#also i have not felt this kind of happiness in a long time

[starmocha]

i'm on the run with you, my sweet love [Sylus/Reader ★ 3737 words ★ Masterlist ★ Series Index ★ AO3] Forever your ride or die. A/N: Happy New Year! I’ve had this story written since Christmas 2024, but I had decided to save it to ring in the new year instead. Kind of based on my favorite Sylus phone call: As You Wish. This is…very………vague…….something…… I’m here for the vibes mostly. :’) Tag list: @miudle @alfredosaws @nezukoo-channn @voidsylus @rose-tinted-kalopsia @valkyyriia 【 request to be added 】

When everything came to a pause, when the whole world had shifted and all eyes were on you, a bounty had been placed on your head and your name suddenly known to the whole universe.

He had whisked you away, his hand in yours, no questions asked.

Where you go, I’ll go with you, he had said, his hold firm, his vow unyielding.

It’s not safe with me. They’ll get you, too, you had warned, giving his hand a little squeeze, almost afraid that you would lose him as well.

Sounds exciting, sweetie.

He had smirked, his lips on yours, a promise that nothing would ever sever his bond with you.

Your arms wrapped around his waist, head pressed to his back, and the sound of his motorcycle raced down the dusty road to nowhere. A trail of dust was left behind, the heat of the sun bore down on you, and the unknown future awaited both of you in the distance.

On the way to the end of the world, you said goodbye to what you had once thought was home, all of the people who had ever loved you were gone.

Except him.

Are you crying?

…No…

Let me hold you. For me.

…Okay…just for you, though…

Thank you, sweetie.

In an unassuming shabby safehouse, one of many he owned around the world, you felt a moment of peace, as false as it may be.

He paced the living room, exhaustion etched on his features. He still hadn’t adjusted to this daytime schedule, and though not a word of complaint or discomfort ever left his lips, you knew he had been pushing himself to his limits to keep you safe.

Sylus, you called, worried, come rest.

He reassured you with a smile, a near perfect façade had it been anyone else he was trying to fool. You knew when he would put on a mask, and you didn’t like it—you were upset that he was lying to you for your sake.

I’m tired, you fibbed, Can we nap together?

Strange how you didn’t feel any qualms about lying for his sake instead. You supposed you were a hypocrite.

Very well. He seemed to concede. What a fussy kitten.

There was no malice in his words. There never were.

You guided his head to your lap, his body barely fitting on the small sofa, but it would do. You stroked his hair, seeing him surrendering to his exhaustion—surrendering to you, as well.

You hummed a song, something light and soothing. His soft snoring soon joined your melody, the two sounds bringing life to this long unoccupied house.

For a moment, this unassuming, shabby safehouse almost felt like a home.

It would be nice to make this place a true home with him, you thought. Some fresh flowers, a little sunlight, and maybe a picture or two could help with the illusion.

Such wishful thinking. You knew in a few days you would both need to leave. This was only temporary.

You needed to go farther—to the place where everything was new and you were nothing more than an unknown drifter seeking something permanent.

For now, though, you both rested. You let your song soothed him, just as his presence had given you hope.

You often wondered what permanent looked like. You also wondered if you and he had the same definition for the word. There were more idle times now than before, so you both humored one another with your own thoughts and whims.

A little cottage in the woods, you thought aloud as you and he lazed about on the couch. You could have a little vegetable garden, and maybe you could also learn how to make your own bread as well.

He could hunt, or perhaps, he could also put his fishing skills to use.

You might even raise chickens. Maybe some ducks, too.

Sweetie, you have it all planned out, he teased, pinching your cheek.

You swatted his hand away, but you couldn’t deny this. You had thought about this life. Thought about it often, in fact. You couldn’t help it. It seemed you had more time to let your mind wander.

Well, you weren’t alone. He also had his own thoughts, his own vision he wished to share.

A seaside house on a cliff, he suggested, adding, We could watch dolphins from the balcony. And have a gin fizz or two.

You laughed and shook your head. What, no tequila?

Tequila can be for breakfast, he added, matching your humor with the same tone and a playful smirk.

We could also have a hot tub on the deck, he added with a lecherous smirk on his handsome face. A nice soak as we watch the sun set over the horizon.

Yeah? Your heart beat faster, his lips looming near yours.

We could also stargaze together, he continued in that same easy tone. So teasingly close, his lips just barely ghosted against yours. He must be doing this on purpose, wanting to see you fluster and squirm because of him. What a scoundrel.

You have it all planned out, you echoed his earlier words back to him, his immediate response that nearly insufferable trademark smirk of his. You caved in first, eagerly taking his lips, wanting to quell the growing heat between the two of you.

He succumbed to your whims, his back suddenly against the couch cushions, your body on top of his. He answered your desperation with his own, all lucid thoughts leaving as you both submitted to your instincts, letting your desires guide you both to Heaven and Hell and back again.

An apartment in the city.

In the city? Again, sweetie?

What better place than hidden in plain sight?

A clever kitten.

You remembered wining and dining under starry skies. The rich food filled your belly wonderfully and the aged wine tasted like the sacred nectar of the gods. Blissfully tipsy, you remembered dancing with him on a rooftop, swaying and twirling, feeling like you were on cloud nine as the stars above shined brilliantly while city lights twinkled and gleamed.

In a humid, cramped bus, you leaned against his shoulder, remembering distant memories that might as well just be silly old fairy tales.

The days blended together. Most days, you weren’t sure if it was Monday or Tuesday, or perhaps it was neither, and it was actually Thursday.

He had acquired a car. Temporary, just like everything else in your life had been these past few months. As he filled the car with gas, you wandered into the convenience store. That particular scent hit you instantly, a strange feeling of nostalgia for something you had never missed.

You wandered down the aisles, hand skimming over the different snacks on display. None of them really caught your eyes or stirred up a craving, but you still picked out a few just in case. As you were checking out, you also grabbed an ice cream bar. The heat was unbearable and a strawberry shortcake bar suddenly sounded enticing. You missed the taste of fresh fruits, something that you never thought would one day be scarce and a sudden luxury.

As you left the store, ice cream bar unwrapped and the refreshing, cooling sweet taste on your tongue, you remembered the time when you and he went to pick strawberries together.

He had already finished refilling the gas tank. As he leaned against the car waiting for you, sunglasses over his eyes, you approached him, holding the cold treat up.

Want a bite?

He smirked, and took a generous bite to your dismay.

H-hey! That was a big bite!

Sorry, sweetie. He didn’t sound apologetic at all. What a prick.

I hope you get brain freeze.

And he laughed, already getting back into the car with you following suit. When you turned to buckle your seatbelt, his hand was on your cheek, already guiding you to his lips. He kissed you sweetly, nibbling on your lips as he tasted you.

When he parted, he smirked at your confusion, your breathing still shaky.

You had ice cream on your lips, he answered matter-of-factly.

Flustered, it took your brain a few seconds too long to register his mischievous words. When it finally clicked, you leaned back over, this time surprising him as you took charge. You kissed as if it was your last, as if he was the air that you needed, and he responded with equal fervor, treating you like a gift bestowed upon him by the highest being, or perhaps more like a forbidden treasure he had greedily coveted. Before the growing lust could cloud your mind, all semblance of reality returned when you heard the incessant honking from the car behind you, and had he been in a sour mood, perhaps there would have been an altercation, one that would end horrendously for the other party, of course.

But he smirked. He leered at the car behind him before speeding off. As he drove, you noticed him licking his lips.

Strawberry, he said, pondering, We should get this ice cream bar again.

You agreed, delighting in the taste of him that still lingered on your lips.

All thoughts disappeared, all of those dirty matrasses from dingy motel rooms didn’t seem to matter. You would always welcome him into you, the late, long nights of lovemaking a sweet escape from the reality you lived. In these little moments of you and him, he was your whole world and you were his. Deep kisses branded your skin, the heated moans of you and him mingled with every movement, every pulse, the need to chase after that paradise heightened by the shared growing passion.

You had memorized his every feature, his every being. The jewel-like crimson eyes of his always reflecting his deep devotion to you, the promise to always surrender to you had long been fulfilled. With every searing hot touch, he worshiped you like a devout man knelt at the altar of a goddess, beseeching her blessings.

He satisfied all of your needs, your desires his to fulfill, willingly and devotedly. No rules to bind you, nothing more to lose, you succumbed to your desires, drifting off to a state of pure euphoria only he could bring you to, just as you were all that he longed for, the only one who he would let rule his heart and bring him to his knees.

When you returned from your high, with the threat of dawn looming, he held you close, gentle fingers threading through your hair soothingly, his warm, deep voice feeling like home.

He lulled you with words of a distant future.

Maybe…we can get a dog.

You laughed. You don’t seem like a dog person, you reminded him, your finger poking his cheek in jest.

He smiled, and grabbed your wrist. He pressed a gentle kiss to the back of your hand, the simple act had you stilling with pretty rosy cheeks, illuminated in the dark by a single ray of moonlight.

A cat then, he said, his voice teasing. He stroked your cheek, his fingers just barely skimming against your skin. Maybe two, so she wouldn’t be lonely.

Yeah? you asked, breathless, What else?

He hummed as he contemplated. White picket fences…Have coffee ready for you in the morning…red checkered blanket and a picnic under the sun…

It doesn’t sound like you… you quipped.

It could be me, he responded, his hand moving to tuck strands of hair behind your ear, his soft voice continuing, It could be us. And also—

His words stopped abruptly, sparking your curiosity. You questioned him, but he only answered with an ambiguous smile and a dismissive, amused shake of his head, as if what he was thinking was nothing of importance to dwell further.

It’s late, he whispered, kissing your forehead, Sleep, my beloved.

As you settled more comfortably into his embrace, you felt his hand resting over your lower abdomen, the touch unlike any other time he would embrace you. As your heavy eyelids closed, you realized the words he had withheld, the hopeful future even he seemed too scared to voice into existence.

In your dream, you could have sworn you heard the pitter-patters of small feet on hardwood floor, and his voice full of joy as he effortlessly swept up into his strong arms two little children, a boy and a girl, perfect blends of you and him.

Such a shame that it was only a dream, you thought the morning after in bed as you watched him shaved the five o’ clock shadow from his face in the dirty motel bathroom.

In the mirror reflection, he noticed you sitting up in bed, the cover barely covering your nude body, hair in disarray, and he smiled. You smiled back.

Such a shame indeed, you thought again, feeling a strange ache in your chest as your mind drifted back to the little boy and girl in your dream.

It was amazing how you still had an appetite.

Eggs and bacon seemed extra delicious at diners in the middle of nowhere. As if stuck in time, it looked nothing like the modern eateries you were familiar with. Black and white checkered flooring, large red booths, an old barely working jukebox in a corner—everything seemed like it was untouched by modern advancements, living peacefully in its own world of idle monotony.

As you finished your meal, he stood up, walking over to the ancient jukebox out of curiosity.

He perused the song choices, brows furrowed in contemplation before he settled on one:

In the still of the night / I held you / Held you tight.

Your head lifted at the smooth crooning, eyes meeting his just as he walked back to the booth, his hand extended to you. Silently, a little embarrassed, you took his hand, just like you always seemed to do.

Promise I’ll never / Let you go.

He twirled you around before his hand found your waist, steadying you as he moved you to the rhythm of the music. In the near empty diner, you danced with him, remembering a time long ago, you two had also waltzed just like this.

To keep your precious love.

Your head rested against his chest, his arms around you as he swayed you gently to the music as it faded to silence. Even long after the song had ended, you stayed in his arms, holding firmly onto the one constancy you still held from your past.

Things could get worse.

I’ll be there every step of the way.

An old television set, from decades ago, flashed for an instance a photo of you. Without words, he had dropped a generous amount of bills on the table, his hand already reaching for yours and taking you away before anyone could be wiser.

By the time the waitress had come to clear the table, her tired mind suddenly realizing as she looked from the television back to the empty booth, the young couple had already left town. Discreetly, she tucked away the extra bills into her bra, and resumed her monotonous day, blissfully ignorant and a few hundred dollars richer.

In an old convertible from long ago, driving down an endless, deserted road, you woke up in the passenger seat to his—peculiar—singing alongside the car radio:

No matter what you are / I will always be with you / Doesn’t matter what you do, girl.

You giggled and he turned to look at you momentarily before his eyes redirected to the long road ahead. The radio continued to play the song as you and he conversed:

You’re actually laughing at me, he quipped. You’re so cruel, sweetie.

With you, you corrected him cheekily.

Funny, I wasn’t aware that I was laughing.

You were, you insisted audaciously.

In that case, laugh with me then, sweetie.

You giggled again. I don’t know this song.

His eyes remained ahead, but his right hand reached over to rest on your thigh. He squeezed you gently in reassurance, and as the song neared the end, he sang along again, Ooh girl, you girl, want you.

The radio played the next song, but you settled in your seat, his hand still resting on your thigh and you hummed again the previous song before the gentle drive lulled you back to sleep again. As your consciousness faded away, you heard distantly his voice singing the current song:

So sleep, silent angel, go to sleep / Sometimes / All I need is the air that I breathe / And to love you.

The time that passed made the line between reality and dream blurred. The life you lived, running away with him felt more dreamlike with each passing day as you bounced from old motels to grand estates to the most discreet safehouses he owned. Nothing in either of your life felt permanent right now, except for each other, the only constancy in this reckless fleeing.

You had both discarded your names, only taking them back at night when you were both truly alone, feeling like two lost souls abandoned by the universe. In the dark, you moaned each other’s name, such lovely sounds as warm breath ghosted over slicked skin.

Your hands lightly touched his face, his eyes always locked with yours. Your shuddering gasps and his barely-restrained moans followed in suits as his hands gripped tighter your hips, guiding you up and down on his length. You kissed him, crying as he pierced you again and again, his movements rushing as he felt you nearing your release.

…I can’t…I need to…Sy…please…please…

Hngh…ye-yes…

He was panting, his eyes darkened by the heavy arousal of seeing you, his beloved, falling apart for him—because of him. You arched forward into him, his name spilling out from your lips and pleasure coursed through your entire being. With a few more rushed thrusts, his own release came, his deep groans resonated in your ears as he filled you full.

Collapsed on him, you both rested lazily together with his softened member still inside you and his seed dripping obscenely down your thighs. You hummed into his skin, boneless and satisfied, his warmth so familiar and addicting.

Just two nobody’s in the world, but in this moment, it felt like no one else existed and you were both truly the last of your kind.

How heavenly.

Away, away, you ran from town to town, the final destination only a vague dream. The further you ran, the lighter your heart felt. In his eyes, the bird that was caged was now soaring high. His only wish was to save her before her wings were clipped, and now he would follow her wherever she would take him, her song beckoning him to a paradise for two.

Don’t let go.

Sweetie, you’re stuck with me for life.

Higher and higher, you soared, the sun threatening to scorch your wings.

If you fall, you knew he would be there to catch you. So, you continued to fly, your hand outstretched. All of Heaven would be yours to command. You were going to unlock paradise, a place for two kindred spirits, the last of their kinds, forevermore tethered to one another.

Eventually, the dream came to an end, life catching up within a flash.

You had grown a little careless, believing that you were just a nobody drifting through life, forgetting that there was still a hefty bounty to your name.

Someone had seen your face. Someone had snitched. You wondered if they truly believed you were dangerous, or perhaps it was merely just human greed that drove them to expose you. You supposed it didn’t really matter in the end now. It was all over anyway.

You looked to him, and he to you. A silent exchange of words, an understanding reached.

The distant sirens grew louder and louder as they approached your final hideout.

There was banging outside the motel room, scattered voices calling for your surrender. There would be no negotiation. It wouldn’t matter if they dragged your dead body out instead. On command, a red laser dot maneuvered into the room from the open window, aligning to your head. Your heart was racing, but you stayed grounded, your eyes locked on his.

In just seconds, everything was about to change.

Five.

Four.

Do you trust me? he asked, his hand held out.

With my life, you answered automatically, your hand in his, and with a tug, you were pulled into his familiar warmth, safe and secured as a gunshot sounded and the glass window shattered. His large hand pressed your head gently to his chest, shielding you from the sounds, and just like that, you both left this world behind, disappearing into the swirls of red and black mist he had summoned before the motel door came crashing down.

One.

The end.

Somewhere, in another place, in another time, you woke up to clear blue skies, white picket fences, the smell of coffee brewing in the kitchen, and you heard his laughter mingling with the sweet giggles of two little children.

You hummed pleasantly into your pillow, the sounds of footsteps getting louder and louder until the bedroom door opened. The bed shifted, his heavy weight on you, and your children’s assaulting kisses stealing away your breath and laughter.

Joyful tears brimmed your eyes, your belly aching tremendously from helpless laughter, and your heart at peace as he gazed down at you, his love steadfast and true.

It was almost nine in the morning, but you stayed lounging in bed, surrounded by all that mattered to you. Your children snuggled close to you on either side, your one free hand reached out for his, his hold ever familiar and constant.

His smile mirrored yours, the same devotion in his eyes just like long ago when he took this same hand and whisked you away, running and running until you found your home again at the end of the world.

His thumb caressed yours, his honeyed voice a sweet lullaby. I love you.

And you smiled back. I love you more.

He laughed, surrendering once more to you, always for you.

The past seemed distant, the future too far away. Cradled in the present, in this instance, the world seemed at peace again, and life moved on.

[rafesbabyg1rl]

Private Session - part three

Part One, Part Two, Part Three

Summary: Rafe likes to watch reader while she works as a stripper. He pays her for private sessions, in which he gets to take her home and do whatever he pleases. When he finds out Barry has been selling you to customers, he gets jealous. After you're short on a payment for Barry, he makes you pay in a different way. Rafe eventually finds out and he's not happy. Can Rafe get you out of this sticky situation?

Pairings: Stripper!Reader X obsessive!Rafe

Warnings: Rafe is obsessive of reader. Reader is a stripper. Mention of drugs, violence (fighting), death threats, guns, p in v, unprotected sex, language, praise, SMUT!, use of y/n like one time.

Word Count: 5.0k

Author Note: Hey babes! I originally got this idea from this GIF , like just imagine he's sitting in the strip club throwing dollar bills at you like that. Some of this part was inspired by Dexter s7 ep9. This fic is NOT fully proofread. I'm SO SO SO sorry for being so inactive :(

This is the last part of Private Sessions! I'm actually pretty pleased with how this fic ended up, since it was only meant to be one part. If I get requests relating to this, or if I get struck with random inspiration, I'm not against writing more for this!

Credits: GIF from this post

After you’d hooked up with Rafe–well, you wouldn't exactly call it a hook up. After you had another private session with Rafe, your top paying client, also the entire reason you’re now a hooker, you stayed the night at his place. That morning, following the many, many orgasms he had gotten out of you and the half-hearted ‘goodnights’ you two had exchanged before falling asleep, Rafe had left you alone. He had woken you up, briefly mumbling to you about having some business to attend to, making sure you know that you’re allowed to stay for however long you please. Before leaving, Rafe gathered your scattered clothing and left it in a neat pile on one of the chairs in his bedroom. On top of the pile, he left you money. Sure, he had already given you nearly a thousand dollars for your time, but he felt that you deserved a tip, so he left a crisp hundred-dollar bill for you to find, as well as money to call an uber, since he’s unable to give you a ride back.

Of course this kind of treatment was completely unbeknownst to you. You had never expected Rafe Cameron to treat women this well, especially those he has to pay to fuck. But you’re not complaining. Your other clients never even spare a thought about how you feel, it’s only about them. But Rafe…he makes sure you feel good. He wants you to feel good. He cares about making sure you get what you need more than he cares about his own experience. This isn’t just confusing to you, since he’s also wondering why he cares, or why he’s even paying for you specifically when he has a variety of women he could fuck for free. All he knows is that he needs more of you–he needs to make things right with you somehow.

After you left his house later that morning, you had gone back to work. Barry wasn’t happy with you, you hadn’t come back like he asked last night. He needed you to work the floor, since you’re the ‘star’ of the club–the favorite. Which, all that means to you is that Barry’s got you working unreasonable hours.

“Shit…” he huffs, taking in your appearance as you show up at the club. Since it’s still morning, nobody else was there. You really had hoped he wasn’t there either, just wanting to get in, grab your shit, and go home. But of course that wasn’t the case. You stand there, gathering your items from your locker, feeling smaller with each passing second that he stares at you, laughing at your disheveled appearance. You had stolen some of Rafe’s clothes since you didn’t feel like wearing that tiny, itchy little dress you had left in last night.��

“I’ll be back for my shift tomorrow.” You tell him as you try to leave the room. However, he moves to block the doorway, causing you to pause, looking down at the ground with a huff, trying to keep your cool.

“Where’s my money, princess?” Barry asks, his voice cold. You sigh, having forgotten. You reach into your duffle bag, pulling out the cash Rafe gave you for your most recent session. You do the math in your head, determining what 25% of your earnings are. You round his cut up to about $300, handing him the cash.

“There.” You shove the money into his chest. “Your cut.”

Barry chuckles at your attitude, clearly not appreciating it. His hand lingers on yours for longer than what’s needed as he grabs the cash from you. He quickly counts the bills in his hand, sighing and looking back up at you. “This is all? You were gone all night and this…” he waves the cash in front of your face. “This is all you’ve got for me.”

You swallow roughly, nodding at him. “That’s 25%.” You say, keeping your voice strong. “And then some.” you add, with a bit less confidence this time, knowing it’s not enough to keep him from getting all worked up. 

Barry makes a small tsk sound, softly shaking his head. “How you gonna make this up to me then, hm?” 

“That’s your cut. I’m off today, so…I, I’ll see you tomorrow.” You try to move past him, but he grabs onto your shoulder, stopping you.

“Nah…no, I don’t think so. You were out all night, not my fault you settled for less than your rate.” Barry still thinks you had gone with the client you were meant to meet last night, not knowing you went off with Rafe. Not that it would change anything if he did know. Really, Rafe had actually overpaid, again, for your time and effort. But, you hadn’t planned on staying the night in his bed, he had just pushed you past what you could handle, tiring the both of you out. So you get why he thinks you were underpaid. “Not my fault you stayed out all night, like a real fuckin’ slut.” His words cause you to wince, you hated being called that, because you aren’t a slut. You never chose to sell out your body, you just need the money.

Barry can see the fire behind your eyes, the calm demeanor you try so hard to maintain threatening to snap any moment now. He can tell he’s getting under your skin, which makes him enjoy this all the more. “You’re gonna pay for your mistakes.” You can feel his grip on your shoulder tighten as his eyes scour your clothed figure as you two stand in the doorway.

“Barry, please. I need that money, It’s my money. We made a deal, and you got your cut.” You plead, except your voice isn’t polite and soft like usual, you’re clearly pissed. 

“Well…that’s not the only way.” He starts. You have a confused expression etched onto your face as he speaks. “You can always put in some hours today…” he explains, his hand dropping from your shoulder to the hem of the t-shirt you stole from Rafe. 

“But, we’re closed?” You remind him. “I guess…I guess I can come back later for a few hours.”

“No.” He leans in closer, smirking. His mouth is almost touching the shell of your ear, close enough that you can feel his hot, sticky breath against your skin. “You’re gonna put some time in right now. A little private session, hm?” His hand moves around to your backside, slowly trailing down the curve of your lower back. 

You recognize this tone of voice, the suggestion of his words hanging in the air heavily. Really, you can’t say no. Because there’s no fucking way you’re giving him another cent of your hard earned cash. So, you reluctantly agree.

Barry wants the full show, so he makes you get into uniform. He even went through your things, picking out what he wants you to wear. And of course he picks your newest pieces of lingerie, the ones Rafe had just gifted you last night. The one he told you was for his eyes only, which you had fully intended to honor his request, but you couldn’t say no to your boss. Barry had turned on all the club’s lights and music, setting the perfect scene for you both. He takes you into one of the private rooms. 

First, he has you start off slow, just simply sucking him off. After that, he makes you dance for him for what feels like an hour, until he’s hard again and ready for more. He fucks you. Though it doesn’t last long, which you’re glad, since he’s not giving any regard to how you feel. He fucks you selfishly, using you however he pleases. The only thing he does that shows any sort of regard or care for you is not finishing inside you, instead making you swallow his loads. After a couple of hours, he finally lets you leave, saying that you’re all paid up…for now. You figure that since he’s crossed this line with you, it’s not going to be the last. Knowing Barry he’ll be making up absurd excuses to make you ‘pay’ some more. 

You feel disgusting, so immediately you go home and shower, scrubbing any trace of him off of you. As you stand in front of the mirror wrapped in a towel, you observe the various marks covering your body from your clients. You hate the proof they leave on you, proof that you’re a hooker. You glance at the newer, more vibrant marks on your neck, you can’t help but smile a bit as you run your fingers over the bruised skin, remembering how Rafe has created them. Once you realize that you’re smiling at his memory, you immediately stop, shaking the thoughts out of your head.

The next day you return to work, absolutely dreading having to face Barry. Not only him, but you’re getting really over having sex with these wrinkly, old, men who can’t even get it up without taking a little pill. Each session you have with a client chipping a small part of yourself away. As you enter the staff room, you practically run into Rafe’s chest, his hands coming up to rest on your shoulders, stopping you. The two of you make brief eye contact before he walks out of the room that you’re entering. Barry stands in the center of the room, shaking his head as he looks up at you.

“Well shit,” he scoffs, rubbing a rough hand over his face. “Some boyfriend you got, huh?” Your eyebrows furrow immediately. Barry notices the crease between your brows. “Looks like you’ve only got one client now.” He chuckles.

“Wait…Rafe talked to you?” You ask, wondering if he was being truthful when he said he’d talk to Barry for you. 

“Yeah, Rafe. But don’t think that means you ain’t gonna get more hours on the floor. I ain’t losin’ my main source of cash just ‘cause your boyfriend’s a little jealous.”

You have to fight the urge to roll your eyes and tell him that he’s not your boyfriend. You can tell he’s pissed and doesn’t want to listen to Rafe. Which makes you wonder how he got Barry to agree to this, since you are the ‘star’ of the club. Barry scoffs, walking out into the main portion of the club. 

You feel like a major weight has been lifted off your chest, feeling so much better now that you don’t have to sell out your body. Well, other than when you’re dancing. But that’s different. At least nobody has to touch you anymore…other than those who you actually want touching you. 

After changing and getting prepared, you work the pole per usual. About an hour into your shift, you spot Rafe sitting across the club, getting a lap dance from one of the other dancers, except he looks like he could care less about her–he’s looking at you. You’re not jealous–no, definitely not. Why would you be jealous? He’s just your client; your customer. You make eye contact with him and instead of looking away, you find yourself staring right back at him while you dance.

On your break, you make your way into the back room, where a few of the other girls are also taking their break. You’ve never had problems with the other girls, but you’ve never called them friends either, just coworkers. You can hear them talking before you enter the room, and when you walk in, suddenly it’s silent as their heads turn to you. You ignore their stares, heading over to the fridge to grab a yogurt. You hear their whispers as you turn your back to them. 

“She’s fucking the boss.” One of them says earning a few gasps and a ‘really?’ from the others. “Yeah, I heard she doesn’t have to take clients anymore.” She responds. 

Another girl adds, “shit, I’d fuck him too if it meant I’d get special treatment”, earning laughs from everyone in the room. You take a deep breath, slamming the fridge closed and turning to face them. 

“I’m not getting special treatment!” You say harshly, a stark contrast to your typical shy demeanor. 

“So you’re not fucking him?” 

You’re so engulfed in frustration that you don’t even notice Rafe and Barry walk into the room. “Okay yeah, I fucked Barry once but it was because–” you don’t get to finish explaining before you’re cut off by Rafe’s sharp voice, which startles you.

“You fucked my girl?” He snaps at Barry. In which Barry just smirks in response, only serving to further piss Rafe off. 

“They’re my girls while they’re working. And I gotta say, she takes her job very seriously–”. Before Barry can get anything else out Rafe cuts him off with a quick punch to the jaw, causing him to tumble back. You jump back as all the other girls collectively gasp, but they know better than to intervene. Barry rubs his Jaw, standing up straight and chuckling dryly. 

“Country Club,” he laughs. “You really wanna do this, huh? All for a fuckin’ slut?” Rafe steps forward, punching Barry again before looking up at the others in the room.

“Get the fuck out!” He shouts before looking at Barry, moving to punch him again as the others quickly scurry out of the room. You stay, shocked at the event unfolding in front of you–because of you. The fight continues, Barry trying to fight back as best he can, but he’s no match for Rafe, especially since he’s got no motivation. 

Barry manages to get a few punches in, making Rafe step back for a moment. You see him reach into the back of his jeans, grabbing the gun he has tucked into the waistband of his jeans. You gasp again when you see the gun and step back until your back hits a wall. You know Rafe’s involved in some bad shit and you’re used to seeing him use cocaine, but you’re not used to him having a gun, especially with it being pointed at someone. Before you have time to even think, Rafe hits Barry with his gun, pistol whipping him and making him fall to the floor. 

Rafe leans forward over Barry, grabbing the collar of his shirt and pulling his head up until they’re face-to-face. “Call her a slut again–touch her again and I’ll fucking kill you.” He spits, letting go of Barry, making his head drop back against the floor, all bloodied and bruised. You make yourself look away, not wanting to see the damage Rafe did–the damage you caused. “Consider this her notice.” He mutters quickly, tucking the gun back into his waistband as he turns to face you. “Let’s go.” He says quickly, moving to walk out of the room. But you can’t move, you’re still in shock from what you just witnessed. When Rafe turns around and sees that you’re not following him he lets out a sharp breath, walking over to you and grabbing you by the arm. “I said let’s go.” His words are demanding and mean, different from the way he typically talks to you. His eyes are cold and distant as he tugs you out of the room, through the club. The others watch him drag you away, not daring to say a word as they stare. 

Rafe takes you out to the parking lot, shoving you into his truck. You still haven’t even spoken a word by the time you get to his house. He pulls into the driveway, putting his truck in park and killing the engine. He speaks, still looking straight out of the windshield and not daring to look at you. “I’m sorry you had to see that.” His voice isn’t as rough anymore, though still distant. You don’t respond which makes him look over you after a few silent moments. “I said m’sorry.” His voice is a bit louder, making you jump back in your seat. 

“I heard.” You mumble coldly. 

Rafe scoffs at your mumbles, feeling like you should be grateful for what he did for you. But you’re the exact opposite. You can’t let yourself feel relieved that you don’t have to work for Barry anymore. Because that was your job. And unlike Rafe, you actually need a job to survive. Plus, you have no idea what you’ve gotten yourself into with Rafe now. You think back to what he had said to Barry just before the fight. He called you his girl. What the fuck does that mean?

His strong grip pulls you out of your thoughts as he tugs out of his truck, bringing you inside his house. He gets you up to his bedroom and you sit on the bed, just thinking in an uncomfortable silence. You blame this on yourself. You’re the reason the other girls have to sell themselves, because you fucked Rafe…and you can’t stop fucking him. You’re the reason they’re in that hell, and you got out of it because of Rafe. It’s not fair to them. And you’re the reason Rafe nearly killed the man he’s closest to. 

You watch as Rafe goes into the adjoining bathroom, trying to wash the blood off of his hands, which only reveals that his own knuckles are all battered and bloody. You get up from the bed, padding over to the bathroom. He sees you approach him in the mirror and he keeps his eyes on you. You tap his waist, silently signaling him to turn around. When he turns away from the sink, now leaning up against it instead as he watches you curiously. You carefully take his hands in yours, briefly examining them. “Here…” you let go, grabbing a nearby rag and getting it damp with warm water. “Let me…” you speak softly as you take one of his hands in your own, gently dabbing at his knuckles with the rag. He winces at the contact, “shit, I know, sorry. But I need to clean them.”

“S’fine.” He mutters. Not once does he take his eyes off of your face. He notices how your tongue sticks out of the corner of your mouth as you focus, making the slightest hint of a grin form on his beaten face, which you don’t notice of course since you’re too busy cleaning his knuckles. 

You finish one hand, now cleaning the other which isn’t quite as bad since it’s his non-dominant hand. Once you’re done, you look up at him. He’s standing so close you can practically feel his breath on your face as he stares down at you. Now that you’re finally looking at him for the first time since the fight, you see the bruise forming on his jaw and the slight blood stain at the corner of his mouth. You lift your hand up, gently caressing the bruise. You can tell he wants to wince, but he doesn’t let himself, not wanting you to pull your hand away. The tension is so thick it’s almost visible; the silence unbearable. The only sound being that of both of you breathing. 

“About Barry–” you start, feeling like you need to explain why you had slept with him. But Rafe doesn’t let you finish, walking away into his bedroom.

“Doesn’t matter.” He speaks sharply as he strips down into his boxers, setting his gun in the top drawer of his nightstand. You follow behind him.

“No, please just let me–” you cut yourself off, annoyed at the fact that he’s avoiding looking at you. You step closer behind him, gently touching his arm which makes him finally turn around. “Rafe…”

“What?” Rafe snaps, his eyes making uncomfortable eye contact with you, but you don’t turn away. 

“He made me give him a private session. ‘Said I didn’t bring back enough money for him. I had to. It was that or give him my money, b-but I need that money. I swear I didn’t want to-” You ramble, not sure why you even care to explain yourself to him, it’s not like you need to. 

“Jesus, shut up. I don’t care, alright? Just go to bed.” He waves your hand off of his arm, turning his back to you again as he pulls the comforter back and gets under it. 

You want to ask why you’re even here with him. He brought you here to…sleep? Why? But, you decide against it. Instead, you just walk over to his dresser, pulling out a pair of his boxers and a t-shirt. You quickly strip out of your “uniform”, feeling his eyes burn holes into you as you change into his clothes. You turn the bedroom light off on your way back to the bed. You climb in next to him, keeping somewhat of a distance between you two. You’re not exactly sure where he stands in all this or what you are. You wait for him to make a move and get closer, but he doesn’t. You both just lie there in silence. Eventually you start to doze off, though immediately woken up by the faint sound of a car pulling up, followed by some shouting. 

“Rafe Cameronn,” the voice calls out, soon banging on the door. It’s Barry. Fuck. 

You jolt up, but Rafe is already out of bed, pulling on a shirt and sweats, quickly getting downstairs to the door before Barry lets himself in. 

Still feeling loopy from sleep, you sit up in bed, listening to what’s happening. You can only hear shouting between the two, but you can’t tell what they’re saying. You leave Rafe’s room, walking more towards the front of the house where you can slightly make out the conversation. 

You hear Rafe yell, “The fuck is wrong with you? Did you not hear me say I’ll fucking kill you, huh?! Because I will. You know I will.”

“Nah,” Barry laughs. “I don’t think you will, country club.”

“You’re fucking dead.”

“No, you are.” Barry responds. “Pulling that shit on me in my own fucking club?”

When it gets silent, you get worried and peek out one of the windows facing the front of the house. “Fuck!” You panic when you notice that Barry has a gun pulled on Rafe who has his hands up. He doesn’t have his gun. You run back into Rafe’s room, grabbing his gun from inside his nightstand before you get the chance to think about what you’re doing. After fiddling with it for a moment, you manage to get the safety off.

You rush downstairs and with a deep breath, you swing open the front door, stepping outside with the gun raised, pointing it right at Barry. “Put it down.” You say weakly. Barry laughs at you, which is probably reasonable, you probably look ridiculous standing there with a gun, your hands shaking. You repeat yourself with more confidence and higher volume this time. “Put the fucking gun down! I swear to god I’ll fucking shoot!” You’d never pictured yourself like this. Hell, you’ve never even touched a gun before. And right now, it’s not the situation that scares you the most, but the fact that in this moment, if need be, you will pull the trigger. And it’s that fact that scares you. 

After some time, Barry gives a dry and defeated chuckle. “Alright, alright! Look,” he tosses the gun aside. You immediately move to give Rafe his gun and you stand behind his large frame. At this point, Barry knows he needs to accept the defeat. He knows he’s not gonna beat Rafe in this, not when it comes to you. “Fine, I’m leaving. I didn’t know she was yours like that, ‘aight? She’s done, she’s all yours now, Rafe.” Barry slowly picks up his gun, tucking it into his waistband before retreating to his car. Once Barry finally drives off, Rafe lowers his gun.

Your heart is racing from the adrenaline. So when you both get inside, you’re practically jumping his bones before the door even closes. Rafe doesn’t protest. He carries you up to his room, dropping you down onto the bed. Quickly, he’s shedding his layers until he’s completely bare in front of you. You do the same. He stands over you, staring at you for a moment with a hungry look in his eyes, making you feel like prey. In one move, he’s on top of you, kissing you eagerly. Pulling back to nibble on your earlobe, whispering to you. “Fuck that was so fucking hot, baby. Saved my ass back there, huh?” 

“I…I couldn’t watch him hurt you.” Is all you say before his lips are on yours again, his hand that’s not propping him up over you traveling your naked body, quickly finding your clit. You’re glad because you didn’t want to have to explain any more, because you don’t know why you did what you did. Obviously you care for him in some weird, twisted way if you were willing to kill a man to protect him from being shot. 

His fingers start to circle your clit, making you moan into his mouth. You close your eyes in pleasure. Without warning he pushes into you, gentler than your previous times with him. This time he actually gives you time to adjust. When he starts moving his hips against you, his thrusts are slow and sensual.

“Fuck…” you cry out. Your noises rile him up even more, he speeds up, finding the pace that makes you scream out his name. Your fingers dig into his muscular torso as he moves your legs to rest over his shoulders, making him hit the spongy spot deep inside of you. 

He leans down to kiss and nip at your neck, leaving faint marks behind. His lips trail lower and lower until he reaches your chest, latching onto one of your nipples. Between the unforgiving pace that he’s drilling into you at, his mouth on your chest, and his fingers teasing your clit, you’re seeing stars like you never have before. Your hips try wriggling away from the immense and almost unbearable pleasure, but he pulls you right back in even tighter.

“Fuck baby, so fuckin’ tight. Such a good girl f’me…” he groans against your chest, pressing quick, open-mouthed kisses to your soft skin. “My fuckin’ good girl, yeah? All fuckin’ mine now…” he leans back to watch your face, noticing how your eyes are squeezed shut. He takes his hand away from your clit, grabbing your chin roughly. “Look at me.” Rafe demands. 

You obey, making direct eye contact with him as the band in your stomach snaps, releasing a burning heat that spreads throughout your entire body. His pace slows, working you through your high. Soon after, you feel the unforgivable feeling of him painting your insides with his hot, sticky release.

Eventually he stills inside of you, leaning down to kiss all over your body. When he’s fully soft, he pulls out and rolls off of you, laying on his side next to you. You catch your breath, turning on your side to face him. You can’t stop the grin that spreads across your face. “Holy fuck…” you mutter in disbelief. You hadn’t thought the last time with him could’ve been topped, but you’ve been proven wrong. Something about it was…different. This time it wasn’t just sex and you knew it. 

He reaches out, his touch gentle now rather than rough and desperate. His hair sticking to his sweat-beaded forehead, the look in his eyes and the smile on his face making you melt. “God, you’re beautiful.”

“Rafe…” you say, slightly turning your head. Which he just moves right back to face him. 

“What is it?” His tone is soft and caring, like he actually wants to know what’s got you so quiet. 

“Nothing…well, it…it’s just…” you pause, taking a deep breath before saying what you’re thinking. You prepare yourself for the worst. “You keep…you keep calling me your girl?” 

He questions you back in response, his tone carrying a more serious note this time. “Is that an issue?” He runs his thumb over your eyebrow, admiring your features.

“No…well…I, I guess I just don’t know what you mean.” You say honestly, making him breath out a quick sigh. Shit, you think. 

“I mean…you’re my girl, y/n. You don’t need a job, alright? I got plenty money for us both, yeah? You can stay here whenever you want. You’re mine…’n I’m yours, yeah? How’s that sound, hm?” You just stare at him for a bit, questioning if he really just asked that or your brain is making it up so you don’t have to deal with the embarrassment. “Y/n?” He repeats softly.

“Yea…yeah.” You stutter, making him chuckle at how flustered you are. “Like…boyfriend girlfriend?” 

He laughs at your question, finding it adorable. “Yeah, like boyfriend girlfriend.” Rafe reassures you, his hand moving from your face to brush through your hair again.

“Yes!” You spit out a little too eagerly. You quickly flash a bright shade of red in embarrassment. You gather yourself, speaking at a normal speed now, “yeah…um that, that sounds good. I like that.” You smile.

He slides in a quick “I like you.” He smirks, thinking he’s so smooth which makes you laugh. He pulls you in for a soft, tender kiss. Rafe pulls you in, wrapping an arm over you as your head rests on his bare chest. He pulls a sheet up over you both. 

You lie there in a comfortable silence. Just when you’re about to drift off you tilt your head up to look at him, and he’s already staring at you of course. You mumble, “thank you…f-for getting me outta that club.” You lay your head back down and tilts his own head down to kiss your forehead. 

“Thanks for saving me, baby.”

THANK YOU FOR READING!!! I love you so so so much!!! I just hit 200 followers and I'm shocked, I literally just started posting in the beginning of November, so this is insane. Also, HAPPY NEW YEAR!

Please leave requests! I can't promise I'll get to them all, but I really love receiving them and hearing feedback from you guys.

Taglist: @munsoncultedits

[flowerandblood]

hiatus

I thought I might be able to write something now, but my priorities have changed so much that I feel like I need to focus on my new book publication now, my husband's PhD, and the fact that we're going to be parents in June. I haven't felt this good in a long time: my inspiration has left me when it comes to writing stories, but it's come back in my professional life, which is very important to me. My husband and I are closer than ever, so I want to focus on my real life to the fullest: I already regret that when I had a difficult time I waited so long to tell him what was going on inside me, instead sitting in front of the computer and writing, pushing him away so as not to burden him with my sadness.

Writing has given me two things: wonderful, devoted readers and the feeling that I can write an interesting story, and I will always be eternally grateful for that. I'm not going to delete this blog and I'm not saying that I'm disappearing forever or that I'll never write anything again: I just don't know when or if I will. I know you will understand this, as always, because I have managed to surround myself with very warm and kind people.

Tumblr also has a dark side for me though, and there is something in it that currently repels me every time I log in here. Some time ago I came to the conclusion that what I read here (I am not talking about stories, but text posts) makes me uncomfortable and often does not even stand close to "openness, equality and all other human values" as some people think.

I think that at some point in my time here I was a bad person, especially when I was involved in various dramas or when I got angry about things that, from my current perspective, were absurd: I allowed myself to be manipulated, but I also willingly distracted myself from the fact that I felt useless to my husband, myself and the whole world.

I found my happiness (a real one) only when I told my husband about everything that was going on inside me, and he offered me the support and understanding I needed. It happened before our vacation in Romania and, what a surprise, when all the stress went away and I finally rested by his side, after a month I was already pregnant with the child I had so longed for.

Every once in a while I'll probably let you know what's up and how I'm doing: I probably won't be in private messages anymore, but that doesn't mean that if you write to me, I'll never write back. Thank you for letting me go through the hardest period of my life with you.

See you soon!

[hyunjins-orange-slice-too]

Emmy listen- I got a great idea but I need your beautiful mind for it. Feel free to just ignore me buut like what if for a daddy Chan idea where he accidentally yells at reader and they leave? Like a nice angst -> comfort. Ugh. I just know you’re so good with this series and I just love it and you but like you more lol. Annnywaaays I’m rambling have a good day lol

do you think beary will forgive me?

pairing: daddy!chan x princess!reader

genre: angst with a happy ending

word count: 2 ss and ~2.3k

warnings: very very brief mentions of dying (not real dying, it’s in reference to a tv show lol), yelling, lots of crying, pet names.

an: saturn, i hope this is what you were looking for. i hope i did it justice. it’s still crazy to me that one of my faves thought that i would be the best person to write their idea. anyway, this is absolutely devastating. so enjoy. lol i’m shy but i’ll try to reach out to you more, i’d like for us to be better friends. :)

masterlist

!! my requests are now closed until i’m caught up !! :)

the tv blared loudly as your newest drama obsession reached its peak, the main character sick in a hospital bed while the love of her life cries and begs her to pull through.

“if she dies, i’m going to freak out.” you say out loud. to no one in particular, as the apartment was empty. you glanced at your phone for the time. you got excited. daddy should be home any minute. your attention was pulled back to the screen as the main character wakes up from her coma. “oh thank god.” you say to yourself, clutching your blanket tightly, sinking further into the couch cushions.

you don’t hear the door lock beeping or the mechanical whirring of the mechanism as it unlocks and clicks open. a weary chan stumbles inside, kicking off his shoes. if you weren’t so entranced by your show, you would notice how tense he is. how his shoulders and neck look stiff with exhaustion, his brow furrowed with agitation.

he drags his feet through the house until he finds you in the living room. you see his frame in the doorway and jump up from the couch, running to him. “daddy!” you exclaim. you throw your arms around his neck, clinging to his body. he reluctantly wraps his arms around you, squeezing gently. it lasts only a second before he pulls away.

“do you have to have the tv that loud?” he scolds. your smile drops and you feel embarrassed. you felt stupid for having the volume up that loud. you race back to the couch, flinging the blanket to the side in search of the remote. after a moment, you find it and quickly shut the tv off, plunging the room into silence. you turn back around, but you’re alone again. there’s no longer a daddy in the room. you huff a disappointed sound and shuffle your slippered feet across the floor in search of him.

you ultimately find him in the bathroom, pulling his shirt off over his head. while his face is covered, you rush up behind him, wrapping your arms around his middle. you’ve done this so many times and he always loves it. always tells you how cute you are and how much he loves you. but… not today.

he discards his shirt on the floor before pulling your hands free of his waist and gently pushing you away. he makes eye contact with you in the mirror before saying “i need to take a shower.”

“oh.. okay.” you say. you force a smile to your face, determined to put him in a better mood. he must have had a very long day. he looks away before even noticing your smile, turning to switch the shower on. he kicks his shorts off and steps inside, without saying another word.

you were shocked. and also, kind of sad. he didn’t even seem excited to see you at all. you didn’t get any hugs, or any kisses, not even a head pat. you wondered if you did something wrong, wondered if you were just being dramatic or being too needy. maybe he finally got tired of you like you always feared. tears pricked your eyes. you forced them away, shaking your head.

no. you would not cry. you are a big girl.

unsure of what to do, and missing him terribly, you sat on the floor of the bathroom, waiting for him to be done. sometimes you would talk to him while he was showering, asking him about his day. but you felt like that wasn’t the best move right now. so you sat silently, patiently, playing with the loose strings on the bathmat. finally the water shut off and a muscular hand reached out in blind search of a towel. he found one and you could hear him drying himself, before he flung the curtain open to find you sitting on the floor. you smiled up at him, just excited to be near him, happy that he was finally home.

“what are you doing?” he asked, deadpan.

you didn’t like his tone. it was cold and very un daddy like.

“i was.. waiting for you to be done.” you said, your smile faltering a little.

he sighed. “i can’t even get a minute alone in the fucking shower?”

you felt like you had been slapped. “wh-what?”

he stepped out of the shower, towel wrapped around his waist, and walked right past you and into the bedroom.

the tears were back at your waterline, threatening to spill. you carefully stood up on shaky legs and walked to the bedroom. you peeked your head around the door frame and saw him pulling a pair of boxers on, hair dripping onto his bare shoulders.

you wanted to say something, but he said he wanted to be alone? you didn’t want to bother him. but he never talked like that. if he ever needed alone time, he would sweetly tell you that before setting you up a movie or activity to do while he spent some time with himself. you couldn’t remember a time when he had ever cursed at you. your mind again wondered if you had done something wrong. something to upset him. he noticed you standing silently in the doorway.

“damn it, y/n!” he yelled. “i said i want to be left alone. what the fuck don’t you understand!?” he stomped toward the door, toward you, his face scrunched up in anger. you had never seen that face on him before. he had never talked to you this way and it really scared you. he grabbed the door and slammed it shut in your face. you stumbled and fell backwards onto the floor, landing on your butt and scraping your palm in the process of trying to catch yourself.

you silently cried on the floor for a moment. your heart raced with fear, with hurt. your palm stung. you wiped your tears and shakily walked to the living room. you grabbed your phone and walked out the front door, not a destination in mind, cow slippers still on your feet.

you stared at the door handle to your apartment. you had been hiding in the cold emergency stairwell of your apartment building, unsure of where to go. you reached your hand out. you wanted to go inside. wanted to feel the safety of the four walls and locking door. you even wanted for chan to hold you. for him to tell you that everything was alright. that you were safe now. but how could he make you feel safe, when he was the one who scared you in the first place? your stomach was in knots. would he yell again? he promised he wouldn’t.. would he be mad at you? mad that you couldn’t give him space, mad that you left without telling him where you were going? your hand shook as you reached for the handle. you took a deep breath and pushed the door open.

chan was sat on the edge of the couch, his phone clutched in one fist, his other hand was at his mouth, nervously biting on his thumb nail. when he heard the door to the apartment open, he stood up abruptly, his phone clattering to the floor. he took a step in your direction. you noticed him, and the fear in your eyes broke his heart. the door clicked shut behind you quietly. you stood in the entryway, not making a move further into the apartment. he took another step toward you, fighting the urge to run to you and scoop you up in his arms. but you flinched, and took a step back. your eyes were wide with fear and hurt and he didn’t know what to do to make it better. for once in your relationship, daddy didn’t know how to fix it.

he sank to his knees in the middle of the living room, head hung low. you were confused at first. and then your confusion turned to worry, all your fears melting away. you slowly approached him, stopping a few feet away. his shoulders shook.

“daddy..?” you said, your voice soft.

he looked up at you, tears in his eyes, his face scrunched up in pain as he fought the urge to sob like a baby.

you had only ever seen him cry once, when he watched a particularly sad movie with you, but this was completely different. this was devastation in his eyes. you knelt in front of him. now face to face, you reached out and wiped his tears off his cheeks with the pads of your fingers.

“daddy don’t cry..”

his eyes locked on your palm, the scrape clearly visible as you collected his tears. he looked back to you, before gently reaching for your hand. he held it in his, palm up, examining the damage.

“baby what happened?” he asked, his voice thick with tears.

“i.. fell.” you say. “when you slammed the door.. i fell.”

his face contorted in pain again and his head fell forward. his tears splashed onto your palm and onto the floor.

“baby.. i’m so sorry.” he sobbed. he messily kissed your injured palm.

“it’s okay..” you comforted him.

he shook his head. “it’s not okay.” he looked up at you, gently squeezing your hand, careful of the scrape. “daddy is supposed to protect you. but i.. i caused this.” his eyes looked to the ceiling as he tried to stop his tears from flowing.

“did.. i do something?” you asked, your own tears coming to the surface again. “to make you mad?”

his free hand came to your cheek, stroking gently. “no, baby. of course not. you were just excited to see me and i yelled at you. what kind of daddy does that?”

“why did you yell then?” you asked.

“it’s been such a long day.. it seemed like everyone needed something from me.” he sniffled. “i just wanted to be alone. and away from everyone. and then when i got home and you were right there, i just.. i lost it.” he looked into your eyes, the glassy surface mirroring yours. “i am so so sorry. i can’t imagine how scared you must have been. i will never, ever, yell at you again. i promise.”

“i was really scared.” you confessed. “i’ve never seen you like that.”

“and you shouldn’t have. daddy should never yell at his princess.” just when he thought his tears were under control, his bottom lip started to quiver again. “you were just excited to see me..”

he felt terrible. awful at how he treated you. he felt undeserving of his title. the whole day was heavy on his shoulders, exhaustion taking over his body now that you were home and he knew you were safe.

“i thought maybe you got tired of me..” you said.

“what?” his heart squeezed, like the knife that had been plunged inside it already was now turning. “baby i could never get tired of you.”

you looked down at your injured hand, your own tears falling freely.

“i’m always so needy. always clinging to you.”

“and i love that. i really do. baby i promise that you did absolutely nothing wrong. this is all daddy’s fault.” he tilted your face up to look at him. “you are my perfect little baby, yeah?”

you sniffled, but did your best to nod your head in his hand.

“you. are. perfect.” he said again. enunciating each word, really wanting to make sure you understood.

“can.. can i hold you?” he asked. you nodded in response. “are you sure? tell me with words.”

“yes i’m sure. you can hold me.”

he sat down on his butt, his back leaning against the couch, and he pulled you into his lap. your face was in the crook of his neck and he wrapped his strong arms around you. he held you tight. he had a thought that maybe it was too tight. but when he tried to loosen his hold, you gripped onto him tighter, his t-shirt balled up in your little fists. you cried quietly into his shirt, relief flooding through you as you were finally where you belonged.

“baby i’m so sorry.” he said against your hair, placing a kiss on the top of your head. “i will spend the rest of my life making it up to you. i will never scare you ever again. it’s.. it’s eating away at me.” he rubbed his hand across your back.

“do you think you could ever forgive me?” he asked.

you pulled away slightly to look at him properly. “i forgive you, daddy.”

tears threatened to spill down his cheeks again, but he refused. “really?”

you nodded. “you didn’t mean to scare me. you didn’t mean to yell.” you said. “but please don’t ever do it again.”

he shook his head, squeezing you tight. “i won’t. i promise.”

you held your pinky out. he let out a watery chuckle before linking his pinky with yours. “i pinky promise, baby.”

your head fell back to his shoulder and he continued to stroke your back, gently rocking both your bodies back and forth. it was quiet for a moment before he asked, “do you think Beary will forgive me?”

“hmm..” you thought. “i don’t know. he’s very protective of me.”

“i know he is. im a little nervous to face him.”

you laughed and he laughed too, your hearts feeling lighter now that you had each other again. and as he continued to rock you, your eyes grew heavy, your body exhausted from the long evening. you would eventually pass out on his shoulder and he would carry you to bed, tucking the cover around you, and kissing your forehead.

he would mutter an ‘i love you.’ and one more ‘i’m sorry.’ before closing his eyes and drifting off to sleep.

♡ ♡ ♡ ♡ ♡ ♡ ♡ ♡

♡ pls reblog if you liked it! it truly helps a lot and makes me smile :) ♡

©hyunjins-orange-slice-too i do not give permission for this work or any of my work to be translated, copied, or reposted.

[memestrider2]

40k Nsfw Alphabet: Jago Sevetarion x F! Reader

By popular demand, here is a nsfw alphabet for everyone's favourite Night Lord captain. Please enjoy!

Minors dni. Smutty goodness under the cut

A = Aftercare (what they’re like after sex)

When it comes to aftercare, Jago goes on quite the character arc throughout his relationship with you. In the beginning l, he sees it as a waste of time. He doesn't understand how or why it is important, and when you first ask him for it, his knee-jerk reaction is to scoff at you.

However, Jago is not as closed minded and you or he thinks. See, Jago loves you. What he feels for you is unlike anything he's ever felt for any baseline human he's ever encountered, including those he's had as slaves or serfs. As such, your wants and needs actually carry weight for him. Not only does he find that he can't brush them off; he doesn't want to. And so, one night, after you two have had your way with each other, as you go to stand to clean yourself up Jago quite literally pushes you back down and orders, "Stay. Let me, this time."

B = Body part (their favorite body part of theirs and also their partner’s)

Your neck. More specifically, the hollow of your throat, where your neck connects to your collarbones. He loves pressing his hand there to feel your racing pulse. To nibble and nip at your skin. Strong enough to sting a little, but never enough to break your skin.

C = Cum (anything to do with cum, basically)

Jago is messy. He loves the sight of his seed plastered all over you. But it's no double standard: he loves the reverse as well; having his fingers, lips and chin slick with your arousal.

D = Dirty secret (pretty self explanatory, a dirty secret of theirs)

Jesus Joseph and Mary. You wanna know Jago Sevetarion's dirty secret? Really???

Honestly, nothing I write could do such a thing justice. So, I'm gonna leave it as reader's choice: think of the dirtiest possible secret a man like Jago could have, multiply the dirtiness by Pi squared, and you'll have it.

E = Experience (how experienced are they? do they know what they’re doing?)

Jago is experienced in sex; he's taken consorts and concubines before. But he's not experienced in making love, if you catch my drift. In the kind of sex that satisfies his soul just as much as his body. That means that, for him, the first time he share a bed with you feels like losing his virginity for the first time all over again.

F = Favorite position (this goes without saying)

I genuinely don't see Jago have one position he prefers over the rest. So long as he's either balls deep inside you or going down on you, he's happy.

G = Goofy (are they more serious in the moment? are they humorous? etc.)

Jago tends more towards humourous, but not overly so. Sex is a fun thing for him and he's going to express that with a few quips or jokes, but he's not goofy nor is he gonna take the mick. Also, when it comes to expressing how he feels about you, he is always deadly DEADLY serious.

H = Hair (how well groomed are they? does the carpet match the drapes? etc.)

Scruffy, to put it simply. That said, though, as part of your "taming" him (lol), he might give himself a trim and a groom for your benefit.

I = Intimacy (how are they during the moment? the romantic aspect)

This goes about the same as A, except with way WAY more angst and emotional turmoil on Jago's part. At first, he understands intimacy as a concept, but he is against it, seeing it as a form of weakness. But as his feelings for you deepen into love, he's forced to not only confront the fact that, if he wants to keep you, he is going to have to be intimate, but the fact that he's craving being intimate with you, too. This transitional period is gonna be rough: Jago is feeling confused and threatened, and as such he may be liable to lash out at you (verbally, never physically, remember Jago would never hurt you). But with a bit of time (and a firm, yet supportive hand from you) he'll get himself it together. Once that happens, Jago becomes an almost entirely different man. He cultivates this gentle, genuine and loving version of himself that only you ever get to see. He will hold you, cuddle you, ravish you with kisses. He lift you on top of him and embrace you around the waist while one hand rests upon your head, letting you be lulled to sleep by the twin beating of his hearts.

J = Jack off (masturbation headcanon)

Jago sees it as a necessary evil needed to keep himself sane. Honestly, when he feels the need to satisfy himself, he'd rather just seek you out. Every time. No matter where he is or what he's doing. Because nothing compares to you. Not just your body, but... Well but you. But of course, sometimes he's deployed somewhere away from the flagship and away from you. And other times, you are not feeling up to sex. So, Jago makes do.

K = Kink (one or more of their kinks)

Controversial take, and not necessarily a kink, but I could see Jago being into playing the role of a sub during sex. Once he accepts the truth of the love he feels for you, once he trusts both you and himself enough, he may want try giving into those feelings totally. Be totally and utterly vulnerable. Life as a Night Lord doesn't allow him to be, and until you he's never had anyone he's felt safe or comfortable enough to be anything less than a terrifying warrior around.

L = Location (favorite places to do the do)

Jago doesn't have a favourite place to do the do. Bed, couch, the dirty ass floor, he doesn't care. He does quite like it when there's a wall he can pin you against, though. Again, though, where that wall is, he doesn't care.

M = Motivation (what turns them on, gets them going)

Brattiness, sass and defiance from you. He loves seeing fire in your eyes. Loves it when you "struggle" against him, when you try to "fight him off."

N = No (something they wouldn’t do, turn offs)

Anything that causes you genuine harm or distress. Brattiness and play fighting is one thing, but if you are genuinely feeling unsafe or frightened, or if there is the chance that you might get hurt, it turns Jago off faster than anything.

Also, sharing. After being with you, he doesn't ever want to sleep with anyone else. No one else could ever satisfy him, and you're the only one he trusts to see him vulnerable, too.

And omg Lord forbid someone else tries to lay hands on you, especially one of his brothers. Possessiveness is part of this, but mostly it is protectiveness. The only person Jago trusts to take care of you during sex is Jago.

O = Oral (preference in giving or receiving, skill, etc.).

He's got no preference between giving and receiving, but when it comes to giving, he's got a lot of skill. He's also very... shall we say aggressive? Let's just say when he's going down on you there's a damned good chance you're gonna finish fast, be overstimulated and be aching the next morning.

P = Pace (are they fast and rough? slow and sensual? etc.)

Fast and rough is Jago's automatic go-to; he's a predator by nature, and it's hard to let that go. But, as he grows more comfortable with intimacy and romance, he becomes better at, and comes to enjoy, taking sex slower and more sensually.

Q = Quickie (their opinions on quickies, how often, etc.).

Jago is totally down for quickies. Especially right before or right after missions. He won't even take his armour off: just the cod piece and helmet.

R = Risk (are they game to experiment? do they take risks? etc.)

Absolutely! Oh my Emperor, absolutely. So long as it's nothing involving anything from section N, Jago is 100% game.

S = Stamina (how many rounds can they go for? how long do they last?)

Jago has super human, space marine stamina. That said though, it takes some time for him to figure out how to actually make use of that stamina rather than burning himself out in the first couple rounds.

T = Toys (do they own toys? do they use them? on a partner or themselves?)

Jago doesn't own toys, and it is a point of pride for him that you don't, either. Why would you? You've got Sevetar himself as your lover.

U = Unfair (how much they like to tease)

Jago is absolutely a tease, but only when you two are alone. If you are both in the presence of his brothers, then he won't feel it is safe to partake in such playfulness. If you are both in the presence of mortals, such as the flagship's crew or his serfs, then he will feel the need to maintain the image of the inhuman, nightmare-fuel astartes warrior.

V = Volume (how loud they are, what sounds they make, etc.)

Jago is not a shy man; he makes a loud of noise. Grunts, growls, roars, and everything else in between.

W = Wild card (a random headcanon for the character)

He loves it when you finger his neural ports. They're like tiny erogenous zones scattered all across his body. The ones on his back are his favourites: when he's on top and you're beneath him, it drives him nuts when you claw your finger nails into the ports that run down his spine and are embedded into his traps.

X = X-ray (let’s see what’s going on under those clothes)

Beneath his endless layers of battle and surgical scars, Jago has the body of a lean, well-built Astartes. Below the belt, he's big and girthy, even for a space marine.

Y = Yearning (how high is their sex drive?)

During day-to-day, Jago has an above-average sex drive, but not extremely so. If he has been away for you for an extended period of time, say while deployed on a mission, for the next few weeks following that his sex drive will be way WAY up as he tries to make up for lost time.

Z = Zzz (how quickly they fall asleep afterwards)

Jago isn't much of a sleeper normally, and that doesn't change after sex. Through sheer attrition you will always fall asleep before him, if he even falls asleep at all.

@yanagikou @solspina @yurihasurunbara @wolf-feathers12 @sinistermojo @beckyninja @moodymisty

[one-green-frog]

Malleus x M!Yuu (male reader) PLEASE!!! Malleus brought the reader to the palace as his wife-to-be, but some nobles, servants, and part of the public objected. The king needed an heir, and Yuu couldn't give him that. Yuu has no magic power and is HUMAN. They see it as a worthless person from unknown origin [poor Yuu] 😫

Too much pressure on Yuu [really poor]

Then: 1. What would Malleus do? What exactly would the royal life of Malleus and Yuu be like? 3rd and lastly can you NSFW if you can 🙂

Sorry for the very long and difficult requests. You definitely don't have to, don't force yourself for this

I will be very happy if you do Thank you:)

By Your Side

(Malleus x m!reader)

So no NSFW because i don't write that, and also, it's been a while that i played Twisted Wonderland but i hope it's still ok 👌

The relationship between (Y/N) and Malleus had always been one of gentle affection, a love that broke through the differencesof both their worlds.. It had all started when Malleus, a prince and one of the strongest magic users of this world, had discovered (Y/N), a human, stargazing outside the old abandoned dormitory. Despite being a student with no magic, (Y/N) had a spark about him that caught Malleus’s attention. He wasn’t intimidated by Malleus’s immense power, he didn't even seem the least bit frightened, nor did he treat him as though he were untouchable. For the first time in Malleus’s life, he met someone who saw him as more than just a prince, more that a powerful wizard, someone who valued him for the person he truly was.

As the months passed, that initial spark of friendship turned into something deeper. Malleus found himself drawn to (Y/N)'s kindness, his gentle nature, and the way he made Malleus feel seen and heard in a world full of people who either only saw his title or feared him due to his magic power. They spent countless evenings together in quiet, private moments, enjoying each other's company. Whether it was walking at night under the stars while Malleus explained once again the different types of gargoyles or sitting in together and enjoying tea, world outside seemed to fade away when they were together.

Soon, the bond between them blossomed into a love that was gentle and pure, the kind of love that made Malleus’s heart swell with affection every time (Y/N) smiled at him. (Y/N), in turn, had fallen deeply in love with Malleus’s quiet strength, his caring nature, and the warmth he felt when they shared intimate moments. It wasn’t long before Malleus made his intentions clear: (Y/N) would be his consort, and nothing would ever change that.

However, once they announced their relationship, they were thrust into the harsh reality of palace politics. Despite Malleus’s royal status, many of the nobles and servants were less than pleased with his choice of a partner. The fact that (Y/N) was human and lacked magic was already a "huge mistake" for them. How could the crown prince be such an utter fool. But the biggest issue among the court was that (Y/N) was male. They considered him an unsuitable partner, a "worthless" person from an unknown origin, not extraordinary in any way. They were especially vocal about how (Y/N) couldn’t provide the kingdom with an heir, further sealing their disapproval.

Every day, (Y/N) was faced with glares from servants and whispers from nobles. At first, it was difficult for him to bear the weight of their hatred. He was no stranger to discrimination as a human in a magical world, snarky remarks or simple intolerance but the coldness from Malleus’s own people was something new. Even though Malleus had warned him about the challenges they would face, nothing could truly prepare (Y/N) for how isolating it would feel. He often felt like an outsider, like an alien, which he kind of was, but he felt so much hatred coming from those people, he felt ashamed to even exist in this world, constantly trying to find his place in a world that made it clear he wasn’t welcome.

Malleus, however, could sense the toll it was taking on his beloved. He watched the way (Y/N)’s shoulders would slump after long days of royal affairs, how the light in his eyes dimmed whenever he had to face the hateful stares of the palace staff. It hurt Malleus deeply to see his partner so affected, and as his protector, he vowed to never let (Y/N) face this pressure alone.

One night, after a particularly exhausting day, Malleus found (Y/N) sitting alone in their chambers, curled up in a chair near the window. It was a moonless night, clouds were covering the stars and yet he look outside as if it was the most beautiful view he had ever seen. But Malleus could see the tension in his posture, the way his fingers were nervously playing with the fabric of his sleeve.

Without a word, Malleus moved silently across the room, his large, strong hands gently resting on (Y/N)’s shoulders. (Y/N) startled, turning to face him, and for a moment, their eyes locked—Malleus’s green eyes filled with worry and affection, (Y/N)’s eyes betraying his exhaustion and frustration.

“I know it’s been hard,” Malleus said, his voice soft and tender. “But you do not have to face this alone. I will never let them harm you.”

(Y/N) smiled faintly, but it was tinged with sadness. “I know you would do anything for me, Malleus. But it’s so hard… I’m not like them. I don’t belong here. And every time I see their looks, hear their whispers… i can't help but feel as if their words are the truth”

Malleus’s heart ached as he knelt down in front of (Y/N), his hands gently cupping the other’s face. “You are everything to me,” he whispered, pressing a soft kiss to (Y/N)’s forehead. “Your worth is beyond measure, (Y/N). I chose you because I love you—not because of what you can give me or your status. You are perfect as you are. Please, do not listen to their poison.”

Malleus held (Y/N) close then, pulling him into his arms as if to shield him from the world outside. The warmth of Malleus’s embrace was comforting, a sense of security washing over (Y/N) as he closed his eyes, resting against Malleus’s chest. He could feel the steady beat of the prince’s heart, the rhythm of a love that would never falter.

“I’ll protect you,” Malleus murmured against (Y/N)’s hair. “I’ll protect you from all who would dare harm you. No one will ever come between us.”

Over time, Malleus’s protective nature only grew stronger. His love for (Y/N) was all-consuming, and he showed it in the sweetest of ways—through tender kisses, loving caresses, and moments of quiet intimacy. Whenever (Y/N) felt overwhelmed by the pressures of palace life, Malleus would be there to comfort him, to pull him into his arms and soothe him with gentle words and affectionate gestures.

When they walked through the palace together, Malleus would hold (Y/N)’s hand tightly, as if to remind the world that (Y/N) belonged to him. He would often pull (Y/N) closer when they were alone, wrapping his arms around his waist and resting his chin on his partner’s shoulder. These small, intimate moments were what helped (Y/N) feel loved and cherished, even when the world seemed against them.

There were nights when Malleus would take (Y/N) into their private chambers, where they could forget about the world outside. He would gently kiss (Y/N)’s lips, pulling him into a deep, loving embrace, and for a brief moment, they would be just two souls in love, without the weight of the kingdom pressing down on them.

“I’m yours,” Malleus would whisper in between kisses, his voice filled with affection. “Only yours.”

As the years passed, the royal couple grew stronger, their bond unbreakable. The people of the kingdom, who had once doubted (Y/N), now saw the depth of his love for Malleus. The nobles who had once disapproved were forced to accept the reality of their union, and those who still opposed (Y/N) were dealt with swiftly by Malleus, who never hesitated to defend his partner.

Years later, (Y/N) and Malleus ruled the kingdom together, side by side, as equals. The love they shared had triumphed over every obstacle, and now, they led their kingdom with compassion and wisdom. Under their rule, the kingdom flourished, and their love continued to grow stronger each day. In the quiet moments, when they were alone in their chambers, they would still share the same sweet kisses, the same gentle touches, and the same unwavering love that had started it all.

In the end, it was clear: no matter what anyone else thought, Malleus and (Y/N) were meant to be together, forever.

[abcd-adventures]

Today, I decided to actually take my Friday off and get some personal projects finished that I've been working on. I dropped B off at camp, picked up my Target drive-up order, and for the first time, I used the Starbucks option to also get a chai latte. :) I normally don't go out for tea or coffee anymore, but this felt like a nice and convenient treat to celebrate my first time to myself in quite a while!

So far, I got our first family vacation of the year booked! We're going to Big Bend! B is going to LOVE that Air BNB! That will be in March, and then we're thinking that we'll go back to Germany in September with one week with family in Germany and one week in Italy (exactly where in Italy is TBD--very open to recommendations)!

Today I'm going to put away our Christmas tree and clear that space for the puzzle table we got this year! I find puzzles super relaxing and they're one thing everyone in the house enjoys...which can be hard to find with my mom, B, and the husband who all have very different interests. I've also been decluttering and organizing room by room. I am SO HAPPY with my room and our living room playroom area. Next up is the pantry/laundry room...it's a disaster! Lol I want to do B's room, but the new shelving I ordered won't arrive until next Friday, so that's kind of pointless right now. I'm really working on reminding myself that progress is good enough--I don't need to organize the entire house in one day and burn myself out. I can also take time out to write a post, drink a latte, and read a bit.

I have really thought of my clients so often as I've been working through coming up with my goals for the new year. On January 22nd, I'll have been at my job for three years. Many of my clients have been in my life a long time now, and I am so grateful for the depth of those relationships and how much I learn from my clients and just how much genuine care and accountability those relationships bring--in BOTH directions. It is such a freakin GIFT to be able to care about people and a real honor to have that care returned. Between family, friends, and clients my life just feels so full of love and I am so, so grateful for that every day.

[thereoncewasagirlnamedjane]

you’re a mean one.

‣ pairing — lloyd hansen x doctor f!reader

‣ contents — oneshot, coarse language, rom-com vibes??? dark but soft??? new year special, allusions to violence, blood/injury, fluff, and i would say morally grey protagonists but tbh there’s really nothing grey about them.

‣ summary — they say that there’s nothing more frightening than a pissed off, gun-wielding, profusely-bleeding lloyd hansen who’s trying to be nice… except, maybe, for his equally unstable doctor.

‣ word count — 1.8k (omg finally a short one!!)

‣ notes — this is my first time writing for lloyd and it was so much fun, even if writing a rom-com style piece for a couple of psychopaths is still extremely hard lmao. i might make this AU a ~thing~ later, although i’m still a bit unsure 👀 anyway, happy new year, my loves! bonus points if you can pinpoint my pushing daisies reference 🤭

✩ read on ao3 ✩ janie’s masterlist ✩ library blog

Lloyd stares down at the brown file folder lying open on the kitchen counter, your picture pinned to the inside flap, pondering how quickly even the most carefully laid plans can change. 

Because you were supposed to be the means to an end. He’s been doing this a very long time and he’s since learned, that for men like Sierra Six, it always comes down to sentiment. According to Carmichael’s intel, before you left the CIA for the private sector in search of more, let’s say, lucrative work, you and Court Gentry had quite the history—the sordid romantic kind, the kind that’s the easiest to exploit. 

Lloyd scoffs, his hand tightening around his wine glass. The thought of you in bed with that rogue CIA shitbag makes him physically ill, and he quickly throws back the remainder of his drink to push down the bile that’s rising in his throat. 

You were supposed to be bait. Lloyd was to kidnap you and hold you hostage, use you to lure Gentry out into the open. It’s a classic move; it had worked so swimmingly—er, for the most part—with Fitzroy and his niece, after all. 

But he’s made a devastating miscalculation. 

He failed to consider how different you’d be compared to what was written about you on paper. He already knew you were probably decent, if not outright good, at your job, but to be singlehandedly the most talented surgeon he’s ever met? And he’s met a lot of them, given his line of work. At the very least, you are a million leagues ahead of his previous physician; casualties have gone down drastically since you came around. 

And even though he’s been shot, stabbed, and shivved more times than he can count, he can barely even see the scars those wounds left behind. Your sutures are impeccable, each stitch immaculate and uniform, like a work of fucking art—and he’s not exactly the kind of man who’s known for appreciating art. 

Not to mention you are absolutely fearless. The day you met, when he’d slapped those handcuffs on you and pressed the barrel of his gun to your temple, demanding your cooperation or else he’d splatter the walls with your pretty little brains, you simply smirked and said, “I don’t know, Mr… Hansen, was it? I only bow down to one master.” 

He almost swore. 

“Talk dirty to me then, sweetheart,” he quipped back, his lips brushing over the shell of your ear, not expecting you to lean in closer and press yourself to places you had no business touching. 

“The almighty dollar,” you whispered, your beautiful face then splitting into a wide and menacing grin that matched his own. He felt a shiver shoot up his spine and almost ruined his favourite pair of pants on the spot. Lloyd took a deep whiff then, his nose buried in your hair, the sweet smell of your shampoo mixing with the distinct scent of batshit crazy. It made him a little lightheaded, to be honest. 

To a mercenary like himself who’s loyalty also only ever lay with the highest bidder—and he uses the term “loyalty” with a very large grain of salt, the kind that’s less like a grain and more like those blocks they give cows to lick—you were a woman after his own damn heart. 

He really had no choice then, did he, but to place you under his employ. Not only was he already in the market for a new doctor, he needed someone exactly like you—someone who showed no fear whenever Lloyd lost his temper and threw one of his infamous tantrums. Even Brewer would have to leave the room with a roll of her eyes, but the way her shoulders tensed up belying her discomfort… but you? 

“Calm down and shut the fuck up already,” you’d tell him, looking bored as you carefully inspected your perfectly manicured nails, “or else I’ll pump you so full of ketamine your pathetic little heart explodes.” 

You’d then bat away the barrel of his gun that he points at you in anger, calling him a goddamn drama queen. You never bat an eyelash whenever he returns to the base with someone else’s blood splattered all over his clothes, some of it even dripping from the ends of his hair. 

And on occasions when he does return all banged up and cut open, you’d giggle manically as you unravelled a roll of gauze, bundling the strands together in a tight wad before unceremoniously jamming it into his wounds. He’d scream in surprise and agony, a litany of curses bouncing off the walls while you ordered some nearby men to hold him down by the shoulders. Once it was over, with Lloyd panting through the pain and sweat dotting his hairline, you’d unabashedly boop him on the nose with a proud grin. 

“Here you go, Boss Man,” you’d cackle, pulling off the plastic off a lollipop and shoving the candy into his mouth, sugar mixing with iron on his tongue. “For being such a good boy.” 

If anyone else spoke to him the way you do, they would already be sinking to the bottom of the harbour. Whenever he threatens to end your insolent, insignificant life with a simple wave of his hand—because what exactly did you think happened to his old doctor?—you’d laugh right in his face as though you don’t believe him. 

You really are fucking insane, aren’t you? 

Lloyd rules over his criminal syndicate with an iron fist, a notoriously short fuse of a temper, and a penchant for holding grudges for as long as it suits him. It’s why, even though it’s been weeks now since he last saw signs of Sierra Six in the vicinity, he should still be more than determined to use you to get even. 

All good things to those who wait, after all, and Lloyd definitely knows how to savour a meal. 

He’s killed countless times before and slept soundly afterward, sometimes pulling the trigger so casually he didn’t even bother looking at his target. He’s never had any moral qualms about using people to get what he wants, then disposing of them once they were no longer useful. You wouldn’t be the first, and you certainly would not be the last. He can make it so that nobody even knows you’re missing, and he should, by all means, enjoy every last delicious second of it. 

So, why?

Why, if he is all those things and more, are you somehow the dangerous one? 

Because, a voice taunts him, a voice he’s both thrilled and loathed to realize is none other than his own… wait, what’s the opposite of a conscience? 

You won’t do a damned thing. Not now, and not ever. Lloyd picks up your file and, after a few more seconds of meaningless contemplation, he tosses it into the nearby fireplace. He watches, growing more satisfied by the second, as the flames lick at and curl the edges of the pages, the logs popping and crackling until there’s nothing left but cinders and ashes. 

Because you and everyone else in this godforsaken place is wrapped around her tiny little finger. Everyone at the mansion straightens and practically salutes when you pass, some of them staring after you longingly as you walk by. Men hardened by years of service, disillusioned by a government that was more than happy to use them for their own means and then leave them to fend for themselves once they were back on home soil, simper and whine just for a few seconds of your attention. 

It makes him fucking seethe, so much so that he’s made sure to threaten every single one of them with acid poured into the empty eye sockets—oh, because they will be empty once he’s scooped the eyeballs out of their heads with a dull and rusty melon baller—of the next person who makes heart eyes at you. 

After all, while they say that near death experiences can change a man, it can’t change him that much. 

“You’re not supposed to be drinking yet,” your voice drifts into the kitchen, prompting him to turn around and smirk when he sees you leaning against the doorway, that blasted white coat doing things to him it shouldn’t be. You glance around, noting the lit candles and chilled champagne, smile growing wider when you smell a roast cooking in the oven. “And here I was thinking you only ever call on me when you’re bleeding or dying.” 

“You’re my doctor, that’s kind of how it works,” Lloyd snarks, knowing that, if he’s lucky, you’ll make him pay for that comment later. “And I’m not dyin’ anytime soon, cupcake.” 

“Is that right,” you chortle, striding closer to pour yourself a glass of wine. The movement jostles your coat open enough that he can see your outfit underneath, the same one you’d been wearing when you stitched him up the other night. “So, this isn’t your blood that came out of a giant hole someone cut into your body, staining all of my nice clothes?” 

“Occupational hazard, but if it makes you feel better—” and since when did he care about what made people feel better? “—I’ll buy you a whole new wardrobe,” he offers, eyes trailing up the shape of your thighs, the mouthwatering curve of your hips, his hand finding its way into the delicious dip of your waist. For the first time in his life, Lloyd is seriously considering honouring a promise. 

“You certainly know the way to my heart,” you turn around in his arms and loop one arm around his waist. He yelps when you press at his wound, the skin healing well but still tender. God damn, he thinks as he watches your gaze darken; it actually gets your rocks off when he’s in pain, doesn’t it? “Looks like you’ll live another day, at least.” 

“Oh, fuck off,” he can’t help but quip. The oven timer goes off suddenly, at the exact same time the clock strikes twelve. “Now get your claws off me, you sick freak, or the food’s gonna burn.” 

Despite the colourful nicknames, you seat yourself at the table and softly hum your approval, sounding much more pleased than offended. And Lloyd knows he’s just as crazy as you are, even though there really hadn’t been much doubt, because he proceeds to serve you dinner in full view of his henchmen. He doesn’t think they’ve ever seen him set foot in the kitchen once since he started this little business of his, but tonight they will learn. 

You are his, the Harley to his Joker, a tenacious but not so delicate flower blooming in the concrete. Tonight, he finally makes that clear to everyone who’s around to see, and they all have no choice but to bow down to the newly minted queen of his castle. 

“Happy new year, Boss Man,” you grin, “think we’ll make it to the next one?” 

“Maybe,” he considers before clinking his wine glass against yours, leaning in close enough to taste the dessert off your lips, “no thanks to you, sunshine.” 

It earns him another pinch, but damn it all if he doesn’t like it.

fin.

afterword — not me finding new ways to incorporate food as a love language in my stories 🙈 i can’t help it, okay???

[welovewarcraft]

when i die

fandom(s): homicipher

pairing(s): mr. crawling/reader (mc)

summary: What a blissful love life he enjoys. Alas, all good things must come to an end.

The fresh air was very nice to feel; it was very different from the metallic odor that constantly lingered in his old world. You told him about the sky and how beautiful it could be when it was blue. When the rain clouds cleared and he saw the sun's rays poke through the clouds from the confines of your apartment, he was giggling and happy. He had no eyes, but due to his supernatural qualities, he could still see.

Mr. Crawling liked many other things about your world in comparison to his. The buildings and their interiors were much like the ones he was familiar with, except they were cleaner and not tinged with dirt, rust, and blood. There were no ghosts with dubious intentions that could pop out at any moment. Though paranormal activity still existed in this world, as long as the both of you stayed away from prominent areas and activities, you two were fine. 

This world was so much safer and nicer.

With you, Mr. Crawling was almost ecstatic every day. He had his first shower, his first set of clothes that weren’t his usual robe (you thought he looked rather cute in a hoodie and pair of sweatpants of the same color, but in the end, Mr. Crawling preferred his old clothes, so you got multiple kimonos for him), and his first real meal that wasn’t flesh (you’re a great cook!). He also learned about your language, your interests, and much more (once, you joked about turning him into a man of culture, but Mr. Crawling didn’t understand at the time). 

About a year had passed since he started living with you. Mr. Crawling was content with the better and safer lifestyle, and he was able to speak your language at a basic level. One day, as Mr. Crawling was watching a documentary, he noticed you weren’t beside him. When he looked over, he noticed you staring out the window, lost in thought.

“(Name)?” He asked, the name rolling off his tongue naturally.

You looked at him in response.

“Yes, Mr. Crawling?”

“What are you thinking about?” His words still sounded a bit stiff. Your name was the only word that came naturally to him; once he got it right, he was ecstatic and didn’t stop saying it for a long while, enough to practice pronouncing it perfectly.

“Nothing, dear,” you replied.

Mr. Crawling blushed at the endearing nickname, but he still felt a bit unsure. Despite that, he turned his attention back to the documentary, enjoying the visuals on-screen and trying his best to pick up new words.

Mr. Crawling was very glad that he got to go to the human world with you.

A few days later, Mr. Crawling got worried. You seemed increasingly stressed, and he wanted to relieve you of it. This time, he was really poking at you, to the point of being annoying. He hadn’t acted this worrisome in a long time since accompanying you in the other world. When you finally were pushed past a tipping point by his badgering, you snapped and said that you attracted the wrong kind of attention and that if you weren’t careful, you would end up dead. 

Mr. Crawling cried at your outburst. He could not produce tears, but the feeling was there all the same. You felt really bad, and patted his head and back to soothe him. Once he calmed down, he wanted to know everything. You refused to tell him much. A bit toward the end of your conversation, you said some words to him that made him shudder.

“When I die,” you began, “I would like to feed you my flesh so that you won’t be hungry for some time. I want to do one more good thing, even after I die.”

At this, Mr. Crawling had burst into tears again (to remind, metaphorically). He wanted to perish the thought, but you already planted the seed in his head, and he couldn’t seem to uproot it now. He could never eat you! You are his joy, the light of his life! He would rather go back to the otherworld or die than do such a thing.

He must have been really out of it because you dropped the subject instantly.

After that, Mr. Crawling became very clingy. He didn’t want you to leave your apartment at all. He succeeded at first, but after a few days, you managed to get away to go to work. You had to promise him extra cuddles and kisses after you came home every day (even on the weekends). He never wanted to leave your side, even when you had to take a shower (and thus, that’s how he got his first bath with you. It was greatly comforting, even if it was just temporary). You even got him a phone so you could send messages about what you were doing.

Fortunately, a few months later, the fear seemed to disappear almost entirely. You had managed to convince him that you fixed whatever situation you were in and that he didn’t have to eat your flesh. He was overjoyed. Everything was back to normal and perfect again.

Until one day, you didn’t come home. Mr. Crawling wasn’t too worried at first but when it was about eleven o’clock at night, he couldn’t take it anymore. He unlocked the apartment door while he was on his knees and exited the apartment. He tried his best to lock the door from the outside despite not having much experience with them; he knew you would be upset if you came home to an unlocked door and him not being there at the same time, but he was just so worried for your safety, that he eventually stopped trying and just left.

He wandered the city, making sure to stay away from other people and stick to the shadows. As he traversed, he picked up a strong metallic scent. He hadn’t smelled blood this strong since his residence in the other world (you would cut your hand on the kitchen knife sometimes). Afraid, he cautiously followed the scent.

He crawled and crawled until he reached an empty park. He made it to some trees when he saw you. You were still recognizable, but your body was mangled on the ground.

He crawled hurriedly over to your corpse and cried.

If only you just… didn’t go to work. 

He sobbed and sobbed and sobbed. His human was dead. Who would do this to you? 

As he drowned in his sorrow, he suddenly remembered your words.

When I die, I would like to feed you my flesh, so that you won’t be hungry for some time. I want to do one more good thing, even after I die.

He made a louder whimpering noise. He wanted to preserve your corpse, like how he watched in those videos about funerals. He didn’t want to eat you! He was torn between doing what you wanted and doing what he wanted.

After he was able to calm down a bit, he looked at your corpse for a little while.

Unsure, he slowly reached with his claws out.

+++

AO3

[castlebyersafterdark]

Hello babes ❤️😊 I often journal about my day to day, and do a lot of write-ups about major events, things weighing on my mind, or retrospectives. The turning of the New Year is as good an event as any to write and reflect, so I'm posting a CastleByersAfterDark themed journal online to my dear blog to start off 2025. Thoughts, thanks, and resolutions/goals:

FANDOM

The last year has been such a game changer. I wasn't having very much fun online anymore which was bothersome for me, since fandom and nerding out over stuff I'm into has been one of main hobbies since I was really young. I still was massively invested in Stranger Things but felt stagnant and burnt out as all I was doing was scrolling and reading and was kinda bored. Found a few blogs on the "spicy" side and the gossip side and lurked with intrigue and envy. Tired of watching and never interacting, I created The Castle and joined all the fine folks I admired. My maelstrom of an imagination finally had a place to process and settle again.

This blog took on a life of its own - where I thought I would use it to simply track ideas for wips and maybe converse with other writers, I never anticipated this interactive space where we can all hang out and chat and share secrets and be totally open at our pseudo, perpetual sleepover online with friends both named and anonymous, from all over the globe. The content might get strange or emotional or filthy or silly here, but I never feel alone in letting my nerdom or freak flag fly and I hope many of you feel the love I certainly feel here and enjoy joining in and doing the same. Fandom feels a lot different than it did when I was thirteen years old, but this corner of the fandom has captured that old school magic. Creativity and freedom and connection.

In 2025, I look forward to this wonderful show we love airing and getting to experience the final season after immense anticipation. I eagerly await watching our beloved Will and Mike play out their beautiful storyline on screen. I am excited for all of the mysteries to unravel and finally be understood and to discover which theories were correct and what none of us could have predicted. I'm anticipatory about seeing a slow burn romance play out and pay off between two boys in an unexpected era and to feel joy and catharsis from a storyline I did not expect in a mainstream show. I look forward to the fun and peace to follow once the truth is finally known without a shred of doubt. I don't plan on going anywhere. Going to be a long year. And nebulous time after. Looking forward to continuing to theorize and draft ideas and hear visions and gab about the actors and Byler. I have so many stories to post. Incredibly happy to be here hanging out with yall. ❤️🫂🫶

REALITY

Something... major... happened to me this past year. Hmm. Wonder what that was? Oh, right. That man of mine decided I'm ok enough and put a ring on it. Hahaha I kid, you all know by now that we are madly in love 😉 2025 I will be married! Gosh. It's been months. Still cannot believe.

We're getting married in the summer and I'm also leaving the country for the first time for our honeymoon. Excited, nervous, filled with joyous anticipation. I always wanted to be someone's boyfriend - check. Found my absolute perfect person and we've helped each other become better people and be the best versions of ourselves. Soon, I will be and have a husband which is the most surreal thing, to have each found our The One, our soulmate. Mentally, I'm telling teenage me "you'll never believe what happens - everything you dream about comes true. Hold on for me, bud." 💙💙

RESOLUTIONS/GOALS

Write more. FINISH writing projects. Stay creative. Practice practice practice art. Continue to strive to be kind. And be kinder to myself. Be more present in real life and ensure time spent on hobbies is time spent worthwhile. Have fun and stay out of discourse. Never stop learning and enjoying the pursuit of knowledge.

Follow the colors as mantra. 🏳️‍🌈 Sex 💗 life ❤️ healing 🧡 sunlight 💛 nature 💚magic and art 💙 serenity 💜 spirit 💖 PEACE AND LOVE TO ALL FOR 2025 😘😘😘

[jasminetwil]

STICKERS ARE HERE (<- link)

✨️Scrunkly baby✨️

I think Dogpool (AKA Mary Puppins, AKA Peggy!) stole everyone's hearts in the cinema. She definitely ran away with mine so I had to draw her! 🐶

Deadpool and Wolverine was such a fun movie. Genuinely have not had such a serotonin boost like that in a very long time. 💖

[ruvviks]

PLEASE DO NOT TAG AS YOUR OWN OC.

Vincent spends all his life searching for himself, searching for his spot in the world. He lives in the past and what will never be, longing for everything he has missed out on and everything he will never have. It is not until he learns he is dying that he comes to realize he has to live in the present, to enjoy life as it comes.; and despite his confusion, fear, and his regrets, he tries to live the rest of his life to the fullest, knowing very well he is living on borrowed time. OC WEB WEAVE SERIES: VINCENT "V" MAYER.

charles bukowski, pulp // by wiissa0 // loneliness for love; lovelytheband // louise glück, from 'unpainted door' // by biryuza // summer farah, i could die today and live again // tobia photographed by su yang // wake up; run river north // ruhlare // by julykings // lemonade; twin xl // ryan walker photographed by ryan pfluger // mary oliver, from 'marengo' // still not dead; dreamers // by lovelyopalite // by geloy concepcion // lemon drop; raynes // chris abani, ritual is journey // 'die milchstrasse', cover detail // louise glück, averno // i like cars; caroline kole // by cruellesummer // frances molina, o’death

[dragon-tamer-1]

Aftermare Week 2024

Day2(6): Destroy(ed)/(Re)Building

Geno was hanging upside-down from the Tree of Feelings, just above where Nightmare was. Nightmare was reading a book he got from the library. Nightmare's thoughts wandered, he couldn't help but think on how the last year went. The villagers, particularly the ones who were very hostile to him, were starting to actually give him a chance. He can't help but to believe that Geno arriving here was the cause of it, though it took a while for this to happen. They still bullied and hurt him after Geno showed up, but Geno had started protecting him. Something that Dream never-... No, it wasn't Dream's fault. Dream didn't know it was happening, or at least didn't know the extent of it. He wished he said something before, now, as things were getting better with both Geno and Dream advocating for the villagers to stop abusing him(he wasn't sure if that's what he'd call it, but Geno insisted that's what they were doing to him). He's incredibly grateful for Geno, even if he went and told Dream after the last time the bad villagers attacked him when he didn't want him to. He couldn't deny that it felt better to have his brother know about it now, though, not after the results that came afterwards.

The villagers no longer unofficially banned him from entering the village with or without his brother(they never said he wasn't allowed but the way they treated him pretty much implied it), some of them were still wary of him, but they were starting to warm up to him it seems. Some of them even apologized for not helping him sooner, they were some of the ones who weren't mean to him, though they never helped much before, if they knew at all. He certainly didn't want to dwell on how many people might not have known what was happening to him, or who knew what was happening and didn't care.

Overall, it's only been good ever since Geno arrived, they even started dating a month ago. Geno still misses his brother, but he's been happy here.

Noticing the position of the sun as being roughly noon, Nightmare was about to ask if Geno wanted to grab a bite to eat for lunch. But before he did, there seemed to be a sudden flash of light. And as soon as the light faded and he could see again, there was what he could only describe as a tear in the air beside Geno. He immediately dropped the book as he jumped up, and Geno, still partially blinded, falls off the branch trying to right himself. Just as Nightmare was about to catch him, the tear started to drag Geno in. He grabs Geno's scarf in one hand and tries to reach for his hand or something to try to keep him from going through the tear. Neither of them know what's on the other side, and they don't want to find out.

Unfortunately, it was not enough. Geno was pulled through, but not before his scarf was pulled from his neck, leaving Nightmare with only his scarf. Nightmare and Geno had one last look at each other, tears in their eyes as they realized this was the last time they'd see each other and horror at what was happening, then the tear in space closed.

Nightmare clutched the scarf as he broke down, and soon after rain clouds have gathered. Dream returned after it started pouring and as soon as he saw how distraught his brother was he ran to him. He nearly slipped on the grass, but caught himself. He noticed Geno was nowhere in sight but his priority is his brother right now.

"Brother, what's wrong? Are you ok? Are you hurt? Where's Geno, I don't see him? Wait, is that his-"

"He- he's gone, he's gone and I-I couldn't- I couldn't *hic* save him. He- I-..."

"Brother, Night, please, slow down. You have to breath, okay? What happened? Geno's gone?"

He took a few deep breaths, and tried to explain what happened, having to pause between sobs. Dream started crying along with him as what happened sank in. Geno, his brother's partner, his friend, the one who ultimately helped both of them in different ways, was gone. He protected his brother when he was unable to, even when he wanted to so bad, but didn't want to pressure his brother when he didn't want to talk to him about what was happening with the villagers. He helped him set firmer boundaries with the villagers, not letting them overwork him like they were, and in the end he and Nightmare were feeling closer than before now that they weren't keeping things from each other. All they could do in this moment was mourn Geno, as they hugged each other in the pouring rain.

~meanwhile~

Geno landed on the other side of the tear very disoriented. Upon trying to stand he noticed that everything was dark, an almost unfamiliar type of dark. He also noticed the familiar glitching over his right eye socket. Then a small presence ran up to him on his blind side and almost knocked him over.

"Agh! What the- Frisk!?"

"You were gone for so long, where were you!?"

"I-"

"Wait, you're crying, are you okay? What happened?"

"Woa-"

"You're not hurt, are you? Where's your scarf?"

"Stop!! What do you care, anyway!?"

"... I'm sorry. I was just... I'll go."

Frisk left to the only patch of grass in the Save Screen, though they were still worried about him. He was gone for so long, and they had no idea what happened to him. They wanted so bad to comfort him right now, as much as they knew that they probably weren't who he wanted near him. They did a lot to him, so they knew he wouldn't trust them. But he's clearly going through something right now.

Some time later, Geno had gotten up, but still felt defeated. So he was back in the Save Screen, huh? Was this what he deserves? Is this the karma he deserves for not protecting Papyrus that first Genocide route? Doomed to be stuck here with the kid who started it all? To do nothing but watch as Chara continues to Reset and do whatever they want? Is he really not allowed to be happy? Even once?

He shakes these thoughts out of his head for now, he can have another mental/emotional breakdown later. He looks over to Frisk, and regrets what he said earlier. As much as he wants to stay mad at them, his year with Nightmare and his brother Dream has given him a lot of time to process and think over what he's been through, and also think about Frisk and their ability to Reset. He can't help but think how the power could have made it too easy to want to do things again and again. He doesn't think he can forgive them yet, but he can certainly be a bit kinder to them.

He walks over to them and moves to sit beside them.

"Hey, I'm sorry for snapping at you earlier. You didn't deserve that."

Frisk, surprised, just stared at him for a moment. "What?"

"You didn't deserve to be yelled at for worrying about me. I shouldn't have said that. I was, am still dealing with another loss I just had. To answer your earlier questions, I had been transported to some other world very different than ours. One that seemed to have humans and monsters getting along, well, for the most part. And there were two brothers I met there, they were called Dream and Nightmare. They helped to take care of me, even when I was... stubborn. The reason for me crying was because I had been forcibly taken from there when I had been there for a year and had grown pretty close with the two, especially one of the brothers, Nightmare. I helped them as well, Nightmare was being abused by the villagers there because of a stupid assumption or rumor that they thought was fact. Put a stop to that nonsense, and also got the two brothers to start telling each other these things."

Frisk let him talk about all that happened, and couldn't help but feel both happy and sad for Geno. It seemed like he was able to be happy where he ended up, but the fact he had been dragged back here..., it was so unfair.

Eventually, they both started talking about how they could maybe fix their situation without actually destroying the timeline like Geno was initially planning to do. His time with Dream and Nightmare had given him time to think about what he would've even accomplished by doing so, and how unfair it was to everyone else that he decided their fate for them. So he had decided that he would figure something else out if he was able to come back on his own. Except that was when he was kinda wanting to go back to Papyrus more than hanging out with the brothers.

"Okay, so what can we do about Chara? I think we both can agree they can't be allowed to keep killing everyone."

"Yeah, what about still bringing them here? But I don't know what we could do after that."

"That's a start, at least. Let's see what Sans is up to."

As he says this, he opens up a window to where Sans is, after a moment to remember how he did it in the first place. The window shows Sans in the Judgement Hall, and observing for a while longer reveals that Chara is back to killing the entire Underground. 'Seriously? How many times has this gone on since he was gone? Don't they get bored of doing this over and over?'

There's nothing left to do but wait, Geno remembers that it's easiest to get Sans here while he's unconscious or a Reset happens. And soon enough, Sans gets hit, dies, and then the Reset happens. Geno snaps his fingers, and Sans is in the Save Screen.

Sans was confused, where was he? As he turns around, he remembers where this is. It's been a long time since he was here, and he was starting to worry about Geno with how long it's been without him summoning him into the Save Screen. And, wait, where is his scarf? And last he remembers, he wasn't fond of Frisk, yet he seems to be rather chill with them.

"Heya, been a long time, huh?"

"Yeah, it has been a while, sorry for disapperin' on ya, there was apparently an unplanned vacation I was sent on."

"What? I thought you couldn't leave this place?"

"I thought so too, but whatever it was that transported me there also made it so I was fine. I don't really know how that worked. But then after I had been comfortable there, I was transported back here, and for all I know, I'm still not able to leave here without dying. But, enough about that for now. I wanted to talk to you about how we can stop Chara."

Sans let out a disappointed sigh, "if this is about destroying our timeline, it's still a no."

"Oh, no, no it's not that, actually. Though I guess it can still be a backup if we really can't solve this a different way-"

Frisk decided to speak up, "We're not destroying our timeline, Geno."

"So then, what was this new plan?"

"There isn't much of a fully thought out plan, but first step is to bring Chara here. But we don't know what step two would be because I don't know how we can stop them completely."

"Ah, so we're just brainstorming things, then?"

"Pretty much."

"Hm, well, what if..."

~Timeskip to after the events of Aftertale happen and Geno is on the Surface with everyone(I'm lazy and have to progress to the rest of the story without this basically retelling all of the climax of Aftertale. Just pretend that the end of Aftertale had this kind of background with Geno not attacking Sans after getting Chara and Papyrus into the Save Screen. Also I'm just leaving this in here cause why not XD)~

Geno looked out at the sunset atop Papyrus' shoulders. He can't say that he regrets anything he's done, aside from making things harder on Sans. It's all worth it to see Papyrus again, and knowing that there won't be anymore Resets is very reassuring to him. And this view, as much as he's seen it before, is probably one of the most beautiful sights he's seen of the Surface. It's no view from that hill of the large flower field in the moonlight in the other world he spent a year in, though.

... He misses Nightmare and Dream. He can't help but wonder what they'd think of this. Surely they miss him, too.

"WHAT ARE YOU THINKING ABOUT, NEW BROTHER? YOU LOOK A LITTLE SAD."

"Oh, it's nothing. I just miss a couple of people is all. You remember the story I told you about the two brothers in the other world I was in?"

"OH, YES. I MAY NOT KNOW WHO THEY ARE, BUT I KNOW THEY ARE VERY IMPORTANT TO YOU. I'M SURE YOU'LL SEE EACH OTHER AGAIN SOMEDAY, I JUST KNOW IT!"

"Heh, I'm not sure about that, but I sure hope so."

"NYEHEH!"

As time went by, Geno grew accustomed to life on the Surface alongside his two brothers, Sans and Papyrus. But even as he was happy to finally be by Papyrus' side, he couldn't deny that he missed Nightmare terribly, sometimes to the point he refused to leave his room. He was starting to wonder how he could visit that world. To go back there. The urge to see Nightmare and Dream again only grew as time went on.

So, after a year and a half on the Surface, he starts testing out the limits of his Determination. After all, Determination had kept him from dying and also got him into the Save Screen, so why wouldn't it be able to transport him to a different world? He had to try it or he would never know. So he's in the basement experimenting with Determination, and he mixes an unstable sample of Determination with a stable sample. It has the unfortunate reaction of destabilizing completely and explodes in a blast of piercing white light.

When he next gains consciousness, the only thing he sees is white, blindingly white nothing. He immediately squeezes his eyes shut, trying to adjust his eyelights to his new and unfamiliar surroundings. "Where am I? How...?" Squinting his eyes open a bit, he slowly realizes he isn't having aftereffects from the blast earlier, but that this is indeed a white void. Completely different than the Save Screen, and yet somehow just as lonely.

"Hello? Is anyone out there!?" He listened as his voice echoed in the space, how big was it? The echoes kept bouncing between invisible walls and only faded about a minute later, was it a minute? It must have been, surely. He tests the "floor," and finds that he's definitely on something solid. And starts wandering in what he thinks is a straight line, hoping to find some kind of, well, anything really.

~Timeskip, Geno is now Error, and doesn't remember anything prior to becoming Error~

It's been four years since Geno had disappeared, and while he still misses him, things are alright. Nightmare and his brother, Dream, now had a proper house near their Tree. Some of the villagers even helped build it with them. It has three bedrooms, one for Dream, one for Nightmare, and a guest bedroom. Though both of them knew the real reason they insisted it had three bedrooms, it was for Geno should he by some miracle come back to them. They knew that, by now, it was less and less likely to happen. Dream had been trying to be positive about the possibility, but even he had doubts, and Nightmare knew that. Nightmare was inconsolable for nearly a month after Geno's disappearance. He also started avoiding the villagers again for a while, too, anxious that they would start going back to how they treated him before Geno was there.

Thankfully, the villagers understood that he was going through a very hard time, and gave him space. Some had also gifted him little treats and notes to try to help comfort him, most were given through Dream though, but there were a few occasions that someone was able to give their gift to him in person. It took a while for Nightmare to get used to the idea that the villagers wouldn't hurt him and put his anxieties to rest on that. He's always seen wearing Geno's scarf, too, it brings him some comfort.

Today was a nice day, the sun was out and it was warm, but not unbearably so. Dream was out entertaining the village children while he was taking a walk and hearing out a villager's issues and trying to help them to solve/deal with them. It was going well before a portal opened up a few feet behind them. Nightmare turned to it and froze. It was like the tear that took Geno away.

Turning back to the villager, he said, "I think we're going to have to talk later, I have to deal with this." The villager nodded and ran off.

The portal was blocky and didn't hold a solid shape, shifting and also had a strange sound coming from it. As he was studying this portal's strangeness, someone came through it! It closed behind them, and the strange sound faded, but didn'tstop. It seemed to also come from the stranger. Looking at the new stranger, they looked so odd, even for a monster. Their bones were black, oh- wait, their fingers were yellow and red, and so was what he could see of their spine. And the legs are also red it seems- Wait, stop staring, it's rude. And they were wearing a red sweater with a midnight blue jacket and black shorts and... black slippers? Actually, no, that's not the weirdest thing someone can wear, and even then, it's not really a problem. The weirdest thing was that their entire figure looked like they were... not fully together?? Their figure had square chunks of them jumping in and out of their body, and the word 'Error' was randomly placed along their body.

He was going to ask them their name and what they wanted when he noticed that they were looking frantically around them, visibly distressed and on the verge of a panic attack. He saw the signs, and having had panic attacks before, knows how to deal with it. He was just going to have to hope that what helped him out of those panic attacks would help this person.

"Hey, it's okay, here, breathe in, two, three, four, hold it in for five seconds, and breathe out for six. Ready?"

He helped the stranger through the panic attack, and thankfully they're now calm. Both of them are now sitting in the grass, Nightmare had guided the other down so that if they were to pass out they wouldn't fall from standing up. They were currently looking at the grass like they had never seen grass before, so that concerned him a bit. The sound seems quieter.

He cleared his throat before speaking, "Uh, hey, how are you doing? Feeling any better?"

They looked up at him, "Y-Yeah, I'm feelin-ng better now, tha-thank you-u. You look v-very ni-ice. Very colorfu-ful."

Nightmare, caught off guard, felt his face heat up. "U-uh, thanks? You're pretty colorful yourself."

"You look kinda-a familiar for some re-reason, but you're the f-first person I've me-met. So I don't kn-ow why I would recogn-nize you."

"I do? That does sound odd, huh? Ah! I had forgotten about introductions. I'm Nightmare, what's your name?"

"Oh, I'm, uhh-uh..." He squinted his eyes in thought as he tried to remember his name. "... Error, that'ssss it. Yeah, my na-name is Err-ror."

"It's nice to meet you, Error. Where did you come from? You were pretty freaked out when you got here."

"I'm n-not too sure? I don't know w-what the place is-s-s, but there's ju-ust, nothing in there? Hold-d-d on I think I can open a port-tal back there? I'm pretty new t-to this though..."

Error concentrates before waving a hand through the air in front of them, and the strange noise that's been there gets stronger again. The portal opens, and Nightmare can only see white. He can't see anything else in there, and looking for a while is starting to hurt his eyelights.

"Is that really what it looks like? It's just white. How long have you been in there?"

"Yeah, it's pre-retty barren, b-but it's kinda al-l I know? I thi-ink? I don't rememb-er anything else bef-fore I woke up there. And I-I don't know how long-ng I've been there, it just felt li-i-ike a very long time? Or was it a short tim-me? I'm not sure..." He closed the portal again.

"Would you like to stay here? We have a spare guest room you can stay in. My brother wouldn't mind you staying as you get used to this place if you do stick around. It's better than white nothing, right?"

"Hmm-mm, I guess I cou-ld. There's s-s-so many colors her-ere, it's... nice, I thin-nk."

Nightmare thought that last statement was a bit odd, but then again, the guy was in an empty white void, for lack of better terms, for however long he was in there. Colors would be a bit of an adjustment to someone who was devoid of most colors.

"Alright, let me guide you there, then. I'm going to have to tell Dream about this. I think you'll like him."

"Really?"

"Yeah, he's good at making friends. I'm getting the hang of it, but still like to not be around too many people at once. It's this way."

Nightmare waved him over, leading him back to his and Dream's home. On the way back Nightmare couldn't help but think about how Geno first appeared. It's rather odd how two different people managed to arrive in this place from somewhere completely foreign to him. It couldn't be related, right? No, it's just a coincidence.

Soon enough, they arrived. 'Oh, looks like Dream returned from the village early. Better for us, I can tell him everything now than wait until he gets home later.' Nightmare waved at Dream, who waved back.

Dream had fun with the villagers' children, but had decided to head back for the day. Once getting back, he realized his brother hadn't returned yet, so he went to get some food ready. He was still learning to cook from Saphire, the village's tavern cook, so it was going to be sandwiches for today. She was nice, and had offered to teach both of the brothers as a way to help them have their own means of providing food for themselves. It was so that neither Dream nor Nightmare had to rely on the villagers' generosity to avoid any possible future issues that came from any of the villagers taking advantage of them.

After making a couple sandwiches, he went outside to wait for Nightmare. He decided to busy himself with tending the flowers in their front garden. A few minutes later, he noticed movement out of the corner of his eye, and knew instantly it was Nightmare. Looking over to the forest, he saw Nightmare with a new person. He waved back at Nightmare after he waved, but was intrigued by the new person following him.

As they approached, Dream noticed more details about the new guy, including his strange appearance. He seemed rather relaxed before he saw him, but now seemed nervous. He also kept looking around at everything, almost like seeing the world for the first time.

"Hi, brother! Who might this be? Make a new friend?"

"Hi, Dream, this is Error. Error, this is my brother, Dream. He just appeared out of a portal a little while ago. He came from some kind of white void? And I offered for him to stay here instead of wherever that place was. I don't know much about the place, but I can't help but feel like that isn't a good place to live long-term. It's okay if he stays, right?"

Dream blinked in surprise, that was not what he expected, but quickly agreed. "Of course he can stay! Oh, I made some sandwiches, I should make a few more, I hope you like them!" And he ran into the house to make a few more sandwiches, leaving Nightmare and Error outside.

"Is he a-always that energeti-tic?"

"Most times, yeah. Is it too much for you? I can let him know to calm down a bit. He's just excited to meet someone new, is all."

"N-No, I think it's alri-right. Reminds me of-f...." Error pauses, trying to think of what Dream reminded him of.

"... You alright?" Nightmare asked, concerned.

"Hm? Oh, yea-ah, just thought that y-your brother reminded m-e-e of someone, but I don't r-remem-mber who. It's fine, though. Wh-What are these 'sandw-wiches' that he was talking abou-out?"

"Oh, it's a kind of food that consists of different ingredients that is put between two slices of bread, or sandwiched."

"Oh, that's kin-n-nd of cool. I'll try-y them, then."

Nightmare and Error entered the house, and while Dream was making more sandwiches, Nightmare showed their new guest the spare bedroom and pointed out his and Dream's rooms and let him know that if he needs anything at night, he's welcome to let either of them know. Nightmare just hoped that if Geno does show up again somehow, by whatever miracle, he wouldn't mind him giving Error the room he hoped would be Geno's.

He fidgeted with Geno's scarf later, after they had all eaten their fill of sandwiches. Though he will admit Error's method of eating was... unexpected(why did he have five tongues??). But it was a nice early dinner. It had surprised him just how late it was when he brought Error back, though, it didn't seem like it took that long. And there's still the question of what that strange sound that seems to be ever-present around Error. Something he'll have to ask another time.

So this is it! It is done! Ok, there are a couple of ideas I played around with in this. First, Dream and Nightmare have a very slight effect on the weather, if Nightmare and/or Dream are very distraught, it will be cloudy and possibly start raining. If either or both of them are very happy, it will be more sunny, but not hot. The other idea is that the Multiverse is not on a universal timer. A lot of AUs go at different speeds, and it's kinda rare to find any two AUs that are both the same speed and are at the same time of day as each other. And the Anti-Void is already known to be outside of any of that and fluctuates in time.

@bluepallilworld @shinechermont

The only thing I couldn't decide at first was if Error was already able to leave the Anti-Void before coming to Dreamtale, or if it's the first time he's left the Anti-Void. Ultimately, I decided to go the route of him first leaving the Anti-Void into Dreamtale. He will go back every now and then and explore the Multiverse from here, but he will always come back here. He won't realize that the reason is that he subconsciously knows this place was a home to him before he became Error, but that will happen in time.

Also this would have been posted on day 2 if I finished everything on time, but it's now in a kinda limbo where it's both on time but also late XD

[qoldenskies]

FIRST DRAFT DEFEATED!!! its 54k words currently

[galacticlamps]

in the club bathroom straightup pondering it. and by "it" haha well let's just say, 'whether or not i should attempt to finish & share a fic i've been working on for nearly a year now'

[autumnalwalker]

Empty Names - 24 - Nostalgia

Author's Note: In which Ashan tests out some new types of magic, remembers childhood trauma, revisits his hometown, and learns a bit more about Carnette Bridgewood from Road and Sullivan. See the tags for additional commentary. Word Count: 17,474 Content Warnings: "Genre-typical violence" in the form of a fight between a wizard and a monster. Dead animals (died offscreen). Anxiety over past trauma.

<-Previous Chapter Masterpost “Get away from him!”

“Teacher, what is going on?”

“Did you really think you could hide what you did?  What he is?”

“Ashan, just look at me.  Everything’s going to be alright.”

“What is he talking about?”

“Put down your staff Glassgaze.  Even you can’t stop all of us at once.”

“Watch me.”

*******

Ashan lies in bed on the hazy verge between sleep and waking, trying to sort newly unblocked memories from dreams.  He realizes his eyes are wet and he sits up, breath hitching and body shuddering as he clasps silken bedsheets to his bare chest.  The forgotten experience from a decade ago is now as fresh in his mind as if it had just happened yesterday, and it is difficult not to fall back into the mindset of the frightened child who went  through it.

He attempts to still himself the way he always does but his mind jumps to the one who taught him that technique and the image of her lying bloody and burnt from a failed attempt to protect him.  The child he was back then had not yet mastered that stillness to keep his spells precise.  He had not yet had to perfect that stillness to keep himself sane while unable to comprehend the language of his own thoughts.

A more external grounding then.  Something anchored in the here and now.  The smoothness of the sheets between his fingers.  The gentle weight of the blankets on his legs.  The barest blue glow of morning light leaking through the window blinds to lend a suggestion of shape to the patterns embroidered on the gauzy bed curtains.

He had not expected to get so used to sleeping in a bed.  Not after so many years simply suspending himself in midair with magic overnight in order to conveniently sleep anywhere.  It is the blankets, he thinks.  There is something strangely comforting about their layered weight.

He waves a hand and the curtains around the bed and over the window slide open to let in the sun.  There is the desk beneath the window with its pile of tomes borrowed from the Manor’s library.  There is his neatly folded robe within easy reach atop the bedside table.  There is the white laptop gifted to him by Eris where he left it on the vanity across the room from him.  Despite having so little, he has still marked this decadent guest room room as his own.

It is a strange thought, having a room to call his own.  It feels presumptuous and nostalgic all at once.  He and Aliana had always been on the road.  The longest the two of them ever stayed in one place was a single season, and even that had a deadline from the start after which he knew they would move on again.  This current arrangement, as far as he has been able to tell from talking to Road, appears to be indefinite as long as he wants it.

The last time he had his own room to live in rather than to stay in was when his parents still thought he was alive.

He catches sight of himself in the vanity’s mirror and stares down his reflection until its expression is as calm as it should be.  He squeezes the bedsheets to himself one last time before letting them fall, getting up, and dressing himself.

Properly attired he is no longer Ashan, the scared child who just watched his mentor fall and had his potential sealed away.  He is the wizard Glassheart, traveling adventurer and protector of those in need.

Yet still the preserved memory throbs like a reopened wound seeking acknowledgement.

He looks from the stack of tomes with their arcane lore of a dozen worlds’ spells to the sleeping laptop with its queued videos of this world’s contemporary makeup styles and techniques.  On any other day he could easily lose himself in either for hours, but right now he needs something more solid to distract himself with.

Climbing out the window and testing his reflexes with a spell to slow his fall makes for a decent start.

Making a morning ritual of exercise helps, and by now he has almost memorized the winding trails of the Bridgewood Estate’s extensive gardens.  Focusing on one footstep after another during a brisk jog is its own form of meditation, and should that not prove enough to occupy his mind, identifying the rare flowers and herbs as he passes by is an engaging challenge.

A maintenance golem pauses its gardening to wave a spindly leg at him and Ashan nods back to it in acknowledgement.  It is always the same one that waves to him on these morning jogs.  While they all might look like identical shiny black orbs on spidery legs, he has learned to pick out variations in their animating auras in his time here.  He wonders if the sorceress Bridgewood explicitly designed her creations with distinct personalities from the start or constructed a malleable template that would naturally produce emergent behavior over time.  Either one would be an impressive feat in its own right, especially considering the sheer quantity of the constructs keeping the manor and estate grounds clean and orderly in their maker’s absence.

The minutes pass by in a pleasant strain of muscles and lungs.  The paving stones beneath his feet.  The floral scents upon the breeze.  The sunlight on his face.  Anchors to the here and now.  The dark, sound-proofed tent and the enchanted shackles around a child’s wrists were years ago, not last night.

He rounds the bend in the path to the gazebo where he has made his habit of performing his more stationary morning exercises and finds Road already there.  They are holding a cloth-wrapped bundle in one hand and staring up at the star-painted inner dome of the gazebo’s ceiling.

“It used to shift in real time to reflect the sky on the opposite side of the earth,” Road says when Ashan joins them in admiring the mural.  “I wonder if it froze the moment Carnette was gone or slowly wound down.  I bet Sullivan would know.”  They blink and turn their head to greet Ashan with a warm smile.  “But it’s too beautiful a morning for thoughts like that.  Join me for breakfast?”  

They punctuate the offer with a raise of their carried bundle.

“I appreciate the offer,” Ashan replies.  His mind leaps back to the images that plagued him during the night and he cuts off the second half of that sentence.

“Wonderful,” Road laughs.  “Well, come one, I was just on my way to a perfect spot.”

“I take it you have recovered,” Ashan observes as he follows Road deeper into the gardens.  “Bridgewood said you were feeling unwell.”

“Oh, nothing that a good night’s sleep or two couldn’t fix.  As Sullivan so likes to remind me, even heroes need to sleep.  The worrywort.”

They round another bend in the garden trail and arrive at a patinated copper gate beneath an arch of ivy.  It creaks as Road pushes it open without slowing their gait.  Only when they realize Ashan has stopped to stare do they pause to turn around.

“This is the entrance to the hedge maze,” Ashan says.  Thus far he has limited his exploration of the interior of Bridgewood Manor out of respect as a guest.  He has avoided exploring the maze out of wariness.  While he has explicitly been granted free reign to explore the Estate’s grounds, labyrinths are potentially dangerous conceptual archetypes at the best of times, and all the moreso when created by mages.  To attempt to navigate one crafted by the sorceress Bridgewood herself…

“It would be quite the adventure to explore, wouldn’t it?” Road invites.  “Even the maintenance golems barely come in here anymore and Sullivan’s focused all his attention on the Manor, so there’s probably things in here Carnette never got around to showing anyone.”

A thrill of exploration trickles down Ashan’s spine, the likes of which he has not felt since the last time Aliana took him into an ancient, monster-infested ruin years ago.

“Not that we’ll be going very far in for now,” Road amends.  “But even a little taste of adventure makes wonderful spice for a meal.”

Ashan follows them past the gate and down the overgrown marble staircase beyond.  Vines and fallen leaves from the overhead trellises crunch underfoot as they make their descent.  The only view of the maze below is through stained glass windows more interested in displaying their images than allowing a view from above by which to plan a route.  Dryads dancing in a ring.  A carnivorous plant surrounded by bones.  An arachnoid flower whose web drips with nectar.  A waterfall spilling into a pool full of treasure.  The scenes go on.

“Are these all vistas to be found within the maze?” Ashan asks.

“Hard to say,” Road replies, “but knowing Carnette, she probably at least planned to include them all at some point.  Who knows which ones she ever got around to and which ones she changed her mind about or got bored with.  The one time she threw me in here and told me to try to solve the maze, it was still in the early design phase and I know she expanded it after that and took at least some of my feedback into account.”

They reach the bottom of the stairs and the stone walls give way to towering unkempt hedges.  Road pushes on through the leafy branches stretching out into the path and Ashan conjures a marker beacon to follow back, just in case.

“I am not sure where to begin unpacking that,” Ashan says.

Road laughs and turns a corner, their voice making it easy for Ashan to follow them even when out of sight.  “It was my first time meeting her.  Sullivan claimed that the two of them were past the ‘trying to kill each other’ stage of their courtship and wanted to introduce us.  Turns out he’d been talking up my skills as an adventurer and she thought it’d be entertaining to test those claims so she rearranged the layout of the Estate to make us traverse the hedge maze in order to reach the Manor.  Between you and me, I think she was a little bit jealous and wanted to see how Sullivan and I held up under pressure together.”

“And the offering of feedback?”  Ashan asks, choosing not to pursue the questions raised by the jealousy part.

“I don’t know that she ever went through with it, but she’d been toying with the idea of plucking adventurers from worlds like Orthon and Dorbreith - and maybe even people from other worlds like this that don’t acknowledge ‘adventurer’ as a profession - and offering them boons if they could successfully make their way through.  I told her that if that’s what she wanted then she needed to make the traps and puzzles less deadly and put in more safe areas where challengers could stop to catch their breath.”

“But… why?”

“Well, not to brag too much, but if Sullivan and I were making it through by the skin of our teeth then most anyone else she was likely to chuck in here at random was going to wind up dead and I wanted to prevent that if I could.  Even we had  to cheat towards the end by baiting the invincible minotaur golem she had stalking us into mowing down the walls for us so we could skip straight to the exit.”

“While that raises a number of other questions, what I meant was why would she go through the trouble?  What did she hope to get out of such a convoluted and colossal undertaking?”

Road shrugs.  “Entertainment?  Another way to spread her reputation?  Subjects to test experimental hypotheses on?  An audience to show off the fruits of her hobby to?  Carnette was never someone who did anything for just one reason and she enjoyed keeping those reasons obscured.  She and Sullivan had that in common.”  Road pushes down an overgrown hedge patch, stops, and gestures for Ashan to squeeze past them.  “We’re here.”

The maze opens up into a hexagonal courtyard.  Flagstone pathways meander from the corridors at the corners to converge on a shaded bower next to a fountain that spills into a pond.  Beneath the bower’s flowering canopy sit a mosaic-topped table surrounded by wicker chairs and a marble pedestal.  Atop the pedestal is an orb the color and texture of tanned flesh, half as wide as Ashan is tall.  Ruddy tendrils flow down from the base of the orb and into the grass.  Roots, Ashan takes them for at first.

Ashan approaches the bower and the orb within with less caution than he normally might.  Surely Road would not plan to share a meal next to something dangerous.  Pondering the orb, he can tell that it is both alive and magical, although he cannot identify the type or origin of either aspect.  He steps into the bower’s shade and the orb’s surface begins to ripple in an undulating, swirling pattern.  Its top half contracts, becoming pear-shaped, and then curves to one side, evocative of an animal cocking its head in curiosity.

Ashan flicks his wand into his hand by reflex at the unexpected movement.  The no-longer-orb rears back, stretching and flattening into a fan reminiscent of a cobra’s hood.  What are probably bones become apparent beneath what is now obviously taut skin.

A hand alights on Ashan’s shoulder.  It feels just like Aliana’s whenever she was about to either calm, encourage, or praise him.

“It’s a psychically reactive art piece,” Road says.  “Most Culescun flesh sculptures are shaped to resonate with and emanate an emotion, but this one copies and syncretizes the feelings of the viewers.  I’d been wondering where it ended up ever since Jero visited a while back.”

Ashan’s wand slides back into his sleeve.  The sculpture becomes a swirling orb of ponderous curiosity once more.  The hand lifts from his shoulder.

“So this was xyr gift to the sorceress Bridgewood for assisting xem in xyr exile?”

“The very same,” Road confirms while unwrapping their bundle on top of the mosaic table.  It is a simple spread.  A loaf of bread, a block of cheese, and an apple.  “It seemed like a shame for it to be stuck down here alone for so long without stimulation.  Given that this maze doesn’t rearrange itself anymore, I imagine you could bring the others down here sometime if you felt like it.  I’m sure Lacuna at least would get a kick out of it.”

Bones press against the sculpture’s skin from the inside in alarm.

“Stimulation?” Ashan asks.  “It is not sapient, is it?”

“Of course not.  Jero’s got too many ethical standards for that, even if Carnette didn’t always.”  Road plucks a pair of crystal goblets dangling from vines that let go with a tug and walks over to the fountain.  

“What do you mean by that?”  Ashan follows Road.  

In the nearby pool, several of the sculpture’s red tendrils have grown feathery fronds that wave in the current created by the fountain’s overflow.  Ashan recognizes them to be gills, of a sort.  A gill-less red tendril snatches a water-striding insect from the pool’s surface, dragging it under and enveloping it.

“Carnette and I often didn’t see eye to eye on matters,” Road says while rinsing the goblets in the fountain.  “I’d hesitate to call her outright malicious - most of the time anyway - but she had a tendency to overlook the fact that whatever she was doing might affect real people.  And when she did go out of her way to do something good, well, like I said, she never did anything for just one reason.”

“I see,” Ashan says.  “I had always heard conflicting stories about her, but on Orthon at least the tales singing her praise always outweighed any warnings of wickedness.”

“She always could be talked down from her worst impulses so long as there was someone willing to try, I’ll give her that.  And she’d usually answer an earnest plea for help, even if she did dress it up in a speech to justify how she was just using the opportunity to further her own unfathomable agenda.   She and Sullivan are alike in that way too.”

Road passes Ashan a crystal goblet filled with cool, clear fountain water.  The stem is still wet from the rinsing.

“Cheers,” Road says and clinks their vessel to Ashan’s.

Ashan touches the glass to his lips and catches the faintest whiff of sweetness over rotten eggs.  Road has already drained theirs in one long drink and is moving to refill it, so he takes a sip.  It tastes of sugar and sulfur.

Road takes a seat at the table and the sleeve of their purple jacket trimmed with green extends into a clawed gauntlet that they use to divide the cheese and cut the apple in half.

“For all that those two fed on each other’s chaos at times,” Road continues, “they actually mellowed one another out in the grand scheme of things.”  The gauntlet retracts and Road breaks the bread by hand.  They hand half the loaf across the table to where Ashan has seated himself.  “He misses her, you know.  He hides it, but I’ve known him longer than I can remember and this is the first time I’ve ever known him to grieve.”

Ashan’s gaze snaps up from the fruits and nuts filling the bread.  “Why are you telling me this?”

“A couple of reasons.”

“Much like the sorceress Bridgewod herself?”

Road laughs.  “I walked right into that one, didn’t I?  But really, I’m just looking out for my friends.  I’ve found that people function best when they have more than one confidant they can talk to, and while he’ll never admit it, something’s been eating at Sullivan lately and he could use another friend.”  A smile, more mischievous than Road’s usual, but no less warm.  “And besides, I think he’s taken a rare liking to you, not that he’ll admit that either.”

“I have no interest in courtship,” Ashan says flatly.

“Not at all what I meant,” Road chuckles.  “And don’t worry, neither does he.  Those days are well behind him.  As I said, friendship.  Merely something to consider at any rate.  The abrasiveness is mostly a mask, I promise.”

“I shall keep that in mind,” Ashan concedes.  “And your other reason?”

“I figured you could use a diverting conversation and it seemed like a potentially engaging topic.”

The sculpture twists itself into a knot.

“You did not encounter me by chance this morning.”  It is a statement, not a question.

“Not exactly,” Road admits, “but not exactly not either.  I guess you could say I’ve got a knack for showing up where and when I’m needed, even if I don’t fully understand the why of it.  The info gathering that Sullivan - and now Lacuna - do simply speeds up the process and makes it more efficient.  I can tell when it’s happening though, and when you showed up I made some educated guesses.”

“Such as?”

“No offense, but speaking from experience, you strike me as the kind of person who holds things in until they get to be too much and spill over, and given that there was mention of you and Lacuna possibly attempting to remove your seal yesterday it seemed likely enough that something from that might be bothering you.  So, if you want to talk about it, we’re in a safe place and you have my word no one else will hear about it, and if you’d rather have a distraction, we’re in a place built by the most famous mage of the last few centuries and I’ve got stories to tell.  Or I can shut up and we can enjoy a beautiful morning in silence.”

Ashan nods and chews his bread in silence, pondering the orb, the one it was gifted to, the one so willing to talk about her, and the offer they made.

The silence of a peaceful morning where decisions can be put off for at least a little while.

Ashan takes a sip of the strange water and conjures a set of razor thin barriers to further slice his half of the apple and cheese.

The sorceress Bridgewood…

Unlike wizard, witch, or enchanter, the term sorcerer is not so much a description of how one’s magic works, but an accusation.  Broader than titles such as pyromancer, warder, or cleric that refer to the types of magic one specializes in, “sorcerer” is a term reserved for mages who practice magic that is considered taboo, whether because it is morally abhorrent or just too dangerous for anyone to safely or responsibly control.  Stealing or binding souls.  Communion with the eldritch.  Mind control.  True resurrection of the dead.  City-leveling evocations.  Not always a mark of evil, but always one of danger.  Someone might delve into forbidden sorcerous arts with the best of intentions meaning to use them for good; or simply be overconfident enough that they really think they can control what generations of mages before them have failed.

And then there were the so-called “true sorcerers.” Every couple centuries or so someone usually shows up with the talent and skill to actually command that kind of power without destroying themselves and everyone around them.  Maybe once a millennium there would be such an individual who refrains from abusing their power to the point that they become threats to entire countries, if not entire worlds.  

Or so Aliana had taught Ashan long ago.  According to her, the only “true sorcerer” like that alive right now in this world cluster is - or now rather was - the sorceress Bridgewood.  It was a name he had latched onto ever since he first heard it.  In his early teens he had occasionally fancied himself as aspiring to the title himself one day.  The day he mentioned that to Aliana was one of the few times she ever snapped at him.  That conversation makes more sense now.

“The counterseal ritual worked,” Ashan says, breaking the silence, “but the blocked memories of the seal’s application have come back unexpectedly vividly.”

“As if no time has passed at all since the memories were locked away, perfectly preserved and ready to throw you right back into who you were at the time,”  Road whispers.

The sculpture grows spines in surprise.

“How did you know?” Ashan asks.

“Personal experience.  There’s a reason I’ve come to prefer amnestics and wipes over blocks.  They’re not as precise or complete, but even if the memories do come back for whatever reason, they tend to be blurred and as dulled by time as memories normally would be.  Less risk of dropping you into the deep end of unprocessed trauma out of the blue that way.”

“I see.  You do have a great deal of experience with aiding those who inadvertently fell through the Masquerade.”

Amnesticization for the sake of Masquerade preservation is the one exception to the proscription on mind-altering magic.  Of course even non-mages that work with potential Masquerade breaches would be well-versed in the different methods of allowing people to return to their mundane lives.

“Sure, let’s go with that,” Road says.  “But as for your current situation, you’ve got options.  Amnestics to dull the pain are technically an option, albeit not one that I would recommend for a variety of reasons.  Then there’s the old standby of ‘cope, drown it out, and live your life until it fades like any other bad memory,’ which has its ups and downs.  Or there’s the hard but effective route of trying to work through and process it, but that’s not going to happen in a single morning and from the look of that sculpture over there, you’re not up to doing much more talking about it right now anyway.”

“Not so much, I fear.”

“Nothing wrong with that.  And if you like, remind me later and I can get you in touch with some therapists I usually recommend to first timers Backstage.  But for now, any requests for a story?  Sullivan’s the real teller between the two of us, but I’ve been told I can be distracting when I want to be.”

“Thank you, truly,” Ashan says.  “Although one thing I feel I must share lest I leave her reputation unnecessarily tarnished is that I know for sure now that my ment- that Aliana was against the application of the seal on me and only conceded to play her role in binding my magic after she had exhausted her other options for protecting me at great cost to herself.”

“I’m glad to hear you weren’t betrayed in that way too.”

“It does not change the fact that she ultimately kidnapped me without any intent of bringing me back home.  It is a solace that I am still deciding what to make of.”

“I know the feeling.”

“But as for story requests, perhaps a tale involving the sorceress Bridgewood?  We are in her home afterall, and, after her consort, I imagine you knew her best.”

Road grins and leans in close over the table.  “Oh, I’ve got a few I could tell.  Remember our fair lady of the green?  The minor goddess who helped us out with the Logos quest?  So, a while back some produce corporation was imprisoning and exploiting her to increase crop yields and was blatant enough to feature her as a mascot in their advertising…”

*******

“Please, just don’t hurt him!”

“You’re in no position to make demands Glassgaze.  Count yourself lucky that none of the elder mages you felled before we put a stop to your outburst died.”

“He’s just a child.  He hasn’t hurt anyone.”

“He just cut maestro Silverthorn’s arm off to protect you.  He’s an anchor world mage whose magic is unbound by logic or rules and with more potential for power than I’ve ever seen.”

“I’ve taught him control.  Restraint.  Honor.  Do you really think it’s luck that no one died today?”

“Honor?  That’s a joke coming from you.  You’ve taught him enough to be dangerous by giving him a taste of combining magic systems from outside his homeworld.  Or did you really think you had the next sorceress Bridgewood on your hands?”

“That’s still no reason to kill him.  You’re talking about executing a child for being a potential threat.  Bind him if you have to, but please, don’t hurt him.”

*******

Ashan raises his arm that isn’t temporarily paralyzed and accepts Road’s offer to lift him off the floor of the gym’s sparring ring.

“Good match,” Road says.  “If you’d had more room to maneuver you might have had me.”

Eris and Lacuna had already been at the office when Ashan and Road arrived after breakfast.  They got to talking about the nullification of the seal on his magic and one thing led to another and soon enough Eris proposed a sparring match to see what he could do.  To Ashan’s surprise, Lacuna demurred from watching a display of the magic she had helped unlock in favor of staying in her lab to catch up on work.  Ashan won fairly handily against Eris and then Road asked if he was up for another round.  

It ended much as any match against Road does, save for the fact that he got them to draw that energy sword of theirs against him for the first time. 

“A good match indeed,” Ashan says while Road pulls him to his feet.  He sways, off balance from one arm limply dangling as dead weight, and Road waits until he steadies before letting go and handing him back his wand that he had dropped when their blade of orange light disrupted his motor control.

Yes, a good match, or at least an educational one.  A reminder that theoretical study of varied forms of magic and the sudden ability to access them does not automatically equate to mastery.  And loss does ever carry its own opportunities.

Ashan touches his wand to his numb hand and focuses on a spell he has been wanting to try for some time now, ever since encountering that first tome borrowed from Bridgewood’s library.  That tome, Whispers of the Sun, had an entire chapter dedicated to spells of healing flame as a prime example both of how pyromancy can be more than the pure destruction commonly associated with it and of how varied the approaches of traditions originating from different worlds can be when arriving at the same end state for a spell.  Some of those spells were crude acts of cauterization.  Others grew out of the concept of fire as a cleansing agent burning out impurities, sometimes symbolically and sometimes literally.

This spell is rooted in the conceptualization of the sun as the ultimate source of all life and fire as an extension of the sun.  

Some spells require incantations, be they poetic verse to manifest a concept or nonsense syllables meant to resonate on esoteric frequencies with the universe’s vibrating threads.  Other spells require gestures, be they precise hand signs and dances drawn from a deep canon of tradition or simple focusing motions bridging the gap between visualized will and manifested physicality.

This spell requires a prayer.

It is a wordless prayer, as all the deepest prayers are.  It is a praise of the sun.  It is a cry for the comfort of warmth.  It is a recognition of connection and promise of care.  It is more witchcraft than wizardry.  It is not a technique of precise formulae and methodology.  It is a gift that asks only for a reverent heart.

Reverence has never come easily to Ashan, but he hopes that wonder will make an adequate substitute to the recipe as he casts his mind back.

The warmth of a roadside campfire and the end of a day’s travel and the countless stars overhead.  His first time seeing a farm in person and the rows and rows of green leaves turned to face the sun.  The sight of the sky after weeks of exploring underground ruins and the tears the light brought to his eyes.  The hearthfire at a bustling inn and the realization that he was living a scene out of a fantasy.  A dragon’s blazing breath and the eggs it incubated while he and Aliana watched from hiding.  The smell of his parents’ cooking wafting across the yard and the knowledge that it was time to come inside from his play.  A towering white tree whose bark glitters more like crystal than wood while its mother-of-pearl leaves make a shifting rainbow above. 

Three times Ashan sat beneath that tree and each time was the closest he has ever felt to reverence.  The first was as a child, roughly a year after his abduction, and it was a surprise gift from Aliana in an attempt to share someplace special to her.  The second was at the end of his training, waiting for seven days for a branch to fall so he could carve it into a wand as his mentor had done with her staff, and afterwards Aliana bestowed upon him the epithet of Glassheart to anoint him as a peer rather than a student.  The third was on his last day on Orthon, after he learned there had never been an intent to bring him home, and it had been at Aliana’s request for one last detour before taking him home so that she might say goodbye.

He understands that goodbye better now.

White flames spread from the tip of his wand to envelop his hand and crawl up his arm, illuminating the sleeve of his robe from within.  His fingers twitch involuntarily as sensation returns, first as warmth, then as a pins-and-needles tingling.  The sensation and the twitching moves up to his elbow; to his shoulder.  He feels the air grow cold around him.  He feels himself start to sweat.  He feels a pang of hunger.  The flames grow brighter and spread to his neck.

Ashan Glassheart clears his mind and the flames flicker and go out.

His arm feels feverishly hot and the tingling sensation persists, but there is no pain and he has full motor function once again.

The full process took seven seconds, but it feels like much longer.

He is holding up his hand and flexing his fingers, about to comment on the spell working better than anticipated for a first try when an unexpected voice interrupts him.

“I see we’re doing self-immolations today,” Bridgewood - the current Bridgewood - lilts.  “Someone should have told me, I would have brought marshmallows.”

“Ashan has healing magic now,” Road says.  “He just cured the paralysis from my sword.”

“No offense,” Eris says, “but if that’s healing I think I’ll take my chances with my own regen.  I’ve had my fill of mages lighting me on fire.”

“Is that surliness I hear?” Bridgewood croons.  “Sounds like someone lost her match.”

“Gonna have to try harder than that to bait me,” Eris says nonchalantly.  “Yeah, I lost this round, but that just means our score is tied again.  Besides I’ve figured out his tells with glow color and magic type so I’m feeling pretty good about next time.”

His tells?  What is she talking about?

“Okay, why’s everyone staring?” Eris asks.

“There is no color-coded glowing to my utilizing different magic systems,” Ashan says.  “Not to the mundane eye anyway.”

Eris closes her eyes and massages her temples with one hand.  “Oh goddammit…” she mutters.

Bridgewood’s smirk beams wide.  “Well now, as positively delicious as those implications might be to unpack, we do have work to be doing.”  He turns to Road.  “My friend, I’ve finished the sorting of which of those cursed trinkets to hold back as bait, so you and muscles over there are free to finish your wrapup deliveries from that job.  Excuse me, that ‘mission’.  Wizard boy, you’re with me.  There’s a crossover point I want to assess as a staging ground for our ersatz smuggling route and a monster that’s wandered out of it to harass the locals so we’ll be making with the proverbial bird stoning.”

Eris stares Bridgewood down, swallows whatever words has in mind, and turns to Road to say “I’ll get the vans ready.”

It occurs to Ashan to wonder just what she and Bridgewood spoke of in private before and on their long way back from assisting the changeling siblings yesterday.  He would have expected more pushback from her against Bridgewood’s apparent giving of orders, especially given the friction between them up until now.  

He considers questioning the directives himself (is not Road the one who should be issuing such commands?) but decides against it for now.  If there is good work to be done then what does the organizational structure matter?  Better instead to focus on the most relevant information.

“So, where is this crossover point?”

*******

“There, there.  None of this is your fault.  You didn’t do anything wrong.”

“But… but… hi-his arm! And your head!  And everyone is… and they are saying-”

“Shhh…  You did nothing wrong.  All that can be healed.  I’m going to make everything alright and in the morning this will all just be a bad dream.”

“Glassgaze, the elders are ready for you.  And your… charge.  They said to remind you this is your last chance to back out and let them do a full sealing.  Otherwise any future transgressions of his are on your head.”

“Tell them they can wait another few godsdamn minutes!”

“They also said to remind you that if he ever leaves this world then you can consider yourself exiled along with him.”

“Fine.  It’s not like I ever planned to take him back home.  Now let us have a moment.”

*******

Ashan looks out the window of the armored van at the greens and browns of the rocky hill country as the vehicle bounces and jolts its way down an offroad trail.  That boulder.  That gulley.  That stand of mesquite and mountain cedar trees.  The more he sees the more the suspicion that has been growing since passing through one of the Bridgewood Estate’s tree portals becomes a certainty.

“I know this place,” Ashan observes.

“Good,” Bridgewood replies from the driver’s seat, “that means I was on the money about which crossover point you absconded through as a kid.”

“Why are we here?”

“My friend and I believe the unknown group that caused that nasty business with the dead dragon getting a ship stuck in its skull back on our first outing has been targeting smuggling operations passing through crossover points in order to acquire various illicit magics and technologies while leaving no witnesses.  Our backup plan if other avenues of inquiry fail us is to leak a rumor through certain channels which I know are being monitored that a certain sorceress’s private collection has been burgled and moved off world in order to lure this group into a confrontation.  We’re here to assess the nearby crossover point to make sure it’s a suitable staging ground.”

“That is not what I meant.  Why this crossover point specifically?”

One last bounce and a swerve to keep the armored van from barreling into an arroyo and the suggestion of a trail turns into an unpaved road through the hilly backwoods.  The trees here are short and srcubby, but they are thick enough to block any good view of the surroundings.

“A few days ago the techie flagged a series of cryptid sightings in the area as a potential job to follow up on,” Bridgewood offers.  “No direct human contact yet, but a mild correlation to a suspected drop in local wildlife populations.  Not too unusual with the nearby crossover point.  It seemed minor enough that I normally would have set it as something for my friend to occupy themself with in between bigger jobs with the rest of you lot, but I figured we may as well make this outing the stone to kill both of these birds with.”

“Are you being evasive or simply obtuse?  I doubt my personal connection with the area is a coincidence.”

“You’ve got that right,” Bridgewood chimes.  “Say, you never learned to drive, did you?”

“What?” Ashan blinks at the sudden non sequitur.  “No.  Why?”

“Would you like to?  This is a pretty easy stretch of road and there’s no one around to try to pull you over, as hilarious as that would be.”

“I shall pass.”

Bridgewood shrugs, taking both hands off the wheel in the process.  “Suit yourself.  According to television, it’s supposed to be an effective bonding and trust building activity.”

“That may well be,” Ashan begins slowly, “the most blatant attempt to change the subject I have ever witnessed.”

“Oh if that had only been a conversational redirection you never would have noticed,” Bridgewood chortles.  “How about this then?  Answer a question of mine and I’ll answer the question you seem to think I’m avoiding.”

Through a break in the trees, Ashan sports a familiar creek out the window.  They are moving away from the crossover point and towards town.  Searching for the cryptid first then.  That would make sense if the goal is to do a catch and release back through the crossover point to whatever world it slipped in from.  He thinks back to how long it took him and Aliana to make this trek.  Far slower having been on foot but the route was more direct.

“Go ahead and ask your question,” Ashan says.  “We have plenty of time and I have few secrets.”

“Excellent,” Bridgewood purrs.  “Now tell me, what do you think of my wife?”

“Excuse me?” Ashan stutters.

“Carnette.  The sorceress Bridgewood.  My dearly departed wife.  Don’t think I haven’t noticed you going all wide-eyed fanboy every time you encounter one of her creations.  I’d like to know why.  Around these parts her name gets spoken in frightful whispers more than open adulation.”

“On Orthon,” Ashan says after a moment of consideration, “she is considered a living legend.  Some would even go so far as to call her a heroic figure, although there are some popular stories that would dispute that.”

“It’d hardly be the first time someone made that mistake,” Sullivan laughs, “but do go on.”

“To begin with, it is said that almost two centuries ago, as a mere teenager, she arrived on Orthon out of the blue and within the span of three years mastered seven different Orthonian magic styles - four of them considered forbidden arts - and averted a calamity brought on by a megalomaniacal cabal.  Even without those feats, her very presence revolutionized what we knew about interworld travel and branching anchor theories of cosmology.  The sporadicness of her presence over the next century arguably taught us about that field as much as she did herself.”

“But who was she to you?”

“By the time I arrived on Orthon she had not been to that world in over half a century so by then she was more like a historic folk hero that few other than elder mages had ever met in person.  They say that the continental Convocation of Mages that sets the regulations on magic in the region my mentor and I spent most our time in was originally formed by her old adventuring party and that on her final visit she contributed directly to laying the foundations for the modern academy system of teaching wizardry that my mentor learned from.”  

Ashan feels his cheeks grow warm with the realization that he is stalling.  

“On the most personal level,” he continues, “she was someone to aspire to.  The bards all had at least one story of the sorceress Bridgewood in their repertoire, the mysterious mage from another world who mastered the forbidden arts without being corrupted by them, saved the world, and went on to invent whole new fields of theory.  Even if more than half of the stories were nonsense, that still left enough truth to make the very concept of a ‘true sorcerer’ synonymous with her name.  For a time, I thought that if I could be great like her I could prove that I was also an exception to the trend of anchor world mages being dangerously unpredictable, power hungry, and literally fueled by their own ego.  I dreamed that if I could do that I would not have to hide what I was anymore.”

“You thought that even with the darker stories floating around about her?” Sullivan asks.  “I don’t have nearly as many ears on Orthon as I would like, but I know at least a few of those made it over there.  Void Without, I’m sure a few even originated from there.”

Ashan’s gaze drifts back out to the dirt road in front of them.

“I was a child at the time, projecting onto an icon.  Even the best stories about her portrayed her as a hard-to-work-with eccentric, so I rationalized that between that and her more sorcerous arts she was bound to have a few enemies that spread lies over the years.  That rationalization stopped after I told Aliana about my dream and she grew truly angry with me for the first and only time.  Or so I thought.  Knowing now what I had been made to forget, I wonder if it was fear that she was feeling.  Fear of losing me or fear that she was wrong about me, I know not.  All the same, I took that as a sign that those darker tales must be somehow true and began focusing on being good, possibly great, in my own way instead.  Or at least in Aliana’s way.”

The van’s interior falls into the near silence of bumpy roads and long-restrained confessions floating unexpectedly free to breathe.

Ashan turns back to face this Bridgewood.  At last the desire to know gets the better of him.

“What was she like?” he asks of the other Bridgewood.

Sullivan’s ever-present smirk softens into a genuine smile.  It is as disconcerting as a cat suddenly sparing its prey.

“Carnette is… the most absurd woman I have ever met.  She’s a brilliant scholar with a wicked sense of humor capable of vacillating between childish whimsy and ruthless practicality on a moment’s notice.  Any so-called heroic act she ever took was motivated by amusement, utility, or spite.  She has more power than most could ever dream of and her favorite thing to use it for is interior decorating.  At least one secret door in the Bridgewood Manor is opened by the theme song of a children’s cartoon.  She delighted in making a show of academically eviscerating anyone espousing theories of magic she thought were hogwash and then literally eviscerating the fools that fell back on insults and challenges to duels in lieu of sound defenses.  I know of at least four different instances where she all but abducted random people off the street, ran experiments on them, called it a gift or blessing, set them loose, and then spent years observing them in secret to gather datapoints for whatever hypothesis she was testing.”  Bridgewood takes his eyes off the road and locks them with Ashan’s.  “Do you understand what I’m saying?”

“No,” Ashan says.  He wishes it were otherwise.  It almost is.

Bridgewood softly shakes his head and returns to watching the road in time to steer around a pothole trying to become a sinkhole.  “Of course you don’t,” he says.  “You never met her.  Stick around long enough and one day you will.”

“You speak as if she is still around.”

“And you use ‘we’ when referring to the people of Orthon.”

The silence of a linguistic habit considered and questioned.

“If I may,” Ashan asks, “how did you meet her?”

Bridgewood cackles and turns out of the brush onto a paved road.  

“I take it that is an off limits question then,” Ashan says.

“Oh, no, I’m a veritable open book when it comes to that tale,” Sullivan lilts.  “I tried to kill her several times and she found it endearing.  Eventually we landed ourselves in a business arrangement of a marriage contract where I would get the money and status that goes with the Bridgewood name, and she would get a conversation partner who wasn’t terrified of her and a willing test subject for her more outlandish experiments.  I’m laughing because now you know what it looks like when I redirect a conversation.”

“Oh.”

“Got so excited to learn more about the great sorceress Bridgewood that you forgot why you were even answering that question, didn’t you?”

“It was rare knowledge from a rare source with a rare opportunity.  The other answer could wait,” Ashan says.  It is as true a statement as saying yes would have been, if marginally more dignified.

“Ha!  You really are a wizard through and through.  I even got you monologing earlier.”

“I did no such thing.”

“Oh, then I suppose that was the normal sort of gushing at length about your childhood idol and spilling all your complicated personal feelings with barely any prompting because you’ve been alone so long you don’t know how to regulate sharing to any rate between all or nothing.”

“I do not gush,” Ashan says after a moment of recovery.  “Now, you have a question to stop avoiding and an answer to give.”

“Struck a nerve there did I?  You’ll have to forgive me, it’s like a reflex when I see them exposed.”

Ashan stares Bridewood down coolly.  The smile has regressed back to a smirk.  Outside, the forest has thinned out into unkempt fields separated from the road by fencing wire strung between wooden posts.  There were horses in those empty fields when he was a child.

“Fine, fine,” Bridgewood relents.  “I chose this specific locale and your company in particular because I wanted to see how you would react.  Yesterday with muscles was wonderfully informative and productive, both in observing how she handled seeing off that changeling pair and in the little chat we had on the way back.  I hoped to do the same with you.”

“But why?”

The smirk grows wider.  They pass by a once-whitewashed house with a corrugated metal roof.  More are coming up.

“Let me answer that question with a question,” Bridgewood trills.  “And it will be part of the answer, even if it doesn’t sound like it at first.”

“Very well, but this had better be the last such evasion.”

The van slows as it comes into town.  Single-story houses and trailer homes line either side of the road.  Most have modest sized yards surrounding and separating them.  Some of those yards are strewn with cheap plastic lawn furniture and children’s toys.  Some sport kitschy ornaments.  Some (usually but not always the fenced-in ones) have animals; goats, dogs, pigs, a few chickens.  Some have all of the above at once or nothing but overgrown weeds.

Bridgewood leaves Ashan hanging in silence to take in the familiar milieu before finally asking his question.

“If you could go back to your family, pain free, with everyone’s memories modified as if you never left, erasing even the pain your leaving had caused, would you?”

The van slows to a stop at an achingly familiar intersection without traffic light or stop sign.  Ashan’s breath hitches.  Mercifully, Bridgewood continues on through instead of turning left.

“That is not a hypothetical worth engaging in.”

“Whoever said it was hypothetical?  All manner of people owe me favors and Carnette left me with many a useful trinket.  I could make it happen.  Say the word and you could live a peaceful life with your family as Adr-”

“That name is not for you to say!” Ashan snaps before Bridgewood can finish the utterance.  More calmly, he continues, “The Count of Curses and Dust made me a similar offer.  They would have bought that Name and bequeathed it to a changeling to return in my place and live that life so that I might live this one without guilt.  What you propose would be the opposite but the same.  I would no longer be Ashan Glassheart.  Either deal would mean losing a part of myself.”

The van turn takes the next right turn to continue meandering through the tiny town’s only real neighborhood.  A white pickup truck without tires lays rusting in front of a mobile home with a collapsed roof.  Once, there was an old woman who paid a young boy in cookies to weed her garden and showed carrying a pot of soup up at the door of anyone with a sick child.

“Then why not bring your family Backstage?  The Bridgewood name is useful for getting people to turn a blind eye toward such a minor Masquerade breach.”

“Even if they forgave me and accepted me back, the work I do is dangerous.  I do not know that I could bear to put them through the new pain of worrying about me every time I go out.”

“Why not settle down with them then?  There’s no shortage of jobs in Crossherd for a mage willing to work on utilities.  There’s not a direct bridge to the pocket dimension around here, but the conditions are ripe for someone of your talent to make one.  You could be a wizard and have your family without worrying their pretty little heads.”

“I have the ability to do good in a way that others cannot.  It would be wrong for me not to.”

“How selfless of you,” Bridgewood condescends.

They pass by a house recognizable by its plastic lawn flamingos.  The house on either side is boarded up.  Back when the sun had not yet bleached the flamingos white or rendered them brittle and full of holes, two children that went to elementary school together fought with sticks they said were swords until they put aside their differences and turned their attention to the terrible pink dragons threatening the kingdom.  Today, those no-longer-children glance at one another through tinted glass without recognition.

“Only mostly,” Ashan admits.  “I cannot deny that I enjoy what I do.  Felling monsters.  Bringing villains to justice.  Protecting those who cannot protect themselves.  There is a… joy… to playing the role of hero.  No, more than that.  It is a part of me as much as either Name.”

“Congratulations,” Bridgewood chirps.  “That is exactly the set of answers I hoped you’d give.”

“So this was a test.”

“Think of it as,” Bridgewood drawls, ���an assessment of compatibility.”

“For how you and I will work together?”

“Quiet Void, perish the thought.  Compatibility with my friend.”

“You mean Road.”

“I’ve never had another.”

“They mentioned something about that this morning.”

The smirk flickers to a grimace.

The van turns back onto the closest thing the town has to a main street.  There’s a church on the corner for a god the boy who would be Ashan never understood.  Nor did he (nor does he) understand why there were three churches in town all to the same god.  Nor why he always had to wear his most uncomfortable clothes and wake up early just to hear an old man drone on in a voice that put him to sleep whenever it was not a story about lion dens or fighting giants with slingshots.  The sign for the country barbeque across the street is gone.  There are more churches than restaurants in town now.

“Look wizard boy, I’ll tell you what I told muscles yesterday.  My friend is about as close to perfect as humanly possible, but at the end of the day they are still human, which means one day they will slip up, and when they do it will be bad.  You need to watch out for that.”

“That seems like perfectly obvious advice about anyone working on a team doing what we do.”

“You still haven’t noticed, have you?  The way they make everything feel like it’s going to be alright just by being there?  How easy it is to trust them and go along with whatever course of action they suggest?  That voice saying that even when a job goes badly surely they’ll find a way to get you out?  Not that they can help it.  It’s just the way they are now.”

“It almost sounds like you are telling me to be wary of Road.”  The very notion feels wrong.

“I’m telling you to be wary of yourself for my friend’s sake.  The worst they’ve ever been hurt was always because the people around them put them on a pedestal.  I’m hoping that you and muscles have enough in common with them that you won’t be so blind.  The techie’s a lost cause, but as long as she’s content to stay in her lab playing with her toys she shouldn’t be too much of a liability.”

“I see.”

“No you don’t.  Not yet, and if there’s a drop of Fortune’s heart that doesn’t hate me yet you never will.”

The silence of uncomprehended warnings, outgrown smallness, and withered remembrance.  Ashan looked up his hometown once after Eris gifted him his laptop.  It confirmed the impression he got when he first returned to this place alongside Aliana.  He was not the only one that left this place for good.  The population today truly is but a fraction of what he remembered.

“What if I had not given the answers you hoped for?” Ashan asks.

“Ah, classic wizard,” Sullivan chuckles.  “Asking questions you’re better off not knowing.”

“A question I am better off knowing then: What manner of creature are we searching for?  ‘Cryptid’ is a designation vague as it is broad.”

“I don’t rightly know.  The reported sightings were all contradictory when they described it as anything more than a shadow moving in the night.  It could just as well be multiple creatures or a shapeshifter.  If I hadn’t had access to first hand confirmation that this place has a history of monsters crossing over –” Bridgewood glances pointedly at Ashan  “–  then I might well have written the whole business off.”

“You sound far too amused by your own ignorance,” Ashan says.

“Mystery is one of life’s greatest spices.”

“Let us get on with the solving then.  I assume you have already gathered the names and addresses of those who witnessed this alleged cryptid.”

“Obviously, but as long as I have convenient bait and a local expert on hand I see no reason to involve middlemen when I can skip straight to luring our quarry out.”

Ashan silently chides himself for not having seen this coming.  Magic is spread thin and weakened on anchor worlds by their nature and monsters whose very biology relies on magic instinctively find themselves drawn towards those whose presence warps reality’s rules to their will so that they might sustain themselves.  That was the very reason he needed rescuing by Aliana all those years ago.  For similar reasons, wild and predatory monsters on other worlds will often target young and inexperienced mages as their favored prey.  More powerful mages however, are treated as greater predators that all but the mightiest monsters will give a wide berth.

“Suppressing my presence to avoid attracting monsters was one of the first things I was taught,” Ashan says, “and even if doing so were not a subconscious reflex for me by now I suspect that my aura would function more as repellent than as bait.”

“What, your mentor never taught you aura flaring?”

“I am aware of the technique, but it is a pointless one.  It takes little practice to control how much one passively warps the ambient flow of magic, so it is useless as a tool for gauging a mage’s power when they may just as easily be hiding their potential as bluffing about their strength.  Moreover, it is crass.”

“Crass?  That’s the first time I’ve heard that.”

“Vulgar as a contest of urination.”

“Huh, must be an Orthonian thing.  Anywhy, I’m going to kindly request that you do that to make yourself look as appetizing as possible.”

“What part of it being a crass and useless technique did you not understand?”

“In that case I’ll just need to find some other poor unwitting schmuck.  If there’s a monster hanging around for as long as this one apparently has been, then odds are decent that there’s a potential mage in town.”

Ashan follows the nod of Bridgewood’s head out the window and realizes that their van has slowed its cruising around town to a crawl in front of the high school he never got to attend.  Ashan waits for the pang of loss for a part of growing up he missed out on, but it never comes.  That realization brings a loss of its own.  How disconnected from one’s own culture must one be to not even feel a desire for the milestones that were denied?  He tries and fails to imagine what it would have been like, sitting in classes and studying all day, making friends his own age, joining a club or band or sports team.  All he has for context to build the fantasy off of is a handful of blurry memories of elementary school and television shows.  It all feels so alien to him now.  

What would he even have been doing at that age?  High school spans four years, does it not?  So the year spent sailing the western archipelago up through the infiltration of the gala at the oasis palace a year before his falling out with Aliana, with the catastrophic failure of his old translation charm roughly halfway in between.  No wonder he cannot relate.

“If you’re looking for your baby brother,” Bridgewood says to the staring Ashan, “classes don’t start for another two weeks and he won’t be attending here for another couple years yet anyway.”

The question of why he would be looking for his brother dies on Ashan’s lips and his stomach drops alongside the crumbling barrier between compartmentalized knowledge.  He is in the town where he grew up and his family lives.  He is in a town that is being stalked by an unknown monster.  His family is in a town with a monster.  He was attacked by monsters and saved by mages seven times as a child although he was only allowed to remember the last time.  He has a brother who has never met him and is only slightly older than he was when he was taken.  

“We are not using my brother as monster bait,” Ashan says coldly.

“Of course not,” Bridgewood replies, unperturbed by the condensation gathering on the van’s windows from the sudden drop in temperature.  “You know as well as I do that magic has nothing to do with bloodlines.  Your parents might have let you run wild in the woods to live in whimsy and believe in impossible things, but him they shower with so much protective affection that the possibility of playing in the backyard unsupervised or visiting friends without a chaperone could never even occur to him.  No fairy tales in that household anymore to inspire another child to go wandering off.  If he ever develops any potential for magic, it won’t be until he’s out on his own, burned out from the med school path your parents already decided for him and wondering what else he could have been.”

“What.”

Bridgewood grins wide, showing too many teeth for a proper smile.

“Why, my dear fellow, it’s my job to know these things.  I dare say that I know more about you and your compatriots than you do yourselves.  I know why muscles never got to meet her grandparents or even learn their names and why her parents were so dead set on assimilation.  I know that the techie’s great grandparents were a pair of witches and why they kept their kids in the dark about it.”  He leans across the van’s center console as close to Ashan’s face as his seatbelt will let him and tilts his head sideways.  “And I know that Aliana Glassgaze is currently on this iteration of Earth.”

There is hunger in those dark eyes, and for the first time in years Ashan’s instinct is for flight rather than fight as he reflexively shrinks back into his seat.

Bridgewood snaps back upright and the seatbelt whirs to catch up with him.

“But that’s beside the point,” Bridgewood chirps.  He stares at the seemingly empty school and blinks several times in rapid succession.  “Pity.  Nothing appetizing amongst the summer school kids taking makeup classes.  Always a tossup whether groups like that are going to be against the grain enough to be prime candidates or too beaten down in their self-worth to have any chance at all.”

The van lurches back into motion once more and Ashan recovers enough to say “We are not kidnapping children to use as monster bait.”

Legs burning from strain long after losing the strength for another step.  Each breath like knives in his lungs long after he’s covered his mouth to muffle the sound.  Crying in the dark long after tears have run dry.  The sight of eyes shining in the dark.  The smell of rancid breath.  The sound of heavy footsteps drawing closer.

“There is a cave in the woods on the far side of town from whence we arrived,” Ashan says.  “I played there often as a child and if there is a monster, cryptid, or other fiend in the area, it will likely be making its lair there, and even if not it is a secluded enough spot that when I make myself into a lure there should be no risk of a Masquerade breach.”

“Excellent,” Bridgewood replies.  “Let’s be off then, shall we?”

For all Bridgewood’s earlier chattiness on the way in, the drive out of town is mercifully quiet with no words exchanged beyond the occasional instruction from Ashan to take a turn.  This lasts until they pass the small cemetery at the edge of town.

“Do you want to stop and pay your respects?” Bridgewood asks in the softest voice Ashan has ever heard from him.  “I find it helps.”

“I would rather you not joke about that.”

“I’ve left four different graves with four different names on three different worlds.  Saying goodbye always helped me move on.”

“I have already seen it once and that was more than enough for a tombstone with a name that is not dead.”

“I see.”

The only other words spoken for the next quarter hour are a single “Turn off here” from Ashan, followed by a “We shall walk the rest of the way” five minutes of unproductive off-road driving later.

These woods and hills are more familiar than the town.  Less changed.  Less diminished.  Maybe the trees feel shorter now that he has grown and maybe their distance from his old home no longer feels so great now that his world is bigger, but they are still dense enough that it does not take Ashan long to lose sight of the van.  As he comes to the rocky ledge he once scrambled to climb up and over, he finds himself, for a moment, back in those long summer days of trekking out from the house at dawn and exploring uncharted lands full of creatures he still is unsure if they were imagined or not.  And then he casually waves a hand and ascends a ramp of glass to the top of the ledge within a forest that was charted long before he was born.  He hesitates to focus his senses on the mystical just yet.  He has not made up his mind how he might feel if he were not to find his childhood playmates. 

The sight of the cave freezes Ashan in his tracks once he locates the opening at the end of an unassuming shallow gulch.

Darkness.  Wedged back into a crevice to hide.  Curled up on top of a thin mattress and chained to a tentpole.  Waiting for the not-a-dog to either give up or find and gobble him up.  Waiting for the frightful old men to decide his fate.  A light in the dark, a screech, silence, and a voice telling him he is safe now.  The light of a tent flap opening, silence, a hug, and a voice telling him that she has a plan to keep him safe.

Faded memories from long ago swirl with the preserved fears of a child who had not yet processed and overcome his fear of the close dark spaces he gained two years prior.

Focus on the here and now.  The late summer breeze on his skin.  The buzzing of insects in his ears.  The sight of a metal grate over the mouth of the cave.

That last one had not been here before.  Ashan goes to investigate, concerns of lurking cryptids forgotten for the moment.  The metal is rusted where the black paint has worn away and a grimy padlock holds the hinged segment closed.  An orange and white sign bolted to the bars warns of danger and a second plaque affixed atop that one says a child died here.

On that fateful day, all those years ago, Aliana told the child she would later name Ashan not to look while she cast the glamor to disguise the remains of the strange hound that tried to eat him.  To further distract him, she had assigned him the task of setting up a trail for others to find the cave.  In that energized state of having just gone from terror of impending death to the promise of being a real wizard doing real magic, it had seemed like a game.  Did she cast something on him to stifle his fear at the time?  All the same, he still snuck a peak at what his soon-to-be-mentor was doing.

The sight of her dragging his own dead body into the darkness of the cave became a recurring feature in his nightmares over the following weeks.  They continued until the night that he confessed what he saw to Aliana.  That was the first time she hugged him.  It was also the first time he caught her quietly crying when she thought he was not looking.  The former became frequent and regular.  The latter would not occur again for several years.

“Now that’s curious,” Bridgewood’s voice brings Ashan’s voice back to the present as he kneels down next to the young wizard.  “It looks like water’s flowed through here lately but there’s no branches or other debris stuck on the grate, and everything else around here is dry as a bone.  Hmmm… Terrible idiom, that.  Bones are wet and full of marrow when you first pull them out.”

As he says that last part, Bridgewood runs a finger along the condensation gathered at the bottom bars of the grate, revealing it to be more viscous than water.  To Ashan’s disgust, he licks his finger clean afterward.

“Was that truly necessary?” Ashan asks.

“No, but it was informative,” Bridgewood answers as he stands back up.  “I do believe we have an ooze on our hands.  Or maybe a slime.  I never could remember the difference.”

“An ooze is an undifferentiated mass whereas a slime has a central core,” Ashan says.

“I’ll take your wizard’s word on that.”  Bridgewood taps the grate with a knife Ashan did not see him draw.  “Anywhat, shall I open this up for a spot of spelunking?”

Just another summer day of adventure.  Just another afternoon with friends he was not ready to call imaginary just yet.  Just another fun game.  A new creature he had never seen before and a hungry growl that set him on edge.  A brave stride forward and a sandwich offered in friendship.  A bitten hand and a flight to a favorite secret place that was not as safe as he thought.

“No need,” Ashan says.  “Better to draw it out into the open than to potentially fight in tight quarters.”

“In that case I’ll make myself scarce while you make yourself bait,” Bridgewood proposes as he follows Ashan out of the gulch and onto the hill above the cave entrance. “I’ll be watching for the moment to make my move.”

“Shall we agree upon a signal for when to make that move?”

“No need.  Now if you’ll excuse me, it’s time for me to make myself unpresentable.”

With that, Bridgewood unbuttons his yellow vest and slides it off.  With a flick of his wrists he inverts the garment and Ashan catches a glimpse of the inner lining as it flips around to become the outer pattern.  There is an impression of a color almost but not quite violet; an extra-spectral blend between stygian blue and self-luminous red.  And then Bridgewood is gone with a record skip hitch in the sounds of the woods.

Curiosity regarding how Bridgewood disappeared right before his eyes loses the battle with Ashan’s relief at not having eyes on him for this next part.  Even if a part of him knows that Bridgewood is technically watching from hiding, the lack of a visible witness eases the embarrassment of what he is about to do.

It is said that each mage perceives the way magic flows through and intertwines with the background of reality differently.  To Ashan, it has always appeared as something like floating threads, colored shapes, and heat haze refractions in the air; nearly imperceptible whenever he is not actively focusing on them but always there and ever moving on arcane currents.  Anything living or possessing a mind causes an interruption in this flow, whether as a slow spot to gather in and concentrate like most people, an obstacle to divert the current around like Eris, or as a bubbling spring adding its own chaos of colors and threads to the stream like the average mage.

Most mages learn early on to suppress their own aura of distortion to just-noticeable levels.  Too quiet and it is as if one has something to hide.  Too loud and it is a terrible rudeness to every other magically-sensitive individual around that has to put up with such noise.  To flare one’s aura to make more noise than necessary is the domain of untrained children and hot-blooded youths thinking with organs other than their brain as they try to show off.  And even without considerations of etiquette, there are the practical concerns of overactive auras attracting monsters or spontaneously manifesting unintended effects on one’s surroundings.

Thus are the ingrained best practices that Ashan shoves to the side in order to mimic the telltale signature of a mage accidentally coming into their powers for the first time.  At first he attempts to relax to loosen up that self-restraint, but the exercise is self-defeating.  Restraint is his resting default and too much of his training has inextricably intertwined the concepts of calmness and control.  

Agitation then.  Ashan opens the mental compartment he has tried to sequester his younger self’s regained memories in all day, reaches in, and grabs ahold of those feelings.  The excitement over arriving at the Convocation of Mages after a week of thinking they would not make it in time, which led to his running off on his own.  The confusion at the strange things one of the elder mages he recognized from the previous year started saying to him.  The fear when he heard his mentor shout at the elder to get away from him and the things the elder said in return as six more elders filed in to surround her.  The desperation that caused him to lash out at the mage that finally managed to land a hit on his mentor.  The guilt over his conjured barrier slicing the elder’s arm clean off.  The despair at the sight of Aliana falling beaten, bloodied, and restrained when she had been so close to saving him

The anger.

At her for being reduced to begging.

At her for proposing that they seal away his potential.

At her for taking those memories away from him.

At her for taking him away.

At her for making it all seem like a game.

At her for failing him.

At himself for being angry when he knows she only ever did the best she could for him.

Ashan wraps his arms around himself.  He closes his eyes.  He curls in on himself.  He falls to his knees.  He shudders.  He throws his head back.  He opens his mouth wide to scream.

No sound escapes his lips.  No tear escapes his eyes.  No catharsis finds him.

The air ripples and shimmers around him.  Glassy conjurations flicker in and out of existence.  Frost coats the ground.

It all stops even more abruptly than it began.  With an abashed effort, Ashan reins himself and his aura back in, cheeks flushed with embarrassment at the unseemly display.  Even apparently alone in the woods, he cannot help but feel much as he would as if he had just caused a scene by screaming at the top of his lungs for no reason in the middle of a crowded street.  

He distracts himself with the more delicate task of keeping his mage’s aura of reality distortion just slightly more noticeable than normal while also intermittently flickering it in and out.  If that initial flare had been a piercing cry of pain, this is the weakened flailing that follows it.  The tired wiggling of the worm on the hook.  Not something that would fool anyone intelligent and trained, but enough for a beast or the insatiably curious.

Enough time passes in the eerie silence of woods gone quiet that Ashan begins to worry he overdid the initial flare and scared off his quarry instead of luring it in.  Then he catches sight of something moving between the trees, obscured by the tangle of low-hanging branches that nearly touch the ground.  The silhouette is that of a deer, but the gait is all wrong.  Once it finally emerges from the tree line into the clearing of the hill Ashan stands atop of the reason for the wrongness becomes apparent.

It has the shape of a deer, yes.  It even has the skeleton of a deer arranged in mostly the correct configuration.  Yet it lacks the flesh of a deer, save perhaps for a few mostly-digested scraps hanging suspended alongside dirt, leaves, and twigs within the translucent cyan goo that has wrapped itself around those bones.  It half shambles, half undulates closer in a loose imitation of quadrupedal locomotion.

A slime then, not an ooze if it is capable of this level of mimicry.  But then why is there no central nucleus in sight for him to extract and incapacitate it?

Ashan’s contemplation of the apparent contradiction in esoteric biology is cut off by the sound of movement behind him.  He turns his head, keeping the slime deer in his peripheral vision, and spies a dog.  Then a coyote.  A second deer.  All reduced to skeletons lending shape to cyan slime and still not a core in sight.  A smaller bone-filled blob drops out of the second deer’s abdomen and assembles itself into a rat, or maybe a squirrel.

Ashan stays still, allowing the slime animals to get closer, surrounding him.  The first deer stops just outside of arm’s reach, then collapses into a blob, contracts, and launches itself at him.  A quick rotation on his heel and Ashan propels himself into the air atop a conjured spiral.  He lets the spiral fade, cups his hands as he falls, thrusts his arms downward, and slides down the side of a glass dome as it appears between him and the now trapped slime animals.

Ashan steps back from his conjuration and draws his wand.  The creatures begin pressing themselves against the inside of the dome and he can feel the barrier grow thinner as they absorb its magic.  No matter, a few quick lashing motions with the wand is all it takes to reinforce the conjuration.  So long as the slime animals trapped inside do not concentrate their efforts all in one spot he can easily keep up such a simple spell for more than long enough to convert the dome to a sphere to transport to the van and from there to the crossover point.

He raises his wand and the dome stretches to raise with it.  He makes a scooping motion with his free hand and the dome reshapes to reach under as well as around.  He makes a fist and the great floating glass egg full of slime and bones and dirt contracts, merging the slime animals into one another.  Or ooze animals.  Still no sign of a core, strange as that strikes him.

A tingling sensation around Ashan’s ankle draws his attention downward to see a tendril coming up from the soil.  The buried gelatinous mass shoots out of the ground, climbs up his leg, and keeps ascending until it bursts out from the high collar of Ashan’s robes.  He has barely enough presence of mind to take a deep breath and close his eyes before it envelops his face.  It tries and fails to push between his tightly shut lips and eyelids while he tries to slide his hands between it and his cheeks.  

He forces himself to stay calm.  Focus on what he needs to do, not on what will happen if he fails.  A precise-yet-simple forcefield that moves outward with his hands is all it should take.  He does not even need to get all of the ooze off in one go, only the majority so that it lacks the force to keep pushing.  An easy feat.

The ooze works its way up his nostrils and into his ears.  His sinuses ache from the pressure.  The tingling intensifies into a burning.  Serenity is lost.  The conjuration flickers out.  Ashan’s hands start frantically tearing at the thing trying to digest his face.  His eyes shoot open from shock and pain.

On the other side of the blurry cyan haze there is a flicker of chimerical violet.

The ooze, slime, or whatever it was is gone and Ashan is gasping for air.  His vision is clear save for the tears of irritated eyes.  The burning is now a rapidly-fading tingling and the pain inside his head has reduced to a dull throbbing.

“You’re welcome,” Bridgewood whispers from behind him, close enough for Ashan to feel his breath on his ear.  “Now look sharp, your new friends have gotten out of their playpen and want to say hello.”

Ashan wipes his vision clear and looks up to see that the slime animals are indeed upon him now that he dropped his conjuration in his moment of fear.  He attempts to say something and falls into a coughing fit.

“Still need a moment?” Bridgewood purrs.  “Then allow me.”

Ashan feels a hand on his shoulder as Bridgewood pushes past him.   The back of his head and his shoulder come into view.  And then the not-purple of his inverted vest.

Bridgewood is gone again.  Ashan is breathing easier and his eyes have stopped watering.  The slime animals have all been beheaded.

Being headless only stops them for a moment before the blobs around their skulls extrude pseudopods to reconnect to their bodies and lift them back into place.

“I do so detest oozes,” Bridgewood’s voice echoes from somewhere amongst the trees.  “Utterly unsatisfying and unproductive to stab.  I’ll leave the rest of this in your capable hands.”

“You would abandon me?” Ashan calls out while tossing up a quick barrier between himself and the slime animals.

“No, but this is one of the rare problems that can’t be solved well with knives, so there’s not much else for me to do here unless you want me to try eating the rest of them and that doesn’t work well with live capture.”

“Surely there must be something you can do.”

“How about moral support?  I have full faith that you won’t make the same mistake twice and can handle the rest on your own.  Go team.”

Irritating though his delivery may be, Ashan has long held enough faith in his own skill to agree with Bridgewood’s assessment.  Now to prove them both correct.

A conjured ramp that retracts behind him as he ascends suffices for getting Ashan off the ground to forestall any additional subterranean surprises arising from momentary overconfidence.  Curling the edges of this new platform into a bowl around him prevents the bone-wearing mimic slimes from reaching him by launching themselves up or combining their masses to extend a single long pseudopod.  Adding lotus-like layers to the protective bowl gives him time to analyze the situation uninterrupted when the creatures try to eat through the conjuration.

Standing nearly level with the treetops (not that they are much more than twice Ashan’s height and he has never been called a tall man) Ashan gazes down at the slime animals below as they mill about and start to haphazardly merge with one another in an attempt to reach him.  He still maintains that the prey mimicry is too complex for an ooze, so where are the cores necessary for processing that behavior?  Within the animal skulls, taking the place of the digested brains like a hermit crab repurposing a mollusc shell perhaps?  Partial merging or absorption of those brains – whether physically or psychically – would aid with the mimicry as well.

An interesting theory, but how to keep the ooze still enough to safely perform the delicate operation of opening the skull to confirm without damaging the potential core within?  Freezing has proven effective in the past when facing such monsters alongside Aliana, but that has never been Ashan’s speciality and he is far enough out from the crossover point right now that he is still relying on thermodynamic redirection to power his spells so too much lowering of the ambient temperature could cause complications down the line.

Ashan cocks his head in consideration of the conundrum for a moment and then lets out a hum of realization.  His ability to access other magic systems is no longer sealed, and he is passing familiar with a foreign style lauded for its efficiency in energy draw.

Ashan focuses on the gelatinous mimics below and intones the words that caused him no small amount of grief a month ago.

Winter's lash falls harsh. Wind bites, snow cuts, frostbite gnaws, Scouring flesh and soul.

The storm drowns voices Blinds the eye, and steals all warmth Nothing left but white.

BLIZZARD!

The Dorbreithan Long Chant spell completes and a bitter chill wind swirls about the slimes below.  Their movements slow as frost forms on the surface of their cyan bodies.  Once that ice spreads inwards in crystaline formations toward the suspended skeletons within, the mimics have come to nearly a complete stop.  That is enough to work with, although it takes Ashan several seconds to mentally wrestle with the unfamiliar spell to get it to cease its effects lest it do permanent damage to the slime cores he hopes to extract for relocation.

Once the blizzard wind stops, it is a simple matter to conjure a barrier thin enough to act as a guillotine above the neck of the devoured coyote and let it fall.  Then it is a mere flick of his wand to draw a wire into existence and reel the falling goo-covered skull up to him.  

Fishing with only conjurations as tools had doubled as both training and a means of keeping himself and Aliaina fed on the road since the early days of his time on Orthon.  She started him off with nets before moving on to hooks and lines conjured directly into the fishes’ open mouths once he learned finer control.  Later still came the creation and manipulation of razor-thin barriers in the place of knives for preparing and fileting the catch.  Or at least on the days when Aliana was not feeling lazy enough to simply drop the catch and a portion of river water into her own complex conjuration combining autoclave, centrifuge, and blender.  In retrospect, getting used to the alleged stew of superheated fish slurry might explain Ashan’s general ambivalence towards the taste of food.

At any rate, it is the experience in dissection and bone removal that is relevant now as Ashan peels back the wriggling semisolid layers of slime from the coyote skull hovering in front of him.  The glass scalpel that appears at the tip of his wand is sharp enough to glide through the minimally digested bone like bread crust and he does so with a steady hand.  He cuts out a square from the top of the skull and pulls it out to reveal… nothing.  Only more undifferentiated teal jelly fills the skull’s inner cavities.

Ashan takes a step back as the slime surrounding and permeating the skull begins to flail pseudopods once more with full motive ability despite still harboring an unabated outer layer of frost.  Ashan flings it outside of his observation perch, back to the ground with the rest of its mass, and takes another look at the scene below him, trying to figure out what he is missing.

More of the slime animals have arrived and more amorphous tendrils like the one that grabbed him earlier are beginning to extrude from the ground.  Strangely, the new arrivals that were not present to be hit by the Blizzard spell also carry a layer of frost cold enough to cause the ambient humidity to condense into a thin mist around them.  None of the creatures seem to be hindered by the cold any longer.  Stranger still, now that Ashan thinks about it, the soil layer here should not be thick enough for a slime or ooze to hide within.  But if there are cracks in the limestone beneath the soil leading to the cave below…

Ashan’s eyes skip over one particular point between the trees, and his train of thought is disrupted as everything shifts slightly, from the movements of the slimes below to the positions of the clouds above.  He tries to find and focus on that spot again, and once more there’s a skip as if a fraction of a second was lost.

Concerning, but he can confirm what that is once he tests the other hypothesis he was building up to.  Ashan picks out the straggler furthest from the growing mass of prey mimics and begins another chant that was once used against him.

Storm's wrath gathering, Glistening blades fall and scourge Earth lies bare, burnt clean.

LIGHTNING!

With the final word Ashan points his wand at his chosen target.  The air takes on the scent of ozone.  His hair rises from the static.  A bolt streaks from the tip of his wand and splatters the slime furthest from the main group, scattering the bones of the hopefully wild pig it had consumed.  

As expected, over the course of the next minute, the slime pig pulls itself back together, albeit sans half its bones.  More importantly, sparks between arcing between other slimes that he knows he did not hit with that spell.  That supports one hypothesis, but best not to rely solely on sight.

Ashan closes his eyes and opens his less physical senses as much as he can.  It is no substitute for vision when navigating, but much like smell or touch, that is not its primary purpose, even if it can augment.  “Looking” down he confirms that the slimes, while barely disturbing the flow of magic otherwise, have become reservoirs and conduits for the energy comprising the spells he threw at them.  Though that reservoir thins in the empty space between the slime animals, “seen” like this it is all one continuous manifestation.  A continuous manifestation that, though dulled and made hazy by the intervening stone, extends underground into the cave below where it flows down into a distinct central nexus.  

Ashan returns his focus above ground to the point his eyes refused to see and finds what he can only conceptualize as a gaping hole in the fabric of everything.  In all his time as a wizard, Bridgewood is the only individual he has ever encountered with such an overdone metaphysical cloak.  Watching and waiting from the sidelines, just like he said he would be.

Ashan is about to open his eyes and act on his confirmed suspicions when another set of presences further out in the woods catches his attention.  They feel familiarly green to him, with hints of orange, and purple, and gray.  Fae, he now knows to classify it as, albeit vastly different in power and temperament from the Count of Curses and Dust.  He thinks once upon a time he simply called them friends.

For just a moment, Ashan allows his expression to twitch into a smile.  Resolve redoubled, he opens his eyes but continues to stare at nothing.  Eyes fixed forward, single-minded and unfocused he holds his wand upright in front of him.  His glass gaze stares through the candle flame that ignites above the wand’s tip and pours his will into it, fuel for the fire.  The glass lotus descends to the ground, unfurls, and fades, leaving him exposed.

The slime animals… no, the singular slime with multiple remote segments mimicking devoured prey does not approach him.  It is too enraptured by that.  Through the flame Ashan can feel its simple mind relaxing just as well as he can see the skeletons surrounding him go limp as the slime nodes containing them begin melting down into shapeless blobs.

It is surprisingly hard not to let himself mirror that feeling and sink with it.

But a motionless, enraptured slime with its core hidden away is hardly progress towards capture and relocation, so Ashan calls to mind the more advanced applications of this spell he studied in Whispers of the Sun, and puts them into practice.  “The Flame of Yearning” that tome from the sorceress Bridgewood’s very own library called this spell, and it is now that emotion which Ashan feeds to the flame.  Yearning for two different homes he cannot return to, one just down the road and the other hardly further yet literally a world away.  Yearning for three different parents he did not choose, two he ran from and one he drove away.  Yearning for four friendships that have already been extended to him, all of which feel varying degrees of confusing and unearned.  Yearning poured into one candle flame that becomes a torch, a beacon.

There is more fuel for this flame than he realized he had.  Once they have been dredged up, it is a relief to feel the flame consume them.  Not that they are truly gone.  The flame is a part of him and it does not extinguish when the spell ends, it returns.  The healing flame came from without as a praise to the sun for providing the warmth of life.  The flame of yearning hails from another world that saw pyromancy as life’s warmth originating from within, and how can one not yearn to connect in the face of a soul bared?

From without or from within, so long as an anchor world mage can hold both as being true both can be called upon.

The yearning becomes the flame that draws the moth and Ashan shapes the feeling into a desire.  A desire to approach, to reveal oneself, source to source and heart to heart.  

Frankly, such an application treads dangerously close to the sorcerous taboo of mind alteration for Ashan’s comfort.  He tells himself that it is just a nearly-mindless slime that he is influencing.  What is more, one might even say that he learned this spell, however indirectly, from the true sorceress Bridgewood herself and now he is casting it with her chosen consort and keeper of her legacy for an audience.  The old childhood dream rekindles and then becomes further kindling itself.

It is hard to worry about much with such a pretty fire.

The flame fills his vision and his mind.  

He has spent nearly half his life with trained serenity.

Calmness and control intertwined.

It is how he keeps his spellcasting precise and powerful.

It was how he kept from going mad when his own mind became incomprehensible.

Falling into the flame feels like such a natural extension of that.

A polite cough from right behind Ashan snaps him back to full awareness.  Awareness of the flame sputtering out.  Awareness of a quivering cyan blob towering over him.  Awareness of a sphere of bones hovering in the center of the slime that is pulling itself closed over a nucleus that had exposed itself to the now-extinguished flame’s light.

Ashan’s stomach drops at the realization that the ball of bones contains at least one skeleton that is human shaped but far too small even for an infant.  While no sign of such remains, Ashan is certain it once sported a pair of gossamer wings.  He refuses to wonder if it ever played with children in these woods.

The slime shudders, contacts, and stretches to fall on top of the tantalizing young wizard overflowing with magic before it.

Springing backwards out of the way is hardly a challenge for Ashan.  Nor is slamming a hollow cylinder through the center of the slime to extract the core like a post hole digger.  Nor is stripping away the shell of bones giving a wall to the nucleus.

Wrapping the slime’s core in a floating sphere and then having that sphere grow a series of inward-facing needles to just barely pierce the core’s outer membrane and send it into a paralyzed state is a somewhat more delicate procedure.  But it is a procedure he has carried out before, albeit not on so large, dispersed, or magic-absorbing a specimen.  Nonetheless, the rest of the slime’s body loses cohesion, dropping the skeletons that had not yet been absorbed into the central mass unceremoniously to the ground.

Ashan lets himself breathe and shiver in the chill that his magic has brought to the late summer afternoon.

“Well done I say.  An expectedly excellent performance.”

Ashan turns around to find Bridgewood approaching him, buttoning his vest back into place, yellow side out once more.

“Thank you,” Ashan says with a nod, “and all due credit to you for the role you deigned to play.”

Bridgewood takes an exaggerated bow.  “But of course.  What is the star without the stagehand?  Or the hero without unseen Fortune plucking the strings?  As I said when we first met, the spotlight is not for me.”

“I imagine whatever enchantment you have on that vest makes that easier for you.”

“Not an enchantment, but a color,” Bridgewood tuts.  “I can never seem to recall the name, but Carnette called it the color of forgetting.”  He pouts.  “She never would tell me where she found a tailor capable of working with xenochromatic threads.”

Ashan’s stomach drops with the realization of why the world seemed to lurch every time he caught a glimpse of Bridgewood.

“In the future, please provide warning before exposing your allies to amnestic elements,” he states.  “Or better yet, refrain altogether.  I have had more than enough of my memory being stolen, even if it is only for a second at a time.”

Had Ashan not been staring him down with a glare, he might have missed the split second of Bridgewood’s mask slipping; of the man in yellow going wide-eyed and stiff as if physically struck.  When the lazily elegant posture returns, the smirk maintains its absence.

“I’ll see that it doesn’t happen again,” Bridgewood says.  The lack of over-acted affect in his voice is as off-putting as his genuine affection when speaking of his dearly departed wife.

“Good,” Ashan replies, wondering what old wound he just touched upon, but still bothered enough to be curt.

The moment passes, the smirk returns.

“Anywhom,” Bridgewood croons, “you go on ahead and get that thing loaded up for transport –” he gestures at the paralyzed slime core floating next to Ashan “– and I’ll be right along after I clean up the leftovers.”  He sweeps an arm to indicate the now-inert piles of goo and bones covering the clearing.

Ashan nods in assent and turns to leave.  A scooping motion of his hand brings along a portion of the slime’s cyan body mass in a separate bubble.  It should be enough to healthily sustain the core for a time, but not enough for it to cause trouble with in the short term.

The walk back to the armored van feels shorter than the trek from it to the cave, even with maintaining a pair of mobile containment conjurations.  Is it that the weight of memory is lighter after having faced the place he left his life behind?  Or is it the ease of navigating from a recollection whose age is measured in minutes rather than years?  Maybe it is simply the benefit of traveling downhill.

Ashan finds the van unlocked.  He opens the rear doors, floats the slime in its two parts into the back, speaks the activation syllables to light up the warding glyphs painted on the inner surfaces of the vehicle, closes the doors, and lets his glass bubbles holding the slime vanish.  If the captured creature is making any futile attempts to escape its new confines, the wards are keeping it muted and preventing the van from rocking.

A soft rustle of tree branches draws Ashan’s attention and he turns around, expecting Bridgewood or another threat that they missed.  His posture relaxes and his wand slips back up his sleeve at the sight of three tiny figures hiding within the boughs of the nearest tree.  A brown-and-white-furred bullfrog with nubbly horns.  A twelve-legged weasel draped across the branch like tinsel.  A humanoid figure barely taller than his hand bearing a moth’s bark camouflage wings.  Beings that Ashan now knows to be Nameless fairies without a court or master.  In hindsight, it is a wonder none of them ever took his old Name for their own.  Or maybe they tried and failed (or were thwarted) and that was one of the six times his memory of the world Backstage was erased before even Aliana found him.

All the same, Ashan smiles and waves to his onetime playmates.  They low and chitter and giggle and disappear back into the woods, safe in the knowledge that the latest monster to threaten this place has been locked away.

He wonders if they remember him.  Probably not truly.  A sense of familiarity may remain, but with how closely Names, memory, and identity are intertwined it is difficult for the Nameless to hold onto experiences which they are not regularly reminded of.

Ashan tears his gaze away from the direction the fairies fled just in time to catch Bridgewood returning.

“Everything’s secure and ready to go I see.  Delightful.”  Bridgewood leans a hand on the side of the van and blinks at it several times in rapid succession before turning back to Ashan.  “As for my end, thanks to one of Carnette’s gifts, I can assure you there’s no longer a trace of our new delicious friend here to be found.”  He pats the side of the van and then pushes himself off with a twirl that set him walking towards the driver seat door.  “Let’s be off shall we?  We still have a crossover point to examine.”

“Indeed,” Ashan says while returning to the passenger seat.  “I presume you have some inkling of which world we will need to attune the crossover to in order to return this slime.  It is not from Orthon – not unless something has changed drastically on that side of the crossover – but beyond that I am less certain.”

Two doors open and close.

“Right on both counts,” Bridgewood answers.  “Yes I do, and no it isn’t.  But…”

Two seatbelts whir, stretch, and click into place.

“We don’t technically have to return it to its homeworld.”

A diminished slime silently surges against the wards, unable to reach the front seats.

“What are you implying?” Ashan asks.

A key slides into an ignition lock and waits to be turned.

“There’s a room in the Manor positively packed with stasis chambers for the sort of delectable specimens Carnette liked to collect for study and preservation.  We could let our passenger hang out in the back a little bit longer while we survey the crossover point, skip the trip offworld, bring it home, and toss it into storage.  Maybe I’d even give you a tour of some parts of the house you haven’t seen yet.”

“That hardly sounds like what we set out to do.”

“Doesn’t it?  What are you implying?”  Bridgewood’s tone hovers between bemused and mocking.

“First you stride into the room and begin handing out assignments for the day without consultation and now you propose keeping a creature you said was meant to be relocated.  Is this organization truly Road’s or do you pull the strings?”

“I assure you, this is my friend’s venture, through and through and everything I do is to support them.  This morning was merely me reporting back with the status of tasks that had been delegated to me.  We’ve been together long enough that we’ve long since reached an understanding about leeway and how I do things so long as certain lines aren’t crossed, and the important thing in this case is that we keep the creature from hurting anyone without killing it.  Storing it in stasis accomplishes that while saving us the headache of interworld transit and ensuring that it won’t ever wander back across the crossover and cause a mess all over again.”

“And Road is okay with this?”

“My friend trusts me enough to not ask questions.  But I’ll leave this one up to you.”

“Why?”

“I’m curious.  What will you do with the options on the table and what will you tell my friend afterward?”

The key turns.  The engine rumbles to life.

“No need to answer now,” Bridgewood continues.  “We’ve got a whole drive back ahead of us for you to take your time contemplating.”

The drive passes back through Ashan’s hometown in silence.  For all that Bridgewood must surely know why Ashan pointedly looks away from the window when they reach an intersection that they pass straight through, the expected remark never comes.  The exposed nerve remains untouched.  In that moment, there is no smirk.

Ashan tells himself he managed not to glimpse the couple taking a walk down their neighborhood street with their young son watching the strange, unmarked black van pass through their tired little town.

He suspects that Sullivan Bridgewood saw them clearly.

*******

“Ashan… If you ever remember this, please know that I’m sorry.  For everything.”

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