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from-memphis-with-love · 7 days ago

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The Price of Living

Summary: What happens when a frontier nurse saves an entire town from deadly fever - and names her price? A child of her own, to be given by one of the survivors. When the straws are drawn, fate chooses Elvis Presley - a classics professor turned miner with a fiancée back home. Their marriage of duty becomes something neither expected. Word count: ~6,600 Warnings: None. Sexy but tasteful mention of making a baby.

The Price of Living

When the fever came to Gold Hill, it took the women first.

I remember Mary Wilson clutching her throat on a Tuesday, my hands trembling as I mixed the willow bark tea that had saved so many others back East. By Thursday, she was gone, and the tea sat cold and useless by her bedside. Then it was Martha James, then the Widow Carson, then little Jenny who helped me in the infirmary. The children followed their mothers into the earth, ducklings following in a neat row. I buried them all, my hands cracked and bleeding from the shovel's wooden handle, while the men stood back and watched, their hats pressed to their chests.

"Y’know, you oughta wear gloves," John Matthews said one evening, watching me dig another grave from a respectable distance. "Your hands–"

"My hands need to feel what they're doing," I snapped, then immediately regretted my tone. He was only trying to help, in his clumsy man's way. But I couldn't explain how the pain in my hands was the only thing keeping me sane, keeping me from screaming at God for making me watch mother after mother slip away while I stood by, useless with my teas and poultices.

I alone remained untouched. Perhaps it was because I'd had scarlet fever as a child, or perhaps God had other plans for me. I couldn't say.

What I did know was that twenty-three men now looked to me as their only hope of survival when the fever caught them too. Their eyes followed me everywhere I went, hungry and desperate, like wolves tracking the last deer in winter.

They came to my infirmary one by one at first, then in waves. I stripped their sweat-soaked shirts from their bodies, pressed cool cloths to their foreheads, and forced bitter willow bark tea down their throats. I sang to them when their fever dreams made them cry out for their mothers, their wives, their lost children. I held their hands when they thrashed against the sheets, and I prayed over them when their breathing grew shallow.

When Elvis Presley took ill, I felt a fear I hadn't known since Mary Wilson first showed symptoms. He'd been helping me tend the others, his educated hands surprisingly gentle with the sick.

In health, he'd stood out among the miners – a classics professor from Memphis who'd traded his lectures on Aristotle for a pick and pan. The other men mocked his fine manners and careful speech, but they came to him in the evenings to have their letters written home, appreciating his way with words even as they teased him for it.

Even in sickness, he was beautiful. The fever that made other men gaunt and ghostly seemed to burnish him instead, like gold in a crucible. His dark hair curled damply against his forehead as he twisted in the sheets, calling out for his mother, for his Priscilla, for God. I wiped his brow and sang the hymns he'd played in church, watching his face for any sign that the fever was breaking.

"Angel," he murmured on the third night, his eyes fever-bright as he caught my wrist. "Are… are you an angel?"

"No," I said, carefully loosening his grip. "Just your nurse."

"The angel of Gold Hill," he insisted, his voice cracking. "Everyone says... says you're the only thing keeping death away." He tried to sit up, his movements jerky and desperate. "Don't leave me here. Priscilla... I promised her..."

"Hush now," I said, pushing him back against the pillows. "You ain’t going nowhere. I won't let you." I pressed another cool cloth to his forehead, trying not to notice how his skin felt like silk beneath my roughened hands, how his lips parted slightly at my touch. "Rest. Dream of your Priscilla."

But when he slept, it was my name he whispered - Anne, not Annie like the others called me, just Anne, soft and wondering like a prayer.

Some died despite my efforts. William Parker was the first - a young man, barely twenty, who'd been saving his gold to bring his fiancee west. "Please don't let me die," he begged, clutching my sleeve with strength that belied his wasted frame. "Catherine's coming in the spring. I promised–" He never finished the sentence.

I buried him next to the others, and wondered if his sweetheart would ever know where to lay her flowers.

The others lived, though there were nights I thought I'd lose them all. Nights when the fever rose so high it cooked their brains, made them see devils dancing in the corners. Nights when I had to tie them to their beds to keep them from running naked into the snow, chasing visions of their dead wives. Nights when I caught myself nodding off and jerked awake in terror, certain I'd dozed while another soul slipped away.

They emerged from my infirmary changed men, hollow-eyed and grateful in a way that made my skin crawl. They brought me things: gold nuggets, pretty rocks, wild flowers.

They fixed my roof, chopped my wood, fetched my water. They called me "Miss Anne" and treated me like I was made of spun glass, precious and fragile, when I was the one who had carried their dying bodies and cleaned their sick and buried their dead.

"You shouldn't be alone," they'd say, hovering around my porch like nervous suitors. "Let us help you more."

But I saw the fear in their eyes when they looked at me - fear mixed with something else, something hungry that made me pull my shawl tighter around my shoulders. I was the woman who'd seen them at their weakest, who knew their fever-babbled secrets. The woman who remained when their wives were gone. It was a dangerous combination.

When they gathered at the saloon that night, the air was thick with relief and whiskey. Someone had dragged out an old piano from storage, its yellowed keys chiming discordantly as men who hadn't touched music in months remembered how their fingers moved. The bartender, Tom Sullivan, kept the drinks flowing, though his hands still shook when he poured.

"To Miss Anne!" They raised their glasses, voices rough with emotion and drink. "The Angel of Gold Hill!"

I stood in the corner, my shawl pulled tight despite the heat from the crowded room. Twenty faces turned to me, flushed with whiskey and life. Twenty men who'd seen death's shadow pass over them and lived to tell the tale. Twenty men who owed me everything

It was Tommy Wheeler who brought up the subject of proper payment. "It ain't right," he said, his voice carrying across the quiet room. "What you done for us, Miss Anne. We can't never repay it proper."

"I don't need payment," I said, but they wouldn't hear of it.

“We ought to give her something," John Matthews declared, swaying slightly as he got to his feet. "Something proper, to show our gratitude."

The suggestions came fast and eager. A new roof for the infirmary. A new garden full of medicinal herbs. A piano like the one currently being tortured by drunk fingers.

“Why don’t we ask her what she wants?” Jim Barnes added as if it were the brightest idea in the world. Somehow, it hadn’t occurred to them to ask.

I set down my spoon and looked at them, these men I had nursed back from death's door. They were strong again now, their faces filled out, their eyes bright. They had everything they needed to rebuild their lives – except for what they'd lost.

What I'd lost too.

"I want a baby," I said, my voice quiet. "I want one of you to give me a baby."

The silence that followed was absolute. Then someone laughed - a sharp, ugly sound that died as quickly as it came.

"You can't be serious," said John.

"I am." I looked around the room, meeting their eyes one by one.

"Now, Miss Anne," Tom said carefully, as if speaking to a spooked horse. "Wouldn't you rather have something practical? We could build you a greenhouse, maybe. For your herbs."

"Or a new well," another voice chimed in. "Closer to your house."

"Or a fiddle. Maybe you wanna pick up an instrument!" said a third man.

"I'm twenty-six years old," my voice was stronger now, fueled by their obvious discomfort. "I came west to be a nurse because no man back home would have me. Now all the women are gone, and you want to repay me? Give me what I've always wanted. A child of my own."

The saloon erupted into chaos. Chairs scraped against wooden floors as men jumped to their feet, their voices rising in a cacophony of shock and protest.

"She's gone mad with grief!" someone shouted from the back.

"It ain't proper!" called another.

"Think of what the territory marshal would say!"

John Matthews slammed his fist on the table. "We owe her our lives, but this… this is too much to ask!"

"She saved my Tommy," Wheeler's voice cracked. "But I can't… my Mary ain't even cold in her grave…"

The accusations and protests grew louder, more frenzied. Some men backed away from me like I was carrying the fever again. Others argued amongst themselves, their faces red with whiskey and embarrassment.

"It's indecent!"

"We're God-fearing men!"

"She needs a husband, not a…"

I felt the tears coming then, hot and unwanted. My hands trembled as I gathered my shawl, my medical bag, my dignity. These men had cried in my arms, had trusted me with their fever dreams and desperate prayers. Now they looked at me like I was something dirty, something shameful.

"I should have known better," I whispered, though no one could hear me over the din. My vision blurred as I stood, nearly knocking over my chair in my haste to escape.

I was almost to the door when Billy Maynard's voice cut through the chaos. "Well, hell, if the woman wants a baby," he thundered, "by God, we'll give her one."

Wheeler cleared his throat. "But who…"

"Draw straws," I said. "I don't care who. But that's my price."

They did it right there in the saloon, using pieces of straw from a broom. Twenty men, all of them shifting uncomfortably, none meeting my eyes now. All except one. Elvis Presley stood apart from the others, his handsome face troubled.

When Billy offered him the straws, he hesitated. "I can't," he said. "I'm promised to another. Back in Memphis."

"Draw," Billy said firmly. "You took the same care she gave as the rest of us."

On the men continued, drawing straws with shaking hands, pale faces turned away from me as if I couldn't see their relief when they pulled a long one. Elvis’ fingers trembled as he drew, his educated hands suddenly clumsy as a schoolboy's.

The straw was short.

The room erupted in relieved laughter and back-slapping. Elvis stood frozen, the damning straw in his hand, while I watched from my seat by the fire. His eyes met mine across the room, dark with something I couldn't name.

"It ain't right," someone muttered. "The child'll be a bastard."

"Then they'll have to marry," said Wheeler, and more laughter followed.

But Elvis wasn't laughing. "I told you," he said, his voice carrying that musical lilt that had first caught my attention months ago, when he'd wandered into town with his guitar strapped to his back. "I'm promised to Miss Priscilla back home. We're to be married come spring."

"That was before the fever," Matthews said. "Things are different now."

Different. Yes, everything was different now. I stood up, my chair scraping against the wooden floor. "I won't force anyone," I said quietly. "That wasn't part of the bargain. If Mr. Presley doesn't wish to fulfill the debt, draw again."

But Elvis was shaking his head. "A debt's a debt," he said. "And a promise is a promise. I made one to Miss Priscilla, and now I've made one here. I just…" He ran a hand through his dark hair, mussing it from its usual careful style. "I need time to think."

I nodded once and left the saloon, the men's voices following me into the night. I had time. I had nothing but time, in this town of grateful men and empty cradles.

Elvis avoided me for three weeks after that night. He kept to himself mostly, through his books and his music that drifted down from his room above the general store late into the night - mournful songs that made the dogs howl and kept half the town awake. Every Sunday after church, he'd write his letters to Memphis, seal them with shaking hands, and press them into the postmaster's care like they were made of gold.

I didn't push. I had meant what I said about not forcing anyone. But I watched him, same as I had when he lay burning with fever in my infirmary. He was different from the other men - softer somehow, like clay not yet fired. His hands were unused to labor, though he'd taken his turn with the burial detail same as everyone else. The other men noticed it too, this difference. They'd watch him tune his guitar with those gentle fingers and shake their heads, muttering about men who weren't quite men.

The letter from Priscilla came on a Wednesday. I was in my infirmary, rolling bandages, when I heard the commotion at the general store. Elvis had read the letter right there on the front steps, his face draining of color, then walked straight to the saloon. By sundown, he was roaring drunk, smashing bottles and trying to pick fights with men twice his size.

It took three of them to drag him to my infirmary. They dumped him on a cot, bloody-knuckled and sobbing.

"She's marrying a cotton merchant," he kept saying, over and over. "A proper gentleman. Says she can't waste her youth waiting for a fool who got himself trapped in some godsforsaken mining town."

I cleaned his cuts in silence. What was there to say? She wasn't wrong - he was trapped here, same as all of us. The fever had passed, but the quarantine remained. No one in, no one out, by order of the territory marshal.

Father McKinnery started visiting Elvis daily after that. I'd see them walking together, the priest's black cassock collecting dust, Elvis's head bowed as he listened. Sometimes I'd catch snippets of their conversations - talk of duty and honor, of making the best of God's plan.

"The Lord works in mysterious ways," Father McKinnery would say, loud enough for me to hear as they passed my infirmary. "Perhaps this is His path for you both."

A month later, Elvis appeared at my door in his Sunday best, sober and grim-faced. "I reckon we ought to do this properly," he said, not meeting my eyes. "If you're still wanting what you asked for."

We were married the next day, a quick ceremony in the little church. Elvis spoke his vows in a flat voice, like he was reading from a faraway script. When Father McKinnery told him to kiss the bride, he pecked my cheek like I was his maiden aunt.

He moved his things into my house, but that was all that changed. Each night, he'd lie rigid on his side of the bed, careful not to let any part of him touch any part of me. I'd lie awake, listening to his breathing. Waiting. Sometimes I'd hear him mumbling in his sleep – calling her name, not mine.

During the day, he'd tip his hat when we passed on the street, polite as you please. "Mrs. Presley," he'd say, like I was a stranger he had to show respect to, not his wife. At night, he'd come home late from the saloon, smelling of whiskey and regret, and collapse into our bed without a word.

The whole town watched us, whispering. They saw how he flinched when I reached for him, how he kept his distance even as we shared a roof, a name, a bed. They saw, and they pitied me. The woman who'd saved their lives, now living like a ghost in her own home.

But still I waited, night after night, for him to remember his promise. For him to turn to me in the darkness and give me what I'd asked for. What I'd earned.

Winter came early that year. The passes filled with snow, and the quarantine hardly mattered anymore; nobody could get in or out even if they wanted to. The men huddled in the mines for warmth between shifts, and my infirmary filled with cases of frostbite and fever.

Elvis took to playing in the saloon again. Not for money anymore, but because the men needed something to lift their spirits. He'd sing those old hymns his mama taught him, and for a little while, the men would forget about the empty chairs where their wives used to sit, the silent cradles in their homes.

I'd listen from my place by the fire, pretending to mend someone's shirt or darn their socks. He never looked at me while he sang, but sometimes his voice would crack on certain words - love, home - and I'd see his hands tremble on the guitar strings.

One night, Tommy Wheeler's boy started crying during "Amazing Grace." He was only eight, the last child left in town, saved from the fever by being away at his aunt's when it hit. Elvis stopped mid-verse, his face white as paper.

"Keep singing," Wheeler said gruffly. "Boy's just tired."

But Elvis set down his guitar and walked out into the snow. I found him later, sitting on our front porch, his breath freezing in the air.

"I ever tell you about my mama?" he asked without looking at me.

"No."

"She used to sing that hymn every Sunday. Said it was God's own favorite." He laughed, a sound like breaking ice. "Wonder what she'd think of me now. Married to a woman I won't touch, playing songs in a dead town."

I stood in the doorway, watching the snow collect in his dark hair. "You could touch me," I said quietly. "I wouldn't break."

He turned then, really looked at me for the first time in months. "No," he said slowly. "I don't reckon you would. You're probably ‘bout the strongest person in this whole damn town."

But still he didn't touch me. Just went inside and lay down on his side of the bed, rigid as a corpse, while I stared at the ceiling and listened to the wind howl through the empty streets.

Another letter from Priscilla came two days later. I saw the postmaster hand it to him, saw him tuck it into his jacket without opening it. That night, he burned it in the fireplace without reading it.

"Ain't nothing she could say that would matter now," he said when he caught me watching. "This is my life. For better or worse, like the preacher said."

It wasn't much, as declarations went. But it was something. A crack in the wall he'd built between us.

That night, he didn't turn his back to me when he lay down. He stared up at the ceiling too, his breathing uneven in the darkness.

"Anne," he said, "you ever wonder if God has a sense of humor?"

"Sometimes," I said. "When I think about how He put a man with a beautiful voice like you in a town that's gone quiet."

He was quiet so long I thought he'd fallen asleep. Then I felt his hand move across the sheet between us, his pinky finger just barely touching mine.

"Maybe," he said, "He knew what He was doing after all."

Spring came to Gold Hill like a woman trying on her sister's dress - awkward and uncertain at first, then with growing confidence. The snow melted, revealing the graves we'd dug in fall, but also the first green shoots pushing through the mud. The men started talking about the future again. They smiled more. Laughed sometimes.

Letters started going out - not just Elvis' to Memphis anymore, but dozens of them, to sisters and cousins and friends back East. "My cousin Mary's got a friend," they'd tell each other in the saloon. "Real nice girl, good family. Writes that she'd consider coming West, now the fever's passed."

John Matthews was the first to get a response. He showed the letter to everyone who'd stand still long enough to listen. Three pages of careful handwriting from a widow in Pennsylvania who'd agreed to marry him sight unseen. "She's bringing her sewing machine," he said proudly. "Says she can make curtains."

After that, it was like a dam broke. Every week brought new letters, new promises, new hope. Tommy Wheeler's sister was coming with her two daughters. The blacksmith had a sweetheart in Ohio who'd waited for him. Even Father McKinnery had written to a seminary back East about sending more priests - the town would need them soon enough, what with all the weddings and baptisms surely coming.

I watched it all from my infirmary window, my hands busy with the endless work of keeping men alive. They still needed me for the burns from the mine, the cuts and breaks, the lingering coughs that winter had left behind. But they needed me less now. They looked past me sometimes, their minds already full of the women who were coming to replace the ones they'd lost.

It happened on a Sunday after church. The Wheeler boy – the same one who'd survived the fever by being away – was showing off for the new children, climbing the old oak tree behind the church while their mothers chatted about the upcoming social. I heard the crack before I saw him fall, that sickening sound of breaking wood that's followed too often by breaking bone.

I was running before the screams started, my skirts hitched up past my ankles in a way that would have scandalized the new ladies if they weren't all too busy screaming themselves. The boy had landed wrong, his neck bent at an angle that stopped my heart for a moment. But there was no time for fear. My hands knew what to do even as my mind raced with prayers.

"Don't move him!" I shouted as John Matthews reached for the boy. "Tommy? Tommy, can you hear me?"

His eyes were wide with terror, but he managed a small nod. Good. His neck wasn't broken then. But the way his chest heaved, the horrible whistling sound with each breath. That was bad. Very bad.

"Something's in his throat," I said, more to myself than the crowd gathering around us. "He's choking on it."

I turned him carefully onto his side, supporting his head and neck. The new Mrs. Matthews gasped when I thrust my fingers into the boy's mouth, but I ignored her. I could feel it – a chunk of something he must have been chewing when he fell. Apple, maybe, or one of Mrs. Wheeler's hard candies she always snuck to the children after service.

"Come on, Tommy," I whispered, working my fingers deeper as he gagged. "Work with me here."

The crowd had gone silent, holding its collective breath. I was dimly aware of Elvis pushing through to the front, his church clothes getting dusty as he knelt beside me. Without a word, he took over supporting Tommy's head, his hands steady and sure.

When my probing fingers finally dislodged the candy, Tommy's whole body convulsed. I pulled him up against me, letting him cough and splutter against my shoulder while I rubbed his back. My good church dress would be ruined, but I didn't care.

"That's it," I murmured. "Get it all out. You're alright now."

It wasn't until Tommy was breathing normally again, crying in his aunt's arms while the other ladies clucked and fussed, that I noticed the state of my hands. They were bleeding again, the barely-healed cracks from winter's work torn open by the rough work of saving yet another life.

Elvis caught my wrists as I tried to hide them in my skirts. "Let me see," he said softly.

"It's nothing. Just need to wrap them again."

But he held on, turning my hands over in his. The women around us had fallen silent, watching. They saw my rough, red hands in his smooth, clean ones – a contrast as stark as our match.

"Nothing," he echoed, his voice strange. "You call saving a child's life nothing?" His thumbs traced the scars, the raw places, gentle as Sunday morning prayer. "These hands have done more good than any soft, pretty ones I've ever held."

He looked up then, and the expression in his eyes made me catch my breath. It wasn't pity or guilt or duty I saw there. It was something else entirely. Something that made my scarred hands tremble in his grasp and my heart beat faster than it had during all the emergency.

"We should get some salve on these cuts," he said, but he didn't let go. Not even when Mrs. Matthews started herding the other women away, not even when Tommy's aunt led the still-sniffling boy home.

"Elvis," I said, suddenly conscious of how we must look, kneeling in the dirt behind the church. "The people–"

"Let them look," he said quietly.

That night, he brought me a jar of honeysuckle salve from the general store and insisted on wrapping my hands himself. His touch was different now, less clinical than when he'd helped me tend the sick, more like the way he handled his precious guitar. Like he was touching something valuable. Something worth caring for.

"Isn’t it wonderful?" Elvis said one night, his voice dreamy. He'd taken to sitting up in bed reading the newspaper instead of going to the saloon, pointing out every mention of trains running again, of trade resuming. "Everything's coming back to life."

I thought of the tiny garden I'd kept behind the house, the seeds I'd planted that refused to sprout. "Yes," I said. "Wonderful."

He must have heard something in my voice, because he put down his paper and really looked at me. "You still want it, don't you? A baby?"

"Doesn't matter what I want," I said, folding the quilt back with careful hands. "Some things aren't meant to be."

"I made a promise–”

"You've kept your promise," I cut him off. "You married me. You're a good husband. You don't drink too much or spend all our money or run around with other women. That's more’n most get."

"But we haven't–"

"No," I said. "We haven't. And we won't, unless you want to. I won't have you touching me out of duty, Elvis. I've had enough of men doing things for me out of duty."

He stared at me for a long moment, something like wonder in his face. "You really mean that, don't you?"

"I do."

"Even though it's the thing you wanted most? The whole reason for this marriage?"

I smoothed the quilt, avoiding his eyes. "I learned a long time ago that wanting something doesn't make it right. I wanted to save everyone during the fever, but I couldn't. I wanted to be pretty like Priscilla, but I'm not. I wanted you to love me, but…" I shrugged. "Life goes on anyway."

When I finally looked up, his face had that same expression he'd worn the first time I sang to him during his fever - like he was seeing something he hadn't known was there.

"You're something else," he said softly. "You know that?"

I blew out the lamp and lay down, turning my back to him. "Goodnight, Elvis."

But I felt his eyes on me long after the room went dark.

The first bride arrived in May. Sarah Matthews, formerly Sarah Cooper of Pennsylvania, stepped off the wagon in a blue calico dress with a sewing machine clutched to her chest like a shield. John Matthews lifted her down like she was made of china, his face split with a grin so wide you'd think he'd struck gold all over again.

I watched from my porch as the whole town turned out to welcome her. They'd swept the streets and hung bunting, like it was the Fourth of July instead of a random Tuesday. Even Elvis had put on his good suit to join the welcoming committee, his guitar strapped to his back in case anyone called for a song.

The new Mrs. Matthews looked around at all the men's faces - eager, hungry faces that hadn't seen a new woman in nearly a year - and clutched her sewing machine tighter.

"John wrote that there was another woman here," she said, her voice carrying in the strange quiet. "A nurse?"

"That'd be Mrs. Presley," someone said, and all eyes turned to my porch.

I nodded to her from my rocking chair, not getting up. My hands were busy with mending - they were always busy with something these days. "Welcome to Gold Hill, Mrs. Matthews."

She stared at me for a long moment, taking in my plain dress, my work-roughened hands, my face that had never been pretty even before the fever aged it ten years in as many months. Then her gaze slid to Elvis, standing there in his fine suit with his blue eyes shining like the Pacific and his skin so tanned, and I saw the question in it clear as day.

How did she end up with him?

It was a question I saw more and more as the brides trickled in through spring and summer. They came in ones and twos, clutching their belongings and their dreams of Western adventure. They looked at Elvis - still beautiful despite the hard months, still gentle-mannered and sweet-voiced - and then they looked at me, and I could see them trying to solve the puzzle of us.

The new women brought life back to Gold Hill, sure enough. Curtains appeared in windows that had been bare since the fever. The smell of baking bread replaced the lingering medicinal scents that had hung over the town. Flowers appeared in garden plots that had gone to weeds. There were socials and sewing circles and church suppers. All the trappings of civilization that the men had done without.

I wasn't invited to most of them. The new women were polite enough, but they didn't know what to make of me. I was a reminder of the time before, of the dead women I'd failed to save, of the desperation that had brought them here to marry men they'd never met.

"Don't let it trouble you," Elvis said one night, watching me watch the lights in the church basement where the Ladies' Aid Society was meeting. "They're just scared. Everything's strange to them here."

"I know strange," I said. "I live with it every night."

He flinched at that, and I immediately regretted the words. We'd achieved a kind of peace in our marriage of convenience; he no longer avoided my eyes or flinched when I passed him the coffee pot, and sometimes he even told me about his day or asked my opinion on things. It wasn't love, but it was a sort of friendship, and I'd learned to be grateful for small mercies.

"I'm sorry," I said. "That wasn't fair."

"No," he said quietly. "It was perfectly fair."

He went back to his newspaper, and I went back to my mending, and we sat in our familiar silence until bedtime. But that night, when I was almost asleep, I heard him whisper:

"You deserve better than strange."

I pretended not to hear him. It was easier that way.

The next wedding was set for August – Tommy Wheeler's sister Emma and her girls were finally arriving, and she'd been corresponding with the blacksmith. They'd decided to marry the day she arrived, "to avoid any awkwardness," as Father McKinnery put it.

The whole town was buzzing with preparations. The women baked and sewed and decorated the church, while the men built a proper house for the new couple. Even Elvis was caught up in the excitement, practicing wedding songs on his guitar late into the night.

I kept to my infirmary, tending to the usual injuries and ailments. But one afternoon, Emma Wheeler's eldest daughter found her way to my porch. She was maybe twelve, with Wheeler's stubborn chin and suspicious eyes.

"Mama says you're the one who saved everyone," she said without preamble. "During the fever."

"I tried," I said. "I couldn't save everyone."

"But you saved Uncle Tommy. And Mr. Presley." She looked at me hard. "Is that why he married you? Because you saved his life?" Before I could answer, Elvis's voice came from behind me: "No, little miss. I married her because she's the strongest, bravest person in this town. She could have left when the fever came, but she stayed. Could have given up when it got bad, but she fought. Could have asked for gold or land or a ticket back East as payment, but all she wanted was to bring new life to a place that had seen too much death." He paused. "I married her for that.”

The girl stared at him, then at me, then scampered off without another word. I kept my eyes on my mending, though the stitches had gone crooked.

"You didn't have to say all that," I said finally.

"Didn't say anything that wasn't true." He sat down in the other rocking chair, the one that had become his over the months. "Been thinking a lot lately. About what makes a person worth something."

"Have you now?"

"Priscilla," he said the name carefully, like it might shatter, "she used to tell me I was worth something because I was a professor. Because I was handsome and had prospects and I could play a tune. But you…" He picked at a loose thread on his sleeve. "You look at every broken-down miner like he's worth something, just because he's alive and trying his best."

I tied off my thread, started a new seam. "Everyone's worth something."

"See, that's what I mean." He leaned forward, elbows on his knees. "You really believe that. Even after everything you've seen. Everything you've lost."

The wedding was three days later. I wore my second-best dress and sat in the back of the church, watching Emma Wheeler become Mrs. James Goodall. Elvis sang "Amazing Grace" during the ceremony, his voice filling the little church like sunshine. The new Mrs. Goodall cried, and all the other women cried with her.

At the celebration after, the women laid out pies and cakes on long tables, competing to show off their skills. I hadn't brought anything. My cooking was functional at best, meant to keep men alive rather than please them. I stood at the edge of the crowd, watching the dancing, until Elvis appeared at my elbow.

"Dance with me," he said.

"Elvis–"

"Please." He held out his hand. "My wife should have at least one dance at a wedding."

So I danced with him, there under the August sky. He held me carefully, properly, like a gentleman dancing with a lady at a ball. But his hand was warm against my back, and when the music ended, he didn't let go right away.

That night, he sat on the edge of our bed instead of lying down straight away. "Know what I thought about today? During the ceremony?"

I shook my head, working the pins out of my hair.

"I thought about our wedding. How quick it was. How I didn't even look at you properly when I said my vows." He twisted his hands together. "I've been thinking maybe we could… maybe we should do it again. Proper this time. With music and cake and dancing. If you'd want that."

My hands stilled in my hair. "Why would you want that?"

"Because you deserve a real wedding. Because I want to say those vows again and mean them this time." He swallowed hard. "Because I think maybe God knew what He was doing when He had me draw that short straw, and I've been too stupid to see it."

"Elvis." I turned to face him. "Don't say things you don't mean. Not about this."

"I do mean it." He reached out, touched my cheek with shaking fingers. "I mean it more than I've meant anything since I came to this town. You're not what I thought I wanted. You're better. You're kind and strong and good, and I've been sharing a bed with you for months without seeing what was right in front of me."

"And what's that?"

"A woman worth loving," he said simply.

His kiss tasted of promise and wonder, of months of longing finally set free. My hands found his hair - that beautiful dark hair I'd smoothed back from his fevered brow so long ago. His fingers trembled as they traced my face, my neck, learning me like a new song.

The lamp burned low, casting long shadows on the walls of the room we'd shared for months without sharing. His hands moved with purpose now, no longer hesitant or guilty. When he touched me, it was like the first warm rain after drought, like spring earth opening to seed.

"Want to give you everything," he whispered against my neck. "Want to put our baby in you."

I pulled back just enough to see his face in the lamplight. "You're sure?"

"More sure than I've ever been about anything." His eyes were dark, serious.

When he laid me down on our marriage bed, it wasn't like all those nights we'd lain stiff and separate, a canyon of silence between us. He took his time, touching me like I was precious, whispering sweet words against my skin. And when we finally came together, it was like finding a piece of myself I hadn't known was missing.

"My love," he called me, over and over. "My strong, beautiful love."

After, he held me close, his heart thundering under my ear. "We'll do it right now," he said. "Everything. A proper wedding, a proper home. No more hiding in the shadows while the town moves on without us."

And he kept his word. The next Sunday, he stood up in church and announced our plans to renew our vows. The new women whispered behind their fans, but their husbands - the men I'd nursed through fever and grief - they stood up one by one.

"I'll make the cake," said Tommy Wheeler's wife.

"We'll decorate the church," said Mrs. Matthews.

"I've got fabric for a proper wedding dress," offered the seamstress.

They rallied around us, these women who'd come to make new lives in our broken town. Maybe they finally understood something about love and duty and the strange ways God works His will. Or maybe they just saw what I saw - Elvis Presley looking at his wife like she hung the moon and stars.

The town changed after that. The new women stopped seeing me as a relic of the fever times and started asking my advice, about childbirth and medicine, yes, but also about love and marriage and making a life in this harsh land. Their children came to my porch to hear stories of the fever days, no longer afraid but proud to know the woman who'd saved their fathers and uncles.

Seven months to the day after that first real kiss, I felt our baby move inside me. Elvis laid his hand on my growing belly, tears in his eyes.

"See?" he said softly. "God knew exactly what He was doing."

#elvis presley #elvis fans #elvis #elvis fanfic #elvis presley fanfiction #elvis presley fic #elvis fanfiction #elvis presley fanfic #elvis fic #elvis x oc

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sunlightmurdock · 1 year ago

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Operation Apollo | 2.8 | Jake Seresin x Reader (18+)

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Synopsis: After a threat is made against her life, the President’s grown up daughter gets her security tripled. Ex-Navy and current Secret Service, Jake Seresin is devoted to being the best at everything he does. He isn’t going to let a bratty little girl cost him this job.

Warning: age gap, power imbalance, enemies to lovers, danger and angst, manipulation, sucky parents, grief and manipulation, lying, distressing themes throughout but especially towards the end of the chapter. Graphic violence, dangerous situations, revenge, wc: 3.5k

For as long as you can remember, you had known that your father was going to be president. It was always discussed as a given. It was the coup de grace; he had been working towards it much longer than you had even been alive.

Those fourteen hour work days, and sleepless nights. The hard decisions and the time away from his family. All along, Matthew had sworn that it would be worth it. It would, one day, be enough.

Then, the first set of polls came in after those primary debates the summer before his first election run and with it, intel that Matthew plunged a sixth of his savings in to. Politics and bribery go hand in hand across most of the world; this wasn’t even the first step off of the beaten path.

The intel was clear as day; It wasn’t enough. It wouldn’t be enough. All of that time, and work, and desperation that he poured into his career, it wasn’t going to be enough to win him the presidency. The guarantee was next to nil.

But there was still time.

He remembers one evening, in particular, sitting with his advisors in his home office, and just sobbing. Every birthday he had missed, every milestone — it was all going to be for nothing.

“Look, Matt,” Arnie had said, stubbing his thin rolled cigarette out into a crystal ashtray and sitting back in the leather arm chair, sinking into it like the lazy waste of space that he was. He was a good friend of the family back then. “There’s still time. We’ve got options, buddy. Plenty of ‘em.”

Matthew had rolled his neck back slowly — he still remembers the stress-induced stiffness those days had caused him — and pinched the bridge of his nose.

“Yeah, Arnie? — And what options are those?” It was a biting remark, untrusting and downright hateful by that point. Arnie had promised many things already, and rarely had delivered. On the times that Matthew thinks back to his twenty year friendship with Arnold Paulson, he finds himself glad that that asshole now resides six feet under.

The older guy had just shrugged, letting that snide little smile creep across his face. “I know a guy. I think he might be able to, uh… help you out. For a fee, if you get where I’m coming from.”

Ellis Armstrong. After three days, and more phone calls than you care to remember, you have a name. He’s a business-man, and a rather successful one at that. Works in corporate development — he’s not hidden from the public eye like you would expect a guy like this to be.

No, he’s got thirteen offices spanning three continents and a portfolio that would put the Forbes list to shame. Once upon a time, he had been a friend of the family. It’s easy to piece together the headshot of him sitting at the wide, mahogany desk in his new office and the fuzzy memories of the tall man in your father’s office late at night.

You remember him distinctly. The sound your bare feet had made, tiptoeing down that long, curving staircase in the old house. Far past your bedtime, your princess nightgown grazing your ankles. The halls dark, illuminated by lights pouring out from under doors. The house was never really empty back then. Pushing open the heavy pocket doors that separated your father’s office from the parlour.

The gaunt, tall blond man sitting in the armchair. His sunken eyes that had seemed so dark in the dimly lit room. His thin lips and hollow cheeks. The long, straight nose and the deep lines between his brows. Skeletal and still, he had looked like a monster. Something that belongs in the dark, lurking in wait.

“What are you doing up, princess?” Matthew had scooped you off of your feet and suddenly you were looking at him instead, in all of the warmth and glory and familiarity of a man adored by his little girl.

“I couldn’t sleep.” You remember, but it’s hazy now. You don’t remember the softer, higher pitch of your voice or really what had made the man in the chair quite so scary looking, or what had driven you out of the safety of your bed that night.

There’s a fondness to his smile in those hazy memories, a softness to his touch that feels so far away now. The stars and unicorns on your bedsheets, and the stuffie he had tucked under your chin. The safety of your childhood bedroom, with the warm pink glow of your nightlight and the embrace of your stuffed animal. How far away the fear of that man in the chair had felt once your father had kissed the top of your head and closed your door.

It doesn’t just feel far away, it is far away — everything about it. Your parents no longer own that house, you’ve long outgrown that bed and that stuffed animal ended up in the donate pile after one of your big moves. You’re no longer hiding from the scary man sitting in the armchair; you’re looking for him.

“I don’t understand,” You do, but showing your cards has never been part of your strategy. The woman opposite you forces her creasing mouth into a deeper frown as she pulls her coffee cup protectively closer. “Tell me, exactly, what you remember about your time working for my father.”

If Allen knew where you were, he would skin you alive. If Manny knew, he would be right here with you. If Jake knew, you wouldn’t be here at all. He would have locked you in a hallway closet before he let you set something like this up.

The woman sitting opposite you is a timid little redhead with big brown eyes and a disposition that brings new clarity to the term ‘afraid of her own shadow’. She’s jumpy, and looking over her shoulder constantly. You, are considerably cooler for a person more alone than they have been in more than a decade.

Her name is Ida — she was your father’s personal assistant the year before his first election, and it cost you to even get her to this cafe in Pasadena. You remember the long skirts and the narrow glasses, but you don’t remember Ida being quite so… afraid.

“He wasn’t— he isn’t a bad man, darling. That’s what you have to understand, it’s just that—“

“Ida, slow down.” You bite, growing tired of this. You don’t have long before someone notices that you’re gone, if they haven’t already. The sky outside is grey, and sullen, the cafe is almost empty for now but the lunch rush is approaching. “This isn’t about whether he’s a good guy or not. Tell me where Ellis Armstrong comes into this.”

Sitting opposite you, the mouse-like woman’s eyes turn wide like saucers as she shrinks down further into her seat, wringing her hands into the checked fabric of her skirt.

“He wasn’t going to win the election by himself. There was intel out there that… painted him in a bad light.”

“Details, Ida.” You click the pen and stare across at her impatiently. She swallows softly and checks around her again.

“Your father had an affair. It was all going to come out — it would have tanked any kind of campaign he could have put together, and you remember what times were like then… the kind of money it would have taken to make that go away…” The coffee mug in front of her scalds her trembling hands as she finally lifts her chin enough for you to look her in the eye. Raindrops start to beat into the sidewalk outside. A silence sets across the coffee shop as the soft indie playlist stops between tracks.

If you were still little, padding barefoot along the hall in your princess nightdress, this would have hurt so badly. The warm smile and his gentle disposition — and he was already betraying you, even then. You’re not little now. It doesn’t hurt like it would have then. You scrawl messily across the page.

“What was her name, who did she work for?”

Ida pauses briefly, blinking. Truthfully, she hadn’t been expecting this calculated coldness from you. She’s seen the videos of the frightened girl clinging to her bodyguard. She wonders how far he might be from you today.

“Suzy Blake. She was a political analyst for the New York Times back then.” Ida tells you, turning her head and checking through the rain-dotted front windows of the shop. You scribe the information and look back up to her, unsatisfied.

“All I’ve got on this is your word?” You prompt her.

“And her daughter — Matt never took a paternity test, but Suzy was always so sure.” This, Ida can see it worm its way under your skin, writhing under those years of collected conditioning. She blinks across at you and taps her nails against the coffee cup, glancing down at the milky liquid.

You have never heard of Suzy; couldn’t even begin to picture what she looks like. Her daughter would be nine, at least, maybe older. She could look like you, maybe. You press your lips together and grind the tip of the pen into the lined page, threatening to leave indentations of your anger through the rest of the book at once.

“So, Ellis paid for her to disappear?” You confirm, looking back up at Ida with an iciness that gives her a glimpse of her former boss.

“Ellis paid for a lot of things.” Ida answers you suddenly faster than she has in the entire hour that you’ve been sitting here. She doesn’t look at you as she says it, lifting the mug from the saucer and taking a long drink of her latte. The liquid shivers in the cup, disturbed by her trembling fingers.

“Ida.” You sigh, growing frustrated. She turns her head and looks towards the window again, craning her neck slightly. Frightened of her own shadow, you condemn her cowardice. “Details.”

Her eyes follow two raindrops as the grey droplets race along the windowpane. “He bought the presidency for your father.”

Your father is a proud man. He has told you the story plenty of times, of how your grandfather had tried to give your parents the down payment for a house, how your father chose to spend his first year of marriage in a studio apartment rather than taking it. Back then, you wouldn’t have believed he could do such a thing.

Now, you aren’t sure where to draw the line on where your beliefs lie.

“Extra campaign funding, promotions, big names,” Ida’s cup jingles as she sets it rockily back down onto the saucer. She turns her head back to the table, but avoids your gaze nonetheless. “Votes. Ellis made it all happen. He saved your father’s career.”

Your gaze flicks up from the scrawled information on the page, and lands on her hands. She picks restlessly at her cuticles, her attention shifting to every corner of the room but you. Your brows draw together seriously, taking a moment to check the empty space around you before you focus on her.

“And what did my father do to him?”

Such a clever little girl — that’s what Ida remembers most of you. So inquisitive, and engaged. So interested. It’s such a shame that no one had time for you, you really deserved someone who would have answered those wonderful questions you came up with.

She swallows softly, unsure of exactly how much information is encompassed by the umbrella of ‘everything’. In her industry, you never let go of all of your secrets at once. That’s just bad business.

“He ran for re-election,” Ida says calmly, her voice more confident sounding, even in its soft tone. She exhales slowly. “And, after the successes in his first term, it became clear that he could win the presidency again. Without Mr. Armstrong.”

Across the table, you set the pen down on the edge of the notebook and check the time on your watch. You should be getting back before Allen has time to deploy a whole search party.

“Again, Ida… I’ve just got your word on this.” You remind her. A jaded assistant from nine years ago isn’t exactly the concrete evidence that you broke out of your house for. The fear in her eyes is all the proof you need, but that won’t stand up in court.

You’ve been thinking about that a lot recently, as your research has deepened into your father’s past. You came across a picture yesterday, where he was your age, and smiling in the foreground of a Greenpeace conference. It struck you to consider if that young man would hate the man he was going to become as much as you have grown too — if maybe the two of you would have gotten along once, if things were different.

If you would be able to stand up in court and send the smiling young man, with the purest of intentions, to prison.

“You’re right,” She starts to shake her head and her chair scrapes across the floor. The loudest sound that has come from her all day. She twists in her seat and grabs her jacket and her bag from the back of her chair. “You’re right, I can’t prove this. This was a bad idea…”

Your eyes go wide as she scrambles for her things. “No, Ida, wait—“

She pauses, briefly, to look you in the eye. “I’m sorry.” She turns swiftly, and heads for the door, dinging the bell above it and slipping out into the sheets of grey rain outside the door. You slam your notebook shut and fumble to slip it into your back, all thumbs and no fingers, stuck in the struggle as she disappears from the view of the front window.

“Shit…” You mutter, slinging the bag onto your shoulder, forgetting your coat completely as you head after her. She’s much faster than she is loud. Rain chills your cheeks and dampens your hair before the bell above the door is even done ringing. Your shoes slap against the pavement, splashing fresh rainwater onto your jeans. You round the corner and squint through the grey ahead of you in search of her.

Her plaid skirt dips behind a car up ahead as she crosses to the driver’s side.

“Ida! Wait!” You call out for her, securing a hand around your bag as you jog to keep up, rushing for the blue sedan as she ducks into it. It doesn’t take you long, her hands are shaking too much to get the keys into the ignition. You slow, but don’t make it to a complete stop, reaching out to knock hard against the passenger window, as something cold, sharp-edged and hard slams into your right eye socket.

Your elbow hits the ground first, then your knee, then your left temple, before your body collapses to the wet pavement all together. Thrown off balance and reeling, your years of conditioning haven’t ever prepared you for this. Your skull aches, throbbing like you’re being hit with that first impact over and over, before you even feel the fingers curling around your arms and hoisting you off of the ground.

The car door clicks open. Blood rushes to the right side of your face, swelling in circles to form the deep bruise that will be left behind. Slow, blinking, your eyes drag themselves open and blink as you realize that it wasn’t the door of the car that opened. A second impact comes, but this one isn’t stone — it’s all skin. You can feel the warmth of the hand, and the ridges of each knuckle, as it drives forwards into your face.

After that, you can only imagine how easy you make for them to get you in that trunk. It hurts too much to open your eyes. Maybe that’s a pathetic thing to think, as you start to think of what they’ll do to you next — what pain is yet to come. But, it’s dark anyway, and in here, at least you’re alone. Your phone is in the bag. Maybe that’s still on th pavement, or maybe it’s in the car. But it isn’t with you.

Each turn sends you forwards or back, your body rolling over the thinly carpeted trunk, slamming into the back of the seats or the metal of the hatch. You can feel your face swelling, the heat from it stings like a burn.

Jake’s going to be so angry with you, for doing this to yourself.

Maybe it’s just a short ride, or maybe you black out a little on the way, there’s no way of knowing for sure. But, when your eyes feel open, they’re trying to focus to the new bright light after ages of dark. When they’re closed, it doesn’t look much different.

It’s cold, and the echo of the voices around you tells you that the space you’re in is wide open and empty. A warehouse, most likely. The perfect spot for an execution.

You’re held up by a hand on each of your arms, and your feet drag, scrambling for leverage against the ground as they tug you forwards. There’s some fight left in you after all. If it lasts long enough for someone to figure out where you are, that’s another story. You should have told Manny. Or left a note. Something.

The country is going to put your father on a pedestal when he’s grieving the loss of his beloved daughter.

Abruptly, you’re thrown down into a chair and your arms are torn backwards, making you cry out. Rope. Heavy, and fraying, rough against your wrists as you’re bound to the metal backing of a wooden chair. Fingers dig abruptly into either side of your cheeks, pressing the flesh of your mouth into your teeth until you’ve got no choice but to open up in complaint.

The second that your lips part, something is forced between them. A dry rag. It’s tied tight at the back of your head, digging into your cheeks, muffling your sounds of struggle.

Muffled and restrained, there’s no way to defend yourself when another blow comes. It hits the centre of your face hard, another fist, this one harder than the first. Not pulling the punch in the slightest. Instantly, liquid streams from your nostrils and the taste of copper floods your tastebuds.

Your screw your eyes shut and force yourself to blink, you force your eyes to adjust. You refuse to surrender your last sense. Gradually, the room steadies and your vision focuses. It’s grey and industrial, illuminated by a singular lightbulb dangling from the ceiling. Empty, almost, bar a few storage crates, and a scary man sitting in front of you.

He smiles softly as your gaze settles on him and burns with rage.

“I know, I know,” Ellis offers with a small smile. He gives a small shake of his head. “This is none of your fault, darling. I know that. I’m sorry, really I am.”

You’re silent opposite him, your heartbeat thudding in your ears, sickened by the fact he has the satisfaction of watching you bleed. Turning your head slightly, you catch sight of the two men in your peripheral. Security, you guess, in case you do something.

This time, when you turn your head, you aren’t scared. The man in front of you is afraid of little, old you — so much so, that he needs backup.

“But Matt has a debt that I’m… not willing to forgive.” Ellis is wearing a green crewneck and black jeans, not like the suits in his pictures. This must be a casual kind of affair for him. His thin lips twitch, hinting at a smile as your gaze remains, unwavering, on him.

Saliva pools in your mouth, copper-tasting as your nose continues to stream with blood. It saturates the makeshift gag, spilling down your chin, your jaw aching and numb at the same time, pins and needles stinging through your hands as the restraints bruise your wrists.

“You understand, don’t you? — Smart girl like you, you get why we had to go after you, I mean.” Ellis sits opposite you with his long legs stretched in front of him, his palms braced on the cargo box that he is perched on. Maybe it’s because he’s closer now than he ever was before, or maybe it’s just because you aren’t a little girl anymore — but you look into those dark, hollow eyes and there’s not a fibre of your being that needs your father to rescue you from him.

“Fuck you.” You spit. It’s easy enough to pretend that the damp rag secured around your mouth doesn’t cut into the corners of your mouth when you speak. You’re stronger than that.

Ellis presses his lips together and sits forwards, his gaunt face leering closer to you as he twitches towards a smile. He lifts one of those bony, skeletal hands and reaches for his phone, angling it towards your bruised face. “Don’t worry, darlin’ — we’ll get you back to your boyfriend soon enough. Just smile for the camera.”

tags: @alanadetigy @thedroneranger @momc95 @basicchelsea @perpetuelledaydreaming @cherrycola27 @eviesaurusrex @xoxabs88xox@desert-fern @hotch-meeeeeuppppp @khaylin27 @cowboybarbie @marchingicenotes7 @marantha @lgg5989 @herladyshipxx @chaoticweirdogeek @mak-32 @obiwankenobis-lap @diamond-3 @wolvesofthewinter@shawnsblue@itsmytimetoodream

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yellowbunnydreams · 1 year ago

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Mechanised Devotion (Part 1) ~Steve Raglan/William Afton x Female Reader~

~ Please be nice to me, this is my first time writing fanfiction in a while and honestly have just been experiencing the phenomena that is Matthew Lillard as William Afton. Also, first time posting on tumblr! Also thinking of making this a multi-part series, so feedback is really appreciated!~

CW: Minors DNI, (18+ ONLY), afab reader, legal age gap (Reader- 20's, William - 40's), mention of crimes and violence, blood, mentions of child death (it's FNAF, what did you expect?), past trauma; abusive relationships.

When it had been suggested by your previous manager that you should see a career counsellor, you had thought it was a funny joke. You had laughed at the idea of something such as going to see another human being who's job was solely to tell you what jobs you were good and qualified for.

Until the paperwork had been handed over in an unsealed manila envelope letting you know that you had been terminated.

Unemployment had hit you like a truck, but without the pay-out that might have come from the trucking company. Filing paperwork to try and get even a few dollars a week to survive and contribute towards your house-share whilst already struggling to try and push through college had fallen by the wayside and you had been hitting the pavement both physically and online to try and find your next job.

That perfect one that was sure to turn up the next day, or maybe the next week.

But as somewhat expected, that moment had never arrived and neither did that job. So it was with great reluctance that you found yourself in a drab beige building with the occasional sound of human misery making the area feel like anybody was left alive in the room despite the faint clicking of the keyboard from the receptionist.

'Would it have killed them to put a small plant or something in the room?' You found yourself thinking as you looked around, almost missing the gesture from the receptionist lady who scowled over her glasses at you and handed you a slip of paper.

"Your councillor will see you down the hall, third door on the left."

"Thanks ma'am." your voice was quiet, and the woman scoffed before shooing you away with her somewhat ridiculously long nails. You wondered how she managed to do anything with them, but your thoughts quickly turned to the office you were supposed to find as you set off quickly down the hall.

The walls were beige, the floors were beige and you were minorly impressed that they had found somewhat beige doors as you moved down the hall cautiously. But the door you needed seemed almost comically like an old episode of Scooby-Doo where it was easy to tell what object was going to be interacted with due to the significantly different colours and quality of drawing. For some reason, the one door you needed was a nice deep wooden colour, although you seriously doubted it was real wood in a place like this. It took you a moment to breathe deeply, steeling your nerves and running your hand through your hair to tidy it up a bit, hand smoothing down your skirt before reaching up and knocking.

There was sound of shuffling from inside before a smooth, warm voice that came from inside though slightly muffled. "Come on in!"

Entering slowly, you blinked as you spotted a man sat at the desk infront of you, his hair peppered with greys despite being a cool brown colour and his slightly gaunt face adorned with greying stubble. Glasses perched on the end of his nose, which he looked over the rim of to see you before reaching up and pushing them back onto his face with his index finger, standing up with a warm, lopsided smile. What surprised you next was how tall he was. The guy was easily over six feet tall, and you felt dwarfed by his sheer size, broad shoulders accentuated by a neat by rumpled beige plaid shirt and a neatly knotted tie.

"You're my new client right? Come on in! Sit, sit!" he gestured to the cracked plastic chair opposite the desk with a large hand before extending it to shake your own, hand engulfing yours and allowing you to feel how rough and calloused they were compared to your own.

'How does an office worker get such rough hands?' you wondered as you took a seat, hands automatically tucking your skirt underneath you as you sat in the hard plastic chair. Blushing as you felt the man's grey eyes wandering over your appearance with something akin to disinterested amusement before he opened a folder and made a humming noise as he scanned it.

It allowed you to look around his office, noticing several framed diplomas on the walls, surprised by the amount of colour in the room with the warm wooden bookcase and even the occasional muted purplish-blue folder dotted amongst the shelves. You noted his room smelt like coffee, both freshly brewed and stale grounds somehow, a faint smell of smoke and cologne. Sniffing quietly, you wondered if perhaps the person who had sat there before you had been a smoker and worn some cologne to try and impress. But you supposed that you had gotten dressed up yourself despite your scuffed up converse ruining the somewhat ill-fitting blouse and skirt giving some illusion of professionalism.

"So, what are we going to do with you?" His voice made you jump as you suddenly snapped your attention back to him. Heart pounding as you blushed, realising as he tilted his head slightly to one side that he had caught you off-guard and slightly snooping.

"Pardon sir?" You asked, swallowing softly as you met his gaze for a moment before you looked down at your hands again. Picking slightly at your nails and more specifically the pale blush nail polish you had hastily tried to apply yourself that morning to hide the fact that you bit your nails. He paused before sighing and leaning forwards onto his elbows, chin resting on his hands as he gave you a somewhat lazy smile.

"I asked, miss..." he glanced at the paperwork before letting your name roll off his tongue in a way that made your heart pound slightly. You weren't sure why it did, but some tiny part of your brain was eager to hear him say it again. "what I was going to do with you. You have a clean employment record...aside from all the dismissals due to.." He paused and pulled his glasses down to peer over them to stare the text, his lips moving silently as he read before putting his attention back onto you. "it says here 'staffing issues and personal life interferance'?" Raising a quizzical eyebrow

"I um... I had some issues at home at that time Mr..." Glancing down at the nameplate on his desk, you realised he had never formally introduced himself to you apart from the handshake. "Raglan. I'd rather not talk about it."

"Well, I can't help you find a job if you don't help me help you." The man you now knew as Steve Raglan sighed, giving you another one of those lopsided smiles that made you feel like you were talking to a sweet, disappointed but supportive dad and gave you a pang in your chest that you might be letting this total stranger down.

"You don't have to tell me today, but I want to see you next week and I want you try to open up, tell me about what was going on and I might be able to offer something." Steve offered, gesturing to his pile of potential job prospects. You weren't aware that he was looking at you again, wondering if you purposely had chosen something that obscured your body-type and meant you weren't confident in yourself, or whether financially you had chosen what option was available.

The way you sat there meekly and picking at your nails was somewhat infuriating as he wanted to demand you looked at him when he spoke, but he remained calm. You were probably his most interesting client to date, hunching in on yourself and avoidant of filling in the blanks that your open ended statement had left. He decided he would lay on the charm slightly, see what got you to cave in and perhaps provide some amusement as his mind whirled with too many ideas and desire to move, do something and be far more active than his life as Steve Raglan allowed.

"I guess I'll see you next week then, thank you having me Mr. Raglan." you spoke softly and stood up. Watching as the hulking man stood too and opened the door with a somewhat sad smile, like he was watching a bright student walk down the wrong path in life.

"Of course, please, take this and give me a call if you would like to talk about this matter sooner. I hate to see a young woman like yourself go to waste because of one little hiccup." Another pang went through your chest as he spoke. He really did seem dissapointed in you, and some how, you found that you wanted to please the man you had met barely half an hour before.

As you walked down the corridoor, his eyes lingered on your smaller retreating form and tilted his head to one side, licking his lips to wet them for a moment in thought. He hoped whatever you were hiding from his was worth his time, and would perhaps find him another fun thing to play with.

#william afton x reader #steve raglan #steve raglan x reader #fnaf movie #fnaf x reader #william afton #springtrap #springtrap x reader #purple guy #william afton x you #william afton smut

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kelliealtogether · 2 months ago

Text

Safe Bet

Rating: General Audiences

Relationship: Ronan Lynch/Adam Parrish

Additional Tags: Alternate Universe - Non-Magical, Bars and Pubs, Meet-Cute, Bets & Wagers

Words: 1,000

The guy tilted his head slightly as if to say fair, and he lifted a long, lovely hand to push a lock of dusty hair back off his forehead as he looked at Ronan. “I might be, but I hope not.” One corner of his thin lips twitched, then he said, “Because I have a proposition.” Ronan stared. Blinked. He had not anticipated his evening taking this kind of turn when he’d needed to get out of his older brother’s apartment. Ronan loved his brothers Declan and Matthew — who he’d come to stay with while he tried to make his life less directionless — but sometimes three Lynches under one roof was too much. Evenly, he said, “A proposition.”

When Ronan Lynch is approached by a hot stranger at a bar, the last thing he expects is that he'll be drawn into the guy's scheme to win a bet against his coworkers.

Inspired by this post.

Full fic behind the cut. 😌

“Can I bother you for a minute?”

Before he turned toward the voice seeking his attention, Ronan Lynch flicked scraps of gummy paper — a product of scraping at the damp label on his bottle of Goose Island IPA — out from beneath his thumbnail. He wished he hadn’t waited though, once he laid eyes on the guy who’d slid onto the barstool to Ronan’s left. The guy could bother Ronan for a minute, an hour, as long as he wanted, if it meant Ronan got to look at that gaunt and elegant face while the guy graced Ronan with his presence.

Not that Ronan said that. Straightforwardness didn’t fit his aesthetic. Instead, he lifted his beer to his lips, took a too-long sip, swallowed, and set the bottle back down — coasterless — on the bar before asking, “What do you want?”

“I’m here with a bunch of assholes from work,” the guy began, turning his stool ever-so-slightly toward Ronan’s before leaning his wiry forearms — exposed by the cuffed-to-the-elbow sleeves of his red and gray plaid shirt — on the edge of the bar, “and I just bet each of them twenty bucks I could get someone’s number in under five minutes.”

“Kind of sounds like you set yourself up for failure, man,” Ronan replied. “You’re barking up the wrong tree.”

For one, he didn’t dish his number out to people he met at bars. Without exceptions. Mostly because he didn’t meet people at bars. That required talking and Ronan didn’t talk unless he needed to. Or — apparently — unless the hottest guy he’d seen since arriving in Boston sat down beside him. For two, the bar wasn’t crowded, but it wasn’t not crowded. The after-work hours on a Thursday left this guy with plenty of other options for getting a phone number. Plenty of easier, straighter options than Ronan Lynch, but maybe the guy was mildly masochistic. Maybe he liked a challenge.

Ronan stared. Blinked. He had not anticipated his evening taking this kind of turn when he’d needed to get out of his older brother’s apartment. Ronan loved his brothers Declan and Matthew — who he’d come to stay with while he tried to make his life less directionless — but sometimes three Lynches under one roof was too much. Evenly, he said, “A proposition.”

“A proposition,” the guy repeated and leaned a little closer, a move Ronan registered as flirting. Whether for real or for show, he couldn’t tell, but the guy’s I hope not a few moments before gave Ronan hope it could be real. “I’m saving for a new motorcycle.”

“Don’t know what that’s got to do with me,” Ronan told him, snatching another sip of his beer before his mouth or body betrayed him and showed how senselessly turned on he was by the idea of this guy on a motorcycle.

“Well, if I get your number, I get two hundred bucks.”

“A good chunk of change,” Ronan admitted, and he really hated to be the reason this guy wouldn’t be adding that cash to his bike fund. “Except I just told you you’re barking up the wrong tree.”

“But what if I split it with you?” The guy leaned incrementally closer and the red lighting behind the bar put a glint in his blue eyes, and the mischievousness of it senselessly turned Ronan on more. “Pretend to laugh like I just said a good pick up line, write a fake number on my hand, and a hundred dollars is yours. Come on. Easiest money you’ll make all week.”

Ronan gave the guy credit. Fleecing his asshole coworkers to get some money for a motorcycle made for a pretty good scheme. One Ronan could honestly see himself being part of. Sticking it to the man and all. But one hundred dollars made no difference to Ronan. The untimely death of his parents left him with a decent inheritance, and if he invested it wisely — or if he had Declan invest it wisely for him — he could float through life without needing to work much at all. And the guy telling Ronan to give him a fake number…

Good scheme or not, Ronan Lynch was not a liar. If — big if — he ever gave someone his number to someone at a bar, it would never be a fake one. It would be Ronan’s real telephone number or no telephone number at all.

Which — could work in Ronan’s favor.

If — big if — this guy wasn’t selling him a story about saving for a new motorcycle.

“Alright,” Ronan said, because — hell — if he had a shot, he might as well take it. “With one condition.”

“Depends on the size of the condition.”

“Once you get that bike, give me a call.”

Without hesitating a moment, the guy magicked a pen from his pocket and offered it to Ronan, and if Ronan held onto the guy’s hand a little firmer than he needed to as he wrote his name and real telephone number on the guy’s palm, no he didn’t.

After Ronan finished and the pen was capped, the guy tucked it back into his pocket as he looked down at his hand, and when he looked back up at Ronan, he smiled — elastic and amiable — as he said. “Nice to meet you, Ronan. I’m Adam.”

A few minutes later, a stack of five folded twenties appeared on the bar next to Ronan’s beer, and a few weeks later, an unknown 617 number appeared on the screen of Ronan’s phone.

“What?” Ronan answered, figuring it would be Declan calling from a burner.

“Ronan?” the caller replied. “This is Adam. From the bar. With the bet. I got that bike.”

[Read/kudo/comment on it here on Ao3.]

#pynch #my fics

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five-rivers · 9 days ago

Text

Ancestral Chapter 27

AO3

Unfortunately, that wasn’t the end of the communication with Vlad. He wanted to know, somewhat reasonably, what they already knew about Revyvtech and Alicia’s situation, and also the security team. Danny would have honestly told him to forget getting any information at all about the security team (he didn’t think Vlad would turn this into a hostage situation, but he wasn’t sure he wouldn’t), but Gwensyvyr convinced him to go talk to Matthew and the others, since he hadn’t been taking notes on Revyvtech and, really, any instructions to the security teams should come from Matthew and Mr. Kynbaz.

“Just to summarize,” said Matthew, “there’s an evil billionaire syvyr who wants to marry Maddie, adopt you and he let out Pariah Dark at some point?” He looked terribly gaunt and worn in his pajamas, but he hadn’t been sleeping anyway, so Danny didn’t feel as guilty as he could have.

“He did help lock him away again, so I think that bit was more just poor planning,” said Danny.

“And you’re absolutely sure he had nothing to do with the assassination attempt?”

“Yeah,” said Danny. “He sucks, and he has used blood blossoms before, but he hasn’t even tried to kill Dad since he found out about me, and even if he’s deluded enough to think that Mom wouldn’t care about that, he’d know she’d care about this. Besides, I don’t think he knew Avlynys, like, existed before this.”

“And our honored ancestor… approved of telling this man about Alicia? And letting him into the country?”

“It was her idea,” said Danny.

“I understand the concern,” said Gwensyvyr, “but I would say that having him run about without information is more of a risk than otherwise. He is the type who would be used by our enemies quite handily. They would only need to reach out, as we have, to find a way in for him.”

“Wait,” said Danny, “the whole thing was about giving him information? Not about Aunt Alicia? Or, um, the other thing?”

“Well, if he is successful at either, it is a bonus,” said Gwensyvyr, shrugging. “It is more important that he stay away from Revyvtech, however. Would he have listened, if you told him the information outright?”

“No,” said Danny. “He probably wouldn’t have.”

Matthew sighed heavily. “Is this ‘other thing’ important right now?”

“No, it’s actually probably better not to talk about it until after all this stuff is sorted out,” said Danny.

“Alright,” said Matthew. “Okay. I’ll come back to that later, then.”

Danny nodded, a bit embarrassed. He was sleepy, too. He couldn’t think of everything he shouldn’t say or do. He’d had adult supervision.

“Is there anything else?”

“I… don’t think so?” He looked at Gwensyvyr, who shrugged and shook her head.

“Good,” said Matthew. “So, what we’re all going to do is go back to bed, then we’ll get up in the morning and hopefully some of the things we ordered for the Trials will be here…”

“Mom and Dad don’t want us to be in the Trials,” cautioned Danny.

“Yes, I know. They were quite vocal about that only a few hours ago.”

“Oh,” said Danny, “yeah. I’d, um.”

“They can’t legally stop you from participating, anyway, Danny.”

Danny made a face. He’d honestly forgotten.

“We’re all tired,” said Matthew. “Go to bed.”

“So,” said Danny as he finally crawled into bed. “Is there something else?”

“Nothing that wouldn’t carry you away from here,” said Gwensyvyr. “Why?”

“Because you’re still here?”

Gwensyvyr raised an eyebrow.

“Sometimes, you can’t sleep when you’re being watched. It’s weird.” It was one thing when they couldn’t communicate very well, and another thing when they’d had several conversations.

Gwensyvyr sighed dramatically. “Times were, all members of a family slept in the same room. It made it much easier to keep track of everyone.” But she floated up. “I will keep an eye on the others, then.”

“Matthew,” said Danny. “He’s the most likely to be assassinated at this point.”

“Quite so,” said Gwensyvyr. She flew up to Danny and took his wrist. She traced a shape there, over his pulse. “For luck,” she explained, before leaving.

“She’s going to come back as soon as I go to sleep, isn’t she?” Danny asked himself. Then he shrugged. It wasn’t like he never peeked in on anyone, just to make sure.

It was, he reflected, as he snuggled into his pillow, probably a ghost thing.

He woke up to the sounds of a fight. Not a ghost fight, or a gunfight, or even a swordfight, but a verbal, screaming at the top of each other’s lungs fight. Even so, Danny was out of bed and halfway to the door before Gwensyvyr stopped him with a hand on his chest.

“It’s only Madlyn,” she said. “There was a delivery only a few minutes past, of clothing for the Trials, among other things we discussed yesterday. Matthew wanted them to come quickly.”

Danny blinked a few times, not as awake as he would have liked. “Let me guess, there was stuff in there for me and Jazz?”

“Indeed,” said Gwensyvyr.

“I am trying to follow the law!”

“I refuse to lose my children to the same medieval nonsense that killed my parents!”

Danny winced. Really, this was just a continuation from last night, but, still, Danny had hoped…

Wanting to distract himself, he asked, “What things?”

“Vesklydys. Clothing, that is, for the Trials. And weaponry as well. The twins came with it.”

“Um, you don’t mean Iris and George?”

“Kerytyk and Karys,” said Gwensyvyr. “My twins. They are gysys smythe, now.”

Spirits of the forge. It was a fitting title, since they’d been master smiths and swordsmen when they were alive, according to the, well, he couldn’t call them myths anymore, really. But he felt as if there was probably something more to the title than just the words.

“And that’s, um,” started Danny, who still wasn’t entirely awake.

“They help with the rites for the ritual knives,” explained Gwensyvyr. “That one bit of syvyry is well remembered enough, but…”

“But sometimes there are problems,” filled in Danny. “Like someone not doing it exactly right, because they just think it’s a tradition, or not being able to, uh, I guess there must be some ectoplasm involved that gets moved around…”

Gwensyvyr nodded. “I thought that, as you are grounded, I could teach you some syvyry.”

“I’m not grounded,” protested Danny, “and I do already know how to use my ghost powers.

“Mm, yes, yes, and considering that you fought Pariah Dark - no matter how that came about, or what help you had - you must be very skilled at wielding them. And you can see and hear us, when no one else can. But you know there is more to syvyry than that.”

Danny opened his mouth to argue about that, but it was true. He did know. There was the Great Gate Key, for one thing, and the ritual knives for another, but he’d thought those were sort of extensions of ghost powers, like Ember’s guitar, or some rudimentary version of ghost tech, like how blood blossoms acted sort of like the Specter Deflector.

And, he realized, they might be, even if Gwensyvyr was drawing a distinction. But that didn’t mean it wouldn’t be useful to learn them, if he could.

He nodded, thoughtfully, and sat down on the edge of his bed.

“I do not know how much you can learn in the little time we have, but many things have been lost that will still be useful. Either for you, or for those you can teach.”

Danny sat up straighter. “You think the others can learn? Jazz and Matthew and everyone?”

“Maybe,” said Gwensyvyr. “The smiths yet make the knives, even though they cannot hear the ghosts that gather round their forges. Our churchyards are yet hallowed, although no priest I know of has ever glimpsed me. Should one of my own line who has long lived above something like the sacred pool do something similar, even blind, even deaf?” She shrugged. “I wouldn’t be shocked.”

“Okay,” said Danny. “So, what do we start with?”

Gwensyvyr made a face. “That,” she said, “might be tricky. I can tell you all the ways we have taught things in the past, but…” She frowned down at her hand, opening and closing it.

“But not with this little power?”

“Not without being able to touch things,” she said, smiling wryly. “Although, many times an apprentice starts with meditation and philosophy, I do not think that is useful here.”

“Sorry,” said Danny.

Gwensyvyr waved away his apology. “We ought to start with something practical. Protection charms, I think. Do you have paper?”

“Yes, somewhere,” said Danny. He’d brought some expecting to do homework while he was here. He was really going to be behind when they got back to Amity Park…

“Get it. Spellwork of this type all begins with what the English might call a schematic. A skepyn. You will have to trace after me, like with the board, but more precisely…”

Learning magic, as it turned out, was hard.

Following Gwensyvyr’s instructions closely enough to get a result when she couldn’t demonstrate directly was difficult. Danny was having trouble understanding what a success looked or felt like. The materials syvyrys usually used included a lot of things made from natural ingredients that Danny and Gwensyvyr were both pretty sure either contained ectoplasm or had special effects on ectoplasm, and they didn’t have substitutes on hand. The periodic and continuing fights downstairs didn’t help either Danny or Gwensyvyr focus. The Trials were happening as soon as everything could be put in place, even if exactly when that would be was unclear, so each mistake came with the sense of time draining away. It was a bit of a mess.

But Danny had certainly learned skills under stricter time constraints and worse circumstances. Like in the middle of ghost fights.

(Gwensyvyr had given him a look after he’d mentioned that, and he decided not to bring it up again. Ever.)

Gwensyvyr nodded. “I think that worked,” she said, examining the ectoplasm-bright lines he’d painted on his bedsheet. “Go ahead and try to set it on fire.”

“Okay,” said Danny, snapping his fingers so that a tiny tongue of ghost fire hovered above them. “Wait, is this wool? Wool doesn’t catch fire, does it? Tucker was reading to me about internet drama and that’s big in the knitting community.”

Gwensyvyr blinked at him. “How could I know what it’s made of if I can’t touch it?”

The door opened. “I think it’s okay to come down for lunch, since–” She broke off, staring. “Are you lighting your sheets on fire?”

“No,” said Danny, hastily extinguishing the light. “Do you ever knock?”

“No, and Mom and Dad don’t always, either, which is why you should lock your doors.”

“There isn’t a lock,” pointed out Danny.

“Barricade, then.”

“There is a spell for that, actually,” said Gwensyvyr. “But you should go. You haven’t eaten, and it may be the best chance you have to see what was brought.”

Danny stood up and started folding the sheet. “What ended the fight, anyway?”

“Which one?” said Jazz. “Matthew had to actually go to work a while ago, Joanna is crying in her bedroom, that’s the first time I saw Eugene get mad like that, by the way, and the rest…” She sighed. “I think Mom really thought that she might get Iris and George on her side, since they didn’t believe in ghosts before, but then they started talking about peer review and double blind studies, and I’m not sure how relevant everything they said was to studying ghosts, or if they even meant it to be relevant or if they were just, you know–”

“Trolling,” supplied Gwensyvyr.

“Yes, that,” said Jazz, before doing a double take. “Gone again.” She shook herself. “What are you two doing up here, anyway?”

“Well, I’m probably going to explain everything wrong,” said Danny, depositing the neat square of the sheet on his bed, “but it’s like this…”

#danny phantom #ancestral fic #ancestral #fic #my fic

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writing-whump · 5 months ago

Text

The Breaking Point

Seline and Isaiah have a TALK. Some pain and breathing problems after heart surgery mentioned.

"Are you feeling nauseous?" Seline asked as she adjusted the pillow behind Isaiah's back on the couch.

"Uhm," was the elaborative answer. She suppressed the urge to roll her eyes.

She fought tooth and nail for Isaiah's release from the hospital once she was sure she understood everything the recovery phase would entail. Arguing with the doctors, telling the nurses that the hospital was too much of an incubator of germs in Isaiah's condition and that as a wolf, he would feel more comfortable with his pack and territory at home.

What she didn't expect was Isaiah shutting down. Wasn't it supposed to get easier instead of harder?

Isaiah's lips were pressed in a tight line and he was had that sickly paleness about him that made it hard to gauge his state. His cheeks were gaunt, he lost weight in that one week at the hospital, only on IVs.

Although he could handle food now, the long list of medications he was adjusting to - from beta-blockers to blood-thinners like warfarin to aspirin to help with blood clots - had the unnerving side-effect of causing nausea.

He could get nausous from not eating and from eating and not eating the right stuff. Honestly, she didn't know what issue to adress first.

But Isaiah just watched her sullenly, set on not revealing a single helpful detail. Jesus Christ. It was like a time loop, like they were not getting anywhere, not learning anything.

Matthew was still crouched down, unlacing Isaiah's shoes. Bending down was not recommended after the surgery. As was no heavy lifting. Or strenuous exercise.

The more she kept mentioning it, the more sullen and unreadable his expression became.

Seriously. How was she supposed to handle it, if he didn't voice his pain? What issues to talk over?

"You don't have to stay, you know?" He said suddenly, leaning his head back on the couch.

"Excuse me?" Seline stumbled down to the couch, not sure she heard right.

Isaiah's lips twisted, but he still glared up at the ceiling. "What, you think I wouldn't notice? You keep listing the medications and all my limits and things that make me fragile and sick or whatever, but you are so disgusted you can't even look at me."

Seline felt her mouth fall open in a little o. She threw a helpless look at Matt, but he just shrugged. Looking all the way like he just wanted to hide under the bed and wait for the storm to pass.

Her hands closed in the firsts on the armrests. "So that's what you think? That I'm disgusted with you?"

"Yeah. And I'm sorry for getting sick, I truly am," Isaiah said, nonchalantly daggering her heart, "I tried my best. I tried to get better, to be happy to compensate for the stress from the previous years. I thought it would go away on its own. I'm sorry I disappointed you-"

"No."

"No? Am I wrong?" Isaiah said in challange, finally lifting his head. His vibrant green eyes were shining feverishly. At the back of her mind it hit her with concern, since the doctors said he might sport a low-grade fever for an entire month after the surgery.

"I'm not disgusted with you," Seline said slowly, still stunned. "I'm angry with you, you moron!" She jumped to her feet, pacing around the room. From the corner of the eye she could see Matthew taking the pharmacy bag and slithering away to the kitchen with a flinch.

"I can't believe it! You don't even know what you have done!"

Isaiah frowned, a hand subconsciously curling around his chest like it hurt to breathe. "What I have done...?"

"You kept it a secret! You were in pain for months, dizzy, nausous, everything and you. Didn't. Tell. Me." Her voice jumped up an octave and she had to swallow down against the emotion tightening her throat. "You have any idea how that felt, standing in front of that doctor asking me how long your problems been going on and not being able to answer? I felt like an outsider in my own relationship!"

Isaiah looked dumbfounded, like that had never crossed his mind at all.

She whirled around, eyes wide, cheeks flushed. "And the worst part is, that I didn't notice myself. It was partly my fault, maybe even half of the whole thing. More than Matthew's even, because at least he noticed."

"That was an accident, I didn't want him to know either-"

"Did you choose me because of that? Because you knew I would be ignorant, that I live in my own world, in my books and studies and writing and wouldn't push you to handle the hard parts?" She ignored how her eyes burned, practically screaming now.

"What? No!" Isaiah struggled to sit up straight, even paler than before, almost like a wax figurine. He took a long, laborious breath, wincing as he exhaled.

Regret and guilt shot through her like an arrow. "Isaiah, let's- let's stop this. I'm sorry, we shouldn't have started this when you're still-"

"I- I was trying to spare you," he wheezed. "You think this is easy for me? That I wanted to be this pathetic, weak and pained in front of you?!"

Seline stopped in her tracks, amazed and reluctant all at once. That was the first time he had ever raised his voice at her. More like croaked, but it was there.

"I wanted to deal with this myself. It was my family, my past, my dad who messed me up like this-" he coughed, hand now pressed against the incision side of his chest. "You think I wanted this for you? A partner in life with thousand of issues? Who is a burden to you?"

Seline sat down on the sofa next to him, reaching out her hand towards his, but he shook her off.

"Don't you dare suggest it was your fault," his voice was a whisper, but cutting like a knife. "That it had anything to do with you. You did everything right. You are perfect, understanding, confident, brilliant, with a loving family and artistic passions and-" he coughed again, chest rattling painfully as he struggled in to get enough air.

"Okay, lean back, Isaiah, lean back a bit." She out another pillow behind his back to prop him up. "Deep breaths, you are alright."

Isaiah obeyed, closing his eyes. His breathing was still so chocked up.

"If it hurts, I can give you the nitroglycerin tablet. It melts under the tongue and should have an immediate effect." Seline’s hands trembled slightly as she rubbed Isaiah’s arm. "You can't stress yourself out like this."

"Just—just give me a minute," Isaiah said. He didn't turn her hand away this time, so she sat there unmoving, trying to gauge her intervention from the changing colours on his face.

When he breathed in with relief, though shoulders still tense, she let out a breath too. "Want some water? Painkillers?"

Isaiah gave a tiny shake of his head, a no. "I need you...to understand..."

"We are not talking about this right now," she said sternly.

"No...we..." He took her hand in hers then, entwining their fingers. "I was in...denial. I wanted it...to go away...if I was happy...shouldn't it? I thought it would get...better and you wouldn't have to..."

"Isaiah," she said in a small voice, brushing the black bangs out of his eyes. He got all sweaty in those last five minutes. "You are such a fool. You know how many points you have over me?"

Isaiah squinted his eyes open, rolling towards her tiredly. "Points...?"

Seline nodded. "I keep a score. All the things you do for me versus those that I can do for you. I started counting so it wouldn't be too uneven in your favour." She pushed a blond curl behind her ear self-consciously. "But it still is. You do so much for me, for Matt, for the packs, for anyone who asks for your help. I can never get anywhere close. 100 points is quite the headstart, isn't it?"

Isaiah frowned deeply, breathing shakily.

"So you don't have to worry about being a burden or that we are taking care of you. You have done so much for us, this is the least to repay you."

"That's not-"

"It's not the main reason," she leaned her forehead against his shoulder. Just a gentle touch, no real weight behind it. "I want to do this for you. I want to be there for you. To be able to." She looked down at their hands holding each other. "Why won't you let me in?" she whispered. "What am I doing wrong that you keep pushing me away?"

Isaiah tugged his hand out of her grasp, and her heart sank. For a moment, he just looked at her, his expression caught between pain and something else—fear, maybe. Then, before she could fully process the look in his eyes, he put both his arms around her, squeezing her against his chest so tightly it hurt. His feverishly warm lips brushed against her temple.

"I love you," he whispered.

Seline let out a breath she hadn’t realized she was holding, her arms wrapping around him in return. Something inside her heart clicked back into place. Warmth flooded her from her toes to the top of her head, mixing with the hurt, the tension, the love.

She sniffled and he winced, gently pushing her away just enough to see her face. The tears spilled over both her eyes at once, but she smiled at him. "So? How are you feeling?"

"Better than yesterday, worse than tomorrow," he said, bumping their noses together. "My chest hurts. And it's...hard to breathe still. Shooting up and over...to my arms, you know?"

She sighed in relief at the admission, her wet cheek pressed against his. "I got something for that."

#sickfic #hurt/comfort #angst #post op #chest pain #heart issues #my writing #werewolf wip #Isaiah

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misguidedasgardian · 3 months ago

Text

The Lifeaters (IV.5)

V. The Yule Ball

MASTERLIST

Chapter Summary: The magical night…

Pairings: Draco Malfoy x Fem!Reader (platonic)

Warnings: Cursing, magical objects, Mugglephobia, classism, charms and curses, old school teachings, sexism some may say, kids being assholes, rich kids being assholes, might miss some warnings

Wordcount: 4.9 k

Notes: i want you to bear with me, this are RICH kids, many of them come from very old money you know? they are old school AND they are fourteen year olds, they have other priorities and concepts… and they are assholes, many of them anyways.

The whole week leading to Christmas was as exciting as you ever felt, the whole castle seemed to be glowing with magic, and since you had two more schools in there, Hogwarts wanted to show off, so they went all out with decorations this year. Tha armours sang christmas carols every time someone walked past them, the four big trees in the great entrance hall were decorated beautifully, even with real golden owls sitting gingerly in their branches. The great hall looked more magnificent than you've ever seen it.

Everything was more, more decorated, more big, more shiny, more everything

Terrence gave you sweet little smiles every time you crossed him in the hallways, which had you feeling butterflies in your belly

Goyle and Matthew were the only ones in your group who couldn’t secure a date, and though the Goyle part was having you feel a bit guilty, they took it quite well, they preferred instead to joke around.

This year, as you mentioned, where to stay here to celebrate the holidays, but you had done it before and you didn’t mind, specially since you had the ball the night of the 25th

And it came incredibly quickly.

Your amount of homework had piled up, and Snape gave extra because he didn’t manage to poison anybody like he had threatened to do the first class of the semester, nor did he manage to poison a familiar like he threatened last year.

Good times.

The 23rd was friday, so you spend the rest of the afternoon preparing your potions homework and every other assignment you could so you didn’t have to think about from the tomorrow to after boxing day

And soon, the 24 was all over you, as you enjoyed it without classes, being already released for the winter holidays.

You had a marvelous lunch, at the hall and then you had a scheduled visit to Hogsmeade, which you took as an opportunity to buy last minute gifts. And… this year, you had agreed to make gifts for everybody.

Since you had an allowance but you didn’t spend much because well, you were at school, you had saved a bunch of galleons, so, it was going to be a nice touch, to make gifts for your very best friends.

You were so excited for tomorrow you could barely sleep, but you did, and you were woken up more suddenly than you expected.

“Hey! wake up! presents!”, shrieked Pansy!, jumping out of bed. Your smile was wide as you stood from your bed, there, on top of your truck, besides Umbra, stood a hefty amount of beautifully wrapped boxes. The entire room was festive, mistletoe was hanging from your bed posts, and beautiful christmas crowns were in the walls, of green leaves, and silver decorations.

And now presents, lots of lots of presents were on top of each of your trunks. You had all awakened with big bright smiles and were ready now to rip open each and every one of them. One big box caught your attention first, and you had a hunch of what that might be.

You opened that first, and you gasped when you saw what was inside it.

It was the most beautiful dress you had ever seen in your whole life, it was your favorite color, made of the finest silk. You stood up from the bed so you could spread it and see it properly, it had the tag of one of the fanciest Atelier in Paris

“No way!”, cheered Pansy, “it’s gorgeous!”, you wanted to cry because of how good your grandfather knew you, everything about it was perfect, exactly how you would have picked it, you were so happy you put it right back on the box, and on the feet of your bed till you could put it on later.

Of course there was a letter from your grandfather, but that stood on top of the second box with the same wrapping paper. It was a magnificent pair of shoes to go with your dress. And a heartfelt letter, tears sprinted to your eyes as you read in your Grandfather’s handwriting how proud he was of the beautiful strong woman you were becoming.

You then grabbed a gift wrapped in a neatly green velvet wrapping. Once you unwrapped it carefully, you found yourself with a dark oak flat rectangular box with a family crest carved in it. You opened it gently and gasped when you saw what’s inside.

It was a breathtaking set of diamond jewelry, a beautiful necklace with a hanging black diamond in the center, met with two smaller ones on the side, with matching earrings and a bracelet.

“For our beloved goddaughter” it read in beautiful calligraphy, “And my best friend” signed under it with Draco’s handwriting, it was made in Mafloy’s Stationary.

On the inside of the top of the wooden box, stood another letter. You grabbed it and read it carefully, it was Narcissa’s own handwriting, as equally delicate as Uncle Lucius’

“This jewelry set had been in our family for generations, it was passed down to me as I got married to Lucius, it was my personal dream to share it with my daughter one day, so I’ll pass it on to you”, a single tear fell from your eye, as the envelope hid a small leather pouch, inside it was a beautifully intricate signet ring, with the same crest on it as the box, that it seemed to be carved on a black diamond.

“Toujours Pur”, you whispered, in the crest, where three ravens under a fist holding a sword, and threatening looking skull on the upper edge of the shield. It was from aunt Narcissa’s family, which meant this was a Black family heirloom, and she was passing it onto you. You smiled, and put the ring immediately in your middle finger, right next to your Slytherin ring on your ring finger.

You were shaking as you were putting the jewelry set away, as you believed to be the most important gift (or probably the most valuable) anyone had ever given you.

You didn’t know what to say, as you could hear your friends giggling and sharing what they got, you kept on looking for the rest of the gifts, you received a box of fudge, your favorite ones, a box of ten chocolate frogs, this time instead of a tempest in a bottle you received a sandstorm in a bottle, which looked as astonishing as the one you already had, and other gifts. There was one box that was moving you didn’t notice it until now, growls were coming out of it, and you grabbed it gently, and opened it

A small flame came out of it, as a now more clear hiss could be heard, you looked inside and you gasped as you saw… a small dragon! What? how?

“What on the Merlin’s fluffy robes?”, you asked

“what is that?”, asked Pansy , coming to you and sitting on the edge of the bed

“A DRAGON!”, you said loudly

“A WHAT?”, Tracy, who was as much an animal lover as you, came rushing. “How? Who gave it to you?”

“I don’t know!”, you said quickly. It was the Hungarian Horntail, deep black, with greyish-purpleish markings, it snapped his tiny snout trying to bit you, but he was too small, fitting in the palm of your hand

“It has a note”, Pansy pointed. You grabbed it and read it

“I know how much you wanted one”, you read, “So we stole it from Crouch after the first task of the triwizard tournament”, you kept reading, “- Theo and Matthew”, it wasn’t the first time they stole a creature and this time, you couldn’t believe it

The task had been months ago, did they keep it all this time?

The Horntail finally looked up at you and growled at you

“How I’m I supposed to take care of one?”, you asked Tracy. Just know, after four years, you were realizing how silly it was that you asked for a dragon in the first year.

“Let’s go to the library after, we are sure going to find a book on cares of dragons”, she offered.

“Look what Draco got me!”, said Pansy with a wide smile on her face, as she showed the room a beautiful diamond necklace.

They sure raided the Malfoy’s coffers this year.

You had also given away your friends' favorite sweets to them as a gift, as a huge basket, from your aunt, with a lot of hair and skin products.

You had a potion that made your hair perfectly straight, you had a tonic that made the most beautiful and lustrous curls, you had a bar that looked like soap, but it was actually glitter, and also, a gel that made it look like your head had stars in it, and all sorts of makeup.

All in sample sizes bottles, and enough for you to share with everyone.

Tracy cheered as she had gotten a camera that took pictures that moved, it was so cool, specially for tonight.

You got dressed in your normal clothes, as you went down to have a great breakfast, you left your dragon in its small metal cage in your bedside table, and went down to meet the boys in the common room

“Draco”, you called, remembering the invaluable gift you had received, “I can’t accept that”, you said, you were fourteen! and you had given something that could buy a whole house

“Its my parents wish that you got it”, he said simply, “they wanted to give it to you for your birthday, but they decided to wait until now, so let’s have breakfast already”

You smiled widely, as you all shared ‘thank yous’ for the gifts you had received. You had an amazing “brunch”, as it was later than a normal day, it took you long enough to reach the dining hall.

Outside was a beautiful snowy day, and the boys wanted to head to the Quidditch pitch but you said no, hen they asked you why, you answered that you didn’t want to risk an injury if tonight was going to be the ball, then they all agreed with you and instead you went ice skating in the lake.

You defended yourself pretty well on the ice, Draco and Daphne did too, but the rest needed a bit of help. Matthew grabbed onto you threatening to drop you so you and Daphne made a chain and helped him and Theo, and you skated together.

Because of course Pansy clinged into Draco.

Blaise passed you all surprising you with his great skill

“I wonder where bubbles is”

“Who’s bubbles?”, asked Mathhew with a smile

“The huge squid of the lake”, you answered

“Of course you named him”, now that you had them both here

“Where did you get the dragon?”, you asked

“we told you, we stole it from Crouch”, said Theo, “Matthew has the fireball, I have the Welsh green”

“Don’t you think they’re gonna be looking for them?”, you asked then, trying not to miss a step, otherwise you were all going to fall together

“I haven’t seen Crouch around and nobody has said anything so i guess we are in the clear”, he said simply, “besides, we left the short snout”

“Ugly thing”, muttered Theo

You spend the rest of the afternoon skating and like at four, you and the girls exchanged looks

“We need to go”, said Daphne, grabbing onto you and Pansy, you grabbed Tracy

“The Ball doesn’t start until eight!”, said Draco, sharing concerned looks with his mates

“But we will meet at seven in the common room!”, wanted Pansy, pointing directly at Draco who raised his hands and nodded, swallowing hard.

“Fine”, you all nodded towards one another, and you ran back to the castle

There was much to do.

You haired the girl’s lavatory in Slytherin tower, and to your relief were the first ones to get there. You took long showers, opening your fresh soaps from your care basket. Putting on your favorite shampoo that had your favorite scents in it. Then wet hair and all you went giggling back to your common room

“I got the perfect thing to dry out hair!”, said Pansy, and she threw a spell to spell air at great velocity from her wand. She didn’t take into account that her hair was very straight by nature, Daphne’s and Tracy’s weren’t, so at the end we got a mess of messy hair in their heads. You preferred to directly use one of the tonics to make your head look exactly how you wanted.

Daphne used the creams to make lustrous curls appear. Tracy preferred to have her hair fixed in thousands of tiny braids that looked beautiful. Pansy had her hair up in a simple yet elegant hairdo. Milicent had straightened her auburn hair.

You put in your body cream that makes your skin look hydrated with a bit of sparkle in it.

You even put on some makeup, Daphne offered to curl your eyelashes and put on some sparkly eyeshadow and mascara. You put some gloss on too.

You couldn’t believe what you were seeing when you looked in a mirror. You looked… so pretty, you felt pretty too.

You wondered if Terrence was going to like it.

When it was six thirty and you were ready with everything else, only then you put on your dresses, afraid to taint them with makeup or hair products.

“To match Draco’s eyes”, Pansy said proudly, she was wearing a light blue silvery satin dress, with spaghetti straps, she looked amazing. She adorned it with a silvery chal, and her hairstyle let everyone see the beautiful necklace Draco had given her. Tracy was wearing a stunning velvety dark green dress, and Daphne of course was wearing a soft pink, in tull. Milicent was wearing a navy blue cotton dress that made her beautiful hair stand out.

And you in your beautiful dress as well. You put on your shoes not before you put on some numbing cream so you could dance all night and your feet were not going to ache.

And then, with trembling hands, you asked Pansy to put on the necklace around your neck.

“It’s a stunning piece”, you felt like a walking heirloom, you put on the earrings and the bracelet too, and your rings again.

When you were done, you looked at your friends who were ready also. Tracy looked so beautiful, like a star from the roaring twenties, with a pearl necklace around her neck, and her velvety dress. Daphne looked like a princess, and Pansy looked so classy, and Milicent was stunning as well.

“Ready girls?”, asked Daphne. you grabbed a matching sparkly short sleeve jacket and you nodded excitedly.

“Ready!”.

You wondered how Terrence was going to react when he saw you, because the boys dropped their jaws almost to the floor when you walked back to the common room in your best attire.

Well except Greg, as soon as he saw you he abandoned the room with a scowl on his face. But Mathhew kept looking at you so much he made you feel uncomfortable, and you had to do a double take on yourself in case there was something out of place.

Draco looked so handsome, in his white dress robes, well, they all did.

You were disappointed Terrance wasn’t there, but you haven't spoken to him since the day before, so you guessed he was going to appear at eight or something. You shared the common room, so, is not like he was going to miss you.

“You look stunning”, Draco said, once he managed to release himself from Pansy

“Well, you look handsome as ever”, you answered back. You had seen him in dress robes, but not recently, he looked… more like an adult now.

“So…”, Draco started, looking around suspiciously, “where’s your date?”, he asked then

“Draco be nice”, you chided, “he isn’t here yet, neither are his mates”, you said looking around

“So he is just… letting you hang around here? alone?”, he asked, frowning

“With my friends? I guess so”, you said mindlessly. He hummed disapprovingly. Thankfully, to easy the tension between the two of you, Tracy took her camera with a wide smile and everyone cheered

“Let’s take some pictures!”, she said

You took hundreds of pictures. Only girls first, then girls and their dates, then of the whole group, you took the photos of Tracy and Blaise and they both looked so amazing, everyone did.

“My parents insist we take a picture together”, murmured Draco, offering you his hand

“Of course! I know Narcissa is going to put it on the mantel or something

“Tracy”, called Draco, “can you take a picture of us?”, she nodded enthusiastically. Draco grabbed your waist gently, pulling you to his side, you put your ringed hand on his chest and you both smiled at the camera as he hugged you. He tickled your lower back making you laugh, and that is what the camera took you, five seconds of the both of you holding onto each other and laughing.

After a short talk and pictures and comments and chats, the time was upon you to take yourself to the ballroom, meaning the dining hall, so… Now you were becoming nervous as you looked around.

“Where is him?”, asked Mathhew this time, to you, he could sense your nervousness. “Want me to stay with you?”, he tried then, as you saw everyone were getting ready to leave

“You guys go ahead!”, you promised, “I’ll be there soon to make my triumphant entrance!”, you said with a wide smile, Draco didn’t like the idea, but he got dragged by Pansy and they left the common room. Matthew followed in tow, and then the rest.

You took a long breath, as you were growing increasingly nervous, why was he taking so long? it was reassuring that none of his 6th year friends were there either, but the rest of the Slytherins had passed by, the fifth and seventh years…

You waited for another five long minutes until they appeared, you had seen them in passing, but… Terrance was not among them

“Hey, what's going on?”, they wasted no time in looking you up and down with smiles on their faces before one of them came forwards

“Terrance can’t make it”, he said shortly. You just stared at him, letting the words sink in

“WHAT DO YOU MEAN HE CAN’T MAKE IT?”, you asked him incredulously, Terrence’s mate hissed, showing you his teeth

“It’s pretty bad, he got poisoned or sumthin”, he muttered under his breath, “he can’t separate from the bathroom for more than like five minutes”, you just looked at him in disbelief

“What am I gonna do now? I can’t go alone!”, you said

“We all got partners”, he said looking back at his mates, “sorry”, he turned and left you.

Tears threatened to well in your eyes as they left you alone in the common room. You looked around desperately, but you were alone, alone and dressed in your best attire. This night that promised to be the best night of your life… was a complete bust as a single tear fell down your cheek.

What were you going to do?

Were you going to just get out of your dress, makeup and hair and just go to sleep? no… you couldn’t do that… should you just go? your friends were there, right? they wouldn’t leave you alone, nobody was going to notice that somebody stood you up.

it was a bit embarrassing, showing up alone?

“For Merlin’s beards!”, you cursed

But the alternative was just sit down there and wait… for what? you didn't know exactly

Ah come on! you were (y/n) Basilik and Black! you couldn’t just stand up just like that, just because a boy got a weak stomach, he was not going to ruin your night.

So you adjusted the straps in your shoes, you checked your makeup in the mirror, and opened the door to the common room, as all the younger students of your house looked at you wide eyed

You got more excited as you saw the beautiful decorations leading to the hall, and the soft music and chatting.

But as you were pulling up the last set of stairs before the main hall…

“Where are you going, Basilik?”, asked Professor Snape as he walked towards you all accusatory

“Terrence HIggs stood me up because he got food poisoning, so I was planning on crushing the dance alone and steal Gryffindor’s dates”, you said unapologetically, he just looked down at you, frowning

“Proceed”, he said, standing aside so you could pass. You smiled widely, but you decided to take a detour, and come up to the set of big stairs, and turn around back, so you had to come down the steps to appear in the great entrance hall, and not up from the Slytherin common room.

As you started your majestic descent, you saw many of your year waiting at the bottom, and they all gawked at you, at your audacity, at the beautifulness of your dress, at the impeccable way you handled yourself.

This was your moment, and not even your sick crush standing you up was going to change that.

But when you were coming down the stairs, to your surprise, Matthew was there, waiting for you, he had his arm up, ready for you to take it, like a gentleman of old

“Matt?”, you asked him, as you stood up in the last few steps

“I heard what happened”, he said quickly, “Let me escort you to the ball”, you nodded enthusiastically, grabbing his arm, making a perfect entrance, sticking the landing as it were.

He held you by the waist and led you to your group of friends, that by this point was still smiling

“What happened to Terrence?”, asked Draco, frowning

“Got food poisoning or something”, you said quietly, “couldn’t get out of the bathroom”, they all showed their disgust with comical expressions on their faces. You got distracted a bit talking to Pansy about what happened in the last fifteen minutes.

“What did you do to Terrence?”, asked Draco to Matthew in a hushed voice

“Nothing”, defended Matthew

“Yeah you did”, he said back. “you poisoned him!”, Matthew just looked back at him

“You didn't want her to come with him either!”, he said quickly

“I freakin’ knew it!”, he said back

“He was unworthy of her”, he said dismissively

“Yeah, maybe, but she wanted to come with him!, or else she could have come with me!”, he said disdainfully, Draco noticed quickly you and Pansy turned back to them so they fixed their angry stares quickly

“Should we take our seats?”, you asked with a wide smile

The hall looked beautiful, it was some sort of winter wonderland and there was snow falling from the ceiling. There were ice sculptures, ice on the walls, sparkles and beautiful snowflakes… it was breathtaking

The four big tables had been turned into sets of smaller round tables.

You had this weird feeling, like when you had eyes on you, and you searched the source… It came from the teacher’s table, Dumbledore himself was looking straight at you and Matthew, Snape by his side didn’t seem pleased either, and you didn't know why

You took your seats, a whole table, sharing with some other fifth year students from your house. Everyone was seated and only then you looked at the menu on the table.

You said loudly what you wanted, one of the choices, and the plate filled magically with your choice. And to drink you had a beautiful flute with what you believed to be giggle water.

You ate and giggled all through dinner, and chatted with your mates, you were so excited, the ball was already happening.

You didn’t care that Terrence stood you up anymore, you looked at your side and Matthew smiled at you. Despite everything, despite the fact that he seemed all too happy about the unforgivable curses, perhaps there was a side to him you haven't seen before.

“Thank you for rescuing me out there”, you whispered, leaning onto his personal space, he didn’t shy away from it, if anything, he leaned towards you, almost eliminating the space between you.

“It was my pleasure”, he whispered back.

Then you got your attention pulled from each other when they announced that the four champions were going to dance.

“Have you seen Granger?”, asked Pansy to you, over Draco who was sitting in between you. She then pointed and you saw her, dancing with none other than Viktor Krum, wearing a majestic dress in different shades of pink.

“She looks great”, you admitted, “and then you saw the horrified glances of your friends, “she does!”, you defended

“For a mudblood”, Draco whispered against his cup

“She is dancing with Viktor Krum”, you said then, “didn’t know she had it in her”

“Cho also looks stunning”, Tracy admired, “as does Fleur”

“All Hogwarts girls”, you teased, “I love that for us”, you sipped your drink under Matthew’s heated gaze.

“Soon enough we won’t have to worry about them”, said Matthew, you looked at him

“Who? what do you mean?”

“Now we invite everyone who wants to join us on the dance floor!”, chanted a voice loudly, and many couples jumped right in, including Dumbledore himself, hand in hand with Professor McGonaggal

“Shall we?”, Draco asked Pansy, and she smiled excitedly and took his hand. Once they were gone, you looked at Matthew, with high expectations, and to your delight, he offered you his arm.

“I don’t know how to dance”, he warned

“I'll lead”, you said quickly, you didn’t mind. And to your amazement, he was a quick learner and fast on his feet, he didn’t trip or step on your feet once!

“You are a good dancer”, you admired

“Because you are leading”, he clarified. The weird sister had taken the stage and you were thrilled. You loved that band! So far they were playing slow songs, but you were hopeful.

“So…”, Matthew asked, “did you give your first kiss yet?”, you shook your head

“No, not yet”, you mumbled. Now uncomfortable, remembering what happened in the castle in the Quidditch world cup, how insistent he was that you kiss him.

He made you twirl in his embrace and it made you giggle. And then Draco, who was dancing right by your side, grabbed his arm.

“Let’s trade for a song”, he said, and Matthew nodded reluctantly. You happily went to Draco, as your parents had made you dance over and over again in all your family functions.

You had expectations for this night, and even though not everything was happening the way you imagined it, in some ways it was better.

“We never talked about what happened when you found out”, he said, pointing at your hand

“You mother is my aunt”, you said with a smile.

“You father and my mother were cousins”, he corrected, “we are cousins twice removed”

“That’s cool or what?”

“My mother is dying to tell you stories about our family”

“One of the coolest in the United Kingdom right?”, you tried

“We are practically royalty”, he promised

“That’s cool”, you teased. He leaned in and whispered in your ear

“The Noble and most ancient House of Black”, that did make your spine tingle with excitement.

Your other half, the other part of you, was cooler than you ever thought. As soon as the song changed, Matthew was quick to retrieve you from Draco’s hands.

The music soon started to be more lively, and not for slow dancing anymore, acquiring a faster pace.

Soon you started dancing with your whole group and not only in pairs.

Soon the Durmstrang group joined you as well, and Viktor’s best friends

“Ya’ look biutiful”, he said barely, and you smiled at him, feeling your cheeks heated

“Thank you!”. you said loudly over the music.

You danced all night, all night, you even at some point got to be in the front of the band, to greet them.

Then you returned with your friends, the boys went to get you drinks while you kept dancing with your girlfriends.

It was such a fun night. You danced a bit with the Durmstrang guy, he didn't speak much English, but you learned that his name was Alexandru and he was from Romania.

But, at midnight, the band played their last song, and people were already leaving.

But the amount of giggle water you had consumed, you really wanted to keep the party going, and your friends did too.

Draco went to talk to the rest of Durmstrang and a couple of older guys, and then he came back towards your group with a triumphant smile on his face.

“We’re hosting an afterparty, let’s go”, he said simply.

PCN: Remember the chocolate frog a mysterious valentine gave us in second year? well, it was Greg! and I will say it now because he won’t jeje

Anyways, I’m writing this because I was the one nobody ever invited to the freakin school gala or anything really, so… this is for all the teenage girl inside of us that never got invited to anything, we deserved to be pampered and invited. I’m done suffering in my fics! we deserve all the gawking and attention!

#misguidedlifeaters #harry potter #harry potter fanfiction #hp fanfic #hp fic #draco malfoy #slytherin boys #slytherin #house slytherin #slytherin house #slytherin!reader #theodore nott #matthew gaunt #mattheo riddle #pansy parkinson

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superpoweredfancast · 3 months ago

Text

The Uncanny X-Men #4 Review

The Uncanny X-Men #4 Marvel Comics Written by Gail Simone Art by David Marquez Colors by Matthew Wilson Letters by Clayton Cowles The Rundown: Rogue faces the fury of Sarah Gaunt and discovers a dark truth. Rogue and Nightcrawler go hunting for Logan after receiving a psychic warning from him and find his broken, bloody body deep in the woods. As they prepare to get him to safety, he warns…

#comic book review #marvel comics #Uncanny X-Men

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prucanfieldsurquestions · 1 year ago

Note

A question for either of you! When did you first fall in love with the other?

- 🦀

Thin hotel walls meant that Matthew, in Vancouver overnight for a meeting, could hear every sordid detail of the couple arguing in the next room.

He groaned and rolled over in bed, searching for something to throw so they would shut up for five minutes, but as he was about to toss a shoe, his gaze landed on his buzzing phone. A relieved smile crossed his face as he picked it up and answered it.

"Hallo, Maus!" Came the cheerful, if sleepy, voice on the other end.

"Hey babe, what's up?"

Gilbert, who was in their king sized bed and swaddled in more blankets and stuffed animals than there was really room for, balanced his phone on his shoulder while he scrolled on his laptop.

"How's the trip going?"

A sigh left Matthew's lips as he held the phone out towards the wall, so Gilbert could hear exactly how it was going. "They've been arguing for three hours now, over a fucking hair dryer from what I can tell."

"Put me on speaker and up against the wall."

Matthew did as told and had to clamp his hand over his mouth to keep from laughing as Gilbert shouted in German at the top of his lungs about how nice the weather was, and effectively shut the couple up. The cackle afterwards, as Matthew pulled the phone back to his ear, was just icing on the cake.

"My knight in shining armor." He sighed, and could practically feel the pleased grin coming from his lover on the other end.

"Ah, don't mention it. Oh, right! The reason I called you is because we got an ask from an anonymous crab!"

"...From a crab?"

"Yeah! Here, listen to how I'm gonna answer before I type it out."

And just like that, Matthew was whisked down memory lane.

- -

Berlin, 1990

“And he can’t stay with anyone else? Not even Alfred?”

Ludwig sighed and put down his newspaper to look at his dear older brother in a silent bid for pity. “No. I don’t understand why this is such a big deal, Gilbert.”

The albino, sitting pretty on the kitchen counter in a black band shirt that was far too big for his gaunt frame, narrowed his eyes. “Oh, you know, maybe because last time I saw him he shot me in the head while I was trying to get to you.”

“That was almost fifty years ago. Things are-”

“Different.” Gilbert spat. How many times had he heard that this week alone? “Fine. You want to keep that fucking monster in the house when I’ve been back for what, less than three months? Sure, yeah, why not! When you wake up tomorrow with him pointing a rifle at you, don’t you dare call me for help.”

Another ragged sigh was drawn out from Ludwig’s lips, who looked like he’d aged a few years from this conversation alone. “It’s only for a night or two. Just… please, don’t be a complete ass? Please? The last thing I need after this meeting is to clean blood off the floor.”

“I’ll think about it.” Gilbert said, knowing full well the venom injected indicated he had already thought about it, and Ludwig would most certainly not like his conclusion.

In the roughly forty minutes it took for Ludwig to pick Matthew up from the airport, Gilbert had moved from the counter to the table, tired body on vigil for the enemy that would be traipsing in any time now. Crimson eyes snapped to the door as soon as he heard the doorknob turn. Ludwig came in first, and coming behind him with both a guitar case and a suitcase was the Canadian himself.

Their eyes met almost immediately. Guarded and worn vermillion bored a hole through soft lavender, and Matthew dropped his gaze to the tiled floor after only a moment or two. Once he was upstairs and out of sight, silvery brows furrowed in confusion. Gilbert had expected a fight. The last few decades especially, in a long life dedicated to war, had taught him to always expect a fight. But his wordless challenge had been forfeited almost immediately. Huh.

Gilbert didn’t bother taking part in the small talk that occurred in the living room. He was there, of course, making sure things were as awkward as he possibly could so maybe Matthew would get the hell out of his house, but couldn’t care less about how the flight over was. He was quite open in his wordless scrutiny of the newcomer and yet hid his vexation over his findings behind a thin veneer of petulance at the man’s mere presence. The guy looked… nervous. Anxious. Like he’d rather be anywhere else in the world but was far too polite to say so. His thumbs twiddled in his lap. He nodded along to whatever Ludwig was saying, offered hollow smiles exactly when he was supposed to, and stole glances at Gilbert to see if he was still being stared at like he had three heads.

Given that he was watching so closely, the albino saw the small sigh of relief when Ludwig indicated it was time to go to the meeting. The two left after a quick goodbye, and as soon as the front door was closed, Gilbert scurried upstairs and to the spare bedroom that had been given to Matthew. Something didn’t quite add up here. Where was the monster from nearly fifty years ago? What was he hiding?

Gilbert opened the door to find both the guitar case and suitcase had been hastily set on the bed. The guitar case was decorated with stickers from strange places like ‘Vancouver’, ‘Whitehorse’, ‘Saskatchewan’, and a few cities in America that Gilbert did recognize, like New York. Inside was a normal acoustic guitar, dappled by handmade paintings of red leaves. Nothing suspicious there.

The suitcase, a gaudy thing with flower print that was apparently a hallmark of the 70’s, honestly didn’t hold much of interest either. Clothes that smelled of maple and had been shoved in at random, a mostly-empty bottle of cologne, an entire set of pens that were just loose in there, and a sizeable stuffed moose. Gilbert pulled it out curiously and looked at it. Soft brown fur, adorable black buttons for eyes, admittedly the perfect size for hugging… A meaningless smirk crossed Gilbert’s face as he put the stuffie back, and rearranged everything so it looked as it did when he arrived.

“Still has to sleep with a toy. What a loser.”

This bit of stolen intel was enough to satisfy him that, at the very least, Matthew wasn’t dangerous. Gilbert went to his room and selected one of the many books he’d never read but had kept since the turn of the century, and remained there for the rest of the day.

It was about three and a half hours after the meeting was supposed to be over that Gilbert heard the front door open. By then, the sun had long set beneath the horizon and the house had gone dark. Two sets of weary feet trudged up the stairs. Two doors opened, indicating the returning blonds had gone into their respective rooms. A few minutes later one of the doors opened again and someone went back downstairs. Gilbert thought nothing of this, figuring maybe Ludwig had gone down for some TV to unwind or something.

That is, until he heard the first muffled notes ring out from an acoustic guitar.

The only music Gilbert had heard for decades was whatever Soviet drivel Ivan forced him to listen to, for the glory of the Motherland or whatever. Music laced with poison, thinly veiled propaganda, bombastic orchestras of people praising the regime that kept them under lock and key. It was nothing like the song now being performed downstairs. Even if he didn’t necessarily like the guy playing it, Gilbert decided that he would be a fool to pass up the opportunity to listen more closely. Who knew how long it was until Ivan claimed him again? Who knew how long it would be before he heard no more music at all?

Silent as a ghost, the albino crept downstairs and came to haunt the living room doorway. Matthew sat on the floor, bathed in soft orange light from the lamp, eyes closed and pouring his soul into some sorrowful tune. If he noticed that he now had an audience he certainly didn’t show it. His voice was a bird, soaring, swooping and diving through the octaves while his hands kept a steady rhythm and melody on his guitar. Gilbert forgot his previous animosity for a few moments as he stood entranced by the performance in front of him. When the song was over, Matthew’s eyes fluttered open like bird’s wings to meet softening crimson. A whisper of a smile crossed the Canadian’s lips as he moved right into another tune.

“You’re welcome to come sit if you’re going to listen.” He offered, before launching into the lyrics and losing himself in the song once more.

It took a few more tunes before Gilbert took him up on his offer. It started with stepping into the room, hand still on the doorway, just in case. A few more steps, another song. A boney hand resting on the easy chair opposite to the couch. Then, finally, Gilbert settled on the floor in front of Matthew and basked in the notes played just for him as if it were a warm shower.

Gilbert didn’t know how many songs were played for him. The talented musician before him blended the end of one into the beginning of another, and while he couldn’t understand all the lyrics sung to him, he certainly got the idea. From joyous celebration to the depths of sorrow, from puppy love to one final goodbye to a partner, Matthew took Gilbert’s hand and reintroduced him to emotions he’d forgotten he could feel.

Matthew only set the guitar down once his fingers were too sore to keep playing. By then, exhaustion had etched itself into his face. Or perhaps it was there at the beginning and Gilbert was too focused on the music to notice?

“Got more bullshit diplomacy to deal with tomorrow?” Gilbert asked, forgoing the venom from that morning.

Matthew sighed and looked at the clock hanging on the wall that showed him it was far, far past his bedtime. “Yeah. You’d think we could have gotten everything done, given that we stayed an extra three hours, but nope. Looks like I’ll be staying here tomorrow night too. I’m, um, I’m sorry about that, by the way. I know you don’t really want me here.”

Oh. Right. Gilbert had been all fire and brimstone about Matthew not staying, and yet here he was, with a twinge of guilt in his chest because the man he’d so desperately wanted out of his home had been kind enough to play for him for an hour. Fantastic.

“Well… I guess you do need somewhere to stay. Can't have you sleeping outside, after all.”

That seemed to be enough to bring a smile back to Matthew’s face. “I appreciate it. I- Oh! I forgot!”

Before Gilbert could respond, Matthew had run up the creaky wooden stairs and come back down with two items in his hands. He sat back down, beaming as much as he could while sleep tried desperately to claim him, and held out a familiar stuffed moose and a maple-leaf shaped bottle with syrup inside to Gilbert. A silvery brow quirked in confusion, prompting the Canadian to explain.

“Gifts from my place. I thought, well, maybe something sweet and something soft might help while you get your strength back.”

Gilbert sat in stunned silence, looking between the gifts and the sweet smile Matthew gave him, burning the image of both into his memory for later viewing. So, that moose that he’d called the man a loser over… had been for him all along? With an uncharacteristic gingerness, he took the stuffed animal first and set it in his lap. For once, he didn’t know what to say.

Most of his belongings needed to be replaced when he came home in November. His bed had been bought only a month ago, his civilian clothes didn't exist anymore, and… well, he’d gone from where hell was delivered in sweat and bullets to where it grabbed frozen grasp of one's soul and squeezed until there was nothing left. Maybe he didn’t have all that much to his name to begin with.

But now, even though he wore his brother’s shirt because time and Moscow had ruined all of his, even though his room was devoid of personality and everything except furniture, he had a soft little moose friend. And it wouldn’t be an understatement to say that meant the world to him. Gilbert lifted his gaze to kind (if exhausted) eyes and a knowing smile, to hair that was a golden halo framing round glasses, and the Matthew that shot him all those years ago was all but forgotten. With a little lopsided smile, he grabbed the bottle of maple syrup and cracked it open.

“I think we’re going to get along just fine, you and I.”

“Me or the moose?” Matthew asked with a little laugh.

“Oh, definitely the moose. But I guess you’re okay too.” Gilbert returned with a smirk. And the rest, as they say, is history.

#thanks for the ask!#hws canada #hws prussia #prucan #gilbert beilschmidt #matthew williams #hey remember when i said i would write ficletts for these answers #apparently that was a lie this thijg is over 2000 words lmao

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