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drabbles-mc · 1 year ago

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You Have Friends?

Richie Jerimovich x F!Reader Richie Jerimovich & Carmy Berzatto & Neil Fak

For @the-slumberparty's Bingo Challenge! Bingo Square: friends with benefits

Warnings: 18+, language, canon-typical chaos

Word Count: 2.1k

A/N: I love them. I love them all so much. I can and would kill a man for Neil Fak.

The Bear Taglist: @garbinge @withmyteeth @justreblogginfics @narcolini (If you want to be added to any of my taglists, please let me know!)

You had your phone out, ready to call or text him to come and meet you outside. You weren’t expecting the door to be unlocked, but it pulled open with no resistance. Your eyebrows lifted, and for a moment you still contemplated just calling him anyway. But then you heard the crashing sounds, the subsequent yelling after the fact, and you knew that even if you called him repeatedly he wasn’t going to pick up the phone. Especially not when he was one of the people doing the yelling.

Taking a deep breath, you stepped inside and let the door fall shut behind you. The metallic clanging of the door hitting the frame was a sound you were certain no one else heard other than you. You took careful steps through the restaurant, or what used to be a restaurant, what was going to be a restaurant again in a couple months, apparently. There was debris everywhere, and the deeper you walked, the more the yelling made sense. Although, knowing Richie, yelling would happen even when it didn’t make sense. Italian aesthetic for the least Italian man you know.

Passing by a tarp, the one spray painted by someone who was clearly angry when they got the can of paint in their hand, you finally landed yourself where everyone was gathered. Carmy and Richie were chest-to-chest, or their approximation of that as Richie towered over him. Fak was on standby, and based off of what Richie had told you, you were certain that Fak was ready to jump in on Carmy’s behalf and not Richie’s.

There were a few other people there too. You recognized Natalie, worry and frustration all over her face as she watched Carmy and Richie yell and duke it out with each other. Your eyes widened as you took in the entire scene playing out in front of you. It clicked for you why Richie never told you to stop by.

Finally, she snapped. “Will you two shut the fuck up, please?! This isn’t solving anything!”

Richie shook his head, stepping back from Carmy only to aggressively gesture at him instead. “Nothing this dickhead is doing is solving anything! That’s the whole fuckin’—”

“I’m sorry,” Carmy interrupted Richie’s tirade, no longer looking at the man who had just been about to throw him through the crumbling sheetrock walls around them, “um who, who are you?”

Your eyes widened further not just at the fact that he was looking at you, talking to you, but at the drastic shift in his voice. He was quiet now, tone almost gentle, but clearly very confused. You cleared your throat, the nerves you’d felt standing in front of the restaurant were back in full-swing now that the yelling had stopped.

“Hi, sorry. I just—” you stopped short and held up the leather jacket in your hand as your only explanation.

Richie’s originally surprised expression had shifted to confusion. But once he saw the jacket in your hand, it changed into something else entirely. Almost soft. As soft as he would allow himself to be in the middle of the warzone.

“Shit,” his shoulders dropped and he stepped away from Carmy. “Thank you. Completely fuckin’,” he didn’t finish the sentence throwing out a vague hand gesture instead.

You chuckled quietly, still feeling awkward in the midst of it all but not quite as much now. Richie was, strangely enough, your tether in the midst of whatever storm you’d stumbled into. “I know.”

You handed it over to him, looking around at everyone who was looking at you. Maybe you should introduce yourself to the room. You knew most of them, or knew of them at least. Richie talked about them enough to make you feel like you knew them—you saw the pictures in his apartment, on his phone. Judging by the various looks of shock and confusion on everyone else’s faces, he was not as talkative about you as he was about all of them. That was about what you expected. You waited to see if Richie was gonna introduce you instead of making you do it, but he looked just about as lost as anyone else.

Clearing his throat, he nodded back the way you’d come in. “I’ll walk you out.”

You nodded, looking around at everyone. “It’s was nice to…you know…” you waved awkwardly. “Bye.”

The variety of goodbye’s that you got from everyone in the room was humorous. Or it was to you, at least. Judging by the look on Richie’s face you had the feeling that he was never going to be hearing the end of everything that just transpired over the last sixty seconds. You knew that whatever that was wasn’t their best behavior, but it was the best they could conjure up given your unexpected arrival and the fact that they had no idea who the fuck you were. It was a little impressive, honestly, especially if any of them were anything like Richie.

“I was gonna call,” you said as you and Richie made your way back through the minefield, trying to take all the same steps you had on the way in but in reverse lest you cause something else to collapse, “but then the door was open so I sorta just let myself in.”

He shook his head. “It’s fine. You’re fine.” He paused as he reached to open the door for you. “How much of that did you catch?”

You laughed. “Um, caught just about everything after you told one of them that you are ‘perfectly fucking capable’ of tearing the wall down safely.”

Richie shook his head. “Fuckin’ Fak.”

You continued, not acknowledging his statement with anything but a smile. “Which, no offense,” you looked over at him, “I heard the crashing when I walked in. Not sure how true that is.”

“Not you too,” he shook his head as you both stood in the doorway. You were standing just out on the sidewalk, Richie just barely inside the hollowed-out restaurant.

“Just keepin’ it real,” you said, holding your hands up in surrender.

Richie was still shaking his head as he looked up at the sky for a moment, like he was visibly trying to talk himself out of saying something shitty. Finally looking back at you, he said, “Thanks for the jacket.” He shook it in his hand to emphasize his point.

“I know you guys are,” you made a general circling motion with your hand in the direction of the restaurant, “but call me when you’re done if you want.”

“Alright, yea.” He ran his hand across his brow-line. “I’ll let you know.”

You nodded. “Sounds good.” You leaned in, stealing a chaste kiss before stepping back away again. “Oh, and Richie?”

He looked at you, eyebrows raised. “Yea?”

“Take it easy on Carmy.” You laughed. “It’s fucked up to bully children.”

Richie laughed, tension dropping from his shoulders a little bit. “He makes it too easy, though. Candy from a fuckin’ baby, I swear.”

You laughed a little harder at that, shaking your head. “That’s exactly my point.” You watched him roll his eyes at you and all you could do was smile. “Talk to you later.”

“Yea, yea, I’ll see you.”

Richie stood there in the doorway and watched as you walked back down the sidewalk. You got a few strides away and realized that you hadn’t heard the clattering of the door shutting. When you turned around and saw him standing there still looking at you, you laughed and shook your head at him. He smiled, but rather than saying anything else, he just gave you the finger before pulling out a pack of cigarettes from the pocket of his track pants.

When he walked back into the construction area, everyone stopped what they were doing to look at him. By that point, everyone only consisted of Fak and Carmy. Natalie must’ve handed out tasks to just about everyone else, things they could do that didn’t involve trying to work through the mess that Richie had just inadvertently created with the disintegrating wall.

“Who was that?” Carmy immediately asked when Richie stepped back in the room.

“Don’t fuckin’ worry about it.”

Fak piped up. “Is she your girlfriend? Do you have a girlfriend?”

“Shut the fuck up, Neil,” Richie snapped with a shake of his head.

“Is she, though?” Fak didn’t let up.

“No—what—what are we, fuckin’ twelve? She’s not my girlfriend.”

“She’s stopping by!” Fak countered. “With your jacket!” He gasped dramatically. “Do you sleep over?”

“I’m gonna put you through that fuckin’ wall, I swear to god.”

Carmy was half-covering his mouth with his hand watching the two of them going back and forth. He tried not to smile. “She’s not your girlfriend, then. So, so what is she?”

Richie threw his hands up, jacket flapping as he did. “Why are we even talkin’ about this right now? Don’t you have a restaurant to open?”

“Can’t open shit when you’re knocking all the walls down,” Carmy shot back with a small smirk pulling at his lips. He paused. “What’s, what’s the deal?”

Richie shook his head, knowing that he wasn’t going to get out of the conversation without giving some kind of answer. For as annoyed as he was, he also had a sliver of awareness in the back of his mind that when the shoe is on the other foot he was just as relentless, if not more.

“I met her on, fuckin’, you know,” he patted at his pants pocket where his phone was. “And she’s cool.”

“But not your girlfriend,” Carmy clarified.

“No. We’re like, friends with benefits or whatever you fuckin’ lizards call it.”

“You have friends?” Carmy asked with a laugh.

“She gives you benefits?” Fak piped up, his voice that same shocked almost-whisper he used so often.

Richie was shaking his head at both of them. He pointed at Carmy, using the hand that was still clutching his jacket. “Fuck you—yes, I have friends.” He turned to Fak and pointed at him next. “And fuck you, yes I get benefits!” He punctuated the sentence by giving him a good shove.

“Think she’s still gonna give you benefits after seeing you act like a fucking maniac in here today?” Carmy asked, eyebrows slightly raised as he tried and failed miserably at not looking amused.

“Pfft,” Richie shrugged like he was so unbothered by it, like he was far cooler than he really is, “bet I’ll get even more benefits now.”

“Gross,” Carmy responded with a laugh.

“So gross,” Fak agreed.

“You fuckin’ asked,” Richie argued, pointing back and forth between the two of them.

Before they could descend further into the madness, Natalie’s voice came ringing in front the office. “Neil! Sweetheart! Come here for a second, please.”

“Coming!” he called back, charming as ever. He looked at Richie, pointing at him accusingly. “You’re gross.”

“And you don’t fuck, Neil Fak,” Richie replied without missing a beat.

Once he walked out of the room, Richie and Carmy both instantly broke down laughing. They were both shaking their heads, at each other, at Fak, at all of it. The entire morning had been a mess, just like most of the other mornings preceding it. It was so easy to get lost in it sometimes that giving each other shit over things like that was a breath of fresh air in the strangest way. Bullying each other just for the sake of it not because it felt like the restaurant was imploding and they were each trying to cope with it the only way that they really knew how.

“Hey, cousin,” Carmy spoke up after things had quieted between them again. It looked at Richie who was looking down at the jacket in his hand.

“Yea?” Richie pulled his eyes back up.

He nodded in the direction of the door. “That all good?”

Richie shrugged, nodded. “It’s all good.”

The ends of Carmy’s mouth lifted into a tiny grin. It was genuine, still just a touch of humor to it because they were still the exact men that they were. “Alright.” He clapped Richie on the back. “C’mon, let’s clean up this fuckin’ wall you knocked down.”

“I didn’t knock—”

“You fuckin’ did!” Carmy said with a laugh.

“You know what? Whatever,” Richie shook his head. Turning on his heel, he went to put his jacket away, somewhere out of the danger zone. “Grab a fuckin’ broom, then.”

Carmy was shaking his head, already making his way to get supplies to start containing the mess. He grabbed a garbage can and a broom, chuckling to himself when he heard Fak and Richie pick up their arguing all over again just a few yards away.

#navy and roos sleepover #navy and roo's sleepover #the bear #the bear fanfiction #the bear hulu #the bear fx #richie jerimovich #richie jerimovich x reader #richie jerimovich x you #x reader #x reader fic #slumber party bingo #slumber party #my writing #fanfiction #drabblesmc

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damagedintellect · 4 months ago

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Craig Tucker x Fem!reader

💌 Craig Tucker is a mother fucker: Chapter 11 💌

Summary: You want to say that it wasn't your fault buuuuuut it kinda was. You didn't think much of it as you casted your joke vote for the "Hottest guy in school" and in hindsight you should never listen to Clyde but it was pretty funny at the time. Craig just wanted a peaceful junior year and you can't blame him for that however waking up the morning after a party, in his bed, being told that you two were dating wasn't exactly your definition of peaceful either.

Notes: I was always too scared of the fandom to post it back in the day but I wrote this before Creek was made canon so let's just say Craig is bi for my sake because I've had a huge crush on him since forever. My S/O pointed out that Craig is just Trafalgar Law but with a guinea pig instead of a polar bear and I haven't been the same since I have a type and it's them.

💌 Word count: 1,662 💌 <= Previous | Chapter 12 coming soon

Craig felt strange and not just because he was slightly nauseous from the night before. The textures were all wrong, the pillows, the sheets, even his blanket everything felt foreign to him. He slowly shifted to his side, not quite ready to get up feeling sickly from the night before. Clyde was right he should have paced himself more. His head was pounding and he felt like if he moved too fast he would throw up whatever he had left in his stomach. Craig tried to paw at the waste bin he kept beside his bed just in case, however he was confused when he was groping dead air. He could have sworn it was on the right side of his bed. He didn't recall moving it but Clyde could have after he took him home. It wasn't often that Craig decided to drink let alone drink himself sick so whenever the rare occurrence happened Clyde turned into a mom making sure he was taken care of. As annoying as Clyde could be, he was still a good friend. Craig tried to recall what happened last night, it was harder than he thought although he did remember Clyde driving him but even the memory of him getting in his truck was kind of fuzzy. Craig bit the bullet and slowly opened his eyes, the room spinning for a moment as he tried to focus on what he was seeing.

This wasn't his room.

His eyes widened, it wasn't Clyde's either. It didn't look like any of his friends' rooms. He shut his eyes tight as the room continued to spin trying to steady himself knowing that he was lying perfectly still and the nausea would subside if he focused hard enough. Meanwhile he tried his best to play through the events of last night only vaguely remembering Clyde suggest he talk to-

His eyes snapped open once more, this time picking a spot on the ceiling to focus on before carefully turning to the other side of the bed. His suspicions of whose room this was were correct as beautiful eyes stared back into his.

You snickered at his reaction "Morning~" you cooed softly knowing he most likely has a pretty severe headache considering he pass out on the ride home "How you feeling?" You couldn't help but stifle a laugh at the familiarity of the situation.

Oh how the tables have turned.

Last night you managed to convince Clyde that instead of taking Craig home that he should take him back to your house. You saw an opportunity and you took it, slightly surprised that Clyde had agreed. Actually? Who are you kidding? He had been begging you to talk to Craig all week and having you request to, essentially, help kidnap Craig was probably icing on his metaphorical cake.

Craig groaned in response to your question closing his eyes once more "Like death" he grabbed his head massaging his temples to try to relieve some pressure from his head that was still spinning a bit. You shyly smile as you grab the plate you had set by your bed. "Here, I got you some toast and ginger."

"She drinks one time and suddenly she's an expert on hangovers." He grabbed the toast from you taking a bite "And yet she can't pass math grade." You rolled your eyes at him wanting to tell him off that you aced the last test but that was beside the point. "Actually Clyde was the one who told me to give this to you. Said something about ginger stopping you from blowing chunks." You offered Craig a water bottle "Ginger helps stop nausea, I'm the one who told him that because I take care of his sorry ass all the time." You snickered taking out some aspirin "Really? That's not the story I heard. He said it's because when you guys were kids you'd have him spin you on the merry go round as practice for space training."

Craig pinched the bridge of his nose, why'd Clyde have to out him like that. You nudged his arm holding out the pills. "Spaceman Craig~ ya know I would have never guessed."

"Cut the crap, why am I here?"

You sigh frowning at his attitude wondering just how much of it was him not feeling well or just him putting up a front. "You really don't remember anything from last night do you." He sat up brushing crumbs off your blanket before pulling his knees to his chest "Do I even want to know?"

"Eh that depends do you want the good news or the bad news," You smiled at him. "Either way there's going to be talk on Monday." Craig sat for a moment weighing out his options. "Start with the bad news because knowing you, you're just going to say the good news there is only bad news or some shit."

You shrugged, he got you there. "I mean you're not wrong, that does sound like something I'd do but not this time. The bad news is you cried in front of Clyde, like full on bawling your eyes out." you paused waiting for his reaction. He let his head drop into his knees knowing that the bastard is never going to let him live that down. "And well everyone at that party. You were kind of a mess when Clyde called me over." it was quiet for a little while before either of you said anything. Craig frowned "That it?"

"I guess? I wasn't around for most of it and we didn't really stay too long after that." Craig turned to face you scrunching up his face clearly annoyed but then again he was almost always annoyed "Then what's the good news? I don't remember anything from last night and you're not exactly being storyteller of the year."

"I well.... the good news is." You trailed off, this was harder than you thought. You could just lie to him, it's not like he'd ever know. It was one thing to say it to him knowing he won't remember but what happened next was what you were afraid of. "You see I," the words were caught in your throat still and Craig gave you a confused look while gradually sitting up normally. You were getting more flustered by the minute, you didn't think this through. Last night you were kind of just running off the adrenaline of the party. "Well," you huffed in frustration "You kept muttering that I like Stan so I told you that yes, I like Stan but like I don't... I don't love Stan." You could see the gears turning in Craig's head as you felt the heat creep up your face "Anyways the bottom line was I didn't want things to go back to normal." you said normal in air quotes before you turned away twirling your hair while muttering quietly "Because, I'm in love with you."

Out of the corner of your eye you watched Craig's quizzical look soften shifting somewhere between what you think is disbelief and a genuine smile. Craig shielded his face with his hand, he was so afraid of rejection he never thought to entertain the idea that you might end up liking him back. He smirked after connecting all the dots. "What'd you say? I didn't catch that, you said what?" He teased leaning into your personal space cupping his hand around his ear. Gritting your teeth you spat "I said I love you dumbass. Happy now?" you pushed him away and crossed your arms. You take everything back bringing Craig here was a bad idea.

"Thought so." he said very smugly, sipping water. You rolled your eyes at him hitting his arm "Yeah like fuck you did, then why'd you break up with me?"

He sat up straight and very tense at the switch in subject "You blew me off!"

Your eyes go wide "What! When?"

"The morning after we-you up and left!"

You pointed a finger in his face "You left first! I only left because you disappeared. Where'd you even go?" He was quietly scratching the back of his neck before looking down at your comforter with a long sigh. "A few weeks ago you said you wanted to try this bakery but they were only open in the early morning" He glanced back at you blush lightly dusting his face "I figured since I woke up early enough I'd grab something."

Your mouth fell open in awe but you immediately furrowed your eyebrows "And you didn't think to leave a note!"

"It's not like I was going to be gone long, besides I didn't think you'd just leave like that."

"I don't know I panicked"

Craig frowned looking off to the side ruffling your hair "God you are annoying." He glanced at you admitting defeat "But I guess that makes two of us."

You swatted his hand away fixing your hair "Good, because I wanna know something" you shifted now that everything was more or less cleared up. As if it already wasn't a lot to think about you need to ask even if you wouldn't get a straight answer but now with most of the cards on the table you felt comfortable even if you didn't get an answer.

"What"

"I mean I already told you, you know that I lov-ah that I liked you so I-" He cut you off pulling you into a kiss. "There, you happy now" He said, mocking your comment from earlier as he laid back down, turning away from you as you touched your lips smiling. It wasn't exactly what you were going for but at least now you didn't have to second guess yourself. It was a huge weight off your shoulders but it left you wondering.

"When did you know?" Craig slowly laid on his back staring at the ceiling "You can't be serious, what kind of question is that?"

#my sp brainrot is showing #south park x reader #south park imagines #south park fanfiction #craig tucker x reader #x reader

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simpingcorner · 2 years ago

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Daughter of the Shadows ch. 3

Word Count: ~1.8k Warnings: mild violence (stabbing, mentions of gunshots, physical fighting), blood, alcohol, gambling,mention ofblood loss, mentio of attempted SA,not proofread, let me know if I forgot something.

Author's Note: Third chapter to my Grishaverse fanfic. Pretty much just a filler chapter. Sorry if it sucks. New chapter every Sunday and Wednesday. A reminder this is insipred by my SoC DR so it’ll follow both the books and the show plotlines, there will be changes to the canon characters and their storylines, it’s also a Kaz Brekker x OC. | English isn’t my first language so please bear with me and tell me if there’s something wrong. I hope you like it.

all rights to leigh bardugo, i only owny liith and her backstory (other ocs will be introduced later)

Ch. 1 - Ch. 2 - Ch. 4 - Ch. 5 - Ch. 6

CHAPTER 3

JESPER

Jesper wouldn't have known how to explain his arrival at the table, one moment he was guarding the south door, the next he was sitting at the table, surrounded by pigeons from Novyi Zem and Shu Han, "Jesper." Kaz's voice brought the boy back to reality, "Shouldn't you be guarding the door? " the boss’ hard face showed no emotion, Jesper had never seen emotions on Kaz's face, he had never seen him smiling, scared; his face, his voice, his eyes showed impassivity, never had he seen an expression other than the one he was wearing at that moment. "Right away, boss." He said before getting up from the table and heading for the door.

The line of tourists waiting to enter the Club stretched for a little over a block, it was no surprise the increase in customers during the autumn months, yet Jesper kept wondering how people like that, with enough money to cross the Fold or afford the best rooms in the best hotels of Ketterdam, could walk so calmly through the streets, not noticing the children and teens stealing their watches, wallets, jewellery, tie clips or whatever item could help them survive for at least another day.

It must be nice to have the security of eating and sleeping in a warm place.

The boy thought to himself, remembering the first months he had spent on the streets of the Barrel after dropping out of university, his father would not have been proud of him for being a gambler, whose only goal is to win enough to repay his debts. Debts his father was never supposed to know about.

The autumn night was humid and way too hot, the torpid air of the Barrel was now the only air Jesper could breathe, vaguely remembering the fresh air of his father's farm in Novyi Zem, a farm, a country, a life he had decided to abandon and forget, he had decided to start a new life at Ketterdam University, but that too, like everything Jesper started, had lasted little more than a few months. "When can we get in? We have been waiting since before the sun went down." Said the irritated voice of one of the tourists. "When you can come in I will let you in." Jesper replied as he went back to staring at the children running among the tourists, his hands steady on the handles of the guns, ready if needed, busy playing with them in such a way as to prevent accidents, his gaze shifted from the children to the tourists to the rooftops, he knew Lilith and Specht were busy with a job for Kaz and he knew they would have to return shortly.

Jesper knew that he would never have to contradict Kaz if he wanted to stay at the Slat, he knew Lilith was able to protect herself if needed, he knew she was probably one of the most dangerous and notorious people in the city, and maybe that was why part of him was agitated, although Lilith had never needed help part of him felt that she too had limits, that she too would need help sooner or later. The lights of the streetlamps flickered in the warm wind of the night, the voices of the Club's customers combined with the screams of the workers in the Pleasure District attracting new customers were now a constant in the boy's life, no matter what time it was Ketterdam was always alive, always awake, always brightly lit. "Oi Jesper, how is it today? How are the cards?" Specht asked him throwing his hat and mask into the room next to the door, "Same as always, lucky if you're rich." the Zemeni man replied shifting his gaze to his colleague, "In the next life I'll born grisha, those are the ones who enjoy life." said Specht laughing at Jesper before walking through the door, "Where's Lilith?" shouted Jesper to his colleague before he disappeared, "I think she's at Kaz's, she had to explain some things to him, she left me before dinner was over." replied Specht before disappearing into the crowd of the Club.

Something in Jesper's stomach twisted, he knew she wouldn't be coming through the front door, in his four years at Slat with her he had never seen her use the doors except to kick cheaters out or during guard shifts, which he had noticed were far inferior compared to the rest of the Crows, yet part of him felt that something was wrong, that something was going to happen.

He noticed her before she could even notice him, her blonde hair stood out among the dark colours of the clothes and the streets, the thirteen year old girl was making her way through the bodies of tourists lined up to enter. "Branwen." Jesper shouted at the blonde, her pitch black eyes met Jesper's, a worried and frightened expression on the little girl's face, "What happened?" the Zemeni asked as he knelt in front of her and squeezed her shoulder, "It's Lilith. We were talking and when I left I noticed three men approaching her." "Where?" she asked trying to keep her composure, "Around the corner two blocks from here." replied Branwen, "Okay, can you tell Big Bolliger if he can cover me while I go see what's going on with Lilith?" Jesper ran towards the alley before the blonde could answer.

It wasn't the worst thing he had ever seen or the worst situation Lilith had been in and yet Jesper froze for a second at the scene in front of him, three men were pinning the girl down, their hands were trying to travel over her body, the veil of the costume was on the ground, broken, a symbol of innocence lost. Jesper pulled the trigger without noticing the action he had just performed, one of the three men fell to the ground groaning, the boy's gaze stopped on Lilith, but her eyes travelled from his hand to the man in front of him, the second man fell groaning, her hands were trying to stop the loss of blood, but the wound left by the girl's dagger would not heal. Jesper sprinted towards Lilith, catching her in time to prevent her from falling. Her body laid motionless in Jesper's arms, blood oozed from her side, the cut on her right forearm had reopened during the fight, her closed eyes and almost non-existent breathing forced Jesper to run through the streets, making space for himself by shouting and pushing tourists and workers, Big Bolliger noticed Lilith unconscious in his arms before he even noticed Jesper shouting and trying to get into the Crows Club, the line of people waiting to enter protested at the sight of the scene, "I've been here for three hours." "I've been waiting my turn since before the sun went down," were some of the comments Jesper could hear before turning towards the pigeons, "And she’s dying. If you want I'll shoot you too so you can come in," the boy replied before entering the club.

Inej was the first to notice Jesper, she stood beside him studying the girl's wounds, her gaze and expression impassive, by now used to such scenes, "Take her to her room, I'll go get Kaz." "No.... Don’t… Call him..." said Lilith between sighs, before losing consciousness again. Jesper and Inej knew not to go against the girl's wishes, but they needed Kaz to heal her, he was the only one who could find a healer and hire him before the worst happened, "Lil, we have to, he's the only one who can help you." Jesper's voice was gentle and concerned, "Milana... Work... At the Orchid..." Lilith's laboured breathing grew quicker and more erratic as Jesper propped her up on the mattress. "Specht send someone for Milana, Rotty get me some bandages or something to stop the bleeding, Anika go back to the counter and don't say anything." Ordered Inej to the rest of the Dregs around her, Jesper was kneeling beside the brunette, one hand clasped in his while with the other he stroked her hair, something that would have ensured his death at any other time, "Don't try to abandon me. We need to call Kaz, you need help," he told Inej, "No....I don't.... Need.... Of anyone..." said Lilith breathing heavily, "We all need someone." retorted Jesper with a half smile, Lilith tried to return it before losing consciousness again.

The Zemeni walked the streets of Ketterdam insulting himself for having, once again, lost what little savings he had left, the night was giving way to the warm spring sun, his chocolate-coloured face glistened from sweat under the dim light of the street lamps and the spring sun, his hands rested on the handles of his pistols, his gaze studied the pleasure district around him, his brain finally making up its mind to accept yet another night spent on the streets. "I can help you." The sudden voice startled him, he turned in search of the owner of the voice, but found himself alone in the alley, "I can help your father." the voice added, but still no one else besides him could be seen, leaving him to wonder if he was, in fact, imagining. Why would anyone help me? How could anyone know about my father? I don't need anyone. He thought as he continued walking in the shadows of the alley.

"We all need someone." Said the voice as if reading his mind. "Why would you want to help me?" He finally asked as the shadows seemed to retreat, giving way to the light of dawn. "Because I need you as much as you need me." His eyes finally saw the owner of the voice, a young girl, her curly brown hair trying to break free from the two braids at the nape of her neck, a white scar on her right cheek gave her already intimidating image, an even more frightening aura, her brown eyes were dark, studying him, a story behind them, pain, loss and revenge were the only things that could be seen in them. Two daggers carved from bones in her hands, ready to attack. Jesper looked at her, it felt like looking in a mirror, the purple bags under the girl's eyes were the same as his own, the quivering now part of him could be seen in the girl's hands. "Why do you need me?" He asked suddenly, "Because you have skills I don't and I bet you'd rather sleep on a real bed instead of the streets of the Pleasure District." Her voice was firm, affecting, too adult for the girl. "I guess sleeping on a real bed wouldn't be too bad." Said the boy with a smile, his hands left the grips of the guns, before reaching forward, the girl copied the action, her hand hidden by a leather glove squeezed the boy's, "I'm..." "Jesper Fahey." the girl interrupted him before turning on her heels and walking towards the Crow Club.

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artichow · 2 years ago

Note

You know what I’m about to ask you

RyuGin!!!!

OOOOOUH BABY!!!!

hehehehee them :D

Ship It

I am mentally ill about them /pos

What made you ship it?

I... don't know,, can't think of a moment really, although that scene at the end of fury and gingka's little speech may have been a big sign :) what was that gingka :D Also I think like narratively the scene at the end of fusion where gingka catches ryuga while falling has done something to my brain forever, it is so precious and important to me like.... OUURGH my feelings about ryugin is very!!! arti. grhej can't find a better way to describe it, they are a specific idea of ship i have in my brain that i like as someone who is incredibly confused and lowkey scared of romantic relationships and dating in general, that's why to me they are both aroace (jus like me fr,,) and what they have?? complicated but also so simple somehow!! But honestly I think I liked this idea of ryugin pretty early into my rewatch but i was kind of scared voicing it at first because there can be really shitty interpretations of those characters and their dynamic. I also am a fellow ryuga enjoyer who lives in the magical land of delusion and canon rewrite so :')) that helps a lot. But they mean so much omg i love them so fucking much!! I hope I can write coherently about them because!!!!

What are your favorite things about the ship?

Omg so many things... I love how I think about them with the right song and it hits me right in the feels! I love how similar they are and also vastly different their upbringing (mainly hcs on ryuga's side but yk how it is) and destiny was. Like I'm still absolutely going feral over that post from last year I made about both of our first look of them in the show?? Tbf it's the second scene where we see Gingka but still,, where he's on top of a building seeing the whole sky above him, while when we first see ryuga outside of vague flashbacks or the opening, he's in a sort of coma in a weird coffin surrounded by machine? And the shots of their beys parallel each other?? Like gingka is holding pegasus, probably feeling comfort holding onto his companion and momento of his dad, of his village. Meanwhile Ryuga's hand is lose cause he's asleep but it seems L drago is wide awake and already feeding off of him, one was a bey given to Gingka with a heavy burden of a goal but representing hope and the other was stolen, in order to only bring destruction. I think their relationships to their bey evolving throughout the show is super interesting to compare (but that's also because I hc a lot of things about ryuga that aren't canon because sometimes i want to chew on canon and chug it in the "don't care" bin).

Okay I think I only gave one reason FUCK umm I like the similarities and differences in their designs a lot (scarf/coat, headband/crown, gloves/no gloves, rounder features/sharper). That's mostly to do with Mr Adachi's really cool designs but still I wanted to mention it.

I like the hope in it you know? Ryuga's such a broken person but he's also like,, in my au 14/15yo during fusion and still a kid during the series? And how he almost died at least once (i'm also counting fury because no he didnot i don't care) so young and all this time without any form of genuine care or love. Like I like thinking about him mainly because there's not much that can excuse his actions but it's so interesting too? Like i like explaining the path he takes after fusion. How he's stuck in a downward spiral, hungry for power still because to him power is the only way to feel safe and in control, never being used again. But that ultimately keeps him away from genuine connection still and it also drives him to an almost death and just makes him extra stupid during fury :D idk to me fury ryuga felt so much like character regression, they really saw his masters character and went "yeah but what if..." NYWAY I digrace. I like how they're both just kids and the moment Gingka remembers/realizes it during their final fight in fusion is the thing that saves the world, that for gingka to still be Gingka and to save beyblade, how can he not save this other kid in pain. It is in tune with his character but it's also such a huge accomplishment on his part? He went through so much, his friends, his village, his father got taken away because of Ryuga. It's not all because of Ryuga and Gingka probably knows that but still?? He absolutely hated his guts and for good reason too. But I find it just so!!!! I love the idea that despite it all, there can be love after all of that. However you define it, just compassion and understanding <3 It is so cheesy but maaaaannn what are we without the power of love. I just love ryugin so much, i always try very hard to not make it sound like i'm glossing over all the problems ryuga caused and the emotional and mental toll gingka suffered becaus it's here, but also I love to believe that Gingka is just such a beam of light and he truly empathize with people in general, and something in him will always reach out to Ryuga. And that moment when he stopped him from falling to his death is just so!! To me in my hcs and aus and everything it is just the thing that starts ryuga's growth and character developement, like yeah he's still a stupid guy with a lot of issues but he's going to try. At least in my book (i feel like i'm rambling about things that are so far from canon but whatever i'm vibing my brain is vibrating rn). I just keep thinking about that quote from the good place "the point is people improve when they get external love and support. How can we hold it against them when they don't" and i want to tear up a little.

okay i have a couple more i think that i can think of,, vhfdj this is getting so so long,, oopsie. Um anyway, I like to imagine Ryuga actually helps Gingka too (it's not all one sided i promise but look at this mess of a boy) especially in expressing his feelings and communicating, i feel like gingka would and just by nature still struggles with this but because they understand each other's intentions very well most of the time (and that's canon baby) ryuga helps pointing it out if that makes sense. I also love how they're both intelligent while very dumb at the same time like they maybe aren't beyblade geniuses like Yu but they understand that game so well and so quickly i love that a lot. And I like how they both acknowledge it and respect the other for it.

I like how I imagine them both being vagabonds in their young adult years (*cough* snufkin much *cough*) and valuing their time alone but also sharing adventures together and feeling very comfortable with the other and just vibing :)

It's so funny when i think about it like trying to simplify their dynamic in my head cause it's just: gingka to ryuga is the light, the guy that saved him, the thing that changed everything and he can never fully understands it frustrates him but he can't keep away very long evn though he thought he'd always belong in the dark. And Ryuga to Gingka is friend (extra plus edition) :) both so valid honestly gdfhjsdhj

I love that there is SO MUCH angst potential but also this ship just brings me a sense of peace and joy, like it's somehow cozy??? with these two in it?? but yeah :)

they both absolutely annoy and pester the crap out of each other <3 look at them they're so stupid >:) what is my life if every character in the world is not annoying and dunking on ryuga honestly

Is there an unpopular opinion you have on your ship?

this has been such a long post holy shit and i feel like i still have stuff to say :') uuuh unpopular? I guess I hate most of the fanart i see of them unsurprisingly... But that's also just the pinterest side of the fandom like... between the straight up absolute weirdo stuff you never want to see ever again, the perpetual whitewashing of ryuga, the abusive/uncomfortable stuff you find it's just :') but again that's true of a lot of characters and ships in the fandom. Idk if me seeing them as aroace and in a more qpr relationship is unpopular, honestly I feel like we're just us two vibing in the ryugin sphere Hani ghfdjsk

btw now that i'm done writing this whole page i'm thinking "but honestly still i'm not really that big on shipping, i feel pretty normal about them even after putting this much effort into this silly ask :') Anywayy whatever the relationship nature is i just like these two characters a whole lot so yeah it's just such a wonderful dynamic and ship to think about <3

#if you read this whole thing #what is wrong with you <3 #gingka hagane #ryuga #what is wrong with me aha #i feel like i just showed a huge bit of my heart on the internet and it's about a beyblade ship :') pls be nice

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queenclaudiabrown · 11 months ago

Text

She'll Be Coming With Us | Chapter Four: Thereafter

Content warnings: uncensored cussing (contains: ‘hell’ [not the place] and ‘balls’ [not referring to genitalia]); canon-typical violence and triggers (such as the Gorgonopsid’s death); mild alcohol consumption and referenced drunkenness; food; infected blisters and associated pain and medical care but no needles; mentions of sweat if you find that triggering; minor nudity (character takes a bath but it is not descriptive or sexual); brief mention of menstruation [supplies, brief and vague]; Lester being a canon-typical arse; mentions of the Gulf War; mentions of jail/arrests, public urination, brawling, and mild vandalism; very brief mention/threat of murder but it’s kinda??? in jest (is it though?); I think that’s everything but if I missed something notify me and I will rectify it Word count: 9,613

Series Masterlist

Friday, May 19th, 2006

19:58 / 7:58 p.m.

Claudia, Nick, and Ryan crashed through the anomaly, back to home and safety, in a harsh reversal of their entrance into the Permian. Bright evening sunshine switched to the blackness of night like a switch being flipped, the glow of the dying anomaly and the freestanding lamps set up at the campsite inconsequential. The intense heat and cloying humidity changed to the chill of a spring night in England, although the underlying dampness in 2006 seemed infinitesimal in comparison. Claudia gasped as she tumbled and rolled across the ground; damp but packed soil and dead pine needles. The musty, earthy smell of the Forest filled her lungs, and the scent of rain felt like coming home.

They were swarmed by civilians and Home Office scientists alike, a cacophony of overlapping questions and camera shutters clicking exploding in her ears. She couldn’t make any of it out distinctly, too entangled in the shift between worlds and her relief at escaping to absorb anything else.

The anomaly snapped closed, fizzling into oblivion.

Someone helped her stand. Blinking, she struggled to adapt her vision to the change in location. After a few moments, her eyes caught on Abby Maitland, the yellow-white light of the lamps glowing in her hair. Her lips moved, but Claudia’s ears were still ringing and too overwhelmed to parse what words they framed. She thought she might be sick.

Abby, bless her, seemed to understand and led Claudia away from the anomaly, guiding her to sit down on a case of some kind, where she sat shivering. The blonde disappeared, but reappeared a few moments later with a paper cup of water. Claudia took it and gulped it down in a few seconds, but her mouth and throat still felt burning dry.

The hubbub around her was muted entirely by a growling, throaty roar like nothing Claudia had ever heard before, like a hybrid of a lion’s roar and a wolf’s growl but somehow even more terrifying. A fresh pandemonium erupted around her, and eyes that hadn’t quite adjusted caught a huge form galloping on all fours toward the site. Everyone was moving, a flurry of panic and fear and survival. Soldiers abandoned their stations and ran toward the beast, half-cloaked in shadow despite the blinding lamps, and fired on it. The adrenaline from the mad scramble back into 2006 hadn’t even begun to fade from Claudia yet, but it spiked even higher at the animal war cry and broke her from her terrified paralysis into a terrified run.

A scientist clad in all white nearly toppled her over as he raced by, and the sickening realization that about half a dozen civilians and several dozen non-military government officials were present hit Claudia. “Ryan! Clear the area!” She shouted hoarsely, whirling on the spot in a desperate attempt to locate the civilians- Nick, Connor, Abby, and Stephen. The motion caused the muzzle of the rifle still strapped to her chest to bump into her knee again, and in horror she registered that Ryan had only a pistol to defend himself with; the other soldiers likely had all the other guns. She glanced down at herself, briefly contemplating whether or not she should take up the weapon and join in defending the camp.

“Brown, move!” Ryan’s voice cut through the din of screaming and gunfire and roaring. She whipped her head toward the source of the sound and caught choppy glimpses of him moving through the hysterical crowd. She pushed her way toward him, hands coming up to loosen the strap holding the rifle to her. They met in the middle and she quickly pulled it over her head. He took it from her with a grateful nod, and then they were apart again, dashing in opposite directions. He ran toward danger, doing his duty, relying on his training just as she did, although hers dictated that she evacuate to a safer location to allow those trained and equipped to combat a threat to do their job without risk of hindrance or collateral damage. She was smart enough to know there was naught she could do to help the soldiers except get out of their way, and if her instinct to flee agreed with her training, so be it. A modicum of relief sliced through her panic as she caught sight of Connor and Abby in her peripheral vision, fleeing in the same direction she was, and Nick Cutter himself less than a meter ahead of her. Stephen was nowhere to be seen, but she was sure that if he was at the site, he was also fleeing. She probably just couldn’t see him in that dark coat of his with her eyes still not fully adjusted.

In spite of its power, adrenaline can only do so much. Her feet were sore, throbbing with every step, and probably bleeding by now. Disorientation still had a firm grip on her, and she was paradoxically sweating and shivering together. Her aching head was spinning with the change in lighting and the commotion encompassing her, the darkness of the Forest at night like gazing into a black hole and the lamps somehow both too dim and too bright all at once. Her heart had never gotten a chance to stop pounding since she, Ryan, and Nick had staggered up that last hill toward the anomaly.

Claudia tripped, vertical and moving one moment and flat on her stomach and definitely not moving the next. “Cutter!” She called, his name an instinctive cry. He reversed direction immediately, shouting her name. His hands came down on her arms and she turned over as she started to get up. Her and Nick’s eyes landed on the creature at the same moment- the creature that had ceased moving, and was now staring intently at them.

They began to scramble away. The heels of her boots dug into the earth as she struggled to propel herself backward, her upper body suspended by Nick’s grasp alone. But Claudia knew they were moving too slow. All she could see was the lamplight glinting of saliva-dripping saber fangs and menacing orange eyes focused and fixated on her. Its low grumbling growl emanated from deep in its throat, disturbingly audible over the pounding of her heart that thudded like a drum in her already overstimulated ears. The ground vibrated with every impact of its clawed feet as it prowled toward them, stalking toward its kill. She saw the cow, heard the description of the gouges torn into the side of a shipping lorry where it was photographed. She knew what those claws were capable of, and she knew that she was next.

She wished for a moment that she hadn’t cried out, that Nick hadn’t heard her, that he hadn’t come back for her. Especially with a death as gruesome and unstoppable as the one that awaited her, she would much prefer to die alone than share her gory fate with someone else.

The shrill beeping of a car or truck hooter was the most unexpected thing that could have happened in that moment, and yet it did. Claudia’s head snapped to the left, mimicking the creature. A silver Hilux barreled through the trees, headlamps bright. In a way that distantly reminded Claudia of an aggravated bull, the beast charged the truck, and the breath caught in her chest as she watched the two collide just a few meters away. The truck halted, and the creature bounced off and hit the ground solidly.

The driver’s side door opened, and none other than Stephen Hart climbed out. He stared down at the creature with an expression Claudia couldn’t properly decipher in that moment- guilt, she supposed, for the kill, and some measure of shock as well. She swallowed and brought her legs up under her, reaching up to grasp the upright collar of Nick’s wool jacket for leverage. His hands went to her waist, steadying her as she stood. Her eyes remained glued to the creature where it lay but a couple meters away.

And then, one orange eye shot open- dear God, would this night ever end?- and the creature began to rise with a roar, like a horror film’s killer being resurrected for the millionth time. “Stephen!” Nick shouted. His hands still on Claudia’s waist, he swung her around himself on stumbling and sore feet, moving her out of danger. Her arms flung out to steady herself as she watched Nick grab a machine gun from a small rack of them within arms’ reach (she would need to have a conversation with Ryan about that). “Catch!” He called, tossing the firearm through the air into Stephen’s waiting hands, as if they had done this a dozen times before. He shouted again, but she didn’t catch his words over the din.

She reached out, grabbing at Nick’s shoulder to pull him back as the beast advanced. With a grace that made the move look practiced, Stephen dropped to one knee, bringing the automatic rifle to his right cheek and opening fire on the advancing creature. Blood spurted out in a small vermillion geyser from the creature’s side, but the injury didn’t seem to deter it. Stephen continued to fire, another burst of rounds, and it fell to the ground like a sack of potatoes. It drew itself up again, one last struggling attempt to get to its feet, but the life went out of it and the creature went limp as it finally, finally died.

It was not an easy thing for Claudia to process that it was dead, having been just seconds away from being consumed by what was now an unmoving, utterly harmless lump of dead flesh. Her eyes remained affixed to the creature, unable to look away from the corpse. Blood still flowed through its veins, carried by inertia; the body, should she touch it, would still be as warm as it was two minutes before mid-rampage. But it was dead, as dead as the Canadian soldier whose bones Claudia had touched.

“That was bloody close.” Nick broke the silent aftershock, the thick burr of his accented voice muffled in Claudia’s ears as the unblocked sound of gunfire still rang in them. But his words served to shake her out of the nigh-catatonic paralysis that had overtaken her.

“Too close.” Stephen agreed, and the unruly tumult of feelings drowned out the shock and lingering fear.

She stepped away from Nick, still unsteadily, and took two aggravated steps toward Stephen before she no longer trusted her stride. “Where-” Claudia began, her chest heaving with more than just adrenaline, “-the bloody hell have you been?” She demanded. Stephen shrank back slightly from the vexation in her eyes. “Well?” She pressed. Stephen opened his mouth, floundering visibly, but she cut him off before he could speak. “No, actually. No. I am going to speak to Captain Ryan and ensure that he has everything under control here and that we are not needed. Then we are going back to the hotel, and I am going to change my clothes and eat something, and then we will discuss this. That means all of us.” She directed pointed looks at the professor, Connor, and Abby. “Have I made myself clear?”

Abby nodded, eyes wide. “Yup, sure have, sure have.” Connor stammered awkwardly. (She’d feel bad for frightening him later.) Nick looked the picture of innocence, but nodded as well.

“Good.” Claudia ended the discussion, if it could be called that, curtly. Seeing that they were still standing there awkwardly- a little nervous of inciting her wrath, no doubt- she snapped, “In the car. Or cars. That truck’s not safe to be driven. I’ll join you shortly.”

They dispersed like fish fleeing a shark, but Claudia was to exhausted and worked up to really care. She glanced around in search of Ryan and finally found him on the other side of the space, near where the anomaly had been. He looked relatively unharmed, but was crouched beside the prone form of another soldier.

“Medic!” He called out. Claudia started toward him, concerned for the welfare of the fallen man, but skirted well around the corpse of the creature. She knew, realistically, that it couldn’t hurt her anymore, but blood was still freely flowing out of the wounds, and the body would still be as warm as life should she touch it. Which was not something she had a desire to do.

She made her way over to Ryan and the others who were grouped around their comrade. Her shadow, cast long by one of the lamps that hadn’t been knocked over, fell over Ryan, and he lifted his head to look at her. “He’s alive.” He reported.

“Good to hear.” A voice at Claudia’s shoulder responded, and a Home Office medic stepped past her to squat at the soldier’s side. “We can take it from here, Captain.” She told him, casting glances about at the others. Taking the hint for what it was, Claudia and Ryan stepped back, echoed by the others. The other medics began streaming over, swarming around the unconscious soldier and tending to him.

Ryan made his way over to Claudia. “Ms. Brown, glad to see you’re alright. I saw the creature heading your way before the fellow in the truck dealt with it.”

“If Stephen hadn’t arrived when he did, I wouldn’t have been.” Claudia admitted, looking at her dirty hands as she rubbed them together for warmth. “Do you believe the site to be secure?”

“So long as the brain trust thinks there’s no more creatures, yes.” Ryan replied, gesturing with his head toward the vehicles.

“I’ll ask them. We’re heading back to the Eddington Hotel to get out from underfoot and debrief.” She weighed her words carefully. “If it does not interfere with your responsibilities, I would appreciate it if you retired to the hotel as well.”

He cracked a light smile. “Because I was on the other side with you and the professor, I assume?”

“In part.” She admitted. “I am not military, but I imagine you’re entitled to a break after the completion of your mission. You executed it quite well, and-” she cut herself off, smiling sheepishly and dropping her gaze to her now filthy shoes. “And I’m very grateful for what you did to get us all out of there alive. You saved the professor’s life, and mine, and I’ll never forget that.”

“I’m not so sure I saved yours, Ms. Brown. You seem to have a sensible head on your shoulders.” Ryan replied. “I won’t contradict you as far as Professor Cutter goes, though. Bloody fool.”

Claudia laughed despite herself, not expecting that. “Well, I couldn’t have dragged him all the way back; I doubt I could even have knocked him out. And I wouldn’t have left without him. But you did knock him out, and you carried him on your shoulders all that way, and then you convinced him to come back here. I do owe you my life. And for heaven’s sake, call me ‘Claudia’. I think we’ve moved past that formality.”

The ride back to the Eddington Hotel was silent, a combination of exhaustion and shock blanketing the occupants of the Hilux. Claudia was in the backseat this time, with Connor in the middle and Abby turned toward her own door, holding her jacket and a bright purple scarf bundled together to her chest like a child holds their favorite stuffed animal. Distantly Claudia wondered if the blonde was experiencing some sort of flashback to a childhood trauma, given her position and newfound- what was the word?- shyness, almost. She’d been very quiet all of a sudden, and had shed her jacket despite the night’s chill and the short sleeves of the top she wore underneath.

Upon returning to the hotel, Claudia ordered herself a plate of bangers and mash before heading upstairs to her room to freshen up. She stood in front of the full-length mirror and looked at herself, top-to-bottom. Her once neatly braided hair was now an unkempt, half-undone mess of frizzy copper. Her dark eyes were dulled with exhaustion even to her gaze, seemingly sunken into their sockets above dark bags that were visible after she’d sweat her makeup off.

Dark earth was streaked on the knees of her trousers and the front of her white jacket and powder blue top, and it was caked in the soles and on the backs of the heels of her horrid sneakers. They looked better covered in dirt, she decided, with their clashing neons muted by sediment.

The soreness that lay under those smears and stains would remind her of how she got them for a while yet. She shuddered involuntarily as her mind turned back to those harrowing moments, the mindless terror swallowing her as she ran on weary legs. She was very lucky to be alive.

Claudia owed Stephen her life; there was no doubt about it. Between ramming the creature with the truck and shooting it dead, he had been the reason she and Nick had escaped being torn to shreds or eaten alive. Nick’s efforts would not be forgotten, of course; he had risked his own life and come back for her, dragged her away from that animal when her own legs had failed her. As much as she hated to admit it, she had at once felt safe in his arms, sheltered by his strength and courage.

That was a dangerous path of thought to go down, and Claudia knew it, rebuking herself for allowing it to happen and blaming the exhaustion, stress, and trauma of the day for a slip of that nature and magnitude.

She did her best to put her mind in order as she took a quick shower, keeping the water lukewarm to avoid staying under the spray for too long. Fortunately, she still had her old clothes that she’d changed out of before heading through the anomaly, so she put them back on, along with her loafers. After drying her hair to an acceptable level and braiding it, she put on just enough makeup to make her look less exhausted than she was and headed back downstairs.

The small lunch she’d eaten with Nick and Abby in the Home Office canteen seemed so long ago now, and nearly moot, as if she hadn’t eaten at all. Her hot supper was ready and sitting before her on a white (material) dinnerplate within five to seven minutes of her returning to the combination bar and restaurant portion of the hotel, and she found herself sitting in the same place she had been when she had first laid eyes on Nick. Mercifully, there was no nameless, arrogant sleazebag blathering away and sitting across from her this time. Actually, there was no one sitting in the same booth as her at all, which was probably the best for her image, considering the way she ravenously wolfed down her dinner despite it being far too hot to eat. She tasted very little of it through the burning sensation as she shoveled it into her mouth, but it was a balm to her painfully empty stomach, and what flavor she did glean from it she certainly enjoyed.

Her hunger satisfied and her bad mood somewhat abated, Claudia leaned back against the overstuffed leather back of her bench seat and arranged her dishes neatly to make things easier for the busser when they arrived to clear her table. She might be exhausted, irritated, and moderately traumatized, but that was no excuse for a lack of manners.

She found the others all together; Nick and Abby at the bar drinking and Connor and Stephen sitting in the nearest booth, the latter with a beer in his hand and two empty bottles in front of him. “Abby, gentlemen.” Claudia drew their attention to herself. “We have some things we need to discuss- privately. Come with me.”

Nick and Stephen exchanged a look that Claudia did not miss, and in tandem they threw back the rest of their respective drinks. Sensing the tension, Abby mimicked them, and Connor got to his feet as the others did, though he kept a tight grip on his mug of… cocoa, judging by the scent.

Claudia led them upstairs to her room, which she had neatly tidied before heading downstairs. The bed was made, and her personal items were packed up, save for her dirty clothes which now temporarily resided in the loo, hidden from sight by the closed door.

“We’ve all had a long day, so I’ll be brief.” Claudia began. “This morning, Professor Cutter, Ms. Maitland, and myself returned to London to sign the Official Secrets Act. Sir James Lester, who far outranks me, is acting as our overseer in London; he’s coordinating the soldiers and so forth, I won’t bore you with the technicalities and jargon. Testing of the lizard Rex confirmed that he was a Coelurosauruvus, if I’m pronouncing that correctly. Sir Lester authorized a trip through the anomaly to search for Mrs. Cutter and return Rex to his own time. We were accompanied by Captain Tom Ryan. On the other side, we released Rex and began exploring. We found the remnants of a human campsite, and… human remains.”

Steadfastly ignoring the others’ shock for the sake of continuing her tale, Claudia also squashed down her memories of the emotionally-tumultuous events that had occurred next. “We found one body, a man, wearing Canadian dog tags. We know nothing further about his identity yet. I’ll have to inform Sir Lester, but other than him, I would very much appreciate it if we kept the discovery of the tags among ourselves, given the potential international implications.” The others nodded, much to her relief. “Thank you. I do have the tags, and I’ll have a friend of mine at the Home Office take a look at them. Beside the body, Captain Ryan found a camera that Professor Cutter has identifies as belonging to his wife.”

Stephen, surprisingly, had the strongest reaction to this. “She was at the camp?” He queried, face suddenly brightening with hope.

“We won’t know for sure until we develop the film in the camera and see if it contains any clues.” Claudia explained. She filed away his reaction- one she would’ve expected from Helen’s husband- for further contemplation. “But considering the camera was buried right next to the body, it’s a reasonable guess that the two are connected. At that point we returned to present day, which the rest of you were there for.” She let out a breath. “Now that I’ve explained what happened in London and the Permian, I’d very much like to know what happened in the Forest of Dean while I was gone.” She fixed Stephen with a look she’d inherited from her mother, Samantha Brown, the same one that she had unfailingly pulled the truth from her husband Clarence and young Claudia with.

Stephen swallowed uncomfortably, shifting nervously in place. “Y-You want me to explain?”

Claudia huffed out an incredulous breath at his uncertain tone. “Well, Stephen, considering you left without checking in with either me or the Home Office security forces present at the anomaly site before going to hunt down a dangerous creature that hadn’t even been identified yet, sent Connor back to us after he identified it as powerful and destructive, and then lost contact for several hours only to come careening back at the eleventh hour with your kamikaze rescue plan that I’m frankly surprised worked at all, I think you’d better have a bloody good explanation for your actions. I want to know why the hell you thought it was a good idea to face down what Connor called a ‘compact killing machine’ with ‘incredible power’ alone and unarmed without so much as ringing to inform someone of your plans, or that its trail had led you to a fucking school!”

“…When you put it that way, it does sound bad and… poorly-planned.” Stephen admitted. “For what it’s worth, it didn’t seem so reckless in the moment.”

“Foolish and irresponsible actions rarely do.” Claudia replied, clipped.

“Just for the record, I sent Connor back because I didn’t want to put him in danger.” Stephen said. “I didn’t know where the Gorgonopsid was headed and I didn’t want to bring him into a situation that I might not be able to safely get him out of. I’ve dealt with a lot of dangerous animals before, and I’ve always been able to handle them better if I’m alone because I don’t have to look out for anyone else. I wasn’t planning on directly confronting the Gorgonopsid until I realized it was how much danger the kid and his teacher were in. When I did… there wasn’t even a question anymore. It was breaking down the door to their classroom. If I hadn’t intervened they would both be dead.”

Claudia sighed deeply. Stephen seemed like an intelligent man, and she had firsthand seen how good of a tracker he was. And it had been her who had called in reinforcements on account of innocent lives- Ben Trent’s life included- being at risk. She could hardly criticize him for risking his life for a kid and another civilian bystander when she had mustered the troops for the same reason. She had gone through a doorway in time, seen impossible things, and violated a grave; meanwhile, he had tracked a living fossil through the Gloucester woodland and nearly been killed by said creature while saving a child and his teacher from it. They had both had a rough day, their lives and the lives of two other people with them hanging in the balance. She couldn’t find it in herself to be angry at him anymore.

“What happened to them?” She pressed.

Stephen gave a light shrug. “Well, after I managed to draw it away from them and it threw me through the fire doors and knocked me out-” Claudia, Nick, and Abby all made strangled noises at his words as he rushed through them with a wince “-I woke up eventually, not sure how long I was out for though, and it was gone. There was a car parked outside when I got there and it was gone when I woke up, and when I went inside the classroom door looked like it had when I last saw it, and there was no blood or anything inside. I’m guessing they escaped while I was unconscious.” Abby’s sigh of relief completely covered the sound of Claudia’s. “Then I ran back and found the truck where I’d left it- I’m guessing Connor either walked or hailed a cab- and drove back to the anomaly site, and… well, you know the rest.”

Claudia nodded. “Well, It’s apparent that neither you nor Professor Cutter possess a single shred of self-preservation, but at least you seem to not be mulish about it.” Nick squawked offendedly, but she paid him no mind. “I’ll make some calls and find out for sure if Ben and his teacher are in fact alive, but given what you said I’m inclined to believe that they are. I’m not going to yell at you anymore, not now that I know what happened. Thank you for explaining.” Stephen nodded in response, no longer wild-eyed like a skittish deer.

Nick let out a deep sigh. “Bloody hell, Stephen. And you say I’m reckless.”

“Well, you are. Just because I’m reckless doesn’t mean you’re not.” Stephen refuted sensibly. “You pick fights any sane person would’ve walked away from much before. I’ve bailed you out of jail more times than I can count for brawling and disturbing the peace. And that’s not counting the times I’ve physically kept you from pissing on somebody’s lawn… or house… or car… or the person themselves… because they got you cheesed off. Or the time I got arrested because I lied and said I threw that stone angel porch decoration through that bloke’s windscreen when it was actually you.”

Nick’s mouth was opening and shutting like a fish as several emotions passed tellingly over his face. “…I don’t remember that last one.”

The expression on Stephen’s face was stony and unamused with Nick’s picture-of-innocence antics. “I did nine months community service for that. Would’ve actually gone to jail if we hadn’t both been balls-to-the-wall sloshed.” He tilted his head. “You passed out in the squad car on the way to the station, if I remember correctly.”

Though she had been silently listening and observing during this conversation, Claudia had felt her blood pressure rising and her headache worsening, and she pinched the bridge of her nose. “Alright, no more misdemeanor stories, thank you. You’re both bloody menaces and unless you want to be murdered by my colleague and friend for raising my blood pressure an unhealthy amount, you’ll never consume alcohol around me. If you do, there will be consequences.”

The professor and his laboratory assistant/technician exchanged looks and gulped, then nodded dutifully.

“Good. Now, all of you get the hell out of my room, and don’t let me see you again before a reasonable hour tomorrow morning unless there is an actual emergency.”

Connor nearly ate the carpet and the doorjamb (in two separate incidents) as he tripped over his own feet in a mad scramble to get into the hallway, and the others followed quickly behind, albeit in a more orderly fashion. She shut the door behind them with a decisive click and rested her forehead against the polished amber wood of the door, shoulders sagging as she expelled all the air in her lungs with a single longsuffering sigh. She was not getting paid enough for this. Could she ask for a bonus- hazard pay, or something like that? It was worth looking into, at the very least. Maybe she could haggle an extra week of leave time.

She locked the room door and sought out her mobile, and pressing her second ‘emergency’ contact, the one and the only Lorraine Wickes. Flopping backward onto the bed, she put the phone to her ear and waited for her friend to pick up.

The answer came exactly eight seconds later, like it always did. “Hello?”

“Hi, Lorraine, it’s me. I just wanted to let you know that I’m alive and in one piece, although I think I left my sanity and patience in the Late Permian.”

“You’re speaking coherently; you’ll be fine.” Lorraine replied primly despite the late hour. Despite her crisp, professional tone, Claudia knew that Lorraine was being kind. “Are you injured?”

“Bumps and bruises. When we came back through, we were attacked by a Gorgonopsid, and I tripped and fell trying to get away from it. We’re all okay, though- although there’s one soldier I’ll need to check in about later- and the Gorgonopsid is dead.”

“Good. You do know that if you had died or been trapped back there that I would have found a way to drag you back kicking and screaming?”

A chuckle burst from Claudia’s lips despite herself. “I would’ve been disappointed if you hadn’t.”

There was a quiet bang in the background, followed by a muffled shout of pain. “Cállase, por favor.” Lorraine called to someone on her end- her voice bland but tinged with the faintest hint of irritation, like it was an inconvenience to have to say it.

Claudia did not speak Spanish barring the basics, so she wasn’t sure what the first part of what Lorraine had said meant. She decided she didn’t want to know. Best not to ask – ‘ignorance is bliss’ and all that.

“Do you think I can get a raise? Or hazard pay?” She asked instead, twirling a lock of hair around one finger lazily. “You know I’m not the type to ask for that lightly.”

“Indeed not. Prehistoric times must have been quite the experience.” Noted Lorraine, and Claudia knew that it was her way of asking if she was okay.

“It could’ve been a lot worse, and I’ll fill you in on all the details when it’s more convenient, but I thoroughly disliked it, and I would very much like to go back to my old workload. Desk duty has never been so appealing to me before as it is right now.” Claudia confessed.

“I see.” Lorraine replied, voice tight and hard to keep it from trembling with concern. “Well, given your excellent record and the nature of the situation, you probably have a good chance, especially since you’re asking for some form of compensation for your troubles and not a promotion or even a transfer or reassignment. I’ll see what I can do, but you know I can’t promise anything.”

“Of course, I understand. Thank you.” Claudia turned her head away to yawn in a most undignified manner. “Well, I’m bloody knackered and I’m sure you’re quite busy, so I’ll hang up now. Do you think I’ll see you tomorrow?”

“You’d better.” Replied Lorraine cheekily. “I will be finished with my present situation shortly and there is no reason to not be at work as usual tomorrow. Get some rest, now.”

“Goodnight, Lorraine.” Claudia replied. She knew that her friend could not return the pleasantry as she was almost certainly in a setting where she could not show affection, so she hung up. She let her arm drop so that it was extended over the edge of the bed, and loosening her fingers she let her mobile slip from her fingers and hit the carpeted floor. Toeing off her shoes, she let them land by the foot of the bed with a twin set of muffled thumps. Her hands went to her face and she rubbed her eyes, which were sore from the stress and strain and lack of sleep over the last few days.

She really hoped Lorraine could get her some kind of compensation for her efforts.

Saturday, May 20th, 2006

08:14 a.m.

Sleeping in was a rare thing for Claudia, but considering all that had happened over the last few days, she didn’t feel the slightest bit bad about it. The last thing she wanted to do was get up, drive for two and a half to three hours, and then deal with Lester and her colleagues (except Lorraine; she was wonderful and never unappealing to deal with) and enough red tape to mummify a Gorgonopsid. Unfortunately, those were the cards that she had been dealt, and it was her turn.

Fortunately, Claudia still had the loafers she had switched her other shoes for earlier that day while Nick and Abby signed the OSA, as well as a two-day-old office outfit. It wasn’t ideal to wear again, but she didn’t really care. After a brief shower that morning, she changed into that outfit, packed up the rest of her things, and ate a quick but satisfying breakfast. After verifying that everyone’s rooms, meals, and drinks had been paid for, the group got into their respective vehicles (Connor riding back with Nick and Stephen as he had come to the Forest originally a few days ago) and headed for London. Claudia hooked up her iPod to her car’s stereo and started a lively playlist on shuffle, hoping it would keep her awake and alert.

Upon returning to the Home Office nearly three hours later, Claudia sent Connor and Stephen off immediately to sign the Official Secrets Act. The next three hours passed in a blur as she debriefed Lester on everything she had witnessed and experienced- including the dog tags and that she was going to have them analyzed, then sent Nick and Abby in one at a time after her to do the same. She sought out Cerise Carroll, Lorraine’s assistant, and gave her the task of taking the dog tags directly to Lorraine with discretion. She knew that Cerise admired and respected Lorraine, and that Lorraine was fond of Cerise and had high hopes for her. As such, Claudia trusted her to manage her task correctly.

When Connor and Stephen were finished with signing the OSA, she corralled them and Nick and Abby, recently finished with Lester, for an overdue lunch. By the grace of God, Lester didn’t materialize and bark orders this time around, so they were able to finish eating in peace before Stephen and Connor had to debrief Lester of their own personal experiences. As they arrived to Lester’s office, Claudia caught sight of Captain Ryan leaving, his face the kind of stony that was meant to hide exasperation and irritation. She sympathized.

Finally, finally, the majority of the legal t’s were crossed and i’s were dotted, and all that Claudia had left to do was write her report- after she spoke to the Trents and Ben’s teacher, of course, but she wasn’t going to do that today.

Lester called Nick into a conference room shortly after Connor’s debriefing was finished, and the others assembled outside in a show of support. Claudia followed and watched as the Scotsman sat down at the large round table, slumping with exhaustion, supporting his head with one hand.

“We developed the film in the camera you brought back.” Lester announced. An image appeared on the monitor, and Nick straightened in his seat.

“It’s her. It’s Helen.” The Scotsman said, the final confirmation. There was a click as the next picture came up, very similar to the first.

Claudia studied the image. It was taken up close, the main focus being an attractive woman with brown hair and eyes in her forties or early fifties, the unmistakable Permian landscape serving as a backdrop. But despite being trapped in a threatening landscape and time period, Helen seemed unbothered, even cheerful. She smiled happily, livelily, at the camera, as if enjoying herself immensely. Claudia couldn’t fathom how anyone could actually like being there, under the scorching sun and constant danger. She wore a green button-down tank top with several of the top buttons undone and a white bandana around her neck. Despite the large amount of exposed skin, she didn’t appear injured in any way, and although she was slim, she looked more lean than gaunt. Of course, this picture could’ve been taken shortly after becoming stranded there, before starvation and the elements truly affected her; or if she had met up with the soldiers at this point, she would have had access to their food and medical supplies. Hope, or company, would’ve kept loneliness and despair at bay. Still, there was something about the pictures that bothered Claudia.

The screen went dark after that, disappointing Nick and Claudia alike. There were no pictures of the military camp or of the soldiers that established it- no way of discerning their objective or home time period or identities. Keeping her thoughts to herself, she directed her gaze to Nick, who looked utterly lost, his bright eyes still locked on the screen. She felt sorry for him, but not in that sickeningly pitying way. The man had spent the last eight years believing his wife was dead, grieving and moving on as best as he could, and now before him was the proof that she hadn’t perished on that night, that she’d lived on afterward. But perhaps the pictures were only giving him false hope – it was entirely possible that Helen had died soon after they were taken, and there was no way of knowing how long after she had disappeared that they had been taken. She could have gone through the anomaly, met up with the soldiers, gotten her pictures taken by one of them, and then died within a day or so. But now any closure he may have found in the near-decade since her disappearance was gone, voided, and if she was dead in some other time period, it was highly likely that he would never know and forever wonder what had happened to her.

“I’m sorry for your personal loss, Professor.” Lester said, placing the screen remote on the tabletop. Claudia couldn’t tell if he was being sincere or not. “This camp you discovered- there were no clues as to who made it or what it was for?”

Nick shook his head. “Nothing conclusive as of yet.” Claudia responded. “There was a chocolate bar in one of the cases, and its packaging was in English. And the dog tags I took off the remains we found seem to be Canadian, but I haven’t heard back on their analysis yet.”

Lester nodded. “Inform me when you do. The thought that someone’s been there before us is far from reassuring. And I used to think the EU Common Agricultural Policy was far-fetched.” Nick and Claudia exchanged matching looks of irritation. “Still, at least the immediate crisis is over.”

The paleontologist pushed to his feet, striding over to the window. “Some force out there ripped the boundaries of space and time to shreds.” He began, his accent thick. “Maybe it’s happened before, in which case, every single thing we thought we knew about the universe is wrong. Or, this is the first time, in which case, what changed? What happens next? Believe me, it’s very, very far from over.”

With that, he marched out of the room, breezing past both government officials and leaving them to contemplate the fallout of his statements. She wanted nothing more for him to be wrong. She wanted to go back to her boring government job where she did mundane task that made plenty of sense in the normal world order and logic and protocol served as her autopilot. She never wanted to see another anomaly again, or a prehistoric creature outside of a museum.

But Claudia was a lot smarter than she appeared to be, and she did not appear to be stupid. She knew that this had happened before- Helen Cutter had gone through it eight years ago and been stranded and photographed in the Permian. Once is a fluke, a bizarre improbability. But twice is suspicious, and even if that anomaly only ever opened every eight years in the same place, it would happen again, Claudia was certain of it.

She knew that Professor Nick Cutter spoke the truth: it was very, very far from over. Phenomena of this magnitude- with this consistency, dubious as it was- were no minor inconvenience, no laughing matter. It would require a substantial amount of government funding, the involvement of at least half a dozen (ideally; realistically, at least ten or fifteen) high-ranking government officials (higher ranking than her, that is), a large and qualified team of scientists, and an at-the-ready, well-trained military contingent.

It was going to be a bitch and a half to cover up.

“Scottish. They’re mad, all of them. Always making mountains out of molehills and blaming everyone else for it.” Sir Lester griped. “A twinkling doorway in Gloucester and a paleontologist thinks the scientific laws of the world have gone mad!” Lester ranted, laughing with a mix of incredulity and annoyance.

Claudia found herself echoing what she’d told the professor barely twenty-four hours ago. “You didn’t see what we saw. You don’t know what we know.” She murmured, looking down at her fingernails. A few stubborn grains of Permian earth had remained jammed underneath them, which she fully intended to remedy later. No amount of reports, of photographs could have the same impact as standing under that younger sun in the blazing heat of the Late Permian, surrounded by ferns and pines and Scutosauri and Coelurosauravus; or as pawing through prehistoric earth to discern the identity of a long-dead soldier out of time, touching his bones.

Claudia didn’t regret going with Professor Cutter and Captain Ryan. She stood by her decision and her reasons for it. She may have played a part in getting Nick (and, by extension, Ryan) back alive, and she doubted giving the timing that either of them would have recovered the dog tags without her. But that hour spent two hundred-something million years ago had changed her. She had seen impossible things and experienced a significant shift in her worldview, and quite literally gotten her hands dirty and touched death in that place. She had never been as aloof as Sir Lester (who was actually quite down-to-earth, hardworking, and caring compared to some she’d met), but from the moment that her teenage self had decided firmly that she would work for the government, she hadn’t been soft either. Calamity and crisis could not be allowed to affect her; hysteria and death must bounce off her with no impact. Calm and level heads were essential when chaos struck, rising above the emotionally tumultuous public and shaping events into the best possible outcome for Great Britain and her people.

“You disagree?” Sir Lester asked.

She nodded. “I do.”

“Alright then, Miss Brown, what is your view on these anomalies?” Lester queried. His expression indicated he was humoring her for the hell of it rather than actually being interested in her opinion.

“Well, if we’re very lucky, the anomaly only opens every eight years or so, and in that same area every time.” Claudia began. “But if Professor Cutter is right and anomalies are tied to ancient myths from all across the world, this may have only been the tip of the iceberg. We could have found one of hundreds, perhaps thousands of anomalies that have opened over time. This anomaly has opened at least twice; the photographs of Helen Cutter prove that. What if every anomaly opens twice? Or three times? Four? What then? Three creatures that we know of came through this time- the Coelurosauravus Rex, a Scutosaurus, and a Gorgonopsid. Two of them were deemed harmless and Rex was mistaken for Draco Volans, but the Gorgonopsid nearly killed several people.” She swallowed. For a moment, she was back in the dark Forest, a lamp blinding her from above and a monster stalking toward her.

“Claudia?” Sir Lester’s voice broke her from her reverie. Her head snapped up, her eyes and ears filling with the Home Office again. Her eyes darted to Lester, who was watching her carefully.

“Apologies, sir.” She said. Immediately their respective masks slipped back into place once more. “As I was saying, although we were very lucky, we may not always be. We need to be prepared for the entirely plausible eventuality that this will happen again, with a greater and far more negative impact than this time.”

Sir Lester nodded pensively. “What then do you suggest?”

“A response team, sir. Someone from the Home Office coordinating, a military presence, and experts that can study the anomalies and at the very least identify any creatures that come through them.”

The faintest edge of a smirk twitched at the corner of his mouth. “And I suppose you’ll be suggesting Captain Ryan, Professor Cutter, Stephen Hart, Connor Temple, Abby Maitland, and yourself?”

It was a little embarrassing how easily he’d deduced that. “Not out of any desire for self-aggrandizement, sir. I’ve seen those creatures; traveled through an impossible doorway to hundreds of millions of years in the past and seen- touched- the remnants of a campsite there. Captain Ryan saved Professor Cutter and I from the professor’s… dedication… to his wife; Ms. Maitland has knowledge and practical experience with animals; Mr. Hart is a skilled tracker, proficient with weapons, and seems to have some knowledge of prehistoric times; and Professor Cutter and Mr. Temple are both even better-versed in the past and its inhabitants. I think it would be… counterproductive… to dismiss the experience and knowledge already available to us. Also, they’ve all signed the Official Secrets Act; the more people we bring in on this only further expands the web, whereas utilizing those already involved would be more resourceful.”

He nodded again. “Thank you for your input, Claudia. You may go.”

She didn’t need to be told twice, rushing out as professionally as she could. The others had all disappeared, which she couldn’t blame them for. She longed to go home, but there was just a little she had left to do.

Lorraine was sitting at her desk as usual, dressed smartly and typing rapidly. Her eyes never left the computer monitor as Claudia approached, though a soft smile spread across her pretty face. A few seconds before Claudia reached the desk, Lorraine ceased typing, saving and closing whatever she was doing with a few clicks of the mouse.

“So, how was the Permian?” She asked as Claudia stopped beside her desk.

Claudia blew out a very unladylike breath, grabbing a chair from an unoccupied desk and dragging it over to sit in. “Hot. Dry. Pretty, I guess, but I like England better. I know I should be disappointed that the anomaly closed and we can’t send in a science team and learn more, but I’m glad it’s shut. There were none of those Gorgonopsid monstrosities on the other side that I could see, but we weren’t safe there. I didn’t feel safe there for a moment, even before we found the camp. I didn’t think that Captain Ryan was incapable of protecting me, that’s not what I’m saying,” she clarified, “but one man- even one highly trained man with two guns- cannot fend off all the dinosaurs of that era. He cannot surmount volcanoes or other natural disasters. I’m glad to be back.”

Lorraine smiled, genuinely. “And I’m glad you’re back- in one piece and not in a body bag, that is. I would’ve been quite cross with you if the disclaimer I’d printed out for you became necessary.”

Claudia chuckled. “Only because it would’ve been a lot of paperwork, eh?”

“Oh, of course.”

“The soldier who accompanied you and the professor into the Permian, Captain Ryan,” Lorraine began, “I’ve met him.” She tapped her pen against the desktop, irritation twitching a muscle in her jaw. “The Gulf War didn’t even last seven months but it inflicted such a deep impact… I won’t tell you what he told me when we met at the OVA, but I know it scarred him. He joined the Army when he was only seventeen. But he’s a good man, kind. Funny, too. I’m glad it was him that went with you.”

“I’m glad too.” Agreed Claudia. “He was remarkably calm about the whole thing. I’ve felt like I was tumbling down the rabbit hole ever since we came across that Scutosaurus, but he acted like he went through anomalies every day. It was nice to have a levelheaded presence – God knows Professor Cutter wasn’t going to fill that role.” Lorraine snorted in amused concurrence. “I trusted him to get us back safely, and he did. Deserves a bloody medal for convincing Cutter to leave of his own volition. All the medals.” She shook her head, banishing the memories of the chest-tightening panic she’d felt as she and Ryan had desperately pressured and coaxed and bargained with the Scotsman to not condemn them to that terrible fate. “Did you make any discoveries with the dog tags?”

“I did, actually.” Lorraine replied. “They’re Canadian, as you said. They belong to one Major Daniel Douglas of the Canadian Army. Unfortunately, like all things involving military, government, or foreign affairs, it’s not that simple.”

Claudia frowned. “No?”

Lorraine sighed. “No. He’s still very much alive, and a Lieutenant, no less. Like in our Army, that’s two ranks lower than Major.”

Claudia pulled out the nearest unoccupied office chair and sank into it. “Is it possible they’re just covering up his death?”

Lorraine shook her head. “No. I talked him and a dozen or so others into letting him have a video call with me. He matches the pictures I found on the ‘net perfectly. I asked him a handful of obscure questions, like the names of his teachers or classmates. He got them all right. I went through CCTV footage in the towns and cities he frequents and picked him up hundreds of times. I scoured the web for obituaries of men who looked even vaguely like him and explored all those avenues thoroughly. It’s him, Claudia.”

It was Claudia’s turn to sigh deeply. “So whatever led him through the anomaly to the Permian to die in that camp hasn’t happened yet, and probably won’t for several years if he needs to ascend two ranks before he does.”

Lorraine nodded sagely. “I’m going to put into my report that there were no definitive or informational findings, which is true enough. We still don’t know why he was there, or when. We don’t know if one of these doorways opened in Canada and led to the Permian, or if he got there from England. We don’t know what year of the future he will have achieved the rank of Major. We don’t know enough to risk negative relations with Canada.”

She picked up the dog tags, wrapping the chain around the tags themselves, and extended them to Claudia. “Take them. If you face consequences for having them, you can blame me for it. That should silence most.”

“And you’ve got favors and blackmail to silence the rest?” Claudia guessed with a knowing smirk. Lorraine’s answering smile was deceptively sweet. “Thank you, Lorraine. For everything. I’ll make this up to you.”

“Legally, please, if only to spare us both the paperwork.” Lorraine replied primly, and shot her a more genuine smile as she returned to her work. Claudia returned the grin, heading back down the hall again.

17:16 / 5:16 p.m.

Claudia had not finished writing her report, but she had gotten a good chunk of it done, and when she’d talked to Ben Trent and his teacher she would add that to the report and finally be done with it. She had included the discovery of the tags in her report, but mirrored Lorraine’s by claiming there were no informative or definite findings. They sat in a resealable plastic bag in the menstrual supplies pouch at the bottom of her purse, safely hidden from detection. She would hide them better when she went home.

She took the tube home, holding her purse close to her chest and leaning against one of the poles with half-lidded eyes for fear that if she sat, she’d fall asleep in her seat. Mercifully, it was a Saturday, so it was neither as jammed full nor as unpleasant as it was during weekdays.

The station was a fifteen-minute walk, if she was somewhat brisk, from her house, but her battered feet and exhaustion compelled her to take a cab. Nearly falling asleep in the backseat, she was glad she hadn’t driven herself home.

A frozen pizza went in the oven, and Claudia rinsed herself off in the shower before pouring herself a glass of wine, lighting some candles, and settling into a relaxing bath in her clawfoot tub. It was so cliché and stereotypical that Claudia had initially been against it, but when she tried it with the intention of disproving its comfort, she ended up loving it. She drew the line at bubbles, though. They were a pain in the arse to clean up.

Claudia propped her feet up at the other end of the tub, wiggling her toes gently to stretch her blistered foot out of the cramped position it had spent the last few days in. Scrutinizing them over the top of her wine glass as she sipped from it, she halfheartedly considered painting them. It’s not like anyone would see them if she did as she always wore close-toed shoes and nylons or stockings, and there were no office rules against toenail or fingernail polish, as long as the latter wasn’t ostentatious.

The wine was expensive, but its flavor far bested the cheap middle-shelf wines most people bought, and she only drank it on special occasions or stressful days, like the last few had been. Claudia was no connoisseur of wines, nor could she list out the different notes and flavors of her drink of choice without reading them off the bottle’s back label, but she enjoyed its rich taste and how it sat on her palate. It relaxed her, and relaxation was her goal tonight. She could face work and the chaos of the last few days again in the morning.

The dog tags- which she’d taken to mentally referring to as ‘Schrödinger’s tags’ as they didn’t exist yet, did exist, and had existed for a very long time all at once- had been secreted within her house. She had dragged one of her bedside tables away from its place in the corner of her bedroom, used a knife to pull up the carpeting in that spot, and laid the tags underneath. She’d then pressed the carpet back down, going to far as to glue it into place once more, and slid the nightstand into its previous spot. For good measure, she’d slid a photo album under the nightstand. Now a four-inch-thick compilation of her youngest years guarded the tags.

The timer she’d set for the pizza went off in the kitchen, and with a sigh she left her bath, padding in slipper-clad feet into the kitchen to keep her dinner from burning. She plated three slices on a medium-sized platter, forgoing traditional plates, grabbed her wine bottle and glass and sat down on her sofa. She swaddled herself cozily in a thick fleece and flannel blanket and turned on the telly, switching to BBC One. Last she recalled, the Doctor, Rose, and Mickey along with several characters on a parallel Earth were about to be deleted by the Cybermen. It would certainly be interesting to see how they got out of that one.

Author’s notes: The SOLE reason I included Claudia canonically tripping and falling was so I could later say that she had felt safe in his arms. The OVA is the Office for Veterans’ Affairs and is a branch of the Cabinet Office, according to Google. I believe the American equivalent is the VA (Veterans’ Affairs). A headcanon of mine is that Claudia is a Doctor Who fan. If you look up the original UK airdates for the episodes, Series 2 Episode 6 ‘The Age of Steel’ premiered on May 20th, 2006. If it wasn’t obvious, the friend and colleague Claudia says might kill Nick and Stephen is Lorraine. Gee, I wonder what was going on during that phone call…. What Lorraine says in Spanish: “Shut him up, please.” I am not a native Spanish speaker and I used Google translate so if I’m wrong please forgive me and let me know. I’m definitely of the same mind as other fanfic writers when it comes to Lorraine, and it’s actually kind of nice to write a character as powerful, for lack of a better term, as more of a side character than the main character. According to an interview with Lorraine’s actress, Alexandra Afryea (who acted under the name Claire Spence while filming Primeval for reasons I don’t know), she actually knew Mark Wakeling (Captain Ryan) from The Actors Temple, and she started watching Primeval to support him. This fun fact inspired me to make Lorraine and Ryan have at least crossed paths before, and I look forward to combining the Claudia/Ryan and Claudia/Lorraine friendships I had already planned on writing. Also, primeval.fandom.com has a whole page dedicated to Nick’s green jacket. Why? I don’t know. It’s handy though. Cerise is a very minor but entirely canon character from Primeval; she appears in a few episodes of S4 and S5 and is Lester’s assistant. Lester calls her by name in S4E1 when they’re picking up the mess that Princess made in his office (“Just collect them in a pile, Cerys, and I'll sort through them later.”) If you’ve read Ocean Eyes, my MerMay 2022 AU, you may recognize Cerise’s name from Chapter 14 and the epilogue. She’s not very important right now and I don’t know if I’ll really take her character anywhere new, but at the very least we know that Lorraine’s assistant will one day be Lester’s assistant at the ARC. She’s portrayed by Jacqui Carroll, which is where I got her character’s surname. ALSO, a timeline note: The newspaper photo of the Gorgonopsid has the date 05/17/06 – May 17th, 2006. I went with the assumption that since the episode starts in the morning, the picture was taken the day before, so the present-day portion of the show starts on May 18th. The next day is the bulk of the episode, and then the last day of the first episode (featured in this chapter) would therefore be the 20th of May, which I mentioned briefly above in regards to the Doctor Who episode. Now, this won’t matter unless you’ve seen Primeval: New World (SPOILERS AHEAD!), but I found it interesting. In Truth, Ange says that 05-20-80 is Brooke Cross’ birthday, meaning that this episode takes place partly on her birthday. In the finale, we find out that Brooke died in September 2006, which means that the third day of this episode takes place on Brooke Cross’ last birthday. I’m sure it was a coincidence, but I thought it was interesting.

@witchofthemidlands @whatkindofnameisvolta @chocolatesawfish @whispers-of-gallifrey @thegingergal

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wing-ed-thing · 3 years ago

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Guilty Conscience (Kakashi x Reader, Part I)

Synopsis: You tried to walk away, you really did, but the guilt gnawed at your chest until you found yourself walking back. No, you couldn’t live with yourself if you just left him there.

Word Count: 2,658

Tags/Warnings: Canon-Typical Violence, Canon-Typical Injury, Description of Injury, Gender Neutral Reader, Theif!Reader, Fake Medicine, Jerky (not specified to be meat, I messed up and in the early posted version it was but I took the word out, sorry!), @brokennerdalert

Notes: This work is dedicated to @cmlehigh. They came into my inbox with this wonderful idea and I just had to write it and share with all of you.

As you bounded through the vast forest of the Land of Fire, you couldn’t help but wonder if perhaps you had a bad habit of not knowing how far was too far. You made a sharp turn and slid between two boulders. That should buy you a little bit of time. You always had mixed feelings about the chase. The thieving came easy to your nimble fingers, but the inevitable run from your capture gave you time to think. That must be what you hated most.

A few shouts came from behind you and you heard a few responses in the surrounding area. You changed your course, spotting a fallen tree branch. The crack in the earth under it had to be ten feet deep and just about twice your width. You slipped in, the chilling sensation knowing that you could easily be caught worked down your spine and you clutched your stolen goods close to your chest. You may complain, but the thrill of the chase always left you smiling.

Light trickled into the cavern. Just a little bit. Reflected gold and green sunbeams came down from the foliage that sheltered you. Your breath hitched as you saw vague silhouettes in the leaves above along with a set of mumers in the distance. Being a civilian in a shinobi land put you at a disadvantage, but as the figures retreated, you couldn’t help but feel a semblance of victory over your situation. Although, a victory over bandits that left their burgled items unsecured and relatively unguarded felt more like a game to you than an actual challenge. You let out a breath that you didn’t even know that you had been holding. Yeah, you liked a good game every once in a while.

A strangled noise came from the far side of the cavern and you froze. Your fingers inched to the makeshift pack at your hip, brushing over the cold metal of a kunai that you had stolen long ago. You inched forward to maneuver through the rock until you spotted where the crack met its end. The wheezing grew louder and under a little bit of sunlight, you could make out a man.

He clutched his side from what you could tell and his silver hair fell around his headband like a wet paintbrush. A tattered cloth barely hung to the lower part of his face. He laid back on the rubble, hardly propped up, but even still you clutched your weapon with two hands in front of you. You shifted your bag to your back, a tight squeeze within your compounds, and when you faced the man again, a single, red eye stared back.

A pang of fear reverberated in your chest and something, a feeling of sheer terror shook you to your very core. A few wisps of your hair fluttered the slightest bit. You backed up and turned around, wanting nothing more than to be rid of the disturbing sight in front of you. You made your way in the opposite direction.

The dying man appeared to be a shinobi and high ranking if you ever saw one and getting yourself killed was the last thing you needed. Guilt was hardly an emotion that usually held you back and you truly felt that you had little to feel guilty over. But it crept into you, slowing each of your paces until you stood completely still. And in a moment of weakness, or perhaps a brand of inane strength, you found yourself headed back only to find that the wheezing had stopped.

You paused before pushing yourself forward into the wide beam of sun. You sighed to yourself at your own ridiculousness and forced two fingers onto the pulse under the shinobi’s jaw. You were no medical professional, but it pulsed steadily than you’d expect for a man with his injuries. At least you weren’t touching a corpse. You had the spirits to thank for that. As you felt the palpitations, you turned your eyes upward. The hole wasn’t deep for someone able-bodied, but you weren’t sure about getting this man out with you. Unfortunately for you, your heart already set itself on saving him. Lost in your own thoughts, you didn’t even register the shinobi’s squinted eyes.

A large, strong, bloody hand wrapped tightly around the hand on his pulse. You almost screamed but it came out as a string of high-pitched curses instead as you launched yourself backwards into the darkness. The shinobi’s head lulled and after a still few seconds, you concluded that he passed out once again.

Against your better judgement, you approached him once more.

“I’m trying to help, Mr. Ninja. Just trying to help so if you wouldn’t murder me that would be great,” you sang to yourself, a nervous habit. Your fingers did what they did best and went straight for his pack.

You sat back on your heels with his bag in your lap. You saw shinobi weapons first. A few of them looked like the kunai you had in your own sack of supplies. You found a canteen, half empty, and then a few scrolls. Rolled out on the damp ground, you could barely make out what they said, but upon recognizing the blood for ink, you swiftly wrapped them back up. You didn’t touch one out of the bundle. It looked slightly different from the rest, but the idea of finding more blood writing made you place it back with the others. Medical supplies. A broken radio. A tarp.

Your hands wandered to his vest where you found more of the same items. Vitamins. Scrolls. You paused as you felt a thick, glossy piece of paper. A photo. A photo of the man in front of you along with three young children. You looked at their faces. Two boys and one girl. The blond and the pinkette didn’t look like his, but the brooding one could easily be this shinobi’s son. Another sigh ripped itself from your lips. The guilt crept in again. Great, a father. If you messed up, you’d have to think about these children for the rest of your life. They probably had a mother too.

You put the picture back and decided to revisit his pack. This time, at the very bottom, you felt a strong braid in your hands. Rope. You looked up at the fallen, arching tree above and mentally measured the shinobi’s width against that of the cavern. The two of you were at the thickest part, so if you could elevate him up… You quickly got to work.

It didn’t take as much time to find branches as it did to tie them together. The sun illuminated the land above brightly and you squinted on your first journey up. The Land of Fire was no stranger to vast forests and in no time you got to work on your make-shift cot. You did what made sense: you wrapped the rope around one branch to knot it before doing the same to the next. You used your kunai to cut the length, tying both sides tightly and intricately to form a sturdy, shinobi-sized rectangle. Rope came from each corner to converge above as a pulley. You never learned how to tie knots, but you had been in plenty of police bindings to know how they’re tied and untied.

You lowered it down into the dimness. The sun began to set around you and you knew you had to hurry before you couldn’t see at all. You tied the end of the pulley to a nearby root before jumping into the ground. And by the time you made it out again, you considered it a small miracle that, when you transferred him onto your elevator, you didn’t break the man weaving in and out of consciousness or that he didn’t wake up and break you instead. With him on your cot, it took everything that you had to pull him up.

With each heave, you tied a piece of rope around another piece of tree. It burned your hands, but the cool evening air served to dry some of the sweat on your back. A give and take. You kept tugging and wrapping until the shinobi emerged from the top. With one last tie, you balanced yourself over the uneven ground, straining to turn the bundle of branches. And with one cut with a kunai, the man landed horizontally over the width of the narrow cavern and all there was left to do was drag him onto the land.

***

You must’ve passed out from exhaustion. You were, after all, always more of an endurance runner. Whether you were actually built for the activity, your lifestyle trained you for nothing more, leaving your upper body strength relatively lacking.

Heat lapped at your cheeks and a warm glow flickered on the other side of your closed eyelids. And suddenly, the memories of the past day flooded back to you as you woke up with a start. Even as you sat up, your arms still coiled tightly around your pack. The one filled with items that you stole. A fire flared in front of you and when you looked up, the shinobi you saved stared back at you.

He lounged back on a bed of moss that grew at the foot of a tree. His vest hung sloppily over his shoulders as if he tried to take it off but couldn’t. His black, tattered, shirt was completely cut in two down the length of his chest. A piece of it hung, tied, in the place of his tattered mask. All in all, he resembled a bandit much more than you did. But his wounds were in far worse shape. Smeared blood dried up on his skin. The gash on his side appeared to have stopped bleeding, but you concluded that it was due to the prominent burn marks.

Night still claimed ownership of the sky. You considered calling it a day. He was alive and seemed to have the situation under control. But the small firelight illuminated the med-kit next to the shinobi. The gauze lay slightly unraveled and you once again fought the voice in your own head.

“You need help with that?” you asked in a similar way you’d ask someone who just received a large, restaurant appetizer. He just stared back at you.

“I guess nothing in the Land of Fire is ever new,” he said, voice deeper and more lax than you expected. With the forests spread out across the region, bandits and thieves thrived amongst the trees. You supposed that you did look the part after all. Stealing had always been easy and knowledge over the harsh terrain made for an easy getaway. You couldn’t help but notice that he had covered his red eye as the other narrowed at you. “Your kind always have a catch. Vulture off of someone else if your help means robbing me blind when you’re done.”

“I mean, I checked your wallet and there wasn’t much worth stealing.” You couldn’t blame him for not trusting you, but his words made you feel somewhat defensive. Apparently he never heard of ‘honor among thieves’. “I don’t know if you remember, but you were kinda dying in a hole and I kinda helped you out of a literal pit.”

“Well then you ‘kinda’ have my thanks,” he mocked dryly and you wondered if he was always this cranky. You stood and slung your bag over your shoulder as you made your way to him. The shinobi tensed and you rolled your eyes in turn.

“You don’t have shit for me to take and it’s painful watching you knowing that you can’t even wrap up your own injuries. You shinobi aren’t as great as you think you are.” You took the gauze in your hands. “I’ve helped you this far, so have a little faith.” Despite the tension in his alert body, the shinobi did his best to guide you through the process. He stared at you as you did your work, something you didn’t exactly understand. He had far more muscle mass, so if anyone should fear injury in the current situation, you thought that it should be you. The man glanced from your work on his injuries and then back to your face.

“You’re doing a shit job—”

“Then you do it! Oh wait, you can’t!”

You tightened the end and leaned against the tree trunk next to him. The two of you sat in silence, but you could have sworn that you heard a low chuckle under his breath. The fire fought to stay lit under the cold, nighttime breeze. But as the wind dispelled, the flames grew back again, although gingerly. You hesitantly reached into your bag of stolen goods.

“Jerky?” You offered him a thin strip which the man took warily before you took one for yourself. His eyes zeroed in on something sticking out slightly from the top of your sack. You didn’t notice and the packet of jerky went back in and you closed the top tightly. You placed it under your bent knees and tied one strap around your wrist. The shinobi placed the tip of the snack under his makeshift mask. The two of you ate in relative silence.

“You got a name, Thief?” he asked. You looked up at the stars that shone through the canopy as you wondered if the sky was just as clear in other places as it was in the Land of Fire. You gave him a nod and offered your name.

“What about you, Ninja?”

“My name is Kakashi Hatake.” You pushed the last bit of your food into your mouth, humming to yourself.

“Hatake… that sounds really familiar.”

“I wouldn’t worry about it.” You shrugged and didn’t pry. Sounded like something that would only bring you trouble if you knew, so you got up once again. A yawn tore from your lips. You were tired, but you were too awake to sleep, especially knowing that Kakashi was semi-able and awake with you.

“Well, you seem to be breathing, so I’ll be on my way—”

“If you help me back to my village I can ensure a cash reward for you for your efforts.” Now that made you stop. You turned on your heel, brows suddenly raised in interest. Crickets chirped in the forest around you.

“What happened to that mighty ninja spirit? You make me perform manual labor to save your ass then you insult me and eat my food. You must be really lost.” You crossed your arms. “How much?”

“Fifty-thousand ryō.” He shrugged like it was nothing. If you were being honest, you had never held anything close to fifty-thousand ryō in your entire life. With that kind of money, you’d be set for a while. You took another look at his vest and sturdy build.

“If you can just throw out fifty-thousand like that you can go higher for my help. People pay bandits a lot of money for an escort through these woods.” You shifted the straps on your shoulders.

“Okay,” he sighed, “Double it.” Your lashes fluttered.

“Do what now?”

“I’ll pay you a hundred-thousand ryō to take me back to my village.” Kakashi held out a single, dirtied hand and you didn’t hesitate to grab it.

“You’ve got yourself a deal!” When you pulled back, you twirled something around in your other hand. The scroll that you didn’t want to open from the cavern. “You know, I thought that this looked important, but since you’ve been sitting on it all evening, now I know it’s really important!—” Kakashi reached for the scroll back but you kept it out of his reach. —“Think of it as a deposit. I get you to your people, you get me my money, and then you get whatever this is back.”

You stored it away.

Once again, a big thank you to @cmlehigh! I don’t usually write Kakashi, but whenever I do, you guys seem to like it a whole ton so I thought I’d whip this mini-series up for all of you who have just been so awesome and have supported me!

Part I Part II Part III Part IV

Thank you to all who liked, reblogged, followed and otherwise supported. Your support means so much and is greatly appreciated.

#Kakashi x reader #Kakashi Hatake x reader #naruto x reader #naruto x y/n #naruto x you #naruto headcanon #naruto headcanons #naruto imagines #naruto imagine #naruto scenarios #naruto scenario #x you #x reader #reader insert #naruto #kakashi #kakashi hakate

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reidgraygubler · 3 years ago

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5 Times Aaron Hotchner Cares For You +1 Time You Care For Him

Title: 5 Times Hotchner Cares For You +1 Time You Care For Him

Request: kinda, not really

Couple: Aaron Hotchner/Reader

Category: Angst w/ the littlest bit of fluff

Content Warning: swearing (if any), several instances of injuries, assault, car accident, being sick (nothing serious, just a bad cold), gun violence (but no one actually getting shot), talks of near death experiences, canon consistent injuries (hotch's injuries from foyet), season 9 ep 5 spoilers/mentions, vague mentions of something bad happening to kids

Word Count: 5,601

Summary: the five times aaron hotchner takes care of you when you’re injured, plus the one time you take care of him when he’s injured.

A/N: this was writing for pom’s discord server fic swap! I was paired with the wonderful @ontheoddoccasioniwritestuff! I took a few of his favorite tropes and prompts he likes and came up with this! The first two instances there’s no relationship, but by the end it’s sort of an implied relationship. Also, I binged dharma and greg while writing this… So Hotch definitely has more of a domestic vibe in a few of the instances. thank you all so much for the support! i really do appreciate it. check out my masterlist!

{***}{***}{***}

One

It was a regular day. You stayed behind to help Aaron and Jennifer work over some cases. The extra pair of eyes would be nice, and maybe they’d be able to get home sooner rather than later. You knew it’d be a late-night no matter what. So you decided to work through your files quickly.

Although, you wished you’d slow it down a bit. You wished you slowed down after you moved a paper just the right way across your finger. A hiss came from your lips as you dropped the paper and file to the table.

“You alright?” Jennifer looked over at you as you stood up. Looking down at your fingers, liquid red came seeping from your finger. Your nose wrinkled as you looked at the injury. It took you a minute to realize what happened as you started at the minor injury across your finger.

“Papercut,” you winced as you looked between Jennifer and the cut on your finger. You brought your finger to your lips, sucking on the wound like a child would have done.

“I have bandaids in my office,” Aaron spoke, looking up from his file and right at you. You looked over at him, your finger still in your mouth. You felt a little weird staring at your boss and superior with your finger in your mouth. “Here, I’ll go get you one,” he looked up at you as he stood. You stared at him, watching him leave the conference room.

“I should go with him, right?” You asked, looking back at JJ. She looked up from her file and right at you.

“He offered you bandaids quicker than I could,” JJ laughed as she lowered her file to the table. You raised an eyebrow at her. “I’d go with him,” a smile grew on JJ’s lips as she looked back at her file.

“Right, I should,” you mumbled as you rushed to your feet. JJ grinned, watching as you rushed out of the room. You were quick as you rushed down the platform, going right to Aaron’s office.

“Unfortunately, I only have Batman bandaids. Is that alright?” Aaron looked up at you, holding a bandaid with Batman and Robin on it. You looked at him, feeling a small smile grow on your lips before nodding.

“Batman will work just fine,” you laughed as you met Aaron in the middle of his office.

“I don’t have anything to clean it with either. So you’ll just have to go to the bathroom. Next time I’ll be better prepared.” Aaron laughed as you took the band-aid from him and looked down at it. “Jack’s the one who picked the theme of the band-aids… Insisted that superheroes help heal all owies.” Aaron laughed again as he watched you examine the theme.

“Oh, no, really. Batman is perfectly fine," You spoke as you peeled the band-aid open and put it over your cut. “And, who said there would be a next time…?”

Two

You sat at the table, sweat pouring off you, while you somehow shivered like a leaf in the wind. You were simultaneously hot and cold, and you couldn’t stop your nose from running like a character in a Tom Hanks movie. You didn’t even realize Aaron was talking to you, everything he said to you went in one ear and out the other.

“Are you even listening to me?” Aaron stopped talking about the case and looked right at you. You looked up from the table and at him.

“Yeah, yeah you said something about…” Your words trailed off, just like any other thought you had at that moment.

“That’s not even close to what I said,” Aaron spoke as he stared at you. He placed the file he was holding on the table and stepped up to you. “Are you feeling fine?”

“I feel great, Aaron. Really. Let’s just get back to work so we can go home,” you rambled as you tried to hold down a cough. Aaron looked down at you as he placed the back of his hand on your forehead. To anyone on the outside, our relationship was strictly professional. But behind closed doors, you both had a pretty simple and normal relationship. It would have seemed weird only to the people in a work environment. But you were used to it and love that side of him.

“Nope, you’re going to the hotel. You’re burning up.” Aaron folded his arms over his chest as he stared at you.

“But I feel fine.” “You’re burning up.”

“But-”

“You’re going back to the hotel,” he spoke sternly, "Don’t even think about calling Garcia to spy on the case. Go back to the hotel, and get some rest.” Aaron looked down at you. You stared up at him, trying to hold back the sneeze or hold down the cough that was making you suffocate.

“I feel… I feel…” Unfortunately, you were cut off by a sneeze, then a cough, and then another sneeze, “Fine!” You tried not to shout, but at that point, you had never felt so… defeated. So you finally let your shoulders fall as you looked up at Aaron. “I’ll go back to the hotel,” you grumbled before grabbing your things.

“Call me if you need anything, please.” Aaron stared at you as you struggled to put your jacket on. He was quiet as he walked over to help you, grabbing a sleeve to your jacket and slipping it on you. You looked up at him with dewy eyes.

“Be safe out there, please,” you quietly pleaded. Aaron pressed his lips to your forehead, which he would regret because of how sweaty you were. You were happy it was just you and Aaron in the precinct, as all the other members of the team were at separate locations.

“Let me know when you get to the hotel.” Aaron walked beside you out to the parking lot. You looked up at him and nodded. “Get all the rest in the world, and drink plenty of fluids.” He looked down at you as he pulled the door open for you.

“Okay, Doctor Reid,” you scoffed and glared at him as you slipped into the car. Aaron returned the glare before pushing the door to the car shut.

The drive to the hotel was quiet, and thankfully pretty quick. You weren’t sure if you were happy to sit this case out. Sure it was nice to have a break from the stress. But you did enjoy being with the team and actually working.

When you finally got to the hotel, you were quick to change from your business-work attire and into your pajamas. You clicked the TV on and laid in bed. You weren’t sure when you drifted off, but you awoke to the door of your room clicking shut, and in a puddle of your own sweat.

“It’s just me,” Aaron spoke into the darkroom. You reached over and blindly turned the lamp on. Aaron was standing at the foot of the bed holding two paper bags in hand. “Sorry to wake you,” he whispered as he cringed. You assumed you looked like a mess as you sat up. You felt like one at least.

“It’s fine. It wasn’t restful anyway,” you sighed as you rubbed your face. It was an obvious lie too. You hadn’t slept that hard since before you started at the BAU. Aaron knew for a fact that you were sleeping pretty hard. The line of drool coming from your mouth, the exhausted look in your eyes, and the indentations in your skin from where the blankets were indicated just how hard you were sleeping.

“How are you feeling?” Aaron asked as he placed the bags on the table. You watched as he pulled out a bottle of orange juice, a box of popsicles, and a bowl of soup.

“Like I ran headfirst into a brick wall then hit by a semi-truck.” You spoke truthfully. Aaron raised an eyebrow as he walked over to you with the soup in one hand and the orange juice in another. “It’s probably a good thing I didn’t stay at the station with you.”

“Well there was a reason why I sent you back here,” Aaron laughed as he placed the two items on the nightstand beside you. “I also got you NyQuil and Ibuprofen. And, I can get you ice from the machine down the hall,” he continued as he sat beside you on the bed.

“You’re the best,” you whispered as you picked up the soup. “How’s the case going?”

“It’s going. There’s been another victim,” Aaron honestly answered. You frowned as you looked away from the soup and up at him.

“I wish there was something I could do to help.” And it was true. But there was a little bit of a lie in your words. You’d much rather stay in the hotel room wrapped up in blankets watching movies on your phone.

“You’re helping by staying here and getting rest. We don’t want Reid overreacting to you being with the rest of us,” Aaron laughed as he looked at you. You laughed and nodded.

“You’re right, you’re right,” you sighed and sat back in the bed, “You should get rest too. You’ll have an early morning….”

“Now… I��m the one who’s taking care of you,” Aaron scolded. You stared at him before blinking slowly. “I’m at least going to shower first. You better be asleep by the time I get out.”

“Can do, Sir… But only if you give me that bottle of NyQuil first.”

Three

“Get down!” You shouted as you looked at the victim. The little girl looked over at you with terror in her eyes. You looked at the little girl, then up at the unsub. “Let the girl go, and maybe we can talk about a deal,” You spoke softly as you lowered your gun. Your partner in crime and in life, Aaron, appeared by your side, his weapon still in hand.

“Get out of here,” the unsub muttered as he shoved the little girl towards you and Aaron. The little girl went right to Aaron’s arms, causing you to look over at him.

“Take her, I got this,” You whispered as you nodded to the girl. Aaron wanted to argue, but he knew it was useless. Aaron glanced at you one last time before lifting the girl up and leaving.

“Look, I’m putting my weapon away,” You looked back at the unsub as you holstered your gun. The unsub looked at you for a moment before tricking you. The way the unsub moved made you think he was going one way, when in reality he went the other.

Before you knew it, the unsub threw a fist at your face before shoving you up against the wall. If you weren’t sitting on the ground, you would have chased after him. But you were too busy recollecting yourself to bother. It was a shock and everything happened so quickly. So it was a relief when you heard Aaron’s booming voice renter the room.

“Stay down!” Aaron yelled as he looked down at the unsub. You sat against the wall, your hand over your eye where the unsub punched you. Aaron was quick as he put cuffs on the already down unsub. The way Aaron glanced over at you worried you a little bit. You could tell there was a tiny bit of worry in his eye. You two would have to wait till other members of the team showed up before anything would happen.

“I’m fine, Aaron,” you mumbled as you stumbled to your feet. Aaron glanced down at the unsub before going to you to help you to your feet. “I said I was fine,” you whisper once you were standing behind him.

“You go outside, and get yourself some help. I’ll be right behind you with him,” Aaron’s grip on your arm was tight as you stood. You glanced at Aaron with a raised brow.

“I’m fine, Aaron,”

“Just listen to me,” Aaron insisted as he guided you towards the door. You looked at Aaron and the unsub one last time before going outside.

The rest of the team was by your side, bringing you to an ambulance.

“Where’s Hotch,” Emily asked as one of the EMTs helped you. You graciously took the ice pack from the EMT and held it to your face.

“He said he’d be right behind me. Is the little girl okay?” You asked as you worried more about the little girl, rather than yourself. Emily gestured over to where the little girl was reunited with her family. A wave of relief washed over you once you saw the family back together.

Aaron was quick to your side when he was outside. You didn’t want to question why he took so long inside with the unsub. You were just happy he was back beside you.

“Bastard packed quite the punch,” you nervously chuckled as you looked to the ground. Aaron leaned against the ambulance rig before looking over at you.

“Next time I’m staying with the unsub,” Aaron muttered as he rested a hand on your shoulder. You looked up at him as you dropped your hand and ice pack from your face.

“You know, Aaron,” you started but let your words trail off with a chuckle.

“Are you going to finish that thought?” Aaron asked as he raised an eyebrow at you. You laughed again and shook your head.

“It’s no big deal that I got punched by an unsub. It wasn’t the first, and it most certainly won’t be the last time it’s happened,” You spoke softly as you tried to reassure your partner. Aaron breathed out a laugh and nodded.

Four

The unsub was cornered. Stuck between you, Aaron, and a brick wall with no way over it. You and the team had profiled everything about this guy perfectly. Or so you and Aaron had thought. You hoped there was an easy way for this to end. But you ended up being wrong when he raised his weapon in your direction. Aaron was doing everything he could to talk the unsub of the edge, to get him to lower his weapon. But it all ended up being for nothing.

For a brief moment, you weren’t entirely sure what had happened. All you knew was there was a loud bang, followed by a second bang, followed by you fell back to the ground. The wind was knocked right from your lungs, and breathing seemed to be a chore instead of a freewill thing. A sudden pain was in your chest, and sitting up was the furthest thing from your mind.

“Are you alright?” Aaron looked down at you with wide eyes.

“Am I dead?” You asked once you were able to take a deep breath. It was still a struggle for you. Aaron offered you a hand to help you sit up. You looked up at him before looking down at the bulletproof, kevlar vest. A bullet was lodged in the vest, saving your life.

“No, you aren’t.” Aaron helped you take the vest off. You sat back against the wall, the pain in your chest only growing.

“Are you sure?” You asked again, looking at Aaron with a small, but nervous, smile. Aaron returned the look with a raised brow, silently telling you now was no time for joking.

“You’ll have a bruise on your chest, but you should be fine. I would still get it checked out, just in case.” He added before helping you to your feet.

“Is he dead?” You looked down at the ground, your eyes instantly going to the cold body of your unsub. Aaron looked over at you with a crease in his brow and a solemn look in his eye.

“I couldn’t take any chances that he’d try to kill you. He’d already shot at you once.” Aaron explained once you had realized he’d killed the unsub. You understood why he did it, though. And frankly, you’d do the same if your places were swapped, you thought.

“Are the rest of the team and the police on their way?” You asked, already assuming the answer.

“Called them when you were down. Should be here at any minute.”

Five

“Are you alright?” Aaron asked as he looked over at you. The expression that he wore on his face was… exhausted and sad. You were sure you had the same expression, more on the sadder side. This last case was… a rough one to say the least. You tried not to think about the details of it, but all you could think about was Jack, and your nieces and nephews, and their safety. But it was hard when that was the only thing that occupied your mind on the ride home.

“No,” You muttered as you looked over at him. It was hard for you to hide the tears in your eyes. “I just wish there was more we could do,” You sighed deeply before bringing a hand to your face.

“We did everything we could do. You know that,” Aaron whispered as he looked over at you. You glanced at him, noting that he was still looking at you. “It’s always hard to know how things like this play out.” He added as he reached out to hold your hand. The grip he had on your hand was firm, tight enough to let you know he was there.

“No, no I know… It just… Sucks… I couldn’t even imagine being in the position as those parents.” You shivered with your words. Aaron glanced at you. You wiped your cheeks and shook your head. “Sometimes I wonder why I’m still even in this occupation. You ever wonder that?” You asked as you looked up at him. Aaron’s jaw steeled as he kept his eyes on the road. “Because, like… To me… I don’t know… With all the shit we see… Sometimes I’d rather just stay home with Jack,” You concluded with another sigh. That time Aaron looked over at you with a certain sadness in his eyes.

“I understand.” Aaron nodded. You weren’t sure about his tone. Though there was some honesty, at the same time you picked some uncertainty. You knew how long he’d been in the BAU, and you knew it’d be an even longer time before he left. He’s seen some shit. And, well, been through a lot of it as well. He’d fallen victim to a number of unsubs and lost more than one thing.

“You’re bad at this.” You stared at him as you pressed your head into the headrest. Aaron had a sad smile grow across his lips before glancing at you.

“I’m just a sounding board.”

“But… But you’re also my boss… And my partner… You should be more than a sounding board, Aaron.” You pointed out as you sat up a bit. “I might take some time off. This case really… It’s really affecting me in a bad way.”

“I’m sure Jack would love that. And Jessica,” Aaron laughed sadly as he glanced at you. “I’m always here for you. You know that. And if you feel like you have to take some time off, then I’ll be by your side then too.” He glanced over at you. You swallowed roughly before nodding.

“I’ll have to tell my boss when we get back to the office,” you laughed lightly. Aaron returned the laughter and shook his head.

“Don’t worry. He already knows.”

Plus One

When Aaron had gotten home from the hospital, you made it a point to take as much time as needed off so you could help him. Part of you thought everyone just assumed you were the one to go to Aaron’s apartment to help him. Of course, it was a fair assumption.

It was a rough scene when you arrived at Aaron’s apartment. It was a mess, but you partly expected that. It was more of a cluttered mess, with Jack’s toys and Aaron’s files strewn around the place. Maybe you’d help the pair out by cleaning up a little bit for them, too.

Jack was with his Aunt Jessica for the time being. He didn’t need to be exposed to the injuries and pain his father was going through. It wasn’t fair to the young boy. Jack had already gone through so much… What, with losing his mother, and nearly losing his father?

You quietly brought your go bag and backpack up the stairs and towards Aaron’s room. This wouldn’t be the first time you’ve spent the night at his house, and it certainly wouldn’t be the last. Although this time was different.

“What are you doing here?” Aaron asked as you entered his bedroom. You looked down at him with confusion and mild anger on your face.

“You… You had no one to take care of you,” You whispered as you looked at him. Aaron’s features softened slightly, but you could still see his own confusion and annoyance on his face. “What? With Jessica taking care of Jack, and the team off doing… team-y things… I figured I’d help,” you shrugged as you dropped your bags to the foot of Aaron’s bed.

“I don’t need anyone taking care of me. I can do it myself,” Aaron stubbornly refused your offer. Although it wasn’t an offer. You were determined to help him whether he wanted it or not.

“Don’t be silly, Aaron,” You crossed your arms over your chest as you stared at Aaron, “I’ll take care of you." You looked down at Aaron as he readjusted his position. You grimaced as Aaron winced from pain. You were quick to his side, trying to help. But it was clear Aaron didn’t want it. You’d be lying if you said his refusal hurt your heart.

“It’s rotten work,” Aaron said once he was finally in a comfortable position. You looked down at him, feeling your face fall slightly from a sudden sadness.

“Not to me… Not if it’s you,” You whispered softly before taking Aaron’s hand into yours. Aaron looked up at you, a certain pain in his eyes. You didn’t question it as you looked at him. “Please, Aaron… Let me help you… The team doesn’t need me right now. But you do,” You kept your voice low as you worried it’d crack.

Aaron looked back up at you, watching as tears fell from your eyes.

“I won’t be easy on you,” Aaron looked at you as he spoke. You smiled softly before nodding.

“That’s okay. I’ll help you. That’s why I’m here,” You nodded before you brought his hand to your lips. Your lips rested right on the back of Aaron’s hand as you stared at him. “Think of it as payback for all those times you’ve helped me. It’s only fair.”

{***}{***}{***}

Of course, you went into this thinking it’d be easy. You thought that Aaron would help you help him. The first day was easy. But the following days were rougher. You weren’t expecting Aaron to argue with you. It was a fight to try and convince him he needed help.

Like today, Aaron had to go to the bathroom. And when you went to help him, he fought. You loved him, that was why you were helping him. But he was beginning to test your limits.

“Please stop fighting me on this, Aaron. I know you know what’s best for you, and you know yourself better than I know you… But you have to take your medicine and get rest,” your voice wavered as you looked down at the man. Aaron looked up at you, a scowl on his face and a stone-cold glare in his eyes.

“I don’t need or want your help,” Aaron hissed as he pulled his arm from you. You stared at him, watching him wince as he adjusted the blanket over his legs.

“If that was the case then you would’ve pissed the bed,” you scoffed as you stared at him as you folded your arms across your chest. Aaron looked up at you, the hardness on his face softening a little bit. “I’ll be in the living room if you need me. But you made it very clear that you don’t.” You returned the glare before leaving his bedroom.

You quietly left the room, resigning to the living room where you had bedding set up on the couch. All of the belongings you had brought over were strewn across the coffee table. Various case files sat open, highlighters and pens sitting on them. They were files you were helping Aaron with so he wouldn’t fall behind workwise.

With a deep sigh, you sat on the couch, pulling a blanket around your body before you picked up a file. You worked in silence, but you were on high alert waiting for a call of help. But Aaron was stubborn, you knew there’d be no call.

You wished you could just help Aaron without the fight. It was exhausting for both you and Aaron. The days the team had off, a few of them would visit and help out with what they could. But Aaron still refused anyone’s help. You could tell that it was even frustrating for the team. And they could tell it was frustrating for you when you faked a smile as you exited Aaron’s room. You had nothing better to do than refuse their help when they offered.

You couldn’t help but let out deep, frustrated sighs as you continued to read over files. Some things didn’t make much sense, so when you needed help in that area, you would give a call to Emily or Penelope for the help. Thankfully they were able to quickly lend a hand.

Time was quick as it ticked by. You weren’t even sure what time you had started, but you knew it was late. Sleep would never find its way to you though. No you were too busy staying away, waiting for Aaron’s calls of help.

“You’re still working?” Aaron asked from behind you. That was when you finally looked up at the clock and saw that it was 3:30 in the morning. It was probably a good thing that Aaron came out at the time he did. You needed a long break, and some sleep.

You looked away from the file and over at Aaron. He stood a few feet away from the couch, his robe hanging off his frame as he stood. That reminded you that you really needed to change out of your day clothes and into your pajamas.

“Well when you’re the one who constantly works and you’re out sick… I’m the next best person since I know everything you do. So I figured…” You shrugged looking back down at the file on your lap and highlighter in hand. “And you wouldn’t let me help you.”

“That’s how you’re helping?” Aaron asked as he stepped around the couch to sit beside you. You looked up at him, watching him press a hand over his injuries.

“How else am I supposed to help?” you scoffed, looking over at Aaron again, “I mean, you know what’s best for you, Aaron. I’m just trying to help and follow what the doctors told you to do. You’re just too…” You let your words trail off, not finishing your thought. It wasn’t mean, you thought. But you didn’t want to take that chance.

“I…” Aaron started but failed when you cut him off.

“You almost died… Twice… All I want to do is help you. That’s all anyone wants to do, is help you.” Your voice broke off at the end. You had given up the fight. There was nothing left in you to keep going. So, you looked away from Aaron and tried to ignore the tears rolling down your cheeks.

Aaron silently reached out to hold your hand. You looked at him, your eyes wide as you stared.

“I’ve just never had help with…” Aaron’s words trailed off. You blinked slowly as you turned to face him more. You watched as he struggled to stand, and you could tell that he was trying to hide the real pain he was actually in.

“Come on.” He gently pulled your hand as he stood. You looked at him, your eyes wide and dewy. “The way you can help me is to lie in bed with me. You can keep working, or you can just lie beside me. That’s how you can help.”

“Aaron...”

“I don’t care what you have to say. You’re coming with me.” Aaron looked down at you with a furrowed brow. There was a certain softness to his features.

“Fine,” You whispered as you begrudgingly stood to your feet. Aaron looked over at you before taking the lead back into the bedroom. You were both quiet as you slipped into the bed.

“Will you rest now?” You looked over at him as he laid beside you. You were too focused on being annoyed and wanting to help him that you didn’t even realize he had fallen asleep. You didn’t know when, but he had also had an arm thrown over your body. Usually the roles were reversed. And you realized just how much you actually loved Aaron, even though he’s stubborn and hard-headed.

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imgonnaragnorockurshit · 3 years ago

Text

Annihilation Day: Chapter 5

Chapter warnings: 18+ minors DNI, language, fluff, LOTS OF FLUFF, minor angst, like super minor, more like vague allusions to past angst but blink and you’ll miss it, alcohol, one mention of throwing up rip.

a/n: Hello friends! I took a slightly different approach to this chapter and wrote sort of like a vignette style so we could skip some time, I had this story start earlier in the calendar year than it does canonically so I could build in some extra time for Helena to meet and connect with the other characters (I didn’t wanna just toss her in and force those relationships) so this will hopefully serve as a helpful time jump through a couple of months to put us back in the canon timeline of season 1 episode 3 (around mid-January) for story’s sake I stretched the Healy case out quite a bit (by a few months) but I feel like legal cases generally don’t move as fast as they do in this show anyway so it’s fine lol. But anyway, I digress, enjoy!

word count: 3.1k

Series masterlist

The world around Helena is hazy, but that doesn’t make it any less warm and comforting as it is right now. It’s calming. It’s home. If she ever had such a thing. There’s a woman, with a warm smile and bright blue eyes, she’s got long, curly brown hair, a honeyed color that matches her own quite well, she thinks. The woman presses a soft hand to the side of her face, and the gesture gives Helena the urge to cry, though she isn’t sure why. There’s a man too. He has a kind face, with big, down-turned green eyes like her. He has a sharp, angular nose, one that looks like he perhaps broke it as a boy and never had it set- but it’s his.

It’s the face of her father.

Helena jolts out of her sleep in a cold sweat, heaving breaths frantically into her lungs as she surveys the room around her. Realizing finally where she was she took a deep, albeit shaky breath as she let her eyes close again, falling back against her pillows. These were her least favorite of the constant dreams she was plagued with. Dreams of phantom memories of people that she never got to know, of the things that she almost had. It made her angry.

She tried to remind herself that at least this way her parents were memorialized in her mind as kind and good people, but that didn’t stop her from mourning the lose of them raising her. She probably hadn’t seen them since she was 5, it was a miracle she even kind of remembered their faces.

Although the possibility that her fractured mind had merely fabricated them for her when she needed comfort in an effort to keep her from loosing her mind, was certainly not lost on her.

At the thought she felt tears burn at the back of her throat. She swallowed them with only a minor wince and forced herself back to sleep.

When Helena woke up again the sun had risen and she was no more rested than she was when she woke up at the witching hour that same morning. But tonight, was Friday, which meant dinner with Mrs. Sánchez and… Matt. That filled her with at least a little bit of excitement for the day as she dragged herself out of bed. She hadn’t seen her neighbor in a good half a week, avoiding her at all costs to spare the old woman from seeing her marked-up face. The woman had of course ventured across the hall to ensure that her young resident hermit was okay, but Helena always came up with some sort of, often horse-shit, excuse as to why she couldn’t open the door.

Thankfully, her bruises faded quickly, because there was no way Mrs. Sánchez would’ve believed her charade much longer.

The day moved fairly quickly after she got up. Before she knew it she found herself pulling her beef stroganoff off the stove and piroshki out of the oven. Filling her travel containers with the warm food, she prepared to make the short trip across the hall to Mrs. Sánchez’s apartment when she heard a knock on her door.

Drying her hands on a nearby towel, she made her way to swing the front door open, revealing the one and only, Matt Murdock.

“Hi.” She greeted, slightly breathless stepping aside for him to pass through her door way. “Come on in, I’m just packing up dinner and then we can go across the hall.”

“Thank you.” He followed silently behind her as she resumed her previous action. As he leaned himself against her counter top he felt something small thump against his shin. He tilted his head down toward the sound of another tiny heartbeat. “Hello?” he asked quietly.

“Oh! Yeah, sorry that’s Fish, don’t mind him, he’s kind of an asshole.” She laughed looking at the pair. Her heart melted a little bit at the sight of Matt carefully crouching down to give the little goblin some chin scratches, causing soft purrs to fill the room. “Well look at you two.” She mused softly, causing a smile to break out across his face as well.

Truth be told, he had been ready to call and cancel that morning, his fear of growing to close to people and the ever present voice in the back of his head chanting you’re better off alone, you just cause pain to everyone you touch, having gotten the better of him. But then Foggy adamantly threatened that if Matt canceled, then he would move everything in his apartment without so much as a method to his madness. Not just a ‘move everything an inch to the left’ situation, which he had already pulled once before mind you, no, he was promising to put all his beer under the couch, his vacuum in his shower and his spices pretty much all over the apartment. So, in the interest of less of a headache for himself later, he reluctantly agreed to go.

The decision seemed a lot easier to him now as he breathed in deep, practically tasting the food she’d made in the air. He could smell her too, her shampoo, and just the natural scent of her. And the sound of her quiet laugh could probably get him to do anything she asked of him.

He spent pretty much the entire dinner mesmerized by her, just the way she talked, and the endless kindness that she showed her neighbor. Mrs. Sánchez was rather mesmerized by him. He even heard her pull Helena aside when they first arrived, whispering, “My goodness, he is so handsome, where did you find him?” he suppressed a smirk as Helena shushed her elderly friend playfully, the three of them taking a seat at the table.

The dinner went on without a hitch- Mrs. Sánchez fawned over Matt, Matt listened to Helena tell the old woman about her week since she’d last seen her and vice versa, and he got to eat his first home cooked meal since probably when Karen made him and Foggy that casserole after they got her out of prison.

And the weeks continued that way.

September, October, November, December-

Helena created more memories during those four and a half months in Hell’s Kitchen than she’d had anywhere else in her entire life. Friday night dinners with Mrs. Sánchez turned into family affairs with Matt, Foggy, and Karen. She always had Matt or Foggy walking her home from her closing shifts at the bar, even though she knew she didn’t need it, but it made them feel good to know that she got home safe and it made her feel good to know that someone cared. So, she let them.

Matt had made it his personal mission to chip away at the woman’s exterior. Against his better judgement, he felt the irresistible longing to know her. And as long as he didn’t let himself get too close, letting himself accept some small pieces of her would be fine.

Wouldn’t it?

Regardless of Matt’s tendencies to self-sabotage, he and Helena grew even closer as the months passed. As the weather got colder, their friendship only grew warmer. It was a feeling that burned him in only the best way. He watched as her more skittish nature melted away, leaving in its wake an unguarded and unadulterated version of herself that was just her. No fear, no distrust. And unbeknownst to Matt and the other two thirds of Nelson & Murdock, Helena hadn’t felt that way with people in a long time. Mrs. Sánchez was probably the first and only person she’d come to trust in all her time in America at all.

Until now.

He learned that she spoke five languages, that she had some family overseas, though she didn’t elaborate much on them, and that she loved the ocean. She learned that his father used to be a boxer before he passed, that Matt attended the Clinton Church, and that he was close friends with its priest Father Lantom, who had helped raise him during his time at St. Agnes. The more layers the two pulled back from each other, the more they found they had in common, and suddenly the things that made them feel so broken and bloody, didn’t seem so scary anymore.

Helena’s select secrecy when it came to discussing anything before her time in the U.S. however, concerned and upset him. He wasn’t upset with her specifically per se, just at the prospect of something so heavy hanging over her that she couldn’t bring herself to talk about it. He couldn’t really blame her either, he too was hiding an entire part of his life from her, but he had a hard time thinking of anything she could be hiding that would surpass the skeletons he had in his own closet. Her family, he found, was among the sorest subjects to ask her about. He could hear her heart fall and her breath pick up at the mention of anything of the sort.

“I’m not related to them,” she’d began one night as he helped her clean up after dinner across the hall, “but they’ve always been my family.” She paused again, like she was debating over whether to continue speaking, to give him this piece of her or to keep it locked away in the pit of her stomach and the base of her skull. “Imani is the one who took me in as a kid.” She began as she occupied herself with washing the dishes, not daring to look up towards where she would feel Matt’s phantom gaze on her, and he didn’t dare say anything, in fear of scaring her back into silence. She cleared her throat as she continued. “I uh, I got into some trouble and ended up on her doorstep, and she could have just sent me on my way, but she didn’t. After that her whole family took me in as one of their own.” She wiped her hands on a nearby towel, waiting on Matt to respond.

“They sound like very wonderful people.” He commented gently, resisting the urge to reach for her. She smiled, “why don’t you go visit them?” he asked tentatively, bracing himself for the possibility of her closing up again. He was shocked when that wasn’t what happened, instead all he got was a small shrug.

“I’m sure they’d ask the same thing, I dunno.” She spoke quietly, “I just left somethings behind, and it’s hard to go back, even if I leave the good behind with it.” She was being intentionally vague, he knew that, but he didn’t push her any further. For that she was grateful.

They went to Josie’s more often together too. The four of them would cram into the seats at the bar and drink too much cheap beer, Foggy even convinced Helena to drink the eel with him, an event that led to her spending the night at Matt’s, asleep on his bathroom floor after he graciously held her hair back as she threw up the contents of her stomach. He rubbed soothing circles on her back all the while as she muttered curses towards Foggy, some in English and some in Russian in her drunken, sick haze.

“What the fuck was in that drink?”

“I hope Foggy is as sick right now.”

“I’m gonna poison that son of bitch.”

Even with her curled over his toilet, sweating through her shirt, drunk out of her mind, Matt thought she was the prettiest thing in the world. Even if he couldn’t even see her. Even when she’d threatened to stab him when he tried to move her to his couch. He just smiled, cooing calming nothings to her as he grabbed her a blanket, wrapping his around her shoulders as she insisted she wanted to sleep in the bathroom.

Her small and quiet “Thank you Matty.” Before she nestled her head against the edge of his bathtub as closed her eyes, made his stomach flip in summersaults, mountains of butterflies flying ramped in the cavern of his sternum.

Other times she would take care of him. Once he had taken a tumble down the stairs from the roof of his apartment, he’d been hit a little too hard in the head the night before, leaving his senses muddled and unfocused. She’d luckily been coming by that morning anyway to drop off some files from another case they’d had her look in on, and knocked on his front door, only to hear a weak, “it’s open.”

He listened as she opened his front door, heart beat one of confusion. When she laid eyes on him, sprawled out at the bottom of his stairs she let out a string of Russian curses before setting the stack of papers down along with her bag, and running to his side. Helping him sit up, Helena was careful as she gently cradled the back of his head, no blood, much to her relief.

“I fell down the stairs.” He tried to joke weakly. She smiled and pressed a light kiss to his forehead. He could’ve cried.

“Yeah I can see that Matty, can you stand?” Gentle, she was always gentle. He nodded his head as she helped him move to his couch. She fished a bag of frozen peas out of his freezer, placing it into his palm so he could press it to wherever his head hurt the most.

There’s one night in particular, that Matt had found himself in particularly deep. The two of them, along with Karen and Foggy, where spread around Karen’s living room, all drinking wine in celebration of the Nelson & Murdock trio winning another case. The four were laughing and joking and as Matt and Foggy were deep in their own conversation, he heard Karen raise to her feet, tugging Helena with her, both women giggling quietly to each other.

“Come on teach me! I’m a fast learner I swear.” He heard Karen exclaim excitedly, clapping her hands together. Foggy noticed Matt’s distracted gaze to the center of the room where his two friends stood.

“Now what are you two heathens up to?” Foggy asked in mock accusation, his eyebrow raised.

“Helena is gonna teach me to dance.” Karen gushed, bouncing on the balls of her feet. “Russian folk dancing, specifically.”

“Ah I see, well go on then sensei, I would join but I’m pretty sure my dancing would count as an act of terrorism against your culture.” Foggy laughed, taking another sip of his wine.

Helena snickered playfully at him before turning back to Karen, “Okay so to start you usually want to stance yourself like this-” Matt stopping listening to the words she was saying and focused more on the sound of her voice as she walked Karen through the steps of the traditional folk dance. He listened as she gathered the sides of her ankle length skirt in her hands and lifted it to her knees, to allow Karen to see the positioning of her feet. He was overwhelmed, in the best way, by the wave of the smell of her skin that was sent his way at the action. He took a deep breath, listening to his two friends dance and laugh, her laugh made him smile.

Foggy smirked over to the side as he watched his best friend all but gawk at the woman in front of him. He’d pocket that information for later, right now he just enjoyed watching his friend act absolutely whipped in real time.

Matt Murdock had long since made his peace with being blind, but as he listened to her dance and spin and laugh, he decided that he never wished he could see again, if only for a moment, more in his entire life. To see her like this would be a gift that he would beg God for every night and pray for every time he went to church.

Matt found himself using her company as almost a metric, measuring his time from meeting to meeting. It wasn’t like how it was with Elektra either. With Elektra, he felt like he was drowning when he was without her and like he was being burned alive when he was with her, a feeling that at the time he’d convinced himself was love, but now he recognized it for what it was. Toxic, manipulative, painful. With Helena it was different, granted the nature of their relationship was also very different. They were just friends, they’d met under completely different circumstances, they weren’t breaking into rich houses together, and they certainly weren’t fucking. But still, Helena felt like just as substantial of a relationship as the one he had with Elektra all those years ago. A relationship that was going to change him, for better or for worse he wasn’t sure yet, but he was more than willing to find out.

And Helena shared the same sentiment. Platonic or other wises, Matt had grown to be very important to her. When Helena was with Matt she felt… good. She felt normal, something that had been all but denied from her this far.

But good things never last forever, and what goes up, unfortunately, must come down.

“Do we have any details on her? Affiliations, credentials, anything?” a mysterious, terrifying man asks on one side of an even more mysterious and terrifying black car.

“No sir, there’s almost no record of her anywhere, unfortunately she cut her connection pretty much as soon as we got the ping that she was looking into our business. But we were able to pin point the general radius of where she was searching from and she’s definitely in Hell’s Kitchen, so it’s only a matter of time before we track her down.” Another man speaks from across the car, smaller than the first, with a nice suit and glasses resting on the bridge of his nose.

The first man hums in acknowledgement, and the second holds his breath as he awaits his response. “Take care of this as quickly and quietly as possible, especially after Union Allied and the fiasco with Ms. Page, we cannot risk further exposure.” The man finally spoke, prompting the man across from him to nod his head in agreement.

“Of course, sir.”

“It is a shame,” the man contemplates, gazing out the car’s window, into the dark, misty scape of Hell’s Kitchen.

“A shame, Sir?” his subordinate questions cautiously for clarification. The man turns his head back to face him.

“It’s a shame that such talent will have to go to waste.”

a/n: oh??? Mysterious??? jee I wonder who that could be? I had to take multiple breaks while writing this to scream into a pillow so I hope you all enjoyed, hopefully my next one won’t take as long to write now that I’m moving in time with the plot.

Hot person taglist: @freshabogados @elgrandeavocados @angelsfilth @moonlarking

Comment or dm me if you want to be added!!!

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supremeinlilac · 3 years ago

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Greiving for something not lost

Sally Mckenna x Fem!Reader

Word Count: 5.1k

Warnings: Canon death, mentions of suicide, grief, slight mention of nsfw activities but it’s literally nothing.

A/n: Here’s the exchange gift for @cissa-calls , and I hope it’s not too dark for you :/ I researched a lot of Greek Mythology because you said you enjoyed it so it’s based around a myth, although as always I got carried away so it ended up only being a small portion. I hope you like it :))

Instead of taking the direct route to the Cortez, you idled down the backstreets of LA, one hand stuffed deeply into your pocket as you scuffed feet against stones on the path. It did little to clear the fog in your brain after yet another argument with Sally, it was always too loud in the city and you seemed to never be able to silence it enough to think.

Sally had promised you, time and time again that the next job would be the last, and you clutch at the hopes that each time she’d be telling the truth. Each time you’d fumble with fingers against the hem of her jacket and beg her to stay, and she’d pry them off and tell you not to follow her.

“The Hotel Cortez is not a place for you babe,” she’d say, and then she’d be gone.

Usually, you’d accept that, and would wait by the window for glimpses of her silhouette along the street when she’d returned. Your heart would thrum in protest against your ribs almost painfully until you’d see her safe again. This time, you’d both cried and fumed. Neither understood the other, neither wanting to admit that they feared what that meant.

Your other hand held a small spray of white anemones, and an apology scribbled on paper. You had to rehearse it before you met with her again, she seemed to be able to sense when you weren’t genuine. You’d wanted flowers of a darker colour, they were more Sally, but had had to settle with that of purity and innocence. Not Sally at all, but you were still too proud and stubborn to stalk around more shops to find the perfect gift for her when you’d both been in the wrong.

The detour meant you’d probably find your girlfriend already high, stumbling aimlessly around rooms with that grin on her face that always made you want to kiss it off her. No doubt that tonight would end as it always did. Possessive and passionate in your shared bed. Sometimes you wouldn’t even reach it. Sorry with Sally was always spoken through sex.

The thought of apologising through kisses and softly idle fingertips had your pace quickening, and the guilt heating up within you. You didn’t like fighting with Sally, and you sure as hell didn’t like what you fought about, but you loved to bribe her back to you this way. But as you turned the corner to the hotel, the guilt in your stomach dropped into that of dread, and a lump formed so quickly in your throat that you felt you would choke on it with what you saw.

Aphrodite had warned Adonis about the dangers, just like you had Sally, and yet, here they both lay. It was as if her body blurred into two with your tears, two lovers, separated by the cruel twist of deaths knife in a hollow chest.

You seemed to be able to do nothing but stagger towards her, vision smoky and you prayed it was a dream. That you may stir in the sheets beside Sally, and she’d reach to still your tremors like the silent hand of a god against the rumble of an earthquake. Be still my love, do not fear what can not hurt you. I’m here, reach for me.

Now, you wished for something as merciful as a dream.

Her face paled to grey as you neared, and the world seemed to fall away. Passers by seemed unaffected as hurried feet carried them home, anxious to block out the city with thick blinds and gentle music. Your despair willowed to nothing, a commotion simply on the other side of the road wasn’t a rarity. The city had seen it all before.

It turns out the Hotel Cortez wasn’t a place for her either.

You felt like throwing yourself to the ground beside her, bare knees scraping against the harsh pavement, yet you’d welcome the pain beside your lover. White noise filled your ears, and only the blaring of car horns could cut through its insistent ringing. You couldn’t even hear yourself crying for help to anyone who might listen.

Her eyes were wide, glassy and pleading, but you saw no life in them. The glass gave way to murky water and it was clear you’d reached her too late. Defeated, you crumpled beside her, flowers forgotten in leu of pressing lips to her temple and whispering the apology as if it may be heard by her soul and it might return to her body. To you.

You wanted to close her eyes with gentle fingertips but feared that if she stopped seeing you then it would be the end. That it would mean she was gone.

A flower sprang where he lay, hours after Adonis’ death, a deep crimson anemone that bore the shade of his blood. Born from the sweet nectar from Aphrodite’s hand, the wildflower bloomed. Beautiful trauma.

The flowers on the ground by your side seemed to wilt, sensing the sour odour of deaths passing, they hung their heads in mourning and shrank into their petals. Heavy with grief. White anemones turned red under the suns dying love, its light bowing behind the buildings so it may pretend to have not bared silent witness to souls divided.

Aphrodite pleaded for her lover’s life in the underworld, so he could be with her once again in life. You would have plead as she did, knelt and sold your soul for Sally to be returned. You would have done as Aphrodite did, if you thought it would help. If you thought that someone could see your pain and render it pure enough to grant the impossible.

In the real world, there are no gracious second chances for such a fickle thing as love.

And now, it seemed that the Hotel Cortez would be her place, tied to her always in death.

You stayed by her side until the coroner arrived to take her away. You couldn’t cry, instead just watched through eyes of steel as the back doors of the van were slammed obnoxiously, ringing in your ears long after it had pulled away and been lost to the traffic. You vaguely registered someone’s hand on your shoulder, a soothing motion, talking as if underwater, muffled and unintelligible. You felt like you were barely clinging to driftwood on an unsettled sea, each swell of a wave bigger than the last.

In shock- you heard someone say. Suicide. That broke your haze.

When you’d got home that night, the silence had screamed at you. It had been too quiet to sleep, and you ached for the way she’d blast music loud enough to warrant the neighbours complaints the next day, so you’d have to bake horrendously in the kitchen cookies as apologies. Or when she’d strum against her guitar and the gentle tones would pull you from your work and into her lap to watch her fingers manipulate the instrument into art.

You craved the shrill laughter of Sally when she’d prank you childishly, how she’d pull you towards her and you’d see how joy creased her face beautifully. You’d always want to make her laugh and brush the pads of curious fingers over the dimples formed and make her shy away.

You’d never hear her song again, you realised, blinking away tears when the guitar propped in the corner caught your eye. Chest heaving painfully, you half wanted to grasp it by the neck and slam it against the ground over and over until anger diffused and you could cry into its shards. The other half, the winning half, wanted to pick it up and set it against you, ghost fingers over its strings so the thrum was barely audible. She’d played this tune, taught you this tune, and you vowed you’d never forget it. Fingers in her shadow, you ran them over the smooth wood, eyes closed and head back on the sofa.

She was everywhere in the apartment, and it only served to remind you that she was also nowhere.

The suffocating hands of her absence pressed against you, a ribbon of blackened ash around your ribs, until they threatened to crack under its pressure. Was it possible to miss how she hurt? Your lover, with her wild hair and glassy eyes, you could see her as she was, you would drunk in how she would move. Dancing slowly in an empty room, as if the world were watching her.

Wild hair was born to writhing snakes, and you feared to look directly into her eyes now. Death had claimed her as its own, and you refused to accept her insistent fate. She’d return. You’d look into her eyes and see that of your lover, and not of Medusa. Lungs of stone, how could they swell to receive the gift of a breath without her beside you?

Now you drowned the guilt, drunk in its depths instead of in her eyes.

Stuck in endless loops of questioning what if. What if you hadn’t taken the detour, what if you hadn’t argued, or if you had made her stay instead of letting her leave the apartment? Would she still be alive?

It wasn’t your fault but oh, how that option seemed so sweet in this moment. To be swarmed with an actual reason to hate, how it would be easier than the reality. You’d rather have yourself to blame than have no one. Responsibility for actions you weren’t even sure of. Questions unanswered by police, that would remain unanswered because the only person with the solution was gone. What had happened?

The pressure seemed to build up in your head, an unbearable thickness of thoughts that had nowhere to go but to force themselves down your throat so you’d choke on them, and the feeling of sickness would resurface. They’d swim in your gut like parasite and never still.

It was worse at night.

Distractions were less and your emotions ran so far above you on blackened clouds, so out of reach that you doubted you’d ever be able to wrestle them back into submission. Would they eternally be dancing in mockery and pulling at marionette strings in your limbs? A shell of your former self, only held up by unpredictable emotions that could burn you with their ice just as much as their fire.

After your first day back at work after the incident, you’d returned home exhausted, wanting nothing more than to collapse into yourself on the sofa and cradle one of her jackets. You forgot the lock the door on your way in, and remembered hours later, after the sun had drooped once more that you needed to lock yourself with your thoughts again for the night.

You reached into your handbag, searching for something that seemed menial now, and instead your fingers curled around her packet of cigarettes. You stopped, hand still in the bag, and your breath caught painfully in your throat.

It had been the first since that night, raw and salty tears that burned your eyes red and blurred your vision. The kind of crying that wore you to nothing within minutes and had you clutching bony fingers to your chest as if to pry open ribs and reach your lungs. You couldn’t breathe.

Everything caught up with you, and you felt as if you were falling alongside her, scrabbling to find purchase against nothing. The rational side of your brain knew that you wouldn’t crash to the ground, but you couldn’t help but be brought back to her side in that moment, a whirlwind of emotions that you couldn’t control, circling your head in a way that made you dizzy with your grief.

Her pale face, mottled with the tears of her death invaded your mind, the blood staining the pavement. Suddenly you felt hot with it, as if the sticky blood was covering you, pulling you to drown. You could smell its invasive metallic scent, almost taste its musk in your throat with every breath. It was thick, and you were clawing at your arms to try and wipe it away. It was everywhere, and then it was nowhere, and you wondered why you’d been tricked by grief in the first place.

Shaking, your fingers had flipped open the packet and picked one out. You didn’t smoke, yet trembling hands found the lighter and lips found the filter which already had a smudge of red on it. Almost as if Sally had gone to light it but changed her mind, discarding it back for later use. She never used it again, now it was you that drew in an unsteady breath, drawing the panel door to the side as you took the rest of the cigarettes onto the small apartment balcony you both shared to smoke them, alone.

There was really only room for one person out there at a time, yet you and Sally would huddle together on the nights when the city would keep you awake, and she’d wrap pale arms around your waist and nuzzle her chin into the crook of your neck. Passing her cigarette back and forth you’d overlook the streets below and watch the living.

You’d both used to wonder what it would be like to lead the lives of those people below, those on their way to work before the sun even surfaced over the horizon and set its path for the day. Working before the pair of you had even been asleep. The banality of their routine, oh, how you both pitied them. They’d work boring jobs to pay the rent for the whitewashed walls they’d come home to each night, eat the same meals at the same time, prepared by wives wearing lines of age, deeply set in valleys on their faces. These people always looked older than their years, tired and worn from work and children born to save a marriage already lost.

You’d used to pity them, yet now, you craved the intimacy of a boring life with someone you loved. You’d rather the predictability of this life than the one you had now. Nothing.

On the balcony, you smoked all the remaining cigarettes in the pack. Usually, you didn’t smoke, but you did, just to feel close to her again. Curling your fingers around the butt the way that she used to, and blowing the smoke out, watching it furl and twist into the cold night. You craved the warm roughness of her hands.

She’d kiss you with the lingering taste of those cigarettes, and you’d grown addicted to it. Still, once you’d finished the packet, you’d found yourself unable to rebuy them.

Slowly, you forgot its essence. You felt like you were forgetting her.

In the news, you waited for them to show a photo of Sally, one detached from everything she’d grown to be, beside a headline of death. The low hum of the city news was background noise to your grief, and you ached for someone to care enough to tell about her passing. For weeks, there was nothing. There was nothing and then there was everything, all at once, and in that moment, you knew that you would’ve preferred the nothing.

They said she’d jumped.

They hadn’t known her, and they said she’d jumped.

How dare they when you’d screamed at them until hoarse that she would never, that she promised she would never? The quick solution, one that wouldn’t raise questions, or demand the precious funds of the very system she’d been cheated by, to fork out for justice. She was an addict, they’d said. Painting the sky above her head an angry black, with clouds that swirled with viscous intent. She was a junkie, and therefore the answer was simple.

Death had been an inevitability with a life like that, habits like that. A person such as that.

You wasted grief on your anger, long nights where you’d clutch the phone to your mottled cheek with whitening knuckles, cursing everyone who’d rendered your love unimportant. You’d fall asleep on hold to police that had no more answers for you, no more pitied excuses and apologies for a loss they knew nothing about.

And it was on one of those long nights, when you sought for comfort that could be not offered by the living, that you reach for the memory of the dead. Running fingers deliberately slowly over the clothes that hung in the wardrobe, fingering through her dresses on the railing before slowly closing the door again, leaning against it and sinking to the floor.

You’d opened all her drawers that night, some for the first time. Spritzed her dresses with her perfume that still stood on the mantle, revitalised Sally in the apartment with her smell. It was as if you were back to then, when she’d return from work, stroppy and tired, yet still reach for her perfume and generously sprayed the air that she’d then dance into.

Picking one of her band shirts out of the drawer, you slipped your shirt off and replaced it with hers. It was soft cotton, the one she’d most frequently sleep in, and it brought you warmth like her hugs used to, arms enclosing you and grounding you in moments of fear.

You slept in it that night. Telling yourself that that would be it and then it would return to the drawer. But one night stretched painfully into three, and you found yourself unable to sever the small mercy you’d given yourself in wearing her clothes, the attachment to her that only you would know when you walked the street. No one else knew the chain you wore were hers, the boots, the dress. No one knew sally because there was no one left to know.

It had been a year since that day.

You’d woken with a headache and turned over in bed, wanting to shelter yourself from the day with blankets, sleep until the moon shone and the day turned into the next. You knew you could do that, but guilt had you pulling on the covers and groaning as the sunlight poured like liquid through the slit in the curtains.

It was going to be a long day. You already felt tired.

Pulling one of Sally’s band shirts over your head, you traipsed sluggishly through the apartment, purposefully ignoring the mess, like she would after a night of drinking. Not that it mattered today. You unhooked Sally’s oversized jacket from the peg and slumped it over your shoulder. Today was the day, you’d decided. You were going to visit her grave.

In the past year, you’d planned to visit her grave on several occasions, but avoided it at the last second. You couldn’t stand the thought of Sally trapped there, tied to the soil when she should be dancing upon it with you.

Sally couldn’t be tied down to a single place, she moved freely, without reign. It was how she liked it, and how you’d learned to love her. Labels had never been her thing. And now she was labelled on stone, with a corny phrase that she’d hate, with a date too early, a life too short. Sally deserved to be free.

She was the wind, unpredictable and changing and wild, she would go where she pleased and return on the breeze. Sally would’ve hated being buried, and yet through the selfish need to have a real place to visit her, she had been. You can’t capture the wind in bare hands, can’t collar it or tame it and make it beg. It controls you and you have no choice but to concede to it.

That was Sally.

Even now, a year later, you found yourself faltering. The gates of the cemetery loomed ahead of you, and your hands bunched at the material of your pants nervously. You could feel it calling, begging almost, for you to simply reach out and push the gate open with a metallic creak of protest. To visit the place you’d always avoided.

But just as you always did, you lost your nerve, sighing and peering down the road for a reason to be drawn away. For a distraction, even just for a moment. An excuse to gather your thoughts just enough to face your lover.

A corner shop caught your eye, with the newspapers in the windows just begging for customers. How convenient. Stuffing hands into pockets, you strode over the road with new purpose.

Dragging yourself down the claustrophobic aisles in the store, you distracted yourself with exited colours on packaging, picking items of shelves and replacing them further down the aisle. You didn’t care for tidiness today.

When a shop attendant asked you if you needed any help, you gave him a sad smile in appreciation and picked up a small bunch of white anemone flowers, her flowers. Last year, they’d been a peace offering, this year, an apology. The employee shuffled along again, and you set your eyes down to the floor.

Flowers in hand, you made your way to the till, placing them delicately onto the counter and fiddling for coins in your coat. You hadn’t planned on buying anything, so neglected to bring your wallet. Luckily, this was a coat you’d not worn since Sally’s death, and she was a fan of keeping loose change in the deep pockets.

“Is that everything for today?” the woman behind the till chirped with the voice of someone with long experience in public services. It cried out in tired falsity, in ‘how long have I left on my shift?’ It was a line well-rehearsed and overused.

Just as you were about to nod in answer, your eyes caught the tobacco cabinet behind the bored check out assistant. “What brand?” She asked pointedly, and you stared dumbly past her. Had Sally ever bought cigarettes from this store? Shaking out the thought from your mind, you answered her, asking for Sally’s brand and quickly paying and leaving.

Outside the shop, you held the package tentatively in your palm, fingering at the packaging as she used to when she was nervous. She’d wrap a tune with her chipped nails against the boxes edge, and you’d coax it from her, and dip her under the moonlight in your arms. Now, holding the cigarettes held no comfort for you, feeling both foreign and familiar, it left you aching for her.

Still, you found yourself unable to visit her grave. It was all too real to see where she lay. You needed something tying Sally to you that wasn’t so physical. You laughed to yourself. How ironic it was, to force her into a grave for something so trivial as to have a place to call her resting place, only to find yourself too weak to face your choice.

Instead, you took a left, and then another, and then a right, and continued until you could no longer smell your own fear in the air with the concept of her grave. Deeper into the city, where the pollution stained white houses grey, you could breathe clearly again. Guilt will consume a person, clog their lungs with it until their breathing is laborious and the weight drags them down into their thoughts.

You’d walked this route before, one year before, with white anemones and an apology in hand. You’d never gotten to tell Sally what you’d wanted, but perhaps you’d take her the flowers, and smoke her cigarettes in the window where she’d fell. You’d tell her what you didn’t get the chance to.

The hotel was just as you remembered it, flickering neon 34w`lights that read ‘Hotel Cortez’, and the eery alleys and parked cars that seemed to be in the same position as the year prior. It was as if time had paused, hotel residents left their cars and had never returned to them.

You weren’t really aware of yourself in that moment, feet leading a silent path as you found yourself stuck in a memory. When you reached the place you found her, your feet faltered, and you couldn’t tear your eyes from the paving.

The pavement was clear, physically untainted, and any normal pedestrian would question your loitering. But although it appeared to be clean, you know because you’ve seen, you’ve remembered. The pain that would still remain, deep in the cracks of the paving stone, no matter how much scrubbing the clean up team undoubtably did after Sally’s body was removed, they couldn’t remove. They couldn’t fade the scarring, or the feeling of death that overcame you when you stared at the place she’d laid.

Someone bumped your shoulder as they passed on the street, muttered remarks about people standing in the middle of the street, and you raised your eyes to watch them walk away. When you looked back at the stone, the connection to it had been lost, and you found yourself unable to re-enter the trance you’d been in.

Pressing through the hotel doors, you left the light of the sun behind, left the living, and joined the death of the dusky lobby. Wondering through its room, you imagined Sally doing the same, with confident strides and a purpose. It was a nice place for downtown LA, you had to admit, but you couldn’t shake the eerie feeling that came with it, of being watched by invisible eyes in the walls. The feeling one gets when you visit a place where death rules over occupants.

You looked up to the next floor, and swore you saw a flash of an animal print coat moving behind the barriers. No. Must’ve been the lighting change from coming inside.

A woman pointed you towards the bar, and you nodded towards her. Did all visitors come for the hotels bar? She seemed to know exactly what you needed, tired eyes searching for something not quite there.

In the bar, you drank and you smoked and spoke with the woman behind the bar who must’ve noticed the void behind your eyes. She didn’t question you, why you were alone, just slid extra drinks across the table with a wink and a smile. You didn’t return it, opting for a grateful grimace instead.

All of a sudden, the smell of Sally’s perfume seemed to melt into your senses, overpowering that of the cigarette, and the liquor, until your head swam with memories linked with its scent. You didn’t remember spraying it this morning, and it confused you. It was so strong, and real. It didn’t seem like your brain was tricking you with its musk, like it so often would with a silhouette against the apartment window.

Suffocated by Sally. You drowned in its poetry.

Searching for its origin, your eyes roamed the bar. It was real, you figured. Turning on the bar stool, your eyes met those that you thought you’d forgotten, and you found they were exactly like you remembered. Sally stood, leant against the wall opposite you, arms folded at her chest yet wearing cheeks stained with tears and widened eyes. You scrambled out of your chair, and the world fell away from you. You didn’t even try and catch it when she was next to you.

You palmed at your eyes, begging yourself to wake up from what must be a dream. Despite knowing she wasn’t real, you ached for your mind to stay in this fantasy so at least you wouldn’t be alone. Removing your hands, you felt yourself lighten. Sally remained still, unmoving yet she was closer that ever. You could reach and brush against her cheek if only your arms would cooperate.

“Y/n?” she breathed, in that choked up voice, and you were falling again.

As if trapped in a dream, you startled awake with the feeling of cool fingers massaging against your scalp. The room was foreign, and it smelled like her. Foreign, yet startingly familiar as if you’d been there before.

Sally was curled into your side, and your breathing laboured again. You didn’t understand how she was here, you- you buried her. Sniffling broke your doubts, and Sally adjusted her head atop your chest. When you wiggled beneath her, her sniffs turned to coos, and her fingers in your hair and clutching your top were soothing at your cheeks.

“I love you, I’m here,” she flustered, worrying her lip between teeth, and you could see the moon in between buildings outside the window. It watched you with bated breath and shone onto her pale skin until her tears seemed to shine. “Say I love you Sally.”

Sitting up against the pillows, you caught her face in your hands, cupping it so she couldn’t move away as you remembered the outlines of her eyes, lips, the curve of her jaw and cheekbones. “I love you,” you found yourself admitting, tears welling in eyes that couldn’t believe what they were witnessing, “are you real?”

“I’m-” Sally started, faltering as if she didn’t quite know the answer either. “I’m here.”

You wanted to apologise anew, whisper the memorised speech that you’d spoken to her that night, but the words seemed to catch in your throat, sharp like the barbs from barbed wire were caught against the delicate skin. Instead, you pulled her in to brush lips against hers, testing slowly if they actually would meet and not melt through what your mind was making up.

They did meet, and you muffled a wail against hers, all the pent-up grief for the woman you were now kissing resurfacing. Fingers clung to her coat, which was still soft beneath your touch, and you pulled her closer to you. She cried, and you cried, and hands met to brush them away.

“I missed you baby.”

You didn’t stop to think about what it meant that she was here. Focusing only on her hands linked firmly in yours, and how she deserved to feel the taut string of a guitar again. You’d bring it to her, and she’d play her song. You’d hear her voice and feel the vibrations of her throat against your lips as she sang.

You’d do it all again.

Time you thought was lost was now frozen, suspended in a single heartbeat. She hadn’t aged a single day, and yet her eyes showed more trouble than you’d ever seen. You couldn’t wait to return and kiss away her worries, reintroduce yourself and love her and be loved like you both deserved. But for now, you were content to simply exist in her presence again.

You wouldn’t take her for granted.

taglist: @pearplate @pluied-ete @billiedeansbottom @okpaulson @mckennamayfairgoode @lilypadscoven @extraordinarilycelestrial @mssallymckenna @magnifique-monstre @magnificent-paulsonn @darling-dontforgetme @commanderspeach @grilledcheeseandguavajelly @shineestark @amethyst-bitch @ninaahs @bluesxrgnt @germansarechill @d14n4ol @sarahp-stan @natasha-danvers @its-soph-xx @imgayandmymomdoesntknow @lovelypeasantjellyfish @rainbow-hedgehog @paulawand @saucy-sapphic @delias-bitch-craft @loverofallthingssarah @music-addict @citizenoftheworld-stuff-blog @in-cordelias-coven @cordeliass @peggycarter-steverogers @stayeviildarling ,, if you want to be added, give me a shout :))

#sarah paulson #sarah paulson x reader #sally mckenna #sally mckenna x reader #american horror story #ahs hotel #spgiftexchange

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hotdemonsummer · 4 years ago

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Obey Me! and Angelology and Demonology

alternatively titled Lets Get Into Lucifer

This is yet another long, long post about the lore of Obey Me! from the perspective of historical and theological angelology, and demonology or the study of angels and demons respectively, because I think it’s neat. I also talk way too much. I’m scared to check the word count on this.

Disclaimer: I am not an expert on anything, and certainly not on religion. I just like comparative theology. Also, spoilers for lesson 43/44.

What is an angel? And what, in turn, is a demon? It depends on who you ask. All religions that have angels have a general consensus that they are spiritual beings, intermediaries of some kind of higher power. Demons, on the other hand, are much more vague beyond general malevolence toward humanity. Any connection between the two is entirely dependent on the culture and religion in question. Some have angels but not demons, and many have vice versa.

There’s generally four kinds of spirits that are considered demons:

Dead people with extremely bad vibes (think mogwai, yuurei, and other revenants)

Neutral-to-malevolent energy, physical form optional (think djinni or yokai)

Cult subjects (including foreign gods and ancestor worship)

Corrupted angels (either fallen or Nephilim)

The word demon comes from the Greek δαίμων, or daimon, but the concept of a demon is much older than the Greeks. The original daimon had none of the malevolent, evil associations that we now think of. Instead, daimon just described a kind of powerful spiritual entity (for example, δαίμων is the term Euripides uses for the new god Dionysus in The Bacchae). What we think of as demons now didn’t exist in Greek culture, and the negative associations came when the Tanakh was translated from Hebrew to Greek, but even then shedim aren’t identical to the contemporary depiction of demons that we see in Obey Me!, which, like everything else in Western society, came about through the domination of Christianity.

Shedim, the precursor to the Christian demon, was more or less a term for false gods, a title for the various Levantine pagan gods (see: origin of Beelzebub, Belphegor, and pretty much every demon that starts with Bel- or Bal-).

Obey Me! pretty much canonizes Type 2 and Type 4 demons, with characters like Diavolo, Barbatos, and Satan as Type 2 and the other brothers as Type 4. Historically, Beelzebub and Belphegor are Type 3 (Beelzebub and Belphegor being Levantine gods), Mammon being Type 2 (a general personification of Wealth, although Milton did write him as a Type 4 in Paradise Lost) and Asmodeus being somewhere in between Type 2 and 3 (being heavily derived from a Zoroastrian daeva of wrath). Lucifer is, historically, the only consistently Type 4 demon.

I don’t think I have to explain what a fallen angel is to any OM! fan. But I will.

Let’s talk about these guys. We’re all familiar with Satan’s weird complex about Lucifer, and I’m sure we’re all equally familiar with how Satan and Lucifer are terms used interchangeably for whatever being is The Big Bad of Hell. However, they’re not synonymous.

Satan derives from the same Proto-Semitic root as shayatan, which... should be pretty obvious, but nonetheless has a pretty analogous role as a tempter of men in the Abrahamic religions. Beyond that “tempter of men” title, though, the actual details of what Satan is is incredibly varied, including whether or not “Satan” is a name or a title. In Christianity, the view of Satan as an extremely powerful and evil corrupter of man, wholly opposed to God, came around the Middle Ages, when witchcraft hysteria spread.

Lucifer, on the other hand, is simultaneously a figure originating in Christianity and much, much older than it. The term of course means “light-bringer”, and is heavily associated with the morning star, aka the planet Venus. To make a very long story short, many Mesopotamian, Levantine, and Mediterranean cultures saw the lowering of Venus toward the horizon at night and thought, “hey, thats a pretty neat image!” and created stories about heavenly beings falling toward the earth. Of course, they didn’t use the ‘term’ Lucifer, that’s Latin, and came from the Vulgate Bible.

The term Lucifer does not exclusively refer to The Evil Fallen Angel™ in Christian texts (some very sacred things like the Exsultet explicitly refer to Jesus as Lucifer), but it sure is the most popular interpretation. In works like Paradise Lost or the Divine Comedy, the general idea is that the angel Lucifer rebelled against God in some way and was cast out of Heaven, then becoming Satan, and thus the two are one and the same.

(inb4 some Quora-type chews me out for accuracy’s sake, the “lucifer” mentioned in Isaiah 14:12 refers not to any angel, but to a Babylonian king. The whole fallen angel thing, much like the beatitudes or Bethlehem or Christmas, is a fusion of pagan influences.)

In other words, Lucifer is always and has always been a fallen angel. Satan, on the other hand, doesn’t have those connections to angelhood, and the two figures have an undeniable connection despite their clear individual differences. Sound familiar?

The next question is then what kind of angel is Lucifer anyway? to which you might be thinking, wait, there are different kinds? Yes, holy shit, there are so many kinds of angels and very little consensus on what they are. In terms of Christian angelology (because again, Lucifer is a uniquely Christian/derivative Christian figure unless you exclude Leland’s Aradia which I don’t because lbr they were Italian anyways), most hierarchies are based on the work of this guy:

This man has the incredibly succinct name of Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite, and sometime in the 5th century he wrote a book called De Coelesti Hierarchia. It orders the *WTNV voice* hierarchy of angels into three levels called spheres, and each sphere has three sub-levels called choirs. Many, but not all, of the choirs are adopted from various Jewish angelic hierarchies. If you thought that it was just angels and then archangels were, like, the middle management version of angels then you are very wrong. I’m sorry that television lied.

You know who also lied? Tumblr dot com and any post that implies that the true form of angels is a big wheel with a bunch of eyes. That is, in fact, a descriptor for only one kind of angel: ophanim, or thrones. The depiction of angels runs the gamut from winged humanoids to multi-winged humanoids with multiple animal heads to burning snakes to vague heavenly mist.

Archangels and angels are the eighth and ninth lowest choirs of angels, respectively. Angels, or malakhim, are the default messengers of God and the choir from which guardian angels come from. Generally, if someone claims to have a message from God delivered to them, it will be an angel doing it. If it’s really important, it’ll be an archangel. Everyone else literally has more important things to do. No one’s getting visions from dominions.

Lucifer’s (the theological one) actual designation is kind of a mystery. Depending on the text, Lucifer has been described as a seraph (the highest), a cherub (the second highest), or an archangel (the eighth). According to Thomas Aquinas:

Lucifer, chief of the sinning angels, was probably the highest of all the angels. But there are some who think that Lucifer was highest only among the rebel angels.

Not very helpful, but hey. The question remains: what kind of angel is Lucifer, and this time I mean our Lucifer.

We know that Michael, just like his namesake, is an archangel. We also know that (SPOILERS) Simeon, unlike his namesake, is an archangel as well (Simeon is a saint, not an angel.) Lucifer likely was at their level, if not higher.

However, Lucifer was also a six-winged angel, a depiction generally reserved for seraphim (and cherubim, but far less frequently).

Moreover, in terms of role, an angellic Lucifer fits well with that of the powers, the sixth choir. Powers are in charge of moving the heavenly bodies, and are depicted as powerful warriors dressed in beautiful armor. It's fitting for a being so closely tied to the morning star to be a power, after all.

So, with all that considered, what is Lucifer?

Well, he’s a seraph (or saraph, technically). Why? Because Simeon is somehow a seraph and an archangel (I have already written too much to unpack that bullshit), and Mammon was a throne (remember those wheels with eyes?) and Beel was a cherub and therefore Lucifer had to be higher than both of them (interestingly big brother Mammon is in a lower choir than little brother Beel). This makes Michael kind of, well... weird, given the archangels’ low rank.

Some like to differentiate between archangel the eighth choir and Archangel, with a capital A, as a term for any high-ranking angel. While this is likely what Solmare is doing, I would be remiss if I didn’t point out that this has zero basis in any religious text whatsoever and is solely done for the convenience of not remembering anything besides angel and archangel. Which is like, fine, but I’m a pedantic jerk who I found claims to the contrary while researching and I felt the need to correct that.

Anyways, the more you know.

#obey me #obey me shall we date #obey me theories #obey me demonology #obey me angelology #obey me lucifer #my theories #YEEHAW that was a lot. my god #anyways besties dont let this flop

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kuroo-shitsurou · 3 years ago

Text

Stay (Tsukishima Kei x Fem!Reader)

note: saw this fic on my old wattpad and decided to post it here. my apologies if any of the details don't match the canonical events that happened in the main story. i think i wrote this a couple of years ago before i read the manga. just wanted to show some love for my favorite salty boi. also, a little ooc because my younger self just wanted a normal high school romance with this mfer okay

word count: 1.2k

Karasuno High.

A well known school located in the Miyagi prefecture. Most famous for the so called little giant, the Karasuno High School's boys' volleyball team has been at it's best ever since a new batch of students joined the team. They were led by Sawamura Daichi, a flexible receiver and a strong captain that everyone could look up to.

Before they went to nationals, one name began to stick out to the public. He started to gain more and more popularity after the shocking events he featured in during the final round of the inter high.

It was none other than Tsukishima Kei.

The tall, blonde, bespectacled boy amazed the Japanese audience with his ability to remain calm even in the dire situations their team has been through during the match against Shiratorizawa Academy. His exceptional reflexes and surprising willpower helped stop the spikes of the top ace of their prefecture, Ushijima Wakatoshi.

Tsukishima paid no mind to the rapidly growing fanbase he had. When people would ask him for autographs or pictures, he'd simply click his tongue and leave them, shoving his headphones over his ears to block out any complaints that came from the fan.

Although they fell a bit short during the nationals, you were still proud of how Tsukishima and the rest of the team worked their asses off to get where they are now. The days of hard, tiring training in the hot and stuffy gym paid off, even if they didn't make their initial goal.

Other than that, many scouts had already offered Tsukishima scholarships to colleges even when he was still a first year. Many people saw his potential, but he turned them down easily. After all, it was still his first year. Why the rush?

You rubbed your eyes and tilted your head to the side. School was still a few hours away, so you had to wake yourself up before you would get reprimanded for sleeping in class.

"Oi, chibi," A lanky blonde approached you and handed you a small can of coffee. "Drink this."

Tsukishima, now well-over 6 feet, towered over you. The third and second years have retired, and surprisingly, Tsukishima was vice captain. He said he didn't care about volleyball, but his actions said otherwise. Now being a third year, he was a lot less sardonic with everyone around him, but he was still incredibly salty (You and Hinata agreed).

"I'm 5'6. I'm not short, Kei, you're just incredibly tall." You took the can of coffee from his hand and nodded towards him as a sign of thanks before taking a big gulp of the beverage.

"Really, really?" He teased, "If you're not short then how come I still need to bend down to be at face level with you?"

"Kei, you're 6'5. That is incredibly tall." You reasoned.

"Aw, _____ is making excuses." He bent down to reach you, "I wonder if-"

To shut him up, you grabbed his collar and smashed your lips against his. His eyes widened, and his face immediately turned red. Once you pulled away, you smirked at his incredibly out of character expression. To add to his embarrassment, you took his black rimmed glasses and put them on. You knew he found you absolutely adorable when you wore glasses, specifically- his glasses.

"How cute." You chuckled gingerly.

"Sh-Shut up." He took a seat beside you, not bothering to take his glasses back, though he couldn't see very clearly.

A comfortable silence wrapped the both of you as a light gush of wind blew past the bench. Your hair was pushed back, and he could smell the faint scent of strawberries coming from you. Ah, he loved your scent. Truth be told, he loved every single part of you, physical and abstract.

"Why are you here so early anyway?" You asked, finishing the coffee.

"I knew you'd be here, obviously." He replied bluntly, scooting closer to you and leaning down to rest his head on your lap. Thankfully, the area was cleared of students other than you two, so this display of affection wouldn't be humiliating for the blonde.

"What about Yamaguchi?" You ran your relatively small fingers through his well-kept hair, feeling the softness of his tresses caress your fingertips.

"He'd come here soon, but I wanted to spend some time with you. Give me my glasses so I can see you better." He grabbed his glasses and put them on his face. He could finally see you properly, though he has memorized every feature there was on your face, so he didn't really need his glasses for that.

Another silent moment passed by. The peacefulness relaxed you, and you felt drowsier.

"About the scholarship," Tsukishima started, and you felt your blood run cold. "I was thinking about accepting it."

"The one to what school? You received so many scholarships I can't remember which one." You giggled, but deep inside, you were crumbling.

"Sendai University, actually. I also want to keep playing professionally even after I graduate."

For a split second, your hand stopped playing with his hair, but you covered it up with a playful laugh.

"Gosh, Kei. You've really gotten far." Your voice cracked, and you could feel your heart breaking in two. You didn't tell him about your plans yet, so it'd be hard to tell him, since graduation was coming soon.

Tsukishima noticed this.

"What's wrong?" He sat up, looking you straight in the eye.

"What? Nothing, Kei."

"_____, we've been together for three years, I can tell that you're hiding something from me."

Tears finally welled up in your eyes, and you didn't bother to wipe them away, since you knew you couldn't get out of this situation that easily. He wouldn't let you.

"Why are you crying?" He wrapped his long arms around you and pulled you on his lap. You could feel his warmth, hear his heartbeat, and smell the vague scent of strawberry shortcake.

"Kei, I'm-," You tried to calm yourself down, "I'm studying college in America."

Tsukishima swore his world collapsed under the despicable wrath of reality. The hammer of truth smashed his dreams of graduating college together with you into millions of tiny splinters. His heart shattered as he stared at your shaking form.

"_____, why didn't you tell me?" Instead of being mad like you expected him to be, he embraced you tighter, and his own salty tears made their way down his cheeks.

"I didn't want you to worry or-" He cut you off with a simple,

"Idiot!"

You piped down.

"Why would you honestly think that I would be worried about you leaving? I'm scared, of course, but I'd never be worried. I know that we can still be together even when we aren't physically near each other. I love you too damn much to let you go. Fuck you, _____ for making me say all this cheesy crappy stuff, okay?" He couldn't believe that he, Tsukishima Kei, was saying all of this.

"Kei," You whispered, hugging him tightly. "I'm sorry! I love you too, stupid megane."

"Who are you calling-?!"

"Shut up." You silenced him with another kiss, and he melted into it easily.

"Y'know, there's a thing called long distance relationship, right?"

"Yeah, but I can't really stand the idea of not seeing your tsundere ass all day."

"Fuck off."

"I love you too, Kei."

#haikyuu!!#haikyuu!! x reader #haikyuu #haikyuu tsukishima #haikyuu x reader #tsukishima kei #tsukishima kei x reader #tsukishima x reader #haikyuu!! fanfiction #kei being sweet #kei is a fucking dumbass i love him

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kikis-writing-world · 4 years ago

Text

Love is Blind

Pairing: Agent Whiskey x F!Reader (her hair is described in that it is long enough to braid, and it is brushed by another character. Sorry if that alienates anyone)

Word Count: 8.4k

Rating/Warnings: Mentions of dead bodies and glossing over of canon-typical violence, injury leading to temporary blindness, talks of medical procedures (vague descriptions cause idk what I’m doing,) mentions of pregnancy (Whiskey talks about his dead wife) If I missed anything please let me know. It’s a long one and I tried to mark down anything that might need warning.

Summary: The mission was going perfectly until you were caught by a stupid trap, spraying some kind of toxin in your face. Now you’re (temporarily?) blinded and have to find out what that means for your future with Statesman.

The dust settled over the room as the chaos gave way to silence. You waited a beat, taking a deep breath before speaking out.

“Clear.” You spoke softly, knowing the message would be transmitted to your partner. Despite your confidence that you’d taken out the men on your side of the room, you kept your pistol firmly in your grasp.

“Clear.” The response came through your ear piece, the voice tinny in your ear. The bass tones were missing, but it was unmistakably Agent Whiskey’s southern drawl. You stood from your cover behind a large, leather sofa and surveyed the mess. Whiskey was standing behind the bar in the corner of the room doing the same.

“Nice work.” You nodded at him, noticing several bodies elegantly cleaved in half from his lasso.

“Same to you, ‘Rhett.” Whiskey returned the compliment, stepping around the bar. You glared at him for shortening your name - he knew you hated that - but you were stopped from responding as a third voice joined the conversation through your earpieces. “Intel puts the plates in a safe behind the painting. The landscape behind the desk” Ginger’s voice instructed from HQ, watching the scene through the micro-cameras you were both wearing: Whiskey’s in his bolo tie and yours on a broach on your vest.

You and Whiskey both turned to look at the large painting on the far side of the room. It, and the desk it sat behind, were riddled with bullet holes and other damage from the fray. It was still hanging askew on the wall. You crossed the room easily, stepping over the various bodies on the way. Whiskey let you take the lead, keeping a watch while you turned your back to the room.

The painting fell with a nudge from the barrel of your gun, revealing the safe tucked into the wall. A 10 digit keypad with a small screen kept it locked. You leaned in, making sure your broach was pointed at it. “Ginger?”

“Got it Amaretto. Analyzing.” You could picture the woman typing away, executing different commands as she analyzed the image you broadcast back to her computer. You knew she was using possible heat signatures, wear on the numbers, oil deposits, not to mention the tech you didn’t understand to crack the code. You could hear Whiskey shifting around the room behind you as you waited.

“7298,” Ginger instructed. You entered the code and the lock clicked, the door swinging ajar.

“Thanks, Ging.” You acknowledged before addressing Whiskey. “We’re in.”

“And?” He asked, looking over his shoulder at you, but keeping himself angled out into the room in case of trouble.

You pushed the safe’s door the rest of the way open seeing a large, black briefcase inside. If the intel was right, inside it would be counterfeiting plates. A small time counterfeiting ring had somehow paired up with a large terrorist ring, laundering the fake money into real profit to fund their plans. Taking down this ring would be a big, although likely temporary, hit to the terrorists.

You pulled the briefcase out of the safe, setting it onto the desk. There were no locks on the briefcase, just the latches keeping it closed. While that should have been suspicious, your excitement of completing the mission had you pushing forward. You unlatched and opened the lid.

Before you could see what was inside, something shot out of the case. You were sprayed in the face and neck with a cool, goopy liquid. You yelped in surprise, wiping frantically at your face to get it off. You stumbled backwards into the wall, falling onto your ass.

You heard Whiskey call for you the same time Ginger did through the earpiece. Whiskey was beside you quickly, pulling your hands away from your face by the wrists. “What happened?”

“I-I don’t know.” You stuttered, feeling him wiping at your face and hands with some fabric. “I opened the case and it shot out at me.”

“Ginger?” Whiskey called out.

“I’m checking the footage now, running it through our databases.” The tech responded, voice level as always. “Keep a sample, but find some water to get it off her. I’m sure it’s some kind of safety measure.”

“Stay here.” Whiskey ordered before he left your side.

You nodded, trying to remain calm as the substance started to sting your eyes. You relayed that information back to Ginger.

“What else can you tell me about it, Amaretto?” She asked.

“It’s viscous. Like syrup.” You told her, feeling the slimy coating it still left on your skin after Whiskey had tried to wipe it away. “Cool to the touch. Smells like… flowers? Definitely floral.”

“Okay. That’s good. That’s helpful. Anything else, let me know. It will help us identify it quicker.”

Whiskey returned as Ginger spoke. You jumped at his sudden presence beside you.

“Sorry.” He mumbled. “Got the water and a cloth.” He narrated as to not spook you when the wet rag touched your skin.

“Flush out her eyes and get out of there.” Ginger instructed as your partner wiped your face clean. The cloth disappeared and Whiskey’s large hand was on the back of your head, leading you to lean over.

“I’ve got you. We just gotta wash out your eyes.” He kept talking, although you couldn’t quite tell if it was to keep you or himself calm. “Open.” He instructed.

You listened, opening your eyes and whimpering at how much it hurt to do so. The room seemed so much brighter than it had been before. You only had a moment to think on this before Whiskey was pouring the water into your eyes. You reached out for him, steadying yourself with your hands against his chest.

When the flow of water stopped, you told Ginger. “Light sensitivity. Add that to the list of symptoms.”

“Got it.” She responded. “Whiskey, grab that case and get to the jet.”

Your partner’s hands were on your arms, helping you to stand. He left you momentarily and you heard the briefcase snap closed. His arm wrapped around your waist as he led you away from the wall. You stumbled a few times over the bodies on the floor, but Whiskey did a good job of leading you. Any misstep you took or slight fumble, he never let you fall. You were lucky the two of you had dispatched everyone in the house before making it to the office. There was no one left alive to stop you as you left.

“It’s really starting to burn.” You told them, feeling tears falling from your eyes. The burning was also translating into a headache as the pain spread. It was getting harder to focus on Whiskey as he navigated the two of you out of the house.

“Stick with me, pick up your feet. I got ya.” Whiskey continued to instruct as you moved.

You knew you’d made it outside the second the sunlight hit your face. Even through closed eyelids, the light was too much to bear. You cried out in pain, shielding your eyes with your hands. You would have fallen to your knees if not for Whiskey’s firm grip on you.

“I can’t.” You cried, holding your head in your hands. “It’s too much.”

Whiskey cursed under his breath before you felt something slip atop your head and you were lifted off the ground. “Keep your head down,” Whiskey ordered, the vibrations of his voice moving through his chest against you. You could feel the bouncing of his footsteps as he ran. You removed your hands from your eyes to hold onto him, and you assumed you were wearing his hat by the way it kept the sun off your face. You buried your head into his neck to shield your eyes even more from the light.

“We’re almost there.” He promised as you trembled in his arms.

When Whiskey had landed the jet earlier, it hadn’t seemed too far from the cabin - far enough to not alert them to your presence of course, but the trek there hadn’t seemed far. Now, it felt like he might as well be carrying you to Canada as the pain grew worse. You could hear Whiskey and Ginger talk, but it grew harder to hear them over your own groans of pain and the blood rushing through your ears. You were crying in earnest into Whiskey’s shoulder, fighting the urge to claw at your eyes.

You felt his gait change as he ascended the stairs into the jet. You could hear his voice but the words were lost on you as he set you down into a sitting position. Without him to grip onto, your hands flew to your eyes. Your arms were quickly restrained, making you yell and thrash. It was too bright. It hurt too much. The stinging was unbearable now.

You felt a single hand wrap around both wrists as you pleaded for him to let you go. You needed to do something to stop the pain.

You barely felt the pinprick to your neck. As it got harder to fight him, you realized he must have given you a sedative. He dropped your arms as your muscles grew sluggish and you felt him buckling you safely into the seat. You tried to mumble a thank you to him, but you couldn’t be sure if the words made it out of your brain as you lost consciousness.

•• ━━━━━ ••●•• ━━━━━ ••

Your surroundings came to you slowly. The feel of the stiff cot under you, covered with scratchy linens. A few quiet beeps from different machines. The sensors attached to your chest and your arms - you must be in the medical wing back at Statesman HQ. It took you a moment to remember what had landed you in medical but once you did you were pleasantly surprised to not feel any pain.

You couldn’t remember anything after stepping outside the cabin. The last vivid memory you had was the sun hitting your face and excruciating pain shooting through your head. Whiskey must have gotten the two of you back safely.

Your eyes fluttered open meeting a dark room. You were thankful for that, remembering how severe the light sensitivity had gotten. Introducing you to light slowly was a good idea.

“You’re awake.” The voice made you jump, even though you quickly recognized it to be Ginger. You didn’t expect her to be waiting in the dark for you. “How do you feel?”

You heard the heart rate sensor beep a little quicker as you clutched your chest from the scare, laughing softly. “You scared me. I feel okay, actually. No pain.”

“That’s great.” You could hear the relief in her voice. “And your vision?”

The question gave you pause, wondering how you were supposed to test your vision in the dark. “Turn the light on and I’ll tell you.”

“What?” Ginger’s voice was clipped, fallen from the relief it held moments ago. You weren’t sure exactly what the tone was but you knew you didn’t like it.

“Turn the lights on, Ging.”

“The lights are on.” She explained. You could hear the clicking of her footsteps and the rustling of her clothes as she moved closer. A hand on your right arm made you flinch.

“That’s not funny.” You scoffed.

“I’m not joking.” She replied seriously. She was silent for a moment, the faint rustling of fabric moving again before she asked “you don’t see that at all?”

“See what?”

“I’m shining a flashlight into your eyes.”

“No you’re not.”

“Ginger!” You heard Whiskey’s drawl, echoing like it was in a different room. Footsteps, heavier than the ones you had just heard, accompanied his voice as you figured he must be entering approaching your room. “She awake yet?”

“Whiskey, tell Ginger to stop joking around.” You begged, starting to freak out. The increased beeping beside you accompanied the anxiety you were feeling spread through your body.

“What’s going on?” The cowboy asked, worry coating his voice as it moved closer.

“She can’t see anything.” Ginger admitted, her hand leaving your arm. You heard Whiskey exhale to your left, a loud breath that sounded like he’d been punched in the solar plexus.

“Why not?” He demanded.

“I don’t know.” Ginger admitted. “We’re still analyzing the substance. So far all we know is it seems to be made from orange blossoms and some kind of berry-”

“It won’t be permanent, right?” You asked, cutting Ginger off. Your voice sounded so small compared to the other two in the room. There wasn’t an answer right away, footsteps approaching from the left before a large, warm hand covered yours.

“We’ll figure this out, sugar.” Whiskey told you as he laced his fingers with yours.

“We will.” Ginger confirmed. She sounded confident, and you knew she was nothing if not capable, but you still felt tears roll down your cheeks as the fear crashed over you.

You heard Whiskey tut beside you before he was brushing your tears away, his large palms cupping your cheeks as his thumbs brushed your skin.

“I’ll get to the lab. See if we’ve got anything new.” Ginger excused herself and you could hear her footsteps fade as she left the room.

As the two of you were left alone, you felt the cot shift underneath you as Whiskey sat down. He pulled you into a hug, letting you cry into his shoulder. She rocked you gently back and forth, telling you it was going to be okay. He let you cry until you felt numb, like there were no tears left. He didn’t move away until you lifted your head.

“I’d offer you my handkerchief, but it’s in the lab too.” Whiskey told you, voice light like he was trying to make you smile. He shifted away for a brief second, leaning back as you felt him press a scratchy fabric into your hand, which you quickly identified as a tissue. You used it to blot at your cheeks and nose.

You thanked him, your voice hoarse from crying. “Not just for this,” you waved the tissue in the air. “For getting us out of there.”

“It’s part of the gig, sugar.” It sounded like he was grinning when he spoke. You hoped he was. Even more, you hoped you’d see the grin for yourself again soon.

The next several days revolved around tests. Scans of your head and eyes, tests being done on the limited amount of the substance the lab had collected from Whiskey’s handkerchief and the briefcase. You didn’t even realize there were that many different tests they could perform, but everyday they brought you new results. Unfortunately, none of the results so far had led to any answers about why you’d lost your sight. As the lab identified more ingredients of the goo that had sprayed you, they tried different medicines and remedies but nothing had changed. They also told you how the substance had left you with a light rash on the skin of your face and hands where you’d been exposed. You were hardly worried about the rash. They said it was fading naturally. You wished your sight would return naturally too.

Between tests, you were hardly ever along. Whiskey visited you more often than not. Ginger spent a lot of time with you during tests as well as socially for meals. The team of doctors and junior agents working with her to help heal you all came and went. Tequila, Champ and other Statesman agents came by to check in on you when they could.

It was getting easier to identify who was coming as you started to hear differences in their footsteps. Whiskey had a long, slow gait, his boots slapping the floor with a dull thud. Tequila’s steps were quicker, and his boots snapped a little lighter against the floor. Champ’s steps were slower, like Whiskey’s, but there was an irregularity to the pattern. His left hip making him have the slightest limp that you had never noticed by sight alone. Ginger was easiest, being one of the few women who came to see you. Her steps clacked as her heels hit the floor.

You were also surprised to start noticing the different scents everyone held. Tequila, bless that boy, smelt obnoxiously like axe spray deodorant, reminding you of a high school boy’s gym class. Champ smelt of vanilla, cloves and the cigar smoke that clung to his clothes. Ginger smelt like clean linens, a hint of tropics in her detergent but seemed to be content staying largely scent-free, no perfumes that you could pick up on.

Whiskey’s smell was more complex, but maybe that was because he was the one who would sit next to you on the bed, giving you a chance to really breathe it in. Hints of spiced citrus hung to his clothes, along with the smell of leather and smoke - not smoke like Champ, but the kind from a freshly fired gun. When he got close enough, his musk had you remembering being cradled in his arms as he carried you away from the cabin, his hat atop your head.

You were thankful for the ways you were picking up to identify people. Your years as an agent had you trained to survey your surroundings, to avoid being caught off guard. It was unsettling to have your primary sense for that taken away from you. Most people were learning to announce themselves as they approached your room, giving you a heads up someone was nearing. Not everyone did. Tequila was particularly bad at it, and you suspected he enjoyed watching you jump.

You expressed your worries to Champ when he came to visit, on the fourth day of no progress. He chuckled and patted your back in a fatherly way.

“Let’s give them some time to figure this out, Amaretto. We don’t need to start plannin’ a retirement party just yet.”

You supposed he was trying to help you worry less, but it didn’t help. Would you have to retire if your vision wasn’t restored? You could hardly imagine a position at Statesman that you could easily navigate without sight. If you ever learned braille, and how to type, maybe some kind of administration or archival job, but who knew how long it would take you to master those skills. It was hard enough to accept what this meant for your career, let alone the rest of your life.

The agents that came to visit tried to help take your mind off of it, but it was hard when there was no true reprieve.

“Tom appeared on the sidewalk with a bucket of whitewash and a long-handled brush. He surveyed the fence, and all gladness left him and a deep melancholy settled down upon his spirit. Thirty yards of board fence nine feet high. Life to him seemed hollow, and existence but a burden. Sighing, he dipped his brush and passed it along the topmost plank; repeated the operation; did it again; compared the insignificant whitewashed streak with the far-reaching continent of unwhitewashed fence, and sat down on a tree-box discouraged.

“You know, I’m startin’ to remember why I wasn’t so fond of this book in school.” Whiskey interrupted his recitation. “How Mr. Twain managed to turn the absolute boredom of paintin’ a fence into the written word with such lucidity is an artform in itself.”

“Oh stop,” you laughed, reaching beside you to swat at him. It was an easy thing to aim for, feeling the warmth of him on the bed next to you, his arm pressed to yours.

“I’m just sayin’ that I’ve had better adventures before breakfast than these so called adventures of Tom Sawyer.” He complained.

“Tom Sawyer wasn’t a senior agent of a secret spy organization.”

“And good thing too. He’d have burnt this place to the ground by now with his behaviour.” He harrumphed, making you laugh.

“Just keep reading.”

He sighed, a long, annoyed sigh.

“Please.” You sang, smiling up at him as you leaned into his arm. These were the moments you could really smell the spice and leather on him.

He was silent for a beat. Although the two of you were joking, you almost worried he wouldn’t keep reading. It was much harder to read people’s moods without seeing their facial expressions. No smile or eye roll to go by had you guessing by voice tone alone. Silences had you absolutely puzzled.

“Can’t, Mars Tom. Ole missis, she tole me I got to go an’ git dis water an’ not stop foolin’ roun’ wid anybody. She say she spec’ Mars Tom gwine to ax me to whitewash, an’ so she tole me go ’long an’ ’tend to my own business—she ’lowed she’d ’tend to de whitewashin’.”

“Oh, never you mind what she said, Jim. That’s the way she always talks. Gimme the bucket—I won’t be gone only a a minute. She won’t ever know.”

“Oh, I dasn’t, Mars Tom. Ole missis she’d take an’ tar de head-

“I’d be able to follow a lot easier if you did different voices for the different characters.” You interrupted.

“Don’t push your luck.” He grumbled, but you were pretty sure you could hear that grin in his voice again as he kept reading.

•• ━━━━━ ••●•• ━━━━━ ••

“Keep your eyes closed.” You were instructed by Tonic, a junior agent who worked under Ginger. You felt the dampened towel being lifted from your eyes. You’d just spent 40 minutes laying back, letting the medicinal solution on the towel soak in. You had done the same thing the day before, and would likely be doing it again tomorrow.

“Just dimming the lights. Hold on.” Tonic explained as you heard his shuffling footsteps through the room. It was a good thing he had a knack for medicine because he’d be an awful field agent with the way he never picked up his feet.

“Okay, open.”

You did as instructed, blinking as your eyes adjusted to being open again. Just like the day before, you only saw the familiar inky blackness.

“Nothing.” You shook your head.

“That’s okay.” You could hear the forced optimism in his voice. “Ginger said it could take up to five treatments for this to work. We’ll do it again tomorrow.”

“Sounds good.” You gave the poor kid the best smile you could muster, but you were definitely losing hope. It had been nearly a week now with no progress. It was getting time to face facts.

“Don’t worry, Agent Amaretto. We’ll figure it out.” The boy told you, a soft pat on your shoulder accompanying his attempt at comfort.

You weren’t sure if you’d ever seen Tonic around Statesman. You might have walked by in passing, but you were never introduced. It was weird to be spending this much time with someone and having no idea what they looked like. You were almost tempted to ask, but kept it to yourself. You'd have to get used to not knowing what new people looked like.

•• ━━━━━ ••●•• ━━━━━ ••

You shuffled out of the bathroom with your hand on the doorframe to help guide you. You had showered - your first true shower on your own, not just a quick wash-up in the sink or a sponge bath - and it made you feel slightly more human again. The robe was soft and plush against your skin, wearing only a tank top and underwear under it. The towel you had half-heartedly wrapped your hair in was falling out of the twist - you hadn’t quite mastered that skill without seeing yet.

You opened your mouth to dismiss the junior agent who had been tasked with waiting for you - sitting outside the washroom in case you needed to call for help - but you were interrupted.

“I sent her on her way, sugar.” You immediately recognized Whiskey’s twang. He was the best so far at announcing his presence, and you truly appreciated it. You still jumped slightly, not expecting him to be here. “Sorry.” He chuckled.

“I’ll get used to it eventually.” You waved off his apology, not actually knowing if you would ever get used to it.

“C’mon, none of that.” Whiskey tutted. Your uncertainty must have shown on your face. “Want a hand?”

“Yes, please.’ You confirmed, holding your arm out towards his voice. You heard him approach, footsteps and fabric, before he looped his arm around yours.

“Where to?” They had set up a table and chairs for you in the room, trying to make you feel more at home than in a hospital room. All it did was reaffirm that you weren’t any closer to finding a solution and that your stay was going to last even longer.

“The bed, please.”

He led you to the bed easily, not taking his arm away until you were sitting comfortably. You felt the towel fall even further off your head as you sat.

“Can you pass me the brush?” You asked him, holding your hand out.

You waited, hearing Whiskey move around, but instead you felt him pull your hair free from the towel. With your wet hair falling down your back, you felt him run the brush through it.

“What are you doing?” You chuckled.

“You just relax, sugar.” He ordered. He started at the ends of your hair, brushing the tangles out before moving closer to your scalp.

“I can brush my own hair.” You argued even though you were grinning.

“Just let me take care of you, Rhett.” He huffed, smacking you on the shoulder with the flat side of the brush.

“Fine, Whisk.” You huffed playfully in response, leaving him to brush your hair.

He was surprisingly gentle, only once did your hair pull painfully at your scalp to which he mumbled a quick apology. You hadn’t had someone brush your hair for you in a long time. Outside of a hairdresser, it probably hadn’t happened since you were a child. As much as you were trying to maintain your independence with your new loss of sight, it was very relaxing.

You hadn’t expected it when you felt him part your hair into sections and start weaving them together.

“Are you… braiding my hair?” You asked curiously.

“Yes, ma’am.” He hummed, clearly concentrated on his task.

“Okay, the brushing I could let go, but are you going to tell me how you know how to braid?” You laughed.

“I’ve made my own whips before, sugar.” He explained, his drawl even more pronounced as he spoke slowly, keeping his focus on the hair. “Part of that is just fancy bradin’.”

“You make your own whips?” That surprised you.

Whiskey chuckled, his fingers brushing lower and lower on your back as the braid progressed. “Not the ones I use on missions, but I have some at home I made. I’m not too up on the electricity part, but a good ol’ fashioned bullwhip? I can throw one of those together in a few days if I have the time.”

“So which came first? Using the whip or making them?”

“Been usin’ them since I was a boy, on the family farm. Started makin’ em ‘round the same time, maybe a few years between. Although those first ones were nothin’ to celebrate. I got better at it. Decent hobby to have, if you’ve got scraps of leather hanging around.”

You felt him end the braid as he spoke, tying an elastic around the end. You lifted your hand to your hair so you could feel the braid. It was surprisingly sturdy and didn’t feel like there were any messes of bumps.

“Thank you.” You turned, smiling in his direction.

He was silent as he pushed the braid over one shoulder, his fingertips grazing your neck as he did. The sensation left goosebumps on your still-damp skin.

“I also used to braid my wife’s hair.” He admitted quietly. “Especially when she wasn’t feelin’ well. Braided it up to keep it out of her face.”

You weren’t sure how to respond to that. You knew a bit about Whiskey’s past, about his high school sweetheart and that she’d died, but it was hardly ever discussed between the two of you. Before you came up with something to say, he continued.

“When we found out she was expectin’,” he grunted as you felt the mattress dip. You scooted over to make room for him to sit. “I was braidin’ her hair all the time. For one, the mornin’ sickness that first trimester, hoo-” he chuckled softly, lost in the memory. “It really kicked her ass. Spent most her time huggin’ a bucket or praying to the porcelain gods. But before we found out she was carryin’ a boy, she wanted me to practice. ‘Case we had a little girl.”

You bit your lip, reaching in Whiskey’s direction. You wanted nothing more than to take his hand in yours, but you fumbled in the air clumsily. He brought his hand up to yours, letting you grip it tightly.

“I’m sorry.” You whispered.

“Thank you, sugar.” He answered back. “Was another life. Wasn’t meant for me, I guess.”

You gave his hand another squeeze, really wishing you knew what to say. Something to make the pains of his past a little… less. His hand stayed in yours, but you heard something rustling off to the side.

“What are we readin’ tonight? We’ve still got some of Tom Sawyer’s adventures to go through, or we can start Pride and Prejudice.”

You leaned back, getting comfortable in the bed. “Tom Sawyer. Besides, you can’t tell me you actually want to read Pride and Prejudice.” You grinned, letting him change the subject.

“I could be persuaded, but if the lady requests Tom Sawyer…” He trailed off, likely picking up the book based on what you heard. He got settled in beside you and you heard the pages turning as he found where the two of you had left off. As he read, his hand stayed firmly in yours.

•• ━━━━━ ••●•• ━━━━━ ••

“Lean back.” Ginger instructed. You did so, keeping a firm grip on the arms of the chair to keep your equilibrium. They had uncovered a new piece of whatever had attacked you, leading them to coming up with another possible cure. Ginger had explained this to you as she prepared you for the eyedrops. You were glad they were eyedrops this time because last time it had been a gel. Even without your sight, the feeling of gel in your eyes was incredibly unpleasant. That being said, you’d do it everyday for the rest of your life if it meant you could see again.

“Ready?” She asked, placing her hand on your shoulder.

“Mhmm.” You held your eyes open as much as you could, waiting for the liquid to hit them. If you thought eyedrops were bad before, they were worse now that you couldn’t see them coming.

The first drop hit your eye, making you jump despite being ready for it. You felt one more drop in the left eye before she moved to your right.

The cooling effect was almost immediate, the strange tingling making your eyes water. You fought against blinking until Ginger gave you the go ahead. You kept your head tilted until a tissue was pressed into your hand.

You leaned back upwards, wiping the residual drops from your cheeks. There were tears too, your eyes watering from the sensation.

“How does it feel?” Ginger asked as you heard her click a pen.

“Tingly.” You told her. “It feels like minty, maybe? Like chewing mint gum with my eyes. Or menthol.” You tried to explain. You heard her scribble something down as she hummed in response.

“Let me know if anything changes. It could take up to an hour to work.” She explained.

You blinked continuously, having no choice as the reflex tried to deal with the feeling in your eyes. It wasn’t unpleasant or painful, just very foreign.

Ginger ate lunch with you while you waited for something to happen, but nothing did. You swallowed down your thoughts of ‘I told you so,’ instead agreeing with her that maybe the next thing would work.

•• ━━━━━ ••●•• ━━━━━ ••

“We gotta start making plans, Champ.” You told him plainly, hands clasped in your lap. “I can’t stay here forever.”

“‘Course not!” The man agreed with gusto. “Forever is out of the question.”

You sighed, knowing he was deflecting. “Nothing is working yet.”

“Somethin’ will.”

“What if it doesn’t?”

“What if it does?”

“Agent Champagne-”

“You sound like my wife.” He snarked.

“Your wife calls you Agent Champagne?” You asked with a smirk. You couldn’t resist taking that bait.

“A gentleman wouldn’t kiss and tell.” He joked, but it did little to lighten your mood. “But what I mean is the tone of voice. That’s the voice she uses when she thinks I’m being as dumb as a bag o’ hammers.”

You wouldn’t have quite put it that way, but you did think Champ was avoiding dealing with the situation at hand.

“So I’m gonna tell you what I tell her when she starts usin’ that particular tone of voice.” He took a pause and you waited for him to continue. “Trust me.”

You sighed, dropping your head. “I trust you, Champ.”

“Then why are we havin’ this conversation? Is it Ginger and her team? Do you not trust Ginger?”

“Of course I do-”

“You don’t trust Statesman or Statesman technology or medicine?”

“That’s not what I’m saying-”

“Then you stop worrying ‘bout what we’re gonna do with you, and focus on gettin’ better.” He instructed, his tone firm. His accent grew thicker as he went on. “I won’t hear anymore about plannin’ nothin’ ‘cause you’re going to get back out there, Agent Amaretto. This piss poor attitude ain’t helpin’ nothin’! If we thought this was a lost cause, we’d tell you. You’d get a gold watch and we’d set you up with a good pension and probably a little desk job at some library somewhere to keep you busy, but that’s not in the cards for you.”

You couldn’t help but tear up as Champ went on. You weren’t even totally sure why. You felt so alone, like no one was hearing your concerns - but at the same time, it sounded like Champ had been thinking about possibilities. A librarian? You didn’t want to end up a librarian. You almost wanted to go back to not talking about the future.

“You, missy, are a Statesman Senior Agent. Now, I’ve already got Tequila climbing up the walls and causin’ trouble, I can’t be worryin’ about herding two cats. Suck up that booboo lip and act like the Agent you are. Understood?”

“Yessir.” You mumbled.

“I didn’t hear you, Agent Amaretto.”

“Yessir.” You repeated, louder this time.

“Good.” You could hear the finality in his voice before the ice in his drink clinked together as he took a sip. “‘Cause if that didn’t work… well, the next tactic I use on the Missus is a little inappropriate to try with you, Agent. No offense.”

Now that did get a laugh out of you.

•• ━━━━━ ••●•• ━━━━━ ••

The podcast played from the speaker beside you, but you were only half listening to it. You were thinking of taking a nap, more out of boredom and lack of anything better to do than tiredness, when you heard familiar heavy footsteps approaching your room. You couldn’t help that it lifted your spirits to know Whiskey was on his way.

“‘Rhett.” He greeted, that signature tone in his voice letting you know he was grinning.

“Whisk.” You responded with a sigh. “You know, if anyone else called me that, I might have to kill them.”

“Not interrupting, am I?” He ignored your warning, stepping into your room.

“No. Wasn’t really listening to this anyway.” You told him. You turned your head in the direction of the speaker and asked it to stop. The room fell into silence as you sat up on the cot.

“That better not have been a book on tape.” He warned.

“Now why would I listen to one of those when I have a real life book on tape at my beck and call.” You smirked.

“Walkin’ talkin’ book on tape, huh? If that’s all I am to you, I think I might just take this present back home with me then.”

“Wait!” You stopped him, hearing his feet retreating back towards the door. “You didn’t say you had a present.”

“Thought that might change your tune.” He chuckled.

You scooted to the side of the cot, patting the mattress beside you. It only took him a second to sit next to you, that familiar spiced citrus and leather scent taking over your senses.

“Hands out.” He instructed. You held your hands in front of you, waiting impatiently for them to be filled. He placed the gift in your hands, but you had no idea what it was yet.

It was circular, but it seemed to vary in width - no, it wasn’t circular, it was just looped. You ran your hand over it, feeling the smooth pattern adorning it.

“What is it?” You asked, finding the end of it - a strong, heavy piece, the texture similar to the rest of it, although the pattern was different. The very end came to a bulbous tip.

“That’s a bonafide, one of a kind, handmade by yours truly, bullwhip.” He explained, taking your hand in his and wrapping it around the handle to hold it properly.

“For real?” You smiled, feeling what you now knew to be leather under your fingers.

“For real.” He chuckled.

You tested the weight of the handle, feeling the drag as the rest of the whip pulled against the sheets. Your fingers ran over the design, following the lines of the handle carefully woven and etched throughout. You regripped the handle and ran your other hand over the tail of the whip, pulling your hands apart to get a feel for how long it was.

“What does it look like?” You asked, leaning into him.

“It’s brown. Medium brown, the colour of gingerbread, maybe. Right along here,” he took your hand holding the handle and guided you in tracing the designs. “It’s stained red, just to make it pop. Not blood red, just tinged red with the stain. Gives it some detail, you know?”

“What else?” You asked, feeling breathless as he helped you to see the details with your hands.

“Well you can probably guess it’s made of leather.” You nodded. “But it’s actually made of kangaroo leather.

“Kangaroo?” You asked in shock. “Where’d a farm boy get kangaroo leather?”

You felt Whiskey’s laugh against your side. “I made this one a year or so ago. Just so turns out that kangaroo hide is one of the strongest in the world and well, when you have a hobby that requires leather, you start gettin’ creative with what kind of leather you’re usin’. Gotta keep it excitin’.”

“You don’t get enough excitement at your day job?” You teased.

“Nah, I’ve got this great partner who always has my back.” His voice made you shiver, despite the fact that his comment had your face heating up. He was leaning heavily against you now, his breath fanning over your cheek.

You swallowed the lump that had appeared in your throat, finding your voice to ask him to tell you more.

“About my partner? She’s a great gal. I’m sure I’d be dead twice over if she wasn’t there to pull my ass outta trouble. She’s a great shot, and there ain’t nothin’ sexier than a woman who can handle a pistol.”

His hand was on your opposite cheek, turning you to face him. The gentle touch made your breath stutter in your throat.

“She’s got this amazing smile that can make a mark fall in love from 40 paces, and it can light up a room from even farther.” He continued, the breath from his voice dancing across your face. His breath smelt like the spiced Whiskey he was named for, and a slight hint of cherries.

“She deserves better than me for her partner, that’s for damn sure. A broken man with a messy past who’s been too scared to tell her how special she is. I thought it was best to keep it professional, but I don’t know if I can anymore.” His nose brushed against yours. You gasped softly at how close he was.

“She’s always in danger, we both are, but once she was in danger I couldn’t help her out of… that made me realize how important she is. If she’ll let me though,” he whispered. You could feel his lips brush against yours as he spoke, his mustache tickling your upper lip.. “I’d like to spend all my time makin’ that up to her.”

“Jack-” Your whisper was cut off as he pressed his lips to yours gently. It was so gentle, almost hesitant. The man was such a loud, boisterous personality and this kiss was so contrary to that.

You dropped the whip, bringing your hand up to rest on his hand on your cheek. You followed his arm past his shoulder and up his neck to tangle in his hair. You felt his breath hitch from the light tug on the strands.

“I’m gonna stick by her side,” he muttered, his lips brushing against yours as he spoke. “No matter what happens. I’m gonna do everything I can to help you.”

You pulled him into another kiss, tilting your head to slot your lips together. He hummed softly into the kiss, brushing your cheek lightly with his thumb. His other arm wrapped tightly around your waist, like he was scared you would disappear. You nipped his bottom lip, trying to reassure him you weren’t going anywhere.

He hissed softly at the sensation and your tongue darted out to soothe the skin. His own tongue met yours, his moan at the contact matching your sigh.

He pulled back and you chased his lips. You were stopped as his nose brushed against yours, his shaky breath flitting across your face.

“Say it again.” He requested, so quietly you almost didn’t even hear.

“Say what?” You hummed, distracted by his nuzzling and the strong urge to have his lips against yours again.

“My name, sugar.” He was close enough that you could feel his cheek flex with a lopsided grin. “I ain’t ever heard you call me by name before now.”

You smiled in return, biting your lip. It was true. You’d called him Whiskey most of the time. Agent Whiksey when you were being formal. Whisk when he annoyed you. Numerous different names while undercover…

“Kiss me, Jack.”

He growled, low and deep in his chest, before he obliged. Now this was the kiss you expected from Whi- from Jack Daniels. His tongue, pressing past the seam of your lips. It felt like he was marking his territory, all you could do was let him. He swallowed your moans as you matched his hunger. He kissed you with passion, both experienced and unrefined. Unbridled. He kissed you breathless, until you had no choice but to part.

You pulled back, panting softly as you leaned your forehead against his. You wished you could see him. See if he was just as affected by the kiss as you were.

You slid your hand from his hair to his cheek. His skin was warm, you could almost imagine it tinged pink, flushed from being so breathless. You continued exploring, finding his mustache next. The coarse hair felt askew, likely mussed from kissing and not the neat, groomed thing you were used to. You felt the uptick of his lips in that signature grin, and you couldn’t help but feel those too. They were warm and moist. You wondered if they were swollen, like yours felt.

Jack held your hand still, kissing each finger tip one at a time. The tickle of his mustache made you giggle.

“I mean it, sugar.” You could feel his lips move against your fingertips, his voice vibrating through your hand. “I’m here with you. Whether they figure this out or not. We’ll get through it.”

It was the first time someone other than yourself acknowledged that your sight may never return. It didn’t bring about the hollow defeat you’d been feeling anytime you thought of being blind the rest of your life. It finally felt like you had someone in your corner. Of course it would be Jack. He’d had your back for years, working together in the field. You should have known it would be him, in the end.

“Thank you.” You dropped your hand from his face to wrap both arms around him, hugging him as you rested your head against his chest.

You felt him press a kiss against your forehead before he pulled you to lay down. He held you, cradled into his side as you burrowed your face into his neck. You heard something fall, probably the whip that had been forgotten on the sheets.

“Oops.” You winced, not having meant to be so careless with his gift. You moved to sit up, wanting to pick it up, but he held you firm.

“Leave it there,” he instructed. You relished the way his deep voice vibrated against you. “It ain’t gonna fall any further.”

“I don’t want something to happen to it.”

“If it does, I'll make you a hundred more.” He promised.

“Fine.” You ceded, snuggling back into him with a deep inhale. Leather and spice.

The arm that was draped over your waist left your side. You felt his muscles move under his shirt as he stretched out. It only took a minute before the released, relaxing again. You heard the fluttering of paper before he started to read.

“It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife.

However little known the feelings or views of such a man may be on his first entering a neighbourhood, this truth is so well fixed in the minds of the surrounding families, that he is considered the rightful property of some one or other of their daughters.

•• ━━━━━ ••●•• ━━━━━ ••

The pressure from the device around your head was unpleasant, but not unbearable. The way it pressed down on your eyes made you want to squirm. Instead, you squeezed frantically at the stress ball Ginger had offered you before you’d been strapped in. You knew Whiskey was standing with her as she ran the test, but you wished he could be here. You’d take his hand in yours over the foam smiley face any day.

“Almost done, Amaretto.” Ginger’s voice echoed through the speaker, barely audible over the hum of the awful machine.

“You’ve got this, sugar.”

“Whiskey, don’t tou-”

“-tell me not to-”

“-my lab, my buttons-”

“-OW!”

The bickering coming through the speakers was almost enough to make you laugh. The clicking of the microphone engaging and disengaging had you picturing the two fighting over whatever button turned the feed on. The two had spent hours bickering the past two weeks, Jack becoming increasingly more involved in your treatment as the two of you shifted from partners to... well, there was no set term put on it yet, but you were very fond of kissing him. You couldn’t quite imagine the cowboy in the other room being called a boyfriend. It felt very middle school.

It was another few minutes of the machine humming, pressing awkwardly against you, until Ginger finally announced you were done. You heard the door between you and them open, two sets of footsteps approaching. One set of hands started to release the device from your head, while the other took the stress ball away. It was replaced with a large, warm hand that lifted yours until a kiss was pressed to your knuckles. The mustache prickled against your skin.

“Okay, you can sit up. Go slow, though.” Ginger instructed once you were free. You did, feeling your head swim.

“How’re you feeling?” Jack asked.

“Light headed.” You answered honestly, waiting for the feeling to pass. You leaned into Jack, letting him support you through the dizziness.

“Almost done.” He cooed, petting your braided hair. “We’ll get you back to your room soon.”

You heard Ginger moving around the room before she came to a stop in front of you. There was silence for a beat.

“Any change?” She asked.

You blinked a few times, but there was nothing. “No.”

You sighed, letting your shoulders slump with defeat, but Jack stayed strong next to you.

“That’s okay.” He hummed, not letting on any disappointment he might be feeling. He never tried to dictate how you should feel about your condition, but he stayed strong for you throughout. It was still so hard to deal with that you may never see again, but he made it a little easier. “Let’s get you back to your room. I for one am dyin’ to know what happens to Elizabeth next.”

You scoffed as he helped you to stand. “Sure you are.” His hands held you steady until you found your footing, his arm wrapping around you to guide you out of the lab.

“I am.” He argued. “I’m invested in it now.”

“Oh, well I guess I didn’t need to ask Champ to track down some Louis L’Amour books.”

“To hell with Elizabeth.” Jack declared, making you laugh.

You roused slowly. It took you a moment to realize you had fallen asleep while Jack read. The last thing you remember in the story was the caravan was going to be attacked. You wondered how long Jack had read for before realizing you’d fallen asleep. You were pressed tightly to his side, you could feel his warm body next to you. His head was leaning against yours, his deep breaths tickling your ear. He let out the tiniest snores anytime he exhaled. It made you smile.

“Jack, wake up.” You hummed, pressing a kiss to his neck. He hummed in response but didn’t fully wake. You called his name again, nuzzling into him.

Your name left his lips in a soft moan as he told you to go back to sleep.

“You’re going to have an awful kink in your neck if you keep sleeping like that. Come on.” You argued quietly, poking him lightly in his side as you sat up.

“Alright,” he groaned. You felt his body stretch out beside yours before he too sat up. You felt something hit your leg and you instinctively opened your eyes to see what it was.

You saw the book had fallen off Jack’s lap-

You saw.

•• ━━━━━ ••●•• ━━━━━ ••

tagging: @wickedfrsgrl @driedgreentomatoes

A/N: The books that are mentioned being read by Whiksey are The Adventures of Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain, Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen, and The Walking Drum by Louis L’Amour

#Agent Whiskey #Agent Whiskey x Reader #Agent Whiskey x f!Reader #Agent Whiskey fanfic #Agent Whiskey imagine #Kingsman The Golden Circle fic #Agent Whiskey fic #agent whiskey reader insert #Pedro Pascal Character fanfiction #WookieTales

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writefightandflightclub · 4 years ago

Text

Clean-up in Aisle 4 (Will Miller x GN reader blurb)

Summary: a grocery store meet-cute with Will. Little bit of fluff, mainly angsty.

Author’s note: First time writing Will. Super quick one but hope you like it. Helps a lot if you know Will’s canon from the movie. You can read-up here if you wanna. Told you I was in Triple Frontier feels tonight!

Warnings: vague but thematic mentions of prior trauma related to military service and PTSD / anxiety themes, though nothing in-depth / graphic. Swearing.

GIF: @will-grammer

The first thing you noticed about the man was the broadness of him. Wide shoulders, leading down to a nipped-in waist. You weren’t ogling. Really. It was simply hard to miss, since you nearly drove your cart into his back, the brick wall of a man coming to a sudden, dead halt in front of you as you each approached the grocery store.

The second thing you noticed, as you huffed out air and scooted your cart around him, was the way his hands white-knuckled as they wrapped -achingly tight- around the handle of his own cart, the tension extending into his forearms and along the veins of his straining biceps.

The third thing, causing you to fully abandon your intended pursuit of a passive aggressive side-eyeing, was his ashen expression; the way his gaze fixed unerringly on the sliding, automatic doors as though they were the gates to hell and he was deathly afraid to enter. You saw then that the tension extended all then way through the chords of his neck, into his chiselled jaw, which was covered in a scruff of blond beard.

You’d seen that look before. Seen it on others in the field; and out of it. Had seen it plenty when you looked in the mirror too. It looked like trauma, raw and exposed and bile-inducing, and the recognition had the words rising out of your throat before you could stop them.

“Hey, are you okay?” you had asked casually, in a cooling voice as you lined your cart up side-by-side with his.

It was reflex by now. You had seen too many comrades freeze in the face of danger - and in your experience, freezing near-always led to sub-optimal outcomes. Perhaps that’s why you felt a personal responsibilty to shock him back to life. He seemed stuck. He seemed like he needed a push, like that damn cart.

The man’s eyes - hazel centred and fringed with a piercing yet muted blue - flicked fiercely towards you, and the hint of volatility made you very suddenly take note of his size and latent strength, your body’s fight or flight response firing as he appeared to take a little unkindly to the interruption.

Of course, you stood your ground. You always do. It’s a bad habit of yours.

His eyes softened, however, just a little, as he clocked gentle concern rather than confrontation in your own, and he self-consciously shuffled from foot to foot, his heavy combat boots seeking surer-footing on the paving; quite literally grounding himself.

Oh, he’s definitely military this one. You recognised that too in the way he moved. In the habits ingrained in his body.

Still, you saw the rush of panic fleeting across his eyes as he ignored you and fixed his stare back on the threshold of the store. It might have looked like nothing -a simple line to cross- but you knew all too well how the smallest of lines could be something much bigger; a marker, a milestone, a hurdle.

It seemed hard for him. And if it seemed hard, and he was still here, trying, then you were damn sure it seemed important too.

You had noticed the ticks in his body then too. He tapped his boot and his fingers on the handle, almost as if he was counting. Counting-up or counting down to something, you were not sure.

“Afraid to go in?” you had asked him gently, devoid of any mocking.

“I had a bad experience here...” he had told you, his voice a deep, drawling, painfully empty baritone.

He told you this much, though he was not sure why or how he even began to speak. Why or how he looked at you. He was not sure either, why he was unable to continue speaking.

He was a speaker by profession, wasn’t he? He had repeated his story often enough as part of his motivational speeches, and yet, the words died in his throat now.

Cart. Blacked-out. Choked. Almost...

His hands tightened their grip on the cart, just like they had tightened...

“Hmm,” you acknowledged, chewing on your lip as you digested the new information.

“Well. Me too,” you admitted, as his eyes segued back to those double doors, bumping open and closed as his proximity continually reactivated the sensors. “It was bad. My shorts had split clean in half right down the ass-crack and no-one thought to tell me. Some of the clerks still call me Cheeky to this day.”

The incident you spoke of was painfully true, and at least mildly cheering, you thought, but the man barely registered it. At least, not initially. He took a moment, still staring, still counting, but then he looked at you with a reluctant and pained amusement that evidently took him by surprise.

Now, he saw you. His eyes gave you the once over.

You were not what he was expecting. That story wasn’t what he was expecting. He wasn’t expecting...

“Wait, what?”

Letting your mouth draw open into a smile, effortlessly holding his attention now, you had pressed on with your distraction.

“Split right up the ass-crack. Mortifying. So... I could use the company, if you’ll brave it with me?” You had nodded your head towards the double doors, and you had shifted your cart to casually bump his. “We could go together?”

The man had simply stared at you, and you had patiently waited for his response. The muscles in his jaw had twitched, tendons slipping over bone. He was frozen still; that is, until you had politely nodded and started to move away from him, with a sincere, “Take care of yourself, man.”

“Hey, wait up,” he had called as you moved ahead of him, and you threw your head over your shoulder to humourously inspect the seat of your pants.

“Shit, why, is my ass out again?” you had laughed, and Will tentatively laughed with you, following you into the store; crossing his personal boundary.

It was hard, and it was important.

You had waited for him to catch-up with a soft smile, proud of the man although you did not know him yet, and this time he had drawn his cart to a halt alongside yours.

“Your ass is not out,” he had promised. “Shit. Not that I was looking. I just, uh. Shit. I could actually use the company?”

“Sure,” you had nodded, without judgement, and you had stayed closely by his side on your usual, winding route around the store.

You had tried your best to cheer him and distract this stranger, and even earned a few smiles as you engaged him in meaningless conversation.

Then, the man had paused at the mouth of a particular aisle and stared turbulently into the vacant space there, face and body pulled taut as if replaying an unpleasant memory. He was about to abandon his cart, you thought. About to leave you with a hanging apology he in no way owed you about how he wasn’t ready for this.

It was important, but perhaps it was still too hard.

However, instead, you had blitzed into the centre of the aisle and trampled over his ghosts, barraging all of his memories out of the way as you shifted armfuls of dog food into your cart with a clatter.

He had swallowed thickly, his hands stuffed into his pockets, until you shot him another soft smile.

“You have a dog,” he observed tentatively, consciously tearing himself away from the past. Counting the seconds; his breaths, his heartbeats, the cans of dog food. Moving forward.

“I do. He’s the goodest boi. He even has medals of honour.”

The man tips his mouth into a lop-sided smile. “What for? Can he walk on his hind legs?”

“Ugh, okay. I love it when smug fuckers underestimate my mutt.” You had added the last of your tins to the cart and gestured for Will to follow you into the next aisle. Away from his demons. He did follow. “No, actually,” you begin more softly, “he sniffed out IEDs when I was on my tour of duty.”

“Holy shit, you’re army?”

“Ex-Army,” you correct. “You too, I’m guessing?”

He had that look. That manner to his movements. The man looked like he had killed. It was a look you had learned to identify at ten paces. It was a look you saw in the mirror often enough.

“That obvious?” he says, sucking in air through his teeth.

“Oh yeah.”

He had smiled nervously at you. For the first time since meeting him, you noticed that he looked sweet.

“Yep, uh, I got out. Now I give motivational speeches where I relive my trauma and try ‘n’ convince recruits it’s all worth it.”

You had nodded, thin-lipped, as you moved towards the check-out.

You had wondered what happened to him out there, but something about the way his gaze had fallen on that spot in the aisle told you that what weighed heaviest wasn’t what he did while he was in, but what he did when he got out.

Cart. Blacked-out. Choked. Almost...

That could happen. You had seen the pattern too many times amongst your buddies. Still, you had seen regret in this man’s eyes. That doesn’t always happen. Not everyone can pull back from the violence. Not everyone wants to.

You had peered into the man’s cart as he moved the items to be scanned. He had cola, lemons, and some sriracha in his cart, but... one step at a time. Coherent meals could come later.

This was hard. This was important.

“You should meet my floofy war hero. He’s outside in my truck,” you had offered, picking-up your bags, and the man picking up his... lemons etc..

“Oh yeah? Sure. Would be an honour,” he had smiled shyly, and you had tracked together over to your truck, thrown your bags in the back, and had let your boy out of the passenger seat.

“Hey, buddy,” the man had cooed, kneeling down on the ground to deliver some quality scritches, and you couldn’t help but crack a smile at the sight.

“Aw, he loves you! Freddie, you slut!” you had laughed as this huge, burly man baby-talked to your mutt, your dog rolling on the floor and showing his belly like you didn’t feed and water him and take him for walkies.

You had watched the man for a moment. You had noticed a lot about him already, but now you noticed that, shit, he was handsome. That smile. That laugh. Blonde hair and beard and piercing eyes. His arms rippling beneath his pale blue t-shirt.

He had risen back to standing and leaned up against your truck, looking like soemthing out of a catalogue. And then, there it was again. That look. That raw, exposed, bile-inducing look.

“Listen,” he had said earnestly. “Thank you. I probably would still be standing out front if you hadn’t taken pity on me.”

“No problem. Except, not pity. Not at all,” you had reassured. Affinity, maybe. Recognition.

He had huffed out a gentle, grateful breath.

“For real though, I was getting kinda tired of eating gas station noodle pots. Wouldn’t have my...” he had finally peered into the paper bag, registering the groceries he had panic bought. “Fuck. Wouldn’t have my lemons and sriracha without you.”

“Okay. Now maybe I’ll take pity on you,” you had smiled, gently teasing, and you shifted a few choice ingredient from your bags to his, despite his protests that you’d done enough for him already.

“You did it,” you had said firmly. “I just walked into a place where all the clerks accidently saw my ass cheeks. Whatever you did. It was hard and it was immportant. You did that. You should be proud.”

He had looked at you curiously and disbelievingly with those piercing eyes of his, like he didn’t deserve your words - even though they were merely the truth. So, you had bumped him on the arm, loaded Freddie back into the truck, and had thrown him a “Take care of yourself, man” as you clambered into the driver’s side.

“Wait.. I...”

The handsome, troubled man had motioned to you and you had wound down the window, leaning your arm out the side of the truck.

“Yeah?” you had asked, with a soft smile, but the man had simply shaken his head.

Cart. Blacked-out. Choked. Almost...

Nevermind.

He had looked apologetic, like maybe he wasn’t ready to subject himself to anyone just yet. As if he looked at you and saw the ghost of someone he let down standing over your shoulder. Maybe even in your face.

Cart. Blacked-out. Choked. Almost...

His brows had knitted together, and he had looked down at his boots, shifting and seeking sure-footing all over again. Grounding himself.

“Listen,” you had offered, starting your engine up. “I do my weekly shop at 2pm on Sundays. You know, if you ever need some company? Or,” you had added with a smile and a casual wink, “if you ever need an excuse to check-out a nice ass again.”

He had nodded his head and pursed his lips together, before a broad grin split his features, his deep baritone now sounding full as a chuckle spills out of him.

“Good to know,” he had smiled, looking up at you shyly, and he had stepped back to let you swing the truck around and pull away, offering you a wave.

He never did tell you his name, but you had a feeling that you might be seeing him around.

Sometimes, things were simply better with company, after all.

#will miller x reader #will miller #charlie hunman #triple frontier #triple frontier fic

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applejuizz · 4 years ago

Text

laughter of youth.

the scout regiment has managed to rescue eren and recover annie’s crystal from their enemies, yet at the cost of many soldiers’ lives. levi learns a valuable lesson of trust. characters: levi ackerman x gn! reader (platonic!), historia reiss, sasha braus, jean kirstein, mikasa ackerman, eren jaeger, connie springer warnings: canon violence (vague descriptions), mentions of blood/wounds word count: 1.764 inspired by attack on titan 2: final battle and the story of “our man”, the customizable in-game character.

Paperwork after paperwork after all the paperwork...

Levi had come to dread the sound of hasty footsteps pacing up to his wooden office door and its prolonged creak as Miss Four Eyes allowed themselves in carrying yet another pile of experiment reports, barely containing their unreasonable excitement. While they fervently sought the tiniest free space to fit the monstrosity held in their arms, their flow of Titan anatomy ramblings never ceased.

Levi, you won’t believe what Eren managed to do today...!

Victor - who the hell is Victor? - stood awake the whole night and was as energetic as ever in the morning! This new breed of Titans is quite interesting!

I keep naming these Titans and I won’t shut up already and I should slap myself before you kick me across the fields, Levi! - he couldn’t possibly describe the joy these words would bring him coming out of Hange’s mouth. Too good to be true, unfortunately.

He shifted into his chair, straightening his back and shaking off the annoyance that had been constantly pulling on his nerves for three days already.

Thankfully, his office was quiet and the hallway was blissfully empty. Hange had taken a day off from experiments to let Eren rest. On that note, Jean and Eren had stopped arguing for once, Sasha had ceased her relentless search of meat and he could finally relish in the silence surrounding him. It wasn’t often that he got to have such quiet moments to himself.

And because they were so rare, only when he got the chance to savor them did he realize how much he actually hated them.

It wasn’t that he disliked being alone - on the contrary, he loved solitude a little too much for his own good. Instead, he found that whenever he allowed his mind to rest, he was assaulted by intrusive thoughts and memories that he’d rather bury deep in the back of his consciousness. Perks of being a soldier.

His eyes took in rows and columns of observations on the papers in front of him. His hand signed each and every one of them away promptly, yet his mind was drifting, conjuring up crimson fields, disgusting Titan flesh sliced in half, the blood-curdling screams of soldiers trampled off their horses or chewed to their demise. Nothing he wasn’t used to. However, that didn’t mean it didn’t make his skin crawl sometimes.

He thought back to commander Erwin, weak and thinning, laying in a hospital bed with only an arm left. Levi knew his superior was a strong man; he didn’t worry much about his recovery. What did plant the seed of doubt in his heart was the fact that somehow, the man he’d thought nearly invincible had been so badly wounded, and that alone was a strong indicator of the deep shit they all were in.

And of course, the one member in his squad that had never returned from the battlefield hung dark and heavy over his consciousness, a shadow of guilt, the same damn story repeating itself over and over again. No matter how much he tried to avoid it, it came crawling back like an awful nightmare, looming over him along with the deaths of all the other people he has trusted and cared for. Isabel and Farlan, Petra, Eld, Günther, Oruo… and now them too.

I won’t die on you, sir!

Like hell you won’t.

Their promise rang in his ears as if trying to mock him. The shadows of his consciousness sneered at him: look what happens when you decide to trust people, you twerp. Should’ve known better. Haven’t you learned your lesson?

“Tsk.” He set the cup he’d mindlessly lifted back on his desk. The tea had gone cold. He’d have to ask someone to brew him another. Not exactly pleasant, but enough to distract him from the dark path his thoughts had gone onto.

Before he could even stand up from his chair, though, loud voices boomed from downstairs through the whole hideout and caused the floor beneath his feet to vibrate. They were followed by clattering of pots and Jaeger’s unmistakable yelling, obnoxious and over dramatic as always.

So much for his quiet moment.

With an exasperated sigh, Levi picked up his cup again and left his desk and the piles of papers behind, shaking off the last of his melancholy. These damn brats can’t get anything done without wrecking havoc first…

The kitchen was right beneath his office, so all he had to do was climb down the short flight of stairs, put the cadets back in their place, ask horseface to brew him some more tea and go back upstairs. Simple enough.

He came to the sight of Eren, Jean, Mikasa, Armin, Sasha and Connie all hunched around in a compact group, chattering loudly and all over each other. Historia’s dulcet tone surprisingly prevailed amongst deeper voices, although she was nowhere to be seen.

“Wait! You need bandages before anything else! The gash in your side isn’t looking good…”

“Yeah! You’ve literally been through hell and back!” Jean marvelled.

“No, guys! They need food!” Sasha exclaimed as if she'd made a grand discovery, grabbing a half-boiled potato straight out of the pot.

“Sasha, no! The potatoes aren’t done yet-”

“Oi, what the hell is going on here?!”

“C-Captain Levi!” Jaeger stumbled back on his feet, broom in his hands, his headscarf sitting askew on his head. The huddle immediately dispersed, everyone had gone dead silent. Levi scanned the room quickly, not paying much attention to the soldiers’ faces and rolled his eyes.

“I thought I told you to clean up the kitchen, not turn it into a pigsty!” He passed a critical hand over the table, gathering up the dust in his palm and making a grimace. Cleaning supplies, pots and cups were scattered all over the floor and the table, as if the cadets had all come to a mutual agreement of dropping everything at once just to see how many white hairs Levi would gain in his hair.

“B-but-”

“Get back to work and stop yelping, you’re turning my brain into mush.”

But before he could open his mouth to bark another order at Jean, his eyes finally landed on who was once the centre of the huddle: Historia Reiss holding on to a hunched figure’s arm, obviously attempting to provide support, but ending up resembling more of a lost puppy clinging to someone’s sleeve.

“Captain Levi!” the petite girl exclaimed, a hint of relief present in her voice, “I-I went to get water from the fountain and I found them there! They seem stable, but I think they might need a doctor-”

His thoughts were running at light’s speed, yet he couldn’t get his body to wake up from its frozen state at the bottom of the stairs. What must’ve only been seconds felt like hours. As if time had decided to finally slow down, to finally stop the nonsensical blurry of days, months, years passing by only to give him a chance to breathe. A chance to understand. Was it just too good to be true?

“Captain…?” Springer trailed off, eyes bulging out of his little bald head, and quickly recoiled as Jean subtly elbowed him in the stomach. Only then did Levi notice that he had been standing among the shattered porcelain of what used to be his teacup, his hand still hanging in the air as if clinging to the ghost of the object.

The cadet finally raised their eyes from the floor, face bloodied and battered, yet still brightened by youth and devotion.

“Captain Levi… sir.” They saluted in a weak voice, raising two fingers to their temple.

Their last name rolled off Levi’s lips in a stronger tone than he thought he’d manage, yet still trailed off a bit in disbelief. Clearing his throat, he stepped over the broken porcelain.

“So. You came back, huh?” Out of all the words piled up on the tip of his tongue, begging to spill out, the best he could come up with was a rhetorical question. But the soldier still let out a dry chuckle, straightening their back as much as their wounds allowed them to. Their legs wobbled and the Ackerman girl, who had been quietly watching from the sidelines, immediately jumped in to offer extra support. Seeing the usually stone-faced Mikasa’s facial expression filled with a flurry of emotions similar to those churning in his heart allowed him to relax a bit.

“Of course.” The wounded cadet answered. “I made a promise, didn’t I?”

Levi gave a slight nod, features stoic, yet he felt his heart grow with pride in his chest. The same glint of determination glowed in their eyes as it did back then, during their rookie days, when they had placed their fist over their heart and had sworn to stay alive. He had heard the same promise come out of so many of his dead comrades’ mouths that realistically, he shouldn’t have expected this particular soldier to honor it. Yet for some reason, unknown even to himself, he had chosen to place his fragile trust in them. Maybe it had been their thirst for revenge, or their sheer willpower which, dare he say, could surpass Eren’s; whatever it had been, he did not regret it.

He drew closer, steps light as feathers on the wooden floor and took advantage of their hunched position to card his fingers through their hair, ruffling it affectionately. These damn kids keep getting taller… he thought bitterly to himself. The gesture managed to transform their wince of pain into a look of total and innocent wonder. The look in the eyes of a kid who's just got the utmost gesture of validation from a parent.

“You’re a good kid,” he conceded, patting their scalp twice before letting his hand fall back to his side. He could barely recognize the gentle tone of his own voice. “Although were you not wounded, I’d have roundhouse kicked your ass for scaring everyone like this.”

The phrase hadn’t even been that funny, in his opinion, but they let out a joyous, loud laugh, contagious to the people around them. It even pulled a chuckle out of Mikasa.

And as he stood there in the kitchen, surrounded by the laughter of youth, he finally understood. Placing his trust in these kids, fighting alongside them, protecting them with the price of his life were worth all the risks because they were humanity’s last hope. And he would do anything to one day see their joyful faces wiped clean of crimson wounds and dirt and death. Anything.

#attack on titan #aot #shingeki no kyojin #snk #aot imagines #levi ackerman #levi x reader #levi ackerman x reader #aot x reader #eren jaeger #mikasa ackerman #connie springer #jean kirstein #historia reiss #sasha braus

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regenderate-fic · 2 years ago

Text

Every Cell Anew (Every Wound the Same)

Fandom: Doctor Who, Doctor Who: Redacted Ships: Thirteenth Doctor/Rose Tyler, Thirteenth Doctor & Cleo Proctor Characters: Thirteenth Doctor, Cleo Proctor Rating: General Word Count: 1,964 Other Tags: Grief/Mourning, Post-Redacted, Gender Identity

Read on AO3

Summary: Cleo’s life has mostly gone back to normal. So she’s not expecting to hear a familiar sound on the Powell Estate. But the Doctor is back, come to revisit her old love.

NOTES: i cannot get over dw redacted. i will probably write more about it if i can get my computer working again. i want to do a thasmin fic about it too. but like. THAT LAST EPISODE SAID THIRTEENROSE RIGHTS. if you’re looking through the thirteenrose tag and you haven’t listened to redacted you literally need to. we have CANON AUDIO OF THIRTEEN MENTIONING ROSE. anyway. enjoy this fic i wrote it all on my phone with very little editing i just needed it to exist

Cleo’s life had, for the most part, gone back to normal. She still remembered the Doctor, at least vaguely— remembered blonde hair, a furrowed brow. She remembered the ghosts, although sometimes she thought they must have been a nightmare. She asked Abby and Shawna about it sometimes, trying to remember— between the three of them, they could usually get a picture of what had happened, even if it was fuzzy around the edges.

But they were back to the podcast, and Cleo was busy with her acting classes, and everything felt the same as always, except now Cleo and her mum were actually talking. Which was an improvement, however complicated Cleo’s feelings on the matter were.

Everything felt the same as always. Until Cleo heard it. A sound right out of her dreams— or maybe her nightmares.

The Blue Box.

She ran outside, standing at the rail as she watched the box flicker into existence. Between the hazy quality of her memories and the absolute improbability of the box, Cleo had trouble believing it was actually there— the blue police box, fading into being, sitting innocently on the street, with no hint as to the wonders within.

Cleo waited, watching.

The door opened, and out stepped the Doctor. She looked— Cleo squinted. Tired was the only word that seemed to apply. Her shoulders were hunched, her head down. She leaned against a wall, hair falling across her face.

Cleo hurried down the stairs to the sidewalk. The Doctor didn’t seem to notice her approach— Cleo slowed down as she got closer, hesitant to disturb the Doctor‘s— well, whatever the Doctor was doing.

“Doctor?” she called, tentative.

The Doctor looked up. “Oh. Cleo.” There was something about her— or maybe the absence of something. When Cleo had met her before, she’d seemed emotional, sure, but she’d had this sense of the dramatic about her— she felt larger than life. Now, she looked— well, the words that were coming to Cleo’s mind were “wet” and “pathetic,” but she was pretty sure that was just her sign to delete her Tumblr account. The Doctor looked empty, was what it was. Empty, and fragile, and very very human.

“Sorry,” Cleo said. “Did you want to be left alone?”

The Doctor waved a hand. It fell limply after her side. “That’s all right. I thought you might be here.”

“Yeah, I mean, I live here.” Cleo stepped back. “But seriously, babes, I can leave you alone if you’re not feeling it.”

The Doctor looked up, and Cleo saw tears in her eyes. Tears, and a watery sort of sorrow.

“Are you—“ Cleo hesitated. She didn’t know how to approach the Doctor, really. If you believed the stories, this was a thousand-year-old alien who could change her face and solve just about any problem, no matter how wet and pathetic she looked. What could Cleo offer? But she tried anyway. “Are you all right?”

The Doctor waved a hand again, somehow even more limply than before. “I will be,” she said vaguely. “That virus— took a lot out of me, I think.”

“So…” Cleo tried to think of the gentlest way to ask her question. Finally, she just said it. “Why are you back here? There’s not another world-ending emergency we need to know about, is there?”

She thought she caught the hint of an exhausted smile on the Doctor’s lips.

“No,” she said. “I don’t usually go looking for emergencies, you know.”

“Okay,” Cleo said slowly. “So what do you go looking for?”

“Memories,” the Doctor breathed. “Usually new ones.” She gestured out at the estate. “Today, old.”

Cleo thought back to what she’d seen in the Doctor’s mind. The old Doctors— a few of their friends— oh. Rose Tyler. Cleo’s old babysitter, who’d lived on the estate, who the Doctor had known, who’d done a runner and come home and spent the next year being sporadically around, except—

“She didn’t run away, did she?” Cleo blurted out. “Or get kidnapped, or fall in with some kind of gang, or whatever else people were saying about her.”

The Doctor didn’t ask who Cleo was talking about. She just let her head tilt back, hitting the wall with a clunk, as she looked up at the estate.

“No,” she breathed. She glanced back at Cleo. “Or, suppose she did run away, technically. But I meant to get her back sooner. It was a mistake, that year. A stupid mistake.”

And Cleo didn’t have to ask which year. She’d been young, sure, but she remembered Jackie Tyler wandering the estate with posters and a roll of tape, the gossip around town, her mum speculating whether Mickey Smith had done something or whether Rose had gone off with an older man like she had before. Technically, Cleo realized, the latter theory was right. And good thing, too— Cleo had always liked Mickey Smith.

“So you… traveled with her?” Cleo asked, trying to picture it. Her old babysitter, at the time a teenager with heavy eyeliner and tousled blonde hair, traveling in that strange blue box. It sort of fit, she decided. Rose always had seemed a bit bored.

“Yeah,” the Doctor said. “She was— I mean— we were—“

“Oh my God, you were in love with her.” It came out before Cleo could stop it, and she clapped her hands over her mouth, suddenly afraid she’d crossed a line. “Sorry. I don’t know what I’m saying sometimes.”

But the Doctor didn’t seem to mind.

“Yeah,” she said softly. “I was.” She lowered her gaze, looking past Cleo with everything in her eyes. How did she even do that? She had so much emotion packed in there, it was ridiculous. “Last time I was here,” she continued, “before the virus, I mean, I was just about to die. Every cell in my body hurt. I came for New Year, 2005. I just wanted to see her one last time.” She took a deep breath, shaky on the exhale. “It was before she knew who I was. Time travel, you know, you can do that. But she was so… so young, and so kind. Looked at me, with the snow falling around her face, and said, ‘See ya.’” The Doctor shook her head. “She had no idea.”

“And that was— how long ago, for you?” Cleo asked.

“Hard to say, really.” The Doctor shrugged. “Two thousand years, probably.”

Cleo’s jaw dropped. “Two th— you mean to tell me you lost this girl two thousand years ago, and you’re still all cut up about it?” She shook her head. “Wow. Suppose Shawna was right about immortality being a scam.”

The Doctor managed a laugh. “I meet new people. Make new friends. But I never forget the people who mattered to me.” Her face screwed up into a stage and unrecognizable expression. “Well. Not without outside influence.” She swallowed. “Coming back here before— it just reminded me how much I missed her. Or the virus reminded me, I suppose. When it made this place an epicenter.”

“Because of how much she mattered to you,” Cleo said slowly. “Babe. You are awful at getting over your exes.”

“Yeah, well, come talk to me when your next relationship ends with one of you stranded in a parallel universe, why don’t you?” The Doctor didn’t sound too annoyed— just tired.

“Fair enough,” Cleo said.

“Anyway,” the Doctor added, “I have moved on. Few times over, really. Got new people in my life. But sometimes—“ Her voice breaks. “Sometimes I need to remember the past.”

“Yeah.” Cleo thought back to her childhood, playing on the estate, running around with Jordan and the other kids. “She was my favorite babysitter, you know.”

The Doctor was looking at Cleo with a plaintive expression. “Oh, yeah?”

“Never seemed to really want to be a babysitter, mind,” Cleo said, “but she’d let me mess around with her makeup and everything. And, you know, I was all boy mode back then. Weren’t too many people in 2004 who would’ve let a 7-year-old boy play with their eyeshadow.” She hesitated. “Honestly, though, I think she was friends with Sally Salter. Probably knew a thing or two about kids like me.”

“What do you mean by boy mode?” the Doctor asked, her brow furrowed.

“You know,” Cleo said. “When you’re trans, but you’re not out yet, or you have to pretend to be your gender you were assigned at birth. Boy mode.”

Recognition settled on the Doctor’s face. “Oh, right! Yaz explained all that to me once. My friend Yaz. Well, I say friend. It’s complicated. Anyway. She was asking me if I was trans, and I didn’t really get it, just because, you know, you humans and your genders never really make sense to me. But she didn’t explain ‘boy mode.’ I like it.”

“Hang on,” Cleo said with a frown. “You were a man before. Are you not trans?”

“I don’t know,” the Doctor said. “Technically, my gender changed. But so did everything else in my body. That’s what happens when I die.” She raised her eyebrows. “Also why your bat wasn’t going to do much to me.”

“Yeah, point taken, the bat was a bad idea.”

“But the thing is,” the Doctor continued, “ everything about me changed. Not just my gender. Eyes, hair, favorite foods. Personality, even. At my core, I’m always the same— but the rest of me can’t seem to stay put.” She paused. “I don’t really think of myself as a gender, anyway. That’s a human thing. I just show up in my body, and people can make of that what they will. Not really any of my business, is it?”

Cleo laughed. “You tell ‘em, babe.”

“Sorry,” the Doctor said, her eyes flitting nervously from side to side. “Sort of a complicated answer.”

“Yeah, well, I asked a complicated question.” Cleo looked the Doctor up and down. She looked a little less defeated— there was a bit of a glimmer in her eyes that hadn’t been there before. “Anyway. You going to be all right?” Before the Doctor could answer, she rushed to add, “And you’d better not lie just to avoid being vulnerable to a near-stranger.”

The Doctor smiled again, exhaling through her nose the beginnings of a laugh. “I will be,” she said, and it sounded honest. “Eventually.” She looked around. “Don’t think I’ll ever stop missing this place, though.”

“Yeah, well, you’re welcome round mine for tea anytime,” Cleo said. “Long as you don’t mind my brother.”

“Thanks.” The Doctor glanced towards her box. “Suppose I’d better go for now, though. Got to pick up Yaz in Sheffield.”

Yaz in Sheffield. Something else clicked in Cleo’s mind. “Oh my God, hold on a second!” she yelled. “Yaz. Yasmin Khan! Shawna’s neighbor! You’re traveling with Shawna’s neighbor Yasmin Khan. Oh my God, I can’t wait to tell Shawna.”

“Oh, yeah, Yaz got a real laugh out of you all talking about her on the podcast,” the Doctor said. “You know. After we figured out her family was okay. And we probably needed a real laugh, so. Thanks.”

“Anytime, babe.” Cleo gave the Doctor a little wave. “Come back round sometime, yeah?”

The Doctor pressed her mouth into a line, giving Cleo a tight nod. Without another word, she disappeared into her box. Cleo watched, hair whipping in the sudden wind, as it disappeared.

So that was what had happened to Rose Tyler. She went off in that box with the Doctor, disappearing into time and space. Somehow, that made some part of Cleo’s childhood make a lot more sense.

The box was gone now. Stepping back towards the stairwell, Cleo took out her phone and opened her groupchat with Abby and Shawna.

She had an encounter to report.

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