#TWAS BONE FUCKING DRY IN THERE.

[crimeronan]

had to call justice (mechanic qpr) in a panic for the millionth time because my engine overheated while i was doordashing & i was like [on the verge of tears] i don't know where to get it towed to and i can't afford a tow anyway and what if something's really wrong with it after all the money i spent trying to fix it up....

and she was immediately like okay i'll be there in 15 minutes. don't panic. It's Okay

15 minutes later she arrives opens the hood and goes "wow. that IS hot" followed by "sooo. the amount of coolant in your tank is.... zero."

[inf3ct3dd]

ACT 1. TROUBLE

summary: the plan hatches.

warnings: mentions of death, sex joke

wc: 3k

authors note: this fic has been my wonderfully niche vision for so long.... i hope you all enjoy

next chapter. masterlist

the unforgiving blaring heat of the desert was torturous.

the sun seemed to be beaming from right above, practically frying you and your companions skin as you treaded through the sand. one suffering the consequences worse than another, skin resembling a boiled lobster.

dry, chapped lips silently begging for water, only to be met with the sting of saltwater sweat dripping onto them. you can try to lick them away, but it will only worsen the pain. pain, your muscles ache and your bones feel as if they’ll crumble if you step forward once more. you needed…out.…of the heat……

ah, alas, a river! oh, how lovely, a quench to the terrible thirst…. you reach out towards it, cupping your hands to drink, and are met with the hot, cruel surface of a car door.

“are you done, r? you’re gonna set off the alarm.” ellie had destroyed your dramatic scene , rolling her eyes and slumping down on the concrete next to the car. her long ass jorts protected her skin from the heat of the ground.

“no, it can’t be! twas a mirage, my mind has fooled me!” draping a dramatic hand across your forehead, you’re met with a moist surface that you wipe away onto your shorts, falling next to the girl. your shorts however, did not protect you. you slightly hissed in pain, before bringing your knees to your chest.

“they shouldn’t have let you read othello. i think you’re actually going insane.” she bluntly remarks, offering you a light giggle.

your english teacher, honors english if you wanna brag, had just started a shakespeare unit, and you were over the moon. being the first to volunteer to read in class, writing your own gorgeous sonnets about even more gorgeous subjects , and torturing ellie with your constant chiming of “shall i compare thee to a midsummers day?”

“ugh, you hate to see a girl being theatrical.” with a quick roll of your eyes, you crossed your arms and pouted.

“yes, i do.”

ellie knew it wasn’t one of your actual sad pouts, like when she accidentally killed the snail you two found, but simply you being….theatrical. like your wonderful performance in the school musical last year, as sharpay in high school musical. was that fuckass blonde wig a disgrace? absolutely. but your wonderful acting skills distracted from it, or so you hoped.

“you know whats actually making me go insane? the fact that you made me walk to 7-11 in this heat!!! you tryna kill me?”

the taste of the slushy was still lingering in your mouth , along with the red color on your tounge, but the cold it brought was long gone.

“oh my lady, i would never do such a thing! but alas, i required a refreshment, and id hate to go alone.” ellie counters back in her own shitty-british accent , holding a hand to her chest.

“see, told you its fun.” you nudged her elbow with your own, sweaty limbs colliding with a gross “splat”.

“yeah yeah, whatever. you’re right about everything, my glorious queen-“

“indeed!” you interrupted, pout replaced with a cheeky smile.

you both sat for a second, catching your breath. your eyes wandered to ellies arms, and you noticed she had turned into a lobster. her arms were bright red and sunburnt, and you reached out to poke her.

“ow-fuck! why did you do that!!” she winced in pain, moving her arm away.

“jesus, why do you never put on sunscreen? you trying to get tan or something?”

“i didn’t think it would be this bad outside..”

“you’re stupid.”

“you’re mean..”

after a while of you both sitting in comfortable silence, both of your eyes fall on the vehicle across the street. it was the one thing you always loved staring at on this street. the ferrari was reflecting all the beams of ultraviolet hitting it, practically glowing in the humid hellscape. the dashboard and practically everything else was smothered in dust, the cause probably being its idle parking spot, same one it had been occupying since you and ellie were 5 years old. the black detailing and the shiny silver horse enchanted you, despite the cars mildly decrepit state. 13 years later, you wondered if it would even still run. wondered how the engine would feel rumbling underneath you as you pushed against the wind down the empty streets.

people always make driving seem so crazy and thrilling in movies. sharp turns, constant speeding, drifting, it was like the road was a rollercoaster. or maybe you had just watched too many fast and furious movies with your dad.

but every time you were in a car, you were calm. always having an arm out the window, sometimes waving your hand like the ocean, and others making finger legs and doing parkour off of the other cars. when it rained, especially at night, you’d always beg your dad to drive you around. you’d try to count the raindrops on the windshield , and often times you’d let the taps on the windows lull you to sleep.

you have many memories of your dad taking you on drives to get you to sleep. especially when you were younger, and didn’t want to go to bed because you ‘weren’t tired’. every time, he’d just say “you don’t have to sleep, just rest.” sometimes he’d sing the songs he burned onto his cds, other times he’d make lists of things you wanted to do the next day. but no matter what, within 10 minutes you were always out cold. most times he’d keep driving for a bit, just to make sure you were really sleeping, and then carry you as gently as possible up to your room.

now, you knew better than to try and make him carry you up the stairs. you’d have a dramatic stretch, and practically drag yourself to your house before flopping down on the couch. half of the time face first.

you never wanted to be the one driving, though. you didn’t trust yourself behind the wheel, thinking you’d get too relaxed and doze off the second you started driving. or get into a crash. every time you did bumper carts, you’d be the one annoying all the little kids by hitting them a thousand times with your car. plus, highways are scary as fuck.

but for some reason, every time you saw that car parked down your street, you imagined yourself behind the wheel. always with some of those cool ass driving gloves on, and the scorpion jacket ryan gosling had in drive. you’d drift like all those cool dudes in your dads movies, and never ever crash into anyone on the highway. you thought it was blessed with some spell that made everyone who drove it amazing at driving.

ellie had zero faith in you though.

“you’d total that thing in five seconds. do you not remember the last time you tried to drive?”

her rude remark reminded you of the “raspberry incident”, as you called it, from last summer. you were at your grandmas in the countryside, her in the passenger of her big ass suburban trying to teach you to drive in the raspberry fields. you had been pushing a bit hard on the gas a few times, making her tell you to “calm down” , but you were a damn good driver as far as you saw. but it allll went downhill when she made you practice turning. you had turned around one of the rows of berries perfectly, and you were driving a bit too fast to the next corner. but somehow, you turned on the wrong angle and drove straight into the berries. and to make things worse, you kept pushing the gas pedal on accident instead of the brakes. your grandma screaming at you to stop didn’t help much either. you had torn down no more than 1/5 of the row, but nothing happened to the car. a trip to the carwash and it was like nothing ever happened.

“that was soooo long ago. you weren’t even there either! what if i was just over exaggerating when i told you and it wasn’t that bad?”

“you calling yourself a liar?” ellie took a sip of her slushy. the one she made you take this whole treacherous journey for. she was somehow still nursing hers, while yours was in a trash can five blocks back.

“never. how are you still drinking that thing? we’ve been walking for like half an hour!” you grab the drink out of her hand, taking a sip for a biiit too long.

“hey! you can’t even ask? i spent my hard earned money on that thing.“

“oh please, it was only like 3 dollars. you sound like joel right now.”

you both chuckled. ellies dad acted just like yours, that’s probably why they’re such best friends. that and the two dead wives thing, they had a lot in common. and coincidentally, so did you and ellie. you knew each other since you came out of the womb. well, since you came out. ellie was there three weeks before you, and she never let you forget it. constantly on her “respect your elders” bullshit every time you punched her in the arm for stealing your food. you two were fighting over the same toys and blabbering to each other since birth. your parents were convinced you were some baby geniuses that had developed your own language with how much you ‘spoke’ to each other. you two always understood each other.

“whatever dude, i’d be a driving master in that thing. it’d probably be a total chick magnet too. i’d be cleaning that backseat every day.”

ellie poked you in the side at your joke, and you both shoved each other while you laughed.

“yeah, you and your spongebob boxers are definitely soooo seductive.”

“you can’t say shit, you have the matching patrick pair!”

almost half your closet was either clothes you took from ellies house, or ones you bought to match with her. your dad has a whole photo album of old pictures he took of you and her in your matching outfits. and you have a bin in the attic stacked to the brim with your matching halloween costumes. the one matching thing the two of you never took off was your necklaces. it was one of those basic hearts, two pieces of silver that fit together perfectly with “best friends” and an infinity sign engraved on it. you had begged your dad for it while you were at a beach store, and he reluctantly gave in. you had the ‘st ends’ side, and ellie had the ‘be fri’ one. no matter the occasion, even with the excessive amount of necklaces you always wore, that one was always a part of the stack. and ellie only ever wore the one. in fact, the only jewelry she ever wore was the bracelets you two had made for each other and her necklace.

“hey, they’re comfy! i love those things.”

“you know what i’d love?”

“deez nuts in your mouth??”

you slapped ellie on the arm , and she grabbed it in pain.

“fuck you! you know im sensitive right now!!”

“you’ll live. ANYWAYS, i was talking about the car.”

“pssht, who wouldn’t. who leaves a perfect 288 on the side of the road for this long?” ellies inner car-nerd spilled out,eyebrows furrowing in question.

you and ellie had dreamed of that car ever since you were barely taller than the side doors. pretending to drive it when she came over to yours, leaning against it as you ate your ice cream and accidentally setting off the alarm, even peering in through the windows occasionally. the white envelope with a small bulge always intrigued the two of you, desperately wondering what was inside of it. you’d never seen anyone get in or out of it, and you were surprised it lasted this long on this street.

“why’re you still on this anyway? its not like we’re gonna just steal it or something.”

when you stare back at her for a bit too long, she sighs at you and rolls her eyes. your dumb ideas almost always end horribly, and she wasn’t in for all that this summer.

like last year, when you two were working at this big outdoor restaurant. you had somehow convinced her to drive around one of the golf carts, and it ended with you accidentally ramming it into some dudes car. you both quit to avoid the guy, and you’ve never been back since.

“well, why not! i mean really ellie, I’ve seen you break into joels truck before. you could do it.”

it was an isolated incident. she had locked herself out of the car, and she used a random hanger she found in the mall parking lot to squeeze through the crack in the window and unlock the door.

“thats not the same as stealing some random car!!what if the dude who owns it is some mean gangster and he finds out we took his car and he fucking kills us??? or what if its full of a bunch of illegal shit and we get arrested while we’re driving it?”

“since when do you care this much about shit like that? you convinced me to keep a lizard in my closet for three weeks once. plus, do you really think anyone’s gonna come looking for it? that things been there longer than we’ve been alive.”

“even if we do steal it, what if it doesn’t even run anymore? and if it does, are we just gonna hotwire it every time we wanna drive?”

ellie was sadly thinking logically about this , and you weren’t having it. the pout on your face was growing bigger and bigger, and you rolled your eyes at her.

“you’re so boring.”

“im not boring, you’re just insane and impulsive.”

“besides, where would we even hide it? neither of us have a garage or anything.”

“you ask too many questions. come onnnn, this could be our little sappy senior year memory!! even if it goes like, totally wrong and we get arrested or some shit.”

you and ellies high school experience was..lackluster at most. no crazy adventures, no parties, no insane hookups, nothing. every movie about highschool you two had watched had completely lied to you, because it was boring as fuck. i mean, probably not for everyone else, but definitely for you two. this car would be a saving grace for you two, it could top off senior year perfectly.

“your idea of a great senior year memory is grand theft auto?”

“i mean, the games awesome. why not?”

she chuckled a bit at your bad joke, leaving a smile on your face. everything in her was telling her it was an awful idea, but you were giving her your most convincing puppy dog eyes, hands under your chin pleading to her.

you were amazing at persuading her, and the way your eyes practically sparkled when you spoke of even the mere idea of it sent her to the stars. how could she say no to you?

“…let me think about it.”

“WOOOO”

for ellie, ‘let me think about it’ was almost always code for yes. especially when it came to you. the two of you walked back to your house, ellie finally finishing her slushy. she chucked it in your garbage can before leaving you at your door. you tried to hug her goodbye, but she pushed you away.

“lobster skin. it still hurts. youll probably wanna hug me more tomorrow.”

and the next day, at 8:30, ellie showed up at your window with a toolbox smelling like aloe vera.

[theflyingfeeling]

hiiiiiiii I just wrote this little Olli/Allu thingie for fun, I hope you'll have fun reading it 💖 it's soft with a pinch of pining (please act surprised), and somewhat based on a couple of conversations that have been had here in the Olli/Allu Delulu Land, some of which in my/other people's asks, others in DMs 💕

~

Olli and Aleksi had touched each other in many ways before they first kissed each other. Perhaps that was exactly what messed with Olli's head the most.

They had hugged and wrapped their arms around the other's shoulder, like any good friends did. They had exchanged a massage or two in the tour bus or backstage, and each time had left Olli a little dry-mouthed somehow, to hear Aleksi's satisfied moans or to have Aleksi's fingers graze over his shoulder blades all too gently for it to be called a massage. It's nothing, Olli would say to himself in those moments. I've got this under control.

(Already then he had known it wasn't quite how things were.)

There had been the subtle touches of hands during signing sessions and the light nudges of feet under the table at band dinners that had lived inside Olli's head for days after. When either of them was tired enough, they'd lie their head on the other's shoulder or lap and have their hair played with, absentmindedly, at least in Olli's case, until he'd notice Aleksi was staring up at him with what Olli identified as curiosity or questioning, as if Olli would somehow be able to explain how or why his fingers found it so easy to twirl Aleksi's locks around them. It just happened, every heart-shattering time, and Olli had no means to do anything about it.

Amazingly, some of the touches they had shared had been far too intimate for just two guys who enjoyed each other's company but had never even kissed each other before, like that time a hotel room play-wrestle had turned into grinding against each other until they had messed their pants, or when they had been bored out of their minds on a day off and helped each other release some built-up steam under their duvet (they hadn't been bothered to notify the hotel reception for having given them only one). Yet another time they had schemed against Niko in a game of hotel room roulette and celebrated their victory by sucking each other's brains off the following night, just for the heck of it, because it was fun and they both felt like it (And Other Lies Olli Told Himself at Night When He Couldn't Sleep).

They hadn't talked about it afterwards, because why would they have? Hey mate, 'twas fun having you in my mouth last night, I hope that didn't awaken anything in you, haha, anyway, whatcha wanna have for lunch today? In Olli's defence, it hadn't awaken anything in him, per se; that had happened a long time ago already, by touches that had been far more innocent and far more devastating.

Still, ever since that night, Olli had been wondering what it might feel like to have Aleksi's tongue elsewhere on him. The thought alone sent shivers through his entire body.

"You're not getting sick again, are you?" Niko asked him, and it was then Olli realised he had got too lost in his thoughts once again. "Better not make a habit out of it, catching something whenever we're touring the States."

"Nah, it's just..." Olli lost his line of thought when his eyes met Aleksi's across the lounge. The flash of his sympathetic smile before he turned back to his phone was enough to empty Olli's mind again. "I'm not getting sick. No need to worry. It's just... chilly here."

Also, I was imagining our DJ's tongue on my shoulder bone, on my navel, on my own tongue, but let's not get into too much detail about that.

"It's 27 fucking degrees outside..." Niko mumbled, but left it at that. Olli almost felt like kissing the man on the mouth for deciding not to bother him about it further; Niko, if anyone, would've fished the truth out of him eventually.

Olli resumed his useless daydreams about Aleksi's tongue, his eyes locked on Aleksi's brown flannel jacket thrown on the lounge sofa instead of the man himself, in fear of being too obvious, or maybe in fear of Aleksi looking back at him, whichever would be the worst option. At the same time, he craved for Aleksi's attention and for his gaze on him as much as he ached for Aleksi's touch, even though the last one had taken place just moments ago when Aleksi had lightly braced his hand on Olli's knee when he had passed him on his way to the back of the bus, where Olli had been losing himself in a variety of imaginary scenarios involving himself, Aleksi, and their hands all over each other's bodies. Yes, just a small touch from him, and Olli had been going dizzy with the need for more.

Maybe he was getting sick after all.

Olli closed his eyes and tried to think of something else for change, but Aleksi's mere presence was like a siren's song that kept calling him, and helplessly he dived into another reverie that would take him back to the night they had tested out a bath bomb a fan had given to Aleksi and ended up exchanging footjobs in the hotel room bath, or that morning after they had all spent the night in some Central European train station because their flight had been cancelled, and Olli had been so tired he hadn't noticed a pickpocket taking his phone out of his hand, but he had sensed Aleksi's calm breathing against his neck as they had leaned against each other on the dirty station floor. The combination of his favourite Aleksi memories and the gentle sway of the moving tour bus was like a rocking cradle lulling Olli until his muscles relaxed and his head felt heavy.

He felt a sudden warmth next to him, but by then he was too far gone to see what it was, and instead laid his head on something soft and familiar. If falling asleep came easy to him, so did clearing his mind off anything except for Aleksi and his soft fingers caressing his cheek, which was the last thought he had before he fell asleep.

~

When he next opened his eyes, he realised why Aleksi's touches had felt so real in his dream.

"Hey," Aleksi whispered at him, his face hovering above Olli's. "Slept well?"

Olli had, though his eyelids still weighed a ton each. He wondered how long he had been sleeping; the dim-lit lounge offered no clues of the passage of time.

"The others went to bed already."

"Ah."

"How's your neck? I... tried to make you more comfortable."

"Oh."

Olli hated how his sleepy brain only provided him with single-syllable answers.

"Yeah. 'Cause... that one time you got a killer headache from sleeping on the sofa without a pillow, remember?"

"Mmmh." Olli did, but he had not expected Aleksi to keep books about his physical troubles. "I mean. Thanks."

He sat up, his neck feeling no more stiff than it already had been from hours of sitting in a moving vehicle.

"Feeling alright?"

Physically, Olli may have been, but Aleksi's shoulder was pressed against his and his nose inches away from Olli's face and his poor heart skipping beats left and right at the sight of Aleksi's eyes up so close all of a sudden, so his honest answer to the question would be a matter of perspective entirely.

"Yeah, I'm good."

As good as I possibly could, after having dreamt about the warmth of your skin under my fingertips and lips, only to wake up to find your fingertips on me instead and your mouth but a spur of the moment away from mine.

"Wanna keep me company a little while? I'm not tired at all yet."

There's no force in the world that could rip me from next to you right now.

"I know I should try at least, so I'd maybe be a little less jetlagged tomorrow, but..."

And deprive me of the chance to see you adorably sleepy again, resting your chin on my shoulder and pulling me to your bunk for an early afternoon nap? No chance in hell.

"Sure," he heard himself say anyway, because of course he would.

"It's good to be back in the States again, isn't it?"

"It is," Olli just nodded, letting Aleksi do most of the speaking.

"Lots of great memories, eh?"

Tons, actually, most of them somehow related to you.

"Uh-huh."

"I mean, sometimes it's rough, of course, but it's all worth it, in the end?"

"Wouldn't change a day," Olli said, although it was only half the truth; he'd never give up the thrill of playing at new locations to rooms full of people who were about to have experience the best show of their lives, but he could've lived without the sleepless nights he had spent thinking back to Aleksi's smile over his Mountain Dew or how he could swear Aleksi had stopped to stare at Olli's mouth a little too many times to not make Olli think.

(Thinking was the worst.)

"Yeah, me neither," Aleksi agreed. His eyes did it again: glancing at Olli's lips once, twice, perhaps a third time if Olli hadn't averted his own gaze.

The silence that then followed had Olli both hoping and fearing Aleksi would mercilessly cut their late-night talk short and suggest they go to bed after all, but he was soon to find out it was in vain.

"Except for maybe that day Porko pissed himself. The bus reeked for days afterwards, eugh."

It was a small miracle no one in the bunk section began to grunt in displeasure when Olli snorted loudly at Aleksi's anecdote that hit Olli like a lightning out of the blue West Coast sky and bended him over in giggles, bonking his head on Aleksi's shoulder where it rested as his shoulders shook and his chest vibrated with laughter. He felt Aleksi's hand on his back, just staying there for some unknown purpose, but Olli was too tired and too giggly to preoccupy himself with it.

Perhaps he should have, because when he lifted his head, there was no escape: Aleksi's hand was now in the back of his neck, and Olli's nose touching the side of Aleksi's. His lungs forgot how to breathe, because his brain was no longer giving orders to the rest of his body, except for his eyes that kept travelling between Aleksi's eyes and his red, parted lips.

Their lips touched, but it wasn't quite a kiss yet; however, it was enough for Olli to understand having Aleksi's lips wrapped around his erection once upon a wild night was merely a foretaste, an omen of something that would turn his entire world upside down, or at least that's what happened to all his internal organs when their mouths finally melted against each other and Olli melted in Aleksi's gentle embrace. Their first kiss was a tender one, shy even, so light that it was barely even there, and Olli kept holding his breath in fear of scaring it away if he did something has reckless as using the bodily functions that kept him alive. The next one was a little more experimental, a shade more daring, with Aleksi's bottom lip captured by Olli. That was when Olli noticed Aleksi was probably as frightened as he was, sucking in a trembling breath when Olli let go of him.

Olli brought his hand to the side of Aleksi's neck. He felt the man's pulse under his palm, pounding as vigorously as Olli's own.

"Aleksi..." he begun, without the faintest idea of what he even wanted to say. That seemed to be just enough, however, to make Aleksi sigh before pulling Olli back in, bringing their mouth against one another, tasting him, taking him.

Olli had had Aleksi touching him in almost every way he could imagine, but he had a feeling this one might just become his favourite.

[wu-sisyphus-gang]

Motion Sickness Chapter 32

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I chased Ruby's bottom lip with hunger and she rolled her fingers through my hair. She giggled against my lips as I sighed in pleasure at the touch of her small hands.

I pinned her down against my unkempt bed with a vigor that made her roll her pelvis up at me and I growled.

"You rascal ." I broke off the kiss to look her in the eye but her grey gaze just seemed to say 'who, me?'

Yes you. If it wasn't you, then who?

I ran one frustrated hand under her body and along her back, pulling her close to me. I slid under her shirt and I bodily picked her up off the bed and held her against me as I devoured her lush, full lips with some savagery.

I touched the whole of her curved back with my arm and she heaved up into me with heavy breaths. Her skin just felt so fantastic against my own as I cradled the whole of her small form against my larger one. She let out another noise, one that made me feel like a demigod and she breathed out my name with a tiny mewl.

"Oh, Jaune..."

It left her pink lips like a prayer and I dove back upon them with my own.

It had been weeks since I'd held her so close. It had been weeks since we'd been able to share more than parting looks and careless touches. I could feel her want against my own in a steady rhythmic pulse which only sped up over time. She flushed as red like the tips of her hair as I chased her tongue around her mouth. Then she suddenly closed her lips and sucked on my tongue gently in a way that made my chest heave. It made me throb for her.

Our teeth met briefly and savory, softly clicking together when I deepened our kiss. She moaned, a low sound in her throat I wouldn't have thought the young woman capable of making. It only made me want to devour her flesh more. I kissed down her neck and over her jaw line until I arrived at the dimple in her collar and sucked against her supple skin.

So great was my hunger as I knelt between her legs that I nearly left behind hickies and marked her smooth flesh with my possessiveness. I had to remember not to mark her as she grabbed my face in her arms and moaned again. Gods I would do so fucking much just to hear her moan like that. That was why I did what I did. This is what I fought for. It nearly made the weeks of passing touches worth the wait just to hear her cry out quietly and writhe against the sheets.

Our aura's merged and flared like touching candle flames and she hissed beneath me, clawing against my shirt, just searching for purchase. She rubbed against the massive scars the Scorpion had left along my chest and I moaned loudly, almost a deep grunt. Red mixed with gold and flickers of blue flame. Crimson petals drifted from the air around us as the heat of our moment intensified.

Her legs tried in vain to wrap around my waist but my frame was too wide to allow that. She gave a little noise of protest which was absolutely delicious as she failed to pull me even closer to her.

The door to the room burst open.

"Hey Jaune have you seen my- what the fuck!?"

I was hauled off of Ruby by pure main strength and was turned to face Yang. I saw her eyes flash red from violet. I met the heated glare with pure stupid apathy as I was brutishly shoved against a wall hard enough that my head cracked against it.

"Have you seen," she hissed, "My. Sister."

"Yeah." I muttered duly. "She's around." My head cracked against the wall again painlessly. I felt slow, big, and dumb.

"Yang what the hell?!" Ruby shouted from where she sat up on the bed. Her fingers still deep in the sheets as she propped herself up.

"You were having sex!"

"I was super well aware!" Ruby huffed and blew her messy hair out from in front of her eyes. "Will you let him go, please?" Yang released me and I stepped back from the tan wall and away from one of the green plants which lined our Mistrali rental.

"Well. Explain, asshole." Yang demanded her hair burning in orange and yellow. Her enormous mane was inflamed from the heat of her anger.

"Yang I like him," Ruby spouted from behind her sister. "I should have told you, Jaune was helping me keep it a secret."

I nodded dumbly, still half cocked. Blood was flowing from other places back to my brain. I wasn't reacting swiftly to the situation and I wasn't sure there was much I could have said.

"Really? This dumb motherfucker?" Yang turned her gaze around at Ruby.

"Yang!" Ruby sat up straighter on the bed and dropped the sheets she'd still held clutched in those tiny hands. "I. Like. Him. And why not? He makes me feel safe. He makes me feel good. I like him. He always has my back and I love how much I trust him."

Yang staggered, looking at Ruby in disbelief. "How long?"

"A little before we picked up Qrow. Maybe a month." Ruby 'pffted' upwards blowing her hair out of her face again.

"This whole time," Yang whipped back towards me. "This whole time you've been taking advantage of my sister."

"I keep telling you it isn't like that!" Ruby protested.

"Then why sneak around about it?!"

Ruby geastured emphatically. "This! This is why, Yang." She turned her head sideways slightly. "I was trying to find the right time to tell you."

"And what? He was all too happy to go along with it?"

"Yes! He does whatever I ask him to do, he's like a big puppy. He's harmless."

"I just saw him murder a bunch of people. Calmly."

"We haven't had the chance to talk recently…" Ruby confessed, sounding meek for the first time. "But that's the job, Yang. Sometimes bad guys die. Roman Torchwhick died. You killed people too. That's the job sometimes. I knew that. You knew that."

"Yeah but I was busted up about it was the difference."

"Jaune was super messed up the first time he killed someone. You weren't there for it. You were back at Dad's. And Jaune had my back. When Tyrion came for me, to kidnap me and take me to Salem, Jaune was willing to die for me! He almost did die for me! How much more ideal and sweet a guy could I have found and you're still not happy with it? What was I supposed to do? No one was going to be good enough for me in your mind."

Yang's hair deflated. Her eyes flicked back to violet as something like shame took her over. If I was a betting man it wasn't over her outburst of anger, but rather over the fact she'd flinched.

"Jaune," I looked up at Ruby still feeling dazed. "Would you give us the room? Please?"

I nodded along. "Sure. Of course." I walked past the crouching tiger I felt Yang represented within the room and shut the door behind me. I leaned back against it and wiped my hands across my eyes and sighed out loud.

"You got caught." It was Weiss. I couldn't muster up the heat of a glare. I felt too tired, bone deep tired. I met her icy blue eyes, her hair was down around her shoulders and not in its usual ponytail.

"Yeah. We 'got caught.'" I let out. I was leaning deeply against the door such that our eyes were level.

She flushed a little scarlet. "Just kissing or something more?"

"A little of column A and a little of column B."

"Well you're still…" she trailed off pointing downwards. She was only looking out of the corner of her eye with her head turned away, as if to give me a sense of modesty.

I was still half cocked, thank you Weiss. Super appreciative.

It wasn't her fault, though.

I exhaled, hard, and took a few deep breaths. I tried to slow my heart rate back down and get my anatomy under control.

"Yeah well you know." I managed. "It'll go away."

"Is that how it works?"

"Yeah. That's how it works." I spouted stiffly.

"You could have locked the door."

"The doors don't have locks." I said dry as ice. "We figured somebody would knock first."

"And that would have helped?"

"Maybe? Probably? I don't have a plan for everything!"

She snorted at me in a quiet 'ugly' laugh. Yuck it up, Weiss.

I leaned against the door and tried to forget Ruby's pulse between her legs. It was pretty difficult. I was intentionally avoiding the word 'hard' but 'twas also that.

"Seems to me this whole situation could have been avoided if you'd just talked to Yang."

"Wasn't my decision. I'm just the dumb boyfriend. Dumb boyfriends follow their smart girlfriends' orders. Especially where family is concerned."

"What about your family?"

"They'd be amazed I got this far."

"With a girl?"

"Just in general." I crossed my arms over my chest.

Weiss gave me a pleasant smile at that, the sort I would have killed for freshman year. It was warm around the edges, yet firm in the center. Blue eyes glowing softly in the morning light of Mistral. The deep dusk reds couldn't seem to touch Weiss's eyes.

"Coffee?" She asked. "Or were you going to avail yourself of a cold shower?"

"Ha. Ha." I pronounced my 'ha's. "I think I'm good on that shower." I felt confident enough to stand up straight and I followed her down stairs for some of the brown beverage.

Weiss evidently took her's dark. I watched her quietly make it, arms folded in the kitchen over my blue cotton shirt. She handed a cup to me and I guess she knew I was a pussy because she offered me cream and sugar. I availed myself of some mixing the white with the brown. Just a little though. I wasn't Ruby. I heaved yet another sigh.

"So now the only one who doesn't know if Qrow." She blew over her drink.

"And Oscar, I guess." I cheered her when she offered her mug in my direction."Or Ozpin or whatever they are."

I took a sip and winced at the temperature.

"Careful, it is hot."

"I just about got that memo, thanks. One more just to make it sink in." I took another sip and winced. "Yep, still hot."

"Well don't do it again! You'll just hurt yourself."

I shrugged. "Pretty sure Yang would be on board with the concept of me suffering."

"Well let's not give her what she wants. I'll take it from you, you know. You have to be patient."

I blew over the top of the liquid distinctly impatiently.

"You're worse than Ruby sometimes." She was smiling, though.

"Yeah." I agreed. "How are you holding up after yesterday? Couldn't have been easy on the inside."

"Not sure if you heard or not but the Don picked me to be his escort for the night. He had some lines of hyper laid out on his bedside table, even. For the evening, I suppose. A man of indulgence."

"I hadn't." I prompted.

"I held him down with my semblance and made him talk. On the whole, I'd say I had the easiest job. Not like you boys outside."

"It got messy, I'm just glad none of you got hurt."

"How are you holding up with it?"

"Killing people, you mean?"

She nodded, leaning her head on one hand as she looked up at me from the table she'd taken a seat at.

"I'm alright at it. I think I might even be good at it. Killing people. It does get easier."

"How many?"

"I used to know, used to have a number. Went from one, to two, then five but... But now I've lost count. A bunch. A whole bunch of people."

"I'm sorry, Jaune."

"Sometimes it be like that,” I snapped my fingers and pointed off in the distance. She didn’t look distracted by my antics so I sighed. “It's what we signed up for."

"I haven't killed anyone, not yet. I probably will at some point, though. Seems inevitable, doesn't it?"

"Some poor sap without aura and then, bam." I nodded. "Even with aura you can't exactly tell how full they are sometimes so you just go right through."

"Gods."

"That's how my first one went. This bandit. I had my semblance and I just spent it and I cut him."

"You're unbelievably strong with your semblance active." Weiss nodded along like she could see it. "The point of Myrtenaster will probably be like that, especially if I have some speed behind me."

"Exactly." I took a sip, the coffee had finally cooled down enough that I could drink some. I almost found myself pounding the drink.

"Well, aren't we chipper?" She sighed.

"Just pragmatic. You didn’t actually tell me how you’re holding up.”

“Didn’t I?”

“No. You dodged it.”

“Did I now?” She teased with an upwards tilt of her chin.

“You just said you figured you had the easiest job then you changed the subject. You should answer the question I asked you. Just so long as we’re both being completely honest with one another.”

“And are we?” She wondered.

“If we’re not, I want to take back everything I told you since you arrived in Mistral,” I blew on my coffee. She gave me a dainty laugh. “So, how are you holding up?” I pressed.

“Not so great,” she confessed. “I’m not doing so great. But it wasn’t the absolute worst day of my life. So there’s that. I didn’t have to kill anyone which I’m thankful for. Just torture which I’m not sure is any better.”

“It’s not. Plus you had to wear those outfits.”

“Which you should admit you liked,” she fired right back. “It’s okay. I saw you stare at Ruby.” And you . It went unsaid but she saw me stare at her too. I couldn’t… I couldn’t really help myself. Her platinum hair went good with the black. And you know me. I’ve always thought that she was beautiful and talented and smart and a little queerly funny. So yeah. There was that.

“So what if I did? A bit of a nightmare if I ever asked Ruby to wear one. Besides she’s sexy enough in one of my shirts or her pajamas.” I sipped my coffee.

“Is she really?”

“You ever see Ruby blush?” I asked. “It gets me out of bed in the morning.”

“Well, I suppose…”

“You see how Ren's holding up?"

"Nora got him out of the place early. She called it a 'not-date' and left. I think she killed somebody too. Just crushed their rib cage."

"Lords above." I sighed. "Just you, Ruby, and Oscar, now. I suppose, depending on how you wanna cut that Ozpin thing."

She took a long drink of coffee at that, deep in thought and staring out a window onto the little courtyard we trained in.

"So the only thing left to do is get Qrow back up and walking. Job's done."

"Aren't we taking some ganglords word on that."

"Qrow thinks she'll honor it."

"She? Well isn't that progressive?"

"I figure Malachite isn't so bad. She seemed to run things clean, or as clean as such things can be run, and Qrow has had past dealings with them."

"You've met some of them?"

"This pair of twins. Evidently they're Malachite's daughters. One in white and one in red. Huntresses, the both of them."

"One on white and one in red huh?" Yang was standing by the banister. "Well I think I know where I heard that name before now."

"We cool?" I asked.

"Yeah. We're cool. Sorry for blowing up on you."

"S'no biggie."

"Kinda. You were there for my sister when she needed you. Needed somebody and I… I wasn't."

"No one blames you for that." I said. "You were hurt."

"So were you, what with Pyrrha and all."

"S'no biggie. It affects us all differently. My motivations to keep going weren't all so pure."

"Join us, Yang." Weiss encouraged. "Coffee?"

"Thanks." She strode into the room. Weiss stood up to pour Yang a mug. "Nora and Ren?"

"Out." Weiss and I said together.

"Ruby?" Weiss asked.

Yang snorted and I heard some plumbing going. "Said she was going to take a cold shower. Thanks," She said, accepting the coffee from Weiss.

"We were discussing yesterday," I said. "What horrific thing happened to you?"

Yang snorted again. "I uh I killed two people."

"How'd that go?" I asked.

"Awful. After Weiss got chosen we started hearing screaming from the 'presidential suite.'" Yang quoted. "Not even the kind you could maybe think was ‘the dirty.’ That sorta kicked things off. I just reached out and killed a guy. Just crushed his head. I thought he'd have aura."

"And even if he did…" Weiss trailed.

"Right." Yang nodded. "I shot another guy with my gauntlet and Ruby and Nora took care of the other two guys. Then I ripped my way through the locked presidential suite door. Weiss already had things under control by then but…" She trailed off. "Well then we came down the stairs and saw the mess you and Ren had to deal with. Saw you kick that guy."

I nodded. I still remembered the way his head had felt under my boot.

"And the rest…" She gave a shuddering breath and lifted the coffee to her lips. "The rest is history."

"Miserable," Weiss said, shaking her head.

"Some guns went off. You saw the girls who got shot." Yang said. "Just waitresses or whatever."

I nodded.

"And that was my day. How was yours?" Yang asked, sipping coffee.

"Wasn't quite the worst day of my life." I said. "But it's up there. It does get easier."

"Jaune, and I mean this with all politeness, I really really don't want to hear that," Yang said. "It should be hard. It deserves to be hard. It's well… you know."

I nodded like I got it, which I did.

I heard the plumbing shut off and Ruby exiting one of the bathrooms. I just listened.

"So you and my lil' sis." Yang broached. "How'd that happen?"

"She kept saving my life."

Yang let out a low whistle. "Way she told it, it was the opposite."

"You know how modest Ruby is."

She nodded. "You knew about this kerfuffle, Weiss?"

Weiss nodded. "Ruby told me. She- well - she was happy to share it with somebody."

I could have flushed at that.

"And that somebody couldn't have been me." Yang agreed sullenly, Weiss and I shared a look but Yang seemed mostly disappointed in herself. "That day you were also covered in blood. You'd just killed somebody then, too."

Three. Killed three. I even knew two of their names. I just nodded. "Some dumbasses without aura. Needed some information and he and his friend tried to fight me. Over nothing was the worst part. He died for nothing. I mean I went and unlocked his aura but he was already nearly cut in half so I'm not sure if he lived or died. I'm counting it as a death, though."

"You keeping count?" Yang asked.

"Was. Stopped yesterday." I finished off my coffee.

"He says he lost count." Weiss stepped in and refilled my mug. Bless her. She said it like it was the worst thing that could happen to a person and to be fair it really sucked.

"Good gods." Yang sighed. "That'll happen to me too. One day I'll just be like 'was it ten or twelve. I can't remember.'"

"The fight was fast and had a lot of bodies yesterday. You might get luck. Or unlucky. Whichever."

"Which is worse not knowing or knowing?" Yang laughed.

"Not knowing," I answered.

"You weren't supposed to answer that fast, Jaune." Weiss handed me my mug back.

"Ask me no questions…"

Ruby popped her head down. "Oh, you're…?"

"We 'aight." Yang answered.

"It's fine," I said.

"I have coffee here just for you Ruby." Weiss brushed some spilled coffee grounds into her hand and into the sink. Ruby came jostling down to us and accepted the cup.

Ruby came over and gave me a peck on the cheek. Yang rolled her eyes. "Yeah, yeah. Just get it out and done with now."

"Is that how you think it works?" Ruby asked.

"Oh just because you have a boyfriend now doesn't make you all knowledgeable."

"It might." Ruby responded but there was a quiver of laughter to her voice.

"Please share what it's like with us humble mortals," Weiss said. Ruby fell back and I caught her. I put an arm around her waist and held her close to me.

She leaned her head back against my chest and sighed. "It's nice. It's nice not having to hide it, either."

"Ugh." Yang rolled her eyes but she was smiling. I wasn't sure what they had talked about up there but something must have gotten through to Yang.

"Are Ren and Nora dating yet?" Weiss asked.

"Kinda. More than before but less than you'd think," I answered.

"Figures," Yang said.

"Hey kid," Qrow wheeled up. "What's uh what's going on here?" He was looking at Ruby in my arms, looking relaxed.

"Jaune and Ruby are a thing." Yang answered. "Sorry you're the last to know."

"I could have guessed," he grunted. "Come on kid. Meeting with the Malachites."

"So just me then. Okay." Yang muttered.

"Will you be okay alone?" Ruby asked me.

I slammed back my coffee and nodded. I would be just fine, I think.

"I'm coming too." Ruby decided. No one argued with her.

pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq

-WG

[thewhumperinwhite]

WKW: The Wolf’s Grace

Immediately after Endure (which i didn’t use the tag list on because it’s got more than the usual content warnings on it, so please read the warnings on that post!!)

Thorne puts his foot in his mouth.

TW for: referenced noncon; derogatory language/gendered slurs; victim blaming; gore/body horror/graphic violence; minor character death; murder; mouth/jaw/teeth trauma.

@much-ado-about-whumping @whumpitywhumpwhump @faewhump @iboopsstuff

----

Thorne doesn’t go to his master.

He goes to the barracks instead, where he’s told none of the soldiers who leap to attention when they see him have seen three guards stumble in together, one with a bleeding face. He isn’t sure he believes them—isn’t sure he doesn’t want to lump them all in with those three and start swinging—but he doesn’t see the guards he’s looking for, either, so he leaves before he starts to shout and after a moment’s thought starts toward the Healer’s room instead.

The armory is on the way, which is convenient.

----

Thorne doesn’t kick the Healer’s door open, because he is a grown man in control of his own actions. It still opens violently enough to crash against the opposite wall, and all four occupants jump and stare at him. The Healer just looks at him warily; the two uninjured guards leap immediately to their feet, while the third flounders slightly on the Healer’s cot like he’d like to do the same, but settles for a clumsy salute instead. His face is halfway through being bandaged.

Thorne might not know where to start, except that on the way he remembered something that plunged him down from drunken rage to icy calm like he’d jumped in the North Lake at home and the shock hadn’t quite set in yet.

“I assigned two of you to guard that door,” he says, with no preamble. “Which of you is the third?”

The thinnest of the three—the one who had been standing to the side with his hand in his trousers—snaps to attention so violently it seems like he’ll fall over. “‘Twas I, Lord Wolf, Sir,” he squeaks, “I was off duty, I didn’t—"

“What was the pitch, exactly?” Thorne says, feeling strangely disconnected from his body again. “Your friends said, ‘oh, we’ve been left in charge of someone, and Lady knows we’ll never get our cocks wet in anything able to refuse,’ and you thought—"

“We meant no offense, sir,” says the guard who kneeled on the floor with his hand tangled in Andry’s hair. “We knew he was yours, we only—we didn’t—"

“You knew he was mine,” Thorne says, and he’s almost surprised at how reasonable his voice sounds. He can barely hear it over the roaring in his ears. “I suppose you thought, if he was letting me fuck him, surely anyone--”

“We didn’t fuck ‘im!” the bleeding guard says loudly, stumbling to his feet. “Whatever the little doxy told you, we didn’t have to ask twice, he swallowed it right—"

Thorne pulls his sword from its sheath and puts it down the guard’s throat. It encounters resistance from his jaw, but Thorne pushes past it; his sword is very sharp, and his arm is very strong.

The Healer inhales audibly, her eyes wide behind her spectacles. The other guards have leapt back, both shouting things he doesn’t try to understand. He turns to the other guard who was on duty when he put Andry on his knees, who’s already turned tail and is running for the door. He’s just barely out of reach, so Thorne pulls his sword back—letting the dead guard slide to the ground in a puddle of blood—and shifts his grip, and throws the sword end over end like an axe; the running guard hits the ground with Thorne’s sword to the left of his spine, wailing.

The third guard, the one who was not on duty but knelt to hold Andry in place, is staring at Thorne with his heart almost visibly in his throat. The man sees his death in Thorne’s eyes, so clearly Thorne can see it reflected back. Thorne take two breaths, and then he looks down at the body at his feet. The guard’s lower jaw is hanging on him by only a few chords of muscle or possibly warped bone, it’s hard to tell.

Thorne puts his foot on the body’s shoulder, takes hold of the jaw, and pulls. The whole bloody mess of bone and split teeth comes loose in his hand with a loud wet pop.

Thorne drops the jawbone into the remaining guard’s hands, so that blood splatters halfway up both his uniform sleeves. The guard whimpers very faintly, but otherwise doesn’t react, eyes still locked on Thorne’s face.

“Take that back to the barracks,” Thorne says flatly. “If you all know the Summer Prince is ‘mine’, make sure you all know I don’t share.”

The guard squeaks, and runs toward the door like Gakne’s at his heels.

Thorne lets him go, feeling the rage drain out of him all at once, fast enough to make him stumble and sit down hard on one of the benches the guards just vacated. He raises a hand to push sweaty hair out of his face, forgetting his hands are covered in blood until he’s already smeared it across his forehead.

The dying man on the floor makes a smothered stuck-pig wail, and Thorne hears the wet slap of his hand against the tile floor as he begins to drag himself forward towards the door, and Thorne sighs, and starts to get to his feet.

The Healer passes Thorne, moving very fast, and Thorne freezes at the sight of her—she’s a little old woman, with spectacles and plain robes, and he’s never heard her speak.

She doesn’t speak now, either; she lunges forward and takes hold of the hilt of Thorne’s sword and twists it in the guard’s back.

The guard gives one despairing squeal, and dies.

The Healer leans on the sword, still buried in the dead man’s back. She’s breathing hard. Thorne sits back on the bench, staring at her; he can see her shoulders heaving, but she does not turn to face him.

When she’s caught her breath, she pulls Thorne’s sword from of the guard’s back—it catches on something inside him and she tugs it brutally free with no change of expression, and tosses it to slide in a puddle of blood at Thorne’s feet.

“Get out,” she says, in heavily accented Leisevan.

Thorne stares at her. Her small wrinkled hands are trembling. For a moment he thinks it must be with fear—and then he she does look up and meet his eyes and he sees that her lips are pressed thin and white with rage.

“Do you wait for thanks?” she says in a low, trembling voice, still speaking his language, imperfectly but slow and clear, as though to give him no choice but to understand. “Shall we kneel and thank Winter’s Wolf for his grace?”

Thorne looks at the little old woman—who must have healed the castle’s sick since the Prince was a child, who may have stitched his ruined back together when he was younger, who just heard him speak of “sharing” her master—and feels a deep flush heat his cheeks, followed by a shiver of sick shame that turns his stomach.

“Madam,” he croaks, holding his bloody hands up in surrender. “I didn’t—I’ve never—”

The Healer’s face has been calm throughout, and it is still calm now, when she turns stiffly back to her instruments table, where a small array of cutting implements glint dully in the candle light.

“If I could I would kill you for this, Winter’s Wolf,” she old woman says, in her own tongue now, as though more to herself than him. “If there were a better doctor here, I’d try my god-damndest at it anyway.” She half-turns back to him and raises her voice, speaking in Leisevan again. “Did you hurt him?”

Thorne knows she isn’t talking about the guards anymore. He swallows thickly, shame making his mouth too dry to speak at first. “No,” he lies; he’s bound up the cut they put on Andry’s face, well enough to let the Prince sleep a while instead of coming here. “No, they… I stopped them.”

He hears the tiny hope in his voice when he says that, and the Healer gives him a look of disgust he feels right down to his bones.

“Good,” is all she says, and all she needs to say. “Then get the hell out of my infirmary.”

Thorne is grateful for the chance to flee.

[randominternetbosonignog785]

Mikans last Christmas.

So this story was something I was going to release on christmas but then i gave up on it, but then I diddnt, so here you go. Disclaimer its kinda gory n stuff has some naughty language and its a tad bit suggestive but its pretty pg bois.

Twas the night before christmas, when all through the house, not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse. Though there were no stockings by the walls, nor trees or presents to brighten up the halls, but instead were cupboards and draws blocking out the doors and half flipped scattered tables to shield a man that was barely keeping himself stable.

Every piece of furniture was stripped from their place, only to be used as blockades to keep out any new face. In normal circumstances many people would think  the house was a tip but when it came to the biggest, most awful, most tragic event in human history, everyone had to get a grip.

Behind one of the half flipped tables near a cracked television, a large man wrinkled with age sat roughly on the floor with his rear resting against the desk's backside. The man had a slight beer belly, his scalp was just beginning to lose its hair and overall he just about had enough of life; what you'd expect from a fifty year old man who was down on his luck in the world, although ever since a certain wanker decided to ram a glass dagger into his right arm - ever since the world went tits up out of nowhere, his lucks been shit.

"Haaaarrgh...grrrrrr!"

The man gurgled and growled out his pain as he attempted to thrust a towel he found in one of his daughters med kits onto the red bleeding pool that flushed out of his arm. '

Apply with firm pressure? Even the fuckin manual's trying to kill me.' The squirming man thought to himself. Soon enough, he simply gave up and just decided to lie on the floor of his living room to try and get at least a wink of sleep, trying his best to ignore the niggling and nagging of the nerves in his wounded arm. It was hard finding the peace of sleep though, as the outside world he once knew had now become a hostile alien planet he might die in at any given moment and it didn't help that the air felt thicker than usual.

A few weeks.

It had only been a few weeks since he had his last pint, but now everybody started stabbing each other. It had only been a few weeks since he last relaxed watching his favorite shows on his favorite armchair, but now he was shivering on the floor, lacking the courage to go and sleep in his own bedroom. It had only been a few weeks since his worthless daughter had enrolled in some school for smart sods...

But now she was probably dead.

"Daddy?"

Almost feeling like a second after his conscience finally slipped into slumber, the rugged man abruptly snapped awake once more upon hearing a voice call out from the darkness, presumingly for him.

"Daddy? Are you still here?"

The female voice sounded so slender and savoury yet innocent and playful and it chilled the man to his bone. The man couldn't figure out how someone broke through his homemade barricade, but he couldn't feel surprised either, but it didn't matter now. He was now sharing his house with the one of many psychopaths that infested the outside world.

"Daaaddy~ where are you?"

'The sick fuck must be getting some sort of kink out of this' the man swore in his mind. Suddenly without warning, a heavy shower started to spew and spatter outside and somehow, the individual splats and taps managed to pierce through the man's ear drums, yet at this point the girl's calm yet threatening voice was able to drown out the rain itself.

That bitch was getting closer.

The man now knew he had no time left. He knew that it was do or die, he knew it was time to be a man. The voice sounded like it belonged to some kid, so why was he pissing his pants in his little time out corner? Finally, he remembered that he had one of his kitchen knives sitting around his used med kit and picked it up. He wasn't gonna let some little shit be the end of him.

"There you are daddy."

Before he could even start to gather his courage, that cold, icey siren of a voice was already singing next to him and a chilling warmth somehow caressed his ear. The man's heart skipped a beat. She was this close already.

He should have just skedaddled, the man should just have vamoosed but instead his bottom was eternally bound to the floor and all he did was instinctively turn around in complete despair. The man expected the intruder to stab his stomach or simply inject another piece of glass into his other arm, but instead, The very same second his heart refused to beat, his mouth was suddenly covered by some sort of thick tissue and then caused a sudden drowsiness to spread inside him. He felt weak. Before his very being fell into darkness he only caught a brief glimpse of his assassin's eyes, but it was enough information he had to know to effectively deduce who it was that had sealed his fate.

Out of anyone in the world that could have taken away his pointless life, it of course had to be his very own daughter. It was the same child he had neglected for so many years and if it was her out of all the other crazy fuckers ending his life; the man didn't seem to mind.

The man's muscles soon refused to twitch let alone break his fall as he plummeted, back first onto the floor. Despite the fact that his entire body was instantly shutting down though, somehow he managed to keep the dumbbells weighing upon his lids alift for a few seconds longer, just to try and see for certain if whoever stood above him really was who he thought and sure enough the thin girl that invaded his thoughts toward before the man.

Her straw-like hair was tangled and drowned in scalp snot and her usual nurse-like outfit was filthy and terribly torn. Her small speckless face though, in a way relieved the man with its familierality but at the same time horrified him with its grave difference in expression. The constant worry from her puppy-like eyes was gone, now replaced with an expression that the man couldn't possibly describe as happiness, but she was smiling; harder and more larger than she ever smiled before. 'Come to think of it', the man last thought, he had never seen his own daughter smile. He regretted that he had to think such a thought and he regretted how it came to this. He regretted everything and in his last moments of consciousness all the man could do was regret.

Why didn't he ever notice that he had such a beautiful daughter?

The saw sinks right into the leg bone~

The right arm tears off the elbow~

Apply firm pressure, don't leave the wounds open~

Don't forget to sterilise with cream~

"I did it daddy. Merry christmas."

After what seemed like an eternity, feeling as if at random, the man's eyelids finally decided to open, while at the same time his stomach felt as if it was still debating whether or not it wanted to burst open. He was on a bed and it felt impossible to get up. The man's sight invited him back to a blurry mess of a world, mangled with muddy pixels of blacks and greys that were meshed with a glowing orange that most likely represented light, and on top it all off, he was just about having the shittiest headache he ever had in his life. He wasn't dead at the very least, but dear god he might as well have been.

"Daddy, you're finally awake!"

Listening to that voice yet again...he now unmistakingly knew that it was his daughter who was talking.

"Mikan, what happened? What are you doing here?" The man's gritty growl of a voice, strained from obvious- stress finally uttered the name of his child. The pixelated colours that represented his proposed daughter were still mixed in with the blacks and greys of the room but slowly yet surely, he could already tell his sight was reorganising the world back together again.

"The outside world daddy." She purred. "It's scary out there. People who I thought were my friends started stabbing each other and some even started slicing off their hands and fingers and if it wasnt that they'd end up killing themselves. I was so scared."

She wasn't being serious. Given The context of her small speech, the man should have been able to feel some small amount of sorrow, but he felt none. All he could catch was the disguised yet painfully clear sarcasm in the girl's voice, which drained all the weight from her words.

"I came back home because I knew it would be safe."

That wasn't true, was it? She was back to kill him, just like the rest of me. It was the only thing that made sense; to get revenge on how he treated her. After thinking about it for a second though, the man probably deserved it.

"I saw you fainted on the floor when I found you daddy. So I took you to my room and took very special care of you."

Another obvious lie added to the man's paranoia and was beginning to feel iller by the second. What in God's name did mikan-

!

He couldn't move his right hand. No. He couldn't feel his right hand. In disbelief as well as desperation, the man worriedly wiggled every last limb that was still attached to his body, and where his lower left leg should have jolted...

Shit! He was drugged right? He must've been dreaming right? It was a dream. It had to be a dream! The meshy fog in the man's eyes finally felt like clearing and with all his inner strength he turned his head round to face his right arm; but all that was left was the arm and all that came out of its tip it was a small lump of thickly layered bandages, dyed in dry blood.

It was a fucked up dream. The man continued thinking. He couldn't feel the pain right? So it was just a fucked up dream, birthed from his newfound daily stresses. The pain from his old arm injury must have been giving him a horrific nightmare.

"It was hard patching you up when you were bleeding so heavily daddy." The bitch went on. "I had to give you a ton of painkillers and stuff to keep you from feeling the pain. I'm sorry. You must feel terrible right now. It's a good thing I saved you."

She was fucking insane. Painkillers? No- the only reason he couldn't feel the pain was because he was dreaming; This was just my mind's way of punishing him. There's no way he should still be alive like this.

"Good thing the ultimate nurse was here to save you daddy and don't worry I'll take care of you. I won't let you die like everyone else daddy. You're safe with me daddy."

"All you need now is me."

Fuck. Shit. fucking shit. This cant be fucking happning! How the hell did it come to this? The man couldn't curse enough. This was too fucked up to be a dream, but at the same time it was too fucked up to be real, but it just had to be fucking dreaming. Being drugged by his own daughter had to be a fucking dream. All of the last few weeks had to be a fucking dream. He had to believe it was. He had to for the sake of what small sanity he had left, and as if by reading his thoughts the monster smiled. Mavoilevent, vengeful and pure evil were the only words that spawned when the man's now mushy mind attempted to decipher such a grin. This was how he died: by the hands of his own fucking kid. Now accepting that, the man then realised that keeping himself aware of the living world was only going to make him fearful of the inevitable and so he let his heavy eyelids fall just so he could at least have the luxury of dying without knowing what hit him, but something out of place then uttered from Mikans small lips.

"So what do you want to do first?"

A question instead of a threat. Was it curiosity instead of bloodlust? Despite still hearing that wrongfully playful tone in his daughters still silk like voice, for whatever reason, the girl's strange question gave the man enough hair on his balls to open up his eyes to his assassin yet again. This time he was eye to eye with mikans face; her straw like hair gravitated towards him and her skin: crystal clear, causing what was left of her innocence to glow, while also horribly smudged with scars and bruises of the past, reminding the man of why he was here now. She was almost on top of him and only her slender arms held her above the man, acting as cemented pillars beside his neck. The man's response was delayed by the surprise of Mikan's random actions and all he could offer in exchange was a limp wimper of confusion.

Was she going to kill him or not?

Mikan then suddenly retreated from her pose and sat down at the end of the bed, avoiding squishing his leg. Well, the one that still had an end to it.

"Comon’ daddy, now we can play anything you want. Maybe you can try drawing on me, everyone always loved doing that back at school so you should give it a try!"

"What?" The man finally spat out.

"I'm sorry!" She blurted apologetically, while also completely out of place. "Maybe that's too weird for you. Do you want me to squeal like a pig again? You always loved doing that daddy. Roleplay was always your favorite."

Why? Why was she asking this? Did she develop a thing for fucking massicasisom while she was gone? He couldn't question everything enough, the man's mind just began to melt from stress and confusion. Despite the lingering silence the man couldn't help but create though, without any sign of permission Mikan settled onto the floor boards on all fours and simply started to squeal like a pig.

This was it. This was hell. This was God's heavenly punishment.

"@#$@%*!"

It was his fault she ended up like this. The man knew this now. Why did fate have to ram the fact down his throat?

"#$@%*^=!"

He fucking got it. He made his kid into a fucking physcopath. Big hoo-fuckin-ray! Just kill him for it already!

"Oink. €£#$@%*^=! oink oink."

But the universe thought death wasn't enough. Oh no, the sweet release of death was never enough to right this mans wrongs, experiencing the end of the world was never enough, being disected like a fucking frog was never enough. No.

"#$@%€¥₩! Oink."

He had to endure the desperate screams for attention. Take in the blood curdling cries for mere notice. He had to tolerate the broken girl's ungranted wishes for a better father.

"₩¥€*$%@! $$%£@!"

And he did...until he couldn't.

"Shut up! Shut up! Shut up! Shut up!"

She stopped squealing, but the animalistic screams still remained in the man's ears.

"Shut up! Shut up! Shut up! Shut up!"

"...Daddy?" She mumbled, somehow sounding shocked at his response.

"Shut...up. please." The man begged. He couldn't take it any more.

"I'm sorry Daddy." The girl apologizes again. With her voice finally sounding more mellow than sadistic. "I forgot you liked to see me do that with all of my clothes off...give me a second."

At this point The man was truly bewildered how he raised such a sad creature.

"Mikan." The man once again called out the name of his child as his eyes began to leak. "Please, enough of this."

Mikan then climbed back onto the end of the bed and locked with my eyes; hers instantly succumbed with certain grief as if she feared those words from the start.

"Daddy I thought you liked playing with me."

I stared back into her eyes with an assertive glance. One way or another, she had to learn that tearing off people’s limbs was some fucked up shit and no way to get what she wanted. It was the only way of redeeming himself, yet not even several seconds passed before she couldn't bare the silent treatment.

"Don’t ignore me Daddy. Dont do that again, please dont ignore me! please forgive me. I know I cut off your arm and your leg but I only did that so you wouldnt leave me alone again, I only did that so we could play forever. I only did that for us Daddy, because I love you! And Daddy loves me."

....

"...right?"

The man did not deserve to admit he loved her back because now he realized that He never deserved love. Not from his daughter, not from his late wife, hell, not even from his own old folks. The man now realised that he was human shit and all he ever offered was a shitty stench to smell for everyone around him and now he had intoxicated Mikan with his vulgar stink. The least he could do now was to relive some of the fumes and stop his daughter from absorbing any more of his odour. All he had to do was ignore her and be lucky for the man: that was what he did best.

!

As if satan himself sent everything he had to crush every shred of the man's newfound resolve, an intense surge of pain he had never felt before, striked at the ends of the dismembered body parts the man had almost forgotten about. He already saw his arm freshly bitten off and his leg cut clean but his mind was only now reacting to his sights and now every ounce of thought he once carried was instantly drowned out by a powerful, primordial pain.

"Ahhh...ahhhhhggghha. Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaggggggggghhhhhhh!" This time it was the man's turn to squeal like a pig. The entire world's suffering encapsulated in one single moment - all the man could do was vent all the pain out for all to hear.

"Daddy, Don't scream! Please...please stop screaming like that!"

Panic flourished in the depths of the girl's mind. The painkiller's effect wore off more quickly than she had originally calculated and it was only a matter of time before her dad died of the pain caused by his dismemberment. She knew she had to drug him back to sleep immediately and wait for his wounds to heal, but somehow, the few words that slithered out of the dying man's lips, kept her sat, frozen on the bed.

"Mikan...help me please."

Those few words changed everything.

Her legs were glued. Her heart beated faster and faster but her head paused and her sense of urgency plainly disappeared. The girl's body simply couldn't be bothered to move anymore. What was this feeling?

"Mi-kan....Mi-"

Daddy was dead.

The girl felt no grief. No regret, no remorse, not a trace of despair birthed from her mistake.

She just sat there.

The nonexistent glue still sews her short legs to the mattress of the bed. Her beating heart was still rapid, but her mind acted first.

That feeling was so close to euphoric. She might have been unusual but she always imagined the death of her only family would make her sad but she felt far from that. Then she knew why.

"Daddy...-I was the last person daddy was thinking about. I was the last person on Daddys mind."

All she wanted was attention, all she wanted was agnolegenent, all she wanted was to be loved. Her patients were always weak and broken but thanks to that they depended on her, they were grateful for her and they gave her all the attention she could ever ask for. Drugging daddy and immobilizing him was just a way to make him like one of her patients and if dismembering daddy was going to make him love her forever then that was what she should do. Instead though she ended up murdering him and now she was all alone again But still, that emotion remained. The fact that she was daddy's last thought accelerated her and the feeling of knowing that made her feel so relieved and somehow Mikan couldn't barely bring herself to regret what happened. Daddy was nothing but a corpse now, she knew that she had failed at being the so called 'ultimate nurse,' she knew she'd never see, touch or talk with her father ever again and yet the final begs and pleads for his life felt like more attention than he had ever decided to give to her.

"Daddy is dead." She sobbed. Lines of tears streamed down her skin.

"But I was his last thought. Daddy yearned for me. Daddy wanted me to save him." She giggled. She didn't know why but she went on giggling until the giggles evolved into laughter and eventually the seeds of her laughter bloomed into a savage song of sorry cackles. The conflicted emotions of depression and pleasure clashed in war inside Mikan's mind and the effects of their battle gushed out of Mikan in the form of chuckles and sobs. She didn't know what she should have felt anymore. Mikan had now truly lost her mind.

!

Warmth. Embrace. Love. It was all in a single moment. Her beloved.

"Jun-ko?"

"Shush now Mikan. It's okay."

Her beloved was here and for the first time in ages, Mikan felt cleansed. Her wobbling knelt legs gave way and tumbled down sideways like skyscrapers that crashed down onto the dovay, as the warmth from Junko's breasts aroused her. A Slender yet tender arm caressed the girl's hip and softly squeezed her core; while another gently stroked off the pieces of dandruff burrowed within her straw like hair, giving Mikan an inviting fuzzy feeling inside. It was pure love. If only the world could let her stay like this forever.

"Junko..." Mikan began to vent. "Your plan didn't work. D-daddy just decided to ignore me in the end." She went on. "A-and when he died he said my name, he begged me to save him and then I-I had this strange feeling."

Junko's voice then hummed in Mikan's ear. Her boiling breath was gentle and warm and just like the sun in a snowstorm, it melted every little bit of Mikans of well earnt fatigue.

"What kind of feeling was it?"

"It was a pleasure. I-I felt good. I even felt happy, even though he's dead now..."

Before a seed of panic could begin to spread in Mikan's soul, the slight sound of Junko's voice once again quelled any flames of anxiety lit within her and the words that were delivered with that voice, finally Settled the mental storm brewing within Mikan.

"You're just like me Mikan."

That was it. She was just like her beloved. It made so much sense now and with that everything was right again. Suddenly the frail girl broke free of the others hug just to turn around and dive into the cushiony breasts of her beloved and just like that she let it all out.

"Merry Christmas my little Mikan." Junko made one last whisper.

"Now get on the floor. I wanna hear you squeal like a pig again. Dont forget to strip down nude this time you little shit."

"Of course." Mikan faintly mutterd and soon did. She diddnt like it, but if it was what her beloved wanted hee to do. If it made hee beloved happy, then she was more than willing to do anything for her.

***

Hajime.

A skinny girl, dressed in a smart yet tattered nursing uniform stood anxiously outside a holiday cabin. This girl was no ordinary girl though as in the last few hours she had mercilessly murdered two of her own classmates. The girl felt no grief, no regret, nor remorse as she felt nothing but joy when being the last reflection of someone's eye before it was darkened forever. Ibuki and Hyoko were really nice friends and they just had to be her next victims to help relieve herself, as well as in helping along Junoko's killing game but for some reason, instead of covering up her tracks, her instincts brought her here. To her neighbor's beach cabin who was coincidentally investigating her crime.

It was a dumb move in the persective of a killer to randomly show themselves up to the detective but to Mikan; it was something she had to do. As expected, the door was open and just by opening the door the girl could see the boy she was looking for completely conked out on his bed. Being the ultimate nurse she could instantly tell that hajime was sleeping on the investigation due to obvious stress but despite that she couldn't help herself and without a second thought the girl dug under the boys covers and gently squeezed the slumbering life saviour to her core. Just like last time in the hospital, her hunch was correct. Hajime was just as warm, soft and comforting as her beloved.

She held the boy tight and as the emotions that came with the memories of her last Christmas came back to haunt her, she held tighter and tighter. The raging battle inside her soul was back. The truce of those emotions was not going to last forever. The fight between love and pleasure. What was more important to her? Seeing her friends free themselves from her beloved's killing game and live out the rest of their lives together? Or was it making sure that she was the last face, the last person, the last thought everyone would have minds before they finally die and witnessing all their anguish and hatred for herself? The attention she always craved was so close in her reach but the accursed emotion of guilt she thought she had repealed long ago was getting in the way again.

She then came to an ultimatum And whispered in hajimes ear

"Hajime. I did it."

...

...

He was still asleep.

With her internal struggle more or less settled, the girl squeezed the boy one last time and slept peacefully beside her second yet brief love.

Art credit:

Picture made by 'lil Mikan.' https://www.pixiv.net/en/users/1118770/manga

[stonecoldjerseyfox]

Jersey on my mind (part 27)

Daryl places three soft knocks on the passenger door’s window of the old Chevy pickup. The lock clicks and Mila opens the door, letting out the faint sound of Bob Dylan singing: 

“-Twas in another lifetime, one of toil and blood, when blackness was a virtue the road was full of mud. I came in from the wilderness, a creature void of form. Come in, she said, I’ll give ya shelter from the storm-”

“Hi.” Mila greets him, halfway through a bottle of Stolichnaya. Juri’s lying in the passenger seat, resting his head in her lap.  

”Having a party?” Daryl leans up against the car and looks at the tired, blood stained woman in the driver’s seat, looking back at him.  

”Celebrating another day of being alive, I guess.” Mila replies. ”Hop in.” 

She scoots over and Daryl gets in, shuts the passenger door behind him. The worn buttons and wheels of the radio shine faintly in the darkness. 

“You missed me?” 

“Yeah.” Daryl adjusts in the seat, as Mila lifts his arm and puts it around her neck, rests her head at his shoulder. Juri continues to sleep, breathes calmly in her lap. A heavy odor of vodka surrounds Mila and the half full, half empty, bottle tattles that she’s not sloshed, but seems like planning to be. 

As the fire spread over the pond in the middle of the community, like a bonfire on the 4th of July, and the walkers started to drag their feets towards it, Daryl climbed down from the truck’s roof. He’d seen Mila in the middle of the sea of rotting limbs and melting scalps, covered in blood and seemingly dead tired, with her arms hanging along the sides. A demeanor he had not seen before in her. Despite the distance between them, he saw that something was wrong. Mila seemed distracted. Deranged. When he landed on his feet on the ground,  he stabbed his way through the crowd, struggling to reach her. 

Was she injured? It was hard to see at a distance and her being spattered with blood, that could just as well be the blood of the walkers. When he finally reached her, she had awoken from her trance-like state, returning to slaughtering, but her mind was still stuck in another galaxy it seemed. She was there, just not present, like if she had to empty her system a bit, by killing off the remaining walkers. She walked around the grounds, managed to find twelve bastards hiding out in nooks and crannies, until the last of ‘em was annihilated. Daryl walked up close to her and said, as soft as he could, that it was over now. 

“They’re dead. All of ’em.” 

If he believed his words would pull her back to the present, to make her feel better- damn, he was wrong. Instead he managed to lose sight of her as soon as the others gathered up around him, Abe, Sasha, Glenn, Maggie and Enid. It was Carol who pointed out where she, and Juri went, when things had calmed down. 

Mila holds up the bottle for him. He takes it. 

“Ya’ fought well, back there.” Daryl unscrews the lid. “Like goddamn’ Rambo.” He says and hopes it will make her smile.

“Yeah, I had to let off some steam.” Mila says in a husky, ‘half a bottle of vodka’-voice. “It was a bit much… all of it.”

“Ya’ okay?” Softly, yet steady, Daryl turns her face towards his, with his hand on her chin. “Ey, Jersey-”

The big blue eyes, not even slightly hazy from the vast amount of alcohol Mila’s devoured herself in, looks back at him. They’re gleaming like a sky full of stars, like she has been crying recently. He hasn’t seen her like this before, something between sad and almost afraid of her own feelings, exhausted with the strong combination of emotions. 

“I froze.” She manages to utter, raspy. “I- he could’ve died. Carl.” Mila sighs. “If I- I was scared. For the first time in-” her voice cracks. “Since I killed him.”

“Ey, Ya’ didn’t kill him. He’ll be alright.” Daryl says, in an attempt to cheer her up. “Carl’s a strong kid.”

“That’s not-” She pauses. “The flashbacks- It was like I was back at that motel in fucking, shitty Missouri. Killing Jim all over again. I- I panicked.”

Daryl’s astonished to see her like this; vulnerable, afraid even. She must’ve drowned her sorrows pretty good, while being on her own with the kid, after killing that guy. Jim. 

His throat burns as he sweeps the last drops of the clear colored beverage in the bottle. Mila reaches for a new bottle, cracks it open and pours a mouthful sip onto her system, without making a face. She then hands him the bottle. Daryl, in the mood to unwind, takes it and drinks. 

“Ya’ had to do what you had to do.” Daryl says husky, as soon as he has swallowed. “I- I killed my brother.” He lets the bottle rest on his leg. “Merle.”

The memory of Merle looking at him with that dead gaze, has haunted him ever since. Not everyday thank fuckin’ god for that, but sometimes he can see the face in his dreams. He wasn’t there, yet he moved around, his body moved around, tried to attack him. But it wasn’t Merle anymore. The sight of him made Daryl feel it all; grief, anxiety, anger, and boy it hurt. And he didn’t know how to handle it, except with unhealthy amounts of booze, like Mila.  

“Sorry.” Mila says.

”Nobody liked him anyway.” 

What a lousy fucking excuse. 

”How so?” Mila asks. 

“He was a jerk. An ass.” Daryl huffs. “Saved us back at the prison though, the last thing he did before- yeah.” Mila leans her head on his shoulder, intertwines her fingers with his, to the raspy tunes of another Dylan folk-song. ”He saved me-” Daryl continues, fixating his gaze on the dashboard. ”-more than once. Treated me like fuckin’ shit sometimes but- I owed him a lot. Guess he didn’t know better.”

Yeah, Merle always kept an eye on him, ever since when they were younger, in one way or another; well, except when he was sent away to juvenile prison. Despite being the teasing big brother he sometimes stepped up and helped him fend off their old man, beating him, doing things- They never talked about what they’d been through, not back then or later for that matter, instead they kept it to themselves. The secrets, the shame- everything oppressed to the point of no return, Daryl thought for a very long time, until he couldn’t carry it inside anymore. So he began to act out. Drink, fight and steal. Let off steam. What difference would it make? He was damaged. He only had Merle, who, despite the arguing and the fights, was the only person he relied on. Not that it was uncomplicated, hell no! Merle could be cruel, which made Daryl’s feelings against him ambivalent if anything. His brother was a huge reason why Daryl more than often found himself in fucked up situations and couldn’t establish contact with anyone, least of all women. Merle taunted him for it and Daryl went deeper into shame and insecurity, closing more and more, until he created an invisible, but armor thick shell where no one could reach him.

“Ya’ ever been with a chick, little brother?” Merle once laughed at him, badly sloshed, so the whole bar they hung out at heard it. “Ya’ boned any of ‘em ladies, huh? Or ‘ya a damn virgin, ya’ pussy?” 

And he laughed even louder, followed by a bad attempt to apologize for his so called ‘joke’. Well, it wasn’t funny and the damage was already done. Daryl felt humiliated down to his core. No fuckin’ wonder he’d never tried to find himself a girlfriend. Not that he’d ever wanted to or tried. Who would want to have him? As far as he was concerned back then, he was trash. A nobody.

Daryl looks down at Mila, whose blue eyes are locked at the steering wheel. Well, until now, he thinks. 

“I killed him.” Daryl continues, still focusing on the dashboard panel. “I killed Merle. He’d already turned and I killed him. We’ve all killed someone that just... felt more- worse.” He can’t find the right word. “Ya’ know ‘bout Beth?”

“Maggie told me.” Mila replies and nods slightly, while continuing to look at the steering wheel.

“She was my friend, and I couldn’t save her. Failed her, failed Maggie.” Daryl says and throws a glance out of the window. “Ya’ didn’t fail Carl. He’s alive.” 

The tips of Mila’s fingers run gently up and down his arm. Her touch is the most tender he has ever felt. He felt it the same moment he took her hand the first time they met. The fact her touch didn’t make the hair on his body stand upright in discomfort as if he was a frightened deer, was proof enough Mila was special. 

“Come on, gotta get ya’ to bed.” Daryl nods towards Juri. “Can’t sleep in the front seat of a goddamn pickup when there’s plenty of beds.” 

Daryl gets out of the car and walks around to the passenger side, where he lifts the sleeping boy from the long seat, placing the blonde head carefully on his shoulder. Mila stumbles out of the car and shuts the door after her with a thud, holding on to her trusted rifle and the vodka bottle. She walks around the car, over to him. 

“That... zhopa, the wolf-guy’s dead.” Mila says while caressing Juri’s limp leg. “Wish I’d killed him when I had the chance.” She lets out a dry chuckle and steers the big vodka bottle to her mouth. “That’d cheered me up. Is that fucked up?” 

“Nah. Can’t blame ya’.” Daryl lets his hand find its way around her waist, placing itself towards the soft leather in her jacket, to steer her in the direction of the houses and to prevent her from tripping over some walker’s bodies. “Let’s go Jersey- Ain’t carrying both of ya’.”  

“Don’t have to.” Mila says doughty and frowns a little. “ I’m not even half drunk.”

Talk about strong Russian genes, Daryl thinks to himself. And the stubbornness, is that part of the genes as well? He inhales the cool night air deeply into his lungs as they walk to the house. It’s calm, quiet and the air is different. Even though the threat isn’t eliminated, not by far, everything feels somewhat at ease for now. They have posted guards at the breached wall and will start to fix it first thing in the morning. Daryl hands the sleeping toddler over to Mila at the stairs to the porch, looking after her as she announces that she’ll be back as soon as she has tucked Juri in. He sits down at the stairs and leans up against the pole holding the roof up. When Mila returns, she has changed her t-shirt to one without blood and guts all over it. She sits down next to him and looks out over the empty street, sprinkled with bodies. 

“Ya cold?” 

Mila meets his gaze and shakes her head, making the long hair sway around her face. 

“Got all I need here.” She nods at the bottle of vodka placed next to her boots, meaning that sooner or later she’ll be intoxicated to the point where she doesn't feel the cool breeze. “I’m Russian- used to much worse.” 

Ain’t a good enough answer. Daryl gets up, walks into the calm and quiet house, and grabs the worn, but warm, Navajo poncho he’s managed to hold on to for quite a while now. 

“Here-” Daryl says and places the warm garment over her shoulders. “-Ya’ ain’t that drunk yet, Jersey.”

Mila smiles a little at him as he sits down again, moves closer and wraps the poncho around her shoulders.

“Started to think you bailed before.” She says and meets his eyes through the dark, giving him a cheeky smile. “You took your time, Dixon.”

Daryl grunts a little, smiles faintly.

“Ya’ seemed to have everything under control.”

“I always do.” Mila leans against his arm and the amazing scent of her hair surrounds him, wraps him in a sense of security, drowns all other scents around them; sweat, blood. Daryl inhales her hair deep into his nose, it makes him all warm inside. It’s a complex composition of flowers; he can smell magnolia, he thinks, and something woody, like cedar or sandal. It’s a soulful mixture, it embodies her. He could recognize the scent of her from miles away, he’s sure of it. “But I’m glad you're back.” She sighs and cuddles up even closer against him, turns her head and looks up at him. 

“Well, I ain’t going anywhere now.” Daryl says, almost in a whisper, leans his forehead down against Milas. “I promise.”

Her breath smells like a solid 40%, but it’s of no importance, he wants her anyway, more than anything. He clenches to the soft leather in the worn biker jacket she wears, not wanting to let go. From not wanting any human contact at all for decades it seems, it feels like he can’t be an inch away from her; she’s the final piece of the ship after a shipwreck. Daryl has to cling to it, or else he drowns.

”I can’t lose ya’-” he says quietly, knows that he’s more vulnerable than ever when he does so. ”I can’t-”

”You won’t.” Mila whispers softly. ”You won’t.”

”I won’t let anything happen to ya’.” Daryl mumbles, his voice hoarse from vodka. He needs to be closer to her, in the haze of the initiated jagg he feels an urge to pour his heart out to her, this magnificent woman. ”I care for ya’, so much-” He met her eyes. ”I like this. Just, being with you. And the kid.”

Vodka really does wonders, Daryl thinks to himself as he draws in the young woman by his side. Or is he this goddamn’ talkative and honest because he’s so sure, more sure than he’s ever been about something in his life, that this is what he wants, more than anything? 

As if she could read his mind, answering all of his questions, Mila says: 

“You remember what I said about choice in life? How I said that I made some stupid ones?” She takes his hand, hugs it. “This is not one of them. I want you too, Daryl.”

[5lazarus]

Winter in Amaranthine, Ch. 4: Oghren

Summary: The Wardens' companions decide to leave, and Warden-Commander Arana Mahariel cannot find a reason good enough to tell them no. Meanwhile, letters between the Warden and Leliana get lost in translation, and Arana makes it worse. Chapter 4, Oghren: Oghren sobers the Warden up.

Read on AO3 here. On Tumblr, read here for Justice & Anders, here for Velanna & Sigrun, and here for Nathaniel Howe.

She stays in her office all night drinking. Arana sits at her desk and sips slowly at her tumbler, enjoying the warp of the fire in the high-priced Serault glass. She is perhaps the only Dalish elf to ever have the privilege to drink from glassware normally preserved for the Divine and Her Holiness’ followers. They had been sent to the Divine as a bribe from the notoriously eccentric Marquis de Serault and waylaid by Leliana. Remembering that, Arana’s hand tightens around the glass and she contemplates smashing it, as she has smashed most of the relationships in her life. But she is the Warden-Commander of Ferelden and the Arlessa of Amaranthine, and it looks bad enough that she is drunk--she does not want to imagine what the servants would say, if they had to clean up glass worth several years of their salary. Instead of breaking it, she tops up her glass. She wakes up to the cool seabreeze whistling outside of her open office window, gulls crying out for bread. Blearily she pulls her head off her desk, cheek sticking slightly to the surface. Her head is heavy but the hangover has not begun to ring through her yet. Arana wrinkles her nose: coffee in a silver pot, embossed with the Warden crest, steams before her, with an equally beautiful silver cup. “Drink up,” Oghren says. “You’re gonna need it.”

She fixes him with a red-eyed stare. Did she cry last night? She should have, if she didn’t. “Food?” she asks. They have done this before, the two of them, after they killed Branka, after Alistair left, and then Leliana. Oghren grunts. “Enough to tide you over,” he says. “Servant’ll be bringing it up, not me.” Ashara snorts. “Distinctions of rank must be preserved,” she says drily. “You want a cup? I imagine you brought your own.”  A servant knocks on the door and brings in a hefty rasher of bacon, thickly-sliced, and three eggs fried in the grease, along with a shot glass of a mysterious green liquid. Ashara raises an eyebrow at Oghren. “Pickle juice,” Oghren grunts. “Works every time. Now get eating, we have to get to the city by noon.” “You don’t give me orders, Warden,” Ashara says, and laughs when Oghren rolls his eyes. “Fine. Enjoy your hangover. I’ll take the bacon.” Oghren feints towards the food, and Ashara waves him off. She eats, feeling her flesh gradually restore around her bones, and takes that shot of pickle juice. It is all surprisingly good. “No hair of the dog?” she says. “That’s a road you don’t want to go down,” Oghren says. “Trust me. Been trying to walk back up it for three months.” He grins at her. “Three months sober today. Sister Nightingale sent me a pretty little amulet to wear. Silver. Supposed to ward off poison.” He laughs. “‘Nuff poison I’ve thrown into myself. And out.” “You’ve been corresponding,” Arana says flatly. She sips her coffee. Leliana has been corresponding personally with Oghren, but has not bothered to send her a letter in months. She is furious--how can she find Oghren more pleasant to talk to than her? Did her letter anger her that much? She could have at least written her back, rather than turning her quill towards other people--to Oghren, of all people. Arana tolerates Oghren, and sometimes she even likes him--she has grown to respect him, after he joined the Wardens and apologized to Felsi, and she knows sobriety is not easy. Still, out of everyone left at Vigil’s Keep, one would think she rates higher than that fool. But Leliana has always liked a good redemption story, especially if she can prompt it. Arana scowls again. Oghren snorts at the look on her face. “Aye,” hen said. “And that’s why I’m taking you on a walk.” “Is this an intervention? I’m not a drunk, Oghren. Not like you--were.” “Andraste’s tits,” he says. “You’re not a drunk like me, no, and you haven’t puked away all your opportunities and shat on all your loved ones--” “You shat on Felsi?” Arana interrupts. Arana occasionally finds Oghren’s stories reassuring: it is always nice to know that someone has fucked up more than she ever can. Oghren pauses. “No!” He considers it. “Maybe. Her doorstep, more like it.” “And she answers your letters.” Arana leans back in her chairs and downs her coffee. Leliana doesn’t answer her letters, and Arana has never even drooled on her, let alone shat on her doorstep. “Sweet Sylaise, that woman has the patience of a Keeper.” Oghren snorts. “She doesn’t answer my letters, but she certainly cashes the notes I send her. You good? You drank your coffee? You gonna eat that? Let’s go.” They leave the keep quietly. The keep is bustling as usual, with the trainers and the recruits and the cooks and the cleaners running about. Arana catches sight of Ser Pounce watching from a young tree she planted, that passes as a Vhenadahl, and she stops a second. Ser Pounce cocks his head at her and mews. He looks very well-fed. “He hasn’t been hunting the Blighted rats, has she?” she asks anxiously. “I do not want Anders to hear we poisoned his cat.” Oghren says, “Ser Pounce took out a hurlock alpha. Think he’s immune to the Blight at this point, Commander.” Ser Pounce lets out a meow, and disappears into the leaves. Arana hopes he has not been pissing on the tree. They move off the main road to avoid listeners, and because Arana deeply craves the woods, the feel of the living earth under her soles, and the whisper of the lost that press against the almost sheer Veil, trying to get their stories heard. They trudge along in silence for the first hour. Oghren hums to himself. He is not a particularly good singer, Arana well knows, but she enjoys having company. They meander, and Arana loses herself in the cool gray copse that acts as a natural barrier between Vigil’s Keep and anyone avoiding the King’s Road. When they are far  from Vigil’s Keep but still an hour  from Amaranthine City, Oghren finally speaks up. “You been getting a lot of mail lately.” “Yes,” Arana says. “I have certainly been filing my dispatches.” Oghren looks at her sideways. “Dispatches,” Oghren says. “From ol’ King Alistair, from that warden from Clan Lavellan, maybe even one or two from Tabris. But nothing from Surana, or Brosca, or Zevran, or Leliana even. Except that one, right? From the batch that came in before Anders left.” “Are you reading my mail?” Arana says, annoyed. Her hand reaches for her sword handle. “Fen’Harel take you, dwarf, those letters contain sensitive information, and you are enough of a drunk--” Oghren raises both hands. “Three months sober,” he emphasizes. “Since Anders left. Ser. Though I guess I’ll always be a drunk, I’ll be a dry drunk for sure. And no--I file your mail. Quartermaster told me to make myself useful, and it keeps me from going to the tavern for lunch.” Arana deflates. She crosses her arms instead, and looks up at the bald trees reaching for the gray sky. It does not snow in Amaranthine, even in winter. She hopes it does not rain. Oghren continues, “Struck me as weird, it did. That you’d only get official business, but Tabris was writing Velanna and Nathaniel, Leliana was checking in with me every two weeks, Alistair even sent me some cheese. ‘Twas moldy to be sure, but I think he did that on purpose.” “Some Orlesian cheeses are supposed to be moldy,” Arana says, amused despite herself. “Leliana told me.” Oghren shot her a look. “Didn’t it strike you as weird that Leliana was writing me but not you? And I didn’t want to intrude on whatever your lover’s spat was, I know how you get.” Arana opened her mouth to protest, but Oghren barreled on, “So I did some investigating. And guess what I found out?  The courier who takes letters from the crossroads, and sends them up the coast? Well, her husband’s got an Orlesian last name, and his cousin works in the Divine’s scriptorium.” His moustache twitches as he beams up at her triumphantly. “The Divine’s been stealing your mail, lass. She’s trying to fuck you and Leliana up.” He spreads his arms out, as if he is expecting applause. “You took me out here to tell me this?” Arana says incredulously. “You couldn’t have told me this in front of my fire?” As she says that, she feels a cold drop hit her forehead. She wipes it away, crestfallen. It begins to rain. She glares down at him. Oghren says cheerfully, “Better get to Amaranthine quick. Time to sprint!” They reach the city gates, mudsplattered, soaked, and sour. Arana bitches the whole way back onto the King’s Road and through the gates. It is the most she has spoken since Velanna left, and her throat gets sore. “And now!” she exclaims, as Oghren shepherds her towards a relatively nice inn near the alienage, “now my throat hurts! I will get a cold, and I will be bedridden, and someone else will need to find a polite way to tell the Chantry they have no right to censor us for recruiting whomever wanted to flee Kinloch Hold, while simultaneously keeping them from scrutinizing too heavily whatever Blighted nugshit Weisshaupt is up to--you know Morrigan has been sighted in Serault, bearing a writ from the Divine? And somehow it’s my fault.” She has not spoken this much, or so openly, since Surana last visited, and though she knows it is perhaps unwise to confide this all in Oghren of all people, she cannot stop the torrent of words. “And, and, I need to apologize to my clan, and--” In the corner of the steaming inn, a woman sits, tuning a lute. Arana stops dead. Leliana looks up and smiles. “My love,” she says. “My heart.”

[copper-wasp]

Even a Devil May Drabble - Vergil & Reader

**New Series!**

Title: Wind and Rain

Rating: G

Words: 1,070

Ugh, Fucking Vergil. I blame @xalmasyx @tehrevving @blindedstarlight @ofburisms 

This is pure fluff <3

You pulled on a set of rubber gloves, scowling at the mountain of dishes Dante had left you to do. He finally brought down the ones he had been hoarding in his room, so many that there was no longer any open counter space, so they had to be washed.

You filled the sink with hot, soapy water, and with a sigh, began to scrub. This wasn’t technically your job, but your Type A kept showing, brain forcing you to clean for him even though he was a grown ass man.

After a few minutes, you absently began to sing, an old song that your mother would sing to you if you couldn’t fall asleep, or woke up from a nightmare. It was about a sailor and his wife, bidding each other goodbye as he left, only for his ship to be sunk in a storm, leaving his wife heartbroken, but hopeful that they will meet again in the afterlife. Perhaps not the best song for a six year old child, but it still calmed you down even now, when the occasional nightmare would rear its ugly head.

“It was in a gale the ship set sail, His love was standing by; She watched the vessel out of sight, And the tears bedimmed her eye,” you sang softly, volume not much louder than the running water, gently setting the mismatched glasses on the drying rack.

“She prayed to him and heaven above, To guide him on his way; And all the parting words that night, Still echoed round the bay....

Farewell, farewell my own true love, This grief it makes me sore....” A baritone voice joined you on the second line of the chorus, and you dropped a glass into the filled sink with a thunk, soapy water splashing onto your face.

Whipping around, you saw Vergil, mug in hand as he went to fill it with coffee. You looked at him in disbelief, using your shoulder to wipe the suds off of your cheek.

“Do you...know that song?” you asked, incredulous.

“One would assume, since I was singing along with you,” he replied with a smirk, bringing the mug to his lips.

You tried to hide your smile. “Ah, yes, that would make sense,” you replied sheepishly, turning back to the sink.

Digging around, you located the dropped glass, checking it for cracks, and when there weren’t any, rinsed it off and placed it to dry with the others.

Well, you thought, grabbing some plates next, that’s half of them.

“You can keep singing, if you’d like,” you heard him say behind you. Looking over your shoulder, you watched as he took a seat at the kitchen table, cracking open a dusty old book to read. He met your eyes with an intense gaze, and you quickly looked away, embarrassment flooding your face.

“You’re sure I won’t be disturbing you?”

“Not at all. I do I hope you don’t mind if I make it a duet.”

You smiled at Vergil, appreciating this strange turn to the softer side. “Not at all,” you echoed, scrubbing at some congealed substance on a plate. “I’ll start at the chorus, then?”

“Very well,” you heard him say softly over your shoulder.

“Farewell, farewell my own true love, This grief it makes me sore; And you will be my guiding light, Till I return once more.

My thoughts will be of you my love, When the storm is raging high; So farewell, farewell, remember me, My faithful sailor boy, my faithful sailor boy....”

He let you sing the last line yourself, another repeat of “My faithful sailor boy.”

You didn’t want to look at him, fearful that this kind illusion would break if you made eye contact again. He didn’t give you a choice, as he came up to stand next to you, pulling dishes out of the strainer to dry with a towel.

“It seems you still have some dishes to do, I suppose we should sing another to make the chore seem less arduous,” he commented, and you bravely turned to look at him, trying to keep you mouth from hanging open in disbelief.

He looked down at you with an amused expression, but didn’t say anything.

“Any ideas?” you finally asked, still not quite over his behavior. You weren’t complaining, though, it was better than the sarcasm and silence that you usually got when trying to talk to Dante’s twin.

“Do you know ‘Wind and Rain?’” he asked, opening a cabinet to put the dried glasses into.

“Oh, you mean the one about the older sister who murders her younger sister by pushing her into a river, and then various bones of hers are taken by a questionable musician who turns them into a fiddle that only plays ‘Wind and Rain?’....That ‘Wind and Rain?’”

Vergil stopped in mid-glass-raise, turning his head to gawk at you. You smiled brightly at him, and he cleared his throat to try to hide the smallest little laugh.

“So you are aware of the tune, then,” he replied softly. You barked out a laugh, accidentally bumping your shoulder against his arm. You muttered an apology, but he just looked at you with that amused expression again, like he was studying you, trying to figure you out as much as you were trying to figure him out.

You turned your head to focus on the remaining dishes as Vergil began to sing. Your hands came to a stop after only a moment, though, because he was singing the song in Gaelic.

You sucked in a harsh breath, turning to watch him as he sang. When you failed to sing your part, he trailed off until there was only silence between you.

“Is something wrong?” he asked softly, placing the towel down on the countertop.

“I haven’t heard anyone sing to me in Gaelic since my grandmother died,” you admitted, looking away shyly. “It just caught me off guard, that’s all.”

You felt his hand on your shoulder, tentative and light, and you flushed, still not able to look at him.

“I hope,” he began, voice nary above a whisper, “it evokes good memories of her.” He removed his hand, leaving a pleasant warmth, and began to sing again from the beginning.

You chimed in with your part, in English, finishing up the mountain of dishes and feeling just a little bit closer to Dante’s opposite.

Thank you for reading!!

The songs described are:

Kate Rusby - Farewell Julie Fowlis & Eddi Reader - Wind and Rain [The song is based off of the folk tale of The Twa Sisters, and there's about a billion different iterations of songs of their story, I just prefer this one. Gotta love murder ballads, y'all.]

Find me on:

AO3: copper_wasp

Twitter: copper_wasp_

[lindsaygibson]

Thought I’d share my experience from the cult I went through in 2005-06.

this is the full truth, not alot happened, this is the bulk of it all, the whole year.

July comes around, and I am on a program called TRILLIAN, which is like a multi chat prog, anyway, my yahoo's privacy wasnt up and somehow a religious freak, I use that term loosely, approaches me.. We talk, for a while, he says the right words and BAM, I am won over..his religion is mine, we agreed and I slowly plotted to run away. For good..no turning back, no catching my breath, no cares in the world, for I would be free from my demons and be with Yah'weh and Yah'shua and those who He designed me to be with. Wow, what a path, right? Yes, I thought. :)

His mommy and daddy paid for EVERYTHING. From our train ticket, to this apartment ridded with cockroaches and a matress with dry, decayed blood all over it from a body about a year+ ago. Yes! Somebody died in it during a hot summer day!! How amazing, thank you god! His parents Bought me a bus pass..all that jazz. My knight in shining armour. Chris told us: Gotta start at the bottom, work your way up! So lovely, seeing cockroaches and a man telling me how i'm demonised and that I am his and am to soon have other wives. Oh yes. Many other wives, like the leader, Chris!

Left home, with little packed, havin my son ripped from my arms, and standing there stunned and numb and retarded and "gone" was the start of my exodus. Happened about September. Didn't care if mommy or daddy cared, didnt care if ANYONE gave a shit. GOD gave a shit. CHRIS gave a shit. DEREK gave a shit. So..onwards and upwards we went, from the dirt upwards.

Made it to Ohio ok, with me and derek bickering like 5 or 6 year olds, fuck..can you say ANNOYING. I mean come on! How to you expect a woman, young around twenty something years old, to act when she is TIED DOWN to a man, told she has several demons, has one route in life, is starving to death (all we could eat was kosher and we had verryyyy little money)... twas the beginning of sorrows.. because derek and I became married in a court.. YES, oh how romantic! A fucking COURT in OHIO. MMMHM. Lovely! No ring or NOTHIN. The whole time I wouldnt TOUCH him, go figure right? The man I married, couldn;t have sex with or touch, belittled me in every way, shape or form and yet,....he had a sexual problem.. always having a hardon when we wrestled or played, i paid attention and he hated it and thought it was wrong (this is how far gone they had him)

We stay in ohio for a month n leave for PA on October 31. or Maybe 30. Either way we left. According to chris, derek's mom or something satanic was going to happen that night and we couldnt stay..so, he forced us out of there. We move,. and all hell breaks loose. We were like..fucking kids stuck in a house TOGETHER with a boy who couldnt control his hormones and wanted me super bad (because I was his wife, remember?) and we FOUGHT like CATS AND DOGS. OMG. SHIT HIT THE FAN. We went berzerk. BUT, why is it that I remember the good times there? I dont remember the names, or when I pushed him down or when he pushed me down, I remember the good times. The big room I had, the gas heater in my room during wintertime...the mold growing behind my bed and the great sex we had in december be1cause derek figured he'd had enough and needed to get laid to fix it..that lasted a week, and he wanted Chris and Yahweh back...HMPH.

February comes around, almost saved up enough, thanks to ramen noodle soup n cheap shit we hardly ate at all, mc donalds sometimes..it was ROUGH times. but come March, oooo we were on. Now, Despite the fact that MY ticket ticket was $666 dollars and some cents, I was ok..kinda freaked out, but went along with it.

Flew out to 3 different countries (england, denmark, and norway) before finally being drove (by chris) to Sweden. Oooo, the snow :D pwetty! Anyway, yea..lotsa snow and lotsa giggles watchin derek slip on his ass due to ice.. yeahh great times.

Bout half the time through, it began..the torment.. the shit that I went through, never really spoke about till now.. the mental, emotional torture..all with very little words said.. began slowly, then I felt bad, ugly, evil, disgusting, tormentive, panicky thoughts enter my brain..stuff that you would feel in torture chambers, perhaps, only..this was supposed to be Yahwehs place, a place that was holy. Chris' excuse? "You're letting satan in..run to Yahshua! He will save you!" So..huh? Run?? What??? Huh?? I had huge mental blocks because his advice and his sermons and his "random" words were penetrating my very core..down to the bone..in my sleep, in my dreams. He began his "deliverance" alright, my deliverance from sanity! I was under deep deep hypnosis!!!

Love did NOT reside there, torment and manipulation and magick and evilness did. NO they did not drug me, NO I was not raped.. I was tormented...Look up MIND CONTROL. It is Truth! Trigger words, triggering thoughts and emotions, simple tiiiny little trigger words would ECHO through my mind and soul, shaking me to my very core. I fell and was crushed under it's pressure.

Soon enough, chris declared that satanists were after him and one of his beloved, so what was his proposal unto us?? "Yahweh will protect us, we will all stay in the holiest of holies (his room) and will stay around that area. The most precious will sleep in my room (words twisted of course) and derek and lindsay sleep in the outter areas ;) Soo...me being the little supersticious and scared little girl that they taught me that I was, was BEYOND terrified. I remember the night "they" came and Chris walked into the room, alarmed, and said "oh my god. let's close these blinds! they're staring right through the window!" Now, I was IN that room,..and..they were staring at me?? According to chris, they were trying to use me as a way to attack the group..I was the "weak" one, I was the one without a covering, I was the one who would not trust God enough to be protected. I was the one who was running. Chris taught that they can "spiritually climb, go from place to place" so we must "cut their cord and unholy ties" kinda like the matrix ;) (matter of fact, in one of the chats between derek and chris, they discuss how Jakob was given to me by the matrix o_O)

Chris told me they were in my room, messing around, walking through there, and chris said he stayed up all night, cutting "ungodly ties" and trying to protect his children from them "suffocatting and choking them" Mkay. Last satanic attack we had, he wore armour. Yes, special armour, armour that he say Yahweh instructed him to wear. #TRUTH. What's more, for my supersticious head, is we were there on the 6th of june in 2006. 6/6/06. Whatever Mkay. I won't go into alll the details that happened when I was there because they are still horrific...I fear them, still, not those who ran it and the maze, but the memories and what was behind all that shit that happened.. the energies, the fear, the torture, all of that..

AAAALLL OF THIS HAPPENED APPROX FIFTEEN YEARS AGO... hard to believe my son didn't get involved and that this being that some people says doesn't exist stepped in and said NO to many decisions made! He's amazing and loving!