#I’d be more specific if every single word out of his mouth wasn’t Gold | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

everlarkficexchange · 4 years ago

Text

Like The Stars Hold The Moon

Written By : @katnissmellarkkkk

Prompt 59 : "Katniss dad is a victor, he won his hunger games and is a mentor. Peeta is reaped for the games and Katniss begs her dad to help him win the games. [submitted by anonymous]“

Hi! It feels like there’s so much I need to say here and I can’t remember any of it now! This is obviously–if you read the summary, which I assume you did and that’s why you’re here hahaha–an EFE prompt. It was submitted by an anonymous person, so I don’t know specifically if this is what you wanted but I really hope this is good enough that you’ll be fulfilled?

I don’t think there is much more to say? I hope everyone who reads this has a good day! I wrote plenty of this on Easter so I’d like to thank Jesus for rising again. And I feel like the prompt alone is a sufficient summary but just so you know, this heavily features Katniss, Peeta (obvi), Haymitch and Katniss’ father, Hunter (I named him, that’s not canon, I know).

This fic I likely going to be a three-shot with an opportunity for a sequel three-shot. Oh and also, thank you to the anon who sent the prompt!

Oh and this got really long, so I’m just going to submit the first part on here and then I’ll add a link at the bottom to continue reading on AO3. I’ve never done this before so I don’t know if I’m doing it right?

Okay, if you read all my talking, bye now!

Rated T for the canon violence.

At the reaping for the Forty-Seventh Hunger Games, Matty Knick drew out the names of a ”very special boy“ and ”a very special girl“ from the reaping bowls. She read them off in a bright voice and matched the sentiment with an out of place perky smile. The girl’s name was Heather Branch.

And the boy’s was Hunter Everdeen.

Of course, everyone knows the story of Hunter Everdeen.

Year of the Seventy-Fourth Hunger Games.

"So Hunter,” Caesar Flickerman leans toward the victor, absolutely electrified, and says, “tell us, tell us. How excited are you for the games this year?”

The camera focuses in on gray eyes, the color of a storm cloud or a cleanly polished knife. Dangerous and hard and cunning.

Or protective and frightful and angry.

Or warm and loving and kind.

“I’m about as excited as I always am, Caesar,” he shoots back, not a trace of even so much as a smirk on his face. Not even so much as a lift from the corner of his mouth.

And still, the crowd of Capitol idiots burst out in laughter, as if they just heard the funniest joke in the world, as if this was Hunter’s desired response to the words.

As if the conversation wasn’t about teenagers—and some as young as twelve—killing other teenagers.

“And what about you, Haymitch?” Caesar asks next, segueing from one aggravated man to another.

“I’m looking forward to the free drinks,” Haymitch says while tipping back dark gold colored liquid into his mouth. Almost as an afterthought, he gestures wide and sloppy to the crowd, igniting cacophonous sounds from the population once more. “And of course, the social interaction with all you lovely people.”

No one in the audience recognizes the insult. No one understands the blatant sarcasm at their expense.

Here in District Twelve though, we do. As exemplified by Peeta’s laugh, vibrating against my back. “Shh,” I hush, laser focused on the enormous television screen before us.

“Daddy’s not speaking anymore,” Prim reminds me from the other room, where she’s currently flipping through a magazine our father sent.

“Well, be quiet before he does,” I snap, elbowing Peeta when he rolls his eyes now. “Stop it, I haven’t seen him in weeks,” I complain, fixing him with a fierce glare.

“I know,” he murmurs agreeably, gently kissing my temple. “But he’ll be home in a few days.”

As if they could hear our exchange from inside the television box, Caesar turns his attention back to my father. “Hunter, how excited are you to get home to District Twelve?”

At that, his eyes genuinely light up with ferocity. “I’m counting the minutes,” he replies, but still manages to keep his tone cool. He adamantly refuses to give away his true emotion to even a single soul in the Capitol. It’s his way of withholding power from their greedy, glitter covered hands.

But I see the change in him. Prim, from her position against the doorframe, sees it. I’m positive my mother, who’s watching with our brother from the comfort of our house sees it as well.

Our father’s eyes are now alive again, the permanent frown his mouth resides in on every televised appearance loosens a bit, his brows aren’t knit so closely together any longer.

Caesar Flickerman sees the change too evidently.

“Look at those silver coins!” He bellows, gesturing for the cameras to put my father in a close up now. “They just lit up like the stars when talking about home. Tell me, Hunter Everdeen, how’s the family back in District Twelve?”

At that, my father makes a considerable effort to transform his entire expression into a mask of indifference. “They’re good,” he states evenly, his tone clipped. Making it blatant to even the airheaded Capitol citizens that he refuses to speak publicly about his family.

“Because you’re not property of the Capitol, baby,” he told me once, while on a walk in the woods. “You’re not anyone’s property.”

“What about you and mommy?”

“You’re our responsibility, but not our property.” He’d knelt down to my height, which happened to be the shortest in my second grade class. “Property implies ownership, Katniss. And no one owns you. No one owns you or your sister. Remember that for me. And never let yourself forget it.”

“You’re daughters are both old enough for the reaping, am I right?” Caesar presses further, and my sister and I automatically sigh. Knowing the response that’s bound to come.

“What’s wrong?” Peeta asks, as he still remains completely clueless. I shake my head instead of offering an explanation though, leaning further into his chest.

Peeta won’t understand. He was raised in town by merchants—the owners of the bakery, to be specific. He’s never understood the fierce protectiveness, the instantaneous fury, the irrational tunnel vision, that appears when a victor’s child is mentioned entering the games.

Peeta’s never even met my father. I’m not impatient by any stretch of the imagination to put the two of them in the same room, to watch my father chew my boyfriend up and devour him alive, to abide by his rules and regulations that will surely come with dating.

He doesn’t know Peeta and I have even so much as shaken hands. I’ve never so much as left him even the slightest hint. Not even when I’ve accompanied him to the bakery for the occasional trade with Peeta’s father, the baker himself.

Like both Prim and I predicted, our father is now on edge, his breathing uneven and his nostrils flaring. “Yes. Both my girls are of age,” he says after a long beat, his tone hard and jagged.

Caesar though is either oblivious or is extraordinarily practiced at appearing obtuse. “Well, wouldn’t it be something if either of them were chosen for the games? Am I right?” He directs his questions to the audience. “Don’t we all love a family story?” His words elicit cheers and hollers and a murderous glint in my father’s silver eyes. The camera only catches it for a moment’s time before quickly flitting away, towards the much more enjoyable image of the Captiolites chattering like chipmunks at the very idea.

And suddenly I feel Peeta’s arm tighten around me, the vision of me—the only person in the world he’s certain that he loves—being taken away from our home here in Twelve and tossed into an arena with kids twice her size, too much for even his naïve mind.

“Don’t we all believe in Mr. Everdeen,” the talk show host continues to push and I feel my typical annoyance with the odd man bleed into anger. “I mean, he brought home Mr. Abernathy here.” And with one single hand gesture from Caesar, the entire interview’s focus re-centers on Haymitch.

And unlike my father, he doesn’t even miss a beat before replying.

“Barely,” he mutters with a last swig of his drink, cleaning the glass. “And he was stingy with the gifts.”

Next to him, my father relaxes a bit. Haymitch always brings out a bit of levity in him, even on his worst days.

After all, in my father’s eyes, the paunchy drunk is a symbol of hope.

Haymitch is the only person my father’s ever brought him. He’s the only other living victor inside the confines of Twelve.

Not to mention his closest friend.

And my surrogate uncle, I note, a bit ironically. Haymitch and I have a far different relationship than he has with anyone else in my family but he’s always been there, has known me since the day I was born, often has dinner at our house, rain or shine, no matter how much he annoys my mother, and he’s an irreplaceable member of my family.

The audience is still riled up from Haymitch and howling with laughter—a bit too much, in my opinion—but my father can’t let the subject of his children go before adding one last sentiment.

“Don’t worry, Caesar. If either of my girls are reaped, trust me,” he states, louder and far more pronounced than anything else he’s said the entire interview. “They will be the victor. There’s not a tribute in the arena that would survive against my girl.”

For as long as I can remember, my father had taken me to the woods. He sometimes claims the first time he looked down at me in my mother’s arms, at a mere two days old, he saw a familiar hunger in my eyes.

Not a hunger for food. District Twelve is the smallest and the poorest in the country of Panem, but luckily, my family is one of the richest.

Unlike my schoolmates, I’ve never once had to worry about having enough to eat for lunch. My parents never worried that we’d starve to death or that Prim and I could be taken from their grasp by authorities. They never worried about supplying us with whatever we needed—they gave us more than we ever could have wanted—and they never had to fret that we’d be sent to the mines for work one day.

No, we were far too wealthy and far too famous for any of that.

But my parents had a far different batch of worries to keep them up at night. Not about food or finances or anything remotely common in Twelve.

No, they had to worry about cameras peaking into the privacy of our home and photos being taken without our knowledge and my face or Prim’s face being splashed across every magazine and newspaper in the country.

They worried about the almost insatiable thirst the Capitol seems to have for more family dynamics among the victors.

Especially after the recent back-to-back sibling victories led the hunger games to higher ratings and revenues in the Capitol.

When I was a child, my mother coached me to never go into town without my father by my side. Which sounds easy enough, until my father’s extensive vacations to the Capitol are taken into consideration. For as long as I can remember, my father would leave at random stretches of time, for weeks on end. To go play puppet for a population so dumb, so completely isolated from the rest of the country, that they took his anger for sarcasm. They took his bite as charm. They believed his glare was an act, was part of his appeal, when in reality my father had rebelled against performing for the last twenty-seven years.

When he was gone, our lives became strict. Bedtimes came earlier, curtains remained drawn day in and day out, our mother never wanted to sing or dance or even so much as smile with her husband gone.

But when he was home, sunshine peaked in our windows again. It danced on the floor and it swept us away with its gentle affection.

There was music and laughter and sweets and toys. He never returned from the Capitol empty-handed. He brought back expensive jewels for our mother, he built me and Prim a fancy treehouse in the backyard, put up a large, golden swing-set, went as far as purchasing as many cakes and breads as he could hold from the Mellark Bakery.

Peeta’s parents bakery.

Since I was two, further back than I can even retain, my father would take me out to the woods, would hold my hand and tell me old stories of District Twelve’s past, detail insane urban legends, teach me about plants and berries and trees and the direction of the wind.

And for as long as I can remember, I idolized him. He was so confident and so charismatic and so kind. For as long as I could remember, I wanted to be exactly like him when I grew up. It felt like an honor to me that I received far more his end of the gene line than my mother’s. She was regarded as a beauty in her youth, but he was one of the most magnificent people in the country. Having his coloring and the same silver eyes felt like a special gift, awarded every single time someone marveled at how similar we appear.

But my father was gone often and the unpredictable lengths of his stays in the large, foreign city was one of the only constants my family ever knew. So it really came as no surprise when my mother phoned the cabin only minutes after Caesar’s interview was over.

“I’ll get it,” Prim says flatly after a moment, throwing a sardonic glance at me and Peeta on the couch. Now in a much different entanglement than we had been while watching the talk-show.

“Thanks,” I murmur unintelligibly against Peeta’s mouth, before closing my eyes in pleasure.

“Don’t strain yourselves,” she can’t stop herself from tacking on the end.

“We’ll try not to while you’re still here,” Peeta murmurs cheekily, moving his lips downwards, towards my neck, right onto my pulse point. I let out a somewhat ridiculous squeak in response.

“Hello?” Prim says lightly into the receiver, already knowing it’s our mother. No one else calls this phone, inside this hidden cabin, located in the woods surrounding Twelve.

The woods in which officials fenced off years ago. The woods in which it’s illegal to enter. The woods in which my father has taken me to hunt for families less fortunate than ours since I was a small infant.

It’s not a typical cabin found in the outskirts of Twelve. No, ordinarily a cabin out here—a cabin anywhere in Panem, really—is nothing more than a broken down shack. There’s normally nothing other than an unsteady foundation, a freezing damp floor and an unlit fireplace.

But somewhere along the lines, in the years before I was born, my parents resurrected this place from the depths of despair and expanded it, rebuilt it, refurnished and redecorated and turned it into a vast, warm, safe second home for all of us to run away to when we felt the need.

Prim listens into the receiver for a long moment before she sighs deeply and beckons me. “Katniss, can you?”

Instantly, I break away from Peeta’s embrace, cupping his face and pulling him back from my collarbone.

“What’s wrong?” I ask as I scramble off the couch, my anxiety abruptly spiked. “Did something happen?” I search Prim’s eyes as I take the phone from her but, to my utter relief, all I find there is blatant, unmasked disappointment.

I already know what my mother is going to say before I put the phone to my ear. “Hi?”

“Hi, honey,” she murmurs, her voice both strained and higher than typical. Which indicates she’s trying to put up a front for us right now, when she’d rather be moping in bed. “Your father just called. Evidently Effie Trinket informed him he has more scheduled commitments to fulfill before he can come home.”

I deflate, already prepard, knowing this was coming. Isn’t it always coming inadvertently? My father has never been home when he was scheduled to be in my life. No matter the holiday, the birthday, the emergency or event, the Capitol demands that they comes first to him. Not even my birth could upstage his commitments. He wasn’t allowed to return home to Twelve, to meet his firstborn child, until his press events were done and over with.

It’s no wonder he refuses to put on show for those people.

“Okay,” I mumble after a moment, not even convinced my mother is even still there on the other end.

“It’ll be alright,” she says, as positively as she can. “He’ll be home as soon.”

“Yeah.” I try and fail miserably to match her tone. I inherited my father’s ability to act. Or inability, that is.

There’s the faint sound of crying in the background, and my heart aches a bit. “I’m sorry, honey, I have to go check on Archer,” she apologizes as a way of saying goodbye.

I make my way into the kitchen as soon as we hang up. Prim is standing by the counter, staring at the same magazine our father sent three weeks ago.

Peeta comes up behind me then, his hand rubbing my back in comforting circles. “Your father delayed again?”

I nod silently, as my eyes focused on my little sister now. She’s trying her best to hold back the upset that’s threatening to take over.

And without hesitation, my instincts to protect my family from anything and everything painful kick in. “Prim, it’s okay. It’s probably only going to be another week before he’s back,” I console, stepping closer to her small frame and touching her back.

It’s all the initiation she needs before spinning around into my arms and clinging onto me tight. “He’s never around,” she cries into my neck—I’m not much taller than her—as her shoulders shake with tears.

I feel Peeta’s eyes on me, measuring my reaction to Prim’s words. He’s heard me cry the same thing time and time again, he knows the familiarity of this scene better than anyone should.

“He tries his best, Prim,” I whisper thickly into her long, blonde hair. She’s fair and light, like our mother. Like a merchant or peacekeeper. Looking at my little sister, you’d never consider her to be the daughter of a man from the Seam.

But you’d easily believe that she was a girl raised in Victor’s Village and I suppose that’s what counts. Where we were raised and not where we could have been, if things had gone different.

“He’s never really going to be ours though,” she weeps and I don’t have words to comfort her now. Because she’s right.

Our father will always belong to the Capitol, first and foremost.

And not even his children can upstage that.

Prim leaves not long later, to head home to Victor’s Village and more than likely curl up with our mother for the night. They’ve both always been so alike, so much softer and more hopeful than me. I half expect every trip of our father’s to double in time, if not triple. After a lifetime of disappointments, I can’t help but prepare myself.

It’s not that they’re weak for believing. It’s that I have too much Hunter Everdeen in me. I have too much pessimism crawling inside my bones to ever fully trust that he’s really coming home until he’s already stepped off the train in Twelve.

Too many hours of my childhood were spent, wearing fancy stockings and warm, fur-lined coats, standing at the train station, only to welcome a load of cargo and no father in sight. Too many times were phone calls answered in tears. Too many night spent crying, clinging to my father’s hunting jacket, so disoriented by the hazardous schedule in which our lives were ran, waiting for my father to phone, waiting for him to walk through the front door, waiting for him to sneak up on us in the middle of the night or pull us from class on a school day.

That was the true constant in my life. Waiting for my father to finally come home, knowing every moment we shared was on borrowed time. Knowing that he’d never truly belong to us. Waiting for the other shoe to drop. Waiting to hear my mother’s bedroom door slam and lock, waiting to hear Prim cry or Archer wail, waiting to see that defeated glint in my father’s slate gaze.

I close the cabin door behind my sister now, knowing with confidence that she’ll make it home alright, even with the sun currently setting in the faded blue sky.

Our father never took Prim hunting like he did me, never brought her out to the woods and taught her to shoot a bow and arrow, never showed her how to trap and kill an animal. But even still, the path from the cabin to our home in Victor’s Village is imprinted in our brains, like a birthmark or tattoo. We’d be able to find our way to and from, even if we were sleepwalking.

As would Peeta. Considering this is the place he spends the majority of his time.

Considering this cabin may as well be his permanent address.

And if it weren’t illegal, it very well might be, I think to myself wryly as I walk over to where he’s leaning against the doorframe now.

“Hello,” I greet again, hopping onto my tiptoes and kissing his lips lightly.

He grasps my hips, smiling against my mouth. “Don’t you have to get home too?” He hesitantly asks, his desire to keep me here bleeding through every caress of his fingers, as they trail underneath my loose shirt, sliding upwards and causing an electric current to ripple through the core of my body.

But I just shake my head at his inquiry, moving my mouth from his to kiss down the side of his face, underneath his jawline.

“Mmm,” he moans after a long moment, before suddenly putting a few more inches between us. “Are you sure your mother won’t miss you?”

Peeta’s always been considerate of my mother. Too considerate sometimes, if I do say so myself. Bordering on obsessive.

He is obsessed with keeping her approval, with never crossing any invisible line, with never even so much as mildly exasperating her.

I suppose it’s only natural though. She is the only parental figure he has in his life.

I’ve never been too enthusiastic to introduce him to my father and he’s never pushed the issue too far. Hunter Everdeen is a practical legend around Twelve—and beloved across the entirety of Panem—but he’s the reason, I’ve always privately felt, that I was isolated from all my classmates.

Sure, I’m already not the most friendly person to start with, in anyone’s book. As Haymitch never hesitates to tell me. But there was already very little chance of me making friends in school anyway. Being the victor of the Forty-Seventh Hunger Games’ child dropped the chances of play-dates or sleepovers drastically. My father trusts no one. Not with his children.

And I didn’t mind for the most part. I’m too like him to enjoy people much anyway. This whole notion was much harder on Prim, who adored her fellow classmates and easily endeared herself to them as well. But no matter how darling my little sister may be, nothing changed our father’s mind and when he was set on something, it was practically written in stone.

I can’t even imagine how Peeta must feel, having to live in fear for the entire last year of our little secret being exposed. I may be nervous about how my father will react, but Peeta has to be outright petrified.

“My mother will be fine,” I murmur, rolling my eyes as I lean back against the wall now. “She’s got Prim and Archie to keep her sane until my father’s home.”

Peeta chuckles at me, a mirthful smile in his eyes. “And you got me,” he teases, tapping my nose with his finger.

I giggle in a way I withheld until Prim left. I wasn’t about to give her ammunition to mock me later on. “All to myself,” I add, matching his expression now. “For unlimited hours of the day.”

“That’s my girl, looking on the bright side.”

I snort. “Yeah, that’s me.” I’m the exact opposite of an optimist. I prefer expecting the worse and setting expectations low. Maybe it’s a learned behavior but, at least that way, I’m not crushed like my mother when things don’t pan out the way I want.

Peeta mistakes the look on my face to be one of hidden disappointment. “You’re father will be home soon, sweetheart. They can’t keep him in the Capitol forever.”

“Can’t they?” I mumble, not expecting an answer. Before he can offer one—because Peeta is nothing if not a fixer—I quickly segue to a new topic. “Where do you think you’ll go when my father does come home?”

He just shrugs the question off though, completely unbothered. “Anywhere but home,” he says simply, his stunning blue eyes clear as the sky they remind me of.

“Anywhere but there,” I agree, my smile twisting into a grimace.

A year ago, when I was barely fifteen, President Snow—Panem’s true Gamemaker, my father always said—demanded every victor extend their stay in the Capitol, even after the games ended that year. He gave no outright reason and my father was cagey to speak on the subject, but in the end, the president’s word was law and there was no room for argument. President Snow can demand of us whatever he wishes.

It was a cold, dreary autumn that year, with early snowfall, which was the leading cause to the significant increase in accidents and injuries. My mother, the born healer, had more patients than she could handle, and even while training Prim as her assistant, she required my help. I was to head to town and purchase a list of herbs from the apothecary shop her parents still owned. The people who disowned her, who had little to no interest in her after she married a man from the Seam, victor or not. The people who never cared to meet their own grandchildren, to acknowledge our existence even as we passed right by their shop, in their plain sight.

I was dragging my feet the entire walk there, already with a sour taste in my mouth, when I heard the loudest wail my ears had every registered. When I heard sharp words being screamed out, when the sound of a boy sobbing filled the air.

And my instincts took over, my every sense focused on finding the hurt and helping them, altogether forgoing the trip for my mother’s herbs.

I followed the commotion to the bakery’s backdoor. Right through the open threshold, it was crystal clear, the baker’s wife—the witch, as many of the kids at school referred to her—had beaten her youngest son senselessly.

He’s in my year, I’d realized abruptly, staring with an agape mouth at his bloody face. His eye was swelling and his nose and lip were smeared scarlet and the only thing that crossed my mind at first, was I recognized him as the blonde boy with the colorful notebook, who could never meet my eyes and always wore long sleeves.

Of course, I snapped out of the daze after only a moment. The witch turned and caught sight of me, snapping that no Seam brat was going to get any free handouts from her and to scatter before she called the Peacekeepers.

Something about the unmasked prejudice against the Seam, a place where people in Twelve had next to nothing and were seen as lesser than the merchants, jolted me into action.

“Get your hand off him!” I’d demanded, using my entire body weight, just as my father taught me, to push the door open as she tried to close it in my face. “Let him go or I swear I’ll make you regret it.”

At that, I heard an ugly laugh and the door flew open again, my exerted force throwing it back into the wall.

“I’m serious, child,” she snaps, her blue eyes narrow and her mouth in a snide smirk. “I will call the Peacekeepers to remove you from my shop-”

I didn’t even let her finish. I wasn’t one to be messed with. Not when I just witnessed something awful firsthand, not when I had it in my power to do something.

I knew then I couldn’t bring my father home. He was owned by the president and the Capitol. To an extent, we all were. And I knew I couldn’t stop the games from happening or the possibility of my name being pulled from the reaping bowl. I couldn’t always make my mother come out of her room or even out of her bed, when her illness struck bad. And I couldn’t stop my siblings from crying for our father at night.

But I knew that day in the bakery, I had the power over Mrs. Mellark and I wasn’t going to let her get away with hurting her son anymore.

“Call them,” I dared, not an ounce of insecurity in my voice. “Cray is an old family friend.” He was actually indebted to my father, who’d kept the man’s secrets for too many years to count. But family friend rolled off the tongue more effectively.

“Head Peacekeeper is now making friends in the Seam?” She spat in disbelief. “No wonder this district is so rundown.”

She laughed humorlessly, but my focus was pulled towards the boy. He was covering the left side of his face, as if it hurt too badly to release. As if he was trying to stop his eye from swelling, stop his nose from gushing blood. As if he could hold his now split lip together with nothing more than the palm of his hand.

The sight hurt my heart to see. It burned a fire inside of me that only a true injustice could set alight.

“My father is Hunter Everdeen,” I snapped in the woman’s direction, not even basking in satisfaction when her face drained of all color. The idea that a scrappy little girl with olive skin and dark hair was the child of the most powerful man in all of Twelve struck a cord inside even the witch. “Still wanna make that call?”

The woman’s face was caught between anger and shock when I glanced at her again. And I hated her for it. I hated her and every single person in this district who hurt their kids, who took out their grievances on them, who made them cower and quiver in fear. Who raised them to be afraid of those they loved in a world already so awful.

I know I live a privileged life but, deep in my bones, I know even if things were different, my parents wouldn’t have laid a hand on us. Even if we were so poor I had to take tesserae, even if we were starving to the point of no return, even if we were practically homeless in the Seam, my parents would never hurt us.

“Leave,” the witch spoke then, but her voice was void of all emotion.

“Not without him,” I refused, my eyes planted on the wounded boy in front of me. The boy who was doing everything to avoid looking me in the eye, too busy covering his battered face.

I heard a sound caught between a groan and a shriek, before a cutting board was tossed across the room. “Just go!” She shouted at her son, causing him to flinch severely. “Just go with her!”

On her order, which sounded more distraught than angry, the boy had stormed out the back door and into the chilly evening air, still covering his face desperately, still looking utterly ashamed.

But he waited for me to catch up with him. He waited for me to guide him away from that awful woman he was forced to call his mother.

He didn’t flinch when I touched his arm nor when I took his hand. And when I led him away from the town and towards the village, he followed me without complaint.

Actually, he followed me without a single word.

I realized this just as my house came into view. “You never told me your name?” I whispered, looking up at him gently.

He had tears leaking from his eyes that he was doing his best to ignore, the bleeding on the left side of his face had barely even lightened up, his eye was swelling bigger and bigger, and yet, he chuckled a little at the question. “I’ve been in your class since kindergarten, Katniss.”

I felt my cheeks burn pink, even under the darkening sky. “I know.” But I still peered up at him, curiously waiting for him to tell me.

“It’s Peeta,” he finally answered, maybe a bit satirical.

“Peeta Mellark,” I suddenly recognized.

“Mhmm. Figured you’d pick up the last name.”

“Why’s that?”

“It’s printed across the bakery in huge letters?”

“Oh.” He chuckled at my ignorance, causing my blush to deepen.

And I realized immediately how much I liked the sound of his laugh. How I liked being the reason for the sound.

My stomach did a complete flip at the notion and my ears abruptly felt hot, but I tried to push all this away, needing to get him to my mother.

“Wait,” he halted before I could even reached the front door. “Is your mother in there?”

I shot him a confused look. “Yeah, of course? Who else-”

I didn’t even get a chance to finish though. “I really don’t want anyone else to know about this,” he pleads, his eyes looking as frightened as they did with the witch.

“Peeta-” I start, opening my mouth argue, to convince him to go into the house and let my mother treat his injuries. To let me get him help.

But one look inside his desolated, defeated, terrified eyes and I couldn’t make myself do it. I couldn’t put him through any more than he’d already gone through. Not when he’d eventually have to go face the witch again at home.

“Okay,” I whispered, and I felt him squeeze the hand I didn’t realize I was still clutching. “Let me take you somewhere else. And I’ll try to fix you up myself.”

I wasn’t a healer like my mother and Prim. I was a hunter, just like my father, just like his very name, through and through. But I had witnessed enough of what my mother did—my father had forced me to witness enough of what she did, in case I ever needed the knowledge—and I was confident I had the expertise to help him.

My decision was validated by the relief in Peeta’s eyes, by the visible exhale he expelled from inside. He was ashamed, I realized, of his abuse. He was embarrassed to let anyone know what was happening behind closed doors.

I guided him by the hand outside the village, through the Seam—a place in which he’d never been before—and to the fence line.

“Isn’t it electrified?” He asked, his grip on my palm tightening. I liked the sensation for some reason. I liked the way his big hand felt wrapped around my small one. I liked how he wanted to hold onto me in the darkness.

“Nope,” I say, and let out a proud giggle. Or maybe a nervous one. Whenever I think back to this night, I can never tell.

“How do you know?” His blonde eyebrows knit together, still afraid in a way I’d never had to be. My father had taught me everything there was to know about the woods from a young age.

“Listen,” I urge softly, leaning my ear towards the fence.

He cranes forward too, waiting for the buzz of electricity to fill his ears. Only, just as I knew, it never does. Because it never has. The fence’s electricity was shut off long before we were even born.

I watched as his face registered the silence, as he realized and trusted I was right. And I beamed at him, before showing him the way my father slips beyond the fence and guiding him through the trees, towards the cabin, buried deep inside the woods.

It took an hour to find, not because of the blackened sky, but because Peeta’s face hurt so badly that his gait was slowed. But I remained patient, even though that was never my strong suit either. I waited for him to pick up the pace, to be ready to move, to find our way through the tall green trees. I pulled all the branches I could see out of his path, used the moon as our flashlight and didn’t complain once when he stumbled along the way.

By the time we got to the cabin, it had to be past Archer’s bedtime. My mother would be worried sick for me, but I soothed myself that she had plenty on her plate. I’m her firstborn. The child she understands the least, the one who’s like her husband in body and soul. I knew I was probably near the bottom of her worry list.

The very first thing I did when we entered the cabin was order Peeta to sit down in the dining room. I gathered my mother’s first aid kit from the bathroom, wet a rag in cool water and I got to work cleaning the blood from his face.

“This has to be gross for you,” he murmurs after a long stretch of silence. His eyes betrayed how self-conscious he must have felt.

Trying to alleviate his anxiety, I pretended to shrug it off. “My mother cleans wounds all the time. At our kitchen table, no less.”

Peeta made a noise that indicated he didn’t buy my act of ease. “I heard at school that you run from the sick and injured.”

I raised my eyebrows at the comment. No one at school talked about me. No one knew me well enough to. People stopped trying to get close to any of Hunter Everdeen’s kids years ago.

The longer I stared at Peeta in disbelief, the more he seemed to lose confidence in his statement. “Maybe I didn't hear it,” he finally amended. I brought the damp cloth back up to his face again as a reward, tenderly wiping away the blood, before using the clean side to set against his swelling lid, hoping to offer some pain reduction there as well. “Maybe I saw it,” he added sheepishly.

I furrowed my brows, even more perplexed by the elaboration. “Saw it?”

“When Leaf Barker tripped and broke his knee in Physical Education last year? You were almost green when you bolted out of the gymnasium.”

His words conjured up a vague image. Still though, something about this felt odd to me.

“How do you remember that better than I do?”

At that, Peeta shrugged. “I guess, I notice you sometimes?”

“What do you mean, sometimes?” I pressed, none of his words suddenly making a bit of sense.

“Why did you stick up for me tonight?” He abruptly segued, his expression shifting into something of defense, like he’s trying to deflect.

But I’m not one to be deterred. “I wasn’t going to stand there and watch your mother hurt you,” I stated, my voice remaining firm. “Why?”

He continued to walk around my question. “Is tonight the first night you ever noticed me?”

I pulled my hand and the damp cloth away from his wounded face, reaching in the kit to grab a white cream I’d seen my mother and Prim both use on swelling before. “Yes,” I finally replied, because I don’t know what else to say. That I saw him glance at me sometimes and then watched as his eyes flit away? That I noticed how he doodled in math class, because he found the subject boring? That I’d seen him lift a sack easily over his shoulder at the bakery and watched him beat almost every upperclassmen at wrestling, even while three years their junior?

None of that seems even remotely relevant to mention.

“When was the first time you noticed me?” I shot back, still being careful to apply the cream with only the lightest pressure to his battered eye.

“Kindergarten,” he instantly blurted out, his tone simple and bold.

I stared at him in disbelief for a long moment before chuckling, catching the joke. “Funny.”

“I’m serious,” he refuted, peaking his good eye open, the sky meeting a silver dollar as our gaze locked. And I see that he is serious somehow.

“What?”

“The first day of kindergarten,” he continued, after a long beat of me just staring him. His confidence had wavered once again and he was looking a bit regretful that he’d put this out in the open. “You were wearing a red velvet dress and brown stockings. Your hair was in two braids instead of one and your ribbons matched your dress. The teacher asked during music assembly who knew The Valley Song and your hand shot right up. She put you on a stool and you sang it, clear as day, for everyone to hear. Even the birds outside stopped to listen. And from that moment on… I was a goner.”

I just continued to look at him in disbelief, unable to put the pieces of what he’s said together. Finally, I whispered, “you’re telling the truth?”

“I’ve had a crush on you for forever,” he admitted, his singularly open eye giving away his nerves at the admission. “And I know you probably don’t feel the same way. I know you didn’t even know my name until tonight but I just wanted to say, in case we never have the chance to speak again-”

“Stop,” I cut him off, my mind already about to explode. “Stop, um…” I refused to look at him as I spoke, furiously staring down at my lap. “I need more time to… process this.”

He had a crush on me since the first day of kindergarten? He’d heard me sing and from that day forward he held a hidden candle for me?

And he never once worked up the courage to talk to me?

Dozens of moments suddenly race through my mind.

Cerulean blue eyes finding me in a crowd countless times and then pulling away as soon as I meet them. The time I wanted to play a stupid game at recess and a stocky blonde boy volunteered to be team captain, and then picked me first. The stunning drawing I found in my locker last year on Sweetheart’s Day, that I was convinced was put there by mistake, though it bore a striking resemblance to the doodles on Peeta’s notebook.

And before I could stop it, I felt myself begin to shake with nerves.

“Hey, I’m sorry,” he apologized, seeing my frightened reaction. “I didn’t mean to scare you, I just… I didn’t know if I’d ever get the opportunity to tell you again-”

“Shhh,” I hushed, picking up the damp cloth once more. “Let me take care of your face. And then…” I hesitated again, unsure what to say in this situation. I had exactly zero experiences to compare this to. “Tomorrow we can talk more.”

Peeta nodded amicably, staying silent for the reminder of my ministrations. I felt a terrible pang of guilt for not responding the way he’d probably hoped, but there was still a part of me too stunned to even fully register the confession.

I was an outcast. I’d never fit in with the kids at school, neither town or Seam. I don’t look like the merchants and I’m too rich for the Seam folk. I would have been alone all the time at school if it weren’t for Madge Undersee, the mayor’s daughter who sat with me at lunch and partnered with me in class.

How could anyone have even noticed me to be anything other than strange? I barely spoke, even in classes where I knew all the answers. And I hardly participated in games or gossip. I had a father who insisted most days on picking me up himself from school, not allowing me to walk home alone like the other kids.

But the look in Peeta’s eyes was earnest. He wasn’t playing some elaborate trick on me, he wasn’t trying to coerce me into confessing something as well so he could humiliate me. He was being genuine in every way I could tell. And I had my father’s senses.

The same senses that helped him win his hunger games.

A new thought struck me out of the blue. Peeta seemed too kind and too considerate to have a mother who beat him like this. He doesn’t fit the profile of the kids in the community home, brought there by even less abuse than I witnessed firsthand tonight.

The insane urge to get to know him more, to learn more about this complete stranger who I went out on an impulsive limb for suddenly surges through my brain.

It wouldn’t be a good idea, I told myself. He’s a merchant and I’m the daughter of a victor. Two titles that seem not far apart in theory but are miles away from the other in practice. And I’m not experienced with people the way he is. I don’t know how to make friends or how to maintain them. I don’t know what he expects from me but it’s surely more than I know how to give. I don’t know what to say in a situation like this. Haymitch always tells me I’m as romantic as dirt.

But is that what I want to be? I asked myself as I finished fixing Peeta up. Do I want to be romantic? Do I want to be that girl who holds her boyfriend’s hand in the town square and kisses him under the moonlight? Do I want to put an embroidered ribbon in my hair and wear an expensive dress from the Capitol to go to the Sweetheart’s Dance? Do I want to sneak in through my bedroom window at the crack of dawn so my father won’t know I’ve been out all night?

If I could learn to be romantic, would I want to be?

And naturally, the answer I’ve always known automatically seeps through my brain. No. I’m not like my mother and Prim. I’m practical by nature, rather than fanciful. I’ve never truly obsessed about falling in love or fawned over even the most incredible looking men on the television.

But something held me back now. Something inside me said that answer, the truth I’d always known, is suddenly not entirely accurate anymore.

Because I find that I did want those things I just described. I did want to have someone to hold, someone to laugh with, someone who conjured up that same flip in my stomach as Peeta did earlier when he laughed.

I wanted the same kind of love my parents had. The kind of love that brought them both to life, despite the horrible circumstances they’d both separately endured. I wanted the kind of love that they showed me was possible, even in a world as bleak and as inhumane as Panem felt at times.

I only realized how long I’d been silent, contemplating my inner desires, when Peeta offered a minuscule smile and stood up slowly to leave.

I opened my mouth to speak but when his eyes met mine, every thought in my head was magically wiped away. I had nothing to say, nothing that could be of any sort of consequence, that could mean anything in comparison to his confession.

“I should head back to town,” he murmured, trying to appear nonchalant. “Face my mother. Hope she’s in a better mood now-”

But I couldn’t stand the idea of him returning to the witch, the idea of going to school tomorrow and acting like his words weren’t still spinning around my brain, the idea of even sleeping soundly tonight.

“Peeta,” I called just as he was about to reach the front door. “Wait!”

He turned towards me, looking puzzled by my outburst. “What’s wrong?”

And I don’t know what came over me. I still can’t place what made me—a girl who had never been decisive a day in her life—fling myself across the room and smash my lips onto his.

He didn’t respond at first. I caught him too completely by surprise. His lips hung there, frozen, as mine pushed against his, with too much force and an overload of desperation.

But I felt an incredible stirring in my chest, an odd sensation that felt akin to a giggle amplified.

And when he finally recovered from the shock of it all, his hands both came to rest on either side of my hips, his mouth began to move against mine, his knees bent to reach my height with more success, and the stirring turned to a fiery spark. I know he felt it too, as the kiss was swiftly disturbed by his wide grin.

“Don’t go back home tonight,” I gasped out, looking up at him, wide-eyed and breathless.

His gaze melted as he took me in, he head bobbing in agreement without even needing to consider my request.

“Okay,” he’d whispered with a dazed smile, his blue eyes impossibly wild and sleepy at the same time.

His expression, his spirit somehow, was contagious, and I found myself somewhere stuck between a laugh and a blush when I replied.

“Okay.”

After that night, Peeta rarely went back home. I had called my mother and let her know I was staying at the cabin, but intentionally eluded telling her that the baker’s son was joining me. We’d spent the entire night talking in front of the fire, making each other laugh. The bashfulness I felt from my unexpected kiss stayed in my gut, causing me to bubble up with embarrassed laughter every so often.

But instead of that making things awkward, it cut the tension pretty smoothly. It was only months later did Peeta confess he’d felt just as nervous and just as shy about spending time with me. He was charismatic, I realize even that first night. Ironically funny. He was nice, in a way I rarely have found anyone to be. And, the more time went on, the more my desire grew to stay close to him. The more often I was around him, the more painfully I missed him when we were apart.

It was only a matter of time until my mother found out—not least of all, because my siblings accidentally caught us kissing in back of the school, a month to the day we first spoke.

I always imagined she’d be strict on me, the firstborn, when it came to dating. Especially in the world we lived in. Especially with my father’s position. I truly thought she’d forbid a relationship until I was of age. Maybe I was wrong about her. Or maybe she just saw how I looked at Peeta and understood that I wasn’t just being careless or rebellious. That whatever magnetic connection I felt towards Peeta wasn’t just an ordinary school-aged fling.

To my surprise as well, my mother seemed to take on a very similar stance to me when it came to Peeta and my father. Keeping the news of this entanglement from her husband’s ears was almost her idea.

“What are you thinking about?” Peeta asks me now, bringing me back to the present moment. His fingers tickle my neck as they brush my hair back behind my ear, touching one of the satin green ribbons weaved throughout my loose braids.

“You,” I reply coyly, shooting him a sly glance as I slip past him to head back towards the kitchen.

“Me?” He calls in mock disbelief. He trails up behind me, catching me by the waist and swinging me into his arms without warning.

“Peeta!” I exclaim, automatically wrapping myself around him as I try to steady my balance midair.

“What, baby?”

“Put me down, baby,” I mock, pressing my nose to his now, rubbing them together.

“I like holding you though,” he whispers, like he’s confessing some huge secret.

“Until your arms gets tired-”

“That was one time, Katniss.”

“I’m just reminding you,” I say with an air of superiority. “You don’t always appreciate holding me.”

At that, his demeanor falls a little. “I do when I realize I won’t be seeing you much in a few days.”

I feel my heart sink now too. As excited as I am at the prospect of my father coming home, after weeks apart, I always have to be a little more careful upon his first days back.

He always likes to spend time at the cabin and go for long walks in the woods upon his return. Spend more time in nature than the indoors, stay far away from people outside our family, sleep under the stars by the lake. The Capitol is apparently luxurious, but in my father’s own words, it is void of any true or natural beauty. Everything is artificial, man-made, concocted and orchestrated. There’s nothing that compares in his mind—or mine either—to a cool breeze on a sunny day spent in the meadow where the dandelions grow tall.

“But I’ll still see you in school?” I say, though my voice comes out as more of a plea. Peeta doesn’t always like to attend school these days, not when he knows his parents can easily track him down there.

His father, the baker himself, took the ambiguous loss of his youngest—his favorite—son particularly hard. It was only a matter of weeks after I intercepted his mother beating him that Peeta definitively decided to sever ties with majority of his family.

I’d like to say he made the choice all on his own but that’d be a lie. I watched as the physical bruises on his skin healed, as he began to peel back emotional layer upon layer to me, as he slowly told me what really had been going on in the Mellark’s family home. And I can’t say that I was impartial to his decision to cut the connection to a mother with a bruising fist and a father who closed his eyes and let it happen.

“Delly’s parents usually make me go to school so…” He shrugs it off, like it’s of no consequence, his arms hoisting me higher against his chest.

But I feel a sudden wave of gratitude towards the Cartwrights. They may be a little too jolly for my liking and their daughter, Delly, maybe can’t take a hint to save her life, but at least they always watch out for Peeta’s well-being. At least they cover for him when his mother come sniffing around and they feed him what they can afford and force him to attend class, where I’ll be able to see him.

“Good,” I murmur, at peace now. My father will be home soon and Peeta will be safely tucked away with his best friend.

I lean down and kiss his nose sweetly, reveling in the tender moment. His lips follow my lead and begin to plant themselves across my chin, underneath my jaw, causing me to squirm and squeal at the sensation.

“So,” he murmurs against my throat. “We have the entire place to ourselves, for the whole night, huh?”

His audacious smile elicits my own. “At least.” My father’s delays usually mean a minimum of two days.

Within a minute, Peeta has me on my back, against the softly quilted bed of my upstairs room. He takes his time helping me out of my clothes before I hurriedly shove his off, impatient and hungry.

He, of course, finds time to crack a joke. “Good thing Archie is too young to come here unchaperoned. Or else we’d never get the chance to do this.”

I roll my eyes and shove his mouth off my collarbone, utterly disgusted now. “Talking about my baby brother is one sure way to turn me off, Peeta.”

Archer, my three-old-brother, was an unexpected surprise, to put it lightly. My parents were done with two girls. My father joked him and my mother were both already set with one clone each, but alas, the year of the Seventieth Hunger Games was a year full of shocks.

A few months before the games that year, the coal mines—the industry Twelve is known for—exploded. Right in the middle of the afternoon, as everyone was obliviously going about their day.

It was a close call for many and one more reason my father is beloved around these parts. If he hadn’t been at the right place, at the right time, if he hadn’t volunteered to go with Prim and her class on a field trip down to the mines that day, there was a chance that no one would have noticed the gas leak.

It was too late to do anything by the time my father pointed it out, but his warning and the fact that people in Twelve take his word very seriously, managed to save the lives the inevitable explosion would have otherwise cost.

Through the outpouring of gratitude, and the overwhelming media coverage my whole family was abruptly bombarded with, my parents made the decision to pull me and Prim from school for a while, to hole up in the remodeled cabin, where no one could find us because of its illegal location.

I’ve never ask and I don't ever want to know when my parents conceived Archer. But about nine months after the vacation from the world, my mother gave birth to a little boy who looked identical to me and my father.

“Sorry,” Peeta whispers with a chuckle, collapsing beside me. “I’ll make it up to you.”

He moves to kiss my stomach, to trace circles on my hips like he always does. But I shake my head, a different request—or more like it, demand—on my mind.

“Tell me the story of how you first fell in love with me?”

Peeta rolls his eyes. Very dramatically. “You mean a year ago?”

“I mean in kindergarten,” I say with a smirk and then let out a shriek of surprise when he pounces on me, his lips attacking my neck.

“Aren’t you tired of that story yet?” He asks, his voice edging on exasperated.

“You never tire of a classic.” I give him a pout, knowing he never refuses me anything when I pull that trick.

I’m right, as per usual. “Fine,” he relents, but his eyes tell me that he enjoys telling this tale more than he leads on. “Come here.” He holds open his arms and waits for me to crawl into them, to settle against his chest.

I lay there for a long moment, my pointer finger running up and down the center of his bicep, as my ear rests against his heartbeat, patiently waiting for him to begin.

“It was the very first day of school. You were wearing a red, velvet dress…”

Read the rest on AO3

#katnissmellarkkkk #prompt 59 #Springtime edition 2021 #submission

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mandoalorian · 4 years ago

Text

I Believe In Love [Maxwell Lord x F!Reader] — Eight: Courage

Summary: When you find your calling to leave Themyscira, you venture out to the World of Man with intentions of helping and healing a very specific person's relationship with his son. You've heard his voice before, but only in dreams. You've felt his pain and anguish and you've never been able to relate to anything more. But things don't come easy for you, and they certainly don't come easy for him either. [This series contains spoilers for WW84 and is my interpretation of what happens after the movie ends].

Warnings: canon typical violence

Word count: 5,000>

Masterlist

Previous - Chapter Eight - Next

You awoke to the phone on the nightstand ringing. Maxwell groaned, rolling over and pulling the pillow over his head. You tiredly opened your eyes before taking the phone off the hook and holding it against your ear. “Hello?” you asked, your voice hoarse and your throat sore. It must have been the implications of yours and Maxwell’s actions from the night before. Max moaned and wrapped his large arm around your naked body, pulling you into his chest and resting his chin on your shoulder.

“It’s me,” Diana snapped back quickly. “I’ve been calling your room for the past fifteen minutes. What’s going on?”

“O-oh,” you groaned, rubbing your eyes and pulling out of Maxwell’s grip. You sighed and propped yourself up on some pillows. “I’m sorry Di, I guess we must’ve slept through the phone call. I didn’t hear anything.” you admitted.

“Listen, we only have two days in Greece so if we want to find the dreamstone we have to work fast. Meet me in the lobby in fifteen minutes or I’ll go without you. I already have a lead.” Diana instructed and you heard the phone slam back down on the hook with a ring.

You turned to Max who had fallen back asleep, his snores gentle and light as his chest slowly rose and fell with every breath. He was so peaceful. When he was asleep, it was one of the few moments where he wasn’t ridden with stress or anxiety. And you wished you had the rest of your life to admire his tender movements.

“Max, wake up, we have to go.” you whispered, shaking him gently.

Maxwell mumbled something incoherent and rolled over, resting his head in your lap. You smiled, feeling your cheeks heat up as he shuffled further into your body. You smoothed out his golden hair and traced the features of his face with your index finger. So beautiful. So perfect.

You imagined spending every single one of your future mornings like this, in bed with him, his face buried in your lap and his gentle snores echoing throughout the room. Your naked legs were tangled together and neither of you had ever felt so comfortable in your life.

“Max, baby,” you cooed, leaning down and pressing a soft kiss into his forehead.

“Mmm, good morning.” Maxwell grumbled, rubbing his tired eyes.

“We slept in,” you sighed, letting your hand trail down his body and lazily circle his tan chest. “Diana is waiting for us downstairs. We have to go.”

“I don’t want to,” he whined, almost child-like. “Wanna stay here with you- foreverrrr.” he purred, pressing a tired kiss to the inside of your thigh.

“Maxie, please don’t make this any more difficult than it needs to be.” you hummed seriously, although you were trying to hold back a smile. If anything was going to wake Maxwell up, it would be that nickname. He opened his eyes and pulled off you.

“Okay princess, I’m up.” He said, running his hand through his wavy morning hair.

“Princess? I told you I’m not a-”

“Think of it as a term of endearment, sweetheart.” he said, pressing a kiss into your nose.

“Oh.” was all you managed to breathe out before his lips caught yours.

***

Just as she had stated, Diana was waiting for you in the hotel lobby, dressed fully in her red, blue and gold warrior costume. It had garnered quite a bit of attention, but nothing Diana Princess of Themyscira wasn’t used to.

“You said you had a lead?” you quizzed, quirking your eyebrow and taking a step closer to Diana.

“Yes, Dr. Minerva,” Diana said, immediately glancing at Maxwell who’s eyes had become comically wide. The name clearly meant something to him. It rang like alarm bells in his head. “Or Barbara, as myself and Max know her as.”

You turned to Max, confused as to why Diana was being particularly smug. She’d acted the same when she mentioned Barbara and Max back at the Smithsonian yesterday. “Who is this Dr Minerva?” you asked him, looking at him with the most innocent, doe eyes. Your voice was soft but riddled with curiosity. He wanted to tell you, he wanted to tell you everything it’s just… things were difficult. He’d done things with Barbara that he’d be afraid of you knowing; afraid of what you might think or if you will think any less of him. He couldn’t stand the fact you genuinely had no idea. It was a long complicated story. He hoped to tell you it one day - but knowing that you might not have much time left on Earth, was it really worth it?

“Maybe Diana is better off explaining.” Maxwell scrunched up his nose, dismissing your question. It brought back too many memories that Max would prefer to just ignore. Even though ignoring his past trauma was how he got into this mess in the first place. If he’d learned one thing from Diana, it was that he must face the truth no matter how difficult it may be.

“No,” Diana shot back, but her voice wasn’t laced with venom as Maxwell expected. “I think you’re better off answering this one.” Diana smiled a perfect smile. Maybe smug wasn’t the word to describe Diana’s demeanor, but she certainly knew something that you didn’t, and she was being particularly hidden about it.

“Well Max?” you narrowed your eyes. Why was he being so secretive? Who was this woman?

“Uh-,” Maxwell trailed off, avoiding all eye contact. He took in the features of your face, admiring your beauty with all he had and thinking about how he didn’t want to lose you. He loved you. And you deserved to know. If Max could open up to you about his childhood and about his pursuit of the dreamstone, he could tell you about his short-lived relationship with Barbara-Ann Minerva. “Shit, okay. I had been searching for the dreamstone for a long time when one day, a newspaper headline told me that there was a robbery at a jewellery store, and that the Smithsonian had all the stolen treasures. Including the dreamstone. So I went to the Smithsonian and requested to see Dr. Minerva because I did my research and I knew she was the fresh faced gemologist they just hired a week earlier. And she was… beautiful,” Maxwell seemed to get lost in the memory of her vibrant blue eyes and blonde wavy hair. His lips then curled into a frown. “But so ditzy... I saw straight through her vulnerabilities and insecurities in an instant and I used that to exploit her and get the dreamstone. I gained her trust when I told her I’d be donating to the gemology department at the museum, I charmed her at the charity gala and I wooed her in her office and took the stone.”

Maxwell seemed to gloss over the chain of events but it didn’t really matter. He’d explained what he needed to. You felt a pang of jealousy strike your heart at his revelation. You had been made aware from Mrs Stagg, Ted and Julianna, Diana, and even Max, that he’d done bad things and made terrible mistakes, but you couldn’t help but feel an irk over what had happened in Dr Minerva’s office. “Wooed her?” you quoted him, folding your arms over your chest. Maxwell blinked, but then sighed and reached out to hold your hand.

“Really?” Diana sighed. “That’s what you're focused on right now? Dolos lives. The God of Lies lives.” she shook her head in disbelief and you bit your lip, supposing that she was right. You had bigger things on your plate. You were a goddess for heaven’s sake, you couldn’t let the irrational human emotion of envy consume you. But you had noticed the way his face softened when he was reminded of Dr Minerva’s beauty. And you couldn’t help but feel the urge to know what exactly went on in her office, the night of the charity gala. After a brief moment of silence and exchanged glances, Diana opened her mouth again. “I had a contact in D.C., Babajide, who knew all about the dreamstone and the powers of the God of Lies. Myself, Barbara and Steve met with him when we found out Maxwell had become the dreamstone.”

“Hey- how did I not know about Babajide?” Maxwell frowned. He’d been researching the dreamstone for years and he’d never known of such a man. A man who supposedly had all the answers about the stone.

“Irrelevant,” Diana rolled her eyes. “Seriously guys, this is important. You need to pay attention.”

“I am!” You and Maxwell exclaimed together, in an unpredicted unison. Diana quirked an eyebrow and you felt a warmth cross your cheeks. Ancient Olympian tales would describe moments like that as soulmate-ism.

“Babajide knew so much about Romulus and the exact dreamstone that Max got a hold of so I paid him another visit and found out he had knowledge on Dolos’ dreamstone too. Only…” And Diana let out a long sigh before pinching the bridge of her nose. “He told me that Barbara had visited him a day earlier, asking him of the same knowledge. ‘Asking’ is putting it nicely. Apparently Barbara was a menace and threatened Babajide. And Babajide told her everything he told me. It’s more than likely that Barbara is already here, in Greece, seeking the stone for herself.”

“She sounds dangerous.” you said quietly. Maxwell held his head in his hands.

“I don’t think I can face Barbara again.” He said, shaking his head, fearful.

“Max I don’t think we have a choice. We have to get the dreamstone before she gets it. What do you think she’ll do with the stone once she has it?” you asked Diana.

“I can only imagine the worst,” Diana shook her head in dismay. “Barbara was complicated… she craved power just like Maxwell only… she had nothing to lose. I fear that she’ll wish to become the dreamstone.” As the word’s left Diana’s lips, Maxwell’s heart sank and he ran off, disappearing amongst the lobby crowds. “Do you think he’s okay?”

You stood for a moment, watching as his dirty blonde hair descended behind the grand staircase. No, of course he wasn’t okay, and you were the only one who truly knew how much this business with the dreamstone had affected him and harmed him. He had come so close to losing everything and so learning that Barbara might make the same mistake as he did, hurt him too. No matter what happened between Barbara and Maxwell, he clearly cared about her. “Excuse me.” you told Diana, following Maxwell through the crowds.

You just noticed him heading through an alcove and outside of the resort. He pushed his sunglasses down the bridge of his nose and stood by the pool, relishing the fresh air and trying to regulate his panicked, erratic breathing. “Max! Max!” you called after him, pushing past the people until finally you were by his side, grabbing his hand. “What happened back there?”

Maxwell said nothing, instead he just looked into the golden horizon. “Max?”

“Maybe I shouldn’t be here,” he told you. “You have Diana. What use am I?”

“We need you Max,” you promised him, placing your hand on his cheek and gently turning his head so he was facing you. “I need you.”

Maxwell smiled softly and felt himself lean into your warm embrace. “I’ve never felt needed… or wanted… until I met you.” he confessed and you felt tears prick your eyes at his admission. You knew that feeling all too well.

“I know, me too. Back home, all the other Amazon’s were fighters and warriors… like Diana. But not me. They made me feel useless… like I had no point. Like I was a mistake. My mother would tell me that Zeus created me for a reason, just like all the other Gods and Goddesses, and that one day I’d serve my true purpose. That’s why I’m here today, with you. I already know that the years of humiliation and feeling like an outcast will be worth the few days that I get to spend with you, Max.”

Max sighed softly. “I never thought a Goddess could feel like an outcast,” he told you and you pursed your lips into a fine line, nodding in affirmation. “I’m sorry.”

“I think we have more in common that meets the eye.” you giggled softly, dropping your hand flat against his chest. Maxwell wrapped both of his big arms around you and pulled you into a hug.

“I think so too,” he agreed, pressing a soft kiss into your hair. “We better catch up with Diana then,” he told you, taking your hand. “Let’s put an end to this.”

***

You had been walking for miles in the blazing Greek heat. Maxwell had unbuttoned the top of his shirt and his collar was slightly wonky. His hair may have been disheveled and the blonde locks may have been sticking to the pearls of sweat that beaded along his forehead, but you still admired his beauty. He was truly wonderful. He was quiet most of the journey, and he didn’t have the agility or stamina that you and Diana had. Sometimes you’d have to take stops and have water breaks or toilet breaks. You tried to include him in conversation but his discomfort wasn’t lost on you. It was clear enough that his relationship with Diana was complicated, to say the least. Little did you know, the three of you were about to become a whole lot closer. You and Diana laughed and talked for hours, sharing stories about your time together on Themyscira.

“Zeus is my father. Zeus is your father. We’re basically sisters,” you nudged her, and she giggled. Maxwell scrunched up his nose. Sisters?! He ran a hand through his hair and continued to listen in your conversation. “It’s just unfair that you got to be Princess of Themyscira and I was stuck living a sheltered life with my mother.”

“It wasn’t always easy being a princess,” Diana scolded, but in a warm and polite manner. “It was all about duty. But hey- you’re a goddess, you know all about that.”

If Maxwell Lord had a dollar for everytime he thought he was in a fever dream… he might have been able to afford Black Gold Cooperative’s utility bill. He’d always been a realist. He’d never engaged in fantasy movies or novella, but there was something about overhearing a conversation between a Demi-god and a goddess that just didn’t feel real.

He knew it was. He’d seen Diana in action himself. Hell, he’d seen the powers you possessed. Albeit, when Diana mentioned how you possessed double her power, he was shocked to say the least. Diana could barely hold off Barbara in the White House but with you here? For once Maxwell finally felt hopeful.

As you furthered deeper into unknown plains, a sudden coldness enveloped you all. It was like a dark, enigmatic spirit ghosting between the three of you, and just like everything else that had happened over the past four days, it couldn’t be explained.

“Do you feel that?” Max finally asked, breaking his silence as he folded his arms over his chest. A shiver raced down his spine as Diana increased her pace and approached the forbidden tomb. “Look at this place. She took us to an ancient burial site, it seems. Like ancient Greek ruins.” he told you, scoping out the place.

“I feel that, yes.” you hummed, your mind wandering the origins of the cold air. Diana’s cries alerted both you and Maxwell as your heads both snapped in her direction and watched her push an enormous boulder away from the tomb, revealing an opening.

“Are you as strong as that?” Maxwell asked, his mouth gaped open in shock.

“Stronger.” you winked before taking his hand and dragging him towards Diana.

The cold spirit then enveloped you, Diana and Maxwell, whispering words of admission, encouraging you all to come forward. “Don’t you think it’s a trap?” Maxwell asked once you were deep enough in the cave that you had hit a point of no return. Even if it was a trap, there was no going back now. You were faced with two path-ways.

“The Sword of Athena is this way,” Diana pointed to the right pathway, otherwise known as the pathway she stood before, and then she pointed her other finger to the left pathway, “and Dolos’ dreamstone is that way. I say we split up and rendezvous here. Maxwell, come with me.”

“Wait what?” Max asked, narrowing his eyes.

“No,” you told Diana firmly. “He is coming with me.” “You really think it’s wise to let Max Lord accompany you to get the dreamstone?” Diana quizzed quietly, stepping closer to you and breaking any distance. Her dark eyes flicked between you and Maxwell. “After everything he’s done.”

Diana’s hiss was quiet, but not quiet enough to go unnoticed by Maxwell. He knew he wasn’t going to do anything. He was a changed man - but the realization that he’d have to prove to the people he hurt that he was changed, suddenly overwhelmed him. He’d have to prove himself to Diana, and even prove himself to Barbara before he could put all this behind him. There were still steps Max Lord had to take in order to gain full closure of his trauma.

“I trust him.” you said through gritted teeth. Maxwell felt a wave of relief. You were so pure of heart. So angelic. You took his hand, nodded goodbye to Diana, and guided him through the left path-way.

“How much further?” he asked. You had been walking hand in hand for around five or ten minutes, only your lasso of Hestia illuminating the cave. Before you could reply, you felt the walls and ceiling of the cave begin to vibrate and crumble. “What’s that?!” Maxwell asked again, this time panicked and looking around erratically.

“We might not have much time.” You said, feeling your own heart rate increase speed as anxiety settled in you.

Something wasn’t right, that much was clear. You tightened your grip on the businessman’s hand and began to run, pulling him with you. Within seconds, you had reached your destination. Maxwell was heaving and panting but he straightened up and fought for composure when he noticed a dim, amber light illuminate your skin. It wasn’t your lasso of Hestia… not this time. He slowly looked up and followed your gaze, gasping when his eyes set on the dreamstone.

You had completely frozen up, struck by awe as you took in the beauty of the citrine stone which stood erect on top of a Greek pillar. “Wow.” you mumbled, swallowing the hard lump in your throat.

The stone was practically identical to the one Maxwell had utilized just a week ago, and just seeing it again, in its full glory, sent electric bolts of dread through his body. He couldn’t be here. He couldn’t do this. Not again. Being in the same proximity as the stupid stone that had ruined everything sent Maxwell into his fight or flight. “I can’t- I can’t do this.” Maxwell shakily declared, his coffee coloured eyes glazed with panic.

“It’s okay,” you whispered, taking both of his hands and coaching his breathing. “Let me get the stone and we can head on out of here.”

Maxwell closed his eyes and nodded. If you could trust him, he could certainly trust you. You brushed a chaste kiss against his lips and pulled away from him. It only took a few steps on your approach to the stone before the walls began to crumble again, even more so than previously, and the ground beneath you began to split.

“Shit!” Maxwell cried as he stared at the crack in the floor between you both. It was deep and only getting deeper. If you didn’t run now, you might have gotten separated. He called your name, terror rampant in his voice. “Hurry!”

As you were about to grab the stone. A voice stopped you. A voice that Maxwell thought he’d never hear again.

“The stone belongs to me.” she said coldly. You huffed and opted to ignore the grave voice, taking the dreamstone from the pillar before spinning around on your heel and turning around.

And when you saw the sight before you, you dropped the dreamstone and let it fall to the rocky ground beneath you. Trepidation consumed you and suddenly, it felt like your whole life was on the line. “Maxwell!” you cried, your hand immediately dropping down to your lasso and curling your fingers around the rope. You scowled angrily, your gaze flicking between Max and the woman who was holding him by his neck.

“This- this is Dr. Minerva!” Maxwell choked, tears streaming down his cheeks as Barbara tightened her grip around his throat. Her once blonde hair was white and knotted, and her black kohl eyeliner smudged down her cheeks. Her tights were ripped and a sleeve was missing from her Cheetah print fur jacket. She is not at all how you’d imagined her.

“Let him go!” You begged as anger swelled in the pit of your stomach. “Let him go now!”

Maxwell’s eyes squeezed shut and he let out a groan, his knees wobbling as he struggled to even stand up straight. It was only Barbara’s strong grip of his neck that was keeping him upright. He was hurting. The love of your life was in pain.

“Give me the stone.” Barbara growled.

You picked up the dreamstone and passed it her way. She took it, willingly and let go of Maxwell, throwing him to the ground. The glint in her eye as she analysed the citrine was enough to terrify you. You ran to Maxwell’s side, dropping to your knees and nursing his body.

“Hey! Max, are you okay?” You whispered, smoothing out his hair and running your fingers along his face. He nodded wearily, rubbing the scratches on his neck from where her sharp, cat-like, fingernails had dug into his skin. You helped him to his feet and swung an arm around his body to support him.

“Barbara.” he called, gaining the attention of the doctor.

“No,” you chastised Max. “Don’t. There will be another opportunity to get the stone.” But he wasn’t going to give in that easy, he had to play his cards right. Luckily for you, manipulation was one of Maxwell Lord’s most tactful skills.

“Barbara, did we end things on a bad note? I must admit, I thought we had something special… me and you.” Maxwell said, his voice hoarse. He pulled out of your arms and sluggered towards the gemologist, who had finally looked up from the citrine stone and towards the businessman. For a split second, you saw a glimpse of humanity flicker in her eyes.

“You renounced your wish,” Barbara said, her grip on the stone as tight as ever, but her heart ached as Maxwell approached her. “You were weak. The dreamstone deserves to be with someone like me.” Even her words sound forced and unnatural - like they weren’t really coming from her. Had she not renounced her wish? You wondered what she had even wished for.

“I couldn’t agree more,” Maxwell coaxed. He had gotten so close to Barbara, he was able to cup her face and rub the height of her cheekbone with his thumb. It was an action he’d performed on you many times, but even watching this play out, with your own two eyes, you could tell it was different. It was colder and more forced. He had that fake television smile, not the smile you had been blessed to see so many times. “I just hoped things could’ve been different between us.”

“Max, what are you saying?” Barbara asked, goosebumps lacing her arms and you noticed the way her grip on the dreamstone loosened under his touch.

“Everyone has something to lose,” Maxwell whispered. “I could have all the power in the world but it would mean nothing to me if I lost Alistair, my son. Tell me Barbara, does that really make me weak?”

Barbara considered his words for a few moments. “No.”

Maxwell nodded. “What do you have to lose?” Maxwell whispered, tucking a piece of hair behind her ear.

Barbara sniffed, a single tear dripping down her cheek. She was once so warm and compassionate, so friendly. There was one thing. Only one thing she thought about losing.

Just then, the dreamstone slipped from her grip as the lasso of Hestia curled around it and pulled it away from her. But it wasn’t your lasso.

“Diana!” Barbara gasped, her face hardening as she quickly and fiercely wiped her tears away. “That dreamstone belongs to me!”

“I can’t let you do this Barbara!” Diana cried. “This has to end now!” You and Maxwell ran towards Diana and she passed you the dreamstone. “Get out of here!” I’ll hold back Barbara.”

You handed Maxwell the dreamstone and equipped your own lasso, circling it around until it wrapped around a rocky ledge at the end of the cave. “Hold on to me. One hand around me and keep tight a hold of the stone!” you commanded as the walls of the ancient temple began to crumble around you. Just before you set off, you saw the silver gleam of Diana’s sword of Athena as she wielded it before Barbara.

“Shouldn’t I hold on to the lasso?” Maxwell asked, sliding an arm around your waist and holding the stone tight against his chest.

“Just trust me!” You shouted over the loud rumbling around you. You gripped on to your lasso firmly with both hands before shooting off in the air.

“Whoa!” Maxwell screamed, squeezing his eyes tight shut the second his feet left the ground. “Are we flying?! Are we flying?!”

You giggled as your bodies glided through the air. Max might have been holding on to you for his dear life, but somehow he knew he would be okay. That he’d be safe and you wouldn’t let him get hurt. You rapidly approached the entrance to the cave and used the last of your might to safely land. Maxwell had no time to catch his whereabouts when his feet hit the ground, as you clipped your lasso back to your belt and ran with him to the edge of the ruins.

You hadn’t been in there too long, but by the time you had exited the ancient temple, it was already nightfall. You looked back and there was no sign of Diana. She must have still been in there with Barbara, and you wondered what was going on.

When Maxwell held the dreamstone, he felt opportunistic. He could make a wish. He had the possibility to make a wish again and have a do-over. He knew where he went wrong last time. He could make it right. He could wish for you to stay… and for you to live a peaceful, happy life with him and Alistair. He could wish to win the custody case. He could wish for so many things. But it was the softness of your touch which interrupted him from his intrusive thoughts. The way your fingers gently grazed across his knuckles and you held his hand.

“We have to destroy it now.” you whispered, looking into the glowing citrine rock.

“We?” Maxwell questioned. His eyes were dark and wide. “We don’t even know how.”

“Only the truth can destroy the lies. But my mother said I had to believe in love. Love would destroy the stone. Truth and love… truth and love…” you chanted as you tried to piece together the puzzle.

It suddenly hit Maxwell like a ton of bricks. “True love,” he said out loud, his gaze flicking from the dreamstone to you. “True love will destroy the stone.”

It made more than sense, and Maxwell had worked it out on his own. “You’re right…” you whispered. You squeezed Max’s hand and then reached over to the dreamstone. You placed your hand on the stone, and the tips of your fingers touched the tips of Maxwell. As you both held the stone together, the magic began to work and the stone grew hot and tingled your skin. Very soon, Dolos’ dreamstone - the final dreamstone - fizzled away into a pile of glittering dust and blew away in the cool Greek wind.

You and Maxwell both stood there in silence, still holding your hands out, but this time there was no dreamstone. You had done it. The dreamstone had been destroyed. The God of Lies was dead. It was over.

“You did it,” Maxwell was the first to break the silence. “You destroyed the dreamstone.”

You had both been thinking the same thing. The fact you had both placed your hand on the dreamstone and that your combined energy was enough to disintegrate the possessed rock. True love. It was hard to know what to say. Of course you were in love with Maxwell Lord, and knowing that pretty soon you’d have to leave him, made your whole body ache to the core. And Maxwell felt the same about you. He’d never been this happy in his life - but spending his days with you and Alistair felt so special. You were his guardian angel, sent out from Themyscira to aid him and help him. To rescue him. How could he not love you? But still, neither of you said anything. How could you ever tell him that you loved him when you were going to leave him? It would only make things harder when it was time to go. You winced and blinked away unshed tears.

“No,” you whispered, turning to look into Maxwell’s honey coloured eyes. “We did it.”

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kurokoros · 4 years ago

Text

spider lily | part one

Rated: M (violence, language, etc)

Words: 7K

Pairing: kuroo x fem!reader/oc?

Summary: No one can outrun the past. Kuroo already knew that before he started bounty hunting. [cowboy bebop!au]

AN: Written for the @the-smut-pile’s western!au collab. This is barely a western, but the word “cowboy” is used so it counts. This fic is going to be multiple parts. The romance doesn’t come in for a while, just a heads up. I’m sure there’s more I meant to say here, but my brain is mush. I wrote most of this in the last three days and need a nap lmao

The dealer is watching him.

Eyes burn into his back as the bartender sets another glass of whiskey in front of Kuroo. In the mirror above the bar, Kuroo watches as one of the players, a middle-aged man with a cigar, requests another card. The dealer flips the card, revealing a Jack, and the man curses. A bust.

The dealer ignores the seething player, a look of boredom on his face. He’s thin, his hair parted to the right. Early twenties at best, but his eyes are tired and apathetic as they start to wander around the room.

It’s subtle. The dealer’s gaze doesn’t linger on Kuroo for long—it almost doesn’t linger at all, a stutter in that smooth glance around the room. If he wasn’t waiting for it, he might have missed it. But Kuroo has been painfully obvious tonight, making a show out of staring in that mirror every time a new card is drawn before making his move. It was bound to catch someone’s attention eventually. He just thought it would be sooner.

Kuroo spins the blackjack chip in front of him. White and turquoise blur together as the piece of ceramic whirls around on its edge. Gold glints under the dim lights above him.

A waitress passes the blackjack table behind him. The dealer glances at her. His mouth moves. His chin dips towards the bar where Kuroo is sitting.

“Kuroo.” Static crackles in his ear. His fingers twitch, seizing around the still spinning poker chip. It comes to an abrupt halt. Topples onto its side. With a sigh, he rests his elbow on the counter, props his chin up on his palm, and brings his drink to his mouth. “Anything?”

The whiskey burns in the back of his throat. “Not yet,” he says under his breath, glancing at the bartender to make sure he’s distracted. His fingers brush against the studs in his ear, following the steel bar attached to one of them until he reaches the attached earbud.

A disgruntled sound buzzes through the miniature speaker in his ear. “Then what are we wasting our time here for?” Tsukishima demands. The words aren’t minced, irritation mixed with his typical haughty tone.

“Getting bored out there, Kei?” Kuroo asks the younger man, keeping his tone light and amused. He specifically uses his first name, goading him. “I told you to come inside earlier. You still can. Unless you’d prefer to sit in the ship and sulk.” He takes another drink. “Besides, haven’t I told you to be patient?”

Tsukishima is silent on the other end.

The lapse in conversation stretches out. Kuroo’s gaze trails away from the card table behind him as he seeks out the rest of his crew in the reflection of the mirror over the bar. They’re still waiting where he left them, on opposite sides of the gambling floor. Akaashi is tucked close to the back wall, nursing his own drink and casually watching a game of poker, making no move to play himself like Kuroo has in the hour they’ve been here already. On the other end of the room, Bokuto is eyeing one of the card tables, starting to wander away from the slot machines and naturally gravitate towards the center of the room where a larger game of poker is being played. The prize pool has been steadily growing, attracting more attention as the night wears on.

They just have to wait a little longer for their target to show.

Eventually, Tsukishima huffs. “How do you even know Ikeda will be here tonight? He’s running. There’s no point in going to a high-traffic casino.”

Kuroo’s eyes narrow at the snappish tone, but he decides to let it slide for now. “Source said he’s headed this way,” he reminds Tsukishima. “You don’t come this close to Titan without stopping by Blue Castle. Not with a pool like that on the line.” He glances at the table Bokuto has been eyeing. “It’s up to a couple hundred grand already. He’s desperate for cash. Places like this don’t ask questions. Don’t give a shit so long as the house keeps winning.”

“And if you’re wrong?”

He shrugs, gaze wandering away from Bokuto. “Guess we’re fucked for a while.”

Tsukishima snorts. “How reassuring.”

Movement catches Kuroo’s eye in the corner of the mirror before he can ready a retort. There’s a man with dark hair shoving his way through the crowd of people gathered on the gambling floor. No, not shoving. The crowd is parting for him, scurrying out of his way as he storms across the room. Expression set in a scowl. A scowl that’s locked on Kuroo’s back.

Right on time.

He drops his hand from his face, sitting up straighter on the stool as the man comes closer. “Seems like security is finally coming to get me,” he tells Tsukishima off-handedly, abruptly ending the conversation. “Oh, and tell Kou to stop eyeing that table. His poker face is shit.”

Tsukishima pauses, like he wants to ask Kuroo what he’s talking about, but decides it’s simply not worth the effort. A grumbled response eventually comes over the radio, but Kuroo has already stopped listening. Low static buzzes in his ear as Tsukishima switches channels on his headset.

For once, he’s glad for Tsukishima’s lack of interest, though it isn’t bound to last long.

Kuroo grins into his drink as the man drops onto the stool beside him not a moment later. “About time someone got you, Iwa.” He tilts his head to the side, lazy gaze meeting a familiar stern expression. Green eyes glare back at him, and his smile widens. “I was about to bring the house down.”

A snort. “Like hell I’d let you walk away with that much,” Iwaizumi tells him. The tension in his clenched jaw loosens, but the scowl stays, and it doesn’t make him look any less disheveled. His clothes are rumpled. Shirt buttoned haphazardly; the sleeves rolled up. Iwaizumi jerks his chin towards the chip Kuroo has gone back to idly toying with in his free hand. “What are you up to anyway? Hundred thousand?”

He leans forward to look past Kuroo and braces his elbows on the counter, gesturing to catch the bartender’s attention.

“Two,” Kuroo corrects, glancing at his acquaintance. “What can I say? I’ve always had good luck.”

That gets him a chuckle. Though, it’s more disbelieving than amused. “Bullshit.” Iwaizumi shakes his head. A faint smile tugs at the corner of his mouth. “Counting cards doesn’t make you lucky.”

Kuroo shrugs, a wicked glint in his gold eyes. “Not getting caught does.”

The corner of Iwaizumi’s mouth twitches. “Yeah? How’d that work out tonight?”

“I’m still winning.”

The bartender places a drink down in front of Iwaizumi without a word, though he hesitates on the other side of the bar. A curious gaze strays towards Kuroo. The young man flinches when gold eyes snap up to meet his.

“On the rocks?” Kuroo comments as the bartender is called away by another patron. He watches the man leave, aware of the gazes lingering on him now that Iwaizumi is here. Bokuto must have mentioned the other man’s presence to Tsukishima because that familiar buzzing sound vibrates in his ear. “Didn’t think you’d be one to drink on the job. What would he say about that?”

Iwaizumi rolls his eyes as he downs half the drink. The single ball of ice clinks against the edge of the glass. Kuroo watches it bob in the amber liquid. “I put up with his dumb ass twelve hours a day. He owes me this much.”

“That why you look like shit?” Kuroo asks, giving him another once-over. He smirks when he sees something he hadn’t noticed before. “That shade of red looks good on you, by the way.” He gestures to the lipstick stains half-hidden behind Iwaizumi’s collar, low on the side of his throat. “Sorry to interrupt whatever you were doing.”

“Piss off.” Iwaizumi glares at him, flustered. A flush starts to creep up his neck, but it doesn’t get under his skin the way Kuroo wants it to. They’ve known each other too long for that. “What are you doing here, Kuroo?”

He takes some satisfaction in how quickly Iwaizumi changes the subject. Pleasantries gone.

Flicking the rim of his glass, Kuroo wonders how much he should say right now, mindful of the audience listening. “Passing through,” he finally settles on, watching the ice in his own drink bob. He sends Iwaizumi a pointed look. “Hopefully, we won’t be here long.”

“We?” Iwaizumi repeats, eyes narrowing as he furrows his brow. It dawns on him a second later. “You’re here on a job. Fuck.”

The glare aimed at Kuroo doesn’t soften as he waves off Iwaizumi’s concern. “Nothing you need to worry about.”

“Tell him that,” Iwaizumi spits back at him. He leans back on his stool, rubbing his temple. “You’re lucky Kunimi sent the waitress to me and not Kyoutani.”

Tsukishima is silent over the headset, but Kuroo knows the younger man has been listening intently since he got back, just in case Kuroo slips up and says something he shouldn’t. But Kuroo has practice. There’s always someone listening.

Kuroo taps the blackjack chip on the bar counter, tracing the Blue Castle written across the coin in an elegant scrawl. “Blond guy in the back?” With a twist of his fingers, he sends the chip spinning again. “He’s been watching me since I walked in. Looks like he wants to kick my ass.”

“You’d deserve it.” Iwaizumi looks at Kuroo. “You gonna make this easy for me?”

The chip stops spinning and falls on its side with a quiet clatter. A turquoise crown is printed in the center.

“Why not?” Glancing in the mirror one last time, Kuroo makes eye contact with Akaashi. Static buzzes in his ear, the radio crackling again. Before Tsukishima can speak, Kuroo casually flicks the switch on his headset, silencing the static. He downs the rest of his drink and slides off the stool with a lazy stretch. “It’s been a while since I saw the Great King.”

Iwaizumi leads him to the elevator.

Neither speak as they wait for it to reach the bottom floor. Kuroo takes a subtle glance around the room. The blond that Iwaizumi mentioned—Kyoutani—is still watching him. So are Akaashi and Bokuto, who have strayed from their positions closer to the door. While Bokuto seems more confused than concerned, there’s an uneasy look on Akaashi’s face. His mouth moves as he speaks to Tsukishima over his earpiece. Kuroo doesn’t bother trying to read his lips.

The ding of the elevator draws Kuroo’s attention back to Iwaizumi, who waits for him to enter the box first.

It’s been a while since Kuroo has been in Blue Castle, but as his gaze roams the panels of heavy glass surrounding the box, he figures not much has changed. The elevator juts from the main building. Three walls made of Saturn glass that reflect the neon lights from streets below. The doors slide shut as Iwaizumi follows him inside, and Kuroo leans against the wall, head tilted back. The ceiling is made of glass too.

From here, he can just barely see the stars.

Iwaizumi fishes a set of keys from his pocket. Thumbing through them, he stops when he finds the one he’s looking for: small and silver, a crown etched onto the side. The key slots into a lock at the bottom of the button panel, and the button for the fourth floor glows blue when Iwaizumi turns it.

Kuroo glances at the other man as the elevator starts to move, hands casually slipping into the pockets of his suit jacket. “Is there going to be a gun pointed at my head when I get to the top floor?”

“No promises,” Iwaizumi says, leaning back against the wall as well. The muscles in his jaw clench as he rubs the back of his neck. The lipstick stains on his neck are smeared, not nearly as noticeable as they were before. “You know how he is.”

Leaning in closer, Kuroo squints his eyes, a sly grin on his face. “You missed a spot,” he tells Iwaizumi, who glares at him.

“Fuck off.”

Kuroo’s chuckle is cut off by the doors to the fourth floor opening in front of them. There are no guns pointed at him. No guards. No dogs. Just an empty hallway leading to a set of double doors.

He hopes his shoes scuff the ridiculous marble floors as he follows Iwaizumi out of the elevator. They’re startling white, inlaid with streaks of gold.

Iwaizumi doesn’t bother knocking on the doors. He shoves them open wide, grumbling something under his breath that Kuroo doesn’t pay much attention to, immediately focused on the wall of windows across the room and the man perched behind the large, white desk centered in front of them.

He’s sprawled lazily in his chair, slumped against his desk, and unsurprised by their sudden arrival. “You truly have no tact, Hajime,” he complains, sighing as his head of security enters the room. Iwaizumi rolls his eyes as the other man runs a hand through his brunet bangs. “Though, I suppose that can’t be helped.” His lips curl into a practiced smile when his dark eyes land on Kuroo, his expression brightening as he lifts his head from where it was cradled in his hand.

“Oikawa.”

“Kuroo.” The returned greeting is clipped. Oikawa sits up straighter behind his desk. “What a surprise.” He raises an eyebrow, silently observing his old acquaintance, his stare critical as he looks over Kuroo’s rumpled suit: jacket left unbuttoned and tie loose around his neck. “You look like shit,” he says, as Iwaizumi closes the set of doors and leans against the wall beside them.

Kuroo huffs. “Good to see you too,” he responds, sarcasm thick on his tongue as he walks further into the office, eyes wandering around the space.

It’s open. Clean. Decorated in blues and whites and golds. Expensive, but not tacky. Even Oikawa is wearing a nice blue button-up, looking more presentable than either Kuroo or Iwaizumi. The man in question slides his work aside, gesturing for Kuroo to sit in one of the sleek armchairs in front of him.

“How long has it been since we saw each other?” Oikawa asks him, clasping his hands together on his desk, head tilted to one side in thought.

“Almost two years.” Kuroo eyes the chair before sitting on it and stretching out like an overgrown housecat. “Back on Ganymede. When everything was going to shit.”

Oikawa hums low under his breath. His gaze seems to darken with the memory. The room feels colder suddenly. Heavier. Oikawa watches as Kuroo absently spins one of the rings decorating his fingers. He changes the subject. “You’re working with a team now. I suppose you always were a natural leader.”

Kuroo shrugs—grits his teeth. “I keep picking up strays. Bad habit.” He nods towards the paperwork shoved to one side of the desk, piles in various states of disarray. A small crack in the façade Oikawa likes to put on. “How’s the casino these days?”

It doesn’t catch him off guard like Kuroo hoped. Oikawa’s brows furrow, his smile slipping. “You don’t care about my business ventures.”

“You don’t care who I’m working with so long as they aren’t after you,” Kuroo counters.

The stare Oikawa levels him with is matched by Kuroo’s own, gold and brown clashing. It’s Oikawa who backs down first, though Kuroo knows better than to call it a win. “Fair enough,” he concedes. “Now, are you really going to make me ask why you’re here?”

“Bounty’s for some guy named Ikeda,” Kuroo tells him. “From what I’ve heard, he was a dealer for some kingpin on Callisto who took over within the last year, after the Widow Maker Conflict.” Kuroo’s eyes narrow. “He made off with four-hundred-thousand worth of some shit called Paradise. Nasty hallucinogenic. Some places are calling it Reaper. I don’t know much about it yet.”

Oikawa and Iwaizumi exchange a look over Kuroo’s shoulder. “So, the kingpin wants this Ikeda taken out?”

“No.” Kuroo shakes his head. “ISSP put out the bounty because they think he’ll talk. They want to get rid of this shit before one of the Mars’ Syndicates gets ahold of it. Bounty is set at over half a million right now.”

Iwaizumi scoffs by the door, arms folded across his chest. “They think the Syndicates don’t already? Dumb fucks.”

The sneered comment is followed by stark silence.

Behind his desk, Oikawa sighs. “I see,” he mutters. What little of his smile was left falls away, his lips pressing into a thin line. “The bounty does make it harder for the dealers to put out a hit instead. Too many people will be looking for one man. Once this Paradise ends up with one of the Syndicates, it’ll practically be untouchable. It makes sense they’d put out such a high bounty for it. Why do you think he’s coming here?”

“That pool downstairs is at almost five hundred thousand, right?”

This time, Iwaizumi outright laughs. “Ikeda thinks they’ll let him pay it back? They’ll make him bite the curb. Poor bastard’s good as dead already. If the kingpin doesn’t take him out now, one of the Syndicates will after he’s already in custody.”

“We got here early thanks to a tip from a friend of mine,” Kuroo explains, looking out the window. “As of about five minutes ago, every bounty hunter in the area is headed this way. By the time they get here, my crew downstairs will have caught Ikeda and left for the Juno station. Titan is going to be crawling with bounty hunters before long,” he tacks on. “And you don’t come to Titan without—”

“Without stopping at Blue Castle,” Oikawa finishes for him, tone dry. He rolls his eyes. “I’m aware.”

Kuroo leans back further in his seat, a grin already tugging at the corner of his mouth. There are no ships in sight yet, but he knows better than to think they aren’t coming. “With no bounty left, they’ll have nothing better to do but drink and play blackjack.”

Oikawa doesn’t look convinced. “They’ll be broke,” he says simply. “All of you bounty hunters are. What good does that do me?”

“It’s not my problem if they don’t know when to quit.” His golden eyes cut away from the window, catlike gaze settling on Oikawa. “Besides, when has that ever stopped you from letting someone rack up a gambling debt before?” Kuroo asks.

“I paid off yours, didn’t I?” Oikawa throws out casually, gaining a scowl from Kuroo in response. He ignores it, glancing down at his paperwork instead, then at Iwaizumi, before returning his attention to the bounty hunter on the other side of his desk. “And why wouldn’t I go after the bounty myself if he’s worth that much?”

Kuroo’s response is immediate. “You don’t like to get your hands dirty unless you need to. This one isn’t worth your time.” He shifts his weight on the chair, grinning. “And you still owe me a favor from back then.”

This time, Oikawa frowns. His eyes narrow in irritation. “I thought we settled that back on Ganymede?”

“You owed me two.”

Iwaizumi snorts, grinning as Oikawa sends him a withering look.

Instead of arguing like Kuroo expects, Oikawa pauses as he considers what Kuroo has told him so far. It does make sense. The bounty isn’t worth it to him, not when he’s unprepared. Even so.

“Why didn’t you join the poker game downstairs?” he asks. “The pool right now is more than your cut of the bounty. You could have taken it and run. Left someone else to deal with the bounty. It would have been easy for you.”

Kuroo smirks. “Where’s the fun in that?”

Oikawa clasps his hands together, fingers linking together. “What exactly are you planning, Kuroo?” he asks, leaning forward and resting his chin on his hands.

“Nothing you need to worry about,” Kuroo promises.

“Somehow, I don’t believe that.”

“You don’t have to.” He shrugs. “All I’m asking is for your boys to stay out of my way.”

A pause. Oikawa is still frowning at him. “And if they don’t?”

“Tooru,” Iwaizumi cuts in again. He still hasn’t moved from the spot he took up near the doors, staying out of it but remaining close. Just in case. Kuroo and Oikawa are too similar sometimes. Slick-tongued. Both of them piss Iwaizumi off like that. “It saves us a mess to clean up ourselves. Besides, business is business.”

Oikawa purses his lips, acknowledging Iwaizumi, but keeping his gaze firmly on Kuroo.

Instead of answering, Kuroo reaches under his jacket. Iwaizumi tenses where he’s leaning up against the wall, but before he can reach for his gun, Kuroo places a stack of blackjack chips on Oikawa’s desk and slides them across. Over a dozen ten-thousand-dollar chips clatter against the wood. “The house always wins, right?”

Oikawa lets him leave, dark brown eyes trailing after Kuroo as he heads for the door.

He stops beside Iwaizumi. “There is one more thing.”

“Oh?” Oikawa muses. “And what’s that?”

The ground floor is still bustling with activity when Kuroo and Iwaizumi step out of the elevator. A quick glance around the room tells Kuroo he hasn’t missed much. The all-in poker game hasn’t started yet, but there are more people milling around now, lingering closer to the middle of the room. He doesn’t see Ikeda, not yet anyway. It won’t be long until he crawls out of whatever hole he’s hidden away in.

He just hopes that’s before more bounty hunters start showing up. Despite what he told Oikawa, Kuroo isn’t so foolish as to think he’s the only bounty hunter with friends in the ISSP. If he wasn’t already headed towards Titan, they might have been too late getting here.

Catching sight of Bokuto’s hair in the crowd below, Kuroo claps Iwaizumi on the shoulder. “Until next time,” he says, offering the other man a parting grin. “Also, I should probably warn you that Bokuto tends to break things. I’m sure Oikawa won’t mind paying for the damages himself, of course. As part of that favor.”

“Fuck off.”

Iwaizumi shakes Kuroo off, much to his delight, and he chuckles as he heads back towards the bar he’s supposed to be posted at. He doesn’t make it far before he pauses, hesitating before he reaches the floor. Iwaizumi quirks a brow at Kuroo’s behavior but watches silently as the other man stands there for a moment, only a few feet away from Iwaizumi. “Hey, Hajime?” Kuroo calls over his shoulder without turning around. “Thanks.”

Iwaizumi rolls his eyes. “Whatever, space cowboy.” Leaving Kuroo there, he turns towards the back of the room where Kyoutani is posted. “Don’t go gettin’ yourself killed now.”

An amused huff slips past Kuroo’s mouth. “No promises,” he says under his breath.

It’s not until he makes it back onto the gambling floor that Kuroo switches his earphone back on. Predictably, white noise fills his left ear. That static sound ends when a furious voice breaks through.

“What the hell was that?” Tsukishima sneers at him, louder than usual. Kuroo wasn’t gone long. Fifteen minutes at most. But it was just long enough to piss the younger man off. “Why did you cut me—”

“Tell Kou and Keiji to get back into position and wait for my signal,” he says, calmly cutting Tsukishima off. “And then connect all of the lines. If you’re going to stay outside, make sure you have eyes on the front at all times. The final pool starts in about twenty minutes. Everyone is all-in. Ikeda will be here for it.”

Tsukishima is quiet for a long time. Kuroo knows he’s pissed the younger man off, but right now, he doesn’t care.

The radio in his ear crackles one more time. “Fine.”

It’s easy to drown out the chatter in his ear as he sits at the bar. Bokuto’s voice fades into background noise, Akaashi’s occasionally filtering through as he responds to his partner. Tsukishima hasn’t spoken since he linked the coms, still pissed at Kuroo.

He’ll have to deal with that later.

Sighing, Kuroo runs his fingers through his hair and leans back.

A whiskey glass clinks against the counter in front of him. Kuroo’s gaze jumps towards the sound. Ice bobs in the glass. Slowly, his hand falls away from his head. A frown tugs at his mouth.

The same bartender from before stands across from him. Under Kuroo’s gaze, he shifts his weight back and forth on his feet. “It’s on the house,” he says as Kuroo raises an eyebrow at the drink he didn’t order. “Enjoy.”

Kuroo stares at the glass for a moment, but he doesn’t dwell on it. If Oikawa wants to waste good liquor on him, who is he to complain about it?

Raising the glass to his mouth, he takes a drink. The taste that bursts across his tongue almost makes him choke. Kuroo struggles not to laugh, biting his lip to keep from coughing.

Apple juice.

“Bastard,” he mumbles, a small smile tugging at his lips as he shakes his head.

It must be just loud enough for the microphone to catch, because Bokuto’s idle chatter cuts off abruptly. White-noise buzzes in his ear before Bokuto calls out, “Kuro?” A glance in the mirror shows that Bokuto is already looking at him from across the room, head cocked to one side curiously.

“It’s nothing,” Kuroo says, brushing him off. “Try not to break too much tonight, Kou. It’s coming out of your cut this time.”

The sudden shift in topic makes Bokuto gasp, his pride on the line. But before Bokuto can whine about being called out for occasionally being destructive, Tsukishima speaks up, his familiar bored tone smooth over the speaker in his ear.

“Kuroo,” he says nonchalantly. “Ikeda is here.”

Using the mirror, Kuroo scans the room. At the very edge of the glass, Kuroo catches a glimpse of a thin man with mousy brown hair standing near the entrance, eyes darting around the room. He’s making himself more obvious than Kuroo was. Jittery. The kind that brings problems with him where he goes. Even if he hadn’t warned Iwaizumi and Oikawa, they would have noticed him themselves immediately.

“I see him. Three o’clock.” The others call affirmatives once they have eyes on their target, and Kuroo mulls over what they should do. They need to get out of here quickly. Once more bounty hunters arrive at Blue Castle, they’ll be in trouble. “Bokuto. Akaashi.”

“Want us to cut him off?”

Kuroo shakes his head. “No. Let him get close. We don’t want him running.” He doesn’t dare face Ikeda directly; he looks jumpy enough to take off if he notices. Instead, he follows him in the mirror. Just like he told Oikawa, the bounty heads straight for the counter, exchanging what little cash he has for Blue Castle chips. He’s closest to Bokuto, still lingering near the poker tables. “Kei, is there anyone following him?”

“It looked like there might have been three men tailing him on the street. They just walked in as well.”

Akaashi speaks up from where he’s carefully hidden himself in the shadow of the back wall. “They’re looking for someone,” he says, watching the trio of men’s eyes roam around the room, gazes more shrewd than if they were simply entranced by the sights. “Bounty hunters?”

Kuroo catches sight of them a moment later and grimaces. It only takes one look for him to know they have a problem. “Hitmen,” he corrects. So much for it being harder to put out a hit. Ikeda must have information that’s too valuable for him to be left alive if they’re sending this many after him. “Shit. Cut them off. Don’t lose them in the crowd.”

“You got it!”

“And you?”

Kuroo slides off his barstool. “Just leave Ikeda to me.” He pauses before grabbing his glass from the counter, taking it with him.

Bokuto and Akaashi linger further away, keeping their eyes on the hitmen trailing Ikeda, while Kuroo heads straight for the poker table. Ikeda skirts around the edge of the same table, moving to the side furthest from the doors, expecting to be followed. It would be smart. Except Kuroo is coming from behind him.

It should be easy. They’ve dealt with more difficult targets before. Craftier. Stronger. More desperate. As soon as Kuroo gets close enough, he’ll subdue Ikeda. Bokuto and Akaashi should be able to handle the hitmen by themselves if they’re working for some low-level kingpin on Callisto.

Halfway across the room, Kuroo bumps into someone on his right.

“Fuck,” he hisses. His drink sloshes in the glass, spilling over his fingers. The man who ran into him swears as well. Amber liquid stains the side of his white shirt. As his arms jerk away from the sudden cold, the sides of his jacket shift.

There’s a gun holstered at his side.

Kuroo’s eyes snap up. The other man is already looking at him. Jaw clenched. Eyes narrowed. His fingers twitch at his side. He hadn’t been on the first floor all night. They didn’t see him come in.

“Son of a bitch,” Kuroo says.

“Kuroo?” someone asks over the radio.

He sighs. “There are four of them.”

He throws what’s left of his drink in the other man’s face and lurches to the side as the fourth hitman draws his gun and shoots. The loud bang startles everyone in the room. Kuroo doesn’t see where the bullet goes as he ducks out of the way.

The gun is still trained on him when Kuroo rolls back onto his feet. There’s more distance between them now. A long blackjack table caught between the two of them. The hitman sneers at him. The gun levels with Kuroo’s chest. His finger pulls back on the trigger.

Kuroo lashes out with his leg. His foot collides with the underside of the blackjack table. It’s thrown onto its side. Two of the four legs lurch off the ground. Balanced precariously like that, the table blocks the bullets aimed at him. Wood splinters upon impact at point blank. Blue and white poker chips fly through the air.

All hell breaks loose.

There are screams in Blue Castle as the other hitmen draw their guns as well. People stumble from their seats on the gambling floor, shoving to get out of the way of gunfire that doesn’t come. Bokuto and Akaashi are faster.

Two of the men are caught off-guard and taken down.

Kuroo doesn’t watch his partners grapple for their guns. His eyes sweep around the room in search of Ikeda. He’s already taken off, racing towards the side door leading out to the alleys surrounding Blue Castle. He spits out a curse. It’ll be hard to catch him if he gets outside.

The hitman across from Kuroo seems to realize the same thing. Still blocked by the table, he trains his gun on Ikeda instead, ready to take the shot.

As the other man fires his gun, Kuroo throws the whiskey glass still clenched in his hand. The bullet smashes into the specially made Saturn Glass which explodes with the impact, delayed by only a second. Shards of glass rain down. The bullet’s trajectory shifts off course; it ends up embedded in the wall inches from Ikeda as he throws himself out the side door.

Before he can take another shot, Kuroo throws his weight against the upright table. It topples onto the hitman, knocking him onto the ground. One of the wooden legs snaps off.

Oikawa is going to be pissed.

Kuroo doesn’t have long to dwell on that. One of the other three hitmen pushes through the crowd. Before Kuroo can grab his own gun, the other man is already halfway out the door.

He makes sure to step on the table as he races after them, knocking the wind out of the man beneath it.

Kuroo throws the door open, letting it bang against the side of the building. The alley is empty. Both men are gone.

“Shit,” he sneers. “Kei, any movement on the west side of the entrance?”

“None.”

He runs to the right.

From what he remembers, this alley leads to a dead end behind the casino. An area sectioned off by the man who owned Blue Castle before Oikawa. They should be trapped there. If not, the wall should at least slow them down long enough for him to catch up.

Kuroo rounds the corner. A bang. He throws himself against the alley wall. A bullet buries itself in the bricks behind where he was standing. Kuroo yanks out his own gun, leveling it with the hitman’s head.

Before he can take the shot, the hitman pulls Ikeda between them, turning his gun on their bounty instead.

“Drop it. Now,” he demands, shoving the pistol against Ikeda’s temple. “Or he’s dead.”

Ikeda inhales sharply, tensing. Wide, terrified eyes try to meet Kuroo’s, but he doesn’t spare the bounty a look, keeping his eyes locked with the hitman’s as his finger hovers over the trigger.

Kuroo’s grip on his own gun is loose. He raises an eyebrow at the threat. “What do I care about that?” he asks. The hitman’s eyes widen. His shoulders slacken momentarily in surprise. Ikeda tenses as Kuroo continues. “He’s dead either way, right? That pool inside is worth more than this bastard is.”

The hitman hesitates, his brow furrowing in confusion. “But you’re a cowboy, aren’t you?”

Kuroo shrugs with one shoulder, gun still pointed at the hitman. “I’m not here to save anyone,” he says truthfully. A smirk tugs at the corner of his mouth as the pistol moves just an inch away from Ikeda’s head. “Besides. You really think you’re faster than me?”

He pulls the trigger.

Blood splatters across the side of Ikeda’s face. The hitman cries out as a bullet buries itself in his shoulder. He drops the gun. Kuroo shoots him again as he stumbles forward, this time in the leg. He hits the ground with a thud and doesn’t move.

Kuroo doesn’t lower his weapon until Ikeda stumbles back against the wall and slides down onto his ass, his legs giving out.

“Thank you,” Ikeda croaks after a minute of silence. His hands tremble as he curls further into the brick wall behind him, and he watches as Kuroo nudges the hitman with the tip of his shoe.

He kicks the man’s injured shoulder when he doesn’t react the first time, satisfied when the man groans, long and low under his breath. Good. He doesn’t feel like dealing with a body today. Too much of a hassle with the paperwork.

Kuroo leans back against the opposite wall of the alley and takes out a cigarette.

Ikeda sucks in a shuddering breath. “Thank you,” he says again before Kuroo can light it.

Kuroo stills. “Don’t.” His voice is calm. Firm. “I meant it. You’re probably dead either way if you’ve pissed off the syndicates.” Ikeda flinches as Kuroo’s eyes finally snap over to meet his. “There’s not much the ISSP can do to protect you from them. You should have known that when you stole almost half a million worth of product.” He laughs at the face Ikeda makes, but there’s nothing humorous about it. “Hell, it might have been kinder to let him shoot you here, compared to what they’ll do after you’re taken in.”

He turns his back on Ikeda, lighting his cigarette. “You guys done inside?” he asks over the radio.

Akaashi answers. “We’re taking these three back to the Cat. Do you need help?”

“Nah, I should be—”

He stops abruptly.

Glancing over his shoulder, Kuroo finds a gun pointed at him again. This time it’s Ikeda holding it.

“Kuroo?”

He wets his lips. “Give me a minute,” he mumbles back.

Ikeda aims the gun at Kuroo’s head, trembling finger hesitating to squeeze down on the trigger. “I don’t wanna die,” he tells Kuroo, tears rolling down his cheeks.

Slowly, Kuroo raises one of his empty hands to his ear, silencing the radio. Ikeda’s hand won’t stop shaking. “You think running away forever is any better?”

By the time Kuroo gets back with Ikeda and the hitman he took out, the others are already lounging around in the common area of the ship. The other three hitmen are tied up on the floor, their wrists cuffed behind their backs. Tsukishima is lying on one of the couches, wearing his headphones as he plays some handheld game, Akaashi leaning against the wall beside him. Bokuto is sitting cross-legged in front of the hitmen. A grin spreads across his face when Kuroo walks into the room.

“About time you got back, man! We were ready to leave without you!”

Akaashi sighs. Ignoring Bokuto, he looks at Kuroo as he shoves the last hitman with the rest. Ikeda, he lets sit on one of the chairs in the room, though his hands are bound in front of him.

“What do you want us to do with them?” he asks, nodding towards the four.

Kuroo crouches in front of them, brows furrowed in thought. “Might as well keep them,” he decides. “I might be able to swindle my guy into giving us a bonus for these bastards. Doubt they’re worth much though.” Shrugging, he stands and stretches. “Ah, well. Guess that’s not our problem.”

Akaashi nods, and Bokuto scrambles to his feet beside him. “Want us to take them downstairs?”

“Keep them separate,” Kuroo tells them. The last thing they need is for one of them to get their hands on Ikeda before they can turn him in.

Bokuto gives him a two-finger salute before he helps Akaashi pull the men to their feet. They don’t put up much of a struggle as they’re herded out of the main area. Ikeda, too, follows them without making a fuss. His face is still streaked with blood, his eyes puffy and red.

Kuroo doesn’t look at him for long.

“You seem to know a lot of people,” Tsukishima comments after Akaashi and Bokuto are gone with the others. He’s still playing his game, but his headphones are down around his neck.

“Must be my sparkling personality.” Tsukishima scoffs under his breath, and Kuroo levels him with a look, catching Tsukishima’s gaze before he can turn away. When the younger man stays quiet, Kuroo narrows his eyes. “You got something to say, say it.”

Tsukishima doesn’t hesitate this time. “Why did you turn off your headset?”

“Now, that’s a secret,” Kuroo tells him, starting to smile. When Tsukishima sends him a blank look in return, Kuroo doesn’t bother to keep it up. “I had business with an old friend. I didn’t need some kid listening in.” It’s the wrong thing to say.

“Right.”

The snappish tone has Kuroo gritting his teeth. “Is that a problem, Kei?”

The younger man rolls his eyes. “Whatever,” he says, getting off the couch. “The ship is on autopilot to Juno. I’ll be in my room.”

Suddenly exhausted, Kuroo drops onto the couch opposite where Tsukishima was sitting. A soft trilling sound comes from the open hallway leading toward the bedrooms. Kuroo’s head lolls to the side. A small smile tugs at his mouth as a fluffy, black cat pads into the room. Sumi chirps as soon as he sees Kuroo. The cat trots up to him, rubbing against Kuroo’s legs and winding around his ankles. He purrs loudly.

Clicking his tongue, Kuroo pats the seat beside him.

Sumi makes a sound as he hops onto the couch, immediately crawling onto Kuroo’s lap. “What the hell are we gonna do with him, huh, Susu?” Kuroo asks, rubbing the cat’s cheek. Sumi purrs louder, leaning more of his weight into Kuroo’s palm.

Predictably, Sumi offers no answers. Kuroo sighs as he runs his fingers along the cat’s spine, fingers brushing through his long hair.

Closing his eyes again, he leans his head back, thinking about what Oikawa said before. There was a reason he couldn’t have Tsukishima listening in.

He stopped beside Iwaizumi. “There is one more thing.”

“Oh?” Oikawa mused. “And what’s that?”

Kuroo glanced over his shoulder, baring his teeth in a grin that was too wide. Too sharp. “I was never here.”

At his desk, Oikawa arched a brow, chin resting on his laced fingers. An amused smile tugged at his lips. “Of course not,” he agreed easily, brushing off the unspoken threat and pacifying Iwaizumi, whose hand had twitched towards the gun at his hip. “How could you be?” Oikawa continued. “After all, you’ve been dead for three years.”

#kuroo x reader #kuroo x oc #hq fics #hq x reader #the smut pile collab

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sisterspooky1013 · 3 years ago

Text

As Ethan Sees It

Author:SisterSpooky1013

Rating: Mature

Words: 3698

Read it on AO3 Here

Tagging @today-in-fic

The first thing I’d noticed about her was how self-assured she was, particularly in contrast to her diminutive stature. I’d been grabbing lunch at a local deli between classes and some high school kids were picking on a third boy who may have been a classmate. Everyone in line was just ignoring it, looking away, when this tiny redhead steps out of line and walks up to the tallest, bulkiest guy in the group and tells him to fuck off, in so many words. She barely reached his shoulder and was probably 100lbs soaking wet, but she had no problem standing up for the little guy. After I picked up my order, I noticed her sitting alone at a table near the window and asked if I could join her. She was hesitant, but agreed and listened politely while I told her how impressed I was by her bravado with those kids. That’s when I noticed the second thing about her; her incredible smile. It was like the first burst of sunlight over the horizon in the morning, blinding in its beauty. I introduced myself and learned that her name was Dana, and she had just moved to DC to accept a job with the FBI. We talked for so long I missed my class, but I didn’t care. I was fascinated by her. Aside from being strikingly beautiful with rich auburn hair and porcelain skin, her blue eyes some intoxicating shade of blue I had never seen before, she was also wickedly smart. She seemed to know about everything, any topic that came up she could speak to, and I learned more during that 90 minute conversation than I probably would have if I’d made it to class. She was a doctor, and a scientist, and even the way her voice sounded was enchanting to me, the S’s softly sibilant as they poured from her pouty pink lips. She had realized the time and stood suddenly to leave, and I was so flustered by our impromptu date ending so abruptly that I stupidly forgot to get her phone number. The sinking feeling in my gut when I realized this fact, right about the time her cab disappeared into a sea of other cabs, still ranks as one of the worst moments of my life.

I thought about her every single day for two weeks. I talked about her every single day for two weeks, until my roommates begged me to either figure out a way to get in touch with her, or shut the hell up. All I knew about her was her first name, that she had recently graduated from Stanford, and that she works at the FBI. First I tried calling the FBI and asking for Dana, but they had more than one Dana who worked there and were unwilling to let me try them one by one. Next I contacted Stanford and was able to have a list of the last two classes of graduates faxed to me. Thankfully, there was only one Dana on that list; Dana Scully. I called back to FBI headquarters and asked for Dana Scully, and the next thing I knew she was on the line, her sing-song voice saying “This is Dana Scully.” My mouth went dry, I forgot how to speak, how to breathe.

“Uh, um, hi, hello.”

“…Who is this?” Her tone was the one I’d heard her use with the high school bullies

“Uh, this is Ethan? From the deli, a couple weeks ago?”

“Ethan from the deli? The guy who’s getting his masters in journalism?”

“Yep, that’s the one.”

“Oh! Hi! How…how did you get this number?”

“Well, I hope this isn’t too weird but I forgot to ask for your number and I remembered you said you worked at the FBI, so I kind of tracked you down.”

“Oh. That’s kind of sweet.”

I let out huge breath of relief.

“I’d really like to see you again, if you’re interested. It’s alright if not, I just couldn’t live with myself if I didn’t at least ask.”

She was quiet for a moment but he had a feeling she was smiling.

“I’d love to, Ethan. Do you have something to write with? I’ll give you my number.”

**********************************

The first real date we had, I took her to a fancy Italian place that my buddies said was sufficiently romantic. She let me pick her up at her apartment in Georgetown and when she answered the door, I nearly passed out. She had on a strapless blue cocktail dress and tall black heels, her hair down and soft around her face. Her lips were red and plump and I wanted to kiss her right then, but I knew it was too soon. I held doors for her and watched closely for her reaction, unsure if she was the kind of woman who found chivalry insulting, but she seemed to appreciate it. She was so petite and delicate, like a beautiful bird, but also had this incredible air of confidence that made her so captivating. I was careful not to outright stare at her, so I didn’t make her uncomfortable. She told me more about herself as we ate, what she had studied in school and the things she was doing now at the FBI academy, working in forensics. She asked me about my school and my plans for after graduation, and she really listened when I talked, asking thoughtful questions and wanting to learn more about journalism and broadcasting, so eager to know as much as possible about everything she could. I told some stupid joke, and she laughed, and I think that’s when I fell in love with her. That laugh worked its way into my bones, vibrated in my blood stream and sent a shiver down my spine. I had to imagine that the only reason she was single was that she was so new to the area, because a woman like this was never single for long. I didn’t want the night to end, so I asked her out to drinks afterward and to my delighted surprise she suggested that we have them back at her place. I didn’t want to assume anything, so I didn’t make a move, just talked with her more on her sofa, learned about her family and her childhood as an army brat, her love of reading and bubble baths, her fondness for children and animals. When she leaned in and kissed me, I thought that I may be hallucinating. Maybe I was having an intensely long, lucid dream. How did someone like Dana Scully cross my path of all the places on earth she might have been, and how did I have the nerve to approach her, and how was she interested in me, and how was it possible that right then she had her tongue in my mouth on her sofa?

We didn’t have sex that first night, but it wasn’t too long before we did. And it wasn’t too long after that that we decided to be exclusive, and 6 months later that I told her that I loved her. Two weeks after that, she said it back, and for two years, we were happy. It’s typically the case that when you’re newly in love with someone you have that divine infatuation that makes you see everything about them as perfect, but over time it wears off and the things that were once cute become annoying. That never happened with Dana. I was obsessed with her, everything she did was the most incredible thing a human could accomplish or be. Aside from the megawatt smile and musical laugh, she had this sweet little beauty mark on her lip that I loved to kiss. She was witty and skilled at debate, and we’d spend evenings arguing over something like the moon landing conspiracy before fucking like animals over the back of the couch. And the sex. Oh my god the sex. She was an absolute vixen in the way she played, teased, and ultimately delivered on every promise she made, and she would smile in this self-satisfied way when she came, looking me right in the eye like she’d tricked me out of my last dollar. She could be dominant, or dismissive, sometimes one then the other in the same night. She could be anything and everything, and she was.

I loved to hear her talk about her work and new assignments she was getting, and I was so proud of her and her goals and dreams. I wanted to be right beside her as she climbed the ranks at the bureau, and knew that she would be anything she set her mind to. She was equally supportive of me as I graduated and then worked my way up at a local broadcasting company with dreams of being a news anchor. She made me feel important and worthy, showed interest in the things that I cared about and was so loyal to me that she cussed out one of my friends for making jokes at my expense. We never moved in together technically (her choice) but we slept together at one or the other’s apartment every night, rented a movie every Friday, had dinner with her parents every Sunday. Her sister, who she was close to, seemed to like me okay, and her friend Ellen confided in me that she thought I should propose soon, that Dana was ready for that step. I picked out a ring, a slender gold band with a princess cut solitaire, only half a karat because I knew she didn’t like to be flashy, and hid it in my sock drawer. Our anniversary was coming up on March 23 and I decided to do it then, which was a little ways away, but I wanted it to be perfect.

For her birthday, I took her out to dinner and she had exciting news to share. She’d been offered an assignment with an obscure unit at the FBI, requested specifically by Section Chief Blevins for her background as a scientist. I didn’t fully understand what the unit did or why they’d want Dana for it, but it was something about unsolved mysteries, by the sound of it. She was so happy and felt like this was a great sign, her big break, the fact that Blevins even knew she existed and wanted her on this team was an indication of the reputation she was building for herself there. I bought a bottle of champagne, told her how proud I was and that I couldn’t wait to hear more about it. She let me know there would be travel, it was a field agent role, and that she’d be on the road sometimes. As much as I didn’t look forward to being away from her, I couldn’t help but share her excitement at this new step in her career. That night we had the most incredible birthday/promotion sex you could imagine. I made her come three times before she finally tapped out and told me how much she loved me, and how excited she was for the rest of our lives together, how much she appreciated that I understood that her career was important, and that I supported her. If we would have been at my place, I would have grabbed the ring and proposed to her right then, but we were at hers. So I just kissed her and told her that I was the luckiest man on earth because I had the opportunity to be her partner in life.

The first day of her new assignment, she was nervous. She’d heard some stories about the agent she was going to be working with, her partner, a guy named Mulder. He sounded like somewhat of an oddball, and a ladies man to boot. I made a joke about him staying away from my woman and she rolled her eyes, had me help her choose between the plaid suit or the maroon one, kissed me goodbye and told me that she loved me and I didn’t need to worry about this or any other male agent, or male person for that matter, stealing her away. That afternoon at the station I got a message from her saying that she had to fly out to Oregon for a case they were investigating, which caught me by surprise. She had said she’d be on the road, but I didn’t expect it to happen that fast. I heard from her only once in the three days she was gone, and when she came back, she was different.

It’s hard to explain in what way she changed. She was distracted, spacey, staring into nothing when we watched TV in the evening, not really listening to what I was saying when I told her about my day. She told me a little bit about the work she was doing, but she was suddenly guarded and defensive about what she did all day, most of her sentences starting with “Mulder says...” The phone would ring at odd times, she worked late or was out of town almost constantly. I felt her slipping away. I did all I could to make things easy for her when she was home. I did all the cleaning, all her laundry. I cooked her dinner each night, though half the time she would say that she had already eaten with Mulder. She didn’t seem as interested in kissing or sex, but she would let me go down on her and I did, every night, trying to hold on to her attention and her affection with my tongue on her clit. I tried to talk to her, to ask her what was wrong, if I should be doing anything differently, and she’d say “no, of course not. Everything’s fine, I’m just tired.”

Then it was our anniversary, and I made a reservation at the same place we’d gone to that very first time. I picked up flowers for her, dahlias which I knew she loved. I went by her apartment at the agreed upon time, but she didn’t answer the door. I used my key to enter and it was quiet and cold, no sign she’d been there anytime recently. I called her office at work and Mulder answered, said she was up at Quantico performing an autopsy and could he take a message. I just hung up the phone. I went to bed at her place, and when she finally crawled in at 3am she was startled to find me there. The way she looked at me made me feel like she’d forgotten I existed, and I didn’t even bother to remind her that it was our anniversary. I decided to start fresh the next morning, with a new plan. Maybe I was being too demanding, expecting too much. Maybe this Mulder was difficult to work with and she didn’t want to bother me with horror stories. I would just have to be the most supportive, accommodating, wonderful boyfriend possible, and we could come through this together. When I woke up, she was still snoring softly beside me. I slipped my head under the covers and pushed her legs open gently, sliding her nightgown up over her hips. She stirred and moaned as I pressed my lips to her clit, kissing her there before beginning to lap at her labia, two fingers sliding inside just how she liked it. She responded readily, flexing her hips and pushing her hands into my hair, and I flipped the blankets off my head so I could see her face. I loved the way she liked to watch me, to hold my eye as she went over the edge, so intensely intimate. To my disappointment, her eyes were closed, head back against the pillow. When she came, she didn’t look at me, didn’t say anything. I crawled back up to lie beside her and when her eyes met mine they were so full of sadness it sent me into a panic.

“Dana, what’s wrong?” I implored, seeing tears welling under her blue irises.

She shook her head and scooted up so that she was sitting with her back against the headboard.

“Ethan-“ her voice caught under a sob that she quickly swallowed down.

My stomach dropped. No, this can not be happening.

“Ethan” she began again. “I care about you so much.” Tears were falling now, trailing down her alabaster cheeks and dripping off of her angular chin. “I just don’t think I can give you what you need right now.”

My mind was racing, I looked around the room like there might be something, or someone, who could help me.

“I think it might be best if we took a break for a bit. Took some space from each other.”

I sat up on my knees and grabbed her arm, suddenly regretful that I had chosen to sleep naked.

“Dana, what are you talking about? We don’t need space. I don’t need space from you!”

She closed her eyes. “Ethan, it’s not fair to you. I can’t be available to you right now. My new assignment, I’m just so busy-“

“No, it’s okay, Dana. I know you work more now but I don’t mind, I’ll always be here when you come home. I support you, I support your work, you know that.”

Pulling her arm from my grasp, she stood and went to her dresser. Pulled on panties and then jeans before stripping off her nightgown and putting on a bra and sweater. “Ethan. Please don’t make this harder than it needs to be. It’s just not a good time for me, right now.”

“Is it that Mulder guy? Is he making moves on you?” I hated how desperate my voice sounded.

“No, Ethan. This has nothing to do with Mulder, he’s been nothing but professional. This is about me, and what I need right now. What I’m capable of. And I’m just not in a good place for a relationship, I’m sorry. I need some time.”

She was standing near her bedroom door, leaning against the wall with her arms crossed. She was ready to walk out.

“How much time? How much time do you need?”

She looked at the floor and whispered “I don’t know.”

I slid off the bed and went to her, dropped to my knees on the floor, wrapping my arms around her hips as I pressed the side of my head into her belly.

“Please don’t do this. We can work through it. I love you, I love you so much. I’ll do whatever you need, just tell me.” The humiliation of begging on my knees while nude makes my skin crawl to this day.

She put her hand on my head, petting my hair as she often did. I felt hot tears drip from her eyes and fall against my scalp. “What I need is for you to let me go” she finally said, and she sounded very sad but also very resolute.

“I’m going to go to my mothers for the day, and I’d like you to pack up the things you have here. You can leave your key on the table. I’ll call you soon, to see how you’re doing, okay?”

“Dana, no, I won’t let you go. Please let me try to make this better.” I clung to her like a child, physically keeping her from leaving me. She crouched down and kneeled in front of me, taking my face in her hands. She kissed me softly on the lips, once.

“You have been a wonderful boyfriend, Ethan. You have loved me so well. I don’t want you to think that this is your fault, okay? You are the best. I just can’t be with someone right now. I know you’ll be okay.”

She stood and walked out of her apartment, pausing once at the door to look back at me, naked and destroyed on the floor in her bedroom doorway, and then she was gone.

She didn’t call me, not in a day or a week or a month. She deleted me from her life like a file she no longer needed. I didn’t know how to explain to my friends what had happened, because I didn’t really know myself. I thought about her every day, ate at restaurants around her work and apartment hoping to catch sight of her, so we could chance a meeting and maybe she’d be willing to talk. When I finally did see her, it was at a sandwich shop a few blocks from the Hoover building. She walked in looking like…well an FBI agent. Now in a black, tailored skirt suit that fit her perfectly, her hair cut shorter and more styled, her heels tall and her posture confident. A man was with her, and my stomach turned at his hand on her back, the familiar way they stood close as they waited in line. He was remarkably tall with dark features, handsome in a kind of mysterious way. I wondered if that was Mulder, assumed that it was. They sat down and I watched her face, the intensity in her eyes and the curl at her lip, recognized the way her features danced as she talked about something she found interesting, the rapturous way she listened while her male counterpart spoke. I remembered when she used to look at me that way. She must have felt my eyes on her because she looked at me suddenly, registering surprise and then sadness, offering me a tiny wave as the man turned to see who she was looking at. I gathered the rest of my sandwich and chucked it in the trash can as I stalked out, suddenly having lost my appetite. I wanted to hate her, to be angry at her betrayal, her abandonment. I wanted to hate him, for taking her from me. All I could muster was the same hallow acceptance that I had my chance, and somehow let it slip away. I just hope that he appreciates her smile as much as I do.

#the x files #txf #dana scully #fox mulder #gillovny #msr #sculder #xf fanfic

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lieuwrites · 4 years ago

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A Story Told In Gems | Hwang Hyunjin | Oneshot

Title: A Story Told in Gems

Pairing: Hwang Hyunjin x Reader

Synopsis: Star tears (tears of unrequited love) have different qualities and minerals which can change the colour of the tears depending on the emotion being experienced in the moment. The minerals in the tears can be collected and pressed into beautiful gemstones. Hyunjin had taken an interest in the different kinds of gems and had tasked himself to learn all he could about them from the store owner of Stardust Jewelers.

Genre/Warnings: Angst, fluff, seemingly (?) unrequited love, hurt/comfort, swearing (i use shit like once), skz side character/s (Minho, Chan), non-idol!AU

Words: 4.8k

Requested: No

A/N: i hope y’all like this one !! i liked the concept of ‘star tears’ and wanted to do something a bit different with it and badabing badaboom here is my attempt at stepping out of my comfort zone :-D do i understand how gems are made ?? not at all, but i wrote it in anyways so who cares lmao

It was quite beautiful the first time you saw your mom cry. She argued with your dad in the kitchen for what felt like ages until she fell to her knees and broke down in tears. Oh how her tears sparkled. The sobs wracked through her body; but her tears, they jingled hypnotically. From the young age of 4 you’d hoped that you too would one day be able to cry such beautiful tears like her when you were older. You never really understood how much it hurt to produce such beauty.

“I promise you, the gems we sell at this store are made of 100% genuine solaris minerals,” you spoke to the customers, as you carefully removed the necklace from the display case. “As you can see, the necklace is a gold singapore chain paired with a blue solaris gem. It also comes with a pair of teardrop earrings if you decided to take the whole set.” The couple inspected the necklace, feeling the quality of the chain and holding it up to their necks. It took the two women a while to pick a necklace, but after scouring the whole shop, they decided on the one they were currently debating.

“Did you say it comes with a certificate of authenticity?” The first woman asked, holding up the necklace delicately in her palm.

You nodded in affirmation and went to grab the papers from underneath the counter. “Not only does it come with a certificate, but almost all of our products come with a story of their origin,” you placed the necklace’s folder onto the counter and slid it over to them, “these gems came from a man named Minho. He had fallen in love with a work colleague who he would spend every single working hour with. What the poor guy didn’t know was that she was already with someone. The tears used for this set specifically were cried on the night of the girl’s wedding.”

The customers sighed in sympathy from the story. It was sad to know what pain this man went through. He came in quite a few times, his first tears producing light blue gems. Each time he came in, the gems would become a deeper shade of blue as his emotions became heavier. The very last time he came in, his tears produced royal blue solaris gems.

Minho yielded 5 different sets of jewelry.

“We’ll take the whole set.”

The next day was slow. You were able to make two small sales but other than that, there didn’t seem to be any sign of more customers. As you tried to busy yourself by wiping down the already clean display cases, the entrance bell rang, signalling a customer. You looked through the glass from your crouched position behind the counter to see a young man walk in. He stepped around the store hesitantly and his eyes scanned the jewels as he moved. You stood up from your place and greeted him, “good afternoon, welcome to Stardust Jewelers; the place where we turn tears into treasures. How can I help you today?” He jumped slightly at your voice and his expression warped into one of surprise.

“Oh uh, sorry. I’m just here to look around,” he spoke quickly and turned around towards the shelves closer to the entrance. His shifty attitude didn’t sit right with you so you walked nearer to where he stood. The cases were secured with a key that was only handled by staff but you knew some people were able to get really creative with their shoplifting.

You followed his gaze to the various bracelets but you were sure he wasn’t interested in those. He seemed to lick his lips nervously as his eyes flicked to you and back to the jewelry. You took in his appearance; his blonde hair was quite long, passing his chin, and his side profile was quite defined. You studied his features quite quickly until you noticed the earrings he wore.

Simple studs.

The gems looked to be diamond but after working at the store for almost your whole life you could tell from the way they sparkled in the light, to the way the metal was designed, those were solaris gems. As you moved closer, the guy stepped away from you.

“Listen man,” you started, “I can tell those studs you’re wearing are solaris gems and judging from the craftsmanship, they were made in this store. I don’t know if you stole those and you’re coming back for seconds-”

“Woah woah woah, I didn’t steal anything from here. I was gifted these,” he held his hands up in surrender before quickly adding, “from a friend.

A quick pause happened before he hesitantly spoke up again,

“I’m Hyunjin… Hwang Hyunjin,” You raised a brow at him and he held his hand out for you to shake. You reciprocated his handshake and also introduced yourself.

“(Y/n). I’m a co-owner of this store.”

He smiled kindly at you and went back to looking at the bracelets. A silence fell over the both of you and you turned to look at the clock hung behind the counter.

’12 minutes until close. There’s no way I’m going to make this sale.’

“Um, sorry I know the store is closing soon but I just want to ask, can I hear the story of that bracelet over there?” Hyunjin pointed to a bracelet with small green solaris gems held together with a gold chain.

“Hmm,” you paused to think, “those were made from the tears of a young woman; tears of envy they were. Her best friend had ended up dating the guy she’d been crushing on. She cried to me, telling me how sad she was about losing the guy of her dreams, but I’m 100% sure she was more envious of their relationship,” You looked up to see Hyunjin listening attentively.

“Green for envy, huh? I guess that one seems pretty obvious.”

You nodded and looked back at the time.

“It seems I’m going to have to pack up shop. Thank you for stopping by and feel free to come by tomorrow.” You held the door open for him and he walked out with a quick goodbye and a quiet ‘nice meeting you.’

Your newest client wasn’t here to buy jewelry; instead, the man who went by ‘Christopher’ sat in the back room. He entered the store donning sunglasses and you knew immediately why he was here. The client walked up to the counter with his head down and you moved to serve him.

“Good morning, welcome to Stardust Jewelers; the place where we turn tears into treasures. How can I help you today?” The guy cleared his throat once and opened his mouth to speak but no words came out. You slowly reached your hand out to reassuringly pat his shoulder before grabbing a small jar from beneath the counter. You asked his name and scribbled it on the jar in sharpie.

“Follow me.”

You walked to the back room and motioned for him to sit on the couch. You then passed him the jar and went to leave the room. “The room is soundproof so don’t be afraid to let it out.”

You then left to go back to your post behind the counter, readying the paperwork for his tears. As you sorted through a new folder, the entrance bell rang.

“Good morning, welcome to Stardust Jewelers; the place where we turn tears into– Oh, you’re back?” The same guy from yesterday walked in with a sheepish smile on his face.

“Yeah… You did say to come by tomorrow. I’m just really curious about the store.”

He came up to the counter and looked at the blank forms you were sorting through. You could tell he was curious as to what was on them so you turned the papers to face him.

“We prepare them each time we have a new client–” you motioned towards the back room with your head– “so we can gather the information and signatures we need for the certificate of authenticity and the jewelry’s backstory.” Hyunjin nodded along to the explanation. He was quite a curious person, asking questions wherever possible and listening attentively to your responses.

“So do crying these gems hurt?” Hyunjin asked.

“Not that I know of. I’m pretty sure the minerals that produce the gems are too small to cause too much damage. I have heard cases where people go colour blind from crying too many star tears though. Some people can even lose memories. My mother told me it’s to protect the heart from further heartbreak.”

At that moment, Christopher walked out; sunglasses on and jar in hand. The contents sparkled a beautiful golden topaz and your heart skipped a beat. You could barely hold back the smile on your face as you took the paperwork back from Hyunjin.

“Sorry Hyunjin, I’m going to need a bit of privacy between the client and myself. Feel free to look around the store.” Hyunjin smiled and instead waved a goodbye, mouthing ‘see you tomorrow’ before walking out the door.

“Do you enjoy working here?” Hyunjin asked whilst chewing on the straw of his empty iced coffee.

“Of course I do. Does it not seem like it?” You pulled out different necklaces from the display to switch around the store’s look.

“Well judging from the way you smiled at the miserable customer yesterday, I’d say you enjoy this job too much.” He raised a brow at you and you laughed at his statement.

“Trust me, I feel like every sad client that comes in to sell their tears weighs on my soul heavily; but every once in a while, you get a client who can cry tears that produce these rare gems,” you turned to pick up a pair of earrings from the shelf behind you and carefully handed them to Hyunjin. He placed his cup onto the counter and held them, inspecting the golden-yellow gems.

“What kind of tears can produce this sort of gem?”

A small smile made its way onto your face as you thought about the woman who produced the earrings.

“Tears of happiness. You see, solaris gems can only be produced from the minerals in star tears, tears that are cried during unrequited love. If the person you love doesn’t love you back, but you’re still able to be happy for them, I just think that’s a sort of purity that needs to be preserved.”

Another new day rolled by and Hyunjin had once again made his way back to your store.

“So what’s the story behind the ring?” Hyunjin motioned to the one held gently in your palm, freshly unpackaged from the warehouse. The clean gem was pure like diamond and had no pigment to it. “These ones are quite the mystery. They look almost like normal tears from how they are cried without pigment but instead they sparkle beautifully, just as all other star tears do. These clear gems are made from tears of the unaware. Sometimes people will cry and produce star tears without knowing that they were ever in love in the first place so they usually don’t come with a story.” The idea of those gems made you sad and you quickly put it away on the shelf.

“Does the same go for my earrings?” He asked, motioning to the studs he always wore.

“I guess so. Did you not get the information folder when you bought those?”

He shook his head and knocked on yours lightly with his hand, bringing himself to your level, “I got these as a gift, remember?”

“Ahh right. Well maybe your friend should’ve given you the info folder. How are you supposed to know if they’re real or not,” you huffed.

“Easy. I’ve got you to verify them for me.”

It had been a few weeks since Hyunjin started popping into the store and making conversation.

Hyunjin stood behind you toying with the necklace around your neck while you sat at the counter filling out paperwork for the batch of tears that needed to be sent out that afternoon. He watched over your shoulder as you sorted through all the information and vials diligently ensuring everything was correct. He couldn’t help but admire how particular and concise you were with your work.

What he couldn’t tell was how flustered you were in the moment. The close proximity between the two of you made your heart race and every time his fingers would absentmindedly brush against the nape of your neck you would try your hardest to hide the shivers that ran up through your spine.

You put down your pen and replaced his hand on the clasp of your necklace, removing it and turning to dangle it before him. “Here, play with this while I do my work,” you told him, waiting for the guy to take hold of it.

Hyunjin held his palm out and you placed the jewelry into his grasp. He knew it was important to you with the way you would fidget with the pendant out of habit, move the clasp back to its place behind your neck when displaced and even just because of the fact he never saw you without it until now. Although he knew the jewel held significance to you, it was a mystery as to why. He’d always wanted to know the story behind it but never knew how to bring it up.

The large, emerald cut gem was a deep shade of red, mounted to a golden pendant and looped onto a thin, simple, gold box chain. “Red for anger is it?” Hyunjin started, his eyes shifting from the necklace to the owner.

You looked back at him, catching his eyes quickly before turning back to your work.

“Uh, yeah. Red for anger,” your voice was tentative, knowing what he really wanted to know. After a moment of hesitation, you continued to speak, “It’s from my mom, you know, the ‘big boss’. That is her first ever gem she made… out of her own tears.” You put your pen down and spun around on the stool you were sitting on to face Hyunjin.

He faced you, eyes unsure where to look. After a second of inner conflict he decided looking into yours was the best place to direct his gaze. He could read a variation of emotions; confusion, anxiousness, rage and guilt but the most prevalent one he could see was pain.

“They were the tears she cried when my dad told her he was leaving us. It happened so long ago but sometimes it still gets to me,” you let out a shaky breath and forced a smile, “I guess I should be thankful. That moment was basically the catalyst for this whole business my mom started. She said she wanted to make something beautiful and worthwhile out of painful and vulnerable moments, just to remind people that there’s always a shining light at the end of a dark tunnel.”

Suddenly, you were gently pulled into Hyunjin’s embrace, an arm around your shoulders and the other pulling your head to his shoulder. It wasn’t until then you realised you were crying. Quiet sobs escaped your body and you wrapped your arms around his waist looking for comfort.

Hyunjin stayed silent and stroked your hair in reassurance.

No words needed to be spoken. All that mattered was that Hyunjin was there in the moment, allowing you to let it all out.

And you did, crying tears that sparkled orange.

It became a routine that Hyunjin would come and visit a few times a week. He came in so often he’d somehow weaseled his way into having his own spot behind the counter. A customer walked in and you greeted them with Hyunjin chorusing along.

“Good morning, welcome to Stardust Jewelers; the place where we turn tears into treasures. How can I help you today?”

The girl came up to the counter and flashed a beautiful smile. “Hi, I’m here looking for something specific. Have you got any jewelry from someone named Minho?” You assumed she was friends with the couple from a few weeks prior so you nodded and brought her over to where the last of Minho’s jewelry was kept. The first ever set he was able to produce was all that was left and it was a mere ring. The gem on the thin band was a small light blue jewel.

“Would you like to hear the story behind it?” you offered.

“Don’t worry, she knows it already,” a familiar voice cut in. Without you noticing, Minho had entered the shop.

“No. Way. Minho, I haven’t seen you in ages! What’s it been? 3? 4 years?” You walked out from behind the counter and hugged him. He chuckled and hugged you back, “4 years and 7 months if we’re being precise.”

Minho walked over to the woman and gently pulled her over, holding her hand. “I want you to meet my girlfriend. We’ve been dating for a couple of years now.”

Minho pressed a quick kiss to her cheek and turned back to you. “We’re here to see what’s left of my gems.” His girlfriend pulled him over to where the ring was while you made your way to the back room. For each client that came to sell their tears, you decided to keep gems for them, just in case they ever came back --a situation you thought would never happen-- and for the first time, someone did.

You found Minho’s section, pulled out a small box and brought it out to the couple. Somehow, Hyunjin had gotten the key and opened the display to show them the ring in the display case.

“Since when did you hire new staff? I thought this was a family business?” Minho asked.

“I didn’t. This guy just has nothing better to do.”

Hyunjin stuck his tongue out and tossed the keys back to you.

You placed the box down in front of them and pulled out 5 small jewelry boxes, each dated with when the tears were collected. You opened them to reveal the gems within, creating a beautiful gradient of blues as the dates became more recent.

“These are all gems created from Minho’s star tears. I save gems for each client that comes in, just in case they come back one day. I’ve left them completely untampered with so that you can choose what sort of jewelry you want to make them into.”

The two teared up looking at the jewels and you could feel the warmth radiating from the two of them.

“How much for them?” Minho asked and you shook your head.

“They’re free. There’s no way I’d make someone pay for their own tears,” you scoffed jokingly and closed the boxes to be packaged. You looked for the info folders until you realised you must’ve left them in the back room in your excitement. As you turned to go collect them, They suddenly appeared in front of you.

“Oh, thank you Hyunjin. I swear you know your way around here too well, I’m going to have to start restricting store access to you,” you joked.

“Hyunjin?” Minho’s voice travelled over the counter and you looked over at Minho’s confused face.

“Do you guys know each other?” You questioned.

Hyunjin shook his head, seeming just as confused.

Minho continued, “Is this the Hyunjin that you cried star tears over?”

From there, Hyunjin’s eyes widened in shock. He looked at you but you didn’t know what Minho was talking about.

“What do you mean? I’ve never known any other Hyunjin, and I met him a couple months ago.”

“No, the third time I came in, you told me you started crying star tears but you didn’t know why and by the fourth time I came around, you told me you realised it was for your friend Hyunjin.” Minho was sure of it, it was the most vulnerable he’d ever seen you. You would comfort him everytime he came by, but once, and only once, he ended up being the one to comfort you.

You could only shake your head at Minho. “I’ve never cried star tears in my life. I really don’t know what you’re talking about.” You looked back at Hyunjin and then at the gems. “Now back to the topic at hand–” you pulled forms from below the counter– “how would you like these gems styled?”

You hadn’t spoken a word to Hyunjin since Minho left. There was this uncomfortable tension in the air that just wouldn't dissipate no matter how hard you tried to ignore it. Hyunjin knew it was there, and he knew it had to be him to make the first move, but the glass counter had this spot that just wouldn't disappear no matter how hard he scrubbed.

He watched as you counted the day’s earnings intently, eyes not daring to look away from the notes and coins in front of you. There was a voice inside of him that screamed at him to go up to you and explain everything but there was also a feeling of shame that held him back. He was so ashamed of deceiving you and that alone was eating away at him.

When Hyunjin halted his attempts at scrubbing away the nonexistent spot on the glass and turned to face you, you had already made your way to the back room to put away the money.

He argued with himself, ’maybe I should run for it while they aren’t here. Or maybe I should follow them and fess up’, but the internal monologue had only caused him even more distress.

You on the other hand had decided to completely forget that encounter with Minho, maybe you could forget that the day had ever happened, or even better, maybe you could forget that Hyunjin had ever decided to come into your store. It wasn’t hard to piece everything together, you were smart.

The door creaked behind you, signalling Hyunjin’s entry into the back room with you. He placed the window cleaner and rag back into their rightful place on the shelf while he waited for you to lock up the safe, hidden on the floor in the back of the room, just like routine. When you got up and looked at him, he stood there with a look on his face that told you he was trying to find the words to say.

His mind blanked as you strode towards him, there was no sign of what you were feeling in the moment. As you arrived at the spot right in front of the man, you reached your hand up to gently grasp his chin and move his head to the side.

There, in the shitty back room lighting, shined the clear and clean cut solaris gems. The memory of a forgotten feeling had welled up in your chest, as if you were feeling just a tinge of the heartbreak you once experienced.

“Do you want them back?” Hyunjin’s voice broke the silence.

You shook your head and let go of his chin, walking past him to finally lock up and leave.

“Keep them, they look good on you.”

And those were the last words you spoke to him before he followed you out and you locked up.

It had been a few months after that incident. You were able to forget the whole scenario ever happened --assuming that ignoring the situation was synonymous with forgetting-- and kept conducting business as usual. Hyunjin had barely crossed your mind since you last saw him that night and you were thankful. The whole thing had completely left your system… until now.

The store bell rang and you looked up to greet the customer, words getting caught in your throat.

His hair was no longer blonde but a deep brown, almost black. It had also grown to touch just past his shoulders. As you locked eyes, a soft smile made its way onto his face as he approached you.

After all this time, Hyunjin was the same.

“No ’welcome to Stardust Jewelers’ for your best customer?” He attempted to joke.

“Well you never actually bought anything.” Your voice was flat, an attempt at hiding what you really felt. The same pain you had tried to forget was bubbling back up in your chest and Hyunjin could see it through your facade. Whilst giving you time to collect yourself, Hyunjin inspected you further. You were the same as he remembered. The same as back when you went to school together, the same as when he met you again at your store after years away at college, just... the same. You were the same in the way your presence comforted him and raised his mood, but he knew you held different feelings towards him.

And then something caught his attention.

Ruby red emerald cut earrings.

They matched the pendant around your neck and Hyunjin was filled with the same regret.

“Hyunjin, I’ll be honest, I’m not really comfortable with you coming back here. I don’t think we can just ‘hang’ like we used to.”

A sadness washed over him as he shook his head and chuckled bitterly.

“I know. I’m actually just here as a client. That is, if you’ll have me?”

There was a second of hesitance before you reached under the counter to grab a jar, scribbling his name onto it, and handing it over to him. You motioned towards the back room and allowed him to make his own way there, closing the door behind him.

Filling out his papers occupied you while you continued to try and pull yourself together. You understood why you had forgotten Hyunjin the first time, the way your mind tried to protect your heart with the star tears you cried. The pain you felt around Hyunjin stung. It made your chest hurt and your mind muddled. Most significantly, it made your eyes burn. The tears you attempted to hold back eventually fell freely, falling onto the paper and staining it with small, orange splatters.

A hand reached out to wipe them away and it was only then you realised that Hyunjin had made his way back.

You stepped back away from him and scrambled to wipe your tears with your sleeve. Hyunjin looked down at the paper, the deep orange tinge seeping into the print. It brought him back to the day he comforted you as you cried into his sweater. He went home that day with the same shiny orange stain on his shirt.

“What do orange tears signify?”

As you wiped away your ever falling tears, your voice came out low and strangled.

“Abandonment.”

Hyunjin couldn’t bear the idea of being the cause of your pain. Not only once or twice, but three times. He wanted to jump the counter and hug you, comfort you just as he had before and apologise until his voice grew weak, but instead he reached into his pocket and produced the small jar with his name on it.

The clink of the jar on the glass counter caught your attention and you inspected the contents from where you stood. A brilliant shade of indigo sparkled within the jar.

“Tears of regret,” you mumbled, “what are you feeling regretful about Hyunjin?”

He breathed out a hopeless laugh and walked around the counter and towards you. As you looked up at his face you could see the same purple tears, sparkling as they ran down his cheeks.

“Everything.”

It was then that you embraced him. His head had fallen to your shoulder and he wept, repeating a string of apologies to you.

Sorry for leaving you.

Sorry for deceiving you.

Sorry for never telling you how he truly felt.

Sorry.

You shushed him gently and rubbed his back reassuringly. That was enough. His apology was enough for you and you didn’t need to hear anymore.

Neither of you knew how long you stood there crying, basking in the embrace and comfort of each other, but as the sobs died down and your arms grew weaker, your hearts only grew fuller. The feelings you two had for each other were different from before. Not quite love but it could be one day. And today was a step towards repairing those past emotions.

You pulled away and held Hyunjins shoulders at arms length as you studied his face. His eyes were swollen and pink, his lips quivered, daring to let out another sob. You could only imagine how you looked.

“I’m glad you came back,” your voice hoarse from crying.

“I’m glad to see you again.”

After looking into his eyes a few moments more, you turned towards the papers on the counter.

“I guess we should commemorate this moment with some purple solari gems, no?”

Hyunjin could only let out a hearty laugh, picking up a pen to help with the papers.

Despite the drama happening just a moment ago, having Hyunjin back at the store felt normal. Everything felt just the same and thankfully, it could only go up from here.

#inkidz #hwang hyunjin #hwang hyunjin oneshot #hwang hyunjin drabble #hwang hyunjin imagine #hwang hyunjin one shot #skz #skz oneshot #skz drabble #skz imagine #stray kids #stray kids oneshot #stray kids drabble #stray kids imagine

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miracle-sham · 3 years ago

Text

Amidst the Howls of Death, Your Divinity Gives Me Breath.

| {Jasonette July 2021, Week 1, Day 2: Protection} |

| Marinette, Jason, Bruce, Dick, Tim, and Damian are all unfortunately familiar with how danger lurks around every corner in places like these. But perhaps their instincts can be ignored for just one evening of rest? |

| Or a Priestess, a Gunslinger, and his family, walk into a creepy inn. |

| Word Count: 2,789. |

| Warnings/Tags: Swearing/Explicit Language, Mild Gothic Horror, Implied/Referenced Background/Minor Character Death, Pretend Character Death, Fantasy & Magic Au, Romantic Fluff, Sharing a Room/Bed, Cuddling & Snuggling, Kissing. |

———

| A/N: Another fic with a playlist, so check it out if you're curious to the songs I listened to when writing this! And have look in the end notes if you want to read a short descrip of what inspired this piece! |

| If you want to be tagged in future oneshots/fics or a specific Au, then feel free to send me a dm and or ask! |

| Also side note, Don’t Like? Don’t Read. Also also, please do not criticise any of my writing. This was written for fun and receiving criticism, even in a compliment/criticism sandwich, is the exact opposite of fun. |

———

As soon as Marinette, Jason, and his family had entered the ramshackle hamlet, they all could tell without a doubt that there was something not quite... right about the place.

Even in the dying light of the day, it was obvious that every window and door were boarded up. A few even had stone or iron bars nailed or soldered across any and all potential points of entry—chimneys included. Some buildings were half-collapsed beneath the weight of their own rotting timbers, others looked unnaturally clean and newly constructed, most however were somewhere between the two extremes. But regardless of how new or decrepit the buildings appeared, each and every single one had at least some form of large scratching or claw marks gouged into the wood and stonework.

The first thing the Wayne family and Marinette had all agreed upon, was acquiring rooms for the night from the only inn in the hamlet. One of the nicer buildings albeit, but just as foreboding in its own sense due to the deeper and more extensive scratch and claw marks along the exterior.

Inside, the innkeeper was undoubtedly strange, eyeing them each with an odd look in his eyes, and an empty grin. Giving him an off-putting appearance that certainly wasn't helped by his slow and methodical cleaning of kitchen knives, from just behind the bar.

Wheezing, the innkeeper tilted his head to one side, staring the family of six down. Voice like gravel, he rasped. “Tread carefully 'round these parts, travellers. There's been tales of your kind vanishing in the dark, followed by the howls.”

“Our kind? What do you mean by our kind?” Dick questioned sharply, narrowing his eyes and subtly curling his hands into fists by his sides—hidden by his deep blue cloak.

“The howls? What howls?” Tim asked curiously, a few seconds after Dick, eyes twinkling with the thrill of a mystery to unravel.

The innkeeper chuckled. “Curious lot, aren't you. I'm afraid that won't do you any good 'ere.”

“Is that a threat?” Bruce rumbled, adjusting his pose ever so slightly to put himself between his four sons plus pseudo-daughter in law, and the innkeeper. So that should anything happen, he would be first in the line of fire instead.

“Not if you pay for rooms tonight, stay quiet, and watch yourselves from straying in the dark.” The innkeeper replied, still grinning emptily as his chuckled subsided.

Tim ducked around Bruce's side to stare at the innkeeper. “You didn't answer our other questions! What do you mean by our kind and why did the previous travellers disappear followed by howls! How did you know that the howls follow disappearances?”

The innkeeper pulled out a whetstone and began sharpening the knives without looking, as his gaze snapped to Tim. “I only answer questions from paying customers, boy.”

“Father! I do not wish to stay somewhere as suspicious as this contemptible establishment.” Damian hissed, keeping his voice low as to avoid the hearing of the innkeeper, and tugged on the edge of Bruce's black cloak.

Jason edged a hand towards the hilt of one of his flintlocks. He leaned closer to Marinette to whisper in her ear. “For once, sweet priestess, I'm with the demon spawn, I don't want to stay here any longer than strictly necessary. This wretched fucking place reeks of ancient necrotic magic.” He wrinkled his nose before adding, “and not your goddess' other half's kind of ancient necrotic magic.”

Marinette frowned, glancing around the inn with ill ease. “I can feel what you mean, my dear knight. Whatever is causing the necrotic magic is definitely not holy by any means. But as far as I can tell, the magic was stronger outside, it's almost muted somewhat in here.”

“Forgive me, sweet priestess, but that doesn't ease my nerves at all.” Jason scoffed.

She rolled her eyes with a quiet snort of laughter, “I wasn't trying to, my dear red hooded knight.” She steeled herself slightly, mirth fading, “though what I am suggesting, is that we purchase rooms for the night. Whatever the source of the magic, we're most likely safer in here than out there. There are no claw marks on the inside after all.”

“For the record, I hate when you're right about these things, my holiness.” He growled, glancing around to confirm her statement.

“You say that as if I hate it any less than you.” Marinette countered, “now let's go intervene before another impending scuffle gets us kicked out of what is possibly our only safe shelter for the eve.”

“And miss out on free entertainment? I cannot believe you.” Jason snickered.

She shoved him good-naturedly before striding past Bruce and up to the counter, imposing in her own right even in comparison to the rest of the family. She cleared her throat to draw attention to herself and stared down the innkeeper with all the sharpness of a storming sea upon rocks. “You will answer all our questions if we purchase rooms, correct?”

The innkeeper squinted at Marinette. “Aye, girl.”

She pursed her lips then nodded. “How much for lodgings then?”

“We've got a room with a double bed, three with a single, and two twin rooms.” The innkeeper responded, empty grin curling into something more twisted, “The singles are a gold each per night, the rest are two gold each per night.”

“That pricing is outrageous!” Damian scowled.

Narrowing her eyes, she ignored Damian and hummed. “I see,” she glanced back at Jason and raised an eyebrow.

He nodded in return.

“Then I will purchase the room with the double bed.” She stated, plucking two gold coins from her purse and placing them upon the bar counter.

The innkeeper nodded, sliding two keys over to her. “Excellent choice, my lady, your room is on the left at the very end of the corridor upstairs.”

Jason prickled at the addressing title given to her, gripping the hilt of the gun he had reached for with whitening knuckles.

Marinette picked up the keys and stared coolly at the innkeeper before taking a few deliberate steps back until she was once more beside Jason. There, she handed him one of the keys.

Silence permeated the room for a minute as the rest of the family communicated through glances and facial movements alone.

Bruce sighed, breaking the stalemate, and placed four gold coins on the counter as well. “We'll take two singles and a twin as well.”

The innkeeper chuckled, passing four more keys over. “Wise decisions, Traveller. The twin room is the last door on the right along the corridor upstairs, and the two singles are the first two doors on both sides.”

“Now answer our questions,” Dick demanded.

The innkeeper glowered at Dick. “What I meant by your kind, was that you're the kind of folk who trouble follows. The travellers that poke their noses where they don't belong. And as for the howls, I wouldn't know. I've never seen what makes it because I stay inside where it is safe. Those who don't stay inside... well their screams, remaining bloody streaks, and disappearances are evidence enough for me.”

Marinette grimaced. “I am going to retire to the room now.”

Jason startled at her words and stared at her concern. “I'll, uh, join you. If you don't mind.”

“You don't have to for my sake.” She responded.

“It would ease my conscience if you weren't to go up alone.” He grit out.

She bowed her head for a second, “then your company would be most appreciated.” She began to make her way towards the stairs up to the rooms.

Before she reached the first step, the innkeeper called out. “My apologies, my holy lady, I did not intend to discuss such gruesome conversations before you that would offend your delicate holy constitution.”

“I appreciate your concern, however, I think you will find it was not my delicate holy constitution that was offended, as much as it was the wish for some privacy after a long and tedious journey. Thank you very much.” She spat in response, voice as acetic as an alchemist's corrosive acid.

The innkeeper raised his hands in a placating manner. “My sincerest apologies then, my lady.”

Marinette took that as a cue to continue upstairs, with Jason on her heels.

Once they reached the door, Jason snarled. “How dare that fucking bastard call you his lady, I'm going to put a bullet through his fucking skull.”

She sighed and went up onto her tiptoes so that she could place a kiss on his lips. “Perhaps wait until after we sort out the cause of the ancient necrotic magic plaguing this place. Though I'd like to rip his tongue out his mouth before you get to have your fun.”

Jason unwound marginally beneath the kiss, his fury was still palpable, however. “Hmm, I would like to watch you do that, my love.”

“Of course you would. Now, let's enjoy some much-needed privacy together. As much as I adore your family, there is only so much time spent travelling I can spend with them without wanting some peace and quiet to cherish you, my knight.” She remarked, opening the door with the key in the meantime.

———

Lounging upon the double bed, Marinette hummed as she gently carded her fingers through Jason's hair—his head resting on her lap and a soft smile gracing his face as he gazed up at her.

She paused her humming, face creases in mild displeasure, as a loose lock of her hair fell across her face. After a few half-hearted attempts to blow it out of the way, she closed her eyes and sighed—fingers twitching to a stop.

Jason raised an eyebrow and reached a hand up to her face, cupping her cheek for a few moments before tucking the loose lock of her hair back behind her ear. “Something on your mind, sweet priestess?”

“Ah. No, not really, no. I was just…” She sighs, lips twisting with faint distress, her earlier mask of determination faltering in the privacy of their room. “I'm worried about you. About this place. It's not safe and I'm worried if we fight anything here, whether it be the cause of the howls, a godforsaken Akuma, or even those creepy fanatics again, you're not going to make it—survive another close call.” She inhaled sharply. “I dread to think that should it come to it, the resurrection rituals won't work for you any longer.” Tears springing to her eyes as she voiced her doubts.

Jason frowned, “Oh,” He fumbled for words, shifting himself up into a sitting position so he could properly cup both sides of her face, and pull her into a gentle kiss on the lips. Pulling back, he took a deep breath, “oh, my holiness. Oh, my love. As long as I've been by your side, you've never let me fall, and your goddess and her pantheon don't seem like they'll let me die anytime before you. Not after the deal we struck, and I promise you, my priestess, that I don't intend on ever breaking that deal.”

“I know my knight, I know.” Marinette mumbled, tugging Jason into a tight hug as soon as he pulled away from the kiss, “but will there be a choice? Have you not forgotten your revival sickness we've yet to find or create a cure for? And not to mention the rumours about what has happened to the others who were also brought back by that awful Lich!”

Grimacing, he idly rubbed the back of his neck. “How could I fucking forget, I've hurt everyone I care about, especially you, thanks to that…”

She hummed once more. “And yet, none of us blame you for that, my love.”

“You should.” He argued weakly.

“I will never!” She retorted.

Their conversation lulled as they relished in the other's embrace.

Minutes passed before Marinette pulled away from the hug. She huffed, fingers twitching and nose scrunching up. “Jason, my red hooded knight, and love of my life.”

Jason squinted at her, “Yes…?”

“Wou— Can— What if I—.” She frowned, searching for her words, before settling on words she knew by ritual. “It would ease my mind if you were to be bestowed with some form of protection magic. Would you accept such a blessing from me?”

He remained silent for a few moments. “Of course I would, sweet priestess. I trust you, and I trust your goddess and her pantheon.” He closed his eyes and glanced away. “But shouldn't you save that magic for yourself, or when we're out in the fucking fray.”

“My powers will replenish come dawn, and the protection will last until then. I'd rather be certain in knowing you'll be safe whilst we sleep here.” Marinette answered, leaning forwards to cup his face in her hands.

Jason opened his eyes and looked back over at Marinette. “Alright,” he reluctantly conceded, “but only if it can also be applied to you.”

She stared at him then rolled her eyes, the corners of her lips twitching upwards in amusement. “I shouldn't have expected any answer but that from you. Luckily I've still got enough divine power to cast those two protection wards on the both of us.”

“Good!” He grinned cheekily.

Rolling her shoulders, Marinette mentally went over the incantations that would be used in this specific warding. She locked eyes with Jason and tilted her head to the side, “you first my knight.”

Squinting at her suspiciously for a few seconds, he eventually relented and shrugged. “As long as you've got enough divinity to protect yourself after, my holiness.”

“I will, trust me.” She responded, closing her eyes for a brief second before muttering the ancient celestial words of the language of the guardians. Her eyes filled with holy light, glowing like two sparkling suns. Whilst her hair began to shimmer and float as though underwater in sun-dappled waves. Swiftly she made an elegant hand gesture as continued to murmur the incantations. The shimmer in her hair and glow of her eyes flared for a split second as her words and hand gestures crescendoed, before flickering out like a snuffed candle.

As the golden radiance faded from Marinette, a similar golden glow began to settle around Jason. That too faded but a split second after appearing.

“Your powers never cease to amaze me, my holiness,” Jason murmured, staring at where the soft golden glow had radiated around him. Carefully he moved to hold her hands in his own so that he could press gentle kisses to them.

She giggled, blushing profusely. Although a smirk formed on her lips at his words. “Oh? Then where was this adoration of yours, my knight, when I magically mended those noble finery clothes of yours that were so unfortunately ripped just the night before we were to attend a masquerade, hmm?”

“Hey! Fucking–! Argh!” Jason sputtered for a second and then twisted around to grab a pillow from the bed, throwing it at Marinette. “Just cast the fucking protection ward on yourself!”

Marinette cackled as she fell back against the bedding from the impact of the pillow. She dramatically threw an arm over her face and cried out in mock distress, “oh no, oh dear! It would seem I have been most verily betrayed by mine own knight who was sworn to protect me, and yet! Here I lay, bloodied and betrayed! The world is fading from my grasp, I see the light of my goddess and her pantheon beckoning! Oh, whatever shall I do?”

“It would seem my last assassination attempt failed, sweetest priestess. Fear not! I shan't fail you again.” He declared equally as theatrically, grabbing the other pillow and throwing it at her as well.

“Ah! I have perished. What a shame, I am unable to cast that protection ward on myself now. Oh no!” Marinette continued, flopping onto her side and sticking out her tongue in mock death.

Jason snorted, “My assassination may have succeeded, but I cannot live with myself in this world without my love any longer. With this knife,” He stole back one of the pillows, “I shall perish besides the light of my life! Bleh.”

He flopped against the bedding beside her, a few seconds passed before the two of them burst into more laughter.

A few more moments passed before he elbowed her lightly. “Come on, your turn!”

Marinette wheezed and waved a hand, muttering the incantations between breaths. The radiance glowed around her, eyes and hair glimmering as they did before. Then as she reached the end of the incantations once more, it all faded away again. “Happy?”

“Indubitably, my love.” He responded.

She pressed a quick kiss to his lips. “Good!”

———

| Thank you for reading! I hope you enjoyed this little fic! Comments, likes, and reblogs are much appreciated! |

| Fun fact: this was supposed to be longer but I wasn't happy with how the last part was going and so I cut it. So if people enjoy this one, well I'll just have to finish the follow-up piece to this fic, won't I. Ironically the part that was cut got more into the gothic horror and the main reason behind the title but I decided to focus on the romantic fluff as the end point instead. Flowed a little bit better. |

| This piece was inspired by a d&d campaign i joined for a few sessions. It was set in a creepy little hamlet with an incredibly creepy innkeeper who forced our party into signing a contract before we could spend outrageous amounts on gold just for a single night's stay. And uh turned out the dude was a demon we just sold our souls to, and then all but one of the party ended up leaving the inn to try our chances against the horrifying plague-like monsters outside, aka the whole reason we brought rooms in the first place! |

| Also feel free to send me any asks or comments with any questions you have regarding this fic, I’ll be more than happy to answer! |

| @jasonette-july-event |

#Maribat #MLB x DC #DC x MLB #Jasonette #Jasonette July #Jasonette July 2021 #JasMari #MariJay #Marinette x Jason #Jason x Marinette #Jasonette July Week 1 #Jasonette July Day 2 #Jasonette July Protection #Amidst the Howls of Death Your Divinity Gives Me Breath #AtHoDYDGMB #Sham's Posts #Sham's Writing #Sham's Fics

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bisexual-inuyasha · 3 years ago

Text

The Hook

Chapter 2: Getting to Know You

Prompt: “I shouldn’t be here.” “Well you are. Don’t even think about leaving.”

The next morning, Ling woke up alone. Ed had reminded him Al expected him back. And besides, Ling was all talk. He could kiss Edward Elric but anything more would have to wait until he dealt with his suitor situation. It wasn’t cheating, he knew. But that didn’t mean it was right.

Was he a suitor when he never bothered to ask? Ling’s eyes were itchy with lack of sleep. His cheek tingled from where he’d slept on it. God, mornings sucked. Especially early mornings after a late night.

Even still… he smiled. Last night had not been a total waste. He wrapped his fingers around something warm and smooth, something that had rested against his curled stomach through the night.

“Young Lord, I’ve brought you a snack before your meeting. You barely ate yesterday, so I brought extra.” Lan Fan’s voice carried through the doorway, especially loud. “Do you need anything to drink?”

“He’s gone, Lan Fan.” Ling sighed, sitting up. He was decidedly less dressed than when he’d gone to his rooms. By the time Ed left he was too tired to shrug into his sleep clothes. He’d been missing a shirt and his pants had already been half off. He’d just stripped into his undies and fallen asleep under a mountain of blankets.

“What’s that?” Lan Fan sat across from him, her legs crossed and posture careful. “A gift?”

“You could say that.”

It was only a small cat figure, crudely carved from a soft wood Ling had never gotten around to figuring out on his own.

“It’s. Um, cute?”

It wasn’t. It looked awful. Edward wasn’t artistically inclined in that way. Ling couldn’t care less. “Thank you.”

“Speaking of gifts, you’ve got another. It arrived this morning.” Lan Fan took a bite of Ling’s food. “You should eat.”

“What was the gift?” Ling scooped up a mouthful of rice. “Who was it from?”

“Not Edward Elric.” Lan Fan spoke around her food. “The other man you’re supposed to be involved with.”

Ling’s throat felt dry. He coughed. “We’ve certainly not been meant to be involved yet, Lan Fan. That won’t happen for another month. You know there’s quite a long engagement process in Xing.”

“Yes, Sire. I’m aware.” She closed her eyes. He watched as she considered for a moment. “When you are ready for my opinion I will be sure to give it.”

Irritation flared through Ling but he let it pass. Lan Fan was always free to give her opinion. The only thing putting him off was that he knew what her opinion was. And that she was right. He took a deep breath and pushed a smile onto his face. “I await the day.”

Today was not like the last two. He had so much to do. It was not like his engagement meant the kingdom stopped running. And his hands-on approach to ruling meant he couldn’t shove many duties onto his advisors and court. He was entangled in all of the decisions, from clan relations to trade negotiations. He had all the details and all the paperwork.

So he dragged himself up, splashing cool water on his face. Lan Fan raised an eyebrow at his undress.

“It’s not like it’s anything you haven’t seen before.”

“No, that’s true. I used to kick your ass when you’d wake up half naked after getting mugged in the Hua clans.”

“I wish you wouldn’t remind me of starving days.” Ling put on a pouty face. “Don’t you know you’re supposed to respect me now, Lan Fan? I’m working hard as emperor.”

“I have the utmost respect for you, Sire.” She smiled at him, and it was genuine. She wasn’t too angry at him, then. “I just want you to be careful. You are walking in a thin place. The thin places are difficult to keep you safe in.”

“You don’t have to protect me from everything, Lan Fan.” He gathered up his robes. With a celebration came the expectation of finery. “Though if you want to help me into this ridiculous outfit, I’d appreciate it.”

She did, and by the time his first round of consultation was to start, he was fully dressed. His hair was pulled back today, in the proper style. He arranged his expression into an indifferent coolness.

“Don’t forget, Sire. You’ve got the matter of the gift to deal with.”

His stomach clenched. “Don’t worry. I won’t forget it.”

When she wasn’t looking, Ling snuck the little cat into his pocket.

The mysterious suitor’s gift was on his mind through the whole morning. As his constituents asked about the borders of their fields and the negotiation, he ran his thumb over the figurine in his pocket and tried not to look towards the table where the gift waited for him.

A maze of questions and conflicts and negotiations later, he was being led to the gift. A no stuck in his throat. Refusal built like a physical pressure in his chest. The urge to leave was so strong his hands shook with it.

His advisors were clueless. And of all the days, Lan Fan was busy with other affairs. She wasn’t even in the palace. For the first time since he was inaugurated, a clammy sweat broke over his forehead.

He stood at the box. He didn’t care what was in it. It wouldn’t change his mind, whatever it was.

But accepting the gift was a furthering. For every step into Xingese tradition he took, the expectation he would follow through grew. Maybe this is why he just stood, staring at the box, for several minutes.

The longer he took, the heavier the silence around him grew.

Low rumbling started in the back of the crowd. A few people grumbled and a couple shouted as someone aggressively, and rudely, shoved their way through.

Ed pushed his way near the front, a notebook in his hand, his metal fingers clasped around a pen. Ling heard him shout over the thin wall of people ahead of him. “Well, get on with it. How else are any of us supposed to know what’s in it?”

Ling laughed. He pulled the fabric wrapping from the box. It was a nice enough fabric. From far away, the cloth had just looked like a boring eggwhite, but up close he could see damasked swirls twisting around the corners. The box was equally almost boring--cream, slightly darker, with a line of gold around the opening. His expectations were low.

And good thing.

The gift was a simple, expensive shaving set. Ling felt like this was something Fu would have enjoyed. However, he, with his lack of facial hair and attachment to his other bodily hair, had no use for it. He quirked a brow, put the nice, ivory handled blade back into the oversized box beside the crystal container of what he could only assume was cologne. Maybe?

A single boom of laughter sounded from the general vicinity of Ed, but no one else seemed to think anything of the gift. And then, to his horror, one of his advisors cleared their throat.

“For when he is here, Sire. To shave your husband.”

Ling carefully closed the box. He was trying, and failing, to look nonchalant.

“Sire, should we respond with a gift in kind?”

Ling ground his teeth. “I will be in my room, crafting a response for my… suitor.”

He’d chosen the word specifically for its connotation of uncertainty. A suitor has not been accepted yet. The advisors all glared, and a few of the crowd closest to him gasped. He could feel the burning in his cheeks. Anger, embarrassment, and maybe a smidge of disappointment flooded his thoughts. He needed to be out of here.

Murmuring grew behind him, growing to a small roar as the heavy doors to the court closed behind him.

It was hard to stomp through all his layers but he did his best.

The kitchens were busy when he arrived. Lan Fan was elbow deep in a bowl of dumpling filling. She took one look at his face and picked up the bowl to move towards him.

“We should go, Sire,” she finished kneading the ingredients together and dumped the bowl into the arms of another kitchenhand. “Your face may frighten the staff.”

He shuttered his expression, pushing the emotions and thoughts deep inside until he could be somewhere private. It was not easy, and from Lan Fan’s face he could tell he was not fully successful. He tried, though, and that was the best he could do.

“It was bad?” Lan Fan spoke under her breath while she washed her hands.

He couldn’t speak on it. It was insulting, actually. The kind of gift given to a stranger. But worse so, because it was a gift truly meant for the gifter--a gift of expectation. A note that said one day, he expected Ling to serve him.

He did not become Emperor to serve over-confident old men.

The thought made him bristle. His face contorted into a sneer, despite his best efforts to keep a neutral expression. He turned away, so that only Lan Fan could see him. “It is best discussed somewhere else.”

She didn’t respond, only dried her hands and hurried from the room. Ling followed, though he could only go so fast without tripping over the length of his robes. The hindrance was especially frustrating, and even more so because he wanted to move. To push himself, quicken his steps and his body until he couldn’t hardly breathe.

He already didn’t want to do this.

He had a growing list of reasons to refuse.

Except.

Except there was a reason he accepted in the first place.

It was enough to fuel the fire inside him higher, until he was nearly bursting at the seams in his shuffling pace.

Finally, they were in an empty room. A quick glance around told him it was an empty washroom, and if not for Lan Fan’s very blatant disinterest in men, they may have been in trouble. As it was, she only slammed the door closed (a cathartic sound, though it did nothing for his thrumming body.) When she turned towards him, there was only concern. He hadn’t realized he’d expected anything less. But now, some tightness around his lungs loosened.

He’d been expecting a reprimand.

“What was the gift?” She started pulling his robes off of him.

Briefly, he wondered if this was unusual. The thought left his mind as soon as it crossed. He shifted his shoulders to help her remove the uppermost layer. “It was a shaving set.”

“Hm?” She moved to his front, untying a sash. “But you don’t have any facial hair.”

“It wasn’t for me to use myself.” Ling’s hands shook again. “Hua explained. It was for me to use, on him.”

Lan Fan’s fingers fumbled on the sash. “That doesn’t make sense, Sire.”

“It was meant as exactly what it was.” Ling stepped back and finished undoing the sash to his underrobe himself. “A notification of expectation. A signal that he wants me to be a doting husband.”

“I can see how in some twisted way that makes sense.” Lan Fan frowned. “Though he must be aware it doesn’t give a good impression.”

“He doesn’t think he has to care. He offered his hand in marriage without knowing me, Lan Fan. He wasn’t taking me into account at all. He wants Xing.”

“No.” She sat on an empty countertop. Her expression bothered him. “Not just Xing. He wants you, too. Sire.”

His skin felt raw. Only a few days ago, that may have been a relief. Now it was an irritation digging its way into his blood. “What makes you say that?”

“He’s been keeping tabs on you through the advisors. He has asked specifically after your health and happiness. The reports have been mixed, but he’s asked more than once.”

For a moment, Ling went cold. “Have any of them mentioned--”

“No. No mention of him. But the Amestrian does seem interested in you, specifically, Sire.” She frowned. “Though, I can say from your reaction to the gift that it’s a hopeless cause on his part.”

“What do I do?” He sat on the floor. At least a dozen tailors would be scandalized at his treatment of his clothing, but what did he care? Those same tailors complained every time he wore an outfit a second time.

“I cannot answer you, Ling. I’m sorry.” She smiled. “You should go to breakfast.”

“I’m not hungry.” He was too angry to feel hungry.

“Ed will be there. Surely, he will calm you down.” Lan Fan smiled. “Besides, you should at least try.”

Ling closed his eyes. “I’m not putting the robes back on.”

“You’ll scandalize us all, Sire.” But she was still smiling when she said it. “Please, at least keep your head around the boy.”

Ling blushed. He left, tired and still irritated.

He ignored the stares of the others. Admittedly, his under robe and darkest, loosest pants were not the usual outfit for an emperor. It would take until tomorrow for the rumors to reach outside the kingdom. And when they did, he’d solidify them with his announcement of withdrawal from the marriage.

What had Ed called it?

A soft rebellion.

He sat, heavily, in his seat at the top of the table. Ed and Al sat near him, like they had the night before. Soon, this would become noticeable. Soon, he’d have to deal with all of the fallout from there. Right now though…

“I like your new look.” Ed tapped his fingers on his glass, taking a deep drink. He stared Ling down, questioning. “It’s certainly to stir up some talk around here. Especially with how you stormed out earlier.”

“Surprised you noticed over all your laughter.” Ling stretched in his seat. The dining hall was chilly as the flame of his anger started to wane. “Al, you wouldn’t believe how loud your asshole of a brother laughed at me in my own court.”

“I’m sure he didn’t laugh half as loud as he snored.” Al contemplated, rubbing their chin. “Though I guess he didn’t do much snoring in your room last night.”

Ed and Ling both squawked a protest but Al just snorted.

“I gotta say, though. Your kitchen knows how to make a roast quail that just melts.” Al took a bite, a nibble really, and savored it.

“Al’s a bit of a foodie. In fact, I don’t think they’ve ever enjoyed a place we’ve visited as much. They go on and on about the food here in the room. Do you know how much I had to hear about the sugared sweet potatoes? That was a half hour rant at least.”

“They were good! And one of the cooks said she’d share her recipe with me.” Al’s eyes narrowed, a slow and innocent smile spreading across their face. “Besides, it’s not like I haven’t had to hear--”

“Ha! An-any way.” Ed waved his arm, the shine glinting with the bright lights of the room.

Ling caught the metal fingers in his, and Ed’s face lit up like a cherry sparkler. “Did you polish this?”

“Uh…” Ed’s mouth fell open as Ling openly observed the newly cleaned screws and gleaming plates. “Well, yeah. I mean, if I’m going to be modelling for an emperor, I figured it best be up to emperor’s standards.”

“Silly Edward.” Ling pulled the hand towards his face, checking the wear and tarnish. The scuff was still noticeable at the thumb, bits of unreachable fade peeking out from beneath overlapping metal. “I like your hands either way.”

Al coughed. “People are going to notice if you guys keep all that up.”

Ling dropped Ed’s hand and turned to his food. “So you say the quail is good?”

His appetite did return. He ate steadily through baked quail, quail egg dotted rice, taro starch candies, fried squash blossoms, sweet tomato filled dumplings. Occasionally Al would ask about a dish and he’d explain whatever he knew--not usually very much--and they’d write down a few notes to ask about later. And occasionally, he’d glance over to see Ed, a wide grin on his face, eyes alight, cheeks still tinged pink, and his heart would stutter.

This was the feeling he’d dreamed of as a kid. This excitement buzzing through him whenever he looked at Ed. The easy comradery between himself and the two brothers.

Ling leaned over, keeping his voice quiet and his body language inconspicuous. Al didn’t even look up.

“Let’s meet up where we met the first time, tonight.”

Ed nodded, and they continued through their meal until Ling had to excuse himself.

If Ed’s face turned a deeper shade of red, Al didn’t mention it.

As much as Ling was enjoying his scandalous outfit, he couldn’t justify doing any more official work in it. He changed into a simpler, less heavy version of the outfit he wore that morning. He hadn’t seen Lan Fan at breakfast. He assumed she had a good reason for wherever she was. Still. He wanted to tell her he’d made up his mind.

He toured through the city, overseeing repair projects and brokering deals between bickering businesses. The people weren’t quite sure what to do with him. And he was still learning exactly how to be what they expected of him. His advisors had tried to shepherd him into similes of past emperors. He chafed under their pressures as they tried to fill a shell they’d formed for him. The worst times were when they could cite legitimate reasons for their herding.

For example, he was exposed and in danger while out in the towns. So therefore, they must be able to have him well guarded. This very logical set of observations was followed with therefore every step he made had to be very meticulously timed and prescreened. Theoretically, he would spend only a small allotted time at each job, and no more.

One thing was always true, no matter how meticulously planned his outings. Each job multiplied. If he showed up to discuss the demarcation of a farming plot, the result would mean that already grown crops would have to be divided. Inevitably, a dispute would have to be settled. Then, as is only polite when you’ve just told at least one person they’ve less crops than they thought they did, he’d sit for a tea.

Today he didn’t get to lunch. Or back for another round of celebrations. And this was the way it always went, for any of his days he spent out with the people.

It was his favorite part of the job.

By the time he returned to the palace he was exhausted deep in his very bones. The robes, lighter he’d thought than the earlier ones, weighed him down. And still, he had dinner to go through. And the aftermath of this morning to handle. He wanted to sleep.

Then, he remembered.

He had a meeting. After dinner.

His steps still dragged, but a little less.

He made his way to his room and collapsed in his bed.

Only to jump up a moment later, shouting. “What the hell?”

A body wiggled under his covers. Fighting his way from a mountain of plush blankets, Ed’s head popped up. “Oh, you’re back. You were supposed to be back hours ago.”

A soft smile lit his face despite the heaviness of his limbs. “I can’t half ass a job with the people. They’d never forget and the bitching wouldn’t end for years. Probably until I died.”

“Even during your engagement?”

Ling scoffed. “Don’t play with me. You and I both know that’s a sham.”

“You sure?” Ed hugged the covers to his chest. Ling thought it was awfully cheeky that the Amestrian could sleep in his bed, wake up, and immediately start asking prying questions. Maybe he should have been bothered. Instead he was mildly impressed.

“Am I sure that the supposed suitor of mine who I’ve never met, who has no reason to have any interest in a decades younger new emperor in a country with an assassin problem, is nothing more than a sham of political leverage?” Ling slid his top off. He’d put it back on before dinner. But now, he needed to be lighter.

“Leverage? And what does that mean, for you?”

This conversation was a heavy one. Heavier than the exhaustion in his bones. Heavier than the robe he’d allowed to slide onto the floor. Heavier still than the thoughts that had been running through his head all day. “Do you know how I became Emperor?”

Ed frowned. “You fought your way through the other heirs, made alliances, made deals. That’s how every Xingese emperor ascends, right?”

“No. I’d have never been able to fight my way through 43 heirs.” Ling rubbed his eyes. “Promises. I made promises to those I didn’t need to fight my way through. Promises that their clan wouldn’t starve. Promises that I wouldn’t mercilessly kill those clans whose heirs I did have to fight through.”

“Sounds better.” Ed smiled. Ling didn’t.

“If I promised you, right now, that I would fix Amestris for you. That utilizing my marriage to your ruler, I would root out and destroy the corruption that causes Amestris to spread into neighboring countries like a virus. How would you feel?”

Ed’s face shifted, first to anger then to thoughtfulness, before finally landing on doubt. “How could you, even if you did marry him? Amestrians aren’t trusting. They’ve been in war after war--”

“Exactly. And yet, with the resources of Xing, the possibility arises that I could. And this is the possibility I’m faced with. Right now, I’m new, and my rule is based on promises that are thin until I fulfill them. And some of them will only be fulfilled when I die and haven’t killed off the opposing clans. When people aren’t used to honesty, believing in good things will become impossible.” Ling sat on the bed, pushed aside the covers. Ed was still dressed in this morning's clothes. As any normal person would be, Ling decided. “Having a strong military force behind my decrees would go a long way to making people take me seriously.”

“Sounds cowardly to me.” Ed crossed his arms. Ling was going to have to reign this conversation in, or he’d get no sleep before dinner.

“Yes, cowardly,” Ling wrapped his arms around Ed’s waist. “I’m certainly cowardly enough, but maybe not enough for this.”

Ed fought back his grin, but to no avail. “Well, I can’t believe I was lured all the way to the palace under false pretenses.”

“You mean you don’t want to become my mistress?” Ling placed a kiss against Ed’s throat. He wouldn’t usually be so forward, but he had found Ed in his bed.

“Don’t think I’ve got the legs.”

“I wouldn’t ask you to anyway.” And then Ling pulled Ed down, curled around the small statured boy, and fell asleep.

This way, exactly, was how Lan Fan found them. Ed, lying awake in Ling’s arms, and Ling, deep asleep.

“He seems relaxed.” Lan Fan shut the door quietly behind her. “This is good. I wanted to talk to you privately anyway.”

Ed sputtered. “He’s right here, it’s not like we’re alone.”

Lan Fan gave him a deadpan stare. Then she opened her mouth, talking loudly. “Ling! Oh, Ling, it’s an emergency, Ed is cutting off my leg with his automail arm. He’s going to kill me Ling, watch out!”

Ed gaped, waving his free hand in her direction. “Stop it stop it stop it! What are you doing?”

But Ling didn’t wake up. He only snuggled deeper into Ed’s chest, wrapped his arms tighter around Ed’s waist, and hummed contentedly.

“So, as I was saying.” Lan Fan on Ling’s desk, glancing through some of his pictures. “You came here before he got back. Before lunch. You must be hungry.”

“Starving, actually.”

“Careful, he’s got to be starving too.” She rested her chin on her hand, staring him down. “He’s been known to nibble in his sleep.”

“You two are close, yeah?”

“What are your intentions with the Emperor of Xing?” She uncrossed her leg, hopping down from the work desk. “How can I trust you?”

“We had an interesting conversation about trust earlier.” Ed looked up to the ceiling. “I don’t have any intentions, to be honest. I barely know him.”

Lan Fan was at the edge of the bed now. He could feel her cool touch on his leg, a threat more than a comfort. “That’s not a very comforting answer, considering what’s on the line.”

“You couldn’t very well trust me if I lied to you, could you?” Ed swallowed. “I like him. I have since I saw him half-passed out in the garden. He was so far gone he couldn’t stand, and he thought the flowers were stars.”

“It’s hard to understand why you went out after him.” Lan Fan’s grip on his leg tightened. “I had assumed he wanted to be alone. Why didn’t you?”

“I--” Ed hesitated. How much did he want to tell her? “I’ve had that look on my face before. The one he had when he went outside. I hadn’t wanted to be alone, then.”

“So you just took a chance? Followed a hunch?” She sat on the bed. Ling shifted beside him. “And then stayed out there with him, until we found you.”

“He doesn’t remember that part, I think.” Ed spread his fingers over Ling’s arm. “He asked me to lay with him. I didn’t want to disappoint him.”

“You really don’t want anything from him, do you?”

“Just a chance.” Ed turned his face into Ling’s hair. “A chance to get to know him.”

“He wants you to.” Lan Fan sighed. “It’s time to get ready for dinner, now.”

“Right.” Ed ran his fingers through Ling’s hair, careful to keep the metal from tangling. “I should probably go. You probably wanted to talk to him, yeah?”

“I think it would be best.” Lan Fan didn’t move. “After all, it wouldn’t do for you two to arrive at dinner together, again.”

Ed moved carefully, lifting Ling’s arm and sliding out from beneath him. “He sleeps like a log.”

“Only after his visits to the people. It drains him but he loves it. He doesn’t do well sitting still.” She stood before Ed could reach the door, hand outstretched. “I think you’ll love him, before too long. I wish you good luck, Edward Elric. It is no easy task loving Ling Yao.”

He frowned. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Don’t get me wrong. It’s worth it, every step.” Her hand hung in the air, waiting. “But he is emperor. And he doesn’t understand how important he is.”

“I make no promises.” He shook her hand and left, feeling somehow that he had made a vow, despite his claims.

Maybe he was already a lot deeper in than he thought.

They didn’t sit together at dinner this time. Ling was dressed in the robe he’d worn to town, only slightly rumpled, and smiling at everyone. A few people had attempted to ask him about his show over the gift this morning. He waved off their questions easily and changed the subject.

He’d even had one of the waiters sneak a baked taro bun over to Al, who had greedily devoured the whole thing. But he didn’t look at Ed.

Lan Fan stuck to his side, slyly moving him away from the less pleasant visitors. Ling pretended not to notice, but at one point he grew frustrated with a conversation, grabbed her around the waist, and did a circle around the room with her, ignoring any woh tried to talk to him. She laughed at him, and he ended up laughing with her. It was only a single round but it was enough to stir up the murmuring all over again.

The abrupt change had successfully signaled a change, however. The groups of people chattering needlessly started to break up into smaller groups, and music began playing. Ling watched as people stopped paying attention to him, concerning themselves with their own conversations.

He took a deep breath and sat down, rubbing his hands over his face. “God, that was becoming insufferable. I receive one shaving set and everyone has jokes and questions.”

“I think it’s more than that, Sire.” Lan Fan stretched. “Are you keeping your appointment?”

“A good emperor always does, right Lan Fan?” He grinned at her.

She squeezed his hand. “Just guard yourself, sire. We don’t want anyone getting hurt.”

He stuck his tongue out. “You’re always so serious. Never want to just have fun.”

“I have all sorts of fun when I’m with you, Sire.”

They both burst into giggles. He stood, brushing at the wrinkles on his top. “I’ve best get going. Ed disappeared quite a few minutes ago. He’ll be worried if I don’t show up soon.”

“Sire?” She tugged on his sleeve. “You do deserve to be happy. Don’t let any of us make you doubt that.”

A lump rose in his throat. “And is that your official opinion, Lan Fan?”

“That is always my opinion, Sire.”

He was still riding the high of knowing he’d be able to rely on Lan Fan, even if he made the selfish decision, even if he allowed his pride to rule just this once, when he made his way to the archway. Ed sat beneath, staring up at the tiny white flowers that dotted overhead.

“They do kind of look like stars, if you cross your eyes a bit.” Ed thumped back, stretching his arms above him.

“You’ll never reach them. They are the stars, after all.” Ling sat down and matched Ed’s pose.

“Do you remember asking to watch the stars with me?”

Ling shook his head. “No, I don’t. But I’d like to get the chance to try for real.”

“Well, that’s all up to you. I could always be your mistress.”

“You wouldn’t, you’re far too moral for that.” Ling hummed. “No, I’m going to call off the engagement. I can’t follow through with it.”

“Is this because of me? Don’t make a decision like that because of me. We just met, after all. What if we like different music or something?”

“Don’t worry. I’d probably have made this decision even if I hadn’t met you.” Probably. Maybe. Ling hoped he would have. “I’ve given up a lot to be Emperor. But I feel like this would be giving up more than I could actually bear.”

“I won’t argue with you.” Ed turned on his side. “I can’t say I wasn’t hoping.”

Ling opened his mouth to respond, but was interrupted by a hand grabbing his arm. Lan Fan was here, and she’d obviously hurried.

“Lord, there’s been a development. We’ve just received word.”

Ling frowned, his brow pulling together. “What is it? Is everything ok?”

Lan Fan looked towards Ed, and then back to him. “Your fiance is heading here, to meet. He cites a misunderstanding as the cause, but I fear he may have learned of,” she made a vague gesture towards Ed. “Your extracurriculars.”

Ed’s face turned red again, a sight that would have usually sent Ling into cheery, warm feelings. But now his stomach felt it was digging its way into the dirt.

He would be meeting his suitor after all.

Ed grabbed his hand, already sitting up. "I shouldn't be here. People are bound to start showing up soon to congratulate you."

Ling didn't let go of Ed's hand as he moved to leave. "Well, you are. Don't even think about leaving me here."

Ed stopped, looking to Ling uncertain. "But--"

"Please."

And so Ed stayed, waiting for Ling as advisors came to tell him he only had two days before the King of Amestris arrived.

#Edling #FMAB #Edward Elric #Ling Yao #Arranged marriage au

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fragmentedink-archived · 4 years ago

Text

Hell to Pay: Chapter Fifty-Two

I, II, III, IV, V, VI, VII, VIII, IX, X, XI, XII, XIII, XIV, XV, XVI, IX, IX, XX, XXI, XXII, XXIII, XIV, XV, XVI, XVII, XVIII, XVIIII, XXX, XXXI, XXXII, XXXIII, XXXIV, XXXV, XXXVI, XXXVII, XXXVIII, XXXIX, XL, XLI, XLII, XLIII, XLIV, XLV, XLVI, XLVII, XLVIII, XLIX, XLX, LI

cowritten by @lux-scriptum

A/N: Hey everybody!!! It’s been a hot minute. We’ve been busy lately between work and life and all that fun stuff but here’s a new chapter <3

A/N: So we’re changing a lil bit up, and adding more characters, specifically the gods as we’ve been doing more world building lately. These Gods are also from my own WIP, but have also found their way here!

“I just don’t understand why you need specific wood from a specific place for the crib,” Lev muttered, splashing the water with his foot as he watched Nik paddle around. Nik still wore a large shirt even in the pool, as if Lev and Cameron didn’t know he was pregnant.

"Well, Lev," Nik said. "Not all of us are okay with using hand-me-downs from four hundred years ago. Some of us like new shiny things for new shiny parasites- I say with love- and besides, its native to Tullum. It's home; at least as close to home as I'll likely get."

Lev huffed. “I didn’t mean that you had to get hand-me-downs, if you don’t want to. But I figured asking for wood specific to a region of angel territory when neither of us can go to retrieve it... It’s just a big fuss to make, I guess.” He braced his hands on the side of the pool, leaning forward a bit. “I don’t- Cameron had lots of very pretty options, is all, I guess.”

Nik arched a brow, eyeing him dryly. "And where, exactly, do you think some of those woods come from, Levant?"

Lev hesitated. “I assumed demonic territory?” he finally said, very unsure of the answer now.

Nik splashed Lev with enough force Lev was drenched, spluttering. Before he could think of how to respond, Cameron popped Lev gently on the back of his head. Lev hadn’t even noticed Cameron approach.

As Lev looked up, Cameron simply said, “Come inside. Biela requires your presence. Both of you.”

Lev stood, looking back to Nik, who was hauling himself out of the pool. Since Nik had already soaked him, Lev tucked himself against Nik’s side as they went inside.

Biela was standing in the kitchen. Without looking at them, she simply said, “Take a seat.”

Lev peeled away and settled in a chair, but Nik folded his arms over his stomach, which was beginning to show by that point, and said, "And why should-"

Cameron sliced Nik a look. "Nikolas, sit the fuck down."

At those cold words, Nik promptly sat on the nearest stool without another word.

Lev reached for Nik’s hand. Something told him he would not like whatever Biela had to say. Nik’s fingers tightened around his briefly as they waited for Biela to speak.

Biela fixed her dark gaze on Nik first. “I’m assuming you are keeping the fetus.”

It wasn’t a brief squeeze this time. “Why?” Nik asked sharply.

“Nik,” Lev said softly.

Biela held up a hand in Lev’s direction. “Because I'm also assuming you'd want to know the magic used to bring your boyfriend back from the dead poisoned my lands and is killing countless children. That's why."

Cold washed over Lev, colder than the death that he knew still tugged at his bones. “What?” he blurted, barely a whisper.

"You," Biela said, squarely looking Lev in the eye, "And your cousin and that witch played with forces beyond your control and decided to poison my lands with your greed because you just couldn't leave death well enough alone. I figured since your mate is currently pregnant, that you might want to know what is happening to the infants being born. Much like Nik's infant soon enough."

Lev risked swinging his attention to Cameron, eyes wide. He knew he was digging his nails into Nik’s hand as he searched Cameron’s expression, but for the most part it was unreadable, the usual shrouded calculation flickering in his eyes. Lev looked back to Biela after a moment.

“I didn’t know,” he finally said, voice small.

“Clearly not. You seem to know nothing.”

“I’m sorry,” Lev said, finally shifting his attention to Nik. “I’m sorry.”

The blood had drained from Nik’s face. “You’re lying,” he said, the words a harsh counterpoint to Lev’s whispered apology.

"And why would I lie about such a thing?"

"Because you despise me, and you loathe Lev and want any excuse to put Lev back in the ground."

Biela’s mouth curled in a non-smile. "If I was going to put your precious Lev back where he belonged, I'd do so without needing such a cruel lie. I'd just do it."

Lev tugged on Nik’s hand. “Nik,” he said, a warning in his tone this time. “She’s right.”

Tears of anger welled in Nik's eyes. "This is bullshit. This is absolute bullshit. I just decided to keep the thing. Now you're telling me it'll die anyways?"

Greif coiled alongside the fear and guilt. “You didn’t have to tell us,” Lev said to Biela. “Thank you,” he added, before tugging at Nik again. “We’ll figure it out, Nik. You- you could stay with Nate, couldn’t you?”

Nik's mouth pressed into a thin line. "But this is my home," he said, voice breaking.

Steadily, Biela said, "Not every child has been born dead or scarred. Perhaps your blood will… protect it in some way. Healing it."

Lev pressed his face to Nik’s shoulder. “You should talk to Ash. Or Sazra. Both of them.”

Nik stood abruptly. “I’m going to bed,” he muttered, as if it wasn’t midafternoon. Lev watched him go in silence, his heart aching.

Only once he was gone did Lev look back to Biela. “I’m sorry,” he repeated. “Is there anything I can do?” He meant it, knew she’d read that in his mind, and hoped it meant... something. Though he doubted it did.

Biela leaned against her palms, black hair slipping over her shoulder. "What do you think you can do? You and your cousin offer your pretty apologies while countless are dead like a few well placed 'sorries' will give parents their young once more. I highly doubt putting you back where you belong would solve it, and as I promised your cousin, I wouldn't. You will live with your actions and you will think about how this has affected my kingdom. And you will think about how my mercy has been the only thing keeping you with a home. Not even your own people want you. And now, you're a mass murderer to my people. That is what you can do."

Her words hurt, as they were meant to, he was sure, but he heard no untruth. “I would never assume that an apology would fix anything,” he promised carefully. “I will never forget the cost; I promise. But-” He hesitated. “I know most demons don’t appreciate an angels healing. I have the magic to spare, if it is ever useful. I understand that- it’s not- it’s all I can offer.”

Biela arched a brow. "I'll keep it in mind. If there's something to make you useful, I'll look into it. It's the least you can do."

“It is,” Lev agreed, grief leaking into his tone despite himself. “Thank you,” he added again, before lowering his gaze to the ground. Any more, he thought, and he might say too much.

"And you're not even crying," Biela noted. "An improvement." She straightened, readying to leave. "I'll return for our check up. I expect you to behave in the meantime."

On her way out, Cameron dipped his head in a reverent bow.

Lev waited until her footsteps faded before he looked to Cameron. “What are we going to do?” he asked.

All Cameron said was, "Survive."

-----

After nearly a week of Amara seemingly dodging every appointment Ash tried setting up with her, Ash decidedly went to see Nik so he didn't hunt her down and wring her neck. It seemed like the better alternative.

It was Lev who answered the door. Hesitantly, Lev asked, "Am I allowed to talk to you?"

"Well," Ash said, looking over Lev’s head, "if you weren't, you'd be a little too late now. Where's Nik?"

Lev flushed, cheeks going a blotchy gold. “In bed,” he said, sounding sad. “I’m assuming you heard, then.”

Ash blinked. "Heard what? I just needed to check on him. Did something happen to Nik?" He asked, shouldering his way past Lev. "Is he alright?"

“Oh.” Lev seemed to hesitate. “Fine. Nik is. I think. I mean, he is, but-” His voice got smaller and smaller. “Whatever Cyrus did to bring me back- the magic- infants are dying. Not making it to birth. Biela told us a few days ago. I assumed that’s why you were here. I thought Nik had taken my advice.”

At that Ash halted in place and whirled on him, face leeched white with horror and rage. "Wanna run that by me again?"

Lev flinched away. “The magic poisoned the lands,” he whispered. “The children are dying because I came back."

"I-." Ash inhaled sharply. "I told you. I told every single one of you not to do it. I hope you're fucking happy with yourself," he snapped, jabbing him in the chest. "None of you selfish assholes would listen to me and children are dead for it." Ash whirled back around and stormed his way to Nik's bedroom. "And now I need to make sure another one doesn't die because of everyone's bad choices."

Nik jolted up when Ash burned the door in place to stalk inside. He didn't give Nik a moment to speak before he started doing what he did best. "Have you been keeping everything down? Any fevers or anything beyond the usual normal pregnancy stuff?"

Nik blinked blankly at him. "How the hell am I supposed to know? Because I'm an omega? I-"

"My mistake," Ash said. "I shouldn't have asked you. Lev, has everything been normal with Niks pregnancy so far?"

Lev hovered in the charred doorway. “Other than morning sickness that Cameron and I have been keeping an eye on, everything seems fine. I didn’t think to ask Biela how the- what was happening to the parents. I was- it was a shock.”

"Oh I'm sure," he said, shortly. He turned his full focus back on Nik. "Is there any way I can convince you to come home at least until the baby is born?" When Nik shook his head, Ash sighed. "Right. Well, at least meet me for appointments every few days in Liwen. That way you get exposure outside of Demonic Lands as well as getting a better look in my office?"

Nik sat up on his elbow and watched him warily. “Papi doesn’t want me coming home, Ash.”

Ash rolled his eyes and eyed the bruising still fading from Nik’s neck. “Hm. Well. I don’t think your father is going to get to say much of anything when I hold just as much, if not more power and sway than he does. Besides, you’re not stepping foot anywhere near him, especially when you’re pregnant. I’m sure Nate would have my head. Or at the very least try.”

Nik didn’t so much as crack a smile. “I don’t want to go home.”

Ash sighed loudly. “Alright, fine then.” When Lev tried scooting his way past to Nik, Ash shoved his face away. “Move it, I’m dealing with my patient, Lev.” When Lev huffed Ash looked pointedly at him. “If that’s too much to ask,” he suggested, “then perhaps you can see yourself outside while we talk.”

Lev’s only response was making a face. “I think I’m going to go see what Cameron’s making for dinner.”

When Lev left, Ash turned his sole focus back to Nik who was still looking rather tired. “You gotta let me help,” he said. “We both know I’m the best you’re going to get when it comes to your health.”

“Dunno. Sazra seems to know plenty.”

“Sazra hasn’t seen the light of day in well over a thousand years. That,” he said, “and from what you’ve told me, Sazra also wants to string you up by your balls. Your physiology is different from demons and as great as a healer I’m sure she is, I am your healer and I’m not trusting a demon to take care of you when I’ve known you for the last nineteen years.”

Nik waved him off. “Figure it out, Ash. I don’t want to leave.”

“Because of Lev?” Ash asked, pointedly.

“And if it is?” Nik shot back.

“Then you’re making stupid choices for your baby.”

Nik almost looked like Ash hit him. Ash tried to reel back from that very poor choice of words, but even if he was successful at it, he still didn’t regret them. It was the truth especially when there were millions of infants dead because Ash didn’t stop Amara or Cyrus and now Nik was in the line of fire for his own inactions. “Look,” Ash warned, “if you won’t come back then I’m moving in here and I will make everyone who lives in this house as miserable as physically possible.”

“Like Cameron would let you.“

Ash scoffed. “You think I’m afraid of Wonder Bread Cameron? I get what I want and what I currently want won’t come back with me.”

Nik’s brows shot up at that, but before he could say anything Lev came slinking his way back into the room. “Mami’s actually in charge of dinner tonight so Cameron’s in his office. He looks kinda grumpy.”

“Surprise of surprises, I’m sure,” Ash said. He looked back to Nik. “So what is it, you coming with me voluntarily or am I moving in here against all of your wills?” When Nik stared at him in stony silence, Ash took that as answer enough. He got up from the bed and shouldered his way past Lev.

----

Ash was still being cranky, and Nik was still in bed. Lev wasn’t stupid enough enough to bother Cameron again, and so when he heard Eden waking up from her afternoon nap he decided to go pick her up before she upset the whole house with her fussing.

Even if he was supposed to be limiting how much he picked her up.

After some well placed smacks for not getting to her soon enough, Eden buried her face in his shoulder with a half-awake growl. Lev gave her a little bounce and settled in the rocking chair, toy in hand to offer her when she bothered to lift her head.

Only when several minutes had passed did Eden finish her little sniffle-growls and take the stuffed bear. Within seconds the ear was detached.

Lev sighed as he fished it out of her mouth. Eden took the chance to sink her little teeth into his finger, hard enough to draw blood. Before Lev could pull away, Eden gave a pleased shriek, little nails digging into his hand to keep him there. Despite the surprising amount of strength the toddler had, he managed to get free, in time for Ash to stick his head in the room, eyes glowing enough of a bright green that Lev was quite sure Ash was seeing just fine.

“I just can't seem to leave you alone for five minutes without you nearly getting killed by demons,” Ash grumbled.

Lev shrugged, catching Eden’s little hand before she could smack him again. “Hitting isn’t nice, bitty girl.”

She simply screeched in his face, and then thunked her forehead on his shoulder, giggling.

Lev looked up at Ash. “I’ve been meaning to tell you,” he said as Eden took her bear back and began the gruesome work of beheading it. “Well, I mean- I wasn’t sure how to because I wasn’t sure if we were allowed to talk, and then you needed to check on Nik, and-” He paused, blinking hard. “Rambling. Sorry. I’m trying to work on that. I remembered things, about when I was dead.” He pressed a kiss to Eden’s head to buy himself some time to order his thoughts, and then went on. “I met Nature. During that time I was hesitating. And they talked to me.”

“Oh? And you didn’t bother to tell me this sooner?”

Lev winced. From what he’d gathered from the conversation with Nature, the link between Ash and the god ran deeper than Lev had ever realized. Not that Lev had ever really paid attention to it. He’d never been particularly close to Nature himself; he was starting to regret not trying to forge a connection with the only god the angels had. Maybe his magic would have been easier to access, stronger even, if he had.

“I didn’t remember for a long time,” he finally said to Ash. “But I do now, so I’m telling you.”

It’d been an intense conversation, for sure. He could see a lot of Ash in Nature. Or maybe there was a lot of Nature in Ash. Lev wasn’t too sure how the mechanics of it worked. Nature had all but berated him for dragging his feet. Just from past experience they knew if the spell failed it’d have unimaginable consequences, and Lev now knew just how bad it could have been.

“I promised them I would be the last resurrection,” he told Ash. “And I said if that failed, that I’d help take some of the- the punishment you suffered. It’s not fair for you to be in that much pain on your own.”

“Ya think?” Ash snipped.

Lev took a small breath, and then replied calmly, “I really am sorry, Ash. It was the least I could do, I thought.”

Ash rolled his eyes. “Whatever. Tell me everything you talked about.”

“A lot of it was... kind of scolding. About trying to come back,” Lev admitted. “And telling me there were going to be consequences either way. They laid out exactly what you went through while not stopping us.” Lev cleared his throat. “I- that's when I offered. To help shoulder the pain.” After tucking his cheek against Edens hair, he held up a hand, weaving his shadows through his fingers with ease. “I think that might be why my magic is stronger. I was going to try to- to find more ways to connect with them, but I’ll have to wait until I can go back to angelic territory now, I think.”

“Why? There’s temples here.”

“Oh. I didn’t-” He stopped, frowned. “I don’t know much about demons and the gods-” He sighed this time. “I’m still on house arrest. I’m not allowed to leave until Biela deems me not a security risk.”

Ash lifted a brow. “Aren’t you in a relationship with a demon?”

“We’ve never had a conversation about religion, Ash,” Lev said with an even deeper frown. “I don’t think Cameron’s particularly religious. I guess I could ask him about the demonic gods. All I know is that they’re where demons get their magic, like we do from Nature.”

“They have a name, you know,” Ash said. Lev couldn’t figure out if he sounded irritated or tired. “It’s Asmi.”

Lev flushed. “I- I’m sorry,” he mumbled. He cleared his throat, and said more firmly, “No one really calls them by their name, but I should- I should have asked.”

“Probably,” Ash said drily. “And technically they’re not even the god of nature.”

Lev stood up, bouncing Eden on his hip. “They aren’t?” He asked. “That’s what we were taught in primary school, I’m sorry.”

“Primary school?” Ash said. If Lev didn’t know better, he was teasing him now. Crankily, sure, but still.

Rather than dignify that with an answer, Lev gave up and let a very wiggly Eden down to crawl around the nursery.

“Asmi is the god of balance,” Ash finally said. “They’re tied to the earth. Anything falls out of balance, and we’re all affected. That’s probably where the angels got nature from.”

“Makes sense why the teachers simplified it like that, I suppose,” Lev replied. “If it’s- if it’s not too much trouble, could you teach me more, whenever you get the chance?”

“Sure. Looks like I’m rooming with you for the foreseeable future anyway.”

“Thank you,” Lev said, smiling at Ash. He didn’t get one in return, but considering the amount of pain Ash had gone through in the past several months because of Lev, he didn’t blame Ash. Not one bit.

~~~

There was only so much of Nik’s day being spent in bed Lev could stand before he felt restless himself. Even taking care of Eden couldn’t shake his inherent need to be a busy body. So when it occurred to him that Nik had not yet actually celebrated his pregnancy, he decided it was high time something good be associated with Nik’s pregnancy.

After all, it was tradition.

Lev waited until Eden was down for her nap to corner Cameron and Ash in the kitchen. “I think Nik deserves a baby shower,” he said without preamble. “And I think we should throw him one.”

“Of course you do,” Cameron said, not even looking up from the meat he was searing in a skillet.

Lev looked expectantly at Ash, who just gave a shrug. “Might as well get him out of that foul mood of his.”

“He’s no reason to be happy about what’s going on,” Lev replied reasonably. When Ash narrowed his eyes at Lev, the lack of a glow to his green gaze letting Lev know he wasn’t actually able to see him right now, Lev was quick to add, “So I want to... give him some happier memories about this pregnancy. He’s so miserable right now and all he’s gotten is bad news. A party will cheer him up and maybe give him something to look forward to.”

“Are you suggesting he isn’t looking forward to the several horrendous hours of labor to push that fetus out?” Cameron asked, flicking a look Lev’s way.

Lev blinked. “Well. No, I doubt that. But. The after? Holding the baby? I don’t think he’s thought that far. He’s just stressed and worried.”

“That was sarcasm, Levant,” Ash pointed out.

“Oh.” Lev rubbed his nose. “Um. Well. I do think it’s a good idea.”

“Alright. Fine. I’m sure we can have something set up this weekend.”

“Thank you,” Lev said to Cameron, looking pleased. Up until he realized... “Who can we invite”?”

“Well, that is indeed the question, isn’t it?” Ash mused.

“Can Nate be invited?”

“I sure hope so, Nate practically raised him,” Ash said dryly.

Lev grimaced at him, knowing very well he couldn’t see it. “Yes, but- am I allowed to be there if he is?”

“I think it’ll be fine, especially if Bay is with him.”

After considering that, Lev gave a small nod. “Okay. Can I help plan for it, Cameron?”

“I suppose,” Cameron said.

Lev gave a small hum. “Ocean themed? To match the nursery?”

“Sure,” Cameron said, with the same amount of indifference as before.

This time Lev huffed at Cameron. “I’m going to go see if Mami wants to help,” he said, knowing it was a little petty.

“You do that,” Cameron said.

As Lev... well, even he could admit he was flouncing off a bit, Ash followed. Lev took that as a silent agreement to actually participate in the planning.

---

Darius found himself in Cyrus’ office with a mug of tea in front of him and Cyrus across from him with his own coffee. Even if Darius couldn’t drink the tea, he did appreciate the gesture. It would be nice to be able to drink tea once more.

“Why Cameron?” Cyrus asked, not in an accusatory way, but genuine curiosity.

“Why not Cameron?” Darius asked, splaying his brown fingers along the desk.

Cyrus gave a shrug as he continued to flip through his notes, coffee seemingly forgotten. “He’s not exactly the sort most people seem to be attached to. Outside yourself, Nikolas, and Levant, of course. Most others seem frightened more than anything.”

“I don’t see why,” Darius said. “Cameron’s never been frightening to me.”

“Perhaps it's the amount of people he’s tortured and killed,” Cyrus pointed out mildly. He looked up briefly. “I mean no offense, I simply want to understand.”

Darius thought on that, and he thought on the boy he had known when he was alive. And he thought on the hell that was unleashed upon Cameron once it was found that Darius had died at Cameron’s own hand. And then he said, “Perhaps. Though, I do not judge a person by their occupation. One could say Sorin has killed his own fair share of people, no?”

Cyrus looked over at Sorin, who was curled up as a cat on a pile of papers, orange tail twitching against his white flank as he dozed. “He did,” Cyrus agreed. “And he retired. But you made your point. I see where you’re coming from.” He looked back to Darius. “The war made a monster out of many people. But something tells me the war is not what happened to Cameron.”

“Just a different kind of war,” Darius sighed. He traced along one of his rings. “Have you come up with a solution that would not let Cameron die in the process?” Even if Darius was quite sure Cameron wouldn’t blink at the idea of giving his own life to right this particular wrong- even when the last five hundred years had Cameron’s story of survival written in betrayal and blood.

“I considered just... any life. But- that doesn’t seem a fair trade,” Cyrus sighed, running his own ringed fingers over his face. “I’m not willing to attempt the spell without certainty. The cost of failure is too high, and it’s your only chance.”

“Of course,” Darius said. “I do not take any of this lightly. I am very grateful to you, Cyrus.”

Cyrus gave a small smile, though his face was tired. “Don’t thank me,” he said. “Not until after I guarantee this will work.” He propped his chin in his hand. “It’s starting to look like there’s no way for me to be sure what is an acceptable trade, unless I speak with Nature themself.” Cyrus paused. “Which would be difficult, because I’ve never tried to form any sort of connection with Nature before. I didn’t get the education most witches do from their covens, and I was learning so much about the practical side that it slipped my mind.”

“Well,” Darius said, “I am sure there is no time like the present to get acquainted with your god.” Something Cameron, too, was unable to do. “Asmi seems… sturdy.”

Cyrus hummed. “Sturdy. Concrete. Something like that. I think.” He tapped his cheek. “I have no idea how to go about it, though.”

“I could reach out,” Darius offered. “Seeing as how I’m in the same realm as they are. And there’s less risk to you if I were to approach them first.”

Cyrus considered that. “That would... be very helpful, actually,” he mused. He leaned back in his chair with a sigh. “Though perhaps after I take a nap.”

Tagging: @incandescent-creativity @solangelo3088 @lil-miss-red @halstudies @littleyellowdinosaur @caelisis @idreamonpaper

#writeblr #writers on tumblr #wip boost #hell to pay #original writing #ch: cameron #ch: darius #ch: nik #ch: biela

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yoificfinder · 5 years ago

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Hey!!! So I was wondering if you could please rec some fics where they both get into an argument? Most fics I read only deal with the angst leading upto the relationship, and not so much the struggles after that so I was wondering if you knew any good ones :) thank you! Also - I've been using your fic recs for a while especially during quarantine and they are all 10/10 I've found sooo many new favourites!!!

Hey nonnie, I'm glad this blog is helpful to you especially in these times. And yay for my taste in fics suiting yours as well! I looove the fics I rec and I'd love for other people to read these amazing stories too (esp the not so famous ones)!

As for your request, here are some Victuuri fics, both in canon and AU settings, that have that conflicts-in-an-established-relationship theme (though some also have that pre-relationship angst):

A Silhouette of Three by Anna (arctic_grey @finleighsaid [E, 21K]

Yuuri and Viktor are aiming for a third consecutive Grand Prix gold as the new skating season rolls around. Halfway through the qualifiers, however, Yuuri realises that he's pregnant. He can either tell Viktor, who he knows would freak out and demand that he withdraw from the Grand Prix, or he can keep his mouth shut, keep his mate at bay, and win the gold that he's worked so hard for.

Easier said than done.

Beside the Dancing Sea by lily_winterwood / @omgkatsudonplease [E, 186K]

He’s finally here in this lovely and quiet little beach cottage, and the rest of the year seems to stretch out infinitely before him. Time will pass, though, and it will pass faster than he realises, but in the meantime he will stop worrying about writer’s block and deadlines and not even having the foggiest clue what his next novel’s going to be about, and live.

New York Times-bestselling author Viktor Nikiforov arrives in the sleepy seaside town of Torvill Cove to cure his writer's block. After encountering local wallflower Yuuri Katsuki at a party, he discovers that this mysterious dark-haired man has a couple secrets up his sleeve.

And Viktor will be damned if he doesn't find out just what those secrets are.

Four Weddings & A Divorce Lawyer by @lucycamui [E, 107K]

Living in the big city, Victor is a successful divorce lawyer and Yuuri runs a custom wedding cake shop. Their worlds and world views collide when they meet at an engagement party, but any time a cynic and a dreamer fall in love a few cakes are bound to get smashed along the way.

from both sides by @sophia-helix [G, 608 words]

But it's quiet when he comes to their door, resting slightly ajar. Yuri doesn't knock, because no one ever does, but he finds himself pushing it open slowly, hesitant as he pokes his head inside.

Hold Me Tight by @smudgesofink [T, 11K]

Katsuki Yuuri is not a tactile man. Anyone who’s spent a minute with him can tell you that much.

Victor, however—

To say that Victor is touchy-feely is the understatement of the century.

So when Victor just stops touching Yuuri, without explanation, without reason, it makes for a painfully jarring experience.

(Alternatively titled: Five Times Victor Hugs Yuuri, and the One Time He Doesn't)

i have my body (and you have yours) by @astoryaboutwar [M, 8K]

Yuuri overflows with the weight of things that have been said, trembles with what remains.

Their shared zeroes flicker in time, the early morning light muting the red glow to faint numbers. In the amber dawn, an idol is only just a man.

(Or: the Soulmate Timers AU where things happen out of order, secrets are kept, revelations are had, and they arrive where they need to be in the end.)

long distance series by @thewalrus-said [G and E, 18K]

Summary of first fic:

Viktor,

I dithered so long on just the opening to this letter, did you know that? Specifically, whether I should open with ‘Dear.’ Are you my dear? Have we shared enough to be dear to each other? You were my dear that night, of that I am sure. I believe I even said it. “My dear,” I called you, and you smiled like the sun in response.

my love is yours to hold (through every high and every low) by colorfullysarah / @ofviktor [M, 24K] *WIP

Memories are fickle things, Viktor and Yuuri knew this long before one night changed everything two months before their wedding. It’s easy to forget to grab the milk while out grocery shopping or which street that new restaurant they wanted to try was on. And it’s even easier to forget the world can be unkind when their hearts flutter with happiness.

What they never imagined was love could be forgotten in a single heartbeat.

…

Or, there’s an accident. Memories are lost and years pass before they’re found again.

This is what happens after.

The Next Level by @azriona [E, 369K]

The skating season continues (as skating seasons are wont to do), while Victor and Yuuri negotiate the shifts in their relationship, their careers, and their home rink.

Sometimes, things even go as planned.

Undiscovered Country by @shysweetthing [E, 114K]

Yuuri wakes up in Victor’s room the night after the Sochi Grand Prix Final banquet. Did they sleep together? No. Instead, last night, Drunk Yuuri taunted Victor that he hadn’t earned the right to get in his pants…and spelled out exactly what Victor would have to do to get there.

Now, Victor intends to do everything on that list…

“The conversation,” Victor says, “went something like this. You said I wasn’t getting in your pants that easily.”

Victor says this in a normal tone of voice. Anyone could hear him. Yuuri looks around, but if anyone is paying attention, they’re pretending not to.

“Naturally, I asked what I would have to do to get in your pants.”

“Ah.” Yuuri blushes. “How embarrassing. What do you mean, naturally? Why would you ask that?”

Victor tilts his head. “Because I want to get in your pants. I thought that much was obvious by now.”

Zanka by rinsled05 / @dreaming-fireflies [E, 100K]

Aoyagi's lips parted in a sigh, and for a brief second, Viktor saw a wistful expression beneath the fine-edged veneer – fleeting and transient as a cherry blossom in bloom. There was so much unspoken that Viktor wanted, now more than ever, to take the man with him. Bring him home and far away from this glittering world of luxury and waste.

Victuuri historical AU in 1800s, Edo, Japan. Yuuri is Aoyagi, a high-ranking male courtesan, and Viktor falls hopelessly in love.

And you might have already checked them out but I'd like to remind that the post-canon fics in the thematic masterlist are also relevant.

As always, other recs are welcome! :)

#yuri on ice #yoi #yoi fic rec #victuuri #established relationship angst

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asoftervirge · 4 years ago

Text

Of “Love” & Murder - (12/13)

CHAPTER TITLE: Revenge, Like Chocolate, Can Be Both Bitter and Sweet

RATING: M PAIRINGS: P. Sanders/V. Sanders (main/one-sided); R. Sanders/V. Sanders (former); V. Sanders/L. Sanders (former); V. Sanders/D. Sanders (former); Remy/E. Picani (side); T. Sanders/OMC (mentioned)

CHAPTER WARNINGS/KINKS: Remus Sanders, mentions of Satanic symbolism, Ted Bundy/Jeffrey Dahmer/serial killer references, Rocky Horror Picture Show reference, Poison, Swearing, mentions of Janus Sanders, referenced Smut, Smutty Thoughts, mentions of Sex Toys, Thanatophobia (fear of dying), mentions of Previous Deaths, various Methods of Murder, mentions of Violence, Descriptions of Murder, brief mention of Prison Rape, Dumpster Diving, Eating/Eating Gross Food, talks of Grey Morality, Morally Grey Patton, Baking/Food mentions CHAPTER SUMMARY: Patton meets with Remus.

AUTHOR’S NOTE: Here we are! We’re now at the second to last chapter! Despite the low reception of this fic, I’m very happy with it and it’s been so much fun posting it and seeing everyone’s reactions to it. Fun fact: I’m not real sure what rating this chapter would be under. Obviously it has mature stuff because of Remus, but it’s not too extreme to where no body can read it. It’s not a murder chapter, but he does talk about murder, so maybe it’s best to leave it M rated. lol Happy All Hallow’s Eve, everyone! Have fun reading! xx Virge

INSPIRATION: This post by @phantomofthesanderssides

AO3 || Buy Me A Ko-Fi!

To say Patton was nervous was an extreme understatement.

He was pacing back and forth in an alleyway— the location where Remus wanted to meet— going between fiddling with the hem of his sweater, and twirling a stray curl of hair. Blue eyes frantically scanned the dingy place he was in, not wanting to suddenly be jumped by a dangerous stranger.

Brick walls were stained with something the confectioner didn’t want to know what. Droplets of water from the gutters above dropped down onto the cobblestone. Garbage cans were tipped over, rotting food and other things made the air smell putrid.

A black cat scurried from behind one and past his feet, meowing loudly.

Patton squeaked and flinched as it went by. After collecting himself, he started to fidget more.

He hoped Remus would be here soon. With every minute he was in this alley, he was growing more and more frightened.

Despite this, he tells himself that this is worth it.

For Roman.

For Logan.

For Dorian.

For himself.

In the midst of his self-panic and self-reassurances, Patton didn’t catch the sounds of the metal fence behind him being scaled upon.

“So, you’re Patton Hart, hmm?” A high-pitched, slightly screechy voice said.

Patton yelped and spun around, instantly being greeting with the sight of Remus.

The man looked completely different from Roman, it was almost hard to believe that they were brothers, let alone twins. While the former thespian was composed, elegant, and beautiful, Remus…was anything but.

He looked like a rebellious punk, to put it simply.

Remus’ hair was oily-looking, very unkempt and scrappy; dark brown, almost black in color with touches of green hair dye in it and a single streak of silver. He was clad in a leather biker vest, various patches decorating it, and a fishnet shirt underneath which displayed all of his bruises, cuts, and scabs. His pants almost reminded him of Virgil’s jeans: ripped yet his were baggy as opposed to tight-fitting. His ankle boots were spiked, decorated with an upside down cross and a symbol that looked to be very satanic.

As a matter of fact, all of his jewelry appeared to be just that: skulls and satanic symbols. They were predominantly pieces that littered his neck, but he was also studded with a lot of piercings: a labret plus a lip, multiple ear and eyebrow ones, a chained nose, and a belly button. And all of them were silver as opposed to the gold Roman used to wear.

Looking at him twice over, Remus seemed to be a combination of Roman, Remy, and Toby.

Patton quickly straightened himself up, not wanting the other man to see just how scared he was.

“And you must be Remus Duke,” he responded back. His voice shook a little as he spoke. “I have to say, and I hope you don’t think me rude, but you looking nothing like your brother.”

Remus snorts. “That’s a compliment.” He tells him. “I’d rather not be a goody-goody Abel like my brother was.” He looked Patton up and down, giving him a quirked expression, “Ain’t you a bit saccharine to get help from me? Shouldn’t you be getting ready for beddy-bye time?”

“No!” Patton yells stubbornly. He recoils and tries again. “I-I mean, no. I really, really need your help, Remus. This is the only way I can truly stop Virgil.”

“Ha ha! So you’re also Virgil’s newest boy toy!” Remus grinned manically. Patton squealed and shivered in disgust at that. “I swear he goes through boy toys faster than either Ted Bundy or Jeffrey Dahmer did with their victims. Well, not as fast, but—”

“C-Cut it out!” Patton shrieked, stomping his foot in childish anger. He grew sickened at the thought of a monstrous killer like Bundy or a twisted cannibal like Dahmer, and comparing Virgil to them just made it worse.

(It was in that moment when the confectioner remembered the words Dorian told him before he divulged into how he was murdered. While Virgil was a horrible individual, he was nothing like how those men were. They were all criminals, yes, but the widower was somehow of a lesser evil.)

Trying to relax his shoulders, Patton asked again. “Are you going to help me or not?”

Still grinning, Remus jumped off the fence and onto the cobblestone. It wasn’t pleasant sounding as he fell flat on his ass. But he appeared to be okay as he shot straight into the air and began fishing through his pockets, humming Touch-a , Touch-a, Touch-a Touch Me under his breath while he searched.

“Ha ha!” he exclaimed when he finally found what it was he was looking for. He pulled out a vial of sinister-looking liquid, skull and crossbones marked on the front of it.

Poison.

Cyanide, to be more specific.

“This should be the very thing that’ll fuck Virgy-poo up!” Remus exclaimed happily. Then he pouted. “Lucky bastard,” he mumbled. “Just put this in whatever it is you’re gonna give him and watch with glee as he chokes and dies! Ooh, that sounds fun! Can I come and watch too?!”

“No!”

Remus pouted more, actually looking sad.

Patton was about to walk over and grab the vial but Remus stopped him.

“Not so fast, Mr. Fluffy Butthole.” Patton scrunched his nose. A serious look was in Remus's emerald green eyes. “Why do I have the stinky feeling this is for more than just my brother?”

The confectioner reeled back. “…What?”

“You wouldn’t have gotten my number from Toby and call me by saying ‘how would you feel about helping me avenge your brother’ without wanting to do more.” Remus narrowed his gaze. “You wanna avenge Virgil’s other husbands too, don’t you? Spouses or whatever they were.”

Patton opened his mouth to try and say something, but all he could do was sigh and nod. “You’re right,” he finally tells him. “It’s for more than just your brother. It’s also for Virgil’s second spouse, Logan Oxford—”

“That author who seemed so stubborn xe had a stick up xyr butt? Man, xe needed to get laid.”

“…xe were asexual…”

“…Emotionally laid, then.”

“You mean having a loving, supportive relationship?”

Remus gagged. “Don’t be lewd!”

“Xe were also aromantic.”

“I could’ve helped with that!” Remus grinned. “But if xe were also asexual, then it would’ve been no dice. Hehe, dick ice, hehe!”

Patton ignored him and continued on from before. “— and his third, Dorian Cain—”

“Ah! The serpent-y lawyer whose tongue was for more than lying!” Remus grinned more. Since he was a little closer to him, Patton could see the yellow of his teeth. “I’ve heard that he and Virgil were a lot alike. Plus, they were really able to get” – he wriggled his hips – “it” – he started thrusting “on!”

The confectioner blinked, then sighed deeply and tiredly. How exactly was he Roman’s twin brother? (He could practically hear Roman sighing along with him).

“I was in cahoots with him, you know!” Remus tells him, still thrusting for some silly reason.

“So I’ve heard,” Patton tells him, not wanting to delve into details about the supernatural encounters he had. He didn’t need to give this guy the time of day. “They said you called him about wanting him to find evidence on Virgil, but he said no.”

“Yep!” Remus stopped mid-thrust and emphasized on the p. “He accused me of wanting to slander a celebrity, like everybody else did. But it was also because he didn’t want to put his own husband on trial or some other bullshit.”

He blinked then continued thrusting. “I wonder what would’ve happened if I got to him first?” he mumbled to himself in curiosity. He turned to Patton with a grin. “You think Virgil is great in bed? I would’ve given that lawyer the time of his life! We would’ve fuck for days and weeks on end using all the neat kinky toys I have! Plus, all the crazy flexible sex positions?!” He bobbed his head from side-to-side, singing. “Anyone Virgil could do, I could do better~!”

Apparently, Virgil did that and then some, Patton couldn’t help but think to himself, suddenly being reminded of how explicit Virgil and Dorian were. (If the lawyer were here, he’d probably be flattered and chuckle in his ear).

“But it’s more than them too!” the confectioner exclaims, continuing on from where he left off previously. “It’s for any other potential victim of Virgil’s…and me too…”

“Oh?!” This intrigued Remus as he now had Patton’s full attention. “How so?” He could see the confectioner tugging and fiddling with his sweater. Remus actually saw him doing this when he was stalking the alleyway. It must be a grounding mechanism for him or something, kind of like how he plays with his fingers.

“Because—because I’m scared of dying.”

Remus blinked. “You are?”

“Yes— Of course, I am!” Patton didn’t know why the other man was acting like dying isn’t something to be feared. Because, to him, especially in this circumstance, it was. “If I don’t do anything to stop Virgil, I’m scared I’m gonna die. And I don’t wanna die.”

Tears came to his eyes, he rubbed them away with a fist.

“I don’t want to end up like the others. I don’t want a ribbon around my neck, or arsenic in my belly, or a bullet in my head. I don’t want to have my life cut short by someone who might actually want me dead!”

Now he had both fists rubbing harshly at his cheeks. “There’s so much of my life I want to live. There was so much of their lives that they had yet to live. And I want to be able to avenge that…I want my friends, and even you, to be at ease knowing they finally found peace.”

Remus watched awkwardly as Patton cried in front of him. He wasn’t all that good with the emotional, cutesy, kind-wordsy stuff like his brother was. But if Roman was in this situation, he would know what to do better than anyone else.

He knew the moments when his brother would need a hug, and this would be one of them.

So, he stepped forward and wrapped his arms around Patton, letting him sob into his shoulder.

Patton curled further into him, not caring that he smelled of body odor and garlic.

“Hey, hey,” he murmured. “It’s okay. It’ll all be a-okay.”

The confectioner sniffled. “How do you know that?” he asked, voice thick with emotion.

“Because that mean, nasty Virgil’s gonna get what’s coming to him!” Remus tells him. He takes Patton’s tear-stained glasses and licked them clean. He then walked over to a garbage can and fished out a dirty napkin to wipe them with. “Here you go!”

Patton grimaced as he put his… ‘newly cleaned’ glasses back on.

“Even if Roman didn’t like me all that much, he was one of my favorite people,” Remus continues. “And I was incredibly upset when he was killed, or ‘committed suicide,’ as the police suspected.” He narrowed his eyes. “I wanted to bring Virgil to court, I really did, but there was no evidence left at the crime scene.”

Remus snarled; fists clenched together tightly. “When they told me that…I was thinking of contemplating murder myself.” He shook his head. “There were so many things I wanted to do to him.” He began counting on his fingers, “Disembowel him, let my pet rats feed on his body, flood my teeth with his spine, build a sandcastle out of his ashes. You name it, I wanted to do it.”

Patton got visibly sickened with each possible method of murder and violence.

“And yet I couldn’t do anything. I may be a wildcard, but Virgil is much more cunning. He’s slipperier than a bar of prison soap.” Patton dared not ask what he meant by that. “Plus, he might’ve expected that I would come and destroy him when I got the chance. So, there wasn’t anything I could do.”

“But you tried though,” the confectioner says. “Despite there not being evidence, you still went and contacted Dorian Cain to try and see what would happen.”

Remus nodded. “Well, yeah. I figured I might as well eat the bullet and chew until I’m forced to spit it out. And so, I called Dorian’s law firm and asked anyway. Even though I was told ‘no,’ something deep within my dick told me that he might try and do something in secret. When I saw in the papers that he had also killed himself, I thought my chances were ruined for good.”

“However,” he then held out the vial of poison for Patton to take. He could see just how dirty his fingers were: bruised, chewed-up fingernails, chipped black and green nail polish, and grime around the cuticles. “You can be the one to finish him off. Do what me and Dorian couldn’t, and put that murdering piece of shit in the ground where he belongs.”

At first, Patton seemed hesitant about taking it from him, but after everything he’s witnessed, everything he’s heard, everything he’s feared, his resolve was hardened.

He takes the vial and stuffs it in his pocket.

Standing closer to Remus, he can see the details he couldn’t see from afar: flakes of dandruff in his hair; messy, purple, smoky eyeshadow; black lipstick that was slightly smeared; a little bit of stubble growing above his lip; along with any other cuts, bruises, and scabs on his skin.

Not only that, he could see the various patches on his biker vest; only a small handful of them were satanic and anarchist symbols, while the rest were a mixture of things Remus must enjoy. A green sword with tentacles coming from it, a Morningstar, an anatomical heart, a bloodshot eyeball, a skeleton, a peach, a couple octopi and krakens, an alien, a peach, a hazardous symbol, some that involve cursing and parental advisory, some dark Disney ones, an opossum with he/him pronouns, the aromantic flag, and lastly, one that has ‘Duke’ on it in graffiti.

Despite his appearance, Patton might consider this gross man…not so much a friend, but an ally.

“…Remus?” Said man leans in closer, making Patton bend back. “…Thank you. Truly. I wouldn’t have been able to do any of this without your help.”

He waved nonchalantly. “Eh, don’t worry about it,” he tells him. He walks over to one of the garbage cans and starts rummaging through it once more. “It’s the least I can do. Being an assistant— heh, ass-istant— is better than being forced to sit back and do nothing.” He pulls out a rotting banana, unpeeling it and then taking a bit bite out of it.

Patton looked like he was going to throw up.

Mid-chew, he looked back at the confectioner. “You know,” he mumbled, browning banana flying out of his mouth. “For someone who looks all pure and morally righteous, you gotta little bit of grey in ya.”

“I’m only doing this for good.”

“Maybe,” Remus gulps loudly then takes another huge bite. “But you’re still planning on killing him. No matter how you justify it, redrum is redrum.”

“Redrum?”

“Murder. The Shining. Stephen King.”

Patton hummed.

“Seriously though, who am I to talk morals schmorals to you? Good and bad is all made up nonsense!” Another loud gulp, another big bite. “So! When are you gonna do the do?”

“You mean do the deed?”

“Same thing!”

“Tomorrow.”

“Ooh! On Halloween night too!” Remus grinned excitedly. Patton had honestly forgotten that it would be Halloween, having been so preoccupied with everything has was going on at 613 Rue Morgue. “Are you suuure I can’t come with you?”

“I’m sure, Remus. Thank you.”

Remus pouts again, but he quickly shrugged it off.

“Ah well,” he drops the banana peel at his feet. Litter bug. He started to scale up the fence, allowing Patton to see the large green kraken that covered his back. “I guess I’ll leave the rest to you. Good luck, Patton!”

With a gleeful wave, Remus jumps over and disappears into the shadows from whence he came.

Patton stays in his spot for the longest time.

Maybe…he was a bit grayer than he realized. Through his entire life, he was never really challenged on his morals. He always played by the rules and laws of life, not wanting to face the punishments for having done something wrong.

But now, he was.

He was faced with someone who had a complete disregard for them and is walking a free man with three murders (maybe even more) stained on his hands.

And here he was, wanting to change all of that.

Like he said to Remus, it was for a good cause: to have their spirits be appeased and to have Virgil never commit any heinous crimes ever again. Even if the solution was a permanent one.

Maybe…the other man was right. Maybe…good and bad really is made up nonsense.

With the thoughts of his newly-placed morals in his head, Patton finally left the alleyway.

The alleyway that Remus chose was in the lower part of town, the shadier and troublemaking part to be specific. And even though Patton could have chosen to take his car, he walked since he lived close by in the lower regions of downtown.

It was a long but much needed walk for the confectioner to take.

While the air proved to be chilly, the autumn leaves dropped down onto the ground, creating a little ombre of colors on the sidewalk. The night sky was a trifecta of rich purples, deep blues, and cool blacks. Dots of white twinkled above, making the picturesque scene complete.

Patton looked around at all the holiday decorations that were on display. All of the ghosts, witches, scarecrows, and grim reapers all gave him a bit of a fright. The fake tombstones and giant rope spider webs made him squeak and turn his head for a split second. But he smiled at seeing the differently carved jack-o-lanterns— some more intricate than others— and the outdoor lights that glowed in various colors, like orange, purple, green, blue, red, white, and black. Though what really got a giggle out of him, were the inflatables that stood on each lawn; some were of pumpkins, others were black cats, and was the occasional spooky tree.

Many people love going all out on Halloween, and the confectioner was one of them, having spent so many hours throughout September and October transforming the interior of his shop.

He continued walking into downtown, fog hovering over the street lamps as the air grew a little denser and colder. The streets were slightly bustling as people were walking to and from various stores, all in last-minute preparation for tomorrow night. Many of them were families, with children bouncing up and down excitedly about their costumes while the parents held bags that were presumably filled with candy and other goodies.

It all made Patton smile, for he had that same childish whimsy.

The confectioner didn’t stop walking until he came to a very familiar brown building, the words Patty’s Sweet Confectionaries swirled in fancy but readable font on the window.

Patton took a minute to gently trace his fingers across the white lettering. He still remembers the first day he opened its doors, a young and bright-eyed man who simply wanted to spread the sugary joy that his grandmother used to give him.

With a deep breath, he walked into his confectionery shop, the jingle of the bell above the door made his heart swell up a little. Once inside, he gazed around, nostalgia and melancholy shone in his eyes as he flipped on the lights.

Golden chandeliers glowed from the cream-colored ceiling as the shop became illuminated, presenting the changes that Patton had made. The only other things that remained the same were the dark brown and white tile, and the wooden stands and tables dressed with dishes and bowls, but what filled them had changed since September.

Eyeball-shaped white chocolate truffles, and ghostly popcorn balls were now the specialty treats for the holiday; along with cookies in the shape of skeletons, and white chocolate bark with candy corn. In the display case were still the traditional chocolates, but there were also pumpkin spiced cakes and cupcakes, along with macaroons of varying monstrous design and Frankenstein cereal treats.

However, the two favorites were front and center: gooey marshmallow, and glistening candy apples. The best part about them? The marshmallow is dyed in accordance to the holiday, and the candy apples were also coated with white icing to make it look like Snow White’s poisoned one from the Disney movie.

Walking in further, he plugged in the decorative lights that hung from the walls. The miniature pumpkin luminary bags added another layer of festive spirit to the store, and they paired nicely with the cutout garlands Patton had made some-years back.

The confectioner tenses up as he feels vial of poison roll into his hands from inside his pocket.

A part of him still feels conflicted about doing something like this.

Obviously he knows what Virgil did was horrible and wrong, but on the other hand, he wished there was a much simpler way to see his downfall come to fruition. But as Remy and Toby said, if the police were working with him, then it was impossible to see lawful justice be served to him. (Dorian tried it, and look what happened.)

So this was the only option he had left.

Resolve slowly hardening, Patton made his way to the kitchen to begin work.

He began pulling out giant mixing bowls— both silver and copper, measuring cups, double boilers, spoons and forks, and a plethora of ingredients in order to create the perfect box of poisonous chocolates.

Patton didn’t need to think about which ones he would give to the widower, he knew the recipes for each one by memory.

The first recipe read:  “1 lb of dark chocolate 16 maraschino cherries with the stem 3 tablespoons softened butter 3 tablespoons light corn syrup 2 cups sifted confectioners’ sugar”

Parts of the second read:  “2/3 cups dark chocolate chips 1/3 cup + 2 tablespoons of heavy cream A dash of cinnamon”

The third read:  “7 oz. finely chopped dark chocolate 1/3 cup espresso ½ tablespoons unsalted butter ½ cup unsweetened cocoa powder”

And finally, the fourth read:  “1 cup melted cocoa butter 1 tablespoon cocoa powder 3 tablespoon dark chocolate ½ teaspoon almond extract”

Within each recipe, he made sure to add the cyanide poisoning into the mixtures, adding a bit more than necessary so that it wouldn’t be masked by any of the other ingredients. (He wore protective gear, of course. The same mask and gloves he wore whenever he dabbled in making anything featuring liquid nitrogen.)

Hours later, he had batches cooling on racks and baking sheets. And after checking that he had a perfect set of thirty-two, he began the decorating process. Glazes, icings, and sugars scattered about in the air and dusted his face, hair, and fingers.

Once everything was done up all nice and pretty, Patton placed them all in a box: a black one topped with a bow of dark violet ribbon.

Patton stood back and observed his craftsmanship. A deep frown slowly made its way to his face.

The first part of the deed was done…

…now? It was time for Virgil to have a taste of his own chocolatey medicine.

#Sanders Sides #Patton Sanders #Remus Sanders #Of Love & Murder

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justimajin · 5 years ago

Text

A Wilting Rose╰ Epilogue╮

➺ Pairing: Jimin x Reader

➺ Genre: Angst & Fluff~

↳ (2.5k) Actor and Actress AU

➺ Summary: It seems that instead of spiraling down as a tarnished actress for what felt like centuries, you have finally started to leave reporters speechless and taste success like never before (and maybe, just maybe, it pays to have someone so endearingly adorable by your side with each step of the way).

➺ Warnings: some swearing, fluff that is definitely smile worthy

➺ Moodboard Prologue Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Part 5 Part 6 Part 7 Part 8 Epilogue

Wincing when bright flashes keep continuing to go off, loud muffled roars are heard coming from outside the car and you almost want to laugh.

Surely if you were here a couple of months ago, you wouldn’t be seeing all these curious eyes and pure excitement that you were witnessing right now.

“Should we go and say hi?” The voice to your left asks, causing a chuckle to escape from you as you peer out of the long black limousine.

“I’m not too sure, they seem more excited about the movie’s release then we do.” You point over to the array of fans patiently waiting for you past the reporters and journalists. You can’t recall how long its been since you’ve seen so many of them together in one place like that, simply waiting for you and you only.

Jimin laughs, “That’s definitely true.” With a deep sigh, he adjusts the tie to his red suit for perhaps the seventh time, wiping his hands down on his pants right after.

A faint smile surfaces on your lips, “It’s not that bad, trust me.”

A brief smile flickers on his features and he nods. You slowly open the door, jolting back a bit and alarming Jimin behind you when shouts and screams suddenly enter the confines of the limo. Although you’d like to reassure Jimin about situations like these, you can’t help but also find it quite daunting to see so many people surrounding you at once.

You strain your eyes against the abundance of flashes when you step out, dragging out your sparkling red dress. Jimin is right behind you, adjusting his suit once again as he helps you get your long skirt out of the limo. The wind breezes through and the dress glides effortlessly through the red carpet, causing you to smile and wave back at the fans anticipating your movie.

As Jimin stand beside you, reporters soon surround you and are darting quick questions back and forth amongst each other. Most of the questions are fair game - inquires about your movie being made and the type of performance the audience would get to witness. A huge smile is on you when Jimin gets special ‘debutant’ questions and he answers them all with loads of excitement, wanting to properly explain how grateful he was for such an opportunity.

However, reporters will be reporters.

“The fans have been dying to know about your personal lives, is there any hint you can give us towards a relationship between the two of you?”

Glancing over at Jimin, you wonder if talking about this specifically here was a good idea. However before Jimin even has the chance to say anything, the reporter begins to persist, spiking up a conversation you were definitely not huge on talking about, “Rumours have spread about your ex-husband’s appearance on filming. Could it be perhaps the two of you are now back together?”

You hesitantly open your mouth and the dirty mike is only shoved closer to you despite no words coming out. You close it again, thinking what you could possibly say to get this reporter out of your personal and certainly emotional place, but then you feel a small nudge at your shoulder and you turn to Jimin, who has a huge grin on his face.

He kisses you.

Screams suddenly erupt from behind you and yet Jimin doesn’t stop. You had turned to him in such a perfect angle that he was able to reach your lips instantly and he separates from you with a cheeky smile on his face, the faint blush on his cheeks still there as always.

You on the other hand, are too caught up in wide eyes and shock from the interaction that looking back at the reporter just leaves you purely flustered.

You shrug, “T-There’s your answer…”

With a faint awkward chuckle, Jimin loops an arm around your waist and walks you away from the reporters. The fans are still going absolutely ecstatic at the interaction and you hear a spread of words from among them about how adorable you looked together to even how much your pairing looked better than the one you had with Seokjin.

“Now that was a little bold.”

Jimin laughs, walking inside the hall with you and helping you with your dress above the steps, “Sorry, I didn’t know what else to do.”

You shake your head at that but then you place a hand on his arm, stopping him from walking forward, “I’m a little surprised though...all these fans, being this excited for us.”

“Well the movie has been getting more and more good reviews.” A small smile emerges on his lips, despite his best efforts to conceal it, “And maybe thanks to Yoongi.”

“Yoongi? What does he have to do with this?”

“Remember how after Seokjin decided to show up at our set, he found out about those journalists posting all those horrible articles about us? He knew it was an attempt at jeopardizing the movie’s image, so after doing some research...it turned out it was the same media that supported Seokjin when you broke up with him.”

“What?” You harshly whisper, glancing away and trying to connect the dots, “So the media that labeled me as being the heart-breaker were affiliated with Seokjin from the start?”

Jimin nods and you cover your mouth, “I-I can’t believe this…” Gritting your teeth, you shake your head, “That bastard!”

“He paid off all of them Y/N. He just wanted to hear them sing praises about him in those articles and have this movie perform horribly in the box office.”

“But you know Yoongi.” Jimin laughs, “He wasn’t going to let this go. So he might of pulled some strings here and there, to get an article about the truth out.”

A chuckle bubbles out of you at that, “I swear Jimin, this director of ours…”

“You can thank him yourself right now if you want.” Jimin points to the end of the red carpet and your mouth drops wide open when you see Yoongi clad in a gorgeous grey suit, walking along the carpet as reporters ask him questions. He has a huge gummy smile on his lips, one you’ve never seen him ever have and after the reporters move away, he starts posing in absurd ways, causing both you and Jimin to laugh.

“I do owe him a huge thank you, but I think he’s a little busy right now.” You gesture Jimin to continue walking down the hall and he smiles, joining you and intertwining your hands.

The movie is a huge success.

The high numbers rake in, the fans are buzzing with excitement and multiple articles come out about you with headlines declaring that the industry has just found a new promising newcomer and how one of it’s best actresses was back with an excellent movie.

You don’t truly realize how much you and Jimin both needed the praise until the last one settles in and you’re soon off at your prime again, everyone surrounding you and wanting to know about it all.

It even opens more doors than you could have imagined, especially when you’re seated at a huge award function and are choking down on your wine when the best debut actor gets announced.

He stands up hesitantly at first, looking first at you with wide eyes when there’s tears forming in your own and you quickly usher him to go onto the large stage. Fans are chanting his name in the background and a gold trophy is awarded into his hands, looking out into the sea of a crowd with words slipping at the tip of his tongue.

“First of all, I’d like to thank Director Min Yoongi for giving me a chance with this role…”

He goes further on, thanking every single member of the cast and staff, causing you to be a bit surprised at how well he was able to remember everyone, before he reaches the end of his speech. A part that makes you want to cover your face bashfully with a hand, but at the same not take your shining proud eyes off of him.

“....and lastly but definitely not the least, I’d like to thank my co-star and girlfriend for giving me so much support during the making of our movie. Thank you so much Y/N L/N...and I love you.”

He whispers those last words so quickly in the mic before jogging away from the stage and yet you can hear them perfectly all the way from where you’re seated. He runs away to you to be greeted with a soft kiss and you can’t stop grinning at the shining trophy he places on the table.

“So?” You lean over, “How does it feel best debutant actor?”

Jimin shakes his head, sounding breathless before smiling, “I can’t believe it. I know I worked hard for this but it just feels like...a lot.”

You hold his hand, “You know you deserve it right? You played a seriously good General.”

Jimin playfully smirks at you, “You sure sound like you enjoyed me playing that role.”

“What can I say? I miss the blue hair.” You play around with his now back to black hair.

“I really don’t. I would have gone bald with the amount of times Yoongi made me dye my hair.”

You laugh at that, covering your mouth with one hand and Jimin soon joins in as well, but your laughter is suddenly cut off when you hear the next category being said.

“And the award for best movie goes to….”

“SCARLET LOVERS!”

You and Jimin simply stare at each other for a moment, utterly speechless until you suddenly hear a huge uproar from another side of the room followed with unison clapping from the entire audience. You turn your head over to the source of the uproar only to witness a smug Yoongi walking over to the podium with confident strides, a huge smile on his face once the award is placed in his hands.

He frowns for a moment, wondering why the stage was so empty as he leans towards the mic, “I don’t think I was the only one that made this movie possible.”

The audience laughs and he shakes his head, “Where’s my entire cast and crew?!”

Suddenly everyone from your movie is heading up the stage and it causes the realization that you and Jimin will have to go as well so you carefully begin to stand up and Jimin helps you with your dress once again.

Yoongi speaks into the mic when everyone has come up except for you two, “Y/N. Jimin. That means you guys too.”

You glare at him when your struggling with your dress and you walk up to the stage with Jimin helping you, joining Yoongi’s side as he begins to thanks everyone. He then tugs over you and Jimin, setting both of you in the front of the mic. “This movie couldn’t have been made without these two and I want them to know that in the future, if they ever are in need for work, not to hesitate in coming to me.”

You and Jimin look at him with huge smiles and he gives you both a hug. Once he brings his arms around you, you whisper into his ear, “Really Yoongi? How many times are you going to keep helping me?”

“As long as you stay as the actress you are.” Yoongi smiles, “You got potential. Don’t throw it away because some guy caused the media to go after you.”

You nod, holding onto Jimin’s hand and then giving a grand bow to your entire cheering audience.

“What a night!”

Jimin flops onto the bed, discarding his suit jacket to the side and sinking down into the mattress as you face your dresser mirror to take your earrings off. “I forgot how long award shows can be. There’s literally no end to them.”

Jimin sits up on his arms, sticking out his fingers, “Four hours!” He slumps back down, “And I thought filming was bad enough…”

You turn around, smiling at him, “Welcome to the world of acting~”

He lets out a low chuckle, “By the way, did you get a chance to talk to Yoongi afterwards?”

“I did.” You get up, walking over to comb out your hair, “But he was still busy. This time with having a staring contest with his trophy.”

Jimin laughs, “He was talking about wanting to win badly after all. And you did end up being right, Yoongi’s scary...but he is a genius.”

“Yep.” You plop down onto the bed with a sigh, rolling over to be closer to him and he lets you rest your head on his arm, “That’s Min Yoongi for you.”

You stay like that for a moment, the remains of the night slowly beginning to fizzle out and the tiredness seeping in.

“Hey Y/N?” Jimin whispers when he sees your eyes slowly closing.

“Hmm?”

“Do you want to go somewhere tomorrow? We finally have a day off without any filming schedules planned.”

Your eyes flutter open, looking up at him, “Are you asking me out Jimin?”

He smiles, his eyes crinkling, “That depends on whether you still have those floppy hats and sunglasses.”

“As a matter of fact, I still do.” You raise an arm, pointing over to your closet, “So don’t worry, no one is going to recognize us.”

He laughs, turning over to his side to face you lying down as he whispers.

“Sounds perfect.”

***

Roses are typically grown with such care and love, blooming fully without any other factors stunting their growth or causing them to wilt. They start off as only mere stems with a tip, which slowly expand and form multiple petals to create an entire layout, unique to each individual rose.

They are plucked when those passing by see how beautiful they’ve become and of course, the prettiest ones are always the most favoured ones.

However, each rose has thorns.

They aren’t immediately visible to the plucker’s eyes right away and are only discovered when the plucker looks past their pretty petals to find out indeed, a rose can have thorns on its stems.

Thorns can be pulled off, they can be cut away and yet they will still grow back every time.

Therefore it’s only seems right to accept that such pretty flowers will always be accompanied with excruciating sharp thorns.

He stares at one, touching its thorn with the tip of his finger carefully, “But is it possible for roses to have no thorns at all then?”

You shake your head, smiling as you pluck up one that looks especially beautiful, having many hidden petals as well as some of it’s own thorns, however upon plucking it you aren’t pricked to the point of drawing out blood.

You tuck behind his ear.

“There are some roses that can be extremely rare,” A huge grin is on your lips, eyes flickering over to his curious one, “and those ones have just the right amount of thorns.”

#btswriterscollective #kwritersworldnet #jimin fanfic #jimin fluff #bts jimin fanfic #bts jimin fluff #jimin actor au #park jimin fanfic #jimin angst #bts fanfic #bts fluff #bts angst #bts actor au #bts imagines #bts scenarios

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ecto-american · 5 years ago

Text

Broken Ectoplasm C13

DannyMay themed story don’t bully me at it being DECEMBER i’m trying my best

The unspoken answer was very, very unlikely. But until it was spoken, the answer was always no, right? So fuck it.

"Hey, can I primarily question Phantom?" Agent G asked. His partner looked at him skeptically, and the officer with them said nothing.

"No," Agent K replied. "Can't afford for you to make rookie mistakes." Agent G frowned.

"How am I ever supposed to learn?" he asked. "You'll be right there with me. Come on, I'll even write up the whole report."

"Phantom is a serious and dangerous threat," the other replied. "We're not leaving the questions to a rookie."

The elevator doors opened, and the trio walked towards the room. A nurse was waiting at the door for them, only giving a polite hello before opening it for them. Agent K just gave a brief nod before slipping inside, and Officer Snowden offered a thanks.

Agent G walked into the room behind his fellow agent and the officer, and he immediately saw Phantom. He didn't look nearly as bad as he had expected, though he could see bruising that had begun to heal around his throat. He had plenty of bandaging covering what he assumed to be surgical scars, and Phantom was alert. He sat up in bed, watching them as the lawyer, Ohmer, from the day before, stood with him.

To his surprise, Phantom's eyes were locked onto him specifically the second he entered. Looking at him strangely, almost as if...he recognized him? Would Phantom really recognize him from years ago? When he kind of saved Agent G from the Guys in White shooting at him? Heh. Kinda ironic. But Agent G was skeptical that Phantom really had gotten that good of a look at him then. Or maybe Phantom was taken aback by seeing an unintentional doppelganger.

"His jaw's wired shut," Ohmer spoke up. She pointed to the whiteboard and markers in Phantom's lap. "So we've been using this to communicate." Agent K grumbled in disgust. Phantom not being able to talk would mean that the entire interview would take much, much longer, since Phantom had to write every word out. There would be less body language to dissect, less visual cues. It was more work than Agent K was willing to do. This was a good opportunity.

"Ugh, of course," he muttered, adjusting his suit a bit with a tired sigh. Agent G nudged him, giving a half smile. Agent K stared at him coldly before making an annoyed sigh. "Go for it, rookie. But if you fuck this up, it's on you. And you're writing the report."

"Noted," the younger agent agreed.

Agent G eagerly grabbed one of the chairs, pulling it up to sit next to Phantom. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Phantom continue to stare at him with a raised eyebrow and slight awe. Curious. Agent G shrugged it off best he could, taking his seat and pulling his notebook out to take notes. He couldn't help but notice that Agent K was not doing the same, instead scrolling through his phone. Probably on Facebook again.

"Hey," Agent G began, feeling suddenly…awkward. He didn't think he'd get this far. Phantom stared at him. "So, um, I'm Agent G. I'm from the Guys in White." Phantom blinked at him, head jerking a bit as if that surprised him. "What do you want me to call you?"

Phantom picked up the whiteboard, still staring at him. But he soon broke the staredown to scribble out on the whiteboard.

Phantom is fine.

"Cool, cool," Agent G nodded. He took a deep breath before flipping through his notebook. He had all of his questions written out on the first page, a number next to them. The rookie studied his questions before picking one to start with. Flipping to a new page, he wrote the number associated with the question before looking up to Phantom. "Do you remember when Amity Park was going through that overshadowing epidemic?"

Phantom cocked his head curiously. He seemed surprised by the question, but he nodded. Agent G took note of that before he continued.

"Do you know why they did that?" Agent G continued. "Why the ghosts were overshadowing people in such a mass wave?"

If he seemed surprised before, Phantom look drop dead shocked at this line of questioning. Agent G was sure that had his jaw not been wired shut, that Phantom would be staring open mouthed at him. His lips opened a bit, exposing the metal that was keeping him from being unable to properly say anything, and he made a noise, a clear "huh?" type of confused tone. Phantom stared at Agent G for a moment as he twirled the marker in his hand. He seemed hesitant and unsure.

"Please," Agent G spoke up. Phantom paused. "Just tell us what you know."

Phantom began to jot down on the whiteboard, and Agent G glanced at his companions. Officer Snowden had taken a free seat and was paying close mind. His coworker continued to stare at his phone, occasionally scrolling. He was sure that Agent K was still listening, but how much the man would pick up on the conversation was debatable.

Soon, Phantom turned the board around, and Agent G read it carefully.

It was Walker and his goons. He's basically ghost police. He claimed that me bringing a human world item into the Ghost Zone was illegal, and he arrested me. I escaped, and he began overshadowing people as a ploy to get the town to hate me in hopes that I'd turn myself in if people here hated me.

Agent G wrote down what Phantom said into his notebook, word for word. He was silent as he processed that information. So Phantom was admittedly a wanted criminal in the Ghost Zone? That law didn't sound very just. But yet again, Agent G truly had no idea why that law was even in effect, if it was harmful. And Phantom's statement brought on several questions.

"Why did you escape?" he asked. Phantom studied him for a moment as he turned the board back around. He erased it with his hand before writing. Agent G in turn, studied Phantom. His hands were writing very confidently, no constant erasing and with little pause. He was sure of what he had to say.

The entire sentencing is very unfair. No trial, no defense, nothing. It was just Walker telling me the law, which is bullshit btw, and him sentencing me to 1,000 years.

Holy fuck, that was a long time. Agent G nodded slowly as he, again, wrote down the statement word for word. Then again, ghosts were, sorta, immortal. Time meant nothing to them in that regard.

"What was the item?" Agent G asked. Phantom flipped the board around to write.

It was a wrapped anniversary present for my mom from my dad, a ghost themed checkers game.

That definitely didn't seem worth such a long sentence. Phantom mentioned his parents too, and his parents post his death. This was something Agent G had never read about Phantom doing, mentioning his family or interacting with people like that. Although admittedly, on some level, it was creepy to think about Phantom haunting his old family. But he'd get back to that.

Based on the speed of the responses, Phantom seemed to be telling the truth. But of course, Agent G had no clue how he'd even begin to try and verify this story. He'd figure it out. For now?

"Do you know who all was overshadowed?" he asked. Phantom paused to seemingly think, but only for a moment before his hands moved the marker over the whiteboard.

Some Casper High students, the mayor, several townspeople. Specific people: Mayor Montez, Paulina Sanchez, Dash Baxter, Lancer, Kwan Ishiyama, Star Thunder

Agent G knew almost every single one of those names. He went to high school with many of them briefly. Ugh, verifying these stories would be a trip down cringey memory lane, but he still wrote down the statement, like the others, word for word. He wrote the number two before asking his next question.

"Do you know why the overshadowing ended? Like the incident?"

The look Phantom gave him was so sorrowful. He looked tired and distressed, but he wrote his answer regardless.

He did what he set out to do. Everybody hates me. They want me dissected and gone.

"Oh honey," Ohmer spoke softly. The lawyer reached out to lovingly smooth the ghost's hair, and Phantom smiled at the touch. Agent G nearly forgot that he wasn't alone with Phantom in the room. Officer Snowden was watching on silent as a mouse, and Agent K was still looking at his phone.

Regardless, the answer was jotted down. He wrote the number three, and he glanced up at Phantom. The ghost was waiting for him expectantly.

"Do you know Frederich Isak Showenhower?"Agent G asked. Phantom looked a bit confused, staring at him with a bit of a frown. "He's more commonly known as Freakshow." Recognition lit up in his eyes, and he nodded. "Can you describe your relationship with him?"

He brainwashed me using his scepter.

This was starting to hit unintentional gold. Nobody outside of the GIW and police knew the details of Showenhower's wild story. The media, the public, none of them knew about this crazy brainwashing story. Nobody knew about the scepter being his self-reported means to commit all the crimes, that ghosts were involved. Publicly, the man kept a tight lip on his crime. Very unusual, the criminals normally were very vocal about their side of the story. But not Showenhower. He was silent. Agent G wrote it down.

"Can you elaborate?" he asked. Phantom stared at him blankly. Agent G rephrased, "What do you mean by brainwashed? Can you describe the scepter?"

Phantom's eyes lit up in understanding, and he began to write.

He had this red scepter with a crystal ball. He would hold it up to us, and give us orders. It was hard to fight. There was something to it that just made us obey him. I could break the spell sometimes, but he always knew where to find me. Bring me back. He said the scepter was this family heirloom, and that they used ghosts to entertain people in his circus. But that he found that using us to steal things was much more profitable, since he couldn't be connected to the crime.

Agent G nodded understandingly as he wrote down the answer. So far, this was very interesting. He was giving some confidential details.

"Can you tell me what happened to this scepter?" Agent G questioned. This was the one thing the ex-ringleader refused to tell them. It was information they had been trying to get from him for years now.

It broke.

Agent G hummed curiously. Broken? Wouldn't Showenhower admit that though?

"Do you know where it is?" Agent G asked. Phantom thought for a moment.

Map

Agent G stared at the message before it clicked. Phantom was asking for a map. The rookie jumped from his seat, pulling his phone out. He opened the map application, and he handed it to Phantom.

The ghost zoomed out, and Agent G watched his every move. He shifted to the train tracks, and he followed them. After traveling down the railroad for a bit, scrolling, Phantom stopped at a bridge. He studied it for a moment before making a circle with his finger.

"Around here?" Agent G asked. Phantom nodded, and he picked up his board.

Before the river, over the bridge. It fell somewhere in there.

Agent G nodded. He marked the spot made on his phone's map before tucking it back into his pocket. All of this was fitting into a new puzzle that he was theorizing.

"You mentioned your parents," Agent G began, but paused at the immediate shift in Phantom's entire demeanor. He stiffened and looked at him with that deer in the headlights stare. "What can you tell me about them?"

Unlike before, Phantom didn't make any movements to right anything. He stared at Agent G, his chest heaving a bit as if in a panic. Like a human suspect. This was interesting. Phantom really did mimic humans a lot, as his reports would often detail. Was this a defense mechanism? Possibly, given Phantom's self-reported age.

Agent G waited patiently, and the ghost finally bowed his head to stare at his whiteboard. His hand tapped the marker against his knee nervously.

"You don't have to answer anything you don't want to answer," Officer Snowden finally spoke up. Phantom glanced up at her, before turning to look to Ohmer. The hospital lawyer nodded in agreement.

"Yup. Don't have to answer anything," she confirmed.

Phantom looked a bit more relieved, and he jotted down on the whiteboard.

No comment.

Hm, this was the first question Phantom refused to answer. Was it too personal? Agent G's idea wracked for more theories. Likely to protect family, since he reportedly was interacting with them despite his death. Speaking of.

"Can you tell me when you passed away?" he asked.

Phantom's face scrunched up a bit, obviously hurt. He shook his head no. Agent G hummed lightly as he made that note. Fair enough. That was very personal. He made his final note and flipped through his notes. He had a lot of information to dissect now, and a lot more details to work with and compare and contrast.

"That's all I have for now, but I'll be returning soon," Agent G replied. Phantom stared at him curiously. The agent searched through his pocket to pull out a card. "If you have anything else to tell me, please feel free to call." He paused. "I'm sure a nurse can help you, or your lawyer."

Phantom nodded, turning the card over in his hand. The ghost quickly scribbled on his whiteboard.

No arrest?

"By law, you cannot be released into their custody until you're discharged from the hospital," Ohmer clarified. Agent G nodded to confirm.

"We'll be here to formally read you your charges and rights, the usual come your discharge day," Agent G explained. Phantom looked visibly deflated, but gave a short nod as he slumped over. Ohmer smoothed his hair out.

"Hey, Agent K. We're done here," Agent G announced. The other officer looked startled, standing. Agent G was already out the door, along with Officer Snowden. The officer said her goodbyes and was already walking away.

"Wait, already?" Agent K demanded to know as he followed the two out. Agent G was still re-reading his notes as he jotted down more extras before he forgot the details as he waited for his partner to catch up. The rookie shrugged.

"We'll be back," Agent G assured him. "But right now, I have some other folks that I want to talk to. Try to collaborate Phantom's claims." Agent K studied him curiously. "And question him based on that, see what kind of lies we can catch him in and what evidence we can truly confront him with."

"Sounds like a giant waste of time, doing all this back and forth," Agent K complained. Agent G shrugged.

"Then you can wait in the car," he offered, ignoring Agent K's frown. Agent G re-read the list of names Phantom gave him. "But right now, I have a few people I'd like to talk to." Agent K gave a begrudging sigh.

"Fine, let's go whatever you're going to go," Agent K finally agreed. "Long as you're writing the report."

Agent G grinned. Finally, a chance to get some real answers.

#broken ectoplasm #my phics #phics #dannymay #dannymay19 #my dannymay #my dannymay19 #hnn don't bully me i'm still working on dannyMAY ALMOST INTO 2020

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cocoisbestgirl · 4 years ago

Text

Fanfic I can’t think of a name for pt 15 (Final chapter)

Magda wandered through the forest, looking for any hint of civilization. Maybe a heart carved in a tree? A doll, maybe? Even a single footprint would be like gold to a little lost Magda. Magda had only realized the state she was currently in, her hair was...well ...everywhere. Her dress had turned from a light pink into more of an ashen red. Magda couldn’t exactly see her face, nor did she really want to see how exactly her makeup fared over 3 days of prison.

She had ditched her heels what seemed like miles ago. The pain of rocks and thorns felt a million times better than staying in those heels for too much longer. As much as she had grown accustomed to them, they still hurt after a while.

As she continued to wander the woods, she came across a patch of flowers. A patch of sunlight. Magda ran towards it, hoping desperately that it wasn’t just an illusion. Thank the goddess it wasn’t. The sun felt…… so refreshing. Magda felt almost like a cat as she laid down in the flowers and bathed in the sun. Her eyes almost shut, before her stomach growled loudly at her.

She shot up from her bed of flowers.

‘Oh, my gosh!’ Magda put one hand on her stomach, ‘Please forgive me! I’ll see if I can find anything for you…’ Magda laughed silently as to not waste any of the water that still remained in her system. She heard humans can only live a few days without water, she couldn’t be too far off from that limit…

While she wasn’t exactly a survivalist, or a hunter, but she knew how to forage at least somewhat well. Years of the slums will teach you things you would have never known you’d need. Like how you can get a lot of water from berries, and how the black and pink striped berries are delicious despite their less than stellar appearance. Don’t eat anything unless you know exactly what it is, and where it came from.

Magda had managed to use so many unspoken rules that she had in her head to survive. She never had to apply all these rules for an unborn child… what if those berries Magda had constantly devoured in her childhood were gonna hurt it?

The blonde woman looked down at the berries she held in her hand. They smelled just as she remembered, a mix of lemons and sugar… her stomach snarled at her again. This time around it was louder and more painful than the last. Her mouth also felt like a desert just to make the situation that much worse.

She sat down near the berry bush, and counted her only 2 options: Die with her child, or risk her child dying. Magda held her breath as she pushed the berries down. The juices soothed her dry throat, and her stomach stopped its tantrum. Only for Magda’s heart to start a tantrum of its own.

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Alan finally began to place his thoughts into a structure that he was able to work with. Yes, Magda may be ... , but the least he could do was find her and give her the burial she deserved. She didn’t deserve to rot in some prison cell or even worse be a slave to some pervert.

He grabbed his sword back up. He took a deep breath and began to walk deeper into the now darkening forest. His sword held tightly in his hand as he began to whistle. He had learned that sometimes when people are lost if they hear a whistle sometimes they’ll give out a sign, like another whistle, or a scream more likely.

He’d gone on adventures similar to this many times in the past, he had found lost children, mothers who ran away with their children, and prison escapees. He was often bribed to keep their hiding spots a secret, which...he denied. He kept his mouth shut quite a few times on the non-criminals.

A few small knocks alerted him. It sounded too rhythmic to be an animal. It was a very specific pattern:

Knock,Knock, Knock-knock.

The pattern repeated itself multiple times before Alan finally decided that even if it was an animal it was worth a try. The knocking never stopped, but it always got a bit louder towards the end, most likely in desperation.

Finally he heard a small sob, and the knocking was clearly within a few feet of him. A patch of sunshine in the darkness of the woods was a shock. What was even more shocking was seeing Magda...now sobbing into her knees while clutching at her belly.

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Lynna’s eyes had become glazed over as the days? Weeks? Months? Maybe even a Year had passed since she had seen the light of day. All days seemed to have blended into one another. Every day was the same schedule. Wake up, walk in circles until she possibly got her only meal of the day, then go back to bed.

Her hair was greasy and unclean , but without much more to do in her little cell she near constantly groomed herself to keep from going insane. She had already discarded the dress she had worn on her last ball. She now only wore her undergarments, which was basically a night dress, it was just so much more comfortable. She had long abandoned trying to wear her shoes, her skin was already disgusting from not being able to bathe, so the last thing she needed was to have blisters all over her feet.

The guard, who Lynna had called Mr.Guard, barely spoke to her. He had cracked a few times, and spoke to her. About his wife, his children, his mother who was sick, and all of the drama going on in his family. His wife hated his mother, and the same could be said for most of his family. His wife didn’t sound like the nicest lady, and Lynna did speak a few times desperately clinging on to any human interaction she could get.

He usually only visited once a day to deliver food and water. The food...was awful compared to what Lynna’s taste had gotten used to. Crude sandwiches made of jam, and something nutty in the middle. Occasionally he would get her whatever a ‘donut’ was ,it was like bread, but sweet with glaze on top of it. As for water, he gave her enough to survive. Not much more than that.

She had become accustomed to thinking he was a friend, or he at least barely cared about her. She wanted to know she was at least somewhat missed. Maybe somebody noticed her absence and didn’t think of it as good.

Maybe…. Just maybe….

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The city was engulfed in madness. Bodies littered the streets, and the smell of burning flesh filled the air. Felicity held her nose in her shirt to prevent herself from most of the smell that filled the air. The smoke was as thick as molasses , and she struggled to breathe through it with Ivan on her back.

‘Oh my goddess...Finsel? What happened?’

Felicity began through the streets yet again after a small break to finally catch her breath. Ivan was knocked out cold, she had to stop to check his breathing every so often to make sure he wasn’t just a corpse.

‘I have to check on the kids…’

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“Magda! Magda!” Alan cried as he nearly toppled Magda over with a hug, his sword fell to the side with a decent clank.

“A-alan?” Magda sniffled, “Alan...I wanna go home…”

‘Should I tell him now? It...seems too sudden…’

“Oh course! We’re gonna go home! Right now!” Alan helped Magda up, “I am so glad you’re okay Magda, I-I never thought I’d see you again!”

“Alan...I-”

“Come on! When we get home we can finally start the life I promised!”

“Alan!”

He wasn’t listening. He couldn’t be. Magda looked down at her stomach...it was so early...what if something had happened what if something was going to happen? She didn’t want to break his heart..

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Ivan’s apartment was a disaster. Pillows were torn, windows were broken, a large clump of pink fur was laid on the ground and a small puddle of blood was splattered near it. The bedsheets were ripped off of the bunk-bed and torn around the room in large pieces. All of this would’ve made Ivan furious. He’d ground the kids for weeks! No, months!

If only the children had been there.

Ivan was on his knees looking down at the floor, his eyes seemingly glazed over. Felicity...just looked down on him, this time not of anger, but of fear.

“Ivan… I’m-”

“If you hadn’t dragged me out there they would still be here!” Ivan cried out to Felicity, not even bothering to look up at her.

“I left them with the most capable person I-”

“Clearly not good enough! Get out.”

“Ivan you know as well as I do-”

“Haven’t you done enough, Felicity!? You never learned how to leave something be. You wonder why your mother prefers Magda over you. I think everybody knows why…”

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“When we get home we can...well I’m not exactly sure now, but we can adopt that one cat you always feed! You can name him! T-the black cat with the white belly!”

Finsel was in near ruins. The last attack by the revolutionaries was brutal, and most of the slums had been affected. Magda didn’t dare leave her own home in fear of what would happen. She hadn’t heard a word from Felicity since she had found out about Ivan’s children, and Giulolo’s disappearance. Now not only the nobles, but the people never got a chance to rest. Magda looked down at her stomach, unsure of how to tell Alan the news. She was barely showing, if at all. She wrapped the robe around herself and looked in the mirror, she thought about what this would do to her body.

She shook the thought away, whatever happened, it would be worth it. Magda walked back over to the bed and laid down. Just as her eyes began to close she heard Alan walk into the room, his face white as snow.

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“We cannot leave Finsel, Felicity.”

“Mother, we don’t have a choice. People won’t even leave their houses anymore!”

“And we will be the exception. If we stay we could-”

“Die.”

“But remember the nobles who stayed and fought back are the ones who end up the strongest.”

“Or they die horrific deaths.”

“It’s worth the risk, Felicity.”

“Mother. You think it’s worth the risk.” Felicity stood up from her seat, and began to the door, “Magda is your star. You control her instead.”

Eliza stood up to stop her daughter, but soon realized she wouldn’t be able to. None of her punishments ever phased the girl in the least. No matter how ridiculous they were Felicity barely flinched. Eliza sat back down, and silently prayed to the goddess for her daughter’s safe return….

As soon as Felicity opened the doors a cloud of smoke ripped through her lungs. Her throat itched and she pulled her dress to cover up her nose and mouth. Her eyes opened widely. It finally happened.

Finsel was covered in flames. The distant screams paralyzed Felicity as she only had one person in mind, Magda.

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Alan stood over the corpse of his lover. He couldn’t stop them. She was far too weak to defend herself from over 3 people,and he wasn’t there to help her. Now he never would be able to.

No tears, nothing. His brain was in too much shock to function. This was all his fault. As soon as he heard footsteps from behind him he withdrew his sword and pointed at the neck of his assailant. A brunette girl looked down at him.

“Blondie! Calm it down!” Felicity looked down at Alan who was now crouching over the body. Protecting it in a way.

“Felicity….” Alan’s eyes watered up and his brain finally understood what was happening, “Felicity!”

Alan buried his face into Felicity’s dress, not caring if he ruined it. Shivers ran through his body despite the roaring heat. His eyes refused to open.

Felicity finally looked down at what he was guarding. Something inside of her broke….

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“Alan, you have to come with me! Please I can’t go alone!” Magda cried as Alan helped her into a carriage that looked very un-noblelike.

“Magda, I have to stay here. I have to protect my people.” Alan said as he gave her the jewelry she had hidden away in the house, “Everybody thinks you’re dead now. These should get you by until the revolution is calmed. You’ll be safe I promise.”

“Alan, you don’t understand I-”

“Magda, I have to get you out of here,” Alan quickly kissed Magda and held her in an embrace.

Magda looked down at the ground and smiled weakly.

" Go….Finsel needs you… now more than ever…"

Alan nodded his head and ran back into Finsel.

Magda looked down at her stomach and the horse began to take her away to a place where she would be safe. Where she was going she did not know. Fate would see to it that she would live a long life.

She watched Finsel as it faded away from her sight. She rested her head on the window of the carriage as she fell into sleep.

A/N: Hey guys! Thank you so much for reading till the end! Sorry to leave you on such a cliffhanger ending, but I have a (kind of) sequel that I’m already working on, and the main character is Lynna. I’m actually super proud that I managed to finish a story without abandoning it halfway through. I’m going to answer some questions that nobody has , but I want to answer them anyway:

The story takes place over around 3-5 years making Magda around 18-21 at the end of the story (I just assume that canonly Magda is 15 or 16 based on her looks.)

Felicity is a year or so older than Magda

Lynna does escape alive, and I like to imagine she’s younger than Magda by a year.

Yes, a whole revolution would’ve happened if Magda wasn’t chosen by Eliza don’t question it just go with it. I do actually have an explanation for it, but Imma keep that to myself for a while.

Technically this fanfiction took over 2 years to finish. I started planning it out in VERY late 2018, then 2019 rolled in and I posted the first chapter to my Amino. I took a long break (2 months I think). Then I was more active. Then I took an even longer break (Almost 8 months i think) then I started getting back into it. Then 2019 ended and 2020 began.

Fun facts!

` Magda was originally going to get with Barris then it got changed to Ivan then it got changed to Alan, then Gocheau, then I changed it back to Alan because let’s be real Ivan doesn’t have much going for him, Barris is nice but I didn't vibe with it , and Gocheau would’ve been hard to write with Magda as a couple.

As compensation to the characters that never got to be Magda’s Lover I made (most, sorry Gocheau) Either main characters (Ivan), or they made guest appearances (Barris)

Originally Eliza was going to be a much bigger part of the story, and there was going to be a lot less revolution and more court drama (I think I’m gonna save that for another fanfic)

At first I wanted Magda to be adopted into the Jorcastle family, but that was quickly scrapped.

For a time the main love interest for Magda was going to be Lynna (Which I do still ship), or Felicity.

I actually wrote a plan for them (Felicity and Magda) to get together but the whole adoptive sisters thing bothered me way too much , so I just dropped slight hints at Felicity having a kinda crush on Magda but more so just being jealous of others relationship with her.

I ship Magda with almost every character that even shows slight interest in Magda in the game.

Felicity was originally going to help Magda with her escape plan, but something goes wrong and Yadda-Yadda she thinks she killed Magda which still would leave Magda and Felicity separated

VERY early on (I mean like first week) this was going to be a songfic (Defying Gravity if you’re curious), and Wicked was a giant inspiration for the ending.

Felicity was originally going to be named Lucille

Alminas was going to be Felicity’s main love interest, but I decided it was probably for the better that Felicity doesn’t have a love interest for plot purposes.

I wanted to have the current events in Helix Waltz to make an appearance, but then I realized that would make the story have a real life timeline and that would not have worked.

One thing I do regret is rushing parts of this story, and eventually I will rewrite it and it will be a lot better paced and with much more meat to the story. I actually don’t really like the way I wrote any of the story but I decided that since it was already floating around the internet anyway I might as well finish it.

Since this Fanfic took over 2 years to finish you can see how much I improved which is why I decided to post this story before eventually rewriting it.

And finally, I still cannot think of a good name for this fanfic, even after 2 years.

I’m really happy that a few people actually liked this story. Honestly I just do this for fun and to hone my skills but writing this honestly made me much more confident in my writing abilities. I know only a few people have read this story to the end and it just makes me happy that I could entertain someone. I do plan on writing another fanfiction and I actually have one that I’m currently working on! I plan on getting one or two chapters out a week since it’s summertime now and I don’t have school to worry about.

Anyway if you read all or even just one chapter of this thank you for the support! Have a good day or night!!

With love,

Bri

#helixwaltz #helix waltz #fanfic #magda ellenstein

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