#at least he gave her a place where she could relax and unwind whenever she wanted to.

[rustedleopard]

It's fine, I've been guilty of feeling more than thinking when I'm saying/typing something and realizing that what I said made no sense or was a bit off the rails. It happens. Besides you were pretty clear on what you were trying to convey, probably more than you felt like you were.

It is unbelievably tragic that Ceroba chose to diminish herself in their relationship because she thought so highly of Chujin that it made him flawless/beyond criticism in her eyes. If he needs to be the Hero of the Underground then she'll readily do whatever it takes to make herself the support. In the end, the root of their unhealthy relationship lies squarely at both of their feet. If she didn't have her Chujin-shaped blind spot, their relationship would've been, well... Healthier, at least. Not perfect, but better for the both of them. Of course, you wouldn't have half the plot of UTY and these characters wouldn't be the same people if that were the case, so hooray(?) Canonically Toxic Cerojin 🎉

As for anything about Chujin coming up in rants, I feel like Starlo has been on the receiving end of more than a few impassioned rants from Ceroba (because everyone needs to vent and bleed the frustration from time to time) but she never brought up Chujin in any of them. In her eyes, Chujin is untouchable; why mention him? She can talk about her annoying boss, some dumb customer she had to deal with, how exhausted she is, almost anything, but she'd never bring up Chujin even though he does play an indirect part in how crappy she's been feeling recently, because of her massive blind spot for him. To most, including Starlo, it just looks like the usual woes of being a parent/having a job. Maybe if he took a moment to really think about how "Huh, Ceroba has been talking a lot more about how exhausted she is recently after she took up a job, and she had to take up a job because Chujin is doing volunteer work around the Underground, maybe Chujin should stop doing just volunteer work and should get a job." But that's one of those things you only really notice if you're viewing everything from an outside perspective, where you can see that the Cerojin dynamic is unhealthy, or in hindsight. Starlo may be Ceroba's best friend and more clued into her life as a result, but he's not omniscient.

(gaymeatcore) how aware do you think other characters were of Chujins treatment of his family? like ceroba sort of covers it up but do you think Starlo for example could tell him hiding so much was bothering her? That she felt a bit unloved? I think if he did he'd be so hyped for her if they divorced like he doesn't even mind if he's not the one who gets to be her new partner so long as she gets someone who loves her like she deserves. I just want to see her get what she deserved why would he do all that why did he not trust and adore her....Her unhealthy devotion is just so sad because she gets barely anything in return. like sure he gives her some stuff (most of it material) but he can't even tell her he loves her on his deathbed....

You may not like my answer, but I'd say that others aren't very aware of how Chujin treats his family.

The thing is, not even Ceroba is aware of how taken advantage of she is. She still follows through with Chujin's plan despite how much she personally doesn't want to go through with it/the amount of stress it's added onto her life. She still sees him as flawless and perfect despite all the evidence otherwise. She was wholly content with the life that she made for herself; she CHOSE to become a housewife and the breadwinner of the family so Chujin can keep doing the things that he wanted to. So it's really hard to tell how bad the familial situation is if the person/people most affected by it aren't even aware of how bad it is. Blind admiration and devotion is one hell of a drug.

The closest I can see Ceroba comes to realizing how bad her situation is (in a canon-conforming way) is her coming home from a very bad shift at Cafe Dune; it's one of those days where your feet hurt and you're in a bad mood and once you lay down, you know you won't want to get back up again, and as she's changing out her work clothes she thinks to herself "I miss when Chujin was working at the Steamworks and I didn't have to do all this." But then Kanako asks what's for dinner or Chujin comes home or something happens and she has to pull herself together because her family needs her and Chujin is doing good things for the Underground, she shouldn't complain. She's strong, she's independent, she's mature, she's capable, she's an adult. She can handle it! So if Ceroba isn't all that aware, I can't see others being aware either.

Plus, the Ketsukanes are already pretty private people: their estate is locked behind an ornate gate, Chujin has his whole "hiding my basement study/SOUL experiments/Axis/the reason why I got fired from the Steamworks from my wife" thing going on, nobody else knows about Kanako's Falling Down besides Starlo and the Feisty Four (though I imagine what happened was that Ceroba told Starlo and Starlo told the Feisty Four instead of her telling all of them at once, and even then none of them knew the specifics), nobody knew about the plans that Ceroba had for Clover until the Five were cleaning out her house. And I can go on. The Ketsukanes have a good reputation among the Dunes residents, you can most directly see that with the rock-monster in Oasis Valley that stands next to the oasis after Clover explores their estate. They call the Ketsukanes something along the lines of "Good folks." So I can't see others being all that aware of the dynamic that's happening behind closed doors.

But let's hone in on a few key characters:

Martlet never even saw Chujin's house, so she wouldn't know much about what's going on in her mentor's domestic life. She calls Ceroba an acquaintance, which means they've likely only really met each other a handful of times. Martlet really admires/looks up to Chujin and sees him as a guiding figure in her life and that image only sours when she sees the tapes. If she knew what his home life was like and all the specifics, that would've changed her perspective on him a lot sooner.

Dina doesn't even know that Kanako fell down, so she wouldn't know anything too personal about Ceroba's life. Chujin also only came by Dina's Saloon once, and that was when he came to drink because he "saw a ghost" so she doesn't know him all that well either.

As I stated earlier with the Feisty Four, I feel like the only reason why they knew that Kanako fell down was because Starlo broke the news to them. They are entitled to know why Ceroba is bunking with them for weeks on end all of a sudden but I can't see Ceroba telling them because she isn't part of the posse. Starlo also probably roped them into helping cheer her up by going along with more of his antics (to a limit, of course).

And Starlo. I don't see Starlo knowing what exactly is happening. He's not going to go snooping around into her life and her circumstances for a myriad of reasons: He is busy running the Wild East. Ceroba seems content with her life so why go looking into her business if everything looks fine on the surface? Whether he got over his feelings or not, it's still weird to look into his (former?) crush's love life. He's the sort to need things spelled out more directly in order to understand what's going on. And I don't think he understands how deeply and unhealthily her devotion to Chujin runs. Sure, he might find it a bit odd that Ceroba is working and taking care of the house and Kanako, but he also knows Ceroba wouldn't take shit from other people. So if she's not complaining about her circumstances then this must be something that she and Chujin worked out together. It's not his business. The least he can do for her is let her unwind whenever she swings by the Wild East and entertain Kanako so she can get a break from what he would probably see as the usual stresses of motherhood (this likely helped Ceroba far more than she realizes). Also, Starlo does have some respect for Chujin despite not liking him as a person. In post-Pacifist, when Ceroba comes out with what happened and what Chujin put her up to, I can see Starlo admonishing himself for not realizing how bad their relationship was sooner and would lose that respect for Chujin (even if Ceroba is still at a point where she sees Chujin as perfect). Hindsight is 20/20 after all.

Now, if Ceroba started to realize how much her life sucks and the cracks showed earlier, of course he'd pull her aside and try to sort out what's going on and see if he can help. He'd support her in any path that she chooses for herself, whether it be couple's counseling (massive doubt) or divorce (yeah, that's what would happen). Starlo isn't a petty person and respects Ceroba so when that divorce inevitably happens, he might be like "You lost your chance with a wonderful person" to Chujin, not "Ha, you lost your wife!!! Lmao, I win!!!" Even if Ceroba chooses to get into a relationship with someone else or doesn't choose anyone at all, what matters most to Starlo is that she's happy.

It's fortunate for Cerojin that Chujin died when he did because if he were still alive, at some point the fuse on the powder keg that was their relationship would've reached its end, and when that happened their relationship would've blown up with the messiest fallout. To everybody else (except those in the know), it would've looked like the lovely and happy couple of Oasis Valley spontaneously fell apart in a matter of days/weeks.

[urdreamydoodles]

Chaotic Monopoly night with the X-Men

Playing Monopoly maybe wasn't such a good idea

A simple Monopoly game night with Logan, Remy, Kurt, Scott, Jean, Laura, and Rogue quickly turns chaotic as competitive spirits flare and petty rivalries take over. Despite your best efforts to keep the peace, the game spirals into full-blown chaos, leaving everyone more focused on winning than on having fun.

Characters: Logan Howlett, Remy LeBeau, Kurt Wagner, Scott Summers, Jean Grey, Laura Kinney & Rogue

- It had started as an innocent idea. A simple game night to bring everyone together, to relax and unwind after the week. You had suggested Monopoly, hoping the slow-paced, strategic game would help everyone bond. As you set up the board, everyone seemed in good spirits, laughing and teasing one another. Logan, Remy, Kurt, Scott, Jean, Laura, and Rogue had all agreed to join, and you felt a sense of satisfaction as they gathered around. You had no idea what you were in for.

- Logan was the first to grumble as soon as he saw the game pieces. “I’m not being the damn thimble,” he muttered, reaching for the dog instead. You bit back a smile and handed him the piece, already sensing the tension building. Remy smirked and casually picked up the top hat, twirling it in his fingers like it was some sort of prize. “Look at dis, chérie,” he said, flashing you a grin. “I’ll be runnin’ dis board in no time.”

- You took a deep breath and rolled your eyes playfully as everyone else selected their pieces. Kurt chose the car with a cheerful, “Zis vill be fun, ja?” He seemed optimistic, at least for now. Jean chose the cat, her calm demeanor making you hope she’d be the voice of reason later. Scott picked the battleship, predictably taking his strategy seriously right from the start. Laura grabbed the iron without a word, clearly already plotting her moves in her head, while Rogue chose the boot, eyeing Remy’s top hat with suspicion.

- The first few turns were harmless enough. Everyone moved their pieces across the board, making light jokes and trying to get a feel for the game. But as properties started being bought, the competition heated up. Remy bought up half of the properties on one side of the board, smirking every time he landed on something new. “Better watch out, mes amis,” he said with a wink. “Dis is gonna be my city.”

- Logan was already eyeing him with suspicion, grumbling under his breath whenever he landed on a property Remy owned. “You cheatin’ or somethin’, Gumbo?” Logan growled, narrowing his eyes. Remy just laughed and leaned back in his chair, clearly enjoying how much he was already getting under Logan’s skin. You could feel the tension rising, but you tried to keep things light by cracking jokes and making sure everyone had snacks.

- Kurt, ever the optimist, landed on Boardwalk and his whole face lit up. “Oh-ho! Vhat luck!” he said, glancing around the table with a wide smile. “Looks like I’ll be winning after all!” But before he could even celebrate, Scott landed on Park Place and immediately started calculating how to turn this into a deadly duo with his strategic brain. He adjusted his glasses and leaned forward. “This is where the game changes,” he said seriously, ignoring the collective groan around the table.

- Meanwhile, Jean tried to stay neutral, but you could tell she was getting quietly competitive. Every time she landed on a new property, she gave Scott a knowing look as if to say, “I’m not going easy on you.” She stayed calm on the surface, but you could feel the brewing tension between her and Scott as they started subtly battling for dominance on the board.

- Laura, on the other hand, was completely ruthless. She didn’t say much, but every move she made was calculated, her eyes cold and focused. She quickly amassed a row of properties and quietly upgraded them to hotels without anyone noticing. Logan glanced over at her board at one point and raised an eyebrow. “You’re too damn quiet over there, kid. What’re you up to?”

- Rogue was growing more and more frustrated as Remy kept avoiding landing on her properties. Every time he dodged one of her spots, she shot him a glare. “You better land on somethin’ of mine soon, swamp rat,” she muttered. Remy just laughed and leaned over to kiss her cheek, which only made her roll her eyes. “That ain’t gonna save you.”

- The chaos really kicked off when Logan and Scott started getting into it over a trade. Logan wanted one of Scott’s railroads, but Scott, being Scott, refused to give in without a steep price. “C’mon, Summers,” Logan growled, slamming his piece down on the table. “You can’t hold on to everythin’ forever.”

- Scott, ever the strategist, crossed his arms and gave Logan a cool look. “It’s about making smart moves, Logan. Not just impulsive ones.”

- The argument escalated from there, with Logan accusing Scott of being too controlling and Scott firing back that Logan was just mad because he couldn’t win without brute force. Jean tried to step in and mediate, but even she was starting to look annoyed with both of them. “It’s just a game,” she said, though her tone was strained. “Can we all calm down?”

- Things weren’t much better on the other side of the table. Remy was still smirking like he had the whole game in the bag, which was driving Rogue up the wall. “You think you’re so clever, don’t ya?” she snapped after he landed on one of his own properties again. “You’re just gettin’ lucky.”

- Remy grinned at her, clearly enjoying riling her up. “Luck, charm—same thing, chère.” He winked at you, and you had to suppress a laugh as Rogue’s frustration visibly grew. She was clearly getting more competitive by the second, and you could see this Monopoly game was bringing out sides of everyone you hadn’t expected.

- Kurt, bless him, was still trying to keep things positive, but even he was getting swept up in the chaos. When he landed on one of Laura’s hotel properties and had to pay an outrageous sum, he threw his hands up in mock despair. “Ach! Zis is highway robbery!” he exclaimed, though he still managed to laugh. Laura just shrugged, completely unfazed as she collected her cash.

- As the game dragged on, everyone’s patience grew thinner. Logan and Scott’s petty feud continued, with Logan refusing to trade anything with Scott out of spite, and Scott calculating his every move to make sure Logan stayed far behind. Rogue and Remy’s playful bickering had escalated into a full-on rivalry, with Rogue purposely sabotaging Remy’s deals at every opportunity. Laura, meanwhile, was silently dominating the board, and Kurt’s earlier optimism had completely faded as he realized he had no chance of winning.

- You tried to stay neutral, offering to help people with trades and keeping the snacks coming, but even you couldn’t stop the inevitable chaos. As the tension reached a boiling point, Logan finally threw his hands up in frustration. “This is bull!” he yelled, standing up from the table. “I’m done playin’ this stupid game.”

- Scott, ever the leader, just shook his head. “You’re quitting because you can’t handle losing, Logan.”

- Logan shot him a dark look. “No, I’m quittin’ because this is the dumbest game I’ve ever played.”

- The argument continued, with Remy laughing from the sidelines and Rogue rolling her eyes. Jean had given up trying to mediate, and Kurt was just shaking his head in disbelief. Laura was the only one who looked completely satisfied with the outcome, having quietly won the game without anyone noticing.

- In the end, the game board was left in chaos, pieces scattered across the table as everyone stormed off in different directions. You sighed, knowing you’d have to be the one to clean it up later. But as frustrating as it had been, there was something almost endearing about the way everyone had gotten so invested. It wasn’t the peaceful game night you’d envisioned, but it had certainly been memorable.

- As you started picking up the pieces, Remy walked over and gave you a sympathetic smile. “Tough crowd, huh, chère?”

- You couldn’t help but laugh, shaking your head. “You have no idea.”

[starsofmilos]

You Drew Stars Around My Scars (Adrian Chase x reader)

Request: I think Adrian kinda a touch starve person, since people think he's weird so maybe not many people like to be near with him? Which make him a touch starve?. So could u write a reader who's make the first move to touch him in innocent way, like kissing his hand nor his forehead something simple like that??

So I read a lot of fics having touch starved reader and as much as I love that. I’ve always wanted to write a fic or see a fic where Adrian was the one who was touch starved so I was excited to receive this request

Masterlist

Warnings: fluff, mentions of sex, mentions of violence, small amount of angst

“Dude why don’t you just ask her out?”

Chris spoke out seeing Adrian eyeing you once again. Adrian turned giving him a small confused look.

“What do you mean? Why would I do that?”

“You’re joking right?” 

Adrian scoffed chuckling a bit. The idea of asking you out was so funny to him. As if you’d ever say yes especially to him. Besides it’s not like he liked you.

Right?

“Dude you’re so obviously attracted to her and she feels the same way. You could see it. I’m tired of all your guys stupid sexual tension so just ask her out.”

“Okay first of all there is no tension. Second of all, Y/N does not like me that way. I mean you’ve said it yourself no girl would ever willingly date me.”

“That was a joke because let’s be honest you’re kinda annoying most of the time dude and Y/N tolerates you. She actually enjoys your company and goes out of her way to look for you.”

“No she doesn’t.”

“Yes she does. Anytime we come back from a mission or we get separated from each other and we regroup, you are the first person she looks for. If you’re not there, you’re the first person she asks for. I’m telling you I could tell chick digs you.”

Adrian rolled his eyes, “Why should I believe you? How do I know this isn’t some stupid prank you’re trying to pull on me?”

“It’s not. I’ve admitted I’m a bit of an asshole at times, but I wouldn’t try to screw you out of a friendship. If I didn’t think she liked you then I wouldn’t be telling you to ask her out.”

Chris gave Adrian a grin as they both looked back to you. You did look especially pretty tonight. Adrian thought so at least.

You wore that one outfit that Adrian swears is his all time favorite. Made your eyes and smile pop more as he described it. 

He smiled as you looked towards them giving them a small wave.

“Adrian...”

“What?..”

“I can feel the tension from across the room. Go to her.”

“But she’s relaxing I don’t need to go ruin that for her-”

“Shut up and go sit with her and maybe I don’t know grow a pair of balls and ask her out.”

Adrian flipped him off as he walked towards you. It was a simple little get together at Adrian’s place that they all planned to unwind. Everyone would leave by midnight, but you..

You always stood to help him clean up or just to hang out with him just to end up crashing on his couch. (More like his bed since he’d rather die than have you sleep on his uncomfortable couch.)

“Hey Adrian..lovely little shindig you planned here.”

“Ah thanks all it costed me was thirty bucks.” You laughed a bit as he took a seat across from you. Not to close, but also not far.

“I could tell great idea getting digorno pizza. instead of ordering a couple. It’s not delivery.” You winked not noticing as Adrian grew flustered.

He laughed nervously rubbing the back of his head. “So did you plan on spending the whole party sitting in the corner?”

“No I was waiting for you to join when you wanted. I always wait for you Adrian.” You gave him a small smile. Adrian grinned as you sat up a bit more.

Adrian admired your smile as you fiddled with your water bottle. So maybe he did like you more than he’d care to admit.

You just confused him and kinda scared him.

No one had ever made him feel the way you feel. Whenever he was around you, his heart felt full, his palms would get sweaty and he felt breathless. He never felt this way around anyone before. 

He’d gone his whole life believing he wasn’t capable of feeling anything like this. He thought he didn’t need it. It was a superficial thing. He didn’t need anyone else but himself. 

Adrian couldn’t even remember the last time he intimately held hands with someone. He didn’t even quite know what that intimacy felt like. 

With you though, he wanted to know. He wanted to be held and not just used as a quick fuck. He wanted to be himself and know what it felt like to be held or just to hold.

He wanted you close. 

He wanted you next to him. He craved your touch even though he’d never experienced it. He just knew you would be the best person to hold or be held by..

You scared him in the best way possible.

The idea of one person bringing all of that out of him was fucking terrifying. 

You smiled softly standing up wanting another drink of water. “If you wanna wait for me you can, but I want a refill.”

Adrian’s eyes shut as you ran your hand through his hair walking by him. His own hand reached out for yours as you passed by wanting to hold it, but he didn’t.

As the night progressed and the more people drank. You and Adrian sat closer and closer to each other. Still not touching but close enough that if you wanted to lean on his shoulder you could.

And you did.

Adrian’s breath hitched as your head leaned on him shutting your eyes. He glanced down seeing your hand reach out for his. He held it open as it a silent invitation to hold it if you wanted.

God did he want you too.

You didn’t notice it though.

“I’m starting to get tired..Do you mind if I spend the night Adrian? I don’t wanna drive when I’m this tired.”

“You know you are more than welcomed to spend the night. Besides you did drink a bit I don’t want you driving at all.”

“I only had two beers. Rest of the night has been water. Didn’t wanna get stupid drunk like Peacemaker over there.”

Adrian glanced over chuckling a bit seeing that Chris was indeed stupid drunk. You laughed a bit seeing Chris tumbling over his words to Emilia. 

“Not our problem, Adebayo said she’d get him home.” You pointed to Adebayo trying to hide Chris’s drink.

“Last time I drove him home, he just kept yelling at me and threw up in my car so I said I wouldn’t do it again for a while.”

“Good only person who could vomit in your car is me.”

“Yeah it is only you. I’ll clean up your vomit and you any day Y/N.”

“How sweet. Might be one of the nicest things anyone has ever said to me.”

“I try.” Adrian eyed your lips as you stared up at him. You grinned seeing his dumbstruck look. 

“Why do you look dumb? What’s got you all bothered?”

“What? Nothing. Why?”

“I know you Adrian. I can see there’s something on your mind. Now spill.”

“It’s nothing.” You shook your head as he laughed a bit.

“Not nothing don’t give me that bull shit.”

“You really wanna know what’s on my mind?”

“I do. I always wanna know what’s on your mind.” 

“Do you really?” Adrian teased as you huffed. 

“Yes. I’m sure you idiot.”

“I really really and I mean really wanna kiss you..” You grew quiet staring up at him with shock. You didn’t think Adrian would say this.

“But I can’t and I won’t. It would ruin our friendship and make everything weird. Chris kinda got into my head tonight too saying there’s some tension between us and I said no because why would their be? You’re...Shit man you’re so special and beautiful so how could their be tension with me? Me of all people.”

“Adrian..”

“Man I’m rambling now aren’t I? I didn’t mean too. Sometimes it all just spills out without me meaning too. Let’s change the subject, I’m kinda surprised Chris didn’t bring Eagly with him. I love Eagly-”

“Adrian I’ve never said this to you before but shut up.” He looked down at you in shock. You grabbed his arm picking it up to snuggle into him. 

“First of all so it’s not on your mind, Chris did bring Eagly. He’s outside though on the roof. Second of all you could ramble as much as you want to me and I’ll listen-”

“You just said for me to shut up-”

“I’m not done...Adrian...I really really and I mean really want you to kiss me too..”

Adrian stared down at you in shock. “But it would change things and probably make it weird-”

“I want weird with you. I love weird with you. You say I’m special..Adrian Chase you’re the nicest weirdo I’ve ever met and I want nothing more than for you to make it weird between us. Cause if you don’t I will.”

“I-I- um..I wasn’t expecting this at all. I think I need a moment.” You laughed wrapping your arms around him.

“Take your time. I’m not going anywhere.”

“Okay...lemme think about this..” You nodded shutting your eyes in content against him. You leaned up kissing his cheek softly not knowing how that small gesture made his brain short circuit. 

“You’re killing me here.” He glared at you. 

“All I did was kiss your cheek dummy.”

“Fuck you.” You grabbed his hand playing with it as he continued trying to glare at you. 

Everyone began to clear out of the house each of them going home except for you and Adebayo who had to drag Chris to her car.

Chris laughed as Adrian helped her get him in the car. You stood watching them from a small distance.

“Dude y-you gotta just do it okay.” Adrian grimaced as Chris burped. “Ask her out!”

“Okay I will not shut up and let me buckle you up!”

“Y/N you hear that! He’s gonna ask you out!” You laughed as Adrian resisted the urge to punch his drunk best friend.

“Shut up!”

“Oh did you not want her to know yet?!”

“Adebayo please get him home.” Adrian slammed the door as she laughed a bit nodding her head.

“I will.” 

Adrian sighed approaching you. You rubbed your arms cold as the night air pinched at your skin. Adrian shrugged off his sweater throwing it over you. 

“Can’t have you be cold now huh?”

“I don’t need it. Spending the night still if that’s okay.”

“Yeah why wouldn’t it be?” You giggled deciding to tease him a bit.

“Might make things weird between us.” Adrian rolled his eyes. 

“That’s fine. I want weird between us.” You stepped forward grabbing his hand tentatively holding it firmly.

“Good.”

“You know you’re probably the first girl or well person to ever want to willingly hold my hand. A lot of people really don’t wanna approach me.”

“Well that’s sad. Who could look at you and not wanna just hold you?” Adrian laughed a bit shaking his head letting you lead him back inside. 

“So does this mean we’re dating.” He asked as you led him to his room.

“I don’t know ask me out.”

“Oh fuck fine! Y/N will you go out with me?” You grinned widely nodding.

“Yeah I will..Gotta say though this is kinda forward taking me to bed before dinner.”

“Shut up.” Adrian pulled you to him not holding you but having you close. You noticed his hesitancy to touch you. He wanted too.

You wanted him too, but it was obvious Adrian never had been intimate like this with someone. Not the sex intimate, but the I wanna hold you till I’m out of breath intimacy.

So you grabbed his cheeks admiring his face. Every small detail. He relaxed as your thumb ran across a small scar he had on his cheek. 

He smiled as you pulled his head down softly kissing his forehead. You kissed his forehead, cheek and let his head go only to grab his hand to lay a gentle kiss on it.

“Adrian..I know you usually let me have your bed and you take the couch, but tonight do you think it’d be okay to share a bed with me?”

“Are you sure?..” He whispered out scared that this would all end up being one big joke on him.

“I’m sure..”

“Okay..We can share a bed..”

You grinned as he walked away beginning to strip for his pajamas. You followed suit borrowing a shirt of his to sleep in. Adrian admired you as you laid next to him bed.

“Can we..Can I..” He struggled a bit to voice out what he wanted. Adrian Chase was speechless for once in his life.

You knew what he wanted though. You always knew.

“Yeah..yeah we can. Is this okay?” Adrian let you lay on his chest before wrapping his arms around you. 

“It’s more than okay..”

Within a couple minutes he fell asleep. You fell asleep after throwing your leg around his waist both you entangling yourselves around the other.

The next morning you awoke feeling warm. Adrian had completely latched onto you. You smiled feeling his arms tighten around you when you tried to move.

“Adrian..”

He hummed as you ran your hands through his hair. “I gotta pee.”

“Okay..pee.”

“No! I’m not peeing here idiot!”

“Well I don’t know how you’re gonna go then because I’m not letting you go. I don’t think I’ll ever let you go..”

You pulled his face away from your neck where he had it buried in. 

“I’m gonna go pee-” Adrian groaned shaking his head. You grabbed his face planting a soft kiss on his head so he could let you go. He relaxed more loosening his grip letting you wiggle free.

“I’ll be back!”

“You’re no fair!!!”

Adrian sat up jumping a bit as you ran back in throwing yourself on the bed. “That was fast.”

“Told you I would be...Do you think we could go out today? On a date?”

“Fuck I was gonna ask you...Y/N do you think I could have another hug?”

“You don’t gotta ask. Wanna cuddle then go out for breakfast?”

“Is that our date?” Adrian wiggled his eyebrows. You nodded gripping his shoulders to help yourself up. 

“Yeah..it is...to seal the deal I’m gonna kiss you now okay?”

“Okay...”

Adrian eyed your lips nervously as you leaned in placing a soft kiss on his lips. He smiled chasing your mouth when you pulled away. 

“Was that good?”

“More. Give me more please.” You laughed kissing him again laying down with him on the bed.

Adrian couldn’t stop kissing you. He kissed your lips, cheeks, forehead. 

Nothing could beat this. 

[mymoonagedaydream]

Only the Good Die Young (Part 6)

Summary: It seemed like everyone in that godforsaken town was out to test your relationship

Pairing: Biker!Bucky x y/n

Word Count: 2k

Warnings: Language, anti-religious sentiment, harmful relationship with parents, creepy threatening behaviour

Author's Note: Temptation. I feel like I’ve put these two through so much but I just. cannot. stop. Eventually I may need medical intervention.

---

You just stood there for a little while. Eyes closed, head resting against his chest, savouring the contentment and safety you felt in his arms. These moments of peace were few and far between for the two of you, so when they came along you held on to them for as long as you could.

Your serenity faded after a few minutes, as you found yourself struggling to prevent his mother’s words bleeding into the front of your mind.

You wanted to look after him, you wanted to heal and care for him the best you could, but you knew there was nothing you could do to make up for his past. You couldn’t fix it.

But at least now, you were able to realise that everything he’d ever achieved, he’d done completely by himself. 

All his life he’d had no help, no support and no real reason to outgrow the life that people like your mother expected him to lead. At the very least, you were determined to change that.

After a while, he piped up. ‘You hungry? I thought we could order food, there’s a really good-’

You cut him off by throwing your arms around his neck and pressing your lips against his, apparently shocking him a little, because it took him a few seconds to respond. He eventually tightened his hold around you and tilted his head to the side, deepening the kiss while you moved your hands to cradle his face. Eventually, he pulled away.

‘-pizza place nearby.’

You laughed at his stupid grin, nodded and reached over to the drawer with the takeout menus.

The two of you ate in front of the TV, then curled up together on the sofa for the evening. You were still holding onto this moment of peace, savouring every second, knowing how fleeting it could be.  

---

As predicted, you only managed about an hour of relaxation before Bucky’s phone started buzzing. He picked it up and moved over to the kitchen when he saw that it was his mother calling.

You tried not to eavesdrop, but it wasn’t a big flat.

He didn’t say much, he was mainly listening to her, but as the conversation progressed you could tell he was getting more and more agitated. The only thing you could really gauge was that, at one point, she asked him for money. He told her he was pretty broke at the moment, so he didn’t have any to spare, but you had no idea if that was the truth.

It was heart-breaking to see the toxic side of their relationship in practice, especially after seeing all the love that his mother was capable of.  

Finally, he said a short goodbye and trudged back to the couch. You waited for a second to see if he’d share willingly, but he just huffed, heaved his boots up onto the table and necked the rest of his beer. You were going to have to do this the hard way.

‘Is everything alright?’

‘Yeah, fine.’ He gave you a short, tight smile and reached for the remote. You caught his arm.

‘Buck.’

‘It’s nothing, just...’ He gave an aggravated sigh and rubbed his eyes. ‘She’s not pressing charges.’

‘That’s not nothing. That’s a pretty valid reason to be upset.’

You were still very much testing the waters as far as talking Bucky down was concerned. You were sure that he’d calm down himself given enough time, but if you were going to move in here properly you’d prefer not to have walls full of holes.

He took a deep breath. ‘It’s not like I expected anything else, this is what always happens.’

‘Doesn’t mean it sucks any less.’ You shifted closer and interlaced your fingers with his, rubbing his forearm with your other hand, feeling some of the tension in his muscles settle under your touch. You were pretty pleased with that result, even if it was only small. ‘Y’know, for a guy who was so eager to find someone to talk to, you’re really not easy to get information out of.’

He let a reluctant smile spread across his face. ‘Good job you’re a ruthless interrogator then.’

---

The next few days were almost perfect. You were able to spend quality time together and unwind a little, just about managing to ignore the sixty-four missed calls from your parents and the texts begging for money from his. Bucky went out to work whenever repair jobs came up, but you quite enjoyed having free-reign of the flat while he was gone, making subtle changes that he barely noticed when he got back.

The decoration wasn’t bad per se, it just didn’t really… exist. It was your typical bare bones bachelor pad, you were convinced he hadn’t made any real changes since moving in- apart from a pile of magazines and a couple of suspicious stains on the carpet.

When your parents finally gave up, and when enough time had passed since the visit from Bucky’s mother, it felt for the first time like maybe everything could turn out alright. All the problems you’d faced seemed to be receding further and further, it seemed like they couldn’t penetrate the walls of this cosy little life you’d built.

So it was all the more disappointing when that turned out not to be the case.

---

You woke up to the sound of Bucky’s alarm. Stretching a little, you felt his body pressed up against the back of yours and his arms wrapped you. He reached over you to shut the sound off, groaned dramatically and buried his face in the crook of your neck.

‘Another morning I'll have trouble climbing out of bed.’

His words were muffled against your skin. You rolled onto your back and brushed a few strands of hair away from his forehead, smiling at the deep marks left on his cheek by the creases in the sheets. The two of you must’ve slept like logs, barely moving all night.

‘Stay then.’

‘I’ve got places to go.’ He placed a few soft kisses below your ear. ‘There’s a big job today, could be a few hundred bucks.’

You frowned and abruptly grabbed his head, lifting it away from you. ‘Hundreds? Christ, get out then.’

‘Wow, didn’t have you down as a gold digger.’ You laughed and tried to push him out of bed, relenting when he clawed his way back to you.

‘You could use some restraint, Barnes.’

‘I never said I was a saint.’

Ten or fifteen minutes later, Bucky finally got up and ready for work. You had a day of solid lounging around planned. Maybe you’d take a walk into town later, but only during the hours you knew your parents would be working. No way would you risk bumping into them.

---

He’d been gone for a few hours when the doorbell went. You couldn’t figure out who it was from the window, so you tiptoed downstairs and cautiously inched the door open. It was the blonde from the bar, the one who got Bucky thrown in jail.

‘What the hell do you want?’ The severity in your voice shocked you a little.

He gave a smug chuckle. ‘Calm down, suburbs. I wanna talk to Bucky.’

‘About what?’

He narrowed his eyes at you and stepped forward, stretching his arms out and bracing himself against the door frame. You instinctively moved back, tightening your grip on the open door, ready to slam it shut at a moment's notice.

‘I’d rather just speak to him, sweetheart.’

‘Look, he’s not here, but even if he was I’m sure he’d just tell you to fuck off.’

A sinister, calculating look spread over his face. ‘You’re here all on your own?’

The shift in his tone made your entire body tense up. You immediately defaulted into fight or flight mode, pushing the door closed as quickly as you could. Somehow he moved faster, shoving his foot into the gap and letting out an irritated grunt when the door slammed into it. You felt him pushing against the other side of the wood.

‘C’mon.’ You saw his fingers emerge through the gap and curl round the edge of the door. ‘I just wanna talk.’

Summoning strength from god-knows-where, you stomped down on his foot with all your weight. When it jerked out of the gap, you shoved your shoulder hard against the door, hearing the cracking of his fingers followed by loud yelp. He pulled his hand away and you swiftly turned the lock.

He was still shouting and banging on the door as you scrambled upstairs, your shaky knees finally causing you to collapse as you burst back into the flat. You crawled over to the window and peeked out, seeing him limping away down the street, cradling his injured hand against his chest. You breathed out for what felt like the first time in ten minutes, remnants of your adrenaline rush making your head spin.

Despite your overwhelming panic, you couldn’t help but feel a little pleased with yourself, cause damn that was pretty fucking badass.

You considered calling Bucky, but figured that as long as you didn’t answer the door again, you should be alright until he finishes. It’d be much easier to explain what’d happened after you’d had some time to think about it and to calm down a bit.

You made some tea and collapsed onto the couch, all the while making an effort to maintain deep, controlled breaths. Thankfully, it wasn’t too long before you managed to compose yourself.

When Bucky got back, you sat him down and reeled it all off, reassuring him throughout that you were fine. He seemed to take it surprisingly well, staying silent and still while you were explaining. You thought maybe he’d finally turned a corner with his anger.

That was, until you got to the end of your story.

‘He didn’t come back, right?’ You shook your head. He nodded to himself and clenched his hands together tight, dropping his head and taking a deep, shaky breath. ‘Fuckin asshole, man.’

You could see him ramping up to something, so you tried your best to diffuse. ‘It’s fine, I’m fine. I handled it.’

‘Nah.’ Bucky stood up suddenly and grabbed his jacket, storming towards the door. ‘He could’a hurt you.’

‘He didn’t.’ You followed him, managing to grab his arm before he made it out of the flat.

‘That’s not the point.’

You knew there was no fucking way were you going to stand back and let him do this again. His judgement was being clouded by anger, that much was obvious, so he needed a sharp reality check to ground him again.

‘Do you really think this is worth going back to jail for?’ He stopped tugging against you, turning his head slightly so you were in the corner of his vision. ‘Cause I guarantee I won’t be here when you get out.’

He was still for a second. You let go and took a couple steps back, waiting to see what he would do.

If he left, this was over.

He threw his jacket to the ground in frustration and ran his fingers through his hair, turning back towards you with a regretful grimace. You breathed a pretty big sigh of relief.

‘You’re right.’ He held his arms out in defeat. ‘Y’know, I try to be rational, but it all gets blown to pieces when I look at you.’

What a strange mix of accusation and romance.

‘If you don’t chill the fuck out soon you’ll only be looking at me through bulletproof glass.’

He rubbed his forehead exasperatedly. ‘God, I wish everyone would just leave us alone.’

You didn’t respond for a second, considering whether or not to tell him what you were thinking. It was something you’d been debating for a while, something you were going to bring up with him when it got closer to the end of summer.

Fuck it, now was as good a time as any.

‘We need to get out of this town. There’s nothing here for us Buck.’

He squinted at you in slight confusion. ‘You wanna move?’

‘Look I know it’s not been long, and I know there's a danger in wanting too much too soon, but I really think we could be happy somewhere else. Your parents, my parents, your weird creepy friends. We need to get away.’

He looked away, considering your proposal. You just shifted on the spot awkwardly for what felt like hours. Eventually he smiled, then grinned, and soon enough he was beaming at you.

‘Alright. Let’s get outta here.’

‘Yeah?’ Your head was spinning with possibility and optimism. ‘Where should we go?’

‘Wherever you want darlin.’

---

Part 7

---

@shawnie--jo @brilliantbellesoares @livingoffsavvyillusions @noiralei @bebeyeni @kingkassam @newyorkgoddess @sir-lili @im-squished @dancer3205 @thefallenbibliophilequote @supernaturalwintersoldier

---

[thedumpsterqueen]

Standards of Performance, Chapter 6: Buckshot and Tequila

Chapter 1, Chapter 2, Chapter 3, Chapter 4, Chapter 5

AO3 Link

Finally, I write most of the chapter before the day I’m supposed to post it. This was mostly done on my laptop (which I’m not used to) as we just moved and my PC is barely set up, so forgive anything that looks weird or wonky. As always, I hope you enjoy. I love getting all your kind messages <3 (Also message me if you want to be on the taglist - I suppose I should be better about that!)

Summary:  You’re the BAU’s newest intern, desperate to prove yourself amongst an established team of much more experienced profilers. Agent Hotchner, the seemingly infallible team leader, sets strict expectations for your performance. He commands your respect without even trying, but is there something more to your relationship than a simple desire to impress your stony-faced boss?

Chapter: 6, Buckshot and Tequila

Chapter Summary: Events during a new case test your ability to keep your feelings hidden, and a night out takes an unforeseen turn. 

Words: 3736

Rating: Explicit, 18+. Warnings on AO3.

Pairings: Hotch x Reader, Hotch x You

Turns out, lying to Hotch was easier than you thought.

It helped that you were lying to yourself too, of course - that you pretended your gaze didn't linger on his form whenever he was in your vicinity, that the swell of pride in your chest when he agreed with something you said was purely professional. There were times, though, that the facade was much harder to maintain. The most recent case had been one of those times.

You had been tracking down an unsub abducting children in a rural Iowa town. Three kids had gone missing in the span of two weeks, and after Garcia matched the victimology and MO with neighboring states, it looked to be close to a dozen in the years before that. The case started off rough enough - locals refused to believe it could be one of their own, police resisted the BAU’s guidance, the usual - but it came to a head when a fourth child went missing during the investigation.

Thankfully, the team figured out the identity of the unsub relatively quickly. Reid did a geographical profile of all the locations where victims were taken and found a public health clinic that had branches in each area. Garcia cross-checked the employee records to find that only one doctor had done travel shifts at each clinic during the time the children were taken, and within minutes, you were rushing to his address.

The SUV carrying Hotch, Rossi, and Prentiss arrived long enough before yours that by the time you pulled up, they were already kicking down the door and entering the home. The first thing you heard after you flung the car door open was the deafening crack of a weapon firing, and despite your lack of training with firearms, it was apparent that it was not an FBI-issue pistol.

You would never describe yourself as fragile - you couldn't be, not in this line of work. But when you registered the implications of that sound, your knees buckled, instantly bringing you down onto the dusty ground outside the farmhouse. The rest of the team sprinted in, guns drawn. You faintly registered Prentiss yelling inside, then more gunshots, but your head was ringing so loudly from the visceral panic that you couldn’t make out anything specific.

When Hotch burst back out onto the porch, you thought you might honestly sob with relief. That is, until you caught the glint of the sun in the slick, dark blood dripping down the sleeve of his suit.

That was when you puked.

Something about the sight of Aaron Hotchner bleeding felt so wrong that even as you struggled to your feet and stepped over the pile of sick you left in the dirt, even as you got closer and saw the rivulets of blood drip down to his fingertips and dot the wooden floors of the porch, you felt like you were in a dream. Your mind couldn’t grasp the sudden shock of his mortality, that he could bleed, that he could die, even, and he very well might, depending on what vessels were hit. You made it up the steps, only managing to call out his name - his first name - your throat still burning from bile. Despite the chaos of the current moment, he still whipped his head around at the sound of that, as if hearing the name Aaron desperately falling from your lips was more attention-grabbing than the rest of the team gathering around him trying to stem the bleeding.

“It looks worse than it is,” said Rossi, peering through the holes in Hotch’s mangled sleeve. “It was just buckshot, and he barely hit you. Nothing a few stitches won’t fix.”

He turned out to be right, thank god, and later that afternoon, Hotch was freshly bandaged and sitting across from you on the return flight to Quantico.

So, yeah, the “lying to yourself” thing wasn’t going so well at that moment. Hotch was absorbed in paperwork while the rest of the team napped - because of course he was; even being shot didn’t sway his apparently relentless refusal to relax - and each time he winced at the movement of his arm, your vice grip around your chest tightened a little more.

He must have sensed you staring, because he looked up, frown softening slightly as he saw the concern on your face.

“Don’t worry about me. I’m fine,” he assured you with a half smile.

Teetering on an emotional precipice, too scared to respond for fear of falling over the edge, you went back to your reading. After a few minutes of listening to him write while not turning a single page in your book, he set his pen down and took a breath.

“You were screaming my name,” he said, quietly, despite you two being the only ones awake.

“What?”

“Earlier,” he clarified, “when we went into the house. I could hear you outside, yelling my name.”

You looked at him, incredulous. “Of course I did. I heard the shotgun go off. Clearly,” you gestured at his arm, “I had a reason to be worried.”

He shook his head and cleared his throat, as if you didn’t understand the question. “Dave and Emily were with me. Any of us could have gotten hit. You only yelled for me.”

Oh.

You shrugged. “You’re the team leader. It’s my instinct to call for you when something goes wrong."

It was a lie, and a bad one at that, but Hotch gave you an unreadable look and let the subject drop.

The rest of the flight was uneventful, and when you finally made it back to your apartment, you had no plans other than to sleep off the stress of the case and the embarrassment of Hotch calling your actions into question. Garcia, however, wasn't about to let that happen.

BAU-tiful People Group Chat

Garcia: *added You to the conversation*

Garcia: Ok, my lovely children, I know you’re all tired, but I miss your faces, so I’ll see u at Whimsy tonight at 9! Notice I didn’t use a question mark bc it is NOT a question!

You knew from overhearing the team talk that Whimsy was a bar downtown they liked to frequent, but you’d never been invited before. Despite your overwhelming exhaustion, the idea of going out with the team, of finally feeling accepted by them, was enough to make you amenable to the concept. It may have seemed insignificant on the surface, but Garcia adding you to their group chat was the biggest welcome gesture you’d received yet.

Morgan: Only if you wear that dress you know I like ;)

You lived for the day they would realize they were actually flirting with each other instead of just pretending to.

Prentiss: Garcia… you’re killing me… but you know I’ll be there.

JJ: Contacting the babysitter as we speak.

Morgan: Fuck yeah!!! Pretty Boy, you in?

Reid: Can’t we ever go somewhere quiet?

As the group chimed in with various iterations of, “Shut up, Reid,” you hesitantly typed out a text to confirm your attendance. You were excited, of course, but nervous to be the new kid at their favorite hangout. After today's events, though, the desire not to be sober won out over nerves.

You: I’ll be there! Thanks for the invite!

Rossi: Hope you kids are ready for me to drink you under the table, as usual.

Morgan: Eyyy, you KNOW we party hard! See y’all tonight.

____________

Turns out, Morgan was not exaggerating. Not even a little bit. By the time you arrived, 15 minutes late, everyone looked to be at least 3 shots deep. Garcia ran over to greet you, squealing, and wrapped you in a suffocating hug.

“I’m so glad you came! What do you drink? Tequila? I’ll grab the next round!”

You laughed and confirmed that tequila sounded great, and as she scurried off to the bar with Morgan on her heels, you had a chance to look around.

The atmosphere of the club surprised you - it was all glass and steel and modernity, packed with people dancing to something with intense bass - not the low-key joint you’d pictured the team wanting to unwind at. But as you watched JJ, Prentiss, and Rossi cheer on Reid as he threw back a shot, doubling over in hysterics as he coughed and sputtered at the taste, you realized that this place was just loud and energetic enough to keep them from thinking about anything other than work. In that way, you definitely saw the appeal.

“I come bearing shots!” Garcia yelled as her and Morgan made it back to the table. “Grab yours… here we go- whoops! Alright, everyone got theirs?”

She turned to you, grinning behind a pair of hot pink spectacles. “Cheers not ONLY to rescuing four kidnapped children alive, but also to our lovely intern and her first Whimsy outing!”

The team erupted in cheers and you smiled back, downing the tequila. You chatted with the group while Garcia ordered more drinks, and then more drinks, and soon you felt a pleasant buzz filling your head.

“Morgan, you better ask me to dance right now before I go find another man to do the job,” Garcia said with a wink in his direction.

Morgan grinned and mock-bowed, holding out a hand for her to take, and led her off to the dancefloor.

“Should we join them?” JJ asked around the table.

“Someone’s gotta make sure they don’t do anything worth getting kicked out for,” Prentiss shot back. You giggled and followed the girls, leaving Rossi and Reid behind at the table in the midst of a heated debate about childhood brain development that you couldn’t even hope to comprehend.

Not long after you started dancing, you felt a gentle tap on your shoulder and turned around, looking up into the stunning green eyes of a man who looked to be about your age. It was hard to really tell what he looked like in the dim lighting, but by the way Prentiss was giving you a thumbs up and mouthing, “Go for it,” from your side, he was good enough for you.

“Do you want to dance?” he asked above the music. You smiled and nodded in confirmation, letting him wrap his arms around your waist and pull you to his hips.

He knew how to move, that was for certain. He ground against your backside lightly, snaking his hands around your stomach. You weren’t used to this kind of thing - dancing with random men at bars, letting them touch you like this - but the combination of the music and the booze and the relief at the last case being over was making you feel more free than you had in recent memory.

You exchanged grins with Morgan, who was dancing a few feet away in a much more R-rated manner with Garcia. The man behind you (whose name you didn’t know, but who cared?) leaned down to kiss your neck and you arched against him in response, reaching up to run your hand through his hair.

Throughout the song, you had rotated back to facing the table where the rest of your team was sitting. You glanced over, saw Reid and Rossi still deep in discussion, along with another man in a black button-up with a very familiar side profile and-

Hotch.

Hotch was here, and as if the powers that be were insistent upon proving to you that the opposite of serendipity existed, at the exact moment you had that realization, he turned and made direct eye contact with you. Drunk, wearing a skintight dress, a random man grinding on your ass, and staring right back at your Unit Chief at the motherfucking Federal Bureau of Investigation.

Your heart dropped to your stomach, and if you had been drunker, you might have hurled tequila all over the dancefloor. Instead, you pulled away from the mystery man behind you, ignoring his shocked, “Wait!” and beelined to the bar.

“Tequila. Shot. Please, I’m sorry, just saw someone I didn’t expect to,” you blurted out to the bartender, swearing you could feel Hotch’s eyes on your back from across the club.

The bartender, probably having seen much worse, nodded in understanding and poured your drink. You gulped it down, wiped your mouth, and leaned on the bar to get your bearings.

It’s not weird. It’s not. It’s a bar, it’s outside of work hours, it’s perfectly fine that you’re buzzed and dancing and having fun. Everyone else is!

Really, it wasn’t that you were worried about your job, or even that he would judge you (he probably would, but that was unavoidable regardless of the setting), it was just that you hadn’t mentally prepared yourself for the possibility that he would come. He was in the group chat - obviously, if he had seen Garcia’s invite - but had never struck you as the social type, the kind of boss that would interact with his team outside of work.

“Did you see that Hotch is here?” Prentiss asked breathlessly, appearing at the bar beside you.

Apparently, you weren’t the only one surprised.

“I did,” you whispered back, despite the thumping music and the rowdy patrons making it logically impossible for your words to reach the table 20 feet away. “Does he usually join you guys?”

“Never,” she said, before thinking and correcting herself, “Not in years, anyways. When Haley… we used to drag him out, but we stopped after a while.”

“Why do you think he came tonight?"

She shrugged. “Who knows? Far be it from me to explain why Hotch does anything.” An idea seemed to pop in her head, and she grinned. “Maybe it’s because of you!”

“M-me?” Your reaction to the suggestion wasn’t nearly as nonchalant as you’d tried for, but Prentiss was too drunk to notice.

“Yeah, gotta help initiate the intern on her first night out, right?” She grinned and clapped you on the shoulder, then turned away to head back to the dancefloor, leaving you alone. You sighed, gathered yourself as much as you could considering the effects of the tequila, and turned around to go greet him.

“Hey, Agent Hotchner. Didn’t expect to see you tonight!”

“Yes, well. Thought I’d show up for a bit; it’s been a while.” He gave you a tight lipped smile then looked back down at his glass of whisky, the awkward energy palpable.

Probably because he just saw you basically dry-humping some random dude.

“Well, I’m glad you came! Feel free to, uh, come dance if you want! Morgan and Garcia are showing us all up,” you said, gesturing to where Morgan and Garcia were in fact drawing the attention of several onlookers.

He chuckled at that. “They’re certainly a sight to behold, aren’t they?”

You nodded in agreement and headed back to the bar, the brief conversation pointing you towards yet another drink. Talking to him was so easy , sometimes, and others it was like pulling teeth to get a human response out of him. Could you blame him, though? Your last one-on-one interaction was you basically inviting yourself over to his apartment with takeout and listening to him spill his guts about his dead wife and kid, and he probably felt uncomfortable with you after that, and then you went right to this case without any chance for things to go back to normal, and then he got shot, and oh my god, you didn’t even ask him how his arm was doing, how fucking rude can you be, dumbass? and-

“Whoops! Shit, I’m sorry!”

You looked at the person you’d just bumped into in the midst of your internal crisis.

“Hey, it’s you!”

The man you’d been dancing with earlier, now much more obviously handsome in the brighter lights of the bar area, grinned in recognition.

“Hey, I thought I’d scared you off there!”

You laughed and shook your head. “No, I’m sorry. Just saw my boss and freaked out a little bit.”

“Oh shit, your boss is here?” he asked. “That’s uncomfortable, damn. I’m sorry.”

“No worries, it’s just… yeah. Anyways. Wanna pick up where we left off?” you asked, more desperate than ever to get Hotch out of your head. If he didn’t want to see you having a wild night, he shouldn’t have come to the club.

He took your hand, looking pleased. “Lead the way.”

It really was so much easier, you thought, to let yourself feel attraction for guys like this. Uncomplicated, willing to take what you give them, no backstory to speak of. They weren’t riddled with tragic history, unattainable in both position and personality, not to mention impossible to even imagine ever returning your feelings. Guys like Cooper (you’d finally learned his name somewhere amid the grinding and groping) were easy and fun and they didn’t keep you up at night agonizing over whether that thing you said at work was impressive enough.

But then again, they didn’t give you the roller-coaster feeling in your stomach that Aaron Hotchner did every time you locked eyes.

And lock eyes you did - an increasingly frequent number of times, actually. It seemed like whenever you turned to face his direction, he was staring you down. He always went back to his conversation with Rossi and Reid, but you noticed that he seemed to get more and more pissed off with every song that played. His frown was deepened, his expression dark, and you could tell even from a distance that his knuckles were white from gripping his glass.

You shrugged it off as Hotch being Hotch - who knew what that man was thinking? And besides, you were trying to forget him, damn it. At least, that was until a particularly raunchy song came on and you were in the middle of getting your ass felt up, when you felt a hand squeeze your shoulder and whip you around, bringing you face-to-face with your boss himself.

“Hey, what’s going on? Is something wrong?” you asked, utterly bewildered as to why he was interrupting you.

He ignored you, instead staring down Cooper, who very quickly decided Hotch wasn’t one to fuck with and walked away.

“Hotch! Is there a case? Should I grab the others?”

He shook his head. “Can you come with me, please?”

Perplexed, you acquiesced (not that you had much of a choice, with the way he was gripping your elbow) and followed him through the crowd, out the back door, and into an alley. He let go of you then, sighing and crossing his arms.

Your mind was wild with questions - did you do something you shouldn’t have? Get too drunk? Everyone was drunk, though, and you weren’t even half as wasted as some of the others. Did Reid or Rossi tell him something bad about you? Were you about to somehow get yourself fired off the clock?

“The boy you were dancing with was bad news,” he said, after an uncomfortably long period of silence.

What the fuck?

“What the fuck?” you repeated, this time out loud, and you knew you shouldn’t be talking to him like this, but you were too caught off guard to conduct yourself more appropriately.

“He was a drug user,” Hotch said, as if that would explain everything.

“A drug user,” you repeated back, no less confused.

“Cocaine,” he continued. “He was high - his pupils were dilated, he was rubbing his nose, and he's been to the bathroom several times.”

“So… you’re going to arrest him? For doing cocaine?” you asked, still baffled as to what he was insinuating.

“What? No,” he said, “I’m trying to warn you not to get involved.”

You had entered some parallel universe, you decided. There was no other explanation for your boss, a man you’d known all of four months, dragging you outside a bar on a Friday night and telling you not to dance with a hot stranger because he was on cocaine.

You took a deep breath, trying to calm yourself before you really did get yourself fired. “Sir, I appreciate the concern, but I don’t think it’s really any of your business.”

His face hardened at that. “It is exactly my business,” he said, eyes boring a hole through your skull, “to watch out for things that may compromise my team.”

“Compromise your team?” you repeated his words again. “I was dancing, not getting engaged to the guy.”

“Should I allow you to dance with a sexual sadist if it’s just dancing?” he pressed, using the stern voice that usually caused any sort of dissent to whither and die right in your throat.

It didn’t work this time, probably because he was acting fucking insane. “Are you seriously comparing a sexual sadist to a guy who does cocaine while he’s out partying?”

“It’s not just while he’s out partying, by the way he conducted himself, he was a chronic-”

“It doesn’t matter!” you said, nearly yelling now. “You had no right! I'm sorry, what are you, my dad?!”

His eyes flashed at that. “If I hadn’t already had to sit through an 8 hour surgery not knowing if Garcia was going to make it out alive because her date shot her, then perhaps I would have no right. But as it stands, I do. Please be more careful with who you associate with, even if it’s just dancing.”

He spat that last part out, more vitriolic than you’d ever seen him, and stalked back inside. You were left outside in the alley, alone, reeling from confusion surrounding the entire interaction and shock at the emotional charge he’d leveled at you.

Reentering the bar, you saw that Hotch’s seat had been vacated and his jacket was gone. You rolled your eyes, and on your way to the bathroom, nearly ran into Cooper again.

“Hey!” he said. “What was that all about? You good?”

You looked up at his face and for the first time, noticed faint traces of white dust around his nose. He looked keyed up, jumpy - his pulse racing and visible on his carotid. You sighed.

“I’m good. Just not in the mood right now, sorry,” and pushed past him into the bathroom.

Hotch was an emotionally stunted asshole with a control complex, but he was also never fucking wrong.

[depressedkakashihatake-fics]

Some Time Alone

Hatake Kakashi/Maito Gai

1903 words

Kiss: Lower-Lip sucking kiss

For: @grumpygaybaby and @temarihime​ (if you want to read some Kakagai today lol)

An escape, at last. 

Three days ago Kakashi left Konoha with his husband, and to say he was looking forward to a chance to unwind and relax after being handed the Hokage’s hat all those years ago was an understatement. He couldn’t wait to be as far away from all the responsibilities and expectations.

Unfortunately, Naruto had decided to throw a Kunai in his plans by sending one Mirai Saratobi along with them on body guard duty.

A body guard. The sixth Hokage and one of Konoha’s top Jonin, with a bodyguard.

He’d be insulted if he hadn’t spent the last three days pissed because Mirai refused to give him and Gai any space at all, citing her responsibilities as their guard whenever he tried to get her to go somewhere else for even just an hour.

Not that he blamed her. She was just doing her job.

This was Naruto’s fault and Kakashi was certain it was payback for him sending Genma to watch over the brat’s honeymoon with Hinata. Usually he’d let it slide too, but when it came to Naruto ‘trouble magnet’ Uzumaki, he had to be a bit more cautious. Genma had intercepted three different attempts to interrupt Naruto and Hinata’s honeymoon without them noticing and he should be thankful damn it.

But no, instead he was vengeful and now Kakashi was stuck with a 15 year old who was determined to prove herself and refused to leave Kakashi and Gai’s side no matter how many times he begged her for just a little bit of alone time with his husband.

Drastic times called for drastic measures.

“Are you sure about this?” Mirai looked at the bath house skeptically. “Isn’t there something else you would rather do?”

“No, this is exactly what i want,” it was a perk of being in a relationship with someone who was the same gender as him. He could go into a bath house and not have to be separated from Gai. “it’ll be good for us all Mirai. Bedside’s, if anything happens we’ll be right next door. You just can’t see us.”

The words didn’t seem to make Mirai feel any better about the situation. “Fine,” she crossed her arms over her chest and gave him a look that reminded him a little bit too much of her mother. “But if anything happens i’ll be there in an instant.

“I have no doubt about that,” he smiled, “but try to relax. That’s the point of this stop after all.”

Finally, some peace and quiet. Even if they weren’t completely alone, at least they would be able to relax a bit better without Mirai breathing down their necks, and maybe she would finally unwind a little. 

Stepping out into the bath area, Kakashi couldn’t help but feel a tiny bit excited. It was better than he could have hoped for.

Empty.

The entire bath was empty. Not a soul to be seen. 

There was no better outcome he could have asked for. A whole bath for just him and Gai. No one around to judge if he slid in a little too close. No prying eyes if he decided to take off his face towel.

No real need for the face towel at all really.

Seeing Gai coming up to his side, he glanced down towards the man he had decided to marry. The beautiful human he would spend the rest of his life with. If they were really lucky no one would show up at all until they were ready to leave.

He would get Gai all to himself. 

A small smile tugged at his lips. “You mind?” He took a step forward and turned to face his husband, one hand reaching out towards the other man.

Debating the unspoken question for a moment, Gai took one look at the bath waiting for him behind Kakashi and slowly nodded his head. With permission given, Kakashi closed the distance between them and bent forward, tucking one arm behind Gai’s back and the other under his legs. 

With his hands in place Kakashi lifted his husband out of his chair with surprising ease. Perhaps when Gai had joked with him earlier that week about how he carried him around their home too often these days as a substitute for his old morning training regimes, he hadn’t been too far off. 

“A whole bath to ourselves,” Gai chuckled as his arms came down around Kakashi’s neck. ‘What shall we do with all of this space, Rival?”

“Well first we’re going to find you the best spot possible,” Kakashi muttered, turning around in his spot and scanning the area. Picking out a small rock close to the edge of the bath, he started walking. The last thing they needed was for Gai’s cast to get wet. That always ended up being a mess that neither of them wanted to deal with.

“And after that?” 

“Once we’re settled in and the water is working its magic on our old fagil bones,” Gai roared with laughter, loud enough that Kakashi was sure Mirai could hear him on the other side of the bath house. “Well then I’ll just have to enjoy the precious little personal time I get with my fantastic husband.”

Stepping down into the water, Kakashi groaned as his body started to relax. This was already the best idea he had all day, and he hadn’t even made it all of the way into the water yet. 

“You look happy,” Gai commented, lifting his leg up over the water while Kakashi slowly submerged the lower half of his body in water. “A nice relaxing soak to recharge us for our next challenge. A grand idea you had, Rival!”

Another challenge was not something he was ready to concern himself with. Not when he had already lost the handstand race from their room to the front door of the Inn they were staying at, which surprised absolutely no one. 

No, now was the time for cuddles and kisses, not talks about challenges.

Reaching his target, Kakashi positioned himself perfectly so that Gai’s leg was hovering over the rock and proceeded to carefully set his husband down in the water. Thankfully both of them had decided to forgo their towels in the locker room, deciding it would be easier that way. A choice made much easier for Kakashi since he had been able to get top surgery shortly after becoming Hokage. 

An accomplishment made much easier to achieve without the threat of impending war or a constant need for him to be ready for missions looming over his head. 

“Mmmm, you’re right,” Gai grinned. “The water is perfect. There is no doubt we will be able to do anything we wish after a long soak.”

‘Anything’ seemed like a bit of a stretch, but he was willing to let his husband have it.

Once Gai was settled into his spot with his leg safely propped up out of the water, Kakashi took a step back to admire his work, forcing Gai to release the hold he had on his neck. 

“Are you going to join me, Rival?” Tilting his head, Kakashi thought about it for a second before reaching up to carefully remove the towel he had wrapped around the lower portion of his face. 

Leaning over Gai’s body, Kakashi set his towel down right behind his head and smiled down at the Taijutsu master. Gai was one of the few people who never reacted when he took his mask, or in this case towel, off to show his face, and it was one of the many things he loved about the man. 

“You’re cooking something up in that mind of yours,” Gai teased, reaching up to poke Kakashi in the nose. ‘Stop it. Bath houses are for relaxing.”

“And relaxing is exactly what i’m going to do,” Kakashi assured him even as he leaned in close and brushed his lips against his cheek. “Having fun is part of relaxing is it not, turtle?”

If anyone else had been in the bath with them Gai would have gone bright red at the use of that old nickname. Even after all of these years together it still seemed to embarrass him. 

He claimed it was because it was only nicknames Kakashi ever used for anyone, but Kakashi was certain that it had something to do with the fact that Gai still couldn’t believe that out of all of the nicknames he had access to, he chose to hang onto that one. The silly little nickname he had come up with when they were fourteen years old, and had refused to let go of since then. 

“A whole bath to ourselves, turtle,” He enunciated the nickname, chuckling when Gai shifted awkwardly in his spot. “There’s so much we could do.”

“If you’re suggesting what i think you are, i would like to remind you that you are a screamer and Kurenai will slaughter us if her daughter hears...that.” A fair point. The last thing Kurenai would want is her daughter finding out what the sixth hokage and his husband did when they were alone, and he did have troubles keeping quiet when he was with Gai.

Clearly the more risque activities would have to wait till later. When they were alone in a room. Perhaps Kakashi could convince Mirai to go somewhere where she couldn’t hear them. That was a challenge for him to face later.

For now though, he had a different idea.

Rubbing his nose against Gai’s cheek, he slowly made his way in towards his mouth while gently pressing smell kisses against soft skin along the way. The way Gai shivered under his assault was intoxicating.

The man who never broke.

Who had survived opening the eighth gate and lived through something that no one should ever have been able to live through.

That beautiful, unbreakable man was shivering because of him. He was weak, because of his actions. 

Kakashi held all of the power in this moment and he loved it. 

“My precious Turtle,” his breath tickled Gai’s skin, causing him to squirm just a bit under him. “So beautiful, laid out in front of me like the most delicious snack I could lay my eyes on.”

Gai snorted. “Snack? Did you get that one from Tenten?”

The answer was yes. Who else would he get such a ridiculous saying from? 

Still, that wasn’t his concern at the moment, so he continued without a word. Making his way towards Gai’s lips slowly while he continued to whisper sweet compliments against beautiful skin.

Finally reaching his goal, Kakashi pressed a quick kiss against Gai’s lips before gently sucking his lower lip into his mouth, his hands coming down to settle on Gai’s chest as the Taijutsu master arched up into the kiss.

While Kakashi gently started to suck on the trapped lip, Gai ran his hands up his arms and into his hair. His Fingers settled in short silver strands, sending shivers down Kakashi’s spine. 

Finally, Kakashi released his hold on it and moved back to admire his work. Gai’s eyes were half lidded and there was a peaceful, calm look on his face. The most beautiful picture he had ever seen. 

“Perfect,” he smiled brightly “My beautiful Turtle, all to myself.”

“And i wouldn’t have it any other way.” Gai assured him with a fond chuckle.

[jubans]

title: pinky promise pairing: chigasaki itaru/fem!reader rating: g (general) premise: promises were made to be kept, but damn did itaru have a sharp memory.

Back when you were still a kid, you had a peculiar friend.

Your fathers were best buddies in college and your mothers got along just as swimmingly as well. Whenever either couple would go out of town, the other would follow suit—both parties bringing along their young kids so they could bond with one another. 

Itaru was a quiet boy. The first time you met him, he was like a hermit that couldn't be coaxed out of his shell. Eventually, you gave up on trying to get him to play house with you; retreating to the living room with a gaming console in hand. You've been wanting a Gameboy for a while now, and your father did love spoiling his little girl. While you were in the middle of catching your first Pokémon, however, you noticed that Itaru was watching you play over your shoulder, interest sparkling in his pretty eyes.

"Itaru-kun, do you play Pokémon?" you wondered, hoping he'd finally open up to you.

The young boy nodded timidly. "My Gameboy is in my backpack..."

And that's how you started growing closer than you'd initially expected. You challenged him in Pokémon battles every chance you got, but Itaru defeated you every single time. Something about IVs and EVs, he said. But you didn't really care about those. You just wanted the pretty looking Pokémon on your team. 

In your usual outings with his family, Itaru would often play off-handed pranks on you—putting weird bugs he found behind your dress, spitting watermelon seeds at you, and even pushing you into a shallow part of a lake. But despite his outlandish behavior, you didn't cry about it like most girls your age would when a boy was being mean to them. You returned his mischief sevenfold in your own way, and that only made your parents think what a lively duo the both of you were.

But like most childhood friendships, it didn't last as long as you'd liked. 

With your father having gotten an opportunity to work in America, that meant you had to move residences. The news was hard to take in at first. You grew up in Japan. All your friends were here! And what will happen to Itaru when you were no longer there to keep him in check? But, you've always been more understanding than most children. You accepted it faster than your parents had anticipated.

One day, you decided to tell your him about your sudden moving-away with a proposition that would ensure he wouldn't step out of line while you weren't around. 

"We're going to get married someday, right Taruchi?" 

Itaru blinked at you in nonplus, surprised by the strange nickname. "Taru...chi?"

"Itaru Chigasaki!" You giggled, clapping your hands together in unhinged glee. "It's my nickname for you, so no one else is allowed to call you that, 'kay?"

He spared you a small smile. Even at a young age, he already looked breathtaking. Eyes of carnelian and hair spun from almonds and vanilla—there was no reason for you not to crush on the boy who lived the next door over. 

But then, he did something you've never seen anyone else do with you before. He held out his hand, holding up only his pinky, as he gazed at you expectantly. You craned your head to the side, not knowing how to react. Itaru laughed softly before taking your small hands in his own, manipulating your right hand's fingers so that you were doing the same gesture he was.

"We'll pinky promise on it," he said, entwining his stubby finger with yours. "It's a promise that we can never ever break. No matter what."

"You promise to marry me when I get back?" you asked, curling your own pinky as well. 

He snickered. "I'd hate to be stuck with an old hag like you, but if you insist..."

"Hmph!" you simpered, folding your arms across your chest as you turned away from him. "I'm only eight, Taruchi!" 

"You'll be eight-y when you return," he retaliated. 

You spent the afternoon trying to beat Itaru in another Pokémon battle, but he came out victorious as usual. Just before you could start up another match, however, his mother told the two of you that they'll be attending an event hosted by the company she works for, and that you could come back and play tomorrow again. 

"See you soon, old hag," Itaru imparted, waving a hand goodbye as you stuck out your tongue to blow a raspberry at him. 

Stupid Taruchi. Why do I even like you?

"Mom, was it really necessary for me to fly back to Japan for this?" you groaned into your cellphone, asking the question for the hundredth time. 

Your mother merely tutted at you from the other end of the line. "You know how much your father loved the MANKAI Company, sweetie. We even flew here a week early so he could take a peek at the final rehearsals." 

"Yes, I know that part of the story," you sighed as you slowly unpacked your things from the single duffel you brought. "But why do I have to tag along? I had to find a substitute for all my classes this week, and I think the head professor will give me a piece of her mind when I get back to California."

"I'll have your father talk to her, then." The sound of her laughter was jeering in your ears. Why your mother had always been so carefree was a mystery to you. "Unwind a little, sweetie! I think you're going to want to see one of the new Spring Troupe's actors."

"What?" Your tone came out exasperated, but at the same time, your eyes were trained on the ample view of Veludo Way from your hotel room.

Your father used to be one of the members of the original Spring Troupe back when you were still a kid. Though he was one of the most academically proficient professors you knew today, he always had an unbridled passion for theatric arts. But with how swamped he's become with his work at the university you both teach in, him flying to Japan to watch amateurs stage a production was the last thing you think he would do.

Lost in thought, you didn't realize that your mother had been telling you something over the phone. 

"Anyways, if you want to see him, I got us tickets for the closing night this Saturday." Your mother sounded disappointed for some reason. "The earlier showing dates sold out by the time we bought them."

You didn't even bother finding out who this so-called actor she was pertaining to, your mind too preoccupied with the lesson plans you forgot to leave to your substitute. With an exasperated groan, you pulled out your laptop from your luggage, booting it up. You loved your mother too much to point out that she could have just told you to fly over here at a later date so you could minimize your absences. 

"Sure, Mom," you relented. "Do you want to grab some dinner later?"

"No way."

Eyes of carnelian. Hair spun from almonds and vanilla.

"No. Way." You had to physically look away from the stage to contemplate for a moment. Was that... Was that who you thought it was?

From your right, your father spared you a sideways glance, confusion painting his features. "Hm? Something the matter?" 

It's him. The boy with the pretty eyes and the smile that masked his mischief. Itaru. Taruchi. 

"I-It's nothing, Dad," you reassured, forcing yourself to train your eyes on the scene playing before you. "I just remembered I haven't started formatting my midterm exam yet."

"Oh, don't fret about work here," he chuckled, gaze trained fondly on the stage. "Plays are where the actors give it their all to put a smile on people's faces. I've always wanted to see you up on stage, but what kind of father would I be if I imposed something you didn't want?"

His words made you relax back into your seat, watching as Itaru's character, Tybalt, conversed with one of the leads on-stage. He delivered his lines so naturally, like the character was moulded to fit him in particular. He looked so...different now, too. Itaru had lost the fat in his cheeks—angular cheekbones taking its place instead. His voice was set into a much deeper tone, given that he was probably in his mid-twenties, just like yourself. Who knew a gamer shut-in like himself would pursue theater, of all things?

"It's nice to see good old Chigasaki's son up there, though." Your father smiled. "That kid was almost like a son to me."

The scenes breezed past before your eyes, each one leaving you at the edge of your seat. Their twist on Romeo and Juliet was comical, to say the least. But each time Itaru stepped under the spotlights, you noticed the strain in his movements. Whenever he had to walk to the opposite side of the stage, his steps came off a bit wobbly. This was a critical scene where Romeo and Tybalt were going to duel to the death, too. 

When you spared your father a wary look, the set in his brow told you that there was definitely something up. 

"Boy's got a sprain," he concluded. "Goodness. He should've known better than to perform with that dead weight dragging him around."

You frowned. "Then Taruchi, I mean, Itaru should—"

"Tybalt, stop! The battle's over!"

Romeo's little ad-lib caught the attention of the audience, no one daring to draw a breath to see how things played out. 

"Lower your blade!" he shouted, voice carrying the emotion in his eyes.

Even Itaru was taken aback by Romeo's resolve. His mouth twitched into a smirk that reminded you of the days he would show you the stag beetles he's caught over the summer to freak you out. You haven't even said two words to him fifteen years later, but somehow, you knew that he hadn't changed. Not one bit. 

"(Surname)-san, hello!"

A woman that seemed right about your age greeted your father with a shake of hands once the two of you arrived backstage. Your mother had insisted that she would wait for the two of you at the parking lot as you gave your congratulations to the actors. So here you were, standing awkwardly behind your father as he animatedly conversed with the said woman, who seemed to be the director of the show.

"Kid, as much as I'd like to tell you about your dad, it isn't my place to tell," your father chuckled. 

She sighed. "Ah, that's what Yuzo-san told me, too..."

"Say, this is quite out of the blue, but my daughter here wants to have a word with one of your actors. Itaru, to be precise."

Wait, what?

"Oh, sure!" The director nodded, twisting the knob to the dressing room behind her before you could even protest. "Itaru-san, someone wants to talk to you!" 

"Oho? Itaru-san has stans?"

"Fans. But you're not too far off, huh, Citron?"

"Wah! Itaru-san is so popular!"

"Tch. As long as it's not her, I won't complain..."

The sound of cheerful laughter hit your ears, and the next thing you knew, he emerged from the doorway—still in costume without a single hair out of place. Itaru grew up to look like one of the princes in the fairytales your mother used to read to you, and it grated on your nerves more than it should. How could the kid with the most rotten attitude you've seen be blessed with a growth spurt like this?!

Too busy wallowing in your own frustration, it took you a moment to register the utter shock on Itaru's face once his vibrant eyes landed on your father. But when his gaze shifted to you, his lips parted in muted surprise before spreading into a disbelieving smile.

"So you finally thought about coming back, huh, old hag?"

Before you could even think, you seized the collar of his costume with your fist, familiar irritation festering in your chest faster than you could blink. "It's the first time we meet in fifteen years and that's your opening line?"

Itaru hollered loudly at your aggression, but the gesture didn't even faze him one bit. Maybe it was because he stood about a few inches taller than you now. Nonetheless, he held your hands in his own—holy shit they were smooth—before prying off your hard grip on his clothes.

"Ah, Izumi!" your father called out to the director. "I want to discuss something about the MANKAI Company and how I might be able to pitch in. Itaru-kun, you can keep her occupied for the time being, right?"

"What? Dad, don't leave me with hi—"

"She's in my care," Itaru spoke over you, a gloved hand going up to ruffle your hair. 

As you watched your father and the director disappear right down the corridor, you gulped when you felt Itaru's piercing gaze on you. Turning around, you saw that his lips were still affixed with a condescending smirk, like he had some dirt on you that you didn't know about. Slowly, you backed away from him, but the hallway was cramped and you ended up with you in between the wall and the man in front of you.

"So," he began before he braced his palms on either side of the wall, trapping you in place. How could someone who had the regal air of a prince look at you like a wolf in sheep's clothing?

You felt your heart racing hummingbird-fast in your chest, breath hitching when he leaned in to ask:

"When's the wedding?"

[moving-accounts-uwu]

Home Is Where The Heart Is {Pt. 1}

Fandom: Far Cry 5 

Characters: Seed Brothers x Serah (OFC) 

Story Type: Series 

Series Warnings: Angst, hurt/comfort, death, violence, romance, fluff, polygamous relationship, abuse, smut, slight dub-con, religious themes, kidnapping, brain-washing, Stockholm Syndrome & Lima syndrome, some elements of the games is used (locations, story/timeline, etc).

Chapter Warnings: None!

Word count: 2.3k words

Story Summary: Serah is a young woman living in Fall’s End, Hope County and has lived there all her life. She owns her own farm and B&B, nothing very exciting ever happens in Fall’s End - except for the occasional chaos caused by Sharky Boshaw. That is until one day, three men show up with a broken down car and seeking a place to stay. Serah, being the kind and caring person she is, lets these men into her home with open arms, but she truly doesn’t know what she has invited into her life. 

A/N: each chapter will have specific chapter warnings/trigger warnings at the beginning to help those who would get triggered to know what is about to happen in each chapter. I wouldn’t want to trigger anyone tho ;w; Other than that, I hope y’all enjoy this chapter 1 and updates to this story will be slow though. I know this first chapter is short but make sure to show it some love so I know y’all like it and I can continue it!! Gif is not mine btw~

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Hope County was never really busy or loud; it was mainly quiet and peaceful. People could leave their windows and doors unlocked during the nights because no major crimes were ever committed, and the fact that Hope County only had a small amount of law enforcement because of the low crime rate. 

Hope County was the perfect place for Serah. Serah had lived in Fall's End for nearly seven years, and her life has never taken a turn for the worst while living on her farm. She owned a few cows, chickens, pigs, and horses that she tends and cares for. Her large farmhouse has also been renovated to be Fall's Ends very own 'Bed & Breakfast'; getting the occasional tourist here and there, or sometimes it's a local needing a little change in scenery. Serah's main customer is Sharky Boshaw. 

Sharky liked to cause a little trouble, otherwise, Hope County would be too quiet. Whenever Sharky was too drunk to go home, he always managed to walk to Serah's farm and keep her company while tending to him. Serah was also good friends with Kim and Nick Rye, the couple being her closest friends since she moved to Montana from New York. Serah wanted a change of scenery herself, and she always dreamed of owning her own farm and 'B&B'. 

It was a warm morning when Serah woke up in the early hours on a Saturday. She groaned a bit, rubbing the sleep from her eyes and giving her muscles a good stretch before leaving the confines of her bed. Most of her farm chores were done the day before, so only a few small chores were left remaining. Serah planned to go to The Spread Eagle to visit Mary May, another good friend of hers from when she first moved to Fall's End and worked at the bar for four years. 

As Serah was doing some dusting around the house with only having to hang out the laundry after, she was excited to get a move on and get it finished. 

"C'mon, Serah, nearly done then we can have drinks to wash the stress away." 

Serah couldn't wait to relax before Monday began; the only days she really lets loose is on the weekends with Mary May, and sometimes Sharky if he hasn't already been drinking and passed out somewhere. When the chores were done, Serah took a quick shower to freshen up and put on a cute white, lace sundress that had a deep neckline that flashed a bit of her cleavage and stopped just above her knees. 

Serah parked her car in the parking lot before pushing through the bar doors, looking around at the few patrons already there just before 1 p.m. When she approached the bar, Mary May was quick to greet her. 

"Hey, beautiful! Just finished all the chores on the farm, yeah?" 

"You have no idea..." Serah gave a dramatic sigh of relief while Mary just laughed. 

"Don't worry, sweetie! Maybe you could ask one of the boys to help you out around that big farm of yours. You probably need to hire some farmhands, otherwise, you're gonna get tired and grey from stress." Mary May was very motherly for someone who was only a few years older than Serah. 

"You know I would if I had the money, Mary. I can't afford to hire farmhands while paying my bills, groceries, and animal feed. I'd either go broke or couldn't pay them enough to keep around." Serah shrugged before getting comfortable at the bar, trying to decide what drink she'd want to order first. 

Serah ordered herself a Bourbon and Coke while conversing with Mary and a few other patrons, having the day pass slowly and having a good time. It wasn't until two in the afternoon that Serah thought about heading back to the ranch. She asked Mary if she could leave her truck in the parking lot, which Mary said yes and that she didn't need to ask, while Serah called Nick for a lift. 

Serah didn't have to wait for Nick long; he came under less than 2 mins and picked her up. 

"Hey there, Serah! You have a good time?" Nick asked while he headed towards the ranch. 

"Oh yeah, I had a few drinks to help unwind. It's been a rough few days working, but I got everything done. Maybe I'll get a few new guests or Sharky might just crash at mine whenever he's too drunk to go home." Nick and Serah both laughed at the thought. 

Nick and Serah had a sibling bond; Nick was like an older brother and Serah being younger. Serah met Nick when she turned 21 and had her first drink at the Spread Eagle, where she was introduced to Nick and Kim Rye, then five years later, she was basically another Rye in their eyes. She had a second family after losing both her parents to cancer when she was 19. Nick and Serah even got tattoos of each other's names that Nick claims 'Now you're a Rye! You're now my little sister'. The memory always brings tears of pride and joy to Serah's eyes. 

Nick parked in front of Serah's ranch before hugging her tight. 

"You know, you could always ask me to help you out if things are too much, sis." 

"I know that Nick, but I couldn't possibly ask of that from you when Kim is this far along in her pregnancy. She'll need your help more than me. She could give birth next month or so." Serah tried to reason, but Nick just scoffed. 

"Kimmie is a tough son of a bitch, every time I offer to help her, she tells me she can do it herself. Trust me, I have plenty of free time to help you out." Nick gave Serah a comforting squeeze on her shoulder before she hopped out of his car, waving him goodbye and watched him drive away. 

With a sigh, Serah walked back into her home and started to plan out what to make for dinner. She heard the soft sound of her white cat, Alpine, purring away in his perch at the window sill, the sun coating him with warmth. 

"Hey there, Alpine, did ya miss me?" Serah giggled as she walked by him, scratching behind his ear as she went. 

*2 hours later* 

Serah always had a habit of making large portions of food as if other people lived in the two-story house. She couldn't help it, Serah just created that much food so she wouldn't have to worry about making more the next day. She guessed that it was because she would have to cook for the guests when they stayed at her 'B&B' and she just can't help it. While she let the chicken and corn soup to simmer, she started to get Alpine's food ready because she knew he'd become needy soon. 

"Alright, buddy, you'll be having some delicious prawns, your favorite!" Serah sang as Alpine came rushing over and meowing loudly at the smell of the prawns. 

As Serah put the prawns into a small bowl and placed it on the floor near the kitchen island, she heard the sound of a slam and a muffled, angry voice followed by a calmer voice. Serah's curious mind got the better of her and snooped near the front window and peeked out through her translucent curtains to see what the commotion was. There was a black SUV parked on the side of the road, small amounts of smoke coming from the hood while three men stood around the front of the car. One of the men had red hair and beard with scars covering parts of his face and forearms; he was the one who was angry at the fact that their car must have broken down while the two other men stood around letting the redhead vent. One of the other men was dressed in very luxurious clothes and had many tattoos covering his arms and hands, and he also sported a beard. The other man had his hair in a bun, wore yellow-tinted glasses, and looked to be trying to calm the scarred man. 

Serah was still in a daze by watching the men that she hadn't realized that the men had noticed her house, and one of them was making their way to her front door. The sudden sound of knocking on her door startled Serah out of her daze and she quietly made her way to the front door. When she made sure her little latch lock was in place, she opened the door slightly to greet the man with the tinted glasses and man-bun. 

"Hello my child, my name is Joseph, and my brothers and I happen to be in a bit of a predicament. It seems our car has broken down and we don't know how to fix the issue, would you happen to know of anyone who knows mechanics?" The man said. 

Serah blinked for a few seconds, registering what he had said. 

"Oh!" You looked at your little wristwatch to see that the time was now 4:30 in the afternoon and that the closest mechanic store is at least 45 minutes away and closes at 5 o'clock. "Um, the closest mechanic is nearly an hour away, and they'll be closing soon, so you won't be able to see them until tomorrow." 

"That is quite alright. I also saw that this loving ranch was a 'Bed & Breakfast', would my brothers and I be able to seek refuge here for the night until one of us are ready to walk into town?" Joseph gestured to the two other men still standing by the SUV who were looking at them from afar. 

"Oh, of course! And because of your circumstances, I won't charge you; I'd feel bad if I did. Save your money for when you get your car fixed." Serah gave him a warm smile, unlatching the lock on the door and opening it wide. 

Joseph motioned for his brothers to come forth while he continued to talk to you. 

"That is very kind of you, my dear. May I ask, what is your name? It's silly of me for not asking our host's name." 

She then made way for the three men to enter her house and they huddled in the open space living room. 

"My name's Serah, and I'll be your host. I've got some chicken and corn soup that's just settling and will be ready to serve. I also have spares bedrooms upstairs if you'll follow me!" Serah led the three men to the rooms and let them choose a room for themselves while also being introduced to the two men, John and Jacob. 

Jacob was the eldest Seed brother while Joseph was the middle child, and John being the youngest. Jacob served in the army and was a hardened soldier; John used to be a lawyer while Joseph claims to be 'The Father'. He preached about the gifts of God and how God would occasionally speak to him or give him visions about 'the Collapse'. Serah was never really religious; she never cared for religion but never stopped anyone who did. She politely listened to Joseph talk about this 'Project at Eden's Gate' and how he and his brothers have come to Hope County to save as many people as he can before the collapse because that is what God has told him. 

Serah started to serve the Seed brothers the soup when John spotted Alpine walk into the dining area. 

"Oh, and who is this little guy?" John asked while petting the white feline. 

"That's Alpine; he was a stray when I found him as a kitten. He was so small and malnourished, but he stole my heart the second I saw him. He's my little fur baby." Serah picked Alpine up into her arms and cuddled him for a bit. 

The four of them ate, Joseph and Serah doing most of the talking, John contributing now and then while Jacob grunted in acknowledgment. Joseph talked more about Eden's Gate then asked where would be the best place to buy a property big enough to host sermons for him and his followers or 'children' as he called them. Serah answered as many of Joseph's questions but told them that they would have to see sheriff Whitehorse about getting a license to carry when John asked about that. 

When dinner was over, Serah grabbed all the empty bowls and was prepping to wash them when John stopped her. 

"Please, you've cooked and let us rest for the night for free, the least we could do is wash the dishes. Go and relax, dear." 

Serah gave him a sweet smile, nodded, and thanked him before heading for the living room to read a book. Jacob seemed to already have worked out the TV remote, and he and Joseph were flicking through the channels. The sat in silence with only the noise of the dishes being washed in the kitchen to fill in as background noise. The rest of the evening went by with small talk and watching whatever is on TV before the Seed brothers and Serah bid goodnight to each other at around ten. 

As Serah was about to enter her room, she was stopped by Joseph yet again. 

"I'd like to thank you again, Serah. It seems God has led us to you, and to be blessed with your kindness and hospitality. Hopefully, in weeks to come, we'll see you again. Goodnight, dear." With that, Joseph went into his room, leaving Serah in the little hallway who was touched by his words. 

As Serah did her nightly routine and hopped into bed, she had a nightmare of an explosion and the world on fire.

~

Thank you for reading this short chapter!

[draqcnheartstrinq]

Hate That I Want You (Part 3)

Sirius Black x Pure-blood!Slytherin!Reader

Summary: At first it’s hate, then it’s confusion. It grows into a healthy amount of curiosity until it turns into hate once more. But not towards each other, more towards the idea of wanting what you’ve tried to avoid all your life.

Words: 4.4k

Warnings: angst, bad family relationships, mild fighting?

Note: So very sorry for basically not updating this story for over two months. That’s just bad even for my standards I hope you enjoy this one though!

HTIWY Masterpost | Part 4

James loves his quidditch, everyone knows it and nobody is surprised when they see him on the quidditch pitch flying along the field. There’s no match planned, no training on the schedule and still Potter is there on his broom whilst his friends sit in a group on the stands.

Occasionally Remus, Lily, Marlene and Sirius have a go at flying themselves. They’re all good, but of course nothing like quidditch king James Potter.

When the five of them are up in the air, the others cheer and watch from down below. Other students sit in the stands too, watching them or just discussing some of their classes, catching up or admiring the Hogwarts Grounds.

The quidditch pitch isn’t only James’ favourite spot, but also that from many others.

You heard a few fellow Slytherins whispering in the library about how amazing it was to just sit there, reflect, watch the clouds go by and do nothing but breathe. Whenever they felt threatened by the copious amounts of assignments and tests they would go there to unwind and relax.

And so, you were now walking up the wooden stairs, towards the seats and the beautiful autumn sky, trying to finally find a way to ease your mind.

You brought a book, one that you had read a thousand times before but couldn’t get enough of and clutched it between your arms until you found a place to get comfortable. The stands weren’t anything fancy but they gave off a cosy pine smell, the sky wasn’t clear but the sun shone through the clouds in a most beautiful way and most of all… Even though you were alone, you didn’t feel like it.

Clusters of friends were scattered around the pitch, chattering along and filling the air with happiness. In a place like this you could never feel alone because of all the friendly faces around. It didn’t matter what name you were given or the blood you were born with. The quidditch pitch was a safe place and thanks to that one Slytherin in the library you now knew that.

Focussing all your attention on the book in your hands, reading every word as if it was the first time, you didn’t realise the giggles zooming through the air above your head were ones you knew. Until the person flew so close you could basically feel the breeze flying over you and messing your hair around.

Lily was trying her very best to lose James who desperately chased her, in a friendly attempt of course. Her laugh pierced the air and brought a smile to many others’ lips. Even to yours without realising it. James, of course, was much faster on his broom and caught up with her in less than thirty seconds. He reached out grabbing her arm in the air, making Lily scream out of joy and also maybe a little because she didn’t like losing.

Her scream brought your attention upwards, away from your book and towards the duo who hysterically laughed at one another. After a while Lily averted her attention to you too and waved with such a happy smile, you felt your heart grow. You waved back, a little more shy than her but at least just as joyful.

As Lily turned her attention back on flying alongside James, you averted your eyes higher up. Remus was there chatting with Marlene about who knows what, both several feet in the air and dangling their legs off the sides. You couldn’t possibly imagine looking that relaxed while sitting on a hovering stick, being a little scared of heights yourself, but they didn’t seem to mind one bit.

Realising you were staring by now you turned back towards your book but something seemed off.

Not the book, there wasn’t a problem with the book.

You felt off, like something was trying to catch your attention but you couldn’t make out what.

Your eyes roamed back over the stands, catching a few Hufflepuffs sitting in a circle, a Gryffindor and a Ravenclaw holding hands whilst whispering to each other. You smiled at that, not caring if it made you look like a lunatic.

But what kept you on the edge of your seat like this? What was making you this uncomfortable you could barely concentrate on one single word of your forgotten page?

After several seconds you realised, much to your displeasure, that the “what” was actually a “who”.

There he was once again, with his long messy black hair and his piercing grey eyes, looking right at you as if it was his favourite occupation. Honestly, as of lately you couldn’t tell if Sirius did it on purpose or not. Contrary to the other years at Hogwarts when he used to only give you attention in the form of barking remarks and swift hateful glances, now for almost a week he had seeked you out in any crowd. You did the same to him you had to admit, otherwise you wouldn’t even have know about his prolonged stares.

His looks weren’t friendly, but they weren’t full of hatred anymore either. They were more like a gaze, as if he was looking at you but at the same time right through you, lost in thought.

Right now, even as you were looking right into his eyes, it was as if he didn’t realise what he was doing. His head didn’t turn or even move an inch to the left or right, his eyebrows didn’t knot together like they did up until a week ago…

Something had been going on inside his head and obviously you couldn’t complain. If Sirius could finally stop holding a grudge against you, purely for the family you were born in, then anyone could right?

Or so you were trying to tell yourself. But you were smarter than to keep on hoping it would get better, it never did in the last six years.

*~*~*~*~*~*

His mood had been swinging from left to right, from cheery and upbeat to plain out irritated by the most insignificant matters.

James talked too loud, Peter chewed with his mouth open, Marlene’s high pitched laugh pierced his ears, professor Mcgonagall called him out for every joke he pulled no matter how subtle they were,... Nothing was going his way.

On top of all of this, there seemed to be an itch in his head he wasn’t able to scratch.

Everywhere Sirius went he saw two particularly unwanted eyes reading a book or concentrating on ink spilling out of the tip of a quill. Green accented robes and an obnoxiously neat skirt flowed around knee length socks, also accented by that same deep colour of emerald green. It’s the kind smile, though, that makes him hate it all more. It’s out of character, those lips aren’t supposed to look that innocent and friendly.

Sirius hasn’t been himself ever since the encounter with you after potions class. He’s tense, stressed even and he doesn’t get why. Was it because you called him out on his obvious ignorance? Maybe because the words that left your mouth that day were both filled with obvious anger but also hurt?

You had genuinely sounded hurt, Sirius now realises that. You looked at him as if he had grown two heads, opening your mouth just slightly before closing it. The corners of your lips turned downwards and your eyes lost the sparkle of that always present wit. Your shoulders had slumped down and you made yourself as tiny as you could without being too obvious about it.

The conversation still rang inside his head every time he so much as caught a glance of your silhouette.

“You honestly still believe I stand for what my family stands for?”

Your voice was so small, you had almost whispered it and if his attention wasn’t solely focussed on you he would have probably missed what you were saying.

He knows his reaction to your fragile demeanour made you stand up straight again. As if seeing his perplexed eyes was enough to remember what you were dealing with. He could see it in the way you pulled your books against your chest, how you twisted your face into a scowl.

That angry look, that was the one he recognised.

It made him snap back at you, like he always did, trying to put you back into place. But your answers…

They weren’t what he expected, they weren’t what he wanted to hear. His plan was to confront you, to finally get the hateful words to spill from your mouth and proof his friends wrong, so he could tell them how wrong they were about trusting and defending you.

“Do your family’s actions reflect onto you? Have you ever considered I could be in the same bloody situation as you are, or is the hate towards Slytherins just so damn huge it doesn’t even matter what my opinions are? You’re just going to keep accusing me of sh*t I’ve never done, or better, never even said!

“I never shared their love for our bloodstatus let alone my whole opinion on who’s worthy and who is not! It may be a surprise to you, Black”, you made sure to spit out his surname as if it was a pawn on a chessboard, “but I consider someone worthy as soon as they step foot in this world, from there on it’s up to themselves if they deserve to walk among the others or not.”

Those definitely weren’t the words he expected.

That night wasn’t one where sleep found him quickly. Questions kept sliding through his mind, all basically asking the same damn thing.

“Some people don’t wish to be disowned and thrown on the streets, Sirius! Of all people I would think you would be the most understanding of that!”

Was he wrong all along?

Now he sat at dinner, three weeks later, with a fake smile plastered on his lips. Irritation, rage, frustration,... Confusion.

All those years he had known you, walking along with your parents at King’s Cross, not once had you stepped out of line with them. When they grimaced at muggleborns, you turned your head the other way. When your parents talked to his you made sure to get as far away as possible. He always held that against you, believing you wanted to get away because he, a friend of muggleborns, was there right next to them.

Were you just scared?

He had heard stories from his parents, from before he ran away and left them for good.

“The (Y/L/N)s had a particular encounter with a mudblood, Walburga, have you heard?”

“I’m afraid not.”

“Don’t worry though, they put the vile bastard in it’s place.”

He remembers conversations like that too vividly, vulgar and sickening details following suit.

How you hadn’t left after all that your family had done, said and inflicted upon innocents… It remains a mystery to him. It’s why he always saw you as one of them. You didn’t seem bothered or even fazed by all of it. You never talked back, never gave a kick.

When someone asked you about it you just ignored the question and went on with your day.

How could you? Why would you?

Sirius questions everything, sitting there whilst shoving potatoes around his plate.

You remain a mystery he can’t seem to solve.

*~*~*~*~*~*

When the owls come flying through the Great Hall the next morning, you expect to see grandma’s tiny brown one to land in front of you, lay down a letter and ask for some petting. It’s routine by now and it’s what keeps you grounded, makes you realise there’s someone outside of these school walls that still cares.

This time that doesn’t happen, though. You see other people receiving The Daily Prophet, others get letters from their parents and family at home.

Grandma’s owl never appears.

Instead you see a black one, as dark as the nights on Hogwarts grounds, fly towards you. It lands gracefully and for several seconds you can’t help but stare.

This isn’t what’s supposed to happen, grandma never forgets to write.

Even though this isn’t the owl you expected, you still recognise the stark yellow eyes that contrast with the deep feathers. It’s your family’s owl.

The loud screech of the bird takes you back to where you are, momentarily pushing down the panic away from your head. It settles deep, making you feel nauseous as you take the letter from the sharp beak. Your owl flies away without any hesitation.

Other people around you have been alerted by the loud noise coming from your place as well. Of course they have to keep staring, making your nerves even more prominent. You do as you do best, though. You plaster a fake not bothered look on your face, lay down the letter next to your plate and keep eating like nothing had happened, like your stomach wasn’t refusing every bite you took.

As you tried to calm down, over time you were able to make out the details of the letter. The handwriting of your mother on the front, the big black seal known to be your family’s,...

And then you noticed the obvious red colour of the envelope.

The letter was a Howler. You were definitely not opening that in front of everyone, it was staying shut until you were in your room, alone, with no roommates to disturb you.

For the remaining time of breakfast you kept your eyes on your plate, anxiously thinking about what could be written inside. You dreaded having to listen to your mother’s voice, most probably screaming at you for some unknown reason.

But most importantly, why didn’t grandma write?

Why did it have to be your parents instead?

Lost inside your own thoughts, leaving breakfast on auto-pilot and with a blank stare in your eyes, you just forgot

You didn’t even realise you  left the Howler right next to your still half full plate.

*~*~*~*~*~*

Sirius saw everything, never diverting his eyes away from you for more than ten seconds.

He saw your hopeful smile when the owls started flying in, saw how that smile slowly turned into a frown the longer you waited. Your lips had fully fallen open when a black owl landed in front of you.

He saw your hesitation, heard the loud shriek that made you jump in your seat.

He saw the red envelope.

And there it was again, that unbothered look you always glued onto your face, the one that makes him angry every single time he sees it.

He always addressed it to you actually not caring, but now he just couldn’t. You had looked so devastated and almost terrified just a second ago.

Were you hiding what you were feeling?

Was that what that look was? You just didn’t want others to see what kept going on inside that confusing head of yours?

That would be exactly what Slytherins were good at. Sirius now sees the sly move, realises how good you are at lying. Not with words but with your demeanour.

He definitely doesn’t miss you leaving, head down shoulders slumped because even you aren’t that good at telling lies. He spots the red paper still on the table, left and forgotten about.

There’s a big decision now, right in front of him. Is he stooping that low?

“You okay there, Sirius? You’ve been awfully quiet”, Lily remarks and everyone turns their heads his way.

“Yeah, I’m fine. Just not been feeling too well since waking up.”

“Have you guys gone partying without us again?” Marlene asks with a pout hanging off her lips, big round puppy eyes following not long after.

“We wouldn’t dare”, Peter answers before everyone chuckles at the thought of that happening last time. The girls had been mad for weeks.

“I’m done here, I’m full as can be”, Remus says after a while, standing up and pushing off from the table, “If anyone feels like joining me before having to leave for class-”

He can’t even finish his sentence before basically everyone at the table follows his lead and leaves their plates for what they are. All except Sirius.

“Aren’t you coming, mate?”

“I’m going to talk to my brother first, it’s been a while”, Sirius responds, not lifting his gaze from the Slytherin table. Unbeknown to his friends it’s not because his brother is sat there.

“As you wish. Let’s get going, guys!”

*~*~*~*~*~*

Just when you’re about to turn another corner, you snap out of it.

Emptiness is refilled by panic and you’re running before you’ve even realised you were standing still.

The letter! How could you forget to take the stupid letter?!

Your heart beats like crazy and your breathing is deep and irregular. How much more could go wrong today? It’s only half past eight in the morning, classes haven’t started yet and here you are, running your lungs out of your body because of a Howler your family left you.

When the entrance of The Great Hall comes into sight you finally let yourself slow down. Still your legs move in an obvious fast pace, stressed and rigid with your hands fidgeting in front of your stomach.

Just as you reach the grand doorway Sirius Black walks through. You see him hesitate for a second, locks eyes before he quickly gathers himself and walks the other direction. You couldn’t care less at this moment. He’s not what’s concerning you right now. It’s that bloody red letter right next to your plate.

You enter, scan the Slytherin table trying to recall the exact place you sat at.

Penny still sits there, the fifth year Slytherin you know from spending too much time in the library. She sat not too far away from where you had been eating only minutes ago.

As you pass seat after seat, even passing the one you could swear you had been seated, you didn’t see a single letter. No Daily Prophets, no regular white letters,...

Not your very prominent red letter.

“No”, you breathe out. No one hears you.

“Please, it has to be here.” This time you speak louder.

“Everything okay, (Y/N)?”

You look up, silently thanking Merlin for this sweet girl, Penny, for at least caring enough to check on you. You’re quite sure you look like you’ve seen a ghost, figuratively speaking of course.

“No, I-I’m sorry for bothering but have you seen an envelope lying right at this spot? A red one?”

You wait as she looks down to where your letter should’ve been. The longer she takes the more you lose hope.

It’s been several seconds now, you’re almost sure she’s going to ignore your question and get on with her day but then she speaks up as if she only just realised what you asked.

“The Howler you received?”

Of course she knew you received a Howler, Penny was known for being an observant girl, still you had slightly hoped she didn’t notice. You had hoped no one noticed. Obviously that wasn’t the case.

“Yes, Penny, the Howler”, you answer slightly annoyed she had to bring it up in front of her friends. She seems to realise her mistake, though, and looks at you with apology written across her face.

“Actually, yeah we saw”, Duncan who sits in front of the girl answers, “Sirius Black picked it up and left.”

That’s when everything starts to spin. The words have barely reached your ears but you know enough, he’s going to ruin you. This is going to ruin everything.

You swear tears are starting to form in your eyes but rapid blinks keep them from rolling down. You can’t lose it now, not in front of everyone. The breathy voice that leaves your lips is a dead giveaway of what is going through your head right now, though.

“And you just let him take it?” It’s barely a whisper, but you know Penny heard well enough. She turns her head down to her plate, guilt prominently edged onto her features.

“We thought he was going to bring it to you”, Duncan answers, also slightly taken aback by your demeanor.

You shake your head, not believing what’s happening still. “Oh yeah, because we all know Sirius Black is such a good friend of mine.”

The response is filled with frustration and most probably a lot of obvious resentment, but you can’t get yourself to care about that right now. You’re running again, this time out of The Great Hall, trying to catch up with the guy who has your whole future on this school right between his fingers.

*~*~*~*~*~*

He feels wrong. The red envelope clutched in his right hand is burning into his skin. This doesn’t feel right, no matter who the piece of paper belongs to. Why did he do it? Is he so desperate to make your life hell? Is he so set on proving you’re a horrible person?

Sirius doesn’t have the answers to his own questions, he regrets taking the letter and it’s now stressing him out.

This isn’t about doing the right thing anymore. Now he is being the horrible person out of the two of you. He debates walking back to your spot and laying it right where he had picked it up, but it was too late for that. Everyone would’ve seen what he did, if he went back they would only confront him about it.

The more distance he puts between himself and The Great Hall the worse he feels. He takes steps by two, looking down at the red letter in his hand with your name elegantly written on the front. It’s definitely a Howler from your parents, he recognises the black stamp that seals the lid from the many letters your family had sent to his parents.

Why would they send you a Howler?

Maybe they were going to praise you? That could be it, they were only trying to brag about how good of a Slytherin their precious daughter is. Amazing grades, never out of line, always proper and prim,...

But the more he thinks about it the more he starts to question whether his friends were right.

Howlers weren’t sent by loving parents, they were always sent by people who had some bone to pick. Sirius remembers the time Martha, a Hufflepuff, received a Howler from her grandparents, yelling at her because apparently if she didn’t start studying for her OWLs she would be in big trouble when she got back home.

Or that time when Kyle tried to pull a prank on one of the professors but injured a student instead, his parents were livid.

Sirius stops walking, now taking that bloody letter into both hands, staring at it as if he wanted to burn it right then and there.

Anger fills his head as he focuses on your mother’s handwriting. What could your parents possibly be humiliating you for? There was not a chance you were doing anything wrong, anything against their standards. You studied hard, got amazing grades, were good at pretty much anything that involved magic.

The fact he was becoming concerned for you, a (Y/L/N), confuses him to no end and it makes him even more livid.

Nothing made sense anymore.

“Sirius Black!”

Your loud voice echoed through the halls like never before. Not once has Sirius ever heard you scream in all those years he knew you. It takes him back to reality, out of his thoughts and into the world where he can feel nothing but loathing at your mere presence.

After the initial shock he turns around, a prominent glare is fixed onto his face.

And there you are, getting closer with every second, walking with loud steps but still as gracious as ever.

Before he realises it you’re right in front of him, eyes wide and deep breaths filling the air between you. You’re seething, staring daggers at him. If looks could kill, Sirius would be lying on the ground with a cut open throat right now.

“If you give it back I won’t speak a word about this to anyone, Black.”

He expected you to make a scene, but you surprised him with an almost gentle voice, a whisper so no one else could hear but him. It’s a big contrast to your body language.

Your outstretched hand is patiently waiting for him to lay the letter on your palm.

“No can do, (Y/L/N).”

He turns away from you, trying to walk away as quickly as possible but you don’t let him.

Sirius feels his hair being tugged backwards, his scalp stinging from the pull. You know it’s a low blow, almost childish if this was any other situation but you’re so angry, so furious, so full of hatred right now that it’s the only thing that makes you feel satisfied.

His guard is down as he is too distracted and startled by the move you just pulled, literally, that it’s easy for you to grab for the envelope in his hand.

When he feels the paper slipping between his fingers he grips on tight, refusing to let go. He’s in too deep by now, he’s not giving up on that letter.

Sirius never meant for you to be humiliated, as nasty as he could be sometimes, never once did it cross his mind to harass or demoralize you in front of everyone at school. His hatred was private, he made sure only you knew about his distaste. Yes, others picked up on the grudge between you two after a while but never was anything said in full public view.

Never, absolutely never did he mean for this to get so far.

One of you must have pulled too hard, maybe the stamp was weak from the beginning,...

When the black seal broke away from the envelope there wasn’t enough time to realise what was happening.

Before either of you could react your mother’s loud voice filled the hallways and you were there in the middle of everyone listening.

Sirius stumbled back out of pure shock, eyes wide pleading for something to stop this.

Had he gone too far?

Yes, he did. He realised it as soon as he saw your face.

Your tears dripped and hit the floor right between your feet.

TAGLIST:

@iamthepenguinwhosearseisonfire​​ @wangmangagavroche​​ @songforhema​​ @fortisfiliae​​  @the-apple-princess​ @youlook-likehell​ @oliviaharddyy​ @slytherpuffgal​ @supermassiveblackhope​ @this-silent-area​ @madmaiden2890​ @simply-hamilton​ @cindywayne​ @aikeia​ @coffeeismylife28​ @remusandsiriusxreader @evolutionofkatep

[babineni]

So... ages ago I half-jokingly (or was I half-joking...?) made a post about being open to smut prompt requests and @hellyeahniccage actually sent me something - thank you 💖💖💖

anyway, here is the result :)

cw: explicit content

Illa couldn't stop smiling. The hallway leading to the docks of Citadel Station echoed her footsteps. She walked besides Atton, close enough so that her hand brushed against his knuckles as he carried a bag of supplies. Going on a vacation was the pilot’s idea. He believed they – or the Exile, at least – deserved to enjoy the galaxy they saved. They deserved a chance to unwind and let the weight of their responsibilities fall from their shoulders, even if for a few days only.  As much as Illa liked the idea, however, she was also far too aware of the Republic’s dependence on their continued work. Eventually they arrived at a compromise: a day off, spent in one of Telos’ restoration zones. But even then, on the morning of their trip, the Exile still felt a sense of frustration and eagerness emanating from her lover walking by her side, yawning.

‘We can go back to the apartment, if you want to rest,’ she suggested. ‘We have the whole day to us. We can go whenever we like.'

‘I don’t wanna waste my time sleeping,’ Atton replied, ‘and don’t worry, I can fly just fine like this. There is no traffic in and out of the restoration zones, I could fly a route like that with eyes closed and hands tied behind my back.’

‘We crashed the last time we went to the surface…’

‘We were shot down,’ the scoundrel corrected her. ‘We should have no trouble this time. Czerka has no presence in the zone we’re headed to, last time I checked. I mean… you checked.’

‘It’s true,’ Illa sighed. ‘It’s just… we’re supposed to relax today and I can sense how frustrated you are. There is no rush. We can take care of you first.'

Atton sighed, then gave her a reassuring smile a moment later. 'I'll feel better once we get to the surface. Trust me,' as the last words were uttered, Illa felt his adoration so intensely, it nearly disoriented her. She caught the glimpse of a mischievous twinkle in his eyes, one that she knew well. It was a reflection and a promise. The Exile lightly bit her lip to stop her imagination running wild with that promise. She didn't even notice that Atton hastened his pace when he saw her flustered expression.

'I assume you made plans? Aside from the picnic, I mean,' Illa asked mostly to just distract herself.

'You know it,' the scoundrel's face lit up with amusement. 'I'm a little offended, you needed to ask.'

'Oh? Is it pazaak?' She teased, and a moment later she glimpsed a familiar airlock.

'Come on, you're the mind reader here, you can take a better guess than that,' Atton teased right back.

'A stroll on the beach?' Illa unlocked one airlock then the other. Before she could enter the hangar itself, however, Atton pulled her back and pinned her against the wall. He stole a shallow but forceful kiss, just long enough for the Exile to taste the hunger he had for her. But she tasted something else as well: that frustration of his was still present, hidden behind his lust and playful teasing - like a drop of poison in a wildly rushing river

'That is on the list, actually,' he winked at her once pulled away and rushed ahead to the Ebon Hawk.

Illa took a moment to make sense of that strange bitterness she just felt. She held on to its resonance within her and she followed it, the same way she followed her lover to the ship. She felt a pull, faint but powerful, right to its kernel. Some of it was rooted in boredom and reluctance but it mingled with... fear, and a sense of powerlessness and inadequacy.

Atton was many things, but he was no teacher and no politician. He once swore he'd protect the Exile, but with the Sith gone, there wasn't anyone who posed the kind of challenge to her that he could face on her side. He promised he'd help in any way he can, but she was dabbling in things he only understood on a surface level. What else was left? What else could he offer? The things he learned from her? The things he could only give back to her? It didn't feel fair. It didn't feel enough. So he gave all that was his, however little it was - and if something, anything, stopped him from doing so, it also pulled at his soul into doubt and anxiety.

'Oh, Atton,' Illa sighed as she closed the ramp of the Ebon Hawk. She went to the cockpit, where the pilot was already firing up the engines. His movements reflected his eagerness, and she still felt his passion strongly. Had the Exile not touched his insecurity within him, she wouldn't have guessed Atton was burdened by it at all.

'I came up with a plan of my own,' the Exile called out to Atton as she approached his seat. She reached for the pilot's hair and spent a few a moments playing with it, until a gentle smile crept onto his face. 'I want to make sure you get to blow off some steam. So you get to properly enjoy the day.'

'You're not gonna make me meditate, are you?' Illa couldn't tell if he was joking or not and she got the impression, he wasn't sure either. 'I'm flying as you can see,' he said just as the ship left the hangar.

'Nothing like that,' the Exile chuckled. 'I want to spoil you a little.'

'That's more like it,' the pilot let out a short laugh. 'So... what is it? Don't leave me in suspence.'

'I'll show you, once you spread your legs for me.'

Atton froze for a moment, then turned to the Exile. His smile widened slowly just as he parted his thighs. 'You're really better than any dream of mine, you know that?'

'Is that so?' Illa asked as she pulled her hair back then descended between the scoundrel's legs.

'Yeah... Whenever I dreamt of this scenario, you always ended up lecturing me about unsafe flying conditions,' he laughed.

'I thought you said you could fly this route with your eyes closed and your hands tied,' the Exile felt the pilot's bulge through his pants, drawing a quiet groan out of him. 'Still, it would be probably wise if you kept your hands on the controls and your eyes on the horizon. Just to be safe.'

'Or what?' Atton asked with a challenging grin.

'I don't know,' Illa shrugged as she undid his pants. 'I guess, I'll just stop.'

The scoundrel swiftly turned his gaze away from her, but the Exile kept hers fixed on his face as she pulled his half-erect cock forth. She placed a hand on Atton's thigh and gave him a few soft rubs as she left a trail of kisses along his shaft. Illa caught a glimpse of fluttering eyelashes but other than that the pilot did his absolute best to act like he was focused on flying alone. She left one last peck on the tip, then wrapped her mouth around it. She pumped the base of his sex but refused to lower her head. She just kept teasing him by caressing him with her lips and her tongue, until she pulled the frustrations deep in his mind to the surface, until she turned those frustrations into a pleasant pressure that she could alleviate, even if for a short time.

'Illa... You're making this no touching thing... pretty challenging,' Atton complained.

The Exile noticed that his hovered halfway between the ship's controls and her head, tempted to push her down. Illa pulled away and guided his hand back to the controls then took him in her mouth again. She sunk down on him slowly, stealing the pilot's breath away. He exhaled a groan as she rose back up, prompting her to answer with a satisfied hum. She sunk lower and lower with each bob of her head and Atton's breathing followed her rhythm. Soon, Illa noticed that he had trouble keeping his gaze fixed on the horizon - either he tried glancing at her or he grew less and less able to stop himself from keeping his eyes open.

'Your mouth feels fucking fantastic,' he sighed and threw his head back against his seat. He bit his lip trying to stifle a moan before he turned his attention back to flying. However, he was only able to maintain his focus for a few seconds longer. He whispered a series of curses, as he hastily programmed a straight route into the ship's computer and turned the auto-pilot on.

Illa squinted at the scoundrel disapprovingly as she pulled away.

'Oh, come on, don't look at me like that,' Atton leaned down to steal a kiss. 'You were taking your sweet time.'

'I thought you liked it, when I take my time with you.'

'I love it,' he smiled at the Exile as he gathered her hair and wrapped it around his fist. He rested his hand on the back of her neck as he sat back up. 'But this is a short flight.'

Illa shook her head but she couldn't hide her smile. She started working her way down on Atton's cock again, this time, with the pilot gently setting the pace for her. He rolled his hips against her slightly, meeting her with light thrusts as they hastened their movements. Atton kept talking, breathlessly, switching between profanities and expressions of his adoration. But even that stopped as his thoughts were overwhelmed by pleasure, leaving only moans upon his lips. Soon, neither of them knew how much later, the scoundrel was pushed beyond the edge, shivering ever so slightly as ecstasy overtook him. Illa pulled away, wiping at her lips.

'Fuck, you're sweet,' Atton kissed her hungrily and pulled her on his lap.

'You're feeling better now, I take it?' The Exile asked. She let her lover rest his head on her shoulder, who nuzzled her neck in turn.

'I would've been fine, but... yeah,' he answered, enjoying Illa's kisses on his hair.

'You make me very happy, you know that, right?'

'I...' the pilot pulled back so he could look Illa in the eye. 'What brought this up?'

The Exile gave him an apologetic look. 'I'm sorry. I read some of your feelings earlier.'

Atton didn't reply at first. He stared at the empty air over Illa's shoulder and nodded to himself. Then he let out an exasperated sigh and massaged his temple for a few seconds.

'What did you find this time?'

'You... You thought you had nothing to offer me,' the Exile sounded pained as she echoed his thoughts back to him. 'But that's not how I see it.'

'And you thought you could suck my issues out of me?' Atton chuckled.

'No...' Illa frowned at him, but that made him laugh harder but also with more open adoration. 'I just wanted to make you feel a little appreciated. If I had more time, I would have done something gran-'

Before the Exile could finish, the scoundrel claimed her lips. He kissed her softly, but also deeply. 'This was perfect,' his breath mingled with hers as he spoke, 'but next time, just ignore thoughts like that. That's what I do.'

'You mean... But I felt it so strongly...'

'Yeah, I guess, it did get to me more than usual,' the pilot explained. 'I wanted to give you more time away from all the things you're wrapped up in and... I guess, I overreacted. Most of the time, this is a feeling I can shove so deep I forget I ever felt it,' he tucked a loose strand of hair behind Illa's ear. 'I might sometimes think you're crazy for letting things between us get this far but... I would never give up on us. Or you. I don't think I could, even of I wanted to.'

'Good,' the Exile smiled at Atton, 'because you're truly precious to me. And you make everything so much easier... don't ever doubt that.'

Atton spent a moment reveling in that smile. He leaned closer to her once that moment passed. 'So... My turn, then?' He was just about to nibble on Illa's ear when the ship's computer flared up with a warning. '...After we landed.'

Illa was just about to stand up but the scoundrel pulled right back on his lap. He guided her hand to land the Ebon Hawk onto an open field that promise almost as much bliss as their own embrace.

[noahxashford]

☼ who’s that hottie, standing outside the love hotel? it’s NOAH ASHFORD, a BISEXUAL MALE, who looks a lot like HENRY CAVILL! NOAH’s insta bio says HE is a 36 y-o WRITER and is looking for a fun time this summer. HE is into DADDY KINK AND PUBLIC SEX, but not into SCAT AND FEET. by the way, he reminds me of INK STAINED HANDS AND FLANNEL SHIRTS. i have a feeling things just got interesting!

tw: miscarriage

stats

name: noah ashford birthday: september 7, 1983 nationality: english orientation: bisexual/biromantic gender and pronouns: male, he/him occupation: writer positive traits:  intelligent, charming, independent, observant, honest negative traits:  stubborn, reserved, cynical, sarcastic, disorganized hobbies:  writing, cooking, art, architecture, traveling kinks: more or less the same as mine which you can see here 

you can also read a bit more about him here although it’s still a wip!!

background

noah comes from london where his parents gave birth to him as an accident but they still loved him very much. they had just never planned to have kids as they were both busy with their careers (his dad is a chef, his mom is an attorney) and a child wasn’t something they had much time or energy for but they did the best they could with noah

still, they were away a lot and noah was left a lot to himself and that’s why he started reading a lot, to escape into different worlds and realities

he did well in school, especially in english and quickly discovered his love of writing 

he’s also always loved cooking as it was the one thing he shared with his dad whenever they spent quality time together

but writing was his true passion so after high school, he studied literature and creative writing at uni to pursue it as a career

he’s had a few succesful books but isn’t that big a name (yet)

at uni, he met the woman who would become his girlfriend and they quickly moved in and started talking about marriage. noah was totally head over heels. it was his first serious relationship. while they were engaged, she became pregnant but almost at full term, she was in a car accident and lost the child

this ruined things between them and she left him soon after

he’s been kind of a depressed mess since, living as a recluse, sleep deprived and not really taking care of himself, just trying to write. 

a visual of him in the time after his fiancee left:

recent years

he started slowly getting over her by first sleeping around and such, then gradually coping more healthily by traveling and writing. 

he stayed a year in italy two years ago and speaks pretty good italian

he’s since then stayed in america

now

he’s recently started having writers block and that’s why his agent decided to send him to this place

noah was a bit skeptic but figured at least it could be a nice holiday lol

but his agent hopes that by unwinding/relaxing, his creative juices might start flowing more freely

wanted connections

literally anything?? just hmu

[blooblooded]

High School Story Act 1

KASSIDY NGUYEN

Twelve years to the day had passed since Kassidy Nguyen’s mother had taken her own life, and things weren’t exactly getting any easier. The passage of time did not heal all wounds; how could it? It was like her other mother and her brother were like open wounds, just walking around tearing and re-tearing themselves open. Every year it was the same and every year she did the same thing: avoided thinking about it.

In the bathroom, she avoided making eye contact with herself in the mirror. This at least was not anything new. She never looked at herself in the mirror, or if she did she spared only the slightest of glances to make sure that she did not have anything stuck in between her teeth or that her masses of unmanageable kinky blonde hair was not sticking up everywhere. Not that it mattered, since no matter what she did she always looked like a clown. It didn’t bother her much any more, it just affected her in this small uncomfortable way whenever she was around mirrors.

Instead of fixating on this-- something that even on the worst of days, Kassidy was not prone to-- she washed her hands, wiped them haphazardly on her pants, and left.

At least it was still relatively early into the first semester of her 4th highschool year, so she wouldn’t be missing out on much homework if the night went poorly. Not that Kassidy cared much about school or grades either. She had a pretty clear idea of her trajectory and it looked something like following in her mother’s footsteps and joining Eden’s bevy of law enforcement. Didn’t need good grades to become a cop. Didn’t need much of anything. Kassidy didn’t have much of anything. 

She made her way into the kitchen of their small apartment and sat down at the table, pulling her legs up and crossing them. The table was round and made of synthetic wood, since the real stuff was too expensive for the majority of the people who inhabited the underground city. Various plates and used utensils covered the surface in a way that was more lived in than it was messy. Well, it was also messy. Kassidy shoved a couple of plates out of the way so that she could comfortably rest her elbows on the table. 

There was a hole in the wall next to the table. Kassidy looked at it. She looked away.

It was like this every year, but every year the severity of her family’s behavior worsened. Every year it felt like they lost their grip on each other a little bit more.

Her communicator buzzed from inside her pocket and she pulled it out to check for any messages. The device’s rectangular screen had a crack in it from all the times she had dropped it. Sometimes this annoyed her, but where was she supposed to dig up enough credits to pay for a new screen? It buzzed again as her brother kept messaging her.

>christopher.nguyen: tell ma i’m gonna be out late tonight

>christopher.nguyen: we’re making signs for the workers march tomorrow

Kassidy rolled her eyes. It was good that he had found something to do with his energy, good that he had found people to relate to and hang out with, but it was starting to get annoying.

>kassidy.nguyen: don’t leave me with her she thinks all 3 of us are gonna hang out here

>christopher.nguyen: you didn’t hear her screaming at me last night?

>christopher.nguyen: just because i made one comment about police brutality in eden????

>christopher.nguyen:  didn’t even say anything offensive

>kassidy.nguyen: i heard you punching the wall and screaming at her right back you idiot

Kip sent a hybrid laughing-crying emoji, which was what he usually sent when he couldn’t think of something reasonable or normal to say. Kassidy replied with a long string of skull emojis. She shifted her position in the chair so that she was more comfortable. 

>kassidy.nguyen: iits fine. You shouldn’t have to torture yourself thinking about mom.

>christopher.nguyen: neither should you though.

>kassidy.nguyen: i don’t even remember her

>kassidy.nguyen: i mean like not as much as you

Kip sent her about 50 laughing-crying emojis in a row, which was just...impossible to discern. She decided to ignore him since he was being his usual self and opened up the internet so that she could watch videos of people slipping while waiting for the metro and nearly having fatal accidents.

This was where she was supposed to start on her homework, but nothing could motivate her to do so. She didn’t have anything that needed to be done immediately, or at least, she didn’t have anything that she couldn’t procrastinate on. It wasn’t like Kassidy was on the AP track; the only classes she was taking were the ones she absolutely had to for graduation--- the basic 4th level courses. If she absolutely needed to, she could always just cheat off of her best friend Esther Bellamy, who was generally the type to complete her homework.

Half an hour passed and her mother let herself into the apartment, struggling slightly with the keycard as she did so. She walked through the living room and into the kitchen and looked disoriented as she did so due to the novelty of getting home before 10:30. Before saying anything to her daughter, Dana Nguyen put her briefcase down on the floor and slumped down into the 2nd of their 3 chairs.

Kassidy looked a lot like her mother. They both had the same small and slouching way about them. Of course, her mother wore glasses and had straight black hair that was already peppered with grays. And of course, Kassidy was more prone to smiling and laughing and the light in her eyes hadn’t yet been dulled. They were blood related, which was something that her brother could not say. At least he could reach things in high places for them.

“I thought that I wouldn’t be able to get home at all,” her mother complained. “It’s like shit gets piled on top of me on purpose. Practically had to sneak out of my own office because if Anderson or Middleton had remembered I was there they would have jumped down my throat with this Mena Olowe fiasco. Jesus, I could pass out.”

“Did you pick up food?” asked Kassidy.

“Did you?” snapped her mother, pulling at her tie and unbuttoning her top buttons.

Kassidy scrolled boredly through a scary story message board. She knew better than to roll her eyes. 

Dana Nguyen rubbed her temples like she was getting a headache. “Sorry. Long day Where’s Christopher?” Whenever she used Kip’s full name, it meant that her anger was still simmering underneath the surface. “If he’s still out he could bring back pizza.”

“Uhhhh.” Kassidy scrolled more intently through her communicator so that she appeared busy. “Huh?”

While pretending to be hyper-focused on the story of someone claiming that the Red Religion was driving people mad, she watched her mother unwind. She watched as she slid her little shoes from her feet and unclasped the lanyard from around her neck. Her mother took an elastic from her wrist and tied her hair back with it, the greys at the sides springing out to frame her face. She rubbed her face again then stood up, went to the refrigerator, and grabbed a beer can. Without bothering to pour it into a glass, she opened it and took a sip, her shoulders relaxing.

Kassidy looked at her mother. She looked at the hole in the wall. 

Sometimes it felt like her family was crazy and she was the only one who didn’t blow up or freak out. Except that wasn’t true at all. Kassidy still blew up, just not over stupid shit. 

The story she was reading was actually pretty interesting, not that she believed it. Religious people were messed up and deluded, but not deluded enough to start brainwashing people and draining all the blood out of their bodies. Eden had a long history of fervent state atheism which meant that anyone with a more complicated belief system didn’t completely mesh well. It was difficult to be understanding; none of them believed in Science. They were the sorts who liked to hold onto the intangible and somehow that gave them comfort, instead of being comforted by the material world around them. Kassidy always shivered when she walked too close to their Churches. But their whole thing was that they were caring and compassionate, surely not the sort who would engage in blood sacrifices.

Well. From time to time, Kassidy enjoyed a good shiver.

Time passed. Her mother opened another beer and the skin of her cheeks started to flush. It was good that lately she had switched from liquor to beer. A couple years ago when Kip was in the Youth  Detention Center, she had drunk so much that Kassidy was always worried about her. The scary thing was that back then, her mother wouldn’t even cry despite the crushing waves of unhappiness that radiated from her. She would just stare at nothing, drink, then stare at nothing some more. As unsettling as that was it was better than crying. Kassidy had never seen her mother cry.

“Where’s your brother?” asked Dana Nguyen. Already she was looking rumpled, like the part of herself that was well put together immediately fell apart when she was home. “He’s not-- do you know where he is?”

“Uhhh,” said Kassidy awkwardly. “Yeah. Kind of.”

“And that is?”

She clicked out of the forums and pulled up her messages. “EWP meeting. Again, I think. Uh. I think he wanted to stay busy tonight, you know? He wanted to be with his friends.” How terrible it was that she could say that Kip had friends and she didn’t. All she had was Esther. If joining a stupid club was the way that one made friends in Eden, Kassidy did not want friends. The loneliness that she had known all her life was at least familiar.

The thin metal beer can crinkled as her mother gripped it, then threw it into the recycling bin. Her face grew redder. “EWP,” she said, bitterly. “EWP. You know, he is exactly like his mother was. Harry never shut up about the Workers’ Party, she never stopped trying to get us to unionize, never could be quiet about how she thought the Central Committee was corrupt. And look where it got her. Look where it’s getting him.” 

“The EWP isn’t that bad.” It was true. They weren’t. The Eden Workers Party was a popular organization for working class leftists who were averse to the organized crime connections that all the other labour-parties had. While it was considered fringe-- after all, Eden was a one-party system on paper and had been for over two hundred years-- it was accepted as something that passionate yet overly idealistic people involved themselves with. Mostly they protested things like low wages and prohibitive housing costs and were either ignored or laughed at. 

But Kip was not a part of the Eden Workers Party anymore. He had found something even more niche, more anti-capitalist, more extreme. Kassidy didn’t entirely understand it, but the thing that she understood well was how much her mother would flip her shit if she ever found out.

“So he’s out, what, painting posters or something?” asked her mother.

“I guess,” said Kassidy, who did not actually know. She pulled up her contact information for Esther.  

“Unbelievable.” Standing up once again from the kitchen table, her mother got a 3rd beer from the fridge, then went to the beat up couch that was the centerpiece of their living room. When she sat, she didn’t curl her legs up like Kassidy did, rather, she seemed to deflate and slouch even more. “He is unbelievable.”

For a moment, Kassidy wondered if she should join her mother in the living room. How was she supposed to shoulder all that misery? She didn’t want to, but she knew that she couldn’t just leave her by herself, not today. She began to message Esther.

>kassidy.nguyen: can you call me so i can escape?

>kassidy.nguyen: my moms in a weird mood again

No answer.

“Unbelievable,” Dana Nguyen repeated, staring at the hole in the wall. “I don’t know what to do with him, I can’t get him to listen to me. I don’t know what to do. He’s-- he’s practically a grown man. He’s going to get in trouble someday.”

Kip had already been in a lot of trouble.

“I have people breathing down my throat all day, I can’t have my kid out there screaming about, I don’t know, stupid politics. Do you know what it’s gonna look like if he gets himself arrested? We arrested 3 of those socialist nutcases today for vandalizing a train station, can you imagine what would happen if Kip gets wound up in all that? The media gangfucks me hard enough already.”

“Ugh, gross Ma, don’t say gangfuck,” Kassidy glued her eyes to her screen. “That freaks me out.”

“The media gangfucks me during every press conference, Kassidy,” said her mother, who finished off her 3rd beer of the night. “I’m the Central Committee’s whipping boy, something goes wrong in Eden, I’m the one who gets the fucking blame. It’s nonstop, if it’s not one thing, it’s another. I don’t want this. I didn’t want this. If he gets arrested for I don’t know, destroying something, I can’t just bail him out.”

>kassidy.nguyen: she’s getting all crazy again i can’t deal with her by myself.

Her mother looked like she was melting on the inside. Kassidy cleared her throat to try and make a joke.

“It’s fine if you don’t bail him out, Vega will just do it for you.” She tried to arrange her face into something that resembled a smile. Why did she feel so awkward all of the time? “She’s done it be--”

“Is that supposed to be funny?” Dana Nguyen put her hands over her face. “Fucking Vega.”

This did not seem exactly fair. Eden’s Chief Personnel Officer Vega Pelenato had been a part of Kassidy and Kip’s lives as long as she could remember. Vega was the kind of person who picked up garbage that wasn’t her’s, she was a comfortable and trustworthy presence. Back when their mother wasn’t doing well and Kip was in the Youth Detention Center, she would check in on Kassidy a couple nights a week and bring her food. She had always figured that if she got in trouble, she’d call Vega first.

Defending Vega was the right thing to do.

“What’s wrong with Vega?”

“Shady. She’s shady. She wants my job.”

“Thought you didn’t want your job, Ma.”

Dana Nguyen just closed her eyes and slumped over on the couch so that she was lying down. 

(I DON’T KNOW WHERE TO GO WITH THIS)

AJAX GUTTIEREZ

It wasn’t usual for AJ to have enough time to grab a coffee and enjoy it before class. Generally he ran late. Not just in the morning either. It seemed as if he never had any time for himself, as if he was always doing things for other people and shoving his own needs down so deep that they could not be reached.

That morning however, as if through some miracle, everything was running smoothly. The metro eran without any weird delays or hiccups. The kids he babysat did not drag their feet for once as he got them ready for school. He didn’t have to run or wheeze or neglect to feed himself just because he was doing his job; he actually had time to enjoy the morning.

It was a novel experience. He was usually so busy.

The cafe which he frequented was located on the university floors of the Education District. It was one of the cheaper ones, despite its proximity to the sprawling section of classrooms which students who were enrolled in the Business and Marketing programs went to. Not that being on the Business track meant someone had money necessarily, but as a generalization, it did.

AJ did not have any money. It wasn’t like he was not being payed; his employer was the 2nd wealthiest individual in Eden— directly behind West Agapama’s shipping (and smuggling) empire. He got paid enough to pay the exorbitant tuition fees for a degree that did not guarantee a career in the future, but that was it. Sometimes he had money for coffee. Usually he did not. When he did have the money to treat himself, he ended up not having enough time due to having to drag the kids out of bed and making them get ready for school in the morning. 

One of the baristas at this particular cafe was his acquaintance, he had briefly dated her about a year previously and while the two of them had not remained close, they would still talk or hook up from time to time. When she noticed him, he nodded at her. Girls liked him, most of the time they would blush or giggle when he flirted with them. It was more difficult for him to hook up with guys. 

“Whaddya want, Gutierrez?” asked the barista, who was tall and slim and had an aura of bored disinterest about her. She had been in one of his Marketing classes, before she had been forced to drop out of school because her financial aid stopped coming through. “Haven’t seen you in a hot minute.”

AJ shrugged as he studied the iridescent signs that exhibited the various drinks available. “Haven’t had time.”

“Still working the same gig?” The name tag that she wore on her green apron read ‘Qian’, which was her surname— not many people had the privilege to call her Jenny. AJ had, back when he was sleeping with her, but it hadn’t worked out. “Still a miserable bastard, huh? You should come sling drinks with me.”

“You know I can’t do that,” said AJ. “Can I just get a coffee with cream and a shot of caramel?”

Qian nodded and got to work.There were no other customers waiting in line; either they populated the more popular coffee shops that were around the STEM classrooms or it was simply a slow day. Things like that were impossible to discern. He watched her work and envied the simplicity of a job where tasks were straightforward. All she had to do was follow the recipe and smile at the customers. There was no room for fear and speculation, she didn’t have to feel anxious about losing a couple of children or fucking up so monumentally that she got hung up by her toes in a meat packing plant. Customer service sucked too, but it came with less dangers.

AJ hadn’t considered his babysitting job personally dangerous until recently. Now he was brainstorming ways to get out of it but came up blank every time.

Compulsively, he checked his communication device for messages, but saw nothing. 

“Aren’t you graduating this year?” asked the barista. Steam from the latte machines made her straight dark hair stick to the sides of her face. AJ remembered how pretty she was and remembered how lonely he was now. “Marketing, right?”

“Business and Marketing,” said AJ. He took his cup of coffee when she handed it to him, it was too hot for him to drink immediately so he lingered. “Actually I just have 10 credits left. The end is in sight, haha.”

“You gonna work for Prosperity?”

“I mean, I sort of am already if you think about it.” He watched as she shook her head in kind disbelief. Nobody took him seriously. “I’m going to talk to Mr. Prospas about it later on in the semester, after I’ve started working on my thesis. Market research analyst, right? There’s always room for that kind of work in a huge company like Prosperity. I’ve been working for him on the books for almost 5 years, off the books for much longer. That’s gotta mean something, am I right?”

“Working as a babysitter,” said Qian. She wiped her dark hair back from her face. AJ didn’t correct her.

What was he supposed to say, that he had been forced to watch out for a known crime lord’s kids since he was 12 years old? That kind of thing was completely unbelievable. Even when he said it to himself, it sounded unbelievable. For nearly half his life, AJ had taken care of people who were not himself, had been left with minimal time for himself and his interests. Had he cultivated compassion for others during that time? Who was to say. All he knew was that he never had any time for himself, that he never had any time to do what he wanted to do. It was one of the reasons all of his relationships fell apart in the first place. 

(EDIT THIS SHE ALREADY GAVE IT TO HIM)Qian pumped a couple of squirts of caramel flavoring into AJ’s cup and handed it to him. The cup was warm in his hands. “You need to get out of there, man,” she said, and a cautious tone lent itself to her voice. “You know it’s not safe, right? I read about how EPD found some guy with his eyes sliced out of his head and his throat cut the other night, they’re trying to tie it back to Prosperity.”

“Could have been anyone,” said AJ, who knew exactly who she was talking about and exactly what had happened. Even those treacherous thoughts made his heart palpate. “What about AGA? What about the Reds? Or those socialist whack jobs, I heard that last week a couple of them beat the shit out of some guy just because he had an expensive communicator. This Colony is a shithole, Jenny, no wonder the Central Committee has been panicking. Every time something violent happens— so every day-- the cops try to pin the blame on one of the five families because they’re too stupid to figure it out for themselves.”

“Uh huh,” said the barista. She smiled at him a little like she didn’t believe him. “Sure. You need to get out of there. That shit ain’t safe for people like us.”

He already knew what she meant by ‘people like us’. People who didn’t have the means to post bail or people who didn’t have the flashy names to become media darlings. She meant people like him. People who might someday be found slashed to pieces in a warehouse, people who the police wouldn’t care about. AJ took a sip of his coffee. It was too sweet but bearable, he just wanted to sit down and not have to talk to his ex.

Come to think about it, AJ had a lot of exes.

He retreated to the relative privacy of one of the back corners and sat down. Not many students were currently occupying the small room; an accounting professor who he recognized was meeting with a mentee nearby and a couple shared a breakfast of bagels in the opposite corner next to the door. In theory the lack of distraction would lend itself to him being able to get more work accomplished before class, but AJ knew that he would inevitably start scrolling through the feeds on his communicator and waste all his time.

He took his tablet out of his tote bag and activated its keyboard function. One of his professors had assigned a short analysis of product proliferation, or what occurs when an organization markets endless variations of the same products. Take for instance Prosperity Inc, which made its money feeding the people of Eden. The majority of Prosperity's sales came from cellular agriculture— the in vitro cultivation of animal cells on a massive scale, then marketed towards the lower and middle class as an accessible alternative to traditional animal protein. But the company also raised cattle in the flat fields on the surface above Eden, and slaughtered them in the traditional way, then marketed them to the elite who could afford it. In this way, Prosperity sold the exact same product— animal protein— and almost entirely cornered the market.

Although AJ understood this concept of diversification and monopolization well from having grown up around it, he couldn’t bring himself to write about his own experiences. It just didn’t seem right. Instead he stared blankly at the screen of his tablet, his mind drifting every now and then to the conversations around him. He typed one sentence, then deleted it. He typed another one and deleted that one as well.

What was the point of going to college? The pit of fear opened up in that dark place in his chest and he struggled to swallow it down. Whenever he was still and quiet for too long, the terrible thoughts about how he was never going to be able to provide for himself and for his mother swirled up from that dark place. Even if he was able to graduate, he had no relevant job experience in his field. His only hope was to beg for the job he wanted and pray for the best.

To distract himself, AJ pulled up a crossword app. The clue that he got stuck at was 53 Across: ‘Pass (off) as genuine.’ Muddling over it took him a good 5 minutes until he recalled the word ‘foists’. 

In the reflective glass of his tablet’s screen, he could see his own face and he looked away, unable to stand making prolonged eye contact with himself. A few strands of hair were escaping from his short ponytail and he slicked them back with one hand, drinking his coffee with the other. What was it about his own image that caused him such internal disgust? It had never been like this before, it had slowly crept up on him seemingly without cause. The strange thing was that his self esteem was not low, he often felt proud of himself and his self-efficacy. To his knowledge, he was not overcome with shame or guilt. This was different. AJ did not want to watch himself slowly sink into the thick mud of his life.

He pulled up his textbook, read a sentence, and found himself unable to focus. But looking back at the crossword he was working on also could not hold his focus.

Vibrations in his pants pocket alerted him to a message on his communication device and he pulled it out and checked it. The youngest kid who he babysat, a 9 year old, had left him a string of smiley-face emojis. Not just a string, like 25 of them. Valentine was an excitable and loving child, but he never could leave anyone alone. AJ had tried to explain that he had to go to school too, but it just didn’t get through.

Without anything of importance to say to the kid, AJ put his phone face down on the table. What is someone supposed to say to a bunch of random emojis sent with no context? The kids were supposed to be in class anyway. At least the older one never messaged AJ or reached out to him. It was hard enough to deal with one needy child.

Unable to focus on what he was supposed to be doing, he pulled up his newsfeed. In 6 months Eden would have its first serious Mayoral election in over 10 years. Or perhaps, the first serious Mayoral election in 57 years? On paper, Eden did not have political dynasties, but for nearly 6 decades, somebody with the last name ‘Malena’ had been head of the Central Committee. The current Mayor, Jay Malena, had been elected when AJ was 12, after his father Jack Malena had stepped down from office. And when AJ’s mother had been young, Awhina Malena had been in power. It wasn’t something that bothered him, at least not that much. AJ wasn’t interested in politics because he couldn’t see how they materially affected his life.

No matter who had control of Eden, things weren’t going to get any better, at least not for him. Nothing ever changed. 

Anyway, the Mayor was only one part of the Central Committee. There was of course also a Commissar for each of the 10 Districts who supposedly had the best interests of their constituents in mind. Then there was the worthless Police Commissioner, the Minister of Science, the Comptroller, and the Chief Prosecutor. All in all 15 people who held Eden in their hands. They were the people who got payed to sit around on their asses all day while the five families— owners of the megacorporations which actually influenced Eden— did whatever they wanted.

The current newsfeed had a picture of Mayor Malena sweating in front of the cameras during his latest interview. He was a sharp, good looking man with big square teeth like chunks of marble. Moderately likeable, shiny and stupid. The shitshow that would rise up if he lost to his challenger, the flashy and dangerous idiot West Agapama, was unthinkable. Not just for the Colony. AJ’s boss would finally lose his mind. 

At least AJ knew who he’d be voting for. He didn’t know much, but he knew that. 

The youngest kid he babysat sent him another string of smiley face emojis. The corners of AJ’s mouth tightened and he tapped out his own message.

>ajax.guttierez: stop playing on your comm

>ajax.guttierez: you’re going to get in trouble

Valentine replied with yet another incoherent bunch of emojis and gifs. AJ turned his device off vibrate, unable to engage in any more emotional labor.

It wasn’t that he didn’t care about the Prospas kids. They were just a lot to deal with. The basic expectations of his job was that he made sure that they were safe, that he made sure they went to school, and that he entertained them briefly after school and took them where they needed to go. It was not part of his job to be their friend or act as...as some kind of surrogate older brother. AJ knew from terrible experience just how badly that could go and how much he could lose if he let himself get too attached to one of them. He kept himself closed off for the most part, he tried to keep himself professional.

Professional. He did not want his profession to be watching out for his boss’s kids for the rest of his life. He could not let that happen to himself, he needed to move on for his own sake as well as his mother’s sake.

His poor mother…

AJ took another sip of coffee and dialed his mother’s number on VidChat. Usually she slept in, she had always been a night owl, even when his father was still alive. Now she had good reason to sleep the mornings away. On the 3rd ring, she picked up her communication device.

“Ajax?” she said, her voice still sleepy. She was still in bed, her long brown hair uncovered. AJ took after his father more than he took after her, but he could still see his own traits in her long curled eyelashes and her slight overbite. “Are you getting breakfast before class?”

“Yeah,” AJ answered, even though he wasn’t. He didn’t want to waste his money on an expensive bagel or something when he had food back in the apartment. Well, technically there was also food in the kitchens of the Prospas family home which he and his mother shared, but he didn’t want to be accused of stealing. “Just checking on you. You weren’t up when I left.”

His mother rubbed her eyes. “I was up until 3, I think. I get caught up, you know. I keep praying that things will get better for us, I know God is listening. He’s always listening.”

“Uh-huh.” His mother had only started getting into religion a couple of years ago, when the Red religion gained popularity due to some scriptures getting spread online. AJ didn’t care for it or understand, but it was good for her. It gave her something to do, people to talk to, and faith to hold on to. It was better to think that the God from beyond the Rift existed and was listening to her when she was sad or in pain, better than not having anything at all. He had tried to get into it at her behest, but the bloodletting aspect of it made him queasy.

“Someday we won’t have to struggle or suffer anymore, you know? God is coming back someday, He’s coming back soon. Nobody will put us down anymore, nobody will hurt us anymore because you and me, we’re God’s children. He loves us, someday He’s going to come down from the Rift and protect us.”

“Yeah, I know he’s gonna do that, Ma. I know.” AJ turned his head to eye Jenny Qian up behind the counter and watched her bend over to pick something up. Seeing the thin slip of pink underwear show above her pants reminded him that it had been over a month since he last had sex. Probably not the best thing to contemplate while calling one’s mother.

“He’ll get rid of all the evil here. We won’t have to hide underground anymore because He’s going to purify the world.” Helen Guttierez’s face, tan and lovely, was so full of devotion towards her son that once again he wondered if he should go to one of the Red Churches, if only to give her peace. “Everyone will be happy the way that they were in the old days, before the Rift opened.”

Whenever AJ looked up while on the Surface Levels, he could see the impossibly dark red Rift pulsating far above the Dome. It made him sick to look at it for too long, so alien and unnatural. Nobody understood it, other than it had appeared suddenly 873 years ago and had ended almost all human life on Earth. It was a miracle that the few who survived the physical changes of that time were able to band together and form the 11 Colonies.

Then again, history and science had never been AJ’s strong suits.

“If God listens to anyone, it’s gonna be you,” he told her, just so that he could see her smile, that smile that was both like and unlike his own. 

And his mother did smile at him. She sat up a little straighter in her bed, which was covered in pillows and extra blankets for her comfort. She was a good mom, she had always given AJ the love and emotional support he needed to grow. None of this was her fault.

“Do you want to get dinner tonight?” she asked. She fumbled around on her bedside table to find her glasses and AJ wondered if he would also need glasses by the time he was 40.

“I’ll try to figure out something to do with the kids. Yeah, yeah of course.” AJ watched the little screen as his mother’s upper lip curled in disgust ever so slightly. “I’ve been so busy lately. You know.”

“You’re getting older. That’s what happens. You can’t— you aren’t that little boy you used to be. I loved you then and I love you now, just like I’m going to love the man you’re going to be. Growing older and more responsible isn’t going to change that, I pray for you every single day. Every day.”

A handful of students walked into the cafe, laughing and joking amongst themselves. More business and marketing majors, nobody overtly from the upper class.  AJ recognized most of them but wasn’t close to any. It was so easy for him to have fleeting relationships, romantic or otherwise. Even committing to a platonic friendship was difficult and growing more difficult by the day. It was hard for normal people to trust him once they found out who he worked for, and the people who were interested in him despite that? They were not the kind of people he wanted to associate with. 

The only person he actually wanted to associate with was his mom. It was fine to have short flings with people so that he could have casual sex, but anything beyond that? No. It was not worth it to drag out his history in the process of bonding with another human.

But the sound of a group of friends laughing together made something sharp and hungry twist deep in his gut.

His mother was still talking. “We could go to that restaurant in the 7th District that my friend Nneka owns. Their food is so good, cheap too. I think you’d like it.” 

“Vegetarian?”

“Yes. Of course. Of course it is.” She stretched, then rolled her shoulders back and in doing so, the collar of the oversized pajama shirt she slept in slipped down just enough to reveal a bite mark on her neck. It looked new.

It only took that to make AJ’s legs begin to shake. He pressed the hand that was not holding the communicator down on one thigh to try and control himself. “You OK, Ma?”

If she realized that he was upset, she did not show it. After all this time she minimized and brushed things off so that AJ wouldn’t get upset and do something stupid. The one time she slipped up and admitted to how scared she was, he’d flown into a rage and the aftereffects had not been pretty. That had been when he was 16 and he had ended up in the hospital. If he tried to stand up to the person who was hurting his mother now, as an adult? He’d end up like the guy Qian had told him about, the one who had been tortured before getting his throat slit.

Sometimes the best thing to do was not fight back. 

“I’m OK, baby,” she told him, and her smile took on an aspect that his never could: understanding. “It’s like I told you, God’s taking care of me. He never puts anything on our plate that we can’t handle.”

The nearby group of students were still laughing as they waited for their coffee orders and suddenly AJ couldn’t stand it. It made him want to lash out at them and he knew he couldn’t. He continued to press his fist into his leg as hard as he could and hoped that it would keep him calm. How could they be laughing? How could they have friends? When other people in Eden were so...stuck.

“Would you tell me if you’re not OK?” he asked his mother. 

“Of course I would,” she said, and he knew that she was lying. It showed itself in the way she did not look him in the eyes. Even without looking at her he could tell. “I know. You take care of me too.”

What was he supposed to say in response to something like that? When he knew that he did not. When he knew that he was about as effective an influence in her life as God was. If he kept pressing, if he kept asking her if she was OK, she would get upset with him, something which he could not bear. All he could do was grit his teeth and watch, pretend that he was not watching. All he could do was remain passive in hopes that he did not make anything worse. It was like that. She was not the only person who he wanted to protect, as loathe as he was to admit it.

AJ pressed his fist even harder into his leg— as hard as he could-- but it didn’t hurt; he didn’t feel it at all.

KIP NGUYEN

“You have the 16th highest GPA in your cohort,” said Ekala, one of the many Special Education counselors in the Ed. District. “That’s amazing, Christopher. That’s unprecedented. You can do anything you want to, if you put your mind to it. You can get scholarships, grants, all kinds of things with grades like that. Don’t you feel proud of yourself?”

Kip Nguyen, leaning back in his chair inside of the drab little office in which he had been meeting Ekala weekly for the last 4 years, looked up at the ceiling. The white plaster made him feel trapped. The tiny room with only enough space for a desk and an extra chair also made him feel trapped. He jiggled his leg. “No. Nope. Why should I?”

His SpEd counselor’s face was kind. She was kind. He knew that she actually cared about him and that she wouldn’t have chosen to go into the career path that she had if she didn’t have empathy. It was just that empathy and compassion didn’t matter in Eden, not really. Those weren’t traits that changed things on a large scale. “You’ve overcome a lot in your life. You’ve accomplished a lot. You should feel proud of yourself.”

“Why?” Kip asked again. He kept jiggling his leg.

“Because— because you should. //I// feel proud of you, you know.”

At a different point in his life, that kind of validation might have meant a lot. Now it was just sort of useless. Kip hated sitting in a chair in front of her for an hour every week. It was increasingly difficult for him to restrain himself, since he wanted to jump up and move around and talk. Whenever he was in meetings with teachers or his SpEd counselor, he could talk, he just couldn’t say the things that he wanted to say. In order to keep himself safe, he had to make himself...less than he was. Less energetic, less noisy. If he acted in accordance with his nature, the people who were in positions of power over him might get mad.

“I’m glad that //you// feel proud of me,” Kip told her. “But I don't think that really matters. Why does that matter? You know? For my future?”

Ekala looked at him flatly. She was young, less than 30 anyway, and kept her hair in short cornrows. The black uniform that every teacher, counselor, and professor wore in the Education District did not serve to make her prettier, it served as a reminder of who was really in charge. It served as a reminder that when it came down to brass tax, she held power over him that he could never contest. “You don’t feel proud of yourself for your hard work? You’ve come a long way in just two years.”

“It doesn’t //matter// if I’m proud of myself. Materially, I mean. It does not matter. The system doesn’t care about my self esteem, it doesn’t care about anyone.” As those words were coming out of his mouth, he realized that he needed to shut up. His Special Ed counselor wrote something down on her tablet, then looked back up at him like she expected him to say something else crazy. As usual, he could not help himself. “How does being proud of myself help pay 25,000 credits a year for college? It doesn’t.”

“Your grades mean you’ll qualify for scholarships.”

“They don’t give out scholarships to people like me.” It was true. She would try to dispute it but Kip knew it was true; he had talked to other people who had been arrested, other people who had been locked up either in the Youth Detention Center or the Prison District itself. His new friends were in the most part college students majoring in law, economics, or journalism, and all of them were being crushed by mountains of debt that they would never be able to pay off, no matter how hard they worked. Their backgrounds meant that the sprawling college administration hesitated to grant them any money, and their interests only solidified this. Eden did not reward those who were interested in social services or public works, Eden only rewarded those who could contribute to concrete betterment. In the Colony, STEM was everything. “They don’t give scholarships to anyone like me.”

That was not to say that he did not want to go to college. The idea of going into a career where he did something that changed things, a career where he was actually able to help people was like a far off dream to him. It just wasn’t feasible.

“You say that like you’ve already decided that you’re not going to try,” said Ekala. She rested her chin on the palm of her hand. “Is that why you don’t feel proud of yourself?”

Kip exhaled heavily and vigorously rubbed his head with his left hand, his uninjured hand, messing up his hair. “You’re not listening to me.”

“I’m listening to you.”

“//No//, you’re not. I’m //trying// to explain that it doesn’t //matter// because I either have to be in debt for the rest of my life or beg for scholarships I’ll never qualify for because I was in the YDC for 8 months. It doesn’t matter how I //feel// unless somebody does something to actually change things.”

Nobody listened, nobody ever listened. It was why he always had to make a scene to get his needs met or to get his points across. It was easier to be quiet and just take things, but Kip couldn’t do it. He couldn’t ever shut up and act passively, he couldn’t ever roll over. It made things harder for him and it made people dislike him, but it was better than acting like a doormat. He would not let people walk all over him.

When he was agitated he could not stop jiggling his legs or picking at himself, which was to say that he was always jiggling his legs or picking at himself. It took all his self control not to start scratching at one of the zits on his jawline.

Ekala’s face was very kind and understanding. She was a good person, he could see it in her eyes. He could see how much she wanted to help him, she just didn’t understand and would never be able to. “I’ve told you before that having to be detained as a minor doesn’t necessarily mean anything; you can even petition to have your record expunged. Do you want to fill out some scholarship forms with me? I could--”

Kip stood up without warning and realized that he had clenched his fists. WIth great difficulty he unclenched them. He knew that his eyes, which were already too big, were probably bulging out of his head. Due to the lack of space and the forcefulness of his movement, his chair scooted back toward the door when he stood. Aware of his capacity to make other people feel frightened because of his demeanor or his actions, his heart rate increased at the thought that he might frighten his counselor and make her press her panic button and throw him back in the Youth Detention Center.

He could not go back there. He could not be trapped like that again.

But his counselor did not react with fear. She smiled at him kindly. There was a big gap between her front teeth. “OK. I’m sorry. I’m sorry. Do you need space?”

He grabbed up his bag which had been sitting at his feet and shouldered it. Everything he wanted to say to her swirled up from his heart and he had to keep his mouth clamped shut so that he did not start yelling again. Kip wanted to yell at her. It wouldn’t make him feel better, just like punching walls didn’t make him feel better. The only purpose yelling would serve would be to expel an iota of the endless energy his mind and body produced.

Ekala had given him an out though. That was more than most teachers did for him.

“Yeah. Space,” he said, not looking at her.

“Can you check in with me tomorrow then?”

Kip nodded. What other choice did he have? His heart pounding, he left the miserable little office. Even though he had recently turned 18 and was legally an adult in the eyes of the state, he was still being controlled by others.

The floors that he attended most of his classes on were similar to the floors of the normal high school. It wasn’t like the Prison District or anything, there was just a smaller teacher to student ratio. Supposedly the extra teachers were there to give students who needed more support the help that they needed, but Kip didn’t believe that for a second.

(I DONT KNOW WHAT TO WRITE. KIP BEING ANNOYING)

“What’s wrong with your hair?” he asked Esther. Usually her limp orange hair fell flatly to her shoulders, but now it had some volume to it.“Why did you fuck with your hair? Haha, did you curl it? You look like a, a, I don’t know. You look bad.”

Esther didn’t answer him, she just fluffed up her hair. Kip attempted to put his hands in it and mess it up and she smacked him in the face. “What’s wrong with you?”

“Ow!” He tried harder to mess up her hair and she smacked him again. Kip tried to hit her back but missed because she was slightly taller than he was. “What’s wrong with me?? What’s wrong with you??” They swatted at each other furiously for a couple more seconds before separating, breathing hard.

It had been like this with Esther ever since they were kids. Kip had met her when he was 8 and she was 7 and they had been squabbling ever since. Something about their personalities did not mesh, maybe because of certain similarities that they shared. Both of them were eldest children with high intensity and a list of diagnoses. They loved each other very much, they just didn’t like each other.

“Nothing’s wrong with me,” said Esther. She was already beet-red.

“Nothing’s wrong with me either!” responded Kip. 

There was absolutely something wrong with both of them. 

“Take some deep breaths then or something, you look manic. Are you off your meds?”

“Oh, that is so patronizing coming from you. You really are nuts, Esther. You take some deep breaths.”

“No, YOU take some deep breaths! Goddammit. I hate you.”

Kip laughed, feeling his body grow light with his fondness for his friend. She was a good match for him. Even fighting with her was fun, he liked to fight. Sometimes it was easy to forget his loneliness, that void filled with distractions such as politics or arguments online. Those distractions were destructive and he knew it. Being around people who cared about him was the truest form of distraction.

“How are the twins?” he asked her

“Oh my God, so annoying. They both have a crush on the same boy and they won’t shut up about him, I want to shove them both out of a window.”

“How would that even work? What happens if the guy actually likes one of them back?”

“The other one would kill that twin and act as a replacement, I guess.”

Kip tried to mess with Esther’s hair again and she widened her candy-apple green eyes at him as a threat. At her feet, the Creature which was her constant companion wound itself between her legs, rubbing itself at her ankles and making a curious sound, something in between a growl and a purr. It was a lethargic beast and only really seemed to be slightly cognizant, only really becoming active when Esther’s emotions ran high. Most of the time, Kip tried not to look at it so that he didn’t look like he was crazy. He wasn’t crazy, not the way that Esther was. He didn’t see things that weren’t really there. But it seemed as though she and him were the only people who could see it.

It was not the only black and gelatinous creature in Eden, but it was the only one that Kip had actually been close to. The others oozed around in the cover of the alleys in the Lower Districts, or scurried chattering into the pipes when he walked by. A few times he had seen them following people around. Some of them had legs like Esther’s did but most of them wriggled unnaturally like cat-sized mounds of black jello. To his knowledge they were harmless, bycatch that had fallen out of the Rift centuries ago. 

Esther’s monster raised it’s skull-like head to gaze at him out of its empty eye sockets. He quickly looked away. Not real not real not real.

“Is your hand OK?” said Esther, noticing the injury for the first time. 

He opened his fingers and made a fist a couple of times, wincing. The wounds on his knuckles had not yet scabbed over and it was painful to move it. It was bad, but it wasn’t broken; he knew from experience what it felt like to break the bones in his hand from punching something.

“Did you punch a wall again?” Esther asked him. Kip glared at her and felt his face grow hot. He didn’t need to answer. “Why do you keep doing that? Did you go to a doctor?”

This was starting to feel like an interrogation. “Doctor? No way I’m going to a doctor for this. I’m not like you people. I’m fine, you should see the wall in my kitchen.”

“‘You people’? If you were like me, you wouldn’t have hit the wall in the first place. You would be able to stay in control.”

He cared about Esther and her awful little siblings and loved them with his whole heart, but sometimes they really got on his nerves. They thought that they were better than he was and he tried not to hold that against them. His friends in the revolutionary socialist group he had recently joined talked a lot about how Artificials were a physical manifestation of how the bourgeoisie wanted to separate from the proletariat-- the rich had practically invented a new species of human. Posthumans. Genetic engineering and biotechnology operated to keep the wealthy in control, then allowed them to say it is in their nature.

Kip knew what people like Esther really thought about him. They thought he was a bug.

It was a struggle. He cared a lot about individuals, but if he started to think about what that meant in the context of the big picture, he started to get upset. 

Kip tugged the sleeve of his heavy old police jacket down over his injured hand to hide it. He’d gotten a lot of questions about his jacket when he started going to EWP meetings-- and he had gotten straight up hostility when he graduated to going to United People’s Liberation Org meetings. UPLO was strongly against Eden’s police state, which was fair since police misconduct was a hot topic in leftist circles. But the jacket had belonged to his birth mother. It was one of the only things that he had of hers.

It was also black, so it went with everything he wore, which meant that he wore it every day. Even though he had hit his growth spurt a few years ago and was reaching 5’10”, it was still too large for him. Whenever he could not find it, or whenever it got dirty or caught on something, he felt scared that he would lose it. And he would lose her again.

He didn’t remember the day that she had killed herself but he knew that he had been there. They had found him in a closet. One time Ma had gotten so drunk that she had told him when she found him, she had picked him up and there had been blood all over his clothes. So that meant-- so that meant he must have touched...

It was a good thing that he didn’t remember. Kip didn’t remember a lot of things. 

“What’s your girlfriend’s name again?” he asked Esther, trying to change the subject and take his focus away from his dead mother.

“Rosie. Rosaline Church. I wouldn’t have met her if she hadn’t been changed to my cohort this year.”

It took a lot for Kip to keep the look of judgement from his face, he always felt a twinge of disgust when he heard that relatively common surname. It was hard to not feel biased. His healthy mistrust of organized religion led him to be wary when it came to people who were raised in any of the Church-run residential group homes in the Lower Levels. In his opinion, organizations such as that needed to be eradicated by the State. “Still going good, huh?”

Esther shrugged. “It hasn’t been a month yet but yeah, I like her. She’s...solid? I don’t know how to describe her. She doesn’t get freaked out by things.”

“Of course she doesn’t get freaked out, she probably deals with fucked up shit all the time. You know those religious people dunk babies underwater, right? Did you know they practice circumcision? Ugh, I mean, right? Isn’t that insane? That’s like, that’s just so--”

“I don’t know anything about it,” Esther cut him off before he could start ranting about all the crimes of religion. “When she talks about her gods it sounds like it makes her feel safe. I don’t think that’s that bad, you know? It’s just something people start thinking when they don’t want to accept that nothing happens after you die. At least she’s not one of the Rift worshippers. I think you’d like her.” She took out her communicator and pulled up a picture so that she could show him.

In the picture, Esther looked genuinely happy. It was not often that her eyes lit up when she smiled; usually she was so glazed over and vacant. She had her head resting on the broad shoulder of the other girl, Rosaline Church. Rosaline’s smile was also completely genuine. She had a handsome butch look about her, and the picture froze her gazing at Esther in the same way that she would gaze at an angel.

Still, Kip did not trust this new union. 

He raised his eyebrows. “OK. I see why you like her. Her arms are the same size as your waist.”

“Sometimes I really want to kill you.” Esther put her communicator back into her purse. 

“Just staying.”

“Right, like I’m just saying that sometimes I want to blow your brains out. You know that my mother raised her voice at Eddie last night because he tried to karate chop the kitchen table? That was all you.”

It was funny but it was also very much his fault. He and Kassidy always got into fights and the Bellamys had learned it from them. It was not the kind of behavior their mother would approve of. Back in middle school Esther had been in a fight with another kid and her mom got so angry that she made sure that kid would be in the Youth Detention Center until he turned 18. People like Esther and her siblings weren’t allowed to be physically violent, they could only express their rage in more acceptable, more insidious ways.

“Your mom’s gonna kill you if she finds out that you’re dating someone like a Church kid,” Kip told Esther. “She wants you to settle down with another Artificial, not some religious orphan pleb.”

“//If// she finds out.” Esther said glumly. “That’s not going to happen.”

“You know about class consciousness, right? My friend Lee told me about it. It’s the beliefs a person has about their social class. Your mom has strong class consciousness, it’s been like a decade and she still thinks I’m going to steal your shit. ”

“I don’t care.” She rolled her eyes.

The 5 minute bell rang. Kip sighed. He did not want to run back down to the Special Education floors. They were more controlled than the normal floors of the high school. He could not stand it. Even though he loved learning and enjoyed his classes, he could not stand being so watched and confined. The student-teacher ratio was higher on those floors.

“Just prepare yourself for when your mom does find out.” Kip checked his communicator for messages. “You’re gonna eventually slip up or get snitched on. And it isn’t cool to hide that you’re dating her, she’s gonna start thinking you’re ashamed of her eventually.”

He watched as Esther’s skin flushed and hated how easy it was for him to pick up on people’s sore spots. 

“Sorry,” he said. “Have you seen Kassidy today? I haven’t been able to get a hold of her. We were going to do something last night but I kind of dipped out because my mom was pissing me off.”

“She’s been weird lately,” said Esther, taking a step back to signal that she was ready to get back to class. “I think she’s mad at me, I kind of ignored her messages last night but I was with Rosie.”

“Kassidy wouldn’t care about getting ignored, people ignore her all the time.”

“I don’t know then.” Esther shrugged. “I’ll see you later. Want to get together tonight?”

Kip shook his head. “Nah I’m going to meet with some UPLO people and paint some signs. A couple of them are protesting AGA’s union busting practices.” He heard his friend make a scoffing little ‘ugh’ noise under her breath, but she was too far away for him to react to it. His heart twinged. “It’s actually really imp--”

But she was already gone.

Kip checked his messages again only to be met with nothing. He walked back to the elevator and pressed the button that would take him down to his floors, using his injured hand. He pressed a little too hard and winced, then leaned back against the rail and waited.

At times it was frustrating to feel like there was nobody else who shared his values. For a long time it had felt like he was alone, even when he was around his friends and his family who cared about him. Now he was finally starting to feel less alone, he had found people who truly understood him and who had shown him that it was OK to be passionate and sensitive. It was OK to care so deeply about things.

The thing that was hardest to accept was that he could not make others care as deeply as he did. No matter how much he yelled or screamed or fought, other people would not be able to see his point of view unless they were willing to.

It...hurt.

It hurt badly. And over the years, Kip had dealt with a lot of pain.

He looked down at his injured hand, with its scabbed over and cracked knuckles.

He made a fist. In the secrecy of that elevator, a translucent blue bubble of energy formed around his closed hand, protecting it completely from everything outside. When he unclenched his fist, that bubble disappeared and he was left vulnerable again. Sometimes Kip wished that he could create a bubble big enough to protect his whole body, so that at least physically he would never be hurt again-- but he did not know how to control this strange thing that he could do and he knew that it was not safe for anyone to see.

KASSIDY NGUYEN

Since waking up at 6:00, Kassidy had burned herself with her new straightening iron no less than 5 times. The contraption was difficult to use and it took forever since the texture of her curls was so coarse and because her hair was so thick. She had separated it all into sections to make it easier on herself like the tutorial online had instructed, but in her mind it was tedious and next to impossible. The air in the bathroom smelled like burning hair and she had reddish burn marks on her neck from accidentally touching herself with the iron.

Still, she was determined to look less ugly. 

She had bought some make-up after school the day before as well and began to clumsily apply it. The cosmetics aisle had been overwhelming, there were simply too many choices. Who needed that many choices when it came to make-up? It seemed like the cosmetics aisle was better stocked than the cereal aisle. Kassidy hadn’t known the first place to start. She had grabbed some foundation that may or may not have been a match for her medium skin tone. Really she just had to hope for the best. She had bought a tube of mascara and a little stick of plum lipstick as well, paying for it with money that her estranged grandparents had sent her for her 17th birthday.

Kassidy leaned close to the mirror so that she could apply the mascara without blinding herself. Her hand was shaky as she held it and dragged the wand across her stubby blonde lashes. Because she didn’t have eyelid creases she was unable to produce the effect that she wanted and the mascara ended up clumping despite her efforts.

She looked at her reflection and saw a different person. Usually her hair curled up to about shoulder length, but straightened, it fell down to the middle of her chest. The makeup didn’t quite match her skin tone, but it covered up the dark circles under her eyes. For the first time in as long as she could remember, she didn’t hate looking at herself. She did not immediately want to look away. Kassidy practiced smiling with her plum painted lips.

Her heart beat faster. This wasn���t terrible. She had been afraid that she would look like an embarrassment but she looked nice, especially when she smiled. She looked like somebody who she would want to be friends with.

Somehow this prospect frightened her more than being ugly.

Somebody banged on the bathroom door. “Hey, let me in,” said her brother. “Why is the door locked? What are you doing?” He rattled the doorknob, unable to help himself.

Kassidy looked at herself one more time in the mirror and wondered when the last time that she had made eye contact with herself for so long had been. Then she opened the door and let her brother into the bathroom, which was more or less a narrow hallway with a shower, toilet, and sink crammed into it.

“Why are you up so--” Kip began, then froze, staring at her. His face, at first bleary from sleep, grew shocked and his big brown eyes strained in his eye sockets. For a second he appeared to be uncharacteristically at a loss for words.

She crossed her arms and hunched her shoulders. Instead of the baggy jeans and t-shirt she usually wore, she had put on black leggings and a green tunic she had purchased from one of the Church charity bins. It was strange and new and she waited for him to react or say something, say anything.

Kip started to laugh. He shook his head. “What are you dressed as?” he asked her. “What did you do to your hair? It looks so-- so stupid! Oh my god, oh my god, what’s going on? Are you wearing make-up? What is this? What are you dressed as?” He kept laughing.

Kassidy punched him in the arm and Kip laughed harder. She punched him again. “I’m trying something new, asshole.”

“You look like a clown. Why’d you put that shit around your eyes, it’s totally uneven.”

Hot anger rose from her chest to her face. She could feel it roiling beneath her skin, even though she knew that she never blushed. Her skin was already a dark tan with warm undertones, if she blushed it was hard to see it. “Shut up,” she said, pushing past him and stomping out to the kitchen. He continued to laugh at her as she went, it was never a normal laugh, always a braying belly laugh. 

Was it that bad? Were they going to laugh at her too? She would rather die. It wasn’t anything new to get made fun of but after she had tried so hard to make herself more presentable, Kassidy knew that getting laughed at would be unbearable. 

In the kitchen, Dana Nguyen was already awake and ready for work. She had her head down on the kitchen table, wallowing in whatever depressive thoughts had overcome her that day. Her job was important so Kassidy didn’t understand why her mother acted like she hated going in every day. As Eden’s Police Commissioner, she was one of the most powerful people in the Colony after the Mayor and the Central Committee. 

“What are you two yelling about now?” she asked Kassidy without moving.

“Kip is a fucking prick.”

“I’ve known that since he was 13.”

“I’m going to push him down the stairs.”

Her mother lifted herself up, her glasses crooked on her face. She did not appear to have slept well the night before. When she saw Kassidy, she squinted at her and frowned like she smelled something bad.

“What?” Kassidy asked, angry and hot with blood. She crossed her arms. “What do you wanna say, Ma?”

P.C. Dana Nguyen vaguely gestured at her daughter. “Is this some kind of... of scheme that you’re pulling, or should I be worried about you?”

Scheme? Kassidy didn’t pull schemes. She didn’t say anything, she just smoothed down her hair and skulked around behind the table to get into the fridge. The inside of it was empty except for mustard, a couple of nutritional shakes, and a 12 pack of beer. Something about seeing her family’s lack of food made her grit her teeth and swallow down her hateful words. Where did her mother get off on judging her when she didn’t ever go to the store to buy things to feed her family?

She shut the fridge and poured herself a cup of coffee, took a sip, then almost had to spit it out. Sludge. It was so thick that it was no good to her either.

Kip came out of the bathroom and pulled up a chair at the table, still laughing.He didn’t have any space to laugh at her! He wore the same stupid old police jacket he wore every day, still had acne on the sides of his face, and the only reason he didn’t have a unibrow anymore was because he had begged for laser hair removal for his 16th birthday. For some reason he thought the sight of his sister actually making an effort was hilarious. She made an obscene gesture at him and drank her undrinkable coffee.

“She’s dressed like a clown,” Kip repeated to their mother in a wheezing, high pitched voice intending to mock. Kassidy’s fingers tightened around her mug because she wanted to throw it. “Ma, ma, look. Look!”

Their mother smacked him. “Will you shut up? Kassidy, what’s going on? You going on a date or something?” Her brother cackled.

It was better not to say anything. After all, it wasn’t like she could tell them the truth! If her mother learned the truth of who she had been hanging out with lately, she would freak out and ruin everything. That couldn’t happen.

Very carefully, she set the mug on the counter next to the sink. She didn’t wash it out. Dishes rarely got done in their household, they just rinsed things off and re-used them. It was easier that way. For some reason, Esther’s little siblings always whined and complained when they came over and had to eat off of their dishes. 

As calmly as she could, Kassidy turned to face her family. She shrugged like it wasn’t a big deal. “I just wanted to look pretty today, that’s literally it. I just wanted to look nice.”

For a moment, her mother and brother stared at her like she was an animal in the zoo, as if they could not comprehend this simple desire. And then Kip started to laugh at her again.

“Why would you try to look pretty?” he asked her. “You’re never gonna be pretty!”

Kassidy knocked her mug off the counter, sending it to the floor where it shattered. She turned and stormed out without another look at her family, grabbing her bookbag on the way. As she left, she could hear her mother start to scream at Kip.

They couldn’t help being the way that they were. They had known her her whole life so it was hard for them to be nice to her.

As she made her way to a cafe she had never been in, Kassidy thought about the person who had only ever been nice to her.

She thought about the person who she had been focused on for days.

Her name was Cassiopeia Agapama, but she liked to be called Casey, and Kassidy had never met anyone so dynamic. Casey was always in motion, but not in the same way that Kip was; she was graceful and had complete control over her body in the way that a dancer has. Even though she was an Artificial, she hadn’t been tweaked in that way that made all of them look unnatural. Her black eyes were turned up at the corners which made it look like she was always smiling-- and she was always smiling with those straight white teeth that contrasted perfectly against her dark, clear skin. It was difficult to look at her, not because she was so beautiful-- and she was beautiful, just not obviously so-- but because something about her was impossibly compelling. It was like looking at the heart of a star.

Casey waved Kassidy over. She and her sister were already seated at a booth. “Hiiii,” said Casey, and when Kassidy sat down beside her, she immediately touched her hair. “Wow. You straightened your hair? That’s so crazy.” Casey’s own hair was dyed pink and fell right below her ears in countless micro-braids. 

Whenever Casey touched her, Kassidy felt afraid. She knew that Casey was dangerous, she knew who her father was and what Casey had probably been exposed to her entire life. Simply being close to Casey filled her with adrenaline and every smart part of her brain told her that she needed to run away. But she could not. That same fear also compelled her to be close to her.

“I wanted to try something new.”

“Aw, I like it.” Casey hid her smile behind a hand bedecked with silver rings. “You look tiny without it all poofy. You’re itty bitty. Teeny tiny.”

“You missed a spot in the back,” said Casey’s sister, whose name was Ayda. Unlike Casey, Ayda was obviously beautiful, but not at all compelling. She was tall and heavy, with soft feminine features. While Casey was energizing, Ayda was languid and slow. It was impossible for them to be blood related; Ayda was certainly adopted seeing as she wasn’t black, but Kassidy was too uncomfortable around her to ask. “It’s like, sticking up. In the back.”

Kassidy flattened her hair down with one hand. Any moisture in the air would just make it poof up again. Casey laughed but it didn’t seem like she was laughing at her, at least not on purpose. It was more like she was laughing at the situation.

“You didn’t get it…” said Ayda, who cut her eyes up briefly at Kassidy before returning to her communication device, which she never seemed to stop typing on.

“Your hair looks fine,” laughed Casey.

“It doesn’t. It really doesn’t,” said Ayda. 

It was hard to understand what was going on between the two of them. That was not because they were wealthy. After all, Kassidy had been friends with Esther for years and she wasn’t weird in the way that Casey and Ayda were weird. It was like there was a joke they knew about that Kassidy was not privy to. Even so, she wanted to be in on the joke.

Being around Casey felt like someone was always paying attention to her. She had never felt that way. So even if she was strange and frightening, the attentiveness made Kassidy want to spend time with her.

It had been a long time since she had made a new friend. It had been years, since the only real friend she had ever made was Esther. Ever since Casey had introduced herself to her in class several days previously, the icy ball of loneliness inside of Kassidy had started to melt.

“Don’t tell me that you did that to yourself just because you started hanging out with us,” snickered Ayda. She wound a strand of her own long dark hair around one finger as if she was bored. When she smiled, only one corner of her mouth turned up. “Aw. That’s sad. Peeeeer Pressurrre...”

That made Casey laugh as well, but it was short, more of a reaction than anything else. Laughing. Always laughing. Again, Kassidy swallowed the urge to laugh with her, whatever joy Casey felt was contagious.

It wasn’t that Kassidy was unhappy, but she wasn’t happy either. She wasn’t exposed to people who were happy all the time. Her mother never laughed and rarely smiled. Kip laughed and smiled a lot, but lately that laughter and those smiles were more angry than happy.

The small moments where she did feel happy were ones she wanted to cling to. It was why she had made up her mind to hang out with Cassiopeia after the other girl first seemed to extend her friendship to her. It was nice to feel...light.

The funny thing was that over the handful of times they had hung out, Casey didn’t seem to talk to anyone else or even message anyone else. Well, everyone knew her-- how could they not, with who her dad was. All kinds of rumours went around school about the kind of person Casey was. All kinds of rumours about how she hurt people. Kassidy couldn’t see any of that. She saw someone who gave her her full attention and was always laughing.

Maybe she really was stupid. A small part of herself believed that, it was the part that told her that she could never ever tell her brother about her new friends because if he found out, his eyeballs would burst from all the screaming.

“What do you want for breakfast?” Casey asked her. Casey had already ordered a mug with a latte in it, and her sister was sipping on orange juice. 

Kassidy, who had a total of 12 credits left in her account, had no intention of wasting any more money. This was not the kind of place that people who were like her went to get breakfast before school. She shrugged. “I ate at home.”

“Really?”

“Uh.” It was hard to lie when Casey was looking at her. Kassidy lied all the time but her brain felt frozen then. She glanced to the side to break the intense eye contact with this strange girl. “Well.”

Ayda snickered.

“Do you drink coffee?” asked Casey. “It’s good here, I promise. Can I buy you a coffee? I bet I could pick something for you that you’ll fucking love, it’s one of my talents.”

This was how people ended up selling their souls but Casey’s little pink braids circled her head like a halo. Again, Kassidy had to swallow the strong instinct to run which interfered with the hysterical feelings of happiness. She would rather feel happy.

“Yeah, OK,” she said, too stupid to think up anything clever. “Thanks.” She watched Casey get up and walk to the cafe’s counter, where the other girl proceeded to give her complete focus to the barista who was working.

This was really scary. Kassidy wondered if her makeup was melting off her face because of how hot and sweaty she was. That was the last thing she needed.

“Oh my goddd,” said Ayda as she typed into her comm without looking up. 

Unfortunately, with Casey out of the way, Kassidy was comfortable enough to be a bitch right back to her. She scowled, which wasn’t helpful when a person wasn’t paying attention. “Hey,” she snapped. It must have surprised Ayda because her whole big body flinched at the aggressive tone of voice directed towards her. “You gotta problem? What’s so funny?” Ayda’s size relative to hers didn’t scare her, she had squared off with a bully three times her size as a middle schooler. This was the kind of person she got the distinct impression could not fight even a person who weighed 93 pounds.

You can always tell when a person isn’t used to being talked to in a certain way.

Blood rushed to Ayda’s face and turned her light olive complexion pink. Kassidy felt herself blush as well, although there was no reason for it. “Funny?” asked Ayda in a high pitched little bitch voice of a person who acts tough but is scared of direct confrontation. She kept typing but was now looking at Kassidy.

“You keep laughing.”

“No I don’t.”

“Yeah you do. Why the fuck are you laughing at me?” Kassidy made a jerky aggressive gesture with her chin.

Suddenly it felt like her body was covered in something thick and sticky, like honey. Heavy. Alarmed, she touched her own face as if to see if something had dripped on her from the ceiling, but there was nothing. The sensation was so alarming that for a moment, she forgot to breathe. Stupid. She was so stupid, what was wrong with her? Why was she even trying to make new friends? She was so unlikable and ugly, Casey was probably only pretending to be nice to her so that she could make fun of her. Unbidden, these negative thoughts about herself were more concerning than the sticky heaviness that seemed to crush her.

The strange feelings left as quickly as they had come. Kassidy gasped.

Something was wrong but the pieces of the puzzle were not all available to her. They never were. She usually just assumed that she was going insane.

Ayda stopped typing. A call beeped on her communication device and she swiped to ignore it. She glanced at her Casey, who was still chatting with the barista up front as she waited for coffee, like she was checking to see if she was looking back. “My sister is funny, that’s all.”

The tone in Ayda’s voice was not explicitly hostile, but there was still hostility in her. Kassidy knew when she was getting fucked with or bullied, and as genuine as Casey seemed to her, her sister seemed superficial. Like every other mean girl bully. The best way to ward someone like that off was to hit them right back.

The kid who had bullied her back when she was in middle school had been named Ben. Why was she thinking about him? She never thought about him anymore. He had been big and mean too, and when Kassidy finally got tired of him shoving her around, she and Esther had figured out a way to hurt him worse than he could hurt them.

But Kassidy wasn’t 12 anymore. She couldn’t just hit people and make them leave her alone. That stops being an option when you grow up.

“I didn’t even know that Casey had a sister,” she said, proud of herself for the way she was about to twist the knife in. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen you on TV when your dad does something, even though he doesn’t shut up about her in his interviews. I’ve seen him say ‘Casey this, Casey that’ but he’s never talked about you. I’ve never even heard anyone say your name. You shy or something? You awkward? To me it looks like your dad is hiding you.”

The sounds of the other people in the cafe were loud in comparison to their own table. Ayda’s eyes were so large and placid that Kassidy could see her own distorted reflection within them. And beyond them was...nothingness. That was not to say that she got the impression that Ayda’s mind was empty. It was more like there was a...blankness inside of her that, like her eyes were dark pools of water that were impossibly deep. She grew more uncomfortable and was unable to keep making eye contact.

Again, a call beeped on Ayda’s comm, and this time she answered it.

“What’s going on?” The voice on the other line was a boy’s, funny and round sounding like he had some kind of speech impediment, but not any speech impediment Kassidy had ever heard. “Who’s bothering you, eh? Tell him to fuck off.”

If she craned her neck, Kassidy could see the little screen that was strapped to Ayda’s wrist, but didn’t feel like it. Very briefly she could see a blur of black and pink. In Eden, it was considered very rude to VidChat with someone without earbuds in, especially in a public place like a cafe. It certainly wasn’t normal.

“If he’s hurting your feelings, tell him your dad is going to break his fingers with a sledgehammer,” said the boy with the funny voice. “Quit crying and bitching and whining to me about it if you aren’t gonna do anything about it.”

Kassidy picked up her own portable device and pretended to message someone so that if other people were staring, they’d think that she was normal. 

Usually she would be hanging out with Esther and Kip right now. They’d be doing the same things they always did, talking about stupid stuff and arguing. All of their lives were changing. She was happy that Esther had a girlfriend now, just like she was happy that Kip had found some kind of purpose in his life, but she missed them.

“It’s not a boy, it’s one of my sister’s creepy new projects,” said Ayda into her communicator.

“I’m right here,” said Kassidy. “I can hear you.”

Before things could continue to escalate, Casey returned with a mug full of liquid and whipped cream.Before she sat down, she put the mug into Kassidy’s hands. She glanced at Ayda, who rudely had her communicator on, and her face lit up. “Mart-o!” she exclaimed, and grabbed at Ayda’s wrist so that she could get a good look. “Heyyy, my fav-o-rite greasy boy!”

The mug was warm in Kassidy’s hands. She looked down at it and saw that there was a star drawn in chocolate syrup floating on top of the whipped cream. When she lifted it to take a sip, the liquid was too hot to drink. For a second she wondered if Casey had just handed her poison because her fucked up evil dad wanted to do something that would hurt her mother, the Police Commissioner. She would probably drink it anyway though.

Casey pulled Ayda’s communicator off and fiddled with the settings so that the little screen expanded, then set it propped up in the middle of the table so that everyone could see it. Now that Kassidy could get a better look, she saw that the person who had called Ayda was a boy with pink cheeks and fluffy black hair. He looked a bit younger than she was and the room he was sitting in was strangely decorated in earth tones and rough furniture. He gave Kassidy a sneer.

“Have you met Marty?” Casey asked her. “He plays Candle Quest with Ayda. Marty, this is my new friend Kassidy. Doesn’t her hair look cute?”

“I didn't think you were capable of desiring friendship,” said the boy, Marty. He messed with a handheld game console, his image being captured by a desktop computer that he was sitting in front of. “I thought you didn’t have feelings. Like a reptile.”

Casey laughed. “What are you talking about? That is so funny!”

Kassidy blew on the mug of coffee and took a careful sip. The taste was something that she could not place, sweet and grassy. It wasn’t bad. She looked at the little star drawn in the whipped cream.

“We’re skipping class anyway,” Casey told the boy in the communicator. “We have to run back home because there’s a package coming that Yura and Emily can’t sign for.”

“I can’t skip class,” said Kassidy.

“Nobody said that you’re included in this…” said Ayda. “What makes you think you’re included? You can’t ever come to our house. Our dad has like, a picture of your mom on the wall that he throws knives at. You will never step foot inside of our house.”

“Haha, well maybe someday!” Casey patted Kassidy on the back and it was hard for her not to stiffen at the touch. “We’re all getting along so well right now anyway, you guys. What are you doing today, Marty? What are you up to at the unwashed freakshow?”

Marty didn’t answer or even look back up. He typed something on his handheld device. On the wall behind him hung a strange looking long-gun that resembled the ones in videos about the time before the Rift split open. It looked like it was made out of wood, a commodity that was next to impossible to procure in Eden. Kassidy squinted to get a better look at it.

The gun didn’t have a visible magazine and appeared to have two barrels. The sling that it hung on had been decorated with shiny circles that could have been badges, but were too far away to recognize. Even if one of Marty’s family members was a cop-- as legally, the State did not allow private citizens to own firearms-- a cop would not own a gun that looked like that, much less display it. It looked like it belonged in a museum.

She wanted to ask him about it. Instead, she drank the strange drink that Cassiopeia Agapama had bought her. 

They-- well, mostly Ayda and Marty-- continued to talk and bicker about things and people that only confused Kassidy. She felt like such an outsider, she didn’t know anyone who they knew. Sometimes Marty used words that she had never heard before, which lost her even more. When she checked her own communicator for messages, Esther hadn’t sent her anything and Kip had sent her a single laughing-crying emoji which reminded her that she wanted to kill him.

“Are you 18 yet, Kassidy?” Casey asked her. She rested her chin on one hand; her fingernails were long and sharp and painted pink.

“I will be in January.”

“Oh, my birthday is in November. That’s exciting, you’ll be able to vote on Foundation Day in May. Aren’t you excited to vote in our first real election in decades?”

To disguise her confusion, Kassidy took another long sip of her drink. “Uh. I mean. I guess? I’m not really into politics. I think things are basically fine.”

Casey leaned closer to her. “Don’t you think that the government should have less control, though? Especially when it comes to the free market. I think the state needs to get out of people’s business.”

“I don’t really care,” said Kassidy, who already knew she would be voting for Jay Malena in May. Voting for West Agapama, the guy who consistently terrorized the police and made jokes about her mother in his television interviews was not going to cut it for her. Even Kip was going to vote for Malena, and Kip’s whole life revolved around politics. Malena was OK. Whenever she saw him on TV, he was always smiling, and one time she had met him when she was in the Capitol column with her mother. He had even shaken her hand. “I don’t understand any of it.”

It wasn’t the answer that Casey wanted to hear and she could tell. She chewed on her lower lip.

From Ayda’s communicator, Marty exhaled loudly. “Voting is the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard of, I don’t understand why you people vote. Why do you think you know as much as the people who are already in charge.”

“Oh, shut up freak,” snapped Casey. Anger flashed across her face like a thunderclap, blinding and awful, and it vanished as quickly as it had arrived. When it came down to it, she was capable of being terrible.

“Ugh.” Ayda rolled her eyes. “Dumb!”

“It’s stupid,” he continued. “Everything you’ve told me about your dad running for king or whatever is stupid. How is some random person supposed to become a ruler? How are random people supposed to make a choice about that? The way we do things up here now makes more sense, we’ve fought for years for one powerful leader. You people are the dumb ones for voting.”

Whatever secret joke Marty shared with Casey and Ayda was incomprehensible to Kassidy. To her it sounded like he lived somewhere that people did not vote, but as far as she knew it was mandatory across all of Eden’s Districts. And outside of Eden and her equally democratic sister Colonies of Serenity and Green River, there was nothing. There was poisoned air and twisted mutants, transformed by the Rift.

The thoughts she was having were illogical.

Still, Kassidy stared at the strange gun behind Marty. What use did firearms have…She finished her drink.

“Your life is terrible, Marty,” said Casey. She poked the screen with her finger like she wanted to poke him and he stared at her nonplussed. “You have the worst life. Your life is actually tragic. You wish you were sitting here with us, talking about voting.”

“I am sitting with you and talking about voting.”

 Casey jabbed the little screen with her sharp manicured nail. She was...she was a lot like Kip in some ways, which was disturbing. They were both creatures of pure impulse, but what was annoying in her brother was fascinating in Casey. It was hard to look away. “Why are you so sassy today, huh? You think we don’t outnumber you just because you see Kassidy here?”

“Don’t break my comm again,” Ayda whined. “Case…”

Marty’s face was soft but his big black eyes were mean. He glanced briefly at Kassidy, who was still watching him intently. “What is sassy?”

“Bitchy. It means bitchy.”

“You’re the bitch.”

And Kassidy couldn’t take it any longer. She cleared her throat awkwardly, which surprised the sisters and reminded them of her presence. “Marty, what class are you in?” she asked him, but in her heart she already knew the answer. “Are you a 1st year? You might know my friend Esther Bellamy’s younger siblings.”

Ayda’s cheeks flushed and she grabbed her communication device like she had been doing something wrong. Casey laughed, shaking her head. “What? You don’t need to talk to him. That’s crazy. Hey, did you like the drink I picked out for you? Didn’t I tell you that I have a special gift when it comes to knowing what people like to eat? I did good, right?” She reached out like she wanted to touch Kassidy’s hair again but pulled back her hand.

“It’s fine I guess.” When she said that, Casey’s eyes went wide like nobody had ever given her a lukewarm reaction. Kassidy pressed on, the inexorable curiosity propelling her. “Do you not go to school, Marty?”

“Obviously I don’t go to school.” He was playing with his handheld device again and unlike his friends, did not seem to be bothered by the question. “School is stupid and a waste of time, why would I go to school? I couldn’t go to school even if I wanted to. Not that I would. I don’t.”

The state intranet was closed to other colonies. Even if someone from Green River or Serenity wanted to communicate with Eden, they could not unless they accessed one of the specific channels only intended for trade. Over the decades there had been dozens of hacking incidents directed from other Colonies and such communication was illegal.

Considering the type of man West Agapama was though, and considering that his fortune had been made shipping goods to and from the sister Colonies, this was not that surprising.

So Marty didn’t have a speech impediment, he had an accent. Accents in Eden were divided primarily between the Upper and Lower Levels-- anyone talking to Kassidy could easily figure out where she was from. Maybe everyone who lived where Marty lived spoke round little words like he did and didn’t understand what ‘sassy’ meant.

“I didn’t realize you were smart,” said Casey in a voice that could have been kind or cruel. “That’s nice.”

“I’m not smart,” said Kassidy, who believed that she wasn’t. “I saw the rifle behind him. Nobody in Eden has firearms like that, not even in a museum. Marty, is that yours? What do you need that for in Serenity? I always heard that they don’t have weapons at all there, at least that’s what my brother told me, but he’s always talking out of his ass.”

“I’m not from Serenity.”

Ayda groaned but did not make a move to turn off her communicator and banish Marty.

“Green River?”

“Nope.” Marty looked up from his game. “But my friends Wera and Seth are from Green River, we all play Candle Quest together. I wouldn’t want to be from there either, no way. That’s what I’m saying, everything I hear about the Colonies sounds so stupid.”

Poison air. Mutated flesh. The Rift, red and hungry across the sky.

Kassidy looked at the very normal and fluffy haired boy on Ayda’s screen like he was an exotic animal. Her heart beat faster. “So,” she said slowly. “So...so you mean that you’re not…”

The game that he was playing made a series of beeps and chimes and Marty smiled. He still had a lot of baby fat in his cheeks so smiling made him appear chunkier.. He put his handheld device down, quite proud of himself. “Can you really not beat that level, Ayda?” he asked, mockingly. “Yeah. No. I’m not from Serenity or Green River or Eden or any of the stupid Colonies. I’m from the Northern Territories.”

AJAX GUTTIEREZ

As usual, it had been an ordeal to get the kids up and ready for school. There was always some excuse they pulled out to avoid getting out of bed or to avoid getting ready. The two of them weren’t bad kids, they were both well behaved compared to what AJ was like at their ages. But for very different reasons, they did not want to go to school.

AJ sat on the metro with his elbows resting on his knees. He was exhausted, since he had put off writing a paper for too long and it was due that morning. Luckily he was still young enough to be able to pull all nighters, but whenever he blinked it felt like his eyelids stuck together. He rubbed his eyes but it didn’t help. Since the Prospas family home was located in District 1, the uppermost and wealthiest residential area and the only one located on the Surface, there weren’t many commuters going down to the Education District in the Mid Levels.

“I’m hungry,” whined Valentine, who was the youngest one at 9 years old, and who had undoubtedly had about 12 hours of sleep that night. “Can we go to the cafe to get doughnuts? I didn’t like my cereal, I want doughnuts.”

“You should have thought about that when you didn’t eat all your cereal,” said AJ. The kid was sitting next to him and kept trying to hold his hand, which he was getting a little too old for. AJ kept pulling his hand away. 

“I told you that I didn’t like it!” The only reason Valentine got away with acting the way that he did was because he was cute. His hair stuck up from his head in a loose afro and he had huge eyes, genetically modified to be yellow. His teeth were genetically modified as well; canines and incisors just large and sharp enough to give him a lisp. Because of this, and because of his genuinely happy and loving nature, he was never punished for misbehaving. “Can you get me doughnuts so I won’t get hungry at school?”

“No. You can’t have sugar for breakfast, it isn’t healthy.”

“I’m gonna be hungry though. I’m hungry now. Rome’s gonna be hungry too, he didn’t eat anything, right Rome?”

Rome, who was 14 and sitting on the other side of Valentine, briefly glanced over before re-focusing his own yellow eyes on his hands in his lap. “My stomach hurts. I think I’m sick.” Rome was the kind of kid who got scared whenever he had to get on public transportation, which was every day. 

“You’re not sick,” said AJ.

“I think I’m sick.”

“You’re making yourself sick because you’re thinking too hard about it.”

“Can I stay home from school?” Rome glanced back over at AJ. He looked scared and unhappy, but he always looked scared and unhappy. Rome kept his hair very short and neat, he buttoned his shirts all the way up to the top, and constantly worked himself up over nothing. “I feel like I’m going to throw up, I don’t want to go to school if I’m going to throw up. I’m nauseous. I don’t feel good, I’m sick. My stomach hurts.”

“If he gets to skip school, I get to skip school,” said Valentine. When he smiled he showed off incisors. The appearance of the Prospas children, with their glowing yellow eyes and sharp teeth, really revealed the values of their father. After all, he had paid ridiculous amounts of money 3 separate times to get his sons to appear predatory. Most Artificials just ended up appearing luminously beautiful in a way that was offsetting.

“Nobody is skipping school,” he said, shaking off his negativity. He pulled out his communicator to distract himself. “Your dad will get mad at me if I let you do that, he wants you guys to have a good education, it’s really important. Don’t you want to go to school and learn stuff? Just quit thinking about how you feel sick, Rome, I thought you were going to meet up with your new friends and go to class together.”

Rome looked back down at his hands. “I don’t think they’re really my friends. It’s only been two weeks. How long does it take?”

“They’re nice.” Valentine attempted to stick a hand into his brother’s bookbag and take something out of it, but Rome pulled the bag away and set it on his other side. “I like them. I like their hair. I want somebody to be my friend. Why does nobody in my class like me? Did you know that there’s something living in our shower drain, AJ? It’s like, it’s like blah blah blah, I think it talks to me more than people in my own class. AJ. Hey, AJ!”

The two Prospas children were difficult for AJ to take care of because they were unlike normal children in many ways. He cared about them and wanted them to be happy, but it was easy for him to feel irritated by the burden of his responsibility. Luckily he didn’t have to worry about them getting into fights or becoming violent with other children like Ben ---well. He didn’t have to worry about that aspect of their safety.

The metro lurched to its final stop before it started making its way down to the Mid Levels. A few more people walked in, probably professors. AJ briefly assessed them to determine whether they might be people who would do harm to the kids out of hatred for their father, then went back to his communicator.

He had been messaging a guy on a hook-up app for the last 24 hours. Talking with Jenny Qian really reminded him of how long it had been since he had gotten laid. It was going well, the two of them were planning on meeting up soon. It would be some much needed stress relief.

The guy, whose name was Harlan, seemed nice enough. Not that AJ cared about personality in this context. The important thing about this guy was that he was attractive-- thin, with a cheeky face which he hid behind a neat little beard. That was all AJ wanted when he was looking for a guy to hook up with: somebody cute and fun. His profile said that he was into some seriously stupid stuff though, but that was best not to dwell on. Whatever Harlan did in his free time, politics or whatever, AJ didn’t care about it  too much.

AJ accidentally opened his DMs to reveal a nude picture that Harlan had sent him the previous night. Panicking, he clicked out of the page and shoved his communicator back into his pocket before one of the kids glanced at it. Even as an accident, if he exposed them to something like that, their dad would absolutely beat him to death with something imaginative and then leave his body somewhere public. 

He sent Harlan a quick message about getting together that night or the night after but didn’t expect him to get back to him any time soon. The guy didn’t seem like an early riser, the ones who are simultaneously lazy and clever never were.

It would be nice if he was able to spend more of his time doing what he liked to do instead of worrying about dragging kids around.

“I hate sitting by myself at lunch, but I bet you like doing that, don’t you Rome?” said Valentine. “I bet you like sitting by yourself, don’t you? Don’t you? Hey! AJ! Didn’t you hear me say there’s something that talks in the shower? You didn’t laugh!”

AJ pinched the bridge of his nose. 

A few of the other passengers were talking amongst themselves but AJ was not listening to them. For all he knew they could be AGA goons who were there to kill him and kidnap the kids so that West Agapama could blackmail their father. Richard Prospas constantly worried over scenarios such as this, but to AJ’s knowledge it was not something that would ever happen. Agapama didn’t mess with other people’s kids, nobody who belonged to the Four Families did. Even in organized crime one had to have standards which expressed a code of honor. 

The real threat that AJ had to worry over was ordinary people. People like him. People who were poor and angry and had been wronged in some way by Prosperity, either through job lay-offs or through violence. It was those kinds of people who were desperate enough to act drastically and it was those kinds of people who posed the greatest threat.

Over the years, AJ had never had to protect the kids from anything. There was nobody who wanted to hurt them; how could anyone ever want to hurt a couple of sweet but stupid kids? He wasn’t really needed. He was not a bodyguard, he was a baby-sitter and he was tired of it.

The metro stopped at the first station of the enormous Education District and the people in their car started to get off. AJ pocketed his communicator, grabbed Valentine’s hand, and jerked his head toward the door to indicate to Rome that there was no wiggle room for truancy that day. Their stop was never crowded because they got there early and because the only people who rode in their car were from the 1st Residential District too. Rich people. Rich kids. It was easy to get on and off; some metro stops in the Lower Levels could take the better part of half an hour to navigate.

The best part about the Education District was how safe it was. You had to scan your ID in order to access each floor, which meant that nobody from the University floors could wander down to the elementary school floors, and vice versa. This could become an irritating problem when one needed to get to one’s child or sibling in an emergency, but it meant that unauthorized adults were unable to interact with kids at any time. Apart from the Capitol, it was the District with the highest level of security. AJ never felt anxiety when he was dropping the kids off for the school day.

Sure, kids could be violent too. He had learned that lesson when the eldest Prospas brother got himself sent to the Youth Detention Center indefinitely after he attacked a middle-school girl. At least that was one problem he didn’t have to worry about anymore. But the younger two were not anything like Ben: neither one of them had an aggressive bone in their bodies, so AJ didn’t worry.

He thought about the paper that he had due that morning and sighed. He’d get a B on it, a C at worse. AJ took his hair out of its ponytail and finger-combed it. Sleep. Rest. When was he going to just rest?

“Are you sure I can’t get a snack?” asked Valentine.

AJ adjusted the child’s shirt collar with practiced firmness. “Yeah. When you get home.” At this point in his life he was immune to the high pitched whining that followed saying ‘no’. With a gentle push, he let him know that there was no room for discussion there. The 9 year old made his way toward the elevators that would take him down to the elementary school floors. AJ watched to make sure he didn’t try to sneak off.

Without asking, he already knew that Rome wanted him to stay with him until his friends showed up. As quiet and aloof as he was, it was harder to understand Rome and his needs than it was with his brothers. It would be easy for AJ to leave him by himself and go write his paper, nothing would come of it and nobody would even know because Rome was not the kind of kid who was always running to his dad. AJ had left him alone when he was distressed before, multiple times. Despite that, he figured he would wait around with him until 7:45 at the latest.

In the meantime, he mindlessly checked his comm. Nothing on the news feeds was new. More election stuff. Every time he saw a picture of Agapama’s face smirking or winking, he felt irritated because he suspected that he was only running to boost his company’s power-- and it was working. AGA was more profitable than ever, which was amazing seeing as it had been all but bankrupt less than 20 years ago. People could say what they wanted about the guy, but he was a savvy businessman, much savvier than AJ’s current employer.

How was it even possible to not turn a quarterly profit when you had a stranglehold on the markets due to a monopoly on one industry? People needed to eat. What kind of idiot manages a company like that but still manages to have costs greater than its revenue?

Those kinds of thoughts were treacherous but as time passed, he had more and more like them. All he really wanted was to be an asset to Richard Prospas. He wanted to be useful and help manage the numbers side of things, wanted to see the other pieces of the puzzle. 

Better to keep his hopes realistic. AJ opened up a picture of some leather shoes he wanted to buy for when he had to present his thesis next semester.

Rome wasn't looking at him. “I forgot my tablet at home,” he said.

“Hm?” AJ opened up a different option for shoes that were cheaper but looked about the same quality. Suspicious. Why would they be a whole 100 credits cheaper? Unless they were actually made of plastic or something that he didn’t want on his feet.

“I didn’t do my geometry assignment last night.”

“OK.”

“I was-- I don’t know. I didn’t even forget it, I just didn’t do it and I don’t know why. I don’t know why. I can’t get a bad grade on it though, it’s making me feel sick. I feel nauseous.”

“Right.”

“Do you think I should just copy someone--”

AJ put away his communicator suddenly. “You know, if you start doing stuff like cheating and copying other people’s work, you’ll get caught eventually. That will be way worse than getting one bad grade on something. Think about it.” He watched Rome hunch his thin shoulders and look at the ground. “You’re better than that, OK? You’re way better than that. Don’t cheat, you’re too smart.”

The kid snuck a glance at him and AJ had to try not to grimace; the yellow eyeshine was the worst when lighting was poor enough to produce a glow effect. “Can I tell you something?”

“Shoot.”

“I think there’s something really wrong with me. I feel--”

Whatever it was exactly that Romeo believed was wrong with him (AJ could think of a great many things off the top of his head as all of his psychosomatic issues changed from day to day) it was interrupted by a sudden excited shriek. In a split second, AJ dug his hands into his pockets to grasp his knuckledusters and had them over his fingers. His fists were clenched before he even turned around and adrenaline coursed through his body. This was it. This was it, this was it, this was it.

It wasn’t it.

Turning, AJ saw that it was only a couple of kids waving at Rome. He unclenched his teeth, forced his shoulders to relax. As carefully as he could, he slipped the harsh pieces of metal from his hands and back down into his pockets. While not illegal per se, if any authority figure saw him with weapons in the School District they would have him arrested. If that happened, his mother would have to bail him out and he couldn’t handle the thought of it.

His heart pounded in his chest. What was he so scared of? Throughout all the years, nothing bad had ever happened.

He passed a hand over his eyes. “Your friends?” he asked Rome.

Rome just scratched anxiously at his face.

The kids were twins, a boy and a girl, who were so eerily identical that it was clear that they were Artificals. They were white, with orange hair and long gangly limbs that gave them coltish gaits. They hurried up to Rome and AJ noticed the fine quality of their clothing and all-around cleanliness. When they got close to Rome, the two of them blushed prettily.

“Hey,” said the girl one.

“Hi!” said the boy one. “Hi, how are you?”

“I’m fine,” said Rome who appeared to have stopped breathing. He tried to smile at the other children without showing his sharp incisors and it came off as insincere. He had not been made with a face good for smiling so this was not entirely his fault. “How-- how are you guys?”

“Kip taught me new karate moves the other night,” said the boy, arranging his arms into an awkward fighting stance. His form was all wrong but his bright green eyes and lazy smile showed that he wasn't serious about it. “It’s pretty cool, do you wanna fight?” Without warning he faked a punch at Rome, then playfully got him into a loose chokehold. Passive as ever, Rome tried to cringe away but was at a disadvantage due to being shorter; his terrible yellow eyes started to glaze over with tears and he looked to AJ for help. Oblivious to the fear, the other boy tightened his grip like he was going to try to disastrously flip him.

AJ grabbed the gangly kid by the back of his sweater and peeled him away from his charge. “Uh-uh,” he said sternly. “Nope. No fighting.”

The kid tried to twist away and kicked ineffectively at AJ’s shin. “Heyyyy!”

“What’s your problem?” demanded the girl. She had her arms crossed and her pointy face screwed up in an unpleasant expression. “He’s just playing around.”

“I don’t care, don’t let me see you touch him like that again.”

At this point Rome’s skin glistened with perspiration. He hunched his shoulders and pulled at his collar, unable to pull his gaze away from his own feet because he was so mortifyingly embarrassed.

Playing or not, AJ couldn’t let either of the kids he watched over get hurt. More importantly, in his mind, he could not permit them to be exposed to violence. There would be enough time for that in their lives later.

He released the boy and watched him dart back to his sister’s side. “Are you going to introduce me to your friends, Rome?” he asked.

“I feel nauseous.” 

AJ took a deep, calming breath.

The girl opened up her purse, took out a stick of gum, and handed it to Rome. “Here, it’s mint, if you chew this you won’t feel as sick, even though it’s all made up in your head. I’m Evangeline Bellamy. My brother is Eddie. Who are you?”

Bellamy was a common enough name in Eden. They were probably harmless. AJ looked at Rome and the way he was chewing the gum and not flinching away when the boy twin, Eddie, patted him on the back. This was not so bad. He overreacted, he often did. All this was was something new.

“I’m Ajax.”

“Yeah, OK, who are you?”

“I watch after Rome and his brother.”

“A babysitter? That’s very very sad and depressing, what are you, like 30?”

There was nothing he could do about kids being snotty towards him. He supposed that he should be more thankful that Rome and Valentine were so well-mannered and would never dream of mouthing off to an adult they didn’t know. AJ grimaced a smile and checked his communication device. The guy he had been talking to had messaged him back.

“Why do you need a babysitter, Rome?” asked Eddie. It seemed as though the greatest physical difference between him and his twin was that she stood straight and rigid, while his posture was hunched over and droopy. He kept his arms crossed over his chest like he was insecure. “That’s weird. We’re the same age, we’ve never needed someone to ride the train with us.”

“We’ve been riding the metro by ourselves since we were like, 9,” said Evangeline.

“My dad is overprotective,” lied Rome, a person who had hyperventilated and cried the last time he had tried to get on a train by himself. “He’s worried I might get hurt.”

>lee.harlan: How’s it going?

>lee.harlan: Come over to my place tonight?

His comm buzzed a 3rd time. Harlan had sent him a picture of himself with an obvious erection, only wearing underwear. The guy was clearly exaggerating about a couple things in his profile. AJ fumbled to swipe the picture away again.

It was better than nothing. A distraction from his life would make him happy, for a while. For a while he wouldn’t have to think about his mediocre grades, or worry about his mom.

>ajax.guttierez: Is 8 OK?

Harlan sent back a winky face and for the first time that day, AJ felt himself smile. Just a little. There was something silly about another adult man using emojis-- every other man in AJ’s life was so serious. He couldn’t imagine Mr. Prospas sending something like that, nor Ib or Scotty who were his own bodyguards. This was good. This guy was going to be good for him, just a shallow funny distraction.

Beside him, the Bellamy twins were talking excitedly to Rome about something or other and Rome didn’t look like he was about to stress-vomit for once-- but he wasn’t laughing or smiling either. Uncomfortable perhaps, but not scared. It was probably not great that the other kids moved so quickly and awkwardly, but at least they weren’t trying out more stupid karate moves. 

AJ cleared his throat. “You good, Rome? I gotta get going.”

“Why wouldn’t he be good?” demanded Evangeline Bellamy as she rummaged through her purse for a yellow scrunchie, with which she tied her hair out of her face. “Of course he’s good. Do you not think everything is good?” AJ smiled at her tightly.

Instead of using his words, Rome just gave a little shrug, which AJ took as a yes. He turned and left, heading for the elevators that would take him up towards the University floors. 

He just wanted to be done with college, with OK enough grades to get an OK job. Hopefully he would work for Prosperity. With all the ass-kissing he had done lately, he figured he deserved it.

On that thought, he dialed his boss’s number as he got on one of the elevators.

Richard Prospas picked up on the first ring. “Is everything OK?” he asked immediately without so much as a hello. He was intense and high-strung and plagued by migraines, which wasn’t the best temperament for a CEO of a large company to have. Ever since what had happened to Ben, he had been intensely concerned about the development of his younger two sons-- who were, as far as he was concerned, his only sons.

“Just checking in,” said AJ. “Rome just told me he hasn’t been doing his homework, do you know what’s up with that?” For a moment he felt guilty about betraying the confidence of a child who trusted him, especially since he knew Rome would get in trouble over it later. What were his priorities though? AJ cared about Rome’s wellbeing, he just cared about his own well-being and the well-being of his mother more. It was important that he continued to ingratiate himself with his boss so that he could move up in the company, so that he could make more money and receive more respect.

“Goddammit,” swore Prospas. “What is wrong with him? That means he lied to my face, you know. He told me he had finished everything this morning. What is wrong with him?”

“Maybe he needs to see a therapist. He makes himself freak out by overthinking and then--”

“He doesn’t need a fucking therapist, he needs to grow up and start being responsible. At this rate Valentine is more responsible than he is.”

“Oh, absolutely,” agreed AJ, groveling as usual. Valentine was not responsible at all, with his clinginess and his imaginary friends. “Absolutely.”

“He knows that he’s going to be in charge of the company when I retire. He needs to be working hard and making connections, not hiding in his room all day. I don’t understand him, I don’t understand him at all. That-- that funny wheezy breathing thing he does is going to drive me up a wall.  At this rate he’s going to be a piss-poor leader, if he runs my company into the ground I swear to God that I’ll force the Board to make his brother CEO.”

“I don’t think anyone is going to be good enough to fill your shoes, sir.”

“Thanks, AJ.” For a long minute, Prospas paused. Then he cleared his throat. “You know, your mother is really starting to freak me out with her religious shit. Last night she-- she has these fuckin’ cuts on her stomach. Is she doing alright? She’s not going to try to kill herself again, is she? I can’t deal with that any more, I just can’t. It was awful the last time. I couldn’t sleep at all, you gotta picture it, I would lie awake all night just terrified that she would slit her wrists or something.”

Air suddenly would not fill AJ’s lungs and images he had tried to forget flooded his mind. His left hand clenched into a fist.

“You there?” 

The elevator was not moving fast enough. AJ forced himself to suck in a breath. “She’s fine,” he said, keeping the anger and fear out of his voice. “That’s how-- you know about the Rift religion? They do that. Something about blood, I don’t know. It’s how they worship. She’s fine. She’s happy, I think the church gives her a sense of community. She keeps telling me about how happy she is.”

“Oh, good,” Prospas said absently. “Thanks.”

“Of course,” said AJ, thinking about how his mother had tried to overdose the day after that Prospas sent his father into an Agapama storehouse to get shot. AJ had been 16 years old, and so angry that he pulled a knife on him. Prospas had his own bodyguard Scotty hold AJ’s arms behind his back and then beat him with his blackthorn walking stick. The severity of the beating left him with a concussion that he had to go to the hospital for. The memories served as a reminder to never fight back. “Anything.”

“Remind me to give you some different work one of these days. You’re too good a worker to keep wasting on the kids.”

AJ’s heart fluttered and the bad memories were pushed to the back of his mind. The past didn’t matter. All that mattered was the future. His future.  “I-- I would really enjoy that,” he said.

“Really?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Great. Maybe you can help with some numbers that aren’t adding up, I’ll tell the guys. Look-- I have to go. I have a meeting with one of our suppliers. Great talking to you, Ajax.” And he hung up.

AJ realized that his hand was still clenched into a fist. The elevator dinged and he walked out into the University floors, absentmindedly scanning the ID chip in his wrist as he went.

When he did not know how to feel, he generally busied himself and pushed the emotional aspects of his mind to the side. He had things to study. He had a paper to finish. The things in his life were not all bad. The things that hurt him, the fears that always crept in could be put into boxes for him to deal with later. He didn’t know anything else.

What he did know was that he was going to go to town on Harlan that night. A welcome distraction.

KIP NGUYEN

(I DONT KNOW WHAT TO WRITE HERE. KIP IN THE LIBRARY, SPACING OUT)

“Who are you?” he demanded, preemptively defensive. It wasn’t fun to get caught spacing out, it always made him feel like he had done something wrong. “Do you need something?”

The girl didn’t jump back or flinch the way that people usually did when he moved too fast or talked too loud. There was something gently familiar about her, with her solid build and her broad face. She wore a faded sweatshirt and a pendant with a deity on it around her neck. She looked at him in a way he wasn’t used to and he couldn’t put his finger on what it was. “You OK?” she asked in the low, coarse tone of the Lower Levels.

The question was so preposterous that he was unable to contain his reaction and tried to make himself a threat by looming over her. The girl still didn’t flinch, she gazed calmly up at him.

“What?” exclaimed Kip, puffing out his chest. “What the fuck, man, don’t just ask strangers how they’re feeling. It’s not normal. What’s wrong with you?”

She put her hands up to placate him but didn’t appear to be mocking. Her brown eyes were unremarkable except for their steady kindness. “Sorry, you just don’t look so good. What’s so wrong with checking in?”

Kip glanced down at the girl’s religious necklace, then glared at her. He knew what those people were like. They could sense weakness and used that to their advantage when proselytizing people. The way that they had formed religious branches of social services sickened him-- didn’t they understand that nonreligious mutual aid programs already existed? A firm believer in Eden’s state atheism, he took pride in never having been inside of a church. 

“Do you need something from me?” he demanded. He took a step back to give her some space, disturbed that she had not been flustered by his posturing. People didn’t just come up and talk to him, and when they did they never stayed calm for long. “What do you want, huh?”

“Seriously? You don’t know who I am?”

“How would I know that?!”

“I’ve been going out with Esther Bellamy for two months. I know who you are, I know all about you.”

The ghost of a memory attempted to move through Kip’s synapses and failed. In a vague way, he knew about Esther’s girlfriend. He knew she had talked to him about her and he knew that she had shown him pictures of her on more than one occasion. But the fogginess that had been filling his brain since he woke up that morning prevented him from accessing this information.

He shook his head and then slapped his own face hard.

The girl finally flinched when she saw him hit himself. “Don’t do that, what’s wrong with you?”

Kip snapped his fingers. “No. Yes. Church. Rosie Church. Rosaline Church, yep, I got it. Shit. I know about you, my brain just doesn’t kick in until I get my morning, uh, coffee…”

Rosaline stared at him without saying anything. Her thick eyebrows were knitted together in an expression that was either confusion or worry. This was the same expression that well-meaning adults got, not other kids.

Anger flared in him. Who was this stranger to judge him, to worry about him? He was sick and tired of being worried for and over. There was nothing wrong with him. There had never been anything wrong with him. He was-- he was simply in an environment that was not conducive to his health. “Whatever. What do you want from me? Are you looking for Esther? She has therapy this morning, she’s not coming back to school until noon.”

“I know Esther is at therapy,” said Rosaline. “I talk to her. She’s my girlfriend. No-- look, I’m not trying to get into your business…”

“But clearly you’re about to anyway.”

Rosaline shrugged. “Esther cares about you and your sister a lot, I care about her. I think it’s pretty simple. Anyways, I was just wondering, do you know who your sister has been hanging out with over the last couple weeks?”

“Nobody. She doesn’t have friends.”

“Wow. That’s-- no.” Rosaline pushed her shaggy hair away from her forehead. “So, OK. There’s this girl named Ayda Jay in my cohort and she’s pretty much the worst person I’ve met in my life, I don’t know, it’s like she wants people to feel bad about themselves. She’s quiet but she’s always talking to this guy on her comm and lately she’s been talking about your sister. Like making fun of her and stuff.”

Unfortunately, this wasn’t anything new. Bullying wasn’t anything new. There had always been bullies. Kassidy was small and ugly and over-reacted to things, she was an easy target. When he could, Kip tried to protect her, especially when the bullying became physical. Hell, he had gone to Juvie because he had protected her in middle school back when Ben Prospas was picking on her. When he had seen that huge Artificial take his fat hand and shove his tiny sister down to the floor, something broke in Kip’s brain. He couldn’t even remember attacking Ben, it was like he had gone to sleep and then woke up in the Principal’s office getting screamed at by his mother. Compared to that, some girl making fun of Kassidy was nothing.

“Thanks,” said Kip in as mocking a voice as he could manage. Religious people were really too sensitive. “Really. I think Kassidy is tough enough to deal with some mean words.”

“You don’t get it. Ayda Jay is related to Casey Agapama somehow, I think they’re sisters or cousins. They live together, they hang out together. Your sister has been hanging out with Casey Agapama, man. I’d be worried if I were you.”

In his shock, Kip grabbed Rosaline by the shoulders with both hands and brought his face close to hers. Rosaline’s eyes widened, she grabbed one of his wrists and twisted it so hard that she flipped him around and wrenched his arm up behind his back. It hurt but Kip could not even think of the pain.

Casey Agapama.

He knew about Casey Agapama. Everyone did. Her rat bastard venture capitalist father was unspeakably wealthy due to the labor he exploited from his workers. People were terrified of Casey, they said that she was a sociopath. She didn’t so much get into fights as she did beat the crap out of other kids for no reason. People said that she had stabbed a teacher and gotten away with it. When she walked down the halls, everyone else got out of her way.

In 4 years of secondary education, Kip had only seen her once. She had shoved him out of his chair in the library while walking past him when he was 15. She hadn’t even looked at him, it was like she had done it out of pure boredom.

What was Kassidy doing around a girl like that? Surely even she wasn’t that stupid.

Rosaline released her grip on his arm. “Don’t just grab people like that. You scared me.”

“What the fuck?!” groaned Kip, rubbing his arm where Rosaline had twisted it. He was used to scuffling with people who were 30+ pounds lighter than him, not people who were sturdy like she was. “Jesus, fuck my tits, my sister is gonna get fucking killed!! That’s why she’s been messing with her hair and shit, like all that make-up shit, she’s trying to impress that freak!”

“Wow, you cuss more than anyone I’ve ever met,” said Rosaline. “ Maybe you should--”

“My sister is associating with someone who could rip her arms off and you’re telling me not to fucking cuss?!”

“No, I’m just making a comment, calm down.” Rosaline put her hands up, as if that was going to calm him. She was looking at Kip like she expected him to attack her now, and that was a look he was used to, a look that was worse than pity or concern. Dangerous. Bad. When people like Rosaline Church saw Kip, they did not see a well functioning member of society, they saw a dangerous individual who might hurt them. Kip did not want to hurt anyone, he knew his heart was gentle, but he could not help the way he talked or reacted to things. 

(I DONT KNOW HOW TO WRITE THE KIP/CASEY FIGHT THAT BRINGS EVERYONE TOGETHER)

[ohorthur]

Exit Pursued by a Grieving Widow

Platonic Charles x fem!Reader, mention of Arthur Morgan x fem!Reader

Warning: spoilers/mention of death

Summary: Charles helps the reader settle into The Mysterious Hill Home so she can start her new life close to the grave of her beloved.

(In this story, Arthur gave his journal to Charles for safekeeping rather than keeping it in his satchel to give to John along with his other possessions.)

Word Count: ~1.8k

~~~

“Ughh…” a grunt left you as you tried to catch your breath. “Thank you, Charles. I appreciate it. You really didn’t have to go through all this trouble.”

“It’s no trouble at all,” the burly man casually responded, hands on his hips as he observed your combined handiwork. You were in awe of how he managed to not break a sweat as he helped you settle into your new home on such an inconveniently sweltering day.

The structure itself wasn’t new. In fact, it had long since been boarded up and abandoned which was what warranted this arduous cleanup process in the first place; the rotting furniture, moth-eaten bedspreads and upholstery, and overgrowth of greenery all had to be taken care of before you could make yourself comfortable in the peculiar house.

The novelty of it all really boiled down to the lifestyle that staying here entailed. You’d be stationary and entirely self-sufficient for the first time in God knows how long. But you were certain that this house was where you belonged. “The Mysterious Hill Home” was how Arthur had referred to it in that journal of his...

Before you could get too lost in thought, you wiped away the layer of sweat that had accumulated on your brow and turned to Charles. “All the same, you should still stay for dinner. It’s the least I can do. I can’t promise much in terms of the seating arrangement considering we had to scrap almost everything that was in there, but I’m confident the food will be better than anything poor Pearson had to scrape up for us these past few months.”

“I don’t know about that,” he chuckled out playfully. “I’ll take my chances, though.” With an exaggerated glare, you headed over to your horse to see what you could whip up with whatever provisions you had in your saddlebags.

~~~

Evening brought with it some respite from the high temperatures you’d suffered in throughout the day. Crickets stirred, providing their soothing song to accompany your improvised dinner for two on the front steps of the hill house.

“I’m sorry, Charles,” you poked at your sad, dry cut of venison and roasted corn with a slight grimace. “My selection was limited and I may have overestimated my culinary skills.”

“I’ve never been a picky eater so you’ll hear no complaints from me,” he reassured you, trying to balance his food on his lap.

“I’ll get something to help it go down easier,” you muttered - more to yourself than to him - as you began to rise to get some whiskey. Before you could set your plate aside, Charles was already pushing it back firmly into your grasp.

“Sit and rest. I’ll get it,” he calmly commanded. He returned with an unopened bottle of fine brandy from his own belongings and handed it to you. “Here, you can do the honors. You’ve been through a lot.”

“I’d hardly call house cleaning a lot,” you sighed, nodding a thank you but avoiding eye contact. After opening the bottle you took a quick swig. You didn’t have to see his face to know he was giving you the “that’s not what I meant” look, but from his relaxed posture you could tell it was one he cast on you out of concern rather than annoyance. Once he finally turned back to his plate, dinner continued in a more or less comfortable silence. He didn’t push you to talk and you didn’t want to disturb the peace, at least not before a few more substantial swigs of brandy.

“So where are you off to next?” you finally questioned, knowing he didn't want to settle down quite just yet. He paused for a moment, mulling over his options.

“Honestly, I’m not entirely certain,” he intoned and reached for the brandy, helping himself to a healthy sip. “All I know is that I’ve had enough of heat and humidity for a good long while,” he continued, hastily running a finger up the side of the bottle to catch a runaway drop.

“In that case maybe north?” you suggested.

"And end up back in Colter again? Not too thrilled by the sound of that."

"Maybe even farther north. Canada perhaps. After everything that's happened - the gang, Micah, Dutch, and…" your voice died out. The final name was caught in your throat with no chance of escape, held prisoner in a vice grip. "...and all that unpleasantness - it might do you good to get away from everything. This land is too bloodstained and scarred."

"You might be right," he decided. Faint scrapes of his fork against the tin plate reached your ears as he aimlessly pushed around what few crumbs of his meal remained. "You know… maybe it would be good for you to put this whole mess behind you as well. You can come with me."

A wave of regret washed over him as you form shrunk into itself, as if it was deflating. "It's just a suggestion, I'm not saying - "

"It's okay, Charles. I understand what you mean," you interrupted quietly. "But it wasn't all a mess. Not for me at least. It must seem silly, but I can't just leave him here, alone and forgotten."

"It' doesn't."

"We never married. We never even discussed it. But foolish as it is, I can't help feeling like a widow. And that comes with it's own obligations. He deserves to have someone watch over him"

"In every sense but in name, you are. Arthur cared for you, Y/N. You were the most important thing in his life. His own words were that he'd have asked you to marry him if he'd been a better man," he soothed. "When he told me there was no coming back for him, he was terrified. Not for himself but for you. He felt that he had it coming for what he'd done, but he hoped to make his end count by getting everyone out. Especially you. I told him it was a blessing of sorts that he knew what was coming. I guess we all know it'll come eventually but the certainty of it all instilled a sense of urgency in him to come to terms with his actions and make a final effort to set things right - even after he was gone. He asked me to look after his girl, make sure she's safe, make sure she's happy."

You rested your cheek on his sturdy shoulder and closed your eyes. "I'm glad we had you, Charles."

"You still do, Y/N," his deep, smooth timbre warmed you along with the arm he now draped around you. "I made a promise and I intend to keep it. Wherever the road takes me, I'll always come back to check on you. Both of you."

~~~

The first rays of dawn and the scent of freshly brewed coffee were a surprising awakening. You had no recollection of when you fell asleep, nor of how you ended up on a bedroll for that matter. Once you propped yourself up on your elbows, the slight ache that shot through your head made you reckon that the alcohol was to blame. Footsteps rustled behind you, approaching closer until Charles came into sight.

“Morning,” he smirked knowingly. You squinted up at him for a few seconds before registering that he was extending a cup of coffee to you.

“Thanks,” you rasped and eagerly accepted the bitter drink. You intended to laze around and take your sweet time nursing the beverage until you noticed that Charles was already packing up his things. You scrambled up in alarm, rushing to dig through your belongings. “Wait! You’re leaving already? Have you eaten anything yet? Do you have enough food for the road?” you rambled.

“Y/N.”

“You know what, just take everything I have. You’ll need it more than I do.”

“Y/N.”

“I was planning on going hunting today anyways, so it’s really not a prob- ”

Charles’s sudden grasp on your shoulders shook you out of your frantic babbling. “Y/N, trust me. I’ll be okay.”

“Please? Just take something. It doesn’t feel right sending you off like this, especially after you’ve been so helpful,” you begged with the most pleading look you could muster.

“Alright, fine,” he surrendered and you rushed to help him transfer your food and supplies into his saddlebags.

“Before I go, I have something for you as well,” he pulled out a familiar leatherbound book from his satchel. “Arthur asked me to hold on to it the last time we spoke in case he couldn’t give it to you himself. Here, take it. It’s already yours, but consider it a parting gift.”

Your hands gravitated to the journal without you even realizing it. It brought you comfort to run your fingers over the worn brown leather you knew so well. Whether the warmth of the book came from Charles’s hands or the pure heart and spirit it held within its pages you couldn’t say. But you did know that it would provide you more peace than the warmth of any new hearth and home ever would.

No words could possibly relay your gratitude. All you could do was throw your arms around Charles as tears threatened to trickle down your cheeks. If he hadn’t been built like stone you might have strangled him. Time ticked on and eventually you parted so Charles could finally make his way back to the ever-patient Taima.

“My offer still stands. You can join me whenever you feel in need of a change,” he reminded you as he mounted. You took a deep breath and smoothed out Taima’s mane.

“Goodbye, Charles,” you hummed through a teary-eyed smile.

“Goodbye, Mrs. Morgan,” he hummed back with an understanding nod to you and a final glance at the hillside behind your new home.

Your smile grew at being addressed with that name. The trot of hooves grew fainter and fainter as you turned back to take a seat on your front steps. Holding the journal tightly to your chest, you felt an unusual bump between the pages that you must have been too shocked to take note of earlier. After unwinding the cover’s strap, the book fell open to reveal Arthur’s final sketch.

You were faced with your own tired eyes and your own sad smile, both expressing a sort of subtle affection. It wasn’t an unflattering rendition of your features and it wasn’t idyllic. It was simply honest, a testament to the trying times the two of you had held each other through and the love that would always persist through them. To the left of the page, near the binding, lay a ring adorned with a small but elegant stone.

“Mrs. Morgan…” you absentmindedly mused to yourself. The ring caught the light of the steadily rising sun as it peeked over the mountains from the east, illuminating the hills and trees before you. You slipped it onto your left ring finger and took in the view as you finished your now cold coffee. “Ain’t that somethin’.”

[mollymauk-teafleak]

Black Coffee (part four)

Chapter 1 | Chapter 2 | Chapter 3

If you like this, please please please consider reblogging, leaving a comment on Ao3 or even donating to my Ko-Fi

~~~~~~~~~~

Every single time, Vax told himself he was an idiot.

Every time he caught himself staring at Percy’s smile. Every time he’d replay his laughter over and over again in his head as he fell asleep because the sound soothed him so much. Every time he’d sleep over and find himself wearing one of Percy’s shirts in the confusion of gathering up their widely scattered clothes, only to curl up into it tighter, pulling it over the lower half of his face and inhaling deeply, feeling something inside himself unwind at the smell of Percy.

Each and every time, he’d think to himself afterwards: Vax’ildan, you are an idiot.

He told himself it was pointless. He told himself it was a ridiculous infatuation that was only going to get worse the more he indulged it. He cursed himself for a moony eyed teenager, he cursed his blind, ridiculous heart, he cursed his piss poor judgement in growing a silly crush on someone who saw him as a friend at best, a way to indulge a kink at worst and most likely.

But those moments didn’t stop coming. So he remained an idiot.

Another week, another email.

Percy tapped his fingers against the keys, enough to make an irritating noise but not enough to actually make words appear on the screen, as if the right thing to say would just come passively if he made the night motions.

The first part of the email had been easy, congratulating Cassandra on getting through her finals, encouraging her with her upcoming dissertation and exhibition, promising he’d fly out and come to opening night.

The second part was where he got stuck, as soon as he was required to talk about himself. He knew Cassandra would have absolutely no interest in the company, how the profit margins were doing, any reshuffling of the board. Percy was supposed to be the figurehead of all that and even he barely managed to care. He knew she’d at least feign polite interest in the new rotary motors he’d designed but there was only so much he could say about those without attaching blueprints to his response.

And he still felt a panic attack coming on whenever he thought about even trying to tell her about Vax.

At least he had Keyleth to talk to about that. He was getting better at being more open with her, probably thanks to Vax himself. Yet another thing he owed him.

Just yesterday she’d come over for dinner (a dinner that consisted of food from their respective favourite takeaways, he’d never learned how to cook) and Percy had found himself talking for hours about things Vax had said, date ideas that had been his that Percy never would even have dreamed of doing but had enjoyed immensely. Even Vax’s sister had gotten a mention and he’d grinned to see Keyleth’s ears quite literally pick up and her eyes brighten. He quietly resolved to find out if Vex’ahlia was single.

But there were things he couldn’t even tell his best friend or his sister. Things he was still struggling to admit to himself or even give form to inside his own head.

The idea that maybe he was starting to feel differently about Vax. That as fun and exhilarating as the sex and honeymoon dates were, things were changing below the surface.

Percy shifted uncomfortably in his chair, fingers itching to take him back to the dog adoption websites he’d been obsessively browsing lately. But Cassandra had been waiting two days for a reply now and he’d be damned if she was going to beat him at correspondence.

He tapped out a brief reply, one sentence to say work was fine and he was building new stuff, as always then launched into more praise for her recent art pieces she’d put on Instagram. Much safer brotherly territory.

But then there was the last part of her email. The one his brain had desperately tried to slide right off of but had become embedded inside him like a bee sting.

So, I saw the anniversary is coming up next week. I hate calling it an anniversary but you know, there’s no good word for it. I know it’s hard so call me if you want to, okay? Or go to the charity gala, one of us probably should. Just don’t be alone. Promise, Percy.

Of course he’d forgotten, if there was such a thing as wilfully forgetting something. The gala was organised without any input from him, it was a company thing, the purview of their non-profit division. People at work had long ago learned not to bring anything even tangentially connected to the anniversary (Cassie was right, there really was no other word for it) to their boss’ attention.

No doubt the invitation would appear on his assistant’s desk in the next day or so, ready for its annual frosty ignoring before being consigned to the shredder the second the date inscribed on it had passed.

But if Percy was completely honest with himself, as rare as that occasion was, he really didn’t want to face that day alone. He didn’t want to bear it in his usual way. Not that he ever had wanted to get through it by finding a bar and drinking until he passed out but he’d always just sort of sunken into that.

And Cassandra knew it. Hell, she’d been the one who’d had to take a red eye flight to the city and sit by him in the hospital as he’d recovered from getting his stomach pumped last year.

The look on her face when he’d finally woken up and broken down into wracking sobs wasn’t something he ever wanted to see on his baby sister’s face ever again. He wasn’t going to be responsible for adding to her pain ever again.

He finished his email with a single sentence, no context, no other acknowledgement of the hot coals they were both trying to dance around.

I promise, Cassie.

“Holy fuck…I don’t think I have anything that fancy, Freddy,” Vax yelped but he was grinning, excitement already lighting up his face.

Percy smiles, reaching over and tucking Vax’s hair behind his ears, he remembered him saying it annoyed him when it was in his face, “I’ll take you shopping. But wait until you’ve actually been to one of these parties before you thank me for the invite, they’re painfully boring.”

“Probably to you!” Vax maintained his dreamy eyed excitement as he swept his shirt over his head, “I’m gonna drink fancy wine and admire fancy dresses and dance to fancy music. I’ll finally get to use the waltz moves I know.”

“I look forward to seeing them,” Percy let his jeans fall to the floor, “I’ll admit, it might actually be worth my time if you’re with me.”

Vax grins, wiggling out of his boxers, “Freddy, if you need someone to show you that getting drunk in the name of charity can be fun, I’m your man.”

“You are,” Percy’s demeanour became hungry, grinning crookedly as he pulled the now naked Vax against him, spinning him into the shower and under the warm spray of water. The half elf was giggling, legs anchoring around his hips, by the time Percy kissed him up against the tile wall.

It was so easy to smile and laugh and make jokes when he was kissing Vax. It was so easy to forget.

“The car will be here in half an hour,” Percy called out, walking into the living room as he fiddled with his cufflinks. He’d never gotten the hang of these things.

A memory rose up in the back of his mind, unasked for, unbidden. His own hands, awkward and spindly with youth, struggling with a set of cufflinks. Stronger hands, wearing the signet ring that Percy now saw on his own hand every morning, covering his own and guiding them.

Here, son, let me. It takes some getting used to.

Percy cursed as one slipped out of his fingers and hit the hardwood with a sharp crack that rang louder than it actually had been in his ears. The black stone in it fractured, a hairline break down the middle. It must have landed in just the wrong way.

“Whoops,” Vax was suddenly there, scooping up the little shining piece of silver, “Here we go.”

“It’s broken…” Percy frowned, half his brain still somewhere else.

“Not all that much,” Vax reassured him, taking his hand gently and fixing it into place, “It’s still good, see?”

Percy managed a thin smile. It was hard not to smile, seeing Vax all dressed up.

They hadn’t found anything that suited Vax at the place Percy went to get his suits, they’d both agreed everything there was a little too stuffy for his tastes. Instead, they’d turned to Mollymauk Tealeaf, who took the black dress Vax had worn to the ballet and an old suit of Percy’s and made something spectacular.

It was a little bit of both, a black, clinging suit of silken material that flowed down his body as a stunning waterfall of inky fabric, affixed at his wrists to make something not unlike wings. It rippled when he moved and caught the light in the most beautiful ways and made Percy’s mouth a little dry.

It was going to cause a stir, Percy knew with a satisfied smile. It was his name on the silverware, after all.

“You look beautiful,” Percy leaned in and kissed him, quickly so as not to pick up any of his black lipstick. There would be plenty of time to get it in all manner of scandalous places after the party.

“You’re a charmer,” Vax purred, straightening his jacket lapels, “Half an hour, you said?”

Percy could see where his mind was going and he dearly wanted to follow him down that train of thought but he knew letting Vax go into this blind would be a bad idea. So he sighed and gave a little shake of his head.

“Just so you know, love? This night…it’s for the charity that was set up in my parents’ name after they died. Like a memorial thing? So if people treat me weird tonight, that’s why.”

Vax blinked, understandably a little rattled by that, “Oh…right…”

“Sorry,” Percy winced, he couldn’t pretend to be surprised, “That’s a lot to take in at once…”

“Maybe a little,” Vax admitted, hands resting on Percy’s chest, “But…I get it’s a difficult thing to put into words. Thanks for letting me know though, I could see myself putting my foot right in it.”

Percy let himself relax a little into Vax’s contact, safe in the knowledge he’d keep him upright, “All I need from you tonight is to do the exact opposite of what everyone else is probably going to do and not treat me weird. Just…dance with me, let’s make a few people whisper and if you could remind me that I’ve got some pretty amazing sex waiting for me if I make it through tonight, I’d appreciate that.”

Vax smiled and kissed his cheek, “I can absolutely do that.”

“Oh,” Percy hesitates, another wince in his expression, “And don’t let me drink?”

Vax sensed a strong undercurrent of ‘do not ask’ under that so he just smiled and nodded, squeezing Percy’s arm.

“Hey, it’s going to be okay, Freddy. I’ll be with you.”

The party was held in a manor house a little ways out of the city, a place that seemed to have been built purely for ridiculously grand parties like this one. The whole exterior was illuminated by soft dancing lights, making the high stone walls, the flowers in the garden, the couples that filed in all look vaguely angelic and otherworldly.

Vax gawked and stared shamelessly as they moved into this other dimension of cream and silk and champagne. Flower garlands grew up the walls and spread curious fingers across the floor, actually growing if you looked for long enough, filling the room with a fresh, clean scent. Glasses were pressed on them as soon as they entered, full of a wine that actually changed as you sipped it, moving along a spectrum of fruit flavours.

Percy politely waved his on.

There was an upper mezzanine with tables, clearly where the food would be served, but the whole lower floor was kept free for dancing and mingling, what most of the guests were actually here to do. Already groups were forming and breaking up in smooth succession, like leaves borne on an unseen current, snagging and being swept on. The rhythm of it all was odd when seen from above, like a sort of dance.

“I do not belong here,” Vax laughed delightedly, leaning against the balcony.

“Count yourself lucky then,” Percy smirks, straightening his glasses, “Looks like I put on a pretty good party, huh?”

“And all without looking,” Vax chuckled, “Very well done, Mr de Rolo.”

Percy puts his hand on Vax’s, “Well, it’ll raise some money at least. Rich people get really generous when they drink.”

Vax took another drink, tasting tart plum this time. He let his eyes rove over the dance floor below, still finding interesting little finishes he hadn’t noticed yet. The way the candles hovered under some spell, somehow knowing where they were needed, following the larger knots of people. The troupe of musicians, sporting everything from sleek Marquetian guitars to elaborate stringed affairs from the Menagerie Coast, whose music could be turned up or down in any listener’s ears as they wished. There were bowls of iced fruit glistening on an array of tables, the perfect thing to snack on when you knew you had a banquet in an hour. No one was dancing yet, the party still being in its fledgling stages but Vax already had a mind of change that. The people here seemed older, the ones here to network rather than relax, but maybe even they could be convinced if they had a good enough example. Vax saw mostly humans though there were a few with the easy, self-confident air of the Aasimar and, of course, the only other race who could look even more self-possessed-

“Shit,” Vax choked out, suddenly drawing back as if he’d been sprayed with scalding water.

Percy turned, suddenly alert, “What? What’s wrong?”

Ashy with shock, eyes roving for the exits and well aware it was too late to pretend the answer was nothing, Vax mumbled, “I didn’t know Syldor Vessar would be here.”

Percy frowned, “I…yeah, he often comes to things like this…I think my father worked with him on a few projects in the past…Vax, what’s the problem?”

“Nothing,” Vax insisted weakly, “Well, no. I mean. He’s my father.”

Percy’s eyes widened behind his glasses. Vax knew he was suddenly seeing matching features, commonalities, making sense of the distinct point to his ears.

“I’m sorry,” he said softly, “I didn’t know.”

“I didn’t tell you, how could you know?”

Vax was instinctively moving away, acting like a cornered animal, backing up in a secluded alcove. All of the delicately bouncing candles within a five meter radius fled in a heartbeat.

Percy followed, suddenly standing protectively, making himself a shield, “I can have a car here in five minutes, are you okay until then? Or we can just go, we’ll walk a little…”

“No, no…” Vax said quickly, biting his lip, “No, sorry. It was just a shock. I haven’t seen him in a while.”

Though it was clear some of the pieces were already in place, Percy asked haltingly, “Was it not…”

Vax pulled a face, “He doesn’t like that I’m trans. He doesn’t like a lot about me, really. And I hate a lot about him. So me and Vex left.”

Anger flashed across Percy’s face, brief but intense, “He what?”

Vax gave a short sigh, “Freddy, three quarters of the people here would probably think he was right. Please don’t go punch him. It won’t win you any friends.”

The anger collapsed under the weight of discomfort, “Oh. I wasn’t going to…”

“Sorry,” Vax shook his head like he was shaking sense into himself, “Sorry, I didn’t mean to snap. Seriously, I’m fine. This is your night, I’m here for you.”

“Vax’ildan…”

Vax had his mind made up. It was clear since he’d admitted what this party was for that Percy had taken a long, long time to convince himself to go. He needed to be here, he needed to honour his parents in some small way, even if it was just for an hour. Vax wouldn’t be the reason he caved.

“Seriously, Freddy, it’s fine. The party’s big enough that we can avoid him and even if we do need to say a five second hello…well, fuck, it’s going to actually be fun for him to see me on the arm of someone whose twice as rich as he is. Just don’t tell him I’m technically on the job.”

Percy still looked like he would protest, for honour’s sake, but he let it go and gave a little smile, “You’re not on the job, Vax, not tonight. At least, it doesn’t feel like it. I’m glad you’re here just as my friend.”

Vax swallowed, a feeling he was irritatingly familiar with making its presence known.

Vax’ildan, you’re an idiot.

The party went smoothly for a while.

It was fun, Vax realised, like play acting. Like they’d all raided a parent’s closet for odds and ends, mismatched bits and pieces, makeup that they only had the vaguest idea of how to use but were all having enormous fun enacting scenes from an elaborately illustrated fairy story. They were all aware of the absurdity of it, underneath, but it paled in comparison to the entertainment value.

Vax was reminded of the times he and Molly had gleefully wasted hours in the costume storage rooms of the community theatre, trying on coats that didn’t fit them, hats that were ridiculously small, anything with an excessive amount of beads or sequins, laughing until it hurt.

Quickly and easily, Vax lost himself in the performance of it all. He perched happily on Percy’s arm, always making sure he had a glass at least half full in his hand with which to gesture, listening to the conversations they were pulled into like asteroids being snatched up in the orbits of various planets. They were like a foreign language, talking about places and people he’d never heard of and had to force himself not to laugh out loud at, they seemed so odd. Fortunately, though he hid it much better thanks to years of practise, Percy seemed just as bewildered as Vax did by most of it.

Every so often, he’d interject something, a sprightly little comment or joke, more often than not to save Percy when he’s clearly ran out of things to say. Each new group would look surprised the first time, like they’d assumed he couldn’t talk, like he’d been presumed to be Percy’s handbag or something. But then they’d laugh, either out of politeness or genuine amusement, Vax didn’t care. It was the relieved, grateful little glances from Percy that he cared about.

There were awkward moments, of course, whenever someone he recognised from his and Vex’s years of incarceration with Syldor appeared in that moment’s huddle of listeners. He could see the hesitation on their face every time, the shock, the clear attempt to guess whether the situation had changed, the rumours had been incorrect and he was back in his father’s good graces.

But if any of them had chanced to notice that, despite the undeniable pressure of natural social graces, Syldor and Vax’ildan never ended up in the same circles, they would have had their answer.

There was a moment, in the lull between songs where the chatter seemed to press in a little louder, where Vax had been admiring the flowers again, trying to see if their colours were magical or a feature of the plant itself. His eyes must have slid the wrong way at the wrong time because suddenly he was making direct eye contact with Syldor from across the room. And those eyes were filled with a stunned, scandalised anger.

The part of Vax that was and probably always would be the terrified young teenager who’d lived in fear of those eyes, that look, recoiled in panic. But there was more to him now, a stronger, surer part that simply smiled and squeezed Percy’s arm, prompting him to lean over and kiss his cheek softly. What Syldor’s face did after he saw that, Vax didn’t know.

He didn’t look back.

As if the night couldn’t be more full of surprises, Vax found that his shy, mechanically minded wallflower was a superb dancer.

“You’re a natural!” Vax laughed in delight as they moved in perfect time with the delicate waltz filling the space.

Percy blushed, as Vax knew he would, “I took lessons when I was younger, under threat of having my controllers taken away. All of my siblings did but I think they acquiesced much easier than I did.”

All of your siblings? Vax kept his face very deliberately unchanged.

“The world of dance doesn’t know what it’s lost,” he said confidently, moving through easy, rolling steps around the space. Not many other couples were dancing so they had practically the whole floor.

“Maybe I’m trying extra hard just to keep up with you,” Percy pointed out, tilting his head.

“Ballroom isn’t my thing,” Vax shook his head, “You’ve just got some serious natural talent.”

“Shut up,” Percy laughed coyly but at the very next turn he suddenly dipped Vax low, expertly, in perfect time with the music.

Vax would have kissed him fiercely if he hadn’t been worried any distraction would end with him in a heap on the floor.

Once righted, instead of moving back into hold, Percy paused, taking Vax’s hands in his own, “I...I didn’t think it was possible for me to actually enjoy this night. And I actually kind of have. Or at least, I’ve been able to distract myself enough to…” he flushed bright red, “Anyway. I’m rambling. Thank you, is what I’m trying to say.”

Vax smiled softly, “Don’t mention it, Percy. Seriously, don’t, it looks like you might pull a muscle if you keep trying to.”

Percy snorted at that, “See? This is why I love having you around.”

One of those odd moments followed, the ones where it really felt like someone should have been saying something. A cue had been missed, the progression had halted, empty space that wasn’t supposed to be empty suddenly hung between them.

Percy opened his mouth, looking like he was going to say something but part of him didn’t want to.

And that was when the music stopped, fading into silence in as classy a way as that could be done. Immediately, the people around them began moving back to the mezzanine, apparently all knowing that it was time for food and speeches. Vax felt like he’d missed a memo somewhere.

“Dare me to ask for tomato sauce with whatever fancy stuff they serve?” Vax turned back to Percy, grinning.

As soon as their eyes met, that grin died like a scrap of paper set alight, turned to nothing in half a heartbeat. Percy looked like he was about to throw up, paler even than he usually was, a rabbit suddenly caught in the headlights of a sixteen wheeler.

“Percy?” Vax was alarmed, squeezing his hand, “Percy, what’s wrong?”

There was a clear moment of hesitation, uncertainty, but something seemed to swerve to the left at the very last moment and he fixed a thin, unconvincing smile on his face, “Nothing. I’m hungry, let’s head up there.”

Vax frowned, not sure how he was being expected to believe that but then Percy was moving, taking his hand and leading him towards the stairs without another word. Hesitant to make a fuss, Vax sighed internally and didn’t resist. But he would definitely be bringing it up again on the ride home. Maybe Percy would be able to breathe a little better once it was just the two of them again.

They sat about as far back as they could physically manage without sitting on the floor. Vax was about to ask if they should move closer, surely if it was his company’s whole production, they’d want him visible? His surname was on the logo being projected up on the screen at the front, after all.

But he got the sense that hiding might be the whole point.

There was more fancy wine set out on the table, ones with names even longer than Percy’s. Vax eyed a glass thoughtfully but he had a pleasant, warm buzz going through his veins. Enough to make this party a damn sight more fun but not enough to risk him embarrassing himself. That was a comfortable place to be.

As he was looking, he saw Percy’s hand go out and draw a glass in, a quick, furtive gesture like he was hoping it wouldn’t be noticed.

Vax frowned. He was really getting his intelligence insulted tonight.

“Percy, you said you wouldn’t be drinking?”

Percy’s shoulders tensed, every inch the child caught with his hand in the cookie jar, “Just one with dinner. I’ll barely feel it.”

Vax paused, a bad feeling opening up inside him, “You asked me not to let you drink, Percy. There must have been a reason for that. I...I’d feel better if you didn’t.”

That brought Percy’s hand back to his side, if a little reluctantly, accompanied by a defeated sigh, “You’re right…”

Vax bit his lip, that bad feeling growing, “Percy, we don’t have to stay if something’s making you feel uncomfortable.”

He couldn’t read the expression that shifted across Percy’s face in that moment and before he could make any greater effort, the lighting in the room changed and everyone’s attention was politely turned to the front of the dining area, to the lectern before the screen.

An older human man settled there, bringing a neat set of cards from his inside pocket and clearing his throat in the manner of someone who was very comfortable with having about a hundred people listening to his every word.

“Well, firstly, an enormous thank you to all of you. Through your attendance and generosity, we have managed to raise an incredible amount of money to go towards the de Rolo Foundation, even more than in previous years. This money will undoubtedly be instrumental in ensuring those who lose their families to violence have support and care. I am certain the entire de Rolo family would be immensely proud.”

Beside Vax, Percy seemed to sink down lower in his seat as the eyes of everyone who actually knew who he was turned to him in that moment.

“What happened to the de Rolo family was nothing short of a tragedy,” the man continued, voice turning grave rather than celebratory, “Many of you who knew them still feel a strong sense of grief and outrage at how they were taken. Hopefully there is some comfort to be found in the fact that, through our actions here tonight, fewer will suffer as they and their remaining heirs did.”

A picture suddenly took up the screen behind him, replacing the Whitestone logo. Vax felt his chest tighten.

The first of the family in the picture that he recognised was of course Percy. He stood as stiff and aloof as the rest of the people around him who shared his facial features, though he was off to the side somewhat, certainly not the focus, part of the background dressing. There were nine of them, all dressed similarly in what had to be the colours of their family. An older woman and man who were of course the mother and father. The much younger Percy seemed to fall into the middle range of ages. More central was an older young man, placed right between the mother and father. Then a sister. Though they all looked incredibly similar, same angular faces, same hair, most of them wearing glasses, there were two who were identical enough that they had to be twins. That gave Vax a start. A couple of younger siblings too, barely into childhood.

It took him a long time to realise what was wrong, why something wasn’t quite right. And then it clicked, with another unpleasant lurch.

They all had brown hair. Brown as chestnuts, brown as chocolate, brown as mahogany.

And Vax had been picking white hairs off his dark clothing for as long as he and Percy had been an item.

“The loss of nearly the entire de Rolo family was a shock to us all,” the man continued, though his voice seemed further away to Vax, as lost as he was in the picture, “And even worse the years of turmoil that followed before their killers could be brought to justice. Of course we remember and acknowledge the bravery of Percival in his years of ensuring the truth came out and the company could return to his and his sister’s hands. Many thanks to young Percival.”

Vax couldn’t help it, he turned to Percy, confusion and shock on his face.

He wasn’t there. Both he and the bottle of wine from the centre of the table had disappeared.

Suddenly Vax realised everyone was looking at their table, expecting to see Percy as much as he had been, equally as surprised to be staring at an empty seat. There was a long, awkward silence where no one seemed quite sure of what to do.

After a moments carefully considered thought, Vax decided to get up and make a very swift exit.

Night had fallen when none of them had been looking, blissfully ignorant in the shrouds of both magically and mechanically generated lighting. But outside was fully within its arms; the air was chilly, too chilly for evening gowns, the sky was blacker than usual given they were a little outside the city and pierced through with starry pinpoints. The gardens that surrounded the manor had turned to silver and stone, what had been grown looking more like it had been carved or sculpted.

As anxious as he was to find Percy, Vax couldn’t help but feel some relief. He much preferred it out here to in there. In fact, it was only now that he realised he’d practically been holding his breath the entire evening.

He hitched up his skirts with one hand and hurried past flowerbeds and underneath overhead carpets of vine, listening for anything underneath the gentle but ever present trickle of water running somewhere unseen.

The water only seemed to grow louder as he went, naturally pulled into the epicentre of the garden. But underneath it, he managed to pick out a noise that could only be crying, acting as a perfect counterpoint to the rushing and babbling that already filled the space.

It made sense all in the same moment. An enormous fountain sat proudly in the little hidden courtyard that was revealed behind the shrubbery. It’s flow arched into the night sky where it came close to becoming pure moonlight before falling back down into the basin, ready to trace the path again like blood in an ornate, black iron body.

And slumped on the edge of it, sobbing softly with his tears hitting the gravel below like a tiny rainfall, was Percy.

As Vax watched, he groped for the bottle of wine that was resting haphazardly against his legs and drank deeply, an errant trickle running from the side of his lips though he didn’t seem to care. Only when the need for breath forced him to stop did the bottle return to it’s perfectly circular divot in the gravel, not half drained.

Vax lurched forward, forgetting that he’d wanted to make a more gentle entrance, “Percy, no…”

Percy jumped so badly it was a miracle he didn’t pitch backwards into the fountain. That probably would have soured things even more.

“Vax’ildan…”

Wanting desperately to hold him, touch him, fix this somehow but having no clue of how to go about it or if it would even be welcome, Vax just sat beside him on the cold, wet rim of the fountain, eyes wide and sad, “I’m here, Percy, it’s okay…”

“Vax, go back,” Percy croaked, turning his head as if it wasn’t too late to hide the tears, “You don’t have to...go back inside, enjoy yourself.”

“How could I enjoy myself without you?” Vax asked softly, reaching over and taking his hands.

Percy was quiet for a moment before the tears flooded back in with renewed strength, leaving him choking. Vax didn’t hesitate, taking him into his arms, letting him cling on as tight as he needed to. It was hard not to cry himself, listening to the agony that came pouring out like poison from a wound. It was so clear that years and years worth of pain had been locked inside him and were leaving him in one rush.

All he’d been missing had been someone to hold him, someone to tell him it was okay, someone who would say here, hold on to me, it will end.

How long had Percy been living without the reassurance that if he cried, someone would hear him?  

It could have been a lifetime before the tears finally ran their course, Vax didn’t care. But eventually Percy was left choking on air rather than salt water, chest heaving as his body dragged in deep breaths to replace what he’d lost.

“Easy, nice and easy,” Vax encouraged, placing a hand on his back, “You’re okay.”

Percy seemed to be calming down for a few moments until his eyes bulged suddenly and he threw himself to the side, vomiting copiously into the fountain.

Vax winced, reaching over quickly to save his glasses that were about to slip off, “Yeah, we’re never getting invited back…”

“Good,” Percy panted weakly, managing to right himself, “This whole night was a mistake. I don’t know why I keep trying to make this day anything other than a fucking disaster.”

“Well...I think that might be reasonable,” Vax said placatingly, “Given what I’ve come to understand about this day…”

Percy hunched in on himself, guilt clear as day on his face, “I didn’t tell you. I’m sorry. It’s just...it’s so hard to say the words out loud…” This voice grew dangerously thick and fragile.

“Darling, I understand,” Vax murmured, hand making slow, comforting circles across his back, “I’ve been there.”

That caught his attention. Vax hesitated, ready to see the same pity and condolence he’d been seeing in everyone’s eyes for years, the kind that made him feel vaguely ill.

But it didn’t come. The two men looked at each other the way two people who had been blindly fighting their way through a storm would, when they suddenly reached the eye at the very centre and, in the silence, realised they hadn’t been as alone as they thought.

“Who?” Percy asked softly.

“Our mother.”

And just like that he could see her face again, he could hear her voice, feel her fingers combing through his hair. Vax’ildan had a strong, deep resentment of every single piece of his DNA that had come from Syldor bar one. Whichever piece had given him an elf’s exceedingly good memory. Otherwise, who knew how much of his mother he might have lost.

Percy’s hand took Vax’s, fingers threading together, holding on tight. Vax managed to smile, even if it was a little shaky.

Nothing else came of that but both knew it was okay.

“I...I just didn’t expect all that,” Percy finally admitted, sighing deeply, “I didn’t expect the speech about them, actually talking about what happened...but it was, um, the picture. I couldn’t take that.”

Vax nodded slowly, “Have you not…”

Percy shook his head quickly, “No. Even looking at my sister is hard. It must be the same for her, I guess that’s why she ran to the opposite end of the country.”

Vax gently leant his head against Percy’s shoulder, “Do you want to talk about what happened?”

There was a long pause before he could find the right words. Having to open up something you’d hidden away for years wasn’t a simple task, not when every nerve in your body is screaming at you to do the exact opposite.

“I don’t really know what exactly my family did to piss them off,” Percy eventually began, “I don’t want to know either. I don’t care how it started, I care that it’s finished.”

“Who’s them?”

Percy swallowed hard, “The Briarwoods.”

Then it all came out, disjointed and rambling and disconnected but Vax edited it in his own mind after the fact. How one night at dinner after the family had welcomed two guests, a married couple of wealthy socialites, into their home Percy had begun to hear screaming.

He couldn’t remember a lot of the details, which was understandable and probably merciful. What he did remember was the sound of gunfire, muffled barks of exploding muzzles echoing through the hallways of the family home. He remembered blood pooling on the hardwood floors. He remembered pleading. He remembered laughter.

The only thing he could then say for certain was that he ended up outside, running for as long as his body could physically manage before collapsing at Keyleth’s door, his friend from school the only person his fevered mind could think to turn to.

When the sun rose the next day, every paper and news anchor in the city was reporting that his entire family had been killed in a robbery gone wrong. Everyone save himself, who was missing, and his youngest sister Cassandra, who was saved by the intercession of those same guests, the Briarwoods. He recalled a tearful Delilah Briarwood on the news, saying she only wished they could have done more.

In the exact same voice Percy had heard laughing in the blood spattered hallway.

Percy wasn’t fit to leave Keyleth’s sofa for the next few months, nearly broken clean in two by grief. So everything just happened around him, the grateful Cassandra signing over the family’s entire holdings to the Briarwoods in the absence of her brother, the whole company being seized, the locks on every property the de Rolo’s had owned being changed, barring Percy from any kind of financial help.

When he was finally well enough to open his eyes, to face the world around him, he found that he was completely and utterly abandoned by it.

Vax tried to absorb all that, heart hammering in his chest, “So...what did you do?”

“Kiki was happy for me to stay with her but…” Percy pulled a face, “I wasn’t fit to be around anyone. I wasn’t well, I was...drinking a lot. She kept trying to get me to go to therapy but that would mean people knowing I was alive and, with the Briarwoods still out there, with all of the money and protection I’d lost, I didn’t that that was such a good idea…”

“How did no one know?” Vax felt anger in the back of his throat, “Didn’t they investigate? Work out that the people who were pretty much strangers that had come to the house might have had something to do with the murders that happened that very night?”

Percy shrugged, “They had magic and money on their side. Delilah was a powerful magic user but...well, I doubt it was ever really needed. You’d be surprised how much suspicion and supposed authority can be turned aside by putting coin in the right pockets.”

Vax scowled down at the stones, feeling the injustice but also the truth of that burn in his chest. He’d seen Syldor do it enough times.

“So...I got a job as a mechanic. My father had always told me my tinkering would be nothing but a distraction but it was what got me through those years. That and not caring that the cars I was fixing were obviously stolen and I was being paid off the books.”

“Seriously?” Vax couldn’t help being a little impressed by that.

Percy gave a wayn smile, “If any police officer had looked in my workshop, they’d have found enough to put me in jail for a very long time. But bribery is not just the purview of the rich, thank the gods…” he looked back at his hands, “So I spent a long time not being Percival de Rolo. I just made as much money as I could, tried desperately to keep myself alive and spent years thinking of how to rescue my sister and make the Briarwoods suffer.”

The tone of Percy’s voice in that moment worried Vax, his smile falling into a concerned frown, “Understandable…”

Percy didn’t seem to pick up on it, “I was going to do something stupid. Very stupid. But fortunately, despite my being a shitty friend and all round terrible person, Keyleth stuck by me. She convinced me to hire a lawyer instead, do it through the courts. Gods, it was a nightmare. It took years longer than I wanted it to, I was on the verge of tearing my hair out or just finally drinking enough that I’d never wake up again.”

Vax’s stomach dropped.

“But then I’d think of Cassie,” Percy’s voice quietened, “How she must have felt as alone as I did. How I couldn’t let her down. Gods only know what they put her through while they had her, she won’t talk to me about it. Every second I was wasting feeling sorry for myself and falling asleep in gutters was another second she was under their power. And if I died then...then her hope died too.”

“But you did it,” Vax said quietly, squeezing his hand, “I’m not a big news watcher but I remember it a little now, I just never connected it to you. How you got the Briarwoods convicted, got custody of your sister back, everyone saw them for what they were. I remember everyone talking about how you were a hero, Percy.”

Percy grunted, nudging the wine bottle over with his toe so it’s contents spilled across the stones, “Maybe. But there’s still days I wonder if I wouldn’t have been happier just building myself a gun and shooting them both in the heart.”

“You wouldn’t,” Vax said firmly, turning him a little so they were facing each other, “And you didn’t. And that makes you better than them, Percy. That’s what makes you a hero.”

Percy managed to meet his eyes, though he still looked so young and so scared, “Then why does it hurt so much?”

“Because what happened to you was awful,” Vax said without hesitation, touching his face with a gentle hand, “It was unimaginably awful, most people couldn’t have survived it. And you’re allowed to feel that hurt. You’re allowed to cry. But I promise, one day, this pain will be manageable. You’ll be able to carry it.”

“How?” Percy whispered brokenly, desperation in his eyes, “I...I just can’t see how. I’m not strong enough.”

“I’ll help you be,” he murmured, stroking his thumb back and forth across his cheekbone, “You don’t have to do it alone.”

Percy swallowed hard, resting his forehead against Vax’s for a long moment. Sometimes words just weren’t enough.

Eventually he mumbled, like a child tired after a long day, “I’d like to go home now.”

“That sounds good to me, darling,” Vax smiled, “Let’s go brush your teeth, huh? Cos your breath is really...interesting right now.”

Percy laughed weakly, letting the half elf pull him to his feet, “Wine and vomit. Sorry your sugar daddy turned out to be a huge mess.”

“Ah, I’m sure there’s way worse than you out there,” Vax put his arm around the taller man, glad then he was wearing heels or the effect would be a little ruined, “And you have better reason than most.”

It took a few moments for their car to be brought around to the front of the house. A few moments to sit in a stronger breeze and catch their breath, to let the tears dry on Percy’s cheeks and for them both to realise that they’d had nothing to eat all evening and would definitely be stopping for a McDonalds on the way home, if they could convince their chauffeur to go through the drive through.

Feeling more exhausted than he ever had in his life, feeling like he might be on the way towards some kind of healing, Percy murmured, “You know...sometimes I think Percy de Rolo died that day too. Like I haven’t been myself since.”

Vax looked over at him, through his rapidly unravelling hairdo, strands of black hair falling into his eyes. The party behind them, faint with distance, had become just a soft background to their soft little moment.

Vax’ildan you poor fucking fool.

“I like who you are now, Percy.”

[hale-of-stiles-heart]

season of giving

Please forgive the shitty title and the fact I’m posting Christmas fics in the middle of November. Also on ao3!

Yet another seemingly endless week of grueling Quirk training and intense practice rescue missions meant that when the long weekend before Christmas rolled around Kirishima felt totally justified in lounging on the common room couch all day with no intention of doing anything else.

Armed with a ten foot long charger cable courtesy of his bro Kaminari, his phone (with its new custom ordered Crimson Riot case), and a family size bag of barbecue potato chips, Kirishima was set for the day. He didn't plan on moving from his spot unless absolutely necessary.

Which translated into him only getting up to either use the bathroom or grab some more food from the kitchen, usually pizza rolls, cheese puffs, and cheddar popcorn. He totally had his priorities in order.

With Christmas only a few days away, Kirishima figured he was allowed to let himself relax for a day or two before launching headfirst back into training once winter break was over. Besides, with how their first year at UA had gone so far, they all deserved a tropical vacation.

For a month. At least. Complete with complimentary room service and free Wi-Fi.

But for now, lying on the couch while checking his social media and occasionally texting back and forth with Tetsutetsu would have to do. Even if Iida had scolded him for having his feet on the couch, vehemently claiming that it wasn't proper etiquette.

But it wasn't like it was bothering anyone. Kirishima was the only one in the common room, after all.

Most of the class had gone out for the day, taking the rare opportunity the long weekend provided to leave campus (with one of the teachers chaperoning, of course) for a day out.

It had mostly been Ashido's idea, encouraged by Uraraka and Hagakure. She had loudly bemoaned the lack of anything to do at breakfast, complaining about her boredom into her bowl of Fruity Pebbles.

Hagakure had enthusiastically agreed. Sighing into her morning cup of hibiscus tea, she had claimed they should all do something together as a class.

It was Uraraka who had taken the initiative to actually do something about it. Wheeling around to point at a startled Iida, still in his slippers and pajamas, Uraraka had cheerfully announced that if the class representative approved it, the teachers would have to let them.

A vigorous debate had erupted at that; people discussing where they should go and what they should do, how they would craft a convincing argument for the principal, how they could actually convince Iida to go along with it. It had taken most of the morning but eventually, everything had been sorted out.

Now, Kirishima was alone in the common room, almost the entire class opting to go on the little day trip to lunch and karaoke with Ectoplasm. According to rumor, their math teacher was amazing at singing both the main and backing vocals simultaneously.

Aside from Kirishima, only a small handful of students had turned down the invitation to go on the trip, remaining on campus.

Koda, shy as ever despite his many, valiant attempts to become more assertive and outspoken, had decided to hang back to avoid participating in any potentially embarrassing karaoke performances. Instead, he was studying in his room while spending some quality time with his pet bunny.

Kirishima could sympathize. He might be manly as hell but the thought of getting up on stage in front of a crowd, even one made up of his friends, and singing sent an all too familiar pulse of anxiety through him.

Shoji had opted to remain on campus to do his usual routine of jogging around campus for a few hours before meeting up with some guys from Class B and the General Studies class to work out in one of the private gyms. His work ethic was insane.

Kirishima couldn't help but respect it. It was totally manly.

Tokoyami, too, had decided to stay on campus rather than go out with the rest of class. Shrugging when invited, he had admitted that he was still rather tired and was going to spend the day catching up on his sleep.

Predictably, Bakugo had turned down the offer to go with the others. When they had asked him if he wanted to go with them, he had just sneered and told them all to piss off and leave him the hell alone.

Typical Bakugo. Leave it to him to still be his usual grumpy self even with Christmas looming on the horizon.

Kirishima was the only other one who had decided not to go with the others, shocking the entire class with his decision. But he had his reasons.

Because as fun as karaoke with his friends sounded, he just wanted to unwind and relax a little bit. As outgoing as he could be, sometimes he just needed some good old peace and quiet, some time to himself to recharge.

And that meant sprawling out on the couch on a nest of comfy throw pillows and cozy blankets that he had carefully arranged by hand while looking at memes and catching up on his Netflix 'to watch' list, his attention bouncing back and forth between the TV and his cell phone.

He was a master of multitasking. Even if that meant he missed a key plot point or two in favor of sending Kaminari any and all memes involving Pikachu.

He was on his second movie of the afternoon after rewatching an old All Might flick. It was some highly-acclaimed, five star rated teen comedy about the trials and tribulations of attending a typical high school and all the shenanigans involved in dating.

He was about halfway into the movie (the two leads had finally started dating) when he heard Bakugo come downstairs.

He didn't even have to look up to know who it was. He could tell just by the loud, heavy stomping down the staircase that it was the blond. Even his footsteps were angry.

It was beyond ridiculous (who the hell had angry footsteps?) but Kirishima couldn't help but smile. It was just so Bakugo.

"Hey, man!" Kirishima greeted automatically without bothering to sit up, too busy typing a message to Tetsutetsu on his phone, answering his friend's question about what he was doing.

Apparently, Class B had come up with the same idea as Class A and decided to go out for the day, too. According to Tetsutetsu, Vlad King was taking them out to an arcade and a movie.

Of course, that jerk Monoma had taken credit for coming up with the idea. Though Tetsutetsu was very adamant that Kendo was, in fact, the one who'd had the stroke of genius.

"The fuck are you still doing here?" Bakugo grunted in response as he made his way to the kitchen, socked feet loud against the tile floor. "Figured you'd be out with the rest of the extras."

"Hey!" Kirishima barked, sitting up sharply to look at Bakugo who had his head buried in the fridge. Kirishima pouted at the back of Bakugo's head, pointing out, "I'm not an extra! You know my name, even if you barely use it!"

When Bakugo just grumbled something unintelligible and vaguely insulting under his breath, Kirishima shrugged and laid back down in his little nest of pillows and blankets. Whatever.

It wasn't like he expected Bakugo to actually admit anything. That wasn't Bakugo's way.

Which put a bit of a downer on their burgeoning relationship since, as of a month ago, they were officially dating. Officially as in they occasionally had dinner alone together in Bakugo's dorm room and had kissed exactly four times.

That totally qualified as dating, right?

Admittedly, Kirishima wasn't totally sure but private dinners and kissing sure sounded like dating to him. Even if Bakugo refused to give a straight answer whenever he asked if they were in fact dating.

He would roll his eyes and snort, quickly changing the (usually to something else he knew Kirishima was passionate about) and talk in circles until Kirishima completely forgot what he had asked in the first place. Sometimes it really sucked to have such a smart maybe-boyfriend.

Kirishima was too lost in his thoughts about the potential existence of his romantic relationship with Bakugo that he didn't even notice said blond hurry back upstairs before returning a few minutes later, mouth set in a harsh line. Expression still stormy, he unceremoniously tossed something into Kirishima's lap.

Caught off guard, Kirishima immediately went on high alert, bracing himself for an attack. Sitting up so fast he nearly gave himself whiplash, his eyes quickly scanned the room, fruitlessly searching for any immediate threats to either himself or Bakugo.

Eventually, after making sure there was no villain about to attack, his eyes finally drifted to what Bakugo had thrown at him. To his immense shock, it was a present.

It was a relatively small box, only around five by six inches, wrapped in pristine white wrapping paper so pale it looked like a sheet of freshly fallen snow. A length of shiny red ribbon was curled around the middle of the box, ends tied together in an intricate bow.

It looked like something out of a sappy Christmas movie, bright and shiny and perfect. It was so flawless, attention paid to every detail of the wrapping, that it couldn't have possibly come from anyone other than Bakugo.

The same Bakugo who was standing by the side of the couch, arms crossed over his chest and a deep frown on his face. Still wary, Kirishima glanced between Bakugo and the present in his lap.

Embarrassingly slow, Kirishima carefully put it together in his head. Looking up at Bakugo, he smiled widely and hazarded, "You got me something?"

Bakugo just rolled his eyes and snapped, "Just open the damn present."

Kirishima didn't need to be told twice. Sitting up straighter, he eagerly untied the pretty bow Bakugo had made, feeling somewhat guilty about messing up what had clearly taken quite a bit of effort.

But his excitement outweighed his bit of guilt and he quickly discarded the red ribbon, setting it aside on his lap. The white wrapping paper was much easier to get through; all it took was a hardened fingertip dragged down one side of the wrapped box and the wrapping paper fell open like a book to a reader's favorite page.

Bakugo impatiently tapped his foot as he waited for Kirishima to continue opening the small cardboard box he had uncovered. Kirishima, never one to disappoint, immediately popped the lid off the box, reaching inside to sort through a sheet of tissue paper to find his gift.

Had anyone else been watching, the reveal would have been rather anticlimactic but not to Kirishima.

Eyes wide as saucers, Kirishima gaped down at the small, unassuming object in the box. It was a movie ticket.

Bright red with gold embossed lettering announcing the name of the movie theater, it was a movie ticket to the new Crimson Riot movie that had only just released its first trailer less than two weeks ago. The Crimson Riot movie that Kirishima had been waiting for his whole life.

"Dude!" Kirishima gasped, looking up at Bakugo with a mix of awe and disbelief. "You got tickets to the Crimson Riot movie?! How the hell did you manage that?! They don't even have a release date yet!"

Bakugo just shrugged. "My parents worked with the costume department for the movie."

"What?!" Kirishima yelped, eyes somehow widening even further. "That's so awesome! Why didn't you tell me?"

"Wasn't allowed to," Bakugo explained with a negligible shrug. "My parents had to sign some bullshit non-disclosure agreement thing. But the trailer's out now so it's whatever."

Kirishima just smiled, reaching back into the box again. He felt around the bottom for a moment, frowning to himself before looking back up at Bakugo. "Hey, where's your ticket?"

"What're you talking about?" Bakugo asked, looking and sounding genuinely confused.

Swinging his legs over the side of the couch to turn and face Bakugo fully, Kirishima smiled softly. "Yeah, dude, if I'm going, I wanna go with you!"

A faint pink blush blossomed over Bakugo's cheeks, dyeing the tips of his ears a light red. Ducking his head, he scratched the back of his neck and grumbled, "Alright. I'll see if they can get one for me."

Smiling, Kirishima placed the ticket back into the box and set it on the side table, shoving the ripped wrapping paper off his lap to stand up. Curling his arms around Bakugo's waist, he softly thanked him, "Thank you, man. It means a lot."

Bakugo just gave a short nod, face blushing a darker shade of pink. Kirishima's heart swelled in his chest, a fitting facsimile of the Grinch.

Maybe Bakugo really was his boyfriend, Kirishima thought as he leaned in to press his lips to Bakugo's. After all, they had kissed exactly four times.

Five times. Six times. Seven. Eight. Nine...

[lost-in-hyrule-field]

Thunder (Day 2)

Guess who’s already behind! Well, it’s Monday somewhere. 

Read Part One Here

Rauru was a compact town— small, but in a way that made it seem more bustling, even as the sun began to dip on the horizon.

Zelda readjusted the cloak, feeling eyes following her in the street and watching her through darkened windows.

She told Link, and he nodded. “We probably are being watched.”

She clutched at his arm before realising the gesture had pulled the cloak away, expoing her shift. “Should we be worried?” she asked, hastily readjusting.

Link shook his head. “This town’s out of the way enough that they don’t get too many visitors, and most people have been here for a few generations.  Combine that with the monster attacks that have been happening recently, and they’ve got a right to be suspicious.”      

She nodded, but still felt on-edge until they reached the town’s only inn— The Miller and Pardoner— a low, smoky building made of darkened wood.

“We’ve only got one room available,” the burly man at reception said brusquely, eyes lingering on the sword at Link’s hip.

“That’s fine,” Link said, without missing a beat. “My wife and I are just looking for somewhere to stay for the night.” Zelda tried not to let her confusion show on her face.  

“Just the one night?” the man asked, and Link nodded. “That’ll be 80 Rupees.”

Link’s eyebrows shot up. “80 Rupees? I could get a bed for 20 in any other town.”  

The man was clearly losing what little patience he had. “Well then, go there. This bed is 80.”

Link scowled, but took out his wallet and handed over a few red gemstones.

The man took his time counting, even holding one up to the light to check its authenticity before handing a large skeleton key to Link. “It’s the third door on the left. Let me or one of the girls know if there’s anything you need,” he said, apparently pacified by the new money in his pocket.

“Thanks,” Link said, his face still set. “Would you send some hot water to our room. Make sure it’s been boiled.”

“Of course, sir.”

Link placed a hand on the small of Zelda’s back and led her toward the room.

“Cissa! Boiling water to room 5,” she heard the innkeeper shout behind her.              

“Your wife?” Zelda asked.

Link, who had been muttering about “highway robbery” as he shut the heavy wood door looked over at her sheepishly. “I’m sorry, Princess. They probably wouldn’t have given me the room if they didn’t think we were married. I’ll sleep on the floor. I just didn’t want to sleep outside tonight.”  

“Why not?” Sleeping outside sounded lovely to her. Cool breezes and lush grass and millions of stars overhead.

“There was a red sunrise this morning. And now it smells like thunder,” he answered cryptically as he took off his hat and tossed it on the bed. Then he added apologetically, “I really had planned on getting separate rooms. I’m not trying to take advantage.” She almost asked, ‘of what?’ before realising what he’d meant.  

She sat down on the brightly coloured quilt, worrying the edge of the cloak in her fingers as he began rummaging in his pack again.

He sat up when someone knocked solidly on the door, and she watched his hand hover instinctively over the hilt of his sword as he answered the door.

A slim woman with a tired face awkwardly held a shallow copper basin  under her arm and a pitcher full of water in her hand. “You ask for boiled water?”

Link nodded, taking the pitcher from the woman. He handed over a few Rupees and she gave him the basin.

He nudged the door closed with his foot and set the basin and pitcher down on the bedside table before going back to rummaging.

Zelda swung her feet idly, wanting to say something, but unsure of what.      

“Is 80 Rupees a lot?”

He sighed slightly as he fished out a wad of whitish fabric and sat on his heels looking at her. “It’s more than I’d like to pay, but it’s nothing I can’t afford. I just don’t like to spend money on this kind of thing if I don’t have to.”

She breathed out a soft, “Oh,” as he stood up, undoing his belt buckle and propping his scabbard against the wall.

“I’m sorry about this,” he muttered apologetically before quickly stripping off his tunic and undershirt.

She blinked in surprise. Why was he apologising? Was shirtlessness improper? Would he have apologised if it wasn’t?

She was contemplating turning around when she saw his chest.

“What happened to you?”  

He glanced over at her guiltily, but didn’t stop unwinding the large, stained bandage wrapped around his chest and over his shoulder. “I got burned and then stabbed.”  

Her eyes widened as the bandage fell away. “That looks horrible.”    

He gave a lopsided shrug as he poured some water into the basin and wet a clean looking rag. “They’re not the worse I’ve gotten, but I think they’ll scar pretty badly.”

She chewed her lip, not sure if it was rude to look at him but equally unsure of where else to look; he sat down, wincing as he began dabbing the exposed wounds. Suddenly, he hissed through his teeth, dropping the rag and clenching his free hand.

She was on her feet in a moment; “What’s wrong?”  

“Nothing,” he said, though the pained look on his face contradicted him. “It just hurt more than I thought it would.”

He picked up the cloth again, but she took it from his hand. “Let me.”

“Princess, no,” he said lamely as she bent over him. “You don’t need to do this.”

She ran the cloth lightly over the burn. “You saved me. And paid for the room. This is the least I can do.”

She wasn’t sure, but the burn looked severe— blistered and oozing. She heard his breath hitch whenever she touched it. “What did this to you?” she asked softly.

She paused her ministrations, letting his breath steady.

“The Thunderbird.”

“What’s a Thunderbird?”

He closed his eyes— remembering— his brow furrowed. “It was a monster or a demon or a god or something. The Fokka worshiped it like a god, at least. It almost looked almost human, but it was all wrong. It had huge wings and talons and these glass eyes and the most awful smile. It smiled the whole time, it didn’t even stop when it was dead. He just lay there grinning.” Link trailed off, own eyes slightly glassy and fixed on something far away.

Rain began to fall softly against the windows.

She laid a hand on his arm and softly called his name. His eyes focused and found hers.

“Sorry. It summoned fireballs. Which is how I got this,” he nodded at his shoulder.

“Why was it called the Thunderbird if it summoned fire?” she asked, wondering if she was already supposed to know.

The corners of his mouth twitched. “Turns out its weakness was thunder. I could only hit it after I used that spell.”

Her eyes brightened. “You can do magic? Will you show me?”  

He nodded. “Not right now. But when we’re back out on the road I will. The impressive looking ones don’t generally go over well when I do them inside of towns.”

She grinned broadly and thanked him. He returned a slightly pained smile.

“How did you get this?” She turned her attention to the narrow cut snaking across his ribs, crudely stitched up with dark thread. “Did you do these yourself?”

He nodded, sighing deeply. “That was my own shadow. I had to fight it to get the triforce.”

“What was that like?” His face darkened for a moment, almost too quickly for her to notice. But then it faded into sadness. “I don’t want to talk about it.”

She watched a range of emotions flit across his face, too fast to name any of them, and on a sudden impulse, pressed her lips to his forehead.

“Princess?” he murmured, surprised.

“Thank you. For doing all of this to save me.”

He looked like he was going to say something but thought the better of it, and, after another moment responded, “It was my duty.”      

“Link, I’m not letting you sleep on the floor. You’re injured.”

“Princess, I’ve slept in far worse places in much rougher shape. And I’d never let you sleep on the floor.”

Thunder rumbled outside as he squared his shoulders. Truth be told, she had no desire to sleep on the floor either.

In a fluid movement, so scooted further towards the wall and patted the empty space next to her on the bed. “So just sleep here with me.”

She saw a look of shock flit across his face before transforming back into stoic resolve. “Princess, I couldn’t.” “Link, don’t be ridiculous. I have no intention of assaulting you in the middle of the night. And I trust you.”

She looked at him sternly, lit softly by the candle in his hand. His chest was still bare save the clean bandage he had shown her how to tie.

“I will order you to sleep in this bed if I have to.” Could she give him orders?

After a moment, he acquiesced, blowing out the candle and pulling back the quilt to slide stiffly into bed beside her.  

She listened to his breathing, deep and steady, and could feel him relax into the mattress as he drifted closer to sleep. She wasn’t sure if she would ever feel the need for sleep again.

A flash of lightning tore across the sky, momentarily illuminating his profile in sharp outline. She was sure she remembered him from the before. Or someone who was very nearly him. Waiting just beyond what she could reach.

“Did they forget me?” It was barely a whisper; she was sure he didn’t hear her.

“What?” Link asked groggily.

“Did my family forget me?”

“No. Every first daughter of the royal family is named Zelda after you, so that they’d never forget.”

“But they left me in that desolate place. How could they just leave?” Her voice was barely a whisper.

He reached across under the quilt and took her hand, squeezing gently. “I’m sorry.”

(This is the Thunderbird, BTW)          

Check out my Fanfic masterlist to find the rest of this, and maybe something new to read as well.