#THIS WAS SUPPOSED TO BE MY REPRIEVE FROM SUPERNATURAL WHAT THE FUCK

[juliette-cai-enthusiast]

WAS THAT A FUCKING SUPERNATURAL REFERENCE IN JURASSIC WORLD CHAOS THEORY I CAN’T KEEP LIVING LIKE THIS

[void-thegod]

oddity

one of my first memories is of a paranormal experience. actually, it was two rolled into one:

a precognitive dream of a place i hadn't visited

the feeling of deja vu

my memory is good. but in the way a file system you don't understand still has all the information you need. sometimes you go looking for one thing and can only find it in association with another. sometimes you draw a blank because it's just not where it's supposed to be

i've had more than a handful of concussions. all mild to moderate.

i've had dozens of paranormal experiences - inexplicable happenings which i can only relegate to the realm of the otherworldly. some were extreme and terrifying. and some occur with such regularity to have become an annoyance (repeating numbers)

yes. i'm an autistic trans man of color with cptsd. i have paranormal experiences. i recently quit my job bc i just need to be away from the foul environment i was in.

and i have had supernatural experiences my whole life.

i know it sounds crazy. but it's not as crazy or fucked up as the world we currently live in.

why am i writing an autobiography? now?

call it a mid life crisis. call it autistic burnout. a combination of the two.

well. it's natural and part of the cycle. ups and downs. action and reprieve.

i'm tired of doing all of this. i've been tired of it since i became aware. goddess, i was an elementary school student.

and i had enough awareness even then to realize how fucked up my situation was. how my mother struggled with my brother and i. how our world twisted people into cruel creatures, even at my age..

now i'll be 35.

here i am, beginning like a beginner again (winks at nirav)

but now it's not with fear in my heart. now it's not out of desperation. now it's not out of anger, sadness, or hurt.

now it's because i chose it, with clarity and resolve, to do what is best for myself. and with faith that this cosmos - made of so much - would catch me. and even if it didn't? knowing i'm fully capable of saving myself.

what do my spiritual experiences, my material experiences, and capitalism have to do with one another?

that's for another post.

[flagellant]

oh okay!! i suppose that does make sense.

i'll admit that i really don't know much about nature spirits or naturalism(?), but everything i've seen you say about it has been fascinating!! is there a specific part of your studies that you consider your favourite? again, idk much about this so im not sure if you are studying or if it's something you practise...

also im sorry if im asking too many questions lmao, i just find your content very soothing for some reason (and admittedly im hoping to give you a small reprieve from the rude anons you're currently receiving) and i'd love to hear more about it!!

also learning from the spiderwick chronicles sounds iconic, i remember reading the book when i was younger and the feeling i had when i closed the book is definitely one i can see leading you down this path. unfortunately the fae scare me too much to learn anything more than how to avoid them jdfsjk

well, even if you don't answer this i hope you're day/night improves!! sending you good vibes and well wishes <3

Anon you are so fucking sweet oml. May the wind never get in your eyes, hot damn.

Hhhhhhhhhmmmmm....it's hard to say what my favorite part would be, honestly, but I think if pressed I would say that figuring out how a supernatural ecological web works is probably up there. I find a deep satisfaction in learning how a local spirit wildlife interacts with other local spirit wildlife, and the relationships that grow from them in much the same way any ecological system would.

[pocketfulofrogers]

Everything Comes Back to You

Pairing: Dean Winchester x Reader

Summary: Dean can count on one hand the amount of weaknesses he has. Despite his every effort to keep his distance over the years in an effort to keep you safe, he find himself at your door a few too many times. Everything changes when it you who calls him.

Notes: My first supernatural piece! A story told through many years.

September 14, 1996

There were few things you despised more in this world than calculus. The lecture had drug on and on, monotone and continuous, until you felt like you could scream. A miracle of reprieve came when the door opened and in walked a boy who seemed to glide on charisma. He made some kind of offhand joke and flashed a smirk that had half the girls already in his palm.

For you, it was what you saw in his eyes that drew you to him. Something akin to the pieces you kept buried deep within you.

December 22, 1996

You’re sweet, unbelievably so. The way you taste, the way you sound, the way you feel. It’s so easy for Dean to bury himself in you, forget about everything that isn’t in this bed. You had been the solace he didn’t know he had been searching for- offering just a few moments of peace in this life he had no say in.

Most days he believes you may be the light that will save him, other days he believes it unfair to ask such a thing of you.

You nuzzle into his chest and his arms around you tighten. “What are you thinking about?” You ask.

Maybe it’s how tired he is, running between the motel to check on Sammy and darting straight back to the comforts of this bedroom that has him feeling so unnaturally mushy. You’d say it’s the Christmas spirit looming in the air, threatening to infect him with just a bit of joy.

You did love Christmas, and he loved you.

But love was not something he was allowed in this life - stability never something he’d known. Dean knew the drill all too well. The moment he allows himself to plant any semblance of roots, it’ll be time to load the Impala and disappear. Kansas may have been home once, but it isn’t home now.

Still, he couldn’t help himself when it came to you.

Sometimes his mind wonders to what his life could be if he were to just ask you to run away with him. Leave this little town and never look back. No more hunting, no more fighting, just wonderful, uncomplicated, boring life. Life with you.

He’s never met a hunter that’s successfully left the life, though. The longer you knew him, the higher the chances got for you to get caught in the crossfire and he’d never forgive himself if something were to happen to you.

You’re silently watching him, waiting for a response to a question he had already forgotten.

“I should go check on Sam.”

April 18, 2002

“You gave my address to who? Mom, just because someone says they knew me doesn’t mean you should tell them where I live! It doesn’t matter if he seemed like a ‘wonderful young man’ you know there are things out there.” You’re pacing in your living room now, tempted to grab your shotgun.

“Oh, Y/N, stop it with that nonsense. He had a photo of you and now he’s on his way.” Your mother dismisses you.

You groan and toss your head back. “Well hopefully you can describe what he looked like to the cops when they find me-“

Then a car pulls up, engine roaring and rock music blasting. You knew that car, you knew it well. Sneaking up to the window, you take a peek around the curtains and see the sleek black Impala. A man gets out, the leather jacket he’s wearing tickles a memory long buried.

It isn’t until you see his face that it settles in- butterflies swimming in deep rooted anger. The boy who left you with nothing but an aching hole and a postcard with no return address was all grown up and damn if he didn’t look good.

“Gotta go.” You hang up the phone.

When he knocks, you brace yourself- scrounge up all the will-power you have so you can kick him out. There will be no apologies or pleasantries. No sir. None. Not one.

But Dean’s always been one step ahead of you, so, he’s quick to start when you open the door- death glare only momentarily stalling him. “Listen, I know-“

“Get back in your car and go home.”

“Just hear me out for a minute.” He pleads.

You want to tell him to go, you really do, but one glance at those green eyes and every fiber of your being is pleading for you to just wait. Call it hope, call it weakness, call it a desperate need for some form of closure, you let him in.

Narrowing your eyes, you ask him, “Why are you here?”

“I wanted to see you.”

You hate how that almost settles your anger, how after all these years he still had some ridiculous hold on you. “How can you possibly believe I would want to see you after what you did? That kind of hurt doesn’t just disappear, Dean.”

“I know, I know. I’m also here to apologize. I should have said more-“

“More?” You interrupt exasperated. “Please tell me you did not come all this way to ask me to absolve you of your guilt.”

“That’s not-“

“Because you showed up on my doorstep, asked me to pack a bag and run away with you- leave my life and everything I’ve ever known to go who knows where with you. And then, when the sun rose in the morning, you were gone.”

“You hadn’t exactly been happy with me.” He tries to defend himself.

“Yeah, but you know what I did that night? I packed a stupid bag and waited for hours in front of that stupid diner. Waiting and waiting, but you never showed! You just left me! Know what I got out of it? A postcard from Topeka with a half assed ‘I’m sorry’ written on it.”

He falters under your gaze. “Y/N, I am sorry. I really am.”

“I just want to know why, Dean.” Your voice falls and he can no longer meet your eyes. “Come on, there are a million excuses. You couldn’t leave Sam, you couldn’t leave you dad, you didn’t actually love me. Just pick one so I can move on.”

“I did love you.” He bites back.

“Then what, you couldn’t leave the life?”

His eyebrows furrow as he takes a step closer and lowers his voice. “What do you mean?”

You sigh. “I was young but I wasn’t stupid. The family business wasn’t sales, Dean.” His eyes widen. “People started disappearing right before you and your family showed up. They stop disappearing and then all of a sudden, you’re gone. I had my suspicions, but it wasn’t until I met another hunter a few years later that I knew for sure.”

He makes his way into your living room and you want to ask what gave him the idea that you wanted him in your home.

“If you know about that side of this world, then how can you blame me for wanting to protect you from it?”

Of all of the reasons you had come up with as to why the boy you thought was the love of your life had left you high and dry, this wasn’t one. Had he truly loved you? Had he weighed his heart and your life to determine which he valued most? You can’t tell if that idea hurt more than the rest.

“Who were you to make that decision for me?”

“Who are you to expect me not to have?”

It’s quiet, uncomfortably so. Dean rakes his fingers through his hair and your arms tighten across your chest. This wasn’t how it was supposed to be. None of it. He wasn’t supposed to have left you destroyed, calling out for him in the middle of the night. You were supposed to have moved on, supposed to have said goodbye to the boy with so much sadness in his eyes and so much love in his heart.

You never really do forget your first, though, do you?

He sighs, drawing your attention back to him, and pulls his gaze from the ceiling. “This isn’t what I came for.”

You tighten your arms across your chest and take a step closer, then another. “Do enlighten me, then. What are you really here for?” You’re dangerously close now, a breath away and Dean can barely think. “What is it you want?”

You look up at him and in a second he’s gone, just like that first day. It’s nostalgic and painful and warm all at once. How was it you still had this power over him?

“You.” He breathes out.

October 14, 2006

“Hey, uh, Fairmont? That’s close to Eudora, right?” Dean asks, trying so hard to seem casual.

Sam peaks around the bathroom door, noticing his brother has been ‘cleaning’ the same weapon for the last thirty minutes, and raises a brow. “Yeah, not too far.” Dean just hums. “What’s in Eudora?”

“Huh? Oh nothing, just thought a detour would be nice with everything going on.”

Sam spits his toothpaste into the sink. “Didn’t we spend a Christmas there?”

Dean stalls. “Well, you know, we moved around so much it’s hard to tell when we were anywhere, really. I couldn’t-“

“No, no, I’m sure we did. I had that English teacher that snored through Shakespeare.”

“Your memory is definitely better than mine, I couldn’t tell you much about-“

“And there was that girl, gosh, what was her name again?” Sam prompts his brother, already knowing the answer.

“There’s been so many girls, Sam, can’t expect me to remember all of their names.” Dean chuckles nervously.

The flop sweat on Dean’s forehead is almost reward enough, but hearing him sputter and flail was just too good for Sam to give up.

“She had the hair and the mom, liked Christmas.” Dean stutters again. “Oh right! Y/N! Aka the girl who’s name you say in your sleep on a weekly basis.” Now he’s red. “How long has it been man? If you could’ve made it work, you would’ve. What’d she say when you saw her last?”

Suddenly the floor is very interesting to Dean. “That I can’t keep coming in and out of her life.”

“That’s all the closure you’re going to get, Dean, take it.”

October 18, 2006

Work had been the worst. The only thing you wanted was a bubble bath and a huge glass of wine. The last thing you expected when you finally reached your driveway was Dean Winchester sitting on your porch, but of course, with the cluster fuck of today, this might as well happen.

You take a moment to collect yourself before stepping out of your car.

“Heard you took down a Rougarou in Tennessee. Thought you said you didn’t want a part of this life.” He raises a brow and you can’t tell if it’s an accusation or an ‘I told you so’ moment.

“Was there for business, it was just good timing. Guess you were right, though, can’t just sit by.” You shrug. He looks like he’s waiting for something, something you’re sure you can’t give him. “What are you doing here?” You ask, sounding more tired than upset.

“I know, I’m sorry. But we had a case nearby and Sammy told me no, but next thing I know I’m in my car and then I’m here. Really, it’s your fault. Should’ve moved.”

You snort. “And you wouldn’t have found me?” He only shrugs. “What is it you want, Dean?”

“A friend?”

“You drove all the way out here for a friend?”

“Guess you could say I’m in short supply.”

You look him up and down, noticing the bags beneath his eyes and something in you aches for him. Of course, you had heard about the passing of John, that may be the very reason he’s here, but knowing Dean, it’s not a subject he wants to touch.

Ten years later and you can still read him.

“Fine, but don’t ask me to run away with you.” You tease. “Twice is enough for this lifetime.”

June 16, 2013

Dean is in the middle of another argument with Sam trying to defend the importance of bacon when his phone rings. Sam’s dramatic sigh of relief earns an eye roll from his brother.

“Dean Winchester.” He answers, but he can’t hear anything on the other end. “Hello?” He tries again and this time he makes out heavy breathing. “Who is this?”

“Dean.” His name barely slips from your lips and to his ears before you groan.

He leans forward quick enough to earn concern from Sam. “Where are you?”

“Sound stressed.” You chuckle before sputtering.

“Y/N, tell me where are you.” His voice is the kind of calm that would usually send ice through your veins, but right now you were struggling just to keep your eyes open.

“Not sure.” Your speech is slurred and the panic Sam sees in his brother’s eyes drives his fingers faster as he works on a trace.

“How bad is it?”

“You should see the other guy.”

“Dammit, Y/N, not the time. Where are you hurt?”

“Broken ribs, I think. This gash in my side seems a little alarming.” You squint down at it trying to determine if your blurry vision was a result of the gapping wound or the nice blow to the head you took. “Objectively, all very bad.” You mumble.

Dean is over Sam’s shoulder now and if he hadn’t looked as terrified as he did right now, Sam would be making a less than funny comment about it.

“Were you on a hunt?” His voice is still cool, but he begins to waiver when he has to strain to hear your confirmation. “Is it still after you?” He has to press the question two more times before he gets a response, by then he’s already started the Impala.

“Finished him ‘for he finished me.”

“Y/N, were on our way.” Dean grits out. “You just hold on a little longer and we’ll get you all patched up.”

You barely manage to hum response before everything begins to fade out, Dean yelling your name in the background.

June 17, 2013

They had only barely made it in time. Dean had come sliding to your side, bandages already in hand. He spoke softly to you, a drastic contradiction to the frantic shake of his hands.

Sam had never seen his brother like this before.

“Dean, I don’t think…”

“No! Just,” Dean tossed the keys to Sam and slipped his arms beneath your limp body. “Get us to the nearest hospital.”

He sat in the back seat with you holding as much pressure against the flaps of skin as he could, still talking so softly to you. Sam’s heart ached as he heard his brother beg you not to leave him and make promises they both know he can’t keep.

When he could no longer feel you breathing, his eyes shot up to the review mirror and Sam slammed on the gas.

Squealing into the ambulance drop off, Sam began to yell for help as he pulled open the back seat door. Dean was frozen, all of the color drained from his face.

Emotion cut off from his voice, he had barely managed a whisper. “I think she’s gone.”

From there, he had spent the last six hours trying to force himself to come to terms with the fact that he had lost one of the only good things in his life. Sitting there in some criminally uncomfortable waiting room chair with his head in his hands.

All he could see was you. You twirling around in a bright sundress with the Kansas sunset kissing your skin. Your eyes closed- lips parted slightly as you slept soundly. You angry, red in the face accusing him of using you as some kind of sick tie to a simpler time.

Was that all she was to him? No, he shakes his head at just the thought of it. To him you were the only thing that made sense. A singular constant that he felt like his whole being revolved around.

But he had never told you.

Finally, by 5am he had almost convinced himself that he would be fine.

So, when the doctor comes out with blood speckling the bottom of his scrubs, he wants to shut down, but he needs to know.

“Just give it to us straight, doc.”

“She’s alive.” He says. “The surgery was tough and she gave us quite a scare, but she is alive.”

His knees almost give out from beneath him.

June 20, 2013

Everything hurts. Your side, your chest, your head, your skin. The gentle breeze from the vent above you is what pulls you out of the darkness. The harsh fluorescent lights are almost enough to send you right back to the comfort of the dark, but a shifting pressure at your thigh piques your interest.

Slowly, trying not to groan despite every muscle in your body screaming, you look to your left. Dean’s arm is draped lightly across the tops of your thighs, his hand curling in at your hip. For a moment you do nothing but watch him sleep, his eyes fluttering behind his eyelids every so often.

He looks like shit.

Dark, sunken bags have built up beneath his eyes and it looks like he hasn’t shaved in days. A part of you feels flattered imagining the fuss he had to have made to not only get you here, but to stay here himself.

Without thinking, you begin to move your hand to caress his cheek. Your fingers trace the lines of his now furrowed brow before you thread them through his hair. The movement hurts, but it’s worth it.

Especially when you’re rewarded with a lovely green as his eyes slowly open. For a moment you think there may be no yelling or ‘are you out of your mind’ speeches when a smile begins to slowly light up his face. And then, as if he’s suddenly remembered what has happened, his smile shuts down into a scowl.

“You almost died.” He hisses lowly.

“Almost.” You echo and try to cough out a laugh, but it devolves into a groan. His alarm doesn’t disappear when you try to wave him off. “I’m fine now, so why don’t you go shower or something? You smell.”

“So you can try to slip out?” He narrows his eyes at you. “Not happening.”

“You’re usually the one that slips out.” You mutter, but he doesn’t hear you. “You can’t kidnap me, Dean.”

“The hell I can’t.”

June 23, 2013

“Bedroom here, bathroom down there. Sam and I are here… and here.” Dean’s pointing to doors as you struggle to hobble behind him on his tour of the bunker. When he stops, you almost run into his back. “Sammy went to grab some stuff from your house, but it looks like you don’t live there anymore.” He only raises a brow when you advert your gaze.

Instead of responding, you turn around to point at a door a couple down. “Mine? Sounds good.” You scurry as quickly as you can into the room, but Dean catches the edge of the door before you can shut it.

“You’re not going to explain yourself?”

You laugh bitterly. “Explain myself? Are you kidding me? I don’t answer to you, Dean.”

“You know that’s not what I meant.” You want to turn away from him, but he’s holding your gaze too intensely. “What’s going on with you? You’re living out of cheap hotels and hunting on your own now?”

“Oh, that’s rich coming from you.”

“Y/N, cut the shit. It’s just you and me here. Have you even told your mom what happened?”

And it’s this comment, this sincere question that takes the final piece of your resistance from him. He watches as the tense set of your shoulders fall and your face relaxes. The malice and resentment slips from your features and it’s a relief.

“She’s dead.” You barely manage to whisper. “Vetala. Didn’t know they worked in pairs. Her husband found her tied up in the kitchen three years ago.”

He’s stunned. It’s probably the only thing you could have said that would steal his fire in an instant. He knew that kind of pain, that kind of drive. He knew it too well. You sniffle before quickly wiping your eyes and his face falls imagining the pain you’re feeling.

To his surprise, the moment is gone as quick as it started when he watches you swallow down your emotions and rebuild that wall in almost an instant.

“Don’t worry, I know you’re not one to be domestic. I’ll be out of your hair the second the doctors clear me.”

It stings. “Just like that?” He asks, not caring this time if you hear the hurt in his voice.

“Why would I stay? You make it clear what you want each time you stop by my house for a quicky and then slip out without a word.” The stunned look on his face is infuriating. “I get it, Dean. It’s convenience and consistency. Not love.”

“Not love?” He repeats your judgement, rolling the word around his tongue and he has to admit he hates the taste. He repeats it again, louder this time and it startles you. “Y/N I gave up everything I ever wanted that night I left you at the diner because I love you. I have tried and tried to stay as far away from you to keep you safe because I love you. I show up on your doorstep in moments of selfish cowardice because I can’t stay away! Almost my whole life I have been drawn to you time and time again and I know it hurts you. It kills me to hurt you, but I can’t stop because I love you.”

Dean’s chest is heaving, his breath falling across your face with how close he is to you now. “You love me.” He has to strain to hear you, but you need the clarification. Love or loved?

“When I saw you laying on the ground, bleeding out, I wished it was me instead. But when I held you in my arms and you…” His voice breaks and his eyes water. “And you stopped breathing…”

Before you know what you’re doing, you have your hands cradling either side of his facing, soothingly hushing him.

“Dean.” You murmur. “I’m okay, you saved me.”

“Stay.” The word bursts through his lips without his control. “Please, just stay.”

A single tear falls from your eyes as you nod knowing that the idea of a place called home had changed over the years, but this, him- he had always remained.

[here4theheartbreak]

An Inconvenient Attachment (myg+jjk+pjm)

AO3 Link Here!

Relationships: Jimin x Jungkook x Yoongi, Jimin x Jungkook, Jungkook x Yoongi, minor Hoseok x Seokjin Genre: smut, fantasy/supernatural au, fluff, enemies to lovers, roommates to lovers, friends to lovers Final Rating: Explicit Word Count (Chapter): ~15k

Tags (more added as needed): werewolf Jungkook, vampire Yoongi, human Jimin, kumiho Seokjin, selkie Hoseok, snowed in, handcuffed together, friends with benefits, polyamory, past violence, past murder, past abuse, discussion of murder, semi-graphic descriptions of violence, blood drinking, threesome, sharing a bed, multiple partners, dirty talk, oral sex, coming untouched

Summary: When Yoongi agreed to go on a two week winter getaway to the mountains with his roommates, he expected peace, quiet, and plenty of alone time with his roommate with benefits Jungkook. What he did not expect was to be handcuffed to his worst enemy for the duration of the trip. He figured it couldn't get worse... Until it did.

A/N: This fic was written for the @thebtswritersclub​ Fic Exchange for sujigguk! Sorry it was so late, I hope you enjoy it! | This fic also fulfills the July Prompt for X to Lovers! A/N 2: Banner made by @imyourhobiii - thank you so much!  A/N 3: This also fills  the square Road Trip for @bangtanwritingbingo​ 

As a vampire, one would think the worst thing about living with a human would be the temptation, the bloodlust. But for Yoongi… The worst part of living with Jimin was that he was the most fucking annoying, ridiculous human that Yoongi had ever had the misfortune of meeting in sixty years of life. Draining him would be a welcomed reprieve.

However, the man Yoongi had – rather surprisingly – fallen in love with was also in love with the trifling human and his stupid pretty mouth and his horribly adorable hands, and – no. Yoongi was not wandering down that path again.

Jimin was the son of vampire hunters. Murders of so many of Yoongi’s kind. And though Jimin had sworn that he had renounced their way of thinking and was estranged from them… Born into a family of killers made him just as untrustworthy, in Yoongi’s mind. Certain crimes simply could not be repented for and yes, sometimes the son did need to bear the crimes of the father.

Yoongi tolerated Jimin for Jungkook’s sake, the dopey wolf boy that had wriggled into his undead heart; and for their fourth roommate – Jin – a Kumiho with an odd affection for the human. In fact, Yoongi often felt like he was the only one that didn’t like Jimin. 

And recently, more and more, Yoongi was starting to wonder if Jimin hated him as much as he hated Jimin. Especially lately; it seemed like everything Jimin did was done specifically to annoy Yoongi.

Which is likely why Yoongi ended up in a car, sitting next to his mortal (literally) enemy, on the way to an isolated cabin that Jin’s boyfriend, Hoseok owned. Jin had suggested it a few days after a particularly aggressive fight between Jimin and he, where he not only showed his fangs, but may or may not have thrown an open bag of blood at Jimin. 

The trip hadn’t been so bad so far, Yoongi had to admit. They were driving straight through, and the drive was two days away from the city. Jimin was forced into a seat next to Yoongi, but was keeping to himself, reading and staring out the window or talking to Jungkook. Jungkook was in the front with Jin and was, at that very moment, pestering the hell out of the fox shifter.

Normally Yoongi would jump in and soothe the excitable wolf’s mood, but at the moment… Let them both suffer. This diabolical idea to get him to play nice with Jimin was likely both of theirs, so they could deal. Even immortality could not cure Yoongi’s sense of petty revenge. 

Yoongi reached into the small bag next to his feet, withdrawing a bag of chilled blood. He grimaced. A microwave would have been nice; but they weren’t scheduled to stop for quite some time – and only really to let the more humanlike ones stretch their legs. He pinched open the tip of the bag, tilting it back into his mouth. The sticky, sickly sweet fluid hit his tongue. Cold or not, it was the most refreshing thing he’d had in hours. He was able to go quite a number of days without blood, but dammit if it wasn’t uncomfortable. 

As he drank, he glanced over at Jimin from the corner of his eye. Jimin was reading a book, paying him no attention. How could a human pay someone no attention when they were drinking blood right next to him? Yoongi righted the bag, scowling down at it. Why did he want Jimin to pay attention to him? He hoped to disturb the human, perhaps. That’s what it was. Make Jimin uncomfortable and prove he secretly hated vampires just like his parents. Maybe then Jin and Jungkook wouldn’t love him so much. 

“Jiminie,” Jungkook whined. He turned in his seat, leaning into the back. “Yoongi…”

“What?” Jimin and Yoongi answered at nearly the same time.

“Will you two go for a run with me in the woods next time we stop? I’m itchy.”

Yoongi scoffed. “Why bother asking the human? He can’t keep up with you like I can.” 

Jimin shifted a little. He smiled softly. “He’s right.”

“So? I’ll let you ride on my back,” Jungkook offered.

“That’s not running with you then. Yoongi can go with you.”

Jungkook pouted a little but nodded. He wriggled himself further between the seats, grabbing for Jimin. Before he could get him, Jin’s hand emerged. He grabbed the collar of Jungkook’s shirt and yanked him back. “Stop distracting the driver!” He snapped.

“You bully,” Jungkook complained, smacking at him despite his warning. The two very quickly fell into another playful bicker, leaving Yoongi in peace with his thoughts. Next to him, Yoongi felt Jimin shift, and then again, before hearing him sigh. He looked over. Jimin had curled up onto the seat, bunching a hoodie under his head against the window to rest. He was getting on toward nighttime, Yoongi supposed. Day and night blended for him these days – and Jungkook was naturally nocturnal. It must have been hard to be where Jimin was, he thought as he watched Jimin sleep. A home with three creatures so different from himself. And in love – or at least lust – with one of them. A pang of sympathy shot through Yoongi’s chest. He grimaced at himself. What was he doing. Maybe there was something in the car, poisoning him. Pitying the rotten human? Never. Yoongi scoffed to himself. He nuzzled himself into the other corner of the seat, pulling his legs up under him. He “accidentally” let one slip, kicking Jimin squarely in the thigh. Jimin shot upright, grimacing. From his mostly closed lids, Yoongi could see Jimin look down at his leg where he’d been kicked, then over at Yoongi. Instead of getting angry, much to Yoongi’s surprise (and discomfort), Jimin smiled. He shook his head and laid back down, snuggling against the hoodie. 

Being technically undead, Yoongi didn’t require sleep. He had periods where he needed to rest, usually early in the morning around sunrise, but not necessarily sleep in the human sense of the phrase. But boy, did he like it. Sleeping was great. Six to eight hours of just not existing, having fun dreams, waking up to a new day – Yoongi couldn’t ever imagine willingly not sleeping like some of his vampire friends. However, much like a human who slept away a third of their hours, sleeping made Yoongi absolutely ravenous upon waking. Which wasn’t normally a problem. 

Except when he was in a car. With a living being that was filled with his only food source. And somehow in his sleep had wound up snuggling against said obnoxious human’s stupidly soft neck. 

Yoongi felt his fangs poking his bottom lip before he realized it. He inhaled sharply. Oh, that smelled delicious. His mouth watered in response, and he inhaled again, opening his mouth instinctively. 

His eyes fluttered open and he shifted, hunting for the source of the bittersweet, rich aroma. Instead of a particularly juicy steak or even a cup of blood warmed thoughtfully by Jungkook, Yoongi’s gaze fell on Jimin. The human’s shaggy black hair had fallen over his eyes as he slept, his plush lips wet and parted. His pulse was throbbing firm and steady by Yoongi’s ear. 

He shot up, nearly hitting his head on the roof of the car. 

Jin glanced back. “Maggot bite your ass or something?” He teased.

“I’ll bite you,” Yoongi grumbled. He wriggled as far away from Jimin and his stupid sweet smelling blood as he could before digging into his bag and pulling out the other satchel of blood he’d stored in it. It should be all he needed until they reached the cabin, and once there they had packed a solid supply of blood bags for him. Good too – because based on the weather as the car climbed into the mountains, Yoongi wondered if they might not be snowed in for a few days. 

The final rest stop was only a few more miles. Jin pulled in, stepping out to stretch his legs. Jungkook bounded out himself, taking a quick peek to make sure they were alone. He stripped shamelessly out of his clothing, piling it on the seat and seemingly unaware of the brisk chill in the air. 

“Yoongi!” He called, nearly bouncing with excitement and wiggling out of his skin.

“I’m coming, I’m coming,” Yoongi grumped, crawling out of the car himself. He watched Jungkook shift from a two-legged ball of energy into a massive four legged one, unable to keep from smiling. In wolf form, Jungkook was just as stunning as his human form. Dark black fur streaked with blonde, massive paws and bright hazel eyes that shone in the light. He barked sharply before taking off toward the tree line. Yoongi followed, catching up and keeping up easily as they darted through the trees. 

The two ran for a solid twenty minutes, looping through the woods and back toward the rest stop. As they neared the tree line, Jungkook skidded to a stop, his large paws kicking up dirt and leaves as he did. Yoongi stopped next to him, walking at a slower pace out of the trees. The rest area was still empty, save for their vehicle. Jin was nowhere to be found; probably had taken the time to have his own running session in the woods. 

In the fading light of the sunset, Yoongi could see Jimin. He’d wandered a few yards from the car and was lying on a picnic table. His shaggy hair flopped back from his forehead, toned arms up and bulging just a little as he cradled the back of his head against the cold wood. One knee up, leg of his shorts falling back to reveal his smooth thigh, thick with well-defined muscles. He had to be freezing, lying outside in shorts – but they all had weird temperature mechanics after living with Jungkook so long

Next to Yoongi, Jungkook shifted, and Yoongi scoffed. “All that working out the human does, and he still can’t begin to keep up with you.”

When Jungkook didn’t answer, Yoongi glanced over, a little surprised to see Jungkook scowling. 

“What? I’m not wrong. He’ll never give you all you need – You love running.”

“What makes you think I need a running partner to have a happy relationship? Jimin can’t run as fast as you or me, but he supports me in other ways.”

“A relationship now, huh?” Yoongi sniped. “Since when was he more than your human toy?”

“Yoongi—” Jungkook hesitated then shook his head. He grabbed his clothes from the car and began tugging them on. “You know I’m fucking both of you. It’s never bothered you before.”

“I wouldn’t say that.”

“Fine. You’ve never been so malicious about it before. Why are you so mean to him anyways? Jimin’s never done anything but try to be kind to you.”

“You know why, Jungkook. If his family were wolf hunters, maybe you’d understand.”

“He’s never hurt one of your kind.”

“Sins of the father, just like his family believes.”

“And he disowned his family because he believes all creatures, living or undead, deserve a chance to be happy. Jin would have never let him into our house if he sensed even a whisper of hatred from that man. And I’m not as stupid as you think either. I may not be some wise old vampire but I am half canine. And we can sense intentions pretty well. You’d do better to try and get along with Jimin.” Jungkook yanked his shirt on, patting his hair down. “Never know, maybe you’d learn something you didn’t expect about him.”

“Oh, like what?” Yoongi grunted, leaning against the car.

“Not my place to say,” Jungkook said simply. “But you’ll never find out if you keep being a needless jerk.”

He blinked in surprise at Jungkook’s unexpected snap, watching him pad off toward where Jimin was lying. Yoongi opted instead to get back into the vehicle, sensing that he’d pushed his annoyance a bit too far with the younger this time. 

When Jin returned from his own jaunt in the forest, Jimin and Jungkook returned to the car. Jimin slid into the seat next to Yoongi, offering a soft smile at him. Yoongi remained stone faced. Did he feel a little bad for what he said? Not that he’d ever admit. 

Jungkook wriggled in next to Jimin, forcing him over closer to Yoongi.

“Wh—” “Wanna sit back here for a bit,” Jungkook said simply.

“I can move up front,” Jimin offered.

“No. I wanna sit by you both.”

“Then get between us.” “Jin’s about to start driving. I’ll crawl over later. I can reach you both.” Jungkook reached over and grabbed Yoongi’s hand for emphasis. Yoongi frowned but said nothing more, though he did twine his fingers with Jungkook’s, squeezing firmly once. 

Yoongi let his mind wander as they began to drive once more, staring out the window as the last rays of the day slid down below the horizon. He felt Jungkook’s hand shift away from his, resting on his thigh for a moment before disappearing. There was a slight shuffle, and then Yoongi felt something thin and cold hit his wrist and click. He looked down, brows shooting up when he realized his wrist now had an accessory… A steel handcuff. And said handcuff was attached to someone else… Park Jimin. 

Yoongi looked over at Jungkook, who was grinning in his sheepish, bunny-rabbit way.

“Kook…”

“What did you do?” Jimin asked, lifting his wrist gently. He tugged Yoongi’s wrist up as he did.

“Well, you two avoid each other unless you’re fighting. And you’d do that even while we’re up in the cabin. Which is the literal reason we’re going up there, to try and help you two find a common ground. So, now you have no choice but to play nice or end up not being able to do anything.” Jungkook crossed his arms, looking smug as he spoke.

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Yoongi grumbled. He grabbed the bracelet of the cuffs. “I can’t just snap—” As he spoke, he tugged and twisted at the metal, expecting it to bend open in his grip. 

“I can break—” He tried the chain. 

“No, you can’t,” Jungkook said simply. “I got monster proof cuffs. Amazing what you can find with a little clever digging these days.”

“Jungkook,” Jimin whispered. He shook his head. “Don’t do this to him.” He offered his wrist as well as he could. “This isn’t funny.”

“It’s not meant to be, Jimin,” Jungkook said, his smile fading. “You’re my best friend. So is Yoongi. And you both know my feelings run much deeper than that for you both.”

“Then let yourself have those feelings, you don’t need to stress him out like this.”

“I can’t. Even though we may share those feelings… I can’t date one or both of you knowing you hate each other. It doesn’t feel right to me, and I’m not going to have a peaceful relationship knowing that.”

“Date?” Yoongi perked up. “You want to date us?”

Jungkook shrugged. “Maybe. I guess it’ll depend on how this goes. How hard you’re willing to try to get along. I won’t lose either one of you. Whether it progresses from our current sort of friends with benefits deal to more…” Jungkook drifted off. “I’ll unlock the cuffs when we’re back in the car on the way home. Not a minute sooner.”

Jimin sighed heavily, his shoulders sagging. 

Yoongi bit back a sharp remark about how disappointed he looked – he was disappointed too. Despite the true point of this trip, Yoongi had been looking forward to a little quiet time with Jungkook. Perhaps even, yes, pushing the idea of taking their relationship from friends with benefits to a little more. He knew Jimin felt the same – or at least very similar – he wasn’t blind. He also knew Jungkook was unlikely to choose one over the other. He hadn’t in the three years they’d kept up this quirky triangle.

Yoongi tugged at the cuffs once more, weakly, pulling Jimin’s wrist along with it. 

Jimin looked over at him, his plush lips stuck out in a bit of a pout. “I’ll try not to be too much of a bother,” he mumbled. Rather demurely, given what Yoongi knew of his normal sparky attitude. 

“I’ve got a vampire hunter hanging off my wrist,” Yoongi snarked. “It’s already a bother.”

Jimin’s cheek twitched as he clenched his jaw. He ground his teeth for a moment, eyes darkening. He wanted to say something. Yoongi almost wished he would. Let them start to fight – Jungkook might see this was a stupid idea if he did and take off these god-awful cuffs sooner. 

But Jimin’s jaw released at the same time his shoulders relaxed again. He faced forward, holding his cuffed wrist delicately on his leg, as close to Yoongi as possible without touching him. Probably to give him more freedom of movement; not that the six-inch chain offered much room for that at all without yanking on one another. 

Yoongi huffed, glaring around Jimin at Jungkook, who looked far too smug for what he’d done. He offered a wide, crinkly nosed grin and wriggled down in his seat, snuggling up against Jimin’s shoulder and burying his nose in his neck, his preferred sleeping position with anyone. 

Yoongi slouched as far away from Jimin as he could and glared out the window. The weight of the cuff on his wrist made it impossible to relax, sleep, or even let his mind wander to anything except that. And the stupid human. He hated how calm Jimin was about this whole thing. And his pleading. On Yoongi’s behalf. What the hell was that? 

Don’t do this to him.

Yoongi didn’t need the human defending him. He was able to stand up for himself. Why did Jimin sound so genuinely stressed out? Oh.

Yoongi scoffed. He looked over at Jimin. “You don’t have to worry. I’m not gonna fucking eat you.”

Jimin blinked at him owlishly. “What?”

“You panicking about the cuffs. I’m sure you think I’m gonna lose my mind and become some blood lust crazy monster just because I’m in proximity to a human.”

“No?” Jimin frowned. “You live with me and have never acted like that. Why would I think that?”

“You know why,” Yoongi tried to cross his arms, only succeeding in tugging Jimin’s wrist onto his lap. 

Jimin let himself be tugged, still frowning in confusion at Yoongi. “I really don’t,” he finally said.

“It’s the reason you people kill my kind. You’re scared of us.”

“Maybe,” Jimin said. He shrugged. “I can’t say why humans kill vampires. Or wolves or selkies or any creatures. It’s not for food. Maybe it is fear. Maybe it’s sport.”

“Why don’t you just go ask your dad?” 

“Yoongi…” Jimin’s voice was soft, gentle – as if he were talking to a scared animal. “I understand why you hate me. I would too, if I were in your place. I know you’re not happy with this.”

“Can say that again. Can’t even itch my fucking nose. At least your dominant hand is free, what am I supposed to do?”

“Well, what do you actually do that you can’t do with your left?”

Yoongi turned a glare onto Jimin, who grinned. “You weren’t intending to jerk off with me right next to you, were you?” He teased.

Yoongi’s eyes narrowed. “Like I could get it up with you breathing down my neck, hunter,” he muttered. 

“I told you I’d try not to be much of a bother, and I will do my best. I know you love Jungkook. We just need to keep it together for the week up here, for him. That’s it. Then we can go back to comfortable avoidance.”

Yoongi looked out the window. Jimin was right – he knew that much, but he refused to give him the satisfaction of hearing Yoongi say it. So, he said nothing. They were climbing in elevation now, the trees thickening around the road as it became progressively bumpier. Patches of snow began to appear along the sides of the road and through the trees, and – entirely unsurprising to Yoongi – flakes began to drift down around the car. 

The flakes were coming down in far larger clumps, piling a few inches thick by the time they pulled into the cabin. Jin sighed heavily, letting go of the steering wheel. He shook his hands out, rubbing at his palms. 

“Those last few miles were hell,” he commented.

“We’re not going to be able to get back down if this keeps up,” Jungkook agreed.

The cabin door burst open as he did, and out rushed Hoseok. Jin climbed out of the car just in time to catch the leaping man, pressing a deep kiss to his mouth. Jungkook leapt out as well, grabbing Hoseok in a tight hug the moment Jin released him. 

Yoongi watched the trio, his heart giving an uncomfortable little clench. All shifters. He and Jimin were the oddballs out in this group. He looked through the window. The trees were thick, and heavy with snow, obscuring the view almost entirely around them. Behind the large cabin with a friendly tendril of smoke rising from the chimney, was a stunning, still lake. Despite the grey coloring of the slowly rising sun, it was breathtaking. The water was crystal clear, nearly mirror like. A crust of ice had formed a few feet from the shore toward the center, and Yoongi assumed it would nearly encompass the lake within a few days if the snowfall kept up. 

“You should probably get out first,” Jimin mumbled, pulling Yoongi out of his admiration of the scenery. He yanked open the door and climbed out, his left arm trailing back as he waited for Jimin to climb out behind him. 

This was going to be dreadful. Everything would need to be done at a snail’s pace, compared to his normal speed, having the human hanging off his wrist.

Hoseok came around the side of the car, stopping short. His eyes drifted down to the cuffs connecting their wrists. Yoongi opened his mouth, about to warn or threaten the seal shifter away from a tease, when Hoseok began to laugh, nearly doubling over in pure joy at the predicament the two had found themselves in. 

Jimin sighed heavily. “Lay off, Hobi,” he said, speaking loudly enough to be heard over Hoseok’s cackling. 

Hoseok righted himself, still holding his stomach and wiping tears. He shook his head, small titters of laughter emerging even as he tried to contain them.

“What a situation, eh?”

“It’s not funny,” Jimin stepped forward. “This isn’t fun for us. The least you could do is not laugh at us.”

“Oh come on, you won’t mind it all that much,” Hoseok slapped Jimin on the shoulder. “God knows you’ve been fond of living dead boy for ages.”

Yoongi looked over fast enough to see Jimin’s eyes bulge. He swiped at Hoseok with his free left, baring his teeth in the universal sign for ‘shut it’.

Fond of the living dead boy? Well the only undead here was Yoongi… But Jimin wasn’t fond of him. Jimin could barely tolerate him, in the same way he could barely tolerate Jimin…. Right?

“Let’s just unpack the stuff,” Jimin said quickly. He turned to circle around the car, jerking Yoongi’s arm.

Yoongi glared, and Jimin winced. “Sorry. This is… Taking some getting used to.”

“Why don’t we take out the luggage,” Jungkook offered. He and Jin had come around behind Hoseok. “You two go relax.”

“When you pull out the cooler, I need to get a bag. I’m starving,” Yoongi said. He stepped up to Jimin and looked at him numbly. “You need to walk now too.” He tried to sound patronizing, but it came off as far more gentle than he intended.

Jimin obeyed, walking with Yoongi toward the cabin. Yoongi could feel him shiver, and scowled. 

“You shouldn’t have worn shorts,” he scolded with no venom, pulling open the cabin door. “You knew it was snowy.”

“I didn’t figure I’d be outside much without Jungkook,” Jimin said, entering. He headed immediately toward the fireplace, once more yanking Yoongi, who’d stayed behind to shut the door. Yoongi hissed, baring his fangs.

“Would you stop that?!”

“I’m sorry!” Jimin snapped back. “This is an adjustment for us both. Stop yelling at me and learn to work with me, dammit.”

Yoongi smirked. That was the Jimin he knew better. 

“Now,” Jimin continued before Yoongi could speak. “I’m cold. I want to go sit by the fire and warm up. Is that okay?”

“Fine.” Yoongi nodded. He walked with Jimin toward the fire, taking a seat on the ground with him. Jimin wrapped one arm around his knees, resting his chin on them. He let his other arm hang outward awkwardly, trying not to disturb Yoongi’s positioning. 

Yoongi frowned. “You can put your arm down, it’s okay.”  He tugged lightly as he spoke, setting his arm on his leg. Jimin let his arm drop to the ground. He continued to stare at the fire. Yoongi took the opportunity to look openly at the human. He really was quite striking; neatly sculpted brows and soft, plush lips, a gentle, sloping jawline that had just enough definition to trace. Light shadow and contour decorated his nearly flawless skin; Yoongi knew he spent quite a good chunk of time perfecting a casual makeup look despite not needing it. He must have touched up during their last rest stop. A simple earring – some dangling gold chain, sprinkled with tiny gems on each link. And – despite a two-day drive – smooth, perfect hair, shaggy enough to fall over his brows, but currently brushed back from Jimin’s own nervous twitch of carding his fingers through his locks. His throat was smooth – and Yoongi could trace the patterns of his strong veins and along the curve of his neck. How soft the skin looked behind his ear, how strong and dark that one particular vein looked… 

Yoongi’s fangs poked his bottom lip, snapping him out of whatever fantasy he’d fallen into. He drew in a sharp breath and straightened up, drawing Jimin’s attention.

“You okay?”

“Yeah, I’m fine,” Yoongi mumbled, covering his mouth.

“Something wrong? Do you feel sick?” Jimin paused. “Can vampires puke?”

“We can,” Yoongi mumbled. “But I don’t feel sick.”

“Oh.” Jimin gasped then. “Oh!”

“What’s that oh for,” Yoongi mocked, glaring over at him.

“Are you hungry? Your voice is muffled – your fangs. We should see if Jungkook has grabbed your cooler yet.” 

Jimin rose into a crouch. “Come on.”

“You can’t go back out in shorts,” Yoongi argued, letting his hand drop. He saw Jimin’s gaze drop to his mouth, where his canines poked from his top lip. He had always hated his fangs – their size was almost comical in his small mouth. Jimin’s heartrate picked up.

“I’m not going to bite you.”

“I trust you. I’ve just never been so close when you’ve had them out,” Jimin confessed. “They’re… Big.”

“All the better to eat you with, as the big bad wolf would say.” Yoongi hissed, but Jimin only laughed. 

“That’s our Jungkook. You’re a little less intimidating.”

“How is a vampire less intimidating than an overgrown puppy dog?” Yoongi asked, offended. 

“Because you won’t hurt me. Jungkook could hurt me accidentally just jumping on me too hard when he gets excited. He forgets his own strength. You’ve had years to practice control.”

“How do you know I won’t hurt you? I eat your species.”

“You drink human blood. But I know damn well that doesn’t mean you eat or even hurt humans. You drink bagged blood.”

“Oh, do you think they had easily accessible bagged blood when I first turned? So, what, that I woke from my grave and trotted to the local monster shop and ordered a pint of A positive over a sundae? No. I woke up and I ripped out the throat of the nearest human I could find.”

“You were newly turned. You were ravenous. Nobody would blame a hungry bear for attacking.”

“Oh, so I’m nothing more than an animal to you?”

“That’s not what I meant and you know it. I’m on your side, Yoongi, when will you see that?”

“Do you know how to kill a vampire, Jimin?”

Jimin seemed to freeze at that, his lips parted just a bit. He looked over at Yoongi, who sat still, waiting.

“I—”

“Answer me honestly. Do you know how to kill a vampire?”

Jimin hung his head. “Yes, I do.”

“Not so easy, is it?” Yoongi pressed. “Not like the movies. A stake to the heart, sunlight. We don’t die easy, do we, Jimin?”

Jimin shifted, pulling his knees tighter to his chest. “It’s horrible,” he choked.

“Oh, is it? Have you seen it done?”

“Yes.”

“And did you have any part in it?”

Jimin looked over. “My father brought me hunting on my sixteenth birthday. It was his gift to me. He handed me a knife, and he told me that I was going to become a man.” 

“I bet he did.” Yoongi looked away.

“She only looked about twenty,” Jimin continued, staring at the fire. “Gorgeous, honestly. Her eyes were big and dark, and her hair was long – it looked so soft. I was meant to be the bait. I was so scared, when I went up to her in the cafe. I grew up hearing the tales about how even the smell of a human could make a vampire go crazy. I thought for sure she’d try to rip my throat out.”

“What happened?” Yoongi asked. He looked over at Jimin. He wasn’t sure why he asked. He knew what happened. She died. And Jimin and his father killed her. Maybe a sick pleasure, knowing firsthand how brutal the human attached to his wrist was. Jimin continued to stare at the fire. 

“She bought me a fucking soda. To this day, Cherry Coke makes me nauseous. She bought me a soda and she talked to me while I drank it. She offered to walk me home, because it was getting late. So, I let her. I figured now. Here is where she’ll try to rip my throat out. Dig her claws into me and show me her fangs and hurt me.”

“And did she?”

“No.” Jimin swallowed hard. “She walked me almost all the way home, polite as can be, when my father came up to us. She knew, I think. When she saw him – what he was. She looked so… Scared. She tried to run. Not attack – run.

I stepped between her and my father. I knew it was wrong, right then. But he shoved me down and told me I was a disappointment. That he’d give me one more chance. And then he caught her. She was fast but he… He had a bow. It was dipped in –”

“I know. A paralyzing agent.”

“Yeah. She went down and he caught her and dragged her back to me. She was pleading for her life. Swore she didn’t eat humans. He didn’t listen. He grabbed me and he dragged us both into the woods where he’d set up his work space. Tied her down to a bench… And told me to start cutting.”

Yoongi’s stomach lurched. He wanted to scream, to run, to strike. He looked over at Jimin, ready to snap a cruel comment, but froze. Jimin was still staring at the fire. But as Yoongi watched, he saw wet streaks running down Jimin’s cheek. He was crying. 

“I told him no,” Jimin choked. “I told him I couldn’t. She wasn’t a danger. She was nice.” Jimin sniffled. “He hit me. And he shoved me against a tree. And he told me if I was too big of a pansy to do it, I could watch it.”

Jimin wiped his cheeks with his free hand. He sniffled again and looked over at Yoongi. “The night of my sixteenth birthday I watched him cut her to pieces with a knife. The sound of her flesh and muscles tearing still haunts me. I tried to stop him over and over, and all he did was push me back. Hit me. Tell me to man up. Remind me of how monstrous your kind is. And then he handed me the matches. To burn her body. I threw them into the woods and I ran.” 

Jimin smiled weakly. “The fact that I couldn’t save Siyeon still haunts me.”

“What happened after?” Yoongi asked.

“I got a bus ticket to Seoul. And I found a nice couple that took me in. Let me finish school, gave me a space to hide. They were vampires, Yoongi. Ages sixteen and seventeen, I lived with vampires – and I thought of them as parents. A—” Jimin swallowed hard. “And then my actual parents found me. And I watched… Once more… The brutality of hunting your kind. And once again I couldn’t save them. I was too weak. But I disowned my parents at that very moment. I told them I supported vampires and I would never pick up a weapon against them. And that I wasn’t their son anymore. Oh… They thought I’d been turned, even tried to prove it. For two weeks they waited for my fangs to come out. And when they didn’t… They left me. I’ve been on my own ever since.”

Yoongi remained silent, unsure how to respond. Part of him wanted to pop off with something smart and sassy – but he could feel the waves of emotion coming from Jimin. His story wasn’t a lie to gain sympathy. He believed what he was saying. So Yoongi said nothing.

Jimin looked over. Despite his eyes, red rimmed from the tears that streaked his cheeks, he was still stunning. “I’ve never told anybody the whole truth. Not even Jungkook knows.”

“Why?” Yoongi asked. His mouth had gone strangely dry. 

“Because it’s not something I like to relive. It’s not something I want people to know. How weak I was. How helpless… To save them.”

“Hunters are brutal,” Yoongi said. He shrugged. “If you’d done more to interfere… Parents or not, I don’t know that you’d be here now.”

“Probably not. My father always said I was too weak to be his. So that’s my story, Yoongi. That’s why I’m here, living with Jin and Jungkook and you.”

“Why did you tell me? We aren’t friends. We aren’t even that close.”

“Well, for the next two weeks – maybe three – we’re literally stuck together. I know you hate me. And that’s fine, I get it. But I wanted you to know what really happened.”

Yoongi opened his mouth to respond when the door burst open. Jungkook entered, lugging the cooler that housed Yoongi’s meals for the next few weeks. “That snow is intense,” Jungkook commented, shaking the snow from his shaggy brown hair like cold dandruff. 

“It is,” Jin agreed, lugging in a pile of bags. Hoseok followed after and kicked the door shut, his own arms full of bags. 

“You three are gonna be out here at least three weeks based on this – it’s cold enough in these mountains that we don’t melt fast.”

“Will you have enough food?” Jin worried, looking at Yoongi. He nodded. 

“The supply I gave you to put in there should last comfortably two and a half, and I can go without for about a week without losing my mind, so I’ll just space the bags out. Would you put it in the snow outside though? The ice is probably melted by now so you’ll wanna keep it cold. And I don’t think Hoseok wants gallons of blood in his fridge.”

“Rather not,” Hoseok agreed, padding past them into a bedroom with some of the bags. “So Jin will sleep with me, and I did have two rooms set up for you and Jimin, but seeing as you’re sharing,” he smirked at them from around the door, “Jungkook can take the extra room as needed.” 

“Do you wanna get some?” Jimin asked. Yoongi looked away from the cooler and nodded. “Yeah, a little.”

“Let’s go. Jungkook, hold on a sec,” Jimin called. He and Yoongi rose and headed over. Jungkook turned around, setting the cooler on the ground with a thud. 

Yoongi crouched and opened it, scowling. Inside – rather than his pint bags of blood, floating in a pool of water, he saw nothing but vacuum sealed packages of… Meat. 

“Jungkook…”

Yoongi reached in, pawing through the meat. Jimin crouched with him, reaching in as well.

“Jungkook, you didn’t—” Jimin whispered. Jungkook looked down. His eyes bulged.

“No—Oh no.” He sank down next to the others and began yanking the meat packages out. “No, no… Jin!” Jungkook whipped around. “You grabbed the wrong cooler!”

Jin turned from where he’d been talking with Hoseok, his smile slowly fading. “No – The red one. Yoongi said the blood was in the red one by the window.”

“The living room window, Jin,” Yoongi hissed. 

“My meats – My dried and cured meats – they were in the other red cooler by the kitchen window,” Jungkook said, holding up one of the bags.

Jin’s smile disappeared completely. “Oh no,” he whispered. He looked at Yoongi. “We have to go back down.”

“You can’t,” Hoseok said, grabbing Jin’s arm. “Look at that snowfall. You’d wreck in a heartbeat.”

“He can’t go without food, Hobi,” Jin cried.

“I’ll be okay,” Yoongi said. Truthfully, he didn’t know if he would. The very thought of starving sent a chill down his spine. He knew what happened to vampires who were too deeply starved. 

“I can head down the mountain,” he suggested.

“You’d freeze to death,” Jimin argued.

“I’m already dead.”

“You’d still never make it. Dead and immortal doesn’t make you immune to dying in other ways. And freezing solid and shattering is a pretty shitty way to go.”

“Jimin,” Yoongi said softly. “You know better than anyone…”

“We might not be up here three weeks. Maybe the snow will melt faster, and we can get you back to the city.”

“Can’t you eat an animal?” Hoseok offered. “Surely Jungkook could catch something—”

“I can’t drink animal blood. Old vampire myth to make us seem less scary. It makes us very sick. Monster blood is worse, so don’t get any ideas there either.”

“But you drink human blood,” Jimin said softly.

“From a bag.” Yoongi looked over as he spoke, his voice firm. He hated the way Jimin was looking at him. “I’m not even that hungry right now. Jungkook…” He looked to Jungkook, who looked close to tears himself. “I promise I won’t fight with Jimin. Would you please unhandcuff us?”

“Well that takes the fun out of it,” Jungkook pouted.

“Jungkook… You need to uncuff me from him.”

Jungkook scowled at that, looking between Jimin and Yoongi. “But—”

“Jungkook,” Yoongi strained. “I am a vampire. Who is in an isolated cabin with no food. Potentially for multiple weeks. You need to uncuff me from this human.”

Jungkook’s eyes widened a little as the pieces seemed to fall into place. “Oh God, of course. Right, hold on.” He scrambled to his feet and rushed to where his bags were, beginning to dig around in one. “Yoongi…” Jimin reached over, setting his free hand on Yoongi’s upper arm. “You won’t hurt me. I trust you.”

“Jimin—”

“I was going to offer anyways. You know… If you were hungry…”

“Don’t.”

The small smile that had been curving Jimin’s mouth disappeared immediately at Yoongi’s tone. Yoongi looked away, hating the way his heart did a little flip at the idea. Sinking his fangs into Jimin’s smooth neck… Tasting that sweet blood… Hearing Jimin’s breath pick up… Yoongi shook his head slightly to knock the image from his mind. He was supposed to hate the stupid human, not want to feed off him. 

He hadn’t bitten a living human since he was turned. The shame he felt even now, after all these years, when he thought about what he did when he first turned… Once he was in his right mind he swore he’d rather die than feed from a living human. And he’d kept that promise to himself all these years. Easily, really. Even when blood was hard to come by – the simple thought of feeding on a person was enough to turn his stomach. 

So then why did his mind keep drifting to Jimin? The way his veins painted delicate, abstract art on his neck… The sweet, rich scent of his life fluid just… There, right under the surface. The way it made Yoongi’s mouth water, his fangs slipping down, his own pulse – slow and lethargic most of the time – picking up like a horny schoolboy…

“Jungkook,” Yoongi snapped. Jungkook looked up from where he was digging in a second bag. His hair was plastered over his forehead, a look of desperation in his eyes.

“Still looking, it’s a small key. Give me just one more minute, no worries,” he said. Though, any monster in the room could hear his panic… There was a definite need to worry. 

“What if we drove down slow?” Jin offered. “You and me could go, Yoongi. You won’t bite me, and even if you get… very hungry—”

Yoongi nodded. “That could work… But if the car gets stuck, you’ll die a hell of a lot faster than I will. It’d be safer for me to creep down on my own.”

“Except the the gas station on the way up the mountain will be closed and you’ll use far more than usual creeping. You’d be on empty long before you get to civilization,” Hoseok argued. “Not to mention, when you get around people again, then what? You eat the first one you see?”

“Hey!” Jimin’s sharp tone surprised Yoongi. He looked over.

“He’s not going to go feral.”

“Jimin…”

“You won’t. You guys keep talking like you have no food.” Jimin tilted his head a little, exposing his neck. “Hate me or not, I’m still a perfectly viable meal. And you can easily feed from me without hurting me. I know you can control yourself.”

“No.” Yoongi shook his head. “I won’t eat live meals.”

“You’re not eating me. You can just drink a little… Every few days, just enough to take the edge off.”

Yoongi scooted back as far as he could, his arm jerking forward with the cuffs. “Jungkook!” He snapped. 

Jungkook made a small noise and flopped back on his butt. “I can’t find it.”

“Can’t find the key?!” Yoongi cried. He rose, grabbing Jimin’s wrist and lifting him up easily to drag him over. He sank down in front of Jungkook’s bags, beginning to dig through the piles. 

“I’ve looked three times now,” Jungkook said softly, looking near tears. “I can’t find them. I—I must have lost it or left it at home or… Something.”

“Then we pick it!” Yoongi said. He looked to Jin and Hoseok. “Pick it for us.”

“I can’t pick locks,” Hoseok chuckled. “You have far too much faith in me.” “I could try,” Jin said, “but I’m not very good.”

“I don’t care. We have time.” 

“Yoongi,” Jimin tried as Yoongi hauled him up once more, dragging him over to where Jin stood. 

“Why aren’t you more panicked?” Yoongi asked, seeing Jimin looking incredibly calm… And a little sad. 

“Because there isn’t a reason to panic.”

“You’re tied to a thing that fucking eats you.”

“Who I’ve already offered my neck to and he won’t bite. Literally. Yoongi, I’m not scared of you. I’ve said it once and it still stands. I would, however, like you to stop hauling me around like I’m luggage. I can walk. And while I enjoy being manhandled at times, we are both far too clothed for the type I enjoy.” Jimin tugged their cuffed wrists for emphasis. 

A series of titters erupted from the other three in the room, and Yoongi scowled. “You crack jokes as if this isn’t serious.”

“Just lightening the mood.” Jimin shrugged. 

“As if you’d be able to handle me in bed anyways. Or would want to.”

Jimin shrugged. “Says you.” He looked to Jin. “Wanna try to pick it?”

“Sure. Do you have something I can use, Hobi?”

“Lemme look.” Hoseok headed around the counter into the kitchen and began digging through the drawers.

“Go sit down,” Jin said. “It’ll be easier.”

Yoongi moved to walk, but stopped. He motioned for Jimin to lead the way, feeling a little guilty for dragging him around. It wasn’t his fault they were in this situation, after all. And yeah, Yoongi thought as he walked with Jimin and settled onto the couch with him, after learning the truth… Maybe he was beginning to feel some sympathy for the human. Not that they could ever realistically be friends. They couldn’t stand each other. Jimin was scared of him, or hated him… And he disliked the human. It was just how it was… Or how it should be. But maybe, now that Jimin had shared something with Yoongi about his history, they could at least become tolerant of one another.

Yoongi tried to pretend Jimin wasn’t sitting far too close to him. He wasn’t all that hungry. He’d gone about twelve days without food before, and it was uncomfortable, but he wasn’t feral. So, there was no real reason why he couldn’t seem to focus on anything other than Jimin’s pulse. His infuriatingly slow pulse. How could someone so soft and breakable be so calm hanging off the arm of a predator? And so eager to offer his throat?

Jin came around with a handful of slender items. He crouched, grabbing the cuffs and beginning to try the different things. Brows furrowed, Yoongi could tell he was trying. But as the minutes passed, the pile of untried items grew smaller, and the pile of useless, bent, or broken items got larger and larger. 

Jin sighed, picking up a steak knife – the last item in his pile. “There’s no way,” he said.

“Just try it,” Yoongi mumbled. He knew Jin was right, no way would a steak knife open the cuffs. Jin did as he said, jabbing at the hole in the cuffs, trying to get it to release. Nearly a minute of fiddling, and he finally sat back, shaking his head no. “I’m sorry guys, I can’t.”

“It’s okay,” Jimin said. “You tried.”

Yoongi grabbed his cuff and yanked, grimacing when it tugged the skin of his hand. “Did you have to make it so tight?” He growled at Jungkook. 

“I wanted to make sure you couldn’t pull it off,” Jungkook said. He came around the side of the couch, looking sheepish. “I know I have a spare key for it… It’s just in my room.”

“Well that won’t do any good up here!” Yoongi snapped. Jungkook flinched, his eyes widening a little. 

Yoongi took a steadying breath, closing his eyes for a moment. “I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay. It’s my fault. I deserve it.”

“No… You were trying to make us get along. It would have been funny, honestly, if things didn’t turn out like this,” Yoongi said. There is a final option… I just would like to not have to try it until things get… Bad.”

“What are you thinking of, Yoongi?” Jin asked, trepidation clear in his tone.

“Hoseok has a wood stove. A fireplace. Which means he has an axe.”

“No.” Both Jimin and Jungkook spoke in unison. “We’re not cutting any body parts off.”

“Well if I go feral and am still attached to Jimin, you’ll be doing a lot more than cutting off something. You’ll have to put me down.”

“You aren’t a dog!” Jimin cried. “If it gets to that point, we can just dislocate my thumb. It’ll hurt like a mother but the cuffs can come off. But you could prevent getting to that point if you’d just drink from me.”

“I will not let you hurt yourself for my sake,” Yoongi argued.

“Why not? You hate me, don’t you? A stupid hunter’s son.” Yoongi should have said yes. His brain told him that he should say yes. Yet the word wouldn’t come out. Instead, he just shook his head, looking down. “I just won’t let you,” he muttered.

“Hopefully it won’t come to that,” Jin said. He rose, setting his hands on their shoulders. “Come on. This is a setback, but we’re still up here, let’s try to have a good time, right?”

Yoongi smiled softly, nodding. “You’re right. Hobi, how long until the lake freezes over completely do you think?”

“A day or two, why?”

“I know Jungkook’s been dying to take a swim in ice water. Mostly because he’s a lunatic. Want to?”

Hoseok grinned brightly. “I’d love to. You know me, never turn down water.”

“What about you?” Jin asked. He looked at Jimin. “He won’t have the same tolerance to cold…”

Yoongi glanced at Jimin, who’s smile - which had grown at the mention of a cold swim, was sinking.

“Yeah, maybe not, but I don’t much like the cold either. I’m sure I’ll be ready to be done when he is. We can still have fun. I won’t let you drown.” 

Jimin looked at him, that sweet smile returning. He nodded. “Deal.”

Yoongi regretted that deal the second they hit the water. Not at any fault of Jimin’s, oh no. But more because Yoongi had forgotten just how much he hated the cold. He was shuddering nearly instantly. Jimin laughed brightly next to him, a high, tinkling sound on the cool wind. Yoongi looked over. Jimin was shivering just as hard as he was.

“This can’t be safe for humans,” Yoongi worried.

“A few minutes is fine. It’s good for the body,” Jimin assured him. “Can we go deeper? I wanna try to get to where Jungkook is.”

Yoongi looked across the lake. About fifteen feet ahead, closer to the center of the unfrozen part of the water, were their three friends. They’d jumped in as humans – but now Yoongi could see a wolf, a fox with many tails, and a seal, all bobbing along the water. 

“We’ll try – but remember they are all furred animals. You may not make it that far.”

“I still wanna try.”

Yoongi nodded. He and Jimin set off carefully, their swimming motions needing to be perfectly aligned due to the cuffs. They made it nearly as far as Jungkook when Jimin whined softly. Yoongi glanced over, concern furrowing his brows. Jimin was shivering less, but his arms were covered in gooseflesh, and his lips were turning a startling shade of purple-blue. 

“We need to go back,” Yoongi said. 

Jimin nodded, not bothering to argue.

“Can you make it?”

“I c—can t-t-t-try,” Jimin chattered. 

“Ah, you soft humans,” Yoongi teased with no real venom. He got them turned around. “Here, go over my head so you’re hooked around my shoulders.” He brought the hand with the cuff across his chest. Jimin moved his arm over Yoongi’s head, dropping it against his back. 

“Good, try to help me paddle a bit with your free hand okay? And kick some.”

Jimin nodded. Yoongi could barely feel heat from his skin despite their closeness; a rather concerning feeling. He swam them back as quick as he could manage, Jimin doing his best to help. When they reached the ice patch, Yoongi moved to dislodge himself from Jimin’s arm. “Okay, get out.”

Jimin nodded. He braced his hands on the ice and hoisted himself out, spinning around and crouching as he helped Yoongi up and out. 

Unfortunately – their wet skin on the ice did nothing in terms of support, and as soon as Yoongi was out of the water, a single step sent them both flying. Yoongi landed on top of Jimin, clearly knocking the breath from his chest. Snow that had puffed up around them in the fall now drifted down, speckling Jimin’s face like glitter. They laid nose to nose for a moment, Jimin’s eyes wide as he looked up at Yoongi. 

“I—”

“Sorry,” Yoongi whispered, though he couldn’t bring himself to move. Not because of the ice… But mostly because Jimin felt so good under him. 

“It’s okay,” Jimin breathed. His eyes darted down to Yoongi’s mouth, and Yoongi froze. Was he about to kiss him? He jerked back, panic bubbling up in his chest. This was all wrong. He wasn’t supposed to be okay with that idea. Carefully, he moved off Jimin and rose, helping Jimin to his feet. Jimin clung to him, shivering harder than ever. 

They entered the cabin. “You should strip,” he said.

“S—” Jimin’s eyes bulged. 

“As we melt we’re gonna soak the floor. And it’ll be easier to warm up if you’re in just a pair of dry pants than if you’re in soaking wet clothes.

“Right…” Jimin glanced down. “Shit.”

“What?” 

“The cuffs. How am I gonna get my shirt off with the cuffs?”

Yoongi looked down as well. He swore under his breath, glaring in the general direction of the lake. “I’m gonna kill him.”

Jimin laughed a little. “Didn’t think that one through, did he?”

“Let’s get to the bathroom. We’re dripping.” Yoongi led him through the cabin into the bathroom. He guided Jimin into the tub. “Okay, so we could cut them off, but then we’d be shirtless for the next three weeks and I’d like to go outside at some point, so…”

“Yeah, no.” Jimin tapped his chin in thought. “What about just letting them hang over the cuff chain to dry? If we set a towel under them, squeeze them out as much as we can here, they should dry in front of the fire too, and we can put them back on?”

Yoongi thought for a moment, his eyes darting from Jimin to their cuffs as he tried to determine if it would succeed. Finally, he nodded. “I think that’ll work. Try it?”

Jimin nodded. He pulled his left arm free, apologizing softly when he tugged Yoongi over so his right hand could be used. Over the head, over his right arm, it dangled on the chain, as predicted, dripping into the tub. 

“Perfect!” Jimin said. 

Yoongi nodded. He wasn’t sure what he was nodding about though, as he couldn’t seem to pull his eyes away from Jimin’s bare chest. Though Jimin was slender, under his clothes he was very clearly hiding a lot. A toned chest and firm muscles, the cold water had tightened his dusky nipples to hard little points. His belly was slim, with the faint outlines of muscles that Yoongi knew were probably far tighter than a quick glance. And his hips – cut almost ridiculously perfect into a v shape, visible over the top of his waistband. Though he was clothed from the bottom down, Yoongi could imagine very clearly where that v pointed.

“Yoongi?” Jimin’s voice drew him out of his staring. He looked up, clearing his throat. “Right. Perfect. I’ll do mine.” Yoongi moved a little quicker, yanking his off and adding it to Jimin’s dangling from the chain. After seeing Jimin, he felt a little self-conscious. Though strong – it was all his inhuman nature; he was far less fit and chiseled than the human. 

“We should wring them out now.” Yoongi grabbed his own shirt and began to ring it out, twisting it this way and that to get as much water out as he could. Jimin did the same, the water splashing between them like a mini waterfall. 

“Great,” Jimin said when they could wring no more water from the shirts. He moved to step out, but Yoongi grabbed his wrist. “Shorts and shoes too – you’ll drip everywhere.”

“Oh—” Jimin hesitated, looking down and then up at Yoongi. “Uh… Naked?” He squeaked. 

“Well, yeah.” Yoongi chuckled. “What, you shy about something?”

Jimin looked away, his cheeks pinking up delightfully. “Well, no, I just…”

Yoongi sighed and grabbed a towel from the nearby rack. He turned away from Jimin as well as he could and hung it over his shoulder. “Here, just change and wrap it around your waist. I won’t look.” 

He heard a shuffle and felt a tug on his wrist. He was distinctly aware of the fact that if he shifted his right hand at all he would likely be brushing against Jimin’s bare skin. His wrist was pulld again, and this time he felt a towel skim past his fingers.

“Okay, I’m ready.”

“Alright, I’m taking mine off now,” Yoongi said. He pulled his hand back, quickly tugging his shoes, socks, jeans, and boxers off. He grabbed a towel and wrapped it around his own waist. 

“Okay, come on.” They stepped out of the bathtub and walked into the room where their bags had been dropped, the wet clothes dangling awkwardly between them. Yoongi let Jimin grab clothes first, looking away politely while he pulled on sweats. He pulled on his own sweats and handed Jimin their towels. Out into the living room, he grabbed a blanket from the chair as they settled onto the loveseat nearest to the fire. He slung the blanket over their shoulders.

“The wet—” Jimin began. “I know, here, just wrap them up with the towels.” They worked together with surprising efficiency to wrap the clothes. Jimin relaxed a bit, pressing closer to Yoongi to get further under the blanket as they sat.

Jimin’s body was warming quickly, radiating heat into his own normally barely lukewarm bones. It was… Comfortable, if Yoongi was being honest. Yoongi felt his head drooping, soothed by the sounds of the fire and the warmth. Jimin shifted, snuggling next to him and resting his head on Yoongi’s shoulder. Yoongi quirked his brow, peeking around Jimin’s head. Sure enough, the human was sleeping. Yoongi smiled a little. Yeah, Jimin wasn’t so bad, maybe… 

Yoongi was amazed at how much he could simultaneously adore and hate a singular person. If Jungkook hadn’t been a werewolf, Yoongi may have considered feeding on him.

“I’m sorry, I can’t have heard that right.” Yoongi repeated for the second time, staring at Jungkook in the dark bedroom. Jungkook pouted, his bottom lip sticking out and making him look far younger than his twenty-three years would imply. 

“I said I’m bored.”

“And you proceeded to grab my dick.”

“Well, what better way to solve boredom?”

“Jungkook, we’re cuffed.”

“Which makes it less sexy how?”

Yoongi’s face remained stoic. “I’m not gonna fuck you, Jungkook. I’m still upset with you.”

“For what?!” Jungkook cried, seemingly offended that Yoongi would dare.

Yoongi blinked at him before lifting the cuffs, inadvertently dragging Jimin’s arm up and making Jungkook’s head hit the pillow where he’d been cuddling between the two of them. He gave it a shake.

“Also for losing the key. And for whatever other harebrained ideas you get while we’re up here.”

Jungkook’s pout returned full force. “Well fine. Your loss.”

“My loss?”

“Jimin will keep me company, right?” Jungkook turned to look at Jimin, his grin broadening. 

“I—I can’t say no,” Jimin mumbled sheepishly, rubbing the back of his neck. “Sorry Yoongi.”

Yoongi gaped at Jimin. 

“So what, you two are just gonna fuck next to me? Could you be any more obscene?”

“Oh it’s not like you’ve not seen it before, you prude.”

“I haven’t! Not with Jimin.”

“Just go to sleep then.” Jungkook stuck his tongue out at Yoongi. He rolled over, facing away from Yoongi. A shift on the bed, and Yoongi heard the soft sounds of kissing. He scowled at them for a moment. He hated the way his stomach was making those nasty little knots, the way he wanted to reach out and card his fingers through Jungkook’s hair, pull him back from Jimin and kiss him until he couldn’t breathe. Hated the way he wanted to feel Jimin’s mouth too. Sink into his tight heat and find out if his moans were as pretty as his laugh. The days spent cuffed together had done a number on Yoongi. More and more he found himself enjoying Jimin’s company, laughing with him, conversing with him willingly. And more and more he found himself staring at him, wondering more about him, noticing his subtle (and obvious) beauty. 

Yoongi shut his eyes, trying to block out the sounds of their kissing, the soft breathy sighs from them, and the shift of fabric as they moved together, slowly stripping.  

It worked, for a while. Yoongi managed to remain feigning sleep (how could he actually sleep?) through Jungkook very clearly giving Jimin some amazing oral sex, and through Jungkook prepping Jimin’s soft body for sex. He even managed to feign sleep when Jungkook slid into Jimin, but felt Jimin’s hand grab his own for the briefest second, paired with a sharp, pleasured cry from the human. 

But Yoongi’s strength only went so far. He could feel a stirring in his groin as the bed shifted rhythmically, hearing the slick sounds of their skin slapping together as Jungkook thrust into him, their muffled panting.

He opened his eyes the tiniest bit. They wouldn’t notice, not so caught up in their lovemaking. Jimin was covering his mouth with his free hand, muffling his soft whines as Jungkook thrust into him. 

From his viewpoint, Yoongi could see Jimin’s hips bent up, his cock hard and leaking onto his belly. Jungkook reached up, pinching Jimin’s nipple and tugging. Jimin moaned, shoving his head back into the pillow and grabbing the sheet. “Jungkook—“ he whined, strained.

Jungkook glanced over, catching Yoongi’s gaze. Yoongi tried to shut his eyes, but knew it was too late. He glanced again, seeing Jungkook lean down. He was whispering, but Yoongi heard it clear as day. 

“He’s watching us,” he whispered, “and you’re making him hard.” 

Jimin looked over. Yoongi met his gaze openly, wetting his lips. Jungkook wasn’t wrong, his cock was hard in his sweats, pushing up the blanket a little. Yoongi reached down, palming himself as he watched Jungkook make love to Jimin. He could feel his fangs poking his bottom lip, and knew as soon as he spoke they’d be just as obvious as his erection.

“Want me to take care of that?” Jungkook teased. “Or maybe you wanna see if Jimin feels as good as you think he might, hm?”

Yoongi swallowed hard. “Ride me, Jungkook,” he demanded. 

Jungkook smirked. He pulled out of Jimin, his cock slick with lube. He pushed the blanket down and tugged Yoongi’s sweats around his ankles. He licked his lips, staring at Yoongi’s dick.

“Come suck him with me, Jimin.”

Jimin obeyed, sitting and moving down. He and Jungkook set to work immediately, dragging a surprised shout out of Yoongi. Their mouths were everywhere, tongues sliding over his sensitive cock, sharing kisses. Jungkook leaned back to grab lube and Jimin took advantage. He sank down on Yoongi, swallowing his cock to the root. Yoongi’s hips jerked up, his tip bumping Jimin’s throat. Jimin swallowed, looking up at him. He began to suck and lick, bobbing his head slow.

Yoongi grabbed his head, his lips parted. He began to guide his head, unable to tear his gaze away from Jimin’s mouth, his perfect lips sliding over his cock like silk.

“Amazing, isn’t he?” Jungkook purred. He was fingering himself open, watching the two. “I don’t know how many times I’ve come just from his mouth when I didn’t plan to.”

Yoongi wanted to answer, but all that came out was an incoherent moan. He had had a lot of blowjobs in his time but none like this. He fisted Jimin’s hair, tugging to pull him off. Jimin obeyed, moaning happily. His eyes rolled back when Yoongi pulled, cock jerking between his muscular thighs. 

“Jungkook—” Yoongi strained. He let go of Jimin before he hurt him, grunting when Jimin immediately began to nuzzle and kiss over his thighs and hip.

“Aw, are you that close?” Jungkook teased, pressing kisses along Yoongi’s jaw. Yoongi nodded. 

“You sure you don’t wanna see what he feels like? He’s so tight, and warm, and wet inside…”

Yoongi whimpered, looking down at Jimin. He bared his fangs almost instinctively, the sound of Jimin’s blood pumping nearly overwhelming him. Jimin’s breath caught audibly. He crawled up Yoongi’s body, until they were nearly nose to nose. 

“You can,” he whispered. He straddled Yoongi’s hips, settling onto his crotch until Yoongi’s cock bumped his hole. “If you want to… And…” Jimin touched Yoongi’s chin, pulling his bottom lip. “This too…” He bared his neck, leaning closer to Yoongi. 

Panic bubbled up in Yoongi’s chest when he realized he’d moved forward, mouth opening instinctively. He snapped his jaws shut hard enough to hurt, piercing his own bottom lip with his fangs. 

“Jimin—” He gritted. “Get off me.”

Jimin sat back, disappointment clear on his face. He obeyed though, slinking off Yoongi’s hips and laying next to him. 

“Yoongi—” Jungkook began. 

“Don’t.”

“We don’t have to stop,” Jungkook continued anyways. “Let me finish you off. Or you can watch Jimin and I—”

Embarrassed, shameful tears burned the back of Yoongi’s throat. He closed his eyes, trying to stave them off as long as possible. And he was cuffed – he couldn’t even escape this horribly awkward situation. 

“Just go back to what you were doing. I’m sorry I bothered you,” he mumbled. He sat up and yanked his sweats up one handed before rolling to his side, facing away from the two. His cuffed arm twisted back uncomfortably, but he ignored it. He deserved a little discomfort… He nearly bit Jimin – and for what? A fucking orgasm. Nearly broke his vow with a moment of sex. Shame colored his cheeks as he glared at the door. 

“Jungkook—” Jimin’s voice was barely above a breath.

“It’s not you,” Jungkook assured him. He had to know Yoongi could hear them. No way to prevent it – his headphones were in the other room. 

“I didn’t mean to…”

“I know, baby. He’s just scared. He’s…” Jungkook drifted off. “He isn’t mad at you.”

“Do you still want me to…”

“Are you still in the mood?” 

Jimin chuckled. “I can get into the mood again.”

“No.” Yoongi heard them kiss. “I’m not into it either. I feel bad. I pushed you guys into it. We’ll talk about it tomorrow.”

Guilt clenched Yoongi’s heart. It wasn’t his fault. It wasn’t Jimin’s either. It was Yoongi’s. He wished he had the nerve to roll back over, to apologize and tell them they were okay, but he couldn’t. So, he laid still, staring at the door as he listened to them pull on their shorts and cuddle, sharing quiet kisses as their breath evened out and they drifted to sleep. 

They didn’t talk about it the next morning, or the morning after, or the day after that. In fact, Jungkook and Jimin didn’t bring up that night for the remainder of the week, or the following week. Yoongi was relieved, but also… A little stung. He had wondered if maybe they would want to talk about it, bring it up in some way so he could assure them that it was him, not them. Specifically, not Jimin. But, as the days progressed, it seemed like things were no different, and Yoongi let the situation slip to the back of his mind. He had more pressing things to worry about anyways. 

Like, for example, the fact that the snow was showing no signs of melting enough for any sort of safe moving off the mountain. And the fact that it was now day thirteen without blood and he was feeling the effects of hunger. And the fact that Jimin was still stuck to his arm and he smelled so damn delicious that he was fighting the urge to show fang every ten minutes.

And to top it all off, Jin and Jungkook had decided this afternoon was the perfect time to go for a run in the woods. And Hoseok, in his own infinite wisdom, decided to go find a patch of thin ice for a swim in his own animal form. Which left Jimin and Yoongi entirely alone. 

Which wouldn’t have been so bad, really. They often spent time just sitting on the couch together, reading or listening to music, talking or just sitting, watching the fire in comfortable silence. Even after the incident in bed the week prior, this feeling of ease and comfort didn’t fade. If anything, it continued to grow.

“I wish you could’ve gone out with them,” Jimin said softly, gazing into the fire. Yoongi glanced up from his notebook. 

“Hm?”

“Jin and Jungkook. I’m sure you wanted to run with them.”

“Nah, it’s too cold for me,” Yoongi said. “I’d rather chill with the fire.”

Jimin chuckled. You don’t need to be lazy for my sake.”

“Not for your sake,” Yoongi assured him. “I really j—” A sharp pang in his stomach cut Yoongi’s words off. He doubled over, his fangs slipping out as he cried out. 

Jimin reached for him, grabbing his hand that was cuffed together. “Yoongi—”

Yoongi turned, baring his fangs and hissing, nearly catlike. 

Instead of shying away, Jimin’s face drooped. “Oh, it’s getting bad, isn’t it?” He asked. 

Yoongi dropped his head again, drawing in a deep breath. He felt like he was sweating despite an inability to do that for many years. 

“I’m fine,” he huffed.

“No, you’re not. You look sick. And I know you’re in pain. Please, I know you’re scared of hurting me, Yoongi but… Please.”

“It’s more than a fear of hurting you,” Yoongi muttered. He sat upright, closing his eyes for a second as he waited for the pain and nausea to fade. When it did, he drew in another breath and nodded. 

“Then what is it, Yoongi? Please trust me to understand.”

Yoongi hesitated. He sat back on the couch, considering. Jimin had shared his story… Maybe it was time for Yoongi to do the same. If they were to be… Friends. 

“I was turned about sixty years ago. I was twenty-eight. I don’t know… If you know much about how vampires are turned?”

“Not the details, but I know it’s a big process, death and burying and a whole ordeal.”

“It is. And generally, usually… The one who turns the new vampire stays around, it’s like giving birth to a child when all is said and done.” 

Jimin nodded in understanding. Yoongi hesitated, another wave of nausea slipping over him. He remained silent until it passed before continuing. 

“I did not have that grand bringing into the world. I never met the person that turned me.”

Yoongi heard Jimin make a small, sympathetic noise. Though he would have normally made a snarky comment, he had to admit, at that moment… It felt kind of nice.

“So, I crawled out of my grave one night… I was… God, I was so hungry. The last thing I remembered was being grabbed, and a pain in my throat. And then… Just dizziness and then darkness. I was so confused and scared and… So hungry. So thirsty.”

Yoongi shuddered despite the warmth, his stomach knotting painfully again. He curled his knees up, grimacing.

“Yoongi,” Jimin whispered. He shifted their hands, holding Yoongi’s tightly. “I’m here.”

“Oh, I know… You smell so… Fucking good, I can’t even pretend you aren’t,” Yoongi muttered. Jimin giggled a little at that.

“I’ll take it as a compliment.”

Yoongi chuckled. The knots in his stomach released a little, allowing him to continue. “So I stumbled around the graveyard for a bit. I was looking for… Something, I didn’t know what at the time. And this young guy comes up. He was so handsome. He couldn’t have been more than sixteen or seventeen. Dressed very poor. But he comes up to the gat of the graveyard and calls to me. I was so happy to see someone. Someone who could tell me what happened, or help me somehow. I ran up to him. I knew I must have looked horrid. I mean I just climbed out of my damn grave, but he barely blinked. He was instantly worried for me. Helped me find the entrance gate and started walking with me and checking on me as we headed toward the village for a doctor.

And then the hunger hit again. And it was so much stronger… God, it was like someone was hitting me in the face with every delicious food I’d ever eaten at once. My entire body and mind seemed to ignite. I couldn’t control myself. I can’t tell you exactly what I was thinking at that moment except feed.”

Yoongi hesitated once more. He swallowed hard, not due to his stomach, but due to the painful memories. Jimin moved closer to him, setting his other hand on Yoongi’s thigh. “I’m here,” he whispered again, his head nearly on Yoongi’s shoulder. 

“I—I ripped his throat out, Jimin. God, I can still remember the sounds of him dying. The smells, the feeling of the blood and… The taste. The power. I was drunk on it.” 

Yoongi paused as another wave of pain hit him, shivers running down his spine. “I came to my senses a few hours later. I was in the woods, covered in blood. Everything hit me then. What I was, what I did. I tried to kill myself. But it… It didn’t work. So instead I swore I’d never place my teeth on another living human. I didn’t care if I starved to death. I’d lock myself up in a cave and wait to die if the only other option was biting a person. Risking doing what I did to that boy… I have kept that vow for sixty years, Jimin. That’s why I won’t bite you.”

“I understand,” Jimin said softly. “I do. What you went through was traumatic. But Yoongi… You don’t have the option of locking yourself up in a cave right now.”

Yoongi closed his eyes. “I know.”

“So if you do reach that point… You will kill me.”

Yoongi grimaced. Jimin squeezed his hand tighter. “I would rather have you drink some now… When you can control yourself. When you can take care of me… When we can both feel good maybe… Than die that way. Because I know you’ll hate yourself afterward.”

“I’ll hate myself either way,” Yoongi whispered.

“Fine. But at least I’ll be around to help you let go of that hate this way. And so will Jungkook.” Jimin’s lips brushed over Yoongi’s cheek. “I keep thinking about last week. How good I felt on your lap… How nice it felt to see you relax. I am sorry I offered my neck, and not just my body… But I am offering both again.”

Yoongi looked over quickly. Jimin smiled softly. “Yoongi, please let me help you.”

“Help me?” Yoongi breathed. He could hear Jimin’s heartbeat, and smell his arousal. He chuckled. “You’re propositioning a hungry vampire to have sex with you.”

“I am. I’ve heard it makes the bite feel better. Do you… Want me? That night, I wasn’t sure. I felt like we pushed…”

“No, no, I wanted you that night.” Yoongi pressed his forehead against Jimin’s. “I still do. I don’t know what changed, I—I can’t stop thinking about you these days.”

“I’ve liked you for a long time, Yoongi,” Jimin confessed. “But you hated me for my parents…”

“I was wrong.”

“No. You just didn’t know. Now you do.”

“And I do like you. I… God, I fell for you.”

Jimin pulled back this time, his mouth quirking up into a grin. “You did?”

“I did,” Yoongi muttered. “Don’t let it go to your head.

“I won’t.” The two sat in silence. Yoongi’s shudders were coming more regularly, his body edging closer and closer to starvation, rather than hunger. 

“Yoongi,” Jimin finally whispered. “Please take me to bed.”

Yoongi’s breath puffed out of his lungs. He nodded. Jimin rose and Yoongi let himself be pulled toward the bedroom. They were so used to the cuffs now that they moved as a unit, knowing how to twist and turn to move fluidly. It would be weird to have them off, Yoongi realized. 

Once in the bedroom, Jimin turned, pulling his shirt off. He let it dangle from the chain and smiled shyly. “Do you… Want me to…”

“No,” Yoongi pulled his own shirt off. He stepped forward, going almost chest to chest with Jimin. “The last time we stripped… You made me look away when you took off your jeans… You gonna be shy on me again?”

Jimin laughed. “Not this time.”

“Good.” Yoongi undid Jimin’s jeans, pushing them to the ground for Jimin to step out of. He kicked his own sweats off, and then his boxers, before setting his hands on Jimin’s hips. He caught the band of his boxers. “You sure about this?”

“I’m sure.”

Yoongi pushed them down, stepping back to look Jimin up and down. He reached out with his free hand, palming Jimin’s cock. It twitched and hardened further in his palm, and he gave it a firm stroke. “I didn’t get a good look at you that night… I’m glad to now.”

“Like what you see?” Jimin asked. Yoongi nodded slowly. He let go of Jimin to cup his cheeks, pulling him into a sweet kiss, despite the fire raging in his veins. Jimin wrapped one arm around his shoulders, holding onto his wrist with the cuffed hand. They moved toward the bed in unison, and Jimin let himself fall back onto it. Yoongi went with him, nudging open his smooth thighs. 

Jimin looked up at him, his lips wet and full from the kiss, his cheeks rosy with life. His eyes were dark, hair brushed back from his forehead. 

“How do you—” Jimin swallowed. “Now? Or…” He touched his neck.

“Not quite yet,” Yoongi said. He reached over to where he knew Jungkook had stashed the lube, pulling the bottle out and opening it. 

The two shared soft kisses while Yoongi prepped Jimin, determined not to hurt him any more than necessary. None – if he could have his way. He could smell Jimin’s blood so strongly, his teeth aching like a sweet tooth, mouth watering as they kissed. And Jimin – oh, the creature under him couldn’t be a human – Jimin had to be an imp. Playing with fire, Jimin would scrape his tongue over Yoongi’s fangs, sometimes almost hard enough to draw blood. Each time he did, his cock would jerk against Yoongi’s hip, and Yoongi would have to refrain from giving in and biting Jimin then and there.

He resisted by some miracle, however, and pulled back, lining himself up to Jimin’s body. “Are you ready?” 

Jimin nodded, spreading his legs wider.  Yoongi laid over him, bracing himself on the hand that was cuffed. Jimin twined their fingers together, meeting Yoongi’s gaze as Yoongi pushed into him for the first time. 

Jimin’s lips parted, a sharp gasp breaking the silence of the room. Yoongi bared his fangs, his own vision going a little hazy at the tight heat of Jimin’s body. 

“Yoongi…” Jimin’s voice was soft, muffled. Yoongi forced himself to focus, offering what he hoped was a comforting smile – though he knew the fangs probably made that difficult. 

“I won’t hurt you,” he whispered.

“I know. It feels good,” Jimin assured him. He reached his free hand down, gripping Yoongi’s ass. “You can move. I want this.”

Yoongi nodded. He began to thrust at an even pace, mindful of not going too hard. Jimin moaned under him, his eyes rolling back in pleasure. Curious, Yoongi reached out, pinching his left nipple. Jimin shouted, gasping. 

“Please—“

“Oh, you are sensitive,” Yoongi teased. “And responsive.”

He pinched again, this time tugging. Jimin shouted, squeezing Yoongi’s cock almost painfully tight. Yoongi continued to thrust, leaning down to gently suck and bite at each hard nub. As he did, he fisted Jimin’s cock, using his ample precome to jerk him in time to his own movements. 

He was already so close, he wished it could last longer. He wanted to stay like this, hear Jimin’s sounds of pleasure, for eternity. He moved back up, nuzzling Jimin’s neck. 

Jimin’s breath caught, his throat clicking. He let his head fall, baring his neck to Yoongi.

“Yes—“ He whispered. “Please, Yoongi… Do it…”

Yoongi pulled his cock free of Jimin’s hole, chuckling when Jimin whined.

“Don’t stop, please—“ 

Yoongi began to tease him, prodding and bumping his opening with his tip. Not enough to get any real stimulation, but feeling Jimin’s body open for him, so receptive - and the sounds of his voice as he begged for it… If Yoongi didn’t have other plans he may have come then and there.

He lined himself back up and nuzzled Jimin’s neck once more. A moment to steady himself, and then… 

His teeth penetrated Jimin’s soft neck at the same moment he drove himself into Jimin’s body once more. 

Jimin screamed, his free hand rising and scratching down Yoongi’s back. He began to pump his hips quickly, swallowing the sweet, hot blood that filled his mouth as he sucked. He ran his tongue over the puncture wounds, his saliva working to clot and slow the blood already so Jimin wouldn’t bleed too much. 

Jimin’s entire body jerked, nearly dislodging his mouth. His release spilled, hot and sticky, between their stomachs as he moaned against Yoongi’s shoulder.

“Jesus— Yoongi!” Jungkook’s voice startled Yoongi. He felt Jungkook’s hand on the back of his neck, so he released, afraid he’d drunk too much. But Jimin was grinning brightly, looking all too fucked out.

“Hey Jungkook,” he signed, moaning softly when Yoongi thrust in. 

Jungkook looked between the two, letting go of Yoongi’s neck. 

“Oh.”

“Sorry we didn’t wait for you,” Jimin teased. “You should join us now.”

Jungkook looked at Yoongi, smiling softly. “I think I will.” He began to strip, grabbing the lube to ready himself.

Yoongi looked back down at Jimin, leaning down to lick a stray dribble of blood on his neck. He thrust in, and Jimin winced. He pushed Yoongi’s chest.

“Too sensitive after I come,” he whined. “Finish with Jungkook. Oh—“ He laughed into Yoongi’s mouth when Yoongi kissed him hard, gently pulling out. He flopped next to him, still holding his hand.

Jungkook straddled his hips, dick hard. He lifted Yoongi’s cock and settled onto it, both of them gasping. He began to ride him almost immediately, leaning down to kiss them both. 

Jimin sat up, shifting over to begin sucking Jungkook’s cock as he moved, the soft wet noises punctuating the rougher ones.

Yoongi’s eyes went fuzzy as he watched the two, his toes curling against the mattress. 

“I’m close,” he warned Jungkook, who only nodded. His fingers were buried in Jimin’s hair, guiding him along his length. 

Jimin coughed and Jungkook grunted, his body shuddering and beginning to clench and relax - a sure sign of his release… Directly down Jimin’s eager throat if the soft gulping was any indication. 

Yoongi moaned softly. The pressure around his cock and the absolutely stunning image in front of him became too much far too quickly. With a deep grunt, and a firm hand on Jungkook’s hip to hold him still, Yoongi came, spilling inside Jungkook.

The three ended up in a haphazard cuddle pile as they all came down from their climaxes. Though Yoongi was sure he’d taken less than a pint from Jimin, but he still felt calm and full and strangely sated. Maybe it was due to feeding live. But maybe it was due to the two men snuggled up against his body, warming him from the outside in. 

“Any regrets?” Jimin asked sleepily, breaking the comfortable silence between them.

“None. You okay?”

“I feel great. How often do you need to feed?”

“Just every few days. I won’t need much, just enough to take the edge off… I don’t want to force you—”

“Shh,” Jimin kissed his mouth to silence him. “I’m offering. You already look better. I want to help. I told you things wouldn’t be like they were sixty years ago.”

Yoongi nodded. “Thank you.” He sighed softly, looking between the two. “I have a question for both of you.”

When they looked up, he smiled. “Jungkook – you mentioned… Changing your relationship with us. And that… I believe… Implied dating.”

Jungkook nodded. 

“Do you still feel that way?”

Another nod. “Of course I do.”

“Then… I think now is a good time for me to formally ask you… Both of you… If you’d like to make this situation an official one.”

Jimin made a small noise that was a cross between an ‘oh’ and a giggle. “Are you asking out the vampire hunter’s son, Yoongi?”

Yoongi smirked. “Guess I like to live on the wild side. It’s only fair after I’ve had my teeth in your neck.” 

Jimin laughed brightly, nuzzling against Yoongi’s neck. Yoongi glanced at Jungkook, noticing he’d remained silent.

“Jungkook?” 

Jungkook smiled softly. He met Yoongi’s gaze. “I never expected… When I cuffed you two together, I didn’t expect things to actually work out.”

“Are you okay with how it did?” Yoongi confirmed.

“You really do care for Jimin? This isn’t some effect of drinking his blood or… Or sex or… For peace in the apartment?”

Yoongi chuckled. He nodded. “I mean, it’ll be nice to have peace in the apartment, but no… And we aren’t affected by blood drinking or anything like that, it’s just like sitting down and having a good steak – No offense.”

“None taken,” Jimin answered. 

“So, yeah, I… I’ve really developed a fondness for Jimin over these few weeks. Spending more time with him, learning to work together. I don’t know if it’s love but it’s… Definitely more than tolerance. I do care for him a great deal. Just like you.”

“Were you not wanting this, Jungkook?” Jimin worried. “Like… I know you want me and you want Yoongi, but us… Together.”

“It’s not that.” Jungkook sat up. “I do. This is a dream, all three of us together. I just didn’t expect it. To be honest, I… I keep expecting to wake up.” He looked to Yoongi. “You really don’t hate Jimin?”

“No. I don’t… I don’t think I ever did. I was blaming him for his parents, for hunters who have killed my friends over the years… He was the face of it.” Yoongi paused, brows furrowed as he thought. “But he’s been just as much a victim to vampire hunters as anyone else. Has still been hurt and traumatized by them, in a different way, but… It’s there. I was just too stubborn to hear that until these weeks. And I regret that. Because getting to know the real Jimin these past few weeks has been so fun. I just hope that I can keep learning more about him.”

“And you don’t… Resent him, Jimin? For all that he’s said to you?”

“Not even a little. I wish he’d given me a chance earlier – but I understand fully why he didn’t. And I don’t blame him. I can’t say I would have either, in his shoes. And I’m glad that we’ve gotten over that bump and can move forward with our friendship and… Relationship.”

Jungkook seemed to relax a little, a small smile crossing his face as he looked at the two.

“So, what do you say, Jungkook?” Yoongi pressed. “Is this— Are the three of us… Okay?” 

Jungkook remained silent a moment, looking between the two. He nodded then. “You two make a cute couple.”

“And we three will make an adorable throuple,” Jimin said. Jungkook’s soft smile widened then, crinkling his nose and exposing his front teeth. 

“We will, won’t we?”

Yoongi grabbed for Jungkook with his free hand, pulling him down into a kiss. After, he turned, kissing Jimin gently. “Amazing how comfortable that feels,” he commented.

“Guess we shoulda been doing it this whole time,” Jimin said.

Yoongi nodded, kissing him once more. “I guess so. We’ll just have to make up for lost time.”

“What a trio we are,” Jungkook said. “A vampire, a human, and a werewolf.”

“Unique and fun, I’d call it.”

“You know,” Jungkook said, nuzzling against Yoongi’s neck. “I’d like to point out that none of this would have happened if I hadn’t thought to cuff you two together.”

Jimin snorted, but Yoongi chuckled. “You’re not wrong… I’m gonna kinda miss being cuffed to you when we get home, Jimin.” 

Jimin grinned broadly. “It’s okay, I know you like holding my hand is all. I promise to hold it all the time, even if we’re not joined at the wrist.” He shifted, taking Yoongi’s hand and twining their fingers.

“Only if Jungkook holds my other hand,” Yoongi said, holding his free hand out. Jungkook grinned brightly and grabbed it, lacing his fingers between Yoongi’s before letting it rest on his stomach. 

Yoongi closed his eyes, sighing softly. He could hear the steady, firm heartbeats of his boyfriends, and smell their comforting scents. The taste of Jimin’s blood was still present on his tongue, but it didn’t frighten him in the way the thought of it had. It felt safe. He felt safe. Even as a vampire – deadly and near unkillable – there had always been something missing in Yoongi’s world. Something that made him feel exposed, and scared, in a way even he couldn’t pinpoint. 

And now, for the first time in his life, he didn’t feel that fear. Instead he felt warmth. And he felt happiness. And he’d spend the rest of his time on earth protecting that happiness, no matter what. 

[hithelleth]

First Lines Of Your Last 20 Fics!

Rules: List the first lines of your last 20 stories (if you have less than 20, just list them all!). See if there are any patterns. Choose your favourite opening line. Then tag 10 of your favourite authors!

I was tagged by @eveningspirit, thank you! I always like to walk down the memory lane of my writing exploits, they are a nice confidence boos. :)

The Ice King and the Star Boy (The 100 | Bellamy/Roan | E) (aka the monsterfic, as you know it ;))

Banishment.

Impasse (Revolution | CM2 | E)

Charlie finds Bass stretched all lion-like on the king-size bed, studying reports, when she enters the tent.

(Filling) Empty Spaces (Revolution | Jeremy/Charlie | NR)

Charlie was just going to drop off the files Miles had forgotten again, but Jeremy waves her inside as he opens the door.

Only Human (The 100 | various characters | G)

“You’re presenting a puzzle to Rani and Lana.”

Lost (Yellowstone | Jamie Dutton | G)

The plaque on the wall is like a signpost. So, of course he goes to Beth. Because he doesn’t know what to do, whether to accept Rainwater’s – a good man, Perry said, and Jamie might be naïve, but he is not that naïve to think that if everyone plays dirty Rainwater is an exception – patronage or not.

Homework (Station 19 | Vicley | G)

Homework: Write a 100 words about your family or about what you want to be when you grow up.

Now Is Not the End (Station 19 | Vicley | T)

Vic waits with baited breath for that moment she is not ready for. Waits. Waits…

Thoughts on the Future Pasts (Timeless | Nicholas Keynes/Emma Whitmore| T)

The future is... confusing.

Dominoes Falling (TVD/TO | Elena/Elijah/Klaus | NR)

It turns out sometimes late is worse than never.

Close Encounters (Revolution | Charlie/Bass | E)

Bass gets to work well after midnight when the hotel at last falls silent, the partying vacationers having tired themselves out and the early-rising business people not yet up. He is done cleaning the pools before dawn and he sits down in a shaded corner, enjoying the peace and quiet of those last dark cool minutes that offer reprieve from the summer heat.

Reasons to Fight (The 100 | Clarke/Roan | NR)

Roan comes round to something tugging at his hand, constricting his movement. Panic surges in his mind for a moment before he pushes it down and starts cataloguing his surroundings with the methodical precision he learnt as a boy.

Prompts Exist to Be Filled (Revolution, prompt collection, various)

She was a good woman – Jeremy sensed that, although he knew her life had been – perhaps still was – intertwined with Bass’ and Miles’, which also meant that it was fucked up, because those two managed to fuck up everything they touched and he only needed to look in the mirror to find an example; yet, whatever it was up with her and Bass and Miles and however fucked up it was, Jeremy saw her effect on Bass whose eyes lost the glint of craziness and paranoia the moment she appeared: Bass suddenly seemed the man Jeremy met fifteen years ago – the Bass with a sense of shame for his blatant lie and a remnant of naïveté that used to drive him to do the right thing, a man redirected to the path he had lost.

Alien Encounters, Changing Fates, Business as Usual (Killjoys, Revolution, Supernatural | various characters | NR)

After what seems like ages, the turbulence ends with one final jolt that rattles every single bone in their bodies, a clear signal that they have landed – somewhere.

It’s Us Who Own the Apocalypse (Revolution | various pairings | NR)

2030

For the umpteenth time in her life, Rachel regrets getting involved with the goddamn DOD – and for the umpteenth time as well, she acknowledges that she would have done it again if it meant saving Danny – when she almost stumbles into her office from yet another meeting in which she had to fight tooth-and-nail against the bastards trying to use her work for their nefarious purposes.

Convalescence (Quantico | Clayton Haas | NR)

Clayton flinches when he hears the door being unlocked. He always flinches when someone is at the door, although he knows the chance of anyone finding him here is miniscule. The shame at his own cowardice makes him nauseous for a moment; he didn’t use to be one to succumb to fears, but he supposes a near-death experience would do this to a man.

When the Night Breaks (The 100 | Bellamy/Roan | E)

“I’m sorry about your arm.”

The Princess and the Pirates (Revolution | various characters | T)

“Sail out. My brother Miles is out there at sea. He’ll help you.”

Each of Us Is Broken, Always and Forever (The Originals | Elijah/Rebekah/Klaus | E)

“Good evening.”

Hollow (The 100 | Bellarke | NR)

He hadn’t realised it would be like missing a limb. Like in those stories he had heard on the Ark long ago, of a person’s left hand trying to scratch the right one that is no longer there, of phantom pain where there used to be a body part.

There’s a War… but All I See Is You and Me (Agents of Shield | Bakshimmons | E)

It is a stupid thing to wish, but if he were able to stop the time, he would freeze them in those minutes when Jemma giggles between kisses before collapsing on the bed and pulling him down with her.

***

Oh, this took me to 2015 and that shitshow we do not mention, although am sorry I haven't finished this particular fic (but I won't. Nope, nope. Because I'd have to rewatch S2 for that and no, no, no. No. Yes, that's how many no-s it deserves.)

Thank you for the tag, ES, it was nice remembering things I did well, if I say so myself!

It took me so long because on the day you tagged me I started writing it right away and then tumblr decided that e and l are not acceptable letters - I got scared my keyboard was dying, but nope, it worked just fine when typing in word or even into a search line on another tab in the same browser, but tumblr just wouldn't 'take' them.

Also, I remember doing something similar before but with only 10 fics and I could've copy-pasted that and just add the next ten, but do you think I remembered it before I'd already painstakingly did 10 fics? Of course not.

And then, as I think you saw I was too scatter-brained for anything.

Why I'm even explaining this? I think it's the lack of contact with like actual normal humans and this is the closest, so I over do it. Oh, well, if I've already put in the effort to type it all. ;)

Oh, right, patterns: I tend to really vary in style? Though maybe shorter openings are more frequent than more wordy ones.

And my favourite are those from Hollow, Dominoes Falling, and Convalescence. Which one is yours?

Tagging (if it helps you feel better, otherwise, feel free to ignore): @bea2me, @jadedbirch, @abedsmessedupmeta, @stargazerdaisy, @vesperass-anuna and IDK who ever is still writing, oh @blue-charlotte and anyone else who wants to do it! :)

[chasseurdeloup-retired]

A Moment of Rest || Morgan and Kaden

TIMING: Before the cabin in the woods  LOCTAION: Woods PARTIES: @mor-beck-more-problems and @chasseurdeloup SUMMARY: A very normal picnic in the woods with a surprise guest.

“You could look happier to be out in the sunshine, you know. There’s not even any mushrooms in sight.” Morgan said. She spread out the picnic blanket in the shade, and settled down, a little smug today at being beyond heat exhaustion and squirming when she started to sweat through her cami. Corpse chill was so severe, she wasn’t even sure if she would sweat anymore. Morgan squished down the thought, determined to maintain it as a positive. She could look cute in any kind of weather. She didn’t even need ice baths like Deirdre did. Shaking back her hair, she gestured for Kaden to come sit. “In honor of us needing a serious break, and your favorite band of all time, I’ve got a mamma mia mimosa for you, a super trooper brain smoothie for me, and gimmie, gimmie, gimmie, gimmie waffles. Obviously, I can’t tell how much better they are from my last ones, but I’m feeling really confident about how I tweaked the batter. If nothing else, these are at least twice as fluffy. Come on, you know you want some, right?”

“I don’t even want to think about the mushrooms, thanks,” Kaden said as he found a spot on the picnic blanket across from Morgan. “I don’t even know how to begin explaining that one to Regan. She’s finally not five fucking inches so it’d be nice if we could get a two second reprieve from the fae bullshit.” Not to mention, he still wasn’t completely sure about the details on these mushrooms, he just knew he wasn’t ready to face whatever they were going to do to Regan. Part of him considered asking Morgan for advice but no, this was supposed to be a break. Maybe later. He sighed and was about to reach for the mimosa when he heard her little intro. Kaden sat there, blinking at her, fully ready to get up and walk the fuck away. “Erin fucking told you, didn’t she?” Putain. That was his guilty pleasure, not something he wanted out in public. It was embarrassing enough admitting it, he didn’t need ABBA rubbed in his face like that. Still, clear enough she meant well. Teasing. That’s all it was. Like they were friends or something. Fine. “Only if you quit making fun of me, dead girl.” He grumbled a little as he took the waffles from her. “And don’t tell Deirdre.”

“Don’t you know, Kaden? Up in White Crest you don’t think about fairy mushrooms; fairy mushrooms think about you.” Morgan didn’t know how to tell him her flippancy was the only thing keeping her from giving into the dread of being surrounded by those fucking fungi for months. But if he didn’t want an early ticket to the horror show, she didn’t blame him. She laid out all the tupperware and popped off the lids one by one. There was nothing in the make or decoration that signified anything ABBA related. She’d considered arranging berries on whipped cream to spell out the band’s name, but couldn't find any containers that would fit it just right, Lucky for Kaden.

“Of course Erin told me. We’re friends. But I think you still come out ahead of Ms. EDM Queen. I am ribbing you, but I also think there’s nothing wrong with liking ABBA...until you start making faces like that.” She wagged her finger at him, grinning. “And that’s a terrible request to make because she already knows. Sorry, but we tell each other...pretty much everything.” Morgan shrugged and took a deep, satisfying slurp of her shake. “It’s not that deep of a secret, is it? Will you feel better if I say I sing to Rogers and Hammerstein in my car? Or if I had my own brief ABBA phase when the stage Mamma Mia first came out?”

“You joke but if any town had sentient mushrooms, this is the one,” Kaden said. It was fine, Regan was sensible, unlike Deirdre. They didn’t have to worry about fairy mushroom crap. A pit dropped in his stomach out of nowhere, like some part of him knew he was lying to himself. Guess that was a problem for the future.

Kaden sighed. He hated that Deirdre had one up to embarrass him with. She would, too. At least with Erin they were fair and square. “There’s nothing wrong with ABBA, I just don’t want people laughing at me, alright,” he mumbled. It was stupid to admit, considering for the most part how little he cared about what other people thought of him, or at least that was what he told himself. The more he stayed in White Crest, the more he wondered if that was true. Reputations hardly matter if you don’t stay put in one spot for too long. But here he was all settled and cared and shit like that. There were so many days he wondered if that had been a mistake. And here he was, having waffles with a zombie. Probably a fucking mistake. He sighed and bit into the waffles. For a mistake, it was damn tasty. “Of course you sing musical ballads and shit, that’s completely expected from let’s talk about our feelings girl. Hell I bet you’d live in a musical if you could. Everyone belting out their private fucking emotions. I’d put money down that’s your idea of a good time.” He shook his head before taking another sip of Homs mimosa. Sounded like hell to him. Talking about feelings was bad enough. Kaden’s brow furrowed as he heard a soft small rumbling sound. Almost like a… bleating? Odd. “Do you hear that?” he asked.

“Oh, you’re damn right I would,” Morgan said. “You may not know this, but Deirdre and I kill at karaoke. Give me a moving, hummable love ballad, a solo in the rousing group number, maybe a breakaway hit ‘I want’ song. Maybe if I had one I could actually get more direction in my life going.” She took a deep slurp of her smoothie. “Are you saying that’s not your idea of a good time?” She pouted. She was going to relent a little, ask him about the waffles or, heck, whatever else he was interested in outside of work, when her senses perked at a strange sound from the bushes. “Yeah,” she murmured. Setting her smoothie down, Morgan got to her feet and started creeping towards the sound. The leaves rustled. Something was there alright. She positioned herself in front of Kaden, gesturing, sshhh. “We should probably stay quiet,” she whispered.

“Fuck no,” Kaden said with no hesitation. “I can’t imagine wanting to burst out into song or anyone appreciating that, either. All of that sounds tedious. I’ll stick to darts and trivia nights, thanks. Hard pass on the karaoke.” Plus, Regan couldn't sing (by her own admission) and he was fairly fucking ceratin a tone deaf banshee would make everyone else wish they were deaf. He watched, though, as she crept towards the sound. Guess they were going to investigate, huh. He stood and followed behind, nodding and remaining silent at her request. There it was again, the sound. There was no doubt what it was this time. The gentle bleating of a lamb. Which was impossible, there weren’t any farms out here. No livestock was going to survive on its own in White Crest, not out in the woods. He edged up next to her and peeled open the branches to reveal what was beyond them. Sitting there was a small, white lamb. Shit, they had to bring it in, probably take it to the shelter. He didn’t have any of his equipment with him. “Do you have a rope or something? A long string? Anything? We could try to get a loop lead around it,” he whispered.

Morgan gestured for Kaden to keep back as she came up to the bushes. “What are you doing? My limbs grow back, yours don’t!” She hissed. But Kaden peeled back the branches and-- “Aaaw!” Morgan squeezed his shoulder in excitement. “It’s so cute! What do you mean get a rope? Look how small and cute it is!” Morgan reached out a hand to let the fluffy little critter sniff her. It let out a soft bleat and licked her fingertip, testing to see if she was food. Morgan scooped the sweet creature up while it was occupied like this and inspected the little guy on their hands. “Oh, Kaden,” she cooed. “This cutie pie isn’t running off anywhere, are you honey?” The lamb bleated and wriggled in her grasp, ready to be put down. Morgan settled its forelegs on her lap and gave the lamb chin scratches for its trouble. She gave Kaden a look, trying to see if he’d put it together yet. “...It’s a little attached right now?” She prodded. “Because it’s a plant?”

It was always strange to remember that Morgan was damn near indestructible. Sure, Kaden had seen her tossed by a mime moose like a rag doll but so much of him still remembered when a vampire pulled her into the trees and nearly tore her apart. Thankfully, no such danger was there today. It was just a lamb. Well, mostly. It was… tethered to the ground? “Putain. Animal control is ruining me,” he said with a grumble. A year ago, the first thing he would have noticed was the supernatural element of it all. He also probably would have killed the lamb. With how cozy she seemed to be with it, he thought it best not to announce that. Kaden exhaled and plopped back down on the picnic blanket. “I thought it was a lost lamb. Like a real one. I was going to make sure it didn’t get away and bring it into the shelter because I thought it was normal.” That was certainly not the case. “I know what a vegetable lamb is, alright. I grew up knowing this shit, come on,” he grumbled before taking another bite of his waffles. The small supernatural animal across the way bleated and started sniffing the blanket and all the contents there. “Hey. Don’t eat my food; not for you!” he said as he tried to direct the lamb away from the berries on his plate.

Morgan couldn’t help but laugh. “Hey, at least we don’t have to spoil brunch by fighting giant spiders or running from creepy tics. It’s just one sweet little veggie lamb! And still has about another year left in its cute little life, judging from the size.” Morgan booped the lamb’s nose and pet its fur. “Oh, yeah, you’re a real big bad expert. What’s the protocol for this one anyway? It’s just so fearsome and terrible.” This, just as the lamb tried to take some of Kaden’s blackberries, made her laugh even more. Morgan lifted the critter out of the way and wiggled its forelegs in Kaden’s direction, ventriloquising sweetly, “Put ‘em up, Kaden! That’s my berries! I’ll fight you for them!”

She made a show of gasping with horror. “What a very rude vegetable! Should we pacify your gloriousness?” She picked up one of the berries from the tupperware and hovered it over the critter’s mouth. It bleated, thrashing and pleading until Morgan relented and brought it close enough to be eaten. “My mom had one once, apparently. They’re hard to grow in the first place. A lot can go wrong and it’s sort of gross when it doesn’t work out. But I’m not sure what this little guy is doing out here…” Bringing the lamb back to her lap, she pushed herself out of her thoughts and smiled over at Kaden. “How’s the food? And the whipped cream? I’ve never made it before and I can’t taste, but I measured everything really carefully.”

“Yeah, yeah, you’ve got a point there,” Kaden replied. He was sick of being told that normal was a relative word, but at this point, he’d take normal adjacent. And avoiding monsters that ate people, or well, at least actively planned to eat them, was an improvement to most days in White Crest. “Uh, you really want to know?” he asked, mouth pulled into a thin line, looking down at the lamb and then back to her. “Langley code is everything supernatural should go.” He knew those words would fall like a lead weight between them, but it’s not like he could change his past or his family or what he was raised with anymore than she could change what she was. And he was admittedly still a little uncomfortable how much he’d changed himself. He much preferred it when he didn't have to face that reality, it was much easier when he could ignore it, not have to examine what all his contradicting bullshit meant. Good thing he didn't have to think about it long. He couldn’t help but crack a smile at the lamb as she held it up and made it act out a scene. It was so easy to forget that she wasn’t human and that it wasn’t an animal.

Okay, alright, stupid thing was cute. Putain. “Yeah so I’ve heard.” He couldn’t imagine going through all that work for a vegetable version of a sheep when there were standard sheep. Not that he needed one of those either. He rolled his eyes before he held out some of the berries in his hand for the stupid vegetable. It bleated before timedly wobbling towards him, nose sniffing and snuffling to find the fruit in his hands. Funny how similar it was to a normal animal; the corner of his mouth pulled up into a smile all over again as he watched. “Hmm? Oh. Yeah, it’s great. Almost too sweet but that could just be me, I don’t have a huge sweet tooth surprisingly.”

Morgan went stiff as Kaden explained the Langley code. Her eyes did nothing to hide the gravity of what he’d said, the danger she and the vegetable lamb were ostensibly in. She couldn’t help but hold the lamb a little tighter, any number of arguments rising in her throat. We have as much right to be here as anyone else. We didn’t choose how we were made any more than you did. What even gives Langleys the right to determine what counts as ‘natural.’ Cholera is natural too. So was Ted Bundy. ‘Natural’ isn’t a basis for… Morgan stopped herself. It was almost disturbing how easily she forgot what he was. But he was her exception just as she was his. The space they shared as friends wasn’t any more “natural” than the magic keeping the vegetable lamb alive. It had to be crafted with intention and suspended with care. And then, when the moment passed, it would weaken. One day, Morgan feared, it might even break.

Morgan watched in silence as Kaden fed his berries to the small creature, beaming thoughtfully as it nuzzled his hand. Animals were innocent and trusting even when they shouldn’t be; Deirdre had explained that to her enough times when talking about her childhood farm. But the way Kaden handled the lamb, even nervous as he was, was so gentle. She struggled to imagine him stabbing the life out of a creature just because with those hands. “I guess it’s a good thing for both of us you’re only kind of a Langley,” she said quietly. Clearing her throat she pressed on, “I’m glad, though. About the whipped cream. A little surprised since French cuisine is so rich, but, hey, so is Southern food, I guess, and half of my family didn’t have much of a sweet tooth either.” She shrugged, reaching for some thread that would steer the mood back towards levity. Wherever it was, she couldn’t find it yet.

Kaden couldn’t help but bristle hearing her call him “kind of a Langley.” He didn’t know if he wished she was more wrong or more right. Either way he hated feeling like he was either failing or had wasted a good portion of his life. He wasn’t sure which it was yet. Every inch of him screamed at him to fight, snap back at her comment the way he had for so many years at anyone and everyone, especially those who disparaged him. Spit back something about still being a hunter, legacy, any of that. But something stopped him. Maybe it was the waffles, maybe it was lamb, maybe it was the expression on Morgan’s face mere moments ago. Maybe it was because he remembered everything that had happened with his mother’s ghost.

The lamb started to bristle its little lips around Kaden’s fingers to see if there was anything worth nibbling there and he let the thoughts fade away. “Rich and savory is one thing. And I don’t hate sweet things, they just need a balance,” he said as he plucked a berry of his plate and held it out in his hand for the lamb to eat. “Like a good piece of fruit, just ripe. That’s perfect. If it’s too saccharine, it hurts my teeth, all that.” As much as he wished that had pulled his mind from the previous topic of conversation, it didn’t. “Most of my family didn’t have much of a sweet tooth. Not that I remember too much by now.” He hadn’t meant to make it heavy again with talk of loss and death, as inevitable as it was around them. Still, he could try to shift. “I told you my uncle was in town, right? He’s German. Lived with him after--” After he lost his parents. Putain. “Anyway, picked up a decent fondness for good German cuisine, too. Feel like I almost always forget until I see him again, you know? Brings things back.”

“Balance, huh?” Morgan said with a fond smile. “I can get behind that.” But this strange tangent didn’t last long. Kaden hadn’t just lost his family, he’d lost them so young even his memories were faded. For all she knew, his awful ghost problem was the strongest memory of his mother was of her attacking him as that awful creature. She couldn’t help but think about her own mother yelling at her on the beach more than the painfully strained visits in her care facility and later, the home of one of Ruth’s old friends. Neither end was especially wonderful, but the burn was newer in one place than the other.

“I am sorry about your family, Kaden,” she said soberly. “I know how hard it is not to have anyone, to miss people like that, even when your relationship was complicated.” She leveled her eyes at him so he would know she meant it. She wasn’t sure if he realized she’d lost all her family either, that this wasn’t pity, but something about him she might actually understand. “I’m glad Oscar was there for you, at least. It sounds like you two are really close. That has to feel...I don’t even know. How does it feel…? Having him back in your life and accessible in a way he hasn’t been in awhile? Um, cooking and all?”

“Yeah. It’s-- It is what it is,” Kaden said as he tried to keep his eyes on the lamb’s little mouth greedily looking for more berries. It was his constant defense when someone talked about his parents like this. Still, something about the way she said that she was sorry rang true. Kaden could never say where the line was that made it clear to him when people understood loss or not, but it was there, invisible but stark. He didn’t know if it was anything more than just the loss of her own life, though he did recall she also was visited by the ghost of her mother during the whole coin debacle. He wasn’t sure it mattered what or when, if you knew the pain of it, you knew all the same.

“Yeah he was around a lot of my life. Always sort of looked up to him. But ever since I was, I don’t know, twenty or so, we’d split up, reconvene, catch up, repeat.” Kaden shrugged. “It’s always nice to see him. He’s really all I have left of--” Kaden swallowed back his words. Oscar was what he had left of family. His life before anything changed. “But this is, I mean, this is way more complicated than it used to be.” Nothing illustrated it more than this moment right now. He was chatting with a zombie over waffles while petting a goddamn vegetable lamb. There used to be a safety he felt when Oscar was around. Now he felt like the most dangerous person in town. And he hated feeling that way about Oscar of all people, the only person he could always count on to look after him. “Every time I’ve gotten myself into deep shit, I always knew I had someone to turn to. It’s weird not going to him now that I feel like I’m in trouble.” Because the trouble was him.

Morgan didn’t examine the impulse to reach out to Kaden. It came so quickly, and there was something so painful about the way he brushed aside his own loss with such ease, she wondered if he ever let himself feel it now that the wound was starting to numb, or let other people understand what he was feeling. Her hand settled on his shoulder and she squeezed carefully so as not to hurt him. “Yeah, it is what it is, but that doesn’t mean it’s not the worst, or that it doesn’t trip you up almost out of nowhere sometimes.” Life with Oscar wasn’t like anything Morgan could imagine. She craved to have her hands around anything precious she managed to have. But to have a touchstone you could pass by at all must have been special. Morgan was endeared, even relieved by the way Kaden talked about him, even as his mention of ‘complicated’ put a stone in her stomach. Right. Oscar and the terrible, horrible, no good, very bad, good for nothing supernaturals that couldn’t possibly be people. Of course.

“I’m sorry that things are different between you now,” she said solemnly. At least for now, she thought, though she couldn’t bear to entertain the idea for long. “Do you have a plan, for how you’re going to deal with his visit here? I mean, is it going to be dangerous for you if he finds things out, or just...well, just more normative levels of terrifying encounters and really hard conversations?”

Kaden never knew what to make of physical contact. Well, when it was from people he wasn’t dating or trying to date. Even between family it had been strained. Or, well, perhaps not strained but it certainly wasn’t frequent. It was unfamiliar, but not unwelcome. Funny, her skin was cold, sure, but cold hands barely registered any more. “You don’t have to be, though. Sorry. I mean-- I don’t know.” Talking about what happened was something he was about as good at dealing with as physical affection. “Sounds like you’re speaking from experience, though. You don’t have to explain, just-- You can always tell.” He gave the lamb another berry and gave it a small scratch behind its ear. It was easier to just think of it as a real lamb, not supernatural. Focus on the parts that were normal.  

“Dangerous? For me, no. But that’s not what I’m worried about.” Kaden tried to swallow back the lump forming in his throat. It felt impossible for him to imagine what Oscar would do if he found out what Regan was, who he was friends with, the fact that he was keeping a pixie as a roommate, any of it. None of it was behavior that he’d ever imagined for himself, so how could he anticipate any reactions? He suspected, at the very least, that Oscar would try to kill them, encourage Kaden to. But maybe he could make exceptions. Or better yet, maybe he’d just leave town before finding out about any of it. He never had to know Kaden had changed any of his views. He could keep thinking his nephew was still a worthwhile hunter, holding up the legacy.

Right. Doubtful. Kaden let out a sigh. “But yeah, no plans. No clue what to do.”

Morgan gave Kaden another squeeze for good measure. “I do, yeah. Family curses of true suffering don’t exactly fuck around,” she gave a small laugh, breathless and humorless to mark all the anguish that had gone numb from her picking at them over the years. Kaden had probably coped by keeping silent, or leaning in extra hard into the ‘it’s fine school of thought.

“Well, lucky for you, I guess.” Morgan said the word gently, meaning it in earnest. “I just mean, you can use that. You can focus on protecting people you care about, and when the time comes, you don’t have to worry about having to save yourself. That can be really important. And, you know, taking care of people can look like a lot of different things. I think you should consider doing a little more than waiting for the sky to fall down, but I’m just paranoid that way. But, you know, if you’re clear with yourself and your intentions, if you tell yourself enough that you’ll protect Regan no matter what, maybe the right plan will come to you later. But then that’s just one hippie zombie’s opinion. What do you think, veggie lamb?” She lifted the fuzzy critter and steered it up toward Kaden so its bright, guileless eyes were level with his.

Kaden looked up and finally met Morgan’s eyes and gave her a nod in return. It was what he could manage. Too much and it would send the grief and pain flooding back, he was sure of it. No need for that. It wasn’t produc-- He froze, the thought rattled in his mind. It was something straight from his mother’s mouth. He wasn’t sure what to do with that. Or what it meant. He tried to let it roll off him. “Yeah, good point. Guess you don’t get to be free of it even when… you know.”

The way she was approaching the situation wasn’t in a way that had occurred to him at all. The thought of having to save himself from Oscar just didn’t--- His brows knit together at the thought. It didn’t make sense in so many ways; it was a scenario he could never imagine himself in. Needing to protect himself from Oscar. Standing against him. Not being just like him. Not wanting to be just like him. And what did it even mean to go against the small scrap of family he had left? What if he-- That possibility was too difficult for him to even begin to consider just yet. Seeing the veggie lamb sitting there brought him out of his thoughts and put a small smile on his face. “Hmm I think he doesn’t know how to plan for that sort of thing. But he’s also a lamb. Well, technically a plant.”

“You mean even when I’m technically un-cursed but still dead and a zombie?” Morgan said, her smile sad for all its warmth. “Yeah. That stuff sticks forever. Get it?”

Kaden seemed confused by something she said, and it took Morgan awhile to figure that he’d never been given a reason to fear the people who were supposed to take care of him. Or at least not enough that he was willing to admit to himself. She wasn’t sure if he was really lucky for that or not. She quirked her brow up at Kaden as he dodged the question. I see you doing that. She held his gaze a moment, debating whether she should give him this out or not. “Lamby over here is both, thank you very much. Lamby is one of two worlds and lives that way in peace. But, as much wisdom as Lamby almost certainly possesses, I think you’re right. He just wants more of your berries.”

[mor-beck-more-problems]

Onion Tears || Morgan, Ariana, Deirdre, Lydia

TIMING: The recent past, not long after Morgan took care of the murderous alchemist Jo, before Lydia’s attack.

LOCATION: The woods

PARTIES: @deathduty @inspirationdivine @letsbenditlikebennett @mor-beck-more-problems

SUMMARY: Morgan and her friends mourn the dead.

CONTAINS: Mild gore, ritualized self-harm

The moon smiled down from the pink sunset sky, pale and slight as a white shadow. Morgan hoped that if there really was such a thing as a caring universe, it approved of the proceedings. The much decayed remains of Coraline Adams had been wrapped in a cotton shroud and bundled onto the wood pyre, the rest of the remains recovered from the storage unit were strewn around her. In another world where supernaturals could bury their dead properly without raising brows or suspicions, there might have been separate ceremonies and rites for each of them. But the alchemist hadn’t cared enough to label her specimens by the person she gathered them from, only by material. Banshee nails in one jar. Nix scales in another. Vampire teeth, Mara eyes, wolf pelts, and fused bones, all ordered except in a way that would help Morgan make them into people again. Morgan circled the clearing again for unwanted mushrooms and teenagers daring each other to go deeper into the trees. Gulls squealed, squirrels foraged, life went on. But there had been enough of humans bumping and breaking their way through life for one stretch. Morgan wanted to give them a reprieve from watching their backs all the time, and for the dead to have a moment with their own.

She spread out a tiered tray of refreshments, kindling, and the nice big matches she had once used for her own sacred rituals, scented to help guide what was left of the dead’s souls to wherever they needed to go. It felt wrong, somehow, to slip into a hospitality mindset, but if Ariana and Lydia were going to help witness the rites and pay their respects as much as anyone could, they might as well be comfortable.

One of their guests approached the clearing. “Hey, we’re almost ready,” she said.”But you should come in and have some water or wine if you want any.”

Hearing of another dead werewolf only made her heart feel heavier. After Ariana had discovered werewolves were being killed for their organs, it only furthered her sense of unease to know someone else was doing weird magic experiments. What the actual fuck was wrong with people? It wasn’t something she could wrap her head around, but she hoped paying them respects would help them find peace in their afterlife. The setting sun painted the sky in colors she couldn’t quite distinguish, but the moon was rising. Perfect for the wolf of the bunch, All the fellow supernatural beings who had been killed for whatever this witch was doing deserved better. Maybe they couldn’t change the past, but they could try to keep their memory alive. Help them find peace. She walked to their meeting spot and saw Morgan was the first one there. Not at all surprising. There were even refreshments set up though she found she wasn’t entirely hungry at the moment. She gave a small wave as she approached, “Hey, Morgan. I’ll pour some water for myself. Save the wine for Deirdre. She really loves wine.” The words felt awkward and it was hard to navigate through what she was feeling.

Lydia almost paused when she saw Ariana, the wannabe thief that had been snooping through her property that one time. Mutual friend or not, Lydia did not like the girl in the slightest, even at a funeral. As such, she immediately decided to ignore her for the whole evening, walking over to Morgan with a small smile. “Wine would be lovely. I’m grateful you put in all the effort.”

Morgan opened her arm out to the young wolf when she arrived and wrapped her up in a hug. “That she does,” she agreed. “But, tiny exceptions can be made for you if you change your mind after. Thanks for coming.” She didn’t know what else to say, if wolves had a kind of kinship between each other that made condolences appropriate, or if it was just the chill of seeing the remains of someone who could have been her.

At the sound of Lydia’s approach, she released Ariana to hydrate herself and turned to her fae friend. “I’m glad you came,” she said, pouring a glass and carrying it over. “This is the least I could do. If things were different, maybe there’d be more. But if things were different, maybe there wouldn’t be a need for this kind of service in the first place.” Her eyes flitted to the pyre, gauging the arrangement of the remains. Should she space them out more? Or arrange them more artfully? The nails should probably be laid out, instead of clustered, maybe… Morgan stopped herself with a tight smile. It did not matter. It absolutely did not matter. She knew better than anyone how much it didn’t matter, knew that it was just the last moment, terrible or not, and then sleep. This was just for their own guilt and sorrow, their own intentions in the universe. “Deirdre’s just getting ready to perform the rites. And I’ll spread the ashes myself later. Oh, and you should meet our friend Ari! She’s here in honor of the wolves we’re laying to rest today as well.”

Somehow, despite her cool skin, Morgan always had a certain warmth to her. It brought a small smile to her face and Ariana welcomed the hug from her. Once she stepped back, she laughed weakly and answered, “I think I’ll be okay without the wine. But I am sorry you had to find all of this. It’s really… Upsetting.” She looked down at her feet and heard someone else approaching. Sniffing the air she realized it wasn’t Deirdre, but it was familiar. Her eyes widened when she realized it was Lydia. Her heart sank. The actual last person she wanted to see. Especially at a funeral. Especially when she was slowly killing someone she’d grown to care for. It took a conscious effort to keep from balling her fists, from glaring. Today wasn’t about Lydia. Hell, it wasn’t even about Ace. It was their duty to honor the fallen members of their community in hopes of them being able to find some sort of peace after their violent deaths. “Maybe one day there won’t be a need for services like this,” she said quietly. Part of her wanted to slink away as Morgan introduced her to Lydia. It was hard to pretend she didn’t hate her with every fiber of her being. It was doubtful that her feeding had to include keeping humans for prolonged periods of time until they finally died. Through gritted teeth, she responded, “We know each other already.” She tried to soften her features, but it came across a bit awkward. “But thank you, Morgan. I really appreciate you and Deirdre for doing all of this.”

Deirdre knew better than most what a fae funeral should have looked like. There should have been more in attendance, the sound of instruments trilling through the air under the sound of sombre lilting. She had whispered her apologies to Coraline’s body on the way to the clearing, and she whispered it by her again. This observance would have to be stripped, for the sake of safety--the fae could not be made privy to the horrors committed, their penchant for vengeance would prove too reckless. And the other supernatural reduced to their parts had practices and rites that Deirdre wasn’t the faintest bit familiar with. She pulled at her funeral dress---once white, now stained with the soot of every funeral she’d attended---was a muddy grey, patterned in blotches. The delicate lace detailing was a stark black, and the only thing about the dress she liked. Deirdre tugged at it again, then pulled her dark robe tighter around her, trying not to drop the rod of iron she held wrapped up in cloth in one hand, and the knife she had in the other. She slipped the rod back into the pocket of her robe, and approached the rest of the group silently. “There will always be a need for services like this,” she hissed, irritable under the stress of autumn. Irritable given the event they were all in attendance for. She would apologize to Ariana for her shortness later, but for now, she didn’t bother. “No matter what this world is. There will always be death, and where there is death, there is suffering.” She nodded towards Lydia, and noted Ariana’s tenseness. “You’re supposed to drink at these things. Like Lydia.” She spoke almost with an air of resentment, an air that reared itself now, and had neglected to show on the way over. The forest held the faint drift of mushrooms, she would explain to Morgan later in apology, but for now, she didn’t bother. For now, she wasn’t happy. “You’re supposed to do a lot of things…” Deirdre sighed, “are we good to start?”

“We met through one of her pack members, as it happens,” Lydia replied airily, much better at faking politeness that Ariana did, the little minx. She was practically showing the whole world how much she disliked Lydia, when Lydia was the one who had been trespassed on! She hadn’t been the most enthusiastic at Ariana’s soccer game, but then who would have been? She hadn’t earned this animosity in the slightest. Noting Morgan’s tight smile as the way her gaze flitted around the pyre, Lydia tilted her head in genuine concern. “How are you holding up, Morgan?” The person Lydia was really interested in, though, was Deirdre, in her murky grey dress and her dark robe. She looked irritable in the same way that Lydia’s chest ached every time she glanced at the pyre. Her comment to Ariana was strange, certainly, even more so with that tone, and Lydia couldn’t help but gravitate closer to her. “I think so, my dear,” she said softly, standing at Deirdre’s side.

Morgan gave Deirdre a look as she chastised their young friend. You’re doing it again. Bring it down. She had been warned about what the forest might do to her banshee this time of year, and on some of their walks she had grown peevish, but Ariana was special to both of them and-- Morgan put the thought aside. Fucking mushrooms. She gave Ariana’s shoulder a squeeze. “You’re doing everything just fine,” she said softly. “Don’t mind her today,” she added in a whisper. She smiled with relief and gratitude at Lydia, who was handling the pull of the mushrooms much better. Two grumpy fae were more than she wanted to contend with. “Well as can be expected. My condolences to you and your people.” She did not know if all fae believed as banshees did, that there was nothing after except the comfort of darkness and nothing, or if it would make anything better for Lydia to know that’s just what she’d experienced before she came back. Smiling again--she didn’t know what else to do--Morgan sidled up to Deirdre’s other side. She touched her arm gently for a moment and nodded. “We’re good, babe,” she said.

In the past, Deirdre had always discouraged her drinking as she was underaged and it left Ariana very confused. At least being left perplexed by Deirdre made it easier to ignore the fact she’d very much like to rip Lydia apart. She turned to Deirdre, eyebrows knit together in confusion, and answered, “Sorry? You usually don’t like me having alcohol since I’m underaged.” Then it was very apparent her words were entirely misinterpreted. Death would always be part of life and Ariana knew that, but against all reason, she had hope that maybe one day the supernatural and humans could coexist. “That’s not what I-- nevermind,” she began and decided against trying to explain herself. Today wasn’t about her. Today wasn’t about any of them. Today was for those who fell before their time in a manner that was far too cruel. It was a little easier to relax and let Deirdre’s odd behavior go with Morgan’s always comforting words. Somehow, she always knew just what to say. Even putting this whole thing together was something that seemed so incredibly… Morgan. She hugged her leather jacket around herself more tightly trying not to look to Lydia again. Trying to ignore her presence for Morgan’s sake more than anything else because surely she couldn’t interact with her and pretend like everything was fine. Not when she had Ace locked away in her home like that was just a totally okay thing for people to do. She wondered if Morgan and Deirdre even knew. She took a few steps towards the pyres and asked Morgan, “So how are we doing this?”

Deirdre grew angrier every time her eyes fell to Coraline’s wrapped body on the pyre, then as she glanced around at their empty funeral. Coraline died wrong, would she be honored that way too? Those people in jars; would their memory be the four people who dared to remember them? She boiled as Lydia moved to her side, reminded of what injustice she was committing to their community, and then how badly she wanted to ask how she’d met Ariana, exactly, and why the younger girl seemed so tense with her. I think Ariana is jealous of your beauty, she would offhandedly remark to Lydia later, finding it the only logical explanation. But if Lydia served as a reminder of all that she was doing wrong, Morgan was the opposite. Deirdre relaxed reflexively near her, anger dissipated. She took Morgan’s hand and squeezed it, then she took a step forward, glanced at Coraline’s body, and thought of everything that was wrong again. Her mind continued to plague itself with questions even as she pulled a large purple onion from her robe. “Normally, there’s a human sacrifice. Or--punching bag, if you will. So the fae can exact their anger, right the wrongs, have fun, harvest an arm to use at their next poker game---that sort of thing.” She shook the onion, the pupils of its misplaced googly eyes bobbled. The lips Deirdre had painted on were beginning to flake off. She hated this just as much as she thought it was stupid; which was very. “Considering humans and onions have about the same mental capacity, and taking into account our present company, I thought I’d forgo the human and just use this instead.” She held the onion out, “before I begin the ceremony, would anyone like to partake in hurting the sacrificial onion? And if you will please, just imagine it’s begging for its life and for you to stop. Which, coincidentally, is exactly how Coraline died.” She shook the onion again. “Any takers?”

In the mirrored district, for that poor, nameless Lampade, they had done this with the human. Lydia hadn’t taken a shot then - that kind of violence didn’t bring her any pleasure, it never had, and she’d been to more such funerals with the sacrificial onion in its place. Unfortunately, she had been to many funerals that required such a sacrifice in the first place. She looked to Deirdre, trying to read all the facets of her face right now, all that pain and anger, and the tension in her hand as she squeezed Morgan’s. Lydia wondered how often, exactly, Deirdre had had to do these rites. How much she’d seen while handling the body and these jars. “I’ll start,” Lydia said solemnly, taking the purple onion in her hands. She looked at the googly eyes and lips, the corner of her lips twitching. As far as she knew, the googly eyes were not tradition, but they did add a certain something to the proceedings. She shook the onion once, until the eyes were roughly pointed to her. Raising one hand, Lydia stabbed one googly eye with her golden acrylic nail. The eye popped off, lost into the woods. The onion skin crackled and crunched as she sank her nail deeper into the flesh of the onion, and then dragged it down, leaving a long slit in her nail’s wake. Lydia twisted her nail, and pulled up at the seam, tearing up the onion. She ate the onion parts she’d torn off the onion, as was tradition, and handed it back to Deirdre. “May Coraline find peace in this onion’s suffering.”

Morgan couldn’t name what it was about how Deirdre handled the sacrifice that filled her with pride and affection. Maybe it was the earnestness of the googly eyes and the painted lips, trying to fill this need for adequacy, for giving enough to the dead. Maybe it was the way she squeezed her hand, emerging from the haze of her grief and the mushrooms hiding deeper in the forest to be herself, to feel and to try when she felt some of these losses as if she’d known them herself. Whatever the reason, it was almost enough to make Morgan feel like this was going to be okay and everything had been fixed fair. She took the battered onion gently from Deirdre, fingers brushing hers, and cradled it against her chest a moment, the juice dripping down the front of her white cotton dress. Her thoughts were with the dead supernaturals, the comfort they could not have and the hours of pain they could not be saved from and the days of recovery that they could not get. She had to turn down towards her shadows to remember Jo. Remember how she’d thrashed in Miriam’s grip. How she had called them pigs. How close she had been to taking another supernatural who’d trusted her. And as she thought, she dug her hands deeper into the onion flesh. Deeper, as she tried to imagine what exactly Miriam had done to the woman, exactly how long she had lasted in the two days she was kept, and whether any of it was close to enough when there weren’t even enough remains left for separate pyres.

Half the onion exploded in her grip, spraying skin and juice and soft clumps of fresh into the air. They landed in her hair and dress, sprinkled down on the earth like rain. At any other time, Morgan would have been embarrassed, but it wasn’t that sort of occasion. She took a piece from the clumpy wreck in her hand and chewed it thoughtfully, wiping her face and hair from the mess. She held out the remnants for Ariana or Deirdre to have a turn with, murmuring, “May Coraline find peace in this onion’s suffering,” And in the suffering of her killer.

While Ariana wasn’t sure what to make of the customs Deirdre spoke of, she could definitely get behind murking an onion right now. Especially if it meant honoring the fallen fae, werewolves, and other supernatural creatures they had pieces of in the pyre. Now wasn’t the time to pay Lydia any mind at all. She didn’t deserve any of the focus that was intended for the deceased. Twigs cracked underneath her combat boots as she reached to take the mostly exploded onion from Morgan. The half that was still intact was now in her hands now. The googly eyes were long gone now, but the painted on lips were still half there. To honor the wolf here today, she’d have to embrace the wolf in herself. Not that this differed from any other day, but there was no pressure to live up to human norms around Deirdre and Morgan. A low growl echoed around their clearing and Ariana gave the onion a stern look before sinking her teeth ferociously into it. While she kept her human form, she mimicked the way she tore into a deer’s throat every full moon. She ripped away at the rest of the layers of the onion with her teeth, living bits and pieces on the floor. There was little care for the fact her black dress now smelled like onion. Onion juice dripped down her chin and she let it. A deer would be more appropriate, but she’d treat the onion with all the ferocity she had in her. Only small, jagged pieces of onion remained in her hands. Her gaze remained stony as she solemnly said, “May their memory and fierceness live on in all of us.”

Ariana looked to Deirdre momentarily before adding, “I’d like to add a bit of werewolf tradition in.” While she didn’t know the full ins and outs, Ulfric had explained his moon shrine to her as well as some of the aspects of the religion his pack back in Norway had followed. She looked up to the moon, softly glowing in the sky with sunset hues she couldn’t perfectly make out all around it. She raised her onion soaked hands and recited, “O Great Diana, goddess of the moon, night, and hunt-- please guide those who have fallen to peace. May they find enlightenment under the soft glow of moonlight from here on out.” It wasn’t perfect and she wasn’t sure she got the words right. Actually, she was positive she hadn’t. She made her own prayer loosely based on ones Ulfric had shared with her previously, but she hoped it helped their souls find peace in death.

What Deirdre hadn’t expected was the seriousness with which her admittedly idiotic sacrifical onion was taken with. She expected some resistance to which she could explain her train of thought: they couldn’t use an animal, because animals were inherently innocent and that would defeat the point. But she watched instead, humbled, by Lydia, Morgan and Ariana all harming an onion in Coraline’s name--she did imagine that an animal would have been tastier than a raw onion though. She reached out to pick bits of onion out of her girlfriend’s hair and off her nice dress. “Beautiful words, Ariana,” she smiled, having forgotten her earlier animosity. Funerals were not merited by their turn out, she remembered, but the compassion of those who did observe them. Odd as the onion was, Deirdre could only hope that Coraline would see three people who were angered for her, and desired to bring her peace. With her thoughts at peace again, she remembered why exactly she was here to begin with and her anger with herself disappeared. She had an onion to thank for that. The banshee shook her head, drawing her hand back from Morgan and pulling a small rod of iron wrapped up in thick wool out of her robe. “I think I can start now.” She stepped back and moved to the pyre. “Coraline Adams died at the hands of someone she trusted, her skin transmuted to iron,” she began, then tapped the jar with the banshee nails. “The two in here were tortured by a warden for forty-four days before they succumbed to their injuries.” Deirdre went on, listing the ways each part and piece had died, filling in names where she could and omitting gorier details out of respect. “Some of these people had died by Jo’s hand, others were simply her property by trade---bought or bartered otherwise. They will rest easier knowing Jo suffered as she should, and that no more harm can come from her. We remember their deaths.”

Deirdre turned back towards the other, rolling up her sleeve  with one hand as the other unwrapped the iron rod carefully. She gripped the iron with her hand safely behind the wool, searching her forearm for the scar that seemed to grow every couple of years. She pressed the iron to it. “As the living, we will know their pain. And may they rest knowing that we carry it with us, and the pain of every injustice like this we cannot stop.” Her skin seared, blistering and peeling under the iron. Deirdre didn’t flinch and her face remained impassive. She would hold the iron there for as long as Coraline burned. “The house of winter is dark, and you may rest in its shadows. But your blood was spilled by the undeserving,” her voice dripped out steadily in Gaelic. “So I hold your pain in my heart, I hold it with my life. It is with each who watches me, each who knows. You can rest now, free from it. You can rest, by the decree of fate’s faithful, you can rest. The house of winter cherishes you now; to your home your body returns.” She pulled the iron away, bits of her skin were still stuck to it as she dropped the rod to the floor. Blood ran down her arm, dripping carelessly to the earth. She turned to Coraline’s body, dropping to her knees and pulling the cloth away from her face. “Take my blood for all that was taken from you.” She carefully lifted her head, delicately wrapping the wool around it before finally pulling her ceremonial knife out. There, she cut across her palm and dripped the blood on to the white cloth holding her body. Deirdre’s voice surrendered to a low hum, softly singing her family’s lament as she moved through each piece of the ceremony---from the wool wrappings to the cut palm. Eventually her singing trailed away, and she stepped back. “You can light it,” she told Morgan, “with any luck, her skull will be preserved enough to keep with the ashes. They can rest now.”

Deirdre had explained to Morgan what happened at a fae funeral and how it was her duty, as the officiant, to carry the pain of those who had died. She had known what the rod was for and how long it had to be held against Deirdre’s skin. But solemn discussions in the night didn’t come near to preparing her to see Deirdre’s skin melt off in red, gummy layers, steam rising from beneath. Nor was she prepared for the monstrousness of Deirdre’s silence. Her face looked like stone for all it moved, some hollow, unreal nightmare.

The burnt spot on Deirdre’s arm popped with heat and blood simmered and ran in thin sticky lines around the wound. Morgan had to cover her mouth to keep from screaming and running over to her. A muffled whimper escaped her lips and she clamped down harder, reaching for Ariana’s shoulder to keep herself still. This was part of a banshee’s role when a community was lucky enough to have one. This was what fae did for each other. Morgan knew this. She knew this. But she trembled with the urge to intervene as Deirdre cut her arm open, spilling more blood for the dead.

When she was called to light the fire, Morgan shuffled forward, fumbling for the long matches in her pocket. She had lit enough fires in her day, even without magic, to handle this with the kind of grace the situation asked for, but her arms were stiff and trembling. It took her three tries to get the end lit right. She held her gaze over the flame as it ate the wood one inch at a time and laid the flame over each bundle of kindling she’d laid on the pyre. She circled the structure til she came back to Coraline’s head. When it was done she flung the match into the blaze and stepped back, reaching for Deirdre. She slipped her arms around her waist and pressed them close together, her head resting on Deirdre’s chest. “I hope that was okay,” she whispered.

Ariana had never been to a fae funeral before and she had a bit of a hard time keeping a close eye on Deirdre. She couldn’t understand the parts that were in Gaelic, but she imagined there was some sort of explanation for why Deirdre had to put herself through physical pain for the ritual. Instead, she watched the pyres burned and wished that their souls would find peace. The circumstances surrounding their deaths had been bleak. More so than anything probably should have been, but more and more she was learning that’s just how the world worked. The smoke began swirling above them into the sky that was becoming darker now. The flames glowed around them and the smoke began to overtake the smell of the onion though she still tasted it on her lips. She remained silent as Deirdre continued on with the ceremony and refrained from wincing at Deirdre’s pain.

Lydia had last been to a funeral with a banshee officiant when she’d been a young child. While the human sacrifice (or onion sacrifice) was a common one, somehow, other species of fae were not as keen to take on pain in honouring the death. Lydia had only ever seen instead the damages transferred to a chicken. Deirdre was not a chicken, and she didn’t remember that childhood funeral right until the second Deirdre pulled out the iron bar. She steeled herself, staring at Coraline’sbody as Deirdre’s skin began to burn. If Deirdre wouldn’t flinch, nor would Lydia. It was an honour to suffer for the dead, as much so for the chicken as the Banshee. It wasn’t until Deirdre spoke, in a beautiful clear form of Gaelic that was so different to Lydia’s own tone, that a single tear rolled down her cheek. The witch’s death did not undo any suffering. It still lingered in the air, in their hearts, and in the skin on Deirdre’s arm that would take time to heal. When Deirdre’s voice dropped to a hum, Lydia found the rhythm and joined it too. The heat of the flame licked Lydia’s skin, uncomfortable without burning. She set in the fire five pieces of canvas, each made with ecstatic inspiration. So much that no image on them was legible, but for a funeral that was what was desired. Art in its purest, least dilute form. They burned, and in each carried the hope that the people cremated would find joy in the life hereafter. “Let nothing hold you to this earth. Your word has been kept, and you have been relinquished of what holds you here.”

It was a battle of wits and long limbs as Deirdre tried to navigate wrapping her arms around Morgan without getting blood on her. She was bleeding far too much for this to be accomplished, and so she remembered that white dresses were worn specifically to be sullied and she wrapped her arms around Morgan, staining her back with blood. "I think it was," she replied gently, "I think it really was." She bent down to kiss Morgan; first on her cheek, forehead, nose, before she eventually settled on her lips, capturing them for as long as she could. "Thank you," she mumbled as she lingered close. "For doing this. You really have brought them all peace, Morgan. I know it." There were no ghosts that lingered, and so it must have been true. "You did good, my vigilante zombie." She kissed her once more before she retreated, approaching Lydia and Ariana. "Your words were beautiful, and your voice is too. You should sing more," she smiled at Lydia, pulling her close—this time she took great care not to get blood anywhere, knowing Lydia didn't seem as strong-willed at the sight usually. She pressed a kiss to her temple and thanked her for giving that canvas, then for coming. The funeral was over, more or less, but Deirdre would stay until the flames died and help Morgan collect the ashes. She turned to Ariana next, forgetting whatever strangeness plagued her and Lydia earlier, or even her own actions. She wrapped her arms around the young girl, careful again with her bleeding arms. "And you, young wolf, have greatly honored us today. Thank you for sending that wolf to peace, and for observing the rest with us." She pressed a kiss to her temple too before releasing her. The funeral pyre grew steadily, the sound of cracking wood painting the air. The flowers laid atop did what they could for the smell, but to a wolf like Ariana it might not have mattered what they put. The funeral was over, technically, and all guests were free to leave—though this portion was usually colored with drinking and merriment. But watching the embers pop and disappear, the flames consuming all within with, she didn't think that they would. Not yet.

It wasn’t until Deirdre pulled her into her arms that Morgan released whatever she’d been holding onto of the dead girl she’d first found in a pile of garbage with Kaden, of everything she’d seen in that awful storage unit. For a moment, she could even release the unfairness of being supernatural in a world where your history and identity had to stay some stupid, deadly secret. For a moment, as the flames surged in the twilight evening, everything felt like it was enough. Morgan sagged into her banshee’s grip and hugged her back just as tight, kissed her just as long. The forest was quiet except for them. The birds, sensing something amiss, stayed away or else hid in their roosts. The deer watched from a safe distance and closed ranks around each other, grateful for another day to come. Morgan released her hold and watched Deirdre give her parting kisses to their friends, then followed behind to slip her arms over both of them at once. They came together easily, with only a few inches of height difference between them. Morgan held them tight in their group hug, murmuring, “Thank you, for doing this with us. And thank you for being my friends.” She pressed a kiss to each head and held them a moment longer. The moment was fading, the weight of the world beyond them pressing in as surely as the night. “You can sit with us and watch awhile? But I understand if you want to get back. I know someone still has a coaching gig in the morning.”

It was a relief to see that Deirdre no longer seemed annoyed with her though she didn’t love the sight of her bloodied. Ariana welcomed the hug and told her, “Thank you to both you and Morgan for putting this together. I like to think it helped all of them find peace.” Her voice was wistful as she continued to try and put her hopes for those lost out into the universe. When Morgan came over to her, she still kept her features gentle. There was no use to acknowledge Lydia at this point. The moon was higher in the sky now and the stars twinkling above the smoke that was still present in the air. “Of course,” Ariana started before she realized what Morgan was doing. Her stomach flipped and her entire body tensed up despite their now serene surroundings. Morgan was pulling her and Lydia into a group hug and she wanted to rip herself away, but Morgan didn’t deserve that. She was actually pretty sure Morgan had no idea just who Lydia really was. Being fae was one totally cool thing. Keeping people you fed from hostage in your home-- totally different ball game. Lydia was nothing but a glorified serial killer in high heels that had someone very dear to Ariana trapped in her home. It left her feeling disgusted as she awkwardly let herself be enveloped in the hug. She did her best to keep close to Morgan, but she could still feel Lydia’s body against her own. Ugh. It was hard to ignore the discomfort and urge to fight, but she did. This wasn’t the time or place. Still, it left her skin crawling even as she pulled away. Even though she hadn’t been sleeping well, Lydia being out of the house meant maybe she could see Ace tonight. “If I didn’t have such an early day with the kids tomorrow, I’d definitely hang around, but I’ll come by soon. I do believe I owe Deirdre a strawberry rhubarb pie,” she said with a grin before offering a final wave and getting the hell away from Lydia.

“I’ll sing more with you,” Lydia replied softly, taking Deirdre’s healthy hand for a quick moment, a gesture meant just for the two fae women, only for Deirdre to pull her into a hug a moment later, and Lydia squeezed her back tightly, for as long as she was allowed before Deirdre moved on to Ariana. She turned to the flames and didn’t look away from them until Morgan’s arms slipped around her. “Oh!” She gasped, suddenly pulled tight against two of her favourite people and an annoying brat. She hugged Morgan back at the very least, and smiled as they were let go. “I’ll stay-“ she was cut off by Ariana’s quick reply and equally quick disappearance. She eyed the young girl until she was out of sight and sighed. Shaking her head, she looked back at the others. “I’ll stay and sit for a while.”

Morgan gave Ariana one last squeeze as she departed. She floated slowly to the ground by the wine service with the two fae, pressed in close to Deirdre. Around them, smoke fine as mist rolled through the air, carrying the smell of char and death with it. The smell was so rich it penetrated the haze around Morgan’s senses. As she breathed it in, she imagined that the dead were with her and knew her in a way most of the living could not. Morgan looked into the fire with its blinding yellow core, with its desperate hunger. Was their rest in the pop of flesh going up in smoke or the cooling of the bones? Was it when the smoke kissed the tops of the trees, or when the embers died? If the dead had the answers, they couldn’t give it to her. Morgan huddled closer to Deirdre, stretching a hand out for Lydia as well, squeezing her hand. If peace was something the universe granted to zombies, it would be something she had to make for herself.

[mtvswatches]

Wynonna Earp 3x04 No Cure For Crazy

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Stray thoughts

1) Did that… did that tree just fucking walk?

Is the tree possessed by Dolls or something? Why is a tree helping Wynonna and Doc?

And why is Peacemaker not working?

2)

3) Okay, the trees are fucking bleeding and this dude just called it “a murder tree” and what the actual fuck!

4) So… the “fire” never really happened, it was just a Black Badge cover-up for the massacre. I really want to see where they go with this whole backstory they’ve given Nicole because so far? Not into it.

Nicole does make a good point of asking Waverly why she hasn’t talked to her mom yet to figure out who her parents are. She seemed quite intent on figuring it out last season, and here she has the perfect opportunity to have every answer she’s looking for, and she’s not taking it? Waverly is anything but a chicken, so I’d figured she would confront her mother head on but I guess she’s been conveniently written OOC so that the writers can keep this mystery going for a while. I hope they don’t stretch this for too long, though.

5) Why did Nicole randomly and carelessly throw the ring in the middle of the forest? Huh? That’s also kind of OOC? Wasn’t she talking about disposing of it carefully two minutes ago?

6) MORE OF THIS, PLEASE.

7) And more of this.

8) Okay, so Waverly IS going to see her mother, she just didn’t disclose that bit of information to Nicole, why? She just made this big speech about not keeping secrets from each other… or is it that she wasn’t planning on seeing her mom until Wynonna brought it up and basically set it all up for her?

And suuuure, Mama is doin’ just fine!

9) So, Wynonna couldn’t shoot Peacemaker because she ran out of bullets, which is a more logical explanation than what I was expecting. I don’t know why but I just assumed Peacemaker had magical ammo and it didn’t require reloading? Anywho, look at these two idiots flirting with each other and basically dry-humping…

10) SHIT. That was a low blow.

But how fucking adorable is it that he’d taken the time to buy - or build! - baby Alice a crib? My heart!

11) Why was their mother so intent on Waverly never finding out where she was or seeing her? And what’s going to happen when Waverly does…? There must be a reason. It seems she was trying to protect them.

12) Why are they giving me so much Doc/Wynonna in this episode? What’s going to happen? (Listen, I’ve grown up watching Joss Whedon shows, I’m conditioned to believe that happiness is followed by utter and complete destruction and mysery!)

13)

NICOLE: Can we talk? It’s about Nedley.

WYNONNA: Not again. How many more plungers do we need?

 14) Wait, did I forget that Jeremy was gay or they haven’t mentioned it before? Because I’m all for it, and especially about the way it was casually brought up in conversation because it’s not Jeremy’s single defining characteristic. 

15) I guess the mother-daughter reunion is happening sooner than expected, since Waverly was contacted as her last known emergency contact.

16) Jeremy is totally vibing with this Robin dude who found the murder tree and they’re making silly tree puns and it’s gay heaven, I love it.

17) Well, that couldn’t have gone any worse…

And yet, I can’t help but feel she means something else? I still feel she’s trying to protect Waverly.

Something happened when Waverly touched her, too, and then she kept saying “she’s unbound, she’s loose, kill the demon.” Waverly of course assumes her mom is referring to her as “the demon”, but I have a feeling she’s talking about an actual demon.

18) I really felt for Nedley when he admitted he’s tired of covering the supernatural shit up. Man, I hated him on the first episode of the show and now I’ve really grown to like him? And Wynonna suggested he should step aside and let Nicole take charge, and he’s actually considering it, and I’m here for Sheriff Haught.

19) Listen, I’m not usually into Gay, meet Gay, now get together because you’re the only two Gays so therefore you must be attracted to each other and date, but… I’m really liking the Jeremy/Robin interactions so far? They’re really cute!

20) And now they’re two gays who have zero idea about the woods lost in the forest and they found the stairway to heaven…

21) Mama Gibson is not messing around.

22) Ah, great, the idiots who let a dangerous convict escape have now locked Wynonna up. Marvelous.

23) Damn, Waverly keeps thinking her mother wants to kill her and that she called her a demon, but I just fucking know she’s talking about a literal demon that’s probably threatening Waverly’s life, that’s why she’s kept away from her.

24) Wait, what?

NEDLEY: Michelle didn’t go to prison because she burned down the barn. She went because her youngest daughter was in it.

Her youngest is Waverly? So did she try to set Waverly on fire? I have a hunch she’s possessed.

25) Oh, dang, Doc is hearing a baby’s cry in the woods. Of course, this is a trigger for him, he’s thinking of Alice, and he’s being lured into the woods.

26) Major Spike vibes in this scene…

27) Hm. Bulshar just tried to strike up a deal with Doc – he’ll give Doc reprieve from the knowledge of his miserable destiny if Doc does his bidding. And Doc was really contemplating accepting. Don’t be weak, Doc. Come on. There has to be a way.

28) So, this fucking corrupt guard suggests they should just off Wynonna and write it off as if Michelle murdered her own daughter when she was trying to escape. And of course, he’s a fucking revenant. It’s definitely going to be interesting to see how Wynonna gets out of this one while handcuffed and without Peacemaker…

I mean, she was fucking tasered and yet…

QUEEN.

29) Nedley, my heart. He’s so heartbroken over this.

NEDLEY: Well, I got a call to a situation at the Earp farm. By the time I got there, the barn was lit up like a torch. You... somehow you escaped. I mean, you were covered with soot, you were crying, but you were unharmed. WAVERLY: And my mother? NEDLEY: She was... locked in your daddy's patrol car. She set the fire. But she was no murderous sociopath. She was Michelle Gibson. Rodeo spitfire. The wild heart and loyal soul of Purgatory. Even the thugs and the dimwits drank to her. With her. They loved her. Look, she wasn't herself that night. She kept... she kept insisting that... that she was trying to vanquish a demon. WAVERLY: A demon she thought was... me. NEDLEY: Well, that would explain The occult nonsense that Ward saw plastered all over the barn before she lit the match. Did you believe it? That was Ward's interpretation. Look, your pop was my boss, so... And I know... I know I should've been braver. I should've defended her. But... I booked Michelle like I was told to. God, this just keeps getting worse. I've been trying to make up for it ever since. I kept watch over you. I tried to set Wynonna on the straight and narrow. That didn't work out. And when I became Sheriff, I pulled the report. I didn't want anyone seeing it.

30) Why would Wynonna let the revenant in on the fact that she got a kid? I mean, wasn’t the whole point of sending Alice away to protect her from the likes of him? I get that she used that bit of information to distract him, and yeah, she did this later…

…but maybe don’t go talking about your child out loud around the enemies?

31) Why is he coughing dirt? Is he going to get gay-buried before he can be allowed to actually gay?

32) Now Waverly is listening to her mom’s tapes with a psychiatrist or therapist or something, and yep, I’m still convinced she was possessed or something and the reason she was trying to stay away from Waverly is because she wanted to protect her. As she was talking to the therapist, she said “Shut up!” or something like that and she was clearly talking to someone else who was not there, like someone who might be in her own head or that only she can see. Someone or something that might be using her to kill her own daughter. The question is, who and why? Is it Bulshar manipulating her the same way he tried to manipulate Doc? Or is it something else altogether? And why is this something or someone so intent on killing Waves? What is she? What kind of role is she supposed to play in the grand scheme of things for this evil entity to want her dead so badly?

33) Okay, theory confirmed, Doc just heard a third, infernal voice on the tape.

34) Oh shit, is history going to repeat itself?!

Yep, there was an actual demon in serious need of a facial and makeover.

35) Bye bye Robin, I guess?

36) Who the fuck is Jolene and why is everyone acting like Stepford Wives? Is this some sort of Ted/Dawn scenario?! And why is it that, in a supernatural show, this is by far the creepiest thing I’ve seen?! 

37) So, I’ve got a lot of questions. First of all, I want to know more about the murder trees. How do they come to be? Are they inhabited by serial killers? We saw the face in one of them, and they can actually walk and move around, but why do they bleed? Is it like their victim’s blood? Also, who the fuck is Jolene? I mean, I know she’s probably the demon that showed up in the barn, but what’s her deal? What does she want? I mean, she didn’t kill Waverly, and instead she’s feeding and glamouring the whole group… to do what? Where was Robin taken? Can we please not do the whole bury-your-gays trope? I expect better of this show. Will Doc accept Bulshar’s deal? Please don’t, Doc. And what is Waverly?! That’s the biggest question of all, so I’m guessing the answer will be delayed till the season finale.

That was yet another fun, exciting Wynonna Earp episode, setting up a lot of stuff for the season, I guess. And I want answers!

38) Hope you enjoyed my recap, and, as usual, if you’ve got this far, thank you for reading! If you enjoy my recaps and my blog, please consider supporting it on ko-fi. Thanks!

[angstymarshmallow]

alone in the woods (cal lowell x mc)

[a little note: more Cal fanfiction! I can’t seem to stop myself. He’s quickly becoming one of my favourites. There are some vague references to what’s currently going on in Nightbound and a bit  of building my MC’s personality. Plus a dash of angst. If you read it - thank you! If you leave a comment, bless you! ].

[summary: a jog to get away from it all is Wren’s (MC) only desire for perspective. Bumping into Cal, she wonders if he’s the only perspective to get her through what can’t be scrubbed clean].

[words counted: 3218]

She emerged out of the dark, barely past midnight. The moon was still at its highest as she peered from the window in the kitchen. The rest of Nik’s place seemed almost as still as the air around her as she checked the time. It was strange. It clung to her, clung to the kitchen and the couch she’d spent the better half of nearly every night and the front door as she carefully tipped-toed towards the welcome home mat.

Usually, Wren had no trouble finding silence after a long day comforting. But tonight, staying inside of Nik’s quaint apartment had done more harm than good. She felt out of sorts, as though there was an unshakeable urge to escape and if she didn’t, she wouldn’t manage to live to see another day. She felt it underneath her skin, a scratch that had started as a little less of a general desire until turning into something she could only describe as an overwhelming temptation to leave.

There were too many reasons for her to go anyway, too many moving pieces in her life that she did not understand.

Her shirt clung to her as she bent to grab her boots. Tugging them across her painted-toes one at a time, she managed one last glance and then quietly closed the door behind her. Her feet begun moving, faster and faster – propelling her forward until her adrenaline rush coaxed into an all-out run.

She wouldn’t be gone long. More than craving fresh air, she desired perspective. She longed for purpose. It was more than looking for a moment, she was searching for time to process…well everything, away from Nik. Away from everyone.

She wished she could blame the people around her. It would have been the easier option, even if she couldn’t convince herself. Their lives were completely responsible for the upheaval battle and clusterfuck she was currently in. In some small part, she believed it – but her choices were her own and no one else.

Besides, this wasn’t new for her – these circumstances were, but not the rest of it. Her life had always been a series of mishaps – messes that left behind stains she could never completely scrub away. And by the time she managed to scrub clean a particular predicament, there were at least a dozen more waiting on her doorstep.

One giant revolving door of fucking problems.

She would have laughed if she was feeling quite humorous, but as it were – her self-depravation spoke volumes for how melancholic she currently felt and didn’t allow for much wiggle room. As rare as it was, she felt way out of her league – dealing with forces that anyone else would have ran away screaming from. This time she was sinking too fast, there was barely any time before her feet had reached the bottom.

Besides, a little self-depravation couldn’t hurt. Wasn’t she allowed some? After everything she had been through, a pity party was certainly in tall order. It was too bad she was missing any liquor – anything to drink and forget. Still, maybe there was some kind of reprieve in being different from everyone else.

However, it wasn’t the only terrifying thought. She wished it was, but the current state of her life, any sane person would have walked away to ignore the impossible disposition Cal’s pack now presented and the bloodwraith that still persisted as a consistent threat to her existence.

Wren wanted to scream. She wanted to scream loud enough for all of New Orleans to hear her. Instead, she settled for biting her lower lip hard. She gnawed on it enough to draw blood as her feet picked up their pacing and followed the long-winding path towards the edge of the woods.

She was careful to keep alert; often skimming and looking for any flicker of movement from the corner of her eyes. She couldn’t stray too far away, Cal’s not-so-friendly pack was still out there, and she was certain they would have no trouble picking up her scent.

In the midst of her late-night jog, Wren was starting to realize being out past midnight alone in the woods probably wasn’t one of her brightest ideas. Still, it wasn’t too late for her to be completely worried. Most street lights still had their usual gentle hum and every spotlight she stepped into gave her confidence.

Wren trusted her gut and her gut had rarely led her astray. Somehow, she always managed to land on her feet – notwithstanding jogging right now near the tree line.

Her breaths had grown short as she turned a corner, catching the telltale signs of the woods. Her heaving filled the otherwise quiet night-air as her lungs ached by the continous effort to keep going. When she could no longer take the burning in her chest, Wren bent down for a moment and placed both hands on her knees as she fought to catch her breath.

Despite how warm it had been minutes ago, cocooned inside of Nik’s modest home, the almost chilly air had given her some unexpected relief. It felt good to feel something else, it felt good to get away.

Goosebumps erupted across her flesh. Wren had to rub her arms as she finally stood upright and tipped her head back, peering at the night sky.

It was sort of foolish she supposed, looking up at them for as long as she did. But the stars had always given her some sort of misguided solace; as if staring up at them and wishing enough would make all her problems disappear.

It never did. Her revolving door of messes always swung back to her. Still it was a habit; one of the very few still left behind after running from so many group homes as she did. Now that she was on her own, the habit had been hard to kick.

She slipper her hands in the sides of her jeans pocket.

“Wren?”

She turned, blinking in surprise at the sound of a familiar voice until she spotted him. “Cal?” She blinked again, barely suppressing her own excitement at suddenly seeing him. She settled for waving at him instead. “What are you doing here?” Even as she blurted out the words, she knew the answer was obvious as her eyes took in the length of him at his approach.

Spots of sweat clutched to his chest and his broad shoulders, wet underneath he dark material of his shirt as he shrugged sheepishly. His hair was met with loose strands matted across his forehead as he wiped his brow.

He must have been out for a run.

“I needed to get out of my own head for a while.” Cal confessed, running his fingers through his hair. “Besides, what are you doing out here? It’s late.” His eyes flashed in concern as he closed the distance between them in a few long and quick strides.

The shivers Wren had been trying to ignore had promptly vanished, as his presence grew nearer. For a moment, it was all she could do but to relish how warm he was – standing as close as he did in front of her. When she found the will to divert her attention elsewhere, she glanced away. “You don’t need to tell me how dumb it is being out of my own.”

“I never said that.” He protested lightly.

She gave him a droll stare. “You didn’t have to. It is stupid being out here alone, especially considering how fucked up my life has been lately. But I’m not helpless. I can handle it.”

“There’s a bloodwraith after you, not to mention my pack is still hurting from Kristoff’s death –”

“I know.” Her response was harsh and curter than she intended it to be.  It stung. The knowledge of him pointing it out. Did he think she forgot? But his intentions weren’t malicious, still the urge to snap at him had been nearly palpable.

It’s not him you’re really mad at. Some part of Wren knew it ran far deeper than his misguided and unintentional proclamation. Deep down, she was beginning to think this mess was going to be the only one to stick. The only mess she couldn’t scrub away no matter how hard she could try.

It wasn’t going to leave; it had already torn the hinges off her door.

Wren stuffed her hands roughly back inside her pockets, frustration still ebbing away from her chest. “You don’t need to remind me Cal. It’s painfully obvious how….how…vulnerable I am.”

Vulnerable. She hated the word. She had spent so many years fighting to be everything except vulnerable. But the world had fallen from her lips bitterly, “especially compared to the rest of you.” Nik, Katherine, Cal, Donny, Garrus, Ivy and Krom - they belonged to the supernatural world and she didn’t. She was an interloper – a sentiment she was far too familiar with over the years.

“Hey, you aren’t allowed to sell yourself short like that.” His voice was defensive – on her behalf.

She glanced up at him, heart stuttering at the sudden fierce determination in his eyes.

“You’re a badass in your own right, Wren.” She felt his fingers drift to touch her arm and almost instantly she leaned into him. “I won’t let you forget it.”

Wren drew a shaky laugh, “I think you’re giving me way too much credit.” She paused to fiddle with the waistband of her jeans. “It’s not like you’ve been around much lately to see me in action anyway.” It had started off as a joke but lost its merit as her tone fell.

Cal’s expression grew with chagrin. He took a few paces back almost the same time she did, suddenly looking a little out of place at talking. He rubbed the back of his neck. “I didn’t know if you wanted to see me.” He admitted, “I mean the last time I did – you wanted space.”

She remembered leaving in a hurry in the aftermath of the fight with his pack. She recalled the ghost of his touch when she wrenched her arm away and flinched at the memory. “Would you believe me if I said I was out here for the same reasons you were?”

“No, I wouldn’t.” Wren was relieved ass the flash of hurt in his eyes vanished. “All things considered; you’ve been through a lot.”

“So have you,” She chided. And you didn’t use that as an excuse. She swallowed thickly, as he glanced away. “You lost your alpha. We haven’t really had the chance to talk about it.”

“It’s not something I can really put into words.” He began, eyes shifting back to meet hers’. “But I feel it. How agonizing it is. We’re all still feeling it.”

“Your entire pack?”

“Yeah, but it’s…more than that. It’s more than just a bond.” Her intuition recognized his uncertainty for finding the right words to explain. “It’s like a piece of myself died with him.”

“I’m sorry.” And she meant it. Despite how much of an ass she thought Kristoff had been in the very short hours she’d known him – no one deserved death. That thing had ripped into him like he was nothing. She shuddered.

“Thank you,” he said quietly, breaking her thoughts of melancholy.

“Are you afraid?” She wanted to know so much more, but she didn’t think he’d be willing to share, at least not yet. They were still learning things about each other.

“I don’t know what’s next for me and Doony – that’s the part that worries me.” He sighed in frustration. “The part that makes me think I should beg forgiveness.”

“We didn’t do anything wrong.” Wren protested.

“I stood against my own pack, for you.” His eyes bore into hers’ with so much sincerity that it stopped her from intervening a second time. “In the moment it felt right. I wasn’t thinking about Donny – I was thinking about protecting you, it was like instinct took over.” He seemed to be marveled by his own words.

Hell, she was. No one had ever done something remotely like that– except for Nik, but he was paid to look after her and Cal had done so of his own fruition. From where she was standing, Wren owed him a hell of a lot more than just a simple thank you. She didn’t think any amount of gratitude would make a difference and yet she tried anyhow.

“I don’t think I can thank you enough for what you did.”  

Perfectly white teeth reflected against the street lamp they stood under as Cal managed some semblance of a smile. “You’re alive, that’s all the thanks I need.”

Shit, he was going to melt her heart.

Oblivious to her thoughts, Cal shifted on his feet and changed the subject. “But that’s partly why I’m out here. I need to figure out my next move. No matter what, it’s on me to keep Donny safe and I can’t let anything happen to him.”

“Your actions are going to consequences.” Wren suspected as much and felt a twinge of guilt at the thought. If his pack still wanted him around, she imagined there would be repercussions for what he did and despite how grateful she was that he stepped in – she didn’t like the idea of anything happening to him. Especially on her behalf.

Cal nodded. Somehow, he managed to look any less perturbed than before, but there was no hiding his expressive eyes. They held a cloud of uneasiness and fear even as he tried to play it off with a shrug, “but I wouldn’t change what I did. I help people I care about.”

Biting back a smile, Wren glanced away. “Did running help at least?” She asked, not-so-smoothly changing the subject.

“It helped clear my head. It felt good to run; it always does.” He replied, rolling his broad shoulders back. “But I’m glad I caught your scent and ended it short. It would have been a pity not to run into you.”

Her gaze flitted back to his, the corner of her lips turning up at the abrupt change in his expression.

“Especially since you were staring  at the stars, almost like a kodak moment.” He teased.

“Shit, you saw that?” She knew the answer before she asked; his eyes crinkling around the corners as he laughed. Her cheeks mottled red. “You were supposed to find it enchanting and dignified.” She added, sniffing.

He bit his lower lip, a tooth jutting out as he regarded her with a lazy grin. “Did anyone ever tell you how good you look in this moonlight? Especially underneath here.” He gestured towards the street light they had been standing under.

“You may be the first, but I’m not opposed to embarrassing myself again if it means the compliments keep coming.”

They stepped towards each other the same time, her fingers lazily sliding across the underside of his robust arm as she returned his grin.

“Then allow me to indulge,” his voice had grown all sorts of husky and her stomach did a tiny flip. There was an edge to it, but she could barely hear it above the sudden pounding of her heart. “Your eyes do this this thing – they smile when you’re in your element. They kind of make everything else dull in comparison. There’s just an aura to them –” His eyes lingered, smoldering in satisfaction as she smiled, “– that just draws me in.”

With the same hand, her fingers drifted along the length of his muscles; tracing its smooth shape until she feels his pulse jump and his body betraying him with a slight shudder. “And are they doing that right now?”

“No. Right now, they’re practically radiant with something else.”

Wren hadn’t known who first erased the rest of space between them.

Perhaps time had simply slowed into a withering crawl, allowing them time to do something more than staring with as much longing as they did to one another, raising the temperature several degrees higher between them. The inches were countable; seven, five, four, two – until they finally collided.

All of a sudden, she could feel how soft his hair was as her fingers tangled inside its still wet and dark sheen, while his own fingers hand curved around her waist, yanking her impossibly closer.

She relished threading through its softness. It was a stark difference to how passionately he was kissing her; how deeply he allowed his kisses to run as though if he ever stopped kissing her, she would suddenly disappear. It was definitely the impression Wren had as his tongue slid between parted lips.

When her knees threatened to buckle, she felt the sudden shift of weight before her legs had been fastened around his and her knees had been the last thing on her mind as he growled low inside his throat.

She kissed him back with equal vigor, with equal want. Her desire for more ran far deeper than just wanting to kiss him – she wanted to sink herself into him, until nothing else separated them – until nothing else mattered.

And the very notion had caused her to freeze her in her tracks. Her hands remained still and she jerked back in alarm – catching a flash of concern from Cal’s eyes the moment their eyes connected.

“What’s wrong?” His voice was raw, as though he’d spent another out here chasing the dark.

“Nothing,” Wren responded quickly. But it hadn’t been nothing, it had felt a whole lot more like something. Something that she wasn’t ready to think about – knowing so little about him.

But would it be so bad, being something more?

The thought persisted, despite her best attempts of ignoring it. Forcing a smile, she cleared her throat.

“Sorry,” With caution, Cal helped to unfold her legs around him until they were at a more comfortable position and Wren slid down.

The moment she felt the ground again, some of her distress had fizzled with it. Digging the heel of her boots into asphalt beneath them helped, as did stepping back to create more proximity. “It’s getting late, I should probably head back, at least before Nik wonders where I am.” She snorted, “knowing him – I’m sure that’ll include some kind of lecture.”

Something passed in his eyes.

For a moment, she thought those earthly hues of his were going to protest except they settled for resignation instead as he nodded in agreement. “Maybe we can convince him to go easy on you if I walk you back.” He held up his hands in surrender when she raised her brows. “Not that you aren’t capable of walking home alone, I would feel much better seeing you safe and sound myself.”

“Such a gentlemen.” Wren teased, bumping her shoulder playfully into his.

“Always,” Cal responded without missing a beat.

“You sure you want to? Your home is pretty much in the opposite direction.”

Reaching between them, he found her fingers and entwined theirs together. “But for you, I’m willing to go the extra distance.” His eyes lingered for a moment before drifting away.

Unsure if they were still on the same subject, Wren managed a subtle squeeze to his fingers in response as they walked in companion silence, the stars above them marking lighting their path back to civilization.

[bladesoflightandshadow]

indefinitely [lucas/mc]

note: hi! hello! i wrote another thing! finally! this one was actually supposed to be part of a series of ficlets based on a prompt list which i abandoned, but i think it holds its own well enough to post. i know the ‘character has bad dreams and has their partner comfort them’ trope is way overdone when it comes to the it lives series but like.....i love these two too much not to try

pairing: lucas x mc (everett walker)

word count: 1,947

warnings: discussions of trauma & anxiety, though nothing you haven’t already seen if you’ve read ilitw.

tagged: @teja-desai

summary: a late night talk with lucas has everett re-evaluating his feelings.

.  .  .  .  .

Everett learned quickly at the start of his and Lucas’s relationship that they’re both restless sleepers.

For Lucas, it’s always been like this—worrying about what he has to do in the day ahead or the day after tomorrow or what he did the day before and what went wrong and what could go wrong all keep him up—so sometimes he doesn’t bother with sleep at all, and it’s only made worse by the events of homecoming their senior year.

For Everett, it started in the weeks leading up to the homecoming incident. Despite numerous sleeping aids and therapy and God knows what else, sleep often feels like a trap he needs to outsmart, with memories of that night and of what Noah did and what he did always just in his periphery, waiting for the right time to strike.

Not to say that what happened didn’t affect their group of friends too, if seeing another one of them have a breakdown about it every week after the incident was any indication. But Everett never could shake the roiling guilt of feeling responsible for what happened to them—to his friends, to Jane, to Noah.

And it’s these thoughts that plague him while he’s lying awake in bed tonight, staring up at the ceiling.

When it becomes hard to breathe, he kicks his sheets away and paces the room, hugging himself as a sudden chill crawls up his spine. Everett contemplates going for a walk to clear his mind, but one look at the woods outside and just the thought of being anywhere near them makes him physically sick. He grabs his phone from his nightstand and sees that it’s 3 A.M. Knowing Lucas, he’s probably awake at this time too. Everett considers texting him to see if he’s awake, but his thumbs hover over the keyboard, worried that if Lucas is asleep, the sound might wake him up.

Before he can decide, though, a text appears on his phone screen, the sound startling him into dropping his phone. When he picks it up—unbroken, thank God, he can’t afford to ask for a new one—he sees that it’s from Lucas, seemingly having just read his mind.

Can’t sleep. Thinking about you.

He feels himself smile, almost involuntarily, as he types out a reply. When are you not thinking about me?

Ha. Then, after a beat: Rarely, to be fair.

Everett steps towards his bed and falls back onto it. I am a pretty good distraction, aren’t I?

Only the best. Everett sighs, momentarily forgetting why he was unable to sleep in the first place.

Lucas sends him another text. Can I call you? I miss your voice.

You spoke to me in person earlier today.

And what about it?

He closes the messaging app and finds Lucas’s number in his recent call history, the name in his contacts plastered with heart emotes. Lucas picks up almost immediately.

“Hey,” Everett says, quietly so as to not rouse his parents in the next room.

“Hey,” Lucas responds. “Sorry if I’m bothering you.”

Everett lifts his arm to cover his face, sighing slightly. “Nah, I was already awake. I was thinking of calling you too.”

Lucas hums in response. There’s a near-imperceptible edge to his voice, and he’s clearly agitated—more than usual, anyway. Everett asks him what’s wrong.

“Nothing?” A pause, in which Everett hopes to communicate the sentiment of, I know you too well. Don’t lie to me. “…Yeah, okay. Something’s wrong. It’s… it’s stupid.”

“Everything about our lives these past few months has been stupid,” Everett says, shifting around on the bed so that he’s under his duvet again. “Nothing you say can surprise me.”

Lucas lets out a half-hearted chuckle. “I suppose not.” He hesitates, then sighs. “It’s just… It’s the first time I’ve been home alone in a while. My dad’s away on some business trip and my mom is staying with family for the night, so I’m the only person in the house, which makes overthinking every sound I hear or every shadow I see a lot easier.” He sighs again. “It’s…childish, I know.”

“No, it’s not. Trust me. I… I get it.” Everett bites his lip, unsure of how else to reassure him when he’s not feeling any braver himself.

At his lack of response, Lucas asks, “What about you? Why are you awake?”

A pause. Everett closes his eyes, takes a deep breath. “Oh, you know, the usual. Just trying to stave away the feeling of overwhelming guilt and fear over letting my childhood friends get hurt at the hands of a powerful supernatural being, two of which are now dead, while said supernatural being is probably still out there somewhere.”

There’s a silence that stretches on a beat too long. Everett starts chewing on his lower lip. “Sorry. That was too much.”

“No,” Lucas tells him. “No, you’re allowed to express how you’re feeling, even if it is through really morbid jokes.”

“Who says I was joking?”

He falls quiet again, and Everett’s worried he went too far this time, until he speaks again. “It’s not your fault, you know.”

Everett breathes in, slowly, shakily. “I know,” he whispers. “I know. Everyone keeps telling me. I know. But I also can’t fucking convince myself to believe it. So I don’t know. I don’t know anything.”

“Hey.” There’s rustling on Lucas’s end. It sounds like he’s getting out of bed, or sitting up. “Do you want us to talk about something else?”

“Yes, please.” Everett thinks for a moment, rattling his brain for conversation topics. “Where’s your dog?”

“Tolkien?” More rustling on the other line as Lucas presumably moves to look for the terrier. “He’s sleeping on the floor next to me.”

“So you’re not really home alone after all.”

“I suppose. But Tolkien’s an old man. I don’t think he can do much to protect me.”

“I still can’t believe your parents let you name him that.”

He lets out a snort. “In all fairness, I was nine.”

Everett takes reprieve in the conversation shift, letting himself retreat into their usual banter. “You must’ve thought you were such a smartass, naming him after a writer that was way above everyone else’s reading level at the time.”

“You joke, but that was probably my exact thought process,” Lucas says, a smile in his voice. “Also, this is rich coming from the guy who named his cat Cattywampus.”

“Wampus is a business professional and she does not take well to your mockery.” Lucas laughs, the sound soft but genuine, and Everett allows himself to ease into the warmth of it.

Slowly, the fear that had kept them both awake fades into an afterthought, as they let the conversation carry them through to the early hours of the morning. When Everett wakes up, he’s relieved to find that one of them had, wittingly or not, ended the call before they fell asleep. His phone reads 11:36 A.M., and his heart jumps to his throat for a moment before he realises it’s a Saturday.

Almost without thinking, he taps Lucas’s name on his phone to call him again.

“Good morning, sleeping beauty,” he answers, almost annoyingly chipper. Even when he’s barely gotten any sleep, Lucas can never bring himself to wake up later than 9 A.M., something Everett’s had to learn the hard way.

“Mornin’,” Everett murmurs through a yawn. “God, how are you such a morning person?”

He can hear the clattering of pots and pans from Lucas’s end. “Hmm, I guess it’s hard not to be one when I get to hear your voice first thing in the morning,” he says.

Everett roll his eyes, but even the tiredness can’t fend off his smile. “You didn’t even know I was gonna call you.”

“Wishful thinking?” More clattering. “I’m making breakfast. Or brunch, I guess. Do you want to come over?”

Groaning, Everett pulls the covers over his head to block the sunlight streaming directly onto his face. “Give me, like, an hour to feel alive again and then I’ll be there.”

“Alright. Let me know when you’re near.”

“I will. I love you.”

It goes quiet on Lucas’s line. Everett half expects him to have hung up, but one glance at his phone tells him he’s still there. There’s a long, long pause as Lucas takes in what he just said, and as Everett wakes up enough to realise what he just said.

“Oh,” he stutters. “Oh—shit, I’m sorry, that was…I know you said you wanted to take things slow, and I—agh, I’m sorry, Lucas—”

“Stop,” Lucas says, and his tone is gentle, but Everett’s heart still freezes in place. “Did you mean it?”

It takes him a few moments to collect his thoughts. Even in his morning bleariness, Everett knows the answer with clarity. Who else does he know that makes him feel this safe—this calm? Who else would Everett, without even thinking, want to call first thing in the morning, when he knows he sounds like absolute hell? Who else does he trust this much?

He breathes in, letting the feeling wash over him, and he wills his heart to calm down just long enough for him to speak.

“Yeah,” Everett exhales, and something like relief floods out of him. “Yeah. I did mean it.”

In all honesty, part of him had known for a while, yet there was always something, some nagging feeling putting him off from admitting it. They’d talked before about how they wanted to take things slow after everything that happened—to handle this relationship with the care it deserved, at least until they got to a point where things weren’t so fraught.

Yet, despite the anxiety that had kept him tossing and turning last night, Everett feels calmer than he’s been in weeks. Like Lucas’s mere presence through the phone were enough of a remedy for his nerves. His pulse is still hammering, but there’s no fear.

“Good. Because I love you too,” Lucas says, and he sounds… like he’s in awe of the fact. “I’ve known for a while. I just… I didn’t want to say it too soon, especially after I told you I wanted to take things slow…”

Everett is suddenly wide awake, unable to shake the giddy smile from his face. They both take a few moments to just bask in the revelation, the quiet between them profound and full of warmth. Love. They love each other. No holding back.

“You jerk,” Everett says suddenly. “You were waiting for me to say it first so you wouldn’t feel weird about it.”

On the other end, Lucas laughs, brightly, a sound Everett doesn’t think he’ll ever get tired of. “And what are you going to do about it?”

“Uhh, hold it over your head for the rest of our lives?” He’s smiling so much his face aches. “Face it, Thomas, you weren’t man enough to say it first.”

“Pfft, you only said it on accident.”

“I at least demand a consolation prize!”

There’s movement on Lucas’s end, the scraping of a chair as he sits down. “Fine. Whatever you want, name it.”

Everett bites the inside of his cheek, lifting his free hand up to cover his face like it might stop the unadulterated joy from spilling out. His head is spinning. Is this what love is?

“Just keep saying it. That you love me.”

“That’s it?” There’s a smile in Lucas’s voice, too, like he can’t stop himself either. “Just keep telling you I love you, indefinitely?”

“Indefinitely. Yeah.” Everett laughs. “For as long as you can.”

And he does.

[aelysalthea]

Baby Foxes Still Bite: Chapter 2

Summary: ‘Normal’ wasn’t exactly normal when it came to the Palmetto State Foxes. Everyone knew that, and the exceptional history of each of its members only added to that perception. Abnormal wasn’t supposed to included supernatural, though.

With a baby fox abruptly in their midst, it seemed that the curious life of Neil Josten would never cease to be an even greater exception.

Tags: De-Ageing, Child!Neil, Multiple POV, Fox antics, the Foxes are kind of shit parents, Freak-outs, Neil’s Past, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse

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Chapter 2: Day 2, Part I

"Come on, Allison, move your arse."

Dan glanced across the room to where Matt was shifting from foot to foot next to the door. He was practically buzzing with energy, the enthusiasm and something close to excitement tugging on his face only enhancing the impression. Smirking, she shook her head and returned to filling her thermos.

She couldn't blame him. Not really. After the previous day and the forced ejection from Abby's house so that 'certain people can get some sleep', it was difficult not to feel the jittery need to return to what had abruptly become the most interesting thing that had happened to them in months. Maybe even ever given it was such a distinct flavour of interesting.

It was more than a little crazy, a little unbelievable, and Dan almost couldn't fathom that less than a handful of days ago the biggest thing on her mind was returning to campus, to her friends, and preparing for the new season and the incoming freshman. Practice, games, and school; they would consume her world as much as they would the rest of her team. A few more days reprieve would be spent in good company, lazing around their rooms and revelling in the last minutes of the holiday, before diving headfirst into the midst of it with the influx of their new freshmen.

Waking up the previous morning to find Neil in the body of a kid a third his age threw a spanner in the works. Just a little bit.

Pouring swirling coffee into her cup, Dan shook her head to herself. That was definitely crazy, and more than a little unbelievable, despite spending the entire previous day with Neil "my name's Nathaniel" to reinforce the new reality. Dan didn't quite know what to think. Should she be worried, like Abby was? Utterly baffled, like Aaron? Amused to the point of hysteria like Allison, doting as Nicky and Matt seemed to have become, or quietly concerned like Renee? Like Andrew, too, for though he hadn't spoken a word to anyone the previous day, hadn't shifted his blank expression in even a twitch, Dan got that impression. She got it more profoundly than she'd ever detected anything from him before.

A week out of school, the new season revamping, and Neil was a kid. Dan found herself mostly torn between every single one of the responses of her friends. For once – or at least for once in the past few months – exy was secondary to more pressing matters. Dan could wholly commiserate with Matt's sense of urgency in leaving Fox Tower; to get to Abby's to see little-Neil and reaffirm that yesterday hadn't been a dream, or better yet, find him returned to normal. Dan definitely felt that urgency, too.

Renee and Allison appeared almost as eager if the way Renee idled alongside Matt and Allison appeared moments later was any indication. She'd managed to dress and make herself up in an impossible half an hour that morning. Dan was suitably impressed.

"Finally," Matt said, turning for the door as soon as Allison appeared. "We'll take my truck."

"Or I could just take my car," Allison said, following him out. "I'll beat you there."

"You could try."

"I could succeed, you mean."

Dan smiled, snapping the lid onto her thermos. She fell into step alongside Renee as they left their room, waiting as Renee locked it before picking up their pace to keep up with Matt and Allison's rapidly retreating steps. Matt's eagerness had only intensified in the span of their seconds of leaving, and Allison was striding remarkably quickly for someone in such tall shoes. They were exchanging words – or taunts – with a distinctly posturing air, an attempt at distraction that Dan was all too familiar with herself after their brief, hurried morning.

Everyone wanted to be at Abby's. They wouldn't have left in the first place if they'd had a say in the matter.

"Are you alright?"

Dan glanced at Renee as they made their way down the stairs. Renee was regarding her with a slight tilt of her head, her perceptive gaze as softly curious as ever. Dan shrugged, taking a sip of her coffee. "Still a little weirded out. Just like everyone else, I guess."

Renee nodded. "Sure, we all feel that way. But I know you get especially worried about things like this."

Dan didn't need to nod this time. Renee knew her too well. Dan would never admit to just what extent she felt responsible for her team. It didn't matter that Coach was in charge, or Abby could patch them all back together, or Betsy could mend the pieces that Abby couldn't reach. The Foxes were Dan's; she was in charge, and just when that responsibility had overflowed from the boundaries of the court into everything else, she wasn't sure. Maybe she was just getting clucky in her old age.

"Who isn't worried?" she murmured, eyeing Matt and Allison. For all their enthusiasm, Matt was still jittery and had hardly slept the night before, and Allison's promptness that morning was telling. "We're all a little bit useless to help out with anything."

"Which isn't exactly unusual when it comes to Neil," Renee said with a small smile.

Dan scrunched her nose. "True. This isn't quite a repeat of earlier this year, though."

"No. Thankfully."

"Yeah. I'd rather this than potential murder and gang wars."

"Definitely."

They fell into silence for a moment until Dan led Renee from Fox Tower; Matt and Allison had already drawn alongside their cars for the speed of their departure. "Still," Renee continued, closing the door behind herself, "it would be nice to help out a little more. I don't know how long this will last –"

"It'd better fucking reverse itself," Dan muttered.

"- but I admittedly feel a completely useless after yesterday." Renee smiled at Dan's words but didn't otherwise comment upon what they were all thinking. "I don't know anything about looking after kids."

Dan grunted in agreement. None of them did, for that matter. Not kids as young as Neil had become, and definitely not kids like Neil himself. Dan knew as little about dealing with them as Renee, but she would wager that little-Neil wasn't like most kids.

"Come on, you two," Allison called as she turned towards them, hands planted on her hips. "Some time today would be nice."

"Yeah," Matt agreed. He'd returned to rocking between his feet. "We need to rescue Neil from Andrew." He shook his head. "I still can't believe, of all people, Abby let him stay."

Renee breezed past Matt's truck to Allison's car, Allison falling into step alongside her as she did. "Oh, I don't think it's so hard to believe. I think that Neil would be the last person Andrew would put at risk."

Dan could agree with that – definitely, even understanding Andrew as little as she did – but she couldn't help asking, "But to trust him with a kid?"

Renee paused as Allison unlocked her car, smiling over her shoulder. "I wouldn't call it a soft spot, but Andrew's always considered children an exception. If anything, I don't think Neil could be in safer hands." Then she turned from them, climbed into Allison's car, and they were away almost before she'd pulled the door closed.

Dan shared a glance with Matt, a like-minded raised eyebrow, then shrugged. "Well, she does know him best, I guess."

"It's still weird to think," Matt said.

"Yeah, but it's true – he was kind of good with him yesterday, right?"

Matt frowned but didn't reply as they climbed into his truck. He was still chewing over his words as he kicked the roaring engine to life. "That's a bit weird too, right?" he said, killing the radio as they pulled from the parking. "Not just how Andrew was acting, but Neil, too. Right?"

Dan nodded, chewing absently on the rim of her thermos. Weird was about the simplest word to use for their entire situation, but for what was between Andrew and Neil? Even without the whole kid thing it was strange, but that extra element was just a whole new world of bizarre.

Andrew didn't leave Neil's side. He didn't speak to anyone, didn't do much of anything but watch, but he didn't leave the room Neil was in but for brief moments at a time that were so short Dan could practically blink and miss them. In the apartment, the car, at Abby's – he was like a guard dog, albeit of a different kind to what he'd been with Kevin.

When Nicky made the error of ruffling Neil's hair for the first time, Andrew almost sprained his wrist. When Aaron took to asking prying questions about Neil's mom, Andrew pinned him with an unblinking stare so heavy that the room seemed to darken and Aaron surely wouldn't have been able to continue even if he'd wanted to. When Wymack, seemingly unconsciously, pulled a smoke from his pocket, even before Abby could say anything to a scolding effect, a spoon had been flung out of nowhere and practically struck the cigarette from Wymack's fingers. Wymack had scowled, muttered something about "being old enough to use goddamn words, Minyard", but he'd gotten the message.

In a way it might have even been sweet, except that the behaviour came from Andrew. That fact made it almost horrifyingly disconcerting. Just as much as the fact that Neil seemed entirely okay with all of it.

He hadn't been at first. For a good chunk of the previous morning, when he still practically quivered with tension that screamed flight-risk, Neil had regarded all of them with wide-eyed wariness. Whether because Andrew was watching him or because he could somehow sense the sheer danger that was Andrew Minyard, he spared more glances to where Andrew stood across the room than to anyone else.

Then had been the car trip, a brief twenty minutes of them both out of sight, and something had changed. A moment when something had clicked, and – though Dan would never say it out loud – Neil seemed to have picked up the leash that Andrew had affixed to himself. Whether unwittingly or deliberately, Dan didn't know, but of all of his options Neil seemed to have become the most 'okay' with Andrew.

That was weird, too. It would have been almost as weird as the whole age thing if Neil hadn't made the exact decision months before.

"I guess it's not entirely unexpected," Dan murmured into her thermos, gazing out the windscreen but not seeing the road. "This is Neil and Andrew we're talking about, after all."

"Right." Matt sighed. A moment of silence passed between them before he regained his enthusiasm. "Still, it'd be cool if Andrew let him out of his clutches for a few minutes. I've never had a baby brother before."

Dan couldn't help but laugh. "You don't have a baby brother now."

"Actually, I kind of do. And he's adorable."

"Yeah, I got the impression you felt that way."

"Even if he is twitchy –"

"Totally twitchy."

"- he's adorable. You've got to admit. If I have babies, I want them to be just like him. He's so cute, and little, and…"

Dan laughed again, shaking her head. "Don't let Neil hear you say that. Or Nathaniel, I should say. Apparently he had a height complex as a kid."

"I wonder when that went away?" Matt pondered aloud. He pursed his lips, frowning at the road ahead. "Sucks that we have to call him Nathaniel, though."

Dan pulled a face. "I know. Talk about bringing back bad memories."

"Reckon we could convince him to use a nickname?"

"Convince Neil?" Dan raised an eyebrow. "You mean the stubbornest person in human history?"

Matt grinned. "True. But he's a baby, so I have the advantage."

"You only think you do. He'd steamroll you with a smile."

Matt's grin softened into the doting expression he'd worn for most of the previous afternoon. "Yeah." He sighed, and he didn't seem begrudging in the slightest.

They pulled into Abby's house, bumping up the curb behind Allison's Porsche, and piled onto the sidewalk to join Allison and Renee. There was no sign of Andrew's Maserati, but Dan didn't think that meant anything in particular; Nicky and Aaron still weren't allowed to drive it, and Andrew almost certainly hadn't left the house yet to retrieve it himself.

Matt, naturally, led the way at an almost-run, and he'd pressed the doorbell half a dozen times before Allison elbowed him gently to stop. Abby, expecting them, opened it in short order.

"Alright, calm down," she said, stepping aside to allow them all to pass her. "You'd think it was an emergency or something. My poor doorbell this morning."

"Nicky?" Renee guessed, and Abby nodded.

"Damn, they beat us." Allison clicked her tongue. With a huff, she strode past Abby, leading the way inside. "Nicky, did you sleep on the doorstep or something? I could have sworn we dropped you back to campus last night."

Dan followed in Allison's wake, slower than Matt's enthusiastic step but nonetheless hastily. Nicky's retort was lost beneath Matt's exclamation as soon as he stepped into the living room. "Hey, Nathaniel! How's it going, buddy? Did you sleep good?"

Neil – or Nathaniel, though Dan still couldn't bring herself to consider him as such – gave off a far different impression than he had the previous morning. Seated cross-legged in the middle of the floor, gaming controller in hand, he glanced over his shoulder at their entrance. Still wide-eyed, though likely more because his eyes were beautifully big in his little face, the tension of the previous day was practically gone.

That in itself was strange, Dan thought, studying him as he offered a small wisp of a smile for Matt. The whole situation must have been terrifying for a kid of six. No parents, no one he knew, no memory of any of them – which in itself was terribly saddening but Dan shunted the thought to the side as a secondary concern. Any other child would have been in tears, or demanding to know where their parents were, or clinging to the nearest adult who showed a lick of concern or kindness.

Neil wasn't any of that. He didn't cry, just as he never had as an adult, and didn't even look on the verge of it. He'd only once asked for his parents, for his mom, but it had been more of a tentative query than a desperate plea. And as for clinginess?

Neil had never been one for hugs, had tolerated them at best before he became a little more practiced at receiving them, but surely kids were different. They were, weren't they? Dan really didn't know anything about kids, but she was fairly sure of some things, and those things were the polar opposite of Neil.

It shouldn't surprise her, not when she really thought about it, she supposed it did. Dan had never considered the childhood years of her Foxes with any kind of scrutiny beyond acknowledging that they were, by and large, all kind of shit. It struck a chord, though, to see evidence of that shit in the flesh. No one should have to withstand whatever it was that made a kid so resilient, so self-reliant and wary. It shouldn't have happened to Neil.

Which was why it was surprising to see him in a state of relative ease, seated on the floor alongside Nicky and before Abby's television. The gaming controller was resting in his lap, all but forgotten as he turned towards their entrance. Or briefly towards them; he spared a long glance for Andrew, stretched along one of the couches, before reaffixing his attention to Matt. Permission? Assurance? Dan wasn't sure.

"Hello," Neil said. "Matt?"

Matt beamed as though all his Christmases had come at once with the simple act of Neil remembering his name. "Sure am. Glad to see you remembered me."

"You're disrupting our game," Nicky complained, throwing a missile of one of the couch-pillows he'd built into a nest at Matt.

"That's very gracious of you, to allow your TV to be monopolised," Dan said to Abby. "Did Nicky bring it over?"

Abby nodded. "Nicky, Aaron, and Katelyn arrived in Katelyn's car this morning."

"Ah. That explains it."

"Where's Aaron and Katelyn now?" Renee asked.

"They went off to get some breakfast together. Just the two of them." Abby shrugged. "Aaron looked like he needed a break. It's all been a bit overwhelming for him, I think."

Dan nodded. She didn't have to ask; Aaron seemed to have been struck particularly strongly yesterday. "Do you mind if I grab a bite myself?" Dan asked. "Matt practically dragged us all out this morning to get here early."

Abby smiled. "Why am I not surprised?"

Both of them glanced back towards the room, to where Matt had taken up a seat at on Neil's other side and was drawing Neil into conversation despite Nicky's protestations. For a moment, Dan couldn't help but watch; Matt dwarfed Neil even more than he usually did, but if anyone could give off the impression of a big, friendly giant it was Matt. Off the court, at least.

"Your boyfriend's whipped," Allison muttered in Dan's ear before striding into the living room and assuming one of the couches for herself. Renee followed after her.

After helping herself to the kitchen, Dan planted herself in the picnic-like arrangement that had been set up on the floor, folding herself into what was already a cluttered living room. "Where's Kevin?" she asked, taking a bite of her toastie.

Nicky, apparently forsaking his own controller when Matt successfully distracted Neil, turned towards her. "With Coach. He's still rattled."

"Still?"

"Hey, we can't all bounce back from shock so easily. He's the one who noticed first."

Dan shrugged. "So? Kevin needs to learn to get over things. He'll miss out on life if he doesn't take things in stride." She held out one of her toasties towards Matt.

Matt accepted it with barely a glance and word of thanks. "Still, doesn't mean you're not pretty good at it," he said, continuing whatever he'd been saying to Neil as he took a bite. "You've never played on a Playstation before?"

Neil shook his head. "Not allowed to," he said.

"Are you allowed to do anything fun at home?" Nicky asked with a sigh, flopping back onto his bed of pillows.

Neil pursed his lips and seemed to consider. With the little squiggle of a frown on his forehead, his cheeks rounded by childishness, and the utterly minute size of him, Dan could entirely understand where Matt was coming from when he gushed. Neil had always been a good-looking kid, even with his scars, but shrunken in age and stature he was practically cherubic.

Which made his following words sting even more.

"I'm not allowed to make a mess," he said, "so Mom says I'm only allowed to play at school."

From the corner of her eye, Dan saw Andrew twitch, and he wasn't the only one. Renee's face noticeably smoothed, her eyes shuttering briefly, while Nicky propped himself up on his elbows and Allison leant forwards in her seat. "Well, that's fucking depressing, isn't it?" she said.

Neil shrugged, plucking at the hem of his shirt. It was the right size, now; Wymack had taken a trip to the store the previous day when it became apparent that he made Neil more than a little uncomfortable. It was likely a good part of the reason he'd removed himself with Kevin in tow that day, too.

"I dunno," Neil said. "Not really. I don't really like playing with toys anyway."

Or so you tell yourself, Dan thought. She'd been there once, too – convincing herself that killing herself at work to support her family was actually what she wanted rather than what had been forced upon her. "Do you play any games at school, then?" she asked.

Neil shrugged again, glancing towards her. "Sometimes, I guess. I like playing soccer –"

"Soccer?" Nicky shook off his melancholy instantly, exchanging a widening grin with Matt. "No shit, really?"

Neil glanced over his shoulder. "I guess. It's fun, sometimes."

"Any other sports?"

"Like what?"

"Like –"

"Don't say it," Allison said, flapping a hand at Nicky. "This is incredible. If he's not obsessed yet… fuck me, that's weird."

Neil glanced between them, his gaze narrowed and shrewd. Far too old, in Dan's opinion, but at least it wasn't with wisened wariness this time. He was just… smart? Street savvy? Maybe a bit of both. Apparently, it had been a lifelong trait of his.

"What're you all talking about?" Neil asked. "Tell me."

"It's a secret," Matt said.

Neil's pout and frown embraced his cherubic impression once more. Dan could practically see Matt melting. "Secrets suck. And it's rude not to tell me, 'specially seeing as you guys all know what you're talking about. That's unfair."

"Why is it rude to keep secrets?" Renee asked.

"Because," was all Neil said, which was about the most child-like thing Dan had heard from him.

"Okay, you lot, don't be such asses," she said, stepping in despite herself and her friends' amusement. "It's nothing huge, Neil. We were just wondering if you'd ever heard of exy."

Neil snapped his gaze towards her, and for a moment his face became utterly blank. Dan wondered if she'd misspoken, if somehow, impossibly, there really had once been a Neil that hadn't been obsessed with exy. Then he frowned, and it was less cherubic and closer to flinty anger.

"My name's not Neil," he said. "Why do you keep calling me that?"

"Oh." Dan mentally kicked herself. "No reason, it's just…"

"Well, Nathaniel's a bit of a mouthful, isn't it?" Matt said, swooping into her awkwardness.

Neil switched his heated gaze towards him. Why it was such an issue, Dan didn't know, and she couldn't help but agree with Aaron in considering it more than a little ironic. How many names had Neil taken in his life? He'd mentioned it once; the number was ridiculous.

"So what?" Neil said, folding his skinny arms across his chest. "I don't like nicknames."

"You don't?" Nicky asked cautiously. "How come?"

"Because," Neil said, just as emphatically as before, though this time he continued with, "I just don't."

Dan would have been happy to leave it at that, but Nicky picked at the subject like he was itching a scab. Scooting across the floor closer to Neil, he cocked his head. "Has someone given you a nickname before or something? One you didn't like?"

Dan thought it might have been a bit of a leap, but Neil nodded immediately. "Yeah. Lola always calls me names. I hate it when she calls me Junior, and I especially hate it when she calls Little Nathan. I hate, hate it. That my dad's name, not mine."

Silence immediately smothered the room. Nicky jerked straight, Matt winced, and Allison cursed under her breath. Renee's sigh was filled with heavy regret, and even Andrew slowly sat up on his couch, the waves of tension rippling from him felt from across the room. Only Abby's fussing in the kitchen provided a muted disruption.

Dan felt her blood chill. Lola. They all knew that name far too well. And Nathan? To be called after his father… Nathaniel was one thing, and bad enough, but to wear the label of his brutal father's name directly, one given to him by one of his chief murderous subordinates…

Dan could sort of understand why Neil might not like nicknames. She found herself nodding. "Right. I guess that's understandable. I wouldn't want to be named after my mom or dad, either."

Neil's glance, still frowning, flickered with a hint of gratitude. "I hate it," he said again. "Even though I don't even like my stupid name in the first place."

"You don't?" Nicky asked tentatively.

Neil shook his head. Dropping his gaze to his lap, he fiddled with his bare toes, fingers threading between them. Dan unwittingly followed the line of his gaze and almost winced when she saw the pale stretch of a scar curling around his ankle. An old scar, aged yet apparent enough that anyone who looked closely would be able to make it out. What kind of a kid had a scar that old when he was only six?

Neil did. And Dan had known that. But she was struck in her earlier realisation in that moment; somehow, it made it all the more horrible to consider the past of her Foxes when it was on display for her rather than in the form of a depressing recitation.

"'Course," Neil muttered to Nicky's words. "Nathaniel has 'Nathan' in it. It sucks."

"Then," Dan began, caught herself, then ploughed on as Neil glanced up at her. "Then wouldn't having a nickname like Neil sort of be perfect?" She exchanged another glance with Matt before turning back to Neil. "It would, right? It's like your name but without the Nathan part. Right?"

Neil blinked. His frown cleared and he seemed to consider Dan's words as though he'd never contemplated such a possibility before.

"Well, sort of," Nicky said with a forced smile. "Neil is spelt a little different."

"Huh?" Neil said, glancing up at him.

"Shut the fuck up, Hemmick," Allison said. "You're making life unnecessarily difficult."

"Oi," Nicky said. "Just because you can't fucking spell Neil –"

"I'm not illiterate, asshole."

"Really? Could've fooled me –"

"What," Abby said, appearing in the doorway into the room, "is going on here?"

Heads turned, and Nicky echoed Neil's previous "huh?" almost to the pitch. Abby frowned at them, wiping damp hands on her jeans. "There's a small child in the room. Watch your language, would you?"

"I'm not small," Neil said, almost before Abby finished speaking, and Dan couldn't help but laugh.

"Hate to break it to you, Neil, but you kind of are," Matt said, grinning down at him.

Neil opened his mouth, caught himself, then frowned. "I'm not, actually. You're just stupid and tall."

"Hey! I'm not stupid."

"Stupidly tall, I think you meant," Allison offered, and Neil nodded.

"Yeah," he said. "That."

"I'm not!"

"Neil is literally as tall as one of your legs," Dan pointed out. "I'd say you're tall."

"Or he's just short," Matt said.

"I'm not that short." Neil pointed at Andrew. "He's hardly any bigger than me anyway."

Nicky burst into profuse laughter, Allison and Renee snickering openly and behind their hands respectively. "Oh, so true. Although, this is an opportunity for you, Andrew; this will be the one time you're actually taller than your boyf –"

He was cut off with an "oof" as Andrew, faster than Dan could see, flipped a shoe off his foot and lobbed it at him. Andrew didn't say a word, didn't appear otherwise fazed, but for once Dan was more than a little grateful for the unexpected violence.

"Nicky, don't say shit like that," she said. "It's kind of messed up."

"We agreed to leave things like that unspoken of," Abby added, overlooking Dan's cuss for the greater evil as she gave the pointed reminder of their admittedly awkward discussion about keeping 'certain things under wraps' the previous day.

"What?" Neil glanced between them all. "What're you talking about?"

"Grown up stuff," Matt said.

Neil pulled a face. "Like, gross stuff?"

Matt burst into his own laughter. "Sort of, I guess."

"Gross."

Dan couldn't help but smile as Matt laughed again, as Allison commented about "things not being so gross when you're actually an adult" and Renee's quiet chuckles. She settled back upon eating her toastie, and watched as the chilled mood rapidly retreated, as the dark shadow of words unspoken brightened just a little, and hastened it along with a mental shove.

Because it was settling. Somehow, if just a little. Matt drew Neil back into sports talk, caving into discussing exy as Dan knew he would. Nicky ruffled Neil's hair and Andrew didn't seem to object as he had the previous day. Abby shook her head and left them to their own devices with a final warning about using bad language, and Dan watched Neil with satisfaction.

She doubted she was the only one who'd noticed he hadn't protested to the use of 'Neil' anymore. It was a victory that didn't feel like it had any losers. For however long Neil's physical regression lasted – because it couldn't be permanent; fuck, it couldn't be – Dan would be happy if she could make even a flicker of his childhood just a little better. In some ways, if felt like she fixed a little of her own, too.

~|=|~

Propping a shoulder against the doorframe, David regarded the room. He couldn't help but shake his head. His team, his goddamn team, were crammed into the small space of Abby's living room like train commuters at peak hour. It didn't matter that Aaron wasn't present, or that Kevin stood at his side. The room wasn't big enough to fit them all comfortably.

Which didn't mean that any of them looked likely to leave. Given the centre point of the room, David would wager he'd have a hard time kicking any of them out that evening. And that centre point…

Neil had always been the damndest kid. It was only fitting, really, that an impossibility of supernatural proportions would happen to him. It had been a few months since the season was up; it was as though Neil was chaffing at the bit to cause a disruption. David thought he almost should have expected it. Not that it was Neil's fault, but…

As he watched, an outburst of laughter rose from the Foxes, hyena-like cackles and head shaking, Nicky clapping his hands in pseudo applause while Neil cast a glance around at them all. He wasn't laughing, but he didn't appear nearly as flighty as he'd been the evening before, or even that morning upon Nicky and Aaron's arrival. David supposed he had that to be thankful for. As a kid, Neil was apparently marginally more trusting.

"What?" the kid asked, glancing up at Matt, at Dan, then towards Andrew who was the only other person who wasn't doubled over with laughter. "What's wrong with that?"

"Nothing," Nicky managed to get out. "Nothing, it's just –"

"We wouldn't have expected it from you," Renee said between chuckles.

"Why?" the kid asked.

David had missed the question, had barely been listening but to know they were discussing exy – because of course they were – but he could join the dots himself. It really was comical, to consider a world where Neil wasn't ferociously committed to the sport.

"No reason," Matt said, ruffling a hand through Neil's curls. It said something that, while Neil tensed slightly, he didn't pull away. "Just unexpected from you."

"But why?"

"It just is," Allison said.

"Huh? That's not a proper answer."

Allison stuck her tongue out at him. "It is so."

"No, it isn't."

"It is if I say so."

"You're not allowed to just make up rules."

"Yes, I can. I'm older than you, so I say I can."

"But that's not fair!"

"No, kid, it's not. Life Lessons: One-Oh-One."

"Then – so then, you didn't go to school?"

The laughter paused at the kid's question, and Allison arched an eyebrow. "What makes you think that?"

The kid shrugged. "'Cause your teacher wouldn't let you. Is that why Nicky said you can't spell?"

A pause rose at Neil's words before it was broken once more by another outburst of laughter.

"He got you, Allison!" Nicky laughed, head tossing backward. "Oh, that's so perfect."

"Below the belt, Neil," Matt said, ruffling the kid's hair again. David thought Neil might have tensed a little less than even moments before.

He watched as they dove back into questions, into exy explanations of the most rudimentary kind that David couldn't blame Neil for eyeing Matt as though he were something of a fool. He watched as his Foxes rebounded from their surprise – if it could be considered something so minimal as a surprise – and grasped the situation by the reins, taking control once more.

From the corner of his eye, David watched Kevin inch into the room, dropping onto the other end of Andrew's couch and almost immediately sliding into the explanations. Of course he would; Kevin could never resist, even if he was still shaken.

As Dan explained over Matt's attempts. As Nicky picked apart their words and attempted to draw Neil into another discussion. As Renee said something to Allison, and Allison, as if in response, rose to her feet to take a seat on the floor alongside the other Foxes.

He watched, too, as Neil, peppering Kevin with questions – which was telling, that he could pick Kevin's nature so easily – climbed to his feet and took a position on the couch in between Kevin and Andrew. As Neil leant just a little against Andrew's arm, and Andrew –

Andrew didn't pull away. Not even slightly. If anything, David thought he might have leant against him in return. Had David not know about the anomaly that was Neil and Andrew's… whatever it was, he would have been more than a little disconcerted. It was disconcerting even without the kid thing.

"They're not as worried as I thought they'd be."

David glanced at Abby where she'd appeared at his side, leaning towards him slightly to murmur in his ear. He grunted. "I'd say they're still worried. They're clingy."

Abby smiled. "Can you blame them?"

"Not in the least. This is fucked up."

Abby hummed. "I've called Betsy. She's ringing around. We'll sort something out, David."

"I know," David said, even if he really didn't this time. "We always do."

Abby only hummed again, falling into the same, silent watchfulness David couldn't quite draw himself from. David kept his distance, kept his composure, but really? The truth of the matter?

Just one year. One year David would have liked nothing unthinkable to happen. Just for once, he longed for his Foxes to manage to play their season without any major hiccups – no deaths, no hospitalisation, no lawsuits. No strikers turning into fucking six-year-olds. But then, David supposed it wouldn't be the Foxes if at least something wasn't happening.

Except the six-year-old thing. That was definitely an exception.

Don't leave me to wrangle this team together without you, kid, David thought, eyeing the back of Neil's head. Even with Dan, we both know they need you.

~|=|~

A/N: Thank you to everyone who’s not only read chapter 1 but is keeping up with the fic! I can’t tell you how much I appreciate it :D As before, if you’d like to read/comment on my AO3 page, that would be wonderful! See you next time <3

[fanfic-scribbles]

Tie a Yellow Ribbon For Me

Fandom: Supernatural

Summary: Roses are red, Violets are blue, Even death can’t keep him From finding his way back to you.

Quick facts: Romance – [established] Gabriel/Reader – Nondescript Reader

Warnings: Angst-ish with a happy ending, many flashbacks handle it, use of ‘sugar’ as a term of endearment for a gender-neutral reader

Prompt: Written for @gabriel-monthly-challenge​’s February prompt: Spin the Wheel. I landed on “A Dozen Red Roses”. Tagging @archangelgabriellives, @archangel-with-a-shotgun , @archangelsanonymous, @ttttrickster, @warlockwriter, and @revwinchester.

Words: 2459

Special Context Note: For people who might not know: “Tie a Yellow Ribbon Round the Ole Oak Tree” was a popular song in the seventies (I think?) performed by Dawn feat. Tony Orlando (I do recommend it; it’s a good song). It’s told from the perspective of a man writing to his lover after having been away for a few years. He tells her that if she wants him still, she can tie a yellow ribbon around a certain tree and he’ll come home, but if he doesn’t see it, he’ll assume she doesn’t want him back and he’ll keep going and never bother her again.

A/N: That summary is a little more sinister than I intended. Sorry, no dark!Gabriel here. Or “The Crow” AU. (Though hm, that’s a possible idea.) This is kind of an alt S5 post-“Hammer of the Gods” where Gabriel doesn’t go to Loki et al. This is sort of similar in premise to some other stuff I’ve written so I apologize to the people who follow me. Ironically, despite the title, this story was actually written to repeat listening of “11 Minutes” by Halsey and Yungblud feat Travis Barker ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ Please enjoy! (PS: In case my formatting gets fucked up, flashbacks are encompassed by tildes (~).)

   You feel like you’ve gotten used to the silence.

Sure, you had periods of it before– spending 24/7 with a sometimes-manic archangel is a pre-requisite for madness– but those quiet moments without him had always felt like in-betweens. Small breaks, or minor reprieves, sometimes purposefully taken, and sometimes just waiting. Gabriel could have popped in at any moment.

Now he can’t.

You can say you’re mostly okay now. Mostly. You’ve lost before and you’ll lose again. It’s the nature of things, just being in the world as it is. Being a hunter in it means you’ll do it over and over and over again.

It doesn’t make it ache any less.

But you’re still going, because it’s what you’ve always done and it’s what you’ll always do. Right now you’re on your way to a small desert town that seems convinced it’s living out the movie “Tremors,” and going by the reports, you can see why. You feel a smile creep onto your lips. Gabriel would have found it funny.

~

“Have you been terrorizing a small city in Wisconsin in your spare time?” you ask and flick Gabriel with your big toe.

“Ooo, Wisconsin. Sounds like a party,” Gabriel says out loud, but the look he gives you asks, ‘Really?’ and he holds out a piece of whatever candy he’s focused on now. You trade him for the paper and take a bite while he skims the story.

He snorts and tosses it down. “Amateur. Credit for style though; there’s worse you could do than a Mel Brooks homage.”

You roll your eyes and finish swallowing. “I’m sure the three victims would agree with you, if they could.” You fold up the newspaper and set it aside from the massive stack of other regional papers that Gabriel had whined about, and yet gotten for you anyway. “I’ll head out tomorrow.”

“So you’re done working now?” Gabriel asks. He sits up and puts a piece of chocolate between his teeth, makes sure half of it is sticking out, and waggles his eyebrows.

You laugh and lean forward, bracing yourself with your hands as you stretch to meet his mouth with yours. Just as you’re about to gently bite on the chocolate, it vanishes, and Gabriel slips his tongue into your mouth instead.

Once you’ve had your fill of each other (for the moment) you can’t help how big you smile. “You’re so cheesy sometimes.”

He grins. “Sugar, you have no idea.”

~

You need a shower.

Badly.

You don’t feel the slime as much as you did when the constructs first exploded, but you don’t count that as a good thing, because it’s still there and you keep getting reminded of that whenever you shift. The day is dry and warm and a wind rushes across the desert landscape. When you step out of the car a strong gust blows past you and you shield your eyes until the air settles back to its steady pace. You get to your room and put your key in the lock when something catches your eye.

All down the sidewalk are cutouts in the concrete, just spaces of dirt that look like they’re supposed to be planters. Some of them have scattered cacti, but most are empty. Yours was empty, you're fairly certain, but now there’s a spindly long-stemmed something, being blown to the side and clinging to the dirt with nothing but tenacity. You kneel down to get a better look and–

it’s a rose.

Your breath catches in your throat. Not even a desert rose; a real, thorned rose, with petals that have obviously been sandblasted for a while and a thin stem that looks sickly.

But a rose is a rose is a rose is a rose.

~

There are flowers everywhere.

Gabriel really likes this place. He’s been here for a couple of months, and it shows; every day he’s seen you (almost every single day, as of late,) he’s given you flowers– a bouquet of twelve red roses. And, as you haven’t exactly had places to put them, he has graciously offered to ‘keep them somewhere safe.’

So of course there are dozens (of dozens) of roses scattered all around the room, still miraculously alive. Heavy emphasis on the miracle.

“You're the one who said I was cheesy,” Gabriel says and sits down, but puts his drink on the side table. Champagne, of course, and he’s even wearing a ridiculous red and black patterned robe. It’s a testament to how much you like him that you are not making fun of him right now.

But you can admit you do like the roses. The petals are soft and they smell nice. You look up from your bouquet to see Gabriel smiling at you. The softness of his expression throws you off and you hide the lower half of your face in the flowers. “Why always roses?”

“Oh, I don’t know.” His smile turns all trickster. “It’s just what they have at the grocery store.”

You hit him with the bouquet hard enough that he falls off the bed. Well, his mad laughter probably helped, but you’ll still take credit for it. Asshole.

~

Someday, sentiment is going to get you killed.

You pick the rose anyway.

The young couple currently having their first date is pretty cute. Now that you’re not annoyed by them blocking the door, you can appreciate the beginning a new relationship. And it’s going to be one; they’re both all soft smiles and longing glances and dumbstruck lovelorn expressions. One of them keeps fidgeting with their hands, and the other shifts an enormous bouquet from arm to arm. You note the roses, of course, but it’s made up of a lot of other flowers too. It’s very pretty– and must have cost a fortune. You smile. Explains the coffee date.

~

“You work too much.”

“You’re a needy guy, aren’t you?” you ask and glance up from the screen. “Five more minutes, Gabriel. Then I’m all yours.”

He huffs and flops onto the table, head in his arms and pouting and grumbling enough to draw attention. You roll your eyes and, while he’s distracted, kiss the crown of his head.

He stops grumbling. But the next time you take a sip of your drink it’s like shoving pure sugar down your throat and you choke.

His smile is almost as saccharine. “I just wanted to make it as sweet as you.”

You stare at him and calmly wipe your mouth. “Twenty minutes.”

He sputters in protest.

“I’ll knock it down to ten if you walk up to the counter, wait in line, and buy me a replacement. With money.”

He starts muttering again. But he gets up.

~

You look at your computer and think about actually trawling for hunts, but, well, your coffee cup is empty and who can be asked to work under such inhumane conditions? You hop off the stool and almost crunch a stray rose underfoot. It must have been dropped by the happy couple by the door. As you pick it up you wonder how you’re going to interject and give it back, but when you stand, they’re already gone.

You look back at the flower. It’s truly lovely; obviously well cared for (and not just shoved in a fridge at a grocery store, Gabriel). You smile at the thought of his indignance, and set the rose on the table. It would be a shame to let it get thrown out, so you’ll take care of it.

Even at the end of the world, there are still mundane monsters to kill. You’re leaving a very shaken family with one less poltergeist and a lifetime therapy to look forward to (at least they have a have a lifetime, now,) when the youngest daughter runs up to you and holds up a rose. “Here! This is for you.”

Though you thank her and take it, the mom echoes your concerns when she asks, “Honey where did you get that?”

“I found it,” the kid chirps, like that’s all you need to know.

It’s a real rose with almost no thorns and a yellow ribbon tied around the stem. That’s an odd thing to just find. But the house has settled and you figure you can burn this and stick around for a day or two, just in case. You thank the little girl again, bid goodbye to her sisters and parents, and as you go you start to tuck the flower away when you see a small embroidered symbol on the ribbon.

An Enochian symbol.

  As you speed away, you barely resist the urge to chuck that fucking flower out the window. You want to. But at the same time, you can’t bring yourself to do it.

Fucking asshole.

~

“I need to understand!”

Gabriel shoves you up against the wall. Not hard enough to hurt, but it does stun you– for a second. His grip is too light and his expression too conflicted for him to convince you what a ‘monster’ he is. “You’re not that kind of person,” you say and stare him down. “So why do you want me to think you are?”

Gabriel jerks, but you grab onto his jacket and yank him back in. “What are you so afraid of, Gabriel?” you whisper. “I’m the one thing in the universe you don’t have to fear.”

Gabriel leans in, close enough to kiss. Your eyes shut on instinct. Or maybe it’s Pavlovian.

“You're the one thing in the universe I have to fear the most.”

Air brushes past your lips, the pressure of his body releases, and you open your eyes to empty space.

~

He had come back within a day, as soon as you had asked, and said ‘I’m sorry’ in every conceivable way without ever saying it with his mouth. (Well, verbally, that is.) At the time, you figured it was fine.

And maybe it was. Now that you’ve had a few days to freak out, get your hopes up and down and all around, you feel a little calmer. You have the roses set aside and the ribbon spread out on the bed while you sit with your Enochian dictionary. Gabriel wouldn’t lead you along willy-nilly. You have faith (just a little) that this means something.

And if this does turn out to be some “Drink your Ovaltine” bullshit you are going to find out how to travel back in time so you can murder him with your own two hands.

It takes a while, but you find the word, and then use a few other dictionaries and translation sites to get it into English. You check it five times, in different ways, and then sit, chest swelling with hope that you’re not sure you can handle.

‘Healing.’

You want to believe, but a rough translation boiled down to its essential part can’t make you Mulder. You put the books away and lean back against the headboard, just trying to process, when something ‘thump!’s against your door. You grab your gun and stay alert as you check the outside area, but as far as you can see, there’s no one.

But there are three roses, piled neatly just in front of the door. You smile. Because really– you’re skeptical, but you’re not stupid. You pick them up and put the flowers to your face while you mind the thorns. You’re pretty good at that by now.

“Okay,” you say and nuzzle the petals. “I’ll wait.”

You find five more roses over the next couple of weeks in utterly random places. On your pillow. In a sewer. In your water glass after you turn away for a second. In the basket you grab at a grocery store. On your passenger seat. That last one makes you ache.

That night, when you open your book and find eight perfectly placed rose petals, you almost cry. Twelve roses. It’s always been a dozen, so that means he’s coming back, right? He doesn’t appear right away, but you go to bed hopeful.

Except he’s not there in the morning.

Or the afternoon.

Or the evening. Or…

It’s late on the third day of waiting and hope is fading fast. You hit your forehead on your steering wheel and whisper, “Where are you?” Did you misread things? Was this set up in advance? Did he mean for you to heal? Was someone messing with–

Your radio comes on without any prompting and you jolt up. You’re so busy trying to look for danger that you don’t recognize the song at first.

“–nt me, if you still want me Whoa tie a yellow ribbon round the ole oak tree…”

You blink. You stop being afraid. And start being annoyed. “Are you fucking serious?”

But the song plays on, and the volume even gets jacked up. “A SIMPLE YELLOW RIBBON’S WHAT I NEED TO SET ME FREE–”

“Okay!” You turn the radio off and sit in silence for a few moments before you burst into tears and laughter both. “Fuck; you’re such an asshole,” you say, with wet eyes and a smile full of teeth.

You consider trying to track down a bonsai or some plastic palm tree, but you’ve waited long enough. Still, when you get back to your room you go through all the motions of getting ready to go to sleep. Once you’re actually sitting on the bed, you put the yellow ribbon to your wrist and manage to tie a messy bow.

You lie down, exhausted by days of constant, immense stress, and sigh. As you drift off to sleep you think, ‘I’m ready, Gabriel.

Come home.’

It happens without fanfare. You simply wake to an arm around your stomach, and a morning still dark.

“Hey,” you say, sleep-addled.

Gabriel chuckles. “Hey.”

You’ve never heard anything so beautiful, even as rough as his voice is. “You sound tired.”

“Yeah.” Gabriel presses closer to you. “Almost getting murdered by your own brother is pretty exhausting.”

“Hm.” That’s a conversation for later. Or never, depending on how stubborn Gabriel wants to be. Either way, not now. Not when you’ve got him back. You turn over and wrap yourself around him. “It’s okay,” you say. “Go to sleep. I’ve got you.”

He gives you a wry smile, but whatever snarky way you expect him to say ‘I don’t sleep’ doesn’t happen. He shuts his eyes, and you hold tight. “I’m glad you came back,” you say. “Even if I don’t have a hundred ribbons.”

He shifts with quiet laughter. “That’s all right.” He holds your wrist and places a kiss that straddles the ribbon and your skin. “I only need the one.”

[indigoire]

It Read-through Chapter Three: “Six Phone Calls”

God. One hundred pages into IT and I only just got done with chapter three. This book can and will kill me. 

Warning for racism, suicide, blood, gore, abuse, assault, misogyny, and Bill Denbrough’s shitty opinions.

Intro Chapters One and Two

Silly me thought, oh, twenty-four chapters, one thousand one hundred and thirty-eight pages, that’s about fifty pages per chapter, I can crank that out no problem. I was reading full novels over the course of a day when I was in school. Easy peasy. 

Real whoppers like this chapter have me doubting myself. I’ll probably have days where I’ll break the chapter in half just so I’m not reading for three straight hours like I was tonight. 

Anyways, on to the chapter itself. It’s really more like six chapters crammed into one, all introducing us to an individual Loser with the exception of Mike. 

Let me sum up my reaction to these intros with my own tweet, having just finished Bev’s introduction:

And like, I’ve seen the movies, I’ve read the fanworks, I know a lot of the lore. I even read past chapter three as a kid, I remember Bill’s intro so clearly now. I feel like I have my own form of amnesia, but the shitty memories I’m uncovering are of reading this book. So believe me when I say I knew going in that the Losers would be an amalgamation of mommy and daddy issues or just plain issues, anti-Semitism, misogyny, repression, trauma, long-buried PTSD, abuse…like, there’s a reason they’re Losers. 

But King feels like he needs to beat us over the head with this information. 

For example, let’s start with Stanley. Good old Stanley. Hey, did you know Stan was Jewish??? A simple mention wouldn’t be enough though, let’s throw every anti-Semitic word at the wall, but it’s okay because it’s from the viewpoint of a Jewish character, his wife. The Jewish wife can call herself a kike all day long, why not, let’s just go ahead and do that. 

Like. Come on Stephen. My notes say “at SOME point this just feels fuckin’ racist, dude.” 

Stan himself is lovely. We get to see him from Patty’s point of view (and, point of order, I just realized that all of the Losers are introduced from the viewpoint of another character, with the exception of Richie and Eddie), and Stan is a level-headed, smart, steady man. He seems to be “preternaturally confident” about his life choices, whether that’s choosing where Patty should apply to for work or starting his own accounting firm, and he always seems to find success. 

Stan also finds out about Bill and his books, but before the telephone call from Mike, before the Derry memories are supposed to rush in. Stan is reading Bill’s new book when he gets the call in fact. 

He also makes an oblique reference to the Turtle around Patty, “the Turtle couldn’t help us”, and then seems to shake it off without going into it with her. 

So. Either Stan remembered more than he let on, or something happened that made him aware. More aware than the rest of the Losers. Like, the Losers all seem to find wild success, supernatural success really, but to them it all seems to happen suddenly, at random. Not so with Stan. When Patty and Stan try to have children but can’t conceive, Stan says he knows the problem lies with him, he just doesn’t know why exactly. He then goes on to say that he’s in the eye of some storm, the calm between something terrible in his past and something terrible in his future. 

Of course we soon learn what terrible something is lurking in Stan’s future. One evening he gets a call from Mike Hanlon, telling him to come back to Derry. Stan answers the call, responds to Mike’s questions, then tells Patty he’s going to take a bath. She ends up watching TV a little too long, then realizes something is Off. She finds him locked in the bathroom with slit wrists and the word IT written in his own blood on the wall. 

The neighbors call the cops she screams so loud. 

We then move from Stan to Richie, whose name I have never been more happy to see in my whole life. Finally, finally, one of my favorite characters. Richie answers Mike’s phone call with nary a hiccup. He puts on a Voice to answer, not something silly but a sort of adult “everything’s going to be okay” Voice. He then arranges things with his travel agent and somewhere along the way he has to go back to his normal voice. “Now he had to go back to being himself, and that was hard–it got harder to do that every year.” Richie is building walls around parts of himself with his Voices, avoiding the real him. 

He does a couple of voices for the travel agent, she laughs hysterically, and he arranges his trip to Derry, and calls out of work. After it’s all taken care of, the memories start to rush back, the people, and he thinks of Georgie, with his arm ripped off, and then and only then does Richie vomit. He makes it to the toilet at least, but he empties himself entirely. He then removes his contacts. 

A rather short intro, but to me a nice reprieve. 

Ben’s intro is a lot better than I remember it being. I think I conflated it with his intro in the miniseries, where he brings home a girl and tells her about him being fat before they have sex. Here, not a whisper of that. There’s actually a bit where a woman asks Ben’s local bartender if Mister Hanscom is gay. “Mister Hanscom ain’t no sissy.” Cool. Thanks, Stephen. 

Basically, Ben haunts this one tiny bar in Nebraska in this tiny podunk “town”, where he gets to know the bartender, a Ricky Lee, very well over the years. He comes every Friday and Saturday night, no matter where he is. When he’s working on the BBC Communications Tower in London he still flies back home every Saturday to get his drinks. He never takes anyone home from the bar and he consistently tips well. The bartender enjoys his company. 

The night of the phone call, we see Ben head into the bar and there’s a terrible desolation hung over him. He tells Ricky there’s been bad news from home, and Ricky is sympathetic. He goes into some of the memories, of Bowers carving the H into his stomach, and shows Ricky the scar. He then orders a STEIN of whiskey, which Ricky, somewhat foolishly, gives to him, on the house. 

Ben then, mentioning an anecdote about the natives in Peru, snorts straight lemon juice and then downs the whiskey like beer. He then gives Ricky Lee three pure silver dollars that his father gave to him before he died. He makes mention of a fourth one that he gave to Bill…and a mysterious reference that Bill or Bev somehow used that silver dollar to save his life at some point. Meanwhile, Ricky is horrified. He keeps thinking of a bar patron that once hung himself after coming to the bar, and how Ben has the same look about him. He’s suddenly struck that Ben is dead, a dead man walking. 

But Ben walks out of the bar all the same, drives off, even while the waitress scolds Ricky for letting Ben drive, saying “he’ll kill himself”. And Ricky, who had thought the same thing not five minutes before says no he won’t. 

It’s a common through-line, the Losers being dead men (and woman) walking, everyone comments how scared they seem to be, how overwhelmed by fear, with the exception of Richie, who has no one with him, but Richie notes that he’s a dead man walking all the same. 

We move on to Eddie. In my notebook I wrote “EDDIE!!!” and immediately felt a renewed zeal to read. 

Eddie is introduced not by physical description but by what we find in his medicine cabinet. I couldn’t tell you the purpose of half of the items listed, a lot of them no longer exist, and as much as I’ve been busting out google for this book I wasn’t keen on looking up an entire pharmacy. I did note that one, there’s a lot of products for, as the book puts it, “moving the mail” (I wrote down “get the feeling Eds gets constipated a lot, needs more fiber in his diet”), and then I noted that Eddie also has some serious painkillers, along with some uppers and serious downers. You know a book was written in the eighties when “Quaaludes” gets name-dropped. 

I also wrote “Eddie is balding :C”, just so you know where my priorities lie. 

Of course we wouldn’t be able to talk about Eddie without mentioning Myra. Right after Eddie basically empties his medicine cabinet into his bag, Myra comes thundering up the stairs. Oh yeah, chalk down some good ol’ fatphobia from King. Literally every shitty character is fat in this book. 

Myra gets a bit of an interjection, though Eddie remains the central viewpoint for most of the chapter, and in her interjection she notes that she somewhat wants to trap Eddie (in the closet, jesus, very subtle) until “this madness had passed”. 

Eddie presses Myra into taking over for him in his driving business, and she hasn’t driven in years so she’s terrified, all while half trapped in his memories. He remembers his mom laying into his gym teacher for making Eddie take Phys. Ed. with asthma, but the teacher notes there’s nothing physically wrong with him. All the same, Eddie goes for his aspirator, takes a deep puff of it. 

He reflects that he knows how fucked up his marriage is, he knows he married his mother. Before he’d taken the plunge he’d placed a photo of Myra on the mantle next to his mother. He noted then that the two of them could be sisters. But he’d been weak and fallen into old habits. The jabs he could take, the jokes about Jack Sprat from his coworkers, but he really does seem ashamed of himself for taking the easier path, the one familiar to him. 

He truly cares for Myra if nothing else. He doesn’t want to hurt her in any way. Even semi-harsh words make him feel guilty and remorseful. He contemplates telling her everything, but it would only make her anxiety and distress worse. 

Also, two things of note: Eddie mentions that Myra “was really very sweet and had had even less experience with men than he’d had with women.” 👀 This and his pet-name for her, that makes her giggle to hear it, is “Marty.” I feel like this is far more telling of Eddie than the “marrying his mother” thing. He has affection for this woman, to be sure, but far more because she is safe, she doesn’t know much about men, she reminds him of familiar routines, she keeps him medicated and stable. He affectionately calls her a man’s name. 

And she? She wants to lock him in a closet to keep him safe and docile to her. 

As he leaves he briefly sees her transform (only for him, only mentally) into someone older, his mother back from the grave, “old and fat and crazy”, and a memory of his mother terrifying him in a shoe shop comes to mind. He shakes it off and asks her for a kiss, while saying to himself “if we were in water she’d drown us both.”

And then he flees to his taxi, on his way to the station and Derry. 

The next introduction is terrible. It made me so mad to read, I remember it disgusting me when I was kid, but it just infuriates me now. 

King’s only female protagonist, the only female in the Losers Club, Bev Marsh, is a walking punching bag. 

This part is told from the viewpoint of Tom Rogan, Bev’s husband, and he talks about how he got her under his thumb, how he could sense her vulnerability. And one, it reads like how every man assumes female abuse victims work, secretly wanting the abuse and having the choice to leave at any time but unable to, and two, it is some highly toxic misogynistic shit. And obviously it’s told from the viewpoint of a highly misogynistic character, an abuser through and through (who, by the way, is also fat, so there’s that fatphobia popping up again). 

But Tom knows that in times of extreme stress Bev is able to find her inner strength and push through. She becomes manic to do what she needs to do, and in those times Tom knows that his abuse wouldn’t be able to touch her. 

I filled up a quarter of a page with the words “FUCK TOM >:C” just so you know where my head was at as I read about him “teaching Bev a lesson” and beating her until she “learned”. He even knows that when he beats her she regresses back to being a child. A *gag* sexy child at that. His disgusting words, not mine. 

Of course Tom has parental issues of his own, of course! Match made in heaven. His mom beat him with a belt and he intends to do the same to Bev, put her in her place, give her a “whuppin’” as it’s phrased in the book. But Bev isn’t having any of that tonight. As Tom attempts to beat her for smoking and packing and daring to defy him, she fights back. She throws glass bottles at him and, as he gets more crazed, eventually tips the vanity on him. That isn’t even close to enough to keep him down though, so she snags the belt and whips him, first across the face, and then across the balls. Then and only then does he go down. 

She flees, shoeless and penniless into the night, and laughs once she realizes she’s out and probably out for good. My notes read “Tom can and will rot in hell.” 

Then my notes segue smoothly into “oh boy it’s Bill :|” and honestly, that could be the mood for the whole segment on Bill. 

Bill…Bill is so obviously Stephen King. Any time there’s a writer in a Stephen King novel you can bet that the writer is a stand-in for Stephen King. This is why it was amusing to me to have his cameo in It: Chapter Two roast Bill, his self-insert. I also should note that in the last chapter Adrian is noted to have been working on a long-languishing novel, and being in Derry inspired him, and just reading that made me groan. Not because I have anything against writers, lord knows, but because I know King included that detail to tie Adrian to himself and to Bill. I know it will come up later. I know King has to make every character him before he can empathize with them. 

Anyways, Bill gets the call from Mike all the way in England, where he’s staying in a cottage with his wife Audra. Beautiful, statuesque, red-haired Audra. “Why can’t you be the woman I want you to be” indeed. Not a line Bill says in the book by the way. At least not yet. 

Audra wants to know why Bill is shaking and why he pours himself a stiff drink before breakfast, so Bill begins filling her in on the details. And as he does we’re treated to memories of Bill in college, in his creative writing class. 

Now. Here is where I begin to lose patience with Bill and with King. King is clearly writing from experience. I know he had issues with his own college creative writing class. 

Basically, the class is pretentious, concerned with inserting political opinions into everything they write, going on about how war is sold by sexist capitalists and so on and you can just TELL that King is projecting hard. Bill’s works, fun sci-fi stories and mysteries, are given fairly low scores by the professor.

Then one day in class, during a period when another student is talking about her work, filled to the brim with socio-political commentary, Bill stands up and basically says that he doesn’t get what they’re talking about and “can’t you guys just let a story be a story?”

Which like, dude, okay, I get it on some level, this shit sounds pretentious as hell. But it’s COLLEGE. If you can’t get a chance to be pretentious in college then when else can you be? Also, you know for a fact that King is twisting this story to make himself look favorable, because it is clearly a story from his own past. So obviously the students have to be talking about buzzwords that have no meaning, instead of, oh I don’t know, expressing their political beliefs? Everything has politics in it dude! Even your shitty ass story reflects the political landscape of America in the eighties for fuck’s sake!! It, the novel, would not be what it is if it weren’t mired in politics. It has a lot to say about race, gender, and class, and if the message is muddled and directionless it’s only because the author, Mister King, didn’t put any thought into what he was trying to say, but rather wrote a story that was meant to shock. 

Anyways, Bill says the story thing, and it’s just the sort of malarky you would expect to see on the front page of r/braincels, with the top comment being “and then everyone clapped” because it is ridiculous. The teacher reprimands Bill, and Bill slinks out of class.

But OH BOY, Bill shows him! Because he writes his first horror story shortly after, and the story damn near pours out of him, and he brings it to class. The professor gives it an F and calls it pure pulp. 

Bill sells it for two hundred bucks to a shitty magazine, drops the class, and with the drop out note, well. I’ll let King take over here:

“Bill Denbrough staples the drop card to the assistant fiction editor’s congratulatory note and tacks both to the bulletin board on the creative-writing instructor’s door. In the corner of the bulletin board he sees an anti-war cartoon. And suddenly, as if moving of its own accord, his fingers pluck his pen from his breast pocket and across the cartoon he writes this: If fiction and politics ever really do become interchangeable, I’m going to kill myself, because I won’t know what else to do. You see, politics always change. Stories never do.”

“Bill Denbrough,” my notes read, “kill yourself.” 

The rest of the section continues with Bill falling into the lap of success with his stories, meeting Audra while working on a screen adaptation of his novel, the shoot going unnaturally well according to Audra, and his following years of success. He slowly fills Audra in on the blanks. His brother’s murder. His scars, from the Losers’ vow, which have suddenly reappeared on his hand after the phone call. How Stan was the one that cut their hands, before turning the glass on himself. How Stan at first mimes slashing his wrists, as a supposed goof, but Bill almost stops him all the same. 

He then realizes he can’t tell Audra everything about what went down in Derry, but makes her promise not to come with him, to stay away from Derry. His stutter, which has slowly crept back in over the course of the conversation, scares her into promising

““And when do I see you again?” she asked softly. He put an arm around her and held her tightly, but he never answered her question.”

With that, thus ends chapter three. 

This chapter took it out of me. It was all so familiar and yet all so new and horrible at the same time. I honestly can’t say I’m having a good time, but I’m certainly interested in what I’m reading. It’s like reading about a parasitic wasp, what it does to the host. It’s gruesome and disgusting, but you keep reading because you want to see the end result. But the fun’s only just beginning.

Catch you all tomorrow, bye for now. 

[your-iron-lung]

No Shade in the Shadow of the Cross 3

AKA ‘Trouble Comes Knocking’; also readable on AO3

my exwife was supposed to beta this for me but shes taking too long and i am an impatient person so im posting it early lol

Story Synopsis:  Some weird low-key occult parties start popping up that Steve can’t in good conscience ignore and takes it upon himself to investigate. Billy gets caught up in the consequences of his meddling, and isn’t it funny? For all the strange things the Upside Down has thrown his way, it’s werewolves that Steve has trouble accepting exist.

Chapter Word Count: 3511

Pairings: Eventual Billy Hargrove/Steve Harrington

Genre: Supernatural/Drama/Horror-ish

Previous Chapters: 1, 2, 

Next Chapter: 4

Home and tucked into his bed with no memory of how he got there, Steve dreamt of queer things he didn’t understand. Blurry, dark images swarmed his subconscious like a great, malevolent storm bearing down on him too quickly for him to escape. His dreams had him running through the woods, avoiding the shadowed areas between the trees where huge, narrow maws erupted from the blackness, showing off fangs that were long and drawn into needle points, eager to draw blood.  

The dreams plagued him for a week, replacing the threat that came with the usual monsters he’d come to be familiar with in his sleep. He’d faced the things with teeth-lined flower bulbs for heads and survived, but now whatever it was that was hunting him down in his thoughts was unknown, and the fear of that unknown was what woke him up every night that week, leaving him a trembling, sweat-soaked wreck who couldn’t comprehend the level of terror he was feeling.

There was, at least, some sort of reprieve from the torment his psyche was undergoing. On the days he went to school, Billy avoided him vehemently, not even trying to go out of his way to talk shit or start a fight. In fact, it seemed that he was actually going out of his way to avoid him now.

Whatever had happened at the party had turned him off from Steve Harrington for the time being, and for that at least Steve was thankful. Something good had come from that miserable night, and if he were lucky, maybe it would last a lifetime. Billy probably assumed he was crazy (and wasn’t that the prime example of the pot calling the kettle black?) after witnessing his episode, and maybe he was, but every time he thought about it his hand began to throb painfully, as though it really had been injured. There were still no marks, though; not a single indicator of any kind that his hand had been harmed in any way.

It made no sense, and he didn’t know what to do about that.

Who did he have to talk to that would believe him if he opened up about what he’d seen that night by the fire? Or of the thing that he’d seen skulking about in the woods like some sort of horrible, jittering animatronic that someone had let loose to terrorize him? Would anyone even believe him if he did say anything? Billy certainly hadn’t, and he’d been a first-hand witness.

He groaned into his hands, letting his head fall forward onto the steering wheel of his car where he sat in the parking lot, too lethargic to leave the school yet. Those stupid weekend parties were supposed to have been an escape, but now he found that they had become the primary source of his stress.

Earlier in the day, Steve had found another one of those mysterious notes slipped into his locker. On it was another map and address, and he’d had half a mind to rip it up then and there before he’d flipped it over out of bitter curiosity.

There, instead of the ‘+0’ that had usually been marked on the card, was a ‘+1’ instead. The change was the only reason he hadn’t torn it to pieces.

“What is happening to me,” he whined, dragging his fingers down his face, pulling at the baggy, discoloured skin beneath his eyes. “What the hell does any of this mean?!” he cried out to no one.

He’d have to track down whoever it was that was leaving the invitations in his locker to get any kind of information. Someone from school was leaving them for him, even if that person wasn’t showing up at the parties, which raised the question of ‘why’ again. Why wasn’t whoever was inviting him going? Why was it just Billy and Steve that were invited, and no one else from their school? Why, why, why?

There were no answers, and no way for him to get any.

Groaning with frustration, he sat up straight in his seat, letting his hands fall away from his face. He stared out of the windshield with a blank expression on his face when he caught sight of Billy walking towards his Camaro across the parking lot. Looking at him made him frown.

Maybe… what if it was Billy leaving him the notes? Could all this shit be some sort of elaborate long-term prank he’d concocted just to fuck with Steve on a psychological level?

As if Billy could sense that Steve was thinking about him, he paused mid-stride and turned to face him. They made eye contact briefly, and in that moment Steve knew Billy couldn’t possibly be behind it all. It was far too elaborate for someone as brash as he was, and his reaction upon seeing Steve freak out hadn’t been one of victory, but was rather one of apprehension. If Billy had been the mastermind behind it all, he would have gotten what he’d wanted and celebrated that, but he hadn’t. It was beyond Steve and Billy both; the other boy had just been coming along for the free drinks.

Caught up in his thoughts, Steve hadn’t realized Billy was walking towards him until he knocked on the window, rapping his knuckles sharply against the glass.

He jumped in his seat at the noise, turning his wide, brown eyes up to Billy who had a deep frown locked on his face. Pointing with his finger, he gestured for Steve to roll down the window.

“What do you want?” Steve asked as he cracked the window, doing his best to sound annoyed despite how tired he felt.

“What do you think?” Billy retorted smartly, rolling his eyes. He glanced around the parking lot to see if anyone was looking their way before he leaned down low, resting an arm along the frame of Steve’s car to speak quietly. “I didn’t get another invite, did you?”

“You didn’t?”

The surprise Steve felt must have been blatantly plastered across his face, for Billy’s lips twitched into a grimace when he spoke.

“No.”

Steve sat still for a moment, studying the passive look of muted anger on Billy’s face before he thought he ought to show him the note. He pulled his school bag that had been in his passenger seat over into his lap and began digging through it, looking for the invitation. His fingers brushed past his notebooks, pens, and other loose items before they finally felt the stiff cardstock the note had been made of.

As he pulled it out, Billy’s frown deepened.

“Why the fuck did you get reinvited?” Scowling fiercely, he stood up and took out his pack of cigarettes, placing one between his snarling teeth. “I bet it was that faggot on the guitar. Told whoever’s running that shit show not to bring me back.”

“Whoa, language, man,” Steve said disapprovingly.

Billy narrowed his eyes as he lit his cigarette, running his tongue along his teeth before leaning back down. “Let me see it.”

Something about the borderline manic look that Billy held in his eye made Steve hesitate, fingering the card in his hands uncertainly. He wanted to roll up the window and keep the invitation to himself, even if he had no interest in attending, and he definitely didn’t want Billy going in his stead.

All the same, he gave the card over when Billy reached in for it.

A dark look overtook Billy’s face as he studied the card, mouth moving as he silently read and memorized the address. Steve watched him quietly as Billy flipped it over, and saw the look of confusion that spread into his eyes when he saw what was printed there.

“The fuck is this?” he asked, holding up the back of the card that read ‘+1’ so that Steve could see it.

“I don’t know,” Steve replied honestly. “All the others I got had ‘+0’ on the back.”

Billy flipped the invitation back around so he could read it again. A look of concentration overtook the anger that he usually held there briefly as he contemplated its meaning.

“It kinda looks like the shit Susan sent out when she married my dad; mailed out their wedding invitations with how many guests the person invited could bring,” he explained, turning the card over in his hands contemplatively. “Like, y’know, their plus one or something.”

“Huh.” Steve hummed, realizing that that actually made some sense. It was kind of obvious, now that he thought about it.

“Congratulations Harrington, you get the honor of taking me to the party with you,” Billy said then, flicking the card back at him through the opening in the window.

“So, what, you’re like my date now?” Steve snorted, chuckling a bit, amused at the notion. He grabbed the card from where it had settled on his dashboard. “Why Billy, if you wanted me to take you out, all you had to do was ask.”

The fear he’d felt throughout the week in his dreams was trying to resurface in his stomach at the thought of attending another one of the forest gatherings, despite how nonchalant he was acting. He swallowed it back and tried to ignore it as it crept its way throughout his body, circulating through his bloodstream in a steady, repeating current.

Billy sneered at him as he spoke. “Yeah, I bet you would like that, wouldn’t you, Harrington?”

“Well, tough, because I’m not going,” Steve said, dropping the humor in his voice and averting his gaze. He shoved the card back into the deep dredges of his book bag and slung it back into the passenger seat forcefully, as though it were prone to attacking him.  

“What, you have one bad trip and that’s it? You’re done?” Billy scoffed and put a hand on his hip, staring down at him with a taunting grin. He blew out a stream of smoke that mixed in with the wind and blew away almost instantly. “Thought ‘King Steve’ was supposed to have been a real party animal; not the one and done kinda guy.”

“But these aren’t normal parties!” he blurted out, banging his fists into the steering wheel in frustration. He barely missed hitting the horn. “There’s something wrong about them!”

“The only thing wrong about them was how you freaked out over nothing,” Billy drawled, looking around the parking lot again to make sure no one was paying attention to them as Steve raised his voice. For some reason, the fact that Billy was concerned about who might have been watching them pissed Steve off. “Whatever you think attacked you was all in that fucked up, pretty little head of yours.”

Steve groaned and let his head fall back against the headrest of his seat. There he let it roll towards Billy so he could fix him with an even glare. “There is something bigger going on out there. How else would you explain all the secrecy? Nobody else knows anything about them.”

A group of girls walked by them, greeting Billy energetically as they passed. He turned away briefly to entertain them with a smile, and when he redirected his attention back to Steve he found that he had turned away to stare angrily out his windshield. He looked tired, with deep, purple bags drooping under his eyes. Whether Billy believed him or not, it was obvious that whatever Steve thought he’d seen at the party last week was affecting him terribly.

“Fine, say there is something weird going on at those shitty little hick cult parties,” Billy relented, recapturing Steve’s attention. “Only one way to be sure of that, Princess, and I think you know what that means.”

Steve moaned and shut his eyes. “Why are you so desperate to go? Do you seriously have nothing better to do? Something a little more your speed, maybe?”

Billy didn’t answer him; merely stared him down with a hard, steely gaze that made Steve sigh and look away.

“Alright, fine. If it’ll prove that something shady’s going on out there, then fuck it, fine,” Steve said, gesturing about with his hands as he spoke. “I’ll take you out if that’s what you want, Hargrove, since you seem so desperate to go.”

“Great.” Billy’s face lost its hardness as he broke out into a grin and slapped his hand down onto the roof of the BMW loudly, ignoring the implication behind Steve’s words. “Don’t be late, Harrington, and get some sleep; lookin’ a little rough around the edges there, pretty boy.”

He walked away before Steve could say anything else, hips swaying as he made his way over to his Camaro where his sister was waiting for him.

It was snowing freely on the night of the party, coming down in a mild torrent that likely would have closed the roads had they not already been salted in advance. He drove slowly on the backroads, navigating through streets he’d never been to before in a part of town that looked largely uninhabited. The few houses that he saw didn’t have any lights on, and the road was, for the most part, as dark as the forests he’d been dreaming of. The natural light from the full moon coupled with his headlights were all he had to work with as he rode on.  

His windshield wipers thunked back and forth rapidly, deflecting the falling snow faster than it could settle. He made sure to keep the BMW traveling well under the speed limit, keeping a careful eye on the road as he traveled. In the back of his mind, he wondered if Billy had ever driven in the snow before. There was no way in hell he’d make it if he drove the way he usually did.

Maybe that would be for the best, though, Steve thought. No more Billy, no more parties, no more problems.

A strong gust of wind blew past, rattling his car. The BMW swerved a bit before he strengthened his grip over the wheel, righting his car in its lane. The back country roads had been salted this time at least as opposed to the last time he’d ridden them, but they were still slick enough that one wrong move could have him sliding off if he wasn’t careful. He dropped his speed a little bit more and was driving past a cow pasture when he first smelled something strange.

Initially, he wrote it off as some byproduct of cold cow shit, but as he sniffed the air creeping in through his air vents, he realized he hadn’t smelled anything quite like it before. It was entirely unpleasant, and reminded him of the time his mother had gotten sick with the flu and his dad had made him care for her. The stuffiness of her bedroom that she’d been holed up in for a few days coupled with her illness had been staggering, and was similar to what he was smelling now.

Coming in with the warm air, it smelled of stale beer and sickness; a combination that had him wrinkling his nose in disgust. He sped back up, trying to get through whatever fetid cow pasture he’d been driving by as quickly as he could possibly manage in an effort to escape it.

As he rounded a curve the smell dissipated somewhat, easing the slight bout of nausea it had caused when he’d initially smelled it. He relaxed his shoulders, unaware that they’d been tensed at all when the reek came back in a strong, sudden wave.

Steve gagged and almost swerved off the road, holding one of his arms up to breath through the sleeves of his shirt. It smelled so strong of sickness and rot that Steve thought the whole field of cows must have died or something. It was revolting, and he almost began dry heaving as the road curved and he came across something lying in the road.

A large, black shape was lying horizontally across the pavement, blocking nearly both lanes of traffic. He hadn’t been going fast enough to hit it, but he’d come close to doing so as he slowed the car to a stop, confusion furrowing his brow as he stared at the blockage. The falling snow made it difficult to see what it was clearly, but it looked too thin for it to have been a fallen tree.

It almost laid flat against the road, and if it hadn’t been for the light dusting of snow coating it, illustrating it as a 3D object, Steve would have been certain that it was a shadow.

A shadow like in his dreams.

Panic built up within him as quickly as a balloon filled with water, and threatened to burst just as immediately. He sat there with his headlights trained on the shape, breathing heavily out of his mouth when the sudden urge to bolt out of his car and run away overtook him. The last time he’d been this scared had been when he’d first encountered the Demogorgon, and for whatever reason as he sat there trembling, he was reminded of how it had almost killed the three of them when it burst into their world.

One hand was on his seatbelt, fumbling to get it undone before he could even think about what he was doing, the other on the door handle, ready to rip it open when he was freed of his restraint. He wanted to get to the bat in his trunk more than anything else in that moment.

His eyes never left whatever was lying there in front of him, and the longer he stared at it he realized it was a beast of some sort; too large to be a dog, but still canine-like in form. About the size of the Demogorgon, honestly, but bigger. It could have been a bear, if not for the weird proportions of its limbs.

Steve finally got the seatbelt undone and was about to run from the car when he finally caught himself in a moment of clarity.

‘What the hell are you doing, Harrington?’ Surprisingly, his voice of reason came in the form of Billy. It was unexpected, but for some reason Steve found it grounding to hear Billy’s stern voice rumble over the panicked thoughts currently running rampant in his head. ‘Gonna just ditch your rich bitch car and run out into the freezing woods like some sort of moron? Get real.’

“Get real,” he repeated, calming down a bit. He placed his hands back on the steering wheel and stared at the thing lying in the road, wondering if there was enough space for him to drive around it without getting stuck in the snow. It wasn’t moving, after all; maybe it had been hit by a car and was dead.

While it blocked the entirety of the road on his side, it only spread out about halfway into the lane of oncoming traffic. If his tires didn’t get stuck in the snow lining the shoulder, he should be able to get around it without issue. His panic, though subdued now, still threatened to become unmanageable as he put his foot gingerly on the gas, easing his car forward slowly and turning to navigate around whatever the hell was just lying there.

His heart was beating so loudly he could hear it thundering in his ears as he inched the car forward, snow piling down in a hard flurry around him. He was having a hard time breathing as he got closer and closer, his car now entirely in the left lane and almost even with the creature when it spasmed. Steve felt his heart seize up as the shadowy beast jerked spasmodically, raising its head so that it was staring in at him through the passenger window.

He heard himself start to whine, a high-pitched, desperate noise of terror as he stared back into the beast’s beady red eyes and he was sure, so, so sure that it was going to kill him if he didn’t move. He slammed on the gas as it lurched again, trying to come to a stand as Steve’s tires squealed uselessly on the slick pavement and the snowy ground before they finally caught traction and shot him forward.

The smell alone had been enough to make him sick, but his stomach began convulsing when he looked dead into the thing’s eyes. He almost threw up into his lap as he drove away, not daring to look back at what he’d seen to see if it was following him. He couldn’t control the way his whole body was shaking when he realized that he’d seen those eyes before.

The monster in the road had been the very same thing he’d seen that first night in the woods two weeks ago, and he knew now without a doubt that it was following him. That, or the parties were leading him to it, and he didn’t like the implications either way.

hi henlo it me, duke

i just wanted to say that the uh bit with the thing lying in the road was based on something that actually happened irl to my sister about two years ago. she was driving back to uni down in sc on some weird back roads late at night and she came across somethin lyin in the road like this

'It scared the hell out of me. I literally was so scared, i had never seen anything like it. It was big. Very big. It was like the size of a bear. But i knew it wasn't a bear. It was laying halfway into the left lane from the side of the road. It resembled a dog, or a large wolf. But the thing that really struck me was its bright glowing red eyes. That were looking straight ahead, so as i drove by, it looked right at me I didn't stop. and i didn't slow down. I kept going. But i was so scared. I have NEVER seen anything like that before. I almost thought i was imagining things, but those eyes stood out to me so much i knew that i saw something I have never seen it again since.'

she thinks it was somethin called a plat eye? dunno! but i asked her if i could use her spooky story in my spooky story and she said yeah lol

[mittensmorgul]

Until I Know This Sure Uncertainty, I'll Entertain The Offered Fallacy

Nothing had gone right all day. Dean had let the witch slip through his fingers, and he'd had to leave Sam and Cas behind to finish her off while he slogged off to her secret lair to get rid of the source of her powers. It was literal garbage duty, but it still had to be done. It didn't make it any easier to know that Sam and Cas were in her line of fire while Dean was relatively safe (if appalled by the state of her housekeeping). So of course if something else could go wrong for Dean, it would.

Why was it always witches?

Rating: T Words: ~12.7k Relationship: Castiel/Dean Winchester Tags: Humor, Fluff, Body Swap, Witch Curses, Case Fic, Comedy of Errors, The Scheherazade of Supernatural, yes i'm giving my own stupid meta tags to fanfic now

AO3

They’d split up more than an hour ago. It’s not like they’d really had a better option. The routine hunt had gone sideways the second Sam had opened his big mouth and called it a routine hunt. It’s like they were cursed from the minute they’d left the bunker three days ago.

“Fucking witches,” Dean growled to himself under his breath as he swung his flashlight around the ramshackle one room cabin this particular witch had been holing up in when she wasn’t living in her ritzy townhouse downtown.

Smart witches kept their disgusting rituals separate from their respectable day-to-day lives, and this was nothing if not a smart witch. She kept a successful plastic surgery practice going, after all, with her patients none the wiser that most of her beauty treatments were provided courtesy of dark magic rather than medical skill. That’s witches for you; beauty on the outside, but rotten to the core underneath.

Dean had already tossed the townhouse, and the only useful thing he’d found was the map that had led him to her secret hideaway in the woods. He took a moment to cringe at how someone used to living in that classy place could stand to set foot into this squalid dump.

“Fucking witches.”

The single cramped room was stacked with books, papers, clothing, and ugh. Dean didn’t want to know if some of the stuff he’d found in the mess was supposed to be spell ingredients or ancient dinner leftovers. As far as he was concerned, the entire place qualified as a biohazard.

“Fuck this,” he said, kicking a pile of what he hoped was moldy laundry off a grimy mattress in the corner of the room. A rat and a small army of bugs fled as Dean dismantled their current home. “Five more minutes and I’m just gonna salt and burn the whole place.”

Dean shuddered in disgust and reached down to flip over the dingy mattress. He was spared from having to touch it just yet when his phone rang. One glance down to see it was Sam calling to pester him again, and his momentary reprieve was shattered. He rolled his eyes even though there wasn’t anyone there to see him and answered the call, letting all his frustration and disgust pour down the line.

“What is it now? I told you I’d call as soon as I fucking found it. You know this place is a shithole, right? It’s not like she kept the damned thing under glass with a neon sign announcing this is my grimoire hovering over it, right?”

“Oh, um…” a gruff and gravelly voice replied.

Dean felt like kicking himself, because that was not Sammy he’d just torn into. Sam would’ve called him a dick, stated his business, and everything would’ve been fine. This was definitely not going to be fine.

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