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fanficimagery · 4 years ago

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Hell Takes Riverdale pt. II

Imagine moving to Riverdale while your father has some business to attend to. While there, you meet some people you find yourself growing attached to. (In which the other three most important serpents accept Y/N and shit goes down).

You can find part one right HERE.

Words: 12.9K Author’s Note: Violence. Somewhat.

For the next couple of days, you're a little bummed that no one other than Jughead texts you to see what you're up to. You respect your friends' decision to distance themselves, but it still hurts. And not even Jughead's words of assurance are enough to ease your mind.

Your mood sours even more when you and your dad are visited by the Plague Kings who are rather pushy and wondering about when their Queen will return to finally marry a Prince of their choosing. Lucifer managed to make you bite your tongue, answering their questions with questions of his own and annoying them enough that they returned to Hell rather quickly.

"I am not marrying Caliban, dad," you tell him. "The only reason they're pushing this marriage is because they don't like a woman in charge. You have no idea how close I am to just putting Lilith in charge in my absence."

Lucifer chuckles. "Fret not, darling. As soon as Riverdale sees the error of their ways I will be returning to Hell to reclaim my throne." You frown and your dad's smile turns genuine, not a hint of mockery in his tone or expression. "I wanted you to rule Hell, but you've seem to have found your footing here on Earth."

"Dad.."

"So I'll reclaim Hell and leave you with Riverdale. All I want for you is to be happy, my darling daughter, and if those in Riverdale give you that happiness, then who am I to take that away and make you rule a place where your subjects would see you dead rather than on the throne?"

"I don't know about that," you mumble. "The only ones speaking to me right now are Jughead and FP."

"The others will come around. Trust me. Especially little miss Pinky. She's been yelling at the boys to get their head out of their asses."

"Yeah? If that were the case then she would have visited me herself with or without the boys."

"Give them a bit more time. It's like FP said- they're a loyal bunch. They just need to wrap their minds around a few things."

"If you say so." You watch as your dad fiddles with his cufflinks. "Well while you're out ruining lives, I'll be downstairs in the theatre. I don't feel like going out tonight."

Lucifer chuckles. "Sweetheart, you haven't been out in the last few nights. Or to school for that matter, but I get it. Shall I tell your friends where you are if they ask?"

"I don't care, dad. Tell them whatever you want."

Before your dad can leave, you head downstairs to the basement where you set up a movie theatre in your free time. Closest to the stairs, a kitchenette of sorts was installed so you didn't have to go far for snacks, a projector hung from the center of the ceiling and was pointed towards the back wall where a large white screen was installed. There's a large sofa in the middle of the room, which is larger than a king sized bed, and a speaker in every corner of the room so you can really enjoy whatever movie or show you watch.

After turning on the projector and searching for something to watch on your laptop, you settle down in the middle of the sofa and snuggle down with a blanket and pillows. You're watching a show where each episode is about a different murder mystery and you're two episodes in when the doorbell rings. You groan and remain laying down, hoping whoever is at the door goes away, when it rings again.

Pausing the show, you roll out of your haven of comfort and trudge upstairs. You yank open the front door upon the third ringing of the bell and not even the sight of three faces you'd been longing to see is enough to pull you from your funk. "What?"

Toni's eyebrows raise at your tone and the two boys grin at your pouty expression. Sweet Pea reaches forward, tugging on a loose strand of hair. "And to think you're the daughter of the devil. You're as adorable as an angry kitten."

You slap at his hand, exhaling loudly as the three of them chuckle. "What are you guys doing here?"

"Can't we visit our friend?" Fangs shrugs. Your expression softens just so at the casual mention of him calling you their friend. "It's been a few days. We missed you glaring the Ghoulies into submission at school."

"That and we might have overheard your dad telling FP about some demons demanding you return to Hell and marry some douchebag prince," Toni says. "No way are you running off and getting hitched before you tell us what the hell that is all about."

You glance between all three of them and, seeing as they're trying, you decide to let them in. "If you're going to stay, shoes come off. We're going to be in the theatre."

"Theatre?" Sweet Pea wonders.

Finally grinning, you step back from the door and gesture them inside. Seeing that you're in socks, Toni readily kicks off her boots. Fangs shrugs and does the same, and Sweet Pea sighs before toeing off his own boots as well.

Afterwards you lead them down into the basement and choke down a laugh when Toni gasps at your setup. "We've been having sleepovers and movie nights at my trailer when you had this beneath your house?!"

"Well to be fair, I couldn't bring any of you over because I couldn't risk anyone from Hell popping in while I had you over." Toni, Sweet Pea, and Fangs all tense and you crawl onto the sofa to get comfortable. "But they've been chased away for now so there's no worry." Slowly but surely your friends crawl in, but only Toni is brave enough to sit directly next to you. Fangs stays on Toni's other side while Sweet Pea lays across the end of the sofa. "So any questions before I restart my murder mystery marathon?"

"Well you can start with these plague kings or whatever the hell your dad was talking about," Sweet Pea says. "What's their deal?"

You sigh, dragging a blanket to cover your lap. "So the thing is," you start to tell them, "the throne was never meant to be mine. Lucifer had his sights set on his first born daughter since she's a witch-"

"Witches exist?!" Fangs exclaims.

"Yep. So do a lot of other things," you muse. "I'd stay away from Greendale if I were you." His eyes widen, but Toni and Sweet Pea merely chuckle. "Anyway, my sister was supposed to take after my dad, but she refused him. She was raised to believe Lucifer was the ultimate evil and she didn't want to follow in his footsteps."

"So when do you come in?" Toni asks.

"About a few years ago," you admit. "When my sister refused him, Lucifer sought me out since I'm only a couple hours younger. He brought me into the fold, showed me and told me everything I'd need to know, and I accepted. I learned all about the ins and outs of Hell, learned exactly who is who, but since I'm still half mortal none of the higher ups don't exactly accept me. My coronation almost didn't happen, but it did and now the Plague Kings have been hounding my dad to marry me off to some prince Caliban since he was quite literally made in Hell."

"Well you aren't going through with it, are you?" Sweet Pea asks.

"Ugh. No," you scoff. "I was meant to rule a lot longer than what I have, but no one could have guessed that I'd get attached to a couple of snakes here in Riverdale." You glance at Toni and nudge her arm. "So as of right now, my dad is closing up a few deals before he reclaims his throne down in Hell and I'm left up here in the mortal realm to do as I please. I'll still be obligated to visit Hell, but my main residence will be here."

"And you're okay with that?" Toni asks. "Giving up the title of queen, I mean."

"Of course. I spent many years not knowing who my biological father was and living life like a normal mortal," you say. "I have quite a few perks now, my dad has made a mortal his best friend for the first time ever, and I- I like it here. I like you guys."

"Aww," Toni coos. "You're giving up a throne for us?"

"I guess so." You glance between all three of them. "So are we going to watch something or are we going to play twenty questions all night?"

Fangs glances around, spotting your laptop and pulling it into his lap to search through Netflix. "If we're watching something, we're not watching murder mysteries. Riverdale is weird enough."

Sweet Pea huffs. "You got that right."

"Fine. Pick whatever you want."

Fangs and Sweet Pea settle on the Conjuring much to Toni's dismay and your amusement. You and Toni prop up a mountain of pillows at your back while Fangs uses Toni's thigh as his pillow. Sweet Pea snags a pillow of his own, laying on his side and shoving the pillow between his arm and head as he faces the screen. You turn out the lights, Fangs hits play, and you watch the tale unfold about a haunted house that terrorizes a family. There are a few eerie moments and jump scares that startle all four of you, but only you and Toni roll into each other giggling while the boys swear at you.

Then after the first movie ends, everyone takes a pee break and you lead Toni into your room so she can find something more comfortable to wear seeing as they plan to watch a couple more movies. When you get back down into the basement, you smile as you realize the boys have made full use of the kitchenette and have snacks and drinks waiting for you all on the sofa, and the Conjuring 2 waiting to be played. When the boys complain about the unfairness of your comfort clothes, you tell them you can grab them pajama bottoms from your dad's dresser for them. They hesitate and Toni rolls her eyes, telling you to grab some pants for them. And a little while later, after the boys have changed into the cotton pajama pants, you can't help but laugh as they boast about wearing the devil's pants.

As everyone finally settles down, the boys join you and Toni at the sofa's backrest. You and her are in the middle with Fangs on her other side and Sweet Pea on yours. The lights turn out again, the movie plays, and you soak in the closeness of your friends. Halfway through the boys collect the bowls and trash, and take it to the kitchenette. You and Toni stretch out then, laying on your sides in the middle of the sofa with you cuddling her from behind as you face the screen. The boys coo and Fangs dives in front of Toni so she can cuddle him and Sweet Pea hesitantly slides in behind you. You grin at him over your shoulder and then try to focus back on the movie.

"Is this okay?" Sweet Pea murmurs, his large hand squeezing your hip.

His lips brushing the shell of your ear makes you shiver. "Mhm." You pause to clear your throat and lean back a little bit until the back of your shoulder hits his chest. "If, uh, if my dad shows up just ignore his orgy comments."

He chuckles. "What?"

"Apparently orgies are common down in the pits. Everyone's been waiting for the Queen- soon to be Princess again- to have her first one, but I don't think I'll ever be ready for that."

"What!?" The movie is paused and Fangs immediately turns around, Toni grunting but turning as much as she can as well. "You're gonna have an orgy?!"

"What? No!" You laugh. You gulp when you feel Sweet Pea squeeze your hip again. "I just said I don't think I'll ever be ready for that."

"Think being the key word," Toni muses and you groan.

"Well if you agree to one, in Hell or Riverdale, think of me. I'll join." Fangs winks at you and Toni laughs.

"Screw it. Count me in too."

You giggle, shaking your head at them. "Guys, you were literally scared of me days of ago because of who I am and now you wanna have sex with me?"

"Well not with you exactly," Fangs says. "Don't get me wrong, you're hot, but someone's already called dibs and-"

"What?" You frown.

Fangs eyes seem to widen then, momentarily darting over your head. "N-Nothing. Nevermind." Toni giggles at his rambling. "But yeah, orgies. Woo."

Having heard enough, Toni pushes Fangs' forehead away from her so he'll turn around. "Can we table the topic of orgies for now? Let's get back to our movie."

Fangs grumbles but turns around nonetheless and the movie resumes.

You get through the second movie with no problem, but before a third could be chosen a loud crack of thunder interrupts the tranquility of the basement.

"Shit." Sweet Pea is the first to rush off the sofa, followed by Fangs and then Toni. Everyone scrambles upstairs and the front door is thrown open, and all three groan at the drizzle that will no doubt turn into a full blown downpour in no time. "We need to move our bikes."

"The garage," you tell them. "Bring them into the garage." Your hurry towards the kitchen where there's a door that connects to the garage, hitting a switch that opens up the door. You step down, watching as your three friends drive their bikes into the safety of the garage so the rain won't ruin their leather seats. "All good?" You ask as they turn off the engines and dismount.

Another crack of thunder has you flinching and hugging yourself. Sweet Pea eyes you warily and you offer him a feeble smile. "You good?" He asks instead.

"Mhm. I'm just- I'm not a fan of thunderstorms."

Toni grins. "Seriously? You see demons on the reg and you're afraid of a little lightning and thunder?"

"I know. It's dumb. Can we go back downstairs now or do you need another change of clothes? You guys can spend the night if you want so you don't have to drive on slick roads."

"We're hardly even damp," Toni tells you. "We're fine."

You flinch yet again when the thunder cracks, louder now, and Sweet Pea chuckles at you. You frown at him, walking back into your house after hitting the switch to close the garage. The others follow you and you head back down into the basement, readily climbing under the blankets.

"Aw. Don't worry, Y/N. We'll protect you." As Sweet Pea crawls back in, he pillows his head on your chest and wraps an arm around your stomach.

For some reason, being weighed down seems to calm you so you lay one hand on his arm over your stomach and the other around his back to let him know you were okay with his position. Fangs grins at you and Toni smiles warmly, her eyes darting between you and Sweet Pea before the two of them settle down on your other side.

Apparently Fangs has taken it upon himself to pick what you're watching and you're so wrapped up in the fact a thunderstorm is raging outside that you don't mind his choosing of the Fast and the Furious. Then during the second movie in that series, the boys have apparently fallen asleep and you know you'll be joining them soon.

"I think I've figured it out."

Toni's voice startles you and you quickly run your fingers through Sweet Pea's hair, gently scratching at his scalp to calm him back to sleep. "Figured what out?" You mumble.

"That serpent you had your eye on." You freeze and she quietly giggles. "It's Sweet Pea, isn't it?"

You mull over her words for a moment until you exhale softly. "Yes, but I'm pretty sure being the daughter of the devil killed any chance we could have had."

"Are you kidding me? That boy is head over heels," Toni says. "Yes, your true identity threw him off a little, but I mean look at him! He's wrapped around you, head on your tits." You can't help but giggle, frowning at Toni when Sweet Pea stirs yet again. "Shut up. You're gonna wake him up."

"You two are adorable. He's not as aggressive when you're around and I've noticed tonight you smile a little bit brighter when it comes to him. I give you guys a couple of weeks top before someone makes a move."

"You're delusional, Topaz. Get some sleep."

She smiles at you. "Just you wait and see, Morningstar. And besides, you didn't see his face when we were talking about orgies. If looks could kill, Fangs would be dead right now."

"Mhm. We'll see."

Over the next couple of weeks, the three friends of yours seem to be at ease with you once more. Jughead was always at ease with you and your dad, so it was a relief when Toni, Sweet Pea, and Fangs started loosening up as well. There were times, however, when Sweet Pea and Fangs would straighten up whenever your dad walked into the room and that highly amused you every single time.

Your basement seemed to become hangout central and Jughead often joked that it was a shame everyone knew about it now. Which then led to Fangs and Sweet Pea ganging up on him for keeping it a secret.

You, Toni, Jughead, and Sweet Pea find yourselves at Pop's one day while Fangs went to visit a family member. You and Sweet Pea are practically sitting thigh to thigh on one side of the booth with Toni and Jug across from you. Toni, to this day, hasn't let you live it down that you have a crush on her longtime friend and it seems Jughead has now noticed it too. It also doesn't help that Sweet Pea is oddly rather touchy and has taken to slinging his arm across your shoulders whenever you're near- something which sets your heart racing every single time and fighting off a telltale blush that threatens to bloom.

"Alright," Jughead muses as Pop delivers your milkshakes, "so we were meant to celebrate the good news together, but Fangs isn't here so we'll just have celebratory shakes instead."

Your brow furrows. "Celebrate what?"

"You haven't heard?" Toni wonders. "Y/N, your dad bought Sunnyside Trailer Park." Your eyes widen and your friends chuckle at your expression.

"He visited my dad a few weeks ago and was appalled at our living conditions."

"Oh no," you mumble. "He was rude, wasn't he? I'm so so-"

"Actually," Toni interrupts, "he wasn't. "Either the devil has seriously gone soft or he's always been this amazing person because not only did he wipe out rent for everyone in the park, but he's also having the trailers renovated. My grandpa is seriously so happy to have his porch and the leaky roof in his bedroom fixed."

"Oh." You allow yourself to relax. "That's seriously really cool of him," you say. "I wonder why he didn't tell me?"

"Y/N!" Your attention is quickly diverted to Veronica Lodge as she marches up to you, milkshake in hand, and Archie trailing after her as he quietly tries to direct her elsewhere. "What the hell is your dad playing at?"

You frown as you stare up at her, Sweet Pea's arm tightening around you as he tries to pull you closer to him. "Excuse me?"

"Every bank account under my family's name, personal and business, has been frozen. Care to explain?"

It takes a moment for her words to sink in and when they do you hold back a snort that wants to break free. Your father was very vindictive. "I don't know what to tell you, Veronica. I don't put my nose where it doesn't belong. Maybe you should take a page out of my book and stay out of it."

She scoffs. "Please. Daddy has eyes everywhere. We know you're in the thick of things as well. You're not fooling anyone, Y/N. You're exactly like your mafioso father."

"Mafioso? You think my dad is part of the mafia?" You giggle. Toni, Jughead, and Sweet Pea share your amusement. "Oh Veronica," you coo, "the only mafioso in this town is your crooked father. And at that he's not very good at it, is he?"

Before anyone can even blink, the strawberry milkshake in her hand is being up-ended on your face. "Ronnie!" Archie is quick to yank her back, stepping in front of her as Sweet Pea growls and moves to stand up.

But since he's stuck between you and the wall, you raise your arm closest to him and drag him back down by his wrist. With your free hand, you wipe away some of the milkshake from your cheek with your forefinger and pop it in your mouth, sucking it clean. "Delicious," you purr. Grabbing the offered napkin from a still shell shocked Jughead, you wipe more of it out of your eyes. "Hate me all you want Veronica, but your family won't be crawling out of this hole your father dug. Enjoy the luxuries you still have while they last because the Lodge's are done." Veronica huffs, stomping away in a fit of anger. You smirk, chuckling as the other few patrons sitting around stare at you in shock, picking up more napkins to clean your face and shirt when you notice Archie Andrews still standing by the booth. "Yes?"

He shoves his hands in his jean's pockets, staring off in the direction his girlfriend left before looking at you yet again. "All I've been hearing for this past month is what a horrible man your father is." You blink at him, wondering where he's going with this. "So give it to me straight, Y/N. Does my dad have anything to worry about with your dad?"

And oh. Okay. Now you understand why he stayed back and why he's worried. Your father basically ruined the Lodge's, but Archie's never been terrible to you so you decide to ease his mind. "Mr. Andrews has nothing to worry about," you tell him honestly. "Apparently my dad's on the track of doing several good deeds for the town of Riverdale and FP told my dad all about Fred Andrews' hard working nature. He only wants to help those he thinks deserve the help. No strings attached."

"It's true," Jughead tells his friend. "Mr. Morningstar bought Southside High and got jingle jangle out of the halls."

"He bought Sunnyside and wiped out our rent," Sweet Pea says. "There's a crew coming in that's going to start hauling out all the junk and fixing up our trailers."

"In the couple of months that Mr. Morningstar has been here, he's purchased and cleaned up the southside rather than tearing our school and homes down and building over it," Toni tells him. "Could you say Hiram Lodge would have done the same for us?"

Archie shifts uncomfortably under everyone's gaze and you say, "Hiram and my dad had business dealings going back to before we were born. He royally messed up and my dad cleaned it up." You then offer him a faint grin. "My dad is not the horrible person you've no doubt heard about from your girlfriend and her family. Keep that in mind."

The redhead nods. "Thanks. And uh, I'm sorry about Veronica. I tried to stop her."

You shrug. "No harm done. The clothes can be washed. You and me are good, but if your girlfriend steps up to me again I won't be settling things with words."

He huffs a small laugh. "Duly noted." He then glances at the occupant across the booth from you. "See you around, Jug."

As soon as Archie takes his leave, your three friends all converge on you.

"Are you okay?" Jughead immediately asks.

"Girl, you have been blessed with the patience of a million people because I would have lunged across this table if it weren't for your calm demeanor," Toni says.

"I was so close to shanking her," Sweet Pea mumbles.

You snort and swat at his chest with the back of your hand. "It's just a little ice cream, guys. No biggie." You pull at your shirt, nose wrinkling. "I'm just going to go clean up in the bathroom. I'll be back."

"Oh hey," Toni climbs over the back of her seat, hopping out of the booth behind her to meet you, "I have some clothes in my bike's bag if you're interested."

"Yeah. Just bring it to the bathroom."

You head to the bathroom, not caring a bit about your clothes and instead turn on the water at the sink to wash off the stickiness of the ice cream that stayed behind on your skin. Toni appears not a minute later, clothes in hand, and you readily strip out of your jeans right then and there. She doesn't bat an eye and tosses you the pants first.

When you catch them, you give her a deadpan stare which she laughs at. "Leather? Seriously?"

"Put them on, Y/N."

You grumble all the while, putting one leg in and then the other, you almost falling a couple of times as you drag the leather up your legs. Toni is no help, she laughing at your misfortune and then at your exasperated, "Fucking hell. How do you breathe in these?" She tosses the shirt at you next and you glare when you see all the mesh involved. "My tits are gonna be out."

"No they won't. There's material sewn in so there no nip slips. You'll just be showing off the perfect amount of skin."

"I hate you." You strip off your shirt, turning around and stripping off your bra as well. You pull the long sleeve shirt on, frowning when you realize there's only a single band of material that wraps around your breasts. Everything else is see through. "I seriously hate you."

"Yeah well you're about to hate me more."

Toni quickly grabs up your discarded clothing and books it out of the bathroom, you lunging after her. She laughs as she makes a break for the exit and you freeze right before you can enter the main part of the diner. Through the windows you can see her stashing your clothes in the bag on her bike and you mumble threats at her as she re-enters the diner, walking towards the boys.

You've worn a couple of risqué outfits in front of your friends by now, but the shirt makes you feel really exposed. So after gathering your wits, and wishing you could just disappear in a swirl of flames, you march out from behind the wall and towards your friends. Sweet Pea is the first to see you and his eyes widen before they glance up and down your form. Jughead and Toni turn around in their seats, Jug's eyes widening before he laughs and Toni snapping a few photos on her phone. You pout at them as you cross your arms over your chest. "I'm ready to go now. Toni's clothes and I do not mix."

Sweet Pea seems to snap out of his stupor long enough to stand up and shed his jacket, then draping it over your shoulders. You exhale in relief and quickly shove your arms through the sleeves, smiling up at him until Toni coos and your gaze darts to her. If looks could kill, your friend would be seriously maimed.

"So are you guys ready for the Whyte Wyrm?" Jughead asks. "Fangs texted that he's on the way there right now."

"Sure, but we're swinging by my house first so I can get back into my own clothes."

"Do we have to?" Sweet Pea's voice rumbles directly above you. "I'm kind of into this look you have going on right now."

You freeze and glance upward, reaching out to poke his chest. "Don't press your luck, Sweets. Now come on. You're driving me."

"Yes, ma'am," he chuckles and follows after you.

Jughead and Toni watch as their friends leave, grinning at the sight of their friend swamped in Sweet Pea's serpent jacket. "Is it just me or is Sweet Pea seriously sweet on the devil's daughter?"

Toni chuckles. "That's nothing. You should see the way they sleep when we spend the night down in the theatre. You would think Y/N would be wrapped around him, but nope. Sweet Pea uses Y/N as his personal pillow and practically glares Fangs to death every time Lucifer brings up orgies."

Jughead's laugh falters. "O-Orgies?"

"Yeah. Apparently they're part of the norm down in Hell. I'm pretty sure Lucifer is gonna give Pea a heart attack one of these days if he keeps mentioning Y/N having her first one."

He shakes his head, chuckling. "Life with the devil and his daughter just keeps getting weirder and weirder."

"Preaching to the choir, Jug."

You're at home, alone for a change, and making yourself something to eat. Every now and then you just needed a day or two for yourself to decompress and it was something that your new friends seemed to understand. Especially since the Ghoulies started to push back, something having changed within their ranks and making them that much more cocky, and you had your hands full with them. But thankfully, they couldn't reclaim the school.

You manage to eat at least half a plate pasta when your cell rings, the unknown number making you frown. You take a sip of water before answering.

"Hello?"

"Y/N?" Toni's voice wavers over the line. "You need to get down to the hospital."

"Hospital?" You sit a little straighter in your seat. "What happened?"

"It's Jughead." She says. "The Ghoulies and Penny beat him. It's not good, Y/N."

The blood in your veins runs cold. You mind blanks before rage seeps in. "They what?" You seethe.

"FP's a mess. And they also stabbed Fangs, but it's nothing serious. And Sweet Pea-"

"What did they do to Sweet Pea?"

"He's fine." She's quick to assure you. "He's the least injured with a busted lip and bruised eye. He's more pissed and worried about Jug and Fangs right now."

You can feel your body trembling. "Toni, is there anyone around you right now?"

"No. The payphone was down some deserted hallway."

"Good. Give me a few seconds and I'll be right there." You hang up on her, pushing up from your chair and rushing down the hall to put on some shoes. You forgo any type of jacket, your cable knit sweater and plaid skirt just going to have to do. You inhale and exhale deeply, closing your eyes and concentrating on Toni. Once you feel like you've sussed her out, you will yourself to be taken to her and the telltale whoosh of flames lets you know they've done their job. When your eyes open, Toni's staring wide-eyed at you. "Take me to the boys."

Toni numbly nods, turning around and rushing down the hall. You're fast on her heels, your rage still boiling beneath the surface. Especially when you're led to the waiting room where your dad casually sits in a chair and FP paces in front of him. Archie Andrews and Betty Cooper are a few chairs down, and Sweet Pea is not far from them.

You completely pass up your dad and FP, heading straight for Sweet Pea. When he sees you, he attempts to stand but you catch his face in your hands and gently cradle it to examine his wounds. "What happened?"

"Ghoulies," he mumbles. His hands come up to wrap around your wrists, trying to smile reassuringly at you, but then flinching when his split lip stretches. "And Penny. She's back and out for your blood."

"She's dead," you murmur.

Sweet Pea's eyes widen. "Y/N-"

"Don't." You meet his gaze and you can see the concern there. You offer him a feeble smile in return, leaning down and pressing your lips to his forehead. "She will not get away with touching what is mine. She's dead."

As you pull back to make sure he understands you're being serious, you see him gulp and tersely nod. You drop your hands and step back from him, and he's quick to stand. Towering over you, he reaches down and grabs your hand within his own. He seems almost nervous about his move, but you merely squeeze his hand in response and lead him towards FP. Your dad stands as you pass him this time, joining you, Sweet Pea, and the elder Jones in the corner of the waiting room.

"I am so sorry, FP," you tell him.

He glances at you, eyes red-rimmed as he smoothes his hair back with one hand. "Not your fault, kid. I should have known Penny wouldn't have been kept at bay so easily. Or that she'd sit idly by as Lucifer took up Ghoulie territory."

You shake your head at him. "Penny doesn't know what we're truly capable of- she only thinks we're good with our fists and blades. She doesn't know that by touching my boys, she just signed her death certificate."

FP blinks at you as Lucifer chuckles. "Ding dong the witch is dead."

"So dead," you quietly seethe. Glancing up at Sweet Pea, you say, "I need you to take me to where they're laying low."

"I'm not taking you directly to them. It's you they're after, Y/N. Penny knew the only way to make you a loose cannon was to attack those closest to you."

"I am not a loose cannon, Pea. I am focused." You squeeze his hand. "I've never been this focused before, but if you won't take me I'll just get my dad to suss her out and you'll miss all the action."

"We'll take you," FP says. "I wanna be there for her downfall."

"And the Ghoulies," you tell him. "Whoever laid a finger on the boys are all going down."

Sweet Pea sighs. "You're gonna be the death of me." Lucifer full blown smirks and FP cracks a grin at the serpent in distress. "Fine. We'll take you, but you're riding with me."

And if they didn't think you were serious before, they know now seeing as you didn't make a joke about riding with FP like you normally would have given the chance.

Toni steps up to the group then, FP grasping her by the shoulder and leaning in to murmur, "Stay with Jug. We'll be back." She looks at you, but you subtly shake your head and she takes a seat in one of the waiting room chairs.

Hand in hand, you and Sweet Pea stalk out of the hospital with FP at your side. Lucifer decides to hang back as well, saying he's just going to check on Jughead as soon as he can and jumpstart the boy's healing process.

On the back of Pea's bike, you hang on to his waist and let the wind whip at your face and hair. Your rage at Penny and the Ghoulies has overcome you, that not even the sting of the cold air or cold drizzle is enough to faze you. It's about a ten minute ride to the clearing and by the time you get there your rage has made you eerily calm. The bikes are shut off and off in the distance, just beyond a bridge, there are several barrels emitting flames. As you climb off, FP and Sweet Pea stand on either side of you as they glance around your surroundings.

"Whatever you see, let it happen. I won't be responsible for what happens if anyone tries to interfere with what I'm doing."

The both of them mumble their acknowledgements and then you're walking. The clearing seems void of any life, but then the blonde bitch you watched Maze beat down and threaten over a month ago saunters out from between the trees. And she's not alone. About ten to fifteen Ghoulies come out from between the trees behind her and spread out.

"Tall Boy?" You glance at FP and follow his gaze, frowning at the semi-familiar Serpent standing with Penny Peabody.

"Told you going after the Jones kid would bring the little bitch out." Tall Boy chuckles and Penny looks like Christmas has come early.

"What the hell, man?!" Sweet Pea shouts. "You sent the Snake Charmer and her junkie little lap dogs after us? Serpents don't betray Serpents!"

"That's rich coming from you, boy." He huffs. Tall Boy points at FP as he says, "He teamed up with outsiders and practically lets them have free reign of the Whyte Wyrm."

"And don't forget he let his little lap dogs take me out of town and cut me up," Penny says. "But now I'm back, better than ever, and I'm out for blood. That," she points directly at you, "little bitch's blood to be exact."

Sweet Pea steps forward in your defense, but you grab his arm and pull him back. FP steps up to your side again, clearly not letting Tall Boy's betrayal go. "So what? Say you do take out Lucifer and Y/N. What is that going to solve? You're out Tall Boy. Exiled. You have no home here. Not anymore."

He shrugs. "Well then I guess I'll take out their king and rule the Serpents myself."

"I'd like to see you try." Everyone glances at you, your too calm tone seeming out of place for the current confrontation taking place. "Let's go, Tall Boy. You and me. Right here, right now."

"Uh, Y/N?" Sweet Pea says.

You step forward, gaze set on the Serpent in question. "What's wrong, Tall Boy? Are you afraid of a little girl?"

Tall Boy, Penny, and all the hopped up Ghoulies laugh, and you step forward. Tall Boy meets you halfway, grinning. "As soon as I'm done with you, my boys are gonna carve up your boys and then I'm gonna make a quick trip down to the hospital and finish what we started with Jughead."

"Oh Tall Boy," you mockingly smile. "Shut the fuck up."

He lunges forward to grab you, but you're quick to duck into a crouch and send your fist flying into his groin. You slide to the right and kick in the back of his knee, then sweeping his legs out from under him. You slap a hand down on his forehead, Tall Boy's screams resonating around the clearing as he convulses beneath your hand. You glance up and meet Penny's gaze head on. Her eyes widen and you sneer at her, and then you look back down at Tall Boy as you release him.

"Exile is too good for the likes of you," you say as he tries to scramble to his feet. On his forehead, there appears to be three claw marks branded there. "So I want you to run like the hounds of hell are after you, Tall Boy. Because they will be." As if on cue, eerie howls rip through the air and you slowly stand tall. Everyone tenses and glances around, but only Tall Boy seems to be staring at something that only he can see. You glance over your shoulder, grinning as two hellhounds step out from the shadows and brush up against FP and Sweet Pea. The two of them freeze and shift to the side, and you beckon the hellhounds closer to you. They stand at your side, under your palms, and you grin at Tall Boy. "Run, Tall Boy. My babies are hungry."

The hellhounds snarl as Tall Boy turns around to run and you click your tongue a minute later to let the hounds loose. Tall Boy can be heard screaming deep into the windows and you smile innocently at Penny and all the Ghoulies. A Ghoulie steps forward, taking Tall Boy's place next to Penny. His wild and curly hair hangs to his shoulders, and black coal is smeared across his eyes which seem a little too wide for any sober person.

"One down," you muse. "Who's next?"

"What the hell did you do to Tall Boy?" Penny seethes. She steps forward and you smile at her.

"Penny, Penny, Penny," you tut. "You're in no position to be asking questions." Your smile drops as your gaze hardens. "You should have listened and stayed out of Riverdale."

"Who the hell do you think you are, little girl?"

"Why I'm the queen of hell, of course." You smile innocently as lightning suddenly forks across the sky and everyone ducks on instinct. Penny and her ghoulish companion look up before they glance warily back at you, and you smirk. "Now kneel." A moment of silence passes before Penny and her friends laugh. Your smirk drops. "I said kneel!" You snap your fingers and everyone standing across from you falls to their knees. They glance around wildly, not knowing why they listened.

You stalk forward, your feet unknowingly leaving behind smoldering prints and lightning flashes ominously across the sky. "You mortals never listen," you seethe, your voice changing and sending chills down everyone's spine. "And now I'm going to finish what Mazikeen should have done the first time around."

Penny spits at your feet. "Screw you. You don't have what it takes to play with the adults, sweetheart."

"No?" You walk forward until you're just in front of Penny, reaching out and walking your fingers along her forehead until she jerks out of reach. "I command a legion of demons, sweetheart," you mock her. "You have no idea what I'm capable of." Penny opens her mouth to no doubt spew some idiot bullshit and you sigh. "Bored now. Bye bye, Snake Charmer." You shove your palm against Penny's forehead, smiling as a glow emits from your palm and seeps into her head.

Her mouth gapes open as she screams, her own eyes and mouth slowly emitting the same glow from your hand before her screams die out and she falls back. Dead.

Her ghoulish companion stares up at you in fear. "What the fuck are you?"

"Don't you listen, Malachi?" You sweetly coo. His eyes subtly widen at you knowing who he is.

"Queen of Hell. Yeah, I got that," he says. Suddenly his resolve seems to harden. "But what you don't seem to know is that you messed with the wrong ghoul. You see, I overthrow royalty." Before you can blink, his arm is raising and you see the glint of a blade a second too late.

The sharpened metal is embedded in your gut and he laughs cruelly.

"Y/N!" Sweet Pea and FP yell.

But you merely stumble back a single step, glancing down at the knife before you grab the hilt and yank it free. Dropping it, you look at Malachi from under your lashes. "That was a very stupid move." He snorts, but before he can say another word you reach forward with both hands and twist his head violently to the side.

As you glance up at the rest of the Ghoulies, you're met with fearful stares. You want to make each and every one of them suffer, every single face staring up at you guilty for having taken part in putting Jug and Fangs in the hospital. Stalking towards the first Ghoulie, you ignore their whimpers and press a single finger to the middle of their forehead. "Death is too harsh at the moment for the lot of you," you say. The Ghoulie beneath your finger screams before passing out, he falling limp to the ground. "So live your life to the fullest," you say as you touch the next one, "because the moment you cease to live, your soul will be dragged to Hell where you'll be tortured over and over and over again." At the next Ghoulie, you chuckle. "You really shouldn't have touched what was mine."

One by one, the Ghoulies fall unconscious under your hand. The clearing is littered with unconscious junkies, and by the time you turn around FP and Sweet Pea are a lot closer than they were earlier. FP is staring at you like he can't believe what he's just seen, but Sweet Pea's gaze is set on your abdomen where your blood has soaked through your sweater. You glance down, pressing your hand to your wound and then bringing your hand away soaked with blood.

"Oh. Well that's not good." You stumble backwards, but hands are quick to catch you before you can fall. Looking up at your savior, you smile shakily at the boy who had quickly won over your affections. "Hey Pea."

"Hey." His own smile is shaky as well, but the concern is clear as day. "You put on quite the show there, babe. What the hell did you do to the Ghoulies?"

"N-Nothing. Just branded their souls for a f-future trip down to Hell. And I made them forget what they'd seen here so they can't tell anyone."

FP comes up to your side then, grinning. "Smart move, Morningstar. Now come on. Let's get you to the hospital. We need to get you checked out."

Your teeth chatter as you nod. "O-Okay."

You gasp as Sweet Pea literally sweeps you off your feet, one arm beneath your knees and the other supporting your upper back as he walks you towards his bike. Instead of reprimanding him for the sudden movement, you lean your head against his chest and let your eyes fall shut. Gosh, you're so sleepy.

"Hey. Y/N, wake up."

"M'tired."

"I know, babe, but you still need to keep your eyes open."

"Five more minutes."

Sweet Pea sighs. "If you don't open up your eyes, you're gonna miss a shirtless FP."

Your nose wrinkles and a moment passes before you crack open one eye. "You're a dirty rotten liar, Pea."

His upper body shakes with his quiet laughter. "Did you really just open one eye to see if I was telling the truth?"

"I'm injured. Don't mock me."

"You're right. I'm sorry," he muses. "Now come on. I really need you to open your eyes. You need to be alert so you don't fall off the back of my bike."

You groan. "Fine. But when I fall asleep at the hospital, you're not allowed to wake me up."

"Deal."

The steady beeping of a machine is what wakes you, your eyelids feeling too heavy to open. You try turning your head the other way, but the beeping continues and it makes you frown. You manage to flutter your eyelids open, blinking a few times until your vision focuses. The first person you see is Sweet Pea, the boy in question sitting in a chair with his head tilted back and mouth agape. You can hear faint snores coming from him and it makes you smile.

You turn your head the other way, smile blossoming at the two sleeping figures of Toni and Fangs.

"So Sleeping Beauty finally wakes." The gruff voice startles you and you have to pick your head up to see where it's coming from. Across the room from you, in a bed of his own, is a severely bruised Jughead who's eating a cup of green jello. "The bed remote is to your right if you wanna sit up."

You turn to your right, spotting the remote hanging from the bed railing and make a grab for it. Figuring out which button is which, you press the correct one to lift the upper half of your bed. You cringe as you do so, head throbbing suddenly. "How- how long was I out?"

"According to my dad, you've been out for three and half days. I woke up two days ago so I heard all about the craziness that went down the night I was brought in."

"Oh." You glance around, frowning. "Do, uh, do you know where my dad's at?"

"He's been in and out. The three stooges around you haven't given up their seats since you were put in here, so he said to call him when you woke up. I texted him while you were ogling Sweet Pea in his sleep."

"I wasn't-" You pause, sighing as Jughead chuckles. "Whatever." Glancing around again, you say, "What does a girl gotta do to get some food in here?"

As if on cue, the door bangs open and both you and Jughead flinch. Toni, Fangs, and Sweet Pea all startle awake. In walks your father, bags from Pop's in hand, and behind him FP walks in with two trays of drinks.

"You," Lucifer points out, "darling daughter, have a lot of explaining to do."

It's then your friends notice that you're up and awake, and you brace yourself as Toni and Fangs practically climb atop your bed.

"Will you be careful, you dumbasses!" Sweet Pea barks. "She just woke up."

"She just woke up," Fangs mocks him, earning a punch to the back.

You laugh, flinching when Toni's arm lays across your abdomen. Thankfully she notices and quickly readjusts her position, not moving from your side. Fangs, however, gets pulled from your other side and Sweet Pea carefully takes his spot. He maneuvers his arm so it's behind your and Toni's heads.

Glancing up at your dad, you accept the bag of food he holds out to you as he asks, "When exactly did your powers fully manifest? FP and Sweet Pea told me what they witnessed, and a sudden show of power like that is what kept you asleep so long. As well as the blood loss. You completely exhausted yourself."

You shift nervously under everyone's sudden gaze. "I, uh, it's all been slowly manifesting over the past couple of weeks. But then hearing about Jughead, it kind of sped up the process in one fell swoop and well.. FP and Pea saw how that ended."

Lucifer tuts. "You're lucky you didn't kill yourself. You know better than to use so much power while still untrained."

"I know," you mumble. You make quick work of digging into the bag that's resting in your lap, pulling out a burger and unwrapping it. You immediately take a bite, groaning as the taste explodes across your tongue. "Can you lecture me later? I feel like I can eat ten of these."

Your dad wrinkles his nose. "Your mortal side is showing. Swallow before you speak."

"That's what he said," Toni mumbles.

You choke on your food and Sweet Pea immediately starts hitting your back in a panic. Eventually your airway clears and you glare at Toni who's smiling innocently at you. "You're a bitch." She laughs, but then your attention is stolen by FP whose handing you a drink. You grin gratefully at him as you suck up some ice cold Cola through the straw. "I hope I didn't leave you a mess to deal with."

"You didn't." He smirks. "I put in an anonymous tip to sheriff Keller about some Ghoulies who'd looked like they overdosed. I also might have told him they were also the ones involved with Jughead's beating. They ain't getting out anytime soon."

"Good."

Everyone makes themselves comfortable around the shared room, FP sitting next to his son's bed while Lucifer sits next to yours, but Toni and Sweet Pea have you squished between them on the bed while Fangs sits in an empty chair.

You manage to eat three burgers, two cartons of fries, and siphon down three cups of Cola when you notice all eyes are on you. Immediately you can feel the flush burning up the sides of your neck and up to your face. Leaning back, you push the rest of the food away and curl in towards Sweet Pea as the room's occupants start to laugh.

"So are you gonna share those burgers or you gonna wolf down every single one?" Jughead muses.

"Don't mock me. You're lucky I even left anything." Fangs chuckles at your pout and gets up, grabbing up the bags from your lap. He takes a burger for himself before walking the food across the room, and you grin as Jughead immediately digs in. FP can only shake his head at his son as Jughead groans in delight. "So," you say as you glance at your dad, "what happens now?"

"Now you heal," Lucifer says. "However, when you're all better we need to take a trip to Hell." Sweet Pea tightens his hold around your shoulders and you quickly glance up at him, smiling softly to reassure him everything would be fine. "I'm just about done with business here on the mortal plane, so we need to transfer roles back down in Hell."

"Ugh. Do I have to stay for the party? Your creepy minions are gonna try to bed me again."

"Well if you'd show up with a consort on your arm you wouldn't have that problem."

You frown. "You know damn well if I show up with a mortal in Hell it'll be chaos."

"But what fun chaos it'll be," Lucifer smirks.

"Hold up," Toni says. "Consort?"

Your dad's smirk widens and you sigh. "For some reason, dad wants me to take a boyfriend. Or husband. He's not picky."

"What!?" She laughs.

"Yeah. He's got his money on Sweet Pea just because he's tall and intimidating." Sweet Pea suddenly chokes and everyone in the room laughs at him. You grin at him, poking him on his side. "Relax. There are no wedding bells in any of our immediate futures. And besides," you say as you let yourself relax into Sweet Pea's side once more, fatigue suddenly overcoming you, "the elite of Hell only approve of a wedding if it's officiated in Hell. And quite frankly, no one I choose will ever step foot down there if I have anything to say about it."

"Wait. Hold on," Jughead says. "Are you saying you can get us in and out of Hell, and you haven't done so?"

FP scoffs. "Don't even think about it, kid."

You grin at Jughead's affronted expression, letting your eyelids fall shut. "We are not taking field trips down to Hell. Now everyone shush. M'sleepy."

It took you a few days before your dad deemed you well enough to visit Hell, making sure you did not show any form of vulnerability in front of the others. So you rested at home during the day and spent your evenings entertaining your friends who wanted to know all about Hell and how long you'd be away. But the truth was, you didn't even know yourself.

So when you and your dad finally left for Hell, you hadn't anticipated just how long you'd be there. You did anticipate, however, several demons being happy over the transfer of power. And that several others would swoop in in hopes of courting you. All of which you happily declined.

Your dad's coronation lasted a full day and you lost track of time after the second day of partying. You caught up with what few companions you actually had in Hell, ate, drank, and danced. It felt like only a couple of days had passed before you decided you'd been there long enough and sought out your father, only for him to happily send you on your way with promises that you'd visit every month. You had waved him off before going back to your rooms to change into regular clothing, and then let a swirl of flames whisk you away.

Reappearing in your house, you glance around happily until you notice it's not quite as you left it. The lights and TV, which had been turned off prior to leaving, are now on and the more you linger in the same spot it's easier to hear the noises coming from the kitchen. Quietly heading in that direction, you stop short at the sight of FP and Jughead preparing what appears to be their dinner.

"Um, hi?"

Jughead and FP's attention immediately snap to you, and Jughead quickly rounds the kitchen island. "Y/N, you're back!"

"Of course I am." You laugh as he wraps his arms around you, returning his embrace as you grin at FP over Jug's shoulder. "I told you I'd be back as soon as possible."

Jughead pulls back from you, hands on your shoulders as he keeps you at arm's length. "I know, but we thought you meant like three days tops, not two weeks!"

"What?"

You look at FP and he nods. "Sorry, babygirl, but he's telling the truth."

Your mind briefly short circuits at the nickname and you glance at Jug, smile slowly blooming. "Your dad called me-"

"Don't."

You laugh as FP snorts, shaking his head at you. "Only joking. I haven't done that in two week apparently," you say. You reach up to pat one of Jughead's hands on your shoulders and he releases. Walking over to one of the stools lined along the kitchen island, you take a seat. "And besides, you know I have my eyes on a certain tall Serpent friend of yours."

"Speaking of which," FP then says as he leans across the counter across from you, "you better text him. He's been bugging us nonstop to see if we heard from you or not."

"I will." Jughead offers you a bottle of water which you accept. "I just- I need to decompress for a little bit. Socializing in Hell kind of took it out of me."

"Well you can always join us for dinner." Jughead looks so hopeful that you actually feel a little bit bad turning him down.

"Sorry, JJ. I've been eating nonstop for days. I kind of just want to sleep it off."

"Oh. Okay sure."

"But before I head upstairs, can I just ask what you guys are doing here?"

Jughead looks like a deer in headlights at the question, so FP takes over. "Lucifer wanted us to keep an eye on the place while you were gone. Said we could crash here if we needed to and our trailer went under renovations two days ago."

"Oh. Okay." You smile at them. "Well you guys are always welcome here no matter what and just because I'm back it doesn't mean you have to leave. I welcome the company," you say. "Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to sleep my dad's coronation off."

"We'll keep your return under wraps, but if anyone stops by we won't lie to them."

"That's fine," you tell Jughead.

After drinking some more of your water, you decide to head upstairs. In the privacy of your room you decide to quickly change into some sleepwear before crawling into the comfort of your own bed.

Sleep finds you fairly quickly and you're not quite sure how long you've been asleep when you're suddenly awoken. The sky is completely pitch black outside your window and the house is eerily quiet. You figure it must be very early morning so it's no use getting up now, but just as your eyes close once more the sound of a chair creaking has your eyes flying open.

On your stomach, you immediately push yourself up until you're sitting on your knees and glancing around your room. "Hey. Hey, you're okay."

Your lamp clicks on and you cringe away from the sudden brightness, only to slowly open your eyes and be met with the concerned expression of possibly your favorite Serpent. "Pea?"

He grins. "The one and only."

"What are- what are you doing here?" You crawl towards the edge of the bed closest to him, sitting down so your feet touch the ground.

"Stopped by for some dinner earlier and Jughead told me you were back. FP took pity on me and let me stay until you woke up."

"So you- you watched me sleep?" Sweet Pea's smile slowly falls as yours grows. "That's kind of creepy, Pea."

"Well I didn't- I didn't know-"

You quickly lean forward, one hand gripping the armrest of the chair to hold you up and the other cradling the side of Sweet Pea's face as you angle it towards yours. You gently brush your lips against his just to test the waters before you pull back just an inch, your eyes fluttering open to gauge his reaction. Sweet Pea blinked owlishly at you before his eyes darted over every inch of your face, lastly settling on your lips as his hands came up to cradle your face and bring you back in.

Smiling against his lips, you allow him a moment of control, letting yourself get briefly carried away in one another. You nip at his bottom lip and when he groans you peck the corner of his mouth before falling back onto the edge of your bed. You lick your bottom lip before biting it sheepishly, eyes shining at a clearly distracted Sweet Pea.

"I'm not gonna lie. I've been wanting to do that for a really long time."

Gathering his wits once more, Sweet Pea scoffs. "You mean to tell me we could have been doing this since the beginning?"

"Well yeah. But I didn't wanna come off as easy."

"You.. easy? Yeah right," he chuckles. Slowly, he sobers up. "But, uh, your dad's not gonna be a problem. Right?"

You shake your head. "Nah. Believe it or not, Lucifer's a cool dad. He doesn't care what I do or who I do it with so long as it's consensual."

He seems to blanch just a little. "Of course. Always."

"Then we're good." You flash him a small smile as you scoot back into bed, tossing the blanket over your legs. "Now will you come to sleep rather than watching over me? I wasn't lying when I said it was weird." Sweet Pea readily stands to strip out of his jacket, laying it across the chair as he toes off his boots. When he starts to walk to the other side of your bed, you say, "Feel free to sleep sans jeans, but only if you're wearing underwear."

Sweet Pea smirks at you as he slowly unbuckles his belt, sliding it out of his jean's loops before tossing that on his jacket as well. You roll your eyes as he unbuttons his jeans and lets them fall, haphazardly kicking them aside before crawling into your bed.

"If that was an attempt to seduce me, you're really terrible at it." He laughs as he lays on his back, you grabbing his arm and picking it up so you can lay close to him. You're on your side, head on his shoulder and arm around his waist. "But you still get an A for effort."

"I wasn't even trying, sweetheart. If I was to seduce you, you'd know it."

"Mhm. I'm sure. Now close your eyes. I have a feeling everyone's gonna be here later on."

- - - - - - - - - -

"Do- do we wake them?"

"No, you idiot, let them sleep."

A sigh. "This is going to be a regular thing now, isn't it?"

You slowly smile, the voices of Fangs, Toni, and Jughead waking you up. "You're damn straight this is going to be a regular thing." Your eyes open and you grin. "I'm going to be climbing this like a tree every chance I get." The chest beneath your cheek rumbles with sleepy laughter. You yawn, stretching at Sweet Pea's side before slowly sitting up. "What time is it?"

"Almost ten," Jughead says. "Dad was going to wake you for breakfast, but he saw you and Sweet Pea and figured he'd let you sleep."

"FP is officially my second favorite Serpent," you say. With his eyes still closed, Sweet Pea smiles and you roll your eyes at his smugness. "I hope you guys have nothing planned. I just want to relax and go to school like a normal person for a few days. I'm all partied out."

"Whatever you want, girl." Toni tells you. "We're just glad you're finally back."

"You and me both."

Over the next few days, your group of friends grow used to the fact that you and Sweet Pea have officially become a thing. Neither of you are fond of the terms boyfriend/girlfriend since it sounds kind of juvenile, but you don't correct anyone when they use that particular label. As far as the two of you are concerned, you are his and he is yours, and that's enough for the two of you.

Another change that seems to have happened is at the Whyte Wyrm, your presence being a great deal more tolerated. You know no one other than a select few knew of your true heritage, so you figure one of your friends name dropped the pet name Princess and now the other Serpents boldly greet you as such, especially FP who takes great delight in calling you that once he realizes you find it annoying.

You're happy you don't have Queenly duties niggling at the back of your mind and that you can just be as normal as you can be with your friends. There are a few instances in which your powers come in handy, but you don't use them as often as you thought you would. Then as the days slowly progress and the weather turns chillier, you find that Sweet Pea is a constant presence in your home. His trailer had been updated, but while he's grateful for it he much prefers coming home to you and your house.

You and Sweet Pea are sleeping down in the basement, the lounging sofa being more comfortable for him to sleep in since he was so tall. You've already ordered a new bed, but for now the two of you happily camp down in the theatre while you wait for your bed to come in.

The doorbell ringing pulls you from your dreams and an arm tightens around your waist. Sleep starts to pull you back under seconds later until the doorbell rings again and you quietly groan.

"Don't answer it," Sweet Pea mumbles. "They'll go away."

You press back into his chest, yawning and willing yourself to fall back asleep. But whoever's at the front door is insistent and the doorbell rings for a third time. "I'm going to smite them," you grumble. "Smite them and then blissfully come back to sleep." Sweet Pea chuckles at your threat, but though you're getting annoyed for having had your sleep interrupted you don't actually do anything about it.

Seconds seem to pass and when the doorbell doesn't ring again you let your body start to relax once more. Sweet Pea curls even more against your back and you chuckle softly at the fact that one of the Serpent's most intimidating secretly loves to cuddle.

And then just as you're fully relaxing and being pulled back under, there are footsteps coming down the staircase. "I knew I'd find you guys down here."

You and Sweet Pea both groan, Jughead's amused laughter making you open your eyes and glare at the teen in question. Betty Cooper is standing just behind him, glancing around your home theatre in wonder, but you bite your tongue on questioning her presence since you know full well that she and Jughead were more stable than they've ever been.

"If you know what's best for you, JJ, you'd walk away."

"It's three in the afternoon, Y/N. You should have been awake hours ago."

"We had a late night."

"First off, ew." His nose wrinkles at you and Sweet Pea, and you, Sweet Pea, and Betty grin at Jughead's comment. "And secondly, dad sent me. We're having a meeting."

Sweet Pea seems to take those words seriously and you whine when he moves to get up. He chuckles, quickly kissing your temple and then turning to crawl out of the comfort of the sofa. You sigh. "And why, pray tell, is my presence needed?"

Jughead smirks. "You'll see."

His vague answer is enough to get you moving, you grumbling all the while. On your way upstairs, you hit Jughead with your shoulder and then smile innocently at Betty while telling her to help herself to whatever's in the kitchen while you and Sweet Pea get ready.

You and Sweet Pea take the quickest showers you've ever taken, separately, and meet Jughead and Betty in the kitchen. Sweet Pea is pulling on his jacket and you're tying your hair up into a ponytail, grinning at Jughead who has a plate of sandwiches in front of him. "So what's the deal, Jones?"

He shrugs. "M'just under orders to bring you to the quarry."

You glance at Betty and she chuckles. "I just came along for the ride. Jughead's actually dropping me off before you go to the meeting."

"I feel like I should be scared nervous, but I'm actually excited nervous." You muse. "I mean, daddy Jones-"

"God you're so gross," Jughead groans. You wink at Betty as Jughead turns to Sweet Pea. "How are you okay with your girl fawning over my dad?"

"Because everyone, including FP, knows it gets under your skin and it's fun to watch your squirm."

You look at Betty and grin. "Have I told you about the time FP called me babygirl?"

"And we're leaving!" Jughead is quick to latch onto his laughing girlfriend's wrist, tugging her out of the kitchen and towards the front door.

You turn towards Sweet Pea, wrapping your arms around his waist as you lean up on your tiptoes to play a chaste kiss to his lips. "I absolutely adore you. Now come on. Let's go see what the boss wants."

Sweet Pea pecks your lips twice more before you fall back flat on your feet, then making your way towards the hall closet. Inside, you pull free a jean jacket and quickly pull it on while Sweets grabs both your helmets. The two of you head outside to see Betty already hanging onto the back of Jughead. You and Sweet Pea readily climb onto his bike, you tucking yourself as close as you can to his back while he follows Jughead towards Betty's house.

Then once Betty's hopped off and heading towards her front door, Jughead signals for Sweet Pea to follow and you're on your way once more. The part of the quarry Jughead leads you to is not familiar to you and you're surprised to see the entire Serpent clan hanging around. And as you climb off the bike, waiting for Sweet Pea who takes your hand and then starts leading you towards your friends, you glance around to take in your surroundings.

A wooden walkway leads down to a boathouse just on the water, trucks and motorcycles parked all around. There are a couple of tapped kegs and barrels of fire scattered about. Between two wooden poles, a Serpent banner hangs just behind some stacked wooden pallets that FP hops up onto.

FP whistles, gaining everyone's attention. "Listen up now!" Some music that had been playing is lowered and everyone turns towards their leader. "I know some of you have recently had your opinions about the way I was running things with the Serpents." Some people boo and FP chuckles, instantly calming them. "Our image has never been as clean as it should have been and certain events led a few of us to make decisions that could have had repercussions against all of us." Some very brave individuals glance at Jughead and you glare at them until they look away. "But then an old friend of mine swooped in and changed everything." At this, some nervously glance at you.

"Some sixty years ago, the very first Serpent meeting took place on these same river banks. So I find it fitting that we meet here to introduce a new snake to the den." Everyone cheers this time, including you, though your amusement falls when FP meets your gaze head on. You freeze. Surely he's not talking about- "You all know about Penny, the Ghoulies, and Tall Boy attacking three of our own- my boy included. What you don't know is that girl," he points directly at you, "that girl right there is who took a knife to the gut avenging us. So Y/N Morningstar, come on up here."

Sweet Pea, Jughead, Toni, and Fangs start the whooping and hollering until the rest of the Serpents all join in. You're gripping tight to Sweet Pea's hand as he starts to drag you towards FP's platform, you nervously grinning at the Serpents who part down the middle to give you a path.

At the makeshift stage, Sweet Pea then nudges you up there and you chuckle nervously as you stand next to FP. He smiles at you, wrapping an arm around your shoulders to keep you close while addressing the crowd again. "The Morningstars, while some of you were against it at first, helped clean up the Serpent image and helped improve the Southside when even our own mayor had given up on us. They've been a tremendous help to us and it all started with an act of kindness from one of the Serpents which then led to my release. So with that said, Jughead will you come on up and do the honors?"

You look out at Jughead, brow furrowing as Toni smirks at you while handing a duffel bag over to the boy in question. He unzips it, pulling free what looks to be a cherry red leather jacket. He holds it, scrunched up in one hand, as he makes his way to the platform. "What's going on?" You mutter.

FP releases you just as Jughead takes his place by your side. He's smiling as he inhales deeply, letting out it loudly before addressing the rest of the Serpents. "When Lucifer left, he asked my dad and I to look after his precious little princess." You scoff, punching Jughead's arm much to everyone's amusement. "And I know some of you are going to say that that's why we've decided to welcome Y/N into the Serpents, but the reason why we're welcoming Y/N into the fold is because she earned her place. She took a knife for us and got rid of our enemies once and for all. I don't know about you, but to my dad and I that makes her worthy of being a Serpent."

Sweet Pea is the first to whoop, followed by the rest of your friends and the crowd of Serpents lingering about.

"So what do you say, Morningstar? Will you don the Serpent jacket and put the fear of the devil into any person who dares smear the name of your brethren?" He asks while grabbing the cherry red jacket with both hands and shaking it open.

You smirk at him, already stripping out of your jean jacket. "As if you even had to ask."

You toss your jacket to Sweet Pea and stand in front of Jughead, placing your arms into the sleeves one at a time. It fits perfectly, Toni's doing no doubt, and you laugh openly at the roar of applause. Turning around, you hug Jughead and then walk over towards FP to offer him the same embrace.

"Who picked the color?" You ask.

"Who do you think?" He muses.

"Dad."

FP releases you with a grin, nudging you towards your friends. "Go on. We'll be celebrating tonight at the Whyte Wyrm."

You offer him one of your genuine smiles instead of the teasing one you usually reserve for him. "Thanks, FP. For everything."

"No problem, kiddo. Now seriously, go. Go have a burger and a shake at Pop's with your friends."

As you turn to hop off the platform, Toni is the first to wrap you up in a hug. "Welcome to the club! You're seriously lucky you didn't have to do the dance."

"I'd have seriously gouged someone's eye out if anyone suggested I do the dance to earn my place."

She laughs and then Fangs takes her place, you hugging him back. Then finally Sweet Pea is standing in front of you and he laughs as you jump into his arms.

"Happy, princess?"

"Ecstatic," you muse as you wrap your legs around his waist. His hands find your ass, supporting your weight as you quickly lean in to kiss him. More cheers erupt all around you, you and Sweet Pea smile against each other's mouths, and Jughead gags behind you. Pulling back, you lay your forehead against his. "Wanna grab some food or go properly celebrate at home before tonight's party at the Wyrm?"

"How about we hit up Pop's for burgers to go, burn off some calories before consuming them right back in the comfort of our own home, and then go to the Wyrm?"

"I like the way you think, Pea. Let's go."

You kiss him once more, Toni cheering you on as Sweet Pea carries you off.

"Just please don't contaminate the basement!" Jughead yells out. "I actually like it down there!"

You wave him off over your shoulder, grinning at Pea. "Who's going to tell him he's a few weeks too late? Me or you?"

"I wanna tell him when he least expects it. Probably when he's laying on the sofa and being a little shit."

"Deal."

#riverdale imagine #sweet pea x reader #sweet pea imagine #riverdale #sweet pea #toni topaz #fangs fogarty #jughead jones #fp jones #lucifer morningstar

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jengajives · 4 years ago

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So I know canonically Barahir and Finrod probably never met again after the Bragollach but I just WANT THEM TO

(My personal hc for Barahir and Emeldir is that they’re Gay Besties and her sweetheart died years ago and he never found the man for him but they both really wanted a child so they had Beren and raised him together as friends, and all the people of Dorthonion totally knew what was up but played along anyway.)

Also excuse my Sindarin, i am awful at languages

“My lord.”

The voice seemed deafening in the chamber of Finrod- the quiet space he sulked in when all of Nargothrond’s riches seemed empty and lifeless to him. When the company of his brother, his niece, and all his people just wasn’t enough.

He turned from his tapestry slowly, almost unwilling. If Celegorm and Curufin wanted another counsel, he had run out of excuses to deny them. All he wanted to do was stand around looking at the tapestry of Tirion he kept on the wall to substitute for a proper window.

“What is it?” he asked tiredly, unable even to muster the energy for a proper hello. The attendant bowed anyway.

“It’s the border wardens, your Highness. They’ve apprehended a trespasser on the eastern marches- a Man. He carries your ring, sir. He’s requested an audience.”

It seemed as if everything went utterly still and for several long moments Finrod could not speak.

He had to rub his eyes to ensure he was awake and hearing correctly. This wasn’t just the dream that had haunted him more years now than he could count.

“By all means,” Finrod said in a strangled voice, “bring him before me.”

It isn’t. It can’t be. He’s dead.

The attendant bowed again, all low and respectful. “I’ll let you know as soon as they reach the city, Your Majesty.”

“Yes, yes, thank you.” Finrod wasn’t paying attention properly anymore; he was suddenly very worried about what he was wearing, how he looked. The way he dressed around Nargothrond was very different than his war attire, and it was very concerning when he worried whether Barahir would even be able to recognize him.

No, no. Barahir was dead five winters now. It didn’t matter whether he looked familiar or not, he was dead.

Still, though. There was a chance.

Finrod threw open his wardrobe with something akin to panic.

The woods of Dorthonion were dense and dark, with occasional beams of golden sunlight filtering through the high pine trees and turning the bed of needles to luminous white. There wasn’t too much undergrowth, which made it easy to ride through, and Finrod did so with as much speed as his mare could manage, flying over falling trees and secret glens that few among the Elves had ever looked on, thundering across rushing mountain creeks with all the speed of the Valar. He held his arms out to the wind and let his golden braids flow loose behind him.

When he at last came to the little green valley he’d been directed to, he slowed his mare to a stop and stood there a moment on the ridge. The people of Bëor lived in small homesteads spotted over the highlands, and here a number of them gathered together alongside a cool, fresh creek to graze their animals on its fair grasses. The largest of the wooden homes was nestled just beneath the rolling, forested hills, sheltered by the river’s curve and somewhat apart from the others. It was here Finrod rode, galloping eagerly across the meadows of the basin.

A handful of sturdy horses grazed on the green pasture in front of the house, along with a pair of cows and one freshly-sheared sheep. Finrod rode along the tree-lined lane until he came to the house itself.

It was single-storied, made of finely hewn logs painted with red and gold, and a thatched ceiling that looked freshly lain. On one side stood a small barn for the animals, and on the other a woodshed that had seen better days. Finrod dismounted took a moment to take it all in. A warm smile crossed his face.

At once, the worn blue door opened, and a Man came hurrying out. He was dressed in simple work trousers and a maroon shirt that wasn’t tied all the way and showed off the warm brown hair of his chest, but he was hastily throwing a fur coat over the top of it all as he stumbled down his stairs.

“King Felagund!” he choked, obviously out of breath. Finrod noticed a gleam of gold on his middle finger. “We- I- This is most unexpected!”

“I must apologize for the intrusion, Barahir,” he said with pity. “I was riding back from Hithlum and I became… sidetracked.” Then he smiled again. “I hope it’s not too much trouble?”

“Trouble!” Barahir shook his head a little too energetically. “No trouble at all! It’s just… “ He motioned helplessly to the house behind him. “t’s not much. Certainly nothing like a prince like yourself would-“

“Barahir,” Finrod said, bold enough now to take the Man’s hand in his own. “Your home is beautiful.”

Barahir visibly relaxed. His face went soft.

“It is… very good to see you again, Your Majesty.”

“To you, it’s Finrod.” He gave the hand a squeeze. “You have more than earned that right.”

Barahir’s tawny cheeks went red.

Finrod thought he would have kissed him then, if it had been for the little voice that interrupted them.

“Papa!”

Immediately Finrod straightened up and looked over Barahir’s shoulder to the doorway.

A small, brown face peeked out from inside. Just a beam of light caught on dark curls and turned them shining auburn.

Finrod’s expression went slack for only a moment before the corners of his mouth began to peak upward.

“Who’s this?” he asked eagerly. The child stuck his head out further to show two gleaming dark eyes.

“Are you one of the Valar?” he called, somewhat shyly.

Finrod smiled.

“No, child. Why do you think so?”

The little one gave a sheepish shrug. “You’re glowing.”

“Am I?” Finrod looked down. His tunic was indeed embroidered with gold and there were jewels in his hair. The thought of this innocent child mistaking him for a Vala was a very fond one, though.

“Beren,” Barahir called. “This is King Felagund. He’s a very powerful and noble Elf. Come over here and give a him a nice bow.”

Beren slowly moved onto the steps and made his way over, still cautious. He was wearing a green shirt that was too big for him and clutched a stuffed hound in one hand. Immediately Finrod saw the likeness with Barahir; other than the boy’s darker shade of hair, the two were nearly identical.

Finrod glanced at Barahir as the child approached.

“Yours?”

“Yes, he is.”

When Beren reached his father’s side, he shut his eyes tight and performed a bow so deep he nearly toppled. “At your service, King Felagund, sir!”

Finrod laughed and dropped to one knee so he could look the boy in the eyes. “An honor, Beren, prince of Dorthonion. I could not ask for more steadfast a Man!”

Beren cracked one eye, then the other. He gave a cursory glance to his father, then pointed at the great palomino mare waiting patiently on the lane.

“What’s your horse’s name?”

Barahir clicked his tongue. “Beren, be polite.” Finrod chose to ignore him.

“She is Glânhen, Brighteyes,” he said to Beren, as if he were sharing a secret. “She very much likes to eat. I think she might let you ride her if you find space for her in your pasture.”

The boy’s eyes lit up. “Oh, I can do that, sir!” He squinted up at the horse. “Where’s her bridle?”

“She’ll follow you,” Finrod said. He told the horse something in Quenya and she nickered, and then he straightened to let the bouncing little boy hurry past, motioning to the mare eagerly.

“Follow me, Glânhen! I’ll find you the best grass we’ve got!”

The pair of them trotted off together- the massive steed of Valinor, and the little woodsman’s boy leading her like an obedient pup. Finrod got distracted a moment just smiling at the sight, until Barahir chuckled behind him.

“Well, I… I didn’t know you were fond of children.” He paused, obviously bashful, before he slipped out the name like he thought it might bite him. “Finrod.”

“Very fond. He’s a wonderful boy, Barahir. How old?”

“Five this spring.”

“My.” A wistful smile crossed Finrod’s face. “You must be very proud.”

“I am.” A silence passed, but it was broken when Barahir reached out and took his hand. “Will you come in?”

Finrod turned and the joy he felt looking at that gentle face was unlike anything he’d felt for countless years.

“I would love to.”

Felagund paced his throne room, back and forth, an anxious rhythm like the thudding of his own heartbeat. The tapestries and jewels felt suddenly profane. Would Barahir know him here? Surrounded by wealth and finery and all the glory of the princes of the Noldor?

Of course he would. Barahir would know him anywhere.

But it wasn’t going to be Barahir who walked through his doors. Dead five years at least, cut down in the highlands of Dorthonion all alone and friendless.

Finrod’s fault. He had tried to send help, tried to send forces through to reinforce the outlaws or bring them back, but no one had been able to brave the Haunted Wood. No one could get through. And Barahir had died alone in the mud, because Finrod’s strength had failed.

No. It could be him. He could have escaped. None of the Eldar were there to see him fall. It could be a mistake.

The golden doors swung open.

Finrod turned, suddenly frozen, as a company of his march wardens stepped inside with a Man held between them like some lesser prisoner. He was so thoroughly surrounded that Finrod couldn’t get a good look at him.

“Leave him,” he called, irritation wearing his voice thin. “He is no trespasser here if what I am told is true.”

The wardens bowed, and moved aside, and there in the center of the room stood Barahir son of Bregor with the cares of many lifetimes etched across his face.

The air left Felagund’s lungs.

He looked just as he had the very last time they had seen each other.

Tears blurred his vision, and when he wiped them away, he saw through new eyes, and the Man he saw was not the one he had dreamed of.

The curls were too dark. The build too tall. The face alike in almost every way, but there was something there now that made it painfully obvious Felagund had been mistaken. He deflated at once and collapsed back into his throne, face in his hands, floundering just a moment in defeat.

“King Felagund, sir,” called the Man. “I thank you for your hospitality. I wouldn’t have come if there was any other way, but I need-“ Abruptly, the trembling voice broke on a sob and trailed into tearfulness. “I- I need your help. Please.”

Finrod looked up again and his eyes softened, recognizing the sensitivity behind those eyes. He rose and stepped slowly down until he stood before the Man with pity in his heart and tears running down his face.

He put a hand on the rough-clothed shoulder.

“Beren,” he said softly, as fervent as he could manage. “I will do anything within my power to help you, no matter the cost.”

When Beren at last looked up to meet his eye, it was the same face of the shy woodsman’s son he had met all those years ago, and Finrod decided then that he would go gladly to his death if it would bring Barahir’s son to the fulfillment of his errand.

#jenga makes junk #fanfic #fic #writers #silmarillion #finrod x barahir #finrod #finrod felagund #barahir #beren #emeldir #lay of leithian #the valar #nargothrond #dorthonion #I just want them to be happy is that too much to ask

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themonotonysyndrome · 4 years ago

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The Queen’s Lynchpin

We’re getting to part 3 of the ‘Successors of the Future”! This week has gone back to being hectic so I could only write this part here and there for only a few hours. Still, I’m happy that I could finally finish it.

And we have the names of MC’s and Yandere!Malleus children as well as his second wife and the other prince! Any piece of info from @tri3tri Second Wife AU is always fun to read! With that said, I’ll be adding their names into the 2 previous oneshots after this is posted so it’s all align. If you want to know more about this AU, please drop by at @tri3tri blog. Their content and drabbles are amazing!

Lastly, I think it’s alright if I don’t add the link and summary of the previous oneshots of this series in every new piece. The intro is just gonna be super long otherwise. But if you guys think that a link and summary it’s a good, please let me know I’ll be sure to add them in.

“Uh Mama? Have you been hearing... noises in the middle of the night?”

“You mean your sister talking to her mirror in her room in the dead of the night? Then yes, sweetie.”

MC smile, deeply amused, when her son let out a huge sigh of relief. “Oh, it’s just her talking to Ren.”

“I’ll tell her to keep it down if she’s talking to Renata at night, don’t worry.” MC assured him with a pat on his head.

“Thanks, Mama. Say, do you have any plans for today?” Lucien’s sudden question was a little odd to MC. The three of them have been staying in the house - only going out for a grocery run - lately, and she didn’t have any plans to change it.

“Not really. I was thinking to catch up with some leftover work from the office before Monday comes. Why? Do you want to go anywhere?” MC inquire curiously.

Lucien is quick to shake his head. “Oh, no, no. Umm... Mama, you often look so sad lately. We know that having Ren away at Twisted Wonderland has been hard on you, so I just thought maybe we could all do something to help make you feel better.” He explains with a bit of hesitance, wringing his hands. It’s clear to MC that this is one sensitive topic that he didn’t want to unintentionally hurt her with.

MC couldn’t help but smile at how thoughtful her little one is. Really, all of her children can be rowdy in their own way but at the end of the day, she always noticed that they tried so hard not to make her worry. But as the parent, it’s her honour to protect her children - not the other way around. Which is why seeing the hesitant expression on Lucien’s face tugs her heart.

“Oh, Luci. I didn’t mean to worry you and your sisters. It’s just that...” MC paused for a moment to think on how to properly express her feelings. “None of you has ever been separated from me. The issue with your father is one thing, but I can’t help but fret about your oldest sister. Is she eating well over there? Sleeping early on a school day? Oh, but then again, she does have a habit of waking up around 2 in the morning looking for a snack if she sleeps too early.” MC bit her lower lip, she should have told Renata during their last talk to keep some snacks in her room in case she gets hungry.

Ever since Renata had first contacted Sherrie and taught her the communication runes and she in return, taught her and Lucien on how to draw them on any mirror in the house, they all have been talking to Renata through the large, hanging mirror in the living room every day.

“We can ask her if she’s been waking up in the middle of night after our dinner, Mama.” Lucien assured their mother. He took her empty tea cup and pour some tea from the still hot pot and push the porcelain cup back to her. They were having tea and a light meal in the kitchen after he had woken up from his nap.

Sherrie passed on their invitation since she’s too busy livestreaming her latest game in her room. From below, they could hear her muffled voice.

MC took a sip and hums thoughtfully. “You’re right, Honey. I’ll be sure to do that. Anyway, you mentioned a family activity - what do you have in mind?” Perhaps a distraction is just what she needed to get her mind off Malleus and the inevitable danger he’ll bring.

Lucien’s eyes brighten in delight. Happy that he could do something to cheer her up.

“I found this recipe recently and I was hoping that we can all cook together? It’ll be fun I promise!” He pleaded. Among all her children, Lucien is the only one with the knack for cooking. Sherrie can make simple meals whenever she wants.

Renata, however, needs to be supervised even if she wants to boil a pot of water.

“Sure! I’d love to. So what’s this recipe you want to cook?”

Much later when it’s almost dinner time and Sherrie wrapped up her livestream, MC and Lucien are already in the kitchen preparing to cook. Curiously, she glances at the list of ingredients and steps for dinner that was left on the kitchen counter and her eyes bugged out at what they were going to make.

“I feel like there are things that mankind should never attempt lest the price be their sanity. And this? This is it!” Sherrie shrieked, flapping the flimsy paper incredulously at them. MC is preparing the dough while Lucien makes sure they got all the ingredients out and ready.

“What? Boba pizza sounds delicious!” Lucien rebuke with a small frown. “And beside, you won’t know if you like them if you haven’t try.”

Sherrie just slap her forehead at his words, as if she couldn’t believe this. “I know you’re pretty crazy for boba teas but this is ridiculous! Pizza dessert for dinner? Can’t we have something normal, Mama?” She pleaded their mother.

MC toss her a playful smile as she rolls the dough. “Well honey, it does sound pretty exciting when you said it. Pizza dessert!” When Sherrie’s face scrunched up in disgust, she tries to coax her daughter, “Aww, c’mon, honey. Look, you can order a delivery for yourself but come have fun with us! I’ll even let you toss the dough if you want.”

Sherrie folded after that. Honestly, making pizza - of any kind - is always messy process, but her children are having fun with smudges of powder on their faces and MC felt her heart lighten just hearing them laugh. Dinner might be unconventional tonight, but it was worth it to see Lucien enjoy eating his pizza and Sherrie reluctant admittance that it tasted alright, if a bit weird.

Once the kitchen is all cleaned up and their stomachs full, they settled in the living room. MC and Lucien watched as Sherrie used her old, red lipstick to draw the runes on the mirror. The surface rippled once, sinking the runes and reveal Renata in her pyjamas beaming at them.

“Good evening everyone! How are ya’ll doing?”

“Hi sweetie. We just had dinner.” MC said, glad that her eldest daughter still looks healthy and happy.

“You wouldn’t believe what we had for dinner.” Sherrie interjects dryly. The 3 of them are sitting on the couch with MC in the middle. “It’s so weird!”

“But you liked it!” Lucien countered with a smug grin before turning to his oldest sister. “We had boba pizza! It was amazing!”

“Boba pizza!? Nooo! I can’t believe you all ate them without me! I’ve been wanting to try them!” Renata whines. “I wish we can pass stuffs through the mirror. Wait - I might be able to do something about that actually.” She goes on to mutter about needing to bully the headmaster again.

The family traded what they did during the day, Renata assuring them that yes, she had a storage full of snacks in her room and that her favourite lesson so far is Flying class. Once that’s out of the way, MC asked her daughter, “How are your assignments? Is Leona-senpai’s son helping you out?”

When Renata told them that her History’s assignment partner is none other than Leona’s son, MC was a bit worried if he carries his father prejudice against Malleus towards her daughter, but Renata assured her that other than his funny attempts at posturing and warning growls, Bakari Kingscholar has been nothing but civil and helping out with researching and editing their papers.

“Yup! We’re nearly done with our homework and I think we’re friends now? He’s a bit of tsundere which makes teasing him so much fun!” Renata giggled. “You know, just today we decided to have lunch together after our assignment and when I went back to my room and check my bag, there was a candy bar inside. He must’ve slip it in when I told him that I snacked often.”

Sherrie immediately drop her phone. She was mindlessly browsing through her Twitter account while they talked, but her attention perk like a hound dog. “Whoa, whoa wait - he bought you food when you told him that you eat often? Me thinks he might like you, dude.”

MC’s eyes widen and Lucien gape. Could that be true!?

But Renata just rolled her eyes. “Oh please, I think he was thanking me for not making him do all the work. You know those tough guy acts? Yeah, it’s nothing special.”

Sherrie tilt her head, clearly not believing it, but keep it to herself for now.

“Being the only girl in a school for boys must be tough.” Lucien mused sympathetically. “I’m glad that you have a friend with you, Ren.”

“Well, Diasomnia students has mostly been friendly yet distant with me so far. Probably because of this,” Renata twirl her fingers beside her horns to emphasise her point. “But it’s cool. So far, no one tries to bully me or anything. And by the way, I’ve been staying out of trouble, Cherry. I haven’t even landed myself in detention so far.” She proudly announced.

“Yet.” Sherrie snickers.

Lucien frowns at her. “Ren has been working hard, Cherry. She’s been sticking to your plans, right? I seriously don’t think she will mess it up.”

“Nah, it’s all cool Luci. I’ve mostly been blowing off steam during Magishift. It’s super fun! I wish you guys could play too.” Renata said and then proceed to explain to her siblings what Magishift is all about.

That’s another thing that MC had picked up as Lucien grew up. Despite how close her daughters are, they do bickers as sisters tend to and Lucien usually act as the mediator and peacemaker between them when things get too heated.

MC couldn’t help wonder if her sweet boy would ever be like this if he was raised in Malleus’ castle.

The family talked a little more until it was getting late. After bidding each other goodnight and MC telling her daughter to keep herself safe, she ushered Lucien and Sherrie to their bed and tucked herself in.

That night, she dreamt of a past memory. However in her dream, all 3 of her children are laughing and free as they grow in her world.

Now that Lucien thinks about it - he doesn’t really know what Sherrie plan is exactly. He’s aware that they’re doing their best to help Renata avoid being discover by their father as long as they can and Mama told her to make friends with the children of her old friends since they helped her out a lot during her school life in Night Raven College but other than that? He doesn’t know what they would do once father found out about their oldest sister.

That particular though came back in his mind when he woke up from his sleep because he heard Sherrie giggling in her room. With blearily eyes, he checked the time on his phone and groan.

It’s 3.15 in the morning.

He push himself out of his warm bed with great difficulties and slowly padded towards Sherrie’s bedroom.

He knocked twice and groan, “Sherrie? It’s seriously late. Why aren’t you sleeping yet?”

“Shit, Luci-chan? Sorry, did I woke you up? You can come in if you want. The door is not locked.”

With a tired grumbled, he swings open the door and zombie-walk to her sister who is sitting in front of her vanity table, talking to Renata.

“Hey Luci! Sorry that we woke you up!” Renata apologised quickly, guilty that they’ve disturbed their little brother. “I was just reporting to Cherry that I found several hidden and unmarked paths that connects to father’s castle and to the outside world of the Valley of Thorns. I thought it might come in handy so I wanted to share it with her.”

That sounds interesting to Lucien. He’s a little more awake now. “Did you use your spells to scout the area?”

“I sure did! Haven’t been caught by anyone or any bat so far.”

“What... what does father’s castle look like?” Lucien couldn’t help but asked. It’s hard to believe that he and his family are actually royalty. That his Mama and sisters used to live in a castle.

It’s still hard to accept that he’s actually a prince.

“Gloomy.” Was Renata immediate reply. All her previous good humour vanishes and her hard glare surprises him. “We hardly get any sunshine because father controls the weather with his temper tantrums.”

“Not to mention that we had to live with basically strangers.” Sherrie added. “I never really feel comfortable around the castle’s staffs. Sure we got the family wing all to ourselves but we still had to deal with them.” Both Lucien and Renata understand her unspoken words: having to deal with judgemental strangers is difficult.

“What are you going to do once father founds out you’re in Twisted Wonderland, Ren? Are you going to go hiding?” Lucien asked.

It’s Sherrie who answered him, “No. We’re going to make sure that he can’t forcefully take Mama or any of us back to the castle. I just need a little more info and we can act once the 3 of us are in Twisted Wonderland.” She explains.

“We suspect that once Cherry hits sixteen, the Ebony Carriage will also pick her up and by that time I’ll be in my second year as a student here. If that’s the case, we just need you here and then it’s the second phase.” Renata took over explaining here. “Rumours spread fast in Night Raven College, but it’s not going to reach to father. He’s in an isolated country. Well, not until he’s here.”

Lucien blink, now lost. “He? Who’s he?”

“We have a halfbrother - Victor. He’s the same age as you, Luci-chan. Looks like father didn’t waste any time getting his second wife pregnant.” Sherrie said with a smile that honestly send cold shivers up his spine. It’s sweet with a poison laced underneath. Lucien seen this smile only once. A girl from school tried to blackmailed and bullied her into doing her biddings.

He heard that the girl was transferred to another school in a different state soon after when news broke out that she was selling drugs with her boyfriend to the students.

Lucien would like to believe that the incident had nothing to with his sister, but he’s seen what she does for Renata whenever she lost her homework or to the English Literature teacher that had an issue with her.

So Lucien needed to asks this. “Are you... are you going to hurt him?” His voice is soft and careful.

Through the mirror, Renata eyed Sherrie in which his second sister leans into her chair and relaxes. “I won’t, don’t worry. After all, he’s not at fault.”

Words are Sherrie’s favourite playthings and at that moment, Lucien hopes she means it.

Funny enough, I’ve been calling S/N (Lucien) as Luciel because it means light and I HC that MC sees him as the unexpected light that Malleus gave her. Her daughters are a treasure but Lucien serve as MC’s light. It’s fate!

So far for Lucien, my main reference for him are two people actually. Dead Master from Black Rock Shooter and Nisha Labyrinth from Elsword!

Will expand more on them as I continue to write. Also, I’m shit when it comes to timeline and ages so here’s my rough idea so far:

Renata = 16 years old (first-year student)

Sherrie = 15 years old

Lucien = 13 yeard old

I’ll change the kids’ age if Tri reveal them on their blog.

#twisted wonderland #fanfic #twst mc #malleus draconia x mc #twst kids #Malleus and MC kids #yandere malleus draconia #Draconia Family series #Second Wive AU

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echo-of-sounds · 4 years ago

Text

halloween

Small Halloween drabbles with Aizawa and Hound Dog.

Aizawa Shouta - Candy Corn

You yelped as you turned around, startled by Shouta standing there silently. He smirked as he poured candy into a bowl, “We’ve only watched one movie and you’re already scared?”

“I’m not scared… you just surprised me.” You opened a bag of candy corn, eliciting a groan from him. “What?”

“I hate those. They’re disgusting.”

“Which is why they’re not for you.” You kissed his scowl, then returned to the couch and flipped through the movies. There were ghosts and demons and slashers and monsters. “What do you want to watch?”

He joined you with more sweets and drinks. “Terrifier?”

“No, it's a clown. Eraserhead?”

“No.” He must have seen your smile because took the remote from you. “The Descent?”

“Sure.”

Sho selected the movie. Curling up beside him, you draped a blanket over your laps. Not ten minutes into it, out of the corner of your eye, you noticed his glare shifting towards you. Brows furrowed further every piece of candy you ate. Lips twitched at the smell.

He didn’t say anything when you looked at him. You asked, “Do you really hate them that-”

“Yes.”

So he didn’t have to be close to them, you changed positions and leaned the other way. It was fine for forty minutes. But then a jump scare spooked you. Candies flung out of the bag as you shrunk into his side, hooking his thigh with your nails.

When you pulled away from his shoulder, little orange, yellow, and white pieces covered the blanket and his clothes. “Sorry,” you muttered as best you could without laughing at his pout.

He just grunted and flicked some off. Itty-bitty orange flecks speckled his hair. It must have been the candy dust from the bottom of the bag. He scowled at you in question.

A giggle slipped out. “You might need a shower later.” You brushed the side of his head and repeated, “Sorry.”

“It’s fine.”

After you finished picking up the scattered candy, you kissed his cheek. Or you would have if he didn’t jerk away. “What’s wrong?”

“I’m not kissing you until you brush your teeth.”

“Seriously?”

“Yes. Candy corn is disgusting and I don’t want to taste any trace of it.”

Well, the majority of the candy was gone. And you had no desire to spend the rest of the night with him but unable to kiss him. “Alright. Have it your way.”

“And use mouthwash,” he directed you on your way to the bathroom.

A few minutes later, with clean teeth and a minty mouth, you returned to Shouta. He paused the movie while you were away and had gotten you M&M's to snack on instead. You bundled back under the blanket. This time you curled up on his lap, telling him, “I love you.”

“I love you too… despite your love for disgusting candy.”

“Stop being dramatic,” you sighed, kissing his cheek, smooching your way to his mouth. At least he was smirking by the time your lips met.

“I can live with it, I suppose.” He wrapped the blanket tight and played the movie.

Hound Dog - Haunted House

“What are these for?”

“It’s a waiver,” the masked guy plainly answered.

Ryo signed it, handing it off to you. You slowly scribbled your name and asked, “Is it really that intense?”

As if on cue, someone shrieked from inside. You clutched Ryo’s arm. A giant grin plastered on his snout. If he had a tail, it’d definitely be wagging. Though you weren’t sure if his excitement was because he was actually eager for the haunted house or because he just wanted to watch you squeal.

“If you want them to leave you alone, hold out a thumbs down or just say ‘thumbs down.’ Have fun,” the guy droned as he held the curtain open.

The entrance was pitch black. Small orange lights pointed the way. You stayed safe and sound behind Ryo, clutching his shirt, so he couldn’t get too far in front of you.

“We’re not even into the first room. Relax.”

“I can’t.”

Dim purple glowed ahead. It was a living room, filled with thick cobwebs, creepy, crawling noises, and gross mannequins you were positive weren’t all mannequins. Before any of them moved, a cloaked figure dropped from the ceiling, screaming a banshee-like scream. You mimicked it, crouching so it couldn’t grab you.

Ryo didn’t so much as flinch. But he was smirking down at you. You stood, straightened your shirt, and mumbled, “Shut up.”

Two mannequins rose. Intestines spilled from their stomachs. You ran to the next curtain, not caring about their show.

Ryo joined you, leading the way once again to a red lit room- a barn littered with hay and dark, sticky liquid. Carcasses laid out. Innards wormed around on the floor. Lewd noises slicked from every direction.

Something breathed behind you. Spinning around showed a hunched figure holding a dripping knife. You yipped and ran to Ryo’s chest, making him turn. The figure squirmed inhumanly, cracking bones crudely, bending its arms too far back, muttering incoherently under its breath.

“Let’s go, let’s go!” You dragged Ryo through the next curtain.

“We’re hardly seeing anything at the pace you’re going.”

“Why do you want to see anything?”

“It’s fun,” he shrugged.

“No, it’s not,” you whispered. Gripping his arm for dear life, you rounded the corner to a dark hallway. Figures or coffins or something lined the walls. They creaked and croaked. Fog crept up from the floor. “Ryo, you go first.”

“I’ve been leading you through the whole house. You try going first this time.”

“No,” you whined, not caring how wimpy you sounded and looked.

“Just try,” he calmly said and removed your hand. He directed you to his front.

“Ryo…”

“You only need to try. Go slow and steady. I’ll be right behind you the entire time.”

You hesitantly agreed. But you still clutched his hand. It was the only anchor you had as you very sluggishly took the first step. The second was just as terrifying. Anything could pop up. Or out. Or drop. Or fly. Or-

Something grated under the floorboards. You were about to scoot along when a trapdoor shot open two feet in front of you. Ryo held your waist, preventing you from running away as two pitch white hands curled up. Long nails tapped the floor. Bony fingers popped with each movement. Forearms and elbows appeared next. Then groaning, glowing eyes.

You broke Ryo’s hold, avoiding the creature, and jumped onto his back, hiding in his safe haven of a mane. “I think I’m done for today.”

With a reassuring rub on your arm, he said, “Thumbs down.” The popping and clicking stopped. He carried you through the rest of the rooms, not once wincing or cowering at any of the scares.

The exit brought fresh air. He sat you down at the car. You apologized, “I’m sorry you didn’t get to enjoy all of the haunted house.”

“It’s alright.” He patted your head. “You tried for me. That’s what counts.” He tilted your chin up, letting him lick your slightly pouting lips. “Besides, I gotta admit you were pretty cute yelping like that.”

#aizawa shouta #aizawa x reader #hound dog #hound dog x reader #ryo inui #ryo inui x reader #aizawa imagine #hound dog imagine #bnha #bnha x reader #bnha imagines

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animeyanderelover · 4 years ago

Note

Can you write number 48 to Pluto?

It’s my pleasure.

Warnings: Yandere themes, unhealthy mindset, unhealthy relationship, possessiveness, obsessiveness, clinginess,mentions of death

Prompt 48: “I hate it when you pay attention to something else besides me.”

“And why do I need to take care of him now? Not that I mind, I like Pluto. But still! Don’t you think I have other things to do besides taking care of a demon hound?” Ciel sighed loudly, not looking happy that he had to ask you for this favor. “Believe me, from all the people I could have asked you’re the last one I wanted to ask. But you’re the only person who I can trust with him. You know what he really is and besides...” You bent curiously closer. “Besides?” “Besides it looks like Pluto got very attached to you and you’re the only person he listens too.” You chuckled and glanced at his butler. “Hey. I thought you were one hell of a butler. How come that he doesn’t listen to you anymore?” Sebastian didn’t answer. “Well?”, Ciel asked you. You thought about it for a moment. “Alright then. I have nothing against coming over and taking care of him.” To your huge surprise you heard Sebastian and Ciel sigh in relief. “Thanks a lot. I was worried that he would burn the whole manor down if you don’t agree.” You raised your eyebrow. “Why would he do that?” “As I said, he got very attached to you.”

The next morning you quickly made your way to the Phantomhive mansion. Many people might wonder how you even know the young Earl Phantomhive. It was simple. Your parents and his parents had been friends since a very long time and you and Ciel had been friends since a very young age too. After the fire and after the loss of his parents he had become a bit more distant to you, but at least he had still talked to you. You knew about him and his butler as well. How? Well, you had always been fascinated with reading stories about demons, angels and all this other stuff. And one year ago you had caught him without his eyepatch, seeing the strange symbol he had in his eye. Ciel had panicked and tried to come up with an excuse, you on the other hand had just stared fascinated at it before asking him bluntly if this was a Faustian contract. Ciel had been stunned when you had asked him this and you had simply added one and one, quickly figuring out that his red-eyed butler must be a demon. You honestly weren’t surprised, you had always suspected Sebastian to be anything, but a human. Were you happy that Ciel had given his soul away? No. But you couldn’t do anything against it. Luckily Ciel had trusted you enough to keep it a secret, feeling impressed that you had figured it out.

You waited patiently at the entrance before Sebastian opened the door. “Miss (y/n). You’re finally here.” As soon as he mentioned your name, you suddenly heard loud barking. “Pluto! No! Wait!” Was that Finny’s voice? You stepped in, curious about what was going on. Finny was stemming his feet against the ground, leaning all of his weight back and pulling desperately on the leash he was holding. Pluto on the other hand was trying to move forwards, barking excitedly when he saw you and tried to run to you, but was harshly pulled back, whining loudly. At this point you were scared that he would choke. “Finny! You’re going to choke him if you continue to pull on the leash like this! Let him go!” “Are you sure?!”, Finny asked you. You nodded. The same moment Finny let go was the moment where Pluto jumped towards you, instantly making you fall down with his weight on your top. You started giggling when he started licking all over your face and neck. “Stop that! I’m ticklish!” Pluto barked excitedly. You started petting his head, going into full dog lover mode. “Who’s a good boy? That’s right, you!” You suddenly heard someone clearing his throat behind you. “Would you mind doing that somewhere else? Not right in front of the entrance?” You turned around to see Ciel standing on top of the stains. You started laughing embarrassed. “Sorry. Guess I’ll go into the garden.”

The next few weeks were spent with you visiting the manor every day to take care of Pluto. And slowly, but surely you noticed that Pluto had probably gotten a bit too fond of you. At first you had just brushed it off because this guy was after all a demon hound and dogs were known to be very clingy. But could his current behavior be considered as normal? You weren’t too sure anymore. It had begun with him simply refusing to leave your side, he was clinging on your waist all the time and whenever you had tried to leave him for even one second he had started whining and had refused to let go of you, even if you ordered him too. Whenever you had left the manor to go home he had thrown a drama. It had gotten that bad that Sebastian had to step in every time to prevent him from leaving and it happened more than one time that he had been forced to knock Pluto out. All of this was, even though highly annoying, still in a yellow zone. But it had gotten out of hand when Pluto had scared anyone away from you who even dared to come anywhere near you. For example when Mey-Rin had tried to talk to you Pluto’s grip around your hip had suddenly tightened and he had let a deep growl out of his chest, giving Mey-Rin a dangerous look which reminded you of a predator looking at his prey. He did that to everyone and at some point everyone had started to stop talking to you and if they wanted to tell you something they had started to yell it to you from the distance. Even Ciel kept a safety distance. And from day to day it became worse.

You knew that something was wrong the moment Pluto suddenly stopped acting excitedly. He was just staring at you with narrowed eyes before bending down and starting to sniff on your clothes. “...Pluto? Is something wrong?”, you asked confused. He just continued to sniff on your clothes before he suddenly started growling dangerously, his grip around you tightening. You needed some time until you finally understood what was wrong. He must have sensed the smell of your old classmate on you which you had met on your way here. You had bumped into him earlier this day and both of you had for a moment stopped whatever you had been doing to catch up on old times. When both of you had gone separate ways you had given him a short hug. You hadn’t thought of it as something bad, but Pluto seemed more than just enraged. He was furiously growling. “Wow! Pluto, calm down! He was just a friend of mine!” You had hoped to calm him down, but that didn’t work. Instead he became even more enraged when you mentioned the word friend. By now his nails were digging painfully in your skin and the look he was giving you made you feel scared. What was wrong with him? Was he really so territorial with you? Wasn’t it enough that you spent all your time with him? He had already scared everyone in the mansion away from you! You could endure a lot with him, but that was a bit too much! You had your free time as well! “Pluto! Quit it!” Pluto abruptly stopped growling and gave you a surprised look. You had never spoken that harshly to him since he normally always listened to you, but it seemed like you had to be a bit more stricter with him. “Listen Pluto! I really like you, believe me, I do! But you need to understand that I can’t spend all of my time with you! I have other people in my life and I won’t accept it that any longer that you scare every person who tries to make contact with me away!” Pluto looked completely crushed. He whimpered and tried to stretch his hand out to touch you, but you lifted warningly your index finger. “No Pluto!” For the rest of the day you treated him more coldly, being in a bad mood.

It was late at night when you were suddenly woken up from your sleep. You rubbed your eyes to get rid of the tiredness. What was that for a noise? You were sure you had just heard something right now. You listened closely into the silence of the night. For a few seconds it was quiet, making you questioning if you had just dreamed that. But then you heard it again. It sounded like...the whimpering of a dog! And it sounded like it was right in front of your house! You stepped out of your bed and left your room, heading downstairs quickly. You knew that whimpering just too well. But what was he doing here? He was supposed to be at the mansion this late at night. When you stepped down you suddenly noticed another noise coming directly from your entrance door. It sounded like someone was scratching with his fingernails against the wood of your door. You stood for a moment unsure in front of your door, not knowing whether to open the door or not. But then you decided to let him in, it would mean serious troubles if someone would see a naked man whimpering and scratching in front of your door. So you turned the doorknob around.

Pluto instantly stormed inside, jumping onto you and barking happily whilst starting to spread all his salvia over your face and neck. “Pluto? What are you doing he-“ You stopped when suddenly a nasty smell started to hit your nose which came directly from Pluto himself. The smell was overwhelming and made you nearly dizzy. What was that? You tried to push Pluto away from you so that you wouldn’t have to endure this sickening smell anymore, but as soon as your hands touched his bare chest you instinctively pulled back. His chest was covered in some sticky liquid. It was very dark and the only source of light was the moon who was shining through the open door inside your house. You squinted your eyes to try to get a better look at Pluto. Your eyes needed a moment until they had adjusted to the darkness. The second you realized what this liquid was you paled. Pluto was covered in blood! It was smeared all over his face and body and since he was laying on top of you your white nightgown was also smudged with the scarlet liquid. Why was he covered in blood?! Did he...? Pluto himself didn’t seem to mind that much, he just continued happily to lick all over your face. You gulped. “P-Pluto?” He lifted his head, signaling you that he was listening. “W-what did you do?” Pluto blinked for a moment before he suddenly hurried out of your door, grabbing something he had hidden next to the door before quickly returning and letting the object fall into your lap, looking proud of himself.

Your brain on the other hand stopped working when you saw what that thing was. It was an arm! Blood was still flowing out of the opening, staining your nightgown in even more blood. You took notice of the clothing that was still visible on the arm and that’s when you knew to whom this arm belonged. It was from your old classmate. Judging from all the blood in which Pluto was covered you didn’t think that he was still walking under the living. You should have screamed and thrown the arm away, but you couldn’t. Your whole body was paralyzed and your limps felt like they were made out of stone. No matter how much you yelled at your brain and body to move, they didn’t listen to you. Pluto nudged you with his nose and you slowly shifted your eyes to look at him. He had an expecting look on his face, wanting to be praised by you. You didn’t even realized when your hand moved to start stroking his hair and you told him:”Good boy.” Why did you do this?! You should scream at him, but your body refused to. Perhaps this habit had been too deeply engraved in your mind to shake it off and your brain probably thought that this was the best way to handle this situation. By telling him that he did good and encouraging him to do this again. Pluto was clearly joyful when he heard this and once again his warm tongue went all over your face. “W-why did you do this?” It felt hard to speak this sentence, your tongue feeling like it was made out of lead. For a moment Pluto tilted his head as if wondering if it wasn’t already obvious. He stared you directly into the eyes and it was like there was a silent message written inside of it, that was only meant for you. “I hate it when you pay attention to something else besides me.”

#yandere black butler #yandere kuroshitsuji #yandere pluto

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kindofwriter · 4 years ago

Text

Pt. 1

Pt. 2 of ‘The Gang Meets Wilde’

Sorry for the long post, I have an illegal number of pictures, so it won’t let me format :|

Now that I’ve got all the Zoscar out of my system I’m going to do every Sasha scene ever bc she’s the love of my life.

Also, I don’t think Zolf had any healing magic left at this point, but even way back when I first listened I imagined him immediately trying (and only partially succeeding) to heal Wilde. I just wanted someone to take my soft poetry boy away from Bertie!

Transcript under the cut:

ZOLF places a hand gently on SASHA's upper arm. She looks down at him, then reluctantly backs up with the dagger. WILDE stands and smooths his waistcoat. SASHA is still stood uncomfortably close to him.

WILDE: I just thought you might-

HAMID: What is your job?

ZOLF: Actually, just before, that, Hamid?

WILDE (TRYING TO MAKE EYE CONTACT WITH ZOLF): What isn't?!

ZOLF: Ah, lo-, shut up- Hamid? A word, please?

BERTIE: I've got a thing or two in mind...

HAMID nods and starts to lead ZOLF into his bedroom. As they leave ZOLF tries to throw BERTIE a dirty look, but he's already back to making eyes at WILDE. ZOLF instead throws SASHA a sympathy glance, before the door shuts behind him and HAMID.

ZOLF: You realise that what we're actually doing is kind of a bit... secret, international, governmental level... So we probably just shouldn't be telling him about-

HAMID: Yes, of course, I won't tell him about that.

ZOLF: (WITH SOME DOUBT) Okay, just making sure.

CUT TO LIVING ROOM

SASHA has backed even further away from WILDE, though she is still pointing her dagger at him in a threatening manner. WILDE has sidled up to BERTIE and is running a finger along his breast plate.

WILDE: That's very fine armour, is that all yours? I mean, does it fit, is it exaggerating? I'm just curious.

BERTIE (NOT SO MUCH FLIRTING AS ENJOYING THE OPPORTUNITY TO BRAG): Oh, no, this is a very real representation of what lies beneath.

The bedroom door opens and HAMID then ZOLF reemerge, ZOLF looking slightly annoyed at himself for pulling HAMID aside for what was seemingly nothing.Taking in SASHA's perplexed expression, HAMID pushes his way between BERTIE and WILDE and begins to pour her a whiskey.

WILDE: See, isn't this nice? Everyone's getting together-

WILDE gazes at BERTIE over HAMID's head.

WILDE: Everyone's having a good time.

HAMID passes the drink to SASHA.

SASHA: You're all okay with the fact that this guy's been stalking us?

HAMID looks from SASHA to WILDE, who has once against closed the gap between himself and BERTIE and leaning seductively against the mantle.

HAMID: I don't think he's a threat. Let's- We'll talk to him, we'll find out-

WILDE: (TURNING DRAMATICALLY AWAY FROM BERTIE) Woah now! Threat, really?

Having lost WILDE's attention, BERTIE begins to examine his own armour. WILDE steps into the centre of the room. It's clearly not meant as a threatening gesture, but with BERTIE on the other side of the room WILDE easily towers over HAMID, ZOLF, and SASHA.

HAMID: Let's all just relax.

SASHA: Just 'cause someone's charming doesn't mean they're not a threat.

ZOLF: I mean, I was really hoping to have a debrief and actually do some work.

WILDE: (TURNING THE CHARM UP. HE REALLY WANTS TO IMPRESS ZOLF) Oh, don't mind me, honestly, I just thought, you know, it would be useful for you to have a single point of contact, you know? So many reporters hounding you. If people were to know not to come to you because you're already taken, as it were, think of all of the, think of all of the hassle dealt with. I mean, look at me! Of course I can spin this any way you want!

ZOLF: (NOT IMPRESSED) I don't know if breaking into our friend's apartment is supposed to be some kind of grand master play of showing how competent you are-

WILDE: I'm sorry, I just-

ZOLF (ANNOYED): But all it makes me is not trust you and not like you, so that was a misstep.

WILDE has that look on his face again; a desperate mix of wanting to win ZOLF over and wanting to choke him to death.Hearing the shift in tone, BERTIE finally turns his attention away from his armour and shouts from beside the liquor cabinet.

BERTIE: I will take it upon myself to investigate the good character of this young man through a thorough interview and extensive debriefing.

ZOLF forgotten, WILDE turns to BERTIE, twiddling a strand of hair between his fingers.

WILDE: Oh, please do.

BERTIE: I have a private-

HAMID (NOW VERY AWARE OF WHAT BERTIE IS DOING): Possibly over some wine?

BERTIE: I find that wine will often loosen the... tongue.

WILDE giggles slightly. ZOLF gives the back of his head the dirtiest look it is possible to give.

BERTIE: I volunteer for this task. I feel it is incumbent upon me to take this burden of responsibility, take, take one for the team, as it were. And indeed dispense one for the team. You know, I have a private interview suite at The Ritz that I feel might be a more appropriate venue for such a, an extended and languorous and vigorous... intercourse.

HAMID (AT THE SAME TIME AS BERTIE SAYS 'INTERCOURSE,' CLEARLY TRYING TO KEEP THINGS PG): Questioning.

ZOLF looks less than impressed, but this is nothing new for BERTIE. SASHA, looking quite lost, hugs her dagger to her chest.

ZOLF: Okay, can I just make one request?

WILDE whips back around to look eagerly at ZOLF.

WILDE: Oh?

BERTIE (SERIOUS): You can't watch.

ZOLF's face scrunches in a display of grey-ace disgust.

ZOLF (GENUINLY HORRIFIED): Why would I want to watch- (HE CORRECTS HIMSELF TO A MORE NEUTRAL TONE)You having a conversation with this nice man?

ZOLF gives WILDE a sickly sweet smile that is somehow more threatening than any of his openly malicious glares.

ZOLF: However, in the fits of your interview just please try and be discreet with our work.

BERTIE: All of the bellowing will be at an indoor volume, I promise you that, Mr Smith.

WILDE (LOOKING BACK TO BERTIE): I don't think you'll be in a state to bellow the way I interview. Ha!

BERTIE: Ha ha! Hmm.

WILDE (NERVOUS, OVERLAPPING): Well, I mean-

ZOLF (OVERLAPPING): Right, well-

WILDE: No one else care to take me up on the offer?

ZOLF: No, if you wanna take him into your hands then you're more than welcome.

BERTIE: Oh, yes!

WILDE: Well, shall we say, uh-

SASHA (INTERRUPTING, ANNOYED BUT ALSO WITH GENUINE QUESTIONING): So we're, we're all alright with this just, like, you come in, you break into someone's house, you know secrets about us, and then you flirt your way out of it?

ZOLF has the decency to look ashamed about his last innuendo. BERTIE does not in the slightest.

SASHA: That's just, just so I know, right, because, uh, seems like we can take down monsters, uh, and, you know, deal with the police, and, uh, fight our way out of burning buildings, but just so I know that that is the one thing that, like, you know, just... being aware.

HAMID: It's not a very difficult apartment to break into, in fairness.

SASHA nods at this; clearly she thought the exact same thing upon seeing it for the first time.

WILDE: What were the monsters?

WILDE reaches inside his coat for a second notebook, identical to the one ZOLF burned earlier.A moment of awkward, stuttered silence ensues.

BERTIE (TO THE RESCUE, FOR ONCE): We've all been fighting our own internal demons, aaaagh.

WILDE (DISAPPOINTED): Ah. Right.

WILDE slips the notebook back.

WILDE: But this was after the, the British Museum? Yes?

ZOLF (TEARSLY): Yes.

WILDE: Tell you what, shall we say nine o'clock, Bertie, yes?

BERTIE: Excellent.

ZOLF: Mr Wilde, let me make something very clear.

WILDE: Please do!

WILDE slips a hand into a different pocket in his jacket and hands a small card to BERTIE.

ZOLF: If anything untoward makes it into the public eye that we do not want into the public eye I will drown you in a bucket.

WILDE straightens from handing over the card and simply smirks down at ZOLF.

WILDE: Well that's seemingly unfair, Mr Smith. I mean, honestly-

ZOLF: And it's still going to happen. So don't try and barter-

WILDE: How would you know it's from me?

ZOLF: Just be very careful.

WILDE (PUTTING IT ON FOR ZOLF'S AMUSEMENT. ZOLF IS NOT AMUSED): So you're telling me that if a, a set of strapping bucks and, and uh, buxom, I want to say?

WILDE looks at SASHA.

WILDE: Ladies?

ZOLF: I could-

SASHA: What? Wait, what? No, nah, no, no wait, what?

WILDE: Under all of that you might be. Who knows?

SASHA: What?

WILDE (TRAILING OFF): All I'm saying is: you draw a lot of attention, I can't promise you'll never get attention.

ZOLF (STARTS SPEAKING OVER WILDE): I am very keen to cut to the quick and just drown you in a bucket now.

SASHA: Yeah.

BERTIE: Steady.

SASHA: Sounds good.

ZOLF: So stop it with your whole aloof, cleaverer than me kind of thing you've got going on here. If you reveal anything that I do not want to be revealed about this team and their-

ZOLF loses momentum a little as he looks over at BERTIE.

ZOLF: Deeds.

Pulling himself together again, ZOLF reaches up, grabs hold of WILDE's lapels, and yanks him down to ZOLF's height. Surprise, then annoyance, then what can only be described as a flustered blush pass across WILDE's face.

ZOLF (TENSE): I will drown you in a bucket!

BERTIE: Don't worry, Mr Smith, I promise to reveal precisely the right amount.

ZOLF: Good.

WILDE smirks, his moment of frozen, flustered panic over, and he reaches out a hand and lightly bops ZOLF's nose.

WILDE: I'll try not to enjoy it.

Without even a grimace to first indicate what he's about to do, ZOLF rears back and headbutts WILDE. There's an awful crunch as his skull collides with WILDE's nose, which immediately begins to start pouring blood, and WILDE topples backwards onto the floor.

There's a collective gasp as everyone, including ZOLF, realises what he's just done. ZOLF reaches out for WILDE's hand, immediately trying to rectify his mistake, but WILDE pulls back, cupping his hands to his face. Instead ZOLF places a hand on WILDE's cheek, rather aggressively, and mutters a few words. A soft glow emanates from ZOLF's hand and there's another click. Before ZOLF has even had the chance to move his hand away BERTIE's gauntlet smacks him across the cheek and he's knocked prone.

SASHA rushes to check on ZOLF and HAMID makes a futile attempt at pulling BERTIE back. WILDE cautiously removes his hands from his face. His nose is perfectly straight, but still gushing blood. He takes a handkerchief from his breast pocket and dabs at it, shakily getting to his feet.

WILDE: Well, that was unpleasant, I'm so sorry to have let things escalate like that. I'll see you later, Bertie. Pleasure meeting all of you.

SASHA helps ZOLF to his feet, who immediately starts glaring at BERTIE across the room.

ZOLF (BITTERLY, NOT LOOKING AT WILDE): Pleasure.

WILDE: And I hope to see you around again soon. Yep... Okay...

WILDE steps gingerly between the stare-off and to the door. He gestures at it to HAMID.

WILDE: Would you like me to lock it on the way out?

HAMID's shoulders heave as he gives a massive sigh.

HAMID: No, that's fine.

WILDE: Oh, okay.

WILDE starts to leave.

HAMID: Please, Mr Wilde.

WILDE sticks his head back around the doorframe.

HAMID: I will happily talk to you another time, but please arrange an interview in a proper location, and do not come unexpectedly.

WILDE: I'll make sure to get a, uh, a contact time and place from Bertie. Okay?

HAMID (DISGRUNTLED): Very well.

WILDE: Have a good one.

WILDE heads into the corridor, closing the door behind him.

WILDE STOOD IN FRONT OF HAMID'S DOOR

WILDE sighs, and as he does so something about his appearance changes. His hair is less uniform, face paler, eyes more sunken, waist less defined. The colours on his clothes are slightly less garish than they previous seemed.WILDE wipes the rest of the blood from his nose, then stuffs the handkerchief back into his pocket.

He straightens, waves his hand, and suddenly he's immaculate again. He shuffles slightly, like he's about to take off, then pauses for a moment. WILDE lifts a hand to his cheek, where ZOLF cast his healing spell, and smiles; soft and genuine and private. Then, still smiling a little, he takes off down the corridor.

#rqg #the rusty quill gaming podcast #zolf smith #oscar wilde rqg #sasha rackett #hamid saleh haroun al tahan #bertie macguffingham #zoscar #rqg 25 #author's note #long post

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guqin-and-flute · 4 years ago

Text

And A-Fu Makes 4 --Chapter 2

[Ao3 Link]

Grown ups were so weird. They spent so much of their time talking and doing boring things--even at Cultivation Conferences when they all were together, which A-Fu thought was hardly fair.

All his fathers were usually busy during the day with Important Clan Matters with the other grown ups and he got stuck with the kids that had been dragged along, too. It wasn’t all bad--there were some fun kids that came, sometimes, like Ouyang Kui, who was the son of Old Clan Leader Ouyang and thought that A-Fu was hilarious. (Blue-Father had told him before that Old Clan Leader Ouyang wasn’t actually old for a Clan Leader, he just thought so because both Gray-Father and Blue-Father were younger than him. A-Fu had told him that he thought that they were actually pretty old, too, and Blue-Father had almost managed to hold back the laughing from his voice as he said, “A-Fu, you cannot just call people old; there are those that would take offense and it’s not polite.” But he hadn’t made him write lines or scrub the floor so it probably wasn’t a lesson that was all that important, anyway.)

It wasn’t that Cultivation Conferences were horrible, they just tended to be boring, because all the babysitters got brought along and they would watch everyone very closely and there was hardly any chance to do anything interesting at all. Most of the time, he would just hang out with any kids that came, Jin Ling, and whatever baby Aunt Yanli and Uncle Zixuan had decided to have that year. This Conference, it was twins--and no A-Yuan or A-Kui or anyone else his age. Just A-Ling and all the babies.

Jin Ling complained all the time about having 3 younger siblings-- “Why did she have 2? That’s too many at once!” A-Fu had demanded when Jin Ling had told him about the twins. Jin Ling had just rolled his eyes like he was stupid--but if A-Fu ever complained about them crying, Jin Ling would get very offended.

“They can’t help it! They’re babies!”

A-Fu had kicked idly at a lilypad from where they were sitting, soaking their feet on one of the docks of Lotus Pier with their pants all rolled up. The sun was making him itchy and sweaty, but the lotus seeds they were tossing back and forth into each other's mouths were refreshing and crunchy, which made up for it. “Then babies are dumb. Why do they act like it’s the worst thing that’s ever happened to them?”

“Niang says it’s because it probably is the worst thing that’s ever happened to them, ever. They haven’t been alive very long,” Jin Ling added wisely, like he knew anything at all about babies.

Well…he might. More than A-Fu, anyway. He did live with 3 of them. Except his little brother A-Qiang could walk now, though, so maybe he wasn’t a baby anymore. He still smelled enough to be one. When A-Fu said that he still thought they should get over it and stop crying, Jin Ling had rolled his eyes at him again, so A-Fu had raised one wet foot and shoved him off the dock into the shallows, getting his pretty gold and white outfit all muddy. A-Ling had shouted a bad word and they both had got in trouble with the Jin nanny. A-Fu split his ginger candy with him afterward, though, so Jin Ling forgave him pretty quick.

Babies weren’t all that interesting to A-Fu--they were squishy and loud and heavier than they looked and you couldn’t play anything fun with them. Aunt Yanli had let him hold new little baby A-Mei, while Jin Ling held her twin brother, A-Zan. He had felt a little guilty, because Aunt Yanli had looked so happy when she looked down at the baby in A-Fu’s arms, but A-Fu just kind of wanted to give her back. She smelled weird and she sort of looked like a bald, red little animal with tiny, tiny fingers he was afraid of touching in case something bad happened. He had looked over at Jin Ling, who had a lot of practice with such things, and how he sort of bounced around and looked fondly down at his baby brother like he actually liked being near him. A-Fu tried that bouncing thing a little, but A-Mei had squinched up her face and made honking noises, so he handed her back really quick.

He had asked Blue-Father and Gray-Father later that day in the room they were staying in if he was going to get a baby brother or sister--really kind of hoping they would tell him ‘of course not’--but Blue-Father had gotten very quiet and Gray-Father had looked over at him. Blue-Father was watching his own hands. “It’s hard to say, little one,” Blue-Father had finally said in a weirdly even voice that was like when you were trying to step around a creaky floorboard all careful.

Gray-Father had made a loud huffing sound through his nose, scowling. “Again?” He demanded, but not at A-Fu. “You’ve already--” he seemed to remember A-Fu was there when he looked at him and pressed his lips together really tight and continued, “And you're not wanting for cousins. And there's still Wangji. I thought he had left it alone.”

“Da-ge, please. This isn’t the time.” His blue father just sounded tired, now.

“That he keeps hounding you on this--”

“You know that it’s not that simple.”

“It is!” Gray-Father’s voice was rising, but not like he was going to yell, just like he really really wanted Blue-Father to listen. “In this case, it is! Xichen, he’s just doing this because--”

“When you talk about the duty of a--”

“Bullshit.”

“Da-ge--” A-Fu saw Blue-Father’s eyes zip to him and away quickly but Gray-Father didn’t stop.

“You know that's not why he's doing this. Why shouldn’t this be enough for him? There’s A-Fu and there’s Wangji and there’s A-Yuan and at least 7 other near-cousins. It’s about image and control, A-Huan, he’s been like this since we were young; no matter what you do, it’s never going to--”

Blue-Father closed his eyes and that shut his gray father up faster than any of his words had. Gray-Father had growled in his chest all frustrated. Then, he had leaned over and kissed Blue-Father right on the lips.

They didn’t do that a lot, never in public, and not a whole bunch around A-Fu--it probably wasn’t allowed for you to kiss on people in public, though it wasn’t a rule that was written anywhere that he had heard of. But they were in a private room of Lotus Pier while everyone else was going to sleep, so it was probably okay here. Gray-Father had looked into Blue-Father’s eyes really close and said, “You are enough as you are.”

A-Fu’s blue father’s mouth had gotten thin and shaky and he nodded and nodded without saying anything.

“We are enough as we are,” Gray-Father had said with the same quiet, important voice and Blue-Father had swallowed really hard and he kept nodding and nodding, looking down at his lap.

A-Fu’s stomach had squirmed with worry until Gray-Father turned and smiled at him and beckoned him over and A-Fu jumped to his feet, running over to crash into their laps. Blue-Father had wrapped his arms around him tightly, his hands petting over A-Fu’s hair as Gray-Father pulled them both into a hug that squished A-Fu between them in the best way, even if his head was just a little crushed.

"So no babies, right?" He had smeared into Blue-Father's chest and Gray-Father had laughed.

"No, child, no babies here except you."

His blue father didn't say anything, just kept petting his head.

The whole conversation didn’t really make sense to A-Fu. He was still thinking about it the next day as he was swimming around in the lake with Jin Ling, his brain not letting go of the memory of his blue father trying not to cry the night before. It made him think of the last time he had seen him upset, just a few days ago at the Cloud Recesses. It didn’t happen a lot, so when it did, it really stuck in his head as a prickle.

A-Fu swooshed his hands around underwater, making his floating hair swirl like the clouds he had seen Blue-Father paint on wall hangings. “A-Ling, what’s a succession?”

Jin Ling, blinked water out of his eyes and spit out pond gunk. “Like when you win?”

A-Fu heaved a huge sigh because A-Ling so did not understand a single thing and paddled over to the dock where the nannies sat. He tilted his head back to squawk, “Jin-qianbei, what’s a succession?”

One of the Jin nannies leaned over to see him better, the sun glinting off her gold hair pin and her earrings like sparks. “Succession, xiao-gongzi? It’s the order of inheritance.” When he scrunched up his face, she tried again. “It’s who takes over when someone in charge passes away or is unable to fulfill their duties any longer. Sons and daughters and the order of birth.”

“Huh,” A-Fu said and thought about this hard, trying to make it fit like puzzle pieces. Taking in a deep breath, he floated on his back and closed his eyes against the sun that turned his eyelids bright red, listening to the ‘plink’ and ‘gloop’ of the water in his ears. He hadn’t wanted to ask Gray-Father or Blue-Father about what a succession was, because when he had heard the word, he had been breaking all kinds of rules.

It had been the last time Blue-Father was so upset, a few days before coming to the conference, back when he had been putting away the wash bin he had used to clean the library floor as punishment for talking during meals. (Again. It was just so boring to sit there! Every other clan got to talk while they ate!) He was just going past Great-Uncle Qiren’s house when he had heard his blue father’s voice inside.

It wasn’t weird to hear him talking to Great-Uncle Qiren, and it probably wasn’t something very interesting, but then, he heard Uncle Wangji’s voice and that made him slow down. Everyone knew that Uncle Wangji didn’t talk much to begin with, and even less to Great-Uncle Qiren. As far as A-Fu knew, he wasn’t ever rude about it, but he sure didn’t say more than he needed to. His curiosity felt like a little minnow nibbling at his brain and, before he knew it, he was pouring out the gross water and shoving everything under a fancy bush by the path. Then, he snuck around the back of the house where there was a window that looked out at only trees, where no one on the paths could see him.

He was pretty sure sneaking and eavesdropping weren’t ‘filial’ or ‘virtuous’ but he was curious--and Uncle Wangji had told A-Yuan and him that being curious was good. So A-Fu figured that believing that was pretty filial of him.

When he peeked over the sill, he saw all 3 grown ups sitting sideways to him at the table that was over by the far window. Great-Uncle Qiren had his scowly face on where his beard twitched around like it was alive. Uncle Wangji looked...like Uncle Wangji, which meant he didn’t really look like he was feeling anything at all, just staring past Great-Uncle Qiren’s head. Blue-Father was pale.

He might not have looked very upset to someone who didn’t live with him, but A-Fu could tell right away, because he wasn’t even bothering to try to smile.

Great-Uncle Qiren’s voice was sharp and angry. “--least he is a Lan, but that boy--”

“Has the headband. Has the name. In all respects,” Uncle Wangji interrupted Great-Uncle Qiren and turned his head just a little and stared at Great-Uncle Qiren, right in the eyes. “As you agreed.”

A-Fu suddenly wondered if grown ups could get punished just like little kids did when Great-Uncle’s eyebrows came down and his beard and moustache twitched again and he snapped, “Wangji.”

Uncle Wangji’s eyes flickered, just a little.

“Wangji,” Blue-Father said all quiet, in a very different voice. He didn’t look at Uncle Wangji, but instead at the edge of the shiny table.

Uncle Wangji said nothing, but his mouth got a little smaller and he went back to looking at the wall.

Great-Uncle Qiren was glaring at him. “Don’t think that I don’t know where he came from. You may refuse to say, but anyone with any unfortunate knowledge of your inclinations could guess that he is connected to...that man. That I let you keep him so near to you is a kindness. And you,” he turned back to A-Fu’s blue father. “This is supposed to be it, then? You would be pleased to leave our line of succession the way it is?” He shook his head, like he couldn’t believe it.

A-Fu’s face was starting to heat up and he balled up his fists. He wanted to burst out and yell at him to shut up--but bursting got you chores and lines and then he wouldn’t be able to listen, anymore. Bursting was like Gray-Father, who wasn’t a very sneaky person. Right now, he had to be like Yellow-Father, who could sit very quiet and smile at people who got angry right in his face.

For a second, he felt really guilty when he thought of Blue-Father, who wouldn’t have been sneaking at all. Who was being sneaked on right now.

But no, A-Fu reasoned, he was actually sneaking on Great-Uncle Qiren. Who was actually still talking; “I don’t understand how this keeps happening. Where have I gone so wrong that you both repeat and repeat your father’s mistakes? Have you not seen where that leads? Have you not both seen what that does to your Clan? Your family? Choosing--”

He stopped all of a sudden, just as A-Fu was starting to notice that this sounded a lot like talking behind people’s backs, which was definitely against the rules. Standing up, his great-uncle stuck his hands behind his back and turned with a scowl toward A-Fu’s window. A-Fu managed to hold back his squeak as he ducked down, heart pounding hard in his throat.

When he heard footsteps, he almost ran--which would have been really dumb, because there were loose rocks all over the ground that clattered and crunched--but the footsteps turned around, going back and forth as Great-Uncle Qiren paced, then stopped. “Your duty is to your Clan, not to your own feelings, Lan-zongzhu,” he said the title like a reminder. “I cannot force you to do what’s right, but I would hope that I wouldn’t have to. I would hope that you, of all people, would realize how quickly these things can change and people die. No one wants to consider it, but you must. It is your place. Even your father managed this--absent though he was from all other duties. This is not something I can do for you simply because you do not like it.”

It was almost like what his blue father had said to him a bunch of times before--except it didn’t sound kind and patient and wise coming from Great-Uncle Qiren. In fact, A-Fu thought that he sounded pretty mean--if Great-Uncle Qiren had scolded him like that, he would be wishing he was anywhere else in the world and he might have even cried, a bit. A-Fu wanted to poke his head up again to see Blue-Father’s expression, but he didn’t know which way Great-Uncle Qiren was looking and definitely didn’t want to risk getting caught listening to what sounded like a Serious Adult Conversation.

A-Fu doubted Blue-Father looked very happy at all.

“...I understand, shufu,” came his voice, still quiet.

“But you will do nothing? You would put this to someone else? Wangji? And how would that go, do you think?” Great-Uncle Qiren shot back.

There was a silence, long enough that the birds in the trees nearby filled it up with tweets and tweedles. A-Fu’s stomach was tied up in complicated knots and suddenly, the sneaking wasn’t so much fun, anymore. It hadn’t actually been all that fun to begin with; all it was was Great-Uncle Qiren yelling at people he loved. As quietly as he could, he snuck back to his wash bin and hurried off.

When he got back to the Hanshi after cleaning up, Blue-Father was already there sitting on his bed, staring at the backs of his hands on his knees.

All he had said was, “A-Fu, I need some quiet, please,” in a low voice. For a second, A-Fu thought about pretending he had lost his voice and going on a silly search for it, as a funny joke to cheer him up. But it was weird to see his father so serious and pale and he didn’t think that he would want any goofing. So, instead, he had just bit his cheek and said, “Okay, die," and went to go find A-Yuan. He maybe even cried a little bit, but A-Yuan was really good about not asking him what was wrong twice when he didn’t want to talk.

Sneaking was something that A-Fu got pretty good at--seeing how long he could wait in a tree without anyone noticing he was there, padding around in his socks to jump up on people's backs when they least expected it. He had almost made A-Ling pee himself when he jumped out of his toy chest after hiding there for a million hours. It was like a game he was playing with the world.

Sometimes, it got him in trouble when people found him sneaking where he shouldn’t--once, he had sneaked into Uncle Huaisang’s room and climbed up on top of a big cabinet but had accidentally pushed off a bunch of stuff that made a huge mess, spilling all over his bed and when he got found out, he had been made to stand in a corner for, like, a year. He felt bad that he ruined the sheets Uncle Huaisang had kept complaining about, but he just made sure not to do that, next time. It made A-Yuan nervous and he would never, never come with him because he didn’t want to get in trouble, but he would listen to the stories A-Fu told him about it like he was hearing legends and he would gasp at all the right parts. Sometimes A-Ling would come on sneaking missions, but he clomped like a horse and breathed too loud, so A-Fu usually just left him behind on the hard ones.

There were people that were super easy to sneak on--like A-Qiang and the Jin nannies and Uncle Huaisang--and there were some people who were tougher--like Gray-Father and Blue-Father and Great-Uncle Qiren. The hardest level he still couldn’t beat was Yellow-Father, who always seemed to know when someone was watching him or when something was moved out of place. So many times, A-Fu had escaped the nannies and hid under his desk to surprise him when he sat down, only to have his father pause just as soon as he came in the room and say, amused, “Fufu, you’re not supposed to be in here.” He couldn’t even see him! And he had been so quiet!

The only time he could ever surprise Yellow-Father was in the middle of the night when he was sleeping, and he wasn’t ever, ever allowed to do that. (It was a Very Important Rule all 3 of his fathers had told him for as long as he could remember; no sneaking in the rooms at night and if he needed them to get up, he had to call from the door to let them wake up, first. This made sense and A-Fu always followed this rule because, while his blue and gray father’s sometimes woke up confused for a couple seconds, Yellow-Father always woke up with a big gasp and sat up really quick and it always made A-Fu flinch. He usually just tried not to wake him up or he would just crawl in on Blue-Father’s side instead, if he was there.)

Sneaking wasn’t really about hearing what people were talking about, most of the time, since they usually talked about confusing and boring adult stuff. It was more that sneaking was fun and it made him feel super proud to have something he was good at, finally.

Because he was last in his class at pretty much everything--reading and recitation, writing, music reading, numbers.

Classes were long and boring and his legs hurt to sit on for that whole, whole time and he wasn’t allowed to slouch or get comfortable or take breaks or anything. He would sit next to A-Yuan and stare out the window at the zipping bugs over the stream in the woods, or the seniors passing by on the walkways and the teacher’s voice would just slosh over him. He tried. He really, really did. The teachers said he didn’t and even A-Yuan said that if he stopped drawing on his paper, he could maybe learn more.

It was easy for him to say. A-Yuan was good at everything--sitting still, handwriting, listening, remembering, adding numbers. He was so smart, A-Fu thought that he should probably be the teacher when he grew up. It wasn’t that A-Fu was grumpy at A-Yuan for being better than him at everything. It was just hard when people thought A-Fu was just goofing off on purpose and A-Yuan just didn’t even have to try and was amazing. It wasn’t fair.

So many times he had thrown himself onto Blue-Father’s lap and just sobbed because he was so, so frustrated he wanted to just chuck every book into the river and never try to read again. The characters were just blobby patches of sticks that didn’t mean anything and he could never remember the sounds they were supposed to make.

“Just talk to me forever! Never write me a note! Just send me Jin butterflies until I die!” he had yelled into Blue-Father’s knees one time. “Reading is stupid! I’m stupid!”

“No, no, no,” Blue-Father had said and picked him up and held him close underneath his chin. “Never say that. Your cleverness--”

“I don’t have any, A-Yuan took them all,” he choked, yanking at his father’s lapel to try to burrow into his outer robes, where it was dark and warm and pressy and quiet. “Everyone is better than me. I’m probably not even good enough to be a succession!”

“...What?” His arms had loosened around A-Fu long enough to escape halfway into the robe pocket he had made, so A-Fu kicked his way in and hung there with his legs sticking out, curled around his father’s side, listening to the quiet gurgle of his tummy through his back. “A-Fu, a what?”

“Nothing,” he mumbled. He didn’t want to talk about it, because he might accidentally let him know he had sneaked on that weird grownup conversation--Blue-Father was really good at figuring things like that out. “I’m just not good at anything good. I hate learning.”

“...Are you worried about being Clan Leader someday?”

No, not really because Blue-Father was never going to die like his birth parents, so he really wasn’t worried. Him and Gray-Father were going to be the Clan Leaders forever because they were strong and good at fighting and so he would never have to worry about himself being a succession or any of his fathers dying, ever, but he knew it was important to Great-Uncle Qiren. And he already thought A-Fu was a slacker and a troublemaker. And probably stupid. It made him feel like a small, lumpy toad that accidentally got into the library that everyone wanted to get out right away.

“Little love, talk to me.”

A-Fu stayed stubbornly quiet. He didn’t have a plan, but he didn’t want to talk about this. Because what if Blue-Father decided that he was disappointed and that A-Fu really was stupid at school? What if he really just was going to be terrible at everything forever?

Gentle hands wrapped around his ankle and he squawked with a kick when something tickled against his foot like a sniffing bunny. Blue-Father held his feet still as he continued to lightly scratch the bottom, right in the middle where it tickled the most. “ACK! Stoppit!”

“Come out, then.”

“No!”

“I don’t talk to behinds.” He could hear the smile in Blue-Father’s voice. “I need a face.”

“No!!”

“Then I guess I’ll just--” the tickling went from one finger to a lot and it yanked a shriek-laugh that A-Fu didn’t mean and was mad about.

Kicking and worming around as hard as he could to show that he was still angry, he flipped over so he was on his back, head still hidden. Halfway what he asked. That tickle came back on his foot, so he yelped and reached up to yank the loosened robe down Blue-Father’s shoulder a bit, so he was still tucked inside, but he could look down and see A-Fu’s scowling face. “What,” A-Fu demanded in his absolute grumpiest voice because his father was forcing him.

“Rude,” Blue-Father chuckled and poked his nose. “Tell me what you’re good at.”

“Nothing.”

He tilted his head, and his smile got all soft and sorry. “Lie. Lies will get you chores.”

A-Fu made a huge scowly face and hid his face in his own sleeves, curling up his knees until he was an angry ball tucked into Blue-Father’s messed up outer robe and yelled, “I can’t think of anything!”

“Hmmm. What if I share what I know you’re good at?”

A-Fu was quiet, still hidden. But a grumpy quiet. Grown-ups always tried to get their way and make you feel better when you were so mad and it just made him madder.

“You’re a very funny boy. You’re adventurous, you’re compassionate, you’re brave, you’re kind--”

He couldn’t take it any longer. “Those aren’t even things!” A-Fu burst out, pulling his arms away from his face to glare up at him. “Like, actual real things!”

“Oh? You don’t know when a person is being unkind?”

“It’s not a thing like writing or board games or fighting good! It’s not important!”

Blue-Father just looked down at him for a minute, face calm, eyes thinking. The air A-Fu was breathing inside the robe was warm and Blue-Father scented--incense and something dark-sweet, like fancy wood. Every once in a while, a chilly little wisp of air would come in from the outside and burn the inside of his nose with its fresh cold. He wanted to stay tucked in here forever and never go back to school or do anything hard ever again. His father was strong enough to carry him in his robes like a weird lady-boob all the time. They could just tell everyone A-Fu ran away and that Blue-Father decided to grow a gourd from his chest meridians or something.

Then, Blue-Father said, “What are the things that your Gray-Father is good at?”

“Ughh, that’s so easy,” A-Fu complained and rolled his eyes, which got him an eyebrow raise and an ‘oh really?’ look, which meant that he was probably getting pretty close to being told to stop being rude for real. He let The Attitude go with another pout, poking out his chin, but he said, “Fine. He’s good at fighting. And cooking. And riding horses. And playing.” He thought a second, then added, grudgingly. “Bread.”

Blue-Father nodded encouragingly, smiling. “Alright. What do you like about Gray-Father? Do you like that he’s good at fighting?”

A-Fu squinted at him. “He just is.”

“Alright, then what do you like about Gray-Father?”

He thought about it a second--not because it was hard, but because he was trying to see if this was another trick to make him feel better. After he couldn’t figure it out, he just answered. “I like when he throws me and swims with me and plays Monster. I like when he gives me shoulder rides.”

Still smiling, Blue-Father held out his hand over him and spread his fingers and, automatically, A-Fu grabbed onto his thumb and ring finger and grumpily stretched them around. “Alright. What is Yellow-Father good at?”

“Talking to grownups and writing and knowing when I’m sneaking up on him and making A-Ling shut up.”

Blue-Father’s raised eyebrows gave his words back and A-Fu pouted but said, “Sorry,” and set about curling those long fingers one at a time into a fist.

“And what do you like about spending time with him?”

“I like when he braids my hair. And when he sings to me. And when he plays pretend.”

When his Blue-Father tried to stretch his hand out again to touch A-Fu’s cheek, A-Fu scowled and clamped down on it, making his father chuckle and curl it back up obediently. “So, do you see? There is more to a person than just what they can do. It’s how they make us feel and how they treat people. That is what’s important to me, little love. That you are fair. That you are kind. I will love you even--” he leaned in like he had a secret, glancing over at the door like someone might hear and, despite himself, A-Fu leaned up out of his pocket to hear his sneaky whisper, “--if you’re last in your class...forever.”

A-Fu’s eyes widened. “For really?”

His blue father nodded. “For really. It’s important that you try your best. But I will love you no matter what that is.”

“Hmmm.” A-Fu mulled this over and decided he felt a little better, but still didn’t want to leave his robe-cave. Blue-Father had taken his own hand back when A-Fu kept pretending to punch himself in the forehead with it (with sound effects) but had let him stay where he was while he wrote some letters. A-Fu had fallen asleep there, wrapped up in warmth and the smell of Blue-Father. Being mad always took a lot of energy.

The whole conversation got him thinking later about what sort of things everyone was best at. A-Yuan was good at class and making A-Fu calm down and folding little paper butterflies they could paint. A-Ling was good at being really annoying--but also racing and telling stories and lying. A-Qiang was pretty good at walking, now, and following A-Ling around and wanting to be a part of everything. The baby twins were good at...drooling and pooping, probably. Uncle Huaisang was good at painting and birds and telling jokes. Great-Uncle Qiren was good at remembering the rules and growing a beard and telling when you were lying.

Uncle Wangji was good at being quiet and playing the qin and, actually, pretty good at advice. After A-Fu’s Hard Time with reading, Blue-Father took him to talk to Uncle Wangji--though he really didn’t get why, at first. He just sat there all awkward and quiet, stabbing his rice with his chopsticks while Blue-Father explained it across the table from next to him. Uncle Wangji nodded slowly and looked over at him. “What is difficult about class?”

“All of it. The whole thing,” A-Fu mixed one chopstick around, peeking up at him from under one of his hair wispy’s. Uncle Wangji looked like he always did, face smooth like a wall. But his eyes looked kinda soft, like Blue-Father’s did when he was smiling inside, a little.

“Sitting?”

“Yeah, shushu.”

“Listening?”

“Uh-huh.”

“Mn,” he nodded. “You try?”

That question crunched up in him and he blinked a lot against his eyes getting all hot and fuzzy when he nodded. “Really, really hard.”

There had been one time where he was trying--he was, he was!--and he had seen something move out the window and when he looked, it had been Blue-Father walking with Gray-Father and he had been so excited, he forgot he was in class and he had jumped up and hung out the window, waving and yelling, “Die! Hi, die!”

They had both looked around surprised before they grinned at him and waved back, but made the ‘shoo shoo’ motion and he got yanked back inside by the teacher and yelled at in front of every single person in the classroom for being bad and ‘disruptive’ and ‘unruly’. He got a whack on his butt with the classroom stick, had got made to recite all the rules he had broken, and had to stand at the front of the class for the rest of the time. He had felt so humiliated that he couldn’t even tell Blue-Father why he was crying when he got home, and he eventually had to go ask the teacher to find out.

A-Fu had never got whacked on the butt again, after that day, but he still got in trouble so much that sometimes, it was easier to stand at the front of the class and listen because at least he got to shift on his feet (though, he also got yelled at for that).

“Focus takes practice. Practice takes time.” When Uncle Wangji stood up, Blue-Father had smiled and looked down at A-Fu.

“Go with him, A-Fu. I’ll wait for you here.”

It was a little weird walking next to Uncle Wangji because he was so quiet and usually when grownups were really quiet around you, it was because you were in trouble, but A-Fu couldn’t think of anything he had done today to be punished for. So he just followed him out the door, down the white path and into the forest a little ways, to a small stream coming down the mountain through all the bushes and trees. It sounded nice and friendly, burbling all over the smooth, dark rocks. “Pick one. Or a few,” Uncle Wangji said, one hand tucked behind his back.

“One what?”

“A stone. Small enough to fit in your hand. It can be smooth or not, it’s your choice. Not too sharp.”

A-Fu squinted at him, then at the rocks. “Why?”

“When you pick, I will tell you.”

Maybe he was going to make him throw them? That sounded fun, so probably not, because this sounded like a weird, grown up lesson they were teaching him. He wasn’t going to make him carry a bucket of heavy rocks, was he? That sounded--and he was stealing a word from Aunt Yanli--dreadful. Just in case, when he hunted around, he picked just one, a small rock that was a little lumpy, but smooth, black with a little sparkly pocket in it and held it in his hand, warily. His hand hurt from how cold the water had been, like his bones were aching. “Okay….”

“Do you feel it?”

Duh. A-Fu almost, almost got sassy, but remembered the look that Gray-Father gave him when he did and just said. “Uh...yeah.”

“When you run your fingers over it, do you like it?”

Puzzled, A-Fu rubbed his thumb on it like an experiment. It felt like a rock. “It’s...a rock.”

“Choose one that you like to touch.”

Uncle Wangji, A-Fu thought, all annoyed, who likes touching rocks? But he didn’t say so because he didn’t know exactly how patient he was, so he just threw the first rock down the slope, into the bushes and started touching them all. Some were slimy and super gross, some were just...uh...rocks, and some of them were actually just mudballs, but after a little bit, where his fingers really really hurt and started to go numb from the cold, he found 2 that were kinda nice to run his fingers over because they were so smooth. One even had a little dip where he could hold it in his palm and fit his thumb right in it like it was supposed to go there. He had a little whine and cry that he couldn’t help because his hands hurt so bad, but Uncle Wangji had knelt down and cupped his own long hands around them and had slowly rubbed and blown on them until the feeling came back without even looking annoyed once, which A-Fu had been worried about.

Uncle Wangji took a cloth from his sleeve and rubbed the stones until they were dry and clean, saying, “If you are quiet and careful, you can hold these stones while you learn. You can rub them, scratch them, turn them in your hand. It may help.” Then, he had tucked them back into A-Fu’s hands.

Curiously, A-Fu rubbed the rocks together and heard the nice ‘shhk-shhk’ sound they made. Too loud for class time, probably, but nice for now. “That’s not against the rules?”

With the smallest smile A-Fu had ever seen, Uncle Wangji tilted his head. “Fidgeting is prohibited. Then do not fidget--hold them carefully and hidden. It hurts no one and helps you. Busy hands can help your mind stay sharp. Perhaps it will become easier for you once you begin sword and qin training.”

“Huh. Was it hard for you to listen, too?”

“In the beginning. Practice, meditation, and focus help as you grow older.”

Uncle Wangji was pretty smart to come up with something like this, if it had helped him as a kid. Then, A-Fu thought about how A-Yuan sat so perfect in class, just watching and listening with no problem at all. He frowned, staring at Uncle Wangji’s white boots poking out from underneath his white robes when he stood back up. “You taught A-Yuan the right way to do it,” he muttered under his breath, feeling jealous and small and grumpy. “Why won’t you teach me?”

“You’re not like A-Yuan.” A-Fu looked up at him, expecting him to look mad that he had talked back, but instead, he just looked like Uncle Wangji. Like nothing, really, face calm and cold as the stream. But his eyes were still soft. “You are like Lan Fu. And that is good. You will learn like Lan Fu, just as I learned like Lan Wangji. Just like xiongzhang learned like xiongzhang.”

A-Fu looked back down at the rocks in his hand. “Okay.”

“Mn.”

“Mn,” A-Fu echoed back, without really thinking about it.

A hand reached down and gently patted his head, then turned him back down the path. “Let’s return. Xiongzhang is waiting.”

#THIS IS LONG AS HECK BUT I HOPE YOU ENJOY IT AHSODIFJ #Finally the child is wrangled and doing plot things #YEESH #3zun raise jingyi au #3zun raise jingyi au content #my stuff #my fic

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imagineaworlds · 4 years ago

Text

I Love You (Part Sixty) -- Aaron Hotchner

Written By: @desperately-bisexual

Request: None.

Warnings: Cursing. Panic attack. Character death. Alcoholism. Drugging(s). Physical trauma. Explosion(s). I think that’s it?

Pairing: Aaron Hotchner x Nonbinary!Greenaway!Reader

Word Count: 9574

Timeline: Season 8 Episodes 24. Right after part fifty-nine.

Criminal Minds Discord Server

It wasn’t like any other panic attack I ever had. For some reason, the really bad ones only came about when I was really worried about Hotch, like after the bombing in New York when I thought he was literally dying in my arms. This time around, though, I think I was just… paralyzed. I was staring at the wall, the sheets pulled up to my chin, a ringing in my ears, flashing memories of that night back in high school. Those pictures. These pictures. What made The Replicator any different than Steven Teller? A chill ran down my spine. I hadn’t connected his name to what had actually happened to me until my parents brought him up at Hotch’s birthday dinner. I would’ve gone my whole life trying to forget his name if they hadn’t said it, if Hotch hadn’t asked about him, and if Garcia hadn’t called to tell us that someone else had pictures of me now.

Who had seen them besides Garcia? Morgan? Spencer? Morgan would’ve understood because he knew about the true nature of the original photos—hell, he was the one who stumbled upon them in Rebecca Bryant’s apartment, so he had even seen them; but I didn’t want it to be Reid. The two of us were so close now since Maeve’s death. If he saw something like that, he would get all awkward around me and our friendship would slowly fall apart, and instead of letting me into his apartment every Sunday now, he would just let Scarlet in again like he originally did.

I didn’t understand who this guy was. How had Garcia been investigating it enough for Hotch to know exactly what she was talking about, yet I was completely out of the loop? Was I the only one who didn’t know? Why didn’t Hotch tell me about this sooner—if I would’ve known that there was someone out there watching us, I would have never gone on this “vacation”, and I would have made sure that we weren’t being followed, I would’ve closed the fucking drapes. The drapes.

Hotch pushed himself out of bed and ran to the window. “We need to make sure everyone’s safe,” he muttered under his breath.

“Hotch, who is The Replicator…” I croaked.

“He might have gone after the others.”

“Hotch, answer me!”

“Later.”

“He has pictures of us, Aaron…” I croaked as he closed the drapes.

We had left them open because we were so high up, and the lights were off, and the surrounding buildings shouldn’t’ve had a good view into our room. Closing the drapes just didn’t occur to us earlier. But now that we knew he had been watching, we weren’t taking a chance. Not that it mattered. He had already seen everything. From Hotch slowly undressing me, to tying me up, spanking me, torturing me… fucking me. That asshole got a free show, and then he had the audacity to send those images to our friends. Poor Penelope. She was probably mortified. Between getting hacked and having to see literal porn of her co-worker and her boss, she was likely having a meltdown. Yet, all I could think about was how this all reminded me of high school—of the images that boy took of me then used as blackmail against me. It was eerily similar. I absolutely fucking hated it.

“Call everyone, Y/N. Call them now.”

We both raced for our phones. Hotch called Rossi while I started with Reid. I was biting at my fingers nervously as the phone rang, because every second that passed without hearing his voice just somehow convinced me that something was wrong. And then he picked up. I let out a sigh of relief and hid my face in my free hand.

“Y/N?” He had no clue what was going on. “Y/N, what is it?”

I hated that he was getting as good at recognizing my tells as Morgan was. “Where are you?”

“I’m with Morgan. We’re driving back from getting some food. Did you know that you can get sauerkraut on hotdogs? It’s such an odd concoction, considering the hotdog was invented—”

“Spencer, something happened.”

He stopped. “What?”

“You and Morgan need to get back to the Field Office immediately. Don’t stop anywhere, don’t talk to anyone, keep your heads down. Got it?”

“Y/N, what is it? Why—”

“I don’t know… Hotch isn’t telling me right now, but he says he’ll explain everything once we’re all together.”

“Okay. We’ll see you there.” I looked at Hotch as I hung up and he came back into the bedroom, dressed in a button down and slacks again so that it could pass as business formal, considering we hadn’t brought actual work clothes. “Where’s Rossi?”

“He’s with JJ. They can’t get ahold of Strauss, so JJ’s going to head to the Field Office to meet up with Spencer and Morgan while Rossi goes to check on Strauss at her hotel. We need to get dressed and go.”

“Stop,” I demanded harshly. Hotch froze in place. “You need to tell me the truth now. Who is The Replicator?” He was still frozen. “Hotch,” I crawled onto my knees, “he went after our babies, and he took pornographic pictures of us. I have every right to know before the team does.”

Hotch sighed and sat down on the corner of the bed as he explained everything to me. A couple of months ago, something peculiar started happening. Someone was replicating the cases that we were solving—everything from the human marionettes to an Unsub who had exsanguinated his victims. Strauss didn’t want the team to get involved yet, though, so it was a need-to-know case only. I wasn’t on the list. Every time it happened. Strauss found out and told Hotch. The two of them had been keeping an eye on it, and he was convinced that she was going to turn the case over to us soon, but now he was coming after us personally, which was so… unexpected to him.

Rossi called back while Hotch was telling me everything. Hotch rubbed a thumb over the arch of my foot as he answered. “You’re sure?” he asked worriedly. “Alright. Okay. We’re on our way.” He hung up. “Rossi’s convinced that something happened to Strauss… He thinks that The Replicator might have taken her.”

“Fucking hell, Aaron!” I jumped out of bed and ran to change into different clothes. The only thing I had that was “appropriate” was a v-neck and jeans. So much for our vacation. “We should’ve known about this earlier!” I exclaimed, jumping into my pants. “It’s just another lie—”

“Jesus, Y/N! Stop with the hounding about the lies! Get off my back! This was an order, not a lie!”

Actually, he was right about that one. “Fine…” I grabbed my credentials, my weapon, and my bag before joining Hotch at the door. “You’re right.” I kissed him quickly. “I’m sorry.” He closed the door behind us, and we ran off.

In the car, Hotch and I held hands, both of us shaking anxiously. His thumb was doing circles around one of my knuckles while he kept his other hand busy on the steering wheel, tapping to a random beat in his head that he was using as a distraction. He clearly didn’t know what to do with himself. He hadn’t expected that The Replicator would go for us personally—though, if he had come to me with this case before this, I would have told him that this was going to happen, and we could have prevented it.

If I would have known that this guy existed in the first place, Hotch would’ve had to drag me out of the house and to work just to leave Jack and Scarlet. I wouldn’t have sent them to school, I wouldn’t have left them to go on vacation, and I wouldn’t have let them go to the fucking park while we were gone just to give the creep an opportunity to take pictures of them. He could fuck with us all he wanted. Those pictures hurt, and the situation was still spinning in my mind to the point I wanted to throw up; but at least we were adults who could handle it. Jack and Scarlet were still just my little babies. It didn’t matter how big they were getting, they were always going to be my babies, and no one ever fucked with them.

Hotch kissed my knuckles as we parked at the hotel. He paused for a moment, turning to look at me, cradling my cheek in his other palm. “I’m sorry. If Strauss didn’t order me to keep this confidential, you would have been the first person I told. You have to believe that.”

“I do.”

“Are you okay now… knowing what we know about tonight…”

I shook my head. “No, but it’s not the point.” I escaped his touch so that I could open my car door and jump out. Hotch followed shortly, deciding to drop the conversation.

The second we stepped into the hotel room where Strauss was supposed to be staying, we saw Rossi pacing around, completely stressed out, running his hands through his hair while muttering thoughts under his breath. I glanced around. The window was open, the bed was a wreck, there was broken glass on the ground, drawers were left open, the bathroom looked like a tornado had torn through it, but what was most obvious were the mini alcohol bottles from the mini fridge that were scattered everywhere. I thought she quit drinking. There was a situation a little bit ago shortly after The Face Cards when I was still bedridden where Hotch and Rossi found out that she was an alcoholic and decided to get her some help.

“Her one year chip is here,” Rossi said, holding it up for us to see. “She never lets go of it, Hotch. Ever. The Replicator must have her.” So, everyone seemed to know about this guy besides me, I supposed? What the fuck? “I’m going to check the roof.” Rossi was already moving for the fire escape.

“Be safe. We’ll head down to the lobby to look at the security footage,” Hotch said. I wanted to go with Rossi to give him back up, but I realized that Hotch didn’t want me to stray far from him after what happened. So, I followed him out of the room, and we started hurrying towards the inside stairwell just to see if she had wandered down there somehow. Hotch’s phone started ringing.

“Who is it?”

“It’s Straus…” He cocked a brow while answering. “Erin?” He stopped in his tracks when he heard the other end, making me stumble to a halt. “Where is she, you bastard.” He started running as fast as he could through the hallways, leaving me behind.

“Aaron! No!” I yelled, trying to run after him.

“Stay here! I love you!”

Those words echoed in my head as déjà vu overtook my senses. Hotch had said the exact same thing to me after we found Sam dying on his carpet, and Hotch went to the hospital with him. The panic that hadn’t settled in earlier was certainly settling in now. I could remember how Hotch said those exact same words to me as he closed the ambulance doors, and a few moments later, I collapsed on the sidewalk, unable to hear anything, unable to move, unable to breathe until I heard his voice again. He went on his own this time, though—No.

I started dashing to follow him, even though he had enough of a head start to already be out of the building. The Replicator had talked to Hotch. He had called from Strauss’s phone, which was the perfect way to lure Hotch out of the hotel, and it worked, which meant that if he had a plan, he was going to go after Hotch next. I started skipping steps in the stairwell. Not him. Not now. Aaron Hotchner was all kinds of stupid, but I wasn’t going to let this stupid decision get him killed while I froze up in a fucking hallway. I couldn’t live with that regret if that were the case.

When I pushed through the front doors of the hotel, I started looking up and down the street in search of Hotch. He had to be around somewhere. He got a head start, sure, but not enough to disappear into the night unless someone took him. He had to be close. I refused to believe that he was anywhere other than on that block, safe, alive, and waiting for me to find him. So, I just kept looking. I spun around in circles, jumping to look over the crowd, pushing between couples just to see if Hotch was hiding somewhere. I felt like I was going insane.

And then I saw him on a bench. I recognized his hair, how dark it was, how he liked to keep it short in the back but long in his face so that I could play with it when I was bored or during sex. I recognized him because of his body type. The shirt he had put on back at the penthouse was a simple button up, but it was fit to his body so well that when he was sitting down like that, I could see his biceps stretching the sleeves, and the actual torso part of the shirt had molded against his loose abs. I would recognize my husband anywhere. Even while his face was away from me, and he had someone in his arms, I could still tell that it was him. He looked okay… at least from where I was standing. I couldn’t tell for sure, though, so I dared to run across the street and hurry over to the bench. I could tell for sure now. He was alright, but he was holding Strauss in his arms, despite the fact that she wasn’t breathing anymore.

“Aaron…” I carefully peeled his grip off of her. “Aaron, it’s okay…”

As I kneeled down in front of Hotch, I recognized the lost fright in his eyes from the bombing four years ago, and from the murder of Haley a little under that, then my kidnapping two years ago. Whenever he was panicked, whenever there was too much going on at once, his eyes got lost in the world, like he couldn’t see anything at all, yet could somehow still see everything. It was hard to explain, but the way his jaw slacked, and the way his breath was shallow, and his body was unnaturally still… It all pointed to that instinct that overtook him every time something bad like this happened.

I put my hands on his face to bring his eyes level with mine. We had been through this before, we learned how to handle it, now all he had to do was focus on me and we would be fine. He told me that feeling my touch, hearing my voice, seeing my face, it always brought him down to Earth when this happened. So, I held him close, I kissed his forehead, and I whispered to him that everything would be alright.

“He talked about Foyet,” he finally told me.

I stopped comforting him for a moment to reflect on what he just said. “What?”

“He…” He lowered his head. “He talked about how Foyet killed Haley… That I was stuck on the phone, incapable of doing anything that could help.”

“How could he know that?”

“I don’t know.” He shook his head against my touch.

“Look at me, baby.” I lifted his head gently. “We’ll figure this out. I promise. Just breathe.”

“He said he’s going to race us home—”

“Shhh…”

“The kids—”

“They’re at the office. They’re safe. Please. Catch your breath with me.” I inhaled slowly, letting him know that I wanted him to mimic me. I nodded an encouragement when he started doing so, and then when we couldn’t breathe in anymore, we held it, then slowly exhaled. He was relaxing in my touch already. We did it again. “You’re doing good, baby. Keep going.”

Footsteps hit the pavement behind us. I turned somewhat, just long enough to see that it was Rossi. He froze when he saw Strauss beside Hotch. As he collapsed and pulled Erin in for a hug, I helped Hotch to his feet, pulling him away so he could collect his thoughts again.

“Don’t stop breathing, baby,” I begged, pressing my forehead against his.

“Foyet—”

“Foyet’s gone. You’re here. I’m here. The kids are safe at the office. Just breathe.”

When the EMTs arrived, they put a sheet over Strauss’s body, lifted her onto a stretcher, then rolled her into the ambulance. Rossi was quiet while he followed them. With Hotch still somewhat out of it—not as bas bad as before, but still— I was the one who nodded in his direction, letting him know that it was okay to go with her. We would see him later.

At the Field Office, Hotch was finally relaxed and level-headed enough to explain to the team what was going on and what we were going to do now. We were going to get on the jet, head back to the office, and take down whoever the hell this Replicator guy was. Everyone seemed on board, but there were a lot of questions about when Rossi would be rejoining us. Honestly, we weren’t sure. He was flying with Strauss to Bethesda to talk with her children and stick around for the autopsy, which we would have by the time we would land in Virginia and get settled back at the office. He would probably return after that… if at all. What we needed to focus on was just getting the profile done and making sure that Strauss’s death wouldn’t be in vain.

When we got back to Quantico, I ran straight into Hotch’s office, finding Jack dead asleep on the couch, buried under a blanket that Hotch always had stowed away in case we had to sleep at the office, too. As for Scarlet, though, she was still awake. Jessica was sitting in Hotch’s chair at his desk, and Scarlet was sitting across from her, playing with some toys. She spotted me almost immediately, though.

“Mom!” She slid off the chair and ran to me.

“Hey, lil’ bug!” I exclaimed, lifting her into my arms. I kissed her a thousand times. “I love you so much!” I kept kissing her. “Why aren’t you asleep?”

“She’s been fussy without you guys,” Jessica said.

“I’m sorry,” I said to her. I brushed Scarlet’s hair out of her face. “Do you want me to tell you a bedtime story before Dad and I have to go save the world again?”

“Yeah.” She nodded and pressed her cheek against my chest while still hugging my neck.

I sat down in one of the chairs across from Hotch’s seat and relaxed. While telling her the story, I thought about how relieved I was to have her in my arms again. The Replicator had a thousand chances to take her or Jack from me, especially while Hotch and I were gone. Hell, he got close enough to take pictures. If he really wanted to hurt us, he could have stolen my lil’ bug away. If that happened, I wasn’t sure if I’d survive.

By the time the story was over, she had magically fallen asleep in my arms. I smiled and kissed her hair. As I got up to lay her down on the couch with Jack, he rolled over and started snoring, making me and Jessica chuckle quietly, but I had to shush her.

When Scarlet was done, I looked at Jess. “I’m so sorry that this keeps happening to us.”

She shook her head. “As long as everyone’s safe, it’s okay.” She stepped forward and hugged me tightly. “Are you guys okay?”

“Not right now, but we will be.”

“You’ll get an actual vacation weekend soon.”

I laughed. “$20 says it doesn’t happen.”

She pulled away from me to shake my hand. “Deal.”

There was a knock on the door from Hotch, coming to tell us that Strauss’ autopsy had been completed. His gaze flicked to the kids, and he hesitated for a moment. They were asleep, but I could tell that he wanted to wake them up and just feel the way they would give him a Superman hug at the same time until he couldn’t breathe. But he restrained himself. He carefully stepped into the room and crouched down in front of the couch, kissing Scarlet’s forehead, then Jack’s. He stayed with them for a second longer, just admiring how perfect and innocent they were. My heart broke in my chest a bit, a smile creeping onto my face, and I reached forward to brush Hotch’s hair out of his face.

“We should go, baby,” I whispered to him. He nodded and pushed himself to his feet. “They’ll be alright. I promise.” He kissed me gently while keeping my head tilted up with his thumb. When he pulled back, we pressed our foreheads together. “Your messes are my messes.”

“Your messes are my messes.” He kissed me again quickly before taking my hand and leading me out of his office, waving goodbye to Jessica. She waved back to us while sitting back down to play a game on her phone. When we walked into the boardroom, we saw that Garcia was finishing up with hanging all the evidence we had of The Replicator. “Garcia, is this everything?” Hotch let go of my hand to cross his arms over his chest.

She nodded. “JJ’s grabbing the printed copy photos from Strauss’s autopsy, but this is everything else… except for you and Y/N… You know…”

“Thanks.”

“So, while you guys were on the jet, I started digging into why he would have possibly attacked Strauss and on this day, considering he would’ve had a thousand other chances to do it if he really does work for the FBI, but I couldn’t find anything in her life that was historically relevant.”

“We need to focus on the location, then. He waited until she was in New York, rather than attacking her here or at her home.”

“Look at how many photos he had of her, guys,” Morgan pointed out, referencing the dozens of pictures of our team up on the wall. I knew that he had taken pictures of me and Hotch in bed, but I didn’t think that he had really been stalking the entire team all this time. “She’s hardly ever in the field, yet there’s more pictures of her than anyone else. It’s like he’s obsessed with her.”

“Maybe Strauss was always the real target. We were just in the way, and also a distraction.”

“I’ve got the rest of the photos,” JJ said, holding the stack up for us before heading to the board to pin them up. “We were right, he replicated the New York attacks, which accelerated his timeline. He spiked Strauss’s alcohol with meth and heroin.”

“Not ecstasy?” I asked.

“Nope.” She hung up a picture of a symbol that had been carved into Strauss’s wrist antemortem.

“Wait—” I stepped forward, halting her actions. “What is that?”

“An infinity sign?” Garcia guessed.

“An eight? Wasn’t she his eighth victim?” Morgan added.

“But why would he do that? His whole M.O. is copying our other cases as closely as possible to prove that he’s been stalking us. He wouldn’t deviate just to make things interesting now,” I said.

“He would if Strauss was his intended target.”

“It’s too random. Everything this guy has done thus far has been strategic and with the point of getting under our skin. This doesn’t affect us personally in any way, unlike the photos and him mentioning Foyet on the phone,” Hotch said.

“Wait. He knew about Foyet?” JJ questioned. “How? That was a confidential case. No one outside of our unit and SWAT knew the intricate details of what happened to Haley.”

“But the file has enough general information. He had to have accessed it somehow,” I said.

“Maybe when he hacked Garcia?”

“It’s a paper file. Cody made sure it didn’t make its way into any system to ensure that no one could get their hands on it outside of the FBI, which means… Technically, anyone working for at Quantico could know.” What was he saying? “The only people who knew where Y/N and I were this weekend before the hack was the BAU and Cody’s office. The only problem here is that Strauss wasn’t sure that she recognized him. If he works for the FBI—”

“He might not have been showing his face to her—and even if he was, she was probably too out of it to actually recognize him,” Reid said. “Besides that, there are hundreds of new and old faces every day at Quantico. Strauss was a busy woman. She might not’ve remembered him.”

I shook my head. “Let’s say that he does work in the FBI, that explains how he knows about all of our cases with so much detail. He replicates everything, we can’t forget that. So, what the hell is the symbol on her wrist replicating?”

“The Cutter,” Hotch realized. We all looked at him, giving him our full attention. “The last case we worked before this weekend.”

We had been in Detroit for nine days, tracking down an Unsub who liked leaving Joker-like smiles on his victims’ faces by cutting them up. Sometimes he got fancy with it, taking their tongues, cutting a toe or a finger off, but he always cut the mouths. There was nothing about carving symbols into the victims. No eights, infinities, whatever. So, why did Hotch think that this had anything to do with that?

“I need to see her computer.” Hotch turned to snap at someone outside the room. “Anderson, I need you to run to Strauss’s office and bring me her computer, please. Now.”

“Yes, sir.” Anderson did as he was told, literally racing to the office just past the bullpen, though the door, down the hallway, and to the right. We waited patiently for him to come back. “Here you go,” he said, panting, handing the laptop over.

“Thanks, Anderson.”

“No problem, sir.” He took his leave from the room again.

Hotch passed the computer over to Garcia, who was sitting down and wiggling her fingers to warm up before she would start typing up a storm in order to hack in. Hotch watch from over her shoulder. “I need you to access who was on the distribution list for my case report for The Cutter.”

“You don’t know who reads your reports?” she questioned, already typing.

“I know that she sends them to the head of the Criminal Division and the Director, but I don’t know who else has access to it.”

“It’s right here.”

Hotch leaned in further to read because the words were too small for him. I was going to have to drag him to the eye doctor soon. Just because I always joked that he was getting old didn’t mean that I didn’t actually worry about him; and something that I had been noticing recently was that he was struggling to read things as well as he used to. I wouldn’t have been surprised if he needed reading glasses now. Not that he would ever wear them. Aaron Hotchner would rather die than ever admit that he wasn’t physically fit to be in the field or to work on reports when we were at home.

“She amended my report,” he said. We all grew curious. “She wrote that he carved infinity symbols into his victims’ wrists.” He stood up tall to address us, “She trapped him to make sure that we would know that he was an insider. Garcia, who else read this?”

“Two other people so far. The Director and— Uh oh.”

“Uh oh? Again?” I scratched my fingers through my hair, really annoyed with how she wasn’t just spitting it out. The other day, she pulled the same shit. Uh oh. I loved her to death, but sometimes she needed to just say it rather than dragging it out.

“You remember the Senator that investigated the BAU after Doyle?

Okay. That was an uh oh. Fuck.

“I’ll talk to him. You all need to stay here, stay together, don’t talk about this outside of this room. No one else can know about this.” Hotch hurried out of the room and B-lined straight for his office to grab one of his suits from his go-bag in his office. I followed him. “Hey, Jess, I need to change real quick,” he said as we walked in. “Can you give us a sec?”

“Of course.” She immediately stood and went to stand outside the office.

I closed the blinds while he quietly picked up his bag, carefully pulled at the zipper, cringing at how loud it was, and pulled his clothes out, all without waking up the kids. It was funny that he thought that they would jolt awake. The two of them were freaking corpses when it came to sleeping. Back when Scarlet was a baby, she was the worst about staying asleep, but now she could sleep all day and all night without a single issue. As for Jack, he struggled to fall asleep sometimes because of his nightmares, but once he was asleep, he was out until morning. They got it from their dad.

“You’ll stay here with them until I get back?” he asked me, peeling off his shirt. I nodded. “Henry’s just down the hall in JJ’s old office with Will. If Jack wakes up soon, he can probably go hang out in there while Jess keeps an eye on Scarlet in here.” He kicked off his pants, then picked up his button up and slid his arms into the sleeves. I helped put it together nicely while he focused on sliding his suit pants on. “I’ll ask Anderson to get everyone donuts from Leonard’s for breakfast. The kids’ll be happy about that.”

“Aaron,” I whispered, fitting his tie around his neck for him, “are you okay after last night?”

“I will be after all of this and once the two of us can sit down and talk about it.”

I flattened his collar around the tie, then stepped back so that he could put his suit jacket on. At least he wanted to talk about it. He wasn’t going to keep it bottled up this time and have me wondering if he was really alright or if he was just lying to me again. I was really fucking sick and tired of him lying to me. I mean, he had been really good about it since the Piano Man case over a year and a half ago.

He kissed me as he holstered his weapon and clipped his badge onto his jacket. “I love you. I’ll be back before you know it.”

“I love you.” I cupped my hands on his cheeks before kissing him. “I’ll be here, waiting for you.” We pressed our foreheads together, both of us letting out a relaxed exhale. “Come back to me.”

“I’m just going—”

“Promise me.”

Hotch snaked his arms around my waist, pulling me as close to his chest as humanly possible, our foreheads still pressed together as he towered over me. His fingers sprawled on my back. “I promise.” He rubbed his hands smoothly up and down my back for a bit. “And I promise that we’re going to talk about Strauss, about the pictures, about having another weekend where we can do things the right way.” His hands turned to fists around the fabric of my shirt. “I promise that I’m not going to let this guy take away anything else from us.”

We kissed again, our lips barely meeting because if it was anything more than that, we would have passionately, desperately kissed one another until we were breathless and forgot about the world around us, which wasn’t ideal. We needed to stay focused. Hotch needed to find the Senator, talk to him about still keeping an eye on our unit, even after they cleared us after Doyle, and then we needed to find out who the hell The Replicator was. We could forget about life later.

“I love you, Y/N Hotchner, more than life itself.”

I melted in his arms a bit, grabbing onto his suit jacket to maintain my balance. “When you say shit like that, I don’t know what to do with myself.” We both chuckled quietly. Jack suddenly stared snoring on the couch, making us both laugh again. “He’s so like you, it’s stupid.” Hotch’s smile faded, but he tried to mask it by kissing my cheek, then hiding his face in the crook of my neck. “Go save the world, Agent Hotchner.” I begged, prying him off of me before we could stay glued like that for the rest of our lives. I combed my fingers through his hair to make sure he looked nice for the Senator. “We’ll be here.”

Hotch’s hands left my back, making me ache silently for his touch again, which he somehow recognized, because he immediately held my hand in his as he started walking around me and stepped towards the door. I didn’t move. Our arms continued to stretch towards each other, fingers intertwining in an attempt to stay with each other for a little longer, but once he was out of reach, there was nothing we could do. He opened the door, turned to look at the kids once more, then left. I sighed and slumped into a chair.

Jessica carefully peeked in, wondering if it was safe to return. When she saw me sitting there, flustered and silent, she stepped in and closed the door behind her. I half expected that she would return to Hotch’s seat. It was, after all, the most comfortable seat in the room, and I knew it, considering it was my desk for a little while. But Jessica sat down next to me and took my hand in hers without saying anything. Nothing needed to be said. We just stayed there, watching the kids as they slept, waiting for Hotch to come back with answers.

----

Around the time Hotch returned, Rossi was walking in, too. We all spotted him, but no one said anything to him or approached him. We all just decided to meet in the boardroom while waiting for Hotch to get his things organized and make an attempt to talk to Rossi, which he was immediately denied. He looked to the boardroom, begging one of us to try again, but we all stared at each other, asking ourselves who dared to do it.

“I’m gonna go check on Rossi.” Morgan said to the group. We all nodded understandingly.

When he left, Hotch traded places with him, coming into the roundtable room with a stack of papers. “This is everyone who has read my reports over the past two years.” He dropped the heavy stack on the table. “There’s thirty-six people.” My jaw fell. We were going to have to profile thirty-six different people on a time crunch, which was near to impossible, even with all six of us, plus Garcia, working on it. That was still about six people per team member. How the fuck were we supposed to profile all that?

“Woah! Rossi! What’re you doing, man?! Put the gun down!” Morgan shouted.

My brows furrowed for a second as I stepped closer to the windows of the room to look across the bullpen and into Rossi’s office. There was Morgan, standing in the doorway, and in front of him, Rossi was pointing a gun at him. I dropped my papers and ran. When I was close enough, I slowed down to be casual. I didn’t want to spook him.

“Dave,” I croaked, stepping into his office. My hands were sprawled out in front of me, ready to swing for the gun if he moved for the trigger. “What’s this about?”

“Morgan’s fingerprints were on the glass that killed Strauss,” he answered.

“What?” Morgan questioned, scoffing.

I took another careful step forward in front of Morgan. There was no way he was going to shoot me. “Dave, someone on the inside is The Replicator, they’re probably the one who told you that—”

“It was in her report that was on my desk!” he yelled. The gun was shaking in his hands as his nose started to bleed the same way Strauss’s had been. He had been drugged, too.

I looked over at the page on the ground that was supposedly the official report he had just been reading. “You’ve been drugged, Rossi.” I was still walking towards him, despite Morgan’s quiet protests behind me. “He wants us to turn on each other. If you pull that trigger right now, you shoot me, you lose Hotch, you lose Reid, you lose Morgan, and you lose JJ. Is that what you want? Do you want him to win after everything? After Strauss?” I was close enough to reach for the gun. “Don’t shoot me. Just let me… Let me help you…” I started slowly going for it. “It’s going to be okay. We’re going to get you help, and you’re going to be just fine.” I had a grip on the gun, and I managed to finally pry it away from him.

Morgan let out a heavy sigh of relief behind me. “I’ll call the paramedics.”

Hotch finally came rushing in, now that the coast was clear and the tension had been diffused. If he had come in any sooner, Rossi might have been spooked and shot me, even if he didn’t want to, but just because of how the drugs fucked with him. He immediately came over to check on Rossi. We helped him onto the couch in his office, and Hotch didn’t hesitate to ask if Rossi had taken anything, drank anything, bumped into anyone. All he told us was that he had picked up Strauss’s report, and that was when he started feeling like shit.

“That was stupid of you,” Hotch whispered to me while slapping Rossi’s cheeks to keep him awake. “The kids are in the next room, how could you—”

“The kids!” I pushed myself up to my feet using Hotch’s shoulder and ran straight to his office. If Rossi had been poisoned through the paper, that meant that the Unsub must have dropped it off, or else security would have caught it. The Unsub was in his office. He walked right past our family. He could have done something to them. “Scarlet—” I turned into the room to see her and Jack watching a movie together on a tablet. I stopped in my tracks for a second as they looked up at me with raised brows. “Did anyone come in here?” I asked Jessica. She shook her head, eyeing me suspiciously.

He didn’t go for them. He said something to Hotch on the phone last night about how he was going to race us home, and Hotch was worried about the kids, which was why we brought them to the office, thinking that they would be safe, but the Unsub had them right there, and he went right past them, and he didn’t—

“Mom?” Jack questioned me. “Are you okay?’

I nodded and faked a smile. “Of course, little man. I was just checking on you guys…” I cleared my throat. “Did you, um… Did you get a donut yet?”

“He had two,” Jessica answered.

“And what about you, Scarlet?”

“I had two, too!” She laughed at herself. “Tutu.”

I smiled casually at them before turning and hurrying right back out of the office, letting out a shaky breath. The office was supposed to be safe. What if Scarlet or Jack had run into the Unsub? What if they had touched the paper Rossi touched just because they wanted to see what the superheroes were up to? I let out another breath, this time trying to calm my nerves as I saw the medics run into Rossi’s and start caring for him.

“We found something,” Reid said quietly, sneaking up on me, even though he hadn’t meant to.

I looked at him suddenly. “What?” I really hadn’t heard him. I had been so lost in thought that I knew he said something important, but I really couldn’t register what it was. “I’m sorry.”

“We found something.”

“Something good?”

“We found the Unsub.”

“Is he still here?” I asked eagerly, already walking with him along the balcony towards the boardroom again. He shook his head. “What do we know?” I asked everyone else when we entered.

“Is Rossi okay?” Garcia asked before she felt like answering me. I nodded to her while taking a seat, now waiting for her to tell me something. She caught the hint. “So, instead of profiling all thirty-six people who had read Hotch’s reports, we instead chose to connect anyone to New York since we noted that might be important to him if he chose to kill Strauss there.” Okay, so… “There were two agents at Quantico. One died last March, but the other… John Curtis… He worked under Strauss during the Amerithrax case in 2001 since he specialized with biochemistry. It seems like he was really hoping to move through the ranks at Quantico, according to letters he wrote to the Director after he was unfortunately demoted to go work in Kansas City.”

“How’d he make his way here, then?”

“After fifteen letters to the Director’s office, he was finally promoted to work in his office.”

That explained how his clearance was high enough for him to get into the building and into the BAU specifically without being detected. If we were to take the cars downstairs, he probably would’ve been prepared that something would go awry with them to prevent us from chasing him down this time around, so it was agreed that we were going to take the helicopters up on the roof. They were faster, more convenient, and unexpected. Curtis probably had no idea that the BAU even had access to the helicopters. They were our best bet. So, we all geared up and started running upstairs, assigning seats in the two vehicles. Hotch, JJ, and I were going to be in the first one, meanwhile Morgan and Reid would be in the other.

As we were flying through the air, speeding towards Curtis’s farmhouse out in rural Virginia, Garcia was in contact with Hotch, Morgan, and SWAT, discussing the layout of the farm so that we could perform a tactical breech with minimal losses. JJ and I were sitting together in the back, though, just staring out our respective windows. I was counting the minutes until we would land. Even after all this time, I still fucking hated flying, but at least when we were on the jet, that was familiar, so I could feel safe there, but now we were in a helicopter, which was unchartered territory for me, and I was terrified. The height wasn’t the problem… It was the fact that we could crash at any minute, and that would be it. Our fate was practically out of our hands.

It was like karma could hear me, because the next thing I knew, alarms were going off in front of the pilot, and we were dropping in the air. I cursed under my breath and held on for dear life. Through the headsets we were wearing, I could hear the pilot saying something about how auto-pilot was failing, and that something was preventing him from turning it back on. I squeezed my eyes shut as we kept falling. Fuck, fuck, fuck. I hated flying, and this was exactly why.

“Brace for impact!”

And then we hit the ground.

I weakly opened my eyes, blinking harshly to try and wash away the fog while also trying to adjust to the darkness. We didn’t die.

“Are you guys alright?!” Morgan asked as he pried Hotch’s door open.

Hotch fell sideways out of his seat in the helicopter, crashing to his knees before Morgan could catch him. I groaned, holding my head, trying to make the spinning stop. My fucking back hurt like a bitch, too—not as bad as when I first injured it at the bank during The Face Cards’ bombing, but certainly getting there. I whimpered when it hurt to move.

“Y/N…” Hotch groaned, carefully crawling his way over with Morgan’s help. “Y/N…” He reached around and unbuckled me from my seat. I coughed; my lungs too weak to maintain a normal breathing pattern. “Baby…”

I weakly wrapped my arms around his neck and attempted to pull him close. “Are you okay?” I opened my eyes as the world stopped spinning. Hotch nodded. “Where’s JJ?”

“I don’t know.” We stumbled onto the grass together. “Are you alright?”

I rested my forehead against his shoulder. “My back…” I croaked.

“It’s hurting again?”

I nodded. “I’ll be fine, though.”

“You said that last time—”

“But I mean it now. Why didn’t he kill us?”

“What?”

I cleared my throat and stood up straight, trying to shake off the ache in my back. “Why didn’t he kill us? I felt it at the end, something controlled the helicopter enough to have us land somewhat carefully, but then he took JJ… Why?”

“To give himself a bargaining chip?”

“Maybe…”

“Hey—” Reid called, running over to us. Just as I looked at him, he crashed into my arms, pulling me in for a hug. I ignored how it hurt my back. “Are you okay?”

“I’m fine. He took JJ.”

“What?” He pulled away so that he could go check the helicopter for himself. Just as he was inspecting it, a few black SUVs pulled up to take us the rest of the way. Maybe we should have just started with that.

Hotch helped me to the car, Morgan and Reid following close behind. Usually, Hotch would have sat in the front, leaving me in the back, but this time around, he sat with me, squeezing my hand as tightly as he could. I think that we had been through too much over the past few days. It was finally taking its toll. What we thought was going to be a normal getaway turned into working two cases—one where Hotch had to deal with his brother, then he had to deal with a thousand personal things. Pornographic photos, Strauss, Foyet being mentioned, the kids, meeting with the Senator—There were a thousand more things I could have possibly listed, but nearly dying in a helicopter crash… yeah, that was the cherry on top. He had been in the front seat with the pilot. I was in the back with JJ. When we were going down, I wanted nothing more than to hold him again, to look into his eyes, but I couldn’t because I was just behind him. Then, The Replicator could have taken me, but he didn’t. Hotch had risked too many things by not sitting in the back with me, but he wasn’t going to risk that now, the same way I wasn’t going to let him risk it either.

When we arrived at the house, SWAT was there, waiting on us, and for the call that Hotch wanted to make. Without hesitating, he said that we should breach the farmhouse up ahead. So, SWAT led the way, the team following close behind. We started by surrounding the entire thing. When everyone was in place, Hotch gave his mark on the comms, and then we all stormed in with our weapons raised. My back hurt like a bitch as I navigated my way through every room with Morgan, but I put on a brave face and tried to focus on just not getting shot or something. That was probably worse than hurting my back.

When we found nothing on the main or upper floor, Morgan and I moved towards the basement door. He grabbed the handle and I nodded, gesturing for him to go. We hurried down the steps. The basement was a red room for photography so that he could print out whatever pictures he took of us. Morgan and I spotted all of the photos of me and Hotch in bed because they were hanging up on a line to dry. Morgan quickly looked away out of respect.

“Anything?” Hotch asked in a whisper, scaring the shit out of me and Morgan since we weren’t expecting him to be there. When we caught our breaths, we shook our heads. “There’s another room over there.” He pointed with his flashlight.

Hotch led the way, Reid and I shoulder to shoulder, Morgan following behind us. The door was open, so Hotch lunged into the room, hoping to get a jump on Curtis if he happened to be around the corner, but he wasn’t. When we were all inside, we saw JJ sitting on a chair in the middle of the room, chained to it, her mouth gagged with a cloth napkin, of all things. Reid quickly holstered his weapon and hurried to help her.

“Morgan, we should go find him,” Hotch said. “Y/N and Reid can handle this.”

I knelt down on the ground beside Reid to help him get JJ free as the boys ran back out of the room. I peeled the napkin out of JJ’s mouth. “You okay?”

“He said that there’s eight locks because there used to be eight of us before he killed Strauss,” she said urgently.

“That’s all he said?”

She nodded.

Reid picked up a carabiner of keys laying on the ground next to the pile of locks. He sifted through them, only counting six, but each of them had a letter taped on. I inspected the locks themselves, spotting that they had numbers on them. Somehow, the letter and the numbers correlated.

“What are the letters?” I asked.

“G,” he began. That was the seventh letter in the alphabet. “A.” That was the first. “N.” That was fourteenth. “Z— Zugzwang.”

I froze and looked at him. Zugzwang? As in what Diane said to him over the phone when she first took Maeve? How would Curtis know that—Why would he use that? I mean, Zugzwang itself meant the point in the game when the player(s) had to decide if they wanted to forfeit or play until the bitter end, so in the context of the keys and the locks, what did that mean for JJ?

“It’s too easy,” I muttered under my breath, but he was already going for it.

Hotch and Morgan were already running back in, which meant that they probably hadn’t found Curtis. Great. So, now we were playing a risky game that had an uncertain end, and our Unsub likely got away. Well, fuck.

“The whole place is lined with C-4,” Morgan warned us. They were watching as Reid kept unlocking JJ’s chains. “We have about three minutes.”

“We’ll be gone by then,” Reid insisted. Unless this really was too easy, I suspected it was.

Then, it dawned on me. Reid the other week, when Scarlet and I were at his house, was trying to teach her some of the “basics” of chess, which in his mind was everything from how to move the pieces to how to win in less than three moves. He forgot sometimes that she was only two. She was smart, but she wasn’t as smart as he was, though he sometimes wished that were the case. But there was something he said about Zugzwang. The best thing to do in that situation was to do nothing at all. To not forfeit, to not play, but to just… wait.

“Don’t move—” I tried warning JJ, but the second the chains were off her hands, she stood up.

Suddenly, we could all see the pressure plate that she had been sitting on the whole time. Everyone’s eyes widened as we froze, waiting to see if something would happen, like the bomb potentially going off randomly. Nothing happened for a second. We all relaxed, but it came too early, because the door suddenly closed behind us.

Our three minutes were running out.

With our exit blocked, we called Garcia quickly, hoping that she would be able to do something about the bomb’s detonation, or perhaps getting the door open, if she could. I didn’t have high hopes. I was just staring at Hotch as he desperately tried to get the door open. After Haley, we promised the kids—well, technically just Jack—that nothing bad would ever happen to both Mom and Dad while we were off saving the world. Ever. I genuinely thought that if something happened, it would have been one of us going home, having to explain to the kids why Mom or Dad wasn’t coming back, holding the kids as they cried. Hotch and I were prepared for that. But I never in a million years thought that our kids would have to grow up as orphans. Yet, while watching Hotch desperately pry and scrape at the door, I couldn’t help but think that Jack was going to have to live with knowing that three of his parents dies because of the BAU, and that Scarlet was going to have to grow up without Mom, Dad, Curls, and Uncle Morgan.

Emily was going to have to come back. Because she was Scarlet’s godmother, she would have to leave London to handle the will, the house, everything with Jessica. From there, the two of them would have to decide who was going to take the kids and where they were going to be raised. Would Emily take them to England? She had a steady job there with enough income for a thousand kids, but did she have a place for them in her life? Not really. Would she still fight like hell to raise them, anyhow? Of course. As for Jessica, she had a job, but not one with enough income to support two kids on her own. Her place was big enough for them, and it was already in our neighborhood, so she could make sure the kids still went to their schools where they had friends.

Not that my opinion mattered in any of this. The door was barely budging, and Garcia had managed to severe the tie between the phone Curtis had and the bombs he planted; but if we didn’t get the door all the way open soon, none of it was going to matter. My kids were going to grow up forgetting their parents’ faces.

“What the hell are you guys doing in there?!” Rossi exclaimed on the other side of the door. He must have pressed something outside, because it suddenly opened, giving us freedom. “Ever heard of traps before?”

“We have to go,” Hotch ordered, ignoring Rossi’s wit. He must’ve still been high from whatever the hospital gave him.

When we ran outside, ducking behind the SUVs for cover, I looked around for a headcount, realizing that we were one short. Hotch, Morgan, Reid, JJ, they were all there… “Rossi!” I shouted.

He was right behind us, I thought, while we were running out of the house. Where the fuck did he go? It wasn’t like he could get lost, considering all of the sirens and lights that were coming from the road we were on. We were like a beacon screaming: “HEY, WE’RE OVER HERE, IDIOT?!” So, where the fuck was he?

“We have to go back in.” I stepped around the car and took a step that was meant to lead into a sprint, but Hotch caught me, holding me back the same way Morgan had when JJ found out that Will was going into The Face Cards’ bank. “Aaron, stop!” I hit at his hands to make him let go, but he didn’t budge. I didn’t understand. Rossi was his best friend the same way Morgan was mine; why wasn’t he doing anything? “We have to get him!”

“Look, he’s right there,” Hotch said calmly, risking letting go of me with one arm so that he could point at the house. Rossi was crawling out of the storm cellar that connected to the basement we were in. He stumbled for a moment, trying to get to his feet, and then he started running like hell towards us. “He’s fine.”

As if the timing couldn’t’ve been any more perfect, the place blew just when Rossi was far enough that it wouldn’t hurt him. We all ducked while flinching. Glass shattered, wooden beams flew in different directions, and part of the house collapsed in on itself. I did my headcount again. Hotch had me in his arms, Morgan was at my side, Reid was checking on JJ, and Rossi was now casually walking over to us. We had everyone. We were okay. So, I relaxed in Hotch’s arms, letting my head fall back against his chest. What a shitty fucking fucking weekend.

#Criminal Minds #criminal minds fanfic #Criminal Minds Fanfiction #criminal minds smut #criminal minds imagine #aaron hotchner #Aaron Hotch Hotchner #aaron hotchner fanfic #aaron hotchner fanfiction #aaron hotchner imagine

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since0202 · 4 years ago

Text

Chapter 36: Choice

“Times up.” Sam said one afternoon after Grace had ducked out of the Cullen house early for a pack meeting.

“What do you mean ‘times up’? You’re just going to go in there and kill her?” Grace said skeptical, almost laughing at him as she grabbed some food from the kitchen table.

“We have no new information and we need a plan of action for when this thing comes out.”

“What do you want me to do?” Grace said annoyed. Jacob was standing behind her with his arms crossed looking at Sam with a raised eyebrow.

“I don’t want you to do anything. You’re our line in. They trust you and I think the only other person that they would trust is Jacob.”

“Okay,” Jake said also skeptical and reaching around Grace to grab a muffin from the table. “Then what do you want me to do?”

“Same thing as Grace. I want you to get a line in, start spending time with Bella, keep an eye on the situation. And then as the time gets closer if she progresses we’ll have two of ours on the inside, which will definitely buy us more time if we need it in the end.”

“I think you’re jumping the gun on this one Sam.”

“Well, I don’t. And I’m alpha so you’ll do as I say,” he said confidently before leaving the room. Jake and Grace were left alone in the kitchen and she dropped into a kitchen chair laying her head on her arms.

“We’re not fucking secret agents. Bella knows that the pack is not thrilled about the pregnancy. They’ll be prepared for an attack.” Grace said into her arms. Jacob dropped in the chair across from her and put his hands behind his head.

“Edward already texted me like a month ago.” Jake said casually. Grace shot up in her seat.

“What?! He texted you? About what?!” Grace said surprised.

“To have me come and talk to Bella and try to convince her she should terminate.” He said looking toward the door.

“Did you...did you text him back?” Grace said. She couldn’t believe Edward had never mentioned it to her.

“I went and saw him. We met in the woods. I mostly wanted to rub it in his face that I was right. That I knew he was going to kill her one way or another. But…” Jacob looked at his hands and Grace rested her chin on her crossed arms. “It didn’t feel like I thought it would. He was...different. Broken.”

Grace listened quietly and when Jacob looked into her eyes she concentrated. She could see the image in his head now, fuzzy and flickering but there. They had been practicing this every once in a while when they were near each other when Jake wasn’t phased. She only ever caught glimmers and echos, never anything as concrete when he was in his wolf form but it was something. She squinted her eyes trying to see it more clearly in her mind’s eye but it wasn’t working.

“You get the idea,” he said, cutting off his gaze and moving it back down to his hands.

“What are we going to do? Sam is definitely going to kill this thing but what if...what if it turns out to just be a baby? What do we do?”

“There’s no way it’s just a baby, but I get your meaning….” he was at a loss and couldn’t offer her a way forward anymore than she could other than to say, “We buy as much time as we can so we can be sure.”

“Right,” Grace breathed.

January

Grace walked into the study where Bella was getting another ultrasound, coming to the middle of her second trimester. Carlisle was diligently moving the wand across her belly trying to see if he could ascertain anything new.

Grace put her hands in the backpocket of her jeans and smiled.

“How are we doin’?” She asked nonchalantly.

“Good, just seeing if I can hear anything new…” Carlisle said his eyes trained on the monitor. Bella smiled but her face was starting to look sallow, Grace noticed. Her color was off too. In her first two months, she was pink and flush with a pregnancy glow, but now she was turning a tinge of yellowish green.

“I brought a present. Hope that’s okay. It was kind of big so I left it downstairs,” Grace said nodding over her shoulder. Bella smiled and Carlisle clicked off his machine saying “Nothing new,” with a tight smile to Bella.

“Come on preggo,” Grace said, helping her up. She was definitely starting to show much more than a woman who was normally 4-5 months pregnant would show. She helped Bella slowly descend the stairs, noticing how thin her arms were becoming.

“You feeling okay?” she asked quietly.

“Yeah of course, just had a headache this morning I can’t shake. Where’s this monster present?” Bella asked jokingly as they rounded the corner to the living room.

“It’s a good monster, I promise,” Grace said.

Jake stood in the center of the living room wearing his black leather jacket, tan shirt and jeans.

Bella broke into a wide smile and shuffled quickly toward Jake to wrap him in a hug. He obliged and carefully closed his arms around with a smile Grace hadn't seen in a while as he said, “Hey Bells.”

“It’s so good to see you,” Bella said as tears sprang to her eyes. Grace patted Bella’s back and looked up at Jacob’s face before saying,

“I’m going to run some errands while you’re here with her. You good?” Jacob nodded without opening his eyes and Grace headed toward the front door. As she left she heard Bella say,

“Your hair’s long again.” To which Jake laughed softly. Grace cherished that sound for a second before she moved to the treeline, focused herself carefully and recast the 56 miles to Port Angeles. When she reappeared, she leaned up against a nearby building and tried to catch her breath.

After a couple of minutes, she relaxed and pulled her hood up against the January sleet and headed down the busy street. Edward and Carlisle had been hard at work trying to find information from anyone who could tell them more about what was happening to Bella. Alice and Jasper had disappeared for a full month before coming back empty handed. They left in shifts, not wanting to leave Bella unguarded for too long, but this time, their trips had overlapped with when they usually went to feed, so Grace had offered to meet up with a lead Carlisle had found who seemed promising.

Grace had conveniently left this information out of the collective pack mind however, knowing that Sam would be furious if she was meeting up with a rogue vampire informant. So what Sam doesn’t know won’t hurt him. Not to mention that the alpha fatigue was starting to wear on her.

Now that Jacob was back, the old tension between Sam and Grace resumed. He understood that the connection between Jacob and Grace might be more akin to the true alpha-Spirit Bird link but since Jake wasn’t interested in becoming alpha, he was trying to dictate the parameters of their connection as the true alpha.

It was exhausting. Grace was usually given so much whiplash by Sam’s commands that she opted to just tune out as much as possible which caused clear divides amongst pack members. In their histories, the alpha and Spirit Bird were meant to work in perfect harmony, a balance, give and take. But with Sam and Grace it had been anything but. She found herself wanting to resist his alpha commands more and more, make decisions without consulting him, keeping him out of the loop when it came to what was happening in the Cullen house, anything to get some peace. She knew Sam was just trying to keep the pack in order, do his job, and keep everyone safe, but Grace felt like it was more of a father-child relationship between them than a mutual agreement to manage the pack.

She and Jacob had mulled it over a couple of times in their collective mind, but stopped when Jacob was getting hounded by Sam for sowing discord. Grace was able to shield her own mind from the collective packs if she wanted because it was a choice to dip into their shared consciousness, but Jacob could not.

Grace pulled herself out of her reverie as she turned down another alleyway, her footfalls splashing in the gathering puddles. She paused a door to her left, rechecking her phone for the address before she heard a light hiss above her. Grace tentatively looked up and saw the crouched figure of a man in a long coat on a fire escape. He quickly jumped from the immense height and landed across from Grace. She kept her face cool, hands in her pockets and spoke with purpose.

“Alastor? I’m here on behalf of Carlisle,” the sleet slowed offering them a brief reprieve that neither of them really noticed. The vampire looked at her curiously, his eyes darting across Grace’s body, taking her in and relishing in the scent. Grace made a mental note, Black eyes, this might be a problem.

Another low hiss came from the back of the vampires throat without him meaning it, like a reflex. “And you're the little mortal he sent to do his bidding?” he let out a soft, pleasing laugh. Grace didn’t respond right away, just shifted her weight a little and kept her eyes trained on the creature.

“You have information Carlisle asked for?” Grace leveled him with a solid stare. Surprisingly she wasn’t afraid, but as the time ticked on she felt like she was on a fool’s errand. Alastor looked like he hadn’t had a shower in decades. His blonde hair hung in oily strands around his round face. Patches of dirt adorned his perfectly marble like skin. He was dressed in a dingy, worn overcoat and gloves that left his thin fingers exposed. Grace grimaced a little. He gave her an unsettling smile and pulled his lips back a little too far over his teeth.

“Right. This way,” he said as he walked off down the alleyway. Grace rolled her eyes and followed him internally thinking Shields up. He took her through dark street after dark street until the sun started to get low and he veered off to his left, pulling open two cellar doors that were sunken into the alleyway. He descended down the stone steps into the darkness and Grace groaned. She was walking into a vampire den, clear as day, and if Sam or Paul or any of the pack members found out, she’d be crucified. She followed after Alastor into the dark, damp cellar until she found herself in a worn and disheveled den. Literally. She had to almost stop herself from laughing at the irony.

It was scattered with remnants of paper, old CDs, actual trash, and tattered linens with questionable stains. Alastor was rummaging through some dresser drawers on the far wall.

“When Carlisle had told me of his little predicament, it had reminded me of this book I had come across centuries ago in a deserted library. It detailed the legends of bloodsuckers, the immortal way, and the children born from them.” Grace raised an eyebrow still taking in the dank surroundings as the bare bulb in the center of the room cast eerie shadows. “He was very interested in such a book, and lucky for him I nicked it some 300 years ago. Ah!” he cried pulling a slender, small book out from his drawer. He looked upon it lovingly, “It’s given me solace, to understand the monster that I am, how I’m perceived, and how legends tell us more truth about ourselves than anything else.”

Grace didn’t respond. His eyes, black as ink, drew her in momentarily. She felt an odd tickling at the back of her neck. A warning?

“But for all his goodness, Carlisle is nothing if not gullible to the real fault of humans,” he was on her now, terribly close and she careened back, her back slamming into the wall behind her. Her head hit the stone with a thud and she felt warmth trickle there. When she felt the back of her head, she pulled back a small amount of blood, but it was enough. Alastor’s hand was suddenly outstretched, closed around her throat and slowly crushing her windpipe. Grace, taken off guard, gasped for breath, gripping Alastor’s wrist with one hand as her other fought for purchase on the wall behind her to give her leverage. She was turning blue.

Alastor’s eyes were gleaming, his mouth wide open in hunger and just as quickly, “Just a taste,” he teased cruelly.

Grace squeaked out a suffocated, “I wouldn’t,” before bringing her free hand up, pulling her energy hard and fast, slicing down like a knife in front of her and severing Alastor’s outstretched arm at the elbow. She frantically pulled at the hand that still loosely gripped her neck and cast it aside with a clatter. Alastor let out a howl of pain and was momentarily thrown off balance. Grace leaned down to scoop up the small book and sprinted for the staircase. Once out in the cool, dark air, she wasted no time recasting back to Forks.

Falling forward on her knees in the forest, Grace coughed and tried to regain her breath. She drew in ragged breaths, but the pain was excruciatingly sharp. It felt like someone had dragged glass shards down her throat. Grace checked to make sure she had the book pocketed in her jacket before pulling herself up with a groan and stumbling toward the Cullen’s. That was the last time she volunteered to meet up with one of Carlisle’s sketchy ass friends.

As she broke out of the treeline and onto the Cullen’s driveway, she was starting to wheeze. Coming down from the front steps was Jacob. Panicked, Grace tried to gain her composure. His face looked furious, dark, and he was lost in thought until he looked up and saw Grace coming toward him.

“Hey,” he said quietly. Grace nodded thinking she was in the clear but as she got closer to brush past him his eyes went wide:

“Grace what the HELL!” He stepped in front of her and his hands went to roughly touch her neck. Grace flinched painfully and wheezed out: “Jake, take it easy.” Her voice was raspy and cut in and out like changing channels on a tv.

“Sorry,” he breathed, his hands soft on her neck now inspecting the clear red welts of hand print there. “What the fuck happened?!” Suddenly he was taking a deep breath, the coppery scent clear now, and his eyes shot up to her head, “Are you bleeding?!” his eyes were roving up and down her body, desperately searching for where the smell of blood was coming from.

“Jacob,” she whispered, trying to even her wheezing. “I’m fine, let me just—” she tried to move past him, but his hand was firm on her upper arm holding her in place. His other hand reached and softly touched the back of her head, pulling back wet blood. His eyes were wide with anger now, furious, and filled with absolute disgust.

“Who did this?” he growled. His whole body was shaking and his eyes were alight with something she hadn’t seen in months.

“Can I go inside please?” she asked, tired. She wasn’t losing a lot of blood, but the smell was starting to make her just a little bit dizzy. He nodded snapping out of it and wrapping his arm around her shoulders as he led her up the steps and into the Cullen house.

Carlisle was there instantly trying to assess her, but Jacov’s reflexive growl told him to keep his distance.

“Jacob may I?” he asked politely. Jake wasn’t letting go and Grace had to gently peel his fingers off her shoulder to be released. His anger only ticked up as Grace sat down wincing as Carlisle gently parted her hair where the wound was. “Esme, please get my kit,” he said, lifting Grace’s chin up and looking closely at her throat. She was gone and back in an instant. “I’m sorry, I didn’t think Alastor would be in bad shape.”

“This was for you?!” Jacob said, rage racketing up in him now. Grace gave Carlisle a warning look, upset that he had said anything.

“Jake, I’m fine, really. Look,” she whispered, her voice raspy and weak. She held up her finger and followed her eyes as she moved her finger back and forth across her face. Jacob was not placated. He seethed, watching her with clenched fists as his chest rose and fell quickly with every passing breath.

She reached in her pocket to hand Carlisle the book. “Thank you,” he said quietly as he took it from her and then deftly grabbed some tools to start working on cleaning, disinfecting, and stitching up Grace’s head. “Should just need a couple of stitches. Can you breathe alright?” he asked as he listened to her wheezing. She nodded even though it caused severe discomfort. As he finished the stitches and moved to look at her neck again, he gently pressed on the sides of her throat. Grace let out a soft, involuntary, whimper. Her eyes shot up to meet with Jacob’s and his face had changed. It was desperate, intermixed with anger—he couldn’t handle it, seeing her like that. Carlisle met her eyes and said “You’ve definitely got some swelling and bruising around the windpipe, but the muscle feels intact.”

At this, there was a huge crash that caused Grace to jump. Rosalie was in the room now, having heard the noise, looking around quickly for the threat. One of the floor to ceiling windows that looked out over the forest in the living room was completely shattered. Jacob had thrown his wolf body through it and darted off into the forest. Grace braced against the chill that crept in.

“Sorry about that,” Grace wheezed. Carlisle gave her a reassuring smile.

“I’m sorry about this. I shouldn’t have asked you to go. I thought...It doesn’t matter,” he said. He dashed and was back with a warm compress from his study that he gingerly fixed around Grace’s neck. “This should help with the swelling at least until your healing kicks in. Let’s get you up to the guest room,” he said softly.

“Can someone actually give me a ride home?” her mouth was dry and the pain in her head was slowly subsiding but she was worried about the pack, about Jake.

“Of course, we’ll take you home right away.”

Grace carefully climbed the steps to her front door and gave Carlisle a wave as she went inside, shutting the door behind her. She let out a sigh of relief and pulled the compress off her neck as she climbed the stairs to her room. She clumsily pulled off her jeans and grabbed at a loose shirt that was hanging from her closet door. After pulling off her sweatshirt, t-shirt, and bra, she pulled on the oversized t-shirt and revelled in it’s warm cedar-like smell before collapsing on her bed and passing out, her phone buzzing wildly in the back pocket of her discarded jeans.

Early muted sun came in through her porthole window above the bed. Distant thunder roiled somewhere outside. Grace groaned and rolled onto her side, slowly opening her eyes. She let out a quick gasp as her eyes put together the figure of Jacob, sitting low in the chair next to the bed that was usually piled with laundry.

“Fuck, Jacob,” she said softly. Her voice was rough, but the rasp was gone and she pulled in cool, clean breaths with ease. She tentatively brought a hand up to her neck and gingerly pressed it. The pain was gone and only a dull ache like a bruise remained. She felt better, but didn’t try to get up, resettling her head on the pillow to get a better look at Jake. His face was dark, brooding. His eyes were alight with fresh upset but it didn’t feel solely directed at her.

“What were you thinking?” he said, his voice filled with disdain. Grace let her eyes rove over him carefully taking in his shape. She hadn’t been alone with him in her room since before she broke them. The feeling was strangely intimate and Grace didn’t let herself settle in it too long.

“We’re trying to figure this thing out and I want some answers. For Bella,” she said simply her eyes glued to his face now. He had a hand resting lightly over his mouth and Grace silently wished that he would drop it so she could stare at his lips and remember every shape they took.

“Do you have a death wish? Sam is…” Jacob stalled, his eyes locking more concretely with Grace’s now as he silently tried to communicate with her. She got simple flashes, Sam on his hind legs, rocketing back, snarling and snapping, the rising of howls moving around the forest, a volley of commands that she couldn’t quite make out.

“Yeah well..” Grace sighed sitting up now. Jacob’s eyes moved down the length of her body not covered by the sheet. “What?” she said quietly.

“You’re wearing my shirt,” he said with relief. As if the realization gave him something special, clarity that he wasn’t expecting. She was confused by his tone and looked down to pluck at the shirt with her fingertips.

“Oh. I was out of it when I got back.” She rubbed her hands over her eyes and gave a low yawn.

“Grace you don’t get it, he—” Jacob was cut off by a crescendo of howls coming through the forest, his eyes snapped up and Grace looked out her window alarmed.

Get down here. NOW.

Grace heard the clear command in Sam’s voice and quickly jumped out of bed, alarm bells ringing her head. Something was wrong. The howls were clearly pained, as if they pulled against the voice that dragged them forward.

Jake had already phased and had dashed into the forest. Grace quickly dressed and recast to his location, realizing too late that she was barefoot. The cool earth pricked at the warm soles of her feet as she stood in front of the towering black wolf.

Jake was mingled in with the pack, nipping at Seth and Quil to stay back. Grace steadied herself as she looked up at Sam and felt the heat of his anger rolling off his body.

Time and time again, you put this pack on the brink. You put each of us in danger with your recklessness. Going out there alone and putting your life at risk on an errand for a bloodsucker?! The disregard for your own life means I can’t trust you to help protect this pack.

Grace’s heart rate ticked up. Thunder crashed just offshore and the hair on the back of her neck rose. Whimpering sounds from the pack echoed behind Sam.

“I’m trying to keep Bella alive and keep a war from starting.” Grace said simply. Her hands felt that familiar pain and she clenched and unclenched them into fists.

You can no longer be trusted to have good judgement when it comes to the Cullens or Bella. And the Cullen’s clearly have you compromised if you’re out there doing their bidding. I won’t let it continue and have one of ours end up dead because of your clouded judgement.

Grace’s eyes darted around to the pack now, unsure of what to do. But Sam wasn’t backing down. He padded toward her, his muzzle open in a clear snarl, all teeth.

You will either come under heel and submit to Alpha orders like everyone else here. Or you will be cast out and we will come after you if you interfere with us taking care of the threat.

Grace swallowed hard. “So you’re going to kill Bella then, that’s your plan?”

I tell you that you have two choices to maintain your connection to this pack—YOUR DESTINY—and instead you ask about if we’re going to kill Bella. It makes me sick!

At this, Sam lunged at her, his mouth open in a clear attack. Grace pushed her body back as she pulled energy up in front her, eyes wide. She went crashing back into the woods and came to halt once she slammed against a tree.

“ARE YOU CRAZY?!” Grace shouted as she scrambled to her feet and rushed back into the clearing. There was a squabble of fighting amongst the wolves behind Sam. Their dissent was quickly quieted with a swift command from him.

Choose. I won’t ask again. Sam was livid. This was beyond insane. The weight of this alpha command was stronger than any she had felt before and her body begged her to obey, desperate for relief. She felt the strain of it in the back of her head, the muscles surrounding her skull tightening dangerously, willing her to submit. But she pulled against it. There was no way she was going to let her pack murder her sister and her unborn baby. They meant too much and the pack meant too much. She’d never let them become those kinds of monsters. She gritted her teeth and leveled Sam’s gaze.

“No.” she said between clenched teeth. There was another round of howls, whimpers, snaps, and snarls at her defiance. Sam recoiled, his ears back in clear anger.

Enough. Fan out toward the Cullen’s. Don’t stop. Sam said.

We’re going to kill her?!

Sam, wait please.

Grace don’t do this.

There’s no other way, we have to kill this thing. Bella’s made her choice.

Jacob do something! Seth’s voice was loud and clear as Sam charged toward Grace. The pack was held back by their alpha orders. Grace pulled up her energy as a shield again, teeth still gritted, digging her feet in and taking Sam’s blows as he battered against her again and again, pushing her back shouting:

YOU. WILL. LISTEN. TO. ME.

Jacob felt a sharp ripple move through him as he watched Sam advance on Grace again and again. She wouldn’t push Sam back, she wouldn’t hurt him—Jacob didn’t know if she was capable of hurting them in their wolf form or if something in her held her back. Still, she wouldn’t return the attack. Jake could see that she would lose. There was no way she could keep this up for long. Not after multiple alpha commands dragging her down while trying to keep herself standing against his barrage of attacks.

A ripping growl grew in the back of his throat as he watched, the chaos around him was shredding his sanity into pieces. Sam wouldn’t stop, Jacob knew that.

Sam thought that Grace was putting them in danger and that he needed to protect them. But Jacob knew killing Bella wasn’t the answer either, and bringing Grace under Sam’s heel would backfire, it’s not how Grace felt the bond worked.

Every time he hit her shield of energy, the sound crunched louder and louder, intermixed with his snarls and snaps. The crescendo of wolf thoughts wouldn’t cease either as they all escalated into panic. Jake was boiling over and he just wanted it to stop.

Sam crashed into Grace in one final blow and her shield fell. She was pushed back up against a tree and slowly slipped down the trunk. Sam raised himself up on his hind legs to bring himself down upon her again, a paw raised with claws extended. An echo screamed through Jacob’s head, long forgotten and buried deep in his psyche. He felt pushed forward by unseen hands as his body sprinted toward Grace.

Once he had rocketed toward her, the cries and shouts of his brothers went quiet as he launched himself at Sam’s broad back.

His jaws grabbed around Sam’s shoulder. H was caught unaware and in his panic, Sam threw his head back snapping wildly to try and toss him off. But Jacob was strong, stronger than he thought, and he pulled him backwards onto the ground. Sam twisted out his grip and Jake moved his body in front of Grace as she pulled herself up, her breath quick and sharp.

“Jake, don’t.” Grace said softly. He growled and widened his stance, blocking Grace from Sam’s view.

Get out of the way. Sam growled.

No. Jake shouted back. Sam’s ears went back and suddenly at his tone. Startled, Jacob realized he couldn’t hear anything, just his own quick breath as Sam narrowed his eyes on him again.

What did you do?! Sam screamed.

You gave me no choice. This is not who we are, Sam. This is not who you are.

What did you DO?! He lunged for Jacob and as Grace cried out. Jacob shook Sam’s muzzle off of his neck and beared down on him, crushing his ribs under his paws. Sam yelped as Jacob dug in and chomped harder, the other wolves pacing frantically behind him.

I won’t let you hurt her. She’s under my protection now. SAY YOU UNDERSTAND! The command was clear and Sam yelped again, struggling harder against his tightening grip.

I understand! Sam finally yelled out. Jacob released him immediately and Sam retreated to his pack.

You’ve made a mistake, Jacob. You’ve destroyed this pack. We can’t come back from this.

Jacob had had enough. He turned to give Grace a look that she acknowledged and she recast away deeper into the forest. Jacob would find her soon enough.

The other pack members whined, confusion clear in their eyes. Jacob took one last look at them and took off as desperate howls rang out.

He ran in the direction that Grace went, knowing she’d be waiting for him. He saw her ahead in the clearing and quickly phased, pulling on his jean shorts before walking into the clearing. He let his eyes fall to the ground, realization sinking into him. His pack, his brothers, Leah, they were lost to him. Grace spun around, her eyes wild in shock:

“Did you just become alpha?!” Her voice was strained, shattered. He raised his eyes to her and in that moment everything stopped. A hush fell over the forest, unnaturally void of the chirps and rustling of the in its floor. The light seemed to glitter around them and the air grew thick and heavy despite the January cold. The thunder that had sounded off shore, clattered around them, lacing the air with electricity that splintered out and set their nerves on fire.

Grace pulled in a sharp breath. The dangling thread that had snapped in her when Jake had left suddenly reacted, shooting down through her body like a steel cable and snapping to the forest floor. She felt grounded, tethered to the earth, but more than that, she felt tethered to him. The rushing noise was already washing through her, the immense pressure building and finally exhaling around her. The pull in her stomach rejoiced in an exalted sigh of pleasure as it said, Yes, it’s you. Finally.

Jacob was stone in front of her, his eyes wide with understanding. It was her. The soul that had been calling out to him all this time had been hers and deep down he thought he always knew. It was like finally turning over a stone and revealing the glittering life beneath. Like pulling a relief of air into a stifling room, the cool rush of understanding washing over his too hot body. His mind buzzed with recognition: Grace, his imprint.

Like a magnet, her pull begged her to move closer, but all Grace could get out was a soft, “Oh.” as they stared at each other. The sound suddenly returned to the forest, teeming with life and becoming all too loud. Tears welled around the bottom of her eyes as she became overcome with joy. The ancestor’s hadn’t forgotten about her.

She held herself in place, waiting for his cue. His mouth opened and closed before he finally said, “Grace.” Calling her to him.

Grace sprinted forward.

#twilight fanfiction #Twilight FanFic #twilightfanfic #twilight #new moon #eclipse #breaking dawn #smeyer #bella swan #jacob black #jacobblackxoc #jacobblack #jacobxoc #paul lahote #edward cullen #the cullens #the pack #chapter 36 #a monster lives here

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pleom · 5 years ago

Text

swimmer!bang chan [M]

Warnings: heavy angst, mentions and descriptions of depression, emotional abuse, family issues, graphic descriptions of sexual content (cunnilingus, unprotected sex, handjobs, loss of virginity)

Word Count: 8.7k

Something inside you burns. It throbs and pummels against you from the inside-out, wholly unwelcoming, though you wouldn’t say you suffer. You wouldn’t say it’s painful, either. This feeling engulfs you, blending with your senses and the way they interact with each other. Physically, you’d say it’s another part of the experience. Coupled with the vibrations (dull and wide-spaced,) the muffled sounds, the incessant screeching and tapping and cramping and pulling and—

You gasp for breath—a whistle blows—and you can’t swim.

“Y/N, out,” your coach motions for you.

The students around you move hesitantly, but ultimately part for you to exit. Your vision is still blurry, but you manage to pull yourself up the ladder without slipping. You slip on the way to the locker room though, and embarrassedly throw yourself behind the door and onto a bench without abandon.

Your eyes sting, and are probably more red than they usually are after practice. Your skin grays and itches as it slowly dries, so you take a towel to assist both matters. When the only thing keeping your body from fully shrugging off the remaining water is what slides off the tips of your hair, you fling the cloth over your head and sit there, slouched and effectively closing out the rest of the world.

The moments of before are already starting to feel fake—a blur of imagined happenings. The only thing you can clearly recall is your errors, constant and public for all to see (and they did, they most definitely did.) Your lungs cry with the remnants of salt and bleach, and your chest burns with discontent. Discontent that you almost drowned; discontent that your coach didn’t let you drown. (You’ll also be hearing that from your sister later on, when you’ll come home probably coughing and aching, and you can see it already: her prideful and mocking gestures, her feigning concern and doubting your abilities. You sit here, chest gaping, and you know you’ll have no argument against her. She was born with knowledge you had yet to achieve.)

A voice makes you jump. “Are you okay?”

You hope with every fiber of your being you aren’t the person who the question is being directed to. You let it fly over your head, and rub the fabric over your hair to look inconspicuous. Wet footsteps seem to bound straight for you, and in what feels like a second, a shadow peeks from underneath your towel. There’s no use acting like you’re no one, because someone’s standing right before you and seems dead-set on getting you to interact with them.

“Hey.”

Lifting your head, you take in the sight of Chan, all broad-shouldered and pale-skinned to the point you might blame the chemicals in the pool for it. He stands shirtless, though as dry as your throat feels. His class must be after yours.

He doesn’t know you (though you know of him) and it’s clear on his face. Why he bothers to question you, you don’t know. You shouldn’t look that out of place, since a few students like to hide and hang out in the locker rooms alone sometimes. Guess you couldn’t pass off as one of them.

“You don’t look so good,” he says, “Was Coach hard on you? I always tell Dad to go easy on the new swimmers but he never does…”

He sheepishly wrings his towel over his shoulder. It takes you a moment to absorb his words, but when you do, you’re quick to react.

“No, no he doesn’t,” you hesitate, “How did you know I was new here?”

“I come here almost every day to help my dad mentor the students. ‘Think I’d recognize a face like yours.” he takes a step back and seems to take in the look of you. You know he doesn’t mean anything by it, but you shuffle in your seat nonetheless. “Did you just transfer?”

You wince at the question and shake your head. You’re too embarrassed to reveal that you have been enrolled since the start, which for sure would make the air between you even more awkward. You quickly flip the conversation to be less you-focused. “So, you help your dad train the students? You must be under a lot of pressure.”

The coach is pretty ruthless. Every interaction with him leaves your skin feeling prickly; every command and scold, his directions, and even his praises—superficial amidst a deeper frustration. You can imagine an inkling of what he must be around his own son, if he’s anything like your own parents.

Chan tilts his head as if in deep consideration, but ultimately shrugs. He takes you by surprise when he breaks into a slight smile. “No, not really. I’m just here to help, as long as someone succeeds at something new, we mark that as a win in our books. Pressuring anyone helps no one.”

You eye the entrance to the pool. His words don’t really match up to your experiences, and you feel a slight jealousy for those who wound up so lucky. Maybe it’s because you’re a late bloomer, if you can even call it that. His father must’ve been shocked at seeing a girl your age floundering at what most have already nailed down.

“It must be nice having a professional help lead you down their path, the only reason why I took this class is so I could finally have a useful skill under my belt,” you can’t help yourself from rambling, so you shut your lips tight once you realize you’ve nearly thrown a pity party for yourself. Cautiously, you glance at Chan and hope he’s been distracted by one thing or another, or grew bored of you once you opened your mouth. Neither seem to be the case, though he looks at you with mild astonishment.

He motions for you to give him your name, and you do, reluctantly, cautiously, as though you’re making a deal that you can’t take back. When you do, he grins with a face of understanding and gives you his hand to shake. This all feels entirely foreign, disconcerting, and you can’t tell if the wetness between your fingers is nervous sweat or remnants of the pool. You have no time to think about it, because you separate when another whistle blows and students begin to file into the locker room.

Chan’s already left with a grin and a wave, and you’re left tugging on your school clothes with your heart beating waves of fire.

Chan has been on your mind ever since, though that is not exactly a feat. You tend to overthink and hyperfocus on the inane—it’s a fault your family has never let you forget. It’s what brings you to the situation at hand right now.

You come home late, after spending your time at the nearby café to sort out your school work. What you forgot to do was sort out your emotions (crucial mistake) and immediately your mother is hounding your every move. You make a snide comment, under your breath, about the state of the house: it feeds you more despair than actual food.

It ends there.

A snap here, a threat there, and you wish you had left as soon as you came. Your house’s front door slams shut behind you and you swallow that hard lump in your throat the best you can. Here, you’re so focused on that insignificant little action, one of pain and only pride, that you miss the tears and the ringing in your ears and it’s all useless. You’re useless.

The sleeves on your shirt have grown damp from all the wiping, and a thought comes: why not get it all wet? You’re already a hose of emotions, and your mother will yell at your weaknesses; the uncontrollable. Giving her a proper reason to scream seems sensible. Maybe you should empower yourself before she can impose her power on you.

At least, that’s what you tell yourself as you stride towards the school and mentally rummage through different ways of justifying your actions. Who cares if they don’t make sense?

You don’t.

The school pool’s entrance is surprisingly easy to get through. The inside feels especially hollow without the fuss of your classmates and coach. Every step carries its own reverb, and you momentarily hold your breath in case it does, too. But even so, the emptiness of the pool has a strange serenity to it. You bathe in it wholly.

You can’t bathe for too long, so you kick off your shoes and get right to it. You toe the edge of the pool and examine its reflections. You keep your eyes off yourself, only tracing along the ceiling lights and the stars spotted from the window. When the moon starts slowly inching into the view, you plunge.

The water whirls around you in both a menacing and tantalizing way. It plugs all of your senses and you let it. It soothes; it stings. And when you start feeling lightheaded, you resurface.

It takes a while for the blur to leave your eyes and the pounding to leave your ears. However, even with all this sensory overload, you feel blithe, and a full-belly laugh escapes you before you can stop it. You don’t want it to. This is the happiest you’ve felt in months.

Just as quickly, it ends. Abruptly, because someone has made themselves known with a loud clang. It rings from the locker room, and before you can pull yourself out of the water and hide, the door swings open and reveals—

Chan.

He’s already down to his swimwear, and looks unsurprised by your presence here. In fact, he looks somewhat pleased. “You’ve started without me.”

You’re a bit too stunned to respond, and the position of you both suddenly starts weighing on you. You’re on school grounds, way past its lockdown. The dip in the pool has definitely cleared your mind some, and you know now that what you are doing is trespassing. Maybe alone, you could’ve learned to reprimand yourself for doing so, swear to never do it again. But here you are, and there’s a witness.

Chan chuckles, clearly not running through the same thoughts in his own head. Instead, he walks over to your side and kneels, extending his hand. “Need some help?”

You can’t bring it in yourself to argue, so you take his hand and let him pull you out. You collapse very sloppily onto the tiles, the weight of your soaked clothes dragging you down. There’s silence. Your heartbeat slows once you realize Chan’s not intending on pulling any tricks. (At least you hope.)

“I won’t tell,” Chan eases your thoughts, “as long as you tell me the reason why you’re here.”

Despite saying this, there’s no urgency or force behind his words. You don’t feel pressured to answer, so you pay no mind when you do. “Wanted some time alone for myself and this was the closest thing in mind.”

“Did you know the door to the pool would be open?”

“No, not at all.”

Chan hums. He doesn’t seem suspicious of you. He doesn’t question you after that. Instead, he takes a couple steps back, “Well… if that’s all…”

He races forward and dives into the water, splashing your legs in the process. He disappears for a moment, then breaks the surface into a breastroke. He moves languidly, though sharp enough to slice straight through the liquid.

It’s a harsh contrast to you. You start to feel uncomfortable and misplaced now that the son of your coach displays his skill. Imagining yourself in his spot feels daunting, and you have to fight your instincts to just grab your shoes and run.

Back home.

The thought makes you shiver.

“Hey,” Chan floats up to you on his back. “You wanted swimming lessons, didn’t you?”

“Yeah,” You’re nervous to see where this is going.

He smiles. “So hop in.”

Your parents didn’t question why you came home late that night. Nor why your clothes were mildly wet. Your sister gave her routine insult–slash–brag and was on her way. You certainly didn’t complain, now that you were left to your own devices, and on it the screen pings with a new message, one from Chan, whose contact you have yet to save.

You stay up all night responding to his texts.

When the next day comes, your loneliness hits harder than usual. You had forgotten what it was like interacting with people for a period of time longer than the length of class. You find yourself looking over your shoulder more often for a glimpse of Chan, even while swimming. And surprisingly, you don’t get yelled at by the coach for being so sidetracked. You’ve accumulated more praises, though you still sense it’s from a place of pitiful obligation.

You come home earlier than usual.

“So you’ve just given up on your education now, huh?”

“What?”

Your head snaps up at your mother’s voice. She stands as volatile as ever, hands splayed over her hips. The house smells flowery; she’s making her special rose petal flan—something she only does as a treat for herself, when things for her are going exceptionally well. These days come rare but welcomed, because usually then she’s as sensitive and motherly as one can be.

Yet today is the total opposite. And you get an inkling as to why: your English test sheet, laid on the kitchen counter.

You wince. Of course she had snooped through your room and saw your failure peeking through your garbage bin.

“I gave you so many chances, so many chances, let you drop out of math for God’s sake! And this is how you repay me? Failing your tests and coming home early? Did you even go to the library today? Have you ever studied in your entire life?!”

Your mom shows no sign of ever stopping her tirade. Her neck seems to have grown redder by the second. Your sister arrives just in time to catch the next part, no doubt excited to have her ego fed as per usual.

“We’ve moved cities, exchanged schools, and transferred jobs, just so you could have the opportunity your sister had. Do you think life was easy for her when we all lived in that garbage bin we called an apartment? Do you think she let that dissuade her from acing her studies and receiving that scholarship?” Your mother points at your sister then, and the looks on both of their faces hit you with two different senses of shame, both equally strong. “Are you honestly willing to undo all of your sister’s hard work? This is how you want to end your senior year? This is how you planned to enter adulthood?”

And with that she takes your paper and shreds it. She leaves you for the living room, sparing not one glance at the way your lips tremble and eyes glisten. It hurts, but in a way, you’re glad she doesn’t notice. It’d only stack another disappointment onto that pile she holds. Your sister’s grown bored of looking at you too, and trots off behind your mother.

Despite your blues, the sun is still up. So you exit the front door and sit on the steps. You wish you had it in you to fight back, no matter how disastrous that might end out to be. Because what your mother doesn’t realize is that it all piles up. You never asked to move to a new city, this late into high school. Everyone’s already bound and wound tight around each others’ fingers—friends, best friends, lovers, all things you’ve rarely experienced due to your momentary presence. You have your acquaintances, those who you would probably refer to as ‘friends,’ but they’re surface-level at best, not people you could ever rely on.

But that’s all she thinks you’re good for: never achieving, or attaining, or accomplishing, only to ever rely on others.

Impulsively, you pull out your cell phone and reach out to the only person nearby that you can.

TO: BANG CHAN

Just had an argument with my mom :(

Not feeling good…

FROM: BANG CHAN

Oh, no :(( are you okay?

Wanna come over and swim? Help clear your head?

The pool doors are open

Legally, this time :p

The slightest grin stretches over your face.

“And that’s how you do a butterfly stroke,”

The other kids of this program have begun to slowly disperse. They’re all younger—freshmen, probably—that make you want to douse your head in shame. The worst part of it all is that Chan isn’t even teaching them, they’ve all learned how to do the basic swimming strokes, and it makes it all the more obvious how lacking you are.

Chan had tried to placate you and tell you that most students aren’t paying attention to your mistakes, but you’re pretty sure that you saw one kid giggle when you came up for air.

As afternoon blends into evening, the lights indoors begin to feel more artificial. Chan pulls you over to a bench once most of the kids have gone home. This is when the awkwardness starts settling in.

“You should come here more often if you’re so worried about your skills, which, by the way, aren’t as bad as you think they are. No one is looking at you funny because of it.”

He pats you amiably on the shoulder. You shrug.

“I’ve already got too much on my plate. I usually go straight to the library to start on my homework. By the time I finish, it’s dinner time and I’ve got to make the switch over to the cafe to finish up my studies. An after-school swimming program can remain an afterthought, sorry,”

“Geez, no wonder I’ve never seen you walking around during class,” he gasps, “you’re up to your neck in work!”

“Yep,” you sigh. “Doesn’t even seem like it’s paying off.”

“How so?”

“My IQ is in the negatives,”

Chan jolts up as though he’s been caught asking an insensitive question, but just as quickly melts into himself. He gently slaps a hand on your arm, giggling. “No, it’s not! But for real, though…”

“I wasn’t lying,” you say, “Hours in the library, and yet I still fail.”

“It happens to the best of us, sometimes,”

“Sometimes being the key word,” you insist. “This isn’t sometimes.”

Chan is silent for a moment. “Be easy on yourself, it’s senior year, you’re allowed to make mistakes.”

You’re tempted to say ‘No, I’m not allowed. I have never been allowed. I’ve been perpetually skidding along thin ice,’ but you swallow it.

“Ok but,” you start, slowly and cheekily. “I’ve yet to see you make a single mistake in the pool. What is it going to take to make the Great Bang Chan, son of an actual professional athlete, screw up?”

“If my friends got here,” he says with a smile. “They’ve always got tricks up their sleeves. Some that they can probably teach you.”

“They swim as well?”

“Yep, but definitely not as good as me as you might’ve guessed,” he jokingly flexes, laughing. Then he sobers. “They’re coming later, if that’s okay with you.”

“Why wouldn’t it be okay with me?” You ask, but you’re already getting up to make yourself more presentable for their arrival. “That means more tutors for me.” And more judges.

There’s a moment of pleasant solitude between you and Chan before his friends trickle in. They enter in small enough numbers that it gives you time to familiarize yourself with them.

Seungmin came the earliest, the most diligent of the crew. He spoke gently and swam even softer. Felix and Jeongin toed after him, and flung water with utmost chaos. Others came and you observed, much too shy to delve into the same antics they toyed in. At times, Chan would climb out and chill with you, prompting the others to take a break and chat alongside. It all mended into a blur as the sky grew purple.

Over the days, you find the presence of Chan’s friends comforting. They’re friendly—obviously—with lighthearted races and pool tricks. They give you an experience you’ve been deprived of since you moved. They’ve taught you well, surprisingly. And it must have also come as a shock to your coach.

He approaches you one afternoon after class ends.

“Y/N, you were amazing out there,” he says. “Haven’t seen an improvement that big in a long while.”

Something about his statement rubs wrong on you. You take a step back, guarded.

“Thank you,” you say, making sure to send a polite smile his way. “Swimming has started to become more fun as the days go by. Really grateful to have made the exchange over here.”

“I’m glad as well. Honestly, I was a bit worried when you enrolled a bit late into this class. Have to keep the students all on the same page, and it’s hard to split the attention,” he sets a hand over your shoulder. “But it seems like you’ll be on the same level as the others in no time! Keep up the good work!”

And like that, your suspicions have been confirmed. Your stomach drops when he leaves, and you mentally beat yourself up for thinking you were in any way competent. A pity-compliment, that’s all that was. That’s all it ever is.

Chan rushes into the locker room and quickly changes into his swimwear. When he sees you, he smiles, pauses to wrap you up into a hug, and is out in the pool in no time. His father watches him from the sidelines fondly, with an expression that clearly holds pride and amazement.

You wonder if you will ever get that kind of look from your parents. Or anyone, for that matter.

That question is still up in the air, weeks later, when your sister intrudes on your swimming class one morning. She doesn’t interrupt or anything. She just quietly stands by the pool’s entrance and watches. You see her eyes trail over the other students and slowly back to you, making silent observations, none of them kind.

When you climb out and class is over, she pulls you to the side. She takes a moment to look you over. “So this is what you’ve picked up since you came here. Impressive.”

“Well, yeah,” you say, and try to move hurriedly to the locker room to escape her. She takes you by the arm, demanding. You struggle shoving her off. “I also need to pick up my books for next class, if you’ll excu—”

“Oh, you don’t have any class to go to right now,” she snaps. “I’ve called. You’re coming home with me for now.”

You freeze, and with satisfaction, your sister drops your arm. “Why?”

“It’s an emergency, one I thought you should know,” a small smile spreads across her lips, and your heart sinks. It can’t be a family emergency, right? Or else she’d be more panicked, right? But if it’s not, what can be so urgent that your sister would have to pick you up from school so early? “Just grab what you need for now so we can go.”

Hesitantly, you nod your head and follow her orders. When you are sat inside her car, you wait for her to disclose any information related to your early departure. She doesn’t feed your curiosity then, only drives slowly and silently down the road to your house. She makes a detour, picks a route that’s longer than your usual, and finally breaks the silence.

“You know how my scholarship gave our Mom a better opportunity at finding a job, right?” It’s a simple question, but set up dangerously and your sweat kicks in as you nod. “And since Dad isn’t the only one working anymore, we’ve got more money to spend, right?”

Right. This is a big jump from the past, when your father only made enough to cover the expenses of the bills and a few groceries. Your mother was met with job rejections left and right, and neither you nor your sister had the time or management to juggle grades as well as employment. At that time, your mother insisted that you focus more on school. She made promises that if one of you hit big, that would be enough of a reward for her. That all her stress and burdens would be paid off. You suppose it half came true. Financially, you were all rewarded.

But rather, all her stress and burdens were pushed in a different direction. You wonder what it’s like to be on the opposite side. You eye your sister, and nod your head to continue.

“So, initially, her plan was to save up to help you out once you graduated. Of course, she knew this was necessary, since there’s no way in hell you’d strike a full scholarship with, you know,” she throws you a sidelong glance, batting her eyelashes. Your hand tightens around your seatbelt. “But she realized, even with a new and improved environment, that your current habits probably wouldn’t strike you one at all. She was forgiving at first. Thought about paying half your tuition and taking a loan for the other. Welp. Then you dropped pre-calculus for swimming and made her rethink her life choices all over again. Good job!”

“Sis,” you hiss, “what does that mean?”

You can’t handle her bullshitting right now. Though you know she has all the time in the world for it. Your surroundings have begun to look unfamiliar, and the anxiety inside you strikes. That’s probably the effect she was going for.

“It means you’re fucked,” she lets out a loud laugh, “you’re not getting any help from her. Or Dad for that matter. Better start counting your pennies, sis!”

And just like that, the tightening in your chest explodes. You feel as though you’re suffocating, each intake of breath amounting to none. Your body grows hotter and you’re wracked with shivers, and stuck inside the cramped space of your sister’s car leaves you no space to handle your panic attack.

You’re overwhelmed by the thoughts of what’s to come. Getting into college—now a complete uncertainty—just to be lost in debt, and there’s nothing to do about it. You lack life experience. You’ve been holed up and relying on the bare minimum to get you by. The only moment you have been able to hold your head above the water, and your own family has dunked you back underneath. You’re struggling to win a sabotaged race.

“By the way, don’t tell Mom I told you,” your sister says, now pulling into your driveway. She chatters in a low voice, as if she doesn’t want the world to listen in on your conversation. “It’s our little secret. Just like how it was mine and hers.”

You find yourself not coming home at night. Where you stay is just about as much of a mystery to them as it is to you. You’ve huddled yourself in the locker rooms some nights, using sheets and water bottles as cushions. You’ve cornered yourself in classrooms. Hell, you’ve even holed yourself up in your family’s car, in the backseat, on the floor so that onlookers can’t peep and tattle your nightly whereabouts to your family (What a disgrace that would’ve been). But you’ve always made sure to come back home at the lick of dawn, just before the rest of them would get up and bang down your door looking for answers to ‘where’ve you been last night?’ and ‘what time did you get home?’ and you’d answer ‘the park’ or ‘friend’s’ or ‘convenience store,’ and ‘at midnight.’ Just late enough for it to be believable. No one’s ever up that late, and if one were, they’d probably be tired or drunk off their ass to notice your absence. No one’s ever called your bluff, a heartbreaking realization that you’ve come to appreciate.

Chan, though, walks into the pool at just the wrong time. You’ve just gotten used to the stench of bleach and chlorine when he nudges you awake on your makeshift bed of thin sheets and soaked homework paper. You dash up, searching and grabbing for your phone to check your alarms (How did you miss it? Was it on silent? A dead battery?). Chan chuckles as if your panic is the funniest thing he has ever seen.

“You’re fine, school’s not open till another hour and a half,” he picks up on your confusion. It seems to settle into his own features. He’s got swim trunks on, and a towel slung over his shoulder. From the corner of your eye, you note the darkness of a not-yet-risen sun. “I just decided to come in early for quick practice.”

An awkward pause and an understanding nod to himself later, he kneels. “Hey. What are you doing on the floor here?”

His eyebrows knit and his worry looks even more pronounced in this dark blue reflection of… life. How pitiful you must look. He’s probably wondering if you’re that dirt-poor, that sleeping on tile might be considered a luxury to you. But even so, you can’t bother to be embarrassed by yourself at the moment. He’s pulled you out of the comfort of unconsciousness, so now you’re fighting your natural reactions to the biting cold and solid ground.

It hurts. You’re sore and your face is blue and all you can think about is crying. It hurts that your options are either this or your home, and the fact that you chose this.

“I’m fine,” you nod meekly, “Just…napping,”

Too overwhelmed to map out a convincing lie, you prepare yourself for the defenses. This is going to sting Chan and you are sure going to regret it later, but fuck it. You’ll deal with the consequences once you’ve showered under hot water and mulled it over at breakfast.

Chan reaches for your shoulder, palm warm, and helps you sit up. “Why are you napping on the floor?”

“Because if I nap in the pool, I’ll drown.”

Chan almost cracks, and you consider that a victory. But he just as quickly wraps an arm around your shoulders and pulls you into his chest, one hand laying over your own. “Don’t joke about stuff like that. I’m serious. Are you okay? Did…something happen at home, again?”

Something’s always happening at home, and that’s the part that drives you nuts. Your old friends can handle you complaining about spontaneous spats with your sister every once in a while, but would go madder than you if they heard every single crisis that went down behind your walls. You have to bite and swallow every time.

You shake your head. “I tried swimming last night. It went about how’d you expect, and I knocked out on the floor immediately after. Not sure how you can do it, Chan. Honestly, everyday I respect you a little more.”

He chuckles, arm tightening around you for a pulse. “No one’s born a pro. And I promise you, you’re on your way to becoming one.”

You feel as though you’re on your way to becoming no one. You try to voice this as inconspicuous as possible.

“What if you disappoint someone because you’re not there yet?” you ask, “What if they wanted you to be a pro since the very beginning, and because you’re nowhere close, they end up mad?”

“Who’s mad? If it’s about my dad, I promise you he’s not—”

“No, it’s not him.Forget it.”

“Is it—” he inhales, “Is—Is your family upset? Is that why you’re here?”

You don’t respond. It’s enough of an answer.

“I’m not sure what they said to you, but just know they’re wrong. We all improve at our own pace, and we’re not better or worse for it. You need to give yourself patience, ignore them, just—”

“Chan, I can’t ignore them,” you snap. You pull yourself from Chan’s embrace and bury your face into your knees. Your eyes burn as the emotions take over you. It doesn’t hurt less as time goes on. “They make my life a living hell and there’s nothing I can do about it. I don’t know how to do anything. I’m the very definition of useless, and the worst part is that they all know, but no one helps. I can’t leave them or else I’ll just end up… here.”

Sobs start to wrack through you, and you can’t do anything to stop it. You’re tired of wallowing in self-pity, in others’ pity, but you’re at a loss for what to do. You wish you weren’t an adult with the tendencies of a child, only there for others to look after. No one’s taught you what it takes for that transition to happen, to grow independant, to discover skills and utilize them. They’ve just thrown you in the deep end and disregarded you when you drowned. You wish you weren’t so helpless. You wish you had some help.

“I wish I knew what to say,” Chan murmurs. He’s wrapped his arms around his knees and seems to gaze into the pool. Every once in a while, he passes you a glance, but ultimately, he leaves you to yourself.

The sun has slowly started to rise, and the birds have begun to chirp. That’s your cue to get out of here, though even now you’re running behind schedule. Your eyes sting and you hope your walk back home is enough to soothe them back to normal.

Chan stands up when you do, and quickly interrupts you by the doorway. His face is sullen, concave, and heavy as though he bears the same amount of burdens that you do. Who’s to say he doesn’t?

“Just… We’ll figure this out, okay? Together.” He meets your eyes. “I’ll wait at the pool for you. As soon as they start acting up, come here immediately. Don’t let their words intimidate you.”

“Okay,” just when you think this conversation’s done, he pauses you again. A beat passes. Several. And then he leans in—

His lips press against yours, soft and warm, and are off in an instant. You don’t have enough time to savor the feeling.

He smiles and says, “I don’t want you to be in any danger, whether that be at home or otherwise, okay?”

You smile. An unnamed pressure lifts from your shoulders. “Okay.”

You feel a bit guilty, keeping Chan out of his own home during the nights and mornings. You have to fight to reassure yourself that this is out of his own volition. He certainly doesn’t seem bothered when he spots you on your way to the pool’s entrance. And he’s found ways to help the time pass faster. Be it games, studying, or making out.

Yep, he’s introduced a new activity to you, though you can’t really complain. But it doesn’t change the fact that the pool’s tile and linoleum, all cold and hard, is not meant for a person to sleep on. You’ve started checking the other for bruises and marks that could be left behind in your wakes, literally.

Over time, it’s become a routine. A sad one; one that shouldn’t be necessary, but you force yourself to think of it in a positive light. That’s also something he’s been teaching you while you stay: how to manage your inner thoughts, how to turn those demons into angels, even when the devil is really, really trying you. It’s helped ease your wounds, and you avoid your family enough for them to not reopen them.

Finally, that’s his last lesson. Family is both permanent and temporary, and you’d be glad to know that the permanent ones are those you keep, and hold tight, and never ought to lose. While temporary family could always be cut off, and should be, because what’s the point of family if they won’t be there for you all the time? He’s made sure to look you deep in your eyes when he said this, voice clear and low, and just a bit unsteady. You take your time digesting that one.

You’ve got trouble with your family, and one night, after more than a week’s passed, you get into trouble with someone else’s.

You had arrived at the pool a tad bit early, you supposed, and had already laid out all your blankets and card games when the entrance clanged open. You were about to reveal a new game you’d discover online to Chan, only to be met with a voice much deeper than his.

“Y/N.”

Your head snaps up and immediately blood rushes to your ears. Coach dangles a set of keys in his hand, and seems–rightly–surprised at your appearance. But you can see the moment he understood what he saw. A person’s pity can only extend so much, and you know exactly where yours lies.

You don’t even have to wince.

School break has just started, and of course you’re grounded.

On one hand, you’re happy you don’t have to face your coach after being caught trespassing. His face held a look of rage and disappointment, and you don’t want to witness that any more than you have to. The resemblance between him and Chan are uncanny.

But you’re home. That doesn’t spell out comfort for you at all.

You and Chan send messages back and forth to each other consisting of “i miss you”s and “sorry that happened”s. You rant to him about how fed up you’ve been, and you feel relieved for the first time in a long while, because finally, someone is there to listen, judgement-free. Chan suggests sneaking into your house for the night a couple of times to see each other, but you reject, saying that your mother’s too eagle-eyed for that to happen.

Once break is over and school is back open, your family keeps their eyes locked on you like a hawk. You no longer can stop by the library for homework or studying, instead they demand you return back home immediately once school’s over. Your father insists on helping you study instead, and although you know it’s not out of the pure kindness of his heart, you accept it for the time being.

Swim class is awkward, now that both you and Coach Bang have to pretend to not have gone through that whole ordeal. But you can feel his gaze linger on you when you plunge underwater. You have no idea what he thinks of you now, after all this, and you’re too embarrassed to ask Chan.

One day, Chan approaches you before swim class begins.

“Mind if I take you out for a bit?” He asks. You slyly look at the clock ticking away by the door to the pool. You have just about a minute. Only a minute to get ready. “It’ll only be for a quick moment. You’ll be back in no time and if you don’t, I’ll cover for you.”

You squint suspiciously at Chan. “What’s this about?”

“A surprise. One my father will absolutely understand.”

When it puts it like that…

It’s a quick ride to where Chan ends up taking you: a bizarre little creek tucked behind several neighborhood houses. Its water runs fresh, uncontaminated by human interaction, feeding into the thick brushes of land and trees. It’s a beautiful sight indeed, but wholly inconsequential. You look to Chan for a clue as to why he brought you here.

He seems lost in himself and nature. Slowly, he jumps over to the rocks and gazes into the creek’s depth. For a moment, you think he’s just brought you to admire the scenery, so you’re shocked out of your own stupor when he speaks. “My father used to bring me here when I was a child. He used to bring the whole family out for a swim.”

You hum and silently make your way closer to him. He still dashes from one stone to another, calm and in thought. “My earliest memories of training began here. It was the best, surrounded by natural sounds and protected by the rocks. It isn’t too deep, just about perfect for my height and age. Eventually we started coming here less and less as my Dad took up calls and schedules. We all grew older and busier, till we just abandoned it. But sometimes I come here when I need to give myself a break and really think.”

You’re brushed shoulder-to-shoulder together now. Your balance isn’t as good as Chan’s, and you end up slipping and stepping into the creek every other second. He happily keeps a hand near your waist and hoists you back up whenever needed.

“Do your neighbors ever come here?”

“They’ve got their own gardens to tend to,” he nods towards the houses. “No one other than me has come here in at least a decade.”

He eyes you as he says this. It’s his own little safe haven. And if he’s so sure that no one has snuck in yet, that means you’re the first to enter it.

The realization makes you bow your head, flustered. Chan hums satisfactory by your side. You both listen to the birds coo and the bugs chitter, soaking in nature’s creations. When Chan notices you finally getting a bit restless, he takes your hand and leads you to the rocks. Your legs slightly dip inside the creek, its water soaking through your clothes, but you don’t mind. It’s coldness is welcomed as the sun soars higher into the sky.

“Here’s not like the pool,” Chan says, fingers toying with the ends of your hair. “There’s no chance anyone will catch us here.”

The implication is not lost on you, especially with the way he looks into your eyes as he speaks. Incidents of the past come to mind, but they’re quickly replaced by thoughts of the future, such as: his lips on yours, your hands in his, and most importantly—

“I know,” you hastily respond, “I know.”

And the moment is clear. His lips are definitely on yours, and your hands are in his, but also on his; and over his arms; and grasping his shoulders. And most importantly, his body surrounds you and he’s hugging you to his chest. Your breath runs low, and you can’t tell if it’s because of his arms or his lips.

Either way, you embrace it all.

He leans you on the rocks. He’s grinding and you feel something…hard, brush against you. It fills you with heat, both subtle and scorching and when he presses that against you again, his hand slowly travelling down your body, you stiffen and pull back.

“Chan, I—” You gasp, “I’ve never done this before…ever… and—”

“Hey,” He says, “It’s fine. We can stop if you want to.”

And he pauses, slightly moving backwards to give you some air to breathe in. You listen to your heart beat in your chest, use that rhythm to help calm you down. Once it slows, you’re still hot as before, though it spreads from somewhere deep in you.

“It’s—,” you stutter, “I want to do this. Now.”

A knowing grin spreads across Chan’s face, and he gently lowers himself over you, settles a kiss, quick and harmless, on your lips, then pushes onward.

It’s rough and gentle all at the same time. Both overwheling and manageable. You’re up to your hips in water, having slid down the rocks, but you can feel that you’re wet for other reasons.

Chan pulls backs and mouths at your neck, fingers unfastening the buttons of your clothing and tossing them haphazardly. You’re pretty sure you hear a couple splashes as he does so. He kisses down your chest, your tummy, and then hooks his arms around your bottom and lifts you. He helps you back on the rocks and holds you in place as he focuses on you.

“Turn over,” he commands. He’s still standing within the creek itself, chest level with your waist. The request takes its time to settle in your mind. When it does, your face starts to burn, but you follow his order nonetheless.

Like this, you lay flat on your stomach on the grass and your legs swing over the rocks and into the creek. Chan softly tugs your pants down, just far enough to expose you. He delicately places his hands on your cheeks and spreads them. And—

Oh.

That’s his tongue. And he’s dragging it over you in a way that makes your toes curl. You tighten around nothing, not until he does you the favor of adding his fingers to the mix. He slides them into you easily, pumping them while his tongue does its work on your clit.

And now you’re clawing at the grass and dirt and rocks. You can feel yourself lightly kicking Chan in the chest and shoulders, but he only squeezes your hips back, invitingly.

Soon, you’re cumming around his fingers and can’t help yourself from slowly sliding down the rocks and into the creek. Chan does his best to soften your descent, then turns you around to face him. His face is glimmering with both your and the creek’s wetness, hair laid down by sweat, lips plump from how much they’ve been pressed against you, God he just looks so erotic and amazing like this that you tug him in for a kiss. You taste yourself (at least you think that’s you) and it’s not the most pleasant, but you don’t mind because he doesn’t mind.

“Do you…?” You breathlessly motion for his member. He grins and looks down at you as if you’ve just asked him a silly question. And similarly, he plants a light kiss on your nose before diving for your lips again.

“Next time, baby,” he says, “Right now I just wanna feel you.:”

So he pulls you flush against him, arms roaming around your body. When you’re both red-faced from kissing the lights off each other, he helps you climb out of the creek.

Neither of you are really thinking when you hit the ground, him on top of you and his length sliding over your folds. He’s teasing, but you’re too excited to hold off for any longer, so you wrap your arms around him and pull him chest-to-chest, crying with your impatience.

With a chuckle, he gives in, sinking into you. You’re surprised at how well you take it. He fills you up so nicely, so intensely. Each thrust sends you into another fit of heat, your core burning and tightening around him. Chan nuzzles his face in your shoulder, and with every pump of his hips, he teethes at the skin of your neck.

Every feeling is amplified when he’s folded around you like this, and as time runs out, another orgasm makes its way through your body. Chan groans appreciatively and leans on his arms to plant kisses all over your lips, face, and neck.

“Good girl,” he whispers. “Let it all out. Let me feel you.”

You cry out when he abruptly pulls out. He kneels beside you and wraps a hand around his length, hastily jerking himself to completion.

You watch in entrancement, the way his face scrunches up, and the way his whole member and fist shines and you’ve suddenly got a craving to put your lips on his dick.

You hesitantly bring a hand over to it first, to test the waters. His movement stutters, then slows down once he realizes what you’re trying to do. You sit up and bring your other hand to his cock. Cautiously, you start to pump them.

“Don’t be scared,” Chan chuckles, “You can squeeze harder.”

Your grip tighten, but not too much, and you try again. Small, airy grunts fall from his lips. His hips start thrusting with your hands. You watch as the head of his cock disappears and reappears into his foreskin, shimmering with the mix of you and his pre-cum. It’s strangely appetizing.

You lean down to put you mouth on Chan’s dick without much thought. His hardness is cushioned by your lips, and his skin is silkier than you initially imagined. But it’s at this moment you realize you have no idea what to do.

You look up at Chan, and he groans at the sight of you at this angle. But then, a fond smile makes its way on his face and he lifts a hand to gingerly comb through your hair.

“It’s okay,” he laughs affectionately, “I’ll teach you another time. For now…”

He brings his hand back to his cock and finishes himself off. You deflate a bit, disappointed you weren’t able to give him his orgasms that he so desperately deserves, especially after getting you there twice. But he’s already on the ground alongside you, holding your face in the palm of his hands and pulling you into a loving smooch.

“That was amazing,” he moans, drawing out the loudest kiss sound from both of your lips. You both giggle in response. “I couldn’t be more happy you decided to give yourself to me.”

“Wasn’t planning on giving myself to anyone other,” you say. You climb on top of Chan, squealing as you try to indulge in the high-famed post-sex cuddles you’ve heard so much about. Chan squeezes you back with the brightest and most-dimpled grin you’ve ever seen.

Eventually, the mirth wears off, as the wind picks up and you’re immediately reminded that you’re both outdoors, off-campus one might say, but most definitely not on school grounds, when you absolutely should be.

You lay back, groaning when you check the time. Late. “My mom is going to kill me.”

It seems as though you can’t stop making mistakes and screwing your chances. The school year is almost ending and you feel like your life might end with it. You try to think more positively, but as the seconds tick by with neither of you racing back towards the school, the worse you feel.

Chan shuffles about. “Your mother isn’t going to kill you.”

“How would you know?”

He pauses; takes a moment to inhale.

“I told my dad about what’s going on at home, hope that wasn’t intrusive,” he says, and your heart stops. “He understands what you’re going through and regrets acting that way. He’s willing to take it all back. In fact, he says you’ve gotten so good at swimming lately, that he wants you to help mentor the kids. It’s a paid opportunity.”

His hand falls over yours. “I’m also seeking ways to get you away from there. My home’s got a guest bedroom, and I’ve been convincing my mom to clear it out.”

“You mean…”

“I do,” he says, “Some of us are not blessed with the most supporting families, and that’s okay. Because you have people that care for you, we care for you, I care for you, even if your family…cares for you a bit less.”

It hurts to hear him say it. Hurts even deeper to know it’s true. But the warmth in his gaze soothes you even just a little bit.

The dangers of going home is always a threat that hangs over your head, but if there’s one thing you’ve learned since meeting Chan, it’s that you don’t always have to go alone.

When the time is clear, when you’ve found support and built up confidence, you confront your family.

You tell them that you’ve had it. You no longer keep your whereabouts a secret, you no longer let them intrude on you anymore. You tell them that you’ve found a job, that you’re now able to support yourself from here-on-out. You are no longer financially, emotionally, or physically bound to them whether they like it or not. When you’re done, you don’t even stay to observe their reactions, though you can hear your sister snickering over your shoulder.

Chan’s there to give you a ride to his house, once you’ve packed up enough for a week. He says he’ll accompany again next time. Or maybe there won’t be a next time.

You are rewarded for what you have achieved, rather than what you can, and you can leave the past remnants behind and rediscover yourself in a new way, confidently.

I must salute smut writers, because every single time i’ve attempted to write smut I’ve struggled, ugh… but anyways………….

hope you guys liked this! if you made it this far, that is. ^^ this was edited by @jaeminlore who was really kind enough to do so!

#bang chan #stray kids #bang chan scenarios #bang chan smut #skz smut #skz scenarios #stray kids scenarios #stray kids smut #bang chan angst #stray kids angst #skz angst #bang chan fluff #stray kids fluff #skz fluff #bang chan fanfic #stray kids fanfic #skz fanfic #.mine

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redisriding · 4 years ago

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The Right Swipe - Chapter Four

A Court of Thorns and Roses Modern AU Fanfic

All character’s belong to the wonderful Sarah J Maas.

Tag List: @superspiritfestival @duskandstarlight @perseusannabeth @courtofjurdan @omg-aelin @keshavomit @rainbowcheetah512

“What about this one?”

“No, it still doesn’t look right.”

“How are you both bigger and smaller than me at the same time?”

“All my suits are tailored to me, they’re not the cheap off the rack stuff you buy.”

“You say that like I own more than one suit.”

“Don’t you?”

“Nope. One suit. I wear it weddings and funeral, that’s it.”

“Then why do you need to wear one tonight?”

“Because, Rhys said this place is fancy, as in dress code fancy. They have some stupid rule about wearing jackets.” Cass sighed. He thought it would be easy to borrow something of Az’s to wear tonight for his date with Nesta, they were roughly the same size. Turned out Az was both leaner and slightly taller than he, and when the former got his clothes tailored, they looked stupid on the latter. There was no point asking Rhys, if Az’s jackets didn’t fit Cassian, Rhys’s definitely wouldn’t.

Az cocked his head to one side surveying Cassian. “Why are you bringing her to this place anyway?”

“Because it’s fancy and she’s the kind of girl who you have to bring fancy places.”

“Perhaps, but you’re not fancy—.”

“Thanks?”

“No, hear me out. You have been talking to this girl and you like her, correct?”

“Yeah.”

“You’re getting dinner so you can get to know each other better, yeah?”

“Yeah.”

“But this guy,” Azriel gestured to Cassian standing in front of him in an ill-fitting suit, “Is not who you are. You don’t go to fancy restaurants that have dress codes and names of food you can’t pronounce or alcohol you can’t afford. And this girl…Nesta?”

“Nesta.”

“She has been getting to know you over the last week and a half too. She must like you if she’s agreed to go on a date. Do you not think she’s going to realise pretty quickly that a fancy restaurant is not your scene at all.”

Cassian sat down on the end of Azriel’s bed and put his head in his hands. He did not need this right now. He was nervous enough about his date with Nesta he didn’t need his best friend to undermine his plans for the evening with logic.

“I don’t stand a chance with her if I don’t take her somewhere nice. I know she’s been on dates with other guys, I’m sure they’ve brought her to the best places in Velaris. I need to go all out if I want to impress her.”

“Who cares where other guys take her, she’s single and going on a dat with you, so it clearly hasn’t worked out with them.”

“All the more reason to go all out.”

“Be real Cass, you don’t stand a chance with her at all if she thinks that you really are whoever you’re pretending to be tonight. Sooner or later it’s all going to come tumbling down.”

When he looked back on it later Cassian would realise that not only were Azriel’s words true, but they weren’t really intended for Cassian. They were words that he wanted to say to someone else. Someone who had lead him to believe that they were one thing, a thing that Azriel fell in love with, and when that person revealed their truth, his whole world crumbled.

But in the moment, confronted with his own insecurities, Cass didn’t react the way he wished later he had.

“That’s the thing though Az, girls don’t like the real me.”

“Girls like you—.”

“No Az, they don’t! Girls like you, they always have. Mysterious Azriel, he’s so handsome, he’s so smart, he’s so talented,” Cassian was aware that his tone had turned mocking but it was too late for him to roll back on it, “they liked you before you had fame and money, they sure as hell like you more now. If you weren’t so terrified of having your heart broken again then maybe you would see it too.”

He knew he had said the wrong thing the second the words were out of his mouth. Regret flooded Cassian as Az recoiled from him as if he had been dealt a physical blow.

He stood from the foot of his bed where they both sat and headed for the door.

“No, Az, I’m sorry I didn’t mean that…I just—.”

“Good luck on your date tonight Cass,” Azriel said cutting him off. “I hope for your sake you don’t fuck it up.”

Azriel’s words, his wounded expression, bounced around in Cassian’s head an hour later as he stood outside the entrance to the House of Wind.

Okay, that was a lie. He couldn’t standing still. He was pacing up and down the sidewalk, no doubt wearing away the soles of Azriel’s shoe’s he had stuffed his feet into. They were the only thing he wore that fit.

Cassian didn’t think he’d ever been as nervous in his entire life. Then again, he had never been on a proper date before.

He’d had drinks before. When they were in school, he would hound Az into asking one of the girls who hung around the hockey team out for milkshakes, and convince her to bring a friend for Cassian. It always ended the same though, he would gaze longingly at the girl, trying to strike up conversation, while she would have eyes for no-one but Azriel. It was pathetic, and Cassian remembered being awkward, but never nervous. Maybe because Azriel’s presence meant there was no real chance of anything happening. No risk of being rejected by someone he really wanted.

Later he would sometimes ask Emerie for a drink as a prelude to their evening. He liked the company.

But he had never been on a ‘try to find out if we’re compatible enough to spend the rest of our lives together over the course of a dinner’ date before.

And he was terrified.

He desperately wanted to run his hands through his hair, a nervous habit of his. He had tried a couple of times too. Only then to remember that he had gelled his wild mane in place in order to look presentable for tonight.

The doormen eyed him as he paced back and forth, like they knew he didn’t belong there. If there was one thing that Cassian learnt living in the mountains however, was that you should never show weakness. Not to the wild creatures that lived in the forrest, not in the face of the potentially deadly weather, and certainly not in front of the battled hardened locals.

So, he met those stares right back with a menacing one of his own.

His fingers found the soft petals of the rose he held. He had bought it for Nesta from one of those carts that rolled around the city, catching men unawares as they strolled with their ladies. He knew it was an over priced and cheesy but it had felt right.

He might not be the kind of guy who wears suits and eats in fancy places often, but he knew that if he had a girl he would absolutely dote on her. And so a single rose seemed like a good place to start.

It was on what felt like his millionth time passing the restaurant that he saw her. Crossing the road towards him, she emerged from the bustle of pedestrians like Aphrodite from her shell.

Cassian’s world seemed to slow. The nerves that flooded his body became still. The only thing that he was aware of was his breathing and her.

Nesta. Nesta. Nesta.

Something deep inside of him was called to the surface at the sight of her.

She was every bit as stunning if not more than she was in her pictures, brought to life by movement.

Dressed in a simple, yet elegant grey dress, her hair was coiled on top of her head. It was then that he remembered her bio, how apt it was, a queen that he would have to earn.

“Cassian?” She asked, her expression quizzical as she neared him.

“Hi—,” Cassian squeaked. Squeaked! He hadn’t heard his voice that high since his balls had dropped. Loudly clearing this throat, he tried again. “How are you?”

Better.

“Good thanks. How are you?” She came to a stop, looking up at him with deep stormy eyes that cut right to his core.

His head emptied as he gazed down at her. She was so much smaller than him, her head reached the middle of his chest. Her body was soft and curvy; deliciously feminine, but her face…the pictures didn’t do her beauty justice. The depth of her eyes, which she had lined with kohl for dramatic effect. Her high cheek bones. And Cassian didn’t allow his gaze to drop to her lips, which she had painted a deep red. It was sinful.

He was still motionless, gaping like a fish, when she moved. Stepping closer to him and rising up onto her tiptoes, she placed a hand gently on his shoulder to steady herself. A jolt of electricity shot through Cassian, his senses suddenly shocked back into action.

He leaned down to meet her. He went to his left as Nesta went to her right. Instead of bussing cheeks, he ended up colliding with her mouth.

His lips met hers.

It was only a gentle brush.

And only for a second.

But it was fireworks.

Like a star exploded somewhere inside of him.

Cassian’s fists clenched as he tried to restrain himself from grabbing Nesta and pulling her onto him right in the middle of the busy street.

A small laugh came from Nesta as she stepped back. Her cheeks were stained faintly pink.

It only added to her beauty.

Cassian felt his own cheeks heat, and knew that in comparison he resembled a tomato.

He looked down, away from her for a moment, and cringed. The rose was a crumpled mess in his thick palm. He flushed further. He wished he could hide it, or dump it in a bin somewhere, but Nesta had already seen.

“Eh…this is for you,” he thrust the rose awkwardly at her.

Nesta accepted the rose with a wry smile, “You shouldn’t have.”

“I really shouldn’t have,” Cassian sighed, “I’ve already ruined this date and it hasn’t even started properly.”

Nesta didn’t seem to hear. She looked down at the rose, rubbing one of the crushed petals between her finger tips.

Cassian just watched her for a moment, unsure what to say. Maybe he should call the whole thing off now, to save whatever dignity he had left.

But when Nesta looked back up at him, something in her face had changed. “So, shall we go in?”

————

Nesta had to suppress a laugh. The date was going badly. Terribly even. It was categorically, beyond a shadow of a doubt the worst date that she had ever been on.

Cassian was not what Nesta had expected at all. The person sitting across the table from her was not the sexy mountain man from his pictures, whom she had been messaging for the last week and a half.

Another lesson in online dating, she supposed, you really need to meet a person in order to get to know them.

But that was just it. Nesta didn’t think she was getting to know Cassian at all.

Instead, she was on a date with the person Cassian thought she wanted him to be.

She should have guessed when he had first suggested that they get dinner at the House of Wind that it was somewhere he thought she expected to be brought, rather than somewhere he would ever actually go.

Nesta had been to the House of Wind on many occasions, most recently a few days previously when she had met another Swipe date, Eris, here for drinks. A fact that Nesta thought was best not to mention to Cassian.

The House of Wind might be fancy, but it was cliché. The kind of place men brought women to lubricate them - socially, with alcohol - before they brought them home to their bed.

Sure, that was what Eris had done, wasn’t it?

On the many previous occasions that Nesta had been at the House of Wind she had never seen a guy like Cassian there.

The type of guy who, in an attempt to look presentable, used so much gel in his wild hair that it more closely resembled a helmet. Who cobbled together a suit, that clearly neither matched nor belonged to him, in order to meet the dress code.

The type of guy who brought his date a crumpled rose to impress her.

The gesture was so tender that something hard inside Nesta’s chest had cracked at the sight of it.

Thomas had only bought flowers to appease Nesta after an argument. ‘Now let us forget about all that’ he would say to her. Flowers were a sign that he was done arguing and wanted to sweep the matter under the rug, resolved or not.

Nesta glanced at the rose that was lying on the table beside her. She knew, regardless of how this date ended, she was going to bring it home and put it in water. And then, when it eventually died, she was going to press it gently between the pages of a book and keep it forever.

A memory of this night.

That she was deserving of someone who cared about her.

Cassian cared. He cared about impressing her, about making sure she had a good night. He cared so much about what Nesta thought of him that it was stifling any attempt of getting to know him.

And he was nervous.

That much was apparent when he clumsily bungled their greeting.

He still had lipstick on his face from when he’d accidentally kissed her. It had only been the faintest of brushes of their lips, but Nesta’s heart had leapt.

Something had ignited inside of her like a burning fire.

More than it had when Devlin had taken her to his bed the night before. Even with his head between her legs she hadn’t felt that much of thrill.

So Nesta didn’t tell Cassian about the lipstick.

“Everything okay?” She asked, as Cassian looked up from the bill that had been handed to him.

“Eh…yeah. It’s just…” he blanched.

“Yes?”

Whatever he was going to say he decided better of it. “Nothing,” Cassian shook his head, “I just need to make a quick call. I’ll be right back.”

Cassian hurried away from the table, towards the door. Once he was out of view, Nesta leaned across the table and picked up the bill.

Ah.

She figured she hadn’t known he was ordering $100 glasses of whiskey. She probably should have said something, but she didn’t want to emasculate him. Other men she dated would not have reacted well to that.

Beckoning for the waiter, she pulled her credit card from her purse.

The date was truly awful, and yet Nesta found herself utterly endeared.

———--

Across town, squeezed into a tiny little sushi restaurant, Elain laughed. Harder than she had laughed in a very long time.

Maybe it was the foreign feeling of food warming her belly, or the Sake that she had been sipping, but Elain was pretty sure it was the company itself.

“That’s not true!” She giggled at Lucien’s latest punchline.

“I swear it on my life,” he said, his eyes going wide, sincere.

“I still don’t believe you.”

“Scouts honour!”

“I bet you weren’t even in the Scouts.”

Lucien laughed, raising his hands in the air, caught. “Okay, I was not in the Scouts…But that doesn’t make it any less true.”

Elain giggled again. Lucien was not only more handsome in person, but his easy and charming nature had put Elain at ease from the beginning.

“Elain.” Lucien said, his laughter dying.

“Yeah?”

“I think this place is closing.”

“What? Oh!” Elain looked behind her to find the restaurant empty and the staff beginning to clean up. Tucked into a little nook, Elain felt like her and Lucien could have been in a world of their own.

Elain glanced at her phone. There was a text from Feyre in their sister group chat, wishing her and Nesta good luck on her respective dates, but it was the time that had Elain jumping up.

“Oh figglesticks, the time! I must hurry if I want to make the last train.”

Lucien gave her an amused look. “Figglesticks?”

Elain felt herself blush, “Sorry, I’m just used to being with children all day. It’s bad to swear.”

“I think it’s very sweet,” he said with a soft smile, “Let me just pay and I’ll walk you to the train.”

Elain made a move to pull her purse from her bag but Lucien stopped her with a gentle hand on her arm, a shiver went through her. “This is on me,” he said.

“You’re very kind,” she said, blushing again.

It had been a long time since a man had done anything like that for her. In an instant the warm mood of the evening evaporated, fear overtaking her. What if Lucien was only paying because he wanted something from her in return? Was she safe walking with him to the train stations? What if he dragged her down an alleyway and had his way with her? Leaving her cold and crying with no way to get home.

Elain closed her eyes and focused on her breathing. This were the kind of intrusive, anxious thoughts that she had been working to overcome with her therapist.

There was nothing in Lucien’s behaviour tonight to suggest that he was anything other than a nice guy.

“Ready?” He asked, returning from paying for their meal.

“Yes.”

He offered her his arm as they stepped out into the cold autumn night.

“The nights here are beautiful,” he said, gazing up at the clear nights sky.

“Velaris is the best place to go star gazing.”

“Sure looks that way.”

“Have you been here for Starfall?”

“Not yet, I’m looking forward to it.”

“My sister always throws a huge party to celebrate. It is really spectacular.”

“I can only imagine.”

The continued like that, strolling along on the empty streets, looking at the sky, chatting about nothing in particular until they reached the train station.

“So…” Lucien said, coming to a stop, “I had a really great time tonight.”

“Me too!”

“You sound surprised?”

Elain shrugged, “I guess I didn’t really know what to expect.”

“Would you maybe like to do it again sometime?”

“Yes, I would really like that.”

“Good,” Lucien smiled.

He hesitated for a moment, before deciding to lean in.

Elain held her breath, her fingers wrapping around the keys in her pocket. A pathetic weapon, but one that might make the difference if she needed it.

But Lucien simply brushed his lips to her cheek before pulling back. “Safe home, Elain.”

#acotar fanfiction #The right swipe

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oooooocheshirecuntoooooo · 4 years ago

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In the middle of the night in the middle of nowhere ..... Oh the adventures we had with a hooker. All. Night. Long. 😂

It involves me, my husband, our 18 & 3 year old daughters, a cop and the hooker ... oh and a store clerk and her son. And for real. All night from like 12:30am to 7 am. And now I am home, but without the van and three of the kids didn’t make it home with us.

The following story is absolutely, 100% true. Although it’s not the kind of exciting you’re used to hearing from me, it’s still pretty bizarre. 😂

Just to give a little back story to help paint a clear picture .... So, we always go to my in laws for Christmas but we usually only stay maybe 3-6 days or so depending on how things fall together. This year we decided to stay through New Years because of some drama back at our home. My mother lives on our property and is mentally ill, and we’re pretty sure dementia is setting in. She’s never been an easy person to be around and we have always fought constantly but I have tried to take care of her anyway because she’s the only mom I’ve got, ya know? The last couple years though she’s gotten a lot more aggressive. In July she assaulted her doctor over the mask requirement and even had to go to court over it. Then in august she assaulted me, tried to choke me to death in my own home and in front of my kids. Of course I over powered her and forcefully pushed her out of my house, so yes she sustained bruises and such from that but that’s the extent of it. (She told all of Facebook in a public post that I beat her up every day and that kind of thing. She posts almost every day that she’s being abused, etc. Shes called the police at least 4times in three months. She tried to accuse me of elder abuse and even said I neglect and abuse my kids. Four times they have come out and investigated and not only said they see no signs of child or elder abuse, or anything to backup her claims. They talked to the kids and quickly agreed they were all fine too.

So fast forward to Christmas Eve. We were trying to load up the van to leave for our trip. We couldn’t hardly get it done because she was hounding us so much. When we were done I sent the kids to the car while hubby and I grabbed the last few bags. I blinked and she was charging toward the kids and yelling things at them like “you’re going to be a whore like your mom when you grow up. You wanna suck dick for a living?” And “I hope you die slowly and are alone and afraid for hours before you die.” The oldest child there that day was 12. And no, I’ve never worked in prostitution before. She began to charge toward me when I yelled at her to get away from the kids. Hubby told her to go back in her house and she wouldn’t. Kept coming toward us. So he pulled out his pistol, didn’t cock it or anything, and said again to go back in her house. So she called the police again .... 🙄

So we stayed longer trying to talk to the family lawyer and get a game plan. We’re following through with pressing assault charges so I can get a restraining order, and we’re filing for eviction. So we got all packed and ready to go and noticed liquid under the van. The power steering pump went out and the line busted all over everything. So that set us back another couple of days but we got the line and the pump replaced and tested everything and it looked good. It was late but we decided to set out anyway. We knew we’d get in late but the advantage to that was my crazy mother would be asleep and we could at least get in and unload the van in peace.

About 12:30 the battery light came on and we weren’t near ANYTHING. Somehow we made it another 20 miles or so until we got to a small town we’ve never stopped in before. We stopped at a gas station and barely got in the lot when it died. Hubby tinkered with some things and it looks like the alternator. Apparently some power steering fluid got in it when it busted but we couldn’t see that at the time, including the mechanic neighbor friend helping with it.

So we’re an hour and a half from home and totally stranded in the middle of the night with, thankfully, only two of our kids - the 18 & 3 year old. We make the calls for roadside assistance and I begin calling everyone I know that might can come help us. It’s freezing and none of us packed coats because it’s not usually this cold down here this early in winter. Hubby was wearing shorts even. So we take turns going in the store and sitting in the van with our things - there’s a large fully loaded cargo bag on the roof and a bike rack with two bikes on the back. Figured if we left it alone for a long time those things at least would disappear, essentially given the atmosphere of the place.

In all the moving around and the cashier asking questions and getting to know us and the situation we were in, this big eyed, buck toothed, scraggly little older, black lady who looked like she hasn’t bathed in years starts talking to hubby about what’s wrong with the van. He goes back to tinker with it often hoping he’s wrong about the alternator or that he missed a loose connection - anything that might help us get out of here l, if not home. I am watching cars like a hawk because you wouldn’t believe how many would pull in, loop the parking lot while staring at us and leave again. It started feeling like sharks circling and a feeding frenzy building up. So I’m on edge and I make sure the pistol is within reach at all times. So this little trashy lady keeps talking to him about the mechanics and trying to troubleshoot it. Lemme pain a more accurate picture: this spun out little crack whore was chasing the dragon, looking for it inside the oil reserve, the transmission fluid ..... she keeps pulling out the dipsticks, shaking them like a Polaroid picture and slinging fluids everywhere and then says “I think it’s your starter.”

No doubt she’s trying to hustle some cash and once even asked for some gas money when’s we see the car she rode in pull away and leave her there. She said it was her brother. After awhile, hubby has had enough. He’s usually pretty patient with people who are too fucked up to reach reality but this isn’t the time for all that. Not only is she a hindrance, she keeps snatching his tools and once even his phone out of his hands. I was in the car and I heard him yell “carry your ass already!” If he’s talking to even an annoying stranger like that, I know shit is hitting the fan. Me? I’m Irish. I would’ve done popped off at her which is why I was avoiding her completely. So I got out and joined him and started yelling at her to fuck off. She will take a few steps away and come back but she does finally go all the way back in the store, both of us cussing her the whole way. I blink and she back in his face again. She keeps saying random shit like “anything you can do I can do better” and “I helped you and you just turn me away. That’s not what the Bible says” and “God got me. I don’t need you. I pray for you”

I’m beyond pissed. I’m cold —- and I loath being cold — and I’m tired, it’s now like 2:30 or 3, I’m feeling vulnerable just by being broke down and especially with the toddler who can’t do anything to protect herself or understand what’s going on and who is extremely sensitive to any type of anger or tension (she cries hysterically when her siblings tickle fight or pillow fight and are laughing) and with all I’ve been dealing with with my mom lately I just have no give a shit left in me. So I jump out and say loudly “should I get the gun for you?” He said “it’s starting to look like it.” And I handed it to him and he put it in his pocket - more just wanting to communicate and it wanting to draw on her because that could invite charges for him potentially and we already have enough legal drama waiting at home. She slowly starts walking backward and keeps running her mouth. I forget what she said but she flipped my bitch switch again and I found myself screaming “Don’t make me cut a bitch!”

She said “what did you say?” And I pulled out my pretty pink and Pearl, large and extremely sharp pocket knife and extended the blade, “I said if you don’t carry your ass I WILL cut a bitch!” She nodded that smug kind of nod and kept going, “aaaiiignt”

The car that brought her there and left came back. She got in it and it left, stopped about 20 feet from the parking lot and she appeared to be forcefully shoved out from the way she rolled in the grass. But she goes walking the other direction so we figured she was gone. Meanwhile though in that amount of time I already dialed 911. The operator connected me to the local station and I spoke to dispatch. I kid you not, less than 60 seconds later an officer was there. We later learned he parks in a dark spot across the street of this divided highway. He even saw some of the commotion but couldn’t tell from the angle that it was heated. He tells us all about her, how she’s the local “hooker” / crack whore, along with her sister and mother. When I said we could tell she was drunk or inebriated or something he said, “more like high as a kite in with a jet pack!” I have seen a lot of people high in my years but I’ve never seen anyone act like she was so I asked, “On what?” He just shrugged “likely a combination of things. She’s a non discernment, equal opportunity junkie.”

Would you believe she showed up again while he’s talking to us? She tried to act like they were friends “hey! I know you. You’re married to my kin ...” He kinda yells at her and smirks “you a damn lie and you know it. I’m not even married.” Tim and I both glanced at his hands, his wedding band plainly visible. I got back in the van because my teeth are chattering so bad I can’t speak anyway. He puts her in the back of his car and talks to my husband again. He tells him he’s use to her and is going to take her to a relatives house where she goes when she needs to sleep it off for a day or two. He leaves and about 20 minutes later he’s back. Apparently he almost ran out of gas and he wanted to check in on us again. The jokes flew about how awkward that would look if he ran out of gas and was on the side of the road with the town hooker and all. He was a really nice guy and stayed with us most of the rest of the night. He said he got off at 7 and if we still didn’t have any help to give him a call, giving us his cell number.

So, at the same time I’m trying to get something done about the tow truck that needs to come get the van and find someone to come get us. The first wrecker — BROKE DOWN ON THE WAY TO PICK US UP! I was starting to feel cursed! The second wasn’t informed this would be a “long haul” tow and he only does local. Third times the charm right? Apparently so this time. He was a nice guy as well and took extra steps to keep the bikes and things secure on the trip.

We even had talked to hubby’s parents when we very first broke down. They were asleep but I was able to text my kids that stayed behind to spend another day or two with them, and they were coming up anyway to do some work on the property up here and file the eviction. So the boy, who will be 11 tomorrow, and the 12yo girl woke them up and told them we broke down. Apparently the 8 year old had already gone to sleep. His parents got up and talked to us and they were like, we’ll work on it and let me know what you find out. What the insurance company will do. So when the tow truck showed up, at 4:30, we asked if one of them could come get us because all the insurance company said was “MAYBE a supervisor could make an allowance for a Lyft or something like that but it didn’t seem a highly probable option. I realize we were 3 hours from his parents but they got up and stayed up from the first time we called and father in law could’ve gotten us and most of our stuff in the van and gotten us home, and him back to his house, before lunch and then slept or done whatever work he felt was more important than our safety. I’m kinda ticked about that. So we get what things we can’t live without immediately and head into the store to wait for a solution to arise, or friends to wake up! I was the last one going in and I was shivering so bad I dropped the things in my hands. I bent down to pick them up when two large shoes stepped in to my view, directly in front of me.

I stand up and then continue looking up to find the eyes looking back at me - a huge ‘cornfed’ red neck man who almost is convincing at appearing to be tough as nails, but I see the gentle kindness in him immediately. However, when he named the itty bitty, no red light havin’ isolated little farm town we live in I was flabbergasted. I actually stuttered and just made noise instead of words when I tried to respond. He even chuckled and playfully’ mocked’ me but was even kind about it. It was more like he got a kick out of how taken off guard I was. He said “Do y’all need a ride to (hometown)?” in that extremely slow, drawn out way the redneck Southerns do. In a minute I nodded and said “How do you know that?” I continued walking in the store as I spoke and of course he followed and opened the door for me. Hubby had run back and flagged down the tow truck before it left, remembering the car seat was left in it and that would be essential to getting us home. He had already talked to the man but j didn’t know that. In fact, in all the in and out that night hubby and my older daughter had told the cashier bits and pieces of the situation and it hit a point where she realized help wasn’t coming very fast and didn’t want to see any more trouble fall on us like with the oh so classy hooker we had already met. So she called her son, knowing this was the kind of thing he was always looking to do. He kept telling us that he just really liked to drive and it was no big deal and that he had time to get us there and back home before work even. After debating over it for what felt like hours but was probably only 5 minutes hubby and I decided it was probably the smartest option. He usually has a pretty keen sense of a persons character pretty quickly and so does my 18 year old - although it still needs to be fine tuned a bit but that will come with time, maturity, and unfortunately, heartbreak. We felt like we had a read on the kind, older lady cashier too and she even said “It’s ok. He’s my son. He’s not gonna hurt you or anybody that doesn’t try to hurt him first.”, laughing the last few words out and the glances between them revealing some inside joke / event. So we went ahead and got in his little car - which was more like a jumbo Geo Tracker and I honestly wondered how he ever fit inside. It wasn’t the best looking thing, kinda shabby and needing a lot of TLC, but for us it may as well have been luxury. It was a diamond in the rough, symbolic of the man who offered to drive us an hour and a half to get us home, and then back, before he went to work that day. By the time we got him we knew his life story - 33 and already a survivor of the heart attack they call ‘the widow maker’. We instantly fell in and we’re good friends. By the time we got home - at 7am - we hated to see him go. Of course we had a little Christmas gift cash on us and gave him a little something for his trouble, especially since he wouldn’t come in and let me make him something for breakfast. As I hugged him bye I told him “I will forever call you ‘My Angel Michael’. He said, “Well thank you ma’am. It was my pleasure.” and with that, he drove away.

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percywinchester27 · 4 years ago

Text

A lot like ‘Us’ (Part-2)

Word count: 4.3K

Pairing: Sam X Reader AU

Warnings: Depression, some fluff, the usual

Series Summary: Y/N Y/L/N is eager and honestly, still in awe that she managed to get herself an acceptance from Stanford Law School. On the face of it, her life seems as put together, mysterious and independent as one might hope for. On the insides, she carries the burden of past that haunts her till date. Seemingly, she’d left it all behind; that is until she sets foot in the class of the Law School’s youngest, most promising professor.

A/N: The story employs two different timelines from now on. The present timeline for the story takes place in 2014. Fingers crossed that you guys like this part :)

Beta: The sweetest @deanssweetheart23. I don’t know what I’d do without you, Athina <3

Read part 1 here

It was, at least, a couple of hours before you found the courage to step out of the bathroom stall and walk out of the campus. With every turn you made, it felt that Sam might be there around the corner. On every bend, you were afraid that you might bump into him. But it wasn’t just that. Every colour looked brighter, every sound seemed sharper. It was as if the bubble of numbness that cocooned you had suddenly burst open and flung you in the middle of the world- raw and naked. Every sense felt more severe.

You were completely and utterly disoriented and exhausted when you turned the key of your apartment and entered. The inside was a brand new mess of boxes and pile ups. You flattened yourself against the wall.

“Hey!”

You looked around the box to see a brunette in all black sitting cross legged on the floor with a vicious cutter in her hand.

She saw that your gaze had landed on the cutter and waved it around. “This is just for the boxes,”

Meg.

It had completely slipped your mind that your roommate was supposed to move in today.

You whispered a quick ‘hey’ without looking at her, and rushed to your room. Locking the door, you slid to the floor, wishing for the sharpness to go away, willing your safety bubble to come back. It did not. And the senses, the memories kept assaulting you over and over.

*********************

13th July 2008

“Happy average birthday, Y/N!” Jo squealed in your ears, and you flinched back.

“Happy average birthday to you, too. Also, don’t shout!” You said. “ Do you want to announce it to the whole bar? You’ll get me kicked out

“You’re 19!”

“Exactly!” You pointed out. “The legal drinking age in Kansas is 21.”

Joe rolled her eyes. “Seriously, Y/N? Anyone ever told you that you need to loosen the hell up? One beer isn’t going to hurt.”

You gave her a sly look. “You would know, wouldn’t you?”

Jo grinned back.

“Here!” She slid across a fake id. “I already got you the entry pass if anyone asks. But let’s just stick to beer, shall we? Don’t want you throwing up all over the place in case you can’t keep your liquid down.”

“What if Aunt El finds out?” You whispered.

Jo squinted at you. “Mom will not find out what she doesn’t need to find out. You shut up and I shut up. That’s all there is to it.”

Ellen, Jo’s mom had been your mom’s sister. You didn’t want to get in trouble with anyone here, especially since you were here just for a few weeks.

“You have that look on your face again,” Jo said. “The one where your eyebrows all scrunch up and you worry the hell out of that tiny little brain. I never know what you’re thinking Y/N!”

You smiled a little at her whiny tone. “There’s not much going on here anyway,” you said, pointing at your head.

She jingled the little frill on the tight, body hugging one piece she had put you in. “Maybe something will go on after tonight!”

“Hey,” you protested. “You’re the one who’s tango-ing with Dean Winchester… or whatever you two have going.”

“Dean Winchester is the one who wants to Tango with me!”

You rolled your eyes. “As if you’re not interested in him at all.”

She gave you a superior look. “He doesn’t need to know that. Who knows? Tonight he just might get lucky.”

You had been here for a little over a week, and were somewhat familiarised with the people of the town: Langdon Wheeler, the guy who sold old cars next to the fire depot; Sheriff Johnson and Old Rufus living outside the barn, but nothing had drawn you in like the story of the Winchesters. Ellen had told you about it over dinner on your second day living with them. John Winchester had been her friend. He and his wife had died in a house fire years ago. Their four year old boy, Dean, had barely ran out of the house with his 6 month old brother when the first floor blew apart, killing the couple. It was the tragedy of the town, repeated over and over on drunken nights in every bar. The boys had both lived with a friend of their father’s and his wife in Sioux Falls, Missouri before Dean was old enough to live by himself and move back here. Secretly, you had believed that it was good for the boys to have lived away from this gossip mongering town. You’d been here barely for a week and everyone was up Ellen’s nose asking for everything there was to know about you.

Besides, Dean Winchester had made a reputation as the town’s playboy since he’d arrived. Apparently, there were middle aged women knocking on his door every morning with Casseroles and he’d turned them all right back. You knew first hand how miffed women talked, so no wonder Dean was turned into the badboy overnight. It didn’t help that he was extremely handsome- you had seen him a couple of times with Jo- and obviously unachievable. Honestly, you didn’t blame Dean. If those women were gonna snoop into his business and make everyday a funeral for his parents, they got what they deserved.

Jo had put on a stoic face when you had voiced your opinion at the dinner table, leading you to assume she wasn’t a big fan of the man. It wasn’t until you were laying in bed next to her that she’d gone all out on an epic rant about how the town needed to treat those boys better! Dean was an honest man, who made his living by running the only good auto-body shop in three towns and being flirty wasn’t a capital offense. Snooping into other people’s business should have been though, according to her.

Jo had dozed off after a while, but you’d stayed up, looking at the cracks in the ceiling of her room, not thinking about Dean Winchester, but about that little boy, who was only 6 months old when a fire took away everything that he had, save one person. Sam Winchester was lucky that he had an older brother to look out for him. God knew, you had always wished for an older sibling even when your parents had been alive. But like Dean, you remembered what your mom looked like, you remembered the sound of your dad’s voice. Sam didn’t have that. It would have been awful growing up without the reassurance of those memories.

The next morning, you had asked Jo about Sam, and earned her sly smirk. “Getting into the story, aren’t you?” She’d said, but told you anyway. No one knew much about Sam except that he went to Stanford and then Yale to become a lawyer. He showed up during the summers but wasn’t seen out and about much. Though that was about to be changed because this had been his last year and he was coming back to Lawrence this weekend for good. Jo had seen him a couple of times at their diner where she helped Aunt El, but that was all she would tell you.

It was like some epic karma. A lawyer from an Ivy League? You didn’t care if it took hounding this poor unsuspecting dude, but you were going to get it out of him how he managed that? He clearly didn’t have influence or money.

After badgering Jo some more, she had agreed to let you tag along to Dean Winchester’s place when his brother got back.

“Hey!” Jo swooshed her hand past your face. “Earth to Y/N?”

“Sorry!” You said quickly.

She looked like she was praying for your awkward social skills. “I’m gonna get us some beers, and you are going to try to get lucky. Capeesh?”

“Capeesh.” Fat chance of that!

You watched her walk towards the bar, sashaying her hips. How did girls do that? How did girls do anything even remotely sexy for that matter?

Then there was you, dying to get out of this dress. It was off shoulder, and you were starting to feel hella cold. Jo or even Ellen for that matter didn’t have to know about your weird cold sensitivity. Should have brought along that sweater.

“You mind if I sit here?”

You looked up to see this really tall guy standing over you. It was a Friday, and the place was bustling full. There was no other place to sit, while you had three chairs empty right next to you. It would be rude to turn anyone around. Besides, when Jo came back, she’d sush away a stranger, anyway.

“Sure,” you smiled nervously.

He sat down, and you were left to gather your wits for a few moments. The boy was hot. There was literally no other way of saying it. He had long brown wavy hair that fell below his chin, and beautiful hazel eyes.

“Thanks,” he smiled, and dimples appeared at the side of his cheeks.

Speech. You had to actively remember that you had that ability so you could respond… even if it was just a noncommittal shrug.

Oh, what it must be like to be cool. You wanted to keep looking at him and that was exactly why you concentrated all your energy on looking anywhere but him.

After a while of total silence, he asked, “So you’re from around here?”

“Uhh… no,” you said, “I’m just staying at my aunt's place for a bit.”

“Oh, hey! Happy birthday!” He said, holding up the little placard on the cupcake sitting in front of you.

“Thanks,” you replied, hugging yourself, not wanting to explain that it really wasn’t your birthday. It really was getting cold out here. You saw his eyes flicker towards your hands catching your elbows.

“Celebrating by yourself?” He asked, and you felt a little bad for him trying to make a conversation with you out of decency. He could have used the time to hit on a waitress who could have gotten him a seat by the bar… or more. The least you could do was tell him the truth.

“Actually, it’s not my birthday today. It's in October and I’m here with my cousin whose birthday was in April. Since I’m just visiting for a few weeks, we decided to average it out and celebrate our combined birthday now. She’s here somewhere…” you said and found her in the shadiest corner of the bar, hands wrapped around someone in a leather jacket. Then, discreetly she pulled him towards the back exit with her.

Mr. Hazel eyes followed your stare and groaned. “Uhh they’re gonna be in there for a while.”

You wanted to bang your head against the table. Not that you begrudged Jo her alone time with Dean, but you really didn’t know anyone here.

“I’m sorry about that,” he said apologetically, running his hand through his hair. It looked so soft. You wanted to touch it. And his eyes were really kind. It made you a little mad that he was sympathetic about the fact that your cousin had ditched you on your combined birthday outing.

“My brother can be an idiot sometimes,” he shrugged, and you realised that he truly was apologising and his words weren’t judging at all. “I can keep you company till Jo gets back.”

Then it hit you.

“Wait! You’re Sam Winchester?” You blurted

He raised an eyebrow. “I can see that my reputation precedes me.” He laughed nervously and you immediately felt contrite. Way to make him feel spied upon.

“No, no,” you explained. “Jo told me about you, is all.”

“Something good I hope,” he mumbled, looking down.

Suddenly you could actually feel your heartbeat, and the blood rising to your cheeks. Here was the one person you had been wanting to meet and he had just walked into a bar and found you instead! Looking like that.

“So you’re Jo’s cousin?” He asked, clearly making the link that Ellen was your aunt. “How’re you liking Lawrence?”

“Not so much,” you answered honestly. “I’m tired of the pitying looks I keep getting.”

“Yeah, I can relate,” he said.

Of course he could. The bar was crowding up further and more than a few stray glances were making their way towards you. It made you uncomfortable.

“Hey, you wanna get out of here?” Sam asked, then clarified realising how that sounded. “I mean there’s this park right outside. We could wait there till... you know…” he waved his fingers vaguely towards where Dean and Jo had disappeared, light blush creeping up his cheeks.

“Yes!” You said jumping out of the chair. The realisation hit you afresh, how short your skirt was. That’s it, you were never wearing Jo’s clothes again.

Sam stood back and let you pass before him in a true gentleman fashion. You tucked your hair behind your ear, walking ahead, and then out of the bar.

The cold air hit you hard in the face and your naked shoulders, making you shiver.

“Here,” Sam offered you his jacket. He had shirked out of it as he’d walked behind you. “Take this.”

Ordinarily, you’d never had accepted, but it was either that or freezing your fingers off.

“Thanks.” You reached for it shyly, pulling it on and rolling up the really long sleeves. The jacket was so big that it was just barely shorter than your dress. It was pleasantly warm and smelled wonderful.

You had the sudden, maddening urge to move closer to Sam. Of course, thanks to the tiny logical part of your brain that wasn’t short-circuiting, you did not act on it.

Now that he was walking next to you, you noticed what he was wearing- A dark flannel open over the well-worn brown t-shirt and jeans. They were about as ordinary as clothes went, yet he managed to make them look so good.

“Hey, can I ask you something,” he said hesitantly. “Why did you say you were tired of the pitying looks?”

You glanced at him and blurted the truth. “I’m the new attraction, I suppose. My parents died in a car crash when I was five and I’ve lived with my grandmother in a small town a hundred miles south of Topeka since. I really don’t have any other relatives except aunt Ellen and Jo.”

“I’m so sorry,” Sam said, sincerely. He was keeping up with your slow pace. “That sounds awful.”

You shook your head. “No, all things considered, I’ve had a good life. Grandma loves me, and she has always reminded me that I am important to her. I know of kids who’ve lived with a full family and felt neglected, like they were never needed.”

When Sam didn’t reply, you turned to see that he was regarding you thoughtfully. “That’s one way to look at it,” he said after a while.

“You would know.”

He shrugged, acknowledging the obvious- you knew about his childhood. You had already reached the park bench. It overlooked a lovely little pond with ducks resting on the fringes.

You huddled in the jacket, drawing all the warmth from it.

“So, you said, you were staying with Ellen just for a while?” He asked, turning to face you with his undivided attention, like it was somehow vital for him to know the answer to that. Meanwhile, you were having a hard time concentrating on the conversation when he was looking at you like that.

You trained your eyes on your fingers which rested in your lap. “Yeah, I’m hoping to hear from a few colleges.”

Sam perked up. “Really?”

You grinned up at him sheepishly. “I was actually hoping to run into you.”

He looked surprised at first, then his gaze turned skywards. “Well, will you look at that, my stars have finally aligned. This really is my night,” he said with a wink and you couldn’t help the giggle that escaped your lips.

His eyes softened.

“I’m hoping to get admitted into pre-law for the winter semester. I’m still applying to a few places. And you… well, you seem to have managed to do well for yourself.”

Sam laughed, but there was nothing conceited about it… if anything, he looked slightly embarrassed.

“C’mon,” you goaded, “What’s the secret to making it big?”

He narrowed his eyes, as if choosing his words. “I don’t know if there is a secret. My brother would tell you, I got in because I am the geekiest nerd to ever exist… and as lame as it sounds, he might actually be right.”

You laughed. This was the most that you had laughed in ages. It was just so easy to talk to him.

“You know, I’ve always wanted to be a lawyer. For as long as I can remember.” It was the one thing you had wanted with a burning passion.

“And you will be,” he said, simply.

You rubbed your palms against each other for friction, to imbibe some more warmth. Sam’s fingers moved, like he was reaching out. Then he pulled back, as if he thought better of it.

“I know you must have crazy high school girls running after you all the time, but if it’s not too much, will you take a look at my application essays? I don’t know anyone who’s done this before- the whole college thing, I mean- so this would be great help.”

He licked his bottom lip, then gulped. “Of course. It’s the least I can do. You can come by the house anytime you want.” Then he made a big deal of looking behind his back. “I don’t see any crazy high school girls though.”

Laughter sounded behind you, and you immediately recognised Jo’s voice. She must’ve come looking for you.

Sam looked in the direction of the voices, then let out a nervous huff before reaching out for your hand. His palm was rough but also very warm. “Happy average birthday, Y/N,” he whispered. “I’m so very glad to have met you.”

*********************

There was a loud bang and you woke up with a start, your heart hammering out of your chest. You had fallen asleep on the floor right next to your door.

“Sorry!” A voice yelled from outside the door.

You looked around bewildered. Where were you? What was happening?

Oh, this was your new room at Stanford. One easy breath later, it all came crashing down. The class, Sam standing there on the podium, looking at you with shocked eyes.

It had all happened, really happened.

Your hand flew to your chest. You were simply incapable of comprehending this situation… everything was still sharper and clearer… and Sam was here.

There was a knock on the door. “Hey, you alright?”

“Yeah,” you called back. “Just tired.”

“Whatever,” Meg said, and you heard the sounds of footsteps walking away.

You dragged yourself to the bed and lay on it, wishing that you could just zone out, wishing that you could just go back to being numb. It did not happen.

You spent most of the night blankly staring into space, only falling asleep when the sun came up again. In fact, if you didn’t have to use the bathroom, you wouldn’t have left the bed at all, even on the day that followed.

By Friday evening, the emptiness was eating at your insides so much that you finally decided to dress up and step out of the room. The door to Meg’s room was closed. A small part of you wanted to knock on it and apologise for being so rude, but most of you just wanted to run away from not just yourself but from existence itself.

Stepping outside the apartment and into the meadow seemed to liven your senses in a good way, so you walked out onto the street. It wasn’t to clear your head, more like to fill it with something to think about that wasn’t Sam or the absolute horror you felt about going back to classes.

You had worked your ass off for the past several years, both to earn the money to move, and the LSAT score and scholarship that let you into Stanford, and now you were simply blowing all that off by not attending the classes. In fact each minute of Thursday and Friday had felt like a heavy stone of anxiety slowly lowering itself in your stomach… Each minute that you had missed the classes. However, the thought of facing Sam after what had happened, absolutely petrified you.

Somehow being on the street amidst people who didn’t know you or didn’t care, quieted the storm in your head enough to think things through. You had two options. First to go back to College, and pretend like Sam didn’t exist for you outside the persona of a professor, that he was nothing more than a person you saw each day. That seemed absolutely impossible.

Second option was to run away, far from all of this, far from Sam. Again.

You mulled over to two options again and again, roaming around aimlessly till you were back in front of the apartment gate. Sighing, you pushed it open and found yourself looking at a jolly sight.

Along the parapet of the fountain, sat Kevin with Jack and a couple others. They were laughing about something, in fact, Jack seemed in hysterics. You stopped in your tracks.

Kevin noticed you standing there.

“Hey, Y/N!”

“Hey,” you said, over conscious of the state of your appearance. Your clothes were faded and thanks to the humidity, your hair stuck to your face, greasy and rough at the same time.

“Cas,” Kevin said to the one guy you didn’t know, “This is Y/N!”

“Y/N, this is Castiel,” he added. “You, of course, know Pam.”

Pamela Barnes was the landlord, so you had met her before. What you didn’t know is that everyone just hung out in the evening with her. She lived in one of the ground floor apartments. Easy to keep a watch on everyone like that. From what you knew, she was a bartender in one of the more popular bars in the town.

You said your hellos shyly. The awkward interaction was thankfully interrupted by a pizzaman.

“Oh, wonderful,” Jack exclaimed. “Right on time.”

“I’ll see you guys then,” you said, slowly backing away.

“Hey, where do you think you’re going?” Kevin exclaimed. “The pizza is for everyone.”

“Oh, I can’t possibly intrude.”

“You’re not intruding,” Pam said. “It’s our ‘welcome to the apartment’ free pizza ritual.”

“What?” Cas gave her a look. “I didn’t get one!”

Pam kicked him in the shin, and it made you smile. “Of course you did. I just decided to keep it for myself.”

“C’mon, in,” she said, turning towards her flat.

You considered making a run for it, but didn’t see how it would work. Kevin kept you company, prattling on about everyone. Pam had two apartments to herself on the ground floor. With all the walls knocked down, it made one cool living room and three spacious bedrooms. It was a dream house of sorts. The third apartment on the ground floor was empty.

The first and second floor were either university kids or people who worked in the town. There was one married couple who was grossly in love with each other and did not interact with anyone else. And then the three apartments on the third floor. Kevin and Jack Kline, who was majoring in literature from University, lived in the first apartment. Then you and Meg in the flat next to them and opposite to you, lived Castiel Novak, Third year of Med school.

“So, Y/N, how’s Stanford treating you?”

Like a punching bag.

“It’s been good for most part,” you said, tucking your hair behind your ear.

Maybe it was because you were in proper company for the first time in a week or because you hadn’t eaten anything in two days, but the pizza tasted good. The tang of the tomatoes was perfectly balanced by the gooeyness of the cheese.

An involuntary moan left you as you took in another bite and four pairs of eyes turned towards you. You could feel the blood rushing to your face.

“Now that’s how you enjoy pizza,” Jack said. “Y’all don’t know anything about enjoying food. Maybe Y/N could bring some culture to this place. You heathens need it!”

Everyone laughed at that. The knot in your chest loosened.

“Hey, Cas,” Pam called. “Grab that 6 pack on your way from the kitchen.”

“Sure!”

You took another tentative bite of the pizza. It really did taste great.

“Y/N?”

You looked up to see Pam holding a pint over you.

“Er- “

“Here,” Kevin said, handing you a can of coke. “Y/N isn’t much of a drinker.”

“Oh, cool!” nodded Jack. And just like that everyone was okay with it.

You reached out to take the can. “You remembered,” you said through a strangled voice.

Kevin brushed it off with a raise of his shoulders, like it was nothing. “Of course I remembered. We are all so glad that you joined us for dinner, Y/N!”

And he meant it. He really did.

You felt tears press the edges of your eyes. You didn’t know if Kevin noticed, but if he did, he didn’t show it and the conversation flowed around you.

So the second option was out. You couldn’t run away from this. You had yearned for seven years to finally be here, to feel little things, little joys like these… and there was so much more to experience.

That left you with only one alternative… facing Sam. Maybe, just maybe you could manage to live your life without him affecting you like that. Afterall, he was only your professor now, you weren’t expected to interact with him on any level. It was only a matter of two semesters.

“More pizza?” Cas asked kindly and you nodded.

That decided it for you. You were going to take your life in your hands and you were going to walk into that class on Monday morning and never look back.

*************************

A/N 2: The blankness and the bubble that dulls all senses; that’s how I’ve experienced depression. And the sudden sharpness of senses is how I recognised that the worst of it was behind me. Have you guys experienced it differently?

PLEASE let me know what you think of this story?

If you want be tagged, you can send me an ask or add yourself to the taglist here.

Or here’s my side blog @percywinchester27-writes. You can give that blog a follow and turn the notifications on to know about updates.

ALLU taglist:

@feelmyroarrrr @gabavaldman @im-a-light-child @cosicas-cuquis @bllyjianne @hoboal87 @i-is-for-inspiring @daughterleftbehind @wackiekebab @mylovelydame21 @dancing-the-hellfire-rumba @superbadassnatural @bellastellaluna @babypink224221 @badlittlehabit99 @anathewierdo @sams-bubblegum-bitch @damnitnowimobsessed @fandomoverdose666 @superstarmarvel @atc74 @transparentfestivaltiger @rebel-author-chick @death-unbecomes-you

#sam winchester x reader #reader x sam fluff #sam winchester x reader fluff #lawyer!Sam #professor!Sam #sam winchester AU #Sam winchester fanfiction #spn fanfiction #Ana writes ALLU #ALLU part 2 #Ana writes Sam #anawritesspn #anawrites #q

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slashedthroughtheheart · 4 years ago

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The boy behind the wall Pt. 2

She managed to quietly close the door to the basement she’d found, and slowly snuck her way back to the kitchen, putting her long forgotten empty glass in the sink and made her way to the front door just as it opened with a very vexed looking Mrs. Thompson at it. “Oh, there you are. Your fath-uncle is here.” She didn’t dwell on the slip up, and Layla didn’t point it out in any way either.

“I was just coming to check if it was him. Guess I lost track of time daydreaming and dozed off. Sorry about that!” She did her best to hide behind a sheepish smile, hoping that her lie was good enough and any face she might be pulling would be easily chalked up to embarrassment at ‘falling asleep’ at the kitchen table.

Mrs. Thompson seemed to readily accept this answer, shaking her head briskly. “No matter, but you better get a move on, your uncle seems to have places he wants to be, since he’s still got the truck running.”

And with that, she moved to the side and Layla scampered past her, stomach doing flip flops as she brushed by the older woman.

She felt cold inside, trying to figure out how anyone could treat someone else like that.

They didn’t stay long after she left the house, having bound down the steps as well as she could, making her way over to the passenger side of the truck her uncle was in, leaning towards his window, talking with Mr. Thompson.

They said their goodbyes, and her uncle reversed before heading off their property.

He asked how it was helping out around the farm, and she gave a non-committal shrug. His eyebrow quirked at this.

She knew her uncle to be a kind man, he loved his wife, loved his younger brother who was her father. It was a shame that they had gotten a nice big ranch with a big house only to find out he and his wife just couldn’t have children. They loved kids though, and loved her unequivocally.

So upon seeing his usually very talkative niece being aloof set off a warning bell in him, like the tornado warnings. It wasn’t right.

Before he could probe about the shift, she asked her own question.

“Do the Thompson’s have any children?”

At this he pauses, his first response was going to be no before an almost forgotten image of seeing Mrs. Thompson round with child popped into his head from a time long ago when he’d ran into her in town. She’d been so happy back then.

The Thompson’s were never the same after she lost the child during birth.

It was a very hush hush topic, never brought up in polite company, and not talked about except behind closed doors.

He made a low noise in his throat. “Well, not exactly. They were supposed to, but years and years ago they lost the baby she was going to have. It was tragic, and they’ve not been the same since, especially not Evelyn. She went from being happy and full of life to having a very… uh… tight lipped way of dealing with anyone.” He glanced over at her from the side before returning his attention back to the road.

“Did they… did she do something to you that made you ask that?” He had a feeling of dread in his stomach, hands gripping the steering wheel hard enough for his knuckles to turn white.

With the change in her demeanor paired with the odd question, he couldn’t shake the bad feeling taking root at the base of his skull screaming danger.

She looked at her hands clasped together in her lap for a long moment, almost long enough for him to prompt her once again, but she beat him to it once more.

“How long ago did they loose their baby?”

At this he really had to think. He tracked back in his memory as they were pulling up to the ranch. “Well, I think you were born just a year after it happened. I remember having that small fear of ‘what if?’ in the back of my mind when your father told me about your mother expecting so soon after it happened. So 19 years ago?” He ventured a guess, before turning to look at his niece now that the truck had come to a stop and the engine had been cut.

“Did something happen over there, little one?” He had a deep frown on his face, but the touch he used on her shoulder was light. He was concerned.

She worried at her bottom lip for a moment, before turning back to him, deciding to trust her uncle. He liked children, and he couldn’t have his own and that must hurt him so very deeply. So maybe, maybe if she told him the truth, he’d be willing to help her free the boy.

“I think they’re keeping their son locked up in the basement. I don’t think they lost him at all.”

He removed his hand for just a moment in shock at her words, not having expected the conversation to take this turn.

“You think… wait, why do you think any of this of the Thompson’s?” He sounded skeptical, but he also knew his niece was not one prone to lying or over exaggeration. In fact, his niece tended to downplay the seriousness of most things, especially her discomfort. She wasn’t one to inconvenience others.

So this kind of declaration from her was shocking, but he couldn’t immediately rule it out.

A small flash of worry crossed her face, before she seemed to take a moment to collect herself. He watched her hands tighten in her lap before she turned to face him fully, a very grave expression on her face.

“Because… I saw him. He’s kept in the basement behind a crude brick wall with just a single brick not in place where he can see out of. He looked… different. Like his face was smooshed up from something. Kind of like how a blood hound looks different from a german shepherd dog, but for people. His eyes have this… like.. extra skin around them. It looks rather painful, honestly. He can’t talk, but he understood me talking to him. I asked him questions uncle Andrew, and he said… well more like grunted in a ‘yes’ or ‘no’ way. He said he lives there with the Thompson’s, but he didn’t seem happy about that. And that he can’t leave the room! It’s awful!”

She had run away with the conversation, passion filling her voice now. She was almost breathless after explaining everything to him.

He took a moment, and looked real hard at her, trying to tell if she was pulling some sick joke or if she was being actually honest. And when she didn’t waver under his intense gaze, but instead switched to an almost pleading tone, he realized she was telling the truth.

“He couldn’t have been much older than me, so it fits. He’s gotta be the baby from back then. And they… they locked him up because he was different. I don’t know if he’s ever even been out of that room before. He didn’t even know what a hug was, I had to explain it to him. And he looked so sad after I explained it. He’s never been hugged before, I just know it. They’re being awful to him just because of the way he looks, even though they’re his parents and supposed to love him, all of him, unconditionally. He’s just… he’s just a kid, their kid. He shoulda gotten hugs…”

As she went on, trying to impart upon him the sincerity and the urgency, she wasn’t able to hold back the emotions she’d been tamping down for the better part of the day. Her voice cracked at the end, and the tears she’d held back in the basement resurfaced with a vengeance.

A very small and broken “I couldn’t imagine papa never hugging me… or teaching me how to read… or loving me.” And at that last bit she burst into sobs, the big tears rolling down her face as she hugged herself tightly, rocking softly.

Her heart was aching, but not for herself. For the boy locked in a basement, unwanted by those who were supposed to take care for him.

“It’s not right… he’s alone…” she barely managed to get those words out through her choking sobs, her mind too young to emotionally handle something of this gravity without breaking down a little.

He didn’t doubt his niece, not after seeing how broken she looked and sounded. He did scoot over, drawing her up in a hug and rubbing her back and shushing her softly, trying to get her to calm down. Doing his best to soothe her.

“Shhh shhh, little one. It’s alright, it’ll be alright. We’ll look into it, okay? We’ll figure it out, it’ll all be okay.” He didn’t want to make any promises about this supposed boy, but the story was plausible. He just didn’t want to promise anything in case the situation wasn’t as it seemed.

But she shook her head. “We need to get him out of there. I promised him, and even if I hadn’t… you can’t… he can’t just stay locked up in a basement. It’s not right, uncle Andrew. He was crying when I had to leave, I can’t… I can’t leave him there. I wouldn’t be able to live with myself if I let him stay down there to-to… to just wallow alone.”

Her tears hadn’t stopped, but her sobs had lessened. She still sounded like she was crying, even while talking.

He pulled a grimace, but nodded. No one deserved to be locked in a basement with no contact from anyone. That was just cruel. And if it did turn out to be the long thought dead Thompson boy, then it was an even worse situation.

He finally nodded, his mouth still in a grim line. “If he’s down there with no way out, we’ll get him out, okay? That’s all I can promise. But we gotta be smart about this. Do the Thompson’s know you found him?” He turned to face her, still holding her in a reassuring way, but wanting to make sure she knew it was important to go about this the right way.

Shaking her head, she sat up straighter, hands going to wipe at her tear stained face before responding verbally. “N-no. Mrs. Thompson thinks I fell asleep at the kitchen table while she gardened.”

He took a breath, trying to think if that was believable enough or not, but then remembered that everyone knew his niece he took in for the summer was of frail constitution and tired easily. So it was entirely plausible.

“Alright, well you can’t go back right away, we have to think this through. So for now, no wandering around, you’ll stay at the house, alright?”

At this she seemed to resist the idea for a moment, before nodding. “I’m just worried about him. I trust you, but how are we going to check on him and get him out?”

Quiet fills the truck as they both sit in anxiety while turning over different ideas in their own minds. He breaks the silence first.

"Well, I think the easiest way is to get the law involved. I've known Dale since I moved here, him and Irene went to school together. He's good people. We can have him come out and check in on them." He seemed sure this was the best course of action, but Layla worried at her bottom lip.

"What if... what if that makes things worse? Like, if they hide him or hurt him?" She had only ever read about things like this. And even then, they weren't quite like this situation. The stories she'd read were detective novels. Ones where once the police closed in and the bad guy had nowhere to go, they lost it and hurt the person they were stalking or had kidnapped. It never ended well.

He gave a low hum at what she brought up, it was a fair thing to be worried about. "I could have him over soon, invite him early in the day and we could tell him what happened. Make sure he's gonna be on our side, and then when we go over to check, it'll be me and him together. They won't be able to hurt him if both of us are there little one. We'll make sure he stays safe, alright?"

She contemplated this for a moment, anxiety eating at her. She wanted to say no, that she didn't want him to be in danger, but she also knew he was an adult who knew what he was doing. Had been an adult far longer than she had been, having only just turned 18 at the end of winter.

A shaky sigh passed her lips before she nodded. "Alright. When can we have Mr. Dale over? I don't... I'm not gonna sleep well until we get that poor boy out of there." Her voice had started out strong, but trailed off, barely above a whisper by the end of it.

Shifting to rub soothing circles on her back, he looked out the windshield. "Well, we oughta tell Irene all this, run our plan by her. She's the brains, after all." A soft, affectionate chuckle left him at the joke.

With a bit lighter hearts, the two of them got out of the truck and made their way inside to run their plan by aunt Irene. Layla had hope that aunt Irene might have a better idea than involving the police or putting uncle Andrew in harms way.

#Max Thompson Jr x Original Character #Max Thompson Jr #Dead by Daylight fluff #Dead by Daylight #fluff #hurt/comfort #canon-typical child abuse #angst with a happy ending #eventual smut #nsft

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dammitadolfnomorecake · 4 years ago

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Once Bitten, Twice Stupid prt 181

181

“A whoo whoo whooo...”

Curled up in his bed, Lance was woken from his dozing by a sad barking. He hadn’t known he’d caused so much trouble. He’d put his headphones on, and pulled himself together as he did another 180 over Keith. Breaking down the aspects of Keith’s life and his likes, Lance was trying to work out how to make Keith happy. He’d been deep in thought. He wanted to explore absolutely every avenue. Curtis had his demon summoned out of him. Keith might have a chance. His friend helped confirm there was never going to be a way for him to be human again.

Reading in bed, Lance hadn’t meant to doze. The book was boring as heck, a cheap trashy romance book that made very little sense. Normally a perfect distraction... His brain still excited from the three games of chess he’d played with Coran as they tried to distract themselves from Keith’s first turn.

“A whoo whoo... whoo... whoooo”

With another mournful howl, Lance placed his book aside with a sigh. He hadn’t meant to shut Kosmo out, or in. He wasn’t sure where the doggo was hiding. If it wasn’t Kosmo it could be Matt. If Matt had lost track of Rieva he tended to act extremely pathetic. Blue was curled on his bed, her tail flicking at the pathetic sound, probably because it interrupted her beauty sleep. He needed to find Kosmo on the off chance he’d gotten out and tried to follow the others.

Stopping by the bathroom, Lance bundled himself up. Fluffy robe and slippers donned, Lance held his belly for balance, waddling down the stairs with a sign to himself. Coran was sleeping in the office for the night, in case Keith got himself hurt, or he didn’t take the turn well. He felt so fat and unbalanced, carrying not low, but not like high, with Google not exactly giving him a name for looking like a team of basketballs had been breeding in his stomach. With all his amazingly wonderful powers, he didn’t have stretch marks. He wished he did. He wished his belly looked more... pregnant. Not just inflated.

Flicking the switch on for the back, Lance unlocked the back door

“Kosmo!”

It was freezing. Pulling the dressing grown around him, he shuffled out on to the paving. Damn fur sons. He could be sleeping. He’d only just peed but the air was making him need to pee again.

“Whooo... whoo. Whoo”

Maybe Kosmo was hurt? The cries reminded him of the times Kosmo thought he’d been abandoned forever by being shut out the bathroom by the big evil door. Following around to the side of the house, Lance wrinkled his nose at the moist grass. Icky. He’d have to wash his feet and his poor slippers

“Kosmo! Come here, boy!”

Whistling and clicking, Lance realised the mistakes he’d made as he blinked at the black blob in his yard. Fuck... he didn’t think Keith would be back. He thought he was smelling with from where he’d left his clothes with Matt’s and Rieva’s

“Keith?”

With a very mournful and sad whimper, Keith rose to his legs shakily. His whole body moved stiffly. Long legs ended in huge paws. Keith pitch black, eyes brilliant yellow. His teeth kind of really scary... but he looked... sad. Where were Matt and Rieva?

“Keith? Hey, buddy. What are you doing here?”

Slinking over to him, Keith let out a sad howl that embarrassed wolves everywhere. Sitting down. He stared up at Lance, Lance didn’t know what he was supposed to say or do. This wasn’t good. Keith was supposed to be giving into the pull of the moon. He’d liked to think himself educated enough, until he’d gained two werewolf roommates and he’d learned more than he ever needed to

“Did you get lost?”

Keith whined, Lance didn’t speak wolf. Dawn was hours away

“Okay. I gather you’re not having a fun time”

“A whooooo who whooo”

Howling, Keith sounded sadder. Reaching his hand out, the wolf sniffed at it before baring his teeth. Had Matt and Rieva ditched Keith? Or had they brought him back because he was hurt and didn’t want to possibly attack Lance so had already left?

“Okay. No getting too close. Smart one Lance. Go see the fresh turned wolf alone. Of course it wasn’t Kosmo out here. Fucking idiot. You can’t do anything right. Alright, Keith. You come with me with me. Coran is in the office”

“Whooo...”

Riiiiight. No. He didn’t speak wolf

“Keith. I can’t understand you, but I can tell you’re not okay. Come inside, it’s freezing out here”

Keith walked by Lance’s side. Lance trying not to freak out. Keith was hulking. He right out of a movie as some kind of death hound or dark omen. With how stiff Keith watched, he was sure he must have hurt himself. He’d never seen a wolf so stiff, the closest comparison was Keith was walking how Kosmo had after a thermometer to his butt. Maybe Matt... No. He didn’t want to think about Keith moving on and further away from him. He wasn’t suited to him anymore. If Matt and Rieva both felt that way towards Keith, he didn’t stand a chance. It fucking sucked.

Holding the door open for Keith, Keith managed to trip himself over the lip of the step. Lance now certain Keith had hurt himself. No werewolf was this clumsy, turned or not, Keith had spent hours running around as a wolf. His control would be better than this. Leading the way, he knocked on the office door, knowing Coran wouldn’t be sleeping. He just hoped he wasn’t snooping. Coran needn’t have rushed for his sake. He would have emerged from the office eventually. He’d just gotten caught up in his music and trying to make a list of things Keith liked. He was sure Keith would remain in Platt with Shiro for the time being. He was trying to think of how to reintroduce Keith to the things his boyfriend loved

“Coran, open up. I think Keith’s hurt!”

Coran came bustling wearing a borrowed robe, the same Black one Shiro had borrowed when he and Keith first stayed

“Lance? Keith... What are you doing here?”

“He was sitting outside howling. He’s not moving right”

“Oh, dear! He should be off chasing the moon! Keith, you’d better come in quick. You should be healing by now”

Keith carefully stepped his way into the room. Actions jolted

“See what I mean. He’s so stiff”

“Yes, indeed! It’s remarkable he hasn’t attacked!”

“I don’t care about remarkable. I’m more worried he’s hurt”

Coran blinked his way out of staring at Keith. Keith’s wolf was bigger than both Rieva’s and Matt’s, but he was thinner, sleeker. His fur black, unlike the mousy brown tones of his friends

“Can you get up on the bed so we can take a little look?”

Keith huffed, before making the most awkward effort ever to climb up. He was all legs and zero coordination. Coran taking pity and helping heft Keith’s butt up on the bed with the rest of him. Sitting down, Keith started again with the howling

“Whooo. Who... whooooooo...”

“See, he sounds bad. I thought I’d shut Kosmo out, or Matt had lost Rieva. Shouldn’t he be violent and angry right about now?”

“Awhoooooooo”

Keith didn’t seem to like what he’d said. Lance couldn’t help that he was shocked. Keith was being a total sook and not at all the angry anger loaf he’d been since waking

“Is that so my boy. Then what happened?”

“A whoo... whoo... woof!”

Since Coran asked, he must know how to speak wolf

“What’s he saying?”

“I haven’t the foggiest. Let me examine him, why don’t you take a seat. You look awfully uncomfortable”

That had something to do with the pain in his hips. He’d take a massage right about now

“Is it safe?”

“I don’t think he’ll bite. I’ll stop him before any harm can come to you or the twins”

Coran had stopped Matt after he’d torn Lance’s back to shreds... If anyone could, it’d be him. Sitting down in his office chair, Lance winced as he back twinges. Keith giving a loud howl

“Whoooo!”

Lance was going to either burst out laughing or be deafened if Keith kept this out. Probably both... Keith sounded very very unwolf like, despite his appearance. He sounded like he had something stuck in his throat or was trying to mimic a wolf’s sounds when all he had was a dog to go off

“Keith, indoor voice! I’m fine! You don’t have to complain loudly, Coran is going to check you out”

“A whooo... whoo... whooo... woo”

Lance ducked his head. Keith could understand him. His “howl” a little louder than Kosmo’s whining, but not full volume. It sounded that much more strangled as Keith tried to talk. Was this like when he was a bat? When he’d squeak and chirp hoping to be understood even though he knew he would be? Strangely enough Lance’s ego wasn’t riled up by the wolf like he’d thought it’d be. It was agitated, annoyed, pissed about the cold, but not about Keith. Unlike Keith who’d decided to growl at him. Coran ignored all danger as he sat on the bed next to Keith, holding his hand out for Keith to sniff. Keith seemed insulted by whatever he found on there, wrinkling up his muzzle. For a big bad wolf that took up almost all the bed, he wasn’t acting like he should. His first full moon should mean Keith was mental, near rabid with werewolfy needs. Not sitting in his office looking sad. Matt and Rieva were getting a stern talking to about leaving Keith alone.

“Now, my lad. No biting. I expect you wouldn’t find my blood all that palatable”

“A whoooo”

What did Keith have to be afraid of? Coran was a bad arse when he needed to be. He couldn’t take the fae, even if he tried

“Keith, you don’t have to howl. Coran isn’t going to hurt you. How about this, you nod or you shake your head?”

“A whooo...?”

God. He couldn’t help it. A chuckle slipped out, followed by a hiss. Laughing bad

“I have to pee. I don’t know what’s left to pee, but I have to pee. Should I bring Keith back some water?”

“Yes, he’s probably quite thirsty. Make sure you leave the door open so he knows it’s you coming”

Lance grumbled. He wasn’t about to risk being savaged by startling Keith

“I’m pretty sure I’m the only one here who smells like a walking bone that’s both pregnant and very dead”

“Right you are, but any suddenness and things could change in an instant”

Heading to the bathroom first, Lance then stopped by the kitchen on the way back. Grabbing out the jar of pickles and a big block of chocolate from the cupboard, he nearly forgot Keith’s water in the need fo satisfy his weird craving. Deciding on a Tipperary container, given it was plastic and less likely for Keith to break while he drank, he carried the lot back to the office where Keith was laying on his back with his legs up. Zero shame right there. No way was Keith coming near him with that between his legs. His nuts were huge, not that Lance wanted to see, but they were impossible to miss. If Keith found himself a wolfy girlfriend she’d be pregnant in no time

“I brought a bowl. How is he?”

Setting the bowl on the floor, Keith rolled over, giving him an unimpressed look

“What are you going to do? You don’t have thumbs to hold a glass and you’re not messing up the bed”

Keith huffed at him. Tail giving a lazy thump

“I can’t find anything wrong with him. No breaks or blood. Though he is aroused. Perhaps he’s so docile because he already thinks of you as his mate and returned because he misses you”

“Coran, I’m a vampire. He should be gnawing on my leg by now, not wanting to hump it”

Keith whined loudly, nosing at the blankets as if he wanted to hide his face

“He has exhibited signs of thinking of you as his mate. First angry you had been spending time with Allura, then over your joke. This is most unexpected. He’s not the first to receive werewolf blood instead of a bite. This is very interesting”

“Well when you’re done poking at him, he can have a drink and go for another run. He has to work off that energy without destroying my furniture”

“I want to try something first, if you’re okay with it”

For some reason Lance looked to his pickles and chocolate

“I’m not sharing”

“Gracious! No. That combination... I think not. No. I’m interested to see how Keith reacts if I approach you”

That didn’t sound like a good idea. He didn’t want his craving food spilt in the process

“Let me put this down first...”

When Lance turned his back, Coran moved up behind him. Keith leaping off the bed to get between the pair of them so fast that Lance nearly knocked the jar of pickles over. Why did provoking the otherwise docile werewolf seem a good idea?!? As Coran started chuckling, he wanted to hit him. He was jumpy enough without Coran adding to it!

“I hope you proved you point!”

“I think I have. He’s very protective of you...”

“Keith’s been protective of me since day one. Well, maybe not day one, but he did try to defend my honour more than once”

“I must do some further research into this. I mean, naturally I’ve met docile wolves before, even the occasional wolf who’d tolerate a vampire. I wonder if there’s anything in the literature over when werewolves and vampires first fell out...”

Lance had to do a three point turn on the spot seeing Keith wasn’t moving. Lowering himself into his chair, he frowned at the mass of wolf in front of him. He just didn’t get it. Was it in his scent? Rieva had been super attentive to him. Was it in werewolves to protect young, no matter who they belonged too? Nah. That was too optimistic. A female knocked up with a baby that wasn’t her mates could expect aggression. Was it because they were Keith’s scent and somehow he smelt like Keith so Keith knew not to hurt him? That too seemed far too optimistic

“So basically Keith isn’t hurt. He’s just... lonely? Do we find him a female wolf? I don’t know what to do”

Keith snarled at the mention of a female wolf. His eyes narrowing as he gazed up at Lance

“Don’t look at me like that. My arse is not taking that... when you’re not human. I don’t know what to do for you...”

“I think you insulted him”

“I can see that. Keith, you have to admit, I’m allowed to be confused as fuck. I was expecting a blood thirsty feral beast, not you to be lonely and inside. Could it be because the real full moon is tomorrow?”

“Possibly. Or the slow release of blood into his system. He has been quite aggressive, as we’ve all noticed”

Lance popped the top on the pickles, nodding because it was true. Keith had been a douche. He got it, but it didn’t make it hurt less if he was completely honest

“I think he should head back out and make the most of burning up his extra energy”

Popping a pickle in his mouth, he groaned at the bitter taste. Soooo good. He just knew the chocolate with it would make it perfect. Opening the block of chocolate, he was proved right, moaning loudly at the bitter sweet tastes. Rubbing his butt against the floor, he seemed to have flipped on Keith’s horny switch

“Should I get him a pillow?”

Coran arched an eyebrow

“Whatever for?”

“So he can take care of his urges? I want to help, but that’s a no go. I don’t even know if he likes me that much anymore”

“He does. He was most concerned. Silly boy thought he was no longer Keith now he had his ego”

Hadn’t Lance told him that he was? Suddenly pickles and chocolate turned to tears. Keith was Keith. He was in there. He just needed to relearn to be himself

“I’m sorry. I’m having a lot of emotions right now. Keith, I’m not trying to be mean. I don’t know what to do. Matt and Rieva came as a pair and I know they do things when they wolf out... I guess I’m an arsehole for not understanding what it’s like to be a wolf”

“Whooooooooooo”

Lance shook his head, covering his face as he started crying harder. He wanted his pickles and he wanted to cry, but he couldn’t have both at the same time

“Perhaps it’s best you head to bed. I can stay with Keith”

What? Why? He’d been trying to get Keith outside and now he didn’t want him to go, but he also didn’t want to cause a situation where Keith acted out, because it was the natural wolf thing to do, with a possibly dire consequence

“But he’s meant to be my boyfriend! I told him he was still himself!”

“Keith will be quite safe with me. I’ll take him for a walk”

If Keith wasn’t hurt, then he had to be having trouble working out how to adjust to four legs... How could keith not walk? Then again, he could barely fly as a bat. His ego secretly laughed at Keith, upsetting Lance further. He felt all flustered over crying, making him cry more. Keith was huge and he couldn’t walk... and he wanted to do the do, but Lance didn’t want to do the do with anyone but Keith, and only when they were stable in their relationship with both of them consenting. Why did Coran have to bring him here when Lance was emotionally ready to see Keith?

“He can’t even walk... Coran, he can’t walk... How is he going to protect himself? He can’t walk...”

“He can walk. He simply needs to get used to his body being in a different form. Now, my boy, you head off back upstairs. We’ll soon have Keith adjusted to his new ego and form”

Craning his head back, Keith looked at him, howling mournfully

“A whooooooooo”

“I’m not leaving the house. I have to get some sleep, I’ve been busy since I got home. I need to rest for the sake of the twins, and I need to take my pickles and chocolate with me”

“A... a whoo!”

“You’ll be okay. You should go run. Trust me when I say you’ll feel better. Rieva and Matt always do”

Keith didn’t seem convinced

“Go. Run. Let your ego flare a little. If you’re anxious think of it like training. It’ll be good for you. I’m not trying to make you leave or anything like that, but you can’t pretend you’re not a wolf with wolf urges. That’d be like me trying to live on human food alone. Then in morning you’ll take a shower, clog my drain with mud and grass, but you’ll feel better for it”

Keith huffed, he eyed the bowl on the floor with annoyance. Okay, it was pretty animal like but Keith was an animal right now

“You’re allowed to act like a wolf. Drinking out a bowl doesn’t make you any less. You’ll be okay. You just have to stop overthinking, which I know is hard for you, but you are who you are. Wolf and... all”

Yawning, Lance wanted his bed. Now he knew Keith was alright, he’d be able to sleep then talk to Keith about it in the morning. When had he calmed down from sobs? And how did manage to sound calming when Keith was having an internal crisis. God. He needed sleep. He definitely wasn’t thinking straight

“And with that, off to bed with you”

“Yeah. I’m going. I’ll see you guys in the morning. Night, babe. Be safe”

#once bitten twice stupid #oncebittentwicestupid #ashratherose

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