#also i ignored the heavy shadow and did the highlight....yeah I need to work on my shadows but this was for fun sksksksksk

[beej-hunnicutt]

Ángel redraw of that one Jesse pic 😭🩷

[mckennamayfairgoode]

Show Me the Foothold From Which I Can Climb [Part One]

Billie Dean Howard x Reader

Word Count: 6k

Request: i saw that your requests were open and i wanted to ask if you could do something for billie x reader, i LOVED your other one. -requested by anon

Warnings: Nothing yet, except minor character death, but it will get VERY heavy later on. (Future TW include: addiction, alcoholism, grief, depression, suicidal thoughts.)

A/N: I’ve spent too long working on this, so I decided to break it up into parts and post it instead of going back over the same scenes again and again. I’m not sure how many parts it will be. Probably three or four. A big thank you to @lucyintheskywithxanax​ as usual for being my plastic duck. You are The Best (no, really, you are). ❤

Song: Mountain at My Gates by FOALS. Also mentioned is I’m Gonna Be (500 Miles) by The Proclaimers.

“Let’s take five minutes, okay? Sorry, everyone, they’re being stubborn today.” Billie smiles apologetically at the camera crew and the sight of it alone is enough to ease the mounting frustration in the room. Shoulders relax and tension melts away as if the atmosphere hadn’t been stifling just moments before. You call it ‘The Billie Effect.’

“Five minutes and we’ll try again,” the director agrees, giving the crew the go-ahead to take a break. There’s a spattering of pleased murmurs before everyone uses the opportunity to disperse around the house or go outside for some fresh air.

You adjust the camera on your shoulder and watch as the director walks up to Billie, his hands moving in animated gestures as he speaks. You can’t hear what he’s saying, but you can imagine. The long day has not made him any more pleasant to be around. The smile on Billie’s lips is charming as she attempts to sooth his ruffled feathers. It only takes a moment, one hand resting on his shoulder to make the interaction seem more intimate than it is, before he turns away from her with a satisfied expression that makes something inside you tug unpleasantly. Once he turns away from her, Billie’s bright expression falls and her brows pinch together. 

You wait for him to walk away before easing up to her side, eyeing his back as the distance between you grows. “Was he giving you trouble?”

“He’s the director of the show, Y/N,” she points out and when you turn to her, you see that her smile has returned, beautiful and real and just for you. Your heart seems to breathe a sigh of relief.

You shrug the shoulder not currently occupied by a camera. “Yeah, well, without you there wouldn’t be a show,” you remind her, annoyance clear in your tone.

Billie laughs, low and husky. “Easy, tiger.” She wraps a hand around your bicep and runs her thumb along the edge of your shirt sleeve, barely dancing across your bare skin and shooting tingles up your spine.  “Everyone has their part to play, even him.”

You roll your eyes. “It’d be easier if he played his part somewhere else,” you mutter.

She grins, her big brown eyes dancing with amusement. You watch that familiar teasing glint bleed into them like wine stains into a beige carpet.  “Careful there, sweetheart. I’m starting to get the impression that you care about me.”

“And I’m starting to get the impression that you want me to care about you,” you retort playfully, watching the pleased smile morph her beautiful face into something soft and sweet. No one gets to see her like this. No one but you. That smile only lasts a second before her shoulders tense, just barely, just enough for you to notice. Her gaze flicks to the side. You’ve been around long enough to know that she’s feeling or seeing something you can’t. Your voice softens into a soothing tone. “Everything okay, pretty woman?” 

Billie startles, her grip tightening on your arm as she steadies herself before she flashes you a comforting smile. “Just fine, sweetheart.” She raises a slender hand and with one long acrylic nail extended, points to a spot in front of you both. “I can feel them right here, but they won’t come out.”

You both look at the space like your combined staring power will overwhelm the spirits and force them to reveal themselves. You don’t realize how close you’ve drifted to one another until you go to nudge her shoulder with your own. “They will,” you say. 

The darkness in her eyes eases at the conviction in your tone. She raises an eyebrow. “And how do you know that?” she asks. “We’ve been here for eight hours and have nothing to show for it.”

You resist the urge to move a wayward curl back behind her ear.  “You’re Billie Dean Howard. No one can resist you.”

Her smile turns sly. “Not even you?”

You turn to face her and feel your heart stutter. She’s already looking at you, her eyes warm and tender. “Not even me,” you finally say, your tone leaving no doubt that you are dead serious. The space between you is so small your noses would brush if you tipped forward. There’s a split second where you think you might kiss her. If you weren’t in the middle of a haunted house surrounded by your coworkers, if you were alone, and if she was looking at you like she is right now, maybe you would lean in and wipe that sly smile from her face with your lips. 

“You ready, Billie?” A masculine voice startles you both out of the moment causing you to jerk away and take a step back from each other. Billie is elegant and composed as usual, but your heart thunders in your chest like you are a storm splitting open the sky. You glance at her lips. Had she been leaning in too? 

Billie gives the director a nod before turning back to you. The intensity hasn’t left her eyes. You search them for a moment, find the sincerity there and anchor to it with your heart. A slow grin spreads across your face and you nod to the starting marker on the floor. “Come on, pretty woman. I promise to get your good angle.”

She scoffs, an amused expression lighting up her face. “You always get my good angle.”

“It’s not the only thing I plan on getting,” you flirt. “Maybe if you’re lucky I’ll prove it to you later.”

Billie laughs and tosses her wavy curls back. “Don’t make promises you can’t keep, sweet thing,” she purrs, trailing her fingertips along your shoulders as she passes behind you.

You watch her go and know your expression must be lovestruck. Her presence always makes you feel weightless, a bird’s wayward feather in free fall. You think you might be able to float to the ceiling if you tried.

“You don’t really believe in this bullshit, do you?” a voice asks over your shoulder. You glance behind you to see your new assistant standing there looking perplexed and bored.

You raise an eyebrow, shifting the camera on your shoulder. “Why are you working here if you don’t believe it?”

He shrugs, following you to the mark and standing behind you. “Needed the experience,” he says simply.

You look into the viewfinder, adjusting the angle and shuffling until the sunlight streaming in from the living room window carves highlights into Billie’s cheekbones. She looks like a marble sculpture, like she belongs in the Louvre and not this haunted house in southern California, like she will be cemented in time, beautiful and endless. “Stick around,” you tell him. You pull back, look over the top of the camera, and lock eyes with Billie from across the room. “She’ll get them to show. She always does.” 

--

“Holy shit.” Your assistant's voice comes out in a breathy whisper, barely audible over the rattling sound of wheels rolling along the pavement.

You grin but resist the urge to snicker, because you’ve been there before. Skeptical and unsure, drawn to Billie of course, in awe of her smile, but not a believer in anything you couldn’t physically see. Then she had brought a derelict house to life with light that was not natural and shadows that liked to play pretend and you had watched her speak to someone whose presence you couldn’t even feel. That moment had changed you. 

Once upon a time, you had been so very small and fearful of the things you did not understand. Locked in your castle and warned away from the room at the end of the hall, you were protected, but sheltered, and your world had been so very small along with you. Until one day, you met a princess with golden hair and big brown eyes, who was kind and good and could see things you could not. 

The princess had taken you by the hand and led you to the end of the hall where she cracked the door open so that you could take a peek into the room you were not allowed in. Inside that room was a darkness and in that darkness was a glimmer of something bigger than you. You’d tugged at her hand to ward her away from the things you feared, but she stood tall and faced the darkness head on.

“Don’t be scared,” she’d said. The princess turned on a light - you think it came from within her - and the darkness shrank back, twisting into shadows that held out their spindly arms but could not reach you no matter how hard they tried. She looked at you and she smiled. “I won’t let them hurt you,” she promised and you believed her. You were a mountain and you were not afraid of anything. 

“You’ll get used to it,” you say, reaching the studio van and gesturing for him to help you load the equipment cases inside. 

He doesn’t look like he believes you. In fact, he looks like he might lose his lunch right there on the sidewalk. He wouldn’t be the first who couldn’t handle a glimpse of the other side. Ignoring it won’t make it go away, but you don’t say that. Instead, you latch the doors behind you, bid him goodnight, and meander down the sidewalk in the direction of your car. 

You watch the van’s tail lights disappear around the bend for only a moment before Billie’s soul inevitably calls to yours and you turn to look for her. She’s still standing on the front porch speaking with the homeowners. Not surprising. Billie hates to leave a job half finished. She nods her head empathetically, places a hand on the man’s arm, and says something charming no doubt. The couple laughs in response, just as you knew they would. No one can resist Billie Dean Howard. You lean back against the hood of your car, tuck your hands into your pockets, and wait.

It doesn’t take long. A few minutes later, she struts toward you like she’s on the red carpet and not a cracked, chalk-covered sidewalk in the middle of the suburbs. Your heart flounders in your chest like a fish on the deck of a boat and you wonder if you will always be this helpless when faced with her presence. “Hey, pretty woman.” You nod to the road behind you. “Wanna go for a drive?”

“And where would you be taking me on a Friday night?” Even across the distance, you can see the mischievousness in her expression. Billie loves to play games, and you are more than happy to indulge her.  

You reach in your pocket for your keys, absentmindedly playing with them as you grin. “Sorry, I can’t tell you that. Try again.”

Billie slows to a stop in front of you and tilts her head, eyeing you with a barely concealed smile. She tries to look stern but the glitter in her eyes betrays her. “What are you up to, Y/N?”  

You shrug. “I’m just keeping my promises,” you say simply. You reach over and open the passenger door for her with a flourish. “Your chariot awaits.”

--

“We’re here,” you announce, stepping out of the car and shutting the door behind you. 

Billie follows you at a leisurely pace, her head turning this way and that as she takes in your surroundings. She looks out of place up here, like a beautiful porcelain doll left in the middle of the woods. She is your diamond in the rough, your supernova in an empty sky. She burns. You wonder if it’s for you.

“Sweetheart?”

“Yes?” you respond, already knowing the question that will leave her lips.

“Why have you brought me to a cliff?”

You laugh and hold out your hand. “Do you trust me?” you ask, serious despite the light tone to your voice.

Billie does not hesitate. She sets her well manicured hand in yours, looks you in the eyes, and says, “Always.”

You have to swallow the lump in your throat to respond. “Good, because I was going to drive us both off the cliff, but there’s a concrete barrier in the way. We’ll have to go on foot and just jump off instead.”

She chuckles, low and throaty in just the way that makes your spine shiver. “Oh, darling. I’m going to need some incentives if you’re going to make me do all that in these shoes.”

You smirk and, mindful of her expensive heels, begin leading her down the smoothest path to the cliffside. “I’m sure I can come up with something.”

“I’m sure you can,” she purrs. Her hand in yours is soft and warm. You have held hands before. Large hands, small hands, the hands of those you love and hands from a distant past that you haven’t held for a very long time but still remember. There had been fingers wrapped around a thumb bigger than yours, hands clasped palm to palm as your brother helped you cross the street, pinkies interlocked to cement promises that would surpass time and age, fingertips pressed together beneath the table in the library with the girl who always laughed at your jokes. They were not like this. Holding this hand felt like coming home. Like you were meant to hold it. Like you have held it before.

As you near the aforementioned barrier, you turn to her with an impish smile. “Close your eyes,” you say.

Billie quirks an eyebrow. “I don’t usually do that on the first date.”

Your heart jumps, excited, happy, hopeful. “You let me bring you to a cliff on our first date?” you ask, playfully appalled.

Her smile grows fond. “It’s starting to grow on me.”

You bite your lip to quell the grin forming and tug at her hand. “Come on, the incentive lies in what will happen after you close them.”

“Well, how can I resist when you put it like that?” she teases, shutting her eyes and trusting you to guide her the rest of the way. You do, one careful step at a time, until you are near the edge. You look out over the view and feel your soul untangle itself from your heart, but it does not leave, not yet. It wants to be free, but it doesn’t want to go alone. 

You glance back at her, just a moment, maybe just to check that she’s real and not a vision that lives in your head. “You can open them now.”

She does. 

From a bluff overlooking the city, you watch as the sun sets, a jeweled crown that settles itself on the head of a skyscraper, radiant and eternal. Just for her. For the princess in your fairy tale. Almost as if you had willed it into existence all by yourself, lights start appearing in the city. Streetlamps, headlights, lights from offices and businesses and apartments; all of them blink on, one tiny speck at a time, until the whole of Los Angeles is alight with stars of their own making.

You don’t say anything and neither does she. You don’t need to. Billie’s fingers slide between your own, more intimate than any night you’ve spent in bed with another woman, and she squeezes. Just once. Your soul follows the invisible thread between your hearts and entangles itself with hers. They float away together like flower petals on a summer breeze.

You turn to her as she looks off into the horizon. Your eyes follow the shape of her face, from her forehead to the gentle slope of her nose, the curves of her mouth to the jut of her chin, and you wish you were tracing it with your fingertip instead. The setting sun casts a glow to her hair turning it different shades of molten gold and pink and you think you have never seen a more beautiful sight.

When she turns to face you, your eyes meet and your noses touch, much like they almost had earlier that day. Only this time there is nothing stopping you from closing the distance. Your breath hitches, your heart thunders, you are a feather in free fall, but you will not be afraid. Billie would never hurt you. Not your protector, your safety, your light.

You tangle your free hand into her hair and pull her close enough to brush your mouth against hers. It’s soft and tender, flowers grazing in a moonlit meadow, the gentle fluttering of a butterfly’s wings, the ocean lapping against the sand on a lazy, summer night. 

Her other hand reaches for your cheek, pulling you closer. You melt against her, breathe her in, think maybe this is what happiness is, maybe this is what eternity would feel like as long as you are with her. She sighs into your mouth like she has been waiting for this moment as long as you have. Your soul ignites as her nails graze your cheek, gentle and revering, like you are precious, like you are important, like you are the flower petal that may float away.  Maybe you fell in love with her then. Maybe you have been in love with her all this time.

--

“Hello?”

“Hi there, sweet thing. Where are you?” Your tired ears perk up at the sound of Billie’s voice, a smile lighting up your face as if it had been waiting just for her. 

“Hi, baby. I’m at the studio going over the footage from yesterday. Are you still at the interview?” You glance out of the nearby window. Night has already fallen and rain pelts against the glass like a swarm of angry bees. “It’s late.”

“It ran over by two hours,” she explains, her voice tight and clipped. 

You furrow your brows. “You don’t sound happy about that. Did it not go well?”

You hear the flick of a lighter. “If you call four hours of talking in circles ‘well’ then one would say it went perfectly fine.” She sighs. “Maybe I was just impatient.” 

“For what?”

“For you.” Your breath catches in your throat. You almost trip going down the stairs but manage to catch yourself in time. “Y/N?” 

“I’m here,” you manage to say. 

You can practically hear the smirk in her voice. “I’d like to see you tonight. What do you think?”

Heartbeat thudding in your ears, you finally reach the main lobby and come to a stop in front of the studio doors. Thunder rumbles through the building, shaking the glass and seeming to bounce off empty corners to echo back at you. You can barely see the street behind the sheets of rain. Maybe Hell has finally frozen over and Los Angeles is in the midst of a hurricane. “I’m thinking it’s the perfect night for a movie and takeout,” you say once you’ve gained control of your vocal chords.

Billie exhales. The sound of it wavers; she’s smiling. “My place is closer; is that alright with you?”

“Yes, of course,” you respond and hope you don’t sound too eager. Even though you are. Even though all you want is to see her look at you with that exasperated fondness that makes your heart melt. You want her to push you away, to laugh, to pull you right back in before she kisses you senseless. You just want to be home.

“Good,” she pauses and you can picture that fond expression in your head as clearly as if it were right in front of you. “See you soon, sweetheart.”

You bite your lip, trying and failing to soothe your expression into something calm and collected. “See you soon, pretty woman.” You don’t even bother putting on your jacket before dashing outside into the torrential downpour.

--

Traffic in Los Angeles is always congested at best no matter where you go. Cars, taxis, and buses stay bumper to bumper until you get further away from the city and closer to Billie’s suburbs. The rain makes it hard to see the road, let alone other cars, so you keep your hands tightly gripped around the wheel and maintain a steady pace as you follow the bright yellow shape of the taxi in front of you.

Even with the storm raging around you, you feel invincible, like nothing can touch you. Thunder rumbles in the distance, lightning cracks the air, and rain pelts the roof of your car like lead bullets, but you don’t hear any of it. Your mind is a paradise and it is so quiet. Your thumbs tap rhythmically against the steering wheel as you sing along to the song on the radio.

“But I would walk five hundred miles and I would walk five hundred more-”

You let the music sweep its way into your very being, washing over you and bringing with it a sense of peace. It makes you think of Billie and you realize you’re never not thinking of Billie, not anymore, not since she planted herself in your earth and lit up your night sky with a blazing sun. It feels like she has intertwined herself so closely to you, to your heart, to your soul, to your spirit, that you are no longer sure where she ends and you begin.

Captivated by her smile, enraptured by her kind heart, drawn to the passion that runs through her veins in lieu of blood, lovesick, lovestruck, love, love, love. Every little memory you make with her anew blinks on like a star in a sunset painted cityscape and you want to point your finger in its direction and tell her the tale of how a princess - with light embedded in her soul - saved you from your castle.

You’re thinking about her still when you notice the taxi peel off into the next lane. You don’t see him until it’s too late. 

A boy on a bike.

He darts in front of you out of nowhere or maybe he had been there the whole time and you just couldn’t see him in the rain. You see him now. Time slows down to a crawl - or maybe it never slowed at all; maybe you have been on the other side all along. 

He’s wearing a blue jacket. You notice it as your foot slams on the breaks, as you twist the steering wheel to the side in an attempt to swerve around him, as your car’s tires screech and slip against the rain-soaked street. It’s navy blue. You hear the sickening thump it makes when you hit him, feel the car jerk as you crash into a utility pole and the airbag knocks you in the face hard enough to make you black out for a second. Maybe two. You’re not sure. All you know is that when you finally summon the strength to open your eyes again, you’re assaulted by the smell of chemicals from the deployed airbag that burn your nostrils when you breathe. Your body aches from where you slammed against the seat belt on impact, your face, your chest - your heart, you think - but you can barely feel it. You are numb.

You blink rapidly to clear the dark spots from your vision, but all it does is serve to make you dizzy. Your head spins, feeling much like the inside of a snow globe after it’s been shaken up by an overeager child. With panic churning  inside you like a hurricane, you claw at your seat belt. Your fingers are shaking and clumsy and they don’t seem to work anymore and sobs well in your throat because this can’t be happening. It must be a dream, a nightmare, anything but what you know deep in your heart that it is: reality, the darkness whispers. A tendril of it slithers through the keyhole. It watches you. It is grinning.

“Come on, come on,” you mutter, or at least you think you do, before throwing open your door with one hand and scrabbling for the seat belt latch with the other. You manage to hit the release and go careening out of the car, landing on your hands and knees with a smack against the wet pavement. 

A man runs up to you, clutching your arm and pulling you up with large, gentle hands. Rain falls into your already blurry eyes, clinging to your eyelashes like tears as you look up at him and notice he has a full, greying beard. His mouth is moving but you can’t hear him over the ringing in your ears. 

You look away from him, searching, wild, crazed. Maybe you are crazy. Maybe you are a lunatic. A crowd has half formed on the side of the road, sporting parkas and umbrellas. Like anxious birds, they flutter around a slumped figure laying unnaturally still on the ground. It wears a navy blue jacket.

You push the man away, stumbling on shaking legs like a newborn foal as you attempt to cross the distance between you and the flock of people. Dread fills your bones, cements itself as a lump in your throat, but you don’t stop. You can’t. Someone on their cell phone tries to reach out to you, but you shove their hands aside. Rain soaks the thin cloth of your t-shirt causing the material to cling to you like a second skin. But you can’t feel it. You can’t feel anything. 

You fall to your knees before him, landing with a splash in the puddle beneath you. Your mouth moves rapidly as you speak words you can’t hear: a chant, a plea, a prayer. Wake up! Come on, kid, just wake up. I’m so sorry. Please, wake up. All my fault, I’m sorry, I’m sorry. You beg - to gods, to monsters, to spirits and ghosts and the nature of things - but it falls on deaf ears as if you had never spoken at all. You feel for his pulse, for a sign, for anything. There is none. The darkness laughs. It is muffled behind the door but you can feel the vibrations of it running through your veins.

You hunch over yourself, fingers clutching at the wet pavement as you dig your nails into the asphalt, wanting to crawl inside your own body like a cocoon, wanting to feel something, anything. The ringing in your ears is so loud, so intense it fills your head and drowns out every other sound. The woman who has knelt down at your side and put her hand on your shoulder as she tries to speak to you. The thunder you can feel rumbling through the earth beneath your palms. The sirens from emergency vehicles you only know are there because the red and blue flashing lights cast a glow on his motionless form. You have never known another sound. It rings and rings and rings. It is endless.

You want to close your eyes. You want to block it all out, pretend that you’re still in your car, that you’re almost to Billie’s suburbs, and any minute now, she will greet you at the door. Well, would you look at that, she’d say. I don’t remember ordering dessert. Her eyes would glimmer and she would smile, beautiful, radiant, the light inside of her too bright for her to do anything but shine.

Billie- Your mind latches onto her like she is your buoy in the middle of the sea, and just the thought of her will keep you afloat even as the darkness uses its spindly arms to pull you under the surface. You reach for the invisible thread that binds your hearts together and, insistently, desperately, you tug. I’m so sorry, Billie. You force your eyes open. You force yourself to look at him. At the boy you did not see.

His bike lays in the middle of the road, bent and misshapen. The back wheel is still spinning.

From your open car door comes the notes of a familiar song. It echoes through the night, beneath the steady beat of the rain and the high, rumbling noise of thunder, and it is not beautiful anymore. It is haunting.

“Just to be the man who walked a thousand miles-”

You can’t feel anything.

“-to fall down at your door.”

--

“Will sh- b- okay?”

“Mil- conc-ssi-n, sh- in shock-”

“Try -alking t- he-”

Voices echo around you, so muffled and distorted that you can’t understand what they’re saying. They sound like they’re coming from very far away and the effort it would take to listen far outweighs the energy you have. You feel drained, like you’re sitting in the bottom of a fish bowl and the words bounce off the water to somewhere else. Not to you.

Not until you hear her.

“Look at me, Y/N.” Hands cup your face in a gentle hold, fingers tenderly stroking the skin of your cheekbones. The voice is so familiar. It cuts through the haze fogging your mind and you reach out as if to embrace it, to let it crawl inside your heart and warm you from the inside out. “Come on, sweetheart. Look at me.” 

You blink. Billie? Your eyelashes flutter as the world gradually comes into focus, no longer a kaleidoscope of colors and shapes. With it, comes an angel. An angel with sunset hair and glimmering eyes and a kind smile. “Pretty woman?” you ask, and you wonder what happened to make your voice sound so raw and broken.

“There’s my girl,” she murmurs, ducking her head to meet your eyes. “Focus on me, baby.” You try to, holding her gaze like you would rather drown in it than face the demon you can feel hovering over your shoulder. She has a furrow between her brows, the one she has only when she’s truly upset. Why is she so sad? Why are you?

“Billie, I’m so sorry,” you whisper, but you can’t remember why you’re sorry. Only that you should be. Only that your heart aches, you smell like chemicals, and it feels like you just went a round with a boxer and lost. But it’s all a blur and you can’t remember why.

Billie reaches up and brushes your hair back away from your face. “It’s okay, sweetheart. Everything’s going to be okay.” Her smile is forced and the implication behind it only stirs the panic forming inside you until it spins so fast that it feels like you’re standing in the eye of a hurricane. 

“Ma’am, we need to speak with her,” a voice speaks suddenly from the doorway and you snap out of your trance, out of the safety of Billie’s gaze, and find yourself in a hospital room, in a hospital bed with an IV in your arm. The walls are a stark white that hurts your eyes to look at. It’s bare and sterile and impersonal; it feels like you just woke up in a padded cell where you are gradually losing your mind.

Billie looks over her shoulder; you follow her gaze and feel your stomach drop unpleasantly. A police officer stands just inside the door. You become suddenly aware of a bone deep chill pervading your entire body. There’s a blanket pulled up around your shoulders but you can’t seem to stop shaking. Why can’t you stop shaking? 

“No,  you don’t,” Billie says, the words tense as they leave her lips. The edges are sharp and you know if you were to reach out, they would cut you just as easily as a blade. You have never heard her sound like that before. “She’s still in shock. She won’t be able to tell you anything you haven’t already figured out from the cameras.” Your mind falters. The hurricane intensifies, becoming a swirling mass of wind and rain. It threatens to swallow you whole.

The officer steps into the room and raises his hands in a placating gesture. “It’s just procedure, Ms. Howard.”

Billie frowns, standing up and sliding in front of you as if to shield you from him. “I don’t give a damn. You could drag the Dalai Lama down here for all I care. I’m not letting you speak to her until she knows what’s going on.”

“Well, I’m not the Dalai Lama, I’m an officer of the law and if she’s responsive, I need to take her statement,” he insists, not unkindly. He looks over Billie’s shoulder at you, his expression apprehensive and sorrowful. Something is very, very wrong. You can feel it in your bones. The hurricane lashes out at you, angry and scared. You wonder if the hurricane is you.

Their argument drifts to the background as flashing lights from the window capture your attention. Blue and red. Familiar. The colors start to blur as rain hits the glass pane and you can only watch, mesmerized, as one droplet becomes two and three and then thunder - it rumbles so loudly it startles you and your heart leaps, pounds, races in your chest - and, suddenly, as if it had been this way all along, the hurricane is not inside of you anymore. It is all around you, surrounding you, and you are stuck within, caged like a bird, trapped like a ghost in a haunted house, you are a lunatic in a padded white cell. 

And then you remember.

Rain. So much rain. Sheets of it that slick the pavement and thunder that shakes the earth. But you are going to Billie’s, where you are warm, where you are safe, and a little rain is worth it to see the look on her face when she opens the door and sees you standing on the other side. Well, would you look at that, she’d say. I don’t remember ordering dessert. And she would smile and she would shine and you would walk among the clouds like a god. 

Something inside you stirs, something troubled, something bigger than you. An exiled giant chained to the mountain pass, a forgotten creature locked in the depths of Hell, the darkness behind the door. For the first time since meeting Billie, you feel afraid.

A taxi, bright yellow, the color of sunflowers and sunshine and that knitted sweater Billie likes to wear in the summer. It veers off; you watch it float away, along the yellow brick road, maybe into the sky to Neverland, down the rabbit hole, it goes and goes and goes. And then a boy and a navy blue jacket and a bike with a misshapen wheel that never stopped turning.

The darkness pushes at the locked door, snaking it’s spindly arms along the edge, seeking for a way out, searching for a weakness. You can feel its eyes on you, watching you through the keyhole. 

A mistake, you didn’t see him, you tried to stop, to swerve, you tried to do anything else but what you did, it’s your fault and you know it, you did this. The road was so wet, you could feel it beneath your hands, flashing lights illuminate his body, blue and red, someone touches your shoulder but you can’t feel it, wake up, wake up, unnaturally still, a song, your ears ring, it’s endless, still, so still, blue and red, it casts a glow to his face, but I would walk five hundred miles and I would walk- You dig your nails into the pavement. You can’t feel anything. 

You did this. It’s your fault. It’s all your fault.

You can feel it the moment the lock shatters and the door swings open. It feels inevitable, like you have been staring into the abyss this whole time, and it has finally decided to swallow you whole. The darkness slithers out and you watch it with bated breath. You have never known a fear this great, the moment you stared into the darkness and didn’t have your light. 

Your soul calls for Billie, screams out her name, begs and pleads for her to protect you like she always said she would. You reach out for the invisible thread tethered between you and you tug and tug and tug but your hands are slippery and you can’t hold on. Your fingers brush her sleeve. 

The darkness seems to smile. You can feel its amusement, its maliciousness, its cruelty. You are frozen in place as it moves towards you, ensnared like a rabbit in a trap, you are a lunatic in a padded cell. It’s spindly arms reach out. I’m so sorry, Billie. It embraces you like an old friend.  

You let it.

[imagines-r-s]

sticking it - j. farabee

chapter 1

a/n: ok, this chapter is very dialogue heavy lmao, but yolo. (feedback is always welcome, feel free to send asks about the series, i would absolutely love to talk about it.) i’m also kinda debating to have a ‘sticking it’ blurb night sometime soon?? anyways i hope you all enjoy this one 

taglist: @butgilinsky @barbienoturbby @sunsetholland @lovenhlboys @sortagaysortahigh @hockey-racing-fubol @oopsiedoopsie23​ (if you want to be added, just send me an ask)

warnings: uh, kathryn? that can be considered a warning i think, swearing, i think that’s it? if i missed anything lmk 

sticking it masterlist

wc: 3.2k

(gif not mine)

“You want me to go where with you?” Joel asked the group in front of him.

“My cousin has a gymnastics meet and we were wondering if you wanted to go with us tonight after practice?” Kevin repeated for the third time. 

“Dude, you have to come. These things are surprisingly super fun, it’s not hockey and there’s no physical fighting, but it’s still pretty cool,” Travis said, shrugging his shoulders. 

“Are you guys going to keep asking until I say yes?” to which Kevin, Nolan, and TK all nodded their heads. “Fine, I’ll go.”

“Ok, sweet. Karly is planning on coming, too, so I’ll just meet you guys there,” Travis interjected as he grabbed his practice bag. 

“We’ll pick you up around 4:30, we have to get there early since Pat has to give his pep talk, all traditional stuff, yada, yada, yada,” Kevin said. 

“Yeah, okay, just let me know when you’re on your way,” Joel said as the two of them went to their cars. 

…..

“y/n, I don’t understand why you’re still worried, your knee will be fine,” Nicole reassured you as the two of you walked into the arena, “Adrian already said you’ve been out for long enough and he’s waiting to hear news of the y/n y/l/n revenge tour, you can’t let him down, dude.”

You rolled your eyes, “well, Adrian can suck it up, he’ll be fine.”

“Ok, that’s how you want to be, then tell Marcus and Michelle that you’re scratching every event today. It’s fine by me, you’re my competition, but good luck petitioning onto the Olympic team after that,” Nicole said, walking ahead of you towards the locker rooms to get dressed. 

“Wait, Nic, stop,” you quickly followed after her, “Your reverse psychology isn’t going to work on me, but I’m not scratching every event.”

“That’s what I thought. Now, babes, you have to realize you’re going to be okay and getting in your head about it will only push you back ten steps. And I missed having actual competition,” Nicole caught the small smile on your face in the mirror, “ok, we honestly have to get ready if we want to have time in the tunnels before we compete.” 

Grabbing your garment bag that held your competition leo and warm-ups in, you started to get ready. Quickly getting your leo on, you took note of how beautiful the new leo was. A navy blue, long sleeve leo with mesh sleeves and rhinestone decals or as Michelle always called it ‘all blinged out’. Once you put on your warm up pants, you did a light makeup look that was pretty much just eye shadow and mascara and then pulled your hair up in a tight, but simple messy bun. 

“Are your boys coming tonight?” Nicole asked, meeting you by the door of the locker room. “Yeah, you know Kevin wouldn’t miss it, but I don’t know if anyone else is coming,” you replied. 

“Oh, well Nolan better be here, you need your pep talk,” Nicole added which made you laugh, “okay, well I’m going to let you do your pre-warm up-warm up and I’ll see you out there soon. You got this, babes.” 

Once you saw Nicole leave the tunnel, you immediately put your headphones in and started listening to one of the hype playlist that Nolan had put together for you. You went through visualizing your routines, visualizing the perfect motions, tumbling, and skills. You were stretching your legs out when you heard a familiar laugh sound from one side of the hallway, turning you saw Karly, TK, Nolan, Kev, and then beside them, Joel Farabee. 

You had never met him personally, but you had seen him play enough times to know who he was. He was also usually included in game highlights if you missed a game, so you were well aware how significant he was to the team. 

You stood up quickly and made your way over to them, “Karly, omg, I’ve missed you, babes. Tiki Bar, I’m still planning on stealing your girlfriend, just so you know.”

“You really have your priorities in order, don’t you, y/n/n?” Travis said.

“I like to think so. Hey, Kev, thank you for bringing your friends along for the y/n y/l/n revenge tour.”

“Dude, you didn’t mention this tour?” Nolan questioned. 

“Oh, well Adrian said this is my comeback meet, so it’s a revenge tour to show how cool I am,” when you got a nod in response from Nolan, you looked over to Joel who stood awkwardly beside him, “Farabee, do you talk or just stand awkwardly 24/7?”

When he heard you say his name, his eyebrows rose in surprise, “how come you know me, but I don’t know you?”

“Well, you see, I actually talk to people instead of just standing off to the side awkwardly. Plus, you’re literally Kev’s teammate, so it would be bad if I didn’t realize who you were.”

“I feel like you’re just upset I wasn’t talking to you, babe,” Joel added. 

“Awe, yes, of course. The pain in my heart from not talking to you is unbearable, thank you for sparing a few words,” you said sarcastically, placing your hand over your heart.

“Ok, children, that’s enough of that for today. We just came to wish you good luck, we’re going to go wait outside the tunnel so that way you can get your pep talk as usual. Now, c’mon, Beezer,” Kevin pushed Joel out of the way and towards the exit before he could say anything else. 

“Are we skipping over that for right now or?” Nolan asked as you walked back to where you were standing by the wall before they came over. When he got a simple nod in response he let out a simple ok, “what event are you starting on?”

“Floor. I’m pretty sure at least.”

“Ok, what’s the worst thing about the floor for you right now?” and the two of you talked about each event like you did every competition. Nolan doing his best to make sure that you talked out everything that was on your mind. Giving you a quick hug and a quick you got this, he made his way back towards his seat. You made your way back to get your warm up jacket from the locker room and went to find Marcus. 

By the time Nolan had made it back to his seat, the announcement that warm up and stretching would start now went off. “Ok, I genuinely thought the only people that did gymnastics were like 10 year olds,” Joel said. 

“10 year olds doing gymnastics is honestly a really boring thing to watch. Like when y/n was 10, I hated going to her meets. She was good, yeah, but it was boring and all of them had the same routines. 0/10 would not recommend,” Kevin added. 

“Are we all just ignoring whatever the fuck happened when y/n/n met Joel? Or was I the only one that noticed?” Nolan was shocked by the fact that no one had mentioned it. When the group went quiet for a moment, the only thing that could be heard was Karly holding back a laugh. “Care to share with the class, Karly?”

“Nope. I want to see how this one plays out before I make any comments,” to which the whole group looked at her confused. “It’s a developing story. It has to develop, obviously.”

Once the national anthem was over, the first event that you had was floor. “y/n/n, I don’t care how you do today, I just need you to go for everything. You have it in you to get high scores anyways, so just focus on doing your skills,” Marcus said, “you just have to do this 1 minute and 30 second routine, land all your tumbling, do your jumps well, stay tight, and you got this.”

“Representing the United States of America, y/n y/l/n on floor,” the announcer read over the loudspeaker. 

“Alright Twinkle Toes, go have fun out there,” Marcus told you one last time before you made your way up to the floor. You stood there anxiously, awaiting the judges who were somehow never ready on time to salute you. Once they did salute you, you flashed your best smile and marched onto the floor, going to your beginning pose. 

The group up in the stands were anxiously awaiting for your music to start, which did include Kevin having to yell at Joel to put his phone up before you performed. All of them believed in you, but this was your first competition back and they weren’t sure how it would go. Would you be back to your old competition level? Better? Would you hurt your knee again? They knew the risks, but simply pushed it to the back of their head. 

Just stick the landings. Four tumbling passes. Three leap series. Two turns. And one score. You have worked your ass off to get back to where you are now; this was your comeback and if you started off great, you could only go up from there. Hearing the beep that signaled that the floor music was starting, the first few notes of ‘Feeling Good’ rang out and you started your routine. 

Starting off your routine with a small dance combo and some poses, you went straight in with two back to back tumbling passes. After the first tumbling pass, the tension in your body eased up. You were back in your element for the first time officially since your injury and you couldn’t have felt better. Right now you didn’t care what score you got, you were just happy to be back. You went for your leaps and jumps, then your final two tumbling passes. 

After finishing your routine in your end pose, you saluted the judges again and practically ran back to Marcus. “I did it, oh my god. I did that,” you weren’t in shock, but the realization finally hit you that you had officially had a great start to the comeback tour. “Yeah, we all knew you could, y/n/n. I’m not shocked,” Marcus hugged you. 

When the camera came around as results of your routine came back, you simply smiled and waved towards the camera as you listened to Marcus tell you the plan for the rest of the competition. When the score results came up, it showed that you were in first place. Everyone else had competed in one event already, so you knew it wasn’t just an accident. You were back. 

“Dude, are you crying?” TK nudged Kevin, who quickly wiped his tears. 

“No, but if I were, it’s a completely valid response to a time like this,” Kevin said quickly. 

What you hadn’t noticed from where you were was how much Joel had been watching you. Before your routine started, he couldn’t have been less interested, but once he saw you performing and the smile on your face after you finished your routine he was hooked. Everyone did take note of how much he was watching you, especially Karly. 

“And the story keeps developing,” she thought. 

With a good score on vault and on bars, you were still doing fine in the meet - it was you and Kathryn Davis for first and second, but this event would show who won all around. The only event that you had left was beam, you only hoped that your hesitation wasn’t as obvious as you felt. You obviously wouldn’t be doing the dismount, you were just going to do a double back that you had solid and weren’t afraid of doing. But even with that, you still had fears looming around a dismount you knew like the back of your hand. 

The fear that you had for beam was evident when you had a few too many wobbles - which made your score lower - luckily there were no falls, but it still affected your score. Even with a lower score you still beat Kathryn in All Around, but came third on beam. 

After awards and talks with media, you made your way back to the locker room to get your gym bag. “y/n, oh my god. Babes, you did amazing. I’m so proud of you,” Nicole came rushing in for a hug. 

“Thanks, Nic. I’m just glad to be back, winning was just a plus,” you said, smiling, “do you still plan on coming with me, Karly, and the guys if we go out to eat?” to which she simply nodded. The two of you made your way to the usual spot you met Kevin after a gymnastics meet. 

Eventually the group made their way over there, all of them quickly congratulating you. “y/n/n, I hope you know how proud I am of you right now,” Kevin said softly after hugging you, “you’ve come such a long way and you rocked it today.”

“KD is slowly approaching,” Nolan said. 

“y/n, omg, it was so cool competing against you. Sorry to have beat you on beam though, maybe if you tried your dismount you would have won,” she said, a fake smile on her face.

“Well, sweetie. You do know that’s just one event right? In everything else, I still beat you. Even when I hurt myself last year, I still somehow ended up with the gold, so you honestly have nothing to brag about,” you said, your fake smile matching hers.

“I see you brought your hockey players to help you out here, how nice of them.”

Everyone watched cautiously, Kevin ready to pull you back if he needed to; Nolan, TK, and Karly were all ready to jump in and help you fight; while Joel just stood there realizing how much he liked seeing you when you were mad. A lovely dynamic for today. 

“Hun, if anyone needs help, it’s you. Especially in the math department, apparently. But congrats on the one gold medal, you deserve it,” and with that you stepped away from her and towards the doors of the arena. 

Somehow Joel was the one that was walking closest to you, “hey, you ok?”

“Yeah, yeah, I’m good. She just annoys me a lot, nothing crazy,” you shrugged. 

“You did good today. It’s crazy what you can do out there honestly,” he said genuinely. 

“Awe, Farabee, that’s so sweet. ”

“Yeah, yeah, don’t get used to it, babe,” he said, slightly nudging you.

“Are you guys seeing this, too?” Karly asked the guys walking beside her, “like y/n and Bee? Or are your eyes not working today?”

“Maybe we shouldn’t have introduced the two?” Kevin says looking back towards you two just as you trip Farabee, “yeah, maybe not the wisest decision?” 

“Haha, suck on that on-,” your sentence interrupted as he pulled your shin to where you ended up on the ground of the parking lot beside him, “that was uncalled for, Bee.” 

“No, it was perfectly reasonable, you were rude to me earlier, so it’s payback.” 

“What the fuck is she doing on the ground?” Nicole asked as she caught up to the group, confused by your and Joel’s actions, to which everyone around her simply shrugged. 

…..

“There she is, the gymnastics superstar. How was the first night of the ‘y/n y/l/n Revenge Tour?” Adrian asked as you entered his office. 

“Eh, same old, same old. You win some and you lose some, and then people are extremely petty about the fact that they lost, so they bring up a traumatic injury that you hardly ever talk about while making fun of you losing an event, yada, yada, yada,” you smiled. 

“Didn’t really know all that, but I’m proud of you,” Adrian led you over to sit on the bench, so that he could check your knee, “your knee looks- why is there a phone number written on your shin?” 

“Ohhh, haha. About that. I forgot to wash it off,” you said simply. 

“Girl, I know there is way more to that story that you aren’t sharing. C’mon spill.” 

“Ok, well basically. Kevin brought one of his teammates to the game, and there’s this kinda like tension that’s there, but it’s not. So, I kinda tripped him in the parking lot to show that I’m so in love with him and he tripped me back, then we all went out to eat. We’re basically engaged now, we’ve already bought a house and a dog,” you said in a monotone voice. 

“Ok, enough with the attitude, I just asked about the boy. So, what’s his name?”

“Joel Farabee.”

“What’s your specific nickname for him?” Adrian placed some athletic tape below your knee, just as precaution.

“Bee, but he doesn’t have a specific one from me yet, we aren’t that close,” you jokingly rolled your eyes, “no, but he couldn’t find a blank piece of paper, so he just wrote his number on my shin.”

“Did he not see your arm? And have you texted him yet?” Adrian asked as you started with your daily drills, rolling his eyes when he saw you shake your head, “look, he’s a hockey player. I have dealt with a few of those. 7/10, might recommend. They’re interesting individuals, that’s all I can say. But you have to text him.”

“Ok, well read me the number and I’ll text him,” opening your phone, you pulled up your texts, “wait, what the fuck do I say?”

“Well, there’s this word in the English language that works as a simple greeting when you don’t know what else to say. A three letter word, pretty simple.”

“Adrian. I don’t need the attitude today, this is stressful enough,” you quickly typed up the message and practically threw your phone across the room right after, “there, I did it.”

“Did you just throw your phone?”

“Yep, but I texted him,” you said, holding two thumbs up.

“I didn’t realize how much you doing gymnastics your whole life influenced your social skills. My deepest condolences to you,” the both of you looked over towards where you threw your phone when you heard a notification go off, “you better check that before I do.”

“Okay, fine,” quickly grabbing your phone, answering quickly to which he responded just as fast, “he simply asked if I was going to be at Kevin’s later and if I wanted coffee, so, are we done here?”

“Mhm, get your coffee. And I expect updates.” 

As you were on the drive home, your phone started buzzing continuously, you realized that it was just Nicole, “hey, babes. What’s up?” 

“Have you checked twitter? Or instagram? Or anything?”

“No? I’ve been at P.T, why?”

“You’re not going to like what I’m about to say, so if you’re still in the car, I suggest pulling over for your own safety.”

You pulled into your apartment complex, “ok, I’m home. What’s up?”

“Just check Kathryn’s instagram, but apparently she’s been training her 3.5 dismount on beam for months and she has it now. She said she plans on competing it at the U.S. classic in May.” 

[goldencorecrunches]

(More LanLan rural vet AU) -- It had been a great idea.

"Look at it this way, at least you'll know we've gotten most of them," Luo Qingyang, their tiny clinic's only full-time nurse, told him. She was visibly trying to keep a straight face. Song Lan glared at her. He couldn't reply with words, because his hands were full of squirming, six-week old puppies. Also his arms, and his shoulders, and from the German Shepherd tugging at his scrub pants, soon his lap as well. 

Song Lan had known, moving from the city to the rural countryside, that there would be some measure of culture shock. When one of the farmers had casually dropped that he didn't vaccinate his puppies, because there were, according to him, "Too many of 'em too fast to bother driving 'em out all that way, before you showed up," he had nearly broken his strict policy of sobriety during work hours.

"They're all going to die of distemper," he had told Wen Qing after the man had left, vaguely aware he was making his Strict Veterinarian Face (it was Lan Xichen who had given it a name, which made Song Lan warm all over, on top of the flush from anger) from the way his temples had started aching. "They're not even on heartworm medication. I'm surprised so many of them survive to get killed by the combine harvester." "Just 'combine,' you sound like you're city folk," Wen Qing had said, ignoring Song Lan's mouthed protestation that he was, which was why he was used to people who kept Lucky and Xiao mi's shots up to date. "Look, these people-- they don't have time, and they don't have money. They're going to focus on the livestock animals they need to keep themselves afloat. It's not cruelly meant. They're doing the best they can." "I know that," Song Lan said, somewhat abashed. He peeled his gloves into the bin by the sink and set about washing his hands as he thought. As always, he had to hunch over the sink, built for a much shorter DVM. Wen Qing's girlfriend had sent her some kind of fancy floral soap, and Wen Qing had delighted in placing it in both exam rooms and the surgery. It was a bit stronger to the nose that Song Lan would've preferred, but he wasn't going to argue with Wen Qing when it came to her girlfriend. The antiseptic covered it up, anyway. "What about a vaccination fair? Or just a day," he said when he had finished drying off. "We used to do them at my old clinic. Bring in your pets, get them up to date. Pass out flyers about common infections. Gets the kids involved, too." "Hm," Wen Qing had said. She'd begun gathering up the used sterile packaging and dumping it in the trash, neatly detouring the needles to the sharps container. "That's certainly an idea." She'd argued him down from all pets to just dogs, and had him separate out areas based on the weeks since puppy birth, to for the older dogs the year or the five-year mark. Song Lan had thought it overly complicated-- he could just ask the humans involved as they came up-- but had acquiesced so as not to cause trouble. He was still learning how to fit in, here. Country folk were a lot more standoffish than city folk, for all they were initially nicer. 

He was very glad now that he'd listened.

"You look busy," said a cheerful voice from behind him. Song Lan finished administering the Bordetella shot to the Border Collie mix Luo Qingyang was holding, giving the pup a scratch behind the ears and juggling the bag of chicken jerky underneath his armpit to keep the mutt-who-definitely-had-Bulldog-in-there-somewhere who was crawling across his shoulders from snatching an unearned reward. He turned, stumbling as the German Shepherd shoved her nose enthusiastically into his muddy shoe laces, and tried to keep his scowl affixed for Lan Xichen's teasing. It was a pointless endeavor; as soon as he caught sight of Lan Xichen's face, glowing in the midday heat, he could feel his mouth pulling up at the corner. He occupied himself boosting the puppy under his left arm higher, propping his waggling tail on his hipbone, to keep his own dopey smile to a minimum. "Shh," he told the puppy, when he yipped and started trying to eat Song Lan's scrubs. The puppy looked up, top canine caught in the loop the brand name tag had once hung from, before Song Lan had cut it off. He was not helping the dopiness meter. "Mister Lan!" Luo Qingyang said, handing the Collie mix back to a child with worried arms outstretched (the dog, unperturbed, began licking every freckle on the child's face). "I'm glad you were able to make it! You brought us-- oh, you didn't have to, put that down. Here, you take this one." She plucked the heavy, stainless-steel carafe from his hand and replaced it with a black-and-tan puppy she summoned from nowhere. Automatically Lan Xichen brought his other hand up to support the puppy's hind legs. The puppy sniffed the pens in the crisply ironed breast pocket and did not find them suitable. Song Lan realized he'd been staring and shuffled his furry passengers away from the jerky again.

"I didn't think to make it cold. It's a warm day, I hope it won't be too hot for you," Lan Xichen was saying, apologetic. The edge of the shadow from the extremely garishly striped outdoor tent Song Lan and Wen Ning had set up cut him right across his handsome face, one eye in the shade, the other squinting into the sunlight. As a teenager, Song Lan had had a movie poster where the actor was highlighted in similar fashion. He had hung the poster on the ceiling above his bed. This is not the time for this was becoming a common repetition in Song Lan's inner monologue when it came to Lan Xichen. "If it has caffeine in it, we'll love you whatever temperature it is," Luo Qingyang assured him, passing Lan Xichen another puppy; nearly identical to the first, but with one black ear instead of two. "This is his sister, they're getting their ten week vaccinations. A bit late, but don't tell their mother that. Do you know how to hold them?" "I'm not entirely useless," Lan Xichen said dryly. He smiled at Song Lan. Song Lan nearly tripped over the German Shepherd again. "Ten weeks, that's...Influenza, Bordetella, Lyme…." "DHAPP," Luo Qingyang confirmed, ponytail bouncing as she nodded. "I'm going over to help Wen Qing with the older dogs, you stay and hold puppies for Doctor Song, yeah?" She patted the male puppy on the head, blew a kiss to the female, and leapt over the barricade of folding chairs to rush to the other side of the tent. A queue was already forming there as Wen Qing argued with a woman in overalls, gesturing angrily. Luo Qingyang slid neatly between them and took the three-legged hound from the woman's arms the same way she had taken charge of Lan Xichen's tea carafe. "You've got a criminal," Lan Xichen said pleasantly, pointing with his chin. Song Lan blinked, and then mentally swore, kneeling so he could free one hand to extricate the Pitbull mix from the open ziplock seal on OL' GRANDAD'S AUTHENTIC CHICKIN STRIPS (Reduced Fat). He pressed the hinge of the puppy's jaw to tug the pilfered treat free, tapping his nose when he tried to whine sadly. Song Lan hadn't gotten his certification yesterday. "Can you hold them while I give the injections?" he asked, waiting for Lan Xichen's acquiescence before struggling to his feet again. Half-way up he felt a pull at his knee. He looked down and saw the German Shepherd, tired of being ignored, had a mouthful of his pants. "No," Song Lan signed; but the dog hadn't been trained in sign language, so she growled playfully up at him, ears pricked. Song Lan reached to do the same trick he'd done on the Pitbull mutt, but he'd not accounted that the other set-down dogs would be investigating the other side of his newly-sniffable legs. With a grassy skid, and a very undignified shout, Song Lan went down. The dirt seemed a lot more solid when he was testing it with his nose and chin. Three of the puppies leapt on his face and began a series of scientific experiments as to whether he was dead or just playing. One slobbery tongue went into his ear. "Are you all right?" Lan Xichen's voice was above him: Song Lan was never, ever going to live this down. He groaned and rolled onto his back, throwing an arm across his eyes and letting the puppies pounce on his hair and ankles. The German Shepherd, looking delighted with herself, sat her ass down on Song Lan's stomach and examined his face, tongue lolling. Despite himself, Song Lan smiled and reached up to rub at her belly. She flopped onto her side (oof) and threw her front paws up so he could gain better access. Her tail beat wildly at the ground beside Song Lan's leg.

"Just…dangle them over my chest," Song Lan signed up at Lan Xichen's looming figure. He was tall. Was this what he looked like to everyone else at the clinic? "I'll do them like this."

"Of course, Doctor Song," Lan Xichen said, carefully solemn.

They looked at each other.

The girl puppy swatted her brother in the nose. Immediately he started crying.

"Shall I get you a cup of tea too, then?" Lan Xichen asked, and Song Lan couldn't help it; he laughed out loud.

"I suppose 'buried in dogs' isn't a terrible way to go," he signed, as Lan Xichen, finally abandoning his masterful attempt, let his grin take over his face. It was blinding. "Yes, if you've got a funnel to pour it through?"

[hopelessromanticspoonie]

Trust

Masterlist here

Characters: Tom Hiddleston and Female Novelist Reader

Summary: Finding just the right actor to star in the movie based on your book wasn't an easy process. And then Tom Hiddleston walked into the room, and he may solve more than just your casting concerns.

Warnings: Alcohol consumption

Word Count: 4.2k (whoops)

A/N: This is based off a request given to me by @yespolkadotkitty! I apologize that I haven’t posted in a long while and that this took a minute to get out, but I hope you enjoy it! ALSO. I know nothing about the film industry. Please ignore what I’m sure are several errors concerning that topic.

“Next!”

“He was really good. You sure you didn’t like him?”

You closed your eyes and dropped your forehead onto your hand supported by your elbow on the folding table in front of you. When you had been contacted by your agent that a studio wanted to turn your best-selling novel into a movie, it felt like a dream come true. A whirlwind of paid flights, lunch meetings, negotiations, and signed contracts led you to your spot next to the casting director, several producers, and director for the movie. You were lucky that they were taking your opinion into consideration at all, and you didn’t want to create waves, but there hadn’t been a man reading for the main role yet that felt right.

From several one-note actors to a few who were way off the mark to those who showed up completely unprepared, nobody had made you feel the gripping tension of the troubled but earnest character of Joshua Collins, the struggling artist and male half of your romantic tale.

“Hello, my name is Tom Hiddleston, and I’d like to audition for the role of Joshua Collins.”

That voice. Sophistication roughened with the barest hint of anxiety and smoothed out by a full baritone that dripped honey. Your head popped up from your hand to take in the sheepishly grinning man in front of you. He was tall, so tall that it took an eternity for your eyes to drag from the worn boots on his feet, up the slim legs expertly encased in blue slacks, over the broad chest that strained at the thin fabric of his light blue button-up shirt, to a face that had to have been sculpted by the finest craftsmen with planes and shadows to highlight his arresting stare.

The lines that he read through with a producer’s assistant sounded as if they came straight from your creative imaginings. He was Joshua. The ability he had to convey such emotion with the tilt of his head, the press of his lips, or even the very act of taking a breath to sustain his speech was enough to render you utterly transfixed. Even the silence that fell over the room as he gathered his thoughts for a response had you tense and gripping your pen until your knuckles lightened as you waited with bated breath for a reply you had memorized before he’d strolled in. But with him it was new, organic, somehow spontaneous and heartfelt and so true it resonated deep in your bones.

And then he stood from the chair he had fallen into with an easy, relieved smile on his face as he smoothed his hand down the front of his shirt. “Thank you all for sharing your time with me today. And, if I may,” he shifted his attention from the studio bigwigs to you, “I absolutely adored the raw humanity in your novel. I hope that I can bring it to life for you.”

The sound of the door closing seemed to break the spell that had fallen over the room. You shared a knowing look first with the casting director and then the director herself.

“Joe, please tell those remaining that auditions have been canceled,” Sam smiled, scribbling something in her portfolio in front of her. “We have our man.”

~

Had you picked up all of the loose bits of trash scattered around your room? Sure, the staff had cleaned that morning, but that didn’t mean that you hadn’t found some way to dirty it since then. Would bottled water be okay? Maybe he preferred coffee. Hotel coffee wasn’t ever the greatest, but it would do in a pinch. Right? And should you have put on nicer clothes? Maybe-

A light, rhythmic knock sounded on your door, stopping your anxious thoughts and making you freeze from where you were bent over making sure the hem of your jeans wasn’t rolled over.

Another knock, and you quickly righted yourself, running your hand over your hair to tame any flyaways as you scurried to the door. Tom stood on the other side, holding two beers in one hand and a thick leather folio in the other.

“Thank you for agreeing to meet with me before rehearsals begin. May I come in?”

As if anyone would turn down Tom Hiddleston, especially when he came bearing beer. You stepped to the side, allowing him to pass by, leaving behind the very masculine scent of bergamot and citrus in the air that stirred between you. “Of course. You look like you’re ready to attend a class or something.”

He placed everything down on the tiny table meant to be a desk before turning to you with a small smile. His large hands rubbed against his jeans on the outside of his thighs. “Admittedly, I am a bit of a fan of your writing. An avid fan, actually. I was hoping that you wouldn’t mind too terribly if we discussed the book? I want to ensure I fully bring this character to life as you so masterfully wrote it.”

Color you shocked. Sure, you had received plenty of praise for your book throughout this process, the paycheck was evidence enough that it was liked, but to have someone that you personally admired for their own set of talents compliment it was another thing entirely. Working to school your face so that your excitement didn’t show, you grabbed the beer he opened and sat down on the edge of the bed. “Ask away, Mr. Hiddleston.”

Draping his long and lithe form into the faded desk chair, he opened his folio and uncapped a pen that looked more expensive than the entirety of your outfit. “Tom, please. We will be working closely together, and we are neighbors in this hotel as well. Formalities are not necessary.”

“Okay,” you nodded and took a swig of liquid courage. “Tom, what would you like to know?”

Questions and answered flowed easily after a few stuttering moments on both sides of the conversation. You were only struck dumb once or twice from the intensity of his thoughtful stare, and you found yourself both grateful and saddened when it would leave you to focus on the copious notes he scribbled down in the folio on his thigh. You’d never felt so heard as to when he watched you ramble on about plot points and motivation and character development, with his hand rasping against the five o’clock shadow that darkened his razor-sharp jawline and his brows furrowed.

Only when you stifled a yawn behind your hand did he seem to pull himself from the focused notes he had been taking after you explained a more difficult aspect of Joshua’s past. He glanced at the leather-strapped watch on his arm, frowning. “I do believe that I have kept you up far too late. I apologize. I should be going so that you may rest for overseeing rehearsals tomorrow. You will be there, correct?”

“I think so, yeah. Unless I’m needed for consultation on a last-minute script change, I think that’s where I’m supposed to be. I’m not really sure how all of this works,” you admitted with a light laugh.

He walked with you to the door after tossing both his and your bottles in the trash and gathering his things that had spread out over the desk. “If you have any questions, do not hesitate to ask. I know how overwhelming all of this can be. Until then, I very much look forward to seeing you. Goodnight.”

The clasp of his hand on your shoulder was heavy, stretching across your skin with a pleasant warmth that you wanted to curl into and bask in forever. You reached up and patted his hand gently before opening the door. “Goodnight.”

Sure enough, when you watched him head back to his room in the hotel meant to house you for the entirety of the filming project, he disappeared into the room directly next to yours.

The faint scent of his cologne lingered on your clothing as you ducked back into your room to prepare yourself as best as you could for the unknown journey ahead.

~

In all your days, you’d never met someone as motivated and driven as Tom. When he wasn’t rehearsing, he was exercising, or building comradery between the cast and crew that he would be spending the next year with, or even, to your astonishment, spending time with you.

It had begun under the guise of him delving deep into his character with you over beers and room service. Then it had switched to other books in your catalog, and then, when you had begged off any serious thinking because you’d spent all day arguing with the writers, it changed into something more personal.

You walked onto set holding two travel tumblers precariously with one arm and your overstuffed binder in the other. A meeting with your agent that morning discussing the press tour preceding the premiere of the movie had gone on longer than expected, and you couldn’t wait to sit down and just watch Tom and the cast act out the inner workings of your imagination over the coffee you clutched. The idea of going for so many interviews and appearances weighed heavily on you. To be the object of so much attention wasn’t why you had gone into writing.

But, perhaps this was.

Tom looked quite frustrated as he talked to Sam, the director, in the middle of the set, about a pivotal point in the film where he admits his love to the female lead (who does not feel the same), and he barely glanced your way as you settled in. His hands flew in front of him with every gesture, fingers spread wide and then clenched tightly into fists at his side. Some conclusion must have been reached because Sam came back to her spot behind the monitors and Tom got into place.

It was obvious to everyone that something was off. You especially, as the dialogue didn’t fit what you had written with the screenwriters for the scene. After the cameras stopped rolling so Sam could talk to Tom once again, whose performance had been stilted and unnatural, you turned to your assistant with a frown heavily etched into your skin. “Was there a rewrite?”

She didn’t even look up from the email she was typing away on her phone. “Yes, ma’am. Just given to everyone this morning. I sent it to your email.”

Groaning quietly, you slipped your coffee and belongings into pockets on the sides of your chair and stood up, holding Tom’s tea in your hand. When you caught his eye you raised it in the air and he nodded. He could come get a drink from it when he had a moment.

That moment came much faster than you expected. He held up one finger to Sam, and you barely caught him plead, “Let me take a drink before we run it again,” before he jogged over to you.

“What’s going on?” you asked, offering him the steaming tea and crossing your arms over your stomach.

He took a deep drink and sighed, closing his eyes to savor the flavor and moment of peace before opening them to look wearily down at you. Irritation lived in the lines between his brows and in the press of his lips together. “The rewrites simply don’t feel like Joshua. I don’t feel as if they line up with his motivations. I-” he sighed heavily, dropping his chin to his chest and putting his free hand on his hip.

You stepped closer to him so that he was forced to meet the determined set of your eyes. Of its own accord, your hand reached out and grasped his. He returned the tight grip and your heart squeezed right along with it. Not the time.

“You know him. You’ve brought him to life and fleshed him out into a fuller being than my words ever did. I-”

“Don’t sell yourself short. You’re immensely talented,” he interjected.

“I’m not. I’m praising your talent. I’ll go fight Sam if I have to, to just get one take like it was written before they changed it. That’s all I can probably get you. Can you do it?”

He took a bracing sip of his tea before handing the travel mug back to you. Gratitude reflected in the stormy blue of his eyes. “I can. Thank you.”

And then he jogged off back to the set, speaking quietly with the female lead, Mary, about the plan. Which left you to face Sam, hopefully, to throw around what little bit of weight you had. In all honesty, she could put a stopper on the whole situation and force Tom to follow the rewrites. But he was watching you with such hope and support that it bolstered your confidence enough to set down his drink and go over to her.

“What’s going on?”

Sam was a fierce woman, having clawed her way up through the ranks to get her position, and it was easy to want to cower under the steel of her stare. Taking a deep breath, you held out your hands at your sides. “The rewrites aren’t working, Sam. He knows it, Mary knows it, and I know it. Can we just try it the way it was written before? Even if it doesn’t work like we hope, then he’ll have gotten it out of his system and we can move on with shooting.”

She studied you, pinning you to the spot as you tried desperately not to fidget while waiting for her verdict. She maintained eye contact when she shouted to the remarkably silent cast and crew, “One take with the old lines and blocking.”

The knowledge that your reputation was very much on this decision weighed heavily on your shoulders as you nodded your thanks before heading back to your chair. Getting situated, you cradled your coffee in your hands and inhaled the calming aroma as you watched everyone scurry around to get ready for the slight change in blocking and places.

And then action was called, and tears pricked at the corners of your eyes as Tom’s heart was broken and shattered into a million pieces at Mary’s rejection. The anguish he expressed through ragged breaths and glistening eyes was enough to make you want to run from your place and gather him into the safety of your arms in a futile attempt to put him back together. The scene went on naturally after it was meant to finish, Sam not calling cut, and he collapsed into a heap on his knees and ripped the sketchbook before him to shreds before letting out a scream of pain that would haunt you for the rest of your days.

“Cut.”

An intern ran onto the set and handed Tom several tissues, which he took with a watery smile. Every muscle in your body tensed as you waited for Sam’s reaction.

“Reset. Tom, take a moment and collect yourself. Frank, make sure that you’re tighter on his face right after she turns him down. Lisa, good idea on the sketchbook. Get the rest that you have. Good work, people.”

Tom stood up and was instantly surrounded by hair and makeup to fix the mess that he’d made of himself with his heartfelt performance. But, over their bobbing heads, he managed to look at you and mouth, “Thank you.”

The happiness and relief that soared through your veins were more exhilarating than coffee would ever be.

~

Knock. Knock. Knock.

Your fingers stilled over your laptop, the words of your latest piece of fiction ceasing in your head at the peculiar sound. Did someone just knock on your wall? Surely the sounds of your quiet music weren’t too loud.

Knock. Knock.

Hesitantly, you twisted in your bed, pressing your ear to the thin beige wall, and rapped against it three times. When there wasn’t an answering knock, you turned around and pressed your back against your pile of pillows to continue tapping away at what you hoped could possibly be another movie brought to life.

And then the same steady knocks sounded on the door to your hotel room. Confused, you closed your laptop and set it to the side, padding to the door in your pajamas. You opened the door with a confused frown to see Tom standing on the other side, holding a covered tray from room service, exhaustion living in the slump of his shoulders and pull on the corners of his mouth.

“On occasion, I find it hard to wind down after filming. Since you’re awake, I was hoping we could share this piece of chocolate cake and chat a bit?”

Suddenly very shy at your mismatched pajamas and air-dried hair from your shower, you blushed, waving him inside. “How can I turn down cake?”

You closed the door behind him and sent a silent prayer to whoever was listening that you had remembered to pick up your dirty clothes from earlier in the day. Turning around, you found Tom sitting cross-legged on the bed, chocolate crumbs on his lips that you longed to clean with your own. “Were you writing? I can leave. I don’t want to disturb you?”

“Nonsense. The ideas are in my notes. I can always make time for you, especially if you ply me with sweets.” You crawled onto the bed next to him and snagged the fork from his hand, taking a bite. “You sure know a way to a girl’s heart.”

His face softened as he nudged your knee with his. “You think very highly of me. On that note, thank you, today, for believing in me.”

“Of course. You are the most talented man I’ve ever met. I trust your gut.”

The rest of the cake was eaten in relative silence, your eyes chasing each other in fleeting glances that had your heart racing in your chest. There was something much more intimate about sharing a dessert in your pajamas, on your bed, than your other late-night meetings in your room. Was it the electric brush of his fingers over yours when you passed the fork to him, or the knowledge that your lips were touching where his had only moments ago? Would he taste like the rich dessert you shared?

Yearning for the charismatic man had grown in you since that first meeting at his audition. How could it not? He was kind, seeking to meet and know every person he interacted with on set. You were not the exception, as your late-night meetings had proved. His intelligence knew no bounds, and you had put it to the test with rousing discussions from everything to literature to current events to Shakespeare to politics. And the fondness that you caught in his gaze from time to time set a warmth alight in your bones that you wanted to live in for the rest of your days. Every brush of his body against yours had you aware of the heat he left behind for hours, and you had long ago imprinted the feeling of his lips upon your cheek in a quick greeting kiss into your memory.

You must have been staring during your descent into your hopelessly pining thoughts, as he was watching you closely with an eyebrow quirked in silent question, when you pulled yourself from your reverie.

“Sorry,” you shook your head, blinking the madness of your wishes away. “Long day. What’d you say?”

“I said that you have a bit of chocolate on your face. Would you like me to get it for you?” he asked quietly.

He didn’t wait for an answer. His thumb brushed against your cheek, sending the smallest shiver down your spine, before he pulled the digit into his mouth. The silence that stretched beneath his darkened gaze held you frozen to the spot. Your face burned where he had fleetingly touched you.

“Were it not for professionalism…” he murmured, a hint of anguish in his voice as his eyes traveled down your face to settle on your parted lips.

How was it possible that you felt like a schoolgirl again? Your heart hammered in your chest so loudly that it seemed impossible to take a deep enough breath to stop your head from spinning. You shifted on the bed, closer to him, peering up at him through your lashes. “You’d?”

He sighed and scrubbed his hand over the back of his neck before lighting it on your face. Holding you still, he leaned forward, pressing his lips against your cheek in a lingering kiss that had your stomach clench in anticipation. Your hands dug into the scratchy duvet beneath you to keep from resting on his abdomen to see if he had the same reaction to the tension that stretched between you like a livewire.

He left one more kiss on your temple, breathing you in and stroking your jawline with his thumb, before pulling away and standing up from the bed with a groan. “You are temptation personified. It would be an injustice to us both if any romantic notions got in the way of your brilliant storytelling. After, though…”

The promise in his lowered voice and the inferno of his eyes was enough to temporarily sate you as you watched him walk out of the door with a shake of his head. Writing for that evening was out of the question as you fell asleep with the remnants of his touch warm on your skin and his cologne perfuming your sheets.

~

“Did you hear the news?”

You turned from where you were scrolling through your phone at the filming wrap party, perking up at the liquid velvet voice that broke through the terrible house music Sam had requested from the DJ. Tom leaned his shoulder against the very wall that currently propped you up, his head tilted to the side in a way that had your belly fluttering like mad.

“News?”

His hands shoved into the pockets of his navy blazer. “We’ll be on the press tour together, for the movie. The studio wanted someone paired up with you that had a bit more experience with such matters, and I volunteered. I guess you aren’t rid of me yet.”

“As if I’d want such a thing,” you admitted with a quiet laugh. Any anxieties that you'd had about making an idiot of yourself for the worldwide press tour were now replaced with doing the very same, but perhaps now you'd be caught ogling Tom while he waxed on about the movie. Or perhaps you'd simply go mad spending so much time with him in close quarters while jet setting across the globe. Was there time for romantic interludes when you were answering the same twenty questions in twenty different countries?

He stood up straight and offered his arm with a cheeky grin, “At the risk of removing the woman of the hour from the party, would you accompany me outside for a bit of fresh air?”

The mischief that twinkled in his eyes was impossible to ignore. You slipped your hand into the crook of his elbow. “Says the leading man of the movie and an actual ray of sunshine. Lead on.”

The bar that they’d rented for the evening opened out onto a busy street that replaced the booming music with honking horns and bustling crowds hurrying home. His arm fell to hang at his side, and he caught your hand with his and laced your fingers together before pulling you behind a bit of greenery out front that hid you from prying eyes both inside and outside.

“Along with attending the press tour with you, I was hoping I could accompany you to the premiere?” he asked, leaned against the roughened brick wall behind him, tugging you closer until you stood in between his spread legs. The chilled wind was most unwelcome at your back, but the warmth of the man in front of you was more than enough to make the stolen privacy comfortable.

Your free hand picked a bit of lint from his crimson sweater before stilling, connected to his ribs by just your pointer finger and thumb, drawn into his heat with the bite of the winter air through your thin party dress. “You know what they’ll say.”

Tom was an incredibly private man, and it might create more talk than he’d want to deal with to show up with a date. You’d love more than anything to spend the evening on his arm, basking in his charismatic glow, but not if it caused him any headache or heartache.

His breath, scented with bittersweet alcohol, fanned across your face as his hand settled onto your hip. That simple touch branded your goose-bump covered skin and had you leaned into him until you had to crane your head backward to meet his tender stare. “That I was chivalrous in escorting the novelist who allowed me the opportunity to embody her treasured characters? That it was very thoughtful of me to ensure that you didn’t feel tossed to the sharks for your first red carpet event?”

With just the drop of his chin, his forehead leaned against yours. “Say yes?”

The nudge of his nose along yours, the rub of his thumb over the thin skin on the back of your hand, the push of his leanly muscled chest against yours with every breath, gave you enough courage to close your eyes and touch your lips to his in the kiss that had been denied you months ago. He groaned softly into your parted lips, releasing his hold on you to press his hands over the curve of your backside so you were flush against him. Fire scorched at your insides from the tease of his tongue and you tumbled headfirst into the passion that he finally stoked to life after it had been smoldering between you for so very long.

“Yes,” you replied breathlessly against his jaw, pulling away to draw air into your tortured lungs, kneading your fingers gently over his rapidly beating heart.

Leaning against him, with his arms wrapped around you so that your face found a comfortable home in the smooth column of his throat, you closed your eyes and gave in to the enticing man that had caught your attention so very long ago. With Tom by your side, and perhaps even in your bed, you were safe in the knowledge that you wouldn’t have to navigate this new world alone.

~~

Tidbit of Tom taglist: @otakumultimuse-hiddlewhore @ladyblablabla

Whole Shebang taglist: @just-the-hiddles @yespolkadotkitty @nonsensicalobsessions @vodka-and-some-sass @he-is-chaotic-she-is-psychotic @myoxisbroken @brokenthelovely @myworddump @polireader @wiczer @littleredstarfish @the-broken-angel-13 @arch-venus25 @xxloki81xx @jessiejunebug @tinchentitri @sllooney @devilbat @vikkleinpaul​ @bouquet-o-undercaffeinated-roses​ @angelus80 @wolfsmom1 @kthemarsian​ @toozmanykids​ @claritastantrum @princerowanwhitethorngalathynius​ @sabine-leo​ @lovesmesomehiddles​ @peterman-spideyparker​ @wegingerangelica​ @bluefrenchfries604​ @catsladen @snoopy3000​ @silverswordthekilljoy​ @villainousshakespeare​ @kitkatd7​

[ambivalent-writes]

Oath Of Desires: Nine

Synopsis: [Yandere! Jungkook x Reader x Taehyung] [Poly AU]

It had only been them three for a long time. Not one person more, not one person less – just Jungkook, Taehyung and [Name].

Jungkook was elated when Taehyung and [Name] told him that they had become a couple. He literally could not have been happier.

They were his favourite couple, and he loved them both…. A little too much.

When there was a hindrance in Taehyung and [Name]’s relationship which caused them to fall apart, Jungkook was distraught. Afterwards, when he realized the depths of his love for his ‘friends,’ Jungkook made an oath of his dark desires – he was going to do whatever it took to get them back together. And this time, he was also going to become part of their relationship.

Warning: As this story contains yandere themes, the characters display behaviors that can be triggering or uncomfortable to read. Read at your own risk. This work is purely fiction. I do not believe any of the mentioned members would display any sort of this behaviour irl.

                                           ___________

Love, non-existent,

His dreams were mere delusions.

He threatened to burn them with fire,

But the thing that got burnt wasn’t them, but his dangerous oaths of desires.

                                       ___________

The air was thick, and the tension of atmosphere was intense -- they could taste it in their mouths, at the back of their tongue-- a disgusting sensation of iron that made them nauseous. Slowly, as if he was a victim of the serial killer who had just found him in his hiding spot in a horror film, Taehyung turned his head towards Jungkook, who raised an eyebrow.

“What are you hiding from me?” Jungkook asked, and instantly, [Name]’s body acted on her own. Subconsciously, [Name] put her hand on her stomach, and clutched the layer of clothing covering her stomach tighty. While doing so, a whimper of fear of what was to come, left her lips.

Taehyung’s eyes flickered to [Name], and the raw realisation of their reality sunk in; the fact that [Name] was sitting on the floor of a toilet, feeling anxious, frightened, traumatized, completely vulnerable, upset to the point when her entire body was shaking, and possibly pregnant, made his chest tighten in pain.

How did we even end up here? This fleeting thought appeared for mere seconds, but he was quick to ignore it. Reflecting on regrets, and pondering on the what ifs of the choices they made, and questioning the reality they were in was not going to be helpful in this moment. Maybe later, once this was all over, and they had the privilege to think for themselves again, maybe then they could ponder.  But right now, with Jungkook holding the crown and dictating over them like a tyrant King, there was little to no room left to think or breath -- it had to be all action.

So, Taehyung stuck with that. He proceeded to stand in front of [Name] protectively, as he stared at Jungkook with a challenging stare.

See, Jungkook had been feeling rather ecstatic since the past two days because he came to believe that he had finally broken Taehyung and [Name]. The [h/c] female, while did rebel against him, was easier and quicker to break because of her already passive nature, and due to the fact that Jungkook tended to punish her more. Taehyung was much harder to tame. But, it was not impossible. Jungkook had noticed that Taehyung had started to submit to him quicker. And even though, Taehyung was still reluctant, he had not been fighting as much either. They were breaking, and thus, the potential to build them into exactly what he desired them had been increasing. But now, all of his hard work and progress with making Taehyung more submissive was being shoved back right in face. Additionally, the fact that Taehyung thought he could stand on the same level as Jungkook and challenge his authority once again; it was a displeasing sight, and it caused the corner of Jungkook’s lips to twitch in anger.

“You know, I’ll be nice and give you another chance. Now this time, it would be in your best interest to tell me the truth because if you don’t, then I’ll make you both suffer. Do you remember what happened the last time when both of you defied me together? How awful it was to be on the verge of fainting from exhaustion and dehydration and still suffer from the punishments I gave you… You don’t want to go through that again, do you? Of course you wouldn’t. So tell me, what are you hiding?” Jungkook seethed, as he got off the frame of the door, and walked closer towards Taehyung, and stared at him with an intimidating gaze.

Taehyung did not move an inch, or even flinch, as he held his ground. He returned the ferocity of Jungkook’s glare with his own, before he scoffed at him.

“Like hell we will. Touch her, and I’m going to fucking rip your arm off,” Taehyung threatened, and he was prepared to carry out his threat by all means, had Jungkook not striked him first. Given his still weak state, it was easy for Jungkook to beat up Taehyung, and overpower him until he had Taehyung in a headlock. While this happened, [Name] could do nothing except watch them helplessly from the ground, and continue to shake in fear.

Her stomach churned and she felt sick with anxiety and terror that flooded her mind beyond her coping level; her breathes shortened, and she started to sob hysterically, as Jungkook turned towards her, with Taehyung held tightly, and in pain, in his grip.

No matter how much Taehyung thrashed, and tried to get himself out of Jungkook’s grip, his efforts remained useless.

“Let me go Jungkook! If you don’t let me go right now, or hurt [Name], I swear I’ll kill you! Don’t underestimate me--” Taehyung growled. However, he was cut short and unable to speak anything else, because Jungkook covered Taehyung’s mouth with one of his hands. Simultaneously,  he tightened his grip on him, to worsen his pain. Then, as he tormented Taehyung like this, he looked at [Name], and narrowed his eyes at her.

“[Name], you’re more understanding than Taehyung aren’t you? You’re more co-operative, right? And that’s why I always make love to you more. You’ll be good and do as I say since I treat you so well, wouldn’t you?” Jungkook started, and his voice caused [Name] to freeze.

Her bottom lip quivered, as Jungkook offered her a strained smile for comfort.

“Tell me [Name], what are you two hiding? I’m giving one last chance, don’t muck it up like Taehyung did.  Tell me or you won’t like what I do to you and Taehyung,” Jungkook warned, and [Name], currently not being in the right mind-set, or having the willpower to fight, confessed immediately.

“I-I think I might-- I might be p-pregnant,” She stammered, and Jungkook’s eyes widened.

First, there was silence, and [Name] awaited Jungkook’s response nervously. Then, everything happened all at once, and too suddenly; Jungkook lost it.

He released his grip on Taehyung, and let him fall carelessly, and mindlessly on the floor. Since Jungkook had been somewhat strangling during his headlock, as Taehyung’s body hit the floor harshly, he gasped in pain, and trying to breathe in as much oxygen as he could.

Jungkook ran towards [Name], and threw himself on top of her. As the weight of his body collided on hers, [Name] fell back harshly on the floor, and her head hit harshly, which made it throb painfully. She screamed loudly when Jungkook pinned her hands at the side of her head. He put his entire weight on her, and positioned himself on top her in a way that rendered her from moving. Heavy tears flowed down [Name]’s cheeks, and she viciously shook her head.

“Jungkook please, don’t do this—“

“It can’t be! YOU’RE NOT SUPPOSE TO BE PREGNANT! YOU CAN’T HAVE A BABY! THIS WAS NOT HOW IT WAS SUPPOSED TO BE! It was supposed to be ME! ONLY ME! I SHOULD BE THE ONLY ONE YOU CARE ABOUT, LOVE, AND DO EVERYTHING FOR! YOU AREN’T MEANT TO BE LIKE EVERYONE ELSE! You’re— You’re only supposed to love me and not abandon me for someone else!” Jungkook cried hysterically, and the loudness of his voice, and the underlying promises of danger, caused [Name] to whimper and shut her eyes tightly.

“I… I won’t let this be the end. Not again. I don’t want to start over again. I’ll just, I’ll just—“ Jungkook stammered, and then, as if he just had an epiphany, his eyes widened impossibly wide. He licked his lips once, before speaking again, and this time, for the worst.

“I-I know. I’ll just get rid off this baby for everyone’s sake. You aren’t fat yet, and— and the baby probably isn't even grown yet. It’ll be easy. Haha, yeah it’ll be super easy. Just one hit will do,” Jungkook murmured to himself. However, [Name] heard him loud and clear, and this caused her eyes to snap open. She observed Jungkook from beneath him: his wide and large eyes that were filled with petrifying insanity, and his disheveled hair that overcasted his eyes, providing a dark shadow over his face that further highlighted his disoriented persona.  Then, with one of his shaky hands, he took out a knife from the back of his pocket, and shifted his grip on [Name] so that he pinned both of her wrists above her head with his other hand.  When Jungkook’s big knife entered her line of sight, [Name]’s bottom lip quivered once more, and she shook her head.

“No please, Jungkook, please, don’t do this. Please don’t this, don’t hurt me like this. I’ll, I’ll do anything that you want. I’ll even get rid off this baby if you get me the right medication but please, not like this— not like this, please. Please don’t stab me, I haven’t done anything. Please, I’m begging you, Jungkook, don’t do this to me,” [Name] cried, and tried to get out of his grip. However, her efforts remained fruitless.  

Jungkook gave her a stretched ear-to-ear forced smile.

“I’m sorry [Name], but I have to do this right here and right now. This needs to be done, for our future’s sake,” He said, and he raised the knife up high in the air.

As Jungkook had become preoccupied with [Name], he had completely forgotten about Taehyung, who he had left on the ground. Slowly, and surely, as Jungkook was having his mini-break down, Taehyung stood up from the ground. Taehyung was heaving, and he was pissed. He wanted to scream, charge at Jungkook, and beat him up until his bones would break, and his blood soaked his knuckles. However, he held himself back and kept himself under control. This was their only chance, and Taehyung NEEDED to make this count.

As quietly as he could, Taehyung leaned down, and grabbed the empty standing toilet paper roll holder that was beside the toilet, and raised it above him. Then, he slowly walked towards Jungkook. As he did so, his own heart beat loudly in his ears, and he hoped that Jungkook would not be able to hear it and be too focused on [Name].

Then, just as Jungkook was about to bring down the knife and stab [Name], Taehyung took proper aim, and with all the force that he could muster, and adrenaline from all the action and pain from before pumping through him, he swung the standing toilet paper roll holder at Jungkook’s head as hard he could.

[theresnosafeharbor4myships]

Tattoos - Chapter 2: The Weight of the Past (also on 9L) Chapter 1 can be found here. 

A/N: This will be a multi-chapter Caryl fic in which Carol is curious about Daryl’s tattoos and he discusses their origins with her. :)

The storm caught them off-guard, and within a few minutes they were soaked straight through.

Clouds had dotted the sky when they’d left that morning and had continue darkening all day, but with more people joining their community, they needed more food, and he’d elected to go hunting. Carol had asked to join him, and he’d been grateful for the company and the help.

The storm had found them in the middle of a field, setting traps to catch a herd of deer that’d left footprints behind. By the time they’d secured it and made it to the outcropping of rocks nearby, the downpour had eased to a steady rain.

Daryl stood next to her in the shadow of a small overhang, rivulets of water dripping down his face from his soaked hair. He slid the pack off his back and dropped it next to her feet, then peered out up into the sky.

“Looks like it might rain for a while…don’t see any breaks in the clouds. I’m gonna go look for a place to hole up for a while.”

“‘Kay,” she agreed, shivering inside her drenched jacket.

“Be back soon,” he murmured before jogging out from the small curve of protection offered by the rocks above.

Carol scanned the space behind her before removing her own pack, plopping down, and leaning back against a smoother section of the granite to watch the rain fall.

It’d been a long day of traipsing through woods and vale and setting traps for animals they hoped would bite but not get bitten. They’d come across a few of the dead but luckily no hordes and no living. Overall, she’d considered it a successful day. Until now. They’d only intended to venture out one day’s distance, but if the rain lasted too long, they’d have to wait until it stopped for the animals to become active again.

She crossed her arms, trying to garner warmth, but the chill in the rain had invaded her already. Times like this she missed having a weatherman half-correctly predicting the weather. They had a former newspaper editor, used car salesmen, gardener, even a garbage truck driver—but no meteorologist. Carol sighed, trying to curl up tighter against the cold.

She enjoyed the walls and the people in Alexandria when there but, cold or not, the prospect of spending uninterrupted time alone with Daryl didn’t seem like such a bad deal. Over the past year, they’d grown closer in a way she’d never have expected: living under the same roof, taking care of Lydia, helping her heal in a way only the two of them could, trying to keep tensions low and spirits high. The three of them had nearly become a family unit. And though it pierced her heart to think of the way that Lydia had come to join them, she couldn’t begrudge the girl a better life than the one she’d had. It hadn’t surprised her how well Daryl seemed to handle parenting, but it did open up a whole new side of him, and she couldn’t help finding it wildly attractive.

“Hey,” she heard Daryl’s voice through the rain and curbed her wayward thoughts. He suddenly appeared through the rain, and she stood as he tucked himself inside their little hovel.

“Found a place,” he told her, throwing his backpack on as she did the same. “You ready?”

“Lead the way.” Hopefully somewhere with a fireplace, she couldn’t help thinking.

But instead of heading out from the mountain, Daryl turned toward it and onto a small, stone-scattered path that zigzagged relatively easily up the side of it. They took care not to slip on the rocks as rainwater sluiced downward, and after a few minutes they arrived at an outthrust with a flat, dry space beneath it large enough for a few small tents.

Too bad we don’t have one.

“Looks safe enough here,” Daryl explained, setting his stuff down again and shaking rainwater from his clothes as best he could. “Don’t think walkers could get up here, and once it stops raining we’ll be able to see where we are.”

She nodded, laying her own belongings down against the back wall and dropping to rifle through her bag.

“Anything dry?” he wondered.

She pulled out her extra bottle of water, a sweater with an extra pair of socks wrapped inside, a cloth full of bread and one full of jerky meat, a small jar of peaches, and the few medical supplies she always carried. She unrolled the sweater to find most of it and the socks dry. “Clothes are mainly dry. Everything else is alright. You?”

He held up a soaked shirt from his backpack. “Not as lucky as you.”

She watched as he got ready to toss the shirt to the side, then thought better of it as he hung it from a tree branch growing out of the side of the rock wall.

Peeling her jacket off, she hung it on one of the branches near her. “I’m going to change.”

“Alright.”

He turned his back to her, still rifling through his bag, and she pulled the water-heavy shirt over her head, instantly missing its weight as the cold air hit her colder skin. She unhooked her bra and tossed it over the branch, sliding the sweater on, grateful for its bulk. “D’you bring anything else?”

“Got this.” He held up a small, rolled-up blanket covered with a tarp he used for dragging back larger game when it weighed too much to carry. “Ain’t much,” he reckoned, as he laid the tarp out between them.

Carol hung her shirt next to her bra and jacket, which had already created lines of water spots on the ground beneath them, and moved towards Daryl. “Think it’s safe to build a fire in here?”

He turned to see her shivering in a faded pastel pink sweater and her wet, now-skin-tight jeans. She looked so soft, with most of her hair pushed back from her face, the sweater highlighting her cheeks, already pink and glowing from the cold, her eyes a stark, captivating contrast to the sweater that hugged her perfectly.

Daryl forced himself to turn back to his pack. Reprimanding himself for thinking about how good she looked while she stood freezing, he checked the smaller pouches, looking for the matches he’d brought, and quietly cleared this throat. “Think so. If we can get some of these leaves to light.”

Though he faced the other way, Carol nodded, wondering at the sudden strain in his voice. She crouched near the back of their outcropping and gathered the leaves, pine needles, small branches, and other natural detritus.

Matches in hand, Daryl turned toward her and saw her clothes, her bra, hanging on a branch. “Shit,” he mumbled under his breath, hanging his head for a moment to gather himself.

“What?”

He shook then lifted his head, avoiding looking at her clothes. “Let’s start a fire.”

Yeah, don’t you wish, some sarcastic part of him thought.

“Thought that’s what we’re doing?” She gave him a curious look, but he cleared his throat again, ignoring it.

“Right here, I mean,” he recovered, pointing to a spot closer to where the water fell over the lip of the outthrust. “Won’t get smoky in here that way.”

Carol dumped the items she’d found into a small pile, and he set to work arranging them before striking a match.

“Ain’t got much to feed it, so it won’t burn long,” he told her. “Let’s get warm while we can.”

While Carol sat next to the fire, floating her hands over the small flame, he shrugged out of his vest and hung it next to his jacket. His shirt wasn’t doing him any favors, but he didn’t have anything dry. He debated the merits of going shirtless—if he’d been alone, he wouldn’t have given it a moment’s thought—but decided against it. Especially with the knowledge that she’d already shed important parts of her own clothing.

He sat a few feet from her, near enough to the fire to warm his hands but not much else, though he doubted sitting closer would help anyway—the fire was small and he was drenched.

They sat in silence for a while, listening to the pouring rain as the sun, somewhere beyond the dark heavy clouds, slid beneath the horizon.

“You got a flashlight? Fire aint’ gonna last much longer,” Daryl anticipated as the flames ebbed into embers.

“Mmm,” she hummed in response, hopping up to fetch the flashlight from a small pouch on the side of her backpack.

She turned back towards Daryl, only now, looking at him in the barest of firelight, noticing he still sat in all of his wet clothes. “You should take that shirt off,” she suggested, snagging the bread and jerky she had.

“I’m alright.”

She heard a strange kind of defiance in his voice and wondered at it but continued anyway as she sat near the dying embers. “You’ve got the blanket. Wrap yourself in that. It’s better than staying in that wet shirt.”

“There won’t be anything for you to sleep in if I do that.”

“I’m not taking your blanket. I at least have a dry shirt.”

She turned the flashlight on and set it between them, then unwrapped the food, pulled a section of the bread off, and handed it to him.

He took it gratefully and stayed silent, but she knew she hadn’t won. They’d had this type of argument before—you couldn’t spend months at a time out on the road and not try to take care of each other. Still, he knew she was right. And she knew he knew she was right.

She handed him a few pieces of the jerky and took a few for herself before tying the food back up. They ate quietly, the soundtrack of rain filling the empty spaces between them. How she wished they didn’t exist…

She turned to look at his profile for a moment, seeing consternation and something else she couldn’t name written on his face. She longed to reach out and brush her fingers over his skin, to push the lines of worry from his forehead, run her fingers along his jaw, her thumb over the lips she’d thought of kissing all too often lately.

And what would he do if she did? If she just laid one on him out of the blue? Would he freeze up? Push her away in disgust? Somehow she didn’t think so…

Still, something held her back, at least for now. It needed to be right…in a way she’d never worried about before with Tobin or Ezekiel. With Daryl it wasn’t about simply needing comfort, throwing caution to the wind, or trying to create a safe space for a child.

With Daryl it was about them. About the trust, friendship, patience, and love they’d built over the years. About wanting to give the best of everything to each other, to protect and take care of one another. About something deeper than companionship and a warm bed. It was an abiding affection and burning passion and selflessness that they deserved after everything they’d survived to find each other.

Yet here they sat, close enough to touch but each in a world of their own.

Too overcome with emotion, Carol stood up and grabbed the flashlight and food, stalking back to her pack and tucking the leftovers away.

Daryl watched her surreptitiously in the bouncing flashlight beam. What the hell were they doing? Why hadn’t he thought to ask someone else to join them?

More and more now, he realized he needed a buffer between them to keep his desire for her at bay. Lydia often filled that role, unbeknownst to her and Carol. He liked having the girl around. Liked, too, the few quiet moments he got to spend alone with Carol when opportunities presented themselves, but more often than not they had people around them.

And he hadn’t realized how much he needed that until this moment, sitting in the dark, listening to the rain, with Carol half-naked and looking beautiful in what little light they had, while something other than sleep beckoned him.

What was he going to do? The rain hadn’t let up, so escaping their dry haven was out. There was no need to keep watch, not so far up the mountain and with the deluge. Sleep seemed the best option, but he feared what the arrangement would be. He knew how best to conserve body heat—and they both needed the warmth—but hell if he could quietly lay next to her under one blanket and sleep.

He watched as Carol kicked off her shoes and hung her wet socks next to her clothes. She put her dry socks on, then padded closer to him, dropping her bag to the ground next to his at the edge of the tarp. Unbuckling her knife from her belt, she sat down and laid it next to her bag. She turned to hand him the flashlight and caught him staring at her.

“What?”

He shook his head. “Nuthin’,” he mumbled, turning to peer at the sheet of rain falling several feet in front of them.

Carol lay down on her back, her feet near the dying fire, using her bag as a pillow. “I love the sound of rain,” she murmured after a few moments, her eyes closed. “Been a while since I’ve been outside to listen to it.”

“Wish it was warmer though,” he thought out loud.

She opened one eye to look at him, still wearing his wet clothes. “Could be if you’d use your blanket.”

“Mmm,” he hummed noncommittally. He grabbed the blanket from the edge of the tarp, unrolled it, and floated it over her.

“Daryl,” she reprimanded, leaning up on her elbows. “You know you need this more than I do.”

“I’ll be fine. Lived out in the woods for years, remember?”

She sighed and laid back down. “I remember. At least take your shirt off and hang it up to dry. You’ll be warmer without it.”

“In a while.” He just needed her focus elsewhere. Not on him. Not on the removal of his shirt. Not on how cold he was—and the fire had done nothing to ease the chill he felt. Not on how he had to sleep right next to her.

“Stubborn.”

She said it in a deprecating, teasing way, and he huffed in response. “Look who’s talking.”

“At least I’m trying to stay warm. Haven’t you heard the phrase ‘he doesn’t know when to come in out of the rain’?”

When he didn’t respond, she gave him a glare. “If you decide you need the blanket, you can take it. Or we can share.” She turned on her side facing away from him. “Goodnight, Daryl.”  

“‘Night,” he responded quietly, duly reprimanded.

He was being ridiculous, and he knew it. Without dry wood or tinder, they had no source of warmth except for clothes and body heat. Just like he’d told her, he’d lived in the woods for years. He knew what he needed to do.

But Lord how he wished he had another option.

He stood and peeled his shirt over his head, the cold air sending ripples of gooseflesh across his skin. He hung the shirt next to his clothes, then did the same with his socks, and turned back to their makeshift bed.

Swallowing hard, he sat at the edge of the tarp and arranged his bag for a pillow, situated his bow within arm’s length, laid down on his back, and flicked the flashlight off.

Darkness engulfed their little enclave, but he knew sleep would elude him, his thoughts flowing as fast as the rain that pounded down mere feet from them. How he’d wanted this for so long…to have her next to him. But more than that, to wake up next to her. Not as they’d done over the years, with other people nearby, but like this, in the quiet, just the two of them. Together.

But not together, he reminded himself.

He turned onto his side facing Carol, her silhouette barely visible in the dark night, and sighed.

He wanted to apologize for his stubbornness, for being awkward and ignorant when it came to being close to her. For not being the right kind of man. But even that would reveal far more than he could handle at the moment.

Suddenly Carol turned over and faced him, though they couldn’t see each other well in the dark. His breathe caught in his throat at how close she was, less than a foot from him.

“You okay?” she asked quietly.

“Mmhmm,” was all he could manage.

“Here,” she offered, holding the edge of the blanket out towards him. “I warmed it up for you.”

He nearly groaned. “Carol…”

“It’s okay, we can both keep warm.”

He let her drape half of the blanket over him, his mind screaming a warning, his heart pounding a rhythm he only recognized when he was near her.

“G’night,” she whispered.

“‘Night,” he answered.

It was a long time before he slept.

************

Carol awoke to the sound of rain still falling. She rubbed her eyes open to find Daryl’s back filling her vision, and tears instantly welled up.

She’d seen his physique in the past; there was no way to avoid it after all the close-quarter living they’d done through the years. But this up-close, in-your-face vision of scars caused a hot, searing pain to blossom in her chest.

A handful of scars marked him, from the X on his left shoulder and the long diagonal line marring the center of his back to the parallel scars that faded down towards the small of his back. Other, smaller scars held their places too, all reminiscent of a lifetime of heavy, cruel hands accompanied by words that scarred even deeper than what she could see.

How a father could act so brutally and viciously to his child… But then, she’d married someone like that too.

She swallowed down the memories, and though they sat sourly in her stomach, she focused on the man in front of her.

Daryl had had two demons inked onto the largest expanse of unscarred skin, filling the right side of his back. The top one, shaped more like a square, kept its large wings coiled near itself. The one that sat lower, with wings half unfurled, barely touched its twin with the tip of a wing. The tattoo lines looked thicker than most, as though the intent had been to obscure the figures more than define them, and she wondered when he’d gotten them, what had compelled him to mark himself this way.

She allowed her eyes to roam his musculature, noting the depression of his spine down the center of his back, the widening of his shoulders from his hips and waist, the leanness of the muscles lying just beneath his skin.

He probably hated his back in the same way she hated the places someone had scarred her, but he didn’t see himself the way she did, wouldn’t appreciate the way these scars indicated a man who could survive anything thrown his way—and had—couldn’t understand how attractive she found him. She wanted to reach out and touch him, feel the muscles that moved beneath his skin, soothe the hurts of the past with gentleness, kiss the pain away, if only for a moment.

Instead, she did none of those things, merely laid there staring at the beautifully wounded man in front of her.

Sometime in the night he’d turned away from her, pulling most of the blanket with him, and though the cold still nipped at her, she was content to stay where she lay, not disturbing him.

She let herself in enjoy this small pocket of perfection: lying next to Daryl, watching his body move as he peacefully breathed in and out, listening to the rain in the early morning hours, the two of them safe and dry for the time being with no one around to interrupt.

If she could envision heaven…

A while passed before his breathing changed, and she realized he’d woken up.

He lay very still, taking in the sounds of the drizzly dawn and Carol’s breathing—she was awake—before it hit him that his back lay exposed to her view. He knew they’d all see the scars; they’d been impossible to hide after a while. But he’d never gone shirtless because of the shame that washed over him when people saw his family history displayed on his skin.

He closed his eyes again, steeling himself. It’s Carol. If anyone understands, it’s her.

Still, he hated it. Hated that he’d given in and removed his shirt last night. He’d take a night of freezing over the humiliation of his exposed back any time.

“Why demons?”

Her voice, slightly rough from a night of disuse, came softly, quietly, and completely undid the tendrils of shame that’d wrapped themselves around his heart, and he remembered a few months ago when she’d asked about his tattoos. He knew the topic would come up again, but he didn’t know it’d be like this.

“I wanted to mark my back in a way I chose,” he answered monotonously.

A few beats passed, then, “And why demons?”

The question was the same, but different, and if anyone else had asked, he’d have told them to go to hell, stop being nosy, and stalked off to fume alone.

He stayed frozen in place, wanting to purge the demons that both graced his back and ate him up inside.

“Top one’s my dad…other one’s Merle.” He swallowed hard and forced himself to speak. “The bottom one’s spreading its wings but still touching the other one. Learning its ways. Takin’ on its shape and power. They look alike…because they are alike.”

She could hear the blame and shame in his voice, and her heart ached as he continued, tears pricking her eyes.

“They used it like a canvas, leaving marks in the way that they chose. So I marked it with images of how I saw them. Demons I could never shake from off my back.” He huffed derisively, though she could see his body coiled with tension. “Guess that’s why I wear the angel wing vest. To try to cover up the evil with somethin’ better.”

He thought he heard an “Oh, Daryl” from her, but he couldn’t be sure, and he closed his eyes in shame. His heart beat hard against all the words he’d never said, the scars he’d kept a secret, like a hidden map of horrors on his back.

“May I?” she whispered.

Fear seized him as he realized what she was asking. No one had ever gotten so close—had ever wanted to, really. And he’d never wanted them to.

Until now.

He nodded, unable to form words, and he felt her fingertips against the bare skin of his back, skin that hadn’t been touched since the scars had been dealt. Shivers ran down his spine and across his arms, and he closed his eyes against the coolness of her touch.

Carol traced the demons inked on his back, wanting to purge them and their vile hold on him from him forever. Instead, she soothed his skin with a light touch, around the edges of the tattoos, then gently, slowly over each and every scar that crossed his back.

Daryl didn’t move, probably couldn’t if he’d tried. No one—not even his grandmother who’d nursed his wounds after his father had dealt them out—had ever touched him so reverently. Tears stung his eyes as Carol’s fingertips moved over the hurts of all the years before, eradicating the sensations of guilt and shame, if only for a moment.

Gently, she placed her hand on his back and slid it over the scars, over the memory of his tormentors, to his bicep. She gripped his arm lightly, and then he felt her lips kiss the center of his back and he nearly came undone.

She was unraveling him, moving aside the armor he’d used his entire life and leaving him exposed before her tenderness. He swallowed hard, wanting to tell her to stop, wanting to beg her to continue forever, to never stop making him feel this way. He was a tangled mess, and she was to blame.

“Thank you,” she whispered.

But he knew he should be thanking her, cherishing her for all the ways she’d saved him through the years, all culminating in this precious moment he wanted never to end.

Instead, he let emotions he didn’t know what to call fill his throat and rend him silent as they both listened to the falling rain, her hand still washing its healing across his scarred and fragile back.

[lazywriter7]

shades of happiness

Summary: Part of the journey is the end.

Steve Rogers considers his many possible endings, and chooses one.

Warnings for major character death

It’s always been the shade that caught his eye the quickest.

In a set of pastels, blocky and chalky-soft and colour staining on his fingertips – always the pop of red towards the end that his gaze drifted to, where it lingered. The colour that could change the very way you looked at things – like when sunrise lit the tenements of Brooklyn in rose-gold-cinnabar, gleaming off bicycle pedals that used to look dusty and camouflaging the cracks in sour-cream building walls, clothes left over on the lines at night flapping gently in the wind – like filtering it all through this shade could alter reality itself.

(Reality, that makes one of six–)

Steve had a weakness for it, for red. Any time one of his paintings looked a touch too dull, like the colours had been leached of their potency, like everything was too drab, too still (too dead), his brush strayed towards the red tube of paint. A dab here and a highlight there, and it was like the painting became a new creature – vivid and kinetic, the richness of the hue enhancing the brighter shades of yellow and orange, adding depth into the darkness of browns and blacks. It was always on his palette, he couldn’t imagine picturing a world without…

“Steve.”

He shook with it, the startlement. He blinked his eyes. Peggy smiled at him from across the diner booth, chestnut-hair shining in the light and victory suit as perfectly pressed as when he’d first met her. “You were gone there, for a while.”

“I was.” Steve said, and there was something about that that wasn’t quite right. Spoken too lightly, frivolous and easy. Lacking the import that words like that deserved.

But Peggy seemed to pay that no note and only smiled wider. Steve was braced for the breathstopping, jawbreaking clench of longing the sight brought – the corners of her quirked lips, the dip of her lower lip where the skin always seemed to be chapped and flaking. The carmine slash of her lipstick.

Red.

“Nice place, isn’t it.” Peggy tilted her chin, dark eyes flitting over the light fixtures and checkered décor.

It’s very seventies, Steve wanted to say – the foreignness of the thought prickled at him. It was… it was out of place, in this picture-perfect scene, out of time, because he’d never have known to have the thought if not for pop-culture and watching movies about the seventies in the futu–

So something else escaped his tongue instead. “Sometimes, I’d think about if I was just imagining it too… too sunny. Too bright. What would’ve happened if I’d never gone down in the ice.”

A shining image, through rose-tinted glasses. There was something about that too, which rattled at the shadowy edges of his mind; tinted glasses, tinted glasses and dark eyes–

(Dark eyes, bare for the taking. “Liar.”)

“Was the end of war. Couldn’t have been all sunshine and roses.” And for all of his heartache, he’d gotten to skip that part, hadn’t he? Hadn’t had to live with the aftermath. Bombed out streets, diners that were looking a lot emptier, hollow smiles and haunted eyes, empty chairs at the kitchen table.

Except he did live with it, just not at that particular time. Steve cleared his throat, dry to the bone, something like ash lingering at the back of his tongue. “I had to… had to carry on, for five years after. At times, it was harder than the ice.”

But Peggy only smiled on, uncharacteristic, shine of white teeth like something lacquered over. “Have some water, dear, you sound parched.”

The light seeping through the windows caught in his eyes, near-blinding. Steve raised a hand to shield them – was the sun setting? “Must’ve been hard for you to go through that all alone, after the war. Don’t know how you managed it.”

When he’d blinked the spots out of his eyes, the diner seemed faded – though still bathed in coloured light. Peggy had stopped smiling, though her eyes were still kind. “I wasn’t alone.”

Of course. For all that it had gotten dimmer, the world also seemed clearer at the edges. Like a hazy picture beginning to resolve, showing all its grainy details, cracks in the wall. Steve breathed in the stillness, breathed in the dust. “How’re the husband and kids, Peg?”

Peggy blinked, dark lashes batting through the stillness. She wasn’t wearing a ring. “Steve, I don’t know what you’re–

No, the sun wasn’t setting. But the dimmed light had gone awfully red, casting shadows across Peggy’s cheekbones, creeping across the diner table that was somehow too solid and yet not enough under Steve’s numb fingers. “Peg.”

“They’re.” Peggy hitched a breath. Cast in unearthly scarlet or no, she still looked like Steve’s best dream. “It hasn’t happened yet, but… they’ll be. They’re.. doing really well.”

Behind her glossy locks, Steve could see the diner fracturing – jagged shards of light cleaving through the vinyl booths, checkered floor, white tiling on the counters. His breath was shaking along with it, sucked clean out of his chest like an asthma attack of old, fingers digging into the table– “I never stopped loving you.”

“Me neither, darling.” The words sounded thick in her throat, but Peggy wasn’t crying. She leaned forward, cupped her warm palms over his whitening fingers, “Always.”

Then why. Why did they have to, why couldn’t this be–

(“I needed you. You said ‘together’, and–”)

“You’ve worked so hard. Been… unmeasurably brave, done so much.” Peggy’s eyes glistened with the warmth of a thousand setting suns. “I couldn’t be prouder.”

“I could… I could do it again. Here.” Work at it, at belonging to this time again. It couldn’t hurt as much, couldn’t claw at his throat with the hollowness of it more than the first go around. “With you.”

“Oh, but sweetheart.” Peggy raised soft fingers, leaned enough to ghost them over the back of Steve’s neck, catching at the flyway strands of a haircut she’d never gotten to see. “You’ve already done your time someplace else.”

The light blazed, and the world winked out.

~

 The air pumped through his chest, hard and heavy, throat dry with gasping. His hands were braced on his thighs, view obscured to the gap between them – sweat-slick fringe whipping in his eyes when he bent over and tried to regain his breath.

“Sloppy, sloppy.” A voice teased – Steve jerked his head upright and saw red.

Not the long, straightened sheet of locks he’d gotten used to during D.C.; not even the braid she’d started putting her hair in in the past five years when her roots started growing out. No, Natasha’s hair was scarlet, violently red – and done in the short bob he’d grown to know when they’d first met, and when they trained the Avengers at the compound together.

Which was where they were now, maybe – there were mats under their feet and the training equipment around them looked halfway familiar; somewhere in between what had been in the SHIELD barracks and the Avengers facility gym. On the wall behind, off to the corner of his vision: the edge of a logo set into the plaster gleamed metallic under the afternoon light.

(“That’s what we do, right? The A-vengers? We lost, we–”

“You giving up on the fight, Rogers?” Natasha stretched her hands above her head, jet black leather-and-Kevlar creaking with the motion; rolled the joints in her neck, hair clinging to sweaty skin. “Misery of existence getting you down?”

It was a sharp, sharp jab – Steve heaved a breath and laughed with it, laughed till his eyes were faintly blurring and his chest hurt. Straightened up, meeting twinkling green eyes that he’d thought once upon a time, were cold and unreadable. “You’re not getting off that easy, Romanov.”

“You sure?” Natasha mocked, and the affection of it was raw salt and soothing balm all at once. “You’ve been looking pretty bummed lately. Maybe you should go back to bed, rest those old, creaky joints.”

Steve’s feet were moving – he’d fallen into the dance, the pattern, unaware of even making the first step, the two of them circling each other around the ring. How many times had they done this? He should’ve… he should’ve kept count.

“It’s always the same with you millennials. Life is hard, it always is.” Steve’s gloves creaked as he flexed his fingers, boots gleaming cherry red just at the edge of his sight. The old uniform – now that was a different touch. “Don’t know about you, but I’ve got plenty in my life to get outta bed for.”

“Oh yeah, I’ve heard this one before.” Natasha didn’t roll her eyes, the gesture far too pedestrian for her – and Steve knew that, now and during the course of… ten? Ten years. “The future isn’t really that bad, the internet is such a useful resource, do you know how dangerous polio used to be–”

Oh, but it was far more nuanced than that. In moments, that yawned long and crushingly heavy, the future seemed nothing more than a wasteland. And yet, here was a friend grinning at him from across the ring, and his breath shivered in his chest with the realisation, a truth sitting in his chest too simple to ignore – “I’ve got more than that.”

(“You trust me, right?”)

Natasha stilled. Behind the shield of banter, the fond, biting grin – Steve could see now that her eyes were too bright. Gleaming with a layer of something liquid and unspilled, eyes reddening – streaks crawling in from the corners, overwhelming the whites. “Yeah?”

“Chatting with Mr. Patel at the bodega three miles away. Helping Wanda control her powers.” It was like feeling the dark give way, lightness stealing in – till his vision was wrecked with it, till keeping his eyes closed was no longer an option. “Morning runs with Sam. Sparring with you.”

Natasha’s smile settled into the crinkles of her eyes, a colourless drop leaking out the side and vanishing into the curve of her cheek. Her voice was ever-so-slightly hoarse, and in that moment more tempting than any Black Widow act she’d ever put on. “You can keep this, if you want. Keep all of this.”

The Avengers logo blazed on the wall behind her head, the corner of the A obscured by her curls. It felt, for a second, that his knees might give way after all.

Steve stayed standing. “You can’t.”

There was something trickling down from Natasha’s temple – a thin line of scarlet mingling with the trail of tears. He didn’t know how close to the truth it was. He’d never gotten to see the bod– he’d never gotten to see her go. His voice cracked with the thought, a cleaving strike right down the middle, “I can’t do this without you.”

“Steve.” There was a gentleness about her, a sense of care he’d never deserved. “I did what I had to so you could.”

“Is that…” No matter how many times he cleared his throat, the rawness wouldn’t subside. An open wound, every word flecked with the pain of it, “Is that why you…”

“You already know why.” Did he? The nose of the Valkyrie, heading straight for the Arctic shelf. Natasha’s mouth curled slightly, an affectionate smirk as if she could read his mind. “Serves you right for setting such a good example, hmm?”

“Besides, I had a job.” She said the words like she said so much else, point blank and matter-of-fact – because that was who she was. Not the masks, or the deception, or even the fights. She was duty, and a commitment to it unflinchingly made. “And a debt to repay.”

A debt to repay. The words struck something, grasped for something – past the skin of his chest and aching muscle, through the defences of his ribs and right down to his unenhanced, beating heart.

(Not red this time, no. Hearts were blue, blue and white like the hottest part of a flame; heat and weight slammed down into his palm, metal burning a circle into the skin.

“Liar.”

Burning regret, and a debt that couldn’t be cast away.)

Something slipped into his hand, warm fingers working their way into his own gaps. Steve squeezed against the pressure, breath escaping just a fraction more lightly. “Did it hurt when you went down?”

“No.” Natasha said simply, and the press of her hand against his was not a lie. Reddened as they were, her eyes still looked peaceful. “It was nice. Like a warmth in my chest, of… getting to throw aside all that my life had been used for, and choosing what it was going to mean.”

It means everything. A hero, when it counted the most for everyone. A friend, when it counted the most for me.

“It didn’t feel like that for me, the ice.” The world was hazing around them again, soft and crimson. His fingers curled in harder, held on tighter. “I knew what I was doing was right, but… it didn’t feel like that.”

“Well then.” Natasha tilted her head one last time, light gleaming off the devastating line of her jaw, eyes teasing like he’d remember her best. “What’re you waiting for?”

A breath, brushing past the stillness. Like conviction finally emerging again, settling into its long-worn shoes.

The world blazed bright. Steve let go.

 ~

 When Steve came back to himself, the universe was in stasis.

It felt like he could see all of it, spanning wide, even though his eyes were only confined to this place, this instant. This battlefield, sprawling on the grounds of a compound he’d once called home.

It was all silent, all still. Ash caught in mid-air, immobile. Weapons thrown and not yet landed. Snarls on unmoving faces, bodies contorted into the fight, friends and enemies all stretching around about him. Frozen in time, and Steve a man out of it.

Something glimmered at the corner of his vision – an exhale fleeted from his lips, a solitary breath among thousands that had been paused midway. The Time Stone shone dully among the gaps of his fingers. But it was only a spark of green amidst a sea of red; the Reality Gem blazing next to it, eye-searing.

Steve could not move his fingers. They twitched a little, but stayed firmly wrapped around, entwined through the scratched-up, faded metal fingers of an Iron Man gauntlet.

Steve lifted his chin, and stared at Tony’s face, frozen inches away from his.

(It had been a split-second decision. Lying on his back, holding a broken shield, tasting the blood through his teeth; catching a glimpse of Tony’s face through the debris, as he looked at someone out of view – at Strange, maybe.

Catching a glimpse of that resolution stealing over his face, grim and ruinously beautiful. Watching the tussle between him and the Mad Titan, watching as Tony Stark outsmarted and outgritted a foe yet again.

“I…am…”

Steve’s fingers twitched. A magnetic pull, a phantom sensation of lifting something that had never felt this light before.

Mjolnir plowed through the air, smashing into gold and titanium-alloy. Tony’s face contorted in agony, breath stuttering – but it served the purpose, the weight of the hammer pulling him forward several, crucial inches. Steve could feel the dirt under his fingernails, the watery shake of his arms as he pulled himself up one last time – dragged his knees over the ground to close the gap. Reached out, and this time he wasn’t too far away. This time, he caught the hand and held it tight.

Please, he thought, fingers clammy against warm metal, Tony’s eyes wide and so close and ash dusty over those lashes, please, as his skin brushed against the warmth of the gems, scorching points of contact.

Please, as the world froze and blazed red, and reality splintered with possibilities in his mind.)

 That had been a second ago.

“Thank you.” He whispered, sound barely escaping the ash, the hoarseness, the throttling gratitude. The Reality Gem shone on like a constant, Time a quiet counterpoint to the side.

He had the time now, so he took it. Several selfish seconds, of staring at the brown eyes so inescapably close to his, the ones that had spat contempt at him and offered a home to him and widened in betrayal at his actions. Steve memorised it all, like a painting he’d never be able to put to page – the blood-crusted mess of Tony’s hair, the silver in his eyebrows, the gaunt hollows of his cheeks, the resolute tilt of his chin. The brightness of him, the tenacity, the inability to walk away – like red still lingering in the sky long after the sun had gone down.

Steve’s breath felt thick in his throat, blood and air all congealed to one. With the hand not trapped in the gauntlet, burning over the Stones – he brushed his knuckles over the warm, hard gristle of Tony’s jaw. A stolen touch, the last thing Steve would ever take from him again.

(“I will miss you Tony.”)

“Please.” Reality flickered around them. The Gem glowed, nanites stirring under Steve’s palm, like the faintest tickle, a warm breath huffed over skin. They peeled out in layers, withdrawing from Tony’s ashy skin and flowing over Steve’s hand – welcoming streams that trailed static electricity till they encased him from wrist to fingertip.

The Stones followed, five throbbing points settling below his knuckles. They still felt lighter than the phantom weight of an arc reactor, chest-warm and leaden in his palm.

Steve’s was a life mired with regrets. But in this, insular instant – the only thing he regretted was having to let go of Tony’s bare hand.

One snap, and the world came back to life.

  It was like feeling his atoms implode, the burn beginning from the tips of his fingers and scoring past muscle, sinew, nerve – the blood in his veins on fire, working up his arm and charring everything in its path. His eyes rolled to the back of his head, ground rushing up to hit his spine–

“What. What the fuck, no, no, fuck, no, Steve–”

Something gurgled at the back of his throat. Steve stared up at the sky, unseeing – until his vision was filled with something too familiar, hair and face and eyes looking down, so deeply embedded into his psyche that he couldn’t not recognise–

“T..Tony.” There was warmth at the back of his neck, warmth separate from the burn carving through the right side of his chest. Like someone was clasping his neck, bracing it – like Steve’s stolen touch did not matter, because Tony would always give everything freely away.

“I had it, I had him, why would, Steve, Steve–”

Parts of Steve could still feel the serum kicking away, fighting desperately in its last stretches – I can do this all… I can do this –

“Tony, I…I am so sorry.”

Tony’s face stared down, lips clamped down tight like his teeth were biting through the skin on the inside. There were streaks of shining moisture on his cheeks, clear tracks running down the grime. His voice rang like iron. “No. No. Not good enough, Rogers. I don’t accept this, I can’t–”

“What’s her name.” Steve whispered it on a rasping breath, and Tony’s voice broke off. “Your… daughter. Tell me her name.”

“Morgan.” More liquid, welling up at the edges of those eyes, where the laugh lines usually sat – Steve ached to reach up and brush them away.

“Thought.” The next words were unbearably hard to get out, the burn flickering at the hollow of his throat. Steve struggled through it, single-minded, like every asthma attack, every bully’s fist, every bullet and hit that had ever threatened to keep him down and never succeeded. “Thought tha… that was a… fella’s name.”

“We’re rich and eccentric, it works out.” The words flitted out heedlessly, like Tony’s lips were moving and he didn’t particularly care what came out.

We. Once upon a time, that might’ve rung hollow in Steve’s chest, a pang of longing. Now it nestled there, warm and soothing and protected from the burn.

“Steve.” Something hit Steve’s cracked lips, tingling there – if he flicked his tongue out, he might taste water and salt. “You can’t give up like this.”

But I’m not. This wasn’t like losing faith, like walking away in the middle of the journey. This was finally staggering to the summit, and seeing your destination over the horizon. This was adding that final fleck of paint, that dab of red, to make the picture all worth it.

The hold shifted from Steve’s neck to the back of shoulders that were almost insensate, another arm cupping around his waist – till Tony had hauled him right up, and pressed him close, dark hair brushing over the tip of Steve’s nose. His voice in Steve’s ear was barely above a whisper, barely a question. Maybe it wasn’t even meant for him. “Why.”

The reactor dug into Steve’s sternum, a circle of glowing warmth. It felt nice.

The world was falling away, breaths slowing and heart drifting to a stop, and it felt nothing like the ice.

“I was looking for a happy ending.”  

[starchaser3587]

Hey, reblog or like this if you’re interested in reading my novel!!

It’s currently still a work in progress, so you’d be reading the 1 1/2 to 2nd draft. I started editing it about a year ago but took a break because of school and work, but now I want to try to pick it back up. 

About the novel: 

Series Title: The Nightcore Saga Book Title: Dollhouse Genre: Science Fiction/ Fantasy Word Count: Just short of 51,000 (50,988 to be exact) but will be getting longer Summary:  Rune is a quiet prince with shadow powers. He also lives in a kingdom where having magic powers is outlawed.  Rogue has fire powers that match his short temper.  He's also at the top of the crime ring in a military like kingdom.  Sinder is an intelligent thief, laying “as low as possible”.  She also has a drug addiction and a knack for getting in trouble.  Juniper is an observant princess, loved by her entire kingdom.  She also lives in a materialistic kingdom where feelings and being yourself are 'overrated'.  When unlikely circumstances pushes them together, will the four be able to survive and rely on each other? Or will their differences and mistrust doom any chance of survival? Excerpt under the cut Age Range: 15+. Has some cursing and violence, but no mature scenes.

What I’m looking for in readers:

Provide Feedback      It doesn’t have to be professional feedback, just your opinion from a reader’s perspective. What you like, what you don’t, where you think something could work better or when conversation feels forced, etc. The comments can be focused on grammar, plot, or your personal opinions. I plan on doing this on a google document, so you’ll be able to leave comments for me directly in the text and interact with other readers. Be Honest      I want to try to get better! Don’t read this just to say a bunch of positive comments. At the same time, I’m asking for respectful honesty. I don't need the Gordon Ramsey of writing lol Be Kind      This is in terms of talking to other readers. I encourage talking between each other, but I don’t want you guys to attack each other Ask Questions      This kind of falls under feedback, but I want to stress that I love it when you ask questions! It engages me with my readers and it can help me find places where I need to elaborate more. Something may make perfect sense in my head, but it doesn’t always translate to text Interested      If this story isn’t for you, don’t feel obligated to read it!!

Other Things:

There are LGBTQ characters! In fact, all of the main characters are LGBTQ.

This is a four book series and while I have ideas for the other three books, only book one is written so far. This means that while YES there are LGBTQ characters, ships will not be canon within the first book! 

I do have a playlist (that is also still in the works) for the series. If you want to listen to it, I can put a link to it at the top of the document

If you have personal questions, feel free to message me! I want to respond to any concerns or questions you may have. 

Since I’m sharing this through a google doc, I would prefer to share it individually to each person (message me your email!) but if you don’t want to share your email, I’m happy to share a link instead :)

Excerpt (Tumblr screwed up the format of the text a bit- sorry!)      She pointed down the alley in the opposite direction of the footsteps. Juniper set off moving quietly. Sinder followed but picked up speed when the footsteps got close enough that they'd be able to see the two of them soon. She took a sharp right, pulling the princess behind her. They crouched behind a trash bin. The heavy, military, boots she'd heard faded past them. Juniper frowned as she listened closer. When she was certain they were clear, Sinder gave a soft exhale.       "Those weren't Goldenshire guards," Juniper whispered.       She shrugged. "Guards are guards. We're close to the Mirarras border, so it's probably them."      "But why would Mirarras guards come so far into the Goldenshire kingdom?"      Sinder rolled her eyes. Why did I decide to help her again? She gave a deep sigh to try to think of what to do next but froze when she smelled the faint scent of smoke. The Mirarras guards wouldn't come this far unless-      Lightning fast, she flicked one of her throwing knives out around the edge of the trash bin. A male voice swore as she rolled out to face her target.       A boy with white hair and fiery highlights glared at her with red eyes. Recognition flashed a moment later. "You have got to be kidding me."      Sinder crossed her arms. "You're a ways from your territory Rogue."      "You're pushing your limits too." Her knife- which had embedded itself into his shoulder- began to melt away. Sinder watched what was left fall to the ground. "That was one of my good knives."      "Don't throw them at me then," Rogue's eyes shifted to focus behind her. Turning partly, she saw that Juniper had stood up. "Didn't know you were playing bodyguard now Sin."      A spray of bullets hit the walls above them. Goldenshire guards stood in the alley across the street. Sinder swore and tossed a few knives before bolting down the alley. The others followed her as three guards dropped to the ground behind them. "It's a little more like kidnapping."      A high-pitched whistle cut through the darkness. The root of the sound came from a nearby roof. Juniper winced at the sound. "We're also running from some gangs."      Rogue snorted. "Looks like you're in a spot of trouble."      Sinder ducked a knife. "In case you didn't notice, you're the one running with us stupid! Not to mention, all this noise is going to attract those Mirarras guards to come back and look closer!"      Realization flashed on his face. "Damnit!" Turning to run backward, he sent an arc of flames towards the snipers on the roofs. Seeing that the guards had turned the corner of the alley, Sinder shouted, "Rogue! Their torches!"      "Yeah, yeah, just let me do my thing!" The flames on the guard's torches turned into long fingers, clawing at the faces of the guards. "Since I'm back here doing all the work, do you have any idea on where we're going?"      "I have an idea," Sinder said. "We just have to hope it works."      "Hope it works? Is that the best you can do?"      "Do you have anything better?"      "If I did, it'd be better than yours!"      "I have an idea," Juniper tossed in. "How about we focus on not dying?"      Rogue turned back around and glared at the princess. "Really? I thought that we were trying to get killed. The next time that you kidnap someone, can you try and get someone useful?" The last part was directed to Sinder, who was currently doing her best to ignore both of them. It wasn't going well.       "I will leave both of you behind if you don't shut up!" Sinder snarled. "Now follow me, and don't make me regret helping you guys."

[ppeacherine]

2.15 (Suzaku/Rolo [CG])

For some reason I am cursed to only write slice of life things.

Originally I was going to do this in three parts that were meant to be subversive towards like... typical pwp scenarios just because it makes me cackle, but instead i got very invested in impromptu study session.

one day i’ll write cool exciting things.

“What, Gino what do you mean you took all of them--” Suzaku cradles the phone between his shoulder and cheek, brows furrowing down while he juggles an Ashford University bag of fresh books, “Gino-”

“They’re free, yeah,” the lock is stuck. Or maybe his keycard isn’t working, it could be any number of things, and he’s short one hand to deal with it, “No, Gino, the samples. The samples are free,”

Third time’s the charm. He drops the bag down to the crook of his elbow, sliding the card with one hand, pulling the door lock with the other, push, and -- shit there went the keycard -- “The samples are free that doesn’t mean you can take all of them!”

“The whole table? Gino that’s, that’s like fifty cubes of cheese! Put them back--” He needs to get these books off his arm. Slowly but surely, he’s losing circulation from the sheer weight. This is why he should have gone back earlier, like Euphie wanted. At least then he wouldn’t be carrying around a two semesters of Freshman material.

He tosses the bag onto the waiting metal table in the middle of the surveillance room, twisting right after to get the card off the floor, “You ate them?! Oh. That’s… what, almost thirty cubes each? No you won’t die from constipation...”

God, it was like explaining to a toddler. He loved Gino, he was… a good guy, most of the time. But the times when his sheltered upbringing collided with the real world could be… trying. “Look, I have to study, just, go back to the kiosk and pay for the samples. Yes! Because you took all of them,” Suzaku jams his thumb on the end call button, collapsing immediately into one of the swivelling chairs about the table. The wheels propel him away with the sheer force of his exasperation (or weight) and he scrambles to grab the table edge and pull himself back to it.

And immediately, he pushes his palms into his eyes, sighing. “How can he be so educated and yet so dumb.”

“Oh, mood.”

Oh no. He’d been so wrapped up in the call he didn’t check if anyone else was in the room. Most of the surveillance staff would be at lunch right now, but more importantly, Lelouch was off campus for a class trip that Viletta was in charge of. Suzaku moves his palms from his eyes -- slowly, nervously, and with dread, to peer to the direction of the voice.

It’s Rolo. Somehow, he’s not surprised - or, he is, but he isn’t surprised it’s Rolo. It wouldn’t be the first time he’d gotten the figurative jump on him. There’s the heavy, savory scent of pizza on the air, and once he fully drops his hands away, he can see that the younger (he thinks?) man is holding a slice while working on textbook notes.

“I… I’m going to guess you heard all of that,” the flush is creeping on his cheeks, and before he even gets the answer, Suzaku has deflated further into the chair.

“Most of it,” a beat, and then Rolo pushes the Pizzahut box closer from his side of the table, “hungry?”

There’s worse ways to downplay embarrassment than gorging yourself, and after a few seconds of deliberation, Suzaku rights himself and frees a slice from the gooey pie.

“It’s stuffed crust.”

“I didn’t… think you ate pizza-”

“Lelouch orders it as a force of habit sometimes. Residual, from the Geass. At least it doesn’t have hotdogs in the crust anymore,” Rolo offers simply, picking up an orange highlighter and resuming his work. If Suzaku peers close enough while taking a bite, it looks like he’s taking notes on…

“Early childhood psychology?”

“Mm.”

“...You’re studying… are you a early childhood ed major?” He says it with more disbelief than he means to. It was, well, he didn’t think they would have actually had Rolo take on a major. Generic associates classes? That made sense. It was necessary to complete the act. But real studies?

Rolo sets the highlighter aside, remaining still for a few moments before finishing the crust in his hands. Suzaku can’t discern if he’s unhappy or not to be quizzed on his pseudo-life choices, and he’s about to retract the statement when he receives an answer: “I wanted to do something more productive than college algebra.”

Suzaku wished he could get away with that. Wiping his fingers on his jeans, he fishes out some of his textbooks and the fresh notebooks to go with them, “Oh. Well, uh, good. I was going to do pre-k and kindergarten. But, the general ed requirements couldn’t be waived. So, I’m playing catch-up.”

He always rambled as a nervous habit, but it was somehow worse when stuck with Rolo. It was probably his lack of expression, but… He forces himself to shut up, pulling his lips into a thin line before turning his attention to arranging and labelling notebooks for class. Just, ignore him. He was here studying too. It wasn’t like Rolo would care.

And they carry on like that for a while, in silence. Between the two of them, it doesn’t take long to finish the medium-sized pizza. He’s made decent headway in the outline for his first paper, plus gotten some chapters of reading out of the way when a quiet chiming indicates that Villetta is back in the radius of campus and has checked in.

More importantly, that means Lelouch is back. He fixes his eyes on the surveillance screens, trying to identify which of the many students unloading from carpools was Lelouch. He didn’t have his own car, so…

“Ow,” his hand goes up to cover his cheek, blinking several times before swivelling the chair about and coming face-to-face with the eraser tip of Rolo’s pencil.

“You’re taking introduction to education, right?”

“Wh…”

“I’ll help you with the background and aptitude documentation,” Rolo says, the ghost of a smile on his face. His tone changed - softer and… invested? “You’ll also have to do some interviews of teachers at your preferred teaching level, so… as Knight of Seven, you’ll need some discretion.”

“Oh-- right, of course. But,” for a second, Suzaku turns his gaze back to the screens. A green icon flashes on one of them, indicating that Viletta has checked in once more and Lelouch was back within the ordinary surveillance range.

He’d spent so much time keeping tabs on what Lelouch was doing. What Lelouch’s life was. What Lelouch’s life was going to be -- for good reason. He’d harmed and destroyed so many people and lives. And, really, he’d gutted Suzaku’s as well - maybe he didn’t want to admit it so directly, but…

“...Yeah, okay. So, what documentation?”

For a couple of hours, he could be Suzaku and be concerned with Suzaku’s future.

“How did they... “ No, that’s not the question he wants to ask. Suzaku chews the inside of his bottom lip for a few moments, holding the bag of books from the campus bookstore once more as he walked Rolo back to his and Lelouch’s shared apartment. They’d have to stop short soon enough, lest Lelouch open the door to both of them chatting it up and jump to (typical Lelouch, he’s almost fond of it) conclusions.

“...You didn’t really pick this major to be more productive. Right? That doesn’t add up.”

Rolo’s eyebrows go up, and he stops briefly in his step. Adjusting the strap on his backpack, he frowns before closing the space between them. Conspiratorially, almost as if he were to whisper his answer but he doesn’t get so close.

“I’m one of the eldest in the Directorate. So my… brothers and sisters,” he says it differently from how he says it when describing Lelouch. He sounds endeared, and they begin walking shoulder-to-shoulder again down the path from the plaza fountain, “They look up to me. Everything I do… they’re just important to me.”

They quiet when a rowdy group of students come down the library steps in front of them, carrying coffees from the cafe and waving at Suzaku (who weakly waves back). Once they’re out of earshot-

“And you?”

How should he answer that? That his own childhood was a disaster? Growing up in a warzone, living with two pawns… Knowing his father was willing to accept innumerable casualties and harm the closest thing to a sister Suzaku had ever known? He knew why, but it was harder to define how he meant to utilize it. He could guess Rolo wanted to help his… the other directorate kids, to adjust. A window into the real world. But for him, for Suzaku, it was more about the gaping hole of betrayal adults had left in him. Lying to a toddler-aged girl about how they were near a garbage dump, and…

“There’s kids that grow up… in the shadows of what Britannia has done. Not just in the ghettos, but, everywhere,” the words are stilted, “And.. if I could finish here,” quieter, “...If Zero never came back, I would want to help them.”

They’re at the crossroads between the dorms and the apartments, and maybe for too long they remain there, opened hopes lingering between them. Suzaku makes the move to say goodbye first, “Anyways, I’ll let you get, uh, back to Lelouch. Let me know if--”

Rolo takes his hand to stop him, lightly anchoring him back.

“It was nice to talk to you, Suzaku. If you need more help with… class, message me.”

“Y--yeah. I’ll be sure to -- on your work phone?”

“Mm.”

Their hands part slowly, and Suzaku fixes his bag one more time, swaying where he stands. “So-- I’ll see you later, I guess. Rolo.”

A beat.

“You can call me Nebiros when we’re alone.”

[doobler]

Monster AU - The Lich King

"Hey."

Ryan looked up, eyes wide. Michael loomed over him and the very air seemed to escape out of the room. He put away the knife he was sharpening and sat up straight. This was the first time in weeks that the oldest Lad had said a single word to Ryan. After showing his true malicious form, Michael acted like he didn't even exist.

"Michael. What's up?"

"You're old, right?"

Ryan tilted his head slightly, trying to smother the look of utter confusion on his face.

"Yeah?"

"Like. Real fucking old?"

"... Old as time itself. Why?"

Michael inhaled deep through his nose, his fists clenched tightly at his sides. From his low angle, Ryan could see a vein beginning to bulge in his neck.

"I need your help with something." Michael replied after a moment.

"... What kind of help?"

Slowly, the façade faded. Michael's body shimmered out of existence, exposing the stark ivory bones underneath. The pits of his eye sockets lit up with a crimson glow. His bones rattled faintly as he stood up taller, his teeth grinding as his eyes shined brighter. Power emanated from his stance.

"I need you to tell me where the fucker that did this to me is. So I can fucking kill his ass."

-----

Ryan wasn't a fan of getting caught and Geoff's lectures. At his request, he and Michael moved to the roof to remain out of earshot. Michael seemed intent to remain in his natural form.

"Where's this coming from all of a sudden?" Ryan kept his voice low out of habit.

"I've been thinking," Michael focused his gaze on the horizon, soaking in the beauty of Los Santos at midnight. "If you're so fucking... Chaotic and dark and whatever and you're old as fuck, you gotta know which Lich did this shit to me. I wasn't the only one, I know there are others. You have to know."

Ryan ran a hand through his hair, a heavy sigh punching out of his chest. He wracked his memory, millennia upon millennia of information. I didn't take long to recall which Lich and where he was with the utmost confidence. Creatures of that nature very rarely did a good job lying low.

"... What if I do know?"

"Hah! I fucking knew it!" Despite not having visible eyebrows or facial tissues, Michael's eyes seemed to narrow accusingly. "You do know."

"And?"

"And what? I'm gonna fucking murder that piece of shit."

"You can't--"

"Geoff told me how to kill a Lich."

Ryan held his breath, mulling it over. On one hand, he was immortal, as was Michael. Liches were powerful but they had a weakness. For all he knew, Michael had none. On the other hand, the accursed facing their cursers usually spelled trouble. The conflict could end in doom for both parties. Plus, it was Michael after all. He'd no doubt make Ryan swear not to interfere so he could regain his honor and secure victory by his own design. Ryan's own immortality was inconsequential.

"Fine. I'll help. But only on one condition."

Michael couldn't physically grin but the light of the city shifted somehow, making it appear like he was.

"Yeah?"

"I need you to write something for me."

-----

Geoff made his way from room to room like he always did every night. He checked on Jack, dropping a soft kiss on the Gent's cheek while he read. He popped into Gavin's room, trying to ignore the horrible mess, and wished him good night. He ducked into Jeremy's room, admiring the Lad's current project (spray painting every weapon he owned a hideous Rimmy Tim palette), and smiled against the younger man’s lips.

When he looked into Ryan's room, he wasn't surprised to find it empty. He was either moping in the shadows or out, both of which were normal.

However, Michael not being in his room this late at night was suspicious.

"Mikey?"

Geoff crept inside, a sense of dread filling his chest. Michael's room was immaculate as per usual, his bed perfectly made, his desk free of clutter, his closet neat and organized. The whole room smelled faintly like lavender.

Sitting on the bed was a sheet of paper. Geoff picked it up and began to read.

"Dear whoever the fuck finds this,

This could be the last thing I ever write. Ryan and I are going to find that Lich cunt and pound him into dust. I don't know if killing him will break my curse or kill me too so Ryan made me write this like a final will and testament.

My time with the Fakes has easily been the highlight of my life. I've never felt like I was a part of a family as I have here. Falling in love five times over was also pretty clutch. You guys never made me feel like I was lesser, like I was a freak. This has always been a home to me and always will be. Even if this kills me, my heart and soul will stay with the Crew. If I'm able to haunt you fuckers, you know I will.

All my stuff should be divided fairly between all of you. I do want Gavin to have my rocket launcher and Jeremy can have that leather jacket I always wear, but everything else is free game. If my bones stay behind, I want Ryan to do some magic space demon shit with it, make matching bone necklaces or something.

I have no regrets, except maybe not saying how much I love you guys nearly as much as I should have. For that, I'm sorry.

Your friendly neighborhood skeleton,

Michael V. Jones"

Geoff grit his teeth, fear and apprehension stabbing its way into his chest. He contemplated telling the others but that would only cement the idea that Michael would fail. Instead, Geoff folded up the letter and tucked it into the pocket of his shirt, right above his heart.

"I'll reach into the pits of hell, drag you out, and slap the ever-loving fuck outta you if you don't come back," Geoff uttered like a prayer. "That's an god-damned fact."

-----

Michael was floating.Up, down, left, right, forward and back. None of it existed. There was only the never ending darkness, swirling like a smokey miasma around him.

A strip of light suddenly cut through the curtain of black. Michael steered himself towards it, peering through the gap. There was a barren cliff with sad looking grass overlooking a massive Gothic castle. Michael hopped through the break and landed on his feet.

"That was simultaneously really awesome and fucking horrifying," Michael gasped, trying to calm the quake in his bones. "I could see the end of the fucking universe in there."

Ryan shrunk back into his human form, dusting off plumes of inky smog from his body.

"Yeah there's a reason why I don't make you guys travel like that. I wasn't really designed to be a taxi service."

"So where are we?"

Ryan walked to the edge of the cliff, sinking onto his haunches. He studied the castle below, eyes darting in all directions.

"Pretty sure we're in Germany, somewhere around Schwartzwald. I think," Ryan sniffed at the air, as if the smell would give him an answer. "Fuckers like this one prefer the dark and gloomy and isolated aesthetic. No better place for that than the Black Forest."

Michael nodded, pretending that he understood. Ryan stretched out his arm and pointed to the heart of the castle, just below ground.

"There's a massive room right in the center. He's there, right in the middle."

Something akin to a growl escaped Michael's mouth.

"He's doing it all over again," Michael snarled. He unsheathed the sword he'd brought, his grip making the leather handle groan. "Pulling in fighters and damning them to a life of pain, all for some fucked up depraved entertainment."

Before Ryan could stop him, Michael lept off the cliff, landing hundreds of feet bellow without breaking a sweat. He marched his way through waist high greying grass and scraggly foliage, an aura of rage blossoming from his body. Ryan sighed, dragging a hand down his face before hopping down to join him.

"Michael, slow the fuck down," Ryan called, jogging to keep up. "There's no need to storm the castle, I can phase us through the ground."

Michael stopped in his tracks, holding out his hand without looking back. Ryan shed his human form once again, becoming a swirling mass of smoke. He enveloped the undead skeleton like a smoggy blanket, clipping through the ground and sinking deep deep below. It didn't take long before they broke through soil, bursting out of a layer of stone into the clearing beneath the castle.

It looked just as Michael imagined it would. Cylindrical in shape, the room was wide and immensely tall. The walls were made of dark stone while the floor was only dirt. At one curve of the room was an ornate throne, built high with the bones of fallen warriors.

The Lich.

"You return to me at last, mighty Mogar," The Lich's voice was like nails on a chalkboard, grinding clawed fingers on the edges of your soul. "I have been waiting for the return of a warrior of your caliber--"

"YOU'RE FUCKING DEAD, YOU CUNT SON OF A BITCH!!!"

Michael screamed, whipping out his sword and charging. The Lich raised his hand and a small legion of skeletal fighters rose from the dirt. Michael didn't stop, batting away the first few swings with no effort at all. He ducked under one blade, parrying the next, his bones illuminated by flying sparks. Ryan made to join the fight, only to stop when Michael yelled.

"Stay the fuck back, Haywood!" He bellowed, kicking one of the undead square in the chest. "This is my fight!"

Ryan sighed. He stayed in his natural form, keeping himself small and fading into the shadows to watch close by. The Lich stared him down, no doubt sensing his overwhelming presence.

"You've brought me an Elder?" The Lich croaked, raising a boney finger towards Ryan. "I will accept this mighty gift and retain immortality."

"This is between you and me, bitch!" Michael yelled back, landing an upward stroke of his sword. "The only gift I've brought is gonna be my sword in your fucking throat!"

Michael stood firm, knocking back every hit thrown his way. He didn't flinch when a flail barely missed his head, nor when an arrow sang through the air and sunk into his femur. He kept his stride, making short work of his enemies. They kept coming, though, the crowd thickening the closer he came to the throne. Ryan slowly edged forward, making sure he was nearby in case the tide turned.

"I'm gonna free all these bastards' souls!" Michael called over the roar of battle. Another arrow lodged itself into his clavicle. "They're gonna be free of your curse and you're gonna turn to fucking dust!"

Michael didn't land a single blow on the warriors, firmly playing defense. It took Ryan a while to figure out his strategy. When he did, a tremor ran through his heart.Michael didn't want to harm the fallen warriors that were like him.He took arrow after arrow, staggering under the few blows that landed. A massive crack spiderwebbed down his pelvis. Thick black blood oozed from his wounds. He kept going, his head held high, his eyes burning like twin suns in their sockets.

Finally, Michael was at the throne.

He stood up tall, an air of pride keeping him still as stone.

"Any last words, motherfucker?" Michael growled, raising his sword. The fallen behind him slunk back into the dirt, defeated. "I've been waiting 1600 years for this, feel free to take your time and think up something smart."

"You could never kill me," The Lich cackled, wheezing like a bitter gale. "I created what you are, molded you, defined you. I gave you purpose. I gave you immortality. Slaying me would mean bringing an end to what has come to be what and who you are. I am your god, your savior, your patriarch. Smite me and your whole sense of being will b--"

Michael rushed forward, sliding his sword between the Lich's mummified ribs. He broke through the gem around his neck, shattering the vessel that held his very soul.

The Lich let loose an unholy wail, screeching into the night as he contorted and twisted erratically. Ryan swooped in, pulling Michael back a few steps. They watched as the Lich crumbled into powder, collapsing into himself, sucked into the shattered gem, and clattered to the ground with a harmless clink.

"Damn. That was some Lord of the Rings shit."

Michael looked at his hands, flipping them over and over. His boney visage didn't change. His curse remained.However, there was a lingering and unfamiliar lightness in his chest. He looked down, amazed to find something pounding softly in his rib cage. It glowed like a tiny star, pure white and sparkling.

"Your soul," Ryan whispered, leaning in to admire it. "Been a while since Ive seen one of these. It's fucking beautiful, Michael."

"My soul?" The Lad echoed. He lifted his hand, dipping it into his chest. When his fingers phased through the glimmering ball, a tingly warmth spread through his bones. "So... I'm free?"

"Yeah," Ryan smiled, a faint twinkle in his eyes. "You're free."

-----

Together, the duo soared out of the castle, returning to the cliff where they'd first arrived. Michael stepped out of Ryan's fog, sitting down and dangling his legs over the ledge.

"I wish those other guys had taken my offer," Michael thought allowed. "We could've easily gotten them all out. They have their whole lives to live."

"I think many of them are too old and tired now," Ryan replied, sitting next to him. "That castle has been their home for centuries. I'm sure they'd rather just. Fade away."

Michael hummed softly, looking down at his hands again. His body seemed lighter than it had in over a thousand years. He truly felt free.

"I... Owe you an apology," Michael sighed, finally looking Ryan in the eye. "I've been leading you on like a real douche bag."

"Don't even mention it," Ryan beamed. "I understand. I... Was hiding myself from you guys. People who love each other don't keep such huge secrets like that."

"No, I mean. I wasn't ever really mad at you," Michael huffed, looking away. "Geoff and Jack explained that you're nothing like a Lich, you're... Like this super powerful magic space demon. You were born from the dark matter of the universe and used the natural flow of magic in reality to give yourself a soul. Liches are... Sick disgusting fucks, greedy Necromancers who won't even let death itself control them. You and them are nothing alike. It was a real dick move of me to act like you were similar just so you'd help me."

Ryan blinked in shock. He couldn't bring himself to be angry at the deception, however. He decided a while ago that the best way to advance was to come to a state of understanding and simply move on.

"I love you as much as I love the other guys," Michael turned back. The illusion of a smile played on his skull. "You're a real salty piece of shit sometimes and your stubbornness makes me wanna scream but... You're such a good person and I love you despite your flaws."

With a gentle smile, Ryan leaned in, pressing his lips against Michael's teeth. He'd never kissed the Lad like this before. His bones were warm somehow, the sensation like kissing a smooth stone that'd been left under the sun. The kiss was chaste, melting into several more before he pulled away. Ryan tried not to stare as Michael's soul glowed brighter for a moment.

"That... Was surprisingly nice." Michael whispered.

He leaned in again and Ryan met him halfway. The Gent shed his human form, making Michael laugh. The logistics of a human skull and a deer-like shadowy being kissing were odd but still worked by some divine miracle. They stayed that way for a while until the tawny fingers of dawn curled over the horizon.

"Alright, ok," Michael snickered, pulling away. He'd wound up halfway swallowed up by Ryan's smokey body and laughed when the Gent shrank back. "We should get home before Geoff has a fucking aneurysm."

Ryan nodded, standing upright. His body expanded, a void opening up inside. Faintly, deep within, Michael could see a window to the penthouse. He dipped a hand into the portal, steeling himself.

"Remember," Ryan echoed from everywhere and nowhere. "I'm always here for you, Mogar."

Michael let out a childlike giggle. His old name sounded so foreign now.

"I know." He replied and let the familiar darkness swallow him whole.

[adapted-batteries]

The Intern

Fandom: The Librarians

Rating: General/sfw

Relationship: Flyzekiel

Word Count: 2408

Ezekiel happens to be in the wrong place at the wrong time, and Flynn gains a new intern.

AU where Flynn is in charge of the Egyptian exhibit as a professor, not student or Librarian.This is set when Flynn’s doing the Egyptian exhibit in the first Librarian movie, but for the sake of not writing underage fic, I’m aging Ezekiel up to being in his 20’s, considering Ezekiel was like 16 or something when he got the letter the first time.

Also posted on my Ao3.

-----

Ezekiel happened to be in New York at the right time. According to the poster he just walked past, there was going to be a big exhibit at the Museum of History in a few days, a replica of one of the great pyramids, complete with loads of artifacts inside. A goldmine, all in one place, ready for Ezekiel to take what he wished so he could replenish the fund he ran for abused kids.

He hadn’t been to that museum before; they never really had any pricy exhibits, the natural history museum always got them, so Ezekiel devised a plan to case the exhibit and figure out what he wanted to swipe. Donning the nerdiest outfit he could bare to wear, Ezekiel turned up while the students and other important looking people were frantically trying to set up and document everything in the huge exhibit.

The disguise worked well...too well. Not even five minutes into taking in the exhibit, a man, probably a professor by the looks of his outfit and the general nerdiness he gave off, called him over. “Hey you, give me a hand with this.” The professor was pushing a crate somewhere, apparently heavy enough that it warranted help and Ezekiel was unluckily the only one in the vicinity.

Ezekiel hesitated just long enough to make the professor annoyed. The professor scowled at him as he wiped away sweat from his face. “You can’t just stand around and expect to get a good grade.”

Finally settling on a persona, Ezekiel scurried over to him. “Sorry, uh, sir,” he muttered, pushing the considerably heavy crate. The professor pushed as well, but Ezekiel could tell he was doing the majority of the work.

The professor directed the crate to a collapsible table currently half used to hold a variety of artifacts. He stretched his back, then reached into the crate while looking at Ezekiel. “Help me empty this so we can get it on display.” Ezekiel nodded, carefully pulling considerably valuable artifacts out of the box, ignoring the way the professor was watching him. Ezekiel jumped a little when the professor asked him a question, definitely only because he was really playing into his persona. “I’ve been terribly busy organizing everyone and everything, remind me what team you’re here with again?”

“I’m, uh, with the artifacts team. My, er, specialty is items made from precious metals and gems,” Ezekiel stammered. He gulped when the professor narrowed his eyes at him.

“Precious metals you say. Tell me what this is made of,” the professor said, handing Ezekiel a small metal bust.

Ezekiel carefully took the head and turned it in his hands a bit. “Bronze, most likely a mild based on the shine, and since that’d be easier to sculpt. The eyes are smokey quartz. The gems in the necklace are lapis lazuli, emerald, polished carnelian, emerald, and obsidian,” Ezekiel explained, pointing at the gems as he named them.

The professor seemed mildly impressed, but also suspicious. “When would it have been made?”

Fortunately Ezekiel had seen a bust very much like it at an auction last month. “My guess would be around 2500 B.C. since I don’t know where exactly it came from.”

The professor seemed more impressed, taking the sculpture back from Ezekiel. “This comes from the collection in the British museum’s Egyptian exhibit, which their archaeologists in the mid 20th century found in the tomb of Userkaf. I’d love to have the pair of busts for this exhibit, but one was stolen years ago, before my time.” He stared at the sculpture fondly a bit more, then sat it on the table. “Keep unpacking. This whole crate needs to be unpacked and displayed today. We have three days, which I said was completely unreasonable, but here we are.”

A couple of students over at another table called for the professor. “Doctor Carsen, we need your help over here.”

“Coming!” His attention was immediately focused on the others. “I’ll be right back,” he said to Ezekiel, then scampered off to assist.

There was quite a lot of stuff to check out, see what was really worth having from this exhibit, and what better way to handle all the merchandise than to play helpful intern. He was going to sneak off and have a look, but true to his word, the professor came back within a minute. Apparently, unpacking to this Dr. Carsen meant taking each item out, and then giving anywhere from a two to five minute lecture about the origin and significance of each piece. The crate should’ve taken ten minutes max to empty, but by the time they got done, over an hour had passed.

Ezekiel didn’t know what was worse, that he lost so much time when he could’ve been casing the rest of the museum, or the fact that he kind of didn’t mind listening to Carsen ramble on about everything. Not that he actively listened; Ezekiel couldn’t tell much of anything about the history of anything he had handled in that time compared to his guesses at the value each item would fetch in various underground art markets.

Instead he spent way more than his fair share of focus noticing every little thing about this professor, the way his words jumbled when he got excited, the crinkles in the corners of his eyes when he smiled, the way he’d rock on the balls of his feet when he really got into the history of it. Ezekiel had a few rules when it came to thievery, and “don’t bang the target” was right at the top of the list, but right now it was getting easier to find loopholes to that rule than it was picking something to take.

To clear his head, Ezekiel finally got away from the professor when yet another group called him away for assistance. With his little time left before close, he skirted around the professor, surveying the rest of the displays in their various states of completion. There was a gold mine of things he could go for and get good profit, but that bust he handled earlier kept calling to him. It’d fetch a fair price by itself, or even more to the person who had bought the first head. The museum was way too busy now, but it wouldn’t be that night, so Ezekiel spent a little more time surveying the security measures before prepping for the night.

He expected the people working on the exhibit to continue well after the six pm closing time with the opening date just a couple days away, so he waited till after midnight before he ventured to a back door with an unloading dock. The security system recently went digital, so it wasn’t hard to loop the cameras, disable the motion and heat sensors, and unlock the door without anyone noticing. There were security guards, but only two for the large museum, leaving wings empty for minutes at a time, so Ezekiel had no issue making his way to the under construction exhibit.

Unlike the other wings, the lights were partially on still, creating patches of shadow over bits where assembly was finished and highlighting the folding tables with items strewn about them. No one was in the room at the moment. Ezekiel noted the table he had seen the bust last was unfortunately void of the object, so he quickly snooped through the dark, finished displays in search of his target. The next guard wouldn’t come through for another three minutes.

Just as he found the bust someone walked into the room. “Hey uh, I thought everyone had left.” It was the professor from before, looking a tad more stressed and worse for wear. “Oh, it’s you, from earlier,” he said just as Ezekiel sat the bust down and stepped into the light.

“Ah yeah, it’s me,” Ezekiel said, trying to play it cool.

“You slipped off earlier,” he rubbed his eye like one does when when exhausted, “you know, I don’t think I caught your name.”

“I like to keep it that way. Shrouded in mystery,” Ezekiel replied, leaning part of the way back into the shadows for effect.

“Funny, because I checked the rosters for everyone working on this exhibit, and unless you happen to have suddenly picked up that accent, which I highly doubt, you don’t fit any one on them,” Dr. Carsen continued, stepping more into Ezekiel’s space. “Who are you, and why are you sneaking into the museum at midnight?”

“Wouldn’t you like to know,” Ezekiel said saucily while tapping Dr. Carsen’s chest, deciding that he should play into the oddly physical vibe that suddenly appeared.

To his surprise, Dr. Carsen didn’t back away. “I would, considering I can tell you moved the bust, which I assume was because you intended to steal it.”

Ezekiel patted his chest again, trying to hide his growing panic about Dr. Carsen reading the situation that easy. “Observant and well-read, I like that in a man.” He noticed Dr. Carsen look down at his hand before Dr. Carsen realized what he did, a good sign for Ezekiel.

“Are you, uh,” Dr. Carsen faltered when Ezekiel did his best to look enticing, biting his bottom lip and looking up at Dr. Carsen through his lashes (it helped that Dr. Carsen was a few inches taller too). “You’re um.”

“I’m what, love?” Ezekiel asked, tilting his head ever so slightly upward. Sure enough, Dr. Carsen reciprocated the movement.

“You’re really distracting,” Dr. Carsen settled, eyes flitting to Ezekiel’s mouth when the thief smirked.

“So I’ve heard. Though I can say,” he paused to place his lips mere inches away from Dr. Carsen’s, “you’re just as distracting as I am, in my opinion.”

Dr. Carsen leaned forward, lips ghosting Ezekiel’s, but then his brain started recovering, which meant he attempted to make space. “Wait you’re-”

Ezekiel was not gonna lose the ground he made; he slipped a hand around the professor’s neck and pulled him into a kiss. He expected Dr. Carsen to fight him a bit more, but near instantly Ezekiel found he was being kissed just as much as he was doing the kissing. In the back of his mind he remembered his rule, though technically his target wasn’t Dr. Carsen himself...so getting him in bed wasn’t breaking the rule, he reasoned.

Footsteps from a security guard echoed on the marble floor. Ezekiel pulled away only so far to speak so he could keep Dr. Carsen’s focus. “Should we take this somewhere else?”

Dr. Carsen nodded, his nose sliding against Ezekiel’s. “My apartment,” Dr. Carsen started, pausing to kiss Ezekiel again because apparently it had been too long already, “not far.”

The security guard walked in, startled at the two men being intimate. “Uh, sorry, just doin’ rounds,” the guard mumbled, then turned right back around and left the room.

Ezekiel kissed Dr. Carsen’s neck while his head was turned towards the guard, getting a gasp from the professor. “Unless you want to give him a show, let’s go,” Ezekiel said.

“Oh, uh, yeah, let’s do that, ‘s good idea,” Dr. Carsen said, attempting to do his best of talking and kissing and walking. They of course stumbled, Ezekiel’s hip hitting rather hard into one of the tables.

“Why don’t we focus on walking, then we can have our fun, hmm?” Ezekiel said, snaking his arm around Dr. Carsen’s waist as he promptly guided him towards the table that had a messenger bag that must’ve been the professor’s. Sure enough, Dr. Carsen reached out to grab it, not bothering to stop, slinging it loosely over his head. Ezekiel used the movement to sneak a kiss to Dr. Carsen’s jaw, then focused on getting them out of the museum before Dr. Carsen remembered just what he was getting distracted from.

Fortunately for Ezekiel, Dr. Carsen was entirely too easy to keep aroused. Kisses here and there, a little wandering with his hand, right tone of voice and word choice (apparently Ezekiel calling him “love” worked really well). It only took them maybe ten minutes of walking to get to the place that made Dr. Carsen halt and declare as his apartment building, and only one more to get up the stairs and into the apartment.

Dr. Carsen barely had time to take off the messenger bag and shuck off his suit jacket before Ezekiel pressed him against the wall. Dr. Carsen seemed to be enjoying himself quite a bit, based off what he felt pressed against his thigh, but before he knew it, Dr. Carsen switched positions, pinning Ezekiel to the wall. “Mmhmm, like being on top, do you-hah,” Ezekiel purred as Dr. Carsen went for his neck, nipping a sensitive spot.

“That okay?” the professor asked, voice muffled by the fact he spoke into Ezekiel’s neck.

“Oh more than, love. Why don’t we move this to the bed, hmm?” Ezekiel suggested. “Do with me what you’d like.” That got a look from the professor, one of need, and then Dr. Carsen was all too happy to cart him off to the bedroom.

---

Ezekiel was not one to stay in one place too long, and that included people he slept with. The sun hadn’t risen yet, but Ezekiel knew he was probably nearing an alarm for the professor to get back to the museum and work relentlessly. Carefully he slipped out of bed, leaving Dr. Carsen’s arms empty. He started collecting his clothes, but found himself watching the professor sleep. His hair was mussed, mouth slightly open but not snoring, face looking relaxed and content compared to the stressed and tired look he had the previous night.

He shook his head, focusing on getting out of the apartment before he gave into the growing urge of climbing back into bed. For the most part he fought it, but he let himself do something he never did for anyone else; he left a note, not in his normal handwriting, saying simply “thanks for the fun, good luck on your exhibit” and signed it with an “E.” Then he was out and into the greying morning, feeling entirely more emotionally attached than he normally did after a one night stand.

This job was bust; he couldn’t bring himself to steal from Dr. Carsen. But there were others, and more to keep a bed with, he tried to convince himself, but he didn’t really believe it.

-----

Post Notes: With school starting and my semester going at 100% since the first day basically, I completely forgot I had this written and that last week was the Flynn x lits week. Oh well, at least I'm only a day late!

Liked this story, or any of my others? Feel free to buy me a coffee.

[fyeahwonderbat]

Can you write a fic on how you think batman#39 should've progressed. And love your fics and I truly am excitedly looking forward this WonderBat week.

WonderBat Week 2018:  Theme #2 - Elseworld

Title: Take On Me

Author: MaidenOfTheWorld

Universe: DC Rebirth (Comics)

Rating: Teen / PG-13

Word Count: 1,973 words

DISCLAIMER: I fully respect Tom King’s run of Batman, including issues #39 and #40, despite not being a fan of the series personally. Given the theme for today, I have chosen this prompt as it suits the concept of ‘Elseworld’, meaning alternate universe. Thank you.

We shouldn’t have come here.

I know that now, and we’ve been damned for not realizing the error to our naturally heroic ways sooner. This place is full of monsters that stalk us in this perpetual night, but nothing could be more threatening to my sanity than the relentless gravitation there is between Diana and I.

It’s been years since I’ve seen Gotham, or my family, or my fiancee. Everything I ever knew is lost to me while I am trapped in Gehanna except for Diana, Wonder Woman, the beacon of all things righteous and true. She is the pillar of strength that keeps me fighting fit when the hordes refuse to be silenced, and by doing so, she forces a roar of temptation to bombinate inside me the longer we remain here together.

There have been many occasions in which the ravenous surge of energy after a monstrous battle dares me to grab hold of her and steal her lips with my own, celebrate what we have vanquished, revere her might and accomplishments. Anyone who knows Diana cannot help themselves from admiring her but to see her destroy demon after demon with such refined eradication can be an aphrodisiac that is unparalleled to anything I have ever known before her.

But I have my city, my family, my fiancee to think of, and those memories weigh down my desires when nothing else will.

After all, I’ve chosen my partner and… it wasn’t her.

The flickering of the campfire on Diana’s face tries to hypnotize me into thinking otherwise, but I’ve trained myself for most of my life to squash such enticement, having perfected the skill many times with her specifically.

Why that is, I can’t say I remember as soundly anymore.

Nevertheless, I look away from her bewitching face and dig into my own meal of the charred critter we captured and focus on satisfying a different hunger all together.

Then, she calls to me, and my resistance falters. “Bruce?”

“Yes?” I answer her immediately.

Taking a bite, I await her to continue her thought but she doesn’t maintain the pace of the conversation she started. It is worrying to wonder if Wonder Woman has weakened in her resolve, especially considering she is the immortal warrior addressing a mere mortal vigilante. I lift my gaze to find hers and her blue eyes are awaiting me.

There, behind such a vibrant cerulean hue, is the true Diana. The vulnerability she isn’t scared to reveal but fearful of giving into glimmers at me, catching the weary flame before us secretively. Seeing her pull down her own walls in order to address me makes me anxious, because I know that my need to save her from such frightful thoughts could compel me to reach out to her.

Easily, and yet while uttering a much more complicated question than another I can remember, she asks, “How long do you think we have been here for now?”

I pause to think, but choose not to meditate on it for too long. “Ten years.”

“Ten years?” She repeats back to me, quieter than I spoke. Beneath the tree that sat at her back, she radiates the aura of an ethereal being that wants more from this cursed fate she cannot break free from and I am reminded of her sister in arms, wondering if we are also destined to suffer for doing nothing empirically wrong.

“At least.” Is how I choose to comfort her, despite how fruitless it truly is to try.

She sits with my answer for the time span of the blink of an eye. Then, she strikes a pose in which I cannot tell if she means to merely stretch or if she is miming her intention to threaten The Gentleman who trapped us here. “We have tried… We must concede.”

No, I beg her internally not to say such things.

“We cannot open the gate without him.”

She speaks nothing but the truth, and yet…

“And he does not come.”

“Yeah.” I reply blandly, for I can concur with fact. We released the man whom we once promised to offer salvation to and he has not returned to give us the same. For all we know, he never plans to exonerate us from this hell, and Diana and I are confined to a fate of endless battles waged against the Hordes of Gehanna by each other’s side for all of this realm’s eternity.

“So then,” Diana lets her words drag on as she bows her head. It’s almost as if she’s become nervous as she speaks. “Perhaps this is everlasting. All of life, our life.”

Her voicing of my very thoughts is an easy task, however, it ropes me into her. I bow my head too as if I need time to comprehend what she is saying to me. “The hordes are… everlasting.”

Then, she dares to state the truth I had been fearing myself. “And all we have, forever, is you and me.”

The most infuriating and tantalizing words that have ever been spoken to me.

We teased, we taunted, we hinted at one another in the past and never dove into anything serious for reasons neither of us truly understand. Perhaps it was because we could lose ourselves to one another? Or perhaps our differences in mortality while living the lives that we do carries a heavy load on the possibility of a future? Or maybe it all comes down to the fact that her time would be best spent with someone who can enjoy life with her, not dampen her illustriousness with the darkness that swallows me?

The possibility of having her now was nothing if not…

If not…

“Yeah.” I foolishly answer again, carrying on this asinine conversation. What are we doing, discussing this as if there is a chance we could be something more? As if Gehanna was the place to make the planets align or cosmically bring us together?

Just as I am growing infuriated with our situation, Diana giggles. Softly, only momentarily, but she laughs before me. The tension gripping me slackens it hold and I gawk at her from under my brows as she says, “You know, even without the pointy ears, you do not look so bad.”

Such a swift change in conversation, I can’t help but to pause before I answer. It is almost sacrilegious for her to compliment my appearance as my eyes rake over her body while it is highlighted and shadowed by the campfire’s glow. The goddess before me, in whatever backhanded way she chooses to speak, tells me that she enjoys the way I look.

To ignore her beauty would be a crime, one I have committed for far too long considering my role as a man who seeks justice.

Dumbfounded and animalistic, I lean towards her, muttering for a third time the most unattractive word, “Yeah.” But I do lean in, I seek her out and she leans towards me. The heat that pools in my blood courses throughout my tired body and rejuvenates me with a promise of what is about to happen between us. Decades of working together plus the one we endured in this realm have led up to this moment, where our noses nearly touch.

I can hear her breathing deeply, and feel my chest lift and sink with the very same tempo. Rise and fall, just like my ability to resist Diana over the years. Having her sit before me now in our own perpetual corner of the realm feels like the opportune moment to stop wondering, stop fighting and let things happen.

“Bruce,” she calls to me again, making my insides churn painfully, desperately.

And it is with that awareness of desperation that my survival instincts reemerge from their restless sleep to stop me from making a catastrophic mistake.

Less than an inch away from her gorgeous lips, the words spill out of my mouth reflexively, without any sort of control. “We can’t…”

Diana stills and it instantly breaks my heart to refuse her for the umpteenth time. All those years of yearning reaching their climactic moment, now suddenly feeling wasted to know we can never be.

“No,” she too fires out words of discouragement in the hopes of appearing sane. “We can’t. Ever.”

Hearing her speak of finality strikes a chord with me, however. To recognize the insanity of our attraction is one thing, but to have Diana agree after offering herself to me is both saddening and infuriating. Why is our future never a possibility?

Why could I propose to one woman and never to this one, when I have admired her, cherished her, and loved her endlessly?

Why did I think it could never be Diana?

In that moment, I refused to let the madness of the answers sink their teeth into my desire and tear it away from me once again. For a moment, I would live in desperation for something that existed in front of me for too long. Inside of me.

Always with me.

As Diana begins to laugh again, I take it as a personal challenge to silence her, so I steal that kiss that I had been craving long before we entered Gehanna. Our lips crash and so do the worlds we keep separate from one another. She feels like the most exquisite sanctuary for a soul as worn as mine, a sob urging to spring free in my throat that I quickly stamp down. Kissing her fills me with an awareness of coming home after a lifelong war even whilst we are still trying to survive the ongoing battle against the demons around us.

It takes everything I have to await her response before I notice that her hand has found my cheek, cradling it softly. The gesture alone calms my nervousness, then unseals all of the battle-induced excitement, the ages-long resistance, the indisputable greed to have her body be with mine. I know now that I need us to be so much more than a fever dream when I grab her waist and drag her into me. “Diana.” I growl her name, daring her to pull away now that we have willfully let go.

“Mmm.” Her moan sends a shiver stomping along my spine and reminds me that our clothes are the last remaining barriers to realizing our profoundly anticipated passions.

At least, physically, in this world.

“I know,” I whisper, hoping to say more. I am aware of the lives we had been clinging to in this realm, the ones we know and want to return to. I remember what the past ten years have been like as we reminisced about what we had waiting for us if and when we make our way back to Earth.

We reminisced together, though.

About what we had before being spirited away to this god awful place.

And in both of our recollections, the constant we shared was this: each other.

“Yeah.” She whispers cheekily as her long legs carry her into my lap. The fire fueling every move that she makes is just as nervous as I am, as its flame burns too quickly in the hopes that she can savour every moment before it fizzles out. I want that as well - to pin her down or have her straddle me and feast on one another like we were always too scared to imagine. With claw-like hands, I wrap my arms around her and hold her against my body so that she can shield me from any other world that isn’t Gehanna.

Neither one of us can stop this now.

Neither one of us wants to.

I can no longer say I haven’t tasted the fruit of temptation, as her name is Diana, and all I want is for her to be by my side forever more.

[sebbies]

study break

summary: you met bucky, a popular kid on campus, a year ago and became friends with him even though you have the biggest crush on him. he interrupts your study time.  college au word count: 1.479 warnings: fluff, heavy make-out  sidenote: this is for @sebashtiansatan writing challenge [and i’ll write something really smutty for your birthday :)] masterlist

Usually you would be thrilled about studying at night, it was the best time to start your work. The library would have an eerily calm feeling to it, as if you stepped into the Twilight Zone. The late hour would mean there were fewer small clusters of students and since they would be all cramming the whispers were kept to a minimum.

Tonight, however, you dragged yourself into the library with your backpack hanging off on shoulder and a water bottle in one hand. You made your way up towards the second floor where all the cubicles were and once you plopped down in the chair, you enjoyed a moment of silence that had surrounded you. the sound of scurrying feet doing down the stairs broke you away from the moment, to which you groaned. Eventually, one by one, you unpacked your textbooks, notebooks and writing materials and laid them carefully on the desk.

“Whatcha doing?” A voice whispered into your ear from behind, causing you to jump in your seat. Immediately, you recognised the voice and your automatic response to it was to roll your eyes, something you did every time you heard the man speak. You tried to ignore him, which worked for a few seconds but then something blocked the light from hitting your papers. Looking up you saw the smirk of the man who decided to bother you as he leaned against the wall of the cubicle.

“What does it look like?” You rudely replied as you looked back down at your work.

“C’mon Y/N, it’s Friday night! There’s a party over in Tony’s suite.” You continued to ignore him, highlighting something in your textbook.

“There’s free beer.” He replied like that’s exactly what you wanted to do on a Friday night, drink cheap alcohol with a bunch of rich frat boys.

“Live a little.”

When you looked back up at the man, there was a small part of you that was falling into temptation. The way he smiled that lopsided boyish smile and the twinkle in his eyes made it difficult for you to say no.

“I’ll see you on Monday, Bucky,” you answered. Bucky hangs his head down dramatically in defeat and lets out a quiet huff.

“Y/N,” Bucky whined as he looked back towards you.

“What?” You respond rather harshly, getting upset that he was distracting you from studying.

“You’re so boring,” he dragged out.

“Look, Bucky, I don’t wanna go to some stupid frat party.” Bucky stared at you for what felt like a minute and you could feel your face heat up.

“S’okay,” Bucky said with a shrug of his shoulders, “maybe- I don’t know, we could do something else?”

“Yeah?” You asked cautiously as you placed the highlighter down. “Like what?”

“There’s, um, there’s a diner a few blocks away and I promise you they make the best hamburgers. And you could use a break or something,” Bucky rambled. Maybe it was the dim lights and the way the shadows were being casted on his face, but you swore you saw the infamous Bucky Barnes blush.

“So what you’re saying is,” you said, leaning back in your chair while crossing your arms over your chest, “you want to go to a diner with me instead of getting drunk with your buddies and possibly end up with your face down in the cleavage of some sorority girl?”

“Yeah,” Bucky replied, suddenly finding his shoes very interesting.

“Why?” Bucky was one of the most popular kids on campus, he was liked by everyone- students and professor alike. He and his group of friends who called themselves the Avengers were everybody’s favourite squad. Bucky had them, so naturally you became suspicious when he proposes this idea to you; someone who is the university’s certified nerd.

“Why with me? I mean, there’s a house full of girls you could take.” The look of seriousness on Bucky’s face was something you weren’t use to. Since the day he walked and sat down next to you on your first day of classes a year ago, you’ve seen all side of him. Him being shy or cocky, flirtatious or mad and everything in between. But right now, it seemed that all the hot air he managed to blow out vanished.

“I, um, I just-um,” Bucky stutters, licking his lower lip as he tried to come up with the right words.

“You just what?” You asked as you raised an eyebrow, curious to see how he would respond. Bucky let out a pained groan and allowed his backpack to slide off his shoulder and let it fall to the ground with a thumb before grabbing your face between his hands and carefully pulling you up. Your arms were quickly unfolded when you were brought up to your feet.

“Bucky?” You whispered. A shy smile had replaced the serious look that was once plastered on his face. His thumbs ran small smooth circles across your cheeks before tilting your head back right as he leaned forward to capture your lips in a kiss. There was nothing rushed about it. It was soft and leisurely. There’s absolutely no doubt that Bucky is in control of the kiss, but it didn’t matter, you’ve been fantasising about this moment the second he stepped foot into the classroom.

“That,” Bucky murmurs out of breath as he pulls away.

“That’s why I’d rather be with you than at that party,” he said lowly, kissing your forehead before he rested his against yours.

“Oh,” you sighed out. You could still feel the slight pressure of where his lips were on yours and it took everything in you to not lift your hand to your lips and feel them. Bucky drops his hands from your face with his eyes closed and you smiled at him dopily even though it looked like he was expecting some kind of rejection. A soft giggle escaped your mouth which made Bucky cringe with embarrassment.

“I’ll see you Monday,” Bucky said quietly. Before he could bend down and reach for his backpack, you leaned up on your toes and placed a chaste kiss on his lips.

“Y/N?” Bucky’s hands rest on your hip with a tender but firm touch, ready to pull away if you became uncomfortable.

“What’re you-.”

“Bucky,” you interrupted. You kiss him again, this time it was filled with a little more intent. One of Bucky’s hands rests against your jaw while the other one wrapped around your waist, holding you close to him. As he pushed you against the wall of the cubicle, you could feel his bulge and you let out a moan to which he takes advantage of and slips his tongue past your lips. Your hands began carding through his hair and every once in awhile, your nails scratched his scalp and he lets out a groan of approval. He begins to suck kisses across your jaw, and you couldn’t help but hold onto him tighter when you felt his beard scratch against your skin. Without warning Bucky cups your ass and lifts you up against the cubicle and presses his body between your legs as you let him explore all the sensitive spots along your jaw and neck. You grabbed his face and gently moved his lips back onto yours. Bucky captures your lower lip between his teeth as you wrap your arms around his shoulders.

A laugh from the floor below you echoed through the library, nearly giving you a heart attack but also bringing you back to reality. Reluctantly you pull away and give him wry smile.

“I was trying to study,” you managed to breathe out as he gently lets you fall onto your feet. You both let out a chuckle before you turn around and begin to pack up your stuff.

“What’re you doing?” Bucky asked in confusion. You turned to face him and raised an eyebrow at him, surprised he didn’t get what was happening.

“I was promised that I would be getting the best hamburger.” As you zipped up your backpack, you could feel Bucky’s lips attack the side of your neck with quick wet kisses. The sensation felt so good that you leaned your head back, letting it rest against his shoulder.

“I- I need that break,” you moaned out as you felt Bucky’s grip on your waist tighten.

“Right,” he groaned and kissed your cheek quickly before picking his backpack up and yours.

“I can carry that you know,” you said, pointing to your bag as he began to walk towards the stairs.

“Yeah, but I’m being a gentleman.”

“A gentleman that fucks people in the library,” you responded with a laugh.

“Not people. Just you.”

“Let’s just eat yeah?” He nodded and grabbed your hand with his free one, squeezing it as you both jogged down the library steps.

tags: @soldatbarnes @aubzylynn @4theluvofall @captainpunk @capbuckybuchanan @james-bionic-barnes @jurassicbarnes @modestlyconfused @rotisserierogers @whyisbuckyso @anaboo96

(uh idk who to tag so sorry fam)

[sabrinas-spellsman]

Hold On (I Still Need You) Ch 2

takes place very early on in season 3a. its basically missing moments and different drinks (read on Ao3)

Lavender Tea

She finds dead bodies. That’s her new hobby, Lydia Martin: genius, queen bee of BHHS, and supernatural magnet for dead bodies. She finds herself losing sleep and feels that there’s not enough concealer in the world to cover the dark circles that she finds in the morning. Tonight’s no different. Her mom’s not home and the dark seems different ever since sophomore year. She remembers reading about how lavender tea can make someone drowsy and vaguely recalls seeing a box of it in her cupboards somewhere. Her search of the cupboards leaves her empty handed but she has a test tomorrow morning on the Heart Of Darkness and Ms Blake’s tests actually make her think a little. So she needs sleep.

Plus the circles under her eyes are almost as dark as Peter Hale’s soul at this point.

She grabs her coat, purse and keys, not bothering to change her clothes. A tank and tights wouldn’t be the worst thing to be seen in, considering her list of bad outfits included a hospital gown and her birthday suit. Anyways, she thinks, it's 4 in the morning. No one’s awake anymore.

She pulls up to the supermarket and walks briskly, pulling her coat tight across her chest, the cold sending a shiver down her back. She grabs a basket at the front, deciding to grab a few more things besides the tea. Lydia mentally runs over the things absent from her fridge. She grabs some salad supplies and some strawberry yogurt, ignoring her mom’s allergy. Besides everyone who knew Natalie Martin knew that her favorite flavor of anything was red wine. She runs her eyes over the shelves, looking for something she could be forgetting, turning the corner absently. She finds herself turning straight into someone’s chest, the force and shock sending her back.

“What the he- Lydia?” she looks up to see Stiles, headphones dangling around his neck, music forgotten as he stares at her like he can’t believe what he’s seeing.

“Stiles, why exactly are you trying to run me over? She rubs her forehead, vowing that if he leaves a mark, she will end him. When the hell did his chest get so hard anyways? Her pajamas flash in her mind and suddenly her tank top and tights seem trivial and dear god how come the one time she leaves the house without makeup is the day she runs into Stiles. She roams her eyes down his body, her gaze lingering on his arms, the ghosts of muscles hidden under his t shirt. His hair looks pretty good for 4 am and god help her even the plaid bottoms he has on look nice on him. She brings her eyes up to find him doing the same thing she had just been.

He catches her gaze and blushes, acting as if he hadn’t just been checking her out, which was funny cause he’s been checking her out since junior high. He suddenly seems very interested in the Fiber One box on his left.

“So… uh what are you doing here?”

She raises an incredulous eyebrow in response.

“What do you think I’m doing here Stiles?”

“Right, I mean like what are you doing awake at 4 in the morning?” The answer to his question seems a little hard to get out so she counters with her own question.

“What are you doing awake at 4 in the morning?” It’s a childish response but she’s tired and wants to sleep and now she’s irritated because there’s no way she’s gonna get any sleep now that she knows what Stiles Stilinski’s bed head looks like. (It looks really good but Lydia is not going to think about that cause this is Stiles, for the love of god.)

(She’s gonna be thinking about this for days to come)

He shrugs in response. “My dad’s working late and I can’t sleep.”

“Me neither.” The words leave her mouth before she can think about it. Stiles frowns, his eyebrows doing that crease they do when he’s worried.

“Why? Are you sick?”  

“No, I just can’t sleep that well now days.”

He nods in understanding. “Nightmares?”

“Something like that.”

She’s not about to tell him that her dreams are haunted by Peter Hale and his hand wrapped around her throat because then he’ll tell Scott and he’ll be worried enough to tell Allison, who’d then worry about her and try to talk to her. And Allison has better things to worry about. She looks at Stiles who’s dark circles are even worse than hers. And the sight of them compels her to say it, “You know, if you can’t sleep, lavender tea has a relaxing and sedative property that helps. I find that it really works.” she offers.

He smiles at her, not his spastic “there’s a body in the woods” kind of smile. The kind of smile makes her chest feel tight and her pulse race. This smile is all warmth and kindness and admiration and she realizes that she hasn’t seen him smile like that in a while. Which may be a good thing cause that smile makes her feel irrational. Like when he smiles at her in a grocery store at 4 in the morning and she hears herself ask him if he wants to go home with her and prepare for the english test while drinking lavender tea.

He stares at her, not answering and panic rises in her chest.

“You don’t have to. I just thought that well, I peer reviewed you paper the other day on symbolism and you could use my help.” She snipes. His answer is in his smile, his eyes lighting up. He grabs her basket emptying the contents into his own.

“Come on. If we’re doing this, I’m gonna need potato chips.” He turns to go down the aisle to grab his oil and fat infested snack and he misses her smile behind him.

They end up at her kitchen table, books open and highlighters in their hands, potato chips by his side. She’s put her hair up in a bun and ran up to put on some lip gloss while he prepared their tea. He makes snide comments about the characters and she blames her laughter on the late time.

“So the Congo river is also a symbol. It symbolizes movement towards a common goal and that's what the- Stiles are you even writing any of this down?”

“I can’t focus on English Lydia.” He stretches his neck back and gives her a delicious view of his throat and her mouth goes dry. He rotates his neck, moaning a little at sore muscles and she gets up to get a drink of water before she does something stupid. (like jump Stiles Stilinski in the middle of her kitchen which is ridiculous cause this is Stiles Stilinski.) When she turns back he has his book closed and his head on the table.

“ I can’t study anymore. I’m too sleepy.”

“That's because lavender’s an aphrodisiac. It decreases your heart rate and blood pressure helping you relax.”

He lifts his head up and quirks his eyebrows at her. “What? No scientific name to go along with that explanation?”

She doesn’t miss a beat. “Lavandula angustifolia.”

She crosses her arms across her chest and smirks. She raises her eyebrow in a silent challenge, wondering if he’ll take it. He sits up straighter and raises his chin and squints his eyes. “Rosemary.”

She scoffs. “Rosmarinus officinalis.”

He gets up out of his chair. “Peppermint”

“Mentha × piperita”

He steps closer to her. “Bay Laurel”

“Laurus nobilis”

He takes another step closer, his long legs carrying him closer to her, closing the distance between them. He’s close enough for her to reach out and touch his face if she wanted to.He looks down at her, a smirk on his face. She looks up at him and oh. She loses her breath. His eyes are tired but alive, the light above her making it look like sparks exploding in them. His unbelievably long eyelashes create a light shadow across his cheekbones and her hand itches to reach out and touch them. She wants to be close enough to count every eyelash. She wants to kiss every mole on his face. She wants to trace the shape of his lips with her own. She wants… she wants.

The air around them grows heavy and Lydia feels her breaths getting heavier. His eyes are hooded and he doesn’t seem to notice that how close he is or how his proximity is affecting her. She bits her lip, eyes not leaving his face, the situation seeming strangely erotic. He licks his lips as he opens his mouth to speak and she feels a tug in her stomach at the sight of his wet lips.

“Oregano” The word knocks her back to reality and away from daydreams She shakes her head and raises her eyebrow at his question.

“Origanum vulgare” He stares at her and she mentally wills him to look away because if he keeps looking at her like that she gonna do something that is gonna be really hard to explain to Allison. The spell is broken though when he laughs, stepping back a few paces to look at her.

“God, is there anything you don’t know?” He smiles and looks at her with wonder that makes her heart skip beats.

She smiles in return. “Probably not.” (I don't know why I want to kiss you so bad)

He looks down at his feet and raises his eyes at her, making her chest tighten. His voice is raspy when he answers. “ Yeah probably not. You know… you’re really smart. Like scary smart.”  This time its her who steps forward.

“You think I’m scary?” her voice is teasing but a part of her genuinely wants to know. Her uncanny ability to find dead people is probably not a good thing. It's like he reads her mind.

“Not like supernatural scary. But you’re scary in other ways…  when you want to be.” he adds as an afterthought, his eyes on his feet again. She takes another step forward, feet moving without permission.

“Do I scare you?” the words come out as a whisper. His head snaps back up, his cheeks filled with color.

“No.” His words are strong, filled with an emotion she doesn’t wanna face.

Her shoulders drop in relief. “Good.” She gives him a soft smile and their eyes meet. The upcoming dawn seems quiet, the world dead as they stand on the precipice of something immense in the middle of her kitchen. She could jump, all it would take is a few steps and she could grab his face and satisfy her curiosity once and for all. She could get him out of her system, wipe it clean and go back to life like normal. Just another boy, just another face. But it's not that easy. She can’t do anything because this is Stiles. This is Scott’s best friend and she knows the disappointed look he would give her if she just used and discarded his best friend like she had countless boys before him. Not when she knows how he feels. Its obvious and months ago his feelings wouldn’t have mattered. No one's would’ve. But now… Allison would be disappointed and she would let down Scott and Stiles would be… She isn’t sure when she let all these people in but now they all have a piece of her and she can’t risk it. And she’s not so sure that she could put him aside. He’s under her skin and she knows that she’ll be an addict after one taste.

So she doesn’t kiss him. Instead she cleans their cups as he watches. And she doesn’t kiss him as he leaves. Instead she sits at her table and tries to figure out when Stiles Stilinski became this important to her. And she doesn’t kiss him when he shows her his grade a few days later, a bright red A in the corner of his paper. She doesn’t kiss him when he sits down next to her at the library and passes her his math homework, asking her to check his work. She doesn’t kiss him (but God, she really wants to.)

[castledisneyfan]

Darabella AU Part 2

auBad Boy Rebel Daring and Shy Royal Rosabella AU

Prompt by @roselythrone (BTW, she’s awesome you guys, you should follow her)

As class was wrapping up, Rosabella couldn’t get her mind off of Daring. She was hoping this wouldn’t happen but it was. Her thoughts were interrupted as the bell rang and the girls began to file out. “Rosabella.” The White Queen called. Rosabella got her books and walked over to her teacher’s desk. “Yes, Your Majesty?” “Headmaster Grimm would like to see you in his office.” The headmaster wanted to see her? What had she done wrong? Was it because she shouted at Daring? The White Queen noticed her worry; “Fear not young princess, you are not in trouble, he just needs to discuss something with you” Rosabella nodded, bowed and made her way out of the room.

When she reached the headmaster’s office, she lightly knocked on the door and heard a deep voice telling her enter. As she opened the door, she was surprised to find Daring sitting in one of the seats. “Have a seat Miss Beauty.” Grimm said gesturing to the empty seat next to Daring. “Now I suppose your wonder why I’ve called the two of you in here today”

“Couldn’t care less,” A deadpanned Daring replied. The headmaster rolled his eyes and continued, “Now, for the first time in I don’t know how long Mr Charming went to one of his classes,” Rosabella nodded, though wondering what this had to do with her as the headmaster went on, “That in itself is a good sign but his grades need a major improvement, and Rosabella Beauty is one of our top students, isn’t that right my dear?” Rosabella shrugged and nodded. Grimm clapped his hands together, “Well then, it’s settled! Rosabella, you will be tutoring Daring Charming with... well, everything” Rosabella’s eyes widened.

“Hey, wait a minute Grimm!” Daring exclaimed, “You can’t just make someone do something like that without talking to them first!” Grimm rolled his eyes, “I doubt Miss Beauty will have a problem with it” “Well, I do!” Rosabella couldn’t take it, she hated arguing. She quickly got up from her seat, bowed at the headmaster and quickly made her way out of the room. She felt her lips tremble, why on earth did she feel the need to cry? A single tear fell down her cheek as she quickly walked away but unbeknownst to her, Daring was right behind her. She found an empty bench by the courtyard and just collapsed in her seat. She started reading one of her books when a shadow cast over her. Daring Charming was standing in front of her.

“Mind if I sit with you?” He asked softly. She shook her head and scooted over a bit. Daring took a deep breath as he sat down, “Look, I’m sorry Grimm surprised you like that. He surprised me too, I had no idea you were who he was talking about” Why was he telling her this? Daring gave her a desperate look, “If you don’t want to help me, I completely understand but I really don’t know what I’m doing and I-I need help because I w-want to do better” He turned his head back and sighed. He was about to get up and leave when a soft voice destroyed the notion, “Okay.” He looked at her with wide eyes, “Y-you’ll help me?” Rosabella smiled and nodded. He smirked and stuck his hand out to her, she raised an eyebrow at him, “But only if you’re serious about this.” It was Daring’s turn to raise an eyebrow, “Alright Beauty, you’ve got yourself a deal.” She took his hand and they shook on it. Daring couldn’t help but feel that her hand was fitting perfectly in his.

“So when do we start?” He said as he let go of her hand. She picked up her Chem-myth-y book, “We could start right now if you want” Daring smirked, “You must really want me around if you’re already ready” Rosabella blushed and turned away. Daring quickly noticed her discomfort, “So, where do we start on this?” Daring smiled slightly. Rosabella started to explain the subject and Daring was actually absorbing the information and before they knew it, they had spent two hours studying. Rosabella packed her books in her bag and rose from the bench but not before saying goodbye, “Have a nice evening”

Daring smirked, “Yeah, yeah. You too Beauty” Rosabella blushed as she started to walk away, “Hey Rosabella” She turned around and blinked. Daring stood up and looked... nervous, “I...uh... well... thank you.” Daring felt his face heat up when she beamed at him and her sweet voice whispered, “You’re welcome Daring”

The next morning, Rosabella woke up feeling very dizzy. She then realized that she fell asleep at her desk. Again. She went to wake up Darling. That was a task as Darling was a heavy sleeper. Every day was like the one before. Rosabella fixed herself up and made sure Darling was out of bed before she left for the castleteria. She had her oatmeal with strawberries and chocolate chips as she always did while she was engrossed in her latest novel. “Moring Cousin” Briar waved as she passed by Rosabella’s seat. “Hi Briar” “What are you reading?” “It’s about two lovers in fair city known as Verona” “Sounds boring... have fun!” Rosabella shrugged as Briar left to sit with Apple and Ashlynn.

Daring entered the castleteria and sat with Apple as he always did. He didn’t want to be her prince charming but that didn’t mean he hated her. He also knew that Apple didn’t see him that way. He then noticed Rosabella sitting by herself, Darling was probably still sleeping. He could help but look at how even though her brown and red hair was pulled back in a half ponytail, it still fell over her shoulders. Her eyes were focused intensely on her book as she filled her cheeks like a chipmunk. It wasn’t really ladylike but he found it adorable. “Daring?” Wait what? He looked to his right to see Apple staring worryingly at him, “Are you alright?” “Of course I am, why wouldn’t I be?” Apple noticed his staring at Rosabella and her mouth formed an ‘o’ shape. “Go talk to her.” “What?” “Go talk to her, it’s clear you want to” Apple smiled. Daring gave a small smile back and went over to Rosabella.

He sat down next to Rosabella but she didn’t even notice. “Good morning Beauty” Rosabella looked to her left and saw that Daring was next to her. How long had he been there? She blinked a few times and Daring chuckled when he noticed a grain of oat on the corner of her mouth. Rosabella gasped softly as Daring’s hand took her chin again and he leaned foreward with an intense look on his face. She felt his thumb flick something away from her mouth as Daring leaned in. She felt her face heat up and she was sure it was as red as highlights. She could tell what he was thinking when a deep voice whispered, “You have freckles...” Daring let go of her chin but continued to stare with a curious look on his face. Was there something else on her face? She subconsciously raised her book in front of her face but she could still feel his stare.

She heard Daring give a hearty laugh, “You think just because there’s a book in front of your face, I can’t see you?” He shook his head and placed his hand on the book to look at her again. “You should know that you do live up to your name, you are quite a beauty” Rosabella felt her face heat up even more as she bit her lip. Despite what people said, Daring wasn’t as intimidating up close. He was, of course, very handsome but there was something sweet and almost kind about him. The problem was that he seemed intimidating no matter what due to her chronic shyness. They had talked a little the day before and she technically was his tutor but she still could bring herself to say much outside of school work. She suddenly noticed some people staring and felt a few glares from Daring’s admirers, this wasn’t good. She quickly whispered, “We can study after classes, I have to go now. Have a nice day.” She rushed out of the there, book in hand and glad that she had finished her breakfast before that happened. Daring just sat there staring at Rosabella’s retreating form, wishing he could go after her. Wait... who said he couldn’t? He wanted to get to know the shy rose, now was his chance. He ignored the confused stares as he rushed after until he was met by his sister in the hallway with a disapproving look on her face.