#Until one day his subconscious is like “*sigh*… he still hasn’t realized. Dreams?”

[poisoned-pearls]

I wanna write a fic abt Jamil developing a crush on Azul except it’s because his brain force fed him a dream abt Azul to make him realize his feelings

[galactic-magick]

As Long As I’m With You: Agnes/Agatha Harkness x Reader

Request: Hi, can you please do where Agnes (a villain) saves fem reader's life because she has feelings for her? In the end they end up together // also took some ideas from this request

Summary: You’re accused of witchcraft in your village, and a mysterious beautiful witch comes to your aid.

Words: 2200+

Warnings: fem reader, Agatha is low key evil so she hurts some people, a swear word, reader has an angsty past

Author’s Notes: This can be read as either a standalone fic or as a prequel to my other fic “Spell Practice.” I took quite a lot of creative liberty with this, hopefully that’s alright. Also disclaimer I am in no way a history expert so even though this is set in like the 1500s-1600s it’s probably very inaccurate, but it’s fanfic so anything goes right?

Taglist: @nyx-aira​ @midnight-lestrange​ @thestrangeundoing​ @thegayances @sleep-deprived-athlete @dr-robotnik-said-hella​ @fallingfor-fics @p-nymph​ @thelanawinterrs @sunproud​ (if your tag didn’t work it might be bc your blog isn’t searchable so make sure that’s on so you’re notified of future fics!)

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You had no idea how much your life would change when you left your house that day.

It started out with a simple run to the market and the garden to get what you needed for supper that night, a job that almost always falls to you. You don’t necessarily mind getting away from your family and talking to some people in town, but it’s clear that your family doesn’t want you in the house as much as possible either.

It’s gotten to the point where they’re just looking for a reason to get rid of you. You’re a disappointment, after all. You refuse to marry in order to help your family’s status, even though you’ve gotten a couple offers. You counter your parent’s rules and ideas every chance you get, no matter how much they tell you you’re crazy. They belittle you constantly, saying your dreams are worth nothing and you’ll have to be dependent on them forever if you never submit to the role in society you’re supposed to.

Obviously bullying you out of their lives wasn’t working, so they’ve moved on to spreading rumors about you and setting you up for crimes. None have worked yet, of course, but every day you fear they’ll get too close.

Until you get burned at the stake, though, they’ve given you basically every responsibility of the house. You do all the shopping, cooking, and farming, as well as taking care of your younger siblings. You wonder what they’d do without you, despite how much they seem to want you gone.

As you’re buying a few crops and eggs from your neighbors, you swear you see something move. You turn around and see a little boy floating in the air, screaming.

You drop everything in your arms and reach up to him, trying to grab him and help him down, but he keeps flailing, and his screams start to feel directed at you.

“Hey! It’s okay! Let me help you!” you hold your hand up, speaking as calmly as you can. “I’m not going to hurt you,”

“WITCH!” a man yells as he sees you. “SHE’S A WITCH!”

Everyone around turns and watches you.

“No! No! I’m not the one doing this! I’m trying to help!”

“Let him down and maybe we’ll wait to kill you til tomorrow!” someone else demands.

A couple people march towards you to grab you, and all you can think to do is start running.

You race out of the center of town into the trees, and about five men chase after you. You keep going until it feels like your legs are going to give out and you can barely breathe, but they keep coming.

“Please! Please stop! It wasn’t me I swear!” you cry. “I don’t know what was happening!”

“Shut up, girl,” one grunts. “Your father always said there was something wrong with you, makes sense that you’re a witch!”

“What’s so wrong about witches?” a female voice calls.

You and the men spin around, trying to figure out where it came from.

Before you can blink there’s purple smoke surrounding you, and the men are thrown against the trees. They’re knocked unconscious instantly, but you remain standing and untouched.

“Who are you?” you ask, your voice quivering.

“Don’t be afraid, my dear,” the smoke starts to fade and you can make out her silhouette, then eventually her face. “I’m here to help you,”

She’s beautiful. You’ve never seen someone that immediately feels so friendly, so different in all the best ways.

“It’s alright to stare, I know I’m quite a sight,” she laughs. “I’m Agatha,”

“I’m Y/N,”

“Ah, yes, I’m pretty sure I’ve heard of you,” she smiles. “Everyone in the village can barely stand you,”

“Thanks…?” you’re not sure how to respond, especially after all that just happened. “Wait, if you live in my village, why have I never seen you? And how come you’ve never gotten caught using magic?”

“Memory spells, of course,” she shrugs. “Now, let’s get you somewhere safe, alright?”

You nod, and she wraps an arm around you. She takes you deep into the forest until you reach a small house, the glimmer of the fire peering through the windows.

You settle down on a chair while she makes some tea and food. She offers you a blanket and hands you the cup and plate, sitting down across from you.

“So how long have you been practicing magic?” she asks.

“Oh…I…well actually I don’t know how to use any magic,”

“Really? Why were the witch hunters after you then?”

“I was set up, I think,” you say. “There was a little boy floating in the air, and since I was near him they thought it was me. But I wasn’t doing anything,”

“Well,” Agatha sips her tea. “Sometimes magic can manifest itself subconsciously. Maybe you were doing it but didn’t realize it. It’s quite common,”

“But…how would I have magical powers? I’ve never learned it from anywhere,”

“Some people are just born with the gift,” she grins.

You exhale, thinking over what she said. Could it be true? You’ve been a witch all your life without even knowing it?

 -

 That night, Agatha conjures another bed for you to sleep in. But even though she made it as comfortable as she possibly could, you can’t get a wink of sleep.

You lift off the blanket and wrap it tightly around you, getting up slowly and quietly. You walk outside and sit against a tree, looking up at the stars.

You’re sure your family has heard the news by now. Their disappointment of a daughter is finally gone, accused of witchcraft. It seems that the foreseeable future will be spent with Agatha, the only safe person you have.

You wonder just how much she already knows about you. She mentioned she’s heard people gossiping about you all the time in town, yet she still saved you after hearing all those negative things.

Why is that?

“Can’t sleep?”

You jump at her voice, and she chuckles a bit at your reaction.

“Sorry,” you sigh. “I just have a lot to think about from today, I guess,”

“No worries,” she sits down beside you. “So do I,”

“Agatha,” you say. “Why did you save me?”

“Us witches have to stick together. I saw you were in trouble, so I saved you,”

“But you knew, didn’t you? You’ve known I was a witch long before this, didn’t you?”

“I had my suspicions,” she agrees. “Whenever I heard people talk about you, I figured you weren’t like everyone else. But I didn’t know for sure until today,”

“I wish you had taken me before,” you huff, a few tears falling down your cheeks. “It’s been so bad, Agatha, feeling worthless just because you’re different, everyone hates you…”

She pulls you into her shoulder, letting you cry into it, “I know, dear, I know,”

 -

 It takes you a while to come to terms with your potential powers, but as soon as you’re ready Agatha begins to teach you how to use them. You spend your days studying her spell books and practicing simple spells, most of which you fail at.

She encourages you as much as possible, explaining to you that magic is not something you can learn overnight, sometimes not even over years. She tells you that she’s actually thousands of years old (a surprise to you due to her stunning looks) and she’s been practicing for much of that time, and there’s still some spells she hasn’t mastered.

Your impatience still gets the better of you most days, though. You can’t imagine waiting several centuries to get something to work, if you get it to work at all.

One day you’re sitting at the table, trying out a simple transfiguration spell. You wave your hand repeatedly at a potato, hoping to turn it into an apple. It doesn’t even wobble, not even a single spark, but you’ve been sitting here for hours and don’t want to give up just yet.

You nearly fall asleep from exhaustion when all of a sudden it happens. It works.

There’s an apple in front of you. Not a potato, an apple.

“Holy shit!” you scream. “Agatha! I did it!”

You run over to her and point at your small accomplishment.

“Look at you go, darling!” she smiles, hugging you. “At this rate you’ll be changing rocks into cats before you’re 200!”

You laugh, “Oh come on, this is literally just one of the beginner spells,”

“So what? That’s where everybody starts,”

You break out in giddy excitement again, jumping up and down a bit and looking back and forth just to make sure your creation is still there.

Without thinking, you kiss Agatha quickly on the lips.

She stares at you, mouth open.

Before you can apologize, she grabs your face and kisses you hard. She’s everything you’d imagined and more, soft and warm but with a spark you can’t ignore.

When you finally break apart, her hands linger, brushing across your features and in your hair, “I’ve been waiting to do that,”

 -

 Things change after that, but in only the best ways.

Agatha isn’t just your mentor anymore, the only friend who came to your aid.

She’s your everything now, a soulmate, your home.

You tell her all about your life, and she tells you all about hers. As she has significantly more stories to tell, you’ll fall asleep many nights to her whispering all the legends she lived through that no one else knows are true.

She makes you laugh every day, and makes sure you always know how much she cares about you. There’s only so much you can do in your hidden home in the woods, but with magic the possibilities are endless and she’s never short of romantic ideas.

Tonight you find yourself lying your head in her lap while she plays with your hair, close to the fire so you can watch the little shows she creates with the flames.

“What about love?” you ask.

“What about it?”

“Out of all the stories you’ve told me, you’ve never mentioned being in love before,”

“Well,” she sighs. “That’s because I haven’t been,”

“Why not?”

“It’s just never appealed to me,” she says. “Until I met you,”

“Oh,” you grin, looking up at her.

She leans down to kiss you, but you’re broken apart by a loud noise outside.

You shoot up, looking at Agatha in pure panic. Your heart races as the noise gets louder and louder, eventually leading to shouting and knocks at the door.

“WE FOUND YOU!” a booming voice yells.

“Aggie?” you whisper. Everything crumbles around you. Your perfect, happy life, now about to be stolen from you. You have no idea how they found you, if you are about to be dead, if you’ll be able to defend yourself at all.

She kisses you and stands up, “Stay here. I’ll take care of it,”

With a fling of her fingers the door flies open, and the torches the townspeople are holding are burnt out. She smirks, purple smoke covering the area as she goes through them one by one, some just throwing to the side and others suffering a painful death.

She turns their own weapons against them, their own people against them, and makes them regret everything they’ve ever done.

When she returns to you, you’re still in so much shock and panic you couldn’t tell exactly what she was doing.

“Did you…kill all of them?”

“They got what they deserved for threatening us,” she says nonchalantly. “But we’re not safe here anymore. It’s time to find somewhere new,”

“Okay,” you nod as she pulls you against her. “As long as I’m with you,”

“I’ll always protect you, even when you learn enough to protect yourself,” she kisses your forehead. “Always and forever,”

 APPROXIMATELY FOUR CENTURIES LATER

 “I’m back, darling!” Agatha calls, shutting the door behind her.

“How’d it go?” you run to her, grabbing her hands.

“Splendid, that poor Wanda already loves her new neighbor!”

“Wow,” you giggle. “You know I must say, this whole living in a sitcom thing isn’t that bad, you look gorgeous in that 50s dress,”

“Oh darling, somehow after all this time you still flatter me,” she pretends to fan herself. “I have to go back over real quick, alright? Gotta give her this spicy magazine,” she holds her hand up in the air and magically forms one in her grasp.

“Ah! Be sure to get some ideas to use on me when you get back,” she laugh.

“Oh I will honey,” she winks, kissing you before going out the door.

You settle on the couch, looking around at your home. Out of all the places you’ve moved to together, this was by far the weirdest. There’s no color, and everyone besides you and Agatha and Wanda are under some kind of mind control.

You never imagined that day all those years ago would bring you here, spending your life with a beautiful witch and being her partner in all things, even sinister ones. But you wouldn’t have it any other way, and you know this strange town will only bring you more opportunities to practice your magic and help Agatha with her plans.

[fandom-hoarder]

Baby Brother

[companion piece to Feeling Small; Dean’s POV, fluff + slight angst; don’t come at me for the gimme title]

At first, Dean has no idea why he’s suddenly conscious and not reaching for his gun. His fingers just graze the butt of it, but he doesn’t have the urge to close the distance. After a split-second of concentration, though, the reason is obvious: Sam. Namely, the soft but ragged breaths Dean hears coming from the bed behind him, growing more labored by the second; a sound Dean is, unfortunately, used to identifying. Though, it’s been awhile. Almost a year, he thinks. Longer than the last time Sam woke up with growing pains, and Dean can tell Sam’s current anxious breathing apart from the pained groans that have been more frequent lately. Dean had started to settle into the idea that Sam was finally growing out of his nightmares.

Too much to hope for, apparently.

There’s a fleeting thought, a vague hint of annoyance, at the fact that this is Sam’s first nightmare since separate beds became their default rather than a rarity and a luxury. Calming Sam down is so much easier when they’re sharing space. But it had been Sam’s decision in the first place; yet another push for independence and his own (literal) space; and Dean hadn’t argued, despite the urge that nagged at him sometimes. When your sixteen-year-old little brother insists he needs his own personal space, it looks weak and clingy to try to argue about it. So, naturally, Dean had pulled away like the ultimate specimen of machismo that he was, making sure Sam knew that Dean had only been putting up with the arrangement for Sam’s sake in the first place, and to make things easier on Dad. Making sure to gripe about it at least as much as Sam any time they had no other option but to share since then. 

Even so, Sam was usually much more pliable in the middle of the night; accepting more help with things when he was sleepy; when their world was blurry around the edges, dwindled down to the bubble that encompassed the two of them in that space between wakefulness and sleep.

He calls out to Sam sleepily, refusing to open his eyes and hoping to quickly nip this in the bud so he can go back to sleep. So they both can. It comes out more grumpy than inviting, and he inwardly winces, but he doesn’t worry long. 

He hears Sam gasp sharply and then there’s a flurry of movement as his little brother flings his covers away and clambers over. Dean braces for the chill of air on his warm skin as Sam squirms in behind him, but his little brother comes with his own furnace-like aura, especially when he’s worked up from some kind of night terror. He feels the heat of the air between them close in as Sam settles, and Dean holds still, taking his cues from Sam for how much contact he wants. 

Sam’s bony elbows press against Dean’s lower back, and he feels the barest hint of contact between the backs of his thighs and Sam’s legs. Sam’s slightly clammy forehead coming to rest between his shoulder blades, however, is enough to raise faint goosebumps along Dean’s skin. He wonders how Sam can possibly be comfortable, with the way he must be contorted. Sam’s body is way too long now for this position to feel natural.

Sometimes it kinda pisses him off that Sam is going to be taller than him any day now. It also makes him proud, though. Somehow, despite all the odds against him, he managed to raise this kid up big and healthy. But right now, it just makes him kind of heartsick for the days when his little brother was, well, actually little. He guesses he should just be grateful that Sam isn’t actually treating him like the little spoon here, but it still rankles. Dean’s still bigger than him, dammit; at least for now.

Dean keeps his eyes closed and tries to hold still; relax; resist the urge to take control and switch their positions, and just breathe. Be the type of solid comfort Sam needs right now—no matter how dissatisfying it feels for Dean, or how much he knows Sam will end up with a crick in his neck and back if he stays like this—and let both of them fall back to sleep. For a minute or two, it seems to work, but soon he feels Sam’s breathing getting worked up again; shuddering the way it does when tears are in the not too distant future. 

Dean reaches back awkwardly to run his hand through Sam’s hair, hoping the contact will ground him. Somehow, though, it only seems to make things worse as Sam lets out a sort of wounded sob.

‘Yeah, okay, that’s it,’ Dean thinks with a sigh, finally opening his eyes as he accepts his fate. He twists himself around under the covers and wraps his arms around Sam, ankle looping around Sam’s and trapping that leg between his thighs. Dean’s left hand finds Sam’s right and wraps around his bony wrist, pulling it to his chest as he re-settles Sam against him more comfortably. And there’s something intensely satisfying about how he executed this maneuver; how easily he’s still able to manhandle his little brother, despite Sam’s recent increase in size. Dean’s momentary smirk presses his cheek against Sam’s head as he reaches up to card through Sam’s hair again.

It’s full; soft and fluffy on top, but still damp on the bottom layers from the shower Sam took after Dean last night. His hair is so long and thick, past his chin in the front and curling out around the nape of his neck; it always takes hours to dry naturally, and Sam refuses to use a hair dryer. Dad’s probably going to make Sam cut it any day now for practical reasons. Dean rags on Sam all the time about his girly hair, but secretly he loves it. The kid’s always had a lot of hair, but it’s gotten thicker in the last couple of years. And Dean grew up petting his brother’s hair—it’s the only thing that could get little Sammy back to sleep most of the time, or calm him down if he was fussy; although sometimes it’d only worked if it was accompanied by Dean’s careful croon of ‘Hey Jude’—and at this point he can admit, at least to himself, that it soothes him also.

And Dean definitely needs that calming action now as he prepares himself for what he needs to do. He takes a deep breath as he comes to terms with it, and the familiar, sweet scent of Sam’s special shampoo keeps his heart calm under Sam’s hand. Good.

“Nightmare?” he whispers.

Sam nods against Dean’s shoulder and cheek, and Dean’s fingers still until the movement is over so they don’t snarl in his hair.

“Wanna talk about it?” he barely wants to give the question breath, but he knows he has to. His heartbeat stays steady as he waits for the reply, but his dread of the answer seems to make the question echo around him.

When Sam shakes his head ‘no,’ Dean doesn’t hold back from tugging at his hair a bit in retaliation. Dean hadn’t even wanted to ask in the first place, but Sam is for damn sure gonna answer him now that he’s ignored his first impulse and asked anyway.

“Can’t remember it,” Sam mumbles, and the graze of his lips over Dean’s clavicle threatens goosebumps across Dean’s chest.

Dean frowns at the reply. On the one hand, he knows Sam’s telling the truth, but that Sam could probably remember it if he tried; he’s done it before, more than once. On the other hand, Dean has never liked the outcomes of those times--the subject matter or how remembering affected Sam. After the last one, Sam didn’t--maybe couldn’t--sleep again until… well, Dean’s not even going to let his thoughts go there right now. It was all just coincidence, anyway. Sam’s subconscious taking his worries and lore knowledge and coming up with unfortunately realistic scenarios in his dreams. Side effect of being the brainy, research geek, Dean had told him, and Sam clearly hadn’t believed him but only gave a patented bitchface in reply.  

Point being: every time it happens, Dean gets closer and closer to having zero excuses left for why he hasn’t told their father yet. But, hey, if Sam can’t remember then… who’s to say what he dreamed about? Probably just a normal, stupid, run of the mill nightmare about clowns or something… He digs his fingers a little deeper into Sam’s hair, massaging into his scalp a bit to ease any tension left there from his dreams, the way he has since Sam was little. 

When Sam was about four or five, he’d woken from a nightmare inspired by a monster movie Dean had been watching on late night TV. They’d been sharing a pull-out couch in the living room of a tiny, one-bedroom apartment Dad had rented, and Dean had gotten in the habit of falling asleep to the TV in the living room when Dad was gone; he didn’t want to say it made him feel safer, but that was the truth. When Sam had woken up with a cry, covered with sweat and face sticky with tears, the TV screen had long since stopped showing the blocky colors that signaled the end of the broadcast day and was now just the staticky non-picture that Dean called ‘snow.’

Dean had woken immediately at Sam’s cries, and pulled him over into his arms, doing his best to shield his little brother’s eyes from the light of the TV screen as he shushed him and dried his tears, asking if he had a bad dream. When Dean realized it was the monster movie that caused Sam’s nightmare, he’d felt bad, and promised not to watch scary stuff before bed anymore. Then he’d tucked Sammy against him and started combing his fingers through his sweat-damp, baby-soft hair, rubbing the pads of his fingers against Sam’s head as Dean whispered to him that he had a magic trick that would let him pull the bad thoughts out of Sam’s head. For a while, Sam wholly believed it was magic, and it worked so well that Dean almost did, too. 

The dread in Dean’s gut eases slightly with the memory, but not completely. He’s too aware of the thoughts he’s avoiding.

Just when he starts to think Sam’s drifted off, the pattern of air moving across Dean’s collarbone stutters as Sam breathes, “I miss this.”

“Miss what?” Dean asks, feeling an inexplicable eagerness as he anticipates Sam’s reply.

“Feeling small.”

Immediately, Dean’s thoughts cycle back to where they’d been earlier: Sam’s impending status as tallest Winchester boy, and Dean’s continued status as big brother no matter what. This time, the ache in his heart is more for Sam than himself. There’s a happiness, too, though; he’s glad for the darkness and the creeping slumber that loosened Sam’s tongue enough to say it. 

After he’s squeezed Sam close—feeling the incredible thinness of him, the ridges of bone under newly-stretched skin a little uncomfortable at spots but all the more a comfort because of how it adds to Sam’s overall delicate feel right now—Dean splays his hand over Sam’s back, testing how much area the spread from his thumb to pinky still covers. It feels like a lot, and Dean finds himself thinking proudly that he’s still able to be Sam’s protector.

Dean rubs his thumb soothingly over the edge of skin it can just reach, and presses his cheek against Sam’s head to promise, “You’ll always be my baby brother.”

When Sam’s fingers clumsily grab Dean’s amulet, the goosebumps that have been threatening this whole time finally make their appearance. The pull of Sam’s hand on the cord is a nostalgic weight that gives his heart a little lurch. Dean feels Sam’s breathing finally even out, and allows a long, slow exhale of relief.

But Dean knows he’s not going back to sleep himself any time soon. He’s going to stay awake and hold his baby brother tight; keep the nightmares away—real and imagined; soak in the memory of Sammy still small in his arms and needing comfort neither of them will admit to in the light of day.

And he knows this will be one of the few times he doesn’t tease Sam about it in the morning, whether or not Dad comes home safe.

[buckleysjareau]

wish i could keep you in amber, safe from the outside

Neither of them say anything as Eddie takes shelter in Buck’s arms, face tucked in the crook of his neck, sheltered from all the bad that’s happened. A safe place.

He can only hope that he’s Buck’s safe place, too.

or

In which Eddie and Buck are struggling after the shooting and they finally have a much needed talk.

Content warning - very non descriptive depictions of war, mentions of blood, suicide statistics and past suicidal thoughts!

(Read on AO3)

Incoming! 

Break, break, break! We’re pinned down and we’re taking fire, two clicks north of our last reported position. 

Prepare for— 

Boom! 

Norwahl, stand down! You gotta get out! What the hell is wrong with you? Norwahl! 

Pain. 

Major 6-4, what’s your ETA? 

Dust off, 47. ETA six minutes. 

We don’t have six minutes. 

Diaz, keep low. Don’t stop. 

Wake up! 

Diaz! I’m black on ammo! 

Go! Go! Go! 

Diaz, he’s dead! 

Diaz, you okay? 

He’s screaming. 

He’s out of ammo— he’s got no other moves left in him. The pain is excruciating. 

Shannon. Christopher. 

I’m sorry… 

He clutches his Saint Christopher medal and he can’t stop the tears. 

Pain. 

Shannon. 

To protect you, to keep you safe. 

–

Eddie shoots up, arms flailing and screaming out something he’s not even sure is comprehensible. His heart is beating out of his chest, won’t stop, and he can’t seem to catch his breath. 

Then his surroundings start to filter in and his eyes land on his son—wait, Christopher?! 

“Chris?” He chokes out, the all consuming fear he couldn’t shake from the nightmare making words hard to speak. “What are you doing here? Are you okay?” 

“Did you have a bad dream?” Christopher asks as he reaches forward to cup his face, wiping away a tear. Eddie almost breaks. He didn’t deserve this kid. 

“Yeah, bud, I did.” He admits with a crack in his voice. 

He’d had that nightmare almost nightly for three weeks after he’d woken up in a hospital bed, his shoulder hurting the way it had when he woke in Afghanistan—Buck by his side being the one thing that stopped him from thinking he was back there. 

It’s been almost two months since that day, and Eddie kept telling himself—and everyone else— that he was fine. That he was talking about it, facing it so he could heal from it. Which wasn’t exactly a lie, he was talking about it with Frank. He just wasn’t exactly facing it as much as Frank is trying to get him to and—he wasn’t exactly fine. 

His heart races whenever he’s outside, subconsciously scanning his surroundings for anything suspicious. He’s constantly alert to everything going on around him—sights, sounds, smells. 

The nightmares started to happen less and less, though, and he could move his shoulder without wincing, the pain down to a dull ache. He was cleared to return to work by his doctors and by Frank. He was ready to go back. 

Or so he thought, until their first call. They were called to a car wreck on Twelfth Street and he hadn’t realized just where that was until the truck pulled up. He’d felt Buck tense up next to him, Eddie’s own muscles tensing right after him. 

Despite Bobby saying he could sit this call out, Eddie declined and pushed past the pounding in his heart, the tightness in his chest and the instinct to duck under the truck when a car backfired near them to do his job. 

He managed to keep it together the rest of his shift. He kept it together on the car ride home, which he has Buck to thank for that. He kept it together through dinner with Carla, Christopher and Buck. 

He kept it together until his head hit his pillow and he could finally break down a little. He’d perfected the silent tears a long time ago, when he was still under his parents’ roof and was taught that crying made him weak. 

He cries until his heart is tired and his eyes flutter shut, no energy to fight the sleep that he knows won’t be peaceful. 

That’s what leads to where he finds himself now, grasping to stay in touch with this reality as his son wipes away the tears in his eyes, soothing him. 

“You’re going to be okay, dad.” He whispers and Eddie chokes out a laugh. 

“When did you get so grown up?” He sniffles before opening his arms wide. “What do you say, you want to stay the night here with me? It’s been a while since you’ve slept in here.” 

Which he’s grateful for because that means Christopher hasn’t been subjected to a nightmare in a long time. But the nights Christopher crawled into his bed after a nightmare didn’t just only help his kid. 

Chris settles in next to him and rests his head on his shoulder, and for the first time in so long, Eddie feels calm. Peaceful. 

He glances down at his son, who’s already asleep once again, and he can’t stop the tears that build in his eyes at the thought that he’d almost left him—again. 

Diaz, you want to ride with the kid to the hospital? 

Yeah, that’d be gr—

His son had already lost his mom, and because of someone with a stupid vengeance, a really close call almost took his father away from him too. 

His emotions are strangling him not for the first time that night. He refuses to wake his son twice in one night, but he feels like he’ll suffocate from the lump in his throat if he doesn’t let it out, so he carefully stands up from the bed without moving his son too much. 

He moves to the bathroom out in the hall, shutting the door behind him before he catches his reflection in the mirror. The bags and dark circles under his eyes make him look like a zombie, brown eyes tearful and dull. The look is familiar to the one he wore for months after he got home from Afghanistan. 

Greggs is dead. 

The others aren’t, thanks to you. 

Greggs...died on impact. 

And you pulled him out anyway. You got them all out, Staff Sergeant Diaz. 

You did good, Diaz. 

Doesn’t feel like enough. 

Splashing his face with water does its job to bring him back to the present but does little to help the lifelessness behind his eyes. 

“Eddie!” 

At the frightened call of his name, Eddie is suddenly ready and alert for any incoming danger. 

He stands with his hand on the handle to the bathroom door, standing still, listening out for the call again. 

“Eddie! No!” 

He’s off without a second thought, fast but quietly running towards the living room where he knows Buck is sleeping. 

“Let me go! Eddie!” 

Eddie’s heart is in his throat at the agony in his best friend’s cries and the sight of him thrashing so bad he’s started to move the couch. 

A sob erupts from Buck’s lip and that’s what kicks Eddie into action. He’s in front of the couch on the coffee table, not too close to crowd him but close enough to reach out if needed. 

“Buck, wake up, it’s okay. I’m okay, you just have to wake up. It’s just a dream.” 

He tries to reach him with words but nothing seems to be getting through, so he reaches forward and shakes him, his name on his lips, and braces for the impact of flailing arms and kicking legs. Nothing comes. 

Except the broken sob around Eddie’s name. 

The tears well up behind his eyes once again but this time, he pushes them back. The first thing Buck sees when he’s shaken out of his nightmare should not be Eddie crying. 

He squeezes down on his shoulder once more and that’s what seems to do the trick. Buck shoots up on the couch, Eddie’s name leaving his lips on a scream, hands clawing at the blankets in front of him—clawing at the blankets like he’d clawed to get away from Mehta to get to Eddie. 

“Eddie!” 

“Buck, Buck, it’s okay, I’m okay. I’m right here. It was just a dream. Buck, look at me!” 

Eddie, look at me! Look at me, man, come on. Stay awake! 

Buck freezes when his eyes finally land on him, but before Eddie can let out a sigh of relief that he’d gotten through to him, Buck is gripping his shirt just over where the bullet went through and the tremors going through Buck go straight through Eddie from the contact. 

“We need to stop the bleeding!” He croaks out. “You’re losing so much blood. There’s so much blood.” 

Shit. Buck might be awake, but his mind isn’t there with the rest of him yet. 

“Hey, Buck, there’s no blood. Okay? There’s no blood. I’m fine, I’m all patched up—” 

He pulls the bottom of his shirt up as much as he can and uses his other hand to move Buck’s hand from the grip on his shirt to the scar just under his shoulder. 

“—see? You helped stop the bleeding. I’m okay, Buck, because you saved me. We’re not back there. You’re here with me in my living room and I’m with you.” 

The fog is slowly starting to clear from his eyes as he traces the scar. “You’re okay?” 

“I’m okay.” He assures. 

Eddie thinks they might be in the clear until Buck looks down at his trembling hands and his breathing picks up, more and more until he’s hyperventilating. 

“Get it off—it needs to—make it go away. Get it off of me. It’s all over.” He sobs and Eddie has to clasp both of Buck’s hands in between his own when he starts to roughly rub at his face. 

Eddie needed to calm himself down. He needs to stay grounded in this moment because Buck was in front of him, but so far away and needed Eddie to bring him back. 

So he takes a deep breath and thinks about how Buck helped him through one of his flashbacks he’d experienced a couple of days after waking up in the hospital. 

“Buck, I think you’re having a flashback right now. That’s okay though, because I’m gonna help get you through it, just like you did for me in the hospital.” 

Buck whimpers. “The blood—get it off.” 

“There is no blood, Buck. Do you hear me? Listen to my voice. It’s Eddie, we’re both safe and okay at my house right now, there’s no blood. If you can hear me, squeeze my hands.” 

Eddie relaxes the slightest when there’s a light squeeze around his fingers. 

“Good, that’s really good. Do you think you can lift your head for a second?” He smiles at him when he lifts his head and meets his eye. “Look around the room. Describe your surroundings.” 

Buck’s grip on Eddie’s hand gets tighter. 

“Okay, how about this—” Eddie pauses and looks around the room, finding the object thrown just a little bit across the room and leans forward to grab it. “Take this, Buck. Can you tell me about it? The details? The feeling? Describe it in great detail for me.” 

Buck pulls his hands away from Eddie’s and grips the blanket in front of him. 

It was a weighted blanket Adriana had given Eddie for his birthday one year, that was however taken by Buck whenever he’d stay over. That weighted blanket was used for comfort by Buck, no matter the mood he was in. It stays at Eddie’s house because Buck is there more often than not, but make no mistake, it was now Buck’s. 

Hopefully this helps. 

“It’s–It’s weighted.” Buck stutters out. 

“Good, good. What else about it?” 

“It’s gray…and plaid…”

–

“I’m sorry that I woke you up.” Buck whispers into the quiet kitchen. 

Eddie sighs. “You didn’t wake me, I was already up.” He admits. 

“Oh. Are you okay?” 

He’s already tensing up, like Eddie’s been hiding that something’s been wrong the entire time, like Eddie wasn’t as okay as he was telling Buck he was. 

Which, technically would have been a lie if he’d been talking about his mental health—but he was reassuring Buck that he was in good physical health, so, nothing to hide. 

Eddie still hesitates. “Yeah, I’m okay.” 

He continues when Buck raises an eyebrow in disbelief. 

“Physically, I’m okay, I promise. Just had a nightmare.” 

It’s completely silent aside from a sharp intake of breath from Buck. 

“You’re still having nightmares?” Is what Buck finally asks, voice wavering and quiet. 

“You’re having nightmares?” Eddie asks, deflecting but also asking out of concern. 

Silence follows after. Buck won’t look up from where his eyes are trained on the mug of tea Eddie had placed in front of him with a look that he’d hoped read I care about you. The heat of his stare could probably heat up the tea on its own, but the look doesn’t deter him, it only makes him more concerned. 

Buck, for the most part, was open about how he was feeling. It’s a quality that Eddie adored and often envied. He liked to—had to—talk his feelings out until he could make sense of them. If he didn’t, it would build and fester and eat away at him until he snapped. The lawsuit was one example of what happens when Buck doesn’t talk out how he’s feeling. 

He knows he has Doctor Copeland and maybe he’s been talking about it to her, but Eddie can’t get rid of the feeling that this is something that has festered over two months and if that’s the case—

Well, he’s terrified of what Buck will do when he finally snaps. 

Up to fifty-four percent of suicides in people with PTSD are attributed to PTSD. 

He swallows the lump in his throat as a statistic he’d read in the book Frank had given him about PTSD makes its way to the forefront of his mind. He has to stop himself from physically flinching away from the thought. 

It was something he brought up with Frank after he’d read the book at his insistence. The statistic had struck something in him then and the question that followed from Frank had given him a lot to think about. 

“Have you recently thought about ending your life?”

It wasn’t a recent thing but it had been an almost consistent thought after he’d gotten back from Afghanistan when his PTSD was at its worst and he hadn’t seen an end to his suffering in sight. 

What if Buck has been feeling the same way? 

What if one day his trauma gets too much and he— what if he—

No. That’s not going to happen, not if Eddie has anything to say about it. 

He breaks the silence. 

“Have you talked to Doctor Copeland about how much you’re struggling?” 

Still refusing to look at him, Buck mumbles, “I’m not struggling.” 

Eddie scoffs. “I believe that.” 

“You should.” Buck huffs out. 

“You’re allowed to struggle with this, Buck. What happened was—”

“I don’t want to talk about it.” He cuts Eddie off abruptly, his voice choked. 

Eddie crosses the room, pulls out the chair next to Buck from under the table and turns to face it directly at him before sitting down. 

“Well, I’m sorry, but we’re going to talk about it.” He says matter-of-factly. 

“Eddie,” Buck starts, his tone a warning.

“Buck.” He counters in the same tone. 

Buck looks like he’s about to bolt— he knows him well enough to know he won’t, but he still reaches out and gently squeezes Buck’s forearm, not letting go. He can feel how much he’s still shaking and squeezes again in an effort to comfort him—and comfort himself, keep himself and Buck grounded in the present. He’s feeling so on edge himself, so he can’t imagine how Buck must feel after that flashback. 

“We haven’t talked about that day. It’s been almost two months and we haven’t talked about what happened.” He swallows. “Have you talked about it to anyone?” 

The breath Buck takes in is shaky. 

“Why are you so insistent about my struggles when you’re struggling yourself?” His tone is defensive but it has Eddie nodding. 

He closes his eyes, takes a deep breath, then meets Buck’s eyes. “I am. Struggling.” 

It’s the first time Eddie has admitted to anyone outright that he was struggling. He’d talked to Frank, but he only ever said the bare minimum of what he was feeling and he admits he had no plans to continue his sessions with Frank now that it’s not mandatory. 

The uncomfortable feeling that always comes with being this vulnerable, even with Buck, starts to buzz under his skin but he continues. 

“It’s not something I ever like to admit, you know this...but yeah, Buck, I’m really struggling.” 

At the break in his voice, Buck’s hand is suddenly resting on top of the hand that’s holding onto Buck’s forearm. He remains quiet but he gives Eddie a look that said he was listening if he wanted to talk more. 

He’s not surprised to find that he does want to talk about it more because talking to Buck has always been easy, no matter how hard the topic was to talk about. 

“I was really bad when I came home from Afghanistan after I was given a Silver Star. I was being called a hero by everyone when all I could think was that I didn’t do good enough because Greggs still died, still left three daughters behind.” 

Eddie pauses to take a much needed deep breath and turns his hand that’s under Buck’s palm up and grasps onto Buck’s the second their hands connect. Buck squeezing back is enough to get the next words out of his mouth. 

“I’m really scared that I’m gonna get that bad again, man.” Eddie whispers his greatest fear. “There have been days where I’ve been terrified to leave the house, thinking that they didn’t actually catch the sniper and I’ll be back there again. I can’t go back there again.” 

Buck squeezed his hand again in comfort. 

“I’m always going to be here for you, Eds. I won’t let you go back there.” Buck’s voice is no more than a whisper but the sentiment is so loud. 

He knows Buck will always be there for him, it’s not a surprise, but the simple promise from his best friend was exactly what he needed to loosen the tightness in his chest for the time being. A sob bubbles past his throat and that’s all it takes for Buck to pull him into his arms and give Eddie the tightest hug he thinks he’s ever received. 

Neither of them say anything as Eddie takes shelter in Buck’s arms, face tucked in the crook of his neck, sheltered from all the bad that’s happened. A safe place. 

He can only hope that he’s Buck’s safe place, too. 

“And I’m always going to be here for you,” Eddie whispers against Buck’s neck after a while. 

He feels the moment Buck tenses. He expects him to pull away, to try to convince Eddie he’s not struggling, but instead, Buck sucks in a breath and grips the back of Eddie’s shirt. 

“You almost weren’t.” 

The choked whisper has Eddie tightening his arms around Buck. “But I’m here now and that’s because of you, okay? You kept me alive.” 

He doesn’t just mean the way Buck had gotten him into the safety of the 133’s truck, or the way he did all he could to make sure he hadn’t lost any more blood. 

He fought to come home to Christopher, and he fought to come home to Buck. He held on for those two and those two only. 

Not Ana, who he should have thought of but she wasn’t who he loved. 

It’s a good thing that he hadn’t fought to come back to her, too, because the moment Eddie shut down… she left. He couldn’t blame her, he’d been a wreck when he first came home and his mental health was not on her. 

But Buck was there. Buck never left, has never left, will never leave. If Eddie is sure of anything, it’s Buck’s permanency in his life. 

He’s going to make damn sure he’s a permanent in Buck’s by fighting to come home to him, too. 

“I froze, Eddie. I didn’t do anything.” 

“You did everything you could do in the situation and you saved me, Buck. Don’t you get that? You kept me hanging on, you got me back to my son.” 

He feels Buck shake his head as he starts to burrow his face into the crook of Eddie’s neck. He doesn’t respond, just shakes in his arms. A sob escapes Buck’s lips. 

Eddie holds him tighter, using his good arm to rub his hand up and down Buck’s back in an attempt to soothe him. 

“Talk to me, Buck.” He pleads. Eddie is still crying himself—hasn't been able to get himself to stop. 

“There was so much—” He starts off before pushing away from Eddie’s embrace and puts a hand near his throat, rubbing at his skin as if he was scrubbing something off. “So much blood.” 

Yeah, that’d be gr—

—gunfire. 

Eddie shakes his head, trying to dispel the memory from the forefront of his mind. 

“Yo–you–you reached for me, and I cou–couldn’t get to you. Then your eyes closed and oh my God, Eddie, there was so much blood.” 

Buck is pretty much wailing at this point and he can’t help but wonder how Christopher hasn’t been woken up yet from the noise they’ve both made. He doesn’t think he can take the pain in his heart at the anguish in his best friend’s cries and he vows to himself to never cause this pain again. 

He’s still rubbing at his neck, staring directly at Eddie’s shoulder and Eddie doesn’t like the way his stare starts to become distant. He reaches for Buck’s hand and lets out a sigh of relief when he lets him pull it away from his throat. 

“Stay with me, Buck.” 

Stay with me, Eddie! 

Breathe. 

“Shit—fuck—shit, I’m so sorry.” Buck chokes out and Eddie’s eyebrows shoot up in surprise—confusion, disbelief… 

“You have nothing to be sorry for, man.” 

“No, no, I do. I’m not the one who got shot, I shouldn’t be—I shouldn’t be struggling like this… and you got shot, you’re dealing with your own feelings about that, you shouldn’t have to listen to me.” 

Eddie ducks down to try to meet Buck’s eye. “Hey, no, it’s not a competition here—who had it more traumatic—no. You were covered in my blood, you were being targeted in active shooter situation—”

“Actually, I wasn’t.” He cuts him off sharply. 

“He was targeting firefighters.” 

“I was in my civies. He wasn’t after me, he was targeting the 133 and you.” The guilt in his statement cuts right through Eddie’s heart. 

“You’re allowed to be struggling, Buck. You’ve got every right to be and I hate that you haven’t talked to anyone about this— it’s been two months. Why?” 

“Because I’m not the one who got shot and because I just freeze like I did then when it’s brought up. I couldn’t get myself to talk about it but now that I have it’s all coming out and fuck, Eds, I’m so sorry. I’m sorry.”

“You were still involved in a completely fucked up situation and anyone who has would struggle. I get it, though. You’re the first person outside of Frank that I’ve talked to about how it’s messed me up. But shit, Buck, I know from experience how much worse I’d be if I didn’t talk about it.” He takes in a deep breath and lets out a humorless laugh. “When did we switch places here?” 

He continues when Buck gives him a bewildered look. 

“You have to talk your problems out to process them and I have never liked talking about my problems. When did you become the one in this relationship to hold it all in and when did I become the one that actually talked about it so I could heal from it?” 

“When I almost lost you.” Buck whispers, his voice wet. “I’m proud of you, though. I’m glad you’re talking to Frank. I hope he’s helped.” 

“Well you didn’t lose me. I’m right here, so talk to me. Come to me when you get like this. We went through the same hellish trauma together so I promise you I won’t get tired of you talking about your feelings from it—about anything.” 

He knows that Buck feeling like a burden is part of his reluctance to talk, it always was whenever Buck came to him to talk about his struggles. 

Buck sighs, tension deflating from his body little by little before he folds over and rests his forehead on Eddie’s chest. Eddie takes his hand that’s not holding Buck’s and cards it through his hair. 

“Okay, fine. I’ll try, on one condition.” 

“Anything.” Eddie means it. 

“You come to me, too.” 

“Deal.” Eddie smiles. “Maybe you can do something for me though?” 

“Anything.” Buck whispers. 

“The second her office opens, set up an appointment with Doctor Copeland.” Eddie almost pleads. “I’m going to book one with Frank.” 

He hadn’t planned on going back to him after the sessions stopped being mandatory but this talk has made him realize a few things, and one of them was that therapy had helped. The difference between Eddie’s return from Afghanistan and the aftermath of being shot was just that—therapy. 

And if it got his best friend to actually talk about it and start healing, too,  that’s a positive bonus. 

“Yeah, o—” A loud yawn escapes Buck that cuts him off. 

Eddie yawns right after him, followed by a snort. “We should probably get some sleep.” 

“I can’t—I don’t want to have another nightmare.” 

Eddie moves the hand in Buck’s hair to his cheek and lightly taps him. He smiles at Buck as their eyes meet. “I’ve got an idea. C’mon, get up, follow me.” 

Buck never makes a move to let go of Eddie’s hand as they walk and neither does he. He goes over to the couch and grabs Buck’s weighted blanket with his free hand and leads him to his room. 

“Eddie?” Buck stops him before he can open the door. 

“Stay with me tonight.” 

“Are you sure?” 

“It would be for me, too.” Eddie squeezes his hand. “Though I should warn you—” He opens his door to reveal Christopher sound asleep in his bed. “I should have said stay with us tonight.” 

“Eddie.” 

“I’m absolutely positive I want you with us tonight.” He answers the unasked question on Buck’s tongue. 

He lifts the blanket and gestures for Buck to get in first but Buck shakes his head. “You can go there.” 

The bed stirs as he gets in. 

“Dad?” Christopher mumbles sleepily. “Buck?” 

“Yeah, bud, Buck’s here. He also had a bad dream, do you mind if he sleeps with us?” Eddie asks, already knowing his son’s answer would be yes. 

Christopher nods with a sleepy smile. 

When Buck slides in next to him, Christopher leans over and cups Buck’s face the way he had cupped his not two hours ago. “You’re gonna be okay, kid.” 

Tears appear in Buck’s eyes but he gives Christopher a wet smile and nods. “Yeah. I think I will be.” 

His son really was the greatest. 

Buck’s insistence that Eddie got into bed before him starts to make sense after Buck starts to fall asleep. He subconsciously slots himself against Eddie’s back and pulls him closer, leaving his arm around him, resting over his heart. 

He wanted to protect him. He’d wanted to protect Eddie from all of the dangers that could come through that door. 

In that moment, Eddie has never felt safer. 

His safe place.

[killherfreakout]

half of who i am isn’t all my fault

a series about hands and where they touch.

part two: your hand under my chin

[a/n: bipolar disorder, mixed state of mania and depression.]

* * *

The world is ending.

At least, to a twenty-something artist in Paris named Eliott Demaury, it feels like it is. And he can’t decide if he wants to sit there and watch or throw caution to the wind and go down with it.

It’s another quiet weeknight in the city, late enough that the partygoers are on their way home but early enough that people aren’t up for work. So the world is continuing as normal, and yet, it feels like Eliott is on the edge of it and about to fall off. 

And there’s no one to blame but himself; no one to blame but his chemically imbalanced and traitorous brain, on the brink of consuming every last semblance of control he has left, in the middle of a sleepless night. Eliott knows this feeling too well, and no matter who much he tries to fight it, his attempts are futile. 

Eliott finds himself sitting on the edge of their bed, and he watches as Lucas’ parted lips huff out soft breaths in his sleep. He looks ethereal, like some kind of angel sent to watch over Eliott when he wants to give up on himself, always there when he doesn’t know he needs him. Lucas is some kind of perfect dream, in between real and imaginary, as he lays there like he has no idea the sight he makes.

Lucas said once, after Eliott made him try his special omelettes, I’m glad you have one flaw, otherwise you’re just too perfect to be real. And Eliott knows the way people look at him, like he’s an entity only good for his beauty — although, if he has anything to say about it, he would argue he’s the furthest from that — and not a person with real human emotion underneath it all. The thought makes a cruel, humorless laugh bubble up inside his throat.

And he doesn’t want to be the asshole who’s ungrateful for his conventionally attractive features, but every time it comes up, it just— it feels like it’s the universe’s twisted way of overcompensating for the ugliness that hides beneath the shiny surface. It makes this shame and guilt swirl inside of him, and there’s this voice mocking him, saying, if only they knew. If only they knew how flawed this body is, how close it is to breaking. 

His boyfriend’s peaceful state somehow magnifies Eliott’s awakeness, and his body feels heavy but his mind and heart feel like they’re going fast enough to run a marathon. Like he has all this energy he needs to burn but he’s stuck inside the small apartment as the world ends inside it, and seems to keep going outside of it.

Inevitably he finds his cigarettes on the ledge of the living room window, and goes through one before he even realizes he’s smoking it; he goes to light another but gets annoyed at the busted lighter, deciding to raid the fridge for something to wash down the nicotine.

A gust of wind outside reminds him of the outside world, his body somehow not big enough for everything he feels inside, like he belongs out there. But he can feel himself coming down, feeling like he fits inside his body again the more he breathes, and he tries with all his might to stay afloat before he crashes.

Eliott lays on the cold floor of their bedroom, his head against the wall under the window and legs bent at the knee with his feet against the foot of the bed. It’s not quite comfortable but the position allows him to see some of the sky over the tops of the buildings outside, including a few stars that shine through the darkness.

He lays there for a while, just looking at the tiny shining stars and melting into the cold floor, trying to focus on the sound of Lucas’ tiny breaths from the bed.

There’s a star that peeks through a small cloud as it passes by, and Eliott can’t tell which one it is or which constellation it belongs to, but he knows that it’s one that moves around the North Star, like all the others do. Then a thought comes to him: he’s like one of those stars. He’s always changing and going in circles, sometimes hidden behind clouds in his mind, not visible to anyone. The thought could be dreamy and romantic, comparing himself to the stars, but with the current state he’s in it feels like a curse. Like the pole his life revolves around is his bipolar disorder, where he has no choice but to let it decide his course.

It makes him feel so small and so alone, always at war with his mind and with himself. The stars seem so far away, and he’s just left lying on the cold floor in his own apocalypse that no one can see.

His eyes wander across the ceiling, unfocused and frenzied as these thoughts keep swirling around his head, hands clenching at his sides.

There’s shuffling on the other side of the room where Lucas tosses in the bed, groaning before calling, “Baby?”

Eliott registers the sounds but can’t break his focus from the ceiling of his mind and the room.

“Eli, where are you?”

Lucas calls his name a few more times, the sound getting further and further away as the younger one searches the other rooms of the apartment. Eliott wants to scream for help, wants to tell Lucas, I’m here, I’m here, but he can’t. 

Somehow, though, he seems to beckon him back.

There’s footsteps and then a source of light, and Lucas almost trips over Eliott’s legs where he still rests on the floor by their bed. Lucas sighs when he realizes he’s found him, sleepy features illuminated by the blue light of his phone. His eyes are squinty from the light and his hair is a perfect mess all over his head, a few strands falling down to his eyes. He still looks like an angel - and here he is, to save Eliott from himself like he knew he would.

“There you are,” Lucas kneels on the floor by Eliott’s side. Eliott finally focuses on his voice and his presence, his angel. “Come back to bed, baby.”

Eliott doesn’t move, can’t move. Lead has settled into his bones trapping him to the floor, and every nerve screams to get up, to go back to bed with Lucas, but there he lies, paralyzed.

“Oh, Eliott,” Lucas’ smile disappears, thumbing away the tears that Eliott didn’t even know were flowing. His voice is soft and loving just like he is. “What’s going on?”

His eyes close to the words, no doubt causing more wetness from his eyes. The thumb wipes it away again, so gently, it’s like magic.

Subconsciously Eliott registers Lucas’ concern and the way he asked, noticing how he asked what’s going on? instead of what’s wrong? — because something doesn’t necessarily have to be wrong to make Eliott feel like this, because what Eliott feels right now is something that happens sometimes. They’ve had plenty of experience with this exact moment, when Eliott is close to losing himself and Lucas makes sure to keep him from going too far. 

“Lucas…” His voice is weak, his throat closing and breath stuck somewhere that can’t get out. Eliott can feel the touch again, this time firmer, more real. Lucas leans down to be closer to him, and keeps up that brushing on his face, but it’s overwhelming all of a sudden, and there’s no simple answer to his question and—

Eliott finds some strength, or just a fighting response, to turn over and away from the touch and warmth of Lucas. He misses it as soon as it’s gone but stays in his new position with his back turned to the other boy. Lucas doesn’t reach out again, just leaves him be. Eliott is glad his boyfriend is respecting his space but can’t help the guilt setting in that he pushed him away. Eliott lays there quietly, though his mind is anything but. He doesn’t know if Lucas is still there when he finally finds his voice again.

“I was doing so well, I thought I might have finally had some control over this. But it just came out of nowhere and—”

Sudden panic washes over him, because it never really comes out of nowhere, and if it does, there are signs he can recognize so he’s at least a bit prepared.

Eliott thinks of the fact that he hasn’t slept more than a few hours in the past three days, and how tired he doesn’t feel until right at this moment. But he was so focused on his art projects and so excited with how they were coming together, the time seemed to fly by. That happens sometimes, just getting swept up in inspiration and letting it take him away - without triggering an episode. Because he prides himself in his passion and creativity, and how he uses art to sort through his feelings and express his truest self. The thought of his recent works being the product of his mania rather than his own intention makes him so angry and upset that he was born with a brain that always ends up letting him down. 

But now in hindsight he doesn’t know what to think, or what exactly triggered these feelings, or how he got here, or what will come next. Eliott had been diligent with taking his meds and going to his weekly sessions, but now that he thinks about it, he can’t remember if he took them yesterday and—

Eliott lays with his back on the floor again. “I should have seen this coming. I knew I was doing too well that something was going to happen, and it’s always the same shit.” He tilts his head back to look at the stars again, and imagines himself as one of them. “No matter how hard I try, it's like nothing I do is ever up to me. And I have to deal with myself for the rest of my life.”

It’s silent again and Eliott has a moment of terror that he’s completely alone, like he’s the last person on Earth and shouting into an endless, dark void.

“Hey,” the sound is like a beam of light breaking through the dark void, like another lost soul is greeting him, saying, I’m here, I’m here.

Lucas hasn’t left from his place next to him; he’s laying on his side facing Eliott on the hard floor. Eliott doesn’t look at him, though; he doesn’t want to see him look at how much of a mess he is. He knows Lucas doesn’t pity him, and he’s so glad for that, but the way Lucas has so much love and care in his eyes makes Eliott only feel more undeserving of it. So he stays on his back and glances from the ceiling to the endless sky.

“Hey,” Lucas says again, in a soft whisper, but firm this time. “Eli, can you look at me?”

Eliott doesn’t want to be like the stars and revolve around his bipolar. Maybe he can find a new way to navigate, by following a new star, a new pole that is a fixed point in his life. Like the one in front of him now, made of stardust and blue eyes and love.

He swallows thickly, his breath finding a way out as he catches sight of Lucas. Eliott was right, there’s so much love in his beautiful, still sleepy eyes. Even though Eliott is turned on his side to face him, he tucks his head down to his chest. 

Lucas comes a little closer, and slowly reaches a hand out to Eliott as not to scare him. He runs his hand over the fabric of Eliott’s chest where his heart beats fast underneath, and gently uses it to lift his chin so that Lucas can see him.

Eliott lets him, lets Lucas position his face to open up to him, lets himself be seen. But he’s stubborn when he gets like this, so he still looks down and away from Lucas who still has Eliott’s chin in his hand.

“Breathe,” Lucas says calmly, looking into his eyes. Eliott keeps their gaze this time; Lucas’ is more direct and practical now, communicating more than his voice. Eliott lets out an excuse for a breath, more like a quiet sob, and then Lucas says again, “Breathe, in and out.” 

Lucas watches as Eliott tries again, but it’s still impossible. He wants to look away again but the hand under his chin won’t let him, the fingers there softly tracing the frown on his face as if to smooth it away. 

“Listen to mine and try to breathe with me.” 

It’s then that Eliott decides that Lucas is his North Star, even if just for tonight. His mania and his depression and his anxiety and his sleepless nights will always be there, but right here and right now, he uses every last ounce of control he has to listen as Lucas’ chest rises and fills with air and slowly deflates. 

Eliott tunes into the sound of every breath, and soon he somehow finds that he’s breathing in time with them. 

“There you go, keep breathing,” Lucas reassures, his hand moving from Eliott’s chin to his shoulder and slowly down his arm to where his hands lay in front of him on the floor. 

After some time, Eliott’s heart rate is slow again, and he’s exhausted. He’s about to fall, into real sleep for the first time in days, and Lucas is right there with him.

Lucas’ voice sounds like it’s on the other side of that void, far away but extremely close at the same time. “I’m sorry you feel like that, and I wish I could say the right thing to make you feel better, but all I can say is that you’re right, it sucks. I mean, I’ll never know exactly how you feel, but I’m acknowledging that it must feel awful. But I do know that you’re so much stronger than you think, and I know that you are so much more than your weakest moments, and that I’m right here with you through anything.” 

Eliott’s eyes are heavy and his mind is starting to drift, but the words make him hold on just a little bit longer. He flutters his eyes open to see Lucas staring back at him, the smallest sleepy smile on his lips. Eliott does his best to return it, even if it’s a lazy slant of his mouth. 

“I'm sure it must feel really lonely sometimes, but I’ll keep reminding you that you’re not alone.” Lucas’ hand is tickling down his forearm, and he intertwines their fingers to bring them to his lips, leaving feather-light kisses across his knuckles. “And I can’t wait to deal with you for the rest of my life.”

My angel. It’s the last thing Eliott thinks before he surrenders to sleep, his hand still in Lucas’ where they lay on the hardwood floor.

When Eliott wakes it’s to the sun shining at a low angle into the room, and he tosses in the bed to shy away from it, bumping into a hard body on his side. Lucas is sitting against the headboard smiling down at him, greeting him with a good afternoon, my love.

After a few long moments of waking up, still coming to and vaguely remembering his state the previous night, Eliott swallows though his throat is dry and regards his boyfriend looking all awake and beautiful.

“Did you carry me to bed?” Eliott asks half in awe and half in confusion. He’s done the same for Lucas countless times, but he doesn’t think his boyfriend ever has.

Lucas scoffs but he has the widest, most beautiful smile on his face. The kind that is contagious even when Eliott is not feeling up to smiling.

He gets him to drink some water and take his meds, and Eliott is too tired to fight it. 

“Remember when I said you were stronger than you think? Well, so am I.” Lucas smirks with a quick raise of his brows, and Eliott goes to bury his face into Lucas’ neck and shoulder, his absolute favorite place in the universe.

“I love you,” is all Eliott has the energy to say, before he rolls over and goes to sleep a few hours more. Lucas laughs that soft and adorable laugh of his, and joins him under the covers. My love, my light, my angel, my star.

[hurricanery]

something good

A/N: Okay so I was going to write pt. 3 of If You Went Away tonight but then those promo pics came out and I was inspired to write some fluffy amelink instead. Also couldn’t get the image of Link holding Scout out of my head soooo here’s this. If you wanted pt. 3 don’t worry it’s coming, it’ll be the next thing I post!

_______

Amelia gasps awake suddenly, sitting up in bed. She looks at the clock. 4:33 AM.

It’s been happening a lot lately. The vivid dreams. The dreams that seem so realistic, they feel physically draining to wake up from. She doesn’t always remember the details. But in the moments that immediately follow her awakening, her mind is flooded with images of Meredith. And panicked thoughts about what’s going to happen to her.

Amelia knows that her sister-in-law’s current condition is the source of her stress. She spends most of her days worrying about Meredith. About what her being put on the ventilator truly means. And now the worry was creeping into her nights, too. Interrupting her sleep and making her heart race during the moments that were supposed to be the most calm and relaxing.

She sits all the way up and shifts to the side, placing her bare feet onto the floor below.

“Amelia,” she hears Link mutter sleepily behind her. She turns her head to the side, not fully looking at him.

“Hey.”

“You have another bad dream?”

Amelia smiles at the fact that he remembers. She never purposely wakes him up when the dreams happen. She always talks herself down until her mind is quiet and then eventually tries to fall back asleep. But, it was starting to become more physically obvious that she wasn’t sleeping well. It would be written all over her face the next day. She’d be dragging along, or she’d zone out too often, or suppress too many yawns. And so when Link had asked her what was up, she’d confessed about her interrupted sleep. About the vivid dreams that were hard to bounce back from.

“I’m good,” she doesn’t exactly answer his question. She gets up slowly, stepping into her slippers and moving towards the door.

“Where are you going?” Link still sounds like he’s half-asleep.

“I just have to check on the kids.”

“Hm?” Link seems a little more alert now, he’s sitting up partially and noticing the general quiet of the house. No baby crying. No movement from the other kids. “They’re good, no one’s crying.”

Amelia finally turns to him from the doorway, giving him a pleading look. “I just….have to.”

Link frowns.

“I’ll be right back.”

Amelia makes it a point to stop into every bedroom. She carefully approaches each door, peeking her head in to confirm what she already knows to be true. Zola is sound asleep. And when Amelia checks on Bailey, he stirs slightly, always a restless sleeper. Ellis is a sound sleeper like Zola, but also a heavy breather. Amelia smiles to herself as she recalls how Meredith would joke about Ellis one day developing her mother’s snoring habits.

When she approaches Scout’s nursery, she decides not to risk waking him up, knowing it will just add to her sleepless night. Instead, she places her ear to the door and listens for his sleepy babbling. The familiar sounds of her sleeping son comfort her and she forgets for a moment about Meredith. And about the current state of the world.

It’s Link’s snores down the hallway, carrying through from the open bedroom door, that shake her from her reverie. She tiptoes back to the room, leaving her slippers at the door. She collapses back onto her side of the bed and Link subconsciously rolls towards her, pulling her into his chest.

She breathes deeply; gratefully. She tries to sleep.

_______

A few days later, and Amelia is still feeling the repercussions of her sleepless nights.

She feels like she’s moving on autopilot as she folds the laundry. The distant sound of the TV, whatever movie she put on for the kids, fills her ears like mindless background noise. To her left, through the screened porch door, she can hear Maggie laughing loudly from somewhere outside. She peeks outside briefly to match voices with faces, before Link pulls her attention by walking in from outside.

“Oh hey,” Link grins.

“What’s Avery doing here?” Amelia questions.

“Oh, he had to drop something off to Maggie,” Link explains. “And then,” Link raises his eyebrow incredulously, “He had some things to discuss with me about Jo….”

Amelia squints at him. The tone of his voice matched with the look on his face leads her to believe that there’s a much bigger story there, perhaps for another time.

“Do I want to know?”

Link laughs, shaking his head. Just before he can answer, they are interrupted by Scout’s cries on the baby monitor. Amelia drops the clothes she’s folding and immediately moves towards the door.

“No, wait,” Link reaches for her shoulder, gently stopping her. “I got him. You should go out there and say hi to those guys.”

Amelia nods, letting him take this one.

Minutes later, when Link returns outside with Scout wrapped up in his arms, everyone else is heading out. He watches as Amelia waves goodbye and walks back across the yard in his direction.

“Someone’s awake?” She grins up at Link when she approaches.

“Oh yeah,” he looks down, matching her grin and adjusting the blanket. “Wide awake.”

Amelia’s phone rings, interrupting them, and Amelia glances towards the patio table, where she’d left her phone earlier. Her eyes grow wide momentarily as she focuses on Link, but then she’s quickly moving to answer it.

She looks down at the caller ID and her heart sinks.

“Dr. Bailey,” she answers, monotone voice.

Amelia doesn’t do a lot of talking after that. Just nodding. And Link watches cautiously, trying to gain any information from her facial expressions.

“Okay, thanks. Yeah. Thanks. Bye.”

Amelia hangs up the phone, placing it back down on the table slowly, and then releases a shaky breath.

“Amelia?” Link approaches her tentatively.

She stares ahead, avoiding eye contact with Link. Then shrugs somewhat apathetically. “There’s no news. No updates. She’s the same.” Amelia finally says.

Link sighs in relief. And Amelia’s eyes snap to his face.

“Why do you look relieved?”

Link shrugs, a little bit defensively. “Well that’s not bad news, exactly-”

“Right,” Amelia harshly interrupts. “It’s nothing at all, it’s-” she shakes her head, reaching up to rest her hands on top of her head. “What are we supposed to do with that?!”

Amelia’s voice is raised and it’s causing Scout to fuss. At the same time, the back door swings open and Zola steps out.

“Auntie Amelia?” her small voice grabs their attention.

“Zola,” Amelia greets her, doing her best to disguise her worry. “Is the movie over?”

“What’s going on?” Zola ignores her aunt’s question.

“Nothing, sweetie. We’ll be inside in a minute.”

Zola takes the hint and turns back around, heading inside. But Amelia can’t ignore the stress on her niece’s face. In a way, it mirrors her own.

“Amelia,” Link pulls her attention back. He takes a moment to gather his thoughts before he speaks again. “It’s not bad news. Let’s not treat it as bad news yet…”

Amelia stares at him, then nods. “I just need good news....I need something good.”

“Well,” Link offers a smile, trying to see the positive in the situation. “Let’s hold out for that, okay?”

Amelia nods again in agreement, walking closer to him until she’s standing by his side. She gently rests her head against his shoulder. They stand there, the three of them, in momentary bliss, or hopefulness, or false positivity, or whatever the moment revealed itself to be.

Amelia finally lifts her head away, instead reaching for Link’s free hand and leading them inside. She glances up at Link. “I’ll take him to bed,” she reaches for Scout. “Will you reheat the kids some mac and cheese for a late dinner? I might go to bed early, too.”

“You should,” Link responds, surprised at the idea of Amelia actively attempting to get some sleep. “You need it.”

Amelia just smiles tiredly at him, her exhaustion catching up with her rapidly. She walks slowly up the stairs with Scout in her arms and listens to the excitement below as Link announces dinner to the kids.

After putting Scout down, Amelia realizes she can barely keep her eyes open. The weeks of restless sleep finally threatening to completely consume her. She can barely bring herself to change out of her jeans and sweater before collapsing into bed.

_______

Amelia wakes at 6:11 AM feeling surprisingly refreshed. It feels like forever since she’s slept through the night, and even though it feels fantastic, it also feels confusing. She hasn’t woken up on her own accord in a long time. Whether it was the stress dreams, or the sound of Scout’s cries, she’d typically be forced awake at some point.

But this morning, she wakes naturally. It’s confusing. And what’s equally puzzling, is the absence of Link next to her.

Blinking a few times to shake her sleep, Amelia gets out of bed. She shivers slightly, throwing one of Link’s sweatshirts on and walking down the hall to Scout’s Nursery.

It’s still dark outside, but with the street lamps filtering in from window, Amelia can make out her favorite scene in front of her. Link stands, humming softly, rocking Scout gently in his arms. It’s beyond adorable, and Amelia wouldn’t dare to interrupt the moment, so she hangs back and just observes.

“We can’t be up this late, little guy,” Link mutters. “I know there’s lots of not sleeping around here these days....But we can’t make a habit out of this….” He trails off and Scout sneezes lightly into Link’s neck, causing Link to stifle a laugh.

Link walks to the window and pulls open the curtains. Sunrise was on its way, the sky just barely starting to blush golden pink. Scout’s bright-eyed gaze turns to the outside, enamored. And Link watches Scout’s wonder.

The moment almost becomes too much for Amelia. It makes her heart clench to remember how profoundly afraid of this she was, how sure she was about never going through another pregnancy, or having another child. She looks at Link and Scout now, watches this perfect moment, and knows she wouldn’t trade anything in the world for this.

Scout starts to fuss a little bit in Link’s arms. A classic move for him in the middle of the night or early morning.

“Hey,” Link soothes. “Shhh, it’s okay.”  He cuddles Scout up near his neck. Amelia watches as Link turns his head and gives Scout a kiss on the cheek, humming again to him softly.

Over Link’s shoulder, Scout makes eye contact with Amelia and lets out a happy gurgle. Link turns around, unaware that he was being watched, and grins when he sees Amelia. “Well look who’s here, Scout. Someone was trying to sneak up on us.”

“I was not,” Amelia retorts playfully.

“Sure,” Link teases as Amelia steps into the nursery and joins them, dropping a kiss on her son’s head. “We’re just hanging out. Didn’t want to wake you.”

“Ah, right,” Amelia grins. “How long have you guys been up?”

Link shrugs. “Just for a little bit.”

They both can’t help but stare down at their little guy. Scout’s eyes are growing heavy. And he sighs sleepily.

With a carefulness that still makes Amelia’s heart want to burst out of her chest, Link eases Scout off his shoulder and puts him down into his crib. "Good night, bud,” he whispers. Smiling, he turns back to Amelia and pulls her in at the waist, kissing her on the forehead. “Let’s go back to bed,” he offers.

The sun starts to rise as they walk back down the hall, Scout’s sleepy babble drifting away from them.

“You good?” Link questions as they climb back into bed.

Amelia nods, rolling onto her side to face Link.

“That’s good,” he mumbles, and Amelia laughs at how quickly Link becomes incoherent with sleep. “Everyone’s….good....” He trails off.

“Can’t think of another word?” Amelia stifles a laugh.

Link sighs, on the verge of unconsciousness. “Ask me again tomorrow.”

“It is tomorrow.”

Link’s quiet snores fill the space between them and Amelia smiles at the lack of response. For the first time in a long time, she feels restful.

//

[twelves-writings]

Sleep

Songfic based off “Sleep” by My Chemical Romance

(tw: suffocation, passing out)

They’re, they’re these terrors

And it feels as if someone was gripping my-

They’re, they’re not like tremors; they’re worse than tremors

They’re these ter-

Doc combed through the footage. There had to have been something there, anything. There was a reason for everything, across every world. Cause and effect. He knew correlation didn’t imply causation, but… there had to be something. He couldn’t've just… 

Doc sighed. He rewinded the video again, staring at the screen as he had for the past… How long has it been? Doc didn’t care. He scoured the footage, analyzing every pixel until his biological eye went numb. He didn’t care at what cost it came to him. There had be a sign, a message, a hint at what was to come. 

A voice nagged at the back of his head, telling him he need to rest. Don’t overwork yourself. Take a break. Go get something to eat. He would’ve wanted you to rest. 

Doc shook his head, erasing the thoughts from his head. There was no telling what he would have wanted. He was gone, and Doc was determined to get him back.

-~-

Another block of blackstone here, slab, block, redstone block… Wait, no; the redstone block goes over there. Or maybe… Beef rubbed his eyes, yawning as he picked up the offending block. It was getting late, the moon was nearly peaked, but he had to keep building. He just wanted to finish one more building in Three Fox Hole, then he would rest. Ah, that’s where the redstone block goes! And then the glass, and the other color of glass, and the other other color… 

Block after block was placed. Not much thought went into the details, but he’d do those later. He was always better at detailing the buildings in the morning. “Oh wait, Keralis is coming over tomorrow. Oh well; I guess I’ll finish them in the afternoon.” 

Beef was always glad to see his friends. He was hesitant about reaching out, about coming back, but Etho convinced him in the end. It was strange, Etho reassuring him when he refused to return to the server himself. Oh, Beef missed him. That was Etho’s choice, though, and Beef couldn’t and wouldn’t force anything upon him. With or without his old buddy, Beef was glad to be back on Hermitcraft. Especially after…

Beef kept building. Blackstone block, block, stair, polished block, glass, polished slab. The city was coming along nicely. Planning out the roads and buildings, filling them all in, and detailing them was all quite relaxing. It was the perfect way to start a new season. Beef stepped back from the building after placing the final slab. He was proud of himself. 

He wouldn’t be proud. 

“Yes he would,” he responded to his thoughts aloud. “Of course he would. I’m creating and detailing buildings. He loved that. He’d be proud.” 

They’re facades, fronts, empty shells. 

“I’ll fill them in eventually.” 

Fill yourself in first. 

Beef squeezed his eyes shut with a sigh. Knowing he wouldn’t win to his thoughts tonight, he kept building. 

Rest. 

There were always other buildings to work on. 

Rest. 

Details needed to be added. 

Rest. 

Mobs that could bring this city to life. 

Rest.

Beef began work on yet another building. He could’ve sworn he heard whispers from behind him, but wrote it off as phantoms, or his insomnia getting to him. “Alright.” He walked away from the build, having run out of blackstone. “I need to get some more- Oomph!” He had run into a street lamp as he turned around. As he looked up, he realized it wasn’t a light on the street, nor a creature of the night come to attack him.

“No, no, no.” Eyes wide as the moon, he stumbled away from the figure. “I- I can’t deal with this again! You’re not real! You can’t be! I- I can’t do this again.” He backed into a wall, sliding onto the ground. Tears welled in Beef’s eyes as he gazed upon the figure. 

Green wrapped around its entire frame, weaving around its torso and limbs. Its face was mostly free of the vines, bar its straggly hair. Its eyes were darker than the void, oozing jet black tears. Beef’s eyes were locked with the figure’s, fear flooding every ounce of his being. When he was finally able to pull away from the unmoving, unblinking voids, his gaze landed on the being’s shirt. His breathing and pulse accelerated as he read the letters: NHO. He timidly brought his eyes back back up. “B- Bdu-”

Don’t you breathe for me

Undeserving of your sympathy

The air was pulled out of Beef’s lungs, leaving him gasping. He clawed at his throat, eyes somehow widening more. He choked, breathing without air to breathe. How is he- Why is he- Beef couldn’t think straight. How could he, unable to breathe because the ghost of his friend yanked the air out of his lungs? 

‘Cause there ain’t no way that I’m sorry for what I did

Tears were spilling from Beef’s eyes; out of fear or sadness, he didn’t know.

And through it all, how could you cry for me?

‘Cause I don’t feel bad about it

Beef wanted to scream. He wanted to tell the phantom all his thoughts. He wanted to tell him how he still cared, how he remembered him, how he’d never let go of him or the memories they shared.

So shut your eyes

No, no! Beef felt the unconsciousness pulling at his eyelids, dragging him down. Beef didn’t want to let go! He couldn’t let go! He could never let go! 

And sleep

Just sleep

The voice reverberated through his brain, overwhelming any thoughts Beef had. It surrounded and enveloped him, echoing through the emptiness inside. He was hollow. He had been, ever since that day. The tears stopped flowing as darkness crept towards him. Eyes flickering, Beef relaxed. The voice echoed one final cry, more to itself than anything else.

The hardest part

Is letting go of your dreams

He’d just rest a bit. Just for a minute. Just for… 

-~-

They’re, they’re these terrors

And it feels as if someone was gripping my throat, and squeezing

They’re, they’re not like tremors; they’re worse than tremors

They’re these terrors

Rewinding the footage again, Doc sighs. He’s getting nowhere with this, but he has to keep going. He would have wanted him to keep going, keep searching for an explanation. He goes over the clip again, subconsciously mouthing the words. He’s heard this so many times, seen this so many times, too many times… He jolts up with a start, his eyes sleepy but wide. He has to stay awake. He has to know what happened. Just a few more minutes.

His stomach growls, like a hoglin that hasn’t been fed in days. When was the last time he ate? That didn’t matter. All that mattered to Doc is answers. Rest and food are for the weak anyways. When was the last time anyone had seen a creeper eat?

Vwoosh

It was a near silent noise, but Doc caught it. He whipped around, sword in hand, ready to face the enderman who dared to interrupt his work. But he didn’t see an enderman. Far from it; he saw a figure leaning again a cluttered table in the corner of the room. A wine glass was held in its hand, and for a moment Doc suspected it to be Joe, bringing him a glass from the winery next door. However, the glass was empty. 

A drink

For the horror that I’m in

Doc took a moment to look the creature over. Its skin was like his own, rough and plant-like. Was that actually its skin, or a thick layer of foliage covering it? Its eyes and head were hidden in the shadows, except for its half-open mouth lined with teeth sharp as blades. What the heck is this thing?

For the good guys and the bad guys

For the monsters that I’ve been

Three cheers for tyranny

It hoisted up its glass, acting as if a toast were to be given. Instead, it tossed the glass in the air. Doc was frozen in place out of fear or exhaustion; it was difficult to tell which. He only moved to flinch when the glass shattered on the ground. It sounded as if a million glasses had broken, not just the one. The figure did not react.

‘Cause there ain’t no way that I’m coming back again

The words burned themselves in Doc’s mind. He knew instantly what- who the creature was. Or rather, what the creature used to be. He shook it off, dismissed it as his mind playing tricks on him. It liked to do that on late nights like these. Before he could turn around to get back to his work, the figure grabbed him by the shoulder. The two were face to face now, mere inches apart. Its dark, empty eyes stared straight into Doc’s soul. The teeth were far more menacing now, softly clinking with every word spoken. Doc didn’t want to admit it, to himself or the beast, but he was terrified. The voice cried:

And through it all, how could you cry for me?

‘Cause I don’t feel bad about it

It took its hands off Doc’s shoulders, pushing him back against the desk.

So shut your eyes

Kiss me goodbye

And sleep

Just sleep

Doc whipped back around, forcing his eyes back upon his work. One of the monitors was cracked, but he didn’t care. He cared about nothing but the tapes. He blinked hard, pushing back any tears that threatened to spill. He ignored the creature’s- the ghost’s cries behind him. 

The hardest part’s

The awful things that I’ve seen

He ignored it all, pinning his eyes to the screens. He was so close; he could feel it. Just another couple of minutes and he’d have it. He’d know why Bdubs died. 

Sometimes, I see flames

And sometimes I see people that I love dying

It’s always-

Just sleep

The creature whispered. He ignored it.

Just sleep

It called to him, like a siren out at sea. He ignored it.

JUST SLEEP!

It screamed. Doc whipped around to see the figure levitating off the ground. Wind from nowhere spun around it, papers and small objects being pulled into the gusts. The being’s eyes shone black, somehow emitting light while being dark as black holes. 

Doc couldn’t take his eyes off the figure, and couldn’t deny its appearance any longer: it looked like- no, it was Bdubs. Doc saw the bandana, ripped and stained a blood-like green, flapping in the wind. Its hair was swooped in the front, blown up off its face. The logo on its shirt was unmistakable, even through the vines that spread across its chest. It screamed again and again for Doc to sleep. 

Eventually, its voice went hoarse. As the cries faded into echos, the wind slowed. Doc was swaying on his feet as it stopped, collapsing onto the ground. His eyes flickered, but no! He had to hold out. He had to stay awake. 

The figure- Bdubs’ feet gracefully touched the ground. Bdubs made his way over to the nearly unconscious Doc. Doc wanted to reach out to him, say something, anything. But he couldn’t. He… he needed to rest. He needed some sleep. 

The tapes were playing quietly as Doc drifted off. 

And I can’t… I cant ever wake up.

[caescloud]

How about some shiggy fluff with a reader that has an emotion reading quirk and she just sees how broken he is and wants to help him and he’s just like ???? What’s this? Human decency? Tomura.exe has stopped working

Anon, I almost leapt out of my chair when I got your ask because not only is your brain huge, you made me think of my oc who has pathokinesis for a quirk! So thank you for an awesome prompt, I’ll do my best to explore this topic! There are some liberties I’m taking so let me know if this is slightly out of the scope of what you wanted the power to be portrayed as, I can adjust it. And I went with two routes for this one, hope that’s alright! Also, spoilers for the content covered up until about chapter 246!

Emotion/Empathy Quirk!Reader x Shigaraki, Fluff Hcs

As someone with a quirk that allows you to literally emphasize with other people, it’s hard to ignore those who are in distress. As a member of the League, you regularly are among companions whose more negative emotions you pick up on. Shigaraki is no exception to this. For all he does to mask his feelings, be it out of repressing his deepest memories or simply not willing to let himself feel the more somber emotions, Shigaraki has his days.

Approaching Shigaraki when you sense this emotional shift in him may play out depending on how close you two are. I feel that either way, he will be wary of someone who can instantly know the extent of what he’s feeling without knowing the context- it’s this perception he has of being “seen” and vulnerable, but not on his own terms. For this reason I wouldn’t recommend opening anything major; start small,  a simple “I noticed you’ve been off, I’m here to listen if you need it.” (The second set of hcs are more fluffy than the first, I swear! )

If you’re not as close yet:

“Your vibes are off my guy” /j 

You likely noticed his mood around when you first met him, the childish glee at the prospect of carrying out villainous schemes, the apathy felt for society, the frustration when things went awry, and this...undercurrent of intensely negative energy.

Your intentions are truly straightforward when you discover him

Had you not had the quirk you had, you likely would have missed the sudden “peak” of distress one night. Shigaraki experienced a rather nasty nightmare that sent him for a bit of an inner spiral. The LOV base was small enough that you could sense him despite being in separate rooms, the feelings of fright and melancholy were too palpable for you to ignore. You could sense when emotional activity subsides when people are asleep but Shigaraki didn’t seem to fall back asleep that night. You had difficulty yourself and made a note to confront him in the morning, when he’d likely be moving around while the others wouldn’t.

Shigaraki is aware of your quirk and how it works; he is the leader who is responsible for knowing key information regarding subordinates. What he didn’t expect, and may have subconsciously hoped you wouldn’t do, is “pry” into him after an episode. 

SO in addition to that plus being in a sour mood that following morning, he may be more snappy and curt when you approach him. He doesn’t feel it’s your business nor something you should be spending energy on. He’s not really in a headspace to discuss what he dreamt about or exactly know how to put it into words; he’d likely tell you to move on because that’s what he’s doing. 

Ball is in your court at this point; sticking around him may not be the best move unless you’re going to be quiet while he soothes his thoughts on his own; having anyone around him may be more of irritation/distraction than a comforting presence. If you do try to get him to keep talking, he’s gonna flat out leave the bar in a bit of a huff to blow off steam. If you leave yourself, best not to do so in a way that makes it seem like you’re mad at him? It’s not that he’s really concerned with how you’re feeling per se, this is more of a long-term behavior. Calmly letting him know you will respect his boundaries and telling him you’ll be around let’s him know that you’re a mature enough individual which is pretty big for him. Even if he doesn’t remark on it then and there; he’s all about those little details when it comes to people. 

Even if at this moment he doesn’t especially appreciate “someone nosing around” in his head, he can’t completely ignore your intentions. You’re not on thin ice, but he’s gonna maintain a bit of a guard around you until there’s more trust solidified. After all, he can’t be scaring off competent allies like you when he needs ‘em this early on. 

If there is trust/a relationship between you two:

You two have a much better rapport with each other this time around. Between fighting alongside each other, going through shared struggles and trials, those rare late-night chats you’ve had, Tomura and you are far closer now than ever before. 

You are a valuable ally of his and someone who he lowered his walls down ever so slightly more for. As mentioned above, the fact you respected his boundaries early on while maintaining your welcoming presence has served you well in this area. If it’s you asking him about his troubles, that’s okay. You’ve seen him at some pretty harsh lows and still stayed by him and everyone. 

Heck, even prior to this, you’ve already begun to notice a change in Tomura and how he’s been acting since the Kamino incident. Showing his face and apparent care for the LOV will also likely factor into him feeling more comfortable around you as well. After losing AFO and Kurogiri, this point stands even stronger. The league is his family, you’re a part of that too of course. But out of everyone, there’s a unique bond between the two of you. 

So when you approach him as a result of the impossible to ignore feelings of turmoil, not that he’s outwardly showing this, you do so with the same, genuine concern you held the first time this happened. This is someone who you’ve gotten to understand hasn’t had much of a break when it comes to basic human kindness in most of his life. And he is also someone you truly care for, no strings attached. (Hard not to when you’ve been exposed to his innermost feelings after all.) 

He’s clearly trying to hold himself together in the aftermath of Kamino; he seems to be clutching desperately onto himself as a way to ground. The loss of AFO and Kurogiri is taking its mental toll and while the others have opted to give him space, you chose to go to him; hopeful of any comfort you could give in order to soothe the ferocious panic and frustration sweeping over his mind.

Once again you offer him your ear, a shoulder, your words if he’d rather listen to someone else talk instead to take his mind off. He doesn’t brush you off this time but also doesn’t say too much. He stares very intensely at you, searching for a trace of judgement or gratuitous pity and finding none. Despite everything, you two fall into a comfortable silence, that hand you’ve placed on his shoulder acting as an anchor.

The next time this happens is after the battle with the MLA

The base you’re in is more lavish, fitted with more space and rooms for it’s members to reside in. However, you’re still able to sense Tomura’s emotions go completely haywire. The intense loneliness, fright, anger, and sadness crash into you and pull you under.

You don’t realize you’re moving until you’re outside his door, softly calling his name, sensing he’s alert and awake now. You almost feel this will play out as it did nearly a year ago until the door slowly creaked open, a single red eye gazing right through you. You’re about to speak when he reaches for you and pulls you in.

Huh. This is the first time he’s literally reached out for you, a fleeting thought. It’s dark and you’re unable to see him, but you feel the slight tremor wracking his frame and grip. You’re thankful it’s as dark as it is because you don’t want him to see your tears; whenever someone is feeling as badly as he is at the moment, your quirk can have the impact of flooding your emotions, especially if your control is not at its peak.

“Tomura, I’m here for you. I’m ready to help, tell me what I can do,” you muster in your most soothing and level voice, masking your outward emotions well. He is still wordless but moves you and him over to where his bed is, guiding you both down onto the mattress. A low sigh leaves his lungs as he tries to compose himself, grip still around your wrist. You feel your way over to the hand that’s holding you, carefully maneuvering the fingers off and transferring his hand properly into both of yours. You work mindless patterns and pressures over the appendage, further trying to physically calm him.

It starts with an utterance of the words “bad dream, family, my sister-”. He doesn’t go into very descriptive detail but with the way he’s feeling and how he’s speaking, you know it’s nothing pleasant. “They’re gone, it’s done. So why do I still...have these ridiculous visions of them?”

Your heart has ached hearing the way he talks; whether he realizes the extent of his words, when he talks about others and himself or his past, you feel compelled to be open with him.

What happens next almost shatters your heart because he asks you not to go. He’s done talking about his dreams and the past, his fingers are itching to go at this neck, and he’s just tired. When you pull him into your embrace, him mindful of where his hands fall, he surprisingly accepts it. 

You’ve got him and you’re not letting go, gently smoothing over his hair to further placate him. He’s definitely feeling better than when you’ve found him. You only begin to drift off when you feel him truly calm down and go limp in your arms. No one dares to say anything the next morning when the future king has skipped out on a meeting.

He’s not going to say this out loud but he is truly grateful you treated his emotions with the care he didn’t realize they needed from someone like you.

[fortheloveoffanfic]

Protective Service

John Wick x Reader (A/n- Hopefully this chapter isn’t too confusing. Flashbacks in italics)

Masterlist   Chapter 1   Chapter 2   Chapter 3

Warnings- Mentions of murder/violence, angst

Chapter 4 Beautiful Nightmares

Drenched and breathless, Y/n awoke with a startle, her wide eyes confused by the darkness. It took a moment before she’d realized where she was; in her bedroom at her penthouse, safe and alone. Her chest was dominated by heavy, uneven breaths and the black silk of her simple, lace edged camisole clung to her skin uncomfortably. Even as Y/n tried to settle herself, inhaling deeply through her overly dry mouth, she couldn’t push the flashes from her very vivid dream away;

A couple, swaying in each other’s arms as pale yellow moonlight washes the dark wooden panels constituting the floor of the back porch as soft music wafts from a radio on an end table. The woman’s giggles are soft as her husband leads them in a  slow, casual waltz and not too far off, after she’s been told to not stray near the lake, a young girl no older than six, plays with a plastic fairy wand, entertaining herself. She loves fairies; she wishes they were real but her mother always reminds her that they are, and that she’d the most beautiful one of them all.

It was one of Y/n’s fondest memories of her parents, the last one that had really embedded itself in her memory before the bad. Their love was one that seemed to stand out above rest, though, Y/n supposed that at that age, she couldn’t have known much about romantic love anyways. She hadn’t learned much more about afterwards either, only that it was destructive. That in the end, all it could do was hurt you.

The fire below the rustic, cobblestone mantle laps viciously at the iron barrier separating it from the rest of the sitting room. Not too far off, near the designated holder, one of the pokers lay forgotten. He hasn’t really spoken to anyone in days, not even his seven year old daughter and his eyes have taken on this sort of vacancy that makes its almost frightening to look at him. She’s scared of him, and the only person that would know what to do is gone. Meredith is gone, for good. They took her. It’s been three days since they found her on his birthday, three days since he knew that everything had changed, even if he can’t quite explain it to their daughter. Three days since she’s been asking for her mommy and three days since she’d gone from adoring him to fearing the shell of what he used to be.

The dream, it had taken a nightmarish turn and at some point, Y/n wasn’t watching her parents dance in the backyard while she chased fire files, instead, she was standing in the doorway of the sitting room, watching her father stare that the fireplace, wondering how the bravest man she knew could seem so lost. She hadn’t understood then, and she wouldn’t, not until the funeral, where a large service had taken place at a mortuary and the police had showed up, poking and prodding until someone, Donavan’s father, who had a long standing connection with the commissioner’s office, had stepped in and scared them off. That was probably the day he’d really changed, her father. After that evening he’d gone from broken to cold and ruthless. No one stood in his way because they were simply afraid to, and without his wife as a buffer, things had changed in his organization quickly. Trust could no longer be borrowed, it was earned and traitors were appropriately dealt with. If he couldn’t bring back his wife, then he’d definitely vent his frustrations where he could.

After Meredith passed, Y/n had clung to her father, even if he’d never been the same. He’d cut out most of his affectionate traits and though they were close, most of his time was spent molding her into someone unshakeable. Someone who wouldn’t ever have to feel the way he did. It was working too, by her teens, Y/n had developed into a stolid adolescent, able to suppress whatever she was feeling so she could one day grow into the woman he’d be proud of. The woman he’d never meet.

Money, it makes everything easier. People like you better, you can shop wherever you want and know one bats a lash when you do something you shouldn’t have. Or maybe, just maybe, that last thing isn’t a consequence of money. Maybe it’s fear. It doesn’t matter though, she’s used to that too, the look of fear in people’s eyes when she walks into a room. Even her father’s muscle sometimes squirm around her, there’s no telling what she’ll do or say, she’s just so…...vulturine. Face of an angel with the prowl of a predator. But even predators have bad days, terrible days, the one that becomes their worst day. 

Hers came after one of the most mundane afternoons of her life; she’d gone to a little pastry shop in the city with the son of one of her father’s affiliates. He’s a nice boy, just a couple years her senior and while letting people in is hard, Jack understands the life. Y/n’s dad likes him too. Her dad. “Daddy?” She calls out, pushing one half of the front double door closed behind her as she steps inside, the heel of her booth thudding quietly on the hardwood. It’s eerily quiet in the manor and in the air hangs a metallic smell that she knows all too well. The combination of gunpowder and blood. Usually, it's the smell she associates with her father and the business he’s training her to take over, but that evening, there’s a distinct portentousness that mingles with it. It’s too quiet, too cold, as if someone forgot to turn up the heat to combat the temperate fall evenings. 

“Daddy?” she calls again, only to gasp upon entering his home office. The white rug dominating the room is saturated with warm red and some of it’s even seeped out to the hardwood, probably staining it and almost causing Y/n’s to slip as she hurriedly enters. “Daddy,” she emits a choked breath as she sinks to her knees, not caring if the blood soaks the blue denim of her jeans. Immediately, she pulls off her scarf, doing the only thing that seems logical in that moment, pressing it to the gaping gash on his neck, trying to quell the rapid, almost cinematic flow. That’s sort of how it feels too, like Y/n’s been plopped into a movie, because that can’t be real, her father can’t be dying in her arms. “Hold on, okay?” Her mind is going twenty miles a minute and while she knows that there are people that she can call for help, all she can think is that she needs to help him now. 

He tries to speak, though, he’s literally drowning in his own blood, and that’s the first time that Y/n realizes that his wounds are mortal. Not just the slashed throat, but also several stab wounds to the chest. The sounds are sickly and stomach turning, and the sight isn’t much different, but still, she persists, he won’t see her undone. Even if inside, Y/n feels like she’s being ripped apart; torn to shreds by winter breeze. The feeling makes something change inside her, and as she presses the rich cashmere to the split in her father’s neck, Y/n feels the surge of something inhumane shoot up inside. The last shred, the only person she can truly care for has been snatched away, and in that moment, she becomes what he’s wanted her to be for the past thirteen years, made in his image. Utterly ruthless, unashamedly vengeful and undeniably frightening. 

The dream, even after several minutes of sitting up in her California king, stuck with her, and if Y/n shut her eyes, she could still feel the warmth of blood on her hands and hear the sounds that her father made as he struggled to take his last breaths. It had been a while since she’d last had a dream like that, but Y/n would have preferred to attribute the runnings of her subconscious to the events of the past couple weeks; having to clean up the mess of a betrayal but more so her mother’s birthday. With a heavy, deflated sigh, she flopped back, moving messy hair away from her face and dragging her fingers along her scalp. 

The clock on her bedside read as twenty minutes to four and despite the hour, Y/n knew that committing to slumber soon wouldn’t have been possible, so instead, she slunk out of bed, not even bothering with her robe as she slipped her feet into a pair of comfortable, fluffy flip flops before heading towards the door.

It was a soft, hesitant knocking that roused John from his slumber. A heavy sleeper might not have heard it, but his ears were trained, never missing a thing, and he awoke almost immediately. Groggily, he took a moment to blink sleep out of his eyes as he weaned his hand out from under the pillow, where he usually kept a pistol. Registering the time as quarter to four in the morning, John also noted the near darkness of the large room, the only light besides that of the neon green numbers of the digital alarm clock being whatever filtered through the thin, grey curtains; some from apartments in the opposing building, a street lamp and the quarter moon. It was enough to wash the shiny marble floor with a white glow, though not nearly enough to disturb John's sleep.

Again, the knocking on his bedroom door called his attention, and with a soft sigh, John flipped the thick duvet off his legs, planting his feet on the floor and padding barefoot towards the door. "Y/n?" He knitted his brows upon the sight of her; dressed in the suggestive pajama set he'd glimpsed her in earlier, the same one that had brought with it all sorts of crude thoughts as he'd fallen to sleep. 

"Hey," she breathed meekly, tongue darting out to moisten her bare lips as Y/n tucked some hair behind her ears. She seemed so unlike her usual self, a little unsure, and much…...softer, almost harmless even. The pale white light coming from the opposing window illuminated her delicate features with a near bluish, ethereal glow. "I uh," she cleared her throat, standing a bit straighter, "Sorry for waking you."

That was odd, she never apologized. Shaking his head dismissively, John’s hand slid up the edge of the door as he slid against the frame, fleeting sleepiness disturbing his focus. Or maybe it was something else. “It’s okay,” something about the mood felt…...off. John couldn’t describe it really, like the air was swirling with something electric, making everything a little hazy, “What are doing here? It’s late.”

“I know,” Y/n didn’t seem to know what to do with her hands, and John couldn’t help but notice the absence of confidence in her disposition. It was so unlike her to be so unsure of herself and jittery. “It’s just,” she hesitated, mulling on her next words, “I can’t stop thinking about you John,” his name was a breath of her lips and when Y/n finally reached out, her palm hovering over the sleeve of his t-shirt before landing on his bicep. “I know its……..sudden, but it's true, and I can’t take the not knowing anymore. John-”

“Its okay,” he reassured softly, his eyes softening as he stepped forward, reaching out to place a hand on her hip, he raised the other to brush a couple strands away from her face, “I feel the same. There’s just something about you,” he searched her gaze, still cupping her face and his thumb ghosted the apple of Y/n’s cheek, “It just pulls me in. I’ve tried Y/n, but I can’t get you out of my head.”

“Good,” sliding her hand up his shoulder, she embraced the side of his neck with her warm touch, leaning into John as she stood on her toes, “Have you been dreaming about me John?” He could feel her breath fanning his lips and feel the warmth of her skin emanating from her top, “The way I dream about you?” Y/n pecked the corner of his lips, curling her arm around his neck.

“Yes,” he shuddered, feeling her lips travel along his jaw, his crotch twitching appreciatively at their proximity. His arms locked around Y/n’s frame, ensuing she was flush against him and his senses had never felt so awakened, making John acutely aware of how her full breasts were pressed to his chest, and how silken her skin felt when a couple of his fingers evaded the hem of her blouse, gracing the lower part of her spine. “I dream that I’m touching you, feeling you around me. I dream that…..”

“That what?” Y/n reached up to nibble on his earlobe, her free hand journeying between their bodies to grope him through the thick material of his sweats, “What else do you dream about John?”

“That you’re mine,” involuntarily, he bucked into her expert touch, his grip on her tightening possessively, “I want you to be mine,” he growled, a surge of jealousy pluming in his chest at the thought of Y/n being this way with Donavan. 

As one of John’s palms searched her warm skin, eventually reaching up to cradle Y/n’s upper back, she brought her lips over his once again, sharing their longing breaths, “Then make me yours,” Y/n tilted her head, leaning in and almost letting their lips brush, teasing him. “Do it John,” she prompted enticingly, “Make me yours.”

In an instant, he’d crashed his lips to Y/n’s feverishly, holding her in place and humming roughly into her mouth as his only response. Y/n stumbled forward when John stepped back into the room. The way she responded against him was unmatched and for just a second, every bit of guilt he’d harbored because of his growing feelings for her vanished, if only it could stay gone.

“John,” a familiar voice intruded, urgency growing as he ignored it, “John!”

It wasn’t Y/n, it couldn’t be her after all, and when John finally pulled away, he was greeted with the most gut wrenching sight; his Helen, standing in the doorway, hurt tugging at her features. She looked the way she did just before things got bad, before the long hospital stays and the machines. So impossibly beautiful, so incomparably pure and right then, so undeniably wounded. Her eyes, the ones he’d fallen for upon matching them for the very first time, welled up with tears, shining in the low light and her paled features were smeared with the twinge of betrayal. 

“How could you?” She sobbed, just as John untangled himself from Y/n, not noting the way her face changed, focused only one one thing; his wife.

How could he?

“Helen!” John brushed past Y/n, following Helen out into the hall, just as the hem of her white dress fled the corner. But he could hardly run fast enough and before John could reach for her arm, she was gone.

“Helen,” John shot up in his bed, breathing heavily as he lunged forward. Even with his eyes now open, adjusting themselves to being so suddenly opened, he swore he could still see Helen as if she were right there, at the foot of his bed, tears in her eyes as a result of his betrayal. It was exactly what he’d been afraid of; betraying her memory. John couldn’t do that to her, he’d fought for his life just so he could live to remember her, the love they had. The only love he ever had.

Scrubbing his hands over his face and then through his hair, before turning on the lamp at his bedside and pulling open the drawer of his nightstand. What he sought laid at the top, and without hesitation, John brought out a picture and a little card out, holding them each in one hand. Every time he looked at the photograph, the memory would come back like it was yesterday, that day at the beach, when in each other’s arms was the only place either of them wanted to be. They’d known she was sick then too, but times were simpler and treatment had been working well. They had time, time to build a home, plan a life, be in love. 

Before Helen, that day he’d laid eyes on her in that restaurant, John didn’t think his heart had ever beat that fast. For a long time, he lived, fought for his life in the military and then under the mob, but when he met her, John, for the very first time, felt truly alive. And when she died a year and a half prior, part of him did too. Even if the love he had for her would never waver.

A lone tear fell dripped onto the photo and John’s teeth tugged on his lower lip to suppress a sob as he opted to shift his burning gaze to the letter. One of the last things he had to remember her by. Daisy was long gone; stolen by a fool who’d cashed for an untimely death, but John had held on to that letter. The only reason he’d still had it was because he’d had left it in his car, which, thankfully had been in the shop when his house had been destroyed by another dead fool. That card had kept him sane in dark times and had given him a glimmer of hope in quieter moments. 

“....you still need something, someone, to love.”

“........and now that I have found my peace, find yours.”

Loving again didn’t even seem possible, and it didn’t seem right either. And even if the glimmer of affection he felt of Y/n should have given John hope for a better tomorrow, she was tainted, corrupted; there was no peace there. Not for him and certainly not for them together. 

Bringing the picture to his lips, John swallowed tightly as he kissed Helen’s image, desperately wishing that things could have been different. He’d have burned the world down if it would save her life. But it wouldn’t have, and it was taking time, but he was learning to accept that. Returning the keepsakes to their security, John pulled himself out of bed, trudging out towards the kitchen hoping to find some remedy for the dryness in his throat. 

As usual, his steps were silent and hardly noticeable and John was just about to turn off from the corridor and enter when something stopped him in his tracks. At first, he’d thought his ears were betraying him, that perhaps he was still caught in his all too vivid dream, until he poked his head out, confirming the more logical explanation. Much to his surprise, Y/n stood in the kitchen, a wine glass on the counter, near a bottle while she had her back pressed against the large integrated refrigerator, head bent and hands pressed to her face as she elicited muffled sobs. Her frame shook slightly and her breaths were audible and ragged.

The sight was more than peculiar, it was surprising and wildly unexpected, yet still, John yearned to go into the kitchen and encourage her towards his chest and hold her until she was okay. Even if he’d had caught her shedding a tear or two in her bedroom a couple mornings ago, he’d never taken Y/n for the type that cried her eyes out when no one was looking, though he supposed that everyone had their limits, things that broke them down and reduced them to a state where nothing else seemed possible. His was Helen, he wondered if Y/n’s was her mother. 

A loud, hitching breath left John dashing for cover, pressing his back to the wall, and peeking out once again soon after, just in time to see Y/n slide down the silver door onto the floor as untamed sobs grew louder. He ached, physically, to go over to her, but the idea weighed heavy on his mind and knowing Y/n, she probably wasn’t seeking comfort anyway, so instead, John gave her what he thought she’d appreciate more; the solitude that he usually craved when reduced to tears, toeing back down the hall, and hoping that by morning she’d be okay.

******

Tagging-@harrisongslimited @magnificentclodpiebanana @keandrews @greenmanalishi  @rdjloverxxx @danceoftwowolves  @planetkt @wheretheriversrunintothesea  @jupiterdawngirl

[iheartkyloren]

When I say slow burn it doesn’t mean no smut... Imagine what Ren must have felt knowing this girl exists somewhere in the world and she is always popping in and out of his mind at night. Unsure if she were real at first, but finding his attraction to her so strong he swears he will be with her one day, I’m pretty sure he would have molested himself to the idea of her before he understood what was happening...

Teaser+

                His mind left open one night while he slept somehow, he realizes now, she entered his life and now he can’t get a reprieve from her infiltration. Until he meets her he can’t be too sure it is even the same girl that was mentioned, but he’s had feelings before.

                In his dreams she appeared before him in a wrinkled sleep shirt her hair a tangled mess draping over the faded case of her pillow. The glow of her freckle specked skin, radiant in the incoming moonlight, illuminates the sheer layer of sweat glazing the surface of her flesh. His initial thought was she was a sweet little figment his subconscious conjured up; a reference to the part of him that remains unsure of his place with Snoke.

                He fights his soul, unknown to his fellow First Order mates, in a near constant battle. A divide that rests from surface to bone, he can still feel a nagging pull to step away while he still can from the only person who lift him up from his own suffering. Rationalizing he is safer here than anywhere else, he stays. Here he has power and choices. Things he did not possess prior to his life here.

                The girl, he thinks, taking a seat on the side of his bed his shoulders relaxing out of their formal hold. This dream girl has haunted him. Some dreams it is her sleeping soundly, no movement otherwise, eyes closed in a peaceful slumber. Others he recalls the way her bottom lip plumps when she lets it pop out from between her teeth as she takes a relaxing breath before sighing in relief. A thick unnaturally pink lip he has imagined sucking in between his own teeth to suck the sweet pink color closer to the surface; to deepen it with his personal mark.

                The very idea of that simple act sends a vibration of lust throughout his body. His commitment to his training has forced him to abstain from any sexual congress. The more he trained, the more ruthless he appeared, the more difficult it became to gain that kind of attraction from women. Large and formidable, he could take them whenever he chose; force them into his bed if he so wanted, or wherever if he really cared to. His size would easily pin any soft delicate body incapable of escaping him. He hasn’t, the timing of it never calibrating with his other duties. He’s unsure if that is the one thing that crosses the line for him, forcing someone to sleep with him. Murder is easier.

Description+

They are both unwanted, lost souls in constant search for acceptance. Their hearts cleaved open by trauma leaving them vulnerable to the world and the manipulations it possesses. When they stumble upon each other by accident they discover a bond that ties them together like no other. Similar to a twin flame, their souls appear to mirror each other, calling to the other while they struggle to accept one another and understand why they are connected. Everyone comes with a past, but the future maintains the power to change us all.

Dark Side/ Erotic/ Mature/ Slow Burn/ Angst/ Drama/ Fluff/ Not a Fix-it/ Retelling/ Fuck Balance/ Naughty is Nice/ AU

New WIP

Word Count= 6,034

Read+

Awake & Unwanted- chapter two

Awake & Unwanted- chapter one

[ourplaceinthecosmosphff]

Chapter 22. Compromise

“no' might make them angry but it will make you free.

- if no one has ever told you, your freedom is more important than their anger.”

― Nayyirah Waheed, Salt

[*TW: death/violence/bomb threats, neo nazi/mysoginistic hateful language]

It wasn’t the first time I removed my shoes in the middle of the grand hall, one hand to the wall, eyes to the stairs, legs shaking. I grabbed hold of my sandals and raced up the staircase three long, thin steps at a time.

In my room, I threw the shoes on the bed and rushed to the closet, putting my hair up as I did so I could then reach back and unzip my dress, but it was a futile effort. In anger, I recalled needing Lourdes’ help to zip up before dinner.

I took a deep breath and tried it on my own; but it was useless. I tried again, but on the third time all I could hear was the ressentment in Christopher’s voice when he talked about fucking me after my brother’s funeral in front of both our parents. The anger when he asked who was it that I started seeing after we broke up. More than that, I suddenly recalled every instance where I wanted to protest against something he had said or done, but thought better of it.

“Maggie?” Lourdes’ voice awoke me to the anger I was feeling. “I can’t fucking–” One look at me, and she hurried to my side, removing my hands from the dress so she could unzip me. “I got you.” She said. “There. Nothing we can’t fix, right?”

I felt the fabric loosen and pulled the suffocating halter high neck off. The tears started falling before I even realized they had been there at all, and I felt so frustrated for crying that it only made me want to cry more. I allowed my knees to buckle as I fell to the floor, hands around my neck, breathing heavily.

“Hey, it’s okay.” Lourdes said, calmly. “It’s okay.” She passed an arm around my shoulders and hugged me close, pulling me into her chest. “Nothing we can’t fix.” She repeated.

With her bony, small arms around me as a safe port, I cried the loss of the past nine years, and all the years we almost had.

--- ---- --- I had never in my life felt more alone. And yes, maybe I was being dramatic. Maybe I was amplifying a minor problem into a bigger one as a reflection of my deep anxiety about my new title and role, but the truth is it didn’t feel like that. It felt like – in fact, I was alone in my closet, looking at eight different dresses I had just put on and taken off, thinking about Louis telling me I dressed like our mother. How could I make sure I was being myself? How could I know any of my choices were my own and not just what he described as some subconscious need to be the ‘good daughter’?

There was only one person I knew to call for help with going against family expectations: Constance Parrish Von-Bernstein.

“I’m flattered.” She said when I face timed her, still half dressed on my closet floor. “You never have this type of crisis. I need to bask in it. Maybe I should make a wish.” “This is serious, Constance.” I reminded her, sighing. “I have a chance to be heard by the very people who have been pushing me around not only for the past five months, but essentially my whole life. I need to be heard, to tell them, no. To demand what I want. But I can’t even pick something to wear without feeling like a fraud. How am I supposed to be the Crown Princess when I can’t even dress myself?!” Constance looked put off; weirded out, but definitely like she saw the seriousness of the moment now. “Okay…” She started, slowly. “Well, what’s the issue exactly?” “I feel like I’ve been doing what everyone else wanted me to do my whole life, so how can I stand up for what I want now?” I laughed, humorless. “How did you do it? You wore nothing but black all through our teen years, you started dying your hair pink at eighteen, you ditched University and everything else your parents tried to push you into doing to become a musician! How?! How do I do that?!” She smiled, amused. “Well, Maggie… I guess first and foremost we need to accept there is a big difference between being the first member of my family in nine generations not to go to Sorbonne to live my dream of playing guitar in the subway, and knowing what to wear as the Crown Princess.” “I gather from your tone you think my issue is easier. It certainly doesn’t feel like it.” I scratched my head, pensive. “Don’t get me wrong, I wouldn’t want to trade positions with you, either. But you were just juggling parental expectations. I am juggling the whole country’s.” “Yes… I can’t argue there.” “So, again… how?!” She sighed, propped her phone up against something and leaned back staring off into a wall as she considered the question. “You need to know what you’re willing to lose.” She said, determined. “What does that mean?” “Well, I wore black as a teenager because it was one of the few things I could control. But I still had to wear whatever my mother told me to at more important occasions. Christmas, family occasions, formal events with your family… there was no way she would risk letting me decide what to wear to those.” As she recounted, I searched my brain to find the memories of a grumpy, teen Constance looking as pretty in pastel as the rest of us in tea parties and polo matches. “At eighteen, I received the first pay out of my trust fund from my paternal grandparents, so I knew even if my mother decided to disown me, I could afford to live on my own. So I dyed my hair pink.” “Wait, I–” I shook my head. “I had no idea that’s what you thought would happen! Your mother would never!” “Well, we both know she would.” She smiled, amused but also slightly sad. “She hasn’t, though. Which is good, I guess. We did have a lot of fights about it, not just the hair, but Sorbonne and everything else, too. The first pay out of the trust was supposed to be for University, and I used it to buy a scooter and a new guitar.” “You live a pretty simple life, though. And it’s your money, you should do what you want.” “Exactly!” She replied, excitedly. “But that’s my point, your family is dependent on taxpayer funding, right?” “Well–” I stuttered. “Not quite. We’re funded by the Royal Trust.” “Which is funded by the government with allocation of tax funds, right?” “Well…” “Chérie, I’m not trying to get evidence for the republican party here. I’m making a point.” “Yes, okay.” I shrugged. “Yes, some of our funds are from the Royal Trust, and a lot of it is private funds from family inheritances, private property, and investments–” “Okay, so.” She continued. “If you get to the meeting and tell them you want something, and they say no. What’s stopping you from insisting? From doing it anyway? It’s not a crime to go against them, right?” “Well–” I reflected. “What I mean is, I waited to dye my hair until I had my trust fund so my mother couldn’t hold my finances against me. Money was freedom. So, if your family threatens to no longer fund you, what will you do? You don’t have a job anymore.” “Well, I…” I sighed. I never had to think about money before. “I do have a trust fund, too, from my great-grandfather. And I’m twenty-five, so the inheritance from my maternal grandfather should be available to me now.” “Well, there you go. So, what can they do if you insist on having it your way?” She asked, with a grin. “Throw you in jail?” She was right. Money was freedom. “I guess there’s only the main question left.” “Which is?” “What do I wear?!” I asked, making us both laugh at the despair evident in my voice. “It’s not just about the clothes.” I justified, more to myself than to her. “I’m afraid I’ll get there, and they’ll be looking at me like I’m a child who should be off playing with something unimportant instead of trying to play pretend with the adults.” “Maggie,” Constance started, laughing, “you’re a Harvard graduated lawyer. You have a solid, successful career you left for this. They need you, you don’t need them. In fact, you’re doing them a favor.” “I’m not sure that’s how they would describe it.” “They can dress it up however they want, facts are facts.” She shrugged. “You know how to stand up for yourself and get shit done, because you’ve done it before. You worked on the corporate world for years. So, stop acting like they’re doing you a favor by allowing you to be there, and start using your experience to shove it in their faces that you’re way overqualified for this.”

She was right; I had a solid, sucessful – if short – career, and at work, I dressed as a lawyer, if anything to remind people I was not just a princess. So I spent the rest of the day repeating the mantra to myself: Constance is right. Constance is right. Constance is right. With that in mind, I dressed pretending I had a big meeting at work: a short sleeved, high neck, satin Jason Wu dress with simple black heels and gold and black earrings.

Then I went to work.

In my mind, this battle would take place around a long, imposing conference room table, where I’d sit in the middle, with all relevant parties around me. The reality was less corporate: my father’s office. High ceilings, chandeliers, antique paintings and vases around the room, and, of course, the victorian furniture. Dad and I sat in armchairs by the fireplace, side by side, his main staff took their seats on the couple of sofas to our sides, and the others, after the three chairs around my father’s desk were taken, brought in extra chairs from other rooms.

One thing I noticed straight away.

“Where’s Cadie?” I asked dad on a low tone, as everyone took their seats. “I thought it would be in poor taste to discuss her with her in the room.” He explained. “You’ll notice Auguste isn’t here, either.”

Present in the room were around a dozen more people, most of whom I had known all of my life, though some more closely than others. That was the case with my parents’ private secretaries, the title we gave to our chief of staff, Clemment Montennon and Madaleign Qadir. I also recognized Abelard Brodeur, my father’s senior aide, Ulysses Caron, the Head of Security, and Edwald Dupont, Head of the Palace Communications Office.

My father made introductions of those I hadn’t had too much contact with before, like Caesar Bisset, head of Outreach Relations, who explained his main role was to coordinate and plan our charitable and humanitarian endeavors, and Alexander Halden, who was liason of relations between the palace and the government.

All of them sat in the sofas, all of them (but Madeleign Qadir) were balding, old, white men with mustaches and resting judgy faces. The people sitting in the chairs in the back, I realized, were their junior aides, with notepads and pens, ready to take notes or provide useful material during the meeting.

I started to feel more at home at once: hierarchy was familiar to me. I had been the lowly intern once, trying to remain as quiet and invisible as possible in the background, writing as fast as I could, desperate to prove myself in the first opportunity to the older men who held my faith in their hands.

I reminded myself that wasn’t the case here. I was the future Queen of Savoy, they worked for me. They needed me. I held my head high and squared my shoulders back.

“Thank you all for making room in your schedules for this meeting.” My father started, in French. “As this meeting was set somewhat suddenly, perhaps we should go over our goals for today before we start. In truth, I believe today is a culmination of what has been…” He paused, and heaved a long, heavy sigh. “Some tremendously difficult last few months. As we’re all aware, after we lost the Crown Prince last year, as my eldest child, Princess Marie-Margueritte became Crown Princess Marie-Margueritte.”

Discreetly, I fidgeted with my hands so the nail in my right thumb was gently scratching my left palm. I gulped, trying to swallow the familiar knot on my throat. ‘I have to be able to talk about this without crying. I need to talk about this to get through this meeting. I can’t cry in front of these people.’

“We took a few months to allow us all to grieve properly, as a family, and also as a country. There was also the need for the Crown Princess to make the necessary arrangements to leave her private career behind and, as we discussed around the time of the funeral, to put distance between her previous image and the new one she must take on in order to fulfill this new role.”

So they had discussed this at the time of the funeral. A need to ‘put distance’ between who I was and who I needed to become. And I wasn’t even included.

“But it is a new year.” Father continued, with renewed energy. “Crown Princess Marie-Margueritte and I have had a private discussion and we have decided the time has come for her to take a more active role in the process of preparation for her future as Monarch.”

He paused, allowing the words to settle. I still stared at my own hands, trying to breathe deeply and slowly. ‘Preparation for her future as Monarch’ sounded so… crucial. Important. Fatal, almost.

“So,” he said, now more upbeat, adjusting himself in his seat, “with that in mind, we arrive at the agenda for this meeting as discussed by the Crown Princess and I. We are to discuss and decide on the plans regarding the Crown Princess’ future work, security, and office in her new role as the heir apparent.”

There was a pause. I waited. My father looked at me, then at the others.

“Perhaps it would be useful to start with providing the Crown Princess with an update on what the current situation is with regards to the public opinion.” The king added. “Edwald?”

Mr. Dupont, Head of the Communications Office, a man reasonably young in comparison to the others, pushed his glasses up his nose with his pinky, opened a folder in his lap, and began to speak.

“Right. Your Majesty, Your Royal Highness. We are still monitoring what the press knows in regards to the Crown Princess’ extended stay in Britain. As of now, seems we were able to get the Crown Princess back in the country without them finding out, but we will continue to stay alert for any rumors in that regard.”

“Do they know about Princess Lourdes-Abigail’s suspension?” My father asked. “As far as we are aware, sir, no.” Mr. Dupont replied. “We do have at the moment, though, requests for comment on a poll the Sunday Gazette ran online where 71% of respondents didn’t agree with the statement: ‘the Royal Family has kept an active working role after the death of Crown Prince Louis-Adolphe’.” My father sighed, gravely. “Did we give them a comment?” “No, sir. An online poll of no impact.” Mr. Dupont returned. “Most people just vote to see the estimated results, or because they’re bored.” “Good.” He nodded. “Go on.” “Regard–” “Wait, of how many?” I interrupted. “Pardon?” “How many people answered the poll?” “71%, ma’am.” “No, 71% of how many people? What’s the total of respondents?” “Oh, uh.” He looked through the papers on his folder again. Behind Mr. Dupont, an aide got up from his chair and handed him a couple more sheets of paper. “Ah, right. The total number of respondents in the poll was 61,359, ma’am.” “Were they given an abstention option?” “No, ma’am, only agree or disagree.” I nodded. Mr. Dupont went on. “As I was saying–” “Sorry,” I interrupted again, “One last thing, promise, do you have the analytics numbers?” “The–?” Mr. Dupont seemed confused. I looked at the aide behind him, a young man with freckles. “Sir? What’s your name?” His eyes grew wide. “M-me?” I smiled. “Yes, sir.” “Matthew.” “’Ma’am’”, his boss corrected. “Matthew, ma’am.” The aide repeated. “Do you happen to have the analytics data on this poll, Matthew?” “Uhm. Well, not a full analytics report, ma’am. But I do have a print out of the webpage, so I have a sharing estimate for social media.” “What are you talking about?” My father asked, confused. “Analytics is a… a tool to interpret patterns of data from basically anything.” I summarized. “On websites that run polls, it could be useful to know how many people viewed it as many might have just viewed it, but not voted, which doesn’t mean they weren’t influenced by it. And any new article online has an option for the reader to share it on their social media platforms, so that’s what Matthew will tell me next.” “Well, the data is rounded up, we don’t have the details.” Matthew explained. “Well, then we can skip it.” My father said. “That’s a point for another meeting, Margueritte. Let’s focus on our agenda today.” I wanted to argue, but before I could gather the courage, Mr. Dupont went on about me next, which was distracting enough to make me let the subject go. “Regarding the press on the Crown Princess specifically,” Mr. Dupont continued, “The months following the funeral saw a record high number of press profiling her biography, and of course there were the, uhm, ‘viral’ issues.” “Viral issues?” I asked, when he used a strange tone on the word ‘viral’. “The…mainstream section of the world, ma’am, meaning those outside of Savoy and who otherwise seemed to be uninterested in the story of The Royal Family of Savoy, were very interested to discover it’s new heir was a former military servicewomen–” “I–” I stuttered, “I only did the minimum service of 6 months.” “They don’t seem to care about the specifics.” He replied. “They did show a lot of interest for the picture of you in uniform during a drill, which was released through the palace at the time.” He added, shrugging slightly. “The Americans, specifically, seemed excited about your time in Harvard and New York, and a lot of articles were written with testimonials from people who, at least, claim to have studied with you at the time.” “Oh.” I said, uncomfortable. “What–what did they say?” “Positive things.” Mr. Dupont replied, short. “Though, at home, despite the King’s vow of faith in Her Royal Highness during the Crown Prince’s funeral, Savoyen press remains… unconvinced of your… capabilities.”

I looked at my father, who was staring at his hands, absentmindedly. So this was why my father had used his eulogy to public declare his confidence in me in the role. Not because it was true.  It was a PR move. No wonder he didn’t want to answer my question afterwards.

“What ar-” I stuttered. “Do you know any specifics of their criticism?” “They seem to worry about your work record the most, ma’am.” He replied. “Not a lot of royal work, some rumors of controversial stances as a lawyer, and uh. Not enough… How to best describe it? Personality, I suppose.” “They think I’m boring.” I helped. Seeming uncomfortable, he nodded. “International press definitely doesn’t, though.” He said. “And they have greatly influenced public opinion at home. It is very likely our national press is… upset they haven’t been given any insight on what your future will look like.”

‘And who’s fault is that?’, I thought, bitterly.

“Speaking of work,” I started, “Shall we talk about that next?” “Before we do,” my father said, before looking at Mr. Dupont, “what about the new development from last night? Where do we stand?” Confused, I looked around the room, but other than Montennon, Qadir, and Mr. Dupont himself, everyone else seemed confused as well. “We are closely monitoring the situation, but not rumors as of yet, sit.” He replied. “But I reiterate it would be best to get ahead of it.” “What happened last night?” I asked.

My father fixed me with such a dry expression I felt almost unbearably embarrassed for having forgotten: the Chris breakup.

“Oh.” I said, awkwardly. “Right.” “We’ll get back to you, Edwald.” My father told him. “Now, what need we discuss regarding your work, Margueritte?” “Well,” I started, pausing quickly to take in a deep breath, before reaching down at the ground for the folder I had left under my chair.

I opened it to find the copies I had made of the proposal I prepared the previous year while using anything I could to distract myself from the grief, and passed it around the room.

“This a summarized version, but I can have a more detailed one made tonight if you wish,” I prefaced, walking back to my seat after handing them each a copy, “I used a business proposal model, so forgive me if I might have missed any important information.”

The proposal detailed causes and organizations I wanted to focus on. I was patron of a handful of charities currently, and if I was to work full time as a royal, priority number one was to get that number up. It was work that I liked: useful, helpful work that made a difference in people’s lives.

But most importantly: it was a way of honoring my brother. I had experience with ‘easy’ causes: elderly care, childcare, things that were easy for anyone to empathize with, things that anyone would agree matters. To put it simply: things that wouldn’t ruffle feathers on the press.

This time I picked causes that mattered to me, and it mattered to me to make the kind of impact that my brother would have.

“This is impressive, ma’am.” Said Caesar Bisset, the Head of Outreach Relations. “Truly inspirational.” The others nodded, appreciatively. No one said anything else. “But?” I prodded. They looked at each other. Mr. Bisset gulped, smiling uncomfortably. “Some of these causes, although greatly important, would not send the right message, ma’am.” “What causes do you see a problem with, exactly?” I asked, as calmly as could be. “Not me, ma’am!” He corrected, quickly. “I mean, to the public, to the press, there could be a lot of misunderstanding around some of these areas.” “Such as?” “Margueritte,” my father started, with a careful smile. “As you know there is still a large amount of people in Savoy who identify as catholics, and as the representatives of the faith in the country, we have a responsibility.” “I understand.” I assured him, lying. “But I would still like to hear the specifics of what the issues would be.”

He looked at Mr. Bisset, who nodded.

“Well, ma’am,” he started, “as an example, take this idea, item two, where you express a wish of becoming a patron of Flag House, an organization devoted to providing support to homosexual youth…” “They provide counseling for those with unaccepting families, housing for LGBT people living in an unsafe and unwelcoming environment, and even classes to get them on a path towards a career or to further their education.” “Yes.” He nodded. “And the issue of homosexualism is still somewhat–” “Homosexuality.” “Pardon?” “You said ‘ism’.” I explained, sighing. “That’s a terminology used for diseases and health issues. The correct word is homosexuality.” He nodded. “Oh. Right. Still–” “And they don’t just work with gay people.” I expanded. “The LGBT community is wide. Trans people’s life expectancy is 35 years-old in Savoy, and they are around 65% of all sex workers and 73% of all unhoused people in the country.” “No one is saying the organisation isn’t good, Margueritte.” My father argued. “But there is a reason we don’t just announce patronages. There’s a lot of research that goes into this, a lot of prep work–” “And that’s what I want to do.” I replied. “We could be halfway done with the prep work if we had set the wheels in motion the first time I did this research, but I sent August this material in November last year and never heard anything.” Mr. Montennon, Auguste’s boss, who would have told him not to get back to me, fidgeted in his chair. “The issue would simply be too polemic, ma’am.” “So would be standing up against slavery before the 19th century, but King Willem III did it anyway.” I replied. “It’s not exactly the same, sweetheart.” “Why not?” I asked. “Look at the research I just gave you. Our job is standing up for the marginalized, today the most marginalized community in our society are the unhoused, specially trans sex workers of color who are kicked out of their homes at a young age due to bigotry.” “Our job is to serve the country.” My father insisted. “But part of that is knowing what the country needs from us. And largely, Savoy is just not ready for this type of work.”

He uncrossed his legs, and leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees to look at me.

“Margueritte, you have a difficult job ahead of you. I know that like few people can. So let me assure you, the most important thing to succeed here is knowing how and when to compromise.” He paused, intensely. “And when not to. This is not something we can compromise on.”

I heaved a long, unsatisfied sigh. I wish I could have told him of Louis. I wish I could have told him how much this mattered to him. How much he spoke of his own privilege, of knowing that no matter how big the fear of being rejected was, he knew he would never need to fear for his safety like so many in his community did. I wish I could have told my father this, as I knew it might have changed his mind.

“So, Mr. Bisset, from this proactive document my daughter has given us, what do we think would be a good fit for her to work with?” Mr. Bisset looked away from my father into the paper in his lap again. “Well, sir, we would need to tweak a few of the specifics, but this suggestion for a partnership with some of the Universities in Savoy for a series of discussion panels on important issues for the population has a lot of potential.” “Ah,” my father replied, appreciatively. “Progress!” I gulped, suppressing a roll of my eyes at the condescension. “Won’t that just make me look more boring?” I asked. “I want to do it, but it would be better to balance it with something else, too, wouldn’t it? How about the patronage of the Claire Bauton Foundation?” Mr. Bisset nodded. “Women’s issues is a wonderful topic, ma’am, and would be a good fit as the public is very interested in the prospect of Savoy’s first Queen in her own right in over three centuries. I’ll do some research on it.” “Perfect.” My father said, happily. “Next?”

I sighed, fidgeting with my own hands; mouth dry.

“Perhaps we might go over the Crown Princess’ household, sir.” Montennon said. “Seeing as we are discussing work, her team would have to coordinate with Bisset on any upcoming projects.” He nodded. “Let’s. Please, Clemment, would you explain to us again the reason for appointing Auguste Authier as the Crown Princess’ Private Secretary.” “Of course, sir.” Montennon replied. “Ma’am, the gist of the matter comes down threefold. One, tradition.”

C. C. Montennon had been my father’s Private Secretary for almost two decades. He knew me from when I was still a bony, annoying child, but that wasn’t the reason he spoke ‘down’ at me. In fact, he had a gift of always appearing uppity whenever he said anything at all, even to royalty.

Montennon explained that traditionally, royal Private Secretaries were trained by their predecessor, the senior Secretary working for the Monarch. That way, every Monarch had a secretary that had been trained in the staff of the previous Monarch by the previous Monarch’s Secretary.

“This way every Private Secretary has the most complete knowledge one can have of the royal household and work.” He said. “So that fewer mistakes are made.”

I considered his words for a while. The logic seemed fine, it was the execution that I had an issue with.

“The second point, of course,” he went on, “is the matter of nationality.” “Seriously?” I interrupted. “Because Cadie is American?” “Ms. Mendel’s nationality could send the wrong messaging if she was selected for the highest position in your household, ma’am.” “Will I have to pretend I didn’t go to University in America, either?” “Margueritte, please.” My father said, scratching both eyes with his hand. “I think it’s a reasonable question considering this logic.” I argued. “The role of the Monarch, ma’am, and thus the role of the Crown Prince–uh, Princess is to represent and lead the country to the best of his–sorry, her abilities.” He explained, repeatedly stuttering on the need to correct himself, “and to hire a foreigner to such a high position would indicate you did not find a Savoyen of equal ability or trust.” “Or alternatively,” I argued, “that I hired the best person to the job and promoted her when the opportunity arose.”

Judging by the looks they all exchanged, I could see that was a battle lost.

“In order to do good work I have to be the one to choose my own staff.” I insisted. “It makes no sense otherwise. I assure you I am perfectly capable of hiring the objectively best person for the job.” “I assure you, ma’am,” Montennon insisted, “I have been overlooking Mr. Auguste Authier’s training for the past ten years and he is the most qualified man to prepare you for the difficult role ahead.” “You said it was threefold. What’s the third reason?” I asked Montennon. He sighed. “Well, ma’am, it’s hierarchy. Much of the Royal Family works as any business, and Auguste Authier has seniority. He’s been a member of the Royal staff longer and it would be inappropriate to promote Ms. Mendel to a higher position when she hasn’t earned it.” “As the person who she’s been working for since being hired I’d argue she has.” I contradicted. “Auguste has been training for a decade to assist the next Monarch, Margueritte.” My father told me, softly. “Cadence is too young. What if we compromise by looking into training her as an aide, Clemment? She would be a good assistant to Auguste, don’t you think? I’m sure they would work well together, right?”

I was sure they wouldn’t; Cadie was only a few years older than me, and Auguste was almost old enough to be our father. He had never respected Cadie’s abilities or my choice in hiring her. That was part of why I didn’t want to work with him in the first place.

“It would simply be too disruptive to disregard the plans that have been in motion for years regarding the staff of the next future Monarch.” Montennon finished. “But that hierarchy, those plans, were established when my brother was the heir.” I said, bravely but, also, timidly. “Not me. If we have to adapt to a new heir, and the new heir has to adapt to the work, it makes sense that the hierarchy and plans have to be adapted too, right?”

They seemed in no rush to reply. The silence floated around the room for a few seconds before my father sighed.

“It’s not how this works, I’m afraid.” He said. “Should we move on?”

And that was that. Another compromise. One word from the King and that matter was, apparently, closed.

Mr. Caron, the Head of Security, cleared his throat and sat a little taller as he began to speak. “Sir, if I may?” My father nodded his way, and he went on. Looking at me, an intense expression on his face, he said, “Ma’am, while we are discussing staffing choices… The occurence in Britain with your detail on the train…”

I tried to brace myself for a scolding, dreading everything around me, wishing I could go to my room.

“I wish to assure you no such thing will ever happen again. The officers in question have been severely reprimanded, suspended and will retake training upon returning to work. We take the incident extremely seriously and hope this won’t permanently shake your confidence in your security.” I stuttered, awkwardly. “Oh, that–That’s fine. Really, I’m fine. I didn’t even know they’d been suspended.” “Their only job is to keep you safe, and they lost you for three days.” My father remarked, calmly, not looking at me. “They are lucky to keep their jobs.” “Right.” I nodded, nervously. “Of course… Speaking of which. The… incident, as you called it, was indeed unfortunate, of course, but since the topic has been brought up, I suppose it is as good a time as any to talk about my security detail in general. The truth is I was already uncomfortable with it before.” “Uncomfortable, ma’am?” Mr. Caron asked, “Regarding the officers? Their competence?” “No, not at all.” I shook my head. “I mean, I spent the previous decade and a half with Joyce as my primary officer. She went with me to America, to University, and in every job I ever had.” He nodded. “Of course, ma’am. The bond that many years of service creates is, of course, highly valued in this field. It is essential for the work we do.” “I’m glad you think so.” I smiled. “Because I would like for Joyce to be reinstated as my primary Protection Officer.” Mr. Caron took in a long breath, watching the wall behind me. “Ma’am, though I appreciate how difficult such a structural change is, the fact is that Ms. Espinoza–uhm, Joyce, that is, simply does not have the proper, more advanced, specified training an officer for this position needs.”

“Why is that?”

The room was quiet. One by one, they all exchanged a look with the person closer to them and then looked at me.

Mr. Caron spoke. “Why is what, ma’am?” “As a member of Palace security staff, why doesn’t Joyce Espinoza have the proper training needed to work for a senior royal?” “Oh, well, ma’am, see…” He started, “Our officers receive personalized training for the specific work that they will be assigned to. That way every royal family member can be sure they are in the right hands for the level of security threat they are under.” “But…” I started, “Doesn’t that just create a gap in the abilities of the staff? Don’t you then just have some officers who are qualified for harder jobs and some who aren’t?”

They were quiet. Mr. Caron opened his mouth to reply but closed it again, pensively.

“Margueritte, this meeting is not meant to reevaluate how we do staff training.” My father objected. “Maybe it should.” I argued, causing him to look at me, brows raised. But he ignored my point. “We are here to discuss your staff and the fact is Ms. Espinoza does not have the proper training to keep you safe.” Before I could argue, he added, louder, “That is not something we are compromising on. Not your safety.”

I sighed.

“Ulysses, do you have the security file on the Crown Princess?” Mr. Caron looked at my father with wider eyes. “Y-yes, sir. I have the raw file with me, but it hasn’t been… filtered.” “Good. Show it to her.”

Awkwardly, Mr. Caron received a separate, larger file from the aide sitting near the window. He got to his feet and walked over to me.

I opened the file to an identification page; it contained most of my personal information from my full name, age, hair color and length to weight, height, and identifying marks, like the barely visible, tiny scar I had on my left knee from a bike fall as a child (I noticed the absence of my tattoo). I looked at Caron.

“What am I looking at?” “Well–” He started. “That is what your security needs to have on their minds every second of their working day.” My father answered instead.

When I turned the page, I realized the following pages were separated by date. The first was marked only a couple of days after Louis’ death. It read:

‘Letter received by the Neunant Post. Unmarked. Security camera footage resulted in no suspects of delivery. It reads:

THE THRONE MUST NOT GO TO PRINCESS MARIE MARGUERITE. WOMAN ARE INFERIOR TO MEN AND THE RIGHT ORDER OF CIVIL SOCIETY CANNOT BE UNDERMINED. LET THE GOVERNMENT BE ADVISED: SHOULD THE PRINCESS BE ANNOUNCED AS THE NEXT HEIR THERE WILL BE AN ATTACK ON POINTE CALLOIS BRIDGE. WE ARE AN ORGANIZATION DEDICATED TO RETURNING SAVOY TO ITS FORMER GLORY. PRINT THIS LETTER ON THE FRONT PAGE OR PEOPLE WILL DIE…’

With my heart beating almost painfully in my throat, I looked at my father. He wasn’t looking at me. He wasn’t looking at anyone. His eyes were opened, but he was seeing something I could not see.

I turned the page. The next few threats were prints of hate comments on news sites, but they seemed slightly superficial compared to the first. I noticed they had a yellow sticker to the up corner of the page, whereas the first one had a red one. I turned the pages, finding another red one marked about a week after the first. It read:

‘Letter dropped on the gates of Callois Palace among the messages of condolences for Crown Prince Louis. Security Camera footage could not identify the suspect amongst the crowd. It read:

REST IN PEACE OUR GOOD ARYAN KING LOUIS ADOLPHE!!! THE THRONE WILL NEXT GO TO OUR ALPHA PRINCE ADRIEN WHO WILL LEAD THE COUNTRY INTO PROSPERITY. PASSING THE CROWN INTO PRINCE LOUIS ADOLPHE’S SISTERS WOULD TURN THE COUNTRY INTO A RADICAL LIBERAL HELL IT MUST NOT BE ALLOWED TO HAPPEN. THE KING MUST ANNOUNCE THE PRINCESSES WILL NOT INHERIT LIKE HIS SISTERS DIDNT. DO NOT DISMISS THIS. IN CASE THIS ISNT ANNOUNCED THE PRINCESSES WILL BE A FATALITY OF THE BATTLE FOR THE SURVIVAL OF SAVOY. YOU HAVE FIVE DAYS.

The following page contained a drawing of a symbol in red paint. Analysis confirmed it was pig blood. Symbol under analysis by the Interpol.’

I gulped, painfully, mouth dry. “Did they ever have an answer for what the symbol was?” Though I wasn’t looking at him, Mr. Caron asnwered softly, “With assistance from the NSA, ma’am, they believe it is linked to a jihadist terrorist organization.”

I turned a few more pages, hands shaking. Dated from a few weeks after Louis’ death, to a couple of months after, to just two weeks ago, they were prints of online messages, discord servers, reddit discussion threads, untraceable Twitter accounts, throw-away emails, sent to official royal email addresses, physical Palace address, personal email accounts of staff members, journalists, and any number of random people who dared say anything positive about us online.

‘THE CROWN PRINCESS ATTENDS BODY WORK GYM NEAR HER APARTMENT MOST MORNINGS AT 8AM FROM MONDAY TO FRIDAY. SHE ALWAYS PARKS IN THE SECOND FLOOR GARAGE. SHE LOOKS HOT IN LEGGINGS TOO BAD SHE’LL GET BLOWN UP NEXT TIME SHE IS THERE’

‘THE USURPER MARIE MARGUERITTE WILL DIE KING ADRIEN DOWN WITH THE FEMINAZIS WHO WEAKENED OUR MILITARY BY INCENTIVIZING WOMEN TO SERVE AND NOW WOULD WEAKEN OUR NOBLE ROYAL FAMILY’S BLOODLINE. YOU WILL NEVER FIND ME BUT YOU WILL SOON KNOW MY NAME I WILL CARVE IT IN HER SKIN. I KNOW THE ADDRESS OF HER WORK AND THE RESTAURANT SHE EATS AT WITH COWORKERS. THEIR NAMES ARE SOPHIE THE DAUGHTER OF THE CORRUPT MEDIA MOGUL AND LARISSA THE UGLY IMMIGRANT. SHE WILL NEVER BE QUEEN’

‘I AM A HIGHLY TRAINED FORMER MILITARY CAPTAIN PRINCESS MARIE MUST NOT HAVE A CONFIRMATION CEREMONY. IF YOU HAVE A CEREMONY WE WILL CARRY OUT A MASSIVE ATTACK AGAINST THE ATTENDEES. I HAVE AT MY DISPOSAL A SEMI AUTOMATIC RIFFLE AND A COLLECTION OF PIPE BOMBS.I DO NOT WANT TO SPILL PURE SAVOYEN BLOOD. I AM GIVING YOU A CHANCE. CANCEL THE CONFIRMATION AND ANNOUNCE THE ABDICATION OF PRINCESS MARIE IN FAVOR OF PRINCE ADRIEN OR ONE WAY OR ANTOHER I WILL MAKE SURE THEY DIE. YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED’

A few of the pages detailed untraceable phone calls made to official, unlisted numbers inside the palace. There was a collective letter sent by chief editors of the major Savoy newspapers detailing a rise in what they describe as ‘the worst kind of harassing, toxic, hateful comments’ ever before targeted at the royal family in general, but specifically, me.

The next few pages had, chillingly, photographs. It was hard to focus enough to read the text around them, but according to the captions they had all been sent by physical mail or email, some having been discovered by police in ‘intercepted phones’.

“Wha–what are intercepted phones?” I asked, my voice a mere whisper. Ulysses Caron’s reply matched my tone. “Phones intercepted by police during reids, investigations or after criminals are arrested. Some were found internationally and sent to Savoy Police.”

I nodded as though I didn’t have another million follow up questions. The photos were of me, but in cases when I had been photographed with other people, there were pictures of them as well.

They were pictures of me walking my dogs near my apartment, in Tallmound, before Louis died. Pictures of me walking to and from the parking lot at work, both before Louis died and on the day I went to quit. Pictures of me in the gardens of the Palace, in some places we knew people could see from the gates. It didn’t usually bother us as it wasn’t an issue unless they were watching to wait for us.

These weren’t paparazzi pictures, they were worse. Grainy, from farther away, from an upper angle – drones? My head hurt. I felt dizzy. My stomach ached. In one picture, I was walking near the beach with Lourdes in Corsilla.

I looked up at Mr. Caron, realizing the room had fallen into a deep, strained silence as they waited for me to say anything.

“My sister. Is she–is she pictured, too?” Mr. Caron looked at my father before replying. I did, too. He was still quietly looking inwards. “Yes, ma’am.” Mr. Caron said, finally. “Not as frequently. But there has also been a recent rise.” I fought back tears. “And–Did th–Louis?” I stuttered. He nodded, gravely.

I closed the folder with a thud. I looked away, at the windows. The sun was setting outside.

“Don’t you see…?” I asked, weakly. “This is why we can’t train our officers differently.” I looked back at them. “You’re deciding that some of us receive more threats than others and therefore we need different security, but what is stopping anyone who wishes to harm us from harming someone we love to get to us?!” “I assure you, ma’am, all our officers are highly trained to the task they need to perform–”

I got to my feet, breathless. Slowly, I walked around the chair and rested a hand on it, the other now clutching the heavy folder. I thought of my brother reminding me to stand up for myself, and of the reminder Harry had written in the book he sneaked into my bag.

I looked back at them, and sighed.

“You are going to double the number of protection officers in my sister’s detail.” I said, as authoritative as I could. “Double–?” Mr. Caron started. “And Cadence Mendel is going to be my Private Secretary.” I said, as if I hadn’t been interrupted. “Auguste can stay on for support. He can be a… consulting aide. I’m sure his experience will be valuable.” “Margueritte.” My father started. I did not acknowledge him. “Joyce Espinoza will head my security detail.” “Ma’am, she does not have the necessary training–” “Then train her!” I said. “It is not enough for security to be well trained, clearly, as your supposedly highly trained officers were sleeping while I ran off in London. If they had known me, if I had trusted them, like I do with Joyce, I assure you that would not have happened.” He didn’t have an answer. He did look at my father though, helplessly. “Training is not enough, Mr. Caron. Our security is with us wherever we go, we must trust them. Intimacy isn’t a replacer for training, either, so let’s work on both. Okay?” “Margueritte.” My father tried again. “Why don’t we talk about this privately?” “That won’t be necessary.” I replied. “It would have been useful months ago, after Louis passed. Now I don’t need to, anymore.” I looked at him, finally, calmly. “I will do good work, dad. I will. I will do work that I am proud to do, and that Louis would have been proud of, too. And I will be happy to do it. But let it be known that I will do it because I am choosing to do it.” I looked at the rest of them. “I did not want this.” I confessed. “I wish for nothing more than for my brother to be in this meeting instead of me. But I am all you have.”

Still, they were silent.

“Well, I will do it. Not because I have to. What can you do, really, if I refuse to? Throw me in jail?” I echoed Constance’s words, a humorless grin in my lips. “You need me. You have me. So, I am willing to discuss my work. But we will not compromise on my staff, or on my security. Or Lourdes’ security.” “Margueritte.” My father repeated, more forcefully now. “I am a lawyer. A good one.” I stopped him, angrily. “I had my own life before this and I can get it back. Say no and I will just send a resume and get another job next week.” I told them, daringly, shrugging. “I do not need or want the Crown. If you want to take it, this is what I need. If not,” I sighed, heavily, “well, let’s hope Lourdes is ready to be Queen.”

I waited, breathing heavily, anxious, hands shaking. My father said nothing else. Neither did any of the others. I could barely see them through my anger.

“I expect my Private Secretary to get in touch in the next twenty-four hours so we can get to work. If not,” I sighed, “You can expect my abdication letter by the end of the week.”

With that, I turned on my heels, and left the room.

--- ---- ---

Business Bitch Outfit

[A/N: ITS 6 AM AND I HAVE NOT SLEPT. I HAVE WORK IN 5 HOURS. I HAVE A HEADACHE. THIS IS ALL TO SAY PLEASE FORGIVE ANY SPELLING/GRAMMAR/NONSENSE MISTAKES. Seriously, I am so grateful for your patience. I had to move out of my house in 2 weeks into a much more expensive apartment. First time I had to do the whole moving process thing (long story) and it is not great. 0/10 do not recomend. Why do I own stuff? Also my job is not going well. I fully expect to be let go in January. Maybe I am being a paranoid anxious bitch maybe I am being a self aware queen. We’ll see. But it’s definitely the second option. Anyway, I’m all unpacked now and loving living alone for the first time ever. I think that’s all I needed to say. Oh, also, I did some research for the death threat part but -- thankfully -- I am not fully versed on it, so sorry if its a little cringe? Anyway. Let me know your thoughts?! What do you think will happen? Will Maggie’s boss bitch ultimatum work?! Will the dramatic Chris breakup leak to the papers?! Tune in next week to find out! LOVE YOU!]

[chroniclesinlacuna]

Under Watchful Stars (read on ao3)

Pairing: m!detective (Santi Reyes) x Adam (more platonic at this point though) Warnings: blood mention, brief violence, death mention (nightmares) Words: ~2.2k Rating: G Summary: There are nights Santi just needs to get out. And sometimes, those nights take him to places he probably shouldn’t be.

He thought it’d smell like bleach, honestly.

He didn’t know why. There was no real reason for it to. They had actual magic at their disposal. Why would they stoop to bleach? And, even if they had, it had been months. There was nothing left of whatever they had used - the place smelled only of mildew and green, a bit of sharp rust where the rainwater from a couple nights ago had gathered in scattered puddles.

Santi had found a dry spot, marred only by dirt and dried up leaves. He’d plopped down without much thought for either once he’d made sure whatever magic they’d worked had gotten rid of the stains in the old cracked concrete. The only sign left from the whole incident was the hole in the ceiling.

Well. That might not be entirely true. But whatever bravado had led him here hadn’t quite given him enough courage to go check the back rooms to see if they’d left the equipment.

Instead, he stayed in the large, quiet cavern of a room, staring up at the pinpricks of stars through the ceiling. It was a clear night, and the moon was little more than a sliver - there was no light about, this deep in the woods, to hide them.

He felt...exposed, under their watch. Exposed, but...okay. And he hadn’t felt that in a long while.

Something was watching, and that something didn’t care where he was. Didn’t care where he went, didn’t care why he did something.

And, sure, maybe he was giving way too much agency to balls of gas thousands of lightyears away, but he liked the feeling it gave him, so he didn’t much care. No one was around to judge him for it right now anyway.

Under the stars’ watchful but uncaring gaze, he let his head tip back against the wall, his eyes slipping closed. Of all the places he could’ve picked, he felt safer here than he had in weeks in his apartment. Not even the warehouse had quite given him this moment - sure, he felt safe there. How could he not, with four vampires that had at least some interest in his well being and 24/7 security features?

But his place at the warehouse was still new. And it looked exactly like his apartment.

He’d woken up there the two nights before from another nightmare, and he’d had to get out. He’d gotten a text at the station asking after him, for disappearing that morning, but when he’d said he’d had to get in early, it had dropped easy enough.

Then he’d tried to sleep in his own apartment the night before, he’d found it impossible and ended up spending most of the night on the couch watching netflix and pointedly not looking at the mirror that was still covered. And tonight...tonight he’d just needed to walk away. Had thrown on one of his growing collection of hoodies and headed out with no real plan in mind. It’s too hot a night for it - but like hell Santi would go without these days.

It wasn’t the first time, wouldn’t be the last most likely.

It was the first time his wandering had brought him here though, so, hey, he’d give credit to his subconscious for the variety at least.

There’s no sound to indicate he’s no longer alone there, under the stars. If asked how he knew without opening his eyes, he wouldn’t be able to explain. Maybe he’s just spending too much time with vampires. Maybe he’s just getting used to them.

“Honestly? I was expecting one of you earlier.” He mumbles into the quiet, not bothering to open his eyes. It was true - he’d actually expected one of them yesterday, when he’d stopped answering texts about midday. They were okay with the whole concept of personal space, up until contact was cut completely. It was one of their...endearing qualities, most days.

He can feel the glare being leveled at him. It would normally make him smile - just a little. Tonight, he doesn’t have the energy. “Can you save the yelling for tomorrow? I’ll even listen to the first half of it, if you like.” It’s a lie, and they both know it. Santi always listens.

There’s finally a sound - a carefully controlled exhale as Adam makes a decision. More sounds then, as Adam drops down to sit beside him, rustling up leaves and dirt against the concrete - and then back to silence.

Santi had wanted to be alone, he knew, on some level. But, honestly? Having Adam at his side helps him relax just that last little bit - that tiny, ever present anxiety wriggling at the back of his mind finally going, blissfully, quiet.

He lets the silence sit for a long couple of moments before he has to ask. “How?”

Adam doesn’t answer, and he finally cracks one eye open to look at him. He looks decidedly uncomfortable - for Adam at least. “...Phone?” he asks, as nonchalantly as he can manage. Adam grimaces and nods, so he just snorts and closes his eye again. “Don’t worry. I’ll still keep it with me.” If he didn’t know better, he’d think he’d heard a sigh of relief.

“Why?” Adam finally asks, after another long stretch of undisturbed night sky between them.

“Gonna have to be more specific there.” Santi offers back. Another glare he can feel, and this time the corner of his mouth quirks up.

“...Why did you stop answering? Mason was worried.”

Santi hums softly, shrugging a shoulder. “Just...needed to get away for a bit, that’s all.”

“Thursday morning?” It’s not a sure question, more like a sudden realization.

“I left around three that morning.” He’d been a little surprised he’d managed to get out without anyone noticing. But, then, they all had their own little corners they stuck to, if they weren’t all together. He’d picked up their patterns within the first couple of weeks. Had a sneaking suspicion, after this, that they’d at least try to change it up. That thought didn’t aggravate him nearly as much as it probably should.

“Did I..we do something?” And this one’s softer. Worried. That has Santi opening his eyes to meet Adam’s.

“No.” There’s the slightest twitch to Adam’s shoulders as they drop just that fraction. “Needed to get away from my own head for a bit.” And he’s so going to regret admitting this, but...well. Adam’s right there. And he feels safer than he has in a long while. “It’s...not the first time it’s happened.” Well, he’s tense again. Shit.

Santi sighs, scrubbing a hand down his face. “If it helps at all, this is the first time I’ve come here? Normally I just hang out on my couch until it goes away. If it’s really bad, I’ll go to the diner down the street and hang out there until I’m needed somewhere.” And, maybe, once or twice, he’s just wandered the woods until his mind quieted. He hasn’t done that since Murphy though, so he keeps that one to himself.

That seems to mollify him, at least enough that he’s no longer staring at him. Santi eyes him for another long moment to make sure he’ll actually accept that answer before letting his head drop back against the wall again, looking up at the stars.

You could hear a pin drop in the silence that follows. “...You want to ask the other ‘why’?” he offers.

Adam doesn’t answer, but he does see him look back over from the corner of his eyes, a frown pulling at his lips. Santi says nothing more, just waiting. There’s what sounds suspiciously like an annoyed huff, and the barest tilt of a nod after it becomes clear that Santi won’t continue without an answer of some kind.

And Santi...Santi could lie. Knows he could. Can taste it, at the back of his throat, like oil bubbling up from the sinking feeling in his chest. Knows the lie well enough that he’d likely get away with it too.

He doesn’t know. He wasn’t thinking about it. It’s nothing.

He’s been telling himself the same damn lie for the last couple of months. Because honestly? It wasn’t a complete lie.

Sure, he’s been thinking about it. Yes, it’s something. But he doesn’t know why.

Murphy was caught. He helped with that. Murphy’s currently locked away, and though the method of containment still makes him shudder, it does mean that Murphy can’t come get him.

He came here because Murphy can’t come get him. This chapter of his life was done.

So why didn’t it feel like that? Why did he still dream of that night? Of teeth sinking into his throat and tearing free? Of bleeding out and...and not waking up. Of seeing Adam above him, and not being able to make out his face. Only just being able to hear him.

He doesn’t remember what he’d said to Adam. Knows he’d said something.

But his dreams always end with him closing his eyes, and falling.

“Santiago?” Adam’s voice is low, almost soft again. Too curled around concern to quite make it there.

“Because it’s done. Murphy’s gone. Nothing new is going to come crawling out of the woodwork here.” But they might, in his apartment. Hell, there was a reason his mirror was still covered, even if the Maa-alused had signed the treaty. Some nights he looked around his room - both in the apartment and at the warehouse - and just...wondered. And it was never a pleasant experience, realizing just how much he doesn’t know.

Normally? He was excited about the supernatural world. It was huge, and grand, and fucking terrifying - sometimes in the best way possible, and sometimes in the regular way that made him feel weak.

Either way, what he said doesn’t make a whole lot of sense, and he knows it. But finds he has no more energy to elaborate. And whether Adam understood him, or understands him, in that moment, he doesn’t push any further. Instead, Santi sees him turn his eyes to the stars, letting the silence and stars between them settle back into place.

There’s a buzzing that breaks that weighted but comfortable quiet, a little while later, and Adam looks annoyed at the culprit when he pulls it from his pocket. Santi’s feeling better enough to openly smile at the familiar look.

“...It’s Felix.”

“Mm. Wondering where you are?”

“Wondering where we are.” Adam huffs back before tapping away some answer. Santi’s not too worried about another three vampires crashing in, if only because of the way Adam silences his phone before shoving it back into his pocket. When he sees Santi’s look, he rolls a shoulder. “Told him we’d be back in a little while.”

There’s a question in there somewhere, so Santi nods. He’s feeling better. Not entirely there yet, wherever there is, but better.

They don’t move again until the sky starts to turn a bruised purple, stars slowly fading from sight as dawn creeps closer. Santi’s almost sad to see them go.

“It’s getting warmer out.” Adam says, in that special, disinterested way he has, as he stands and offers a hand to help Santi up. It’s such a practiced tone Santi sometimes wonders if he came by it naturally or not.

“Yeah.” Is all he gives in return as he takes the man’s hand. Adam hauls him up like he weighs nothing, and he should be annoyed about it, but, honestly? It’s comforting, in it’s own way, even if he’d never admit it out loud.

Especially not when Adam’s glaring at him again. Santi just gives him a lopsided smile in return. They both know the hoodies are new. Santi because he bought the damn things, and Adam...well, Adam can probably still smell the store on them. The crisp not-bleach scent that tends to follow most new clothes around that haven’t had time to get washed and broken in just yet.

The one he’s wearing now is nothing special. A size too big, a hood that bunches around his neck, plain black in color, like most of the ones in his closet right now. It’s nothing.

And he hasn’t been able to walk out of the apartment without one in months.

“Scars take time to heal. But you have to let them.” Adam says, as he heads for the entrance, waiting an almost imperceptible moment for Santi to join him. It’s still careful, still skirting the issue, but Santi’s grateful for it right now.

“I know. Just...need a little bit more time is all.” He doesn’t mean it to come out pleading, but he winces as he hears it.

Adam hums, a hand brushing Santi’s arm so lightly it’s probably an accident. Probably. Not likely.

When they make it outside, Santi pauses long enough to take one more real, long look at what’s left of the stars above.

“...It’s technically tomorrow. You can yell at me now if you like.” He says as he starts walking again, hands shoved in his hoodie pockets. He knows Adam hears the unspoken thank you when he laughs that small, delightfully gentle laugh he has, shaking his head and walking beside him again.

“Not this time, I think.” There’s a beat. “But please don’t disappear like that again.” And it’s so stern that all Santi can do is laugh.

[dwaynepride]

a cure i know that soothes the soul

summary: dwayne pride seems to forget that he owns a bed.

words: 1,092

warnings: none

tags: @6adb0y @thegoodlonelydalek @consultingdoctorwholock @starryrevelations @thebeckyjolene @diaryofafan17 @specialagentlokitty @pageofultron @stanathanxoox

Dwayne hasn’t been answering his phone.

He never ignores a phone call; not when he can help it. Calling him five times and texting him three times wasn’t normal. And you know it’s probably nothing. Maybe he’s busy or his phone is on silent or it could be a hundred other reasons why you hit his voicemail five entire times.

Still, that doesn’t ease the anxiety stirring in your belly as you make your way up the stairs to his apartment. There’s just been too much happening, this year. Too much shit flung in Dwayne’s direction for you to not worry when he doesn’t answer his phone.

His spare key (the one unknown to the team that you even have) is already in your hand when you reach the door. With a turn of the lock, you’re slowing pushing open the door. There’s no noise, from what you can hear. No food cooking or music playing or even the dull sound of the shower running. No lights, apart from the faint sunbeams coming in through the curtains.

But still no sign of Dwayne.

At least until you fully step into the apartment. The sunlight is just strong enough to fill the place with a faint golden light, and it shows you a table stacked with piles of paper and case files and a half-full mug of coffee that’s gone cold hours ago. And laid out over all that was a sleeping, snoring Dwayne Pride.

The tight ball of worry loosens at the sight of him - still wearing his work clothes from yesterday. Looking all tight and tense from falling asleep at the table, but he’s safe, so you’re not really being too picky right now.

Your footfalls are quiet and careful as you make your way over, unable to keep a smile away. Sure, you disapprove of his sleeping habits. Lately, Dwayne tends to just keep going until he passes out. Even your pleading for a healthier sleep schedule hasn’t gotten him to change his ways.

And you know it’s because of his dreams. That’s why you’re happy to see him sleeping, in the first place.

Once you stop at his side, Dwayne sighs a little. As if he knows you’re there, somewhere. His hand gives a small twitch.

Briefly, you wonder how long he’s been sleeping. Hopefully, it’s more than just a couple hours. Because as much as you wish you could leave him here to keep sleeping, you know the rest of the team will be looking for him, eventually. The day was going to start whether you want it to or not.

You take another small step closer, leaning into Dwayne’s space and reaching out with your hand. His hair is already messy and all over the place; but still soft to the touch as you drag your fingertips through the strands right above his ear. You stroke his hair back and forth a few times - gently, so you don’t wake him too abruptly.

And as Dwayne inhales and starts moving around, your hand comes up to smooth back the hair on the top of his head. The light gray strands escape your grasp, arching back forward to touch his forehead. “Wakey, wakey,” you muse out, voice soft and warm.

Dwayne, on the other hand, lets out a deep, bear-like groan. Eyes screwing shut as he tries to will his achy muscles to move. You can imagine how sore he must be after sleeping at the table for potentially hours; that’s why you hated it when he doesn’t go to bed. He doesn’t get as rested as he should be.

But still, you feel the way his head leans subconsciously into your hand. And when your fingers lightly graze his scalp, the groan turns more into a pleased moan.

“You haven’t been answering your phone.”

He lets out a confused little sound as he struggles to sit up straight. And finally, Dwayne blinks his eyes open to squint up at you. As if he’s just now realizing you’re the one who woke him up. “Hm? Oh, uh, left in the bedroom,” he says in a rough voice. “Ya called?”

“Mhm. Five times,” you answer. And you try to sound stern, for all the worry he caused.

But frankly, it’s damn hard to sound stern when Dwayne is stretching his stiff limbs. Pops his back and yawns loudly and looks back up to you with bleary eyes and makes it impossible to be mad when he’s looking so sleepy. “Sorry,” is all he offers.

You just let out a cross hum, and your hand drops down to curve against his cheek (which is imprinted with the seam of his shirt sleeve). “Did you forget to go to bed last night? I keep warning you that falling asleep in random places isn’t good for you.” And proving you right, Dwayne groans a little in pain as he tries to stand.

“I was workin’ late, baby. Had some stuff to catch up on.”

“Well, I don’t like it,” you follow him as Dwayne stiffly walks to the kitchen. And eventually, you come up to his side to look him in the eye. Make him see that you’re serious. “Promise me you’ll sleep in a bed tonight, alright?”

He blinks, grabs the coffee pot, and then looks to you. And despite the exhaustion heavy on his face, Dwayne smirks. Eyes soft and even a bit playful. “That an invitation?”

“Dwayne-”

“I’m kiddin’, I’m kiddin’.” He moves past you to the sink, still wearing that teasing smile. “I promise I’ll sleep in a bed tonight. Cross my heart.”

He sounds genuine. And when Dwayne promises something, it’s not so easily broken.

So you don’t give the groggy man any backchat about his vow. Instead, you walk up to stand beside him. Lean against sink as he fills the coffeepot with water. Your arm is pressing against his - warm and solid. And just as the water is reaching the very top line, Dwayne yawns. Long and loud and serves as a reminder of his poor sleeping habits, and how important it is that he gets at least one good night’s rest.

“I could come over tonight,” you offer. Dwayne looks sideways to you with a raised eyebrow, so you shrug. “Just to make sure you keep your promise.”

His smile returns, and when he starts leaning in, you instinctively go up to your tiptoes to meet him in a chaste kiss. Dwayne nudges your nose with his. “Sure. I’ll need the initiative.”

[hurricanery]

If You Went Away - pt. 1

A/N: This story is going to be multiple parts. Inspired by this prompt, this prompt & a couple other prompts requesting Amelink fighting & Scout kind of wrapped up in the middle of it. I’m getting a lot of requests for angst and I’m down with writing angst soooo here we go- I put my own twist on it for the purpose of making it multiple chapters and it kinda ended up more depressing than I intended yikesssss. But also, I promise it gets better/more positive. I made Scout a little older in this story (age 5).

_______

Listen here, listen close

You’re the one I love the most

And if you went away

I don’t know what I’d do

_______

(one year ago)

“You should go,” Amelia mumbles, as she lays in bed, facing Link.

Link raises his eyebrows, frowning slightly. “I don’t understand,” he speaks slowly. “What changed?”

Amelia furrows her brows, perplexed. “Well nothing changed, technically, I-”

“When I was first offered this job….before Scout was even born,” Link interrupts. “We decided, together, that there were more important things in our lives.”

“Yeah….” Amelia draws out her response. “And I agreed with you then, I guess. But,” she pauses, reaching over to give Link’s bicep a squeeze. “They offered it again. I….just feel like when an opportunity presents itself more than once….there’s more to consider. It has to mean something, right?”

Link just looks at her blankly. There’s a brief silence before Amelia speaks again.

“It’s the Seattle Mariners,” she smiles encouragingly, “It’s your dream job.”

Link nods in agreement. And Amelia tries to ignore what that does to her. Because, even though she’s being encouraging, she knows what underlying feelings are truly there. Somewhere, in the back of her mind, it’s her own guilt that’s causing her to feign encouragement right now. Her own guilt and fear that she’s trapped him here, in this relationship. In this city. In this job. That when she got pregnant in the first place, she’d rushed them into things and forced a relationship. Forced a lifestyle.

She quickly tries to shake her thoughts. Thinking of anything that will make her feel better about this. Anything that will feel like compromise. “It’s only temporary,” she decides. “It’s not like you’ll be gone forever.”

“Right,” Link agrees, reaching forward to tuck a stray piece of hair behind Amelia’s ear. “Temporary.”

_______

(6 months ago)

‘It’s not like you’ll be gone forever’

Amelia chuckles bitterly at the memory as she walks from her ER consult. It had been 6 months and Link was still away from them, completely consumed by his travel schedule as the Mariners’ team surgeon. He’d come home about once a month, on a weekend, and spend as much time with Amelia and Scout as he could. But, it never felt like enough. Both parents couldn’t ignore the way Scout’s face would fall each Sunday night. When the weekend would close in on them and the knowledge of Link’s early flight out the next day would settle in.

The weekends become less and less. Link’s time allotted to return home becomes more scarce as unforeseen injuries happen on the team. They both know the effect it’s having on Scout.

“Hey, Amelia!” Maggie’s voice interrupts her thoughts as she walks into the attending’s lounge. “I was just going to grab lunch, wanna join me?”

“I’m supposed to FaceTime with Link in a minute, actually…” She trails off as a text message comes in from Link, confirming the call they are about to have.

“Isn’t he coming home this weekend? For Scout’s birthday?”

“Yeah,” Amelia breathes, but she can’t help the worried feeling creeping into her chest. Something about Link’s text seems off. “Yeah, he’s supposed to be.”

Maggie frowns, clearly recognizing Amelia’s distress.

And Amelia forces a smile, sighing deeply. “Well, I’m going to go call him.”

_______

Her intuition was right.

She tries to suppress the anger and resent that threatens to take over as she stares at her phone screen, listening to the words coming out of Link’s mouth. She feels like she’s only gathering certain pieces.

Something about ‘emergency surgery’

And ‘missing his flight’

And ‘I’ll make it up to him I promise’

“We can’t keep doing this to him,” She interrupts Link in the middle of his detailed explanation.

“I know,” he sighs back, through the phone.

“It’s his birthday,” Amelia’s voice almost breaks on the word. “He’s been talking about you all week. What am I supposed to tell him?”

“That I’m sorry,” Link quickly responds. “And I love you guys. And I’ll be home as soon as I can.” He regrets his words the moment he sees Amelia’s face fall in disbelief. Clearly not the response she had wanted.

“Amelia,” He continues. “I did get some good news today.”

“What’s that?”

“I got the approval from my boss. To have Scout with me this summer. When school gets out he can come to all the away games….like we’d planned. What do you think?”

Amelia nods numbly. This was always a part of the plan. They’d promised Scout a summer full of away games when his school break came around. It was something for him to look forward to.

“And you too, obviously,” Link adds. “Whenever your work schedule allows, of course. Think about it! The three of us out here travelling, it’ll be perfect! Everything we’ve wanted!”

Silence falls between them and Amelia zones out momentarily, subconsciously picking at the loose fabric of the couch she’s sitting on in the attending’s lounge.

She doesn’t realize she’s said anything out loud until she feels the shakiness of her own voice.

“I think we should take a break.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean I think we should….separate. For a while.”

“Amelia…” Link frowns, trying to understand. “We are basically separate right now, we….we never see each other. Aren’t we already kind of-”

“Exactly,” she interrupts.

“I still don’t understand.”

“I think what you just said sums it up perfectly. We basically already are.”

“Yeah, but. This is temporary...I’m coming back. I’m-”

“I mean something a little more permanent.”

Link doesn’t say a word.

“I mean I don’t think I’ll be joining you guys this summer.”

_______

(summer - present day)

The door hesitates open and she’s glass before him. Hard, stoic, refusing to meet his eyes. She’s staring at his feet. Or maybe at the doormat, which ironically reads ‘welcome’ in all capital letters.

Link almost wants to laugh as he reads the word, glancing down at the ‘welcome’ mat, feeling anything but welcome. He almost wants to laugh, but he doesn’t.  And she’s clearly not in the mood to laugh either.

He can tell by the way that she’s not yet made eye contact that Amelia’s putting up a front. She’s glass. Detached and oh, so stoic.

She sniffs. And clears her throat. And Link reminds himself that glass is shatterable somewhere down the line.

“Hi Amelia,” he speaks. “It’s good to see you. How’ve you been?”

"Just fine. You?” Her voice sounds raspy as she answers him, like she hasn’t spoken properly in a while. Or maybe it’s been so long since he’s heard her voice, that Link doesn’t recognize it accurately. He quickly refutes that idea. Impossible.  

"Good.”

The eye contact they manage to hold is scarce, and Amelia darts her eyes away once again, clamping down on her bottom lip with a row of white teeth.

“So I, uh, I’ve packed up all of his things…” her sentence dwindles as she waits for a nod, or something, from Link.

“It’s all in the living room. There’s not much to do…..should be a quick exchange.” She mumbles, shuffling behind the door a little, an effort to let Link inside.

He takes a deep breath before he steps over the threshold.

Amelia clears her throat as she leads the way into the house. She nods toward the pile of Scout’s luggage in the corner. “Everything’s there,” she states plainly. She then turns the corner briefly, yelling up the stairs. “Scout! Come downstairs, your Dad’s here!”

Link watches curiously as he follows Amelia through to the kitchen. She reaches out for a jar of peanut butter and a spoon that’s already been sitting out, like she’d been snacking on it just before Link arrived.

“Really, Amelia?” Link chuckles, offering a small smile. “Peanut butter out of the jar? Is that your dinner?”

“I haven’t grocery shopped in while,” she mutters, mouth full. And Link picks up on a hint of a smile.

Silence fills the space between them as Link starts to gather up some of Scout’s belongings.

“I would’ve stopped and gotten pizza or something for you guys,” he offers, finally.

Amelia just frowns, shrugging off the idea.

“He’s going to get hungry during the car ride Ames-” he stutters on the nickname, then immediately corrects himself. “Amelia.”

He ignores whatever emotion waves across her features as a result of the nickname use. He thinks it might be shock. But then she’s speaking at him, her tone somewhere between disbelief and defensiveness.

“Why are you accusing me of….” She trails off briefly, frustrated at the direction of her thoughts. “Scout ate dinner an hour ago...you thought I just...wasn’t going to feed him? Or-”

“Can we not do this? Right now? Please?” Link cuts her off.

“Do what? I’m just saying-” She stops talking abruptly by the look on Link’s face. Clearly not in the mood to spend his time arguing.

“I wasn’t trying to accuse you of anything,” he mutters calmly, hands raised in defense.

“Just pack up the car,” she whispers, suddenly entranced by the ingredients on the peanut butter packaging.

And Link does.

And Amelia busies herself with dishes as Link moves in and out of the house, loading luggage into his car.

_______

Link’s down to the last few items, heading to the front door, when Scout finally comes running down the stairs.

“Dad!” The 5-year-old yells excitedly.

He turns around just in time to witness his little man, having just jumped over the last few steps of the stairs, collapse against him, hugging himself to Link’s legs.

Link chuckles, setting down the stuff he was carrying. “Hey bud! I am so happy to see you! Look at you, you’re so big!”

Scout steps back, looking up at his Dad. “Mom said we get to go to baseball games all summer!”

“That’s true,” he ruffles Scout’s hair. “And…” He pauses for dramatic effect. “You get to meet the baseball players, too.”

Scout opens his mouth wide in excitement. There’s practically a sparkle in the kid’s eye and Link loves the sight of it. He has his mother’s eyes, and Link loves the sight of that, too.

“Want to help me finish loading up the car, bud?”

Scout nods enthusiastically, following his Dad outside.

The house is quiet now, and Amelia listens from the kitchen to the distant sounds of her son babbling excitedly outside. An aching feeling rises in her chest and she tries her best to suppress it. She pulls herself together and makes her way toward the front hallway.  Link re-enters the house with Scout trailing behind him moments later.

“You all packed up?” Amelia tries to sound excited as she asks Scout, but her voice just sounds thin and strained.

“Yep!” Scout replies, his energy radiating in such a way that he can barely stand still in his position on the front porch.

“Okay, then. Guess it’s time to go,” Amelia mutters.

And with that Scout takes off, sprinting towards the car eagerly and yelling back at his Dad. “Dad, come on! Come on let’s go!”

“Wait Scout, get back here!” Link yells after him. “Come say goodbye to your Mom first.”

But Scout is already inside the car, climbing into the backseat and mumbling enthusiastically to himself.

“Scout did you hear me?!” Link is starting to sound a little exasperated.  

Still no compliance from the young boy.

“Scout!”

“He heard you, he heard you!” Amelia interrupts, forcing a tight smile. Link looks back at her. “It’s fine, really. We already said goodbye.”

Link frowns. “Okay, but still-”

“Dad!” Scout suddenly yells from the car, interrupting them. “Can we get pizza on the way?!”

Amelia sucks in a breath. But then immediately tries to hide her pain, because this whole interaction just stings.

“Uhhhh,” Link draws out his reaction. “I’ll think about it, buddy. I know you already ate. So we’ll see-”

“Can you just go, please?” Amelia interrupts harshly, her head hanging low, in an attempt to hide her face.

Link frowns, taking in Amelia’s demeanor. Her neck is flushed and she’s clearly upset. And clearly trying to hide it.

“Amelia, I’m sorry,” he mumbles, reaching for her wrist.

He doesn't know why he does it. Muscle memory maybe. An attempt to comfort the woman that looks so breakable before him.

She recoils from his touch, snatching her wrist out of his grasp faster than he’d expect from someone seemingly so apathetic.

She finally looks at Link, and it practically kills him. The way her face twists when she’s trying not to cry.

“Please,” she rasps. “Please just go.”

And Link complies. Amelia wraps her trembling fingers around the door knob as Link goes to leave.

He steps out onto the porch, turning to face Amelia. He wants to say something. And by the look in Amelia’s stinging eyes, he needs to say something. He goes to open his mouth, not sure what’s going to come out, when Amelia swiftly shuts the door.

He stands there, frozen.

Long enough to hear the broken sob from the other side of the door.

Long enough to feel his heart sink, and for an ache to develop in the back of his throat.

But he turns around. He forces a smile on his face and walks toward the car, locking eyes with his bright-eyed son in the back seat. He walks away from Amelia.

_______

[the-broken-truth]

Lady in the Water  - Water Nymph Helena Klein x Anastasia Wulf (Love & Legends MC)

Summary: Anastasia has been having the same dream over and over again for the past 4 weeks: A heavenly voice humming, a pond with water that illuminates that the full moon, a woman with eyes deep as sapphires calling to her. Her King & her friends think that she’s just stressed from the war and she needs a vacation. One night, while sleeping in her bed, Anastasia hears it again - The singing - but will she find the woman behind it?

Note: This version of Anastasia was born in this world.

Inspired by @xcclx3‘s Water Nymph Helena Klein Picture

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“My Love. Come to me.” She was calling to me again. Her sapphire eyes piercing through my soul, pulling my body towards her without a single thought.

“Come to me, Anastasia. Become one with me.” She called out to me again as she reached out her hand for me to take. “Come to me and let us never be apart again.” I reached out for her hand, over fingertips almost touched…

*KNOCK*

*KNOCK*

*KNOCK*

The sudden knocking at my door caused me to jump up, sitting upright in my bed, clenching my racing heart as I looked around the room - My room in King Reiner Wolfson’s Castle. The sunlight was shining through my curtains as I exhaled. The beating at the door returned and I turned my gaze to it.

You may enter.” I called out to the person on the other side of the door. The door opened to reveal Solaire Lightwing - King Wolfson’s Servant and Cook. 

“Good Morning, Lady Wulf. Are you well? You didn’t come down for breakfast.” Solaire asked me as she walked into the room with a plate of food for me. I pushed the blankets off my body and sat on the edge, running my hand through my hair. 

“I’m fine, Solaire. Thanks for your concern. Does Lord Reiner need me for something?” I asked looking back at her.

“Lord Reiner and the rest of the Retainers are waiting in the War Room for your attendance.” Solaire explained. 

“Okay. Tell them I’ll be down soon. I just need to eat and get dressed.” With that, Solaire dismissed herself, leaving me alone in my room. I looked at the breakfast and began to eat while my mind drifted off again.

‘Who was that woman? Why does she call me ‘My Love’? What does she want from me?’ I thought as I finished my breakfast, got dressed in my armor, and made my way down to the War Room.

[Timeskip - In The War Room]

“Now, we have the Witch Queen’s Army on the defensive but what we don’t know is what she could be planning over there. She could be developing a massive weapon to use against us or...Champion Anastasia, are you listening?” Lord’s Reiner’s voice called out to me. I jolted in my seat, turning my gaze from the window I was looking out of and turned to face everyone.

“Huh? Wha?” I stuttered.

“Little Raven, are you alright? It’s like your mind is not one with your body.” Altea called out to me.

“No, I’m...I’m just...I’m just tired.” I said. August raised an eyebrow at me, not believing me one bit.

“Was it that dream again?” He asked.

“Let it go, August.” I told him. He just sighed at me.

“Anastasia, I know you’ve been having that dream for the past few weeks but I insist - there is no woman in the water around here that is calling to you.” He said. I glared at him.

“A repetitive dream usually has meaning, August. If you don’t think it has meaning, tell me why I’ve been having it for the past 4 weeks, every...single...night.” I narrowed my eyes at him.

“My Raven, perhaps you are just stressed from the war. You have been on the front lines, repelling the With Queen’s advances for weeks; not to forget that you took a spell right to the gut for Lord Reiner. Maybe you need a vacation.” Altea suggested.

“I’m not stressed, Altea; nor am I crazy. I hear her singing in my head every night; begging me to come with her, to be with her, but I don’t know who she is or what she wants from me. It’s...exhausting me.” I said as I dropped my head in my hands. Everyone shuffled in their seats as if they were looking at each other for the answer but no one said anything until Lord Reiner spoke.

“Anastasia, you are a valuable champion and a treasured friend; I think Altea is right, maybe you should have some time off. I ask you this, not as your king, but as your friend.” Reiner spoke in his strong but caring voice. I looked into the eyes of all my friends and nodded; maybe they were right, I just need a break. I excused myself from the table and left the room.

��Maybe I can find something fun to do in town.’ I thought to myself.

[Later that night]

I threw myself on my bed with a satisfied sigh; the day was good and I didn’t think about that woman, maybe she was just a figment of my imagination from the stress of war, just like Altea said. I began to close my eye to relax before a cold presence hummed from the back of my neck; I froze with a gasp, my body locked, my eyes widened and her voice came back.

‘Do you wish to forget me, My Love? Do you honestly think they know what is going on between us? No, My Darling, they no nothing.’ Her voice whisper to me as a breeze picked up in my room from the open window.

“What? Who...Who are you? Why can’t I move? What do you want from me?” I asked through locked teeth.

‘Let me show you, My Love. Let yourself go...and come to me.’

That’s when I felt my body loosen...as did my grip on my subconscious.

[Point of View Change: Saerys]

Lounging on the roof of the castle to watch the clouds moving across the star-filled sky on a full moon night was a good way to pass the time. It liked the quiet but my mind couldn’t come off of what happened with Lady Wulf today; she looked completely exhausted and the same thing about the dream she had - a woman in water? That sounds a lot like a Naiad - A Fresh Water Nymph. There hasn’t been any of those around here for decades, there’s no way one could…

*THUD* 

“Huh?” I said as I pushed myself off my roof and looked down to see what could have made that noise - It was Anastasia, wearing her village clothes and….DID SHE JUST JUMP OUT HER WINDOW?! I watched as she moved in walking speed to the forest but something wasn’t right: Her body posture was all wrong. Her arms were lifeless beside her body and her head was slightly dropped as if she was sleep-walking.

I jump from the room and ran over to her, standing in front of her a few feet.

“Lady Anastasia, what’s the matter with you? Why did you jump out of your window? Where are you going?” I asked but she didn’t answer, she just kept walking, her body swaying with every heavy step she took. I walked forward, grabbing her by her shoulders. “Anastasia!” I called out again but this time she did move; she opened her eyes...and they were blank. They were blank, there was not a single speck of grey in her eyes, just emptiness...and...wait…

‘Her eyes...they are glowing blue.’ I realized. I opened my mouth to speak to her again but when the wind blew by my ear, a voice was carried with it.

‘Do not let him stop you from reaching me, My Love. Knock the demon away.’ I became wide-eyed at what I heard. It was a woman’s voice. It’s called Anastasia ‘My Love’; this was the - ?!

“NGH!” My thoughts were cut off as the back of Anastasia's fist came colliding with my right cheek, knocking me off to the side as Anastasia progressed to the forest, disappearing in the darkness. I clenched my jaw and sat up.

“Damn, she’s got a mean hook.” I groaned.

“Saerys, what happened?” The voice of Iseul rung out as he and Altea came rushing out of the castle.

“It’s Anastasia, something has a hold of her body; I think she was telling the truth about her dream and that woman she’s been seeing is a Naiad.” I explained. Altea’s eyes went wide.

“A Naiad...Wait...Eyes deeper than...Oh no! We have to go! Anastasia’s in danger!” Altea shouted as she ran into the darkness; Iseul and I followed quickly behind her.

[Meanwhile: With Anastasia]

“Come to me, My Love. You are almost there. Soon, we’ll be together again.” Her voice was like honey coating my brain, my body wanted to be with her. My heart wanted to be one with hers. But my mind...I still couldn’t fathom what was going on.

“What are you doing to me?” I asked from the depths of my mind.

“I’m merely fulfilling our promise, My Love.” I was even more confused.

“A promise? What promise?” I asked her.

“The fact that you don’t remember shows that we have been apart for too long. No more shall this be. I will not lose you again. Not to this kingdom. Not to this war. Not to anyone ever again.” Her voice hissed in anger.

“Just who are you?!” I yelled out in my mind.

“Open your eyes and see for yourself, My Love.” With that, my body fell forward and I was kneeling on the ground before a pond...that’s what illuminated like the light of a full moon. I shook my head to be straight my vision when ripples in the water caused me to freeze. 

A slim female lightly tanned hand reached from the top of my vision, coming in contact with my chin and held my head up as I came face to face with her. A woman with lightly tanned skin, long blonde hair, and the deepest blue eyes I had ever seen. Her body was flawless, blue markings traced her skin on her thigh and her arm but the rest of it was covered - not very well - by a silk shaw draped over her shoulder. My face was burning, this masterpiece before me and I couldn’t shake the feeling that I had seen her somewhere in my life. Her lips curled into a smile.

“I’ve waited so long to touch you once again, Anastasia. Did you miss me, My Love?” The woman asked. I stuttered in guilt, I didn’t remember her and I felt ashamed.

“I...I don’t know you...I know I’ve seen your face but I can remember who you are…” I confessed. A displeased look danced across her face before she stood her full height in the pool, causing me to fall back on my knees to look into her eyes. 

“Of course you don’t. The people who separated us the first time made sure that you won’t remember me or our promise. But...that doesn’t matter anymore, My Love.” My face lit up as she lent in and pulled my body into a hug, whispering in my ear...her song.

“Wait...what are you…?” I began but...I was feeling tired. Sleepy. Her song...was draining me of my strength.

“Hush, My Love. You don’t have to worry about anything else anymore. Now that we are together, I will keep our promise and we will be together. Come with me. Let your body fall. Become one with me...my other half.” With each word she said, I felt my body getting wetter and wetter as she slowly pulled my body into the water with her until I was full submerged with her arms wrapped around me and her lips placing kisses on my neck; there was no struggle. No resistance. I was just…

Too Tired.

“ANASTASIA!” A voice called out from the other side of the water.

Altea?

“Pull her out! Hurry, before she drowns!” 

Iseul?

“Leave us alone! You took her from me once, I won’t let you take her again!” 

The woman hissed as I felt another tug on the back of my shirt - I was in the middle of a tug a war until the tug on my back won and I was yanked out of the water with a splash. I began coughing up water as I felt two strong hands held me up, I opened my eyes to see the woman standing in the water with a snarl on her face as she glared at Altea, who was pointing her staff at her. Iseul was aiming his bow at the water woman while in my daze; I heard them.

“I should have known you would try something like this, Klein! You tried to do the same thing to her when she was a child!” Altea hissed at the woman.

Klein? Wait...I know that name.

“She was mine! You took her from me before and I won’t let you do it again! Give her back to me!” Klein hissed out before Altea shot a spell at her as a warning. Klein glared at Altea and Iseul before she looked at me with soft eyes. “I will come back for you, My Love. I promise.” And with that, she dived into the water and disappeared out of sight. Altea and Iseul sheathed them weapons before coming to see if I was okay. One word echoing in my mind.

Klein

Klein

Klein

Then I spoke before I blacked out.

“Helena.”

- TO BE CONTINUED? -

[nsheetee]

Déjà vu

Pairing: Ten x Reader Genre: Childhood Friends to Lovers AU, College AU || Fluff Length: 2.3k Warning: Some swearing, that bad cliche where one character saves the other when a car passes by Summary: You accidentally reunite with your childhood friend Ten after several years of not seeing each other. 

☆ ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ ☆

Do you ever feel like there’s a memory stuck in your head? It’s somewhere in your subconscious, coming out through déjà vu or through dreams, but you can’t actually remember it until you see a particular picture you haven’t seen in a long time or reconcile with an old friend that you haven’t spoken to in a while.

That’s what it felt like when you see Ten again for the first time in 10 years.

He’s taller than you remember. His hair is still the same shade of black, but now it’s chopped shorter to only cover his forehead rather than his eyes. You used to tease him so much about his lankiness and his height and his hair but as you look at him now, you realize he’s grown. He has muscles that stick out of the short sleeves of his shirt and his tan skin glows even under the ugly lights of the classroom.

You sit down, unknowingly clutching the sides of the seat as you watch Ten. He doesn’t seem to have seen you walk in and continues to sketch in a notebook while a dark-haired guy sitting next to him, you assume Ten’s friend, talks to him. Only your luck would bring an old childhood friend back into your life, especially when you’re trying to start on a clean slate at your new university. You contemplate the pros and cons about dropping this class and taking it next semester, but the professor walks in before you can think on it any further.

The professor is a short and square-looking man with a growing bald spot on his head and a sweater vest over his chest. He introduces himself and starts taking attendance. You can almost feel your eyes roll into the back of your head by how monotonous his voice sounds.

“And next is… Chit...Chitta…” Your eyes glare over towards the dark-haired boy who starts snickering and pushing Ten’s arm. You see Ten covering his face with a hand as the professor attempts to say his full name.

“It’s Chittaphon.” You don’t even realize you spoke up until the words leave your mouth. Bodies turn to look at you, but you can only feel the surprised gaze of one pair. You feel like sliding down your seat as Ten’s mouth opens in realization, the corner of his lips coming up as he keep looking at you.

You should’ve kept your mouth shut.

“Is that your name?” The professor asks, looking up from his attendance sheet.

“No, sir. That’s mine. You can call me Ten.” The professor looks between both of you with a raised eyebrow. “I don’t know who they are.” Some people in the class laugh at Ten’s comment and you feel your body heat up with embarrassment.

You definitely should’ve kept your mouth shut.

When the first lecture ends, you’re out of your seat and through the door before the professor can wish the class a good day. You hear Ten’s voice shouting your name as you maneuver through the other students in the building to reach the doors. A hand on your forearm makes you stop in your spot and Ten comes to stand in front of you.

“Huh. It really is you.”

“I thought you didn’t know who I was.” You shake his hands off your forearms.

“Hey, I was just joking.” Ten laughs and you think you just transported 10 years into the past with his words. Memories of Ten playing pranks on you everytime he would come over for his English lessons with your mother dance through your head. You came to this university to begin a new chapter of your life, but seeing Ten makes you a bit homesick. “I can’t believe you’re here.” He finally finishes his thought.

“Me neither. I thought you weren’t smart enough to get into college.” You cross your arms over your chest and a sneaky smile covers Ten’s lips.

“If one of us is not smart enough to get into college, shouldn’t it be you? You ate crayons when we were 7.” He laughs wholeheartedly at the memory and your annoyance gets the better of you. You walk away from him, but Ten trails next to you.

“Do you remember when we played outside after my english lessons? I once dared you to eat a rollie-pollie and you cried.” Ten laughs again as you both walk out of the building, down the sidewalk, and to the bus stop.

“Oh, oh, do you remember the time we went swimming in the lake and--” Ten cuts off. You look at him when he becomes silent.

“Yeah, you stole my clothes and I had to walk home in my bathing suit. I got a cold from that, for your information.” You finish the story bitterly. That was what you remember the story to be but to Ten, that day was a bit more important for him.

It was the day he realized he likes you. Like-likes you.

That day when he picked you up from your house and walked alongside the road with you all the way to the lake, his heart beat a little faster and he tried to fix his hair even though he knew it was going to be ruined by the water soon. He kept pushing you into the street as you walked and you screamed at him to stop because of the cars passing by, Ten laughed, but he stopped for you. And when he came to his tutoring lessons the next few days, he felt genuine guilt when he could hear sniffling and coughing from your bedroom.

Even now, 10 years later, Ten still finds his heart beating uncomfortably fast and his eyes not able to wander from you. How could he stop looking at you when he hasn’t seen you for the past 10 years?

After a short bus ride, you both get off at the same stop and continue to awkwardly walk down the street side by side. No conversation; just a foot of space between both of you and your own earbuds in your ears.

“Why are you following me?” You ask, filling the uncomfortable silence.

“I’m not following you. My apartment is this way.” You scoff at the amount of coincidences that have been happening to you today, sending a quick message in your head to Fate to ask why she hates you. When Ten notices you step up the steps to a building, he stops and turns to face you.

“I live over there.” He points to a tall apartment building across the street. “It looks like you and I will be walking home together every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday.” He smiles cheekily before turning around and continuing his walk to his own home.

When you make it into your apartment, you take off your shoes and lean against the wall, sliding down until your butt meets the wooden floor. You push a sigh out of your lungs, already tired from school and it was only the first day. You contemplate just how bad it is that Ten will be in one of your classes and living only a minute away from you. Despite all of his teasing and the amount of embarrassing memories he has of you, he’s still an old friend and you’ll treat him as such. You just hope the small crush you had on him as a child will stay in the past.

☆☆☆

“Stop moving.” Ten grumbles from beside you, his knee nudging your side as he folds himself between you and the window of the bus. He’s been attempting to draw you on the bus ride home today, but your moving has kept him from getting a good look at your face. You’re a bit scared to look at him, fearing your inability to look away if you get the chance to stare at him.

“Wait,” Ten says suddenly, causing you to stop your movement. “Don’t move. Not even an inch.” He mumbles, his pencil working quickly on his notepad. It’s perched awkwardly on his thigh, and his eyes filter from his paper to you multiple times in several minutes. When the bus stops at your destination, you both leave your seats and walk down the concrete sidewalk.

“Well,” You motion your head to the notepad that’s shoved between Ten’s arm and side. “Are you going to show me the drawing?”

“No.” Ten snorts and continues to walk down the sidewalk as you veer off to the right and climb the steps to your building. Before you can roll your eyes and curse him under your breath, he stops and turns to you.

“What’s your apartment number?”

“What’s it to you?”

“Just tell me. Or I’ll knock on every door on every floor until you answer.” You roll your eyes at his threat, but tell him your apartment number anyways. Ten is exactly the type of person who is extra enough to annoy your neighbors. Later that night, your doorbell rings an annoying number of times in a row. When you open the door, there’s no one there. Only a dish of food with a note attached to it sitting on your doorstep.

“You told me a few days ago you live alone. Here’s some pasta I made. Knowing you, you’re probably the worst cook ever. Don’t starve. - 10”

The hand holding the note drops to your side and you stare down at the glass dish on your doorstep, steam covering the inside of it. It’s fresh.

You curse to yourself, childishly stomping your foot down. That little drawing, cooking, conniving imbecile was squeezing his way back into the chambers of your heart. Little by little, you knew you’d fall for him if he kept doing things like this. You can’t help but accept the pasta, opening the lid to the dish and savouring the aroma as the steam hits you in the face.

Damn it. He’s a good cook, too.

☆☆☆

Towards the end of the semester, your and Ten’s schedules became busy. Riding the bus together for 3 days of the week turned into only 2 days, which then turned into 1 day. It was slightly embarrassing how quickly you got used to Ten being around you, and when he suddenly wasn’t there as much as he used to be, you were even more embarrassed to admit that you miss him. Ten quickly pointed out your happy expression when you saw him approach you at the bus station that day.

“Missed me?” He asks, a slight smirk on his lips that makes you roll your eyes.

“You wish.” You lied. Before another word can be spoken, the bus pulls up and you load into your usual seat with Ten at your side once again. The bus ride is surprisingly peaceful; Ten pulls out his headphones and give one to you, your knees brush together as the bus shakes on it’s bumpy ride down the road. It’s snowed in your area this season already but when you step out of the bus, the small snowflakes take you by surprise and you raise your hand to feel them melt in your palm.

“Hey, Y/N…” Ten trails off as you walk down the sidewalk; your shoulders brushing, your head facing upwards while his sheepishly looks down at his feet.

“Yeah?” You finally reply.

“I have something to confess…” He trails off again.

“What is-” You’re cut off by Ten pulling you into him by your elbow. A car honks loudly as it passes by at what is probably way over the speed limit. You and Ten both watch the car drive by, your bodies way closer than they have been in a long time.

“My confession is that you’re dumb. Why would you walk that close to the road?” Ten scolds you, but you know he’s not mad.

“Because I know you’ll pull me away from the road.”

A feeling of déjà vu takes over you and Ten; you both remembered that day that you went to the lake. The sweet memories of an earlier time when the only thing that mattered was what game you’ll play once you reach your favorite hangout spot at the lake. Ten used to push you into the street and pull you back when you yelled at him, but you always knew he wouldn’t put you into any real harm.

Why kid yourselves? Not much has changed.

“I’m gonna kiss you.” Ten states and your eyes widen at his unexpected words. The grip he has on your elbow pulls you closer, if even possible, and he leans in. You lean away, your mind nor your lips prepared for this new step of your relationship. Your other hand stops him from leaning and he looks confused for a moment.

“Sorry-”

“Just so we have our stories correct; you fell for me first and couldn’t stop yourself from kissing me. I’m just so undeniable.” Ten blinks at your words, surprised at your confidence and at your smirk.

“I hate you.” He mumbles.

“Really?” You hum in fake concentration. “Says the guy who’s about to kiss me.”

Ten’s lips find yours, anything to shut you up. You can’t help but smile; so many of your childhood dreams coming true with this one shared moment. You and Ten kiss for a little while longer until your fingertips are numb from the cold.

“Let’s go up to my apartment.” You suggest after leaning away.

“Oh? Already inviting me up to your place?” Ten teases, not letting you lean too far away.

“Very funny. I have to give you back your dish, and I guess we can kiss a little more.”