that we’d verbalized in any real depth. That’s just a level of like, exposure, vulnerability, I think, that doesn’t come naturally to most people, myself included. 

“So he just keeps talking—and I think it’s fair to say he’s not a very talkative guy most of the time—and I’m standing there with my jaw on the floor because he is not holding back, and this is all clearly unrehearsed. Like, this is just how he really feels about me, apparently. By the time he’s finished, I’m crying, he’s crying, it’s a mess. And so I open my mouth, and I have no idea what I’m gonna say to all that, but what comes out is, “Will you marry me?” I wasn’t planning on it, but suddenly I just knew. Best decision I ever made.”

“And you’ve made some very important decisions in your life.”

“That’s right. I know which ones I’m leaving out by saying this was the best, and I stand by it.”

At that moment, as if on cue, the lock clicks, and Sergeant Barnes walks through the front door carrying two very full bags of groceries on his vibranium arm. He tosses a set of car keys into a little dish and locks the door behind him.

“Hey, babe,” Wilson calls out, catching his eye.

“You did it?” Barnes asks.

“Yeah.” Wilson tilts his head up.

Barnes rounds the corner, pecks Wilson on the lips with all the comfort and familiarity of a couple who have done it a thousand times. I hear him murmur, “Proud of you,” under his breath.

Barnes sets the groceries on the counter in front of me as Wilson introduces us.

“Call me Bucky,” says Barnes, reaching out with his right hand to shake mine. There’s a silver band on the fourth finger, and when I look back over at Wilson, he’s slipping his wedding ring out of the pocket of his jeans and putting it back on his left hand.

“Wasn’t sure if I’d be able to go through with all this,” he says, gesturing to me and my notepad. “I took the wedding pictures down in the living room too, before you got here.”

“I knew he could do it,” Barnes tells me. His voice is low, soft, and so quiet, a hint of an old Brooklyn accent underlying his words even now, despite everything he’s been through and everywhere he’s been. He shrugs out of his nondescript hoodie and tosses it on one of the unused stools, grabbing a kettle and putting it on the stove.

“Hibiscus or chamomile?” he asks me, pulling two boxes of tea bags from one of the grocery bags and letting me choose before turning to Wilson. “Bad news, hon. They were out of your whole wheat pita.”

“Again?” says Wilson, with feeling. “Really?”

“They only had the gluten free. I guess I could check the other store tonight, but it’s supposed to rain later, and I kinda don’t feel like going out again,” Barnes says, head buried in the cupboard as he stacks cans. “I was thinking maybe I could just try making ‘em. How does that sound? How hard can it be, right?”

“‘How does homemade pita sound,’ he says,” Wilson repeats, jabbing a thumb towards Barnes. “Can you believe this guy?”

“I honestly can’t.” It’s the truth. My brain refuses to reconcile this man with the supposed playboy I read about in my 11th grade history textbook, nor the internationally feared assassin.

“Is that a yes or no on the experimental homemade pita?” Barnes asks Wilson, still deep in the cupboard. “No promises on quality.”

“That’s a yes, Buck,” says Wilson, then he turns to me. “Don’t listen to him; he’s a great cook.”

The Winter Soldier is a great cook, I write in my notes. And then I realize this is my moment to shine.

“I actually know a good recipe for homemade pita,” I tell them. “It’s whole wheat.” That gets Barnes’s attention.

“You do?” he says, pulling out his phone. “Can you send it to—hmm.” He frowns. “Sam, it’s not showing the thing.”

“What thing?” Wilson asks, taking Barnes’s phone from his hand. “Oh, yeah, that’s cause it’s set to Contacts Only, Buck, you have to switch it to Allow Everyone.”

Wilson looks at me, smiling. “Bucky here hates technology—”

“—I don’t hate technology—”

“Oh yes you do, you won’t even let me get you an iPad—”

“Yeah, for what? What do I need it for? I wouldn’t even use—”

“You wouldn’t use one, huh? How about I stop letting you borrow mine for a couple of weeks, then we’ll see how you feel.” Wilson turns to me, passing Barnes’s phone back to him. “He should be showing up on your AirDrop now.”

Sure enough, I’m able to send the recipe link to Bucky’s iPhone. He thanks me and starts scrolling right through it, argument apparently totally forgotten.

As Barnes continues to read, periodically checking on the kettle; Wilson excuses himself to help put away the rest of the groceries, which are mostly produce. 

“I hope you have like, immediate plans for these,” Wilson says, inspecting the avocados as he pulls them out of the paper bag. “They are ripe, man. Tomorrow’s gonna be too late for them.”

“Yeah I do, I was gonna make grilled chicken and avocado sandwiches for dinner,” Barnes replies. “I got tomatoes, swiss cheese—”

“What’s all this about pita then if we’re having sandwiches?” Wilson asks.

“No, the pita is the bread here,” Barnes explains. “You stuff everything in the pocket. I’m gonna have to get started pretty soon; probably gonna double the rising time since it’s cold out.” Wilson hums in apparent approval of this course of action.

I lose Wilson to the refrigerator for several minutes. He stands back up after arranging things in the crisper to his liking.

“Any chance I could get a peek at those wedding pictures?” I ask.

“Oh,” says Wilson. “That okay with you?” He turns to Barnes, who nods, carefully steeping bags of tea in three steaming mugs, and then leads me back to the living room. 

Wilson has stashed two silver-framed pictures in a drawer of the coffee table, apparently in anticipation of my visit, and he pulls them out to show to me. Both are taken in front of a familiar-looking farmhouse, which I struggle with for a moment before placing it as the exact one in Captain Rogers’s watercolor painting that’s hanging to my left. Wilson’s suit in the photo is a matte but brilliant shade of cobalt; Barnes wears black.

One is of just the two of them, arms around one another and foreheads together. It’s almost too intimate to look at; I feel as though I’m intruding on something intensely private, even though Wilson is standing right here offering me a glimpse of it.

He puts that one back up onto the mantle.

The next is them in the center of a large group that consists of some people I recognize and others I don’t. Familiar faces include Dr. Bruce Banner [The Hulk], Clint Barton [Hawkeye], and Maria Hill [Deputy Director of S.H.I.E.L.D.]. Also present: King T’Challa of Wakanda and his sister, Princess Shuri. There’s a young girl in a white dress, carrying a flower basket and missing a front tooth, standing in front of [C.E.O. of Stark Industries] Pepper Potts. Next to them is a teenager with floppy brown hair doing an indescribably awkward double thumbs up.

“Who’s that?” I ask, pointing at him.

Wilson snorts. “Some punk. Family friend.”

That picture gets hung on the empty nail next to Captain Rogers’s painting.

Barnes knocks quietly on the doorway behind us. “Tea’s ready.”

An awkward silence settles in with us once we sit back down in the kitchen, Wilson and Barnes next to one another, and me across from them. I flip through my notes, taking a sip from my mug.. My drink is sweeter than I was expecting, because apparently the Winter Soldier has added agave to the hibiscus tea he made me. It’s delicious.

Barnes eventually breaks. “So whatcha go over so far?”

“How we got together, how we got engaged,” Wilson answers him. “In detail too, so if you don’t want that published, you’re gonna have to grovel at the journalist yourself, because you said—”

“Oh my god,” says Barnes, old-school New York sarcasm dripping from every word. “How dare you tell people about the best thing I ever did, huh? Now they’re gonna think I’m like, a sensitive, good guy, and here I’ve been coasting along on this murder cyborg image. What have you done, you dick?”

Wilson rolls his eyes.

“So...you’re okay with it?” I ask them, absolutely ready to scrub the record if he hesitates.

“You kidding me?” says Barnes. “Every other week comes up some new atrocity I committed against my will in like...the 70s, and you think I’m gonna be upset with people knowing that once in a while I say nice shit to someone I love? Write it. Please. Knock yourself out.”

Okay then. Since Barnes seems willing to talk, I ask them if I can throw them a few questions I have for them as a couple. Barnes looks as though he wasn’t anticipating this.

Wilson turns to him. “You wanna be here for this?”

Barnes nods slowly, hesitantly, chewing on the inside of his cheek.

“You’re okay?” Wilson asks. “You decide you’re done at any point and I’ll end it. Or you can go hang out in the other room, your call.”

“I’m good for now,” Barnes decides. “I’ll let you know if that changes.”

“You can ask whatever you want,” Wilson says to me. “I can’t promise we’ll answer everything, but go ahead and shoot.”

“I guess the first question I have is: what’s the hardest thing about navigating your jobs as a couple? What bothers you the most about that?”

Wilson exhales loudly. “I mean, the obvious answer is the danger,” he says. “The nature of what we do is fundamentally unsafe. I think it goes without saying—I’ll still say it—that we’re always aware that one of us might not make it back from a mission, which is...” Wilson trails off for a moment, shaking his head. “You don’t get used to that feeling. The fear.”

“Mm hmm,” Barnes agrees, from behind his mug.

“And,” continues Wilson, “I’m also aware that by doing this interview, I’m putting Bucky in additional danger. I’m not naive enough to think that the people working against us won’t try to use my relationship with him as leverage against me.”

“That makes sense,” I say, because he’s absolutely right, and pretending that public knowledge of his marriage doesn’t put them both in a new kind of danger seems disingenuous. I face Barnes. “Your turn.”

“Racist assholes,” says Barnes immediately.

Wilson smirks and cocks his head in agreement. “Sometimes I think I’ve talked that subject to death, other times it’s like I could never hope to address it enough. Today feels like the first one.”

A diplomatic, but clear answer. Time to move on. 

I’m about to ask the next question when he adds: “Another thing that gets under my skin is how it’s like Bucky’s image in the eyes of the general public is totally dependent on me hyping him up all the time. As far as I’m concerned, he’s proven himself a hundred times over, and yet if I’m not on T.V. reminding people of that every day, it’s suddenly like ‘oh, the Winter Soldier, can we ever really trust him?’ 

“I just… It bothers me. I want us to come to a collective understanding that everything that happened happened to Bucky, not because of him. It kinda circles back into another of the things I’m passionate about, which is mental health care and awareness. I think if we as a society were better about recognizing and addressing mental illness, and particularly Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, I wouldn’t have to keep having this conversation about my husband.”

Barnes’s face is getting pinker and he says nothing, but he’s smiling a little at Wilson, who puts an arm around his shoulders.

“Anyway, we can move on,” says Wilson, his expression going easy again. “Just had to get that out there one more time.”

“Hopefully this one’s a little more pleasant,” I say. “What inspired you to come forward about your relationship? I know you guys—” I gesture between them, ”—have been together for a couple years, so why now?”

“I want to go on a date in public,” says Bucky. “I haven’t been on a date since the 40s.”

“That’s right,” says Wilson. “We’re doing all this so I can take him Denny’s and hold his hand over a $6.99 Super Slam.”

When I finish laughing, Wilson continues. “Part of it’s because we realized it’s gonna get out there whether we like it or not. You already knew when you got here that we lived together, and that’s because that information got leaked to the public last week, so it was always just a matter of time before people found out anyway. I’d rather have some control over that narrative; better you hear it from me and Bucky, how we want to tell it, than in some tabloid.”

He’s right about that: they would undoubtedly have been outed one way or another. Their status as “roommates” was reported by TMZ a week and a half ago, and there was a Buzzfeed piece only yesterday, rife with gifs, entitled 15 Times Captain America and The Winter Soldier Made Us Wish We Were Their Third Roommate, that ended on the note of how Wilson and Barnes are “absolute BFF GOALS.” Wilson continues:

“But I think the biggest reason is that we decided, together, that we actually think it’s good for people to  know. I’ve seen firsthand the impact that having a Black Captain America has had on the Black community and on the national topic of race, and we think—we hope—that a Captain America who is a member of the LGBT community will have a similar effect. 

“The people who already hate me aren’t going to like me any better or worse for being bisexual, but some bisexual teenager out there is hopefully gonna read this article and feel a little bit better about themselves than they did before. That’s really the impact I want to have here. Got anything to add, Buck?”

“Actually, yeah,” says Barnes, staring at the counter in front of him and fiddling with his wedding ring. “I grew up gay in thirties. The idea of being able to just...tell people, that’s still amazing to me. The fact that I’m sitting here talking about it with a stranger and you’re not screamin’ in my face right now…”

“You do know I’m not straight either, right?” I ask him. I’m not exactly shy about that, it’s the kind of thing most people can tell just by looking at me.

“Even so,” says Barnes, finally looking me in the eye. “You fool around with a fella back in the day—or worse, you make a pass and he turns you down—then he knows about you, and then it’s like, what if he tells someone? Some of the worst shit I ever saw came from people who found out that way. So, other gay guys. Basically you never felt safe.”

“What about Captain Rogers?” I ask. “Did he know?”

“Oh yeah, Steve knew,” says Barnes with a dismissive wave of his hand, like that ought to be obvious. “He wasn’t gonna tell anyone; I got too much dirt on him.“

“Pfft. He’s messing with you,” Wilson interjects, directed at me. “There’s no dirt on Steve anywhere; believe me, I’d know by now if there was.”

“I want you to guess how many times I’ve had to clean up Steve’s puke,” says Barnes in a total deadpan, leaning forward. “Whatever number you think it is, the real answer is higher. 

“This again,” says Wilson. “I keep telling you Buck, Steve throwing up on you at Coney Island isn’t the big scandalous story you seem to want it to be.”

“Sam wasn’t there, he didn’t see it,” Barnes insists. “We were with these girls and they just left us standing there by the Cyclone, covered in hot dog chunks. Actually, that part was kind of a relief ‘cause one of ‘em was definitely jonesing for me to kiss her before that, and I really didn’t want to. 

“But seriously, after everything we went through together, I knew I could trust Steve with anything. And that made me luckier than most—at least I had one person. Lots of guys had no one. 

“Anyway, my reasons for coming out with all this are probably more selfish than Sam’s. You know some of those Nazis—we’re callin’ ‘em something else these days, like ‘alt-right’ or whatever, but I know a Nazi when I see one—they have this crazy idea of what I was like back in the day. They’ve got this fantasy, like a golem of toxic masculinity with my face on it, and I just want to publicly shit on their dreams. Every date I ever went on with a girl was a total sham, and I was scared down to my bones that someone would figure that out. I fight because someone needs to and I’m good at it, but I hate hurting people and I’d much rather be sitting here cuddling on the couch with a man. This man.”

Barnes is grinning big and wide by the time he finishes—a real, genuine smile that brings out the sparkle in his eyes—and suddenly I feel like I’m catching a glimpse of what Wilson must be seeing in him. Wilson himself is laughing.

“I like how you snuck your little buzzword in there, baby,” he says. “Toxic masculinity. That’s one of Bucky’s things he learned about from his Wakandan therapist. 

“Obviously super important,” Wilson adds, lest I think he’s making light of something serious.

“I think it’s great that we’re talking about it so openly now, especially with respect to the military.”

Barnes tilts his head in agreement, checking the time on his phone. We’re probably approaching the point at which he wants to get started on that pita bread, and I’m definitely in his way.

“So what’s next for you guys?” I ask.

“Isn’t that always the question?” Wilson asks, taking Barnes’s right hand in his left and resting them, intertwined, on the countertop. “Sometimes it’s aliens. Sometimes not. Who even knows anymore?”

“Hopefully, a whole lot more of this,” says Barnes, looking down at their hands.

Wilson smiles. “Well, that’s a given. That’s always.”

This is when Barnes gets up to pull a stand mixer out of one of the cupboards, and I read that as my cue to take my leave. I end my recording, Wilson thanks me for stopping by, I promise to give him an advance copy of my writing to make sure he’s comfortable with what I said, and I find myself standing back on the sidewalk of [REDACTED] moments later.

I’m not typically in the habit of including as many details about the dinner plans of my article subjects as I have here—and I’m certainly testing the limits of my editor’s patience with the word count—but in the spirit of Wilson’s wishes for what his coming out story will mean to the people of America, I wanted to emphasize how human his marriage is. 

Barnes and Wilson have extraordinary jobs that they are undoubtedly uniquely suited for and that most of us will never fully understand, but they are also two people who have been through a lot of hardship and found happiness and peace in one another. And that’s something that most of us do understand: love, the human experience that transcends the divisions we give ourselves.

*From a press conference Wilson gave on May 7, 2025.

**From a statement written by Barnes and issued through a S.H.I.E.L.D. representative on November 1, 2023.

For further reading on Barnes, the author recommends: 

1. Greatest Generation X: The Impossible Life of James Buchanan Barnes, by Ariel Guzman, published in 2025.

2. R.Y. Uhlencott’s column “The Wolf of Brooklyn” in the October 2024 issue of Time covers the basic timeline and trajectory of Barnes’s life.

[sapphirelass]

In my Blood ~ Will Solace x Sister

Hi you guys! Wow, it's been over a year😅 I'm still working toward my uni degree (physics, maths and upper secondary school education for those of you who don't know), spending time with my boyfriend, hanging out with friends, and visiting my family as often as I can. I promise I have done a fair bit of writing this past year, just not finished anything... But, here we are! Really looking forward to the PJO-series, but while we're all waiting, here's a Will imagine because Will is great <3

----------------------

To read as xReader, click here

Words: 2500 ish

Warnings: injury, blood, wounds, angst (normal demigod stuff really, but you know)

Please note that English isn't my first language! I have studied it for over a decade, and speak it fluently, but there might still be some grammatical errors and a mix of British/American expressions - thanks for understanding :)

she/her OC

Enjoy!

----------------------

“Get down!” she shouted, as a giant, angry, terrifying cyclops approached them. “Listen closely now; do you see that huge pine tree over there? And the statue? Run past them, and you’ll find people who’ll help. I’ll try to buy you as much time as possible!”

The two seven-year-old half-bloods that had just been saved and brought to camp (well, almost anyway) sat off towards the border, as Chelsea Solace, daughter of Apollo, stayed behind and pulled her sword out. She was a way more advanced archer than swordfighter, but the one bow she had brought with her had fallen out of her firm grip as she jumped behind a boulder for cover. She had made an attempt at getting it back, however, that just resulted in her body coming crashing to the ground as the cyclops’ hand collided with her chest, while the bow ended up in between the hard ground and the monster’s massive foot… Chelsea threw her head back and sighed at the sight of her trusty old weapon in pieces, and it wasn’t until she tried to push herself back up on her feet that she noticed a terrible pain spreading through her left arm from her elbow. It hurt badly, but since she didn’t have much of a choice, Chelsea, suddenly feeling slightly dizzy, pushed herself back up with her other hand and looked for another road to victory. 

After a few minutes of trying to attack the monster with her sword, but repeatedly failing since getting close enough without getting hit herself proved to be very difficult, Chelsea quickly ran in a circle around the monster causing him to stumble - if only for a second. She wasted no time launching herself at the cyclops with her sword and - *SPLASH*. The sharp, metal blade bore deep into the slimy eye, and the cyclops staggered backwards, slowly disintegrating. Chelsea was just about to take a deep breath when she felt a stinging sensation in her abdomen. Briefly glancing down, she winced as she realized what had happened. The monster must have grabbed one of her arrows from the quiver she had thrown onto the ground, and, rather violently judging by the amount of blood oozing through her orange t-shirt, pushed one into her side. 

Being a demigod, Chelsea had obviously suffered multiple injuries before, though never quite ones as bad as this. The bottom half of her shirt was now more red than orange, and she could feel the world spinning slightly. Groaning, she sat down against a tree and inspected the wound carefully. She wanted to pull the arrow out, but her twin brother Will had always strongly argued against doing something just like that. A vague memory of him saying something along the lines of “the weapon possibly being the only thing keeping you from losing too much blood”... Sighing, she started to slowly make her way toward camp but didn’t make it very far before stumbling over her own feet and falling forwards on the cold hard ground. Chelsea coughed up something that looked like a mixture of spit and blood before pushing herself to her feet again with the help of her sword. It wasn’t a speedy process, but she kept walking in the direction of the infirmary, stopping to catch her breath every few steps.

---

“Chels?!” She only had a few hundred meters to go when two of her closest friends - Travis and Connor Stoll - came running towards her with worried faces. Typically when the brothers approached someone together in this way it was with mischievous smiles on their faces and usually followed by a prank of some sort, but not this time. “What in the name of the gods happened to you?”, Travis asked, as Connor carefully placed Chelsea’s right arm across his shoulders to help support her. “We ran into some new kids who said you’d picked a fight with a giant?”

“Oh hardly…”, she demonstrated. “If anyone picked a fight it was him! And besides, it was just a normal cyclops, and not even a very big one.” She winced slightly when Travis smiled and grabbed her other arm, but started walking more steadily thanks to the brothers. “But my bow broke, and - friendly advice - don’t try to take out a cyclops with nothing but a sword.”

“You should put that on a T-shirt.”, Travis joked but shut up quickly when Chelsea’s knees buckled and she stumbled again. He sent her a worried glance as Connor spoke up.

“So, what happened? How bad off are you really?”

She told them the story as they walked slowly down the hill and across the volleyball court. They were right by the big house when Chelsea finished the story.

“Gods…”, Connor mumbled, changing his grip around his friend’s shoulder to give her even more support. “You know Will’s gonna kill you himself this time, right?”. Chelsea was about to answer him when someone opened the door to the infirmary and beat her to it.

“Who do I have to kill? I swear, if Nico is shadow travelling like a madman agai- Oh Gods!”, Will interrupted himself, a look of horror on his face as he was met with the sight of his twin sister barely able to stand up, and covered from head to toe in blood, mud, and dirt. “Chels, what happened?!” He examined her quickly before holding the door open so the Hermes boys could get in and slowly lay Chelsea on one of the bunks.

“It’s a bit of a story, and I don’t know if I feel like repeating it again right now”, she said weakly, wincing a bit as Will swiftly pulled her worn jean jacket off, “but the short version is that a cyclops punched me and I have an arrow through my stomach… And probably a broken arm too. And I might have hit my head when I fell… it, eh, hurts a bit…”

“Gods…”, Will sighed, “Well, do you feel nauseous? Disorientated? Can you see clearly or is anything blurry?” 

“Eh… a little dizzy maybe, and a weak headache, but my sight is fine and I’m not feeling sick.”

 “Right”, Will mumbled as he wiped a small amount of blood from his sister’s forehead and briefly inspected the small wound. “Something positive I suppose…”. He put a small bandaid on it to slow the bleeding down at least momentarily, before moving to look at his sister’s arm which was indeed bent in a rather weird way. “Well, head-related injuries are always scary, I’ll have to examine it further to know how bad it actually is. The arm is absolutely broken - annoying, but fixable - though this arrow…” He grabbed a pair of scissors and cut through her T-shirt so that he could get to the wound.  “Jeez, Chels… How long have you been bleeding?”

She took a deep breath before answering. “I’m not sure, it feels like an eternity, but an hour maybe?”

“AN HOUR?!” Will tried to stay calm, but his now pale face told another story. “Holy… Okay, eh, Chels, I’m gonna… I have to get the arrow out and stop the bleeding as fast as I can, you- you’ve already lost way too much blood. Let's just hope that it missed anything vital.”

He whispered the last part, but Chelsea hardly heard the rest either, as she slowly but steadily started drifting off to sleep. “Sure thing… You do that, I’m just gonna doze off for a quick sec…”

“Oh no, you’re not!” Will dropped what he was holding and grabbed her shoulders to shake her gently. “Chels, I get that you’re exhausted, but you have to stay awake. As I said, you lost a lot of blood, and you may have a concussion. Sorry, I’m not even gonna argue with you - you’re not falling asleep.”

He turned back to the brothers who were watching from afar, wanting to know what happened but also not being in the way. “Connor, Travis, you have to keep her talking while I work, okay?”

“Sure”, Travis nodded, as Connor grabbed Chelsea’s right hand again. “Wanna tell us about the new kids?”

“Yeah”, Connor added. “They seem cool!”

“They are…” Chelsea moved a bit, carefully letting Will remove the piece of her T-shirt that he had cut off to get to the wound. “Only seven years old, fighters both of them. They ran away from different orphanages in Vermont and took down a basilisk together in Albany and have taken care of each other si- AHHHHH.”

She let out a harsh scream as her brother swiftly pulled what was left of the arrow out of her chest, and would probably have rolled off the bed if not for the Stoll brothers holding her down as Will apologised profusely. 

“I’m so sorry, Chels”, he mumbled sadly, as he handed Travis a big piece of ambrosia, “but that was the worst of it. You’re doing really well, just hold on. You should try to have some ambrosia now that the arrow’s out.” She struggled to take a few shallow breaths as the extreme pain slowly began to fade again, but nodded and accepted the small piece of godly food Travis was offering her. The pain instantly lessened even more as the flavour of her mother’s gingerbread cookies combined with a touch of magic consumed her whole being. Chelsea finally took a really deep breath, but when she exhaled it felt as if every single drop of energy she had been grasping onto left her at once. She allowed herself to close her eyes and immediately began drifting off to sleep, the worried voices of Will, Travis, and Connor simply fading into silence.

---

Chelsea was desperate for a few hours of peaceful rest, but unfortunately sleep and nightmares tended to almost always go hand in hand for demigods. She relived the last 24 hours in her sleep, everything from leaving camp in the early morning feeling excited to bring some new kids back to the exhausting battle that could have ended badly if not for the cyclops’ inability to stay on its feet. During the actual fight, it had happened so quickly that she hadn’t even noticed it at first, but this time she could clearly see how the monster roughly yanked a sharp arrow from her quiver and began making his way back towards her. She lay flat on the ground, desperately trying to move out of the way, but she couldn’t. It was as if all her muscles suddenly decided to to take any more orders from her brain. The cyclops lifted his arm, getting ready to deliver the final blow, as Chelsea closed her eyes, starting to accept her fate.

It felt as if time itself stopped. All she could hear was her own shaky breathing - until suddenly it wasn’t… There was a also voice, far away, sure, but still clearly there…

“Chels? Please wake up! C’mon!”

It sounded familiar, but she couldn’t pinpoint who it belonged to. She focused and tried to listen for the voice again, but she was so exhausted… Giving in to the darkness felt so inviting… And simple. She could do with simple for once.

“No, no, no!” The voice cracked, panic and desperation shining through. “Don’t you dare give up now! C’mon, Chelsea, I’m here, I’ve got you! Don’t give up… please…”

She was so close to slipping away, but something about that seemed wrong, and the reassuring words plus the comforting feeling brought to her by the sound of the familiar voice gave her precisely the boost of energy she needed. Shaking herself out of the nightmare, Chelsea inhaled sharply before shooting up, her eyes darting around the room until someone gently placed their hands on her shoulders, causing her to meet their gaze.

“Chelsea!”

She blinked a few times, shaking violently as she began realizing where she was. “Will?”

“Oh Gods!” He hugged her tightly, perhaps a bit too tight, but it didn’t matter in that moment - the 16-year-old was just so incredibly relieved to see that his sister was alright. “You’re alive!”

Chelsea’s breathing evened out again as she leaned into her brother. “I’m sorry, Will. I’m so sorry…”

He didn’t let go of her arms, but moved back slightly and sent her a questioning look. “What do you mean?”

“I… I just… I didn’t mean to worry you.”

“Gods, Chels, I always worry.” He moved closer again. “I’m just happy you’re okay! I mean, it’ll be a while before you’re back doing quests of course”, he sent her a serious look, “but the fact that you woke up is a good sign”. 

Chelsea accepted the ambrosia piece Will offered to her before answering. “All thanks to you.”

“Well”, he shrugged, “your body did most of the hard work...” Chelsea shook her head at Will’s modesty before starting to push herself off the bed to stand up.

“Whoa, whoa, whoa!! Stop! What do you think you’re doing?!”, Will exclaimed, swiftly pushing her back down. "You have been unconscious for over four days and lost so much blood, and that’s not even mentioning your head, arm or other random scratches. You’re staying here at least until Friday, no discussion.”

Chelsea rolled her eyes, secretly feeling very lucky to have a brother as caring as Will. "Okay, I'm sorry. I just need to stretch my legs for a second, please? Help me out?" 

Will didn’t look too happy with the idea, but understood how stiff she must be feeling after so many days and nodded. It wasn’t like Chelsea wanted to get up and run, she still felt really tired and weak. However, after that horrifying moment of helplessness that she experienced in her dream, just the confirmation that she could in fact still move her arms and legs was incredibly comforting. When everything felt normal, she tried a few careful steps and immediately stumbled, but didn’t fall thanks to Will’s support.

“Light-headed?”

“Yeah, a bit…”

“Alright, that’s enough, back you go.” He guided her back to the bed, and she lay her head back down on the pillow.

"There we go!", Will smiled, "can I get you anything?"

"A cup of tea, please? Red, no honey?"

"You’ve got it!"

Five minutes later Will returned, balancing two cups of tea and a cheese sandwich on a tray. "Who ordered the tea and sandwich?", he asked jokingly as he sat the tray on the bed. He placed some pillows against the wall and slowly helped his sister sit up against them. “That would be me", she smiled. Will also sat down on the bed and put an arm around Chelsea. She took a small bite of the sandwich and leaned her head on her brother's shoulder. The siblings drank their tea in silence, enjoying the feeling of being together and safe, if only for the night.

<3

//L masterlist

[silence-burns]

Please Hate Me //part 38

Fandom: Marvel

Summary: Based on: “Imagine having a love/hate relationship with Loki.” by @thefandomimagine​ Who would have thought that babysitting a god could be so much fun?

Genre: slow-burn, enemies to lovers

The pale cheek was rubbery and cold under your finger. You poked it again. "Are you sure he's dead?" 

Loki looked at the severed, and a little chewed, bottom half of the ambassador. "Pretty much."

The body had been laid out on top of a desk, with all the books and documents previously occupying it put on the ground. It didn't really matter in the ways of making things messy, because the suite belonging to the recently deceased ambassador was already a dusty, chaotic mess. The room was dark and narrow and made even smaller by the bookshelves lined along one wall, stealing even more space. The carpet used to be gold and thick, but now it looked just worn and tired. 

"Do we even have a plan? Like, anything in particular to look out for?" 

Loki scratched his chin, looking around next to you. "Plans are for the weak of heart. We've got something better, love—a suspicion. Now we only have to find the evidence for or against it." 

You looked at the shelves filled with old tomes to the point of almost breaking the wood. And then at the loose papers piled carelessly along two of the walls and also in the bedroom. The notes were haphazardly scribbled and left in places where a thought must've struck the man, and then left forgotten or lost. Ink was spilled on the less fortunate ones. 

"...right."

You couldn't say you were happy about it, but there was little to do about it. Whatever the ambassador was working on before he died could shed some light on his death. Now you only had to find it. 

With a deep sigh, you braced yourself and got to work. 

It soon turned out you didn’t understand a single word of it. 

"You said your spell would work and I would understand everything." You focused really hard on the wall of text in a language you'd never seen before. "And it works fine when I'm talking to the lords here, but not on this." 

Loki leaned over your shoulder to peek a glance at the text. "I have no idea. Maybe it works differently on humans? Or maybe you're just a particularly weird individual of your species." 

"Thanks." 

"Welcome, love." 

With nothing you could read, your job there was crippled. Even when Loki assured you he didn't mind doing everything himself and that it wasn't your fault, there was still a sour feeling you couldn't quite shake off. 

"I'm going to see if I can find the kitchens and get us something edible." You decided to pass the time on something at least vaguely helpful. 

Loki looked up from the notes he'd gathered from the windowsill. He’d made himself comfortable in one of the cleaner parts of the room, although unfortunately it just happened to be near the corpse. "Be careful. And please, don't kill anyone without me." 

"I'd never," you promised with a wink and left. 

The castle was huge, but empty. At first, you put in on the murder that must've shaken the people living there, but the longer you looked around, it struck you as odd. Everything was clean, even if touched by time. There must be people taking care of it, but you couldn't find any. 

Or maybe they were avoiding the outsiders. Technically, you were an alien here. 

You walked the empty corridors, enjoying the silent breeze passing through the open panels. It was strange not to see any glass in the windows, but with the weather so mild, there probably wasn't any temperature drop to worry about anyway. 

There were shadows sneaking in the corners of your vision. They could be figments of your imagination and sense of wrongness of this place. They could be the things howling in the dark. 

No. Thinking about that probably wasn't the wisest idea. In a place where thoughts apparently could shape reality, thinking merry, happy thoughts seemed like a much more rational option if one planned to survive and not be eaten by their own fears embodied. You had such plans, and even if Loki was convinced that you had absolutely no connection to magic unless it hit you in the face, it was better to stay cautious. And happy. What a lovely day it was, after all, with the creeping light avoiding particular parts of your vision, and something definitely following you. How nice would it be to meet someone. Anyone. 

Your eyes wandered off into the gardens below, where the everlasting night was laying thick. A fountain shimmered in bluish speckles of water. And behind it, the night opened its eyes. 

You might've jumped a little. Just the tiniest bit. 

But there was no denying that, just for the briefest moment, your eyes met the Queen's, posed unnaturally still among the statues. 

…and people said wishful thinking wouldn't get you anywhere. 

You hopped over the railing, and onto the moss-covered ground. The guard you'd seen before was nowhere to be found. You stared around as hard as you could, trying to pierce the shadows and strange light. It took a moment to find what you were looking for. 

From up close, the stars overhead and the stars shimmering on her skin looked like mirror images. For a moment, the night sky felt within a hand's reach. 

Not one muscle betrayed the Queen had she noticed your arrival. Her eyes were dull and completely blank—to the point where you wondered if you hadn't imagined everything. 

You stood right next to her and still weren't decapitated, which was a comfort and a good sign. You bowed stiffly, even if she didn't see it. 

"Hi," you said quietly, looking for any sign of comprehension. "I'm one of the people who came here to explain the recent murder." 

Nothing. Just the vast expanse of the night enclosed in a fading body and crumbled into a vaguely humanoid shape. The Queen only had one horn intact, white as a bone, and sharp like the crescent moon—the only one to ever be seen on the edge of the universe. 

"I wondered if you knew anything about it," you tried again. "We're doing well so far, and I'm sure we'll find the murderer eventually, so don't worry about that, but… We'd still appreciate any and all help." 

Birds chirped somewhere in the trees. Shimmering pollen flew on the light breeze squeezing through the thicket. The night turned her eyes toward you. 

It'd been a while since you cowered under the sheets, afraid of the darkness. It was a common fear among children, and one that only a few grew out of. Those eyes reminded you of those sleepless nights. 

Not a word left the bloodless lips. Not a muscle twitched. The edges of the woman blurred into the night. 

"...right. Sorry to interrupt you, Your Majesty." 

You backed away a few steps before turning your back to her. A shiver ran down your spine. If that was what fading was, you preferred death. 

*

Loki enjoyed reading, he really did. Even as a child, he'd often been found buried among the old tomes in the palace's library, or smuggling particularly interesting ones to his rooms. There was something in the way of the written word that captured his attention way better than whatever training he was forced to participate in for the sake of Odin's misplaced ambition. There was a certain rush in learning facts previously unknown and in understanding the world or the forces in it better. 

Loki felt absolutely none of that while going through the ambassador's notes. 

Most of them were full of incomprehensible babble of half-finished ideas or references that led nowhere without the books they'd been taken from. Some seemed to be copied pages, which led Loki to the conclusion that the books were not to be taken off the library grounds. 

There were a lot of dates and numbers that made little sense to him, so he put them down on the pile of things he deemed irrelevant to the investigation. The pile was growing and now consisted of several piles, forming the majority of the room's contents. 

The doors opened. Loki was relieved to see you; the dagger disappeared back up his sleeve. 

"That took you awhile," he noticed, throwing the crumbled papers to the right, onto the pile of nonsense. "I was getting worried." 

"I'm good. I got you some apples." 

The apples were a dusted orange, but tasted sweet enough to justify the unusual color. Loki leaned back in his chair and let you settle on his lap. The feeling of your body pressed into his made you share the warmth and comfort, and made some of the stress building up since morning fade away. 

"I met the Queen," you said around a mouth full of apple, and the other hand buried in Loki's hair. "She seemed nice enough. The creepiness definitely runs in the family, though." 

Some of the stress came back. "Did she… say anything?"

"Nope. I don't think she’s… aware of things. Which is a shame, because I seriously hoped she could help us." 

Loki brushed your back in wide, soothing strokes. "There is a chance she'll regain her senses one day, just for long enough to answer some questions. Fading is a complicated process." 

"You know a lot about it." 

Loki's eyes dropped to the few remaining apples. "Gods fade too sometimes." 

"Will you? One day?" 

"I am a Frost Giant, love, even if I was raised on Asgard. I'm not sure how much that complicates my case, and there is no one to ask about it anymore." 

"I'm sorry." 

Loki closed his eyes and breathed in your scent as he felt you kiss his temple, gently and with enough unfiltered love to make his heart throb almost painfully. He was lucky, even despite the mess politics brought onto him. He was luckier than he ever thought he'd be. And luckier than he thought he deserved. 

"Did you find anything interesting?" you asked with a face burrowed into the crook of his neck. 

"There was quite a lot of nonsense, but the rest highlights the ambassador's interest in the wars and mass deaths that always follow them." 

You froze. The corpse laid on the desk next to you no longer felt like something you could forget about. "...what an interesting guy. "

"Most definitely, but it's too early to judge just yet. I made a list of the books he mentioned most often. I think it'd be worth our time to pay a visit to the library to check them out and maybe ask a few questions to the people working there. They should know something about him and the dead assistant."

"We could get some more apples on our way," you offered, standing up. Loki already missed you. 

"Sure, why not. It's not like you'd take the fruit of the sacred trees from the very clearly separated part of the gardens, right?" 

"...of course. I'd never overlook that." 

You did overlook that in the end, and Loki just happened to overlook it too. Overlooking things was always more fun in good company. 

The gardens were a beautiful, lush place, bursting with colors and leaves that danced on the wind instead of falling. Some of the branches were covered in flowers so tiny they looked like ants, traveling up and down the bark. Birds too shy to leave the shadows chirped and sung. 

It was a strange change to witness, especially having in mind what the gardens were like in the morning. Whatever put them in a good mood had clearly done a good job. It made the winding paths easier to follow, and the water passing through the fountain shimmer like starlight. 

Loki shrugged when you voiced your thoughts. 

"In your world, the weather changes just as rapidly," he said, looking at his mirrored image. "Here, it's the very essence of the Edge that's capable of changing." 

It was poetic, like most things on the Edge. And just like them, the forest suddenly decided to hate you. 

First, the birds vanished, their voices cut short. 

Then, something else moved between the curled, twisted trees. Loki noticed too, and handed you one of his knives. The knives had a habit of appearing around him in just the right moments, and you loved them for it. 

And finally, the Edge decided how to make your lives difficult this time. 

The monstrosity that circled the fountain was a terror of thin legs and bulky torso, armed with too many teeth.

"Is it a spider?" you asked in a voice too high because of your heart leaping into your throat. 

"It could be, if someone really hated spiders," Loki said, but there was a smile on his face. "And it might present a problem, if we were still on Earth—but now I'm free and ready to deal with this the old-fashioned way." 

You blinked when golden light enveloped him in a flash. The green armor poured onto his body while magic danced around his fingers. The golden helmet you'd seen only once in the battle of New York, now returned in its full glory. 

You cheered as Loki stepped out, swinging a spear with a nonchalant ease only available to children forced to learn something for years against their will. 

"Kick its ass, babe!" 

Loki winked. 

The creature didn't want to have its ass kicked. It charged on its eight legs reaching far and fast. Loki striked, gutting its belly and cutting two legs off. It should've died, but it didn't. The cuts should've killed it, but they healed. 

Loki's magic should've blocked the furious mass hurtling itself at him. It didn't. 

The spell flashed a blinding yellow before it cracked like glass and shattered. The legs that were no longer cut, they hit and didn't miss. 

A gold-and-green body flew through the air with a very surprised face. The fountain crashed in a rain of water and marble, covering everything in a thin layer of dust and a thick one of mud quickly forming under your feet. 

"...Loki?"

Loki didn't answer, half buried under the stone. 

The spider turned its too big head to you. Its legs were black and covered in thick stubble. 

"Shit," you whispered. 

The spider agreed. 

You ran. 

[thisbluespirit]

Where exactly is St Jude’s?

Yes, it’s another The Hidden Truth post, because why not obsess about nearly non-existent obscure 1960s TV shows?  (A motto I am prepared to live by, as you’ll have worked out by now.)

Of course, given that we have less than 1/4 of the series left, it’s also pretty much unanswerable, but I see no reason not to a) ask the internet about the backdrop and b) speculate wildly regardless.

So, St Jude’s hospital is not a real hospital. It’s based in London somewhere, and, judging from the backdrop, probably on the periphery of central London (as opposed to dead centre or along the north bank of the Thames).  It’s a teaching hospital.  It has a noted pathology department led by a world-famous expert in the field (Professor Lazard seems to spend a lot of time jet-setting off to give lectures, write books, and deal with cases on royal demand).

The biggest clue is the view from Professor Lazard’s window(s).  We see this several times in each episode, from several angles:

We can see here that it’s part of a modern wing of the hospital (as the other wing projecting out at a right angle suggests).  It’s quite high up, so the lack of London landmarks on the skyline suggests it’s not very central, as it’s almost impossible to avoid all London landmarks from a height in that case.  The hospital also has older buildings as part of the complex, of which we can see the rooftops and chimneys.  This is pretty typical for a hospital of the era, though.  (Old workhouse infirmaries and charity hospitals incorporated into the new NHS.)

Whether all we can see is the hospital complex or not, I don’t know.  The most significant building is this large one - another part of the hospital, office block, flats, or multi-storey car-park, maybe?  Does it look familiar to anyone who knows London?

(Amusingly, though, it is nearer/further away in some episodes than others!!)

The wider view at other points is generally trees and rooftops, nothing very distinctive, other than said block.

What is said re. location in canon?  In Sweets to the Sweet, a young man collapses in the West End (filmed in Marble Arch Underground car-park) and is rushed to St Jude’s, but that doesn’t mean it has to be the nearest hospital, although it could well be.

In Cross Examination, a man who died within their area has his autopsy performed at St Luke’s mortuary (presumably St Luke’s Chelsea, then used for geriatric patients), but again, whether that is because it’s close or for other reasons is impossible to say.

Both of these would suggest it might be somewhere on the western periphery of central London.

However, Cross Examination, suggests that it’s situated in a run-down area of London with a high crime-rate (according to the police inspector) and then there’s the matter of names.  The streets mentioned as being near the hospital are all as carefully non-existent as the hospital - Hanley Street, close to Balkan Street, near “the bomb-site.”

Balkan St is more unusual - the only Balkan-anything in London is Balkan Way, in Shadwell, which would fit with the vaguely south/east vibe of the run down/crooked & the not yet filled in bomb site.  But then, so could a lot of London areas!

Then there’s St Jude’s itself.  The most prominent St Jude’s parish in London was in Bethnal Green, north of Shadwell.  In 1964, there were two hospitals based there: Bethnal Green Hospital, close to St Jude’s Street, where a Group Pathology lab had been established in 1954, with a nearby Cardiac/Chest specialist hospital (which, if amalgamated, could fit with the West End patient being taken there, as there were chest complications).

Basically, unless something on the skyline of the view above looks familiar to someone, or more of the series is found, it’s completely impossible to say.  Maybe they never committed even to a rough area anyway!  But until proven otherwise, I’m going to imagine it’s somewhere roughly on the eastern edge of central London, vaguely Bethnal Green-Stepney-Whitechapel-Shadwell way, because I like my random theory and shaky detective work.  ;-p

[mimosaeyes]

Post-176. Jon, Martin, and Basira regroup before continuing the search for Daisy. (Or: everyone is allowed to feel their feelings.) 2.1k, hurt/comfort.

I wrote a few lines of this fic after listening to the episode, but I wasn't going to finish it until I read @dathen's post about how 176 is basically "emotionally repress or die". Then I thought, oh wait, do people actually want the self-indulgent emotional catharsis? So, with @emberidzae's enabling and beta-ing, here we are.

It takes Martin longer than it should to realise that Basira is leading them out of the domain, not farther into it. Because of the way she’d begun hurrying them along, he assumed they were only a few steps behind Daisy, about to catch up with her at any moment.

Instead, the trees begin to thin out around them. Soon there’s enough space between the trunks to render them ineffective camouflage, and Martin stops feeling the urge to check his surroundings for the silhouettes of wolves waiting in ambush. There’s still a tight feeling in his throat, but at least the prickle on the back of his neck has disappeared.

He can still feel where Trevor had pressed the knife, the sharp edge of it right up against his jugular. The man’s voice had been shaking, but never his hand. No, that had been Martin’s own pulse, throbbing sickeningly beneath the blade and rushing loud in his ears.

Lost in the memory, Martin doesn’t notice the root sticking out of the ground until he’s already tripping over it. He has a split-second to think how stupid that is, how this has probably been the downfall of many people being chased by the Hunt — then his elbow is snagged by a familiar, scarred hand.

Jon doesn’t spare him a glance even as he releases his arm to clasp Martin’s hand instead. He just pulls him along, his pace brisk but not overtly hurried by fear or panic. Martin falls into step beside him, gradually regaining his rhythm and composure.

When they finally stumble into open space, Martin senses the difference at once. It’s not that he instantly relaxes; all things considered, he’d managed to remain relatively unfazed. But suddenly it takes much less effort to breathe normally. Suddenly, tension he hadn’t been aware of dissipates from his shoulders and chest.

He looks up to find Basira watching him closely. “Good job,” she says, making no effort to deny her scrutiny. “You’ll need full control over your emotions if you’re planning on following me back in there.”

Ah. There’s the rub. Of course they’re not done with this domain yet; this is only a pit-stop for Basira to make sure she hasn’t taken on liabilities.

“So you’re sure Daisy’s here?” Martin asks, managing to sound far more businesslike than he really feels about the thought of returning to the forest. “You’ve seen her?”

A muscle jumps in Basira’s cheek. Not quite a flinch, but the shadow of one. “I’m sure.”

She turns away from them and starts fiddling with her gun, checking the mechanism even though it had clearly worked fine on Trevor. Perhaps she wants a reason to keep her hands busy. Perhaps she wants to hide her face.

Martin leaves her to it and turns to Jon. He’s about to say something at random, anything to afford Basira the illusion of privacy, but the words die on his lips as Jon lets go of his hand and throws his arms around Martin.

He’s hugging back before he has time to fully register what’s happening. “Jon?” His voice squeaks from how tightly Jon is squeezing. “What’s wrong?”

Jon mumbles something against the crook of his neck. He can’t quite make out what it is. He catches sorry and couldn’t and so scared. Jon is trembling, he realises. It makes his heart lurch. He rubs a hand over his back in what he hopes is a soothing way.

After a long moment, Jon pulls back, gripping his arm with one hand while the other goes to the side of Martin’s face. “Are you alright?” he asks. “Are you hurt?”

Martin shakes his head. “I, I don’t think so.” But Jon checks anyway, running his fingers lightly over his neck to check for the smallest nick. Martin shivers at the gentle touch.

Then Jon tugs his long sleeve down over his knuckles and starts dabbing at Martin’s cheek and chin, which is when it hits Martin that the damp feeling there isn’t nervous sweat, but the spray of Trevor’s blood from the gunshot that had killed him.

He reels away from Jon — or he tries to, but Jon holds him steady. “Don’t look,” he says softly. “It’s okay, just look at me. It’s okay.” There’s something quietly insistent in his tone that makes Martin go still. Let me do this for you, it seems to say. Let me spare you this.

So he does. Instead of thinking about what happened, instead of peering at the red on Jon’s sleeve in his peripheral vision, Martin watches his face. Part of him is braced for the slightest wrinkling of his nose, indicating revulsion at his task. Mostly, he expects to see regret. They’d come to this domain hoping to find their friends and save Daisy, and instead another person has died because of them. It had happened indirectly, in that Basira had been the one to pull the trigger, but Jon had engineered the situation and Martin had participated in it, and... and it feels different, like this. Martin’s been calling it smiting when Jon turns the Ceaseless Watcher on an avatar, vaporising them. But there was nothing righteous about this, nothing neat and sterile. There is only the visceral, ignominious reality of a body left on the ground, and some of the gore still smeared over Martin’s skin.

Yet he looks, and finds only tenderness in Jon’s expression. All throughout the encounter with Trevor, he had kept his face impassive, his voice calm and in control. Only now is Martin seeing the depth of his fear for him.

Jon finishes cleaning off the blood and without further ado, rips the end of his sleeve off entirely, stuffing it in a pocket so it’s out of sight.

Half-jokingly, Martin laments, “Aww. I liked that shirt.” It’s one of his own, hence the excessively long sleeves on Jon. He’d stolen it a few days into their stay in the safehouse. Martin had teased him about it at the time, but never really minded.

“I’m sorry,” Jon says sombrely. Martin’s about to clarify that he was kidding, but then Jon continues, “I thought Trevor would go for me. I was nearly sure of it, else I would’ve told you more. I thought the worst I was asking of you was to stay calm while he threatened me, and you know nothing can really hurt me, so.”

“It’s alright,” Martin tells him. “I mean, it’s not alright, obviously; that was messed up to have to go through, but.” He offers him a slightly lopsided smile. “I trust you.”

Jon doesn’t return the smile, though. He just looks preoccupied; cagey. Like before, like he’s not telling him something. Martin frowns. “Why did you think he’d pick you? You’re not exactly without defences.” He glances pointedly at the eyes staring down at them from the sky.

“Because...” Jon sighs, shrugs, runs one hand roughly through his hair. “Because I’m the one who’d be prey in this domain. Fear of your friends turning on you? After Jane Prentiss, I staked out Tim’s house, I went through the belongings you’d left at the Institute. I was so easily made to feel paranoid, to dread betrayal. Besides—” He cuts himself off abruptly.

Martin narrows his eyes in suspicion. “What?”

Jon hesitates, reluctant. “And, well. Trevor’s a monster hunter.” 

He seems about to elaborate, but then just makes a vague gesture, encompassing all of himself.

“Oh, Jon...” 

But before Martin can tell him he’s not a monster, smack him, or possibly pull him in for another hug, Basira interjects. “You two do know I can still hear you, right? Honestly, you have definitely been wandering around with no other company for too long.”

Startled and sheepish, they both turn to her. She’s re-holstered her gun and is smirking at them with one hand on her hip. Martin sees the moment when her mirth reverts to steely resolve. “Enough blubbering. Daisy’s after Trevor. If we want to catch her here, we’ll have to move fast. Are you coming with, and can you handle yourselves?”

“Of course,” Jon replies, nodding and stepping out of Martin’s embrace. “Let’s go.”

Even though Martin hadn’t been around at the time, he imagines this is exactly how it went before these two ran off to Ny-Ålesund together. “Wait! Do you even have a plan?”

“Find Daisy,” Jon and Basira say in unison.

Martin resists the urge to slap his forehead. “And then what?” he asks, softening his tone from exasperated to reasonable. He addresses Basira specifically: “You promised to kill Daisy. Is that your first option, or do you have another plan?”

Judging from the way she stiffens ever so slightly at the word kill, there’s at least some doubt in her mind. Basira glances at Jon. “You wouldn’t happen to have any convenient Beholding powers to get through to her, would you?”

Jon winces. “We need a key to a lock in this situation, and I have... the equivalent of a nuclear warhead.”

Basira stares. “I don’t even want to know.”

“What about how we’re finding her, then?” Martin wonders aloud, hastily changing the topic. “If Trevor’s, uh, no longer with us, then we don’t have anyone to follow. Unless we can find Daisy’s tracks.”

“Unlikely,” Basira says. “She’s too good a Hunter to be hunted herself. I’ve been relying on Trevor, mostly.”

“So why’d you kill him?” Martin asks thoughtlessly.

Almost before he’s finished the sentence, he anticipates Basira’s raised eyebrow and sarcastic, “He had you at knifepoint. You’re welcome.”

“And the other reason?” Jon asks quietly.

Immediately, Basira snaps, “Don’t compel me. Do not look in my head.”

“I didn’t, and I won’t,” Jon says, holding up both hands placatingly. He’s telling the truth; there had been no telltale buzz of static. “But you could have shot him without killing him. You could have lamed him and waited for Daisy to come end it. So I know there’s another reason.”

Basira is glaring askance, but Martin can still feel the ferocity of that look. Then, haltingly but with more sincerity than he would have expected, she actually answers. “I found Julia’s body. Trevor is older than her, slower. Which means Daisy let him go on purpose. She — she’s relishing this too much. Trying to prolong the chase. I could’ve kept it going. Could’ve followed him for days, or what used to be days. But the longer that goes on, the longer she gets to toy with him... the less likely she comes back to me as Daisy. So. It’s better this way, with his blood on my hands.”

She takes a deep breath. Then she punches Jon in the arm — not hard, but not very lightly either. “I blame you for all this touchy-feely stuff. It must be contagious.”

Jon has the cheek to smugly say, “You’re welcome.”

Martin barely hears it, though. Basira’s words are echoing through his mind: his blood on my hands, his blood on my hands.

“I know how we can find Daisy,” he says. “Jon. That strip of sleeve? Give it to Basira.”

To Basira’s credit, she barely reacts as Jon uneasily extracts the bloodied cloth from his pocket and helps her tie it around one wrist. “This is Trevor’s blood?” is all she says.

“And now it also smells like me, Jon, and you.” Martin’s eyes flick briefly to the forest. “Daisy might’ve already found Trevor’s body. She’ll be looking for something else worth hunting.”

“It could work,” Jon says slowly. Martin doesn’t miss the worried look he gives him.

Basira holds her arm aloft on the breeze for a few seconds, letting the wind carry the scent into the trees. “Are you sure about this?” she asks them both. “You do understand that we’re making ourselves bait.”

The forest looms before them. Does it look darker than before? It never gets any later in the apocalypse, so it must be his imagination. Or his mind, already being drawn into the mentality of prey. Martin gulps. He tries to sound confident about his plan as he says, “The best bait is friendship?”

“Now I know why we never hung out,” Basira tells him, but without much heat. 

As they begin walking, Martin reaches for Jon’s hand. “Hey,” he says quietly. “It’ll be okay. We’ve got this.”

There’s a flicker of recognition in Jon’s eyes. “Apparently so,” he murmurs, giving Martin’s hand a reassuring squeeze.

They hold on for a couple more seconds while ignoring Basira’s eye-roll. Then Martin lets go and sets about pulling his emotions into order. They only want one wolf to come after them. 

At the edge of the forest, Basira checks her gun in its holster, glances at Jon and Martin in turn. Then she raises her arm again. “Alright, Daisy,” she murmurs, more to herself than to them. “Hunt this. Hunt me.”

[also available on AO3 here]

[my TMA fic on AO3]