#also since their brains are scrambled they have to figure out whose memories are whose and they take the place of whoever's memory it is

[my-thoughts-and-junk]

"what was it like having integrity for once" no jerry i. i don't think you have that.

[ladanifera]

Boston, MA

2020- Pandemic. I was bored out of my mind and terminally online, as you were, as everybody else was. At that time, I became very much involved in discussions surrounding the nature of consciousness, the mind, the “hard problem of consciousness”, AI and other schizo stuff. If you have read anything about it, you probably know a thing or two about popular ideas such as the great AI X-Risk apocalypse, notions regarding the possibility of uploading your mind to a machine (!), the singularity, and others. I became fascinated by this, but also very puzzled once I started figuring out that a lot of these ideas, whilst having, at times, a lot of scientific research and funding behind them, completely lacked any kind of serious philosophical discussions around them at the time, at least any kind of serious philosophical discussions and not Reddit-level speculation or conspiracy theories.

At best, you could find an ‘ethics and guidelines’ mini page on the websites of University pages for certain startup projects containing various legal disclaimers surrounding second brain simulation research.

Furthermore, ‘thought experiments’ and ventures such as uploading your mind to a machine did not even lead to a discussion about whether the supposed ‘mind’ upload would reflect your actual mind or not, or any of the myriad of philosophical implications posed by this, at least not in any official literature I could find at the time (I am not inventing the wheel by posing this question, by the way). The big question just was: is this possible? As if the question of: Can we upload our minds to a machine? Is a question akin to asking: Can we get the man to the moon?

I remember finding some writings from a scientist named Bernardo Kastrup, who was very critical of any such notions and denounced the wish to achieve such a thing as a wish to outrun mortality and as a reflection of a historical need (since 18th-century philosophy) to fill God’s absence with science. However, I will not delve into this topic further in this particular post, as I would like to review the current literature surrounding the topic and explore it ‘as is’, today. Also, ‘AI ethics’ has become popular, and profitable.

Back in 2020 and pandemic mundo, as I said before, I spent a lot of time talking to people all over the world about this. And one day a friend (who will not be named, because I care about people’s personal data) who is particularly well-connected, invited me to a zoom meeting with a group of particularly interesting people. It still remains one of my fondest pandemic memories, along with other bigger things such as being able to escape to America while flights were in a legal grey area or receiving the news that someone was ok. But this memory is just pure fun.

This zoom meeting consisted of a nonofficial meetup of a certain organization made by doctorate students and alumni of various very prestigious universities located somewhere in the united states, whose names I will not be disclosing, for the purpose of book discussion and theory-making, etcetera. People were encouraged to be stoned or otherwise in “altered states of consciousness”. I don’t do drugs myself (my brain came out scrambled from the womb, you see). Most of the people there were from STEM fields. In fact, all of them were. I was surprised (but also, kinda not) to find out that no one else apart from me was in any sort of “humanities” field.

As a very, very obvious outsider to the group, I introduced myself. Hi, I’m Val, I’m blah, blah, I’m a law student from (…) I am interested in (…). I was also surprised at the fact that everyone in this group of very qualified people became very interested in me. I am used to being the odd one out almost everywhere I go (since I live with a survivor’s trauma of sorts, partly), and I’m used to people reacting oppositely, nodding and moving on. But no: the group of ‘humanitarian’ scientists was interested in me, and more importantly, they were interested in law, and they had a lot of questions to ask to someone who had any kind of interested in law, technology and philosophy.

Whenever people ask me about law, or about being a lawyer, or about the decision of becoming a lawyer, what I often hear are the terms “money”, “blood-sucking parasites” or questions such as: “would you defend a criminal?” followed by “how could you?”, what I got here, instead of questions about my moral character, were questions related to the necessity of law itself. One of them asked me: “Why is the law necessary, why do we need the law?” (mind you, these were not asked as mindless questions or in a mocking tone, but as the genuine interest of trying to understand how lawyers would answer these questions.)

Since this particular group of people was interested in things regarding cutting-edge technology, neuroscience, AI, and such, I figured they would be interested in the concept of justice, and of course, the law has a lot to say about justice, doesn’t it? I will not get in-depth here about how this turned out, but needless to say, it was very interesting, because I could listen to what scientists (and very qualified ones at that) had to say about fairness, justice, and equality.

And I don’t think scientists are evil, or bad, and I am not anti-science - even if I do dislike the sometimes ‘blind’ approach they can have towards certain topics. At some points, the discussion showed how certain philosophical ideas or ethical standpoints had been taken upon by them and were proudly used as a basis for the future development of a theory or course of action. As an example, one of them told me he was a utilitarianist, and he wanted to flat-out eliminate, through neuroscience and technology, the subjective feeling of pain and displeasure from human beings. I asked him if, without pain, joy would even have a meaning at all. As he understood it, joy had an intrinsic correlation to certain biological functions, so the meaning question didn’t have any bearing on how we would subjectively feel it. I still think about that conversation sometimes, he seemed very set on his plan. I would be hard-pressed to find someone here who would make such a straight-up statement as that, but he was not the only one who claimed to be a utilitarian: most of them were. They asked me “what I was” and I replied I was not sure.

They were very respectful people, and they listened to my ideas with attention. I don’t think anybody was really stoned at that time, to be honest. I like to believe they took something from what I said to them, about fairness, about people, about law, and how law sometimes can be unfair and not really hadn’t heard a lot about legal philosophy, and I claim to be no expert, after all, I was all but an undergrad, from a very tiny country in the middle of nowhere. But hey, that’s one of the wonders of a world of infinite boredom, reclusion because of a pandemic, and the internet.

[mercy-burning]

A Fire I Can’t Put Out (Songbird Chapter 2)

Pairing: Spencer Reid x Fem!Reader Summary: One week later, a chance encounter leads Reader and Spencer to each other once again. Rating: 18+ Warnings: Smut (exhibitionism, penetrative sex, unprotected sex, creampie, thigh riding, male masturbation, fingering, oral sex - male and female receiving, multiple orgasms), Language Word Count: 10k (I got really carried away lol)

SERIES MASTERLIST SERIES PLAYLIST (new songs added with the release of each chapter)

NOTE: Alas! Our first inkling of fluff! While this chapter is very spicy (you get 2 smut scenes 😉), there’s also a very cute, fluffy moment at the piano that I hope you all enjoy! (Just thinking about it makes me all warm and fuzzy inside...) See you on Valentine’s Day for Chapter 3! 🥰

(Also, everyone should listen to the song I added to the end, it’s BEAUTIFUL and I changed the song/title of the chapter to match it last minute, because I just discovered it and it was too perfect not to use lol)

***

The note felt like it was burning a hole in my pocket. It may have one time been a crumpled receipt, but now it was a searing reminder of the one time in my life that I'd broken my own rule and allowed a man to stay. It hummed ferociously, screaming at me to do everything in my power to find him again and finally learn his name at the very least.

Because that was the thing that bugged me the most. I thought that by refusing to learn his name that night, I would save myself the potential attachment, but it turns out all that did was make me even more attached to him.

I tried to convince myself over and over that it was just because he fucked me so good I thought I hurdled through space and time, and not because he was incredibly gorgeous, respectful, and pretty much downright perfect. Maybe it was all of those things rolled into one perfect, blissful night that was meant to be just that—a one-night stand. The one-night stand, if you will.

But no matter what I tried to tell myself, my thoughts always drifted back to him. S...

What could his name be? Steven? Sam? Scott? Sonny? Saxon?

I didn't want to think about it anymore. Maybe his name didn't even start with S... Maybe he meant it to mean Stranger. That was possible, right?

That was probably it. That had to be it, otherwise I was going to lose my mind trying to figure it out when there was a high chance I was never even going to see him again.

My fingers drifted over the piano keys and tried to play anything, anything from memory, anything from scratch? God, just play something... And when I finally did feel my fingers press down into the keys, I didn't register what the song was until I was singing the words.

"Say you'll remember me..."

"No!" I slammed my hands on the keys and then leaned forward on my elbows, resting my head in my hands as the loud array of notes faded into the bright, morning air. I took a deep breath and started to laugh to myself. "What the hell, Y/N..."

He wanted to be remembered, right? He wanted me to remember him. And by leaving the first letter of his name—and a note in the first place—that surely meant that he hoped I'd see him again, right? Or that I'd try to find him? Maybe that was his subtle way of telling me he'd be at the bar for the next open mic night, just in case I decided to show up again.

Or, maybe he was just being a decent human being, Y/N, you know shit like that doesn't happen in real life. Don't fucking fall for it.

I sighed and hit random keys on the piano again before getting up and deciding to take a drive.

When even music didn't take my mind off anything—which was almost never—driving always seemed to do the trick. Sure, there was usually more room for thinking when it came to driving, but for me, it was almost panic-inducing if I wasn't giving the road my full, undivided attention. It's not that I was bad at driving, but I certainly wasn't great at paying attention unless I was fully committed. Since I didn't want to seriously injure myself or die in a car wreck, I found that the best option to get my mind off of anything that was troubling me was to just drive.

It hadn't failed me yet, but maybe this would be the thing that finally sent me flying off a bridge and into a river.

I promptly decided not to think about that.

While I was going out I figured I'd stop by the coffee shop on my way out of town, that way I'd at least have a nice iced coffee to indulge in while I just wandered around. I made sure my driving playlist was downloaded to my phone before also grabbing my bag and keys, and then leaving the apartment.

***

"Hi, I'll take a large vanilla iced coffee, please."

"Will that be all?"

I smiled at the barista, whose nametag read Reyna. "Yes."

"Okay, your total is $3.50."

After handing her a five-dollar bill and putting the change in the tip jar, I stood on the other side of the counter to wait for my order and scrolled through my phone as the next person came up and ordered. It didn't take long, which I was more or less thankful for, but when I turned around, I ran right into someone's back and almost dropped my coffee.

"Whoa! I'm so sorry!"

I instinctively looked down to make sure I didn't spill anything, or that the person I ran into didn't spill anything, and when I finally looked up to apologize to their face, I froze and almost dropped my coffee anyway.

There was no fucking way.

"Hey, Stranger," he said almost nervously, his cheeks flushed.

I wasn't sure when I actually answered, but it seemed like forever because I was just so shocked that I actually fucking saw him again. I truly didn't think in a million years I would live in a moment like this, but there I was, taking in this man in all his beautiful glory.

He was more dressed up than the last time I saw him, maybe for work, or maybe that's just how he dressed sometimes. Whatever the case, I didn't give a shit because it was hot as hell. The color of his corduroy jacket was the same as his eyes, which now that I could see him in better lighting were lighter than I remembered. Under it was a white dress shirt and some type of olive green vest. His hair was still messy and downright tug-able, light curls framing parts of his face. Which was currently in the process of taking me in as well.

I smiled at him, though I wasn't sure if it was coming off as too excited, revealing myself to him, or if it was underwhelming. Or maybe it was just right?

Oh, who cares, Y/N, just fucking say something back!

"Hey, yourself. I... can't believe I ran into you again."

My stomach flipped at the way he smiled back at me, like he was almost nervous to be in my presence. Like I would have shooed him away rather than acknowledge him. He was fucking nervous and I found it incredibly endearing. It was such a contrast to... that night. Once he gained confidence, he was really something... But even now he still was really something, just in a different way, as he visibly tried to find the right words to say.

Finally, he settled on, "Yeah, I... I didn't think I'd see you again. It's... a nice surprise."

Understatement of the century, I thought as I waited for him to speak again. His voice was so... I didn't know how to describe it, other than to say it was so fitting for him, and therefore it was perfect.

Was that weird? Was I being weird?

"Do, um... Do you want to sit down?" I offered, gesturing to the tables on the other side of the café.

"Oh, I don't want to keep you if you're busy, I—"

"Nah, I had nothing going on today, trust me." I gave him a wink as we started making our way to the sitting area. "Besides, Stranger, if we're gonna keep meeting like this, I'm gonna need to at least know your name, don't you think?"

He laughed a little before shrugging, waiting until we sat down across from each other to respond. "I don't know, I... I think I like hearing you call me Stranger. It has a nice ring to it."

We both took a sip from our drinks, our eyes never losing their contact. By the way his face turned even redder, I would have thought he'd look away first, but he didn't. I had to wonder if he didn't look away because he didn't want to, or if he couldn't. Either way, I liked it.

"So, Stranger, tell me..." I said, setting my drink down and folding my hands over the table. "You been thinking about me as much as I've been thinking about you lately?"

I could tell he hadn't been expecting that question, because for a second it looked like he was choking on his drink. He coughed before setting it down, though his hand never left the cup. "I— Y—you've been thinking about me?"

Suddenly remembering the note in my pocket, I scrambled to get it out. And as he looked at me, still shocked but a little puzzled now, too, I started to wonder if maybe it was a stupid idea. But there was no stopping it, now, because that would have been even more puzzling, not to mention embarrassing on my part.

I un-crumpled the note and held it in my hands, outward so he could see his handwriting. "I've been staring at this thing and carrying it around with me everywhere in my pocket for the past week, dude."

It looked like he was trying to hide a smile, and failing miserably at it. "So... Leaving the note was a good idea, then, huh?"

I smiled, though trying to hide it wasn't even an option. "Well, it certainly got me thinking about putting a name to the face... and the body... But in all honesty I think I would have been thinking about you regardless."

He studied me for a moment, and an unfamiliar feeling in my stomach just about sucker-punched me at the way he did it, his face softening and just getting lost in thought. Or me, though I didn't want to flatter myself. Even still, the thought of him being completely lost in my presence, in my just being here, discussing our brief past, was enough to tighten the knot in my stomach.

I couldn't tell if I liked that feeling or not.

Because while my body certainly seemed to like this uncharted territory, something tugged at the pant leg of my brain like a small child, looking up at me and saying with sad eyes that they wanted to leave and go home, back to the comfort and safety of what they already knew. And who was I to deny that?

But at the same time, I couldn't for the life of me let this man go. I wanted, ached to know more about him.

I was intoxicated, and it scared the ever-loving fuck out of me.

"Can I tell you my name?" His voice almost made me jump.

I considered it for a moment, before ultimately deciding that it would be a good small step to take. "Yes."

"Will you tell me your name?"

"Maybe."

We both smiled at each other for a few seconds before an idea came to my mind. He was about to tell me his name right then I think, but I held up my hand and leaned forward, tilting my chin up a little. "You know what... Before you tell me, I wanna know something... Have you ever fucked anyone in a public restroom?"

If he'd had any coffee in his mouth, it surely would have been all over the place right then. Instantly his eyes widened and he looked around the room as his cheeks flushed redder than I'd ever seen them. "What are you doing?" he gushed out really fast, almost refusing to look me in the eye.

"Giving you a deal. No one uses the restrooms here because people are always rushing in and out to grab coffee, or there's hardly anyone here to use them anyway. Bottom line is: we can easily be inconspicuous. So here's what I'm offering."

"This isn't a good idea—"

"You don't have to agree, obviously, but hear me out."

I waited for further resistance, but he just blinked at me, and I took that as my cue. "I'm gonna get up and walk to the women's room. You'll follow me after about a minute, and if you can make me cum twice then we can exchange names and numbers."

"We... We can do that without the exhibitionism, though, you know that, right?" He spoke as if anyone would be able to hear him if he wasn't quiet enough.

"Of course. But... I really haven't been able to stop thinking about you, and judging by the way you're shifting in your seat I can tell you're strongly considering taking me up on my offer. Because you haven't been able to stop thinking about me, either. And you really want to fuck me again, probably almost as much as I want to fuck you again. So what do you say?"

He still didn't speak, only stared at me, which left me to wonder what he was thinking. If anything, he almost looked a little petrified, so last minute I decided to take a little pity on him.

"Okay, new plan. I'm still going to go into the bathroom and wait a minute for you, two tops. I am gonna give you this, though..." I grabbed a napkin, a pen from my bag, and wrote my number down on it before sliding it to his side of the table. "I'll wait for you. If you don't want to go through with this, you can leave. But then you're gonna call me later, and we'll set a date to meet up if you want. How's that sound?"

I think he was completely overwhelmed by my ultimatum, because he still didn't say anything. Though this time he seemed... awed. Not necessarily as embarrassed as he was before, but more enchanted with the idea of what I was offering, the way I presented everything to him.

Figuring that was a good sign, I winked at him and made it a point to walk to the bathroom as seductively as I could without being too obvious.

Though, the further I got, and the longer I waited in the bathroom, the more I wondered if he'd already left the café. And then it started to dawn on me that I might have acted like an asshole, giving ultimatums to a man who was just trying to tell me his name. Why couldn't I have just let him tell me? We were right there, and I had to go ahead and turn it into a fucking game... And for what? So I could get laid? The thing is, I was so sure he liked me enough that after he told me his name we probably could have gone somewhere private and—

The door opened, and I was about to yell at whoever it was that someone was in the room already, but then I saw his face and felt myself relax.

"Hey, I'm... I'm sorry if I pressured you into doing this," I said sincerely, as he locked the door behind him. "We really don't have to if you don't want, I was... I was just trying to... I don't know, be mysterious or something? Which, I guess I can be, but I promise I'm not usually like this, and—"

"Hey, it's alright. I promise. Now... I don't mean to change the subject so quickly, but I do believe I owe you two orgasms. And I don't want us to get caught, so I'd like to get to it if you don't mind."

Holy fucking shit..

"You really know how to get a girl to shut up, Stranger," I said, grabbing him by the jacket and pulling him to me. I looked up into his eyes and smirked, walking us backwards until I hit the counter, just beside the sink. "How fast do you think you can get me there?"

A small smirk twitched at his lips before he surprisingly lifted me up and promptly sat me on the counter. "Depends... You gonna keep talking or are you going to let me do my job?"

The low tone in his voice was unlike anything I'd heard from him thus far, and it lit this fire in me that I didn't know I had. With a small, involuntary moan, I spread my legs wide and let him stand between them. He pulled me in for a long, hot kiss before dropping to the ground and wiggling me out of my pants. He ended up taking off my shoes, too, so he could slip my pants and underwear off my body completely. No sooner than they hit the floor did he get to work, his hands coming up to spread my legs once again, propping my heels up on his shoulders.

Unfortunately I couldn't keep myself from moaning out as he worked my pussy with his mouth, each long, wet drag of his tongue adding fuel to the fire he'd already kindled within me. I tried to bite my fist, hoping it would muffle some of the sounds, but it wasn't working.

I was thinking about calling the whole thing off and going somewhere we wouldn't get in trouble, when he seemed to have another idea.

Before I knew what was happening, my panties were shoved in my mouth, and my eyes were rolling to the back of my head as he slipped a finger inside of me with ease. In no time I felt my orgasm creeping up on me, every pump of his fingers and every quick, meticulous flick of his tongue on my clit getting faster and faster with each passing second. I shrieked into the ball of fabric as quietly as I could manage as I started to fall, clenching and shaking around him in record time.

Once I relaxed, he pulled himself away from me and stood up, licking his fingers clean and working at his belt as I stared at him with pleading eyes. I wanted to take the panties out of my mouth, but I knew that if I did I probably wouldn't be able to keep quiet. And the fact that he'd put them there in the first place, after so clearly being flustered at my suggestion to go have a quick fuck in a public restroom, completely turned me on and made me want him even more.

I did manage a pretty decent moan when he finally came forward and lined himself up with my waiting pussy. He smiled a little before leaning forward, never entering me but running his dick over it, coating himself with my arousal. He leaned his head in and brushed my hair from my neck before kissing it, and even softly biting me. If it was going to leave bruises, I didn't care. I welcomed every kiss, every lick and bite, and every slow, excruciating drag of his cock along my pussy.

He slid the tip of himself into me for a second before pulling out and moving my face with his hand, gripping my jaw and making me look at him. I whimpered at the loss of contact where I was clenching around nothing, patiently waiting for him, and also at the gain of our eye contact. I genuinely had no idea what he was going to do next, but I hoped it involved some semblance of a repeat of last time.

But once again, he surprised me, leaning forward and bringing his mouth to mine, ripping the panties from my mouth using his own. He leaned back, the pale blue fabric hanging from his teeth, and the sight drove me absolutely wild. It didn't help that he kept them in his mouth as he slapped my clit with his dick, and it took everything I had not to moan obscenely. He could tell, too, because he brought a hand to cover my mouth right as he pushed into me and held himself there.

He tossed his head to the side and dropped my panties on the ground, then ran his hands along the insides of my legs and rested them on my thighs. "I'll keep going as long as you keep quiet."

"You probably should have kept the panties in my mouth, then," I breathed, clenching myself around him and feeling him grip my skin tighter.

"Guess you'll just have to try and be quiet like a good girl, then, won't you?"

The whimper that escaped me was utterly pathetic. And I loved it.

Needing this to get going now, I reached forward and grabbed his hips, urging him to start moving, and thankfully he did. It was slow at first as we both just savored the feeling of being together like this again.

But in a matter of seconds all pleasantries were thrown out the window, and he slid his hands up to grip my waist as he pounded into me as quietly as he could. To ensure the skin-on-skin slapping wasn't too loud, he kept his thrusts short and staccato, but incredibly deep, setting my insides on fire and making me clutch onto the back of his ass for dear life. I tried so hard not to yell out that I was pretty sure my nails broke through his skin. He hissed out sharply, confirming that I was hurting him, so I let him go and opted to for gripping his shirt instead. I drew him closer, that way I could kiss him and feel all of him at once.

I might have also needed to find some way to keep myself quiet.

I moaned into his mouth as he kissed me back, every swipe of his tongue somehow managing to perfectly find a rhythm in tandem with his thrusts, despite how rushed and sloppy we were being.

It wasn't long before I felt myself start to fall apart, my hands clutching onto his jacket for dear life as my stomach started to knot. "Gonna cum, gonna cum," I murmured into his mouth, and he pulled away to kiss my neck.

My arms wrapped around him and pulled him as close to me as room would allow, right as my eyes squeezed shut and I saw stars, my second orgasm quick and intense. I mumbled little 'uh-huh's into his mouth as he fucked me through it, and when I was done, he pulled out, leaving me dazed but also confused.

It looked like it pained him to pull his pants up and tuck his still-hard dick away, so I reached out. "Why didn't you finish? We're in a bathroom, I can clean up just fine..."

"My orgasm wasn't part of the deal," he stated simply, straightening his clothes and trying to get comfortable.

"So, what, you're just going to walk around town with a boner?"

"No. It'll go away soon, I'll be fine." Once his clothes were all the way on, he reached into his jacket pocket, handed me a slip of paper—a business card it looked like—and kissed me quickly one more time. "Besides, the next time I cum inside you, I'd like to hear you saying my name."

And then he walked out of the bathroom without another word, grabbing my panties and shoving them in his jacket pocket as an afterthought before he disappeared.

I don't think I moved for a good minute or two before I finally looked down at the card and read his note. He must have written it down before he came in here.

Y/N, I heard them call your name at open mic night, and that's when I knew. I'm free tomorrow night. I hope you'll call. —Stranger

I turned the card over and saw his number, followed by his name.

Dr. Spencer Reid.

***

The second I got home, I ran to the bathroom and fixed my... problem... I wanted so badly back in the café to finish what I started, but I'd meant what I told her. I'd sighed her name out as I touched myself the few times since I'd met her, and I could only imagine what it would finally sound like to hear her say my name. I knew she could already tear me apart at her touch, but I wanted desperately to know if my name on her tongue would have the same effect.

I was almost positive it would, but I just needed to know.

It surprisingly didn't take long for me to finish, just the mere thought of her face and the way she looked at me as I shoved her underwear in her mouth enough to take me to the edge. And finally, when I felt them practically bruning a hole in my pocket, I tensed and sighed out her name, cum spilling out over my hand and into the toilet.

The orgasm should have calmed me down, should have relaxed me, but instead, as I cleaned up and changed into different clothes, I wondered if she would actually call me.

First of all, it was a wonder I'd ran into her at all. Truthfully, I didn't think I was ever going to see her again, and when I heard her voice call out an apology for bumping into me, I really thought I was dreaming. And yet, there she was, right in front of me in all her beautiful glory.

So when she offered to sit down with me, I couldn't say no. And when she asked, You been thinking about me as much as I've been thinking about you lately? ... I was pretty sure I couldn't breathe. I didn't tend to think of myself as the type of guy who would leave that good of an impression, so hearing her of all people say that sent my heart—and stomach—into a mess of flutters.

And though the confidence I had in my ability to flirt with women in any capacity was very slim, I must have done something right. Because when I picked up the phone later that night and heard a low, "Hey, Stranger," through the speaker, I couldn't stop smiling. "Or should I call you Doctor?"

***

"YN... I'm really glad you called."

Hearing him say my name for the first time did something to me I couldn't explain. The way he said it was innocent enough, but it still made me beam with excitement.

I was curled up on my couch, wrapped in a robe after my shower and having been contemplating whether or not to call all afternoon.

I didn't want to wait too long in case he ended up making other plans or something, but I was also apprehensive. Because as much as I wanted to keep seeing Spencer, I wasn't sure I could handle breaking his heart. That's what always happened, didn't it? I started seeing someone, things would be great for the first few months, and then as they fell more in love with me I fell more out of love with them. But even then I wasn't sure I could call it that, because I never fell in love with them in the first place. Not even gotten close to it.

Would... Spencer be different? It was hard to tell. He'd already made me feel things I'd never felt before, so maybe this time would be different.

Or maybe that would just make it hurt even more when I inevitably pushed him away.

But I didn't want to think about that. All I knew in the moment was that he intrigued me, and for the first time in my life I actually wanted to to be near him almost every second of the day. Even when I wasn't thinking about him, my body was buzzing with the aftermath of him. His entire being was so magnetic that I couldn't help but be drawn to him. Even if, ultimately, I knew it would end with one or both of us in shambles, I wanted it. I wanted him more than anything, to be with him, to see him smile, to hear him talk...

That little kid that was tugging on my pant leg earlier, warning me that it was time to go home, was screaming now. Scared for its life and begging for me to turn back.

And for some reason, against my better judgement, I ignored it.

"You really knew my name the whole time and didn't tell me?"

From the pause on the other end of the line, I could tell he must have been nervous. I could see him in my head, looking down at his twitching hands as he tried to find some explanation. "Um... Well, you said you didn't want to know names, so I... thought I'd keep quiet. I hope you're not mad about that..."

I smiled. "No, I'm not mad. It was nice of you." I paused a beat before changing the subject. "So, uh... Tomorrow night..."

"Oh... Yeah, I travel quite a bit for work, and I don't get many days off, but tomorrow night is the only time I'm free for a while. So I guess it was a good thing I ran into you when I did."

"Hmm... I guess you're right. In that case, I should probably take it easy on you. Wouldn't want to wear you out or anything."

He laughed a little, and warmth bloomed in my chest at the sound. I imagined seeing him smile, which made it fully blossom. "No need. You... You could wear me out any day."

"Careful what you wish for, Stranger. Time and place?"

"I can be by your place at 6? I'll even bring food if you want."

I paused, suddenly reminded of the screaming child again. This time it was yelling, "It's not safe! Don't let him in, please!"

But God damn it, I wanted to so bad...

"Uh, sure," I finally answered, playing with the hem of my robe anxiously. "You... remember where it is? As I recall, you were pretty nervous the last time you were here, and kind of occupied with... other things."

"Oh, I—I remember everything, pretty much. I know where to go, it's okay."

He didn't elaborate. I kind of wanted him to, but figured the less I knew about him the better. I was invested in him enough already, and knowing more would just plunge me in deeper than I was comfortable with. So, I told him, "Alright. If you need directions or anything though, let me know. Should I be... wearing anything in particular when you get here, Doctor?"

The line was silent, and I could picture that little shocked expression on his face, the one he got every time I said something suggestive that he wasn't expecting. It was cute. "A—Anything you want will be fine..."

I laughed and bit my lip, leaning back into the couch. "Okay... See you later then. Tomorrow night, 6PM."

"Tomorrow night. 6PM. Goodnight, Y/N."

My face felt warm and my stomach fluttered as I curled into myself and smiled into the phone. "Goodnight, Spencer."

What surprised me most about that night was that I didn't hang up right after. I waited. And waited, until he hung up, just in case he said anything else. And I think he was in the same mindset, because we sat in silence for a good fifteen seconds before I finally hung up, shaking my head and wondering if he thought that was weird.

As it turns out, he didn't.

About ten minutes later, as I was getting into bed, I got a text message that read: I hope you know that I always have your song stuck in my head. The one from the bar. I hope you'll sing to me again one day.

I promptly sent back: If you're a good boy for me tomorrow, I just might, and set my phone on my dresser, ignoring the way my heart swelled at his sentiment.

Sleep didn't come easily that night. And when I did finally drift off, my dreams were about Spencer.

***

Usually I was decently confident when it came to my 'date' outfits. I knew what looked good on me, and I knew what made other people go, "Holy shit," under their breath when they saw me, so it should have been easy. And to some degree it was, but with all these weird feelings I was having lately, I was second-guessing myself.

But no matter how badly I second-guessed my decision, I stuck with what I knew best, wearing a thin black long-sleeved shirt with a low neckline and form-fitting jeans that flared at the bottom. A necklace with a silver diamond that matched my belly-button ring sat nicely at my chest, right above my cleavage. I opted to leave my hair down in long, loose curls that curled away from my face, and framed my eyes with simple black eyeliner and mascara, leaving my lips alone with a peppermint chap stick. Remembering how Spencer had complimented and basically worshipped my hands, I accented them with a deep purple nail polish that almost looked black if there wasn't any light shining on them. I put on a few rings that matched my other body jewelry and wore a thin, braided rope bracelet that my sister made me for my thirteenth birthday. Since I didn't think we were going anywhere, I only wore black ankle-length socks, but kept a pair of simple black heeled boots by the door in case we did decide to leave.

As for my... undergarments, I chose a nice black lace set that I only brought out on rare occasions, and I felt like it fit. The material was sheer and lacy, and that was about it. It was simple, but sexy, and that's what I loved about it. And if I knew Spencer's taste as well as I thought I did, I was pretty sure he would love it, too.

And that fact alone was enough to snap me out of my worry.

Kind of. I mean, he was still coming to my apartment, and I was almost certain that he was going to look around and probably ask some questions about things. Which, normally wouldn't be a bad thing, and in a way it really wasn't, but it still made me nervous...

I just hoped that I could keep him occupied enough so that I wouldn't have to deal with it too much.

There was a knock at my door, and I was thankful, finally pulled out of my head and into the world around me. I got up and opened the door with a smile, leaning against it slightly and taking him in.

"Hey, Stranger," I drawled, giving him a wink as I stepped aside to let him in.

But he didn't come in. Not until he was done taking me in, of course. "You... Wow, uh, hi," he stammered, holding out a bag that had to be takeout. "You look great."

As he walked in, I shut the door behind him and looked at his backside before he turned around. "Speak for yourself."

He took off his shoes, which revealed one red striped sock and one purple and blue polkadotted one, which made me smile. He wore simple grey corduroy pants and a purple sweater that matched my nail polish almost perfectly. His hair was just as perfect as it was the last two times I saw him, rightfully messy and curly that made me want to skip dinner all together and get right to dessert.

I even told him as much.

"You're kinda making me want to skip dinner."

"Oh, we... We can eat after if you want to, I don't mind," he offered kindly. It was sweet.

I laughed and walked up to him, bringing my right hand up to run my fingers through his hair. Then I leaned up and kissed him hotly on the lips for a few seconds before pulling away and letting out a low 'hmmm'. "Probably a good idea, but I'm starving."

I turned and started to the kitchen, throwing back over my shoulder, "That okay with you?"

"Y—Yeah, of course."

I turned on the light above the table before pulling out a chair for him with a smile. "I didn't really eat much today, so takeout sounded really good. I hope you didn't have to go too far out of your way to grab it, otherwise I could have made something here."

He sat down and I went to the other side of the kitchen to grab forks and plates. "Oh! No, it was alright, it was on the way over. Plus, I guess I don't really mind the travel, since I already do so much of it."

"Right, you mentioned that," I confirmed, taking a seat across from him. My dining room table was small, since my apartment wasn't that big. Even sitting across from one another, if Spencer and I reached our arms out across the table, we would have been able to reach each other's shoulders.

"Hey, do you want anything to drink?" I asked. "I've got some white whine in the fridge, otherwise I also have water, milk, and I think some Sprite."

"Oh, uh... Water is fine, thank you."

As I got up to get it, he got out the food. "Not a drinker?" I wondered aloud, grabbing glasses and the pitcher of water from the fridge.

"Not really. I'll have one on occasion, but if I'm driving I like to steer clear."

So, he wasn't planning on staying the night, then... Ultimately that was a good thing, but a small part of me admittedly felt disappointed. Regardless, I didn't let it show. "Makes sense. I don't drink a lot either, but I've been known to have a good time occasionally. And I always need white wine in the house, that's a rule of mine."

I didn't see his smile, but I could feel it. Was that weird? Feeling a smile? I'd never been able to tell, never noticed that before, but right then I just knew it was there.

But maybe it was just the way he said, "Fair enough," that made me certain.

Whatever the case, I shook the feeling and made my way back to the table with full glasses of water.

We ate with few words between us, though occasionally Spencer would throw out a random fact about the origins of the food we ate, or we exchanged small stories of both of our inabilities to use chopsticks. It was nice, being able to eat with him and not have to talk about where I was from or what my family was like. I never liked sharing that much of myself with someone that soon, let alone at all, so I was thankful for the ease our conversation carried.

Though, at one point he asked, "So, you're a musician? Is it full-time?" And it stopped me in my tracks a little. I loved music, and I was definitely passionate about it, but again, it was so personal to me that for some reason my brain kept sending me signals to turn around and change the subject.

But it was an innocent question. And I used music to my advantage all the time, it wasn't a secret that I was good at it, so I could give him an answer. And I knew that I didn't have to tell him anything I didn't want to, so I just needed to get my shit together and stop worrying. I had to remind myself that not everyone was going to use the things I tell them to hurt me. Truthfully I don't know why I was so paranoid by that, because it never happened, but I chalked it up to just looking for any excuse to keep myself closed off.

I brushed off all the discomfort and doubt I had, and took a drink of water before answering truthfully. "It's not full-time, but I think I'd like it to be. I definitely love it enough, but whether I could handle the stress of being a full-time musician or not is... well, it has yet to be seen."

"Do you write your own songs?"

"Mhm. Have been since I could talk, really. But whenever I perform it's usually covers that everyone knows. Easier to get them excited, anyway."

Spencer smiled, leaning forward a little. "You know, actually I'd never heard the song you sang at the bar that night... That was a cover?"

"Yeah. You don't listen to the radio?"

"Not really. If it all sounds like that, I may have to start, though I'm pretty sure it's not."

I laughed a little. "You'd be right about that... Still, the radio has its merits. I'm a fan of more independent stuff myself, but I keep up to date with what's new. Kinda have to."

"Why's that?"

I chewed my lip for a moment before answering. "Well, I don't do it full-time since I have a day job, but on the side I've helped with writing and producing other peoples' stuff, and a lot of it is what you hear on the radio, so..."

"Oh, that's really cool," he mused, and his eyes gave away that he genuinely seemed impressed. I almost blushed at the sight. "Y'know, I'm sure if you did decide that you could handle the stress of being a full-time musician, everyone would love you."

I laughed again. "You've never even heard my stuff."

"I don't need to," he answered truthfully. "I've heard you sing, you're incredible. And you know how to produce and write music. And, if it's good enough to be on the radio, then I know you've got nothing to worry about."

He could have just been saying that to be nice, and if it wasn't so clearly written on his face that he really believed what he was telling me, I would have thought so. Heat crept up to my cheeks, and I smiled, telling him, "Thank you," before taking another drink of water to cool myself off.

We spent the rest of the meal talking about some of our favorite music, which was a nice way to end it. We had a decent discussion about classical music (He was surprised and I think a little turned on by the fact that I knew a lot of what he was talking about in that department), and as we cleaned up the dishes he happily told me about the story behind one of my favorite classical pieces (which I didn't know and was more than glad to learn).

And while we were on the subject of music, I took him over to my piano when we finished cleaning up, which sat under the only window in the main room of the apartment. The sun was setting, casting a soft orange glow over the sleek black of the piano. Since it was a small apartment, I couldn't have a 'fancy' piano like I wanted, so it was an electric one with a few settings to change the sound. I never messed around with it though, unless I was working on something for someone else. But even then, I did that work with other people in the studio, and not at home.

"Here, sit next to me," I said, patting the small space on the bench.

We barely fit together, but it gave us an excuse to be close to each other, which I think he liked. I know I liked it, at least.

"Are you gonna play something?" he asked. "I mean, you don't have to of course, I don't want to make you or put pressure on you or anything, but..."

"I wouldn't have brought you here if I wasn't going to play you something, Stranger," I said with a laugh, turning the piano on and nudging him with my shoulder. "Though, if you don't want me to, I can think of a few other things I could do for you instead..."

I looked up at him to see his face in a flush, and I smiled, my stomach knotting in that unfamiliar way again.

"Um... Maybe when you're done playing," he said finally, reaching out to ghost over the keys with his fingers.

"Do you play?" I asked, suddenly very warm, and turned on at the idea of watching his hands work around a piano.

"A little. I... I don't know much, but I'm a fast learner."

With a small smile, I grabbed his hand and placed his fingers over certain keys to make a chord. "There. Press all of those together," I told him.

He did, and a smile broke out on his face.

"C Minor," I said. "My favorite chord."

"You have a favorite chord?"

"What, you don't?"

"I... never really thought about it."

We laughed together for a few seconds before he played the chord again, this time tapping the pedal underneath to make it ring out longer. I looked up at him with a smile, right as he looked down at me with an even bigger one. And if I didn't know any better, I'd say we got closer, even though that was impossible unless I'd sat on him. Which I didn't do. Not right then at least.

No, I cleared my throat and messed around with a few keys, trying to decide what to play. Spencer removed his hands from the keyboard as I did it, and I could feel his eyes watching my movements. The thought sent more warmth through me, and I decided to go with something familiar.

My fingers settled on the right keys and started playing the chords to Wildest Dreams. And when I started singing, I swear I felt him melt beside me. It was different from the guitar performance, because at the piano I made it sweeter. My vocals weren't as strong, and I slowed it down to make sure I got everything perfect, but made it a point to look over to him occasionally, winking as I sang some rather sultry lyrics.

When I was done, I couldn't tell what he was thinking. He looked down at me, his eyes studying my face like he was going to kiss me, but he leaned away from me, like he was deciding against it. Finally though, he spoke.

"While I appreciate the performance, it completely juxtaposes the text you sent me last night."

I really didn't know what to say, mostly because I was having a hard time remembering what I texted. I would have been able to remember any other time, but in the moment I was just too entranced by his presence and the way he was staring at me. "W—What did I say?"

My hand was still on the piano, but I felt his reach out and lightly brush over it, caressing the lengths of my fingers. "You said you might sing for me if I was good for you... We haven't done anything yet, and you still sang for me anyway."

Oh, that...

I smiled, sliding my hand out from under his and dragging my middle finger along his own, up and then back down, over and over again. "Didn't you know that I can see the future?"

He looked amused. "Oh, really?"

"Mhmm..." I kept drawing lines up his middle finger, but leaned in closer to him. "And just before you got here, I saw that you made me cum three times."

He took a moment before leaning in closer and responding, his voice barely above a whisper. "You and your ultimatums..."

"It wasn't an ultimatum. It was the future."

Our faces got closer...

"Oh, okay. I believe you."

...And closer...

"Good."

My eyes fluttered closed as he kissed me, gently and with a care that was practically butterfly-inducing. I leaned into him further, finally moving my hand up his arm and snaking up to grab his hair. As his lips parted and his tongue gently swiped over my bottom lip, I climbed up onto his lap, placing my hands around his head to anchor myself to him. He used his to grab the piano in front of him, pushing us forward a little so we wouldn't fall off the bench. The mess of notes rung out loudly in the air, much like they had the day before, right before I went to the café and ran into him.

The coincidence of it all almost made me laugh, but the humor quickly dissipated before I could, because Spencer brought one of his hands to my lower back and groaned softly into my mouth.

I moaned right back, shifting my hips slightly so that I was straddling one of his legs. He spread them wider to give me more room, and I settled nicely, grinding down and almost whining at how little friction there was between the corduroy that adorned his leg and the denim that adorned mine. That didn't stop me, though. I rode his thigh as well as I could, relishing in the way his hand pushed me further into him and his kisses got deeper and more desperate.

Eventually, though, I had enough. I pulled my mouth away from his and clumsily got off of him, standing up and unbuttoning my jeans. He turned around and reached out to help, but I put a hand on his chest and pushed him back. "Stay right there. I'm gonna finish what I started, but I need to get these damn pants off first."

He didn't argue. I held eye contact with him up until I slowly tugged my pants down and stepped out of them, lifting up my shirt a little so he could see the underwear I was wearing. As expected, his eyes wandered south, and I could have sworn I saw his pupils dilate.

But I didn't give him a lot of time to take them in. I made good on my promise and climbed up on his lap again, wrapping my arms around his neck and biting my lip as I started to ride his thigh once more. I started off slow, pressing my forehead to his and enjoying how it felt when his hands firmly grabbed onto my ass. Our lips met again, slowly and yet, also just as desperate as they had before. And with each antagonizing slow roll of my hips, his kisses got bolder, and his hands kneaded my ass, urging me to go faster.

Thankfully for him, I was feeling just as desperate as he was. So I quickened my movements on his thigh and kissed him harder, taking his bottom lip in between my teeth and tugging it before tilting my head to the other side and kissing him again. Meanwhile I could feel that burning in my lower stomach that signaled a fast-approaching orgasm. So I ground myself onto him even harder and whined in his mouth, just before pulling away to speak.

"Fuck, I'm gonna cum already," I breathed, pressing small kisses to his jaw.

Spencer squeezed my ass and leaned into my touch. "Go ahead, Y/N..."

It wasn't like he was giving me permission, but just hearing him say my name regardless sent me over the edge, and in no time I was shaking around his leg, clenching my own around him and clinging to his neck for dear life.

Once I came down, I sighed and smiled into his neck, kissing it and moving up to his ear. "Two more to go."

What he said next threw me completely off guard.

"No."

It wasn't a command, or a threat. It was a matter-of-fact statement. I pulled away and looked at him, puzzled. "What?"

He only smirked. "You said I was going to make you cum three times... You did that one all on your own."

The sultry, cocky way he said it made me melt, and I knew then that I was in some serious trouble.

The first time he made me cum was right there on the piano bench. He insisted that I sit down while he eat me out, and I wasn't one to complain. However, he did drag it out so long that by the time I actually came, it felt like I'd done it a thousand times over.

So, to give myself a little break, I returned the favor, and we made it to the kitchen before I couldn't wait any longer and promptly decided to suck him off while he leaned back against the counter. I took the same courtesy he had in dragging it out, pulling off of him completely right as he was about to cum, and I absolutely melted into a pile of nothing upon hearing how he whined and panted while I did it.

I did that in about five long, excruciating cycles before he told me it was my turn and dragged me into my bedroom.

The second time I came, he fucked me against the door, one of my legs standing on the ground while the other lifted and rested on my dresser. He didn't waste any time, just pushing my panties aside and fucking me hard and fast. And fast it was. It only took about a minute before I was convulsing around him, every nerve I had set on fire.

He let me have one more break, laying me down on the bed and taking his time stripping off the rest of my clothes. He must have spent a solid half hour just licking, biting, and teasing my breasts, his hand occasionally reaching down to graze my clit for a few strokes before returning to touch the rest of me. All the while, he slowly rutted against my thigh, moaning into my skin when he got close and stopping his movements all together for about a minute before continuing.

But I was growing impatient and squirmy. So I grabbed his face, pulled him up to kiss me, and wrapped my legs around his waist.

"Fuck me, Spencer, please," I begged, kissing his jaw and shivering at the way he whimpered hearing his name fall from my lips.

He adjusted us for a moment before sliding into me slowly, and we both let out some of the most filthy sounds I'd ever heard. Every movement and sound we made from then on was frantic, desperate, and so full of need that I was almost positive I wasn't even alive anymore. Was I even ever alive at all? Did life exist?

"I can't... I'm go—gonna..."

Spencer suddenly coming to a halt and coming inside me was all I could feel, and it brought me back to my senses. I breathed out his name as he continued emptying everything he had into me, just like he'd admitted to me that he wanted back in the coffee shop. I was close myself, but with his halted movements, I didn't get there.

As I moved one of my hands down to rub my clit, he grabbed my wrist and pinned it above my head, pulling out and then plunging back into me, causing me to gasp.

"That's my job, angel," he murmured sweetly, just as he began slowly fucking his cum into me.

If I wasn't already in trouble, that would have destroyed me.

It didn't take long before I was crying out his name and orgasming for the fourth time that night. It was the most powerful one I'd had... well, ever, if I was being honest. My back gradually lifted off the bed and my eyes were screwed so tightly it felt like they were bruising.

But God be damned if I didn't want to experience that whole feeling over and over again for the rest of my life.

He stayed there for a moment, leaning over me and brushing the softest kisses to my temple as we caught our breaths. Eventually, though, and I wasn't sure how long exactly we'd been wrapped up in each other, he pulled out and laid beside me. And if it wasn't for his cum dripping out of me, I would have probably fallen asleep right there and been happy.

As if he was able to read my mind, Spencer sat up and brushed some of the hair from my face. "I'll go get something to clean you up real quick. Don't move."

I giggled, feeling light-headed and completely blissful as I caught him in our afterglow, taking in his beauty and basking in it like the sun. "I wouldn't go anywhere even if I could."

It wasn't until he came back and started cleaning between my legs with a warm washcloth that I realized what I said.

It took even longer for me to realize that he'd grabbed and put back on his underwear and pants.

As he tossed the washcloth into the laundry basket in the corner of my room, I sat up and reached for his sweater, slipping it on before he could say otherwise. It smelled like him and fit just right, which made me feel all warm and happy.

"Did you, um... want me to stay?" he asked softly not stepping any closer.

Yes.

"It, uh... would probably be better if you left. But... You can stay for an hour or two before you go home?"

Of course it was only a suggestion, because I couldn't make him do anything. But I asked it like a question, because I really wanted him to stay, just for a little bit longer if he couldn't stay the whole night.

Spencer nodded, smiling, and looking a little relieved if I was reading him right. "You should try to go to the bathroom first. Urination after sex is essential to prevent UTIs."

Smiling, I got up from the bed and kissed him on the cheek before grabbing a pair of clean underwear from my drawer and walking to the bathroom.

When I came back with a freshly washed face, my jewelry discarded, and feeling refreshed and ready to fall asleep, he was laying on my bed with his eyes closed and his arms crossed over his bare chest. Thinking better of it, I took off his sweater and threw it at him before rummaging through my drawers for a night shirt of my own.

"You could have kept it on," he said quietly, even as he put the shirt back on himself.

I shrugged, slipping on a large brown tee-shirt and climbing into bed under the covers. "You can't go home without a shirt."

"Right..." He sounded a little sad, but maybe I was just imagining it.

I rolled over on my side and looked at him, already feeling myself start to drift off. But I forced my eyes open and reached out to brush my fingertips through his hair. "Will you stay until I fall asleep?"

"Of course," was all he said, a small smile adorning his lips.

I hummed and nestled in closer to him, and his hand came down to rub the inside of my arm.

And as much as I tried to stay awake, just so he would stay longer, inevitably I fell asleep, hearing Spencer humming the melody to my favorite classical piece.

***

My arms stretched out, seeking his warmth even though I knew it wouldn't be there. I told him, made it a point to make sure he knew he had to leave after I fell asleep.

So why did I feel saddened by his disappearance?

I groaned into my pillow and stretched my body, already feeling it ache from all that... strenuous activity from the night before. When I opened my eyes and turned my head, I saw just a glimpse of the sun peeking through the curtains in my bedroom, illuminating what looked like a piece of paper on the other pillow next to me.

I slowly sat up and grabbed it, rubbing my eyes to will myself to read it. I already figured it would be another note from Spencer, but my hear fluttered when I read it nonetheless.

Not sure when I'll be free to meet again, but I'd like to keep in touch— As much as I love when you call me Stranger, I'd prefer to be anything but.

Sweet dreams, — Stranger Spencer

Yeah. I was definitely in trouble.

***

“All my pleasure choked by pain Since I let you get away. I should’ve tied you to the bed When I had you in the flesh. Now I’m chained to the memories.

How the music played loud. How my hair came down. How you kissed my mouth With a fire I can’t put out.

Why does it feel like torture Not to have your skin on mine?”

—Liz Longley, Torture

SERIES TAGLIST: @bluesunrise02 @meowiemari​ @teenwolfgirl90

PERMANENT TAGLIST:  @elldell1204 @muffin-cup @calm-and-doctor @slutforthegubes

(Please let me know if you’d like to be added to either taglist! Thank you!)

[pearlsephoni]

The Trial of Shoyo Hinata’s Rising Heartrate, Evidence Two: The Present

Can also be read on AO3!

Rating: T

Fandom: Haikyuu!!

Pairing: Kagehina (Kageyama/Hinata)

Characters: Shoyo Hinata, Tobio Kageyama

Word Count: 1,904

Summary: In the post-Inter-High rush to improve his playing and his grades, Hinata somehow manages to forget his own birthday.

A/N: Author’s notes can be read on AO3.

They lost the Inter-High Prelims. Oikawa’s cold analysis of their quick attack managed to block Shoyo’s spike and end the game before he could even land. 

Defeat was a cold, bitter thing. It felt familiar, creeping up Shoyo’s throat and making his eyes burn in a way he hadn’t felt since his only middle school game. It was a feeling he didn’t want to feel this soon, a feeling he didn’t want to see reflected in his teammate’s eyes...in Kageyama’s eyes. 

He wanted to win. More than anything. And he wanted to win with this team, with Kageyama tossing to him. The setter’s dejected apology had made ice crawl through Shoyo’s veins, chilling and painful and making him shiver under the bright afternoon sun. He would never again let Kageyama apologize for tossing to him, would never let him regret falling back on their freak quick attack. 

So he worked. He gave his all to every practice, did his best to collaborate with every member of the team (even Tsukishima), and when he finally came face-to-face with Ushiwaka, his anger over the ace’s flippant attitude towards Seijoh made him throw a challenge at his face. Which meant he had to work even harder if he wanted even a hope of seeing that challenge through.

And Kageyama was at his side the whole time. Part of Shoyo was tempted to feel a little bitter over the setter’s ambition -- he already had boundless talent, was already called a genius by almost everyone who saw him play. Couldn’t he let Shoyo have even a chance at catching up to him? 

But a larger part of Shoyo was thrilled that his partner on the court was willing to be his partner off the court as well. When Takeda fell into the gym and announced the upcoming weekend practices with Nekoma in Tokyo, Kageyama had been right at Shoyo’s side, vibrating with the same excitement. When Shoyo had thrown the challenge at Ushiwaka, Kageyama didn’t scold him for once. No, he met Shoyo’s eyes with a glint in his own and a smirk on his face, wordlessly telling him that he would make sure that challenge was seen through. 

He was still an asshole. That much stayed the same. But he was an asshole with the same hunger and drive as Shoyo, an asshole who pushed Shoyo to be better and never let him get complacent, an asshole whose moments of quiet observation and unspoken encouragement made Shoyo feel...safe. And happy. And like he could fly even when he was nowhere near the volleyball courts. 

He hadn’t thought that having a team he could rely on and a partner he could fight beside would make him feel like this. But he’d learned a lot of surprising things in just two months at Karasuno. 

And it turned out, one of those things was the fact that he could somehow forget his birthday was coming up. In the rush to improve both his playing (difficult) and his grades (impossible), Shoyo had been focused solely on the dates of their final exams and their weekend in Tokyo. For the first time in his life, he hadn’t paid attention to the fast approach of June 21st. 

In some ways it was kind of nice. He was genuinely surprised when his mother presented him with a bowl of tamago kake gohan for breakfast, and the dish tasted even better than it usually did thanks to the surprise. The “happy birthday” texts he got from Kenma and his middle school friends made a smile stretch across his face with each one, and when one of his classmates presented meat buns to him with a silly sense of gravitas at lunch, his laughter echoed around the classroom. Considering he’d forgotten about his own birthday, his heart seemed to grow another size with each birthday wish he received from a friend who did remember. 

By the time afternoon practice rolled around, Shoyo felt like he was on Cloud Nine, filled with his favorite foods and the well wishes he’d received. Then Daichi wished him a happy birthday, sparking a ripple of birthday greetings from the rest of the team throughout practice as everyone learned about his special day. 

For the first time since he’d met Kenma, Shoyo understood what he’d meant by the feeling of “leveling up.” He felt better on the court than he ever had before - he ran faster, jumped higher, hit harder. His hand stung from all the spikes he hit and high fives he received, and he noticed with a pleased jolt that even Kageyama’s brows were raised over eyes that watched him carefully. He was the only one who hadn’t said any birthday wishes, but the pang of disappointment Shoyo had felt at the start of practice melted away under the warm feeling of the setter’s quiet approval. 

All things considered, it was an amazing birthday. The best one he’d had in a while. He felt so good after practice, he didn’t even notice that he was humming until Kageyama’s nudge made his voice crack off-key from surprise. 

“Hey.” 

Shoyo looked up from his bag to find Kageyama standing over him, holding out a small package wrapped in bright orange paper. “What’s that?” 

“...Happy birthday.” 

“Huh?!” 

Kageyama’s face was slowly turning red, and his eyes were stubbornly turned away from Shoyo’s as he continued holding out the package. “It’s your birthday today, right?” 

“Well, yeah, but...you didn’t say anything before...” 

“Because I didn’t want to ruin the surprise. Do you want the present or not?” 

“Of course I do!” Shoyo cried out, grabbing at the present before Kageyama could take it back. As Shoyo began tearing open the paper, he noticed Kageyama’s hands fidgeting at the strap of his bag, and his cheeks warmed at the realization that the setter was feeling shy over the gift. Weird. 

Then he got the package open, and he let out a shout of excitement. 

Wrapped inside the orange paper was a double-pack of Air Salonpas. “Woah, nice!” Shoyo exclaimed, a wide smile splitting across his face. “I just ran out of these! How’d you know?” 

“I didn’t,” Kageyama muttered. Shoyo’s excitement clearly reassured him, his eyes finally meeting his with a distinctly pleased glint in them. “But you wouldn’t shut up about them during the tournament, so...figured you’d get excited over getting some.” 

The mention of the tournament subdued Shoyo’s excitement, but not enough to make him stop smiling at Kageyama. “You remembered! That’s...that’s really nice of you, Kageyama. Didn’t think you had it in you.” 

“Oh, screw you!” The smug pleasure in his eyes was replaced with annoyance, a look Shoyo was much more used to seeing. Just as he’d planned with the teasing barb, Kageyama turned away and stomped away to leave the clubroom, missing the shy flush coloring Shoyo’s cheeks and ears. “I was gonna get you some meat buns after practice, but if you can’t even say thank you for this…” 

“Wait, what?” Shoyo scrambled to stuff his present into his bag before grabbing his stuff and hurrying after Kageyama. “H-hey, Kageyama! I want some buns!” 

“Say thank you, dumbass!” 

“I already did!” 

“Like hell you did!” 

“Kageyaaaamaaaa!” 

For all his teasing, Shoyo couldn’t stop turning over how thoughtful Kageyama’s present was. Yeah, it was a simple spray he probably picked up at the local sporting goods store. But he had taken the time to wrap it up in paper that matched Shoyo’s hair, and he’d bought it with the memory of Shoyo’s excited comments during the Interhigh Prelims. Out of everything that had happened over those two days, Kageyama’s tiny brain had remembered his excitement over the smell of Air Salonpas. 

It didn’t take much for him to catch up to Kageyama. As soon as his hands could reach his shoulders, Shoyo used his hold to launch himself into the air with a shouted, “Kageyaaaaaamaaaa!” He knew it would piss the setter off, but it was worth it just to hear the squawk that escaped him as he stumbled forward from the force of Shoyo’s jump. 

“What the hell?! Are you trying to kill me?” 

“So dramatic, Kageyama-kun,” Shoyo sniffed with a grin, falling into step next to him. “Hey, are you really going to buy me meat buns?” 

“After that shit you just pulled? Hell no.” 

“Aw, pleeeeease? It’s my birthday!” 

“You already got a present.” Kageyama finally cut him a sideways glance, and Shoyo met his glance with a wide smile that made those blue eyes shoot forward and those cheeks flush again. 

“It was an awesome present! I’m gonna use it everyday in Tokyo, I can’t wait!” 

“Don’t use it all up, I’m not gonna buy you more for the Spring prelims, dumbass.” 

Shoyo just smiled again, and rocked into Kageyama’s shoulder with a gentle nudge. “Still. I appreciate it.” 

“Yeah, yeah…” Kageyama didn’t look at him, his eyes weirdly fixed on the road ahead, and when he spoke again, his voice was so low, Shoyo almost didn’t hear him. “...How many buns do you want?” 

“Really?!” 

“Answer the question, dumbass.” 

“Two!” Shoyo hooted, running ahead to bounce in front of Kageyama. “You’re really gonna buy them for me?!” 

“Why are you so surprised? You’re the one who wouldn’t shut up about them just now.” 

“Yeah, but I didn’t think it’d work!” 

“What, you were just trying to annoy me?” 

“Man, I wish it were my birthday everyday,” Shoyo sighed wistfully, deliberately ignoring the question. “Then you’d have to be this nice to me all the time.” 

“Would not.” 

Shoyo’s smile and the pink on Kageyama’s cheeks remained for the rest of the walk to Sakanoshita, where Kageyama made good on his promise, shoving a paper bag with two meat buns at Shoyo. “Here. Happy now?” 

“Super happy!” Shoyo chirped, immediately digging into the bag and pulling out a bun. But instead of shoving it into his mouth, he held it out to Kageyama, who only blinked at it in confusion. “For you!” 

“Huh?” 

“To thank you!” 

“It doesn’t count if I paid for it,” Kageyama grumbled, but he took it with a twinkle in his eye and lips that quivered around a suppressed grin. “I don’t really like meat buns, but...thanks.” 

“Really? What kind do you like, then?” 

“Curry buns.” 

Shoyo hummed around his mouthful of food, and he realized that...yeah, every time the team had gotten buns, Kageyama had gone for the bag with curry buns instead of meat. “Ok! I’ll remember that for your birthday.” 

“Your tiny brain’s not gonna remember that in December.” 

“Sure it will! I always remember important stuff!” Shoyo glanced at the time on his phone, missing the surprised blink his words earned from Kageyama. “Shoot, I gotta get home. Shoot, I forgot my bike!” He took off running back towards the school, turning to run backwards as he waved. “See ya tomorrow, Kageyama!” 

It took a second for Kageyama to wave back, but when he did, he shouted, “Happy birthday!” The words made Shoyo’s smile stretch even wider, and he couldn’t help jumping to wave with both hands before he turned back around. His cheeks burned from how big his smile had gotten, or maybe it was the effort of running after practice, or maybe...nah, it wasn’t anything else. 

He was just really happy. It really had been an amazing birthday.

[dlwritings]

Call Him Hers | Dean Winchester | pt 4

series masterlist found here

general masterlist found here

pairing - Mark-of-Cain!Dean x plus-size!reader word count - 4,390 warnings - mentions of suicide, language

(A/N) - find my John Mulaney reference lol

summary - (Y/N) and Dean have a busy day but come to no concrete conclusions. Too stressed to sleep, the pair end their night watching the stars on Baby’s hood and talking about things too scary to talk about in the daytime.

(previous) (next)

(Y/N) woke up with her head on the cold bathroom floor. She immediately groaned and sat up, hovering over the toilet to throw up. There was a knock at the door, and she could only groan again in response. Dean opened the door a crack, a slightly patronizing smile on his face. “Shut up,” she muttered, turning her head back to the toilet again.

“Did you sleep on the bathroom floor?” Dean asked teasingly.

“I don’t remember,” she muttered. “I went to the bathroom at some point to, you know, puke my guts out-” Dean chuckled. “-and I don’t remember the rest.”

“Well,” Dean said, coming to sit beside her on the floor. He held her hair back as she heaved over the toilet again. “I remember hearing you throw up, coming to check on you, and you yelling at me to get out. That was around 2AM. You must’ve blacked out.”

“Oh?” she said, catching her breath again. “So that’s what blackout drinking is like?”

Dean chuckled. “Blackout drinking is when your brain goes to sleep but your body gets all Eye of the Tiger and soldiers on.” She groaned and moved away from the toilet, flushing it as Dean rubbed her back.

“Did we learn anything about the vics?” she asked.

“Yeah, not really,” he said. “I couldn’t really get any serious questions in with all your drunk rambling about what a great ass I have.” Her eyes grew wide as she turned to look at him.

“What?” she said.

“Oh, you don’t remember?” Dean continued to tease. “You just went on and on about how amazing my butt is.” She groaned and put her face in her hands.

“Go away,” she said. “I’m gonna drown myself in the bathtub.”

Dean chuckled again. “No time. Charlie and Sam are already heading out to start talking to vics’ families. We gotta start our investigating.”

“Fine,” she said, starting to stand up from the floor. “What’s your plan?”

“Well, I was talking to some of your classmates last night,” Dean said, “and a few of them are putting together some sort of event for the girls who have gone missing. I guess they’re upset that the town hasn’t been doing enough to find them. Thought they’d do something about it. I told Jennifer we’d go.”

“What time does it start?”

“1:00.”

“What time is it now?”

“A little after ten. You want to get some breakfast?”

“‘M not hungry,” she said, rubbing her eyes and staring at herself in the mirror.

“You should eat,” Dean said. “Greasy breakfast’ll make you feel better.”

“I don’t want to leave the hotel,” she said, turning around and leaning her back against the counter to look at Dean.

“Fine,” Dean said with a laugh. “I’ll order room service.”

“Fine,” she said. “I’m taking a shower.”

Dean left her alone in the bathroom, and she made her way into the shower. She felt like utter shit and hoped a cold shower would wake her up a bit. When she got out, she wrapped a towel around her body and stepped out of the bathroom to get some clothes out of her suitcase. Dean was sitting on the bed, the room service already having arrived. She ignored his gaze as she went into her suitcase and pulled out some black jeans, an AC/DC t-shirt, and a red flannel.

Dean swallowed thickly as soon as she was out of sight. Did she always look that good? Had he always wanted to grab the edge of her towel and pull it off? Shit.

She changed in the bathroom, did some quick make-up, and braided her hair into two pigtails. When she went back into the bedroom, she plopped onto the couch next to Dean. He handed her a coffee mug. “Drink this and don’t argue with me,” he said. She chuckled and smelled the coffee with a smile before bringing the mug up to her lips. She stuck her tongue out in disgust as soon as she took a sip of -what she realized was- very dark coffee.

“Ew, it’s black,” she said. “You know I hate black coffee.”

“Cream and sugar’ll upset your stomach,” he said simply, grabbing one of the plates of food that was on the cart next to the bed.

“And a greasy breakfast won’t?” she retorted. Dean raised his eyebrows at her.

“I told you not to argue with me,” he said. She rolled her eyes and forced herself to drink more coffee. Dean handed her the other plate which was piled with bacon, ham, scrambled eggs, and toast. Just looking at the food made her nauseous, but then her stomach growled and she figured Dean probably knew what he was talking about.

Once 1:00 rolled around, she was feeling significantly better. She still didn’t feel 100%, but she felt good enough to put on a good face at the event. Jennifer had told Dean that the event was at a country club about 20 minutes out of town, so they got dressed into some nicer clothes, and she and Dean headed out at 1:00 with the intention of showing up a little late. When they got there, they realized the town was basically holding a memorial service. “They’re acting like they’re already dead,” she mumbled to Dean as soon as they walked in.

The pair managed to avoid Jennifer and decided to skirt right over to Nicole and Stephanie, just glad to see some faces (Y/N) didn’t absolutely despise. “So how long have they been missing now?” she asked after the obligatory small talk.

“Hm,” Nicole hummed, “Amanda’s probably been gone for three weeks, Elizabeth two, and Sarah maybe a week and a half?” She looked at Stephanie for confirmation who nodded in agreement.

“You guys still live in town right?” (Y/N) asked.

“Yeah,” Nicole said. “We met out in California at college and moved back here as soon as we graduated.”

“So you know everyone pretty well?” Dean said.

“Well, yeah,” Nicole said with a slight chuckle. “But everyone knows everyone.”

“So Amanda, Elizabeth, and Sarah knew each other?” Dean asked.

“They were practically inseparable in high school,” Nicole said, to which (Y/N) nodded. “I guess it didn’t really change.”

“Did they have any enemies?” Dean asked. “Like, people who would want something bad to happen to them?”

Stephanie laughed. “Aren’t you a mechanic?”

Dean shrugged with a smirk. “True crime’s a hobby.” Stephanie raised her eyebrows, and Dean gave a short nod. “Humor me.”

Stephanie and Nicole looked at each other before each scanning the crowd around the room. (Y/N) immediately could tell they were about to share something they didn’t want a lot of people hearing. “I honestly don’t think Jennifer ever got over all that high school drama,” Nicole said.

“What high school drama?” Dean asked.

“I don’t know,” Nicole said off-handedly. “Jennifer always wanted to be part of their group, but they never quite let her in.”

“I feel like that was the case for a lot of people though,” (Y/N) argued. “Jennifer had plenty of other friends, right?”

“I guess,” Nicole said with a shrug.

“There’s also Ryan,” Stephanie added, motioning across the room to a guy (Y/N) didn’t recognize.

“Who’s he?” she asked.

“That’s Amanda’s husband,” Stephanie said. “They’ve been having issues for a while now. He always said she spent too much time with the girls. Guess he wanted her to grow up and get out of high school, and she never really did.”

“You think it bugged him enough to do something about it?” Dean asked.

“I don’t know,” Stephanie mumbled. “Something about him did always put me off.” (Y/N) looked over at Ryan again. He looked like what Shawn Mendes would probably look like in ten years if he stopped caring about himself. He wasn’t really looking at anybody either, but she couldn’t determine if he was capable of something crazy without knowing him. Plus, she was looking for vampire traits, and those weren’t exactly something she could determine from afar.

The rest of their time at the event was pretty uneventful. If anything, they ended up with too many suspects. When they got back to the hotel, they met up with Charlie and Sam in their room to go through the information they had gathered. So far, they had come up with a group of seven people whose motives they could make clear:

Jennifer, the jealous girl who couldn’t move on from high school.

Ryan, the husband who thought his wife wasn’t giving him enough attention.

Jamie, the girl who moved into town just before the disappearances started happening. Natasha, Sarah’s younger sister who always felt she was living in the older girl’s shadow.

Danny, the boy who had dated all three of the girls at some point since meeting them in high school.

Chis, the boy who asked all three girls out at some point and was rejected every time.

And Jojo, the emo girl who never left the emo phase. She just fit the stereotype.

“Well this is bullshit,” (Y/N) said, throwing her hands up in frustration after coming up with the list. “I feel like we’ve solved nothing. We don’t know if there’s a family or a nest or, or anything. This is useless.”

“It’s not like we usually solve this stuff in a day,” Sam said. “We’ll figure it out. We always do.”

They spent the rest of the evening going over all the information they had gathered and getting absolutely nowhere. (Y/N) was tired but also knew she wouldn’t be sleeping a lick that night with how stressed she was. She’d probably be up half the night going over the information in an attempt to find something they must’ve missed. When Charlie and Sam left the room, she got ready for bed and plopped on top of the covers with a sigh. “What’s wrong?” Dean asked, pulling off his jeans in front of her like it wasn’t a big deal. She felt her cheeks warm up as she looked away. Just seeing the tops of his bare thighs did something to her.

“Nothing,” she said. “It’s just been a long day and I’m exhausted, but I’m not really sleepy.” Dean tugged on some sweatpants and stretched his arms over his head.

“You want to go for a drive?” he asked. “I’m not really tired either.”

“Yeah?” she said. He nodded, so she stood up. “That sounds great. I know just the place.”

They left the room and headed out to Baby. Dean wouldn’t let her drive, so she gave him the directions of where she wanted to go. After almost a half hour of driving, they turned onto a dirt road and ended up at a hillside in the middle of nowhere. It overlooked a lake, and there wasn’t a city light in sight. Dean parked the car, and she smiled and got out. Dean followed her, and she looked at him, silently asking permission to sit on the hood of Baby. He nodded, so the two of them carefully got on her hood. She laid back, resting her head against the windshield. “Wow, (Y/N),” she said, mocking Dean’s voice to the best of her ability. “Star-gazing was a good idea.”

Dean laughed. “Is that what I sound like?”

“Mhm,” she hummed. She turned her head to look at him to find him already looking at her. He stuck his arm out and motioned for her to get closer to him. She did, resting her head on the space between his shoulder and collarbone. Everything was fine until she felt Dean’s fingers trace shapes on her side. She couldn’t help but flinch away from his touch, and he frowned and looked down at her.

“Are you okay?” he asked. She gave an awkward, noticeably forced laugh, nodded, and scooted away from him entirely, sitting up a bit and pulling her knees up to her chest. “You’re not okay,” he said as if he had just cracked a secret message she was sending him. He sat up straighter as well.

“‘S stupid,” she said, scratching the back of her neck. “Just having a rough day.” She scoffed. “A rough few days I guess. I really, really don’t like being here.”

“And that’s why you jumped just now?” he asked sarcastically. “Why you’ve been jumping every time I touch you?” She clenched her jaw and stared off at the skyline. “You’re not usually like this. I touch you all the time, and you don’t bat an eye. It’s like we crossed into town, and you don’t want me anywhere near you.”

“That’s not true,” she argued.

“Bullshit,” he said. “You act like I haven’t known you for ten years. Like I can’t see when you’re acting different. I know everything about you.”

“You do not,” she said.

“After last night?” Dean said with a scoff. “Yeah, I think I know everything.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” she asked, turning to look at him.

Dean cursed himself inwardly. Was he incapable of keeping his mouth shut? He continued staring at the skyline until she cleared her throat aggressively. “What are you implying?” she asked.

Dean sighed. “I told you. Everyone spills their secrets over enough liquor.”

Her heart started racing. What did she tell him? That she had feelings for him? That she loved him?

“That’s not fair,” she said. “What did I even tell you?” Dean hesitated, his eyes darting between hers, before looking out at the skyline again and scratching the back of his head.

“Just a little about your ex-boyfriends,” he said. “And your dad.”

Her jaw clenched, and she let her chin rest on her knees. “Well,” she said, “I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Dean sighed again.

“You don’t have to hide stuff from me, (Y/N),” he said. “There’s nothing to be ashamed of.”

“There’s not?” she said with a sarcastic laugh. “Because I kind of see myself as the fat girl who gets cheated on by boyfriends and got abused by her dad. To me, that’s a lot to be ashamed of.”

“You shouldn’t be ashamed of yourself because of other people’s fucked up actions,” he said. “Your dad hurt you. Your boyfriend cheated on you. You shouldn’t be ashamed of any of that. It’s not like any of that is your fault.”

“I mean,” she muttered, “if I wasn’t so fat, my boyfriend wouldn’t have cheated on me. If I wasn’t such a burden, my dad wouldn’t have abused me. At the end of the day, it does seem to fall back on me.” Dean scoffed, and she turned to look at him, noticing the way his eyebrows were deeply furrowed. “Why do you have such an angry face?” she asked with a short laugh of disbelief. Dean looked at her, shook his head, and looked away again.

“I’m just thinking about how horrible that ex-boyfriend of yours is,” he said. “And your first boyfriend. I just can’t understand how they could tell you you’re fat.”

“Really?” she said with yet another scoff. “That’s what you got from all that? That’s your big takeaway?”

“I mean, it all sucks, (Y/N),” he said. “I just hate that any of them had the power to make you think so lowly of yourself.” He paused and looked at her. “You realize you’re not fat, right?”

“You don’t have to talk to me like I’m a baby,” she said. “I know you’re seven years older than me, but-”

“I’m not talking to you like a baby,” he argued. “I’m just trying to-”

“Well stop it, okay?” she snapped. “I’m 28-years-old. I’ve accepted what I am. I’m a size 16 with a flat ass and unimpressive tits. I’m not a curvy plus-size model. I’m a fat-”

“Would you just shut up?” Dean snapped. She felt tears coming to her eyes, so she turned her head so Dean couldn’t see her face. She felt like a child, and she hated that. Something about this town was making her revert to the person she used to be before she met Sam and Dean, and she hated that person.

“I’m sorry,” she said softly, deciding to be honest. “This town, it just-” She cleared her throat and wiped some tears from her eyes. “I don’t like who I am when I’m here. It’s making me into that, that insecure girl who tried to-” She cut herself off with a shake of her head.

“Tried to what?” Dean said.

“Nothing,” she said quickly. “It was a long time ago.”

“(Y/N),” Dean pressed. She forced herself to look at him, and he reached out and wiped a tear from her cheek with his thumb. He noticed the way she leaned into his touch, and the way her eyes closed as she bit her lip made his heart ache. How had he been so oblivious to her pain for so long?

She sighed. “I was 18. It was just before I met you guys actually. Like, maybe a month before? I just, life was really hard.” She paused and blew some air out of her mouth. “Shawn just dumped me, and my dad had disappeared again, and I didn’t want to, I don’t know.” She shook her head again. “I crashed my car into a tree. Head on.” She scoffed and hung her head. “I was going so fast, Dean. I thought for sure it would do it. Turns out I couldn’t even kill myself right.” Dean was quiet, and she couldn’t get herself to turn her head and see his face. “And now look at me,” she almost laughed. “I’m 28-years-old, crying over my old life when I’m not even that girl anymore.”

She leaned back again and rested her hands on her stomach. Dean turned to look at her, and she allowed herself to meet his eyes. “I’m really okay now,” she said. “You know? Like, I am fat, but I’m okay with it. The world needs to stop treating that word like it’s a curse word or something. Like, I know my body is still good for a lot of things. I can kick monster ass, and I save people almost everyday. I’m not that girl who wants to hide anymore, but being here again-” She shuddered and shook her head. “-it’s just a little much.” Dean was still quiet, and she suddenly let out a soft laugh. “I told you you didn’t know everything about me.”

He tried to think of what to say. What could he say? He was happy she could own the word fat like it wasn’t an insult, but it didn’t mean he liked when she said it about herself. Yeah, she was thicker, but why did it matter? Why had people spent so long trying to convince her that it mattered? And she had tried to kill herself? Only a month before he met her? It was too much. She meant the world to him, and to know she had been so close to death without him by her side-

God, it was too much to think about.

Dean laid down next to her again and surprised her by putting his arm around her. Even when she instinctively flinched as his hand gripped her side, he forced her to stay put.

She turned her head to look at him to find he was just looking at the sky. She studied his face, not usually able to be so close to him. His freckles dotted across his nose and cheekbones, and his stubble was just starting to get to the point where she knew he’d probably do a trim. Even in the dark, she could see the bright greens of his eyes and the slight bags beneath them. His lower lip was just barely tucked between his teeth, and he suddenly darted his tongue out to lick it.

“You know I’m actually eight years older than you, right?”

She furrowed her eyebrows, snapping herself out of the trance she had managed to put herself in. “What?” she said. Dean turned his head to look at her.

“You said I was seven years older than you,” he said. “I’m eight. The minute you got it wrong I wanted to say something, but it didn’t seem like the right time.” She couldn’t help the way the corner of her lip curved up into a smirk.

“You’re such an idiot, Dean.”

Dean kissed her temple, and she could feel the smile on his lips. Her hands were still resting on her stomach, and she brushed one of her fingers along the band of Mary’s ring, allowing herself a moment to believe it wasn’t all pretend.

The two of them got back to the hotel room around midnight, and (Y/N) fell right into bed. Surprisingly, she and Dean were both out like lights. She slept well until about 3:00 in the morning when she woke up to the sound of Dean screaming.

Dean had been having a lot of nightmares since he got the mark. They were all so violent and bloody. Most of them ended with him killing Sam. Some of them had him killing her. Neither of them were good. He didn’t know if one was worse than the other. He knew destiny said he would end up killing Sam, so those felt like taunts over the future. The ones where he killed her just felt like the mark threatening to make him kill everyone he cared about.

(Y/N) sat up quickly, blinking as her eyes adjusted to the darkness. She quickly turned on the lamp beside her bed and simultaneously grabbed her gun from the nightstand only to find the room empty. She looked over at the couch to see Dean laying rigid, his head thrashing from side to side. “No,” he mumbled. “No. (Y/N)!” He let out another shout followed by, “No! Run! No!” She swore it sounded like he was crying as she shot out of bed and rushed over to him.

“Dean,” she said, putting her hand on his arm. “Dean, wake up!” It took a few shakes before Dean sat up, breathing heavily in a panic. “Hey, hey, take a breath,” she said, keeping her hand on his arm. Her fingers accidentally brushed across the Mark of Cain, and Dean winced out of her grasp. She didn’t know if it hurt or if it was a reflex like the one she had earlier when he touched her side.

“Just a dream,” Dean mumbled, looking at her. He felt grounded as he looked into her eyes. Her calm, clear eyes. He put his hand on her cheek and brushed his thumb across her skin, nodding to himself. She was here. She was okay. She was alive. “Just a dream,” he said again.

“Do you want to talk about it?” she asked. He didn’t say anything, just dropped his hand and stared off into space for a moment. “Hey,” she said, putting her hand on his cheek, making him look at her. “I know you’re hurting, but you’re not alone, okay?”

“Yeah,” he said, noticing the scratch in his voice from the shouting. “Yeah, I know.” She stood up from her crouched position and stuck her hand out.

“C’mon,” she said. “Come sleep in the bed.”

“It’s alright,” he said, shaking his head. “You don’t have-”

“I know I don’t have to,” she said. “I want to. Come on. This is ridiculous. If you’re gonna have nightmares, you should at least be comfortable during them.” Dean chuckled a bit and finally took her hand, allowing her to guide him to the bed. He got under the covers, and she laid beside him. She turned on her side, facing away from him, ready to head back to bed. Dean then cleared his throat.

“(Y/N)?” he said softly.

“Mm?” she hummed. She could hear him struggling to spit out what he was trying to say, so she turned her head to look at him. He almost looked embarrassed. “What’s up?” she asked.

This was stupid. Ridiculous. Why was he acting like a teenage boy? He just needed to say what he needed to say. It wasn’t a big deal. It wasn’t that weird of a request. So what if he was being a little vulnerable? (Y/N) was his friend. She wouldn’t care.

Then fucking talk, Dean.

He looked down at her and instantly relaxed.

“Can I just hold you?” he asked. “In my dream, you just-” He stopped himself with an abrupt shake of his head. “It would just make me feel better.” She swallowed, trying to tell her heart to stop racing, then nodded.

“Yeah,” she said. “Yeah, that’s okay.” Dean scooted closer to her and wrapped his arms around her so he was spooning her. They were both quiet, and she was still trying to get herself to relax in his grasp.

“You know I’d never hurt you, right?” Dean suddenly whispered, his breath tickling her ear. Sometimes he worried. Worried that the man the mark was making him become scared her. That someday, he would do something wrong -something too wrong- and she would never be able to look at him the same way. He just needed her to know -needed to make sure she knew- that no matter what, he would never, ever hurt her. The mark could never change him so much that he would hurt her.

“Course,” she mumbled, putting her hands on top of his and rubbing her thumb across his skin. She didn’t even realize the way her fingers played with his wedding band. He did. “We’ll get through this, Dean,” she whispered. “I promise.” Dean pressed a feather-light kiss to her ear.

“Sometimes I don’t think I deserve you,” he mumbled.

She almost scoffed. “You deserve everything that is good and more, and I won’t ever stop reminding you of that.” After a beat of silence, she added, “But if you steal the blankets, I’m going to put my cold feet on you.”

“Why are your feet cold?” Dean asked.

“My feet are always cold,” she replied.

“Hm,” he hummed. “You should get that checked out.”

She yawned. “Go to bed, Dean.”

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[staycatcher]

Anguish 002- Anarchy

“Out of genuine free will, I, Lee Minho, exercise the divine right to reject my sacredly designed soulmate.”

Member: Lee Minho / Lee Know x Femme Reader (she/her)

Au: FratBoi! Minho + Rejected Soulmate AU

Genre: Angst, with added fluffy flashbacks past life to make it enjoyable lol

Rated T for a #@&% ton of swearing, violent bodily reactions/extreme pain, hospitals, drunk people, altercations, and just general intensity 👀💀

Note: It skips around a lot, a border is before and after the past life flashbacks/dreams and after those, it’ll say when/where it’s set!! Hmu if it’s still confusing~

Word Count: 4.3k

Anguish series 2/?-  001, ~002~ 

Edited: 210116 (Original: 190918 )

‼Edit: rewritten to exclude Kim Woojin, so the characters in the plot are now all scrambled and changed from the original!! If you’ve read this before- first of all thank you so much🥺💓💞- secondly you might want to reread because of the supporting character changes going forward!!😅🥰💝‼

Your eyelids flash open in the backseat of an unfamiliar sedan, the car jostling your seatbelt-less form about as it’s swerving fast down the side streets in the dead of night. Being brought back to consciousness unfortunately also brought agony that unconsciousness saved you from. Your current state knocks the breath right out of you, forcing out pathetic whimpers for breaths of needed oxygen, alerting the people in the front. 

“Y/n?” Through the agony just of just being conscious, you hazily hear Jamie’s highly concerned voice. This is the first time in your decade-long friendship that you’ve heard her voice sound like this. Though, you only hear your surroundings very blearily and distant as if you were some sort of different time and space. Her voice- it was full of fear!

 You just croaked out an incoherent sound as an acknowledgment as best you could between gasps for air. That’s all you could conjure, with your heart and brain pulsing magma through your entire body. Your insides must be neon at this point from the excessive heat and energy surging through you. You felt as if you were burning up, burning [alive]. Not even the overflowing tears, sweat, pathetic snot, and slobber could cool you from the intensity of the fever.

“Is she awake?!” 

“I think so? She’s making weird noises and she’s moving!”

“Oh my god, oh my god, oh-” The rattling car slowed down a bit.

“KEEP YOUR EYES ON THE FUCKING ROAD, SEUNGMIN!” 

“I’M SORRY! JESUS!” The car sped right back up, maybe even faster than before, ramming into a harsh turn which came with an entourage of groans from both the vehicle and its passengers. 

“Fucking hell!” 

“I said I’m -fucking- sorry!”

“Just keep driving, for Christ’s sake! And I’ll keep giving you directions!-”

“Okay, okaayy!!~ God!”

You’re not quite sure how much time passed from the time when you awoke in this godforsaken sedan and when it reached a full stop. It could have been five minutes, fifteen, or an hour. The torture of rejection had you blacking out frequently on the turbulent ride to this unknown location. Your main focus is only on the sole fact that your soul was getting ripped apart each second, a chaotic ride was the least of your worries. The only stream of consciousness you remember is that you threw up in the backseat once or twice, and all-consuming, volcanic pain and fever. You also had no idea where in the hell they were taking you, and you weren’t in a state to care. Hell, you didn’t even know what was up and what was down, what year it was, you had much more prominent, violent, bodily reactions that took up all of your bleary concentration. 

Once the car did reach a full, screeching stop you heard the grating metal of the rush of seatbelts being undone, the jerk of the car’s ignition switch off with a gritty rattle of keys, doors being ripped open, slammed shut, only for the doors near you being ripped open in succession. It made your ears bleed, or maybe they were already bleeding. Wait, are my ears bleeding? 

“Holy shit!!”

“How in the hell did she puke that much?! My fucking car!” 

“Oh my god, Seungmin, shut the fuck up! We’re not worried about that right now! Help me carry her in!” 

“Okay, okay, okay! Jesus!” 

“Here, I’ll come on your side.” Another door slam. Soon after, you were startled to feel a pair of comparatively cold hands latch at each of your arms and gently ripping them out from under you, pitchy sounds of disapproval screeched out of you before they began dragging your wrecked body towards them. You weren’t conscious enough to feel the amount of humiliation you normally would at being fussed over like this, or how you may appear or what sort of public decency you might have. You could only spit out loud incomprehensible sounds of discontent. So out of it, you had no choice but to submit to whatever they were doing and allow yourself to be helped, even if you currently feel like your suffering is being heightened significantly. Your eyes were still swirling around inside your head in dizziness, brain throbbing, being upright only aggravated your body more with the forced movements and new changes in circulation. 

“And up!~” That was met with groans from all of you.

“Fucking hell there’s more of her than I remember!!” 

“Shut the hell- Literally no one has ever asked you anything, Seungmin.”

“It’s not like that! I’m saying she’s tall, Jamie! Why is she so long-”

”For the love of fucking theater, please put a sock in it. I thought you were supposed to be the quiet one!” You can barely hear them by now, their voices blurred away further and further until you once again float away and away, right back into the mercy of sweet, sweet unconsciousness. 

Soft snowflakes fall upon your warm cheeks- happy, smiling cheeks. It was only because of said precious snowflakes melting against your warm skin that you were made aware that your cheeks must be as red as the scarf your grandmother knitted for you. Despite all this snow, all you could see was what was vaguely forty or so yards away from you: A single figure among the rest, a handsome young man with whom you felt an immediate pull. 

Your train was about to leave and the rambunctious morning rush is now in full swing. The train you were supposed to catch to leave to a new city with a future waiting for you would take off soon, you kept trying to remind yourself. You couldn’t risk losing your train for a random stranger! But, despite all of your best efforts to carry on, you felt no urge to go and chase a suddenly meaningless mode of transportation. You felt full all of a sudden, complete, all because of some blurry stranger in front of you, whose silhouette you could barely even see amongst the hoards of people bustling past you in every direction.  

My god, does this mean- Could it be?! This feeling, this person, is that- 

“Is that ‘You’?” You heard your voice call out, loud enough to yell over the hustle and bustle, your eyes twinkling wide in wonder. 

Nothing else in this world could matter even half as much as this person in front of you. This person you hardly got glimpses of in-between rushing people. Not even the train that would take you to a safe, guaranteed future, seemed to weigh as much to you as this stranger. Just glimpses of this man, made things feel right, in a way you couldn’t begin to explain. A feeling deep, deep inside you told you that everything in your life has led to this. That you came to this train station to see him, and not to leave the city to another. If it was socially acceptable to slap yourself in the face for what you are currently thinking, what you are currently doing- you’d do it. You were going to miss this train, your ticket was not refundable, you had an opening to pursue-

“I’d assume so!” He tried to get out loudly all the while shoving through, inching closer. Without a doubt, he was just as affected as you. Seemingly, entirely more thrilled like he had no other plans than to meet you, despite the blatant fact he must have some. He’s at the train station at daybreak for god’s sake! 

“Where are my manners? I’m sorry!! My mother would have a fit- raising me better than this!” His tone was infinitely more friendly and silly than you would have predicted, especially in comparison with the words he said. Why is he smiling so wide while apologizing? For some reason you loved it! This must be one of his many quirks.

“My name is Minho Lee.” He came even closer as he was saying this with cool, confident footsteps inching your way despite the busy, disruptive rushed bodies, all with their own lives, their own hurried paths. All that was important to you suddenly was this beacon of a person in front of you, whose DNA was handwoven by the celestial, specifically for you, a matched set. 

“I’m Y/n, Y/n L/n- It-it’s a pleasure!” You offered your hand for him to shake. You didn’t even know what to say, you just relied on your natural politeness and ingrained manners to get those few words out. 

“The pleasure is all mine, Miss L/n.” And then he smiled, his angelic feline smile sealing the deal. Just with his sparkly smile and an electric handshake, all your doubts fade away. 

Park Jinyoung Memorial Hospital

Room 3025

“-I don’t want him here!! I’m not letting him come in here!“ You come to, the sound of a vaguely familiar voice waking you up. None of your other senses seem to be working well besides your hearing, and even that was dubious, barely catching any of the words that were being said, almost as if you were underwater. 

“Jamie! It’s been ten hours! He’s her soulma-“ Ten hours- since what?

“I don’t give a flying rat’s ass, Chris!! He’s the reason she’s like this! He could hurt her even more!!“ Jamie and Chris? Jamie and Chris- where have you heard those names again?

“Jamie, shut up!! Her monitors will go off, they said she might still be able to hear- you’ll stress her out!!” Monitors?! Monitors, what places have monitors? Are they talking about you? You think so- You tried to open your eyes to investigate, but they refused to budge.

“‘Think this is bad, Seungmin?! Think what’ll happen if Minho walks through the door-“ Huh?! Minho!! That name sounds familiar- The blaring sound of a heart rate monitor beeping interrupts your thoughts before you can continue much further.

“Don’t say his name! She’s reacting negativ-“ They have to be talking about you! The heart rate has to be yours right- you reacted and then the heart rate spiked- then the sound happened. WAIT, YOU’RE IN A HOSPITAL! You’re in a hospital and hooked up to things! Your monitors give off an alert, though that doesn’t shut up these people you’re hearing. 

“Oh?! So you don’t want me to say his name but you want me to allow his unstable ass to come on in and get some visiting hours on the books?! How does that even make sense, Chris!?” Oh wow. Okay, this is- a lot. 

“Jamie, be realistic-”

“No you guys be realistic! Y/n’s parents are flying out here and they’re allowing me to speak on Y/n’s behalf until they land. And I’m not allowing that fucker to come anywhere near this room until she’s healed a little-” Seriously, what in the hell is going on right now? So much is happening all at once, you just woke up- What happened?! You want to go back to your dreams, not a whirlwind of whatever the fuck this is.

“Who says she’ll heal? Her soul is dying-” Hold up! Pause. What now- ‘dying’?! DYING? WHAT’S WRONG WITH MY SOUL? 

 “SHE’S D-“ The voice tried to continue, only to be cut off, but it’s to be expected at this point though. All you can do is stand and watch… well in your case, lay down and listen... to try and help you make sense of this.

“Don’t you fucking dare.”

“It’s true! Y/n’s-”

“I said don’t… the two of you can leave now.” Oh god- this is just getting uglier and unpleasant by every shouted word. What on earth did you wake up to, well... you’re not completely awake to be fair. You can’t seem to feel or move. It's like you’re just floating around, distantly experiencing your sense of sound.

“Jamie!”

“Leave.”

“Jamie, I’m her friend too you can’t just-” They’re my friends!! That’s how I know these people! Finally some answers!

The sound of a door being burst open met with quick footsteps. “Is everything alright in here? What’s going on? Do I need to get a Doctor? Security?” Hearing the distress of this person made your heart race faster, yet again, nerves heightening by this highly concerned person storming in. 

Wait- what were you even in here for?

“No-”

“They were just about to leave, ma’am-“

“I’m sorry, but I’m going to have to ask all three of you to leave. We have to calm her down and then run some tests. It seems that Y/n's vitals became unstable again. We’ll contact you, Jamie, and her parents when we’re done, and you can come back.” 

You were out in the country, on your way to fetch some water from the well for you and your oversized family. Being a frequently forgotten middle child, you often get away with hiding away in these fields, perhaps with a book or some sewing project you worked at, or perhaps just taking in the sun’s rays, cloud gazing, or napping like a kitten in the pleasant sunlight. Alas, today wasn’t so kind to you and as your younger brother who was usually charged with this task, fell sick in bed, thus the task was passed along to you. 

The well wasn’t too far, a nice walk for some. But all this time could be spent doing something more fun, something filled with more imagination than someone your age should have. Something curious or something that instilled peace in your heart. Something that didn’t involve hauling water in buckets back to the cottage without it sloshing it all over the place, spilling it, and splashing onto your layers in your rush to get back. 

Out of breath and traveling back with a heavy wooden bucket filled to the rim with water in each hand, your hand-me-down clad self began walking back along the dirt road. When you finally decide to look ahead and not at the buckets, you spy two people on horses trotting your way. You shake your head a few times making sure that what you were seeing was actually happening and not one of your daydreams.

Today was not a day full of your mind's little tricks, this was happening. It was made real as each second drew nearer. The two seemed to slow down their trotting as if to approach you. As they grew closer, the clearer they became, making it all the more apparent that they were in some sort of uniform, clearly of higher status within the military. Your eyes grew to the size of the chipped plate you ate upon this morning. It wasn’t often you’d see or interact with anyone with a status of any kind, much less outside of the village, right outside your family’s humble cottage doors. 

Eventually, the two came to a complete stop in front of you. The first man on your right seems to have a stern look despite his pretty lips, he could only be described as beautiful. His face was angular yet soft but his aura made it feel sharp, his presence alone felt important. He cleared his throat, right when your eyes were about to wander to his companion, who’s eyes you could feel began to take you in. You gasped in realization, quickly set down your buckets, and deeply bowed, paying your overdue respects. You nearly forgot to, too startled by their presence, to say the least. 

“I beg your pardon, sirs! It’s not often I see military in the area, it certainly is a shock! Please forgive my manners!” You wobbly got out, still bowing at a ninety-degree angle and looking down low at your worn shoes, too embarrassed to look up now. They could beat you for your disrespect if they wanted to. Your mother would have killed you herself if she found out. 

“Let it rest, Sergeant.”  You heard a downright musical voice chide the soldier you made eye contact with earlier before continuing. “The poor girl is spooked, to say the least! Not much unlike that new recruit- what’s his name- Jeongin! Not unlike Jeongin’s horse!” You couldn’t hold in the snort at his execution of what you’re assuming is supposed to be a good-natured joke at your expense to ease tensions. He seemed to be just as flustered as you, his delivery mocked himself more than he could’ve attempted to mock you!

 When you finally decide to look up, you instantly make eye contact with him. Unfortunately, you become even more ‘spooked’ than before! This man was astonishing, completely, and utterly astonishing. He looked as if he were carved out of stone, but his voice was so sweet and mischievous. He was the sort of contradiction you’ve read about in books, you still couldn’t fully comprehend if this is just another one of your daydreams or your reality. His radiant features almost make you fall over before regaining balance, but not without emitting humiliating noises that had the two of them snickering.

 And you thought that other guy was pretty! Just one moment of eye contact with this one before immediately feeling tingles from your head to your toes and your face became even hotter now; hotter than the sun. 

“My soulmate?” He gasped in amazement, amazement at you. His eyes lit up like he was handed the keys to a castle for a weekend. He’s full of newfound energy and leaned a bit too much on the flirtatious side for your face to handle. Your face could only get so red. He was testing your body pigment’s limits and he didn’t say more than a few sentences. 

“Soulmate?” You whispered, fully astonished now. Your brain is surely gonna fry any second now. Your unrelenting plate-sized eyes zooming across the entirety of his being, trying to take it all in at once with the wonder of an astronomer looking at the night sky for the first time.

“You know what this means, Sergeant Hwang?” 

“Lieutenant , we have t-”

“It means I have some parents to meet!” 

“What are you- you haven’t even asked for my name!” Your voice ripped itself out of you without your permission, your sentence could only be described as informal.

“Right, you’re quite right, even if you were a bit informal, I’ll have to forgive you for that now that I have been equally as such.” Then all of a sudden he began to dismount the horse, making your eyebrows fly to your hairline. He quickly dismounted the horse with the grace of a dancer, and immediately began to approach you. While all this was happening, ‘Sergeant Hwang’ had no problem gawking at you and his superior, but you could hardly care. Most of your energy focused on your sense of sight now that he was coming out of the now blinding setting sun and off his high horse, literally. And what a sight to behold he truly was. His gorgeous, generously lashed eyes looking right into yours, now only a respectable foot away from you.

“What’s your name then, my love?” He asked, reaching for your hand, instantly giving you both a zap which makes you both giggle in awe. Just the touch of him had you toasting in your high collared cotton. The sizzling increased but the realization set in, your hands were the two final pieces to the puzzle. Nothing in your sheltered, naive world made so much sense or felt so right like this.

“It’s- it’s Y/n.~” You breathed, looking up from your connected hands into his sharp facial features that became soft with endearment, crystal eyes gleaming at you in response.

Sigma Kappa Zeta Fraternity House

Twelve hours ago

“WHERE THE FUCK DO YOU THINK YOU’RE GOING MINHO?!” Changbin started chasing after Lee Minho who already made it the majority of the way up the narrow, carpeted stairs. Changbin was outraged that he’d pull this shit, especially at a time like this.

 For some reason, in his mind, he thought that when Minho found his soulmate, his reckless behavior would cease. Alas, he witnessed with his own two eyes, Minho did just do the unthinkable and rejected the very person that was made for him. Shock and anger didn’t even begin to describe how Changbin felt. He had to get to the bottom of this, this just didn’t make any sense. This behavior just wasn’t acceptable anymore. Minho has gone too far. He could no longer tolerate his friend’s bullshit. Someone had to collect him and knock some sense into him!

If Changbin had to be the one to knock some sense to Minho he would. When he saw the way Y/n and Minho looked at each other, he was ecstatic that it was you he was destined for. He’d never admit to it unless probed, but he may or may not had eyes for you a semester or two ago.

Noting your understated beauty and the unabashed quirks like how you only sat in odd positions, the excessive amount of pens and highlighters you liked to use, and your unrivaled cuteness despite your grunge exterior. He knew you could be just the right person butter Minho up, but he didn’t even let you say a sentence to him before he severed the celestial bond before booking it the hell out of there without a second thought.

What Changbin wouldn’t give to find his own soulmate, his one and only, and to see how quickly Minho just threw his away- No, Changbin couldn’t just stand there and watch! Minho wasn’t being rational, he probably wasn’t even thinking at all! He was being completely and utterly selfish, a fucking coward.

Changbin was tailing after Minho now, catching up closer and closer with each stride through the masses of drunk or high college kids. Minho was beginning to run with a limp, palming at his chest, as he was shoving his way through crowds of endless people partying their sorrows away. The younger one started to notice the closer he got, the more clearer it was to see that his friend looked off. Like he was injured, or maybe seriously sick. As if he was not only running from you but also running away from the symptoms and the consequences of his actions. 

Changbin barely made it in time to catch Minho when he inevitably doubled over in pain, shouts of which were being swallowed down, only bits and pieces coming out as chokes and grunts, and he refused to even look at Changbin. Completely and utterly ashamed, and full of frustration as he was trying to get Changbin off of him. But changbin was easily stronger than him in this state. The swarms of people on the main level just aloofly made a bit of a way for the two boys, with a roll of the eyes, just assuming it was another drunkard wilding out with a friend coming after him.

“What the fuck has gotten into you, Minho?!” Changbin interrogated, holding Minho at his shoulders with eyes studying him with the disappointment of a father and the confusion of a child.

“Ssstop- just- fUCk! Let go of me-“ Minho was thrashing in his arms, at this point he rendered a fish out of water, in dire need of something out of reach to breathe clearly. Beginning to freeze up as well as he hissed breaths in and out, acting as if he was going to pass out soon if Changbin didn’t do something, but what exactly, Changbin had no idea. 

Changbin has only heard distant horror stories of people rejecting their soulmate, shit like his sister’s friend’s brother’s cousin. Never in his life did he think he’d witness such a thing right before his very eyes. Before now, he didn’t even know what the incantation even was to reject a soulmate! Was there an incantation to undo it? Was there more than one to reject someone and if so did it need a specific matching reverse incantation? Does Minho know the reversal to the one he recited? Or could you even reverse it in the first place-

“Minho!!” Changbin gripped him by the shoulders this time, forcing his thrashes to a stop, though Minho was still huffing and puffing far too much to be just from the quick dash he did. “How do you reverse this!?”

“It’s too late, it’s too late, it's too laaaate~!“ Minho wallowed, practically blubbering, his eyes dazed and distant.

“Get over yourself!!” Changbin gritted his teeth before smacking him across the face, shaking his own head in disbelief. 

“OWW- wHAt the fU-“

“I said, get over yourself!” Changbin clutched at Minho tighter, forcing him to look into his fiery eyes. “Think of others for once and grow the fuck up, already! You got yourself in this mess, now how do you get yourself out of it?” 

“I did it out of free will-” Minho gasped for air, glaring his once sharp eyes at him. “It won’t be easy-” With each second passing by Minho’s breaths became more labored, his body twitching and stiff with intensity, veins popping out, pleading for help. 

Unlike the quick wildfire of pain you went through, Minho experiences a slow, dull pain creeping up him, leaving him begging for it to be over before it even really began. Drawn out, slow and steady in the worst way, with each minute he began to wish it were harsher or to get it over with. This dull, icy knife cutting at him slowly, was truly torturous, like a death from a thousand cuts. 

Changbin, on the other hand, was honestly so disgusted with this entire situation, and the fact it was out of his best friend’s own doing, made it even worse for him to deal with.

 “I don’t care how hard it is!! I want to know how to fix it!!” Changbin scorned and silently prayed to the universe to give him the patience to deal with Lee Minho for the rest of the long night he knew they had ahead of them. 

[delicioussshame]

So I had this idea and I decided to write it. Set in the poly universe, but not actually part of the main fic, and thus won’t make it to AO3. Explicit and huh... you’ll see. Darker than usual for this AU.

“Binghe, ah, you’re home… early.”

His husband’s eyes burn trails of fire on his skin as he stares at him, before he slides a hand behind his head and pulls him into a kiss like he wants to eat him whole.

Not exactly an unusual reaction from Luo Binghe when he returns.

Mobei-Jun doesn’t bother to stop touching him. Why would he? Luo Binghe won’t ask him to.

“Shizun.”

Shen Qingqiu swaps at him. “Husband.”

Luo Binghe nods, enthralled. “Husband.”

“Better.” How can something so simple be so hard to understand? Shen Qingqiu will never stop being grateful that Luo Binghe was never exposed to sexy professor/naughty student porn, or his sex life would be even harder to manage than it already is.

“I see Husband hasn’t been lonely during my absence.”

Shen Qingqiu still finds it in himself to blush, somehow. “And whose fault is that?” If Luo Binghe has a jealousy crisis now of all times...

But no. Luo Binghe stays silent, preferring to latch his mouth to Shen Qingqiu's neck and suck until Shen Qingqiu is holding him there with trembling fingers, while Mobei-Jun is pressing against his back and spreading his hands all over him. His thighs open of their own accord to make space for his husband to nestle closer.

Instead, Mobei-Jun takes advantage, hands sliding down to tease the sensitive inside of his thighs and occasionally brushing against his hard cock in a way he knows isn’t accidental. Shen Qingqiu cannot stop pleas for more from escaping his mouth.

It's Luo Binghe’s fingers that find their way inside him first, pushing inside and stroking exploratoringly until Shen  Qingqiu starts squirming and cursing the bad things he did in his past life that earned him not one but two lovers eager to tease and slow to actually act. It’s not like they’re not into it too. When they’re that close, he can exactly how affected they are. Meanly, he rolls his hips, taking his turn at teasing. Both of them growl, the deep vibrations travelling through Shen Qingqiu. See what messing with demons get you? This is what they should teach at the sect. Don’t underestimate demons, before you know it they'll have seduced you and then won’t deliver until you've gone crazy.

“Husband is so beautiful like this, this disciple cannot hope to resist him.” His fingers move deeper while Mobei-Jun’s trails his along his length, his own erection rubbing wet and dirty against his lower back. “But he would hate to force Husband into something he doesn’t desire. Will Shen Qingqiu tell this disciple what he wants? This Luo Binghe would never forgive himself if he did something wrong.”

Shen Qingqiu could... No, forget about could, Shen Qingqiu bites his husband hard enough to draw blood.

Luo Binghe bites right back, which has Shen Qingqiu flinch away from him. “Binghe!” He knows better! Their ideas of rough play are different and he’s very aware of it!

Luo Binghe looks repentant not at all. In fact, he licks the blood off his lips like he relishes the taste.

He also adds another finger and shoves it deep, relentless until Shen Qingqiu’s throat is sore from screaming. “Well, did Shizun make up his mind? Does he want more from this disciple, or does he prefer to remain like this?”

Shen Qingqiu has half a mind to just ignore his husband and pick his other, more respectful lover, who isn’t going to make him talk. No one ever complained that Mobei-Jun was too loquacious.

It would be a callous thing to do. Mobei-Jun still is Luo Binghe’s underling after all. It wouldn’t do to put him in a position where he has to oppose his lord. And while Luo Binghe is often, too often if you asked Shen Qingqiu, content to watch, the way he keeps fingering him and making sure Shen Qingqiu couldn’t give himself relief made obvious he would favor more proactive means tonight.

Shen Qingqiu sighs, or he would if he could. What’s the point of trying to resist Luo Binghe? That’s a fight he’s not going to win, nor would he want to. “This master is willing to let his husband have whatever he fancies, as long as he stops being a terrible tease and do somethi- AH!”

Mobei-Jun’s arms snake around him to hold him up as Luo Binghe grips his hips and pulls him toward him, fucking him hard, just on the verge of too much. Shen Qingqiu closes his eyes to free himself from the terrible glint in his husband’s eyes. Unsurprisingly, his hands are trapped in Mobei-Jun’s hold, unwilling to let him come at his own pace. His mouth lingers on the back of his neck, the touch barely felt when compared to Luo Binghe pushing into him deep.

When Luo Binghe finally comes, Shen Qingqiu barely has time to think before he’s being repositioned and sat on Mobei-Jun’s cock, his limp body offering no resistance as he’s being used for both their pleasure, Luo Binghe drinking in the sight. The still coherent part of Shen Qingqiu’s brain just knows he’ll be ready again before Mobei-Jun is done.

Shen Qingqiu is doomed.

“Shizun takes it so well, maybe he could accommodate us both?”

That wakes him right up. It’s not something they haven’t done, but not without extensive preparation before the event. Luo Binghe doesn’t just expect him to take both of their ridiculously large cocks in like it’s easy, does he? “I… Ah… Not tonight. It’d, it’d be too much…”

“Are you sure? You look capable to me.”

Shen Qingqiu shivers against Mobei-Jun. Maybe he… No. Not a good idea. Luo Binghe just came back, he’ll have stamina to spare, while this would destroy his. Also, “It’s Husband! Ah! And I… said no. “

Binghe frowns, visibly vexed by his opposition. “Husband would deny me?”

“It wouldn’t be safe.”

Mobei-Jun’s voice is almost startling. For a moment, Shen Qingqiu is worried this will degenerate. Mobei-Jun rarely dares to oppose Luo Binghe, especially in matters relation to his husband.

Luo Binghe’s qi flares threateningly, but it settles down without issue. “The last thing I want is to hurt Husband. If both he and my subordinate believe it wouldn’t be a good idea, I will defer to their good judgement.” His hand wraps almost painfully around Shen Qingqiu, scrambling his thoughts completely. “As long as he is still disposed to serving me after.”

Shen Qingqiu hardly hears those words, too dazed by his rising orgasm to care.

___________________

Luo Binghe had not known what to expect when he would return, but it had not been this.

“Binghe, ah, you’re home… early.” Said with a healthy dose of embarrassment but not a hint of guilt. Likewise, Mobei-Jun had stood still, at attention but without fear. Obviously, neither of them had believed they were doing something wrong.

It looked like his counterpart’s life had become more exciting since the last time Luo Binghe stopped by.

From their lack of modesty as Luo Binghe devoured the delightful image their naked bodies made, his presence might even be welcome.

It’s not like he had been unfamiliar with this concept. Some of his wives enjoyed each other’s company. He didn’t begrudge them their pleasure. As much as he would have liked to, he just couldn’t attend to all of them properly himself. He had taken two or more of them to bed together more than once. This hadn’t been very different. And if he’d never considered bedding Mobei-Jun before, it was clearly a lack of imagination on his part. While it would not compare to getting Shizun to submit to him, which he definitely would this time, it would still be quite a thrill to get him to moan under him. Were they married here? Could this be allowed?

The situation had been too touchy to try his luck. If both Shen Qingqiu and Mobei-Jun figured him out, he would have to face quite a fight. But the reward would certainly be worth the risk.

Luo Binghe had approached the bed Shen Qingqiu and Mobei-Jun occupied, and had pulled his shizun in a kiss he gladly opened up for. He hadn’t even needed most of the drugs and artifices he’d prepared to make sure Shen Qingqiu would be willing. The only one he would use, he decided as he looked at the scourge of his life getting fucked out of his mind and loving every moment of it, was the pill that would cloud their mind, erasing the memory of his visit. It would work flawlessly, better than he thought it would. Since both of them would wake up together, they would explain away any lingering mark easily. That way, they wouldn’t tell his counterpart of his visit and would have no reason for caution.

It would make subsequent visits much easier.

[hopelessromanticspoonie]

To Keep You Safe

Title: There’s nothing I wouldn’t do to make you feel my love

Chapter: 17/?

Author: hopeless_romantic_spoonie

Summary: Life as the assistant to Tony Stark was busy, but boring. All of that changed when I touched something I shouldn't have and woke up with strange new abilities. If I thought that trying to figure out my new place in life as an Avenger was tough, I had no idea what was in store for me once I ran into the frustrating God of Mischief, Loki.

Rating: E 

Notes: Friendly reminder that this is un-Beta’d, so please excuse any typos or grammatical errors I no doubt missed during revisions!

Also on Ao3 here :)

Warnings for this chapter: Language, dirty talk, violence

~~~

An unseen benefit to Loki and Wanda digging around in my head was that my nightmares had slowly dissipated as time wore on, and I was left with pleasant memories to recall instead. It made waking up a much more pleasant experience, for sure. Although the god wrapped around me when I woke each morning certainly didn’t hurt matters.

I stretched my arms and legs out with a groan and arched my back against the cool chest pressed against my back. Loki grumbled incoherently and tightened his grip around my stomach, pulling me more firmly into his chest and burrowing his face into the place where my neck and shoulder met.

“What was that, love?” I asked with a cheeky grin, wiggling my hips back against his playfully when the hard reality of his awakening made itself known against my ass.

His teeth lightly closed down on my shoulder before he let his head rest heavily against mine. “I said that if you keep moving around like that I’m going to have to do something to keep you still. I’m sleeping,” he replied, his voice low and raspy, the last moments of sleep still clinging onto him. I would be lying if I said that his morning voice didn’t do things to me.

With a sly smile, I ground my hips against him, letting out a soft sigh to lay it on extra thick. A growl rumbled deep in his chest and he quickly moved out from behind me, boxing in my hips with his knees and holding my hands to the bed. My heart sped at the beautiful sight of him towering over me, mischief and desire warring against one another in his bright emerald eyes.

“Good morning, handsome,” I beamed up at him innocently.

“You wicked woman. Do you understand what you do to me?” He asked, diving down to capture the delicate skin of my neck between his lips, covering me in open-mouthed kisses that made my breath catch in my throat.

I lifted my hips to roll against his, settling his hard arousal at the juncture of my legs. I could feel the hardness of him through the thin layers of clothing separating us and it made me bold. “You can’t exactly hide that.”

“Why would I wish to hide my desire for you when you are so willing in my bed?” he asked, tracing the edge of my tank top with his lips, so close and yet so far away from where I truly wanted his mouth.

“Your bed? Whose room are we-”

“Prince and Princess of Darkness, time to get up for training!” Tony’s voice echoed throughout the room thanks to the ever-helpful F.R.I.D.A.Y..

Loki pulled his mouth from my flushed skin just long enough to growl out, “Go to Hel, Stark.”

“Reindeer Games, she still needs to get to work and you know it. Three minutes!”

Loki, seeming to take Tony’s warning as a challenge, swooped down and captured my lips between his own, his arms winding beneath me and arching my back up against him. I instantly melted and my brain temporarily shut down from the feeling of his cool tongue teasing mine and his hips rocking into me gently.

Just as a soft moan spilled from my mouth into his, he broke the kiss and pulled away with a devilish grin. “Time for training, love,” he said innocently, pressing a light kiss to my cheek before dropping me back to the bed and standing up to get ready for the day.

I just watched him in a daze, unable to form any coherent thought as I tried to calm down despite the need he had stoked to life between my legs and the tempting sight of him changing into thin athletic pants and a black t-shirt. My brain finally kicked into gear enough for me to scramble off of the bed and face him down with my hands on my hips. “What was that?”

Loki looked up from where he had sat down to tie on his tennis shoes, his brow raised in confusion. “What ever do you mean?”

I pointedly looked down to the still-hard length of him that was very visible in his pants. “That.”

He smiled down at me as he closed the distance between us, wrapping his hands around me to rest against my lower back, looking all the sweet, innocent man that he most certainly was not and had never been. “I’m simply dressing to assist you with your weapons training later, little one.”

He kissed me gently just beneath my ear and lingered there for a few seconds longer to purr, “And to get you ready for tonight.”

I pulled away from him as best I could, which wasn’t far with his fingers interlaced behind me, trying to read his expression and only finding the typical mischief twinkling in his emerald eyes. “Tonight?”

He squeezed me to him in a quick hug before letting me go and walking towards the door casually. “Tonight. But not to worry about that, now, love. We have work to do,” he called, tossing a wink in my direction before the door whirred shut behind him, leaving me standing there dumbstruck.

Arrogant, scheming, teasing, handsome, impossible asshole.

I quickly got ready for the day, determined that if he could be a tease I could, too. After performing my typical bathroom morning routine, I found my tightest pair of black yoga pants and a strappy sports bra, slipping into them and a zip-up black jacket that I left unzipped just enough to show off what little cleavage I had to work with. After throwing my hair up in a ponytail and slipping on my tennis shoes, I was out of the room and ready to go.

Steve was standing there in the kitchen, looking much too awake for such an early hour of the morning, especially after the daily torture called a ‘morning run’ that he subjected himself to. He was working on his protein shake and glancing at the paper on the counter in front of him, with my morning iced coffee in his free hand. He looked up and held it out to me as I cautiously approached him. “Morning, Jen.”

There was still a small, nagging voice at the back of my head that told me that this wasn’t safe. That I should be wary of the overly-muscled man in front of me, calmly offering me coffee that he must have made. Coffee that he could have done anything to without my knowledge. But I shoved that voice deep down where it was more easily ignored and painted grateful smile on my face as I took it from him and sipped it appreciatively. “Thanks, Cap.”

“You doing okay? We’re still a bit worried about you,” he asked, moving to sit down next to where I had plopped down at the kitchen bar. He looked at me with nothing but kind concern, his innate goodness shining through his expressive face.

I sighed and took a big gulp of my coffee to stall as I tried to formulate an answer he’d be happy with. I was doing better in the months since I’d been taken by Hydra. There were still doubts that lingered at the edge of my mind, always there but usually quieted by exhaustion or distraction. I, usually, only flinched when I was surprised by someone’s touch now, as opposed to making the nearest piece of metal or glass into a weapon and going on the offensive. It was an improvement if nothing else.

“Yeah, I have good days and bad days. Loki helps with the nightmares on the bad days. And training helps me feel more…” I trailed off, wracking my still-sleepy brain for the word just outside of reach.

“In control?” he supplied with a knowing smile.

“Yeah, I guess. If they come for me again I’ll be more prepared, especially since I’m kind of a super soldier like you, now. Just without the massive biceps.” I lifted my arm up, trying to flex and coming up short-handed, especially next to him. I had gotten a surprising amount of muscle built up through my daily workouts, but I wasn’t genetically modified to be a superhuman like he was. He chuckled and squeezed my tiny muscle with a fake noise of appreciation before settling back into reading the paper.

“So...that Loki thing. That’s still working out for you guys?” he asked uncomfortably some time later, stroking his neatly-trimmed beard.

I couldn’t help but chuckle at the unease that he thoughtfully pushed through to check up on me. The Avengers hadn’t come to like Loki, not really, but they tolerated him. Especially after all the help he was in getting me back from Hydra and bringing me back to myself. Thor’s acceptance of him after they returned from losing Asgard helped a great deal too. It was hard to go against the big teddy bear of a man when he set his mind to something.

I swallowed the last of my coffee, setting the glass on the counter with a satisfied sigh. “Yeah, it is. I know that you guys don’t get it, but we...we love each other. Weird as that is to say.”

Steve clapped a heavy hand on my shoulder, keeping it there despite the small flinch that jerked at my suddenly rigid spine. “Good. If he hurts you, just know that I will personally see to it that he gets what he deserves.”

A genuine smile tugged on my lips and crinkled my eyes as I looked at the very earnest and very serious man threatening my boyfriend. Loki could take him in a heartbeat, but the sentiment was still sweet. “I think there’d be a line,” I replied, reaching up to pat his hand before standing up and away from his grasp. “I appreciate it, though, Steve. Even if your Captain America is showing a little bit,” I teased, nodding to him before leaving him to his paper so I could get to my workouts.

The only good thing, if you could call it that, about my experience with Hydra was reflected in my training. My reflexes had increased slightly, which made me lose to Natasha about half the time now instead of once in a blue moon. I still didn’t have a chance in Hell at beating Loki anytime soon, but the man did have several centuries of practice and the physical capabilities of a god--or a Frost Giant--on his side.

Nat was waiting for me, lounging on a stack of protective floor mats and scrolling through her phone. I stopped several feet behind her, well out of arm’s reach, and mentally reached out for the metal bottle of water she had open next to her. It was all too easy to flip it up into the air above her and dunk the contents on her head, making her screech as she whipped around to look at Loki, who was in his usual corner smirking at my antics. “You asshole Asgardian!”

“Excellent, if not childish, love,” Loki spoke into my head while he put his hands up in mock-surrender, glancing at me as he tried to hide the pleased grin tugging doggedly on his lips. “I am not to blame for your current predicament, but your trainee.”

I was rewarded with her wrath directed at me, but I actually managed to hide my glee at the prank, looking innocent and confused with a frown and shrugged shoulders. “I’m not that good at controlling metal yet.” It was a bluff, but one that I wasn’t called out on.

“You’re dead!” Nat growled, shifting her gaze back to Loki, who smirked and conjured daggers into his open palms at his sides.

I quickly grabbed a towel from the stack by our training set-up, tossing it onto her head to defuse the situation. “It’s just a little water. Besides, you are about to get gross from me kicking your ass for the next hour, so it won’t matter anyway.”

She rubbed the towel over her drenched blonde hair, grumbling incoherently. After she was satisfied with her work she tossed it aside and put her hands on her hips, looking me appraisingly up and down. “Ready to get started?”

I answered her by attempting to tackle her to the ground, running at her with my hands aimed at her shoulders. She grabbed my arms and leaned into my momentum, tossing me over her falling body forcefully. I scrambled to my feet and felt an elbow in between my shoulder blades, knocking me forward. I whipped around, swinging my leg low and knocking her feet out from under her. I was on her hips in an instant, and we grappled on the ground for what felt like an eternity before I managed to pin her with my hands around her throat. She tapped out on my arm, and I rolled over to set her free and sprawl out on the mat, catching my breath.

“You’re still thinking too much, Jen,” she chastised, grabbing the water bottle I had left the day before and attempting to drink from it. “It’s empty and Loki emptied mine. Go get us some more, would ya?”

I groaned, snatching the bottle from her hand and summoning the other one to sit at my feet. I put my water in between my thighs, holding it there as I unzipped my sweaty black jacket and tossed it to the floor. I made eye contact with Loki as I adjusted the straps of my bra, knowing that my heavy breathing from sparring would help enhance my assets.

“What are you playing at?”

I smirked at him, grabbing both bottles and walking over to the fountain to fill them back up. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“The sight of you bending over that fountain in those infernal pants is what I’m talking about. I want to push you against the wall and have you right now, claim you for all to see. To feel your heat wrapped around me and hear your moans echoing around this room…”

And then I knew that he was onto me, and he was giving it right back. Even projected into my head, his velvet voice melted my insides and stoked a fire deep in my belly. I quirked my brow at him, hoping that the flush on my face could be attributed to the exercise, and walked back to Nat to hand over her water.

“I’m just trying to get you ready for tonight.” I didn’t need to look at him to know that he was smirking wickedly, it was all over the mental projection of his voice.

I took a few swigs of water before tossing it to the side, squaring off against Nat again. This time she wrestled me to the ground first, sitting on my stomach with her hands holding down my wrists.

Loki purred into my thoughts, voice laced with desire, “I envy her at this moment. To feel your warm, slick body writhing beneath me.”

I grunted, trying to ignore him as I bucked her off of me and rolled over, switching our positions so I was holding her down while I straddled her hips with my knees. “Oh, but this position could be quite enjoyable, too. To have you ride my cock, freeing my hands to explore your body, traveling down between us to find your most-treasured pearl…”

I gasped, looking over to a nonchalant Loki who was easily tossing conjured daggers one after the other into a wooden target across the gym. He looked far too at ease. The only sign that his words had any affect him in any way was the growing tent in his pants. My temporary distraction was enough for Nat to gain the upper hand, flipping me over so hard that the air was forced from my lungs and I couldn’t breathe to fight back against the hands at my throat. I was forced to give in, coughing life back into myself after she had crawled off of me.

“Distracted, love?”

“You’re dead, Friggason,” I hissed mentally, standing up and wiping the sweat from my brow with the back of my hand.

I looked back to Nat, bouncing on my toes to get going again, but she was looking blankly into the distance. She shook her head, as if she was literally snapping out of it, and then frowned at me. “I forgot that I needed to call Clint about something, Jen. Raincheck?”

“Uh, yeah, sure. Do what you gotta do,” I replied, watching her suspiciously as she grabbed her stuff and quickly left the room. It wasn’t like her to leave training or to forget something as important as checking in with Clint.

Turning to the mischievously grinning face of my boyfriend, I grabbed my water bottle and my jacket, carrying them over to dump against the wall just a few feet from where he was standing. He looked entirely too pleased with himself.

“Odd that she would suddenly remember that right in the middle of us sparring,” I commented dryly, turning to face him as I tightened my ponytail, all previous arousal gone as I pondered over her sudden change of thought. He looked entirely too happy with himself.

Loki was the picture of innocence. Well, as much as one could be while tossing a dagger around and throwing it straight into the center of the far-off target. “Mortals do tend to have flighty memories.”

“Loki…” I said slowly, crossing my arms over my stomach as I stood in front of him, forcing him to make the dagger that he had just thrown disappear so that it wouldn’t soar through my neck.

“Do not walk in front of me while I’m throwing knives! It isn’t safe!” he said loudly, fear revealing itself as anger as he grabbed my arms, giving me a small shake.

I stood my ground, staring into his eyes and biting on my bottom lip. “Honest, no lies or tricks: Did you make her think she needed to do that?”

Loki held no remorse as he answered, “Of course, darling. I wanted you to be finished with her, but it wasn’t yet time. So, I just put the suggestion into her head that she needed to-”

“That’s not okay, Loki!” I exclaimed, throwing my arms out to knock his hands off of me.

“It was harmless.”

“I don’t care. You don’t just mess with people’s heads like that. Do you do that to me? Suggest that I need to come see you or touch you or-”

“Never! I would never do that to you!” he shouted, betrayal at my accusation flashing within his brilliant green eyes.

“But she’s okay to fuck with?” I asked, pinning him to the spot with my glare and throwing my hand out in the direction Nat disappeared to.

He ran a hand through his long black hair. “It is different-”

“No, it isn’t. She has just as much right over her mind as I do. Just because you love me doesn’t make me any more special than anyone here,” I stated, my voice cold and my eyes colder. I shook my head, unable to deal with him any longer. “I need to go take a run. And you need to think about why you think it’s okay to mess around in some people’s minds and not others. Because it isn’t, god or not.”

“Darling!” he called out at my retreating form, but I ignored him as I ran from the gym and kept up the quick pace once I was outside, tracing the perimeter of the Compound.

I allowed the steady pounding of my footsteps on the alternating ground and concrete, the burn of my muscles and breath, and the quickened beat of my heart to lull me into a less reactionary state.

What he did was wrong. It was very wrong. He had agreed that he would never enter or mess with my thoughts without my express permission. And even when he thought it could help, he never broke that trust. But what was the disconnect between my mind and someone else’s? Sure, it’s okay if the person is trying to kill us and he wants to keep us safe or get a leg up on the fight. But to manipulate someone just so that he could spend more time with me?

I had to push down the part of me that was flattered that he wanted to see me so badly. That was the stupid part of my brain fueled by my own affections. Plus, part of his reasoning had to come from his dick, after he turned himself on by saying all of those things to me. There was no doubt that he was a selfish man when it came to his desires.

But I had known that going into the situation. Taking care of me while I was injured and soothing me after a nightmare didn’t mean that he was suddenly a completely changed man who did no wrong. He was still the Trickster God, the God of Mischief, and a few months of being in a relationship with a human wasn’t going to rewrite centuries of mischievous and, sometimes, downright self-centered and manipulative behavior.

I stopped jogging. My hands propped me up against my thighs as I leaned over to catch my breath against the stitch in my side. The sweat clinging to my skin was freezing in the cold winter air of upstate New York, and I regretted leaving my jacket in the gym in my hasty retreat. Too late to go back for that now.

Was my reaction to him fair? How was he supposed to learn these things without being taught? He sure as hell wasn’t going to listen to anyone else in the Compound if they tried to help him, which left me as the only option. He only barely listened to me as it was, and getting angry at him wasn’t going to make that happen more often. Loki had too much pride and ego to see his actions clearly and admit when he was wrong. I only worked that out of him once, and that was hardly an admission of guilt at all.

I groaned at the quickly-growing headache throbbing at my temples. Apparently my body was as unhappy with the situation as I was. The dark clouds that had rolled in during my time outside suddenly let loose, and it began raining heavily down on me and a few unsuspecting landscape crewmembers caught inside. I hurried into the main building, feeling disgusting from a combination of too hot sweat and freezing rain clinging to my body. I needed a shower, some lunch, and maybe to punch a few more things to figure this out.

No, I wasn’t going to stay mad at Loki forever. But I wasn’t going to go crawling into his lap at the first sign of him either.

The steady drumming of hot water on my back helped soothe the chill running through my bones, but it did nothing for the growl in my stomach or my pounding headache. I dressed comfortably in a thick, warm sweatshirt I had stolen from Loki--his clothes were much softer than mine--and another pair of leggings. I left the muggy bathroom to go grab some lunch when something on the perfectly made bed caught my eye.

I frowned, running my fingers through my damp hair as I walked over to investigate. A plate sat in the middle of the bed, topped with a delicious-looking turkey sandwich and jalapeno kettle chips. Next to the plate was a black box tied beautifully with a gold and green ribbon on top. There wasn’t anything on the outside to indicate who had left it, but the colors made it quite clear that Loki had snuck into the room while I was showering to leave me the offerings.

With a huff, I pushed the box away, not wanting to deal with it for the foreseeable future. I had half a mind to toss the sandwich away and stubbornly make my own food, but it would be a waste of really good turkey. Even with all the money Tony poured into my bank account, I hated to waste. I crawled onto the center of the bed, flicking on the tv as I ate Loki’s totally-not-an-apology sandwich. It was frustrating how satisfying it was to my starving taste buds. Curse him for paying attention to my go-to meals.

After I was finished, I did everything I could to distract myself from the box at my side. I watched my favorite episodes of The Office and Survivor, got up and paced around the room, organized my books by alphabetical order, sketched the view of the Compound from my window, and even tried to take a nap--which was pointless and left me staring at the backs of my eyelids while I puzzled over what was in the infernal box.

Several hours later, curiosity won out. I sat up from where I had been reclining on the bed and sighed heavily in defeat as I pulled the large black box to sit in front of me. I fingered the soft ribbon as I tried to dredge up some inner will to resist my overwhelming need to know what was inside. He’d never gotten me anything before. What would a thousand-year-old prince decide was a good make-up present?

In his mind, the mid-thigh length emerald green low-cut sweater dress I found nestled inside black tissue paper would lessen my anger towards him. There were gold threads interspersed among the thick green yarn, catching the light as I turned it this way and that to examine it. A paper fluttered to the floor as I held it up, and I could pick out what had to be Loki’s elegant script from a mile away:

Wear these tonight. I will come for you at six.

I frowned, looking back into the box as I placed the dress aside. After picking up a few layers of tissue paper, I found a black leather jacket. That and the dress screamed out Loki, from his colors, to the exceptional materials, down to the expensive designers stitched onto the labels. I had never owned anything so nice, not even when Tony gifted me all those clothes to tide me over until my belongings could be moved over. I knew that the god had exquisite taste, even his workout gear was made by a designer that I couldn’t even pronounce, but this was too much.

I sat on the bed, idly stroking the ridiculously soft dress as I stared at the note. On one hand, I didn’t want to give in to him. He was always so smug and confident that everyone was going to do what he wanted. No questions asked. Prince Loki spoke it, and it happened. He shouldn’t think that this relationship was going to work that way. He couldn’t just buy me expensive gifts and make me a sandwich and expect that I was going to instantly forgive him.

But on the other hand, I was dying to know what he had up his sleeve. He said this morning that he had a surprise for me, so presumably, he had already purchased these gifts. This was all just part of a plan set into motion before the day started. Did I really want to ruin a surprise from the God of Mischief?

I fell for one of his tricks, and I couldn’t even be fully mad about it.

I groaned, throwing the clothing onto the bed and stood up, giving in to the weaker side of myself that needed to know what was up his sleeve. According to my new watch, courtesy of Tony, I had about an hour to get ready. It was just long enough for me to lightly curl my dark hair. I left it down to protect my neck from the frigid temperatures outside. My makeup was simple but classic, a red lip, winged eyeliner, thick mascara and just a hint of gold on my eyelids to compliment the gold in the dress. Because it was winter in New York, I wore a pair of thigh-high black boots, leaving only a few inches of my leg exposed. It wasn’t going to be the warmest, but it was the best I could do with the time allotted by my lack of decision-making skills.

I hated to admit it, but I looked good. No one could say that Loki didn’t know fashion, and that apparently extended into women’s clothing as well. The dress was just baggy enough to be comfortable, and the leather jacket offset that by ending right at my hips and tapering in at the narrowest part of my waist. It was as if the outfit was made for me, which I wouldn’t have put it passed him to get it tailored to my measurements. He was just crafty enough to do that without my knowing.

I faced my bedroom door right at six, steeling myself for the flattery and cunning I knew was waiting on the other side of the door. He was undoubtedly going to lay the charm on thick, and I was bound and determined to not let it get to me. I was a strong, independent woman who wasn’t going to take shit from any man, even a Norse God.

A very sexy Norse God.

He was waiting for me on the other side of the door, looking like he belonged on a magazine cover in his all-black suit beneath a long wool overcoat. His hair was slicked back from his face, highlighting his sharp cheekbones and even sharper jawline. I got temporarily lost in his piercing green eyes as he raked his gaze over my body, looking pleased with what he found if the wolfish smile on his lips was any indicator.

“That outfit is very becoming on you, love. I do take pleasure in how exquisite you look wearing my colors,” he purred as he offered me his arm.

I blinked and took a deep breath to center myself. Now was not the time to listen to the raging emotions--and let’s be honest, hormones--clouding my judgment. I refused to take his arm, leaving my hands hanging limply at my sides as I cocked my brow up at him. “What is all of this?”

He didn’t seem fazed by my refusal, instead taking the initiative to gently grasp my hand and slip it into the crook of his elbow. I was assaulted by the heady aroma of his spicy cologne, washing over me as he pulled me closer to his body and lead me toward the elevator. “Patience, little one.”

It was useless to try to pull my arm out from his; I knew from hours training with him that he could hand my ass to me if he wanted to, so I followed along as he took us into the elevator and hit the button for our destination.

“Garage? I’m not allowed to leave, Loki.” It still wasn’t safe, with Hydra’s intimate knowledge of my identity.

“Ask for forgiveness, not permission,” he replied smoothly with a wink, stepping out into the well-lit garage filled with more expensive cars than permanent residents in the Compound. He summoned a set of keys from the pegboard by the wall and clicked them to unlock a sleek black foreign sports car.

I finally dug my heels into the ground, tugging on his arm as I looked up to him with a furrowed brow. “I’m not going anywhere. One, it’s not safe for me out there. And two, I’m still mad at you for this morning,” I said firmly, squirming away and crossing my arms stubbornly over my stomach.

Coldness seeped into my skin as he placed one hand gently on my neck, the other settling on my waist over the jacket. His eyes were filled with frustration and the barest hint of sadness as they met mine. All pretenses of charisma and charm melted away, leaving him bare before me. “I will always keep you safe, love. And my earlier actions… may have been in poor taste. What I want for tonight, what I had planned, is to have the evening with you. Alone. I have been unable to court you properly, and I was raised by an amazing woman who would frown upon my actions thus far concerning our relationship,” he said softly, a muscle ticking in his jaw and his eyes losing focus for a few brief moments.

He came back to me, swallowing thickly as he released me and opened the door for me, holding out his hand. “I would, if you’ll allow it, greatly enjoy treating you as the Lady you are and the Prince that I was raised to be.”

I stepped towards him, watching him carefully as I gently placed my hand into his. I stood firm when he tried to help me into the car. I barely caught the flash of disappointment that was there and gone from his pale features in an instant before he could fix his face into a more neutral expression. “No tricks tonight?”

“Of course not. I promise to be nothing but a gentleman tonight, unless you wish otherwise,” he chuckled, helping me into the car with one hand holding mine and the other resting against my side over my jacket once I relaxed, closing the door behind me once I was settled.

Warmth blasted through the air vents after he climbed into the driver’s seat and started the car, helping to ease the chill lingering on what little exposed skin I had. He drove effortlessly to our destination, ignoring my repeated attempts at figuring out where we were going. I was still left in the dark as we drove into New York City, merging with the ungodly amount of traffic heading inside for the nightlife it offered.

“Loki, are you sure you should be here?” I asked quietly, looking over to him as he weaved in and out of traffic easily. Everyone knew about him here, about his role in the destruction from years ago, and his face wasn’t one easily forgotten. They would not be so quick to forgive, especially since they didn’t know of the torture and manipulation that coerced him into doing such unspeakable things. He may be as unsafe here as I was anywhere else.

“Of course, love. Why ever not?” he replied, looking to me with a smug grin as his features shifted, revealing him to have short, curly reddish-brown hair, slightly more tanned skin, thin-rimmed glasses, and a well-trimmed beard and mustache. Even without changing his facial structure, the look softened him around the edges and made him appear much more welcoming and kind. It was gone just as soon as it appeared. “Do not worry, they do not see me as you do.”

“Are you mess-”

“It is merely an illusion. I do not have to pry into the minds of mortals to do something as simple as this.”

I frowned, tugging my bottom lip between my teeth as we pulled up to a valet service outside of a restaurant with a French name I would only horribly mispronounce if we tried. The valet walked around to help me out of the car, but Loki was faster, stopping the young man with a hand on his arm so that he could do the honors instead. He didn’t give me a chance to reject his help, taking my arm gently and halfway lifting me from the car, tucking my hand into the crook of his elbow to lead me inside.

“This is too much…” I muttered once we were seated at a comfortable, and somewhat secluded, booth. From the dim romantic lighting, to the waiters dressed to the nine’s, to the menu that didn’t even have prices on it--if you had to ask you couldn’t afford it--I was a bit overwhelmed.

Loki looked up from the menu with nothing but warmth in his eyes. “You are deserving of it all and more.”

“But-”

“I do not want to hear another word from your lips concerning your unworthiness of tonight. It is my pleasure to treat you as you deserve, and far overdue.”

I sipped at the red wine that Loki had ordered after our order was taken. He seemed unbothered by anything at the moment, when there was still very much that should be nagging at him. If his conscience wasn’t going to do it, I was going to let my liquid courage give me the oomph to take over that role.

“What you did isn’t okay, and dinner and an expensive outfit won’t fix it,” I said quietly, leaning forward so that my cutting words wouldn’t be overheard by the waiters scuttling around us. We were relatively alone for the busy restaurant, the nearest table was far enough away that I couldn’t hear them talking, but I still wanted some iota of privacy.

A sigh passed through his lips and he leaned forward as well. His hands reached out to take mine across the table, but I didn’t reciprocate the gesture, just letting my hands sit limply in his. He frowned down at them and rubbed my knuckles with his thumb. “I understand,” he replied, voice heavy.

I tapped my fingers against his wrist until he met my eyes. I needed to see the expression in his eyes, to see if he was hiding something behind the cool facade that he had perfected over years and years. “Do you?”

“I do. There should be no difference between respecting your mental privacy and autonomy and that of any other mortal. But these habits that I have built up over centuries will not erase themselves from my personality in one day. You have to allow me time,” he insisted, imploring me with his piercing gaze as it swept over my face.

I faintly tickled his palm with my fingertips.

For the rest of the meal, he slowly took down the walls I had built up around concerning him. The food was amazing, and I caught the pleased glint in his eye whenever I couldn’t suppress a soft moan at my first bite. Between his relaxed demeanor, the delicious food and wine, and my own weak heart, he had slithered his way back into my good graces by the time he was escorting me back out of the restaurant.

“Now where to?” I asked, tucking my arms close to my body as we waited in the freezing night air for the valet to bring the car around.

He pulled me close to him, wrapping me in as much of his coat as he could while he was still wearing it. Even his normally chilled skin felt warm in comparison. I accepted the gesture, leaning my cheek onto his firm chest and inhaling his warm scent deeply. “Patience, love.”

“Is that all you can say?”I grumbled, my voice slightly muffled by his silk shirt.

“I do enjoy your expression when I surprise you. Allow me that much.” He smiled, pulling me away from him so that he could deposit me safely in the car after it pulled up, kissing the top of my head before he sealed me in. I did as he asked, settling into the plush leather of the seat as he pulled us back into traffic once again.

Without warning my watch lit up the dark interior of the car, projecting Tony’s voice loudly over the soft music of the radio. “Kid, where the hell are you?”

I looked guiltily over at Loki, who seemed unbothered by the abrupt interruption. “Um…”

“Don’t answer that, there’s a tracker in the watch. We’re coming to get you.”

“There will be no need for that, Stark. She is perfectly safe with me,” Loki replied calmly, not even looking down at the watch he addressed as he navigated the busy city streets and rolled down the window.

“That’s reassuring,” Tony said, the sarcasm practically oozing out through the tiny speaker. “We’ll be there in 20.”

“No, you won’t. Goodbye, Stark.” Loki reached over, removed my watch with one hand, and tossed it out of the now open window with the other.

I gasped, unable to form a coherent sentence in my shock as we drove away from the surely now-crushed tracking device. My fingers searched in my jacket pocket for my phone. Tony surely had some sort of tracker in that, too. But my pockets were oddly empty.

“Your phone is back at the Compound where I left it after removing it from your person in the garage,” he said smoothly, a mischievous grin lighting up his pale features. “And as I have neither tethering me to that insufferable man, you are mine for the evening.”

“They can track the car, though. And what if something happens?” I asked, panic edging into my voice when I thought of the laundry list of terrible things that could go wrong for either of us tonight. I clenched my hands together, looking outside at the cars streaming by us as if they all held Hydra agents inside of them, waiting to kill him and take me back to that room.

His large hand rested over both of mine. I pulled my wide eyes to him after he squeezed my hands reassuringly. “I will always protect you,” he vowed, taking his eyes off of traffic briefly to look at me with nothing but fierce determination on his handsome features. “Besides,” he smiled like the Cheshire Cat, “we’re at our next destination, and the valet will take the car for us. This city is so vast that he has no chance of finding us if we do not wish to be found.”

We pulled up to a very busy club, the outside crowded with people waiting impatiently to be let inside. I stared at it open-mouthed, looking like a fish out of water as he walked around the car and pulled me from its warmth into the shockingly cold air. Flashbacks of our past experience at a club surged through my mind and my feet froze to the sidewalk. “Loki…”

In an instant he was leaning forward before me, putting his stern face even with mine and his hands on my upper arms. “Do not let them ruin this night. They do not control you. Be with me.”

I stared into his eyes, finding my strength in the surety of his gaze and the firm hold he had on my arms. They grounded me in the moment. “Okay, let’s go,” I said, sounding much braver than I felt. I set my jaw, nodding to him and taking his hand as he led us to the bouncer. He must have learned from our experience last time, as he slipped the giant man a sizable wad of bills when we were close enough.

It was my turn to take the lead after the bouncer shifted his appreciative grin from the money to my body, leering at me hungrily. I could feel Loki stiffen beside me, instantly possessive, and I tugged on him none-too-gently to pull him into the thumping music of the building. We didn’t need to get into a dumb fight before the real fun had even begun.

We only made it just inside the door when he stopped us. He nudged me into the wall with his hands on my hips and lips brushing my ear as he growled out, “I do not like how he was looking at you.”

I placed a soft kiss to the skin just below his ear, my hands pulling him down closer to me by his shoulders. “You’re the one to blame for dressing me this way,” I teased.

He nipped lightly at my neck, his fingers tightening around my soft middle. “Am I at fault for wanting to show off the beauty on my arm?”

I blushed, unable to hide my pleased smile as he pulled away and led me further into the club with his hand firmly holding onto mine. He weaved expertly through the crowd which seemed to sense his dangerous aura and part for him. Once we were at the bar he shouted our order at the bartender, not letting me speak up when I tried to place my own. The several twenties that were placed into the tip jar ensured our drinks were made quickly, and I was pleased with the vodka cranberry set down in front of me. He really had noticed every little detail.

No sooner than I had taken a sip of my drink was Loki tugging me away again, this time to the edge of the dance floor. I carefully held my drink out from my body, not wanting to spill it on either of us, while he faced me and pulled me into him with his free hand, the other busy holding his glass of clear dark brown liquid. He downed it quickly, making the glass disappear so he could put his hands on my hips.

Among his many other talents, Loki could add dancing to the list. Even with the strong drink coursing through my bloodstream, I could appreciate the way his lean body moved with mine to the deafening beat of the music. He grasped my hand, spinning me out from his body and releasing me. My laughter was swallowed up by the crowd as he watched me dip and sway to the music. His eyes never left mine, filled with a happiness that I rarely saw in him. And I could detect a tiny bit of desire at my gyrating body, too.

He didn’t let me dance alone for long, closing the short distance between us until his hips were pressed against my ass and his chest the length of my back. One of his hands splayed across my stomach and the other bunched into the fabric at my hip, guiding me to move my body with his. I anchored his hands to me with mine and delighted in the feeling of his rigid body working against my own. My head fell back against his shoulder, opening up my jaw and neck to him, and he accepted the offering by trailing his parted lips against my overheated skin. The cool puffs of his breath against me sent delightful shivers down my spine.

It could have been minutes or hours by the time I pulled myself away from him, doing the leading this time as I collapsed down at a high table against the wall. He watched me with concern, pushing my hair off of my slightly sweaty neck and onto my shoulder.

“I’m okay. Just need to take a break and cool off for a second,” I assured him, pulling him closer to me so that I could be heard over the music.

“I’ll go get you another drink, love,” he replied, giving me a deep but quick kiss before disappearing into the crowd.

I watched him saunter away with a bright smile that stayed on my lips as I peeled off my leather jacket and draped it across my lap. It was a very nice jacket, but combined with the long sleeves of my sweater dress, the alcohol, and Loki grinding against me, it proved a little too hot for me to handle. I fidgeted with a buckle on the cool leather, looking up from where I had been staring dazedly when a bottle of beer was plopped down on the table in front of me.

The smile faded from my face slowly as I took in the very drunk man swaying before me. He was either poorly dancing to the music or he was too drunk to stand still. Either way, he kept one hand on the beer in front of me and put the other on the back of the chair I was sitting on, boxing me in between his arms.

“Wanna dance?” he slurred, his breath a putrid mixture of different alcohols as he leaned in far too close to me.

I simultaneously pushed at his chest and leaned back as much as I could, succeeding in at least putting a few more inches of distance between our faces. “No thanks. I’m waiting on my boyfriend to get me a drink,” I shouted over the noise, knowing that men usually would back off if they knew that a woman wasn’t alone.

He was either too drunk or stubborn for that to work, though. “I don’t see him around. Surely a dance wouldn’t hurt,” he insisted, grabbing for my exposed thighs with clumsy fingers.

I made to push him away again, more frustrated at his advances than anything, but he stopped me by grabbing my shoulders and slamming his mouth against my own. Before I could shove my fist through his face he was ripped away from me. Loki stood before me, panting with barely concealed rage as he looked down at the drunken man flailing around on the floor.

“If you are overly fond of your hands remaining connected to your body, I’d strongly recommend keeping them off of her,” he sneered, his low voice cutting through the din of the club. The rage behind his words and flashing in his eyes sent my heart racing in my chest.

“We were just having a good time, buddy. She liked it!” the man shouted after he finally righted himself. He put his fists in the air, glaring at Loki as he took a heavy swing toward his face.

Loki easily dodged the terrible excuse for a punch--even I could’ve dodged that. He shoved his hand into the man’s chest so hard that he flew several feet away from us and crashed into a group of people dancing, all of them falling ungainly to the floor. I looked around, seeing the bouncers advancing toward us quickly through the crowd, looking very pissed and itching for a fight.

“C’mon, Loki. We gotta get out of here,” I shouted, clutching onto my jacket and his hand as I tried to tug him toward the exit. He resisted, murder still in his eyes as he advanced on the drunken idiot stumbling to his feet. I placed myself in front of him, grasping his cheek so that he was forced to look at me. “Let’s just go. He’s not worth it.”

He searched me quickly, his brow furrowed as he took me in to quickly check for any damage to my person. His hands carefully pulled me away from him and moved me to stand behind him. My tugging on his arms did nothing. It was like trying to move a brick wall. “He should know not to touch what isn’t his,” he growled, the words edged with venom. He pulled the man up by his collar, landed one solid punch into his temple that knocked him out instantly, and then dropped him unceremoniously back to the floor. “And now we may leave.”

We skirted around the crowd that had gathered to watch the beating--it certainly couldn’t have been called a fight--and slipped out through the side door into the alley. I went to put on my jacket only to be stopped by Loki, whose hands were running over my body searching for injuries.

“Are you certain he did not harm you?” All anger was gone and he was once again the loving man that woke me up in the mornings.

I shivered from the biting wind and nodded quickly. “I’m fine, I promise,” I answered quickly. I’d never seen him react that way, not to anything. Even during the footage of the battle of New York he hadn’t looked as enraged as he had moments ago. He truly looked the warrior that he and Thor had been raised to become. If I hadn’t have stopped him I wouldn’t have been surprised if he had killed that guy, just for kissing me.

He grumbled deep in his chest, pulling me tightly against him once he could prove for himself that I was physically intact. When I shivered again he took my jacket from my hands and draped it across my shoulders before spreading his hands across my back again. “I should not have left you alone.”

I lifted my head just enough to look up to him, reading the conflict written in the lines across his forehead and between his brows. “I’m a big girl, Loki. I can take care of myself against a drunk asshole.”

“But he kissed you,” he insisted, his lips twisting at the thought of it.

“He did. And I was half a second behind you in laying him out for it. He doesn’t deserve to die for that, though.”

“But-”

I shushed him with an ice-cold finger over his thin lips. “No buts. You defended my honor and I appreciate it. But we don’t kill idiots for just a kiss,” I said firmly, moving my hand down to rest on his shoulder.

His brow furrowed with concern as he looked down at me, doubt creeping into his emerald gaze. “He said you liked it…”

I rolled my eyes. “You know when I enjoy something. Did I look like I enjoyed that? Was I looking at him like I’m looking at you now?” I asked, pressing my chest against his and clasping my hands together behind his neck. I smiled warmly up at him as my fingers tugged lightly on the curled ends of his black hair.

He didn’t answer, but he did crush his lips to mine in a demanding kiss. He walked us back to press me against the wall of the building, one of his legs sliding between my own to hold me in place. Every ounce of his desperation and jealously was pushed into his lips working roughly against mine and his tongue slipping into my mouth, possessive as it tangled with mine. His hands slipped beneath my jacket to arch my back into him, holding me as if I was going to abandon him the first chance I got.

He broke the kiss with a ragged gasp and dropped his forehead against my own. “You are mine.”

“I am yours,” I agreed, breathing heavily, knowing that he needed to have that repeated to him.

“Mine,” he rumbled into my neck, worrying and sucking on the tender flesh over my pulse point almost to the point of pain. Just when it was about to become too much he soothed the mark he had left with tender kisses.

I shivered, both from the cold and his tongue dragging across my skin. I managed to push him farther away, my hands sliding down his shoulders to clench around his pectoral muscles. “I know you’re a Frost Giant, but us mortals get cold when half their thighs are exposed from said Giant hiking up their dress,” I teased, looking up to him with as much of a smile as I could muster with my teeth chattering against each other.

“My apologies, little one. Let me take you home.” He pulled away and wrapped an arm possessively around my shoulders, holding me to his side as he walked us out of the alleyway. I stayed tucked against him, allowing myself the comfort of his strong arm around me and his warm cologne as he waited for the valet to return with our car. Huddling for warmth didn't exactly work with a Frost Giant, but his lips brushing across the top of my head definitely made me feel warm and fuzzy inside.

Gunshots broke through our moment of quiet comfort. Loki’s clothing melted away with a green light that crawled over his body, changing into his black and green leather armor. He pushed me behind him, facing off against the threat that I hadn’t even had a chance to see yet. I peered around his arm, to finally see the six men advancing on us with guns drawn as the people around us fled the chaos.

Motherfucking Hydra.

[barnesnmrnoble]

Bucharest, Romania.

Main Masterlist - Bucky Barnes Masterlist

Plums. All he’d wanted was a few plums to make dinner tonight, but the world had other plans.

Word Count: 2540

Warnings: Violence, Bucky being a big brother figure, hydra brainwashing mentions

A/n: The scene rewrite from Civil War that didn’t end up being a rewrite as much as the scene but with an added character. It’s supposed to be a bigger part of the story, but there is a strong bond between Bucky and the reader. Anyways, I hope you all enjoy! If you do, leave a like and a reblog or comment! I’d love to hear what you think and honestly I need the validation. 

This is for Nicola’s 4k writing challenge! Congratulations my dear!

Read on Ao3!

Plums. All he’d wanted was a few plums to make dinner tonight, but the world had other plans. 

He’d first tensed at the distant sirens, feeling frozen with fear as they grew closer, his mind set that this was the day they came to take away the semblance of peace he’d found in Bucharest. He only marginally relaxed when the sirens passed in a flash in front of his blurred vision. 

He kept his head low, avoiding eye contact as best he could. His heart was hammering at this point, the hairs on his arms and the back of his neck stood on end. Every part of him was in panic mode but he hadn’t been able to put his finger on the why yet. He waited to cross the street, leaning on his toes to be able to take off at a moments notice. 

It was when he met the frantic eyes of a newsstand worker that he knew this day was well and truly going to shit. The man did a double take at Bucky, his eyes growing until he watched Bucky take the first panicked step across the street, then he’d scrambled away from his stand and ran through the crowds. 

Bucky reached a gloved hand out to grab the paper, uncaring of the small lighter that clattered the ground in his haste. The headline yelled at him in big, bold, accusatory letters, and he felt his heart plummet to his feet. 

“WINTER SOLDIER WANTED FOR UN BOMBING” 

His hands shook as he threw the paper back on the counter, he needed to get out of here.

His memories had been shit after hydra, countless hours spent in that godforsaken chair, searing pain that he swore split his skull in half as they tore through his mind, taking away the last things that made him James Buchanan Barnes. But he knew, amidst all the struggle he’d had trying to get them back, he hadn’t been the one to bomb the UN. 

His feet had taken off before he could return function to his brain. He was sprinting down back alleyways, not daring to take the main roads and risk someone seeing him. He was sure there were few people that would ever try to stand in his way if they did recognize him, but he couldn’t take the chance that they would alert police. He needed time and if the police knew he was in Bucharest, all of that would vanish. 

He slid to halt behind his apartment complex, old and run down. If he didn’t know better it might look as if it was about to collapse in on itself. There had been nights that he’d wished it would happen, the early days of finding a hide out in Bucharest. He didn’t wish the pain of its collapse on anyone but himself, hoping that it’s end would mean he was taken away from the pain, the sleepless nights were his mind replayed the screams of those whose lives he so brutally took away, the blood that in the darkness of night, he could still see staining his hands no matter how hard he scrubbed at them. 

He scrambled up the back fire escape, sliding into the back stairwell a few floors down from his. He couldn’t hear much, the piano of a neighbor, running footsteps of the children in the apartment opposite of where he stood. Bucky slid into the main stairwell to reach his front door once he realized the main stairwell had been clear. 

He moved with surprising grace and stealth through the front door of his apartment. Both the lock and door were intact and looked like they hadn’t been tampered with and Bucky let out a relieved sigh and slipped inside. 

The apartment, old and dingy like the outside was basic as he could find. Cheap rent that he could cover with small time jobs that didn’t require dealing with people. He’d managed to find an old mattress that someone in his building had thrown out and managed to snag it before it made it to the dumpster. They’d also been throwing out a threadbare blanket and a few pillows and Bucky had snagged those as well. 

He had built up a few shelves along the side wall, extra storage for when he might need it besides the newspapers that sat there now. Not that he’d need it now if he was back to running. The kitchen was bare, just like the rest of his apartment, only holding the things needed to make basic meals. He’d stashed a few journals on top of the refrigerator, filled with memories and thoughts.

His blood turned cold when he walked far enough into his apartment to see someone standing in his kitchen. The red, white and blue suit was one he’d remembered from several different occasions of his past. He remembered him from the fight in D.C., and remembered what had been written about him in the Smithsonian exhibit. Steve was his name. He wasn’t a direct threat, but he was connected to and worked for people who were. 

Bucky nearly collapsed with relief when he saw the one thing that panicked him more than anything, more than he himself being captured and framed for a bombing he had no part in. 

When he’d escaped hydra the few years ago, he’d been a mess of himself, his brain stuck in the instinctual ways they’d programmed into him, looking over his shoulder with every step he took waiting for the inevitable. Waiting for them to come back and say those goddamn words that took away his free will, that took away Bucky Barnes and replaced him with The Asset, the Winter Soldier, that replaced him with HYDRA’s puppet. 

But he hadn’t been the only one. He’d seen her for the years leading up. Heard her scream, watched her body convulse the same way as his always did and they pushed a deadly amount of voltage coursing through her veins, lighting them with the lightning that powered their missions. He’d been sent on the odd mission with her, ones that required more than one set of hydra’s fist, assassinations of high ranking political figures, that needed more finesse rather than brute strength. They worked well and the asset had taken a liking to her. 

That seemed to have extended further than just the asset, seated deep into his roots. When Bucky has been running through the maze of halls, trying to find he way to the freedom he so desperately craved and deserved, he’d seen her. Her presence tugged at him, told him to stop his frantic escape and drag her along with him. And so he did. She’d just arrived back at the base and had been poorly treated  for her wounds, her leg had been the worst of it, the broken bone not reset and ready to heal in the worst and most painful way. 

He grabbed her and ran. He ran until they found a space to hide in the dense Russian forest, ran until he felt the slightest relief of the fear they’d instilled upon him. It wasn’t until Bucharest that he’d found it for the both of them, and now that was gone. 

Her body was tucked in the back corner of the small bathroom inside the apartment. She’d made herself small, hidden, something Bucky wished he could do some days but found it a struggle with his large and bulky stature. Steve, the man standing in front on his fridge, reading the journals of his memories, hadn’t seen him yet and Bucky couldn’t lie that he was grateful for that. 

He nodded to her and her body relaxed minutely. It was a silent conversation between the two of them, one they had long since known was going to happen. The plan was to be enacted but she was stubborn like Bucky had always known her to be and even though his first and most important priority was her safety, her was his safety. There was no way she was leaving without him. No way she was escaping whatever the situation was without him by her side. It was a non starter. 

Bucky cursed under his breath when he shifted on his feet and the floorboard freaked just loud enough to grab Steve’s attention. He was hoping for just a little bit longer to devise a plan, to figure what direction this interaction was going to go. 

Bucky’s heart nearly thudded straight from his chest when Steve turned around. His breathing picked up and his anxiety and panic that had been building in these last two years on the run, all surfaces at once. It sent Bucky into a dangerous spiral of thoughts, and Bucky managed to school his features to hide this winces of pain as new and old memories alike started coming back, brutally punching at his brain. 

It all happened pretty quickly after that, Bucky denied any involvement in the bombing and much to his surprise, Steve knew and was trying to help escape. Bucky wouldn’t let him, he was too connected. Had too much involvement with people who didn’t care that Bucky’s been a POW, who held little sympathy and only wanted a face to blame and a body to throw in a cell. 

He had contingencies, plans in place for whatever happened when this day inevitably came. Everything in the apartment had been strategically set up to give him a way out. For all the atrocities Hydra committed to Bucky, he was at least grateful for the ability to always be prepared, to have a way out should anything ever go south. It was handy when you were on the run from multiple organizations. 

He could just make out the shapes of swat officers surrounding the building on the rooftops of building across from him. He could hear the heavy, pounding of several officers rushing up the stairs and their guns cocking, readying themselves for whatever came. 

“This doesn’t have to end in a fight, Buck.”

That line, the unwillingness to ever stand down, to ever give up, it all struck something within Bucky. He was flooded with another memory, one of the skinny blonde boy he’d seen a few times when he recalled old memories. God, even now it was hard to resist the urge to roll his eyes at his unending morals. 

But Bucky knew, no matter what, it would always end in a fight. He slid the glove of his metal hand, flexing the fingers a few times to regain the dexterity after keeping it so stiff and tense. 

And then shit hit the fan.

Steve’s eyes flew to the window, and Bucky’s followed. The flash bang bounced off Steve’s shield, as a second one thudded in the floor near Bucky’s feet. And with an action and silent conversation that, to an outsider, would look like that of a a partnership that had been working together for years, Bucky kicked the charge to Steve who trapped it beneath his shield. While he was distracted, Bucky took a step back and banged on the bathroom door. 

It was time to go whether they wanted to or not. 

She emerged from the bathroom looking every bit the part of the soldier and asset she once was. Her shoulders were stiff and her muscles tense, but yet, she still moved through the room with a dexterity that someone as stiff as she’d become shouldn’t be able to do. 

They worked around each other like they had been attached at the hip. The fighting styles screamed similarity, a well oiled machine pumping out power packed punch after punch. She was graceful, stealthy but powerful. Bucky was her counterpart in every way, still powerful, not more so but in a different way. In a way of brute strength, a weight behind his punches that few others would ever be able to replicate. 

In a non combative, training scenario, Steve might have found it mesmerizing. A history between the two that begged to be unearthed and explained. He did have a moment of pause, watching they way they worked with each other and then worked within the confines of the apartment. Using the strategically placed furniture to their advantage, to block doors and the rain of bullets fired through the windows. 

The flurry of movements and steady stream of bodies rushing into the fight had started to trickle down, though they were far from over. 

Her and Bucky steadily moved back towards the back door. They had hidden two go-bags underneath a sectioning of flooring days after having moved in to the shitty apartment. They knew this would happen and they would be uprooted from what little peace’s they’d come to find. 

They moved as fluidly together as they had in the apartment as they broke through the waves of officers trying, however stupidly to stop them. Neither cared much for the safety of those that came at them, despite the annoyed looks Steve gave them. 

Bucky restrained himself from feeling any relief that had finally made it low enough to safely jump the gap between their building and their only chance at escape. He wasn’t really sure how he managed it, but somewhere the soldiers instincts must’ve taken over. They jumped across the ledge and Bucky reached out to grab on to her body and pull her into his, knowing that his serum enhanced body could handle the brunt of a fall like that, where hers could not. 

While she’d been an asset, wiped and trained like he had, they had never administered any type of their bastardized serum. He never really knew why, what benefit did it keep to have her not hopped up on the serum. Though then, he hadn’t really questioned it but just knew she hadn’t received it. 

They landed heavy, Bucky landing with most of the combined weight on his cybernetic arm. It hurt like a bitch, the limb already hurting from his fighting and the dumb decision he’d made to drop four flights and catch the railing on his way out. They stood quickly, Bucky only able to take seconds to check her for injury before the daunting shadow of a new threat descended upon them. 

They both took of at a dead sprint, following the predetermined route until they were eventually caught, thrown from the bike they’d grabbed to gain more distance. The squealing of tires, and the clash of a suit hitting heavy against the roadway burned in his ears, in his heart. Because he knew this was the end of their peace, the end of what little freedom they’d found after so many years of captivity. He felt even worse knowing he’d failed in his one goal of protecting her, the person he’d practically adopted to seek shelter under his umbrella of protectiveness. That if he hadn’t been so afraid to admit in fear of losing it all, (like he was) would be like his little sister. He still couldn’t get over how much she reminded him of Becca. 

And to think, this whole started with a trip to the market, for six measly plums to make them dinner.

[a-sprinkle-of-geeky]

The Oasis.

Welcome.

The Our Demons universe and Demitri belongs to @forthecrownanimation entirely. 

This story is a rather fluffy meeting between our ship, (Cloak)-Tyrell and Demitri! Please enjoy and check Mona out for more on her world! ^-^

Word count: 6,758. Long boi.

.

Tyrell finds the trek to the Oasis increasingly unpleasant. Since the loss of his wings, he now has to rely on climbing and jumping to progress through the ragged locations of Duat. However, doing so also exhausts him since his upper body strength isn’t impressive and his scars always throb if he strains them. It seems that even now he isn’t pitied. 

After navigating through the admittedly safer cave he drops onto the grass with a light thump and staggers on his feet with a grumble as he releases his spear - his prime weapon after the loss of his magic - from his mouth and into his hand. He wanted to come here for some quiet time; he had barely avoided Kyle and in response, his mind was racing. 

The Oasis was one of the only thriving areas of Duat besides the Great Lake and emitted a serenity that even he could relax in. There was one single light source located in the cave’s roof which gave a view into the beautiful galactic ceiling that overhung the dimension and cast artificial stars into the pool of water. The water took up quite a portion of the Oasis and provided the main life source for the greenery around it. The grass was green and long with many colourful flowers growing in patches as well as a few bushes, trees, moss and climbing plants spread up the rocky walls. A set of large rocks are piled by one end of the waters, starting to smooth from other demons sitting upon them, and an abundance of lily pads and reed were growing atop the waters. Below the light source was a growing tree whose branches stretched widely with age but still allowing light to pass through the gently swaying leaves.

It smells like flowers, moss, and trees. Ty felt a little more relaxed here. Though the light source was present it was still rather dim so he looked around for any sign of other demons. Luckily he doesn’t seem to find any however having tunnel vision in his right eye did not make seeing very easy - especially in this place. 

The scarred demon sits by the water’s edge and sets his spear aside with a troubled sigh. Ty brings his cloak closer around his body and rests his chin on his knees to think. 

Everything was too much nowadays. The longer he stayed alive the more enraged Kyle became and the longer he stayed alive the more the scars hurt. 

Thinking about everything just jumbled his head into more of a puzzle. There were broken memories like broken shards of glass. Broken horns. Broken eyes. Broken memory. Broken body. Broken. Broken. Broken. He wishes he didn’t have to hide behind the cloak and his hair. He wishes he could remember his human life and his early demon life before Kyle. If he’s honest, he misses his old life. He misses his wings and his eyesight and his ability to laugh and grin like nothing could bother him. He misses Julius so much-

A sudden sound of water moving startles him and knocks him out of his thoughts. He hadn’t noticed another demon who had clearly been here before him and obviously hadn’t noticed him, either. The silhouette rose from the waters after being submerged and wrings out their thick hair, stepping onto the grass with a quiet groan. The figure is male and very tall with a broad stature, a large tail swishes outwards calmly as he stretches with an exhale. He sits himself down by the old tree and settles back in a calm manner as he lets the light breeze dry him off. Ty’s throat had closed up with anxiety.

His mind is then racing with thoughts on strategy or plans but it is hard for him to grasp a clear one since they are buzzing in his skull like bees; he’s allergic to bees. The demon is solitary - he knows that - and going by his demeanour he can tell he’s not immediately dangerous. Weaponless. That doesn’t clear the panic though and Ty decides that he shouldn’t risk a fight with this demon since he’s much larger and he’d have no hope with only a spear to defend himself with. Carefully, he gets up as slowly as he could and grasps his spear tightly with nerves. As long as he reached the exit he would be fine since the figure doesn’t seem to have wings.

As he stands, he looks back at the rather oblivious silhouette still covered by the vast shadows of the cave and hesitates. He isn’t moving. Ty could throw his spear, wound him and run. But what would that do? It would only bring attention to himself and he doesn’t want to start another fight he knows he cannot win. Or lose his spear.

Holding in a scowl, Ty steps backwards but - due to his tunnel vision - does not spot a rock lingering beneath the coarse grass and ends up catching his foot, tumbling onto his back with another thump and a yelp.

Ty curses under his breath as he shuffles back and stares at the silhouette who is now looking in his direction. “Oh, watch yourself, friend,” He calls out with a strange, unwarranted concern in his voice as he stands slowly with a grunt in doing so, “Don’t hit your head..”

As he comes closer Ty scrambles to his feet and points his spear at him as he stands a step from the ray of light poking through the tree branches.

“Back. Away!” He barks with shakiness in his tone. He squints and looks closer in attempts to make out the demon’s face. “I’m warning you!”

The figure doesn’t seem very bothered and steps into the light, causing Ty to take one step back in response. He is top heavy with large, strong muscles and a naturally wide posture as well as a sharp jaw. His skin is pastel pink, which admittedly makes him less scary, and his wine red hair is braided into thick dreadlocks. His gazelle shaped horns are rose red and his ears are short and naturally drooped. His profound chest is hairy and two red gash scars are located on his left shoulder as well as another across his abdomen. The demon is shirtless and wears a pair of jeans torn from the knee with his large tail moving gracefully to keep him balanced. The most prominent thing about him are his eyes. They are vivid pink with warm grey sclera (eye whites) yet they are heavy and tired with dark bags beneath them. His face is kind. Exhausted, but kind.

Handsome.

Ty soon realises that his mouth is moving and he blinks with bewilderment. “H-Huh..?” He stammers.

“I said are you alright..?” He repeats, his voice heavy with an accent. Russian.

“What does it matter to you?!” Tyrell snaps instantly, keeping their eyes locked. He blows a strand of his hair from his eye and pauses for a moment, bewildered by the silence. He breaks it with a huff of exasperation. “If I tell you I’m fine will you back off, stoner?”

The demon lets out a chuckle and tilts his head with a slight smirk as he sets his hands on his hips. “You... don’t talk to people often, do you?” 

Admittedly taken aback by how unusually calm he is, Ty frowns. He’s surprised he wasn’t insulted by the name-calling. “Why is that any of your business?!”

“I was just wondering...” The demon shrugs calmly, his tail swishing again as his smile fades, “You..uh- ..how long have you been down here..?”

“A few minutes,” Ty replies coldly as his marigold eyes travel up and down. He observes each part of him and perhaps spends a little too much time looking at his chest. He swallows and hides behind his hair as he prods his spear in his direction again to try and scare him off. “Leave me alone, will ya?!”

The demon lifts his hands in surrender and steps away with a kind smile on his warm face which once again surprises Ty. He sits by the water with a relaxed posture, his hand resting in the grass as he looks back at him. His tail settles into the shallow water, flicking absentmindedly.

For the first time, Tyrell has a shift in his mindset and a pang of guilt hits him in a wave. Seeing his kind face and thinking of his own actions makes his ears burn with embarrassment...the old him wasn’t taught to be rude. Not used to this kind of interaction, his spear lowers and he once again hesitates. The demon is letting him leave. He’s not used to that.

He knows that not every demon is out to kill him but this one is different. So much so that it intrigues him. In response, his brain tries to remind him of Julius to tug him back into solitude but for once he doesn’t listen to it. He’s curious of this strangely peaceful demon who he’s not sure isn’t a stoner due to his eye bags and the herbal scent emitting from him.

There is about half a minute of awkward hesitation where he looks between the pink demon and the exit before sighing, giving up, and coming forwards. Tyrell sits down a few feet away and sets his spear down but doesn’t let go. “S-Sorry...” He mutters just loud enough for him to hear as he prods his finger into the water.

The demon smiles again and looks out at the water, letting the atmosphere be easy and relaxed which does help Ty feel calmer. After a few minutes of accepted quiet, he looks back at Ty. “Demitri...not stoner.” He finally says.

“Tyrell,” He responds as he listens to his name. It’s a fitting name. It’s memorable. Once again, his mind is racing with thoughts. Some of them are positive but most are demanding to know why he is willingly sitting beside a stranger. Through the pressure of his own mind, he blurts out the first thought that is the loudest without much thought. “I like your smile... it’s very calming and ador-” He cuts himself off the moment those messy words leave his lips, trying to mask it as he loudly clears his throat and hides behind the curtain of his chocolate brown hair.

This only makes Demitri smile more at him and chuckle again. “See now, that’s called a compliment...I’d say you’re good at them, in fact,” He remarks, gazing at the waters briefly before his eyes rest on Ty again; observing him, “Let’s see...hmm, I would compliment something about you but...I can’t see your face very well.”

“Shut up, idiot! I didn’t say anything!” Ty exclaims frantically, his face threatening to fluster. The right side of his face - scarred and covered completely by his fringe - is also starting to tint ever so slightly. Before he can control himself, his hand brushes back the loose strands covering the left side of his face and looks at Dem.

The pink demon looks at him quietly for a few seconds, his tired eyes glancing over him and double-taking at the cloak as if he didn’t realise it was there. “I like your hair...” Demitri says, still somehow un-bothered by the insults, “It seems manageable.”

“N-No..” Ty shakes his head and gulps, “I-It tangles and gets caught..”

“Well...hey, it’s better than having hair like mine,” He shrugs, fiddling with a dread that fell loose from the band, “It’s messy when it’s not braided.”

“Yours looks like those strawberry...liquorice things.” Tyrell rests his chin on his knees and pushes back his cloak so he can sit more freely.

“Liquorice...” Again with that kind smile, a soft look in his eyes that makes Ty’s heart beat slightly faster, “I’ve heard of that...never had it.”

“Well, uh...it’s chewy..”

He never thought he would be comparing liquorice to someone’s hair. Demitri, to him, just looks like one huge bunch of candy rather than anything threatening.

Then, to his surprise, Dem looks at the dread as he plays with it and then chews it briefly. He hums thoughtfully. “Huh...yep, I’d say it’s accurate..” He remarks as if he made a discovery.

“Did you just chew on your hair?” Ty asks with a mix of confusion and disbelief in his face.

“I was just testing it..” Demitri shrugs again, sounding as cool as ever.

Nodding slowly, Ty glances into the water again as he starts to quietly braid his long hair to keep his hands busy. His spear is beside him in the grass and he hasn’t touched it; a good sign that he feels relatively safe around him. As he looks back to meet his gaze through the quiet moment he notices that his pink eyes have traced down to his chest in order to catch his Sin. Ty’s brand is uncommon - or at least he thinks it is because he hasn’t seen any other demons with the same one - yet it can still be read. He covers it subconsciously and looks away.

“Manslaughter...” He says quietly, again just loud enough to be heard. Ty looks up at him with anxious eyes and notices that Demitri’s sin is covered by his hair. “What about you..? Lemme guess, yours is some type of murder, you look the type for it.”

“Heh...I don’t know if I should take that as a compliment.” Demitri replies, tilting his head as he sweeps the hair over his shoulder and reveals the brand of a thief.

“Huh...that’s surprising,” He’s full of surprises, isn’t he? “What’cha steal? A girl’s heart?” Ty brings his knees closer to his chest as he picks up his spear and sharpens the head with a small stone.

“Actually...flowers to his heart,” Demitri replies softly, his gaze settling on the waters as his tail gently swishes beneath it, making little whirlpools. Ty stops and looks at him as he smiles to himself.

His heart. His. He doesn’t know why he’s focusing on that - the fact Demitri’s sweetheart is a male. He shouldn’t be. It’s morbid. It’s inconsiderate of him. It’s pointless. He needs to get it out his head immediately but his thoughts just aren’t listening. He can’t do it. He shouldn’t. Not after what happened.

The thought that he might just have a chance- Shut up!

This demon is just someone who’s kind and smiley. Ty needs to stop his mind from leaning towards kindness because it is either fake, forgettable or will end in pain. He’s not anything special and he will forget about him when he leaves. That’s all he is.

“...Romantic,” Ty responds with, keeping his eyes on his weapon. His claw is digging into his palm every time he merely glances in his direction as if he’s trying to punish himself for thinking.

“He thought it was...” He sighs quietly, his eyes cloudy with reminiscence. Another few seconds creep by and Ty notices his smile fade for a moment as he looks into the waters like the nostalgia suddenly turned dark. But then he blinks and looks back up at him with yet another smile. “I bet you do that stuff all the time, I can tell. You really make the demons drop for ya.” That smile widens into a grin and he winks playfully.

Tyrell immediately tenses and averts his gaze again as fast as he can.

“Flowers..? Are you trying to make me fall for you more?” Julius had giggled.

“Nah, they just matched your eyes!”

“You’re such a moron! Alright, here: I love you too, moron!”

“That’s ‘cause they don’t see what I hide!” He snaps suddenly, tossing the rock into the water to release the sudden sense of anger. Ty growls as it plops into the water, discarding his spear beside him and tugging his cloak back round himself which, in doing so, unties the loose braid in his hair. “Idiot!”

“Apologies...I hit a nerve,” He holds up his hand to indicate a truce. His hands are large yet they hold the lines of magic and aren’t worn from weapon handling. He’s one big softie. Demitri’s eyes glance at Ty’s hair and he blinks before speaking genuinely. “Oh, your hair fell out...would you like help with that plait again?”

“I-I mean...you can try...” He’s bewildered all over again so, to try and grasp his pride again, he turns to an insult, “I doubt your hands will be able to do much...” But none the less, he nods.

“Oh, you’ll be surprised what these hands do...” Another wink as he gets up onto his knees and gestures him to come closer. He’s flirting. He’s flirting! 

Ty gulps, bowing his head to hide his face as he flips him off but still sits in front of him none the less. “If your hands go anywhere other than my hair my spear is going straight through your neck!”

Demitri makes a cross over his heart with a chuckle. “Promise.”

He then kneels closer and his hands trace through his hair as gentle as can be. Dem wasn’t wrong, his touch is calming and it’s making the scarred demon want to eat his own words. Ty falls completely silent, keeping his eyes down at the water gently lapping in front of them as his face burns as bright as a cherry. Tingles are running down his neck and his body relaxes in response but he still refuses to admit he’s enjoying it. At that moment he realises that he’s touch-starved. Because he is starting to like the feeling of his hair being played with and there isn’t even a speck of tension in the atmosphere. It’s been so long since anyone has touched him without violent intentions, he cannot remember the last time he made contact with someone or been hugged. Demitri is making everything so relaxed and he doesn’t know why but he doesn’t want this moment to end.

“You have nice hair,” Dem mentions as he braids a French plait through Ty’s hair, ties it with a hairband and sets it on his shoulder when he’s finished. “Thank you for letting me assist you.”

Then his hands lift from his hair and Ty gulps, giving an embarrassed nod and inspecting the braid behind the other, still-loose, strands. It is well braided and neat, more so than he could have done on his own. He’s avoiding eye contact like the plague and is already fiddling with his hair as he tries to tackle down the words asking for him to braid it again from being said. As a result, he stammers and scowls with shaky hands. His heart is hammering out his chest. Why is he so charming!?

Now overly-flustered and emotional, Ty shoves him into the water to escape the thousands of emotions that are burning into his chest. Dem falls tiredly into the water with no fight and simply floats on the surface calmly. He looks more confused if anything as if he is realising what is happening. The demon looks at Ty with a perplexed expression as he floats on the water before smiling again.

“If you wanted a swim you could’ve just asked,” He says as he kindly holds out his hand.

“Th-That wasn’t supposed to be for fun, asshole!” He exclaims, now in a panic as his face flusters beyond hiding. He kicks a pebble into the waters, completely humiliated with himself and his own actions. “Stop being charming- I mean - y-you-... I’m gonna drown you..!”

“I think I need to be under the water for that.” He replies simply as if pondering it. His lack of anger towards Ty is too much - it feels like he could do anything to him and he’d just smile and continue to be calm. He’s such a squishy, chilled idiot that it’s infuriating... He thinks.

Wrapping his arms around himself, he gulps. “Umm...” He’s lost for words. His own tail is swishing back and forth as he thinks through everything. Ty needs to calm down, he’s too riled up and it is making him flustered. As he bites the side of his mouth and scratches the back of his neck he takes a deep breath. “S-Shut up...”

Demitri takes the chance to smirk again and stretches out before offering his hand again for Tyrell to take. Subconsciously, he starts to reach out to take it but the memory of Julius strikes his mind and he freezes, quickly retracting it and balling his hands into fists as he looks away.

Not planning on pestering him, Demitri swims deeper into the pool and looks back at him. “Join me when you like.” He says before diving beneath the cool waters. He’s gone for quite a while to the point where Ty grows concerned for him and cautious.

“H-Hey!” He calls out. “You better come back up or I’ll dive down and get you!”

He waits for another moment in case he rises again but there’s no sign of him at all which makes him scowl with worry. Ty removes his cloak from his shoulders and makes the effort of folding it beside his spear before stepping anxiously into the water; shivering from the cold. The scarred demon swims further into the pool, looking and listening for any movements.

Before he can dive down after him there is a sudden blotch of rippling pink and before he knows it Demitri bursts from the waters, breathing heavily and laughing as water deluges Ty who - in terror - strikes him in the shoulder with a holler. “AGH- What the hell?! What’s wrong with you, I could’ve hurt you!” Ty cries.

The pink demon flinches as he splashes back into the waters, shaking out his thick hair and then rubbing the spot where he was hit. He chuckles, still.

“Sorry...my bad, won’t happen again...”

“Just... don’t sneak up on me...” Ty mutters, wading in the waters slowly and ensuring that the right side of his face isn’t shown. He’s already risking a lot by revealing the scars on his torso and the torn remnants of his wings he just prays that Demitri won’t question it. He doesn’t want this soft idiot to be a questioner.

He nods understandably and lets them simmer in the quiet for a moment. “The water is great though!” He then says once the tension lowers, “I like it here..”

“Sure...I guess it is...it’s quiet.”

The scarred demon soon grows tired of wading and paddles over to the rocks, stopping to pick a few water lotus from the lily pads and smell them quietly. Flowers always grow sweeter here. He finds comfort in that, at least.

Leaning over a rock to support himself, Ty starts to pick the petals from the flowers one by one and set them into the waters like little boats battling unexplored oceans. They float peacefully, tinted pink or blue, across the clear waters below. He likes to picture them without a destination - free to travel across the rippling waves with a choice between reaching an unknown place or eventually sinking from the pressure down into the deep unknown below their feet. As he removes the next petal its weaker, velvety surface is torn up the side from his own carelessness and he stares at it for a moment. Then, he plucks it off like the others and yet it still somehow manages to stay intact despite the wound. Upon being set in the water, it drifts forwards as peacefully as the others. But it’s not the same.

Almost out of spite, Ty then reaches over and presses his finger into the damaged petal so the water engulfs it and it sinks below the rippling surface; distorted and warped. It sinks downwards into the darkness, a penny of pink to a speck to nothing. The damaged will never survive in a world without a destination.

Demitri is looking at him. 

By now he has seen them - his scars - and his eyes were observing like everyone else would which makes Ty start to close up again. His scars are jagged, disgusting and ugly in harsh pink tones because he had no help, he was left to die and now he’s left with a constant, painful reminder that he’ll never be intact again! 

Demitri swims gently through the waters and his presence knocks the intact petals but does not make them capsize. Dem stops beside him and leans back on a rock with a kind smile. “May I ask..?” 

No. Don’t ask about them. Please don’t ask about them. Please. His mind is racing again, he doesn’t want to talk about them and he doesn’t know how to. He doesn’t know what thoughts are the correct ones.

“What era are you from?”

Hearing that is like a wave that rushes over him and soaks him in cold relief. Tyrell sighs deeply and glances at him with a shaking hand as he lifts himself up onto the rock and sits down.

“Oh...I can’t remember...” He replies honestly, still sad to speak of it, “I’m really not sure; it’s such a big blur...I can remember bards and wagons and tithings but that’s about it. Pathetic, I know...”

“It’s not pathetic...” Demitri says, tilting his head, “Sometimes I forget things.”

“Heh...so what about you?”

“Oh, I’m young...only a couple hundred years, I think,” Demitri stands up in the water so it wades around his waist, he stretches out his strong arms again as water causes his muscles to glisten. “I’m a bub compared to a lot of others here.”

No wonder he’s a big softie. He’s young, he’s still oblivious to quite a few things that happen down here. It’s adorable. Such a big guy but with such a young age compared to Ty. Though his memory is broken beyond repair he can still grasp the basics of his age. He is pretty sure he is around 1,600 - possibly a little older. It’s strangely cute that Demitri’s age is perhaps an eighth of his.

“Aww..how cute,” He says with a tone of playfulness, raising one shoulder as he leans back on his hand. Then he thinks - usually young demons group up together in order to create strength in numbers. “You part of any groups or clans?”

“No.. I don’t like to be tied down...I let the wind take me where ever, you know?” Dem comes close and leans forwards about a foot away from Ty, who gulps nervously.

“Y-Yeah, I guess...?” He responds questionably before shrugging. “Kinda admirable. Clans just get in the way of everything,” He sneers at the thought of it. “Anyway - you seem like the type who can fend for himself. If you didn’t have all that muscle you’d be more of a marshmallow than anything.” To his own surprise, he laughs and playfully whacks his arm with the back of his hand.

Demitri laughs along with him and grins merrily as his cheeks dust lilac softly. “I’m pretty marshmallow-y anyway,” He prods himself to prove this, “I’ve been told I give great hugs and hey...didn’t know you had such a cute laugh, heh..”

For once, Ty doesn’t kick or punch him in embarrassment but instead bows his head behind his hair to hide the shaky smile playing on his lips.

Demitri sits beside him and continues to smile, his cheeks remain the dusted colour of pastel lavender as his confidence seems to rise. “Now what I don’t understand is why you want to hide that face with hair... sure, it’s amazing hair...” He says as he gently brushes the strand aside so he can see Ty’s face - his hand is lingering. “But that’s an amazing face.”

Immediately Tyrell tenses and chokes up on his words. The thoughts are back, buzzing and stinging his mind with images of the incident. So he looks away quickly and shakes his head. “Yeah yeah, well you wouldn’t like the other half. Now quit with that charm!”

“Can’t. Doesn’t turn off,” He shrugs and looks down at him, “And if its anything like the other half I think I’ll like it.”

“It’s not, you won’t like it and you can fight me over that!” He frowns stubbornly, pulling the strand back over his face.

Demitri stands once again and holds his arms to the side of him as he walks back onto land. “I guess you’re just gonna have to then.” He’s smirking again.

“W-What?”

“You heard me, come on,”

“Excuse me?” Ty stands up on the rocks and leaps onto the grass before folding his arms. “That wasn’t supposed to be taken literally you moron,” None the less, he finds himself agreeing to it and shrugs. “Lemme guess, if you win I gotta show you the other side of my face?”

Dem nods, not losing that kind smile as he rolls his shoulders. “Sure. What if you win?”

Ty retrieves his spear with a neutral expression and checks the sharp point, deciding to leave the cloak so it does not slow him down. He thinks for a moment, his mind overcoming him with curiosity. “If I win - and if it doesn’t make you freak out or whatever - you tell me what made you a demon?”

For a moment, Dem’s eyes fill with emotion and he tilts his head again as he blinks. “Well, that’s not exactly fair...” He cracks his knuckles, “But if you insist...”

“Never mind, never mind,” Ty waves his hand dismissively, not wanting to see him upset, and instead asks jokingly, “How about a kiss?”

“A kiss?” His eyebrows raise and his cheeks go more purple, “Well, that is fairer I suppose,” He shrugs as he cracks his neck and looks forwards. All of a sudden, a pair of wings open from his back with a wingspan no doubt at least four metres in total, “First on his back?”

Why did you suggest that?! His mind yells to itself, What if you do win?! You can’t kiss him, he’s a weirdo!

He nods and frowns at the sight of the large wings. Yet another surprise. “Oh great, you can fly! This is not fair!” Ty flips his spear to the butt end and breaks the ice by running at him.

Before he can land a hit, however, Demitri suddenly dodges sharply; his speed not matching his frame. He lets out a chuckle as his wings shrink back into his back, disappearing. “You’re right, but isn’t this a little unfair, too?” He places his finger on the tip of his spear as he looks into his eyes.

“Ugh - it’s not like I’ll stab you!” Tyrell scoffs and rolls his eyes but obliges and tosses it aside as he rolls his shoulders. “But fine. Happy now?” Before giving him a chance to respond the scarred demon runs at him again, this time swiping his foot under his ankle in attempts to knock him off his feet.

Immediately, Demitri jumps forwards and lands on his hand, using it to swiftly launch himself forwards and back onto his feet behind Ty as his large tail follows through to knock him down. Tyrell notices the blur of pink in the corner of his eye and vaults over the tail with equal amounts of agility as Demitri. He then twists around and grabs the large tail in his hands, tugging it as hard as he can in order to throw him off his feet.

Dem lets out a gasp as he tugged, turning towards him and stumbling closer in bewilderment as he whips his tail away and jumps backwards to prevent Ty from tackling him. When the scarred demon notices Dem’s cheeks flush bright purple he realises what had happened and his own face burns.

“H-Heh...that was new.”

“O-Oh god, that was not intentional!” Ty exclaims, humiliated.

“No, it’s okay... at least now I know.” Demitri shrugs and looks back at him. After a few seconds, he takes advantage of the situation and launches at Ty again to tackle him.

Tyrell takes longer to respond to the attack this time and blinks in surprise when he sees the demon charging at him. They make contact and he latches onto his strong arm, using it as a step to hoist himself up onto Dem’s shoulder and leap across. Suddenly, the pink demon catches his arm and tugs him back so he stumbles and twists his arm against his back to pin him, his breath against Ty’s neck.

It’s not Kyle. Ty tells himself, It’s not Kyle. Calm down.

“You’re not trying very hard...” Dem says. Ty grits his teeth, his breath shaky and his face completely red. His head is jumbled, horribly flustered and embarrassed and at this point, it’s making him uncoordinated. 

“W-What the hell am I supposed to do, then!?” He struggles in his grasp before thinking for a solution. When he feels Demitri begin to move to throw him down, he jumps upwards and swings his foot straight into his head. The demon makes a grunt and releases him, staggering and almost falling off his feet but regains it due to his tail.

Ty is breathing heavily as he also stumbles back and has to force his own brain to believe that the person in front of him is not Kyle. He can’t blame Demitri because he didn’t know. 

Mad due to his buzzing thoughts and emotions, Ty makes one final lunge at him to end the spar and tackle him with all his strength. Wait- If I win then that means he has to kiss me... He then realises and, because of that image in his head, it knocks him off guard.

Demitri ducks under his grasp and grabs him by his legs effortlessly, causing him to yelp and jolt forwards. Dem looks up into his marigold eyes for a short yet meaningful moment and blinks as if something just sparked within him whilst he starts to move again. A frown furrows on his brow as he makes the motion to slam him down and Ty holds his breath, trying to prepare for the pain in his scars. Yet his entire demeanour changes at that moment and the force abruptly stops. Instead, he holds him and gently places his back on the soft grass.

“Gotcha.” He grins again, the lightness returning to his face.

Ty can only stare at him for the first few seconds, blinking in stunned silence. Why did his eyes shift like that? Did he really pity his scars that much?

“That was not fair!” He stammers eventually, sitting up in a daze, “You’re twice the size of me!” Then he sighs, secretly thankful that Demitri didn’t slam him down because it would’ve no doubt made him shut down on himself from the pain. Still, he smiles and looks up through his hair as he playfully punches him in the shoulder. “Well played.”

“Hey now, you’re the one who suggested it,” Demitri rubs his arm with a chuckle and hands him his cloak, “Now c’mon, pay up.”

“I did not!” Ty huffs dramatically as he clips it around his shoulders and crosses his legs, sitting in front of the kneeling demon. He rolls his eyes, a nervous flutter in his chest as he raises his hand to his fringe. “Ugh...alright. But it's not pretty... wouldn’t be surprised if it scared you off, but here.” 

With a deep breath, he tucks his dark fringe behind his drooping ear and reveals the right side of his face. From his right temple to just above his lip and across to his nose had been burned away, leaving raw, ugly pink scarring, tight and shiny. His damaged right eye was slightly stretched out of shape from the damage and left crimson red with a milky white iris. His eyebrow and eyelashes had been burned away, leaving behind nothing but an ugly mess. It made him want to cry.

“There. Happy now..?” He chokes out, looking down at the grass; too ashamed to view his reaction.

“Woah...” Demitri stares, tilting his head and looking deeply into his eyes as he leans closer. “Pretty...”

“P-Pretty..?!” Ty echoes with a stammer, his fists clenching as he sits up straight, “I-It’s not pretty! How the hell can you even think it was pretty!?” He makes the move to punch him square in the face but then stops himself and returns his hand to his lap. Demitri doesn’t even flinch, too absorbed in watching him.

“You’re kidding... I’ve never met anyone with eyes like this...how unique.” He mumbles airily, still leaning ever closer.

Ty is going to cry. He’s such an idiot, he has to be lying to him. He’s just a doped up idiot, this doesn’t mean anything to him. He’s just an idiot. That’s all he is.

“O-Okay...” Ty goes hoarse with emotion and nods, having to clear his throat and gulp before he can notice. There’s a warmth in his chest. It sparked up like a firework and is melting across him as thick as honey.

Demitri smiles, still lost in staring and so close that he’s only a few inches from his face now - completely absorbed.

“Why are you sitting so close..?” His tone is nervous, flustered.

The pink demon blinks as if he’s snapping back into reality and sits back, purple quickly rising across his cheeks and along his nose, glowing in pastel lavender. “O-Oh..apologies, I guess I just got lost...heh.” 

“Should’ve got a map, then..” Ty retorts nervously, quickly shaking his fringe back over his eye to Demitri’s disappointment. There’s a moment of silence where they both just glance at each other, thoughts in their own minds that question the unspoken spark. He’s the first one to break the silence. “I...I should probably head off...lack of sleep is getting to me...”

Demitri then looks even more disappointed, his expression drooping. “Aw...really? So soon?” He speaks with a saddened tone as he looks up at him and, for once, his smile doesn’t look genuine. Ty hates it.

“W-Well...I’m tired and I don’t want anyone to kill me when I’m sleeping.” He replies quietly.

“Oh...” Demitri looks down, saddened, and then thinks before looking back up at him, “Then...how about I watch over you?”

“Huh?”

“Yeah! I like, never sleep so I’d be the perfect bodyguard...” He smiles again, looking hopeful.

“I mean...I guess if you want...” The scarred demon responds gingerly, looking at him with slight concern. He doesn’t sleep? That can’t be healthy...I guess it explains the eye bags, at least... “Are you sure not sleeping is healthy? Doing that will mess with your head.”

Demitri gives him an unknowing smile - like there was something Ty didn’t know. “Heh, you worry wart... don’t worry. I haven’t slept in 300 years and counting.”

Why is he proud of that?! Ty questions in his head, That just makes it worse! Why is he smiling like that!? UGH- I hate this idiot!

“Just..look after yourself,” He mutters, standing up and picking up his spear, “Don’t be stupid or anything.”

He does a mock salute and smiles warmly at him as he walks over to the large tree beneath the stars and finds a spot between two large roots which he huddles into. Demitri leaps up onto a low branch above him and smiles down at him as he leans back on the trunk. “Sleep well...”

Tyrell hums in response as he closes his eyes and holds his spear close to his chest out of habit. His eyes grow heavy after only a minute and his thoughts start to drift outwards into a calming ocean. A lake surrounded by pine trees and a range of mountains behind it with him sitting upon a rock looking out at it all but now there’s someone beside him.

Barely aware of what he’s doing because he’s lost in that dream, Ty’s eyes slip open ever so slightly. “If you see a demon with icy skin...” He murmurs, just loud enough to hear, “Please don’t let him find me...” Then he slips asleep, unaware that he ever spoke.

“No one’s touching you whilst I’m here...” Demitri replies a few moments later, looking out onto the Oasis as he watches over him protectively.

.

Howdy! This is rather long.

If you made it to the end then I hope you enjoyed it! This was just a fun little one shot of how Tymitri met that I’ve been doing in my free time to relax from intense studying.

I enjoyed writing this and it’s very cute - a contrast to the Tyan universe lmao.

Big thanks to Mona for always letting me use Demitri without me asking! You can’t blame me, he’s an adorable marshmallow!

Please excuse any mistakes, my brain has been running like jelly for the past week and I’m only like one fifth into exams. Kill me. I shall fix them later, as I always say.

Anyhow, hope you liked these two gays being confused at each other! <3

[daresplaining]

Daredevil Countdown: 10 Days

A (Potential) Season 3 Reading Guide

    Despite early indications that this season might draw heavily from the famous Miller/Mazzucchelli/Scheele “Born Again” storyline, showrunner Erik Oleson has made clear over the past week that this will be very much a new story, which will take inspiration from many sources without adhering too closely to any. Based on what we’ve heard/seen so far about the new season, here are some of the story arcs that might be referenced: 

Daredevil vol. 1 #48-130: Elden Henson let slip this past weekend that MCU Foggy is going to run for office as the new D.A. (thanks, Elden)! There are three D.A. Foggy stories in the comics: one in which he is duped into a fake nomination by a supervillain (vol. 1 #10-11), one in which he actually runs for real and wins (vol. 1 #48-50), and one in which his re-election campaign is sabotaged by another supervillain (vol. 1 #124-130). It’s tough to say what stories they might pull from, if any, but from vol. 1 #50-130 Foggy becomes the sternest version of himself, gets shot once, and generally grapples with both the issues of crime in New York and his public stance on superheroes. Matt also works as his assistant for a while, thus presenting a fun new version of their dynamic. 

Daredevil vol. 1 #56-57: We know we will finally be discovering Karen’s backstory this season. It’s likely that it will end up being something entirely new, but if they do look to the comics for inspiration, the only story that covers her family and past is the Death’s Head arc in volume 1. In this story, Karen returns to her hometown of Fagan Corners, Vermont, where she discovers that her paranoid engineer father has gotten involved in some dark deeds. This is also the story in which Matt tells Karen that he’s Daredevil.

Daredevil vol. 1 #166, 226: The trailer indicates that Melvin Potter may finally become the Gladiator! These two stories seem like good potential sources of inspiration, since both deal with Melvin’s humanity and struggle to be a good person. 

Daredevil vol. 1 #169: Oleson mentioned at NYCC that there were things he couldn’t believe Marvel allowed him to do with Bullseye. The footage we’ve seen so far suggests Dex might possibly be suffering from some mental/personality challenges. DD 169 (“Devils”) is a bizarre story that delves into Bullseye’s psyche and his relationship with Matt, in which an undiagnosed brain tumor causes him to hallucinate Daredevil everywhere. Matt hunts him down to try and help him. 

Daredevil vol. 1 #191: "Roulette” is a hugely famous issue centered around Matt and Bullseye, and while we haven’t seen any obvious references to it yet, we would be shocked if it didn’t receive at least a nod. Matt nearly kills Bullseye following Elektra’s death, and he ends up in the hospital, completely paralyzed. Matt visits him and runs through an internal monologue on the nature of heroism and the reason he is unable to actually kill Bullseye, framed by a silent, issue-long game of Russian roulette.

Daredevil vol. 1 #227-233: We are still confident that this season will draw a fair amount from “Born Again”, since that story arc includes: Maggie nursing Matt back to health, Matt battling the Kingpin after losing everything, an imposter dressed as Daredevil (whose costume is provided by Melvin Potter), and Matt spending a significant period of time out of the DD suit. It’s also noteworthy that during this arc, Foggy unknowingly takes a lucrative job working for the Kingpin. In the show, with Foggy possibly becoming the DA and Fisk looking to gather pawns and allies, it’s possible we may see something similar. 

Daredevil vol. 1 #284-290 (not digitized): Matt returns to NYC from a literal trip to hell and develops amnesia. With Daredevil missing, Bullseye decides to try on the red suit, later receiving the Kingpin’s endorsement to go out and ruin DD’s reputation. By the end, both of their identities get scrambled when Matt regains his memories, puts on a Bullseye costume, and goes out to confront his enemy. We know Bullseye will be acting as Daredevil this season, likely at Fisk’s prompting, so we’re expecting major references to this story arc-- hopefully with the ensuing analysis of morality and identity.   

Daredevil vol. 1 #297-300 (not digitized): In many ways, D.G. Chichester’s “Last Rites” is the real ending to “Born Again”. It is also one of the greatest Daredevil/Kingpin stories ever told, and is criminally underrated. In this arc, Fisk attempts to solidify his power by forming “legitimate” business connections and purchasing broadcasting properties, through which he might further influence the minds of New York’s citizens. Having recovered from his own destruction at Fisk’s hands, Matt decides that he needs to take his old enemy down once and for all. The ensuing story is a chess match, in which Matt schemes behind the scenes to topple the Kingpin, just as the Kingpin once toppled him. We’re including this story on this list more out of wishful thinking than anything, in the hopes that it might be referenced. Either way, it’s a story everyone should read. The span of 50-ish issues afterward, which chronicle Fisk’s slow-yet-steady progress from the pits of the underworld back to his seat of power, are also filled with sources of inspiration. Since the process is so long and so slow, it’s tough to pick any one part to recommend.

Daredevil vol. 2 #1-8: “Guardian Devil” is my least favorite Daredevil arc, but they are definitely going to be referencing it. At the very least, we already have this significant panel recreation (from #5). It also digs into Matt’s relationship with Maggie, and is the main reason people think Matt is religious, so it has already had a huge influence on the Netflix show. Bullseye in the church is a “Guardian Devil” reference (and also a movie reference!). In this case, we’re hoping most of the references will be reversals, since a major plot point in this arc is Bullseye killing Karen. 

Daredevil vol. 2 #26-31: The first story arc of Bendis’s main run (following “Wake Up”) details the Kingpin’s near-fatal stabbing at the hands of his son and several of his subordinates. And maybe that part will be referenced, but we’re mainly including it on this list because of Vanessa. During this arc, Vanessa Fisk takes her first steps away from the image of innocence and goodness that she represented in previous stories. With her husband out of commission, she seizes control of his resources and uses them to enact lethal vengeance on his attackers. In Season 1, we were treated to a touching exploration of Vanessa and Wilson’s developing romance, and also saw glimpses of Vanessa’s potential ruthlessness. This season, we’re hoping we might see her take on a more active role in Fisk’s enterprises as he rises to power once more.  

Daredevil vol. 2 #76-81: This season, Fisk is going to be doing a whole lot of messing with the FBI, starting with bargaining his way out of prison. This has strong “Murdock Papers” vibes, in which Fisk attempts to secure his freedom by offering up proof to the FBI that Matt Murdock is Daredevil. There’s been a lot of speculation that the trademark Murdock Secret Identity Struggles(TM) might finally make their way into the show this season, and that Fisk might figure out/discover that vital information. This is another “Born Again” plot point, and is something we saw him looking into at the end of Season 2. There have been a lot of story arcs dealing with this issue, but the primary ones are: vol. 1 #320-325 and vol. 2 #32-37 (two times in which the press learns Matt’s secret identity and attempts to use it), vol. 3 #35-36 (in which Matt publicly outs himself), and vol. 1 #25-41 (the Mike Murdock Saga, of course). 

Daredevil: The Man Without Fear #1-5: This is Miller’s alternate version of the origin story, and is the source of the black bandanna look, so it was heavily referenced in Season 1. However, since Matt is going to be back in black this season, brutally beating on people (MWF is a notably bloody version of Matt’s origin), we wouldn’t be surprised if there were some more visual/tonal references. In this same vein, Daredevil: Reborn features post-“Shadowland” Matt trying to find himself and wearing the same black bandanna look, so we might even get some references to that story...  

Daredevil vol. 4 #6-7: We heard Maggie’s voice in Season 1 and glimpsed her in Season 2, but she is finally being introduced in a meaningful way in Season 3. If, indeed, she is Matt’s mom in this universe, we hope they took inspiration from this arc in volume 4. Not only is this the only story to provide a comprehensive overview of Maggie’s motivations for leaving, it also presents a much more compelling and powerful explanation (post-partum depression) than the vague religious guilt implied in previous runs.  

[externallydying101]

Quid Pro Quo

Werewolf!AU Oneshot - OT7

It was a cold, damp morning deep in a forest in South Korea. Yoongi was fast asleep when the sound of yelling cut through the peaceful silence. His eyes shot open, trying to kickstart his brain enough to pinpoint what it was that was being said, or rather, yelled. Fortunately no one was in any danger - just angry. He sighed, recognising Jungkook and Jimin’s voices echoing through the house. He left his room and walked towards the centre of the arguing - the living room. He entered the room and took a few moments to observe the situation in front of him. Jimin and Jungkook were standing on opposite sides of the room, yelling at each other and sporting matching expressions of anger and annoyance. Yoongi sighed again, and fully entered the room in order to break up the fight between the two younger Alphas.

“What is going on?” asked Yoongi.

“Why don't you ask Jungkook?” replied Jimin, the bitterness easily slipping into his voice as he shot a glare at the youngest of the pack. Yoongi raised his eyebrows in surprise - Jimin was rarely sarcastic. He turned to Jungkook, crossing his arms and wordlessly demanding an explanation, but the younger didn't even acknowledge him.

“Me?!” shouted Jungkook defensively. “You’re the one who caused this!”

“Caused what?” questioned Yoongi, but his voice was lost as the Alphas began yelling at each other again. In the middle of the chaos, Yoongi’s sharp hearing picked up a whimper coming from another room, swiftly followed by soft-spoken reassurances. He instantly recognised the voices as Taehyung and Namjoon, and realised that the two gentle Omegas were scared by all the yelling. Feeling his protective nature flare up, he let the anger bubbling just under his skin explode.

“Shut up! Both of you! I don’t care whose fault it is; I’m shutting this down right now!” Both Jimin and Jungkook turned to him in shock - the quiet and brooding Alpha never yelled. Never. Jimin felt his face redden in shame, and Jungkook’s eyes filled with tears, but before Yoongi could say anything to either of them, Jungkook sprinted out of the door and further into the forest. The other Alphas sighed, knowing they’d never catch up to the youngest, and left to find Namjoon and Taehyung to try and comfort them.

                                                            *****

Not too far from their house were Seokjin and Hoseok, who had left earlier that morning to find food for breakfast. The two Betas were perfectly content that morning, talking softly to each other about everything and anything. Their hearing didn’t pick up the sounds of the fight, and they would’ve have remained completely clueless if Jungkook didn’t happen to run in their direction. They heard footsteps approaching, and Hoseok began softly growling, but Seokjin’s superior senses recognised the sound as Jungkook’s footsteps. He put his hand on Hoseok’s shoulder to soothe him.

“Jungkook-ah!” Seokjin called into the forest, surprising Hoseok who hadn’t realised that it was Jungkook. He heard the footsteps come to a sharp stop, and listened to Jungkook’s heavy breathing mixed with soft sobs that he hadn’t previously picked up on. “Jungkook, are you alright? Why are you crying?” He heard no reply, and as fast as they had stopped the footsteps started again, sending Jungkook running off in a different direction as fast as he could. Seokjin instantly took off after him, Hoseok in close pursuit. But neither of the Betas could catch up to Jungkook, as they couldn’t actually see where exactly the young Alpha was, and eventually came to a stop.

“What was that about?” asked Hoseok, worry evident in his tone, turning to look at Seokjin, whose facial expression reflected the anxiety bubbling within both Betas. Seokjin shrugged, staring off at the direction where they had heard Jungkook’s footsteps, before slowly turning around and returning to where they had been foraging.

“Hyung, talk to me,” pleaded Hoseok, but the elder ignored him, gathering up some of the food they had collected and setting off in the direction of their home. Hoseok sighed, picked up the remainder of the food, and followed him home.

                                                            *****

When Seokjin and Hoseok returned, the first thing they saw was Taehyung and Jimin playing around in front of their home. The two Betas stopped, watching the younger werewolves with matching fond looks before Taehyung noticed them.

“Hyungs!” he exclaimed, scrambling up and running towards them. Taehyung had always been an affectionate person. They both hugged him before hugging Jimin, who was waiting patiently behind them.

“We saw Jungkookie in the forest just now,” remarked Seokjin. “Do either of you know what happened?” Instantly Jimin’s cheeks burned guiltily, and Taehyung’s smile slid off his face. But before the Betas could ask any more questions, the front door opened and Yoongi appeared.

“There was a fight,” he said in response to Seokjin’s question.

“What?!” Hoseok exclaimed, as they followed Yoongi into the house and shut the door behind them, leaving Jimin and Taehyung alone again.

“Come on Jimin-hyung, let’s play!” shouted the ever-excitable Taehyung, pulling on Jimin’s hand and leading him further into the forest.

“What do you want to play?” asked Jimin distractedly, still thinking about Jungkook.

“Tag, you’re it!” shouted Taehyung, surprising Jimin and taking off into the forest. Jimin sighed endearingly before sprinting after Taehyung. Delighted screams and ecstatic laughter filled the air that afternoon as Jimin and Taehyung chased each other along the winding paths and through the zig-zag pattern of the trees in the place they called home. At one point Taehyung was hiding behind a tree, catching his breath. But his heavy breathing obscured the almost silent sounds of Jimin’s footsteps as he advanced on the unsuspecting Omega. Just as Taehyung thought he was safe, Jimin pounced. He tackled Taehyung to the ground and instantly began tickling him, ignoring Taehyung’s pleas for mercy in between his kicking legs and constant laughter. Jimin finally relented, getting up and offering his hand to Taehyung to help him up. They returned to the house with bright smiles on their faces and another afternoon of happy memories saved away from the future.

                                                             *****

As the afternoon slowly dissolved into evening, Namjoon decided that he wanted to go on a walk, accepting Taehyung’s offer to accompany him. The other werewolves nodded and watched the two Omegas walk away. There was no need for words in that moment as the two young men walked side by side against a picturesque background. They breathed in unison; deep, even breaths as they watched the sun shift through the colour spectrum from the gaps in the trees. After about ten minutes, both of the Omegas picked up on approaching footsteps. They stiffened in fear, waiting to assess the potential threat before retreating back to the safety of their pack. Just as they were about to run, a figure emerged from behind a nearby bush. It was Jungkook. Both Namjoon and Taehyung sighed in relief before running to greet the Alpha. He opened them both with welcome arms, also relieved to see his pack brothers again.

“Where have you been?” asked Namjoon, a worried expression covering his face. Jungkook sighed, and ran his hand through Namjoon’s hair in an attempt to soothe him.

“I’m alright Joonie,” replied Jungkook, able to see straight through Namjoon and answer the question he wanted to ask. He smiled softly at the two Omegas before taking their hands and leading them back to their home. As the three of them emerged from the forest, the other Alphas and Betas exclaimed at the sight of Jungkook. They each hugged him, and told him they were glad to see him again. Except Yoongi. He stayed where he was, and simply observed the other werewolves greeting Jungkook.

“I’m sorry hyung,” Jungkook said to Jimin, before being tugged into a tight hug by the elder Alpha.

“Me too Jungkookie. Honestly, I can’t remember what we were even arguing about.” And upon recollection, neither could Jungkook. He looked up with a bright smile, but it dimmed slightly when he made eye contact with Yoongi, swiftly looking down at his feet. The others didn't notice, too busy sitting down to eat dinner together - a tradition they had upheld since their days spent living with the Mage. Nothing more was said of the earlier argument.

                                                           *****

It was dark in Yoongi’s room, and the Alpha was very nearly asleep when a beam of light fell across the bed.

“Hyung?” called a shy, timid voice from the doorway.

“Jungkook?” asked a drowsy Yoongi.

“Sorry, I didn’t mean to wake you,” apologised the younger as he backed out of the room.

“Wait!” called Yoongi, sitting up and attempting to rub the sleep out of his eyes. “Are you alright?” Jungkook nodded, but his watery eyes and small pout told a different story. Yoongi cooed and beckoned the younger forward. Jungkook entered the room and closed the door; neither werewolf really needed the light anyway. Jungkook gently climbed on to Yoongi’s bed and into his awaiting arms, curling up into his side with his head on Yoongi’s chest. There was silence for a moment, before Jungkook spoke.

“I’m sorry hyung, I didn’t mean to make you angry earlier,” the youngest whispered into the darkness. Yoongi sighed, and ran his hand through Jungkook’s soft hair.

“I’m sorry too Kookie, I shouldn’t have yelled at you, and I didn’t mean to scare you. I would never hurt you.” Jungkook nodded in understanding, and yawned in response. Yoongi chuckled softly, before pulling the blanket up higher as Jungkook drifted off to sleep in his arms. The eldest Alpha looked at the youngest werewolf for a moment, smiling ever so fondly, before closing his eyes and falling asleep too.

[clairekatswritingcorner]

Her Guardian Angel

Word Count: 5,102

Summary: Alexys discovers a stranger in her house who ends up turning her whole world—and her heart—upside down.

*Author’s Note*: A commission for @bad-blue-moon-rising! I always love writing for her because her ships are just so great and lovely ;~; this is yet another fantastic one, involving an angel and a prophecy that was destined to bring them together. Beyond adorable and heartwarming and cute!! I hope you enjoy!

Another day had come to a close, and Alexys couldn’t help finding herself a little relieved. She was headed home from work, following the same route she always did, acting more on autopilot than anything else. As much as she enjoyed her job, doing what she could to save and heal as many animals as possible, sometimes even she needed a break. She needed time to recollect herself, to recoup after a long day of dealing with all the people and animals that had crowded the clinic. She often soaked in their energies as they mixed in with the other smells and sounds that swirled around her. She was a fairly sensitive person, both socially and emotionally, and being around too much commotion for too long tended to wear her out.

Even the simple, short stint of silence she had on her way home was refreshing. It wasn’t unusual for her to finish her shift late, often staying after hours to help wrap up last minute duties or manage emergency cases that had come in just as they were closing. She was never one to turn away a patient, no matter the circumstances; she had always been the type of person that put others before herself.

Sometimes she was glad to be able to offer any kind of aid in the first place, but occasionally she’d overtax herself in kindness. In those cases, it was nice to make her way home after night had fallen, blanketing the world in its quiet shadow. She loved basking in the beauty of the glittering night sky. An inky black expanse dotted with pinpricks of dazzling stars that complemented the moon’s gentle glow. It was so infinite, and so radiant, and so peaceful…sometimes she wished she could disappear into that sky and become a star of her own.

Such wistful, silly thoughts must have been a byproduct of her exhaustion. They were childish, and outlandish, and unrealistic…but sometimes the best thing she could do for herself was indulge in the impossible. She’d always had a lot of impossible things to ponder on thanks to her father. A man who many had criticized, whose memory was marred by their defaming rumors, who was dismissed for his philosophies and the prophecies he preached. Even if Alexys hadn’t entirely settled her feelings towards her father and his beliefs, the idea that he was truly crazy had never crossed her mind. At least not entirely.

Thomas Daggett was a smart man, an irrefutable fact that was evident by the intricacy and complexity of his writings. Essays and books and folders full of warnings about Heaven and angels and a coming crisis…yeah, on the surface it all sounded like some sort of dream, or eccentric speculation. But between reading his works and recalling what she could of her own hazy memories, her suspicion only continued to grow. She was able to piece things together about him, and about what he’d been saying all along, that cast considerable doubt on his apparent lack of credibility.

As eager as she was to uncover the truth of her father’s teachings, she still couldn’t discuss her discoveries, her postulations, her interpretations with anyone. Having to maintain such strict silence only became more frustrating with each new finding she made. She knew it was best to keep to herself, especially concerning the nature of this particular subject matter. But she couldn’t seem to shake the thoughts and feelings that pestered her, whose influence only intensified with time. Maybe she was taking things too far, just like many had accused her father of doing; look how well that had turned out for him. But she also figured doing some investigating, some theorizing of her own couldn’t hurt, right? She hoped it wouldn’t; she certainly didn’t want to end up falling prey to the same unfortunate fate.

Getting sidetracked by all that complicated nonsense ruined the relaxation she’d been looking forward to enjoying on the way home. Finally arriving at her apartment, she glanced at the sky once more as she approached the front door. Her eyes fell upon the austere sight of the moon and an eerie chill seized her spine, making her skin crawl. What an unexpected sensation, and an unwelcome one at that…maybe this was just going to be one of those nights. The kind where things felt off, and she couldn’t really sleep, and she knew she’d be going into work tomorrow with even less rest than she had the day before.

She sighed and pushed the door open, shuffling inside and putting her belongings away as she switched on a few lights. She was hoping to feel some sense of relief from whatever oppressive force had affected her outside, but something still felt wrong, unnerving, uncomfortable. She was on edge, body tense and senses sharp; it almost felt like she was being watched. She hadn’t seen anyone outside when she got here, and all the lights in her apartment were off when she’d come in. Her fatigue must have been taking a greater toll on her than she thought.

She took a few deep breaths and tried to settle herself, focusing her senses on the things around her. Tangible things like the couch, the side table, the lamp. She glanced at the coffee table that was situated in front of the couch, currently littered with the papers and books she’d chosen to sift through this week. Maybe she shouldn’t think about those and risk the possibility of her thoughts becoming even more unsettling and jumbled. She went to the couch and pulled a blanket over herself, closing her eyes. Surely she just needed a little rest, that was all; she’d be back to her normal self in no time.

But with her eyes closed, her nerves only seemed to worsen. There was something in here with her, something in the same room, something she’d missed. Had she stared right at it and not noticed, could she be hallucinating something sinister due to the amount of exposure she’d had to her father’s research? She wasn’t sure if she wanted any answers, or if it would just be best to force herself to sleep through this inexplicable episode. Maybe she really was more tired than she’d assumed and was already falling asleep, suspended in the limbo between awareness and unconsciousness. Such circumstances could easily explain away the cause of this overwhelming paranoia, this atmosphere of fear, couldn’t they?

“Alexys?”

Her eyes shot open and she sat up straight, clutching the blanket with white knuckles. There was someone here, or at least something, some sort of sentient being that knew her name. Her eyes whizzed around the room looking for the source of the voice, ears trying to remember and relay which direction it had come from. Eventually her gaze fell upon a desk in the corner of the room, yet another surface that was piled with books and papers and other evidence of the work she’d been dedicating herself to in her spare time. Her lungs froze and heart pounded as she examined the unfamiliar form that had become her temporary company.

“Alexys Daggett?”

“How do you know my name?”

Her voice trembled as much as her body, but thankfully she’d managed to get that question out. The form remained perched on the back of the desk chair, at least that’s what it appeared to be doing, and if it was an animal it may not have been that bizarre. But if it was an animal that spoke, she couldn’t judge by those standards, and although it was still mostly obscured by shadows she started to think whatever she was looking at resembled the form of a man. His voice had certainly sounded that way, and the more effort she dedicated to figuring out exactly what she was looking at, the less she had left over to panic with.

A grown man perched on the back of her flimsy desk chair while it sat unaffected, like there was nothing on it. Maybe she really was having a vision, or hallucination, or a dream; this certainly would have been the most realistic one she’d ever experienced. Part of her wanted to get up and turn on another light nearer him, so she could properly see what he looked like, but she was too paralyzed by fear to even blink. He didn’t seem bothered in the slightest, though, as if he was an old friend who’d stopped by for a visit. But she was sure she’d never known anyone who acted or sounded like him, and when she finally saw his face she confirmed she’d definitely never seen him before.

He stood up on the back of the chair before stepping to the floor with an ease and grace that startled her. Perhaps it shouldn’t have, considering he’d just been balancing his entire weight on the back of such a weak object with supernatural steadiness. He was simply dressed, like any normal guy you might pass on the street, and he had shoulder length red hair with a matching goatee. In her opinion he was very handsome, but she wasn’t sure now was the best time to be having such thoughts, since he also happened to be an intruder that had broken into her home.

“How did you get in my house? Who are you?”

As the gears in her brain started turning again, she was hit with a fresh wave of confusion and panic. She scrambled to the edge of the couch, getting as far away from him as the furniture would allow. She thought about climbing over the back of it for a moment, using the seat as a shield between them, but when he started moving toward her, her limbs locked up. What was he going to do to her, why was he here, why was all of this happening? A small part of her mind wondered how he’d managed to get in without leaving any kind of visible damage or disturbance, but she was currently dedicating more attention to self-preservation than determining the logistics of his break in techniques.

“Calm down, calm down,” he spoke with a soothing voice, holding his hands up in a gesture to demonstrate he meant no harm. He knew before he’d even come he probably wasn’t going to be received well; he almost never was, considering the nature of his arrival. People weren’t particularly fond of discovering such an unexpected intruder in their home, and were usually even less fond of what he had to say. “I’m not going to hurt you. There’s no reason to panic, I’m not here to do anything bad to you.”

“Tell me who you are!” Alexys demanded, grabbing a pillow and holding it in front of her. If nothing else, it could serve as a momentary distraction if she ended up having to hit him with it and make a hasty escape. “What’s going on, I don’t understand what’s—”

“You’re not supposed to understand,” he informed her, coming to a standstill. There wasn’t any point trying to get closer to her while she was like this; he needed to gain her trust. “I mean, it makes sense that you don’t understand. It’s to be expected. And I know I’m not something you expected either, but please, you need to hear me out.”

The longer he dodged the subject, the more worried Alexys became. He seemed to recognize the mounting panic in her eyes and started speaking again before she could make her demand a third time. “My name is Simon. I’m an angel.”

Well, he wasn’t being very angelic right now. “Is that some kind of joke? Angels don’t break into people’s homes, and if you really were an angel, wouldn’t you have wings—?”

Once she got started her interrogation was like a steamroll, so Simon jumped in at the first breath she took. “It’s not a joke. I am an angel, and I do have wings, but I don’t think showing them off for you would make the best introduction. Look, I’m not here for me, I’m here because there’s something I need to tell you, something you have to hear.”

If he’d been willing to show her, at least it would have solved the mystery of whether or not he was lying; but maybe he had a point. It wouldn’t do her any good to find out the truth just to get overwhelmed and transition into another fit of hysterics or something. She honestly didn’t know how she’d respond if it turned out he was telling the truth, or if he showed her something like that…she was still just trying to get over the shock of someone breaking into her home. He had been doing that weird balancing act a moment ago, but maybe that was an illusion, or a trick of the light? Too many questions, too much confusion; Alexys was starting to give herself a headache.

“Am I correct in assuming you are Ms. Alexys Daggett, daughter of Thomas Daggett?”

An alleged angel who also happened to know her father’s name…now things were starting to get too coincidental. Alexys relaxed a little, but only a little, adjusting into a more comfortable position. Her fingers were starting to ache from her iron grip, and she’d twisted her spine in a weird angle against the back of the couch. Now she was starting to breathe a little easier, and think a little clearer, but the more she was able to comprehend, the more apprehension pooled in her gut. Her father hadn’t had the most pleasant relationship with such heavenly beings, at least according to what she’d read in his writings. If one really was standing before her now, she may be in more trouble than if he’d just been a regular burglar.

“What’s going to happen to me if I say yes?” That was a safe enough answer, right?

The redhead narrowed his eyes a bit. “I can’t tell you until I know if you’re really the person I’m supposed to deliver this message to.”

Going back and forth like this was already agonizing, and there was something about this man…the way he spoke, the air he carried. Now that she’d had a moment to breathe, Alexys realized she really didn’t feel any sense of danger coming from him. At least, nothing that he was going to direct at her. “Yes, I’m Alexys Daggett.”

He nodded and continued. “Once again, I’m Simon. Just in case the first introduction didn’t stick. I’m an angel, the same kind you’re probably thinking of, and I’m here to give you some very important news.”

Important news from an angel? Was she turning into a prophet now? “And what kind of news could an angel possibly have for someone like me?”

“The stuff you’ve been reading, the information your father left behind,” Simon gestured to the clutter on the coffee table. “It’s all true. The adversity he faced, the circumstances that led to his death, all the things he feared and fought against. Your father wasn’t a liar, and he wasn’t crazy, he was just an unfortunate soul that was forced into the midst of all this. And now, that position has been passed to you.”

“Position? The position of being thrown into some sort of incomprehensible mess?” Alexys asked a bit sarcastically, but Simon’s tone didn’t change.

“The heavenly realm isn’t as heavenly as people think it is. Not anymore. Storms have been brewing, conflicts mounting; a terrible war is coming. Your father knew about it, and although he was damned from the start, it was all part of God’s plan.” It sounded like a speech from some overzealous religious fanatic, but Alexys recalled reading about the things he mentioned in her father’s books; her blood ran cold.  

“You are his daughter, and you’ve inherited his legacy. In other words, whether you want to or not, you’re involved in this. You adopting your father’s role is another essential part of God’s plan. Even if it’s not a very pleasant one, it was inevitable.”

“So, I’m going to die just like him?” This was definitely turning out to be worse than if he’d just been a petty thief. “I’m going to face the same fate?”

“The way things turned out for Thomas was regrettable, to say the least,” Simon admitted, almost seeming a little melancholy having to recount such events. “But that’s why I’m here now. Or at least part of the reason. You are correct in assuming that you will end up encountering the same threat as your father. The position you’re in is a risky one, one that almost guarantees enemy interference at some point.”

“What sort of enemy could angels be fighting?” She realized after she’d spoken how silly her question sounded. “I mean, are you telling me that demons are going to start coming after me?”

“Not a fight between angels and demons—a civil war between angels.”

Alexys’s eyes widened. “What does any of this have to do with me? Why didn’t this position end with my father?”

“It’s just how things are meant to be,” he reiterated cryptically. “But there’s no need to start panicking. Like I said, I was sent here with a purpose. That purpose is to protect you, to guard you from the threat looming on the horizon and lurking in the shadows.”

She was getting all sorts of answers from him, but none of them were as straightforward as she would have liked. More than that, she wasn’t even sure if she could believe any of it, if she should…but if he was wrong, did it really matter? If he was right, going along with what he said was essential to her survival, so perhaps she’d be better off just doing that. There was no denying many of the things he’d said corresponded with things she’d gleaned from her father’s writings, the experiences he’d left behind as a warning more than anything else. She’d never entirely doubted her father despite all the pejorative things she’d heard about him. Maybe all of this was validation of the hope she’d secretly held in her heart for him all this time.

The more she thought about it, the more she started to consider that things might not be so bad after all. She didn’t want to be used as a bargaining chip in some feud between supernatural beings, but if this guy was going to stick around, maybe things would be better than she expected. At least for a little while. As awful as that sounded, it wasn’t just because she found him attractive (although that was definitely part of it). There was something about the look in his eye, the aura he emitted that filled her with a calm unlike anything she’d felt before. No worries or stress or disappointment lingered in her body, not as long as he was here. Then again, this feeling could have been nothing more than another involuntary reaction to the ludicrousness she was being presented; but something in the back of her mind encouraged her to take his words at face value.

Even if she decided to believe him, how was all of this going to work? Was he going to live with her, follow her everywhere she went, monitor her every move from dawn to dusk, even as she slept? She enjoyed the comfort his presence provided, but he was still a stranger claiming to be an angel, and it wouldn’t be wise to jump to any conclusions too fast. Just because his answers seemed to coincide with the things she’d learned from her father, shedding some light on the incomprehensible nonsense that he’d been ridiculed for in the first place, she still needed some sort of reassurance, some kind of proof. In her heart she wanted to have faith in this man’s words, and she felt like she really could entrust him with her life. But she needed to know more about the person who’d be serving as her guardian angel (quite literally) before she gave her full consent.

“Let’s say I accept what you’ve told me and decide to go along with this plan.” She crossed her arms, trying to make her expression more neutral and unreadable. “I still need to know more about who and what you are. You claim to be an angel that goes by the name of Simon, was it? Why were you the one sent to protect me? What exactly is this protection going to entail?”

“My name is Simon,” he repeated once again, stepping around the coffee table cautiously. The quiet, careful girl didn’t react in any noticeably negative way. He took that as permission to approach her, sitting down on the opposite end of the couch. “And I am an angel in every sense of the word, or at least the one you recognize. I use this appearance on Earth so that I blend in, don’t draw attention to myself. I have to work discreetly, keep the evil angels off my trail, especially since I’ve been working in such close proximity to people like Thomas and yourself. You’re both essential to bringing this contemptable conflict to an end before it gets out of hand. Some of the information your father discovered through his experience and research is extremely valuable, and extremely dangerous. That is, if it fell into the wrong hands. There is a truly terrible dark soul that exists, and it’s managed to make its way here, to the mortal realm. Just by the name I’m sure you can predict what kind of threat such an object poses not only to the entirety of humanity, but existence itself.”

“It doesn’t sound very pleasant,” Alexys agreed, once again squeezing the pillow she’d set in her lap. “It’s not inside me or anything, is it?”

“No, absolutely not,” Simon answered with a vehemence that alarmed her. “You would know if it was…I would know if it was. If that were the case, I wouldn’t be here to protect you, but to dispose of you.”

“Well that sure makes me feel better,” she quipped with a fearful tremor in her tone.

Simon got back to his explanation before she could start worrying again. “Excuse my wording, sometimes I get a little carried away when I discuss stuff like this; I don’t usually share it with humans. And it’s important for you to understand the gravity of the threat we face; how dire the situation has become. All hope isn’t lost; the fact that you’re sitting here with me right now is evidence of that. Things have only deteriorated in your father’s absence, and it was impossible for me to contact you before the time was right. But now I’ve spoken to you, I’ve delivered the message I was instructed to pass on, and I can be here to protect you. With you on our side, under the watch of those that can help you, I’m sure things will start to turn in our favor.”

“What does this dark soul have to do with me?” Alexys asked, her voice still quivering. “And you never explained exactly what it is you’re protecting me from.”

“Just knowing about its existence puts you at risk,” he elaborated, trying to make his tone more understanding and comforting. “Learning what you have from your father and now me, the knowledge you possess is invaluable and desired by everyone involved in this conflict. You needed to be aware of it in order to play your designated part, something you’ll come to understand over time, but not before you’re ready. Right now, knowing what you know is enough. But it’s also enough to get you in trouble, to make you a target of the malicious angels that want to get their hands on that soul.”

“Other than being evil, what makes it so special?” She tilted her head in curiosity. “Why don’t they just steal another sour soul, something easier to obtain.”

“This dark soul contains a power unlike any other. It has no counterpart in all of creation, and its power can be harnessed as a weapon that will change the tide of this war in favor of whichever side ends up claiming it. Naturally, the enemies who want to create a sort of second Hell on Earth, cannot be permitted to have it. Armageddon really would come to pass if they did. They want to wreak havoc on humanity due to how favorably God looks upon his creation rather than them. They’ve been corrupted by envy, and bitterness, and there’s no reasoning with them. They’re going to fight until there’s no one left to keep doing so, or we manage to gain the power to stop them for good.”

Alexys took some time to reflect on all he’d just said, resting her head on the pillow and staring at the couch’s dull upholstery. Simon started to think she’d zoned out, and he was going to have to do something to snap her back to reality, but she started speaking before he had to. “So I’m part of a fatal feud between angels just like my father was. His involvement ended up being his downfall, and now the only one left to fill his spot is me. I have to do that because I’ve looked into the things he left behind, which happen to include information about the nature of this conflict, whether I realized it or not. Since I never completely doubted him, there was always a risk I’d find out the truth, and now I have. And both he and I have something to do with finding this dark soul, practically the only thing that has the power to prevent this war or cause it. The angels that want to cause humanity harm will try to take advantage of what I know, and what I can do, so now you’re here to make sure they never can or will.”

“That just about sums it up,” Simon nodded, a little more relieved now that she appeared ready to cooperate with him. “I may not look like a very formidable body guard, but I promise I’ll never let anyone or anything hurt you. Apart from how much you mean to this cause, I don’t like seeing innocent lives being taken or wasted just because of petty otherworldly squabbles. I guess petty might not be the best word, but the rebel angels aren’t fighting for a noble cause. Their behavior can’t be tolerated, and neither can any harm coming to you. I know this seems very intimidating, and scary, and complicated, but you don’t have to do anything more than you’ve already done. You’re aware of the truth, you know where you stand in all this, and now you’ve got me to watch you like a hawk. I’ll make sure nothing ever even comes close to bothering you.”

Such knightly words…they made Alexys blush. She covered her cheeks with the pillow, peeking at the redhead lounging across from her. He spoke clearly, and softly, and regarded her with tender eyes. He’d answered her questions to the best of his ability, and now he vowed to preserve her safety at all costs. She’d never had anyone dedicate or even offer a level of devotion remotely close to this before. She knew he was just doing his job, at least that’s what he’d said, but she also couldn’t help feeling a little flattered. She couldn’t help repeating the thought that he wasn’t that bad looking, either.

On the other hand, Simon really did care for her. It surprised him, the way he felt when he’d first laid eyes on this human girl. Going about her life like always, completely oblivious to the chaos that was closing in around her. He wished she could have held on to that peacefulness, but he also knew that all of this was happening for a reason. It was necessary, as disappointing or upsetting as that may be, and he thought about the possibility of trying to find a way to make this up to her.

Now she was responsible for the same struggle that had claimed her father, ruining both his potential in life, and his reputation in death. It was a grim sacrifice, one that Simon wished could have been avoided, but this time he’d make sure it was without fail. The timid girl that sat before him was a treasure to be guarded, a jewel to be defended, a life to be preserved.

“I hope you don’t mind, but I will be staying with you from now on,” he interrupted the silence, yanking Alexys out of her thoughts. “I’ll try to make myself as scarce as possible, if you’d like. I noticed you’re not living with anyone here, so at least you won’t have to come up with any stories or excuses. I won’t pester you any more than I have to, and I’ll do everything I can to make this transition as smooth as possible.”

“I really don’t mind your company,” she blurted, the red in her cheeks deepening. “I mean, it’s not going to bother me. You staying close to me. I don’t do much except for work and shop and hang out here, so having someone around will probably just make my life more interesting. Well, I guess the whole angelic war thing is interesting enough, but I’d consider that the bad kind.”

Simon chuckled and gave her a friendly smile; Alexys could feel her heart kick into overdrive. “It’s good to know you don’t consider me part of the bad kind. I know this is sudden, and surprising, and a little confusing, but it will all come together in time. For now, I think the best thing would be for you to tell me a little bit more about yourself. In terms of your day to day life, so I can get an idea of what kind of routine I’ll be adapting to.”

So that’s what they did. The two spent the rest of the evening exchanging idle chatter and learning as much as they could about one another. The air around them changed, from that of tense strangers to old friends. Even if the rest of her life could collapse at any moment, Alexys was happy. When she finally went to sleep, her dreams were filled with the image of that kind angel and a hope that one day she might get lucky enough to know what it was like to be enveloped in his warm, soft embrace.

[thedarkenedkeeper]

Glitched: Part 4 - Glitch in the System

Author’s note: I made some posts before about how the 4th part would be centered on when Schneeple was trying to save Jack in “Kill Jacksepticeye”. However, when I was figuring out the timeline of how I wanted the whole overall fanfic to pan out, I realized it’d be better to do the 4th part on the origins of Anti and what happened in October leading up to Halloween. I do plan to write the Schneeple part, don’t worry. That’ll be Part 6, and believe me, when I write that, everything onward will be a feels trip. Also, a daily reminder: this fanfiction is full of angst and horror. It’s dark and there’s nothing happy about it. There are feels and blood at every corner. This chapter in particular deals with psychological horror, as well as a detailed blood/gore scene that can be disturbing to some readers. You have been warned.

Also, listen to this playlist while reading it

It had been nine months.

He had been here, caged in this cold dank prison for nine whole months.

Now he knew the answer to his gut-wrenching question: How long had it been?

And yet, he couldn’t fully wrap his mind around it. He couldn’t fathom the thought.

Nine months – That was an awful long time, more than half a year. He’d been gone for that long with the glitchy demon in his place and no one had noticed?

No, there was no way that could possibly be true. Surely someone would have noticed something was wrong, something was off. Mark, Bob, Wade – they would notice something off about his speech. Robin and Felix would easily be able to recognize any changes in his speech and personality, as well as his mannerisms. And Signe…of everyone, she would most definitely sense something wrong; there was no doubt about it. There was no way he had been gone for nine months, he refused to believe it.

And yet, an uncomfortable leech of dread remained festering in the pit of his aching stomach.

If what Anti had said about the community was true – that they wanted to see him again at his strongest – then they had been blind to see that the demon had been in front of them all this time. Maybe for a time they could’ve had their suspicions. Maybe they had thought Jack was dead and Anti had in fact taken over. But given how long the YouTuber had been gone for, if the community had been suspicious of Jack’s behavior, then they would’ve done something. They would’ve banded together, and being the smart fans Jack knew they were, they would’ve come up with a solution to get their favorite Jackaboy back.

But they did nothing…they sat back and watched…which only led the Irishman to believe that they had been played. They thought they had Jack, when really they’d been watching a demon this entire time.

There he remained laying on the stone-cold floor, still in the exact same position he’d been in ten minutes ago; in chains, laying on his stomach, facing the right side of the cage. He was staring at the watch Anti had left for him. It now read 3:10 PM, fifty more minutes until his awaited death.

The green-haired man let out a faint, raspy breath at seeing, let alone thinking about, how much time he had left. How had this happened? How did any of this come to happen – what caused all of this? Was it true that the abomination that had locked him up in this prison was the community’s creation? And if it was, why had they created him?

Unfortunately, the emotionally-abused Irishman didn’t know the truth. He didn’t know how Anti had been created or of what had happened during the month of October that led up to where he was now. And it was better he didn’t know.

Yes, it was true, the alter ego had been created by the community. They had given him a form, a face, a name – Anti hadn’t lied about any of that. However, what the demon had failed to mention was how no one had planned for him to become a reality. He was a mistake.

Long before October had come around, many loving fans of both Markiplier and Jacksepticeye had come to know of Mark’s darker half, Darkiplier. They grew intrigued by him, and from this, a question emerged: If Jack had an evil corrupt side, what would he look like? How would he act and what would his name be? Naturally, this peaked everyone’s interest. The Jacksepticeye fandom instantly scrambled off and set off to work on this new idea – to construct a brand new alter ego for Jack. One by one, day after day, members of the community began to make this darker half of their favorite YouTuber; each and every one giving him a different unique design, each imagining him in their own distinct way. Some envisioned him as a demon – complete with pointed ears, razor-sharp teeth, claws, and sometimes a tail and/or a set of horns – while others as a shadow-like entity, a virus, or something else entirely. He was an evil version of Jack, and as such, was out to destroy the Irishman, whether that meant making his life a living hell or just straight-up killing him, it didn’t matter. And one day, this abomination that the community had created was given a name.

His name was Antisepticeye.

Over the course of a few months, this name went viral; spreading like a virus and getting the entire fandom’s attention. It had been settled, Antisepticeye was now Jack’s evil persona. However, unknowingly to the community, the more they spread that name, the more fanart they created surrounding their new creation and the more attention they gave him, the more real he was becoming. From the abyss-like void of nothingness came a being. A pale lean figure with forest-green hair and eyes a soulless black came glitching spastically into reality, and he was not happy.

It was dark and cold where he was, hovering in the back of Jack’s mind. He was all alone with only his own thoughts to keep him company. No one knew he existed – not yet, anyway. The community had created him – they had given him life through the amount of recognition they gave him. He had been put together by each individual representation of him by the fandom; piece after piece ripped away from different takes on the ego to stitch together the perfect being. The community had inadvertently and unknowingly given life to a Frankenstein-like monster. And that monster was not pleased to discover this. He was grateful to be alive, but he wasn’t alive, not truly. He had awakened to complete darkness, getting no proper greeting from his makers. They hadn’t realized what they’d done; there was no proof of his existence. As an idea, yes, but not as an actual spiritual creature. And so, in that moment, the glitchy entity came to a conclusion: If they, his creators, couldn’t present him with a proper greeting and accept that he was real, then he would make his own grand entrance. He would make them believe.

But how? How could he get everyone’s attention? How could he make himself known?

There had to be a way to get noticed, there had to - !

Jacksepticeye.

That name – he had heard that name repeating in his head like a mantra ever since he awoke, almost like it was constantly taunting him. What was so important about that name? Why did he suddenly feel his entire form glitch violently at just the mention of it?

And then he heard it.

“Top of the mornin’ to ya laddies! My name is Jacksepticeye, and welcome back to – !”

There it was, there was that name that caused his blood – did he have blood? – to boil furiously. Searching through the endless gloom, the manifestation looked for something, anything, that would grant him a clue as to where he was. He followed the Irish voice to the ends of the dark, finally coming upon some light. And through this light he saw everything.

The man whose mind he was residing in was seated at a desk, currently playing a video game of sorts on his PC, taking glances at a nearby camera every few seconds to speak to someone. Who was he speaking to? What was with the set up and the odd name?

Jacksepticeye…Antisepticeye…

In a matter of seconds, everything came flooding at the being full force. He had been created as the other half to Jacksepticeye, a YouTuber – a very popular YouTuber. A YouTuber with a lot of followers and a large community made up of millions of viewers.

At this discovery, the abomination grinned from ear to ear with delight. He had found his creators and more, so much more. This was far better than he could’ve ever imagined. All of those people – if he could make himself known, the amount of attention he’d receive would give him immense strength and power. And maybe, just maybe, if he managed to get enough power, he could take this “Jacksepticeye” character out of the picture and make the channel his own. If he could do that, he’d have all the attention put on him and him alone – he would be loved by millions. Is this not the reason why he was created? Had his makers not made him to get rid of the YouTuber? Perhaps they had grown tired of the Irishman; maybe they wanted something new – a replacement. If that’s what they wanted, then he would provide. He would make them proud and give them exactly what they asked for.

Now if only he could find a way to show himself…

No…No, it was too early. He couldn’t show himself just yet. He needed to familiarize himself with this “Jacksepticeye”. He just got here; he needed time to understand who this Irishman was – how he spoke, how he behaved on and off camera, all of it. He needed to know how to become his host.

From that point onward, Anti stayed in his place, off to the sidelines. For months, the unhinged manifestation studied his host, watching everything the green-haired man did and learning everything about him, inside and out. He mimicked his speech patterns day after day, getting used to the way Jack spoke, and did just the same with any of his noticeable mannerisms as well. He established a general understanding of Jack’s personality, his likes and dislikes, and how he was as Jack versus how he was as Sean. He even went as far as managing to crawl his way into the part of Jack’s brain where all of his memories were stored; going through each and every one and memorizing them all right down to the faintest detail. He hadn’t shown himself yet, but if his plan worked, he would have to put on an act and the only way that would fly is if he were to become Jack – both in body and mind. He would do anything and everything to make his performance believable when the time came.

And then it was October, the month of spooks and scares. When better a time to reveal himself than now?

Oh, but he couldn’t straight up possess his host. No, he’d wait. He’d tease them all, make brief appearances to stir up the pot. That would get their attention. But first things first: trying to actually project himself so others would know he was there.

October 8th is when it happened.

Jack was just starting to record himself a new game called “Five Nights at Freddy’s Sister Location”. The glitch wasn’t all too familiar with the game yet, but he knew it was from a popular horror game franchise. And if it was popular, the likelihood of the video getting seen was at an all-time high. Now was his chance to show himself to everyone and reveal to his creators that he was actually alive.

As his host carried on playing the game, every few seconds speaking into the camera about it, Anti gave an attempt at breaking through the barrier that kept him at bay from possessing Jack. Nothing much happened. He didn’t manage to project his form, but he did manage to make the screen glitch out for half a second. That was better than nothing. Now if he could just show his face…

Focusing on channeling his energy out of Jack and into the recording camera, Anti glared at the lens, not wanting to break concentration. Shifting his attention to the computer screen, he almost thought it hadn’t worked, until he saw it glitch out again, and very briefly show another Jack pop up, glaring sinisterly at the audience. Upon seeing this, the entity grinned wickedly, and to his surprise, that very expression of insidious glee got caught on tape, even though he had barely concentrated at all this time.

It was working, it was actually working! He was finally able to show his face to everyone without trouble. With this in mind, and knowing there was still plenty of recording time left, the demon chuckled deep in his throat and figured he would have some fun while he had the chance.

During the remainder of the recording, Anti continued to mess with the camera; making the screen break out into static and glitches, letting brief glimpses of his face leak through here and there. The first couple were unsettlingly happy, while the last few were actually violent in nature and clearly showed how angered and unstable he was at the core; gripping and tugging on his hair, screaming out of rage, and head twitching spastically. His audience deserved to see just how twisted and erratic their creation had become. They made him this way, now he had to wait and see what they thought of him – that is if they noticed him. And notice him they did.

Two days later and the video was uploaded, and within an hour after the upload, comment after comment came flooding in about the glitch.

“OMG! It’s Anti!”

“What’s up with Jack’s facecam? It keeps glitching out.”

“Is that Jack’s evil alter ego, Antisepticeye? Oh my God!”

“Does anyone else notice the creepy faces showing up in Jack’s facecam? Pretty spooky.”

Everyone was finally beginning to take notice in him – one after another, these people had come to realize he existed. A jack o’ lantern-like grin stretched impossibly wide across the demon’s face. It was time to toy with his makers.

* * * * *

Over the course of the month, the troublesome demon continued to make unannounced appearances in Jack’s videos left, right, and center. Just like with his grand “introduction” as he put it, the glitches varied from frighteningly gleeful to sudden manic behavior. And as he expected, with each show of his face, more attention was put on him. With each day, the demonic entity could feel himself growing more powerful. He could physically feel jolts of tantalizing energy coursing through his veins, rejuvenating him and making him feel stronger than he ever had before. He felt like he could take on his host. He felt like he could take on the world.

Poor Jack, he hadn’t the slightest idea what was going on. He barely even took notice of the glitches, he automatically assumed there was either something wrong with the camera or Robin had gone and added some pretty cool effects for Spooktober. He had no idea that what was living deep inside of him wanted out and was planning to take control.

Nonetheless, as the days flew by and Halloween was nearing, the Irishman began to experience out of the ordinary phenomenon that he wouldn’t admit was unnerving him to the bone.

Within the first two weeks, the chronic headaches started. At first, they were barely noticeable – just a small faint pang of pain, nothing Tylenol or Advil couldn’t fix. But the closer it got to the 31st, the harsher the pain grew to the point of being so agonizing, it felt like someone was actually physically trying to pry his skull open from the inside out. Jack rarely ever got headaches, let alone ones this painful. Maybe it was from stress? Had he been working himself too hard lately? Maybe a long overdue break was called for. But things only got worse for the green-haired man.

He was starting to hear things, especially at late hours of the night. There were always thumps and shuffling, like someone was moving around the apartment, all accompanied with faint, bone-chilling giggles of glee. After staying up late for nights on end, he’d swear up and down that he’d seen something move out of the corner of his eye; a shadow passing by at breakneck speed or an object on his desk shaking a bit with no explanation as to why. He felt like he was losing his mind, but he wouldn’t dare tell anyone about any of this, especially not to Signe. He most certainly didn’t want her worrying about him, and more importantly, he didn’t want to scare her off. She didn’t need to know about any of this – none of them did. Nothing was wrong with him, everything was fine…right?

How very wrong he was. He was in complete denial.

After the 10th, Jack found himself having very odd, very unnerving dreams night after night. Just like with the headaches, they started off fine. It was normal to have weird and bizarre dreams, everyone had those. The Irishman thought nothing much of them…that was until the following week. The following week was when the indescribable dreams underwent a horrific transformation into nightmares. Jack had had his rare bad dream every couple of months, but these were so different. These were so much worse.

For fourteen nights straight, endless night terrors haunted and tormented the Irishman repeatedly, tearing apart at his sanity bit by bit and plaguing his mind with the worst visuals imaginable. And they were quite often the same. Maybe the images were shuffled around, but they always seemed to have the exact same feel to them: like he was being watched. The dreams were getting increasingly more vivid as the nights passed, until one night, the nightmare became so vivid, so lifelike, he couldn’t tell where the dream ended and where reality started.

It opened up to complete and utter darkness, swallowing the green-haired man whole and sucking out any and all bravery he had. He was all alone in the dark for what felt like a decade, and yet he knew – dread and gut-wrenching anxiety swelling in his chest – that he wasn’t alone. Someone or something somewhere in the eternal darkness was watching his every move, and for all he knew, that thing was right behind him or at his side. He heard a mirthful giggle reverberate throughout the room, if that’s what it was. Chills raced up his spine, all of the hairs on the back of his neck standing at attention. There was something breathing down his neck, and it wasn’t a hot puff of air either – it was freezing cold, like an icy breeze during the winter season. Almost instantly, he whirled on his heel to see nothing but black in his wake. He suddenly made out the overwhelming scent of copper and the giggle he heard before returned with a vengeance, louder and more of a sadistic laugh that would belong to a deranged psychopath. His breathing began to quicken, as did his heartbeat as his wide eyes desperately tried to find whatever it was in the dark. Something was very wrong here.

This demented laughter echoed and became distorted after a few seconds, the smell of blood growing stronger to the point of crashing a wave of nausea over him. The darkened space before his eyes started to ripple and glitch out, giving him brief glimpses of a paled figure coming towards him with what looked like a knife in its hand. Frightened, Jack tried to step back, but to his horror realized he was unable to move. He was paralyzed where he was standing, not taking his eyes away from the glitching being. Blood spotted the edges of his vision as the distorted figure neared closer, one moment yanking violently on its hair, the next laughing manically and having its head spastically twitch from side to side. And the closer it got, the more Jack recognized the figure as himself – an incredibly unstable, frightening version of himself.

His breathing hitched when this demented Jack suddenly gave a glitch of his body so fierce it made his neck snap forward, a loud cringe-worthy crack emitting from it and making Jack reel back in disgust. And with a blink of his aquatic blue eyes, this sinister version of himself was standing in front of him, a Cheshire smile plastered onto his pale face. The mirthful being shook all over, distorted versions of himself glitching into view for a few fleeting moments, the most disturbing of them all being one of him clawing at his bleeding eyes while leaning towards Jack, screaming out of both pain and rage. The poor Irishman didn’t know what to do – he couldn’t move, he could barely even breathe properly. He was shaken to the core and didn’t know what to expect. He felt his lips struggle to part to question the duplicate standing in front of him, but nothing came out. He was too scared; it seemed any words he longed to get out had gotten crammed in his throat, unable to escape.

He flinched when the being went to move, slowly raising the knife up to his own throat, the grin never faltering. As the twitchy version of him did this, an extremely loud ear-piercing ringing erupted in both of Jack’s ears, immediately causing him to wince and cup his ears, trying desperately to block out the sound. He could make out distorted, disembodied whispers bouncing off of the walls, some much harsher and threatening than others. Many of them were overlapping, so it was quite difficult for him to make out each one, but he managed to catch a few.

“Unw-wanted…I-In the way…”

                “Release me…”

“N-Need…Need m-more…”

         “To d-dissect…”

                                           “P-Power-er…”

“NEeD iT!”

               “M-My host…A-All mi-ine.”

    “I-In the way….I-In the way…”

                                 “W-Will su-uffer in h-here…”

      “1, 2, 3 – 1,2, 3, 3, 3, 3….3, 2, 1, 1…”

“EnD It aLL!”

                      “Th-They’ll c-call my na-ame…”

“S-Sa-ay G-Goodb-bye…”

Jack’s face scrunched up in both fear as well as confusion. None of it made any sense, not even when he tried to piece it together. Why was he dreaming this? Was this even a dream to begin with? This felt far too real to be a dream. The manifestation in front of him looked so lifelike; he felt that if he were to reach out to touch it he’d actually feel cool flesh against his fingertips.

Those words continued to repeat themselves in the endless darkness as Jack watched his mirror image raise the knife to his windpipe. His eyes widened in horror as he watched the blade press deep into the sickeningly pale skin before gliding along, slowly cutting the creature’s throat open; a thick spray of warm crimson spewing out and onto his face as the cut grew. But as horrifying as this was, this isn’t what scarred Jack – this isn’t what made his bones quake with terror. What did was as the blade cut into the manifestation, the green-haired man could suddenly feel an earth-shattering strike of pain blossom in his own neck. And as the glistening sharpened knife sliced into his other self’s throat, tearing open the flesh, Jack felt the pain in his neck muscles stretch and pull apart, followed by a warm wet substance oozing and dripping down his body.

He opened his mouth, a silent choked scream bursting free as he instantly raised a hand to his throat to feel around for a cut, but there was nothing there. There was no evidence of there being a slit in his throat, and yet, the more the creature cut away at its neck, the more agony he felt. His vision was beginning to go red, the rush of blood thumping and pumping loudly in his ears. He felt sick, like he was going to vomit or pass out at any moment, which ever came first. All he smelled was copper now, that’s all he could smell. He swore the words echoing around him were getting louder to the point of deafening. He tried to close his eyes, or at least look away from the horrific display, but he couldn’t tear his gaze off of the demonic entity. It was like he was hypnotized, almost intrigued in a way at what was happening.

Without fully realizing it, Jack had collapsed to his knees – when had that happened? – and his head felt heavy, his vision swimming. He inhaled and exhaled sharply and shakily, struggling to get any air in his lungs. The air here was tainted by the strong scent of blood, and it only made the urge to hurl a whole lot stronger. He dry heaved and glanced up at the twitching being. Slowly blinking and now having trouble making out the figure clearly, he watched as the twisted version of him finally stopped slicing into its neck. It dropped the knife and with both hands, Jack witnessed the most horrifying thing he had ever seen. The demon gripped its hair and slowly began to pull its own head backward, the flesh, muscle, and veins all tearing and separating, giving way until the head had been entirely removed. A vast amount of blood gushed out and splattered all over the Irishman’s face and body as a blood-curdling scream finally managed to burst forth from his lungs.

In an instant, the YouTuber bolted up in bed, gasping for breath; clutching his chest with one hand, the other caressing his throat gently. His entire body was trembling all over and he breathed in shaky breaths, glancing around the dark room wildly; sweat running down his forehead as he took in his surroundings. He was at home, in his room in bed. He looked to his right, his heart still pounding violently against the palm of his clammy hand. Through the darkness of the room, he managed to make out a figure – a woman – under the covers, fast asleep; her brown flowing curls pushed away from her face. Signe. Jack let out a trembling breath of relief at seeing her there before glancing around the room. It had been a nightmare, that whole thing had just been one really vivid, intense, horrifying nightmare. None of it had happened. He was at home, safe and sound.

Pressing a hand to his forehead, he closed his eyes for a brief moment, letting out a long sigh in attempts to calm his poor heart down. He needed to relax. This had been the fourteenth night now that he’d woken up from a nightmare, except this time had to be the worst one. None of the others had been nearly as terrifying, not even remotely close to being this vivid either.

“F-Fuck me.” He whispered to himself, shaking his head in disbelief.

There was no way of going to sleep again, not after that hell. Being as quiet as he could, not wanting to wake Signe, Jack pushed back the covers and snuck out of the room, going down to the kitchen. He flicked the light on, opened the cupboard, grabbed a glass, and ran the tab, getting himself a glass of ice-cold water before seating himself at the table. After taking a long gulp of the liquid he finally took a glance at the time. It was 3:10 AM, still dark and quiet as ever outside. He lightly scoffed and shook his head once more before taking another sip. He couldn’t believe how late it was, let alone how he had been having nightmares for nights on end now. What the hell was that all about?

“Sean?”

The Irishman’s heart nearly jumped out of his ribcage at hearing Signe quietly say his name. His eyes shot to the opening to the kitchen, seeing her standing there in her pajamas, rubbing at one of her eyes sleepily. He looked at her a bit sheepishly, taking glances at the glass of water resting in his hands.

“Sorry. I didn’t mean to wake you.” He said softly.

She yawned. “What’s wrong?” She turned her head, taking a look at the time. She blinked with surprise, even though it was apparent she was having trouble staying awake. “Why are you up so late? It’s three in the morning.”

“I know, I know. I’m…I’m sorry.” He apologized. He really didn’t want her worrying about him, especially not this late. “Don’t worry about me, I’m fine, honest. Please, go back to bed.” He tried to reassure her, eyeing her and hoping she would listen.

Signe didn’t look convinced. “Like hell I’m leaving you alone.” She shuffled forward, nearing the table. “What’s wrong? This is the fourth time this week you’ve woken up in the middle of the night, Sean.”

Jack shook his head, shrugging his shoulders and attempting to brush it off as nothing. “It’s nothing, honestly. Just a bad dream, that’s all, I swear.” He lifted the glass to his lips and took a long sip. Unfortunately, his hand was shaking, and though she was tired, Signe easily noticed.

Her eyes shifted from her boyfriend to his trembling hand and then back again. “Sean…” She moved to the table, pulling out a chair beside him and taking a seat. She didn’t take her eyes off of him. “Tell me the truth…What’s wrong?”

He looked at her over the edge of the glass, slowly pulling it away and setting it down on the table. He sighed deeply, moving his hand to rub at his eyes. They were so sore from the lack of sleep he’d been getting the last few nights.

“I don’t know, Signe. I haven’t been sleeping very well the last fourteen nights in a row and I keep getting headaches.”

“Maybe you should go and see the doctor.” Signe suggested, noticing the dark circles under Jack’s eyes.

Her boyfriend shook his head. “No…No, I’ll be fine.”

She shook her own head in return. “No, you won’t be. Sean, you just said you haven’t been getting sleep for the last fourteen nights. That isn’t healthy, something is wrong.” She moved a hand to gently rub his back in circles. “I really think you should go and see a doctor about this.”

Still, Jack refused and remained in denial. “No…No, I’m fine.”

“Sean - .”

“Signe, I think all of this is just because of the amount of work I’ve been doing lately.” He finally looked at her. He spoke like he truly believed his own words – he was actually surprised how convincing he sounded. “I’ve been getting up early, gaming for an hour or two, editing stuff and sending the recordings to Robin. I’ve been staying up until two every night, trying to get as much done as possible, as well as continuing to interact with the community on Tumblr, Twitter, Instagram.”

“Well there’s your problem then.” Signe said. “You’ve been working yourself far too hard. This – all of this – is the stress catching up to you.” She looked at him softly. “I think you should take a break, a long one. Take the whole week off.” Jack went to object, but she didn’t let him. “Don’t try to argue with me. You’re working yourself too hard and you need a break. Let the community know. I’m sure they’ll understand.” She rubbed his back in slow gentle circles, causing him to close his tired eyes and relax into her touch.

Reluctantly, he gave a nod and realized she was right. Maybe this was all because of work. Maybe he did deserve a good long break from it all. He sighed.

“Alright, maybe you’re right. Maybe a long overdue break is needed.” He reopened his eyes and took a small sip of water before eyeing her. “I’ll tell you what. Tomorrow, I’m going to record my Halloween video, and after I’ve done that – after it’s been recorded, edited, and uploaded – I’ll give myself a break. And as I bonus, I’ll give the doctor a call and see about getting myself an appointment, alright? How’s that sound?”

She searched his eyes, trying to decipher if he was telling the truth and would actually do as he just said. “You promise? You’ll give yourself a break and go see the doctor?”

He nodded, a faint tired smile tugging at the corner of his lips. “I promise.”

She gave a smile in return. “Good. ‘Cause,” Her smile faded, replacing it with a worried look, “you’ve been scaring me lately, what with how you’ve been acting. You’ve seemed a bit jumpy lately.”

Jack felt his heart skip a beat and his smile vanished instantly. He shook his head. “No, no, no, I don’t want to be scaring you. Please, believe me, Signe, I’m fine. It’s just all the stress from work that’s been affecting me, I swear.” He gave her a reassuring smile, pushing a loose strand of her hair behind her ear. “I wouldn’t lie to you.”

She still looked a tad bit uncertain, but gave a nod anyway, accompanied with a sheepish smile. “I know you wouldn’t.” She gave him a kiss before pushing her chair back and getting up, shuffling towards the exit of the kitchen.

Jack watched her before shifting his attention to his glass of water, his facial expression falling to one of dismay. Fragments of his nightmare returned to him, flashing before his eyes. The grip on his glass tightened. He heard Signe stop walking.

“Aren’t you coming back to bed?”

He shifted his attention back to her, and instantly he noticed the worry written all across her face. He gave her another reassuring smile, though he had a feeling she didn’t buy it.

“Go off to bed, I’ll be there in a few minutes.”

Signe stared at him for a moment longer before nodding and turning to leave, walking out of the kitchen and heading off to bed. Jack’s eyes went back to the glass of water, staring off into space as his nightmare played on repeat in his head. Letting out a shaky breath, he downed his drink, stood up, and went to place the glass on the counter before turning off the light and leaving the kitchen himself.

Before he had left though, the glitching demon lingering in the back of his mind managed to spot the calendar hanging in the kitchen. He knew what day it was, and he knew exactly what his host was planning to do that day for Halloween. He grinned sadistically, a sinister cackle of laughter ripping from him.

Tomorrow was the day.

It was time for everyone to say goodbye to their precious Jacksepticeye.

Part 3 - A Storm is Coming

Part 5 - Say Goodbye

@fear-is-nameless @golden-eyed-guardians @n-o-ra-xi @steffid101 @anti-support-group This came out as 10 pages long in Word and I am SO sorry for that! I didn’t think it’d come out this long!

[one-of-us-blog]

Time Heist (Doctor Who S08E05)

Today Drew is forced to watch and recap “Time Heist”, the fifth episode of Doctor Who’s eighth series. It’s time for a bank heist, y’all! Clara and the Doctor need to infiltrate an impregnable space bank at the behest of a mysterious figure. Can they reach the vault before they’re captured? Can they survive the bank’s security force?

Keep reading to find out…

Eli, you did a great job as always with your latest recap! I agree that it was really fun to see Enrique Mas and Michael back in action, and I agree that the ending came really suddenly. It’s also always really bugged me that Michael is just okay with not having Lorraine and Roger/Lamar in his life when he shows up at the Girls’ house. It was great to see Rose and Blanche have Dorothy’s back, though, and seeing Sophia being a doting grandmother (for good or ill) was pretty sweet. You handled the episode really well, and I can’t wait to read your next recap, Chief!

Buttocks tight!

Episode directed by Douglas Mackinnon and written by Steve Thompson & Steven Moffat

The Doctor is trying to convince Clara to go on an adventure with him, because that’s how the Doctor/companion dynamic works now, but she’s too focused on her upcoming date with Danny. The phone in the TARDIS suddenly rings, and when the Doctor answers it he and Clara suddenly wake up holding memory worms that have gobbled up their short-term memories. Also around the table are Psi, a human with some techno upgrades jacked into his body, and Saibra, a human who appears to be some sort of mutant. None of them know how they got there, but a recording lets them know that they all subjected themselves to the memory wipe voluntarily.

After the credits, a recording of a person referring to themself as the Architect lets the group know they brought them here to rob the Bank of Karabraxos. They’re actually already inside the bank, and guards are already coming for them. Ms. Delphox, head of bank security, finds out the guards she send after the intruders have had their memories wiped because of the worms and prepares the mysterious Teller to deal with the intruders. We find out a bit more about our two additional teammates. Psi is a hacker and a bank robber, and Saibra mutations allow her to replicate the appearance of anyone she comes into contact with. The Architect gave them a sample of DNA from a customer of the bank, and Saibra is able to take on his shape.

The Doctor wonders why he’s not just using the TARDIS to rob the bank and Clara wonders where the TARDIS is to begin with, but these questions are interrupted as the bank abruptly shuts down around them. The Teller arrives, and Ms. Delphox informs a random bank customer that the Teller has detected his guilt. The Teller uses its psychic abilities to confirm the man’s criminal intent, and then liquifies the man’s brain. The squad continues on and Saibra accesses the safety deposit box of the man whose form she’s taken on. Inside is a bomb, and Psi pulls up the bank schematic to figure out where they’re supposed to put it. Delphox realizes the Teller scrambled the wrong guy earlier and that the real thieves are still in the bank, but if anyone figures out she made a mistake she’ll be held accountable.

The Doctor figures out they’re supposed to use the bomb on the floor of the room they’re in. They blow the floor and make it out of the room before the bank guards can reach them. Several things happen. First, Clara and Psi find another case left by the Architect for them. Clara wonders how the Architect left these tools all throughout the bank, and if they were able to navigate the place so easily why do they need to hire another team to rob the place? Next, Psi’s techno bits begin to glitch out on him. Finally, the Doctor realizes their memories were wiped so that they wouldn’t feel super guilty about robbing the place right off the bat, because the guiltier they feel the more visible they are to the Teller. They open up the case and the Doctor lies about not knowing what the things inside are. The intruders are detected, but Psi needs to recharge his cyber batteries so he and Clara stay behind while the Doctor and Saibra go ahead. Saibra knows the Doctor was lying earlier, but he doesn’t quite explain what the things in the case were. They find the man who got munched by the Teller earlier as Psi and Clara catch up.

They get detected again and hide in a vent, but wind up in the Teller’s chamber. The Teller is in a forced hibernation, but it lathes onto Clara’s thoughts and wakes up. Saibra almost gets munched on by the Teller while the others get away. She refuses to end up mindless like the man they saw in the cage, so the Doctor gives her one of the things he got out of the case earlier. It’s an atomic shredder, and it kills her instantly. Clara and Psi are horrified by how detached the Doctor is about all of this, but he’s focused on the job. He finds another case left by the Architect, and inside is some data for Psi to snack on and a card that Clara quickly snatches up. The data lets Psi start hacking a vault, but Delphox releases the Teller into the tunnels and Clara and the Doctor have to split before it gets them.

The Teller’s got a real hard on for Clara and quickly sniffs her out, so Psi has to sacrifice himself to save her. The vault is still locked, but a convenient solar storm hits and begins to interfere with the bank’s system. The Doctor deduces that the Architect is actually in the future, and knows from history where and when he needs to have people in place to rob the bank. The solar storm also would have made it impossible for the TARDIS to land in the bank when it was vulnerable, so all of that gets wrapped up nicely with a bow. The vault is open, and Clara and the Doctor check the card she grabbed to locate the specific items they’re after. There was a neophyte circuit that could restore the memories Psi deleted and a gene suppressant that would have stabilized Saibra’s shapeshifting.

They’re about to figure out what they’re here for when they’re caught by the Teller. They’re taken to Ms. Delphox’s office and some guards prepare to dispose of them while Delphox puts the Teller back to sleep. When they’re alone the guards reveal themselves to be Psi and Saibra; turns out those devices were teleporters, not atom shredders. Since Clara and the Doctor thought they were dead, the Teller didn’t know to look for them and they could sneak around safely. The Doctor gives Saibra her gene suppressant and Psi his neophyte circuit, but they’re not ready to leave until Clara and the Doctor get their reward. They break into the private vault of Director Karabraxos, and it turn out Delphox is a clone of Karabraxos. She calls Delphox to send in the Teller and then informs her clone that she’s fire. Karabraxos incinerates all of her own clones once they let her down, which says a lot about her personality.

By seeing Karabraxos’ hatred of her own clones, the Doctor starts to figure some stuff out. Karabraxos abandons the bank as it’s ravaged by the solar storm, but not before the Doctor tells her he’s a time traveler and gives her his phone number. The Doctor says he needs his memories back, so he allows the Teller to arrive and feed on his surplus of memories in exchange for removing the block place by the memory worms. He remembers an aged and dying Karabraxos calling him on the phone in the TARDIS and asking him to rob the bank for her. The Doctor himself was the Architect and set all of this up. With all that out of the way, we find out that the only reason the Teller was working for Karabraxos was because she was holding the only other member of his species captive. There are enough teleporters to get Psi, Saibra, Clara, the Tellers and the Doctor safely out of the bank.

The Doctor uses the retrieved TARDIS to drop the Tellers off on a secluded planet where they can be happy and Psi and Saibra are dropped off… wherever it is they live. Clara is dropped off at home in time for her all-important date, and a chipper Doctor sets back off into space and time.

The End

~~~~~

This one was pretty fun! I figured out that the Doctor was the Architect pretty quickly, but that didn’t stop me from enjoying the story. I was glad that Psi and Saibra both managed to survive, and I actually grew to like both of them before the episode was over. I thought this was a very slick and nicely produced episode, and the director clearly had a very Ocean’s 11-style vision in mind while making it. I don’t have a lot of deep thoughts this time around, but I’ll say again that I had a lot of fun with this one!

I give “Time Heist” QQQQ on the Five Q Scale.

We’ll see you again Friday when Eli will deal with a big loss in the next episode of The Golden Girls, “Ebb Tide”, and then on Saturday I’ll check in to post my recap of the next episode of Doctor Who, “The Caretaker”.

Until then, thanks for reading, thanks for robbing and thanks for being One of Us!

[qaftsiel]

The Night Watch, part 3

Continued from here.

Dean closes his eyes against the pod’s blue lighting and ignores Gabe’s ping. He tugs at the standby cable and does his usual wakeup routines, but almost all of his threads of thought are on the dream-- dreams plural within a single-digit interval-- and what it might mean.

Systems scans and current assays are coming back clean, so it’s not something seriously wrong with him, but after so long going almost totally without, it’s odd to experience two dreams in so short a time. He wonders what the hell it is that’s going on to trigger two of them so close together-- the hotel pod? Maybe the friendly relationship he’d established with Benny and Gabe in the year prior to departure?

Some part of him’s shouting that it’s just proof that he’s still real, but he’s long since learned to tune out that kind of wishful thinking. He wonders, too, who the guy is that he keeps seeing. He looks a little like one of the doctors he’d caught a glimpse of during his hospital stay after the accident-- fuck if Dean could remember any of their names, there were like six dozen specialists working on him at any given time, and a lot of his memories from that first year are kind of fuzzy-- but why Dean would be seeing the guy now is beyond him.

Then again, that’s sort of what dreams had been like, before: a random jumble of memories, tossed out and turned into a story by the brain. He remembers that much, at least.

Without any solid data indicating anything off, he can only guess that it’s something to do with time-- maybe he’s finally to the point where shit’s evolved enough to do things like dream. Maybe he really is human under all the other crap-- maybe he’s still the same Dean, the same guy like Sammy had always said.

Dean shakes his head. Sammy had also been a bit of a bleeding heart, ‘mech’s rights’ sort of kid.

Whatever the case, he’ll take what he can get, even if it means more history talk that just reminds him of Sammy. If he’s lucky, his brain will spam a few memories of Sammy in a dream, and he’ll get to talk with his baby brother for a while. Something’s better than nothing.

The Takaoka-REST opens on its own just as Dean’s internal comm system starts jangling with a direct call instead of a ping. He pushes out of the pod and catches the external handle, throwing a glare Gabe’s way. <What the hell, Gabe? I have ten minutes,> he says once he’s reconnected to the RK-NGL intranet.

The mech, it seems, is only just situating itself in its standby dock. <An early start is required due to repairs in the forward arrays that have yet to be completed.>

Dean groans. He requests Gabe’s shift report, navigates to it when all he gets is a link, and scowls when, sure enough, there’s evidence of short-circuits in the array banks he’d just checked two shifts ago. There hadn’t been any sign of wear or tear then, but then again, little shit like this pops up all the time during transit. High-γ travel is part and parcel of modern life, sure, but it isn’t perfect-- Dean would be out a Sammy-supporting job otherwise.

As he scans the rest of the report, he has to do an actual double-take and scroll back to the top of the inventory section just to make sure he isn’t seeing things.

He’s not.

<Gabe?>

<Yes, Dean.>

<Why are there three empty creches in the passenger inventory now?>

It takes Gabe a little longer than usual to answer, like something about Dean’s query has it stumped. <Records confirm that Unit Dean Winchester verified and approved the inventory carried out by Unit GG4-BE during the previous rotation, where it was indicated that NOVAK J, GREY A, ROSS A were absent.> After a beat, it adds, <Recommended action: systems scan.>

Dean disconnects from the intranet and runs another scan, cursing. Those other two yahoos had not been missing during the last check. If he’s caught some weird-ass thing some jackass uploaded to the ship’s servers to cover their goons’ tracks, he’s going to hunt the bastard down and murder them himself-- no one fucks with his memory, end of.

The scan comes up clean, thank fuck-- he probably dodged some kind of time-calibrated bullet because he’s a paranoid bastard and never goes into standby without cutting his intranet connections to everything, ship included. Still, he reconnects to the intranet using his VPN and firewall protocols anyway. Paranoid bastards keep their heads un-fucked-with.

Gabe is satisfied with Dean’s scan results, but the mech’s dumbed-down transit AI doesn’t seem to know what to do with the discrepancy. It takes it nearly ten minutes (practically an eternity) to consult with the RK-NGL’s systems and come to an acceptable conclusion. <Records stored by Unit B3N-N1 and Unit RK-NGL are consistent with findings by Unit GG4-BE. Disregard the erroneous record.>

Fat fucking chance Dean’s going to disregard two people on his transit just disappearing from the records, but he acknowledges Gabe’s directive anyway. No point in arguing with the mech about it.

Swinging himself out of the mech toroid hatch toward the nosecone, he puts this latest weirdness on the proverbial back burner so he can get to the repairs that need doing.

The fix in the forward array is quick enough once he’s found the problem cables, but it still takes several hours of partial array shutdowns and status runs to isolate the impacted segment. Then it’s more testing on the bad segment, this time to find the offending bundle of wires, and then it’s another several hours to worm his way up to the bundle itself. It’s right up against the underside of the ablative cone, and his frame rings with cold every time he accidentally bumps into the aluminum plating. He thanks human laziness for the fact that transit security footage is only viewed by robots post-arrival-- cold can’t kill him, sure, but he still makes a very undignified scramble for distance and comfort all the same.

All told, it’s nearly three days after start-up by the time he gets an all-clear readout on every segment in the forward array and can finally slam that hatch shut behind him.

There are definitely times when he seriously considers a personality shunt for transits, just for his own sanity, and this is one of them.

He never goes through with it, but boy does he think about it.

*

Inventory, as usual, is about as exciting as watching steel oxidize, at least until he makes it to the first of the three berths Gabe had indicated as empty. Like he had been before, NOVAK, JAMES seems to be missing without any particularly suspicious indicators-- caul and seals are intact, biomonitor records show that the creche never registered any cargo mass, and the T-curve is consistent with an empty creche. He double and triple-checks everything, just to be totally sure, but there’s really nothing to find, so he shrugs and moves along to the next creche.

Several tiers down and way too much time later, Dean comes to ROSS, AZAZEL. He opens his ‘erroneous’ inventory record on his own desktop, then opens Gabe’s ‘correct’ inventory in the communal chat.

Seal quality isn’t something that can be hacked, contrary to what popular media would have folks believe. The seal indicator, a brittle, high-tension film of material applied to the creche interior and door seam by the creche mechanism itself, shatters completely from even nano-level breaches anywhere in the creche chamber and is impossible to circumvent. The ‘tampered creche’ trope is an old favourite in crime procedurals, but it’s a hell of a lot easier said than done-- by now, it’s something of a contest between Takaoka and Kryonik’s R&D groups to see whose anti-tamper measures troll would-be vandals harder.

Given that tamperers are usually out to kill someone, those R&D teams have a lot of latitude. Maybe even too much, but Dean’s not gonna be the idiot who actually says that.

As it stands, ROSS, AZAZEL doesn’t seem to have gone anywhere at any point, if he had ever been in the creche-- the indicator strip around the creche seam is still glassy and intact under the protective transit caul (also intact). Dean signs off on that item in the inventory, then moves down to the next: mass and temp.

During the last inventory he’d run, the creche had reported a mass of seventy-three kilos, but now it’s showing zero all the way back to launch. The same goes for creche temperature-- before, the T-curve had been typical for a one point eight meter, seventy-three kilo male with middling to high muscle tone and lower body fat levels, but now it’s just another near-textbook cooling curve for a given volume of standard starliner canned air.

When the creche’s cargo mass sensors return readings of zero all the way back to launch, Dean shakes his head, shrugs, and signs off on ROSS, AZAZEL as another missed transit. About four weeks later, he does the same for GREY, ALASTAIR after finding the same results.

Whoever the two are, someone’s gone to a lot of trouble to make it look like they’d boarded and launched with the RK-NGL.

*

“... and so now I’ve got two empty creches, a good chance that there’s some asshat passenger or passengers who are really just here to fuck up or stalk the missing guys and are probably gonna be real pissed when they figure out that their marks weren’t even on the ship, and I’m gonna have to stay on VPN the rest of the time in case there’s any other intranet fuckery going on. Can you believe this shit?”

Sammy’s berth just blips along, as it always has. It’s probably better that way; Sam would have cut off Dean’s bitching ages ago, and then Dean would have felt bad, and it’d be awkward as shit for like a day until Sammy got fed up with that, too.

Dean sighs and tips himself back against the chilly, un-cauled surface of Sam’s berth. “This transit sucks, Sammy. I mean, not as bad as that Landung-to-Dàodá clusterfuck, but it’s getting there pretty quickly. Send me some positive lawyer mojo, would you?”

Sammy blips.

It’s as much as Dean can hope for, really.

A little kid shrieks with delight as they fly down a slide; grinning, Dean remembers doing the same thing when he’d been about that age. He laughs when the kid’s mom catches them as they bolt past and gently reminds them to walk and not scream, please. Dean had been on the receiving end of a lot of those talks, too.

Next to him on the bench, S-RAE Guy-- Castle? Cassy-elle? Dean just remembers ‘Cas’-- stares at the playground with a look of squinty-eyed bafflement. He tilts his head. “What purpose does this structure serve?”

Dean blinks. “You don’t know what a playground is?” he squawks before he can stop himself.

Cas looks over at Dean with big, serious blue eyes. “I… cannot say I have ever seen one before.”

Okay. Either Dean’s sort-of-adopted the worst functional Stasis-Related Adverse Event on medical record, or Cas has had the shittiest fucking childhood ever. Dean’s not a total dick, so he’s not gonna demand why the guy’s never seen one before, but hell if he’s gonna let Cas the S-RAE Guy waltz off into the world without knowing what a playground is. “So little kids like to run and climb and crawl around on shit, right?”

Cas’ head tips in the other direction. Dean’s weirdly reminded of a bird. “I wouldn’t know. Am I correct in assuming that you do not mean ‘shit’ in the literal sense?”

Point in the ‘shittiest childhood’ column, there. “Uh, yeah dude, you’re correct on that.” He gestures toward the little kid, who’s clambering around upside down on the monkey bars while the mom hovers anxiously and tries to coax them down. “Kids’re still figuring everything out-- running, jumping, thinking, all that crap, and it’ll still be like ten years before one that age’s got anything that looks like common sense, so… they run, and jump, and climb, make up stories and games so they can do more jumping and running and climbing, and let me tell you, it does not matter where they are-- kids will do kid shit anywhere. That,” he says, jabbing a thumb at the playground structure as a whole, “is a way to trick them into doing their kid shit in one place, where there’s nothing to knock over, fall over on top of them, or--”

The kid slips and falls while they’re climbing down from the monkey bars. It’s an awkward tumble, but the smart-gel surface of the playground absorbs the worst of the fall, and the kid bounces right up again to go haring off somewhere else.

“A rigid surface would have been quite harmful in that situation,” Cas remarks. “I believe I am beginning to understand.” The way he’s watching makes Dean think he’s more focussed on the mom than the kid right now. “What differentiates a ‘kid’ individual from a non-’kid’ individual?”

Dean isn’t sure whether he wants to address the question or the weirdly-clinical use of ‘non-kid’ in a sentence. He’s reporting this dude’s case to Takaoka first thing in the fucking morning-- there’s no way the guy won’t get some kind of settlement out of it, and he’s probably gonna need all the help he can get, the poor fucker. “Uh,” he says when he realizes Cas is still waiting for an answer. “Kids aren’t adults, like us. They’re small, and they still run around and play and ask shit tons of questions and all that.”

Cas narrows his eyes. “I don’t understand. What stops us from running and playing and asking questions?”

“Uh,” Dean says, stumped. “Rules? Adults… they’ve got responsibilities, and jobs, and they’ve got to take care of their families and their houses and stuff like that. It’s real life, I guess. When you’re six it’s one thing, but if you run around and play tag and stick your nose in everything when you’re thirty-six, people’re gonna look at you like you’re nuts, and then no one’ll hire you.”

After a moment of consideration, Cas turns his gaze back to the child. “I find that sad. The kid’s activities look…” He pauses, as if searching for the right word. “Enjoyable. Do you think they would be?” Blue eyes turn down to broad hands with long fingers; Cas flexes them experimentally and Dean wonders if maybe his cluelessness really is the amnesia, and not a shitty childhood like he’d assumed. The movement’s so much like the one Dean had done when his hands were suddenly new again that… yeah, he really can’t help but think it’s an S-RAE thing. Takaoka’s so getting a long, in-depth email about this, because seriously, Cas deserves a goddamn fortune in restitution.

In the meantime, Dean needs to remember to answer Cas’ question and not just sit there planning lawsuits. “Uh, yeah? It’s all pretty cool, I guess. You wanna try the monkey bars?”

“The bars from which the kid fell?” Cas asks, and Dean nods. “I-- I do not think I wish to experience that immediately. They appear challenging. However, the climbing structure with many bars and handholds, and the… helical inclined trough, and walking through the local flora in search of small, exoskeletal organisms. Those appeal to me greatly.”

Dean blinks. “The jungle gym, the slide, and bug hunting?”

“Yes,” Cas says, very seriously.

When Dean looks back at the playground, the kid and their mom have departed-- it’s just Dean and Cas there, no one else in sight. A glance at Cas shows him staring wide-eyed at the jungle gym, and Dean finally reaches his breaking point. Cas looks a little bewildered when Dean pulls him to his feet and divests him of his beige coat and suit jacket, but when Dean starts tugging him toward the jungle gym, his face lights up with understanding.

Pretty soon it’s Dean being tugged everywhere. It’s worth it, though, because when Cas does finally smile, it’s this gloriously crinkle-nosed actual ray of fucking sunshine even from the very peak of an arc on the swing set, and Dean’s never seen anything like it in all his life.

*

“Why do adults deny themselves these things, Dean?” Castiel asks later. He’s only half-visible over the peachy blooms of some kind of flower; even though the question had been directed at Dean, his gaze is locked on a bee as it bumbles from petal to petal. “These things-- joy, discovery, spontaneity-- are real, too, are they not?”

Dean doesn’t have a good answer. “I… they are, Cas. I guess… we give up a lot as adults. Running around. Playing. Dreams. All that--”

“Dreams?” Cas asks. He tilts his head. “I thought dreams were a neural phenomenon during REM sleep.”

Dean sighs. Cas doesn’t remember playgrounds, but he remembers sciencey shit about dreams? Seriously. Letter. Takaoka. First fucking thing. “Dreams in the metaphorical sense. Things you want to do, to see, to be in the future. I wanted to be a physicist, and I was doing it, but sometimes real life makes it impossible to keep trying to follow a dream, especially when you’ve got other people depending on you. A kid doesn’t have that issue, so a kid runs around and dreams all these crazy dreams and just enjoys the shit out of everything, because they don’t know loss, or not-having, or… you get the idea. It’s the adults in their life who’re supposed to support them so they don’t have to know it. The more support you have, the more you can… do all that, I guess.”

Castiel leans forward and buries his face in the cluster of flowers. He seems thoughtful as he sits there and breathes. “Even if you give up pursuing the dream, though, it is still there?”

“Guess so.”

“Do adults create new dreams?”

“All the fucking time,” Dean says, and thinks of Sammy in his berth, and of the thesis that still sits waiting on the same drive it has since he finished it, and of a heartbeat-- a real one.

Cas looks up at the wobble in Dean’s voice. “I am sorry. I have caused you pain.”

Shrugging, Dean crams his hands in his pockets. “‘S not your fault, man. Human society’s shitty-- for most folks, living a dream is a luxury. Being an adult human means you learn to aim for what you can and find happiness in the little stuff. Warm weather. Cuddling with someone on a cold night. Pie fresh out of the oven. A good book. Seeing a new place when you get the chance to travel. Doesn’t fill the gap, and you’ll always have that part of you that’ll wish you could, but… it’s not all bad, okay? I promise, there’s a lot of good stuff for adults out there, too. We don’t get to run and play the same way, but we do… we do get to do things kids can’t, and a lot of it is awesome.”

He’s not sure who he’s reassuring-- Cas, because the poor guy’s gonna have to go back out into the real world someday, or himself.

Dean nearly jumps out of his skin when a gentle hand tucks something bristly behind his ear. Cas smiles at him from barely a foot away and lowers his hand; a peachy-white blob bobs at the corner of Dean’s vision.

“Maybe that’s a part of it,” Cas says. “Being an ‘adult human’, as you put it.” The corners of his eyes crinkle with his smile, and even though his blue eyes look sad, they look happy, too. “If things are as you say, then I think… I think perhaps that there is fun in being a kid human, but because adults have known loss and hardship, there can be deeper appreciation and gratitude for the good things.”

Dean stares. “Were you some kind of philosopher before you got freezer burn?”

He doesn’t even have time to feel bad about using the pejorative; Castiel literally fucking lights up with a grin and lets out a delighted laugh. “I could have been!” he chuckles, just before stealing the flower from behind Dean’s ear. He holds the blooms to his nose again; there’s a dusting of pollen when he moves them away. “Sometimes, you seem very sad, Dean, but if things are as you say,” Cas continues quietly, re-tucking the flower behind Dean’s ear, “then I believe that very, very few must have so deep a capacity for appreciation and gratitude as you. Your kindness for me when I was a stranger only deepens my faith. Thank you.”

Cas goes back to his flowers, and Dean kind of stands there, floored.

He tries to remember the last time that someone said something so honestly kind to him, and can’t-- even with his memory, he can’t. It’s barely anything, just a compliment and a simple statement of thankfulness for an act of basic human decency, and yet he feels almost overwhelmed.

It’s a good overwhelmed, though, like something in him is full and whole for the first time after a long, long drought. It’s good, and for once he doesn’t question whether the feeling’s real or just… an artifact, an echo of what the real thing had been.

Dean smiles. “Anytime, buddy,” he says, and goes to sit with Cas in the flowers.