#and despite me knowing that longer fics do even worse here but anyway

[thelov3lybookworm]

Journals (part 2)

Part 1

Summary: new realisations and hauntingly beautiful words

•○●⛦●○•

Word Count: 2059

Warnings: heavyyyy angst, mental health issues, depression, feeling unworthy of love, panic attack, self harm (alluded to), self hate. thats all i can think of right now, but let me know if i need to add anything

A/n: based on old poetry by @garden-of-runar 🤭i had reblogged them to my drafts on a side blog that i dont use at all, so i couldnt reblog them on my main, but i have put them in the fic, so ig that works🤷🏻‍♀️ also, if i ever write a part 3 (which i might based on feedback) azzie would be the love interest <3

ALSO MY GIRLIE IS SO TALENTED DONT EVEN GET ME STARTED I LOVE THESE POEMS 🥹

(im also tagging people who asked for a part two hope u dont mind <3)

anyways, enjoyyyy!!

°•°•°•○🌑○•°•°•°

Lying on the ground, despite how it hurt her joints sometimes, was one of Y/n’s favourite pastimes. Maybe because sometimes she did not have the energy to crawl into her bed, but that was not the point.

They hate you.

The hardness of the wood panels was oddly comforting, the way the grains sometimes raised enough for her to feel them with her fingers, the soft creaking when she stepped on them. It reminded her that she was here, that she was alive. That she was getting what she deserved for being so pathetic.

The soft mattress did not give her the same level of comfort. Sure, it was warm and cozy, but did she deserve it?

No.

You deserve this.

You deserve the worst.

Y/n sniffled, lying on her side as she lifted her hand higher next to her, dragging her nails down the planks, the feeling overwhelming in itself but better than not feeling anything. She watched her fingers jerk with the motion, pale and bloodless.

She could feel her tears collecting in a pool and seeping under her cheek. She glanced at the foot of the bed in front of her.

It looks so majestic from down here.

Do people who are worse off think the same way about me?

I don’t want them to. Because I am not worth being thought of like that.

I am nothing. I am pathetic.

It became harder and harder to take in a breath from her nose, as it continued to grow clogged from all her sobbing.

It was one of her least favourite things about crying.

Pathetic.

Stop it!

You’re pathetic. Crying over nothing.

You don’t deserve anything good.

The thoughts kept echoing in her head, louder and louder. She couldn’t breathe any longer.

And it was not because of anything physical.

Her chest began to constrict, forcing her lungs to let out precious air. She tried to breathe it back in, desperately wishing to cling to any remnants of oxygen like a child clinging to its mothers skirts.

Please. Just one inhale.

Her throat tightened.

Just one.

She gasped, futilely trying to breathe one last time to breathe before she knew she would collapse, faint because of the lack of air in her body. It gave her some reprieve, and her eyes focused back to the bed.

The longer she stared at it, the more drowsy she became. Her eyelids were drooping, and she finally, finally decided that maybe letting herself submit to her body’s needs wouldn’t be too bad, if it meant that the thoughts would stop. Maybe if she gave in to the tiredness in her bones after hours of sobbing, her mind would stop being so cruel.

Maybe it would take pity on her.

Maybe.

°•°•°•○🌑○•°•°•°

"We should go out tomorrow!"

Y/n smiled a little. A rare smile that only recently had begun showing on her face.

It wouldn’t be considered a real smile. But it was still there on her face. The tilt of her lips.

We. Not me. We.

They wanted her to be present too.

Cassian jumped up, looking at Y/n with a grin. "I always wanted to take Y/n out to Rita’s."

Her smile grew.

The other members talked, making plans for tomorrow. Slowly, the conversation spiralled, as it always did between them all.

Azriel leaned close to Y/n, whispering jokes in her ear that made her giggle. Rhysand sat on the same couch as Cassian, fighting like children. Mor sat next to Amren, amusement shining in her eyes as she added fuel to the fire, while Amren looked like she’d rather be anywhere but here.

They talked well into the night, politics, food, court gossip bleeding into one another as the time trickled by.

But the moment the conversations wandered into their future, Y/n’s smile faded. She wondered, would they want her to stay in their life?

She didn’t have to wonder long, as the words they uttered were enough to give her peace.

They talked of vacations, of parties and new traditions. Of getting married, of being with their partners. Of celebrating lives and years and months, of celebrating ends and new beginnings.

They talked, and included her.

They talked in ‘we’s’. Not in ‘me’s’.

And that was enough for her little heart to be happy.

For it to heal, for the blood to return to her face.

For her to smile, free and unbidden.

But then, time passed. And just like the sand in an hourglass trickles away, so do all good things.

As she watched, the scene changed from only housing six people in the living room, to adding three more members. And slowly, she was pushed out.

And they began talking in ‘me’s’.

Some ‘we’s’, but it never meant Y/n.

No, it meant them. Them and their partners.

It meant Feyre and Rhysand. Their new lives and baby.

It meant Cassian and Nesta. Their new mating bond and blooming love.

It meant Azriel and Elain. Their growing infatuation.

Y/n doubted the infatuation had ended, as Azriel no longer sat next to Elain at dinners. Lucien’s visits to Velaris had increased too.

But everyone’s visits to Y/n and their thoughts about her had decreased. No one seemed to remember her existence.

And she deserved it.

They chatted among themselves, and the armchair she sat on vanished from under her, leaving her standing knee deep in the freezing snow. Watching from the outside as the warm interior that had seemed so welcoming just a moment ago turned into a nightmare.

Her worst nightmare.

It left her whimpering, leaving her to curl on the cold ground.

All alone, just like she deserved.

°•°•°•○🌑○•°•°•°

It was almost sunset, and finally, Rhysand had built up the determination to read the damned journal.

He walked downstairs, peering into the living room before stepping in front of it.

Mor had departed after Y/n had left, tears in her eyes. Azriel and Cassian had been sitting in the living room for the whole two hours since then, staring into space, looking haunted and horrified at the way they hadn’t realised what was going on with their friend. Amren too, sat in an armchair in the corner, looking as unbothered as ever. But Rhys saw the cracks. The shifting eyes, the too hard hold on the book she held in her lap, the downward tilt of her lips more pronounced.

"I think it’s time we read the journal."

Four sets of eyes shot up to his figure.

"Are you sure, Rhys?" Cassian mumbled, standing up uncertainly.

Rhys nodded. "It is the only option we have."

Azriel sighed, mirroring Cassian’s movements and moving closer to Rhysand.

Feyre perked up. "What is going on Rhys?"

He clenched his jaw, guilt and regret festering in his gut. He had been so busy in his newfound happiness, so wound up in enjoying every moment with his mate that he had forgotten family. He had forgotten her to the extent his mate didn’t even know what the slight tang of copper in the air meant.

"Nothing, Feyre." He mumbled, turning away.

"Elain was asking-"

"Tell her to stop asking, then." Rhysand froze at the coldness in Azriel’s voice, his eyes going wide. Azriel never used that tone of voice with anyone outside of work, let alone Feyre.

Feyre stepped back, her calves hitting the couch as she stared at her friend in shock. "Az?"

Azriel pushed past Rhysand, making his way towards his study where the journal sat, looking as frustrated and unapologetic as ever.

After a shared glance, Rhysand and Cassian followed, Amren hot on their heels.

Azriel was already seated in one of the chairs at Rhysand’s mahogany desk, his eyes fixed on the journal that lay in the middle, his jaw clenched. He seemed to be the most affected, and Rhys only had the faintest idea why.

The four of them sat in waiting until Mor finally arrived, shutting the door behind her. Her eyes were bloodshot, and she sniffled lightly as she came to stand next to Cassian.

"Rhys, do we really have to read it? It will be an invasion of privacy."

Rhys swallowed. Thought it over. "We don’t really have a choice, do we? We need to figure out the root of this. She won’t tell us if we ask, we know that. Plus, she might already be way down the path of another breakdown after what happened today."

"That is why I think that instead of sitting around on our arses," Azriel ground out, "we should go and check up on her."

Rhys raised a brow, though concern festered in his gut. "Azriel, we’ve been through this before. She will feel worse about herself, thinking she inconvenienced us."

A muscle feathered in Azriel’s jaw, but he said nothing.

And so they began reading.

Rhysand opened a random page, his breath catching at the sudden tang of copper, and began reading. As he stared at the words before speaking them aloud, he remembered seeing the exact poem in a book he recommended to Y/n over fifty years ago.

Forgotten.That is my nameThat is the path I walkIt has been so longI don’t remember what it is like to be seenAnd I spill, my tears lining the path to the woods where my body lies,Forgotten.- from GardenofRunar

Instantly, Rhysand’s blood ran cold. He leaned back, exhaling. The pages were decorated in flowers and hearts, tiny little clouds and doodles in the margins so at odds with the thoughts spilled onto them like a hauntingly beautiful scenery.

At this point, Cassian and the others had moved to peer over Rhys’s shoulder. Rhys watched as Cassan reached over to turn the page with a shaky hand, pulling it back almost instantly as if the page had burned him. There, just above the words was a small handful of doodles, and he knew the small figures resembled the inner circle before Rhys had been taken under the mountain.

The poem was more a letter than anything, except it contained so few letters but thy hit everyone with a guilt so hard it was almost like a mountain fell onto them.

So like Y/n, to say so less yet still make an impact.

I didn’t forget about you.Can you say the same for me?Don’t bother.I know the answer.-GardenOfRunar

Under the poem, were a few words.

The poet is so talented. Every poem of them I read, it makes me want to sob.Maybe because I relate to these. Maybe that’s why.

Quiet sniffles came from Mor, but Rhys turned another page. It was the first page where blood began dotting the corners, a few drops on the center of the page veining out towards the edges, as if trying to exit but being unable to.

The almost poeticness of the sight was not lost on them. The blood droplets were almost like Y/n, trying to escape a cruel mind but unable to.

My friends are living lives, and I’m trudging through a million little days,Wasting away.- GardenofRunar

A hand snaked towards the book, slamming it shut. Rhysand jumped, his eyes flying to the owner of the scarred hand that appeared.

"Enough." His voice was still, quiet, but so cold it could freeze even the summer court over. And Rhysand knew. He was blaming himself for not paying attention to Y/n.

Rhys nodded, feeling guiltier by the second.

Everyone went back to their places, sitting in silence. Contemplating.

Wondering how they had become so oblivious to the point that they couldn’t see what was right in front of them the entire time.

The regret, the sadness was heavy in the air. It was getting hard to breathe it in.

Finally, Azriel stood, grabbing the book.

Then he turned, and walked out the door without a word, his wings pulled tight against his back.

And Rhysand wondered again.

Was this just some friendly concern, some self blame, or something else entirely?

Needless to say, suspicion took root. But guilt and hate overwhelmed it once more, and the family was left to sit and roil in it.

To wonder, how could they have been so busy that they ignored such an important part of them?

°•°•°•○🌑○•°•°•°

(ps. the first part in the memories/dreams Y/n has is based off this poem

You talk in ‘we’s’ Not ‘me’s’ And it heals my heart, just a little. Puts a smile on my face, just a little. You talk about a future One with me in it And I feel the color Return to my face. Just a little. - Runar

)

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[wild-magic-oops]

Can we get trail and surprise for the davrin/rook kisses 👉👈

[ surprise ] a sudden kiss to catch the partner off guard; [ trail ] a trail of kisses along the partner's jawline or collarbone; (⚠️ft ENDGAME SPOILERS ⚠️)

Davrin x Shadow Dragon mage m!Rook

Davrin watched from the street as Assan viciously tore into a blight boil. It looked like he was having fun helping clean the city, now that lives weren't on the line and he could indulge. The blight in Minrathous had been mostly neutralized. There were still active spots on the fringe of the city, where the had been particularly thick, but even they were soothed now, like blight everywhere was, as per the reports from Treviso and Weisshaupt.

Assan flew away from the decimated blight boil with a victorious shriek and dived right into another one slightly higher up the vertical cliff. He'd be an absolute mess by the time he got tired, and Davrin would have to-

A hand on his shoulder was the only warning he got before a pair of lips pressed firmly against his cheek and beard tickled his skin. And it was only the momentary surprise that had saved Rook from being the recipient of reflexive body harm of some sort. How had he even snuck up on Davrin? As a Shadow Dragon, he was somewhat competent when it came to stealth, but he was still a mage. Spells blazing was the style he resorted to. Perhaps the relaxation after such a long period of being on high alert was getting to Davrin.

"Rook, don't surprise me like that, I might've punched you in the face on accident!"

Rook looked amused and not in the slightest perturbed.

"I wouldn't mind that if you did the punching... with your mouth," Rook said, grinning like a fool, clearly very amused by his own humour.

Davrin groaned loudly but placed his hand on Rook's waist nonetheless. The red sash of his uniform always sung to Davrin like a siren. It accentuated Rook's slim waist so well. He pulled Rook ever so slightly towards himself, and the other man grinned again.

"Although," Rook continued and kissed Davrin on the lips, just a peck but sweet and soft, "I think a gentle touch would be better." Another kiss followed, slightly to the side of the mouth, "Don't you think?" And another further to the side. Then he stopped pretending to have a meaningful conversation and trailed more kisses along Davrin's jawline, less and less innocent as he went. Up the jawline now and near the earlobe, his hand creeping up Davrin's neck until short nails scratched with just the perfect pressure against the scalp. Davrin groaned and pulled back before Rook could reach his sensitive ear.

"We'll continue this later," Davrin said firmly.

Rook looked a little unhappy but not surprised. It seemed that he was just shooting his shot.

"I'll hold you to that," he said and tapped his index finger in the centre of Davrin's chest.

"I'll be disappointed if you don't," Davrin replied with a smile.

under the readmore is a screenshot of Rook's outfit

[captjprice]

Could you write a smut fic where Captain Price is absolutely obsessed with the the F!reader? What I mean is that he's head over heels in love with her. Also could you add lots of praise? 🤭

Captain Price x FemReader

He's absolutely smitten.

a/n: i love doing requests omg. pls send in more

mentions: smut, eating pussy, he's a munch, praise, PRAISE!!!!, domprice, subreader, he's sooooo down bad, sweet nicknames

It had been absolutely no secret for the rest of the task force that you and the captain had something going on. It was fairly obvious, even just in the beginning. Those shared glances and sweet laughter in each other's presence was enough to make even the others melt.

It had gotten worse, lately. His gaze went from admiring you to practically undressing you with his eyes, or both at the same time. It's not like he could help it, right? You were just so amazing. Wonderful. Perfect. You were everything he wanted. Strong, independent, yet still had a soft spot. Sometimes he has to do a double take at you to remind himself he's not dreaming and that he, infact, has his own angel sitting right there by him.

He's so loving, kissing your forehead or squeezing your waist. Anything to just remind you that he's there. The two of you acted like a couple, yet you weren't. But everyone could see it wasn't going to take much longer.

And he wanted you, so fucking bad. He finally made up his mind in one of Shepherd's meetings. He'd tell you, and he'd take you.

So now you sit, arms crossed as you listen to Shepherd moan about a mission that you've already got the intel explained of a million times. You glance at John out of instinct, giving a small smile to which he nods back. You notice he stares at you a lot, simply letting his gaze rest on your details until he's confident he could repaint them in his dreams. He shifts in his seat, getting a little more comfortable. He notices you staring back, of course he does.

To tease, he moves his hips again, manspreading on the chair as he holds eye-contact with you. Fuck. It makes you fluster, and you avert your eyes back to Shepherd. Your thighs press together and John wishes he could bury himself between them, right now. He wouldn't mind taking you infront of everyone, showing all of them that you were his— Even if they all knew. You manage to keep yourself at bay, distracting yourself with other thoughts so you don't look back at John.

When the meeting finishes, you know you're going to get a load ontop of you. You shuffle out of the meeting room with the rest of the task force, not even batting an eye as John joins you in the walk back to your quarters. His arm slithers around your waist, pulling you flush against him. "Sorry," He says with a cheeky grin, looking down at you. John knows you like the tease despite the way you don't reply to his very not-sincere apology, because you lean into his side anyways.

He hasn't fallen this deep in a while, he realizes as he follows you into your quarters. "Why— I didn't tell you to come in?" You mumble in confusion as he takes a seat on your bed. You've no idea why he follows you like a puppy sometimes. "Do you want me to leave?" John asks, having his signature sweet smile on his face as he kicks off his shoes. "Come here," He cooes, opening up his arms. You stare for a moment. There's no real reason to refuse him, right? Despite him being your superior... But he's the one initiating it. So it must be okay.

You shuffle forward and settle on his lap, your thighs on each side of his. Your hands glide along his shoulders to behind his neck. "What do you want?" You ask with a small smile. "Me? No, nothing, love. Just missed you." His words made you laugh, as you've not been a minute without one another. "I've been here the whole time," You retort, to which he shakes his head and lets a finger trail across your jaw. "Mmh, but not on me, love." John muses, his hands moving from your waist to your ass, resting there. "You're so beautiful, christ.." He says, admiring you again. The tension of his gaze makes you squirm and blush, and he gives your bottom a firm squeeze to remind you to stay put. You do just so.

And you lean forward to rest your head against his shoulder, just humming at the warmth. John feels a familiar nervous feeling in his stomach as he remembers he was going to tell you. In his own way, ofcourse.

"I think it could work." John confesses, and the look in his eyes tells you everything. "We could separate work and.. us, you know? Communicate.." He really wants it, of course he does. You were the best thing that had happened to him in a while. And obviously, you wanted this too. "So you want to try?" You suggest, and he hums in response. "If it goes sideways, then.. well. We could always be friends." John suggests, even though he's lying straight through his teeth. He wouldn't let you go now. You know this too, but in a way, it's.. attractive. Knowing you had the captain head over heels and drooling for you.

"Love?" He chirps, and you raise your head in response to his worried tone. John tilts his head, "Have you ever.. thought about this being.. more?" He asks, and it's a dreaded question to you. You enjoyed not having a label on what the two of you had, just having fun, but this would come up eventually. Your fingers rub circles into the back of his neck as you look up at him. "Ofcourse. But it'd be complicated.. Right? You're my captain."

John nods to your words, because you're right, but he's too deep in. He wouldn't mind breaking the rules for you anymore. He knows you wouldn't really mind either, more worried about his job than what the others would think.

"I want you," You blurt out, your hands moving forward to rest on his pants. John pulls back, looking at you with amusement. "Yeah?" He lets his hand wander up your thigh. You nod eagerly in response to him. "How could I ever deny a pretty beaut like you?" He cooes, sitting upright as you reach for his belt. He stops you with his hand, shaking his head. "Don't you want to go first, love?" His words surprise you, and your eyes widen. "Oh, I-.. You don't have to if you don't..-" You trail off as he chuckles, pulling you to lay down next to him. You feel butterflies fill your stomach as he crawls over, pulling your legs apart and sitting in between them.

You smile and lean up, giving him a chaste kiss. A chaste kiss that evolves when he squeezes your ass again and pulls you a little closer. "I don't really think this changed anything," He whispers huskily with a grin. "You were mine the whole time." You let out a breathless whine, kissing him again after he said that. He was absolutely yours, and you were absolutely his.

"Not really true," You respond through kisses. He lets himself fall back onto the bed, having you straddle his hips. "Are you trying to challenge me on something, love?" John asks with a chuckle, grabbing your wrist to yank you towards him. "That's dangerous," He mumbles absentmindedly, pressing his lips to your neck. You moan softly, leaning closer to him. For once, you want more than just kisses and love bites.

"You trust me, yeah? I want to do this, baby. Gonna spoil you silly with my mouth." He says sweetly, his hand rubbing your leg. You can't really object to that, can you? You've been with a decent amount of men, none of them had been willing to put themselves aside for your pleasure, but of course he did. Your cheeks burn red and you nod, slowly shuffling your pants off and kicking them to the floor. John kisses your knee, then moves up towards your thigh.

You take in a little breath, looking at the ceiling. Fuck, you're hesitant. Confidence hadn't really ever been an obstacle in intimacy, but now you were getting nervous.

John notices you trailing off, and when he reaches your inner thigh he nips at the skin. You whimper, looking back at him. "That's it. Look at me." He hums, "Nothing to worry about, love." He reaches your panties, seeing how you've already soaked them. You whine at his breath on your pussy, instinctively trying to close your legs.

He makes an annoyed noise, and his hands grip your thighs to claw them open again. "Stop acting like this. I'm a grown man, not like the boys you've had before." John grunts. His words make you nod, and you try your best to keep your eyes on him as he gently tugs down your panties. When he's thrown them to the side, he just stares at your pretty cunt like it's the most delicious thing in the world. You watch through hazy eyes as he presses a kiss just above your clit. "You're doing good, love. So brave." John says, continuing to litter kisses around your folds.

"I'm going to devour you so good, baby. Wonder what you taste like," He whispers, before licking a long stripe along your clit. Your back arches and you moan, reaching to grab onto his shoulders, hair, anything. John hums, pressing his face into your pussy. His beard makes you jolt at the sensation even more, "Oh, my god!-" You shriek as he continues running his tongue along your clit, devouring you like he's got nothing better to do.

Your pants and little noises make him chuckle, keeping his mouth on you. One of the hands holding your thighs open runs down, and he presses his middle finger into your sopping cunt, his eyes fluttering shut as he feels how you clench. As he pumps in and out of you, he takes his mouth off of your clit for a moment, leaning up to kiss you sloppily.

"Taste so good, love. So well for me." He whispers, nipping at your neck before returning back between your thighs. "Gonna marry you, pretty thing." John grumbles before using his mouth on you again. You can only whimper in response— Too caught up with the new sensations and the fact that your captain was between your legs.

You're close, he can feel it too as you clench more and more around his finger, and he adds a second one to quicken the process. He hums as he continues to eat you out, almost making it seem like he's doing it for his own pleasure. You gasp when you feel the coil in your stomach snap, and your legs twitch when you cum, making a mess of his beard and fingers. You babble something absentmindedly, tugging at his hair.

You're barely able to come down from the orgasm, because John doesn't seem to let up. He continues his assault on your clit, still pumping his fingers in and out of you. Your whimpers turn to high-pitched moans, and you try to pull his hair again to make him stop.

He laughs against your pussy again, continuing until you can't find the strength to pull at his hair anymore, and you lay back to let your second orgasm wash over you. "J-... Mmh, fuck! John!" You squeal, trying to kick him off to just give you a few seconds of rest. Your moans continue, even when he pulls back with a cocky grin. He puts his hands on your knees to stop your restless legs, moving closer to kiss you. You can taste yourself on his tongue, and it makes you clench around nothing.

Fuck. You wouldn't mind this every night.

"Are you mine now?" He asks with an attitude, pulling back and sitting next to you, pulling you onto his lap. Your back rests against his chest. You look up at him to the side with tired eyes, and nod. "Yeahh, you're so easy to win over, aren't you, love?" John asks, one of his hands ghosting over your inner thigh. You don't even bother to protest when his fingers catch your clit between them, you just whine and let your head fall back against his chest.

"You're doing so good, baby, just one more for me? Please, angel.." He whispers in your ear as he rubs slow circles on your aching pussy. You nod weakly again, one of your hands grabbing onto his arm. "Mmm, you're doing so well, all wet for me." He says, continuing to spurr you on as his fingers speed up, working your clit to oblivion. "Maybe next time i'll breed you, let you use my cock." His words make you gasp, and you can feel yourself on the edge. "You'd be so good on my cock, wouldn't you? Lovely girl," You moan loudly in response, and he leans to press his lips to yours as you cum for the third time.

John works you through the orgasm gently this time, pressing little kisses to your neck. "You did well, love." He whispers softly, pulling his hand away from you. He sets you down next to him, leaving to retrieve a towel and wipe the mess from your thighs and the bed. You just stare at him tiredly, wanting to kiss him all over and make him feel just as good as he did. John presses a kiss to your forehead, then to your lips. "We should rest," He gently slips your panties back onto you, wrapping his arms around you to pull you flush against him.

You were off with mere minutes.

[er-osion]

My Tears Ricochet

pairing:  Kaz Brekker x gn!Reader

summary:  A fic inspired by Taylor Swift’s ‘My Tears Ricochet’.  Kaz says some things to you in anger after a heist so you end things and move out of the Slat.  Months later and Kaz can no longer bear being separated

word count:  2.6k

warnings:  hurt/comfort

you can see the full taylor swift song-fic masterlist here

⋄∘∗⋅⋆≁≁⋆⋅∗∘⋄

The door to Kaz’s room slammed shut.  You tried not to wince at the noise, tried not to move lest you show how upset and afraid you were.  Things had gone bad, really bad.  The heist should’ve been simple but sometimes things just don’t go to plan, sometimes human error messes things up.  Now you stood in the room you shared with Kaz, bracing for him to give you hell for the awful night all of you had had.

“Do you just want to see your teammates die?”  Kaz snapped, back turned to you as he paced around the room.

“What kind of question is that, Kaz?”  You spat back, offended.  “Things go wrong, we’re all human.”

“That’s one of the weakest excuses I’ve heard for inadequacy in a long time.”

Your eyes went wide, “Inadequacy?!”  You repeated, aghast.  “Watch it, Brekker.”

Kaz let out a bitter laugh, shaking his head and running his fingers through his hair.  “If you don’t want to be called ‘inadequate’, don’t do foolish things, you behaved like a rookie tonight!”

“The others have made mistakes just as bad, if not worse before, yet when I do it it’s the crime of the century?”  You threw your hands in the air, tone quickly rising to meet his anger.

“No, this heist could’ve been the heist of the century if you hadn’t royally fucked it up!”

“Kaz, I know you’re upset, we all are.  But yelling at me won’t change the events of the evening, it will only make things worse.”

“Oh don’t try and get all ‘holier than thou’ on me.  You don’t want to get yelled at?  Then don’t act like a fucking idiot.”

You blinked back tears of frustration and hurt.  You and Kaz had had your fair share of arguments, being in a relationship with someone who didn’t know how to express their feelings properly can lead to that.  But his behavior was out of pocket and undeserved.  He was supposed to be your biggest supporter, not tear you down. 

The argument raged for another two hours, growing worse and worse by the minute until you’d had enough.

“Kaz, shut the fuck up!”  You cried.  “I’m done!”

He froze, fury overtaking his expression before he took a step back and blinked.  “What?”  His voice was grating.

“I’m done.”  You repeated in a hush, throat and chest tightening impossibly.

“The hell do you mean, ‘you’re done’?”  

“I mean I’m done with this, with us.”  You concluded defeatedly.  Kaz didn’t say anything, his expression didn’t change, as if he hadn’t truly understood what you were saying or the implication of your statement.  “I can’t be with someone who’s going to degrade me for making human mistakes.  We’re supposed to help one another, not demean each other and if you still don’t understand that after all of these years… then I think my time is better spent elsewhere.”

You straightened your back and rolled your shoulders in an attempt to pull yourself together despite the tears blurring your vision.  You waited for Kaz to say something, anything. The silence was deafening.

“If you want to be a quitter then fine, quit.  I don’t need someone who behaves like this anyways.”  Kaz hissed, turning his back to you as he was no longer able to look at your distraught face.  

You puffed in disbelief.  Your heart was burning.  How could he so easily throw you away?  Throw everything the two of you had built together away?  You shook your head and began gathering your things.  You could feel Kaz watching you out of the corner of his eye but he never moved from his spot and never said anything.

When you’d finished gathering your belongings you scurried out of the room, needing more than anything to be out of that suffocating atmosphere.  You decided to stay with a friend going to university.  He asked no questions when you had showed up at his door in the middle of the night with all of your things, just let you in and helped you settle into the guest room.

When you woke up, mid afternoon the next day, your friend, Arthur, assured you that you could stay as long as you needed.  The next few months were torture for you.  This sick feeling in your stomach never went away and your chest never stopped hurting.  Merely eating, breathing, and moving became a task.  All motivation to do anything left your body and you wandered around your friend’s apartment like a ghost.  Nothing felt right, not anymore.  Kaz had always told you that your fighting spirit had made you brave, had inspired him, yet he was so quick to turn it against you.  The tears you cried over that man were endless.

****

Kaz has been a worn wood boat against the raging sea of his emotions these past few months.  He’d been off his grove, on edge, messy, and all the Crows had noticed.  To put it simply: Kaz Brekker had been a wreck of a man since the night you broke up with him.  Nothing was the same, nothing was tolerable anymore.

Everywhere he went, you haunted him.  Your ghost and the ghost of your relationship taunted him in spectral defiance, proving how small of a man he was.  He still wears the rings you’d gotten him underneath his gloves, he couldn’t bear to part from them.  The nicknacks you’d given him over the years that he kept scattered around his office and bedroom stayed in the same spots because he was too scared to get rid of them.  Because getting rid of those nicknacks and the rings meant putting a real end to that chapter of his life. 

He had spent the last few months cursing you, everything you’d ever brought to his life, your memory.  Because being angry was easier than being hurt.  But still, he missed you more than anything.  Saints, he missed you so much it hurt.  No injury could ever compare to the pain in his chest that had been stabbing at him since you walked out the door.  When you’d left, you had carved out a piece of him and took it with you.  There was so much empty space in Kaz’s soul he had to put daily effort in not getting lost in it.

Kaz hadn’t seen a trace of you since you’d left.  He couldn’t decide if that was a bad or good thing.  But tonight, he couldn’t handle it.  These past few months have been unbearably painful, this hole in his heart was no longer ignorable.  He knew he probably didn’t have a chance at reconciliation.  Hell, he probably didn’t deserve a second chance with you.  But Dirtyhands didn’t give up without a fight.  So he decided to find you, talk to you, and try to convey his all-consuming regret.  And if you wanted to move on, then he’d respect that.  Because that’s the very least he could do for you.

It wasn’t hard to figure out where you were.  You didn’t cover your trails and Kaz had an excellent recon team.  But when Inej told him you were staying with some friend from university named Arthur?  The cane-wielding young man almost threw the papers off his desk.  He’s ashamed to admit it, but the jealousy that instantly bubbled in his stomach burned and churned all the unpleasantness he’d been feeling lately into a monstrous wave.  If that good-for-nothing had tried at all to swoop in and replace Kaz in your life, this “Arthur” would learn how Kaz got the name Dirtyhands.

And that’s how Kaz found himself outside of this stranger’s apartment, standing out in the wet cold, unable to bring his gloved hand up to knock on the door.  He’d chosen a time in the evening when he knew your new roommate would be absent for a while, Kaz wanted zero interruptions during whatever was about to go down.

You were torn away from your book when you heard a sharp knock at the door.  Confused, you slowly got up and went to open the door only to reveal the very last person you expected to see tonight.

You stared at Kaz for a long while before beginning coldly, “What do you want?”

Kaz internally flinched at your tone.  “I’d like to talk.”

“Do you want to talk to me or yell at me?”  You retorted, feeling petty.

Kaz screwed his lips shut to keep himself from saying anything stupid, “Talk.”  He reiterated.

You looked him over before stepping aside, wordlessly letting him in.  Kaz strode inside the apartment hastily, observing the space with a critical eye.  “So you’ve been staying with your friend, Alex?”  He purposefully asked incorrectly.

“Arthur.  And yes, he’s been incredibly kind and understanding of my situation.”  You rebuked.

“Not too kind, I’m sure.”

“You have no reason to care.”  You painfully reminded him.  Kaz didn’t say anything, knowing you were right.  Kaz stalked around the main room, pretending to take a great interest in the decor as he tried miserably to plan what to say next.  You watched him move about, scrutinizing his every move and waiting for him to speak up.  You weren’t sure why he was here, but if he wanted to apologize then it would have to be in his own words.

“I…”  Kaz started but then trailed off, unsure of what exactly to say.  The dark haired man sighed, his mind exhausted with frustration, and plopped down on the couch.  You stood unmoving from your spot in the center of the room, still watching and waiting with a raised brow.  “I came to tell you that you didn’t deserve to be yelled at the way I yelled at you.  Even on your worst days you’d never deserve to be treated the way I treated you.”

You blinked in surprise, Kaz was never an openly apologetic person and you could tell he was unfamiliar with this area of communication by the way he stumbled over his words.  You moved closer sitting in the chair opposite him.  You could tell he still had more to say so you nodded at him, silently letting him know to continue.

Kaz took a steadying breath and readjusted his grip on his cane.  “I shouldn’t have spoken to you like that, I shouldn’t have let you walk out the door.  I can’t sleep at night, all I hear are your whispers.  I can’t keep moving about my day without at least trying to repair things between us.  Even if you don’t want to return to the way we were, I needed to tell you… all of this.”

Your throat tightened and you clutched desperately onto your pant legs for some grounding.  Your mind was spinning.  You wanted to still be angry with him, you wanted to yell at him and berate him.  But here he was, the man you loved sitting in front of you, apologizing, expressing regret over his actions, and telling you he’ll respect whatever decision you make after tonight.

“You hurt me Kaz.  You know how to weaponize words and you turned your stockpile against me and we’re supposed to be allies.”

“I know, I know and I’ll hate that memory for the rest of my life.  I’m a deplorable man, but the last thing I ever want to do is hurt you, and I can’t begin to describe the discontent I’ve felt after that night.”

You looked down at your hands, no longer able to maintain eye contact with Kaz with the way he was looking so intensely at you.  “I… I don’t know where to go from here Kaz.”  You admitted honestly.

“I’m not quite sure either.  But,”  Kaz paused, trying to gauge your reaction to his next words, “we could start by moving you back into the Slat.”

Your gaze snapped back up to the brown-eyed man in front of you, heart stuttering in your chest.  “With you?”  You questioned, voice shakier than you’d intended.

“Preferably.”  Kaz confirmed.

You looked Kaz up and down, scanning his face over and over for any sign that he was just messing with you, just trying to get your hopes up before brutally smashing them down again.  But all you could find was ground-shaking sincerity.  Fear and reverence swirled in his coffee-eyes and it knocked the wind out of you.

You took a weak breath in.  Maybe you weren’t strong, but the man you’d loved for years was sitting there trying to reconcile and you weren’t going to lie and say you weren’t ready to jump at the idea.  You didn’t want to give up on the two of you.  Kaz Brekker was your everything, is your everything.  You can’t imagine your life without him in it, so yeah, you were going to try again with him.  If things didn’t work out this time, then you’d take the hint and start the process of moving on.  But you were determined to work things out, because Kaz was here telling you just the same and you’d be damned if you didn’t take this opportunity.

“It’s going to take a bit for me to readjust to us.  I want to try again Kaz, start over.  I want us to work because I believe in us, I believe in you.”  You uttered seriously and Kaz’s breath hitched at your words.  He felt hope again, for the first time in ages he felt bright shining hope and restored vigor.

“I’ll give you all the time you need and more.  I’ll give you whatever you need, all you have to do is ask.  I don’t mean to let us die without a bare-knuckle fight.  I’ll dig up the corpse of us and pull our ghost from the depths of the Underworld if that means we can get a second chance.”  Kaz fervently promised, leaning so far forward he was barely sitting on the edge of his seat anymore.  You smiled at his goreish analogy, always the dramatic Kaz Brekker even when trying to repair your relationship.

You nodded and sighed contentedly.  “I won’t let us die without a fight either– but be warned; if you ever disrespect me like that again, I’ll rip you a new one Brekker.”  You warned with a playful smirk tugging at your lips.

Kaz made a noise between a scoff and a laugh, “I fully expect you to, but I won’t be giving you a reason to ever do so.”  You grinned with satisfaction at his words, getting up from your chair and telling him to stay put as you gathered your things. 

You waited for Arthur to come back before leaving the apartment, so you could explain the situation to him.  He was more than happy for you, glad to see you in any mood other than depressed for the first time in ages.  You made Kaz stand in the hall for the interaction, as you noticed your friend growing quickly uncomfortable with Kaz’s searing glare.

Before you knew it, you were back in the Slat with the love of your life.  You seamlessly melded right back into his space and Kaz could finally breathe freely again.  Things were right, they were the way they were supposed to be now that the two of you were back together again.  Kaz had never felt such a sense of relief as he did watching you settle down for bed in your shared room.  Kaz Brekker was no man of faith, but he swore to every Saint above that he’d never take you for granted or disrespect you ever again, lest he die a painful and humiliating death.  He didn’t deserve your second chances or forgiveness, but he’d work every day to try and deserve it, to be the partner you deserved.

[last-herondale]

Almost Pt. 2

Bucky POV (W/ FemReader)

Angst, heartbreak, sadness

Tw: some mild curse words

AN: Hellooooo. I had an idea for a part two! Two fics in one week? Who do I think I am? 😳 anyway here is Bucky’s point of view on what happened after part one! Will link below! Maybe this will be a new series? Idk feeling ambitious 🤣

Part 1

Part 3

Enjoy 🤘🏼

It had been six weeks since Steve’s party. Six agonizing weeks of silence. Forty-two days of not hearing your voice. One thousand and eight hours of not seeing you smile at my stupid jokes. Sixty thousand, four hundred, and eighty minutes of not seeing the light dance in your eyes whenever you saw me enter the room. Three million, six hundred thousand twenty eight, and eight hundred seconds since I saw you walk away from me during that party after confessing your love for me.

You said you needed time. I respected that. I understood that.

After you bared your soul to me, I told you what I thought you needed to hear. That I wasn’t good enough for you. That you deserved better. It was difficult to stand there and see the light die from your eyes as I said these things. It was painful to see you cry, knowing that I had been the one to cause you that pain. But it was devastating for me to realize that despite how much I loved you, how much I cared for you, that the words I said were still true. Agonizingly so.

I expected that this type of honesty would destroy our friendship. Even though I still held out hope in my selfish mindset that we could continue on like we had in the past. Spending our free nights together, laughing, joking, having fun together, sharing memories, crying, hugging, everything we used to do…

But of course, those dreams had not come into fruition.

When you volunteered to be shipped out of the country for a mission the day after Steve’s party, I knew it was to get away from me. And despite my frustration and worry about you leaving on some dangerous mission without me in the state you were in, Steve assured me that you would be fine. He didn’t know the extent of what happened, but Steve being the inquisitive son of a bitch he is, he was able to connect some of the dots at least. Surprisingly he didn’t lecture or judge me. I was expecting to get an earful from him about how I treated you, led you on, and hurt your feelings, but in return I got nothing.

The mission was only supposed to last for two weeks, but as the days grew longer, the whole team was on edge when the two of you didn’t return. Steve kept communications with Tony, and he would pass along the messages to the rest of us. “They hit a snag. They are safe but they are bunking down for a bit.”

I felt like I was on pins and needles. I just needed to know you were safe, that you were okay. I must have looked worse for wear around the tower, because even Nat noticed and had a conversation with me in my room. It was a little strange. Having her back in my apartment, alone, her fiery gaze still as piercing as it was when we were together. But those feelings I held for her were gone. Something else lingered there, a fondness for the time we had, but nothing more.

I knew she was your best friend, so I assumed you told her everything about what happened at the party, but when she came into my apartment with a stern gaze on me, arms crossed and all, all she said was.

“I don’t know what happened the other night at Steve’s party, but you need to stop moping and get a grip.”

“I’m fine. Stay out of it,” I said with an icy tone.

Nat just rolled her eyes and jabbed a finger at me. “If you don’t feel anything for her, then stay away or get your shit together. She cares about you too much to walk away from you, Bucky.” Nat’s voice grew softer as she thought of you. “Whenever she comes back, and she will come back, she needs to heal. She cannot continue to be your emotional support puppet. It's draining her, James. Every time she returns from hanging out with you I see less and less of her return. She cannot continue to give you all of her heart when she is receiving none of it back.

“So for her sake, please, let her go.”

It was a hard thing to hear, but it was necessary. I stopped driving myself mad with when you would return. It was difficult, maddeningly so, but after another week I was able to distract myself enough with other things… other people. I did a few missions here and there, nothing that took me out of the country, but it filled some of the time I had to think about you.

I spent time with Nadia, the girl I had gone on a few dates with, the girl I had broken your heart over. Our relationship was purely physical. She was another distraction, someone to pass the time with. She didn’t seem to mind the distance I put between us. We weren’t exclusive by any means, and she was free to explore all of her options, but that was as far as that would go. Not that I could ever tell you this, even though I wanted to.

That was the shittiest part of it all. I missed you. Constantly. I missed talking with you about every single part of my day. I missed hearing about your day, or the silly little thoughts that swirled in your curious head. I missed spending my weekends with you, staying up until the sun rose, seeing you curled up in a ball on my couch, sleeping so peacefully. The ache in my chest never ceased, but I was able to drown away the thought of you for moments at a time.

And then you returned.

It was like a blow to the heart, seeing you standing in the kitchen, casually making yourself a bowl of cereal. Your skin seemed tanner than when you left. Clearly you had been somewhere where the sun kissed your skin for long periods of time. You looked beautiful, even just in your morning casual wear. You hadn’t noticed me yet. I was frozen in the entryway, trying to think of something intelligible to say to you, when Steve walked in through the other way. He too had not noticed me yet, his skin also sunkissed and a bit long.

I opened my mouth to speak, but before any sound could come out, I watched as my best friend slid his arms around your waist, turned you around in a swift and gentle motion, and kissed you. Ice filled my veins and it felt as if a rock had dropped in my stomach. I staggered backwards a bit, hiding myself more in the darkness of the archway as I saw the scene unfold.

Steve was kissing you. His hands were gentle around your waist, and although you were taken by surprise in the moment, you stood on your toes to be more on his level. You cupped his face and smiled. You were smiling. You looked…happy.

I slipped away back down the hallway and into my room before I could see more. The image of my best friend kissing the love of my life was burned into my mind. I sat on my bed in a disgruntled mess, fighting the strange waves of feelings that were swirling in my body.

You were finally back. You were safe. At that I was able to release the tension in my chest that I had been holding since you left. And then… Steve. What had changed during those six weeks you were gone? Was it serious? Did you love him? Did he love you? These questions paced back and forth inside of my brain until I was nearly dizzy.

It was the memory of Nat’s voice that stuck out amongst my own thoughts. “Let her go.”

You had been happy in that kitchen. Steve was a good man, too good to play with someone’s feelings if he didn’t truly feel something for them. Steve was good for you. That’s what I wanted, wasn’t it? The reason why I broke your heart in the first place? To set you free to find someone that would love you in all the ways I was incapable of doing. Why was I mad that you had done that? Why did I want to punch Steve for kissing you?

I clenched my fists as I sat on the bed. My body shook with so much emotion. In the torental storm that was my mind, I tried to focus on one memory. The only one that mattered. That night on the balcony. You had stood there, hair swirling in the breeze, more beautiful than the night sky. And you said it.

“I’m in love with you.”

The words calmed me. The memory of that night grounded me. Your tears. Your sadness. Your anger. I caused that. “I’m in love with you.” That is what you told me. And even though I wanted to scream it back, to shout it from the roof that I loved you too, instead I denied you. I threw it back in your face to save you from what I am. I hurt you, and this was my punishment. Seeing you pick up the pieces of that love that I shattered and give it to someone who would nurture that love.

I sat there thinking and thinking, until my head was pounding. I laid down on my bed, the image of you kissing someone else burning in my head.

“I’m in love with you too,” I muttered to myself.

Then, as tears began to silently fall down my face, I began to laugh.

[asterythm]

on the ending of in stars and time:

an essay from someone who couldn’t sit with it at first, & a love letter to the fic that brought me here anyway. (…spoiler warning for in stars and time, naturally, but you knew that!)

if siffrin isat has taught me one thing it's that vulnerability is cool, actually, and being forthcoming and generous with love when there is love to be shared is how the coolest kids do it.

so. hello isat nation of tumblr dot com. i'm here because even after cutting out several chunks to shorten this significantly, i busted through the ao3 comment section character limit and still had more to say, so i needed somewhere to put it all that would let me go longer.

i’m pretty sure this post is for, like, three people, one of whom is me. but look, it’s been moved here to the webbed site so if you wanna read it anyway i won’t stop you!

=====

i think what it is, ultimately, is this: the ISAT canon ending was beautiful. it was an objectively well-written ending with so much love and hope and thematic satisfaction.

it also left me, for a period, with a deep and unshakeable sense of dread.

:)!!!!

now enter @faedemon's "None Forward & Two, Two, Two Steps Back" (hiya, fancy seeing you here), a two-chapter alt act 5 in which siffrin finds a New, Worse way to break the loops.

despite being, as mentioned, a notably worse outcome for everyone involved, this alt end managed to cut straight to the heart of that dread and settle it — and not in the sense of "oh, i like this alt ending better", or “oh, the canon ending looks better in comparison against this worse alt ending”, so much as "oh, thanks to this alt ending i am finally able to sit in a place where it no longer feels like the canon ending, as a beautiful outcome which felt impossibly lucky to get, is the only outcome in which life can go on — and my ability to accept it, and the game as a whole, is elevated for it."

which!! i mean!! i don’t know that that’s exactly what you set out to do; None Forward is explicitly a tragedy!! and one, as your tags say, written because the canon ending didn't ring true for you.

but I realized that the thing that was stopping me from enjoying ISAT’s canon ending was that ugly hard core that was still so, so scared after the canon ending of every way we (that is, siffrin + i as the player moving in that incredible ludonarrative lockstep with him, holy moly the harmony in this game) had not yet grown to earn it. 

=====

(I’ll take a sec here under the cut to say that when I played ISAT, and then for much of the month that followed, my main reason for engaging with it and its related content at all was that it was a piece of media that came fervently recommended by my incredibly dear friend @iconocat , who it had massively, violently impacted and whose media recommendations in general I trust more than anything.

so i played ISAT, and it was incredible. but even though it's a piece of media that just about hit on every point on my list of Things That Set My Brain On Fire, it failed somehow to. well. set me on fire — at least to the extent I was expecting it to. I still enjoyed myself in the few weeks afterwards of running through fan content and intentionally plunging myself into media analysis, but I was never convinced that I would be engaging with ISAT to the extent I was if it wasn't for the sake of trying to intentionally hack my brain to the point where I could share with my friend something so important to her at the same level of genuine investment. 

I’m telling you all this because, legitimately the same night I posted “nothing but a dull ache” (ie, if you're not charlie faedemon and are somehow caring to read this anyway, the epilogue oneshot I started feverishly writing the morning after reading None Forward), I realized through my rambling in my friend’s discord dms that reading None Forward was the moment the fire finally caught. I spent a month burying myself in ISAT content and asking myself “Is this natural yet?”. after None Forward, the answer to that question finally became a sure, wholehearted yes.)

=====

so anyway, back to the essay.

don't get me wrong. it's really, really nice, to read a story where the moral is less “you should have asked for help", and more “there are people who will unselfishly give the gift of a love that saves even when you cannot save yourself".

but that whole ending also was only able to happen because 1. they broke in a way no one should ever have to break, and 2. everyone involved got lucky.

which, in media, happens all the time!! it is not inherently dissatisfying for a narrative to wrap by saving you with luck and love in the nick of time!! in fact it should be incredibly satisfying, after the unambiguously-negative downward spiral into Director Siffrin who had begun to learn what to say and do to make his family behave exactly the way he needs them to, for a stroke of unpredictable luck brought about by factors entirely out of his control to finally be what sets him free.

but like... I think it's because the story is set in a situation where it's no longer true that luck and randomness is a factor by which anything significant can change.

we're hammered over the head with it: until and unless you do something to alter the course of events, they will not be altered. when you are the only dynamic element the world is reacting to in an otherwise looping course of events, you don't get to rely, anymore, on the idea that at any moment something could happen to save you. you have to assume that nothing will happen unless you make it.

and siffrin?? siffrin's literal motto was "stick to the script"!! they spend the loops with a mouth that kept closing tighter and tighter and tighter until i got to act 5 and watched them implode.��and then I’m saved, and I know I haven't earned this. I get to the end and I'm still not telling them anything!! I wasn't supposed to get the good ending!! but I get away with it anyway with open arms and acceptance and unconditional love, and it's. kind of nauseating?

how am I ever supposed to learn and grow, if I didn't manage to change my behaviour even then under the threat of Eternal Looping Torment, and still got the good ending anyway? how can I prove there was an alternative way I could have broken free if things hadn't turned out so lucky in that one terrible act 5 loop?

I can't. and that's terrifying.

(aside: I’m speaking in the first person here to emphasize that the thing that got in my way is not because I don't believe siffrin is deserving of this love — quite the opposite, I think the driving force behind the good ending is that siffrin went scorched earth and saw he was loved anyway — but because this is a game designed to frequently encourage the player to deeply feel what siffrin is feeling throughout its course and. well. as a thing to happen to a fictional character it's beautiful. as a takeaway for the player, it's... harder.)

and that's where None Forward comes in. (i’ve already written thousands of words in comments and epilogue fic declaring my love by now, but i mean. im hoping you won’t mind just a liiiittle more.)

None Forward shows a devastatingly written, all-too-believable version of what might have happened if siffrin didn't get lucky, and the loops continued, and they kept clinging to the script and refusing to Look At It and successfully stagnating and stagnating and stagnating as they were so determined to do. and it's bad, it's worse, it's way way worse — but there's no reliance on outside factors. it comes completely from within siffrin and loop, the only dynamic pieces in the world, finally breaking out.

it was the terrible, nightmarish unfairness of the loops brought to their natural, just-south-of-inevitable conclusion.

and yes, it's a terrible, unfair conclusion, but the loop still breaks.

in a roundabout way, it... gives me so much hope. if the outside factors were different, if the stars did not align just right to allow siffrin's family to get there on time to save them, if siffrin never learned to open their mouth, which by all means seems like the likeliest course of events... they'd still get out. worse for wear, and separated by a gap unbridgeable, but out.

there is a future. there is freedom.

=====

to speak more specifically on dull ache, if you'll forgive the indulgence, just since this was originally meant to be in a reply to the author in my own comments section:

I think I so desperately needed to write it with a focus on the family siffrin left behind because I wanted to prove, if just for myself, that in that barely-dodged alternative there still could be a future for everyone. (isabeau's just happened to be the voice in which dull ache came to me, but the point was to create an epilogue for all four.)

for the rest of the family, who was not quite so deeply ravaged but was still left in a bad way at the end of None Forward, and for whom randomness is not pretty much unequivocally good just by virtue of being better than the alternative like it is for siffrin and loop (more on that in a sec), I could see it mattering more to set specific pieces up precisely, and I could actually imagine the pieces I could set up that could have a meaningful impact in the immediate future.

so. y’know. I set them, in the way I happened to want to. granted, with some extra... divine indulgence, but siffrin's departure from their family's perspective at the end of None Forward was definitely Wrong but not so obviously wrong that I could believe that without it they wouldn't otherwise either (a) go hunting him down to force out the truth, which felt Worse, or (b) just "accept" that it was as simple as Siffrin not actually caring about them/brushing them off and thus intentionally fade him into the distance in their minds to deal with it. which felt like the WORST POSSIBLE THING.

you'd think it might make more sense to have done this for siffrin and loop, instead. they're arguably the ones who need it most, after all, so why not build them up from rock bottom as a sweeping show of "things get better"?

but... i think it doesn't need to be written to have faith that it will happen: the very fact that Siffrin is about to set out on a new journey in a reality where everything is a dynamic player just. immediately gives me hope all by itself. random lucky things that save you are so much more believable and wonderful when random lucky things in general are happening all the time, and you have all the time in the world for them to happen.

and anyway, I don't think this is the kind of future you’d write satisfyingly as a sequence of events at all. to heal from this is something that will take an incredible amount of time and nonlinear progress. 

until one day, through a series of disconnected small quiet gloriously-random lived experiences, without knowing when it happened or being able to trace it back, you realize, oh —

somewhere along the way, you came to know how to live again.

[pavlovianfuckery]

i have abandonment issues and anxiety and now so do you

A/N: Re-uploading all my fics after having a slight mental breakdown and deleting everything so this is kind of old, but bone apple tea and all that anyway

AO3

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Summary: He is so very pretty when he cries and I wanted another go at writing some quick stair sex, fucking sue me ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Pairing: Dream/F!Reader

Notes: piv sex, angst, no use of y/n

Length: 2600~ words

It's been weeks since you slept unaided, the use of pills keeping any dreams at bay, so when you finally enter the Dreaming only to find yourself in the throne room of all places, it gives you pause. Everything looks much the same as you remember. When you finally lay eyes on the aloof figure on the throne it feels like being kicked in the chest, which is less unexpected. You had imagined what it would be like to see him again many times, but nothing you had planned to say comes out, the words turning to ash in your mouth.

"Leave us." His gaze is fixed on you as he orders everyone out, and it feels as if an eternity passes between the closing of the massive doors and him speaking to you. "Do you know why I have brought you here?" Just hearing his voice again is painful, but you refuse to let it show, squaring your shoulders but not meeting his eyes, not bothering to keep your tone civil.

"I do not presume to know why you would do anything, so no, I don't." The glibness doesn't seem to amuse him, and he steps down from the throne. "That is not quite true, is it?" His voice is flat as he approaches you unhurriedly, step by inexorable step.   "If accusing me of being a liar is all you dragged me here for, I'm just going to go." You turn to go, to wake up, to be anywhere but here, but he calls out to you. "Stop." You were planning on leaving, and yet. And yet.

"Why?" You whirl around, facing him. It's a struggle to keep your voice from cracking, but you manage it, somehow."You don't want me here."  He frowns, moving closer until he's only a few paces away. "I assure you, that is not true, despite your lack of loyalty." "What in the world is that even supposed to mean?" Now you can't keep the anger out of your voice, "Since when have I ever been disloyal to you?" "Since you abandoned me to cavort with a mortal." The words are full of contempt, and it almost makes you physically recoil. "I abandoned you?" It comes out as a disbelieving laugh, more callous than you had intended. "No, you left, without so much as a word. I didn't hear from you for 6 months! I don't know if you had gotten bored of me or what, but you were gone."

"Bored?" His frown deepens. "There were matters of great import that required my attention." "Of course there were."  You had always been painfully aware of your own unimportance to a being like him right from the start but nevertheless, his words still hurt. "What did you expect me to do then, spend the rest of my life waiting for you? I didn't even know if you were coming back at all."

"You certainly wasted no time before giving yourself to another." "Did you miss the part where you up and left me for months? Not that it's any of your business anymore but yes, I slept with someone else, to try and get over you forgetting me!" "I did not forget you." Somehow, the words make it worse. "Yeah? Because that's what it looked like." Your eyes sting and you wipe at them angrily.

He's frozen, unmoving at the bottom of the steps. Bathed in the soft light from the stained glass windows he reminds you of a marble statue. Beautiful. Cold. It cuts at you like a knife until you can't stand to look at him any longer, and you turn to leave again. The way his fingers snag your wrist takes you by surprise, not expecting him to reach out. "Wait." "I did." You yank your arm back, but he grabs hold. The touch is gentle, but it might as well have been a firebrand. "Let. Go." For all their vehemence the words feel like a lie on your tongue, and as you glare at him it's obvious that he doesn't believe them either because his grip only tightens. The way he looks at you hurts, it burns and something inside your chest just shatters.

The slap is loud in the empty room, neither of you expecting it. Even though your palm tingles from the open-handed strike there isn't a mark on him of course, but that doesn't make you feel any better. When he pulls you to him, most of the fight drains out of you. "You don't get to do this, you know," you punch his chest weakly, just once as the first tears start to fall. "You can't just dump me by the wayside when you get tired of me, I'm not your fucking pet." "No, perhaps not. But do not doubt this; you are mine."

Despite everything, the close proximity has the same effect as it always has, as if he'd never left. As he tightens his arms around you his familiar scent envelops you, making your head swim. You're not sure what possesses you to brush your lips against his throat, but you do it anyway, despite your every sense screaming at you that it's a bad idea. "Forgive me." For a moment you're sure that he'll send you away, that you'll wake up alone in your bed again and the thought makes it hard to breathe. But then his fingers ghost over your cheek, brushing your tears away before guiding your mouth to his. The kiss is a brief, unspeakably tender thing, over much too quickly. Brows knitted together in something like confusion his eyes are heavy on you, searching your face. "What is there to forgive? If I had known..."

You don't wait for him to finish speaking, pulling him back down by the lapels of his coat. His lips are as soft against yours as they've ever been as you pry them open, like it would be possible to push every shred of angerpaingrief into him that way. As if he could somehow understand your hurt if only you could force him to taste it. And he lets you, even as you nip at him until you taste blood, like bright copper pennies caught in your teeth. Lack of air makes your head spin but you can't stop clinging to him as if he'd turn to smoke under your hands, to slip between your fingers to be gone by morning. "Don't leave me like that again..."

You breathe the words into him like a prayer until your knees go weak, and even then he holds you to him still, not letting go. The descent onto the stairs is a gradual one, made clumsy by the reluctance to let go for even a second. Straddling his lap is a graceless affair, but you're beyond caring.  Feeling the fabric of his coat under you is a bit unsettling, the way it cushions your knees from the unyielding stone beneath a bit too well to be quite real. It makes you feel as if you could fall into the sky of the lining of it if you're not careful. "You are aware of my responsibilities; I can offer you no such promises."  That hurts to hear more than you would like to admit, but then he continues, "I can however endeavour to inform you when my work requires my full attention."

It's not quite an apology, but it's as close to one as you're likely to ever get and still more than you dared hope for.  As the hem of his shirt rides up exposing the skin there, the urge to be closer is overpowering. "I have missed you." The way he says it is quiet but fond, the words soft enough to rival the feel of his skin under your questing hands.

Wanting to lay any claim on him that you can you suck at the sensitive skin on the side of his neck, which surprisingly does leave a mark, one that doesn't fade. When the realization dawns that he's doing that, he's keeping it there on purpose for you, lust pools molten in your belly. Repeating the action on the other side makes him groan, the sound vibrating against your lips as he tips his head back and grinds his hips up against you, giving you all the permission you need.

The bruises bloom nearly instantly, another one of his tricks, offered up almost like a gift. They dapple the flawless column of his throat prettily, but it's still not enough. The seams creak in protest as you pull the collar of his shirt down to get at more of him, but he doesn't seem to mind.  After being apart for so long, suddenly having him this close when you thought you never would again is overwhelming and you're unable to hold back a few errant tears.  "Do you have any idea what it was like with you gone?" Giving his hair a pull, you force him to look at you. 

He wets his lips before responding, an uncharacteristically human gesture. "It was never my intention to cause you harm." The tremble in his voice is barely perceptible but still undeniably there.

His lips yield to yours so easily when you kiss him again, pressing the heel of your hand against his fly. "Help me forget?" As you breathe the words into his mouth you can feel him pulse through the fabric. "Please?"

Even with his hands aiding yours it's easier than it should have been to pull his jeans down, the stiff material offering next to no resistance, a convenience courtesy of the Dreaming. Rather than removing them completely, you push them only as far down as is necessary.

His cock is just as pretty as the rest of him, you'd almost forgotten that. The skin is silky in your palm as you give him a few slow pumps, just as a reminder of what he feels like.  "Let me see you." His words make the rest of your clothing fade away like morning mist leaving you completely exposed on his lap, another perk of his realm that you had missed. The way he touches you borders on worshipful as he presses a soft kiss over your heart, gentle as a butterfly wing.

Sinking down on him slowly is difficult when you're aching like this, but you want to savour it. For now, he simply leans back and watches as your body swallows every inch of him. The way he fills you so perfectly is intoxicating, addictive. It feels like coming home. For a while you don't move, just enjoying holding him inside like this, buried to the hilt as you squeeze around him. The intimacy of it is almost unbearable, nearly making you choke up again as he gently grabs hold of your hips and guides you into a languid pace.

"Tell me he didn't make you feel like this." The words are quiet, almost pleading, his eyes shining as he looks up at you. You had thought something like that wouldn't matter to a being like him, but his fragile expression tells you otherwise. "I need to hear you say it," he gasps, the stars in his eyes finally falling. Seeing him like this nearly breaks your heart all over again. As you kiss his face with all the tenderness you can muster, moisture stains your lips, making him seem remarkably human in that moment. "You know he didn't," you fail to keep your voice steady as you stroke his hair. "He wasn't you."

The way his chest hitches does nothing to douse the desire burning its way through you, not the way it perhaps should have done. He's so lovely like this, all dishevelled, cheeks shining. It's wholly unexpected, the vulnerability of it all, making the tension in your core coil tighter. The salt of his tears burning on the tip of your tongue makes you feel like consuming enough of him in any way you can would somehow erase your stupid mistake. As if he could fill you up until there would be room for nothing else, and he would push the memory of it out of you. 

"Please come in me," you roll your hips, pleading. "I need you to."

That you would ask for it so bluntly makes him let out a desperate little sound and thrust up into you ineffectually, the bunched-up fabric around his knees making it close to impossible to gain any proper traction on the smooth stone steps. He grasps your hips more firmly, spurring you on. "Move for me." It's still a fairly leisurely pace, neither of you so much chasing release as letting it arrive in its own time.  Pleasure washing over you in gentle waves makes your thighs quake as it brings you close to your peak before pulling away, time and time again.

The squelching noises as you ride his cock are embarrassingly loud in the empty hall, but you're beyond caring about anything except that you get to have him like this again. One of his hands moves to where you are joined, clever fingers circling your clit, not directly touching you yet.  "You make such a sweet mess of me, my love."He murmurs, voice strained as he continues, "I've missed that." The words alone are nearly enough to put you right back on that precipice, making you pull on his hair with a frustrated little whine. "Morpheus, please." At that, he goes completely still, his grip like iron as he holds you in place. You can feel his cock straining inside of you, nearly spilling but not quite. "Plead with me like that," he chokes out, cheeks high with colour, "and you will receive me sooner than you might hope."

Being the one to make his composure falter has never failed to drive you wild and this time is no different. Seeing him like this after your time apart, balancing on that edge right along with you, is very nearly enough to bring you off. Furrowing his brow he bites his bottom lip, fighting to keep his control from slipping, and you realize that you're going to come regardless of if he moves or not. It's like a tidal wave on the horizon, the pull relentless long before it arrives.

"I'm going to," you struggle to get the words out, "fuck, I'm..." The way his eyes bore into yours is almost hypnotic, drawing you in. "Go on," he breathes, egging you on, "come for me." Then he flexes inside of you and with a whimper, you're lost, walls spasming around his cock. There is no way to ride the wave of pleasure and nowhere to hide from it, the only thing you can do is slump bonelessly on his lap and let it wash over you, because he isn't letting you move. He's only a few seconds behind you though, pushing in as far as he can go and emptying himself there with a strangled sound, as if he really could wash every trace of the other man's touch out of you that way.

Spent, he rests his head against your shoulder, stroking his hands down your back soothingly as his come starts seeping out of you. For a while you simply stay like that, holding each other close.  Now that you're thinking more clearly reality starts to set in, and you can't help but dread waking up. Because in your heart of hearts, you know that you will wake up alone, no matter what just happened. It hits you like a sledgehammer to the chest and without meaning to, you start to tremble.

Realizing with rising horror that this might just be A dream and not your Dream, you do the only thing you can think of; you flee back to the waking world.

⁂

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[skyward-floored]

Alright, everyone who wanted a continuation for the three sentence fics for pinned and searching, here you go! I made this longer then it needed to be but that’s ok it was fun *looks guiltily at other things I’m supposed to be writing* ...heh.

Warning for some blood, injury, and uhhh being stuck under a collapsed cave.

——————————————————————

Warriors shut his eyes a moment, trying to focus despite the pain in his middle and the small space he was trapped in that felt like it was closing in around him. He needed to get himself and Wild out of here in one piece, but he had no clue how on earth he was going to do that.

Warriors breathed out, and felt around the hand he’d found, trying to brush the debris off of it. He couldn’t reach any further then a little past the wrist though, and he couldn’t tell how buried Wild was.

He needed to get himself out first, it seemed.

Warriors swallowed and momentarily let go of Wild’s hand, feeling around the large thing he himself was trapped under. It felt heavy, but Warriors tried to shift it anyway, gasping as pure agony burned up his side at the movement.

He fell still again and panted as he waited for the pain to go down, coughing out some of the dust coating his lungs. Even once the worst of it faded, there was still a sharp pulse of pain that remained in his middle, somewhere near his ribs or lungs. Warriors didn’t know for sure, but either way it hurt, and that along with the fact that he was half buried, he knew he wouldn’t be able to free himself or Wild.

It looked like they’d just have to wait for rescue.

Warriors felt out Wild’s hand again, wishing he could move the fabric away from his wrist and check his pulse. It was too thick for him to feel anything, but the angle was wrong for him to pull it off. All he could do was hope Wild was still breathing, that the rest of him was okay.

I don’t even know if his head is uncovered, he thought suddenly, panic stealing his breath . He might be too buried to breathe, I don’t even know if his head is okay, who’s to say it wasn’t bashed in by a rock and I’m holding the hand of a—

A weak cough interrupted his spiraling panic, and Warriors froze, his heart thudding in his ears. Another followed it, faint and rasping, and the fingers in Warriors’ grip twitched just a little.

“Champion?” he asked, barely daring to breathe.

The coughing faded, followed by a wavering inhale, and Warriors held tighter to the hand in his.

“Wild?” he asked again, trying desperately to see though the darkness. He couldn’t make out a thing, but he was certain he hadn’t imagined the noises. Unless of course, he was starting to run out of air and was hallucinating things. Which was always a possibility.

“...W-Wars..?” a voice finally croaked, and Warriors breathed out a sigh of relief, ignoring the ache that shot up his middle due to it. Looks like we still have some air yet.

“Yeah. Yeah, ‘s me,” Warriors whispered back, giving the hand in his a squeeze.

“Wh-what...” Wild stammered, his voice weak and crackling, “wh... where..?”

“Wild, are you hurt?” Warriors asked, and it was quiet for a second.

“...Dunno. Th-think... ‘m arm h’rts...”

Something faintly rumbled in the distance, and Warriors held his breath as a few stray pebbles fell on his face. It faded again moments later, but he thought the pressure on his middle had slightly increased with the noise.

Wild’s breath suddenly hitched. “W’re... buried.”

Warriors breathed out. “Yeah.”

Wild’s breath hitched again, and the hand in Warriors’ began to shake, fingers fumbling as they tried to clutch at Warriors’.

“Wild, hey, easy,” Warriors breathed, holding more tightly to his hand, but he could hear Wild’s breathing speed up.

“No... n-no I can’t—”

“Wild, calm down,” Warriors said in as clear of a voice as he could, then coughed, the pain in his middle feeling worse. That’s starting to hurt an awful lot. “The... the others ‘ll come.”

“W’re buried,” Wild gasped, panic making him cough, and Warriors heard rubble shift, like Wild was trying to move. “W-Wars I can’t—”

“Wild. Listen,” Warriors said in a commanding voice, ignoring the urge to cough again. “You need to stay calm. I don’t kn-know how much air w-we have, we need to stay... calm.”

He grabbed firmly at Wild’s hand, and Wild clutched back at it, his breath still rasping loudly in the enclosed space.

“‘S too small,” Wild whispered, fingers shaking as he clung to Warriors’ hand. “Too... tight, ‘s like the... too small.”

Wild’s voice was small and scared, lacking the usual bright and teasing quality it almost always held. Warriors squeezed his eyes shut as he ran his fingers over Wild’s, then reopened them, trying to think past the fog trying to overtake his senses. Something was trying to break through it, an idea of sorts that they could use to get out, but it hadn’t succeeded yet.

“‘M not a fan of smaller spaces either,” Warriors admitted in a soft rasp. “Not fun. Gimme... ‘n open field any day.”

“Don’ sound so w-worried yr’self,” Wild muttered shakily, and Warriors coughed out a laugh.

“Perfected th-the art of faking it, bud.”

Wild let out a small, hysterical croak, a distant mirror of a laugh, but his frantic gasps had begun to ease. His breath still rasped more then it should, but Warriors was relieved at even the slight improvement.

Things fell silent between them for a moment, and Warriors took a minute to breathe, an action that was getting harder and harder to do successfully. The hot, painful feeling in his middle was starting to grow to an agonizing degree, and the fog was growing thicker around his senses. But the idea that had been forming in his head finally broke through, and Warriors shifted his head towards where Wild was.

“Wild,” he said, unable to keep his voice from hitching with pain. “C-can you reach your... slate?”

The fingers in Warriors’ twitched, then slowly withdrew, the quiet sound of rocks and pebbles being shifted reaching him. For a moment it was all Warriors could hear, that and an occasional shaky inhale like Wild was stopping himself from letting out a more pained noise, but then he heard a small hum.

“I... I c’n touch it,” Wild said, voice more shaky then it had been before. “Don’ think I can... pull it, but... m-might be able to get... Wind.”

“Okay,” Warriors breathed, squeezing his eyes shut and reopening them. “See if... you c-can—”

A cough spilled from his lips, and Warriors was unable to stop the fit he suddenly broke into, coughs that were thick and painful, bringing tears to his eyes with how they made his chest burn.

He wasn’t able to stop for several long moments, and his head spun dizzyingly as he caught his breath, middle full of a liquid fire so intense he could barely breathe.

“Wars?” Wild asked in a sharp, terrified voice, and Warriors coughed again, something warm dripping down his lip.

“‘M fi...” he rasped, dragging in another breath. “Fine, ‘m fine Wild. Call... Wind.”

Wild didn’t reply, but Warriors could feel the disbelief radiating from him as the quiet sounds of him shuffling in the debris sounded out again. The only other noise was Warriors’ wheezing breaths, and it was a few moments before Warriors heard a soft click.

The faintest bit of blue shone through the rocks nearby, not enough to see by, but enough that Warriors knew Wild had succeeded in turning on his slate.

“Sailor,” Wild rasped, trying to make his voice louder, and then coughing due to the effort. “S-Sailor... y’there..?”

He fell silent, and both of them strained their ears, even though Warriors was having an extremely hard time focusing. It felt like a Goron had sat on his chest, and was occasionally stomping around on his ribs, painful and heavy on his bones. But he couldn’t free himself, so it was just something he’d have to deal with.

Warriors shivered, and tried not to wheeze as his middle ached at the movement.

The sooner the both of them got out, the better.

“...hea...know I...see if...”

Warriors and Wild both stilled at the faint words, and listened in silence, Warriors’ heart beating loudly in his ears.

“—ampion! Is that you?!”

Wild let out a slightly hysterical laugh, and Warriors smiled, even though he knew Wild couldn’t see it.

“‘S me, m-me and Wars,” Wild said, relief thick in his voice. The connection that had come through was weak and staticky, and Warriors couldn’t entirely tell who had spoken, but they’d made contact at least.

“Are you two—kay?” the voice continued on, and Warriors thought it might’ve been Twilight’s. “We’re working on digging you—might be a bit.”

“Wars isn’t... he’s pretty b-bad,” Wild replied, and when Warriors opened his mouth to protest that Wild was equally bad-off if not worse, all that came out was another string of thick coughs.

He missed whatever was said next, a swirl of pain and fog clouding his senses, more warmth dripping down his chin. When he finally checked back in, Wild’s hand had grabbed at his again, and Warriors dragged in a rasping breath, the faint light from Wild’s slate growing blurry.

“—old on a bit longer, we’re going as fast as we can,” the voice came through again, more frantic then before. “Just hold on you two, we’re coming, I promise.”

“Y’ hear that W-Wars?” Wild croaked, holding his hand with a shaky grip. “Jus’... hold on.”

“Only ‘f you... do too,” Warriors rasped, and Wild hummed softly in reply, the sound thin with pain.

The voice from the slate said something again, but Warriors didn’t catch it, and he didn’t think Wild did either, based on how the voice seemed to grow frantic again, and louder. He couldn’t make out any of the words, and Warriors began to sink into the fog of pain his mind was fighting so hard to resist.

He thought he might have heard the rumbling sound in the distance again, like the rocks trapping them were being shifted, but he wasn’t sure. Dust fell on his head, but Warriors merely closed his eyes against it, too numb to even be scared any more. If he was going to be crushed, so be it. He only wished he’d gotten the chance to speak with his friends in his own time once more.

The fog had fully enveloped him now. The only thing that was clear was Wild’s hand pressed against his, fingers trembling, coated in dust and dirt and something sticky.

Warriors drifted along like that for what felt like forever, clinging to what few sensations he had left, Wild’s hand the only thing keeping him from fully falling away.

“—found them!”

And then there was light, so bright that Warriors had to close his eyes against it, and couldn’t help the whimper he let out. The voice was louder then ever, like Wild’s slate was right against his ear, and Warriors wished he could cover his ears.

“—get the rocks off, this thing is huge, he must be—”

“—lot of blood, that’s too much—”

“—lia I don’t know how either of them didn’t just—”

“—easy Link, easy, we’re getting you out, hold on.”

Something touched his face, and Warriors flinched, sounds and light and the endless pain in his middle too overwhelming for him to focus on anything. The voices kept floating around and over him, but Warriors could only catch bits of what was spoken.

Was Wild’s slate glitching?

The thing touched his face again, gentle and soft as it carefully turned his head to the side, and when fingers brushed his forehead, Warriors’ scrambled senses finally put together the fact that this must mean they’d finally been rescued.

He wheezed out a soft gasp of relief, and did his best to squeeze Wild’s hand, their fingers still connected. Wild faintly twitched back, and Warriors exhaled, relief swamping over him.

He didn’t remember any of the rest of their rescue, his senses fading out as the others pulled them from the rubble of the cave. Any travel or bandaging was lost to him, and he had no clue how long it had been when he flickered back awake.

The first thing he noticed was that he was on a soft bed, and that there was sunshine and a fresh breeze spilling in through the curtains. Time and Twilight were asleep on chairs by the bed, Wind flopped on their laps, Twilight’s head resting on Time’s shoulder. They all looked exhausted, and Warriors listened to Twilight snore for a minute, then looked down at himself.

His injuries were bandaged, blood and dirt cleaned from his clothes. His scarf had been cleaned as well, the blue bright and soft, and when Warriors looked beside him and saw Wild in a similar state to himself, the relief hit him again, even more intensely.

They’d made it.

They were out, and they were both alive.

Warriors exhaled, closing his eyes again. His head hurt and he was sore what felt like everywhere, not to mention his breathing still held an odd rasp, but he and Wild were okay.

They’d made it.

He felt out Wild’s hand again, and gave it a soft squeeze, relieved when Wild softly squeezed it back. The champion nestled up a bit closer to his side, and Warriors let himself drift off again, feeling perfectly content.

[kaytheday]

The Weight of the Eldest Brother

Hello! This is my submission for Day 4 of @outsidersweek

This submission is pretty long. I know that today has been a difficult day for everyone (which is probably why this fic is so long 😭), if anyone needs someone to talk to or vent to, just PM me! I am here for anyone who needs it. More under the cut!

On the rare occasions that Darry Curtis Jr. got nervous, he would feel irritable. Sweating incessantly as his fuse was cut short. He knew that a nervous Ponyboy would start shaking, going pale and sometimes even throwing up. Ponyboy had confessed that the few track meets that college scouts had stopped by to watch, he’d been so nervous he’d thrown up. Soda would turn into a firecracker, unpredictable and unable to concentrate, sleep, or even sit still for more than a few seconds. His restlessness would only grow as the nerves ate at him. 

Now, Darry sat completely still on that hospital bench. He was sweating and staring at the floor and feeling like he might throw up. He was nervous. That’s what he assumed this feeling was anyway.

This felt worse than the time with his parents. Somehow, this was ten thousand times worse. He didn’t know what he would do if-

“Mr. Curtis?” He turned to find the coroner looking at him expectantly. “Are you ready to go down?” 

Soda had been missing for upwards of three days. It wasn’t unusual for him to disappear for small stretches of time, it wasn’t like he lived at home anyway. But he usually found Ponyboy or Steve and went to hunt down some action. Neither of them had seen him since the fight. 

Darry and him had gotten into a terrible fight. The kind of fight that no longer becomes about what you were first fighting about, instead becoming a contest of who can say the nastiest thing. 

So Soda had stormed out. 

And Darry doesn’t even remember what it is that he said. He said a lot of terrible things that night, any one of them could have been the reason Soda stormed out. But he doesn’t remember. And now it might be the last thing he ever said to his brother. And he doesn’t even remember it. What an asshole. 

There in the hospital's ground floor, Darry just gulps and gives the Coroner a nod. Standing on shaky legs and following him to the hospital morgue… the same one where his brother might be lying. 

“Are you feeling alright Mr. Curtis?” Darry jumps a little, of course he’s not feeling alright. The last time he was here it was to identify two different members of the Curtis family.

It seemed like a lifetime ago but he still remembers it like it was yesterday. Their bodies were still fresh from the crash. Mottled and bloody but despite the disfiguration, Darry knew it was them. It just reminded him of something that his Momma used to say to him when he was little and wanted to help hold Ponyboy. 

“How come he only stops crying when you hold him?”

“Ponyboy loves you very much but sometimes babies just want their momma. A baby will always know his momma.” 

His mothers words certainly rang true on that terrible night. Even in death his mother was very beautiful. She would have been glad that her baby boy always knew his momma… even in death. 

He’d hoped that would be the last time he would ever receive a call from the coroner's office.

Luckily, it was his day off and even more luckily, he was the only one home. 

“Hello Mr. Curtis, this is Jeff Alberts. I am a chief coroner with St. Francis hospital, I may have some very bad news regarding your brother…” That was all Darry heard before his world shattered into a million pieces. 

Somehow this was worse. He thought the universe would have cut them a break by now, but this was worse. This was worse than his parents, worse than Johnny and Dally, worse than that damned draft letter that started this whole mess in the first place. 

“I feel fine.” Darry told the coroner. “Just a little lightheaded.” He doesn't know what it was in him that told the coroner that. Probably the fact that this coroner seemed like a real adult and Darry felt like the same scared little kid that had to identify their parents' disfigured bodies with his little brothers at home. Darry was still that same scared kid that stepped up to raise his two little brothers all while simultaneously messing things up even more. 

He didn’t have time to think about Ponyboy right now. He couldn’t imagine what Ponyboy would do if the body he found in the morgue was-

“I know these situations are very difficult, do you need to sit down for a minute? I can grab you some water if you’d like.” 

“No, I’m okay.” 

“Okay.” They went down a few more stairs. “The man we received in the morgue came in with a stab wound among other lacerations…” With each word Darry felt himself getting sicker. He needed to throw up or punch something or maybe both. “...also found various evidence that he may have been on drugs or with someone who was using.” Then the coroner launched into an explanation of the man’s physical description, a lot of which matched Soda exactly. 

Stay standing. Darry told himself. You can’t stop now. It was the same stuff he had told himself the first time he had come here. It was awful when his parents were killed. Darry had felt worse than he’d ever felt before. Beyond terrible, Ponyboy had been throwing up because of how hard he was crying and Sodapop looked about ready to combust at the way he was moving. But Darry was the one that couldn’t stop, the one that had to pull them together, take charge, and make sure everything was okay. Nobody else was going to do it. 

“Are you ready to go in Mr. Curtis?” Darry took a deep breath, steeling himself for the worst. He could say no, he could tell the coroner that he needed a minute. But it was better that he just do it now. It was better that he just went in immediately. Afterwards he would need to call Ponyboy and tell him that it was Sod-

“Do you need another minute son?” Darry couldn’t breathe. Just breathe. Just calm down. He tried to take another deep breath. “Son?” 

“Okay. Let’s go in.” 

The room smelled the same way that it had when he’d been there the first time. The body was underneath a sheet on a metal table. The table had some flecks of blood on its shiny exterior. Darry went and stood next to the body on one side. 

“I’m going to pull the sheet down now. Is it alright if I do that Mr. Curtis?” Darry bit his lip and nodded. He didn’t really have a choice, he had to know. He had to know so he could figure out a way to pull their family back together again. How would Ponyboy take this? Darry hadn’t even told him about this, Pony was at work anyway. Home from school for the summer but more importantly to see Soda after his tour  in Vietnam. Darry didn’t know what Ponyboy would do if he found out his favorite brother had been killed. Ponyboy had already lost so much. He couldn’t take losing one more. How could Darry take it?

The sheet came down. 

The relief that flooded through him was instant. It had him nearly swaying on his feet, his eyes growing hot and wet as he stared at the body that wasn’t Sodapop. 

He could understand how the coroner thought it was Sodapop, especially considering it was Soda’s wallet they found in his pocket. This guy looked nearly the same, but there were a couple clear differences. This guy's nose had been broken more than once and his hair was longer. Soda had barely had time to grow out his hair since the four months he’d been out of the army.  This guy was also missing the scar that Soda had on his neck from Two-Bit throwing a bottle at him three years ago. 

“Is this your brother, son?” 

It’s not him. It’s not Sodapop. 

“No, it's not him.” The doctor looked skeptical. 

“Are you sure? Sometimes in death our loved ones can-.” 

“I’m sure. It’s not him.” Darry interrupted. This wasn’t like the first time, with his parents. He had known immediately as soon as he’d seen their mangled faces that it was them. This was completely different. 

“Okay.” The doctor said softly, pulling the sheet back over the man's face. “You are free to go Mr. Curtis. Thank you for coming in.” Darry still had Soda’s wallet in his back pocket. He was relieved but still worried. If he wasn’t here, where was he?

Before he knew it Darry was putting a dime in the slot of the hospital payphone. 

“Hello?” Ponyboy.

“Hey kiddo.”

“Hey Darry, what’s going on?” He sounded genuinely confused and maybe a little worried. He had a right to be. Darry didn’t usually leave the house during his days off and then mysteriously call home and not say anything. 

Darry thought about telling him. He thought about telling him everything. The coroner's office, the guy who looked like Sodapop, the pit in his stomach. But he couldn’t tell Ponyboy. He shouldn’t even have to be worrying about Darry in the first place.  

“Just makin’ sure you made it home from work okay.” 

“Sure.” Pony said slowly, still confused. “You okay? Where are you calling from?” Of course the kid would pick up that something was wrong. 

“Just the gas station. I’m headed home in a minute.” 

“Okay, I’ll see you when I get home then.”

“Okay, bye Pone.” 

“Bye Darry.” And just like that the call dropped. At least he had one brother accounted for. 

Darry didn’t even really remember the drive home. He did that sometimes. His head filled with so much worry and stress that he simply went on autopilot, somehow managing to find the way home without crashing the car. Today was no different. 

He could hear the racket before he even stepped through the front door. Ponyboy and Steve were on the floor, a hand of poker set out before them and Soda… Soda?

Soda was home. The same Soda that had come back from Vietnam so different. The same Soda he had fought with and driven out of the house. The same Soda that he had driven to the hospital to identify. The same Soda that was sitting on the couch in front of him, unharmed and not dead in a hospital morgue. 

“...arry?” Ponyboy was looking at him, something like concern written in his eyes. 

“Sodapop?” He asked, completely ignoring Ponyboy for a moment. “Where you been?” 

“Around. Didn’t know if you’d want me back for a while after… that night.” He trailed off, obviously uncomfortable with everyone's eyes on him. 

“You’re always welcome here, no matter what.” Darry said in that no nonsense tone. Darry wiped his hands on his jeans. “You guys start dinner?” He asked, itching to change the subject. 

“I preheated the oven.” 

“Thanks Pone, I’ll finish it.” He felt their eyes on him as he went to the kitchen. Get a grip. He told himself. Of course Soda is fine. He began to slather the thawing chicken in sauce.  He went to get some butter out of the fridge when he nearly ran into Soda. 

“What’s this about?” He asked, running a nervous hand through his hair. 

“What’s what about?” Darry asks, taking some frozen vegetables out of the freezer. 

“You were lookin’ at me like you saw a ghost. That’s gotta be something.” 

“I’m fine, I’m just really glad you’re okay Sodapop.” Soda’s eyebrows scrunch in confusion. 

“Sure, I was only gone a few days. Are you still mad about our fight?” Soda asked.

Darry thought about telling him. He really did. About telling him everything. He thought about telling him that he thought Soda was dead and he was the one to blame. He thought about telling him about the smell and even mom and dad. He thought about yelling his head off that Soda should have called, should have told Darry where he was, that he could have been killed and it would be all Darrys fault. 

After all, Darry hadn’t had anybody to tell for so long.

But he didn’t.

Over the years he had a lot of practice of knowing which things his little brothers needed to know. His little visit to the coroner's office and hospital morgue was not something either of his little brothers needed to know about. 

“No, I’m not mad about that. Not anymore little buddy. Now how about you help me with dinner, huh?” 

“Sure Dar.” Soda says easily, knocking his shoulder against Darrys. “Though we might be having blue chicken.” Darry laughs, thinking about how close he was to thinking Sodapop was dead. How he had felt like this might never happen again. Everything would be fine. Soda was alive and Darry would keep it that way if it killed him. 

[izvmimi]

cw: potions mishap. as usual all my writing puts night raven college in a genuine College setting. preview to probably what will be a longer fic. minors dni.

"you realize this is akin to poisoning, right?"

despite the fact that you mean to be harsh - desperately so - your voice comes out tinged with a different kind of desperation and you can feel that familiar feeling of lust balloon in your chest, but it's different, painful to the point of bursting, and you double over, hoping that perhaps positioning your body to look at nothing but your own two feet will help.

it doesn't.

"not akin," vil starts, his own pale face flushed. "far worse."

you know that he's right.

"we're fools," you lament through your clenched teeth. your voice is as low as a whisper even though the laboratory is empty, but the intense sensation of shame you can feel from the tips of your fingers to the tips of your toes to the very vertex of your scalp only mirrors the lust you feel right now. thank goodness it's not for the man next to you, but for a different man -

or fae.

vil shakes his head, but he's still red, breathing heavily, his brain too flustered to come up with something intelligent to retort. the vials of would be hate potion are strewn across the lab bench, as the test mice in the corner of the room continue to chirp and squeak loudly, doing exactly what you want to do to diasomnia's housewarden right now, if you were to see him before the effects of this presumed passion potion wore off -

fuck endlessly.

"i cannot believe you made me trust you."

"will you just shut it? YOU worked on half of this potion's design!" vil insists.

"because i didn't think you would drop the ball so heinously!" you protest. part of your voice comes out in an uncharacteristic whine and your legs tremble. the two of you link eyes, and both of you know that the longer you stay here, the more ridiculous things will end up. the mice continue to contort and writhe together. you can't stop thinking about malleus' grin, or his height, or the size of his hands, or what he may look like underneath, or-

"i'm leaving," vil announces.

too afraid to sit in this ruined potions chamber alone you follow him, weak and breathing heavily with only one thing on your mind.

malleus. malleus draconia. malleus draconia of briar valley. malleus who says your name in a low voice as though he's forbidden to say it out loud. malleus who smiles at you even when you look stupid, even when you tell him to stop following you like a shadow.

malleus. malleus. malleus.

"vil, where are you going?"

you already know where he's going. pomefiore. to find them.

maybe you should find the object of your desire as well, but that would defeat the very purpose of this whole debacle anyway.

he'd laugh... but then he'd indulge you.

and that still remains your greatest fear.

[marielschism]

Please do talk about the Marquis, all plot bunnies, how an eventual relationship with him would turn out. Any thoughts are most anticipated! 👀

FR?????????????? okay!

so i'm currently working on patron of the arts, a marquis de gramont x artist!reader fic where he is an art patron/cultural sugar daddy who is horrendously down bad for you, an artist in their flop era. i'm making an hc post for it over at my writing sideblog [@marielserif] so if anyone's interested 👀 i'll post it some time next week!

pairing: marquis de gramont x reader note: i think i made him unbearably ooc. whatever warnings: some mature themes/content; unedited; not an entirely healthy relationship (vincent has issues!!!!!!)

general relationship hcs

side note: these hcs operate under the assumption that the reader is unaware of his work.

i am deeply fascinated by yandere stuff, so every time i think of marquis de gramont, i can't help but sprinkle a bit of obsessive yearning on his part (because i honestly think he's the type to do so! he chased john wick all over the world! that should be me!). he is ruthless, ambitious, and determined, and i think this, too, translates into how he deals with his relationships.

i think that he's the type to fall hard for someone, but is also the type to deny the feeling initially, trying to stamp it out of his brain as hard as he can, constantly pretending that he is unaffected by you. he does not need you. he wants you. he has lived through most of his life without your presence, surely he can live through more.

his dedication to denying his feelings leads him into a great number of sticky situations: perhaps he dismisses you a bit too much, and it puts a significant strain on your relationship. he might even end up with you hating him.

he is used to being feared. he is used to being hunted. but he will never get used to the feeling of your hatred, so that could easily force him to act on his feelings before he makes things worse. it is a wake up call for him: he does not want to lose you because of his own pride.

good for you!

when the marquis is in it, good god, he is in it.

i think that marquis de gramont is an incredibly selfish man. if he loves you, you become an extension of himself — and in turn, he will ensure your safety and your joy. you deserve it. you're his.

he's a patron of the arts — he'll get along with you better if you have some appreciation for art and culture. your conversations with him will be longer, too, and sometimes more heated. vincent is very opinionated, and he'll defend his opinions to the death. he'll take you to museums, renting out entire scenic cultural hotspots just for you (and him) to enjoy at your own pace. he is prone to over-explaining when he is excited, so expect that you'll be doing a lot of listening.

if he senses that you're actually listening to him and he's feeling particularly generous, he'll reward you. you know what that entails.

there are times where you're feeling tired, and you're just not in the mood to listen to him ramble about his least favorite painting in the musee d'orsay. he does not fault you for it, but you feel the mild disappointment radiating off him in waves. you'll have to...make it up to him somehow.

he'll appreciate it very much.

anyway, vincent will take you to the ballet, dress you in the finest of things, and take you to the swankiest of establishments. you deserve nothing but the best.

if you inform him that you are uncomfortable with being spoiled like this, he will try to tone it down a little. the code word here is try. he will go back to sending you swarovski-embellished fountain pens in two weeks.

despite this, he's not above accompanying you to places like gas stations or grocery stores. sure, he'll take at least three bodyguards with him to ensure your safety, but he'll be there for you. he's capable of being normal!

(forgot to mention that vincent de gramont is territorial and overprotective at times. what's the use of all of his power if he can't use it protect the one he loves?)

(his brand of protection can feel almost like a prison at times. you'll have to clearly communicate with him about what you want, and you have to be very firm with him if you don't want to feel like you're a bird in a gilded cage. you have to make sure that he knows you won't just take it.)

(you need a backbone to love him. that's the truth of it all.)

vincent is also touch-starved, though he denies this constantly.

he can be an incredibly greedy kisser. he kisses you like he's starving, and he'll hold you like you'll turn into dust if he lets go.

he can be gentle, too — easy does it, and he takes it as slow as you want. languid, lazy, like you have all of the time in the world.

he's also a horrific tease. he's a smug bastard. he'll do everything except kiss you — he'll bite your earlobe, let his lips travel to your pulse, and kiss the corners of your lips. when you whine, he'll pull away with that smirk of his, and leave you to your racing heart. you're flustered as hell, and he looks unaffected by it.

(it's a lot harder for him to keep his composure if you're the one teasing him.)

he reaches out for you in his sleep, even if he is alone. a tired vincent will always reach out for you, no matter what stage of sleep he's in. in his sleep, he'll end up wrapping himself around your entire body like a boa constrictor no matter your size. one time, he fell asleep on top of you, and you had to elbow him awake because he was suffocating you.

(he owns a weighted blanket for when you're not around.)

if you play with vincent's hair, he will complain about you messing up the handiwork of his treasured coiffeur, but he won't say a word. when you pull your hands off his hair, he'll actually whine, and place your hands back. you have to clear your schedule if you want to play with his hair; he will not let you out of his presence until he's dead asleep.

if you really want to see a very stressed vincent, you can deny him your touch for weeks on end. but why would you do that? 😊

he's prone to taking drastic actions to get what he wants. a desperate vincent de gramont is someone you do not want to meet; a desperate vincent de gramont gets results.

so god help those who will try to take you from him.

plot bunnies

i really need to finish this because i have a 7-page paper due in 42 hours

i desperately wanted to write a ballet dancer!reader x patron!marquis de gramont instead of an artist!reader but im going to be completely honest with you i have zero knowledge of the world of ballet and i would NOT be able to do the idea justice.

(your rival dancer goes missing because of your patron. you investigate. things do not go well.)

also another plot bunny: leverage!reader

the marquis keeps an eye on you as leverage over your father, who is under his employ. think caine and his daughter.

he threatens your safety to keep your father in line constantly — but he's grown fond of you, strangely. you have a harmless hobby. it is soothing to watch you work. he is not going to hurt you.

(vincent even has his men protect you from harm. their presence in the area deter would-be muggers. you do not know this.)

at one point, your father grows stubborn, and vincent has to take a very drastic measure to ensure his cooperation.

he kidnaps you. of course he does.

strange things happen.

assistant!reader! you are his faithful assistant, and you get hurt in the line of duty. oh noooo. what happens next??? :OOO

[yanderes-galore]

Could you do your 2, 13, and 35 prompts for Chucky? Thanks <3

Sure! Today I binged Child's Play 1-3 today so here's a little chase scenario/short for Chucky >:) No specific movie. I could've made this longer but I was just doing what I first saw in my head-

This feels like potential for an ending event of a fic, so maybe in the future I'll make a part before this. Only maybe.

Yandere! Chucky Prompts 2, 13, 35

"It's an honor for someone such as me to take you in and love you!"

"So what if a few people have to die? It'll only bring us closer!"

"Don't push me away, dear... I only want to be closer to you!"

Pairing: Romantic

Possible Trigger Warnings: Gender-Neutral Darling, Obsession, Mentioned stalking, Blood, Murder mentioned, Swearing in one line, Violence, Threat, Implied forced relationship, Graphic descriptions despite this being short, Ritual mentions.

"Don't push me away, dear... I only want to be closer to you!"

The malicious voice of the doll echoes through the walls of your house. You curse yourself for even trusting the gift. You wonder if your friend was set up by... it to give it to you.

Normally you'd call yourself crazy for thinking a doll could threaten anybody. You know better now due to seeing what it can do. This doll... Chucky... appears to know you a lot longer than you did it/him?

"Okay, maybe I came off a bit strong. The whole revealing myself thing should've taken more time. But honestly? I can't wait to take you in."

You hear fast steps run about your house. He's toying with you. He knows he'll get what he wants, even if you try to defend yourself with that weapon of yours.

"I promise it won't hurt... much- I already have the perfect type of doll you can be, baby! Just give up and reveal yourself... it'll be quick."

You don't give him the satisfaction of responding back. Instead you make your way to the nearest exit. You can't tell if it's best to stay in the house and fight him or flee outside.

Either way you can't really see him... would giving him an open area only be worse?

"Oh for fuck's sake you won't even give me a response? You're cold!" Chucky yells, more movement soon following. "It's an honor for someone such as me to take you in and love you!"

You grit your teeth and slowly try to open the door behind you. In response a knife is thrown at your leg, causing you to cry in pain. Blood drools out of the wound as you try to fumble the door open despite the pain.

"What? Are you mad I killed them?" Chucky says from behind you, he sounds rather annoyed. "Think of how I feel! I had to watch you mingle with other people that weren't me! You know what? I got tired of it!"

You manage to push the door open, only for something to slice the back of your leg. Your cries ring out and you slip on your own blood. The pain in unbearable, Chucky pulling your head back to expose your throat certainly wasn't helping.

"So what if a few people have to die? It'll only bring us closer!" Chucky growls, holding on as you flail. You can stand with your wounds and struggle to fight the doll with a blade pressed to your throat. "In fact, your own death and blood will bring us closer if you just let me conduct this little ritual!"

"Go to Hell!" You yell, cringing at the warmth of both the doll and blood coating your clothes.

"Oh, baby... I can't!" Chucky teases before pushing the knife closer "Not unless I take you with me!"

You struggle more with the doll before he eventually finds a way to knock your head with something. You're not quite unconscious but docile enough to allow the doll to tie you down. You struggle weakly in your binds, realizing the blood loss would put you in shock in soon. While you come to terms with tour situation... you barely notice Chucky drag a doll in.

"If you continue to fight me on this, you're dead." Chucky claims in a stern tone. You're in no place to fight anyway so you weakly nod. In reality, you'll probably die either way with the blood you're losing.

Perhaps you're just tired of fighting anyways.

Chucky smiles at your compliance, lifting your head to see your dull eyes.

"Now I want you to sit tight, I prepared for this moment." Chucky chimes, placing his hands on the doll and you. "After this... you'll be my perfect little doll, just you see."

You go light-headed, feeling your own warmth begin to slip away. You hoped death would claim you before he did whatever the hell he was planning. Unfortunately, that would be mercy compared to what's happening.

"Give in." Chucky orders. "When you wake up, we'll be made for each other."

It's then you hear a foreign language spill from the doll's lips.

You're too weak to even cry.

[juyeonszn]

AND THEN THERE IS YOU

PAIRING ju haknyeon x f!reader (gn technically since there are no gendered terms)

WORD COUNT 1.17k

GENRES fluff ﹒very slight angst like blink and u miss it

WARNINGS another fic of mine that doesn’t require an 18+ warning… fawn in her tamed era 🙏, ur heart will ache from how </3 this is, mentions of divorce, reader had kind of a shitty childhood, reader also has some intimacy issues, hak is the most patient and kind person ever, throws up everywhere bc me when </3

SUMMARY he was content loving you until you were ready to love him.

MORE ANDDDDD my insanity strikes again!!!!1!1!1! aka in my dr. seuss william shakespeare edgar allan poe steven king arc 😍 my inspiration has been crazy lately, so enjoy this before juyeonszn goes into a drought deeper into the semester 😭 ANYWAYS MAE (@maessseongs) HERE U GO!! i kept it fluffier and kinda short bc it just felt right, i hope that’s okay with u! this is the last request from my 100 followers event so far ✨ prompts used are: 2, 7 >:)

PERM TAGLIST @winterchimez @maessseongs

Relationships were a weird concept to you. Growing up, you’d never really been shown affection. Your parents weren’t the type to pack your lunch for school in the morning and send you off with a peck on the cheek followed by an ‘I Love You’.

In fact, they never told you that they loved you very often. Maybe a handful of times in your whole life did you hear those three words uttered from them. And even less did you hear that they were proud of you. It was worse when you took a step back and watched their own crumbling marriage.

As long as they’d been together, you never heard them tell the other how much they were appreciated. They fought more than they got along. You usually fell asleep to the sound of doors slamming and loud arguing in the hallway. When they finally decided to get a divorce, you almost cried out of joy. They were draining more out of you than each other.

So, perhaps that had to do with your fucked up view of relationships as you became an adult. You could never fully comprehend what love was since you didn’t exactly have stellar role models. Boyfriends came and went, losing interest as soon as they realized how disconnected you were. Your heart was never truly in it.

And then, you met Haknyeon.

Sweet sweet Haknyeon, who only cared about your happiness and your well being. Haknyeon, who didn’t ask you for more than you could give. Who didn’t push you for answers when you shut him out. Who patiently waited on the sidelines while you rebooted yourself.

If there were a higher being out in the universe, they’d done an excellent job at putting all the best qualities into Ju Haknyeon. By some miracle or a stroke of luck, he found his way to you. You’ll always think that he deserves better than you, but you’ll also always be eternally grateful that you have him.

As summer takes its last breath and the air begins to chill, leaves wilting to the streets and crunching below the feet of passersby, your motivation to get up in the mornings has started its tumultuous decline. You don’t know what it is about the change in seasons that continues to put a damper in your mood as the years go on, but it’s become almost too much to bear. It was no longer a dull pressure in the pit of your stomach and the back of your mind. Now it was a heaviness that settled in your heart and weighed you down.

It was a Thursday evening and you were tucked into bed already, despite a peek of the sun still visible over the horizon. Your head was pounding despite the room being silent. You curl into yourself further just as your bedroom door creaks open. Haknyeon whispers an apology, going to exit the room when he sees the state you’re in.

It was standard for him to leave you alone until you were ready to talk. He knew you had a hard time opening up, considering what you’d grown up with, and he didn’t want to be the person who pestered you to tell him what was wrong. He wanted you to feel comfortable coming to him first. Haknyeon couldn’t handle being the reason you were pushed to your breaking point.

But for some reason, this time is different. You don’t want to be left alone. You want to be held. You want him to kiss your forehead and tell you he loves you, unlike what you had when you were younger.

“Hak, wait,” you call, voice slightly hoarse. “Stay. Please.”

He’s taken aback by your request, but doesn’t hesitate to follow through. He climbs into the bed behind you, wrapping his arms around your center. In spite of the fact that this wasn’t a usual occurrence, that cuddling was something you’ve only done a couple other times, he embraces you as if this was second nature for him. As if holding you in his arms was his very life source.

“Are you sure?” He asks softly, words spoken gently into your hair.

“Mhm, I want this,” you nod, nuzzling into his arm. “I have never felt this safe with anyone before.”

Haknyeon’s breathing stutters. You’ve never admitted this to him before, you’ve never ever said ‘I Love You’, but he’s always been willing to wait. He understood that this was a new territory for you. He was content loving you until you were ready to love him, even if it took months— even if it took years. That’s how much he cared for you. In his eyes, you were the reason there were stars in the sky. You were the reason why the sun rose in the morning and why the moon shone at night.

He kisses your temple. “I’ll be here to protect you.”

You turn in his arms to get a good look at his face. Because it was so rare that you were this close, you wanted to memorize his features from this distance. You trace his cheekbones and jawline with your thumb, eyes flickering down to his lips.

You lean forward, minimizing the gap between you to press your lips into a sweet kiss, almost as sweet as him. Haknyeon gasps out of surprise, but quickly reciprocates your affection, bringing up a hand to cup your face. He allows you to set the pace, to move at a speed you were comfortable with in case this was all you wanted.

When you pull back to catch your breath, he smiles, taking in how pretty you were. He could never get enough of you. He thinks that was his biggest flaw, being so greedy when it came to you. He couldn’t help but indulge himself every time you let him, though if it were a sin, he’d gladly commit it over and over again.

“However many years we have left, I wanna spend them all with you.”

You feel the tears dripping down your cheeks before you register that you’re crying. You couldn’t possibly fathom how Haknyeon came to find love in the form of you; the hollow shell of a person who’s never felt the warmth of another human in their life. You didn’t think you deserved someone like him. The only logical explanation was that you were a saint in a past life, and the higher being you mentioned earlier was rewarding you for it.

But even so, he loved you. Enough that he wasn’t afraid to spend the rest of his life with you waking up on the other side of the bed.

He swipes away some stray tears with the pad of his thumb and kisses your nose. You let out a small laugh, connecting your lips once more. It conveys all you want to say, but you know saying it out loud will make it concrete. It’ll solidify what you’ve been building up the courage to finally tell him.

“I wanna spend them all with you, too.”

© juyeonszn. do not steal, claim, or repost.

[stubblesandwich]

Slice Of Life

A Captain Swan & Captain Cobra fanfic, written for @pirateprincessofpizza for @cssecretsanta2020.

Rated: General

Words: 6,000+ (I knoowww, I'm sorry 🙈)

Author's Note: Merry Christmas, Pirate! I'm SO SORRY this is a few days late. 🙃 Forgive me. I hope the fact that it's so darn long helps soften the blow of its lateness. This is actually going to be part one of a series I'd like to do, completely inspired by your username/enduring admiration for pizza, as well as your desire for more "slice of life" scenes, surrounding different points in Emma and Killian's relationship as it grows through the seasons. Each story will feature pizza in some way or another, because pizza is great, despite what other pirates might think to the contrary. 👀

Anyway!! Merry (belated) Christmas, my dear! I loved getting to know you through our long messages, and I hope you find this fic to be at least semi heart warming. I had fun writing it, and I look forward to continuing it with a second chapter set in the 6-week era of peace in S4. 👀👀

This one is set during season 3B, with Emma trying to juggle having a good relationship with her son and make an attempt at normal in the times of the Wicked Witch--by having a shared dinner with Captain Hook, obviously. Set some evening post-Neal's death but before poor Killian has his lips cursed.

AO3 link here if that's easier ✌🏻

+++

Life is made up of moments, her father had once told her. Good ones. Bad ones. But they're all worth living. 

And this, right here? This is a good moment. 

The town, for once, is quiet. 

No new flying monkey bite victims. Nothing from the Wicked Witch. And while all nefarious villains are undoubtedly planning and plotting more nefarious deeds, tonight, Emma Swan does not care about any of that. (She doesn't even sort of care.) 

What she cares about is the black-clad, self-proclaimed scoundrel sitting across from her whose more nefarious days seem to be tucked away behind him for safe keeping. The black-clad scoundrel currently looking at her like a confused puppy, slight head tilt included. 

"And what, pray tell, is pizza?" he asks, as he reaches for his mug of beer. Granny's been trying out a few new brews on tap (that Emma is pretty sure some of the dwarves have been concocting illegally, but she doesn't have the mental capacity to check into that any further at present) and has roped Killian into taste testing one of them for her.  Killian, never one to see a lady in peril, needed no arm twisting and was happy to oblige. "I gather it's valuable in this realm, if you would stoop to homicide to attain a slice of it." 

Sometimes she truly can't tell if he's messing with her, when he talks like that. The internal lie detector she'd developed as a child to tell when another foster parent or sibling was bullshitting her, then honed as an adult to tell when even worse people were bullshitting her, sometimes gets a little fuzzy around this particular man. (Or she quite possibly gets distracted by his face and the way he tends to stand so close to her. Who’s to say, really.)  It's what she would blame, if pressed, for why she left him up on that beanstalk oh so long ago.

(Which is something she is very grateful he has never brought up again.) 

It's definitely not the fact that he stands so much farther into her personal bubble than literally anyone else on the planet, or the fact that he watches her with those insanely intense eyes of his, gaze fixed on her in that knowing way like he not only sees her, but he gets her, reads her like a book sitting out and open on a coffee table. It's incredibly unnerving. But what's even more unnerving is how she is finding that the longer she knows him, the less she really seems to mind. 

Sometimes, she feels like he stepped straight out of a Jane Austen novel, when he talks like that, and she can't tell if he's hamming it up on purpose. She's very well aware he's not from this time, or realm, or whatever. She never actually forgets that—how could she?—but she almost forgets, sometimes. Until moments like now, when he's staring at her like a quizzical puppy. A puppy who apparently doesn't know what pizza is. 

There's a little bit of beer foam on his upper lip, caught in his mustache, which she's always noticed is just a little darker, just a little more pronounced than the rest of the stubble dusting his jawline. She's wondered before if that's where the silly mustache comes from, on the cartoon version of Captain Hook from the Peter Pan cartoon. (Not that Emma has spent an inordinate amount of time admiring the artfulness of his facial hair, God no. And there's definitely no intrusive thoughts of licking said beer foam off his upper lip, no, definitely not. That's never happened to her before and it's definitely not happening now.)

All she'd said, grumbled beneath her breath as she stared at the menu she had memorized, was that she'd kill for a decent slice of pizza right about now. A perfectly normal bit of hyperbole. 

His bright eyes dance, trained on her as they so often are, but the hint of a smirk pushing at his lips is masked by his mug as he takes a sip of his beer. He licks his lip, and just like that, the foam is gone, and takes with it the distraction it was causing her. 

"Wait, hold on, back up,” she says, as if finally registering the words he’d actually said.  “You've seriously never had pizza before?" She's not sure why it surprises her, really. Nothing should surprise her by now. But pizza? Come on. Everybody’s had pizza. 

He just raises his eyebrows at her. "It's some form of food, I gather?"

She huffs a little laugh. "Yes, it's food." 

It's at that moment that Henry reappears from his trip to the bathroom and slides in next to her. Something in her heart clicks back into place as he tucks in next to her. "What's food? Did you order something yet? I'm starving." 

"You heard the lad," Hook says, and something in Emma's heart tugs like a bite on a fishing line at the way his eyes soften as he looks at her son. "What will it be, Swan? This pizza that has you so up in arms and calling for blood?" He says "pizza" like he's trying the word out, two distinct syllables that sound foreign to him. 

Henry just blinks up at him, and Emma explains, "He's never had pizza before." 

Her son's eyes bug out in unfiltered shock. "What?" 

"I know," Emma says, in a what-can-you-do sort of tone, as she reaches across and snags Hook's mug of beer from him. She can feel him watching her, and she pointedly does not look back at him as she takes a sip from it. The home brew is thick, and hoppy, and.... Emma smacks her lips a few times. "That's actually... not bad." 

Hook shrugs with one shoulder. "I've certainly had worse." 

"I've never seen you drink something that wasn't out of your flask," she comments wryly. 

With one fluid motion, he reaches across their table and steals his mug back from her, taking another sip. Kissing, her brain blurts out for thankfully only her to hear. Share a drink and it's like you're kissing was the old playground tease from her childhood. Eagerly and yet very unhelpfully, her brain then supplies her with an image of the first time she'd kissed this particular man, in a hot, sweaty, evil magic jungle, and something low in her stomach bursts open like a big, hot balloon. Get it together, Swan, she chides herself. 

Thankfully, Hook doesn't seem to notice that she's having an internal error of some kind, and simply says, "Contrary to popular opinion, Swan, I'm actually a fairly well traveled and well rounded individual with many refined tastes." 

"If you say so.” She finds herself leaning a little closer to him as his foot bumps hers beneath the table. 

"But you've never had pizza before?" Henry asks, still so very very confused about how on earth someone can just go about life never having eaten his favorite food before. Stumped, Killian just stares at the boy, frowning slightly. Emma comes in for the save. 

"Well, then, let's change that tonight, shall we?" she says, with a can-do attitude rivaling that of her mother. "That settles it. Let's order a pizza." Her flicks to Hook. "Unless you had other plans for dinner?" 

"I am at your beck and call tonight, my lady," he says, and though the innuendo in his tone is only mildly implied for the sake of her son sitting across from him, Emma still can't help but roll her eyes. 

"Can we get fries?" Henry asks hopefully, and Emma can't help but smile at him. 

"I was thinking onion rings. But sure, kid. Fries it is." 

"Get both," Hook suggests casually. "Dinner's on me." 

"No, it's fine," Emma insists, "I got it."

"It makes no difference to me, love." 

"Do you even have money?" She's never stopped to think about it before, how he's getting around, how he's been paying for a room here or what he's been using to buy food. It's such an obvious question, and yet she's never thought to ask him. 

"You have no idea what the exchange rate is for gold in this town," he says simply, as he takes another sip of his beer, and she raises her brows at him. 

"Okay, well, that's a question for later," she says. "Good to know." A better sheriff would look into that further, all the presumably stolen gold and other treasures he has in his possession, and the people in town so willing to turn a blind eye and take it as payment, but it's literally the least pressing problem in her life at this point. It's not even a problem; she has no way to prove he's stolen anything, and even if she did, she finds she just doesn't care. The fact that he has any number of gold pieces and random treasures on him at any given point in time with which to pay for goods and services is… oddly endearing. 

But, she probably should pay for her own dinner. Otherwise, he might get the wrong idea about what this dinner is. "I've got it," she says again, a finality in her voice with which he decides not to argue further. 

"If the lady insists." 

Henry, bored of their conversation, has been staring down  at the laminated menu in front of him. "What do you like on your pizza, Killian? Well, I guess you wouldn't know that. What do you think you'd like on it? Pepperoni, bacon, Canadian bacon–which is just ham–mushrooms, extra cheese--" he rattles on a list of all the available toppings, still staring at his menu, and completely misses the look that comes over Hook's face when Henry uses his given name. Emma, blessedly, had looked over at him at just the right moment, just when Henry had said "Killian", and beheld for herself the way Hook's whole face had softened. 

"Pardon?" Killian says, clearly confused. "I'm still not quite sure what it is we're ordering." 

"All right, Henry, help the poor guy out," Emma says. "Define pizza. Go.” 

Henry shakes his head, incredulous as he stares at Hook. "Wow. You're like, Amish or something." 

At that, Emma can't help the laugh that bursts out of her. Killian Jones could not possibly be further from an Amish person if he tried. For his part, Hook just frowns, mouths Amish? to himself.

"Okay," Henry goes on, "You have the crust, which is basically like bread." He holds out a hand horizontally, then stacks his other hand on top of it, alternating them with each layer he describes. "Then the sauce. Then a bunch of cheese, melted. Then whatever you want on top. Mom and I usually get the supreme, no green peppers, extra bacon, extra mushrooms. But we can get whatever you want. What do you like?" 

Killian just looks at him, flabbergasted. "Supreme is fine, I'm sure," he finally says. Emma would feel a little bad for him if this wasn't so damn funny. 

"Cool." Henry snaps his menu shut and sets it aside before turning back to his mother. "Can I get a milkshake?" 

"Definitely not," Emma says. "You had that donut at the station earlier, remember?" 

"Oh yeah," Henry mumbles, disappointed. 

It doesn't matter though, because when it comes to her son and sugar, no one in this town seems to listen to her. Ruby automatically brings out a hot chocolate with cinnamon on top and sets it in front of Henry without even asking permission. "Sorry," she says off Emma's look, sounding distinctly not sorry, "On the house. Granny insisted." 

"Thanks," Emma says wryly, sounding distinctly not thankful. 

"How's the beer?" Ruby asks Killian, who smiles up at her politely. 

"Very good. My hat's off to whichever dwarf concocted it." 

"That would be Bashful. Though he's too shy to take credit for it." 

"I imagine so," Killian says with a smirk. 

"Dwarf?" Henry asks, confused. 

Crap, Emma thinks, and tries to think on her feet, "Uh, the mining crew in town gave each other funny nicknames. Right, Ruby?" She shoots Killian a look, and he has the good sense to look abashed at his slip up. 

Ruby's eyes are wide, as if she also completely forgot they were supposed to be a completely normal town in front of Henry. "Right! They're funny that way. Anyway, I'll tell him you liked it. And I'll tell Granny to keep it on tap." She pulls out an order pad from the half apron at her waist. "What'll it be, folks?" 

"Well," Emma starts, "Killian's never tried pizza before..." 

"So we're going to change his life tonight," Henry finishes for her. 

Ruby, expectedly, shares in their shock. "Never had pizza?" She stares down at the pirate like he's suddenly grown an extra head. "What are you, lactose intolerant or something?"

"Excuse me?" Hook asks, as the mountain of his confusion just continues to grow ever taller. 

"He's just not from around here," Emma reminds Ruby pointedly, and a look of understanding washes over her. 

"Ah, right," Ruby says, "I forgot. Okay, yeah, let's change a life tonight! Pizza it is. What'll you have on it?" 

"Supreme is fine," Emma says, and Henry pipes up to add, "No green peppers, please. Extra mushrooms and bacon.” Ruby writes it down, along with the side orders, and promises to be back soon with a batch of fresh onion rings for the table. 

A comfortable silence befalls them. Killian seems relaxed, Emma notices, as he lounges against the wall, and she's surprised to find herself settling comfortably into the booth, as well. This is... nice. They haven't really had a chance to do this, her and Henry, and just hang out with someone else from her life. She's had to dance around so many things with her son, dodge so many questions, hide things and explain (read: lie) things away, with his memories gone. It's been exhausting, frankly. But, since he already knows Killian, spent an entire road trip from New York to Maine in a small car with him, this has felt fairly easy. And Henry seems to like Hook. A lot. 

But Emma should have known that this was going too well. 

"So, Killian," Henry says after a minute, having sampled his hot chocolate and found it satisfactory. "You're not from around here?" Emma's chest clenches in anxiety at whatever he's about to ask next. Please don't ask him how he lost his hand, Emma begs from behind the bars of her brain. She's not sure she can handle the amount of ducking and weaving THAT particular conversation would take. 

“That’s right,” Killian hedges, eying Henry closely, though he still looks completely at ease and prepared for whatever might possibly fall out of her son’s mouth next. 

“Are you from Great Britain? Like, England?” 

It’s almost imperceptible, the way Hook’s gaze darts to Emma before he takes another swig of his beer, and she steps in with an answer. 

“Uh, yeah,” Emma says, affecting a tone that makes her sound semi-sure but also looking to Killian for clarification, “London, right?” 

He takes the answer she hands him on a silver platter and nods easily. “That’s right. What gave me away?” 

Henry rolls his eyes, but any rudeness behind the gesture is dissipated with the smirk he attaches to it. “Uh, the accent, mostly.” 

“Ah,” Killian says with a wink. “Well, guilty as charged.” 

Emma’s not sure if they even have a version of London in the Enchanted Forest, or whatever part of that realm Killian is actually from. She vaguely remembers the Peter Pan film being set in London—probably?—but that’s about it. 

There’s a little wooden peg game hiding behind the napkin dispenser on their table, pressed up against the wall. One of those little pieces of wood with holes drilled into it, with little pegs you’re supposed to jump over each other until there is only one left. Emma knows for a fact that each of the booths has one, and that they were each hand carved by Marco. Henry watches as Hook toys with it, jumps a few pegs over each other, and Emma’s heart gives a little squeeze as Henry asks, “Do you know how to play that?”

Learning to play that simple, weirdly addictive little game was one of the staples of their Granny’s dates, in the first year she lived in Storybrooke. Every time they would sit and eat together, without fail, Henry would pull out the little piece of wood from behind the napkin dispenser and move the little pegs around. Emma caught herself doing it a few times, too, even when Henry wasn’t with her. Just stabbing the little golf tee picks into their tiny holes while she waited for her food. It was weirdly satisfying and oddly addicting. 

And now Henry has forgotten it. 

For all the memories they share of their “pretty good” life back in the big city, she knows there are a dozen more here, in this quiet, strange, terrifying little town. And while she wouldn’t trade that year she had with just her and Henry for anything in the world, she can’t help but grieve the loss of the memories she made with him here, in Storybrooke.

Hook’s voice pulls her out of her thoughts. “Aye. Want me to teach you?” 

Of course he knows how to play the silly little peg game. She watches as he explains, simply, the right strategy to win in the fewest moves. Hook slides the piece of wood over to Henry, who takes it and flips it around, eager to try for himself.

Perhaps emboldened by the fact that he doesn’t have to look at Hook when he asks, and can instead stare down at the little wooden pegs, Henry asks, as casually as possible, “So, how’d you lose your hand?” 

“Henry,” Emma starts. She can’t help the sound of a scold that wraps around her tone. 

“It’s fine,” Killian says easily, though this time he doesn’t look at Emma to give an answer for him. His left arm had been relaxing across his lap; he shifts, and brings his forearm up to rest on the table. For the most part, he had taken to wearing his prosthetic hand around Henry, in lieu of the hook. Emma and her son both can’t help but stare at it as Killian rests it on the table. 

If she’s honest, Emma misses the hook. If she’s honest, she never really actually thinks of Hook as an amputee. She’s seen him make a few creative alterations to movements more able-bodied people would traditionally use two hands for, sure. Using  his teeth to pull a cork from its bottle, or to sexily tie a scarf around her bleeding hand, for one. 

She knows he’s missing a hand. Logically, she knows this. She called him “Hook” 99.9% of the time, until she had to stop when Henry was around. It rolled off her tongue so easily, and several times, she’s had to stop herself from blurting it out in front of Henry. But it’s almost as if half the time it doesn’t even register in her brain that there are some things he can’t do as easily or as quickly as other people.

Now, as she stares down at the leather-wrapped prosthetic on the table in front of her, she finds herself missing the namesake to his more colorful moniker. To her utter horror, when she realizes she’s been very obviously staring, she glances up at Hook’s face, and she finds he’s been watching her for a while now. Emma feels heat pool in her cheeks instantly, and she leans back. But graciously, Killian only smiles softly at her, seeming, yet again, to read her thoughts easily. As if he knows she misses the hook. The bastard has the audacity to wink at her. 

Oblivious to the unspoken conversation happening right beside him between his mom and the strange man across from him, Henry pipes up, “If you don’t want to talk about it, you don’t have to.” He sounds nervous, like he realizes the gravity of his social blunder and suddenly wants to give Killian an out. “Really. I… I’m sorry I asked.” He shoots an apologetic look to Emma, who tries her best to look stern. 

There’s a moment of silence that stretches out between them where Emma genuinely doesn’t know what Hook is going to say next. So many directions this conversation could go, so many versions of the truth, the unbelievable truth, that he could go with. Emma is very aware that she’s holding her breath, but she can’t seem to let it go until Killian says something. It’s the one thing in this moment she feels like she has control over. 

“Truth be told, lad,” Killian finally says on the end of a sigh, “It happened so long ago, I hardly remember what it’s like having two hands.” 

Emma releases the air she’d been holding captive in her lungs, and in place of the tightness in her airway comes a little pang in her heart. She knows this story, but she’s never asked him about this story. They’ve never talked about that moment, just the two of them, when Milah was murdered right in front of him, and then he had his hand cut off. It’s horrible, truly. She takes the horror of it for granted, and she suddenly very much does not want Henry to hear this story, even in whatever veiled shape Hook wants to tell it. It’s Killian’s story, his hand that was lost, and it’s his right to tell Henry whatever he wants about it. Emma’s heart grieves for this man before her and the tremendous losses that have shaped him. But she does not want her son to hear this story. She’s not even sure she wants to hear this story. 

Life has softened Emma too much, she fears, because while she imagines herself as being quite tough and immune to the awfulness of the world, she knows these feelings are showing quite clearly on her face and in her eyes, which are shining just a little brighter as she watches Hook. He looks up abruptly, meeting her gaze, and her heart leaps like she’s just been jump scared. 

“So you were just a kid when it happened?” Henry asks, and Hook huffs out a little laugh through his nose. 

“Not exactly, no.” 

Henry frowns. “I don’t understand.” 

Emma doesn’t envy either of them in this moment, but she especially does not envy Hook, whom she watches with nothing but sympathy. 

And in the end, Hook goes for the blunt, almost-truth of the matter. “Lost it to a Crocodile.” When he looks up at Henry, it’s with a smirk playing across his features. One that Emma sees right through. 

Henry’s mouth falls open in shock, like that was literally the last thing he was expecting Killian to say. “No way! Seriously? A crocodile bit your hand off?” 

Even Hook can’t disguise the smile—a genuine one, this time—that comes over his face at Henry’s utter, boyish exuberance at this answer. Emma’s heart swells an extra size, watching them. Of course Henry would think that was awesome, the idea of someone’s hand getting bitten off by what is essentially a modern-day dinosaur. “Aye,” Hook says, shooting Emma a knowing glance. “As I said, I lost my hand to a Crocodile.” 

“What, like in Australia or something?” Henry asks. 

“Something like that.” 

The beauty of this moment is that Hook doesn’t even really have to lie to Henry. He seemingly doesn’t have to do anything more than slightly bend the truth; Henry’s too amped up to even listen to the full answers to his questions, and Killian can continue to dole out the most vague answers on the planet. 

“Did you live there?” Henry asks. “When you were a kid?” 

“Lad, I’ve lived in and seen more places than I care to count,” Hook says, with a gleam in his eyes, “And none of them, I assure you, are more interesting and alluring than this very town.” 

Emma doesn’t imagine his gaze flitting over to her when he says the word “alluring”. She knows she doesn’t. And yet, he’s so quick about it, keeping his focus entirely on her son, that she can’t be sure. 

“Really?” Henry asks, dubious. “This town? Storybrooke?” 

“Aye,” Killian says, “I promise you, my boy. There’s more to this place than meets the eye. You just have to be willing to see, for yourself.” 

It’s the kind of answer an old, wizened Santa Claus would tell a kid in a Christmas movie about a town that was secretly the North Pole or something. It’s probably the corniest thing she’s ever heard him say that wasn’t a pickup line. And yet, Emma is surprised to find warmth prick her eyes at his attempt to make Henry feel more at home here, more interested in this town that her city boy son has written off entirely as Boringville, USA. And she gets that—she really does. She didn’t exactly think Storybrooke was hip-hop and happenin’ when she first rolled into town, either. 

Then again, she also didn’t think it was full of fairytale characters. Literal royalty from another realm. Evil queens with magic. Humanoid crickets, for God’s sake. Henry’s family is here. Whether he knows it or not, everyone in this town knows him, and so many of those people love him, would die for him in a heartbeat. And while she can’t pretend she isn’t ready to take him back to New York City the second this is all over, it hurts her heart that he doesn’t even remember those people. 

All talk of special towns and missing hands cease, however, as Ruby returns and sets a massive, loaded pizza in front of them. 

Emma has the satisfaction of watching Hook’s eyes go wide. And whatever she expected him to say, it isn’t the ineloquent, “Whoa,” that falls from his mouth. Emma and Ruby both can’t help but laugh at him. 

“Looks pretty great, huh?” Henry says, already grabbing himself a plate and eying the slice he wants. 

“One life-changing pizza, as ordered!” Ruby says with a grin. “Prepare to be dazzled, Captain.” 

Henry looks over at Emma, mouthing Captain?

“Navy,” Emma whispers, thinking quick on her feet. Henry shrugs and starts piling his plate up with pizza. He carefully positions his chosen slices to make room for the fries that Ruby sets in front of him. 

“There we go, folks,” Ruby says, leaning back with her hand on her hip to inspect the table. “Anything else we need? Refill on that beer, Killian?” 

Emma gives a mental tip of her hat to Ruby for how easily the name Killian rolls off her tongue, like she’s said it a thousand times. Hook, for his part, looks momentarily taken aback that she even knows his given name. “Uh, yes,” he says, “Sure, I’ll take another.” 

It’s a true delight, Emma finds, to see one of the most eloquent, loquacious people she knows (next to Gold, probably, which is a noticed similarity she will not be sharing with Hook) so continuously dumbfounded. It brings her great joy, actually, to keep seeing him rendered speechless by such average things.  

“Sure thing.” Ruby nods and reaches over to snatch up his empty mug. “Coming right up.” 

Ruby leaves, and Emma shakes her head at the absurdity of it all. A werewolf, giving a refill to a pirate of a beer that was illegally home brewed by a dwarf. What even is her life anymore? These are the things she didn’t even know she was missing in New York. Not for the first time, there’s a pang in her heart as she wishes she could share in the joke with Henry. She looks over at her son, watches him squirt ketchup over his fries like he’s trying to torture information out of them. Something of these thoughts must show on her face, because after a moment, she feels a little bump on the toe of her boot. When she looks up, Killian is looking at her, his expression soft, and he offers her a small smile. 

It’ll be all right, Swan, his eyes seem to say, and she feels herself relax a fraction. She smiles back at him, thankful. 

Whatever moment that’s happening between them is interrupted by Henry. “Killian,” he says, though the name is turned to absolute mush by the food in his mouth, “Pizza!” 

“Good Lord,” Emma says, shaking her head at him, “Who raised you, kid? Don’t talk with your mouth so full.” 

Henry takes a few gulps from his Sprite, swallowing it all down. “Ah, sorry. I said, ‘Killian, pizza.’”

Hook, for his part, looks thoroughly amused. “Yes, lad, I’d gathered that.” He looks down at their gigantic round entree with what can only be described as suspicion. “Do I just dig in then? No forks with you savages?” 

Emma huffs a laugh. “Only weirdos eat pizza with a fork.” Though, as she watches Henry hang onto a particularly large piece with two hands, she adds, “Unless that’s easier for you. Then be as weird as you want.” 

Killian waves off any concern on her part with a flick of his hand. “When in Storybrooke, eat as the Storybrookians do and all that.”  He slips a slice of pizza off the stand, letting it fall onto a plate with an audible plop, which he frowns down at. 

“Storybrookians?” Emma laughs. “No way. There’s got to be something better than that out there.” 

Hook shrugs, quirking a brow at her. “I’ll have to check with the mayor.” 

“She’s nice,” Henry pipes up, mouth blessedly less full this time. “She took me out for ice cream.” 

Emma and Hook, for what feels like the thousandth time this evening, swap glances. Henry, too engrossed in his pizza, doesn’t seem to notice. Moments later, when Ruby returns with Killian’s beer, being the spectacular mind reader she apparently is, she also comes bearing another Sprite for Henry and a second iced tea for Emma. 

“You’re amazing,” Emma tells her. 

“I know,” Ruby responds with a wink. “I’ll come check on you guys in a bit. If you need anything, just give a whistle.” She turns on her heel and heads back toward the kitchen, leaving them alone with their life-changing pizza. 

“All right,” Emma says, and her tone sings time’s up, buddy. “Eat up or shut up.” 

Killian chuckles, shaking his head at her. “That the saying, is it?” 

“Yup,” Emma says, popping the “P” on the end. “Sure is. Pizza time. Time to really become a man of the times.” Hook eyes the loaded slice of pizza on his plate skeptically, and Emma thinks of young Simba right before he tried a grub for the first time. “Hakuna matata, pal.” 

Henry, immediately getting the reference, laughs loudly at her side, and Emma beams. Hook looks between the two of them, once again a confused, eyeliner-wearing puppy. The poor man shakes his head, as if he’s just completely done trying to understand everything they say, and as they continue to snicker at his expense, he reaches down, scoops up his slice of pizza with his hand, and takes a bite of it. The thing is so loaded up with toppings that a few black olives abandon ship and fall back down to the plate with a soft tink. 

They both watch him expectantly. Hook, being the good sport he is, lets them stare at them while he eats. He swallows, then washes the rest of it down with a swig of beer. 

Emma and Henry give him a solid three seconds before they say, simultaneously, “Well?” 

“I’ve certainly had worse, by way of sustenance.” Hook says, shrugging, and they both groan. 

“Are you kidding me?” Emma says. “You try pizza for the first time and that’s all you have to say about it? You’ve had better?” 

“I believe what I said was that I’ve had worse food, Swan,” Hook clarifies, pointing at her with the prosthetic hand, “Which is a compliment.” 

“In what realm is that a compliment?” 

“He’s right,” comes Henry’s sigh. “This pizza is mid at best.” 

Mid? Killian mouths to Emma. She shrugs, for once just as lost as he is. 

“The pizza back in New York is way better,” Henry says, and Emma can’t argue with that. 

“He’s right. New York City does pizza like you wouldn’t believe.” 

“Yeah,” Henry says, “Remember the cart guy by our apartment that would sell it by the slice?” 

“Yes!” Emma cries. “Pizza Phil!” 

“You bought pizza from a man in a cart?” Killian asks, looking truly befuddled, clearly envisioning some kind of horse and buggy roadside pizza situation in the congested streets of New York City. 

“Not that kind of cart,” Emma clarifies with a smile. “Like a little… stand, I guess. He’d make it there, in this brick oven on wheels thing he had, and then he’d just sell it by the slice.” 

“It was awesome,” Henry says emphatically. “Best pizza in town. Sometimes Mom would let me have it for breakfast on our way to school.” 

“Yeah, well,” Emma says wryly, “Those weren’t exactly my best mothering moments. Sometimes we overslept, and pizza for breakfast it was.” 

“I disagree,” Henry says around his straw, as he finishes off the last of his second Sprite. Another not great mothering moment, Emma thinks to herself. But tonight is a special night. Henry goes on, “I think those were actually your best mothering moments.” 

“And this cart man’s pizza was better?” Hook asks, slowly, making a very valiant effort to keep up with them. “Back in New York City?” 

“New York pizza has a thinner crust,” Emma explains. “So you get more of the cheese and toppings. It’s pretty great.” 

“The best,” Henry asserts. “I wish we could have had you try it before we came here.” There’s something wistful in his tone that hurts Emma’s heart. She knows full well the bagels, pizza, and honestly food in general in Storybrooke leave much to be desired, and that her son misses the big city. She wants to make it up to him, somehow. He’s been so patient with her, through all this, and so trusting, and her heart swells with affection for him. 

“Alas,” Hook says, with a wry look to Emma, “My experience with New York City cuisine leaves much to be desired.” Vaguely, she remembers something about barbaric brigs and being force fed something called bologna. She shakes her head at him, though she doesn’t even bother trying to hide her laughter. 

“Yeah, yeah,” Emma says with a roll of her eyes. “All right, so we’re not as well-traveled as you are. Sue us. We’re simple folk. We like our pizza.” 

“And I will not begrudge you for that, Swan.” 

“Are there any other pizza places in town?” Henry pipes up.

“I don’t… actually know,” Emma says, glancing at Hook, who shrugs. 

“We should definitely find out,” Henry says. “We gotta try everything this town has to offer while we’re here, and compare it to back home.” 

Emma’s heart squeezes. She can feel Killian’s eyes on her, but she knows if she looks at him, she’s going to lose the battle against the tears suddenly pricking her eyes. Her voice is a little husky when she answers  with, “Yeah, kid. Sure thing.” 

“You’ll come with us?” Henry asks, looking to Hook. “Be brave again, try some more pizza?” 

Hook chuckles lowly, but nods and says, “I think I can be brave, Henry."

“Good,” Henry says, and the grin that lights up her son’s face makes Emma’s breath catch in her throat. He has the best smile, and she hasn’t seen it enough lately. 

They finish their pizza, or as much of it as they can eat, with Henry making the biggest dent. Hook, brave as he is, finishes his slice, and then dares to go for a second, which Emma counts as a win. She doesn’t keep Henry up too late, but they stay late into the evening, much later than Emma had originally intended when she took her son to Granny’s for a hot chocolate and offered to buy Hook a beer. 

And for the first time in a long time, with wicked green witches, curses, her son’s missing memories, and flying monkeys abounding, a peace settles into Emma’s heart. And for the first time in a long time, at least for this moment, she truly feels like everything really is going to be okay. 

[sneezingfetishftw-fics]

Insufferable (7/7)

At long last, Vox's suffering is complete! (For this fic anyway lol, I'll probably torture him again later). Enjoy the final chapter.

Previous chapters: 1 2 3 4 5 6

Wavs: 1 3

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“Are you sure you’re going to be alright, Amorcito?” Val asked, stroking Vox’s arm. 

Vox shook his head. “You can’t come along, Val. It would make negotiations even more tense, and that’s the last thing we need.”

“Do you want me to…” Velvette started. 

Vox shook his head, then winced from the pain of moving it. “Someone needs to keep running the company while I’m gone.” He sighed. “You’ve done well so far, just… heh’tzzzzch! Just keep it up. I’ll be fi… hi… hih… hih’TZZZZZSCHT! I’ll survive.”

“Alright, but if you’re not back by tomorrow I’m coming after you!” Velvette said, her expression intimidating despite her stature. 

Vox chuckled. “Deal,” he said, walking out the door. 

The walk to the hotel was every bit as awful as Vox had expected. To make matters worse, it seemed the trees had chosen today to release all their fucking pollen. There were several times Vox had to hypnotize someone who witnessed his disheveled state, and having Alastor go through his body to do the hypnotizing was a thoroughly unpleasant feeling, like someone crawling under his skin and pushing all his organs out. He may have wanted Alastor inside him, but not like this.

By the time he finally arrived at the hotel, Vox was an absolute mess. His suit was wrinkled from doubling over with the more intense sneezes, his screen was dull, his movements were slow and weak, and he was pretty sure his voice was shot too, if he still had his voice at all. 

Charlie did a double take at the door, closing it in shock for a moment before she finally left it open long enough for Vox to speak. 

“Greetings, your Highness. I… Hhhhh’tzzzzzmp!” Charlie raised an eyebrow as the sparks flew. Velvette had finally managed to teach Vox how to use a handkerchief, but that didn’t stop the old television in the lobby from shorting out. “Excuse me,” he said, trying desperately to find his usual charm and professionalism. 

“Bless you, Mr. Vox. What are you doing here?” Charlie asked, staring at him with pure confusion. 

“Please, call me Vox.”

“Yeah, what are you doing here?” Vaggie repeated, staring with more hostility than confusion. 

Vox sighed. There was no point tiptoeing around it, especially since he didn’t know how long his voice would last. But he was a businessman, he knew the importance of selling to his audience, so taking the right angle was important here. Vaggie would see through any bullshit—the main thing that mattered to her was honesty. And Charlie? The bleeding heart was so big on her sleeve it’s a wonder her arm hadn’t fallen off. He died a little inside as he realized what he had to do. Loathe as he was to appear weak, there was no doubt that groveling and being pathetic was the best way to tug on those heartstrings. 

“As you may have noticed, I’m not exactly in the best state at the moment,” he began, breaking into a coughing fit that he let drag on for longer than it would have naturally. 

“I can see that, but uh… why come here?”

“Well, uh, it’s kind of a long story, but I am looking specifically for your heh… heh…heh…heh…heh’TZZZZZZSH! For your help, Princess.” As he dragged out the buildup a little longer, he wondered whether this was the right move. Would Charlie be grossed out by his illness? But the sympathetic look on her face told her all he needed. After a moment, her face shifted to one of realization. 

“Oh! Alastor said to expect a visitor. Someone who wanted to try redemption? Was that you?”

God fucking dammit. Of course Alastor would have said something like that. Now he had to pretend to be caught up in Charlie’s hippie nonsense… on second thought, maybe not. The doubtful glare from Vaggie reminded him that even the smoothest of lies wouldn’t work. And it’s not like Alastor would step in to help him with hypnosis here. Vox was saved from his musings by a wracking cough, one so awful on its own that there was no need for exaggeration. 

“Oh my gosh I’m so sorry! Here you are standing in the doorway, when you must feel terrible! Please, come in! Can I get you some water?” Vox nodded weakly as he stumbled in. Technically he probably could have walked better than that, but there was no point spending the effort when appearing weak gave him an advantage. Vaggie gave him the side-eye. It was clear she wasn’t 100% convinced. He took a long gulp of the water, disappointed that it did nothing to soothe his throat. Maybe Charlie would get him some tea later. He wouldn’t be the one to ask, though. He was already about to ask for a lot. Charlie opened her mouth to speak, but paused as Vox had an absolutely horrendous sneezing fit. He had thought it was bad on earth getting illness and allergies at the same time, but there was no doubt that it was far worse in hell. To add to his frustration, Charlie had a ridiculous determination to bless every single sneeze. Vox wanted to claw off his entire face, resisting the urge only because he lacked the energy. 

After he was finally done sneezing, Vaggie broke the silence. “Alright, Vox. We know you didn’t come here just to look all gross and pathetic. What do you actually want?”

Vox frowned as he realized his voice was gone. Why now? Ugh. He deliberated for a moment, then smacked the side of his head, hoping to Satan it would work this time or he would look like even more of a fool. Thankfully, that seemed to have done the trick. “As you might have guessed, I’m sick.” Vaggie rolled her eyes at the obvious statement. “What you might not know is, Alastor did this.” He grimaced with the restraint it took to not curse his rival. “It was a targeted virus,” he said bitterly. “Not contagious,” he added as an afterthought upon seeing their concern. 

The pair stared at him for a while. Charlie spoke up first. “You want me to… talk to Alastor?”

“Not quite. I already talked to Alastor. He agreed to… hi’tzzzch! He agreed to remove the virus if I do a favor for you. You decide the favor.” Charlie’s eyes opened wide in surprise and excitement, then she got a look of intense concentration as she tried to consider how to handle this power. Vaggie’s eyes narrowed, and it was clear to Vox that she saw through the power play here. Still, that wasn’t enough reason to refuse what could be a very advantageous deal. The hum of fans echoed through the room as Vox awaited his fate. 

“It starts with sorry,” Charlie said. 

Vox raised an eyebrow. “That’s it?”

“She said it starts with sorry, not that it ends with sorry, dumbass,” Vaggie corrected. 

“Be nice, Vaggie, we have to assume he’s trying. But yes, you make a good point. You can’t just say sorry, you also have to not do those things in the future.” Vox opened his mouth and Charlie quickly added, “Before you go claiming that that’s not one favor, keep in mind that… bless you! Bless you again! Oh dear, bless you!” She realized Vox hadn’t been opening his mouth to protest after all. After a few minutes of sneezing and blessing (seriously, did this girl never get tired?), Charlie resumed her speech. “Uh, as I was saying, this can be defined as the following single favor: repent.” Vox thought he caught a glimpse of Charlie’s horns peeking out on that last word and he gave a shudder which he managed to pass off as a shiver. Pissing off the princess of hell definitely seemed like a bad idea. 

“Right, um, uh, of course, Princess. Repent. Yeah, that makes sense.” He found himself stammering awkwardly as he grappled with the idea that Charlie could tear down everything he’d built. Could he refuse the deal and accept being sick forever? At Alastor’s mercy forever? No, that had to be worse than whatever Charlie would ask of him.

“What, afraid of a little redemption?” Vaggie asked, finally cracking a smile as she saw the fear he no longer had the energy to hide. “It was good enough for Sir Pentious, the demon you sent here to spy on us and then told to kill himself.”

Vox winced. That one really stung. But he knew it was deserved.

Angel walked into the living room and froze. “What the fuck is Vox doing here?” He glared at the TV demon. “Please tell me you didn’t bring Val.”

Vox shook his head, then cradled it in his hands as he felt the ensuing dizziness. Before he could speak, he found himself in another long sneezing fit. Angel’s expression gradually changed to one of amusement. It was rare to see the CEO so vulnerable. A nice change of pace. 

“Vox here is trying his hand at redemption!” Charlie answered, beaming. 

“Only because he wants to get out of being sick.” Vaggie amended, frowning. 

“Redemption is redemption, even if the motive is less than perfect,” Charlie insisted. 

Vox groaned, dreading this whole negotiation already. “Just tell me what you need me to do,” he said, the resignation in his voice even thicker than the congestion. 

Angel strutted over, seeming to have gained a little more confidence from the whole situation. “How about you start with removing those cameras you put in my dressing room?”

“He WHAT?” Charlie asked, revealing her horns fully this time. 

Vox tried to smooth down his suit as he thought this through. He’d never really cared for the cameras anyway - as much as he loved having eyes on everyone and exerting his control, he knew Angel Dust was Valentino’s plaything, and Vox would be lying if he said he wasn’t sometimes jealous of the attention. At the same time, he knew Val wouldn’t give up that power so easily. Vox thought back to the events earlier today. Wait, hadn’t Velvette seemed especially mad at Val? Maybe she knew something Vox could use as leverage against him. He sighed. “Consider it done.”

Angel rolled his eyes. “You really think I’m going to just take your word for it?” he asked, holding out his hand. 

Vox groaned (more from the effort of moving than anything else) and took Angel’s hand. “I will remove the cameras from your dressing room as the favor for Charlie.”

“Nice try, asshole,” Angel said, refusing to shake. Val may have gotten one over on him years ago, but he knew better now.  “Don’t forget the part where you also prevent cameras from being added back there later.”

Vox nodded wearily, too focused on wanting to go home to have the energy to argue. He updated the terms of the deal and shook Angel’s hand. 

“Wait!” Charlie’s voice rang out, but she was too late. A crackle of electricity arced across Angel’s arm, and the porn star jumped back in shock. 

“Sorry,” Vox said with a sniffle. “Forgot to warn you about that side effect of making a deal.” Wait, a sniffle? Was he still sick? Was Alastor a fucking liar?

Alastor entered the room, the ever-present smile on his face looking quite smug. “Now, this is an interesting bit of contract lawyering, isn’t it?” All eyes were on him. 

“What do you mean?” Angel asked, shaking out his hand in an attempt to get it back to feeling normal. 

“Quite a few deals going around here. I made a deal with Vox that relies on Vox making a deal with Charlie. Then Charlie discussed potential terms of that deal with Vox. Vox then made a deal with Angel that claimed to fulfill the deal with Charlie. But does that really count if Charlie didn’t give her explicit approval? And if not, then should that deal be discarded?”

Vox groaned. “This is giving me a headache. Stop being a show off and just give us the fucking answer already.”

“Now now,” Alastor said, smile burning brighter, “is that any way to treat the person who’s in charge of your fate?” Vox frowned. “As for the deals at hand,” Alastor continued, “let us return to Charlie. Charlie, do you accept this deal?”

Charlie shook her head. “The favor was to repent. I’m sure Vox has quite a bit more he’s guilty of so I’m not ready to close this deal just yet.” Alastor nodded approvingly. The girl was learning. Probably not enough to be wise to Alastor’s tricks, but she was learning nonetheless.

The room was uncomfortably still as Charlie contemplated her next move, the silence punctuated only by Vox’s sneezes and coughs. Finally, she had an answer. “Apology letters. To everyone in this hotel.” Vox scratched his chin and absentmindedly mimed typing. “Handwritten.” Handwritten? With these claws? That was torture in and of itself! “They get to respond with any grievances they have against you. And then,” Vox sunk further and further into the couch as he realized just how deep repentance goes, “you have to take sufficient action to address those grievances.”

Vox’s eyes went wide and he coughed into his fist. “Princess Morningstar, I appreciate the uh… thoroughness of that proposition, but, um… if I may, thah… ahh… ahh’TZZZZSH! That will take me some time. And I do have a business to run. Forgive me for asking, your Highness, but is there anything that can be done to make this a little more manageable?”

Alastor stepped forward, extending his microphone like an olive branch. “I think we can work something out to lessen your symptoms a bit. After all, you’ve survived allergy season just fine!” Vox suppressed a growl at that. “Oh and don’t forget, I’m a resident of the hotel, so I expect to see your best handwriting in that apology letter!” Alastor said, grinning so wide there was barely any room left on his face.

A grim line set across Vox’s face. He had no leverage here, and everyone knew it. “To repentance, then,” he said with a resigned sigh. “I will write apology letters to every member of the hotel and then, in response to each member’s one letter of grievances, I will take action as determined sufficient by Princess Charlie Morningstar. And doing all of this will fulfill the requested favor and thus free me from this damned virus. Now then,” he said, extending his hand, “do we have a deal?” He felt a sneeze building up as Charlie and Alastor took his hand, then swirls of green, red, and blue energy coursed through them and the sensation was gone. The sneeze was lost. God fucking dammit!

[krikeymate]

Fic title: "touch without hurting me"

Tara doesn't make a sound, but Sam can still hear the whimper in her trembling lips, in the way she squints her eyes, in her shaking hands.

She'll carry the sound of Tara's cries with her to the grave. She hears it in every silent moment, sees the creep of blood beneath bandages every time she closes her eyes.

Standing in the doorway of her sister's bedroom, the shadows transport them. Tara's no longer safe, tucked away in bed. She's in a hospital corridor, crawling for her life, begging. She's a floor below, terrified and confused, being thrown to the ground and stabbed and stabbed and stabbed and-

"Sam?"

- She's been caught in the act.

Sam can't find her voice, doesn't want to. The silence protects them, from stilted conversations, awkward silences, ugly truths. The darkness is a protective shroud; reality fades away in the twilight and Sam can be the watchful guardian she should have been all along.

Tara turns her lamp on anyway, banishes away the fog.

"What're you doing?"

Her sister sounds confused, not scared.

She should be scared, Sam thinks. There's a stranger in the doorway.

"Hey," she whispers, barely more than a sigh. She's too caught up in watching the way Tara's arm quivers as it holds herself up to notice wide eyes, downturned lips, and a furrowed brow.

But Sam's always been too engrossed in Tara's pain to notice her concern. That's never changed.

A pained hiss fills the room as Tara shifts, legs dragging themselves to the edge of the bed.

"What are you doing?!" Sam cries, too loud, as she steps forward to stop her. It feels wrong, like a disturbance. This wasn't how things were supposed to go. She was supposed to watch over her and Tara was supposed to stay sleeping and never knowing.

This is all wrong.

"You're crying," Tara says simply, blinking up at her, as if that explains anything. As if it means anything.

Sam doesn't need to check. Now that it's been pointed out to her, she can feel the sting in her eyes, the path down her cheeks, the taste of salt on the corner of her lips. The tears that escape her even now.

She should wipe them away. She doesn't want Tara to see her like this. But she can't move her hands, they remain hovering over her sister, stuck in orbit. Fear repelling them away, fear holding them close.

She just wants to hold her sister close. To know she's ok, that she's safe, that she's still here and that Sam has a chance to fix this mess she's made of them. That she can make this up to her.

That it's not too late.

But the only thing that's ever been worse than the idea of losing her sister, is the thought of being the one to hurt her.

"Sam..." Tara murmurs, breaching the gap for her. Her sister's hand on her cheek burns, like a knife in her side by a man she was beginning to love. Then she twists the blade, fingers brushing over the wound in her abdomen. "Does it hurt?"

Sam has to close her eyes in shame as a sob erupts from her throat. "I should be asking you that," she chokes out. What does Sam know of pain?

"It's not a competition," Tara says wryly, tugging at Sam's collar. "Although if it was, I would obviously win."

Sam doesn't remember the last time she cried this much. She doesn't remember it leaving her so light, so free. It leaves her exhausted, and helpless to resist as Tara pulls her onto the bed with her.

She's never had any defenses against her sister, why even try to defy her?

The situation Sam had been trying to avoid rears its head as Tara struggles to lie back down. Despite her best efforts to push it away, a groan still escapes her.

"Stop moving," Sam demands, wrapping her arms around her sister and holding her to her chest.

The way Tara suddenly tenses in her grip has her fearing the worst, but then she melts, face nestling under her chin and hands gripping at Sam's arms.

"I've missed this," Tara confesses, under her breath.

She wasn't supposed to hear that, Sam thinks, watching the way Tara's hands slip over her own.

"I love you," she whispers back.

I've got you.

I've missed you too.