#and the fact that half of him hasn’t felt safe in a few hundred years

[thewiglesswonder]

@undergaster I love him. I would die for him. I want a 300k word fic about him by midnight tonight. I’m going insane thinking about him.

[spencerreidsconverse]

When Evil Doesn't Sleep

summary: Spencer has been gone far too long on a case and when he finally returns home, reader shows him just how much she missed him.

word count: 3.4k

warnings: smut, implied dom/sub undertones, pet names

Pairing: Spencer Reid/Female Reader

A/N: My first fic!!! I hope you all enjoy! <3

“Y/n I’m really sorry but it looks like the case is going to take a lot longer than we thought. We had a recent development and the profile is now pointing to a partnership so now we’re hunting down two unsubs”. You sighed as Spencer rattled off his apologies through the phone before putting him out of his misery “Spencer honey, you don’t have to apologize. Quit worrying about me and focus on catching the bad guys.”

To say you missed Spencer would be the understatement of the century. He had been in Utah for six days already and now with a pair of psychos your odds of finding him in your bed by the end of the week were growing increasingly slim. It didn’t help that you had been swamped prepping for an extra class you’d agreed to take on at Georgetown where you worked as a Criminal Psychology professor. Between both of your hectic work schedules you hadn’t had a real weekend to yourselves in a few months, and while you knew when you first started dating Spencer that it was an inevitable of his job, it had never been this crazy before. They say evil never sleeps but lately it hasn't even taken a catnap.

“I love you Y/N. I promise I’ll come home to you soon and take you out on a real date. I’m sorry darling, I have to go. I’ll text you when I get to the hotel tonight and if you’re still up we can talk for a bit okay?”. “Alright Spence, I love you too. Stay safe okay?”. “I promise, goodbye love.”

Your farewell barely made it past your lips when the dial tone cut you off and once again your boyfriend of three years vanished from your side of the country. You let out an exasperated sigh before reminding yourself that there were other people who needed his help and that you could wait for his attention - at least until that night. Continuing the trek up the stairs of your and spencer’s shared apartment, you managed to haphazardly balance your grocery bags in one hand while unlocking the door and disabling the security alarm, internally cringing at the high shriek that rattled through your brain.

Walking through the living room, you sat the bags on your kitchen counter and began reorganizing the small fridge space to fit all the perishables you had brought home, absentmindedly hoping they wouldn't spoil now that it would be just you for several more days. Moving to the cupboard you replaced the few grab and go snack boxes you had made up to try and encourage Spencer to eat more throughout the day and refilled the paper plate stash that quickly became a requirement after you realized neither one of you could tolerate doing dishes every night. You ripped open the cardboard packaging of yet another microwave dinner and set the timer before leaving to change into more comfortable attire.

Opening the door of your shared bedroom, the smell of vanilla wax melts and dryer sheets hit you like a brick and immediately sent a pang of loneliness through your chest. Spencer was usually around by the time the chores needed done, and you rarely had to do them yourself. Unfortunately, the laundry was piling up and you needed something to distract you so you spent the day running errands and cleaning the apartment more thoroughly than necessary. You walked over to the stack of black dresser drawers and pulled out the first pair of pajama pants you touched, Spencer’s old caltech sweats that now fit you far better than him considering he had received them when he was 14. They looked more like capris on him now and it was embarrassingly difficult to convince him to buy a new pair that fit him properly. You slipped on a tank top and pulled your hair back before making your way lazily to the bathroom to take off the remnants of your simple makeup.

After scrubbing your face clean and pulling your dinner out, you moved to ready the couch for yet another night of binge watching cheesy 90s movies. You selected Clueless and watched the vibrant colors pop across the screen while you dived into your meal, making a poor attempt to ignore the slight freezer burnt taste that lingered after every bite. You finished your dinner and set the bowl aside before covering yourself with a blanket and allowing yourself to sink into the cushions, desperately awaiting Spencer's text.

You were jolted out of your doze by the loud buzzing of your phone against the wooden coffee table. Clumsily you reached for it and managed to swipe the answer pad before it sent your genius to voicemail. “Hello?” you managed before a yawn ripped its way through you suddenly. “Hey Y/N, I’m sorry it’s so late. I didn't mean to wake you, I figured you’d still be up. You should go back to bed love.” For the first time, you noticed the neon green numbers on the microwave. 12:30. You stifled another yawn and shook your head in an effort to wake yourself further “No way, I just dozed off while watching a movie. I was waiting to talk to you. Besides, I’m up now anyways so you might as well stay on with me for a bit. Did you get any further today?” “Well, JJ had the idea that the partners were originally a typical dominant/submissive partnership but that something in the dynamic must have changed because the MO began to deteriorate. We think the partners must have split up now, because we’re finding similar pieces of the previous MO at separate crime scenes.”.

You processed the information he fed you slowly due to your semiconscious state but eventually you put your words in order well enough to respond. “That should be helpful though yeah? I mean, they’re used to working in a partnership so being suddenly separated from your other half so to speak would throw you off track quite a bit right?”. You could practically hear him smiling through the phone as you drew the conclusions the team had come to only a few hours prior. “Yes. We’re hoping to be able to draw them out and trap them. Play them against each other.”.”Does that mean I can stop sleeping on the couch soon?”. You heard him let out a dejected sigh - you knew he hated that you would force yourself onto the cramped couch when you had a king sized bed a few hundred feet away but he understood.

When he had come home in the early hours of the morning after an abrupt end to a case a few weeks after you had moved into his place, he had caught you curled up on the sofa with a throw pillow stuffed under your head. When he questioned you about it the next morning, you simply answered that the bed felt too big without him and that you couldn’t stand the empty feeling. “Sooner than later I hope my love. Y/N I really wish you wouldn’t do that to yourself. It’s horrible for your body. It can put you at a much higher risk for chronic back and neck pain as well as-”. “Spence. I’m not a giant like you are. I fit on the couch much better than you do, and I barely notice the difference.”. You both cringed, hearing the lie clear in your voice. Still, Spencer must have felt bad because he humored you. “If you're sure. What did you do today my love?”. You smiled sadly hearing in his voice just how desperate he was to escape from his reality and come home to you.

”Well, I straightened the house. In fact, it’s so clean i think we could use it as a sterilization room.”. He let out a soft chuckle and you could hear him begin to relax as you recounted the rest of your day, excluding the part about the microwave dinner. Spencer loved to tell you how many of the ingredients were one step away from processed garbage and you decided to opt out of the lecture for the evening. He had more than enough to worry about without having to focus on your diet while he was away. After a half hour of light conversation, a loud yawn betrayed you as you were excitedly discussing the cute puppy you had met on the way to the market. Spencer immediately requested that you hang up and get some more sleep but you refused. After a few minutes of bickering, you relented on the condition that he would read to you until you had fallen asleep. You curled up under the fluffy blanket as Spencer’s even voice recited the collection of Grimm’s fairy tales quickly lured you to sleep.

You woke up the next morning as sunlight peered through the curtains, stretching your body out to ease the aches from the previous night. You smiled softly as your screen lit up with a text from Spencer wishing you a good morning and an update that they had a solid plan for boxing in the two unsubs that afternoon. “If all goes to plan I should be carrying you to our bed before midnight tonight.”. Your smile widened and you sent back “Can’t wait to truly see you - and love you- tonight. I’ll be waiting.” You plugged your phone into the charger and straightened up from the night before when your phone went off again. The one word message glared at you from the screen and you let out an involuntary giggle. “Tease.”. You hoped it gave him something to look forward to until he was back in your arms. You sent back a simple “XO” before deciding to reread one of your favorite books for a few hours to kill some time. You made yourself a sandwich for lunch and had a few glasses of water as the clock slowly ticked by. You were over halfway through the lengthy novel when you received another message.

“We apprehended both unsubs. Hotch is postponing the paperwork until Monday so we can go straight home. I’ll see you in a few hours baby.”.  You jumped slightly in celebration before finishing your current chapter, marking your place, and all but skipping to the shower to shave and exfoliate your skin. You knew Spencer would still be heavily worked up once he arrived home and luckily, his favorite release included intertwining your bodies as close as possible and loving you sweetly and slowly.

You took your time in the shower careful not to nick yourself with your razor. You scrubbed your scalp with your nails, letting your stress and soreness melt away under the steam. You waited until the water ran cold before turning the knob and stepping out, wrapping yourself in a fluffy towel and blow drying your hair until it layed perfectly even. You applied lotion all over your skin and stepped out of the bathroom to slip on your black silk robe, knowing it wouldn’t be worth it to dress up further. Spencer would be desperate to feel your skin against his and any fabric in his way didn't stand much of a chance.

You made an actual meal for dinner, a pasta dish with chicken that could be easily reheated for Spencer when he grew hungry later in the night. You helped yourself to a serving and after quickly cleaning up the kitchen and storing the leftovers, you retreated to the bedroom to wait for his return.

You were half paying attention to the feed you opted to scroll through on your phone when you heard the door creak open and bags drop to the floor. You set your phone on the bedside table and ran towards the foyer, all but throwing yourself at the exhausted man in front of you. He took a step back from the impact but still enveloped you in his arms and pulled you impossibly tight into his chest. “Hi baby.” you whispered against the scruffy skin of his jawline, peppering kisses up towards his earlobe. He let out a long sigh of relief and picked you up off the hardwood floor, wrapping your thighs around his waist resulting in a high pitched giggle to erupt from your throat. He kissed you then, slowly at first but quickly building more passionate. Your lungs were burning when he finally allowed you to pull away, opting to kiss down your neck to your collarbones and the skin of your chest that was newly exposed as your robe slipped open.

He carefully made his way back to your room, continuing his kisses back up to your shoulder, stopping only to leave marks you knew would only grow darker as time passed. At the very least he was sure to only mark you in places you could cover with little difficulty. “I missed you so much Y/N. The entire ride home all I could think about was you waiting for me in our bed. My gorgeous girl.”. You felt your chest heat up at his words of admiration, wrapping your fingers into his curls and pulling his lips towards your own once more.

You felt him groan against you and moved to quickly unbutton his shirt, slipping it down his arms and tossing it in the general direction of the hamper. He pulled you up with him then, so you were both on your knees, chest to chest as he pulled your robe fully down your back to the swell of your ass where he grasped at you through the slick fabric. You let out a whine and you pulled his belt off, undoing his jeans desperate to continue. He grinned against your neck and pushed you down so you laid flat on your back, completely exposed to him. He kissed at your stomach, making his way down to your inner thighs. He licked a slow wet trail from your pelvic bone to the top of your clit as you whimpered desperately. “Spence, please… I need more”. He humored you, creating slow small circles with his tongue moaning at the taste. You cried out as he created the perfect amount of pressure on your clit, legs threatening to close around his head when he moved to slip one of his fingers easily inside you as the mix of your own wetness and his saliva aided him. He smirked as he felt your thighs flex before using his left hand to throw one of your legs over his shoulders at a time. He pushed a second finger in, curling them up to perfectly reach your g-spot with every thrust. Soon though, you grew impatient with just his fingers. You needed more and you knew just how to get it.

“I want you so bad Spence. I’ve waited for so long and I just can’t anymore. I need to feel you deep inside of me.”. You were positive those words would leave him just as needy as you were and he proved you right when he kicked his pants the rest of the way off and went to line himself up against you. “Wait.”. He stopped immediately, examining your face for any indication of what was wrong. “What’s the matter baby? Are you okay?”. You shook your head and smiled at his concern before switching your positions so his back was resting against the pillows as you straddle his thighs. He smirked at you as he caught on, trailing his hands up the front of your legs to rest at your hips. “You gonna ride me angel?”. You responded with an eager nod and he squeezed your hips, pulling you up further so you were hovering above him. “Sit pretty like my good girl then.”. You whined softly at his words before slowly sinking yourself down around his length, sucking in a harsh breath at the stretch. Even with how wet you were, the adjustment took longer than usual due to the dry spell you were both suffering from as of late.

When you finally felt stretched out enough to move, you slowly ground your hips forward flush against his. He groaned out, lifting you back up so you were almost completely off of him before pulling you back down. You moaned both at the sensation and the idea of being manhandled by the genius below you. You realized what he was asking though, and began bouncing yourself up and down his cock, stopping every few thrusts to grind your clit down on him. You let out soft moans, and after a few more minutes you felt his fingers dig deeper into your hips and his breaths quicken. You knew he was close and as if on cue you started rubbing fast circles against your clit as he spoke again.

“Baby girl I’m getting close. You gonna cum with me angel?” You nodded furiously in response and you felt him start thrusting up to meet you. You panted as you hurried towards the edge of your orgasm, holding on until his thrusts grew sloppier. “You ready to cum with me baby? You gonna cum on my cock?” “Yeah.. gonna cum all over your cock Doc.” You fought to keep the grin off your face when he moaned at the title. He thrusted deep into you twice, before he ordered your release. “I want you to cum now baby. Cum all over my cock.” You felt your orgasm rip through you, electricity shooting through your limbs. Spencer groaned loudly as you tightened around him before pulling you down deep and releasing inside you.

You both fought to catch your breath as you rode out your highs before you found yourself slumping against his chest, suddenly drained from your activities. You felt him chuckle at your drastic change in energy as he wrapped his arms around you again. “I know you just washed the bed sheets and we’re both sweaty but do you think a washcloth will suffice for tonight?”. You nodded against his chest before slowly lifting yourself up and off of him, rolling onto your back on the other side of the bed. Spencer swiftly made his way across the hall, returning to wipe you down gently with the warm fabric. You shivered as the cool air dried your skin, watching him move throughout your room.

He slipped on a fresh pair of boxers before tossing the washcloth in the hamper along with his previously discarded clothes. He hung your robe on the back of your bedroom door then flipped the light switch off before rejoining you in bed to slip under the blankets with you. You immediately curled up into his chest, sighing contently as the sound of his heartbeat filled your ears. You kissed his chest and whispered goodnight, drifting into your first real sleep since before he left.

The next morning you and Spencer went shopping after you successfully convinced him to upgrade to a smart phone with video call abilities. He had begun to shut down the idea as he always had before but after the mere suggestion of what it could do to better your late night hotel room chats he was the one pulling you towards the nearest phone shop. You smiled politely while Spencer took his sweet time weighing the pros and cons of each model, letting your mind drift to the first time it would come in handy. As you finally neared the checkout counter, you took Spencer's hand in your own and gave it a gentle squeeze. After running his card through the machine, the salesgirl gave him the small plastic bag and wished you both a good afternoon.

As you exited the shop, you looked up at him, nudging him to get his attention “What do you think of an app controlled vibrator?”. He stared at you incredulously for a few moments, almost stopping dead in his tracks. After recovering from the initial shock at the vulgarity of your suggestion, he shook his head with a soft smirk and nudged back against you. “Tease.” he called you once more. “That’s the reason you love me right?”. He pulled you into his side, kissing you softly. “One of many Y/N. One of many.”

[sulphuryasecretcloset]

What if... Family Portrait

(Excuse me while I DIE because the art deity @cacodaemonia​ was so incredibly kind to create a What-If version of the Fearsome Four pic that Davarax took before he was ripped away from them. Well, here you have the Devoted Dad, Mama Bear, and their Fearsome Five! The cuteness, the adorableness, the PERFECTION is killing me! Davarax’ and Dulcy’s smiles (his slightly slanted grin and her big happy one, aaaah) and their hair (I worship the floof!) and their eyes (So kind, how??) and their armour (sessayh!) and... *flails* All of it!! And sweet, adorable, big eyed Corin, still a little more timid than his rambunctious siblings... PERFECT, I SAY! And to think this is what Corin could have had... Well, in the What-if, this is what he does have!)

A hundred years ago, I promised Davarax’ POV when Dulcy was kidnapped. Apologies for the unforgivably long wait, but I hope the fact that it was meant to be four pages and ended up closer to thirteen can make up for it a little?

-

What If... we saw it through Davarax’ eyes?

Davarax lowers Zurf to the floor with his grip on his wrist instead of slamming him to the ground like he usually does after managing to flip him over. Letting go, he then backs up, lifts his hands into the air to acknowledge the roar of approval from the other seven Mandalorians present in the training room and nods at the mix of praise aimed his way and the mockery flying Zurf’s way.

“Whoa, whoa, whoa!” Belitz calls out, gesturing for everyone to settle down while he walks towards Davarax. “What was that, Davarax?”

Grinning, Davarax starts backing towards the exit. “That? That I believe was a win.”

“Since when do you coddle your opponent?” Belitz demands to know and follows, trailing after the scent of possible juicy news like a Corellian hound. “What’s up with you?”

“I’m not allowed to be in a good mood?” Davarax drawls, still grinning, still backing up.

“I’ve experienced you in a good mood.” Belitz states. “This is not you in a good mood. You in a good mood is merely spraining bones instead of breaking them. This? This is something else. What happened?”

Davarax snorts amused. He will die before he tells them anything.

“It’s that woman, isn’t it? The outsider.” Pagyle shouts from the other side of the room. Her voice soaked with glee. “She’s got you soft.”

Finally reaching the exit, Davarax does an extravagant bow. “I win. I leave. See you tomorrow, losers.” And then he flees, laughing out loud at the wave of questions and suggestive howling that follows him.

They are right and they are wrong. Wrong, because Davarax ‘is’ in a good mood. Extremely good mood. Honestly, he’s drunk on happiness. And his sparring partners are right, because he does owe the glow in his chest and the smile on his lips to Dulsissia.

Davarax can’t stop himself from bringing up the memory of her looking at him with open affection, the sensation of her fingers braiding with his, as well as the lazy bliss of just having her close and feeling her breathe. And that was just the memories from last night.

He’s never felt anything like this for anyone before. He’s never met anyone like her before.

Over a year with him on a different planet and yet Dulsissia had waited for him. Davarax doubts she knows how much her messages had helped him through that year. She has no idea how many times he replayed those holos during the moments when the darkness curled up in his chest from missing her and his other three kids so much he could barely breathe. How he dreaded what he would come back home to. Every day he woke up thinking that would be the day he learned he’d lost her.

Davarax had believed her when Dulsissia said she’d wait, but life happens and he wouldn’t have blamed her if she had found someone else… but she didn’t. She kept the children safe, handled life in the Covert like she’d grown up there and welcomed him back like she had missed him every bit as much as he’d missed her. If anything, it seems like her feelings for him were even stronger.

It gives him hope. Maybe one day, please let it happen, he’ll be able to defeat the demons from her past, rebuild the trust Macero Valentis had shattered, and take his helmet off for her.

Davarax’ happiness lasts until there is a knock on his door, hours later as he’s about to get ready for the day’s training session with the children, and he opens it to find Corin and Din looking up at him with almost identical anxious facial expressions.

“Is… Is my mom here?” Corin asks in a thin voice.

Davarax frowns. “No?” It’s late afternoon, a time she usually spends with her son, and he hasn’t seen her since she left his room last night. “Why are you asking?”

Corin fidgets. “Me and Din were working on a project with Barthor. Mom was supposed to come pick me up, but she never showed. A-and when we went back to my room, she wasn’t there either.”

Unease instantly coils around Davarax’ heart. There is no way Dulsissia would forget picking up Corin. She wouldn’t. If something came up, something so serious it couldn’t wait, she would have asked Davarax or someone else to bring a message to Corin and make sure he was okay.

Something is wrong.

-

Corin and Din already look horribly nervous and as Davarax doesn’t want to upset them further he keeps his thoughts to himself. He clears his throat and tries to sound calm. “Okay, listen…” Davarax tries to think and not just react. “I’ll ask around. She probably got caught up in something.” He considers his options and gestures the boys inside. “You two wait here. Okay?”

Sniffling, Corin seems to be very much aware of the seriousness of the situation and simply stands there, head lowered, until Din places his arm around him and leads him into the room.

Davarax takes a step out but pauses to look back at the boys. “And, uh, don’t touch the weapons.” While he trusts them, he also can’t ignore the fact that there are explosives in his room strong enough to send them all to Mandalore That Was.

Din nods. Corin merely sniffles again.

Davarax rushes towards the people he knows Dulcy has the most contact with. Decco hasn’t seen her all day, neither had the next one he asks, but then he gets his first lead.

“I think she went above?” Ayah says, shrugging. “I saw her walking down the hallway with that basket of hers this morning.”

This makes the unease grow stronger. Davarax stalks towards the stairs and enters the city above to set course to where he knows she usually sets up her little stand to sell her cookies.

The sun is shining over Nevarro, the HUD lists the temperatures uncomfortably high, so it shouldn’t be surprising that few people are walking around, but it still fuels Davarax�� unease and makes him wonder if something had scared people indoors. He pauses for half a second when he turns the corner and sees she’s not there. Dulcy is not in her spot. There’s not a single soul in the street. His heart drops. Cold sweat starts to break out at the back of his neck. She’s not there! But, his eyes focuses on the ground, but there is ‘something’ there…

Walking over, Davarax kneels down. He reaches down and brushes some sand away so he can pick up what had caught his attention.

It’s a piece of a cookie.

Staring at it, Davarax swallows down his ever increasing sense of doom and forces himself to look around on the ground. He sees more pieces. Like someone had dropped a bag of them on the ground and then stepped on it. His heartbeats feel like punches inside his chest. Fear. Raw fear. What had happened here?

“Are you looking for the nice cookie lady?” A voice asks.

Davarax looks up and sees a scruffy mercenary standing a small distance away, leaning against the wall next to him and munching away on a cookie with the few teeth he has left. Davarax stands up and drops the piece he had been holding. “Yes. Have you seen her?”

The mercenary nods, chewing thoughtfully. “She was her earlier.”

“Did you see where she went?” Davarax asks.

“The Imp took her away.” A different voice replies. It’s another mercenary. She has a small bag of Dulcy’s cookies hanging from her belt, next to grenades and what looks like small bones. She has more teeth than the other guy. A lot more teeth. Sharp ones.

“What Imp?” Davarax presses on, refusing to acknowledge how panic is starting to set in. He’d told Dulcy she was safe. He’d told her not to be afraid of going into the city because they’d know if Valentis showed up. Had Macero Valentis taken her away?

“An officer.” The first mercenary replies. “He had a whole bunch of those stormtroopers with him. Nothing we could do.” A slight frown settles between his eyebrows. “Seemed like she knew him.”

Davarax closes his eyes, forces himself to stay calm despite being horrified and enraged at the same time, then he exhales and opens them again. “Did you see where they were going?”

“The army base.” The second mercenary informs him. “I hope you find her. She’s nice.”

Thanking them, Davarax heads below again and finds the one responsible for supervising the information coming in about the Imperial movement on the planet. It is another test of his willpower when he learns that he wasn’t warned because he’d told them to keep an eye out for someone who asked around about Dulcy and Corin or the arrival of a man by the name of Macero Valentis. No one had asked around about Dulcy and Corin,  and Davarax had said nothing about a Vecon Valentis. They also inform Davarax that Vecon Valentis’ ship had left in a hurry hours ago.

Seething, Davarax barely resists unleashing his anger on these idiots, who probably weren’t too concerned about the safety of an outsider, and he stalks off to the one with the power to do something about this nightmare.

His sister.

-

Stepping into the Forge, smacking his hand on the button to close the door, Davarax does not kneel down. His heart his thumping like crazy. Dulcy is okay. Yeah, she’s okay. Dulcy is tough. She can handle herself until he can get to her. Please let her be okay. She has to be. Davarax yanks off his helmet. “The Imps got Dulcy.”

His sister pauses in her work, the golden helmet turns and her expressionless t-visor looks at him. “I was just informed.”

Davarax takes a step forward. “We have to go after them.”

There is a moment of silence and then she lowers her hammer and sets it aside. “No.”

Blinking, Davarax did not expect that answer. Okay, she had not been thrilled about Dulcy from the second he’d brought her home, finding her weak and whimsical, but he’d taken it for granted that she’d resent Imps taking someone under her protection. “Why not?”

“She’s an outsider.” His sister replies. Her voice is as emotionless as her helmet. “She’s not a Mandalorian. She’s not a Foundling. She’s not of this Covert. I will not risk the lives of our people for her. That is not the Way.”

Now Davarax is the one who needs a moment of silence and then he finds his voice again. “What about her son?”

“The boy is your Foundling.” Is the flat reply. “According to your reports, he shows promise as a fighter.”

Davarax nods thoughtfully, knowing there is no way he can change her mind. She’s not someone who changes her mind. He should know. “I will make arrangements that he’ll be taken care of if I don’t return.” He turns to leave.

“Where are you going?” Now there is a hint of sharpness in her voice.

Davarax stops, stares at the door and tries to sort out what he’s feeling. It’s like there is an imploding star inside his chest. It’s hard to breathe. “I’m going after her.”

“You are not.” That is an order.

“I am.” Davarax turns to face his sister again. He can’t lose Dulcy. He won’t. He refuses!

“You are staying here.”

“Or what?” Davarax snarls viciously, stepping forward, hands clenching and pure rage burning in his eyes.

She lifts her hands and removes her helmet. Her dark eyes and strong cheekbones, her hair that mix of brown and red, so similar to their mother she could be her twin. There is no mercy in her gaze. “You are staying here, brother. You are not going after her. She will lead you to your death.”

Davarax does not back down one inch. She was always meant to be the one to follow in their parents footsteps and he was to be her general, but this is an order he will not obey. “I love her vod. There is only one way you can stop me and you know it.” She is going to have to beat him unconscious and he will fight her with everything he’s got. “Try it!”

Her eyes narrow a tiny bit. For her, that is a huge red flag, revealing just how angry she is. Despite her detachment to most things, Davarax knows she loves him. She lets him get away with so much, stuff no other Mandalorian would dare to try under her rule, and she will knock him out if she thinks it will save his life.

But he will never forgive her if she stops him from saving Dulcy, his heart and future, and his sister must know this because she simply puts her helmet back on and turns away from him.

She won’t stop him, but he’s on his own. It hurts, but he’s not surprised.

Davarax puts his own helmet back on and walks out of the room.

-

Davarax is shaking. His head and his heart is in complete chaos.

He’s dreading what Dulcy is going through. Guilt is ripping him apart. She’d trusted him and now she is being brought back to the man who had almost ruined her and her son. Macero’s temper must be terrible, judging by how terrified she’d been when she thought he’d found them due to that lone stormtrooper, and Davarax can barely breathe when thinking about what the man will do to her if he gets his hands on her.

Davarax fights air into his lungs. Focus. He cannot undo what has happened, he needs to focus on what he can do. He needs his weapons and he has to explain to Corin what has happened and...

Davarax marches back to his room.

“Uncle Vecon…?” Corin goes pale as a sheet. His eyes fill up with more tears and his little frame start to tremble. “He’s… He’s going to take mom back to father. And he’s going to be sooo angry…”

“Hey.” Davarax takes a gentle hold of his shoulder and makes the boy look up at him. “Corin, listen to me, I won’t let that happen. Understand? I’m going to get your mom back. I promise you.” Corin looks up at him with complete trust despite the fear in his eyes. So young and yet painfully aware of the horrors his father is capable of. “You promise?”

Davarax nods, struggling to hide how much he wants to kill Corin’s father. The Galaxy would be a better place with one less monster in it. He pulls the boy in close and hugs him. “I promise.” And he fully intends to keep that promise. “But for me to do this, I need you to do me a huge favour.”

Nodding, Corin absently wipes a runaway tear from his face. “Okay.”

“What do you need us to do?” Din asks, ready to be Corin’s support pillar and Davarax feels a stab of pride as well as affection for the boy. His brave Foundling. Despite the horror he went through himself not too many years ago, Din doesn’t hesitate to support his friend. Like a true Mandalorian.

“I don’t know how long I’ll be gone.” Davarax doesn’t want to mention the possibility he might not come back at all. They are worried enough. “I need Corin to stay with… a friend of mine until I get back.”

Din lowers his gaze, knowing Davarax is not talking about his parents as they have made it clear they do not like outsiders and consider Corin very much as one. “I’ll… come along. Make sure he settles in.” “Thank you.” Davarax says. He’s not entirely thrilled about what he’s about to do, but it’s his least bad option out of a bunch of worse options. “Corin, let’s go by your room and pick up some stuff for a couple of days. Okay? We have to hurry.” Corin nods, meek and affable. He’s horribly pale and looks heartbreakingly shaken, but he is holding himself together despite having lost the person who means the most to him. He’s stronger than he knows, Davarax muses. One day that boy will grow up to be a powerful warrior.

They pick up some clothes and Corin’s datapad. Davarax notices a small pile of Din’s clothing lying on a chair in a corner and wonders just how much time the kid spends with Dulcy and Corin. Then they make their way down the hallway and head towards a door he really does not want to approach.

Davarax pushes the button to signal his presence. He doesn’t want to use the comm system and risk being shut down.

Nothing.

Sighing, Davarax pushes again. He doesn’t have time for this. Every second wasted means that Valentis guy dragging Dulcy farther and farther away and closer to her former husband.

Finally the door slides open and Davarax forces his spine straight. “I need a favour.”

A heavy silence follows before there is a slight shake of a blue helmet as if to reboot his brain before he’s able to speak. “You. You are asking Dez Vizla for a favour?”

Corin and Din exchange looks behind Davarax and he can almost hear what the kids are thinking. Why on earth would he bring Corin to Dez Vizla?

Well, Barthor’s parents would never agree to take him in. Neither would Din’s parents. And while the Saxons would say yes, he’s not entirely sure Corin would survive that. Decco’s illness causes days when she has no energy and might soon end her days all together. The Fighting Corps are constantly on the move and its members have no stability for a child. Dez Vizla may be an uptight and pompous jerk who likes to talk about himself in the third person and unfortunately treats his son like an adult instead of a child, but he rarely leaves the Covert, guards his wards with his life and will never turn his back on a Foundling in need. Plus, in his quarters, Corin will also have Paz to look after him day and night. Hopefully the stay won’t be for too long, but at least Corin will be safe and cared for.

“I need you to look after Corin for a bit.” Davarax says, trying to sound calm and confident.

Dez snorts a haughty laugh. “What?” He shakes his head again, still struggling to believe what he’s hearing. “You want… What?”

“Dulcy got snatched by Imps. They took her away.” Davarax explains in a tight voice, trying hard not to upset Corin. “I’m going to get her back.” He switches to Mando’a and hopes Corin doesn’t understand what he’s saying next. ”This is serious, Dez. I need your help. Keep him safe?”

Dez stares at him for a while, entirely still and unreadable, before he finally sighs and takes a step to the side to let Corin enter. “Get inside, boy. Now.”

Corin freezes, panics, and looks up at Davarax. As expected, he responds badly to Dez’ rough personality. Davarax is about to speak but Din beats him to it.

Din gives Corin a light nudge. “I’ll come with you. It’s okay.” He sends Dez a challenging look.

Dez snorts again, amused by the glare, and gives a nod. Fine. Din can come too.

Relieved, Davarax sees the two shuffle into the Vizla quarters and tells himself it won’t be the last time he sees them. He’s going to get Dulcy and then they will all be together again.

-

Davarax grabs his weapons and as many grenades and explosives as he can before he sets course for the Razor Crest. His heart is still thumping so hard he can almost feel it battering against the inside of his breastplate.

If Macero Valentis is a monster, his brother might be too. What if he has hurt Dulcy? What is she thinking about right now? Does she think Davarax has abandoned her or does she find comfort in the knowledge that he’ll come for her? Is she afraid? She’s tough, no doubt about that, but courage is not the absence of fear. Only a fool would not feel fear at times. And the mere thought of her being afraid burns Davarax’ heart like acid.

Lost in a hurricane of thoughts and emotions, Davarax doesn’t hear the voice calling out his name and is a bit startled when someone grabs him just as he’s about to step outside of the Covert. Snapping his visor over, Davarax is surprised to find Paz there.

“Is it true?” Paz says, breathless and agitated. “Dulcy’s gone? The Imps got her?”

Davarax exhales. “Yeah…” He has to gather himself and appear calm once again, not wanting to worry Paz either. “But I’m going to get her back. Don’t worry. You just make sure Corin is okay.”

Paz gulps for air as his agitation increases. “I’m coming with you.”

“What? No.” Davarax blinks when the boy bolts by him and stalks out of the Covert. “Paz! Paz, get back here.”

Marching towards the Razor Crest, Paz doesn’t slow down. “I’m coming with you!”

Davarax curses and trots after him, trying to persuade him to go back. Paz makes it all the way inside the ship’s cargo hold before Davarax loses his patience and grabs his arm.

“Paz, I don’t have time for this!” Davarax makes Paz’ visor focus on him. “Dulcy is in serious trouble. These Imps are dangerous.”

“I can fight!” Paz snaps back at him, his voice both angry and shaking.

“I know you can fight.” Davarax reassures him, a little impatiently. “But you are not coming with me. Go home, Paz. Look after Corin. And the others. Go!”

“No!” Paz shouts, but his next words are soft and broken. “She has to come back. She has to.” He struggles to keep speaking. “She’s always so nice to me. To all of us.”

“I know…” Davarax whispers. Paz had been abandoned by his birth mother all those years ago and now he is ready to rush into battle and get himself killed to avoid losing Dulcy. The only woman who had cared enough to act like an actual mother to him. “I’m going to get her back, Paz. I promise. But I have to go now.”

“I’m going with you.” Paz repeats in a stubborn reply.

Sighing, Davarax knows more words are pointless. While the helmet hides Paz’ face, he knows the boy well enough to hear in his voice and read from his body language when he’s too determined to be persuaded otherwise. “Go home, Paz.” He tightens his grip on his arm and drags him out of the ship, kicking and screaming.

Paz’ fury is frightful and Davarax is fairly certain if the boy had a weapon; he would have shot Davarax when he lifts the ramp and blocks him out of the ship. He might not forgive Davarax for this, but he will be safe and alive. And that is what Dulcy would want too.

Dulcy…

-You and Corin are safe here, he’d told her.

She had trusted him when he’d said they’d know if there was danger nearby. He’d told her those words because he’d believed them too. He’d failed to take idiocy and dislike towards outsiders into consideration. The idiots hadn’t meant for any harm to come to her, they just didn’t put any effort into the safety of an outsider.

She’s okay. Dulcy has to be okay. Davarax will get to her long before Macero Valentis does. He will. He won’t fail her, or the children, not as long as he breathes. Davarax had given up on having a family of his own beyond what time he was allowed to spend with his treasured troublemakers and he had settled for being a provider for other families instead, but then Dulcy entered his life and everything changed.

Davarax’ hands shake as he starts up the Razor Crest, driven by red hot fury at the ones who had taken Dulcy away and cold dark despair at the thought of her surrounded by enemies.

He’s going to get her back.

-

Going after the Imp ship is part guessing, part experienced calculations and part luck. There is no way for Davarax to know their exact route or destination as he has no clue where Macero Valentis is currently located, but he knows which routes are most commonly used by Imps ships as he tends to avoid them like the plague and he has contacts to ask along the way.

It feels strange to deliberately enter areas where he is bound to meet Imp ships.

Constant attacks has left the Imp army jumpy so there are a couple of ships who take his presence and him scanning them the wrong way. The Razor Crest has to make a run for it several times and ends up with scorch marks on her hull, but that’s not enough to make Davarax stop.

He can’t.

Eventually Davarax manages to lock on to the one moving against the stream of Imp ships and with single-minded determination as if there is some place it needs to be and as fast as possible. He can’t be sure, but his heart tells him he’s found his prey and Davarax always trusts his instincts.

Unaware of baring his teeth like a furious beast and the muscles in his neck and shoulders tensing up, Davarax can only register one thought: the hunt has begun.

Food and sleep have become a distant memory on this trip. When did he eat or sleep last? Yesterday? The day before? He can’t remember and Davarax doesn’t care. He simply keeps pushing the Razor Crest and himself to catch up with the Imp ship before it reaches the clutches of Macero Valentis.

Eventually he does catch up with the ship.

Others tend to shake their head at Davarax’ attachment to the Razor Crest, but he knows what she’s capable of and how to us her strengths in ways that his enemies never expect. People underestimate his ship all the time and Davarax hopes they continue to do so – as it makes his victories all the more sweeter and drastically reduces the risk to his life and his ship’s safety.

When the Imp ship slows down, for whatever reason, Davarax goes for it.

Setting loose two decoys with signals meant to impersonate much larger ships than the Razor Crest, Davarax gives a powerful boost with his engine before powering down and hoping the forward momentum will bring him to where he needs to go; the landing dock on the Imp ship’s left flank.

It’s a move he’s only done twice before and he succeeded once, but Davarax decides to risk it.

Dulcy is right there. In that ship. And Macero Valentis is not, or there would have been a second ship to accompany them. There is still time to get her back.

The Razor Crest does not fail him. She slides through the darkness, under the Imp ship’s radar and drowsy attention, their arrogance brought on by them thinking themselves superior in every way can be quite helpful, and once she’s powered back up it only takes the gentlest of nudges to make her move up to where she can latch on to one of the boarding docks.

Davarax is on his feet before the attachment to the other ship is deemed secure by the Razor Crest’s sensors. Three blasters and an unseemly amount of explosives join his arsenal hidden in his armour.

It’s time to put all of his concern and anger into his weapons.

He goes for stealth at first. He needs to know where they are keeping Dulcy. And while Davarax knows he’s a skilled fighter, he’s just one man and this ship is crawling with soldiers. He needs to be clever about this and not let his anger rule him.

He’s told Din countless times to control his anger instead of letting his anger control him, and this is one of those situations where that could be the deciding factor of the outcome of the mission.

A drowsing guard is yanked around a corner and asked for information, but the guy isn’t much help and is left hidden inside a service closet. He is soon joined by two more.

It’s the fourth guard that finally gives Davarax the answers he is looking for.

Dulsissia Valentis is indeed on this ship. They are keeping Dulcy two levels below this one, in the last cell on the left side of the prison corridor. And there are plenty of guards.

There is no way he can get to her without being detected.

Davarax lets the guard fall to the floor and draws his blasters. Controlling your anger also means to know when it is time to let it loose.

It’s time.

-

It kind of becomes a red haze after that. Davarax makes his way through the soldiers and guards, using blasters and grenades and his flame thrower to remove them from his path, and every step brings him closer to Dulcy.

Nothing will stop him.

Nothing.

He plants several bombs in strategic places, aiming to injure the ship’s engines and computers as well as draw attention away from himself. Once that is in place, Davarax moves towards the door leading below and gets ready.

Davarax triggers the first two bombs. The ship shakes and groans and he heads below to face the minor army placed there to guard their precious cargo.

The first Trooper he sees standing there spins around at the sound of him and freezes with surprise.

Davarax fires his blaster and moves on to take down the next before the body has hit the floor. He triggers more bombs.

The ship’s siren starts blaring. It howls its long and loud warnings on all floors.

After that, blaster shots hits Davarax’ armour, shrapnel from enemy grenades and his own stabs at him, fists and bots do their best to hurt him, even a blade or two slices through his jacket, yet he keeps moving forward. He won’t stop unless he’s dead.

A well placed grenade takes out the light on the entire level, but instead of darkness his HUD has to adjust to the backup-lights flickering on and off as it appears the electrical system itself has taken damage.

Endless amounts of guards try to stop him. All of them visibly confused as they were under the impression that they are being invaded by a large group of enemies and all they see is one Mando. They soon are too dead to appreciate the lesson Davarax is teaching them: do not mess with a Mandalorian’s family.

Davarax removes a couple of soldiers trying to kill him with a well-aimed grenade and he turns a corner to see what he’s been looking for; the prison corridor.

“He’s here!” Someone shouts in the distance.

“Thank you for pointing out the obvious.” A voice snaps. “Don’t just stand there! Stop him!”

More soldiers rush forward to protect the owner of the voice.

Davarax removes obstacle (soldier) after obstacle (more soldiers), ignoring everything except his mission. He’s so lost in his anger and battle-haze that he’s not prepared for when he suddenly sees her there. Barely visible through the smoke and blaster shots sent his way, there is no mistaking her.

Dulcy.

Some obnoxious Imp officer is standing next to her, his one hand grabbing her arm and the other holding a blaster muzzle to her head. The officer looks scared. She does not. Her eyes are wide with surprise, yes, but her mouth softens into the faintest of smiles. Her hair is almost as wild as Raga’s and for some weird reason she’s wearing a fancy teal dress that probably costs more than the Razor Crest.

It would have eased Davarax’ anger, soothed the fire inside him, quenched his thirst for blood, seeing her standing there… if not for the blooming bruise on her face. There is a startling discolouring of the delicate cheekbone he’d trailed light fingertips over in a wordless display of love not too long ago...

Unbridled rage explodes inside Davarax. He’s going to rip Vecon Valentis apart!

Completely indifferent to the shots fired at him, Davarax merely keeps stalking towards Dulcy and the soon-to-be-dead-Imp, killing anyone who gets in his way. He’s so angry he can barely breathe. How dare they hurt her?!

-

A trooper jumps out of room next to him, blaster raised, but Davarax slams his elbow into the helmet so hard it shatters. He then pulls out a vibro-blades and throws it through the air and takes down the one guard left standing next to Dulcy and the Imp officer.

The red lights are still flashing, sirens are blaring, there is thick smoke in the air, and Davarax is finally standing in front of Dulcy and Vecon Valentis. The Imp now looks downright terrified.

“Don’t, Mando.” Vecon warns. “I will shoot.”

“Not if he kills you first, Vecon.” Dulcy says. She’s keeping her gaze locked on Davarax, unfazed by Vecon’s threat and the pain of her bruised face. His brave Dulcy. His heart. His light.

Not bothering to even look at Vecon, Davarax grabs the man’s hand holding on to the blaster and squeezes and twists it until he drops the weapon with a pained yelp. He’s mesmerized by Dulcy’s complete lack of fear and solid faith in him. She even uses the moment Davarax disarms her captor to break free and spin around to stand next to Davarax instead.

“Tell Macero I’m never going back. He will never see his son again. And to leave me alone. And if he comes after me or my family again, I won’t ask nicely to be left alone. I will kill him.”

‘My family’. She said ‘my family’. It might be wishful thinking from Davarax’ side, but her choosing those words instead of just saying ‘me or my son’, it almost sounds like she means… him and the children? The anger deflates as wild hope floods Davarax instead and he glances over at the amazing woman next to him.

Dulcy is glaring at Vecon, who is bending over into an awkwardly twisted position due to the grip Davarax has on him, and she looks magnificent; beauty and fury. And there is no hesitation or trace of softness in her threat. She means it, she will kill Macero, and Davarax loves her even more.

“Tell him yourself.” Vecon sneers.

Davarax is distracted, entirely focused on Dulcy, and he pays the price. The Imp moves and a sharp pain follows as he drives a blade into Davarax’ side. Grunting, Davarax reacts instinctively; he draws his blaster and shoots.

Vecon Valentis is dead.

Dulcy doesn’t care. She seems indifferent to the man being killed and her being deprived of the chance to do it herself as payback for her bruised face. All she focuses on is getting to where the blade is planted deep in Davarax’ body. “Oh. Oh no. What-”

They have to leave. Now. The blade hasn’t done lethal damage but Davarax knows he won’t be able to fight for too long with this kind of injury. Blood-loss will weaken him. He yanks the blade out and grabs her arm to redirect her frightened gaze to his t-visor. “We have to go.”

She nods, a little stunned but ready to get out of there. Good.

Picking up Valentis’ blaster, he hands it to her. “I need you to cover my back, Dulcy. Can you do that?” Blood is seeping through his underarmor and a burning pain is spreading. No time to deal with it as more guards are on their way for sure. He needs her help if they are going to make it.

She nods again. Worried, pale, but determined. She’s got his back. Just like he knew she would.

He loves her so much.

Together, they move, battle and make it back to the Razor Crest.

Stumbling into the cockpit and over to sit down in the pilot seat, Davarax brings the engines online and detaches them from the Imp ship as quick as possible. The bombs he’d set off earlier was to confuse the troops onboard and Davarax hopes they have caused enough damage to the engines for him and Dulcy to make their escape.

The Razor Crest does a slow turn, rolling over, Dulcy buckles herself into her seat, and with a strained shake of her entire hull; the Razor Crest gives a mighty kick and races off into the darkness.

-Run, Davarax pleads the ship. -Run as fast as you can, old girl. If that beast recovers enough to come after us, we’re all dead. So I need you to run with everything you got. Run!

And, again maybe it is his wishful thinking, Davarax swears he feels the ship give an extra burst and her speed increases even more as they race towards safety.

-

Only after forty three minutes and seventeen seconds of pushing the engines to the limit of what they can take, plus non-stop checking the radar to see if someone has decided to chase them and finding nothing, only then does Davarax dare to ease up and let the Razor Crest slow down while he leans back and exhales.

Adrenaline and stress leaves his body while exhaustion moves in.

This is also when Dulcy unbuckles herself and appears by his side to with an anxious expression on her beautiful face and her hands hovering a little undecidedly over his torso as if she can’t decide where to touch.

Her own bruised face appears forgotten to her. Davarax feels how guilt viciously collides with the relief of having her back. He reaches out, pulls Dulcy close and hugs her tight. “Are you okay?” Her bruised face is bad enough, more than bad enough, but what if… He will never forgive himself if...

“Yes, but you’re not.” Dulcy replies, too relaxed to be lying and she tries to push him away. “You’re bleeding. You’re hurt, Davarax. I have to-”

Feeling her in his arms, alive and warm and there and forgiving him his failure, Davarax couldn’t care less about his own injuries. He can’t even feel them. All he can feel is her. All he cares about is her. The thought of letting her go after nearly losing her forever hurts. “In a moment.” Davarax’ throat is snared up so tight he has to whisper. “Please.”

And his heart shatters entirely when this incredible woman shivers, once, then wraps her arms around him and hugs him back. Davarax eases her over to sit on his lap where she curls as close to him as she can manage and he holds her as close as he dares.

He’d nearly lost her. This fact will haunt him for the rest of his life; a life he cannot imagine without her. She brought him out of his half-existence, comforted his children when he was unable to and Davarax had started to wake up in the mornings with hope instead of guilt and weariness.

Despite the ordeal she has been through, Dulsissia ignores her own hurt and says that they need to tell the Covert Macero will come for them so they can flee, but Davarax isn’t too worried. They have fought all kinds of governments before and won. He alone had taken on a Destroyer and gotten away with it today, just imagine what his entire Covert could do to a man stupid enough to challenge them.

Dulcy is not convinced, but they compromise and then her focus shifts to his injuries and that is something she will not compromise on. It’s odd to have someone care. Nice, but odd. He’s always tended to his injuries himself.

She fusses about his wounds and notes how Vecon held the blade all wrong to do fatal damage. His girl knows how to stab someone properly. His heart glows with pride.

Dulcy refuses to use the cauterizer and tries to order him out of the pilot seat. As much as he loves her authoritative voice, Davarax declines. He needs to keep an eye on the radar, just in case.

Another compromise is made and she ends up sitting on his lap while tending to his injuries.

It’s no big surprise when she asks about her son.

“Scared out of his mind that he’ll never see his mother again.” Davarax sighs, running his hand along her arm in an absent-minded caress. “When we get closer to Nevarro, I’ll try to reach him.”

“And the rest of the kids?”

That actually makes Davarax laugh a little “I had to physically wrestle Paz off the ship when he heard I was going. If he had a blaster, he would have shot me.” His hand rounds her shoulder and moves up her neck to cup the side of her face. “They’ve all been desperate to get you back. Like me.” It feels almost too good that she’s back. He did it. She’s here. He didn’t fail her again.

“I’m sorry.” Dulsissia mumbles, gently patting down the edges of a bacta patch on his stab wound. “I didn’t see him before it was too late. And then I just wanted them away from all of you.”

“Hey.” Davarax takes a gentle but firm grip on her wrist, halting her movement, making her look at his visor. “This was not your fault. This was all them. You have nothing to apologize for.”

Dulsissia doesn’t look convinced. “Maybe not. But the fact remains that without me stumbling into your life, you wouldn’t be bleeding right now.”

“Without me barging into yours, I wouldn’t be sitting here, that’s true.” Davarax replies, gently caressing her wrist. “I wouldn’t be with you. My days wouldn’t bring happy memories instead of feeling guilty all the time. I wouldn’t come home to my kids smiling instead of crying, hiding away while being terrified for their lives or without a voice because they have been screaming themselves hoarse.” His hand moves up to brush the back of his fingers across her bruised cheekbone, feeling the guilt gnaw at him again. “That’s worth more than bleeding for, cyare. That’s worth dying for.”

Closing her eyes, Dulsissia takes a hold of his hand and moves it down to press her lips to it. “Other than the love I felt for my son, I didn’t know what love was until I met you.” She shivers. “Don’t talk about dying because it feels like tempting fate and I can’t imagine my life without you in it.”

“Then, maybe, if you feel like that, would you…” Davarax says, tensing up a little. He had asked her to marry him and she had said no. It’s just… He wants them to be together, forever, so badly. He wants to be able to take his helmet off in front of her. He wants to kiss her lips and feel her hands on his face. He wants her to see his smile and how happy she makes him. He wants… What he wants doesn’t matter. As tempting as it is to ask her to at least reconsider, he won’t. He had asked and she had said no. Davarax is going to have to respect that.

Dulcy kissing his hand snaps him out of his thoughts just before she asks; “Would I what?”

Davarax exhales and lets go off his dream. He then tilts his head and tries to divert the conversation. “Would you let me compliment you on the dress? It’s lovely. And really brings out the colour of your eyes.” Vecon Valentis might have been a jerk, but looks to have had a sense of fashion.

Laughing, Dulsissia shakes her head and goes back to focus on cleaning and bandaging him up. “Thank you. I kind of like it myself. Impractical, but pretty. I was thinking about keeping it.”

“I think you should.” Davarax drawls, toying with the thin shoulder strap to distract himself as well. “Definitely.”

-

When Davarax finally manages to contact the children over the comm system, it’s both a relief and painful torture. Relief in that Corin gets to talk to his mother, hear her voice and know she is safe, same with the other children, but Davarax is also tortured by guilt upon hearing their distress and knowing he is to blame. He had said Dulcy was safe and she had been ripped away from them.

His heart aches the most, however, when Dulcy, his sweet Dulcy, makes sure she hears the voice of every child to reassure them all, like the amazing mother she is. It makes him want to collect every neglected child in Galaxy and bring them to her so they can feel happy again too.

In the five hours it takes for them to return to Nevarro, Davarax persuades Dulcy to return to his lap and merely drowse in his arms until they land. It feels so good to hold her. He will happily share her with the children when they get back home, but for these hours, knowing everyone is safe, he will allow himself to be selfish and savour every second where it is just the two of them.

Stepping inside the Covert, Corin is in his mother’s arms before the door has closed behind them. The boy is clinging to his mother with desperate determination, eyes squeezed tight and his entire frame shaking. Dulcy is struggling to keep from crying and she’s stroking and kissing his dark hair, his cheeks and his forehead. It’s the kind of open affection that Davarax can only dream about...

Which means he is not prepared for Din running over to wrap his arms around his waist and burying his face to his stomach with a half-choked sound. His grip is frightfully strong. Surprised and humbled by the rare display of affection, Davarax runs a gentle hand over Din’s hair. While Din has eagerly soaked up every hug and encouraging pat Davarax has given him, this is the first time he has initiated a hug. It almost feels like Din had been equally scared of losing him as Corin had been about losing his mother. That… It’s…

Glancing over at Dulcy, trying to blink away the fog that appears to be assaulting his eyes, Davarax sees Raga and Barthor have joined Corin in her embrace. It seems wrong that Din should have to settle for him so he gently ushers the boy over to Dulcy as well and loves her even more at how quickly and naturally she includes Din with the others.

It would be perfect if only… Davarax’ heart sinks as he sees Paz standing there alone, arms crossed,  older than his years. He’s not been the same since the battle at the new Covert. It’s a part of growing up as a Mandalorian, but it still hurts to witness. Yet another thing he can’t protect them from.

Lost in thought, Davarax is then again not prepared as Dulcy unleashes Corin, Raga and Barthor in his direction and they all throw themselves at him with gusto. Davarax grunts at the impact when Raga actually jumps at his chest, Barthor smacks into his left hip and Corin to his right, Din’s arms goes back around his waist, all of them grabbing a hold and hugging him. Din laughs while Davarax staggers a step backwards and tries to pet each head, support Raga to prevent the little space-monkey from falling and not dislodge any one of them at the same time.

Dulcy walks over to stand in front of Paz. “No hug?”

“Kids first.” Is the stern reply.

She simply pulls him close, hugs him even closer and whispers something. Something that has Paz relax and hug her back. That woman must surely be a Jedi witch…

But Davarax doesn’t get to linger on the sight or speculate on her magical powers as he’s quickly distracted by Raga climbing up to perch on his shoulder and he has to support her with one hand while Corin decides to hang off his other arm, using him like a swing like he’d done during their initial meeting back on that smoke-covered planet. Din actually laughs.

“Maybe we can head inside?” Davarax asks, his voice a little strained under the children enthusiastically mistaking him for a playground.

Dulcy looks over at them and smiles like the angel she is. “Yeah, let’s go.”

-

They walk towards Dulcy and Corin’s room. She reminds him of the need to warn the Covert about the danger of Macero Valentis, but Davarax is in no hurry to see his sister just yet. And Davarax does not believe for one second that Valentis could be a threat to the Covert. If the foolish man was to try to attack, they would eat him alive.

Inside the room there is a whirlwind of exchange of information. Dulcy is as curious about how Davarax had been able to find her as the children are about what had happened to her. Corin gently touches the bruise on his mother’s face with agonized tenderness.

“It still sucks that Davarax had to go alone.” Raga states angrily. “He even had to defy ‘her’ to do it!”

Startled, Davarax doesn’t want Dulcy to know he’d raised his voice to his sister. “It’s late.” He states, stealing their attention away from Raga’s words. “You kids should head home.”

There is nothing but disappointed faces among the children, but there is one who looks downright… depressed. “Can…” Din clears his throat, shifts his position awkwardly. “Can I stay here tonight?”

Corin nods. “He has bad dreams, mom. He dreamt the droids got you.”

Davarax’ heart clenches. He knows how tormented Din has been by the memory of how his birth parents had perished. He’s seen the raw fear in him whenever the boy sees an android. And when Dulcy sends him a pleading look, Davarax isn’t difficult to persuade. Sighing, he nods and starts to contact Din’s Mandalorian parents via his vambrace. “I’ll ask them” And they will say yes. He won’t settle for anything else. The boy needs a little cheering up after all this.

That triggers a landslide of requests to stay as well. Davarax adores those kids for how Raga meekly promises to behave and Paz finally reverting to his real age by demanding to stay if she gets to stay, yet Barthor’s quiet resignation awakens the anger in Davarax.

“My mom will never let me sleep over.” Barthor scoffs with bitter conviction.

Davarax feels his eyes narrow. “Want to bet?” Barthor is one of his kids. If Barthor wants to join the sleep-over, then Barthor will sleep over as well. He is just about to press the final button to contact Din’s parents when his beloved witch strikes again.

“How about… we all spend the night in Davarax’ room?”

Davarax’ face snaps up to stare at her. She couldn’t have surprised him more if she’d slapped him across his bare face with a fish. “Say what now?” Nobody said anything about them sleeping over in his room, with explosives in every corner and the memory of Dulcy’s soft whimpers in his bed.

Din lights up with utter delight. “Oh, can we?”

Davarax clenches his jaw, Dulcy gives him the sweetest smile of fake innocence, and he folds with a heavy sigh. As if he can deny her or these kids anything. “Just… let me talk to your parents first.”

As expected, Din’s parents give their permission without much trouble. They trust Davarax.

Davarax fears he suffers permanent hearing damage after connecting with the Saxons and quickly blurts out his question.

There is a moment of silence before Raga’s mother states: “Anything she breaks, I’m not paying for it.”

“It’ll be on me.” Davarax replies, and then she starts screaming at either her husband or her sons and he just shouts his goodbye and disconnects.

Dez is a problem because of course he is. That man thrives on being difficult, especially around Davarax. If Davarax states something obvious, Dez will disagree just because he said it.

“A sleep over? Are you kidding me? My boy has put on the helmet. He doesn’t do kid stuff like that. I will not have you make my son soft, Davarax.”

“Dez…” Davarax has to take a deep breath and not lose his temper. “It’s a sleep-over. All his friends will be here. Don’t be such a hard-ass. Let the boy have some fun.”

“We are Mandalorians. We don’t do fun. Fun doesn’t make you into a great warrior.”

“A little fun never harmed a kid. He’s a kid, Dez. Helmet or not, he’s still a kid. Let him have this.”

“He should be training.”

“He is training. Every day. That boy is dedicated and you know it. He’s among the best fighters I’ve ever seen. Let. Him. Have. This.”

They bicker back and forth for a while and eventually Davarax manages to wear down the cantankerous man by a combination of nagging and bribery. It’s worth it when he can give Paz the thumbs up to show he’s allowed to stay as well.

And yet Dez Vizla is nowhere near as frustrating as Barthor’s parents. There is no room for negotiations, no compassion or empathy, just a stubborn ‘no’. Davarax tries everything. He flatters, he tries to bride, he tries to reason with them, he even gets dangerously close to pleading, but it doesn’t work. They won’t budge. They will not allow their son to have one simple sleep-over.

And that is when Davarax turns mean. Dangerously mean.

Thirty seconds later, he can give a very surprised Barthor a thumbs up.

-

That is how they end up gathering all there is off mattresses and blankets and pillows and march over to Davarax’ room. After hoarding and hiding away his weaponry, Davarax helps to arrange their haul all so his kids can be comfortable before he steps up next to Dulcy. “The kids are set. You take the bed. I’ll, uh…” He scouts for where he can fit on the floor, have a good view of the door in case of danger and be close enough to the kids to keep an eye on them as well.

“You and me are sharing the bed.” Dulcy states, as if it is the most natural thing in the world and her words doesn’t hit him in the gut like she’d fired a slugthrower. “The bed is for old people. Like us.”

“I said I was sorry.” Barthor groans. “Let it go.”

“Never.” Dulcy snaps, then she sends Davarax, who can’t stop staring at her, a puzzled look. “What?”

What? She’d just said they would share a bed, a bed with sinful memories, with the kids in the room and she’s asking him ‘what’?? Davarax shakes his head and looks over at the kids again to calm his stuttering heart. She can’t be that oblivious, can she? Well, he can handle this. He can-

“And would you mind taking the armour off?” Dulcy continues to torture him. “You can, inside the Covert, right?”

Closing his eyes, wondering what he’d done wrong to deserve this sweet punishment, Davarax manages a tiny nod.

He handles it like a champ. Davarax removes his armour, settles himself on the bed closest to the door to keep an eye on it and the children to ensure they are safe. Din often has nightmares and might need calming down, though he currently looks quite comfortable between Corin and Paz. Davarax got this. He can handle this.

Dulcy curls up next to him and rests her head on his chest.

He… He’s got… got this…

After a while, Dulcy lets out a soft laugh. “You’re going to have to breathe eventually, you know.”

“No.” Davarax declares. She’s too close and too tempting for him to dare to breathe.

Dulcy giggles and that catches Corin’s attention. He pops his head up and asks what is so funny. If only he knew. Of course Davarax’ evil witch isn’t content with tormenting him solely by being this close to him. Oh no. She hoists herself up on her side and places her hand on his stomach. Her fingers dig gently into the fabric of his shirt and making it slide across his skin in a deliberate caress. “Nothing, baby. Go back to sleep”

Oh. Oh, this means war. Davarax reaches down and grabs a good handful of that divine behind of hers. He grins and savours her strangled squeak like the finest battle trophy.

Corin’s head pops up again. “Mom?”

“It’s fine, Corin.” Dulsissia takes revenge by prodding two fingers next to one of Davarax’ wounds

He jolts with a muffled grunt. Oh, she is really pushing her luck right now...

Corin’s head goes down again.

Davarax’ takes a firmer grip on her behind, hitching her abruptly closer, so she places a hand to an unharmed area on his chest to push herself away. Davarax counters by using his other hand to grab the one she has to his chest and removing it before pulling her even closer. She squirms to free herself while they both struggle to muffle their laughter. Davarax can’t believe this is happening. He wasn’t this childish even when he was a child.

Paz’ helmet comes up and he lets out a very annoyed; “SHHH!”

Davarax and Dulsissia both withdraw their hands amidst quiet laughter.

“Sorry.” Dulsissia stutters through choked giggles.

“Yeah, sorry.” Davarax adds, struggling hard to silence his own snickering.

Grunting, still very much annoyed, Paz lies back down again.

As the laughter calms and a warm peace settles in instead, Dulsissia finds Davarax’ hand. She takes it, lifts it up to hold it between their chests, and smiles as their fingers begin their slow, pointless dance of just touching and braiding and feeling like they had done that very special night.

Looking at her face, seeing the warm affection in her eyes, the flush in her cheeks and the trust in her features, Davarax considers just how lucky he is. How the smallest change in the past might have lead both him and Dulcy on very different paths. How he could have never known the happiness he’s feeling now.

Coincidence or fate, he doesn’t care, it had brought him and Dulcy together and nothing is ever going to tear them apart.

Not his sister.

Not Macero Valentis.

Not even a nightmare of a mercenary who specializes in collecting trophies...

[throughtheinterstices]

massive and small stars

❝ you were a massive star destined to burn for a few hundred thousand years, culminating in an inevitable explosion. kuroo tetsuro was the sun, a small star, bound to give light for several billion years. the difference between the two of you makes you ask him how he manages to keep his light. ❞

pairing. kuroo tetsuro x fem!reader

genre. college au where you and kuroo are apartment neighbors, implied comfort 

word count. 1.7k words

warnings. themes of burnout due to the pandemic

a/n. reblogs are very much appreciated. i’d be happy to hear your thoughts too. 

HAIKYUU MASTERLIST • AO3

You are by no means an astronomer. You are studying to become a physician. You are a hundred and ten percent certain of this fact. But as you lie limp atop your unmade bed, your mind can’t help but ponder on stars, how they are made, and how they die.

The lifetime of stars depends on their size. Massive stars exhaust their energy much faster and are only able to last for a few hundred millennia. Small stars, on the other hand, burn slowly, allowing them to exist for several billion years. 

You have always been told that you were destined to be a star, to burn brighter above everyone else. You are fated for brilliance, they said. All your life, you are convinced by their words.

Entering college, you believe it is your time to shine. Your days in the dust are long gone. All the ashes and gas are finally going to pool together as the enormous celestial body everybody expected you to be. You are finally away from the drama of high school. You’re supposed to be joining organizations, getting good grades, making lots of friends, and living.

You were supposed to be doing all of that. You were finally safely moved into your one-bedroom apartment near a prestigious university in Tokyo, aching for all of it.

Then the pandemic hit. The club fairs turned into online zoom meetings. The good grades turned into just-above-the-passing-rate marks. Those friends turned into monotonous group chats about academic requirements. Living turned into surviving.

You are destined to be a star, they said. Indeed, you feel like a massive star. You expected too much, gathered too many particles from the universe, that you ended up an immense ball of burning gas about to explode in the near future. You are so close to wearing yourself out. You try everything to avoid it.

You turn up the volume of your favorite songs because maybe it will drown the negative voices in your head.

You bathe yourself in sunlight because maybe it will overpower the darkness slowly wrapping itself around you.

You soak yourself under the shower for hours because maybe it will wash away the dread and anxiety.

You laugh humorlessly.

As if.

As much as you were predetermined for greatness, you are designed for destruction as well.

You look at the time. 5:11 PM.

There’s still time before he comes. You can still take a nap. You’ve been a light sleeper for the past few months anyway. You’ll hear him knock.

The knock comes two hours later, 7:00 PM sharp.

“Good evening,” Kuroo Tetsuro says.

You mimic his greeting weakly.

Kuroo Tetsuro is your university apartment neighbor. You became friends a month into the pandemic, when he came to your rescue after you almost burned down your apartment (you left the stove on while you were in the shower). Since then, the two of you had formed an unusual partnership. He was in-charge of half of the groceries and cooking the main course. You were in-charge of the other half of the groceries and preparing dessert. You took turns with the dishes.

You’re grateful for his companionship. Somehow, being able to interact with another person face-to-face lessens the gravity of the whole situation.

Today, the weight is just a tad bit heavier for you. You barely have the energy to contribute to the dinner table conversation. You just nod along and give a few replies here and there.

After catching his fingers lingering on his phone and after noticing his sensitivity toward notification sounds, you sense that the weight is heavier for him too.

“Expecting a call?” you ask, getting a bite of tonkatsu.

“Hoping for one,” Kuroo answers, picking at his own food.

“She cut the call short again?” Whether it was his mother or his sister, you don’t bother asking. It was always between the two of them anyway.

“Didn’t even bother answering,” he says. That explains it.

You offer him a sympathetic look. “I’m sorry.”

He scoffs. “’S not your fault.”

You know that. Still, you wanted to help him.

There was only one thing you can think of at the moment.

“Dessert?” you offer.

His face lights up a bit. “Yes please.”

You give him a small smile and stand up to reach for the newly-bought mochi.

 The days after, you still feel the looming sense of your inevitable combustion. Exams were still difficult. Readings were still extensive. Social interactions were still monotonously online. Club participation was still nonexistent.

 You turn the volume of your music a little higher. You stay under the sun a little longer. You soak under the shower head a few minutes more.

Yet, you still end up on your bed, drained. Nothing’s changed.

Another thing that hasn’t changed is him.

Seven o’clock sharp, he’s there, knocking on your door (tap, tap-tap-tap, tap-tap—a unique pattern he uses every time). He still cooks you dinner. He still talks to you about his day. You never see the light leave his eyes.

Kuroo Tetsuro was a star by his own right. He was the sun, bright and warm. You are always sure of his presence. You sense the remnants of his radiance the night before in the early morning just as you wake up. You hear the warmth in his boisterous laughter through the thin walls of your apartment. You feel his blazing passion for the sport that he loves when the sound of rubber on skin hits your ears (or sometimes it’s the sound of things getting broken).

Kuroo was the sun, a small star. Small stars don’t go as loudly as massive stars do, and they stay around for much longer. But they still cease to burn once they exhaust their fuel.

You wonder, sometimes, how Kuroo manages to keep his light burning.

There are days that the darkness creeps into his being. You’ve seen it. On days when the knock on your door isn’t as loud and lively, when his hands aren’t as nimble in slicing onions, when his laugh doesn’t ring the right way. And you know that the sun, like massive stars, like all stars, will collapse.

But he doesn’t.

He still calls his mother and sister relentlessly, trying to rekindle what was once there. Despite the social barriers that the pandemic has built, you can hear him still laughing loudly with his friends on video calls. Despite the halt in sports activities, he keeps his love for volleyball burning.

It makes you rethink whether he is a star in the first place. Something as brilliant as he is, who manages to burn bright despite everything, is something out of this world.

 You ask him one day.

On this particular day, he shows you a meme, “Are medical students who graduated online called google docs?”

You give a skeptical look at the idiot who was hysterically cackling himself to death.

“Why do you laugh at this as if it’s going to solve all of your problems?” you ask him.

The premise is anything but serious. Yet, you feel like he knows what you’re talking about.

Kuroo tries to regain some composure.

“It won’t,” he says, moving a hand across his all-time bedhead. “But hey, at least even with all my problems, I was able to laugh, right?”

 Huh.

You stare at him, as if seeing the sun for the first time in a long while.

The next day is still loaded with tests and homework. You still feel dumb. You still have no friends and no clubs. You still turn up the music. You still linger under the sunlight a little while longer. Your time in the shower is still a bit lengthier.

This time, you allow these things to make you smile.

Six fifty-nine—you are by the door, waiting.

Tap, tap—

You open the door before he finishes knocking.

“Good evening,” you greet first.

“Good evening,” he says, a bit taken back.

You hum your favorite song as he cooks sanma shio yaki (which you know is his favorite) and talks about his day.

Later, when you are preparing dessert, he asks, “Did anything good happen today?”

You think about it. “Hmm… Nothing in particular. Why?”

“I just… haven’t seen that smile in a while.”

Your fingers stop cutting midway across the strawberry shortcake you bought two hours before.

“Hmm?” You glance at him in your periphery.

“Yeah. It looks pretty.” 

You take a sharp breath in.

You sense him take in his words as well.

You slowly turn your head back. As you expect, Kuroo Tetsurou has his hands scratching the back of his neck, trying to avoid your gaze.

Well, I’m not going to be the uncomfortable one here.

You allow yourself to tease him. “I do look pretty, don’t I?”

He glares at you. “As if!” But you see his ears flush pink.

You return to the strawberry shortcake that you were cutting.

You feel the edges of your lips inching their way closer to your eyes.

It’s been a while since you felt this way—this light. At the back of your mind, there were still essays to write, exams to study for, professors to impress, parents to make proud, and yourself to fix. The problems will never disappear.

And it’s not as if louder music, stronger sunlight, more bath water, and cornier jokes of the guy behind you could solve all of them.

But maybe if they can make you smile despite all the problems, then maybe… maybe you’re going to be okay.

Whether you are a massive star or whether Kuroo Tetsuro was the sun, you don’t know for sure.

You are by no means an astronomer. You are studying to become a physician. Instead of concerning yourself with celestial bodies, you should be concerning yourself with the human body.

From all the things that you were taught in medical school, this is something you know by heart: humans are made of the same elements as the stars are.

They are the same, yet they are different. Stars burn bright. And borrowing Guy Consolmagno’s words, they will end “either in a bang or in a whimper.”

Humans are different. They can burn unyieldingly without ceasing. Kuroo Tetsuro has proven that to you.

At present, that is all the reassurance that you need.

HAIKYUU MASTERLIST • AO3 LINK

[yoonsshadow]

ETERNAL - iv

➳ summary ; They have died so often that death has lost its meaning; hurt so regularly that pain has become inconsequential; lost so much that they hold each other to the light of the stars. They have nothing yet they have everything, as long as they have each other. And, after centuries, they now have her.

➳ pairing ; bts!ot7 x fem!reader

➳ genres ; The Old Guard au; fantasy, historical, action, romance, alternate universe

➳ themes ; angst, fluff, death

➳ warnings ; talk of death, ptsd/flashbacks, war zone, heavy violence, course language, panic attack

➳ word count ; 2k

➳ note ; Hello! I know that this chapter took a little longer to get out, and it is a little shorter than usual, but it’s because it takes a lot of time and research to make sure that I’m doing this story justice. That being said, I hope that you enjoy!! The journey for these eight have truly begun now, and boy, do they have a lot coming. :3

masterlist

For a while now, your life has been slipping between your fingers. Like a shadow passing through the night, every moment has melted through you, pooling at your feet until you’re slipping, falling, thrown to the ground. From the moment the first bullet was delivered through your skull, you have lost grip of your control; of the things you hold dearest to you.

Sitting here, surrounded by these seven men, that empty cavern in your chest aches just a little less. It hasn’t started to fill up yet⎯⎯might not for a very long while⎯⎯but the silence no longer echoes. 

“It still feels weird to think about,” you say, soft voice carrying through the room with ease. They are all listening so carefully that you cannot meet any of their eyes. “That I died, I mean. I’ve had time to rationalise it, but my whole life has been spent thinking one way⎯⎯believing in life and death, mortality, the fragility and preciousness of living⎯⎯but now I’ve been killed multiple times, died naturally a handful more, and so it feels as though the whole world has been skewed and I’m yet to find my balance.”

Your fingers fiddle together in your lap, eyes downcast to the empty soup bowl on the coffee table.

“The story of how I died the first time is kind of a long one. I can’t tell you about the final moments without explaining everything that led up to it, but there are a few years of history to go through. So, if you want me to condense it…”

“We have all the time in the world,” Namjoon assures, and it could be a joke, a satirical remark regarding your current situations, but instead he speaks with the utmost care, as if he is afraid of any wrong word, any misstep. He is telling you that they are patient, that they don’t mind waiting, that they will listen to every word you say. For you.

And it warms that hole in your chest enough for you to meet his eyes⎯⎯all of their eyes⎯⎯and offer a small smile. Then you nod to yourself. This is a story you need to tell, no matter how painful the memories are.

“Two-and-a-half years ago,” you begin, “the Special Warfare Command uncovered the elaborate smuggling operation of North Korean forces. Untraceable men⎯⎯assumed Black-Ops⎯⎯would enter South Korea through other countries using fake documentation. It’s unclear how long they stayed, months or years, but they would eventually kidnap vulnerable children and smuggle them to North Korea via Mongolia and China.

“Unfortunately, it took years to trace the movements of these men to a point where we knew what they were doing and how they were doing it. The SWC eventually concluded that North Korea were kidnapping and training future sleeper agents and spies, and avoiding suspicion by hiding in the Gobi Desert. They had an entire base of operations on a grey-zone of the border between Mongolia and China, and managed to leave no traces of their movements.”

You need to take a deep gulp of air at this point. Up until now, you have merely stated facts; regurgitated information as you have been told. However, you know that everything from this point on will become personal. You try to think back on your years of conditioning in the army.

“It was at this point that my team was requested for the operation. The 707th Special Mission Group has hundreds of personnel, all within two assault companies, one support company, and one all-female company. There are many missions in which female operators are a better fit, this one included, and out of the female company, my team was chosen.

“When I was promoted to Captain, and at such a young age... All I felt was excitement. Excitement for such an honour, for the experiences ahead, for being able to lead my very own team. The women on my team worked so well, too. We had many successful missions, small and big, and we were ready for this operation. We were ready for Operation Fawn.”

The air in your lungs stutters as you exhale, and you try to swallow the lump in your throat. You’ve avoided thoughts of the thirteen women who had become your friends, your family, but now you are submerged in the memories. Both joyous and tragic.

A few of the men around you look as if they want to move forward, to comfort you, but they also know that it isn’t their place to do so. Not yet.

“The plan was relatively straight-forward. We had found the location of the children, and so it was our job to silently infiltrate the site. Remove all hostiles, retrieve the missing kids, bring them back safely. It wasn’t unlike other missions we had completed before, so we were confident that we could execute it without fail.”

Pulse pumping loudly in your ears, heart beating violently in your chest, you begin to see flashes of that night, playing before your eyes without your permission.

“Get down!” A bullet whirs through the air where your lieutenant’s head had just been, close enough to be able to hear it cutting through the air. “Shit,” you mumble to yourself, peeking around the corner of the collapsed wall for the rest of your team, “how the fuck are there so many of them?”

“Captain.” A voice cuts through the chaos, the intercom in your ear crackling to life. “They’re still pouring in - West entrance - all armed. There shouldn’t be this many men.”

You land shots on three oncoming men, their bodies falling to the ground, but they are quickly replaced by more on their way. You have to do something; you can’t allow your team⎯⎯or the children⎯⎯to die tonight. 

While your lieutenant watches your back, you fiddle with the dial of your radio, changing to a different channel.

“Command, this is Dragon, do you copy?”

No response comes through, and you’re forced to move from the wall with your gun poised, firing shots at any unfamiliar figure you see.

“Command, this is Dragon, do you copy?!”

A grenade explodes a short distance away, shaking the ground and sending you stumbling.

“Command, this is Dragon, Operation Fawn has been compromised! I repeat, Operation Fawn has been compromised! Delta Team needs immediate backup, over a hundred hostiles, and counting!”

Either the commotion around you drowns out the voice in your ear, or you’ve yet again received no response. You are starting to get desperate.

“Jesus fuc⎯ we’re completely overwhelmed, Command! My team can only hold out for a little while longer, but these fuckers just keep pouring in! Something is wrong, there shouldn’t be this many of them, we can’t fucking⎯”

Somebody tackles you to the ground. Gunshots, shouts, dirt in your face, a hand on your throat. The man on top of you is heavy, but you’re able to roll him off of you and shoot him between the eyes.

The blood splatters across your goggles.

It’s all too much. There are men everywhere, and you can’t see any of your team members throughout the chaos. You can’t get through to your command centre. Everything that was supposed to be easy tonight has gone wrong. Something heavy, and dark⎯⎯something that feels a lot like doom and panic and we’re going to die⎯⎯lurks in your guts, but you can’t think about that right now. You have to find your girls, have to save these children, have to stay alive⎯

Your fist aches nearly as much as your thudding chest.

Images of death and violence fade away as you blink violently, flexing your fingers individually and then all together, mind still scrambled, still alert.

There are hands on your shoulders, solid and heavy and grounding, and a pair of soft eyes searching for yours. All eyes in the room are on you, but all you can focus on is Yoongi, who looks as if he knows, as if he understands.

And there is a fist-sized patch of red on his left cheekbone. God, your fist, his face, what have you done, oh god I’ve hurt him⎯

Cool air blows on the silent tears that stream down your cheeks, your bones trembling with adrenaline and fear and sorrow. He’s saying something, lips moving slowly, but the clouds in your head are muffling everything. His hands move to hold yours.

You recognise the movement of his lips as the words breathe, it’s okay, and you try your best to obey, but your throat has closed up, tight like the grip of that enemy soldier who had held you to the ground⎯

Yoongi brings one of your hands to his chest, pressing your fingers into him, and you faintly feel the thudding of a heartbeat against your palm. Then, he breathes in, slow and deep, and you follow.

In and out, one by one, Yoongi slowly guides you to breathe steadily once again, your chest growing less tight with each shaky gasp. The tears have stopped flowing, and your limbs have calmed into only a slight tremor, and the darkness in his eyes are captivating. You want to lean forward, let them swallow you whole, but you instead squeeze his hands in silent thanks.

“Let’s get you to bed,” he whispers, and you realise that your head has calmed down enough to take in your surroundings. All seven are watching you with a careful and guarded eye, but you find no pity. It brings you a sliver of relief.

Rather than replying, you merely nod your head and allow Yoongi to pull you up onto shaky legs. Exhaustion is already weighing you down, and all you want to do is escape your own mind.

They have been once before. You, asleep in the spare room, and them, huddled together on the lounges. They are worried about you, but they are also much more; the fear in your voice, the heartache in each memory, was familiar to them. As they watched you relive your trauma, they relived theirs as well.

“I’m sorry, I-” Namjoon’s words stutter out, unsure, unplanned, unlike the way he usually speaks. “This is my fault. I should’ve known- it was too early to- and maybe you wouldn’t have gotten hurt...”

“Hey, no.” Seokjin’s hands on Namjoon’s shoulders are as firm as his words, kind eyes seeking regretful ones. “Don’t blame yourself; this is nobody’s fault. She made her decision to tell us. Don’t take that away from her. And we all know that she couldn’t help that reflex. Yoongi’s been hit harder.”

“We didn’t even hear the rest of the story,” Jimin pouts, nibbling his lower lip between his teeth. “Like, how she died, how her team died, what happened to the mission.”

“We’ll have to be patient,” Yoongi sighs. His cheek is already blue and purple, and will probably be fully healed in an hour. “We know the fundamentals, anyway. A mission that was supposed to be clear-cut somehow got turned on its head. It cost her team’s lives.”

“How does something like that even happen?” Next to Jimin, Taehyung’s pout is not quite as full, but still full of the emotions he is trying to keep in. “It isn’t just her team that got hit, but the entire Special Warfare Command. This was a big operation, guys, so something like this should’ve been prevented.”

“Do you think…” Jeongguk is clutching a pillow close to his chest. “Do you think somebody from the inside betrayed them?” Six faces turn to look at him, shocked at the implication, shocked that it makes sense. “I mean, the information about the operation would have been top secret. North Korea has resources, sure, but they shouldn’t have known the when, where, and how of the mission. Somebody had to have turned.”

“Who would’ve done it?” Jimin’s question is not asking for an answer. He feels sick at the thought.

It is at this moment that Hoseok chooses to emerge from his deep silence. When he speaks, his voice is regretful. Knowing. “I think she knows exactly who did it.”

< prev - next >

tags: @leafyturtle​, @loveyoongles, @paint-music-with-me, @barbikatherine, @itsmorgo1604, @calling-dips-on-j-hope, @veronawrites, @applepie1000, @yoonchrisgullwrites, @ally22042000, @ireallylikefoodandyoutube, @blglmgk01​, @basicgukk, @softescapism​, @sinceritythatcouldntbedelivered​, @m1nt-3lla​, @hunnayesblog, @rosycheekb​, @hemmofluke​, @the-bisaster​ 

[zeldas-cigarette-holder]

Ground Control to Major Tom

ao3

Faustus finally allowed himself to tear his gaze from Zelda’s face to look at the dog, felt his heart nearly stop when he realized that Satan, she had surely gone bloody batshit. It wasn’t a dog, the mere ghost of one — and poorly stuffed, at that.

I don’t truly know why I wrote this, but it ended up way sadder than I had ever expected a story about Zelda’s ugly stuffed dog to be. Tagging as spellwood, but there’s truly no shippy moments unless you read between the lines exceptionally well.

Enjoy xx

It had been ages since he had walked up to the mortuary, even longer since had seen her outside of any professional setting — perhaps decades, he mused to himself as he strolled up the long driveway.

The house looked the same as it had the last time he was there, just a few short months before the Spellman parents’ passing. He had gone to break the news of his engagement to Constance — left with his heart shattered at the shocked, tearful look in Zelda’s eyes. She so rarely showed emotion, it shook him to his core to see it. After that — the image of her mouth agape, eyes welled up with tears she refused to let fall, and the breathy little sound she let out as a response — he did his best to stay away under the guise of it being better for her.

Faustus skipped their parents' funeral, Edward’s wedding, Edward’s funeral, any non-church event held in the Spellman home — couldn't stomach seeing her again, the pain in her eyes. He knew it was cowardly, that he couldn’t manage to be there for the only person he had ever loved despite all of her pain and suffering. He couldn’t stand seeing that look in her eyes — so much pain and hurt and devastation — not when he wanted nothing more than to kiss her.

Truthfully, he wouldn’t have even considered going over if it weren’t for Hilda and her lilting voice, a hint of an accent he hadn’t recalled her having years ago when they last spoke.

But Zelda was alone with the girl — Sabrina — while Hilda was overseas with Ambrose for his trial.

His hand raised to the door, fingers barely brushing the cold metal knocker before the door was flung open, a curious little girl looking up at him. She was almost exactly half Edward and half Diana — face pinched like her mother’s, a fire in her eyes that rivaled her father’s. He found himself smiling warmly at the girl despite all of his hard edges and cool exterior, straightened his tie and felt suddenly small under her scrutinizing gaze.

“Are you the pizza man?” The little girl’s eyebrows were knit together in confusion, her lithe frame still shoved between the wall and the half opened door. “Where’s the pizza?”

“I’m… a friend.”

Why was this so awkward? She was a child, a half mortal child at that. He had sized up demons ten times his age, consorted with the council without the first shake of his hand, but this child had him in a cold sweat.

“Can I come inside?”

“No! What?” She scrunched her nose, hand scrubbing over her face in a way that was so Zelda-like it shocked him. “I don’t know you, you’re not my friend. Why should I let you in?”

Was he really going to argue with a child?

“I’m friends with Zelda.”

There was a long pause before the girl let out a peal of laughter. She pulled the door a little closer to her, obscuring his view from the inside of the house. Shame, as he was just able to squint down the long hallway.

“That’s how I know you’re a big fat liar. My Auntie Zee doesn’t have friends.”

The sound of heels clicking down the hallway distracted him from whatever witty retort he was going to throw back at the little girl. And her voice. Satan, it was like velvet to him — made his heart ache at how mature and weary she sounded compared to years past. He was almost surprised at how she had managed to completely ignore him for years — to filter in and duck out of Black Mass before he got a chance to speak to her — but Zelda was nothing if not as stubborn as a mule.

“Is that the pizza man? Damn it all to heaven, I’ve only got big bills…” Sabrina stepped back as Zelda flung the door open, wearing a look of exasperation that morphed to slack jawed shock. “Father Blackwood?”

She was as gorgeous as ever — possibly even more gorgeous now that he was looking at her closer and not fifty feet away, hiding in the back of the desecrated church. Faustus felt his heart race at the way she looked so effortlessly gorgeous — in a simple, loose black dress, a stark contrast to her severe wardrobe he usually saw her donning — one hand on the door and leaning against the doorframe.

“What are you doing here?”

“You missed Black Mass, Sister Zelda.”

It was a lie and they both knew it, but he couldn’t think fast with her looking down at him with that scowl that made his mouth go dry. It was the same scowl she wore as a younger witch, always looking down her nose at him in a poor attempt to hide what was glaringly obvious infatuation.

“I haven’t missed a service since…” She paused to think, pushed a stray piece of hair back into the bun that sat atop her head. “Since before you married Constance.”

It was bitter and more spiteful than she had any right being, but there was a self satisfied hint of a smirk tugging at the corner of her lips and a gleam in her eyes despite her uncouthness. She had been itching to say it since he broke the news of his proposal, and it felt so good that she would have kept hurling insults at him if it weren’t for the fact that he was the High Priest.

“Hilda sent you. I’m not a ninny, nor was I born yesterday.”

There was an awkward silence that fell over them, and Zelda wore an expression of smug righteousness. He wasn’t sure if he wanted to slap her or kiss her — tried in vain to keep his lips from twitching up in a bemused half smile and knew he was failing miserably.

“Who is that guy?”

“Sabrina.”

Zelda’s tone was admonishing and she wore a pinched scowl to match. It was almost comical to watch — Sabrina had grown into a near mirror image of Zelda herself, he knew that from his quiet observation of the little girl at church events, just as inquisitive as Zelda had been.

“I told you, I’m a friend.”

“And I told you that Auntie Zee doesn’t have friends.”

Faustus let out a loud, bellowing laugh at that, watched the way Zelda’s face contorted into a grimace to hide her embarrassment. She was exactly the same as she had been the last time they spoke, and yet nothing like her old self.

“Then I’m an old friend.”

“You surely are old. Like, what? Five hundred?”

“Sabrina.”

“What? He said he was old.” She paused, her face pouting in concentration in a way that was undoubtedly learned from her aunt. “Aren’t you going to invite him in? It’s proper.”

It was eerily silent as Zelda stood motionless at the door, her lips pursed into a thin line as she was clearly thinking about turning him away. He almost let her, if it wasn’t for the niggling curiosity at the back of his mind. How was she, really? Was she dating again? Was it anyone he knew?

After what felt like an eternity, she finally stepped away from the doorframe and silently opened the door a bit wider. For someone as big on manners and decorum as she was, Zelda surely didn’t act as such, and the thought made Faustus smirk to himself.

Same old Zelda but new somehow.

Sabrina tugged at the waist of her aunt’s dress and Faustus was shocked at how naturally maternal it was to watch her lift the little girl onto her hip — like she was born to be a mother. It made him wonder why — why she never wanted domesticity with him, why she never had kids, why the world was so unjust and cruel to someone as good as her.

“You can sit in Hilda’s chair.”

“No.” Sabrina’s voice was strong and unwavering, just as Zelda’s had been as a child. “Only Auntie Hilda sits in her chair. Your old friend can sit on that spot.”

She pointed towards the stiff side of the couch across the room, her little eyes narrowed in a near-perfect scowl — would have been perfect if she wasn’t smiling, but Faustus appreciated her feistiness nonetheless. Sabrina would certainly grow into a force to be reckoned with, like all of the Spellman siblings had been in their own way, and Faustus let himself smile at the way Zelda’s eyes nearly beamed with pride at her niece’s assertiveness.

“The house hasn’t changed at all.”

It was a poor attempt at small talk — something he had never been particularly good at —but it was the truth. The same bag of knitting sat on the table by Hilda’s chair, and Zelda’s end table was just as chaotically messy as it had been decades ago, a perfect reflection of her personality. It was a cluttered disaster of spilled ashes, loose napkins with her frenzied notes scrawled across them, precariously stacked books, and empty glasses nested in each other — so completely her that it was almost adorable.

“It’s changed a fair bit since… the incident. You’d know if you kept in touch.”

Zelda sat gingerly in her chair, eyes following Sabrina as she puttered around the room. She was steely and quiet, a challenging gleam to her eyes despite not knowing exactly what she wanted to know. Was she upset that he married Constance? Or was she more upset that he cared so little that when her brother passed — her Eddie, her protector, her everything — he didn’t even care enough to show up at the funeral and see if she was okay?

The question had nagged at her for years, swirling in the back of her mind when she got drunk and nostalgic — a rare occurrence now that she and Hilda had a child to care for — only let herself pull out the old photographs then, and tucked them away safely before her sober self could find them and cry.

“Auntie?”

“Yes, Sabrina?”

“Do you want Tommy?”

There was a hesitation in her eyes at the mention of her familiar, lips back to that tight pursed look that meant the walls were back up again. Faustus idly wondered if he would ever be able to tear them down again, to see her relaxed and smiling and happy.

“You could bring him in here, yes.”

“He’s still alive?”

Faustus’ familiar, though only slightly older, had passed decades ago. He wasn’t sure if he was more impressed with the goblin-turned-dog’s age, or the fact that he was so heaven bent on protecting Zelda that he had stayed around for this many years. Anubis, after several years of Faustus being decidedly less reckless than he had been in his youth, had finally decided it was time for him to pass on. He knew Zelda was reckless, but was that old beagle the only thing protecting her?

“He’s… he’s been around.”

Classic Zelda, he thought, talking herself in circles until he felt like the dumbest person in the room. She had always been good at evading questions like that, a master of building walls so high no one could see over them. It was something she had to have learned from her parents, he had decided over the years, because Edward had been the same way.

“How old is he now? Satan, he’s nearly the same age as Anubis and he passed when? Thirty years ago?”

“He’s old.”

“Just old?”

“Very old. Is that better, Father Blackwood?” Her nostrils flared in annoyance, hand scrubbing over her face in the same anxious habit she had held in her youth. “Why do you care so much about my familiar?”

He couldn’t answer that question, only leaned back and raised his eyebrow.

“He’s heavy. What are you feeding him? Bricks? Stones?”

Zelda let out a puff of laughter when Sabrina came back into the room, pulling the dog from her niece’s grasp and settling him safely at her side. She stroked at his head, fingers moving deftly as though it was unconscious, the grimace slipping from her face and giving way to a relaxed, easy smile.

“Bacon. And stuffing.”

They both laughed as though they were conspiring about something, Sabrina’s eyes pointedly on Faustus in a way that made him feel smaller than he actually was. If the girl were to end up at the academy, he would surely be in trouble, the spitting image of Zelda Spellman reincarnated into a tiny blonde body.

Faustus finally allowed himself to tear his gaze from Zelda’s face to look at the dog, felt his heart nearly stop when he realized that Satan, she had surely gone bloody batshit. It wasn’t a dog, the mere ghost of one — and poorly stuffed, at that.

The dog had never been particularly cute in his prime, always awkward and clambering around with too big paws and too long ears, but there was something about him that had never failed to make Zelda smile that big, unrestrained grin Faustus loved so much. But this poor reincarnation of Vinegar Tom? The poor thing was downright disgusting.

His face was stretched too tight, body lumpy in some areas and sagging in others, and his ears were nearly bare of fur. Surely Zelda had to know that this wasn’t Vinegar Tom — more likely a poorly done art project by Sabrina, if he had to guess — and yet she was worrying his ear between her fingers and cooing as though he was still a pup.

“Zelda… is he alive?”

“Well he’s not dead, Faustus.” She was indignant, eyebrows knit together as she looked down at her familiar. “He thinks you’re dead. What a rude guest, isn’t he, Tommy Boy?”

Faustus wasn’t sure if he was horrified or amused— decided to go with a mixture of both, tried his best to stop the smirk from spreading across his lips lest she smack him right where he sat. There she was, Zelda fucking Spellman of all people, cooing at a dead, stuffed dog as though he was alive and kicking.

“He hasn’t moved since Sabrina brought him in here.”

“Tom doesn’t like men, least of all you.”

“I don’t think he has the ability to like anything because he’s dead.”

There was a tense silence, Zelda’s fingers picking at the dog’s ear with a fervor now. Sabrina, just as well behaved as she had always been during church services, had chosen that moment to leave the room and Faustus wasn’t sure if he was thankful or annoyed.

“Take it back.”

“What?”

“Take it back.”

She was fucking insane. Absolutely bloody bonkers in a way he would have never expected — would have never realized if he had turned away at the door and wished her a good day — much less from her.

“I said take it back.”

“He’s dead, Zelda. That isn’t a live dog… he’s not even stuffed well. What is wrong with you?”

Satan, he wanted to shake her and yell and scream and find the smart, sane Zelda that he once knew. Maybe this is why Hilda had sent him over, to try and talk some sense into her.

“He’s not dead. Tom isn’t dead. He’s my soulmate and he wouldn’t… he wouldn’t leave me.”

Her eyes were glistening with tears she was too stubborn to let fall, her upper lip quivering and damn it, no matter how insane she looked clinging to that dead dog, Faustus wanted nothing more than to hold her and wipe her tears away.

“He wouldn’t leave me like.. like everyone else. Like my parents and Eddie and Hilda—“

“Hilda hasn’t left you, she’s overseas with Ambrose.”

“Hilda and you. And I’m sure Sabrina will leave me too, and Ambrose would if he was allowed to leave this Satan forsaken house, he’s told me that.”

Zelda lifted a delicate finger to the corners of her eyes, dabbed her tears away and let out a very un-Zelda-like sniffle before setting her expression back to the look of annoyance she was so used to wearing.

“So no, Vinegar Tom isn’t dead and he hasn’t left me. Not yet. Just let me have it, Faustus. What do you care if I carry him around?”

He wouldn’t have cared, shouldn’t have asked so many damned questions, but now his heart was achy with guilt and sadness and pity. Pity for that steely, bitchy Zelda he knew centuries ago, and pity for this Zelda sitting in front of him, sniveling pathetically while stroking a dead dog.

Faustus was suddenly glad he hadn’t asked who hurt her, wouldn’t have been able to handle that the answer was him.

“Do you bring him to Black Mass?”

“Only sometimes.”

“And what do you declare a worthy occasion for Tom himself to grace my church with his presence?”

Zelda’s smile reached her eyes when Faustus finally gave in and played along. It was nice to live in the bubble of fantasy — to pretend that for once, someone loved her enough to stay.

"Anniversaries.”

“Of?”

“Deaths, mostly. And the one service a year in which you glorify your marriage to the entire coven like it won’t shatter me all over again.”

It was bitter and cold and so angry that if he was sitting closer, she would have surely spat on him. Zelda had easily broken his heart a dozen times in one short conversation, and yet she looked so fucking smug that it almost angered him.

They both jumped when the heavy wooden door slammed shut, a clatter coming from the front hall before Sabrina raced into the room. A welcome distraction from the serious turn to their conversation, and Zelda looked almost relieved, albeit a touch embarrassed at Sabrina’s clumsy galloping.

“Pizza! Auntie, the pizza’s here!”

Zelda just barely saved the boxes from falling to the floor and ruining their meal, a bemused gleam hiding in her eyes behind a stern tone when she told Sabrina she wouldn’t get a single piece of pizza if she didn’t go wash up first.

“Is your old friend going to stay?”

“He’s just a friend, Sabrina.”

“I should be leaving now, really.” He was shocked when thin fingers clasped around his wrist and pushed him back down into the couch. “Unless you want me to stay?”

She paused for a moment, eyebrows knit together in thought as she fanned herself with a paper plate. It was a look he knew well, the little smirk playing on her lips when she was thinking up a particularly witty retort.

“I don’t care if you stay or if you go, but it’s rather rude to not stay for dinner and make sure I’m okay after you made me cry. Twice.”

Faustus nearly scoffed at her haughty tone and the way her eyes twinkled with mischievous glee. He pretended to focus on the way her hands moved as she served the pizza, the way her hands were decidedly more veiny and frail than he had remembered them being.

“I seem to recall only seeing tears once.”

“The first set gave way to the second.” He pretended not to notice when she delicately placed a piece of pizza crust in front of Vinegar Tom’s nose. “You’re certainly lucky that no tears fell, I would be guilting you from now until the day you die.”

“That would be a rather long time, wouldn’t it?”

“Not if you insult my dog again.”

[puppy-phum]

some heihua for the soul

so the update for Binding isn’t happening today bc my brain is complete mush after trying to aggressively finish my thesis yesterday and i decided to give my brain two days off bc of that. also, i promised @ashenwren some time to beta read the ending part (which they already did but! now i need some time with it myself) so i am leaving everybody to wait until saturday. 

meanwhile, i am offering yall a sneak peek/first look at my heihua fic which is very loosely tied to my pingxie. basically, this is just me playing around with hei xiazi as a character and his and xiao hua’s dynamic’s more... tender side. 

i know that @jockvillagersonly and ashen have already read this which has been amazing so thank you for your love ♥ but take this again ^^ also thanks to @cross-d-a for listening to me ramble about heihua and sharing this idea with me. and thank you to @i-am-just-a-kiddo​ who i’m doing all of this for ♥ you are the best parent-in-law for these two and this fandom!

It’s a bad week for him. 

First, it’s the girl he finds while raiding a warehouse full of smuggled weapons and possibly, most likely, drugs. She’s maybe twelve, eyes wide and hair messy, bones poking her skin where Hei Xiazi can see her elbows flashing under her short sleeves. There are bruises around her wrists and burn marks on the inside of her arms. She doesn’t speak but she doesn’t have to, all of her screaming of experiences worthy of a hundred years instead of a dozen. 

She presses her face into her hands when Hei Xiazi fires his gun, and he feels something come loose inside of him at the broken, aborted noise she makes that rings louder than the shot itself. 

Hei Xiazi carries her kicking and screaming out of the warehouse, leaving behind the slowly ending gun fight and the smell of gasoline. She only goes silent once Hei Xiazi puts her down, flinching bodily away from him but not going far. She hovers, fingers slowly curling around the hem of his long jacket while they wait, shoulders hunching against the cold. Hei Xiazi offers her his jacket with a smile, buys her a sandwich which she then throws up, and helps her into a hospital once they’re safe to leave. 

No one else stays behind with her. All the other people they found from that warehouse scattered as soon as the fight began and only she remained, lost in the thought of having to leave the premises that had become her world. She has no family, no house, no money. Hei Xiazi watches her leave with the social workers, bones of her wrists like twigs threatening to snap even after some proper meals and eyes so big they seem to swallow the light around her. She still hasn’t said a word. Hei Xiazi doubts she ever will. 

Her pale face looks like a ghost as she turns to give Hei Xiazi one last glance over her shoulder, and that’s what she becomes to him once he goes home and puts that warehouse out of his mind. It’s hard and he feels himself haunted, and whatever it was that got loose in his chest rattles like the tail of a snake. 

Then, he hears about Su Wan. Hears about the mission that went south with the three youngsters. Hears about Su Wan getting hurt. 

It isn’t anything new in their line of business to get hurt, to even die. When he first met the boy in the desert, he predicted he would find him six feet under after only a day. There was too much softness in Su Wan, too much trust, too much naivete. He had a big brain and clever ideas but his core was gooey, leaking out in way too telling bursts, leaving nothing hidden. 

Su Wan had reminded Hei Xiazi of young Wu Xie. Even his floundering with his knife had reminded him of Wu Xie. Even his adaptability had been annoyingly similar to Wu Xie’s, and Hei Xiazi had questioned his taste in students. At least the boy had paid better. At least the boy hadn’t been wishing to die. 

He had not expected, after knowing all of that, to experience such fear when he first heard that Su Wan had gotten himself stabbed and had almost bled out in a cave, with only Li Cu and Yang Hao to look after himself and a saving bed of a hospital hours away. His hands had shook, making it impossible to hold anything while trying to breathe, and he had quickly been reminded of the little girl, torn open and going a bit feral just because she didn’t know what to do.

It was a surprisingly new thing to care. As surprising as the fact that he still knew of such things.

“I thought I had taught you better, kid,” he says as he goes to the hospital, in the middle of the night of all things, having to cover Su Wan’s mouth so that he doesn’t scream and wake up the better half of the city. The boy’s eyes are wide and heartbeat rapid under his fingers where he can feel it pulsing against Su Wan’s jaw. Then the boy is scrambling at his fingers to speak from between them. He pulls his hand away. 

“Hei-ye!” the boy whispers fervently, like an anchor casted in water. “I thought you were out of the country!”  

“I was until yesterday when I heard that you got stabbed,” he explains, voice leaning more towards mockery than any actual care. Su Wan knows what that means. The boy knows more than anyone else has ever known about a person like Hei Xiazi. It’s a strange thing but Hei Xiazi has come to almost like it. 

“I’m fine!” the boy chirps, lighting up like a lightbulb. Hei Xiazi helps him sit in his bed, snatching a chair for himself from the corner, and then evaluates the damage. Su Wan is smiling while a thick roll of bandages circle his stomach. There are at least thirty stitches there, curving along his side. Some more adorn his bicep where he tried to evade another blade. A darkening bruise is making his cheek swell, casting an extra shadow under his chin. 

Hei Xiazi sighs and closes his eyes when Su Wan starts to tell the story, his voice a soft whisper made even softer with lingering sleep. The beep of the machines tell Hei Xiazi the boy is alive. The painful thrum of his own heart tells him he’s alive too. 

Su Wan falls asleep holding onto Hei Xiazi’s sleeve. He cannot remember how the boy got the leather between his fingers but prying his hold away is like bending steel. It feels impossible and burns equal amounts. 

Finally, he slips back into the cold night. 

He doesn’t go to his apartment, the one he’s currently occupying, his few belongings strewn across the floor and nothing making the place feel like his. Even after years and years and years, some part of him still feels sick at the thought of emptiness. He’s tried his hardest to carve his bones empty and chest clean but after each year spent alone or with someone or wanting, he realizes it’s a battle he cannot win. There’s something terribly strong under his ribs. It refuses to die even before his curse of immortality and the knowledge that goes beyond his comprehension. It refuses to die even when facing the cold, cruel world. 

The walls surrounding the Xie Manor are high but not high enough to keep him at bay. If they were, he would’ve never come here. He would’ve never returned, not after he once left. 

Climbing up the wall of the manor to the third floor makes his lungs burn, but then he’s pushing the window open already, stepping silently onto the polished floor. 

“Xiazi,” a familiar voice says, not even pretending to sound sleepy. “It’s three in the morning. Is it really a suitable time to be visiting the head of Xie family?”

Hei Xiazi smiles, shrugging off his leather jacket and placing it onto the back of a chair beside him. The air in the room feels chilly with the window open but he likes to hear the noises from outside and he likes the line of silver painted onto the floor and across the luxurious double bed. He likes that he can pretend his vision is so clear just because of the moon. 

“Hua’er-ye,” he says back, voice like honey because he loves to tease this man and loves how the tone makes his perfect eyebrows pinch. “Are you sure this isn’t a dream?”

“I would dream you naked at least, not dripping mud all over my floors.”

“As you wish,” he says and reaches for his own belt before moving closer to the bed, toeing his shoes off on the first two steps.

Xie Yuchen is warm but firm when Hei Xiazi meets his body, crashing into his lips and then slipping hands down his silk covered spine. He hums, hiding his laugh. He’s always loved the absolute brilliance and practicality and strength of this man but under all that, Xie Yuchen is a little spoiled. A rich family head. A powerful man with more money than Hei Xiazi could possibly imagine. He’s never tried, not really caring. For all his acting, he’s never gone for Xie Yuchen for his money. 

He takes care of helping Xie Yuchen out of his expensive pajamas, kissing him wet and shivering after each uncovered piece of skin. There is something beautiful about Xie Yuchen in the stark light of the moon, eyes burning bright and the line of his throat like an invitation. Hei Xiazi wishes he could tell him that, sometimes, but he’s preferred to seal his lips. His poetry would not suit the ears of Xie Yuchen. 

He’s never been one for pretty words, crude and almost barbaric instead, tongue made out of barbwire and mind of a strategic plan. Between them, all those edges exist in harmony, and so he’s never felt the need for anything more, enjoying the simplicity of just being. 

Ironically, as the sun is already rising, coloring the horizon with its colorless light, he still descends into words. It’s like something is pulling them out of his chest, and when there’s a force outside of his control beneath his ribs, he cannot do anything but unravel upon Xie Yuchen’s white satin sheets.

“There was this girl,” he says, looking into the still remaining dark – or as dark as anything can be for his eyes, that comfort taken from him ages ago. “I saved her from a warehouse a couple of days ago. She didn’t speak, couldn’t eat because she’d been kept hungry for so long. There were burn marks on her arms, probably from cigarettes or a lighter. They told me she was thirteen. She didn’t look like she was thirteen.”

Xie Yuchen’s hands are on his back, brushing lightly against his shoulder blades, drawing something there. His heartbeat is steady under Hei Xiazi’s cheek and his skin burns, burns, burns. He remembers how he had looked at that girl in the eyes and seen himself there. 

“I remember,” he says quietly, closing his eyes, “feeling the same burn on my skin. I have no memories of when or why but I know there were cigarettes. I know her pain. I know the scars.”

“Were you a child back then?” Xie Yuchen asks, his body a strong, sturdy thing against him. A rock. A mountain. He never thought he would feel lost in this world but there is something about himself in every child he’s ever saved, in all of their wide, fearful eyes, in all of their screams, their desperate fight, their bared teeth and messy heads of hair. There’s something about him in all of their thrumming, wild panic, like a bird under their skin; in their desperation to get away, to find a place to belong, to find safety and food and trust. To heal a body that has not been their own or has felt like an enemy or a liability or a curse. 

He cannot remember the time he was a child, cannot remember the time before he went blind and began to see too much, cannot remember being anything but this eternal man on the outskirts of the world. He cannot remember ever having a family or feeling the absence of it. 

But then, there’s this echo in his mind. It rings back from the eyes of every child he’s ever tried to help. He thinks, maybe, he still knows how he lost. 

“I only remember being burned,” he says. “I only remember the pain and being afraid. And isn’t that a stupid thing to remember when it could be so many things?” He laughs, as much as it can be a laugh when something twists inside of his chest, bringing tightly together that something that was let loose. He chokes on it, feeling his voice die down. Xie Yuchen turns beside him so that they both lie on their sides, looking at each other. The line of the moon falls over Xie Yuchen’s hips and almost lands on Hei Xiazi’s waiting hand. 

“Bad things linger,” Xie Yuchen says with a certainty of a man who knows this to be true. During the years, Hei Xiazi has learned a couple of the bad things that happened to this proud man. “But you are turning them into something good.”

“And how much does it change to save a couple of children?” he huffs, tired of the heart that cannot leave him at peace.  

“For them, everything.”

[alldayangst]

100 letters, just for me (Tom Holland)

All of my fics are LGBT and PoC friendly. PAIRING: uni (fuckboy/frat) Tom x uni reader. Summary: ‘You wrote a hundred letters just for me / And I find them in my closet in the pockets of my jeans / Now I’m constantly reminded me of the time I was nineteen / Every single ones forgotten in a laundromat machine’.

“Walk of shame?” your friend, Camren, sat in the lounge, TV on low as Tom walked with his clothes carelessly thrown on his body, recovered hoodies and jumpers you previously stole sat in a pile as high as mountains in his hands, leading Camren to wonder whether or not it was really the end this time round. “Third time this week!”

“Don’t worry, I won’t be back anytime soon.” Tom slams the door behind him as hard as he could, and just when Camren thinks they can get a moment of peace, they hear a screeching sob rip through the air through the walls of your room. And Camren swears they live in a movie; a scratched CD of a bad romantic drama, that replays the part where the lovers face their problems over and over again.

‘My mouth hasn’t shut up about you since you kissed it’

You remembered the start of this debacle like it was yesterday. You and Tom were in the bathtub and Tom told you to reach inside the back pocket of your jeans, he’d left something important in there. “I’m not ready to get married, if you left a ring in there. I’m only 19.” Tom kissed your shoulder, back cold and pressed against the tub - but he’d been willing to compromise to be the crutch you leaned against, to be the haven you found refuge in. To be the hill you died on.

“It better not be a ring, Holland. I swear.”

“I’ve never met someone who didn’t want to get proposed to as much as you.” He laid his chin against your shoulder once your search become successful, and you found a strip of paper in your trouser back pocket.

“My mouth hasn’t shut up about you, since you kissed it.” You turned to Tom who could only see your face in the corner of his eye, having found a new living situation of the warm, wet slope previously called your shoulder. “Tom, what is this?”

“100 letters, just for you. You’ll find them in every pair of your jeans. I’m with you forever.” He wrapped his arms around your waist and press a hard, loving kiss on your lips, causing you to drop the tiny piece upon which Tom scribbled his message. “Just for me? You stole this from a love letter by Alex Turner to Alexa Chung!” Tom couldn’t take his love-hazed gaze off of you, and kissed you again like he was oblivious to the words you were saying or you were speaking a foreign language he didn’t understand. “You don’t stop complaining, do you?”

Six months later marked the end of yours and Tom’s gap year, and you decided to move in together off campus.

“I can’t find it.” Tom smiled as he shook his head, your orange in his hand as he sat on a stool opposite your lunchbox. He knew you had a presentation that day and was eager to impress, so you’d shoved your most sensible pair of slacks in the washing machine without a care and when Tom went to unload it, his note for you torn into tiny pieces and covered in botched ink slithered out and caplunked into a minuscule puddle on your wooden floor.

“I’m serious, you didn’t write one this time.” You rummaged through your blazer pockets just to check for certain you were right before you turned to Tom with every bit of confidence that he’d truly forgotten to write you a little love letter this time around.

Tom placed the orange back into the fruit basket and opted for a tomato instead. He took note of the shock in your face and the wince you made as he juggled it, and it drew dangerously close to the ground. “Tom, don’t juggle that. If it hits the ground, it will splatter everywhere.” Tom giggled. 

“Have you checked your slacks?”

“You think I haven’t checked my trousers?” You turned your trouser pockets inside out with the flare of pride.”You’ve forgotten. It’s OK, Tom.”

You opened your lunchbox to place your orange in, but a piece of red card occupied the compartment usually owed to your snacks. 

You held the card up: “I love you from my head tomatoes.” Tom chuckled cheekily, not watching as the tomato rolled off the counter and depicted a large, red splatter on the kitchen floor. But Tom promised he would clean it up.

Tom didn’t forget about writing one love letter, until he did. And by that point, his letters had felt almost as autonomous as the days of the week. You didn’t even have to think about it, they just went by. So you’d be raking through every end of the house, expecting to find his letter.

“Tom, where’s the letter?”

“Huh? I don’t know.” Tom locked the door as if he’d been chased by wolves, looking up and down through the peephole and then giving a satisfied lick of the lip.

“What do you mean, you don’t know?” 

“As in, I don’t know - you’d have to look for it darling.”

Little did he know that’s what you spent your whole day doing. And you hadn’t found anyone with sharper eyes or a bigger will to find it for you.

You didn’t find the note that night. You didn’t know there wasn’t any.

“I found one! ‘You’re my happy place’.” Huh. Tom hadn’t written a new one in a while. He must have put a note in both of the pockets in this pair of jeans. These jeans had been tossed aside, barely worn, in fact - never worn since you’d tried them out in the dressing room at the store two months ago. You were in awe of how young love could take you so far, and kissed the tired Tom that laid beside you. You pulled back and caressed his cheek.

“Why didn’t you kiss back?” You asked, too drunk on ignorant bliss to acknowledge the warning signs and the parade of red flags that told you to leave before you got truly hurt. “M’ just tired.” And it showed. His hair was matted, clad to his face, a few shades darker that it usually was due to all the sweat. He took in every breath like he’d never breathed before and kept watering at the eye; the kind of cry you did when even the fatigue wouldn’t let you sleep. 

It was inevitable. Three months later, you and Tom broke up. You were freshly twenty, and freshly out of a relationship. Tom moved out of your shared apartment, and you found yourself trying to navigate university with a compass that seemed to only point South. You never had to have friends here before, because you had Tom. It was out of sheer luck that you stumbled upon Camren who not only shared your soul and your mind, but agreed to share your home. Tom Holland quickly became synonymous with London nightlife and out of reluctance to let you go (call it withdrawal symptoms), requested that you continue to see each other as long as romance was left out of the equation. You’d happily obliged and incessantly kept a cobweb-covered carousel going years after it stopped being the main attraction. On the nights you left with Tom, Camren was tossed aside, forgotten like coat in a cloakroom, so it was only fair game that they’d tease and whine at you when Tom left in the morning. If Tom left in the morning.

Tom was ravenous, and you ended up on Camren’s nest of a sofa. “I love the bones off you.” he muttered, and Tom was perhaps too keen to grab a handful of your backside, he docked both hands into both your pockets, fingernails scrambling at little torn pieces of paper. His heart went into panic mode. He squirmed to get out. The piece of paper landed beside you as he forcefully yanked his hands out, feeling like a prisoner freed to a world that was only half of what it was before.

‘I’d be a crazy, blind man to ever leave you.’

The room fell silent. Maybe with Camren’s TV on low, you didn’t have the space to have these moments. To stop indulging in the highs of life and really examine why the lows were the lows.

“Tom. I’m demanding honesty.”

Tom sighs. He’s so different these days, so cold. He unentangles your bodies and huffs and puffs like a little kid who hasn’t gotten their way. This, before you’d even said anything. You don’t know if you can deal with this white noise. 

“I just want to know why we broke up.”

Tom chooses to look at the artwork opposite the couch, because his safe place is no longer his safe place. Because now that you’re demanding honesty, instead of taking it when it comes, his happy place becomes his vulnerable. Tom didn’t like to be vulnerable. It’s why he ended things in the first place.

“Well, we’re in uni..” Tom’s not sure if he wants to continue. He can feel the spotlight on him, you looking at him. He’s center stage but not one for attention. He’s suddenly painfully aware of the fragility of his answer, and worries it will go ‘splat!’ and make like a tomato, and then you’ll really never speak to him again. He furrows his brows as he looks down into his lap, twiddling and pulling at his fingers as if they had the answer (they used to) before he says it in the best way he knows how, your eyes boring into him. “We’re at uni, and there’s so many beautiful women and handsome men, and mighty attractive human beings walking around here, and it’s hard to believe one person you met at a stupid age could compare to the pool of people that are here.”

And how it sounds in Tom’s head, how he meant it is so much better to the way it sounds and means to you. Because words like ‘compare’ and ‘pool of people’ highlight how insignificant and worthless Tom felt he was to you. He felt he communicated how he insecure he was feeling. To you? Words like ‘comapre’ only shine a torch on your own insecurities and phrases like ‘pool of people’ makes you contemplate whether Tom was ever unfaithful, and it made you feel insignificant, worthless. 

“So, I’m definitely not the only person in your life right now.” Tom looks up and before he can say anything- “I’m not something you can butter up and taste when you get bored.”

“Y/N.” Tom starts. “That would never be the way I could see you.”

“I’d like you to leave, Tom.”

And leave he does.

Two weeks later, you and Camren found yourself in a predicament. “Can you get it out?” Camren had their hand down the drain of your bathtub. Cautiously, they launched two fingers in. “Can you get it out?” You asked again, nibbling lightly on the tip of your nails out of nervousness.

“Honestly, it doesn’t feel that big.” Camren stops their search after hooking their finger around the culprit of which blocked your plughole. “It’s a piece of fucking paper.” Camren sighs a breath of relief. “My mouth hasn’t shut up about you since you kissed it.”

You breathe in.

Credit for the gif goes to: /dreamyyholland

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Blended Family

Word Count: 4,531 Demetri x OC - Part Nine Warnings: Fluff, Angst

Ellie’s first day at school does not go well and she doesn’t like it. She came home crying as none of the other children spoke to her. “How was school?” Nico asked excited to hear about her first day at a human school. Ellie didn’t answer she just ran over to Demetri and climbed onto his lap and let the tears fall. “I-I don’t want to-to go back to-to school, no-no one spoke to-to me” Sophie places a comforting hand on her back as Demetri holds a sobbing Ellie in his arms “No-no one likes me daddy” She murmured as she snuggled into him further and he felt his undead heart break for her. “Everyone likes you Ellie” Nico smiled at her “Not at school. I was on my own all day” She replied low still crying. “Well tomorrow will be better and you’ll make friends soon” Sophie replied encouraging her to return to school the following day.

Once the children were in bed, Sophie and Demetri had a conversation and came to a compromise and agreed that Ellie had to give school a chance. “Why do we have to send her back? She came home in tears Soph” Demetri asked not wanting to send her back, he wanted to keep his little princess home with them. “Because kids are kids and they can be cruel sometimes. Ellie didn’t attend nursery with these children Dem, she went to school not knowing anyone. I don’t want her growing up thinking she can just quit when things get a little difficult” Sophie replied “I can understand that Sophie I don’t want that either…but this is different. She’s just a child and she shouldn’t be treated like that, no one spoke to her, no one. She was there for six hours, six hours amore. That is unacceptable!” He sounded angry “I know Dem, I know, but what can I do. She needs to be at school.” “If sending Ellie to this school doesn’t work out Sophie, she will be home-schooled by the Kings.” Demetri said firmly. 

Ellie came home in tears again the following day and once inside the castle she ran to the throne room knowing Demetri was on duty. Matt was standing outside the throne room and saw her running towards him in tears and opened the door “Demetri” He said low and nodded at Ellie as she entered the room. Demetri lifted her into his arms, holding her tight as she buried her head in his neck, tears falling down her cheeks. “Demetri bring Ellie here please” Aro asked and Demetri walked over to them. “Ellie what’s wrong?” Aro asked, Ellie held out her hand to him, something she had seen the others do. Aro looked to Demetri for permission as he had agreed not to read the children’s thoughts until they were older. “Ellie is not settling into school very well” Demetri replied, Aro nodded. “What’s the problem?” Caius asked “No one spoke to her at school yesterday and it happened again today, hence why she is crying” Aro replied, letting go of her hand. Demetri felt Ellie snuggle into him further “I-I don’t want to-to go back daddy” She sobbed “I know princess, but you have to give it a chance like mummy said” “Why? Nico doesn’t have to go to school outside” “That’s because Nico grows up quickly due to being half-vampire” Demetri replied and kissed her cheek holding her close “That’s not fair daddy” Ellie mumbled into his neck.

The other vampires in the castle love Ellie and when they found out how her first day at school went, Sophie had to explain to them that they can’t go and kill a classroom of children because they had made Ellie cry “Why not?” Felix asked “She’s my niece and she came home in tears as no one spoke to her” “Well you can’t just kill the children because the teachers will there along with the other school children” He just shrugged at her. “And, your point?” Alec asked “So how exactly are you going to hide the fact you killed a few hundred people?” She asked “Burn down the school” Santiago replied quickly “I’d like to see you explain that one to Caius” She replied shocked that they were prepared to commit mass murder for Ellie’s sake. ‘Part of me is a little pleased they care so much, another part of me is a little scared’ She thought as she made her way to her room.  

Ellie going to school doesn’t work out and Demetri asks if the Kings would tutor Ellie as they do with Nico. Following an interesting conversation with Demetri and Ellie, Caius, Aro and Marcus agree to tutor Ellie as they do Nico. “Masters, may I have a word with you please? I have a request I would like to discuss” Demetri asks as he, Sophie and Ellie stand in front of the Kings. “How can we help?” Aro asks curious “As you are aware Ellie has been attending a human school, although she hasn’t really settled in. She comes home crying most days” He replies and the masters nod “I take it the compromise you both came too isn’t working out like you had hoped?” Marcus asks looking between Sophie and Demetri, Sophie shakes her head but before she can say anything Ellie replies instead “If-if mummy makes me go back tomorrow…I’m going to tell my classmates that my daddy’s a vampire and that my Uncles Felix and Santiago are prepared to burn the school down because they make me cry everyday by being mean.” Silence…Ellie had managed to shock the room full of vampires and Sophie. “Now Ellie, you know that is a secret” Aro says after a few moments “Yes, but…but I have no friends Uncle Aro, no-no one at school likes me and it’s been a few weeks” She replied, her bottom lip wobbled and tears slipped down her cheeks. Caius’ face held a look of sympathy for her “I was hoping you might agree to home-school Ellie as you do with Nico?” Demetri asked as he bent down to pick Ellie up. Caius discreetly tapped his fingers on the arm of his throne “I-I am a Volturi, sh-shouldn’t I be tr-treated as such” She said low, tears still falling. “I think we can accommodate your request, after all we can’t have our little Ellie being treated in such a poor way by her peers now, can we?” Caius replied “No we cannot” Aro added firmly and Marcus nodded in agreement. Alec didn’t miss the small thumbs up Caius gave Ellie and the smile she gave him in return. ‘Clever little human’ Alec thought to himself.

Athenodora and Sulpicia heard that Ellie would be home-school too and immediately offered to teach her and Nico Music and Art and Crafts. Caius decided he would teach them about history, including Vampire history and how the Volturi came to rule. Aro covered Maths and Science, leaving Marcus to teach them Languages and Literature and Demetri taught them Geography. They adjusted their lessons accordingly as Nico was ‘older’ than Ellie but they enjoyed learning together.

One lesson of Caius’ involved Nico and Ellie being in the throne room during a trial. Caius bought Nico and Ellie into the throne room on a trial day advising Demetri that he wants them to see how they deal with vampires who don’t live in the castle. “Sophie isn’t going to like this” Demetri told him “Tell her I bought them here without you knowing, it’s the truth after all. Anyway, this is a simple squabble between some nomads over territory” Caius replied and made his way to his throne, taking Ellie and Nico with him. Ellie was wearing one of her Princess dresses and tiaras from her dressing-up collection that she had been given to her at Christmas and on her birthday. “Princess Ellie” Aro greeted her with a smile “King Aro” She smiled back at him. “She looks so cute” Alec whispered to Jane “This is her Princess phase” Jane whispered back to Alec.

After hearing both nomads tell their side of the story of how they came to ‘claim’ the land they are fighting over Nico and Ellie watch Aro to see how he would deal with them. “You are not to return to that place…ever.” Aro said firmly before turning to look at Caius, who just looks at Ellie “Do the honour Princess” Ellie nods and smiles back at him. “You both have to take a two-day timeout, which will take place in the timeout room on the lower level. My daddy will escort you” Ellie said looking at the two nomad vampires “And who’s your daddy?” The blonde-haired vampire asked “Demetri Volturi and he’s the world’s best tracker” She replied without missing a beat “He can find anyone, anywhere, anytime all from the comfort of the castle…” “Why does that sound like a threat coming from Ellie?” Demetri asked Felix low “Probably because she said it with a smile that rivals Aro’s” He replied low smiling “…Which means if you return to that place, he’ll know” She added. “The timeout room is on the lower level you say?” The dark-haired vampire asked Ellie and she nodded “Yep.” She made the ‘p’ pop and watched as he made his way out of the throne room, Santiago following him. “I don’t know whether to be scared or proud” Demetri said low to Felix “I think both works” Felix replied low, smirking. “She’s my favourite human” Jane added with a smile. Nico felt proud of Ellie and watched as Demetri left the throne room to escort the other nomad down to the dungeon. 

A week later and Sophie is tidying the children’s room a little and finds stuff under Ellie’s bed that clearly doesn’t belong to her or Nico “What’s all this stuff?” Sophie asked Nico “Oh that. That’s stuff Ellie took off the vampires anytime she caught them fighting over it. Under her bed is her ‘safe place’” He replied grinning “Why didn’t you tell me or daddy?” “Because it’s funny when she comes back with new stuff. It’s the vampires I feel sorry for, you and daddy have created a cute little monster in her” He chuckled “I don’t think the Kings help either” Sophie added “What are you going to do now?” Curiosity clearly shown on his face “Tell your dad and talk about how we deal with it” She replied.

Sophie told Demetri about Ellie’s stash of confiscated stuff and he found it amusing “That’s my girl” He sounded proud “Dem. Really?” Sophie asked “I’m sorry but my girl is too adorable to be angry with and she is a genius.” Sophie shook her head in disbelief “I can’t believe my five-year-old daughter has a castle full of vampires wrapped around her little human fingers. Who would have thought it?” She mumbled to herself, although Demetri heard her and smiled “Our daughter” He corrected gently.

As Ellie couldn’t remember what items belonged to what vampire Demetri suggested they sell the stuff back to them. “You want to hold a ‘garage’ sale and make the guards buy back their own stuff?” Sophie asked “Yes, if that is what it’s called when you get rid of unwanted items” Demetri replied. He put up a few signs advising that there will be a ‘garage sale’ in the family room that following Saturday, this piques the interest of the guards and the Kings.

The guards were surprised when they arrived in the family room to discover they had to buy their stuff back because Ellie couldn’t remember who the stuff belonged to. “Where did you get the idea to hold a garage sale sweetie?” Sulpicia asked Ellie “It was daddy’s idea to sell the stuff back to the guards as I couldn’t remember who it belonged to” Ellie replied and Sulpicia smiled at her “It was a very good idea.” Although some of the guards grumbled about it “Remember, if you hadn’t fought over it, Ellie wouldn’t have taken it off you” Demetri reminded them with a smug smile and they nodded and proceeded to pay Ellie for their stuff, although they didn’t necessarily buy back their own stuff. Demetri decided to let Ellie keep the money “What happens to the money she makes?” Aro asked curiously “I’m letting her keep it” Demetri replied “I’m going to share the money with Nico” Ellie added with a smile “Thank you Ellie, that’s nice of you” Nico picked her up and hugged her to his chest “Well you did help me hide the stuff and you didn’t tell mummy and daddy about it” She hugged him back and placed a kiss on his cheek.   

Time Skip – Ellie at 6 years old

Ellie decided she wanted to dress up as Jane for the castle’s Halloween party so Sophie dressed her in a dark grey dress, light grey tights and bought her a black cloak. Ellie’s brown hair was put in a tight low bun. Ellie ran into her parent’s room “I can’t find my black shoes with the gold buckle” “They’re in shoe rack next to daddy’s work shoes” Nico replied almost instantly, shocking Sophie and Demetri “Thank you Nico” She ran into her parent’s closet to retrieve her shoes. “How did you know her shoes were in my shoe rack?” Demetri asked, curiosity clear on his face “I don’t know. I just did” Nico replied as though it was nothing “Ok, buddy” Demetri replied, curious if it was a ‘gift’ thing or a coincidence.

Although Nico was six years old, physically he looked like a teenager and decided he would dress up Mario from his favourite computer game, Demetri and Sophie dressed up as Batman and Poison Ivy respectively. When they arrived in the family room for the party, they noticed Athenodora and Sulpicia had carved Pumpkins and placed plastic tea light candles inside them. There were Spider webs, Spiders and Bats hanging from the ceilings and the walls along with Skeletons. Next to the carved Pumpkins on the table were bowls of crisps and sweets for Gianna, Sophie, Nico and Ellie.

And who are you meant to be Ellie?” Caius asked “Jane” She replied smiling, Jane’s head turned towards Ellie hearing her name mentioned and smiled when she saw what Ellie was wearing. “Ellie has dressed up me for Halloween” She said to Alec, who leant around Jane to see Ellie dressed as a mini-Jane “She looks cute, sister” He replied and Jane smiled.

Demetri and Sophie sat Nico and Ellie down in their room “We have something we want to discuss with you” Demetri said and they nodded “The time has come for me to turn mummy…” “You mean mummy’s going to become like you?” Ellie asked cutting him off “Yes Princess” He replied. “What happens to Ellie whilst mum gets used to being a newborn?” Nico looked worried “Heidi and Jane have offered to help you look after her. Also, Sulpicia and Athenodora will help when Heidi and Jane are on duty” Sophie replied wrapping her arm around him “Will someone be in the room when you turn mum?” “Yes, Nico. Alec has offered to be in here with me to ensure everything goes well” Demetri replied turning to Nico whilst cuddling Ellie on his lap “Mum isn’t going anywhere; she will be with us forever” He added “I should think so daddy” Ellie said firmly looking over her shoulder at him “That told you Dem” Sophie chuckled.

Ellie and Nico got Sophie to spend her last few days cooking and baking all of their favourite things, Ellie ensuring that Demetri tasted their creations, chocolate brownies, white chocolate and strawberry cupcakes, lasagne and garlic bread and gingerbread biscuits. Although Ellie was six years old, she was still not aware that he couldn’t eat human food without having to deal with it later. “Daddy look I made this one just for you” She handed him a Bat shaped gingerbread biscuit, that had been decorated with black icing “Thank you Princess” He took a bite and smiled “Yummy?” She asked grinning and he nodded “Yes, very yummy” He replied and didn’t miss the amused looks on Sophie and Nico’s faces. Sophie put the booked goods in containers so they could be enjoyed over the next few days. “Mummy can we still bake once you’re a vampire?” “Yes Ellie, but not at first” She replied “Nico mentioned that daddy will keep you away from us for the first few days” Ellie added “It’s safer that way as you are human and Nico is half human” Demetri smiled down at Ellie.

Demetri, Sophie and the children had a family day on Sophie’s last day as a human. They watched a selection of their favourite films whilst eating snacks. “I’m going to miss you mummy” Ellie said as she cuddled into Sophie “I know hunny, I’m going to miss you too” She kissed Ellie’s hair and wrapped her arm around her.

Three days late Sophie wakes up as a newborn, her red eyes taking in her surroundings, she notices the light dust particles in the air, a little spider spinning its web in the top left inside corner of the fireplace. She turns her head towards Demetri’s desk and sees him sitting on his desk chair smiling at her “Looks who’s finally awake?” She got off the bed to walk towards him but found that she moved rather quickly, Demetri stood and caught her with ease “Careful Soph” He chuckled and he gently led her into the closet “What do you think?” He asked pointing to the mirror, she stood there for a few moments “I-Is that me?” She asked, he chuckled lightly, “Yes, and you are as beautiful as ever mi amore” He kissed her neck and she growled low “Hungry?” She shook her head “Thirsty” She said “Come on, I’ll take you downstairs, Heidi bought a few extra tourists in this morning so you’d be able to feed once you woke up” He led her downstairs and told her what to do and watched as she drained both humans quickly. Her method needed work but it wasn’t bad for her first time. She was a little messy too but he’d seen worse.

As they make their way to the training room so Demetri could show newborn Sophie off to Felix and the twins, she picks up on a scent, ‘lemon and honey’ and turns and runs off in that direction. It takes a few seconds before Demetri realises what has happened; she had picked up on Ellie’s scent and sets off after her, passing Santiago along the way “Follow me. Now” Santiago nods and follows Demetri. They stop in the doorway of the garden, then Demetri hears “Mummy, what’s wrong?” “Grab Ellie” Demetri says to Santiago “Of course” They round the corner and see Sophie crouching ready to pounce at Ellie, Nico doing his best to protect Ellie, despite not being strong enough to take on his ‘newborn’ mum. “Mum, back off. It’s Ellie” Sophie growls at him, Ellie backs away from Nico as he puts his arm behind him making a shooing motion “You’re scaring her” Nico says growling just as Demetri tackles her to the ground at the same time Santiago scoops up Ellie into his arms and runs back inside the castle with her “I’ve got you little one” Santiago whispers in her ear.

“What the hell dad?” Nico asks shocked “Don’t” Demetri tightens his hold on Sophie as she was fighting him, “You know what would have happened if mum had bitten her, Felix would have been forced to destroy them both, that is if mum hadn’t drained her first” His tone was angry, Sophie was still fighting against Demetri’s hold but stilled when Demetri yelled “I said don’t” Demetri looked up at Nico “I know, I’m sorry. She picked up on Ellie’s scent but I promise it won’t happen again” “You’re right dad, it won’t…because mum isn’t going near Ellie until she’s got control” He growled at his parents, baring his teeth at Sophie “I’m moving Ellie to the tower room beside the Queens and I’ll be going with her to ensure she’s safe” He didn’t wait for an answer, he made his back inside the castle.

“Oh Dem, what did I do?” She looked at him over her shoulder “You went after Ellie; you were prepared to go through Nico to get to her” He replied and watched shock washed across her face. She shook her head “No, no I-I wouldn’t. He’s my son…she’s my baby” He could see the sadness in her red eyes and gave her a sympathetic look and nodded “You did. You could have hurt them both, mi amore” “I need to apologise to them…to her” “Not now, I-I don’t…I-I can’t trust you with her” He said softly, hating himself for saying it because Ellie was her daughter and deep down, he knew Sophie wouldn’t hurt her. 

Nico goes straight to the throne room and sees Santiago waiting for him with Ellie “Is she ok?” Nico asks “She’s fine, not a scratch on her” Santiago replied and handed her to her brother “You’re safe. I promise” Nico said low stroking her hair as he held her close “Is mummy ok? Did I do something wrong?” Ellie asked, her tone sad and Nico could tell Ellie was close to tears “You did nothing wrong little one. Your mum is a newborn vampire and they can be a little...unpredictable” Santiago said low placing a hand on her back. Santiago accompanied Nico and Ellie to their room and helped pack some clothes into a bag and then made sure they reached the tower room safely. 

Meanwhile, Demetri had managed to get Sophie to the training room “Felix keep her here…I’ll be back in a bit” Demetri left Sophie with Felix and the twins. “What’s wrong with him?” Alec asked “I-I went after Ellie…I caught her scent and…I-I was prepared to go through Nico to get her” Sophie replied low “Is she ok?” Alec asked concerned, stepping closer to her “Yes. Demetri got there and tackled me before I could hurt either of them. He won’t let me apologise…I need to get control” She couldn’t look them in the eyes, feeling ashamed that she had that reaction to her daughter. “We’ll help you” Jane said softly “But I warn you Sophie despite us being friends, if you try and hurt Ellie when I’m around, I will pain drop your ass” “Un-understood” Sophie answers, still not looking up.

Demetri goes to the tower room and finds Ellie cuddled up on Nico’s lap as he reads her a story from the Grimm’s book of fairy tales “Thank you Nico” “You don’t need to thank me; you’re my sister and I love you. I will always protect you” He kissed her hair and continued to read to her. “Can I come in?” Demetri asks “It’s just you?” “Yes Nico, it’s just me” He replied and Nico nodded. Demetri entered the room and sat on the bed looking at his children “How are you princess?” “I’m ok daddy” She replied low “How’s mummy?” “Mummy’s ok, she’s sorry for happened but I have told her she can’t see you yet. She’s with Felix and the twins” He replied and watched as Ellie crawled down the bed and climbed onto his lap “Tell mummy I love her” “I will” He held her close, breathing in her scent “Are you ok buddy?” “I’m fine. I’m sorry for growling at you and mum…but I’ve got to protect her. She’s my sister” He nods at Ellie, Demetri nods “I know don’t worry about the growling, I didn’t take it personally. I’m proud of you for protecting her, even though it meant confronting mum” Demetri said and held his arm out and Nico moved to hug his dad and sister.

The Kings learn of what happened in the garden and that Nico has moved himself and Ellie to the tower room beside the Queens. They decide no action will be taken as they are aware of Sophie’s guilt and decide that is punishment enough and trust that Demetri and Felix will be able to prevent any other incidents from occurring. 

Whilst Felix and Demetri train Sophie that night, Ellie screams and cries in her sleep waking Nico in the process. He immediately sits beside her on her bed, a hand on her shoulder “Hey, sshh…sshh. You’re ok, I’m here” He says softly as he wakes her up and she throws her arms around him and cries into his chest. “I’ve got you Ellie” He soothes and strokes her hair trying to calm her. “I-I had a bad dream” Before he can ask her what it was about Caius enters the room, Athenodora right behind him “Is Ellie ok?” “She had a bad dream” Nico replies, Caius crouches down so he can see her “Want to talk about it?” Ellie shakes her head as tears continue to fall. “May I Nico?” She asks holding her arms out, Nico looks down at Ellie who nods. Nico hands Ellie to Athenodora and watches her leave the room, he follows them into the Queen’s room and notices Athenodora sits on the sofa with Ellie on her lap, Sulpicia and Aro sitting beside her. “Want to talk about your dream?” Sulpicia asks gently, again Ellie shakes her head but holds her hand out to Aro, he pauses for a moment before taking her little hand in his and seeing the reason for her current state. “You’re safe up here with us, you know that” He says softly and she nods. Everyone in the room then realises Ellie’s bad dream was related to what happened with Sophie in the garden. Ellie fell asleep in Athenodora’s arms and stayed there till morning. Nico placed a blanket over them before returning to the room next-door to try and sleep, although he was worrying about how things would turn out with his mum. Ellie still had no idea why Sophie had gone after her and Nico. 

Demetri had to stop himself from running to comfort Ellie, knowing that he had to keep Sophie away from her, despite seeing how much it hurt her to not be able to comfort her daughter. “I’m sorry if I let you down earlier Dem” She says low “You didn’t let me down, I should have been quicker to stop you, I’m so used to Ellie’s scent I barely notice it and therefore, it didn’t cross my mind that it may appeal to you. Ellie told me to tell you she loves you” He wrapped his arms around her pulling her back towards his chest “I want to get control…I need to see my children, comfort my daughter. This is killing me Dem” “I know Soph, I know. I will help you get control I promise because I too would like comfort my daughter.” He continued to hold Sophie in his arms as they discussed how best to teach her self-control as quickly as possible.  

[amberlynnmurdock]

Library Series (Pt. 15)

Pairing: Matt Murdock x Reader 

Chapter Summary: Thanksgiving is next week. 

AO3 Link

AUTHOR’S NOTE: Hey all! I am still working on this story no matter how long it takes me and no matter who sticks til the end. To those of you who have just discovered it or those who are still reading, thank you so much. This chapter sets up the next one and it’s super fluffy. I hope you all have been doing well, staying safe and healthy during this crazy time we live in. In the meantime, enjoy some Matt Murdock college fluff. And message me if you have... anything to say! About your life, Marvel, anything. I’d love to catch up again. OKAY ENJOY <3 

Wet fog. It sticks to the dorm window. Glancing at the clock, you see that it’s barely seven in the evening. You wipe the window with the sleeve of your pajama shirt to see outside.

There’s not much going on. It’s a week before Thanksgiving, and everyone on campus was just finishing up exams. Many have already went home for the holiday. Marci left two days ago with Foggy. Which left your dorm room all to yourself, and… Matthew.

Ever since that night outside the cafe, he’s been spending time with you a lot, which you had no problem with. You’d finish your late class on Thursday and see him waiting for you patiently at the end of the hall, cane in hand, leaning against the cement wall. The two of you had lunch together every Tuesday because that’s the only time the two of you don’t have a class at noon. You walk him home, and you text him when you get back to your dorm.

Right now, he’s here again. There’s a record spinning at a low volume, and you’ve lost track of what it was you and Matt were listening to. You laid down after dinner and got sleepy, and let Matt take over flipping the discs, raiding your collection. You knew he couldn’t see what he was picking, but he always managed to play some of your favorites.

You slump down from your dorm bed and join him on the fuzzy carpet, leaning against the side of your bed. Your arm brushes his and you feel the urge to bring him into an embrace. But you don’t.

It dawned on you that tomorrow, you’d be leaving for Thanksgiving break yourself. You were excited: you hadn’t seen your family in weeks and the cafeteria food was starting to get old. A home-cooked meal was exactly what you needed. But at the same time, you felt like you were going to be missing something, and it was painfully obvious what it was. In fact, the reason why is sitting next to you right now, behind red tint glasses and an aloof grin on his face.

“I love this song,” Matt smiles as he stretches his arms. It’s a song by Big Star. You don’t reply. You smile instead.

“Are you okay?” Matt asks you after a short period of silence. You forget he can’t see your smile sometimes. A guilty feeling wells in your chest.

As if he can hear your thoughts, Matt finds your hand and holds it.

“Yeah, I am,” you say uneasily. “Are you going home for Thanksgiving? I forgot to ask.”

Matt replies after a moment, “No. I’m not.”

You quirk an eyebrow. You realize you never asked Matt about his…family. You know his father passed away, and he’s never mentioned his mother. You didn’t feel like now was the right time. You decide to play the fool.

“Do you usually go anywhere?” You ask him carefully.

“I usually go with Foggy every year, but this time he is at Marci’s. It’s okay, though,” Matt gives a small smile, “I told him it was okay after he denied to a hundred times.”

You sort of felt silly in that moment. Why didn’t you bother to ask Matt if he’d like to join your family on Thanksgiving? You honestly assumed he had somewhere to go–but now you think you know why it was never brought up. Matt probably didn’t want you to feel bad. You notice he has a tendency to do that–hide how he really feels.

“Well, you are welcome to come to my Thanksgiving. If you want!” You nervously add the last part in. You suddenly felt embarrassed. Were you moving too fast? Were things getting serious? Were you okay with that? More importantly, was he okay with that?

“Uhm, yeah,” Matt answers you sheepishly. For some reason, the nerves make him let go of your hand. It’s not that he doesn’t want to go, he’s dying to have a little getaway with you, and get to know you even more. Matt is just… really happy you asked.

"I leave tomorrow, and it’s last minute, but I’d really love for you to be there with me. You’ll get to meet my family, if that’s not scary,” you ramble on. The rush inside you can’t be stopped: the thought of having Matt all to yourself for a few days sounded magical. “And my family isn’t big, if big families intimidate you. It’s just my folks and I.”

“Big families?” Matt laughs, “I’ve been to Foggy’s for the holidays for a while now, and I’m still sure there’s a distant cousin I haven’t met before. I think I’m ready with just having to introduce myself only twice now.”

“Okay!” You turn to face him, this time taking his hand back in yours. “I’ll text my Mom now to let her know we’ll need another plate at the table. You can stay in our guest room. Or mine, and I’ll take the guest room. Whichever you’re most comfortable with.”

Matt could hear the excitement in your voice. “We can figure that out later,” he says. “We can share, you know,” Matt reminds you in a low whisper.

You feel the heat rise in your cheeks. You let out a soft laugh and gently push him in a joking way, “no way am I getting in bed with you, Mr. Murdock. I am too much of a blanket hog. You’ll be cold the entire weekend.”

Matt lets out a laugh. He pulls you in close and kisses your ear.

“We’ll see about that.”

The shivers his kiss sent down your spine are hard to hide. You don’t care. You sigh and rest your head on his shoulder.

Matt quietly says your name.

Tilting your head to look up at him, and you reply, “yes?”

His auburn hair that usually falls perfectly in place now fell so it was covering half his face. You reach up to move it aside but his fingers latch to your wrist and slowly bring your hand back down to his lap.

Matt doesn’t have to see you to know you’re confused by his movements. That’s all he can really do, to show his feelings to you. He can’t possibly find the right words to describe how much he likes you–words fail him in that sense. He has so much to say to you, there’s so much that he feels. All he can do is hold your hand tighter and kiss your forehead.

“I like this a lot,” is all he can say. Foolish, he feels. The most beautiful girl you’ve ever talked to, the most sincere heart you’ve ever known is sitting right next to you, and that’s all you have to say?

You let out a soft laugh, “I’m glad, Matt. I was hoping you’d be staying a while.”

He knows what you mean by that. Not just staying a while in this dorm with you but staying a while in your life. Matt smiles.

“How are your classes, by the way? Are you feeling as overwhelmed with work as I?” He asks.

You shift, lifting your head from his shoulder.

“Yeah, a little,” you trail off, “I kind of jump at the work when it’s presented to me so I don’t get overwhelmed. And the faster I finish the bullshit busy work, the faster I can continue my investigating on that robbery.”

That robbery. The word takes him out of reality for a moment. Matt hasn’t roamed the streets since you both made up. He made a promise to himself to not let himself get distracted so he can put more time and energy into you, and he has. But hearing you bring up the robbery again stirs something inside of him: anxiety.

“Oh, really?” Matt asks, covering the worry in his tone. “Are there any…updates on that?”

“Any leads you mean?” You correct in jest. “Well, after break I’m going to the woman’s house for an interview. Her name is Camila Fredrick. I’ve already set up dates and everything. She’s more comfortable meeting after the holiday, which I totally understand. I’m just happy she agreed to speak with me. ‘You must be more pleasant than the real media’ she said in the email back,” you laugh, “I guess the title Undergrad comes off nicer.”

Matt forces himself to laugh at your jokes. He can’t stop his heart from beating so fast. Sure, you’d be meeting with the woman, Camila, in her own home, but how do you know you’d be safe from someone who could potentially be stalking her?

“Well, that’s lucky, I guess,” Matt replies.

“Yeah. She’s lucky for surviving, too. And I think she’s safe from the shooter… he’s in jail. His bail is like, almost $10,000, so I don’t think he’ll be getting out anytime soon.”

The last few words made Matt calm down just a little more. Still, what you didn’t know (that Matt does know) is that Neil isn’t the only player in this game.

“Whatever you do, wherever you go, ___, just be careful,” Matt tells you in a hushed voice. “This city is great, but it’s ugly.”

“I know, Matty,” the nickname slipped from your lips. Matt doesn’t seem to mind it. “I’m a tough girl, ya know?”

He smiles, “you are.”

For a moment, a fleeting moment, his mind plays an awful, cruel, trick on him and replaces Camila with you. The amount of rage that fills his blood, God forbid you were ever put in such danger… he wouldn’t be able to control himself. He wouldn’t wait for the law to bring justice. He’d serve it for you, even if that meant getting his hands bloody and bruised again.

The record has stopped playing. You glance at the clock. It’s not late yet, but you do feel sleepy. You sigh and stretch. If you and Matt were going to be going to your home in New Jersey, you’d better get a good night’s sleep. Tomorrow is a day of packing, and then leaving the next day.

Matt says he’ll meet you in the morning for coffee and then he joked that you may need to help him pack his suitcase tomorrow. Joke or not, you’d be there in a heartbeat. You looked forward to spending the next few days with Matt.

He kisses you goodnight. The sound of his cane echoing down the hall almost puts you to sleep.

[wiypt-writes]

Riding On

Ch 12- How Very European…

Summary: Frank and Fliss set a date for their wedding and, following her all clear at the six weeks postpartum check-up, she decides it’s time to get a bit frisky…only a little someone has other ideas.

Warnings: Bad Language words. SMUT (NSFW) NO UNDER 18s!

Pairing: Frank Adler x Fliss Gallagher

A/N:  Ok, so I had a LOT of fun with this one. I have never had a baby myself, but my best friend tells me some hilarious tales about all sorts of stuff- she has no filter…and neither do I in this chapter. I apologise in advance…

Disclaimer: This is a pure work of fiction and classified as 18+. Please respect this and do not read if you are underage. I do not own any characters in this series bar Fliss Gallagher and the other OCs. By reading beyond this point you understand and accept the terms of this disclaimer.

Riding On Masterlist // Main Masterlist

Chapter 11

 Fliss smiled as she stood looking at the stretch of St Petersburgs beach. The sugar white sands, rustic boardwalks, and the blue waters of the Gulf of Mexico had made her fall in love with the place when she has first come here with Frank and Mary almost 2 years ago. It was the place her and Frank had sat on one of their early dates eating Mexican and drinking beer…and it was a stunning backdrop for the beach wedding she had always wanted.

"So the Public Access area has a large metered parking lot for you and your guests. Private condominium rentals and boutique hotels are nearby and can be a great option if you and your guests want to walk to your Wedding ceremony." The wedding planner, a small woman named Bobbi spoke "Or if you fancy there's also Pass-a-Grille or Upham..."

"No." Fliss shook her head and turned round, her eyes shining as she looked at Frank who was stood next to her. "I love this part of the beach and it’s special to us. It’s perfect. " Frank's hand tightened around hers and his mouth turned up into a smile. "I like it too." "Well that was easy!" Bobbi smiled "are you 100% sure you don't want to see the others?" "Yeah." Fliss smiled as Frank pressed a kiss to her temple. "Alright." Bobbie nodded. "So, you mentioned next September?" Frank nodded. "We don't need a brunch or reception venue, we got that covered. Just the ceremony." Bobbi nodded and tapped at the tablet she was holding. "Well that makes it a lot easier. Any specific time of day?" "Afternoon." Fliss said. Bobbi hummed before she looked at them "You're in luck. There's a slot at four pm on the twenty-sixth of September. Does that work?" Frank looked at Fliss who nodded. He turned back to the woman and smiled. "We'll take it." Bobbi nodded. "Alright. Do you wanna head back to the car and I can take the details, get the deposit paid?" "Lead the way." Frank smiled. She turned and walked back over the sand, the two of them following hand in hand. It took them about fifteen minutes or so to get the formalities out of the way, but once that was done Bobbi emailed the confirmation over and it was done. They had officially set a date. After she told them a little more about what she would need from them legally over the next few weeks she shook both their hands and said she would be in touch. They both waved her off before Fliss turned to Frank, gave a little shriek of happiness before she flung herself onto his arms. He laughed, picking her up and twirling her round, giving her a soft kiss as he set her on her feet. "Three-hundred and sixty three days to go." She smiled "Sixty-four.” Frank chuckled. "It’s a leap year next year baby." "Details, details..." She waved a hand, her gaze flickering back over the ocean as she leaned into him. He wrapped his arms around her as the stood looking at the area where they would become man and wife in little under twelve months.

“What time are you meeting Bonnie?” Frank asked, breaking the silence as he checked his watch. She should have been out for lunch with her best friend last but Mary had been violently sick on the Saturday night and really clingy to her, so they had rearranged instead for the following Saturday evening which was now upon them almost.

“Erm, half Seven. Why?” Fliss looked up at him, her shades covering her eyes.

“It’s Four now. Fancy a walk?” he nodded towards the sea.

Fliss hesitated, truth be told she wanted to get back to Alex. This was the first time they’d left him with someone else, and whilst it was her parents and she knew she could trust them implicitly, she was still a little on edge about being apart from him.

“Just a quick fifteen minutes.” Frank softly coaxed, knowing exactly what was on her mind “Then we can go and get the kids.”

Fliss nodded and the pair of them removed their shoes before they linked hands again, stepping onto the sand which was hot on their feet. The pair of them cursed and hopped from foot to foot, mumbling about how they really should know better now as they hurried to the cooler, wet sand, laughing as they walked through the light waves as they lapped around their ankles.

“So where are you going tonight?” Frank asked. “Rio’s.” Fliss replied. “Same as we planned last week. Apparently the new menu is amazing. Has a grill section, we should take Mary one night when Alex is a little older.”

“We could go now.” Frank looked at her “He’s plenty old enough. Feed him before we go, he can sleep whilst we eat.”

“Yeah, maybe.”

“Why are you so against taking him out?” Frank asked softly.

“I’m not, I take him out during the day.”

“I mean to somewhere like that.” He stopped to look at her. “I’ve suggested it a few times that we take them both out for dinner, a treat for Mary maybe, and you’ve vetoed it.

“I know, and I feel guilty enough as it is, I don’t want Mary to miss out.” “She’s not missing out.” Frank shook his head, “She’s spoiled rotten. I just want to know what the problem is. Talk to me, Honey, please.” Fliss hesitated and took a deep breath “I honestly don’t know. I just, well if he starts crying or he gets unsettled…” “Then we take him outside until he settles and bring him back.” “And if he doesn’t settle?” “Then we get the food wrapped up and take it home.” He shrugged “Lissy, babe, it’s not a big deal. You’re over thinking all of this. He’s a baby, he won’t know where he is, and if he did he wouldn’t give a shit.”

“Sorry.” She mumbled.

“Hey, there’s no need to apologise.” He took both of her hands. “I don’t wanna make you feel bad I just want us to enjoy our family time, you know. I couldn’t do any of this with Mary when she was a baby and I don’t want that for you.”

“I do enjoy family time.” She shrugged. “I honestly don’t know what it is Frank. I just feel safer with him at home. There’s no one there to look at me when he starts crying and be sat there judging me about what he’s crying for…” “Babies cry.” Frank shook his head “It’s what they do. Fuck what anyone else thinks.” “I wish I could be as relaxed about it all as you.”

“You keep saying this like I’m some kind of baby guru.” Frank arched an eyebrow over his shades “And I’m not. I had no fucking idea what I was doing with Mary. Still don’t. Look at the mess I made with the court case, sending her into Foster Care…”

“That was different.” “No, it wasn’t.” Frank shook his head. “I did what I thought was best at the time, but I screwed up. And we’re gonna screw up with Alex along the way and most likely Mary again as she gets older, it’s just a fact of life. But as long as they’re happy, safe and loved that’s all that matters.” “I know, I know.” Fliss took a deep breath as they turned to walk again. “I just don’t want to let him down. I don’t want to let either of them down. And I know I’m being stupid, I mean take earlier for example. When we left him with Mum and Dad, I cried for like half an hour.”

Frank chuckled softly. “I know, I was there.”

“Everyone told me I’d be glad to get some time away, but I’m not. I miss him already and…it’s pathetic, I know.”

“No, you’re just a new mom.” He smiled, squeezing his fingers around hers. “It will get easier, I promise.”

“I thought about cancelling tonight.” She admitted. “I was secretly glad last week was a no go, I mean I would have preferred it not to be because Mary was sick but I wasn’t ready. And that’s not because I don’t trust you with him because I do, and I know I’ve left you with him before when I’ve nipped out but it’s just…”

“Lissy, stop.” Frank shut her rambles down, dropping a kiss to her temple. “You don’t need to explain, I get it. Honestly I do, but you said you’re driving tonight so you can leave when you want to. Don’t cancel, Honey.”

“I’m not going to.” She shook her head “Bonnie would kill me. She’s really down at the moment.”

“Yeah?” Frank asked as the continued to splash in the shallow water.

Fliss nodded “She hasn’t told me what’s wrong. I’ll see if I can get it out of her tonight.” Frank pulled her closer, his hand leaving hers as he curled an arm round her shoulder and they continued to walk, talking as they did so. Eventually they reached the part of the beach which curved around the bay and headed over to the boardwalk so they could walk back to the car. As soon as she got back to her parents’, Fliss felt her earlier anxiety ebb away completely as Alex was fast asleep in the bassinet in the kitchen whilst Mary was playing in the pool with Bill and Steve. The entire family was over the moon when they announced they’d booked the date and Verity went off at 100 miles an hour talking about dresses and flowers until Bill gently reached over and squeezed her knee, reminding her it wasn’t her wedding. But neither Fliss nor Frank minded, it was nice to have their family so enthusiastic.

When Frank announced it was time to leave, Mary started protesting saying she wanted to stay the night. Frank refused, as she’d stayed the night before and he didn’t want Bill and Verity feeling obliged, but as usual Verity beamed and told her of course she could say. So they left her there and took Alex home. Once he had been fed, Fliss headed up for a shower and then contemplated what she was going to wear. Whilst she had lost the remainder of her baby bump so to speak, she was still bigger than she had been beforehand so her usual jeans didn’t quite fit yet. When she’d complained to Frank about it and said the last time she had been this size was after her accident, he had gotten a little frustrated at her, telling her that if she dared go on some stupid diet to lose it as fast as she had back then he would be seriously pissed at her. She’d bitten back, snapping at him that she knew it was out of the question. She didn’t want to for starters, as she had been so miserable when she’d been emotionally manipulated into doing so by John, and this time there was Alex to think about. If she was feeding and nursing him she didn’t want to be on some stupid crash diet. Besides which, she wasn’t eating that differently to how she had been before she was pregnant. It was the lack of exercise, as it had been back then. Frank had apologised for snapping, and she’d done the same assuring him that she would be sensible. She knew that she would lose most of it once she could go back to work and start riding again and if she didn’t, well, it wouldn’t be the end of the world. Frank was constantly telling her she was beautiful and besides, what’s a few extra kilos when you have a gorgeous baby boy to show for it?

In the end she opted for a strapless, floaty lemon dress which she had worn in her early pregnancy days that flared out under her breast line and stopped just above her knees. She paired it with a pair of tan, leather gladiator sandals and left her hair down in the soft waves it dried in post her shower. She applied a little make up, smiling to herself at the fact this was probably the first time she had worn it since she had given birth. All in all, she couldn’t deny it was nice to actually feel like Fliss and not just momma bear even though the two went hand in hand now.

Grabbing her purse and dropping her lip gloss and phone inside she headed out of the bedroom and down the stairs. Frank was sat on the sofa, Alex napping in the little basket which lay on the coffee table. He looked up, blinking at her appearance and smiled softly.

“You look fantastic.”

“Thank you.” She smiled, heading over to give him a quick peck.

“You sure you don’t want me to drive you?” He offered again, nodding to Alex “He’ll sleep on the way.”

“No, honestly I’m not drinking. Well, maybe just one.” She shrugged.

“Back to grape juice instead of apple, huh?” Frank quipped and she smiled, running her finger over Alex’s rosy cheeks.

“Something like that.” She said, absentmindedly looking at her baby.

“Liss.” Frank spoke in a little warning tone, watching her and she turned to him “Go, we’ll be fine.” “I know, I know.” she nodded, taking a deep breath. “I’m going, I promise…” He chuckled and she gave him another kiss before she headed towards the door, she took a final look back at her baby and fiancée, the latter making a shooing gesture with his hands and she laughed, before she turned and walked out of the room. He heard the front door close behind her and let out a sigh of relief. He’d half been expecting her to back out but she hadn’t, she’d gone. Thankfully. He was desperate for her to go out and enjoy herself, she needed to see other people outside of their little family unit, it wasn’t healthy for her to be as isolated as she seemed to have made herself. He’d actually gotten a little worried to the point that he’d even asked his own Mother for advice and she had assured him that Fliss would settle, pointing out that it was nerve wracking being a new mum. He’d been surprised to learn that Evelyn hadn’t left him with anyone until he was almost four months old for fear something would go wrong, and that had comforted him a little to understand that this wasn’t anything out of the ordinary. It had been slightly different with Diane as she’d leaned on him to help her a lot, but then again most things with Diane had been different.

He leaned back on the sofa, picking up the remote, his eyes falling once more to the basket.

“Just you and me tonight, Son” he muttered, flicking to the TV finding the sports channel, selecting a re-run of a Red Sox game on one of the sports channels. “Time to start your education.” *****

“Oooh, how exciting!” Bonnie exclaimed as Fliss smiled, having just told her about them booking their wedding “It sounds amazing, that’s a gorgeous stretch of beach.”

“Yeah, it’s special to us so…” she smiled, and looked up as the waiter came to take their drinks order.

“Erm, do you want wine?” Bonnie asked.

Fliss hesitated for a second, before she shrugged “Just the one.”

Bonnie smiled and ordered them a bottle of Chardonnay and a large bottle of water. Once the Waiter was out of ear shot Fliss leaned forward “This way I don't need to pump and dump.”

Bonnie laughed “I always find that odd. I mean pumping and dumping doesn't get alcohol out of your system does it?” “No, but if I wanted to go out and get drunk I’d have to wait until I was sure all the alcohol had left my system before I fed him again.” Fliss shrugged “He’s already bottle fed at night so Frank can help and I wake up and my boobs are like fucking water melons so you can you imagine what they would be like after like twelve hours or whatever if I didn’t.” she shook her head. “But one glass, well my mum, midwife and Doctor Google say if I'm not feeding in the next two or three hours I should be ok.”

Their chat turned to Mary’s adoption, Fliss filling Bonnie in on how they’d begun the process legally now, Greg sorting and filing the paperwork and contacting her biological father earlier that week. So far they had heard nothing but they should start to see things progress fairly quickly once he had given his consent.

“And even if he doesn’t, Greg seems confident the court would find in our favour, Mary having been in Frank’s care since she was six months old.” Fliss shrugged, thanking the waiter as he placed the two bottles on the table. “So we’re not concerned, it would just be a lot easier and smoother if he does the right thing, you know?” The waiter finished filling both their glasses then placed the wine in the ice bucket before he then poured them each a water and asked them for their food orders. They placed them, Bonnie opting for scallops and the ribs, Fliss deciding on calamari and the steak. Once he was gone Bonnie looked at Fliss, picking up her glass.

“Do you think he will? Object, I mean.” Fliss paused, pondering for a moment “I don’t think so, I mean why would he? He made no effort to find Mary before the court case and now, even though he knows where she is, he still hasn’t so…” she shrugged, picking up her drink.

“Well…” Bonnie leaned over, holding her wine glass up “Here’s to it going smoothly and your first girl’s night out since becoming a momma.”

Fliss smiled and clinked her glass against Bonnie’s, before she took a sip and let out a soft moan “God that tastes sooo good.” “Well you could always dump the car as well as the milk.” Bonnie gestured to the bottle that lay in the ice bucket and Fliss laughed, shaking her head.

“Maybe next time.” She pulled out her phone and took a snap of her glass, sending it to Frank with the caption “Ok, so it tastes as good as I remember…” before she dropped her phone on the table.

They chatted a little more about general things, what Fliss had in mind for the wedding, the type of dress she thought she wanted, colour for bridesmaids, most of which she couldn’t answer as she had no idea really. It was odd that it was going to be her choice, but exciting none-the-less. At one point, her phone buzzed and she picked it up, letting out a chuckle at Frank’s reply to her earlier message. It was a photo of a beer bottle and a baby bottle side by side on the kitchen counter along with the words “Boy’s night in.” She showed it to Bonnie who gave a snort and Fliss placed the phone down and looked at her.

“So, what’s going on with you? I can tell you’re down.”

Bonnie fiddled slightly with her cutlery, before she shrugged “Simon’s being odd. I mean odder than normal before you say it.”

Fliss smiled and waited for her to continue.

“The last week or so, it’s like his mind is elsewhere. I’m beginning to wonder where it is, or more to the point who it’s with.”

Fliss frowned, her wine glass paused slightly in front of her mouth “You think he’s cheating?”

Bonnie shrugged “Honestly, I don’t know. Something’s going on.”

“I don’t think he would.” Fliss shook her head. “Is he not just stressed with work? Frank can get a little sullen if he’s got a lot on.” “Maybe.” Bonnie mused “He’s just normally so attentive and fun. Oh, ignore me. I’m likely thinking too much into it, it’s probably nothing.”

“You should ask him straight.” Fliss said, looking at her “Tell him how you feel, give him a chance to explain. If there’s one thing the whole Vegas incident with Frank taught me is that things ain’t always what they seem Bon. It’s bound to be something really simple that’s just playing on his mind.”

“Yeah, you’re right.” Bonnie nodded “I’ll ask him.”

At that point their starters arrived and they both started to eat, and Bonnie grinned. “So, anyway, back to your dress…you’d look fantastic in a straight, little lace number.” By the time they had finished eating and chatting, Fliss was wearing a bright, bubble-gum pink meringue complete with crystals and a sweetheart neckline to get married in-“because, you know- watermelons…” and the bridesmaids were all going to be in lime green. Fliss had told Bonnie to be careful what she was suggesting, as she didn’t think the woman’s skin tone would take kindly to be dressed in such a colour, at which point Bonnie had nearly choked and her eyes had filled as Fliss smiled and nodded, confirming that she’d just asked Bonnie to take the job. After a loud acceptance, Bonnie had jumped up and hugged Fliss, drawing curious glances from the tables around them.

Fliss dropped Bonnie at the condo she shared with Simon, along with an instruction to call her if she needed to chat again, and then she headed back home arriving just after eleven. Letting herself in quietly, she made her way into the family room and paused in the doorway, smiling at the sight in front of her. Frank was led on the sofa, Alex clutched to his chest with two strong hands, the baby boy fast asleep.

“Before you panic…” Frank spoke, making her jump a little “I’m not asleep. Just resting my eyes.”

“I wasn’t panicking.” Fliss said, honestly “I know you’d never let him fall.”

Frank cracked open his eyes and smiled. “You have a nice time?” He asked as she walked towards him. He gently shifted so he was sat up, Alex still held to his chest securely as Fliss sat next to him, peeking at the sleeping baby.

“Yeah, I did.” She nodded “The food was good. We definitely need to go.”

“Did you find out what was bothering Bonnie?”

“Yeah, she said Simon’s being odd with her.”

“Odder than normal?”

Fliss snorted, “That’s exactly what Bonnie said.” She took a deep breath. “She thinks he’s playing away.”

“Si?” Frank looked at her. “No, absolutely not. In fact, she couldn’t be further from the truth if she tried.”

“What do you mean?” Fliss frowned and Frank hesitated.

“He told me last week, and this cannot go any further as he will kill me, but he’s gonna propose.”

Fliss’ mouth dropped open before her face split into a grin “No shit?”

“Yes shit.” Frank nodded, smiling “Told me when he was drunk in Fergs.” Fliss leaned back against the cushions on the sofa, and her smile slipped a little “Oh crap.”

“What?” “I told her to talk to him, ask him what the problem was.” “Sensible advice in normal circumstances.” Frank shrugged “Don’t sweat it, it’ll be fine.”

“So when’s he gonna ask her?”

“No idea.” Frank shrugged “He didn’t say.”

“Did he not ask for ideas?”

Frank snorted. “I’m the last person he should be asking. I was carrying your damned ring around for weeks trying to find the right moment. I almost did it by the tree at the Rockefeller centre, and then that ass hole beat me to it.”

Fliss gave a soft laugh as she shook her head “The way you did it was perfect.” “Yeah, I got there in the end.” He grinned.

At that point Alex stirred a little, making a few gripey noises before he began to get more restless, rooting against Frank’s T-shirt. “Think he might be hungry.” Frank smiled “Good timing Momma.”

Fliss chuckled and took Alex in her arms, adjusting her top as Frank stood up, heading to the kitchen “You want a drink?” he tossed over his shoulder.

“Yeah, camomile tea if there’s any going?”

Frank put the kettle on to boil and watched from the counter as his girl nursed their baby, a deep sense of contentment brewing in his stomach, along with the usual low-key arousal he felt whenever she was doing anything with their son. Seeing her interact with his baby, the baby she’d carried and given birth to was purely amazing and he loved watching it. He made her a tea, grabbed himself another beer and then sat down next to her as she finished up feeding and he offered to take Alex to wind him as she sorted herself out and had her drink. Eventually he settled again and went back down, leaving the two of them to snuggle up on the couch. They stayed together for half an hour or so before Fliss yawned and said she needed to sleep.

“I’ll take him up. You coming?” she asked.

“I’ll be up shortly.” Frank promised as she sat up, cracking her neck.

“You gonna watch porn and jerk off?” She teased and Frank sighed, shooting her a look.

“You’re not funny.”

“Not trying to be.” She shrugged, leaning over to kiss him softly.

“What would you do if I was?” He mumbled against her lips and she paused, pulling back slightly, arching her eyebrows.

“Well, I’d probably have to remind you that the real thing is much better.” She said, her hand gently cupping at his crotch.

“Okay, you need to stop.” Frank’s voice was a low whisper before he let out a groan as she ignored him completely, her grip growing harder. His hand wrapped gently around her wrist. “Lissy, seriously…” “Oh, shut up.” She mumbled, before she shook off his grip and snaked her hand into the waistband of his shorts, taking his hardening member in her hand. She gave it a light pump or two before she pulled at his shorts, and he lifted his hips slightly to allow her to pull them down.

“Baby, seriously, you don’t-.” His protests died in his throat as Fliss bent down and took him to the back of hers.

*****

“Well, I’m happy that everything seems ok and back to normal.” The Ob Gyn smiled at Fliss as she moved away from where she had been examining her “So if you feel ok in yourself, no physical pain, nothing…” “Nope, nothing at all.” Fliss shook her head

“Well then Miss Gallagher your life can go back to normal” she smiled, “Well, as normal as it is 6 weeks post giving birth.”

Fliss smiled “So I can start riding again?”

“Yup, as long as you make sure you take it easy. As with anything, you won’t have used certain muscles in a while so be careful.”

“Ok.” Fliss nodded.

“Are you going to continue breast feeding?” the woman asked and Fliss nodded.

“Yeah, which is something I wanted to talk to you about. What contraception can I use?”

“There’s condoms obviously, I can prescribe the mini pill or there’s the IUD.”

“Is an IUD safe?” Fliss asked, “I don’t want to use condoms and to be honest, with my baby brain I’ll probably end up forgetting my pill. That’s what led us here in the first place and that was before I’d had a baby.”

The Doctor chuckled. “To be honest, the most effective contraceptives are intrauterine devices and they’re perfectly safe despite what you might read on the internet. The Mirena IUD releases a very small amount of hormone into the uterus, where it works locally and it won’t affect the quality and quantity of breast milk, and it’s also safe and effective for five years. It’s a good choice, one I prefer to recommend when I can.”

Fliss nodded “Ok, that seems like a good choice. How do I get one fit?”

“I can do it now if you want.” The woman smiled “And the best bit is it works immediately.” “Straight away?” Fliss looked at her “So…” “Yep.” The Ob Gyn smiled “You can go straight home and jump his bones if you so wish.”

Fliss laughed, and contemplated the woman’s words for a second. She did want. Truth be told she’d been low key horny since she’d blown Frank off on the couch a fortnight or so ago, but hadn’t wanted to rush anything, choosing to wait instead for the all clear at her 6 week check-up. Now, well, there was nothing stopping them getting physically close again and the thought drew a smile to her face. She couldn’t wait to have her Sailor holding her again.

“Okay, yeah” She nodded to the woman who smiled.

“I’ll sort the paper work, grab my kit and be right back.” The doctor smiled.

Driving home Fliss had all sorts of thoughts about how to make their night special. Romantic candles perhaps, maybe a little nice underwear…that is if she could find any that fit her still.

But of course, best laid plans and all that. In reality, the evening unfolded like any other, with shitty diapers, breast pumping, and a dinner eaten while taking turns bouncing a six week old baby in their laps as he had chosen that particular night to be awkward about settling after his feed, it was almost as if he could sense what Fliss had in mind and was doing his best to veto her plans.

Around nine pm once Mary was in bed and Alex had been bathed, changed and fed, Fliss slipped away to prepare her body for its first round of postnatal coitus. She took a bath to unwind and shaved her armpits and legs. She also considered tackling her lady bush, but realized that her razor wasn’t sharp enough for that jungle right now so Frank was just going to have to deal with the crotch afro if he wanted a bit.

She climbed out of the bath and wrapped herself in her robe, heading into the bedroom where she dried off and set about her skin care routine before she decided to go the whole hog and paint her toenails a deep crimson colour, replacing the shimmery baby pink that she had done a few weeks ago as celebration she could finally see her damned feet again. Then she shed her robe and stole a quick look in the mirror. All things considered she conceded she didn’t look too bad. She wasn’t so much bothered by the extra pounds but more so slightly disturbed by the way they seemed to have positioned themselves on her body. It was almost like small, flesh-coloured bread loaves stapled to her belly. But, like she knew she could sort most of that out with riding and getting more active again, what she wasn’t sure exercise would do anything for was her breasts. They were large, which in itself wasn’t a problem, on the contrary in fact, as Frank was a self-proclaimed boob man, but her nipples had starburst over her breasts without any clearly definitive ending points. She was debating whether or not to try and put a little foundation on them, to tone down the nipple extravaganza but stopped herself, realising she was being utterly fucking ridiculous.

This was Frank she was preparing for. The man she’d been with for years, her fiancée whose baby she had carried and given birth to. And she knew he loved her, starfish nips or not.

She set about finding some suitable underwear. She had a few nice sets, some she had bought for herself, some Frank had purchased for her but as she laid them out on the bed she knew she wouldn’t feel comfortable in any of them. Continuing her search she finally found a pair of black lace briefs that skated along her ass cheeks and a black sheer negligee that she had worn a few times pre- pregnancy, in particular one very raunchy night where she’d surprised Frank by wearing it in the kitchen one evening when Mary had been at Roberta’s, cooking their dinner as if it was perfectly normal to be dressed that way. Dinner had ended up burnt, the smoke detectors going off, and they’d sat curled up with a Thai take out and all the windows open in an attempt to rid the place of the smell of cremated lamb chops and potatoes.

She shimmied into it, and to her delight it fit, even if her breasts were a little larger. They spilled over the top but her cleavage looked Elizabethan in a sexy way, and she grinned as she knew exactly what Frank was going to say about that. Finally, she removed her hair form its high bun, which had served nicely to give it some volume and fluffed it up and decided that the overall effect was actually pretty good.

She lay back on the bed, grabbed her phone and turned it into selfie mode, angling it just right so that she could get the full effect before she checked it, and fired it to Frank with a downright filthy message accompanying it and lay back to wait.

***** Frank had nodded when Fliss had said she was tired and needed to go to bed, and promised he’d be up in an hour or so, wanting to give her the time to just unwind. She’d been for her 6 week check-up and had assured him that everything was fine, but her general demeanour told him she was keeping something from him.

Trying not to think about it too much, he settled Alex down and flicked over to catch a re-run of Game of Thrones. It was the Battle Of The Bastards, his favourite episode of the entire series, and he was just mumbling to himself, calling Rickon Stark a ‘dumb ass mother fucker’ for not zig-zagging when his phone went. He absentmindedly reached for it, wondering if it was Simon telling him he’d finally grown a pair of balls and proposed, but it wasn’t, it was Fliss.

He opened the message and as soon as he saw the image he spluttered and the soda he had just taken a drink of dribbled straight down his shirt.

“Jesus fucking Christ.” He choked, wiping at the spilled Fanta, as he stared at the photo. His girl was led on the bed, in a sheer negligee, her hair fanning over the pillow, eyes bright and mischievous and the shot was angled to give a perfect shot of the top of her cleavage. It was accompanied with the words. “Oh I forgot to tell you, your favourite legs are back open for business…”

“You devious little minx, Miss Gallagher.” He mumbled, suddenly understanding exactly what it as she’d been hiding from him, and his cock stirred in his pants. In a flash her was up off the sofa, shoving Thor out of the door so he could pee before he locked up, gathered Alex in his arms and made his way up the stairs as fast as he could, letting the dog into Mary’s room as he was scrambling at the door to get in.

“What kept you?” Fliss asked as he walked into the room, gently placing Alex in the bedside crib, making sure the blankets were arranged carefully.

“Well you kinda caught me off guard.” He smirked, lifting an eyebrow as he gently lowered himself over her on the bed, tugging her hips and pulling her down slightly before he propped himself up on his elbows, caging her between his arms and legs. “You look sexy as fuck, momma bear.” Fliss let out a grin as his lips met hers, and his eyes lowered to her cleavage and he gave a groan. “And I’m not supposed to touch these?”

“No.”

“At all?”

“Not unless you want a face full of milk.” She looked at him.

“Is it strange I find that a little kinky?” Frank grinned and she blinked, shaking her head with a snort.

“You have issues.”

“Yeah and right now they’re in the trouser department.” He mumbled, dropping his lips to hers “I nearly choked when you sent me that message.”

“You like?” She purred gently and he let out another groan and nodded.

“I did, I do. A lot.” His lips pressed to hers again. The kiss quickly became heated, his hands tangling in her hair has he held her head still, and then he felt her pull away a little, and he frowned as she looked at him, biting her lip.

“What’s wrong?”

"Is it weird that we’re like gonna have sex with our baby in the same room? Can he see us?” she asked, her head rolling to look at Alex. "No, he can't even focus yet, and it’s not weird. I’m a modern man.” Frank replied, his hand cupping her cheek and turning her face back to his. “This is how it’s done. It’s probably very European of us actually." "Frank I'm from England." She rolled her eyes. "Lissy." Frank sighed softly, “Look, if you don't wanna..."

“No I do, I really do.” She took a deep breath “Sorry, I just…” “It’s okay.” He gave her a soft smile, before his lips found hers again. In between the dizzying kisses Frank moved his right hand, his fingers gently tracing up the outside of her thigh and under the hem of the sheer lace slip she was wearing, and his mouth moved to lightly trail kisses across her bare collar bone. With a soft sigh she nodded, acknowledging his unasked question and his lips moved downwards peppering warm, open mouthed pecks across the swell of her cleavage, careful to take his time and stay gentle. Fliss let out a shaky whisper of his name, her hands tangling into his hair as he moved his affections upwards slightly, skimming his nose up her sternum, nudging her chin back so he could turn his affections back to her neck. This time her gentle whisper became a loud groan which she stifled with her hand as he nipped at her neck and he felt her shiver underneath him.

“You okay?” he asked quietly, looking down at her. She nodded and with a wicked quirk of his eyebrow he stood up, scrambling out of his clothes as fast as he could before he fell forwards again, his hands pulling down her underwear, lips kissing at the spot just below her ear.

Fliss was utterly gone now, consumed by the sensations she hadn’t felt in so long and she tilted her head back, sighing softly as Frank continued to nibble at her neck, settling himself above her. His fingers gently dropped between her legs and he felt her slick against the tips as he gently coaxed at her clit, continuing until she was nothing short of a writhing mess clawing at his back, aching for him. They locked eyes as he took her left hand in his, and slowly worked into her, both moaning simultaneously at the sensation, Fliss’ eyelids fluttering shut as she felt him fill her before the flickered open again and she looked up at him.

“Go steady.” She whispered and, with a gentle nod, Frank began to move his hips slowly, displaying nothing but absolute tenderness in his thrusts which weren’t measured in the slightest. His free hand kept hold of her hip, keeping her as close as she could possibly be, enjoying the sensation of once more being inside her, in top of her, surrounded by her.

Meanwhile, Fliss was just as lost, but in her own thoughts. For some reason as good as she had felt before, now she was starting to panic a little, that stupid voice in her head mumbling all sorts of dumbass thoughts.

Okay, this feels familiar. Sex feels the same. Does it feel the same for him? Is he taking longer than normal? Oh shit, maybe I’m super stretched out and it’s terrible. Maybe I’m different now, and I’ll never be as good. Maybe I was never THAT good to start with though? I’ll ask… “Is it good? Is it the same as it was?” She gasped out and Frank stilled, looking down at her.

“What?” He panted slightly. "I asked does it feel the same? I mean..." Frank leaned down, gently rubbing his nose against hers. “It’s great … it feels really good.” He reassured her and she nodded.

“Okay, you can go a bit faster…”

“I don’t want to.” He mumbled, giving her a deep kiss. And he didn’t. He was enjoying the slowness of it all, and he kept his lazy thrusts aimed perfectly on her spot, drawing those delectable sounds from her throat. Fliss’ senses were on fire, and she broke the long, lazy kiss that they were sharing to stifle a moan against his shoulder when she felt herself starting to unravel.

And then…

A loud cry came from the basinet. They both stilled, looked at one another, and glanced over to the side of the bed. Silence, no movement bar the waving of a little arm.

"He's going to cry.” Fliss stuttered between her deep breathing “If he cries, do we stop? Is it child abuse if we keep going until we finish?" "He's stopped." Frank turned his head back to her. “What if there's something wrong and we’re here just boning."

Frank shut her up with a languid roll of his hips and she gave a soft gasp, her hands grasping at his biceps.

“Liss, he’s fine.”

“'We’re the kind of negligent parents…oh fuck.” She whimpered as he tilted his hips again. “The one’s you’d see in a movie like Trainspotting."

He shook his head, pulling out a little before he sank back into her, her body moving with his slightly and she looked up at him.

“When the police ask what happened, do we lie? Or do we say we were having sex while our baby quietly suffocated a few feet away?”

“For fucks sake Lissy.” Frank spluttered in frustration. “You gave me a blow job the other week on the sofa and he was asleep in the basket on the coffee table.”

“That was different” “How?”

“We were on the couch and I wasn't naked.” “You’re not naked now.” He shook his head. “Will you shut up and let me make you feel good?” Her random, stupid worries stopped and she closed her eyes, nodding, and he started his movements again. It didn’t take him long to get them back to where they were, his thrusts deep and he picked up his pace ever so slightly, her hands flying to his bare back as she gripped him tighter, wanting to feel all of him, as close as she possibly could. His lips found hers and she took the kiss, it left her breathless as the heat began to rise in her belly and she let out a soft moan, which he swallowed with his mouth where it morphed into his own low, mumble of her name as he felt her clench around him.

The sheets rustled underneath them both as their pace continued slow and languid until the very end when Fliss’ let her head tip back, her throat bared to Frank in utter bliss as she came hard, the world spinning around her, her moans soft and breathy as her legs trembled, sheer pleasure spearing through her entire body. At that, after actively fighting back his high for what felt like an age, Frank gave a low grunt which tuned into a gasp as he clung to his girl, spilling himself into her, his hips slowing to a stop as he collapsed forward.

“That was fucking great.” His voice was muffled as his face pressed into her neck, and Fliss felt herself flush. She let out a chuckle as her hands gently slid up his back and into his hair.

“Yeah, we still got it Sailor.”  She quipped and it was Frank’s turn to chuckle as he moved and pressed a soft kiss to her lips.

And then Alex did erupt into a full on screaming fit. Frank found himself thanking his son that he’d at least had the good grace to wait until he’d finished. He rolled off Fliss, landing on his back, hand running through his hair as she sat up and scooped Alex into her arms, sitting up against the headboard with him held to her, in the bed where his parents’ sinful deeds were likely still detectable. Frank looked at her, then to Alex whose tiny face was creased up in a loud wail as Fliss held him to her chest, trying to soothe him and he arched an eyebrow. "I take it the post sex snuggling is out?"

**** Chapter 13

[lifewouldbebetteronmars]

Hello, can you write a Thomastair based on the prompt where Alastair dies and Thomas thinks about their time together?? ❤❤❤

Of course I can! This is one of the ones I was actually excited to write because I know exactly what I want to write. I’m sorry that is took so long but it hurt to write and I hope you like it!

I hope none of you hate me after this because this fic might hurt more than Castle Towers Fall, and that’s saying a lot.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Seasons of Love (Modern AU)

“Five hundred twenty five thousand six hundred minutes

Five hundred twenty five thousand journeys to plan

Five hundred twenty five thousand six hundred minutes

How do you measure a life of a woman or a man?” - Seasons of Love, Rent

Thomas could barely remember the funeral, it had gone in a blur. There wasn’t a lot of crying, maybe Cordelia and Jasper (not that he really understood what had happened), but Thomas couldn’t even recall if he had cried as well, he hadn’t really even cried at all the past few days. He felt numb the whole time as everyone droned on and on about how sorry they were, how missed Alastair would be, how they could only imagine how he felt.

Thomas didn’t even know how he felt. All he knew was that it hurt. Everything hurts. And unlike every time before that, Alastair isn’t there to make it better. He didn’t know if he was angry or sad, he didn’t know if he was tired or hungry anymore.

Now he just sat there on the sofa, staring blankly at the wall, all alone in his and Alastair’s flat. James and Cordelia had offered to take Jasper for the weekend, saying it would be a good distraction for the both of them. After Sona had died, Alastair went to court to get custody over his brother, something Elias had detested and tried his hardest to fight. Thomas remember how the trials had been, how Alastair was barely grieving his mother in his haste to make sure Jasper wasn’t ruined by Elias like he was.

Alastair was pacing the floor of their bedroom, to the point where Thomas was concerned for the carpet underneath his feet.

“Calm down, love, it’ll be fine.” Thomas had tried to comfort from his spot on the edge of the bed, but apparently it was no use, because Alastair was still stressing anyways.

Alastair turned to him sharply, an unreadable look on his face. “But what if it’s not, Thomas? What if they rule in Elias’s favor? I won’t let my brother be ruined by that bastard, I won’t!”

“They won’t. Once they meet Elias and hear yours and Cordelia’s statements, Jasper will be in our custody, the lawyers said it would be an open and shut case. You know this.” Thomas had said calmly.

“But they also said that Elias could have a chance, with what his lawyers have been spewing about us.” Alastair spat and Thomas sighed, knowing he was right. Elias’s lawyers had pulled out all the stops in order to get Jasper. From saying Elias had successfully gone to rehab to saying Alastair shouldn’t have Jasper because he’s his half-brother, not even really a Carstairs in according to Elias’s lawyers.

Thomas then stood up, moving behind Alastair to wrap his arms around his waist and resting his chin on his shoulder. “But you and I both know that none of that matters. The judge will see through Elias’s facade and Jasper will be safe, here, with us before you know it. I promise.” Alastair turned and buried his head in Thomas’s chest.

“Thank you.” he whispered but Thomas heard him.

“Anytime, my love. Anytime.”

And Thomas had been right, the judge saw right through Elias’s facade at the last trial. Right after Elias’s lawyers had said it wouldn’t be beneficial for Jasper to grow up in a home with two men, instead of his own father. Needless to say, they had gotten to take Jasper home with them that very day. That was almost four years ago, even if it only felt like yesterday to Thomas. Alastair had only just been talking about what they were going to do for Jasper’s fourth birthday party, which Thomas didn’t even have the heart to cancel now. Even if Alastair wasn’t going to be there anymore. He looked around the room, at the photographs on the wall, all taken by Alastair, all of them amazing and special in their own way.

His eyes then focused on Alastair’s piano, just wishing Alastair come back and play it again for him. He could still remember the first time he had asked him to...

“Oh come on Alastair! Please!” Thomas had begged one lazy Sunday afternoon. They had spent most of the day in bed, basking in the sunlight streaming through the windows and sharing lazy kisses.

“No, Thomas.” Alastair had said and tried playing it off, saying that he was terrible at the piano, so bad that he would make Thomas deaf. But Thomas had said he would risk his hearing to hear Alastair play at least once.

Eventually Alastair had given in, rolling his eyes as he sat down at the piano bench. He took a deep breath before starting to play. It was simple, familiar tune that Thomas knew well. It was one of the first songs Thomas had sung to Alastair, an old Elvis Presley song, that Thomas had said reminded him of Alastair. And oh, Alastair wasn’t bad, not at all. He was absolutely amazing as he played the keys with a practiced finesse.

Thomas couldn’t help but sing the last line of the song as Alastair’s playing started to slow.

“For I can't help falling in love with you...” he sang, moving to sit next to the other boy, pressing a kiss to his cheek. Alastair leaned into his touch, resting his head on Thomas’s broad shoulder. His eyes were closed and he was breathing softly, Thomas would have thought he was asleep if he hadn’t just seen him playing.

“See, I’m terrible. I hope it was worth going deaf for.” Alastair whispered, eyes still closed. Thomas rolled his eyes and kissed the top of Alastair’s head.

“Yes, you’re absolutely horrible, Lassie.”

That little routine played out almost every time Thomas asked Alastair to play for him. Alastair would refuse and say he was terrible and out of practice, Thomas would convince him with kisses until he gave in and played a song or two. The three of them would spend afternoons like that; Alastair playing as Thomas sang, Jasper clapping from next to them on the bench, always asking them to play nursery rhymes he learned at his preschool.

He shifted his eyes from the piano to the rings on his pinkie and ring fingers. He looked at them with a sad smile, bittersweet thinking about the wedding they were supposed to have. They hadn’t told anyone their plans yet and hadn’t planned to, which annoyed all of their friends and family to no end.

They planned to take a trip to Paris in June, Jasper included, and have a small ceremony there, something small and intimate. It was their favorite place after all and it was where Thomas had realized his feelings for Alastair the first time and the place he’d proposed.

“Marry me.” Thomas had said. They were sitting on the balcony of their hotel room, drinking tea and talking before bed. Alastair had paused, his tea nearly spilling on him as the mug wobbled in his shaky hands.

He looked over at him, dark eyes wide and unsure. Thomas hated when he had that look on his face, one that he knew must have been constant during his relationship with Charles. Alastair looked down at his mug of tea just as quickly as he looked up, whispering. “Really?” It was just loud enough for Thomas to hear the way his voice shook, as if he thought this wasn’t real.

“Yes, really. I want you to be my husband, Lassie. I want to be able to call myself your husband and say ‘You see that beautiful man right there, that’s my husband’. I want to be with you for the rest of my life, until we’re old and grey, and wearing adult diapers because we can’t go to bathroom on our own anymore. I want us to have a family of our own, so Jasper isn’t by himself when he gets older. I want everything and more with you, I want that more than anything,” Thomas stopped, moving to get the ring box out of his pocket. He’d been carrying it around for months now, trying to get the courage to tell Alastair how he felt. “I’ve been carrying around this ring for a few months now, waiting for the perfect moment to arrive and I didn’t want to miss it. And now is the perfect moment. Because it’s just you and me in our favorite city in the world, and that’s perfect for me. So will you, Alastair Jahan Carstairs, marry me, Thomas Gideon Lightwood and make me the happiest man alive?”

Alastair finally looked up at him, eyes filled with tears, some of them slipping down his cheeks. He nodded with a small smile, not trusting himself to speak just yet. Thomas knew full well that he had a stupid grin on his face that Alastair would say make him look like an idiot. Thomas stood up and gathered Alastair into his arms, kissing every inch of his face that he could. Alastair was attempting to kiss back but it was hard with the amount of smiling he was doing.

When they had both finally pulled back, foreheads touching, Alastair’s arms wrapped around Thomas’s neck while his arms were wrapped tightly around Alastair’s waist. They stood there, swaying slightly to a beat no one else could hear.

“That last part was awfully cheesy, Lightwood.” Alastair teased lightly as he nuzzled their noses together.

“Soon to be Lightwood-Carstairs.” Thomas corrected.

“Or Carstairs-Lightwood.”

They hadn’t planned to tell anyone about what they were really going to do in Paris, Alastair had said it would be more fun to surprise them. He always did like the dramatics, no matter how much he denied it, it was a fact.

The ring on Thomas’s pinkie was smaller than the one on his ring finger, since it had been fitted for someone else. They weren’t fancy rings, made of silver with a small inscription on the inside of each one.

The bigger of the two read; A.J.C., standing for Alastair Jahan Carstairs. While the small read; T.G.L., for Thomas Gideon Lightwood of course. The inscriptions had been Alastair’s idea, he said it had made the rings a lot more personal than they appeared, like geodes.

He hasn’t taken the rings off since before the funeral. He hadn’t taken Alastair’s off since the hospital, when the nurse gave him Alastair’s bag of belongings. Thomas had cleaned it until his fingers were prunish, before slipping it on his pinkie, the only finger it would fit. He couldn’t bury the ring with Alastair, it hurt too much to even see him in the casket, much less with the ring he was supposed to have until he grew old.

But Alastair would never get to grow old. He would never have their wedding in Paris. He wouldn’t even be at Jasper’s birthday party next month, or the next Christmas, or their next anniversary. It made Thomas angry to think about that, that they didn’t get the years Thomas had promised him.

It made him angry when he thought of the time after their engagement, when they talked about death. How he’d made Alastair promise to find love again if he were to die young, and Alastair made him promise the same thing. He knew he couldn’t live up to that promise. He knew he never could. Because Alastair was it for him, he was the person who made his world turn and the one who made it feel like fighter jets in his stomach (not butterflies, because those are too soft to describe how Alastair makes him feel).

How could anyone else replace that? No one could. No can ease the unbearable pain he’s in, no one can make him stop feeling like he’s going to crawl out of his own skin. Alastair was the only one for him. His true love, his soulmate, all the cliche things like that.

“You better not fall in love with me, Lightwood.”

“That won’t be a problem, Carstairs.”

Alastair had teased when they first got together, half serious and half not. Thomas wasn’t sure if he was grateful that he didn’t listen or not. Maybe if he had listened he wouldn’t be in this position...no, he can’t think that. He would never regret Alastair, never. If he did, it would make him no better than Charles, and Thomas had always strived to be better than him, to make sure Alastair never felt the way he did with Charles ever again.

“I’m so happy I didn’t listen.”

Thomas had whispered against Alastair’s skin in bed that night, causing Alastair to look at him in confusion. He hadn’t remembered when he told Thomas to not fall in love with him.

“I’m happy you didn’t listen either.”

Alastair had said later on, when he thought Thomas had fallen asleep. He hadn’t, but couldn’t bring himself to tell Alastair that, knowing it would embarrass him.

He couldn’t help but lose himself in the memories, nearly drowning himself in the process. From the first day they met, it had been Alastair and it would always be Alastair. That had never changed. Not in the near decade he had known Alastair. Not even when he’s old and grey, in adult diapers and can barely remember his own name. It will always be Alastair.

“You must be Alastair Carstairs! I’m Thomas Lightwood, nice to meet you!” Thomas had said excitedly, holding out his hand for Alastair to shake.

Alastair looked at his hand warily before shaking it. “You’re a little too small, Thomas. I think I’m going to call you pipsqueak.”

Thomas hadn’t even been listening, distracted by the pretty boy in front of him. “I’ll call you Lassie then.” The other boy looked at him in surprise, a small smirk curling on his lips.

“I think we’re going to get along just fine, Thomas Lightwood.”

[alostsock]

With me.

Summary: Andy and Nicky get kidnapped. Post-movie.

TW: kidnapping, starvation, dehydration, weight loss, temporary character death (I mean it’s The Old Guard?), a bit of blood, mentions of violence.

AN: I didn’t know you could get cut off in the tags that’s never happened to me before apparently there’s a length limit.

For all her years, Andy cannot remember having felt purpose like this before. Knowing that her body no longer heals does nothing to dissuade her - if anything, it motivates her further. She may break, she may hurt but she now sees, as she hasn’t in centuries (maybe ever) that it is worth it.

Nile seems to accept her leadership, and follows it without question.

Nicky and Joe, however, draw on almost two thousand years of combined stubbornness trying to keep her from harm.

Nicky researches nutrition and tries to serve her balanced (boring, bland) meals despite her protests. Joe finds her the best available body armour (never mind how it moves). They both throw themselves in front of her at every possible opportunity. (This isn’t to say that Nile doesn’t, in the face of real danger - just that Nicky and Joe don’t seem to understand that she doesn’t need protecting from traffic or raccoons or hot oil on the stove).

She doesn’t think she’s been particularly careless - they vet jobs as they’ve always done, and now they have Copley to help. She’s not reckless, just filled with purpose, with vigour, with the need to do right. Besides, all her years have taught her that sometimes, despite best efforts, jobs go wrong.

It doesn’t entirely bother her that they’ve been locked up in a cell. It’s hardly the first time, after all. Besides, she has every faith in Nile and Joe and Copley to track them down.

What she does hate with every fibre of her being, is that Nicky is locked up with her.

He reassures her, because of course he does, that it isn’t her fault, just as she reassures him that it isn’t his.

They’ve been captured together before, they all have, really, and they know the routine. They have exhausted their options for escape, have tried at every opportunity, and have failed. All they’ve managed to do is maybe piss off their captors a little more than was strictly necessary. It isn’t in them to just give up and accept their predicament, though - they need to try everything first. Once they’ve done this, however, all that’s left to do is wait.

It’s all standard procedure, as far as standard procedure goes for a bunch of immortal warriors. Andy finds the way that criminals haven’t really changed the core of their modus operandi in decades more than a little tiresome. There’s an angry kingpin (with his fingers in many increasingly unconscionable pies) who doesn’t believe that nobody hired them, who scoffs at their insistence that there aren’t more of them, a selection of cronies and hired hands who are all too happy to try to beat the answers out of them, and a general limited amount of food, water, and warmth to make them extra miserable. Frankly, she’s bored with it.

Joe is coming. Nile is coming. They just have to bide their time, like every time this has happened before.

The one difference - the only difference - is that this time Andy is mortal.

Nicky (and Joe, her boys, her beloved boys) have always hated it when she put herself in danger, and even more so when she did it to protect them. But, until this point, they recognized her leadership and would defer to it. They accepted that this sometimes meant letting her take the brunt of their latest opponent’s anger if she felt it necessary to keep them safe, or to get them out of a sticky situation.

This time, however, there is no dissuading Nicky. No command, no proposed strategy will change his mind. Andy still puts up a fight, but eventually he turns those big, plaintive eyes on her and admits in a soft voice that the best way she can keep him safe right now is if she lets him take care of her - if she lets him stop them from doing something to her which cannot be undone.

Andy has never been able to say no to Nicky when he looks at her like that, and this time is no different.

So, she agrees. When their captors come in to see if they’re ready to talk, Nicky is the one who goads them, infuriates them. When they’re delivered pitiful meals, he refuses his half, begging with his soulful eyes.

I can starve, he says. You can’t.

I don’t need water, he says. You do.

Andy hates it. She doesn’t feel mortal, she feels the same as she always has. She feels strong, she feels enraged, she wants to protect her Nico. She wants to shield him from the world. She knows, logically, that after nine hundred years there isn’t much innocence left, but still he feels so young to her. They both do. They all do.

She thinks of the plea in his eyes, though, the desperation in his face as he silently begs her to stay behind him, to stay silent, to let him take it, and so she does.

She suspects it isn’t entirely quick tempers or even benevolence that has their captors keep taking Nicky’s bait, though - she suspects that the brighter among them recognize the look in her eyes - they see that by hurting Nicky they hurt her more than they could by beating her.

---

They lose track of time. There is no natural light in the room they are in, so they don’t really know how many days have passed. Andy isn’t sure if the room is getting colder, or if they’re maybe just getting weaker with lack of food. Perhaps both.

The first few days their captors try violence, but when neither of them cracks (and also as they seem to take out no small number of henchmen every time they are in the same room as them) they seem to settle on trying to starve the answers they want out of them. Nicky continues to insist on giving Andy his share, so while she doesn’t know exactly how many days it’s been, she knows it’s been long enough for Nicky to start looking grey with dehydration. She suspects he will die from it soon, but when she brings this up to him he just gives her a tired smile and reminds her that it’s fine if he does - he will come back. The only thing that seems to matter to him is that she doesn’t.

She’s miserable - cold and damp and hungry - but what hurts the most is watching Nicky waste away beside her.

---

They talk - or, at least, at the beginning they talk. As time goes on and Nicky grows weaker, it mostly becomes Andy talking while Nicky dozes (or lies unconscious, or dies and comes back) tucked into her side. It starts as discussions of possible means to escape (always in oldest languages they share, just in case anyone is listening), but when that seems to become increasingly hopeless, and as Nicky starts to lose the energy to hold his head up, Andy starts spending most of her time telling him her favourite stories of years gone by.

They (he - Andy reminds herself) might be immortal, but they are still human. Their bodies will heal, will regenerate but they need food and water to do so, so as Nicky fades and starts to die not only from lack of water but from starvation the deaths start to come closer and closer together. He will die from malnourishment, come back, and then, when his body realizes it still has no stores to draw from, still has no energy to heal itself with, he will die again.

Sometimes, when he is too out of it to protest, she tips small sips of water into his mouth. This tends to end up with him waking up enough to realize what she is doing, at which point he will turn tear-filled eyes on her and remind her that while he will come back from whatever physical trauma his body is put through, he will not be able to handle waking up to find her permanently dead beside him when he could have prevented it.

---

They move them once during their captivity. Having learned early on that entering the room while either of them is awake is dangerous, both times they accomplish the move by knocking them out with gas and transporting them while they’re unconscious. Andy comes to in a shipping container, bound with rope and alone. She makes quick work of the bindings before exhausting herself trying to find a way out. Nothing gives, no matter how hard she tries. 

She loses time again. Perhaps more gas? Maybe her body just gave out? She isn’t sure, but when she wakes she and Nicky have been tossed in the same room again, carelessly dropped on the cold floor. There is blood on Nicky’s temple that wasn’t there before.

She wonders if their captors have realized that, no matter how much he bleeds, none of the marks linger on his skin. She hopes that the mess of dried blood he’s covered in is enough to mask the fact that he isn’t actually bleeding where he should be, because she doesn’t want to think about how their situation could get messier if they figured that out. Luckily, they seem to prefer keeping their distance (or perhaps they have just realized it is best for their own safety to not get too close).

Andy frees herself from her new bounds. Nicky stirs but doesn’t seem to have the energy to fully wake, so once Andy has repeated the process of checking their cell for potential means of escape (she doesn’t find any) she drags him to a corner of the room and, leaning against the wall, pulls him to her chest.

---

Someone comes to check on them what Andy assumes is once a day, with a bottle of water and some stale bread, or sometimes a can of soup and a demand for answers that they both don’t have and would never give anyway.

Nicky is barely more than skin and bones, a painfully fragile warmth (and sometimes lack thereof) in her arms. She is hardly any better, the food they get absolutely pitiful, but at least she hasn’t died of starvation. She isn’t the one who keeps coming to in stuttering huffs of air before inevitably going limp again - over and over and over.

---

Andy rouses from sleep. She’s hungry - hungrier than usual. She thinks they haven’t been fed in a while. Nicky is still slumped against her, his soft breaths puffing against her neck. She tiredly runs her hands through his dirty hair, brushing it back from his face as she wonders if they have given up on them entirely. She feels like it’s been too long, like they are overdue for food and questions, but she has no way of being sure. Maybe this day has just felt longer than the others. Maybe it’s been more than one.

The door opens with a clang. Andy doesn’t bother to look up, keeping her face buried in Nicky’s hair and keeping her own thin arms wrapped around his frail form as she holds him close on her lap. Even when she senses someone letting out a breath and dropping hard onto their knees beside her, she doesn’t look up. She would fight, but she doesn’t have the energy to. Maybe she could knock out this one with the remaining dregs of her strength, but then what? She doesn’t think she has it in her to fight her way out all while carrying Nicky, frighteningly light as he is at the moment.

Joe is coming. Nile is coming. They just have to wait.

A shaking hand meets hers where it is buried in Nicky’s hair. She flinches, but doesn’t pull away. The hand reaches across Nicky to tuck her own hair behind her ear. Initially she recoils, but then she takes a deep breath and tries to muster the reserves of her strength. The person is close. Maybe she could take this one out. She takes another breath, steeling herself. Her eyelashes brush against Nicky’s greasy hair as she blinks, her face still tucked down onto his head. She moves to look up but then she realizes that she knows that hand.

She knew that hand for millennia, but she hasn’t held it in hundreds of years.

She blinks, raising her head.

The world swims in front of her, and she blinks a few more times before it comes into focus.

She must be dreaming.

She hears shouting, sees the mouth in front of her moving but her brain doesn’t connect the sight with the sound. There’s the sound of running footsteps and Joe - or her mind’s conjured version of Joe - comes skidding around the corner, making a beeline for the three of them when he enters the room.

Suddenly, there are inexplicably warm hands pulling Nicky away from her. She clings tighter, clings with all the strength she has left as dream-Joe tries to take Nicky from her.

She huffs out a disgruntled protest, complains that this is my dream, why can’t you do what I want. I want him with me before burying her face back into Nicky’s hair and trying to let the dream take her somewhere else. Perhaps her subconscious can take them somewhere warm.

She doesn’t get the chance. Moments later, hands are prying Nicky from her arms and she finds that she doesn’t have enough strength to keep fighting back. She opens her eyes again to see the arms pick Nicky up, cradling him against a broad chest. She sees Nile enter the room, coming up to her with her hands raised before pausing in front of her and giving her a brief relieved smile before hauling her to her feet and pulling her arm across strong shoulders.

She doesn’t see anybody else.

Just Joe and Nile.

Joe and Nile have come.

---

She vaguely remembers stumbling through hallways, Nile hauling her uncooperative body along. Joe is just ahead of them, Nicky held close.

Their path out is clear.

Some of the guards have been cut down, some have been shot, others, inexplicably, have been struck with arrows. Nicky hasn’t used a bow in decades, Joe in even longer. She didn’t realize Nile knew how.

When they reach the getaway car Nile helps her into the backseat before climbing in after her, taking her hand tightly in both of hers. Joe gets in on the other side with Nicky still in his arms, maneuvering awkwardly, trying to avoid bumping Nicky against the door.

Andy leans her head on Joe’s shoulder, leaving her right hand in Niles’ as her left buries itself in Nicky’s hair. She breathes in the smell of Joe’s shirt, finally allowing the last remnants of tension to leave her body. She sees Booker get into the driver’s seat. They must have needed to call him in for backup. The passenger seat is empty. She supposes they’re a little cramped in the back, but she doesn’t want to let go of Nile and she isn’t sure she would be able to handle Nicky or Joe moving away from her. She relaxes completely against Joe’s side, and relief so strong it makes her want to cry overcomes her as he presses a kiss to her hair.

She sleeps.

The passenger side door opens and shuts.

The wheels squeal as the car pulls away.

[dhwty-writes]

A Health Hazard

This took a lot longer to write than it had any right to. The first 1.5k words were written in under 2 hours, the rest in thrice that time. I'm done with today and this prompt. Written for day 3: Reading by the fire/cuddling by the fire of @witcher-and-his-bard‘s winter prompts Have fun!

Summary: Geralt of Rivia is bored. This hasn't happened in forever. Literally. He learns to understand Jaskier's whining a lot better. 

Warnings: none, besides the fact that this is unedited

Read on AO3

All things considered, it had taken a surprisingly short time for the impossible to happen. Apparently, all that it took was three weeks. Three weeks cooped up in Jaskier's generously-sized lodgings in Oxenfurt with nothing to do and lo and behold, Geralt of Rivia was bored. Bored! Could you imagine that?

It hadn't been so bad in the beginning. After five days he finally hadn't felt the need to rise with the sun and had let Jaskier kiss him goodbye, running late for a lecture, while he turned over and slept in. He couldn't remember when he had last done that. Truth be told, he couldn't remember if he'd ever done that.

Certainly not since he'd gotten to Kaer Morhen; there was no slacking in the witchers' keep. He briefly wondered if passing out after a fight and waking up days later could count as sleeping in. Probably not.

No, sleeping in was something for the safe and comfortable, and for the first time since he could think Geralt could count himself among them. All thanks to Jaskier, of course, who did his best to spoil his lover rotten. All on the cost of the Oxenfurt Academy, naturally.

The Academy spared no cost or effort to ensure the comfort of their lecturers—and Jaskier wasn't just any lecturer, he was probably the most popular bard on the continent. Geralt had first realised that Jaskier was rich when he had seen his personal study, stocked with books right up to the ceiling. Most of them were beautiful leather-bound tomes, written by hand with detailed pictures. He had felt a bit faint when discovering that some of them were in the second row.

No matter what Jaskier said about gifts from colleagues and magical innovations called a printing spell, books were immeasurable luxuries. And the bard owned close to a hundred of them. Personally.

Still, Geralt had been hesitant, at first, to make use of the private bath that came with the four-room apartment, or to call upon a servant to fetch him things. That was until Jaskier had told him outright how much they paid him for a single lecture, let alone several of them each day for months. If they were willing to pour that much money down the drain, he couldn't really feel bad about it.

So, the following days and weeks Geralt allowed Jaskier to teach him how to enjoy himself. He learned how to sleep in, indulged in almost daily baths, spent his days reading novels and poems out of Jaskier's personal collection. He didn't protest when the bard ordered too much food. Didn't comment on the overabundance of sweets—he even admitted he liked it. And when Jaskier asked for too exotic spices he only raised his eyebrows.

Once he had even ventured into the extensive Academy library—Geralt had never seen so many books in one place in his entire life—to find a collection of chivalrous legends Jaskier had told him about. He had been welcomed by an overly polite librarian, who had gone ahead to recommend him a dozen other books with the same topic, complete with annotations noting upon all the different possible interpretations. And if that hadn't been enough, he had been offered to take them with him. All of them. At once. As long as he liked. With no credentials but the name "Pankratz". He couldn't fathom how the library hadn't been robbed empty yet. When he had told Jaskier so, he had only laughed and kissed him gently, calling him a silly witcher.

It all had culminated when later that day, after Jaskier had ordered their dinner to be brought up to their rooms, it had been Geralt to stop the servant by the arm and ask for a bottle of wine.

"Right away, sir," the servant had answered. "Do you have any preferences?"

"Umm-" After a quick glance back to Jaskier, who had smiled encouragingly, he had added: "Est Est?"

He had half expected to be reprimanded, but the servant had only looked at him as if that had been obvious. "The year, sir. Do you have any preferences for the year?"

"I hear 1260 was especially good," Jaskier had piped up and that had been the end of that. They had had a very nice evening and an even nicer night, albeit neither of them had gotten a lot of sleep.

The problem was that since then over a week had passed. Geralt had read through all the books he had borrowed and leafed through a number of volumes of Jaskier's personal collection. He wasn't feeling like reading anymore. He had visited several taverns to play Gwent, but that too was interesting only for so long.

He had taken Jaskier up on his offer and accompanied him to a few lectures, but that had grown boring, too. Of course, he could talk about his adventure and the content of the poems, but that wasn't what Jaskier and his students were talking about. Instead, they lead very heated discussions about rhymes and metaphors and what Jaskier called a meter ("It's like a rhythm, Geralt."). But in the end, he didn't care if the rhyme was a pair or not, or if the rhythm was an asbestos or a dromedary or something.

He flopped down on the couch with an uncharacteristically dramatic sigh. Jaskier had returned from his last lecture an hour ago and was now holed up in his study doing... something. As if him being away all day wasn't bad enough, he had to continue working afterwards!

Geralt sat up with a start. Shit, was that how Jaskier felt all year round on the Path? It was a horrifying thought; no wonder the bard was so whiny all the time. Well, Geralt was different. He certainly wouldn't stoop so low. No, he definitely wouldn't whine.

 ~*~

 "Jaskier," Geralt whined from his place on the extra armchair they had acquired the previous day. "Are you done yet?"

The poet mouthed some words along while he frantically scribbled them down on yet another snippet of parchment. "Almost, darling, give me a minute," he muttered absentmindedly just like he had half an hour ago.

Geralt threw his head back and groaned loudly. He was going mad; he was sure of it. It was not normal for people to go such a long time without someone charging at them with swords or claws or dirty underwear. It could not be healthy. "D'you think I should talk to Shani?"

"Yeah, yeah," Jaskier mumbled under his breath, flipping through the hundreds of pages of notes he was keeping.

"Hmm." So Jaskier agreed that boredom was a serious health hazard. He drummed his fingers on the armrest. Maybe he should go do it right away?

He got to his feet and was almost at the door when he halted. No, it was late already, sundown a few hours past. He walked back to the armchair. But maybe-

"Geralt," Jaskier said with a heavy sight and put down his pen. "Love. You're pacing." 

"Really?" The witcher grit out. "Wouldn't have noticed."

"Can you just-" He rubbed at his temples. He looked incredibly tired. "I'm sorry, five more minutes, alright? Then we can do whatever you want, what d'you think of that."

"Hm." Geralt thought that was bullshit and that Jaskier should take a break.

But the poet was too engrossed in his own mind to even hear it.

'Alright then,' he thought and sat back down, arms crossed. 'Five more minutes.' He could manage five minutes of meditation. Easily.

He closed his eyes and focused on his breathing, waiting for the calm to settle over him. What followed were probably the longest five fucking minutes of Geralt's life.

No sooner were they over that his eyes snapped open and he rushed over to his bard, holding him close from behind and nuzzling against his neck.

Jaskier chuckled softly. "Hello there. Five minutes over already?"

"Yes," Geralt said resolutely. "What're you writing anyways?" he asked, trying to peer over his bard's shoulder.

Still scribbling, Jaskier answered: "A novel, dear."

"A novel?" he replied and pulled back a little. "Since when?" Jaskier never wrote novels. Songs and poems, yes, and on one memorable occasion a play, too, but they had both agreed that it was horrid and that he should stick to shorter stuff.

He shrugged and slammed the piece of paper onto one of the piles. Apparently, there was an order to the chaos. "The day before yesterday, I think? Didn't really pay attention."

Geralt snorted. That went without saying. "Please tell me you didn't write all that in-"

Jaskier gasped softly and pulled up another sheet of paper. "Shh, give me a minute, love, else I'll forget this sentence. Oh fuck, this is so good-"

He bared his teeth. "You said-"

"Please, Geralt," Jaskier begged. 'Fuck.' The cursed bardlet knew damn well that he couldn't resist him; not with the pure desperation in his voice.

So, Geralt contented himself with grumbling displeased and pressing his nose against Jaskier's neck, while he waited for the scratching of the quill on paper to finally subside.

Thankfully, it didn't take too long for Jaskier to slam the quill down and forcefully push the paper away. "Done," he declared, exhaustion plain in his voice. "I'm done for today."

He raised his eyebrows. "You sure?"

"Y-yeah. I'm sure." The tiny pause was enough for Geralt to know that, no, Jaskier wasn't done in the slightest. If not for him the poet would probably stay up until the early hours of morning, crafting one masterful line after the other. Until he'd inevitably collapse from the exhaustion, smudging the ink of his uppermost sheet of paper all over his face.

He couldn't fathom how much self-control it cost Jaskier to turn around and ask: "So, what is bothering you so terribly, my beloved witcher?"

Geralt glared at him defiantly. It took him all of three seconds to cave. "I'm bored," he complained and frowned.

The effect was instantaneous and his expression grew soft. "Oh, my dear, I'm terribly sorry."

There was something about Jaskier's voice, something about his touch, about the way he brought Geralt close for a gentle kiss. Something that made him go from wanting to believe his words so badly to actually believing them.

The smile on his bard's face was nothing short of adorable when he asked: "Anything I can do about it?"

"Hm." Well, he could think of quite a few things to bide their time.

Before he could voice any of them, though, Jaskier continued: "Yeah, that's what I thought." He stood up and took his hand. "Come on, Geralt, I'm dead on my feet. Let's get somewhere more comfortable, then we can figure that out."

He gladly let himself be led. As long as it meant spending time with Jaskier, he was hardly about to object. The poet flitted around their apartment, collecting pillows and blankets, while he sent Geralt off to heat the kettle and get them some tea, all the while humming with excess energy.

Not fifteen minutes later Geralt found himself on the floor in front of the fireplace with a lapful of bard who was cursing quietly whenever he sipped his too-hot tea and inevitably burnt his tongue. Geralt couldn't help but smile as he cradled his Jaskier closer to his chest.

"What's your novel about?" he whispered into his ear.

"Oh, it's a romance!" he replied cheerfully.

Geralt pulled back, a horrible thought dawning on him. "Jaskier...," he growled. "Please tell me you're not writing a romance novel about us."

"Well," the poet drawled and Geralt groaned. So that was a yes. "I am not writing about Geralt of Rivia, the witcher, and Jaskier the bard."

"But?"

"But it might be that the two protagonists are a chivalrous monsterslayer and his loyal painter companion."

"Jaskier...," he pleaded even though he knew it was useless.

"What? In my defence, it was you who dragged in the knightly ballads!"

"Hm." That was a shit defence and they both knew it. Unwilling to start an argument, though, he just pulled Jaskier closer against his chest and leaned his forehead against his shoulder. "Tell me more."

And tell him more he did. Thank the gods it was so easy to get Jaskier rambling. He told him about the two protagonists, Eric and Dandelion, who had met shortly after the artist had abandoned the court; he had been living at, to find real inspiration out in the world. He was, apparently, entirely insufferable and a notorious womanizer-

"What?" Geralt interrupted him with a quiet chuckle. "Next you tell me he set out into the world to draw nude portraits of all his lovers."

"Oh no!" He felt Jaskier tense up before even the lament had left his mouth. "Oh, fuck, Geralt, that's brilliant, I-" His mouth snapped shut. His eyes flitted around nervously as he was obviously contemplating what the worse fate was: abandoning his lover or risking the loss of an idea.

Geralt quickly made the decision for him as he opened his arms. "Go on, bard," he said with a soft smile. "Write it down before it's gone again." He had lived with Jaskier long enough to become well acquainted with all of his sorrows.

The smile he got in return was almost worth it. "You're the best, I love you, I'm so sorry," he blabbered, scrambling to his feet. He pecked him on the mouth with a quick: "Be right back."

'No, you won't,' Geralt thought adoringly as he watched him bolt to his desk. "Just bring something to write with when you do!" he called after him and leaned back against the couch. He couldn't quite bring himself to wipe the lopsided grin off his face.

It was going to be a long winter. But he wouldn't have it any other way.

[deja-you]

Girl can you please write either a Laf or Jefferson fix based off of Tis the Damn season?!?! Miss Swift has me all in my feelings 🥰😭

drabble masterlist

this took me a while to get around to, but this is definitely one of my favorite drabbles :)

You distinctly remember Thomas saying it’s never too late, but you can’t imagine he still means it.

The last time you saw him – it hurts to think about the last time – was years ago. It was only a few days after his graduation party, you remembered this because there were still photos of Thomas covering the walls in his family’s home and confetti was still tucked into the corners. You kept a small piece of green and gold confetti tucked away in your heart.

His room was a safe haven from the hurricane that was graduation, moving trucks, and you. For a minute, it was your safe haven. You felt out of place in his bedroom, where, when the shelves were filled, books spilled out onto the hardwood floors. Where signed baseballs sat like trophies on the desk. Where a radio always played upbeat songs.

Everything was so damn americana.

You realize that the fact that you felt out of place was part of the appeal. There was a part of you that was ignited when he moved around the furniture so the two of you could dance. An addictive part of your personality that adored the fact that he would rearrange his nostalgic world for you (the knowledge that he would do anything for you made you glow a little brighter, and he liked seeing you glow).

You’re older now, but you don’t think you were any smarter than you were at eighteen. While you’re aware that everything has changed, it’s becoming increasingly more apparent that nothing has changed. Your childhood home hasn’t changed much (although your mom is excited to show you her new dishwasher). Even though you’ve flown across the country to be where you are now – you can’t really call it home anymore – it hardly takes you any time to adjust back to your old habits.

Grocery shopping. You can’t remember the last time you bought your own groceries, but you figure it’s a small enough town that you won’t be swarmed by adoring fans. Maybe just classmates who never spoke to you in high school pretending to be your best friend, but you could live with that.

It’s an in-and-out trip. You’ve been given a short list, and unsalted butter and whole milk aren’t exactly difficult groceries to find. You keep your hood on and go through self-checkout. You can’t tell if you hate or love just how mundane this activity is for you, but you’re at least aware it’s a change of pace. You have a plastic bag of groceries in hand and are nearly back to your car when you spot it.

The very same car that drove you home from Friday night football games parked in the lot, mud staining the tires. You’re reminded again that nothing has changed when your pulse quickens by just a few beats (but it’s enough for you to know that you’re not over it, never will be, really). You can’t hear the engine running and there’s no one in the front seat, so you breathe a sigh of relief that you didn’t run into him today.

“Hey, I like your flannel.”

Of course fate (if that’s what you’re going to call it) won’t let you off that easy. You could pretend you hadn’t heard him and sprint to your car, that was always an option. But it wouldn’t be a good look, and your heart desperately wanted to see him again.

“I’m sure you would,” you turn to face him, grocery bag swinging violently in your hand, “you picked it out for me.”

He looks absolutely brilliant. Your closet is exclusively an eternal summer collection due to the unrelenting L.A. sun; you don’t even know how to wear winter. Your best attempt was a flannel from high school. But Thomas. He may very well be the definition of December, because you are convinced the midnight thread of his sweater was invented with his very being in mind. Somehow his smile is fresh like April and his eyes are warm like July, and – damn, he’s all twelve months, isn’t he?

Thomas is much more beautiful than you could have remembered, and you’re drowning in the familiarity of it all. You feel like less of yourself, like you could be absorbed by his presence just by being near him. You’re reminded why you left and you’re reminded why it was so hard to leave. You still haven’t decided if you had made the right choice.

“I nearly forgot you were back in town,” he says, and you don’t believe him. You’ve thought about him every time you thought about coming home. It would be rude of him not to return the same courtesy to you.

“Your mom told me you were coming back for the holidays,” Thomas adds on, feeling the need for an explanation.

You cock your head to the side slightly. There are dozens of questions that you want to ask him, but you don’t. “You talked to my mom?”

It’s a small town. Everyone knows everyone. It’s a stupid question, but you can’t help but wonder how often they talk about you.

“Last week at church,” he replies.

You nod once finding the answer less than satisfactory. He’s really made this town his home, and you don’t know if you’re relieved or feeling remorseful at the thought that that could have been you.

“I’m not really here for the holidays,” you say. It’s not an important fact, but maybe he cares. You hope he cares. “Just for the weekend. I’m headed back to L.A. on Monday.”

You wait for emotions to flash over his face, but he just gives you a friendly smile. It hurts worse than a fucking knife.

“Too bad. I’m sure the town wishes you’d stay longer,” he says.

You’re not sure if he means it. You’re not sure what he means by it. Does he wish you’d stay longer? Or was it his passive aggressive way of wishing you had never come back by hiding bitter resentment behind kind words? You decide against the last part. You wouldn’t put it past Thomas to wield his words like weapons, but he would never do that with you.

“Maybe I’ll stay longer when I’m not so busy.” You shrug and shift the bag of groceries from one hand to the other.

He laughs, not in a scornful way, mostly it’s disbelief. “I highly doubt that.”

You don’t even have to ask him what he means by that; the both of you are  well-versed in your habits of leaving. The two of you exchange a few more pleasantries before saying goodbye. Thomas says something along the lines of I hope to see you around, and you’re left wondering once again if he means any of it.

Thomas has the same phone number from high school. You’re not surprised, he’s always been a traditionalist, and from your experience, you know he’s never taken well to change.

You’re only home for the weekend, so you don’t have time to play the who’s-going-to-contact-who-first game. You call him, and an hour later you’re meeting him in the parking lot in front of your old school. You’ve told your mom you’re meeting up with an old friend (it’s not exactly a lie) and she’s glad that you’re reconnecting with your high school friends. You don’t care to elaborate any more on the subject.

Thomas holds the passenger-side door open for you, and you climb into his car just like you’ve done hundreds of times before. You’ve probably spent hours and hours wasting your time just thinking about him, so now that he’s right in front of you, neither of you want to waste any more time. You fall into easy conversation as if nothing has changed (nothing is the same anymore, both of you know this), careful not to address the elephant in the small town.

The two of you spend hours talking, and it easily turns into an entire day. You talk about everything until there’s nothing left to talk about, and then both of you are content to use your mouths for the things between you that can’t be said.

He has a house now that’s very much him. Thomas’s bedroom in his new house has furniture you’re unaccustomed to, but the space itself is a memory. They may be new titles, but there are still books overflowing onto the floor. You’re not even surprised. In fact, you find it all very comforting.

His touch on your skin is familiar, and you relive every moment with him from the first to the last (even though that part still stings). Thomas is your past and your present, and you don’t even dare to think about your future when he’s got his arms wrapped around your torso. Nothing feels like home the way he does.

You’ve nearly spent half the day in his touch, something you must’ve done plenty of times before. You want him to ask you to stay, and not just for another hour and not just for another day and not just for another month and not just for another year. But you know he won’t, because he doesn’t think you want him to (you want him to). Thomas doesn’t ask you to stay because he doesn’t think you’ll forgive him if he asks this of you.

As if forgiveness is something we choose to do.

When you finally detangle your limbs from his, you find your discarded sweatshirt quickly in an attempt to replace his warmth with something artificial. It doesn’t work. It’s not really fair that you get to be the one who leaves him twice, but you don’t exactly feel like you’ve won anything.

It should be better than this, you think to yourself. But you know the heart that’s really breaking is your own.

[fungalnebula]

Prologue

Chapter One (will be linked when published)

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There was a large tube inside the basement of the Fenton building. It was closed off by a large, military grade door, securing the emptiness of the tube. This machine had been sitting in the basement of the Fenton building, unused, since its conception two long years ago.

“Danny, why didn’t you tell us about this?” One of Danny’s best friends, Sam, asked as Danny punched in a code to release the contents of the empty tube. “This is so cool!”

Sam loved the Ghost Aesthetic. Danny felt a little bad for not telling her about the broken portal because of that.

“It didn’t work so I thought you guys wouldn’t care,” Danny said. “It was broken anyway…”

“Dude, it’s still a ghost portal!” Danny’s other best friend, Tucker, exclaimed. “Even if it doesn’t work, all the bones are still there.”

“I’m sorry, guys. I didn’t know it would be that interesting.”

“Are you insane!?” Sam exclaimed, “this is the coolest thing I’ve ever seen. Let me take a picture of you!”

“No way, Samantha.” Danny groused, “there is no way I’m getting in that thing. What if the reason it didn’t work is because of loose wires or something? I don’t want to die.”

“You won’t die and you know I hate it when you call me Samantha,” she chastised. “You said it’s been broken for years! There’s no way it’ll work if it hasn’t already. It’s like a dead bear, it can’t hurt you.”

“Oh, yeah?” Danny laughed at her analogy. “You can still fall on a dead bear and get maimed by its teeth AND SLASH OR claws, Samantha.” Danny mocked Sam, waving his hands with each syllable of her name.

“Yeah, bad metaphor, just get in there. You won’t get electrocuted or anything. Your parents probably disconnected it from the power when they gave up on it.”

“Yeah, you’re probably right.” Danny finally conceded, “let me at least wear one of the suits my parents made for me. You know, just in case.”

“Is it insulated?” Tucker chuckled.

“Yes, Tucker,” Danny retorted. “It is insulated, as a matter of fact.”

Danny walked to a cabinet labeled “Ecto Suits” and pulled out a white jumpsuit with a black collar. He adorned it as well as some black gloves and black boots. He noticed Tucker smirk as Sam attempted to suppress a snort. Danny stuck his tongue out at his two best friends in the world. He’d do anything for those jokers. Danny zipped up his new outfit and took a hesitant step towards the defunct portal.

“You guys really want to do this?” Danny had to force this last word out of his throat. He had been assured that he was safe, but was he really?

“Yeah,” Sam was gentle now. “You’ll be fine. All I want is a little picture of you in that neat thingy.”

Tucker put his hand on Danny’s shoulder. “Don’t worry man, it’s unplugged.” Tucker pointed to a plug on the ground nearby, assuming it was the power source for the portal.

“That makes me feel a bit better.” Danny sighed, relieved. He took another few steps and was in front of the portal. It was eerie and echoey. “Oooo” Danny made a noise and heard it bounce off the metal walls inside.

“Go on,” Sam pushed Danny lightly.

“Hey! Okay, I’m going!” Danny took a step inside the portal. It felt … empty and big. Much bigger than it was. Longer too. The tube felt more like a tunnel at this point, Danny could see the end of the tunnel, but it felt like it was miles away. Danny felt heavy just taking one step inside. He took another and felt his body weigh him down even more. It was just the anxiety, Danny thought to himself. Your body gets heavy when it’s dreading something, right? But there was nothing to worry about, Danny assured himself.

Danny took a few more steps inside the portal and turned around to face the outside. He tasted ozone and he felt like his blood was made of lead. There was the quietest of ringings bouncing around in his head making him somewhat dizzy and his eyes felt like they were vibrating.

“Danny?” Sam asked.

“Yeah?”

“Are you okay?” Sam looked concerned.

“Yeah, I’m fine, it’s a bit spooky in here, though,” Danny let out a slight chuckle. “I’ll just suck it up for the picture.”

“Yeah, alright…” Sam trailed off. “Can you do a cool pose? Maybe put your hand against the side and lean or something?”

“Yeah, sure.”

Danny began to place his hand on the side of the portal. As his hand neared the wall, the taste of ozone intensified and his nose started running. His hand was almost to the wall when Sam snapped a picture with her polaroid camera.

“Oops,” she looked nervous as she took out the not-yet-developed picture and handed it to Tucker.

Danny knew she wanted a better shot so he finally put his hand on the wall. Millimeters before his hand made contact, Danny’s fingers felt like cold metal replaced all of his bones. He let his hand rest on the wall to his left as he felt a button depress. Immediately, his heart started racing as he felt panic run up his chest. Daniel Fenton suddenly felt the most excruciating pain he had ever and will ever feel in his life. He felt hundreds of knives stab him at once in every single nerve in his body. An army of knives marched through his nervous system, stabbing down hard with every step. This march of pain within his body moved incredibly fast but at the same time that it moved agonizingly slow.

Danny didn’t feel his throat open up to release a blood curdling scream of pure, horrific pain. He didn’t feel himself drop to his knees, but he did feel that militia of marching, stabbing pain start again at his knees. All he saw was green, neon green, everywhere. He tasted blood and ozone, the lower half of his face, beneath his nose, was wet and sticky. His lips felt like they were drenched in lip gloss that tightened at every breath he took. His left wrist felt like he had laid on it for hours and suddenly moved. Danny knew he was dying.

When his face smacked the metal floor of the now functioning portal, he didn’t feel his nose break, just the pain get more intense and the struggle to breathe increased with his mouth submerged in a shallow pool of blood escaping his nose like a dam had been opened. Danny didn’t feel himself being dragged by his friends out of the portal and he didn’t see the horrified looks on their faces when they saw all the blood and smoke coming from his body. He didn’t feel Tucker grab a broom and poke him with it, he didn’t hear Sam smack Tucker and throw the broom to the wall. Danny didn’t hear his sister pound down the stair and scream at the sight, he didn’t hear Sam wailing and sobbing and pleading with Danny to please wake up, he didn’t hear her whisper, “I’m so sorry Danny, I’m so sorry, this is all my fault, why am I so stupid,” to his head. He didn’t hear his sister, Jazz screaming through her tears at Tucker, “What happened to him? Why is his hair white? Where did all this blood come from?” He didn’t hear Tucker crying, “I’m sorry, I thought it was unplugged, I’m so sorry Jazz, I’m so sorry.”

Danny did hear a ringing, though. He heard waves too. Or was that wind? Danny heard someone whisper but they were so far away.

Then, Danny saw black. Danny saw black and a very dark red. “What did you say?” Danny tried to say, but it was so much less than a whisper. Danny heard a thump, like someone dropping down to sit on a tile floor and the red he saw got brighter.

God, his eyes were so heavy. His lips felt like he had just eaten Elmer’s glue, like he used to do in Kindergarten. When Danny smiled a slight smile, as much as he had the strength to, his lips cracked and he relaxed his face to appease the pain.

Daniel Fenton cracked his eyes. Slowly, sound came back. A ringing gave way to someone screaming, “How could you let this happen? I thought you cared about him.” Someone else bawled, “I’m so sorry, I didn’t want this to happen. Please, I’m so sorry, I love him so much.”

Danny was confused. Did he just walk in on someone's death? He couldn’t have, his back was cold and against the tile floor in… his basement? Who died in his basement?

“Oh, god.” Danny felt his stomach drop to his toes. “Did Tuck get hurt by some of Mom or Dad’s ghost shit?”

The room went silent. Danny pulled his eyes open, worried by what he might see.

“What the fuck was that Samantha,” Jazz had murder in her eyes. “Tell me what that was right now.”

“What was what?” Danny asked. He saw Jazz huddled over something in the middle of the room with Sam and Tucker near her. The body wasn’t Tucker’s.

Danny walked over to Jazz and his friends when Tucker looked his way and screamed as loud and as hard as he was capable of screaming. This spooked Danny who took a step to the side and looked at what was on the ground.

It was him.

Danny was looking at his own body on the floor. His now white hair was singed, his left arm was black, contrasting against his pale skin which had been exposed by a large rip in his not-so-insulated suit. It looked like the hand and half of the arm on the left side of the suit had burned off.

Suddenly the body moved and Danny saw the ceiling and his Sister looking over him. He turned his head and saw two scenes. He was looking at Sam while also looking at the now functional ghost portal with a different set of eyes. Danny moved his head back and was now only looking at his sister again.

Danny attempted to move to a sitting position, coughing droplets of blood when he tensed his muscles.

“Oh, my god.” Jazz breathed a sigh of relief, “Danny! Don’t sit up, here. I’ll help you.”

Jazz sort of dragged, sort of pushed Danny’s body closer to the wall, glaring at Tucker and Sam when they moved to help her. Jazz picked up Danny’s head and sat him against the wall of the Fenton Laboratory basement and inspected his face.

“God, Danny.” Jazz’s voice was soaked with concern. “There’s blood all over this place. Your nose is broken.”

Danny realized he couldn’t feel the ground beneath him the second he felt himself fall an inch and hit the ground. He saw a flash as he noticed a ring of light circling around his waist.

“Sam,” Jazz screamed, “what the fuck? My brother almost dies and you think this is the best fucking photo op to snag?”

“I’m sorry Jazz, I-I,” Sam stuttered, “I saw something.”

Jazz turned her head back to her brother, and gasped. “Danny! Your hair is back to normal!”

Barely audible, Danny mumbled; “myhairwasn’tnormal?”

“It was white,” Sam whisperspoke.

“And your suit went all reverse,” Tucker added at full volume from halfway across the room.

“I taste metal,” Danny stuck his tongue out, it looked like he had just been licking blood off of something.

“Probably from all that blood in your mouth.” Jazz’s forehead was the rocky mountains of concern. “And on your chin, down your shirt, all over the floor. God, Danny. We need to take you to the hospital.”

“No!” Danny and Tucker yelled at the same time.

“I’m fine, I feel fine, watch this!” Danny stood up and quickly fell back down demonstrating how not fine he was.

“Sorry, I just hate hospitals,” Tucker murmured. “I didn’t mean to say that…”

Sam waved a polaroid in the air, then gave it to Jazz.

The picture showed a bloodied Danny on the ground wearing a reverse colored “insulated” suit. It’s just a fucking picture of my almost-dead brother, Jazz thought. Then she saw it. There were two rings of light around his waist that looked like they were revealing the outfit Danny was wearing when he went downstairs. A NASA T-Shirt and blue jeans were peaking through the two circles of light. Jazz looked at Danny again and realized he wasn’t wearing the black version of his ecto suit anymore. It went away with the white of his hair.

“Danny, you’re still going to the hospital with me.” Jazz insisted. “Your nose is broken.”

Danny touched his nose and was immediately met with searing, red hot pain.

“Don’t touch it, idiot!” Jazz smacked Danny’s hand away from his nose. “When a part of your body is broken, that’s not an invitation to touch it!”

Danny looked at Sam and Tucker, scared.

Sam smiled at Danny. “We can talk about it after you go to the hospital. Do you want to have a fucked up nose for the rest of your life?”

Tucker walked closer to Danny and put his hand on Danny’s head. “I’m so fucking happy you’re okay, dude.”

“Can you walk?” Jazz asked as she stood up and reached for Danny’s hand.

Danny grabbed her hand and tried to get up for the second time. He watched his hand disappear from his sister's hand as her grip tightened around nothing. Danny fell back to the floor and screamed at his missing hand before it came back.

“Danny,” Jazz hissed, “we are going to the hospital now.”

Danny stood up on his own and followed his sister up the stairs to her car, parked outside. They drove to the hospital.