#Side note ash is playing with his toy by standing on it and dragging it with his paws

[problemsynth]

Ok 3/4 things on my to do list are done... and the fourth I can't do bc I haven't gotten the eeeemail

[professorthaddeus]

Mother, Father. This will be my final letter.

You know, I used to find the two of you everywhere. I would see the love I betrayed in the faces of families who are whole. I would hear your terrified screams in laughter. I would see your bodies twisted in agony in the flickering of a campfire. I would feel your blood on my hands every time I cast a spell.

I would find you everywhere, and so I held fast to the possibility that I would bring you back.

Today, I relinquished the chance of it ever becoming a reality.

I could have gone back and saved you. It would have worked. There were puzzle pieces in that chamber that I would have clicked into place; there was magic buried in those relics that I would have unlocked and unleashed.

I would have joined the ranks of mages of myth. I could have unraveled everything.

The chamber is nothing but ashes now.

I still find the two of you everywhere. Your dreams for my potential are in the spells I learned from Essek. Your hope for the Empire is in Beauregard’s pen as she fights for our people, stroke by stroke. Your love is in the grin that Veth shines on her son when he fires a toy crossbow at the ass of a local shopkeeper.

I miss you. I love you. I am sorry.

I hope I can still make you proud.

~

Caleb closes that worn, leather-bound book for the last time. Tucks it back beneath his arm, stands, walks to the entryway of his tower. His hand shakes as he reaches for the handle.

Well, you and the Nein got me to the door. Now I have to walk through it.

He takes a deep breath, then takes his first step outside.

He arrives in Blumenthal alone, visits their graves, leaves his letters in the ground.

And he gets to work. But in this, he is not alone.

Beauregard is there, matching every armload of books he carries with two of her own. They spend their days compiling records and narratives, wielding the truth both in court and behind the scenes—children of the Empire leaving their home better than they found it for the children who will come after them, just as they always vowed.

What wasn’t planned is this: a couple times every week, Beauregard drags Caleb out of the library. They teleport to a remote cottage in a location that few are privy to, where Yasha will have started preparing the ingredients for a new recipe from Caduceus. The instructions are often passed through a jumbled chain of Jester’s messages, and there always seem to be a suspicious number of bugs included for supposedly vegetarian dishes, but they make it work all the same. On more than a few occasions, Caleb plays referee while Beauregard and Yasha spar, safe in the knowledge that their attacks are of their own free will and they will never truly harm each other again.

Jester and Fjord spend much of their time on the open sea, but Jester’s voice is never far from Caleb’s ear. She tells him of everything from her newest tattoo victim to an encounter with a dragon turtle with a grudge, from a shanty about dicks she came up with on the fly to an update on a young half-orc girl Fjord has taken under his wing. Every once in a while, Jester will demand a reunion, too. Some of them are out of necessity—such as when Uk’otoa finally comes knocking and Fjord can no longer sail the other away—but many are not. They meet in Nicodranas when the Nein Heroez docks for a pastry run, they meet in Hupperdook for a night packed with drinking contests and celebone sticks and hugs for Kiri, they meet on Rumblecusp when life becomes too much and the nine of them sorely need to fuck off to a vacation. Soon, even Darktow is open to them, once Kingsley has unseated the Plank King and lifted their ban from the island. His reign is long, and it is magnificent. Until he grows bored.

Caduceus joins them for every mandated reunion, but for the most part, he tends to his garden or explores the world on his own. But he is never out of reach, and when he does not come to the rest of them, they go to him. It is not uncommon for Caleb to arrive in the Blooming Grove to see Beauregard already meditating by the pond. Other times, Fjord will be there drinking tea with Caduceus, and the three of them will share a quiet conversation, each far more secure in their words than they’d been over fish and chips all those years ago. Often it is just Caduceus and his parents and siblings, and Caleb will be invited to a family dinner in a home that Ikithon could not burn down.

Veth remains a constant in Caleb’s life. Of course she does. Sometimes, when the two of them are teaching the neighborhood kids how to point a copper wire, or reminiscing over a glass of sherry, or simply talking while she weaves flowers into his hair on the beaches of Nicodranas, he’ll think back to his old fears of losing her to her family and laugh. After all, how could such a thing be possible when he is a part of her family himself?

There are others, too.

Countless students who pass under his tutelage and grow into young mages who know that power should be used to protect, not to manipulate. A cat—well, there are many cats, but there is one in particular that Caleb does not own, a snowy white fey cat who slinks in and out of his classroom as he pleases, whose eyes seem to flash when the Martinet arrives to have a word, who settles into place around Caleb’s shoulders with a purr when the rare nightmare returns.

An unexpected kinship with Yeza, forged at first through mutual respect and an understanding in their love for Veth, but eventually growing into a friendship in its own right. It is one that unfolds in quiet nights by stacks of books, in gleeful debates when comparing notes on magic and alchemy, in exhausted evenings watching over Luc together while Veth takes a girls’ night out to cause some chaos with Jester, Beauregard, and Yasha.

His old friends, who, try as they might, never seem able to sever the threads that have always tangled their fates together. It is Eadwulf who comes around first, with the silent offering of a bottle and a grim smile as he and Caleb crumble the bricks of Vergesson to dust. Astrid takes time. It makes sense—she has always been a fantastic dancer, and for a while, it appears they will be trapped in a precarious political tango forever, stepping around each other in their roles as the Archmage of Civil Influence and a simple teacher who may or may not be practicing treason in his classroom. But in the shadows, Astrid pulls a few strings to keep Caleb out of prison. Caleb hears a rumor and sends the might of the Cobalt Soul after a colleague who wants Astrid dead. And eventually, she begins joining him and Wulf on their evening walks through the streets of Rexxentrum. They return to the dance hall. They get lunch. They share memories, relearn each other’s old scars, and discover that solace can still be found in each other the way it was when they were children. It will always be complicated. It starts to become beautiful.

And of course, floating by Caleb’s side every step of the way is Essek, a drow who has learned to curb his ambition and care for others, who has decided to make his own amends. The former Shadowhand to the Bright Queen, who now spends his days picking up cupcakes for Jester in Uthodurn, planting seeds in the Blooming Grove. Sitting in on Caleb’s lessons with a different face each week, sketching runes into the floor of Caleb’s home amongst scattered papers and spell components, curling up on a couch beside Caleb and begrudgingly getting through Tusk Love because he promised. A traitor, a hero, a lifelong friend. A steadfast love.

So when Caleb Widogast arrives at the final page of his story, he is no longer shrouded in guilt, or grief, or regret. No, he is surrounded by the warmth of his chosen family when he takes his last breath, when time has run its course and he is finally ready to meet his parents again.

(And even before he sees their faces, he knows. He knows he made them proud.)

—————

also on ao3 | my other cr fics

[cleanlenins]

Ectober Day 6: Witching Hour

Words Spoken at the Witching Hour

Chapter 2

Jack and Maddie disproved Ouija boards in College, but why not give them another try? However, fixing their mistakes will take more than just an old board and some candles.

AO3

While her violent outburst had been cathartic, Maddie was regretting her rash decision to destroy the ancient spirit board. She sifted through the ashes, pulling larger pieces of charred wood from the pile and dumping them into the bin. Her gloves were covered in soot and charcoal, the dusty particles sliding over the rubbery texture. She grabbed the planchet, and examined it. The dark ash seemed grey next to the impossible black of the little cursor. She clenched her fist around it and started to toss it into the trash can. But hesitated.

“Mom? Oh my God, what happened here?” Maddie whipped around to see Jazz standing at the door to the kitchen. She had one hand covering her mouth as she gaped at the mess. The table, while still standing, had a huge whole burned into the center. Maddie knew that she must look a sight as well, eyes puffy and red from lack of sleep and soot stains on her cheek.

“We had a bit of an accident with our experiment last night,” Maddie said smoothly. It was what she and Jack had decided to tell the kids until they had a chance to sort through their thoughts. Before they had a chance to figure out if there was any validity to Phantom’s claim.

When Maddie had bought the spirit board, the lady had told her that spirits could not lie while communicating through the object. Maddie had never expected the blasted thing to work, so she hadn’t set up any more trustworthy methods for determining if a ghost was lying or not. An oversight on her part based on her own hubris.

“I thought you guys agreed that you would keep all of your experiments in the lab from now on?” Jazz crossed her arms.

“I’m sorry sweetie. We didn’t realize it was something that would turn...explosive. We will be sure to keep things downstairs from now on,” Maddie assured Jazz. Jazz looked skeptical, but did not press the point. Instead, she skirted around the stains on the linoleum and began to make her some breakfast. Maddie glanced at the planchet still held in her hand, and stashed it in her pocket.

Maddie removed her gloves and tossed them in the special tub she and Jack kept for their hazmat suits. She quickly washed her hands before putting on a clean pair. She rubbed her tired eyes, moving around Jazz to get to the coffee pot. How did she get through so many sleepless nights in college? She already felt dead on her feet. She must be getting old.

She reached to flick on the coffee pot, before jerking away as  the coffee pot shocked her. Not hard, nothing more than simple static electricity. But it startled her.

“Mom? Are you okay?” Jazz asked.

“Fine, Jazzy,” Maddie stared at the machine in shock and reached out to touch it again. No shock occurred. “I think I might need to change the filtrator in the coffee machine battery. It just shocked me a bit.”

“Through rubber gloves?” Jazz raised an eyebrow. Maddie’s mind buffered, looking down at her hands.

“Maybe a more serious issue,” Maddie muttered. Jazz sighed.

“And I was really looking forward to coffee,” The teen slumped, still scrambling eggs. Loud steps were coming from the stairs, and Maddie turned to see Danny walking into the kitchen.

Well, walking probably wasn’t the best word. He was slumped over, backpack hanging from one shoulder. His eyes were rimmed in red and heavy bags laid under his eyes. He slumped into a dining chair, not even commenting on the hole in the table before laying his head in his hands.

“Danny, are you okay?” Jazz asked. Mother and Daughter wore matching looks of concern. The black haired teenager mumbled something incomprehensible. Maddie hesitantly walked over, putting her hand on his shoulder.

He was freezing. Cold enough that she could feel his temperature even through the thick gloves. Maddie swallowed thickly.

“Honey, did you not sleep well?” Maddie asked. Danny sat up, blearily looking up at his Mom.

“Weird dreams,” He mumbled, blinking up at his mom. Maddie rubbed his arm

“What kind of dreams?” She pressed. Danny grunted.

“Just...bad memories. Mistakes.”

“Was it...about the CATs?” Maddie startled, Jazz was suddenly by her side putting a plate of eggs in front of Danny. He looked down at his plate, but didn’t reach for them.

“No. The other thing. The first thing,” Danny said.

“What thing are you talking about?” Maddie asked. Dany didn’t react, but Jazz looked sheepish.

“Danny has had a lot of test anxiety over the last few years. I have been helping him work through it,” Jazz said quickly. She avoided Maddie’s eye and turned on heel to go back and grab another plate. “You don’t need to worry, Mom.”

Maddie looked at Danny, who was pushing his food around on his plate and slumping closer and closer to the table. And knew she was very worried.

~~~

Once the kids had left for school, Maddie unplugged the coffee maker and carried it down into the lab. Jazz had to nearly drag Danny out of his chair, her brother stumbling into her before catching his balance. Jazz had continuously uttered assurances that Danny was fine and did not need to go to the doctor. Jazz had chattered continuously, Maddie unable to get a word in as they slammed the front door behind her.

With a sigh, she set the coffee pot on the table. Jack was already in the lab, looking just as ragged as she. He was pouring over security footage from the lab, trying to find any evidence of Danny being Phantom.

“How’s it going?” Maddie asked. She massaged her hand.

“We really should have labelled these tapes,” Jack frowned. “We didn’t even order them. I keep switching between tapes from the last few months, to one before Danny was even born. This could take days. Weeks, even.”

Maddie nodded. She had been afraid of something like that. Instead of joining her husband by the small tv, she walked over to where she had kept the notes on the spirit board. She rubbed her hands together, before reaching to pick up the top page.

And dropped it immediately. Her hand trembled. Part of her didn’t want to know the truth. Because if all of this was true. If she and Jack had-

“Mads, come look,” Jack said, more chipper than before. Maddie turned away from the papers, holding her hand close to her chest. Jack had a video paused on the screen. He let it play.

It was Danny, when he was five or six. Jack and Maddie were working on a project in the corner, while Danny was running around. He had a toy rocket in hand, making zooming noises as he sent the little astronauts on a space exploration. He prattled on, making up ridiculous plots where aliens attacked, where wormholes opened to other galaxies, where he had to be a superhero to save the earth from a meteor. Maddie smiled at the memory. Until she watched Danny trip over a spare bit of wire and faceplant into the floor. He started wailing, past Maddie and Jack whirling around and scooping him into a big hug. Maddie felt tears in her eyes. She removed one of her gloves to wipe them away.

“What if we failed him, Jack?” Maddie’s voice trembled. Jack turned a baleful look up at his wife before stopping. An expression of shock on his face.

“Maddie. Your hand,” He jumped out of his seat to get closer. Maddie looked down at her hand.

A circular burn sat in the middle of her palm. Small Lichtenberg figures scattered from the center. But the most striking thing was that the figures were pulsing a bright green. Maddie stared at the mark in horror. Once more she felt a jolt in her hands, her fingers twitching, and the mark grew.

“Jack,” Maddie whispered in fright. Jack took her hand in his, examining it closely. “What is it?”

Jack let go of Maddie’s hand, before running over to the notes himself. He rummaged through them quickly. Maddie felt herself shaking, looking down at the unnatural mark on her hand. Jack let out a noise of triumph as he held up a piece of paper.

“Make sure to end your contact with the spirit when you are finished conversing. If not, you may attach the spirit to yourself. This can have many consequences, depending on the power of the spirit. It can result in something as mundane as constant bad luck or-” Jack faltered, gaping at the page.

“What? What is it Jack?”

“-or as severe as dying the same death,” Jack gulped. “Maddie. Maddie we didn’t do any of the things to close the ritual. You’re still connected.”

I just wanted to look inside. I tripped over a wire. I hit the button on the inside. The portal turned on. And I died.

“ He was electrocuted,” Maddie sobbed, hand spasming. “It’s true, isn’t it? We killed our baby?”

Jack had tears streaming down his face as he rushed forward and crushed Maddie into a hug. She sobbed into his chest. In grief. In guilt. In exhaustion. In fear. Her whole body shook with the force of her tears. Had Jack not been holding her, she would have collapsed onto the ground in a puddle of tears.

“We have to find a way to stop this. To stop the connection,” Jack said. He rushed over to the papers, fanning them out so he could see more than one of them at a time. Maddie joined him, her hand occasionally spasming.

The two of them poured over the notes, double checking them with the Nightingale notebook to see if they could find any correlation to the spirit board. But the notebook only condemned the use of such objects, and did nothing at all to say how to counter their effects. Burning it was briefly mentioned on an online source, but considering it was already a pile of ash that seemed unlikely. Maddie and Jack started to comb through more and more sources, each less reputable than the last. As time crept on, the spasms became more painful. The lighting marks spread up her forearm, up her shoulder, nearly touching her neck. Tears were constantly pouring from her eyes as she barely contained herself from screaming in agony.

The two started when they heard the door upstairs slam. Maddie looked up, sweat pouring down her face. Jack slapped his forehead.

“Of course. We should ask Danny. Maybe he knows something,” The man said, sprinting up the stairs. Maddie hobbled after him, leaning heavily into the wall as she made her way up the stairs. She slowly made her ascent, and opened the lab door.

Jazz was talking to Jack, but she was not alone. Sam and Tucker were standing in the kitchen, Danny’s unconscious body held between them. Maddie gasped at the sight.

“So he is like this because you and Mom did some hairbrained ritual that literally blew up in your faces?” Jazz was angry. Her face was nearly the color of her hair, red with the force of her rage.

“Jazz, we didn’t know,” Maddie whispered. Jazz finally noticed her mom entering the room and gasped in horror. Both Tucker and Sam wore similar expressions.

“Mom, what’s wrong?” Jazz rushed over to Maddie, offering her shoulder. Jack filled the teens in on what they had discovered, how Danny was now attached to Maddie, and how it was slowly killing her.

“Please, if you know any way to undo this,” Jack pleaded. This was their last chance.

“I do,” Sam said. Jack beamed, eyes brightened with hope. “But we will have to work fast. Things like this have a time limit.”

“How long?”

“We have to separate them before the Witching Hour of the next day, or else there is nothing that we can do,” Sam said confidently. Jack glanced at the clock. It was already six pm.

“That gives us nine hours, right? We should be able to do that,” Jazz said. But Sam frowned.

“I have to go to my house and get a lot of supplies, and it will take time to set it all up. And I can’t guarantee it will work. It’s not like I have ever actually had to do this,” Sam said.

“Please,” Maddie begged, as she looked at Danny’s slumped body. “Try.”

~~~

The setup had taken them the better part of six hours. Every ingredient had to be burned for a specific amount of time. Every line painted on the floor had to be at the perfect angle. The candles could only burn for so long, with certain herbs mixed in. The remains of the spirit board had to be collected into one space. It was time consuming. It was tedious. And there was no guarantee it would work.

Maddie and Danny were not able to help with the preparations. Danny because he had not woken up since Sam and Tucker had brought him home. He was resting on the couch, completely out of touch with the world. Maddie, however, was not in such a peaceful state.

It was taking all of her effort not to simply curl up and scream. It felt like both fire and ice had poured into her veins, both trying to kill her from the heat and the cold. Her skin looked ashen and pale, sweat and tears constantly pouring down her face. She shook and seized from the volts of electricity that started at her hand and burst through her whole body. She couldn’t stop the whimpers that escaped, causing the others in the room to look over at her with concern.

When the preparations were complete, Jack helped Maddie into the middle of the setup. The electric lights in the room were turned off, with only the candles glow illuminating the room. Maddie nearly crawled to the spot she was supposed to be. She pulled out the little planchet and placed it within arms reach.

Sam had done everything she could, but Maddie had made the connection. Maddie had to sever it.

Maddie took the sterile knife and cut the inside of her arm. She let the blood pour into a basin that held the remains of the spirit bored. Her quivering hands spilled some blood onto the floor and not just in the bowl. But not enough to ruin the painted words. Maddie used her fingers to mix the blood with the ash, creating a paint. With trembling hands, she reached one finger onto the floor and began to draw the Ogham script she remembered from the spirit board. Slowly, as she could afford no mistakes, she drew a new board on the floor. Each one had to be in the exact order as the board had been and she had never been so grateful to Jack for taking a picture of the thing before they used it. Inch by inch, she recreated the board on her kitchen floor.

Now, she had to wait. Wait until the blood had dried enough that she could roll the planchet across the words without smudging. Every second was an eternity of pain, every moment a new level of agony even higher than the last. It might have been five minutes. It might have been an hour. But eventually, she could tell that the bright red of her blood had faded to a sickly brown. She risked touching it, and found it completely dry. She grabbed the planchet, and place a single bloody finger on it.

“Phantom, I would like to speak to you today. Please, I beg you, talk to me,” Maddie’s voice cracked. She waited a breathless moment, before the cursor began to move.

Mom?

“Yes, it’s me,” Maddie bit her lip hard as her body was wracked with pain.

You’re hurt

“ I’m fine sweetie,” Maddie lied. She had to finish this. She didn’t know how much time she had. “Phantom, I have said all that I have to say. My questions are complete. I close this doorway. I close this connection. Your spirit is not bound here.”

Maddie thought she heard a gasp, but she didn’t know where. Suddenly, all the candles turned once more into the strange corona glow. The planchet moved once more.

Goodbye

Maddie watched in fascination as the planchet dissolved into dust. The candles snuffed themselves out and the room was filled with darkness. Maddie slumped in relief as the pain seemed to melt away.

“Mom?” Danny groaned, the light flickering on. Danny stood by the switch, rubbing his eyes as he took in the state of the kitchen.

Jack and Maddie rushed him, crushing him in a hug they hoped expressed everything they couldn’t bring themselves to say.

[bigpandahero]

The legacy of appetence（the translation of 欲望遗产 from Lofter written by 此人已死）

Original link：https://ryuusuke.lofter.com/post/1cc28a98_1cb209a44

Original author：此人已死（from lofter）

Home link：https://ryuusuke.lofter.com/

Authorized reprint translation.

thank to @ask-ivanbraginsky for your help!

chapter1:

July 20, 2017

The culprit

 July 20, 2017

 Potato .beef. onion.

 Every time he took something off the shelf, Wang Yao would cross out a word on the list. He looked for discounted goods in various barcodes, a pen and paper in hand. He pushed his shopping cart as he walked around the supermarket. Until seeing the last thing on the list, wine.

 Wang Yao went out to a supermarket very rarely.This time he went out because the refrigerator was empty, like his brain. He entered, throwing a coin and heard a Do re mi.

 He walked to the shelf picking out a 700ml bottle of vodka and checked the price, cautious as a housewife, he finally chose the 50ml "baby bottle" next to him. 

The checkout cashier was chewing bubble gum. They looked at him with disdain, a look that Wang YAO was accustomed to. This kind of look had been haunting him since he became an adult. 

He looked down at the gray tracksuit he was wearing, and his plush slippers of the Sesame Street cartoon character. He looked like a hapless boy with a drunkard father. 

He swept the colorful over-packaged goods into a sturdy plastic shopping bag—a blue squirrel logo was printed on it, its face squeezed out of shape by a box of cereal.

 What kind of perversion will paint the squirrel blue.

 Wang Yao heard the cashier from behind turn his head and whisper something to his colleague. He carried the plastic bag and walked out of the automatic door blankly. The toy monkeys on both sides shouted "Welcome".

 He walked home, passing by an open park. There were a few young people playing baseball on the lawn. He sat on the promenade smoking a cigarette and unscrewed a bottle of ice sprite. He drank down half the bottle in one breath, then allowed the carbon dioxide to tumble in his stomach for a while. 

He took out the wine bottle that he struggled to find from the plastic bag, imagined that the small metal bottle cap was the heavenly spirit cap of some heinous person, opened it with his teeth in a crisp "bom" and poured it in happily. His body began to get hot, sweating from his back in the 28-degree weather. The polyester cloth stuck to the skin, uncomfortably. He threw his leg anxiously-in the season when others were wearing short-sleeved T-shirts, he was still wearing long-sleeved trousers. In times like this he thought of the Russian, and began to scold him furiously in his mind. He silently cursed, mouthing the words that went along with his thoughts. He was suddenly interrupted, he snapping back to reality. "Hey! Damn gay! Help us pick up the ball!”

everal young people gathered together maliciously and whispered. They made nasty gestures and sneered unscrupulously in Wang Yao's direction. 

Fuck.

 He pressed the cigarette butt on the bench, swept away the soot from his thigh and raised his butt, bending over to pick up the baseball on the grass. He threw it at the crowd fiercely, then made a more wretched gesture. 

My paramour could screw all your fucking “balls” off.

 Wang Yao shook the plastic bottle in his hand and heard the remaining liquid hit the wall of the bottle with a hollow echo.

 He finally took the plastic bag and went on his way, stopping to place the wine bottle down by a homeless man who laid lifeless on the side of the road against the wall.

 He returned to the white-roofed house and passed by the neighbor's beautiful fence with a few swaggering violets planted in it. He inadvertently looked inside, and happened to meet the eyes of the Labrador. Even though he had moved in a month ago and had returned his flying disk a dozen times, the dog still didn't recognize him, damn it. 

While the dog annoyingly barked, he glanced at the empty mailbox, then, as timid as a thief, he unscrew the door handle of his home. 

The person inside the door was standing by the shoe cabinet. They smiled, watching him with a pair of indifferent purple eyes exposed under ash-gold hair.

"You came back early." Wang Yao greeted dryly. "There is nothing I need to do today.  You didn't tell me you would go out—you went out again in slippers?" Wang Yao threw the key under the nose of the man who was nagging like a woman, and sat on the steps to change shoes .

the key has a key chain of panda holding a bamboo hanging on . It hurt the man's face. Wang Yao was very gloating, even though this man named Ivan Braginsky was his lover.

The keychain was the first and last time they went to the amusement park together and won with a gun. To be precise, Wang Yao won with a gun himself.

Because Ivan doesn’t have a good temper to wait for him, but Wang Yao is as stubborn as a cow.He seems to be possessed by a demon and must win the key chain.

In the end, he took the key chain from the boss who were smile flatteringly for $25 in front of the game booth which  you would cost 2.50 dollars each time on shooting. Wang Yao believes that the main reason for the inaccuracy of shooting was the sexual harassment of him by Ivan during this period. Ivan—Standing upright and stomping his feet impatiently, like a dishonest vibrator, he patted Wang Yao's ass and yelled in his ear: "You fucking under the noses of these men pouched and played with a toy gun for more than half an hour, just for a piece of junk plastic!"

Of course, no one was able to help Wang Yao in the end. He was thrown into the toilet cubicle by the Russian man by the collar. It is estimated that all the men who went to the amusement park to go to the toilet that day could hear him being fucked. Now he still could memorize the smell of air freshener choking in his throat as long as he saw the panda.

Ivan turned a blind eye to Wang Yao's innocuous violence. He always indulges him in all the trivial things, and people who are not familiar with him would think that he is a good gentleman.

Ivan is being troubled by something more important-a headache gnaws at his brain like a devil, and his alcohol addiction has blurred his consciousness. He lifted the plastic bag on the ground and pressed it against the wall to hold himself who was about to fall. It took a while, and then he stood up straight again. At first, his steps were still a little staggering, but soon, he began a brisk pace, walked to the refrigerator, hummed a few unexplained Russian, twisted the refrigerator in the shape of the Eiffel Tower before opening the refrigerator door. He snorted impatiently, and tossed the food into the cold storage as before.

"You forgot to throw away the paper notes."

Wang Yao followed him to the living room, listening to unfamiliar Russian in his ears, slowly translating it into English in his head, and lightly taking a glass of tap water for himself.

"So, where's the wine?"

Wang Yao put down the glass, and the bottom of the glass touched the marble table ,letting out a crisp sigh. He stared at the swirling vortex in the cup, cold sweat was oozing clearly on his forehead, but his bones creaked in excitement. Before exhaling a breath in his chest, he answered the question from the person behind him in Russian: "I have drunk it all”.

All the words he didn't have time to say were stuffed back into his throat by the strong, opaque plastic bag with the blue squirrel on it. Ivan's forearm muscles bulged, like the thighs of a carnivore running. He tightened the mouth of the plastic bag, twisted the other's fragile neck, and dragged Wang Yao's struggling body up the stairs.

The process was extremely unsatisfactory and annoying, and the alcohol addiction made him more irritable, so he pressed Wang Yao's head and slammed twice on the newly laid pine-green wallpaper. The plastic stopped the splashing blood and the blood turned into a dark shadow on the back of the blue squirrel. Wang Yao who was rebelling was like a kitten in a bag, weak and vulnerable.

Wang Yao was thrown on the soft bed. A thick tape was wrapped around his mouth with a plastic bag to seal the last oxygen. He tried to break it with his fingers, but it was useless.

His hands were grabbed by Ivan, and he couldn't see anything. He just guessed from this strength that Ivan’s knees were pressing on his arms. It was very painful and heavy, and even the thought of resisting was blocked. Pressed under the body. Wang Yao gradually calmed down and even breathed regularly. The sound around him fluctuated in the dark with his breathing. The sound of fine plastic fragments no longer pierced the ears, but turned into a regular pulse. His head was soaked in carbon dioxide, warm and damp, squeezed in a narrow film, he looked at the only light circle in the dimness-the hands tore the uterus, holding the weak head, playing with the balance of life and death.

He finished his dying ejaculation at the end of suffocation.

Ivan helped Wang Yao get rid of the tape that bound him on his head. The tape tore off a few long black hairs, connecting to the coagulated blood entangled in the hair. He took off Wang Yao's clothes, revealing his familiar and obsessed body.

The setting sun flicked through Wang Yao's eyes, reflecting the golden light of bronze.The black hair scattered beside the beautiful face, constituting the most mysterious color in the oil painting, blurring the limitation of gender. The naked body was covered with old scars and fresh bruises, wounds which were cracking and the redness that was swollen. The body was still beautiful, graceful and weak.The bloody scars made him show the power of life, making him no longer a flawless corpse.

Those scars were incomplete by Ivan, but he still deserved to be the culprit, although most of the time Wang Yao had to take the responsibility. Yao liked enraged him, teasing him, and sometimes even gave that handsome face to two resounding slap. Even if he knew that Ivan was insane, he would still deliberately drink up the wine at home, hiding it, observing the person in front of him turn into another devil who would chase his butt to strangle him.After waking up, decorate all with a terrible sex until dawn.

“Stepan? "

"Damn it, don't call his name in front of me."

"It hurts a bit.”

Wang Yao stretched out his thin arms to block his lover's head, kissing his soft and warm lips, counting the fluffy golden eyelashes, and exhaled a few silly love words in his blended breath.

He took the initiative to open his legs to cater to the opponent's hot desire, the erect penis had already oozes transparent liquid, squeezing into his soft and moist flesh cavity.

Wang Yao cocked his hips, his legs were like two gluttonous pythons, tied tightly to Ivan's waist. His body shook with the opponent's movements, his nails sinking into the tight muscles, and he scratched red marks on the wide back.

 He uttered a few high-pitched obscene words under the man, and was sobbed by the top of his penis, then he could no longer speak a complete word.

 Ivan's hand passed through Wang Yao's hair and kissed his favorite eyebrows and narrow neck. His five fingers hooked the other's lovely fingers, palms pressing against each other, and the vent of lust was more delicate than the girl's mind.

Car lights flashed outside the window, and a few beams of moonlight leaked in. The silver rings on the two ring fingers complemented each other in the dimly lit room, calling for each other.

 After exhausting sex, they slept with each other like two sleepy beasts.

 It was early the next morning when Wang Yao opened his eyes again, and the alarm clock on the bedside stopped at number five. The people around him slept quietly in the dark, their sturdy bodies undulating with their breathing. Even in his sleep, this person's body was shrouded in a heavy sense of oppression, like a huge animal.

“I want to change the bed. "

 Wang Yao stared at the mosquitoes on the ceiling intently. "This bed is yelling like a dead pig."

 After waiting for a long time, no one responded to him, and he felt a little bad. Although he had predicted the result, he still had illusions and was rather self-deceiving and tragic.

 He ignored the pain everywhere in his body, got up abruptly, grabbed the gray-golden hair.He picked up the heavy head from the soft pillow, and forced the purple eyes to look at him.

Then he heard a clear bark rolling out of the man's throat.

 Fuck.

Discloseable information:Both Wang Yao and Ivan are American citizens.

Yao has a bad temper, so Ivan can bear it if he can bear it.

Ivan is a patient with multiple personality disorders.

The first personality is Stepan, who usually only appears after being addicted to alcohol and drunk, so it appears for a short time. It is a personality with no emotions and absolute violence. He does not love Wang Yao, and he does not love anyone. He only speaks Russian, will conceal his spasms with his fists, and has a very serious obsessive-compulsive disorder.

The second personality is a dog. His name is "Los", which means "frogfish" in Russian. Only appears out of guilty after Stepan caused irreparable pain to the loved one , so the frequency of appearance is extremely low. It means that Ivan has few guilty, because the master character is not a good guy either.Ivan and Stepan hate each other, so they don't communicate with each other, and they don't share memories.

------------------------tbc.-----------------

[writing-the-end]

LoL Chapter 53- Rescue

Masterpost

A Wizard Hermits tale (AU, designs, ideas belongs to @theguardiansofredland)

Grian is at the mercy of Dolios and his dark magic, but are the hermits there to save him in time? Or has the end come for the healing mage?

[Note: Hey everyone, I’m sorry for the time that was between chapters. A lot of really emotional and personal things happened over the past few months, and it just really pushed me off balance. But I really cant thank Red enough for being at my side the whole time- he’s the real hero in all of this. 

Happy Season 8!]

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To be back in the dark, cold bowels of the dungeons, willingly returning to the chamber that Dolios forced them to play his game in, left every hermit with a strange mix of dread and remorse. Almost every hermit, except for the few that weren’t around during the championship, can remember waking up in cells, being dragged from the hard stone floor at knifepoint, and turned into pawns for Dolios to control. Promising he will kill every last one in his game, and making TFC play along. 

But they hardly linger in the very chamber where their guildmaster outwitted the Magistrate of Lairyon, rather continuing on their search for a passage to the subchamber. Scar can feel the cavity in the stone beneath their feet, but no staircase seems to lead them down. It wasn’t until Cleo summoned the ghosts of those who died here, their souls lingering, that they are pointed in the right direction. So many souls, having seen so much suffering, not just from Dolios within these walls, though many are from his doing. 

A ghost guides the hermits to a circular room, and though their voice has long faded with time, their misty hands point to the center of the room. Mumbo kneels down. “There’s machinery here. If I just…” He places his hands against the smooth stone, and without even having to think, his magic appears. Redstone seeping through the seams of the rock, reconfiguring the mechanics and forcing the spiral staircase to descend. 

Everyone, including Mumbo, is surprised by his power. He’s never had such control before in his life. But they don’t linger on this new development. Not when time is running shorter and shorter for Grian. They cause a jam in the thin staircase, twenty something hermits rushing to the subchamber. Unlike the rooms above them, the stone is rough cut, no bricks or stenciling. It looks more like a cave blown open than a carved dungeon. 

A heavy weight wraps in on the hermits. They know they’re close as the pressure increases on their bodies. They follow the struggle to breathe, the feeling of carrying stones on their back. They’ve come to know the signs of a dark crystal well- and it leads them right to not one, but three towers of corrupted gems. 

They’re massive, protruding from the ground at an angle, black spikes erupting from the earth. The air is heavy with mist, swirling in tendrils, like the very tentacles of Eurynomos, way back in the forest. The mist grasps the open air, siphoning the very life from the stone and oxygen and taking it for itself. Every so often, a pulse of darkness bursts from the corrupted crystals, with such force it causes the entire cavern to shudder, and blows back the hermits’ hair and clothes. They all duck with each explosion, but one person remains standing, reveling in the energy that's breaking free from the crystals. 

Dolios’s fingers toy with the mist, grasping the air and feeling the power. With each eruption, the black seal between him and the central crystal glows. For a second, the hermits swear they can see the mist at his back look almost...feather-like. 

“Oh my gods… Grian.” Stress’s voice is so small, so quiet, the other hermits almost don’t hear it. But their captured friend’s name on anyone’s lips is enough to catch their attention. 

He’s grey, so monochrome that it was almost impossible to pick him out among the black crystals, the grey mist, and the dark magic. Limp body and hands, eyes open but unseeing, Grian is chained to the central crystal. Once blond hair, now an ashen grey, curls and crests over Grian’s face, his chin dropped to his chest. The hermits don’t breathe until they see him do so, but it’s a horribly shallow breath. Another wave of energy rolls through the crystals, and Grian’s body loses more of its color. More of it’s life. At this point, he hardly even reacts to the tearing of his lifeforce, his magic, from his body. Fingers twitch, but even those are beginning to turn flaky, fading away into oblivion. The tips of his once blue cape become little more than mist. Even the energy, the powers of the very atoms are being torn apart. Grian was very near death- or a fate worse. 

All for Dolios, and his insatiable need for power. The low thunder of every wave is broken by Dolios’s voice. He flexes his hands, laughing to himself. “Of all the angels I’ve stolen magic from before, it has never been this strong. Even Celia had nothing against you. I feel like I could blow all of Milliara apart with a windstorm this instant! Don’t worry, little bird, your magic is in good hands.” 

Iskall and Mumbo both scuffle to their feet, surging forward. Mumbo faster than Iskall. Too fast for TFC to grab him before he’s over the boulder they hid behind. And too fast to stop even his own magic from summoning. But it wasn’t the out of control magic that the hermits have seen before. Like destroying the crystal shard on Eremita, or in the depths of the Hangman’s Playground. 

No, even though lightning filled Mumbo’s vision, and magic surged through his veins like energy through a redstone circuit, he had every wit and thought about him. For the first time, he had true, full control. Every iota of power was at his command, like a dragon spreading it’s wings for it’s first flight across the sky. 

With a flippant wave of his hand, the twin satellite crystals shatter, red bolts of lightning creasing through the darkness-bound lattice. The air is filled with glittering crystals, mist freed from the quartz and purging it of the darkness. Mumbo turns his power, his attention towards the crystal that Grian’s chained to, and presses his fingers together to destroy the last crystal. 

He’s blown off his feet, a burst of wind from nowhere sending him skidding across the floor. When Mumbo gathers his wits and looks up, finally seeing Dolios through his anger, the magistrates is wild with manic delight. “Oh, now that’s real magic. I think this little bird’s powers might become my new favorite.” The other hermits dare to step out, walking through the shattered, transparent remains of the crystals. Dolios is the only color before them, his plush robes and rich colors standing out against the swirling magic. “Ah, the whole parade is here. Come to watch your friend die? Or will you all be joining him as well?” 

Dolios turns, resting his gaze on Grian. The hermits watch in horror as their healer looks as if he’s about to blow away in the wind. Like dust in the shape of a human. His eyes are empty, no glimmer of life left. They realize they may be too late. 

But that doesn’t stop them from getting their revenge. Mumbo remains focused on the crystal his friend is trapped against, but a sharp shard of gemstone goes flying through the air, cracking Dolios upside the head. Blood pours from the wound, matting the curly brown hair that crowns Dolios. He turns, anger mixing with the mania into a dangerous concoction. But his fury doesn’t get to live long, not when Scar drives a wedge of rock into Dolios’s jaw. This time it’s the magistrate that goes skidding across the rough hewn floor. In his attempt to stand up, Dolios becomes ensnared in just about every medium of magic the hermits can offer. Vines tie him down, radioactive spikes pin his clothes and hair to the floor, a ring of hellfire erupting from the depths of the earth. 

Mumbo, however, remains focused on his best friend before him. Summoning all his magic, every ounce of effort he’s ever put forth, he sends a bolt of lightning directly to the core of the crystal that is draining Grian. The lightning strikes true, hardly even raising a hair on what remains of the sky angel, but obliterating the crystal he hangs from. From the inside out, the darkness is banished by red light, like the sun rising red on a bright, beautiful daybreak. Blinding everyone within the cave- except Mumbo. He’s not lost in the light, the power, the magic. He’s a part of it all. 

The crystal shatters, and Grian falls. Crumpled to the ground, he looks to be little more than a pile of ash and rags among the sparkling crystal shards. Like the moon adrift in the sea of stars. 

When the hermits blink away their momentary blindness, they find Mumbo is already at his friend’s side. With a few teary blinks, the last of the lightning fizzles away, and Mumbo’s voice cracks like the very gems he destroyed. “G-Grian? Grian, wake up.” 

But Grian doesn’t move. Mumbo reaches out, grabbing the angel and pulling him to the safety of the hermits. Holding him close as the others surround. Ren reaches out, placing a hand on Grian’s shoulder. He retreats immediately, when Grian’s shoulder seems to fade from existence, flaking to ash and falling apart under Ren’s pressure. “Is he….” 

No one dares speak the word. Joe scribbles down a healing poem, but the magic does nothing. Grian doesn’t breathe, his eyes don’t blink. They just stare, empty, at the cavern roof above. And he continues to fade, all color lost, becoming nothing more than dust. 

“No, nononononono.” Mumbo’s words stumble and jumble together, and he shakes and jolts Grian as if trying to rise him from a dream. “Grian, don’t leave us! We need you!” 

Still nothing. 

Mumbo’s shoulders slump. A weight heavier than any dark crystal hangs over the hermits as Grian’s limp form lays in Mumbo’s arms before them. Tears threaten to spill from Mumbo’s eyes. Grian was his first real friend, the one who saved him all those years ago. And he couldn’t return the favor now. It was Grian that offered him kindness, offered him friendship. Grian who gave Mumbo a true family, a real home, who trained with him even when all seemed hopeless, and drank with him when nights were bright. It was because of Grian that Mumbo has a father in TFC, friends all around him. And now? 

Now his best friend was dead in his arms. Fading from existence, his magic and life stolen by a monster in magistrate’s clothes. Mumbo tips his head, breath stuttering as tears fall freely. Like a stream after a storm, rivers of salt water across his cheeks, cresting his jaw and running across the valley of his throat. Some droplets are caught in his mustache, others stain the collar of his outfit. All the hermits openly cry, even Doc. Memories flood alongside the tears, bowed heads over their fallen comrade as Mumbo holds his fallen friend tight.

One tear falls straight down, landing with a wet plop on Grian’s eyelid. Water, the lifeblood of Lairyon, slowly drips into Grian’s own vacant eyes. And from the ashen grey, empty gaze, a single vein of blue appears within his iris. 

Like a river, the blue flows freely, spilling across Giran’s sky blue eyes. Filling the empty grey valley with fresh blue water. And from the blue, like the sun reflecting off the see, a glimmer appears. 

Iskall noticed the color returning first. The pink of Grian’s face, sunlight colored hair beginning to renourish with color. Bringing Grian slowly back from death’s doorstep. He slaps Mumbo on the shoulder, his own breath gasping. Words struggling to break free from the nuclear wizard’s mouth, rather just random noises escaping his lips. 

It’s enough to get Mumbo’s attention, as well as every other hermit. Through teary eyes, they see the color spread. The red of Grian’s robes, the blue of his cape. The translucent, flaking form becomes solid and tangible again. 

And then Grian breathes. So shallow and soft, it’s almost impossible to see. But to the hermits, it might as well be an earth breaking tremble. Eyes blink, and parted lips move. A whisper of a voice breaks free from death’s grip. “Mumbo? Iskall? Guys?”

Grian can’t sing, but the words from him might as well be a chorus of angels. He was alive. Whether it was pure luck, the gift of life that water carries, or simply the friendship the hermits hold, something brought Grian back from the brink. 

Only one thing can break the joy. And that one thing has to open his mouth. From across the room, Dolios writhes in his bonds, snering. “Oh that’s just touching, isn’t it? If I can’t have it all, then I might as well kill every last one of you.” 

Doc realizes what’s happening first, but Dolios is just out of reach. A bout of strength that can only be attributed to previously stolen magic, Dolios tears apart the vines and breaks apart the crossed spears of iskallium. He stands, brushing off leaves and radioactive dust from his robes and tugging on his ponytail. When he opens his eyes, a crooked, crazed grin creases the leader’s normally charismatic face. “Do you really think such weak power can hold me down?” 

Wels reacts just in time to shield the hermits from the arc of magic that aimed for the group. Dolios doesn’t let up on his barrage, and the magical barrier begins to crack and contort against the dark energy. No hermit can step out from behind the shield without risking certain death. 

A wild, cackling laughter echoes off the cavern. “What will you roaches do without your precious angel now? Who will save you now?”

Wels’s barrier breaks. And Dolios attacks.

[keelywolfe]

FIC: A Lonely Impulse of Despair (standalone)

Summary:  They knew about the anomaly and the resets, but forewarned is not always forearmed.

Notes:  I got this idea into my head that what-if all the skeletons knew at least something about the anomaly and the resets and this is where it went. Read the tags!

Tags: Spicyhoney, References to Undertale Genocide Route, Dark, Angst, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Rough Sex, Lemony

Read it on AO3

or

Read it here!

~~*~~

Snowdin always lived in darkness, broken only by the lighted lamps along the streets, powered by the core. There was no sun underground, no illusion of dawn and dusk. It was morning simply because the clocks stated it to be so, and that morning, Edge left his home to walk down the empty streets to the shops at the far end of town.

The other houses in town stood vacant. There was an occasional window lit, flickering light casting shadows out onto the snowdrifts, but their former inhabitants were gone.

There was no sign of any violence in those homes. None of those windows were broken, the doors undamaged. He’d gone into one where the door was standing open and found dishes in the sink, a pie sitting on the back of the counter for an upcoming dessert. Half-folded laundry sat in a basket, books and toys strewn about as if they were only waiting for their owners to return.

Edge touched nothing, only left and closed the door carefully behind him.

On this morning, snow was falling in a silent flurry. The flakes were piling up on streets that were no longer cleared daily by the Bun family. It was barely a hinderance. His boots cut easily through the loose drifts as he walked, alone, down to the other side of town.

There were children here once. Not so carefree as the ones he’d seen in the other Universes but even here on clear days they played in the snow until their parents called them back inside as the more dangerous night hours came.

A ridiculous notion. The illusion of safety during the day hours was just that, an illusion. There was no difference in the Underground and every minute of any day could bring treacherous events.

From a distance, Edge could see the lights were still on in the store. He’d left them on the day before when he’d come this same way. The store was the closest building to the edge of town that led into the woods surrounding it. If anyone were still out there, those lights could guide them into Snowdin.

The bell over the door rang as Edge pushed it open, a cheery warning to no one at all. The shop was as empty as the homes. The shelves had never been fully stocked at any time in Edge’s memory and the meagre offerings lining them were thinner than ever. There were no more fresh baked goods and only a handful of dried food remained. Most of the commodities left were canned, their lids coated with a thin layer of dust.

(dust, so much dust, how could it be)

Half of the remaining stock would have fit in Edge’s knapsack. It would make more sense to take all the food there and bring it home with him. Spare him the walk out in the open, keep him with necessary provisions for a time. Sensible.

Edge only took enough for the day and carefully noted what remained so he would know if anyone else came scavenging. Monster food would not rot or spoil, but eventually, he was going to run out of rations.

He gathered up the day’s supplies into his knapsack and went back outside into the swirling snow. He didn’t follow his half-buried tracks back home, instead going around the outskirts of town along the perimeter. None of his traps were disturbed, there was no indication that anyone had traveled this way. Just as it had been yesterday and the day before and the day before that. No signs, no people, no other Monsters.

There was nothing in the woods but hungry shadows that beckoned and cajoled for him to join them. Come to us, they said, there is nothing left for you in that town but emptiness and death. Come with us into the swirling snow and listen to secrets that only the mountain knows.

Edge ignored their call. He stopped at the borders of Waterfall where the snow began to melt into sludge and turned back, heading into town along the main road. He was nearly home when he caught sight of something that stopped him in his tracks. A figure in a familiar orange hoodie was sitting on his front porch steps, casually disregarding of the signs to ‘keep out’ and ‘beware’ that were strung on the barbed wire fence around it. There was a lit cigarette in his hand and Edge watched him lift it to his mouth and take a long drag, the exhaled smoke lost in the falling snow.

He hitched his knapsack higher on his shoulder and resumed his stride. Stretch didn’t look at him as he approached. “hey.”

Edge said nothing.

“you’re still here,” Stretch said. He tapped ash from his cigarette, exposing burning red at the tip. “thought maybe you’d’ve headed into new home.” He tipped his head back and looked up at what was not sky, but the high ceiling of a cave deep beneath the mountain that was both their prison and their home. “might be other refugees there keeping ahead of—” He hesitated, then added in a voice like hollow ice, “the anomaly.”

The anomaly, yes. The Human child whose soul offered no salvation, only death and dust.

A child, that was what Edge saw in that one brief instant when he came upon them on the road leading into Snowdin. An innocent child, and in his shock, he didn’t consider how they’d gotten past the Dogs or the traps. He didn’t notice the dust coating their clothes, didn’t even notice the knife in their hand. All he saw was the striped shirt, the round, cherubic face and in that instant, he was so taken aback that he paused. That moment of hesitation was all it took.

If Edge saw them again, he wouldn’t hesitate to strike them down, Edge told himself. He would cut that angelic head from their striped shoulders with a single cutting blow and leave them dead where they stood, even knowing he would never get the answer to his one question.

Why didn’t you kill me?

He told himself that was what he would do the next time and knew it wasn’t true.

It never was.

Stretch finished his cigarette and flicked the butt into the snow. “doesn’t help much to know this,” Stretch sighed, “but what the hell. you’re gonna forget this all. one morning you’ll wake up and it’ll be an all-new day. you’ll forget everything, the kid, the pain.” His grimace twisted into a crooked smile. “you’ll even forget me, for a little while. silver linings, am i right?”

“Why are you here?” How many days had it been since he’d last spoken? Edge wasn’t certain, but to his hearing, his voice was harsh with disuse, painfully hoarse.

Stretch rolled his shoulders in an approximation of a hug. “checking in. no one’s heard from this ‘verse in a couple weeks. wasn’t too hard to figure out what was going down.”

Not a difficult guess at all, he was sure. They all knew about the resets, all of them. They knew an anomaly came and what it did, and the price Monsters paid for their hubris was death. He’d known what was coming, he’d been braced for it since his brother took him down to the basement and showed the machine, the path to the other worlds where skeletons with faces that resembled their own lived in towns that were not their home. Anomalies, they explained, resets where time flowed backwards and took memory with it.

He’d known and he’d still failed, failed, because he hadn’t expected death would come with the face of a child.

“Come inside.” Edge didn’t wait to see if Stretch followed.

Inside, Stretch paused on the doormat, glancing around the living room. “keeping the homestead clean, i see, i—whoa!”

His breath left him in a grunt as Edge took hold of his sweatshirt and swung him around, shoving him up against the closed door. The faces were inches apart as Edge gritted out, “Why are you here?”

There was no fear on Stretch’s face, only that same irritating smirk beneath a deadened gaze. “told you, wanted to check on you.” He shrugged again, this time tight and nervous. “no one else was gonna. no one’s real sure what’ll happen if the reset comes while someone from another ‘verse is in town. probably shouldn’t even be here, but, eh, guess i ain’t too bright.”

The question of what would happen if you were in a different universe when the reset occurred had been asked before and it was one without an answer. There was simply no way of knowing if anyone had already tested it. For all anyone knew, they might all once have had an elder brother who tested the theory and found the price was a high one. “You might be leaving your brother alone.”

“heh.” A soft laugh, but Stretch’s gaze shifted, moving to look past Edge at the wall on the other side. “ain’t like i’ve ever been able to save him, anyway.”

Edge didn’t step back, but he loosened his grip on Stretch’s sweatshirt, let him slide a little down until his feet were firm on the floor. “If you’re here to try to convince me to leave Underfell—"

“nah. wouldn’t do that to you. see, i’d ask and you’d say no but you’d feel bad about it.” Stretch shook his head. “nah, you already don’t want to travel, i’m not about to send you on a guilt trip. who’s to say it’s safer, anyway. maybe you’d come over to visit and when the reset hit here, it’d drag you back on home through time and space. not my idea of fun.”

“Is that why you’re here?” Edge demanded. “For fun? Come to see Underfell at its safest?” He stepped back enough to wave a hand towards the window as mockingly as Mettaton on their latest game show. “Please, feel free. Wander through the woods, stroll down main street. But I warn you, the scenery will disappoint. There’s nothing out there. I’ve looked. There’s no one, nothing.” His voice was rising, going shrill and Edge shut his mouth, teeth clicking together painfully.

Patiently, hinting at petulance, Stretch said, “i told you, came here to check on you. it’s hard to be the last one around, all you can do is sweep up, put the chairs on the table, and wait for them to turn the open sign on again.”

Edge searched his face. Their skulls were more malleable than simple bone, their magic gave them life and Stretch’s skull was creased from worry, wearing his exhaustion like a skin. Beneath his sockets were grey shadows that spoke of sleepless nights.

They’d never gotten along, he and Stretch. Something about the other skeleton grated on him past the fact that he despite his face, he was more like Red—

(don’t, don’t think about him, don’t)

--than Edge. Not his twin, but a reversal, a twisted mirror image come to visit from the other side of the looking glass.

Despite his smiles, right now he looked more like Edge than ever, blank and bone-weary.

There was nothing inside Edge. Even his soul was empty, its contents drained by loss, cold and bitter as the snow that danced as it fell.

Yet, deep in the dregs of soul’s ashes there was a single spark left, and Edge reached for it, desperate for any lingering warmth. He leaned up and kissed Stretch, their teeth grinding together almost painfully.

Between their mouths, Stretch made a startled sound, but he made no attempt to pull away. He stood there with his shoulders pressed to the door and let Edge take his mouth, their tongues meeting in a furious tangle. He tasted sweet and did not flinch from the jaggedness of Edge’s teeth, licking daringly at the points in a silent, mocking challenge.

The spark inside him flared, kindling caught, and Edge tore away, panting. Before Stretch could offer a word, taunting or otherwise, Edge took him by the wrist and dragged him stumblingly over to the sofa. He pushed Stretch down, bent him over the threadbare cushion of the arm. Tall as he was, if he’d chosen to struggle, it would have been difficult to pin him. Instead, he sagged willingly down against the sofa arm, let it angle his pelvis upward even as he shifted in a deliberate writhe of offering.

The gray that had haunted Edge’s vision for days receded, like a shroud pulled from over his sockets. He took hold of Stretch’s ridiculous, saggy pants and yanked them down to his ankles to rest on top of his dirty sneakers. Beneath them he was bare, his magic forming in his pelvis. The bright orange filled his sight to overflowing and the slit of his cunt glistened like a taunt.

Without warning, Edge pressed two careless fingers to the opening, slipping both inside and Stretch lurched under him, a strangled cry escaping him. He was merely damp, not nearly wet enough for what Edge intended.

He kept a hand at Stretch’s hip to hold him still and dropped to his knees to bury his face against those soft folds, pushing his tongue in alongside his fingers. A sudden buck nearly threw him off and Edge held him down more firmly, slicking his tongue up that cleft between his scissoring fingers, wetting him thoroughly. Stretch whimpered, shivering, his hips rocking back desperately against fingers and mouth both.

“oh, fuck,” Stretch whined. His breath came in ragged blurts, catching and resuming in a shattered cadence. “edge, your mouth…fuck!” His fingers were curled into the sofa cushion beneath his skull, gripping tightly as Edge pushed his tongue deeply inside, tasting a sudden blurt of honey-sweet wetness that allowed his fingers to move easier.

Slowly, Edge stood, letting his fingers slip free and wiping them on his pantleg. He stood there a moment, taking in the sight in front of him. The quiver in Stretch’s shoulders, the perfect arch of his spine beneath his rucked-up sweatshirt, his femurs spread as wide as his hobbling pants allowed. The shift of his hips was as eager as the wet pussy between them and wordlessly, Edge unzipped his trousers and pulled out his cock. He spit in his hand and spread the wetness on his shaft before lining up. He held there a moment, pussy lips parted around the broad head and the slippery opening clenching around it as if trying to suck him inside.

Over his own unsteady breathing was a constant stream of obscenity and begging, words spilling endlessly from Stretch. With a long, slow thrust, Edge pressed inside, ignoring Stretch’s increasingly desperate pleading and the urgent rise of his hips. When he was hilted inside, their pelvic girdles grazing against each other, Edge was forced to pause, closing his sockets at the unbearable intimacy of it. Edge couldn’t remember the last time he’d touched someone else, but it was before the anomaly (child) ever came here. Even the person he was closest to, his brother, never touched him, not since he was small and they curled up together to sleep, less affection and more to share their body warmth.

The slick tight heat surrounding his shaft was an overload to his touch deprivation, the rippling clench dragging a ragged cry from him as he tried not to come in an instant. Edge took a steading breath, licked his teeth and tasted his own sweat mingled with the sweetness of cunt, and only then did he move.

“nnngg, god!” Stretch sobbed out, his limp body battered against the sofa as Edge found a rhythm, pounding into him with a metronome-steady pace. His scant ectoflesh offered little cushion, their pelvic bones clacking together achingly. Edge ignored the discomfort, thrusting harder still and listening for protests that did not come.

Beneath him, Stretch covered his mouth with a hand, stifling himself even as he pleaded for more, for harder, fuck me harder, you bastard. His other struggled to reach beneath him, his skinny fingers briefly jabbing where they were joined as he sought out his clit. Edge felt it from within as he found it, the strangling clench of his cunt around him, and choked on a curse as he fucked in hard, his driving rhythm faltering, breaking, as orgasm struck him. He was empty inside, but he filled Stretch with the heat of his come, spilled in thick, hot pulses as Stretch whined and quivered, accepting his offering.

Withdrawing was difficult, made harder by both the spasming clutch of cunt and his own reluctance. In the end, Edge snatched himself free with the haste of someone (a child) pulling off a band-aid from a barely healed wound. He watched the crimson spill of his magic as it followed, wet streaks dripping down to paint the inside of Stretch’s femurs. Stretch didn’t move, his breathing still coming in hitched gasps as he laid in a half-crumpled drape over the sofa arm, his long legs still splayed, leaving him used and exposed.

Edge tugged his pants closed, his zipper loud in the silence. “You need to go.”

“heh.” Stretch stirred, his sockets slitting opened as he shifted enough to look over his shoulder. “kicking me out already? your afterglow sucks.”

“Be that as it may, you can’t be here when it resets.”

Perhaps something of the kindled spark in Edge transferred to Stretch somehow, in his kiss, in his come, in his words, he didn’t know which. There was some emotion in the smirk Stretch offered him, his gaze less empty as he asked, “worried about me, edgelord?”

“Yes.” The raw honesty was all he could muster.

Stretch exhaled, long and slow, turning his face briefly into the cushions where they’d all sat once, crowded together on the cushions to watch silly movies that were scavenged from the dump. With a low grunt, he slowly pushed up to his feet. He staggered and Edge caught him by the arm, holding him up as Stretch reached awkwardly for his pants, hauling them up over his stained femurs.

“yeah, i should probably go,” Stretch said. He didn’t move, his hands fluttering nervously to his pockets as if to reach for his cigarettes then aborting, moving aimlessly before returning to his pockets before repeating (resetting) again. “listen, you won’t remember this after and my memory is gonna get all smudgy again, but.” For one moment, Stretch’s gaze was entirely unshielded. Edge couldn’t decipher what he saw in his eyelights before he took reached out, taking hold of Edge’s face between both hands as he leaned in to kiss him, softly. A brief, gentle meeting of mouths still sore from the brutality of earlier, then he pulled away. “maybe we can do this again sometimes.” Unguarded eye lights above a crooked smile, then Stretch turned away as he added, carelessly. “hell, could be we already did.”

“Stretch.” He paused at the door, browbones raised, and Edge blurted out, “Do you think they remember what they’ve done? After a reset, do they know?”

A brief silence, then Stretch said, slowly, “to be honest? i’m not even sure it’s the same kid every time.” Stretch shrugged, a loose roll of his shoulders as if his ligaments still weren’t too tight. “maybe somewhere out there someone is sharing a controller. anyway, your bro should be sending ‘em back to the start menu soon enough.”

“Yes.” His brother. If he was still alive and don’t, don’t, don’t.

Stretch left without another word, the door closing softly behind him, and Edge gathered up his knapsack from where he’d dropped it to get his supplies.

He ate directly from the cans and tasted nothing.

Afterward, Edge curled up on the sofa that smelled of their sex, his cheekbone resting on the faded fabric close to the still-damp stains as he waited for the world to end or to begin again.

Whichever came first.

-fin

[irwinkitten]

make me | l.h + a.i

notes: so after my brat tamer!ash anon gave me an idea and twin @sexgodashton​ suffered for it but i fleshed it out and here we go. it’s brat tamer!lashton have fun warnings: smut, use of the word daddy (like three times), degradation (use of the word slut), spanking, uhhh have fun. word count: 1.8k

donate to my ko-fi

-

You’d discussed with Luke about potentially bringing Ashton in. And when the older man agreed you were ecstatic.

But Luke knew that you’d push boundaries. See how far Ashton would go. But the second you started pushing the boundaries, he knew that you weren’t going to listen to him.

You’d been teasing them both, a smug smirk settled on your lips especially when you defied Luke’s order to be kneeling for them both. You could see the spark of recognition, and the way his shoulders straightened.

But what you didn’t count on was Ashton.

“I don’t know what you’re smug about little slut. Strip.” You stared at him, stunned before deciding to sit on the bed, a grin on your lips.

“Gonna make me?” Luke’s nostrils flared and Ashton’s eyes narrowed at your words, but Ashton rested a hand on Luke’s shoulder, the firm grip you could see causing Luke to relax his posture.

“Five. Keep this up brat because you will not like the punishment.” The threat was enough for you to make the decision to not to push too far. But you weren’t going to make this easy for them so you began to strip, throwing the items to the floor carelessly, not even flinching at the look you received from Ashton when you tossed your shirt at him.

“You’re no fun, sir.” The sarcasm on sir had his eyebrow rising up at you as you stood in front of them bare, a pout on your lips. He’d already tossed your shirt to the side and Luke watched with a touch of smugness.

“Ten. How about you keep that mouth of yours shut, and if you’re going to keep up with that, it’s daddy.” The dominance was oozing off him and you felt a shiver of delight running down your back but you weren’t giving it to him that easily.

“Of course sir.” You knew you were pushing buttons. “But maybe I’ll call you that if you can make me cum.” Luke froze as did Ashton and you suddenly realised you’d stepped too far and the thrill of excitement pooled in your belly as he stepped forward like a predator stalking his prey.

“Twenty. I wonder little brat, will you be so mouthy when you’ve got your mouth stuffed with Luke’s cock and I’m denying you every single orgasm?” You froze. Luke smirked.

“You’ve done it this time. Maybe Ashton can break you into the obedient little slut you should be. Hands and knees before he really ups your punishment.” You hesitate, glancing to Ashton who’s eyeing up the whips before following Luke’s orders.

The anticipation seems to drive you to shift a few times, wondering what was going to happen before the riding crop strikes your ass and you jolt, a small yelp escaping you.

“Count. Luke, stand in front but don’t do anything yet, feel free to touch yourself and make as much noise as possible. I want this brat to learn they don’t get to touch when they’ve been naughty.” It amazes you when Luke follows Ashton’s order, his fingers wrapping around his cock and suddenly you’re eyes are drawn to what’s in front of you.

Another blow lands on your ass. But you’re silent.

“Count before I break out the belt.”

“Two.” You mutter and it’s enough for him.

You get to ten, desperate for Luke’s cock, for Ashton to do something. And Ashton can see that as his fingers slide through your folds, a chuckle escaping.

“So fucking wet over being punished. Luke, shut the brat up now.” And you nearly moan as your lips wrap around his cock.

Luke’s fingers grip your hair, firstly going slowly before his pace picked up, the tears forming in your eyes as his cock hit the back of your throat.

And then another sting to your ass followed by the vibrator against your clit and you know. You know that he’s not playing.

With Luke practically fucking your mouth, you try to hide the approaching orgasm, but just as you’re about to fall, the vibrator is pulled away and your edge is lost as he lands another blow to your ass.

Luke pulls out, his hand continuing the movements of your mouth before his cum spurts over your face, a low moan escaping him as you whine.

But then you feel the vibrations and you’re backing towards it, earning a firm smack in return.

“You gonna listen to me now?” And unable to help yourself, you scoff.

Luke shares a look with Ashton, debating something before a smirk settles on his lips and suddenly you feel a sliver of worry.

“Keep denying. Sooner or later my brat will break.” You can’t argue his words as a moan is pulled from you, trying to shift for some friction.

“Greedy little slut is desperate for it.” Ashton’s voice was almost amused, this time his hands massaging the sore skin, causing you to jolt forwards.

But his hands simply grab your hips, pulling you back to him.

Ashton is relentless as he starts with a vibrator, occasionally smacking the already red skin of your ass to see if you react. But you know you’re close to breaking.

Luke wasn’t wrong. He knew how to get you to break, to be pliant and good. And Ashton was using that knowledge to play you like a fiddle.

Luke settled himself on a chair in front of you, his cock firm as he slowly ran his hand up and down, the bad of his thumb collecting the pre-cum and you had to hold back a whimper as his head tilted back.

Ashton pushed the vibrator into you, and your mouth dropped open but no noise escaped as he began to fuck you with the toy, your eyes watching Luke as he got himself off.

By the time you’ve lost your sixth orgasm, you felt desperate and needy, wanting to be good for the both of them.

“Please, please let me cum. I’m sorry.” You whimpered out, the plea a beg as tears ran down your cheeks.

“Not yet brat. You’re not quite there yet.” And you sucked in a harsh breath when he called Luke’s name.

Luke left your vision, no words being exchanged before you felt the drag of one of the wands along your spine, the vibrations powerful.

He presses it against the sensitive bundle of nerves and you’re fighting to keep any indication off your face, but Luke knows you, he knows your body. And just before you reach that high, the wand is pulled away and his body leaves yours.

A sob escapes from your lips.

“Please daddy, please I’m sorry. I’ll be good. Please, please, please.” You don’t care that you’re begging. Your arms and shoulders are sore from holding the position, trembling to keep you up and Ashton enters your vision.

“There it is. Gonna be good for me now and listen?”

“Yes, daddy.” Your voice is hoarse as he wipes the tears and he helps you off the bed for a moment.

You feel the blood return to your legs, a small head rush making you cling to Ashton and he smirks but does nothing until he turns you to face the bed.

“You’re gonna ride Luke, let him finally cum inside of you. He deserves that doesn’t he?” And you nod, despite wanting to be good, Ashton could see the desperation that you held.

You’re slow to climb back onto the bed, but you feel the bliss as you sink down onto Luke’s cock, a moan escaping his throat.

“I think the brat learned their lesson, but I’m gonna have to be sure.” And you gasp as Luke rolls his hips up and immediately you’re moving your own hips, that desperate need returning full force as you ride Luke.

What you didn’t expect was Ashton to press behind you, his arms snaking around you and pressing the wand to your clit. And you know you’re not going to last long at all.

“How close are you Lu?” Ashton’s question is quiet as his hips go faster and you know you’re close, fully expecting to be denied or forced to hold it. But it as your orgasm creeps closer, the wand isn’t pulled away and Luke doesn’t slow down.

“God they’re fucking pulsing with the toy.” He groans as you let off a gentle moan. But Ashton doesn’t reprimand you.

“Ash I’m close.” The whimper from Luke seemed to drive Ashton closer, his hands all over you.

“Cum brat..” and your body trembled as Luke fucked you through the first orgasm, unable to make a sound as your eyes roll back.

But the toy doesn’t pull away and you whimper as your orgasm builds again, your arms unable to hold yourself up as you collapse onto Luke’s chest. But neither of them relent.

“Keep cumming, and not a sound.” Ashton’s order seemed to flick a switch, your mouth falling shut as the second orgasm washed over you and Luke moaned your name.

Ashton smirked at your silence and he knew he had you.

“See, you were always gonna break, little one. Now I get to help your man ruin you into obedience.” And you don’t hold back the moan at his words as another orgasm finds you.

“Fuck, keep it there Ash. Maybe the next setting.” And the wand goes up a notch.

“Please, please oh-“ your beg is cut off as your fourth orgasm hits and coupled with Luke cumming and the wand, it blends into the fifth one, surprising both Ashton and Luke.

“One more little one.” You have a moment to breath as they trade. But this time you’re pressed into the sheets and Luke is working the vibrator as Ashton slides into you with ease.

Despite the promise of just one more orgasm. Luke draws out another two from you before your final one has Ashton pulling out and cumming all over your stomach as your body trembled through the final orgasm.

Every inch of you felt sore as you heard the bath being filled, the fog in your mind mixed with the heaviness of your exhaustion pulling a tired whine from your lips.

“Do I have to move?” Both of them chuckled.

“I don’t give bad aftercare, little one. Luke, give us a hand?” Your eyes remained shut as you felt their arms wrap around you and pull you up.

Stumbling into the bathroom, one set of arms left your skin, causing you to open your eyes and stare at Luke in confusion as he slid into the bath before it registered he was having one with you.

Ashton laughed as you settled on Luke, head resting against his chest as your eyes slipped closed once more.

“I’ll clean up and get some ointment.” Ashton’s voice sounded far away, and you knew you were drifting on the edges of sleep.

The next thing you knew, a warm blanket was being thrown over you and your fingers sought out Luke. He was pressed next to you and a body pressed behind you.

“Thank you.” Was all that came from your lips before sleep pulled you back.

-

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[frizz22]

Heavy is the Head

Hilda doesn’t let Zelda go back under the pretense of the Caligari spell.

Notes: This has been half finished in my drafts for ages, so sorry if it's an old idea. But it always bothered me that no one objected to Zelda going back after saying it was torture... anyway, hope you enjoy! Read on ao3 

Zelda sniffed in distaste as she picked up the bag with what remained of Leviathan. Steeling herself against the nausea roiling through her, Zelda forced her mask back into place.

Going back was the only way. Pretending, pretending to still be under the Caligari spell was the only way to keep them all safe and alive.

Deftly flipping her hair over her shoulder, Zelda sighed. “The things I do for this family.” She quipped, doing her best to sound unaffected by this decision.

As she made to leave, though, Hilda caught her arm. “I can’t.” She shook her head, lips pressed tightly together. “I can’t let you go back, Zelds.” 

Touched by her sister’s concern, Zelda gave her a small smile. “Hildie, I appreciate it, but there’s really no other—"

“We’ll find one.” Her sister interrupted, looking at her earnestly. “You said it was torture. This would be no different, or, or maybe it’d be even worse. I’m not letting you go back there either way.”

Forcing back tears of gratitude, Zelda swallowed hard. “Then what do you suggest we do? Faustus is expecting me back, if I don’t return, he’ll know, and Hell knows what would happen to Ambrose.”

A wicked smile curled her sister’s lips. “Oh, I have just the thing.” Eyes gleaming with rare malice, Hilda took her hand and led Zelda into the greenhouse.

Frowning, Zelda set the bag of mouse remains down and let herself be ushered deeper into the house. “Hilda...” she hedged. As much as she wanted an alternative, if they took too long Faustus would deduce something; he wasn’t an idiot, though he played the part convincingly enough at times.

Hilda held up a finger and flicked her free wrist to gather the supplies she needed. After everything floated to her worktable, Hilda arched a brow at Zelda. “A poppet.” She added, a little unnecessarily, given Zelda had recognized everything from when they made one for Shirley.

She huffed in disbelief. “Well, if it’s not broke...” she mumbled, joining her sister at the table. And it really was quite brilliant. Faustus would never be entrapped by a Caligari spell; he’d be too wary of any musical device after what he’d done to her.

They worked together in near silence, only occasionally asking to be handed an item. When the poppet was done, Hilda held up the tin of ear worms once more. “Take two, just to increase the strength.” She murmured, scowling at the miniature Faustus doll Zelda was holding. “Can’t chance the bastard wriggling his way out somehow.”  

Only too happy to comply, Zelda slipped two worms inside the poppet’s head and sewed it shut as she and Hilda sang the spell.

Once finished, Hilda looked up at her. “And now, we kill him.” She murmured darkly, likely picturing all the gruesome ways they could make Faustus kill himself.

Smiling cruelly, Zelda weighed the poppet in her hand. “No.” She breathed, possibilities flashing through her mind of how else they could approach this. While she wanted to punish Faustus, killing him was too easy, too final. “I have much better plans for him than death.” Feeling lighter than she had since that cursed spell was forced on her, Zelda winked at her sister, picked up the bag full of Leviathan, and teleported away. 

~~~

Faustus looked up from his book when she reappeared. Arching a brow, he marked his spot. “Run into trouble, dearest? It took you some time.”

Daintily placing the bag on his book, smothering a smile at how he sneered at how it leaked onto the pages, Zelda clasped her hands together. “They cloaked the mouse, husband, thinking they were being clever. I found it and dealt with it as you instructed.”

“Of course you did, Zelda.” He stood and rounded the table to stand in front of her. “Because you’re my good girl, aren’t you?” Faustus stroked the back of his fingers along her cheek before slipping his hand into her hair.

And oh, how such an action would have made her feel, even just a week ago, before the spell. Now it took all her self-control not to shred him for daring to touch her.

Carefully keeping her face blank except an empty smile, Zelda nodded despite the nausea growing in her stomach.

“I have something else for you, your Excellency.” Zelda added as Faustus turned to pick up his drink. He hummed and reached for the decanter to refill his glass without looking at her. Letting the Caligari demeanor drop, Zelda stepped up behind him and started to sing into his ear.

The worms crawl in, the worms crawl out, the worms play pinochle on your snout. They eat your eyes, they eat your nose, they eat the jelly between your toes.

The drink fell from Faustus’ hand and he stiffened. Pleased with herself, Zelda rounded her husband and gave him and assessing look.... he was fully bound by her spell.

Lifting her chin, Zelda smirked and moved to settle in his chair, propping her feet up on his desk. “Faustus, dearest,” she mocked the endearment, “pour me a drink.”

Face blank, Faustus moved automatically to fulfill her order.  

As the warmth of victory and revenge spread through her, Zelda lit a cigarette, taking a long, satisfying drag and blowing the smoke into Faustus’ face before she took the drink from him.

“Very good, husband.” She huffed in amusement at the title. “Now, sit and listen like a good little Antipope.” When he complied, Zelda continued. “I entered this marriage for power. And sex,” she admitted, “the sex was incredible and why would I have denied myself? It seemed such a simple marriage, both of us enjoying power and sex so why not get more of each by working together. But you had to go and reach beyond yourself. Tried to turn that power on me.” She tsked and knocked some ash off her cigarette. “You should have known better. Should have known you couldn’t control me, not for long at least. So now, as your punishment, I’ll control you.”

She took a sip and watched Faustus carefully, ensuring no facial tics indicating he wasn’t fully under her spell. Satisfied, she continued. “Only I did it better. Nothing to smash to end my spell... seems I’ve bested you again, Faustus, just like in our academy days.” Zelda arched a brow and took another drag of nicotine. “Sadly, I still need you. Don’t go convincing yourself it’s sentimental, it’s that you’re too powerful to waste. I’d have killed you by now otherwise. No,” she sighed and knocked back the rest of her drink and held out the glass to him, Faustus immediately stood to fill it. “I have to keep you if I want to rule. The witching realm isn’t ready for a witch leader, misogynistic as most warlocks are. So, I’ll rule through you, make sweeping reforms, raise up witches...” she looked off to the side, a small smile tugging her lips as she envisioned the future. Refocusing on the warlock in front of her, Zelda dropped her feet to the ground and stood. “I suppose all your conniving paid off in the end, I’d never be able to make such a difference with a mere High Priest for a husband, an Antipope though...” she lifted a brow and stubbed out her cigarette. “Clean up this mess, Faustus,” she indicated to the bag still leaking mouse fluids on the book, “and then come find me, we have a lot of work to do.” 

~~~

The following years passed smoothly.

Her reforms were questioned at first, but with Antipope Faustus as her mouthpiece the witching realm accepted them as the Dark Lord’s will and adopted them with alacrity and enthusiasm.

Sometimes, to toy with Faustus and gloat, rub his face in how well the witching realm was doing with her as the ruler, Zelda would let him surface—with a number of restrictive spells, of course.

Tonight was one of those times. Zelda had just passed a law stating witches could hold positions of power within their covens and the Churches of Darkness.  

Lounging on the couch in what was technically Faustus’ office, Zelda watched as the warlock struggled against his bounds. “I won’t need you much longer, dear husband.” She informed him, eyes gleaming cruelly. “As I’m sure you’re aware, you’ve praised me highly to both the High Council and the witching realm as the inspiration for all these popular reforms, for the peace we’ve been enjoying. With this new law, I will be the logical choice to become the next Antipope when you meet a sudden and unfortunate end. I’ll mourn you publicly, of course, but then I’ll bravely rally to carry the cause my late husband and I worked so hard to further. The High Council will fall over themselves in their haste to appoint me.”

“You won’t get away with it.” Faustus forced through clenched teeth, eyes a little manic. “You’ll crumble under the power and pressure.”

She smirked and continued to paint her nails. “Heavy is the head that wears the crown, dearest. You’d know, you crumbled pathetically fast under the weight when you got your hands on it. Fortunately for the witching realm, I wear and bear the crown so much better.”

Before he could argue further, Zelda cocked her head. “The worm crawls in...” she sang, inspecting her now finished manicure, and Faustus was back under.

Muttering a quick spell to dry her nails, Zelda teleported home, perhaps Hilda would have some creative ideas for murdering her husband and making it look an accident when the time came.

[author-morgan]

Kryptic ↟ Deimos

seventeen - ashes to ashes

masterlist

But the great leveler, Death: not even the gods can defend a man, not even one they love, that day when fate takes hold and lays him out at last.

Death submits to no one, not even Dread and Destruction.

They are both weapons of flesh and bone, of warm blood and beating hearts, and they cannot be controlled.

LESYA ARRIVES AT the Sanctuary of Asklepius shortly after sunrise after stopping at a stream to scrub the blood from her hands and fade the fresh, dark stains on her pale grey chiton. She takes rest in the shade beneath a large oak near the heart of the Sanctuary as Kassandra had yet to arrive —or show herself. 

Deimos dodges her blade but does not move to strike when the opening is created. They are toying with one another like this is a game. The snap of a switch pulls them away from what looked to be a well-rehearsed dance. “You both hesitated,” Alektor announces, snapping the supple switch against the ground with a crack. He had seen it in both champions —a moment’s hesitation could mean the difference between life and death in battle. The Cult could not afford to let hesitancy have a place within demigods. “Again,” the trainer instructs.

Sweat beads down both Deimos and Enyo’s foreheads under the hot sun. Their armor is discarded in a pile outside the chalked circle. She levels her sword, tracing his steps as he moves around her like a predator preparing to pounce. He lunges, sword slicing through the air like a viper strike. She spins out of range, then darts forward, flicking her blade upward —the tip cutting into Deimos’ cheek. He stumbles back, lifting his fingers to his cheek to find them coated in blood. The distraction serves its purpose. Enyo uses his bent knee as leverage and leaps into the air —twisting as her legs enclose around his neck and shoulders. 

They both hit hard in the dirt, but it is Enyo who has her knee against his chest and blade against his neck. Deimos looks up at her, panting —blood running down his cheek and back into his hair. “Good,” Alektor praises with drawn-out applause. Enyo rises, tossing aside her blade and extends her hand —he wraps his fingers around her wrist and pushes off the ground. Alektor nods his approval and turns from the training grounds, leaving the champions to themselves for the evening. 

He reclines against the cool stone wall when they return to the villa —ignoring the sweat stinging the fresh cut as he watches Enyo splash water on her face and neck. Wringing out the water of a rag, she goes to his side and scrubs away the blood on his neck and clinging to the stubble on his jaw. Deimos’ lips twitch, tugging into a half-smile when he drags Enyo into his lap —hands lingering on her bare thighs. “Didn’t mean to draw blood,” she admits, noticing her blade had cut into his brow too as she dabs the drying blood away. 

“I’ve had worse, you know,” Deimos remarks. She laughs softly at that, the sound reverberating through her chest so that he could not only hear but feel it too. They had both had far worse than scratches. He thinks she is beautiful, skin still flushed from training with sunlight streaming through the window lattice. Her laughter combined with the sun across her skin and strands of hair framing her face —it makes him smile so genuinely that he is sure he must look a fool. But as she dips her head to press their lips together, fingers ghosting across his skin again, by Zeus, he could not care less.

WHEN SHE WAKES in the early afternoon, it is to the sound of a woman sobbing and pleading with the priests and priestesses for her sick baby. They claim the boy has passed on, but Enyo has seen how this story plays out time and time again. Priests lie, Chrysis claims another child and the Cult gains soldiers who endure a lifetime of torment. 

Lesya rises, unsheathing one of the blades on her back and approaches the squabbling priests. “Let her see the child,” she demands and does not have to speak again on the matter. The doors to the building open and the distraught mother races forward, lifting a squalling babe from the table and to her breast. 

A swell of anguish rises inside her as she looks upon the mother and child, but it is all consumed by a bitter emptiness. They took everything from me. Lesya closes her eyes and remembers the pain and the blood. The room had been dark, lit by a single brazier. A group of masked figures surrounded the stool. Only the twisted physician did not cover his face. Chrysis’ laugh had been unmistakable when they tore out her womb —it was the final step to become the Cult’s Champion. For a second time, Deimos had found her lying unmoving in a puddle of blood. He had carried her from the antechamber and refused to leave her side until the next full moon over a fortnight later. 

She recognizes the physician though he does not know her. “Hippokrates?” Lesya queries, stepping up to the table where there is an array of herbs and oils. He does not frequent the sanctuary often as many consider his methodologies impious, but it is a quicker journey here than to Argos for the assortment of herbs he needs to continue treating patients near the Cave of Pan.  

The physician turns —eyes quickly skimming over the woman though he finds no indication of sickness or injury. “What ails you?” He asks. 

Lesya thinks about the mother and child and knows this is folly. “I,” she starts but then shakes her head, “it’s nothing.” 

Hippokrates has heard rumors from the soldiers he’s treated of a demigoddess who bears an eerie resemblance to the woman before him —copper hair and laurel eyes and something harsh and cold in her expression. He is certain this is Enyo, a weapon for the Cult of Kosmos. 

But now, her expression is softened, filled with pain and longing. The physician looks over his shoulder, following her gaze to a mother and child. “They took your choice,” he surmises and Lesya nods, swallowing the lump in her throat. “I know what you seek,” Hippokrates tells her, “but I cannot help you nor can any other physician.” What was done could not be undone unless by the hand of Asklepius and Eileithyia.

KASSANDRA DISPELLS WHAT she has learned from Hippokrates and the priests in the sanctuary upon finding Lesya wandering about the Epidauros sanctuary temple at dusk. Everything brings her to a single conclusion. The priestess, Chrysis, had lied to Myrrine that night about her son’s death and taken Alexios as her own —turning him into Deimos, a weapon. “You must know something, Lesya,” the Eagle Bearer pleads, remembering she had mentioned the old priestess before. 

She looks at her hands —Midas’ blood still stains her nails. It has been many years since Chrysis had brought her children to Argos, but the path through the forest is ingrained in her memory. “There’s a temple on Mount Kynortion near the Altar of Apollo Maleatas,” Lesya announces, “she takes the children there.” Kassandra nods, clasping Lesya on the shoulder in thanks. They have work to do before the sun rises. 

Splayed out on the altar is a dead eagle —a warning. Ikaros lands on the feet of Apollo, staring down at his butchered kin before taking to the skies again. In the still air, both Lesya and Kassandra can hear the piercing cries of a child. The Temple. Lesya motions for the Eagle Bearer to follow —they both creep through the underbrush, keeping low and out of sight. 

Before the small temple are two Cult guardians and within is the child. Kass frees the curved bow on her back and nocks an arrow, aiming at the man furthest from their position. Lesya keeps her attention focused on the other. The arrow sails through the air, finding its mark in the neck of the guardian, a second later Lesya bursts from the underbrush —dual blades moving in a fury. She straightens, and the severed head of the last guard rolls off his shoulders to the ground. Each of them had fallen without a sound. 

Kassandra kicks open the doors to the temple. The air is heavy the scent of herbs and myrrh and lying on the altar is a babe crying for its mother. Chrysis stands above the child —knife in hand— when her gaze is drawn to Deimos’ sister and her child. “Killing seems to run in your bloodline, oh mighty Eagle Bearer,” the old crone rasps. 

The misthios takes another step into the small temple, but Lesya is rooted in at the doors —frozen with ire. Her feet are only spurred into motion by a burst of flames licking at her skin. Chrysis flees, leaving the child to perish in the fire. Kass scoops up the baby and Lesya bounds through the heat, seizing the knife the priestess had wielded —she is not yet out of sight, out of range. Lesya rears her arm back, launching the short dagger into the air. It catches Chrysis’ calf and sends her headlong into the dirt. “Is this how you repay me for what I made you?” Chrysis screeches, but it turns into a sharp scream when Lesya twists the blade, pulling it free from bone and muscle. 

The Eagle Bearer stands over Chrysis now too, but her gaze is focused on Lesya. There is dark hatred and hunger glinting in her green eyes mirroring how she’d looked after slitting Leandros’ neck in Athens. This is the woman who caused so much pain for her and Deimos —the monster who stole children from families and tormented them until they died or were turned into a hollow shell. The Eagle Bearer steps aside, keeping her sandal on Chrysis’ torso should the old priestess try running from her fate. “You deserve this more than I do,” she notes and Lesya nods, fingers curling around the bloody hilt of the knife.

The old crone laughs at her lost child —trying so hard to become something she isn’t. “Even though you try running from it, you can’t. You’re a killer,” Chrysis hisses, “that’s what I made you.” Lesya’s face twists in anger as she crouches down. Shame Deimos can’t be here to see you die. “You can use a spear as a walking stick but that does not change its nat–” Chrysis’ words are cut off with a spray of blood. 

@wallsarecrumbling @novastale @jaegers-and-kaijus  (if you want to be added to the tag list for Kryptic just let me know!)

[chimmyboii]

Monster - Part 2

Pairing: Baekhyun x Reader (Featuring Kai, Sehun, D.O. Chanyeol, Suho and also Blackpink’s Jennie)

Summary: When vampire Y/N is face with the decision to turn a dying Baekhyun into a vampire, she doesn’t hesitate. However, her decision has consequences which she has to endure in order to keep the man she loves alive - even if he doesn’t want to be alive.    

tags: smut, angst, fluff, vampire au. 

Authors note: So here is Part 2! Hopefully you guys will like it, i didn’t have a lot of time to edit it so if there is any mistakes I will eventually fix them lol. Feedback is appreciated! Thank you :) 

Masterlist 

Part 1 Part 2  Part 3

The ashes of Kim Manor float away in the breeze; it had been weeks since Y/N left, yet Kai refused to leave. He sat inside of what remained from his burnt down house, staring at the wall in front of him. Sehun shuffles through the broken door, nudging the burnt wood with his feet until he stands in front of Kai. Sehun gulps when Kai’s black eyes meet his.

“You have to eat,” Sehun comments but Kai just shrugs and goes back to staring at the wall. “You’ll get weak if you don’t.”

“I’m already weak, Sehun,” Kai whispers, a loan tear slides down his right cheek. “I couldn’t help her.” He places his head in his hands, scraping his nails along his cheeks – drawing blood. Sehun snatches his hands away from his face.

“You are not weak!” Kai lets out a bitter chuckle, “Y/N knew what she was getting herself into she-”

“No, she didn’t!” Kai injected, “I never told Y/N anything about the law of changing a human into a vampire. She was clueless.” Kai suddenly stood up and walk toward a table which was miraculously still standing. On the table was a half full bottle of bourbon; he grips the neck of the bottle and chugs it down. Sehun sighs before tugging the bottle from his grip.

“She still shouldn’t have changed him.” Kai shakes his head.

“It was Baekhyun, of course she would. She’d do anything for him.”

Sehun nods and smiles sadly. “I will never understand her obsession with him. He’s annoying and bit of a dick if you ask me.” Sehun looks at the bottle in his hand before drinking some himself.

“I guess you can’t choose who you love,” Kai whispers and Sehun really looks at him – he takes in the distressed look on his face; his white hair dishevelled, eyes dark as night. It hit Sehun like a stake to the heart.

Kai loves Y/N.

Before Sehun could indulge on this new information, they were interrupted by the Newblood. Baekhyun stood by the doorway, eyeing the mess he had caused. The look in his eyes showed both Sehun and Kai that he was no longer in his frenzy stage. Awkwardly, Baekhyun walk towards the two vampires, regret showing on his face.

“I’m sorry about the house,” he begins looking a little fearfully at Kai – who continues drinking the whiskey, ignoring Baekhyun’s presence. “I was just really angry and needed to let it out, I guess.” Kai finally looks at him, face blank before he suddenly let out a loud laugh. Baekhyun eyes Sehun confusedly for a moment, looking for an answer on why he was laughing. Sehun takes a step back, already preparing for what is about to come.

Kai continues laughing before he smashes the bottle on the ground; and lunging for Baekhyun, snatching him by the neck and slaming him into the nearest wall. “I don’t give a fuck about the house; what I care about is the girl!” Kai smashes Baekhyun’s head into the wall, then knees him in the stomach then letting Baekhyun to fall onto the ground, Kai then drags him onto his knees, and clutching Baekhyun’s face in his hands – making him look in  his black eyes. “Because of you she could be dead, or worst being tortured by that psychopath.” Kai chuckles as he crouches down to Baekhyun height on the floor. “You called us monsters, Baekhyun, but you haven’t met Tobias. He’s the man you hear about in horror stories, the type that loves inflicting pain; the type to get off on it. He’s the man from nightmares. And you led him right to her.”

Kai stood up and roughly throws Baekhyun into the remaining table, causing it to fall apart under his weight before storming out of the remains of Kim Manor.  

-

Tobias lets out a long grunt before falling still on top of me; he lies there for a moment before I feel him slip out of me. The bottom part of me aches but I try to ignore it – he likes it when I’m in pain, so it’s best to pretend I’m numb. Siting up, I grab the dress laying on the floor and my underwear. Quickly I pull the underwear on, aware of his eyes on me.

“You are beautiful, Y/N.” Tobias complements; I still my movements as I feel him come up behind me. He smooths my hair from the side of my neck and begins to press harsh kisses up to my ear. “Now, I know why Jongin was so obsessed with you.”

“He wasn’t,” I mutter under my breath. Tobias lets out a chuckle before pressing another kiss to my cheek.

“No obsessed isn’t the right word. Perhaps love would fit better.” I freeze in his hold. Kai didn’t love me – he’s probably celebrating right now, happy that he doesn’t have to put up with me anymore.

But then why did he look so distraught when I was leaving, the image came back to me. How he fell to his knees the moment I entered the carriage, the sorrow in his eyes. I shake my head, Tobias turned me around in his arms.

“Ahh, you didn’t know. Of course, you wouldn’t, Jongin was always good at concealing his feelings. He liked to pretend he was tough but underneath he’s nothing but a weak little boy.” I glare at him, suddenly feeling angry. I was about resort when the door was knock and quickly opened. A short vampire with dark hair entered the room. His eyes focused on Tobias, not flinching away as takes in his lack of clothing.

“Sir, you are needed in the South. Some urgent news revolving a rogue vampire.” Tobias sighed before releasing me. I quickly zip up my dress and move to sit at the vanity table that had been recently installed to the room. Tobias makes eye contact with me in the mirror, his eyes stern as he directs order to both me and the new arrival.

“Y/N you are to stay in this room until I get back,” he turns to the short vampire. “D.O. you’re in charge of watching her.” The vampire – D.O. – nodded, glancing at me once before returning to Tobias.

It takes Tobias literally two seconds to get dressed before he spins my chair around to face him. He places a kiss on my lips, I sit frozen like a statue, he pulls back. Eyes flashing dark he commands me to kiss back and without my control I do.

“I’ll be back soon my love.” With that he is out the door, much to my relief. Sighing, I slouch back in the chair, turning back around I face the mirror. Squealing, I make eye contact with the vampire, D.O. having forgotten about him.

“Forgive me, I forgot you were in the room.” His expressionless face doesn’t change – still remaining blank. Standing up, I walk towards him and reach out my hand.

“My name is Y/N,” he looks at my hand and then back to my face. I lower it, feeling slightly embarrassed that he didn’t shake it.

“I know who you are. You’re Tobias’s whore.” I take a step back, as if I had been slapped.

“I’m not his whore,” I disagree, shaking my head repeatedly. D.O. sighs and crosses his arms.

“Whore, prostitute, sex slave – same thing.” I growl lowly, feeling furious at the title he had branded me and a smirk tugs on D.O.’s lips. The fury I suddenly felt left, the realization sinking in; I was his whore. Just a toy to play with until he gets bored and disposes of me. Now a hollow feeling fills me. I can feel tears begin to fill my eyes as I think about what he had done to me. “Either way you still fuck him.”

“I am not his whore!” I cry, sobs now leaving my lips. D.O’s dark eyes widen as I collapse on the bed. “Every night, he compels me to lie there while he fucks me over and over again until I ache – and even then, he keeps going. I try so hard to switch off, but it hurts, it hurts so much!” I wail, my chest heaving with sobs. “How can you say I fuck him! When all I do is lie there hoping he’ll just end me, put me out of my misery.” Sniffing, I will myself to look D.O in the eyes; “Fucking is about pleasure and I can assure you, Sir, I feel no pleasure. Just pain.” My breathing is unstable, and I start to feel lightheaded. D.O. crouches in front of me, his face finally showing emotion. Pity.

D.O holds my hand until I eventually stop sobbing. I flinch when he smooths my hair away from my neck – gently unlike Tobias. He eyes the marks on my neck, his eyes fall to my wrist taking in all the bite marks and bruises that cover my body.  “You don’t fight back?” D.O suddenly asks. I shake my head and sigh.

“If I fight back, he’ll surely win.” Just as I was about to comment more; I could hear the sound of Tobias footsteps thudding on the ground, heading towards the room. My breath hitches, hardly believing he was back so soon. My hand tightens in D.O’s, out of fear. I look to him to say something when suddenly his plump lips were on mine. My eyes widen and I was ready to shove him away when he grips my hand – squeezing it twice.

Trust me, I hear D.O say in my mind. Relaxing, I close my eyes and allow my lips to kiss back. His lips were dancing with mine; they were soft like rose petals. D.O pushes me back onto the bed and hovers over me – while our lips remain together. I let my hands slide through his dark hair, his run along my side.

The door slams open, D.O. pulls away from me and turns to Tobias. Tobias blue eyes are blazing as he takes in the scene in front of him. D.O. stands licking his lips.

“What the fuck is going on!” Tobias all but screams. He reaches out for me, ready to start his punishment when D.O stand abruptly in front of me.

“I couldn’t help it, she’s beautiful and so responsive.” D.O smirks, reaching a hand for me to take. I look at it for a moment, generally afraid of what is going on.

Take it, Y/N. I’ll help you; I hear D.O whisper in my mind. I grip his hand tightly. “I’ll take her off your hands.” He begins tugging me towards the door when Tobias seizes me.

“No, no, no! She’s mine!” D.O snatches Tobias by the neck; his dark brown eyes suddenly flash grey like a thundercloud which makes me gasp.

“You do not own her.” And with that D.O tugs me out of Tobias room.

-

The sound of his mother crying made Baekhyun’s heart clench. He watches from the kitchen window as his mother wailed into an old shirt of his; she was pleading God to bring her son home to her. He couldn’t return home now, not after what he did. He was the reason the whole village is mourning. Baekhyun takes one last look at his mother, his home before walking away into the night.

He didn’t know where to go, for the first time in his life: he is alone. He wanders around aimlessly, just passing by the bakers when his mind goes to you; this is where he first met you. The two heavy boxes were pressed tightly to your chest, yet you didn’t seem bothered by their weight – now Baekhyun understands why. Immediately, his memories turn sinister. He doesn’t remember much about the night he died; just that it was long and painful. One thing he can’t forget is the glowing red eyes. He remembers gazing into them when the drowsiness took over – he felt safe even though he was dying. Then more pain came; it felt like he was burning inside. After the burning sensation faded; everything is was blur. When he came back to his senses, Baekhyun had already sunken his fangs into his beloved and drained her – killing her instantly. He couldn’t stop it, the urge was so strong, the need for blood was the only thing on his mind.

Letting out a groan; Baekhyun takes a seat next the town sign, the same sign he left you standing after he first met you. After everything that has happened, the only thing constantly replying in his mind is you leaving in the carriage. Your face showed how sorry you were; from where he was standing, he could still see the tears streaming down your cheeks. Baekhyun didn’t know where you were going or if you were alright but the urge to know was confusing him. Baekhyun should hate you for what you’ve done. But he no longer feels hate or anger – he feels worried. After all this; Baekhyun knows you’re a good person – vampire – he saw it that night when you saved that girl from him. He saw how you refused your urges and still helped her. Now, Baekhyun understand why you changed him, the guilt of watching someone die will remain and Baekhyun has learned this the hard way. All those people’s lives he took will forever be embedded in his mind.

The sweet smell of blood tickles Baekhyun nose as he stares up at the dark sky. He frowns but stands, slowly sniffing the air and following the direction of the scent. It leads him to the brothel; Baekhyun stands unsure on whether to enter. He’s never been to the brothel before and never planned on going to one. Inside he can hear two female screams in panic causing him to quickly enter. Three whores lay lifeless by the door – they had been drained.

“Kai! For fuck sake, are you trying to bring the Elders back here!” Sehun yelled, appearing in front of Baekhyun with his back to him. Kai drops the female that he was currently feeding from and looks at Sehun, a grin appearing on his blooded lips.

“Come on Sehun, have a bite!” He lazily throws the dead whore to Sehun, who just catches the whole and lays her next to the others. Kai grabs a bottle of whiskey, quickly opening and gulping down its contents. “Aww come one, live a little Sehun!” Kai tugs at the younger vampire playfully. Sehun pushes him away gently.

“This isn’t going to bring her back, hyung,”

“I know. She’s dead now. So, might as well have fun, no point in dwelling over the past!” Kai says cheerfully. Sehun was about to say something when Kai’s eyes catch a small blonde trying to sneak away.

“And where are you going? The party is just starting!” Before Baekhyun and Sehun could inject; Kai had the blonde by the throat, and his head tucked in her neck, draining her life away.

“Jongin!” a booming voice interrupted causing the white-haired vampire to pull away from the blonde whore. Suho stood next to Baekhyun, eyes blazing at the scene in front of him. “Let the whore go now.” Kai obeys without fight.

“What do you want?” Kai mutters going to take a seat, the adrenaline leaving his body and the depressed state returning.

“I bring news about the girl,” Sehun perks up instantly.

“Is she alive?” Suho nods, Sehun lets out a breath of relief. Kai sits up, eyes returning to their usual red. Even Baekhyun feels a smile begin to tug on his lips – relieved that your alive.

“How is she?” Kai whispers, siting forward on the chair, fear filling him again. You may be alive but that does not mean you are safe.

Suho hesitates for a moment, eyeing the dead bodies, victims of Kai’s fragile state. Kai notices this. “Please just tell me.” He begs.

“From what my source has told me, she was taken to become his whore.” Kai sits back against the chair for a moment.

SMASH!

Kai has leapt from the chair and is smashing all the bottles he can find, letting out anguish screams as he does. Suho watches on, Sehun leans his forehead against the wall. Baekhyun – similar to Kai - wants to smash the place but resorts to tighten his hands into to fists, his nails dig into the palm of his hand drawing blood.

“THAT BASTARD!” Kai screams, throwing the chair against the window. He drops to his knees, a sob escaping his lips.

Suho clears his throat before continuing; “My source also told me that she is no longer with Tobias.” Sehun lifts his head from the wall, eyes red from holding back tears.

“What? She escaped?!” he asked almost excitedly. Suho shakes his head, Sehun face falls.

“No, she is with another Elder.” Kai growls lowly.

“That’s no better than being with Tobias, she-”

“If you would let me explain without cutting me off you will know that for now, she is safe. She is with the Elder D.O.” Sehun eyes widen at the name. “From what my source has told me he is an Elder we can trust. Now I have told you the girl is safe, time to hold your end of the bargain. So, will you help us or not?” Before Kai could answer, Baekhyun interrupts, his curiosity getting the best of him.

“Help you with what?” Suho eyes flick to Baekhyun, and they widen as if he had just realised, he was in the room.

“And you are?” Suho asks.

“Baekhyun. Umm, I’m the vampire Y/N turned, the reason she’s there.” Suho nods, he looks to Kai, eyes relaying a secret message, one Kai understands as he nods back.

“We are going to war,” Suho states, “A revolution against the Elders.”

-

D.O’s bedroom wasn’t as spectacular as Tobias. Everything was white; the walls, furniture and the bedding. Although, it was plain, I much preferred his room to the one previous. It was nice, peaceful. Currently, I sit on the bed flipping through a book D.O had given me. It was interesting, the first three times I read it. I didn’t want to seem ungrateful or selfish to ask for another book, so I re-read it again and again. The door gets a knock, my hands grip the book tightly bending the pages.

“Y/N,” I hear D.O deep voice call from behind the wooden door. Ever since D.O had taken me from Tobias, we have had the door locked – enchanted by magic so he would never enter. I walk towards the door and knock on it three times then place my palm on the door until it clicked. This enchantment allowed only me to unlock it. I was so grateful when D.O had suggested this, especially with D.O leaving the manor almost every day. Unlike, Tobias, D.O, spends most of his days out in different towns, dealing with other vampires. Tobias barely lift the manor unless it was urgent, he mostly sent his minions to do his work so he could spend his days with me. I shudder at the memory. Opening the door halfway, D.O slides in with difficulty due to large parcel he is holding.

“What’s that?” D.O smirks before placing it on the bed. He nods at it – inviting me to go look at it. I bite my lip, contemplating.

“Go on, open it.” I grab the string and begin to tug it off, then I rip the paper away until in front of me was a stack of books. A gasp leaves my lips. It was a collection of stories and they were brand new, never been touched. Spinning around, I wrap my arms around D.O crushing him in a hug.

“Thank you!” I whisper, my throat suddenly tightening as I become emotional. I have never received a gift before. D.O clears his throat as I pull away, I couldn’t contain my smile anymore.

“You’re welcome,” he coughs, “I figured you would be bored reading the same book, so I ask a friend to recommend a few. He said these are bestsellers, I-I hope you enjoy them.” I nod vigorously.

“I will, thank you, D.O. Honestly, you didn’t have to do this.” He just shakes his head and excuses himself to the bathroom.

While D.O is having a bath, I pull out the first book and open the first chapter. I’m so engrossed in the book that I don’t notice he is back in the room. When I look up, he is sitting in the single chair by the window watching me. I feel a little flustered as his stare. It isn’t harsh just blank; I can’t tell what his is thinking at all.

“What?” I mutter, pulling the blanket closer to me.

He was about to answer the door is harshly knocked.

Bang, Bang, bang!

“Yes, who is it?” D.O’s voice is calm but held authority.

“It’s me!” a voice I don’t recognise, quickly replies. “Let me in!” I look to D.O to find him already going to the door. My breathing is picking up as I suddenly feel scared. D.O looks to me before opening the door.

“It’s alright, Y/N. I know him, he won’t harm you.” He assures me, I just nod while swallowing harshly. As he opens the door a giant vampire pushing through, nearly knocking D.O over. He slams the door shut before leaning against it and breathing heavily.

The tall vampire glares at D.O. “Where the hell have you been, Kyungsoo?! I’ve been looking for you!” D.O just shrugs.

“Kyungsoo?” I ask, slowly standing from the bed, both book and blanket in my hands. The tall vampire jumps at my voice and looks at me with wide brown eyes.

“It’s my first name,” D.O – Kyungsoo – answers, I nod but look at the tall vampire. “Y/N, this is Chanyeol.” I nod and reach out my hand for him to shake. Unlike, the shorter vampire, Chanyeol actually shakes it. He runs the hand through his dark brown hair before smiling sheepishly.

“Forgive me, miss, I didn’t see you.” I shake my head and smile softly.

“That’s alright, you probably weren’t expecting D.O to have a guest,” Chanyeol shakes his head before a mischief smirk appears on his lips, he looks to D.O before wiggling his eyebrows. D.O is quick to shake his head and glare at the vampire.

“She is not my whore.” D.O states coldly, and I smile at him. Chanyeol lets out a whine.

“Aww, I thought you might have finally decided to have fun,”

“I don’t have time for fun. Now, why are you here?” Quickly, Chanyeol sobers up, back straighten against the door.

“I have a message from Suho, he-”

“Suho?!” I exclaim, feet moving until I was in front of Chanyeol. He frowns at me.

“You know Suho?”

“Yes, Kai would send me to collect blood bags from him and sometimes documents,” D.O takes a step forward, standing between me and Chanyeol.

“Did you see what these documents where, Y/N?” I shake my head.

“No, Kai would kill me if I did. It’s none of my business, that’s what he always told me.” D.O nods before turning to Chanyeol.

“We can trust her,” Chanyeol is quick to disagree, “she will know soon enough, Chanyeol. This will include her too.”

“What will?” Curiosity was beginning to take over.

“As we speak, vampires from around the world are preparing for war.” D.O begins, my eye widen at this information.

“What? Why?” I ask, voice frantic. “They’ll die, the Elders will kill them! Are Kai and Sehun part of this? Please tell me they’re not! What about Baekhyun?! They can’t-”

“Y/N!” D.O yells, silencing me. I feel weak and Chanyeol is quick to notice as he grabs my shoulders and leads me to the bed. I slowly sit, hands braced on my thighs. We are silent as I catch my breath. Looking up, my eyes lock on D.O.

“They won’t win.” I murmur, Chanyeol shakes his head.

“They might,”

“How?” I ask feeling dejected, “Elders are powerful. Us vampires aren’t. We don’t stand a chance.”

“They have help,” D.O confirms. “They have us, we’re Elders.”

I scrunch my nose at this. “Why would you go against your own kind?”  

“Because they are dicks,” Chanyeol growled, “They use us, Y/N. They make us murderers; they force us to use our gifts for bad all because they want to stay on top.”

“The Elders were created to keep balance, to keep the peace between humans and vampires.” D.O sighs before taking a seat next to me. “Some Elders have took keeping the balance too far. Now they’re just killing vampires because they want to, because they can. It has to stop. This is why I created this revolution. So, us Elders and vampires can be free. We can still have a balance without these stupid rules.”

“I understand,” I nod, “I mean look at me.” I chuckle bitterly. D.O smiles sadly at me. “All I did was save the man I love from dying by making him what I am and yet I’m being punished for it. I didn’t even know about the law; that a vampire can only change a human into a vampire if the Elders agree.”

Please just do it. I don’t want to live in a world she isn’t in it, I remember Baekhyun sob over the girl he loved dead body, causing me to wince. Taking a deep breath, I continued; “I didn’t want Baekhyun to be a vampire. He was perfect as he was. But I couldn’t imagine a world where he wasn’t in it, so I took the risk. I don’t regret it; I just wish things could have been different.”

“That he had a say in the transformation?” D.O asked and I just nod.

“How long have you and Baekhyun been together?” Chanyeol asked and let out a loud laugh. I couldn’t help it.

“We’re not,” I giggle, wiping the tears from eyes. “He hates me, especially after what I did to him. It’s an unrequited love, unfortunately.” I smile sadly.

Chanyeol pouts and shakes his head.

“Well he must have gotten over the hate he felt because according to Suho a young Newblood called Baekhyun is leading the vampires.”

“WHAT!” I yelp, I grip Chanyeol by his ears. “You couldn’t have said that earlier!” Chanyeol lets out a whine.

“Sorry, sorry, I didn’t know it was the same guy!” I growl about to shout again when large cheers echo outside the door. I turn to D.O who frowns in confusion.

All three of us leave the room together until we come to the main room. All vampires that assist the Elders have gathered around, drinking, yelling. I remain close to D.O and Chanyeol in fear of being grab. I can’t see what is happening, due to the large crowd. Chanyeol pushes forward, the vampires gasp in fear at the sight of both D.O and Chanyeol and quickly move out of their way. We managed to make to the front. I spot Tobias standing in the centre of the room, his blonde hair glowing in the candlelight. My guts clench as he makes eye contact with me. His blue eyes are ice cold as he takes in the sight of the two familiar Elders next to me. Trying to ignore him, my gaze falls to the girl on the floor currently being held down by Baz. She is on her knees, arms tied around her back. I can’t see her face as she has her head tilted to the ground; he long brown hair covering her face.

Tobias walks to her and grips her face tightly in his hand, he pulls at her face until she is looking at him. She has a slight baby face; cheeks puffy, button nose. At first glance you would think she was a young teenager. But her eyes are what give her away – they are sharp and dangerous. Her mouth has been split open and she has a graze on her cheek which is still bleeding. But I don’t sense blood which is odd.

“TODAY!” Tobias shouts cheerfully, “We are here to witness the sentencing of the little witch, Kim Jennie.”

My mouth drops open at the revelation. I didn’t know witches existed, I thought they had died at the stakes.  

Tobias turns to the crowd of vampires; “As you all know it is strictly forbidden for a vampire and witch to mate. But that didn’t stop our little witch here, did it?” Jennie glares at him but doesn’t say anything. “For a crime like this usually the punishment is death, but a witch could come in handy. Join us.” He commands, the other vampires let out a groan of agreement.

“Eat shit!” Jennie growls and Tobias lets out a laugh. He raises his hand and clicks his thumb and middle finger. The door opens and another vampire brings in a girl, she’s a vampire as well. She looks frightened, eyes wide as she looks at Jennie.

“NO!” Jennie screams, tears slipping down her cheeks. Tobias smirks evilly.

“You should have joined us Jennie, I would have spared her life if you did!” he chuckles. Jennie, even though crying, glares darkly at Tobias.

“I did nothing wrong! I may be a witch and she a vampire, but we would be no threat to you. We cannot produce an heir!”  

“That is not the point. You cannot love a girl!” Tobias snarls. The girl vampire lets out a sob, she is shaking now.

“Join us, Jennie.” Tobias pushes. Jennie looks at the girl and lets out a sob herself before nodding. Tobias grins and nods to the vampire who is holding the girl. The vampire shoves his hand through the girl’s chest and rips out her heart.  The vampire drops before the girl and her heart on the floor.

“NO!” Jennie screams, “Lisa, no, no, no.” Baz lets Jennie go, quickly she crawls over to her lover. She mumbles under her breath as she runs her hand over Lisa face. Blue veins have appeared over her skin.

I can feel my own tears welling up in my eyes as watch the scene. A choke sob leaves my lips. Jennie’s head snaps to mine – her eyes are pitch black, veins trail down her cheeks. Right there and then I knew, not to fuck with a witch.

Jennie lets out a scream causing a bolt of energy to leave her body; the windows smash, vampire fly against walls. I fall down on my back, Chanyeol doing the same. As Jennie continues to scream, I cover my face as bits of glass flew past me, I peek at D.O who still remains standing. He is watching the scene with curious eyes. Jennie’s screams die down, I look as see her smirking darkly at Tobias who lay fearfully on the floor.

“What is this sorcery?” Tobias whispers.

“This?” Jennie lifts up her hand and dark smoke begins to form in the palm of it. “This is Black Magic.”

Baz lets out a scream as suddenly flames begin to lick at his skin, Jennie looks to the vampire who killed her lover Lisa, he begins choking up blood – his gagging echoed the room alongside Baz’s screaming.

I begin to stand up when Jennie appears in front of me. Her black eyes are lifeless as they gaze into mine. Her hand touches my cheek before she leans forward and plants her lips on mine. A burning sensation takes over me, I try to pull away from her lips, but she holds a firm grip on me. I feel weaker like my soul has been sucked from me. My eyes become heavy when suddenly she is ripped away from. I peek my eye open to see D.O’s worried gaze. I begin spasming.

“Too late,” Jennie says, “It’s already begun.”

My head rolls to the side as I let out scream of pain.

[curiosity-killed]

a bow for the bad decisions

canon-divergent AU from ep. 24 (on ao3)

part 1 | part 2 | part 3 | part 4 | part 5 | part 6 | part 7 | part 8 | part 9 | part 10 | part 11 | part 12 | part 13 | part 14 | part 15 | part 16 | part 17 | part 18

“Take a-Yuan and go get food,” Wen Qing orders, plucking up his hand and pushing the money pouch into it. “Clear your head.” There’s a moment where he’s still half in that shade-thin realm, fingers still interlaced with black threads, and her voice comes from too far away and too close at once. Disoriented, he shakes his head and pulls back from her touch. “I— what? No, I’m in the middle of—” he interjects “Your control is getting worse,” she says evenly. “Leave the seal and get some fresh air.” She raises a hand, fixing him with a warning look, and he subsides with a twist of irritation. Underneath her cool disapproval, there’s genuine worry, and his stomach coils at the sight of it. He looks away. “It’s not like I can just stop trying,” he protests, sullen. He has to do this, has to figure it out. There will come a day when he can’t control the Seal anymore, and it has to be destroyed before that day dawns.

“You can take breaks,” she retorts. “You’re not going to get anywhere by wearing yourself to the bone, Wei Wuxian.”

He rubs the knuckle of his thumb against his forehead in frustration. It would be easier to brush her off if she weren’t right, if she didn’t insist on checking up on him every two days, dragging him away from projects, making him eat and sleep and meditate. “I don’t know why you bother anyway,” he mutters. “Because I’m not letting you die for my family,” she snaps. Silence settles like a qin string snapping. He lowers his hand slowly to his lap, head still bowed. He can’t bring himself to lift his gaze, not when he hears her give a shuddering exhale. “Anyway, you’d be an intolerable ghost,” she spits, as if her voice isn’t thick and wet. “You’d just — just keep on working on your projects because you wouldn’t need to sleep or eat anymore and you’d teach a-Yuan terrible habits.” “Hey, he’s been trying to meditate along with me,” he protests weakly. It’s meant to be an apology, a little reassurance. When he looks up to her, there are tears along her waterline, and her jaw is shifted to one side as if to hold them back. Her arms are crossed, hands pinned tight against her ribs. His shoulders slump. He’s trying. He is. He lets a-Yuan drag him out into the sunlight, and he makes sure to talk to the Wen remnants sometimes. He eats most days and he meditates every day even if he can’t sleep. He’s doing everything Wen Qing tells him to try to keep it at bay. He doesn’t want to die. It’s just — it’s just that he’s so tired. He’s exhausted in a way sleep can’t fix, worn down to the thinnest threads. They know how this ends. Either he keeps using the Seal and it slowly devours him from within, gnawing away his soul and self until he is the demon they whispered about in the war, or he destroys it and the resentment holding his shattered body together snaps with it, tearing him apart. There’s no way he walks away from this. He knew the deal he made when he was first dropped in here, when he gave himself over to the yin iron sword so that he could last long enough to protect his family, to fulfill his promise to Madam Yu. He’s tired of fighting the inevitable. “Alright,” he says, sighs. “I’ll take a-Yuan to town.” “Good,” she says stiffly. “Take some responsibility for your son.” Laughing softly, he rubs the back of his neck as he unfolds himself and stands. He wants to apologize, wants to make up for the hurt clear in her tight shoulders, but he doesn’t know what he’d even be apologizing for. For the Seal? For saving his own life in a way that left him irrevocably damned? He doesn’t regret any of it and she wouldn’t accept an apology for it anyway. He bounces the money pouch in his palm once and gives her a grin instead. It works well enough; she rolls her eyes and follows him out of the cave. A-Yuan’s easy to spot and easier to swing up onto his hip, all delighted cheers. He clings to Wei Wuxian’s robe, babbling about how his friend lion is having a dispute with the neighboring frogs. Wei Wuxian listens attentively, raising his eyebrows in appropriate surprise at the frogs’ dastardly stubbornness and humming thoughtfully when a-Yuan decides his lion should play Chenqing to persuade them. At this point, he’s still a little surprised that Chenqing doesn’t have any scars from a-Yuan’s affections. There are more wards and spells inlaid in the flute than Wei Wuxian has placed on anything else, but he’s pretty sure he didn’t write any against toddler teeth back when he was here the first time. She doesn’t seem to mind the abuse, as far as he can tell. It’s not like she can speak or anything, but she purrs in something like amusement whenever he reaches out while a-Yuan’s fiddling with her. He’d been worried, at first, that the resentment would hurt the kid, but so far as he can tell, the dizi is almost perfectly inert in a-Yuan’s hands. He’s already decided to leave Suibian to him, but he’s not sure about Chenqing yet. He’s never had a chance to see if spiritual energy can be used with her, and he doesn’t want to curse a-Yuan with demonic cultivation instead. The market’s busy today, bustling with crowds picking up food and running errands. “Stay with Xian-gege, okay?” he tells a-Yuan, firm. “Hold onto me.” A-Yuan nods solemnly, dark eyes big in his face. Wei Wuxian grins and squeezes his cheek, helpless. He’s just too cute, like a hibiscus unfurling in the ash. He deserves better than this, better than the brittle bone-shard life they’re carving here. Even if the Nie sect agrees to take in the Wens, there’s no chance a-Yuan will be allowed to train in cultivation the way he deserves. He’s nagging a vendor’s prices down when he realizes he can’t feel a-Yuan’s hand tugging on his robes. Yunmeng Jiang has been quietly sending an allowance to help support their fragile settlement, which Wen Qing doles out. It’s for the best; Wei Wuxian has never really gotten used to having money in the first place, much less saving it. He’d be offended by the payments if it weren’t so necessary and if they weren’t always accompanied by notes and small packages from shijie. He’d sacrifice a lot more than his pride to hear from shijie, and there’s always some little gift tucked in with her letters: a toy for a-Yuan, a recipe to try with their first crop of radishes, once, a ribbon of his she’d found between the pages of a book, the end still marked with a haphazardly embroidered lotus she’d sewn when they were children. A jolt of panic runs through him now when he realizes there’s no small hand clinging to his skirts, and after a quick glance toward the road shows no one, he darts further into the market. A-Yuan’s small but quick. His chubby little legs send him darting around the settlement fast enough to leave Wei Wuxian short of breath. He could be anywhere in the market — or if someone saw him and scooped him up or— He stops short. Laughter bubbles up in him, catching behind his teeth and he presses his fist to his lips to stifle it. Lan Zhan looks like beryl carved and brought to life through a craftsman’s adoration; his hair hangs in a long sheet down his straight shoulders and the blue of his robes echoes the hazy summer sky. He looks beautiful and ethereal and absolutely, utterly lost. Through the small crowd gathering, he can spot the top of a-Yuan’s head pressed into Lan Zhan’s shin, his tiny hand clinging to Lan Zhan’s skirts. He wishes he could paint it, if only to prove that it happened. Looking at them, the laughter softens into a kind of fondness that nestles so deep in his chest it pangs. The two of them might be his favorite people in the world. The crowd’s pressing closer, though, and even if Wei Wuxian couldn’t see the minute tightening of Lan Zhan’s shoulders, he’d know it was too much. He bulls through, shooing off the spectators and freeing up the space around them. Lan Zhan turns to him as if being rescued, his eyes widening slightly and tension easing out of his face. “Lan Zhan,” Wei Wuxian greets. Delight floods him, fills him, buoys him up on a river of light. “Wei Ying,” Lan Zhan says before pausing, looking to the top of a-Yuan’s head, still pressed into his leg. “This child—” “Is my son!” Wei Wuxian chirps, grinning as he pats his chest. “I birthed him myself.” For a moment, he can see the doubt, the almost-belief, creep into Lan Zhan’s expression, and he laughs aloud. He’d forgotten what it felt like to be around Lan Zhan when they weren’t fighting, to be held in the honey-warmth of his regard. “Right, Lan Zhan,” he says, adopting as much of a scolding tone as he can around his own grin, “what did you do? Why is a-Yuan crying?” “I didn’t do anything,” Lan Zhan protests, brow pinching slightly. For all that Wei Wuxian has seen Lan Zhan cut through swathes of spirits and soldiers, for all that he’s argued with him about the salvage of his own soul, he’s still so easy to tease. The little shifts of his expression, the worry that slips into his gold eyes — they’re so different from the fifteen year olds who first crossed swords, but this core remains familiar. “I see. Lan Zhan, as pretty as you are, a-Yuan doesn’t know you like I do,” he says. “He can’t tell the difference when you’re angry or happy, so of course he’s going to cry.” Lan Zhan listens with all the seriousness he’d give to a proper lesson, and Wei Wuxian wonders a little if he really hasn’t been around children Yuan’s age before. Surely, as First Disciple, he’s worked with juniors of all ages — but, he supposes, even the Lan Sect isn’t so grim as to start children at age four. “Lan Zhan, watch,” he says, crouching down to a-Yuan’s height. There’s a toy vendor across from them who’s already spotted their trio, and Wei Wuxian eyes him a moment in thought. If Lan Zhan really hasn’t been around little kids enough to realize how quickly they can be brought to tears, then he probably doesn’t know how quickly they can be cheered, either. Smiling a little at his plan, he leads a-Yuan over to the vendor and lets him see the toy. It’s a little grass butterfly, carefully woven and common to any small market. Wei Wuxian is almost sure he had one of them as a child, too, though that’s built more on probability than any actual memory. A-Yuan cheers up at the butterfly waving around his head, tears drying, and Lan Zhan stands behind him, watching with all his careful consideration. “Here, sir,” Wei Wuxian says, passing back the toy as he stands. “Come on!” A-Yuan’s a good kid and knows better than to complain about not getting his way, but— “Wei Ying. Why didn’t you buy it for him?” He doesn’t smile because that would ruin it, but he raises his eyebrows in teasing question. “Why should I?” he replies. “You asked if he wanted it,” Lan Zhan objects. “Doesn’t that mean you’re going to buy it?” “Asking is asking, buying is buying,” Wei Wuxian retorts. “Who said you have to buy it once you ask?” Lan Zhan’s gaze dips down, chin lowering, as a shallow furrow creases his brows. He swallows before looking to a-Yuan. “Which one would you like?” he asks, attempting a gentler tone. “Among those, which one do you want?”  Looking up at him with wide eyes, a-Yuan hesitates before pointing out the butterfly. Lan Zhan gives a solemn nod, and Wei Wuxian can no longer suppress the grin that breaks across his face. His chest feels as if it’s breaking with reckless happiness, silly and unfounded. He feels young for the first time in years, for the first since— Well. Before. Lan Zhan hasn’t once mentioned healing music or purifying or returning to the orthodox path, and they’ve been around each other for less than a shi but still, it’s a new record. He could live in this moment, he thinks; a-Yuan babbling happily and flitting about with his new toys and Lan Zhan a little unsure but steady, here, at his side. “Aiya who would’ve thought you’d be the father who spoils his son while I’m the stern one,” he teases, nudging Lan Zhan with his elbow. “Certainly not Lan-laoxiansheng.” “Mn,” Lan Zhan hums in that way he does when he can’t argue but doesn’t really want to agree. Grinning, Wei Wuxian gives himself a moment to just — take this in. He hadn’t really thought he’d see Lan Zhan again after that night in Qiongqi Pass, or if he did, it would be at his death and he would close his eyes and accept Bichen’s kiss. “Hey Lan Zhan, why don’t you leave your night hunt and come have a meal with us instead?” he says on a whim. “My treat.” He hesitates, but his gaze flickers over Wei Wuxian’s face rather than holding steady and firm. Wei Wuxian grins, already tasting victory. “Come on, it’s been so long,” he wheedles. “Share a meal with your old friend.” He’s won even before Lan Zhan dips his head in acceptance, and that heady rush of delight carries him through the afternoon. Chattering through lunch almost reminds him of their days in the Cloud Recesses’ library pavilion, but there’s no irritation in Lan Zhan’s expression this time; he listens attentively, gaze steady on Wei Wuxian, and gives quiet affirmation when Wei Wuxian asks if shijie’s wedding was as perfect as she said. He lets a-Yuan clamber into his lap, holding him steady with one hand, and Wei Wuxian feels his heart stutter and squeeze in his chest. Oh, he thinks a little distantly. Oh he likes this. He wants this. The three of them sitting in the dust-mote sunlight around the table, a-Yuan cheerfully flitting his toy around while Lan Zhan inclines his head to better listen to his babbling and glances up every now and then to meet Wei Wuxian’s gaze. Leaning on his fist, Wei Wuxian drinks in the sight and lets it fill some cracked cavity in his chest. If resentment could be tamed with contentment, he thinks he’d be healed just by lingering in this sun-soft afternoon. Even when the signal talisman lights up a warning and they run to the mountain, that delight can’t be tainted. They work together so readily, so easily, as if their souls trained side by side in the eternity before this life. Lan Zhan takes a-Yuan from his arms so that he can work the spells needed to subdue the resentment wreaking havoc through their little home, and he listens when Wei Wuxian directs him on calming Wen Ning. It’s a little strange, this trust. He lost it so long ago it seems and yet here Lan Zhan is, still reaching out. His stomach does a funny flip and he sets the thought firmly to one side. “Lan Zhan,” he says, and lets himself enjoy the way Lan Zhan’s gaze swings unerringly to him, “now that you’re here, why don’t you pay a visit?”

[spiteweaver]

previous | next

(Note: this story is a repost of an old piece, to accommodate for a shift in my lore’s timeline!)

--

“You’re nervous,” she says to him, and he does not question how she knows. The privacy of his mask hides nothing from her eyes, covered though they are--for they see into every heart, no matter how guarded.

Still, he feigns ignorance. “No,” he replies, “I’m restless. There’s a difference.”

“There is,” she agrees, “but you aren’t restless.”

He toys with the locket ‘round his neck. There is a picture inside of it, of himself and two other drakes. They are all older now than they once were. He wonders if he will recognize them; he wonders if they will recognize him; he wonders what expressions they will show him when he steps back into their lives unannounced, a painful memory they’d thought long buried.

“Dierdre,” he says, and the dam at his side places her hand upon his shoulder, “what will they think of me?”

“It isn’t in your nature to ask me for guidance,” Dierdre teases. “All these years we’ve known each other, you’ve never requested a reading.” She turns from him, gazing out over the golden countryside from beneath her shroud. “Absolom,” she says, “there are some things you must learn for yourself.”

Absolom clutches the locket tightly. “I had best go and learn them then.”

--

A Fae spreads his wings at the edge of the Tangled Wood, and golden afternoon sunlight catches against his vibrant skin, its warmth seeping into his bones. The air smells of honeysuckle and barley; he works his claws into the rich soil underfoot. Everything is as he remembers, yet somehow magnified by his long absence. The years he spent abroad feel now as if he were sleeping.

“Oh,” he coos, “I’ve missed the Summerlands!”

“You never know what you have until it’s gone.” Another Fae joins him, pulling her decorated cap down over her eyes to shield them. “I’m not sold just yet,” she says, “but anywhere has to be better than the circus.”

“We could have gone to Darkroot.”

“No.” The female shakes her head. “Too much competition. We’ll do better for ourselves in the Ruins.”

“Eileen...” The male nudges his head beneath the female’s chin. “You saved me,” he murmurs. “I’ll go where you go. It doesn’t have to be here; it doesn’t have to be now.”

“You are dangerously loyal, Etienne,” Eileen scolds. “This is why I’ve scared off all of your suitors.”

“Ah! So it was you!”

“They were all scoundrels,” she insists, “and you were too good to know any better.”

“I really liked that last guy! Um...” Etienne chews his lip thoughtfully. “What was his name...?”

Eileen grins, and takes flight in a flurry of dandelion seeds. “Forget him,” she calls, “there will be plenty of drakes in Feldspar!”

--

“The earth here is good,” the first Skydancer says.

“I could have told you that,” says the second.

The first, cloaked in leaves and dark leather, straightens. Dirt slips from between his fingers. It is wet from spring rains, but this far into the Ruins, it will lose its moisture come June. The farmers will have to work quickly for the best yield. He sees signs of them already; footpaths reforming after a long winter, the black silhouettes of scarecrows rising in the distance, the smell of metal and wood.

“This land is loved by those who till it,” he informs, “and it repays them threefold with kindness. The weather is always mild. The summers are never too hot, nor the winters too cold. There is always enough to eat and drink.” He turns to his partner, smiling at him from beneath his hood. “Our life here will be peaceful.”

The second Skydancer averts his gaze. “Ash,” he says, his voice low and mournful, “we don’t have to do this. We can go back to the Labyrinth. There must be a clan who will accept us.”

“Accept me?”

“Us,” the second says again, and takes the slighter male’s hands in his own. “Your burdens are mine, as mine are yours. That was the pact we made when we were bound before the Gladekeeper.”

“Bryn...” Ash leans forward. Their lips meet in a brief, chaste kiss. “This is what I want,” he assures when they part, “this is what I feel in my heart must be. I cannot remain in the Labyrinth, but you can. That choice has always been yours to make.”

“I made it,” Bryn replies through clenched teeth, “the day I took you as my mate.”

Ash dips his head, but Bryn catches him by the chin. “I love you,” he says, fiercely, desperately. “There is nothing in this world I love more than you. Where we go, we go together.”

“Then let’s go forward,” says Ash.

--

“You must rise, Ogun.”

The soot beneath her feet stirs. It parts where she walks, and as she squats before the fireplace, settles into neat rings around her. She reaches for the iron poker leaning on the mantle. “Don’t make me use this,” she warns.

“Oya.”

His voice is weak, rasping; his form wavers before her eyes. She sets the poker aside. It is not stubbornness that confines him to his bed of cinders. The flame inside of him is dying. Soon, it will go out, and all of the many years she has spent tending to him will be for naught.

That is why they must leave today.

“I’ve found us a new home,” she tells him. “Its ruler is powerful. Not even the Grand Circle would challenge them. We will be safe there, and you can rest.”

A sigh escapes him, so weary that Oya feels it in her marrow. The ashes recede to reveal his heart, and she plucks it from his crumbling chest. It is warm in her hands, but dim. He will not last long outside of his hearth. Already he grows cold, his light flickering behind her fingers.

“The Grand Circle will never use us again, Ogun,” she vows, “and when we are strong, we will return to finish what they started.”

--

They arrive in the capital to little fanfare. Dressed in traditional Light garb of white and gold, one would think them royalty--but they are greeted only by gawkers, who stop to admire the fineness of their clothes, and the smoky color of their hair.

The male carries himself with the air of one who knows he is of great import. His shoulders are straight, his head high, and he moves with the grace of a dancer. He pays no mind to onlookers, as if they are beneath him. They start to wonder if they aren’t, for he is so much more magnificent than any one of them, as radiant as the Beacon itself.

In contrast, the female is timid. She clings to his arm, her steps faltering on unfamiliar ground. Her eyes are covered in pale cloth, but her ears are sharp. Each sound is new to her; she has never heard the cry of merchants hawking their wares, nor the rattle of cartwheels on cobblestone. There is an almost childlike delight to the slight upward curve of her lips.

“We are not here for leisure, Cymbeline,” the male reminds her.

Her smile fades. “I’m sorry,” she says. “This is my first time--”

“It will be your last,” says the male, “if you do not concentrate. Ours is a mission that must not fail.”

“But Phoebus--” Cymbeline’s ears perk at the gentle twang of a lute being played, and a drake singing in a strange tongue-- “shouldn’t we engage with the locals? We’ll stand out if we don’t at least appear to be enjoying ourselves.”

She cannot see it, but she knows that Phoebus is scowling. “Yes,” he concedes, “I suppose it would be prudent.”

Cymbeline’s smile returns. She is glad it was Phoebus His Grace entrusted with her care. He is the only one of her clanmates who ever humors her. “I want to go and listen,” she says, “to that lovely music. It’s even prettier than the church choir at home.”

“It’s coming out of a tavern,” Phoebus says, clearly aghast.

“I’ve never been to a tavern before,” Cymbeline replies, and before Phoebus can protest, she drags him forward with newfound confidence. “I want to drink something other than wine for once!”

[scribeofmorpheus]

As Fate Would Have It (Part 13)

Paring: 1940s!Bucky Barnes x Spy!Reader

Catch Up here | Masterlist

Note: Reader’s alias is Elle/Helen

A/N: This took me a while because I’m thinking of capping this series at 20 chapters and needed to fit a lot into two chapters. I wanted to wrap up this timeline but wrote myself into a corner and had a few issues with Howard’s dialogue and how everything would unfold.

Words: 4.2k | Bright side: two chapters released the same day!

Song: La vent nous portera by Sophie Hunger

~

The subway was practically a ghost town this early in the morning. The subway car was filled with maybe three people, yourself included.

One man, in work clothes smeared with grease and paint stains, was asleep under his cap a few rows down. The other looked to be nursing a hangover. Oh, how you wished a splitting headache had been the worst of your worries. You shifted in your borrowed clothes, too tight to get comfortable.  Your hand rested protectively over the metal briefcase as you rewound your memories, trying to figure out if there was some alternative you had failed to see.

~8 Hours Earlier~

“What now?” You asked.

“Now…” He dragged a chair to sit on close to you, “Now, we strike a deal.”

Howard sat down, taking a slow swig of his amber liquid. Savouring the moment with a smug smile on his face and a suggestive eyebrow arched up with childish humour. "Jarvis, if you would be so kind as you restrain our guest."

You sucked in air through your teeth in distaste. Howard chuckled as Jarvis restrained your hands to the armrests of a chair.

"Wouldn't want you getting any ideas now." Howard winked.

This was one hell of a fucked up situation you had gotten yourself into. A part of you couldn't help but wonder if you would have been so careless if you hadn't been toying with the idea of a life beyond being the spy. A life spent beside Bucky.  

You balled your fists up in anger. Not at Howard, or Jarvis or even the situation, but at yourself.

"Is this how it's going to be?" Howard cocked his head to the side in inquiry. "A Mexican standoff with silence in place of pearlescent revolvers?"

"You know, Howie, your jokes are kind of stale when you aren't knee deep in a champagne bottle," you bit back harshly.

"Oh, you know how I love a woman with a fiery spirit!" He hollered with delight. He was enjoying this immensely. Jarvis sighed behind him, not as enamoured with his employer’s behaviour.

"For someone who admires fiery women, you sure do spend a lot of time with a ditzy broad on your arm," you rebutted.

"Please!" Howard snorted holding up two fingers. "Two minimum."

"Sir, if I may," Jarvis stuck his head up. "You are supposed to be intimidating the woman who just tried to break and enter into your residence, not trade snarky commentary."

"Ah, quite right." Howard looked at his watch. His face scrunching as he seemed to be counting down the minutes. "Jarvis, would you be a good sport and see to our guests at the front gate?"

"Guests?" You and Jarvis asked simultaneously.

"The security system wasn't just rigged with an explosive device, it was also set to alert someone of the break-in. Last time we tested it his response time was under 12 minutes. It seems his time has improved significantly," He finished his drink.

Jarvis punched in the unlock code, deactivating Howard's outrageous security protocols. You waited, ill at ease for whatever was about to unfold.

You smelt the scent of cigar smoke and heard the grumbles of gruff military gusto before you even saw the man enter the room. He was taller than Howard you figured, but probably an inch or two shorter than Jarvis. His giant cigar trailing ash onto the floor. His beige and tan clothing screamed monotone personality. You imagined he probably ate his dinner with the military allocated regiment cutlery and plates.

"Howard, if you’re so called ingenious security system woke me up in the middle of the night for--" He was stopped from finishing his sentence when he saw you tied to a chair. "For Christ’s sake, she's not even properly restrained!"

"Ah, Chester!" Howard exclaimed with excitement.

"That's Colonel Phillips to you. And for the love of god, can you explain to me what it is exactly I'm looking at here?" His accent was thick and prickly sounding to your ears, but maybe that was because you spent most of your time in Brooklyn.

"Isn't it obvious Chest--" Howard's words were deterred by the Colonel's grim stare, "-Uh, Colonel Phillips. I caught a burglar!"

Colonel Phillips sighed, "Yes, congratulations Howard. You have successfully wasted my time with something that is clearly a police issue." The Colonel turned to leave.

"Yes, but how many cat burglars make a habit of breaking into your highly secret and secure military locations and make off with invaluable research, all without leaving so much as a hair strand behind?"

The Colonel stopped in his tracks and turned to Howard who had crossed his legs and plastered a smug expression on his face.

The Colonel walked over to you, eyeing you from head to toe- seeming unimpressed with what he saw. "You're telling me that she is the spy who managed to take out five highly trained operatives?" He asked bewildered, as if all this was some great, big prank.

You took offence in his expression, anger taking root in your stomach at his insinuation.

"Six," you said sharply, looking the intimidating man square in the eye.

The Colonel looked at you for a long moment and then chuckled.

"I believe I may have found us an answer to that mole problem," Howard said.

"Mole?" You subconsciously reiterated in a low whisper.

"Howard, you've got a big brain, but that doesn't mean you always use it correctly. What makes you think she's going to agree to do anything for us instead of running off and tattling to whoever she works for? Or worse! Shooting you in the back and making off with your research?" The stone-faced man howled with annoyance.

"Because, Helen here isn't Hydra," Howard said smugly, standing to pour himself a drink. He held up his newly refilled glass in question to the Colonel.

"It's 3am Howard. I'll have coffee, black, two sugars."

Jarvis made his way out of the room.

"Ah to hell with it! Make it Irish while you're at it!" The Colonel shouted after Jarvis.

"Right," the posh British man took his order.

"How do you know she isn't Hydra?" Colonel Phillips put out his cigar on an ashtray nearby.

"At least I assume your allegiance isn't solely to Hydra." Howard directed the statement to you. Your eyes darted about, trying to catch onto Howard's train of thought.

"The listening device..." You figured it out before Howard got a chance to reply to the Colonel.

Howard pointed at you as though you'd just scored point guard, "Bingo! Girl catches on fast. If you were Hydra, like Liza- or was it, Lisa? Maybe Edith... Oh, what is her name again?" Howard looked at the Colonel.

"Katherine Meyers, sir." Jarvis chimed in as he handed the Colonel his coffee. Howard clicked his fingers just then.

"Kathrine, that's right!"

After a brief pause, Howard noticed the Colonel scowling at him.

"What? He's my butler. Jarvis is basically my very own pocket diary. To be perfectly honest I'm lucky he was the one to open the garage doors. I forgot the combination. Things could've gotten messy real quick." Howard mouthed the sound of an explosion as his hands mimicked the dispersal pattern of a bomb. "Anyway, as I was saying. If you were Hydra you wouldn't have gotten rid of your own listening device. Unless you didn't want someone else being able to listen in."

You couldn't believe they knew about Kathrine, you didn't know she was Hydra until she ambushed you in the bathroom at work about spying on Howard.

"You know she's Hydra?" You asked the men in the room.

Howard set his drink down, "It's easier to keep an eye on potential threats when you keep them close. We used the Gala as a setup. All those higher-ups in one place? Perfect bait. We had hoped this… Kathy Meyers would show up and lead the good Colonel's men to the rest of her cohorts. Imagine my surprise when she was a no-show and instead, it was you -my date- that set off my bug sniffer. And now here we are. All acquainted." Howard gave both you and the Colonel a shit-eating grin.

The Colonel pulled a chair up close to you, "So if you aren't Hydra, who do you work for?"

"I never said I didn't work for Hydra..." You said.

"Do you make it a habit of destroying invaluable devices?" Howard asked sarcastically as he pulled out the listening device Katherine gave you from the pockets of his robe. "The trash is always the first place people look darlin'."

You bit your inner cheek. "Fine, you're right. My interests may not entirely align with Hydra's but the organisation I work for wants the same thing they do."

"Dr Erskine's serum." Colonel Phillips said. "That still leaves a long list of potential organisations."

"It does indeed," you played coy.

After what felt like hours of the Colonel interrogating you about who you worked for and what your real name was, you saw Howard barely keep it together as he grew antsier by the minute.

"You don't have to tell me who you work for. Lord knows there’s almost more than one way to get the truth out of people. I could simply let it slip through monitored channels that you've secretly been working for us and then all I have to do is wait and see who comes for your head..." Colonel Phillips threatened.

"Who she works for is of no consequence!" Howard's tone showed he was getting bored with this runaround. He leaned into your chair, hands over the armrests. "Look, we've got you dead to rights. So either you work with us or you face a much harsher reality than the one where you're bound to a chair in a millionaire’s garage."

You leaned closer to Howard, glaring at him. He was right, at best they'd throw you in a prison cell where you'd never see daylight, but eventually, someone would link you to Bucky and that caused a shiver to run up your spine.

On the other hand, even if you did manage to get out of this situation, your cover was blown and the Red Room wasn't known for being very forgiving when it came to failed missions. Making a run for it wasn't wise either. There was only one playable card left.

Your head tilted to the floor as your back slumped against the chair. You let out a thoughtful breath of air, "What is it you need from me?"

Howard sighed with relief, "It's simple. We just need you to lead us to the wherever Hydra has set up shop here."

"And what do I get out of this deal?" You brought your head back up from the floor.

"Your life," the Colonel said. "You get to keep breathing… somewhere else. Preferably back from wherever it is you come from."

"My window?"

"You've got 48 hours to figure out where Katherine and her companions are holed up and then we put you on a plane to wherever it is you want to go." Colonel Phillips said.

You tried to stay focused on everything, to let the gravity of your situation finally sink in, but all you could think about was Bucky and Steve and Sal, and how you'd never see them again.

"The plan?" Your vocal cords began to tremble.

Howard darted over to his desk, opened a drawer, punched in a code that beeped loudly and came back with a metal briefcase.

“This," he opened it to reveal several vials of glowing blue liquid.

You were shocked by his proposal, "The serum?"

"Not quite," the Colonel corrected you.

"It's actually a highly explosive chemical. The glow is just phosphorescent dye particles." Howard informed you.

"It's a bomb..." you said dolefully.

"Yes," the Colonel answered flatly.

Things were getting more complicated by the second. You clenched and unclenched your hands into fists and ground your teeth together, "Fuck."

"This is still your best shot," Howard reminded you.

Jarvis butted into the conversation when he noticed how distant your expression was, “Perhaps we should let the lady think on this, it can’t possibly be an eas—“

"I need one thing in return," your head shot up, determination creasing your forehead.

"Bargaining now?" Colonel Phillips seemed amused.

Howard, on the other hand, looked at you sympathetically, "What?"

"Dr Erskine's lab notes."

Colonel Phillips stood from his chair abruptly, almost knocking it over. "Out of the question!"

You were quick to reason, "I imagine whatever he's been working on hasn't been a success so far, otherwise, the tide would have shifted in your favour a long time ago. Anything with the ability to change the world takes time. Mistakes, failed experiments. If you give me those notes, I'd have an easier time proving that that briefcase is indeed filled with samples of the serum."

They mulled over your words. The Colonel looking less likely to agree. Howard, however, was more open to the idea.

"Deal!" He said.

"Are you out of your mind, Stark? You do not have the authority to give out classified information!" The Colonel shouted angrily.

"If she really did steal the defective serum months ago, her organisation is already onto our project. Giving her access to experimental notes from our failed experiments isn't going to change the fact that other people are onto your little project. If anything, it will make them spend months looking over useless data, giving us more time to perfect our findings!" Howard's voice rose an octave after each word until he was almost shouting.

Colonel Phillips grumbled and then conceded, "Fine, but this is on your head Stark!"

Howard walked over to you with a pair of scissors and undid your restraints. When you stood, Howard offered you his hand and said empathetically, "Partners?"

You gawked at him for a moment and then returned his handshake, "The enemy of my enemy..."

Howard's jaw dropped momentarily, then morphed into a smile when he noticed you weren't as stone-faced as before.

When he unclasped your hand, you rubbed the would-be bruises from your wrists, "Seeing as how it's day time, I do need one other favour?"

"What's that? Coffee?" Colonel Phillips snorted as he downed the rest of his hot drink.

You squinted your eyes at him. He had a gift for getting under your skin, much like Yelena. "No. First, how to set off this device and second, a change of clothes." Your arms fell to your sides.

"Ah yes, I suspect seeing a woman walking around in black tactical gear may be a tad bit suspicious," Jarvis said light-heartedly. "I may have a solution for that."

"Please, none of Howard's mistress’s clothes!" You pleaded after him, but he had already left.

***

After you got off the subway, you made a quick pit stop at a phone booth next to your street block.

The phone booth was small and claustrophobic, if not for the windows you'd probably feel a little cramped. You picked up the receiver and spun the number rotary. After a dial tone, an operator's voice spoke out.

"Operator, how can I connect your call?"

"Steak House Restaurant, please." You answered.

"Please hold."

The dial tone clicked a few times and then reconnected to another line.

"Steak House Restaurant," Yelena's accentless voice answered.

Your eyes lingered on the briefcase and then at your reflection in the glass, "I'd like to place an order."

"Will that be the regular?"

You sighed, "No, House Special."

"Your order will be delivered to you in the next hour. Thank you for calling."

The phone line cut and you hung up the receiver. It was then that you noticed your hand was shaking. You balled it into a fist and clamped down with pressure using your other hand.

Your fist connected to the glass walls of the phone booth, creating a spider-web crack. You could feel the skin break apart from the force of the punch. Blood trickled down the crack, you untied the scarf around your neck and wiped it away before wrapping it around your knuckles before heading for your apartment.

"Get it together, Y/N!" You tutted at yourself, your accent eerily similar to Yelena's just then.

Your keys rattled against the lock, but before you could turn the lock, the door swung wide open- your keys still lodged in the lock. Sally glared at you with the most menacing expression you'd ever seen her wear. It was worse than that one time Annie borrowed her favourite lipstick and lost it.

"Where the hell have you been?" Sally demanded with a quiver in her voice.

Your eyes opened wide, "Sal- What do you mean? I- I-"

Sally cut you off as she walked towards the kitchen to pour herself a cup of coffee. From the state of her hair and dark circles under her eyes, you guessed she hadn't slept most of the night. You grabbed your keys and shut the door. Placing the briefcase on the floor.

Sally eyed you, paying attention to the briefcase, your clothes and your bandaged knuckles.

With all the stress and turbulence of your day, it was hard for you to come up with a convincing excuse to explain everything. "I had an early work emer--"

"Don't even try to lie to me." Sally wrapped her polished nails around her mug. "I know you didn't sleep here. Bucky called the apartment, said you left his place in a weird mood. He wanted to check up on you since you didn’t call after your… whatever it was you were doing with Howard Stark. I went to check on you and your bed was empty. No note, nothin'! I was worried. And then you show up in strange clothes… And is that blood on your knuckles?"

You opened your mouth but nothing came out.

“You’ve always been secretive, but usually you’re better at disappearing.” Sally sighed, raking her hands through her hair. "What is going on Elle?"

You walked over to Sally and placed your good hand over hers, "It's- It's complicated. I- I promise I'll explain. Just not right now."

Sally was about to protest when there was a knock at the door. Sally's eyebrow rose in suspicion.

"It's for me," you reassured as you walked over to open the door. Sally just lifted her arms in exasperation. The man at the door was wearing a delivery outfit for the Steak House Restaurant. He handed you a package in a brown paper bag. In the process, his sleeve stretched over his wrists to reveal the watch of the man who had collected the serum sample from you months ago.

"How much do I owe you?" You asked.

He simply ducked his head and tipped his hat, "On the house." His voice was gruff and unwelcoming, a hint of an accent still present around his vowels.

You closed the door and turned around to see Sally looking at you completely baffled.

"You spend all night god knows where, say you can’t explain and then order take out? I didn't even know they delivered this early. I- I-" Sally tired herself out. "I'm done being so angry in the mornin'. We have work in an hour."

"Actually, Sal…"

She turned to you slowly from the doorway of her bedroom.

"Let me guess, you're not coming into work today, are you?" You nodded your head sluggishly and Sally just let out a sigh. "I'll cover for you, but when I get back we'll talk."

Your eyes lingered on the floor for a little too long before you said dryly, "Sure, when you get back."

Something in her eyes told you she didn't believe you. You didn't believe yourself.

As soon as Sally was out of the apartment, you tore open the package only to reveal an empty box with a single note that read: Trainyard. One hour.

***

After you finished filling Yelena in on your current predicament, the two of you had been stagnating in the hollow silence that filled the dark train car for almost ten minutes. Yelena was on her second cigarette, her red nails drumming an irate tune into the metal wall she was leaning against.

Once she put out her cigarette with her heel, she turned to you with an unreadable expression.

"It seems we have outstayed our welcome, tovarishch." She chuckled venomously as she looked you up and down. "And it seemed I overestimated your abilities."

You were getting tired of people giving you that same look so many times in the span of a day.

"I was doing what you ordered me to do. To find out what Stark was working on!" You barked to your defence.

Yelena tutted, "You did so carelessly! All because you stopped thinking objectively. I warned you, Y/N! I warned you of the consequences of getting entangled in our profession!"

That had been the first time Yelena had called you by your name in what felt like years. What surprised you the most was that her words held no animosity or anger, she almost sounded sad.

Yelena raked her nails through her perfect blonde curls, "It can't be helped. Do what they require of you. We'll plan an extraction. Hopefully, when you set off this bomb of theirs we can use the confusion to smuggle you out using the commotion."

You stood up from the cold steel chair to face her at level height, but Yelena kept her eyes fixed on a rusted bolt on the hinges.

"There's one more thing," You opened the briefcase carefully and pulled out the research notes Howard had given you. "I convinced them to hand over their notes. They aren't recent, but it’s more than we've managed to acquire in the last few months."

Yelena held out her slender long fingers expectantly.

You snatched the file away and held it closer to your chest, "I want to bargain it for my freedom."

Yelena looked at you with her mouth pried open slightly, "You're still nursing this moronic notion."

"Wanting to be free and live a normal life isn't moronic, Yelena." You whispered. "I'm tired of this life."

"What's the point? After this, you won’t be able to just jump back into your old life. You can't stay here tovarishch. And once you carry out this mission, rest assured Hydra will hunt you down."

"Only if someone talks."

"We will hunt you down." She assured you.

"Not if you tell them I died in the explosion."

"Why would I do such a thing?"

"Because Yelena… we were like family once. We were all we had for a long time. As much as I dislike what you turned into, I don't hate you. And I know you aren't as cold as you'd have people believe."

Yelena stayed silent for a moment and you held your breath, "Even if I did what you're asking, you must know you can't be with him. Your precious Bucky. And now that he's enlisted, he's our enemy. Your enemy."

Your eyes grew wide, "How did you- It doesn't matter. I just want out."

Yelena nodded, "Alright, tovarishch. I just want you to remember, whatever happens, this was your choice."

You handed Yelena the file and walked away, not once turning back.

***

Yelena sat by her apartment window, letting the salty air wash over her. She had been staring at her phone for almost an hour, unsure of how to proceed. Y/N had seemed so afraid in the train car, she may have hidden it well, but she could tell her old friend was hanging by a thread.

Before the Red Room, she was all Yelena had. They were two orphans turned pickpockets who survived by trusting each other. There was a time she considered them sisters. But everything changed once they were recruited.

Yelena wanted more than to stay at the bottom, to be a pawn with no power or authority. To her, being a grunt was worse than being a street rat. At least when she was living on the streets she still had a shred of independence. Climbing up the ladder had afforded her many enemies, but she couldn't understand why Y/N wasn't as adamant to leave her posting as someone’s boot lackey. It infuriated her that she didn't strive to regain some shred of power. That was all in the past now and Yelena had a hard decision to make.

Yelena picked up her secure line and dialled a number. After a few rings, the line picked up.

"Da," a stern-sounding woman's voice answered in their mother tongue.

Yelena spoke freely in Russian, "It's agent Y/N."

"Speak."

"She managed to get the files on the secret project," Yelena looked down at the open file, papers watermarked with 'S.S.R'. Her eyes were fixed on a passage where Erskine talked about the human experiments that took place at one of Schmidt's secret bases.

"Good work, Yelena."

Silence became her friend again as her mind was torn in two.

"If that is all agent--"

"There is something else…"

"What is it?"

"Y/N, she is planning on betraying us."

The woman let out a hefty sigh, "Then eliminate her."

"Wait!" She said quickly. When she composed herself she spoke again with a calmer tone, "There may be a way she could still be of use to us."

The woman on the other end of the line didn't say anything, Yelena took a deep breath before telling her handler her plan.

Part 14 is here!

Tags: @fangirl-colo @dormousse @smallmarvel @ren-ni @sargentbucket @nikolett3 @wnygirl2012 @jentismyname @evilgeniuslabz-blog @myrabbitholetoneverland @500daysofbecky @reidreader 

Permatags: @gruffle1 @thechickvic @notawarriorjustyet

[fanfiction-inc]

Calm After The Storm

Verse: Sherlock BBC

Characters/Pairings: Gregory Lestrade / Mycroft Holmes

Rating: Explicit sexual content

Warnings/Tags: Mentions of past sex and suggestive acts, smoking, alcohol use, Sex, M/M, Rough Sex. Accidental hurting, Use of a safe word, Aftercare, Angst, Regret.

Word Count: 2,347 

Summary: After a hard, stressful day, Mycroft Holmes returns home to dispose of his built up frustration, but will it end up backfiring on him?

Notes:  A story for 2019 Holmestice Summer recipient @johnlockismyreligion! I hope you enjoyed it, dear!

--------

Cognac, an old friend to a powerful bastard as he sits in his plush leather chair and debates on slamming his head against a desk or retiring to bed for the man he loved. Swaying, the room was swaying in such a motion as to dull his tiring senses that were drawn on and played all day. Playing, these petty humans he had wrapped around his little pinky danced a waltz to shattering glass and screeching violins that trampled all over his authority and insisted on pushing lines that should never be pushed. As the British government in one man, a sigh was all he could manage before refilling his glass to half way and stealing another long sip. Cognac was a dear friend and the bottle followed him to a standing position when the door of the home closed and echoed down the halls. "Mycroft, I'm home!" Called the voice of a man oh so dear to the drunken queen's militaries heart. Stumbling, the hand placed on the walls and Cognac laced lips meeting those of unsuspecting delicate texture. A murmur of surprise and the taller, bigger of the two had the other up against the doorframe, scattering fingers tracing along his sides and simply tempting the fabric to loosen. "Mycroft, what has gotten into you?" The man asked with a bit of humor to his tone, those delicate lips that once wrapped around the glass edge teased a soft suckle at the juncture of the man's lower jaw and neck, teeth nipping at the soft skin before his darkened eyes met those of the man who looked on.

A question hung in the air despite the way hands grabbed and tugged at clothing to loosen and dislodge it from a tucked in position within the mans belt. “Mycroft, darling-” “On your knees, Gregory.” The man commanded harshly against his skin, darken, alcohol laced gaze looking on to the other and watching as his lower lip trembled. A hesitant motion and a moment passed before the click of a unbuckling belt and a back braced against a wall and wrinkling fabric sounded in the quiet air. The detective inspector looked on with a shaky breath, pulling the mans trousers down to expose the semi-hard tent forming behind thin expensive cotton briefs. A tug to the material and the object that was in the inspectors mind when the command was given sprung up, hitting the mans button up and vest covered abdomen before slowly lowering due to the state it was in. Calloused fingers with the scent of cigarette ash and cheap bathroom hand soap took the object in hand, feeling the way it throbbed and began to stiffen just by his hot breath brushing over it. A grip on his graying locks and a pull forward to the pink tip with need leaking out was enough indication for the flavor to be spread on a skilled tongue that learned all the right bits to toy with when the man was in a state of want. It wasn’t his teasing the taller needed and when those sinful lips on a innocent man wrapped around his member, he didn’t hold back his voice. It came out in a harsh motion and a word of ‘fuck’ leaving his generally clean lips. His hips move in such a motion as to make the inspector relax his throat and allow the motions to further down in his wet, hot cavern. It wasn’t nice, none of this was nice, and Mycroft could only savor the motion as his hips met the soft features of the mans face as they slip and hit in a fast fucking motion. His noises of huffs and miniature groans caused the one below to simply stare and tent form in constricting trousers. The taller refused to spill his sweet cream down the mans throat even as it constricted in the most delicious of ways. A quick removal, a grab of his chin with a squish of his cheeks by extended fingers and the lift to view him, Mycroft made the man stand and replaced where his back had rested against the wall of the interior of the home.

“There will be no request tonight, no demands. I am in charge and you will do what I say, do as I please. Do you understand, Gregory?” Slowly the man nods in turn, his body dragged along by loosened tie to the bedroom for the two to continue, placed before the bed and firm hand pushing back against the others chest, sending the graying inspector to the bed to watch as the other sets his bottle aside and took a moment to straighten. “Undress.” Numbly, fingers of the shaking variety worked the buttons free from their loops and sent the article to the side as the tie was soon to join. The taller watched with devious eyes, a noticeable twitch of a reddened appendage being taken note and the subtle lick of lips when the man turned to remove his trousers and boxers beneath. A harsh slap to the rear cheeks of the man and the detective inspector gave a startled noise in the steamy air. Alcohol was taken from the bottle in a direct sip, making the investigator wonder just what was causing such behavior, yet he couldn’t dwell too long when the other climbed onto the bed and pushed his body down to bend, hips pulled up to line up with a certain extended area. Mycroft was a master of preparation, always using the right amount of this or that to bring the man to a ready stance for his entrance. It wasn’t the length Gregory Lestrade had to worry of, but rather the girth, and when the man barely hooked a finger in his rear hole with a bit of spit to be considered ‘open’, it drove his worried state even further.

A harsh suckle of air as the man moved his finger, adding a second and in what felt like only minutes passed by in what was truly seconds, removed altogether. “M-Mycroft-” “Gregory, what did I say.” His hips pushed forward and the monster of girth tried to push beyond the tight ring of muscle, making the man beneath him whimper out and bite on his lip to near blood was drawn. Hammering hearts and one to the point it deafened the world around him as the tip pushed past in the worst way possible. The spit had dried and it felt damn near like sandpaper, making a squeak of a voice come out in a single word that sent the man aboves blood to run cold. “A-Apricot!” 

“Apricot?”

“Yes, Apricot.”

The taller man looked down to what he was doing and for a moment, he sobered enough to realize just what pain he was causing to his dear inspector. A quick withdrawal and a noise of pain, the taller could feel his heart quicken further at the way the other moved to push up closer to the headboard of the bed, to stray away from his motions and watched the shorter who held a pillow over his member and kept his eyes downcast in a way that made the other feel shame for his actions. "Gregory, I-"

"What has gotten into you, Mycroft? You're usually so tender and sweet…You reek of alcohol, and your bloody arse is so rough.." "I..Gregory, I must apologize. How I am acting is very unorthodox from how I should be treating you, I should never treat you in such a way again." His hand reached out and felt the mans cheek before it was swatted away, pushing those shaking digits away and standing from the bed. All the British Government himself could do was watch as the Detective Inspector pulled his undergarments on and left the room. For a moment, the government couldn't quite help the way his emotions took, taking the bottle and tossing it in the bin before straightening out the sheets and bedspread. The least he could do was set the bedding back in order for the man to return.. That is if he even decided to return. The man mentally damned himself for his idiocracy tendencies and he huffed when minutes went one without a sound or word. He rose, going to check on the other and followed the smell of smoke to his resting room where the man sat with a saddened expression as he smoked on a cancer stick. Quiet feet padded along to the mans back, hands timidly placing on his shoulders and feeling the muscles tense beneath his fingers. A gentle motion and a pressure of his thumb and the graying inspector looked to the other with a raised brow. "Come back to bed, I want to make it up to you, Gregory. You can set the pace, we can take it slow and-" "Mycroft, slow down." The man placed a hand over the others and brings it to his lips, lightly pecking the knuckles that brushed so lovingly against his cheek. "Let's go back to bed, Mycroft. Maybe we can wait for a moment?" "Of course, my love." The shorter led the taller back to the room, lying beneath the covers with him and simply savoring the way he kept pressed against his spine and those soft lips that had been so harsh before kissing so sweetly. 

A hand slowly reached back in the wee hours of the night, taking the others rear in hand and causing the near sleeping man to stir. He looked to his sweet inspector who gave a soft look and the note was given to start. Soft lips trail along the mans neck and shoulder, keeping a slow and soft motion as the skim along the sweetened skin to find all the sensitive little spots that made the man go 'oh'. Years of contact, years of being held in one another's arms with slick bodies and huffs and moans. The nips and kisses that left marks on the skin that only the other would know of, memorizing every detail of his form. 

Greg's breath hitched when a nip was delivered to a spot between his jugular and collarbone, a dark mark suckled on the fleshy path and making the man shiver due to such. Fingers explore soft patches of well kept hair and soothing along the mans strong chest. Mycroft inhaled his scent as the man shifted against his body, the sweet treatment making his form mewl in delight and bend in perfect aim when those fingers brushed a rose bud delicate to the cold. He bites down on his lip when he feels the other man hardened against his rear, a glance sent back to the man and shivering when those hands that touched him in all the right places went to where he needed him most. Mycroft occupied his shaft with a few lazy pumps, thumb brushing over the tip and gathering the pre-cum that accumulated there. He used it to pump him much more freely but the friction was a bit off for Mycrofts taste. He reached back to the night-side drawer, pulling the small bottle out and popping the cap much to Greg's satisfaction. He dripped a few drops onto the mans member, pumping him much more freely and allowing those sweet sounds to follow out of his lips. 

His eyes flutter at the motions that pump him to hardness, whimpering out when more of the cold liquid is dripped along his crack and flowing down to his puckered ring of muscle. Mycroft hummed his approval at the woman Greg mewled and purred in such a soft motion of moans as a finger entered him, then a second and by the end, a third. He pumped them slowly, keeping the motion simple and sweet and making sure to hit all the right places that had Greg's voice growing in volume. "R-right there, Mycroft." "Ah, yes." A brief chuckle against his skin as he poked and prodded his prostate, making the man jerk and shake each time the area was hit. His hips rocked, and yet he whimpered when the sensation was gone. Slick fingers rub along his length and prepare it for entrance, placing the tip against his entrance and slowly easing in with a huff and groan of approval. He pushed in slowly, slowly easing himself to near fully settled and allowing the man to adjust just like he always had… That is, until earlier that night. His hips began a slow motion, pressing the man against his form and burying his face away in his neck. Light pecks and soft noises fall from his lips as he moved within the other, watching as Gregory bent and moaned. His head fell back, giving better access to his neck and allowing the other to suckle another mark. He played with his body, hips moving in such a blissful way and toying with his hair as their bodies move in sync. Such a blissful song to be played, such a dirty rhythm they both could move to. It was the final grasp of his member and pumping of it that sent Gregory Lestrade over the edge and his body to tighten and spasm. That reaction is what always sent the government himself over, spilling deep within with a hellish groan and body clinging as he milked them both to empty. A soft peck to his cheek, hands reaching back for a towel kept stashed away in the drawer and the cleaning of their of their spilled messes. Mycroft slowly pulled himself from the mans rear, watching as it leaked his sweet seed and wiping it away as the other huffed and suckled in as much air as possible. "Sleep, Gregory. You're exhausted." A turn and the man smiled sleepily to the other, fingers brushing his cheek in a soft motion. "And so are you." A soft chuckle and they pressed closer. Mycroft shook his head, smile keeping in place and stole a final kiss. 

At least this night didn't end badly.

Hey guys! If you liked this story and wish to see them before I post them to my Tumblr, go follow my Archive of Our Own page and get the stories there first! :D

Archive Of Our Own: Belle82DevArt

Link: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Belle82DevArt/works

[diveronarpg]

Congratulations, ROGUE! You’ve been accepted for the role of ORSINO with an approved FC change to FRANCOIS ARNAUD. Admin Jen: There is an edge of decadent madness to your vision of Orion and from the moment I noted it as I was reading, my heart was immediately captured by the princely wild card that you’ve presented to us. Words truly fail to describe how gripping he is - from his dangerous boredom to his unique brand of cunning. I was as unnerved by him as I was in awe of him and I think that on its own is a testament to the impact of your wonderful vision, Rogue. I can’t wait to watch as he brings utter ruin to Verona! Please read over the checklist and send in your blog within 24 hours.

WELCOME TO THE MOB.

Out of Character

Alias | Rogue.

Age | 22.

Preferred Pronouns | She/Her.

Activity Level | A font of words here, mostly.

Timezone | PST.

In Character

Character | That Bitch Orsino. Can I get Francois Arnaud? I wanna look like the messiest hottest man alive thank you.

What drew you to this character? | What I really wanted was a Capulet, because there’s a whole side of Verona I haven’t explored, and I’m a nosy bitch, so it started there. After going through the open characters, Orion really stuck with me, because I don’t have a character who exhibits true villainy the way he does. I have two characters full of ambition, and Orion has none, which in my mind makes him far more dangerous. His wants are kaleidoscopic, and the selfish whims he exhibits are so juicy and rich. I want to play in this playground all day and night. He’s the true definition of chaotic neutral; he isn’t always cruel because that’s boring, and it doesn’t always serve him. He isn’t kind because that would never serve him. Each moment is a choice, a flight of fancy, a way to have fun, and the level of unpredictability is delightful and sinful as hell.

What is a future plot ideas you have in mind for the character? | ✘ — I would like to play with Orion growing bored. Increasingly challenging Cosimo to give him something more exciting to play with, and either getting what he wants or growing tired of it enough to say, lay the groundwork for chaos. Whether that means slipping secrets to the media, trying to seduce and kill a Montague, or even fucking around a Capulet, Orion makes things entertaining for himself. He doesn’t care what the sides are so long as he gets fed.

✘ — One of Orion’s defining traits is that he’s unwilling to lie. He does terrible things, of course he does, but asked point blank and he’ll tell you: ❝ Darling, did you expect anything less ? How charmingly quaint. ❞ He’ll take his lashes with a smile and scream as much as you ask him to, so to speak. What I really want is for him to find someone he’d lie for. Someone or something he cares more about than his own self-image. Maybe that’s impossible, but I’d like to think it isn’t, if only because everyone needs to be knocked on their ass. Someone he so enjoys corrupting he’d rather have them to himself, perhaps. Maybe someone so depraved and wicked they delight him and fascinate him endlessly. Either way, the first moment his tongue spills tales for him, he knows he’s in too deep, ferociously attempting to claw his way out. Do they let him?  

✘ — I don’t know that Orion experiences true loyalty, but he does have a possessive quality to him, and in that way, he cares for people. He has no qualms betraying them if it gets him what he wants, but them betraying him? That is akin to blasphemy. I would, therefore, like to plot that out with someone. Betray him! Betray him! Honestly, though, what he would do is the height of despicable, and that’s peak favorite Orion for me.

✘ — Now for the other side of the above coin. The people he calls “friends” are his belongings, the toys he plays with. In the same breath, I do think that he has that sort of wild mentality: no one breaks my toys but me. He is just as monstrous to those who hurt them as he is to them when he grows bored, because the ownership he feels is absolute. So I’d also love to have him go after someone for hurting someone close to him. When they laugh at how soft he’s become, he only ever has one response: ❝ They were mine to ruin, and I am not kind to thieves. ❞

Are you comfortable with killing off your character? | I’m fine with dying or fine with living. I do imagine how funny it would look if Orion is last man standing, just smoking and watch the city burn, but he deserves death really and should get it.

In Depth

❃ — What is your favorite place in Verona? He’s been forced to attend this silly little survey, and any time anyone forces him anywhere, it doesn’t bode well. Orion props his feet up on the coffee table, scuffing the glass as he pulls a cigarette from his pocket. He lights it, leaning back into the couch and really getting comfortable. There is no indication that he heard the question. After a prolonged and uncomfortable silence in which Orion smokes and occasionally trails ash across the table, ignoring the ashtray sitting off to the side, Cosimo’s little secretary opens her mouth to ask again.

Orion lets her get out half a syllable before cutting in, mostly because he was in the middle of blowing smoke in her direction. ❝ Starting out soft. Is that Cosimo’s style, now ? ❞ When the girl doesn’t answer, Orion rolls his eyes. ❝ Pick your favorite place in Verona and write that down. ❞ When she doesn’t move, he stills, gaze kept on her face until she makes eye contact almost by mistake. Whatever she sees there causes her to bend her head and write, and he smiles. ❝ Good girl. ❞

❃ — What does your typical day look like? Now this is juicy. He imagines the answers the other simpering idiots he works with gave, trying to figure out how Cosimo stands to read the drivel. This is a game, of course, that they play every so often. Flat, boring questions that belie dangerous intent. If the answers don’t match what’s on file, you get in trouble. If they match too closely, you must be reading a script.

❝ A typical day ? ❞ he asks, mockery infusing every syllable. ❝ I make things happen. ❞ He clouds the space between them with smoke again, watching with a small kick of relish as she waves her hand through it, trying to dispel a little. Cosimo knows he’s an art dealer, and he certainly doesn’t want to hear about his day job, so Orion doesn’t waste his breath on it. ❝ I get whatever’s necessary out of the way, find someone to fuck, bother my superiors, and crash. ❞ His eyes flick toward the paper where she’s meant to be taking notes. ❝ Be sure to quote me directly, piccolina. If you censor me, he’ll know, and we’ll both be very disappointed. ❞      

❃ — What has been your biggest mistake so far? Orion throws his head back with a laugh and it sounds impossibly indulgent, richly decadent — it’s a sound that makes someone want to know the joke just so they can join, so they can feel included when it sounds so terribly exclusive. The look he gives her positively oozes confidence. ❝ I wonder how many of them cried to you about their sad little histories, ❞ he muses, shaking his head. ❝ Diciamo pane al pane e vino al vino. I don’t make mistakes, and I don’t regret a thing. ❞

❃ — What has been the most difficult task asked of you? ❝ Bella, bella, ❞ he says, shaking his head in chastisement. He knows she has no option but to throw these questions at him, but Orion enjoys making her squirm, anyway. It’s more fun to see fear and longing in her eyes than to admit he’s stringing her along. ❝ You should know the answer by now. ❞ He waits, eyes bright through the dim haze of smoke he’s permeated the room with. He wonders if she wants to open the window, but is too afraid to move — he has her pinned like a butterfly beneath his gaze. After a moment, hetsks under his breath, taking another drag. ❝ No one asks me for anything difficult. That’s the problem. A challenge ? Now that would shock me. ❞

❃ — What are your thoughts on the war between the Capulets and Montagues? This question is new. It must be because the war is ramping up in truth, no longer played out in the shadows but firmly thrust into the light. He pretends to consider it, trying to think of what will most shock or horrify her. ❝ My thoughts ? I like seeing them bleed, ❞ he says, ❝ and I like best when they beg me for it. ❞ He deliberately doesn’t name the Montagues entirely, letting her believe and write what she wants. In truth, it doesn’t matter to him in the least, beyond the money Cosimo’s paying to keep him on retainer.

Most of them aren’t real, anyway. They’re too small, too ill-conceived and weak, running around worried about things like loyalty and fear. He’d rather be dead than what they are, two colors of ants in two hills, scurrying around and taking on more weight than they can bear. He might leave the whole city behind, if they weren’t so fun to play with, burning under his magnifying glass until there’s nothing left.

[whentommymetalfie]

Gun in my hand

A/N: I realised halfway into this story that the request was for something involving all three of them, but by then I was too invested in this, so I decided to run with it. But this really got me going, so I see this as a potential setup for a longer running plot line, if you’d like that! So I promise Alfie will get to interact more with Changretta then. You know me, I’m always scheming. References to ‘Bad things’  

Summary: Tommy finds an unexpected visitor in the kitchen one morning and realises that he may have underestimated Luca Changretta.

Pairing: Tommy/Alfie

Warnings: Graphic descriptions of violence, threats of rape/non-con (very brief, but I’ve put a TW in the tags) 

Wordcount: 4800

AO3: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14313621/chapters/33026400

Sometimes, Tommy curses the fact that Alfie’s got well over thirty pounds on him. Namely when they’ve been out drinking. Because it somehow ends far too often with him being absolutely pissed, while Alfie is barely even tipsy.

This is the morning after one of those times. He opens his eyes far later in the morning than he’d planned to, and finds Alfie's side of the bed empty. There’s a glass of Alfie’s usual hangover cure on the nighstand, together with a note.

Gone to the office for a few hours. Thought I’d let you sleep in. If you manage to get out of bed at all today, there’s bread down in the kitchen- eat.

/A

And Tommy smiles, despite the headache.

He puts on one of Alfie’s shirts, an overly large, washed out thing –reasoning that he’ll sort himself out in a bit. Just needs to eat something before he starts feeling sick. And admittedly, it’s become sort of a habit in the morning.

His mind is pleasantly quiet as he ventures downstairs. And it’s strange, feeling so oddly at peace with everything. Despite having overslept.

Though of course it’s bound to blow up in his face, feeling that way.

And his morning takes an incredibly unexpected turn when he enters the kitchen.

Luca Changretta sitting at the table reading the newspaper is not exactly a pleasant surprise.

The sight is enough to make his heart drop, and he just knows that it shows on his face for a moment, before he can straighten his features again. He stands frozen on the threshold, his mind immediately pulling itself out of the morning daze and trying to piece together a plan.

“Good morning, Thomas,” Changretta says as he leans back in his chair, looking him up and down in a way that makes Tommy’s skin crawl. The corner of his mouth curls upwards. “What a privilege it must be for Solomons, waking up to this sight every day. I truly hope he knows how lucky he is.”

“Mr. Changretta,” Tommy greets him and walks into the kitchen, already having deemed this his only option. Changretta is no doubt armed, and unlikely to be alone. The closest gun in the house is in the dresser at the end of the hallway. He won’t make it there. “A bit unorthodox, this. If you wanted a meeting, you could’ve just called to the office. I’m sure we could’ve set something up.”

“Oh, but then I wouldn’t get to see you like this,” Changretta smirks. “My guess is you’re usually a bit more… dressed.”

Choosing to ignore this comment, Tommy walks over to the kitchen cabinet, taking out a kettle. Could he use it to bash Changretta over the head? How quick would he have to be?

“I wouldn’t get any ideas, darling,” Changretta advises, uncannily observant. “I’ve got some company waiting outside should you do something… rash. And they are not nearly as gentle as myself. Could turn ugly, this.”

“Tea, Mr. Changretta?” Tommy asks without turning around to acknowledge him, already filling the kettle with water.

“Please.”

Tommy makes tea, every movement controlled and precise. Calm. As if this is a completely normal way to start the day, and he isn’t the least bit caught off guard.  

Even with his back turned against him, he can feel Changretta’s eyes on him.

He puts down the pot and two cups, before sitting down opposite to Changretta at the table and reaching for one of his cigarette packets, the one he always keeps on there. “You don’t happen to have a light?”

Changretta pulls out a silver lighter and puts the flame to the cigarette between Tommy’s fingers. Tommy takes a purposefully slow drag, exhales the smoke in a thin stream. He can do this. It’s a game. The rules haven’t been set by him, and he’s certainly not in the position he’d like: In his own kitchen, wearing almost no clothes… unarmed… but he can still play.

“So, I suppose there’s a reason you’re here?”  

“Purely a social call.” Changretta’s right shoulder makes an every so slight shrug. “So how are you, darling? I heard from my associate you two had a little altercation. How is that leg of yours?”

Fuck, Tommy wishes he would lay off the pet names. Changretta is so clearly trying to provoke him into doing something stupid. But he’s in over his head on that one.

“As good as new.”

“They did leave your face intact, I hope? I specifically asked them to.” He fiddles the toothpick nonchalantly.

“As you can see, they did.”

Changretta takes a sip of his tea. Tommy does the same.

“How are you enjoying London?” he asks. “Seems like you’re in town a lot these days. Saw that article about the new distillery.”

“Well you’re right,” Changretta confirms. “I’ve found myself spending more time than I’d originally planned in this… town.” He says the last word in a voice absolutely dripping with mockery.

Tommy decides to cut to the chase.

“What do you stand to gain from all of this?” he taps some of the ashes from the cigarette onto the plate. “And not your… deal with Sabini, I assume you have your reasons. But this, unannounced social calls to people’s houses.”

“Never been pursued by a man before?” Changretta asks as his eyes wander again. “I find that hard to believe.”

“They usually don’t break into my house,” Tommy states and fills his lungs with more smoke. He exhales it very purposefully into Changretta’s face. “There must be men back in New York as well. Why don’t you save the condescending speeches for them?”

“Well, I suppose it must be hard for you to understand.” Changretta crosses an ankle over his knee and makes himself comfortable. “See, back at home, I’ve got everything. Money, power, status… but all those things come with a certain responsibility, don’t they?”

From his inner pocket, he pulls out a switchblade knife that he studies with undivided interest as he toys it between his fingers. Tommy resists the urge to roll his eyes. Fuck, this ridiculous parody of a man…

“In New York I’ve got my reputation to think of. Can’t just take anyone to my bed,” his eyes shift to Tommy again, who just watches him with indifference. “Furthermore, people are generally so… dull, don’t you think? Especially the upper class. And sometimes the days just blur together. Endless boring cocktail parties with tedious conversations.” He flicks the blade out and runs his thumb over the metal. “Paperwork, meetings… men who just tremble at the sight of you. Where’s the excitement in that?” he uses the knife to scrape some non-existent dirt from under his nails, before concluding, “And I must say I thoroughly enjoyed our little conversation in that dingy pub. Thought that while I was in town, I might as well stop by for a little visit.”

Tommy raises his eyebrows in a display of scepticism.

“Seems like a risky move.”

Changretta lets out a quiet chuckle.

“I’d hardly call this a risk,” he says. “See, you’re of no actual importance. If I decided to slit your throat, the only impact would be the blood stain on the floor.”

“You know, you seem to put a lot of time and effort into this,” Tommy points out. “It comes off as a bit desperate.”

Changretta settles his elbows on the tables and leans forward just slightly.

“Oh, believe me, darling, when I put actual effort into something, you’ll know.” Every word he says seems to come with a threatening implication. “This is just a nice little pastime.”

“May I suggest trying cricket?”  Tommy asks, putting his cigarette out. “Heard that’s what rich people with too much time on their hands get up to."

He wonders if he's pushing his luck.  

With calculated nonchalance, Changretta reaches across the table and takes his hand. Tommy lets him. Because as long as he does, he can pretend he’s got some sort of control over the situation. Pretend that he isn’t completely cornered.

Turning his palm over, Changretta’s long fingers close around his wrist, putting the tip of the blade against one of the blue veins, clearly visible through the pale skin.

There’s a clock out in the hallway. An old one, that Alfie inherited from that uncle of his. And it’s an expensive thing, so its ticking is that sort of soft, pleasant one. Tommy listens to it now.

“The heart is such an interesting thing,” Changretta muses and as he slowly drags the knife along the wrist. Just lightly. But the blade is sharp enough to still leave a thin, red line. “See, it betrays how we’re truly feeling.” The fingers on Tommy’s wrist push against the pulse point.

“Do you know how long it takes for a person to bleed out if you rupture one of the major arteries?” he puts the knife vertically across his wrist, letting it sit just above the skin.

“Depends on which one,” Tommy answers calmly. “Wrist? I’d say two or three minutes.” Changretta gives a thoughtful nod, pursing his lips as he lowers the knife slightly. The metal is cold against his skin.

The clock in the hallway ticks steadily.

“I must say, your utter indifference to this is rather impressive,” Changretta says. “Do you really value your life that little? Or are you just not as clever as I first thought?”

Tommy offers a light shrug, and picks up the cup with his free hand, taking a mouthful of tea before answering.  

“I think you’d rather avoid getting blood all over that suit.”

“I’ve got plenty of suits.” The knife digs into his skin, just enough to break it. He doesn’t move a muscle. Changretta watches the little droplets of blood that pools around the blade.

“I should tell you, there’s a strict ‘no weapons- policy' at this table,” Tommy says and gives knife a pointed look. “Me and Alfie try to leave work at the office. And you’re not about to actually use it.”

“You seem awfully sure about that. For someone in your position.”

“Well, just one of my many talents.” He empties his teacup. “I can see into the future.”

“Oh, can you now?”

Changretta removes the knife and releases Tommy’s wrist. When he pockets it again, Tommy sees the holster resting against his ribs. Clearly, Changretta isn’t taking any chances.

“Not just the future… I can see all sorts of things. Gypsy witchcraft, you know.”

Tommy reaches across the table and picks up Changretta’s cup, swirling it lightly to make the tealeaves spread across the bottom of it. He gives it a while, studying the indistinct pattern they’ve created with feigned interest.

“You’re acting as if you’re somehow above everyone, that you have a logical reason for everything you do,” he begins, still with his eyes fastened on the cup. “But you’re no different from any other man. You’re trying very hard to rationalise your actions. But the thing is, I don’t think you even know why you’re here, in someone’s kitchen. With a man you’ve met once.”

He looks up. Changretta is watching him with an unreadable expression.

“I’d like to hear what you think. Why am I here? In your kitchen.”

Tommy gives another shrug. “Because you’d like to fuck me. I really don’t think it’s more complicated than that. It’s not part of some fucking scheme. You’re just thinking with your cock.” He lets out a dry laugh. “And we both know where that ends. In a business like this.”

Changretta stares at him, unblinking. A faint sneer curls his lip, accentuated by the toothpick.

“Why don’t you take a look in that cup and tell me?”

Tommy focuses his attention back on the tealeaves. “Yes, see, right here-“ he tilts the cup just slightly in Changretta’s direction. Changretta gives it a quick glance, before looking up again. Tommy leans in until their faces are just inches apart.

“It ends with me putting a bullet through your fucking head.”

A bird caws outside the window. The clock ticks as steadily as before. And Changretta says nothing.

“Now if you excuse me, I need to get to the office.” Tommy stands up. It’s a calculated risk. He needs to end this conversation now. “I’m already late.”

Changretta mirrors his action and they’re stood opposite each other in the kitchen. It’s the first time Tommy’s standing next to the man, and he realises he barely comes up to his shoulder.

Perhaps he should’ve stayed seated after all.

Without any warning, Changretta’s hand comes up to grab his throat, and Tommy has to fight the urge to recoil at the touch. The hand doesn’t squeeze, just rests lightly on his neck.

Suddenly he’s standing with his back against the wall, Changretta looming over him.

“It’s harder than you’d think to choke someone with your bare hands,” he muses and runs a thumb down his windpipe. “Takes quite a lot of strength. And time. But it’s less messy than a knife.” The thumb presses down a bit, and Tommy is so close to snapping and grabbing Changretta’s arm. Tear himself away from the touch, grab the closest object at hand at use it to bash that smug face in…

He does none of those things.

There’s no room for mistakes here. It’s just his pride taking a beating. Not worth dying for. But fuck if it doesn’t take absolutely every ouns of self-control to tell himself that.

“Thought you didn’t care about your suit,” he says instead. “Why not use the knife?”

Changretta’s face splits in a grin.

“And you ask me why I’m here,” he chuckles. “This, this is why I’m here. This thrill. You can’t say you’re not feeling it too?”

“Think you’ve gravely misread the situation.”

Leaning down, Changretta puts himself close enough for Tommy to smell his ridiculously expensive cologne.

“Maybe I will use the knife,” he whispers. “Do just enough damage… make sure you can’t fight back. And take you bent over the table while you’re bleeding out.” There's a glint in his eyes, the suave façade cracking for a moment and letting something else seep through.

Right then, Tommy feels the first twist of fear somewhere deep in his gut.  

“I took you for a gentleman, Mr. Changretta,” he says. “Seems a bit… brutish, don’t you think?”

“Thought you enjoyed that sort of thing,” Changretta’s mouth is right by his ear. “Isn’t that why you’re in Solomons' bed?” He straightens up to his full, unnerving height and the hand around Tommy's neck tightens its grip experimentally.

“See, you’ve got to crush the windpipe,” he tells him as a matter-of-factly. “Not just squeeze the sides.” The thumb presses down, and Tommy feels his airways close. It’s fine. Nothing he can’t handle. Changretta won’t kill him. Not now.

He listens to the clock. To the steady ticking. Doesn’t move. Doesn’t even blink as he stares coldly up at Changretta who stares back with equal intensity in the dark eyes. The second he starts fighting back, he’ll lose what little control he has over the situation. He just has to wait this out, let Changretta play out his last card.

He’s going to think about this moment when he puts a bullet in his head.

The clock ticks. The seconds seem to drag themselves by. He just needs to wait- but his lungs are screaming for air now and he is forced to draw in a breath. But he can’t breathe.

He can’t breathe –and it’s like being crushed under a downpour of rocks, pressing the air from his lungs- and his ears fill with the sound of shovels scraping against dirt. His body starts to act on its own accord, mouth falling open as he instinctually begins gasping for breath. Hands grasping Changretta’s wrist, he pulls to remove the hand. Changretta is deceptively strong, but he has to use both his hands when Tommy starts to fight him. It lasts for a few more seconds –black dots are clouding his vision and the smell of blood and dirt somehow fills his nose even though he can’t breathe. Then, either by his own choice, or due to Tommy’s violent fight to get loose, Changretta releases him. Tommy can’t help it- he coughs and splutters his lungs fill with air. In the distance, he thinks he can hear the shovels-

“Well, I must be going now.” Changretta’s voice comes from somewhere far away, and his steps disappear over the kitchen floor towards the hallway. “Give my best to Solomons.”

Tommy manages to pull himself together enough to form an answer.

“Enjoy London, Mr. Changretta.” He regrets saying anything the second the words leave his mouth, because his voice comes out hoarse.

“I’m sure I will,” Changretta tips his hat lightly. “I’ll see you, Thomas.”

Then he leaves, and the front door slams.

Tommy finds himself on the floor, his knees having suddenly decided to give up. The cold sweat drips down his back as he tries to breathe that way Alfie taught him, in slowly, hold it for a few seconds, and then out. In and out. It's just in his head. Everything is fine...

It takes time just to gain control over his breathing again, but once he does, the scraping of shovels fade and is replaced by the steady ticking.

Fuck. He lost it.

Overwhelmed by frustration, he gets back on his feet and tries to find something to take the feeling out on. His eyes land on the two teacups on the table and he throws them both across the room, sending shards of porcelain flying. Running both hands over his face, he tries to pull himself together. No room for mistakes. No room to have a fucking breakdown. Not for him.

Something drips onto his bare foot, and it’s not until he looks down at the red stains that he remembers his wrist and sets about bandaging himself up.

For once, he’s at loss with what to do. He’s got half a mind to not tell Alfie about this humiliating little encounter, because that will no doubt result in absolute chaos. And weren’t it for the bruises he knows he’ll have around his neck, maybe he would’ve given the thought some serious consideration. As it is now, it’s no use. He’ll have to tell him.

Better just have it over with, before he changes his mind.

He calls Alfie at the office and as the signals go through, a knot of worry settles in the pit of his stomach. The thought hasn’t crossed his mind until now, but what if-

It’s Ollie who picks up, Alfie is off somewhere in the bakery. But everything is alright, no visits from Changretta or his men, and Tommy feels the tension melt from his shoulders. He informs Ollie briefly about the situation and doesn’t give him time to ask any questions before hanging up.

He’s upstairs getting dressed when the phone rings. Ollie is on the line again.

“Boss told me to say exactly this: stay right there, lock the door, he’s on his way,” he says as if reading from a script. “There was a lot of graphic threats of violence as well - but maybe we don’t need to-“

“No, it’s fine.” Tommy doesn’t need him to recap that for him, he gets the idea. So he just hangs up and goes to pour himself a whiskey as he waits for Alfie to come home, fully prepared to face a virtual storm. He can hear Alfie in his head, ‘fucking told you we needed to have people watching the house!”

When a key turns in the lock on the front door, Tommy is well into his second whiskey and braces himself to sit through one of Alfie’s more violent rants.

“Tommy?” Alfie calls out as his steps approach over the hardwood floor.

“In the living room.” His voice is still hoarse. Fuck. This is not a conversation he’s looking forward to.

Alfie appears in the doorway, eyes wide and chest heaving in too fast breaths, as if he’s just run the entire way from the office. Tommy prepares himself for a flood of question and then some screaming.

But Alfie just crosses the floor in two long strides and pulls him into a tight hug, cradling his head in one of his hands and pressing a kiss against his temple. Then he holds him there, arms almost convulsively tight around him and nose buried in his hair. Pulling himself out of his mild stupor, Tommy returns the hug and strokes his back in a comforting gesture.

“It’s okay, Alfie,” he says and hopes his voice doesn’t sound too broken. “Everything’s fine.”

“It’s not fine,” Alfie mutters into his hair and shakes his head. “It’s not fucking fine.”

They stand like that for a long while before Alfie pulls out of the embrace, eyes now scanning Tommy’s body for injuries.  

“Are you hurt?”

“Just a scratch.” Tommy holds up the bandaged wrist. He’ll explain the bruises around his neck when they unavoidably appear. One thing at a time.

“Do you need a doctor?” Alfie asks, voice soft. It almost makes Tommy wish he’d get angry instead.  

“Does it look like that?” he quirks an eyebrow, but Alfie isn’t the least bit amused

“I need you to be completely fucking honest right now, Tommy,” he says. “We don’t have to go to the hospital, I’ll get one to come here- If you-“

“I don’t need one.”

Alfie doesn’t push the matter, but the implications of the question hang in the air. Tommy resists the urge to shake his head to rid it of the intrusive thoughts.

Now, when the initial fear has settled, Alfie lets go of Tommy, takes a step backwards as he clenches his jaw tightly.

“I’m going to fucking kill him.” he snarls through gritted teeth. “I’m going to take that fucking toothpick and shove it into his eye until it punctures his fucking brain- That arrogant piece of-“

“Alfie, you need to stay calm,” Tommy attempts to quell this outburst. “This isn’t helping.”

“You want me to stay calm?” Alfie snaps, bearing an eerie resemblance to a bull ready to impale someone on their horns.  “That fucking cunt waltzed into our fucking house, like he fucking owned the place, and you want me to stay calm?”

He’s spiralling. And Tommy knows that if he’d like to avoid a full on rampage, he’ll have to defuse the situation. He honestly can’t handle any more of this shit today.

“Alfie-“ Tommy takes his face between his hands. “Look at me, I need you to keep it together, alright? None of this, not right now.”

Alfie stares wide eyed at him, and Tommy meets his gaze.

“He could have-“

“You can’t count all the things that could’ve happened in this business,” Tommy cuts him off. “That if anything will drive you insane.” He stares unwavering at Alfie, hoping to install some sense of security. “Nothing happened. He’s all talk.”

For just a second, he’s not sure if he’s trying to convince Alfie or himself of this.

“Then what the fuck did he want?”

“Just a little pastime while he’s in London,” Tommy shrugs it off. “I recommended him to try cricket instead.”

Alfie blinks.

“Bloody stupid sport, that,” he grumbles.

"Would suit him fine, then." Tommy pulls him into another hug, cradling his head as Alfie buries his face in the crook of his neck. His breaths are even now, calm, and his shoulders slump.

“If you think I’m about to let this fucking slide-“

“Obviously not,” Tommy rolls his eyes despite Alfie being unable to see it. “But you and me both know that you can’t make decisions when you’re like this.”

Alfie lets out an indignant huff, but doesn’t pull out of the embrace. And he doesn’t seem to be willing to discuss the matter right now.

Maybe it would’ve been better if he’d been angry, because this reaction -that he doesn’t push, doesn’t scream and rage and throw things- it shows how much Alfie’s feared for him.

Fear makes people do irrational, stupid things.

Tommy knows right then that he can never let Alfie know everything that transpired in the kitchen, because then he’ll lose it completely.

“It’s going to be alright,” he whispers. “We’ll figure it out.”

And maybe if he never tells anyone, it’ll be like it never happened. And he can let the memories of Changretta’s hands around his neck fade, blur at the edges until they disappear completely.

Tommy can’t fall asleep that night. His brain won’t turn off –it’s working frantically on puzzling together a plan- Set up a meeting with Sabini, propose a truce, make him see that in the end, Changretta will fuck him over- find out more about Changretta… what his personal life looks like… if anything can be used as leverage-  

He needs to solve this. Because Alfie is not thinking clear at the moment –much like Tommy expected, once the first shock had settled, he went on a rather long and violent rant about all the different ways he planned on ending Changretta’s life.

Maybe it’ll be better tomorrow, or in a day or two, once he’s settled a bit. And by then, Tommy will have figured something out. This is what he’s good at.

Alfie is sound asleep next to him, after Tommy’s successful endeavours of tiring him out. Tommy knows a few ways to make him forget all about his worries for a little while. Another thing he’s good at.

If only it worked as well on his own head.

He needs to sleep. The familiar weight has already settled on his chest, memories of all those restless, lonely nights spent staring at the wall or wandering the streets aimlessly blending into his rational thoughts. There’s no room for that now- his head needs to be clear.

Closing his eyes, he focuses on Alfie’s breathing, the warmth of his body next to his. It usually helps. Though not tonight, it would seem, as the thoughts continue to spin in his head. Changretta’s self assured smirk, the hands around his throat, he needs to solve this, keep Alfie sane- things were too good, and everything will fall apart if he doesn’t figure this out-  

With all his attention on Alfie’s breathing, the sudden hitch in it causes him to instantly open his eyes to look at him. A frown has appeared on his previously so peaceful face and he begins to move about ever so slightly, shifting uneasily in his sleep. Tommy nestles closer, hushing him gently. He knows the signs of a nightmare when he sees them, as rare as they are with Alfie.

Alfie mutters something he can’t understand, the frown deepening. He wonders if this is what it’s like for Alfie, to watch him during the nights…,

“Shh, it’s just a dream,” he whispers and strokes his hair, “Just a dream, love.”

Alfie’s eyes snap open and he sucks in a harsh breath, as if he’s been suffocating and suddenly can breathe again. Cupping his cheek, Tommy turns Alfie’s face towards his and their eyes meet through the darkness of the bedroom.

“Tommy?” the question comes as a sharp exhale as Alfie reaches out for him, hands fumbling over the back of his neck and down his shoulders.

“I’m here,” Tommy curls himself around Alfie’s larger body, wrapping an arm around his waist and kissing his forehead. “Everything’s alright.”

They stay wrapped up like that for a long time, Tommy running his hand down Alfie’s back.

“I’ll never let anyone hurt you,” Alfie mutters suddenly, clearly not all there in the head. “You know that right? I’ll-“ a yawn escapes him. “I’ll keep you safe.”

There are about a million logical things Tommy knows he could say right at that moment. But he chooses none of them.

“I know,” he whispers, only because it’s what Alfie needs to hear right now. "Go back to sleep."

“No, you’re awake…” Alfie is already drifting off again, words turning slurred. “Bad night?” It’s an instinctual question by, even when he can just barely keep his eyes open. Tommy hushes him.

“It’s fine, you just woke me up with all your tossing and turning,” he says softly and cards his fingers through his hair. “Just sleep.” Too dazed to catch the lie, Alfie just hugs him a bit closer.

Tommy soon feels him relax in his arms, and it somehow makes the unease crawling in his chest settle. And soon enough, he falls asleep too.