#and haunt is. well. he’s like if echo had been winter soldiered instead of stuck in a tube. and he killed his twin. so

[frecklenog]

you should post more about your star wars ocs :)

i shoudl.. the sw hyperfix hasn’t struck me in a good while but kota and devlin motorcycle and haunt my beloveds

[tiddygame]

Ghoap god type au part 8!

Ao3 /// part 1 /// part 2 /// part 3 /// part 4 /// part 5 /// part 6 /// part 7 /// part 8 /// part 9

can i offer anyone... almost 8k words of exposition and plot dump? hmmm? no? well, what if it comes with ghost resting his head in soap's lap? huh? what then?

fair warning: ghost has a bad time again

@imjustheretofightforlove / @pieckyghost / @life-as-a-gamergirl

...

The soldiers would often mention how they withstood the general’s abuse because they knew that they could trust him. That he was one of, if not the greatest war hero to ever grace the kingdom. Well known for being honorable and doing everything to protect his men. 

There was no honor to be found in surprising an enemy encampment at the dead of night. Very few were armed, most were likely still asleep as they lost the fight for their lives. But the general was good, successful, victorious. So his men charged in without a doubt. Laughed at the ease with which the enemy was felled. 

By the time reinforcements arrived, there was nothing left to save. They tried to avenge their fallen comrades, but instead joined them in the afterlife. To say they retreated was far too dignified for the fear and desperation with which they ran. Some of the oh-so-honorable general’s soldiers even laid chase, shooting arrows into their backs as they fled. 

The encampment was empty. Smoke billowed into the sky, tainting the white clouds. The ground was scattered with puddles — both blood and water alike. 

Ghost sat in the ruins and watched as the tents burned. 

After the slaughter, the allied dead were carted away to be given a proper burial. The rest were abandoned. Blue tunics stained red and fragments of shields covered in blood littered the ground.

Winter had long ago sunk her claws deep into the land and the bodies would most likely freeze before they could decay. Stuck in the inevitable snow, they would only be allowed to rejoin the earth in months when Spring’s thaw would free them, all based on the color of their uniforms. 

For now, scavenger birds picked at their corpses, enjoying the free feast. 

There was a haunting type of silence that could only be found in the wake of a massacre; An echo of death that seemed to scar the earth. Regardless of who or what was left alive, there was nothing living to be found. Shadows of ravens took away the dead, piece by piece. Whispers from the fates were carried by the wind, lies of justice and retribution pushing around dead leaves and tattered scraps of fabric.

Displeased with the lack of calamity, his mind filled the void, reminding him of the clanging metal, pained screams, and unheard pleas for mercy. A macabre orchestra singing a sweet lullaby, begging him to lay down his weapons and freeze along with the dead.

He felt the warmth of his arrival before the god spoke.

“I think you should deflect.”

Ghost didn’t jump this time, by now used to the god’s tendencies. He didn’t look away from the smoldering ash that had once been a medical tent. 

He tried to say something, but it didn’t work. There was a vast disconnect between his brain and the rest of his body. It was like he was trapped in sleep paralysis — his mind running rampant but his muscles unable to follow. 

He watched a corvid begin picking through the intestines of a soldier who still had his eyes open, watching the clouds pass overhead. 

“This doesn’t have to happen again if you leave.”

“Do you think I stay by choice?”

“Yes.”

Ghost didn’t have the strength for anger. He dropped to his knees like he was honoring the people whose blood still coated his blades. 

“It must be easy, then, to be a god, if you truly believe it to be that simple.”

“I did not come back from the brink of death just to become a patron of this violence again.”

Soap’s voice held a level of fury he had never heard from the god before. Boots walked in front of his vision.

Before him stood Soap, the God of Death. For the first time since they met, he looked the part. He stood as he had been described, tall, blue eyes, and the clean, unwrinkled clothes of a man rich enough to have Ghost’s lip curling in disgust. 

“You came back,” Ghost muttered with poison on his tongue, “Because I gave you an offering.”

Soap matched his tone, “And I accepted because you gave me hope.”

They both had rage sparkling at the tips of their fingers but the tragedy around them weighed far too heavy for something so grand. Soap kneeled, not low enough to be at eye level with the way Ghost hunched in on himself, but no longer leering over him.

Hope.

Ghost only scoffed half-heartedly in response. He hadn’t felt so tired since he had an arrow embedded in his chest.

Soap’s voice was kinder, but not softer. “I am not the god of war—”

Ghost interrupted him, “So you want me to continue fighting a war to prove it?”

“I want you to end it,” Soap corrected in a low tone, emphasis placed on every word.

He almost laughed. “A war that’s been ongoing for almost twenty years — You want me to stop it by just—?”

Soap returned his rudeness by interrupting him, “I want for this bloodshed to cease. Immediately. If that means your general dies, it will not be a great upset.”

“He is not my general,” Ghost growled out through gritted teeth.

The god sneered, “No, you just kill whoever he tells you to without question.”

“I owe him my life,” Ghost spat, feeling phantom chains on his wrists; a weight that had rested on him so heavily for so long he often forgot they were gone.

“Did you owe him their lives too?”

Ghost said nothing in response, just watched the embers slowly die and the flies begin to gather. The silence lingered.

Soap sighed and dropped his head, looking off to the side. It seemed he was taking some time to compose himself but Ghost couldn’t tear his eyes away from the scavenger birds. 

Would the people who had been turned into their dinner be glad that their body was not going to waste? Or would they be angry that they were not allowed to rest even in death? 

A pessimistic part of Ghost tried to convince himself that it didn’t matter, that the dead do not have feelings. Ghost thinks that he’d be happy to be able to keep providing, to let the birds eat his flesh and the earth prosper off his bones.

There were hands reaching towards him. He couldn’t bring himself to flinch away.

“Ghost.” Soap sounded almost like he was pleading. “Please look at me.”

His hands cupped Ghost’s face. Ghost followed absently. His eyes were no longer focused on anything but he could still only see sleeping faces.

It never got easier. 

Whoever suggested as much had never felt the way blood dries on your hands. The way it got tacky, sticking your weapon to your palm even as you tried to drop it. The way it stained your nails and lingered for days. The way it never seemed to wash off. The way it haunted you. The way it got under your skin and festered.

“I cannot watch this happen again.” Soap’s thumbs rubbed just under his eyes like he was wiping away non-existent tears. 

Was he crying? 

Soap squeezed his fingers where they rested in his hair, drawing him back. “Please do not make me watch this again. Not when you can change it.”

“How?”

There was too much scathing disbelief in his voice for it to be an honest question. 

“Do not let them win.”

Ghost waited for more, but that was it. That was all he had to offer. How does he stop them from winning? Simple. Do not let them win. He wanted to scoff at the answer but he didn’t have the air in his lungs.

Just five words but he heard everything Soap was too reluctant to say with them. It was more of a non-answer than anything else because Soap didn’t have an answer; he didn’t know how. He said so himself, he was the god of death, not war.

If Ghost did this, it would be either under his own plan or none at all. 

Why was he considering it?

He couldn’t. For all his faults, the general had pulled him out of the ash and gave him food when he should have been left to starve. When the gods ignored his pleas, it was a mortal man who answered and offered him a home.

And now it was a god telling him to betray his liberator. 

Was it all for nothing?

One of the tents collapsed in on itself, crackling as it lost the struggle with the flames. Ghost leaned into the god’s hands and closed his eyes. He could still see their faces.

…

A new day was just beginning to break over the horizon, pale light spilling over the military camp. Dew had frozen to the grass and a chill clung to the air even as the sun shooed it away, foretelling the upcoming snowfall.

The sentinels wouldn't be switching for another hour, the soldiers stationed at the lookouts shuffling in place to keep themselves awake and alert. The lookout fire was warm and sang a siren song for them to curl up and fall asleep but they stayed firm in their position. They watched for threats even as they fantasized of the shift change that would let them sleep the day away.

Soon, the camp's cook would be fumbling over the fire with cold fingers as he began to prepare breakfast for numerous hungry soldiers. Until then, they were still huddled on their cots, happily asleep with their warm blankets.

The general lied in his bed, sleeping soundly, warm. Their plans had been finalized the night prior, having spent hours perfecting them. Before long, they would be marching on, taking the enemy by surprise and pushing them back; The war was nearing an end and in due time they would be at the enemy’s front gate. 

But, for now, they rest. They were warm and safe. 

All except for one. 

Ghost was sitting up on his cot and had been for the entire night. He would like to say he had spent all of those hours coming to a decision, but he already knew his answer. No, he had spent all of those hours alone in his tent staring at the grass beneath his feet, only partially aware of the chill numbing his fingers, trying to come to terms with his sudden and drastic change in fate.

He spent all of his life knowing he was never destined for more. He would die as he lived and leave no impression on the world save for the fear that permeated people’s hearts at knowing that something like him could exist. And yet…

Hope. That’s what he spent all of those hours doing. Hoping. 

Hoping that maybe he could be something other than man’s monster. Hoping that he could watch the sunrise without the weight of blood staining his hands. Hoping that maybe he could have that happy ending he always heard his mother talk about.

That stupid little idea of a farmhouse in the middle of fields and fields of flowers, or a cottage tucked away in an expansive forest full of animals to make for kind neighbors. When he was younger, it made for a dinner table hypothetical to distract from how little food was on their plates. When he grew older he saw it for what it was: An unobtainable fantasy to make going to work the next day feel less like a death sentence.

But now it was so, so close that he didn’t know what to do. Not the house away from everyone that could bother him, but a happy ending. It was right there and it collapsed his entire worldview.

For so long he didn’t care about death or the afterlife because there was no hell that could be worse than what he was living. But now, he had the chance to be happy. For the first time since he was a kid he had something to lose. And by the gods, did it terrify him.

The sun rose higher; He would need to leave soon. His hands were shaking. 

He already had a copy of the plans, he just needed to get them to the opposing army. Ghost had snuck a peak at them as they were being finalized, memorized them, and wrote them down in the margins of that book he got during his second encounter with the god. He had justified it to himself by lying that copying them down did not mean he had to deflect.

Deflect.

Ghost heard the cook strike his flint and steel to start the fire, it echoed through him and got louder with each reverberation.

Gods, he was actually doing it, wasn’t he?

The general had saved his life and in return he was not just going to betray him, Ghost was going to make him watch his troops fall before he stabbed him in the back. As nasty as he could be, he cared for his men. Being forced to watch them die was perhaps the cruelest fate Ghost could inflict.

Please do not make me watch this again.

What was his story? Where does he claim he was going? Was there anything he could say that wouldn’t arouse suspicion? There was no reason for the general to think Ghost was betraying him.

Ghost is… Ghost is just going hunting again. 

Yes, that’s it. 

A simple hunting trip and nothing more. That’s why he’s leaving on horseback, so he can transport whatever bounty he collects. It’s why he’s carrying such a heavy bag with him, he’d need camping supplies and a book to keep him company. It’s why he’s leaving for several days, hunting can take patience.

He stood mechanically and walked out of his tent. 

The general was chatting with the cook. He was probably waiting for his cup of coffee. He didn’t know that one of his best was actively turning traitor.

Ghost approached. He did not feel anxiety eating him alive, no, that had happened hours ago when he had condemned everyone around him. Now he stood hollow, his chest empty, ribs encasing nothing, his heartbeat echoing in an empty cavern.

“I would like to go hunting,” Ghost announced, interrupting the two’s conversation. The cook was confused and the general angry before they saw who it was interrupting them, the former gaining a look of understanding and the latter looked…

Ghost didn’t know what the general was thinking when he saw him. He looked almost… excited. It had Ghost’s already clenched teeth grinding themselves into dust.

“Hunting?” the general asked.

“Yes sir,” Ghost affirmed, praying to gods he did not know, pleading for everything to be okay.

The general hummed, thinking about something. He nodded, “Be back within three days. We leave in four.”

The general grabbed the cup of coffee offered to him by the cook and walked back to his tent.

What the fuck?

No, really, what the fuck? No questions of where or what he was hunting, no arguments, no complaints, no denials… 

Why? Ghost would rather have been interrogated and questioned on every specific detail the general could think of to dispute. Why did he agree?

Was it a trap? 

He’d asked that same question the last time he approved of a hunting trip but found his fears unjustified. The general did not like him and trusted him even less, there was no reason for him to grant Ghost this kindness.

Did he know? 

There was no way he could. The only evidence that there was something afoot were the scribblings in a book shoved into the bottom of his pack — hell, even then they were written on the inner margins some seventy pages in. Besides his one conversation with the god of death, in which he didn’t even fully commit to deflecting, that one book stored at the bottom of his bag hidden beneath his cot was the only way the general could know.

So why, why, why did he agree?

“Breakfast will be served in half an hour, unless you plan on helping, get lost.”

Ghost drew out of his panicked mind and stared at the cook, slowly processing the sentence. And creeped him out in doing so if his sudden lack of assertiveness and refusal to look at Ghost was any proof.

He turned back to his tent, feeling like an imposter in his own skin, and prepared for his trip.

…

It had just reached high noon and a soldier was riding through rolling plains of dead grass.

The wind had gone from whispers to howls. Winter’s mongrels bit at any inch of exposed skin. His steed speeding through the lands only worsened the sting as he struggled to keep his head up and eyes open. Still, he did not tell her to slow. There was no time for delay.

Truthfully, Ghost did not know where he was going. The plans mentioned assaulting a fortress resting at the foothills of a mountain, one that was old and had stood the test of time; One that could end a war if it changed hands. 

The plans did not, however, include a list of directions for how to get there. The only thing he knew for certain was that he needed to head north, but beyond that was a mystery.

Initially, he’d gone back to the ruined encampment with the intention of searching what little survived the fires for a map or something of the like. He spent several minutes staring at corpses that had frozen solid in the night and likely would have spent longer if not for Taxes refusing to stay there.

When he was pulled away from the grim sight, he found his plan to have been useless. There was only ash in the main encampment and the reinforcements had come from a smaller camp up the way and closer to the road, likely a failed lookout, one which did not have a map either.

He could trace the events of the fight from the remains of the camp. 

The fire had burned out on its own. Stools were knocked over and arrows were snapped on the ground as if they had spilled from a quiver and been stepped on. Blankets had been tossed aside with a quickness, weapons taken but scabbards forgotten.

They had been preparing a meal, probably resting and chatting when they heard the screams of their comrades and cheers of their enemies and raced to help, only to then too become victims of a rich man’s war.

He tried following the trail of those who fled but it only led to him finding more corpses, some who died as they ran and others who either bled out or froze in the night.

He changed plans quickly after that.

Ghost figured he would find something eventually if he just kept moving. He was distinctly aware of the fact that the fleeing soldiers probably had a similar ideology when they succumbed to their wounds and the harsh elements.

After a few miles his plans changed again to finding somewhere to safely spend the night. He could see his breath puffing out even through his mask when it was noon; If what should be the warmest time of day had him shivering, he had no chance of making it through whatever the night held.

When he set out in his panicked state, the only thing he could think about was getting out of camp as fast as he could and in turn finding the fortress just as fast. To set out with more or less no plan was a stupid move, but for all his panicked overthinking, he apparently forgot to think about how he would trade over the information without dying of hypothermia.

He had made good progress but he needed to find a roof to lay under — and fast. Once the sun began to fall it wouldn’t be long before it was pitch black with the hounds of hell masticating a chill into his bones.

…

Ghost had no idea why he deviated off the road he had been following, he just knew that he found himself on a trail with an old cabin sitting at the end of it. It may have been divine intervention or it may have been his subconscious stepping in when the forefront of his mind was stuck in turmoil, either way he didn’t bother questioning it.

Based on the state of the cabin and its furnishings, it was likely a summer home owned by someone, perhaps a hunter, who was thankfully not present and based on the dust, hadn’t been for a while. Whether it was abandoned or not  didn’t matter; It was currently vacant and had a fireplace which were the only two things he could bring himself to care about.

Ghost had a distinctly out-of-place feeling as he stood in the middle of a cabin meant for warm summer nights while his breath visibly puffed out and snow piled outside. 

Maybe he was just disconnecting from his body again.

Now that he thought about it, he’s not sure he’d felt connected to his body throughout the whole day.

He wanted to shake the feeling away, but he did not have the agency over his muscles to do so. He was only able to collect firewood by absent muscle memory; He could do nothing but hope that whatever part of him still worked would be enough to keep him alive.

All he knew was that he had been looking for somewhere to spend the night, found a cabin, and was staring at a fire in a fireplace shortly thereafter. 

He knew he was missing something as he somewhat came back to himself, energy shooting through him as he realized he couldn’t recall what he’d done with Taxes after dismounting. Suddenly terrified that he’d left her on her own, he burst out the door and looked around quickly, searching for tracks and…

She was stabled. 

There was a tiny, two-stall stable next to the cabin. She had been de-tacked, brushed, and fed. He approached her and slowly reached out to touch her muzzle, the normally irritable horse accepting the slow touches like she knew something was wrong.

He stayed there for a while, making sure that she was alright and then waiting longer to see if it was an illusion that was going to wither away with his grip on reality.

It didn’t. 

He returned to the cabin.

He sat against the wall near the fireplace with his legs splayed out like he’d collapsed and stared at his hands, focusing on how they burned from the change in temperature. He still had blood under his nails.

The calluses that had developed over years and years of wielding various weapons were still very visible in the dim light. Some were lighter, some were darker; they sat at the base of his fingers, a few trailing up higher.

He remembered when he had been younger and stupider, he thought he was being tough by continuing to train even as his hands grew sore and blistered. He remembered the panic he had felt when he realized that the next day he would not be given a break.

Only barely winning against his opponent, he stood shaking, hunched over and leaning on his sword, the tip of it buried into the sandy ground, completely relying on it to stay standing. He heaved for air; His lungs were still fighting even as the battle was over.

Blood stained the guard and ran down the blade, dripped down his fingers and fell to the ground. It didn’t splatter, it stayed in neat little drops as it mixed with the sand. His arm hanged limply, thousands of needles prickling his hand like it was going numb even though he could still feel the pain.

He was exhausted to the point of twitching, the world pulling apart at the seams. He could only feel his heartbeat reverberating through his skull. His chest rested against the pommel, the intricate design coming to a point that tried to stab through to his heart. 

The sores on his hand had opened very quickly after the fight started. Everytime he lifted his sword, the pain spiked to such an intense degree that he’d fumbled his weapon several times, once almost dropping it on himself. He wanted to cry. Wasn’t his brain supposed to shut off his pain response when it was life or death?

It hurt so bad he’d started to pray that his foe would kill him just so this torture would have been done with. But his pride got in the way of his dreams of dying; He couldn’t bring himself to hand victory to his opponent. He refused to give up even as he wished nothing more than for the enemy to strike him down.

He couldn’t let go of his sword. He tried loosening his grip, he wanted to drop it and never look at a blade ever again, but it stuck to his hands. The opened blisters had dried and scabbed over against the leather wrap of the handle. 

He didn’t what would hurt more: To rip all of that away and drop his weapon or to keep pressing against them as he held onto the sword for balance. He tightened his grip.

He couldn’t see or hear. His heartbeat was thudding in his ears and there was red-stained sandy ground beneath him but he couldn’t see or hear. He could, but he couldn’t. 

He wondered if this was what it felt like to pass out.

Hands, different ones, not his own. They grabbed at his shoulders and pulled him but his mind was already gone. The scabs ripped and reopened. They were not healed by the next fight.

His hands were bloodied.

When Soap appeared, he had the decency to do so quietly, looking regretful for the situation he had put Ghost in. It was an accusatory way to phrase it, but still held some truth.

“Ghost, I—”

“Please.” 

Ghost shook his head, not knowing what he was pleading for. The real world was too much and he shut his eyes tight. He was not equipped for whatever conversation Soap wanted or needed. 

With one word, Soap apparently heard enough. 

Ghost heard him stand, walk towards him, and stop. When he worked up the courage to open his eyes, he saw the god of death before him, holding out his arms. Ghost waited but Soap remained. 

Deciding to be brave, Ghost placed his hands in Soap’s. The god gave a small, reassuring smile; He tugged Ghost’s arms lightly twice, warning him of the upcoming movement before fully pulling him up to standing. 

Ghost had only a moment to wobble and distantly worry about falling before Soap pulled him close, wrapping his arms around him. Despite being shorter, he still managed to engulf Ghost in his grasp, holding him like he was blocking away the rest of the world.

Ghost had to squeeze his eyes tighter but soon reciprocated. Whereas Soap wrapped his arms tightly around him, Ghost could barely cling onto Soap’s shirt. He had no idea how long they stayed like that; Even time itself seemed to still to allow them a small reprieve.

He knew that Soap began humming a quiet tune at one point or another; Ghost did not just hear the soft melody wander into the dark cabin, but felt it reverberate from Soap’s chest as well with how close they were pressed.

When Ghost found it within himself to lift his head, Soap offered him that same reassuring smile once more. His tune petered out as he guided Ghost towards the dusty bed. His mind was elsewhere but he knew deep down he could follow Soap.  

And perhaps out of everything that had happened, that was the part that frightened him the most. The fact that he trusted Soap. Ghost was… vulnerable. Ghost was vulnerable and he trusted Soap to take care of him. 

Soap only stepped away for a moment to shake off and resituate the dirty bedding before sitting down and motioning for Ghost to join him; He had Ghost lie down with his head resting on Soap’s leg. 

Ghost did so very slowly, his back protesting at every movement. He perhaps should have been embarrassed over the strained grunts he let out but he didn’t care. He was more concerned with reminding himself that it was not supposed to hurt to relax.

It took him a good long while to be able to breathe again after fully lying on his side with his ear against the other’s thigh, his lungs suddenly burdened with the brunt of his anxiety. 

Soap draped a few blankets overtop of him; Ghost wasn’t sure where they came from, but they smelled nice. It made part of him shrivel at how incapable he was at taking care of himself, but the comforting weight they offered was a welcome juxtaposition over his rampaging mind attempting to crush him. 

He was sure that when he could think beyond reminding his heart to beat and his lungs to take in air, he’d be grateful that Soap didn’t make him lie on top of the moth-eaten top blanket or the grimy pillow. In the moment however, he appreciated the easier contact that kept him tethered without anything more overwhelming. 

Ghost pulled the blanket up close, practically hiding under it like there were monsters under the bed. He could feel his heart preparing to fight for his life but he closed his eyes and tried to breathe. They were staccato inhales, shaky and short, but he was breathing.

Would he return to camp? After everything, after the information had been handed off, would he go back to his tent, help them pack up like he hadn’t betrayed them?

Should he run? Just pray that everything works out and try to find some land far, far away where they would mistake Ghost for one of them? As something that deserved respect and kindness? As someone who didn’t have enough blood on their hands to start or end a war?

He’s only ever been a weapon for other people to use to kill anyone they felt like. Why now was he so caught up on killing people? 

They were not good people — Ghost knew his sense of honor was twisted but he would never attack the back of a fleeing man for being on the other side of a war. They killed innocent people who surrendered the same way they did an active threat.

Were Ghost’s actions any different? Had he not done the same?

Soap brought his hand to gently card through Ghost’s short hair.

Ghost would have been dead if not for the general. Yes, he hated him, but that didn’t change that he saved Ghost when he should have been left to die.

Soap saved your life too.

And he knows that. He knows every counter argument that could be thrown out at it, he’s had the same debate with himself for years. But shouting into the sky about the cruelty of fate did not clear his warring mind.

Ghost opened his mouth to try to speak but the words didn’t form, his throat closed up and his lungs refused to provide the air. It was only after undoing all of his work to keep himself breathing that he was able to choke anything out. 

“I’m scared.”

He could barely admit it as if he weren’t holding the blanket he was hiding under in a white knuckle grip. He didn’t feel any lighter with the admission off of his consciousness.

Soap remained silent. 

Ghost was suddenly very unsure if he’d spoken at all. Or maybe he had. Maybe Soap was doing him a favor by pretending not to have heard it, acting like Ghost hadn’t just embarrassed himself. Or…

“Me too.”

Perhaps it should have made him more nervous to hear a divine being admit to such a thing, but he wasn’t after thoughtless false promises. He couldn’t stand being trapped in his mind as he was, not knowing if he had completely lost it. He didn’t want denials or lies that everything would be okay, he just needed…

He didn’t know what he needed.

It’s okay to seek solace.

Ghost closed his eyes and breathed in deeply, trying to exile all of his stress as he exhaled. It didn’t work, but he felt better which was all he could hope for.

“Thank you.”

He didn’t know which one of them said it or if it even existed outside of his decaying mind, or perhaps it was that old friend’s voice that had been haunting him. Regardless, the world resting upon his shoulders felt a little lighter as he fell asleep.

…

When he woke, he had a pounding headache that left his eyes feeling dry and grainy even though he just opened them. Winter’s pale blue light was poking in through the half-boarded windows of the cabin; the dust particles floating through the air looked like snowflakes that had fallen under the roof. 

Soap was still there, not having moved through the night and still acting as his pillow. His hands were still gently running through his hair as well, the motion almost making him fall back asleep. 

The fire roared on the other side of the cabin and he was covered in blankets, yet he shivered. He dreaded to think how much snow was sure to be on the ground outside. 

Ghost sat up but did so grumpily, his mood worsening when one of the several blankets fell and left him just that much more exposed to the cold.

“Good morning.” 

The fondness was clear in Soap’s tone. He grumbled back with a glare, unable to think about anything other than how much he wished he was still asleep, and held onto the blankets as he shuffled to the fireplace. 

His annoyance at being awake was soothed by the warmth it provided and again he was tempted to fall back asleep. Ghost didn’t remember the specifics of the night prior and he would like to keep it that way. If he didn’t acknowledge it, then there was nothing to be embarrassed by.

Ghost was vaguely aware of a corrupted feeling flowing through his veins; He furrowed his brow, trying to pinpoint what it was. 

He felt like he had crossed a malevolent god who placed a curse on him, a curse that made him feel dizzy even as he sat still on the ground and his fingers feel detached as he stared at them. The world around him seemed to move in slow motion, like he was stuck in molasses.

Soap walked over while rooting through his bag. 

“You need something to eat, you didn’t eat at all yesterday.”

Ah, he was hungry. That explained it. At least that was an evil that was easy to defeat. He accepted whatever food Soap handed him and ate slowly, taking immense effort to chew every bite.

He still didn’t feel hungry, if anything he felt the opposite, but he did feel a little better once he was finished, even if it took him almost an hour. (It was not because Soap’s smile seemed to brighten every time he took a bite.)

Ghost was slowly coming back to himself but wanted to check on Taxes before he did anything else. When she saw him she whinnied and shook her head; she was just as happy to see him as she was ready for him to pet her. 

He obliged, stepping into her stall and looked for where he set her gear as he scratched and petted to her heart’s content. (And was thoroughly reprimanded when he got distracted and stopped; She whinnied loudly, somehow always right in his ear, if his hand stilled for even a moment.)

To his past-self’s credit, he got most things in the right spot, only a few baffling misplacements. Taxes was outraged when he fully stepped away, but calmed down when he gave her breakfast. 

He was shaking out her blanket when Soap exited the cabin with his bag looking much fuller than it had the day prior. Several blankets stuck out the top, too full to close. 

Ghost shook his head, not wanting to think about whatever the god of death had filched from a stranger’s cabin. Soap stayed outside the stall, passing his bag over silently and watching him as he prepared to head out again. 

As he expected, the bag was much heavier than it had been when he left. Looking at how much was in it, he had an errant thought about Soap not seeming like the thieving type and a realization crashed over him. Perhaps there was a reason why the god of death was able to lead him to this particular and particularly vacant cabin.

He suddenly decided not to dwell on why Soap led him there.

Taxes was still eating so he took some time to himself, pulling everything out of the bag and organizing it, both to take inventory and to make everything fit. 

He didn’t know where he was relative to the shitty map he had, but based on the temperature difference, he probably made enough progress yesterday to reach the fort before nightfall. He would have to wait until he was on the road to find landmarks that he could use to orient himself and plot a proper course. 

After some deliberation, he took the book and put it in an inner pocket of his cloak; he didn’t want to risk anything happening to it in his bag. He spent some time shuffling all of the items, finding an odd amount of comfort in the control he had from simply organizing his own bag. 

He felt a smidge of happiness when he got all of it to fit in a way that still allowed the bag to close, an impressive feat considering just how much shit Soap grabbed. A smidge of happiness that weakened when he realized that he couldn’t stall any longer and would have to set out again.

…

He would never admit to anyone, not even himself, how relieved he was when Soap got on behind him and wrapped his arms around him. It was a mirror of a position they had found themselves in before, but this time it felt different. It no longer felt like Soap was worried about falling or trying to warm him but he couldn’t put his finger on what exactly it was. 

It’s called a hug.

He rolled his eyes at the little lying voice and was glad Soap couldn’t see his annoyance at the nuisance that decided to chime in again. Because he was wrong. It wasn’t a hug. Soap, the god of death, was not fucking “hugging” him.

(His cheeks burned at the thought but he did not pull away from the touch.)

Soap wouldn’t be able to stay for long. Ghost had of course noticed the pattern in his visits; They were always fairly short and rarely lasted more than a few hours. And while his memories of the day prior were shot to shit, he knew the god must have pushed well beyond his limits.

The realization that he forgot to give Soap an offering made him want to hang his head in defeat. It was the only way he had to thank Soap for all that he’d done or to provide compensation but he was too absorbed in himself to even give the god a flower.

He had never felt like he owed anyone an explanation for why he was the way that he was, but… Soap owed him nothing and gave him everything. The least Ghost could do was give an excuse a reason for… just… everything.

Ghost took a long time to focus on his breathing, in and out, refusing to repeat yesterday.

“I used to be a fighter in the arena.”

Such few words yet he felt like he just gave an entire speech. It was a pitiful excuse for the amount of blood on his hands. He was too lost in his head to see if Soap reacted.

It wasn’t a well kept secret, but the legends surrounding his nickname had grown murky over the years; He didn’t know if people had truly connected the dots between the famous deadly gladiator and infamous deadly soldier under the same name.

“We needed money, seemed like an okay decision at the time.” 

He suddenly felt like he had to defend his younger self’s actions, as stupid as they were. 

“I knew it could and would probably kill me, but it — dying in battle, it sounded more appealing than starving.”

This is unnecessary. Stop trying to make him feel bad for you.

He continued. He could feel tears pricking at his eyes at the memory. 

“My mother begged me not to, but it was the only work available and I couldn’t sit back and watch. So I signed a contract.”

Once he started talking he couldn’t stop himself. Years and years of bottling everything up was finally spilling over and Soap wasn’t the one who needed to hear it, wasn’t the one who deserved to have all of his grief dropped on, yet he didn’t shut up.

If he wanted you to stop, he’d have said something.

“It wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be, at first. There weren’t many fights and they paid well, most of them weren’t to the death or anything like that. I… couldn’t really leave the arena, but it got money to my family so I didn’t care.” 

Ghost paused, reminiscing on when things were easier. Soap rubbed his thumb in small semi circles on his arm. Ghost tried to focus on the touch. 

“A sponsor didn’t like that I beat his favorite fighter and lost him some money. So he—” 

Ghost’s voice cut itself off. He forced himself past the emotional mess his brain was becoming, or tried to. 

“He had someone— I didn’t— No one—”

Gods, fucking pull yourself together.

He almost choked on the lump in his throat that he had tried to ignore and coughed.

Just breathe.

“He got caught and they decided death by gladiatorial combat was appropriate. It didn’t make me feel any better; It didn’t bring them back. I signed another contract. I—”

Soap doesn’t want or need to hear this. Shut. Up. 

He lost track of where he was or whatever other woes he wanted to force Soap to listen to. He hadn’t explained anything. So many words used and yet nothing of value said. There was no amount of rambling that could make it come across as a sound decision — that could make him look like anything other than a deranged monster in denial.

“The general saw me fight one day. Gave me a better offer.”

You aren’t forcing Soap to do anything. You think he’s kind? Then he’s happy to listen.

“It… wasn’t much different. But the bars were gone. The shackles too. I got to watch the sunset for the first time in years.” 

He was having a rather difficult time trying to talk in between arguments with himself. 

Soap pulled that same magic trick he had that night of the bar fight and inexplicably managed to hold him closer, somehow squeezing without feeling constrictive. He felt stupid for how much comfort he found in it.

And what have you done to deserve the kindness he gives you? Have you even thanked him?

Ghost shook his head. 

“I’m sorry, I—” 

His voice broke, saving him from sounding like even more of a fool.

Soap was there out of necessity. Nothing more, nothing less. Ghost lost his mind following a trail to a cabin. He was not sticking around “out of the kindness of his heart,” or whatever other lie Ghost had unwittingly convinced himself of.

Soap was there because if he wasn’t, Ghost would have gotten himself killed, and that was that. He was stuck there until Ghost came back to himself and stopped spilling his fucking life story as some pitiful excuse for why he’s not a monster.

And now he’s spiraling, again, and proving that he couldn’t be trusted with the simple task of delivering information. Gods above and below, he’s a fucking joke. 

Soap is currently fucking hugging you, you oblivious bastard!

Ghost thought back to the bar fight again, the way Soap clung to him, worried about—

What part of ‘being worried about falling’ would lead to someone leaning their head against the other’s shoulder? Or caressing their fucking hand?! He’s half a damn inch and one impulsive decision away from kissing you!

Ghost really fucking wished that the dead man’s voice would fucking stay dead.

Fuck you.

In spite of the absolute fuckening the past two days had been, he huffed a small laugh. 

“I had a… a friend— my cellmate, actually. He was the only thing that… that kept me going a lot of the time. We’d patch each other up, laugh and joke, remind each other that there was more out there. We always talked about what we’d do when we got out — we were gonna stick together and become mercenaries… ‘heroes for hire’ he always said.”

He laughed wetly, the tears coming back even as he reminisced on long, pained nights made bearable by stupid jokes and drawn out fantasies of the world that lay behind the bars of their cell.

“He…” 

His smile waned. Ghost took a deep breath. 

“He didn’t make it. Took an attack that was meant for me and paid for it.”

Ghost shook his head again and got back to the original point he wanted to make. 

“I can hear his voice now. I don’t know what or how, but I guess getting close to the god of death has unexpected side effects.”

An embarrassed flush ran to his cheeks at his own poor wording, one he was glad Soap couldn’t see. 

“It started under that overhang. Ever since, he pops in every now and then, usually to make fun of me or offer advice while calling me names.” 

Ghost felt Soap smile against his shoulder.

Ghost smiled as well. 

“He likes you, thinks you’re nice.” 

It was one hell of an understatement, but he had a feeling that confessing, ‘the voice of my dead friend won’t leave me alone and he thinks you want to kiss me,’ might make things awkward. He didn’t want to make Soap think that he mistook his kindness for romantic advances.

Oh my fucking gods.

Ghost almost laughed aloud at his annoyance.

Soap asked, “What is his favorite color?”

The present tense didn’t slip his notice but he didn’t feel like diving into what the hell that meant. It was the first thing Soap had said since they hit the road.

Ghost smiled. He answered with a griefed laugh, “Brown, like a freak.”

Soap hummed. After a short pause, he leaned forward somewhat and inadvertently pulled Ghost back. Ghost looked at him with a raised brow, but as per usual he was undeterred and stared at him ruminatively. 

Rumination complete, Soap fell back to hugging holding him with his cheek against Ghost’s shoulder. He quietly commented, “I think I’d be inclined to agree.”

Ghost rolled his eyes and scoffed playfully, “‘Course you would, freak.”

[plussizeappreciationfics]

Move on

Pairing: Bucky Barnes x Bisexual!Plus size reader

Warning(s): smut, 18+ only, cussing

“O-Oh she’s already in your room?” you questioned perplexed while clinging onto your water bottle, the nasty emotions of jealousy and bitterness coursing through your body as Bucky gave you an awkward nod, his metal hand rubbing his other arm. His eyes quickly scanned you from head to toe and you knew that he was trying to read you, so in an instance you cleared your throat loudly and placed the bottle of water on the counter.

“Okay, have fun. Just don’t be too loud” you politely requested and forced a small smile, hating the way you were feeling. “Thanks and I will” the super soldier promised and then turned on his heel, leaving the kitchen area and going back to his room. Once he was out of sight, you clenched your eyes shut and let out a string of cuss words. You didn’t know that sharing your apartment with your now ex-boyfriend would be so unpleasant.

The two of you had broken up a few weeks ago due to the constant arguing, the love you once used to feel for one another had somehow vanished and instead had been replaced with pure dislike for one another. The break-up was a nasty one too: some disgusting words had been thrown in your faces and doors had been broken from being slammed so hard. You had planned on moving out, not caring that the apartment had been purchased by both of you. You just needed to heal from this emotionally traumatic event but fate had another plan for you: the pandemic happened.

Moving away was impossible so you were stuck with Bucky who currently was dealing with the breakup in his own (and stupid) way: sleeping with any woman he encountered when leaving the apartment. This really was the worst time for you because despite being heartbroken, you couldn’t just get over a four year relationship in a span of a few weeks. You still loved Bucky despite the way you had ended things with him. So, having to hear him fuck a stranger’s brain out on the daily wasn’t helping you at all.

“Oh shit” you hissed to yourself when noticing you had zoned out and had lost a few minutes. The jealousy and bitterness was now cooling down as you made your way to your own room, remembering that you had to prepare yourself for your date. 

Yes, that was correct.

You had downloaded a few dating apps as you couldn’t sit in the apartment 24/7 and mourn the failed relationship while Bucky was getting his dick wet every single day. After creating your profile, you had set your settings on women only. The few profiles you had looked at were very interesting and the women were super nice. 

There were no thirsty comments, no creepy attempts at getting some nudes out of you or stupid and cheesy pick up lines that would leave you cringing to the max. After days of meeting and talking to this pretty transgender woman named Lisa, you were actually excited to leave the haunted apartment and get to know her. You didn’t have any solid intentions for the date, you just wanted to get out and interact with someone.

So, with a soft sigh you started to pick out an outfit and get ready to take a shower.

~~~

“Oh fuck” you moaned when Lisa growled while leaving sensual kisses up and down your neck, her soft hands gently cupping the rolls on your stomach, her leg resting in between your spread ones and giving you just enough friction to leave you craving for more. You bit your lip when she let out a soft chuckle, loving how she had you like pudding in her hands. 

The date had gone very well, the chemistry in between you two was amazing and the good vibes just radiating off of you. Lisa had just gone through her own messy breakup and was relieved to have found someone who was able to relate to her. She was in awe of your beauty and unique personality and immediately had requested to take you out on a few more dates, to which you had happily agreed to. 

When she had walked you to the door to your apartment, she had leaned in and gently asked to kiss you. The second your lips had met each other, they melted into one and the next thing you knew, you were passionately kissing each other while making your way to your room. You were so wrapped into the exciting and lustful situation that you hadn’t even bothered to acknowledge Bucky leaving his room and shooting daggers at your date as he felt a pang of jealousy rush through his body.

“Can I take your shirt off?” Lisa gently asked to which you eagerly nodded your head before helping her remove your shirt. The hookup wasn’t planned but nonetheless, you were happy because you were in awe of this amazing woman. All you wanted to do was to feel her naked body against yours and bring the two of you to the all delicate climax.

“You’re so beautiful” she gushed when your bra had been thrown into a random corner of the room and your breasts were exposed to her greedy eyes. You smiled and removed her shirt before running your hands up and down her naked chest, your fingers teasing her hard nipples while the wetness gathered in your panties. 

Lisa squealed in surprise when you took control and rolled her on her back on the mattress, your thick legs resting on either side of her waist. You leaned down and pressed your lips against hers, your hand sliding down her stomach and into her pants. “Mhm…” you moaned once you felt her drenched sex against your hand, her wetness coating your fingers while you starting to softly rub her swollen clit.

“Yes!” Lisa moaned out and arched her back, giving you all the space to appreciate her smooth and elegant neck with your lips. You went straight to work and increased the movements of your hand, loving the pleasure you were giving your date. You grinded your hips against hers and let out a few moans as the material of your pants gave you the perfect amount of friction against your clit.

“[Y/N]!”

Bucky’s voice came booming from the other side of the door, his loud knocks echoed through your room seconds later while you quickly got off Lisa and made sure that her naked was covered before snatching your shirt from the floor and throwing it back on. “What?!” you yelled once you opened the door and met your angry ex-boyfriend. He was panting in fury while glaring at you, then at Lisa who was now underneath the covers and awkwardly staring back at him.

“I want you back. Tell your date to leave so that we can talk our issues through and stop acting like idiots”.

Your eyes fluttered in surprise as you stared dumbfoundedly at your ex. The nerve this man had to not only interrupt your evening, but to also have the audacity to suddenly claim to wanting you back. You stepped out of your room and closed the door and let out an angry chuckle before glaring at Bucky.

“Who the fuck do you think you are, telling me what to do?! We broke up because we are dysfunctional and not compatible. And you have some fucking nerves to rudely interrupt my date, acting all jealous and possessive while you’ve been busy fucking every SINGLE woman in the city!”.

Bucky hadn’t been prepared for this confrontation and shamefully stared down at his feet as he finally realized how much of an asshole he had been. The breakup had left him hurting too but the super soldier decided to choose the wrong coping mechanisms. Truth was that he still loved you and to witness that anyone could just swoop in and take you away from him had left him afraid and anxious.

“I’m packing my things and am moving in with a friend tomorrow morning. This shit show can’t continue. Goodbye”  you hissed before turning on your heel and entering your room again. You had expected Lisa to have gotten dressed and voiced her discomfort of the whole situation before asking to leave, so seeing her lying completely naked on the bed and waiting for you had you let out a pleased sigh.

“I know that you’re hurting. I am too. And I’m not expecting anything from you, but I want to help you forget about this whole mess for a while and after that I’ll help you pack your belongings. Is that okay?” Lisa explained, her eyes holding nothing but truth in them. “I’d love that” you smiled while slipping out of your clothes, appreciating the naked woman lying on your bed. She giggled when you joined her and immediately captured her lips in a sensual kiss while your hands roamed all over each other’s bodies. You didn’t know how things would work out once you’d move out, but you knew that you’d get over Bucky and heal from this.

Tag list: @jamesbarnesappreciationclubub  l @pleasantdreamqueen l @disneymarina l l @harleycativy  l @sparklemichele l @melaninmarvel l @amethyst09 l @the-force-of-imagines l @bossyboyd03 l @pebblesz892 l @stars8melanin l @brittyevans l @toc1985 l @janeyboo l @badassbaker l @winters-beauty l @cannonindeez  l @ilovefanfic86  l @adorablespecialsnowflakes l @brittanyovens l @kanupps06 l @jazmynejack l @thebookwormslytherin l @theunsweetenedtruth l @talannalew l @littlexmissxfandomxlover l @amethyst-dreams-and-candy-canes l @crimsonash330 l @booklover2929 l @aranelgrey l @panda-duuu l @thisismysecrethappyplace  l @titty-teetee l @honey-anon l @princess-evans-addict l @hp-hogwartsexpress l @malindacath  l @letsdisneythings l @scorpionchild81 l @shado-raven l @alisoncdariel l @plutoneu l  @queenoftheworldisdead l @briannab1234l @miyaeadys-blog l @thenamelesscorpse2185 l @hihellogoodbyebruh l @nackrosor l @nerdgurl1985 l @2darkskinbeauty l @bugngiz l @african-melanin-goddess l @barnes-wilson-love l @ktiz90 l @let-the-love-in l @forlornfortitude l @robinredboob l @hopefuloperaangelnerd l @kola95 l @partypoison00 l @alwaysadreamingoptimist l @reniescarlett l @g0thicdream l @mayasopinions l @captaintightpants58 l @leillee

-Emmanuelle 💋❤️

[roselen-mylady]

In Another Life

Bucky Barnes x reader °part fifteen°

Summary: Waiting 88 years to find your soulmate? It was cruel. But it was a cruel fate Bucky would have to face whether he accepted it or not. Bucky was a tortured man all his life and he wasn't even granted the solace of having his soulmate at his side. All he had was the promise of one in another life. They were separated by two different times.

But the pain in their lives were connected.

Y/n had been alone ever since she could remember. All she could depend on was the soulmate that was destined to be at her side. Yet when the snap occurred she lost him.

And Bucky never got to meet her.

When Y/n awoke it was dark. Impossibly so.

She didn't know what time it was and she tried to rationalize the darkness as an outcome of it being so late but the darkness didn't feel right. Especially since she had left a small light on in the living room in case Bucky needed to find the bathroom or get a glass of water. Had the light turned off somehow? 

Then the cold hit her. It was like she'd left a window open. The nights were getting colder and leaving the window open would freeze the entire apartment. But she distinctly remembered making sure all the windows were closed.

In a daze, she moved to sit up but that was when she noticed something. She wasn't lying in her bed. The ground below her was frozen to the touch and rough like she was lying outside. 

Her heart sank. 

Where was she? 

How did she get outside?

Maybe she'd been sleepwalking? She'd never done it before but maybe due to recent events, her mind was acting out in strange ways to cope? Yet as she moved to find her way back inside through the dark, she hit a surface with the same feeling. 

Rough and cold. Like dirt. 

She was surrounded by it. At this point she became more panicked, her breathing growing ragged and her heart started racing painfully. Frantically she reached out for the surface before her, finding that it crumbled in her hands. 

It hit her all at once. She was underground. 

She'd been buried alive. 

Terror filled tears welled in her eyes as she desperately beat at the dirt above her, trying to dig her way out of the hole she'd been put into. With each hit the dirt crumbled, weakening enough to give way as it tumbled down upon her. She cried out, covering her face in an attempt to spare herself from the mountain of dirt she probably just dropped on herself but the great weight she feared would crush her never came. 

The scent of smoke came to her first, dragging her horrified gaze back to the space she'd dug open. There was a hole now, one just large enough for her to peer out of. The sky above was a dull blue, clouds of dust preventing the sunlight she'd been hoping for to shine down.  

In a panicked haste, she tore at the hole opening it enough for her to crawl out. It was a struggle but she managed to drag herself out onto the ground, laying beside the hole as she tried to steady her breathing. 

The sky was filled with smoke and ash, as if some disaster had just struck. That's when she realized. The dirt below her, it was covered with debris and chaos. She was back at the battle. The battle she'd lost everything to. 

There was a weight on her chest, one that seemed to grow with each breath she took. But the weight was quickly forgotten as her gaze drifted to the hole once more. There, displayed next to it, was a helmet. 

Tony's helmet. 

She wasn't just buried in a hole. It was a grave. Tony's grave. 

She gagged back a scream, scrambling away from the hole as she clambered to her feet. This had to be a dream, some sick nightmare her guilty conscience had concocted to torture her. 

Her tears fell freely now as she staggered back several feet, wanting to put as much distance between her and the grave. 

She knew it was just her subconscious. Her subconscious was projecting her guilt by putting her into Tony's grave. When she said she wanted to take Tony's place, she had meant it but seeing it herself- it petrified her. 

She just needed to wake up. Just wake up. 

Suddenly her unsteady steps stopped as her back hit a wall making her halt. Yet as she whipped around, she realized it wasn't a wall or any type of surface to trap her once more. 

Instead there stood Bucky, a soft comforting smile on his face. But it wasn't the Bucky she remembered. His hair was much shorter, tucked neatly under his green sergeant hat. He appeared younger, smaller. Yet these things went almost unnoticed as she caught his gaze. His eyes were the ones she'd always known. The ones she'd envisioned whenever she thought of her soulmate. They were bright and full of life. The welcoming blue told her he was mischievous yet kind, always ready to playfully tease someone in that loving way. They were so full of wonder and hope. 

They were the eyes that sadly Bucky didn't have anymore. This wasn't her Bucky. 

Yet her hysterical mind couldn't see that. All she saw was Bucky and she threw herself into his arms, sobbing into his chest. His arms came around her without hesitation, holding her like it would be the last time he could. 

"Shh, doll. It's alright. You're alright." He soothed, running his hand along her hair. She could feel the warmth of his hands as they held her, the tenderness one of them no longer possessed now resting on the nape of her neck. She could feel the love he'd always held for her. "You're safe." 

His words put her at ease and she felt safe in his arms. He wouldn't let anything hurt her. 

But as soon as she let her guard down the warmth faded. Her blood ran cold as a familiar sound echoed in her ears. A sound she could never forget. The whirring groan in his arm when it shifted to attack. She didn't even have time to speak before his hand tightened in her hair, harshly yanking her back and slamming her into a wall. 

She collapsed onto concrete, her already torn knees staining the sidewalk with blood. She recognized this. It was all too painfully familiar. 

She was back on that street. The day it all happened. The day her life as she knew it ended. 

Bucky didn't hesitate to grab her throat, dragging her back up against the wall she'd nearly died against all those years ago. She felt like she was 15 all over again, panicked and terrified. She fought and begged and cried for Bucky to let her go. 

Not again. Please, not again. 

She couldn't bare to stare at those eyes again. The eyes that haunted her. They were just as lifeless as she remembered. They held no mercy or remorse. The Soldier followed orders and didn't care about the lives that got in the way. 

She continued to plead, her eyes closing as she ran out of air. But she continued to go against all odds and beg for her Bucky. 

The one that was neither innocent nor guilty. The one that spent years as a weapon and now dealt with the guilt of all the lives that his handlers used him to end. The man that was trying to be better. The man that still remembered what he had done. The man who escaped. 

"Y/n?" His voice came to her like a call from a savior. The pressure on her throat disappeared and her eyes opened as she fell to her knees once more. This time she wasn't met with concrete, instead a dirt road. The very one she'd met Bucky on. 

She quickly looked around, finding that the rest of the scene that had haunted her dreams for years was also gone, replaced with a road that would forever be the place she first held her soulmate. The first time she'd cried in his arms and made silent promises to him. Their meeting place. 

"Oh, God." Bucky mumbled, the remorse he'd been lacking all those years rolling off his words in waves.  

Y/n's gaze snapped back up to her attacker only to find him gone. The Winter Soldier was gone. And there was Bucky. Staring horrified at what he had done.

She opened her mouth to tell him it was alright. To tell him she forgave him for all he'd done and everything he would do. He was her soulmate and there wasn't anything he could do to change how she felt. But all that escaped was a gasp. Something had grabbed hold of her, ripping her back against the ground. She screamed as she was tugged across the rough earth, away from him. 

"Bucky!" She cried but it was no use. He watched, unable to move to help as she was dragged back toward the grave by what felt like hands that continued to grip her tighter. She frantically grasped at the dirt, dread filling her chest when she was unable to grab onto anything. 

Without warning she was falling down the hole, slamming against the bottom and knocking the already limited air from her lungs. She struggled to recover and for a moment she debated just staying in the hole. 

Was she going to be stuck here in this nightmarish world forever? Would she constantly be tormented by her guilt and trauma? Forever being attacked by the man her soulmate was created to be. The man they both hoped to forget. 

Hopeless sobs racked her body as she trembled in the grave. Her hand pathetically came to wipe her tears but only ended up over her mouth as her tears became more powerful and her cries grew louder. 

She couldn't do this. Couldn't stand this nightmare anymore. 

The familiar sound of dirt shifting above her made her muffle her cries slightly. Was something else here to attack her? The Winter Soldier? Or maybe something darker? Something worse. 

"Y/n?" 

Her sobs fell completely silent when her name was spoken. It wasn't the fact that whoever was up there knew her name. No, it was how easily she recognized the voice. 

"Nat?" 

Like a vision, Natasha peered down into the hole, her smile visible even through the darkness that surrounded them. How was this possible? "Let's get you out of there." 

Her hand came down and Y/n took it instantly. This couldn't be real. This was just her memories of Nat resurfacing as a way to comfort her fragile mind. 

Nat's hold was firm, tugging Y/n up out of the hole with ease and grace. Y/n helped to lift herself, finding a new hope with Nat's presence. If Nat was here in this place with her then maybe things weren't so bad. 

Suddenly as she climbed out of the hole, a wave of water hit her, encasing her in an underwater trap. Yet unlike when she awoke, Nat was there to pull her up, making her break the surface of the water with a gasp. 

"Sorry, I should've warned you," Nat chuckled, pulling Y/n to her feet. "This place is strange." 

Nat was right. There was an orange sky with clouds that glowed with the same intense color. And as odd as that was, it wasn't quite as strange as the infinite lake that seemed to make up the ground. They were standing on it, the water. 

Was she dead? 

Was that why Nat was here? Not simply from her subconscious but actually here? 

"Where are we?" Y/n asked, looking around at this other world. Surely she was dead. 

"The soul stone. At least that's what that Gamora girl said." Nat explained. She watched Y/n with a careful gaze, taking notice of how battered she appeared. She definitely hadn't expected to look in better shape than Y/n especially considering the fact that she was dead. 

Y/n looked exhausted. Her hair was unkempt and she looked as if she had just run 30 miles with her sweaty brow and flushed face. It wasn't just her physical appearance that worried Natasha. Y/n's eyes remained unfocused and her hands quivered slightly. And there was a faint purple scar along her wrist and forearm, one unlike anything Nat had seen. 

"Am I dead?" Y/n questioned, hesitant for an answer. She feared what would happen if she was dead. Would Pepper have to carry out Tony's wishes alone? Would something happen to Peter if she didn't watch out for him? Would Bucky move on without her? 

"No. I don't think so anyways. You feel- I don't know almost at a distance. You're not completely here like I am." Nat told her, trying to ease the worry that creased Y/n's brow. 

"What does that mean?" 

"I can't explain it." Nat sighed. "You just have to trust me." 

Y/n nodded softly. She trusted Nat. More than anyone. But she didn't trust herself. Especially not to return to her life. "How do I get back?" 

"You will in time. But first there's someone for you to see." 

•••

Bucky couldn't sleep. 

How could he? He was just a short distance from his soulmate and yet it felt as if she wasn't there at all. 

His Ma described meeting a soulmate as a tug and a hitch. The tug pulled a person to their soulmate and the hitch was that click that happened between them. That feeling that told them they were perfect for one another. 

But Bucky hadn't felt it yet. And that killed him. 

He already knew he cared for Y/n, much more than he had cared for anyone even though she was just a stranger to him. But it didn't feel right. The way he felt for her didn't feel natural yet, didn't feel justified. 

He longed to be the person he once was. The easy going and lovable man he knew himself to have been. The kind of man that made a woman feel at ease, the kind of man that could dance all night with a girl and win her heart. 

Oh, how badly he wished to win Y/n's heart. How badly he wanted to give his in return. 

But he wasn't that man anymore. And it wasn't going to be that easy.

Why did everything in his life have to be hard? He was beginning to believe nothing would ever be peaceful for him and it only crushed his hopes of clicking with Y/n. 

After everything he'd done, he wondered if this was punishment. 

Or worse, what if Y/n wasn't clicking with him because she knew what he'd done? The thought made him sick. 

What if she was scared of him? 

Bucky groaned, standing up from the bed. It was dark outside but the lights from the city were enough to see his way through the room. He just wanted to move. To go for a walk or a run. Anything to get his mind off his painfully obvious disconnect with his soulmate.  

Silently he slipped his shoes on, making his way out into the living room to find his coat. Maybe he'd run to Brooklyn? It sounded pitiful running home but he didn't know where else to go. 

Slipping on his coat, he made his way to the door pausing only a moment. It didn't feel right to just go without leaving a note or saying goodbye. He would've been devastated to find that she'd left during the night and he knew it was wrong to do that to her.

With a sigh, he searched around her apartment for a pen and paper, eventually finding some in the desk Steve left behind. 

He wrote a quick note explaining where he'd gone and that he'd eventually be back. He wasn't sure when he would. He needed time to think, to just figure out everything that had happened before trying to connect with her. He couldn't put that responsibility onto her. Couldn't make her bear the weight of loving a man who neither one even knew. 

He tried to ignore the heaviness in his heart as he entered her room, hoping to set the note on her bedside table where she'd see it. It felt so wrong, leaving her. Was he making a mistake? He shook the feeling off, placing the note next to her lamp. 

Yet rather than turning away to leave, he paused. He watched her silently, cursing himself for being a creep. Soulmate or not, they were strangers. And yet he couldn't stop. 

She was his soulmate. His actual soulmate. He had found her after all these years. And he was leaving. 

He felt stupid. 

Slowly he crouched next to her admiring the way her hair laid across the pillow or how her hand cradled her face as she slept. He leaned on the bed, inching forward ever so slightly. Her eyes flickered under their lids, some kind of dream playing out before her unconscious mind. 

She was so beautiful and he wondered if he really deserved someone like her. 

He knew he didn't have much to offer being a 106 year old man with enough PTSD and survivor's guilt to trouble him for another century. The only thing he could promise was that he would protect her and that he would do without fail. He swore it. 

He didn't know what he was doing until he was leaning forward. For one tender moment he pressed a kiss to her forehead, his fingers tracing her hairline softly. 

Abruptly, he pulled away, realizing very suddenly he had gone from a creep to a major nut job. He sighed, harshly rubbing his face to try and whip away his guilt. 

Then he stood, deciding he'd better go before he couldn't bring himself to anymore. So with one last look to her, he left heading off to somewhere he'd yet to find.

Part sixteen

Taglist:

@jessyballet

@eldahae

@kissesofdeadforme

@wantingtobekorra

@sxphiiwrld

@lunaticbarnes

@indecisivedolly

@saiyanprincessswanie

@whatifwedo

@arguedquill1226

@lunashaw57

@3aileypage

@mela-noche

@homosexual-having-tea

@steve-rogcrs

@yayrainday

@buckybarnesdevotee

@jenniereiji

@thismustbefakeme

@wrdro

[anchoredtether]

Title: Cruel Awakening

Author: AnchoredTether

Rating: M [graphic depictions of violence, dark/disturbing themes]

Series: Avatar: The Elements of Chaos

Chapter: 3/?

Summary:  Nearly 200 years has passed since Avatar Aang saved the world, and although he restored peace among the nations it did not stay for long. After Aang’s death, the new Avatar born into the water tribe was quickly killed while in the avatar state.

Since the Avatar cycle was broken, the world fell apart. The nations became filled with hatred and nature itself perished. Because the Avatar died when from the water tribe, representing the season of winter, the world has been stuck in seasonal dissonance where winter lasts nearly the whole year.

With the imbalance of the four seasons and the four nations, devastation constantly lies upon the horizon. Zavital and Yasu, two young air and firebenders, are slaves of project Kanora, a military of benders trained to control the chaos of the world. Zavital encounters the spirit of Avatar Aang who claims to know a way to restore the Avatar cycle. Through his help, Zavital and Yasu strive to bring back the Avatar so the world may once more be restored to full balance.

][ -- music -- ][

The camp was overturn with a restless urgency. As the siren continued to wail out its alarm, prisoners and guards alike ran to their posts, orders shouting above the chaos. Yasu ran ahead, leading Zavital towards his regiment.

"Kiet, what's going on?" Yasu asked a fellow firebender as they reached the group of soon-to-be twenty-one year olds. Zavital noticed Keeshi among the group and couldn't help the burning sensation in her chest.

"Attack on Republic City." The firebender named Kiet said. "Sounds like there's multiple organizations this time." His bright amber eyes turned to look at Zavital. "Hey. Welcome to our regiment. I'm Kiet."

"Zavital. Pleasure." There wasn't time for formalities as they were shoved onto a train car and given further instructions from an officer as they sped away on the rails.

"Intel says there's attacks from Ziran's followers, the Anaki, and Bluebloods. Ziran's followers and the Anaki have been known to work together before, but why the Bluebloods have joined is uncertain." The officer announced. "You are to treat each affiliation in the same manner - use force, but take prisoners, not corpses. We will break out into three teams. There needs to be at least one waterbender for every firebender in each team. Waterbenders! Your job is to make sure Bluebloods don't kill your firebender teammates." He assigned five people as leaders to form themselves a team. An earthbender girl quickly snatched up Zavital and Kiet to be on her team, as well as a male waterbender and earthbender.

"Zavital!" The male earthbender greeted her with a grin. "You really kicked my butt yesterday."

She blinked a few times rapidly. "Umm… thanks? You're welcome? I don't know what to say to that."

"I'm excited to see how you do out in the field." The leader earthbender girl said.

"I actually have no idea what to expect." She found herself looking for Yasu, wondering how he would hold up fighting against the organization that killed his parents. He was easy to find with his height, and her stomach churned when she saw how pale he looked, his icy hues staring off into the distance as if he were in a trance. She brought herself back to the task at hand, looking at the leader earthbender. "I know we're supposed to avoid killing anyone. But is there a limit to what we can and cannot bend?"

The girl smiled, her green eyes mysterious. "No. What you would normally be disqualified for at camp, you can use on the field. You can only use extreme measures if the situation calls for it, however."

"Right." Zavital gave a nod. It had been ages since she was able to fight without holding back, and even though she was itching to get out there and wreak some havoc, a part of her was also hesitant. She clutched her hands into fists to keep them from trembling. She regretted the question as soon as it left her mouth, but she couldn't stop herself. "How many people usually die during these kind of attacks?"

"Nervous, airbender?" The waterbender finally spoke.

"Curious." She countered.

"It all depends." Kiet said. "We're pretty good at keeping the casualties to zero on both sides, but this time it's a massive attack. There's already Kanoran regiments out battling the three organizations. We're the backup."

Kanoran soldiers needing backup? Zavital had never heard of such a thing. As Kiet said, it was three organizations working together this time, and the Bluebloods were infamous for their skill in bloodbending… she had no idea what kind of chaos would rage on the battlefield, and the uncertainty set her nerves on fire.

She had grave expectations on the ride to Republic City, but nothing could prepare her for the mayhem within its walls. The train was nearing its stop in the heart of the city but they were expected. She turned her head just in time to see the erecting walls of ice and heard a chorus of shouts before the train completely crashed and derailed.

Zavital awoke with a ringing in her ears, her vision blurry. Everything felt heavy, her movements slow. As her senses came to, she realized she was flung several feet away from the remains of the train. The area was covered in ice and blood, dead and unconscious bodies scattered all over in a haunting stillness. She was bleeding in several places from scrapes and abrasions and she could feel her old wound along her jaw had broken open again beneath the bandages. She slowly stood up just in time to fend off a Blueblood who sent daggers of ice in her direction.

She flung the ice away with a gust of wind, but quickly realized that some of them would harm other Kanoran soldiers still lying on the ground. Her quick reflexes bent the wind to will the ice daggers away from her comrades, but in her distraction she found her hands suddenly stopped. With a gasp of horror as she saw the ice daggers wound several soldiers, some of them screaming as they woke to consciousness, Zavital realized she was being controlled.

A wild snicker of amusement sounded over her shoulder as she trained her golden hues upon the waterbender. "I've never bloodbended an airbender before! I'm curious as to what I can make you do."

Kiet was up on his feet and running towards the Blueblood, sending waves of fire his way. The Blueblood simply bloodbended Zavital to fight for him and she saw the hesitation cross Kiet's face. As he tried to weave around her to attack their enemy, Zavital kept blocking his attacks and sending furious strikes of wind towards her ally. It wasn't as if she had never been bloodbended before - Keeshi had done that just yesterday - but this was different. Instead of simply feeling forced to do something, as if some invisible hand were pulling her to move a certain way, Zavital felt like she was no longer herself, that her body was not her own and she was merely a spectral watcher of the events happening before her. She wondered if that was just a manifestation of greater bloodbending skill. It made her sick to her stomach.

She was powerless. No matter how hard she fought, she couldn't break from the bloodbender's will. At the rate she was being controlled, she was going to severely harm her teammates. A gasp left her lips as her arm lifted, her hand twisted into a very specific bending move. The air around Kiet dissipated, leaving him gasping for breath as she sucked his lifeforce from his very lungs.

Zavital's eyes widened in horror as she saw him fall to his knees and ultimately collapse upon the ground. A sickening crash and scream sounded behind her and instantly she could feel her blood flowing hotly through her veins as her control returned. She whipped her head around to find the earthbender leader of her group had slammed a wall of rock into the Blueblood, pinning him against a building which now displayed an artwork of crimson. Before she could be sickened by the image of death, she ran toward Kiet and fell on her knees to check his vitals.

"He's alive…" She whispered in a sigh of relief, carefully bending the air to gently fill his lungs. "He's alive!" She called over to her leader, but when no response came she turned around to see the girl lying on the ground. A scarlet ribbon cut across her throat, pooling about her lifeless face. Zavital's heart pounded in fear. She wanted to scream at the top of her lungs and run from this nightmare of a battlefield, but she was frozen in place with an unconscious firebender at her knees and a stealth assassin nearby.

Her leader was dead. She didn't know her commanding officer. She was just recently thrown into her regiment without any proper transfer. She didn't know anyone's names aside from the unconscious Kiet, and Yasu. She grabbed Kiet by the arms, stood up, and started pulling him towards an alleyway and leaned him up against the wall. She ran back out into the open, her fingers twitching in fear and uncertainty. She could bend air against the three other elements, but how was she supposed to bend against an assassin's blade? As she stayed alert of her surroundings, she realized how quiet it was. Dead or unconscious bodies littered the battlefield, the metallic stench of blood mixed with the crisp cool air. The longer she stood in the silence, the greater her apprehension grew. The killer has to be nearby. They wouldn't just kill her and leave. The assassin was playing tricks with her, as was her fear.

"YASU!" She screamed his name into the air, hoping with her entire being that he wasn't dead. She couldn't fight an aggressor and protect Kiet all on her own, especially if more than one enemy showed up.

Before her voice could finish echoing, she felt a shift in the air around her. Whirling around to meet her fate, she was caught off guard with the slice of a knife against her arm before she could even see her enemy's face. As fast as they came, they were gone, and Zavital had no idea if it was a man or a woman, a bender or non-bender. She wished she could harness the earthbending skill of seismic sense to detect the assassin's location, but not even her heightened airbending abilities could detect someone so stealthy.

Summoning her concentrated needles of air, she was able to strike one towards her enemy just before his blade reached her. Precision, but no accuracy. The miniscule tornado tore through the assassin's shoulder, rending flesh and ribbons of blood through the air in grotesque arcs, her remaining needles dissipating into gusts of wind. Hot blood splattered all over her as shock coursed through her body, the adrenaline causing her to barely register the dagger penetrating between her ribs. Only did she understand with widened honey eyes as the blade was removed with a scream, rearing back like a snake ready to strike the fatal blow.

The snake never killed its prey.

Blood splattered her once more, a familiar pair of blue eyes meeting her horrified gaze. The firebender retreated his fiery hand from the cavity of the assassin's chest, allowing the corpse to fall. Zavital stared at the gaping hole, the loosely hanging arm, the scattered sinew, the mess of blood. Her breaths came in quick and heavy, her world spinning out of control as she grasped her open wound and trembled. Warm hands grasped the sides of her face and forced her to look up instead of whipping her head around in a panic. All her frenzied mind could think of was whether his hands were warm from the fire that encased them moments ago, or from the beating heart of the assassin he just rent in two.

"Zavital. Breathe." Yasu's words cut fierce, clearing the fog in her mind. "Focus. You can't lose consciousness. We need to find a safe house so we can heal your wounds before you lose too much blood, do you understand? Can you be strong for just a little longer?"

Her breaths came in faster, her hands trembled at the hot cascade of her wound, her head shaking against Yasu's hands since she couldn't find the voice to reply 'no.' His expression was unreadable, as if his face were chiseled from stone. After a moment of thought, he simply gave a brief nod and replied, "Okay."

The last thing Zavital could remember before her vision blacked out was being scooped up into the firebender's arms.

[himbowelsh]

i’ll be seeing you (AO3)

AN: for @ruinsrebuilt, in your quest for more babe/julian - i hope you like it! 

When Babe opens his eyes to the sound of a soft vibration close to his ear, he startles awake immediately. In Bastogne, sleep is a commodity, and you're never too tired to be scared wide awake by the sound of artillery. If Babe has learned one thing for certain in this past week of hell, it's that humming means incoming, and incoming means get to your foxholes before you're blown to hell. It takes his muddled, exhausted mind a few seconds to recognize his surroundings. He is in his foxhole already, and that noise is too gentle, too melodic to be any type of shell.

Julian is peering across the foxhole at Babe's sudden reaction; he hasn't gone quiet. Soft humming still echoes through the still night air, and it takes Babe's face a second to settle into a scowl. "Dammit, Julian, what are you doing?" "What's it look like I'm doing?" Julian shoots back, huffing. The humming noise cuts itself off when he speaks, so there's no doubt where it came from. "I'm watching the line while you nap. What's got you jumping up like someone lit a firecracker under your ass?" Babe looks down at himself self-consciously -- he definitely hadn't jumped, and he hadn't been scared by Julian's humming, of all things. That would be stupid. It's not like he's some green replacement anymore, afraid of his own shadow -- now he's one of the ones considered a veteran of Easy, looked up to by the newer guys. It's something Babe's conscious of, and his new battle-worn reputation leaves no room for jumpiness. He draws himself up with all the self-respect he can muster, pulling his knees closer into his chest. "Just knock it off," he mutters. "Someone's liable to hear ya." "I'm not being that loud," retorts Julian defensively. "It's too quiet out here. What else am I supposed to do, listen to the wind?" "Listen for shells. Watch the line, huh?" Julian rolls his eyes before fixing them forward again. "I was," he mutters. "Ain't my fault you're so jumpy." There's a hint of a pout on Julian's lips, red and flushed from the cold. It makes him look even younger than he actually is. Babe is reminded once again that Julian is really just a kid. He talks a lot about the last birthday spent with his family back home, just before he enlisted. Christ, he's not even twenty yet, and he's still stuck in this hellhole like all the rest of them.

A tiny jolt hits Babe, something he's not quite willing to call guilt. Poking his foot from the minimal sanctuary of his blanket, he nudges his friend’s thigh.

“Hey, sing if you want. Just not too loud.”

Julian doesn't glance at him. “I was humming, not singing.”

“And it still sounded that bad?” Babe raises his eyebrows. “That's a talent.”

The bait is there and Julian takes it, just like Babe knew he would. “The hell are you talkin’ about? I'm a great singer.”

“Oh, so you were trying to be off key?”

Julian aims a swat at him. There's no room to dodge, so Babe lets his hand deflect harmlessly off his shoulder before smirking. “Come on then. Sing something.”

For a moment, there is silence. Julian’s brow furrows as he glances between Babe and the line, apparently deep in thought. He opens his mouth, closes it again, and then grinds his teeth. Babe snorts.

“I can think of something, gimme a minute.”

“What were you humming before?”

Julian doesn't answer. It's hard to see in the dark, added to Bastogne’s uncanny ability to siphon every drop of color from their bodies, but when Babe leans closer he's almost sure that Julian is blushing. He elbows his friend for a reply, and the other boy turns his head away.

“Somewhere Over The Rainbow.”

Babe tosses back his head with a raspy laugh. “You're kidding me!”

“It's a great movie,” Julian shoots back. Babe isn't about to argue, but that doesn't keep him from giggling into his fist.

Julian remains stubbornly quiet for a few moments more, allowing Babe to have a laugh at his expense, before his lips start moving again. His voice is quiet enough that Babe he's to go dead silent to hear what his friend sings.

“Comin' in on a wing and a prayer. Comin' in on a wing and a prayer. With our one motor gone, we can still carry on --”

“Comin’ in on a wing and a prayer…”  Babe chimes in on the last verse. His singing voice isn't much to brag about to begin with, but it's worse here -- roughened by the wind and cold, it sound almost eerie in the silence around them. Still, as it meshes with Julian’s lighter voice the other boy shoots him a smile, and Babe feels a little bit lighter.

“Okay, then. What else you got?”

Julian thinks for a moment before starting to sing again.

“Don't sit under the apple tree with anyone else but me -- anyone else but me, anyone else but me…”

“No, don't sit under the apple tree with anyone else but me, till I come marching home!”

Babe grins now, open and unselfconscious. Julian mirrors it with a smile of his own, looking more carefree than Babe has seen him since before they rode into the Ardennes. There's something about seeing genuine happiness on his friend’s face that makes the bite of Cold a bit more tolerable, the darkness less uncertain.

(For one second, Babe wishes he had a camera; to snap a picture of Julian, of this genuine happiness where it seems so out of place, to keep with him forever.)

“You got it,” he says instead. “I mean, you sound like a dyin’ cat, but you got it!”

Julian raises his eyebrows. “The hell d’you think you sound like?”

"I'm a fantastic singer!" Julian lets out an ugly snort. "What're you laughing at?" "You calling yourself a singer." In response, Babe aims another kick at his shoulder. Julian, the ball of winter clothing and thin blankets that he is, nearly toppled over. He only catches himself at the last moment, and shoots Babe a glower before planting his hand on the top of Babe’s head and shoving him right back. Babe is too comfortable against the wall of the foxhole to be moved, but even Julian’s brief touch is warm.

“How are your hands warm? It's freezing!”

Julian shrugs, but without Babe saying anything he shuffles closer. Babe hadn't realized how cold he was until he feels Julian’s arms wrap around him. Gloved hands press to his cheeks, and he nestles against Julian’s body to conserve what little heat there is between them. It's not the first time they've huddled together for warmth; things like this have become the normal in these woods, where the cold brings numbness and another body holds warmth much better than a blanket. Babe curls up against Julian’s side, leaning his head against his chest as the other boy rests his chin in the crown of his hair.

Babe can feel Julian’s breath, not-quite-warm against his bare face; he can see it in the air, crystallized clouds hanging for just a second before vanishing. Breath is good -- breath means that, in this moment, they're both alive.

“I used to sing,” Julian says, voice taking on that thoughtful, melancholic tone that Babe has come to know well. It's the way a soldier’s voice goes whenever he speaks of home. A life before, of a childhood he used to have; people and places and memories that are no longer real, only ghosts that persist in haunting the lonelier corners of his mind. Babe has his own phantoms; he doesn't talk about them. Julian is more open, as much as he tries to pretend he's as tough as any of them.

“In church,” he continues. “I was a choir boy. My Ma -- she used to tell me I had the voice of an angel. She sings like a screeching duck, so I don't know what she's talking about. I guess it's just that parent thing, ya know? When you have a kid, everything they do’s a miracle. Everything they touch turns to gold.”

Babe chuckles at this. His mom used to smack him and his brothers upside the head anytime they were being too loud. If his parents were ever head-over-heels for their kids’ dumb antics, it was before his time. “Lemme guess, you're the baby of the family?”

“Only child,” Julian replies, a grin in his voice that tells Babe he knows just how sweet he's had it.

“Lucky son-of-a-gun.”

“They just called you Babe for no reason? Or did you cry a lot as a kid?”

“Actually, its for my stunning good looks,” Babe retorts, and tries not to react when Julian snorts into his hair. It sends chills down his spine; Babe tries to convince himself it's just from the heat, and not the proximity of the other man next to him.

After that, Julian goes quiet, so Babe does too. He isn't sure what time it is (time in Bastogne doesn't have a lot of meaning) but the sky isn't light and no one else is running around, so he suspects it's either late at night or early in the morning. Whichever it is, he finds that he isn't tired anymore. By now his body is trained to go off of as little sleep as possible; with the threat of closing your eyes and never getting to open them again, Babe tries to keep awake as much as possible. His last memory is of it being a bit after dinner, though, so he suspects Julian has been up through most of the night watching the line while he rests.

He opens his mouth, about to tell Julian to get some sleep, when he hears that same soft voice pick up once more.

“I'll be seeing you… in all the old familiar places… that this heart of mine embraces, all day and through…”

Babe knows this song. One of those ghosts drifts through his mind: his mother stirring a pot in the kitchen, sunlight glinting off the copper of her hair as her hips swayed to the gentle melody. His mother’s low voice, filling the house with music; Babe, at the kitchen table, closing his eyes and allowing the song to wash over him. He does the same thing now, both desperate to escape the memory and unwilling to let it go. Julian’s voice is soothing in its cadence, soft as a lullaby. For a few moments, Babe allows it to wrap him up and seep warmth into his chilled body.

“I'll find you in the morning sun, and when the night is new…”

Julian’s body is pressed close, voice holding him fast; and for just a moment Babe remembers what it feels like to be warm.

What really gets Babe after they leave Julian out there isn't the fact that he's dead (people die everyday, even people who were just right next to him, breathing and whole and so alive) but that he's gone.

There's nothing left of him. They don't get his body; Babe can't collect his things and fulfill the one promise they made to each other. Babe doesn't have anything of Julian’s to hold on to. There is no photograph, no rosary, not even the memory of a last exchange of words. Babe has no clue what the last thing Julian said to him was; all he remembers is the way Julian tried to speak while lying in that snow, choking on blood but still trying to make it. Julian was a fighter. Julian wanted to live.

In the end, it didn't matter. He's just gone.

Babe gets back to his foxhole and sees Julian’s blanket, tucked up in the corner to keep it safe. He remembers Julian folding it that morning, and something in him crumpled. Nothing else is left behind, but Babe can't stay there. He leaves the foxhole without looking back.

Somehow he finds himself in the medic’s foxhole. Memories are hazy, disjointed and twisted by grief. He doesn't know how he winds up with Spina’s arm wrapped around his shoulders, Roe tucked up against his side. He doesn't know whether they speak, or if he replies. He doesn't remember much at all, except quiet.

There is no humming, no melody, no whisper of a song. There is nothing left of Julian, and Babe has nothing of him to hold on to except memories.

He imagined it's Julian’s voice lulling him to sleep, instead of just another ghost whispering out of the darkness of his mind.

“I'll find you in the morning sun, and when the night is new… I'll be looking at the moon but I'll be seeing you.”

[247krp]

— Rejoice, little lambs! We have recovered our own Kim Jongdae, spotted prancing about in the Northeast Side. I remember seeing him with the Snake Nest back in high school, but I’m not here to spill yesterday’s tea. So straight to the rundown: can you say deceitful and nosy? Apparently now he spends time as a fashion stylist at KS Star Entertainment, and keeps skeletons buried at Banjeom Apartments, 603. But those won’t stay hidden for long, if you and I have any say on it. Welcome back, Hellcat; we missed you so.

TW: mentions of abortion, death, name-calling

In case you don’t remember the devil’s name, here’s to refresh your memory:

this no-name boy’s an ant among other students. a scandal could slap every one of them in the face and they’d still forget his name by mid-morning ( or first thing in the morning, if he was really lucky and they were particularly merciful about letting him fall with grace ). there’s no wealth, no power, no influence to build and command an army of his very own.

maybe it’s luck the nest takes pity on this nobody – he seizes the opportunity to rise above the royalty, the heirs-to-be, the iron fist rulers. maybe he’d make himself a god.

no, he’s a fucking google search engine of excuses for bailing fellow snakes out of binds. ( really, it’s his mistake for fantasizing too greatly. he’s still the ant here. ) they just couldn’t wait to bleed his gullibility dry; maybe it’s for his own good – that they’re tearing down a too-frail-for-this-life naïve boy and making, creating something bigger, better. they’re cutthroat. two creatures of the night. they prey after dusk. their words poisonous; dripping from their mouths and burning holes through flesh. forked tongues like knives. two snakes that mark anything and everything as theirs.

it’s a dangerous territory he’s stepped foot on, and there’s no going back.

he wants to believe, to delude himself that he’s the true threat of this bloodthirsty trinity.

but reality’s a lot grimmer and unforgiving.

he lives to please, lives to do as he’s told because it finally gives him a name to be called by.

besides, he’s worked too hard for this, and to lose it all now? they bleed him dry through the years and he learns he’s absolutely nothing. he needs them, just like they need him. they’re an unstoppable force together. and alone, they’re their own worst nightmares. he’s just a little too loyal, a little too forgiving, a little too ignorant to see them as the coldbloods they are. they’d take down all who cross their paths, or die trying. he hangs on to his rose-tinted glasses, tightly. it’s all that’s left in their destructive wake.

it’s a hush-hush secret between a couple of no-good snakes that plays like russian roulette. and no one can ever know.

Nevermind the memory lane though, the present is always the ripest fruit:

he’d much rather go back in time to warn his former self. the world’s falling down, and after all of that wasted effort for this young, hopeful, prosperous boy. the regret of fucking everything up and destroying monsters and destroying the future before it could destroy him is like an acidic taste at the back of his throat. bitter, bitter regret.

but, of course, he’d never admit to that.

admitting there’s a problem is admitting there’s something wrong, admitting that things are out of control, admitting he needs help.  and no, he doesn’t need help.

he surely can’t forget the poor students of cheongnam’s past shot down for their foolish reaching out to others. see, that’s where the strong prevail and the weak fall. mom and dad did do something right – helped build him strong. the world may be stone and gravel and dirt around his feet, but never will he crumble. ha! over his dead body will they take him alive. he’ll take his unwavering loyalty for those who never gave up on this no-name boy straight to the grave.

the bugs swarm his skin – his time is running out in this twisted game he plays. child’s play tempting fate and getting high off of the chase of cops is now a forty hour a week, nine to five job he must slave over. each time, the stakes raise a little higher. each time, there’s more to lose. each time, there’s more to gain.

it hurts, it hurts, it hurts. it’s itchy, it’s fire, he wants to peel the skin off. ( or better yet jump out of it because how can he even stand looking a monster in the mirror to see what he’s become )

down, down, down he goes. further, further, further he drowns.

it’s a fatal taste of bliss. he needs it. he’ll never fill this expanding void – endgame is self-destruction and ‘completion of the final level’ and ‘winner, winner, you have won! congratulations!’ it’s accomplishment, a sense of purpose, happiness, alcohol and nicotine and drugs to make the bad go away. he fears facing the cold, unforgiving tundra the world really is.

once a snake, always a snake.

But we are nothing if not open books – my job is to ensure you get to the best pages:

i.               imagine the glee, the relief, the pride of mom and dad when they conceive a lionhearted boy.

1992. the fragile lion isn’t given a chance to make something out of himself – not with bird bones weighing down upon him and crushing unto him. every breath is hollow, crackles like mini storms in his lungs. he fights a war beneath the surface and loses. mom and dad kill away pieces of themselves to bury with their soldier son who fought oh-so-bravely. 1993, rip.

1994. they can’t bring back the dead. it would haunt them. mom dreams wide awake of terror, of young boy flesh raining down upon her in bed. she isn’t relieved remembering that he’s safely tucked away six feet under. they can’t rewrite the past, but they can’t give up. what would devastate her more – a new baby girl, or murdering another of their kin?

the second’s a success. he’s no lionhearted boy.

ii.              oh, skeletons in the closet. hear them knock, see them run.

dad feeds his disappointment to mom and son alike. there’s something, well, different about this one. this one isn’t a prince born from their hopes. this one, dad says, won’t amount to much. there’s a certain lacking flair in the boy’s eyes for honor and drive to be the best. he’ll do, he’ll do, dad must remind himself.

the comparison of what who never was devastates a young jongdae. it isn’t jealousy; not when there’s no sibling to rival with, not when there’s no competition in their veins and challenge in their eyes to compete for the love and affection of their parents. there’s just a kim jongdae at war with a dead would’ve-been older brother having robbed his worth before even high school.

excerpt i. it’s time to face your fears

there’s nothing. it’s empty, he’s empty. mom left plenty hearts rotten with all of these i love you’s. as fake and phony as the cients of plastic surgeons. it’s cold, suffocating. mom and dad wrap the lies a little too tight around his neck. he lets them.

in darkness, the ceiling whispers this:

imagine when you were a kid and you played in the snow and you were so cold and tired, but you came inside and your mom had a blanket straight out of the dryer, and some hot cocoa, and a loving hug. the warmth, comfort, relief, relaxation, safety, and love. instant peace. feels like a sigh of relief. imagine the more times your mom welcomes you inside with a hug, cocoa, and a warm blanket, the longer you have to stay outside, and when you go out, you don’t have a jacket anymore, or boots, or gloves. each time you’re losing more and more insulation from the cold. the cold becomes so much worse. you get frostbite, you’re in physical pain, you just want to go home so badly. eventually there is no hug, no cocoa, no warm blanket; your mom’s not even there, and you’ve been outside naked crying in the snow, begging for it to end since you woke up. outside is your home now. what would you do to get back inside? you’re stuck trying to believe that this time your mom will be there with that warm blanket, instead of an empty, drafty room with nothing but a few walls to keep you out of the wind for a little while. no longer a warm sigh of relief, but a brief respite from the bitter cold that’s your entire life. you may act a bit reckless. playing outside in the snow becomes your life. inside is addiction. being clean is buying really good winter gear, and accepting living in an igloo, and being okay with your new life as an eskimo; but you remember what the indoors feels like, and sometimes you can see your mom, and a warm blanket, and cocoa through a window, and you know the door is unlocked. the longer you’re outside, the warmer it feels. how long until you open the door?

he dreams they’re on hands and knees, begging for his forgiveness, that it never meant to come out like that. he’s still suffocating, but he just can’t unwrap the scarf they made just yet. it’s warm, a reminder they exist.

iii.              open the door

it isn’t the same. the hugs suck the life out of him. dad’s tough love in scolding and punishment and why can’t you be like all of those other kids is murderous. he’s convinced.

2009. he enters hell high. ( he lovi ngly dubs cheongnam ) look hard enough, blood’s on the walls. listen close enough, shrieks echo through the halls. it’s a constant upstream battle to not defame the great kim name, to try his hardest to make dad proud, to turn a blind eye to the carnage a killer by the name of gossip girl leaves in her wake at school, to fill the void. he’s probably as empty and hollow as the stripped corpse of his dead brother.

2010. but that’s where one of his homeroom teachers from middle school comes in. she’s a gangly 170cm of perfection born from his mind. he  never paid heed to the extensive plastic surgery rumors. who’s he to judge when he’s wearing the skin of a dead baby – dad likes to remind him. ( dad insists he loves young jongdae all of the same. but all of the same? it’s not the same when he’s not a kim jongdae under their roof, rather a no-name spirit aimlessly wandering the rooms in search of whatever his fucking purpose is after all of these years. )

it ends up not being so bad.

numerous tutoring sessions are like this:

miss kang from middle school takes him under her wing, dotes on him, shows him what it’s like to be alive.

it’s wrong, what they have, but she teaches him it’s okay. it isn’t wrong, not if they don’t acknowledge it.

bits of jewelry, photos, a new phone, kisses on the cheek warm like honey and not like the ice of mom’s – all a lasting memory of the secret they share.

together, they build a world where nothing can go wrong; where the demons are unwelcome, where there’s no hurt, no pain. solace.

maybe he’s dead, too, and this is what being dead is like. being dead is being put out of his misery. no, her touches are real. her cherry-stained kiss marks leave lasting stamps on his skin.

so where did he go wrong? did mom at home go wrong?

dad’s disappointment becomes nothing more than a distant memory and scabbed-over wound.

2012. no one likes a snake. snakes are liked by nerds or aspiring biologists or something like that. snakes bite, crush, suffocate, devour, hurt, poison. but snake rolls nicely off the tongue. he finds himself at home with a couple of other snakes to share a nest. he’s invincible, they’re invincible. he’s not a failed could’ve been. ( miss kang’s drilled that into his head many, many times )

iv.             TIME’S UP

photos flood the internet. gossip girl’s sickeningly sweet and graceful in her murder of this boy. this little secret’s not a secret any longer. poor miss kang’s defamed, guns poised and aimed at her – firing slut, whore, dumb bitch, sex offender. and he? fake, two-faced, a bastard, garbage. he ruins a married woman’s life for his own selfish gain.

he needs it, he misses it. he needs those touches to make sure she’s still there, that she hasn’t abandoned him. he needs to hear her voice. there’s eternal darkness swallowing him. it’s empty, empty, empty. walls close around him, suffocate him. the memories hurt his head, burn his lips, bruise his heart. he can’t get rid of her, but she wouldn’t abandon him, right? he’s alone, scared. mom and dad are too far away. no, this is what death feels like. but he needs to fill the void! it’s eating him from the inside out and he might join hands with his dead brother in a ring-around-the-rosie into their early graves.

he needs more roses, needs more bracelets, needs more shoes. otherwise she might let go and disappear. so, so empty. he’s cold, lost, exhausted. he steals a card from a store. he smiles. the outside shows two stickfigures hand-in-hand. the inside, soulmates. it goes in the closet with all of the other stuff.

she promised to protect him, and this foolish boy clung to her like the lost child he always was, always still is. once again, a d rifting no-name wandering the streets, lost.

[canvas-of-dreams]

The Hallowed Ground: Chapter Four

Tayn

The last time I saw Adolis, the capital of Adala, was when I had just runaway. I had snuck onto a small canal boat, and when the owners found me, a small scraggly thing at the time, they took pity on me rather than ditching me on a riverbank somewhere. They taught me a lot of things, mostly about where things were in Adala, and swear words that I often made use of as I matured. I told them I was running to the city to seek my fortune. They didn't judge me or try to make me go home. From what they could see, there was no way of making me go back. But here I was a few miles away from that mighty city, now in the grip of the Argyros Order, to seek out a person I swore I'd never return to.

The location I was headed to wasn't in the city itself, but at a hidden site a few miles away. It was an aqueduct that had been out of use for centuries and had once been used by the Society, although they abandoned it a century ago due to finding more useful hiding places within the city walls. The only reason I knew that Cassius would be there, was because it was exactly where I would go if I were him. A normal general would know all the main hideouts, but a general like Cassius would have learnt about them all. Talu and I concealed ourselves as we reached city farming land and stuck to the forest bordering the territory. The aqueduct was thankfully in the forest's domain, where nature had been left to reclaim what the first city dwellers had left behind.

As we reached the top of a hill, I saw it.

Amongst tall, green woodland stood a crumbling, stone structure with carefully made arches that were now being suffocated by vibrant vines and wild shrubs. It looked like the god of the wilderness, Oseo, had come by, huffed at the human creation, and flicked his fingers, covering the thing in life. As I got closer, I saw old, undulating cobbles for streets on the ground, and houses swallowed by bushes and trees, hidden amongst it all. This must've been a civilian area before the city grew to be more populated, and the place was forgotten.

'Let's hope my gut was right, and that we're in the right place,' I said, and pressed on. Looking around the buildings I saw no one. I couldn't hear any signs of people in hiding, which told me that they were either doing a damn good job of it, or I misinterpreted Cassius's message.

'He has to be here, Talu. There is nowhere else he could've gone.'

Perhaps he is out hunting, gathering, whatever it is humans do. She sniffed the air. I smell burning.

'A clue.' There would be no burning unless there had been humans. I could've deduced fire-fae, but fae folk never lived near cities. I followed Talu to where she smelt the burning. It was a while before I even got a whiff, but once I did, it smelt distinctly like cooking. My stomach rumbled. 'When did I last eat?' I whispered.

Not for a day. You forget. She was right, and now my hunger was distracting. I had to stay on task. If it wasn't Cassius and I had stumbled on random wanderers like myself, or perhaps a hostile, I'd have to be prepared. Humans. Male. Meat. Talu wasn't keen on human, and since she met me, she'd sworn not to eat it unless for life-or-death circumstances. Still, she was a hunter, a few days hungry herself, and I was worried she might make Cassius a snack. 'Please, don't eat him. I hate him, but I'm not indifferent.'

He's not worth it, she remarked, and I stifled a giggle. It was time to take a risk.

'Cassius?' I called out. My voice echoed softly off the buildings around, and I shuddered at the feeling. 'It's Tayn.' For a moment, I realised how crazy this situation was. It had been four years since I'd runaway. I was nearly an adult, no longer the kid he knew. It would be the same for me looking at him. The thorn-feeling in my heart shifted into a drum-like beat, thumping against my ribs and leaping into my throat. What if we fought? What if he let loose all his anger on me as soon as he saw me? I'd not replied to a single letter, not one of sixteen in total. Well... I suppose me being here was a reply to the most recent.

There was a rustling sound, then the sound of debris crunching underfoot, a gentle clatter of small stones in shallow water. I scanned around me, hand on the pummel of my dagger, ready to grab the hilt and draw it if this was an ambush, or someone else's territory I'd intruded on. Talu bared her claws and puffed out her fur ever so slightly, to make herself more intimidating than she already was. What I saw didn't require this response, though. From round the corner of a hollow doorway came a figure. His dark brown hair was longer than it used to be. He was a man now, if not by age, by stature. His clothing was oddly ornate for being a fugitive, but it only made me realise how much he'd changed: from soldier to general, boy to adult. His hazel eyes met mine and I flinched, but only a little.

'Tayn?' he almost didn't get my name out of his mouth. I could've sworn I saw his eyes glisten, and I couldn't quite believe that he might be about to cry.

'Cassius.' My tone was flat, cold. He sensed that I wasn't here to make up or to pretend like nothing ever happened, and his emotions, although not gone, withdrew.

'You're alive,' he said more clearly, and I nodded.

'This is not a ghost you see before you.' Talu was still poised for action and growled gently.

'It's alright. He has no weapon on him.'

'Weapon? You seriously believe I would attack you and your... mountain cat?'

'Believe me, she'd win if you tried. We were just unsure of whether we'd found you or a potential threat,' I explained, and Talu reluctantly eased. Cassius looked like he wanted to walk closer, but hesitated.

'I'm glad you found me,' was all he said instead, and without realising, I smiled. 'I'm glad I found... this place too.' With the awkwardness of first greeting aside, he gestured behind him.

'Come in, please. I think it might rain soon.'

Cassius

Tayn sat down in the room at the farthest point from me as possible, leaning on their cat-companion like a couch. I was not afraid of the beast so much as wary of it. If Tayn trusted it then I did, but I also knew that my old friend didn't trust me and had a chaotic set of morals that might result in me becoming cat-food.

They looked so much older, stronger. Their skin was darkened by the sun and clothes tattered, all patched with random fabrics. There were scars on their bare shoulders and arms that looked to have varied between uncomfortable to serious in wound severity. They'd finally cut their hair short like they always wanted, although it was as unkempt as you might expect for someone living entirely off the grid for four years. But what was more startling than their appearance was their demeanour. Life had battered them. Tayn was hardened, looked like a street fighter. When we were kids, they'd looked so delicate and weak, agility and speed were their strengths during our training, and Tayn excelled in the mystic arts, so no one thought of them as a failure. Now they seemed to be a better warrior than me. Something like a mixture of pride, awe, and a longing for a past we never had filled me in that moment, as we sat in that little crumbling room with the mountain cat.

For a while, the only sound around was that of birds and other wild creatures, the breeze dancing in the leaves. Someone had to talk first. I cleared my throat, then spoke.

'How did you know I'd be here?' I asked, and the silence cut like wet clay.

'Because it is exactly where I would've gone,' they replied, and looked distant. 'I don't know what happened, but it must've been horrific for you to have been this desperate.'

'I wouldn't say desperate,' I said, embarrassed.

'You literally begged me to find you. There is nothing more desperate than that.' Of course, they were right, but the general in me didn't want to admit that.

'You were right in that it was horrific. Theo and I were lucky. We made it out alive.' Tayn's expression changed from looking dismally awkward and hateful, to somewhat concerned. They sat up, unfolded their arms and sighed.

'Tell me what happened.' Visions of the event and what followed came to my mind again, eager to make me regress after I'd done so well at keeping them under control. They bit at my focus like parasites, haunted my dreams worse than the scary stories I was told as a child.

'It happened the night I sent you the winter season letter. The night of the Winter festivities grand performance. In fact, the performance is when it all got set in motion.'

I told her about the oddness of the lack of green, the strange delivering of lines, how Wena and Astor had led the rest of the Dardune's with their father to bear weapons in the amphitheatre. Thank Rene that my dagger had both ceremonial and practical purpose, or I'd likely be dead. I told her of how they killed Antur in front of everyone and left his body on Rene's altar. I told her of the bloodshed that came after, the innocents massacred in the audience, one great family committing a heinous crime against the others. Eleon didn't let his family kill everybody. The generals and priests and anyone 'with sense' were spared to make a choice. Choose to serve the Arygros Order under Eleon's governance, or to die there and then.

'How did you and my brother make it out?' Tayn asked, shaken. They leant towards me now, unaware of how keenly they were listening.

'We fought. I'm not a general for no reason. We fought our way out together as we had trained to do, although I have to say fighting five to one isn't fair odds. It was mostly running, dodging and dumb luck, sprinting into the night and following the river to Adolis. I wrote to you when I reached the first letter-hold.'

There was silence again, but not so heavy this time. 'It is a miracle you survived. It is a miracle you are still here even after that... bloodbath.'

'There are several assassins, spies and bounty hunters after me and your brother, a few of them we have already taken out. But we are still hiding for that reason.'

'So is my brother with you?'

'No. Well. He's on my side. But we split up a week ago to confuse the hunters. We said we'd meet here in a few days, so that we can update one another and form a plan. He won't know that you're here until then. He didn't even know I sent the letter.'

My insides were achy then, empty, full of nerves. I hoped Theo would make it here. I couldn't lose him too. Looking at Tayn, I wondered if they felt the same way about their estranged brother. They were stroking the cat pensively, gaze focused on the ground in front of them. I couldn't read how they felt about seeing Theo again. As I sat there thinking of what to say next, it occurred to me that it would be a strange thing for me to lose one of the siblings, the friend, and to be stuck with the one who tried to forget I existed. However, I guessed that I'd have to try my best, because finally after years of silence, the prodigal had come back. I wasn't about to let Tayn run away a second time.