#aster is... a possibility. gonna have to go through the races and decide if there's something that would be more fun

[crossdressingdeath]

...I will admit. I'm kind of tempted to remake Asterius (he who was formerly Tahel Surana) as a Durge sorcerer to kiss Gale with.

[lcksndkys]

Title: Red Tulips

Pairing: Namjoon x reader

Rating: SFW

Genre: f2?, fluff, mild angst

Word count: 1,486

A/N: I hope ya’lls like cheese! This lil piece was written as part of the btsghostiewriters net drabble marathon with the prompt of themes: ‘language of flowers’. Keep an eye out for more drabbles coming! And shout out to my hype team @jinpanman and @wwilloww for the encouragement!!

Summary: Namjoon has been gifting you flowers for years. As a good friend, he brings yet another offering to spruce up your new apartment. Tonight, he brings you tulips and the promise of change.

When you open the door of your new apartment, you’re not surprised when you see Namjoon on the other side holding a delicate bouquet of flowers. As a flower shop owner and lover of nature he has been avidly gifting you with his personal creations for years. 

Lavender roses (enchantment) when you finished grad school. 

Asters (take care of yourself for me) when you left home for your first big job opportunity. 

Blue violets (faithfulness) when you landed your dream job and subsequently returned to your hometown.

Yellow acacias (secret love) when you accepted a promotion last month ensuring a permanent residence. 

“Joonie, you know you didn't have to bring me anything!” you laugh as you accept his offering with eager hands. 

Holding the flowers in one hand, you use your remaining arm to wrap around his waist.  Rising to your toes, you plant a chaste kiss to his dimpled cheek. Heat creeps up his neck at your affection, and Namjoon silently prays you won’t notice. You never have.

“Th-they’re tulips,” he breathes quietly into your crown as he wraps both arms around you. He breathes in your lightly floral scent and wills his heart not to race. Your hand runs up and down the broad planes of his back and you note that he has filled out with more muscle while you’ve been gone. 

You welcome him in to join the rest of your friends who have come to celebrate your move back to the city. Namjoon greets your mutual friends and chooses a seat next to his best friend Yoongi. 

Namjoon’s magnetic gaze is drawn to your every smile, every move. But in your pleasantly inebriated state, you grin back at your long time friend without noting the rosy, amorous tint in his eyes. 

Beside him, Yoongi peers over at his two friends in exasperation and rolls his eyes. He’s too sober to watch Namjoon make googly eyes at you all night. He has seen Namjoon silently pine for you over the years, too fearful of your rejection to make a move. Now that you’re finally back home, Yoongi hopes that your relationship might bloom like the buds that Namjoon carefully tends to. 

Drinks and laughter are plentiful as the night progresses. The evening blurs with the warmth of friendship, alcohol, and good company. The last few years have been full of professional growth and development, but you’ve missed the familiarity of your home and loved ones. 

As time wears on, people start heading home, but Namjoon and Yoongi linger to help a still happily buzzed you clean up. 

“I’ll take out the trash,” Joon offers, leaving you and Yoongi to finish cleaning up. In the kitchen, he haphazardly puts glassware back into your cabinets as you wipe down the countertops. 

“Those are romantic” Yoongi drawls, gesturing to the flowers by the sink.

“Nah, they’re from Joon” you laugh, dismissing his comment entirely with a wave of your hand.

“Exactly”

There’s a beat of silence as Yoongi quirks a brow at you. Crossing his arms, he leans against the freshly cleaned countertop assessing your reaction.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” you ask, looking from Yoongi to the tulips and back again.

“Maybe you should ask Namjoon” is the cryptic reply you recieve. 

Outside, Namjoon is pacing back and forth. He thinks back to his pep talk with Yoongi earlier in the day. 

“You gotta tell her, man” Yoongi encourages. “She’s finally home, she’s single, and you’re gonna regret it if someone else sweeps her off her feet before you’ve had the chance to confess.”

“I don’t know if I can do it. I- I don’t think I could handle her rejection,” Namjoon sighs.  

“Ok, but if you don’t, you’re gonna lose her for good. Which can you live with?”

There’s no way he could bear watching you fall in love with someone else again. Going through it once was bad enough. Seeing your eyes ignite for another man is going to kill him. He’s sure of it.

Light suddenly floods the patio as you swing open the door to let Yoongi take his leave.

“There you are! I thought you might have left without saying goodbye” you pout from the doorway. You watch as Yoongi pulls Namjoon in for a bro hug and briefly whispers something to  the younger man before climbing into his car and driving off.

Namjoon steels himself. It’s now or never, he decides. 

“I, um, I have to talk to you about something,” he says, leading the two of you back inside.

You take a seat on the arm of the couch and curl a leg under you to watch him continue his nervous pacing. 

“Joon-bug, you’re scaring me,” you chuckle, hoping to break through some of the tension. Your mild buzz is quickly evaporating.

“You know you can tell me anything right?” you say quietly. You approach him slowly as you would a frightened animal, placing a gentle hand on his shoulder. 

With you so close to him, Namjoon needs to tilt his head down to make eye contact. He can feel your warm breath on his chin, your skin on his. There’s the familiar pull of your gaze and his heart races with fear and love. He’s drowning, but finds that he doesn’t want to be saved. 

Before he knows it, he’s craning down further and pressing an urgent kiss to your lips. When you don’t immediately pull away, he brings both hands up to cradle your face, tilting you for a better angle. His thumbs brush tenderly along the apples of your cheeks breaking you out of your shock. 

You jerk back a couple of steps, eyes round in surprise and completely missing the way Namjoon’s face crumbles with defeat. 

“Wha-”

“Irresistible love,” he blurts out.

Your eyebrows pinch in confusion. 

“What?” 

“The red tulips. They symbolize irresistible love,” Namjoon repeats. “I’ve been trying to tell you with all the flowers,” he pauses to take a deep calming breath. “That I’m in love with you.”

Love. 

Your ears ring in alarm. 

“No- you aren’t. You can’t be'' you stutter in bewilderment. 

“I can, and I am. I have loved you for years.” Namjoon finds that once he starts, he can’t stop. “I’ve been waiting for you to notice me. But now I’m afraid that I’ll lose out on a chance with you. That I’ll always wonder what if. I can’t hold back anymore.”

You can only stare mutely at him for several heart pounding moments.

“I’m just confused,” you whisper, mind whirling with a montage of memories. You try to inspect them under a more careful lens in light of his confession. 

“Tell me if I should apologize for kissing you, or give me permission to do it again” 

He takes your silence as confirmation of your rejection. 

Your conflicted gaze meets his anguished expression. 

“I’m sorry for kissing you. It won’t happen again” comes his clipped response.

“Just hold on- wait” you plead, panicking when you feel him pull away and head for the door. Your heart wrenches in it’s cage at the possibility of losing Namjoon. 

You catch onto his wrist effectively halting his escape. Fleetingly, his eyes dart to your fingers wrapped around him and nods once at your request. Even now, heartbroken, he cannot deny you.

He gently pulls from your grasp, making for the couch to put some distance between you. He takes a seat on the armrest that you had previously been perched. His eyes are trained on the floor where he feels like his heart has been dropped.

“I didn't realize,” you say. 

Namjoon scoffs. “Are you really so surprised? I literally cannot hide the way my body reacts to you.”

He beckons to you. He needs you to approach him on your own will.

Once you’re close enough, he grasps your hand in his much larger one. You let him trail your fingertips along his forearm and you watch in wonder as goosebumps flare in the wake of your touch. He continues a path towards his chest, just left of center, where you can feel the rapid thrumming of the powerful organ hidden beneath clothes and skin and bone. Pulling you closer, Namjoon presses your palm into his chest and you feel the sudden uptick in the beating of his heart as you look into his eyes.

“Could you give me a chance?” 

Your heart seizes, enchanted by the man standing in front of you. Your friend, your confidant. Your lover?

Namjoon is a good man. He is handsome, smart, gentle, and patient. He’s everything you want. Your eyes widen at the startling realization. 

Namjoon is giving you his love, and you’d be a fool not to accept.

“Kiss me again, Joonie” you ask shyly.

The euphoric smile on his face is the last thing you see before your eyes flutter shut.

[mythicaldemigoddess-of-deltarune]

Crossover AU: Sans’s Lion & Bubbled Monster Souls 

----------------------------------

Credit for Deltarune & Undertale goes to Toby Fox

Credit for Steven Universe Series goes to Rebecca Sugar

------------------

while watching the episode where Lion first appears,

I got inspired to draw Lion as a Pink Skeleton with blue ethereal...?

I’m just gonna call it ethereal (I think it is a type of magic energy)

anyway like I was saying, Lion as a Pink Skeleton with a blue ethereal mane and even at the tip of his tail has the ethereal.

all the Monster Souls in Rose’s Room, are all the Monsters that were killed by Frisk, Sans bubbled them all and send them to Rose’s Room....which would technically be Steven’s and then Sans’s.

I was going to have the background be all black, but then I got the idea to have Lion in Rose’s Room.

the idea is that so long as the Souls remain in Sans’s Bubbles

they wont end up disappearing, and when Sans escape the Undertale Timeline and moved to the Deltarune Timeline,

he took his little brother, any other survivors and lastly

Lion and his Room that is known as “Rose’s Room”

like in a Steven Universe/Undertale/Deltarune Crossover AU.

Lion is kept instead and mostly keeps Papyrus company,

all while Sans is at work.

this version of Lion, when bring brought back to life a second time.

ends up getting a new ability, and that is being able to travel to different multiverses and AUs.

even to the place where Error-Sans & Ink-Sans normally hang out.

and maybe even where Core-Frisk is.

there could be different crossover versions of Lion,

at least I think there might be.

try picturing a Underfell version of Lion being really protective of Sans and any time Papyrus tries to make a grab for him or threatens him,

Lion would growl at him and hug Sans close to him in order to protect him from his Boss/Brother.

I still think if Sans and Steven are one in the same, then it is possible that how Steven become Sans can have different outcomes.

either he starting aging backwards when he is about to die,

and in his last moments he stops at the newborn age and he becomes a babybones and then is found by Mr & Mrs Wingdings

who adopt him, but also make him biologically related to them,

by taking each fragment of their souls and placing it into San’s Human Looking Soul which after the two fragments merge with San’s Human Soul, it transforms into a Monster Soul.

the Soul would also be “reborn” in a way, while still having traces of the Light Genetic Magical Makeup that makes up the Gem’s Essence.

as well as Steven’s Human Soul, which is now a Monster Soul.

it also has traces of Mr & Mrs Wingdings Genetic Magical DNA,

thanks to their two fragments being placed into Sans’s Soul,

and causing Sans to be fully reborn as a Monster and being reborn as Mr & Mrs Wingdings’s biological son, too.

I believe that the name “Wingdings”  

is actually Gaster’s Family Name, this would mean that Sans and Papyrus’s full names are:

Wingdings Sans and Wingdings Papyrus.

just like how some humans have their family names come first,

it can be the same for monsters too.

so if this is true, then “Gaster” would not be the family name

but would technically be Gaster’s given name when he was born.

Lion could of been with the Baby Steven when Gaster and his wife,

found them (at the same spot Asriel finds Chara)

but instead of just being a skeleton, Steven could of still been human,

but after he left beach city,

he ended up deciding to check out mount ebott

but accidentally fell and when Lion sensed he was in danger,

he went to go save him but it ended up being too late.

Steven was age fluxing from when he was 14, 17 and even to middle age and elderly age.....but at his final breath, his last age flux stop at newborn Steven.

that was when Gaster and his wife came into the picture,

and notice the Lion had what appeared to be a human baby.

Gaster picks up the baby and notice the heartbeat had stop,

and with much convincing from his wife, the two decide to place a fragment piece from both of their souls into the newborn.

which caused not only the baby to brought back to life,

but it also caused the baby to transform from a human

to a skeleton monster baby.

which bewildered and shocked Lion and the Two Married Wingdings.

Gaster and his Wife [Redacted] decide to take the baby and even the Lion, home with them.

Gaster being a Doctor, did some tests and found out that by reviving the human baby with fragments of their souls, it caused the human soul to change into a monster soul and even have the baby become “reborn” as the Biological Son of the two of them.

there can be different ways that Steven becomes Sans,

this idea is just one of them.

plus when Steven becomes Sans and is reborn thanks to his new biological parents: Mr & Mrs Wingdings.

it also made him biologically related to his brother Papyrus.

and if there is a Gaster Jr. (because of the whole Gaster being Papyrus and Sans’s Brother too.) aka “Aster”

so not to confuse him with Gaster Sr...

he would of been at home during the time when his parents found Steven who would then be reborn as his new little brother Sans.

Sans could still have his Gem Powers, and when Lion ends up dying again....the Lion is brought back as Skeleton Monster thanks to Sans’s tears.

Sans could of brought Lion back to life when he was no more than 2 years old.

during this time Sans hasn’t yet remembered his past life as Steven Quartz Universe.

but at some point when Papyrus was a baby, his memories started to flood back to him and he remembered everything.

from his trauma that started in his childhood (Steven Universe)

to the breaking point he had a few years later (Steven Universe Future)  

the only one he could talk to about it, would be the only one from his past still with him, and that would be Lion.

Sans’s Mom and Dad (Gaster and [Redact]) know very little about Steven’s past before he became their second son who they named “Sans”, all they know is that their magic and two fragments from each of their souls merged with his former human soul and brought him back to life and changed him from a human to a skeleton monster.

this version of Sans would end up having to move to the Deltarune Timeline, because the non-stop geno route that Frisk played through.

in the past resets, Sans didn’t think about saving everyone by placing their souls in bubbles, that is until he discovered he could

when he bubbled Papyrus’s Soul after Frisk killed him.

after figuring out that he could bubble monster souls,

Sans started to follow Frisk, and after they were finished killing a monster, Sans would then bubble them and send them to Rose’s Room.

any other monster that Frisk didn’t end up killing,

Sans would have them go into Lion’s Ethereal Mane.

knowing how Rose’s Room works, he knows it will likely try to make copies of the bubbled monster souls.

so in order to find them if they should get mixed up wit fake copies (that ends up being made by the room), Sans would have to use the new trick he learned, and that is using blue magic to grab at the souls.

if he tried to use the blue magic on a fake bubbled monster,

it wont react the same and will only burst into pink clouds.

he would then take the real bubbled monster souls

and place them in Lion’s Ethereal Mane.

when entering Lion’s new mane, at first glance it looks the same as how it was before, but now it is dark and the only thing that is the same is the two trees that belong to both Lion and Lars, as well as the small hill that has Rose’s belongings as well as the Portrait of Rose.

but the place is now in the Dark World/Void.

which means whenever someone goes in through Lion’s Ethereal Mane, their existence would be forgotten by the outside world.

the grass/hair/mane, could end up having the ability to have Darkners/Tulpa  not end up transform into inanimate objects as soon as they leave The Dark World/Void.

this can be because of the new magic of Lion’s Mane.

on one side that makes up Lars’s side, the grass and Lars’s tree are still pink, but has bits and pieces of blue leafs in the tree.

on Lion’s side, Lion’s tree is fully blue

and becoming what looks like a Echo Tree and the grass ends up being blue too. all being same color as Lion’s Ethereal Mane.

 even if Lars’s tree and grass hasn’t changed very much, it still ends up in the Dark World/Void.

if Lancer ends up finding that new place in the dark world,

he would end up finding the spot in the blue grass/mane

that would lead him outside, like he would end up falling out of Lion’s ethereal mane.

but he wouldn’t end up turning into a inanimate object but instead stays how he is.

so any darkner (Headcanon Name of Race “Tulpa” )

ends up finding that place with those two trees, where one side of the grass is pink and the other blue.

going through them and ending up popping out of Lion’s Ethereal Mane, will let them be able to keep the forms they had in the dark world/void.

not everyone has to agree about the whole Dark World being the Void and it has the power to make those outside it forget,

and only those who have been to the void will remember Kris and Susie if they end up going back there again in Chapter 3, cause the whole Noelle and Berdly being to the Dark World/Void,

and if they both are still in Alphys’s class, and Kris and Susie went to the Dark World/Void.

only Noelle and Berdly would remember them.

it would explain why there wasn’t a search party for those two

and no one seem all that worried about them.

at least not until they remembered them when they came back from the Dark World/Void.

it is possible when Kris and Susie ended up in the Dark World,

those in their world, still remembered them but at the same time as a hour past the memories of those two became foggy and when a few hours past the memories of them all but faded.

but if Noelle and Berdly have been to the Dark World/Void,

they wouldn’t be effected and would be immune, same would be for anyone else who might end up going to the Dark World/Void.

I don’t think Ralsei is Asriel, but could still end up being technically a creation of his.

but even if I and other fans had theories that Ralsei might be a bad guy, that might not be true for the real Ralsei that we meet in Chapter 1.

I believe the Ralsei we meet in Chapter 2, is a Fake and the real Ralsei is that Faux-Ralsei’s Prisoner and is being kept in a room we can’t get to yet.

another theory is that Ralsei is Flowey from one of the Geno Timeline from Undertale, when he ends up being killed by Frisk...

he doesn’t just cease to be, he ends up falling into the Dark World/Void and having a type of Amnesia, and when some of the essence of Asriel of Deltarune, entered into the dark world, it transformed that version of Flowey into Ralsei.

we know when Ralsei falls in battle, he at times will end up leaving behind just his hat and clothes, which makes you wonder what is under there and could it be dust?

it is likely Flowey is under there and whenever Ralsei falls in battle and there is nothing left of him but his hat and clothes, what is hiding in them might turn out to be Flowey.

that is just a theory after all.

anyway I’m going to go back to watching Steven Universe now.

see ya later and stay safe.                                    

[ellanainthetardis]

If you could make it work with his character at all, could you fuck me up and write something post mj about haymitch being completely heartbroken over losing Effie

It’s chapter 600! Andsince it’s crazy, let’s have something equally crazy to go with :p [X}

Heart Beats Still

Medics were running around in the corridors,their resources stretched thin, and Haymitch was vaguely aware of orders beingshouted left and right, of statics coming on and off the radios, of celebratorysmiles that clashed with grim looks as if people couldn’t decide what they werefeeling.

Haymitch hadn’t smiled at all since news ofSnow’s surrender had arrived.

His ears were still ringing from the bombing ofthe City Circle. He had been too far to do anything but too close not to see.Even if hadn’t been in Command… It had been broadcasted live on every screenstill working in Panem. The children…

He kept on walking, following the darkbulletproof jacket of the soldiers in front of him. Plutarch was talking, goingon and on about the assets the soldiers had found in the recess of the prison.Agents of his or influent contacts that might help the rebels secure power morequickly. He wasn’t sure. He didn’t care. He wasn’t hearing a word of what theHead Gamemaker had to say. He hadn’t been hearing a word since he had realizedwho had really dropped the bombs on the kids.

His heart was still beating at an erratic pace.It had started racing when he had spotted Katniss heading straight for hersister and it had never stopped. Not when they had gotten confirmation thatPrim was dead. Not when they had gotten confirmation Katniss was still alive –badly injured, yes, but alive.

Assurances that she would be given the bestmedical care had fallen on deaf ears, promises to locate Peeta as a priorityhadn’t registered… Plutarch had dragged him away from Coin before he could do somethingstupid like strangle her.

He didn’t care about Plutarch’s agents.

He had only tagged along when he had caught her name being off-handedly tossed aroundas they had changed her status from missingto found. Found was good. Found wasbetter than what he had dreaded. Foundmight give his day a fucking silverlining.  

He didn’t register when the soldier suddenlystopped and he almost collided with him. The young man shot him a pitying lookand waved at an open door.

He hadn’t really realized what his surroundingslooked like, too numb and tired to pay attention. But then…

The cell was small.

Too small for an adult to stand in. Too narrowfor someone to stretch both arms at once.

The smell was… The smell was awful, not unlikethe stench in his kitchen when he went on a binge and forgot the meat on thestove.

Rot.

Death.

Decay.

He was familiar with it.

He faltered on the threshold, not bothered bythe smell but suddenly terrified of what he would find inside. Plutarch placeda sympathetic hand on his shoulder but he shrugged it off. He didn’t wantanything to do with the Gamemaker. He didn’t want anything to do with peoplewho killed kids as if they were simply pawns on the chessboard. Why did theCapitol always had to go for the kids? Even their own…

There was a medic kneeling inside the cell and,at first, it was all he saw. The uniform identifying the medical team – and he tried not to think about Prim, he triednot to think about Aster Everdeen when he had told her that… – was blocking hisview. It took him a second to realize the man wasn’t doing anything, he wassimply kneeling there…

Then he glimpsed her skin and he roughly pushedthe guy aside, ignoring his startled protests.

He almost had to crawl on all four to get inthere but he didn’t care. There she was, at last. Effie Trinket. Or what wasleft of her.

He barely recognized her.

She was naked, like all other prisoners itseemed, and her skin was filthy. Her hair was wild and tangled, so dirty itlooked almost brown. Her body was broken. Oozing cuts and bruises… Barely morethan bones… She didn’t look like herself.

But the important thing was that she wasbreathing.

A cruel gurgle every time she inhaled followedby a horrible wheezing sound with every breath she exhaled.

The state of her abdomen… He didn’t need amedical degree to guess at what was wrong. Her ribcage was black and blue, ribsclearly broken… Punctured lungs…

He reached out for her but dropped his handbefore making contact.

“Why aren’t you doing anything?” he snarled,glaring at the medic. “Call for an evacuation team. Get her back to theMansion.” The medic looked up at the soldier but Haymitch snatched a handful ofhis shirt, narrowing his eyes. “You don’t answer to him. You answer to me.”

“Sir.” the medic winced. “We can’t… We’re shortof supplies and our orders…”

“Fuckyour orders.” he growled. “I’m theone in charge here. Get me a doctor. Get me what she needs.”

The man coiled his hand around Haymitch’swrist, probably trying to get him to let go or, maybe, trying to soften theblow.

“I’m sorry… It’s…” the guy shook his head. “Herinjuries are too extensive. We don’t have the resources for that right now.”

“We’re in the fucking Capitol.” he spat, his voice shifting from angry todesperate. He knew what the situation was. He had been standing right therewhen it had been decided that a strict triage would have to be applied in thefirst few hours. They couldn’t afford to waste time and supplies on hopelesscases. It was war. War had its cost. He had been right there and he had agreed.They had all agreed.

“We don’t control hospitals yet.” the soldiersaid. “We have a limited number of doctors and…”

“Get her to the Presidential Mansion.” Plutarchcut in, as white as if he had seen a ghost. “She has special VIP status.”

The medic squeezed Haymitch’s wrist, bringinghis attention back to him.

“She won’t make it to the Mansion.” the mansaid slowly. “I am very sorry, sir,even if we ordered an evacuation vehicle… I doubt she would still be with us bythe time it arrived. I tried to make her as comfortable as possible. She… Shedoesn’t have long.”

“No.” Haymitch said, point blank. “There mustbe something… There’s…”

“I’m very sorry.” the medic repeated.

He wondered what having a heart attack feltlike. It was like all the putrid air had been sucked out of the tiny room. Hecouldn’t breathe. He couldn’t see. He couldn’t hear anything but the rush ofblood in his ears…

He let go of the medic’s uniform and turnedback to Effie. Her chest lifted with small painful looking jolts and thendeflated quickly.

He softly brushed her hair away from her face,letting his fingers trail on her jutting cheekbone…

“I have her a sedative.” the medic saidquietly. “She’s not in pain.”

She didn’t look not in pain.

He swallowed hard. “Is she gonna wake up?”

He didn’t really need an answer to that question,he would have figured it out even if the medic hadn’t shaken his head.

Slowly, he lowered himself to the floor insteadof just crouching there. It was wet under his ass and his pants stuck to hisskin. He didn’t really care what he was sitting in.

He tried to be careful as he cradled heragainst his chest, half laid her across his lap, but the gurgle worsened for asecond before easing a little when he propped her head against his shoulder.She was cold to the touch. He had expected her to be burning up, it was obviousmost of her wounds were infected. Maybe she had moved past the fever.

He hated that she was cold.

She hated being cold.

“Haymitch…” Plutarch hesitated. “Do you need…”

“Privacy.” he muttered.

The soldier and the medic left almost immediatelybut Plutarch lingered a moment in front of the door before wandering away,probably in search of his precious assets.

Silence was all-encompassing in that cell. Onlythe gurgling and wheezing marked the passing of time and Haymitch dreaded themoment it would stop.

It wasn’t fair.

It wasn’t fair at all.

“Not how it was supposed to go…” he mumbled,burying his nose in her hair. It didn’t smell like her. She didn’t smell like herself. She smelt like death. “Not how…”

He had been preparing himself for the worst formonths but he had never stopped hoping, he realized. What was Effie Trinket ifnot the embodiment of hope? Giving upwould have been the ultimate betrayal and…

And he hadhoped.

Stupid him.

He wasn’t sure if it was better or worse thathe had gotten there in the nick of time. He wasn’t sure if it was better orworse that he would be there to hold her as she died when she was already beyondhis reach.

It wasn’t how it was supposed to go, was it?Not how the stories went… If he couldn’t save her… At least, he was entitled toa last tearful goodbye, wasn’t he? But stories were stories and her eyesremained closed.

He couldn’t imagine it. Not hearing theirritating sound of her voice… Not meeting her twinkling gaze over a crowdedroom… Not staring at that secret smile that always hung at the corner of hermouth when they…

“I’m sorry.” he whispered, his voice breaking.

Regret tasted like rot.

He should have come through for her. He shouldhave made her safety his prime concern and not trust Plutarch’s reassurances.He should have…

He should have let her say them, those wordsshe had mouthed against his skin late at night and that he had always pretendednot to understand. He would never know how it would sound now. He would neverknow how they would make him feel. He would never know if…

He had developed a plan in the last few months,buried alive in that District. It was a shittyplan but it was a plan nonetheless. He would find her and they would… Theywould try something. And they wouldbe good together, really good.

He had let his mind wander late at night whenthe thirst had made it impossible for him to sleep. He had let his mind wanderand he had liked what it had come up with. A future. Not a perfect one butsomething that could make both of them happy.

Kisses in the morning, geese in the backyard,flowers in the garden, laughter and banter at every hour of the day… The kidsnext door, safe and relatively content��� A life of bickering and make-up sex…

It was a good life he had imagined for the twoof them. She would have liked it, he thought. They would have liked it.

“I love you.”

It seemed safe enough to let those words past hislips now.

The death sentence.

Love someone and they died.

He had let himself love her and now…

“I love you.” he repeated softly, like a secretin her ear.

He hadn’t said those words in twenty-five yearsand he would never utter them again.

I love you went hand in hand with farewellsfor him.

The gurgling grew worse and he shut his eyestight. He was suddenly overwhelmed with the memories of holding Maysilee as shefaded away. He had felt it then, theshadow, time hanging in suspension between one breath and the next… He hadfelt its teeth digging in his neck when he had run for the cliff, run for hislife… He had no name for it. It didn’t need names. It was bigger than that.

“It’s okay, sweetheart…” he kept cajoling, forhis sake more than hers. “You go to sleep now. I love you. I’ll take care ofthe kids. You go. I love you.” He kept his eyes closed and purposefully didn’tlisten to the sudden terrifying silence. “I love you. I love you, Effie. I…”

His attempts at covering the silence, at livingin denial just a second longer ended in a sob. He swallowed it back. Heswallowed it all back. The lump in his throat, the sobs… His grip tightened onher, fingers digging in her flesh… His jaw clenched as he bumped his noseagainst her temple, her cheek… Some tears dropped on her face, leaving clean traceson her dirty skin…

He couldn’t breathe.

For a second, he thought that it would be it.

Her death broke his heart and now it laid stillin his chest, refusing to beat to match her own. And it was just as well. For asecond, he welcomed it. He had lived too long and he had lost too much.

But a broken heart didn’t kill you.

He had learned that decades ago.

He couldn’t lose it. Not now and not here.

Later.

Once he was sure the kids didn’t need him. Oncehe had found someone who could make her look like she used to, like she wouldhave liked to look. Once she had been laid to rest properly. Once he was surehe could let go without anyone suffering from his absence because there wouldbe no climbing back from that hole. He would give in, then. In a bottle ofwhiskey. In anything he could find that would numb the pain just enough that hecould maybe hope to face it.

There would be no facing it, he already knew.

The terrifying truth was that he didn’t knowhow to live in a world where she didn’t.

The terrifying truth was that, the moment heleft this cell, he would be a dead man walking and there would be no more EffieTrinket to convince him to keep hanging tight to the edge.

He shed his jacket and wrapped it around herthe best he could, giving her back a dignity in death that the Capitol hadstolen from her long before they had tossed her in a cell. She was so lightwhen he lifted her up, so tiny in his arms…

People stared as he walked to the exit.

At him.

At the dead woman he was holding close to hischest.

A part of him, the part that didn’t seem to beable to stop thinking, in total contrast with the part of him who could barelydo more than put a foot in front of the other, briefly wondered what Historywould make of them. Nothing, probably.They would be a footnote in history books. The Mockingjay’s mentor and the escort.Nobody would know what they had been through, who they had been, who they had loved…

There was no one left alive who knew, herealized.

Chaff, Finnick…

The secret of their affair would die with him.

It was all such a waste…

They should have run when they could. He wishedthey had run. Leave everythingbehind, be the selfish rats most people accused them of being…  

He didn’t know how to live without her.

He didn’t know why he was still breathing whenhis heart was dead in his arms.