#THOSE GODDAMN LIPS DANA

[marrowfrog00]

Less Perfect [s.h.]

summary: Fem reader has it out with her imperfect, adulterous cad of a man Steve Harrington - but there is always more than meets the eye, no?

cw: 18+ mdni; implied/allusions to smut but no actual smut takes place, discussions of cheating, angst, toxic partner dynamics, arguing, name-calling, mentions of shitty parents, trauma, role-play, aftercare, anxiety, jealousy, hurt/comfort, use of perjorative "skank", use of petnames (sarcastic & sincere), home-grown therapy, kinda, very dialogue heavy, kitchen sink drama, fluff disguised as angst, really it's so fuckin' soft, lmk if I missed anything

wc: 2.7k

A/N: I honestly don't know what this is, my brain just burped her out and she's weird as shit. Please be nice, she's just a baby (and I'm just a three-legged orange cat with an internet connection). Reiterating that this is very dialogue heavy so if that's not your thing, carry on your merry way.

The metal tips of your stilettos clacked against the lacquered floors of the hallway as you speed walked, passing expensive wall-to-wall oil paintings and accent tables topped with vases full of immaculate flowers.

Alabaster sprays of hydrangeas (white, always white, so as not to clash with the surroundings) and dahlias mocked you from crystal vases as you stomped angrily toward the main bedroom, Steve hot on your tail.

"Don't walk away from me, pumpkin," he spat from behind you.

You guffawed as you stormed into the bedroom, making to slam the heavy mahogany door in his face. Steve was quick, though. An ex-athlete, afterall. He stopped the door with his hand and sneered, yes, sneered at you.

"Piss off, darling," you barked, turning your back to him.

You clopped heavily to the vanity and removed your earrings, chucking them carelessly onto the table. You opened the drawer and pawed through the contents looking for makeup wipes, plonking down onto the plush upholstered stool.

Steve glared at you and you could swear you heard his teeth grinding from where you sat. Commit, commit. Where the hell were those fucking wipes?

"You're goddamn unbelievable, you know that?"

"Me?" you shot back , voice laced with disbelief.

Steve cocked his hip and put his hand there. "Yeah, you. Ya see anyone else in this room?" he asked, gesturing around the swank sleeping quarters. Impeccable color story, not a speck of dust to be found in the place.

You stood from the stool, slowly, like a big cat ready to strike down her prey. Your gaze was mean and piercing as you stalked forward on high-heeled feet. You watched Steve take half a step back, mentally high-fiving yourself. This was good, this was forward motion.

Your voice dripped with rancorous sarcasm when you replied, "Well, gee, I dunno, darling. You could have been speaking to whichever one of your office skanks has your dick mesmerized this week."

Steve dropped his hand to his side, straightening his spine.

You pursed your lips and rolled your eyes to the ceiling, pretending to conjure a name. "Dana? Diane? Kimberly? Kathy?"

"Come off it," Steve gritted out, fists balling at his sides. His eyes, those gorgeous, unreal russet eyes that had captured your heart once upon a time narrowed on you. "You can act like a crazy bitch in public or in my fucking house. Pick one."

You couldn't help but laugh at him, shaking your head incredulously.

"You're not even going to deny it this time?" you asked, crossing your arms. "You used to give me the false courtesy of sparing my feelings, but I guess I've run out of favors from you."

You watched Steve's shoulders locked up as his face twitched ever so slightly. His eyes glazed over a little, like he'd gone somewhere else. Shit. Reset.

You swallowed harshly and busied yourself, smoothing the front of your dress as you kept one eye on his face, waiting.

Steve shook his head quickly like he was shaking off his very thoughts as he swaggered closer to you, invading your space and looking down his nose. Down at your face. Your pretty, soft face.

He remembered the first time he ever got a look at you up close, your eyes looked sparkly and he'd had the insane urge to bite your cheek. Right now, your eyes were dull with uncertainty and your biteable cheeks were slack under your frown.

He felt his heart kick up as he choked out his next words. "You wanna talk about favors, huh?" He cleared his throat, willing his voice to come out thicker, with more bravado. "Let's talk about how you like to act like everything you do for me is a favor. How every fuck, every blow job, every time you stoop so low as to look my way anymore is a favor as far as your concerned."

Adrenaline started washing over your body as you fought to stay in the moment. You could see the regret in his eyes and you wondered if you were careening toward scorched earth territory. You futzed with your shaking hands, unable to decide what to do with them before you crammed them under your armpits to still them.

You glanced at Steve's chest, clocking his quickened breathing. You could see how upset he was, feeling the intensity radiating off him where he stood just inches away. It was time to change course, to shock him out of the frenzy he was working himself into.

You glanced at the enormous four poster bed, festooned with a silky cream duvet and rich red throw pillows when an idea struck you. You looked back up at him, pinned under his expectant gaze. He was grinding his teeth.

"Did you fuck them in our bed?"

Steve was taken aback. He glanced between you and that stupid, giant bed - a varitable chasm, a luxurious, oversized token of a failed union. He was struck dumb, scarcely comprehending the question.

"Huh?"

To say you had gone off-script would be an understatement. Not that there was a script as such, but the story beats tended to be locked in everytime.

You took a deep breath and squared your shoulders, a renewed sense of purpose taking you over. "Your office skanks. The ones you've been generously donating your dick to. Did you fuck them in our bed?" you asked again, enunciating your words.

Steve blinked at you with wide eyes. "The hell kinda question is that, pumpkin?"

You softened your gaze on him and grazed his perfect jaw with your finger before stalking over to the bed. Steve watched as you gripped one of the bed posts and placed a hand on your hip. You looked like a showroom model, drawing his attention to where you stood.

Steve felt the gnawing in his stomach that had been building subside a little as he took you in. You looked so classy, so pretty, so sexy in that satin dress, in those black stockings. Your hair, which had been styled to perfection for tonight had gone a little flat, a tiny bit of mascara flaking under one eye.

He liked you best like this. The veneer of flawlessness cracked just enough to let him in. A little less perfect.

Your gaze was still soft and open and he gestured for you to continue. Satisfied, you lifted your chin and flexed your jaw.

"Did you fuck them in our bed, darling? I deserve to know."

You sat primly on the tufted bench at the foot of the bed, legs crossed, hands planted on either side of you.

Steve gulped, feeling the ice returning to his veins but he knew he needed to press on. This was the sweet spot. He ignored the noodly feeling in his legs, strutting over to where you sat and plopped down next to you.

He looked in your eyes. "Yes."

"All of them?" you asked softly.

Steve couldn't stop the tears building as he forced himself to keep looking at you, a spectral sense of shame that he had never picked up but that he nevertheless carried searing his neck and cheeks.

"Just Dana. Er, Diane? A-and, Kimberly," he stuttered.

You couldn't help yourself then, giving his pinky finger a little tickle with your own and you felt your own tears building. Seeing him cry always got to you a little, but you were getting better about it. You kept your face steely as you quickly wiped them away and you sniffed.

"Did they let you fuck them in the ass?"

"Everytime."

"And that's why you did it? To get back at me because I wouldn't let you have my ass?"

"Partly," he whispered back, thickly.

You blinked back more tears and cleared your throat. "What's the other part?"

Steve flinched as he propped his elbows on his knees, fixing his eyes on the ground. He gripped his hair meanly between his fingers. His voice was thick and strained with emotion, but the words flowed easily then.

"The other part is that I'm a shallow, hollow, status-obsessed creep that cares more about pretty, shiny new things...and more about my empty family legacy than I do about my family."

You kept your hands in your lap even though you ached to reach out and touch him, to pull him back to you. Instead, you sniffled softly so as not to disturb the man beside you as he continued.

"Even when I'm home, I'm somewhere else. I should have stayed alone since that's clearly what I wanted all along. Spendy liquor and cheap lays."

You pressed your nails into your palm, worried about how still he was, still itching to touch him. You didn't. You listened to his voice become thinner, straining through stifled sobs.

"But instead I found you and snatched you away from whatever life you could have had instead. I married you and broke you and put your pieces in a little box. And you just took it and I think part of me hates you for that. And I punish you for it. I punish everyone for it."

He sobbed then, shoulders slumping. You bit your lip and tapped your foot, jonesing to touch him.

Steve scrubbed his tears away and violently inhaled the snot back into his sinuses. He watched the pointy toe of your heel tap tap tap on the ground.

The dam had broken again after how many times of this and he was wrung out. Done. There was a finality to this, he felt. Like this might have pushed him over that finish line that he'd been seeking for so long.

"Fuck..babe..fu-pomegranate," he whimpered.

"Pomegranate?" you repeated back in a tiny voice.

"Pomegranate."

You stood abruptly and walked between his spread thighs. His eyes were pinched shut as he tried to call back the tears that left angry, red rivulets down his cheeks.

You gently raked your fingers through his hair, straightening it gently, lovingly. "Can you look at me, baby?"

He sniffled again and shook his head abruptly. "In a minute. S'too much right now. But hold me, please, honey?"

You pulled him into you, cradling his head to your chest and stroking his back while he clung to your waist. After a moment you pressed your mouth to the crown of his head.

"Let's breathe now."

"M'okay," he said in a little voice, clearly not wanting to loosen his grip on you.

"No, love. Remember? We said," you chastised gently. "It's important. Just a few."

You led him through a handful of deep breaths, never ceasing your loving hold on him, peppering your counting with praise for him.

Slowly, Steve stood and hooked his arms around yours pinning them to your sides. You pushed your hands into back pockets of his slacks as he finally looked at you. You propped your chin on his chest and gazed back, a soft smile making it's way on both your faces.

"Hi," he whispered down at you.

"Hi," you returned. "We good?"

In spite of how exhausted he was, he wore a grin of what almost looked like elation as he nodded at you. The life had returned to his eyes, red though they were.

"Thank you, honey," he breathed gratefully as he rocked you.

You kissed his chest. "You don't need to thank me."

He tilted your chin up to meet your eyes again. "No, I really, really do. I feel kind of greedy sometimes. Asking you for this."

You cocked your head at him and shook your head lightly, willing him to understand how serious you were when you told him, "It's for us, love. I'd rather do this with you then have you carry all this with you for years and then-"

You didn't care to finish that thought. You didn't like to think about what you'd once worried would happen. That you and this man, the love of your life, would have to sit on a festering boil of his pain until it exploded one day, tossing you so far away from one another that you would never make it back into each other's arms.

Maybe from the outside these little exercises would have appeared weird or fucked up. But when Steve had confided his fears in Robin and she suggested role-play after watching an episode of Donahue, he thought screw it. He'd rather try that than do nothing and watch you slip away from him. Plus he knew that you wouldn't make him feel bad for asking. And wouldn't you know it, you heartily agreed.

You adored him for his sincerity, for being so vulnerable in asking you. You'd started out very mild, very slow. Sitting through tense dinner scenarios at first. Then graduating to little arguments in the car. Always structured, always negotiated beforehand.

When Steve's parents asked him to housesit while they jetted off again, he brought this idea to you. The pièce de résistance. Acting out a big blowout, an opera of hurt feelings inside the very walls where all his worst fears had spawned.

And it appeared now that your joint commitment (and the risk you'd taken going off-script and escalating the storyline) had paid off. The relief was palpable for you both.

Steve glanced around the room and made a noise of disgust. "Let's get out of here, honey."

You took his hand and you two started strolling leisurely toward the exit. You swung your linked hands, Steve passively taking in the features and layout of the house one more time for posterity.

You were both beyond ready to return to the little two-bedroom apartment you both shared with Robin on the other side of town. Sometimes it was drafty, it was always a little cramped, it was entirely furnished with second-hand stuff, mismatched tchotchkes and relics from three mismatched childhoods. There was a yellow stain in the shape of Rhode Island over the fridge. Oh, and the shower faucet handle was broken off, so you had to use a wrench to turn it on. You two couldn't wait to get back there.

"How mad do you think Moth is gonna be that we've been gone for three days?" you asked, pressing your nose into Steve's bicep as he locked the front door to Harrington Penitentiary. He glanced down at the key in his hand and chucked it carelessly into a flower bed.

Steve snickered at your question, grasping your hand again as you walked to the car. He opened the passenger door for you, lovingly protecting your head with one hand as you ducked into your seat.

"I think we should prepare for the possibility that he's officially Robin's cat now and we've been demoted to godparent status."

You grinned and giggled through closed lips, your cheeks full and glowing with the force of it. Steve couldn't help himself. He ducked down and delighted in the shriek you let out when he gave your cheek a little love bite before tucking your legs in and shutting your door for you.

When he was in the driver's seat, he paused, key at the ignition. You rolled your head against the headrest to look at him.

"Know what I wanna do when we get home?" he mused, looking up to meet your eye.

Your eyes sparkled at him, a placid smile on your pretty mouth, which he returned. "Hm?"

"I wanna get you out of that dress and eat you out. Those shoes stay on for that part," he said, eyes flicking to your feet. He reached over and caressed your face with his thumb as you softened into his touch. "Then I wanna hold you real close and make love." He brushed some flaky mascara away from your eye. "After that I'll put you in that goofy, giant shirt you love sleeping in..."

You rolled your eyes but smiled. "It's not goofy," you muttered in faux-offense.

Steve grinned wryly. "It's got a picture of a cactus with sunglasses and a cowboy hat and I'm pretty sure you completely disappeared inside of it one night." You giggled again.

Steve's face smile softened. "And then we'll go to sleep. And, in like a year, I wanna ask you to marry me - properly, I mean- and I want you to say yes."

Your eyes didn't leave his as you grabbed his hand and pressed sweet kisses into each of his knuckles.

"Yes, baby. Yes to all of it."

"Good."

"Good."

You swapped rounds of deep kisses and whispered I love you's before Steve drove you home.

[a-vctlan]

i didn’t think you had it in you -- dire situations meme ( for dana!! ) -- @mk19s

Even without Alex warning her, she could tell the hide-out was a bust. It started with commotions in the streets, grew into sightings of Blackwatch circling in, new equipment in tow -- they were clearly trying to pin something - someone down. And she'd again get caught in the crossfire, a direct accomplice to her brother's attempts at staying back the infection.

Why couldn't they see they were on the same side?!

( She knew the answer: they started it in the first place. If they didn't stop it themselves, proof of it might leak out. )

Dana had a choice - she could sit and wait and hope Alex could figure something out in the next fifteen minutes… or she tried to make a run for it herself, and as fifteen turned to ten while she hastily packed a bag, she made her decision.

Too bad it was too late by a wide margin -- she sees their foreboding uniforms at the end of the block when she exited the building, and their immediate alertness meant they definitely saw her.

She still tried to make a run for it, Dana'd planned out little routes in her head in the awkward stretches of silence at night when sleep wouldn't come, trying to soothe well-earned paranoia. And for a moment, she'd like to believe she lost them properly but…

They had eyes everywhere, and those dammed drones kept track of her location, helicopters flying overhead -- her heart hammered in her chest, and she round the next corner… only to run straight into a man bearing that same uniform. A curse left her lips in tandem with her stomach dropping, dread settling nicely into her limbs.

Shit. Fuck. Goddamn it.

"What do you want!?"

She wasn't getting out of this… but the least she could do was make it difficult.

[sisterspooky1013]

Only One Choice, Chapter 2

Read it here on AO3 / Tagging @today-in-fic

The Hoover building is still quiet at 8 am, weary agents are sipping their second cup of coffee and wrapping their brains around the task of the day. Studying the minds of murderers, rapists and sadistic torturers is enough to spoil anyone’s breakfast, and yet they approach it clinically, objectively. The reward of knowing that you helped take a monster off the streets is barely enough to keep them going, but they do. Maybe even more than that, they live with the guilt of knowing that if they stopped, it might mean one more murdered child or assaulted woman. One more man found floating in the river. So they get up every day and do it again.

Mulder stops by A.D. Kirkbride’s office to say good morning and finds the man angrily shoving the phone back on its cradle with a plasticky crack.

“Morning, sir. Going great so far I gather?” he quips from his spot in the doorframe.

A.D. Kirkbride scoffs, running a hand through his short cropped sandy-blonde hair. Diminutive in stature, Kirkbride is someone to be taken seriously. His pointed features and gold-rimmed glasses convey the gravity of the work they do here each day in his ever-present frown.

“These goddamn worthless couriers are on my last fucking nerve,” he laments, gathering the papers on his desk into one pile with jerky, frustrated movements. “This is the third goddamn time one of them has no-showed. We need that autopsy report from Quantico today, and because this worthless fucking courier decided to get the flu or something, we have to send an agent down there to get it.” He sighs and sits back in his chair, removing his glasses and rubbing the bridge of his nose. “Can you send Agent Wilkes in here, please, so I can let him know he has to waste two fucking hours of his day driving down there?”

Mulder shrugs. “I can go get it, I haven’t even started on the Marino file yet. It’s a nice day for a drive.”

Kirkbride eyes him skeptically. “You’re a senior agent, Mulder. You’ve earned the right not to be the bitch-boy.”

Mulder laughs good-naturedly. “I appreciate that, sir, but I really don’t mind. I just got the new Radiohead cassette, it’ll give me a chance to listen to it.”

Kirkbride nods and puts his glasses back on. “I guess it’s Wilkes’ lucky day, then. It’s the autopsy report for the Dugan file, you should be able to get it from the pathologist on duty. And don’t fuck around, we need it ASAP.”

Mulder puts a hand to his chest and makes a mock-wounded face. “Me? Fuck around? I would never, sir.”

Kirkbride shakes his head with a smirk and turns back to his computer. “Get the fuck out of here, Mulder.”

It’s a beautiful late-Spring day and Mulder really does appreciate the opportunity to take a drive to Quantico, even during the morning rush hour. Removing his suit jacket and loosening his tie, he pops in the cassette and merges onto I-395 South as Thom Yorke sings Paranoid Android.

Ninety minutes later, he’s parked near the morgue; having worked out of Quantico for years before securing a spot on the small team of criminal behavioral analysts who operate out of the Hoover building, he knows his way around. He first pokes his head into the office the pathologists share and, finding it empty, he moves on to the autopsy bay. The slabs are all clean and free from corpses, which is a relief. As many crime scene photos as he’s seen, the live version always gives him the creeps. A young woman in blue scrubs is perched on a stool with her back to him, filling out a form by hand. He approaches her, speaking when he’s still several feet away so he doesn’t startle her.

“Excuse me, I’m looking for the pathologist on duty,” he says, and she swivels on her seat, her shoulder length auburn hair swinging gently with the motion.

When she turns to face him, he’s momentarily struck by how pretty she is. Her red hair is complemented by ivory skin, a light dusting of freckles across the bridge of her Grecian nose. Her eyes are a brilliant shade of blue, not unlike the morning sky he’d enjoyed on his drive down.

“I’m the pathologist on duty, how can I help you, Mr.-” she looks at him expectantly.

“Mulder, Agent Mulder,” he replies, stepping forward to offer his hand.

“How can I help you, Agent Mulder?” she asks, taking his hand with a firm, confident grip, though her palm is dwarfed by his own broad paw.

“I’ve been tasked with picking up the Dugan autopsy report. Seems like there was a snafu with the courier,” he offers, stuffing his hands in his pockets in an attempt to act casual.

She stands, and he’s again struck, but this time by how short she is, barely reaching his shoulder in her sneakers. “That’s an odd task for an agent, isn’t it?” she says as she moves to a small filing cabinet and rifles through its contents.

He moves to stand beside her, leaning against the wall. “I suppose so, but I don’t mind. Nice to take a break from profiling sociopaths now and then.” He feels his heart do a little leap at the small smile that quirks at the corner of her mouth in response. “I’m sorry, I didn’t get your name,” he continues.

She turns to him, holding out a file. “I didn’t give it,” she says dryly. “It’s Dana Scully. I did this autopsy myself, actually, and I’d be interested to know what you make of it.”

He opens the file and leafs through its contents as she returns to her post on the stool, picking up her pen. She appears to see this conversation as concluded, but he doesn’t feel ready for it to end just yet.

“Ah, yes, I’ve heard a bit about this case, though it’s not one I’m assigned to. What interests you about it?” he asks as he follows her back to where she’s sat down, taking the stool beside her without invitation. She quirks an eyebrow at him, but doesn’t say anything about it.

“My findings indicate that though there is only one entry point for the stab wound, there were at least 15 distinct entries into that same location, which would suggest that the assailant stabbed him in nearly the exact same location repeatedly. I suppose I’m wondering what would possess someone to do that.”

He watches her speak with rapt attention, transfixed by the soft, sibilant S’s that pour from her pouty mouth.

“Hey Scully, do you know of any good coffee places around here?” he asks hopefully, completely changing the subject.

She gives him a curiously incredulous look. “Scully is my last name, my first name is Dana,” she answers.

He studies her for a moment, then shakes his head slowly. “You don’t look like a Dana,” he finally says.

Her eyebrows lift and he can see that she’s fighting back a smile. “Really? What do I look like then?”

“A Scully,” he says plainly, and his heart fills to bursting at the wry smile he gets in response.

She shakes her head and turns back to the form she was filling out. “There’s a place called Cafe Adamo a few minutes away that’s pretty good,” she answers his question.

“Great, are you free now?” he asks, forcing a calm demeanor even as his palms are becoming clammy.

She snaps her head up from the form to look at him with an open-mouthed expression of surprise, and he sees a bit of panic in her eyes. Not a good sign.

“Oh,” she stammers, “I’m sorry, Agent Mulder, I have a boyfriend.” Her cheeks are reddening in a devastatingly cute way.

He keeps his expression neutral, and can’t resist messing with her a little.

“I just meant as colleagues, Scully, to discuss the file,” he says matter-of-factly.

If she was blushing before, she’s morphing into a tomato now. She closes her eyes briefly and takes a breath. “I-I am so sorry, Agent Mulder, that was very presumptuous.”

He smiles broadly, no longer able to contain how much fun he’s having with this exchange.

“I’m just messing with you, Scully. I was definitely asking you out,” he admits, and her eyes go big before she deflates a little with relief, biting her lip and looking away with a soft smile on her mouth. “Thank you for this,” he says, holding up the file. “I’ll get out of your hair.”

He stands and moves to the door, stopping just before he exits. “Say hi to that boyfriend of yours for me,” he adds, “he’s a lucky guy.”

She blushes again and he takes a moment to soak up the image before he returns to his car. Tossing the file onto the passenger seat, he flips the cassette to side B and hits the road back up to Washington, finding that he can’t seem to get his mouth to stop smiling.

————————————————————————-

She slumps through the door at half-past six, dead on her feet.

“Hey,” Ethan calls from in front of the stove, “dinner will be about twenty minutes, if you want to take a shower.”

He knows that she always likes to shower when she’s performed autopsies, not wanting the stink of the morgue to find its way onto any of their furniture.

“Thank you,” she replies, toeing off her shoes and stopping by to give him a quick kiss before she moves to the bathroom.

The hot spray of the shower is a welcome relief and she emerges feeling much more alert. They sit at the table, sharing the details of their days over shrimp scampi and white wine. They tend to be very thorough in their retelling of their workdays, and Ethan gives a play by play of a meeting with his boss before Dana tells him all about a student who challenged her in front of the class and how she shut him down. She doesn’t intentionally leave out the interaction with Agent Mulder, but it doesn’t come up somehow.

After dinner, they curl up on the couch to watch ER together. Ethan is on his back with his head propped up on the arm of the couch, and Dana fits herself into the vee of his legs, her back resting on his chest. He idly traces his fingers across her collarbone and shoulders while they watch George Clooney and Julianna Margulies grapple with being both coworkers and lovers.

This is their favorite show, and yet her mind continues to wander to those hooded green eyes, and the boyish smile that played across his pouty lower lip. He was very cute, that’s without question, but she interacts with handsome men all the time at work; why is this particular one worming his way into her brain? She shakes her head to clear the thought, then rotates her body so that she’s belly to belly with Ethan, her head resting on his chest. He kisses the crown of her head and she sighs. She’s got a good thing here, that much she knows.

Maybe she should have gotten coffee with him, though, as colleagues. Maybe.

[areweunderscoreweare]

The Last of Us 2 Fic: Family Tree

Wrote this running off of ten straight hours of slamming fics for a game I've never played, two months of non stop college exams finally ending, an anxiety attack on the plane home and the ten minute old realization that my tonsils are fucked again. This is definitely the most life ever, very tasteful.

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Title: Family Tree

Summary: Ellie just can't get over Dina' stretch marks.

AO3 Link: https://archiveofourown.org/works/40588005

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For the fourth time tonight, Ellie’s on top, with Dina’s legs on either side of her. Not that Dina’s really complaining. 

Dina knows that nowadays, Ellie fucks frantically, kisses hungrily, hugs Dina till her ribs are just this side of painful. It makes Dina happy in some sad way, to know that Ellie suffered too, that Ellie starved without Dina too. But she doesn’t let herself go beyond that, because right now she doesn’t always know how to handle Ellie’s imperfections without being cruel. 

There’s so much anger inside her sometimes. They’re more brutal and vulnerable in some ways, still hurting from those hellish six months, but nowadays they get somewhere good most days.

Like right now. 

Ellie flicks open the button’s to the flannel, her own, that Dina has on. They’re comfortable enough as is, but they’re worth it just for the greed and possessiveness in Ellie’s eyes when she sees Dina in them.

Ellie moves quickly, biting and sucking on Dina’s breasts. She slowly makes her way down, kissing down her ribs on her left side. Then she pauses at Dina’s belly button. 

Dina sighs exasperatedly. Ellie always does this. Dina doesn't understand why.

“Fuck, Ellie, lower,” Dina gasped, “I’ve just got stretch marks there, come on!”

Ellie moaned low into her skin.

“That’s what I want,” she mumbled, mouth biting down on Dina’s belly button.

“I- Ah!” Dina said, “Why?”

Ellie growled, and it went straight to every goddamn nerve in Dina’s body. Her skin tingled, and her back arched her flesh into Ellie’s mouth.

“I want your fucking stomach, the marks, so fucking hot,” Ellie said, licking her way up and down Dina’s skin.

Dina hummed a desperate and fluttering melody, hands twisting in Ellie’s hair. Her stomach skin’s been sensitive ever since she gave birth to JJ, and Ellie knows it.

“When you were pregnant with JJ,” Ellie said, wrapping an arm around one thigh, and tugging it away, spreading Dina wide, “It was all I was thinking about, I kept touching you there.”

Dina knows it well. Ellie’s obsession with her stomach. Dina hummed tightly in response, encouraging Ellie to go on. Ellie opened up more nowadays, and Dina’s instinct was to always drink it down quickly, so deprived of it before.

“I don’t know what it was,” Ellie said, gnawing at the white stripes around Dina’s bellybutton.

“I wanted you all the time, and the big-the further along you got-”

“Nice save,” Dina murmured, and yelped at a harsh bite sure to leave marks.

“You were so beautiful, Dina, but god, your stomach, I don’t know what it was, still don’t” Ellie said into her skin, shaking her head, smushing her lips left to right on Dina’s stomach. As she kept on worshipping her wife’s stomach, she didn’t notice Dina stilling, her eyes widening in realisation.

Dina looked down at Ellie. Her hand cupped her wife’s jaw. She wondered what to do. Part of her, tired and hurt and vicious, wanted to twist the knowledge in her hands into a knife. 

But then suddenly, Dina was terribly tired of being one of the cruel things in Ellie’s grief filled life when she’d always been one of the kindnesses. 

She made a decision.

“I know why,” Dana murmured, “Why I looked that beautiful to you.”

She gently tugged at Ellie’s jawline. Ellie followed her hand’s pull all the way until she hovered over Dina, face to face. Dina smoothed her thumb over Elllie’s cheekbone. Ellie watched her with a curious frown.

Dina took a deep breath. The reason was obvious to most lucky pregnant women. She’d seen it herself with couples at Jackson. 

“Remember you told me how earlier today on patrol, Janice was going on about how Tarin wouldn’t stop oiling her stomach even if she was only at a month and a half?”

“What does that have to do with your stretch marks?”

Dina shrugged.

“Tarin can’t get a woman pregnant. Too much radiation from his scouting the dead zone. They had Daniel as a surrogate, but still, Tarin was head over heels for her.”

“She’s carrying his kid, damn straight,” Ellie grumbled. She clearly had strong views on how to treat your pregnant partner. 

Dina smiled.

“That’s why, Ellie, why you went crazy for my bump. He was yours. JJ. I was carrying your son. Yours,” Dina murmured.

Ellie’s eyes widened. Her breath shuddered to a stop.

“I…Dina…You and Jesse…,” Ellie choked out.

“Jesse’s eyes, my nose, Robin’s ears,” Dina said, “But he was yours. From that first day I told you and you ran off to Joel, losing your mind, and came back with a gallon of honey tea over your shoulder for my stomach. He was yours.”

Ellie didn’t move. She made an attempt to speak but hardly anything came out. Dina’s heart filled and filled until it seeped with love. She really should have told Ellie sooner.

Dina watched as Ellie’s eyes welled up with tears, and Ellie shakily breathed an almost inaudible “Mine”.

Dina thought of Ellie always coming up to hug Dina from behind, wrapping her arms around Dina’s belly and swaying them in place. Thought of her reading to Dina’s belly and insisting on wrapping extra layers on Dina’s stomach when they were in bed. Thought of waking up in Ellie’s arms, lulled from sleeping by her hands caressing her pregnant belly. 

Turning over in their bed to see Ellie staring at Dina’s belly with a dazed happiness, eyes saying, I did that. Which in a way, Ellie had. Dina doesn’t know where she’d have been with JJ without Ellie. Doesn’t know if she’d have avoided a misscarriage after Jesse’s death without Ellie.

Ellie leaned down, and pressed a harsh kiss to Dina’s mouth. Then another. Her breath quickened, like she was on the verge of crying. She pressed even closer to Dina, and kissed her again. Dina received it all with a humming pleasure, and wound Ellie into her arms.

That night, Ellie marked and bit her everywhere she could, pressed and ground their bodies together until they ached, whispered needy and demanding words into the air between their mouths. Mine, she said, again and again, whispered and kissed into Dina's skin and tugged and bit and fucked into her flesh.

When they slept finally, weaving above and below and around each other, it was with Ellie’s hands on Dina’s stomach.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Leave a kudos on AO3 if you enjoyed. Send me a comment as well if you like (or hate)

[silhouetteofacedar]

Impersonal, Ch. 10

Previous Chapter - AO3 - MSR, rated E

She should just go home.

She’s already knocked once, but heard no movement inside.

It’s not like she came here with any concrete plan. One minute she’s sitting on her sofa, trying to read, and the next she’s in her car on her way to Alexandria, rehearsing five different potential conversations she and Mulder could have when he opens his apartment door and finds her standing there uninvited.

Talking’s usually a bad idea, right? They have an unspoken communication that works beautifully; there’s no need to change it. She can turn around, walk down the hall to the elevator, and pretend she was never here. If by chance he heard her first knock, maybe he’d open the door and see no one there and assume it was ghosts. She could spawn another useless, dead-end investigation just by chickening out at Mulder’s doorstep. Skinner would love that report. He could pass it around at the water cooler, get a few laughs

She knocks again in spite of herself, a few raps more than the first.

Maybe he wasn’t home. She glances at her watch. It’s nearing eight on a Friday night. What does Mulder usually do on Friday?

Oh. Oh god.

Up until very recently, he usually does her.

Could he be out with someone else? Part of her thinks the idea is ridiculous, given the signals he’s been sending towards her lately. But maybe there were no signals; maybe it was her own wishful thinking projecting her desire onto him. Maybe-

“Scully,” he says from down the hall, and her heart rate immediately accelerates. He’s holding grocery bags.

“Mulder... I didn’t expect you,” she says stupidly. Really, Dana? You’re in front of his goddamn door.

“Must be fate,” he says with a smile. “Hey, you mind unlocking the door for me? My hands are a little full.”

She hums in assent and pulls out her key ring, flipping to the one for his apartment door. The label with ‘Mulder’ written on it was mostly worn off, but she didn’t need it anymore. She knew by touch exactly which key was his.

God, she’s ruined.

“Thanks,” he says, scooting past her. “You wanna come in?”

Yes yes yes-

“I don’t want to intrude, if you have plans,” she says instead.

“It’s just me and the fish tonight,” he assures her, taking the bags into his kitchen. “Mi casa es su casa.”

“I took German,” Scully reminds him, entering anyway. She hesitates before closing the front door.

It’s been two weeks since she was last in this apartment, under very different circumstances. She’s been here more times than she can count, in various states of duress, but her last visit is the one that hangs over her head. Unfinished business.

“You eat yet?” Mulder calls out from the kitchen. “I was going to heat up some soup.”

“I’m fine, thanks,” she replies, stepping into kitchen and leaning awkwardly against the doorjamb. “Can I help with anything? Since I’m here.”

“You can start the kettle,” he replies, tilting his head towards the stove. “There’s a box of chamomile in one of those bags.”

“You drink hot tea?” Scully asks, somewhat surprised.

He places a quart of orange juice and a carton of eggs in the refrigerator. “You said it might help me sleep,” he explains.

She’s oddly touched that he tried something she’d suggested offhand. “Has it?”

“Not really, but I do it anyway,” he replies, shrugging. “It’s kinda nice.”

Scully looks down, briefly remembering what transpired between them right there in his tiny kitchen. It started on the countertop and ended on the floor…

Mulder’s voice pulls her back into the present. “So what brings you here?” he asks, digging around in a drawer and pulled out a can opener. “Not that I’m complaining, of course.”

Scully fetches the kettle and takes it to the sink, filling it under the tap. “I actually thought… we should talk.”

“Ooh, talking. Should I be nervous?” he jokes, lighting one of the stove burners. He takes the kettle from her, their fingers brushing. She wonders if he can feel the tension under her skin. “I’m glad you’re here, actually,” he continues. “You seemed kind of off today, and I was wondering if… it was something I did. Or didn’t do.”

“I’m fine,” Scully says softly. “Let’s wait for the tea. And your soup.”

They sit at the table. The table, Scully thinks. The one where she first felt him inside her. It’s somewhat surreal to be sitting at it now, nearly two months later, watching Mulder eat chicken corn chowder and saltines. He offers her the sleeve of crackers and she takes one gingerly, feels it crumble on her tongue.

“So,” he says, dipping a saltine in the soup.

“So,” she replies, absently running a finger along the edge of the tabletop.

“Nice wood, huh?” Mulder asks, grinning at her.

“You just can’t help yourself, can you?” Scully sighs.

“Hey, when you got it, you got it,” he shrugs, then recalculates. “Sorry. I’m being glib.”

“I’m used to it,” she replies. “It’s one of your defense mechanisms.”

“Oh, one of my defense mechanisms?” he says, gestures at himself with his spoon.

“Yes,” Scully says calmly. “You often make jokes to ease discomfort.”

“Well in that case, at least I’m trying to fix something, instead of pretending everything’s fine,” he counters, shoving a saltine into his mouth.

Scully licks her lips. “Mulder, I came here because everything is not fine, and I’m trying to fix it,” she explains. “I hope you can in the very least respect my efforts.”

His face softens, and he nods. “Okay,” he says gently. “Have some of that tea,” he suggests, motioning to her untouched cup.

Scully hums and picks up her mug, letting the steam bathe her face as she takes a sip. It’s cheap chamomile, but it’s warm and comforting.

“I don’t know what I’m doing here, what I should say,” she admits. “I’m terrible at this."

“Say whatever you need,” Mulder replies. “I’m listening.”

“Mulder, I… I’m having a hard time with this. With us.”

“Us,” he says carefully. “If you mean there’s something wrong in our partnership-“

“Not our partnership, Mulder. The you and me outside of work. If there even is a part of our relationship that’s more than professional.”

“Of course there is,” Mulder insists. “We’ve been friends a long time, Scully.”

“Yes, we have,” she agrees. Part of her wants to bail on the conversation right now, leave things exactly as they are. As friends. It would be so easy.

Mulder puts down his spoon. “Look, if this is about me kissing you last night, I’m sorry. Our... arrangement... is over, and I completely respect that.”

“Why did you do it?” Scully asks suddenly. “No jokes, no deflections. Why?”

He looks directly at her, eyes gentle. Almost pleading. “Scully,” he says softly.

“Mulder,” she whispers, “Please.”

“Because… because I’m an asshole, and I wanted to. So I did it. And I thought... it’s stupid, but I thought maybe you wanted it too.” Mulder drops his gaze into the bowl of soup in front of him.

Scully wrestles with her words momentarily. “…It was nice,” she confesses. “I liked it.”

Mulder looks up in surprise. “I didn’t overstep?”

“No.”

“Oh.”

“And I think... if you wanted to try it again, sometime... I wouldn’t be opposed.” She feels somewhat nauseous, but forges ahead. “I don’t want to go back to our previous arrangement,” she clarifies. “It wasn’t a good fit for us. For me.”

Mulder opens his mouth, and Scully cuts him off. “Please don’t make a joke about fitting, Mulder, or I swear to God I will leave right now,” she warns.

He raises his hands in acquiescence. “I said nothing.”

“You,” Scully says, resting her face in her hands, “are impossible. Why do I even bother?”

“It’s been six years, Scully. You’re in too deep to quit now.” His eyes sparkle mischievously, and Scully allows herself to smile.

“Which is why going forward I want things to be a little clearer between us,” she continues. “So that no one gets hurt.”

Mulder chews a cracker contemplatively. “You plannin’ on breaking my heart, Scully?”

“I’m more concerned about you breaking mine.”

“I could never,” he declares.

You do every damn day that you don’t touch me, Scully thinks. “You might be surprised.”

[nahimjustfeelingit-writes]

Imagine TWO

Crazy Erik making sure Y/N don’t leave him AT ALLLLLLLL 😩😩 he ain’t playing:

Warning: CRAZY. Angsty. Blood. Smut.

Y/N watched her boyfriend sleep peacefully at 3:00 AM. His arm was draped across her waist while his face was smashed against her exposed thigh. Every time he breathed in his grip around her would get tighter. It was as if he was awake. She was afraid to stir or even cough. She looked around her, eyes dropping shut a little. All she wanted to do was sleep but she was afraid to sleep next to him. If she did, she might wake up chained to the bed, becoming his prisoner. Handcuffs and bondage didn’t sound fun anymore. As much as she didn’t want to think about it, she couldn’t stop wondering about what Erik did to her ex. He was still missing. Did he kill him or did he pay him to go away? Y/N hoped he at least paid him. Y/N heaved a sigh before looking down at Erik again, startled and petrified by his wild eyes staring at her unblinking.

Y/N brought the sheets to her naked chest, closing her eyes, “Erik, I didn’t know you were awake-“

“Why aren’t you sleeping? And what’s on your mind?” He cut her off with a stern voice. You’ve been up like this for a few hours. I know you’re tired, baby, I know you want some rest. Just come to bed with me, please?”

“I just...I can’t sleep, okay?” Y/N spoke with fear.

“Is it me?” Erik full sits up now, naked body exposed to her. Gracious, why did he have to be so damn fine?

“Am I scaring you away? I only act like this because I’m afraid you’re gonna leave me. You can’t leave me, Y/N. Ever.”

“Who are you to tell me that?! I am my own person no man will ever control me!” Y/N threw the sheets back, standing up in her nudity, “You don’t have control over me, Erik. You never will. This...we really need some time apart-“

“HA,” Erik laughed hard. So hard his eyes were watering. Y/N glared at him, her hand itching to grab the lamp on her dresser to toss at his head.

“What’s so damn funny?! I meant every word-“

“AND I MEANT EVERY WORD.”

Y/N’s mouth snapped shut real quick.

“You ain’t going nowhere,” Erik’s voice became deep and scornful, “You here me? You are mine. I’m getting sick and fucking tired of reminding you about that.”

“Are you gonna kill me?” Y/N asked with a shaky tone, “If I leave you will you kill me?”

Erik got up from the bed, walking towards her in his naked glory. Y/N wraps her arms around her body, back pressing further into the wall behind her. When he came to her, Y/N turned her face away, eyes squeezed shut out of fear. Erik grabs her jaw tightly, making her look up at him. He just stared at her, Y/N terrified of what his next move would be. Relieved, Erik places a kiss on her lips, soft and reassuring.

“I won’t kill you. I could never kill you.” Erik spoke softly.

“But you would kill others because of me?” Y/N spoke timidly.

“Just come to bed, baby,” Erik grabs Y/N’s naked body, “let me show you how much I love you. Let me show you that you belong to me and only me.”

“Erik,” Y/N hates the way he makes her body feel. Crazy or not he felt good. If she kept this up she would be crazy too.

“I’m too tired,” she didn’t look him in the eyes when she said that, I just need some rest, SHIT-“

Erik’s fingers were between her legs and inside of her pussy. It was so sudden and without warning but his strokes made her body shiver.

“How could you leave me when I make your body do this,” Erik’s thumb came up to stroke her clit, “Hmm? Why leave me when I’m exactly what you need?”

“Stop,” Y/N spoke with a whisper.

“I ain’t stopping. You gon’ moan my name and you gon’ tell me that you need me just as much as I need you. I’ve never wanted a women so bad in my fucking life. If you leave me and never come back,” Erik sucked on Y/N’s throat, “I will hunt you down.”

——————-

Erik practically squeezed Y/N in his arms while she straddled his lap. He was so insatiable for her. Bite marks on her skin, scatches on her hips, his dick torturing her pussy deeply, her pussy disobeying her by being so wet and slippery for him. Sucking him in and not wanting him to go. Deep grunts and animalistic growls in her ear. She felt fear but at the same time she felt pleasure. Her friends and family would call her crazy; family and friends she haven’t seen.

“You feel so good on my dick,” Erik bites her neck, “No other women feels this good to me.”

“Mm,” Y/N felt tears stain her cheeks.

“Mm? Is that all you can say? I know you can make more noise than that,” He wraps his hand around her neck, “Moan my name. Now.”

“I-“ She could hardly speak with his hand around her throat.

“Say it,” Erik spoke with a rough tone.

“Erik,” she moaned.

“Good girl,” Erik flips her onto her back, his large body trapping her beneath him while he strokes into her some more, “I’ve had my eyes set on you for so long. I’d be damned if I let you go.”

Her hands came up on each side of her head to grab the sheets while Erik pistoned his hips against hers, drilling his dick in and out. Y/N’s breasts bounced erratically. He was fucking her like her little body could take it. She couldn’t take it. Erik never fucked her this hard. Y/N’s eyes squeezed shut and her back arched from the bed. Wrapped around his dick was her pussies spasmodic walls. Now, he held her thighs back while fucking her roughly. All she could do was lay there and take it.

“You see how I handle this fucking body?!! You can’t leave me when I do it like this. I love you, I fucking love you, bitch.”

That was the first time he every called her a bitch.

“I SAID I love you,” Erik grabs her throat again, bringing her face closer to his, “What the fuck are you supposed to say?!”

“I LOVE YOU TOO!” Y/N shouts.

“Tell me you will never leave me. Say, I’ll never leave you, Daddy.”

“I’ll never leave Daddy,” Y/N gasps for air. Erik brought his mouth to her ear, “Say, I’m all yours, Daddy like you know you are. Say this body belongs to you, Daddy.”

“I’m-I’m all yours, Daddy. This body belongs to you-“

“You drive me crazy,” Erik looked down at his dick, “On God you drive me insane. I want you...I need you...LOOK AT ME.”

Y/N felt him remove his hand from her neck to grab her jaw. He squeezed her cheeks, causing her lips to poke out.

“In case you ever foolishly forget,” Erik drew his dick out to the tip before slamming back inside of her, “You will never leave me. You don’t cross my mind you live in it.”

Y/N whimpered with her release. Erik presses his lips into hers so she could moan in his mouth. His stroke became sloppy and then his cum filled her pussy to the hilt. He kept himself there intentionally, pressing in deeper so the tip of his dick could reach her cervix. The more he stroked, the more flowed. Erik looked down at her with dark eyes. Eyes that scared her.

“Just know, I’m sleeping with my dick in you.”

Y/N felt her lower lip tremble.

“You will have my baby. I’m making sure that happens. If I have to cum inside of you all night, I will. You will have my child, Y/N. Believe me when I say it.”

She was on birth control but the way he talked he would probably throw those away tomorrow.

———————-

At work the next day, Y/N wore a designer scarf around her neck to hide Erik’s love bites. Y/N wore flats to work because like Erik said he would, they fucked all night. When she woke up that morning. His cum was dripping out of her pussy and on the sheets. So much cum. Erik woke up as soon as she did, pulling her legs apart with so much strength and force that she could feel her thighs shake every time she opened them or walked. He entered her pussy again. Cumming inside of her again. And just like Y/N suspected, her birth control was gone. She saw it burned in the kitchen trash. One thing she noticed this morning while on social media was her block list. She had less friends and an entire block list filled with men. Erik must have sneaked in her phone to do this.

Erik: Let me take you to lunch, my treat.

Erik: are you busy, baby?

Erik: it’s your lunch hour. Why aren’t you answering?

Erik: Y/N who has you so occupied? Your job can’t be that busy.

Erik: You know you’re in trouble when you get home, right?

He was still at her place. Y/N ignored that message too, eating a turkey sandwich and drinking a bottle of water. Her phone vibrates again, Y/N picking it up to read.

Erik: what did I tell you about ignoring my texts? It’s cool, don’t even think about sucking up to me. It’s too late for that.

Once again she ignored him.

“Hey, Y/N,” Y/N’s work friend, Dana, greeted her at her lunch table, “I wanted to ask you something to see if you are interested.”

“Sure,” Y/N motioned for the empty seat across from her, “Sit, lets talk babe.”

Dana sat down, flipping her blonde braids from her shoulder.

“Okay, so, a few ladies and myself are going out tonight for drinks and a good time, so, I would like for you to come because every time I ask...you always say no. It’s gonna be at a lounge. Drinking, dancing, enjoying the single life-“

“I’m in a relationship remember?” Y/N spoke with a small smile, “and he might not want me-“

“What? Is he your damn father?!” Dana jokes.

He’s my Daddy and my psycho boyfriend

“No, but we may have plans, I’ll let you know okay?”

“Don’t wait until 10 PM to finally say that you want to go, girl.”

“I promise, I won’t.” Y/N’s phone was going off.

“I’ll leave you alone. See you back at the office,” Dana gets up from the table, walking away and out of the break room.

“Jesus Christ, Erik,” Y/N answered her phone, “YES, ERIK?!” She spoke with a frustrated tone of voice.

“Who are you talking to? You better watch your fucking mouth before I use that shit, MA,” Erik argued, “Answer your goddamn text messages when I hit you up. You talking to some nigga? Somebody else more important than me? I thought we had it together?”

Y/N pinched the bridge of her nose, “Why are you acting like a child? I am at work. I told you that when I am at work, I can’t talk or text on my phone. I’m on break right now so that’s why I’m talking to you-“

“You’re on break? With who?”

It sounded like he was in his car.

“Erik, where are you?” Y/N asks.

“...who are you on break with?” He avoided her question.

Y/N rolls her eyes, literally throwing her food away because her appetite was ruined, “Erik...are you at my job?”

“You were supposed to go to lunch with me, remember? We always did that together. I don’t like this, Y/N,” He sounded so hurt and it confused Y/N, “I don’t like this at all. I feel like you do this to make me upset. I feel like you enjoy coming to work to get away from me-“

“That’s not true!” Y/N looked around her, making sure she was alone, “I come to work because it’s my career and I enjoy it, Erik. Just like you enjoy writing poetry. Same thing.”

Erik was silent. Y/N could hear sirens and car horns honking in the busy city. She closes her eyes, waiting for his response and hoping it wasn’t some wild out of control thing.

“Okay,” Erik sighs, “What are we doing tonight? I’m thinking we should go out for dinner and then back to that poetry reading. Just like where I met you. I could perform a piece of my work. You could come and support me. How’s that sound?”

Y/N licks her lips, “Babe, I was...I was invited out with some work friends tonight. I’m gonna go with them.”

“Excuse me?” Erik’s tone of voice was flat and disrespectful. Y/N looked at her phone with a mug.

“Out. With my friends. Tonight.” She repeats herself, “That’s it. I have plans-“

“NO-“

“ERIK. I am hanging up.”

“Wrong move, ma.” Erik spoke dangerously.

She didn’t hang up.

“Call it off. Or I will break your phone in half. No more calls, no more social media, no NOTHING. Who are you supposed to be focusing on?”

“You are ridiculous!” Y/N hung up the phone. She didn’t care. He was being difficult and psycho. Smothering her, controlling her. It was a nightmare. She was a grown women not a teenager. Y/N felt stupid that she had to rebel from him. She shouldn’t feel stupid she should feel free. She got up from the break table, making her way back to her desk. She tried not to think of Erik or the fact that he was blowing up her phone currently. He said he would never kill her but she wasn’t so sure about that now.

———————-

Surprisingly, when Y/N came home, Erik wasn’t there. Y/N clutched her chest with relief before dropping her purse on the end table next to her front door along with her keys. To be sure, Y/N checked her balcony, closets, shower, under her bed, and even behind her couch. No sign of him. She drove home taking another route to avoid him just in case he was watching her. It was 6:24 PM so Y/N decided to get herself together for the evening. She undressed, grabbing her towel and soap sponge, making her way towards the bathroom. The entire bathroom steamed from the hot water. Y/N stepped her naked body inside, changing the water temperature and putting her curly hair under the shower water so she could wear it up in a curly bun. She could feel his bite marks and scratches on her skin. Y/N shuddered each time she dragged the sponge over it. Y/N was washing the back of her neck when the curtain to the shower flings open and a large hand wraps around her wet tresses. She screams, her body being dragged out of the shower. Her feet gave out beneath her and now she was on the floor, on her knees, wet eyes blurred. The hand left her hair, Y/N looking around to see Erik. The front of his shirt was soaked from the shower, dreads wild on his forehead and eyes black and menacing.

“Erik, what the fuck?!” Y/N stood up, “WHY WOULD YOU DO THAT-“

“You disrespected me too many times, Y/N. I see you took a different route from work today. Had me waiting out there like a fucking idiot. Took me about an hour to get home because of all that traffic. Why do you keep pushing my buttons, ma?”

“Because I can. You don’t own me-“

“I DO. My dick been in you, my tongue been in you, my NUT will impregnate you, so, you are mine. Y/N, please, I am trying to be calm and patient but you are difficult.” Erik placed his hands on his hips, shaking his head like a stern parent, “Do I have to hand cuff you to the bed? I think I do-“

“NO! Pleassseeeee,” Y/N begs, “I’m SO SORRY! I promise,” She chokes on her words, “I won’t disrespect you again, Daddy, I promise I’ll be a good girl just don’t handcuff me to the bed!”

“I love it when you beg me.”

Y/N swallows spit.

“I sacrificed a lot to have you. I worked hard for a long time to make you notice me. Don’t disappoint me. I finally found the perfect girl in you, Y/N. All the others were nothing. Just trial runs. YOU,” Erik grabs her chin with force, “You complete me. The only one that truly completes me.”

“Others?” Y/N looked away from him.

“Yes,” Erik spoke with a shake of his head and a deep sigh, “They don’t matter. It’s me and you now,” Erik picked Y/N up, making her straddle his waist, “They couldn’t handle me like you do. You know how to take all of Daddy, isn’t that right, Princess?”

“Mhm,” Y/N gave Erik a forced smile. Her heart was pounding.

“Come take more of me. I thought about it and...even though you hung up on me, and I wanted to choke you out, I changed me mind. I thought about how much I care about you and love you. That’s what helped me. That’s why I rather fuck you instead of punish you. Do you understand?”

“Y-yes,” Y/N grabs his face, “I understand why you do the things you do. It’s because you love me so deeply.”

“YES” Erik spoke with a rumble, “YES. My love for you is deeper than my soul. YOU. Are. My. Everything.”

His eyes were frantic. Y/N kisses him, running a hand through his dreads. Erik rubbed his scruffy cheek against her cheek like a tamed animal.

“Daddy,” Y/N spoke with a honeyed tone in his ear, “Daddy, can I please go out tonight? Please? It’s just with work friends I promise I’ll be good. You can even come pick me up.”

Erik grabs her hair, pulling her back so he could look at her. His eyes squinted a little, head slightly tilted up at her, “Where are you going?”

“It’s a karaoke lounge,” Y/N plays with Erik’s gold chain to avoid his hard eyes, “just us girls, singing karaoke, having drinks, fun times.”

“Having fun without me though?” Erik shook his head, “I don’t see how that’s possible when I’m not there.”

“Erik, it’s just a girls night out-“

“Nah, I don’t wanna hear that shit.”

Y/N kisses her teeth, walking away from Erik and into her room. She was so pissed that she forgot to turn off the shower. Erik did too. He didn’t care about the water when his girl was currently pulling out an outfit from her closet to go out without him. Who could be more fun than him? And what’s out there besides some niggas trying to have a piece of her. Y/N is a beautiful woman. If Erik saw that, other niggas definitely did too. There was no denying that. The smell of her hair; that blueberry bliss she always wore in her hair, her pretty chestnut eyes, smooth mocha skin, banging body, all the things that Erik loved some other man would want.

“Let me tell you something. All that girls night out shit? That shit is a DUB. Everytime you went out with your friends you always smiling in your pictures, posting videos having wild fun,” Erik walked over towards Y/N at her closet, grabbing her arm to make her look at him. Her pretty face was creased with rage.

“Now how is that possible when I’m not even there? HUH?” He pressed his face closer to hers, “Who is he?”

“Erik you are mad crazy!!!!” Y/N tried pulling her arm from his grip but there was no use, “It’s just my friends and myself what is wrong with you?!!!! God, I just want to go out for once and I can’t even do that-“

“Who is he? Do I have to kill somebody?” Erik gave her a sinister smirk, “Do I gotta pull up and blow a nigga brains out? Is that what I gotta do? Stop tryna put me in jail, ma. I will merk a nigga REAL FUCKING TALK. Don’t play with me,” Erik pointed a warning finger at her, “DONT ducking play with me, girl.”

Erik let her go, walking away to calm himself.

“Baby, It’s not even like that,” Y/N spoke with difficulty, “Please? You can drive me there and pick me up. I’ll even answer your texts and calls. I promise it’s just me and my girls. I promise, baby.”

Erik’s head fell forward with defeat. He turned towards Y/N, eyes shining with tears. Y/N was confused and perplexed by his emotions towards this. He was truly a broken soul. She didn’t understand what could have caused this.

“You promise?” He spoke sincerely, “You’ll come back to me? This isn’t your way of leaving me?”

“No. No.” Y/N carefully walks up to Erik, “It’s just me having a fun night. When I’m done, you can have me all to yourself, however you want me.”

“We’ll see.” That’s all he says before placing a kiss on her forehead, “You can go out. I’ll drive you and pick you up.”

“Thank you, Daddy,” Y/N kissed him, making sure to suck on his bottom lip like he loves.

“You’re welcome.” He spoke with emptiness.

—————————

“Y/N!!!”

Dana, and a few other coworkers were happy to see her. Y/N came dressed in a black faux leather halter catsuit that has a low-cut back with a pair of vans on her feet. Her hair was pulled up into a wet curly bun and she wore only a matte red lip with a cat eye.

“Hey ladies,” Y/N smiles brightly, “Thank God I can get out of the house for once.”

“We thought you were on lock down,” Dana jokes, “Who is this boyfriend anyway? You never talk about him.”

“Doesn’t matter,” Y/N didn’t want to think about Erik while she was out with her friends, “Let’s just have a good time. What are you ladies drinking on?”

“Mixed Hennessy drinks,” Another coworker of hers, Tracey, spoke, “I can order you one.”

“Make it two,” Y/N needed more than that.

———————-

Two hours in and Erik couldn’t stand sitting in the apartment alone. Staring at the walls. A small voice in his head kept telling him to check his phone, see what she’s doing. He cracked his knuckles, clenching his jaw to fight the urge but the more he fought, the more he wanted to lurk on her social media. He knew who her work friends were, he knew their instagrams. If she didn’t post, they sure did. He also had his phone linked with hers. Nothing that made him feel suspicious of her whereabouts came through on his phone.

Just take a quick look. She’s having too much fun without you.

“But she answered my text. She said she loved me.”

Call her again, Killmonger spoke

Erik picks up his phone, deciding to FaceTime call her. It rang and rang, Y/N’s promise down the drain. She said she would answer him. She didn’t. Now he was ferocious.

See? She’s such a liar, Erik. She said she would answer your texts and calls. What are you going to do about that?

Erik gave her the benefit of the doubt, ignoring his inner thoughts and turmoil. She could be singing on stage at the moment. Y/N did say it was a karaoke lounge. If she’s singing she wouldn’t be able to call him.

Still check her social media though. You never know, nigga.

Erik checks Y/N’s Instagram. She didn’t update in a few days and she didn’t have anything on her story. Erik breathes a sigh of relief.

Don’t relax too much. Check her coworkers page. What’s that bitches name? Dana? Yeah, check her out. Didn’t she sleep with Y/N’s ex?

Erik types in Dana’s name: DanaRoss_90.

There, she posted a group picture that included Y/N. His smiling girl with a drink in her hand. She looked so happy. Tipsy even. Erik screen shots the picture to crop later. Dana posted to her story. Erik clicks on it, clicking through a few times before landing on a video of Y/N on stage singing TLC- No Scrubs

A scrub is a guy that thinks he's fly

He's also known as a busta (Busta, busta)

Always talkin' about what he wants

And just sits on his broke ass

So no, I don't want your number (Uh, uh)

No, I don't want to give you mine and

No, I don't want to meet you nowhere (No, no)

No, I don't want none of your time and (Uh)

She was pointing to the crowd, swinging her hips while Dana yelled and cheered. She stumbled over a few words because she was so damn drunk. Erik felt his blood running hot in his veins.

“Why are you so damn sloppy drunk right now?” Erik angrily talked like he was speaking to her, “Any nigga could see that as an opportunity, ma.”

Go to her

Erik watched the video again before clicking over to the next story. Y/N wasn’t in this one, it was Dana’s face while she profiles. Erik clicked through a few more times to find Dana taking a video of the live crowd. The place was packed. As she panned her phone, Erik caught a glimpse of some dude talking closely with Y/N at the bar. He was leaning in closely to talk to her Y/N smiling and laughing. Erik shot up from the couch. He replayed that video over and over. Erik clicks through and there was only a picture with her and Dana, a blurry one. The story ended. Erik clenches his fists, nostrils flared and his chest rising and falling with deep breaths. He almost broke his phone with how angry he was.

“Does she think I’m stupid?!” Erik spoke, walking back and forth, “Does she think I’m playing? She doesn’t understand...” Erik grabs his keys, walking out of that house in a frenzy. He almost bumped into Y/N’s neighbor. Out of the apartment building, Erik ran to his car. He opened the trunk, pulling out a duffle bag that he hadn’t used since kidnapping Y/N’s ex. He hopped inside, starting up his car without putting on his seatbelt. He did 80 down that rode. Fuck 12, fuck whoever was in his way, he needed to get to Y/N and fast. Erik called her again, the phone ringing and ringing. It went straight to voice mail.

“OKAY. OKAY. You must think I’m playing. WHO IS TNAT MOTHERFUCKER!”

Erik calls her again. It goes straight to voicemail.

“IM ON MY WAY. YOU BETTER PRAY FOR THAT NIGGA.”

Erik calls again. It goes straight to voicemail.

“WHY ARE YOU DOING THIS?! IM SO UPSET WITH YOU RIGHT NOW. YOU ARE NEVER GOING OUT AGAIN, EVER. DO YOU HERE ME!!!!”

Erik hangs up, punching his stirring wheel and shouting like a mad man.

“FUCK!!!!!!!” His shouts almost broke the glass.

“Did you fuck him?” He spoke to himself, “Do you know him? Is he touching my body? The body that belongs to me?”

Yes

Erik knew what he had to do to make you understand.

—————————

“Dammit,” Y/N checks her phone.

10 missed calls. 12 unread messages.

“Fuck.” She panicked.

“Are you okay?” Terry, a sweet guy that she met at the lounge looked at her with worry.

“Uhm, I have to go.”

“Now? Do you want me to take you home?” Terry spoke while stroking Y/N’s back, “You’re really drunk right now from all those Hennessy mixes you had. Six I believe?”

“I,” Y/N stumbles, “I gotta go.”

“I can walk you out and wait with you until your uber comes.”

“I have to call-my-my boyfriend.”

“Boyfriend?” Terry said with a raised brow.

“Mhm,” Y/N felt her head spinning.

“Why isn’t he here with you. You’re so damn fine. I wouldn’t have left you here with just your girls.”

“Terry, I appreciate the compliment but I have a man-“

“It’s cool. I just wanted you to know that.”

“My girls can help me out,” Y/N looked up at Terry with low eyes, “Dana? Tracey? Brooke?”

Terry looked around him, “don’t see them,” Terry grabs Y/N’s clutch, wrapping an arm around her waist, “Let’s go through the back way, that’s where the Ubers pull up. Out front is too busy.”

Y/N hesitated but then she finally gave in, “I’ll call my boyfriend and if he doesn’t answer I’ll take an Uber.”

Terry grabs a bottle of water from the bartender, walking Y/N towards the back of the lounge. They squeezed past a few people smoking weed before descending the stairs. Y/N was dragging her feet but Terry had her with his strong arms. He was tall, smooth tan skin with waves in his hair and a charming smile. His eyes were a pure hazel and he smelled like cedar.

“Oh my God,” Y/N’s stomach turned, “I’m gonna be sick-“

“Here,” Terry brought her around the lounge, in front of an Alley way across from a vacant parking lot, “You Gotta vomit?”

“Mhm,” Y/N hunched over, “I shouldn’t have drank so much.

She could feel the vomit leave her mouth. It came out in chunks. Her throat burned. Terry soothes her by stroking her back. Y/N waited a moment to see if she needed to do more but her stomach settled. She lifts, accepting the bottle of water from Terry. Y/N swishes it around her mouth spitting out the water then drank some. She hated the taste in her mouth.

Footsteps could be heard approaching them. Y/N’s blurry eyes looked up to see a guy with a tribal mask on his face stepping towards them with a bop in his hips and fists clenched. She was too drunk to register what was happening. Terry spoke while holding an arm around her waist.

“Can we help you, brother?”

POP POP.

Terry’s arm left Y/N’s shoulder. She could hear him fall to the ground with a loud thud. Y/N looked down at his body, hands reaching out behind her to brace the alley wall. Around the corner, footsteps could be heard running back into the club. Y/N placed a hand over her mouth, her eyes watering and her breath leaving her body. She looked up at the man who put two bullets in Terry’s head. That mask cast a haunting shadow. The eyes behind them looked so familiar to her. Her brain began to register what was happening. He lifted that mask, wiping his sweaty nose with the back of his hand that still held that gun. Blood soiled his crisp white tee and jeans.

“What’s up, Princess?”

Y/N wailed.

@tgigoldie​ @soufcakmistress​ @chefjessypooh​ @chaneajoyyy​ @pananegra​ @theblulife​ @becincere​ @blaqwidow91​ @fish-outta-watah​ @eyeknowmywrites​ @crowngold​ @njadakillthiscookie​ @blktinkerbell​ @luvanxi​ @sheisexcellent1​ @chocolatedippedinhoney​ @brandithecrystalgem​ @dababydababydababydababy​ @soulfulbeauty19​ @btitannaaa​ @sunkissedebony97​ @youngblackndgifted​ @harleycativy​ @rbhp​ @thee-germanpeach​ @thadelightfulone​ @palmstreesallday​ @skylahb​ @bakaris-shorty​ @nizzle-mo​ @truglori​ @queenflaws​ @ljstraightnochaser​ @theegoldenchild​ @scrumptiouslytenaciouscrusade​ @nickidub718​ @vikkidc​ @thehomierobbstark​ @rent-emspoons​ @abluesforlyssa​ @abeautifulmindexposed​ @fd-writes​ @chasingsunlight​ @sickaddiktions​ @munteanhore​ @xo-goldengirl​ @tiava143​ @33kiara​ @honeytoffee​ @asiasblackworld727​ @momobaby227​ @informalmelancholy​ @soulshinechronicles​ @hearteyes-for-killmonger​ @goddessofthundathighs​

[novannna]

All of These Stars Will Guide Us Home

here’s some nobell angst i wrote for wlw renegades week!!!

Danna trys to rescue Adrian and Oscar from the cathedral, and runs into Nova.  Nova has to make a decision about what she truly wants, while keeping the truth from Danna. 

TW: blood, death, violence, guns

WC: 3263

Nova crept through the Cathedral, shoes barely making a sound on the smooth surface.  She was making her way to Honey.  They had to cut the tattoos out of Adrian. Nova felt like she should be upset, she and Adrian had been together.  And while it had started as a show, it had grown into something more.  So shouldn’t Nova be at least a little upset?

She wasn’t.  At all.  She was completely and totally over Adrian Everhart.  He had his secrets too.  He was the Sentinel, and he hadn’t told her.  

Adrian was worth nothing to her now. 

A flutter caught her eye, and Nova looked to see hundreds of monarchs hovering above an open window.  Danna.  It must be. She must have slipped through the cracks in Ace’s wall.  They cycloned into a swarm, morphing into the tall girl.  Her dreadlocks were pulled back in a bun.  

Her eyes narrowed.  “Nightmare,” she hissed, sprinting forwards.

Nova panicked.  “Danna, wait!”  She said quickly. 

The girl stumbles to a halt.  “Nova?”  

Nova nodded, sighing and removing her mask. 

“Hey, Danna,” she said tiredly. 

Danna’s eyes widened as the reality of the situation crashed down on her. 

“Nova…you-you’re Nightmare!”   Danna gaped.  

Nova felt her heart pound in her head.  No, this was too soon.   She didn’t want Danna to know about her yet.  She couldn’t handle seeing the hate in her eyes.  It was already bad enough having to betray her old teammates. . Seeing Danna learn the truth would destroy her.  

“No!”  Nova protested.  “I’m not.”

Danna cocked her head.  “Then why are you in the Anarchist secret lair, wearing Nightmare’s uniform?”

Nova searched desperately for an explanation.  “Because… I’m a spy!   Captain Chromium talked to me about this a while ago.  He wanted me to pretend to be Nightmare to infiltrate the Anarchists.   But since Adrian is captured, he agreed to let me infiltrate now.”

“Oh.”  Danna eyed her suspiciously. “So what do we do?”

Nova shrugged. “I was on my way to Adrian.  I was planning on figuring it out along the way.”

Danna let out a reliever breath.  “You know where he is?”

Nova nodded.  “At least the spot they’re holding him.  Based on the layouts of most Cathedrals I think I can figure out where it is.”

Danna snorted.  “What, you're an expert on old architecture?”

Nova nodded. “Yeah, I actually am.  I have a lot of free time on my hands.”  She smirked.  “Now come on, we don’t have a lot of time.”

Danna let out a bewildered huh, then hurried after Nova.  

Nova tried not to cringe.  She should just put Danna to sleep and let the other anarchists handle her.  She should focus on defeating the Renegades, not some girl that hated who she really was.  But Nova couldn’t help herself.  She treasured the knowledge that she hadn’t ruined her relationship with Danna yet.  Adrian and Oscar were beyond salvation.  But Danna… Nova could still fix things between them before it became too late.  She didn’t need to lose Danna too.  She didn’t want to lose Danna too. 

Nova had to keep up this facade a little longer.  She had to make it work.  Or else Nova had no clue what she would do.  

For the first time, Nova realized that maybe these feelings she felt were more than just guilt.  Though there was still guilt.  It lay over her, thick and heavy.  This guilt over lying to Danna was crushing her.  But maybe that wasn’t all that was bothering her.    

Maybe Nova didn’t want to just lose a friend.  Maybe Nova wanted Danna to be something more than a friend. Maybe Nova wanted to be Danna’s girlfriend. 

Nova tried not to scoff.  

In love with a Renegade?  Impossible.  Nova was an Anarchist.  She’d never stoop so low.  But there was still a strange feeling hovering in Nova’s gut, fluttering when she saw Danna.

—-

Nova led Danna through the Cathedral, being sure to go ways she knew no one else would be on.  She was heading the opposite direction of Adrian, but that was fine.  She wasn’t going to rescue him.  He was the son of her enemies. 

Danna, however, was just another person who had believed the Renegade propaganda.  With the right push, Nova could flip her.  She just needed time.  And she was running out fast.  

“We should have seen someone by now,” Danna hissed. “What’s happening?”

Nova shrugged, trying to be nonchalant.  “I don’t know.  But it’s working for us.  Relax.”  Nova grinned.  “We got this.”

Danna nodded, and smiled worriedly.  “You’re right.  We do.  We can save Adrian and Oscar.”

“I think it’s this way,” Nova said, pretending to act confused. She pointed at the left passage extending from where the hallway split into identical paths.

“You think?”  Danna asked skeptically. 

Nova scowled. “It all looks the same.  And I've never been here before.”

“Consider yourself lucky. Most people who come in don’t make it out.”  Danna shivered, while Nova bit back a snort, as they continued on. 

Danna was terrified of Ace.  Of what he had done.  Even though she put up a fierce front, Dana was completely and utterly terrified of the prospect of facing Ace Anarchy.  She had before.  And look where she had ended up.  Trapped in a jar, unable to free herself for weeks.  

Nova felt a familiar tinge of guilt return when she remembered the golden butterfly that had sat on the table in Nova’s house.  

She tried to ignore it as best she could. 

“Nova?”  Danna asked, in a small voice.

She sounded weak.  Tired.  Small.

“Yes?”  Nova responded, trying not to sound annoyed.  “What is it?”

Danna blushed.  “Can I hold your hand?”

Nova’s mouth fell open.  Her confusion must have been clear, because Danna blushed even brighter red.  

“It’s just… last time I was here, things didn’t go well for me.  It brings back bad memories.  But… I think it would be better if I could hold on to something.  Someone.”

“Oh.”  Nova smiled tiredly.  “Of course.”  She held her hand out to Danna, and she grasped it gracefully.  

Danna’s hand was warm and slightly sweaty in Nova’s but she didn’t care.  The trust that Danna gave her then made Nova feel like she could fly.  Nova was lighter than ever, and she fought to contain a smile.  

“Come on,” she said gruffly, trying to hide her joy.  “We should keep going.”

“Which way?”

Nova paused for a minute, pretending to think.  “This way,” she pointed to an old stairwell.  It led down, into the catacombs.  A different place than where Ace had been.  Nova was confident that she could successfully ‘get lost’ in there with Danna.  

The pang of guilt came back, stronger than ever.  Nova knew she should just put Danna to sleep, let someone else deal with her.  Danna was below her.  Nova didn’t have time to handle a mere Renegade.  She had more important things to do. 

But Danna wasn’t a mere Renegade.  She was more important than that.  She was Danna.  

She was the most important thing in the world, Nova thought.  

What?  No.  Nonononono.  Nova tried to shove those thoughts away, out of her brain.  

Did Nova like Danna?  Like her, as more than a friend?

Nova groaned to herself.  

Yes.  Yes, she did with absolute certainty.  Nova had a goddamn crush on a fucking Renegade.  Great.  

It would all be over if you just put her to sleep, the voice in her head whispered.

“Shut up, me,” Nova growled.

“Did you say something?”  Danna asked.

Nova shook her head quickly.  “No, I didn’t. Come on,”  she waved Danna over to hurry up.  

“Oh.  Right.”  Danna hurried over.  

Each word Danna said was a knife in her heart.  It was twisting in, farther and farther.  

Nova kept taking Danna farther and farther away from the truth.  As if they could out run it.  As if, if they went far enough, they could make the inevitable become evitable.  Danna didn’t need to be a Renegade, and Nova didn’t need to be an Anarchist.  They could be Nova and Danna.  They could be enough.

“You really think Adrian and Oscar are down here?”  Danna asked. 

And Nova was jolted back to reality.  What was she doing?  

Danna didn’t feel the same way.  She hated Nightmare.  She hated Nova.  

Nova sighed.  “No,” she said truthfully.  “I don’t.”

“What the hell, Nova?”  Danna shouted.  “We are running out of time.  We need to find them.  Now!”  she stomped her foot against the hard ground.  “Why are we down here?”

Nova ignored her brain, screaming at her to stop, think about what she was doing.  She let her body decide.  She let her heart choose.  

Her heart chose Danna.

“To do this,” Nova whispered, approaching Danna.  Kept moving forwards, until they were inches apart.

“Nova?”  Danna opened her mouth again, but Nova stopped her words with a sweet, gentle kiss.  

“Oh.”  Nova melted with Danna’s touch.  

Danna laughed softly when they parted.  “Took you long enough.”

Nova blushed.  “I didn't think you would like me.  Not after-”  She stopped herself.  She didn’t need to blow her cover yet.  She had time.  She could still be Nova Mclain.  Insomnia.  A renegade.  Her lip started to curl, but she remembered what else she could be if she kept her cover up, for just a little bit longer.

She could be Danna’s.  Wasn’t that worth it?  Worth it all?

Yes, Nova decided.  It was worth it.  

“Not after what?”  Danna prompted.  

Nova sighed.  “Nothing.”

Danna’s gaze hardened.  “Nova, after what?”  Her words were ice.  Nova tried not to cringe.

“Well… Adrian.  He and I… we… well, we’ve kissed.”  Nova wasn’t technically lying.  But, everything with Adrian was over.  That wasn’t the problem.

“Oh.”  Danna’s face flooded with relief.  “I thought…”  she shook herself.  “That’s okay.  We’ll figure it out later.  RIght now, we just need to find him.  Okay?”

Nova smiled, relieved that Danna still trusted her.  “Okay.  Let’s find him.”

“Together?”  Danna held her warm brown hand out.  

Nova grinned.  “Together.”

---

Nova thought as she led Danna around the twisted passages about what to do.  

She couldn’t leave Danna.  Not now.  Not when she knew that Danna loved her.  Loved her the same way Nova loved Danna.  

No one had ever cared for her like that before.  It was new.  It was exciting.  It was dangerous.

Nova wanted to explore all of it.  With Danna.  

But she couldn’t.  

Danna was a Renegade.  

The Renegades killed Nova’s family.

But none of that had been Danna’s fault.  Danna was just another girl, manipulated by their lies, and promises of glory.  

Danna hadn’t pulled the trigger.  

She didn’t deserve Nova’s hate.  She didn’t deserve anything but love from Nova.  

So how could Nova even consider betraying her.

And in that moment, Nova knew what she had to do.  

She chose with her heart.  And her heart led her to Danna.  Always Danna.  Only Danna.  

Nova Artino was done with the Anarchists.  

Revenge didn’t sound so sweet anymore.

Not when it meant losing Danna.

“Nova!”  Danna screamed.  She had lost track of her thoughts, and nearly ran into one of the escaped prisoners.  

The prisoner saw Danna’s Renegade uniform, and snarled. 

They tackled Danna, pushing her down, into the floor.  

“Danna!”  Nova screamed her voice breaking.  

The prisoner pulled their arm back.  About to punch Danna.  About to hurt Danna.  

Nova stopped thinking.  

She wrapped her fingers around their bicep, and forced her power into them.  

The prisoner swayed briefly, then collapsed to the floor with a dull thud.  

“Danna!  Oh, Danna are you alright?”  Nova asked, rushing to her side.  

But Danna was looking at her with horror.  

“You… you weren’t pretending,” she whispered.  “You really are Nightmare.”

No.  No.  Danna couldn’t know yet.  They still had so much time they could spend together.  It was too soon.  

Nova held up her hands, smiling sadly.  She tried to force the tears leaking out of her eyes back up, but it was too late.  

“I can explain, I promise.  I swear, it’s not what you think!”  Nova said desperately.  

Danna backed away, shying from Nova’s touch.  “You were just distracting me.  The whole time!”  Danna looked down.  “I thought you were real.  I thought we were real. But you were just using me.”

“No Danna, that’s not it.  I love you, really I do!”  Nova was sobbing now.  She was pathetic.  Weak.  She couldn’t get a grip on herself.  

“You’re just trying to save your own skin,” Danna spat.  

“No, I’d leave it all for you.  I was going to leave it all for you!”  Nova tried to place a hand on Danna’s knee.  

“Get away from me!”  Danna screamed.  “I don’t believe you.  Nightmare.”  Her face was full of disgust and hate.  

“...Danna, please.  You have to believe me.”

Danna rose, trying to get away from Nova.  she duckied, and grabbed the gun off the sleeping prisoners belt. 

“Danna, no,” Nova begged.  “Don’t do this.”

There were tears in Danna’s eyes.  “Nightmare, you are wanted for the attempted assassnation of Hugh Everhart, the theft of Ace Anarchy’s helmet, assisting in the slaughter of countless Renegades at the neutralizing, neutralizing Frostbites team, being involved with Ace Anarchy's rise to power, as well as several other crimes.  If you don’t submit, I may have to use lethal force.”  Danna raised the gun up, her entire body shaking.  “Please Nova, let me just arrest you, I don’t want to kill you.”

Nova smiled sadly.  “You know I can’t do that.  But it’s not too late.  For both of us.  We can run away, Danna.  Just be together.  I know you want that.”

Danna’s eyes watered, and the gun shook in her hand.  “Since you have refused to go peacefully, I must do whatever is necessary to subdue, and if necessary, exterminate the threat.”

Finger trembling on the trigger. 

Nova felt her mouth go dry.  She couldn’t breathe.  Danna hadn’t chosen her.

She knew this would happen.  Nova knew, but she let her emotions get the best of her.  

Danna screwed her eyes shut, and pulled the trigger.  

BANG

Nova flinched.  Not from pain, but the kickback in her hand.  She looked at the smoking gun in her hand.  

The gun in her hand.  That meant…

“No!”  Nova screamed.  She sprinted to where Danna swayed, her hand clutched to a red stain, her mouth gaping.  

Nova caught Danna in her arms, right before the weak girl hit the ground. 

“No,”  Nova sobbed.  “Danna!”  She let her tears fall freely.   “I’m so sorry…” she whispered. 

“Nova,” Danna gasped, pain all over her face. 

Nova nodded.  “I’m here.  I’m here Danna.”  She wipes away her tears, getting Danna’s warm blood all over her face.  By this point, they were both soaked in red.  

“Nova, this is…” Danna shuddered, trying to take in more breaths.  

“What is it?”  Nova begged.  “What.”

“Your fault,” Danna said.  “You killed me…”

“No!  You aren’t dead yet!   I’m getting you out of this.  Alive.  We are walking out of this cathedral together.  I swear it.”

“I don’t trust a villain,” Danna spat.  “Especially not you.  You shot me.”

Nova pressed her face against Danna’s bloody chest, and sobbed harder.  “I know.  It’s my fault. It is all my fault.  But I love you!  More than everything.  I’d do anything to fix this.   I’d do anything for you.”  

Danna’s eyes widened.  “Anything?” She asked, chest heaving from the effort of keeping her broken body alive.  

Nova nodded.  “I love you, Danna.  And I want to spend the rest of my life with you.  I’d do anything you asked of me.”

Danna’s face hardened into a mask of ice.  “Then go to hell,” She snarled.  “You are Nightmare, an Anarchist and a traitor.  You are a bad person.  I can’t believe I ever loved you.”

Nova’s body shook with sobs.  “I know,” she whispered.  “I know.” 

Danna’s expression softened.  “Were…” she broke into a bout of harsh coughing, blood dribbling out her lip.  “Were you really going to leave for me?”  She asked softly.  

Nova nodded.  “I know you don’t feel about me the same way as I do.  But you're the one.  The one I know was meant for me, the one who I will always love, the one I will always come back to, the one I will always forgive.  I’d sell my soul for you.”

Danna tried to smile.  “I feel the same way.  And…. I didn’t mean what I said.  This isn’t your fault.  None of it is.” She coughed again.  “We were just pawns in a war we didn’t choose.  You aren’t at fault, Nova.”

“But I am!  Oh, I am, it’s all happening because of me.   It’s all my fault.”  

“It’s not!”

Nova shook her head.  “It is.  But I can still fix things. I can still save you.”

Danna slowly shook her head.  “No.  You can’t.  It’s too late.  I can feel my pulse fading, my blood flowing out.  I grow weaker with every second.  Nova, I’m already dead.”

Nova shook her head, warm tears rolling down her cheek, and splashing against the bright red stain.  “No, I refuse to let you die!”

“Nova,” Danna said gently, reaching up to cradle her cheek with a shaking hand.  “Please.  Let me go.”

“No,” Nova begged, clutching tightly against the hand.  “I won’t,” she sobbed.  “Danna, you can’t leave me!”

“I love you, Nova,” the dying girl said at last, and her chest rose one last time.  And she was gone.  A cold, dead hand clutched Nova tightly. 

Nova sat there sobbing for some time.  Her soul had been ripped apart.  Nothing but pain was left.  

Nothing at all but pain. 

—-

BANGBANGBANGBANG

Her life had been torn apart.  First Mamá and Papá, then Evie.  And now Danna was gone. Forever. 

Nova fell to her knees, clutching her head in her hands.  A twisted dreadlock taunted her from the corner of her eyes.  A reminder. A reminder of how it was all Nova’s fault.  She hadn’t saved her parents, she hadn’t saved Evie, and now, years later, she hadn’t saved Danna.  

No, it was so much worse.  Nova had killed Danna.  It was her finger that had pulled the trigger.  

This was all Nova’s fault.  She let out a guttural scream and slammed her fists into the ground. They came up sticky with blood.  Danna’s blood. 

Nova sobbed, and cradled her fragile body.  

“My fault,” she wailed. “My fault, my fault, my fault.”   

She had to get up.  She had to keep moving. Nova had chosen Danna, but Danna had not chosen her.  The conflict about her loyalties were gone.  

Nova was done with the Renegades.  Forever.  She would never be able to look at them without remembering her little butterfly.  The one she killed.  The butterfly Nova had murdered.  A fresh wave of pain washed over her.  

And then, something dawned on her.

Nova Mcain was dead.  She had died with Danna.  Insomnia, the Renegade, the girl in love with a girl made of butterflies was gone.

Forever.  

Nova Artino was left in her place.  

She was an Artino, and nothing else.  Her uncle had done so many great things, by simply letting himself be who he was.  He did what he was born to do.  And she would do the same.  

Nova knew what she had to do.  She knew her path.  

Nova Artino was an Anarchist.  She was a villain.  Nova was Nightmare, and she finally understood what she had to do.

Tag list:@nobellrenaissance @thepurpledragon4444 @nova-artino @phobidawg @janisarkisian  @furrytamayarae

[lepus-arcticus]

OMENS: CHAPTER SEVEN one | two | three | four | five | six trigger warnings apply

HALF-MOON DINER 4:00 PM

The Half-Moon Diner was a relic from the 60s, with cracked cream tile and flaking red leather stools lined up at the counter. Strains of tinny bluegrass harmonies scrolled forth from an old antenna radio behind the bar, filling the air with a lament about whatever happened down by the banks of the Ohio.

Even under the weak fluorescent lights, Hugh was a presence. In the grimy throng of farmers scarfing down gelatinous heaps of scrambled eggs and reheated strawberry pie, he appeared to Scully as a beacon, lit from the inside by the glow of tragedy. She sat across from him in a corner booth, her shoulder pressed up against the window. Sheets of rain melted her reflection into the glass, blurring a ghost of her into the dark sky outside.

She felt warm and sullen, cupping a chipped china mug of tar-black coffee between her palms. People stared at them, caught themselves, turned away, glanced back for more. The young, pretty waitress in her lemon-yellow uniform had been polishing the same plate for ten minutes, gawping at them from over the bar.

If Hugh noticed, he didn’t seem to care. He hunched over the table, the very picture of tortured, contained passion.

“Hugh,” Scully began, conscious of their audience. His hand, splayed on the Formica, was brown and dusted with sun-bleached hair.

“How’s this. I’ll tell you everything… anything you need to know, Dana,” he said quietly. “Anything that’ll help. Ask away. I’m yours.”

Scully looked up from the table and found him gazing intently at her. Under the beam of his spirited eyes, she found herself somewhat at a loss for words, for strategy. “Um. Well I suppose you can start by telling me about your wife. About your marriage.”

A sad smile pulled at the corner of his lips. “I guess that would be the place to start, now, eh?” He picked up his cup and sucked down a mouthful of coffee, appearing to gather his thoughts. “Em. Well. I bought the farm in ‘94. Met Anna the same year. Met her here, in fact. She was a waitress.” His voice faltered, and he looked over at the bar, as if he could still see her there. The girl cleaning dishes blanched, and seemed to remember something pressing to attend to in the kitchen. “Nineteen. Loveliest thing I’d ever set my eyes upon,” he continued. “Sweet as the sunrise.”

Scully blinked and pulled her bottom lip between her teeth. “And why Horizon? Why leave your home behind for such a faraway and isolated place?” She imagined the lack of anonymity, nowhere to run or hide, and suppressed a shiver of revulsion.

“You’ll think I’m a langer,” he offered, chuckling self-consciously and scrubbing his chin with his hand. “Ehm. I, eh, I guess I watched The Hangin’ Tree a few times too many. Staying in Ireland just wasn’t as… romantic of a concept as the call of the mythical Old West.”

Scully couldn’t help but smile a little. “If it’s any consolation, I think Gary Cooper had that effect on a lot of people.”

Hugh grinned at that, full-on, a disarming flash of brilliance that he swiftly pulled back into submission. “God, I love that bastard. Anna loved him, too. She, ehm, she grew up in that religious colony, without television, you know, so films were quite a thrill for her. The novelty, I suppose.”

She nodded, sipping her coffee. It was burned and bitter, and it coated the roof of her mouth.

“Now… now I know what you must be thinkin’, because everyone was thinkin’ it, but she and I really did have a lot in common, despite... the age difference. When you’re… when you’re not with your family, even if it’s by your own doing… well, there’s a loneliness there that I’m not sure can be described. It’s something you don’t understand until you’ve experienced it. I left a lot of people behind to come here. Not all of them were supportive of it. Of me.”

Scully thought of Bill in San Diego, of Charlie in Canada, of her father scattered in the sea, of her sister in the cold ground. “But Anna had Rhiannon, didn’t she?” She said. “And Marion, too. I’ve been given the impression that the three of them were quite close.”

At the mention of Marion’s name, Hugh clenched his jaw. “Ah. Well. Don’t let folks lead to you believe that it was all sunshine and rainbows up at Kicking Horse. That Rhiannon is a strange and fiery woman, and certainly no great admirer of mine. And Marion… well, if you happen to have sisters, I’m sure you can imagine how it could be. Especially when it became clear that Anna and I were of a mind to be married.”

Melissa at fourteen leapt to her mind, her eyes brown as pondwater and lined with crumbly black. Her scalp tingled with the memory of her hair in her sister’s fists. She didn’t even remember what the argument had been about. She pushed the image down, and continued. “And when did you begin your affair with Marion? After the wedding, or before?”

Hugh exhaled sharply and looked away, out the window, staring down the soaked smudge of his reflection. A fork of lightning darted down into the fields in the distance. “Jesus,” he muttered. “Did Marion tell you that?”

“In as many words,” Scully replied.

He turned his palms up in a gesture of helplessness, and then dropped them again. “I mean, what on earth could I ever say to defend myself? It was never supposed to go that far. Anna had these moods, and she’d been so distant, and Marion was always around, always had a listening ear to lend, that girl, and I⁠—we⁠—just got wrapped up in the… in the forbidden excitement of it all, I guess. The hiding. The secrets. The passion. But I ended it as soon as it begun. It was nothing more than a few weeks of foolishness.”

Scully looked him over, trying to gauge the honesty of his words. She found herself wishing for Mulder’s powers of insight. “When, Hugh?”

He swallowed. “This is going to look bad. But it was a few months ago. Shortly before… well, when the omens began. But you mustn’t think that… I mean, who could… I still loved Anna, I wanted to make it work, and Marion loved her as a sister; we didn’t want to hurt her, neither of us could ever…” He stared hard into her, releasing a shaking sigh. “You have to believe me. About this, about the signs…”

The shrill cry of Scully’s cell phone cut into the air. She dug it out of the rumple of her coat and shut it off.

“Dana… you don’t believe me about the omens.” It was a statement, not a question.

“My partner does,” she replied with a sigh. The bell over the front door of the diner tinkled.

Hugh nodded, chewing his bottom lip. “This town… Horizon… it’s a strange place. Was strange long before I put down my roots.” He was getting worked up, a tremor easing into his voice, his eyes beginning to glisten. “This is a fucking nightmare. Whatever is here killed my wife. Killed our child. Killed her goddamned horse. It’s not done. I’m next. I know it.”

“Hugh,” she said softly, and reached over to cover his hand with her own, just to soothe him, just to draw him back into calm, clear conversation. Marion’s words of warning leapt to her mind, but now that she’d heard the full story, she was less inclined to take her seriously. She remembered sneaking around with Daniel, how she felt as though she was helpless to resist him, too.

Hugh took a breath and closed his eyes, sliding his other hand over hers. His skin was rough and warm, and it sent a flush of sweetness through her.

“And just what’s goin’ on here?”

Scully turned to see the thick slab of Theo’s chest. Above them, his eyes were indignant, bright with suspicion. Behind him, a dozen faces turned to follow the drama. Scully ripped her hand away from Hugh’s.

“Sherriff Gladstone,” she said, arranging her face into a practiced professional scowl.

“Dana was just asking me a few questions, Theo,” Hugh said in a bristly tone, as she gathered her coat. This was ridiculous, she’d done nothing wrong. So why did she feel so exposed?

She stood and shouldered past Theo. “We’re all done here, Mr. Daly. Thank you for your candour. Theo, I’ll send you those autopsy notes once I go over them with my partner,” she said, wrapping herself in her overcoat, and without a goodbye to either of them, she marched out of the diner and into the cold downpour of rain.

KICKING HORSE B&B 6:23 PM

The bed was littered with crime scene photos.

Mulder squinted into the bright laptop screen at the rolltop desk in the dim of his room. The connection was crummy, and the going was agonizingly slow. There was little public information about Horizon, even less about the Bishops or the colony or even the reservation. Nothing about homicidal behaviour in crows, mythological or otherwise. He lingered around thoughts of ghosts, of signs, of family, of loss, trying to find a path.

He hoped there were records in town, old newspapers, anything that would help him discern a pattern. He had a few ideas, but he needed Scully's perspective, needed her to eliminate the mess of avenues he laid out for her until they came to an agreeable trail to follow. He needed her to disagree with him, to make him work for it, so that he could gauge the depth of conviction he carried about the hunches he was nursing.

He sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose, slamming the screen closed. Where the hell was she, anyway?

He was just about to reach for his cell to try her again when he heard footsteps on the stairs. At first, he thought it was Rhiannon, armed with either a peace offering or another scolding, but then he heard the door of the next room shut.

He stood, briefly stretching his arms behind his back, and followed the sound.

“Scully?” he asked, with a gentle knock.

There was no answer but the sound of her movements inside—a shuffling of clothing, a muffled sniff. He rapped his knuckle against the wood again. “Hey, Scully, you okay in there?” He placed a hand on the door, trying to sense her inside of the room.

It swung open abruptly.

Scully’s hair was wet with rain, and she’d changed into her robe. There were black smudges of mascara clinging to her eyelids, and she looked so small and vulnerable that he had a sudden, dire urge to scream at her.

“Where were you?” He asked tersely.

She walked over to her briefcase and flung it open on the bed, gathering loose papers and Polaroids and thrusting them towards him. “Here are your initial autopsy notes,” she said. “I'll transcribe the rest tonight.”

Mulder stared. She shook the papers a little when he didn't take them, then tossed them back to the bed.

“You can't just not answer your phone,” he pressed, lodging his hands on his hips. “We’re on a case.”

She turned to look at him, expression neutral, but she couldn't hide the redness at the tops of her ears, the stiffness in her shoulders. “And what about all the times you've ignored my calls, Mulder?”

Silence yawned between them, punctuated only by the slap of rain against the windowpane.

“... Scully, look⁠—” he continued, trying to diffuse the situation. “You're right. I'm sorry. I was just concerned, okay? You sounded upset earlier, and I just—I know that Daly makes you uncomfortable.”

She blew a huff of air from her nose, and turned away.

He forged ahead. “I, uh, had an interesting day.” He was expecting her to take the bait, but she remained quiet, clearly distracted. “I don't think Abel Stoesz is involved... he's a nasty piece of work, but I can't see it coming down to him. But Scully, Marion knows something. We need to talk to her. When she's cooled off a bit.”

She nodded.

“...Uh, any luck with Daly?”

Scully fidgeted with her fingers, twining them together and rubbing at her thumbnail. “Mulder,” she said, and the pit of his stomach dropped. “I don't want you hearing this from anyone but me.”

Taken aback, he waited, searching her face.

“After our initial interview, Hugh and I decided to continue our conversation in town.” She paused, bracing him with her eyes, daring him to say something. His lips were suddenly very dry, and he darted out his tongue to wet them.

“And?”

“Well, the fact is… to onlookers, we may have appeared a little… familiar. Our demeanor may have been construed as inappropriate.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Mulder, it was nothing.”

Something sour and vile filled his chest. “If it was nothing, why the little confessional here?”

“I was comforting him, that was all. I don’t want Theo putting ideas into your head.”

An itching heat prickled over him. Scully was slipping away from him, literally and figuratively, wasting away, fucking murderous psychopaths and getting inked in sleazy Russian tattoo parlours and getting all cozy with sketchy farmers while they were supposed to be conducting a goddamn investigation.

“Oh, like how you comforted Ed Jerse? What, you got a bucket list number you need to fill or something?”

She looked as though he’d slapped her. “What is your problem?” she asked through her teeth, her voice low and deadly as a viper.

“My problem is that your decision making skills have been severely compromised since your diagnosis, Scully. You can’t even keep a professional distance from a good looking suspect?”

“Hugh Daly is a victim, not a suspect.”

“Did you happen to conveniently forget about Marion’s warning? Scully, listen to me here, she knows something!”

“Marion is twenty two years old, Mulder, and highly emotional, and she and Hugh⁠—”

“Scully, I need you with me on this, not having tea parties with⁠— ”

“⁠—If you’re going to crucify me every time I show a shred of human decency to someone⁠—”

“⁠—Oh, come on! That’s not what you were doing, and you know it.”

She snatched up the papers again, and shoved them towards him. “Mulder, take the damn notes and get out. Just leave me alone.”

Alone. She always wanted to be alone. But only when it came to him.

He ripped the papers out of her hands, fixed her with one last searing gaze, and left.

1:33 AM

Darkness. True darkness, and then a swift, startling awareness unfurled through her body.

The inky miasma of the room pressed into her, trapping her, locking her down. She tried to move her hands, but found that she couldn’t. Things were strange, and wrong, and the only thing she was sure of was that she wasn’t supposed to be here. There was a tingling buzz in the back of her head, growing, getting louder, becoming more and more insistent… and then perfect, eerie quiet.

A presence.

There was a figure at the end of her bed. She couldn’t quite see it, couldn’t quite focus on it, but she felt it, as real as gravity, and it was singing, in a voice so thin that it sounded more like a thought passing through her mind.

I cannot get o’er…. and neither have… I wings to fly…

Her heart seized in terror. She knew that she was dreaming. She had to be. She struggled against the oppressive gauze of sleep, fighting for air, and then she was there, and it was real, and she was sucking breath into her lungs, chest heaving and chilled with sweat. As she struggled and failed to move her limbs, she realized she still felt someone, something, there with her, and became suddenly and painfully alert. She mentally located her gun on the nightstand. Feeling gradually bled back to her, and she carefully wiggled her fingers, staring at the ceiling, willing there to be nobody there when she looked.

She took a deep breath, counted the punches of her heartbeats, and glanced down. Nothing.

Of course there wasn’t, she reprimanded herself. She was just having another nightmare. The case was just wearing on her. Anna’s body, Mulder’s accusations. Hugh.

Her pulse began to settle. The rain had cleared, and as she glanced over to the window, she could see a freckled arc of stars through the glass. She took a few more steadying breaths, struggling to sit up, thrusting her hands through her sweat-damp hair. She tuned an ear to listen for Mulder’s snores, but there was no sound.

She wanted to get up, to go to him, to make things right between them. But her mind went blank when she thought of what that might entail. What it could lead to, here in the dark in the middle of nowhere.

Instead, she kicked off the fluffy summer comforter with still-shaky legs, and went over to the window. A gentle breath floated up from the radiator. It wasn’t too hot to lean against, so she did, luxuriating in the comforting flood of warmth through her pajamas.

Her reflection stared back at her from the window glass, and she reached out to trail her fingers along the surface. For months, she’d avoided the thin, tired, sombre woman in the mirror, that horrible, consumptive apparition of herself. She remembered last night’s dream, her own face poised above her, pale and waxy in death.

Soon, she thought. I’ll be dead soon.

She passed the word through her mind over and over again, like fingering a strand of prayer beads, one for each of the countless cadavers she’d cut open in the course of her work. Sometimes they’d just been part of her day, barely human, interesting arrangements of flesh on a slab, and she a 20th-century haruspex, reading entrails.

But it had to be that way. It wasn’t that she was unfeeling⁠—she just preferred to keep her own emotions locked away, muzzled and collared like dangerous, mythical animals. Despite the popular opinion of the grunts in the bullpen, she wasn’t cold. No, she burned too hot for comfort. Melissa had been the same, but she’d embraced that heat. Harnessed it, rode it into battle. Made it work for her. In this and in so many other ways, Melissa had been the stronger one of them, the one that knew how to listen to her heart, to her gut. The one that knew what bravery was.

Did she see the gun, the hand in the dark? Did time slow to a crawl? Did Missy know, did she suspect, even for a second, that she was going to die?

Scully hoped not. To be aware of your own mortality was strange, too strange for her to fully grasp. There were other lives she’d wanted to lead, other paths she might have taken. She wanted to be a doctor. She wanted to be a mother. None of that would ever happen⁠—this was it for her. And what was the legacy she would leave behind? A few files in Mulder’s cabinet labelled with Scully, D.? A family torn apart, both of her mother’s daughters dead in the name of her work? A trail of unavenged victims and half-solved cases that no court of law could begin to prosecute?

Grief and helplessness rose like water in her throat, drowning her from within. Was this really God’s plan for her? What good had she ever really done with this life? What would Missy think? What would her father have to say?

And Mulder… Oh, Mulder. There was just too much there to contemplate. She wondered if she would ever have the courage to even begin to tell him what he meant to her. She wondered if, even worse, he already knew.

She clipped the latch of the window and shoved it open, forcing her breath to slow and deepen before the tears spilled over.

Fresh air met her skin with a gentle kiss, a whisper of wind pushing its fingers through the wheat outside. The clean country air was thin and rejuvenating. She closed her eyes against it, inhaling, sending a filament of prayer to whoever would listen, a prayer of peace for Mulder, peace for her mother.

And then she heard it again. Warm breath in her ear.

Both shall row… my love and I...

A shock of fear electrified her, and she flung her shoulders around. And then she heard a heavy swoosh, like a baseball bat cutting through the air.

Blood rushed into her ears, and she felt a razor-sharp heat open the skin of her shoulder.

She staggered backwards, instinctively covering her face, the pain and surprise of it trapped in her chest, so that she couldn’t cry out. The bird screamed at her as it ripped, a shrill harpy caw filling the room. She tasted blood in her mouth, felt the creature’s beak scraping and tearing viciously at her back as she stumbled away⁠—

CRACK⁠—

The door nearly splintered with the force of Mulder’s kick, and then Scully did cry out, in the terror and rage of it all. She expected to hear a gunshot, but none came⁠—just the heaving thump of Mulder’s body on hers, tackling her, rolling on the floor so that he was above her, shielding her. Black wings beat around his face as he reached up and grabbed the comforter from the bed, lunging at the dark and screaming bird, trapping it against the floor with his body.

Scully whipped her eyes around the room⁠—the crow appeared to be alone in its attack. She scrambled up and slammed the window shut, shaking fingers working the latch closed. Mulder was hunched over the struggling, squawking, blanketed lump on the floor. He fumbled around it as she ran back to him, and with sure, angry hands, he gained purchase on what he’d been searching for.

He grasped and twisted, and there was a sick, muffled crack. Flinging the dead bundle away from himself, he knelt in front of Scully, who had fallen back against the footboard. He ghosted his fingers down her cheek, looking deeply into her eyes as she struggled to gain control of her breath. “Scully, you okay?” She touched his wrist, trying to speak, taking in the scratches on his face, the blood beading along a deep cut across the tendon of his neck. “Had to tackle you. Couldn’t get a clear shot, you okay? Did I hurt you?”

She was beginning to feel the hot, white pain of it, blood trickling down the back of her pajamas. “My back,” she said.

“Let me see.” He tugged at one of her shoulders, and she swiveled obediently, pulling at the neck of her shirt. “...Shit, Scully, you’re all torn up.”

“Go get Rhiannon,” she breathed, every moment becoming more and more cognizant of the pain. Mulder scrambled up to a crouch, grabbing his gun from the floor and placing it in her hands, cupping her face. “Don’t move, okay? I’ll be right back. Don’t move.” He grounded her with his battle-worn monotone, the planes of his face blue in the night.

Scully closed her eyes and nodded, willing her heart rate to go down. Blood streamed from her, plastering her pajamas to her back. She was dizzy, raw-nerved. She heard Mulder’s movements downstairs, his voice bellowing for Rhiannon, the creaking and slamming of doors, the rattling of cupboards in the kitchen. She breathed through her mouth, settling into the pain, eyeing the bulge under the blanket.

When Mulder entered the room again, he had a large white metal first aid kit under his arm and a serious look on his face.

“Where’s…?” Scully asked.

“She’s gone. Her truck is gone. The dog is gone. I found a field kit, but Scully, from what I can tell, you’re going to need professional medical attention. You’re bleeding. A lot. Rhiannon’s gone. The closest hospital is hours away. Talk me through this, here. What do we do?”

“Get me to the bathroom,” she rasped. He ducked out to toss the kit with a clang into the bathroom, and returned for her. She reached for him, and he gently helped her up. They staggered clumsily together across the hall, Mulder careful not to touch her ruined back, the eyes of the Bishop women on the wall following them.

Mulder flicked on the wall switch. The wan, metallic light flickered to life above them, the buzzing from it echoing off the bathroom walls. The bathroom was longer than it was wide, and housed a clawfoot bathtub, no shower, a tiny black square of window, and a kilim rug rough under her bare feet. The ceiling was slanted, and so low that Mulder had to stoop his head.

Scully caught sight of herself in the pockmarked mirror. She was pale, her hair wild, and dark splotches of blood were soaking through her robe. Mulder loomed above her, looking guilty. “Scully. What do I do? Tell me what to do. Tell me what you need.”

“I need to get this shirt off.”

Mulder exhaled unsteadily as she peeled her robe off and tried to lift her tank. The fabric stuck painfully to her lacerated skin. “A little help here?” She managed to ask. Mulder visibly swallowed and helped her lift her shirt, averting his eyes politely as she brought the tattered, sticky fabric around to cover her bare chest.

The bathroom was cold against her skin and the heat of her blood. She glanced over her shoulder to survey the damage. Her naked back was lashed and streaked, and there was one deep, seeping cut that ran three or four inches from the inner curve of her shoulder blade to the base of her neck. Mulder’s face in the mirror was drawn as he surveyed the damage as well. The gash on his neck was bleeding into the collar of his shirt.

“Scully, fuck. Okay. it’s gonna be okay. What do I do? What do you need?”

“I can’t reach. These need to be cleaned. Water. Clean towel,” she managed, beginning to feel faint.

Mulder sprang into action, rooting around the squat wooden armoire for fresh towels. Scully slumped onto the fuzzy cover of the toilet seat, clutching her bloody shirt to her breasts. The rug was already spotted with her blood. She flashed on the photograph of Anna in the field, her intestines curled in the dirt.

Mulder, jaw set, rinsed the towels in warm water from the sink. He dropped to his knees in front of her⁠—“Here, can you turn a little?”⁠—and scraped the towel over her back.

She sucked air over her teeth. “Mulder, gentle...”

The towel was uncomfortably rough as he cleaned her, murmuring comforting nothings that would usually infuriate and humiliate her, were she not sick and scared and half-naked in a stranger’s bathroom.

“Scully…,” he said, “this one is bleeding pretty seriously. It looks bad.” Fuck.

“It… needs pressure. Clean towel. 15 minutes,” she breathed.

He discarded the wet, bloody towel and rummaged around for a clean one, pressing it into her back and shoulder with a comforting, firm hand. His other hand rested on her arm, caressing her almost unconsciously, sending tiny shivers up to her neck. The slanted walls of the bathroom seemed to crowd in on them, pressing them closer together.

After a few minutes, when the sharp edge of shock had worn down, Scully spoke, her voice shaking and tenuous. “It was a crow. Dammit, Mulder, it was a crow.” He nodded, chewing the inside of his lip.

“Good thing you weren’t out taking a midnight stroll in the wheat.”

“Don’t joke about that,” she said, haunted by Anna’s shredded face. He had the good sense to look vaguely ashamed.

“Scully… this can’t be a coincidence. What’s the common denominator here? Hugh Daly gets you alone, maybe shows a bit of interest in you, and bam, birdfeed.”

“Maybe there’s… maybe there’s a disease here. Maybe that’s why the animals are acting strange, attacking people. That might explain Hugh’s horse, not to mention the one on the highway… and, and Anna. And the crow that flew into my window tonight.”

“Then why haven’t we seen other animals affected? There are literally thousands of cows and horses in Horizon, don’t you think Rhiannon would have noticed something, would have mentioned something?”

“Well, she’s grieving, maybe she hasn’t thought to…”

“And where is she? What is she doing out in the middle of the night?”

“Maybe there was an emergency.”

“Well, these walls are pretty thin, and I didn’t hear a phone ring or anybody knock on the door, did you?”

They fell into another uneasy silence. Scully was weak with residual fear, the pulse of her blood hot on her back, the pain clarifying her thoughts. “Mulder…”

“Yeah?” He answered, his voice just above a whisper. He was so, so close, the scent of his skin all around her.

“Um... check if it’s... stopped bleeding.”

He peeled back the towel, gently stroking the skin next to the cut. “Oh, Scully,” he breathed.

“Do you see any white? Any muscle tissue, subcutaneous fat?”

“Ugh… um. Maybe.”

“Let me look…” she said, turning and placing a hand on his shoulder, using him for balance as she pushed herself up. His hands went to her elbow, to her hip, and he followed. She went to the mirror and turned her back to it, squinting at the cut. It wept fresh blood. “Mulder… I’m going to need stitches. I can’t reach to do them myself.” She looked over her shoulder and regarded him with as much sternness as she could muster. Comprehension and horror overtook his face.

“No. No, Scully. Wait for Rhiannon.”

“And what if she’s not back soon? Or ever? This needs to be closed up, ideally within the next six hours, and it’s a simple process. One you’re fully capable of performing with my instructions.”

“...Can’t we just wait?”

“Mulder,” she said, growing frustrated. “Buck up. I just want it over and done with.”

“Scully! No, Jesus, what if I⁠—?”

“Shut up and get that first aid kit. I need to see what’s in there.”

He blinked at her helplessly, then resigned himself and leaned over for the white tin, bringing it back and opening it. Luckily, it was well-stocked, something Rhiannon might bring with her on a call.

Scully rifled through the case one-handed, unearthing thread, a curved needle that resembled a fish hook, a roll of gauze, and a bottle of iodine.

“Should I.. do you need ice? I can go get ice,” Mulder ventured.

“That might be a good idea,” she conceded in a strained voice, the pain radiating hot and sharp across her back.

He blinked up at her, his eyebrows slanted in concern. “Okay. I’ll be right back. You stay here. You scream if anything happens. Loudly. And stay away from the window.” Scully nodded and watched him as he disappeared through the doorway, closing it swiftly behind him.

The moment he was gone, she sank back onto the toilet seat, and let loose one single, silent, wretched sob, clutching at her tattered shirt so hard that her nails bit into her palms through the fabric. She hated herself for it. For her weakness, her fear. Hated herself for needing him. Hated that he might be right.

She pulled herself together quickly, biting her tongue hard, blinking back tears. Minutes slurred onwards, and soon, Mulder’s voice sounded beyond the door. “Scully, it’s just me,” he warned, before rattling the door knob and letting himself back into the bathroom. He cradled a dusty bottle of Glenfiddich under his arm, and toted a few handfuls of ice tied into a kitchen cloth, already melting into his shirt.

“Thought this might help too,” he said, liberating the bottle from the crook of his elbow with his free hand and sloshing it around a little. She looked up at him as he unscrewed the cap and handed it to her.

Oh, Mulder.

She adjusted the arm that was holding her shirt to her chest, took the bottle from him, and pulled deeply. Liquid fire swished down into her chest, into her sinuses. As she drank, she met Mulder’s eyes, and found something in them that was suspiciously close to admiration.

“Alright, Anne Bonny,” he said, taking the bottle back and taking a short, scowling swig himself before screwing the cap back on and clanging it down next to the base column of the sink. He kneeled in front of her again, helped her turn around, and brought the dripping ice pack to her back. After the initial jolt of it, numbness swept through her slowly, both from the drink and the cloth. Rivulets of melt trickled down her back, sweetening the rhythmic throb of fading pain.

“I’m ready,” she said, once the bite of the ice had faded into a blunt gnaw.

Listening carefully to her instructions, Mulder washed his hands and clumsily sanitized the needle, threading it with some difficulty. He soaked a cotton pad in iodine, and guided it slowly over her skin in strokes so soft and careful that they could have been mistaken for a lover’s touch.

“Scully, I can’t do this,” he pleaded, when everything was prepared.

“Mulder,” she countered patiently. “You know how to sew, right?”

“I mean, I can do a button, but… this isn’t the Indian Guides.”

“Please… I trust you. Just do it.”

“I don’t want to hurt you,” he said.

“I need this. I need your help.” She looked over her shoulder at him, and saw determination return to his face.

“God, Scully. Okay. You let me know if you need to… if you need a break, or if something feels wrong, or…”

“Make sure you catch enough of the flesh, okay? Pull it open a little. It’s a rotation, remember, not a stab. Just keep your hand steady.”

He sucked in a breath, and then she felt the first pinch of the needle invading her skin, the slow, tense curve of of it, then the tug of the thread as it slid through her, the tight pull as he knotted her skin back together.

“One down,” he murmured in concentration, and then he entered her again. She gasped quietly.

“Am I hurting you?” He asked with infinite tenderness. “Am I going too fast?”

“It’s fine, you’re… it’s fine,” she said.

“We can take a break if it’s too much. You’re the boss.” His hot palm swiped over her shoulder, and she glanced down at her knees.

“No, it’s… it’s not that.” She realized she didn’t know quite what it was. “You’re doing fine. Thank you, Mulder,” she added as an afterthought.

“S‘okay,” he said, and continued, but even more slowly, more gently than before. 

“I’m going to need antibiotics as soon as possible,” Scully said, more to herself than to him. “And the swelling⁠—did you see any Motrin in the tin?”

“No, but I’m sure Rhiannon has some kicking around,” he replied softly. “You sure that was a normal crow, though, Scully? I feel like an exorcism is more the order of the day than antibiotics.” He said this with flat humour in his voice, but she didn’t think it was very funny.

Six stitches, and then there was gauze and tape, and then it was done.

He swiped a warm, wet cloth over her back one more time, avoiding the dressed wound. His hand continued downwards, knuckles bumping over the ridge of her spine, and the pads of his fingers came to rest on her tattoo.

“I’ve only seen it in snapshots. The red is really…”

Scully pulled her bottom lip between her teeth and leaned forward, just a little, a silent invitation for a closer look. Mulder bent down further, tracing it with his fingers. She could feel his breath on her skin.

His voice was coarse and close. “It’s nice.” His fingers brushed in a spiral over the snake, sending chills up her spine, heat rising between her hips.

“Mulder⁠—”

His hand leapt off of her skin, as if the snake had bitten him. “Sorry.”

“No, it’s okay⁠—I just… let me look at you.” She swiveled, holding her shirt to her breasts with one arm and bringing her hand to his face with the other. He was far better off than she was, just a few scratches across his cheek framing his rocky nose. She tilted his chin in her hand, and examined the cut along his neck. It had stopped bleeding on its own, but left a trail of rusty red down into the scooped gray collar of his shirt.

Their eyes locked together and held, and a stroke of energy went through her, something undeniably foundational, something as deep as love. But then the light in his eyes shifted.

She felt a hot trickle of blood spill from her nose and pool between her lips. Self-consciously, she brought the back of her hand to her face to catch it, and turned away.

“Scully…” Mulder gently grasped her wrist and tugged her hand away, turning her face to his, tenderly dabbing the blood away with a clean corner of the towel.

“I’m fine, Mul⁠—”

“⁠—STOP that,” he seethed, suddenly intense, inches away from her face. “Stop it with that, Dana, you are not okay. I’m sick of this shit. Stop it. It’s me, for fuck’s sake. It’s me.”

She tongued the corner of her mouth, tasting blood, and felt the hot sting of tears forming behind her eyes again, the twist of humiliation and anger in her belly. Mulder sighed deeply, his shoulders heaving.

“You’ve got to trust me, Scully. You’ve got to let me in. I’m right here with you. You’re not… you’re not fighting this thing alone.”

Despite her efforts to keep it at bay, a tear welled, crested, and rolled down her cheek. Mulder seemed to hesitate momentarily, then leaned forward and pressed his lips against it, sweetly, lingering. He pulled back, and then, as if surprised by his own audacity, he launched himself up, his bum knee cracking. “I’m… uh, do you have anything to sleep in? I’m gonna…” He disappeared without finishing his sentence, and reappeared a moment later with a clean t-shirt, which he tossed in her direction before leaving again.

Scully closed her eyes, willing them to dry. She dabbed at the sticky blood that had transferred from the shirt to her chest, and careful of her injuries, she slid the shirt over her head. It was soft, smelling of Mulder and laundry soap.

“Scully?” Mulder appeared in the doorway again, wide-eyed, his voice urgent, gun in hand. “Scully⁠—the crow is gone.”

“What do you mean the crow is gone? I thought you killed it!”

“I did, but it’s gone.”

“How can that be possible?” She stood, bracing herself against the sink.

“I have a few ideas,” he said darkly. “But… I don’t want you in that room tonight. I think you should come to mine so I can keep watch.”

“Mulder, I’m⁠—”

“DON’T⁠—start with that again. I’m gonna get cleaned up, and you’re coming to my room.” Something about his tone of voice reminded her of her father, and she found herself unable to protest. She followed his orders, watching him strip his shirt off and dab at his chest with a wet cloth, and then following him to his room. It was a mirror of hers, with the same sloping roof. “Take the bed,” he said, closing the door behind him.

“Where are you going to sleep?”

He nodded towards the small armchair in the corner.

“Don’t be ridiculous, Mulder. The bed is big enough for the both of us.”

He seemed to consider this, chewing his lip, hands on his hips. “Okay, but I’m taking the side closest to the window. Just in case.”

Scully curled into the cool sheets in the dark of the room, favouring her good side. The sleepy smell of him rose to meet her from the pillow, a scent that was dark with dreams. Mulder was pacing, checking the locks, peering out of the window, the floor creaking under his feet.

She watched him quietly as he slowed and then finally stopped.

“I, um. I think your room was Anna’s,” he sighed, leaning his forehead against the window glass.

“I think it was, too,” she said, and was grateful that he didn’t ask her to elaborate.

He turned, his long, lithe silhouette approaching the bed, the moonlight glancing off of the curve of his shoulder. Carefully, he crawled in beside her. The grandfather clock in the corner ticked contentedly on. Scully felt as shy as a teenage girl; she was careful not to touch him, but she yearned to all the same.

Mulder tentatively reached over to tuck a strand of hair behind her ear, and rested his palm on her cheek, thumbing just below a scratch.

“Why is it always me?” she whispered, indulging in a fit of uncharacteristic self-pity.

He scooched towards her without a word, his knees knocking her shins, and kissed her sweetly between the eyes as he threaded his arm under her neck. She rested her cheek on his chest, sucking her tongue nervously, submerging herself in his heavy, warm aura. He nosed her hairline.

“You’ll be fine,” he murmured. “We’ll figure this out. All of it. You’ll be fine.”

[monikafilefan]

One time on an airplane

This is a chapter from a very old outrageous UST fic of mine that I had way too much fun writing as a newbie. Really, it’s just for shits and giggles.

Tagging @today-in-fic

———

There it is. That rounded tight piece of perfected ass displayed right next to your shoulder. If he told you his ass was used as a template and chiseled into a statue of stone that women came to worship on Sunday, you’d believe him. Because that’s practically what you do yourself. Worship, adore, honor, drool—

Doesn’t matter, you do it all.

Mulder lifts the last piece of luggage into the overhead compartment across the aisle from your assigned seats. You hear him shove the bag in further, yet you don’t see him do it. No, you aren’t watching what his hands are doing at the moment; just his chiseled ass cheeks as the muscles ripple underneath his tailored Armani.

You hear him huff in frustration and mumble the word, “dammit,” and then, “tiny fucking spaces…”

You’re not frustrated at all. In fact, you’re extremely relaxed as you lay back and rest your head along the seat. You see, that ensures you use your trained investigators eye appropriately by examining the evidence from every angle possible. You feel a languid grin take over your face while your eyelids droop and you stare and stare and… you see him turn and hear the compartment snap shut; and you make your rebellious eyes do the same.

You fake being asleep which is completely STUPID because you’ve just sat down less than five minutes ago. You panic but don’t show it. Hell, you’ve gotten so good at not showing the deeper side of Dana since med school, that you can officially add professional fucking faker to the list of labels that follow your name.

And you carry a mass amount of guilt for it.

You can feel the intense stare he’s giving you while you impatiently wait for him to say something. But no, oh God, he’s going to do something instead! You hear his shoes squeak against the metal sides of the aisle, you feel him lean in so close that if you open your eyes, you’ll be nose to nose. He audibly gulps, and you hear his breath puff out in a long drawn out exhale. And you smell him—oh Jesus you smell him— his own unique bouquet that flips your belly around like a fish out of water.

Instantaneously, your nipples harden, digging into your useless too thin bra, as his breath caresses your ear. The anticipation is absolute torture to your body and your mind while the thoughts of what you wish could happen next dance around your brain.

You, with your legs spread wide while he pounds into your core over and over. Him, meeting you thrust for thrust as you straddle his hips, riding him sweet and slow. You, with your hands pinned above your head while he teases your entire body until you fall to pieces in his arms—

Oh Christ! His fingers run through a stray lock of hair and he tucks it tenderly behind your ear, his mouth sending streams of warm air against it. You bite your lip to keep it from yanking you over to meet his face and plant itself on his pouty mouth. But you’re weak; so weak in fact you that can’t help but open your eyes and see his hand sensually moving down your face while his fingers still glide along your hair.

You try not to look at him while he does it—his Mulder scent, his proximity—but his eyes are invading your whole fucking bubble. You can’t avoid them. They’re green and gold and swirling; they’re a goddamn vortex sucking you in.

It’s so intense! You flutter your lashes that feel like lead, while your vocal cords act before your brain does and you say his name right into his cheek. “Mulder.” No, you moan it as he leans back into you, branding your ear with his mouth. You take the opportunity to look down at his cock. Yes, you bravely look down at your partner's hard thickening cock, and just before he’s able to witness you’re appreciative assessment, the flight attendant snatches you from your sexually charged universe.

“Excuse me, Sir, but you’ll have to take your seat now.” The sickeningly sweet way she says it only pisses you off. How could anyone be so joyous as they interrupt one of the hottest fucking moments that you’ve had in years?

Son-of-a-bitch!

Yet, Mulder surprises you. He doesn’t jerk his mouth away from the lobe of your ear as if he burned his lips on scalding hot coffee. He doesn’t even move. He only blows out a steady cascade of air along the shell of your ear. You immediately begin to pant like a dog in the hot hot sun, deprived of water for days on end. Your mouth is dry as a bone, and you realize the wetness that once resided there has shot straight into your lace panties, flooding you.

You gasp, loudly, too goddamn loud for him not to react. You feel him blink rapidly against the side of your face, his lashes titillate and make you shudder from tits to toes.

Oh. My. God.

He can’t get any closer to you—while clothed anyway—and stays frozen like a statue while kneeling in the aisle of a packed airplane with his skin attached to yours. Just when you cannot take another heated second he suddenly, as if shocked by electricity, jolts to his feet and nearly takes out the attendant with his head. She stumbles backward, and you see him react with his arms flailing out completely uncoordinated.

You watch paralyzed and wide-eyed while gripping the armrests as he trips over his own feet, ramming his open palm into the woman’s breast and knocking her into the lap of an elderly man.

Gasps, shouts, and a rush of passengers move forward to assist the ruffled attendant who was just felt up by the careless FBI Agent who’s also sporting an impressive rock solid erection that tents his pants.

You’re too stunned to move so you can only watch as a red-faced Mulder awkwardly apologizes to her and the man, whom you pray won’t have a stroke from a pretty young woman’s ass being plopped onto his crotch, while Mulder jams the heel of his hand against his now inappropriate yet mouth-watering hard-on.

Jesus, your ogling has turned into a clusterfuck and you don’t know whether to laugh, cry, or ignore the fact that you were both two seconds from tongue wrestling while eye fucking each other in front of 60 strangers.

No, no Dana! Do NOT think about fucking of any kind!

Another flight attendant swoops in at that very second and takes charge which forces Mulder to make a decision. You’re not able to move with the crowd of people now standing next to your seat so you’re stuck looking at Mulder’s panic face that you’ve recently become quite familiar with since Texas. You see the hesitant look in his eye and immediately understand the problem. He’s afraid to slide past you to get to his seat while jutting his raging erection into your face.

So It’s your turn to gulp, and you toss up a quick please God, just in case He chooses now to answer one of your prayers. But as soon as you get your hopes up, you realize that he has turned around with his back to you. He bent himself at the waist to tuck his head under the fasten seat belt sign, and starts to squeeze himself along your front, simultaneously disappointing you and exciting you at once. Because yes, his perfect perfect ass and all its glory is now just inches from your face. He’s rubbing his legs along your own as you suck your entire bottom lip into your mouth and—oh you’re in trouble now—you have to actually slap your hand over it to contain the guttural moan you feel vibrating up your throat.

Your hand that’s not currently covering your mouth twitches and by its own volition, seems to rise in mid air, intent on grabbing just one of his fantastic cheeks.

God must be listening, because you’re able reassemble a monicome of self-control to stop your wandering hand from reaching for its laurels.

The last part of his leg leaves yours just in time for you to clasp your hands together and shove them in your lap. Christ, you hope he can’t smell your arousal when he sits down the same way that you can smell his heady scent wafting up your nose.

Mulder sits down right next to you and immediately leans forward, shedding his jacket and draping it along his crotch. You try not to stare out of the corner of your eye, yet those damn swirling whirling eyes of his draws yours to his like a magnet. You stare into one another. And stare and stare until your brain screams at you to breathe. Apparently, eye fucking Mulder shuts down your body’s autonomic response.

Point taken. There will be no more of that, you lie to yourself.

You tear your eyes away and suck in a breath as the flight announcements take place. You know Mulder is brewing up a way to discuss this heated moment in which, you know, will inevitably lead to a discussion of what you have pegged as “the hallway incident”. And in no way shape or form, are you ready for that mind-fuck of a conversation.

Disecting a body is what you should be focusing on, not the dissection of your feelings you hide deep in your soul. Because you know you’re weakening, mind and body.

You now have the rest of the flight to fantasize and down-right torture yourself with thoughts of that perfect ass, and now that perfect hard-on he’s probably still sporting, all the while you tune in and out to Mulder’s ramblings about the body you have to, in his words, “slice and dice.”

Over the next 29 minutes of shared sexual tension at 36,000 feet, Mulder wiggles, fidgets, and flips absently through a file repeatedly after filling the silence with case information that you already know. And you? You angle your body away from his and repeat the mantra of autopsy lingo in your head just to keep your attraction for him from banging against your Cerebellum.

Just as you start to contemplate that physically banging your head against the seat in front of you would work better, the seat belt sign turns off and you’re out of your seat in a flash, making a beeline to the tiny ass bathroom.

You’re summoned by the announcement of arrival seventeen short minutes later, so you settle back into your seat after your alone time where you splashed cold water on your face and aired out your arousal filled panties.

Just as you think you’ve reigned yourself in, you feel a warm hand grip your knee that sends tingles up your thigh. You gasp and vaguely register Mulder asking you if you’re okay. You nod and his hand disappears. Thank God!

You’re teetering on the precipice of erotic anarchy on a fucking airplane with nowhere for you to escape.

Twelve minutes. Twelve long agonizing minutes later you land, and Mulder stands next to your still seated form. You haven’t taken the chance to make eye contact again after earlier instances proved to be physically debilitating for you. So you just wait for him to slide past you once again to grab the luggage.

Oh shit! You forgot. How could you’ve forgotten he was going to need to shove your weakness into your face again? You should stand instead. You really should, but you don’t. You don’t move a damn muscle. And you suddenly realize, that no amount of avoidance will curb your desire for him or his luscious luscious ass.

There he is right in front of you now slowly rubbing the back of his legs along your knees and your eyes are glued to the glorious image before you. The rebelliousness of your eyes from the beginning of of flight has moved on to overtake control of your hand this time. Somehow, you forget you’re only supposed to look. Not touch. Never touch. Touching is too dangerous, too much, too stimulating, too—

Amazing! You yell silently as you run your hand over one taunt cheek, providing gentle pressure. You ensure—for the second time today—that you use your trained investigators eye appropriately by examining the evidence from every angle possible. It only seems fair you assess him with touch now as well as sight.

You feel Mulder stiffen and his glute muscle tightens. Because yes, your hand his still palming it. He spins his head around and down to gawk at the act at hand, literally. Your eyes don’t flick, dance or drift away this time. You keep them locked onto his like a vice. You can’t hold back a smirk at the sight of him attempting to swallow through what you can only assume is now a moistureless mouth.

Finally, he glances at you through his lashes and clears his throat to speak. You swipe your hand one, two, three times across his ass cheek before he can utter a thing. And by the grace of all that his Holy, you’re able to school your face enough to seem as serious as any human possibly can who’s been creaming her panties for an entire flight.

“You had some of my hair stuck to your pants,” you blurt out, hopefully in an unaroused tone since you can’t hear a goddamn thing with the sudden blood whooshing in your ears.

It’s getting too much, this voyeuristic obsession of ogling your best friends ass. Except... he’s not just your best friend anymore, he’s the only man that you want in your life, and you’re too damn chicken shit to admit it beyond your array of dirty dirty forbidden thoughts.

And that turns you on, unfortunately.

You wait for him to say something. Anything at all to break the tension, but no innuendo comes out of his slack-jawed mouth. Only the truth.

“Well at least one of us got to touch today,” he murmurs with a pinkening face, eyes still drilling into yours.

“You’re forgetting about your groping of flight attendants, Mulder,” you quip with a smile in order to deflect the attention off of your own indiscretion.

Oh no! You’re being pulled, pulled into his vortex of green and gold AGAIN, and you fear you might never come back this time. “Ouch!” A bag belonging to the teenager behind you whacks you in the head, yanking you out of Mulder’s swirling gaze.

You don’t even give a shit about how bad your head is now throbbing. You’re thankful for the blow to the head that knocked your sense back in. But if you could do what you really wanted, you’d laugh hysterically at how insanely close you are to sprinting right out of the best friend zone you and Mulder are encompassed in, and happily violate your number one rule.

Mulder’s mood from the beginning of the flight has changed drastically right along with your own. He’s no longer frustrated; you are. Both emotionally and physically, and you just can’t take it anymore.

The airplane exit doors open as soon as Mulder steps up to the overhead compartment. You see your opportunity to run from the area that’s been mercilessly taunting you with your every desire.

You stand, and you move with purpose.

“I’ll meet you by the gate,” you toss back over your shoulder as you hightail it down the aisle, fleeing yet again.

----------

[ericsonclan]

When She Braided Her Hair

Summary: Prisha struggles to adjust to life with only one functioning arm. Violet helps her see that there's still hope.

Notes: Companion piece to “Braiding Her Hair”, this time from Prisha's perspective.

Read on A03:

Prisha sat alone in her dorm room at Ericson’s School for Troubled Youth, trying her hardest to keep perfectly still as she reached with her one good arm to stroke the brush through her hair. Every misplaced twitch had her seizing up in pain, the burning sensation from her shattered arm radiating throughout her entire body. It had already been weeks since the injury, but she was nowhere near recovered. She would never fully recover; she was maimed for life. Prisha gritted her teeth, trying to focus on the task at hand rather than the new grim reality of her condition. She might be an invalid, but she could still have neat hair. She wasn’t letting this injury take away the one part of herself she’d always maintained. Finally after several minutes of painstaking effort and barely contained gasps of agony, her hair had been thoroughly brushed out. All that remained was to braid it. Prisha reached behind her, groaning in pain as she attempted to pull her hair forward. She started her regular steps, separating the hair into equal portions on her left side, right and her back, then froze as the realization struck her: this wasn’t going to work. This method relied on her approaching the braid from both sides at once with two hands. Prisha felt panic rising within her once more, the same she had felt at Ruby’s words as she informed her of what had happened to her arm. The same she experienced as she watched Dana and Marie be taken away while the rest of her group bled to death on the cliffside. No. Don’t let yourself go back there. She would find a new way to braid her hair. Standing up, Prisha walked over to where she’d laid the brush on the desk. Perhaps she could use it as some sort of placeholder, a bookmark while she shifted her good arm to the next position. This could work. The panic subsided as she once again began to undertake the task of braiding her hair. It was soon replaced with anger however as the brush quickly proved itself ineffectual. It would either slide out of the place she wanted it to be or get tangled in the hair it was meant to hold. After a few rounds, the brush became particularly snarled within her hair. Prisha tried to pry it out gently, then grew angry, swinging her hair back and forth. Her crippled arm immediately retaliated with an absolutely debilitating pain, causing Prisha to cry out and crumple in half from the pain. The brush clanged against the metal bedpost and fell uselessly to the ground. “Prisha? Are you OK?”

She heard the door open and immediately straightened up, casting a venomous glare at the treacherous brush. The corners of her eyes stung with tears she was too furious to shed. “What’s wrong?” It was Violet’s voice. She was the one who had carried Prisha back to the school, the girl who had saved her life. For her to come at this of all times was utterly humiliating. Prisha let out a harsh sigh. “I asked Ruby for a brush since after three weeks in a braid my hair looks like it belongs to a mongoose. Silly me though, I forgot that I would need two hands to rebraid my hair, just like I need two fucking hands for everything in this goddamn world!” Prisha felt her chest heaving as her emotions swelled. Damnit, she couldn’t let herself fall apart now! “Y’know what? I can braid your hair. I may not know a fucking thing about hair care, but it’s just a braid, right?” Violet bent down to pick up the brush. “You can sit down on the chair or the bed and I’ll get it done,” Prisha felt dazed. In the midst of all the chaos, she’d been repressing her emotions for weeks now. Having them all come out at once like this was proving taxing. Shakily, she nodded then sat down on the bed facing the closet, pulling her legs up against her chest and wrapping her right arm around them, her left cradled uselessly by her side. She had to make sure she didn’t jostle it. One more bout of pain might be too much for her to manage. She could hear Violet crawl on top of the mattress and sit behind her. To greet that childish outburst with an offer of help… these Ericson survivors really were something else. In all her years on the road, Prisha had only met a handful of people who would offer a stranger a hand. They tended to be those who’d been denied the same kindness in the past and did not wish that suffering to fall on another. From the burn marks on Violet’s face, Prisha wondered if the same story held true for her. Violet hadn’t moved yet. “Umm, remind me of the first step,” Prisha felt a smile weakly tug at her lips. Of course the art of braiding’s been lost with the apocalypse. Everyone else had the sense to cut their hair short. “You need to separate my hair into three equal sections,” “Right,” She could feel Violet touching her hair, so gently it almost felt like she wasn’t there. Prisha wondered if Violet was worried about hurting her. Considering that the purplish bruising of her arm travelled far above her bandages, it was a valid concern. Violet was certainly gentler than Prisha than she’d been with herself in her efforts to untangle her hair. Violet had stilled again. “Do you need the next step?” “Uh, yeah,” “Start with the section on the left side and cross it over the middle section. Then take the right section and cross it the other way, then bring the middle section over. Then just keep repeating those motions,” “Alright. Here goes nothing,” It was sweet of Violet to be attempting something she was clearly uncomfortable with. Prisha could hear her whisper a cuss as one section of her hair slipped out of her grasp. She was such a fascinating person. Prisha hadn’t thought much of her in the months since their first meeting, but the same traits that had stood out in Violet then were present here as well: tenacity and tenderheartedness. The two qualities tended to be mutually exclusive after the world ended. Either you were soft and died or you were hard and survived. It was exceedingly rare for someone to embody both within themselves. Prisha suddenly realized how quite she was being. She’d been so drawn into the peacefulness of the moment she hadn’t considered that her terseness might be unsettling. Awkwardly, she cleared her throat. “Did you used to have longer hair… before?” “When I was little. My grandma used to put it in braids whenever she took me to church. I hated it,” Violet paused and quickly back tracked. “Not that braids are bad! Just on me. She did them so tight,” It was cute how quickly she’d corrected herself. As if anyone had time to be offended by braiding preferences in the apocalypse. “My mother braided my hair when I was little, but she taught me how to do it myself from a pretty young age. She said that braided hair was a sign of dignity for a woman.” Prisha reached up a hand, fiddling with a stray strand by her face. “I know it would be more practical for me to cut it, but something just stops me each time I consider it. Who knows. Maybe it’s just my way of saying fuck the walkers and fuck this entire shitty world. They can take a lot from me, but how I do my hair is still my own fucking choice. I may not control what I eat or where I sleep or…” She took a shaky breath. “Or the well-being of my own body, but dammnit, I still have my hair,” Damn, way to monologue, Prisha. “That’s sorta badass,” Prisha snorted. “Thanks, I guess. Everything’s going to shit and here I am being Indian Rapunzel,” “It works on you,” “Thanks,” Prisha felt a bit of warmth growing in her chest at the reiterated compliment. Violet didn’t strike her as the type to give compliments lightly. She should know better than to brush her words off. Prisha turned slightly so she could look back at Violet who was earnestly focusing on the braiding process. “You know, I can see why you hated them. The braids, I mean. Your hair looks good short,” “If by ‘good’ you mean ‘looks like some hay that a cow shit on’ then yeah, I guess it looks good,” Prisha scoffed. “No, it’s not like that at all. It looks like… y’know that tall grass that grows beside rivers? The kind with those wheat kernels on the end that you can’t eat? Then autumn comes and they turn this warm, light gold tone and just sway back and forth in the breeze…. Your hair is like that,” Shit, that sounded super gay. She hoped she hadn’t just freaked Violet out. “Your braid is done,” Violet draped it over Prisha’s right shoulder. “Thank you,” Prisha said, fiddling with the tail end of the braid. Not bad at all for a first attempt. “You got it perfect. Not too tight,” She turned around on the bed, leaning against the wall. “Sorry you had to come into the middle of my tantrum. Was there something you needed from me?” “Dishes,” Violet answered abruptly. “Omar wanted me to bring your dishes down if you were done with them,” “Oh, yes, of course. Could you tell him thank you for me? His cooking is seriously amazing. The best I’ve had in years,” “He’ll be happy to hear that,” Violet reached out to grab the small pile of dishes, moving backwards toward the door. “I’ll leave so you can sleep now,” Dang it. She shouldn’t have asked Violet what she came in for. “Alright. And Violet?” “Yeah?” Prisha found herself looking out of the boarded-up window, unable to meet the eyes of the girl who’d just helped her for fear of her voice cracking with emotion as she spoke. “Thank you. For dropping by. It helped,” “Anytime,” With that, Violet was out the door and Prisha was alone again. Well, there wasn’t anything else to be done tonight. Her hair was fixed and the tension in her body had finally dissipated enough that she felt she could sleep. Blowing out the candle by her bedside, Prisha lay down on her bed. Her future was still unclear, a fact that terrified her to her very core. But for the first time since she’d lost the use of her arm, lost her group, lost everything… for a few minutes things had been pleasant. Perhaps all was not lost just yet. She needed to stay practical and be prepared for the worst, but the people at Ericson hadn’t kicked her out yet. Maybe, just maybe they wouldn’t? It was too much to think of right now. With a sigh, Prisha closed her eyes, waiting for sleep to take her. She was glad that Violet had dropped by tonight. She’d given Prisha something she thought she had lost: the comfort of knowing she was not alone.

[admiralty-xfd]

the things we do for love

Middle school again.

That’s what this feels like. Balloons bobbing on the ceiling. A disco ball spattering greenish lights around the room. Awkward innocence permeating the air. It doesn’t matter that the room is filled with adults; I’ve been transported back to my youth in an instant.

There’s an enormous rainbow made of plaster proclaiming its reverence for Kroner, Kansas, and the ridiculous amount of lights adorning it is worthy of its own X file. Not that I'd want to impugn this perfectly charming little town. It’s been a pleasant diversion. It seems like the kind of place in which Mulder really enjoys being.

I’m just not exactly sure why we’re still here. In fact, I’ve been wondering that for days.  

Mulder always does this; he has some power over me I can’t explain. Maybe it’s magic, or maybe it’s something else. But he just says the word and I’m off on whatever ridiculous adventure he has up his sleeve. Whether it’s Groom Lake or a haunted house or even a man controlling the weather, I’ll always find myself in the midst of it. Wherever he is, I have to be. I have nothing to justify or account for it; only the perpetual suspicion that he must be some kind of dark wizard.

I don’t generally believe in those sorts of things, but with Mulder around, I can never be quite sure.

The case has been wrapped and the thunderstorm has abated. None of this really matters at the moment, however, because now he’s taking my hand and pulling me towards him and before I can process what’s happening we are in a close embrace, dancing like a couple teenagers.

Mulder and I don’t dance. He doesn’t even know how, and neither do I, really. We’ve done this before exactly once. It was over a year ago which sounds insane when I say it to myself but really, the nature of our work makes time fly by so quickly it doesn’t feel that long ago.

It’s an excuse, an excuse to hold each other, like so many other excuses we make time and time again.

My mind flashes to the song the DJ was playing earlier: 10cc. The Things We Do For Love. It’s a song I know, a song I’m very familiar with. It’s one of those songs that brings forth a vivid memory that’s burnt into my brain the way any transformative experience would be.

Patrick Hansen, seventh grade. I saw him dancing across the school gym with Stephanie Ericson. It was the first time I felt my heart break, before I even knew the potential of such an ache.

Ooh you made me love you

Ooh you've got a way

Ooh you had me crawling up the wall

I can feel Mulder’s heart beating in sync with mine, pounding like crazy as he holds me close. I’ve been crawling up the walls ever since my lips were a breath away from his, from the moment he said all those things to me that turned my entire world upside down.

It isn’t often someone tells you you made them a whole person. It certainly isn’t often when it’s Mulder.

Communication is the problem to the answer

You've got her number and your hand is on the phone

The weather's turned and all the lines are down

The things we do for love, the things we do for love

We’ve been here before, him and me, on countless occasions. We never let anything happen, ever. Words have never been our strong suit when it comes to personal feelings. The affection is there, the care, dare I say it… the love. I know it is.

But there’s also something physical between us, an attraction that might actually kill us dead if we don’t just… put it out there at some point. Maybe that’s what Mulder was trying to do with that kiss. Six years of the kinds of glances we share has definitely taken its toll. It came as no surprise to me that we’d been mistaken as a couple on three separate occasions over the past 48 hours.

Not to mention the fact that I’m in love with him. I know it. I’m more certain about that than I’ve ever been about anything. And it’s getting harder and harder to keep that particular truth inside. I wouldn’t dare let Mulder in on this secret. When I confronted Sheila in the bathroom earlier I’d let out more honesty than I’d intended, but not in front of Mulder. I’m not ready for that.

I’m convinced we cannot take this leap. Not now, anyway. There’s too much work to be done. First we have to get the X files back. Our X files. Because they’re ours, his and mine. We need them and they need us and a physical relationship would get in the way of that. The Bureau would use just about any excuse in the book against us at this point.

Change is in the air for us, however, and we can both feel it. Now that we both know we wanted to kiss each other, this thing between us… it’s out there. The truth, oddly enough. I laugh to myself.

“What is it?” Mulder asks, startling me. I’d laughed out loud, apparently.

“Nothing, it’s nothing.” We’re in a weird state where we’ve revealed enough to each other already in his hallway, so he doesn’t press.

But then he takes my hands in his and drapes them behind him, around his neck, and puts his on my waist gently. I shouldn’t feel like my twelve-year old self again but I do. While this new position feels utterly appropriate in this setting I can feel myself trembling and hope to god he can’t tell how nervous I am. Our faces are so close together and my entire body is hot. It feels like it might spontaneously combust, in spite of my reservations on the likelihood of such a possibility. I want to believe he’s nervous too but his smile is just so damn disarming and he seems so cool and collected. His fingers are rubbing soft circles much too close to my ass to be merely friendly and its distracting as hell. He looks directly into my eyes and I can physically feel myself falling into them even more.

“Somewhere Over the Rainbow” is echoing around the gym but all I can think about is that fucking 10cc song and no amount of Judy Garland is going to chase it away at the moment.

Ooh you made me love you

Ooh you've got a way

Ooh you had me crawling up the wall

This isn’t fair. He shouldn’t be doing this to me; to us. This is hard enough already. Putting us in this position makes me feel exposed. I feel as if I should say something before these thoughts have the effect upon me they’re threatening to and I actually physically melt into his arms.

“What was that Holman said? Try what sometime?” I’m just making small talk. I don’t really care what Holman Hardt has to say about anything while Mulder is touching me like this.

“Oh..” he shrugs dismissively. “Just something we were talking about earlier. About me and… some girl.”

“Some girl, Mulder?”

“Mm-hm.”

“I thought you didn’t know what girls were?” I tease him. This is what we do. We can’t help ourselves. He chuckles and hesitates. I know he’s just being playful but it feels like he’s being careful as well.

“Well, I don’t, not usually,” he says. “But this one… this one is special.”

“Ah,” I say. Because I know he’s talking about me and I don’t have a reply. I never do in moments like this. It’s probably why we’re stuck in this mind numbingly infuriating limbo from which there is seemingly no escape.

I know what he’s trying to say. I’m not an idiot. It’s the same thing we try to tell each other every single day without telling each other anything. We’ve become experts at hiding our feelings, and the feelings we can’t hide, well… those are the ones we just sense when we look into each other’s eyes.

All I know is there’s a line we can’t cross, like crime scene tape stretched out between us. There are a million reasons we shouldn’t cross it so we don’t.

But, I mean… we’re FBI agents, after all. We’re allowed to cross crime scene tape, right?

Jesus Christ. I’m even trying to reason my way out of my own faulty metaphors. For fuck’s sake, Dana, get a grip.

“Anyways, I’m happy… for them,” he smiles, looking over my shoulder at Holman and Sheila. I crane my neck to look, trying to be discreet but there’s really no need; they only have eyes for each other. It gives me a nice feeling and I smile too. ”Must be freeing to acknowledge that kind of truth,” he continues.

“I imagine it is.”

I’m sure it is. I wonder how many more years it will take us to acknowledge a similar truth.

Without warning, my head relaxes into his chest. I don’t mean to do it, I swear. It just kind of happens. But I can’t move because… well, it just feels so damn good here in his arms. It feels like I don’t have a right to be here, but he’s allowing it. His fingers move into my hair, the heel of his hand just barely grazing the back of my neck and I shiver.

This is so stupid, so stupid. I shouldn’t be doing this. He shouldn’t be doing this. We have reasons, good reasons not to give in to this. My mind is racing a mile a minute and my insides are churning and if I had a power like Holman Hardt’s there’d be a hurricane sweeping into the gymnasium right about now.

Suddenly I’m aware my body is fully pressed against his in a way it hasn’t been before. How did this happen? I pull away a bit in surprise and my eyes betray what I definitely just felt.

“Sorry, it has a mind of its own,” he grins, those goddamn hazel eyes sparkling. I hadn’t said anything. Just swaying with him and feeling his erection against my hip. No big deal.

“And your two minds don’t align?”

Shit. Why did I say that? Why am I actively flirting with him while his hands are in my hair and his dick is pressed up against me like this? Our playful banter has always come so naturally I can only imagine, now knowing what we know, how it’s going to evolve.

Like walking in the rain and the snow

When there's nowhere to go

And you're feelin' like a part of you is dying

He chuckles at my retort and every sound he makes sends bolts of electricity right where it always does. I clench my thighs together in an attempt to disprove the very provable evidence of what he can do to me gathering there at this very moment. I’ve never wanted him to touch me so badly in our entire partnership and I’ve certainly wanted him to. A lot.

“Well, sometimes they do align,” he responds, that deep voice raising goosebumps all over me. “My brain just has more self control.”

Well, that’s great. I’m fucking thrilled his does.

Every ounce of my own energy is being directed into controlling myself. Into not throwing him down right here on this wooden gym floor and having my way with him, doing things to him that middle-school-aged me would never have been privy to.

I angle my head a bit so it’s right up next to his, as close as I can get with our height difference, and now we are positioned almost cheek to cheek, his mouth at my temple. I can’t see his face anymore and it’s unnerving, almost uncomfortable. Almost. His breath is hot. I can feel every single tiny hair on my skin at attention, just waiting for what’s next. I hold my breath, feeling as if we must be doomed to an eternity of waiting for what’s next.

His next words would take my breath away if I had any left in my body.

“I wish I’d kissed you, Scully… I wish I’d just done it years ago.”

He says it so quietly I can barely hear him. His thumbs are circling around and around at my neck now, every tiny motion feels so huge. Knowing what’s happening and not feeling able to act upon it is absolutely maddening. If he had… if he had kissed me long ago what would be different? We would be different. The weight of this moment wouldn’t exist.

And yet...

“I wish you had, too.”

It’s the truth. There isn’t a day that’s gone by since our near-kiss happened I haven’t had murderous thoughts about bees. Insects in general, really. Fuck them all.

His hands grab my face and he pulls back to look at me and it suddenly feels like we are back in that hallway again. This time, nothing would stop us. We both know it. But still, we hesitate. Before, such a moment was thrust upon us without warning. Now, we’re well aware of what’s at stake. We both don’t want things to change just as desperately as we do.

He pulls our foreheads together, which is typically a task considering our height difference, but the heels I’ve been standing on all day offer some assistance. I know my feet are killing me but I cannot feel them. All I can feel is this heat between us, this energy, this unfathomable, indescribable, unsolvable mystery that isn’t really a mystery at all. This kiss that’s hanging in the air, begging to happen, feels even more weighty now than it did back in that hallway.

But if we did… our worlds would change. We would change.

I’m overcome with longing and trepidation and my body is shaking again, and I know he can feel it.

“I’m not gonna try anything, Scully,” he says, his voice a low monotone. It sends a chill down my spine directly to the place I wish it wouldn’t. “I think it’s important… that we don’t. Right now.”

For a brief moment, I wonder if he’s misinterpreting my trembling body to mean I don’t want him to kiss me. But then I wonder if that’s true… do I want him to, now?

I’m terrified.

My eyes close and I picture his lips approaching mine, those lips I’ve become accustomed to staring at when I think he’s not looking. His tongue would move over mine, and I’d finally, finally get to taste him. What then?

I know what then. My mind wanders uncontrollably. It goes to a place I try not to let it unless I’m at home, in my own bed, my fingers desperately searching for relief. At home it feels safe and indulgent. Here and now these thoughts are downright dangerous.

But I could do it. I could just move my face an inch, just tilt it a tiny bit and he’d take the hint, I know he would. He’d make that journey.

Do I want him to?

Too many broken hearts have fallen in the river

Too many lonely souls have drifted out to sea

Broken hearts. Lonely souls. It could happen to us. Nothing would be stopping us if the risk wasn’t real.

You lay your bets and then you pay the price

The things we do for love, the things we do for love

“I think you’re right, Mulder…” I whisper, moving my face against his scratchy cheek. He leans into me, and the shift is subtle but I feel it. His arms move from my neck down to my shoulders and he pulls me into him, sighing. He’s as disappointed as I am, but we both are still on the same page. We both know it’s the right decision.

For now.

We’re dancing again, really dancing. This dance has gone on for so long. But I’ll never tire of it.

A compromise would surely help the situation

Agree to disagree but disagree to part

When after all it's just a compromise of

The things we do for love, the things we do for love

This isn’t the time for us. This isn’t the place. I love him too much to do this. I love us too much. I love everything about our partnership.

We’re doing this, or rather not doing this, for love.

Thanks for reading! For more of my work, go here. 

[sportsnightnut]

scully/stella prompt: they meet in London doing something entirely ordinary and boring (as so many fics begin in a bar). they're grocery shopping, taking the tube, at the market, the bank - you choose!

Oh, this was such a fun prompt. Thank you, my friend! This is my first Scully/Stella fic, and I gotta tell you, all it makes me want to do is write more.

Enjoy! 💛

i’ll buy you dinner first

5:37. Not much of an on-time departure from the office, but when has that ever been the case, really?

It’s Friday night and it’s been raining the whole damn week, as it’s apt to do this time of year in London. Stella wants to get home, kick off these stilettos in the middle of the floor without giving a fuck exactly where they land, have a glass or three of wine. But then she remembers she used the last of her coffee this morning, so she needs to stop on the way home to replenish it, lest Saturday morning turn into something mildly miserable. Ten more minutes in these shoes, she tells herself. You can do that. Just ten more minutes.

She shrugs on her trench coat and slings her bag over her shoulder. She’d been invited to go out with colleagues, but had politely declined. Social activities, particularly on a Friday evening, have never really been of interest to her. Friday night means home, silk pajamas, wine, a movie. And besides, she knew it was more of a pity invite than anything. Her colleagues like and respect her, sure, but the boss isn’t usually anyone’s first choice for a happy hour companion (unless it’s a party and the boss is buying, which was not the case in this instance).

Stella flips the lights off, starts making the trek home. There’s a Sainsbury’s between the office and her flat, so she decides to pop in there. They have a fine enough coffee selection, and maybe she can grab something to go with the leftover chicken in her fridge while she’s at it.

No basket, no trolley, because then she’ll buy more than she needs. Just straight for the coffee and tea aisle, stopping only to pick up a box of pasta on the way.

But then Stella rounds the corner and nearly drops the box of angel hair she’s holding. She comes dangerously close to running into, and subsequently toppling over, the cardboard display case of seasonal herbal tea.

Because in front of her is perhaps one of the most beautiful human beings Stella has ever seen.

She’s a bit shorter than Stella, although they’re probably a similar height without the stilettos. Fierce, dark red hair–one might even call it auburn–skims her shoulders. Stella’s first coherent thought is that all she wants to do is touch it, run her hands through it. God, it looks soft. I’m sure it would look similarly good spread out beneath her head on my pillow.

The woman is wearing a simple black dress and a gray cardigan with a pair of shiny black flats. She’s leaning against her trolley, standing in front of the coffee, looking absolutely baffled.

And the only thing Stella can conclude is that she absolutely must approach this woman. Because clearly she needs help. And clearly Stella should be the one to help her.

“Are you…looking for something?” Stella asks, stepping toward her. The woman raises her head and her lips turn up into a sweet smile.

Holy shit, she’s stunning. Stella swallows. Hard.

“I’m relatively new to London,” the woman starts. 

Oh, Christ, she’s American. She’s gorgeous and her accent is fucking adorable.

“This is…well, I’ve never bought coffee here before, so I don’t know what to get. None of these brands are familiar to me. I mean, there’s Starbucks, but I don’t like Starbucks that much, and…” she stops explaining, realizing she’s started to ramble. “I’m sorry. That’s probably not what you meant when you asked if I needed help.”

“Oh, no, that’s exactly what I meant,” Stella replies smoothly. “The store brand is fine, but I enjoy Taylors.” She points to one, her maroon polish shining in the light as she taps the bag with her index finger. “This blend is quite lovely.”

The woman smiles at Stella. “Thank you,” she says, and reaches for the coffee. Stella hands it to her, causing their fingers to touch, and she thinks she might die right here in the middle of Sainsbury’s because even though it was only half a second, she could tell how warm and soft the woman’s hands are and her mind immediately jumped to all the places she’d like those hands to be.

“You’re quite welcome. I’m Stella, by the way.”

“I’m Agent–” she stops herself, shakes her head. “Sorry. Still used to introducing myself that way. I’m Dana.”

Stella cocks her head, looks the woman up and down. “Agent, hm? From the States?”

Dana nods. “Yes. Dana Scully, formerly a Special Agent for the United States Federal Bureau of Investigation.”

God, what a fucking turn-on.

“So what brings you to London, then, Dana?”

“I’m a physician. I went to medical school before I was recruited by the FBI. A former colleague of mine recommended me for a position at a clinic here. I was ready to get away from my life in D.C. Too much history, a little too much pain.” Dana pauses. “I’m sorry, I’m practically telling you my entire life story in the middle of a grocery store.”

Stella smiles and touches Dana’s arm gently, wanting her to know it’s okay. She seems lonely, maybe a little uneasy being in a new country on her own. But god, a Special Agent for the FBI? It seems to suggest that she would understand Stella’s life, at least in some ways.

“No need to apologise. I work for the Metropolitan Police. Detective Superintendent Stella Gibson, to introduce myself officially. So I know a bit about what that life is like, Agent Scully.”

“Oh, wow,” Dana breathes. “Yes, you certainly do. Well–thank you for this,” she says, holding up the bag of coffee beans. “It was awfully nice of you to assist a stranger.”

“I could walk around with you a bit, if you like,” Stella proposes. “Help you get the lay of the land. Answer any other questions that may arise about British groceries.”

Dana giggles, and Stella is sure she’s going to die on the goddamn spot. It’s this sweet, sexy sound she wants to hear again. And again. And in other contexts, too.

She agrees readily. “I’d like that, Stella.”

Dana tries not to make it obvious that she’s trembling slightly as she walks alongside Stella. This woman is the definition of alluring. Long blonde hair curled at the ends, a little bit of makeup, the kind that makes it look like she really isn’t wearing any. A silky emerald blouse, a black pencil skirt, and tall stilettos that basically beg for Dana to notice her calves as she strides confidently down the aisle.

And she’s in law enforcement, which is (unsurprisingly) a major turn-on. Stella gets it. She knows the life, the job, the responsibilities, all of which require a certain commanding presence that Dana can’t help but think would come in useful in…certain situations.

And Dana is sure she looks really fucking hot wielding a weapon.

(Also, has she mentioned the British accent?)

Here’s the thing: Dana has never been with another woman. Not fully, anyway. Not in the “we’re in a relationship” kind of way. There was Lauren, an undergrad classmate who lived in her dorm senior year, but they only ever flirted, and usually only when drinking. Then in med school, there was Abby, who was in her surgery rotation. Abby was the closest she ever got, and it was mostly flirting with a few relatively innocuous makeout sessions (although it was always while sober, which made it feel very different from Lauren).

So the fact that Dana is incredibly, incredibly attracted to this woman has her more than a little unnerved.

They walk down the aisles together, Stella pointing out the locations of necessities like cereal and pasta, what the best baked goods are, what’s worth paying a little extra for and what’s just as good in the store brand. When Dana chooses a package of chocolate-filled croissants from the bakery, all Stella can think about is eating them with her. Naked, in bed, on a post-coital Sunday morning.

She clears her throat.

As they approach the dairy section, Stella observes that Dana seems a bit cold. Either that, or she’s inexplicably standing closer to Stella, which she admittedly wouldn’t mind.

She’s having trouble getting a read on Dana: she’s clearly not in a relationship now, as she moved to London alone (and mentioned something about moving away from something or someone painful). But she agreed to Stella’s company, and it seems like she’s been finding reasons to stand closer to her, accidentally brush against her. Didn’t move her hand away when Stella let hers linger for a moment longer than necessary.

But it’s still unclear if she’s that kind of interested.

The same cannot be said for Stella.

Dana is stunning, sexy. Beautiful and badass, and Stella wants her. Bad.

So as she shows Dana which cream she likes best for coffee, she reaches for the appropriate container and sets it in the trolley without ever breaking eye contact, her gaze focused on the woman next to her. They’re already close, but Stella leans in even closer, gets a hint of Dana’s perfume. She smells like raspberries and jasmine and everything good in the world. God, she wants to bury her face in her neck and perhaps stay there forever, just nibbling at that perfect ivory skin.

“Dana,” she starts. Her voice is dark, quiet, so none of their fellow shoppers nearby can hear what she’s saying. “If you don’t want this, you can tell me to kindly fuck off, and I will. But I feel compelled to tell you that you’re absolutely fucking beautiful and I would like nothing more than to take you home with me.”

Dana blushes, but not out of embarrassment, exactly. Stella knows the look, the reaction, this particular shade of flushed pink on the cheeks. It’s the reaction of someone who’s been “figured out,” so to speak. The reaction of someone who is pleasantly surprised that Stella finds her attractive in that way.

But it’s the cutest fucking thing, and it manages to warm Stella’s otherwise cold heart. 

Oh, god, this woman is going to do me in, she thinks. First I proposition her in the middle of a grocery store and the next thing I know I’ve got a fucking crush on her and I’m about to turn down a night of incredible sex so I can date her instead.

“Let me add this,” she says before Dana can respond, her voice still low and dangerously close to Dana’s ear. “I’ll buy you dinner first. At least once if not twice. Maybe three or four times. I’ll kiss you after the first time. And I’ll take you out for coffee. Oh, yes, definitely coffee. And really, whatever else you desire. Dessert, wine, whiskey, anything. Then after an appropriate amount of dates and innocent kisses, I’ll take you home with me. Pour you a glass of red wine while you stand in my kitchen. I’ll kiss you, but not as innocently as I kissed you before. And then I’ll touch you in as many places as you’ll allow me.”

It’s Dana’s turn to swallow. Hard.

“Yes,” she says almost inaudibly.

Dana says the word “yes” faster than her brain can process what’s happening.

She was relatively certain, throughout this entire encounter, that Stella found her attractive. It was mostly from the look in her eyes: caring and kind, yes, but also a little bit feral. It was clear when she put the coffee creamer in the cart that this was more than a friendly gesture. There was a want, a desire in her eyes, a look Dana hasn’t been on the receiving end of in years.

And the thought of being on the receiving end of it now terrifies her. Not because it’s a woman, not because it’s Stella. Because it’s been a long time. 

But it’s been long enough.

And she wants Stella just as badly.

“Yes?” Stella repeats, somewhat unable to believe that this beautiful creature wasn’t intimidated by the fact that she was incredibly direct about her intentions.

“Dinner sounds nice. And coffee. And…those other things you mentioned.” Dana clears her throat, and Stella thinks it’s absolutely adorable because it’s clear that Dana is flustered and nervous. But this also means she finds you attractive, Stella. Shit, the woman just agreed to go out on multiple dates with you knowing that at least part of your motivation is to get her into your bed.

Stella takes one small step back so she can look at Dana. She reaches over, caresses her cheekbone with her thumb, restrains herself from pushing her up against the cartons of milk and taking her right there. “Dinner it is, then. Anywhere you’d like. Tomorrow night.”

[rjmorrisonuniverse-blog]

Nolan and the One-Hook Day

1. NOLAN

 What a shit storm of a day.

Distilled angst, chain of events, cosmic joke funnel, harpoon of the gods.

I know as I sit near him that I will have to throw the best punch I have ever thrown; one with technique and violent finality. I'll have to lift up from the chair, slide it back as I tell him "I'm going for a piss", and deliver the perfect right hook that begins from my heel and gains muscle torque up the calf, thigh and buttocks. I'll pivot with it as I rise and all my years of practice should unconsciously find that sweet spot on his jawline. I have to throw for a kill.

One chance or else big trouble.

Even I know that you don't get into punch-ups with massive off-duty cops.

One knockout hook, and an expedient exit through the side door on the far end of that pool table. It has to be soon, before the after work crowd shows up and this shit-hole becomes witness city. Before the pork behemoth gets even nastier and I run out of time. You bet your ass the pig reference is intended; this guy has the face of a swine. Mammoth jarhead on a stump neck with beady red rimmed eyes and nose vascularity that bespeaks years of hard drink. His voice is gravel, whisky phlegm and flat hard, and his salt and pepper goatee has an ugly way of framing an unsmiling mouth.

Motherfucking pig, prick, douchebag.

 I guess we should backtrack some. My name is Nolan. You don't need the surname, so get over it right now. I work for a metal stamping plant, and we make mostly automobile fenders. The job pays well but the environment is a hell on earth; a gargantuan space lit by low sodium lamps that hang forty feet above the floor. Two-storey tall machines that thump and roar like monsters starved for metal and perhaps human flesh, and a long shift there with earplugs inserted and legs taking shock after shock wave is about as otherworldly a job as I've ever had.

Is it any wonder I amped up my mixed martial arts training and aimed at the UFC?

Lunch breaks at A.G. Simpson were hilarious, as the zombies filed into the cafeteria in various states of exhaustion, depression, hangover, debt, disillusion. Even there, with the long bank of windows that overlooked the main work area below, the fucking lighting was brutal. In your face harshness, bad food, a sickly mint green high gloss paint on the cinder block walls... I mean, no amount of overtime could justify my being there and ONLY there to make ends meet. I remember a painting crew that was hired to spray the ceilings and recoat the washrooms, and those guys were freaked OUT by the vibe. They took their breaks in the cafeteria too, cursing themselves for not bringing their own food to the job, bitching about the watery vending machine coffee, and more than a dozen times asking us "how the fuck do you stand working here?"

So, given my size and mindset coupled with a love for man-to-man conflict resolution, it was a no-brainer for me to embark on a little side action in the octagon. I started as a gangly kid with the amateur boxing and proved a quick study with natural power in each hand. Even with the headgear and twelve ounce gloves I was knocking people out cold, and sparring partners too. I always seemed to have that mean in me, but as lady luck, that rotten bitch, would have it... I was a "cutter". If I didn't knock his ass out in the first couple of rounds, sooner or later I'd be bleeding. Bottom lip, bridge of nose, and for a brief stint in the pro circuit, both eyelids. I was an undefeated slugger fighting out of a loser gym, punching for power and lantern jawed, but that goddamned skin of mine  pushed me toward MMA combat, and that was fine by me. I didn't like my fellow man as a rule, and most days, hitting him made more sense than conversation.

I started out lucky, through a cousin who was being trained in the Pat Miletich camp, and found myself under the tutelage of the great man himself. I could list details about the intensive training that mixed kickboxing and Jiu-jitsu, Pat's karate methods and a stripped down version of Thai boxing that seemed best suited to my power... I could talk about the first dozen fights in Iowa, all victories by knockout in the first round.

I was busting my hump at the metal stamping plant all day, training five nights a week, and taking fights for shit money anywhere they would put me. Eventually I was given an opportunity to match up against a name opponent, even though his career was on the downward spiral, and representatives from the UFC were ringside. That was one motherfucker of a highlight reel knockout, let me tell it. My six foot four two hundred fifty pound hammer was primed to drop and I don't mind saying that poor bastard was knocked out during the stare down. Stoked? Homicidal.

The first thing he attempted was a leg kick, and in missing, he presented me with a clean shot at his mandible. I saw his eyes go all wide and wild just as I uncorked a sweet left uppercut and felt that indescribable delicious shock of connection when it exploded on the sleep spot under his chin. He was out before his head bounced off the canvas, and even today the debate continues about what killed him; the punch or that heavy landing. My celebrations ended when I saw that he wasn't getting up, and by the time the stretcher arrived I knew it was serious. I won't lie to you. I won't say it chewed me up inside that my opponent died a week later. These are gladiators and they go into it fully aware of the dangers. Highly skilled, trained to the nth degree, all it takes between two combatants in that arena is a nanosecond of error and somebody's lights go out.

Permanent injury, career ending injury? Not common, but I wasn't a common hitter either. Maybe we can thank my father for that. Every opponent wore his face and I don't throw to win. I throw to injure.

I was told that a contract was being drawn up for me in the aftermath of that fight; that all the way up to Dana White's office, the name "Nolan" was being spoken as the next money magnet. Then that poor bitch died and the contract offer was postponed until the media hornets nest died, too. I was pissed, maybe even a little at myself, and for sure at the man whose physically abusive ways had forged the fires that shaped me.

Two weeks later, I busted up one of Miletich's top young prospects during a heated sparring exchange, and that was the end of my UFC dream. Back to the zombie show at A.G. Simpson I went, and no amount of prying from fellow workers would get me to talk about just how close I had come to fame and financial freedom. Fuck it, fuck them, and fuck dreams. That became my mantra, and I withdrew into a mean sonofabitch's shell. Nobody messed with me back then.

Well, not until I took on that part time gig as a bouncer at Bunny's strip club. That was where I met Sherry-Ann.

  2. SHERRY-ANN

  Here in the bottom of the barrel tavern, I motion to the waiter for two more pints and listen to the gravelly voice of the big prick sitting at the corner of the table. He's talking about his failed marriages, the failings of the judicial system, the failure of society to appreciate what he does for a living. Failure? I'll show the motherfucker failure. Then, as the waiter sets down two more pints, I hear off-duty pig's speech beginning to slur.

"You shoulda been a cop". He fixes his cold eyes on me, looking at my down-to-the-wood hairstyle and clean cut features. He's bitching about the career path and in his next beery breath he's pitching a sale.

"My woman wouldn't have anything to do with me if I was a cop", I tell his stump of a face while Sherry-Ann drops the needle down on some distant memory that plays a song of sex and rage. Pig-mug leers into his ale, and I glance down at the broad knuckles across my right hand, square and knobby and designed for pain delivery. I had been forming a fist as he bitched about his marriages, and now I force myself to flatten out the fingers on my thigh.

 You may have thought that Sherry-Ann was a stripper, based on my mention of the club where I watched the door and floor. Nothing against the girls inside who worked the laps for money, but I would never date a peeler. I fucked a couple of them when I first took the job because they were practically throwing it at me. These all-American clean cut features of mine would have been enough, but toss in some nasty scar tissue and my indifferent conduct, and it was shooting fish in a barrel time. I don't pretend to understand the mind of a woman, but there is a fundamental truth about their being attracted to rough men. They may not love us in a lasting way, but a lot of them want us between their legs.

My first weekend on the job, on the Saturday shift, this feature dancer "Savannah" kept taking her breaks in the entrance lobby, near the door and near me. Nothing wrong with my meat radar, and I knew where the harpoon was headed. This joint, "Bunny's", was a rough place in a nasty part of southside downtown. Blood spatter on the sidewalk out front was common, and in time a lot of it was extracted by yours truly in the doing of his job; I always thought it funny how these down and out motherfuckers could find money for beer and lap dances. How many of them had wives and hungry children at home?

Some of them came in looking for trouble, pissed off at the world, and I took pleasure when reducing their dietary needs to soup. The owner of the place didn't give a shit how we did our duty, as long as the money came in and the cops stayed away and the girls were kept happy. So, when Savannah finished her final three song set of the night, instead of taking private dance requests she asked me if I would join her for a drink. Rose, the owner, cleared it with "Night's almost over... long as you keep an eye on the room."

Savannah and I shared a small table near the entrance door, and she did most of the talking while I admired her rack and scanned the patrons. Her body language was nothing less than a carnal invitation, with those shapely legs spread and her hand coming up often to touch my bicep, forearm, knee. A vacant, giggling, augmented and needy blonde caricature.

Shift finished, I invited her back to my two-bedroom apartment for a few more drinks and some good hard fucking, but on the way out the back door I first saw Sherry-Ann and she laid a burn job on my mind. She was leaning forward to talk to a potential client through the driver side window, and I caught sight of long-honed legs flowing up into a tightly rounded naked ass calling to me beneath her hiked black skirt. Statuesque, easily six feet without the twat-for-sale boots, and when she heard the back door squeal open and slam shut she turned for a second to shoot me and my companion a hard appraising look. The street lamp threw a sleazy orb over her beautiful features, with that young Margot Kidder sneer, too much lipstick and tumbling waves of ludicrous wig-red tresses tickling the mid back.

Untamed; that was the immediate impression. Lanky and dangerous and maybe a little crazy, and the kind of bedroom ride that was sure to be a roller coaster. We experienced that intense time-stand-still-eye-lock and I felt the kinetic energy between us that stayed with me all through the next two hours of sex with Savannah. That final climax, doggie style with her face pushed into the back of my sofa and her hands braced against the wall... that was another woman's bird I was basting. A woman I was determined to meet at the next opportunity. I remember drama-Savannah's look of injury when I handed her cab fare at four in the morning and bluntly told her I needed to sleep alone. She tried to protest and I gave it to her straight - "We both got what we wanted tonight, and now it's time for you to piss off."

 "You really shoulda been a cop, I'm telling you."

I nod as if in agreement, look at the clock above the bar and realize that I'll have to do my thing soon. Sherry-Ann will be expecting me home from work, completely unaware that my day is an official shit-storm only beginning to hit the fan. The huge man sitting with me lifts the pint of ale to his mouth, still glaring my way over the rim, and I see his police-issue service revolver sitting snugly in its shoulder holster. The open front of his brown suede jacket, the bulging stomach, massive arms barely contained by sleeves, and a pungent body odor of sickening complexity.

This doomed fuck doesn't have a clue that I followed him here.

3. PARENTING

  A week after I first laid eyes on Sherry-Ann's lanky goods, I was on duty at Bunny's with a sense of excitement that I hadn't felt in a long time. The shift was uneventful, and when I went through the back door, there she was at the end of the block with another chick. I thought about walking over to her, but decided to roll up in my Grand National. It was a hot night and she was sweetly tucked into a pair of high-riding denim shorts and a tight red t-shirt with black boots at the mid-calf; straight platinum blonde wig. I saw her eyes move from her companion as I rode up slowly, window down.

What a fucking body. Built for cock of Nolan. I can't explain the power of the attraction, and I had never considered paying for sex even once in my life. She just had that sneer, defiance, youthful strut and a physique to match. I'll admit that I had a soft spot for the ladies of the night, because my mother had been one, and I hate on pimps and everything they represent. Sure, I had some Travis Bickle in me, and Sherry-Ann was my Jodie Foster.

"Looking for a date?" her upper lip curled at the corner, and then I could see her remembering me from the weekend before. She smiled as I stopped, and her girlfriend took a long look through the windshield before casually strolling around the corner out of sight. "Hey, I remember you, stud."

Long story short, we did a little negotiating and she got in the car. I drove around the block and parked in behind Bunny's near the fire escape and garbage bins. Very romantic. Turned out that Sherry-Ann was new to this stroll, and didn't fuck. She was oral only, and I had to wear a jimmy hat Her old man was a biker-type who also had a piece of the action in the very club where I worked; a few girls who took on after hours customers at his command. He'd taken a shine to his newest meat, and didn't want Sherry-Ann riding any cock but his. I was as stiff as a fucking girder when she started stroking me through the dress slacks, but when I tried to enjoy her tits she moved my hand away gently, bending to unzip me and set the crowbar free. As soon as she started rolling that goddamned rubber over the head I could feel myself losing the erection.

"This isn't how I want it" I told her flatly, and she froze, raised herself back up and looked me long in the eyes. I remember thinking that I knew her from somewhere, maybe another life, and for the first time in my thirty four years I felt that I wanted something intensely. Her. "I wouldn't mind grabbing a coffee somewhere for half an hour, for the same money, if that's cool."

We started that way, and for weeks I would take her to a seedy twenty four hour diner near her stroll, to learn about her life and tell her about mine. Both of us were survivors of violent childhoods, but her father was nothing compared to the evil piece of shit that was mine. Her dad was heavy into the booze, gambling, and spousal abuse. My father was the angriest most self-entitled rage-aholic in existence, and from my first childhood memories it was his fists that marked my growth.

That prick verbally abused my mother and took sadistic pleasure in kicking the shit out of his only child. As I grew into a large teenager, the beatings escalated in duration and ferocity. He never told me why he hated me, but I knew instinctively that my life had been an accident... a miserable wait around that cocksucker's reality. As Sherry-Ann and I shared these sad stories over coffee, we could feel a mutual caring develop between us, and I always had that sexual hunger for her.

In time, she trusted me enough to explain that she wanted to get away from "Roy", who was becoming increasingly demanding and violent. He'd brought in another girl from the bus terminal, and that was his new top bitch. Sherry-Ann had to start earning like the other girls, and when she told me that, I took care of the situation for her. I spent a couple of weeks in hiding, watching for this fucker, and quickly enough I was able to figure out his schedule. He'd roll around just after the sun went down, in a beat up blue panel van, and again after three in the morning to collect the pussy rent... I waited for the Thursday of the third week, told Sherry-Ann exactly what I planned to do, ignored her warnings and pleas, and when Roy showed up later that night for his money...

Nolan came out of the shadows across the street. Roy was in the driver's seat, window down, in conversation with one of the other girls and I casually walked around the back of the van to push his bitch out of the way with my right hand before looping a short left hook into the center of his face; it had brutal follow-through and Roy's head whiplashed before he hit the bench seat sideways. Two of the girls started running away, but Sherry-Ann stayed for the show. I yanked open the door and grabbed a generous handful of beard and long hair, pulled the semi-conscious Roy back to a sitting position. The blood was cascading out of what remained of his nose, down his shirt and vest, all over the money he had dropped into his lap. I gave him a good shake and his eyes rolled open, tried to focus, and before he could attempt anything I drove a hateful straight left into his open mouth, putting him OUT. I loved the sight of him sagging back to a lying position in a grotesque slow motion of jaw-hanging gore. "Sherry-Ann is with ME from now on" I shouted into the cab, and who knows if he heard it or not...

"Call an ambulance for this piece of shit, and let's go get your things." An hour and two pieces of luggage later, Sherry-Ann took refuge in my apartment. A roach-infested den of depression and about as dead end as it gets for a pretty young runaway of twenty three. We had sex for the first time that night; a two-way act of consumption that I won't ever forget. We felt like we knew each other far beyond those few weeks of talking, and her forthright way of telling me how to fuck her, how to do the things that she needed done, the way her sexy mouth formed a leering curve when she came so hard and violently around me. It would be a long time before she heard it, but when I called in sick the next morning, I was sure I could love her.

Roy? He hadn't seen what hit him. I heard that he lost most of his upper and lower plate, had to have his nose reconstructed, and a few weeks after that night he and his women vanished from Bunny's and the block. Sherry-Ann settled in with me, took a waitressing job, and we fell into a year-long calm spell... I had saved almost all of my earnings over the past eight years and we made plans to get a house together outside the city core. We had a friendship and the sex was ferocious, but there were hurdles to overcome. I helped Sherry-Ann quit the glass pipe, and she helped me open up.

 Which brings me back to this nameless drinking hole and the large man sharing a scarred wooden table with me. Brings me to a heartbeat of hate, and the day that marked the history of Nolan with a river of tainted blood.

 4. SHIT, MEET THE FAN

 A Friday that began like any other, with the five thirty alarm. Sherry-Ann's warmth against me under the sheets, and the new anticipation of weekend reward in my life. I gave up the bouncer gig at the strip club to spend weekends with my woman, and for the first time ever I had days to look forward to during the workweek. Long lazy mornings in bed together, watching television, having sex, lost in conversation... me, the short fuse with lots on his mind and little to say. Simple, beautiful hours.

That Friday I ate my breakfast alone then walked quietly into the bedroom to kiss Sherry-Ann on the forehead as she slept. Me, the guy who told himself he would never give a shit about anyone... she was asleep on her side, dark brown hair fanned out across the pillow. I ran it through my fingers to make myself believe again that this amazing change had come to my existence, and then left to make the half hour trip to the A.G. Simpson metal stamping plant. I first noticed the horizon of fire when I made the turn into the industrial park on Laird avenue; jet black smoke billowing upward to form the devil's cloud cover, licked from below by a massive wall of flame. I hit the gas and felt my guts sink into the comfortable abyss of my usual state of being, knowing what I was going to see at the end of the avenue, reaching for the radio as I saw the rows of cars lining each side and stopped by a phalanx of police cruisers, ambulances, and fire trucks. The all-news station was on the scene and I learned that a huge explosion had ripped through my place of employment, killing four workers and injuring dozens of others.

"Jesus H. Fuck!" I pulled over and parked on the strip of grass adjacent to the two lane blacktop, got out to watch the blaze. Co-workers either sat in their cars or stood around in groups, shaking their heads at the sight of the apocalypse before them. A couple of them acknowledged me with nods, but most of them ignored me. I told you before, people tended to avoid me and I like it that way. I asked a couple of the guys what they knew, and nobody had shit for info other than the explosion happened just before dawn. Fuck me, I kept thinking, there goes work for a while. Maybe for good if the place is gutted.

I went back to the car, sat and watched the show, and after a couple of hours it occurred to me that I should just go the fuck home to be with the only person I cared about before she went in to work her half day. All the way back toward the small house we were renting, my mind was in a fog that reminded me of the worst of times during my childhood. My sixteenth birthday, when the man who called himself my father arrived to take me out of school because my mother had overdosed on heroin. Waiting in the hospital as she fought her last battle, he found a way to blame me, and that night after her death the beating he dished out had me fearing for my own life. I fought him back for the first time, and even though I hurt that motherfucker, he got the best of me and I spent two days in my room bruised, battered, and determined to leave. Two weeks later, he went in to work the night shift and I escaped. Some day I'll tell you about those first few months... I did things to survive that no one should resort to. If not for my mother's sister, I wouldn't be here today to break deserving skulls.

A half block away from the house I could see a car in the parking pad. A rusty Pontiac Laurentian, dented along the passenger doors and crusted with dirt. What the fuck? I glanced at my watch and it came from the stomach up to my throat; a sick knowledge of a thought that I stopped from forming... without realizing it I was on the brake and slowing. Ten in the morning on a day I'm not supposed to be here until five thirty. She goes to work at twelve, comes home before five. I put the car in reverse and backed up to park against the curb about a dozen houses away from mine, killed the engine and sat in silence. I watched the car in the driveway, looked at the front of the bungalow that framed the inevitable act of betrayal that life had in store for guys like me. For the first time in nearly twenty years I didn't take immediate action. I couldn't, man. I was paralyzed with a cold sweating fear, choking on a feeling like being trapped in a plunging elevator. There was no rationalizing in the car that morning as I sat there watching and so certain that Sherry-Ann was in there destroying us with another man who was soon to pay a price beyond reason.

Almost two hours went by, in a blur, before I decided to leave the car. I strolled over to the house, slowly and not feeling anything I can describe. I was thinking about a movie that I'd seen called "Into The Night", where the main character played by Jeff Goldblum comes home early to find his wife screwing someone. As I walked between my place and the neighbour's, around the side to the back bedroom window, my mind went numb. I always knew that God had put me here in this body for a lifetime of getting fucked. Life is a better fuck than pussy. Life is a twenty four and seven joystick, motherfuckers.

Our bedroom windows bottomed at eye level. An air conditioner filled the lower section of the far pane, so I cupped my hands around my eyes and peered through the glass of the east frame... the blinds weren't dropped all the way down to the sill and I was able to make out the two shapes on our bed. The bottom of the bed faced the windows, giving me a clear enough look at his big legs and ass as he pumped his erection into her. I felt a scary chill of calm for a moment, watching his balls move back and forth as he rode that beautiful pussy and blocked her from my view through sheer bulk. The sight of her long naked legs, one bent upward and one straightened, and a small hand gripping the blankets... that started the tears and I turned away quickly to walk back to the car.

Those were the longest two hours of my life, longer even than the wait for news about my mother that afternoon in the hospital. I'm not a smoker, so I sat and chewed gum in silence, waiting and getting used to the idea that once again, the dream is over. Fuck life, fuck love, and fuck dreams. Welcome back to reality. You fell for a whore, asshole. She's been turning tricks on the side all this past year and you bought the Hallmark card version of what it should have been and isn't. Last Friday had been a good fucking day that lasted clear through until the following Monday, and THIS one is the end of the world as you know it. Job, woman? Fuck you. Gone.

 The bartender, myself and this half drunken off-duty pig, plus six others who sit at the bar on the far side of this shit-hole. Four hours ago I watched this man leave my house through the front door, as though it were his, and casually get into his old Pontiac. I gave him a decent head start and then followed him across town into the city core. He parked in front of a tired brownstone on the south side, got out and lumbered up the stoop past a sign that read "short term rentals available", and I parked further up the street and did some more waiting. Him first, her later. I couldn't believe it and yet it made perfect sense. I'd deal with him, then Sherry-Ann would get one chance to explain this to me. Just one. I turned to lean against the driver's door, stretched my legs out across the seats, flexed my fingers, and watched the front door of that brownstone. When I made the decision to stop waiting he emerged from the building wearing the same clothes, and I followed him to the fucking dive that now serves as the shit-storm epicentre.

I gave it fifteen minutes before I entered the nameless hole. It took my eyes a moment to adjust from bright afternoon to damaged liver gloom, and the smell of piss and old beer and sweat that hit me like a swinging back-fist. All eyes turned at my entrance, but he was hunched over a pint and facing away from the front door and was the only one not to see me come in. I went straight to the bartender and asked him in a low voice what "that guy over there" was drinking, ordered two pints, and walked the length of the room to his table.

I set the pints down in the middle of the tabletop and pull out a chair around the corner from his, and he looks first at me and then the beer. Back at me, eyes widening as I lower myself and bore lasers into his pupils. "Still a cop?" I slide one pint toward him and raise mine up for a good swallow. He doesn't answer right away, staring me in the face, sizing me up, lost in something... "YOU shoulda been a cop" he mutters. "I followed you here" I tell him right away, let it soak in for a moment. "From the place where I'm staying?" he runs a huge hand through his goatee and greying hair. "No, from my place... the factory where I work is burning today."

He nods slowly, looking down into his beer... "been looking for you, son."

"I've never been your son, mister. I have the scars to prove it."

"I heard you left the city to stay with your aunt for a long time... " his voice trails off in memory. "So you found out where I live, dropped by for a friendly visit, did you?" He smirks a little and I almost throw the bomb right then, but it isn't the right time... I'm throwing for a kill, remember. I play it like I don't mind that he found me, and of course he has no idea that I saw him fucking my woman... no idea that as I sit here getting psyched up to stop his motherfucking heart, my own has been smashed. "So here I am, sir. What can I do for you?" he smirks again.

And it goes like that for nearly an hour, as this beastly childhood force sits next to me and attempts to... what? Atone for something? Correct the damage that he inflicted on his only child? I sit here and listen to his talk about the difficulty of losing my mother, and the failed second and third marriages. I let him ramble through his anger, and I hear nothing but an older version of the gigantic negative force that took all of my potential and crushed it into a compact life-hating machine. I can't even come up with one iota of pity for this prick, and now it's Sherry-Ann I'm thinking of as I glance again at the wall clock and decide it's time. How she could betray me... us... like that, and with THIS of all monsters.

"Tell me something" I interrupt his self pitying rant about spineless judges. "How much did you pay?" He looks at me stupidly, one bushy eyebrow lifting. "For Sherry-Ann this morning" I raise my voice a notch. "What did that cost you?" His hand comes up with the pint as he says "I didn't pay" and I slide the chair back, start the hook from my hip as I rise and pivot to throw thirty five years of poison through my torso and shoulder and forearm and fist as a projectile unlike any I've ever unleashed. Instinctively aimed for his heavy jawline as he tries to react too late, jerking beer over the rim of his glass when I land it and envision my knuckles removing his lower face. The jolt of it through my arm is like an orgasm and he and the chair hit the floor as though a wrecking ball has swung into the tavern. I'm not even looking at the others in the room, and in one chain of events I squat to look at his hanging jaw and the teeth that he is pushing out of his mouth with a bleeding tongue.

The cocksucker is still conscious but the force of the hook has probably broken his neck. I've never seen a head swivel like that. I grab a handful of vest and start dragging him across the floor as the witnesses just begin to realize what has happened, maybe not even giving a damn in a place this rough. I drag the piece of shit across the floor and his face is hitting the legs of chairs, his arms are limp. The bartender yells "hey! take that shit out of here" and I feel a nasty smile crack my mouth. The door near the pool table has one of those metal bars on it that you push, so I lift up my prey with both hands and ram his face into it. Outside in the late afternoon sunshine I can see that his fucking head looks like a shotgun suicide, and his breath is heavy and blood thick. There's a big blue garbage dumpster around back, and I drag him face down by the vest collar, hearing his gun scrape along the asphalt, feeling the swelling along the top of my hand. 

I prop him up in a sitting position against the dumpster and step back to deliver a looping head kick to his temple. His skull whiplashes and he hits the parking lot on his right side. I feel myself nod in agreement, then finish him off with a short toe kick to the throat. From the moment I first hit him to the lifting and tossing of his body into the dumpster I have been outside of myself. I take one final look at his imploded features and spit on them, dropping the metal lid down on the fucking garbage.

Do you think the blades of the fan are now filled with shit? No. There's just one more detail to cap my Friday to end all Fridays. I drive back to my house, just ahead of rush hour traffic. My hand is swollen and cut where I clipped his teeth. My mind is a seething pit of rage and fatality. I don't care about a fucking thing at this point other than to have Sherry-Ann look at me with her gorgeous eyes and talk me out of this crescendo. Tell me it was a moment of weakness, of old habits dying hard... tell me what you have to but tell me everything will be okay.

I pull into the driveway, enter the house, and see that she is home early. Her purse and shoes and waitress outfit are all in the living room. The house is silent and I walk quickly down the middle hall toward the last room on the left where she is lying in bed with her eyes wide open and the belt from her bathrobe knotted up around her neck. My breath hitches in my chest. I turn on the ceiling light. The bedsheets are on the floor, the pillow case beneath her spattered in blood, the tip of her tongue is showing between bloody lips. I nod again in agreement with the universe. Nolan is getting cosmic-fucked now. How DARE I fall in love? Who am I to change what I am?

In an echo of my earlier gesture that morning, I bend over Sherry-Ann to kiss her forehead, then close her eyelids. No tears now. I pack one piece of luggage, turn off the bedroom light, and get into the car to head for the nearest automatic teller. I'll get a hotel room and tomorrow I clear out my savings. Nolan blows this town forever. I'm on a mission now, and before I'm finished people will know about me from coast to coast.

Every lowlife motherfucker in every shitty part of every city has it coming, and I'm the delivery boy.

[silhouetteofacedar]

Impersonal, Ch. 9

Previous Chapter - AO3 - MSR, Rated E

Mulder gets to the office half an hour early the next morning, his spirits unusually high. He feels like skipping through the halls, flinging goddamn rose petals. He’s too antsy to stay in his chair just yet, so he walks to get a cup of coffee. He briefly considers getting one for Scully before deciding it’s Too Much, Too Soon, then changes his mind and gets her one anyway. It’s just coffee, it doesn’t have to mean anything.

He doesn’t know what they are, or what last night meant. All he knows is that he made a move and didn’t get punched in the face. It feels like progress.

He returns to the basement, coffees in hand, and tries to calm himself down by perusing a stack of files he’s been ignoring for two days. Scully usually gets to work by 8:50, so he has a few minutes to get settled before she arrives.

Nine o’clock and still no Scully. Mulder sharpens a few pencils and resists the impulse to throw them at the ceiling tiles.

At 9:07 he throws one. It bounces off the tile and falls to the floor. He nudges it under the desk with his foot.

At 9:12 he picks up the phone to call her and hangs up before the first ring.

She enters the office at 9:23 and leaves the door ajar.

“Morning,” Mulder says, holding out her cup of coffee. It’s lukewarm and he feels slightly pathetic offering it to her. “Hit traffic?”

She takes the cup wordlessly, sips it, and makes a face. “Sorry it’s cold,” Mulder apologizes, getting up to close the door. The latch clicks and he sees her stiffen momentarily. “You’re usually here early.”

“It’s fine,” she replies. “I just didn’t sleep well last night. Missed my alarm.”

Mulder nods in understanding. “Hope I didn’t keep you up too late,” he says.

Her head snaps up, eyes wide. Her cheeks look pink. Interesting. “What-”

“You said it was getting late. Last night,” he explains hurriedly. “Is what I meant.”

“Oh.” She looks down again. Why is she avoiding looking at him?

In awkward situations, the Dana Scully he knows is nothing but cool. She’s collected, composed, and fears no man; it’s one of Mulder’s favorite things about her. Even during the height of their sexual arrangement she showed up at work on time, well-rested, and acting like absolutely nothing happened over the weekend. She was so good at compartmentalizing that it almost scared him. But something about her today is different, off somehow.

He studies her, gathering visual clues. Her hair is smooth and shiny as always. It probably smells like the shampoo he got a whiff of last night - God, he needs another hit of that scent - and is neatly tucked behind her ear on one side. She’s wearing her little pearl earrings, and the sight of her earlobe makes his mouth water. He’s sucked that earlobe, kissed that neck, and all he wants is to do it again and again and again-

“Mulder,” Scully says cautiously, “Are you okay?”

Her lips seem darker today. Is she wearing that lipstick again? The one that stained his collar one of those passionate nights…

“Yeah, why?” he replies casually, leaning back in his chair. He feels a twinge south and quickly changes position, sitting upright and scooting the chair under the desk.

“You were staring.”

“Sorry. I was thinking about something else.”

“Something else.”

He scrambles mentally. “Yeti.”

She presses her lips together. “Right.”

Mulder sees Scully’s lips move; she mouthes “yeti” to herself. He swallows, tries to think of something to say. The only thing that comes to mind is the truth.

“Thanks for coming out with me last night,” Mulder says softly. “It was nice.”

“Expense reports are due by five,” Scully replies, and it's like being hit with a bucket of cold water.

———

Scully hates being late; it throws her whole day off. She slept through her alarm and didn’t have time to wash her hair so it was probably flat and lifeless. She didn’t have time for breakfast either, just half a dry bagel wedged between her teeth as she hurried out the door. She heard that stupid “Friday I’m In Love” song in the car and turned the stereo off with a punch of the button. The only lipstick she had in her bag was the rich berry one that she usually saved for rare nights out, so she was self-conscious about her mouth the whole way down to the basement.

Then there was Mulder, awaiting her like an eager puppy with a wagging tail and tepid coffee. His enthusiasm was sometimes charming, often exhausting; and today it was almost offensive.

Yeti? You look at me with those starry bedroom eyes and then say you’re thinking about yeti?

To be fair, Scully does feel a bit like an abominable snow person this morning; hulking and frosty, reduced to base desires. She’s sleepy, stressed, and hungry. And horny, but she’s really fighting that one back.

He thanks her for last night, as though she was doing him a favor by spending time with him. As though she didn’t go straight home afterwards and get herself off thinking about him, too wound up and exhausted to feel any proper shame.

Hell, he never seemed embarrassed by his sexual proclivities; why did she have to be so uptight about hers?

Mulder’s eyes are warm and earnest, and she feels almost naked under his honest gaze. She redirects his attention to their expense reports, like tilting a beach umbrella to block the afternoon sun.

There’s a new tension between them now; like they’re standing on the edge of deep pool, dipping their toes in, waiting for the other to take the first plunge. She can see a version of herself, a braver Scully, opening her mouth and letting her secrets spill out. Stripping down to her naked soul, letting Mulder see exactly what she’s been so afraid to reveal. She can feel the shape of the words against her palate, balanced on the tip of her tongue. But she can’t. Not here, not yet. She has work to do.

Just a few more hours, Scully thinks, then it’s the weekend, and you can spend the next two days wallowing in your feelings and avoiding Mulder until Monday.

She glances up from her papers and catches him quickly looking away, and she suddenly wonders if maybe they’re both fucked.

[danceswithcybermen]

Triangulation

Summary: An alternate ending to Triangle, inspired by an offhand remark on Twitter. What if Scully had said, “Oh fuck!” instead of “Oh brother!” I think it would have made the ending better! Let me know if you think so, too!

No smut, just bad words. =)

Click here to read on AO3.

Tagging @today-in-fic

“I love you.”

Scully’s eyes grew wide. “Oh fuck!”

My god, did she actually say that out loud?

Yes, she apparently did. After momentary shock crossed his face, Mulder broke out in an ear-to-ear, shit-eating grin, then laughed. “Oh fuck? I suppose that’s better than ‘fuck off.’”

He was still grinning at her and looking up at her with those adorable puppy eyes. Goddamn it, why did she look him in the eye? She knew she’d get lost doing that. She always did. She was getting lost now. It was like those eyes exerted a magnetic pull on her, drawing her towards him. This could not happen. No, no, no. She closed her own eyes to break the spell, then stammered, “Mulder, you’re on drugs.”

“I’m as sober as a judge. They couldn’t have given me anything stronger than Tylenol. You’re a doctor; go look at my chart.”

“You’re delusional.”

“I am alert and oriented times four,” he insisted. “Ask me anything you want. Ask me who I am. Ask me where I am. Ask me who the president is. Ask me what day it is – no, don’t ask me that. I don’t know how long I was out. But you can ask me what year it is.”

He kept rambling, as he was prone to do. He looked so cute and vulnerable. She just wanted to put her arms around him and—no, Dana, you absolutely cannot do that. “Mulder, no. You went through a trauma. You were hit on the head and knocked unconscious. You don’t know what you’re saying.”

He looked her right in the eye, and she felt herself getting lost again. Damn him. “I know exactly what I’m saying. Getting hit on the head didn’t make me delusional, but I think it may have made me brave. I love you, and I know you feel something, too. I tried to kiss you in my hallway a few months ago, and you were going to kiss me back, only that fucking bee ruined it.”

Oh fuck. He had her now. They had never spoken of that – that incident. She was perfectly okay never speaking of it. If neither of them ever spoke of it, she could pretend it had never happened. Mulder speaking the words aloud meant that it was real now. Oh fuck oh fuck oh fuck. Say something, Dana. Anything. “Mulder—”

“You were going to kiss me back, right?”

“It doesn’t matter—”

“Why?”

“Because … because we can’t do this. This can’t happen.”

“Why, Scully? Why can’t it happen, if both of us want it?”

“Because you’re my partner. You’re my best friend. You’re the best friend I’ve ever had.”

“So, you think we should be with people we don’t get along with? I don’t know about you, Scully, but looking back at my relationships, I think the whole problem was that those women weren’t my friends, on any level.”

“Mulder, I understand what you’re saying, and I’ve had the same problem, but—”

“You’ve had relationships with women who weren’t your friends on any level?”

“Mulder, I – Wait a minute. What?” It took a moment for her to realize what he had done there. He grinned at her again, and she started laughing despite herself. This whole situation was insane, and the stress of the past 24 hours was finally pouring out of her. She had feared that he was dead, that she had lost him. When they found him floating in the water, her heart had sank into her feet, and she had been so relieved when they had discovered he was alive; battered and bruised, but alive.

She didn’t know how it happened. One moment, she was standing upright beside his bed, her hands on the sidebars, and the next, he had pulled her down and was kissing her, and she was kissing him back. She moved one of her hands from the sidebars to the back of his neck and opened her mouth to grant him entrance. His tongue probed gently, lightly caressing hers. Kissing him was soft and sweet and sensual and even better than she’d imagined it would be.

It went on for what felt like a while. When they finally broke the kiss, he took her hand in his and pressed her fingers to his lips, lovingly kissing each digit before placing her hand under his gown and over his heart. The skin-to-skin contact was electrifying. He was so warm, and his heartbeat was so steady and strong. She wanted more, and if he hadn’t been in a hospital bed, she’d have already jumped in with him and torn his gown off so she could have more.

He looked up at her. “I love you, Scully. You don’t have to say it back right now. I already know.” He pulled her down for another kiss, this one deeper, promising much more later.

She stood up straight, took a deep breath, and smoothed her clothing and hair. “I should go. You need to rest. I’ll be back tomorrow.”

“That’s right. Tomorrow, you’re going to pick me up, and I’m going to remember all of this, and I’m not going to regret a minute of it, and neither will you, and we’re not going to pretend anymore.”

She smiled at him. “Goodnight, Mulder.”

“Goodnight, Scully.” He lay on his side, and she pulled the covers up over him and gave him a kiss goodnight before leaving the room.

The full impact of what had just transpired didn’t hit her until she was in the hallway. Did all that just really happen? She touched her lips with the fingers that he’d kissed. Yes, it had. Her partner was in love with her, and she was in love with him, and she’d just made out with him in his hospital bed, and there was no going back from here.

Oh fuck.

[inked-foundry]

Actual writing content? Holy crap!

I forget who was on my tags list (oops), so remind me if you want to be tagged. This is just from a miscellaneous thing that I might want to be a scene near the end of Eris’s character arc? Advice and input is appreciated.

Eris’s knuckles hurt like hell and the wind got knocked out of her as she threw herself over the eave of the house, but it was worth it. Sitting on the other side of the roof was indeed Castor. She drew in a deep breath, hauled herself up, and walked across the peak.

“You are the most slippery jackass I’ve ever known, Cassie. I don’t know why you didn’t pick up thievery yourself,” she jeered.

But he didn’t respond. His broad back kept to her, hands curled defensively about the edge of the roof, like he would shatter the entire house with a single crack if he could.

With a shrug, Eris strolled down and took a seat beside him, lanky legs dangling over the edge. She followed his stare to the horizon. Some of the houses were outlined in a cool glow, but it was the harbor that was the most beautiful. Empyrean’s massive ship was still sitting in the dock, but its gold and white flags turned nearly divine in a rosy sunset. All the waves lapped gently against its hull. The entire ocean seemed calm to Atlas’s shoreline. It was the one part of the gods that respected the peace the country was trying to maintain.

“I guess I can understand why you decided the skulk up here.” Eris simply watched the fading sunlight flutter across the water in orange and scarlet ribbons. “Best view in the Capitol, right?”

“Shut up, Eris,” Castor grumbled.

The thief had gotten used to hearing those words out of his mouth, but… there was a complexity to this version of the words. He usually only meant he wanted utter silence. This time it felt specific. Specific and misunderstood.

“I’m not here to do Pollux’s dirty work, if that’s what you’re worried about.” Eris leaned back and did her best to rest flat along the uneven shingles. “I’m a jackass, but I’m not that much of an idiot to go and hand my best friend over to the country that tried to have him killed.”

Castor only spared a side glance at her, his red eyes ever judging. “You did accept his job offer.”

“Before I knew what the hell Empyrean wanted.” Eris snorted playfully. “You ought to look into, I don’t know, being more honest with your one friend in Atlas?”

There was a pause. Eventually, Castor shifted and muttered, “Fine.”

Eris folded her hands behind her head. “Look, the guy just wants to give you an apology, but to be goddamn frank with you, I couldn’t give less of a crap if you want to accept it or not.” Eris followed the stars blinking into the sky, wondering if the gods were watching from there, too. If they were playing one sick game with her and they knew exactly where Castor was. “I just want to know if my old pal’s okay.”

“Shut up, Eris—”

“Cassie, please,” Eris blurted.

Silence fell between them again, heavy and infinite and refusing to lift its curtain. Eris heard the waves crash to the south and the quiet buzzing in her ears, the thud of her heartbeat in her chest. The world refused to allow them a moment of true silence to settle on it. And if the world wouldn’t give her a proper moment, she’d make use of it.

“I learned the hard way that sometimes you’ve got to stop giving a crap and tell people what’s wrong. Ignoring it isn’t going to make it any better, Cassie.” Eris nearly laughed. “That’s how we got into this crazy, screwed-up situation to begin with.”

For a split second, that terrifying silence returned.

“No,” he said. His voice was raw, his sound dragged out from his throat kicking and screaming. “No. No, I’m not okay.”

“That’s one hell of a starting point for you, at least.” Eris sat back up and nodded. “Alright: you’re not okay. Established that, though it wasn’t much of a shock. Feel like giving more details?”

Swift as a whip, Castor blurted, “No.”

“Okay.” Eris nodded again. “Then let’s just talk.”

“About what?”

“Some truths.”

“Truths.”

“Yeah. Like…” Eris pursed her lips. “If there’s one place you could go right now, where would it be? Any place at all, no matter how goddamn ridiculous it is.” When they hit another bump of wordlessness, Eris added, “It’s a stupid game Min and I would play when things really turned to hell in the Gutters.”

Castor still didn’t open his mouth, but thoughts were forming behind his eyes.

“Personally, I want this bony little ass warmed by the fire.” Eris smirked at nothing, already imagining her cozy little room in the palace, nestled beside Danae. “Preferably with a hot cup of tea and a peach pastry—”

“Home,” Castor decided

Eris blinked. Then she chuckled. “That’s surprisingly modest for the guy who’s literally the son of the most powerful god to be documented. I could sneak in and unlock the door from the inside under two minutes tops if you really wanted—”

“No,” Castor interrupted. Eris followed his gaze again, out across the otherwise empty sea. “I mean home.”

Scratching the back of her head, Eris muttered, “You know what the definition of home is, right? You live there. Unless you’ve got some fancier apartment you never told me about so I wouldn’t leave ale on the carpet—”

“Bruya, jackass.”

Eris thought about it a moment. Bruya was miles south from here, a place that, despite Castor’s magic, he would never be able to get to without the intervention of a ship or unfurling his wings. But both of those were a risk of reveal.

And then it settled in. Why he kept staring at the horizon.

Bruya was his home. It was a place where the people wouldn’t hunt him like a wild animal, where he would be welcomed and heralded as a local hero. The son of Rovan, the god who presided over them.

Eris needed to double check that she wasn’t just seeing the reflection of the ocean in Castor’s eyes. She gave him a moment. When he didn’t wipe them away himself, Eris reached up and rubbed a tear off his cheek.

“You feeling okay now?” Eris asked.

Castor shrugged, still ignoring the drops tracing damp lines down his cheeks. “A little.”

“You want to tell me about Bruya?”

“Yeah.” He sniffled, the stoicness never fading from his face. His chest heaved the tiniest bit, though. “It was a gorgeous place. Everyone had a garden and the forests seemed to last forever, but no matter how far you went, you never got lost. The land was soaked with magic. It knew who I was. The people knew who I was. I was like the local stray. People took me in. I was always safe. Even if my father wasn’t there, I knew he was watching for me.”

Eris patted his knee when she saw the tentative smile crossed his lips.

This was the most expressive he’d been, ever.

But then that joy shattered, being replaced by an utter sense of despair. His eyes were wide, lips slightly parted, the tears even more intense than previously, if that was even possible.

“And I never get to go back.” He grit his teeth, shoulders rising to cradle his head. “Oh, for the love of everything that I’ve ever given a crap about, I don’t get to go back.”

“I know.”

“And I don’t get to feel safe.”

“Yeah.”

Then that moment of utter despair turned to anger, a vein popping in his neck, screaming without giving a concern as to who below could be listening, “And it’s all his goddamn fault!”

Eris didn’t need clarity.

“I know, Cassie.” She patted his back.

“I don’t know what the hell I’m going to do,” he admitted.

“Well,” Eris shrugged. “If it makes you feel any better, you have start. You talked.”

Castor nodded. “We talked.” The mask was starting to draw over his eyes again.

Once again, the conversation died between them. There was nothing but the beating of the blood in their veins, the cry of gulls flying in from the sea, and the soft murmur of foot traffic below.

“Keep talking,” Castor insisted.

Eris raised an eyebrow. “You’re going to change heart so quickly?”

“Shut up, Eris.”

“Alright, I see how it is.” Eris held her hands up innocently, but still offered a genuine smile. “Let’s just talk.”