#RATTLING BONE OF PREMATURE DEATH

[subzeroparade]

People playing Diablo 4 in English, I need to know if there is an item - maybe a pair of boots, maybe not - called

Voyage of the Meat

Because there is in Italian, and it has haunted me for weeks.

[gojonanami]

IS IT OVER NOW? - SUGURU GETO (ft. SATORU GOJO)

summary: suguru thinks the only way you'll leave him is if he lies to you about cheating on him - and it is. but turns out, you're not so easy to leave -- for him and his best friend. contents: 18+ only, smut, mentions of cheating, swearing, spoilers for vol. 0 + star plasma vessel and premature death arc, so much angst, but also too much smut (gotta earn that smut by getting through the angst), multiple orgasms, creampie, unprotected sex, fingering (f receiving), oral (f + m receiving), slight choking, panty play, overstimulation (f receiving) wc: 11,150 (why do i do this) playlist: is it over now - taylor swift, now that we don't talk - taylor swift, you are in love - taylor swift, say don't go - taylor swift

“It’s over,” the words slipped out of his mouth like second nature, the same way “I love yous” left his lips with a smile against your neck, but now those same lips were in a tight line. His eyes once filled with mirth, now stared at you with nothing in them — nothing but empty truth. 

You don’t believe your ears — and how could you? The same man who laid with you on sleepless nights, in the silence of the way home after brutal losses, mornings spent in his wrinkled uniform white button up, stupid arguments ended in laughter, and the whispered promises kept like oaths in your hearts. 

But now, they were broken — broken like your heart was. 

“It’s over, I’m sorry — I can’t do this anymore,” and you’re stepping forward over this ravine with a snapping tightrope, but he’s on the other side with a lighter and a knife — daring you to cross it. Because he wouldn’t catch you — not anymore, “it’s not you—“ 

“Don’t give me bullshit assurances, Suguru,” you spit, the same name you had woken up this morning on your lips, all the love he had fostered over two and half years eroding away with his few words — slipping into hatred without another word, “give me a reason, I know Amanai and Haibara hurt you — hell, it hurt me too, but—“ 

“Don’t bring them up—“ he seethes, the same passion he once had for you — for even a scratch you had gotten from a mission that he promised to make a curse pay for again and again by making it serve him — now used for people who weren’t even here anymore, “it has nothing to do with them,” 

And you almost laugh. It had everything to do with them. You had watched him fall apart over this summer — scapegoat the summer heat to Satoru’s face, when it wasn’t the heat that was withering him to nothing — a wilting flower simmered under the heat of loss. And with no one who could reach him — because he wouldn’t let them. 

“You know that’s not true—” 

“I cheated on you,” and the words die on your lips — along with any hope you had, “it was a stupid mistake but it showed me we can’t keep doing this,” 

“You’re lying,” you denied it — no, no, no.  

“I’m not,” and you can’t make sense of it, sense of anything, images of him tangled with another assaulting your senses — assaulting your heart, your soul, your body — bile rising in your throat that seared you on the way down as you swallow, “I didn’t want to have to tell you, but if it’s the only way for you to accept this, so be it,” 

“Fuck off, you didn’t want to ‘have to tell me,’” hot, angry tears burning at your eyes, “fuck you,” 

“Sweet—“ 

“You don’t get to call me that,” you snarl, heart rattling your ribs, as if it was trying to break through its bony cage, as if puncturing itself on the shards of your bones would hurt less, “not unless you’re trying to fix this,” you bargain, bargain for a love that was already lost. 

“We can’t do this — I can’t do this to you,” and you give a watery chuckle, unable to meet his gaze; meet the gaze you once thought was your salvation — the thing you fought day in and day out to come home to, “I’m sorr—” 

“Don’t bother,” you bottle the sadness  in a barely kept shut box, shoved beneath your icy exterior, ice crawling over the recesses of your shattered soul, “don’t apologize for me for something you chose to do,” and you turn to walk away. 

“Where are you going?” 

And you give a terse chuckle, turning to look back, “you don’t get to care anymore, Geto.” 

~~~ 

It was necessary. It was necessary. It was necessary. 

That’s what Suguru keeps telling himself. He was caught in a tailspin, a tailspin that was only leading him one place, and he couldn’t take you with him. He couldn’t let that happen. But you keep haunting his thoughts, along with the other ghosts holed up in his head. 

He hasn’t seen you in weeks. Only sporadic updates from Shoko when she humored his questions with a bribe of free cigarettes — and he didn’t know what you had told her but he knew you hadn’t told her that he had cheated (because Shoko would have surely ignored him). Shoko had even snuck a picture of you. You had grown your hair out, eyes no longer full of the joy as it once had been, and a cigarette you had said you had sworn you would never smoke between your lips. 

And it only makes him want to pull the cigarette from your lips and kiss you again, swallow the smoke poisoning your lungs, hoping your lips would clear the poison from his system. But he couldn’t — he couldn’t go back now. Not when he couldn’t shake the darkness that crept over his soul — he couldn't go back to that spring, because those old days had died along with everyone else around him. Shot through the head just like Amanai. 

He stares at the picture and it only makes him more sure — he can’t be in your life. He can’t be yours, he can’t even be your friend — because he can’t pretend it’s just platonic — can’t pretend it means nothing — not when you can see right through him, see the light fading from inside him, and you’d try to save him. Because that’s what you do. So he pays the cost instead, the cost of losing you — of losing your smiles, your laughs, your tears, and your voice. 

And he didn’t even have his dignity — he had left that behind when he had lied to your face. Lied because he knew it was the only way you’d leave, and he couldn’t risk you staying. He couldn’t let your fingers dig into his sides, as he let himself drown, he couldn’t watch you choke on water along with him — no, no, it couldn’t happen. 

He had long drowned — on that beach in Okinawa. 

He got a phone call — Yaga — likely with another mission, and he only can think about Tsukomo’s words — over and over and over. He was treating the symptoms, eradicating curses day in and day out, he himself was a symptom of a broken system — a broken sorcerer. 

And he flips his phone open, staring at the screensaver of you and him, your sleepy smile as you look up at the camera nuzzled against his chest — filled with the same love in your eyes that he watched drain from your eyes when he fed you perfectly prepared lies. 

“Hello, yes, I’m available for a mission,” he hears Yaga give him the details of the mission on the other line, but it barely registers. 

But at least he wouldn’t break you too.  

~~~

You wake to a pounding at the door — the one time you had gotten time off, the one time you had taken the vacation you swore you would, the vacation that you would have your phone off, doors locked, no communication with anyone with Jujutsu Tech. 

And yet. 

There was someone banging on your door at 11:09 PM at night. 

You stare at your ceiling at the spinning fan above you, and you couldn’t imagine how this night could get any worse. You throw off your covers, only in sleep shorts and a t-shirt, grumbling as you meander your way to the door to find Satoru, standing at your doorstep. 

Your heart drops. 

“What— did—“ 

“Suguru defected,” and you stare at him, as if he’s speaking a foreign language — two words made no sense in that order, no, no — he wouldn’t do that. Suguru out of anyone wouldn’t do that.  

“No, that can’t—“ and Satoru comes inside, brushing past you, “Satoru—“ 

“It’s not just that,” he says softly, “he slaughtered a village, and his parents,” and you’re shaking your head, “why are you shaking your head—“ 

“What kind of weird prank is this, Satoru— he wouldn’t—“ and your voice dies in his throat as you see the look on his face, and all other words fade away from your lips except one —  “why?” 

And he explains — tells you what Suguru had told him, what had happened, why he left — “I couldn’t bring myself to kill him,” he murmurs, shaking his head, “I should have — if I had done what he did, Suguru wouldn’t have hesitated—“ 

“He wouldn’t have been able to do that to you, Satoru,” you scoff, leaning against your couch, Satoru sat beside you, “you’re the most important person to him, he wouldn’t have been able to even fathom the idea of hurting you. He would have just tried to convince you to change your mind,” 

He gives a bitter chuckle, “Well then, he would have been able to change my mind all the same,” he’s holding his face, as if it would keep himself from falling to pieces — but his hands are too late — you can see the broken pieces of what was Satoru Gojo in front of you. 

“Satoru, you can’t put Suguru upon yourself to save — he made the choices he made, you can’t change them. You can’t fix a person who doesn’t want to be fixed,” and maybe you were projecting — but you swore you saw the same pain, the same pain the day he broken your heart in Satoru’s eyes, “Suguru is smart enough to know where this road is leading—” 

“And why can’t I completely blame him for choosing it?” he murmurs, his cerulean eyes finally meeting yours over the rim of his sunglasses, “I understand how he feels — so do you, you’ve seen the broken system, the deaths that could have been prevented—” 

“But is this the way to fix it with innocent peoples’ blood on our hands?” you whisper, almost afraid to hear his answer, “I have friends who aren’t sorcerers — would he have me slaughter them too?” 

“Well, he killed his own parents, so I wouldn’t doubt that,” he shakes his head, “Suguru was never the type to do things half-heartedly,” and his gaze falls again to the floor, “do you know after I had retrieved Amanai’s body — I asked Suguru if we should kill all of those people in the Star Religious Group?” 

“Satoru—” 

“He said there would be no point in it — no reason,” and he’s licking his lips, pulling his glasses off, “but he found his reason now, didn’t he?” 

“Satoru, you had just come off Amanai, almost dying, you had barely a moment to process—” 

“Why did he tell me to stop? Why did he save me when he couldn’t do himself the same courtesy?” And he’s rising to his feet, pacing the room, unable to sit still, “I thought I’d come here and talk to you because who else could understand him more than me? Shoko maybe, but even she doesn’t know,” his fists are clenched at his sides, as he whirls to face you again, “Why? I don’t understand how a person can change so much — how can you go from protecting the weak to—” 

“Satoru, I don’t know why Suguru does the things he does—did you forget? He broke up with me,” the words reopen old wounds you thought had long scarred over, flesh wounds that had ripped you open, but had closed back up, now bleeding like new, “and he cheated on me,” and walked away without another word — twisting the knife with his silence. 

Satoru’s brows knit together, his mouth opening as if to dispute it, but closing again — because if Suguru could murder his own parents, why wouldn’t he cheat on his girlfriend? 

“I’m sorry—” and you laugh bitterly, meeting his gaze. 

“I think we have bigger problems than his unfaithfulness,” and he says nothing, “what are we going to do about him?” 

“Nothing—” 

You stare at him, lips parted, “Satoru—” 

“I can’t kill him,” his voice breaks, and it breaks you too,  “I couldn’t bear it. I can’t be the one to—” 

“But you’re the only one who can—” and you swallow the lump in your throat — how could you tell him to kill Suguru when you couldn’t imagine doing it either? “then what do we do?” 

“Nothing, for now,” he murmurs, running his fingers through his hair, “I’ll monitor his moves as best I can, he’s good at covering his tracks — he knows how I operate more than anyone else does,” he says softly, “but not many can hide from the six eyes,” 

“And you know how he does things too, Satoru,” you find your way his side, your fingers finding his, “it will take time for Suguru to make large moves — especially if he has two young children with him right now,” your heart aches at the thought — he promised to marry you one day, promised you a family once you both had settled down enough to consider it, and now he had two kids. But you weren’t with him. 

His eyes find yours, “i’m sorry about what happened — I wasn’t there — I haven’t been here, at all—” 

“You don’t have to apologize for that, Satoru,” and he’s shaking his head. 

“Maybe I could have—” 

“You can’t fix the whole world, Satoru,” you whisper gently, “you’re the strongest, yes, but that doesn't mean you can be everywhere and do everything,” 

“I should have been here,” and you’re shaking your head, “I could’ve—” 

“You couldn’t have, do you know how stubborn Suguru is? We couldn’t even convince him to cut his hair, much less change his mind about committing mass murder,” and he sighs, his eyes falling and rising to yours again, “hey, you’re okay, you know. You do too much, honestly, everything you’ve done — everything you will do—” 

“And yet it will never feel like enough,” and you feel as if you could hear the same words leaving Suguru’s mouth too — the two had more in common than they had cared to admit. 

“You are enough,” and your fingers find his cheek, “just as Satoru, you are,” 

And his arms are pulling you into a hug then, head buried in your shoulder, his body consuming you with its warmth, your fingers running through his snowy locks, his tears wetting your shirt, but you say nothing, only holding him.

He pulls back after a few minutes, but his arms still wrapped around you, as he stares at you, barely any evidence of his tears, except for the redness on the tip of his nose, “You’re enough too,” 

“I don’t know about that,” you joke, and he’s cutting you off with sharp words and a sharper look. 

“You are, sweetheart,” and the familiar pet name makes your heart ache, “you’re more than enough,” and his palm is resting against his cheek, thumb rubbing the length of your cheek, “you’re so much more than you even know,” 

And your breath catches as he draws near, “Satoru—” you shouldn’t. He shouldn’t. It wasn’t right. But why did his hands feel so nice against your cheeks? Why were you melting into his touch? Why didn’t you pull away? 

“I just want to feel something else,” his hand is sliding into your hair, fingers pressed against your neck, “don’t you?” 

And your lips find his first, lips brushing at first — and he’s so soft, his breath catching when you do, your fingers against his cheeks, and he’s pulling you back in again — it’s gravity. Again and again your lips meet, less hesitant with each kiss and each touch. 

This shouldn’t be happening. You needed to stop it — Suguru had always teased that his best friend had a thing for you — hell, Satoru had all but admitted it with teasing words and promises to steal you away if Suguru ever had fumbled your relationship. But you knew he’d never would do it. 

Or you thought he never would do it. 

His hands slide down your body, pulling your hips closer to his, “tell me stop, if you want me to,” he murmurs, fingers toying with the hem of your shirt, “I want—” 

And you’re kissing him again, pulling him along your living room to your bedroom, “I don’t want to stop,” you breathe, you want something else, you want Suguru’s touch cleansed from your body, you want something more — you want to be wanted.

It had been so long since you had been wanted. The last few months with Suguru felt like an exercise in futility. You barely saw him, much less touched him — mission after mission, and excuse after excuse, piled onto the pyre waiting to burn your love for him alive. How long had it been since you had even kissed him? Each time you tried would end in him pulling away, shaking his head and telling you he was tired. 

And he was. He was tired — tired of his work, tired of jujutsu society, and tired of you. 

But he didn’t have the courtesy to let you know. 

But Satoru…

His fingers are quick to get you naked, deftly pulling your t-shirt over your head, as your fingers tug his jacket off with the same eagerness, “Eager, are we?” he murmurs, half hearted teasing, a ghost of a smile on his lips as you pout, “don’t worry, I am too, baby,” as your fingers tug his sunglasses off, and place them on your nightstand. 

You roll your eyes, “Satoru—” and he’s swallowing your retort with his lips — and you can’t help but compare them in your mind, he was so much more aggressive than Suguru was. Suguru’s hands slid over your hips and thighs as if he had all the time in the world, while Satoru’s clung to you desperately, as if you’d dissipate under his fingertips, “should we be doing this? Suguru—“ 

“Cheated. Murdered. Left us,” And his lips slide from his lips to your jaw, before his teeth graze right under your jaw, drawing a gasp from your lips.

And his lips curl, “Such a pretty noise, just f’me,” and he’s biting and sucking, surely leaving a lovely mark against your skin, his tongue tracing over the mark, “did you make noises like that for Suguru?” 

“Satoru—” and his fingers are tugging at your bra, teasing your erect nipples as he’s only tugging the garment down, “fuck—” and his lips kiss your tit, while he’s rolling the other nipple between his thumb and forefinger, “please,” 

“Did you beg him like that too?” his fingers pull at the waistband of your shorts, teasing the skin underneath, “no wonder Suguru kept you for yourself,” he’s tugging off your shorts down your legs. 

“Can we not talk about him if we aren’t gonna talk—” and his lips find yours again, teeth baring down on your bottom lip, “Satoru—” you gasp as he pulls at your lip, thumb sliding over the kiss bitten flesh. 

“How can we not?” he murmurs, as his hands slide up your thighs to squeeze your ass, “is this the bed he fucked you on? Is this the way he touched you?” and he’s parting your thighs, large palms holding you apart, as his half lidded eyes linger on the wet patch on your panties, “is this how wet you got for him? Am I special?” 

“Oh, fuck off—” and your words fall away as his finger presses against the wet patch, thumb against your puffy clit while his fingers tease your aching cunt. 

“What was that, baby?” and he’s grinning, and he spares you, dragging your ruined underwear down, and he’s leaning down to your sopping pussy only to press teasing kisses to your inner thigh, before his lips press against your clit, “so fucking wet,” and he inhales, a languid moan leaving his lips, “if you taste as good as you smell, I’ll be cumming in my pants before I even fuck your pretty cunt,” 

And his fingers sink into you — two at once, making your lips part, teasing your pussy open, the lewd sounds fill your ears as your slick squelches against his fingers, “Hear that? Such a greedy cunt, swallowing my fingers up even when I try to pull out,” and he’s pumping faster now, fingers curling against your walls, making you moan far too loudly, “moaning like that, and I’ve barely even started,” he hums, before his breath is warming your slick cunt as a warning as his tongue begins to lap at your clit, again and again. 

“Fuck, Toru, need more—” His other hand is only grabbing you, pulling you impossibly closer as a third finger finds its way into you, and your hips move against his touch, begging him to fuck you in earnest. But he’s unrelenting. You can hear him swallow around you, every flutter of your cunt made just for him, as he nearly growls against you, vibrations only making you nearly grind yourself against his fingers and mouth.  His tongue circles your clit, toying with it, before his lips close over it and suck, nearly making you scream, “I’m cummin—” 

And his fingers finally find the spot they had been looking for, again and again with deft precision, as your walls clench around his fingers, as you gasp, arching your back, as you cum, and he’s licking your essence up eagerly. 

Grinning as he pulls his fingers from you, licking your cum from his digits, before lapping at your leaking cunt, making you twitch around nothing, “Fuck, needy pussy practically begging me to fill you, huh? Hehehe,” he’s looking up at you all fucked out, your thighs twitching, eyes blown out — meanwhile his lips, chin, and nose were painted in your essence, the most beautiful work of art you’d ever seen, “didn’t realize how much I wanted this,” and he’s licking up your cum off his face, and wiping the rest on the back of his hand, and he’s climbing back over you, dragging his clothed bulge over your still sensitive cunt, making you both groan, “and I guess neither did you,” 

You’re still looking up at him with lust filled eyes, as your fingers find his cheeks, “aren’t you wearing far too many clothes still?” and he’s smiling, “wanna help me out with that, sweetheart?” he asks, as his fingers press your boobs together, thumbs flicking against the abused nipples, cock twitching against your cunt as if he was imaging what it would feel like to blow his load right between them, his warm cum all over your face— 

And you’re flipping him in a moment, pinned underneath you, as your fingers undo each button of his now definitely creased white button up, damp with your cum, as your palms drag over the exposed skin of his chest and abs, “Can’t wait to fuck myself on this later,” you murmur, leaning down to drag your tongue up his stomach, making him gasp deliciously, before your fingers busy themselves with undoing his belt, the click of the buckle only making you ache more, as you undo the zipper of his pants, tugging his boxers along with them to bunch at his feet hanging off your too small of a bed, and you can’t stop the gasp that leaves your lips. 

He’s so fucking big. 

Suguru was big, so fucking big that the first time he fucked you, he couldn’t even fit in your tight cunt. He had to give you multiple orgasms, prep you right, stretching you out with his fingers and tongue, and even a dildo, until you could fit himself with lube. And Satoru definitely wasn’t as thick as Suguru, but he made up for that in length — fuck, how deep would that reach? A pretty curve at the end with lovely veins running up that made your mouth water, white pubes dotting along it that were shaved, but grown out — likely from being away on missions for so long. 

“You can take a picture, it’d last longer,” and your eyes snap up to the smirk on his lips, “although I tend to last very long,” he’s shrugging out of his shirt and kicking off his pants, before he’s pinning you under him again, “and if you do, maybe I can take a picture of you, full of my cum, my cock fucking it back in — it’s only fair, right, pretty?” and you shiver, as his finally unclothed cock bumps against your cunt, “oh, you’d like that wouldn’t you? I’ll make it my screensaver, you’d like wouldn’t you, filthy girl?” 

And your fingers wrap around his cock, finally making him shut up with a hiss, “Gonna talk all night, or you gonna fuck me, Toru?” and he barks out a laugh, but it's consumed by a moan as you stroke him, leaning up to kiss along his jaw, “you gonna fuck the same hole your best friend did? Gonna cum there too?” and he’s thickly swallowing, your words leaving the great Satoru Gojo speechless, “what? If you brought up Suguru, so can I, right? Only fair,” you echo his words, and you’re squeezing around the base of him, “well, are you—” 

And he’s pulling your hand away, teasing your dripping entrance with the tip of his cock, dragging his pre-cum over your cunt, letting your cum mix together, “Fuuuuuck, baby, so fuckin’ gorgeous,” and he’s manhandling you, grabbing your thighs, and hooking your ankles over his shoulders, “gonna fuck you now, sweetheart, any complaints?” 

He grins at the way you shake your head eagerly, hips nearly grinding against his cock, and his tip sinks past your walls, “so tight, baby, did Suguru not fuck you right?” You can’t manage a reply, as you grasp at his shoulders, pulling him closer, as he sinks into you inch by inch, his brow furrowed beautifully as he finally bottoms out with a groan, “s’good f’me, so perfect—“ your walls flutter around him, your slick soaking him, and he’s tilting your head by your chin to make you look at where he’s sunk into you. 

And he’s pulling out before sinking back in, and you’re gasping and squeezing him — how was he possibly deeper? “Fuck, baby, your cunt is trying snap me half,” and his hips are slapping against you as he fucks you in earnest, the squeaks of your mattress as he thrusts in and out and the lewd squelch of your pussy as it wraps around every inch and vein of his cock, “that’s it, that’s it, take me, take every inch of me,” and his balls are slapping against your ass, “did you take Suguru this well? Did you ever take anyone this well?”

And you’re a mess of just moans as he’s fucking you again and again, as he cups your chin, “I didn’t hear an answer or did the I fuck the words out of you too, baby?” He’s kissing you again, swallowing your noises with lips curled, before he’s pulling away with a groan, “can’t hear myself think with how loud you are — so fucking wet,” 

“S’close, Toru, I-“ and he’s grunting, nodding, as he watches you, his cerulean eyes stare at you, right as his tip brushes your cervix— 

“Cum for me baby, let me watch you cum around my cock,” and his fingers reach down between the two of you and rub against your clit, making your eyes roll back, as you fall apart around him. 

Your walls are fluttering around him as you cum, moaning his name on your lips, as he pistons in and out again and again, thrusts stuttering as your walls squeeze him tight, “baby, I’m gonna cum, where do you want me—“ 

“Inside—please need to feel you cum—“ and you’re moaning, pulling him impossibly closer, and he’s sinks deep into you, and cums. He’s spurting his thick load into you, fucking it into you deeper and deeper, until you’re so full of him and his cum, you can barely feel anything else. 

He’s slipping your legs off his shoulders, before collapsing on top of you, sinking into your arms. He’s pulling out, watching your mixed releases slip out of you with a groan, “how are you so fucking perfect?” He’s finding your lips in a kiss, before his nose nuzzles your neck, as your highs wear down. 

Your fingers run through his white strands, “shouldn’t I be asking you that?” And he laughs, settling on your chest.  And for a moment you forget — you forget the nights you spent with Suguru in this bed, the nights spent in tangled sheets with whispered nothings, with his arms around you, just like Satoru’s were now. 

But only for a moment. 

And as Satoru’s soft snores filled your ears, the only thing on your mind was the one person who you wanted in your bed right now. 

~~~ 

“Still asleep?” your fingers run through his hair, “such a lazy-bones on your days off,” and your lips trace over his jaw, making his lips curl despite the draw of sleep, “gonna leave me hanging after last night?” 

And your lips find his, sliding over his with practiced ease, the same way you breathed — it was natural, as his fingers find purchase in your hair, sliding back to your neck. Again and again, your lips cannot part his, if you can’t breathe without him — cannot exist without his touch. 

And when you do part, he’s smiling, black fringe falling in his eyes, “So needy in the morning,” Suguru’s voice is gravelly with sleep, even as your fingers card through his black locks, “when did you become such an early riser? Usually I’m the one dragging you out of this bed kicking and screaming,” 

Usually, but he’s the one who's struggling out of bed these days. He’s struggling to even function — lifting his arms in the shower feels like too much effort — and what’s the point? Would anything change if he left his bed today? Couldn’t he escape into the recesses of his unconscious for the rest of the day? 

But you’re here — and you’re leaning over him, your lips curled in that smile that damned him into submission, because what could he do except submit to you — “who said anything about leaving this bed?” 

But he needed to leave this bed, he thought, as your lips found his again — and how did you always taste so sweet? — he needed to leave these warm covers and inviting embrace. Because he couldn’t stay here. 

He couldn’t stay with you.

But then your lips find his, and he can’t bring himself to stop, not when you’re climbing on top of him, straddling his waist, his growing bulge tenting in his boxers. He can he stop when you’re murmuring his name like that, eager fingers tugging the damp fabric down, letting his dick slap against his stomach — a bead of precum that you lean down, your tongue darting out to taste. 

And he hisses, as your fingers wrap around him, teasing the head of his cock, thumb dragging over the slit, “sweetheart—“ he's warning — but you know he’s all bark and no bite — but he would be biting you later surely, with the way you toy with him — both his cock and his feelings. 

Your mere presence in his bed has him questioning himself — questioning how necessary is it to end things? Why does he need to? He had this future planned — a certain way things were to go — he was the strongest, him and Satoru, he was going to work and settle down later, marry you, maybe even a kid or two — but now — the plans had changed. 

He had changed. 

Satoru was the strongest. Not him. And work as a sorcerer was killing him now, as you and Satoru were sent farther and further away, and Shoko had resigned herself to medicine — what did he have? Another year of this hell — he didn’t even know if he could last another day of swallowing curses. It had become second nature to him, but without a purpose, without a reason without any principles to guide him — it became worse than torture. 

It was his personal hell. 

And yet, as your soft lips closed around his leaking tip, fingers playing with his balls, as you sank your mouth onto him, drawing soft moans from his lips — he didn’t wanna give it up. How could he, when you were here? He could burn his life down to ash, watch what he worked for, what he had thought was his purpose fall to pieces in front of him — let himself fall to pieces — but that would mean burning you along with it. 

And could he bear that? 

Your tongue flicked against his length, tracing his veins as his tip hit the back of your throat, making you gag around him, as his fingers settled in your hair, “fuck, sweetheart, s’fucking good f’me,” and his hips shallowly thrust into your mouth, “take me so well, practically swallowing my dick,” and you swallow around him, pulling a moan from his mouth, his eyes flitting down to see the telltale press of your thighs together, “such a filthy girl, look at you, probably dripping wet from sucking me off,” 

And he’s tugging you off, strings of spit and his precum connecting your lips to his aching dick, “Sugu—“ your lips are red and puffy, parted still, with cum and spit slipping down the corner of your mouth. 

And he’s pulling you on top of him, fingers pressing into the soft flesh of your thighs, hissing as the damp fabric of your far too thin sleep shorts press against his still sensitive cock, “don’t even have to get you ready baby, already all prepped from just tasting me, aren’t you?” 

He shouldn’t be doing this — he told himself today would be the day, he promised himself he’d stop pretending everything was fine. But when you felt so perfect on him — soft skin and soft sighs, your little gasp you gave when his fingers slide his t-shirt — the one full of small holes you had stolen from him when you first spent the night that you refused to throw out — up and over your head, exposing your chest to him — how can he stop? 

“Suguru, please,” you whimpered as his mouth took one nipple in his mouth, warm tongue flicking against the pebbled flesh before his teeth graze it, pulling another hallowed moan from your lips, “need you,” 

“Do you?” He hums, half teasing, half truthful — did you need him? Would you fall apart when he left? Would he spend nights wondering if you were anxious without him? Spend days wondering how you were filling them without him? 

And you pause, strange look on your face, as your eyes scan over his features, palm sliding over his face, “of course I do,” passion falls away for a moment replaced with a different intimacy, “you’re my best friend,” and your lips slide over his as you lean down, “I’ll always need you, even when we’re both dust — I hope we spend it bathed in sunshine together,” 

But would you? His eyes can’t meet yours — because he can’t see the sun in his future, only a dark descent into madness — a future spent alone. Because even with your smile at the end of his days, he couldn’t imagine spending another minute doing thankless work for miserable, ignorant, weak monkeys, only to do it all over again the next day. And his silence has you questioning him, but it’s like water fills his lungs, paralyzed by his own thoughts, and even as concern fills your eyes, he still can’t find anything to say. 

So you say it instead. 

“C’me here,” you murmur, and your hands slide over him, “I love you,” you kiss him all over his face — his nose, his cheeks, his chin, his forehead, before your lips hover before his, “can I—“ 

And he’s flipping you under him, pressing bruising kisses to your lips, as his fingers snake between your thighs, “you don’t need to ask— you never need to ask me,” he whispers in the dark, but even so, he knows — it can’t stay like this — even as he pulls your shorts down to bunch around your ankles and presses his leaking tip your messy folds — it can’t — because you were meant to live in the sunshine. 

And he hilts himself in you fully, inch by inch, until he’s groaning your name in a grunt — and he belonged in the dark silence. 

He knows this would be the last time. It would be. Because he had to — he couldn’t wait. It was only a waiting game until he was called to another mission, time until he dragged himself lower — until he couldn’t blame the heat for his dark bags under his eyes and the lost weight. 

He had to. 

And as he fucks you to your orgasm, instead of your lips moaning his name, your hard eyes meet his, lips parting, “I hate you—“ and his hands curl around your neck, “I hate lying traitors,” you choke out as his fingers squeeze your neck. 

SNAP. 

And he jolts awake, as whispers fill his ears, as his heartbeat slows, “Master Geto?” His eyes flicker over, spotting Nanako and Mimiko trying to snap a chocolate bar in half, “can you help us?” 

A dream. It was a dream. 

And he’s helping the girls, as they curl up beside him, “are you okay, Master Geto? You were talking in your sleep,” Nanako asks, ever curious, “you looked like you were having a bad dream,” 

“I was,” he admits, eyes fixed downward, trying to force the image of you choking below him from his eyes, “about someone I used to know,” 

“Who?” Mimiko pipes up, nibbling on her chocolate, and he sighs, running his hands through their hair, a bittersweet smile on his lips — he could still feel your lips against his, the smell of your sweat, the feel of your body. 

“Someone I loved — who I left, but I guess…I guess I miss them,” why was he spilling his guts to these two little girls? Ones who had been through far too much to hear about his petty problems. 

“Then why don’t you talk to them?” Nanako asks, “maybe you can tell them to live with us,” and his lips curl sadly. 

“I don’t think she would want to talk to me,” and why would you? After what he had said, what he had done, and what he was going to do. 

“You can try,” Mimiko says, she bites a chunk out of her share of the chocolate bar, “you tried to save us and you did — maybe you can do the same thing — save her,” 

And he considers it — maybe he didn’t have to drag you down. Maybe he wouldn’t be — maybe he’d be saving you. Saving you from a system that would only land you in a pile of bodies — just like Riko, just like Haibara. 

Maybe — maybe he could. Maybe he could be enough for you. Enough for you to leave. Enough for you to stay. He could have his family — and have you too. 

~~~~ 

He still had your key. 

You hadn’t bothered to ask for it back — maybe you had forgotten, maybe you didn’t care — but a part of him hoped it was for another reason, maybe you wanted him to come back. 

Even so, he didn’t know if it would still work — maybe you had the foresight to change the locks — but it does, sliding into the lock with ease, as the tumblers slide into place and he’s turning the knob into a silent apartment. And it plants a stubborn seed of hope in his chest, maybe it wasn’t so crazy — aside from breaking and entering — maybe he would find his way back to you. 

You’re likely on your walk this morning still — the same way you started the weekend, a walk and visit to your local coffee shop where you got the same order each time, and then you’d spend an hour browsing the shops for something to read or make. He scans the apartment — he knows you’re on vacation this week, from what Shoko had told him last, before he had spoken to Satoru. You hadn’t heard of his news, but you probably did now — if Shoko hadn’t told you, he knew Satoru would have. 

And he wonders how that conversation went. Wondered how angry you were. Wondered how much you must hate him now — maybe you even wanted to kill him. But the logical side of him knew you didn’t have the skill to do so — you were a grade 1 — a cut above the rest, but still, your abilities weren’t enough, but emotionally…he may let you kill him, if only to spare him the agony of having to kill you — but he knew it’d kill you just the same. 

He can see his days spent here before — you had finally moved off campus, convincing Yaga to let you have your own place early before graduation. You two had celebrated being free of dorm rooms with far too little space and too thin walls (too many times Satoru had spoiled the moment by either banging on the wall, blasting polka music, or just with smug remarks about yours and Suguru’s lack of sleep). He sees himself sitting at the kitchen counter, your stools pressed close as the two of you read the paper together, or laughed about something Shoko had texted or something stupid Gojo had done to piss off Yaga over burnt toast you had only burned while he’s pressing his lips to you. Or evenings spent on the couch cuddling while a bad movie he had picked played, but he’s more preoccupied with teasing you with brushes of his fingers against your bare skin or burying his face in the crook of your neck. And nights spent in your bed, entangled together, his arms around you listening to you breathe, skin dappled in the moonlight that streamed in from the window, wondering how did you ever exist at the same time as him? 

And then the front door swings open, as he steps out from the bedroom, and he hears a bag slip falling to the floor, groceries spilling out, and his gaze finds yours, “What—” 

“I came to see you,” he moves closer, and you step back — and he’s stopping, he doesn’t see fear in your eyes, he sees hurt — and he almost thinks maybe fear would pain him less. 

“Well, I’m here,” you cross your arms, unable to quite meet his eyes, “anything else?” 

“Sweetheart—” 

“You don’t get to call me that, Geto,” your words were sharp as a knife, and you were trying to cut — and you did, deep. He bites back the sting, as he stares at you — your hair was longer, your eyes had bags, but your lips were twisted with pain, when normally it’d be quirked in a smile pressed against his cheek, “what do you want? Unless I should just save myself the trouble and call Satoru or Yaga?” 

“I came to get you,” he steps forward slowly, and you don’t move away this time, “let’s be together. I—” 

“You murdered people, you murdered your parents, you left Jujutsu Tech, you broke my heart, you broke Satoru’s and Shoko’s  — and you want me to come with you?” you shake your head, barking out a harsh laugh, “did you lose your grip on reality between all the damage you’ve caused? 

“If you let me explain—” 

“And why should I let you? Your silence these past months was enough for me, you not fighting for us was enough for me, you spiraling without letting me help you was enough for me,” and your voice breaks, “and you cheating on me was enough for me, enough for me to know it’s over.” 

“It’s not over, it’s not. I tried to force it to be over. I lied to you, I lied to myself, and said it was over, but it’s not, it’s not,” and he’s so close in a moment, and he can smell the familiar scent of your perfume mixed with your sweat — lavender, hibiscus, and something all the more sweeter, “not when it’s us,” and his fingers brush against your cheek, “please—” 

“Don’t do this,” you’re shaking your head, again and again, “don’t, don’t, don’t, please—” 

“How can I not? How can I not when I was foolish enough not to the first time, pretty?” he’s murmuring, “I love you, I do, I never stopped,” 

“No, you don’t—” 

“I do, I do, I know I said a lot of things, I need you to know, I need to explain, if you just let me—” and his fingers are sliding along your jaw, and finds uneven skin, and his eyes lingers, as his fingers tilt your chin up to find a fresh hickey left underneath.

“I—” and he’s drawing you close, so close, his dark eyes narrowed to slits, a deadly silence that makes your skin prickle under his gaze, until he’s warming your lips with his breath. 

“Tell me to stop and I will,” but the telltale sign of your breath catching, your chest heaving against his, your lips parted as your eyes can’t pull away from him, his grip is slack enough for you to pull away — but you don’t. 

You can’t. 

And his lips hover before yours, warming your own with his heated breath, “Kiss me, baby,” and your cheeks warm, butterflies erupting in your stomach, heat blooming wherever his other hand sneaks, dragging over your sides. 

“Why should I?” you’re grumbling, but you’re staying right where he has you — right in his arms, and you don’t know why, “you want to kiss me so bad so you do it,” 

And he clicks his tongue, fingers sliding behind your head, weaving into your hair and against the soft skin of the back of your neck, tugging you closer, “you kissed someone else with those lips, tasted them, maybe a day or two — were you this bratty with them?” 

“Oh fuck off, Suguru, you’re one to talk—“ and his lips swallow your bitter words, tasting them on your tongue, as he parts your lips with a rough squeeze of your hips. And his lips only quirk when your moan rumbles against him, his calloused palms sliding between your thighs. 

“You open your legs this easy for them?” he says when he’s pulling away from your mouth, thumb dragging over your swollen spit soaked lips, “how’s that fair? I’m your first, baby, and I’ll always be your favorite—“ 

And any retort is lost as his teeth drag over your jaw, lips closing right over the hickey he had hated so much, normally calm eyes filled with dark contempt, and he’s biting down, pinching your already bruised skin between his teeth, sucking and soothing with his tongue, “Mine, isn’t that right, sweetheart?” 

You nod wordlessly, and his fingers slide forward, wrapping around the front of your neck, thumbing the hollow of your throat, “Use your words,” and there was something darker — something he had let you have glimpses of in moments of missions, of arguments, even in bed — but it wasn’t a glimpse now — it was the whole goddamn picture above you. 

“I’m yours, Suguru,” you manage, words strangled by a moan as his lithe fingers tug at the waistband of your panties, making them rub against your drenched cunt, “please—” 

“So pliant now, aren’t you?” he hums, as he pulls harder, making the wet fabric rub against your aching clit, “maybe I should make you cum this way, don’t know if you deserve my fingers or my mouth yet,” 

You’re a mess — mind swimming in the need for pleasure, why did it always feel so right with him? So perfect. It shouldn’t be. He cheated on you. He slaughtered humans. He left you. He left you without telling you anything of what was plaguing him, until it was too late. 

It was too late. He was too late. 

So why were you letting his hands tear your panties apart as he fucked you with them? 

Because — your fingers reach for his cheeks, leaning up to kiss him, again and again, as your lips parted and met — it was Suguru. 

It was always Suguru. 

“Please, Suguru, I need you, need more—ngh—” and the fabric of your panties snaps under his fingers, as he’s ripped them off, pocketing them without another word. 

“Did you let him touch you?” he’s kissing down your body, wet kisses, his lips lingering at your pebbled nipples, sucking one, while squeezing the other between his thumb and forefinger, before he switches, kissing down your stomach — tongue teasing your belly button — before he’s finally settling between your thighs, his fringe unrulier than ever, strands of his long hair slipping from his bun, “Answer me, sweetheart,” he orders, as he presses mean fingers to part your thighs for him, surely leaving bruises with how hard he’s holding your soft flesh. 

“I did,” you can’t manage the words to tell him who — how can you tell him his best friend fucked you? That you let Satoru fuck you the night you found out he left. It was one thing for him to cheat with a random person, it’s another for you to go and sleep with his best friend, “Suguru, please—” 

“Mouth or fingers?” and you swear, despite them not speaking, they still share the same dumbass brain cell— 

“What the fuck does it matte—” and your words are cut off by Suguru slipping in two fingers at once into your leaking cunt, fucking you meanly as he watched your mouth fall open, head tilted back as your hips jerked against him, desperate for more. His fingers curled as they fucked your hole open with rapid thrusts, the squelch of your cunt going straight to your head and straight to his already hard cock. 

“It fucking matters because this is my pussy, isn’t it, baby? I fucked it first, I fucked it best, and I need to know what others did while I was gone, don’t I?” and a third joins the other two, pulling another moan from your lips,“but if you won’t tell me, I’ll just use both, fuck you with all five fingers and tongue if that’s what you want to do,” 

“Sugu—” you’re already so fuckin’ close, your walls shuddering around his cock, “I’m—“ and he stops moving, smiling down at your open mouth twisting in a scowl, “fuck—“ 

“That’s what we’re trying to do, baby, but I’m not gonna let you cum that easy,” he coos, his curled lips leaning down to lap at your cunt, warm tongue dragging up your clit, before sucking lightly, making you squirm, “tell me you want me,” 

“Your fucking ego—“ and he’s plunging three fingers into your messy entrance, making you gasp — god, you hated how good he felt — his fingers bullying your insides with practiced ease, “Sugu— please—“ as his tongue teases your clit, flicking it, before his teeth nibble at it. You’re squirming in earnest now, nearly fucking yourself on his fingers and tongue. 

He laughs, pulling his mouth from your cunt, lips glossy with your pre-cum,“How quick you’re going from cussing me out to begging me to cum,” you don’t care anymore — you need to cum, “tell me what you want, Princess,” 

“Need to cum, please, please, Sugu—ah—“ and he’s sinking one more finger in you, before his lips close around your clit and suck, hard. Your back arches as something in you snaps, as the squelching and slurping of his fingers and sucking send you over the edge. You flood his mouth and fingers with your cum, squirting all over him, as he eats you out and fucks you through your orgasm, groaning as you clench around his tongue and fingers. Your thighs shake and quiver in his grip, fingers holding you still in place, as he keeps overstimulating you, “too much, can’t—“ you cry out, shaking your head, but he’s not relenting until you feel something build in again — more and more, until his fingers find that one spot in you that has you silently screaming as you cum again, even harder than the first. You’re soaked — soaked the sheets through, chest rising and falling as the pleasure ebbs away, tears slipping down your cheeks, folds fluttering as he pulls his fingers out. 

His breath warms your dripping cunt, lips glossy and eyes dark, groaning as he watches your cum slip from inside you,  as he looks up at you with a dark, half lidded gaze, “So fucking good for me, even hotter when you cry,” he’s licking his lips clean of your cum, before he’s pressing the pads of his fingers into your open mouth, “clean them f’me, baby,” and your tongue swirls around him obediently without question, pretty eyes glassy with tears making his rock hard cock twitch in his pants, “good girl,” 

And he’s pulling his fingers from your mouth, before leaning up and pulling off his black sweater, the click of his belt as he kicks off his pants, your eyes glued to his thick cock — he was thicker than Satoru, so pretty too — black pubes groomed, nearly pressed against his stomach. 

“Always so desperate for my cock, aren’t you, Princess? I’ll let you clean your cum off of it after, but I have to have you first — got to reclaim what’s mine,” and he’s dragging his cock against your clit. 

You gasp, twitching against him, but more than the pleasure, the guilt creeps in — flashes of Satoru from the night before with hands over your hips and thighs, and you had kept quiet about your life from the time you spent away. You had done your best to stay away from Suguru, even though you knew he hadn’t exactly done the same — asking Shoko questions, for pictures, for any scrap of you. 

And you couldn’t lie — not about this. 

“Suguru,” and he’s pausing, eyes meeting yours with a flash of concern, but the words tumble out with warning, just the way he had done with you, “I slept with Satoru,” 

And he’s silent — emotions roll in and out on his face — confusion, hurt, anger, and acceptance — they all fall away as he’s only staring off to the side, unable to even look at you. Words fall away, stopped in your mouth after the bitter truth that’s left it and you wonder — is it over now? Seconds feel like hours — your fingers curl into the sheets, looking for something to hang onto, to ground you. Why did he have to start this? You were fine with the burnt ashes of the love he had scorched over, but now he started a fire, and you didn’t want to put it out. You didn’t want to go out. 

You didn’t want him to go. 

But he doesn’t. Instead, his eyes finally find yours for a moment, before he’s kissing you again and again and again, bruising kisses that slaughter any sense of logic and words from you — but his message is clear, he doesn’t wanna talk, especially as his hand reaches does to brush his aching tip against you, smearing his pre-cum over the length of you. 

And he’s sinking into you, and somehow you’re still so tight around him, “Fuck,” he hisses, the first word that leaves his mouth, “did Satoru not fuck you right last night?” and your lips part as he thrusts harshly and smoothly, bottoming out with one single movement, “still as tight as when I took your virginity, aren’t you, baby?” 

“Suguru,” you’re so full, he’s so thick, and these last few weeks without him almost had your cunt forgetting what he felt like filling you — his hands gripping your thighs to press them back against your stomach, as he pulls back only to slam back in, making you head loll back, “s’good, s’full,” it’s all you can feel, all you can think about, was him, just him. 

“That’s right, I’m the only one who can fill you like this, the only one that makes you feel this good,” the sounds of his hips slapping against you send more heat flooding downward, as he grunts, watching himself piston in and out of you, “take me s’well, my good girl, mine,” he growls, “squeezing me so tight, never want me to leave this sweet cunt, do you?” your thighs shake as he presses them back, balls slapping against your ass, as he only sinks deeper and deeper, “could fuck you all night, don’t hide that face from me,” he’s forcing you to hold his gaze as he fucks you — your glassy eyes blown out with pleasure, your kiss ruined lips parted for him as you panted and moaned, forehead glossy with sweat, “wanna watch you cum around my cock, wanna see you scream my name, pretty baby,” 

His hand slides behind your ass, grabbing a fistful and finding a better angle before slamming back in, and with his filthy words, its enough to have you cumming with his name on your lips, “Sugu—fuck, Suguru!” your voice goes to a pitch you didn’t know it could reach. Toes curling as your gummy walls swallow him in, your pretty mouth forms an ‘o’ and he grunts, imagining those lips around his cock, his thrusts growing sloppy as he fucked you through your orgasm. His dick was soaked, his precum mixing with your cum. 

But he wasn’t done yet. 

He’s slapping your clit, making you jolt, as he’s still pressed inside you, “Sloppy fucking girl, I know you have one more for me,” and you’re so fucked out, he’s guiding your legs around his lower back and hips, making you gasp, “gonna cum in this perfect princess cunt,” 

“Sugu, can’t, It’s too muc—” you nearly sob, but he’s already fucking you, thrusting again and again. And it doesn’t take long for another orgasm to build, already far too sensitive from your last. It’s too much — the feeling of his hips slapping against yours, the feeling of his cock twitching inside your walls, the small moans that your tight cunt pull from his lips, and when his tip brushes against that perfect spot, as his thumb bears down on your clit — it’s too much. You see stars as you cum again, even harder, the loud squelch as he fucks you still pulls a deep groan from his lips. 

“Gonna cum, baby, gonna make a mess of you, fill you up,” he’s grunting, and you’re only nodding and moaning “yes,” still fucked out from your orgasms, but it’s enough for him notch himself deep in you and cum, painting your womb white, as he spurts his seed inside you. 

And his hips stutter, as he eases your legs down, still shaking and quivering from being fucked, and he rubs them, as you pant, his fingers then reaching to wipe your tears, as he eases himself out, groaning as he watched your mixed cums leak out of your cunt. 

“Suguru,” you murmur, and he’s leaning over you, pressing a sweet kiss to your forehead, and your hand reaches for him, cupping his cheek, “I love you,” and you do — you always loved him, you always would — there was never anyone else. Only him. But the words can’t find their way out of your mouth, sleep calling for your attendance, as your fingers run through his hair, pulling his hair tie off, and carding their way through his long hair, “I love the long hair,” you hum, eyes fluttering and heavy with sleep. 

“Do you?” His voice is gravelly, as he leans down, his lips finding your own for moment, before reaching for a bath towel you had slung over your metal bed frame, as he cleans you up, “how much?” 

“Too much, Sugu,” he chuckles softly, as he finishes cleaning you and himself up, pressing soft kisses to your thighs, as he moves to get up and put the towel in the hamper — your hand catches him by the wrist, “Don’t go,” 

And his gaze softens, as he shakes his head, “I’m just taking this to the hamper, I’ll come back to bed,” and your lips form an unfairly cute pout, but you relent, letting him walk away to the bathroom to dispose of the towel, and when he comes back, you’re already asleep, curled up. 

He stands in the doorway, watching your chest rise and fall — and he’s walking over, pulling your comforter over your body, as he holds it open for himself, pausing, only to let it fall and settle on your side. 

He couldn’t ask you to come with him. Couldn’t whisper those words in the night, because you couldn’t save him from the dark — not you, not Satoru, not a single person. Because he wasn’t cut out to live in this world with a smile on his face — and you always deserved to have one on your lips. And Satoru could do that for you. Not him. 

It was never him. He was never good enough — his fingers trace over your cheek, pressing another kiss to your forehead — not for the jujutsu world, and not for you. 

And he turns to leave, sparing a single glance at you — but he’d make a place for him. And maybe for you — make a world that’s safe for them to live in. Where he didn’t have to watch you join the other bodies piled up around him. 

He’s pulling the door shut to your apartment softly, his key left on the table. 

It was over. 

~~~

“You’re late again, as usual,” Suguru smiles, slumping down against a wall, “Satoru,” 

“The ones in Kyoto, they were under your command?” 

“Yes, they all were,” he sways, holding his shoulder, he didn’t have much time left — he couldn’t feel anything, even as he held his wound, he felt nothing — no pain, no anger, no hatred, “no matter what anyone says, I hate those monkeys,” and his thumb brushes lightly over his shoulder, “but I never held any hatred for those in Jujutsu High School,” 

“Did you not? Could’ve surprised me,” and his head turns slowly behind Satoru, and he sees you — sees you for the first time in a decade. Even at his visit to Jujutsu High, you weren’t around — away on a mission, just as he had intended. 

Satoru only sighs, sparing you a glance, “I told you not to come here—” 

“And I told you that I needed to see him,” you brush past Satoru, kneeling by Suguru — and he can’t take his eyes off of you — he had seen pictures, ones he had his twins take (not wanting those money grubbing monkeys to have even an image of you), and he saw you had done quite well for yourself after he had left. A teacher, just like Satoru — trying to foster a new generation of sorcerers — he was right, you were just like him, weren’t you? And he watches as your brow furrows, scanning over his injuries, gears grinding, but he has to halt them right then and there. 

“There’s no saving me now, sweetheart,” he clicks his tongue, “but you know that already, don’t you?” he takes an unsteady breath, leaning back against the wall, his eyes falling over you again, “still so beautiful — how’s that possible?” 

“Not beautiful to stick around for though, am I?” your words aren’t laced with bitterness so much as it’s a question, a question of why he had left you. Why did he never had come back. 

“But beautiful enough to always stay faithful to,” his words are soft, “I don’t have many regrets, not any at all truly in retrospect, but I did lie to you about cheating—” 

“I know,” your hand uses your sleeve to clean some of the blood on his face, scarlet on your palm, “I realized once I thought about it — and I’ve had plenty of time to think about you, Suguru,” your fingers trace his jawline softly, “because thoughts were all you left me with,” 

“Not all I left you with,” his eyes slide back to Satoru and back to you, lips curled in a smile, “you two were always more better suited than I ever was to you, princess,” 

“Suguru—” Satoru starts, but Suguru is shaking his head. 

“It’s rude to interrupt a person’s last words, Satoru,” he clicks his tongue, and his lips curl as he finds your gaze again, your eyes glassy, “don’t look like that, sweetheart,” 

“Suguru, why did you have to leave?” and he’s shaking his head slowly, resting it against the wall behind him. 

“Because I didn’t belong there — I couldn’t live in this world with a real smile on my face,” and his hand reaches for you, but stops, falling back to his shoulder, and tears slip down your cheeks, “but with you, I came close,” he murmurs, and he knew it was time, “Satoru,” and that’s all he had to say to have Satoru start to pull you away. 

“No, no, please—” you’re shaking your head, trying to push past Satoru, but you slump in his arms, “I love you, Suguru, I always will,” 

And he gives a small chuckle, lips curled in that smile that always damned you — “At least curse me at the end,” 

But you never could, as you step away, squeezing your eyes shut as you hear the distant splatter of blood. And you knew — you knew you would have stayed forever, stayed with him forever, if he only had told you not to go. 

But he wouldn’t. He wouldn’t. He wouldn’t. 

The two of you bury him, somewhere secluded, where no one would find him. The cold ground was hell to dig up, but the two of you managed somehow, each shovelful feeling like a funeral march with no end in sight. Neither of you could bear the thought of his body being poked and probed for its secrets, before being burned, turned to the ash and smoke, the very same he had left your lives in when he had torched it all to the ground. But even so, you couldn’t bear it — and as you look at the mound before you, you want to claw his body up — dig him up as if it would bring him back to life, pull whatever being or force out of the sky and make them give him back. 

But you can’t — it’s over.

Satoru’s hand finds your shoulder, pulling you into a hug, burying your face in his chest, as he holds you tight to his chest. And he’s leading you away from Suguru, a single flower left over his grave, as the cold air freezes the tear stains left on your cheeks. 

It’s over now. It was over now, right? Right? 

And it was. 

Until Shibuya. 

a/n: this was supposed to be 3K, and ended up being over 10K. story of my life. this fic is thematically sponsored by 1989 (taylor's version), in particular, the vault tracks that helped me write this. you can literally spot lyric references almost throughout the entire thing

tag list: @ghostkonigkeegan141, @lightblueexorcist, @aemondseyesocket, @lemonpoppy-seed, @stran-dedforyou, @tiaraqueen123, @sun-daddy-yoriichi, @grooveandshit, @prettyabc, @kaskasi, @moranguitosz, @haunting-venus, @ninneko19, @psychicai, @d1rtv, @forest-fruits-jam, @katie91239, @dud3vil, @robynnikole151, @ivory-cove, @ohbi-the-way, @numbinyourchest, @dabisdolly, @kal0pssiaa, @glaceliy, @3atinguout, @iovesatoru, @imthebestbye-blog, @michelleeveline, @ichikanu, @ummcumfurtable, @collectionofdolls, @auraeum, @reesesnieces, @goldfishsmemory, @itshobiscussposts

[deviant-doughnut]

Augusnippets Day Twelve

Chosen Prompt: Trapped

CW: broken bones, wounds.

In the service elevator, everything changes. Above ground, the hospital was sleek and clinical, white walls and sharp, colourful posters. Stilted chatter, open windows to disperse the anxiety ghosting through the air. The medical examiner’s offices aren’t much different. Higher windows, rooms lit by more determined florescent lighting, posters in black and white as if out of some misplaced respect for the dead. Jeremy swallows, wishes he hadn’t agreed to figure this part out alone.

The body is ready for him when he gets there. They help him wheel it towards the back of the building, the regular elevator reserved for the living. The ME tells him that, uses those exact words, and laughs. Jeremy can’t bring himself to fake it, so the ME clears her throat and looks away from him, and guilt whispers in alongside his anxiety. He doesn’t know how to explain either of them to this stranger — so casual in the presence of dead men, so adept at managing the corners with their gurneys — so he says nothing. The rest of the journey passes in silence. She deigns not to ride with him, pushes the gurney to the far wall of the elevator and shows him which button to press.

“That’ll get you back to the parking lot, hon,” she tells him, and then she’s gone.

Jeremy presses the button, watches her recede down the hallway as the doors draw together. They rattle as they slide closed.

And then he’s alone with a dead man, crammed into a decades old elevator.

Deep breath. He presses the button. Parking lot. He’s moments away from the fresh air, sprawling space, from manoeuvring the body onto the floor of the van and driving away from this experience. At least then he can put distance between himself and the body, a partition between them for the journey back to the house. He checks his watch. Not long now — a matter of seconds.

He’s taking deep breaths when the ground shudders. Adrenaline leaps into his blood, lurching into his chest. The buttons shows him rising between floors, less than one floor to his destination. After it shudders, the elevator trembles once more, the metal box around him groaning as it slows, then screeches to a premature halt. He hasn’t reached the ground floor yet, but the door pry themselves open six inches and then slam themselves together. They do this again, like a terrified heartbeat — metal jackhammering against metal. The air turns thick, suddenly heavy, andJeremy’s breaths turn ragged. Elevators don’t scare him when they work right, but it feels almost as though the ground is tilting — impossible, impossible — and all he can see is a smudged approximation of himself in the badly stained glass. The dead man stays dead and prone behind him, but the brakes click out of place on the gurney, and the metal rolls forward. The gurney draws towards him and he halts it with a trembling hand. The body emits its inhuman groans, broken sounds of a body undoing itself — days after the death of its inhabitant. Jeremy swallows.

With his free hand he slaps the emergency intercom. Static greets him on the other end, quiet at first and then loud and obtrusive. There’s a voice buried in there, straining through the noise. The words are shapeless and crackling badly. He tells them he’s stuck, forgets all other information that could help him.

“Help me,” he tells them, whispers it. His lungs ache. Something crawls into his throat and takes the air from him. Sharp scratch when he swallows, a sandpaper scratch. He opens his mouth to gasp, and then it’s all he can do. He gasps, and gasps, inhales until his chest pulls tight and his head turns fuzzy. He forgets how to exhale, the walls drawing closer, doors still slamming relentlessly shut — over, and over, and over. He presses the intercom repeatedly, monotonous buzzing with every fevered repetition.

He imagines the dead man sitting up. He doesn’t, of course, but the thought sinks deep, scrapes through his veins until it’s all he can see.

The elevator groans as it hauls itself up. A momentary spark of hope until it pulls right past the ground floor and continues. The walls are stale and grey and Jeremy is pale beneath the smears on the glass. Fingerprints, he thinks, like someone has been pressing desperately at the glass, crying for help, gasping for breath. The elevator shudders between floors three and four. It drops then, so suddenly that Jeremy’s stomach lurches and his knees give out. He hurtles to the ground, gurney rolling towards the doors. His head collides hard with the metal edging, the corner tearing clean through his skin.

The pain sears. The wound throbs instantly. Jeremy presses his palm to it shakily, but the blood pools into his eye and stings, blinds him. He squeezes both eyes shut as the elevator catches itself, suspended just as quickly as it had started to fall.

He cries for help. No intercom, no ability to glance upwards. He doesn’t want to see himself in that mirror. He wonders if there’s a camera in here, if anyone even knows he’s trapped here. He feels the elevator jolt back to life, feels the way his stomach roils as it drags upwards once more. Up and up, until at last it draws to a halt, and Jeremy opens his eyes.

The elevator sits at the very top floor, voices on the other side of the doors as they continue to slam together.

“Help me!” Jeremy calls. “I-I’m stuck in here. P-please. Someone. Call m-maintenance.”

He lurches forward, grips one of the doors with his right hand when they pry open. He holds it there, for a moment. Then the door stutters against his hold. They overcome his strength. They slam together with his hand still between them, and Jeremy screams at the sudden crack of his bones. The pain only sets in afterwards, urgent and blinding, radiating upwards into his wrist, his shoulder, the hinge of jaw as he clenches it, howls through his gritted teeth. He cradles his hand against his chest, tries not to peer down at it, broken skin and unnatural angles.

The intercom’s static floods into the elevator, drowning out the shocked cries of the people on the landing. Jeremy forces himself to his feet, head spinning with the altitude of suddenly standing. He peers at the list of floors by the doors, the light flickering against the top floor’s designation.

When the lightbulb goes out, something snaps overhead. The sound is muffled, not inside the elevator, but not independent of it either. Jeremy’s breath trembles. His head hurts and the bleeding won’t stop, and his shirt clings to the sweat on his back.

When the light flickers out, and the second snap sounds, Jeremy turns frozen in horror.

The elevator plunges into darkness.

It falls, hurtles suddenly downwards. It doesn’t jerk or shudder any longer. He’s not forced to stare into the glass. It’s a smooth and sightless journey, bracing and breathless all the while. Violent free fall, fast and inescapable. Jeremy can only let it happen.

-

Thanks to @augusnippets for this event!

[mehrangaiz]

Courtesy of The Love I Will Never Recieve

It was pitch black, the ruthless night

Unforgiving, unrelentless and unsatisfied

If you listened close enough, you could hear it

The devastating crumpling of what was left of my heart

It’s a good thing no one ever listens

I’m afraid it would break their stone hearts if they saw me

How can you possibly give me an explanation,

For something as cruel as fate or destiny?

Midnight has never tasted so bittersweet

The words I said all those years ago echoed in my head endlessly

Except this time, it wasn’t ironic or sarcastic, or for kicks and giggles

It was a desperate whisper, tragically soft, entwined with treacherous thorns

“Am I really so unlovable?”

Is it true that the antidote I gulped desperately was a curse all along?

It seems I forgot the unforgiving nature of truths that will always remain agonizing

No matter if it is concealed under hundreds of disguises, it will forever remain vicious

And now that I’m paying for it, a little white lie or bluff has never seemed so harmless

He broke my heart without even knowing it

He shattered what little hope I had left lingering in me

He finished the battle I had been fighting ever since I was born

How can someone who doesn’t know you become a corrupt catalyst?

I was too busy reeling from the realisation

That while I had met many cruel men in this short lifetime,

The only good one left me hurting, too

He doesn’t even know I exist and still somehow defined my entire being

I stared, and stared, and stared, and kept on staring

At the mirror, at my soul, at my empty boat left sinking near the dock

I’m afraid the happy ending I imagined as a little girl will die before it even reaches me

Fading into the receding sunset and taking my purpose with it

I sniffled softly and drank the rum of my salty tears

I quickly swallowed the want before it defined me

But the thought of being alone seared my skin with longing

For change, for love, for forgiveness, for redemption, for someone, if anyone at all

I’m so terrified for being this young

Should I fear what I have become, or grieve for what will be left of me?

Shall I board the train already, should I bid adieu prematurely?

I’ll burn all the fairytale books if that’s what it takes for someone to love me

It’s a harrowing sight, really

To see a creature so desperate, so hurt, so confused, so small

I think I love like a dog; messily, panting, drooling, and whining

Isn’t it disturbing that I bare my teeth at the mere thought of you leaving?

I’m sorry for disgusting you, my love

Tell me to change and baby, trust me, I will become a stranger in less than a heartbeat

I’ll tear myself down and apart before I let you see me for me, or recognize these damaged goods

I can replace everything except my nationality, and for that, I’m sorry

I wonder what happened that left me so wounded

Could it be the trembling figure hunched over the bathroom sink?

With shaking shoulders, quivering lips, and watery eyes?

Praying for death, for alternate realities, in search for teeth-rottingly sweet love?

I want to puke at the thought of dying alone

Is it really so selfish of me to want to be wanted?

To be offered tenderness, quiet peace, and soothing whispers,

In place of harshness, deafeningly loud violence, and bone-rattling shouts?

I didn’t believe it at first, I desperately didn’t want to

How could a teenager have an epiphany such as this?

To believe with every fiber of their being,

That they were truly and irrevocably unlovable?

Until I realized that they were me

It’s the same story, circa 2014

And the fantasies that will die with me

Courtesy of the love I will never receive.

[darkficsyouneveraskedfor]

Hue and Cry XVI

Warnings: non-consent sex and rape (series), pain/wounds, mild violence.

This is dark!medieval!Bucky Barnes x reader and explicit. 18+ only.  Your media consumption is your own responsibility. Warnings have been given. DO NOT PROCEED if these matters upset you.

Synopsis: Barnes lashes out in his grief.

Note: So, it’s not over but most of you guessed that :)

Thanks to everyone and thanks in advance for all your feedback. :)

I really hope you enjoy. 💋

<3 Let me know what you think with a like or reblog or reply or an ask! Love ya!

The sun cast a sardonic light on the cold winter morning. The first flakes of snow fell the night before but glistened as they melted away with the unexpected bloom of light on the horizon. The men began digging at dawn for the interment, a pit to be unmarked and unseen. The woman would be buried as any servant was; without any formality or fanfare.

Lord Barnes dressed in black, the sole attendee of the service. He had dragged a priest from the castle chapel to say some ordained words. The men climbed out of the six-foot hole as the cart was led over by two others, the wooden box atop it.

They lifted it, lifted her, and maneuvered it down into the grave with ropes. The holy man recited his verse but the duke did not hear them. He was only torn from his own grief as he heard footsteps on the crisp grass. He looked over as the foreign baron came to stand beside him, his dark eyes ahead of him as the men began to shovel dirt onto the wood. The sound was harsh in the early hour.

“Go,” Barnes growled, “you aren’t welcome here.”

“Well,” Zemo said, “how is that? After all Werner did for you; for her. I should like a proper farewell.”

“You didn’t know her,” Barnes hissed.

“Oh, I didn’t, but are you so sure that you knew her so well?” Zemo challenged, “you knew what you wanted from her--”

“Shut up! You don’t know what you’re talking about,” Barnes lifted his chin and turned to face his foe, “I will not tell you to leave again.”

“I owe you no obedience, my lord,” he said flaty, “I think you’ve misunderstood that entirely. The ground we stand on is even. I am beholden to you for nothing. Given that it was my physician who saw to her comfort in her last hours, I’d say you--”

His voice was cut off by the hand at his throat. The duke throttled the Baron with his only hand and backed him away from the grave as the dirty continued to rain down. He marched him across the grass as his blue eyes burned with a selfish sort of hurt.

“I am not stupid. I know you came to rile me and you’ve done just that so go! Go before I put you down beside her,” Barnes shoved him away so that he stumbled.

Zemo stood and touched his throat as a rare glimmer of anger flashed across his features. He raised his chin and fixed the fur collar of his cloak. He nodded as he set his jaw and peered past the furious duke.

“She is free now,” Zemo said, “from you most of all.”

The baron turned away and strode from the green. The duke turned and watched the diggers as they kept at their work. A lump lodged in his throat and he lowered his head. He could not deny Zemo’s words, in fact, they sank so deep his heart ached. He knew as all did that her death was bloody on his hands.

🏰

Lord Barnes watched from the window as the line of carriages rolled through the castle gates. He was smug at the Baron’s premature departure but he didn’t truly feel any better than he had the day before. He expected the knock at the door and he was not surprised by who drew him away from the window.

The door opened before he reached it and his sister blustered into the chamber. Rebecca snarled as she came to face him, of the few who could match his own temper. Her nostrils flared and hardened her soft features as she glared at him.

“You’ve ruined it!” she spat, “you’ve ruined it all! He’s gone and it’s all your fault, you dunce!”

“I ruined it? You really think you could have trusted him? I merely saved you time and gold,” Bucky scoffed as he shrugged her off.

“You are so conceited. Don’t you realise we need this alliance? It’s much bigger than your little maid!” She barked, “oh, all this just to fu--”

“No, no! Shut up!” he spun and pointed at her face, “you don’t speak of her. Your or anyone else.”

She reeled and chortled. She rolled her eyes and put her hands on her hips. She licked her lips sourly and shook her head, “Better yet, I will not speak to you again. You have until the end of the day to leave the capital.”

“Are you mad?”

“I’m serious,” her brows arched, “Samuel agrees with me. You will go and you will not return. Go back to your castle and be alone and bitter as you always wished.”

Barnes huffed and mirrored her own fury, “fine. I told you, I never wanted to come here.”

“So it is my fault now?” she snipped.

“No, your majesty,” he said dryly, “how could anything ever be your fault?”

“Don’t,” she warned.

“Oh, queen’s are so powerless,” he rebuffed, “how every woman in the realm must pity you.”

“You’re a bastard,” she sneered.

“We both share the same blood, the same flaws,” he slowly walked back to the window, “you will see in the end that I did you a favour. That man cannot be trusted.”

“Oh, do get over yourself, brother,” Rebecca snapped and the slam of the door marked her exit.

Lord Barnes stared down at the wintery grounds then up at the grey sky. It was due time he went home. To be alone. For good this time.

🏰

Flickers of light skimmed beneath your eyelids. Distant memories, dwindling dreams, and unheard words. 

The pain came first. The agony down your left arm and hip, the way it rippled through you like a crashing ocean against the shore. The ragged breaths grew to groans as the ground moved beneath you, rattling like your bones and your head. The noise of horses and wooden wheels in the dirt. The smell of leaves and oak. The feeling of life come back to you.

You could not move your left arm, it was bound and even if it was not, you couldn’t have lifted it. Your left leg was in similar shape and your entire body was bound in pain. The confusion laced your mind and kept you from thinking too deeply as you realised you were in a box, the darkness broken only by the thin wisps of light between the hammered boards.

“Hello?” you called, your throat dry and sore. It hurt to speak and your lungs squeezed terribly.

You bent your right arm, your shoulder straining as you did, and hit the lid. It did not budge and you hit it harder. Your uncertain strikes turned to a steady and frantic pounding as the blackness began to suffocate you. You had to get out. You would die in there. Or were you already dead. You realised what you lay in; a coffin, and your stomach dropped like a boulder.

The wheels stopped and the ground stilled. You were on a cart of some sort and footsteps tramped into the dirt and murmurs stirred outside. There was a thump on the lid and suddenly it lurched upward as it was pried off. 

Swathes of light flowed in and blinded you. You stilled and stared up as a figure stood above you and another appeared at the other side of the casket.

“Ah, finally,” the accented tone slithered, “I feared the dose was mistaken.”

You blinked until Baron Zemo came clear to you and shielded your eyes as they watered. You gasped as another shattering pain overtook you and gasped at the sheer torment. The other man, thin and tall with lines around his eyes and across his forehead peered down and reached to check the bandages around your left arm.

“She cannot sit in the carriage but we can arrange for her to recline in there, yes, my lord?” he asked as he felt your forehead, “there is no fever. She is past the worst of it.”

“We can arrange it,” Zemo nodded, “do get her a blanket. We really should have done so before we nailed the top on.”

“Yes, my lord,” the tall man hopped down from the cart and returned with a thick fur coverlet. Zemo tucked it gently around you and as he brushed your arm, you cried out.

“I… I should be dead,” you rasped, “how--”

“A trick. On the gods, on fate… on your Lord Barnes,” Zemo smirked, “oh, do not fear, he hasn’t any idea of your miraculous perseverance. Let me assure you he is most miserable to believe you dead.”

“Why?” you asked as the lid of the coffin was moved away and you heard others moving around. The stench of the horses made you shudder and brack back the scene; the clopping hooves, the roaring crowd, the pulsing of your heart, your maddened laughter.

“You know, I never desired anything more from Lord Barnes. What happened between us was an act of war. We were soldiers but he could not see it that way. I am an understanding man but I am not without reason. If he cannot be civil, why then should I?” He said smoothly, “I came to your kingdom to serve my own and I cannot do that with him snapping at my throat, so I will go home.”

“But why--”

“Patience,” he bid as he lifted a gloved hand, “I could not have factored you in if I tried. You are the most unexpected creature. What you did… well, that sent a very clear message to me, one that I heard.” He looked around and clasped his hands together as he leaned his elbows on his knees, ”I will not claim it to be entirely selfless in my deed, in fact the idea of the deceit does more for me than it could ever do for you. To think of Lord Barnes in his misery, that pompous man.”

“What--Where are we going?” you asked weakly as the wariness crept up on you once more.

“The Tower Zemo,” he said plainly, “in my homeland. You should recover there and then we will decide what to do with you.”

“What to--”

“Nothing too nefarious, I assure you. I should like to avoid the depths of Barnes…” he sniffed, “I don’t expect you to trust me, lady, you would be a fool to and you do not seem one to me. Foolishly brave and perhaps obstinate but not a fool.”

“I--how am I to thank you?” you croaked.

“Don’t do that just yet,” Zemo rose as men approached and suddenly the coffin was slid off the cart.

You were carried around the side of a carriage and set down again. The men worked carefully to remove you from inside the casket and you screamed as they did. Zemo spurred them on and apologised for your discomfort as they transferred you to the lid of the coffin placed to stretch between the seats of the carriage.

The tall man draped the fur over you again and checked your splints and the layers of bandage hidden beneath the loose wool gown. He called for some water and helped you drink. Then he was handed a chest and stirred around for a vial.

“This is Werner,” Zemo said as he sat on the empty part of the bench and the carriage door shut, “he did see that you survived and that you died in the eyes of your master.”

“Oh… thank you,” you looked to Werner as he urged you to drink from the vial.

“Just a sip, miss, for the pain,” he bid.

You did as he told you and reclined again with a grumble. He sat opposite Zemo who watched you with a cryptic expression.

“It will be a long journey,” he said, “and likely longer for you. It would be best if you kept calm and did not stress yourself. You are still… fragile.”

“I feel it,” you closed your eyes as fatigue shrouded you.

“You would,” Zemo said, “sleep is best for it, isn’t that so, Werner?”

“Sleep numbs the pain,” Werner assured, “sleep lets the body heal itself.”

“And sees the time through,” Zemo yawned, “besides, what else is there to do?”

Your breath eased along with the pain and slowly you sank back into the void. You let it embrace you as you forgot about the Baron and his odd physician, about the Duke and the life before. You welcomed sleep as you had death and yet, you were relieved to be alive.

[plummyplums]

Just for @zizzyhopps​, here’s my current assortment of Wick headcanons

General

There was never a demon.  No changelings, no fae, no nothing.  Everything was caused by Mary’s abuse and inability to accept her mistakes.

The twins’ masks are both worn to cover scars from the same incident.  They were walking back from the wood shed and were attacked by a bear/coyotes/some wild animal.  With both of them being unable to run (Tom’s leg, Tim’s asthma), they were kinda screwed.  Thankfully, Tim always carries his knife, so they had a bit of defense.  It didn’t take too long for John to show up and shoot the attacer, but both of the twins were quite hurt.  They both have scars on their faces.  Tom was very self-conscious about it and seeing the scars tended to make him upset, so Tim made them matching masks to make him more comfortable.

In short: Tim is smart, creative, and very protective; Tom is shy, creative, and emotional; Benny is kind, humble, and protective; Caleb is active, kind, and stubborn; Lillian is lively, mature, and sweet.

Both Twins

12-13

Were born premature and very small, no one was sure they’d survive

Quite sickly

They always react the same way; the one who’s healthy will be all worried and fussy, the one who’s sick will be grouchy about being sick.

Both artists; Tim likes to sculpt and carve, Tom likes writing and drawing.

Tim

Name is Timas Weaver

Reversal of Thomas

Asthmatic

Extremely protective of Tom

Like, “stabbing people with his whittling knife for bothering Tom” sort of protective

Left-handed

Aggressive and cold with most people, soft with Tom and Lilly

Smartest of the kids

Autistic

Low empathy

Special interest in whittling/woodwork

Despises messy spaces

Easily attached to objects (his mask, his knife, John’s gas mask)

Hates eye contact

Hates loud noise

Shutdowns, he’ll find a place to sit and quietly explode

Also got polio when Tom did, but was asymptomatic

Likes climbing trees, running, doing physical stuff

Carves things for his sibs; mostly bunnies and other toys for Lilly.  His favorite things that he’s ever made will always be the masks, just due to how much work he put into them and how it helped him and Tom.

Death: Asthma attack

As a ghost

Constantly wheezing, as if he can’t catch his breath

Skin is distinctly cold

Tom

Name is Tomothy Weaver

Reversal of Timothy

Had spinal polio as a baby, leading to weak muscles and limited mobility

His left leg is weak, and he has less dexterity in his fingers, leading to his poor handwriting

Wears a brace on his left leg, can’t balance very well or can’t stand for long without it

Always worried about Tim

“No!  You can’t run!  But if you do, wait for me, if you have trouble breathing I need to be there to help you”

Claustrophobic

Shy and sad

Almost never approaches people on his own

Soft and emotional

Prone to crying when he’s upset

Autistic

Low empathy

Likes scratchy, sharp sounds

Easily attached to objects (his mask, his rattle)

Hates eye contact

Meltdowns, he cries really hard and only Tim’s allowed to touch him

Loves reading and writing stories, but is self-conscious about it

Death: Fell from the bridge

As a ghost

Can talk, but usually doesn’t.  On rare occasions he can be found talking to Tim or Lilly in a quiet, painful-sounding voice.

Skin is distinctly cold

Constantly cracking and popping from his broken bones moving

Lillian

5

Her bros are allowed to call her Lilly

Iconic sweet baby

Loves teasing and playing pranks

Caleb is her fav sibling, being the closest to her in age and really the only one she can relate to, with Benny being so religious and the twins being hidden away

Enjoys singing and wanted to learn to cook

Death: Dropped Honey Bunny in the well, drowned trying to get it back

As a ghost

Constantly floating through the air, it looks like she’s swimming

Her voice is echo-y

When upset, she may be dripping wet

Benny

14

Humble, incredibly kind

A bit reserved, though not nearly as much as Tom

Tries to mimic Mary, though a bit nicer.  He’s stern but gentle with Lilly and Caleb, but is wary of the twins

Mary told him they were demons

Dyslexic

Total Mama’s boy

Very responsible; never breaks rules, always does his chores, does his best to be a good big brother

Death: Undetermined, died in his sleep

As a ghost

The most “alive-passing” out of the kids

Can’t help but fall asleep often

Very conflicted that none of them went to heaven or hell

Caleb

9

Track star

Loves to be outside

Kind, outgoing

Extroverted as heck, he hates being stuck alone/inside

A bit self-centered

A bit feisty, kinda stubborn

Death: Buried alive by Mary, reasoning undetermined

As a ghost

Brags about being the coolest ghost

Can still see, despite not having eyes, but not as good as in life.  Mostly relies on hearing and feeling the player through the ground.

Voice is crackly and dry

Feel free to send me DMs or asks about Wick, I’m always excited to talk about my kiddos and the lore!

[duxhess-kryzewan]

If you are still taking prompts... how about Obi-Wan and Satine at a Senate gala or something and there are a lot of stolen stares and secret touches and our Jedi Master tries to stop himself because he tells himself he can't do that again, he's not a padawan anymore. But then Satine goes somewhere more private and he follows and they basically give into their feelings then and after a passionate angsty make out they leave together. (Basically angsty pining with a bit happy end?)

- illicit affairs - 

If he were being honest, the entire affair was nothing more than for show, something that he had continuously told Anakin though the younger man didn't seem to care in the slightest. He insisted it they attend, rattling off some unconvincing speech about the positive light it would shed on the appearance of the Jedi in the eyes of the galactic republic now that they were no longer fighting in a war and how it had nothing to do with a certain Senator from Naboo attending.

Regardless, he relented, more to keep an eye on Anakin than because he actually thought them showing up would do much for the public opinion of the Jedi. It was nice to not have to worry about imminent death for an evening now that the there had been peace proclaimed throughout the galaxy, even if the entire function was strictly ornamental. Besides, someone had to make sure that Anakin and Padme weren’t being too obvious with what they still thought was a secret affair, 

All in all, it wasn't as bad as he thought it would be.

That was, until he caught sight of her.

How he hadn't realized that she of all people would be there he would never know. It was a peace summit, for force sake. In any other scenario should would be the one heading it, with her glittering blue dress and jewel woven hair. 

"Master Kenobi."

A chill rushes down his spine at the sound of his name coming from her.

"Duchess."

Satine smiles warmly, "How nice it is to be here and see you not as adversaries in a grueling war, but as allies once again."​

She sips her champagne and he swallows thickly.

"You and I have always been allies."

"Oh of course," She says with a sly grin, "I'd even go as far to say we were a far bit more than allies, wouldn't you?"

He spares a glance to the crowd around them, and while it seemed that no one was listening in on their conversation, he knew there were ears everywhere amongst the republics citizens and higher officials and was rather thrown off by how openly she was hinting at their past relationship. Surely if the war hadn’t been his undoing her words might be. 

"Would I?" He asks.

She bats her eyes innocently, "We're friends, are we not?"

Oh yes, she would certainly be the death of him.

"Of course we are."

Where this newfound bravery came from, he doesn't know, but it's so unexpected that when she reaches forward and smooths down the front of his robes all he can do is freeze.

"A pleasure to see you as always, Master Kenobi."

And with that she turns, fading into the crowd and despite how wildly inappropriate it was (downright scandalous, really) he couldn't tear his eyes off of her, even as she made her way through groups of senators and socialites alike. And it seemed she couldn't look away either, because every time he caught sight of her she was already looking back at him.

So it became a silent game, with the two of them shuffling around the room in a forbidden dance of distance, socializing with whoever crossed their path. But she was always there, watching him watch her as she politely turned down advances of drunk senators and chatted giddily with Padme. Why he ever lets Anakin talk him into anything, he'll never know. The younger Jedi may have flagrant disregard for the rules of no attachment, but he wasn't one to follow the same trend even with Satine here.

Not anymore, at least.

A hand brushes gently against his arm; how had she managed to sneak up on him like that? His thoughts were getting the best of him, never would he be so distracted under any normal circumstance but there she was, pulling his mind in a million different directions. He had been so distracted by his own thoughts that he didn't realize she was passing by him until he felt her skin against his.

"Someone's feeling rather bold." He mutters to himself. ​Never would he have guessed that she would be the one to so dangerously flirt with him in the presence of anyone else. Satine was nothing if not a figure of propriety and decorum. Never has she been one to tip toe along the lines of something so illicit as running the risk of exposing...whatever it was that they were.

He sees Anakin chatting happily with Bail Organa and Padme, Ahsoka standing at his side with a pleasant smile on her face. It seemed that the young Padawan was also roped into attending like he was. How lucky she is not to be weighed down by the threat of exposing a less than acceptable relationship with a diplomatic figure. Not that Anakin seemed to be carrying that too heavily; the young man seemed more than happy to hold what should be a hefty burden.

In another life perhaps Obi-Wan would have been able to do the same; love Satine in tandem with his devotion to the order. But that was not the choice that they made.   

Out of the corner of his eye the flash of Satine's blue gown catches his attention as she slips silently through one of the rooms exits. A brief glance at the time lets him know that it's much too soon for the party to be over, and he knows that she wouldn't be headed back to Mandalore prematurely. She had complained to him more than once about never having enough time to secure enough diplomatic allies for her planet.

And he knows its a bad idea, a horrible idea really, to make his way towards the same exit. And he knows its an even worse idea to actively feel out through the force to find her exact location, because that's truly a choice that he can not return from, but he does anyway.

The building the summit had been arranged in was one of the older ones found in the city; built when the civilization there had first been established. He never saw much use for it within a warring galaxy, there were too many lives being lost outside for anyone to ever consider holding something frivolous as an over glorified party, but here they were, and it seemed that Satine was more than enticed by the primitive designs of the corridors and all that they hold. Not that he can blame her for taking a break to wander, he more than anyone gets tired of the false niceties and stuffy atmosphere that politicians seem to carry with them.

"The festivities not lively enough for you?" He says. If she was unaware of his presence she showed no sign of surprise when he spoke.

"Drunken Senators and war torn socialites do tend to drain a person after a while, and I'm no use to anyone if I'm stuck fending off advances from entitled men instead of securing our independence from our adversaries. Even now I have to resort to talking my way into making political allies instead of just being allowed to rule my planet unbothered."

He chuckles. It was true, though he suspects that she was well versed in the art of talking her way in and out of any conversation.

"Valid point," He concludes, "Such is a prime example of why I don’t like to get involved with politics. Though I am glad you were able to attend. I'd rather it not be years in between us seeing each other again like last time."

There's something both soft and wicked swimming around in her eyes and it both excites and terrifies him.

“I miss you terribly some days,” She admits, “Seeing you brings me a great deal joy, I admit.”

“Me too.”

Looking back, he's not entirely certain who made the first move. He would like to say it was her, and that he had the self restraint not to initiate something so scandalous and code breaking, but he would be lying if he said he was certain it wasn't him. But the end result was still the same, with his hands clinging desperately to her waist and her fingers tangling in his hair. It had been so long since someone had touched him so lovingly and while somewhere in the back of his mind he could hear a voice screaming at him for going against the code he holds so dear, every other sense within him didn't care in the slightest.

"I'm here until tomorrow evening," she whispers breathlessly against his lips, kissing him again before continuing, "Don't leave me tonight, please."

How could he deny her anything? All he’s ever done was leave her in the past; how could he ever take such a simple request away from her?

He grips her hip bones between his hands and pulls her closer to him, his lips dipping down to her exposed neck and the contact produces a contended sigh from her and he wonders how a single sound can fill him with so much warmth. It unlocks a newfound happiness he didn’t know was possible just by knowing he’s the one making her feel this way.  

He kisses her neck one, two, three times before trailing back up to her cheek, pausing to whisper lovingly in her ear, "I wouldn't dare."

[callboxkat]

Infinitesimal (part 41)

Author’s note: Hope you guys enjoy!

Warnings: panic attack, blood, injuries (bruises, broken bones, head injury), fear, arguing, death mentions

Word count: 3403

Look for the masterpost in the notes!

...

Virgil dared not so much as breathe, listening with trepidation as Logan’s footsteps drew near. They were very slow and soft, almost as if he were attempting to sneak up on them.

Roman, standing in the middle of the room, was able to actually see the other human before either of the littles could; and he turned towards his roommate as he approached. “Logan, how is he?” he asked quietly.

“I’ll explain in a moment,” whispered Logan, stepping into the room. Virgil’s gaze immediately zeroed in on the box in his arms: six inches long, practically the perfect size for a little.

Logan approached the table; but just as he reached it, he seemed to hesitate.

“Put him down!” Virgil snapped, losing patience. Emile was right there, and the human was hesitating to give him back?

“I would appreciate if you kept your voice down,” Logan said. “He is already rather distressed.”

Virgil snapped his jaw shut, his face reddening.

“Could—could we see him, p-please?” Patton asked. He was sitting on the table at Virgil’s side, holding his hand.

Again, Logan hesitated. Realization dawned on Roman’s face. He knew exactly why Logan was hesitating. Virgil frowned, glaring between the two of them.

“Of course you may,” Logan was saying, “but so that there are no misunderstandings, I need to explain the situation.”

Virgil’s rage dimmed somewhat, only to be replaced by fear. His suspicion remained untouched. “Wh-what situation?”

“How much has Roman told you?” Logan inquired.

“Why?”

“Please, humor me?”

Virgil glared, but this human literally held his brother’s life in his hands. He couldn’t refuse. “He said that… he hit his head, and that his arm’s hurt because that—that old bat threw something at him.”

“But he didn’t tell you more about your brother’s condition?”

“No, he said you were going to do that.”

Logan nodded, mostly to himself. “Okay.” He glanced down at the box again. “In that case, I would like to explain a bit more now, so that you do not become alarmed when you see him.”

“Oh, I’m already pretty f*cking alarmed,” Virgil hissed.

To Logan’s credit, he didn’t seem all that fazed. Instead, he began to speak in an almost painfully level voice. “As you know, your brother is injured, and it is very important that you do not aggravate these injuries. I have evaluated him; and he has a head injury, a broken arm, a dislocated shoulder, a sprained ankle, and a minor break in his tail, as well as plenty of bruises. I have your brother restrained for his own safety, as I am unsure if he has an injury to his spine or not. Until we can be sure he doesn’t, he needs to remain on the backboard and to continue wearing the collar. Please, do not remove them.”

Roman shifted where he stood, a few feet to Logan’s right.

The injuries that Logan had rattled off seemed to echo in Virgil’s mind, mostly simply because of how many there were; but one thing stuck out above all else. “You have him restrained?” Virgil repeated, his volume rising again despite himself. He felt dizzy. Patton’s grip on his hand tightened. He shouldn’t have been surprised; what had he expected? These were the people who put Patton in a cage.

“Only for his own safety,” Logan reiterated, his quiet voice firm. “As soon as we know it is safe, we can remove them, but not before. If he does have a spinal injury, and we remove the restraints prematurely, his condition could worsen; and he could lose his ability to walk, or possibly even worse.”

Logan’s words sank into Virgil like poison in his veins, only adding onto the already substantial amount of stress coursing through him. He felt the color leave his face, and everything suddenly felt far too hot and far too close.

“Oh my god, Logan, you can’t just say it like that,” Roman said, rounding on his roommate. “What the hell is wrong with you?”

“I… my apologies, I only wanted to convey the importance of not removing the restraints.”

Virgil barely listened, sitting down hard on the table as his legs refused to bear his weight. He only felt an echo of the pain that should have stabbed through his foot at the careless movement, the sound of his crutches clattering to the tabletop oddly distant.

Emile might never walk again? He was a little! He needed his legs, he needed to be able to run and climb and gather supplies! Virgil had enough trouble being unable to walk without crutches—for a little, being unable to walk at all may as well have been a death sentence. Emile and Virgil had gone through so much, far too much for Virgil to lose him to something like this. He couldn’t help but picture Emile, laying on the ground and staring up at the ceiling, unable to move, to speak, to do anything as he slowly withered away….

The world seemed to narrow around Virgil as his thoughts spiraled further and further, the voices around him growing muffled and indistinct.

Patton’s face hovered in front of him.

“…need to breathe for me, okay, kiddo?” he was saying. “Logan didn’t mean what he said. Just breathe in and out with me, okay?”

Virgil couldn’t focus.

“Virgil?” Patton prompted. It sounded like he was speaking from another room. “Come on, kiddo. It’s alright. Emile’s alright. Want to try breathing with me?”

Virgil responded with a single, jerky nod, the best he could do at the time. Spots were clouding his vision, which had taken on a slightly unfocused, grayish quality.

Patton breathed in slowly, nodding in approval when Virgil caught on and started breathing along with him. He held his breath for a moment, then slowly let it out. This pattern repeated a few times, until Virgil could follow it without too much trouble.

“Just take a minute,” Patton said when Virgil had stopped hyperventilating—something he hadn’t quite realized he was doing. “Put your head between your knees, it’ll help.”

As the feeling began to return to his extremities and his vision cleared, the knowledge of what had just happened to him sank in. Virgil felt his face burn hot in mortification. That had actually happened, right in front of the humans. Just as he had the chance to see Emile again.

Virgil lifted his head, his breathing still slightly ragged. He ignored the way the room spun, instead looking past Patton’s concerned expression towards the humans. Logan looked downright ashamed, still holding the box in both hands. Roman was glancing between Logan and Virgil, his arms folded. Now that Virgil had calmed down slightly—slightly—Logan took the opportunity to attempt to explain himself.

“I—I only meant to warn—that is, I wished to stress the importance of not removing the restraints. They will help keep him from further injury,” Logan stammered. “I have not found any indication that he does have a spinal injury. I only wanted to make you understand that it is still a possibility. My sincerest apologies. It was not my intention to frighten you so deeply.”

“Put him down,” Virgil said with as much authority as he could manage, grabbing for his crutches and desperately attempting to hold onto whatever shred of dignity he might have had left. Patton sat back as he got to his feet, letting him go.

“Of course,” Logan murmured, looking away. He very slowly lowered down the box in his hands, setting it on the table before the littles. Both of them rushed towards it before Logan had even retracted his hands.

Virgil dropped down at the side of the box, leaving his crutches at his back. The sight that greeted him put a pit in his stomach. Emile, his older brother, his only remaining family, lay on his back inside the box, very still. He was tied to a ruler in a manner that reminded Virgil of an insect caught in a spider’s web, a long strand of string woven over him almost like a shoe lace. Some kind of foam thing had been put around his neck, preventing Emile from moving it at all. A thick bandage wrapped around his head, a few dark spots visible above his right eyebrow; and a large part of his face was mottled with dark bruises. Other than his face and one of his arms, which had obviously been cleaned, he was filthy, covered in dust, grime, blood, and who knew what else. There were even a couple of cat hairs stuck to his trousers. One of Emile’s eyes was open, but only just, and he seemed to be barely holding on to consciousness.

Virgil’s throat felt like it might close up, and his eyes burned. He hesitated only for the briefest of moments before grabbing onto Emile’s hand, holding it in a way that he hoped was comforting. His free hand reached up to brush back some hair that had gotten in his brother’s face. “Hey, Em, it’s me,” he murmured, his voice practically a sob. “It’s Virgil. I’m here.”

Emile’s unfocused gaze slid over in his direction. He seemed to search Virgil’s face for a moment, before a modicum of the tension left his body.

Patton had settled himself down on the other side of the box, to Emile’s right. “Oh,” he breathed. “Virge, his arm.”

Logan sighed. “Yes…” he murmured. “I wished to ask for your aid with that injury. His forearm is broken, and his shoulder is dislocated. I would have repaired them myself, but I fear that I would be just as likely to do more harm as to help. Someone of his own size would be more suited to the task. Would one of you be willing to assist?”

“You feeling up to it, Patton?” Roman asked. “I think your friend over there should probably stay where he is.”

Virgil, who had been staring at Emile’s very wrong-looking arm, turned back towards Roman. “I can help,” he insisted, defensive. Sure, maybe he had freaked out slightly at the other human’s words, but he wasn’t squeamish. He could help.

“You are helping,” Roman assured. “Setting broken bones… well, it hurts. Emile’s gonna want you to hold his hand.”

Oh... right. Virgil subconsciously pulled his bad foot closer to himself.

Patton bit his lip, then nodded. “I’ll help,” he said. “How do I do it?”

“Just one moment,” said Logan, taking his bag off of his shoulder. He began removing supplies. “You should untie the straps nearest his arm while we do this, but please make sure he remains still.”

For the next ten or so minutes, while Logan talked Patton through setting Emile’s forearm and wrapping it up, Virgil focused on comforting his brother. He talked to him, murmuring comforting nonsense and holding his hand, trying to ignore the fact that he was trusting humans, of all things, to help treat his brother. It helped a bit that Patton was the one actually treating his arm, though. He knew the moment that the arm was set because Emile flinched, groaning in pain. Patton started apologizing profusely in a tearful voice. Virgil didn’t react verbally. Instead, he reached one hand towards Patton and squeezed his shoulder, not looking away from Emile’s face, just wanting his friend to know that he wasn’t upset with him.

Once his forearm was taken care of, they moved on to Emile’s shoulder. Emile whimpered slightly as Patton moved his arm, gradually guiding it with Logan’s instruction. Eventually, it popped back into place. As soon as that happened, though, Emile gave an audible sigh of relief. His eyelid fluttered shut; but he fought to reopen it, focusing stubbornly on Virgil.

“It’s okay,” Virgil murmured. “Em, it’s okay. You can go to sleep now. You’re safe. I’m not going anywhere, I promise.”

Emile stared at him for a few seconds longer before he allowed his eye to close. This time, it did not reopen.

Virgil released a shaky breath, sitting back slightly and wiping tears from his eyes with his free hand.

For a long moment after, no one spoke, until finally, Roman broke the silence.

“It’s getting really late,” he said quietly. “We should all try to get some rest.”

Virgil shook his head. “I’m not leaving him.”

“No, I wouldn’t dream of it. You and Patton can stay here. I’ll grab you two some more blankets.” Roman left the room to do just that. After a few seconds, Logan followed, claiming that he would return.

Virgil didn’t plan on getting any sleep that night; and he doubted he could if he tried; but his gaze turned to Patton, who definitely needed the rest. His friend, his sweet, selfless friend who had pushed himself literally to the point of passing out in the search for Virgil’s brother, swayed slightly where he sat. Now that the stress of everything was starting to subside, his eyes had glazed over, and he looked just about ready to simply flop backwards onto the table and call it a night.

Roman returned before that happened, thankfully, and Patton instead curled up in a small bundle of fabric, right next to the box that Emile lay in. He seemed to fall asleep the very second he lay down.

Roman bid them good night and turned to leave; but Virgil, who had been staring at the dust on his brother’s clothes, spoke up.

“Wait!” His heart rate skyrocketed at addressing the human like this, alone, when his desperation and determination no longer drowned out his instinctual feelings, but he couldn’t back down.

Roman stopped and turned around, looking at him questioningly; but with an unmistakable softness in his eyes that gave Virgil the courage to continue.

“C-could—could I have something? For this?” Virgil gestured at Emile’s clothes.

“To clean him up?” Roman clarified.

Virgil nodded. He knew the humans had more than enough supplies. He could probably have gotten them himself, but nothing could have forced him to leave Emile’s side at that moment.

“Um… yeah, I suppose. Of course. Just a sec.” Roman left the room, returning a couple of minutes later with a packet of wipes. “Just… be gentle, okay? I know he kinda looks like he’s been used as a broom, but his wounds are all clean. I know you want him to be comfortable, but it might be better to just let him sleep for a while. You can clean him up properly once he’s feeling a bit better.”

“Mm-hm,” Virgil muttered. Roman opened the package of wipes and set them down on the table, pushing them nearer with his fingertips. Virgil shrank away as he came close, but he appreciated that the packet was within his reach.

“So…” Roman scuffed one foot on the floor. “I admit Logan didn’t say this the most tactful way he could have earlier, but… seriously, don’t take the restraints off of him. Please. I know it sucks, and I would hate it too if it were my brother, but it’s important. We can find out tomorrow if they’re necessary.” Virgil hunched his shoulders, embarrassment and fear washing over him anew. He offered a reluctant nod. Roman seemed satisfied, and he cast one more glance at Emile, then at the sleeping Patton, before he left the room. He paused to turn back to Virgil, his hand on the light switch, and turned them off at his nod.

As soon as he was gone, Virgil released a breath that he hadn’t known he was holding. He reached forwards and plucked the two gray-white cat hairs from his brother’s clothes, casting them aside with a revolted look. Then he reached for the packet of wipes and tugged at one, only to realize that he wouldn’t be able to tear a piece off with one hand.

He hesitated, but he told himself that at least he wouldn’t have to actually leave his brother’s side. And Emile truly did look a mess. Reluctantly, he released his brother’s hand, just long enough to tear off a few pieces of the topmost wipe in the packet. Then, taking Emile’s hand again, he began to gently dab at the filth and blood and grime on his brother’s clothes, reaching between the straps holding him still and taking great care to avoid waking him or hurting him even more.

Once, he thought he heard Emile stir; and he froze, looking sharply towards his face; but that turned out to just be Patton shifting in his sleep. It was with a conflicting mixture of disappointment and relief that Virgil returned to his task.

After ten minutes or so, Virgil heard footsteps returning from the direction of the kitchen. Human footsteps. He looked towards the other room suspiciously.

It was Logan. The human paused at the doorway, as if waiting for Virgil’s permission to enter. Virgil thought that was strange, since this was his own apartment.

“May I come in?” he asked.

…

Logan still felt incredibly guilty about what he had said earlier. His attempt to convey the importance of not removing Emile’s restraints had quite literally caused Virgil to have a panic attack. That was… not his intention. As important as it had been to make Virgil understand that he couldn’t release his brother, Logan knew that he had gone about it the wrong way. He couldn’t help but think back to a few months prior, when his attempt to make Patton more comfortable in their home had resulted in practically the same reaction in that “mouse-man”. Logan wished he was better at interacting with others. Sometimes he felt that he was doomed to just keep messing things up when he tried.

Medicine, however, helping people physically, was something he did understand.

While Roman retreated to his bedroom, Logan decided to spend the night in the living room just in case there were any changes with Emile’s condition, assuming he was permitted after his earlier blunder.

Surprisingly, Virgil, the only “mouse-man” still awake at that point, didn’t fight him on it, either too tired or too relieved to have his brother back to care. Perhaps he simply recognized that Logan’s proximity would be advantageous given his medical knowledge, even if he was still upset with him and clearly didn’t trust humans. An understandable stance, Logan supposed, given what a human had so recently done to his brother, regardless of the fact that she had believed him to be a rodent at the time.

Once Virgil gave him permission to enter (with an eye roll and a jerk of the head) Logan set up some pillows and blankets on the sofa. Once that was ready, he lay down there, facing the table that held the “mouse-men”.

Virgil, now ignoring Logan completely, was gently wiping at the filth on Emile’s clothes. There was a packet of wipes at his side that he must have procured from Roman while Logan was preparing himself for bed. Logan was a little concerned that Virgil might accidentally exacerbate some of his brother’s injuries, but the “mouse-man’s” movements were almost ridiculously gentle, and Logan was relieved to see that he wasn’t trying to remove the restraints. He wasn’t sure if he could bring himself to press the point again, not after the extreme reaction he had unwittingly caused the first time.

Logan lay there for a while. Since he knew that being watched made the “mouse-men” nervous, he mostly looked away, but he occasionally found his gaze drawn to him again. He watched until Virgil set the wipes to the side, apparently having decided that he was done for the time being. Logan considered saying something, perhaps another apology for what had happened, or some reassurance about Emile’s condition; but he found himself unable to find the words. What could he even say?

He supposed it could wait until tomorrow. Virgil would undoubtedly be tired, and Logan had had a taxing day himself, what with searching half of the building, caring for Emile, and taking a rather arduous final exam. Sure enough, despite normally having difficulty sleeping anywhere other than his own bed, Logan quickly began to succumb to sleep. The last sight he saw before he closed his eyes was the silver-outlined silhouette of Virgil, bent over the box where his brother lay and holding his hand, keeping a silent vigil over him.

[batbirdies]

Lol I also realized I switch between past and present tense in this all over the place. A terrible habit that I ignore when I’m trying to speed write, and fix later when I rewrite...so apologies.

[spontaneoushiccups-blog]

What a year. I can hear Iris shouting from her crib in the other room, boisterously rejecting her afternoon nap. She is tall and big- with magically copper colored hair and light, twinkly blue eyes. Everywhere we go everyone falls in love with her. Her charisma is pure magic. She looks right at you and smiles coyly. She buries her head in your chest and looks up at you with a big toothy grin- binky still in her mouth. She shrieks at the top of her lungs with vigorous demand for food or attention or just a laugh. It takes a lot of willpower for me not to say to every stranger who comments on her undeniable charm, “you have no idea. This kid has gracefully survived in her first year more medical trauma than you will probably see in your entire life.” I used to tell everyone she came into contact with- but I’ve learned that it freaks people out. Sometimes I still do it, but I find joy in knowing how much her light lights up every room- even without anyone knowing what a tremendous gift her light actually is. All the things she has been through- what we have been through together.

It’s been nearly 10 months since I’ve taken the time to sit down and write about all of this. At moments it was too hard. In other moments I was just too tired to look at it. As I sit in our brightly lit living room on a perfect, clear, cold green spring day in Portland on the eve of my beautiful baby’s birthday, I am compelled to. So much has happened. In June- while on the coast with our family we got a call that her BT Shunt was bent and could fail at any moment- giving us just a few moments to save her failing heart, and that we had to drop everything and go immediately back to Portland, directly to the chlidren’s hospital and prepare for her to have her Glenn heart operation 2 months premature (and those were 2 important months.) So we left. We sent our 5 year old to California and we drove as fast we could to the hospital. We listened to Kid A the whole way and cried. We got there and there she laid- smiling and pale in a new hospital room, gentle and patient with the wires and the beeping- the constant prodding and poking, adjusting, testing. Until after a few days of monitoring her- the maternal instinct of the fill in cardiologist (ours was in Korea and no one could reach him) canceled the surgery hours before it was to take place. Then just-like-that we were home again and the turmoil calmed and it was another “until next time.” We just had to get our other daughter back from California.

Then there was the feeding tube. The fucking feed tube. She would pull it out and we would be stunned by her beautiful, bare face- not realizing how normalized we had become to that awful yellow tube with its big slab of taciderm tape across her perfect, plump cheek. She would often, quite proudly, pull it out. Every single time we had to put it back up her tiny nostril, and force it down her throat- causing our tiny baby who we were told not to “let cry” because of her heart, would scream in pain and discomfort. I physically couldn’t do it. Major respect to my wonderful husband who reinserted it every single time. My job was to pin down her little arms as she squirmed and screamed. I would carefully cut the taciderm tape into the shape I had perfected with so much practice. He would put in the tube, and as fast as I could I would lay down the pad, stretch the tape just slightly and stick it to her sweet, sad face. We would usually chase the experience down with a shot of vodka. We eventually joked that the stress was so intense, afterward it was like trying to sedate a wild rhinoceros- our skin was too tough to penetrate, even with vodka. It just made us feel a little less like we were on fire. A nurse once told me that they surveyed patients and providers alike about what the most upsetting outpatient procedure to perform or endure was. It was hands down the NG tube for both patient and medical personnel. Worse than an IV, worse than a G-tube, worse than setting a bone. So at least everyone hates it as much as us, I guess.

Once she started getting big enough to be interested in food that wasn’t formula- we opted to have a GTube placed surgically in her stomach so that the NG living in her throat wouldn’t potentially affect her long term love of food (an important quality in this family.) Once placed- we never ended up using it. Im told this is a common phenomenon. The minute that tube left her face- she started eating (and growing) really well. Because it had to be surgically placed- as a precaution it had to go six months without use before we could remove it. That six months officially came this last Saturday. After we were given a blessing on the phone by the general surgery team- Ryan and I rather nervously deflated the little water balloon that kept it steady in her belly and pulled it out right out. She hardly even noticed. We covered it with a bandaid and within a matter of a few hours, the pencil sized hole turned into a closed up wink of scar tissue. Just like that. It feels incredible to hold her and feel her soft belly without that awkward, plastic button poking through.

At the end of August- at the appropriately scheduled time she went in for her Glenn heart surgery. She had a pre-cath procedure to determine the size of her arteries (nice and plump) and we were hoping that her anatomy would reveal that she was a good candidate for the “Cath Fontan” a new procedure they are starting to do more regularly here in Oregon that would make it so her chest would not have to be reopened for her third surgery, the Fontan, between the ages of 3 and 5. In order to do it they would have to etch a little patch in her heart while her chest was open during the Glenn. Anytime a child’s (or anyone I assume) sternum is opened they have to go through 8-10 weeks of sternal precautions, meaning no torque whatsoever to her arms, and no lifting from her armpits. Not as difficult to do on a baby that you can just scoop right up- but a bit of a logistical nightmare for a 4 year old who would probably want to be held. So the idea of instead going through her thigh, a much shorter hospital stay, and an overall less traumatic experience for her (us) was beyond appealing. (Not even to mention that Iris will have no memory whatsoever of her surgeries this year- but by 3 or 4 years old will.) We were given a photo of her heart and all her arteries- like a tiny tree with sinewy branches reaching out, stark white against a black backdrop. They told us it didn’t look like she would be a good candidate for the cath fontan, afterall.

So another morning came and another anesthesiologist explained how they would put her under. Again a surgeon drew the little diagram of her unique little heart and explained in a foreign language what they were about to do. Again we signed all the papers and kissed her on her little forehead and a team of medical professionals wheeled her down the hall away from us. We went to the garden and prayed (something I never used to do, but often do now.) We waited in the gorgeous family waiting room with 11 foot tall windows looking out against the fremont bridge that arches across the twinkling Willamette river. Hours before I expected to see or hear anything the surgeon came in to talk to us. I was scared. He was gentle and soft spoken. She was out! She had done a great job and was already waking up from anesthesia, her little striped orange kitty rattle still at her side. He was pleased to tell us that once he got an actual look at her heart (something I will never be able to fathom) that she was a perfect candidate for the cath fontan, afterall. We burst into tears.

And then we were out of interstage. I will never forget the day the medical supplies company came and took away her oxygen tanks, her scale, her blood oximeter. In many ways I feel like interstage was an extension of my traumatic pregnancy. That once the Glenn was over the stork finally arrived and brought me this beautiful, smiling baby. The summer was such a blur of chaos, sadness, stress. I felt like death was sitting in the corner of every room and then one day- he was gone. Sometimes I still see him out of the corner of my eye. Who after all is safe from death? Not one of us. But I’m not so constantly reminded anymore. In the place of that worry- of seeing mortality with xray vision, all the time, every day, I instead can marvel at the way Iris melts every stranger at the grocery store. I weep every time she falls asleep, heavy on my chest. A few weeks ago I stepped out of the shower and there she was standing in her crib, big and strong and beautiful with her bright red, magic hair glowing from the sun behind her, and she looked me right in the eyes and put her arms up and said “Mama!” for the very first time. I felt it all the way in my toes. I used to love to tell people the enormity of what she went through- to watch their eyes widen as I reminded them of their own mortality- but now I know better how to quietly, graciously, understand that lurking under the skin of every darkness- there is beauty, and it was always there.

[lucexworth]

“Thanatophobia is like a light in the middle of the night that spreads its flames on the objects it will soon consume.”-– Louis, chevalier de Jaucourt, for Diderot's Encyclopédie

A study in death anxiety between two men who keep dying. A lot.

A Kingfield fic because I’ve lost control of my life. I should be writing my papers. 

Fic under the readmore because it be like that sometimes.

Between the howling and the haze of the storehouse, the distant squeal of someone’s breath being ripped from their lungs, and the paranoia that any time spent not in motion would greet you with a crown of corvids; Macmillan’s home gives way to a fear that does not force you to scream. Rather, Macmillan’s home fosters the sort of enveloping anxiety that can only spawn from the entity. Whoever begged it for the fog, however, could fuck right off into the spider-legged abyss.

  It isn’t the creeping dread that gets to David, but whoever was erratically blowing the generator on the far end of the property. No matter who it was, they’re about to either have a faceful of bonesaw, or a faceful of fist. Forget that he, himself, had been bleeding since the start of the match. A handicap unto himself for the sake of adrenaline and adrenaline alone. Whoever was inconveniencing him, was about to have a much worse time. That much was simple. He knows damn well that there are only two left, and the kickback of a failing engine grates on him more than the actual sound of the nurse’s wheezing.  It’s simple. You repair the generator, leave, repeat.  

  Another miss, the generator crackling with all the mechanical dysfunction it could muster. At this point, whoever’s wasting time is either an idiot or deliberate. But judging how David had previously seen Meg hauling ass out of the storeroom, and Ace’s luck seemed to have entirely choked early match leading to a pitiful escape attempt, there’s only one answer.  Sputtering a string of incoherent swears, David slinks along the back wall of the property, keeping an eye out for any possible streaks of white or screaming. At any particular noise, he stops, dead in his tracks. Another screech, and he moves.

  Another miss, yet again, and he’s standing behind Dwight, who has yet to look behind himself, David still keeping an eye on the nurse, whenever she did blink into view. The lack of care, or blatant distraction was starting to get to him.

 “You enjoy fuckin’ around with your life, Fairfield?” A blunt statement, loud enough to hear over the manual cranking of the gaskets. Dwight starts, shoulders going tense, only to have David reach over him and press his hand against the generator to avoid another eruption. “The fuck’s with you?”

  There’s silence, only collapsed by the near shriek of the nurse and Meg yelling some chain of expletives in regards to “Teleporting-through-trees-fucking-bullshit”. In any other case, David might have barreled out into the open himself, cackling about Meg’s agitation and “Baghead” being seemingly off her game. Instead, he draws his hand from the generator and presses his hand against the concavity between Dwight’s shoulder blades.

  “You’re bleeding.” Dwight finally mutters, hands finally becoming more still. “How are we supposed to get out if you basically stab yourself the second you get in the lot?”

  “Ya do a generator, then ya leave.”

  “Shut up. You know it’s not that simple.”

  David draws his hand back, only to crouch on the other side of a generator, prying at old wires and waiting for a further explanation. A generator in the distance howls with a newfound power, only to be followed by the a distant wheeze and Meg’s yell- finally hit. David flinches prematurely, and Dwight flings his hands up as the sparks fly. The heartbeat never comes. David continues, staring down at his work.

  “You ever think one of these days we’ll die and that’ll be it?” Dwight mutters, barely audible under the clattering of metal. “Like, maybe Ace isn’t back at the campfire, but just. You know.”  

  David doesn’t look up. “Don’t be a right fuckin’ idiot about that. We always come back.”

  The cranking stops, and David peers over to see Dwight still crouched on the floor with his hands on his knees. Prayer-like. Meditative. As if he’s trying to center himself in the oppressive fear of death. David knows the nurse has this effect on people, but fears be damned if it didn’t drive him mad with a weird aggressive sense of superiority. Or some miasma of despondency.

  “Look, ya always tell people ya need them to survive so you survive. You’re fuckin’ lucky I happen t’ be someone damn capable of keeping people alive. Have some faith.”

  “Don’t be stupid.” Dwight shoots back, fingers tracing the underside of the generator. “You go looking for fights, and consequences be damned if you get hurt. As far as I’m aware, you’re more help off a hook than on one.”

  There’s a vague pulse, and David stands; not so much insulted by being told to shut up, but impressed. “A’right, ya made your point. Now get th’ fuck outta here.”

  “What?”

 “I said get out.”

  There’s a beat as Dwight stands, only to be shoved out of the ring of debris as the nurse enters the ring, Meg bolting after her and gesturing to the generator. Between Dwight and Meg on opposite perimeters, David realizes he’s in for an awful fucking match. Her saw raises, still covered in what he assumes is fresh gore, and barely misses. David darts from the ring, towards the storehouse, trying to drag her as far from the gen as possible. Muscle memory from  bar fights and debt collecting, he knows damn well how to run and evade like a madman.

  Consequences be damned.

  He runs through the storehouse, spiraling between shelves of materials and a lit generator, hoping to lose her by the third blink. If the gates open, the other two can go. That’s all he needs, right now. For people to get the fuck out. He manages for three cycles, only dizzying himself slightly in the mess before launching himself out a broken window on the side of the storehouse. A lethal mistake, knowing damn well he couldn’t remember if she had blinked twice or three times before clattering out the windowpane.

  For the record, he assures himself as the bone saw cleaves through his shoulder and his face hits the dirt, it was two.

  The generator sputters to life around the same time he lets out a bark of pain, rolling forward with his elbow as the nurse watches, lifting herself through the window and pulling him off the floor. David hisses through his teeth, wriggling in her grasp and driving the heel of his palm into the back of her neck. The whole cycle is graceless as she hovers about the side of the building, only to return inside and descend the staircase. Another hard smack to her neck, with no luck. David curses himself in the red haze of the room, flung haphazardly onto a hook in such a way that the rust and blood finds its way back into his shoulder through the previous wound. The yell breaks into an agitated howl, throwing his leg out in an aggressive kick towards the nurse as she vanishes up the stairs.

  Somehow, the bullshit of it all reminds him of another bar fight, the feeling of being clobbered over the head with a bottle of scotch in the moment you think you’ve done enough. You made a point, and now your point is laying with you in the starry haze of your own blood. If they knew anything about anything, the other two would leave. Appease the stupid god of the woods with some flesh and blood, lick their wounds, and get a good night’s sleep. He knows what it’s like to be taken apart and wake up reassembled under the willows. He can take it.  There’s been worse.

  His body goes limp on the hook, somewhere between resignation and the forced self-assurance that the others are smart enough to leave and carry on. His eyes close, ready for the event to end and the entity to scramble to collect whatever it desires at any second.

  “To quote someone I know, the fuck is with you?” The whisper comes as a shock, and David is quick to open his eyes and stare down the man in front of him. “Since when do you just sit there-“

  “Get me down or leave me, don’ sit here an’ lecture me when she’ll be back any second.” David is quick to interrupt, teeth gritting as he feels the subtle rattling of the hook. “Fuckin’- pick one.”

  He barely has time to gripe before Dwight is grumbling underneath him, heaving him off the hook and back onto the floor of the basement. David stumbles, nearly collapsing into him with all the grace of a pile of bricks. He reels back, planting his feet firmly on the ground and giving Dwight a look that only dared him to make some comment about blood loss, near-death-ness or whatever the hell the lesson was. When nothing comes but an exhausted look, the two bolt out from the basement, Dwight seemingly convinced that David should stay a pace or two behind him.

  They follow one another, silent up to the nearby gate, Meg already long gone. The exit is clunky and awkward, but fast all the same.

  The terseness of the air is oppressive.

-

   The campfire is crowded as usual, stories being passed around as a cheap cover up for the ever persistent feeling of doom. Save for two survivors, on the outskirts of the woods. No words come, for awhile. They stand, backs to the camp, staring into the vast nothing of the Entity’s realm. The wind howls, something like a warning to turn back. Go sit at the fire, it warns. No philosophising. Don’t dismantle your dread.

  “You know, I ended up here because I got left in the goddamn woods.” Dwight admits to nobody in particular, cleaning his glasses. “Left to die by some drunk co-workers.” The spite is raw in his throat, and David knows that vague sense of shame. The abandonment.

  “Least you didn’ jus’ wander in like a right fuckin’ idiot.” He laughs, trying to give some kind of support. Dwight gives him a look, but it begs for nothing other than the joking to stop.

  “You think about it too, don’t you.”  Dwight says firmly, still facing the horizon. “About dying, y’know, for real.”

  “Pretty sure I’m already dead ‘for real’.” David states bluntly. “Far as my mates are concerned, I got brained out in some fight with some punks, an’ outright ghosted after that. Nothin’ left.”  

  “So you think we’re all dead?” Dwight asks, finally turning to face David, who’s staring at him fairly hard. As if he doesn’t want to be having this conversation for some collection of reasons. David realizes he must seem outwardly put out by the whole deal upon hearing the tone question. Worry.

  Why the fuck does he have to worry?

  David sucks air through his teeth as if he’s been punched in the stomach, looking away for a moment. “I didn’ say we’re all dead. Said I think I’m dead.”

  He looks back to see Dwight closer, brow furrowed. It’s not long before there’s a hand on his face, tracing the scar on his lip with a cross between nervous curiosity and a vague sense of outright compassion. It’s out of left field, almost. David’s hand settles barely above Dwight’s hip on reflex, keeping him within reach.

  “You don’t feel more dead than anyone else.” Dwight states, quiet. “Depressed, maybe. Not dead.”

  He nearly flinches at the accusation, but finds himself standing still. It occurs to him that the two of them have seemingly skipped some sort of steps, cordial friendship or whatever the hell preceded emotional support and post-near-death preening. But, here they are, assuring one another about their existing mortality and their personal downfalls. Frankly, David prefers this over all of the exhaustive repetitive bullshit. When you’re dying with people every night, small talk is pointless.

  “You scare th’ shit outta me, sometimes.” David mutters, a half-laugh that only exists for a few seconds before being mentally strangled from existence. “Watchin’ you put your hands on a generator? Feels like I’m ‘bout t’ witness someone  lose their fingers.”  

  Dwight rests his head against David’s collar, hands falling around him with a sense of exhaustion. “Take it up with my anxiety, then.” His voice is quiet, with the same bare amusement.  

  “Thought anxiety gets worse with th’ crowds.” David says, hand ghosting over Dwight’s back.

  Dwight sighs in response, still pressing close. “Yeah, if it’s social anxiety. Or claustrophobia. But, I just don’t like thinking about dying- or other people dying. I freeze up.”

  “Sounds like you don’t really fancy bein’ left alone.” David says, fairly quiet. Being insightful was never his strongest suit, but he knows a problem when he sees one. It doesn’t take much for Dwight to agree with him, either.

  “I hate it.”

  A longer silence, the two keeping close and fixating on the fact that whatever baggage they’ve been carrying around has been laid at each others feet. Maybe it’s the exhaustion from the dredging of emotion, maybe it’s the sheer relief of letting go. David can’t quite make out why Dwight’s hands begin to shake- grabbing at his sweater with some ragged desperation.

  A panic attack?

  No, not enough curling in on himself, his heart rate still arguably low. He shudders at the touch on his back, and David knows damn well this is the same erratic state he found him in earlier. Except more vulnerable, somehow. He presses his mouth to the top of Dwight’s head, reflexive in his protectiveness. Trying to keep him close and away from whatever eeking panic was trying to make its way through to them.

 “Calm down.” He states, albeit vaguely gruff and unhelpful.“ I’m here, so you know damn well you’re not alone.”  

 “I-“ Dwight starts, hands tensing. “I get that. I know that. Just. Prove to me we’re alive, then. Anything. Show me that despite everything, the shitty booze, the hooks- we’re alive.”

 The command is desperate in it’s tone. Begging for some vindication to snub the irrational fear that trails along with each round of the entity’s game. Desperate to prove there’s hope, or light, or anything that isn’t the unforgiving reality that the loop will never yield. David, for once in his life, is speechless. At least for a few moments.

 The decision to kiss him was another haphazard combination of a sort of adrenaline-drunk and underdeveloped sense of touch starvation. Garnished with the idea that maybe there was something endearing about the smaller, quasi-neurotic man in his arms. The drive to want to do something stupid is there, however, he finds himself trying to do anything to make himself feel alive, too.

 It doesn’t help that he’s a little too into the feeling of tense hands vaguely scratching at his back, like Dwight considers scrambling away. When David pulls back, he’s only met with another, desperation sinking in. David only slightly stumbles forward, an attempt to brace himself against a tree with Dwight between him, slightly pinning him. There’s a small whine, but Dwight keeps particularly close, content enough to relax when David pulls away to get another look at him.

 “Alive enough?” He asks, his tone conveying a bizarre loudness without the sound. He seems proud, almost. Impressed with the energy and the motion of the entire act.

 “For now.” Dwight says, quiet enough to only barely be heard. His hands have stopped shaking, sliding away from David’s back with slight hesitation as he pulls forward. The two let go of eachother, but still stand in close proximity, staring at the small blaze of light flickering between the trees. The silence loses it’s tension, melting into something comfortable. A state of understanding and acceptance in the moment, with fear finally subsiding.

 For now is the state of life in the entity’s realm, where the wind stops howling, for now. The campfire is lit, for now.

  They are all alive, for now.

  And that is good enough.

[theolddarkmachine]

I’ll Take The Blame, You Take My Conscience- Ch. 6

“You love him.”

It wasn’t a question. Panic burned the back of Shiro’s throat as his eyes widened at the statement. He had known his feelings for Keith for some time now, but he knew better than to act on it, aware that he was nothing more than a friend in his best friend’s eyes. It was better for everyone if he just kept it to himself. At least, that’s what he had thought. Then he’d started noticing small things, like how sometimes Keith would let his hands linger on his skin for a fraction longer than he needed to, or how he could feel his gaze tracing the long line of his body when he thought Shiro wouldn’t notice. He’d been planning on telling Keith how he felt at the party. It was amazing how quickly things could change.

“Let him go, Shiro. He’ll need a tool, not a lover. And your love will only make him weak.”

AKA the one where Keith is the leader of a Yakuza clan, Shiro is his ever loyal tool, and they’re caught in a gang war.

Amazing commission by prllnce!

MASTER LIST

AO3

When I started this updated, I thought I would need to combine two chapters to make it long enough. Then it ended up being the longest chapter so far without the help. Typical. Also, I’m doing a 12 Days of Christmas prompt fill! I’m gifting fics to my readers, and all you need to do is send in a prompt! Check out the rules HERE! (Basically, I’ll do pretty much anything minus non-con, underage and the extreme fetishes. Does NOT need to be holiday themed!) Due date is 10/31. There are only five slots left, so get yours today! 

Please also note that I am going to be taking a wee writing break next week. Next update will most likely come 10/19-10/20 time.

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

Blood was rushing in Keith’s ears and the acrid taste of adrenaline and bile mingled at the top of his throat and coated the back of his tongue as a constant reminder of the worry that had coursed through him. The van he and his waka gashira had piled into hit a pot hole, throwing his shoulder into Pidge’s and cutting her words off as the impact rattled her teeth. Metallic rust filled her mouth as her teeth sunk into her tongue. A small squeak of pain escaped her as she rubbed a hand over her mouth.

“Sorry guys!” Hunk called over his shoulder, eyes never leaving the road as they sped over the Shuto Expressway towards the Yokohama port.

Everything had passed in a blur after Pidge had made her way into his room with news that she’d found Shiro. Almost as soon as the words fell from her mouth, he was out of the room, hand curled around her small bicep as he dragged her through the halls towards Hunk and Lance’s room, shooting rapid fire questions at her the entire way. After informing them of the new development, Keith’s words clipped at the edges and only giving as much as was necessary, they’d grabbed their weapons and piled into one of the clan’s vans that was used specifically for transporting smuggled weapons and the occasional body. Silence had filled the van for the first few minutes of the drive as the only sound any of them made was the mottled, heavy rasps of their breathing.

Or maybe they’d spoken, but Keith had already retreated so far in on himself, clutching to the buoy of hope from those three words that he missed any conversation completely.

I found him.

He’d guarded the words, holding them closely against his chest as he looked over the images Pidge had printed of Zarkon and Sendak pulling Shiro between them as they slipped into the large industrial doors of an empty warehouse. As she’d finally started to speak, Keith barely registered the coordinates she was listing off that she’d managed to pull from the camera that had supplied the grainy greyscale image. He felt his eyes dragging down the sharp line of Shiro’s cheekbone as if he could pull some sort of evidence that he was still alive from the black and white photo. Without color, he couldn’t be sure of the exact hue of the bruise that was pixelated over the high bone, but it was dark enough to register as inky black in the photo. His wine stained gaze traveled further still over the photo, locking onto the fabric that was tied around Shiro’s right arm, covering the stump that ended prematurely about mid-bicep. An even darker blemish dirtied the light cloth with what he knew to be his blood. Keith’s fingers trembled as he caressed the photo, breathing poison laced curses to himself.

“Keith?” Lance’s voice was a near shout that broke him of his reverie. Pulling his hand away from the image as if it had burned him, the oyabun turned his attention to the sharp shooter, a gruff growl rolling around his mouth in acknowledgement.

“We’re 15 minutes out,” the brunette said, crystalline eyes boring into Keith from where he sat in the passenger seat. “Is there a plan?”

A plan. He knew he should have one, but all his mind could focus on was the black ink bruise on Shiro’s cheek and the bloodied stump that had once been his arm. Shiro was within their grasp, and his skin was itching with the need to have him back safely in their hands. Keith hadn’t thought much further than that. He didn’t need a thought out plan, he just needed to get to where Shiro was. Once there, he would do whatever it took to save him. Wasn’t that plan enough?

“The plan is to get Shiro out alive, and kill everyone we need to to do it,” he finally said, his voice burning with malice as he looked out the window. Sunlight was glinting off the water of the Tokyo Bay and he let it momentarily blind him. A thick quiet fell over the four Raion as they ruminated on his words. A tentative hand settled on his bicep.

“I think we need more of a plan than that,” Pidge’s voice was soft as she looked up at him from the seat to his left. “We need you to be a leader right now.” She paused as she chose her next words.

“Shiro is going to need you to be a leader.”

A small bubble of hysteria welled up in his chest at the words that had once been Shiro’s. Pushing it down deep within himself, Keith brought a hand to his face and pinched the bridge of his nose between his thumb and forefinger. Breathing deeply, he settled the angry pitching in his stomach.

“You’ll stay with the van, Pidge.” His voice was brusque with authority as he laid out his orders, dropping his hand back to his side and fixing his mauve eyes on her. “Since you won’t be in our ears this time around, it will be up to you to send out a signal if things start to go to shit outside the warehouse. Three honks, got it?”

It wasn’t ideal, but they would need to make due with what they had. There hadn’t been time to set up their usual communications when they’d left, or rather, he didn’t let there be time. We can regret that later, he thought to himself as he eyed Pidge, waiting for her confirmation. Her head bobbed in acknowledgement before she turned away from him to look out the window. He tried to ignore the way her shoulders were tensed under the green fabric of her shirt.

We can regret that later.

“Hunk, Lance,” he nearly barked. Lance turned back to face him as Hunk hummed an affirmation.

“You’ll both come with me. Usual rules stand, use blades until you can’t, or until someone else fires first.” Lance’s face faltered slightly as he nodded. “We don’t know how many will be there, and we don’t want to give our position away too early. If they have too much time they could--”

They could kill Shiro.

The words hung like gallows between them as Keith struggled to get them out of his throat. It was just a fact, one that would have been true for any Raion that was captured by their rivals. How many times had he spoken of the chance of death for one of his clansmen in the past? For all they knew, he was already dead, the photos capturing the transport of a corpse. The air grew thick with the implication as the words didn’t come, instead creating a burning lump in his throat.

“They could get him out of there and we’d lose him again,” Hunk’s voice hid the lie well beneath its confident tone. Lance’s electric gaze flashed towards the weapon specialist before he nodded.

“Got it?” Keith asked, voice weak as he swallowed the stone that had been sitting on his vocal chords.

“Got it,” they said in unison, their voices wrapping around each other the way only Hunk and Lance’s did. A small pang of jealousy shuddered through his chest.

“Good. There’s your plan.” His words were flat and lifeless as he ignored the look his two waka gashira shared before Lance turned back to look out at the road ahead of them. Keith shifted his attention to the window beside him, eyes fixed on the fire that danced over the Tokyo Bay as it drew ever closer.

***

Pidge sat in the deserted silence of the van that now seemed far too large without the other three Raion with her. Her job was simple: Wait in the van and be prepared to get them the hell out of there when they came back with Shiro.

“I will bring him back,” Keith had said sharply, his voice barely disguising the feeling of desperation that she shared. They needed to find Shiro here, she knew it and he knew it, but they left the words unsaid. If Shiro wasn’t there, they most likely wouldn’t find him. If they did, he wouldn’t be alive. This was their only chance of getting the saiko-komon back from the Akuma. Pidge sent a silent prayer to the heavens that they would find him., and find him alive. 

Not just for Shiro’s sake, but for Keith’s.

A handgun sat in her lap, the weight of it keeping her grounded as she let her gaze wander over the warehouse and the pier that it sat on.

“Stay safe,” Hunk had said as he’d handed it to her. Lance stood over his shoulder, a small sad smile on his face as he nodded in agreement.

“I’m not the one you have to worry about,” had been her response as her honey gaze flickered toward Keith, who had already pulled his daggers from his thigh sheath as he glared at the large sheet metal doors that stood between them and the bowels of the building.

“We’ll make sure he’s okay,” Lance had said before they left her alone in the van and disappeared into the storehouse.

It had probably been no more than 10 minutes since they left, but those minutes seemed to stretch into an eternity as she waited in the quiet. The hair on her arms stood against a constant chill that was running marathons over her spine. Something had felt wrong, but she hadn’t been able to put her finger on it. But she could feel it. It was the kind of feeling that preceded a storm or any other natural disaster.

As her eyes scanned the area, a pair of shadows appeared in the distance. Though they only stood far off, she could feel their twin gazes burning through the windshield as they appraised the van that was sitting outside of the seemingly empty warehouse. Her heart stuttered as she fixed them with her own questioning gaze, the pair too distant for her to make anything out aside from the direction of their stares.

The cold steel of the gun weighed heavily against her thigh as Pidge watched them, slowly counting her breathes in a vain attempt at slowing her heart rate. Her fingers thrummed nervously against the cracked leather of the steering wheel that lay against her palms, slightly slick with her sweat.

“Calm down, Pidge.” She ignored the way her voice trembled as she continued to keep her amber gaze fixed on the pair as they eyed her in return. “For all you know, they’re just some dock workers.”

The lie was bitter on her tongue as she said it. If there was anything she knew, it was that the only people that would be in the vicinity of the warehouse would be Akuma. They weren’t sloppy enough to leave bystanders around them, especially when they were in Raion territory and had their saiko-komon hidden somewhere inside. While they sometimes grew complacent sitting atop the throne of death that they’d built in order to become the number one clan in the Yamaguchi-gumi, they hardly ever let themselves be sloppy.

Unless it was intentional.

Air was dragged from her lungs in a loud gasp as the realization hit her. Tearing her eyes away from the figures that had started to walk towards the van, she stretched herself around the driver’s seat and reached for the pile of papers that lay alone in the seat behind her. Ignoring the sharp sting of the paper’s edge slicing across the skin of her fingers, she flipped through the pages until she found the photo again. Shiro’s head had fallen forward, limp with his chin tucked into his chest with the weight that his neck couldn’t support. Holding onto his left arm, with the back of his head towards the camera was the Akuma oyabun. If the sword that obediently sat on his side didn’t give it away, his hulking frame would have. That wasn’t what had made her blood run cold though.

Her golden eyes moved towards the last man in the photo. With his large hands clutching what was left of the arm they’d sent to the temple, Sendak stood with his body angled inwards towards Shiro, and thus towards the camera. His head was turned just enough that upon first, and even second, look it appeared that he was looking down at the man that hung limply between the two of them. As Pidge leaned closer, she felt her lungs start to burn with the breath she’d begun to hold as her gaze locked onto that of Sendak’s captured one. It was barely perceptible given the angle and the graininess from the cheap technology, but his glare burnt upwards as it locked onto the gaze of the lense.

Drawing them out had been their intention all along.

Glass sprayed across her face, shards of the driver side window cutting across her cheek as one of the Akuma she’d been keeping an eye on broke the window in with a crowbar. Strong fingers closed around her throat, choking her of oxygen as it pulled her towards the now gaping hole.  The gun in her lap slid from her thigh and caught between the door and the seat.

“What’s a cute little thing like you doing here?” A deep voice hissed against her ear, the heat of the yakuza’s breath raising goosebumps over her skin. Warm liquid began to stain her shirt where the jagged teeth of the window were cutting into her arm and chest as he pulled her further out the opening. Pidge’s breath rasped as she tried to retort, the heavy hand effectively catching the words in her throat.

“If I didn’t know better, I’d think she was here for a friend.” The second voice sounded bored and she could just barely see him leaning against the van with his arms crossed as he eyed the scene. Black spots of unconsciousness and a sinister smile filled her vision as she reached a hand toward the gun that sat precariously perched just beneath her fingertips. She felt the smooth metal brush against her skin.

It was so close.

“We were told to kill all the Raion, but I think we could find some use for you,” her captor smarmed before he cut his dark glance towards his companion. The slight nod of his head was nearly blocked by the large black stain eating away at her sight. Blood was roaring in her ears and a gasp rattled in her lungs. She extended her arm ever so slightly further, the cool metal touching just past the tips of her fingers now.

“I’m sure we could get a great price for her. She does look very young, and you know the young ones always sell well.” It felt as if a knife was twisted in her chest, just above her heart as the words sunk in. Though they were dripping with disinterest, they unlocked a primal fear that gripped her limbs. Images started to melt into the darkness that had nearly taken over her eyesight. Her brother’s smiling face as he laughed at something she’d said. Her father’s hazel eyes that twinkled as he ruffled her hair.

Their blood smeared across the wall of their living room.

Dread was what pushed her hand that final inch between the crevice where the gun had fallen, her fingers blindly finding the grip. The Akuma’s words were a distant thrum as she pulled the pistol up, pointed it towards the direction of the window and pulled the trigger.

All sound slipped away as the shot rang out, replaced instead by a high pitched scream that filled her ears from the proximity of the gunshot. Air rushed into Pidge’s lungs as the hand was wrenched from her throat, finally allowing her to breathe. Pushing herself further into the van and onto the passenger seat, away from the broken window, she gasped greedily at the air as her lungs screamed at her with each shaking breath she took. The black spots started to shrink and the sunlight filled her vision as she saw the man that had choked her holding his hands over his ears as he bent at the waist in pain. His partner had pushed away from the van and was fiddling at his side for his own pistol, eyes wide with surprise.

With a shaking hand and unsteady wheezes, Pidge aimed the nozzle of the pistol at the fumbling man, only taking a moment to say a silent prayer for the family these men had taken from her before she pulled the trigger again. Glass rained down in a shimmering cascade of sunlit crystal as the bullet tore through the window and into the man’s chest.

The shrill keen in her ears persisted as she watched his mouth open and close, forming soundless words as he gaped at her, crimson blossoming like a deadly rose over his shirt before he crumpled to the ground. A twisted grimace obscured her attacker’s face when he noticed his partner on the ground, blood staining the pavement beneath him. One hand went to the gun on his hip as the other clutched the door, ignoring the glass that cut into his palm, red trails spilling over the edge as he glared at her. With one final breath, her lungs finally wrapping around the air she took in comfortably, Pidge held his dark gaze as she pointed the gun at him and fired. The impact at such a short range sent him flying back through a red mist punctuated by jagged pieces of skull.

A beat passed as she breathed evenly in an attempt to quiet the deafening shriek that was muddling the rest of her senses. Then she dropped the gun, only slightly aware of the way it bounced against the carpeted floor of the van. Turning her hands towards her, the palms slick with sweat and their small shape quaking, she inspected them.

It was the first time she’d ever killed anyone.

Pidge’s head began to spin as she stared at her own skin, half expecting her hands to warp and twist with the blood that was now on her hands. The high pitched squeal subsided slightly, the sound of the outside world returning, though it sounded as if it were being strained through cotton balls. A boat in the next pier blared its horn, and a bird landed on the van’s roof, all sounding distant but all producing sound nonetheless.

“Now isn’t the time to panic,” she admonished herself, letting her hands fall into her lap and ignoring the way they still shook against her thighs. Taking another breath so large, her small chest strained against the fabric of her button up, she turned her attention to the warehouse. They’d undoubtedly heard her gunfire. If the Akuma were unaware that they’d yet arrived, they would know now thanks to her panic.

Eyeing the building, she began to count the seconds. No one had run out yet after hearing the sound, which could very well mean they’d already entered into battles of their own. She refused to think about any other reason they may not have returned to check on things outside.

I should sound the signal, she thought to herself as her amber gaze flickered from the industrial doors to the steering wheel that lay between her and them. But we’re so close.

Turning her attention to the clock on the dash, she counted the tick marks. She would give them 10 minutes before she honked the horn that would call Keith and his other waka gashira back out to the van.

“Please find him, Keith.” Her voice was a whisper as she looked back at the building.

Letting her gaze fall from the metal sheeted walls of the warehouse, Pidge leant over to grab the gun from the floor. Carefully setting it back on her lap, she waited, her eyes flickering every couple of seconds back towards the clock.

Nine minutes.

***

Hunk’s tentative footsteps bounced off the metal walls of the hall as he drove further into the warehouse. When they’d pushed into the building, they’d expected to be greeted with a large open space, but were instead met with a long corridor that branched out into two separate paths. Tension had rolled off of Keith in nauseating waves when he’d seen it as he had tried to calculate the amount of time it would take for the three of them to investigate both routes. Hunk saw the way his eyes deadened as he realized that staying together would only increase Shiro’s chances of being killed.

“I’ll take the left,” he’d heard himself say before he’d even known he was going to say anything at all. It had been the obvious choice for him to be the one to go alone. They couldn’t afford to let Keith be overcome by the enemy, and Lance was the next in line after Shiro. So it had only made sense when he offered to go on alone further into the eerie calm of the warehouse. That hadn’t stopped Lance from shooting him an ultramarine glare filled with betrayal and concern.

Shaking his head clear of the way the look had cut into his chest, Hunk pushed forward, eyes sweeping over the hallway that seemed to never end. Something about the walls that didn’t seem to have any doors called up an image of a rat in a maze in his mind, and it made his skin crawl. There was a wrongness about this whole thing, but he couldn’t quite figure out what it was. Why had the Akuma chosen a port right within their territory, not even a full hour away from their temple? He’d been on enough jobs to know that their rivals only stepped so far into their territory to take people for their trafficking schemes. They’d never keep a captive there. At least not unless it was a part of a bigger plan.

Foreboding froze his veins as he made his way deeper into the bowels of the endless hall as his muddled thoughts spilled over each other, clashing against each other like wild animals fighting for a piece of meat.

Tapping his thumb gently against the leather bound handle of his bowie knife that was clutched in his right fist, Hunk began to count the number of steps he took, measuring time and distance with the muffled scuffs of his soft boot soles over the warehouse ground.

Then he heard it.

Carried over the walls, the metallic enclosure amplifying the the distant murmur, was the distinct sound of hissing voices. One was filled gravel while its companion flowed like an undisrupted stream, both pouring over each other with the same musical cadence of a river over rocks.

“-- damn scum can’t keep their noses out of our business,” the hard edged voice growled as Hunk pressed himself against the cool wall. Soft rasps of fabric against metal tickled his back as he slowly dragged himself towards the curve of the hall and the voices.

“Didn’t work out in their favor though, did it. You see the number Sendak did on that one we got?” His heart stilled with the frost that chilled the words of the answering voice as they grew louder, their footsteps mingling with their conversation. Hunk’s nails bit into the flesh of his palm as he tightened his grip on the knife as he picked apart their words in his mind. A short snort from the gravel voice made him growl.

“Won’t be doing much now, will he,” he said with a sadistic chuckle. Waiting just at the turn of the hall, Hunk bit back the sour taste of anger as he listened, calculating their distance from where he stood by the sound of their voices. Their steps grew louder as they drew closer. The sharp tang of rust filled his mouth as Hunk bit his lip as he waited.

“You think they’ll fuck up the Mafia deal?” The lighter voice asked after a moment’s pause. Slowly, Hunk brought his left hand to the holster on his hip, smoothly unbuttoning the strap that kept the gun in place and pulled it from its carrier as he listened intently. Another hard peal of laughter from the man’s companion.

“How could they? Even if we don’t kill them when they come for their friend, they’d have to figure out that we’re shipping them out of the Port of Nagoya,” the sound of a hand clapping against a shoulder punctuated the air. “Showing up that far in our territory would be a suicide mission.”

Long shadows stretched past the corner Hunk hid behind, pausing at the juncture as if to suspend the moment in a solitary point of anticipation. A bead of sweat rolled lazily down Hunk’s temple, pulling a line of moisture over his tanned skin. Time stood still for a hair longer as he steadied himself before he tipped the temporal scales and threw himself around the corner. The grip of his gun struck against the back of one of the Akuma’s head as he smacked his palm against it to bring it down to meet his knee.

“Hey!” The lilting voice of the other Yakuza was cut off as Hunk thrust his elbow upward, catching him below the jaw. A sick crack of teeth smacking together erupted from his mouth as his companion crumpled to the ground in a heap as he pressed his hands to his face. Twisting around in a deadly dance, Hunk spun around the man that was still standing, catching his blue gaze long enough to tighten his jaw. They were the color of the open sky on a spring day. He was behind the man by the time he drew the comparison to another set of cerulean eyes that he knew all too well. Before he could dwell on the similarity, he brought the bowie knife up to his throat and dragged a clean line across his throat. A soft, liquid gurgle bubbled out of his throat before he landed on his knees, pausing for just a second before falling face first to the ground.

Snotty moans pulled Hunk’s attention down to the gravel voiced man on the ground who was reaching a hand to a weapon tucked into the back of his jeans. The distant crack of a gun firing gave them both pause. Air caught in Hunk’s throat as his head whipped towards the sound as if he could see straight through to its cause. Two more shots followed before quiet settled over the hall. The man started to shuffle again in a vain attempt to use the disruption to his advantage.

Hunk’s brown gaze fell back onto the Akuma, a distance dulling the shine that had been there only a moment before. He wasn’t sure how far into the warehouse he was, and how far he was from the rest of the Raion, but if they were the ones to fire those first shots, things had gone wrong. Fear gripped him and drove his arm as he aimed his pistol at the man on the ground.

“Hey man, don’t--” the man started to speak only to be cut off by two shots that caught him in the middle of his chest. Blood welled from the two holes as his head fell back, the life fading from his eyes before it’d even hit the ground. The garnet pool accumulating from both bodies spilled across the concrete and rolled idly towards Hunk, staining the soles of his boots as he stared down at the Akuma. Their gazes stared dully upwards at him, frozen forever in unending shock.

“The Port of Nagoya,” he said under his breath as he knelt down, gently running a hand over the dead men’s eyes to pull their eyelids shut. His mind raced between the gunshots that still echoed in his ears and the information he’d learned. The Akuma were planning another deal there, and from the sounds of it, it involved the American Mafia. If they made it out of the warehouse, he would need to make sure Keith and the rest of the waka gashira knew.

The Port of Nagoya.

Hunk repeated the location like a mantra, letting the cadence of the port’s name calm the worry that was rolling through his limbs. Standing slowly from his position, he tightened his grips on the blood stained bowie knife and pistol as he pressed forward.

***

Tiny sparks of electricity were tickling Lance’s palms as he followed behind Keith, his sense of duty sparring with his affection deep within his chest, leaving him bloodied and raw. He hadn’t even gotten a say in letting Hunk head off on his own, Keith stepping in with a curt nod and pulling him the opposite direction before he could try and make him change his mind. Now he stood in an empty hall, with his brooding oyabun, surrounded by painfully loud silence and unable to watch Hunk-- or any of the rest of his team’s-- backs. Lance hated being in confined spaces like the twisting metal hallway that never seemed to end.

And to make matters worse, he had to fight with a damn knife.

“He’ll be fine, you know.” Keith’s voice was so low, he wondered if he’d imagined it before the leader threw a look over his shoulder, amethyst eyes fixing on him in a fleeting glance.

“I get it,” he continued, voice thin with a vulnerable softness as he turned back to face forward, his steps carrying him further into the building. “But he’s always been able to take care of himself.”  Lance did his best to ignore the small voice in the back of his mind that bitterly pointed out that Shiro had also always been able to take care of himself, until he couldn’t. The eeriness of the seemingly empty building was working his nerves, he told himself as he continued to watch Keith’s back as they pressed onward.

His grip on his tantō felt wrong, and it felt too light as he tried to adjust the way he held it. Without a gun he felt completely useless. Growing up, Keith had always been the one that was better at hand-to-hand combat and knives. The jealousy had eaten away at him until he found out he could shoot ten targets in ten seconds from 100 feet away, and that was without a scope. Walking through the hall, the walls seemingly closing in around them as the silence playing tricks with his mind, Lance felt like that kid again that just couldn’t catch up to his future leader.

“Do you think we’re close?” He asked in an attempt to brush away the quiet that was trying to tempt him into dwelling on Hunk’s position. The answer he received came in the form of a hiss and a hand that stood up in the universal sign for “stop.” He bristled at the gesture. Ears straining to hear whatever discreet noice that had alerted Keith, he nearly ran into his back, stopping himself just short of his tensed shoulders.

“Did you hear something?” Lance’s voice was stiff after several seconds passed without any sounds. Keith lifted a single finger up to his lips as he turned his head just enough for him to see the gesture before he started to pad slowly forward. It wasn’t until he saw the black outlines of shadows against the wall ahead of them that he picked up the barely there whisper of rubber soles against the stone ground. His fingers curled tighter over the hilt of his blade as he tried to recall what little knife training he had, his heart thumping a hummingbird’s beat against his sternum. Keith continued to push forward, his steps quickening as he rushed to meet the Akuma ahead of them.

Then the all too familiar pop of gunfire rang over their heads. The sound rolled over his skin, dragging away his insecurities and leaving a completely different animal in its place. No matter the circumstance of that first shot, it meant his guns were now fair play. Though a bloom of fear burned in his chest as his mind raced to try and pinpoint where exactly they had come from, his blood raced as he dropped his tantō to the ground. Excitement and frustration blazed together, lighting his eyes as he pulled the uzis from the tan holsters that hung just under his arms. He barely registered Keith’s movement as he whipped his own handgun from its holster as he readied himself.

The steps were louder now, the sound multiplying as they sped up, and three Akuma rounded the corner just seconds later. Lance’s first shot caught the one closest in the knee, knocking him down for the second shot that caught him between the eyes. The next shot wasn’t his own as a bullet rushed past his face, the air splitting around it and blowing against his face as it landed somewhere behind him.

Another trio curled around the corner as Keith promptly shot the tallest of the group, the lead from his gun knocking him back as it hit his shoulder. Dodging the metal rain that was descending upon them, the two Raion moved around each other, one water and one smoke as they returned the gunfire. For each rival clansman that fell, another rounded the corner to take his place. It was the kind of set up that meant they were close. Lance felt the heavy determination emanating off Keith in waves as he came to the same realization.

“Keith!” He yelled over the metallic crashing around them.

Another shot and another spray of blood.

“What?” The oyabun yelled back, eyes not leaving the crowd ahead of them as he hit another in the stomach. Lance’s aim caught another in the hand, disrupting the shot he’d been lining up for the man beside him.

“Go on ahead, I’ll take care of these guys!” He felt the hesitation as Keith weighed his options. “I’ve got this, buddy. Shiro needs you.”

The words were steadier than he felt as he tried to reassure his leader. His purple gaze fell on him as he looked away from the Akuma ahead them for the first time. The steel in them had softened and turned pliant with an appreciation that Lance hoped would go unsaid. There would be a time to be thankful, and that time wouldn’t be until they completed their mission. With a small nod of his head as if to offer one final affirmation for Keith to go on without him, he aimed back for the crowd that had thinned out to just five. As he sprayed them with a slew of bullets, Keith ran towards them, hugging the wall until the exact moment Lance pulled his finger off the trigger.

The diversion had caused enough confusion that the oyabun was able to push past them, disappearing around the corner before they’d even had time to register what was happening. He wasn’t sure if it was the adrenaline, but Lance could have sworn he saw everything in slow motion as the Akuma puzzled over the disappearance of one of their enemies. One turned to follow, only to be pushed to the ground with the force of the bullet that caught him in the spine.

“Oh no, friends,” Lance said as he widened his stance and brought both of his guns upwards to point toward the four that were left. “I’m not done with you yet.”

***

A sense of knowing was digging deep into Keith’s bones as he walked alone towards where Shiro had to be. He was so close, he could feel it deep within his gut in the form of a gnawing sensation that picked at his insides like a buzzard. Loud shouts and the sound of gunshots ricocheted around him from where Lance had hung back to allow Keith a chance to explore further. Keith suspected it was more so the sharpshooter could run to check on Hunk once he’d cleared the Akuma from the hall. He’d seen the worry that had sharpened the steel in his blue eyes, and no matter how he’d tried to hide it behind a dulled mask of loyalty, it was there staring back at him like a beast waiting to be unleashed.

If Keith looked long enough, the beast twisted into something all too familiar to him.

Another crack bounced around him as he adjusted his grip on his handgun before rounding a sharp corner. A spasm rolled through his chest as his eyes landed on a a pair of imposing doors that interrupted the unending wall of dull metal. Choking back a gasp, he stumbled over himself as he made his way to them, shoulder igniting with pain as he shoved it against the heavy metal and pushed the door open.

The room was dark, lit only by stray rays of sunlight that streamed through a single window that sat in the middle of the wall opposite of him. Golden beams cast an ethereal glow over the otherwise mundane and empty room, the reach of its warming light stopping short of the figure that lay in a heap of limbs and bloodied clothing in the shadows to the far right of the room. Chunks of ice broke off in his veins as he stepped further into the deserted space, drawn towards the unmoving body as if pulled by an invisible string.

His gaze flickered over Shiro, taking inventory of each wound that stood stark against his skin and tracing the line of his side in search of any sign of the rise and fall of breathing. A tremor reverberated through his legs as he finally stood in front of him, knocking them from beneath him as he fell before Shiro’s frame, dropping his gun to the floor with a sharp, metallic clatter. The saiko-komon’s eyelids fluttered and though his breath was shallow, it was there as it tickled over the skin of Keith’s wrist as he ghosted a hand down his cheek. Blood had long stained the white of his bangs to a deep rust, the thick crust of coagulation matting it together. The bruise from the image was a mottled black and purple with sickly green feathering its edges.

Keith’s heart squeezed as his eyes dragged down towards the stump that was trapped between Shiro’s side and the cold ground, the weight of the loss settling onto his shoulders and turning his stomach. Heat climbed up his chest as it gagged him, the sound of his dry heaves filling the room.

“Sendak does great work, doesn’t he?”

The voice twisted with a calm malice as it spoke, sending a thrill of vehemence through Keith as a feral snarl tore from his lips. Grabbing his handgun from the ground, he flipped his position around, still crouching protectively in front of Shiro as he pointed the muzzle at the intruder.

“You’ve got yourself a strong one.” Zarkon sauntered forward from the shadowed corner he had been waiting in, the tip of his sword scraping along the ground as he moved closer. His teeth gleamed with the sunlight as he smiled at Keith, looking down at him over his nose. Keith’s finger twitched over the trigger. “Even after Sendak sawed his arm off, he still wouldn’t tell us anything about you, little lion.”

The harsh rasp of metal against concrete subsided as Zarkon stopped his advance, stopping in the middle of the room, obsidian eyes boring through Keith.

“Maybe I’ll keep him for myself.”

Keith pulled the trigger, the loud explosion of the gun firing filling the air. Onyx held amethyst as Zarkon’s glare stayed trained on the Raion as the bullet flew past him and buried itself in the wall behind him with the deafening clang of iron against steel. In a flash of metal and sunlight, he lunged forward, sword raised above his head. Keith pushed off the ground, using the energy of his coiled muscled to throw himself forward. Meeting Zarkon in the space between them, he thrust his shoulder into the older man’s stomach and wrapped his arms around his middle as they crashed to the ground. As soon as he felt the impact of the Akuma’s back, Keith scrambled upward, grasping a handful of his black shirt within his left fist as he threw the right towards his face. The sound of bone crunched satisfyingly beneath the force of the gun that was still clutched in his hand.

Zarkon grunted with the impact, quickly retaliating by thrusting the butt of his sword’s hilt into Keith’s temple, knocking away his senses and throwing him off his chest and onto the ground. The room spun around him as Keith pushed himself up again, not allowing himself to linger. Sardonic laughter darted around him, the sound wet with the blood that was spilling over Zarkon’s lips from his shattered nose.

“I touched a nerve,” he spat, blood splashing over the grey ground as he sat up. A single strand of inky black hair fell from the slicked back plane atop his head and curved over his eyes. They were practically glowing as he stared at the younger leader, their intensity like that of a wolf setting its sight on its prey. Sunlight glinted against the tip of the sword as he pointed at Keith. “I’ll enjoy killing you, Kogane.”

A sharp smile pulled the corners of Keith’s mouth up, baring his teeth.

“Likewise.”

Leveling the gun, he fired another shot, growling as Zarkon swiftly dodged the bullet by rolling forward and quickly getting to his feet, advancing towards Keith. He fired again before the metal slipped from his fingers as Zarkon pushed against him, the flat of his sword pressing against the Raion’s chest as he was pushed into the wall. The impact stole the air from his lungs as the back of his head smacked the metal with an angry crack. His bruisde ribs screamed against the pressure as he pressed into him. Stars ate away his vision as he blindly grabbed for the sword that was crushing against his chest. Hot breath brushed the bridge of his nose as Zarkon pushed closer. The blade bit into Keith’s left palm, blood spilling between his fingers as he grasped it. His right found the hilt, the sudden change in momentum catching Zarkon by surprise as he wrenched it from his grasp.

It clattered noisily as it skittered over the ground. Taking advantage of the moment, Keith brought his hands up behind the Akuma’s neck and pulled him down as he thrust his knee upwards into his chest. Stumbling backwards with a small gasp, Zarkon’s eyes were wild with an inhuman fury. Fixing him with matching acrimony, Keith’s fist caught the older leader’s jaw before he spun, throwing the force of it into a kick square to the Akuma’s chest. The power behind it sent him stumbling backwards, only stopping once his back landed heavily against the wall behind him.

Three sharp honks tore through the symphony of gasping breaths as Zarkon and Keith glared at each other from opposite ends of the room. A liquid warmth was spilling down his temple, painting his light skin a haunting crimson as his mauve gaze burned holes into the elder oyabun’s flesh. Time stretched between them as Keith’s fingers twitched over his push daggers, his handgun lying abandoned on the ground about six feet from where he stood. It felt as if a spell had fallen over the room as silence settled over the space. He could kill Zarkon now and be done with it. The end of this bloody war between their clans was within his grasp, all he had to do was reach out and grab it. His fingers trembled at the sheath again as he dragged in a calming breath.

Now was his chance.

Then one word shattered the trance over the room into a million jagged pieces.

“Keith.”

It was a whispered exhalation, a barely there utterance that dealt more damage than any of the blows Zarkon had landed. With just one murmur, Shiro had pulled Keith back down from his bloodthirsty rage. Lightning quick, the oyabun’s fingers closed over the three daggers on his thigh, each handle slotting neatly between them. The first he threw buried itself deep within the flesh of Zarkon’s thigh, eliciting nothing more than a pained grunt from the man. Keith let loose the second dagger almost as soon as the first had made its mark, this one tearing through the top of his shoulder and pinning the fabric of his shirt to the wall behind him. With one final flick of his wrist, the third dagger twisted through the air and landed in the wall just to the right of the Akuma leader’s face, cutting a jagged line into his cheek and ear as it passed. A seamless veil of garnet rolled down Zarkon’s cheek.

Turning on his heel, Keith faced where Shiro lay against the ground, his eyes still shut and his eyebrows drawn together as he grimaced. Another breath carried his name over the full ridge of his saiko-komon’s lips.

“Do you not intend to kill me, lion?” Zarkon’s voice was filled with black humor as he watched Keith shove his hands under Shiro’s armpits so he could pull him up into a seated position. Ignoring the taunt and the fire it ignited in his chest, Keith knelt next to his best friend’s unconscious body and pulled his left arm over his shoulders so he could use the strength of his legs to push them both up. Grasping the arm with his left hand, ignoring the sting from the deep cut in his palm, and wrapping his right arm around his waist, he supported his weight as he slowly made his way to the door.

“You’re a coward,” the Akuma roared as Keith got to the doorway, reveling in the way the Raion oyabun paused. “Just like your father.”

Turning just enough to fix Zarkon with a glare brimming with disaster and ruin, Keith’s face twisted into a look of unadulterated fury. A beat passed filled with nothing but their labored breathing as wars waged in the silence between them. Keith was the first to speak.

“I’ll be back for those,” he spat before he turned back towards the exit, Shiro leaning heavily into his side, his head pressing into the crook of his neck and his labored breaths tickling his skin.

It wasn’t just a threat, but a promise. Acid twisted in his stomach as he dragged them both through the twisting hall towards the van that would finally take them home.

He would make good on his word. They weren’t finished yet.

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

[mogdaze-blog]

Motherly Secrets - Short Story

I can’t exactly remember where I was when I got the news that mother had fallen ill. At work, probably, because I can remember it derailing the flow of my day.

The drive back to Tucson to see her was harder than expected. She’d suffered, the doctor told me, from a series of small strokes in rapid succession - like being shot by a machine-gun, he said. She was able to talk and move a little, but she wasn’t going to walk again, and the most optimistic estimates for her life expectancy still gave her only just South of six months. I was going to have to drop everything and go home, to take care of her in her last, bedridden days.

Anyone who’d think of me as heartless for saying that has clearly never met my mother. In terms of love, care, and affection during my childhood, she ranked somewhere between an old pinecone and an inanimate slab of polished granite. She never beat me or called me names, sure, but her heart was never in the whole “motherhood” thing. As the years went by, I started to feel less like a kid and more like a tumour - this big, unsightly lump of flesh that kept her from living life to the fullest.

It’s hard, making someone your main priority, when you know you were never theirs. But if childhood had taught me anything, it was coping with that exact feeling.

I breathed a long, pained sigh, like a premature death rattle, as I pulled in past the city limits. The second I was of age, I got the hell out of this place, leaving my mother as a fading ghost in the rear-view mirror. Hadn’t been back in the twelve years since, hadn’t ever planned on coming back. Until now.

The house was almost exactly as I’d rembered it, apart from a few changes to the garden. A modest, detached home in the suburbs of Green Valley, with a front fence painted blue and overstuffed hanging baskets dangling on either side of the front window like garish, oversized earrings. The only light on inside was in the top-left window: the room where my mother was staying, and would stay until the end of her days.

It was like stepping back into a photo album full of my worst memories. There was no love here, no joy. Only cold, brutal indifference.

Most of the furniture in the living room and the hallway were all wrapped in plastic, ready to be removed. Mother wouldn’t be using them again, after all. It gave the grim impression that the whole house was just waiting for her to finally buy the farm, and then they could all move on with their lives too. Or maybe that was just projection on my part. Who knows?

“You must be Tania,” said a tired-looking woman in a nurse’s uniform, standing on the stairs, “your mother’s in bed upstairs, I left all her medicine in a cabinet nearby. You should have everything you need.”

This was Mary: mother’s carer, until I arrived to take up the mantel, Dr. Hartmann had mentioned her in his call. I gave her a curt nod and she filed past me, leaving out of the front door, and leaving me alone with the beast. In the silence of the stairway, you could hear her mechanically-assisted breathing echoing out from the open door of the bedroom.

Mom had been suffering from a number of problems for a while, the strokes were just the final nail in the coffin.

“Is that you, little missy?” She hissed, before evening hearing me. That frail, spiteful voice still made me wince. A decade away, and she still had this power over me. It made me more angry than afraid.

“I’m a grown woman, mother,” I said, finally plucking up the courage to ascend the staircase, “you know I don’t like being called that. I always did tell you.”

I stared at her through the bedroom door and found myself shuddering. She looked like the personification of the word “wretched”: this thin, decrepit bag of bones, hooked up to more wires and tubes than an old television set, looking child-sized in the bed she was confined to. Her mouth was covered up by an oxygen mask, but her eyes were still visible.

Those wet, hateful little eyes. A pig’s eyes,

“So you came back,” mother said with a long, wheezing laugh, “honestly, Tania, I didn’t expect I’d get to see you again. I thought you’d already washed your hands of me.”

She coughed and spluttered intermittently. It always sounded like it hurt.

“Of course I came back, mother,�� I said, “I want to move on with my life, but to do that, I’m gonna need to tie all this off first. A clean break.”

I didn’t owe her any niceties, not after the way she’s treated me. I’d done a lot of research into the concept of childhood emotional neglect since I’d left the freezer-box mother called home, and I could say with total confidence that she was practically the textbook definition. Why should she get special treatment? A miserable life had earned her a miserable end, and if anyone deserved a sense of closure, it was me. Not her.

“You were always ungrateful, Tania,” she said, averting her eyes from my presence, “my momma, she beat the living crap out of me, did you know that? And my daddy, well he just stood around and watched. Said it was women’s issues, said he didn’t ought to get involved. When I left those sons of bitches and never looked back, I had a damn good reason to. What the hell was your reason for abandoning your mother, Tania?”

Shaking my head, I walked over to mother’s medicine cabinet and began rearranging the bottles of pills and ointments into their proper places. There was no winning with her.

“Can’t abandon someone who was never there, mother,” I said, “I’m surprised you even noticed I was gone.”

Mother made a spiteful little noise and turned her shrivelled head back towards me.

“I did more for you than you’ll ever know, Tania. Seeing you be so god damn disrespectful to me like this, it makes me sick.” She said.

I finally snapped, and turned to meet her gaze.

“Why did you even want me back here, huh? Why? Ever since I got here, all you’ve done is bitch and moan about me,” I said, feeling the skin on my cheeks turning crimson, “what do you want me to do?”

She paused, before taking a long, deep inhale from her oxygen mask. The way it distorted her voice made her sound almost monstrous. Again, maybe that was just projection on my part.

“Tomorrow,” she said, “you can make yourself useful and clean out the attic. Keep what you want, throw the rest in the garbage. You can sleep in your old room until then, I’m too tired to keep arguing with you. You’re impossible, Tania.”

The vitriol was new. What I’d always been used to from my mother was a cold, consistent apathy - never any questions to ask me, and always flat, one-word answers for mine. Maybe I was impossible, because I didn’t have the energy to talk to her any longer. I let my dying mother go to sleep, while I retired to my old bedroom - the walls still plastered with photos of early-2000s boybands and pop singers who were big at the time.

In a way, that was appropriate. If there was one thing my mother was always good at, without fail, it was making me feel small.

***

The next morning, I woke up early to get started on the attic, while mother still snored loudly into the miniature echo-chamber of her oxygen mask. Every slow, robotic noise she made set my teeth on edge. The sooner I could be done with all this donkey-work, the sooner I could rest a little easier while waiting for my mother to finally die.

It was junk, mostly. Disused furniture, broken lights, Christmas decorations that felt ancient to me. I heaved it all into garbage bags and left it in the hallway downstairs, extracting it bag by bag, the attic looking marginally less awful each time. I vacuumed up some of the dust and refuse, worrying that the longer I stayed up there, the more likely it’d be that I’d contract some form of bronchitis.

I’d given up all hope of finding anything interesting somewhere after the third cracked fibreglass Santa model, but found my curiosity piqued again when I discovered a little wooden chest peeking out from underneath a garbage bag full of shattered baubles. It was only a little bigger than a shoebox, I guessed, with a little padlock on the front. Feeling tired from lugging all the bags, I decided to take a break and take the mystery box downstairs with me.

A quick visit from a pair of bolt-cutters under the kitchen sink, and all of the box’s mysteries has been laid bare before me: a stack of old photos in a brown envelope, a cassette player with four matching tapes, and a little cloth bag - no bigger than an apple - tied up with string.

I admit, it was exciting, feeling like I’d stumbled on a real mystery in the midst of this graveyard. I hadn’t expected to have any kind of fun here, so what little I could glean from a box of old artefacts, I’d hold onto tightly and never let go. This was my mystery now.

First, the photos - all polaroids, probably taken in the seventies or the eighties. The first few were just of my mother, when she was much younger, before I ever came into the picture. There was something different about her, something…lighter. Like it was taken before some great weight was lowered onto her shoulders.

Figures, I thought with a grim eye-roll, and continued flipping through.

When I got to the bottom of the stack, the final photo made me pause. It was mother, still, when she was young and happy and beautiful, but she had a little boy with her. They stood together, holding hands, smiling for the photo. I’d never seen her look so cheerful in the flesh - it was like staring into The Twilight Zone.

I flipped the photo, and saw “Me & Jack” scrawled across the back in soft-tip marker. My curiosity was intense and harrowing - it occurred to me, upon looking at this photo, that really I knew almost nothing about my mother. It’d always been just the two of us - no dad, no grandparents. Just me and blank, distant mom.

So it begged the question: who the hell is Jack?

For a second I considered just asking my mother, but I dismissed the notion just as quickly. The second she sensed she could hurt me by withholding information, she’d just clam up and watch with relish as I squirmed. Every little act was a power play now, so I had to do it myself.

The audio tapes, I figured, might have some clues. Each was numbered, so I decided to push them into the recorder and listen. All of them were the voice of my mother from a different time, so much calmer, so much sweeter. The following is the contents of those tapes.

—

Tape 1:

Little Jack is six today, I can’t believe how fast he’s growing. Such a big boy, so tall and broad for his age. I’m not sure why I’m recording this, suppose it’s because I’ve never really felt like this before, and I wanted to remember that this was all real. We can both listen to it when he’s grown, and we’ll laugh that I was ever worried about all this. I feel new, somehow, like I’ve been reborn. He still holds my hand when I take him to school - those lovely little hands of his. I’m not sure I’ll ever be able to stop holding his hand, even when he’s grown. What did I do to be blessed with a little boy like this?

Maybe it doesn’t all have to be bad. Guess mom was wrong, there’s hope for me after all.

Tape 2:

God, fuck. Just fucking…fuck. He’s got a heart condition, it’s defective. It’s fucking defective. The doctor says he can just deteriorate at any time, like a bomb where nobody knows how long the god damn fuse is. My perfect little boy, and his life might end before it even begins. Is it because I was happy for once? Is that it? Did I anger the fucking gods or something? I just don’t…understand. Why did it have to be me?

I don’t know what I’m gonna do. I just don’t know anymore. And there’s nobody left who can help me.

Tape 3:

I’ve been thinking about Jack lately. I’ve come to terms with the whole heart thing - really, the not knowing is worse than the end. We all have to die some time, of course, it’s just nicer to have a reasonable expectation for when that’s going to be. But, I think I’ve solved that problem now. No more waiting, no more worrying, no more uncertainly for my beautiful little boy. Such a big boy for his age. He’s crossing my mind more and more, like an itch I just can’t seem to scratch, but I know how I can scratch it.

No more false expectations. I think I can solve this. It’s all gonna be back on track again.

Tape 4:

Tonight’s the night. —

By the time I’d popped out the fourth cassette, I was shaking, with tears in my eyes. So she’d had a son before she’d had me, little Jack, and she never once mentioned it. She never mentioned any of it. To hear her like that, so happy, so alive, it was to me as unnatural as watching rain fall up and time go backwards. The most prescient question before was who the hell Jack was, but now I knew, and a new question had risen to the forefront.

What the hell had she done to him?

I knew my mother was a master of non-contact torture, but part of me still couldn’t bring myself to believe that she was a murderer. Another thing I knew is that I couldn’t possibly just ask her about it, because if she had even an inch to wriggle out of it, who could blame her for taking it? All that was left was the little cloth bag, tied up with a single piece of string.

When I pulled away that string, I did so with the precision of a bomb disposal expert cutting a wire. The sides of the cloth fell outwards like a flower in bloom, revealing what had been sitting inside for all these years. It took me a moment to realise exactly what it was - the small, gnarled little thing - but the second I got it, I shrieked at the top of my lungs and scrambled backwards.

It was a tiny, mummified hand. The hand she never wanted to give up holding.

“What the hell are you screaming about?” My mother, the child-killer, called down from above, “you damn near gave me a heart attack.”

A heart attack would have been too good for her. I wanted to call the police, have them apprehend her, let her eke out the last few months of her miserable life rotting in a jail cell, or at least the secure wing of a hospital, her thin, veiny wrists handcuffed to the sides of the bed. But I was selfish - I knew that even if they arrested her, they’d never find out why she did what she did. She’d wrench that vicious little mouth of her’s shut, and never speak another word, just to spite them. There was nothing they could threaten her with, she was - for all intents and purposes - already dead.

No, if I wanted answers - and I did - I’d need to yank them out of the old bat’s mouth myself.

With a shaking hand, I grabbed a chef’s knife from the kitchen, and hid it behind my back. Mother was ranting as I mounted the stairs, asking why I was being so rude as to ignore her. She was, after all, just asking me simple questions. Was I too ignorant to even comprehend that?

She still looked the same. Logically, of course I knew that’d be the case. But, after knowing that somehow, for some reason, she’d killed a little boy, I felt like on some level I should have been able to read it on her. I wanted to believe that an act like that would have to change a person, make them less human - mentally and physically. But no, it was that same little broken doll, wrapped in blankets.

“And finally, Queen Tania arrives,” mother said, her voice laden with venom, “such an honour for you to finally grace me with your presence. Have you even cleaned out there–”

“I know, mother. I know what you did.” I said.

I hadn’t expected it to come out like that, but there it was, just hanging in the air between us.

“What are you talking about?” She asked, indignant.

“Jack, mother. I know about Jack.”

When I said that name, something changed. Something in those small, shiny eyes.

“I still don’t know what you’re…”

“Give it up, mom,” I cut her off, “I found the box. I saw the pictures, I heard the tapes. I saw the…I saw the hand, mother. I’ve seen everything now.”

Silence. Total and overwhelming, like being locked in a pressure chamber. Mother just stared at me with an expression I couldn’t quite place, partially hidden underneath her oxygen mask. I was on the verge of tears.

“Jack…” She said, sounding almost, almost mournful, “that was meant to be private, Tania. Nobody was ever meant to know, it was going to be our little secret - mine, and his. Though I suppose that doesn’t matter much anymore, does it?”

I walked to her bedside, knowing I was on the precipice of doing something I regretted. The chef’s knife felt heavy in my hand when I first picked it up, but the longer I looked at my mother, the lighter it seemed to feel.

“Tell me what happened, mother,” I said, trying to hold back the sob that I felt was priming itself at the base of my throat, “I want to know everything that happened to Jack.”

“Do you really, though?” She asked, “because once you know, you can’t go back. It’ll stay with you long after I’m worm-food, Tania.”

“Just. Fucking. Tell me.”

Mother sighed again and turned her head away from me on the pillow, just like she’d done when she called me ungrateful the day before. It was almost funny, knowing she couldn’t take my judgement now, after all this.

“I ate him, Tania.”

My left leg turned to putty below the knee and I almost fell backwards. Of all the thousand scenarios I’d run over in my head since seeing the hand, somehow this wasn’t one of them. Even in the end, my expectations of her were just too high. She was more loathsome than I’d ever been able to imagine.

“You what?” I asked, voice pregnant with burgeoning sobs.

“Not alive, girl, I’m not an animal,” she said; there was no pleasure or anger in her voice now, just that same indifference I was always used to, “it was humane. I drugged his food with sleeping pills one evening, and once he was out I bent him over the tub and slit his throat. He was dead in about two minutes, didn’t even feel anything. He went out a lot better than I’m going to. The rest, I butchered and cooked.”

I was going to say something, but instead, I just vomited into a waste paper basket near the portable medicine cabinet. I couldn’t help but picture that sweet-looking little boy from the photos, little Jack, my brother from long, long ago, lying grey and lifeless over the edge of a porcelain bathtub - his neck split upon by a wide, red smile. She was a killer, she was a cannibal. She was my mother.

“I don’t understand,” I said through tears, “I thought you loved him.”

“I do love him,” she said, “I never stopped loving him. Not even for a second, not even when I was watching him bleed down the drain. I always loved my little boy.”

The knife was itching to taste my mother’s blood, but I tried to maintain control. I knew what she’s done now - an image I’d never clear from my head until the day I die - but I still had to know why. I needed to know why.

“When you get a little older, Tania, you’ll realise that all of life runs in cycles,” she said, “and if anything seems like it doesn’t, well, that’s only because you’ve not looked at it for long enough. Everyone’s in the loop, and the loop has to close eventually.”

“What the fuck are you talking about?”

“My parents, Tania, I told you they abused me. They took away my power, made me feel like nothing - that’s why I escaped, and I swore nobody would ever take power away from me again,” she said, “I never wanted a husband, I wanted to stay independent. Jack came out of a one night stand, and I had him myself a few months later. I’ve never loved anything as much, before or since.”

I’d always known that my mother had never loved me, but somehow, that still hurt to hear.

“Those first six years before his diagnosis, Tania, that was the happiest I’d ever been. I felt like life had finally turned around - but when I realised that little Jack could die at any time, I woke up from the fantasy. I’d been lying to myself the whole damn time. You see, little missy…”

“Don’t fucking call me that.” I said, venting some of my confusion and fury.

“You see, Tania,” she corrected herself, each word oozing with spite, “there are two ways a person can take your power away from you. They can abuse you, and attack you, and physically dominate you - like my mother did to me. The other way is in making someone love you, like Jack did. And I did love him, I really did, but it made me weak. It took my power away, and that’s why he had to die.”

“Then why the fuck did you eat him?” I asked, thinking the rest of her insanity wasn’t even worth questioning.

“Because I loved him, Tania, I don’t expect you to understand, you’re a loveless little creature. Jack had to die so I could keep my promise to myself, but I ate him so he’d never have to leave me. We could be together forever - one body, one mind, one soul.”

By this point, I’d collapsed onto my knees and just started crying into my hands. Mother kept talking.

“I did you a great kindness, one that I suppose at least now you could fully appreciate,” she said, “I had you when I got lonely, but I knew that I was still the same person I was when I ate Jack. If I wanted you to be safe - and believe me, Tania, I did - I knew the only way to do that was to not love you. I’d keep my power, and you’d keep your life. Fair trade. Seems almost funny now, doesn’t it?”

“Funny?” I asked through gritted teeth, “what it seems is evil, mother, evil and fucking insane.”

She turned back to me, our eyes meeting again.

“Cycles, Tania. It was all pointless in the end - because here I am, weak, defenceless, and there you are, holding that knife, ready to kill me. Ball’s in your court, you’ve got all the power,” she said, her voice betraying a sick sense of gallows humour, “the loop closes. I became my mother, and you become me. It’ll keep going, until the end of time. Cycles, always cycles.”

It made me sick to my stomach, but she was right. It’d all panned out exactly like she said - but I would refuse her being right one last time. I didn’t have the strength to let go of the knife, but I poured everything I had into keeping the blade away from her. I wouldn’t close the loop, I refused to, I wouldn’t complete the cycle.

“No,” I said to her, “don’t you dare try to put this on anyone else but you. Your mother was a shit to you, and I’m sorry about that, but you’re twice the monster she was. You killed a little boy, your own little boy! You murdered him and then you ate him. You alone fucking did that, not anyone else.”

Even below the oxygen mask, I saw mother’s lips curl back over yellow, coffee-stained teeth. Not quite a smile, just the animalistic baring of fangs. For a split second, it felt like the facade matched the interior.

“Not quite,” she said, “I was bearing child at the time, Tania. You ate him too. You could even say Jack is gonna be with both of us for…”

Mother never got to finish that sentence. Before I’d even had the foresight to stop myself, I’d plunged the chef’s knife into the centre of her chest. Red bloomed from the wound, soaking into the sheets around her, as she coughed a little storm of blood into the oxygen mask. Mother’s shiny little pig eyes seemed to go flat and glassy, and she slumped back into her pillow, stone dead.

I let out a long, loud scream. I wasn’t sure if I was ever going to be able to stop.

***

But it did stop, in the end. I still believe mother was wrong: all things stop in the end. Life isn’t made of loops and cycles, it’s made of threads - it’s messy, it’s disorganised, it’s chaotic, but you always have choice. Mother, for a person so obsessed with gaining and keeping power at all costs, was so quick to assume that none of us have any. When I’d gotten my mind back, I called the local police precinct and turned myself in, told them every last detail and gave them all the evidence they needed to piece together what’d happened.

The trial was short, and the jury was sympathetic. It’s hard to not look at someone who murdered a child-eating killer as a dragon slayer rather than a cold-blooded murderer herself. The judge figured my time was better spent in a psychiatric ward than prison, where I could try to undo some of what my mother had done to me, and scrape every little piece of her black, cancerous memory from my brain. Once I’ve done that, I can go back to life again, and try to pick up where I left off.

I don’t think about her as often as I used to now, thankfully, though occasionally she’ll wander across my mind. The last thoughts I had of her was wondering what she must have been thinking when I stabbed her. In the narrative I imagine her head was putting together in her final few seconds, she probably pictured me running off into the night, screaming and covered in blood, wanting desperately to keep the power I’d gained, and destined to repeat all of her mistakes.

Mother was wrong about that too. I plan on making my own.

[asexual-fandom-queen]

Coldwestallenwave, non-power au (:

No powers means no Flash means no Reverse Flash means (at least in my happy little corner of the alternate world) Nora Allen never dies and Henry is never falsely imprisoned. 

This of course means Barry doesn’t grow up with Joe and Iris. Instead he and Iris spend their entire childhood and adolescence still technically joined at the hip but not living under the same roof being raised by the same man, and it helps Iris clue into her feelings about Barry waaaayy earlier.

Barry and Iris start “dating” in the sixth grade, and remarkably don’t break up until their senior year of high school. They both agree they need space to grow and learn more about themselves away from each other, and it’s awkward as hell their entire senior year. Iris goes to prom with the star of the basketball team and doesn’t have a date at all, yet they both spend the whole night watching each other across the dance floor when they think the other isn’t looking. 

Iris and Barry both go to CCU, Iris for journalism, Barry for nursing (he admires doctors, he really does, but he’s seen the job drive his father prematurely grey and anyway, nursing feels a lot more like treating the patient than just the disease, and all Barry’s ever wanted to do is help people)

Their sophomore year of college, after an excruciatingly long time of being “just friends” – being apart – Barry and Iris finally get back together. The time apart was good for them. It let Iris figure out who she is outside of “Detective West’s Kid” and “The Girl Dating Dr. Allen’s Son” and it let Barry explore his sexuality more and come to the point where he’s finally comfortable identifying as bi/ace. But on the other hand, my God does it feel good to be with each other again. 

After Barry finishes school and gets his official nursing license, he and Iris move out of their parents’ homes and get a shitty apartment together in a shitty part of town, all they can afford with loan debts and Iris still in grad school getting her masters, but it’s home and they love it. 

Barry proposes over a carton of Chinese takeout with a white sapphire that puts him out $250, which is simultaneously nothing and a fucking lot. Iris says yes before he has two words of the speech he spent three weeks planning out of his mouth, which is probably for the best, because he’s crying like a baby anyway. They both are. 

Iris gets an internship at CCPN, which is where she gets the incredibly stupid idea to edge out the competition and earn a full time position by getting the exclusive story on a couple of big time thieves moving on mob territory in Central, which brings us to…

Len and Mick, whose backstories haven’t much changed much, except they’re married and have been since they just so happened to be on a job in Massachusetts in 2004, not that Len actively planned for it to work out that way, but that’s basically canon already, right? 

Iris’ investigation takes her into incredibly dangerous territory she’s definitely lying to Barry about being in. Halfway through photographing evidence, a couple of goons from the Santini catch her in the act and point guns at her, and Iris is sure she’s done for, except the gunfire that follows doesn’t come from the Santinis and, surprisingly enough, isn’t directed at her. 

That’s how Len and Iris are officially introduced, with bodies cooling at their feet and Iris five seconds away from a panic attack, but keeping it together better than Len ever expected from a civilian, and damn if that doesn’t impress him even more than her deep brown eyes and they way her clothes fit her like a second skin – and who flashes that much leg trespassing on a mob warehouse, anyway? 

Len takes Iris out to a greasy, hole-in-the-wall diner to get her settled and avoid her going into shock while he calls Mick in to deal with the bodies at the warehouse. Iris is shaken but matches Len’s bravado about “people go missing all the time” and “certain things have a way of happening” and Len knows there’s no way he’s going to throw the young, aspiring journalist off her story, and he really doesn’t want to kill her. Something about the set of her jaw reminds him of someone he used to care about, and the faint smells of harissa and lamb. 

Which is how Len starts acting as Iris’ inside source. He’s prickly about what information he will and won’t give her, and sometimes she pokes her nose where it doesn’t belong even after Len’s thrown her a bone he thought for sure would keep her out of things. They argue something fierce when that happens, but nothing like the night Iris ends up tied to a chair staring down the barrel of a Darbinyan’s gun and she’s more sure that she’s ever been that this is how she’s going to die. 

Until Len shows up with some new gun she’s never seen before – a prototype he stole from STAR Labs, the same place that launched the wildly successful particle accelerator, Iris will learn later – that freezes every mobster solid like ice. He hits them with the hilt of the weapon on his way over for good measure, then he’s untying Iris from her chair, and Iris can’t even think to be nauseous over how gruesome and brutal Len was, how close she came to dying, because Len’s grabbing her by the elbow and pulling her to her feet, pushing her up against a chain link wall and yelling at her to never be so stupid again, and then he’s kissing her and… oh!

Iris doesn’t mean to kiss back, doesn’t even realize she is kissing back until her engagement ring catches on one of the clasps on Len’s leather jacket that she’s always thought he looked so good in – always though thinking as much was innocent, harmless –  and she’s shoving Len back with a horrified gasp and fingers that fly so fast to her lips there’s no way Len doesn’t see the rock on her finger, even in the low, flickering lights of the warehouse. 

Iris goes home that night sick with guilt. Len dropped her off a block away from her building, citing lingering concerns for her safety, but Iris isn’t so convinced it’s not because Len hoping to find something to say over the twenty minute car ride to make things right between them. When Iris puts her hand on the handle to get out, Len finally breaks the silence festering between them by croaking out a shaky admission of “I’m married” that only makes things worse. 

Barry’s cooking breakfast on their crappy stove that only has one working burner when she gets home, just back from a shift at the hospital probably. He does that, cooks Iris breakfast when he has to work nights so they can spend at least some time together, and Iris feels like shit. Barry’s brow furrows, worried and surprised to see her just getting home instead of being in bed asleep, and Iris breaks down into a fit of tears before she can even slide the deadbolt in place. She tells Barry everything, and he cries too, and the eggs burn, and it’s not a good day. 

Len meets back up with Mick at the warehouse to clean up the defrosting mobster pieces and keep the CCPD off their trail. Mick knows something’s off with Len from the moment he catches sight of him. Mick knows about Iris, knows her having such a close brush with death probably rattled Len a lot more than he was expecting, thinks he’s probably trying to wall up whatever clusterfuck of emotions are swirling behind his eyes like he always does when people get too close, like they both do, part of the reason they’ve been off about as much as they’ve been on over the last twenty-some odd years. He doesn’t expect Len to say, quiet but icy as Mick’s ever heard him, “I fucked up.” Partly because Len’s never one to admit his mistakes. But also because Mick’s pretty sure he made it clear – or as clear as he can without them ever really talking about it, because Mick can’t do talking, can’t get past the lump in his throat and the unshakable fear ever time he tries that promises he’ll say something wrong and fuck everything up – that making a move on Iris West was definitely on the table. 

Mick and Iris meet for the first time a week later. There’s a huge power struggle between the Santini’s and the Darbinyan’s happening that’s sure to leave both sides gutted (which he and Len had nothing to do with, if anyone asks) and Mick can see how much Len’s itching to slip Iris some insider information. Idiot’s go the file all put together and everything. He’s just too chicken shit to make a move, won’t say what exactly happened the last time he tried – if he even did try – but it can’t be half as bad a Len’s building it up to be. He just the kind of guy that deals a lot of his own lashes, so to speak. 

Mick corners Iris as she’s walking home through the park. It’s after dark and Mick knows going in it’s gonna give her a hell of a scare, but he can’t see another way to get to her, and she’s the one walking alone at night in a neighborhood like this like she’s got no reason to be afraid. He barely gets his hand around Iris’ wrist before she comes up with pepper spray from her purse and she gets him good in the jaw anyway, and even before she goes still enough to get a good look at her, Mick gets every bit of what Len sees. 

Mick finally gets why Len’s so prickly when he sees the rock on Iris’ finger, when his introduction is met with her stammered apology that’s both contrite and lanced with an edge of genuine terror her never wanted to make a wildfire like her feel. Mick passes the envelope off, tells her no hard feelings, and leaves as quickly as he came before her soft lips and fierce spirit manage to drag him into whatever hell they’ve got Len burning in. 

Iris wars over what to do with the information for an impressive two hours before running with the story. She’s not even surprised at her own behavior, unfair as it might be to Barry. This isn’t about her feelings. It’s about her career. Somehow, the pages still smell like Len – sandalwood and wintergreen and orange blossom – and Iris tries to pretend it doesn’t make her heart skip a beat. 

Mick acts as Iris’ informant from then on. She tells Barry after she publishes her first article using Len’s information delivered through Mick, and Barry understands her obligation to her career, respects it even. That doesn’t mean he doesn’t start tagging along to info drops that turn more and more into strange, almost social outings the longer the arrangement goes on. After almost six months of Len running Iris intel through Mick, Barry and Iris meet Mick at a sketchy bar downtown and order hot wings and cheap beer and Iris doesn’t even realize until she and Barry get home that no information had even been exchanged – the meeting (or was it a date?) hadn’t even been set up under the pretext of doing as much. 

The first time Iris sees Len again after the kissing incident comes when she runs into Mick dragging his listless body up the stairwell in her apartment building and Iris doesn’t even ask how or when Mick found out where she lives. She knows Mick knows Barry’s a nurse, and that’s the only thought she can process, the only thought that screams at her as she rushes forward to prop Len up on his other side and help Mick haul him up the last two flights of stairs. She doesn’t think about how the pit falls out of her stomach at the thought of losing Len, or that she’s bringing the man she had an affair with – if not physically, at least emotionally, Iris is a big enough girl to admit that much – to her fiancé to beg with him if she has to to save his life, or that the man who’s helping her do it is Len’s husband who she realizes, as she notices the cut on the the side of his cheek for the fist time, she’s just as worried about. 

Iris’ cry for help is so chilling, haunting, it wakes Barry up in a cold sweat. He’s still in his underwear when he stumbles into the main room of their apartment and sees her and Mick carry in a man who’s either already dead or on his way fast. It registers with Barry that this has to be Len – Leonard Snart – criminal kingpin, subject of Iris’ past indiscretion. But the desperate look in Mick and Iris’ eyes alike keeps from even breaking stride. Barry’s wide away, directing Mick to lay Len down on the couch, rivers of blood and all, and yelling at Iris to get him his first aid kit and clean set of towels. 

The fact that Len’s still breathing after Barry pulls two slugs out of him and stitches up close to a dozen knife wounds is a miracle. Mick sits vigil on the floor by Len’s head waiting for him to wake up and Iris stands as far away as she can manage in an apartment their size while still keeping an eye on Len, too. Eyes that look worried, but also incredibly guilty and self-loathing, and Barry feels every ounce of hurt and uncertainty leave him in one heavy breath. He presses along Iris’ side and holds her tight and whispers a soft “okay” in her hair that he follows up with a soft, delicate kiss, and Iris sags against him, buries her head in his shoulder, and cries, but this time, it’s with relief. 

Len isn’t fit to go anywhere for a few days, and it sounds like it should be a disaster, but they adapt to it quickly, almost naturally. They give Len the bed as soon as he’s mobile and Mick stays with him, unwilling to leave his side, not that Iris or Barry blame him. Iris and Barry buy a shitty air mattress to lay out in the main room that always deflates by morning, but it’s not like either of them were repeatedly shot and stabbed, so they make it work. Barry comes back from grocery shopping with Mick one afternoon to see Iris curled up against Len’s side in the bedroom, both fast asleep, and it doesn’t make jealously well up in Barry’s throat like the thought it would. Barry and Mick cook supper together and Mick’s hands trail over Barry’s finger on the knife, against the small of his back as the navigate the tight space. They eat soup together around the same rickety table Barry proposed at nearly three years ago, and it feels oddly right. 

[niskrp]

:// SEARCHING OPERATIVE …

… searching for AGENT 030 / THE DEATH. classified files indicate that they go by LEE HANSOL, and are also known as ZERO. born in NEW YORK, USA, in 1993/03/14, further investigation makes it clear that they joined the agency FIVE YEARS ago. they are an INTELLIGENCE AGENT who specialize in HACKING. higher clearance is needed to access further information…

… ENTER PASSWORD TO ACCESS THE COMPLETE FILE.

:// ACCESSING BACKGROUND FILES ...

a mission: to unearth the flesh from the skin, leaving the marrows exposed for the maggots to consume. sanity is an option that comes together with an exit wound. not a precise incision, not a seamless suture. there’s a scripture that becomes a guide to how much you can dissect yourself without dying, and here are the trembling fingers, trying to mimic the culture of an open heart surgery.

the autopsy doesn’t end here. in fact, it has just begun, a set of scalpels on the table. a glyph in the machine, data decryption of the anatomy…

he lives circa post-mortem. the interior of his ribcage has too many deaths mounted on its brittle walls, the necrosis of the organs turned into reminders of the life once a mirror of lies. traces his footfalls, there is a path left by the shrapnel, back to the road prior the forked ends. reminds himself that once upon a time, the only dichotomy was naught but his bone tongue: he spoke two languages vastly different, now six. he doesn’t recognize which is native to him anymore.

boyhood was a gossamer chrysalis that enveloped. appa was two syllables that he kept in his mouth for safekeeping, sometimes enunciated so carefully so his mouth didn’t get seared. eomma was a fistful of handcrafted untruths, and she tied him with piano strings on each limb. he grew up peculiar with a set of inward teeth, biting into his own lips he spoke in riddles. he grew up dissonant with a pair of bruised knuckles, breaking into his own ire he shattered in pieces. eomma built his spine ridge by ridge, placing him everywhere he didn’t want to be.

sometimes, she told him to bend his knees and fold his hands, prayers towards nothing in particular, for there was soft violence that came with a religion in which death was mounted on its altar. he did not register the face of a god, a singular freeform that held eomma captive. he only located each gentle stroke of war in every verse, the urban bible that he’s carried until now. counted the beads of the rosary with a falsified belief he became a body of notions.

six when he saw the fear that stained eomma’s expression for so long, it had become a part of her construct. the exoskeleton of this american dream riveted in a concept that lasted with a supporting crutch. she was crucified by her paranoia — or was it? psyche that he did not know how to navigate, but the trepidation was there for his perusal. it felt like dermatillomania, watching her drowning in an ankle-deep ocean at three am. pills that cured, and he turned his back on her once again to carve a dent on the tallies.

appa was a missing incisor that cut him deep enough to remind him that there was a price to pay for each inhale, exhale. his systole and diastole did not come free, the liberty not theirs to begin with. shot with a glock once, twice at the age of nine, appa scorched his insignia in the form of a beast. he was not the same boy that had walked into the room an hour prior; the mechanism of these planted seeds turning his being into more than just the palpitation.

this liminality was a syllabus of conundrums: appa and eomma hid too many secrets at the bases of their throats. tracheas that swelled with the weight of the world. thought it wasn’t an anomaly when he’d only known how to pretend all his life, mandible filled with grenade pins scripted with homemade lies. the columns of his throat were pillars of sanctioned daydreams that deviated from public norms. realization came late like a garrote around his neck at sixteen, when eomma stripped him away from her. his grandparents, absent for over a decade, took over.

manhattan sighed a quiet goodbye in exchange for seoul, where nobody knew the history of familial negligence over his violent streaks. distilled himself for a name sixteen years late, donning ruptured backgrounds that remained consistent as fabricated by eomma. told him eomma was coming — soon, soon. excelling in the art of excavating his own laments, he turned to ace in academics. or, when his synapses glitched, there was always a punching bag, a shooting range. when he was red and raw from the personal rotting, he believed that devastation tasted like false comprehensions over his own upbringing. what if, what if, what if…

filaments of this boyhood lattice speak of an artwork so intricate, but what’s stranger than the scar tissues that marred his back without any recollections of who painted them?

and so, he sought. crowned himself with teeth, and last time he had asked his grandparents what his parents actually were, he was met with a weary look. at least they didn’t question the money spent for a one-way plane ticket to new york. instead of the rattled welcome, however, he was met with a deafening silence. she’d moved. she hadn’t mentioned it in their monthly calls. he returned with anger planting bruises in his being, camouflaged by each night of punching and kicking and shooting and thrashing.

he became feral, but contained. enrolled himself in the closest thing he knew to be close to appa, somewhere in the deep web. a man didn’t just spit out a son to leave. so he learned to decode, decipher. certain that along the line, he’d find the semblance of a long-lost father. eomma, on the other side of the story, came to seoul four years late for a visit too transient. but she kissed each cheek with fervor so ingrained, he thought she’d break nails digging them into his skin. she left the week after; an ounce of goodbye in a letter meant zilch. he clasped his jaw, moving on.

he had issues that swelled, but nothing that he couldn’t handle. learning his way into the depthless casket of the internet, he found appa with a relationship more complicated than what the years of hacking could offer. an agent, it said. for what? for whom? the ends of the information were too frayed for him to tell. there was his understanding, of all the secrets buried in the nooks of each joint. when he graduated, he chose to follow the barely known steps. there was no eomma, no appa. his grandparents wilted in the silence that shrouded their dinners. he barely came home, the smudged edges of his presence eventually were erased completely when he moved away on his own.

twenty-three. he was everything resembling half-smoked hymns, voice constricted to the hoarse sound of his past, haunting him in the poltergeists within his chest. he was a good agent in the making, marksmanship a particle of his existence since he was young. that was, until a detour in the midst of the sleepless night caught news about a woman. shot dead. point blank. he plummeted six feet under, the soil bled ice he developed hypothermia. he didn’t even have it in him to cry. appa found him one of those nights, telling him he was proud. eomma was proud. ( “for fuck’s sake,” he retorted. “you don’t have the right to be.” )

she was the hyacinth that bloomed in the winter, premature blossom that ended with slivers eaten in caustic measures. she still had her strings around his sternum. he couldn’t undo her with these shaking hands. the training gave him flashbacks of the news, so he ran until he splintered his ankles. joined another division to put his education into use instead. that way, he didn’t need to deal with the paraphrase of eomma’s passing. he didn’t even have a corpse to bury, a funeral to attend.

instead, the only corpse to bury for him would be his. a backyard funeral, elegies handwritten in an uneven penmanship. he is unhinged— vultures gnawing on his insides, charred black. some nights, he doesn’t know how to place his limbs anymore.

:// ACCESSING PSYCHOLOGICAL EVALUATION ...

the archives of his psychological profile maintain a great deal of feigned apathy with a dash of pretense placed in the front. there’s a tough shell to even fissure, although upon peeling the skin there would be too much to discern. dissection is not advised, please proceed with cautions. diagnosis would include depression and anxiety. there are symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder. prominent issue is the anger management contained through violent means. the channeling itself is not the core to the peril — it is the general lack of disclosure towards himself. he doesn’t have any healthy coping mechanism, often choosing to swallow everything down. addictions are often found in drowning himself in workloads. surrounded by fellow agents, he can socialize to an extent but doesn’t exert himself much. remains in the comfort zone of shallow social interactions. amiable, easy-going. his typical appearance would be described as charming, albeit off. some sensitive people might be able to tell that he’s not everything that he chooses to divulge, as it’s often limited to what he’s comfortable with, and that level merely scratches the surface.

... END OF FILE. CONTACT THE AGENT DIRECTLY FOR MORE.

[itkmoonknight]

  Episode 24:  

It’s the first CLASSIC and MODERN run for 2018, and the High Priests are on song to review another two great issues featuring our boy in white –

CLASSIC RUN: The Defenders Vol. 1 issue #50

MODERN RUN: Moon Knight Vol. 3, issue #3, Resurrection War, Part 3 of 4

Another very fine podcaster has also lent his vocal talents as guest narrator for the show – this episode, we’re pleased to have Connor McKenna – host of The Immortal Iron Fist Podcast – Sons of the Dragon! Be sure to check out the Iron Fist Podcast too – if you’re a fan of character focused podcasts, then the Iron Fist podcast is a MUST!

Also, with this, we have one bit of exciting news for your Loony needs…. more Moon Knight in animated form! Very, very exciting indeed!

So sit back, grab your issues and get your Khonshu on!

OVER THE MOON:

BARE BONES – guest narrator, Sons of the Dragon- Immortal Iron Fist podcast

Defenders Vol.1, issue #50 – “Scorpio Must Die!”

Released August 1977

(writer) David Kraft

(artist) Keith Giffen with inks by Keith Giffen, Mark Royer, John Tartaglione & Dave Cockrum

(colours) Don Warfield

(letters) Gaspar Saladino & John Costanza

(editor) Archie Goodwin

Having crashed through the roof of Scorpio’s New Jersey hideout, Hulk stands enraged with the newly formed Zodiac crew in front of him. Already angered at having to chase Moon Knight, Valkyrie and Hellcat across New York (as seen in the previous issue), and recognising Scorpio from a previous tussle, the Hulk is ready to smash anything and everyone in his way.

Scorpio introduces his newly created Zodiac members: there’s Leo –  a huge, dark figure with a flowing mane and ever-sharp claws; Sagittarius – a nimble archer; Aquarius – a laid back, yet deadly opponent with water cannon; Taurus – a stocky thick-set man with retractable horns on his fists; Gemini – a mysterious entity which can split in two; Cancer – an armoured gladiator with weapons to boot; Aries – a hunch-backed battering ram; and Libra – an intangible observer. All members stand before the Hulk, and all ready to take him down.

What ensues is a non-stop battle as the Jade giant launches himself at his enemies. The other Defenders can’t help but jump into the fray as well. Their intent is to save Jack Norriss but in order to do so, they will need to go through the Zodiac.

Each Defender pairs off against a Zodiac member – Hulk vs. Aries, Moon Knight vs. Taurus, Valkyrie vs. Leo, and Hellcat vs Gemini.It’s a battle royale as each team vies to gain the upper hand.

As they continue to exchange blows, Jack Norriss sees the Fury LMD quietly slip away. Norriss calls out for him, but the Fury LMD tells him not to follow him as he tries to find Scorpio.

Back at the battle, Aries manages to surprise the Hulk, and he rams him from behind, sending the Hulk hurtling through the wall and into the Passaic River just outside the warehouse. Angrier than ever before, the Hulk leaps back and crashes into the hapless Taurus much to Moon Knight’s delight.

Elsewhere, Nighthawk – having gained more strength with the onset of twilight – slowly resists the chains which bind him and with his new found strength he manages to finally free himself from his shackles.

Scorpio – having realised not all the Zodiac members seemed present – returns to the Zodiac chamber and finds Pisces near-dead, the product of a premature activation. Concerns are raised even more when Scorpio searches frantically for Virgo, the only female member of the Zodiac and whom Scorpio had hoped to gain as a life companion. He finds her stillborn in her Zodiac chamber, and it’s too much for Scorpio to bear.

Meanwhile, The Defenders and The Zodiac continue to tear Scorpio’s warehouse apart and just as Aries is about to surprise the Hulk again, Nighthawk swoops in and intercepts him. With renewed vigour and with the superheroes finally acting as a team, The Defenders stand galvanised and ready to end it once and for all. Surprisingly, it’s a little help from Gemini which finally tips the scales. The dual-identity villain has a change of heart after speaking with Libra (who still hasn’t lifted a finger but watches the battle intently), assists in containing Leo from Hellcat. After this small victory, it doesn’t take long for the rest of the Defenders to defeat the remaining members – again showing how effective teamwork can be. With the threat now over the only remaining thing left is to bring Scorpio in.

In another room, away from the battle, Scorpio is found by the Fury LMD. He is sitting in the dark, listening to sad, melancholic music. Still broken at having discovered his love, Virgo, killed, Scorpio now starts to entertain dark thoughts. He pleads to the Fury LMD to give him his gun and being an LMD, Fury does so, as all LMD’s do not have free will against their masters.

As Moon Knight and Jack Norris race across the warehouse, they hear a single gun shot and head towards the noise. They find the Fury LMD sitting silently next to the dead body of Scorpio.

  Moon Knight Vol. 3, issue #3  – “Resurrection War: Phase III – Halfshadow”

Released March 1998

(writer) Doug Moench

(artist) Tommy Lee Edwards & Robert Campanella

(colours) Melissa Edwards

(letters) Ken Lopez

(editor) Mark Bernardo

Moon Knight is still taken aback at having faced Black Spectre and hearing Black Spectre’s words echo that of his dream. Moon Knight tries to get answers from him but is unsuccessful as the hulking Black Spectre continues to spout nonsense. Moon Knight tells him of his dream but the villain does not believe it, and slowly but surely, he gains the upper hand against the rattled Moon Knight. A blow to the back of the head; an uppercut and finally a king hit from his mace is enough to floor Moon Knight and leave him groggy. Unable to regain composure and facing the same result in his nightmare, Moon Knight is suddenly saved from the killing blow as Black Spectre reels from an arrow shot through his arm. It’s Stained Glass Scarlet and she now returns the favour in saving Moon Knight from certain death. She showers Black Spectre with arrows from her crossbow and now on the defensive, the injured villain escapes through a trapdoor in the floor and onto a speedboat below.

With Black Spectre gone, the abducted councilman saved and Knowles’ henchmen despatched, Moon Knight and Stained Glass Scarlet ponder over the forces which appear to have controlled Black Spectre. Moon Knight suspects Morpheus, but with all that has happened recently, he’s open to the theory it may be an even worse darker force at play.

Meanwhile in Cairo, we see none other than Bushman colluding with a shadowy figure. It appears some plans have been set in place for sinister means. Bushman questions the dark figure as to his motives – he knows Black Spectre has been promised New York; Bushman himself is being paid by half a dozen terrorist cells; but he’s yet to figure out how the shadowy figure benefits from their well laid plans.

The figure – who looks suspiciously like Morpheus – reproaches Bushman for thinking to bomb the UN conference building. It’s revealed that all of them appear to work for Set – the God of Death – and it is Set who will influence the UN conference delegates; it is Set who will fill them with hatred and chaos, which will result in global catastrophes.

Back at New York, Moon Knight drops by Detective Flint’s office. Probing Flint for clues as to why Black Spectre is free when he should still be serving a twenty year sentence, Flint let it be known that there are bigger problems ahead. Terrorism has turned its ugly head towards New York and the UN Conference in three weeks appears to be the target.

Moon Knight takes leave of Flint and returns to Grant Mansion where he pleads with the statue of Khonshu for answers. Moon Knight suspects the God Set, and amazingly before his eyes, the idol of Set which he holds in his hands melts away. Suddenly, he hears a voice, “It IS the dark god of chaos…and he is free”. At the very same time, in Cairo, Bushman storms the museum of antiquities and steals the unearthed statue of Set amidst explosions and a hail of bullets. In parallel, as Bushman leaves with the statue, Marc bows before his statue of Khonshu and pleads again for more answers. He’s unsure of his state of mind…is he dreaming? Or is he still dead and dreaming of his resurrection?

Out of the shadows comes Simon Darkover to Marc’s utter surprise. Darkover, who apparently died not long ago, stands before Marc and tells him of Set and his growing power. Darkover pleads to Marc to stop Set. “You mustn’t allow Set to become the Dreamer” says Darkover. With no warning, a huge, monstrous hand comes out of the darkness and claims Darkover, and with an array of gut wrenching sounds it claims him. Darkover croaks, “Set is….Death” before he disappears forever.

Marc then finds himself looking at HIMSELF in bed with Marlene, as he wakes from a nightmare. Back from the dream realm, Marc is convinced Morpheus is at play as he finds the idol of Set now back intact, much like how the statue of Khonshu previously exploded, then appeared back whole upon Marc’s resurrection. Marlene heads to Ravencroft Asylum where she requests to see Morpheus. The hapless ward points her to him, in an empty cell. He still is under Morpheus’ illusion, but not so Marlene.

With Morpheus on the loose now confirmed, Marlene and Moon Knight search for answers. Black Spectre has disappeared, and Moon Knight’s dreams have stopped. The lovers contemplate whether Morpheus is serving Set or if indeed the gods such as Set or Khonshu even exist. Perhaps they are constructs of man, and it is man who gives the gods power.

Finally, in Cairo, Bushman and Morpheus confer over their upcoming plan to attack the UN conference. Morpheus has made contact with Black Spectre and has been notified that Moon Knight is back. Bushman is confident that the three of them – Bushman, Morpheus and Black Spectre – are more than a match for the lone White Knight. Morpheus cares not of Moon Knight – he’s more invested in the ancient war between Dark and Light. Morpheus believes them all pawns to Set and Khonshu. Black Spectre’s lust for power and Bushman’s greed for money have bound their souls to Set. Similarly, Moon Knight is a pawn to the god Khonshu, and that of light and order. Morpheus truly believes they are all controlled by these higher powers, and soon all the pawns will face off in a final battle – the Ancient War –  which lies just ahead!

   Show Notes:

The Immortal Iron Fist Podcast – Sons of the Dragon Website

The Immortal Iron Fist Podcast – Facebook Page

The Immortal Iron Fist Podcast – Twitter

The Defenders Vol. 1, issue #50

Moon Knight Vol. 3, issue #3

What’s Next For Frank Castle On ‘Marvel’s The Punisher’?

Beyonder Begins Battleworld – 4 New Episodes, Marvel’s Avengers Secret Wars

YouTube Clip: Moon Knight preview on Marvel’s Avengers: Secret Wars 

Where to Hear Us!

ITunes: ITK ITunes

Overcast: ITK Overcast

SoundCloud: ITK SoundCloud

Stitcher: ITK Stitcher

Tunein: ITK Tunein

Podbean: ITK Podbean

RSS Feed: Into the Knight RSS Feed

YouTube: ITK YouTube

Drop us a line!

Follow us on –

Blog: www.intotheknightpodcast.wordpress.com

Email: moonknightpodcast@gmail.com

FB Page: Into the Knight- A Moon Knight Podcast Page

FB Group: Into the Knight- A Moon Knight Fan Base

Twitter: @ITKmoonknight

Instagram: ITK Moon Knight

Tumblr: Knight Shifts Blog

Episode 24 – Look at that…Moon Knight on a Chimera! Episode 24:   It's the first CLASSIC and MODERN run for 2018, and the High Priests are on song to review another two great issues featuring our boy in white -