#Maybe they were given grace and were turned into little bunnies that now reside on the moon | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

robininthelabyrinth · 4 years ago

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Delight in Misery (ao3) - part 1, part 2, part 3, part 4, part 5, part 6, part 7, part 8 (interlude)

The Lotus Pier was a free and unrestrained place in comparison with the Cloud Recesses, and there was no similar prohibition on raising pets. This was a good thing, largely because Lan Wangji had recently started to think of his little found family primarily in animal metaphors.

It was, he concluded, because of the way Mo Xuanyu followed Jiang Cheng around like an imprinted duckling, with stars in his eyes and an unfortunate tendency to try to emulate his actions while possessing exactly none of the temperament required to pull any of it off.

Indeed, watching him wheezing his way through a threat to break Jin Ling’s legs was a sight worth seeing, especially with Lan Sizhui patting him on the back and encouraging him when he temporarily got stuck stuttering on the word ‘legs’.

Jiang Cheng, for all his faults and imperfections, could be terrifying when he wished to be, the blood of the battlefields of the Sunshot Campaign forever impressed upon his bones; with Zidian to hand, he could look commanding and fearsome, decisive and harsh, and with his sharp looks and sharper scowl, he cut a fine picture - even if Lan Wangji knew the truth, that behind all that sharpness was the soul of a grumpy marshmallow.

Mo Xuanyu, with his wild thatch-like hair that couldn’t be controlled no matter their joint efforts and even wilder and far more questionable taste in appearance, couldn’t hope to match him, and really ought to stop trying.

Naturally, Jin Ling looked about as convinced about the threats as he ever was when Jiang Cheng said it, meaning of course that he didn’t care one whit, but despite their initial concerns, he took to Mo Xuanyu quite well. Lan Wangji was initially puzzled by it, given their conflicting personalities, but Jiang Cheng insightfully (for once) pointed out that it was most likely that Jin Ling was willing to forgive quite a lot in exchange for having another person dressed in Lanling Jin gold around to make him feel less awkward about it.

The two of them together were two little goldfinches strutting around in a sea of purple – or, perhaps more accurately, two golden roly-poly puppies bounding around, tails wagging, trying to befriend the Jiang sect’s army of sleek haughty purple cats. They were accompanied, of course, by a small, gentle crane with a most un-Lan-like taste for spicy fish with radishes and absolutely no head for water travel.

(They were working with Lan Sizhui on that. He lived in the Jiang sect now; he couldn’t spend his whole life being seasick!)

“What does that make you, then?” Jiang Cheng asked when Lan Wangji – after incessant prodding – mentioned his thoughts on the subject of their growing nest. “Master Rabbit?”

Lan Wangji glared, but didn’t object to the characterization; regardless of his personality, there was good reason to make the association. This was largely because Lan Xichen had recently embarked on a mission to capture the rabbits Lan Wangji had been – not raising, precisely, because pets were forbidden in the Cloud Recesses, but feeding on occasion when he had the time. He had brought them to Lan Wangji’s new “residence” at the Lotus Pier as a housewarming gift.

(Lan Wangji had no intention of moving out of Wei Wuxian’s bedroom, of course, but Jiang Cheng had long ago exercised his authority as sect leader to clear out the rooms just beyond it to create a small additional courtyard for him, in which he could exercise and meditate without being too far from the main quarters of the Jiang sect leader. As a result, the only change involved in his new, public, and above-board decision to reside in the Louts Pier was adding a new entranceway to make it appear as though they lived in separate albeit adjoining houses rather than living together in just one. Of course, it being the Lotus Pier, the new entranceway involved constructing not only a gate but a new bridge…)

“What exactly are we supposed to do with a bunch of rabbits?” Jiang Cheng had demanded at the time, staring down at them - there were rather more than Lan Wangji had remembered there being, but he supposed that was the nature of rabbits.

“I have no idea,” Lan Xichen had replied, smiling broadly. “But Wangji likes them.”

Lan Wangji had pretended that neither of them existed, and also that he was urgently needed elsewhere.

Later, Jiang Cheng had cornered him, demanding an explanation or else the rabbits would be sent down to the kitchens to be repurposed, and Lan Wangji had reluctantly confessed that they were from the burrow first established by the two wild rabbits Wei Wuxian had caught for him all those years ago.

Naturally there was no more talk of repurposing after that, and three sets of rabbit coops – far more than the rabbits Lan Wangji actually possessed required – mysteriously appeared in his small courtyard the next day.

“Wouldn’t want the stupid things to drown,” Jiang Cheng had grumbled when confronted with the evidence of his sentimentality. “If they attacked your garden and tried to burrow down they’d only hit water, and then where would we be? Awash in bunny corpses, that’s where, and that’s just unsanitary. I have a duty as sect leader to preserve the public health, you know.”

Lan Wangji had initially had some difficulty determining what type of animal Jiang Cheng was. He was as prickly as a porcupine, as standoffish as a hedgehog, as fickle as a cat, as graceful and vicious as an angry goose…

Recently, however, Lan Wangji had met a merchant from the south who had been selling a type of bird he called zishuiji, or purple swamphens – the merchant claimed that they were descended from the famous zhanniao, the poisonfeather zhen bird noted for their purple bellies, scarlet beaks, and deadly venom. Although Lan Wangji was moderately certain that the man was exaggerating for the sake of a sale, he had found himself compelled to purchase several sets to house in one of the empty rabbit coops, now moved to be placed in the main courtyard, nominally to be nearer to the waterways but mostly so that they’d be easily accessible to everyone - and, of course, to subtly harass Jiang Cheng.

It turned out that zishuiji could apparently be treated in much the same way as chickens. They were highly adaptable, but thrived best near water; they were generally shy around humans, but vicious in defending their territory, capable of biting and mobbing when provoked; and they preferred to raise their eggs with company –

Truly, he had found the right bird for Jiang Cheng.

(Not to mention the euphonious imagery of a purple hen strutting around with its purple lighting, zishuiji with zidian...truly, a picture meant for the ages. Lan Wangji determined at once to make a painting of it and insist Jiang Cheng hang it on some wall. Maybe even one of the ones in the main hall, where strangers could see.)

“Some of these are getting used for food,” Jiang Cheng insisted with a glare. “Some of the rabbits, too. There are no rules against the killing of livestock here, you hear me?”

Mo Xuanyu fell in love with them immediately – Jiang Cheng’s theory was that he was entranced by their iridescent feathers, while Lan Wangji’s view was that he recognized the innate Jiang Cheng-ness of them – and quickly took charge of their care, although Lan Sizhui and Jin Ling routinely assisted in collecting eggs.

Jiang Cheng reluctantly admitted, after some time, that the purchase had been a good one, if only because it served to settle their little awkward duckling into place, finally allowing Mo Xuanyu some sense of stability, as if having some type of small duty for which he was responsible was all he needed to believe that he wouldn’t be forced back to Lanling or to Mo village, his original place of origin, which he somehow feared even more than the backstabbing snakepit of Koi Tower.

(“You need to stop calling him a duckling,” Jiang Cheng said, quivering with laughter. “Do you know that could also mean…no, I’m not saying it. Anyway, he’s such an impressionable brat. Did you see what he did with that make-up he bought? He really does look a bit...”

From this, Lan Wangji inferred that the nickname was both extremely apt, extremely unfortunate, and had permanently stuck.)

In fact, despite initial concerns, it had been surprisingly comfortable to bring Mo Xuanyu into their lives at the Lotus Pier.

He was grateful and happy to be there, which helped; Lan Sizhui was welcoming, and Jin Ling somewhat reluctantly accepting, each for their own reasons, which helped more.

Best of all, he was at just the right age to be a regular disciple, and the current Jiang sect was especially welcoming to outsiders, having been cobbled together from a wide range of previously rogue cultivators and the small handful of survivors of the previous sect’s massacres. It improved Mo Xuanyu’s mood tremendously to be around boys and girls his own age, doing the same thing as them, without the weight of Lanling Jin’s expectations on his shoulders even if he sometimes wore their colors.

“He’s never going to be the most martially inclined,” Jiang Cheng opined after a small period of observation. “But he might make a decent administrator.”

Lan Wangji glanced at him sidelong in silent question, since Mo Xuanyu had not displayed any especially notable scholastic talents either. He had started cultivating fairly late, although obviously not as late as Jin Guangyao, but he lacked the other man’s genius for organization and management. Moreover, while his studies did admittedly exceeded the low bar set in Lan Wangji’s mind by Nie Huaisang’s miserable performance, that was a very low bar indeed.

(Nie Huaisang wasn’t stupid, he reminded himself once again. He was in fact extremely clever. And yet, even knowing what he knew, it was so easy to forget…)

“He’s kind and thoughtful of the well-being of others,” Jiang Cheng said, averting his gaze and pretending his cheeks weren’t tinting red. “Calligraphy and math, people skills, that can all be learned, but at least he has the important part down…I told you to stop doing that.”

Lan Wangji ignored him and continued to smile.

“Freak,” Jiang Cheng muttered, then shook his head. “I can’t believe anyone actually listens to you. Least of all me!”

Lan Wangji rolled his eyes. That part was Jiang Cheng’s own fault – he’d been using Lan Wangji as a sounding board more or less from the beginning, and started making him do some of his paperwork as soon as he’d been regularly awake for more than a shichen at a time under the barely plausible claim that it was good for him to exercise his hands. Now that Lan Wangji was officially out of seclusion, Jiang Cheng had promptly shoveled even more work at him – despite the fact that they were supposedly at each other’s throats.

The Jiang disciples that had not been in the loop – most of them, to Lan Wangji’s mild surprise – adjusted quickly, especially after they noticed the long-suffering expressions on the faces of Jiang Cheng’s immediate deputies. They had remained wary for a while, possibly expecting Lan Wangji to seek to implement the Lan sect rules at any moment, but after a time he had managed to win their confidence through his efficient administration and respect for their customs.

He did…rather a lot, actually. He reviewed the sect’s accounts along with Jiang Cheng, managed certain negotiations, oversaw the continuing reconstruction efforts, reviewed submitted proposals –

All things that the Lan sect did as well, but which had never come to him before. Lan Wangji suspected that in many cases, they did not even come to his brother or his uncle, who were nominally in charge of such things; the Lan sect disdained such worldly affairs, while the Jiang sect embraced them.

Although while he was on the subject of being above worldly affairs, it occured to him that he had not had an opportunity to take Bichen out recently, and it would be good to do so. He would need to come up with some excuse to insist on Jiang Cheng accompanying him for a night hunt sometime soon, some reason that would stand up to scrutiny from the outside.

As for convincing Jiang Cheng himself, however, that would be no problem.

“We are going night-hunting soon,” he informed Jiang Cheng, who looked appalled by the very thought.

“You’re joking, right?” he demanded. “Do you know how much work we have to do? The yearly update with the dyer’s guild is –”

“Not for another two months, and preparation typically takes only two weeks.”

“Reconstruction –”

“Does not require constant supervision at this stage.”

“The – there’s training –”

Lan Wangji attempted to convey his feelings on the validity of that excuse entirely through his facial expression, and it must have worked because Jiang Cheng crumbled at once, grumbling to himself.

“Who’ll we leave the children with?” he tried. “Especially with Xuanyu being so new – oh, all right. It’s weak and I know it, you don’t have to give me that judgmental look of yours.”

“If Jiang Wanyin believes that his skills have gotten so rusty that he would be unable to keep up…”

“I’m going to break your legs,” Jiang Cheng hissed at him. “I’m going to – to – oh, wait, actually, there is a reason we can’t go just yet. We’re expecting honored guests!”

Lan Wangji arched his eyebrows.

“You wouldn’t have seen the report yet, it’s still on our desk,” Jiang Cheng said. “You know of the Baixue Temple, right?”

Lan Wangji looked askance, indicating that he had of course heard of the temple, a renowned place of learning, but that he presumed that that was not what Jiang Cheng meant and also that perhaps Jiang Cheng would like to get to the point at some time before their deaths from old age.

“Fuck you too,” Jiang Cheng said conversationally, having learned the nuances of Lan Wangji’s expressions by now. “It was attacked recently, and rumor has it that it was Xue Yang that did it. Yes, the same Xue Yang who did the Chang clan massacre, the one the Jin sect was protecting before they washed their hands of him.”

Lan Wangji frowned.

“They made it through with relatively minimal casualties,” Jiang Cheng assured him. “Out of luck, mostly – when Xue Yang disappeared before his trial, the Nie sect made sure word got out everywhere, and Lianfeng-zun, who might’ve quashed it, even helped spread them, instead. From what I understand, Xiao Xingchen and Song Zichen returned to Baixue Temple to make sure it wouldn’t be attacked over their part in Xue Yang’s initial arrest, as it later turned out to be - truly, evil is mundane and predictable. They led the defensive efforts and saved many lives.”

Xiao Xingchen and Song Zichen –

Lan Wangji had heard Jiang Cheng speak of them before, of course. Rogue cultivators of considerable fame, who had refused all offers to join any of the sects, major or minor, but instead professed a desire to start a cultivation school of the old-fashioned sort, valuing affinity and merit over blood relation.

Not that that was what had caught the attention of Lan Wangj, or of Jiang Cheng for that matter.

Rather, it was said that Xiao Xingchen was a disciple of Baoshan Sanren, the famous immortal that lived secluded on the mountain. That made him Wei Wuxian’s martial uncle, and both of them were shamelessly interested in all things relating even tangentially to Wei Wuxian, however indirectly.

Jiang Cheng had sent several invitations for a visit back when the Chang clan disaster had happened. None had been accepted, which was probably all for the best – he had had to stop inviting them on account of how they’d angered the Jin sect over the matter.

(It had caused Jiang Cheng no end of nightmares, the feeling of complicity in a massacre just like the one that had destroyed his own sect sending him into a spiral of self-hatred, questioning his own morality and righteousness, wondering if his ancestors were judging him and finding him wanting, wondering if Wei Wuxian was –

It had not been a good time, a thankfully temporary reversion back to the bad days closer to the start. But Jiang Cheng was better now.)

“Why accept an invitation now?” Lan Wangji asked.

“They’re planning on hunting him down, I think, and having learned a little bit from last time, they want to get as many allies on board as possible in advance,” Jiang Cheng said, and shook his head at the depressing need to account for worldly politics when seeking to live a righteous life. A lesson hard-learned, for both of them. “They wrote to me first, this time. In return, I plan to indicate that they are welcome to come to the Lotus Pier to try to convince me – we’ll agree to help them, of course, but it’ll be nice to share a meal with them. Maybe some stories.”

“Mm,” Lan Wangji said. “And entertainment, of course.”

Jiang Cheng looked at him.

“We should take them night-hunting,” Lan Wangji elaborated, and Jiang Cheng scowled at him.

“There are oxen less stubborn than you! Donkeys! Geese!”

Lan Wangji was not a goose. A crane, perhaps, like Lan Sizhui – gentle and graceful and well-educated, with a sharp beak that most people overlooked.

He suspected Jiang Cheng would argue instead for the goose.

“I will write to my brother,” he said, opting to change the subject. “Xue Yang is a sensitive subject for his sworn brothers, as you know. It would be best to prepare him should they resume their fight with each other.”

“Oh, that’s just what we need,” Jiang Cheng grumbled. “Lianfeng-zun and Chifeng-zun at each other’s throats again…did I tell you about the series of small but extremely irritating disasters that happened that time I was at Koi Tower? The room flooding, the too-thick incense, the – the thing with the cat –”

“I also recall you coming back from a night-hunt with Chifeng-zun with an expression suggesting that someone had put the fear of death into you, yes,” Lan Wangji said.

“It’s Chifeng-zun. Don’t think I haven’t noticed you avoiding any circumstances where he could have the same talk with you!”

Lan Wangji did not deny it. As he was not a sect leader, he could avoid such things with much greater ease than poor Jiang Cheng – who was glaring again.

“You should try harder to get along with him,” he remarked, and Jiang Cheng’s eyes narrowed even further. “You have many things in common –”

“Lan Wangji. You are, as A-Yuan’s father, permitted to set up as many playdates for him as you’d like. You are not permitted to do the same for me.”

Lan Wangji nodded, indicating that would give that all the consideration it deserved, namely none.

Jiang Cheng made a sound not unlike the whistling of a boiling pot.

Lan Wangji decided that a triumphant but timely retreat was appropriate.

#mdzs #lan wangji #jiang cheng #mo xuanyu #my fic #my fics #delight in misery

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i-ntrmission · 4 years ago

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Nine (Van McCann)

Just a silly little fic where Van is sporadic regular at a coffee shop.

Part 1 (4.3k)

They say bad things happen in threes.

Your phone hadn’t charged overnight, leaving you with 15% battery.

A car ran through a puddle during your walk to work, soaking your legs.

An elderly man held the door of the coffee shop open for you, gesturing with a newspaper for you to go ahead, and a smile that you couldn’t help but reciprocate, until a busy mum storms out from the shop knocking into you and spilling fresh coffee down your jacket.

“Tough morning, eh?” Your co-worker, and resident barista genius, Toby comments with a chuckle while you stomped around the counter. Having seen what just happened, and taking in your soaked tights.

Julia, resident window art and slogan genius, glancing around from the till with a sympathetic pout while you roll your eyes at Toby, pushing on the staff door.

“Oh, leave off Tobes - leave her be. That was tragic, babe. Spare tights in my bag, help yourself.” She says before turning back to the line of customers.

“Cheers, Julia.” You sigh in relief while heading into the back, Toby’s dry chuckles and singsong of ‘Happy Friday!’ following you.

Once you have on dry tights, cleaned what you can from your jacket (thankfully it was leather), and hunted down a spare charger for your phone, you grab your apron and head back out.

By some grace of god, you had a later shift for today, meaning you missed the usual breakfast run full of impatient office employees, half asleep students, pass remarkable construction workers - thankful, with the way your morning had went you wouldn’t have been fit for dealing with that kind of stress this morning. Now in the clear for the easy hours before lunch.

“There she is,” Toby, a lazy grin when you re-emerge, Julia leaning on the counter beside him sipping from a mug, basking in the post breakfast rush comedown. “Here ya go, looks like you need it.” He slides a takeaway cup over to you, and you all too eagerly take a sip. Caffeine can nearly always fix anything, especially a bad morning.

Cinnamon caramel macchiato, a hum of appreciation and a drawn out ‘thank you.” He only chuckles out a ‘no bother’, picking up his tea. You had always found it ironic that someone who despised the taste and smell of coffee worked in a coffee shop, and on top of that made really fucking good coffee.

“So what’s happened you? Apparent from the coffee incident obvs, looked like you wanted to throttle all us when you came in,” Julia asks, brown eyes glancing over you as she takes another sip from her mug.

“Nah, she just always looks like that,” Toby says, a teasing grin. You just roll your eyes, it was true that your resting bitch face was Medusa level.

A sigh, taking another mouthful of your coffee and picking up a basin to start clearing the tables with while you shrug and launch into the story of your morning.

“Happens in threes, doesn’t it.” Julia comments when you catch them up.

"Well, that's my three strikes done for the day, thank fuck,” you shrug. She frowns at that.

"Touch wood."

"What?"

"You jinxed it saying that, need to touch wood for good luck!" Appalled that you never heard of the superstition at question.

Rolling your eyes, a huff as you walk away to start cleaning up. “Think I’ll be alright, Jules.” You weren’t superstitious. “Want some salt instead? Throw it over your shoulder!” Toby chuckles.

Julia only elbows him in the side, telling you both to piss off, mumbling something about having to spill salt first before you could do that.

But, maybe there was some truth in her superstitions because no less than ten minutes later, a cup slipped through your fingers smashing on the floor. Cursing yourself and then glancing meekly in her direction, she watched with a raised brow.

“Reckon it’s too late to touch wood?”

After the cup, you break a plate.

After the plate, you stand back to let a toddler and mum pass by you to get to the bathrooms, standing back with a smile - until you knock over a stand of artisan coffee bags.

“Another three down,” Julia mutters with a smirk while stacking clean cups.

“Sure you don’t want that salt?” Toby quips while walking by you as you sweep up spilt coffee beans. You give him the finger behind the dustpan you held, he reaches up as if to scratch at his beard - sliding his middle finger along his cheek, right back at you.

Your bad luck continues. During the lunch rush you manage to burn a granddad’s toasted sandwich, shortchange a regular who worked in the bookies across the street, and upend a student’s iced latte over your top.

You’re hopelessly scrubbing at the stain on your top when Julia walks into the back, grabbing her pack of fags.

“Jesus,” she mumbles, a dumbfounded look at how much you had managed to fuck up today. Completely out of character for you, a perfectionist by nature. “Did ya break a mirror or sommat lately?”

You only sigh and shake your head, “Any significance in the number 9?”

She thinks for a second, then smiles as she pulls a lighter from her jacket pocket. “9 is supposed to be good luck, actually. New beginnings,” she tilts her head, looking at you, “maybe buy a scratch card, or come to the pub quiz tonight!”

You laugh but before you can reply your manager walks in, a empathic glint in her eye. Everyone who worked here adored Carly, the ultimate mother figure. A caring but also a take no shit kind of person.

Your name - as she walks in, “what’s going on, pet? You’re a one man wrecking machine today!”

She tells you to take an early lunch, go home and get changed, clear your head and the come back. You sigh in relief of not having to wear a soggy blouse for the rest of the day. Half way home when you realize you’ve left your phone charging under the counter.

Finding Julia’s cat, Kurt, sitting on the steps to your and Julia’s shared basement flat. He purrs, pushing his head into your hand when you reach down to pick him up. You spend the next half hour sprawled on your bed with Kurt, eating rice crackers and watching “Best of Dean Winchester” complications on YouTube. Self care.

An hour later, when you walk back into the cafè Julia does a double take, stretching her arms wide and tilting her head in a ‘what the fuck!’ manner.

“Yeah? What’s up?” You ask, walking around the counter to pick back up your apron.

“Where’s your phone?! I’ve been texting you! Guess who’s bloody back?” A rush, and she’s all but bouncing on the spot, eyes gleaming with excitement.

You reach under the counter to pick up your phone, holding it up to her. It was still turned off but charged now. Telling her you forgot about it before you left. Not really bothered about her sudden elation, probably just one of her newest little crushes that changed every month. You entertain her, nonetheless.

“Who? Your man from the butchers?” Asking, while tying your apron, she shakes her head, eyes alight.

“Hm, weird uni Tolstoy wannabe?” You guess again, she shakes her head, then adds that he’s not weird just a bit eccentric and there’s nothing wrong with that. You still think the fact that he’s read War and Peace four times, and brags about, is a red flag.

You’re about to suggest the blonde and blue haired girl from the library when she cuts you off. “Anyway it’s nowt to do with me, cmon you know who it is!”

You only stare at her, blinking and out of guesses. She sighs your name is exasperation.

“Christ, you’re hopeless today. It’s only Van fuckin’ McCann, isn’t it!”

Your eyes widen, heart kicking around your ribs and blood pounds a bit harder at mention of his name. A reaction that surprises you.

“Fuck off!” It comes out as an alarmed whisper.

Van McCann had been coming to the coffee shop for three years now. Often showing up for a few days at a time and then seemingly disappearing off the face of the earth.

He had an obsession with the loyalty cards you dished out with the paper cups, nine stamps got a free drink. He never filled one.

He first showed up three summers ago, middle of a heatwave. He was wearing all black, ripped jeans, and a holy jumper. The holes and rips didn’t seem to be a fashion statement, more like he had just worn the clothes to death. He was pale, too pale. Shoulder length hair that definitely hadn’t seen a shower in a couple days, bags under his eyes. Towing along a smaller guy with long hair and a bandana. They looked out of place. A cloud of cigarette smoke lingering around them, underlying weed.

You and Julia had exchanged a glance. “Homeless? Junkies?” She mouthed at you, after they had sat down with their teas and cinnamon buns you had freshly made that morning. You had rolled your eyes, told her to stop being a judgmental prick.

He came back the next morning, on his own. Same jeans but a black T-shirt, and fluffy hair. You had been cleaning tables, observing while Toby served him. He wanted another cinnamon bun, Toby told him he was out of luck, you hadn’t made them that morning. Glancing over his shoulder with interest when Toby had pointed you out as the resident baker.

The third morning he was back again, a Glasvegas T-shirt. Julia told him you loved that band while he was waiting on his coffee. You were putting out fresh cherry and chocolate scones, when he caught your eye.

“Ey, they’re class aren’t they? What’s ya favourite song?”

You always struggled to hold his gaze when he looked at you, that didn’t change with time. Insanely blue eyes framed with lashes that were wasted on him. You shrugged, “probably Lots Sometimes.” And he had broke out into a wide grin, giving you the first glimpse of his slightly crooked bunny teeth.

You had given him the first of many loyalty cards that day, seeing as he had come in for three mornings straight, he pocketed it with a little huff of laughter, novelty.

He didn’t come back for months after that.

You and Julia spent the next few days speculating who he was and where he had gone, passing slow shifts. Toby rolled his eyes at the theories, saying that he most likely found the new Starbucks across town. Julia sighed in disappointment while muttering something about how conglomerate multi nationals were the root of all evil.

However, he turned up again a month or two later. A busy morning, frantic. You hadn’t even had a chance to look up at the next person in line when you heard his voice, “well ‘ello again, Glasvegas.”

And that’s how it went on, the cycle of Van appearing for a little bit then vanishing for longer. Each time he easily became the best part of the long days - banter, shameless flirting, footie talk with Toby, taste testing any and everything you had baked as a trial run, swapping stories, endless loyalty cards.

He always had a strange little smile when you added an fresh coffee cup stamp to the grid, something the general customer didn’t really care about and it was often a surprise when they filled the card up.

He never gave a heads up when he would be leaving again, he simply just disappeared. And you tried to pretend it wasn’t weird that you got a plummeting feeling in your stomach when it came to the day he didn’t show up. Blue eyes, freckles, a contagious laugh. It was all lingering stares, fingers brushing longer than necessary, throwaway salacious comments.

“C’mon babe, you know he’ll be back, quit sulking,” Julia would playfully elbow you when the day came, and you shook your head with snort, “Shut up, M’not sulking.”

You eventually found out he was in a band, and sometime last year he had asked you if you wanted to come to one of his gigs. Well, he had asked the three of you - but Julia was going on holidays that weekend, Toby had a wedding, and when his eyes met yours you had instinctively crafted a lie about going to visit your sister in London. Something Julia gave you shit for for weeks afterward. You didn’t have a sister, and you hated London.

A few weeks after that incident - by then Van was long gone, Julia stormed into the café with an NME magazine in hand, slamming down on the counter, Van’s face filled the cover.

“Fucking hell!” You and Toby had exhaled in near unison.

“So turns out he’s actually proper famous then, eh?” Julia laughed.

“Am I the bad boy of rock, then? Oh mate..” Toby read from the cover, laughing. “And you turned down the chance to be his bands groupie!” He joked, turning to you.

“Here, I thought he wanted us to go watch his shite Arctic Monkeys rip off band play sweaty Whelans okay?!” You defended.

“Do you think we can start a wall of famous regulars now?” Julia changed the subject, taking a fresh scone you were laying out, flicking to the pages of his interview.

“Yeah, Rock’s bad boy Van McCann and Barry from Eastenders. What a lineup...” Toby snorted, going back to stacking coffee beans.

“I mean, Van kind of looks like Hugh Grant... If you squint.” You shrugged.

You and Julia went home and watched countless Catfish and the Bottlemen interviews and live sets, you liked seeing how Van never changed. No matter who he was talking to. Treating everyone like they were an old friend, not someone he had just met 5 minutes ago.

The band seemed to really take off that year, he came back less and less. But he was still the same old Van when he did, success didn’t change him. Then their second album dropped a year ago, and you hadn’t seen him since. You were happy for him, it was obvious that he was living his dream. Eventually, you stopped thinking about him all that much, life moved on.

Now you were looking at a smug Julia, instinctively glancing around the shop while she laughs and tells you he’s long gone.

“Came in literally 5 minutes after you went out, this day is honestly like some weird fever dream.” She tells you, while Toby comes out from the back.

“And she told him you didn’t work here anymore, should have seen the poor lad’s face!” Toby chuckles.

The two of them look at at each other with a groan when you ask why he’d be upset about you not being here anymore.

“I swear to god, if I have to watch the eye fucking over coffee cups for the next few days...” she sighs, an eye roll. “He’s made it obvious he’s fancied you since the first day he walked in, yeah? Give him a chance!”

“Fucking hell, that’s pure bollocks,” exasperated. Met with a disbelieving look, which only brings you further into defensive mode. “Look, you even gave him my number on one of the stupid loyalty cards last time, never even heard from him. Obviously isn’t interested one bit.”

Julia had asked you if she could write your number on his loyalty card last spring. You had only half said yes, half said no. Noncommittal, all she needed to run with it. She handed it back to him without saying anything, only a smug smirk. You pretended you hadn’t sprung for your phone at every notification for the next two weeks in hope of hearing from him, you never did.

Julia - another eye roll, hands in the air, “Dunno, maybe he just lost the card! You just need to stop writing people off before you get to proper know them!”

The rest of the day dragged, but no more bad luck. As if the universe realigned around Van, which probably wasn’t too far from the truth.

By closing time, it’s just you and Toby left to do the clean up and lockup. It’s nearly 9 when you hear him drawl your name, walking into the kitchen and leaning against the doorway.

“Hey, Kiddo...”

“Toby, my love, what have I told you about patronizing me before you ask me for a favour?” Humming while you put cling filmed dough into the fridge for the pecan pie you were planning on making tomorrow morning.

He laughs and walks in, leaning against the counter. “Alright, sorry - princess.”

Shutting the fridge as you turn to face him with an eye roll, wordlessly telling him to go on. He launches into the how he kind of maybe forgot that his anniversary with his fiancée is tomorrow, their usual Italian restaurant they go to every year is fully booked but he knows the chef. Who, as of this morning, promised to do a private dinner for them, if he meets him at half nine and buys him a couple of drinks.

You listen while you clean off the counter tops, shaking your head with a laugh. “Dunno, mate. What’s in it for me? I mean apart from the joy of mopping floors and taking out the bins?”

Playful - a long sigh. “Isn’t the selfless act of helping out a friend in need reward enough?”

“Yeah, but we’d have to be friends first for that wouldn’t we?” You tilt your head.

“God, you’re such a little bitch sometimes, y’know that?” He chuckles, you shrug. “Right, how about I take the bins out and mop the floors all of next week, and I’ll treat ya to a Sunday roast down the pub after we finish Sunday, deal?”

He holds out his hand, eyes narrowing. Pretending to mull it over for a few seconds, you wouldn’t have made a fuss about him asking you to finish up tonight anyway, but he was always too easy to wind up. Eventually you sigh out a “suppose so” and take his hand.

Pulling you into a hug, dragging out a noise that resembles, ‘legend’ while kissing your head.

Once he’s gone, along with the rubbish, locking you in and halfway pulling the shutter down outside, you put on a Richard Ashcroft album and start on the floor.

Crazy world - you’re half singing along to the chorus, and finishing the floor, when you hear a faint noise behind the music. Insistent tapping. Confusion clouding - knowing you were here alone, glancing behind you, your grip tightening on the mop. And you almost jump out of your skin, a shadow in the entrance to the shop.

It’s Van.

He had clearly ducked under the shutter, now outside the door silhouetted by buzz of streetlamps, tapping on the glass. He laughs at your startled expression, holding up his hands and mouthing ‘sorry, sorry!”

Heart - thumping even harder now, lightheaded. Grabbing your keys to unlock the door, and when you’re face to face with him your mouth goes dry.

“Thought you’d gone and left on us, Glasvegas,”

Gaze flickering over you, a smile tugging on his lips. You can tell he’s been drinking, the all too familiar scent of hours spent in the pub lingers, mixed with fresh cigarettes, shrunken pupils and glassy eyes. A wave of trepidation prickles along your arms, drunk men made you nervous.

But - it’s Van, all messy hair, drunk eyes, and a lazy tired kind of grin. Relaxed and happy.

“Nope, still here like always,” releasing a breath you didn’t realise that you had been holding. Focusing on his necklace, sliver glinting under opened shirt buttons. “Heard Julia was messin’ with you earlier, eh?”

“Too good at fuckin’ with us that one,” he laughs, licking his lips. “Had me dead convinced you’d gone.”

Creased blue shirt - sleeves rolled up, the colour only makes his eyes look even more blue, and even more pretty. Finding yourself being increasingly self conscious despite his equally disheveled appearance. Knowing that your foundation was separating, concealer caking, mascara flaking and lipstick long gone. Coffee stains and flour marking your clothes.

“Did you want to come in for a sec?” You manage to ask.

“Can I? Won’t get ya in trouble or anything? Cause yous are closed.”

You laugh, rolling your eyes while beckoning him in. “C’mon, didn’t have you down as someone who follows the rules, McCann. Careful though, floor is still wet.”

“Oh, no, you’re dead right ‘bout that, love. Just I had you down as someone who always follows the rules.” Winking at you as he walks in, commenting how different the place feels at night.

“Anyways,” he turns back to you with a hum of your name, “Sorry that I scared you, don’t want ya to think I’m being weird coming here this late or anything, I was on me way home see, passing by and I found these on the ground outside..”

He holds up a hand, key chain around his finger and a Harley Davidson key ring you immediately recognize as Toby’s.

You cut him off, telling him they’re Toby’s, that he must have dropped them after locking you in earlier, and that he’s a fucking idiot. An entertained smile curving his lips at your mini rant.

“Sorry, been a long day.”

“Yeah, Julia mentioned you’d been having bad luck or sommat, tell me about it?” A hopeful glint in his eye, and you wondered if he had ever been denied anything in his life.

Ending up making him coffee and giving him leftover banana bread while you ran him through the dramatics of your day. He, like Julia, was shocked that you had never heard of the touch wood superstition.

“Sounds like you’ve been through it, love... then I show up and make it worse, eh?” Finishing his cake and his eyes find yours again.

“Yeah, something like that,” a teasing sort of lithe, the more you talked to him the more at ease you felt around him. It’s familiar.

“Alright, alright! See how it is!” His voice raising to a squeak, you laughed.

You wouldn’t let him pay for the coffee and banana bread, saying it was on the house for saving the shop from being robbed. He only shrugs and leans against the counter beside you. “Just means I’m gonna have to buy you one back, doesn’t it.”

“Thanks for the gesture, but I do get free coffee working here, y’know,” you tell him, already hearing Julia’s words about writing people off, but he was only being nice, wasn’t he?

“Fairs, I’ll buy ya one from a different place then, good to try out the competition innit?” Arms crossing while he looks at you, and you shake your head. Your cheeks aching from the permanent smile you had since he walked in, and you knew you’d cringe about that later tonight when you replayed the scene over in your head in bed.

“Only competition round here is Starbucks, and I don’t think Julia would let you step foot in here again if you buy anything from there.”

He laughs at that, telling you he was more thinking of crappy petrol station coffee. Something you scrunch your nose in disgust at, asking him if that’s all your worth to him. Drawing another laugh.

“C’mere I’d rather take you out for a pint, but m’sparing myself from the inevitable rejection and heartbreak,” he laughs, shaking his head. Your teeth sink into your lip, picking at loose skin on your thumb nail, practically hearing Julia screaming at you in your head.

“How long are you back for?” Finding yourself asking, though you never had before. Not something you ever talked about, questioned. He gives you a look, a smirk.

“Never talk about that do we, love?” He echoes your thoughts while digging in his pocket, ridiculously tight skinny jeans, until his pulls out the green little loyalty card. 8 empty stamp grids, his first one filled by Julia today. “But I’m gonna fill one of these eventually! Toby’s bet me a fiver that I won’t until I’m 30.”

You’re half tempted to ask him why he never called, or texted, or did anything with your number on the last card. Instead your mouth curls around telling him that you’d best lock up and get home. You’re knackered. He asks how you’re getting home, telling him you’re walking, that you only live 15 minutes away while he glances outside. Orange glow of streetlamps. It’s nearing 10, autumn weather starting to creep in.

“It’s dark out.” He states the obvious.

“And?”

“Love, I ain’t letting you walk home in the dark alone! Let me walk ya,” Exclaiming, typical Van fashion. Shaking your head, knowing his intentions were good but you were stubborn.

“Who are you, me dad? I’m more than capable of getting myself home, Van.” Teasing but firm, arching a brow at him. He tells you he’ll get you an Uber then, you repeat that it’s only 15 minutes home, that you’re walking. He only stares at you for a second or two, and you can’t hold it. Thankful that he’s obviously drunk and tired, because he gives in.

“Then at least text me when ya get home, yeah?” Curling his fingers for you to give him your phone, something you’re tempted to deny. But finding it endearing that he cares so much. Handing your phone over. He messes up his number twice.

Unexpectedly, he pulls you in for a hug before he leaves. All warm skin, and you realise you wish you could stay here talking shite with him for longer. All night even.

You watch him walk over to the door. “Right, night.. you’ll be here in the morning, yeah?” He glances back.

“Bright and early.” You confirm.

“Any cinnamon buns going?”

“Maybe, if you get in early enough.”

He laughs. “Right, night then. See ya tomorrow, Glasvegas. Text me, don’t forget!” He calls while he walks out and you grab your stuff to follow him out once you set the alarm.

Watching - he pretends to walk down stairs on the other side of the window before ducking under the shutter.

Leaving you to shake your head with an amused laugh. What a fucking day.

#oh hey sometimes i write vanfics when i need to get out of my head #idk prob will add another few parts to this at some pointtt #vanfic #catb fanfic #Van McCann fanfic

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queen-of-fanfics · 5 years ago

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Together

Prompt: Persephone and Hades meet and fall in love before they are demanded to separate.

Pairing: Hades x Persephone

A/N: Hey guys! I know it’s been ages since I’ve written on here but I suddenly had the urge to get back to it. No one requested this but I simply love Hades and Persephone so I just started writing. It might be a little long but I really liked what I was doing with it so hopefully you like it too and have a read.

Persephone opened her eyes and found herself very confused. She looked around her and found herself laying on a velvet couch in a dark cave. She couldn’t remember how she got there, the last thing she remembered was running around in a field of flowers she was tending. She could hear her friends giggling through the trees. Persephone had seen a shadow moving through the bushes and she tried to follow. Persephone grimaced and let out a sigh, this was why mother never let her go out, especially on her own. She always got lost. Everyone is probably worried sick.

Blinking her eyes to adjust to the dark lighting, she took a look around the room. Next to her, near the head of her couch, there sat a gold throne with black cushions. The room was big around her and her breath caught in her throat when she saw sitting in the middle of the room was the biggest god she had ever seen. If you could call it a dog. It was massive with three heads and she could see it’s sharp teeth every time it breathed. She was rather thankful that it was peacefully sleeping. She definitely didn’t want to find out what it would do to her if it was awake.

Slowly, Persephone pushed herself to sit upright on the couch and she froze in her seat when she saw a large, tall dark figure standing over a table, facing away from her, at the end of the room. She could vaguely see different dishes of food on the table and the man was picking a little of everything to put on his own dish. Persephone watched him move with a given grace to his movements and she found that she wasn’t scared. She felt oddly … content and at peace exactly where she was.

Persephone held her breath as the man slowly turned to face her. He lifted his head and gave a slight look of surprise when he saw her. In his hands was a plate of food and glass of water. He didn’t take a step towards her, simply just standing there staring at her as she stared back at him. “Hi,” she whispered but it seemed to echo off the walls.

“Hello.” They both continued to stare at each other, neither too captivated to do anything else. As Persephone looked at the man, she couldn’t help to notice that he was quite handsome. He might not have been traditionally handsome but he took her breath away and her brain turned to mush. He wore a black fittest suit and he filled out every part of it, he stood far from her but he seemed impossibly tall and his eyes were the lightest shade of blue she has ever seen. She felt a familiar pull to him and she couldn’t look away.

The man slightly swallowed and slowed made his way over to her. “I’m glad to see you’re awake. You had me scared there for a second. Here, I got this for you.” He knelt down next to her and nervously handed her the food and drink. She reached out and their fingers grazed each other as she took the plate and she let out a small gasp. Even when he was kneeling, he was as tall as her when she was sitting on the couch. Looking up, she felt a pull towards him like the small space in between them was too much. She wanted to be near him. She needed it.

“Thank you. May I ask how did I get here?”

He helped her sit up all the way, he reached around the couch and put a pillow behind her back to let her sit comfortably. “Eat, you need it.”

“If I eat, will you sit and talk with me?”

“Of course. If you’ll let me.”

“Please. I’d want nothing more.”

“Then I will be right here. I was walking through the woods early, I had business up with the living. I heard small footsteps behind me but I had just assumed it was just a bunny or something. I had gotten onto my chariot to come home and it wasn’t until I got here that I found you hiding in the back. Asleep. Was the ride too long and boring for you?”

Grimacing, Persephone looked down at her food. How embarrassing? What was she thinking. Being curious and sneaking to someone’s home are two very different things.

“Sorry. I don’t even know how I could explain that without sounding extremely creepy.”

“It’s alright. You gave me quite the scare. I thought you were dead.” They shared a laugh together and she looked at him again, she couldn’t look away from his eyes for very long. It was like she needed to see them to breathe.

They were speaking softly again and Persephone swore he could hear her heart beating so damn loud. “You’re Hades.”

“That I am.”

“I’ve heard a lot about you.”

He continued to stare at her and his express gave nothing away. “All horrible things I’m sure.”

Persephone didn’t answer. Because it’s true. For as long as she could remember, he was someone she was always told to stay clear from. That he would be no good for her. When she didn’t answer, he knew but he still gave her a small smile. Persephone knew that he didn’t smile much and seeing even just a small one felt like the sun was shining on her.

“I’m told you're no good. You’ll just hurt me when you can. You’re always with the dead so you always think of the dead. That would always want people dead.”

“Is that all? I would’ve thought the gods would’ve come up with better scares than that.”

“Also I should stay away from you because you deal with the dead.”

“Oh? And you’ll be dead if you deal with me?”

“I don’t believe so.”

“You shouldn’t be so trusting. You’re in the Underworld at the moment. You’re in my kingdom and you don’t even know me.” Hade has got a little smirk on his face, probably trying to scare her. But she didn’t feel scared. Somehow as they were talking, neither of them seemed to notice that they were both leaning in closer. Maybe she wasn’t the only one feeling this pull between them.

“I know you won’t hurt me.” Her voice was husky and his smirk slowly dropped. He started looking down at her lips then back at her eyes.

“How can you be so sure?” and now it was his turn to speak softly.

They were close enough to feel each other’s breath. Less than an inch more and they would be kissing. The tension was so strong and neither of them had the power or the will to turn away. Hades couldn’t describe what was happening to him. He didn’t know her, he never did anything reckless but at that very moment, he would do anything just to kiss her for even a little.

Unfortunately, Cerberus decided that that was the best moment to wake up and demand to be played with. Cerberus jumped up suddenly and let out wall shaking barks, scaring the couple apart. Hades jumped to his feet and Persephone sat straight up like a stick on the couch. Unsure of how his pet was going to react to a new person in their home, Hades jumped up to block Persephone from view. Damn it. He should have moved Cerberus out of the room but it was impossible to move that monster.

Hades was ready to wrestle Cerberus if he made a move for her. He didn’t know why, but he felt oddly protective of her. No one or thing was ever going to hurt her again. Though Cerberus had the keenest sense of smell and he had four little noses to help him too. The dog knew she was there and made a run for her. Even if Hades tried, he was an ant compared to the animal but he tried to push him off anyway.

Though much to everyone’s surprise, when Cerberus ran up to Persephone, he didn’t attack. He simply jumped around her, wagged his tail and gently laid all his giant heads on the couch, looking at her. Hades stood there, staring at his dog in disbelief as his monster of a pet was gently waiting for Persephone. She slowly and cautiously put down her plate and cup on the floor and even more slowly, reaching out to pet the dog. Her hand barely covered one of its noses but she could see his tail was wagging and she smiled brightly at him.

“Hello there. How are you. Oh aren’t you such a good boy, yes you are helloooo” she cooed at him.

“I have to admit, I’m shocked. He doesn’t take well to strangers. I should’ve put you in another room, I’m sorry. I’m thankful he wasn’t aggressive with you. I wasn’t sure what I would’ve done if he had attacked you. I apologize, I should’ve have put more thought into your safety.”

She looked up at him as he came over and started petting Cerberus too.

“See? You won’t hurt me.” Hades stared down at her and he didn’t know what to say. He had barely known the girl and she had left him speechless more than he could count.

Hades cleared his throat, stood a little taller before he spoke again, “Finish your food. I’ll call someone to bring you home.”

“No!”

His eyes widened slightly but she caught it. Nothing else of his face told her what he was thinking ande didn’t speak again, waiting for her. She took the time to compose herself before she spoke and made a fool of herself.

“I mean. There is no hurry. I’m … quite tired, too tired to make a trip. If it would be no trouble, if I could just … spend the night. Just a while more, to gain my strength.” She couldn’t bear the thought of leaving when she had just found him. He intrigued her and something told her to stay. She felt more at home wherever she was with him than she has ever felt with her friends.

“It will be no bother. I will have a room ready for you and you can reside there until you are energized for the travel back.” He called for Cerberus to follow him as he left the room. Persephone let out a breath of relief and smiled to herself. Staying made her happy and she couldn’t quite explain why.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Persephone let out a laugh at something Hades had told her and he smiled at her fondly. Cerberus was resting beside her feet as they all sat around the dinner table. The fireplace was lit across the room and candles were flickering around the table. It has been weeks since she first arrived and every night she asked to stay some more.

The first few days, she followed Hades as he dealt with business and they would spend evenings lounging together. After the third day, Hades showed her to a garden she could tend to, the plants looked dull and dark but with her care, they thrived and she took pride in them. After a week, she started to have her own schedule and agenda around the Underworld as Hades had his own duties to attend to. She met more people around and they started coming to her to ask questions and asking for her opinions.

Every night, she and Hades would come together to have dinner. After, they would simply enjoy each other’s company. No matter where she went, Cerberus was there nipping at her heels.

She was happy. She had a place here. With him. They haven’t kissed. He was always a gentleman and never crossed that line though she has dreamt of it plenty. She feared that she would never grow courageous enough to make a move on him but he never made her feel uncomfortable or pushed her which she appreciated. Ever since she had arrived, each day, she saw him smile at her more and more. He’s even making jokes now, who would’ve thought.

“And I told him, if he wanted that, he would have to go ask Hera instead of complaining to me.” He said dramatically as he told his story.

Persephone gasped loudly and laughed at him, “You did not! You could not be so cruel as to push him into Hera’s path. You know she would rip him into pieces if she heard what he was saying.”

“Exactly why I told him to talk to her!”

They laughed together and enjoyed dinner when suddenly they heard loud running footsteps towards them. Looking up from their plates, they saw one of Hades’s closest helper run into the room out of breath. “Sir!” he said quite urgently.

Hades’s face immediately changed to seriousness. Persephone hated seeing him so … blank. He never showed emotions when dealing with his godly duties but he always looked at her so warmly. Feeling the change in the room, she sat up taller in her seat and listened intently. She felt like it was her place to stand by him and she needed to be strong by his side as he is.

“What can I help you with?” Hades asked calmly.

“Sir. I’m sorry. There’s been a rumor circulating around that you have captured Miss Persephone. I know that is not true and everyone in Hades is spreading the word that that is a lie! But the other gods don’t believe it. I’ve gained news that Miss Persephone’s mother is causing an uproar above and Zeus is now on his way to demand you give her back. I tried to stop him sir but he is on a mission. He too believes you kidnapped her.” The helper’s face looked truly upset.

Persephone couldn’t believe what she just heard. Hades kidnapping me? They always think the worst of him of course they would make a wild rumor like this. How could she be so naive, she should’ve sent word to her mother but she had been so happy, it didn’t even cross her mind thus far.

Looking over at Hades with scared eyes, she wanted to cry and ask him to fix things.

After what felt like an eternity, Hades dismissed the helper and sat quietly, thinking. After she could no longer sit there, Persephone asked, “What are we to do?”

Hades looked up at her and she could see the sadness in his eyes.

“There is not much we can do. I believe that nearly every god out there believes that I kidnapped you and ruined you. For that, I’m sorry. My image is hurting you.”

“Stop that. You didn’t do anything. I was the one who ran to you. I wanted to stay. You never hurt you, I can’t see how they could not see how amazing you are.”

“I’m sorry my dear but we both knew our time was limited. We escaped reality for a moment but now it is time to return.”

Tears were building in her eyes and seeing them pulled at Hades’s heart strings.

“Please. I don’t want to leave. I fear that when I leave, I will never be allowed to see you again. And … I can’t have that. It hurts to be away from you. I can’t leave you.” Persephone whispered her last words and tears rolled down her face.

Hades reached over and covered her hand on the table. After a moment, he pulled her hand to urge her to stand and pull her into his lap. He held her close as she turned her face into his neck and she cried. They simply held each other in silence, her heart broke with every second knowing she would have to leave soon.

He finally pulled away from her and lifted her chin so she would look at him.

“I love your eyes.” She whispered, her face still damp from her tears.

“And I love how you smile.” She continued.

“I only smile at you, my dear.”

She didn’t stop to listen to him, her words seemed to be pulled out of her.

“I love how kind you are. And I love the way you hold my face. And I love holding your hand. And I love how you are always there for me when I need you. And I love how if you laugh a little too much you snort a little.” She giggled at that one.

She reached up to wipe his face as some tears escaped.

“And …. I love you. Just you. All of you. And no one can tell me I can’t.”

Before she could move, he cupped her face and slammed his lips down onto hers. She let out a breath and wrapped her arms around him and kissed him back urgently like she needed his kiss to be alive. She felt alive. And she felt love.

Hades finally pulled away from her and she let out a little whine trying to pull him back. He chuckled at her and said, “One second, baby. I think I have an idea.”

“To let me stay?”

“Sort of.”

Hades reached on the table and cracked open a pomegranate. Seeds fell out and rolled onto the table in front of her. Turning to face the table, she raised her brow in question. Hades picked twelve seeds and laid them out in a row for her. “Eat as many seeds as you want.”

“How is this going to help us?”

“Just trust me.” He kissed her shoulder and wrapped his arms around her from behind.

“Okay, you weirdo.” She smiled at him before examining the seeds. She shrugged and scooped up six seeds and threw them into her mouth.

“There. I ate six. Now what? Is there a spell or something?”

“Or something. See each seed represents a month. You just ate six.”

“Ooookay? I’m still not getting it.”

“Well you ate six, so that’s six months, right? So from now on, for six months out of the year, you’ll have to be here with me. And for the rest of the year,” he waved his finger over the remaining seeds, “you’ll be able to be above with your friends and family.”

She let out a gasp, “You’re a genius! That way I’ll have time for here and up there.”

“Precisely.” He said proudly as she turned on his lap to face him.

“Do you think this will work?” She sounded nervous.

“I’m not sure but I hope so. I’ll negotiate with my brother. I’ll make it happen.”

“Promise me. Whatever happens, we do this together. If you’re going to talk to Zeus, I want to be there too. I don’t want him trying to say you kidnapped me!”

“Alright. Alright. Calm down, tiger. We do it together. And Persephone?”

“Yes?”

“I love you too.”

They smiled and shared a kiss as they heard Zeus coming to get them.

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gaasaku-fanfests · 6 years ago

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never sing your absolution

Title: of all the songs they’ll sing about you, they’ll never sing your absolution

Author: mouseymightymarvellous Rating: T Word Count: 11,437 words Summary: Sakura is born with a smear of dark, dark brown down her back: a strangely symmetrical blob of near-black. Naruto tells her later, much later, that he loves her, but she knows he loves Sasuke best: the two of them broken boys finding themselves in each other. Sakura considers the ragged edges of her half-formed soul, and wonders if it was ignorance or self-preservation that saved him from the way she would have swallowed the whole burning sun of his love without it having ever been enough. Sakura considers the ragged edges of her half-formed soul, and wonders how much more of herself will wash away under the weight of the world before she finds the matching piece. Warnings: Brushes up against violence, self-esteem and mental health issues, suicidal impulses, and co-dependent relationships. Nothing super explicit, but take care of yourselves. Author's Note(s): My general approach to canon is to cherry pick the parts I like and to leave out the parts that I can’t reconcile in any given AU or just simply can’t be bothered to recognize (e.g. aliens). As such, expect a fair amount of wiggle within the bounds of canon events and worldbuilding. Also, in case it’s not absolutely clear, soulmates are extremely rare in this AU.

Trope: Soulmate AU

She’s born with a smear of dark, dark brown down her back: a strangely symmetrical blob of near-black.

The midwife’s hands tremble as she wipes the viscera from the babe and whispers a prayer over the wrinkled, hairless head. She stills the apology on her tongue as she holds the child out for her parents to take, then turns away, leaving them to their grief.

In the bed behind her, Mebuki begins to weep.

***

Truths about the soul marked:

***

The thing Sakura will remember most vividly, later, years and years afterwards, is leaving Tetsu no Kuni, not actually living there. She wept for days, weeks, on the road, at times screaming loud enough in protest over leaving her cousins and aunties and uncles behind that, once, Tōchan knelt next to her where she was pounding the floor of the wagon with her fists and told her in a firm voice that she will never forget that if she did not stop screaming, he would let their shinobi guards gag her until she learned to be quiet.

It was like a hole in her heart opened up, then. Where once there had been something small enough that she could walk around it without paying all that much attention, suddenly there was something terrible yawning at her centre. Four years old, and Sakura knew better than to look right at it. Looking it in the face might mean something she could never take back, never come back from.

Sakura’s teeth had bit down sharply on her tears, on her screaming, on her grief, on the abyss inside of her that she did not understand, and it would be a long, long time before she learned to loosen her hold on it all without falling into it.

Tetsu no Kuni was running on bare feet through the wide paths of the family compound, giggling as she twirled out of reach of her cousin’s outstretched hand. Tetsu no Kuni was sitting crosslegged in front of Obasan, learning to breath evenly until she is standing in the empty of her mind or running careful fingers along Obasan’s paired swords. Tetsu no Kuni was Sobo’s fingers in her hair and a fairy tale in the air.

When they finally reach the walls of Konohagakure, Sakura thinks that nothing else in the world could be built as tall.

So she fixes the image of those towering walls in her mind and builds a copy of them in her mind and forgets there was ever an abyss at the heart of her, waiting to devour her whole.

Konoha is too big and too loud and Sakura doesn’t know how to make friends who don’t share her pink hair or her green eyes or the slope of her nose. She’s never had to make friends before, not when there were dozens of cousins to run with, bound by blood and peaches stolen from the family orchards and late nights tucked into bed together after a harvest celebration.

Kāchan and Tōchan are busy getting established, expanding the Haruno textile trade in the village and into the surrounding country, and they don’t have much time for Sakura.

Their new home doesn’t smell right. The walls are the wrong texture. Sakura misses her bed and her wardrobe with the bunnies carved into the door and the little nook under the stairs that was perfect for hiding in to surprise her parents when they walked into the house at the end of the day.

Sakura has never known loneliness before. Not like this.

There are no cousins or aunts or uncles coming in and out, or just around the corner. No familiar retainers sneaking Sakura her favourite sweets. No regular family dinners or stopping by the Main House in the compound to see if Sofu has receive a new ingenious mechanical toy for his ever expanding collection of spinning, whirring gadgets.

There is just Sakura and a set of busy, dusty streets where she doesn’t know the fastest way to run to reach the creek in order to dip her feet or to take a side in the ongoing, shifting, multi-alliance water fight where the only certainty in war is that you will walk away soaking wet at the end of it.

Loneliness, Sakura learns in that long year before the Academy, tastes like dead leaves scattered across the narrow paths through the forest Sakura explores on her own or food once the spices Kāchan brought with them run out and the trade caravan from Tetsu no Kuni is delayed by bandit activity or the salt of her tears stinging the back of her throat and carving canyons down her cheeks and into her soul.

The neighbourhood children look and her and quickly turn away.

Sakura builds the walls in her mind higher and convinced herself she does not understand what they see in her that is so imminently loathsome.

Sakura spends the year learning the geography of this new place, how it feels underneath her bare feet. She sits cross-legged in their new, blooming kitchen garden and breathes with the earthworms, opening her eyes to stare out at the impossible expanse of her mindscape, cool walls pressed to her back. She lets her hair grow long and doesn’t bother to tie it back out of her face; people seem to find it easier to meet her green eyes when they are shuttered by a fringe of pink.

In Konoha, Sakura learns to tuck herself away. Until she is all but buried under leaves, almost impossible to see through the debris.

It will only be much, much later, that she realizes the only thing she’s ever wanted is for someone to be willing to look hard enough to find her.

***

1. Somewhere out in the wide world is the other half of your soul. It resides in a body that breathes and bleeds and is not yours. (And oh, how bodies are fragile. And oh, how they break.)

***

“This is a new start,” Kāchan tells Sakura as she kneels in front of her.

Sakura wants to sink into the hand running through her hair in benediction, but that is what Kāchan said when they left home, too, and Sakura isn’t quite so certain she likes new starts.

“Don’t worry, Sakura-chan, you will make friends and learn. You’re going to find people who love you, at school. How could they not?”

Sakura is five years old and runs, still, with the kind of unconscious grace that only children can. Fearless and free.

She’s never thought to look over her shoulder in the mirror, because why would she?

Little girls shouldn’t be born with blades etched into their spines.

Sakura doesn’t know, yet, that with every inch she grows and every year she lives, there is a dark brown smudge on her back sharpening into stark relief.

“Who couldn’t help but love you,” Kāchan declares.

It almost sounds like a question, and Sakura doesn’t understand yet why she looks so sad.

“No one is ever going to love you with that big forehead,” Ami tells Sakura.

Sakura grits her teeth and hunches her shoulders.

Ignore them and they’ll go away. Kāchan promised.

“Hey! Are you listening to me?”

“You’re so weird! All quiet, with your dumb hair.”

Somebody pushes her: hard hands to her chest that steal the air from her lungs.

Sakura’s head swings up to look at the girl who shoved her, eyes wide, as she falls.

Oof.

It doesn’t hurt. Sakura knows how to fall without hurting herself by now. If nothing else, months at the Academy have taught her that. But just because it doesn’t hurt, doesn’t mean it doesn’t hurt.

She swallows and tries to blink back the welling tears.

Why do they do this? Why do they hate her?

“Go ahead and cry, you crybaby!”

“You’ll never be a real shinobi.”

“Go back where you came from, we don’t want you here.”

“Wimp.”

“Baby.”

“Pa-the-tic.”

Every word is a blade, and still Sakura swallows down the hurt.

She’s not allowed to scream. She’s not allowed to yell at them to stop, to go away, to leave her alone.

Months at the Academy have taught her this, too.

So she sits and takes it, blood welling in her throat as she takes the insults in, makes the hurt a part of herself, turns it into one more stone in the wall around the abyss she pretends doesn’t exist at her centre.

If she screams, the void will echo in her voice.

Sakura dares not scream.

Kāchan promised.

She pulls her knees up and buries her face in them, pressing her open mouth to the skin of her thigh and setting her teeth there, all the better to muffle any sounds that manage to force their way past the blades in her throat.

She can no longer hear the words for the blood rushing in her ears, for the howling void in her heart that shakes at her walls, threatening to bring it all down.

Sakura wants them to hurt the way she hurts, but she must not.

Ignore them.

If they go away, maybe the hurt will stop and the void will fold in on itself, leaving her whole.

Sakura shivers, her tears too warm where they stain her skin, but she does not scream.

Eventually, Ami and her friends get bored, just like Kāchan promised, and they leave Sakura with a last parting gift of rocks and dust kicked in her direction.

One particularly sharp rock slices a thin line along her shin, and Sakura lets out a soundless cry.

The dirt makes her cough.

She watches them walk away laughing, tears on her face as she shakes under the force of her lungs protesting.

Sakura looks at the teeth marks set into her thigh and the blood running down her leg. Sakura looks at the girls walking away, so sure in themselves and their place in the world and their right to make Sakura feel small and weak and useless.

The void yawns in her heart and, for one endless moment, Sakura’s hands curl and her muscles tense.

For one endless moment, the illusion of her walls shiver, and across the plain of her mindscape races a triumphant, howling wind.

Sakura wants to rip their eyes out.

She wants to rip them to shreds.

But then a pack of boys runs in front of her—a loud, colourful confusion—and she loses sight of them.

As sudden as it started, Sakura is only just herself.

She shudders.

Around her, the ground settles, small dust spinners tumbling down to nothing.

Sakura heaves herself up and goes to the bathroom to wash out her cut, and does her best to forget the taste of iron at the back of her throat and the impossible feeling of the void engulfing her completely and leaving in her place nothing but wrath and the endless need to consume.

She is Sakura only.

Nothing lives under her skin but herself.

(And why does that hurt?)

Ino-chan’s hands are small but sure on Sakura’s face, framing her cheeks and her smile.

“There,” Ino-chan says, “no more hiding.”

Ino-chan’s love makes for much better building material than Ami’s taunts.

As for the guilt, Sakura swallows down that blade and pretends that there is no blood staining her smile.

Sakura loves Ino the way a monsoon loves the earth.

She sits in the dark of her bed some nights, and wonders when she will wash everything Ino is away under the force of it, how much Sakura loves her.

***

2. The only way you’ll know the body—a thing of blood and bone—that carries the other half of your soul is the mark that you both carry, carved into your skin. (It’s the only shred of pity from the universe you’ll ever see.)

***

“Sakura-chan,” Ino gasps, Sakura’s hair falling out of her grasp as Ino pulls at the back of Sakura’s shirt, “you have a tattoo?”

“Ow!” Sakura scowls. “I do not!”

That’s absurd, Sakura would remember getting a tattoo. They’re supposed to hurt. Even if she’d thought about wanting a tattoo, Kāchan would never let her, and they aren’t genin yet, not nearly, they don’t get to act as they please.

“You do too! I can see it!”

For a terrible moment, Sakura’s stomach plummets to her feet.

Has this been a lie? Two years of friendship, all so Ino can play a joke on her?

Sakura breathes through the impulse for tears.

“Come on!” Ino tugs her to her feet and across the hall to the bathroom.

Sakura squirms as Ino pulls the hem of her shirt up, but Ino just flicks her painfully on the ear.

“Stay still, and look,” she orders.

Sakura twists awkwardly, trying to get a good look in the mirror, blinking back tears, and. Oh. There’s what looks like ink at the small of her back, something sharp and pointed and terrible.

Sakura shivers.

She doesn’t know what that is.

“See?” Ino demands. And then her eyes go wide, her mouth dropping open in surprise.

“What?” Sakura’s heart drums in her ears.

Ino drops the hem of Sakura’s shirt, letting it fall back down and block out the sight of that dark, dark blade etched along Sakura’s spine.

Ino turns Sakura around gently, her hands fluttering nervously at Sakura’s shoulders. “Sakura,” she says, “why didn’t you tell me you have a soul mark?”

And Sakura wants to laugh. That is absurd. She can’t have a soul mark.

Soul marks are fairy tales, are legends.

Soul marks are things for people much more grand than Haruno Sakura.

“I don’t,” she whispers, shaking her head.

“Sakura,” Ino tries.

“No. I don’t. I would know.”

Except. Well.

Sakura’s never bothered looking at her back. Why would she?

And Kāchan has always been firm about saying no to certain pieces of clothing Sakura has begged her to buy.

And Kāchan has always insisted Sakura wear a shirt over her bathing suit. “To stop her from getting sunburnt.”

And Kāchan’s eyes have always gone cold and sad the few times the subject of soulmates has come up while Tōchan has looked away, and some days Sakura is so aware of the secrets that live in her house that she can barely breathe under the weight of them.

“I don’t,” Sakura pleads, trembling, hoping that Ino will laugh; tell her that of course not, that she was just joking.

Except, if Ino were joking, if she were to do that to Sakura, Sakura thinks her heart might just break irreparably.

“Ino,” she whispers.

Ino pulls her into a tight, desperate hug that leaves Sakura aching for more.

“I won’t tell anyone,” Ino swears, steel threaded through her voice. “Not ever.”

There’s something about Ino’s hands clutching at Sakura’s shoulders and the weight of her vow that is impossible to doubt.

Sakura stands in Ino’s hold, and shivers.

When Sakura trudges into the kitchen the next afternoon, her shoulders pulled up to her ears, her Kāchan runs the back of her hand down one cheek and crouches to look Sakura in the eye.

“Did you not have a good time at Yamanaka-kun’s last night?” she asks softly.

Sakura looks away, down at the floor, anywhere but Kāchan’s face.

“Why didn’t you tell me?” she whispers.

She whispers so that she doesn’t yell, because is Sakura starts yelling, she doesn’t think she’ll stop until there’s nothing left of her.

“Tell you what?” Kāchan asks, but her fingers are trembling on Sakura’s cheek.

Sakura squares her shoulders, the muscles in her jaw tensing as she raises her chin, mulishness pasted over rage.

“Why didn’t you tell me about my soul mark?” she demands.

Wild emotions are not done in the Haruno family, but that afternoon Sakura slams her bedroom door behind her and flops down on her bed to scream into her pillow.

Her heart aches, gaping wide and much too open for the hurts of the world.

Later that night—long after Tōchan has knocked gently on her door asking her to come out, only to eventually give up with a sigh, and both her parents have settled down into bed—she creeps into the bathroom, strips off her shirt and perches on the cold, cold counter to stare over her shoulder at the image of her back.

A sword is inked down her spine: a beautiful, terrible thing. For all that it is flesh and pigment, she’s half tempted to believe that if you were to run your finger along the edge, trace goosebumps across her skin, you’d come away bloody.

She turns off the lights behind her when she finally pulls herself away from the mirror.

That sharp edge and the memory of the tears in her mother’s eyes chase her through dreams.

Sakura slams her stack of books on the counter.

The librarian manning the desk raises an eyebrow at her vehemence.

Sakura glares at him.

"Alright, alright kiddo. Put those peepers away. I'm not judging." He picks them up and opens their covers one by one, inking in the due date on the cards affixed to the inside before entering each title into his big official book. He whistles. "This is some pretty heavy reading. How old are you, four?"

Sakura's eyes narrow further. "I'm seven."

The librarian laughs. "Alright, sorry about that, seven then. Still, these are some pretty intense books. You sure you don't want something a little bit lighter? We've got fairy tale books and shit that are probably more your speed."

"I don't need fairy tales," she growls. "I need facts."

The eyebrows somehow go up even further.

Sakura wants to shave them off his face.

They're stupid eyebrows anyways.

The librarian considers the titles once again, and the bemusement turns to understanding and then something sadder still.

If he says anything pitying, Sakura is going to leap across the counter and take his face off, eyebrows and all. Even if he is a chūnin.

Sakura doesn't need or want his pity.

She’s gotten enough of that from her Kāchan and Tōchan as it is.

At least Ino doesn't look at her differently.

Too differently.

"Can I go now?" Sakura asks, tension in between her shoulders as she tries to keep them down from around her ears. "I've got research to do."

The librarian piles the books up again and pushes them to the edge of the counter. "Yeah, kid. You can go. Good luck."

It sounds like benediction.

It sounds like a curse.

It sounds like anything other than a librarian wishing a girl happy reading.

As she scurries out of the library, Sakura swears that she's never going to let anybody else know about the mark cutting its way down her spine.

She doesn't want more pity.

She wants to scrape the ink out from under her skin.

(She hasn't read the books, but she already knows that even if she could, even if she could rip the mark from her back, make her skin all smooth, unblemished silk, it would not matter.

What she carries, what she is—it’s deeper than skin.

There is no escaping what she is, and all that she is not.)

The books are a hard slog.

Sakura reads with her dictionaries spread out across her bedspread next to her.

Kāchan appears briefly in her doorway, but when Sakura looks up, she's already gone.

The grief of her presence lingers.

Sakura puts her head down and does her best to ignore it.

She's getting very good at ignoring her mother's emotions, those dark twisty things she doesn't yet understand. Not really.

The books help her understanding though.

Too much.

She wants to go back to before. Before Ino spun her around in front of a mirror and showed Sakura her truth, the explanation for her mother’s silences and the void that perches on Sakura’s chest, the one she’s always tried to pretend she didn’t know was there.

The books are a hard slog, but Sakura is clever, she understands what they do not say.

Her fairy tales spoke of love stories large enough to shift the world, of great triumphs and impossible tragedies.

And maybe they do happen sometimes, those grand tales.

But too often the books warn, all too often, all there is is a mundane disaster of two halves of a soul that never quite manage to meet.

Sakura stands breathing in her mindscape with her back to the plains.

Her walls stretch high enough to reach the not-sky.

She knows, now, that one day, they will not be enough.

***

3. There is no song that will sing out, no clouds that will part, no sign. The only way you will know is if you see it, the mark of your shattered soul on their foreign body. (It will be temptation to forgo clothing.)

***

Years and years and years later, she doesn’t remember why she convinces herself that she loves Uchiha Sasuke, not really. The reason will be tangled up with self-loathing and fear and that desperate, aching need to be normal, to not have her broken soul inked onto her skin for anyone to see if they were to look close enough.

It’s a foolish thing, of course, and not just for the ways that Sakura is broken. They are, the two of them, but children with knives in their hands, only ever taught how to cut each other to pieces.

Sakura’s parents only ever wanted peace for her, but peace was never an option for Sakura, and even before she understood that to her bones, she decided to be a shinobi instead.

Sasuke never really had a choice in what he was to become; his family made those decisions for him, carved him a path and laid it at his feet. The only decision he could have made was to not walk it, and by the time he might have realized that was ever a choice, it was much too late for that.

(Tsunade-shishō is the first person to teach Sakura how to hold something with firm hands and not break it with her touch. It takes her much too long to learn that softness is not a weakness in her bones but rather the greatest act of defiance she can make in the face of a world that gives children knives and feeds them to the gaping maw of War.)

Before all of that, though, there is just Sakura and Ino with an ocean of words that can never be taken back strewn between them.

Sakura would like to believe she did it for Ino. Split the two of them apart in a way that couldn’t be taken back so that the sticky tendrils of Sakura’s endless want didn’t strangle her into nothingness.

But Sakura will not have survived by lying to herself.

Sakura knows exactly what she is, and Ino alone could have never been enough.

Sakura knows well the taste of loneliness.

She drinks it down and pretends that it doesn’t burn her throat.

There are many things Sakura will never forget.

The crack of bone as she breaks Kiba’s leg is one of them.

The entire class freezes and Mizuki-sensei is suddenly next to them.

Sakura swallows down the hunger rising in her throat, the gorge.

She backs away from Kiba and tries to blink the tears from her eyes.

Akamaru is whimpering.

He’s just a puppy. Sakura didn’t mean to scare him.

Her fingers clench on nothing, on the phantom memory of Kiba’s leg snapping under her.

Her mouth tastes like iron.

Sakura is more careful, after that.

Better to be silly than to be a monster.

Better to stand back and look meek than to tempt her walls to ruin.

Three months until the end of the year exams.

Sakura is equal parts bravado and anxiety, she is equally certain in turns that she will fail out of the Academy and that she will graduate top of her class.

And then, of course, looming like storm clouds on that horizon, are genin team assignments.

Anyone who is paying attention knows that much of this year, with its various exercises and skill testing, has been about determining team composition.

Konoha has been at peace for longer than her class has been alive, and genin teams are built to last, not just the product of whatever resources are available at any given time.

Sakura keeps paperless lists in her head of her classmates and considers who she might be matched with.

Genin teams matter; they mean something. About what Konoha sees in you and what the village hopes you will become.

Sakura is from an immigrant family of merchants and samurai. She wants so badly to be useful to her village, wants so badly for her village to find worth in her.

So Sakura does what any self-respecting shinobi would do, and breaks into the Academy after hours to take a look at her academic file.

(It isn’t particularly hard: just avoid the regular street patrols and open a few locked doors. It’s like they’re just daring you to break in. Sakura wonders if they’re keeping track and giving out extra credit.)

The lock on the filing cabinet housing the files for her year-group is easy to shimmy open with the set of pins Sakura has carried in her pockets since she was six and they were first taught to pick locks. They were Ino’s second set. Sakura has never gotten around to replacing them.

It’s easy to find her file. Harder to not take another, to comb through the whole year, to consider who she might be paired with or to stow away knowledge for a rainy day.

Sakura resists, and flips only her own file open, reading it in the moonlight streaming through the small window lining the top of the outer wall of the storage room.

Sakura was born in Tetsu no Kuni, into the hands of a midwife in the Haruno family compound. Her birth certificate, such as it was, went missing at some point on the journey across the continent. Her worst injuries have been scrapes and a broken arm.

Konoha is at peace and has no reason to suspect anything of a civilian born girl-child whose family has been carefully monitored for the requisite five years after immigration.

If Konoha knows that Sakura has a soulmark, it isn’t in her publicly accessible academic file.

Sakura’s mouth tastes like ashes.

She carefully returns her file to its proper place, and pretends that she never went looking.

(If they do give extra credit, she never does hear about it.)

***

4. You will ache though. You will ache for them, ache to be complete. (All you’ve ever been is a trembling, broken thing.)

***

In the hours they spend waiting in the classroom for their new sensei to show up, after Sakura has passed the highs of Sasuke-kun’s presence and the lows of that-idiot-Naruto’s, Sakura wonders what their being matched to her says about Sakura and what the village expects from her.

It only occurs to Sakura in the years that follow that maybe, it never said anything about her at all. Maybe, she was just there to round out the numbers.

There are many lessons Sakura learns from Kakashi-sensei, and many others she wishes he would teach her.

She never does manage to learn his detachment.

Maybe it would have only tipped her closer to the abyss, but she envies all the ways he apparently just doesn’t care.

Sakura cares too much about everything.

She wishes it didn’t have to hurt so much.

When it’s all over, what will hurt the most is all the ways it was good. All the ways they were good for each other. All the ways they worked. All they ways they might have been enough.

As Sakura tumbles into a river screeching, Naruto and Sasuke-kun fleeing to the opposite bank in an attempt to avoid what will be her swift and sudden retribution for involving her in their water fight, she is filled with so much joy and laughter that it is almost enough to blot out the emptiness.

They might have been enough to keep her.

Until the stars burn out, Sakura will love them for the boys they were and the men they could have been.

It is hard, after all, to devour that which never becomes.

***

5. You will be filled with so much wanting you could swallow the world and it still wouldn’t be enough. (Try food. Try alcohol. Try sex. It won’t work. Nothing will.)

***

It’s not common to see shinobi wearing another village’s symbol in Konoha. Especially not unaccompanied shinobi.

Especially not unaccompanied shinobi who pick up the Hokage’s grandson and shake him like he’s a misbehaving puppy who is their’s to discipline.

There’s so much menace in the air, Sakura wonders if anyone else has realized she has a genjutsu poised to throw out over the group, enough to quell the violence for a moment and call the attention of a passing patrol.

They should be here, regardless. They shouldn’t need summoning.

Not when suddenly there’s another shinobi where there wasn’t one before, equally foreign and much more dangerous, so dangerous that Sakura’s teeth ache with the malice he’s radiating, ache with the way she’s biting down on the void rising to poke its curious head over her walls.

There is something empty in him.

Sakura wonders what it says about her that she considers this foreign boy with love carved onto her forehead, in opposition to the sword carved down her back, and finds something familiar in him.

His green eyes burn with consumption, feverish, and they pass over her without recognition.

The dismissal stings like acid.

For a single, impossible, unreasonable moment, Sakura considers stabbing a kunai into her own thigh, just to hold his attention.

For a single, impossible, unreasonable moment, Sakura considers going at him with her kunai, just to see if she could put a scratch on him. Just to see if he could manage to put a scratch on her.

His eyes pass right over her, to Sasuke.

Sakura pretends this is not one more scar on her heart.

Naruto wants so badly to be Hokage, and Sakura is helpless to resist his wanting.

It’s almost enough, sometimes, when it is dark and the campfire is low and they are trading in secrets, to believe that he and Sasuke-kun want with almost the same consuming absoluteness as she.

Maybe if she helps them achieve their dreams, they’ll love her enough to keep her.

Sakura knows they’re not ready. Not yet. They’ve been genin for not even a year.

But being a team means carrying your weight, means not leaving anyone behind, and Sakura knows there is no reasoning with the fire that has been stoked in Naruto and Sasuke-kun’s eyes.

Sakura thinks of the emptiness in the eyes of the boy from Suna, and tries not to shiver in the warm sunshine.

Afterwards, Sakura remembers the whole thing in flashes.

Violence in her mouth as she goes to raise her hand, wondering if any sacrifice will ever be enough to make Naruto love her the way he loves Sasuke-kun. The sudden knowledge that whoever has walked out of the brush wearing Naruto’s face is not her teammate. Sasuke-kun’s howl as Orochimaru’s teeth punctured his skin. The strain in her muscles as she carried her unconscious teammates, not daring to cry because it was only her now, with no one left to watch her back. Blood in her mouth and a knife in her hand, in her hair, like she has ever been anything other than a creature of desperation. Clutching herself to Sasuke’s feverish back, wondering if this is what it is to watch someone else be consumed by the void. Seeing Kakashi-sensei’s face and the relief enough to make her knees weak. Ino’s mind pressed so close to her own that it was enough to make Sakura weep, almost enough to satisfy her and not nearly sufficient, not unless she pulled Ino completely from her tether to be subsumed…

The Forest of Death is failure.

The Forest of Death is the beginning of the end.

Sakura remembers it in flashes, because it hurts to much to remember it any clearer—lest she see all the places she might have changed what became, what fell apart.

It won’t occur to her until much later that she should have been afraid of Gaara no Sabaku.

Of all the things to be afraid of during the Chūnin Exams, he is somehow to familiar for Sakura to consider.

She’s lived with an abyss at her heart for her whole life, it never occurs to her to be afraid of a boy who is the same.

Even as they race after the Ichibi, together as a team for the first time in weeks, Sakura can’t help but feel that they’re racing towards some other cliff edge.

They left her.

They didn’t even think to send her a note.

Sakura has known loneliness all her life.

It smarts, to learn that not even Team 7 is proof enough against loneliness.

Sakura tries to let the hurt dissipate.

She knows better, than to think anything could ever be enough.

She knows what she is.

She knows better, than to think she could ever be enough.

It’s easy to throw herself in front of the Ichibi’s rushing sand.

There’s nothing he could do to hurt her that could hurt more than the way something went wrong in her making. Her soul is incomplete. It got ripped in to pieces and shoved into two different bodies. At the edges of herself, she is frayed, fraying.

What is death in the face of possibly failing to ever knit herself back together?

Naruto and Sasuke-kun will survive her death.

Sakura isn’t so certain they’ll survive her.

***

6. The only thing that could fill you would be to press so close that your ragged, splintered soul could almost weave itself back together. Only then could you be something like complete. (Only at their touch will you know what it is to be at peace.)

***

Maybe, in their heart of hearts, Naruto and Sasuke-kun and Kakashi-sensei knew she was dangerous.

Maybe that would hurt less than thinking they just didn’t care enough to stick around.

(Maybe that isn’t fair, but when has anything ever been? Sakura waits at the red bridge where they would meet for two weeks, waiting to see if Naruto or Kakashi-sensei will show up for training.

They never do.)

The first time Sakura meets Senju Tsunade is the first time she ever truly believes that anyone could be enough to outlast the void in her heart.

Sakura would like to pretend that she begs the Hokage to teach her because Sakura wants to do good in the world, wants to put something into the world instead of just consuming it, wants to be kind and compassionate. In truth, Sasuke-kun has chosen Orochimaru and Naruto has gone with Jiraiya, and there is only one Sannin left.

Sakura is a scavenger. She takes what she can get.

Sakura refuses to be left behind.

It’s more than she’ll ever deserve that Tsunade-shishō is larger than life and so willing to love.

Sakura is fourteen and she has killed more men than she has digits and saved fewer than she would have wished when Tsunade-shishō finds out about her soulmark.

Shishō is drunk to forgetting, nursing a pain so sharp and old that when she occasionally pulls it out from the drawers where she keeps it, Sakura can’t breathe for how much it must hurt.

It’s an anniversary. Sakura isn’t sure which one. But it’s one of the bad enough anniversaries that Shizune doesn’t try to hide the alcohol, but rather shares a glass before leaving to sit with her own grief.

Sakura is present to stand witness and to make sure that the Hokage doesn’t die of alcohol poisoning.

And instead what she does is, into the silence left after Senju Tsunade has poured invectives onto a dead man, say, “I have a soulmate.”

Tsunade-shishō should be much too drunk to manage the sharp-eyed demand that she levels on Sakura.

“I think one day there’s going to be so little left of me that isn’t my worn away edges that I won’t be recognizable anymore,” Sakura continues.

Tsunade-shishō laughs at that, an ugly bark. She pours another glass and shoves it in Sakura’s direction. “That’s life, kiddo. You’re no different than the rest of us. You think the girl I was would recognize me now? No. No, she’d be disgusted. She wouldn’t understand, she couldn’t. You’ll survive it. You’ll become someone new. You’ll have to, because you’re too godsdamned strong to break. You hear me? Don��t you dare give into it. Don’t you dare betray yourself like that. You’ll live. You’re too much like me not to.”

It sounds like a blessing.

It sounds like a curse.

One day, two years into their reconciliation, Ino asks as she places flowers in an arrangement and Sakura reads through a splattered research journal with an intriguing thesis on poisons from Iwa, the air sticky and golden in the back greenhouse of the Yamanaka flower shop, “Do you think you’ll ever find them?”

She’s never asked, before.

She’s never even alluded to the fact that Ino knows about the sword etched along Sakura’s spine, or what it means.

Sakura breaths in the golden air, lets it settle in her lungs.

“No,” she says, finally, the word leaking out of her alongside her breath. “No, I don’t.”

She smiles at Ino then, and hopes that it isn’t as sad as it feels.

***

7. But it is a wide, wide world. What is the chance that you’ll get close enough? (Not good.)

***

It is bittersweet to see Naruto again.

He’s taller than her now.

He smiles at her like nothing has changed, like they are still the two kids who swore promises to each other, like he didn’t leave and leave her alone.

Sakura loves him and hates him in equal measure, and she swallows it all down. It isn’t hard, she’s all too used to swallowing down blades and poison.

And then there is Kakashi-sensei appearing like a ghost, resurrecting Team 7 too, and Sakura smiles and smiles and smiles, and tries not to bare her teeth.

There’s a certain crystalline concentration that is necessary to perform the kind of delicate and precise procedure that is pulling the poison out of Kankurō’s tissues.

When Sakura finally emerges, blinking, like a diver coming up for air, she stumbles for balance.

Kakashi puts a hand on her elbow to steady her, but even then, it is a struggle to stay standing.

Sakura swallows once, twice, and blinks rapidly.

She’s never been this shaken after a procedure, not for over a year now, since her chakra control and reserves both improved.

The world is swimming in and out of focus around her, and there’s a ringing in her ears, like someone in a distant room is screaming, and she can’t quite seem to catch her breath.

“He’ll live,” Sakura promises. “But he’ll need careful monitoring and some intensive physio to recover. I repaired as much damage as I could, but I can’t completely restore muscle tone, at least not without a better baseline to work from.”

She has a half hour to give the medical staff rushed instructions and to devour some food before they’re rushing, rushing, rushing, towards an end that Sakura has a terrible, screeching feeling they don’t want to meet.

Sakura has seen dead bodies before, more than she cares to think about some nights, but never has she been filled with this cold, dread rage.

The part of her mind that has been trained past exhaustion and fear is comparing the faces of the Akatsuki members against the list of known members, taking note of Naruto losing himself to his demon, making plans for how best to survive the upcoming fight—there is no way they are getting out of here without a fight.

Her vision keeps skittering away from where the Kazekage’s body is strewn.

Rage tastes like iron tastes like the void in her head and her heart screaming.

What’s a sword to the stomach compared to the one etched up her spine?

“Oh, child,” Chiyo-sama says softly once her grandchild is dead. Her hand is even softer on Sakura’s cheek. “Oh, child, what we’ve done to you.”

Sakura doesn’t understand.

Not until much later.

Chiyo sacrifices her life for Gaara, and suddenly Sakura can breathe again.

“You saved my brother’s life and fought for my own,” the Kazekage tells her later.

His green gaze is steady and catches firmly on her own.

“It was my duty,” Sakura answers, as if his recognition is not heady in her veins.

She wonders if he remembers almost killing her.

“I owe you a debt,” Gaara no Sabaku counters.

Sakura sucks a sudden breath between her teeth.

That is no small thing, for him to swear. Not when he is Kazekage and she is of Konoha.

“You will always be welcome in Suna, Haruno Sakura,” he presses.

Sakura dreams of the desert that night, and of an endless plain without walls and the moon shining steady overhead.

***

8. The hunger will be enough to drive you mad. (But, oh, you already know the taste of madness, don’t you? It’s chased you all your life.)

***

The promise of war beats like a drum under Sakura’s skin.

They can all smell it on the air.

Sakura prods her emotions, seeking out the fear.

She wonders what it means she is becoming, that she can’t find it.

The void is howling.

Her mouth aches for iron.

She wonders what she might lose, when all is said and done.

She wonders who she might become.

And then there is no time for wondering, because as much as she loves and hates him in equal measure most days, Sakura will not let Naruto face this alone.

***

9. It’s a race then. (Between you and the madness.)

***

Sai is covered in mud and ink and blood and he’s the best thing Sakura has seen all day.

“You’re still alive,” she breathes.

“You’re still ugly,” he manages between coughing up blood. There’s a blade through his lung.

“If you die on me,” Sakura warns, “I will bring you back to life so that I can kill you myself.”

Sai passes out part way through arguing with her about why that’s illogical.

Tenten, Lee, and a very embarrassed Neji are leading what seems like the entire camp in a rousing song about butterflies.

Sakura feels wild as she sings along, fire running through her veins as they shout in defiance in the face of the night.

He’s so young, to be leading armies, Sakura thinks as she watches the Kazekage and Kakashi-sensei talking quietly over maps in the battle room slash command tent.

Sakura considers how she is currently so covered in gore that she is likely unrecognizable, and almost laughs.

They’re all too young for this. They’ll have to be old enough.

Gaara no Sabaku looks up for a moment, and everything stills in the moment that his gaze catches on her own.

A runner calls for his attention, but he nods in acknowledgement before turning away.

It is an effort to move her suddenly leaden feet.

Ino speaking mind to mind with her is almost like coming home.

She averts her eyes from the towering wall beside them, and Sakura loves her enough to move mountains for it.

It’s almost enough to drown out the howling wind.

Kakashi-sensei looks too old as he sits next to her, the fire painting shadows onto his face, leaving him too gaunt.

Sakura thinks that his is the face Death must wear.

There are no stars tonight, the sky too thick with cloud cover.

Sakura enjoys the quiet.

“Are they still alive?” Kakashi-sensei finally asks.

Sakura’s mouth goes dry, and then she almost laughs.

If anyone could understand—

No. Not even Naruto with the demon who sleeps pushed next to his soul could understand.

Instead, for repayment for everything he has never said, Sakura answers. “I don’t know.”

There’s been so much death, it seems unlikely that if they were on this continent, that they would have been spared.

But then, Sakura held a man’s hand earlier today and wept with him as he died, and she was not swept away completely on the tides of her grief.

“Yet,” she corrects herself.

Maybe Kakashi-sensei doesn’t deserve the truth, but Sakura needed to say it out loud.

She hopes that is enough to make it true.

***

10. A race to get close enough before you consume yourself for wanting. (There might be nothing left of you by the end.)

***

When it’s done, Sakura can go back and count the days and calculate how long she spent with her hands buried in bones and guts or wrapped around hearts or just holding other hands, trying to keep people together or put them back together, trying to find someway through it all, to the very bitter end.

There are soldiers and civilians from across the continent who she will never meet again whose lives she has cradled under her breastbone, waiting to breathe back into their bodies. It is, maybe, the only birthing she’ll ever know.

That’s the easy part, the healing.

Tsunade-shishō had sworn to her, so drunk she didn’t remember the next day, that Sakura would survive, that Sakura would live.

That’s harder: the living.

***

11. You will find no happy endings here. (The universe gave you a chance and nothing more. The rest you’ll have to fight and bleed and die for.)

***

She hates him. She loves him. She’s starting to lose the line between the two.

Naruto has forgiven Sasuke, has welcomed him back home with open arms and an open heart.

Sakura is still swallowing down the urge to take all the hurt he’s brought them out on his skin.

She wants to carve it into him: a reminder he can’t ignore.

It isn’t fair, she thinks, that Sasuke can come home and pretend that that’s enough. That he hasn’t cost her and Naruto and Kakashi-sensei years full of heartbreak and regret and recriminations, that he hasn’t cost Konoha time and blood and lives. (That might be worse. They swore oaths and then Sasuke broke every single one. And then Sasuke dragged Naruto and Sakura behind him until they, too, broke their oaths. Not all of them, but enough. Too many.)

She hates him. She wants to pull apart his ribcage and crawl inside, be held next to his heart. She wants to occupy him the way he has occupied her: invading her heart and her mind.

The worst part of it is the imbalance. If Sakura were to fade out of Sasuke’s life, she doubts even a ghost of her would remain. He would not ache for her absence. She doubts he’d even remember her beyond a blurred figure in the recesses of his memory if he ever bothered revisiting their short, short stint as Team 7.

But Sasuke lives in her bloodstream, in her spine.

If she were to lose him, Sakura thinks, she’d collapse in on herself, under the weight of the emptiness at the heart of her.

She hates him, that she became—in part—what she is for him, for the dream of him.

She hates him, that she chose him of anybody to build herself around, to become something more than her body and the hungriest, weakest parts of her.

He doesn’t deserve them: her hands. Doesn’t deserve their strength or gentleness, their ability to rend and repair.

Sakura is proud of what she’s done with her own two hands, just skin stretched over so many tendons and bones. She just wishes that she’d done it all for herself, or for Konoha, at least. To make Tsunade-shishō proud or to beat Ino-pig.

She wants to be able to shatter the ground and not have the memory of Sasuke curled around her throat like a ghost.

The worst part of it is…

The worst part is that it isn’t his fault, not really. It isn't his fault the way she thinks about him and the way he’s eaten through her bloodstream like acid.

Oh, Sasuke’s hands are dripping with sins, but some of the least of those are what he’s done to Sakura. He never asked for, never wanted the power she gave him over her. He tried his best to shove it back into her hands. She just didn’t let him, kept watching her heart fall to the ground in her refusal to take it back, kept watching it shatter over and over and yet every time she cried out in surprise as it kissed the cold ground.

It was Sakura who constructed the facade she projected onto that shell of a boy. It’s her own fault that she ever expected anything back other than echoes.

She hates him. She loves him. She wants to press a kiss to his brow and watch him walk away without aching with it. She wants for them to be free of each other.

(Here a thing she knows: Sasuke’s back is bare of anything other than scars.

Here a thing she knows: Sasuke has never loved her.

Here a thing she knows: She’s never really loved him either, only loved the ghost she needed so badly for him to be.)

Maybe, maybe if she could have loved Naruto the way he wanted her to love him, maybe then they wouldn’t have ended in tragedy, the three of them.

Maybe if she could have loved Naruto the way he wanted her to, she would have something to hold in her hands that wasn’t just sharp edges.

(Sakura is full of selfishness. The only decent thing she’s ever done is refused to fall in love with Naruto.

She would have consumed him: all his impossible brightness, all his goodness, all his love. She would have taken from him until he had nothing left to give, and he would have let her, willingly or not.

For all his strength, Sakura knows that, in the end, he could not have withstood her emptiness.

She wavered on the edge of it, love for Naruto so burning in her breast—this impossible boy with too blue eyes who laughs wider than anyone else she’s ever known and who carries the weight of wisdom etched across his brow, this impossible boy who swallowed all the world’s cruelty and only ever learned how to reach back out with kindness—and she could have fallen, tripped, plummeted right into love.

Sakura wavered on the edge of it, the abyss, and, like always, she pulled herself back.)

But she didn’t.

And now here she is, standing on the fraying edges of all that remains of Team 7.

As she looks on at it, Sakura realizes that, even if they’d managed to keep it together, not even Team 7 would have been enough.

At the heart of her, the void is calling, and Sakura does not belong here.

She never has.

And staring at Sasuke, Sakura hates him for the fact that, for all the hurt he’s brought them, he belongs where she does not.

“Mah, mah, Sasuke-kun. Let this poor old man rest.” Kakash-sensei waves Sasuke off, sinking his nose down into his book as he sprawls against a tree at the edge of the training field.

Sasuke scowls, and turns back to where Naruto’s clones are playing what looks like a complicated game of tag with a pack of Sai’s ink lions and the odd gazelle, instead of actually sparring.

Naruto had promised him a decent fight, but it doesn’t look like they’ll be done soon.

Sakura wavers, measuring her own mood. She’s got lightening skittering in her veins, and she’s been jittering for a decent fight for days, but Lee and Tenten are still out on a mission as is Yamato-senpai, Sai only just returned, and Ino, Shikamaru, and Chōji have been caught up in clan business for most of the past month.

“I’ll spar with you,” she offers with a careless shrug.

Like it’s nothing. Like it’s normal. Like Sasuke and Sakura have fought each other so many times the edges of it are worn off and it’s more the steps of a dance than anything real.

But it’s not nothing. It’s not normal.

Sakura has never fought Sasuke.

Sakura has never fought Naruto.

Not really.

Not ever.

Even as genin, they were both so careful not to hurt her. Naruto used to try to let her win, and Sasuke was always so precise that he’d put her on the ground with barely a bruise to show for it.

So she’s never fought either of them.

Not in a way that was real: chakra bleeding into the air, so thick you can taste it on your tongue, with both combatants carrying wounds that one centimeter more to the right and they’d be dead, smoke and sweat and dust and grins wide enough to cut as chakra and their breathing echo in the space between them.

“Just until Naruto and Sai are done,” Sakura presses on. “Think of it as a warm up.”

She smiles then, at that, a nothing smile hiding too many teeth, like it’s a joke, like they both know all Sakura will ever be in the shadows of her teammates is a nuisance.

Sasuke stares at her for a long moment.

She wonders what he sees.

Finally, he grunts out a sound of agreement and walks away.

Sakura follows him and does not bare her teeth at his assumption that all he ever has to do is walk away and she will follow him anywhere.

Sakura is laughing when she has him pinned to the ground, his limbs disabled with her chakra bit by bit, his eyes spinning uselessly because when he tries to force her into a dream, Sakura nails him to her mindscape instead and fights him along that barren plain, too.

It’s only because he underestimates her, that it’s so easy.

Sakura has never had any compunctions about using her opponents tendency to underestimate her against them.

Sakura pins Sasuke to the ground, a glowing finger caressing his neck in a mockery of a kiss.

It’s enough to sate her, at least for a little while.

As she stares him in the face, his pretty, valuable eyes spinning and capturing her in this moment forever, Sakura wonders if Sasuke understands that, sometimes, hers is just the face that Death wears.

On the other side of the training grounds, Naruto and Sai haven’t noticed them.

Sakura stands up, brushes her knees off, and doesn’t turn around to catch Kakashi-sensie watching her.

She is tired of hiding.

They’ve never loved the lie of her enough to warrant the effort, anymore.

***

12. This is not a fairy tale. (The storybooks lied.)

***

She leaves because she can feel herself slipping away, slipping closer to the edge. Her walls are crumbling. The void yawns before her feet. Madness beckons.

She knows that there are people here in Konoha who could, who would put her down if it ever came to that, if she ever lost herself completely to the worn away edges of her soul brushing so sharply against the world. Tsunade-shishō and Kakashi-sensei and Sai and Yamato-taichō and Ino and Shikamaru and Shino and Kiba. Even Hinata if it were needed. But it would break them to do it.

Sasuke could do it, but that would break Naruto.

And Naruto, oh Naruto, yes he could put Sakura to sleep beneath the cold hard ground if it were needed, but he would never. It would break him to do it, and it would break him to not do it. He loves Sakura dearly, but he loves Konoha more.

So she leaves, takes herself to Suna and the man she knows could and would put her down if there ever comes the need.

To save Naruto’s soul, she thinks Gaara would even thank her for it.

Sakura thinks she might just be comfortable sleeping softly beneath the desert sun.

The wide stretch of it all is almost as empty as she is.

***

13. This is a collision. (You might find the other half of yourself.)

***

“Sakura,” Temari says to her one day when they have finished several piles of paperwork and are stretching out the kinks, preparing to leave their offices for the day, “would you please take pity on my brother and spend some time with him?”

Sakura pushes her palms a little closer to the roof, bouncing on her toes. “I literally have had lunch with Kankurō for three out of the last five days.”

Temari rolls her eyes with all the concentrated power of an eldest sister. It’s impressive.

“My other brother. Gaara thinks you hate him.”

“I don’t hate the Kazekage,” Sakura grumbles.

Temari snorts. “See, that’s the problem. You could start by calling him by his first name, like he insists upon every time the two of you are in the same room together, and maybe you’d be a bit more convincing.”

Sakura doesn’t exactly know how to tell Temari that she’s been doing her best to keep a certain amount of distance between herself and the Kazekage because Sakura doesn’t want him to feel too badly when the day comes that she forces him to kill her.

“I’ll do better,” Sakura promises, instead.

It’s a hard promise to resist.

She likes the Kazekage and his serious gaze and the smile that plays at the corners of his mouth when he sees her laughing with his siblings all too much.

Sakura should know far better by now than to want what she should not touch and cannot ever have.

“Spar with me,” Sakura demands.

Gaara looks up from the scroll he is reading, brow furrowed.

“Excuse me?”

“You need to take a break anyways, and I’m getting tired of thinking up new ways not to hurt Kankurō’s pride too badly. Come spar with me.”

Ino would despair over her.

Sakura can practically see the math Gaara is running.

She wonders how much of the equation is weighted on his trust that she can keep up.

He fought next to her during the war, at some points quite literally, the two of them side by side as they tore through enemy ranks. He knows her capacity.

Knowing has never stopped anyone form underestimating or dismissing her before, however.

“Meet me at the main gate in an hour?” he finally says, instead of dismissing her. “I have a quick meeting with the trade caravan arriving from Kusa, but I would enjoy sparring with you once I have finished and can change out of the ceremonial garb.”

Sakura smiles, wide and delighted and bright, and flatters herself to think that Gaara might blush a little bit at the sight.

“Wonderful! Thank you!”

It’s a foolish kind of impulse that has her dart forward to drop a kiss on his cheek, like he’s Ino or Sai or Naruto.

He’s warm and he smells like moonlight.

It takes all of Sakura’s self-discipline and diplomatic training not to leave the office at a dead run.

Sakura has been in Suna for more than half a year, on what truthfully amounts to a fairly bullshit diplomatic position, which only through the Kazekage and his siblings’ support means any real work or welcome.

Sakura has occupied her time consulting on some tricky long-term cases in the small hospital, experimenting with Kankurō and a team form the Puppetry Corps on prosthesis blueprints and the potential for neural integration, synthesizing increasingly more cruel poisons and their antidotes, futilely trying to learn how to wield a gunbai from Temari, eating spicy foods, assisting on construction projects, and occasionally doing some actual diplomatic work on behalf of Konoha.

She’s familiar with the various training yards in Sunagakura, after friendly and sometimes not so friendly spars with her friends here and generally anyone in the shinobi force willing to fight her (and, sometimes, attempting to teach her a lesson, much to their later regret).

Sakura has never fought outside of the village walls.

And she’s certainly never fought Gaara.

Not since the Chūnin Exams, impossible lifetimes ago.

He looks softer, out of the formal robes of office.

The scar on his forehead isn’t as angry as it was a decade ago, nor his eyes.

But there’s a violence in him that calls to Sakura.

She wants to bloody him. She wants to find his seams and take him apart.

Gaara tends to lovely, verdant blooms in his private greenhouse, the one to which he gave Sakura a key, tucked into an envelop with permission to use as she would. He is gentle with the children of his village, and spins them delicate animals out of sand to play with. He never looks away when, still, on occasion, Temari flinches when he moves too quickly or Kankurō quails at the tightly held rage in his voice in response to a particularly despicable comment by a council member.

He could be so, very easy to love.

Sakura knows better, so she’ll just have to settle for making him bleed instead.

It’s the only way she knows how to get under his skin without ruining him.

***

14. This is a catastrophe. (You might not.)

***

Gaara fights like a sandstorm and Sakura fights like a mountain toppling.

She laughs herself breathless as they fight.

No one has ever so lovingly tried to kill her. No one has ever dared.

Sakura once saw a foreign boy full of rage and recognized something in him.

She is only now starting to wonder what he recognized in her.

The earth shatters under her and Gaara steals it just as quickly from her, tools and weapons and geography passing between them, chakra filling the air like lightening.

She knows now why he insisted they take their spar outside the walls of the village: they couldn’t contain them.

This is how, she thinks, it must have felt to have carved the Valley of the End.

It’s like creation.

It’s like endings profound enough to reshape the world.

They fight for hours, as the sun begins to bleed the sky to black.

Sakura is laughing as, after a half hour of maneuvering, she finally gets close enough to kiss him with her fist.

She’s laughing, still, when the sand she’s displaced suddenly surrounds her.

Gaara is pale-faced and near trembling when Sakura stumbles out of his sand.

He catches her, his hands too tight around her wrists, something vulnerable about his mouth.

Her clothes are shredded, but her skin is made of tougher stuff.

Or, rather, there’s little her iryōjutsu cannot heal of herself, even with her seal untapped.

She is scoured and clean, remade under the setting sun.

“I thought I killed you,” Gaara finally manages.

Sakura shifts her wrists in his grip so that she can wrap her fingers around his own, their pulses pressed close.

“You’ll have to try harder than that,” she promises.

She wants to go up on her toes and press a kiss to his mouth, vicious and soft, to steal the breath from his lungs, to steal the vulnerability from the set of his chin.

“See,” she says, and tugs out of his grip so that she can spin in a circle, uncaring of her nudity, “no harm done.”

Sakura freezes.

The last person to see her soulmark was Ino, seven years old and terrified of the unknown, catching but a glimpse of the tip at the small of Sakura’s back, the blade still crowded and not-quite-formed.

She forgot.

How could she forget?

(The void in her head is howling, howling, howling. And her walls are nothing but dust.)

“Oh,” Gaara gasps, like the sound has been carved out of him. “Oh,” he says, “oh, it’s you.”

Sakura lives a lifetime in the time it takes her to spin around to face him.

Nothing will ever be sweeter agony that seeing Gaara looking at her, knowing her for what she is.

Sakura holds up a hand, and when Gaara reaches out to take it, all Sakura can hear is the clashes of swords and the sudden silence of a loud wind dropping down to nothing.

Gaara has freckles along the tops of his shoulders and dimples above his hips and a gorgeous, bloody sword etched down his spine.

The grip is carved with evening primrose, and Sakura has never found her blade so beautiful as now, sheathed into Gaara’s skin.

“Oh, oh. Oh, it’s you.”

Sakura dreamt rose petals and sweet nothings.

Even knowing what she was, she thought it would be soft. Even knowing that there’s little but violence left under her skin, she thought it would be sweet.

They’re tectonic plates abutting.

They’re a spontaneous chemical reaction.

They’re gravity colliding.

They are not a soft romance.

They’re a godsdamned tragedy.

How can they be a tragedy, when they end up together?

Against all odds, they find each other under the setting sun amidst a sea of sand aflame.

Kisses are breathing.

They fit like a blade to the heart.

***

15. Oh darling, you were made to be consumed. (You’re a funeral pyre, baby, and oh how you’ll burn.)

***

They’ll be in history books and myth and song, at the end and long after they’re dead and gone. Bodies less than dust and their soul moved on.

As they lay twined together, arms holding torso closer where sprawled between legs, nose buried in neck and ribs pressed close, fingers clutching shoulder, waist—as close as two bodies can get to losing all sense of boundary between them, skin close and sweat slick and suffocating.

There’s a content hum in the back of Sakura’s throat, and across the plains of her mindscape, a sandstorm is swirling.

She is full up.

They’ll be history books and myth and song one day, but for now, they are dual swords reunited, hiding from the world and responsibilities in Gaara’s bed.

Sunagakure cannot function long without its Kazekage, but there isn’t a Kazekage at the moment, just as there isn’t a Konoha diplomat at the moment. They are much less and much more at that. Two as one and one as two.

They will never be parted again.

They will ruin whoever or whatever tries to part them.

They will remake mountains and scour forests and drain lakes and dry rivers, if that is what it takes to remain whole.

And there will not be history books about this. The songs and myths might get close, but they’ll never be enough to encompass it, what it is to be whole.

Twenty-three years of distance and a death.

Sakura would take Sasori apart piece by piece if given the chance again. Take Deidara’s hands and feet and tongues and leave him in a completely empty room to rot.

She does not say “I love you,” because words will never be enough.

She’ll never have to say it, because Gaara is pressed against her, chest to chest and mind to mind, and the same relief is his, the same ecstasy.

Sakura came to Suna, knowing that if it came to it, Gaara would kill her.

Is this not a death? Is this not a birth?

Far above and outside, the sun is glaring down on the afternoon market crowds. They are not blades in the night.

Sakura places her mouth at Gaara’s temple, tastes the salt there, feels their hearts beating.

The only hunger in her is rooted under her skin. The void, for once, is absolutely silent.

Sakura weeps, and it is all joy.

“I love you,” Gaara mumbles, or maybe just thinks.

It is enough.

It is the only thing in the world that is true.

#GaaSaku #gaasaku-fanfests #GaaSaku Fic & Art Challenge #fanfic #mouseymightymarvellous

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unadulteratedfandomtrash · 6 years ago

Text

Steve Rogers x Reader ~ The Instructor [Pt.1]

[My Marvel Masterlist]

I apologize if there are any spelling/grammar mistakes or detail discrepancies. Please feel free to let me know if you spot any.

Word Count: 1186

At exactly five o’clock in the morning, the shrill cries of an alarm clock disrupt the peaceful slumber of Captain America himself. The super soldier slides out of bed and promptly begins his morning hygiene routine as FRIDAY reads him a summary of the morning news report, brushing his teeth with one hand and starting up Tony’s extravagant coffee machine with the other; it took the Steve two months to finally understand the hi-tech beverage maker.

Tony suddenly makes an appearance into the kitchen for a cup of coffee to fuel himself after an all-nighter of tinkering in the lab. The billionaire, like every morning when he spots the super soldier during his daily routine, scolds Steve for leaving the confines of the sink while brushing his teeth as he accepts the large mug of coffee from him, claiming that any fallen toothpaste and saliva would stain his precious flooring.

“A little toothpaste isn’t going to damage the tiles, Tony,” Steve responds with a chuckle. “Besides, if I see any puddles, I promise to clean it up.”

“Sure,” Tony mutters groggily, the loud shuffling of his bunny slippers echoing in the halls as he retreats back to his lab. “That’s what they all say.”

Steve chuckles again at the man’s rant. Despite doing exactly as he promises every time, the super soldier cannot help but wonder what would happen if Tony were to find any toothpaste stains on the floors one day. He quickly disregards the thought when FRIDAY’s report comes to an end, swiftly heading back to his room to change out of his pyjamas; a grey compression shirt and navy joggers catch his eyes. Within minutes, the super soldier is out the door with a spring in his step as he follows a dirt path through the forest residing behind the New Avengers Facility, where he runs several miles before deciding to head back to the compound.

Huffing loudly while shuffling around in his pocket for his ID badge a specific young woman catches his attention. Normally, Steve does everything in his power to ignore crowds of people surrounding the entrance of the compound, since they were usually reporters attempting to capture an exclusive view, but this woman is different. Instead of normal clothing, she is wearing a standard kevlar S.H.I.E.L.D. uniform, and, she has luggage with her.

“Good morning, ma’am,” Steve greets with a polite wave. “Is there anything I can help you with?

“You’re actually just the man I need to see,” she answers with a grin, stretching her arm out to offer her hand to the super soldier. “My name’s (Y/n).”

“Steve Rogers,” Steve replies. “I don’t recall having any sort of meetings scheduled with S.H.I.E.L.D.”

“You don’t,” a voice behind him interrupts, its owner stepping out of an SUV parked right by the entrance. “I sent her here.”

“Nick Fury…Why am I not surprised?”

“Captain, I’d like you to meet your new student. From this day forward, you’ll be teaching her everything she needs to know in order to perform to the highest standards. (Y/n) has a lot of potential, and I want you to help her reach it to the fullest.”

“I don’t know, Fury,” the super soldier murmurs, his head dipping to his chest, “I don’t think I’m cut out for it. I mean, a teacher? C’mon… I can barely learn about the 21st century as it is.”

“Excuses, excuses. Cap, when was the last time you lied? ‘Cuz right now, you aren’t doing so well.”

“So…”

After explaining the situation to Tony, who was not pleased to receive the news last minute, a room on Steve’s floor was assigned to (Y/n) and the young woman quickly moved in her belongings. Surprisingly, despite his complaining, Tony did not have any quips or snarky remarks to throw at Steve.

“I’ll see you bright and early in the gym. 0500.”

“How do I get there?”

“You’re a big girl,” Steve comments with a serious, unreadable expression, “I trust that you’ll be able to explore the compound without any issues.”

The super soldier leaves (Y/n) to her own devices, heading for his room to write out a schedule and training routine for his new student. During his trip down the hallway, Steve walks past Natasha, who ignores the blond and enters the room he had just exited from without any warning. He waits for a scream or some form of ruckus to emerge from the newly-occupied room, but a deafening silence is all that his heightened senses pick up, followed by unexpected laughter.

Curiosity nearly overcomes the super soldier, but he maintains his composure, convincing himself that the nosy, red-headed, Russian spy is simply making friends with the new resident, and continues his journey. Once in the comforts of his personal living space, Steve draws out a sheet of paper and begins to jot down the varieties of exercises he plans to integrate into the training regimen. Several of the chosen workouts make Steve doubt if they should remain in the regimen, given that he is drawing off of his personal gym routine; his strength draws from the serum he received from Project Rebirth, so there’s no way (Y/n) can keep up with him without the aid of the chemical solution.

“Maybe I should substitute that with a series of burpees inste- Nat?”

Natasha enters Steve’s room without knocking, as she did previously with (Y/n), a smile on her face as she saunters over to the super soldier’s bed, laying back onto the duvet with her arms tucked beneath her head.

“Oh, (Y/n),” the Russian woman chuckles while exhaling. “She cracks me up every time.”

“You speak of her as if the two of you are friends.”

“We are.” Sitting up with the smile still gracing her face, Natasha makes her way over to Steve. She notices the pen and latter gripped in his hands and snatches the latter from his grasp, reading over the contents with a smirk. “This is way too simple, Rogers, even for an assessment.”

“Seriously,” Steve gasps, mouth gaping open in disbelief. “I’m using my own workout routine as a guideline. Even Thor is out of breath when we follow it together.”

“I’m tellin’ you, Rogers, this will be a piece of cake for her. (Y/n) and I used to spar together during the first few years of her training when Fury introduced her into S.H.I.E.L.D. and she was usually the one to walk away unscathed.”

“And she’s a completely normal human being? That includes enhancements of any sort.”

A nod acts as Natasha’s silent reiteration of her claim. She turns to leave the super soldier to stew over the newfound facts, but before exiting the room, the Russian spy gives her teammate a pat on the shoulder. Her lips curl into a smirk once her feet hit the tiled floors of the hallway. There is no doubt in her mind that she and Fury have created an interesting challenge for Captain America.

[Next Part]

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@justanotherenglisheducationmajor

@delicate-rogers

#Marvel #marvel cinematic universe #Steve Rogers #Steve Rogers x reader #Captain America #Captain America x Reader #Steve #Reader Insert #Natasha Romanoff #Natasha #Nat #Black Widow #Natasha Romanov #Nick Fury #SHIELD #Tony Stark #Iron man

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patrickcharlton-oshea-author · 7 years ago

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Chapter Seven: “Ow!” Once more, Peter woke into darkness. This darkness was more stuffy and musty though. He tried to sit up, but a sharp pain in his forehead and a burst of stars caused him to lie back again. Through a rising panic he explored his environment with the only sense available: touch. He was bounded on all sides by silk-lined walls, leaving little room to move. Eventually he found a braided cord by his head and pulled on it vigorously. Far off a tinkling bell could be heard. Right. The bell. He continued to pull the rope as hard as he could. “All right. Keep your shroud on.” A voice from outside his confinement grumbled. “Damn Travellers. Why can't they stay dead like the rest of you lot?” A sliver of light pierced the darkness, then widened as the lid of the sarcophagus was pushed aside. Peering in was quite possibly the ugliest face Peter had seen since joining the game. It was indescribable. He sat up and took a deep breath of fresh air. Well, air anyway. It was decidedly not fresh in here. The walls were lined with horizontal alcoves in which resided skeletons. Some had weapons and shields placed on them. Some had jewellery strung from their bony bodies. They were all absolutely dead. “Well, Traveller? Would you like some more time to regenerate, or are you ready to face the world again?” The man asked. It had to be a man. Nature couldn't possibly be that cruel to a girl. It's frame was hunched, knobbly and moved weirdly. The voice that issued from him was oddly calming however. “I'm ready to get up, thank you. Sorry for going crazy with the bell. It's the first time I've died.” Peter edged over the side of the stone coffin and stood blinking in the half-light. “Oh-ho! A first timer! Well, welcome to my crypt. I'm Jacob, and it's my job to guide you to the Sisters of Mercy. Follow me.” He began to head for the door with an odd, rolling gait. Peter thought he might have made a decent sailor with that walk. “I've not had a Traveller through here in a little bit. Folks just aren't dying like they used to.” Peter followed him along a torch lit tunnel. They were well spaced apart and he was glad of it, his eyes were still quite sensitive. “Popular place, was it?” “Oh, for sure,” Jacob replied. “It's dead centre of town. People were dying to get in here. I even used to have my band practice down here, until people complained. Apparently we were loud enough to wake the dead.” Peter smiled to himself. His dad told the same sort of jokes all the time. Then his smile faded. His dad used to joke, but hadn't in a long time. After a walk long enough that Jacob's jokes had started to repeat, they arrived at a steel ladder set into the stone. “Up you go young sir. Thank you for listening to an old crypt keeper’s rambling. The Sisters will meet you at the top of the ladder. They've got tea and biscuits I'm told. Now, as much as I like the company, I hope I don't see you again. In a box, at least. Feel free to drop by the cemetery any time.” Peter took hold of the first rung and Jacob ambled off, muttering to himself good naturedly. When most of your friends are dead, you get used to the sound of your own voice, he guessed. At the top of the ladder he was indeed met by a Sister in the usual habit. Instead of speaking, she merely gestured for him to follow a short way down a much lighter corridor, with walls that were all white marble with sconces set in a much more regular manner. He was waved into a room with a wooden chair and desk against one wall and a rug and cushions on the opposite side. On the desk was parchment and a quill with an ink bottle. Set in front of the cushions was a small coffee table with a steaming mug and an assortment of snacks. Peter threw himself down on the cushions, grabbed a biscuit and dunked it in his tea. Munching on the snack he looked around to find himself alone. He sat and sipped the tea, which was quite excellent, and thought about how he'd died. It had hurt, and the surprise had made it worse. It had shocked him so much that as soon as the darkness had rolled in he'd logged out, fast. He replayed the moment in his mind again. He'd experienced something similar when Billy had hit him. The surprise that someone, or in the rabbit's case, something, had wanted to hurt him so badly. He was feeling an odd mixture of rage and fear. He desperately wanted to hunt down the mad bunny and cause it as much pain as it had inflicted upon him. Yet, it had taken him down so fast, so easily, he dreaded that it'd do exactly the same again. Peter sipped his tea again. Perhaps he should simply leave it alone for now. If he was more careful, quieter and more attentive he could avoid putting himself in that situation again until he was stronger, and armed. Sparked by the thought of arms, Peter rolled up his now very grubby sleeve and looked at his left forearm. He scrolled through his stats to the skills section, worried about experience point loss. It had been mentioned on the wiki that when your character died you could lose stats and skill points. He had no stats to speak of anyway, but he'd just earned himself some points in herbalism, fractional though they had been. No, the score was unchanged. Still sitting at 0.3%. He let out a sigh of relief, which cut off shortly. He quickly scrolled to the inventory mark and popped it open. The berries were all still there, and his sickle was undamaged. Unlike his clothes that were rapidly becoming tattered, it was almost pristine. This time his sigh of relief was uninterrupted. Just as he swallowed the last of his tea, a Sister appeared in the doorway. It could have been the same one. Was there even more than one here? “Traveller, are you prepared to face the world again?” she asked. He thought the voice was the same as the one he'd met in the chapel, but he wasn't certain. They might have just used the same voice actress for all of them. When he nodded assent to the question, the priestess gestured for him to follow her. They walked up the hallway and ascended a short flight of stairs which brought them out into the graveyard. The priestess bowed and retired back below. Jacob was there, tidying a plot with a scythe. It wasn't a large graveyard, room only for about fifty plots and a marble arch that led down into the crypts. The tall brick walls kept the air still in here, but the sun shone gently, reflecting off the polished headstones. One plot stood empty with a pile of fresh dirt next to it. Peter wandered over, curious. The headstone bore his name. Shocked, he called out to the crypt keeper. “Jacob. What the hell?” “Well, Traveller, how did you think you got down into my crypts?” Jacob leaned the scythe against the stone. “By the grace of the gods, when you bind your soul to this place a stone is set in the yard here. If you die out there, your body is brought here by their will and I have to dig you up and take you down for a rest while your body knits itself together. Most Travellers are awake and screaming when this happens, but some lucky few sleep through it like you did. It's one of the reasons Travellers go to such lengths to avoid dying. Massive sets of armour, magic potions and shields, some even hire mercenaries to do the adventuring for them. Still, I usually gets to see them all at least once. Now, I've got duties to attend to, unless you want something else?” “No, thank you,” Pete mumbled distractedly. “You've given me much to think about.” Pete wandered over to a nearby bench and sat down. Lifelike NPCs, painful deaths AND respawning in a coffin. None of this had been noted in his research. What else hadn't been mentioned? Was it even worth playing? But the flipside of the coin wasn't much better. His parents didn't look like they were going to stop fighting any time soon. Did his dad really just fall asleep working? He was in for a world of pain when he got back to school anyway and the advice he'd been given sounded like it was going to earn him more beatings whether he listened to his mum or dad. At least here he knew he could eventually do something about it. Armour had been mentioned, as had magic. Now he just needed the means to acquire it. The quest! Peter jumped up and ran out the gate of the graveyard excitedly. He'd completed the quest for the herbalist and was owed some money! Running into the square he found he had absolutely no idea where to go from there. He checked his arm again, flicking to the quests section and thumbing the guiding lights option. Once more the little lights shimmered into life to show him where to go. Magic GPS, what an idea. Following the flickering trail along the street was a cinch. It wended itself around people, NPCs, Peter reminded himself. There couldn’t be this many people role playing as Citizens, could there? Jogging along the trail Peter kept one eye on the lights to ensure he was going the right way and turned his attention to his surroundings. He passed a few stalls, one selling fruit, one selling smallgoods, one selling an impact... Wait? An impact? Peter was flung through the air, visions of a large animal mixing with sky and ground. He skidded to a halt in a jumble of arms and legs. Picking himself and dusting off his increasingly ruined clothing he looked back the way he'd come. The lights passed through a rider on a barded warhorse as though it wasn't even there. Peter thought about this as he tried his best to tidy up. Maybe the magic GPS didn't account for Travellers, if that’s what the rider was. He certainly looked the part. Peter picked up a clod of earth and slung it at the back of the oblivious twat who'd paid exactly zero attention to the poor person he'd bowled over. They were just riding up the middle of the street as though they owned the road. Of course, his stats in this game were the much the same as his athletic ability in real life, and the clod bounced off the head of a random figure who'd just stepped out their front door. As the poor innocent tried in vain to solve the Mystery of the Muck Missile, Peter ducked guiltily into an alley between two houses. Then he remembered the bus that had embarrassed him the previous morning and felt vindicated. Stupid machines, Skynet could suck it. So could the jerk on his armoured ass. “Bugger them,” he thought, and strode back out into the street. Pointedly ignoring the ruckus up the street where the Mysterious Muck Missile Manhunt had become a small riot with pointed fingers and accusations thrown as randomly as Peter’s clod, Peter followed the lights down the road to an unassuming building with a wooden sign in the shape of a maple leaf hung above the door. Opening the door to a jingling bell Peter found himself in a dimly lit room lined with open topped boxes and labelled jars. Behind a counter at the back of the room stood an elderly man with an impressively long white beard. The flickering lights had formed a ring around him, indicating he was the objective of the quest. The herbalist himself, he assumed. Well, he could wait. Peter browsed the merchandise, examining the assorted leaves, roots and sticks of exotic wood. Some he recognised from the real world, camphor wood, cinnamon sticks and vanilla seed pods. Others were clearly made up. He doubted that there was any such thing as Blood Orchid root, mallets from a Sledgehammer Plant, or Dragon Fruit seeds. The man at the back of the room coughed to get his attention. “Can I help you, young Traveller? Is there something specific you need for, say, a potion or salve?” Peter ceased his browsing and opened his inventory. He withdrew twenty of the berries and placed them on the counter. “I have come to fulfil your quest. You needed raspberries, yes?” The herbalist's face lit up with a smile. He quickly swept the berries into a large jar and hid it under the counter whilst looking shiftily behind him at the curtain that separated the shop from the rest of the building. “Well done, Traveller. Here are five coppers for your efforts,” he whispered, dropping the coins onto the counter. You'd think Peter had just brought in a package of illicit drugs the way he was acting. “May I ask, what sort of potion do you make with those?” Peter inquired, whispering as well. “No potion, I just really love raspberries. My wife says I eat too many so I have to hide them from her,” he replied with a wink. In a louder voice he continued. “Maybe you seek recipes? Your interest in my wares suggests you may be in the herb business yourself?” Shaken by the sudden change of tone, Peter stammered, “R-r-recipes? I'm new to the world, could you explain, please?” “Certainly, Traveller. Whilst you can eat the raw ingredients to gain the benefits of a herb, you also receive all the effects from that herb. Recipes and the correct brewing equipment will allow you to distil the desired effect. I have for sale a basic mortar and pestle, a small cauldron – popular with the alchemist on the move – and the recipes for basic health and essence potions. I also carry more advanced recipes like barkskin, stoneskin, alacrity and mental acuity enhancement. Which would you like?” Peter dropped his voice to a whisper again. “First, I have some more raspberries, if you're interested.” He placed the rest of the berried from his cache on the counter. “I can only accept twenty more, Traveller. Any more and I'll have a stomach ache, and the rest will spoil. I can offer three coppers, is that acceptable?” When Peter nodded his assent, the berries were swiftly replaced with the metal disks. “Good sir, I have but eight coppers to my name.” Peter raised his voice again. “What do you have that you can offer in that price range?” “Nay young lad. Whilst that sum would procure some herbs from these stocks, it wouldn’t afford you the meanest of the tools I have to offer.” The herbalist shook his head sadly. Dismayed, Peter slunk out, slamming the door behind him. He was getting exceptionally tired, his eyes were burning and head filling with cotton wool. He couldn’t catch a break. “It must be past midnight. I should try getting some actual sleep.” He sat on the step outside the shop, closed his aching eyes and logged off for the second time that night.

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