#bianca straight up picking his nose

[dynamitekansai]

wwe: There was no way Bianca Belairwwe and Jade Cargill were going to guess BOOGEYMAN! 🪱👹 Check out the full video on WWE’s YouTube channel!

[phykios]

Hours For This, Made Myself Sick After waking up from a week of deathless sleep in a bronze jar, Nico gets a hot meal, a shower, and a terrible reminder of his body's needs. (Post-MOA, missing scene, rated M) [read on ao3]

Despite sleeping for what felt like nearly a week, Nico was exhausted. Bone-tired, he might say, if he had the strength of will to joke right now. Of course, a deathly coma was hardly any kind of proper rest, and his father had warned him it would take time to recover to his full strength, but this was getting excessive. He could barely lift his head when Hazel came to bring him some food. 

Her grimace as he tried to sit up told him it wasn’t getting much better. “Here,” she said, gently setting down a plate on the table next to the bed. “I brought you some food. Um, without–”

“Thanks.” Yesterday, Leo’s magical kitchen, apparently picking up on his Italian heritage, had served him up a plate of spaghetti and meatballs, a dish so heavy that he had only been able to stomach a few bites of it before it had come back up. Violently. Hazel had practically dragged him down to the sickbay by his ear, despite his protests that the red in the sauce had been mostly tomatoes, and only just a little of it had been blood. 

“How are you feeling?” 

He shrugged. “Fine.” 

“Fine?” Hazel wasn’t impressed.

“Yeah.” He could barely keep his head up straight, and his blood pumped sluggishly through his veins. His entire body ached as though it had been flattened under a mountain of rock. And his arms felt like stone, the metal spoon clattering against the bowl held in his trembling hands. But yeah. He was fine. 

Hazel’s hands fluttered in her lap, like nervous birds, and Nico tightened his grip around the spoon. 

Eating was hard at the best of times. Very often, he went without. It was so much simpler not to eat, to subsist on pomegranate seeds and the occasional offering of soda, to stretch what little energy he possessed as far as it could go, until he was almost as faint as the ghosts he counted as his peers. Still, food was good for him. Maybe it was Hazel’s presence, maybe it was the concerned look on her face, but somehow Nico drew the strength needed to bring the spoon to his mouth. 

Gingerly, he tasted the pale yellow porridge, and blinked in surprise.

Ambrosia always tasted of castagnole to him–which was why he preferred to avoid it. He remembered his mother, sitting out on the little balcony of their apartment in Venice, Nico in her lap and Bianca curled into her side, and she split the sweet little dough ball into three, handing a piece to her two children. Nico, only a child, and under the ever-present gloom of sugar rations, couldn’t have resisted such a treat, and he and Bianca had wolfed them down, the din of the Carnevale rising up to their window like prayer smoke. 

This was not that, obviously. Instead, Leo’s kitchen had made up a batch of polenta. It was smooth, gentle, flavored only with butter and cheese. Peasant food, his mother had called it. His nonna had turned her nose up at it, not nearly rich enough for her, or her family. But his mother would make it in Washington, whenever Nico was feeling homesick. “Here, caro,” she would say, placing the bowl into his hands. “For warmth.” And then she would kiss his forehead, and go back to stirring the pot, humming an aria beneath her breath, forever just a little off key. 

Before he realized it, Nico had eaten a solid third of the bowl. And there was a strange feeling on his face, the stretching of a muscle which had been dormant for some time. 

“I didn’t think they had grits in Maine,” said Hazel, a soft smile gracing her features. 

Nico swallowed, tilting his head. “Grits?” 

She pointed to the bowl. “It’s a southern thing. I love them–I had grits all the time, growing up. I didn’t think they had them up north.” 

He stared at her. “This is polenta.”

“Polenta?” She frowned, rolling the word over in her mouth. 

“Yeah.” He forced himself to swallow another bite. It was warm going into his stomach, though it paled in comparison to the happy glint in Hazel’s eyes as he ate. “My mother used to make it for me. It's cornmeal porridge.” 

“So are grits.” 

For a moment, they just looked at each other, held spellbound by the other’s gaze. Here they were, children of death, children of war, as different as any siblings could be… and yet, somehow, by some trick of the Fates, here they were, together. Braving the ancient lands. Bonding over boiled cornmeal. 

At last, Hazel laughed. “Look at us,” she said, relaxing into her chair. 

Nico couldn’t help himself–he chuckled. 

After some time, the porridge had dwindled to half, and his hands finally stopped shaking. Gently, satisfied, Hazel plucked the bowl out of his hands, replacing it with a bottle of water. “Do you need more ambrosia?” 

“I’ll pass.” He didn’t particularly enjoy thinking about that time. The memory of castagnole would just make it hurt more. 

Hazel twisted her mouth, but didn’t push him further. “A shower, then. Don’t take this the wrong way, but…”

“I kind of stink of pomegranate and musty jar?” 

“A little bit.” She stood up, smoothing down her denim jacket. “Let me go grab you some linens. You–finish that bottle, then I’ll help you up.” 

Later, he would learn that he had managed to drink about half the bottle before falling asleep again. Hazel woke him up the next day, the furrow in her brow more fond than concerned, which melted into a sweet smile as Nico managed to get himself out of bed with minimal assistance, after another meal of gentle polenta. In fact, he was feeling so much better, that he didn’t really need her steadying hand on his back as they walked down the lower deck to the cabins. But he did appreciate it. 

“And I’ve thrown in your clothes with today’s laundry, so I’ll bring them up to you when they’re ready,” she was saying.

“Thanks.” Jason had graciously lent him a spare shirt and set of sweatpants, being the only person on board even remotely close to his size. Still, he was swimming in the purple Camp Jupiter t-shirt, the gray sweatpants nearly falling off his hips. 

“Do you need anything else?” 

Probably, but he just shrugged. “If I do, I’ll let you know.” 

Her mouth twisted, not quite a grimace. “Please do. You’re part of our crew, now. Everyone on board is here to help you, okay?” 

Now that he seriously doubted. “Okay,” he said, lips lifting in a simulacrum of a grin. When he was rewarded with a smile, his own grew just that little bit stronger. 

They stopped outside a door. At the sight of the name on the wood, Nico’s blood turned to ice, his good mood evaporating. 

“We figured you could use Percy’s bathroom,” Hazel said, softly, “since he’s… you know.” 

He swallowed, the image of Percy’s handsome face, streaked in dust and spiderwebs, flickering behind his eyes. The other side! We’ll see you there!

Hazel took his hand. “It’s okay. We’re going to get them back. Percy and Annabeth both.” 

“I know,” he nodded. And he did. The two of them had a knack for defying Fate. Like he said before, if anyone could survive down there, it would be Percy and Annabeth. 

Nico just planned to run far, far away after getting them out.

Satisfied for the moment, Hazel leaned up on her toes to kiss his cheek. “Wash up,” she ordered, gently. “And get some more rest if you need. We’ll see you at dinner.” 

And then she left him alone. 

With the room. 

His eyes slid to the next door over, labeled “Annabeth.” Would it be weird if he used her room instead to shower? Hazel had mentioned that all the cabins had the same basic layout, including bathrooms. And if he used Annabeth’s, he wouldn’t have to deal with Percy’s. 

Gods. Percy’s room. There was nothing on the door that indicated it was his, save for the name–no trident drawing nor pegasus decoration. But who knew what it looked like inside? Nico kept his space clean, even after settling somewhere north of part-time into his father’s palace in the Underworld. Was Percy a messy guy? Did he leave his laundry out in piles? Did he have any books with him? 

Did Nico really want to see what it might contain? 

He turned to the other door. Even so, he hesitated.

Girls had a lot of stuff, he knew. During his brief stint at Camp, close quarters meant that he had discovered more than he had ever cared to know about girls and their stuff. Of course, Annabeth likely didn’t have the arsenal of your average daughter of Aphrodite, but she could still have stuff. Girl stuff. Makeup, clothes, unde–

Heart stuttering, he opened Percy’s door. 

He’d rather deal with his own issues than accidentally glimpse something of Annabeth’s that he really did not want to see. 

Of course, in his haste, he forgot to prepare himself for the sight of Percy Jackson’s cabin. Breath in his throat, he scrabbled for the wood wall, needing something to brace himself against as he beheld–

…Honestly, very little. 

It was sparse. Not quite Spartan, no–Leo had proudly proclaimed how he had refused to skimp on any of the amenities, including temperature sensors that automatically adjusted to your preferences and beds that made themselves every morning–but it felt empty, like a hotel room. On the wall above his bunk were a handful of pictures; Nico recognized the strawberry fields, the lighthouse at Montauk, the camp counselor group photo, the picture of Percy’s mother and stepfather. On another wall hung the Minotaur’s horn, gleaming darkly like ebony in the light of the bronze ceiling lamp, polished to a shine. The bed had been made, the trash had been tidied, but clearly no one was home. Percy hadn’t lived in it long enough to truly live in it.

He wasn’t sure if he was pleased or disappointed by this. 

The bathroom was a different story, but only just. Equally utilitarian, the sink was empty save for the toothbrush resting beneath the mirror, the opened tube of toothpaste tossed haphazardly beside it. But before his thoughts latched onto something truly stupid, like the fact that this very  toothbrush had been inside of Percy’s mouth, Nico caught sight of his reflection in the bathroom mirror. 

A corpse stared back at him. Almost, anyway. His hair hung in dry clumps, eerily stark against his pale skin, and the bags under his eyes were dark enough to be confused for empty sockets. Beneath his chin was a streak of monster guts, and his fingernails were filthy with Colosseum dust. Tartarus had left him withered, desiccated, like a dead tree in a drought. 

So a shower was absolutely in order. 

With a grimace and trembling arms, Nico slipped off his shirt, and shucked down the pants. Hazel had taken his jacket to be cleaned as well, and he wasn’t too proud to admit that he felt a little exposed without it. That jacket had accompanied Nico through some of the worst times in his life, and he figured if it had made it through Hell relatively unscathed, then it must have some kind of magical protection woven into it. 

He folded his clothes, laying them on the closed toilet seat, stubbornly avoiding catching a glance of himself in the mirror. If his face had been that bad, he couldn’t even imagine what his body might look like. 

The shower was, mercifully, easy to handle. Nico sighed as the hot water cascaded over his body, bowing his head to let it run down his back. That was good. Not as good as the baths of New Rome, but good nonetheless. For a while, he simply stood there, letting the shower spray pound away his aches and pains. Stripping away the layers of dirt and grime. 

He turned the heat up as high as he could stand it, tilting his head back as it poured over his skin, and he shivered in spite of it. 

Wiping the water from his eyes, he frowned. He should have asked Hazel if she had some shampoo or soap, or at least checked the bathroom cabinet before he got all wet. He was not at all in the mood to face himself in the mirror again. But then, in the corner of the shower, resting on the edge of the tub, he spotted a couple of blue bottles. Picking one up, he studied the label, dyslexia making the letters dance before his eyes until they settled down, reading, “Sea Salt 2-in-1.” 

It must have been Percy’s.

Nico snorted. Of course Percy’s shampoo would smell like the ocean. Why would he expect anything different? 

Acting entirely on instinct, Nico had already flipped over the bottle and squeezed out a generous amount into his hand before he realized what he was doing. 

This was Percy’s shampoo. That must be Percy’s soap. 

Percy probably used these… on his body. 

He swallowed. 

Maybe he didn’t have to use shampoo. Or soap. Maybe he could just… use his fingernails. Let the water slough off all the dirt by itself. That would be fine. Right? 

He combed his fingers through his wet hair, experimentally, and his fingernails came back gray. 

It was just shampoo, he chided himself. It wouldn’t hurt him. 

And yet, it must have been minutes, standing in the deluge of water which bordered on scalding, before he summoned his courage, shut his eyes, and brought the shampoo to his scalp. 

And immediately regretted it. 

It did smell like the ocean. More specifically, it smelled unmistakably of Percy. He had caught a whiff of it when he woke up in the Colosseum. After days of nothing but the smell of his own near-death, trapped in the bronze jar, it had been the sudden presence of ocean air which had drawn his eyes open. If he had had any breath in him, he might have cried. 

Percy–everyone–they had come for him. 

Every time Nico saw him, he swore that Percy could not possibly become more handsome, and every time, Percy proved him wrong. In New Rome, even with the curse of Achilles washed away, his training with Lupa had taken the powerful, but unrefined warrior of the Battle of Manhattan and molded him into something taller, leaner, stronger. Now, in old Rome, having been reunited with–with his friends, in the middle of his quest, on a mission to save a friend, there was that single-minded determination by which Nico had always been quietly awed. And then later, as he clung to the edge of the cliff–

Sharply, he tugged on his hair. Enough of that now. He’d have plenty of time to mope about it later, after he was clean. 

Of course, now that he started thinking about it, he couldn’t stop. 

And the smell was not helping. 

Nor were the movements of his hands as he used the soap to rub himself down. 

After so long in a death trance, it was difficult to ignore how… alive he felt, in this moment. The hot water sluiced down the planes of his body, making him shiver. The stiffness in his shoulders and his fingers faded, bit by bit, even as his joints cracked from disuse. Closing his eyes and tilting his head, he let the water travel down his neck, then his front, rivulets weaving between the lines of his bony hips and thighs, bringing life back to death. He let his hands follow the same path, rubbing soap over his chest, stomach, hips, scraping away enough filth with his fingertips to make up a second skin, leaving him pink and raw. 

Ah, what he wouldn’t give for a sponge right now!

For every time he dragged his fingers across his skin, they left fire in their wake. His blood sang back to life with every stroke, heat pooling in his limbs and racing to every extremity. 

Frowning, he opened his eyes, and looked down. 

Every extremity, indeed. 

He glared.

Nothing changed. 

Sighing, he closed his eyes again, and returned to his previous task. With any luck, he could simply ignore it, and it would go away on its own time. 

And yet, as the shower wore on, and Nico ran out of places on his body to clean… it hadn’t. 

Near on accident, his hand brushed across the sensitive area of his chest, and worked up as he was, he felt his breath catch in his throat. His eyes snapped open. 

The problem was not going away. 

Fine. He’d just–take care of it. 

Squaring his jaw, he snaked his hand down, and wrapped it around himself. He could do this. He’d done it before. Just–get it over with, and then he could move on. 

The first few tugs were fine and normal, or as fine and normal as something like this could be. Some things were buried deep, and it was hard to overcome what he had been taught was a shame. But then, he carried the deepest shame of all. The insufferable priest of the chapel that his mother dragged them to every Sunday in Washington would say that his soul had already been tainted beyond redemption; what further harm could this small infraction possibly do to him? But fine and normal weren’t getting the job done. He hung in a kind of purgatory, his body too alert to ignore, but his hand not quite enough to sate him. 

Grinding his teeth, he breathed in through his nose, and he squeezed. 

Big mistake. 

The scent of ocean air lingered in the shower spray, and the water sent his mind reeling, careening back to the beach at Camp Half-Blood, those glorious few weeks after the Battle of Manhattan. Chiron had announced a week of funeral games, and Nico, as one of the heroes of the hour, hadn’t found it in himself to resist, enjoying the novelty of something as simple as having friends too deeply. He was much too skittish to participate himself, no, but he let himself watch, and cheer his fellow campers on. There was capture-the-flag, of course, but also racing, archery, poetry, and swimming. Plans for a grand, open water swim competition had been laid, but had been swiftly dismantled as everyone decided a relaxing day at the beach was in order instead. 

It had been fun, even by his standards. Will Solace, the peppy medic from Apollo cabin, had lent him a towel, even after Nico had continually rebuffed his efforts to get him to join his beach volleyball team. And to be sure, the offer sounded both sincere and kind of fun, but Nico hadn’t wanted to leave his spot under the beach umbrella, because he had been only a handful of feet away from Percy and Annabeth, who had been lounging together in the sand, wrapped up in each other, in a world all their own. It meant that Nico got a front row seat to Percy, his broad chest bronzed from the sunlight, his hair curling from the humidity, inky black against the golden sand and pale blue sky. It meant he got to watch, in excruciating detail, as Percy, green eyes sparkling, lathered his hands with sunscreen, and proceeded to rub them all over Annabeth’s body. And poor Nico, he had gone so red, so fast, that he actually got lightheaded, and even hours later, Will had asked him how the hell he had managed to get himself sunburnt while sitting in the shade–

He gasped, jerking, and yanked his hand away, as though it had been burnt. 

“No,” he breathed, like he could order his thoughts elsewhere. As if that had ever worked before. Because it wasn’t as if this was the first time it had happened. Not that memory, necessarily, but the subject of it… it was quite common to Nico’s mind. And he hated himself, every time, but once he started thinking of it, he simply could not stop. 

And he couldn’t stop it now. Not when even the barest whiff of ocean-scented shampoo made him twitch, untouched, made his heart pound, so strongly it might burst out of his chest.

Percy Jackson. 

Nico hated him. 

He hated him so deeply, with every inch of his body and soul. He hated his loyalty, his determination, his quiet sorrow, his bright eyes and dark hair and strong arms and girlfriend–

He growled, suddenly seized with anger, and pounded his fist against the wall. Which, predictably, did nothing, save for hurting his hand. 

Sometimes, if he were lucky, the pain made it stop. 

But not this time. 

But Nico, panting like he just ran a marathon, his ears buzzing, decided he had enough. Enough of this shower, of that smell, of those awful, horrible, wonderful visions, and enough of himself. He was done. 

In short order, he shut off the water, and was drying himself furiously with the towel which had been left on the hook. He scrubbed at his hair as though he could dislodge his thoughts from the force of it, rough and scratchy, until it became too much to bear and he threw the towel to the floor, before stalking out of the bathroom. 

Well, he tried anyway. Apparently, he was still a little weak from all that time in the jar, and had been standing for a bit too long. Beset with a sudden dizziness, he stumbled over to the bed, sitting down heavily, and lay back, slinging his arm over his eyes until the world stopped spinning. 

It was a comfortable bed. More comfortable than wherever he normally found to bunk for a night. 

And almost on instinct he nuzzled into the sheets, breathing deep into the sea salt scented fabric. It was nice. It was very nice. 

He could only claim dizziness for not realizing it sooner, but when he did, it shocked him to his core.

This was Percy’s bed.

Nico di Angelo was in Percy Jackson’s bed. 

He’d thought of this before, in the darkest, most disgusting corners of his heart. Though he tried to push it down daily.

It hadn’t worked. Clearly.

He should stop. He should get up from this bed, put his clothes back on, and get himself out of there. He shouldn’t be in this bed, thinking his awful thoughts. Not when their subject had let go of the edge, and fallen into the void.

But all around him now there was the scent of the ocean. 

And the problem was not going away. 

So Nico swallowed, shut his eyes, and moved his hand down. 

He slid his fingers down the plane of his stomach, his palm coming to rest over his public hair, fingers splayed over himself. But not touching. Not yet. Dragging his nails through his dark curls, he scratched the sensitive skin there, and he shivered, swallowing deep. Head tilted back, he stroked at the base of himself, gentle, rhythmic movements, like… like the push and pull of a  morning tide. Calm. Quiet. Serene. 

A finger drifted too close, and he shuddered, calf muscles flexing involuntarily. 

He did it again. Sparks, crackling beneath his fingertips, igniting a fire beneath his skin. 

Behind closed lids, he saw again a flash of dark, windswept hair. The tattered orange shirt, just barely hanging onto his form. The grip of a hand around a sword. His broad back, arm outstretched in a gesture of protection. 

He’d had a lot of time to think about this. To imagine it. To wonder what it would be like. It haunted his dreams, his waking thoughts, his deepest shames. 

Biting his lip, Nico turned his head into the pillow, and wrapped his hand around himself. He moved it, slow, up and down and up, a steady pace which set his toes curling. From his damp hair came a waft of ocean-scent, and he hissed, drawing breath through his teeth, his flesh twitching in his hand, and from his mouth came a low, keening moan. 

He flushed at the sound–his sound, and a flash of heat surged through his insides, scorching his stomach, his heart, his spine. Shame, sticky sweet, filled his throat, pooling at the back of his tongue. It was wrong. He shouldn’t do this. And he shouldn’t be imagining… 

Waiting on the fire escape outside Percy’s window. Leading him through the Underworld. Percy’s face, his mouth set in a grim, determined line as he tried to ignore the pain from the Keres’ claws. Laughing with Annabeth as they sat at the great campfire. Snarling with his blade pressed to Nico’s throat. Licking blue frosting off his lip, his tongue petal-pink. 

His hips jerked, and he moaned again. 

In his mind’s eye, there Nico was, in the Colosseum. He had just tumbled out of the bronze jar. The deathlike trance had kept him asleep, kept his mind dulled and his heartbeat still, but when he opened his eyes, and saw Percy, looking over at him with such concern, it had felt like a bolt of lightning, starting up his heart once more. Tall, lean, even tanner than he had been in New Rome, his eyes held a look which Nico had only ever seen directed at Annabeth–or Grover, or any one of his friends. His true friends. The ones for whom he cared so deeply.

In his mind’s eye, Percy rushed towards him after Bacchus had disappeared. He knew Nico’s dislike of hugs, but he wouldn’t care, and Nico would be too weak to protest as Percy wrapped his arms around him. 

In his mind’s eye, Percy knelt with him at the helm of the Argo II, feeding him ambrosia, attending to every scrape with such care. His fingers would be warm on Nico’s skin, holding his head so delicately when Nico couldn’t hold it up himself. 

And then, in his mind’s eye, Percy was above him. He still cast that look down upon him, concern furrowing his brow, turning the corners of his lips down. Gently, he pushed Nico’s hair back from his face, and Nico copied the image with his free hand. Pretending that Percy’s would shake just as much. 

I’m so glad, he would say, his voice thick with emotion unidentifiable. I’m so glad you’re alright. 

Nico wouldn’t be able to respond. He bit his tongue, throat too full to speak. 

Would he lean down, his eyes sparkling? Would he frown, that brooding expression full of worry, yet still determined to do it properly? Or would he smile at him, that slanted slash across his face which spoke only of trouble? 

His hand moved faster now as he contemplated the possibility, even as he had a terrible idea. 

No. This wasn’t right. It wouldn’t go like this. Nico wouldn’t be able to… Nico wouldn’t face him. Wouldn’t want to. 

Once, married men, married heroes, had taken their eromenos into bed and into their protection. 

But it wasn’t ancient times, anymore. Not anymore than it wasn’t the 1940s. 

Times had changed. But not as much, according to the priests in Maine, when Bianca had suggested they go to church a couple of times at boarding school, for something familiar. Men were not meant to be together. Men were not meant to gratify themselves. 

That love and that pleasure were meant only for a man and his wife. 

But in ancient times, sometimes they would…

Face burning, he turned over on the bed, bringing his knees up under him, legs pressed tightly together. His nose dug into the damp pillow, overwhelming his senses with ocean air. 

Like this. Yes. It was easier to pretend like this. 

Pretend that there was a presence behind him. Pretend that the smell of the sea came from there. 

His hand moved faster. 

Nico had seen the images on the frescoes and cups in his father’s palace. When the dead were buried, they were left with gifts from those who lived, and sometimes they took those gifts with them, more riches to grace the halls of Hades. The lovers and the poets all ended up in the house of the dead–and they liked to talk of days long past. Nico had seen things, heard things. Things which made his heart race, his cheeks flame, his stomach twist. 

Screwing his eyes shut, he inhaled, deep, and imagined. 

Percy, broad-shouldered and sun-kissed, in search of a male lover, as they did in ancient times. He would know the rules, the codes, the rituals. Everyone would want to be his, to belong to such a hero who was known and celebrated throughout the land, but he would, by some miracle, pick out Nico. Perhaps on a whim. Perhaps because of their history together. But he would select Nico to be his own. Would give him the traditional gifts–the bird, the hoop, the drinking cup. Then, after the appropriate amount of coy refusal on Nico’s part, he would quietly carry him off, take him back to his home and into his bed, in the custom of the king of the gods.  

He imagined Percy’s body, bracketing his own, his hands skating down Nico’s arms. He imagined lips pressed to his neck, his shoulder, his spine, fingers fitting in the dip of his waist. He imagined Percy taking himself in hand, and fitting himself between Nico’s thighs. 

He moaned, the sound muffled by fabric. 

Nico released himself for a second, swiping his hand through his damp hair, and brought it to his nose. He inhaled the scent of the ocean, shuddered, and let the fantasy play itself out.  

Maybe he would start slow. Percy wouldn’t have done this either, not with a man, anyway. Only An–only his wife. He would want to be careful, to make sure that Nico was… enjoying himself. Some people didn’t care about that, Nico knew, but Percy would. He would take Nico’s chin in one hand, reach down and envelop him with the other, a gesture of courtship and love both, and he would see, so clearly, how much Nico was enjoying himself. And then he would laugh, a soft puff of breath against Nico’s shoulder, and he would move faster. 

His hand, soft and wet and sea-scented, moved smoothly over himself. Somehow, Percy would know just what he liked, how hard to grip, how to swipe his thumb in that way that made Nico tremble. He would press his chest to Nico’s back, bringing them as close together as they possibly could be, and he would lay a kiss on his neck, leaving a burning scar in its wake. 

He imagined a word, a sweet whisper poured gently into his ear. Nico, it said. Beloved one.

Nico stuffed his other hand in his mouth, biting down on his fingers to muffle the obscene sounds escaping his throat, leaving him held up only by his shoulders and his knees. He almost fell over, but managed to right himself by mashing his face further into the pillow. 

Faster, now. Nico could almost feel it, the intrusion between his thighs, could feel it speeding up. Could feel the ghost of a hand, tightening around his waist. Could feel the phantom press of soft lips on his own. He gasped, wetly, dragging his tongue around outside his mouth, and tasted salt. 

Trembling, Nico tried to picture the face Percy would make at the moment of completion–maybe he would hiss, baring his teeth, brows drawn together, or maybe he would smile, sighing in pleasure–but he couldn’t. He couldn’t imagine it. He could not form the image in his mind. He couldn’t see anything. There was only the darkness of his closed eyelids, the sweet sting of his bitten lips, the filthy sound of his hand on his hard cock, and wet, stuttering pulses as he came in his fingers. 

And then, quiet, ringing in his ears. 

After a while, Nico managed to extricate himself from his position, freeing his hand where it was trapped under his body, slowly unclenching his legs. His thighs unwillingly pulled apart, sweaty skin sticking to itself. 

Eugh. A second shower was in order, it seemed. 

With his clean hand, he scrubbed at his face, opening his eyes to the warm light of the bronze ceiling lamp. 

The moment after was rarely a toss-up. He avoided it as much as he could, because he knew he would feel just like this–empty, numb, hollow. A vessel for shame. And shame, indeed, poured in, heavy and cold, weighing him down. The longer he stayed, the harder it would be for him to get up, he knew, so with a grimace, he wiped his spend on his stomach, and clambered off the bed. 

Then his face fell. 

He had gotten some on the sheets. And the pillows were damp. The covers were in a gentle disarray, like someone had stolen into Percy’s room and made himself at home on his bed. He’d have to strip the sheets, get them washed before anyone could see what he had done. 

And he had left his clothes on the toilet seat. 

Quietly, like a ghost, he drifted back to the bathroom, studiously avoiding his reflection, even as he wiped down his stomach and thighs. He shivered as he passed over himself, his latent sensitivity sending tiny shocks up and down his legs. So distracted, he hadn’t even realized that he had gotten halfway through the sign of the cross until he caught his fingers before they touched his left shoulder.

Heart hammering, hands shaking, he pulled on the sweats and shirt as quickly as he could, and rushed back to the bed, fingers clawing for the sheets. He had to take care of this, had to–had to fix it, before anyone here found out. 

In his rush to strip the bed, he snatched up the pillow, and nearly flung it to the ground, before something caught his eye. Something which made him freeze. 

Beneath the pillow, there was a blue bra. 

Nico’s whole body went numb. His face burned as though it were being held to a flame. 

They had–and he had–in his bed–

Bile rose in him, and he was only saved from making his situation that much worse by the sudden appearance of bronze pincers, which had erupted from the bottom of the bed frame. Nico yelped, dropping the pillow, tripping over himself as he tried to get away, and landing roughly on the floor. Instinctively, he held out a hand to shield himself, but the mechanical limbs seemed to be much more interested in the sheets than in the boy who had just soiled them. With quick, precise movements, they plucked at the sheets, tearing them from the mattress, drawing them away, out of sight, and out of mind.

But they left the bra where it was. And Nico, too. 

He really, desperately wished the pincers had taken one of them as well. Preferably him. Disappearing into the dark was something Nico had a lot of experience with. It was something he knew and could handle.

He looked at the bra. Lacy and delicate, nothing at all like the girl who would certainly gut him with her bronze knife if she knew what Nico had done in Percy’s bed, while dreaming about Percy. 

He looked at the stripped sheets, all signs of his sins disappeared, and could not help but think of Percy and Annabeth. Rubbing up on each other, like that day on the beach. Getting white cream everywhere. 

Only for all evidence to be pulled into the darkness.

He looked at the bra again. 

And felt the polenta roil in his stomach. 

Stomach heaving, he scrambled towards the nearest shadow, and vanished.

He resurfaced on deck, narrowly missing Jason, who had the watch, and pitched his head over the side, spilling all of Hazel’s comfort food into the air below. 

He didn’t deserve it, anyway. 

[gruesomejack]

Gabriel smelled like dial soap and laundry detergent. Vi buried his nose in his neck and squeezed him tight.

"You okay?" Looking at the young man in his arms, Gabe played gently with the curls hanging from his neck and frowned. He'd been babysitting for the Scorzas since Victory was five. Now Bianca was dead, and their son was eighteen and drunk enough that he couldn't walk on his own. There was vomit on his suit, and he smelled strongly of liquor-- He felt guilty. There wasn't anything he could do to fix any of it, but at least he could get him home and cleaned up.

"Peachy-keen." Vi managed, not bothering to lift his head. Gabriel was a good man, practically his older brother. If there was anyone he wanted to spend this awful time with, it was him. He'd been taking care of him for years now; the only time they'd been apart was the four years he spent at school. Even then, Gabe managed to send him birthday and Christmas gifts to make sure he knew he was being thought of. "Hey- Hey, slow down. If you walk any faster, I'll puke again." He slurred, drooling on the man's suit. "Actually, put me down-" Gabe responded with a laugh and eased his pace to a slow step before stopping entirely. Lowering the young man to his feet, he watched him totter a little to hunch over and empty the bile in his stomach. Rubbing at his back, Gabe pulled a handkerchief from his pocket and offered it over.

Vi coughed and spit. Taking the hankie, he wiped his mouth and slowly stood back up. He looked like shit. The expensive suit his father had put him in was ruined, his eyes were red and swollen, his nose was snotty, and he was on the verge of passing out. Swaying, he stumbled back, but before he could fall, there were strong arms wrapping back around him. Victory leaned against his friend's chest and closed his eyes.

Gabe really was good. He was good for him too, huh? He was always looking out for him and keeping him safe, and listening to him prattle on about things he had no interest in. And he was kind of cute, right? Those downturned eyes and freckled cheeks were more than charming. Vi always thought it was strange he never seemed to have any girls around him. Maybe he wasn't interested?

Brows knitting, he clung to the fabric of the man's blazer. It was weird to see him dressed up. "Do you have a girlfriend?"

Gabe blinked and glanced down at the face on his shoulder. Smirking a little, he tilted his head. "What's with the sudden interest in my love life?"

"Answer the question."

Letting out a soft, shocked laugh, he shook his head for him. "No, I don't. I'm too busy making sure you're not drinking yourself to death to think about girls."

Vi picked his head up to look at him and searched his inky gaze. He found fondness and amusement behind them and felt his heart give a little flutter. It hadn't been a thought before, but... Eyes falling to his lips, he hesitated and ducked to press his own against them in a soft kiss.

Gabe stiffened immediately, using gentle hands to ease the boy back. "Whoa-... No." He said, "Vi-... No. You're too drunk, and you're not thinking straight." Squeezing at his biceps, he frowned. "You're-... I-I can't give that to you. I don't think I'm allowed- And even if I was, I-I can't. You're family to me." Watching Victory's face pale and green again, he sucked in a breath as he was vomited on. "Okay. Come on, we've got to get you home-"

Vi coughed again and bat his arms away before stumbling back. "Sorry." He mumbled and tried his best to maneuver around him. "Go on without me. I-... I'm going back to my mom."

Reaching out for his arm, Gabe held onto his wrist. "Victory, I don't think that's a good idea-"

"Fuck off! Go away!" Vi shook him off and shot back a hard, but tired look, "Please."

[sw-33-ts-stuff]

Welcome Back Wednesday

Wednesday X Reader

Part 2

Wednesday POV

During the break, I walked into our dorm to see a third bed added to our room pushed towards Enid's side.

My mother speaking quietly with the girl from earlier.

I cleared my throat raising an eyebrow as my mother turned to me.

"Girls this is your new roommate, Y/n Ramirez. Unfortunately some of the rooms are still under construction but I assure you, you couldn't get better roommates."

The girl turned to both Enid and myself, slightly pushing her glasses up her nose. She nodded to us. My mother left smiling as the girl began to unpack.

"So Y/n what do you do for fun?" I turned going to my typewriter slightly annoyed as Enid knew it was my writing time.

"Read." She muttered putting her suitcase under her bed before propping herself against some pillows and pulling her book out.

Enid sighed. "Great another chatterbox."

I felt the corner of my mouth quirk up just a bit before I turned my attention back to my writing. I heard the slight tapping of Thing walking over to the new girls bed. I glanced at Enid to see her smirking. Thing landed with a thump on the new girls book making her drop it.

"What the fuck?!" Enid laughed and I faltered in my writing. Thing began signing and before Enid or I could translate the girl spoke.

"I don't care what your name is, you made me lose my page."

Shocked Enid beckoned Thing over to her bed so they could gossip and do their manicures as the girl sighed picking her book back up and reading.

She was already becoming a more pleasant roommate than Enid and it hadn't even been an hour yet.

As time passed on Enid grew tired of the silence and went to meet up with Ajax.

As the door shut the room grew silent putting me at peace as well as Y/n based on her body language, the slight tension leaving her shoulders. I found myself staring for longer than I should've and went back to my novel.

My phone rang cutting through the silence.

Xavier

Hey wanna hang out? 👀

I rolled my eyes.

Wednesday

No

A throat cleared.

"I-I'm sorry to bother you I just wanted to ask if you could show me where the cafeteria is?" I looked to see it was around lunch time and stood quickly.

Turning from the door to find the girl still standing by my desk.

"Are you coming?" She nodded shuffling towards me and tripping. I caught her before she fell and froze.

*Vision*

"Desgracia! You're no longer part of this family!"

"I never was! You made sure to remind me everyday!"

It was Y/n and a man screaming. Her in the same straight jacket behind bars only this time the material began melting as her body grew red.

"I knew I should've left you on the doorstep." Y/n flinched sinking to the floor. A burn on the opposite side of her neck appearing.

"I wish you did."

*End of Vision*

"Wednesday?" The girl asked tentatively leaning over me. My eyes scanning her features to find her eyes weren't as dark as I'd originally thought.

"You're eyes are lighter than I thought." I shook my head sitting up. "Let's go."

.

"Hey!" Xavier appeared next to me. "Thought you didn't want to hang out?"

I glanced to the girl next to me as she looked around.

"I don't but obviously the new girl didn't know where the cafeteria was."

He nodded looking over to the girl and catching her eye.

"Hey I'm Xavier, I met your brother earlier." She looked at his hand then him. He slowly lowered his hand. For some reason her lack of response amused me.

"Thanks." She dismissed him turning to me. "Did you want to eat anything? My treat."

I felt the corner of my mouth quirk slightly at Xavier's stunned face.

I shrugged following the girl and grabbing a tray. Xavier storming off to the table with Enid, Ajax, Bianca and apparently Y/N's brother.

After paying she went to go sit at a different table and because I had nothing better to do I followed.

"I'm surprised you didn't want to sit with your brother." She flinched shrugging.

"I like being alone." I nodded understanding the benefits of solitude but my last vision led me to believe her reasons were not by choice.

Eugene came to sit by us already introducing himself.

"I'm Eugene, Wednesday and I are Hummers." Y/n looked to me with a raised eyebrow.

"Bee keeping?" I narrowed my eyes back at her.

"Yes." She chuckled.

"Didn't think that would be your thing." I felt my eyebrows furrow as Eugene interrupted our stare down.

"Not everyone appreciates the beauty of poisonous creatures."

The girl nodded when her brother came up.

"Hey y/n you didn't wanna sit with me?" He spoke to her but kept looking only at me his hand clamped down hard on Y/N's shoulder. Up close you could see the two had no similarities whatsoever. If not for a shared last name one would assume they were nothing more than strangers to each other.

"I'm-" I cut her off.

"Not interested."

Xavier came up as Elijah went to open his mouth again.

"I'm into the goth thing, it's hot. If you're free maybe we can meet up."

His sister scoffed putting her hand on his. It began to glow a bright red and the boy yelled.

"What the fuck?"

"You're being a pig and last I checked you have a girlfriend." Her head tilted as she raised her eyebrow at the taller boy. He looked down glaring at her before turning to Xavier who was scowling at him.

"Oh my bad is this your girl?" He began to grow red at the question and thankfully the bell rang indicating our next class.

Y/n and I were walking to class silently, before she cleared her throat head hanging low as she slid her glasses further up.

"I'm sorry about-"

"It's obvious your brothers compensating.”

She bit her lip stifling a chuckle.

"Hey Wednesday come sit with me!" Enid grabbed the me by the arm dragging me to her desk. I glanced back at Y/n who took a seat at an empty desk before glaring down at Enid's hand.

"Sorry." She grinned. "But how great is it that we have this class together too?"

I looked around. "I take it the boyfriends not in this class."

The werewolf turned bright red. "No."

[artificialqueens]

Galactica, Chapter 66 (Group Fic) - TheDane/Veronica

A/N: Click here if you’re looking for previous chapters (or here if you’d rather read on AO3). 💫

Last Chapter: Katya decided that parenthood might be in the cards after all, Pearl couldn’t get Dahlia out of her head, and Violet worried that Sutan’s friends would never be able to respect her.

This Chapter: Brunches, presents, an announcement, a trip to the champagne room, and a new hire.

***

Sutan opened the door to his apartment, a smile blooming on his face at the fact that the light was still on, which meant Violet hadn’t gone to bed yet.

It was after 8, Sutan spending the day with Gigi and then going to a Christmas reception in the evening with Tamisha, his boss pleading with him to please come with her and make sure no one she hated talked to her, Sutan guarding her for the entire cocktail hour.

“Violet?” Sutan called out, hanging his jacket up and toeing his shoes off.

“Bathroom!”

Sutan walked through the apartment, the door to the bathroom open. Violet was standing at the sink, her fingers braiding her hair into French braids.

“Hey,” Violet smiled and gave him a quick kiss, her lips tasting faintly like sugary lip scrub. “I didn’t know if you’d be home, but I got dinner for you too.”

��What are we having?” Sutan leaned against the sink, watching Violet who unscrewed the lid on one of her face creams, scooping out a dollop and rubbing it into her skin.

“Lentil soup.”

“Yum.” Sutan drawled, his tone bone dry.

It wasn’t that he hated lentil soup, but he’d never understand why Violet ate it voluntarily when the entirety of Manhattan's takeaway options were open to her.

“Don’t act like that,” Violet huffed, holding up her hand with a bit of leftover face moisturizer, silently asking him if he wanted it and Sutan nodded, Violet’s fingers gliding over his cheek seconds later. “It’s good for you.”

“Do I at least get bread this time?” Sutan had to bite his lip not to smile, Violet looking at him like he had grown a second head when he had complained about the distinct lack of bread on his plate the last time she had ordered dinner.

“Yes,” Violet rolled her eyes, but she continued rubbing in tiny circles, even dipping her fingers again to make sure she had enough to cover his entire face.

“Lucky me,” Sutan wasn’t sure if he was talking about the bread, or about the strange little things Violet always tended to do for him, this little traditions of theirs starting in Paris when Violet had needed to get rid of some extra hand moisturiser and had ended up massaging it into his skin.

“Did you have a good day?” Violet ran a finger down his nose, the pressure weirdly comforting, her never ending attention to detail carrying into this as well, the finishing tap on his nose a sign that she was done.

“Very good.” Sutan smiled as he watched Violet wipe her hands, her bedtime routine done for now even though she was still in her work clothes. “Been all over the city. Shopping, dinner, the whole shebang since I’m training a new model.”

“Great.”

Violet wasn’t fully paying attention because she had already heard of days like that before, instead grabbing her crutches to get to the kitchen, but Sutan didn’t mind.

In past relationships, he would have been interrogated if he had said he had spent the day with a model, Kahmora in particular, always keeping an eye on him.

He hadn’t thought much of it then, hadn’t even considered that there could be anything wrong with it, after all, it showed that they cared, but he had to admit that it felt amazing that Violet trusted him to do his job and just his job.

“I put your soup in the fridge,” Violet made her way to the kitchen table, sitting down to keep him company while he ate his dinner. “Sorry that it’s cold.”

“I don’t mind,” Sutan pressed a quick kiss to her temple, walking over to the fridge. “Oh. Speaking of.” Sutan looked over his shoulder. “I got you something.”

“You did?”

“It’s on the table.” Sutan grabbed the container of soup, an order of bread lying untouched on the counter. “White plastic bag!”

Just like with the ring dish, Sutan hadn’t actually realised how often he just dumped his stuff on his kitchen table, the quick pitstop he had taken at home to change into evening wear just enough time to add to the ever growing pile that Violet patiently stacked against the wall every single day.

Sutan dumped the soup into a bowl, opening the cabinet that hid the microwave to pop it in.

“Sutan… What…” Sutan turned around, looking at Violet who was holding the iPhone 6 box he had picked up at the Apple store. “What’s this?”

“A phone?” He leaned against the counter, the microwave humming away. “I’m sure you’ve seen one before.”

“I understand that it’s a phone, but why are you giving this to me?”

Sutan paused, that question not at all the one he had expected. He was thankfully saved by a ding, the microwave telling him that his food was ready so he had time to think.

“Well, isn’t it obvious? They had the newest model in stock,” Sutan took his bowl, grabbing a spoon before he walked over to the table, Violet’s brown eyes following his every step. “And your phone is barely working.”

“I don’t think-” Violet pursed her lips, clearly swallowing her words. “I can buy my own phone.”

Sutan smiled. Of course. He should have seen it coming. You wouldn’t know it just looking at Violet, his girlfriend so prim and proper from the outside, but she was adorably non-materialistic if it didn’t concern clothes.

“You could, but you haven’t, and I happened to be at the Apple store.”

“I-” Violet looked at him, her brown eyes searching his face. “Thank you.”

“You’re welcome lovely eyes,” Sutan captured her healthy foot under the table, holding it between his own. “I’m here for whatever you need.”

***

Bianca picked up the French press and poured herself a second cup of coffee, inhaling the fragrance as she lifted it to her lips. She and Courtney had been in bed all morning, but finally decided to wander downstairs for a very late breakfast.

She looked up to where Courtney stood at the stove, concocting some kind of tofu scramble.

“How’s it going over there?”

Courtney had insisted it was one of the few things she knew how to cook, happily chopping tomatoes, zucchini, shallots, and pretty much every other vegetable Bianca had on hand before dumping it all in a sizzling wok. Bianca was frankly unconvinced that she knew what she was doing, but told herself she’d eat it regardless.

“It’s great! Almost done!” Courtney chirped, adding what Bianca noted was a respectable amount of hot sauce for a white girl.

“Sounds great,” Bianca said, opening a cabinet to grab some plates.

“It’s so nice having a stove,” Courtney commented. She said it in a breezy, offhanded way, but it gave Bianca pause, turning towards her with a furrowed brow.

“You don’t have a stove?”

Courtney bit her lip, suddenly embarrassed, and explained, “Well, my place is a studio, and...uh, there’s not like a full kitchen.”

Bianca nodded, doing her best to keep the judgment off her face. No stove meant that whatever place Courtney was renting was not a real studio, and likely an illegal sublet. She shuddered to think of all the potential safety violations in that kind of set-up. Nevertheless, she decided to drop the subject, putting the plates down and slipping an arm around Courtney’s waist, pressing a kiss to her cheek.

“Thank you for making breakfast, baby.”

“Anytime…” Courtney gave the pan another stir with a wooden spatula before leaning back against Bianca, letting her hold her even tighter.

“So listen...I, uh...have a proposal for you.”

“Oh?” Courtney tilted her head back, one eyebrow raised.

“Yeah, so, there’s this big fucking board meeting scheduled for January 6th, so I’m probably gonna stay in town over the holidays. I was thinking that maybe you could stay here, while Galactica’s shut down. With, uh, full stove access. Would you like that?”

Courtney whirled around, her beautiful face beaming, throwing her arms around Bianca’s neck and exclaiming, “I’d love it!”

Bianca leaned forward to capture her lips in a gentle kiss which soon grew deeper as Courtney arched against her, backing her up against the island. Bianca smiled against her mouth, unable to stop the dimples from piercing through as she thought about how lucky she was.

They stayed like that, blissfully wrapped in each other, until Bianca lifted her head to ask, “Is something burning?”

“Shit!”

***

“Mmh,” Trixie had to bite down a moan, his mouthful of waffles and bacon like an explosion of flavor. “Holy shit!”

“So?” Katya grinned, looking at him with her blue eyes. “Are they up to the standard?”

Their entire Sunday brunch crew, and even Violet, was gathered in their living room, Katya cooking for everyone, the table stacked with hearty and filling winter recipes like ginger and peach pudding, spiced sweet potatoes, apple pancakes and baked chickpeas.

“They’re amazing!” Trixie smiled, shoving another forkful down, the salt and the syrup perfect together.

“Awh thanks sugar butt,” Katya pressed a kiss against his cheek, which made Kim produce a retching noise.

“Take it to the bedroom you two!” Kim threw her napkin at them, which made Shangela snort and Ivy giggle.

“Be careful what you wish for Kimmie,” Pearl drawled, a stack of apple pancakes largely untouched on her plate, “because you really don’t want them to take it to the bedroom.”

“Everyone,” Max rolled his eyes, even though he was still smiling and Trixie snorted, a sense of pride welling up in his chest at Pearl’s words.

Sure, he and Katya had a tendency to be loud, but how could he not when Katya was the hottest woman alive, her innovation, commands and demands in the bedroom so fun and rewarding to follow.

“Actually,” Katya sat up straight, Trixie mourning the loss of her heat for a moment, until he recognized the serious expression on her beautiful face. “Trixie and I have an announcement.”

Everyone grew quiet, all watching them as Katya stood up.

“I’m pregnant...and we’re keeping it.”

At once, the table erupted in cheers, Ivy hopping up off the chair she was sitting on to go hug Katya, while Pearl made a beeline for the kitchen, yelling over her shoulder that she was getting the champagne.

“Congratulations!” Violet smiled, her hands clasped together. “That’s amazing!”

“It is,” Trixie smiled, warm happiness filling his entire body as he watched Katya laugh, Shangela joining in on the hug.

“Mama! I can’t believe you're gonna be a Mama!” Shangela grinned, holding Katya’s elbow and shaking her. “I thought you were completely set on never having kiddos?”

“I thought I was, but-” Katya looked at Trixie, their eyes meeting across the table. “It happened and, I mean. What’s the worst case scenario? That we fuck up and they become a serial killer?”

“Shit, that would be fucked up,” Kim snorted, her eyes widening. “Not that killer isn’t a cool name.”

“Now that’d be something!” Pearl grinned, returning to the living room with a bottle of champagne and several glasses, the stems between her fingers. She bent down, pressing her cheek against Katya’s stomach. “Hi Killer! We can’t wait to meet you!”

“Pearl!” Trixie swatted his best friend's shoulder, but Katya was laughing, holding Pearl’s head and pressing it against her stomach, and while Trixie seriously hoped his child wouldn’t become a serial killer, he had to admit that it was a little bit funny.

“Seriously,” Shangela looked around. “All y’all need Jesus. Stat.”

***

“Courtney,” Tyra said, rapping on the glass jewelry case to get her attention. “Courtney…”

“Court!” Morgan cut in sharply, and at that she finally looked up.

“You ready to take a break?” Tyra asked. “There’s a pho place right around the corner that we could try.”

“Oh, uh...yeah, just give me a couple of minutes.”

Tyra exchanged a put-upon look with Morgan, who returned her look with an exaggerated eye roll. When they’d suggested meeting up, neither of them were anticipating following Courtney around as she scoured antique stores to find the perfect Christmas present for Bianca.

She’d already found a huge book of 1960s fashion photography, as well as a vintage Hermes scarf, but apparently that wasn’t enough for her precious girlfriend. And worse, she’d been talking about nothing except Bianca all afternoon.

Tyra didn’t care if Courtney was gay or bi or whatever, but this slavish devotion to her brand new relationship was extremely tedious, and it made Tyra long for the days when Courtney would date men whose names she forgot three days later.

“Ooh, look at these!” Courtney exclaimed, pointing to a pair of earrings. “Aren’t they beautiful?!”

“Nice,” Morgan said, barely looking up from her phone.

They were nice. As annoyed as Tyra was, she had to admit that. They looked like brass, cut into art deco shapes and adorned with garnets, exactly the right style for Bianca, at least from what Tyra could tell from seeing her on TV.

“Excuse me,” Courtney asked the sales clerk, “How much are these earrings here? I can’t see the price tag.”

The clerk took a key and opened the case, pulling out the earrings to examine the price tag before declaring, “$279.”

Morgan whistled softly under her breath and the clerk raised one eyebrow, just barely but enough to be noticed.

“Shall I ring them up for you?” he asked drily, clearly expecting her to say no, already moving to put the earrings back into the case.

“Um…” Courtney bit her lip, fingertips resting on the edge of the glass.

“Court, you’re not seriously gonna spend that much are you?” Tyra asked, appalled. She’d seen Courtney’s apartment. That girl did not have a damn penny to spare.

“Yeah, she knows you’re poor, there’s no way she’s expecting some expensive gift,” Morgan added.

“No, I know, but…” Courtney squared her shoulders and looked at the sales clerk, saying, “I’ll take them.”

Tyra looked at Morgan behind her back, scandalized, shaking her head. Morgan smothered a laugh with her hand and gave a little shrug as if to say, ‘It’s her credit card debt.’

***

Pearl was back at the club again. At 4 pm on a Sunday. Which was totally normal, right?

Right.

She sighed slightly, swirling the whiskey in her glass, unable to hear the clink of ice cubes over the pounding bass. She should definitely leave, she knew that, and told herself that she would… She wasn’t going to say that she was obsessed, wasn’t going to give in to the fact that she couldn’t stop thinking about Dahlia, but she was leaning on the side of pathetic, and if there was one thing Pearl Liaison didn’t do, it was pathetic.

She probably had to rethink that though, as she handed one of the managers 200 dollars in cash, the man taking her to a small enclosed room, a heavy red curtain blocking out the rest of the club.

Her stripper alias was “Sin,” which was both absurdly simple and painfully fitting, Pearl drawn to her dangerous beauty like a spell, hungry for even the smallest taste of her.

Pearl tapped her fingers against her thigh, her lip between her teeth, when she heard a voice come from the doorway.

“Well well well,” Dahlia smirked, pushing the curtain aside.  “Look who’s back.”

Pearl felt her heart skip a beat as Dahlia gave her a slow once-over, her bedroom eyes even sexier when she was so close. Today’s outfit was a sinful (fitting) red set, a garter belt digging into Dahlia’s soft tan skin.

“Mmmh.” Pearl tried to keep her face blank and expressionless, tried desperately to hang onto the last bit of control, but she couldn’t stop her heart from speeding up as Dahlia made her way across the room, her palms getting sweaty as she swayed her hips to the music.

“So,” Dahlia smiled, swinging a leg over Pearl’s lap. “You know the rules right?”

She smelled like peaches, and Pearl had to dig her fingers into the velvet of the couch she was sitting on.

“No touching,” Dahlia reminded her, full lips twisted into a smirk.

“I’ve never been a fan of rules.”

“Good thing that isn’t up to you then,” Dahlia sat down, and Pearl had to bite back a groan as she took her weight, the woman an insane tease. “Promise me that you’ll be good?” Dahlia tilted her head, her lips slightly separated, “or I promise you that a bouncer will kick your ass to the curb.”

“Shit, right, right.” Pearl nodded, and Dahlia grinned.

“Good girl.”

Pearl swallowed. Dahlia reached out, grabbing a remote from behind Pearl, a small speaker inside their room powering up, and Pearl was in heaven as she began to move.

To call it a dance would be generous, but Pearl didn’t care. She was mesmerized by her curves, watching her with rapt attention as she swayed her hips, bent down to slowly unhook the garters, leaving them dangling. Dahlia was sin personified, her bra holding her perfect tits in place, the promise of hard nipples just underneath the lace.

Dahlia turned around, and Pearl knew instantly that she worked out, her ass round and firm, the kind of deliciousness that only came from discipline and hard work. A quick motion and her bra was now unhooked. She let the straps slide off her shoulders, finally dropping the bra on the ground.

“Turn around,” Pearl whined, unable to help herself, and Dahlia looked back over her shoulder, dark eyes flashing with amusement.

“You really want it, huh?” she asked, and Pearl nodded vigorously.

“Uh huh.”

Dahlia turned back slowly, hands demurely covering her chest, lashes fluttering.

“Please…”

She kneeled on the couch, straddling Pearl’s thighs before removing her hands, arching up forward to display her glorious tits, brown nipples hard and so, so close.

Pearl bit back a whimper, and Dahlia began to roll her hips slowly, inching closer and closer until her perfect mouth was right up against Pearl’s ear.

“What are you thinking about, baby?”

“How much I hate rules,” slipped out of Pearl’s mouth before she thought better of it, and Dahlia laughed.

“Poor thing...” Dahlia clucked, taking Pearl’s hand from the arm of the sofa and inching it towards her body. First her thigh, skating her fingertips higher and higher up her beautiful tan skin, flashing the naughtiest smile as she got closer to her lace, barely-there panties.

Pearl’s chest heaved, and Dahlia laughed, right in her face, redirecting her hand higher and higher, palm very nearly brushing against one of her pert nipples, finally letting it rest on her bare shoulder as Dahlia ran her own fingers teasingly across Pearl’s.

She arched forward again, those incredible tits grazing Pearl’s own chest. Pearl squirmed painfully on the sofa as Dahlia body-rolled against her, not daring to move her hand from where it was placed, fingers digging into the smooth skin.

She was close, could feel herself on the edge, and orgasm so close just from this, and then suddenly the song had ended, and Dahlia hopped up off her lap, re-clipping her garters, picking up her bra from the floor.

Pearl tried one last hail Mary, hoarsely saying, “Give me your number.”

Dahlia laughed, shaking her head. “No way. This...this is business.” She gestured to the room around them. “That would be...not. And anyway, what would your girlfriend say?”

“She-” Pearl swallowed. “We broke up.”

“Do you think I’m stupid?”

“We did!” Pearl sputtered. “It’s true.”

“Yeah, well, even so...you do know I’m her friend, right?” Dahlia asked pointedly.

“Well…”

“Exactly,” Dahlia said, shaking her head again. “You’re asking for trouble.”

“I want to see you again,” Pearl said.

“You can see me anytime,” she said sweetly, adding pointedly, “As long as you bring cash,” before leaving, shutting the curtain behind her.

Pearl let her head drop back against the sofa, a deep sigh leaving her. Fuck.

***

“So,” Trixie tried not to tap his fingers or look at himself as he watched his computer screen, Skype pulled up.

Trixie didn’t like doing job interviews, the process tedious and draining each and every time, living up to Fame’s expectations and wishes difficult on a good day.

Interviews, however, were especially draining when it happened digitally, trying to act natural hard enough on its own when on screen, but as the manager and department head, it was his responsibility to feel out potential hires, to figure out if they’d fit with his team or not, but he had a decent feeling with this one.

“Are you interested?”

“Fuck yes!”

Trixie had to hide a grin, Aurora practically beaming through the screen. She was very pretty with tan skin, white blonde hair and full brows, the striped shirt she was wearing fashionable and fun.

Aurora had an impressive portfolio, her references were decent, and most importantly, she seemed like someone Fame could be impressed with if given time and guidance.

“Oh fuck-” Aurora grimaced, the enthusiasm gone for a second before she recovered, trying to play it cool. “I mean yes. Yes I’d love that.”

“Great.” This time, Trixie couldn’t hold back the laugh, Aurora probably fitting right into his department if she could keep the attitude in check.

“Our legal department will take care of your visa,” Trixie jotted down that he’d have to talk to Rita, work permits always a massive pain in the ass, “but you’re starting January 10 either way, and hopefully you won’t have to work remotely for long.”

[kingburu]

[FIC] Birb Funeral

Someone asked me a long time ago what would happen if in the Dearly Departed universe (where Jason is a Son of Hades and Nico is a Son of Jupiter, and everyone is conveniently where I wanted to place them) what would happen if Bianca ended up in Camp Jupiter and Nico ended up in Camp Halfblood. I wrote this a while back for funsies and probably won’t expand, but take an au of an au!

tl;dr: Godswap AU where Jason is a Son of Hades, Nico is a Son of Zeus, and they grew up as childhood friends!

A storm hits first. In twelve-year-old Jason’s ten years at Camp Halfblood, he’s never seen anything as abrasive and harsh as the dark clouds that consumes all winter sunlight, dimming the heavens as though he’s staring at his father’s domain itself. Thunder and lightning boom like a commandeering force, and the rain rattles against the magical barrier around Camp Halfblood, like pelting against hollow tin, but falls on campgrounds like a soft shower.

It rains for three days straight, weakening Hestia’s hearth, cancelling Capture the Flag, and irritating all of the Apollo Cabin, who grow antsy without the sun. Jason is nonplussed by the storm, comforted by the additional shadows that linger—but he’s never quite liked the silence it forced in Cabin Eleven. The silence that used to be comforting, but now hurts as he has to look at the empty bed—the one that reminds him his own chest feels empty, too.

 On the third day, the eagles appear.

 Jason’s already awake, inspecting the other demigods without cabins of their own as he hears the righteous call of three bald eagles flying through the forest. Other campers wake to their squawk, if not the thunderous storm as it seems to boom louder and demand their attention.

 Then, a little boy appears through the forest, sopping wet and looking meager and small as he wobbles through the trees, with a nest of dark hair and bright blue eyes that reminds Jason of the days before the storm. He’s dressed in a ratty pair of jeans, caked in monster blood and—other blood, that immediately worries Jason—and a bright shirt with a lotus symbol on it. The eagles cry out again, encircling the little boy, and flank to either side of him like royal guards.

 Jason jumps as those blue eyes scan their small crowd—widening as they make contact with Chiron—but then turns to him.

 One of the eagles nudges the little boy, who stumbles forward.

 “This,” the little boy says curiously, “is Camp Halfbird, right?”

Halfbird, Jason thinks, puzzled, and he swears he sees both eagles puff their chests out with pride. He doesn’t get to contemplate long—of all the people that are surrounding this little boy, those blue eyes are fixated on him, waiting for an answer. “It’s actually Camp Halfblood—but, yeah, welcome.”

 “Oh,” the little boy says, and his shoulders heave. “Finally.”

 And he collapses forward. There’s a cry in surprise—and out of reflex, Jason steps forward and catches him. His eyes trail over to the may stains on this boy’s shirt—the monster blood, the human blood—and he hears Lee Fletcher crying out for someone to get ambrosia, nectar, and all the works.

 “Wait,” Jason hears himself saying, and the older son of Apollo stares at him in disbelief.

 “Why would we wait, Grace?” Lee demands.

 Jason props the boy up on his arm, the nest of dark hair bobbing as they move. “Because he’s snoring.”

 *

 Upon carrying the little boy to the infirmary, they all discover their newest camper has a vice grip and refuses to let go of Jason. Beckendorf, a much older camper, tries once while Jason takes this boy who can’t be older than nine or ten, and Jason’s head almost comes off with it. They stop trying when they hear a little sob. Jason thinks he hears a name—Bianca?—and confines himself to carry the boy to one of the cots.

 Jason has to rock on his feet and stand to the tips of his toes—and practically falls over as he sets the boy down, arms still bound around him, but eventually manages to wriggle out of the grip. He stares at the boy, puzzled, as this new demigod just rolls into a ball, expression unseen.

 The eagles caw outside—and from the window, Jason sees them soar past the window, evidently deciding to remain close.

 “Jace,” Lee says, which startles him, “why don’t you get him some new clothes?”

 Lee’s already washed his hands, rubber gloves on, and is picking up an arm to inspect this boy. He wrinkles his nose as his hand stains with mud.

 “Oh—okay,” Jason says—and he stays just long enough for Lee’s apprentice and little brother, Will, pull a twig out of dark hair.

 Jason sprints to the Big House. On his way back to the infirmary, he watches as both eagles spread their wings and shriek, glowering at him. Jason cringes, staring at them with hesitation.

 The door opens, and Will pokes his head out curiously. He stares up at the rooftop and mimics Jason’s expression. “You think they’re going to stay long?”

 “Hard to say,” Jason mumbles uncomfortably. He takes a thoughtful step towards the infirmary and the eagles make another sound of displeasure. A loud moan comes from the infirmary—childish and feeble, and the eagles suddenly cock their heads to that instead. Jason takes the distraction to climb the porch steps and sighs with relief. “Guess it depends on how long this kid wants to stay.”

 Will pats his shoulder sympathetically. “We’ll find an animal that likes you eventually.”

 *

 New campers, of course, fall under the jurisdiction of Cabin Eleven, and Connor and Travis insist that this new kid already imprinted on Jason, despite not being the head counselor. Jason knows that this kid is recovering from whatever journey brought him to Long Island and the last thing he needs is to be at the mercy of the Stoll Brothers’ pranks, so he halfheartedly agrees.

 The storm subsides pretty quickly after the kid arrives, and business seems to resume as usual. People are already placing bets on what cabin this kid belongs to—if he belongs to any cabin, and Jason tries very hard not to hope that this kid belongs in the cabin that the eagles and the obnoxious storm suggest.

 He spends most of the time in the infirmary, passing on his sword-training classes to Clarisse—and the boy wakes up just long enough to be spoonfed ambrosia and change into a clean shirt and pants. Every day, they find at least one twig in his hair while they’re not looking. He doesn’t speak very much at first—eventually Will and Lee decide to just let Jason handle this kid on his own to tend to other campers who are at the mercy of Clarisse’s sword training.

 On the third day of this kid’s arrival, Jason walks up the porch of the med bay and the eagles squawk angrily, per usual. Jason opens the door and notices the kid perk at his arrival, in contrast to the screaming eagles.

 “You feeling any better?” Jason asks.

 The blue eyes stare at him carefully, then nod. He squints thoughtfully at Jason, then speaks for the first time since arriving during the storm the other day. “They keep screaming death when you walk by.”

 Jason blinks. “They?”

 The boy gestures to the roof. “Lark and Sparrow.”

 Blond eyebrows furrow together. “Who?”

 “Lark and Sparrow,” the boy repeats.

 It takes a moment, but Jason’s eyebrows raise, puzzled. “You mean the eagles?”

 “Yeah.” The boy nods, then pauses. “They had an older sister—Cloud, but—well, she…” The boy’s eyes moisten and his gaze falls to his hands sadly. “She didn’t make it.”

 Oh. Jason doesn’t quite consider it a superpower, but he can pick up on the tone of a mourning soul, even if it’s for an eagle. Lark and Sparrow, the eagles (Jason doesn’t think he’ll ever get his mind wrapped around that) clearly love this little boy very much. Unfortunately, no one at camp speaks bird, and they’ve gone almost a week now not knowing this boy’s story—even if he wants to tell it.

 Jason retrieves a stool, setting aside the ambrosia sundae. “Do you…want to tell me about Cloud?”

 The boy raises his head curiously, evidently surprised to be encouraged, and then nods. “Cloud was their leader. She’s the one that found me first in—in the accident. And then she promised me that the four of them would get to camp. She—” His voice cracks. “—she couldn’t keep that promise.”

 Jason flashes a look of concern. After a few meals of ambrosia and clean clothes, the boy looks better, but feeling better is another story entirely.

 “Lark’s a good listener though, I think she makes Sparrow feel better,” the boy continues.

 The edge of Jason’s lip curls.

 “What?” the boy asks, and he blinks.

 “Nothing—I’m glad they got you here safe. I’m sure Cloud is proud,” Jason reassures. He reaches for the ambrosia sundae and at this point, the boy knows it’s for him. “I’ve never met birds that were named after other birds.”

 The boy shrugs nonchalantly. “Names are names. Did you know that Hades named his dog Spot?”

 Jason makes a face, watching as this boy pluck a cherry off the sundae and plop it in his mouth. Of all the deities the boy could have chosen (before they checked to see if he actually understands what’s going on—the death of Cloud the Eagle seems to suggest he does.) “I’ve—actually never thought about it that way.”

 “It just sounds cooler because it’s Greek,” the boy says. “Like your name. Otherwise, people would be walking around calling you Healer.”

 “I’m. Sorry, what?”

 “Your name,” the boy repeats, and it’s impossible not to stare at the bits of whipped cream at the corner of his lip. “Jason.”

 “You know my name,” Jason says slowly, on eyebrow arched in the air. This boy has been silent for the last two days, taking in his environment with wide, curious eyes. Jason had seen the boy’s mouth drop when Grover had come to check on him.

 The boy’s cheeks flush, and he quickly nods. “I heard the other two say it.”

 The other two, the boy said. Not Lee and Will. Jason blinks once again. “You know my name and you know the meaning behind my name.”

 “It was in the Argonaut Expansion pack,” the boy continues. “The trivia in the wrapper.”

 Much like Lark and Sparrow, Jason tries to connect the dots in his head. “You mean Mythomagic?”

 The sundae falls from the boy’s hands, and to Jason’s surprise, those blue eyes suddenly glitter with excitement. “You know Mythomagic? Do you play? Do you have a favorite character?”

 He’s vibrating in his seat, and Jason actually leans back to keep ice cream from falling on him. Jason reaches over and dabs the melted ice cream with a tissue. “I’ve dabbled. You’ll see some of the other kids playing Mythomagic here. It helps them understand our world better. Our—hey. So. Do you…understand how you got here? What’s going on?”

 The boy stares at him, puzzled, evidently confused.

 “So you and I—this entire camp,” Jason says slowly, “we’re halfbloods.”

 “Halfbirds?”

 “Halfbloods,” Jason corrects. “Demigods. It means that we’re half human, half—”

 “Half god,” the boy finishes with an excited whisper. His eyes glitter again. “Like Mythomagic.”

 “Yeah, exactly like Mythomagic—”

 “Oh my god,” the boy says again—and the way he vibrates in the bed would make Jason think he was never healing in the first place. “My dad was a god? Oh my dad!”

 Jason stares at the boy in surprise. For a kid that had emerged from the forest covered in blood and spoils, this is the quickest he’s ever seen a demigod recover from learning about their parentage. This kid is acting just like he sounds—a kid—and is now grinning from ear-to-ear.

 “Who’s your parent? Apollo? Aphrodite?” The boy claps his hand on the mattress, then leans close to Jason with a gasp. “It’s Thanatos, isn’t it? That’s why Lark and Sparrow keep screaming death!”

 “Um, Hades, actually—” Jason peels the ice cream sundae away from the bed before it can spill, unable to hide his surprise. Most people didn’t list gods outside the main twelve, let alone mention his dad’s lieutenant of all people. He expects the boy to gulp and shirk away at first—like other kids did when they realized they were suddenly standing with the child of the King of the Dead, but the boy’s hand fall and he stares at Jason with even more fascination.

 “He has 4000 attack power,” the boy whispers in amazement. “5000 if someone else attacks first.”

 Jason blinks, yet again confounded by this boy’s enthusiasm. “Yeah—I think I heard that. You’re not…scared?”

 The boy doesn’t hear him. Instead, he’s mumbling again, evidently still stuck on Jason’s parentage with utter amazement. He falls silent, then looks back up to Jason with hopeful eyes. “Can we hold a funeral for Cloud?”

 This time, Jason’s lips fold into the familiar shape, aching almost, into the first smile that he’s had in a long time. “Is that what you want?”

 The boy nods up and down. “A funeral for Lark and Sparrow’s sister, and maybe a funeral for my—” The boy cuts himself off, the excitement suddenly waning. Jason can see it in the boy’s expression, something hitting him like a freight train, and it looks more solemn and more mournful than it did for Cloud.

 Oh. This boy has seen death recently—and not just for the sister of someone else.

 Jason reaches out and places a hand on the boy’s shoulder. Blue eyes look back up to him, sadder than the bouncing boy from before.

 “We’ll give Cloud a Grecian funeral, just like in Mythomagic,” Jason says quietly. At the M word, the boy cocks his head back up, eyebrows furrowed. “And another for whoever else needs one. Whenever you’re ready.”

 The boy sniffles, his eyes swelling with tears once more.

 “Whenever you’re ready,” Jason repeats.

 “Okay.” To his surprise, the boy throws his arms around Jason like the first day, vice grip and all.

 Jason hesitates—but then folds his arms around the other boy, patting sympathetically as he hears the sniffles grow louder.

 *

 After Will and Lee give the okay, Jason plans a funeral in the woods for Cloud the Eagle—which quickly goes awry from the Grecian traditions that he had planned when Nico explains Lark and Sparrow’s constructive notes. Two of the notes include burying part of their sister “like humans do”—with things that she held dear. Nico whips a feather out of his hair, insistent that it came from the late bird, and explains that Cloud’s favorite items included bird seed and bottle caps.

 Thus, Jason instructs Nico to fill a lunch box with bird seed and bottle caps (there’s a small intermission where Jason watches Nico lecture Lark and Sparrow about eating their sister’s afterlife food) before placing the eagle feather gingerly on top, then listens to Nico and the birds deliver a eulogy for their fallen comrade.

 Grover plays the reedpipes as they lower the lunch box into the ground, and daffodils sprout over the mound. He’s touched, of course, that someone would care enough to want to hold a funeral for an animal of nature.

 “Will Charon accept bird seeds?” Nico asks worriedly.

 Jason doesn’t miss the way Grover suddenly squawks on the reed pipes, evidently amused by the question. He places a hand on Nico’s shoulder, not missing the way that Nico inches closer into his bubble. “Um, animals are out of Charon’s jurisdiction.”

 Nico frowns, clearly upset.

 “They usually get reincarnated. Sometimes as plants, or as new animals,” Grover explains. Jason has to hold back a sigh of relief—he doesn’t know how much more he can talk about death, but Grover is charmed enough. He gestures to the eagles. “Maybe a lark. Or a sparrow. Or—”

 “Or a raven?” Nico asks.

 Grover nods sagely, flashing a look that Jason has always received growing up. Then he ruffles Nico’s hair. “You sure know your birds, Nico.”

 Nico shrugs, the worry about Cloud not reaching the Underworld dissipating. Then, he notices what Jason has been wary of since the young demigod’s arrival. Nico gestures to Lark and Sparrow, who’d given Jason the stink eye since arriving at camp. “Why don’t they like you? They keep calling you the Deathbringer.”

 Jason cringes, and he notices Grover do it too. “Yeah—well, animals aren’t fond of me. They sense death.”

 Another frown curls against Nico’s lips, and the next look that the flashes his birds causes them to behave and stand erect. “But you just helped them bury their sister.”

 “Yeah, tell them that,” Grover mutters, and he nudges Jason affectionately.

 “I am,” Nico assures, and he climbs to his feet. The eagles squawk nervously—and then Nico turns around, his blue eyes fully on Jason. “And you’re so cool.”

 Grover spills into a grin, and Jason’s eyebrows raise in confusion. He can hardly call spending the afternoon filling a lunch box with bird seed and fending off grouchy birds cool. “You think I’m cool?”

 Unabashed, this boy stares at Jason with the same intrigue as he did when Jason started comparing Mythomagic to their lives. “The coolest.”

 Red flourishes in Jason’s cheeks, and Grover is elbowing him again. Before he can open his mouth, Nico turns to his pet eagles, hands on his hips like a doting mother.

 “If you two can’t respect Jason for holding a funeral for Cloud,” Nico says in his best parenting tone, “then scram.”

 Both birds make a sound, evidently shocked, but Nico places a hand in front of him, halting their speech.

 “No,” Nico says, “I’ll be okay here. Please go home.”

 Jason watches in utter disbelief as both birds pick themselves up, glaring at him, before flying away.

 Grover pats him on the shoulder. “You don’t want to know what they said.”

 Nico falls to his knees again and pets the daffodils over Cloud’s makeshift grave. His eyebrows furrow together, evidently troubled at the departure of their friends, but seems set on his decision.

 When he gets over his stupor, Jason clears his throat and walks up behind Nico, finally able to get close to this little grave that he helped make without prying eagle eyes. He kneels to the ground and pats a hand on the boy’s shoulder. “Let’s get you settled in at Cabin Eleven.”

[axwalker]

Tears in heaven 7: Grief

Synopsis: Alexis O’Brien is about to get married but memories of her old life are coming back to haunt her.

Pairings: Liam x MC Drake x MC (TRR)

Warnings:   This is an 18+ blog.

IN THIS CHAPTER: CAR ACCIDENT, DEATH OF A CHILD, GRIEVING PARENTS.

 if you’re triggered by any of these issues, PLEASE DO NOT READ THIS STORY

To catch up: Masterlist

A/N: The story will go back and forth between two different periods of time (2015-2019) 

Disclaimer: All characters belong to Pixelberry.

Songs inspiration: Tears in heaven by Eric Clapton

Thanks to @burnsoslow for so so so much. Not only she corrected my several English mistakes but she helped me with her feedback, and with Alexis’s letter and the horrible phone call she receives.I LOVE YOU  ❤️

Thank you @pedudley for beta reading, for ALL the feedback and for listening to my incessant whining while I was writing this chapter. I LOVE YOU  ❤️

November 2014 – November 2018

That Saturday had started like many others before. Drake woke up early to the sight of Alexis’s soft, bare skin next to him. He leaned over to pepper her back with lusty kisses. They were going to be apart the whole weekend, and Drake wanted to show his beautiful wife just how much he was going to miss her. Alexis woke up smiling and enjoying the jolts of pleasure that his ministrations always produced. Unfortunately, they both heard the voice calling them from the next room, suddenly interrupting their morning plans. Drake chuckled, resigned, as Alexis put on his Rolling Stones T-shirt. Twenty seconds later, Drake brought a sleepy Tom to the room with a book in his hands.

“C’mere, little man.” Drake placed him next to Alexis in their bed. Tom snuggled against his mother and gave her his favorite book as he did every Saturday morning. “I’ll go make us breakfast, Lexie,” he said and left for the kitchen after placing soft kisses on Tom’s and Alexis’ heads.

“Let’s see what you have this morning, Peanut.” She read the title out loud: “The Very Hungry Caterpillar. You really like this one, don’t you, hon?”

Tom nodded vigorously.  Alexis giggled and started reading as her son ran his little fingers over the drawings of the book.

When their reading was over, Alexis took Tom to his room. She went to the drawers to pick out his clothes.

“So, Shrek or Cars, Peanut?” she asked as she pulled out two different T-shirts from the top drawer.

“Shek!” Tom yelled excited.

“‘Shek’ it is, then,” she said, winking at him.

After a few minutes of chasing Tom around the room because he refused to wear his pants, they came down to the kitchen.

Drake chuckled at the sight of Tom wearing his green Shrek T-shirt with yellow pants and the cowboy boots Bianca had sent from Texas. His mother didn’t even know Tom. Those boots were the only gift she had sent him in three years, but Tom loved them.

“Bold choice of outfit, little man. Uncle Max will be proud.”

Alexis giggled. “He refused to wear anything else,” she said, placing Tom in his chair. “I can believe I have to work on a Saturday. I’m going to miss you two so much.” She pouted.

Drake was going with Tom to Ramsford for Savannah’s birthday. Alexis had gotten a job as the assistant to a renowned literary agent. She loved it, but it meant that she had to leave with her boss for the weekend to Portavira’s Book Fair.

Drake cupped her face before speaking. “You’re killing me with that sad little face. The weekend will be over before you know it. Tomorrow night we will be here waiting here for you, and we’ll have dinner ready. Do you want to cook with Dad, Peanut?”

Tom clapped with the spoon still in his hand, splashing strawberry yogurt all over the kitchen. “We make cake for Mommy!”

She took a kitchen towel and cleaned the mess, smiling at Tom’s vitality. “Well, if a delicious chocolate cake will be here waiting for me, I’ll be very motivated to come back as fast as possible.”

“I hope you’ll be motivated by more than cake, Lexie,” Drake said teasingly as he served them the food; he had prepared his Saturday special: Belgian waffles with Nutella and fresh bananas.

Alexis gave him a sultry kiss and whispered in his ear, “Finishing what you started this morning is definitely motivation number one.”  

Drake blushed. God, she loved him so much it hurt. “You look cute blushing, Mr. Walker.”

He chuckled. “I love you, Mrs. Walker.”

They ate and talked until Alexis’s phone beeped with a message. “Fuck, Drake! It’s Charlie; her car is picking me up in less than 10 minutes.”

Drake smirked. “A dollar in the jar, baby. And I’d like to remind you that you’re losing,” he added smugly.

Alexis stuck her tongue out at him, making Tom laugh. She took a bill out of her wallet and put it in the jar they had placed in the kitchen. They were both trying to stop swearing in front of Tom. Surprisingly enough, Drake was much better at it than she was.

After fetching her bag and coat, she sat on her husband’s lap, looping her arms around his neck. “I have to go -- please take care of our baby. I’m going to miss you two like crazy.”

He gave her a small peck on her nose. “Me too, Lexie, and don’t worry. We’ll see each other tomorrow night. Right, little man? Are you ready to have an adventure with your dad?”

“Yes, an aventure!” Tom exclaimed, beaming and making his parents laugh.

After saying goodbye to Drake with a deep kiss, Alexis took Tom out of his chair and bounced him around, making him giggle. “You behave, Peanut. I will be thinking about you,” she said, rubbing his stomach. “I love you so, so much, my baby.”

Tom placed his small hands on her face. “Me too, Mommy.” Her heart tugged when she put her little boy back in his chair. She was having more trouble than usual saying goodbye.

Drake smiled at the scene. He scooped Tom up into his arms, and they went to the door to wave Alexis goodbye as her car drove away.

Alexis worked hard that day; Charlie was a great but demanding boss. That night, she went to bed with The Goldfinch, Donna Tart’s latest novel. Tart was one of her favorite authors, but she was unable to focus on the story. Alexis finally closed the book and unplugged her phone. Scrolling through The Cordonian Times News website, she saw that a huge storm was about to hit Ramsford. She decided to call Drake.

“Hi, baby. How was the Fair?” he asked.

“Great! You know Charlie. She’s a shark. Three new writers will be signing their contracts next week.” She toyed with her ring before adding, “I just saw that it was rainy as hell in Ramsford.”

“Yeah, the storm is pretty shitty, but I’m a good driver, Lexie. Don’t worry.”

“Are you sure you don’t want to stay at Ramsford tonight? It’s safer. Please?” she insisted.

“Yes, I’m sure. But please don’t worry, baby. I’ll be careful,” he answered, smiling. She worried too much about them.

Alexis knew better than to insist; Drake was even more stubborn than her. “Fine. Is our Peanut having fun? Did you take pictures?”

“Yes, lots of pictures. I’ll send them when we hang up. He’s napping now, but Max and Liam played with him all afternoon. I swear, I don’t know which of the three of them was having more fun.” Alexis giggled, making Drake terribly nostalgic. “I miss you so much, baby. I can’t wait to see you tomorrow.”

Alexis looked at the picture of them that she kept in her wallet. “Me too, Drake. And I’m glad that Tom is having so much fun. Tell him I love him with all my heart. I’m sorry he’s napping; I was hoping to talk to him.” She sighed, before adding, with a hint of worry in her voice, “Drake, please be careful. Don’t leave Ramsford if it’s raining too much.”

“Don’t worry, I’ll call you when we get there. I love you like crazy, Lexie.”  

“I love you like crazy too, Drake. I can’t wait to see you tomorrow.” Both of them hung up the phone smiling.

Drake looked out the window. The storm had calmed down, but it was still raining. He decided to leave anyway; he was a good driver, and the cabin wasn’t far from Ramsford.

He secured Tom in his car seat and left.

They had been on the road for half an hour when Drake took a sharp curve. It happened in a matter of seconds: The wet road caused the Jeep’s tires to slide; Drake reacted fast and was able to regain control of his car.

But the car behind Drake’s didn’t react so quickly. The gray sedan crashed into Drake’s Jeep on the right side ... where Tom was sleeping.

Alexis had fallen asleep with her phone in her hand. She woke up and checked the time: 11:30.

That was weird; Drake should have called her by now. Alexis called Drake, but it went straight to voicemail.

An uneasy feeling took over. She called Savannah, who told her that Drake had left Ramsford around 9:30. She suggested that maybe they had arrived at the cabin and fallen asleep. Alexis thanked her and hung up. She knew Drake by heart -- he would never go to sleep without calling her first. She opened a bottle of water trying to calm herself. She was surely overreacting.

Suddenly, her phone rang, startling her: an unknown number. Alexis took a sharp breath before answering the call that would change her life.

“Hello?”

“Good evening. Am I speaking with Alexis Walker?”

“Yes, this is she.” Ice settled in her stomach.

“Mrs. Walker, this is Lynn from Ramsford Hospital. Your husband and son were involved in a car accident tonight. Are you able to come right now?”

Alexis couldn’t speak, couldn’t breathe. “Hello?” She swallowed. “Yes. I’ll be there. Are -- are they safe?” “Your little boy is in surgery. Your husband is being checked by a doctor. We’ll have more information when you arrive, Mrs. Walker.”

“Th-thank you.”

But the woman had already hung up.

Charlie insisted that Alexis take her car and driver. Alexis accepted and left immediately.  The questions and uncertainty were killing her. During the torturous four-hour drive, she didn’t stop bargaining. If they’re okay, I will never complain again. I promise, God, I’ll never take them for granted. If you let them live, I’ll come to church every Sunday. Every day. I swear. Please, God, just let them be fine. Please, I beg you.

Alexis arrived at Ramsford Hospital around 4:00. She had practically jumped out of the car and run to the reception desk. She saw Maxwell and Liam sitting in the waiting room.

“Where are they? How are they?” Alexis realized how hysterical she sounded, but she didn’t care.

“Blossom! Thank God you’re here! Drake is fine; he suffered a small concussion and some bruises, but he’ll be fine.”

Alexis nodded, terrified of asking about Tom. Maxwell took a sharp breath before speaking. “Tom has been in surgery for a few hours ... the doctor will come out with an update soon.”

She nodded again, feeling a sudden need to see Drake. “Take me to Drake, Max. Please. I need to make sure he’s fine.”

Drake was sitting on a bed in the ER with Savannah. His eyes were red and puffy. He had scratches and bruises all over his face and arms, and a doctor had patched up his head with a bandage.

Alexis ran to him, intensely relieved to confirm that he was okay. Drake stood up and hugged her tightly, his eyes tearing up again. Alexis had never seen her usually-confident husband in such a state of desperation. It scared her to death.

“I’m sorry, baby. I’m so sorry. He has been in surgery for hours.” His voice broke. “They won’t tell me what’s going on!”

Drake wrapped his arms around her; she sobbed against his chest for a long time, waiting for the doctor to come. After a few more hours, the surgeon and a young nurse entered the ER. Drake was facing the door, so he saw them before her. His heart stopped.

The doctor’s expression told him everything he needed to know.

Drake held Alexis tighter, trying to shield her with his arms for a few more seconds from the pain they were about to experience.

The doctor cleared his throat. Alexis turned her head, trembling, unable to breathe. He took his cap off and held it in his hand.

“I’m very sorry. We did everything we could, but-”

Alexis shook her head. “No, no, no, no!” She didn’t realize she was screaming. “Don’t say it! No! It's a mistake.” She turned to Drake, crying hysterically. “Drake, please tell me that Tom is ok. Please, my love. I beg you.”

Drake held her, but he was shaking himself; he felt his heart actually breaking. “I’m sorry, baby. I’m so sorry,” he said, crying. He was trying to calm Alexis, but his words had the opposite effect. She bawled desperately. Her heart seemed to pound even faster, even harder. She tried taking a deep breath to calm herself, but her breaths were sharp and shallow. Her vision got darker and narrower.  She heard Drake’s panicked voice as if he was talking to her from a long distance. She barely felt a nurse injecting a sedative into her arm … and then everything went dark.

Alexis woke up, and for a few seconds she didn’t remember. But when she opened her eyes, the sight of the fluorescent light in the ceiling brought everything back. Her heart broke all over again as it would break so many times in the future. Drake was sitting on a chair next to her. He hadn’t slept all night as his eyes stared at his phone, looking at Tom’s last pictures. He heard Alexis moving on the bed, so he went to sit next to her and took her in his arms. She hid in his chest and cried again while he soothed her, rubbing her face with his fingers. Alexis couldn’t believe that she would never see her little boy again. It simply couldn’t be true.

“I want to see him.” Her voice was trembling.

“They were waiting for you before … before taking him. Let’s go.” He helped her out of bed and called a nurse who took them to see Tom one last time.  

Those last moments with their son were the saddest moments of Alexis’ and Drake’s lives. Alexis refused to let go of him until a nurse gave her another sedative.

Alexis spent the first four weeks after Tom’s death sedated. She went to his funeral, but she wasn’t really present. Drake took care of everything with Savannah's and Liam’s help. After the ceremony, she went back to bed and lay there for hours staring at the ceiling. The pills had the side effect of making her feel empty and numb, but at least the pain in her heart was silent. Drake fed her and took care of her during that time.

After Tom’s death, nothing seemed to matter anymore. Drake’s emotions were a mix of sorrow, emptiness and desperation. The “what if”s were going to make him crazy with guilt. He tried to use alcohol to drown his shame and grief, but it didn’t work. Nothing worked.

Five weeks after Tom’s death, Alexis heard a noise in the middle of the night. She got out of bed and found Drake crying in Tom’s room. Her heart tugged seeing him so broken. She sat on the floor next to him and hugged him. They held each other for hours, crying for their son.

From that day on, Alexis started to get out of bed. She stopped taking the sedatives and promised herself that she would try to fight for herself and Drake. It worked for a couple of days, but soon the mere effort of waking up in the morning was exhausting. Everything was exhausting. Alexis did it anyway. She’d wake up, take a shower and go to Tom’s room. She only meant to spend a couple of hours there, but once she went inside, she wasn’t able to leave. And more often than not, the whole day passed with her crying there, incapable of doing anything else.

Drake was destroyed too. Tom had been the light of his life. Sometimes he felt like a sunken ship.  

During the second month after his death, they shared some afternoons where they’d cuddled against each other in front of the fire without speaking, just trying to cope with the deep pain. Those few stolen moments were Drake’s and Alexis’ solace. But they were unable to really communicate, to speak of the bubbling feelings beneath the surface.

Without the pills, Alexis’ mind wasn’t foggy anymore. She felt a deep, breaking pain in her heart and a colossal rage circulating through her veins. At first, her bitterness was directed at God, at life, at fate. But soon, Alexis started to be angry at Drake, too. She tried with all her heart to stop those feelings, but she couldn’t. Drake had chosen to drive in the middle of the storm, after she had asked him to stay in Ramsford. And that had cost her son his life.

Alexis didn’t want to hurt him or to add to his guilt, so she started to avoid him as much as possible. It didn’t work. Drake’s way to cope with his own grief was to take care of her. He truly believed that their love would be enough to keep them together, and for a fleeting moment, Alexis had believed it too.

The rage that Alexis felt for him began as a small spark, but it had soon turned into a burning fire that scared her. She was distant and cold and did everything she could to drive him away.

Drake tried his best to make her feel better. He had even suggested visiting a counselor or joining a grief group. The same Drake Walker who hated to share or talk about his feelings was willing to do it for her. They went once, and it was a disaster. Drake had tried to share a memory of Tom, but the words simply didn’t come out. Alexis had brooded and scowled the whole time.

Alexis felt like she was going to explode with all the emotions she was feeling. She became rude, evasive. She ended up moving into the guest room. Drake was desperate; he tried to make her understand that he loved her, that he needed her.

It was the three-month anniversary of Tom’s death. After yet another sleepless night, she went to Tom’s room. She lay in his tiny bed and cried all day. Drake tried to comfort her, to hold her. But she had chased him away, more haunted than ever by his brown eyes. That night, she had come down to the living room and saw Drake drinking. Alexis sat next to him and poured herself a big glass of whiskey. She gulped it, poured herself another one and gulped it, too.

“I can’t do this anymore, Drake.” Alexis was crying wholeheartedly.

Drake sighed as he looked at her. She had lost 10 pounds and looked tired, pale, extremely depressed. It was the first time since they had met that he didn’t dare take her into his arms. “We need to get help, Lexie.”

Alexis scoffed, “Do you mean like that amazing support group you signed us for?”

For three months, Drake had tried to be supportive and patient. But he felt lost and tired;he didn’t know what to do anymore.

He gulped his tumbler of whiskey before he answered, “I’m doing what I can to help you, Lexie. But you won’t let me. I want us to fight this together.”

Alexis balled her fists. All the feelings that had been accumulating for the last months were threatening to explode.

“I don’t need anyone’s help.” She felt like burning inside. “Especially not yours.”

“What the fuck is that supposed to mean, Alexis?” Drake stood up next to her.  

When she finally answered, her voice was trembling with fury. “Why?”

“What do you mean?” Drake asked, puzzled.

Alexis’s eyes filled with tears. “Why did you have to come back that night? Why couldn’t you listen to me? I told you it was raining, I told you it wasn’t safe.” Something dark and dangerous had taken over her, and she couldn’t stop. “But no. You always have to be right, so you couldn’t do what I asked. And now he’s dead. MY SON IS DEAD because you’re too fucking stubborn.”

Drake raised his voice, too. “OUR son, Alexis. TOM was OUR son. I miss him just as much as you do. Stop acting like you’re the only one who lost him.” He sighed to calm himself. He raised a hand to touch Alexis’ face, but she dodged it. “You have no fucking idea how it feels when I try to get close to you and you reject me every goddamn time.”

Alexis tried to wipe her tears with the back of her hand. She answered, furious, “Can’t you understand that looking at you fucking hurts? Every time I see your eyes, I see him. And it’s driving me crazy. It breaks my heart every single time.” She took a swig of whiskey to calm herself, but it didn’t help. “You can’t help me; you’re actually hurting me.”

“You don’t know what you’re saying. You’re drunk,” Drake stated, pointing at her glass.

“Yes, I am drunk. But that doesn’t change the fact that it hurts so fucking badly, Drake. Why? Why did you do it?” She shoved him.

“Stop!” He grabbed her wrists. He couldn’t believe what she was implying. “Stop it, Alexis!”

She was bawling, agitated. She wanted to take the weight of her emotions off her chest, so she yelled at him without thinking. “You killed him! You killed our son, and I will never be able to forget that.” As soon as she said it, she regretted it. But it was too late.

Everything went silent for a few seconds. Drake’s mouth went dry. His heart stopped. Every time her eyes darted when she looked at him, or every time she flinched when he touched her, he wondered if she blamed him for the accident. But until that moment, he had refused to actually believe it.

Letting go of her wrists, he grabbed the bottle of whiskey and his glass. He spoke with a gravelly voice. “You’re drunk, I’m drunk. We’ll talk in the morning.”

Alexis swallowed her tears so she could talk. “No, Drake. I’m very sorry for what I just said. You have no idea how much, but I can’t do this anymore. I’ll be gone in the morning.”

“You don’t know what you’re saying. We’ll talk tomorrow.” Drake went up the stairs. The weight of her words oppressed him. He lay down on the bed and tried to drink his pain away.

Alexis stood in the middle of the living room hating herself for hurting him. She didn’t want to feel so angry at him, but the rage was stronger than her. She curled up on the couch and cried for a long time -- for her son, for the horrible pain of missing him so much. And for Drake, for the man she loved so desperately but was unable to forgive. Alexis needed to leave, to flee from their house, from the grief. She prepared a small bag with some clothes she had in the guest room. Before leaving, she went to their room where Drake was sleeping heavily after finishing the bottle of whiskey. Crying again, her heart broken, she kissed his forehead and muttered a sad good-bye. She took off her wedding rings and set them on the nightstand. Drake needed to understand that she wasn’t going to come back for a while.

When she arrived at Maxwell’s loft, she took her old sedatives from her bag. Now that Alexis was away from Drake, she didn’t need to fight anymore. She was exhausted from pretending that she wanted to be alive. So she took two pills with a glass of water and finally fell asleep.

For almost two days, thanks to the sedatives, Alexis didn’t do much besides sleeping and waking in a fog to drink a bit of water. She was exhausted after all the sleepless nights she had had since her son had died. Maxwell checked up on her regularly, but he let her rest. On the third day, he entered her room with a steaming cup of coffee.

“Here, Blossom.”

Alexis grabbed the cup and took a sip. “Thank you, Max.” Her eyes teared up.

Maxwell sat next to her and put his arm around her shoulder. “What happened with Drake, Blossom?” he asked, concerned.

“It was my fault. I’m so angry all the time, Max.” She wrapped her arms around herself. “I tried not to be -- I really did -- but that night, something snapped. I said horrible things to him. And the worst part is that I love him so much, but I can’t stop feeling like that.” Her lip quivered. “I didn’t want to hurt him like I did. I swear, Max. He looked so broken.” The memory made her cry again.

“Calm down, Blossom. You need to talk to him. Even if it’s a painful conversation, you need to talk. Drake has called several times since yesterday; he’s worried about you. I’ll take you back to the cabin.”

Alexis was utterly confused. She didn’t know if their relationship could be saved. She didn’t know if she would be able to overcome her bitterness. But she still loved him with everything in her, and she owed it to Drake and herself to at least try.

“Thanks, Max. I’ll take a shower and then we can leave.”

When Alexis arrived at their cabin, everything was silent. With a huge lump in her throat, she went upstairs. Drake was gone. He had taken some clothes, photos, and her wedding rings. Alexis sat in their bed and cried for everything she had lost. The next day, she left the cabin and rented a small studio with her savings. After that day, her grief became more and more difficult to bear.

Drake woke up the morning after the fight feeling dead inside. His desperation only got deeper when he discovered that Alexis had disappeared, leaving her wedding rings on the nightstand. Drake spent all morning trying desperately to find her, until Maxwell finally answered his phone and told him that Alexis was at his house, that she needed time.

During those two days, Drake called Alexis several times, but every time, Maxwell told him that she was sleeping. Drake knew that it was a lie; Alexis barely slept more than a few hours a night. He thought about going to Max’s loft but dismissed the idea. It was pointless to force her.

Her words replayed in his head over and over again. Looking at you fucking hurts. It breaks my heart every single time. You’re actually hurting me. You killed my son. Drake felt the weight of his guilt crushing him

Forty-eight hours later, Alexis hadn’t contacted him or answered his calls. With her wedding rings wrapped in his hand, Drake realized that it was time to accept that she had really left him. He couldn’t stay there. He was going to die if he had to keep living alone in the cabin where they had been so fucking happy. Alexis was everywhere. Tom was everywhere. The next day, he tried to call her one last time, but she didn’t answer. Drake didn’t insist anymore. He left for Spain, destroyed. Before getting on the plane, he called Liam to ask him to take care of Alexis; Drake knew his best friend wouldn’t fail him.

After three hellish months in Andalucía, Olivia had called him to tell him how desperately depressed Alexis was. Drake immediately tried to fly back to Cordonia to be with her, but he had only found tickets for the next morning. That single night changed everything. Drake had been arrested and sent to prison. He asked Bastien and Savannah to keep his secret because he didn’t want to worry Alexis or distract Liam from helping her.

Drake felt desperate knowing that he couldn’t help her himself. Savannah and Bastien visited him often, but no matter how much he insisted, they never talked about Alexis. Drake sensed that they were hiding something, but it wasn’t until his release that his sister had told him the truth: Alexis had been committed to a clinic after she had tried to kill herself.

Drake didn’t lose any time and jumped on the first plane back to Cordonia to be with her. Sick with worry, Drake didn’t even go to his house to leave his bag; he had gone from the airport directly to the clinic.

When Drake had seen Liam at the hospital, he was relieved to confirm that his best friend had kept his promise; Alexis hadn’t been alone. Liam had known nothing about his stay in prison, so Drake wasn’t surprised at his best friend’s cold reception. The only thing that mattered to Drake at that moment was Alexis. Seeing her again had been the only thing that had kept him alive.

Drake would never forgive himself for all those months that Alexis had been forced to fight her depression alone, without him there to help her. If she gave him another chance, Drake would spend the rest of his life showing her how much he regretted it, how much he loved her.

Liam had asked him to come back the next day. Apparently, Alexis needed time to get used to the idea of seeing him again. Drake accepted willingly. He was desperate to see Alexis, but her recovery was the absolute priority.

But the next day, things didn’t go as he had hoped.

“You left a broken woman, Drake. She has been in hell, depressed and missing you for months. You have no right to come back and burst into her life, now that she’s finally doing better.” Liam cleared his throat. “She told me she doesn’t want to see you anymore. I’d say I’m sorry, but frankly, I agree with her decision,” Liam said, taking an envelope from his jacket and giving it to him. “This is the letter she wrote to you before she tried to kill herself. I didn’t read it, but I know she was desperate. Seeing you again will trigger her and probably set her recovery back months.  If you still want to see her after you read this, call me, and I’ll talk to her. But for Alexis’ sake, I really hope you won’t insist anymore.”

Drake sat on a bench and opened the letter.

Drake, my love,

Before anything else, I beg you to forgive me. For all of it: blaming you. The words I said. This.

I blamed you for the accident and I drove you away.

It was never your fault. I knew that all along.

And now? I have nothing. There is nothing without him. I have walked through the last seven months in a fog of desperation, and I can’t do it anymore.  

I don't even want to try.

Please move on. Live your life. Be strong the way I cannot be.

It is what he would have wanted.

I have always loved you, with everything in me.

Your Lexie

Drake sat on the park bench and read her letter several times. It was devastating. Picturing her grief, her pain, in his mind was hard enough. But having to face it, having to read firsthand how broken the love of his life had been, was more than Drake could handle.

In spite of what Alexis said in her letter, Drake knew that Tom’s death was his fault. He was also aware that Liam was lying. Drake was sure that Alexis didn’t know that he was looking for her. But Liam was right; after all she had suffered, nothing was worth jeopardizing her recovery for -- least of all him. Drake hadn’t even gone back to his cabin that night. He went to the cemetery first to visit his son’s grave. Then he left directly for the airport, headed back to Spain.

His first year back in Andalucía had been a nightmare. Until then, Drake had stupidly clung to the idea of seeing Alexis again. She had been his motivation to stop drinking, to get help from the prison counselor. Her face was the last thing he saw before falling asleep every night. After all that hope, Drake had a rough time accepting that he had lost her forever.

For a few months, Drake went back to his old bad behaviors and heavy drinking. But one night, reading her letter for the hundredth time, he realized that Alexis was right. Tom would have wanted him to move on. Drake couldn’t continue to hide behind his grief anymore. He suddenly felt the urge to fight for himself. Little by little, he tried to get better. He couldn’t practice as a veterinarian in Spain, so he took a job in a stable training horses and moved out of Bastien’s house into his own apartment. And most importantly, he stopped day drinking.

Drake knew himself; he was never going to love another woman as he loved Alexis. Some nights, he’d go out, meet a beautiful woman, and they’d have fun together, but it never went further than a good night and breakfast.

One afternoon, he met Yolanda at the stables; she was a veterinarian too. Yola, as her friends called her, was a short brunette with pretty green eyes and a wide smile.

Something about her made him think of Alexis. Yolanda wasn’t as sunny as his Lexie, but she was beautiful, funny and smart. Like Alexis, she seemed to love life, and that was contagious. They dated for a few months, but Drake soon realized that he was only trying to replace Alexis with Yolanda, and that wasn’t fair to her. He ended the relationship before her feelings became too strong and resumed his life of endless one-night stands.

Drake’s life was finally back on track when he had received the news of Alexis and Liam’s engagement. It had been a complete shock. In the past, Drake had suspected that Liam was in love with his wife, but he would never have imagined that Liam’s feelings were reciprocated. Drake was well aware that Alexis had every right to rebuild her life, to fall in love. He knew that it was his own fault that Alexis hadn’t even tried to call him and give him the news herself, but the rage was still there. During the weeks that followed, Drake couldn’t avoid the horrible jealousy that was threatening to eat him up. He kept picturing them together and it drove him mad. Until one day, talking to Savannah, he realized that it was time to let Alexis go.

For three years he had lived as an exile in Andalucía so Alexis wouldn’t have to see him again. But she was clearly over him now. Maybe it was time to come back. Drake missed Savannah and Bartie, his country and his veterinary career. So he decided to stop fleeing. He wanted to see Alexis again and make sure she was all right. After that, they’d sign the divorce papers, and he would finally be able to move on with his life.

However, when he saw Alexis again, all of his good resolutions went out the window. Drake had felt angry and jealous seeing Liam’s diamond ring on her finger. In the weeks that followed that encounter, Drake had felt unstable and confused … until the last day at the coffeehouse.

April 2019

Alexis left the coffeehouse frustrated and angry at herself. She couldn’t believe that Drake’s touch was still capable of making her feel that nervous. She got in her car and started the engine. After all that time and the tears that she had shed trying to forget about him, she had finally done it. And she was not going to go down that path, not ever again. To love someone as passionately and as intensely as she had loved Drake wasn’t right or healthy. It was painful and heartbreaking. His departure had nearly killed her. Alexis was aware that Drake had left because of the hideous things she had told him, but she still had waited for him for years, convinced that their love for each other would make him come back. But it didn’t. And now, she was happy again. Liam made her happy. He was sweet, kind and smart. A great lover. He accepted her shortcomings, her traumas. Alexis couldn’t ask for more. She refused to let Drake disturb her life. Whatever feelings she was having for him again, was surely due to their lack of closure. The only thing that should matter to her now was her engagement to Liam. They were going to get married in a month. Liam deserved nothing less than her fidelity and devotion.

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

Drake was shaken after his encounter with Alexis at the coffeehouse. Even hours later, he could still feel her skin on the tip of his fingers. He sat with a whiskey in his hand, thinking about her reaction. As stupid as it seemed, he was sure that Alexis had felt the same powerful electricity that he did. They still shared their old chemistry, even when they had fought at Savannah’s party; it had been heated, passionate. He savored the malty liquid burning his throat as he thought about how gorgeous she was. For the first time since he had seen her again, Drake allowed himself to freely think about her -- her beautiful dark eyes, her soft features, the way she flicked her hair. The old sparkle of her eyes was still there; it was hidden behind a shadow of sadness, but it was still there. That afternoon, Drake had had to actively stop himself from kissing her.

There was no point in lying to himself any longer; he was still desperately in love with Alexis, even more than before. Drake admired her new strength, her determination to fight in spite of the pain. He missed her sarcasm, her sense of humor, the way she always put him in his place. He was as captivated by her mix of sweet vulnerability and intense fire as he had been 10 years before. God he had missed her so fucking much all those years. Drake was destined to love Alexis for the rest of his life.

However, the last thing he wanted to do was to disturb her life. So Drake made a decision. If Alexis was truly happy with Liam and her new life, as much as it killed him, he would sign the divorce papers and leave her alone. Even if that meant that he’d have to spend his life loving her from a distance. But if he discovered that she still loved him too but was too scared to admit it -- if there was a chance that he could still save his marriage -- Drake wasn’t going to leave without fighting for her.

PERMATAG:  @ac27dj @twinkle-320​ @kimmiedoo5​ @marshmallowsandfire​ @loveellamae​ @burnsoslow​ @mskaneko​ @pedudley​ @lauzales​ @pug-bitch​

TEARS N HEAVEN: @ao719​ @yukinagato2012​ @kingliam2019​ @forthebrokenheartedthings​ @texaskitten30​ @cordonia-gothqueen​ @bebepac​ @nomadics-stuff​ @hopefulmoonobject​ @cordonianroyalty​ @msjr0119​

[jjba-hell]

Rock Bottom

Day 2 and the Prompt we going for was- Insecurity. And lemme just say I went ham on this one. Sorry for anyone who read my unedited version a few hours ago, my tumblr cue time is weird af... 

This is a bit of a mash up between backstory and insecurity but definitely ANGSTY AF! Really now, good luck.

There are ALLOT of trigger warnings so much, I dare say it’s rated. Drug use, pregnancy, postnatal complications (and death), ABUSE (emotional, physical, verbal, familial), prostitution (mention)...I probably missed allot but this one is intense. 

Gonna tag @a-nonnie-mousse (’cause you a sweetie) and @lasquadraweek2020 for this one and also @risottoneroo​ (though if Mel’s not your cup of tea, I’m so sorry but we mutuals now so sowwy UwU) 

2,4 K words- good luck ʅ（◞‿◟）ʃ

Looking at the mirror one morning Melone couldn’t help but breath a heavy sigh. March 22nd held a painful memory to him- which was why he was due at the graveyard at 9 for a personal meeting. Risotto had been kind enough to allow it but not without warning.

“Don’t get caught.” Was all he said.

“Yeah, like I’d allow another fuck up.” He scoffed as he tied his hair back to get ready. As if he hadn’t heard enough of that in his life. Gazing back at himself mirror- tired and defeated he recalled a younger version of himself doing and thinking the same thing a few years ago- looking back at the mirror and feeling the same way he did at that moment. It had happened after another fight with his mother.

“Stefan.” His mother hissed as she angrily loomed over his shoulder. “What’s this?” She tossed the physics pop quiz on the table in front of him- feeling panic set in his spine, wanting to jump out of his chair and hurdle his way out of her grasp. He had thrown that piece of paper away- he could have sworn he did. Right now, of course, he was wishing he had burned it instead.

“Nothing, mama.”

“Nothing is it? Because it looks like a C- to me.”

He swallowed, hoping she was a too tired to fight him today. “Most of the class-“

“I don’t-“she grabbed hold of the hair on top of his head and shoved his head down onto the table. “-CARE ABOUT HOW MOST OF THE CLASS DID! That is going on your report card!”

He kept his head down, nose bleeding into the algebra homework he was working on below him. Picking up his head now would only make her hurt him more. “Mama, it was a mock test.”

“So, this is how little you know. Did you cheat your way through your grades your whole life?”

He didn’t say anything, knowing there was no point in arguing with her when she was like this. 

Melone grew up in a household most people would find bizarre but he never labelled it abuse. Not until his university sweetheart held his hand and asked him. “Why do you apologize for everything you do?”

It wasn’t hard to figure out once he sat down and considered it instead of shoving the question aside in favour of a taking a bit of ecstasy and a willing side piece- a bad habit he had picked up after he left the hellish hole he called home.

“You’re just as stupid as your father.”

“You’re just as spineless as your mother.”

Two phrases interchanged by two people who didn’t love each other in the slightest and him in the middle of it all- wondering why nothing he did was ever enough.

Melone shook off the memory as he splashed his face with the warm water from the tap, only to end up being caught up in his own reflection again, by the gaze of his heterochromatic eyes- the mask he wore on the lay job forgotten on his bedside table. He had had many of his one night stands tell him he was gorgeous with the one blue and one green eye but he had spent enough of his childhood being told by his father what a freak it made him. 

He gazed back at his own bed, surprisingly devoid of the previous night’s endeavour. So, he pulled the sheets off and remade the bed, thinking on how badly he wished he wasn’t sober- numbing away the grief he was feeling with a little white pill and the pleasure of being praised between the sheets. 

The weather forecast called for a cold chill and some scattered showers, how fitting for the proper black coat and suit he left the apartment in. He got into the car with Ghiacchio without another word beside a simple greeting, not wanting to anger the blue-haired man beside him- he didn’t quiet feel up to the banter, or perhaps arguments was a better word, he shared with Ghiacchio.

The scenery melded from cityscape to countryside- reminding him of the first time he went to this graveyard. At the time, tragedy has struck his life like lightning and was burning down everything he had dared to hope for- the person waiting for him at the church connected to the graveyard was all hope he had left to save Bianca.

The life of the mafia was never really one he was completely ignorant of- the contraband he used to take like sugar pills was just one of the ways he already had his foot in the door- although at the time he simply deemed himself as paying for a product from a lackey. When he cleaned up his act for Bianca he thought he’d never have to delve that dark again. The straight and narrow path didn’t last long though and soon he came to realize that he had been surrounded by crime his whole life, only waiting to be inevitably swallowed by it. 

Ghiacchio pulled up a few blocks short of the graveyard gates and Melone handed him a wad of cash as payment. “That’s generous.” Ghiacchio commented but Melone didn’t answer. He simply got up and thanked him again. He would walk the rest of the way- which wasn’t far.

Melone bought a handful of Marigolds from the flower vendor on his way and continued to move through the gates- meandering through as he racked his brain as to where they were buried. It wasn’t so much that he didn’t care, it just hurt too much to think about often enough to remember. When he eventually found the white marble mausoleum he stepped in and found the two plaques on the wall where he inserted the flowers into their designated holdings. Bianca Regio and Vita Regio. 

Six years ago, shortly after he graduated his first-year medical school, he had gotten some news from his girlfriend Bianca- she was pregnant with his baby. He supposed normal students would have seen their whole lives doomed but the joy he felt overwhelmed his worry surrounding finances to take care of the child. It was most definitely not his plan, but he didn’t care. He felt so hopeful for the kid’s sake- a prospect he looked back at and cringed at his own desperation to give something he never had. He and his girlfriend loved each other. Even thinking on that phrase made his heart ache. She loved him. He loved her. They were going to start a loving family together. He could give them what he never had. It only occurred to him later on how contradicting that was but at the time, ignorance was bliss.

It didn’t last long of course- six months after Bianca told him she went into premature labour and then shortly after got a blood clot in her portal vein. Vita was born 3 months too early and was already in intensive care within hours of her birth and Bianca was getting weaker by the minute. The panic and desperation set into Melone the second she was moved into the ICU with no prospect of getting better.  Despite severing ties with his parents Melone knew where his bread was buttered. A broke medical student couldn’t wish to pay the medical bills Bianca was tallying up in the hospital.  He didn’t even think twice to call his father and admit his defeat. 

What his father told him would have shocked anyone else in this world- to hear your father say. “The capo that runs this town is at the church in Venicio- confession ends in an hour.” It suddenly made sense how his father could always afford the expensive cars or the expensive furniture in their home despite being a lowly state attorney while his mother worked as his assistant.

Melone took a cab as close as close to the church as he dared- true to his father warning-and ran to the find the man who could help him.

“Signore, I beg you. My love and our child are in danger.” He had begged as he dropped to his knees in front of the man. “I sell myself to you, my future, my life. It’s all yours if you would just lend me for the medical bills now.” 

The capo ran a hand over Melone’s tear-streaked face, pinching his chin between his thumb and forefinger. Melone was made to gaze up at him. The stern, unreadable expression made him tense up in fear of accidentally disrespecting him. But the capo turned Melone’s head as if to observe him. “I’ll consider it.” He grumbled as he reached into his suit pocket and pulled out a thick wad of cash which Melone took in disbelief. “I expect you at Libechio’s tomorrow afternoon, sharp.”

And with that, he moved past Melone.

He didn’t regret it, he never would. It only hurt that at face value it was in vain. The money spoke louder than his begging ever would and as it turned out- whatever treatment they gave Bianca allowed her to be moved back into a regular hospital room. He spoke to Bianca the very morning he was due at Libeccio’s- feeling hopeful that she’d recover. Even the capo took pity on him, saying he’d have handed him to a pimp that day if it weren’t for the news of Bianca’s position. At the time, Melone had no idea what the capo had meant- not truly. He thought the capo had learned more about him- about Biacna’s pre-term labour and her sudden illness but he understands now that they are usually not that giving.

Instead, Melone got an alternative deal. Melone would finish his medical studies full term on the capo’s good graces to fulfill the need for a medic in the mafia before he would be officially initiated.  since he lost Lucy and their unborn child in the same night.

The expensive treatment Melone had paid for gave Melome a solid two days before he had to give a painful, final goodbye to both Bianca and his daughter. The baby’s heartbeat was lost two hours prior to Bianca’s death. He had begged, pleaded for her to hold on just a bit longer but with tear-rimmed he said his final goodbye, grasping onto her like she was his lifeline. He didn’t let go of her until they escorted him out of the room- by then her hand had lost all its warmth.

Outside of the hospital he came face to face with Bianca’s family- having to explain to her parents what had happened to her. Standing in front of them was probably the heaviest thing he had been forced to do. Suddenly all the insecurities his parents ever made him believe were proved right. He wasn’t enough to take care of Bianca. He wasn’t enough to take care of Vita. He wasn’t enough to take care of himself. He wasn’t smart enough to have come up with a plan without his father’s help. He wasn’t smart enough to understand that he’d never be able to live the life he so desperately craved. 

After that he had to go home and clear away all her books and research she had left on his desk, the plans he had for the nursery, the applications for a home loan and eventually even the ring he wanted to propose to her with was pawned- anything to try and rid himself of any reminder of his failure. To forget the pain of losing all he had hoped for in one night.

“Stefan.” A voice called beside him.

“Mrs Regio.” He turned to Bianca’s mother who held a bundle of flowers in her hand. “You look well.”

“As do you, Mrs Regio.” He didn’t say anything else, simply handing over the envelope of cash he owed her family. 

Bianca and Melone turned out to have more in common than they truly knew. Bianca ran away from home when she found out her parents were involved in organized crime and Melone ran away only to find out his family did the same. Because the money Melone borrowed from the capo went towards Bianca’s treatment- it was her parents who let her slip away from their care and they therefor had to take on the debt Melone had made. He refused to let Bianca’s parents think lowly of him so that brought him here, paying off a year’s worth of debt every year he met with Mrs Regio. 

He turned to look at Bianca’s plaque one more, praying that she could forgive him for failing her and continuing to fail her as he continued to live as he did. His sobriety was thrown out the window the day he came home from her funeral. He kept up his promise of finishing his degree on whatever he felt like using until he had to be initiated- then he had to sober up just enough to do his job in the mafia. 

BabyFace came to be and so did his most lecherous self- which made eventually stop seeing victims and mothers as people but as faceless bodies. But when he woke up after a high of a kill all he could ask was: 

Was that all he was worth? Was that what his soul was made of? An intense hunger for still wanting to find the perfect mother, be a perfect father and create the perfect baby? Now thriving on make others understand how it feels to be deconstructed until they’re nothing- just as he had for so many years? Was this trauma always going to taunt him? Was he always going to be reminded of his insecurity within himself?

At first the stand seemed useless until he tried using his stand on a mission to take out a bastard who was behind on rent money. It was then that he realized it was better for murder than it was at helping him achieve the dream that haunted him.

“It wasn’t your fault, Stefan. You did more than we could.” 

“Not enough.”

The two stepped out of the mausoleum, closing the door behind them. “You’re a good man, Stefan.” Was the last thing Bianca’s mother told him before turning and walking away. 

Melone shook his head as he started walking back to the entrance of the graveyard.

“I never was, Mrs Regio.”

The second he got back into the car with Ghiacchio, he popped a pill and asked to wait a few minutes so he could take a smoke break and call an old friend of his…

“Yeah I don’t care who, just make sure she’s not new.”

[pikapeppa]

Felassan/f!Lavellan: Special

Chapter 15 of The Love That Grows From Violence (Felassan x Tamaris Lavellan) is up on AO3!

In which I make use of a favourite trope shut up I don’t overuse this: sparring-to-sex. Well, almost sex.

~6500 words; read on AO3 instead. 

********************

Felassan sighed as he cut a slice of breakfast casserole for Tamaris. “Does it usually rain this much in Kirkwall?”

“You asked me that yesterday,” she reminded him.

He made a little grimace. “I did, didn’t I? Fenedhis, I’m getting boring, talking about the rain.” He placed a steaming piece of casserole on her plate and started cutting one for himself, and she eyed him sympathetically. 

It had been pouring rain for the past three days straight, with little reprieve. Even when the rain lessened to a drizzle rather than a sheeting downpour, it hadn’t been light enough for them to eat their meals on the roof or even smoke a joint, and Felassan seemed to be having a hard time with the weather-imposed indoors time. 

“You’re not boring, you’re bored,” she said. “There’s a big difference.” She took a bite of her breakfast. The casserole he’d made was like a savoury bread pudding, packed with roasted mushrooms and sausage and seasoned with rosemary, and as always with Felassan’s cooking, she savoured the melding of flavours on her tongue before swallowing. 

Felassan chuckled. “I appreciate the sentiment, but I’m not bored. How could I be bored with such charming company?”

She rolled her eyes in amusement. “Okay, not bored, then. You’re having cabin fever. We’ll spend the whole day on the roof as soon as the rain stops.”

“That’s a pleasant thought,” he said. “I wonder if I’m able yet to cast the spell that’ll protect us from sunburn?”

She looked up with interest. “There’s a spell for that?”

“There is, yes,” he said. “It’s a subtle kind of sustained barrier. There’s a similar one for repelling rain, as well.” He sat beside her and picked up his fork. “What I wouldn’t give to be able to cast that spell right now.”

He was smiling, but the way he was talking about the rain was starting to worry her. He had been acting more restless and fidgety as the rainy days went on, but she hadn’t realized that he felt this strongly about being cooped up indoors. 

“Do you want to practice that rain-repelling spell after breakfast instead of sparring with me?” she asked. 

“Absolutely not,” he said immediately. “And miss the chance to make you sweat? Never.”

She scoffed at his wicked smile. A provocative reply was sitting right at the tip of her tongue, and she debated with herself before finally deciding to say it. 

“There are other ways of making me sweat, you know,” she said.

His face lit up with interest. “I’m very well aware, avise. Are you offering to let me exercise some of them?”

She smirked and toyed idly with her fork. “Maybe,” she said. In truth, the past three days had been difficult for Tamaris as well, for different reasons. Felassan’s increasing impatience with the weather was translating into their carnal clinches in a way that she was finding especially arousing. His kisses were more urgent than usual and his fingers more eager as they explored her body through her clothes, and his breathing was more growly and desperate as it ghosted across her ear. It was making it harder for her to resist him, and yesterday she had very nearly begged him to fuck her while they were grinding together on the library floor. 

Yet somehow she’d resisted, keeping the desperate plea to herself instead of letting it loose. And late last night as she lay in bed, after bringing herself to a somewhat unsatisfying climax while thinking about Felassan’s blazing violet eyes, she started to realize why she, at least, was delaying the sex that they both so obviously wanted. 

The reason was this: Tamaris wasn’t good at words the way Felassan was. She was only just getting used to telling him the more sensitive parts of her past, and she still had a particularly hard time telling him how she felt about him, especially as her feelings continued to bloom in his warm and playful presence. He was just… 

There was just something about him that was so special. Tamaris had never had a companion she enjoyed spending this much time around. She liked her friends from the Inquisition, of course, and she had long grown accustomed to spending extended periods of time around each of them, but that didn’t mean she’d always enjoyed all the enforced togetherness. 

In contrast, she had always enjoyed being around Solas – when he wasn’t angry, at least. But to be bluntly honest, being with Solas had never been all that fun. Intellectually stimulating, yes. Physically stimulating, absolutely. But fun? Not particularly, or not often. Not that that was Solas’s fault by any means; Tamaris was hardly a barrel of laughs herself, and her relationship with Solas had always been more about shared understanding than shared laughter. 

But when Tamaris was with Felassan… 

No one made her laugh the way Felassan did. She’d never connected so quickly with anyone the way she had with Felassan. She’d never had anyone else that she so enjoyed just sitting around and talking with – just talking about everything and nothing, teasing each other and making stupid clever remarks. He was smart and sharp and thoughtful and funny, and… He was special. He was special to her — more special than she had the words or the courage to admit. 

So somewhere in her weird and wounded mind, Tamaris was starting to think that if she delayed the sex until the time was a little more… well, special than their usual post-training necking, then maybe he’d understand how she felt about him without her having to find the balls to say it. 

It was a convoluted idea, and she was of half a mind to just tell Felassan that this was why she hadn’t yet asked him to fuck her again. But that would involve telling him in detail how she felt, and she just… her heart still quailed at the thought of putting so much on the line just yet.  

Felassan was still smiling wickedly at her. She smiled back awkwardly and dropped her gaze to her plate. 

He chuckled and picked up his fork. “Well, anytime you want me to make you sweat, all you have to do is say the word.” 

She took another bite of her food and mumbled something indistinct, both grateful for his lack of pressure and annoyed at herself in equal measure. They spent the rest of the meal discussing Varric and Cassandra and the fact that Varric had written a sequel to Swords and Shields just for her, and by the time Tamaris was washing the dishes, Felassan had come to the conclusion that Varric and Cassandra were secretly in love and had simply failed to admit their feelings to each other. 

Tamaris shook her head. “No. It’s not possible.”

“Not possible?” Felassan said. “That’s a strong statement from someone who’s seen the range of bizarre things that you have.”

She snorted a laugh at this. “Okay, maybe not impossible, but really unlikely.”

He leaned against the counter beside her and folded his arms. “Explain.”

She rinsed a plate and propped it in the dish drainer. “Honestly, the main reason is that Varric is…” She paused before she could tell him about Varric and Bianca. For all that Varric was good at coaxing out people’s secrets, he was a very private person himself. It wasn’t Tamaris’s place to tell Felassan about his affair with Bianca. 

“He’s not interested in having a relationship,” she said finally.

“Because of Bianca?” Felassan said.

Tamaris’s jaw dropped. “How — how do you know about her?”

He grinned. “I don’t. Or I didn’t, until you just confirmed it now.”

She gaped at him. “Wha— but where — how did you know to ask about that?”

“The crossbow named Bianca,” Felassan said. “He mentions it in This Shit Is Weird. It had to be named after someone important.” He shrugged casually. “People don’t usually name their favoured weapons after random strangers, after all.”

Tamaris stared at him for another second, then closed her mouth and started washing another pan. Felassan titled his head curiously. “What’s the story there, then?” he asked. “Not unrequited love; that fades eventually with nothing to supply it. A wife who passed away, perhaps?”

Tamaris pursed her lips, and Felassan nodded. “Ah. Something that’s still ongoing, then. An affair that never petered out, probably. That would make a great deal of sense.” 

She smacked him with her soapy sponge. “Stop that! Stop being a spy at me!”

He flinched away from her sponge and laughed. “I can’t help it, avise. It’s in my nature. But if it makes you feel better, I’m not going to tell anyone.”

She scowled at his shit-eating grin, then went back to scrubbing the pan with more vigour. “Well, don’t go talking to Varric about it. He’ll think I told you.”

“My lips are sealed,” he said. “But really, there is immense potential for a relationship between Varric and Cassandra. She loves romance, he wrote her a romance novel, they exchange letters frequently…” He rubbed his chin thoughtfully. “You should invite her to come stay here. We could invite Varric over for dinner, then sit back and watch how things play out. It would be immensely entertaining.”

Tamaris couldn’t help it. She laughed. “You are not going to play matchmaker for Varric and Cassandra.”

“Why not?” he said with a grin. “You don’t think I could?”

She tsked. “That’s not the point,” she said. Then she turned to face him and propped one fist on her hip. “Look, what makes you think you’re such an expert on love, anyway?”

“I know a great deal about love,” he said complacently. “I’m a great observer of it, after all.”

She wrinkled her nose and started drying the dishes with a towel. “Are you telling me you’re a secret pervert who watches through people’s windows or something?”

He let out a lovely rolling laugh. “No, felasil’ain. I was a spy, remember, and a very good one. And secrets of the heart are the easiest to exploit.”

She went still at this. “What do you mean?”

“Some of the most important information a spy can collect is the bonds between people,” he said. “Who is married or partnered to whom, who is sleeping with whom, how people are related, who has children and who they have children with…” He shrugged and folded his arms once more. “If you know who a person loves, you know their greatest weaknesses.”

She stared at him. A cold sort of ache was stealing through her chest. “Is that really how you feel?”

“It’s not how I feel. It’s the simple truth,” he said. He raised an eyebrow. “Your spymaster must have told you this if she is worth her salt.”

“I mean, I guess she did,” Tamaris said blankly. “But that’s Leliana. She’s… terrifying in a quiet kind of way.”

He widened his eyes. “And I’m not? That hurts.”

She didn’t laugh. She stared at him in bemusement, and he gave her a little half-smile. “Go on, speak your mind. I can take it.”

She shook her head slightly. “I just… How are you not more cynical?”

He tilted his head. “What do you mean?”

She put the towel on the counter. “If you spent years and years exploiting people’s relationships as weaknesses, how are you so…” How are you so open to falling in love with me? she wondered, but she couldn’t quite get the words out. 

She didn’t need to, however; Felassan’s expression softened slightly, like he understood what she was trying to say. “Just because a relationship can be exploited doesn’t mean the relationship is unhealthy or tawdry,” he said. “Some of the most easily exploited bonds are the ones that are most true. No one is more easily manipulated than a person who truly loves another.” 

She stared at him, struck dumb by the cold brutality of his words. He gave her a half-smile and took over drying the dishes. “Try not to disdain me too much, avise. I’ve done many things in the service of a better world, and I don’t regret them. This is just one of many.”

She studied him for a moment longer, then suddenly hugged him around the waist.

He stiffened with surprise for a second, then carefully draped his arm around her. “What’s this for?” he said softly. “Not that I’m complaining.”

She swallowed hard. “I’m sorry you had to do that,” she mumbled. “That sounds… it sounds fucking awful.”

He squeezed her shoulder soothingly. “You have no need to feel sorry for me. Nothing I did as a spy for Fen’Harel was against my will. Against my better judgment at times, perhaps, but never against my will.” He shrugged. “Some things need to be burned down. Some of the most beautiful flowers are those that grow from the ashes that which has burnt away.”

She pressed her lips together. Her throat was thickening with tears for some reason, and she couldn’t decide whether they were for Felassan or for the world he’d lost, or for the simple fact that she could understand his point, horrible though it was.

She held him tightly for a moment longer, then abruptly released him and started to leave the kitchen. “I’ll be in the library. When you’re—”

He grabbed her hand and pulled her to a stop. “Tamaris.”

He was gazing at her very intensely, and she swallowed hard before speaking. “Yeah?”

“There are some things I would never exploit,” he said.

She frowned slightly. “What do you…” She trailed off with a jolt. He meant… did he mean her?

Her eyes widened. It hadn’t even occurred to her that he would try to use her feelings against her. “I know that,” she said. “I know you wouldn’t… I know.” 

“Do you?” he said quietly. But she knew what he really meant. Did she believe it? 

“Yes, I… I do,” she said. And to her great surprise, she actually did.

They stared at each other for a moment longer. Then Felassan smiled and released her hand. “I’ll see you in the library when I’m done with these,” he said.

Tamaris nodded, then went to the library and sat on the rug. For a minute she just sat there staring vacantly at the bookshelves, stunned by the fact that she hadn’t even thought of the possibility that Felassan would use her feelings for him as leverage. What did that mean, that she hadn’t thought of it? Did it mean she was being stupid and incautious by having feelings for him? If a master spy told her that love was a weakness, then she should probably listen, shouldn’t she?

Or did her lack of suspicion just mean that she was on her way to being cured of the wound that Solas had dealt her? 

A few minutes later, Felassan padded into the library with a smile. “Ready to fight?” 

She looked up, then nodded and rose to her feet. As always, they started with a little warm-up where both of them practiced casting some barriers, then moved onto Felassan throwing ice at Tamaris’s barriers to practice his attack strength. By the time they were warmed up and ready to really start sparring, Tamaris already had a light sheen of sweat along her hairline and the back of her neck.

She wiped her brow, and Felassan smiled. “I told you I would make you sweat.”

She wrinkled her nose at him. “I always sweat when we do this. Besides, you’re sweating too.” 

He shot her a roguish grin, then twisted his wrist and produced a small swirling cloud of ice that hovered over his palm. “Ready?” 

She nodded and pulled a practice dagger — also known as a golden dinner knife — from the back of her belt. “Go,” she said.

He flicked his wrist and threw the ice at her. She rolled toward him to dodge it and narrowly dodged another iceball, then brought the knife toward Felassan’s thigh. 

The knife glanced off of his barrier — a barrier he’d quickly raised a mere second before her strike. By the time she had the knife drawn back once more to strike, he had skipped a couple of meters away from her, and another ball of ice was glittering over his open palm. 

She exhaled sharply and cast a barrier, then rushed him at the same moment that he threw the ice. A second later, she was trying to push the knife toward his neck while his ice-encrusted hand gripped her wrist to hold her back.

She gritted her teeth and tried to withstand the cold, but it was too much; she finally gasped in pain and dropped the knife, and Felassan released his breath in a heavy sigh. “Are you all right?” he asked.

She nodded and idly rubbed her chilled wrist, then shot him a wry smile. “If I’d come at you with my left hand, you’d be a dead man.”

“Are you holding back on me, then?” he asked. “Come at me with that lovely metal hand. Don’t be shy.”

She shrugged and picked up the knife in her left hand. “Fine. Just remember you asked for it.” She twirled the knife over her metal fingers, then rushed him suddenly. 

Felassan lashed out with a sustained blast of ice, but Tamaris repelled it with her barrier and brought the knife toward his belly in a swift strike, and they both froze; her knife was pressed against his abs, but his frozen hand was wrapped around her throat.

She stopped breathing. Her eyes darted up to his face, and his frozen hand instantly warmed back to a normal temperature. But he didn’t let her go, and she didn’t step away.

“Did I hurt you?” he asked.

He sounded slightly breathless, and his chest was rising and falling heavily. She swallowed hard. “I’ll tell you if you hurt me,” she panted. “Otherwise, you can assume I’m fine.”

“Good,” he said. His thumb drifted slowly along the edge of her jaw.

A ripple of heat bloomed low in her belly, and she gasped. Then she stepped away from him. “Ready?” she breathed.

He smiled at her — a slow and rather predatory smile. “Always.”

She grinned at him, and they continued to spar for a while longer. They were quite well-matched, considering that they were both training outside of their comfort zones: Felassan would usually have shirked close-quarters combat, and Tamaris would usually have stuck to stealth tactics that would prevent her from being a target of magical attacks. As a consequence, their sparring sessions were both challenging and satisfying. Aside from the obvious benefit of getting Felassan to practice his magical control while Tamaris boosted her barriers, they were both practicing forms of combat that neither of them was particularly well-versed in, and Tamaris was certain that the practice would do them good in the future. 

Twenty minutes later, both of them were sweating and panting for breath, and Tamaris had bested Felassan just over half of the time. They took a brief break to drink some water, and Tamaris admired the sheen of sweat on Felassan’s collarbones and the notch at the base of his throat while he gulped down a goblet of water.

He lowered the goblet and looked at her, and a knowing smile turned up the corners of his lips. Before he could call her out for staring, she hastily spoke. “I think you should start practicing other kinds of attacks soon,” she said. “Fire or lightning.”

He raised his eyebrows. “You think that’s a good idea?”

“You have to do it eventually,” she reasoned. “If anything goes up in flames, you can just put it out with ice.”

His eyebrows creased. “I’m more concerned about injuring you inadvertently.”

She shrugged. “I can heal minor wounds, no problem. Besides, don’t you have that extra-potent royal elfroot salve for heavy-duty wounds and burns?”

He huffed in amusement. “I do, but that doesn’t mean I want to use it on you.”

She titled her head playfully. “You’re insulting me by assuming you’ll actually land a hit.”

He grinned at her, then shrugged and put the goblet down. “We can’t have that. Fine, you win. I’ll start practicing with the fire and lightning tomorrow. Are you ready to continue with the ice for now?” He pulled up the hem of his shirt to wipe the sweat from his face, and Tamaris openly stared at the cut lines of his abs. 

He dropped his shirt back into place, then tilted his head. “Tamaris,” he said drolly.

She snapped her eyes up to his face. “What?” she said defensively.

He sauntered toward her in an annoyingly confident way. “Irritable,” he remarked. “You must be horny.”

“You are,” she retorted, very cleverly. She pulled the dinner knife from her belt and twirled it over the fingers of her real hand. 

He chuckled and reached for her chin. Tamaris knocked his hand away with her prosthetic hand and brought the knife up toward his throat.

To her surprise, he swiftly brought his other hand up and blocked her strike, then grabbed her right wrist and pulled her closer. Caught off-guard and off-balance, she stumbled into his chest.

She braced her metal hand against his abs, and he stroked her chin with his thumb. “I never said I wasn’t,” he murmured. 

She stared up at him, breathless with desire and snared by the brilliant heat in his eyes. He smelled so good, like sleep and soap and the sweet masculine musk of sweat, and his lips were a breath away from hers, and… fuck, he wasn’t wrong. She was terribly horny. 

But they’d only been training for less than an hour. They usually went for at least two hours before taking a break to do… other things. Very reluctantly, she stepped away from him. “Come on, we can go a little longer—”

He pulled her back against his chest and kissed her, and her lips instantly melted open for him with a little whimper of pleasure and surprise. His arm was curled tightly around her waist to hold her close, and Tamaris moaned into his lips as the hard ridge of his erection pressed into her belly through their clothes.

He released her wrist to cradle her neck instead, and Tamaris blissfully melted into him. A few seconds later, however, he froze.

He smiled slowly against her lips. “You fight dirty.”

Sure enough, she had the dinner knife pressed to his belly. “You started it,” she whispered. 

His smile widened, and he loosened his arm around her waist so she could step away. “All right,” he said. “I understand the rules now.”

“Oh really?” she said playfully. “What rules are those?”

“There aren’t any,” he said, and he grabbed for her. 

She dodged away from him and barked out a laugh. “Felassan! We need to train!”

“We are training,” he said, and he conjured another ball of ice. “But you’d better not let me catch you if you want to keep this up.” 

Suddenly, the game was twisted on its head: Felassan was the one in pursuit while Tamaris tried to repel his attacks and keep him at a distance. She managed to keep him back for a good ten minutes, but her lack of stamina for barriers was ultimately her downfall; Felassan hit her shoulder with a small blast of ice, and she stumbled and fell onto her butt with an oomph.

An instant later, he was on his knees in front of her and tenderly smoothing his hand along her arm. “Fenedhis. Are you hurt? Is it—?”

“I’m fine, I’m fine,” she panted. “It’s nothing.”

He smoothed his palm over her shoulder and cradled her neck in his palm. “Are you sure?”

“I — yes, I’m sure,” she said breathlessly. He was so close to her now, but everything about him was just making her want him even closer. The warmth of his palm on her sweat-laced neck and the intensity of his violet eyes, and gods, the smell of his skin… 

She licked her lips, and Felassan’s face lifted into a heated smile. “I think this means I won this round,” he said. 

She scoffed. “Uh-huh. Are you going to gloat about it now?” 

“Not at all,” he said. “But now that I struck you down...” He shifted closer on his knees and brushed his thumb along the tendon in her neck. 

A shiver of pleasure ran down the side of her throat. She lifted her chin to grant him easier access to her neck, and he chuckled. “Should I accept this as your willing surrender?” he asked.

“You talk too much,” she complained breathily. Then she gasped as his lips brushed over the side of her neck. 

He kissed her neck very gently, soft open-mouthed kisses with just a hint of tongue, and Tamaris abruptly gave up pretending that she had any lingering interest in sparring. She grabbed his shirt and pulled, wanting him to kiss her neck with more teeth and tongue and pressure, but he continued the torturously gentle tease of his mouth along the side of her throat.

“Felassan,” she whined. 

“Yes, Tamaris?” he murmured. He lapped at her neck with tiny teasing flicks of his tongue, then grazed her neck very gently with his teeth.

She panted and tugged at his shirt. “More,” she said bluntly. 

He chuckled, then slid his hand over her waist and pulled on her hip. “Come here, then.”

She hastily followed the pull of his hand, and a second later she was straddling him. She tilted her hips down to try and meet the hardness between his legs while also craning her neck to the side so he would kiss her neck some more, and Felassan obliged her with a firm open-mouthed kiss against the side of her throat. His hands were roaming firmly over her body, his fingers sliding over her thighs and hips and up inside the back of her shirt to clench against her shoulder blades, and Tamaris twisted her fingers in his shirt and stroked his neck as he lavished her neck with kisses.

He nipped her neck, then started sucking on her sweat-laced skin, and she burst out a little cry at the pressure of his mouth. “Yes,” she gasped, and she twisted her hips down to rub more firmly against his groin.

He lifted his face with a gasp, then groaned and bucked his hips to meet her, and then they were moving together in an uncoordinated and torturous bump-and-grind as they tried to find some satisfaction through their clothes. 

Felassan’s arm was like a steel band around her waist, and his breath was hot against her sternum. He braced himself with one hand on the floor to try and lift himself more firmly against her, but a second later he burst out a frustrated groan. 

“Ar isala mithelma,” he moaned. He licked her collarbone, and Tamaris gasped and clenched her fingers against his neck; he was pulling at the neckline of her shirt and licking the skin below her collarbone now, and his mouth was close enough to the upper swell of her breast that it was forcing a dizzying surge of anticipation to pool between her legs.

He moaned again and lowered his face to nuzzle her breast through her shirt, and Tamaris made a snap decision: she abruptly shifted away from him.

He looked up at her in surprise. “What’s wr–?” Then he broke off with a gasp: Tamaris was straddling one of his legs now instead of his lap, and she was pulling eagerly at the button fly of his loose breeches. 

His eyes flicked feverishly from her face to her hands and back, and another dizzying pulse of want bloomed low in her belly; his eyes were glowing faintly with magic now. He squeezed her arm. “Tamaris,” he panted. “Are you–”

“No, no,” she said hastily as she pulled on his fly. “I don’t – I’m not going to fuck you. I just want to…” She trailed off distractedly and stared at his cock; it was a hard rise thrusting eagerly up from the opening in his breeches, and there was a bead of moisture at the tip.

She smoothed her thumb over the head of his cock and sucked his primal flavour off of her thumb, and Felassan eagerly bucked his hips. “You are going to be the end of me,” he groaned.

She smiled at him, but she couldn't think of a clever reply; she was too distracted by how beautiful he was, and it wasn't just his good looks that she was admiring. It was how obviously desperate he was. His face was twisted with desire, his eyes glowing and his ears flushed pink and his lips parted as he tried to catch his breath. He was so desperate, desperate her despite her twisted wounds, and these three days of rain-imposed confinement had been so hard on him, and she just��� he was so fucking special, and Tamaris wanted to make him feel good.

She wrapped her fist around his cock and squeezed, and Felassan made the most wonderful guttural sound of pleasure. Encouraged by his enjoyment, she stroked his cock for a moment, then quickly spat into her palm and continued stroking him more smoothly.

He moaned and twined his fingers in the hair at her nape, then pulled her close for a kiss, and Tamaris eagerly accepted the twisting warmth of his tongue as she stroked his cock. In a matter of short minutes, he was shifting restlessly beneath her and the thick length of his shaft was growing even stiffer beneath her palm, and when he broke their kiss to breathe erratically against her lips, she knew he was close. 

“Do you want to come in my mouth?” she asked.

To her mild surprise, he shook his head. “No,” he breathed. “No, kiss me. Tamaris, kiss me, ah–”

She kissed him hard. An instant later, he was clasping her neck and her hair in both hands and moaning uninhibitedly into her mouth as his seed spurted hotly over her hand. 

She delved her tongue into his mouth and squeezed his pulsing cock. He shuddered beneath her and dragged both of his hands through her hair, and the firm feel of his fingers on her scalp sent an icy-hot wave of pleasure from the crown of her head down the back of her neck. 

They kissed hungrily until his shuddering grew still. Then Tamaris gently broke their kiss and glanced down at his crotch. 

She winced at the mess; his climax was most evident on his shirt and breeches, but a little bit had spattered the hem of her shirt as well. 

“Fuck. Guess we’ll need to do laundry,” she said. She wiped her hand on his shirt and started shifting off of his leg.

He banded his arm around her waist and pulled her close. “Laundry?” he said. “You’re thinking about laundry right now?”

His voice was husky with pleasure and even more vibrant with laughter. She smiled and patted his shoulders. “Yep. I’m thinking about laundry,” she teased. “Do you want to help me with it, or–”

He slid his fingers under the hem of her shirt to splay on her belly, and she broke off with a gasp. His fingers were moving steadily up over her ribs, and when his thumb brushed over the cup of her bra, she mewled and dug her fingers into his shoulders. 

He chuckled softly. “What I want, avise, is to reciprocate. If you’ll allow it.”

She curled her hips toward him. “Y-you don’t have to,” she stammered. “That’s not why I…” She trailed off distractedly as his fingers slipped back down over her belly to hook into the drawstring waistband of her pants.

“I know I don’t have to. I want to,” he murmured. “This may come as a surprise to you, but I deeply enjoy watching you squirm.”

She burst out a breathless little laugh. “Smug asshole.”

“I’ll allow your insult since you made me come so well,” he said. He gestured at her pants. “May I?”

She nodded eagerly, and Felassan deftly loosened the drawstring of her pants. “Rise up,” he told her. 

She lifted herself higher on her knees. Felassan angled his wrist and started sliding his hand into her pants, and Tamaris held her breath as his fingers slipped down beneath her navel, then just above her sex, then–

He pressed his middle finger into her slippery cleft, and she twisted her fingers in his shirt and mewled with pleasure. He was caressing the swollen bud of her clit with careful little strokes, and the pressure and rhythm of his finger was so perfect that she didn’t even want to move her hips for fear of spoiling what he was doing so well.

Felassan exhaled shakily and looked up at her, and if possible, her lust throbbed even higher; his eyes were bright with a hot amethyst glow, and he somehow looked just as aroused now as when she was stroking his cock. He slid his fingers a little deeper into her pants and caressed her folds, and when she jerked her hips and moaned, he exhaled hard. 

“You feel incredible,” he rasped. “Like a wet dream come true.”

She laughed shakily at his compliment. “You don’t have dreams, thanks to your fancy tea.”

“And I’m glad for that,” he said with a grin. “This reality is so much better.” He adjusted the angle of his hand to continue stroking her clit, and Tamaris released a breathy moan and clutched his shoulders. He breathed hard as he petted her clit, and Tamaris blissfully tilted her head back so his breath would drift hotly across her neck.

His nose brushed over her exposed sternum, and she eagerly arched her chest toward him. He hummed with pleasure, and without stopping the perfect rhythm of his fingers, he nuzzled her breast and gently bit her nipple through her shirt and bra. 

“Fuck,” she whined, and she cradled his head in her hands. He growled and continued trying to bite her nipple through her clothes, but his attempts were both arousing and frustrating thanks to her fucking clothes, and his finger was so persistent and smooth between her legs and it felt so fucking good, fuck–

She came with a guttural cry and dug her fingers into his neck, and Felassan let out a breathy little laugh. “Good girl,” he crooned.

To her surprise, his words and his smooth voice lifted a sudden jolt of excitement between her legs, kicking her climax even higher. She whimpered wordlessly, unable to reply for the pleasure that was pulsing in her throat. 

When she could open her eyes again, she twisted his ear. “I told you not to call me that,” she scolded. 

He laughed and batted at her hand. “I think you liked it.”

“I did not,” she retorted, but she was smiling like a fucking idiot, and this only made Felassan laugh harder. 

He carefully pulled his hand out of her pants, running his finger firmly along the length of her slippery cleft as he did, and Tamaris gasped as the stroke of his finger lifted a fresh wave of lust through her just-sated body. 

He showed her his lust-slicked fingers. “Whether you liked it or not, this is very good,” he purred. He dipped his middle finger into his mouth and sucked, and Tamaris gaped stupidly at him as he licked her nectar from his fingers. When his fingers were clean, he cupped her neck in his palm and pulled her close for a kiss, and the taste of her arousal on his lips only made her more riled up.

She whimpered and pressed her fingers into his abs, but Felassan peeled away from her lips after just a few blissful seconds. Then he patted her bum casually. “Come on, avise. We should get changed. I’ve been told that there’s very important laundry to do.” He slid out from beneath her and stood up, and Tamaris stared at him as he sauntered out of the library. 

She sat there on the floor throbbing with unfulfilled lust for a few seconds, then let out an incredulous little laugh and flopped onto her back. Fucking Felassan, she thought with a mixture of amusement and frustration. He knew exactly what he was doing when he left her in this state, the smug bastard. 

She closed her eyes and sighed, feeling oddly content despite the unfulfilled pulse of want that was still coursing through her body. Then Felassan’s voice rang out from the upper floor. “Tamaris!” 

She instantly sat upright. He didn’t sound upset, but why was he yelling? “What?” she called back. “What’s wrong?” 

“Come up here!” he yelled.

Alarmed now, she rose to her feet and bolted out of the library. She skidded through the main room and ran up the stairs, intent on heading to his room, but as she passed her bedroom door, she stumbled to a stop. 

Felassan was in her room and standing at the window. She stepped into her room and strode toward him. “What?” she said urgently. “What’s going on?”

He beamed at her, and the boyish excitement in his face stole her breath for a moment. “The rain has stopped,” he said. 

She raised her eyebrows. “Actually stopped?” she said. “Not just drizzling?” She sidled up to the window and looked outside; sure enough, it had finally stopped raining, and there was even a feeble beam of sunlight illuminating the quiet alley below. 

“Come to the roof with me,” Felassan said, and he started climbing out of the window. 

“Hang on, but – you didn’t change,” she protested. He was still wearing the same messy clothes from their tryst in the library.

He shot her a cheeky grin. “I doubt anyone will notice. Besides, nobody ever looks up, remember?”

Her heart did a little flip at the reminder of the first day they’d met. She scoffed, but Felassan was already disappearing through the window. 

She shook her head in exasperation, but she couldn’t blame him for wanting to spend some time on the roof after three long days of being stuck indoors. Besides, it would be nice to get some fresh rain-scented air, even if it was still city air. 

With that pleasant thought, Tamaris slid out of the window to join him. 

[lamentsof-bee]

one ghost king to rule them all

ALRIGHT SO - i finished my self indulgent character analysis of our little gay lord and savior, nico di angelo. 

and let me tell you. THE PAIN really just makes him more gothy and i’m here for it. 

under the cut if y’all wanna read it. your choice. except wendy, she has to read it bc i said so. 

Summary: 

There were many boys at one point. Boys with flames on their skin. Salt water in their hair. Lightning in their veins. And they all mattered…

The one with the animal heart and the one with a halo made of sun.

Each and every single one mattered.

But not like the boy born of shadows.

Never like him.

[Nico di Angelo would never walk a straight and narrow path, Hestia promised him that much. His would always be a journey marred by sadness, distrust and destruction. But sometimes, beauty can be born of hate. And acceptance can be found in even the darkest of nights.]

[An in-depth look at Nico's journey from the cliff of Bar Harbour to the Battle of Gaea]

Read it on AO3. 

There were many boys at one point. Boys with flames on their skin. Salt water in their hair. Lightning in their veins. And they all mattered…

The one with the animal heart and the one with a halo made of sun.

Each and every single one mattered.

But not like the boy born of shadows.

Never like him.

Nico di Angelo remembers the death of his mother.

He was young but still, there is an imprint of the year 1941 on his brain, and the crash that came with Zeus destroying the ceiling.

The faint glow of his father’s power still wakes him at night. A black force field that could only be described as suffocating. The warmth that the Lord of the Underworld could create was never quite inviting though. It licked at you, like hot flames whose only goal was to singe. He had shielded Nico and Bianca from the physical harm, they had survived, but he left them torn.

River Lethe was strong, strong enough to wipe even a Titan’s memories Nico would later find out, but no power was stronger than a mother’s love. The memories of vows of vengeance that Hades swore had faded, the white marble of the Washington D.C. hotel had withered. But Maria di Angelo’s red lips and olive skin will never leave Nico’s mind. Nor will the first moment his father chose to protect him.

For a long time Nico would think it was the last. If only he knew back then how wrong he’d be.

They travelled some with a dark haired lawyer that asked but never listened. And they ended up in the Lotus Hotel.

Nico, even at his young age, heard whispers of The Child of the Eldest Gods and a prophecy to end all prophecies. It was drowned out by the lights of Las Vegas and the inviting doors of the Lotus Hotel.

A month passed for Nico and he and Bianca were swept away by a new lawyer with the same habit of questioning and ignoring. The world outside had changed. Washington D.C. had new subway stations, motorized vehicles had more efficient and ugly, everyone seemed to have something called a ‘cell-phone’.

They were taken to Westover Hall, a military academy in Bar Harbour. Things had changed, Bianca wore a hat and learned everything about this new, modern world that she could. Nico picked up Mythomagic and found himself loving something for the first time since his mother died.

There was so much heartbreak since then.

So many deaths. So many losses.

Nico swore he wouldn’t lose anyone else. Not after his mother had gone so suddenly. So he made Percy Jackson promise to keep Bianca safe.

Percy could do it! Nico insisted to himself. Percy was strong and experienced and he’d been on a quest before. His hair was dark and his eyes sparkled, Nico liked that a lot. Nico knew Mythomagic, he knew what kind of points the monsters would have that his sister would be facing. And she needed someone to watch her six. Someone who knew how.

Percy could do that.

He tried his best to keep his spirits up after the group’s departure.

It was still cool, that Camp Half-Blood was like Mythomagic brought to life. The lava climbing wall and real life land mines made for an interesting stay.

But still…he felt quite lonely.

He’d never been without Bianca before…

He’d never been alone…

On his first lone night, Nico stood apart from the campers gathered around the fire. They sang together off-key and toasted marshmallows as if they didn’t have a care in the world. Everyone seemed happy, everyone seemed at home.

Except Nico.

And that one young girl in a mousy brown dress with eyes like fire.

She stared into the blazes, her gaze softening as it grew with the intensity of the love around the hearth. She seemed so ordinary. Without thinking Nico drew towards her wanting to get a better look at her face. When he did, he noticed it was all together unremarkable. Freckles on the bridge of her nose, brown hair to match her dress but she had flames in her eyes. 

She looked at him and said nothing. Still, there seemed to be an invitation in the air.

He took a seat next to her and stared in the blazes.

‘Your hearth,’ she said quietly. ‘It’s so small.’ Sorrow clouded her voice.

Nico felt vulnerable and naked. His hearth was practically empty. His father would feed him to the dogs, his mother had passed before he could grow old enough to remember her and his sister had left him behind. The coals of his hearth were barely glowing. He felt as if there was only one left and its ember was extinguishing.

‘A small hearth is still a home.’ His voice was as quiet as hers. His eyes never leaving the fire.

‘And home you will always return.’

The smile she gave him was small and the wisdom in her eyes seemed far beyond her years. She looked of Nico’s age but her demeanour betrayed her.

‘You have far to travel, Nico di Angelo.’ Her tone sounded sombre again. ‘You have much to face. But for your kindness you will be rewarded. You shall always find a place at my hearth.’

He wanted to ask her how he knew his name and what exactly she was talking about but a warmth filled his stomach. A sense of calm and serenity washed over him and suddenly it didn’t matter so much that his hearth was small or he had been left behind. This fire was warm enough and a hearth could be rebuilt with time.

His life had been touched by a goddess.

Since his time at Camp Half-Blood, Nico’s powers had grown. He felt the souls passing on, meeting the ferryman at the River Styx. He felt the marble shake with his father’s anger and watched as the flowers wilted when he walked.

But nothing quite made him feel like the Son of Death than when Percy came back without Bianca and only a Mythomagic figurine to make up for it.

Nico had wondered before why his father had such rage built up inside him. Why he couldn’t just accept the life his siblings chose for him? But in that moment, Nico understood.

With every step Bianca took towards her hearing, Nico felt the pang echo in his chest. As if he were standing there with her, he could see the gold masks leering down at him. He felt the ringing in his ears.

The rage exploded inside him like a volcano and sizzled the pity Percy tried to shovel on him. The hero he had in his mind, the greatness Percy Jackson encompassed, had disappeared. The fluttering in his stomach, the butterflies that took flight when he looked at Percy, they withered and died as Bianca was sentenced.

The amorous feelings, as amorous as a ten year old kid could feel, he had towards Percy were marred with darkness and stained with hate. Still… when the skeleton warriors pounced Nico couldn’t help it.

He saw Percy get disarmed. The ringing in his ears increased. He brought his hands to his head, trying to shake away the sound. The darkness grew inside of him, like a ball of energy ready to combust until he couldn’t take it anymore.

‘No! Go away!’

The ground split open and the skeletons were swallowed by flames and earth. One crunch later and not a single bone was left to be found.

Panting, Nico’s eyes moved from the fissure in the ground to Percy. He looked back at the kid, wide-eyed and awestruck. Bianca may have died but Darkness has just risen.

One step forward was all it took for Nico to shout a curse at Percy and run into the shadows of the woods. With this he would leave behind any feelings that Percy Jackson awoke in him.

- 

The road to Daedalus is dark and messy. Minos whispers in his ears with a voice as smooth as silk and provided both comfort and education. The things Nico learned with Minos he will never forget. Shadow travel, raising of spirits, conferring with the dead. It took some practice but eventually Nico made it back from his accidental trips to China and succeeded in summoning a soul.

Theseus’ words were muddled and unhelpful. His gaze drawn constantly to Nico’s ghostly guide, unsettling the young boy. He senses your power. That was what Theseus had said but he hadn’t said who. Darkness closed in again and Nico was alone, no one but Minos and an empty pit.

When he faces Percy next, Nico is disappointed to find that his heart still skips a beat. He likened it to a minor heart attack first and thought perhaps he’d be able to find Bianca that way but when the sensation passed with Percy’s eyes still on him, Nico only looked back coldly.

Your soul is worth nothing to me! He wanted to shout at Percy. How dare he think his soul could be exchanged for Bianca’s? Bianca’s soul was worth thousands of Percy’s. No amount of good looks and boyish charm could save him from that.

‘Let’s ask Bianca.’

That was what Percy had said. As if her appearance would rectify the wrong he had caused her. As if she would appear in front of Nico simply because Percy willed it.

If it were true, if Bianca showed this time, Nico would wring Percy’s neck.

He poured the root beer into the pit and let the words come from the deepest part of him. The chant brought about a mist and spirits followed it to kneel by the depth.

The chanting became forced and as Minos lowered himself and drank.

‘Be gone, Minos!’ He ordered.

The ghost flickered, hesitated and tried to stay. Nico’s voice strained as his power fluctuated and the ghost obeyed, albeit reluctantly.

The figure that followed formed into the glowing spirit of Bianca di Angelo. Silver snowboard jacket, olive skin and sad eyes.

She gazed at Percy and rejected his apology. ‘I made my own choice. I don’t regret it.’

Watching her raised, the words spilled out of Nico. ‘Why didn’t you answer me sooner? I’ve been trying for months!’

His heart breaks when she says, ‘I was hoping you would give up.’

‘Give up?! I’m trying to save you!’

Her hand stretches towards her little brother. He’d grown since they’d seen each other last. His eyes were colder, surrounded by dark rings. He’d become taller too. ‘Don’t do this.’ She said quietly. ‘Percy is right.’

‘You must listen to me,’ she implored, ‘holding a grudge is dangerous for a child of Hades.’ Her hand evaporated as it got close to his face. ‘It is our fatal flaw.’

She cocked her head, asking him for understanding.

‘You have to forgive. You have to promise me this.’

He shook his head like a child refusing to let their parent leave before they fell asleep.

‘You are close to the truth now,’ she told him. ‘It is not Percy you’re mad at, Nico. It’s me.’

The wound he had been trying to cover broke open. The scab felt raw and wet. He felt the hurt leak from his heart through his body until even his toes were drowned in sorrow.

‘You must overcome your anger. Or else it will be your doom.’ She insisted. Don’t do this her soul begged.

‘No! I am the son of Hades. I can.’

 For the second time, a dead demigod spoke of Nico’s power before disappearing. It hurt all that much more because it was Bianca. When the mist cleared there was nothing left in the pit but a leftover smell of root beer and bad barbeque.

It rattled him to his core. The strength he felt surge inside of him. The orb of darkness that pulsed, sometimes so strongly that it forcefully pushed out of him and dark tendrils followed him when he walked. Souls cowered where he went, even nature couldn’t seem to thrive in his presence. Maybe he was destined for a life in the labyrinth. A life filled with darkness and solitude.

He yearned for laughter and peace. He wished he could imagine a life happiness. He thought, if he could picture it, which he can’t but if he could, maybe Percy would be there. Maybe he’d hold out his hand towards Nico and all would be forgiven. Maybe he would know that Bianca would give him her blessing and he would finally rest knowing that he was okay. That he was not deviant. That he was only human…

But he wasn’t.

He felt the darkness move inside of him like a pool of ink staining a white shirt. Noticeable and inevitable. When the dracanae captured him, his only thought was that he hadn’t found Percy yet. Minos betrayed him – not that Nico was surprised. He’d played enough Mythomagic to know who King Minos had been and his power over Darkness was strong enough to know who Minos had become.

The battle started and Nico was pushed to the ground. The iron on his chains bit into his wrists but as he watched the people he knew – his friends? – fight, he felt helpless. Annabeth duelled with her knife, Percy sparring with his sword. They weren’t holding their own. The emotion rammed into his chest and made the Darkness surge. Like iron against fire, the chains melted into smoke as they left Nico’s wrists. This is not how he would go down.

Percy would not die before he had atoned for his sins, not before Nico could understand why his heart still skipped a beat when the dark haired boy looked at him. Minos would not rise again to call himself the ghost king. Luke would pay for his treachery.

He starred at his ghostly former companion.

‘You do not control me, young fool.’ Minos sneered. ‘All this time, I have been controlling you. A soul for a soul, yes. But it was not your sister who will return from the dead. It is I!’

Spirits shimmered around Minos as his body solidified. The whirling energy inside Nico forced his entire body to awaken. His gaze hardened, his look one of ice.

You dare speak to Son of the Dead that way?

‘No.’ Nico insisted. ‘I am the son of Hades. Be gone!’

If looks could kill, Minos would have returned to the grave again.

‘You have no power over me. I am the lord of the spirits! The ghost king!’

A crazed look fell into Nico’s eyes as his dead tilted. He drew his stygian sword with intention and stared Minos in the face.

‘No.’ He held up his sword. ‘I am.’

He plunged the sword into the floor and ran through it like butter. He called to all the spirits that clawed at his feet and his mind. He ordered them to take back Minos and put back where he belonged, under the rule of Hades. The windows cracked and the ground boomed and suddenly the spirits around Minos veered towards him. When the fissure opened in the ground, much like the one that had appeared in Camp Half-Blood, Minos could not struggle against the souls holding him down. He could do nothing but disappear into the depths of the Underworld where he would forever walk with Nico’s shadow over his head. Spending an eternity knowing he had challenged the wrong Darkness.

The energy he needed to banish Minos sucked more out of Nico than he’d like to admit. His olive complexion turned pale, his sword hand could barely lift the weight of his blade. Still, he followed Percy, Annabeth and a strange red-haired girl called Rachel when they fastened him into make-shift wings.

They stopped at a gift shop, attempting to find a way back into the maze.

‘Daedaulus isn’t dead.’ Nico told them when they wondered if the labyrinth was even still alive. ‘That I know for sure.’

Percy thanked him as Annabeth and Rachel walked ahead. For a second it felt like pure adrenaline running through Nico’s body. He pushed the feeling away and muttered something about being even for the fight on the ranch and raising Bianca.

‘Minos was right.’ Percy looked at him confused. They walked in silence for a while. ‘Daedalus should die. To cheat death for so long. It’s not natural.’

‘So you were going to trade Daedalus’ soul for Bianca’s?’ Percy voice doesn’t sound accusing, more like the pieces are finally falling into place and he can see the big picture.

Nico walks in silence wondering if he should bare his soul. He looks at Percy and sees a glimmer of the boy he admired. The one that makes his blood pump faster than usual. He figures, now is as good a time as any – since he’s not coming back.

‘It’s not easy, you know. Having only the dead for company.’ His words are quiet and his eyes downcast. ‘Knowing I’ll never be accepted by the living due to my heritage. Having only the dead respect me, if only out of fear.’

‘You could be accepted.’ Percy answered. And there it was, that naïve optimism that made Percy so attractive. His blind desire to help and save and foster. But good intentions not a good life make.

Look at what happened to Luke. 

- 

Kronos strode towards them, shimmering gold eyes, Luke’s short cropped blonde hair and scythe in his hand – ready to take whatever path he deemed worthy.

Nico knew the only escape would be to venture back into the labyrinth but Kronos’ domineering voice giving orders shook him to his core.

As it always did when he was afraid, the Darkness within him pulsed.

‘NO!’ Nico yelled as Kronos ordered his cronies to target them. He clapped his hands together and pushed his energy outward. If it would have been visible, people would have seen a shadow fall over the fortress. A spire of black rock erupted and tore the building to pieces. Kronos and his servants were left under piles of debris.

And Nico had outed himself. Well, not outed as… he couldn’t even think that. But outed as one of the Big Three.

When Percy had said as much, all Nico could do was shrug. ‘Big deal.’

What was one more person on his tail.

- 

They find their way back into the maze and into the cave of the Nature God, Pan. Nico’s life had been touched by the Gods before but this time, this time it was different. The shimmering form of Pan sat before them, glistening off the ruby and sapphire walls.

His pull so strong that even Nico fell to his knees in respect. Yet, there was something eery about the whole thing. Like Nico could feel the energy being sucked out of the cave and towards nothingness. As if it were only a fragment of a life, a well-kept memory of something already passed…

Only once did the god acknowledge his presence.

‘Dear Grover,’ Pan said, ‘you must accept the truth.’ His gaze moved towards Nico’s bowed head. ‘Your companion, Nico, he understands.’

Nico nodded slowly, looking up at the god. His answer hesitant. ‘He’s dying.’ Grover made a strangled sound. ‘He should have long ago. This…this is more like a memory…’ As Nico said the words, the world seemed to make sense again.

The god had held on long enough for his disciple to find him but still, the years had waned his strength and he was but a collection of hope left over. Fading was a god’s punishment for not staying relevant in the modern world. And the modern world had no place for nature the way it had in the past. The times of forest foraging and daylight dwelling was over, it was replaced with technology and skyscrapers and time running out.

Nico could feel the sand in Pan’s hourglass running out. It was about to let the last granule drop.

He gave each of Nico’s companions a message, a gift of wisdom. Only Nico was ignored. What could Pan teach Nico about nature that he didn’t already know. His power was the most natural of all – to watch life end and return to its birthing place.

Still the god’s words struck a chord with Nico.

The only salvation you must make for yourself. Each of you must.

Some souls have escaped the claws of death but that day, one long over due returned. When the lights faded, the cave was dark and the moss on the walls had receded. As had the holy presence that lured them there.

Nico felt the essence of the god disappear, until not even a whisper of it remained in the undead realm.

There was no time for rest or mourning. Though it seemed Grover would take time for the latter eventually. It took only one uncomfortable pegasus ride for Nico to fall back into his thoughts about Percy. The sea demigod was always protecting him, always bargaining with him, trying to make sure that Nico was safe. It was a selfless act, stupid, but still selfless. And for that Nico had to give him credit. The way Percy had chastised him for revealing his powers to Kronos made him aware of the fact that Percy had kept his secret. He hadn’t told anyone about Nico’s birth right or his heritage. And he had done it to try to save him.

- 

The battle wasn’t over though. Luke’s plan, Kronos’ plan – whatever, had succeeded. They had infiltrated camp and were running rampage on the grounds.

It was quite a sight to see – all the demigods coming together to fight for their lives. A dozen dracaenae were heading towards the cabins when Percy alerted Nico of the threat.

Taking a deep breath, he raised his hands, straining as if an invisible force was resisting their pull upwards. ‘Serve me!’

The earth trembled and parted in the midst of the dracenae. Undead warriors, all answering to Nico, rose from the depths and engaged the enemies. He pushed as much of his power as he could into the corpses, daring them to oppose his will.

He sunk to his knees as the soldiers drew more and more of his energy to stay aboveground.

He gave and he gave and he gave. He watched the lady dragons get pulverized until his vision started to fade and blackness surrounded him.

When he woke, a figure was standing above him with a canteen of nectar. The people in his vision slowly started reforming from their three-fold selves and his sight cleared. Percy was hovering over him with more people fanned out.

His eyes landed on Daedalus.

‘I came to correct my mistake.’ The words struck Nico. The labyrinth could not continue, that much was clear. The only thing left to do was offer up one last sacrifice, a last trade to compensate for the damage the old inventor had caused.

Annabeth protested. ‘You won’t get a fair trial! The spirit of Minos sits in judgement –’

The inventor smiled at her ruefully. ‘I will take what comes.’ He turned to Nico. ‘And trust in the justice of the Underworld, such as it is. That is all we can do, isn’t it?’

Nico’s dark look didn’t waver Daedalus’ spirits. The boy nodded in agreement.

‘Will you take my soul for ransom, then? And use it to reclaim your sister?’

Nico’s eyes lowered and for a second he wished he could act like the boy that he was. But he knew he could not. Instead, he had to act like the son he was born to be.

‘No,’ His answer was firm. ‘I will help release your spirit. But Bianca has passed. She must stay where she is.’ Thus is law of nature.

Daedalus looked at him with reverence. ‘You are becoming wise, son of Hades.’ There was a pause. ‘I am ready to see my son…and Perdix. I must tell them how sorry I am.’

Getting to his feet, with much effort, Nico turned to the old inventor with his sword. He raised a hand towards the forehead of the old man and whispered ‘Your time is long since come. Be released and rest.’

The inventor smiled with relief and released as sigh so deep it seemed to have been held for eons. Slowly his skin became transparent until the gears behind it became visible. The machinery halted its whirling and the old man turned to ash and blew away with the wind.

Nico shared the relief the inventor had felt. Releasing a soul so long overdue and feeling it return to the depths of the earth had granted him some freedom. The souls bound to the mortal plane that evaded the clutches of Thanatos weighed him down more than he had realized.

- 

Post-battle Nico spent a short time in the Apollo cabin’s med-bay where the head councillor prodded his bruises and poked his scratches with very little comment. The councillor seemed wary of him.

Nico felt the vitality in the cabin. There were plenty of campers running around and plenty of patients to be treated. Nico felt the life of each being in the room. There was a plump blonde boy at the back of the room. There was a small gathering around him, a kid maybe slightly older than Nico stood with his head bowed. The kid in the bed was dead. Nico felt his life extinguish on the battle field, still the medics tried to breathe life back into lungs and jump-start his heart with compressions.

It was no use.

Nothing good was going to come of the Son of Death hanging around in a place meant for healing.

Nico got to his feet, using his knees to push himself upwards. He spared a glance at Castor, the fallen demigod, a son of Dionysus if he remembered correctly. He had liked Mythomagic and had a twin. In another life, if Castor had lived and Nico weren’t shunned for his heritage, perhaps they could have been friends.

A sigh escaped Nico’s lips as he turned. He briefly caught the eye of the small boy standing at Castor’s bedside. A mop of blonde hair almost covered his blue eyes but still, they looked into Nico’s, wide eyed and wondering. As if to ask why are you leaving?

The implication of the question stopped Nico short.

He shook the blue eyes out of his mind and turned.

Nico had a lot of work to do. On himself. On discovering who he really was, where he came from and what his purpose was. Camp Half-Blood couldn’t help with that. There was a reason why Hades didn’t have a cabin on the grounds. It was best to keep death as far away from a haven as possible. And Camp Half-Blood was a sanctuary if Nico ever did see one.

He left camp with a short goodbye to Hestia. The goddess didn’t bless his travel or his journey but she did give him some advice.

Wisdom will come to you when you least expect it. And someday you must face your own shadow. Beware, Son of Hades, the path you walk will never be straight but it will lead you home.

He didn’t know what to make of her words but he chose to guard them closely and maybe soon they would become clearer.

He travelled the underworld and began to feel more at home amongst the souls that transcended through the realm. Sometimes Ms O’Leary joined him, more often than not though, he travelled alone. Daedalus’ hearing took place and although Minos pushed for a malice filled punishment, the Lord of the Underworld had other ideas. It was the first time Nico saw his father enact any type of power within his realm. Minos stewed quietly behind his golden mask and obeyed his master. He visited his father at court and found nothing but malevolence boiling below the surface of their relationship. Questions about his mother and the life he led before the Lotus Hotel remained a mystery.

Time passed quickly and before he knew it, days had turned into months.

He became familiar with the happenings of the Underworld and the created a map inside his mind. He placed all the rivers in his model and added in Asphodel and the Fields of Punishment. It was only when he got to the River Styx that he discovered something that may change the way his wind blew.

A plan formed in his mind.

A bargain made with his father.

And then, he went off to return to the one person that scared him the most.

He watched Percy from the bottom of the fire escape . The demigod gently placed a sprig into a small planter box and sprinkled it with nectar. The look on Percy’s face was almost melancholic, it pulled at Nico’s heartstrings. He took a breath and stepped into the shadows, and tried to leave any feelings for Percy at the bottom of the stairs.

‘Nice plant.’ He said, stepping out of the shadows.

Watching Percy Jackson jump was one of the few pleasures Nico had left in life.

‘Sorry.’ He said, not meaning it. ‘Didn’t mean to startle you.’

Percy’s eyes looked greener in the moonlight, the sprig that had grown in the plant box and the way he had handled it made Nico wonder if he’d ever be able to treat something with so much care.

For a mere moment, he wondered if he might, someday, be able to treat Percy with such care.

A compliment was on the tip of his tongue. Instead he said ‘I want to make you an offer.’

All business, all the time.

Over blue cake and soda, Nico explained to Percy what he was proposing. How Percy could save the world, how the tide of the upcoming war could be changed. It was risky and really, really stupid, still Nico was convincing.

But Percy was scared.

For that, Nico could not blame him. Still, he had to push.

He decided what Percy needed was time. And what he needed was answers. So he left Percy in New York to stew over his plan with the intention to return within the month.

It took him much longer than that. Almost a year passed before Nico next contacted Percy to set their plan into motion.

It brought him back to his time in the Underworld. Back when he thought there was no place a son of Hades couldn’t see. He should have stayed home, even if home was a ghastly castle made of black marble that provided a highway for souls to transcend their mortal lives. 

There had been some comfort there though.

There had been Bob…

The most gentle of giants, the friendliest Titan in the world.

‘Time passes quickly.’ Bob had said to Nico as he cleaned the stairs of the palace. Though how that was possible for an immortal Titan, Nico did not know.

Nico sat on the marble staircase and watched the giant.

‘Never quickly enough…’ Nico had muttered under his breath. He had meant not quickly enough to forgo the suffering he was enduring but Bob had misunderstood.

‘You’ll see your friends soon.’ His tone was light.

‘Friends…’ Nico hesitated.

‘Bob would like to have friends.’ The Titan’s expression was thoughtful, melancholy even.

‘You’d need a friend like Percy.’ The worlds rolled out of Nico before he could stop them.

‘Percy…’ Bob looked at Nico curiously.

‘Yeah, you know…’ He swallowed his pride. ‘Someone who looks out for you when you’re in trouble. Who comforts you when you’re down and tells you no matter what it’s gonna be alright.’

‘Your Percy… he does this?’

Your Percy.

It shouldn’t have struck a chord with Nico but it did.

‘Yeah.’ He swallowed hard. ‘He does.’

-

He took the breadcrumbs his father gave him about his mother’s birth and followed them to Olympus. While he was in the area, he headed to Mount Othrys. Any chance to eavesdrop on a Titan was a good chance to take. While he was there he sent a dream vision to Percy, this was the time to push. Time was running out and he was running out of leads.

‘You see Percy?’ His voice barely a whisper. ‘You’re running out of time.’

A change in the air told him to return to his father’s realm. A shift was about to take place.

He followed his impulse back to Styx where he went to speak with Charon, the ferryman of the Underworld. Before he could greet the Spirit of Boundaries a presence drew his eye. Between a small group of people he found the head of tall dark familiar person. Beckendorf looks at him with recognition and regret.

Nico walks up feeling a little numb.

Beckendorf had been the best of them. Always the first to take the lead, the first to sacrifice, the first to comfort. He was in the wrong place. And yet, Nico knew that Beckendorf’s mortal life was over.

‘Hey.’ Beckendorf’s low voice was still comforting.

‘Hey.’

‘Nice place you got here.’ Beckendorf raises an eyebrow in jest.

Nico snorts. ‘Thanks.’

He sobers and turns to his tall companion. ‘Follow me. You don’t have to wait in line.’

Beckendorf walks behind Nico, who leads him to Charon and passes the ferryman with a nod.

They speak little on their journey to the hearing. Beckendorf asks if Percy survived the fall from the Princess Andromeda and for one awful second Nico needs to go searching for his soul and hope to Gods that he doesn’t find it. He breathes a sigh of relief. Percy’s soul has not passed on. He survived the explosion.

He tells Beckendorf as much and mentions that for his heroic sacrifice he will be granted admission to Elysium. Nico brings up rebirth but Beckendorf only smiles and shakes his head.

‘I’m waiting for someone.’

His stance is resolute. His eyes are clear.

‘If you see Percy…’ Beckendorf smiles ruefully. He will never see Percy again. ‘Tell him it wasn’t his fault. That he shouldn’t beat himself up over this. I’m good here. I’ve got something worth waiting for.’

Watching Beckendorf pass through the gates towards the court of judgement made Nico feel dizzy. He had seen demigods fall before, he had felt souls pass on a-plenty but this was different. Beckendorf had been the most competent soldier amongst their legion. And still, he had fallen. It hit close to home.

He needed to protect what little he had left.

He needed to protect Percy.

And he would.

After he found out about his mother.

The plan wasn’t thought through. He doesn’t know why he trusted his father and betrayed Percy. Tricking a guy into an audience with your undead Lord of the Dead father is the best way to get someone to fall in love with you – not. Still, there were some things that took precedent. And the di Angelo history was one of them. One of the few. Okay, the only thing.

The look of betrayal on Percy’s face had Nico looking away in shame.

The throat pin in the cell was definitely deserved.

‘I swear on the River Styx, I didn’t know what he was planning.’ Nico heard the rush of water in his ears as the oath was sworn.

‘You know what your dad is like!’

The anger was real and justified. Nico hadn’t given Percy any reason to trust him in the past and he may have just marred any chance he had of getting Percy to trust him in the future.

But Percy bathed anyway.

Even when Achilles told him to turn back.

It will make you powerful. But it will also make you weak.

Nico watched Percy stare in Achilles’ face and say no. If Luke had bathed, then Percy must too. It is the only way he would stand a chance.

Let the gods witness I tried.

The boys shivered as the wisdom of the greatest mortal hero to ever live rolled down their backs. Achilles disappeared and the river kept churning.

The minutes Nico spent on shore seemed endless. He counted the pebbles at his feet and tried to ignore the river that had swallowed his friend. A son of Poseidon couldn’t drown…right?

This was the only way. This was the right choice.

Nico repeated the words in his mind like a mantra. This will save him. This will set him free.

There was no doubt in Nico’s mind that Percy was the hero of the prophecy. That knowledge both hurt and healed him. He knew the object of his affection was going to be a great hero, was an honourable half blood but the same hero’s hubris may come at too high a cost. Nico would never be the child of the prophecy. It had nothing to do with his father’s taunts of Your sister would have done a better job. And more to do with the fact that Percy was just cut from hero cloth. He inspired loyalty and trust…and love.

And if he took this dip. If Percy came out of the river alive then he would be able to survive the prophecy and he would be saved!

Then we would thank Nico!

Then maybe…

Maybe they could start over.

-

After that night the trust was broken between Nico and Percy and maybe that was for the best. He stayed in the Underworld and attempted to persuade Hades to join the fight.

It was futile.

Their relationship, what was left of it, was strained and strenuous at best. Nico tried to implore his father but to no avail. He couldn’t understand why Hades would rather watch the world burn and him with it than protect what he loved by serving the greater good.

Only when he dug up Persephone’s flower beds and called upon his mother did he begin to understand the god he called his father.

‘Why? What is he hiding?’ Nico had asked Bianca when she took her mother’s place.

‘Pain. Hatred. This knowledge will only hurt you. Remember what I said.’

He clawed his way through her image, it was replaced by a series of scenes like something out of a movie.

He watched his own mother’s death and the destruction of life as he knew it. He felt he couldn’t take it all in until a girl entered the picture and Hades began to chant.

His eyes fully black, Hades looked possessed by an otherworldly creature. ‘I swear as long as my children remain outcasts, as long as I labour under the curse of your Great Prophecy, the Oracle of Delphi will never have another mortal host. You will never rest in peace. No other will take your place. Your body will wither and die, and still the Oracle’s spirit will be locked inside you. You will speak your bitter prophecies until you crumble to nothing. The Oracle will die with you!’

The screams of the girl would make Nico wake up in cold sweat for many years to come. So chilling was it, watching his father enact his rage on an innocent bystander.

Now Nico knew why Bianca had warned him. Grudges were fatal to the children of Hades because they had been fatal to their father. A curse born of hatred had caused the world to fall into chaos and it was their duty, no, only Nico’s duty now, to atone for the sins his father had committed.

 It must have been a miracle that Hades decided to join the war, that Luke woke up at Annabeth’s injury, that Olympus didn’t fall at the hands of Kronos that day.

Hades was welcomed into the throne room with pats on the back and words of welcome. And Nico sat at the foot of his make-shift throne feeling like he might finally be worthy of his father’s attention. The Curse of the Oracle had been broken. Or so it seemed…

The next few weeks are something out of a dream. Nico is welcomed the same way his father was and for a while things seem to be looking up. He built his cabin with style. Obsidian walls and green fire torches. No cabin would compare.

He spent a little time in the med-bay again. This time his wounds were minor but his health had deteriorated due to his shadow travel. He would need to get stronger to shadow travel more often. The head counsellor was nowhere to be seen. The kid he had seen at Castor’s bedside treated his wounds instead. His bright eyes and sunny disposition were jarring. Still there was something calming about the guy.

‘Solace. Will Solace.’

After the blonde, Will, had covered Nico’s wounds in nectar and band aids, he held out his hand.

‘Right uh, Nico. di Angelo.’

He hesitantly grabbed Will’s hand, standing up. To his surprise, Will didn’t shiver or back away from Nico. He grasped Nico’s hand softly and gave it a shake.

‘Nice fighting and all that.’

‘Oh uh thanks.’ Nico, who had never really interacted much with people, became aware that it might be normal to compliment Will as well. ‘Nice… um.. healing and stuff.’

If Will thought his reaction was strange, he didn’t show it. He simply flashed Nico a blinding smile and threw up a peace sign.

‘Thanks.’ He gave Nico a wink. ‘See you round.’

With that he turned and exited.

The people he met – Annabeth, Grover, Rachel … Percy… they all became his friends. They became his reason for continuing his journey. Maybe the curse of Hades really had been broken. Nico finally felt like he had something worth returning to.

-

There were so many experiences that led Nico to becoming the person he was destined to be.  Meeting Percy at Camp Jupiter had shaken him but he had remained strong. His father’s will would undoubtedly win. And his word’s rang true. Go to them. It is important you make this connection. The path was never going to be easy. Hestia had all but promised him that much. Whether Tartarus had always been part of that destiny, though, was unclear. But Nico knew if he could give it back – he would.

The pull of the pit had been too strong. It sucked him in like a black hole and left him feeling naked, empty and helpless. Still, he followed it. He knew he would find the Doors at the end of the burning road. Nevertheless, he drank the fire water and faced the Goddess of Misery, Akhlys. She had congratulated him on his sorrow and whined ‘Child of Hades, what more could I do to you? You are so perfect. So much sorrow, so much pain.’

He could add it to the things that kept him up at night. Her blood streaked face, his distress mirrored in her tears on the shield of Hercules. He would never forget the true face of misery and how it had welcomed him home.

In a way it seemed right for him to be overwhelmed in Tartarus. Overrun by Gaea’s minions. In a way, he had seen it coming. He had prepared for the worst.

The pomegranate seeds he ate had been a last resort. As the air in the bronze jar thinned and his pomegranate supply dwindled, he wondered if this was all he had been meant for.

To be a puppet in another god’s game.

He had been so close. He had found the Doors of Death. He almost saved them.

He had only just gotten Hazel back and now he would be the one that needed finding in the Fields of Asphodel.

He thought suffocating under Rome in a bronze jar would be the worst thing to happen to him since losing Bianca.

And then…

And then he watched Percy and Annabeth fall to their doom.

Lead them there! Percy had begged him. Promise me!

He saw them fall into blackness and almost jumped after them. He clawed at the rocks and bellowed and cried. Not again. Nico screamed until his lungs gave out. Bring them back! Bring them back! Bring them back! He was inconsolable.

Not again!

None of it seemed to matter anymore. He knew Percy could survive Tartarus, especially if Annabeth was with him. Nico just didn’t know who Percy would come out as at the other side.

Gaea didn’t want to give him time to dwell on it but he did so anyway.

He’d stay up late at night and watch the shadows dance against the walls as Coach Hedge walked up and down the hallway making sure everyone was in their own cabin. Not that Nico had anywhere else to go.

The last battle ran through his head like a movie. Some parts were marred by dizziness and fog because he hadn’t completely recovered from the asphyxiation in that moment but still, the outlines of the figures were clear. Percy was standing over him again. Percy was saving him again.

And all Nico could do was lay there trying to catch his breath.

The Death Trance had taken plenty out of him. The black clothes he wore seemed to slowly become one with him as he faded in and out of the shadows. It took his upmost control to not sink through the lumpy mattress he was sitting on in that moment.

He needed to be stronger.

He always needed to be stronger.

Bu there was no time. Every minute Percy (and Annabeth, he reminded himself) stayed in Tartarus was a minute longer they stood in hell. They needed a way out and Nico had to make it to the Doors of Death when they found it.

Nico would make sure that Percy and Annabeth survived their walk through the abyss. But it would be a whole lot easier with an army by his side…

Chasing the Sceptre of Diocletian brought Nico face to face with a demigod he thought he’d never see again. Jason Grace.

He looked different than Nico remembered.

His close cut hair had grown slightly, the glasses on his face (also new) seemed to be permanently askew. His strength hadn’t waned though. Jason still emanated an intense aura. Like that of a lightning storm coming to pass. Close, suffocating and inevitable. Still, he didn’t look so Roman anymore.

Nico had extended a challenge. Go with me to Diocletian’s Palace if you dare. And the son of Jupiter was never one to back down from a fight.

Maybe Jason had become a little more Greek than he’d like to admit.

‘I just can’t imagine how weird that must be, coming from another time.’

It almost made a shiver run down Nico’s spine. You have no idea.  

‘No, you can’t.’ He wanted to end the conversation there but sometimes you have to take one for the team. Jason wasn’t trying to be hostile or interrogative.

‘I don’t like talking about it… Honestly, I think Hazel has it worse. Me…’ a beat. Not just him. ‘Me and Bianca, we were stuck in the Lotus Hotel. Time passed so quickly. In a weird way, that made the transition easier.’

‘Percy told me about that place. Seventy years but it only felt like a month?’

A hitch in Nico’s stride and a darkness that seemed to fall over them.

‘Yeah. I’m sure Percy told you all about me.’

If Nico had known who he would meet in the Palace, he would have never entered in the first place. Let alone taken Jason with him.

What Favonius said wasn’t cruel but it may as well have been because it felt like a sword sharper than his stygian iron one was being pushed through Nico’s heart.

‘I knew eventually you would return to look upon my master’s face.’

What little blood Nico had left in his cheeks drained.

‘The one you care for most … plunged into Tartarus. Still, you will not allow the truth?’

Panic rose in Nico until he felt the gall all the way at the top of his throat. His heart rate quickened and the grip on his sword loosened as his hands became sweaty.

No.

‘We’ve come for Diocletian’s sceptre.’ He struggled to keep his voice level.

The words Hestia spoke to him years ago came back to haunt him.

‘Your trials will be much more difficult.’ Favonius looked amused. ‘If you want the sceptre, you must face the god of love.’

Favonius almost ripped Nico apart by taking him to see Eros. But the grass that wilted at his feet and the blackness of his shadow that snaked out wasn’t only due to unforeseen air travel.

‘I don’t blame you for being nervous, Nico di Angelo. Do you know how I ended up serving Cupid?’

A knot tightened in Nico’s stomach, for a second he regained his stature and stood. ‘I don’t serve anyone. Especially not Cupid.’

 What came next was anyone’s guess. Nico would have never thought that the god of love and the god of death were so intimately connected. But Cupid had been right, sometimes Death was kinder.

Blood ran down Nico’s sword arm, the red arrow lying at his feet dissolved with his wound. Nico’s fear was replaced by frustration.

He watched Jason get thrown around. First hitting the columns, then almost swallowed by a crumbling wall.

‘Stop it! It’s me you want. Leave him alone!’ He stretched out his arms as if standing in front of Jason and covering him would stop the god from attacking his friend.

Still, the taunting continued.

‘And you – what have you risked in my name?’

Anger burned in his stomach.

‘I have been to Tartarus and back,’ Nico snarled, his eyes icy. ‘You. Don’t. Scare. Me.’

For a second it seemed like Nico had found his fight again. ‘Give us Diocletian’s sceptre, we don’t have time for games.’

 An invisible hand rapped against Nico’s cheek. He went flying into a granite pedestal. Head cloudy and throbbing, Nico tried to sit up.

‘Tell him, Nico di Angelo. Tell him you are a coward, afraid of yourself and your feelings. Tell him the real reason you ran away from Camp Half-Blood and are always alone.’

Something inside Nico broke. His eyes were shaking and he lost control. He let loose a terrifying scream as he realized that there was nowhere left to hide. Nowhere that Cupid wouldn’t find him. The ground split open and bodies of passed soldiers clawed their way to the surface until they surrounded Nico.

The darkness rolled off of Nico in waves so powerful Jason almost couldn’t withstand it. Every pulse of energy that Nico released, seemingly unintentional, brought with it a wave of hatred, shame and fear.  

The images his power brought to the surface were ones he tried his best to supress. Percy’s smile, the clap on the shoulder he received after the Battle of New York, the way his stomach flipped when they were together.

To his horror, he realized Jason saw all the same things.

He looked over at the blonde in horror and urged his soldiers forward.

They grappled with the invisible god until he released a cruel, low laugh.

‘I wasn’t in love with Annabeth.’ Nico’s confession is hollow, his eyes downcast. He looks as if he has lost all his strength. The fight, the denial, it all left his body at once.

Nico crumbled to the ground with his soldiers and the darkness around him subsided. All that was left was a boy drowning in his own shame and misunderstanding.

Jason couldn’t believe how young Nico looked in that moment.

‘I hated myself.’ Nico confessed quietly. ‘I hated Percy Jackson.’  Because I loved him.

Cupid’s shape became clear, the white wings and black hair that belonged to the god were startlingly magnificent yet Jason couldn’t help but hate him. Love was cruel and Cupid was a monster.

‘Happy now?’ Nico demanded.

Cupid’s gaze changed, for a moment he seemed to almost pity Nico. ‘I wouldn’t say Love always makes you happy. But at least you’ve faced it now. That is the only way to conquer me.’

With the next gust of wind, the god dissolved and in his place was the sceptre of Diocletian.

It suddenly dawned on Jason that Nico’s story was not an ordinary one. He finally understood why Nico’s past weighed on him so much. To be born in the 1940s, during a time of war, a time where feelings such as Nico’s would have been shunned. It’s no wonder Nico battled so heavily with his secret.

The modern world that he lived in now, where acceptance was more wide spread than before, was not his home. Nico had always felt out of place. And the acceptance that the queer community got nowadays did not feel inclusive to the kid from World War II. 

‘Nico,’ Jason said gently, ‘I’ve seen a lot of brave things. But what you just did… that was maybe the bravest.’

Jason was unsure if Nico’s battle with Cupid had changed anything within the son of Hades but over the next days he saw Nico firm up. His once starved body became taut with muscles though his skin stayed as pale as ever.

And waiting in front of northern coast of Africa was making everyone antsy. Especially Nico.

‘Any word from the king?’

‘Every day, he calls for me later and later.’ Jason sounded frustrated.

‘We need to leave,’ Nico insisted. ‘Soon. Percy is close to the Doors.’

Jason had his doubts. The king of the South Wind was uncooperative, the ship was no where near ready and now with Leo gone…

‘I promised I’d lead you to the House of Hades,’ Nico said, his voice hard as if sensing Jason’s uncertainty. ‘One way or another, I will.’

‘You can’t shadow-travel with all of us.’ Jason had already considered that idea but it was worthless if Nico wouldn’t survive the trip.

Bringing up Nico’s inability somehow made the orb on the sceptre glow. Hanging on Nico’s belt it somehow seemed to throb.

‘Then you’ve got  to convince the king of the South Wind to help.’  Nico sounded angry. ‘I didn’t come all this, suffer so many humiliations…’ He trailed off but his intention was clear.

I did not suffer all these trials and forcefully out myself to you for you to NOT make it.

The dark energy that swirled around Nico and blackened the floor was unsettling. For the first time in his life, Jason thought this may be a foe he couldn’t defeat in battle. And he didn’t want to find out, if he was truly honest.

Jason wanted to be Nico’s friend but he wasn’t exactly making it easy.

The conversation shifted, for an uncertain amount of time it was always going to be about Nico’s coming out. Until he accepted his own feelings, that is.

‘It’s not like you’ve got a choice. It’s just who you are…’ Jason’s sympathetic voice sounded accusing to Nico.

‘Just who I am... What would you know about who I am? I didn’t choose any of this.’ He lashed out with his hands, swiping through the wind. ‘My father, my feelings.’

There was a pulse of energy.

But for some reason Jason began feeling just as frustrated as Nico.

‘I get it, what do I know. But Nico, you choose how to live your life. You want to trust somebody? Take the risk. Find out if I’m really your friend and if I’ll accept you. At least that’s better than hiding.’

The floor cracked, Nico’s eyes were cold and his aura seemed to be sucking in all the shadows from around him.

‘Hiding?’ It was barely a whisper.

Jason’s instincts told him to run, to grab his sword, to fight this threat. But he stood his ground.

‘Yes, hiding. You’ve run away from bot camps. You’re so afraid they’d reject you that you won’t even try!’ He pushed just a little further. ‘Maybe it’s time you came out of the shadows.’

Hestia’s words echoed in his mind.

And someday you must face your shadow. Beware, son of Hades.

 For one unbearable moment, Jason felt like his bones were being pulled towards the Underworld and then it passed. Nico dropped his eyes and the fissure in the floor closed. The ghostly light around the son of Hades faded.

‘I’ll honour my promise,’ Nico’s voice was barely a whisper. ‘I’ll take you to Epirus. I’ll help you close the Doors of Death. Then that’s it. I’m leaving.’

For a second Nico wonders if he and Jason were always mean to butt heads. After all, it was Zeus who had smited Maria di Angelo. How could Nico be sure that Jason was any different than his father? This olive branch was nothing but rotten.

 The journey to the House of Hades was nothing but unsettling, even for the children of the Underworld. Nico marvelled briefly at Hazel’s ability to crumble a house sized boulder into nothing before they continued their journey.

They reached the chalice filled with dark green liquid. Nico felt he was at a crossroads. Hecate was watching. Nico drank and offered it to Jason.

‘You asked me about trust. Well, here you go, son of Jupiter. How much do you trust me?’

Jason’s eyes glinted but he didn’t hesitate grabbing the cup from Nico. Jason drank never breaking eye contact as if to dare him. Next question. He all but threw the goblet at the others.

Nico hid his shock. An olive branch if he ever did see one.

The group continued downward.

A shudder made his way through Nico’s heart. He kept walking. It happened again. He saw Hazel pause too, ever so briefly. He briefly recounted the time. Twelve minutes. The Doors of Death were opening every twelve minutes.

Then Frank saw a ghost and the plan Nico had in his head went down the drain.

They were surrounded. On all sides.

‘Nico, the sceptre!’

He raised it and the dead with it. Not that it was much use though, Jason couldn’t command them and neither could Frank.

‘My rank,’ Frank realized. ‘I’m only a centurion.’

Nico carved through a gryphon with his stygian sword.

‘Well, then promote him!’ He shouted at Jason as if it were the most obvious thing in the world.

Jason didn’t hesitate.

‘Frank Zhang! I, Jason Grace, praetor of the Twelfth Legion Fulminata, give you my final order: I resign my post and give you emergency field promotion to praetor, with the full powers of that rank. Take command of this legion.’

Then, the battle changed and Nico couldn’t help but smile.

Watching Frank take control of the legion of undead soldiers had Nico thinking: maybe this guy wasn’t so bad after all. Maybe he could trust Frank with Hazel.

They won. Nico could barely believe it but they won.

A glimmer of hope ran through him.

Until, he staggered. His heart panged and he knew something changed.

‘The Doors,’ Nico said. ‘Something’s happening. We need to go now.’

Hazel and Leo were in full battle mode when they arrived. And Clytius was a terrible foe, even Nico had to admit. They attacked as a group. Even Annabeth and Percy had their weapons raised. Every time the giant attempted to tackle them with his dark smoke, Nico stood guard and absorbed the dark energy. For the first time in his life, he understood what it felt like to inhale and feel true air in his lungs. The substance Clytius released did nothing but agitate Nico’s hunger for darkness more.

Still, watching the giant burn to death had been awful but nevertheless, Nico felt a sick sense of relief.

There was hesitation in his step. Being so close to Percy after almost losing him. He couldn’t help but feel slightly paralyzed. He managed a ‘I’m glad you’re okay,’ and kissed Hazel’s forehead. ‘The ghosts were right,’ he said. ‘Only one of us made it to the Doors of Death. It was you, it was always supposed to be you. You would have made dad proud.’

She noticed his eyes were bloodshot and his face was wet with dried tears. Something had broken inside her brother recently and it was all flooding to the surface now. She wished so badly she could give him some peace of mind and some comfort. But she didn’t understand what was going on. And he wouldn’t tell her.

He got goose bumps as he realized Percy was standing behind him holding up Annabeth. Hazel suggested shadow-travel and Nico winced. ‘Hazel, I can barely manage that with only myself. With seven more people –’ I would die. He thinks.

I don’t want to die.

It’s an afterthought, the first time he had ever thought such a thing, but still it rang true.

‘I’ll help you.’ She’s insistent. And so he believes her.

The pain in Nico’s chest intensified as they sat in a circle and traded war stories. He watched Percy lace his fingers through Annabeth’s and felt like the loneliest person in the world.

Jason caught his eye, his gaze sympathetic. Nico couldn’t do anything but turn away in shame.

Later, when the commotion had passed and Nico was rigging up the statue, Percy found him.

‘Thank you.’

Nico stops. ‘What for?’

‘You promised to lead the others to the House of Hades, you kept your promise.’

Nico’s words are curt and guarded. They have Percy hesitating and rubbing the back of his head in discomfort.

‘Also…’ Percy said, ‘you visited Bob…You convinced Bob that I could be trusted, even though I never visited him. I never gave him a second thought. You probably saved our lives.’

Nico’s face darkens. ‘Yeah, well, not giving people a second thought. That can be danger.’

Confusion joins Percy’s discomfort. ‘Dude, I’m trying to say thank you.’

Nico’s laugh is humourless, there is something icy in his gaze. ‘I’m trying to say you don’t need to.’ You’ll never need to.

He made the one decision that made the most sense. The Athena Parthenos needs to go west, so he will take it there. Along with Reyna and Coach Hedge.

 -

The trip was hard.

Not as hard as surviving Tartarus but still, by all means, hard.

There was no comfort to be found on their journey. His gang slept in their tent on the outskirts of a road that seemed endless.

Maybe he would have felt warmed by the fact that Jason prayed to his dad every time he burned an offering. And that Hazel begged for his safe return. He plagued the thoughts of the Seven.

Reyna lent him her power in their moment of need which was good because he barely had any left. With every jump, he felt the darkness spread. It wasn’t like the darkness he had felt with Clytius, that darkness had strengthened him. This one tried to consume him. Until he was nothing left but shadow.

‘It’s not mind-reading,’ Reyna had said about her gift. ‘Not even an empathy link… just a temporary wave of exhaustion. Your pain washes over me.’ Hesitance. ‘I take some of your burden.

Shame and embarrassment washed over him.

‘You should rest,’ was the only thing she told him.

There was a lot of time spend unconscious for him. A lot of time for him to mull over the last few months. Sometimes he saw Akhylis, the Goddess of Misery, other times a vague picture of his father floated around his mind. Most often though, he was tethered down the thoughts of the Seven. He waned past all the usual painful memories and always landed back on his friends. Hazel’s face, Jason’s intense eyes, Frank’s look of determination.  

He had plenty of grief during his waking hours too though. He wished he could find some peace in his sleep.

The most peace he got was when Clovis dragged him off course and into Hypnos’s dreamscape. The detour was annoying but nonetheless helpful. He watched Will Solace, the lanky boy from the med-bay, diffuse a row between Clarisse and Rachel. The combat medic had something of Jason in him. Brave, loyal but the eyes were different. The eyes… bore right into your soul. Even in the dreamscape, Nico had to look away.

When he awoke he had no choice but to follow the burning man into his father’s chapel.

He felt his father’s presence before he saw him. Like a cold shadow that falls over you.

Nodding at the skull lined walls he asks his father dryly ‘Getting some redecorating ideas?’

‘I can never tell when you’re joking.’

‘Why are you here, Father?’

A pulse of embarrassment rushes through him as Hades mentions the sceptre of Diocletian and it’s… exploded state. It had been enough to rouse the god from his confused state. Still, that was not why he had come.

‘So tell me, Father. What do you want?’

‘Can you entertain the notion that I might be here to help you? Not simply because I want something?’

Nico suppresses a snort. ‘I can entertain the notion that you might be here for multiple reasons.’

It turns out Hades can be useful. He tells of Orion, the fallen archer who gave in to bitterness and anger after being scorned by love. ‘You can understand that.’ Hades had said to Nico.

What do you know about what I understand?

‘Still there is more,’ Hades said, ‘Your sister.’ He falters. ‘Your other sister. Hazel. She has discovered one of the Seven will die.’ Nico’s heart stops. It couldn’t be… ‘She may try to prevent this. In doing so, she may lose sight of her priorities.

Would Hazel be safe? Would Jason?

Nico barely notices that now, Percy is an afterthought.

‘Who will die?’

Hades’ eyes face the floor. ‘Even if I were certain, I could not say. I tell you this because you are my son. You know that some deaths cannot be prevented. Some deaths should not be prevented. When the time comes, you may need to act.’

Great, more responsibility.

A softness enters Hades’ face and his tone. ‘My son,’ he said, ‘whatever happens, you have earned my respect.’ Nico swallows hard. ‘You brought honour to our house when we stood together against Kronos in Manhattan. You risked my wrath and guided that Jackson boy to the River Styx.’ For a second Hades reverts back to his old self. ‘Never before have I been so harassed by one of my sons. Percy this and Percy that. I nearly blasted you to cinders.’

There’s a hollowness in Nico’s chest. That feels like a lifetime ago.

‘I didn’t do it for him,’ he insists. ‘I did it because the whole world was in danger.’

Hades allows his son this lie and gifts him the faintest of smiles. ‘I can entertain that you acted for multiple reasons.’

Nico can’t stop his eyes filling with tears. There was something under the surface there, something close to acceptance.

‘You and I rose to the aid of Olympus because you convinced me to let go of my anger,’ Hades reminded him. ‘I would encourage you to do the same.’ Sadness twinges his voice. ‘My children are so rarely happy. I… I would like to see you be an exception.’

‘My son, what you are attempting – shadow-travel across the world, carrying the statue of Athena – it may well destroy you.’ Nico thought he imagined the pain in his father’s voice. But there was nothing to be done about that.

‘I will see you again,’ Hades promised. ‘I will prepare a room for you at the palace. Perhaps your chambers would look good decorated with skulls of monks.’

‘Now I can’t tell if you’re joking.’

Hades’ eyes shimmered. ‘Then perhaps we are alike in some important ways.’

- 

Lycaon followed just as Hades had said he would. And Orion did too. Their escape led them to Old San Juan. It led Nico to realize that maybe Reyna was as lost and bitter as he was. The only memory left of that part of their trip was a Hawaiian shirt and the glowing figures of Reyna’s past.

‘I can’t,’ she pleaded, as if asking the spectres for forgiveness. ‘Please, I can’t.’

Nico raised his hand and stood in front of her. The ghosts dissipated but they both knew they would never truly be gone. He would shield her from this.

‘I don’t want to talk about San Juan.’ She said when they arrived at their next destination.

For the first time, Nico found himself giving out advice. ‘You should,’ he said, ‘That’s the thing about ghosts – most of them have lost their voices.’ He turns to her and shrugs. ‘In Asphodel, millions of them wander around aimlessly, trying to remember who they were. You know why they end up like that?’ She gave no answer. ‘Because in life they never took a stand one way or another. They never spoke out, so they were never heard.’

She takes in his words. And he does as well.  

‘Your voice is your identity,’ he continues, ‘without it… you’re halfway to Asphodel already.’

Damn, he needed to take his own advice.

‘I don’t like talking about it either,’ he said, looking into her eyes, ‘but sometimes, you have to.’

What Nico learned about Reyna that night thoroughly changed his opinion of the praetor. She was strong and resilient and came from such a broken home. Nico listened attentively, rarely commenting, only taking in.

In the end, the PTSD got to Reyna’s father and he became ‘a mania…’ Nico speculated. ‘I’ve seen it before. A human withering away until he’s not human anymore.’

It didn’t help. Tears filled Reyna’s eyes as she confessed her sins to Nico.

‘I killed my own father.’

He shook his head.

‘No. Reyna, no.’ Nico’s words were firm. ‘That wasn’t him. That was a ghost, a mania. What you did, you did out of self-defence. You were protecting your sister.’ And he would never blame her for that.

‘You don’t understand.’ But he did, she just didn’t know it. ‘Patricide is the worst crime a Roman can commit. It’s unforgivable.’

‘You didn’t kill your father.’ Nico insisted. ‘That man was already dead. All you did was dispel a ghost.’

Her tears awoke something in Nico. A protective instinct that usually only flared up around Hazel, and more recently Jason, came to the surface. He knew a little something about pretending to be strong and putting on a face for everyone around you. And then secretly crumbling away inside like a rock slowly being eroded.

If there were ever a moment when Nico would have imprinted on someone like a duckling, it would have been that moment.

And then, Bryce Lawrence decided to threaten his duckling.

‘I am a descendant of Orcus, the god of broken vows and eternal punishment. I’ve heard the screams of the Fields of Punishment first-hand.’ He stared at Nico crazed. ‘And they’re music to my ears.’

Nico was paralyzed as undead soldiers clawed their way up from a grave that he had thought previously was empty. It was the first time someone had used their own power of the Underworld against him.

The skeletons grabbed Reyna and only then did Nico regain his senses.

‘Nico, take the statue and go!’

He looked down at his hands. They were transparent and smoky. Had Bryce been right? Was he losing his grip, literally?

His energy was waning. Even standing in direct sunlight couldn’t hold his molecules together anymore.

His eyes met Reyna’s and a warmth spread through him.

She shared with him her strength and her drive.

Bryce laughed as if he were invincible. ‘I hope they’ll execute you in the ancient way.’ He nods at Reyna. ‘I’ve always wanted to see that. I can’t wait until your little secret comes out.’ He flicked his pilum across Reyna’s face. A trail of blood poured down.

A beat. Silence.

And then Nico exploded.

The air dropped to freezing temperatures and the grass on which they stood withered and died. With a single, glass-shattering cry the darkness poured out of him leaving every living creature to experience exactly what pain and anger were.  

Bryce had challenged Nico. And Nico would teach him.

You want secrets? HERE.

Bryce’s soldiers disintegrated into dust until all that was left was a shivering Roman falling over his own feet. Tortures of Tartarus and Akhlys, a suffocating bronze jar and modern world that didn’t make sense transmuted through the air.

Nico ripped the probation tablet from about Bryce’s neck. ‘You. Are not. Worthy of this.’

It took all his self-control not to hit Bryce across the face with it. Nico’s eyes were black and he didn’t blink as the rocks split and Bryce sank down to his waist.

‘You took an oath to the legion. You broke its rules. You inflicted pain. You killed you own centurion.’

They weren’t accusations. There was no defence. This was not going to be a fair trial.

‘You should have died for your crimes. That was the punishment.’ Nico cocked his head. ‘Instead, you got exile.’ The crazed look Bryce had carried was now mirrored on Nico’s face. ‘You should have stayed away. Your father may not approve of broken vows but I know another god who does not favour escaped punishment.’

The Underworld had no mercy. It only had justice.

‘Please!’ Bryce whimpered. But his beg fell on deaf ears.

‘You’re already dead.’

Bryce’s eyes widened in horror.

‘You’re a ghost with no tongue, no memory. You won’t share anyone’s secrets anymore.’

‘No!’ Bryce sunk deeper into the ground. ‘No! I’m Bryce Lawrence! I’m alive!’ He recounted it as if it were a mantra but his body turned dark and his skin became translucent.

Nico’s cold eyes gazed down at him.

‘Who are you?’

And Bryce couldn’t answer. Bryce was no longer alive. He would forever be a spirit with no voice. Just a nameless spectre amongst millions of others.

Nico swiped his hand through the ghost’s body. ‘Begone.’

And with that, he collapsed.

-

Three days.

That’s how much time they lost with Nico unconscious and his body barely a shadow.

He had been in a shadow coma. And it scared him.

Am I dying?

He expected them to recoil. To feel threatened and paralyzed by him after the show he had put on. He wanted to feel angry towards them for knowing they were judging him. But his anger wouldn’t materialize. He just felt… tired.

‘Why didn’t you leave me? You knew I couldn’t help you anymore. You wasted three days watching over me. Why?’

Reyna looked at him sympathetically. ‘I trust you, Nico. You lifted some of my burden. Your not the only one who lets out the darkness every once in a while. You shared your painful experiences; how could we not support you?’ Her face opened up. ‘We’re friends.’

‘Two days. The Romans will attack Camp Half-Blood in two days.’ Nico shook his head. ‘We have to hurry. I have to get ready.’ Even if it kills me. He realized.

But Coach Hedge relieved him of his burden.

Instead, they took to the sky with pegasi. And then they took a ride with Jules-Albert, Nico’s undead chauffeur.

He bid Reyna farewell with a grip on the arm.

‘It’s been an honour questing with you, son of Hades.’

‘You’re the most courageous demigod I’ve ever met, Reyna.’ The look in her eyes was almost too much. ‘I won’t let you down.’

Nico made it to the battle with two legionnaires and Jules-Albert at the wheel.

‘Leila, Dakota, Jules-Albert will drive you to the legion lines. Get out, talk to your troops, convince them to follow your lead. I need a distraction.’

‘I’m not hurting any of my fellow legionnaires.’

Nico supressed a growl. ‘No one is asking you. But if we don’t stop this war the entire legion will be wiped out.’ He looked at them, his orders clear. ‘I’m counting on you.’

They nodded at him.

‘I’m going dark,’ Nico said and faded into the shadows. 

- 

The second he jumped the shadows he began to dissolve. It wasn’t setting a great precedent for the battle. The voices called out to him Help us. Remember us. Join us.

He did his best to keep them at way and as he faced the sunlight, he answered. No! I am the son of Hades. I control the shadows. They do not control me. He rested his hands on his knees, trying to catch his breath.

A brief look at Octavian’s tent had Nico wondering if maybe an assassination might solve their current problem. He didn’t have time to test his theory though. Will Solace tapped him on the shoulder instead. Nico jumped and almost took his head off.

The son of Apollo muttered through clenched teeth. ‘Nico, what are you doing here?’

‘Me? What are you doing here? Getting yourselves killed?’

He surveyed Will and his two companions, dressed in black with matching face paint.

‘You’re dressed in black with the sun coming up. You painted your face but didn’t cover that mop of blonde hair. You may as well be waving a yellow flag.’ He scolded. Will’s ears turned red.

Nico inquired about Coach Hedge making it in time for his baby’s birth. The group nodded.

Will grabbed Nico’s hand unexpectedly ‘My hands are still shaking. See? But I delivered it. A very cute little satyr boy.’

Nico pulled his hands away, ignoring the electric current that ran through his body.

He was going to go back to his assassination plan until Will spouted some nonsense.

‘No more shadow-traveling. Doctor’s orders.’

Nico wanted to make a comment about how Will’s ‘doctor’s orders’ didn’t really mean much since he went into the OP with his a scrub shirt, khakis and flipflops but it didn’t seem like the right moment.

Not worth it.

‘Whatever. You follow my lead.’

Nico revised his impression of Will on their way to manipulating onagers. Talented, yes. Cool-headed, yes. Stubborn, double yes. Aggravating, unbelievably so.

In the next minutes Nico learned he could add reckless to that list too. Will, with the intention of creating a diversion, sprinted off and engaged six Romans at once. He needed an assist.  

‘Six at once, not bad.’ Will punched him in the shoulder.

‘Not bad?’ Nico asked blandly. ‘Next time I’ll just let them run you down, Solace.’

‘Ah, they’d never catch me.’ He shoots Nico a blinding smile.

They were moving towards to last onager when they were spotted.

‘Do we run?’ asked Lou Ellen quietly.

‘No,’ Nico said. ‘Let’s give them what they want.’

He raised his hands and called upon five skeletons. Watching the look on the Roman’s faces was almost worth his falling back and being caught by Will.

‘Idiot.’ Will held him up. ‘I told you no more.’

‘I’m fine.’

‘Shut up. You’re not.’

The spat with Will caused him to miss the entrance of the entire First Cohort. Octavian at the helm. His purple robes shone in the sun, jewellery glittering around his neck. On his head he wore a crown of laurels.

He watched Will let out a piercing taxicab whistle and suddenly Octavian didn’t seem so high and mighty anymore.

‘My – my elite guard!’ Octavian spluttered helplessly like a complaining child. The dog-men crumbled at his feet. ‘Did you see what he did to my elite guard?’

Regaining his posture, Octavian marched right up to Nico and to his credit he didn’t seem the slightest bit scared. Nico felt Will tighten his grip, staring Octavian down over Nico’s shoulder.

Up close Octavian looked sickly and bare. A descendant of Apollo but only evident in the shade of his hair. The arrogance and lust for power, that wasn’t a child of Apollo. Octavian was nothing but a watered down copy of Will Solace. Whatever it was that made a child of Apollo special, that made them glow the way Will did, Octavian didn’t have it.

‘Tell me son of Pluto,’ hissed the augur, ‘why are you helping them? What have they ever done for you?’

Nico’s hand itched to reach for his sword. He could do it now. Assassinate Octavian. He could probably even manage before the First Cohort intervened… it would be worth it.

Still, he hesitated.

If he committed this act of murder and died – he wouldn’t mind so much. For the good of the world and all that. But Will, Cecil and Lou Ellen… they would become casualties of his plan.

It wasn’t right.

Octavian intervened in Will and Nico’s quarrel. ‘What do you mean you’re leaving camp?!’ If they lived long enough, they would be able to hash out whether Nico should stay at camp or not.

‘I see ruthlessness in you,’ Octavian encouraged. He looked greedy. ‘And I appreciate that. Step aside and allow the Romans to win.’

‘Don’t do this, Octavian.’ Will shook his head. ‘Don’t force your people to choose. This is your last chance.’

There was sympathy in Will’s eyes. As if the gift of prophecy had been granted to him again, as if Apollo’s head had finally cleared.

The clearer Will’s eyes got, the more crazed Octavian’s seemed in comparison.

‘I will SAVE ROME!’ He explained. ‘Now, Romans, follow my orders! Destroy these Graecus scum!’

‘Don’t be stupid!’ Will yelled, his voice almost as loud as the second taxicab whistle he’d let ring to stop the Greek armies from waging against the Romans.

He pointed to the sky. Nico couldn’t believe his eyes.

Reyna was flying on Guido with six pegasi hauling the Athena Parthenos behind her.

Reyna’s voice boomed. ‘Greek demigods, Behold your most sacred statue. I return it to you now as a gesture of peace.’

An intense energy emanated from the statue all across the Greek camp. Everyone stood dazed. The statue seemed to be speaking out to each of them individually.

Nico felt his throat close as the voice whispered. ‘You are not alone. You are part of the Olympian family. The gods have not abandoned you.’

Reyna asked for the help of the demigods. Unite, please, so that we can all thrive.

‘Listen to her!’ Nico insisted, marching forward. ‘Reyna risked her life for all of you! We brought this statue half way across the world, Roman and Greek working together. We must join forces –’

And then Gaea woke. 

- 

When the battle started, it didn’t seem to end.

Nico found the Seven or well… Six (Leo was no where in sight) on the hill. Nico hadn’t felt his soul pass… still, there were too many casualties to be sure.

‘He’ll be fine.’ He met Jason’s eyes.

‘Sure.’ Jason sounded unconvinced.

‘But…just in case… For Leo.’

Jason nodded. ‘For Leo.’

Fighting with Jason was almost like a dance. It seems although they were made from separate cloth, their threads were very much intwined. They fought in harmony like they had been doing it all their lives.

And then Will Solace ran up to Nico. He said one word into Nico’s ear.

‘Octavian.’

On their way to the augur they felt the Earth shake. Festus snatched up Gaea and soared away with her. Stunned only for a moment, they continued on their way.

As they got closer, Nico saw Octavian furiously messing with an onager’s levers. He kept glancing up at Festus. It seemed his intention was to shoot the bronze dragon out of the sky.

‘Octavian!’ Nico yelled.

With a start, the augur turned, not noticing his flowing purple robe getting caught on the trigger. He looked crazed, hungry.

Will walked forward with his hands raised. ‘Octavian, get away from there. It isn’t safe.’ He spoke in calm, quiet words. As if psst-ing at a frightened kitten.

Nico nudged Will and looked at Jason soaring toward Festus with Piper in his arms.

‘If you fire the onager, you’ll kill Jason and Piper and –’

‘Good!’ Gods, it was hard to reason with him. ‘They’re traitors. All traitors!’

Will tried again. ‘Listen to me. This is not what Apollo would want. Besides, your robes –’

When Mike Kahl showed up, a bruised bump on his head, Nico thought he’d have to draw his sword. The soldier only surveyed the scene and looked at the Centurion.

‘Are you certain, Octavian?’

‘Yes!’

‘Are you absolutely certain?’

‘Octavian, don’t.’ Will pleaded.

He stepped forward only to be stopped by Nico’s hand. ‘Will, we can’t stop him.’

He saw the dread in Will’s eyes, the pain of causing another human being harm. But Hades had been right, some deaths cannot be prevented. And some…should not be prevented.

Octavian cut the release and disappeared into the sky. The flaming fireball landed in the middle of the storm and exploded.

He had achieved his goal. He had saved Rome.

The only sound that Nico registered was Will’s shark inhale.

Nico felt a new soul join the ranks of the Underworld and it wasn’t Octavian.

No.

- 

There was no time for rest and recovery. At least not for Nico.

He watched over the dead and honoured them with the proper funeral proceedings. So many casualties…

Many would be remembered as heroes. Even Octavian would have his place in the stories. But Leo was going to be the hero that no one forgot. The greatest sacrifice.

An oath to keep with a final breath.

Nico wondered who Leo had sworn to and if it was worth it.

They recounted the tales of bravery. Nico never thought he would see the day that Greeks and Romans sat around the campfire singing together. Even if it was a song of mourning.

Reyna stepped up and looked at the faces in front of her and thanked them. For their bravery, for their loyalty, for their loss.

‘We could have chosen hatred and war. Instead, we found acceptance and friendship.’

She turned to Nico with the warmest look he had ever seen and pulled him towards the flames of campfire.

‘We had one home,’ she said. ‘Now we have two.’

Nico didn’t notice but if he had, he would have seen Will’s approving gaze on the two of them. And even a little ways behind him stood Hestia. Disguised as a teenager, she looked out from under her headwrap and nodded. Your path has led you home, don’t you see?

Maybe staying wouldn’t be so bad after all…

- 

At midnight, still awake, Nico saw a blonde tiptoe. His heart jumped but settled when a framed face came into view.

‘Jason.’ Nico greeted.

Nico knew he came to ask about Leo. There was no comfort Nico could give him. They hung their heads together. Jason wanted to convince him to stay. The more he blabbered on, the more endearing he became. ‘I probably can’t change your mind about leaving but I have to try –’

Nico’s ‘I’m staying,’ had Jason blinking so hard that he had to shake his head to clear it.

The joy was so prevalent in his face that Nico even granted him a hug. Soon, Jason was off talking a mile a minute about sharing a table and teaming up and, and, and. The fact that it was midnight didn’t seem to wear on Jason’s enthusiasm.

There was a tiny sense of peace that settled in Nico’s heart.

A true friend.

So that’s what it felt like.

- 

Lucky.

That’s what Nico thought when Will ordered him to the Apollo cabin to rest.

Someone to look out for you. That’s what it seemed like.

In the midnight moon, Will’s hair seemed to shine brighter than usual.

‘I told you, no more Underworldly stuff, doctor’s orders. You owe me at least three days of rest in the infirmary.’

Will held up three fingers with an insistent look on his face.

Nico agreed self-consciously. Still trying to wrap his head around the fact that Will had asked where he had been. That he had been looking for him, that he had wanted to see Nico…

‘I hope you got over all that nonsense about leaving camp.’

Nico looks up with a start. ‘I – yeah. I did. I mean,’ he shrugs, ‘I’m staying.’

‘Good. So you may be dense but you’re not a complete idiot.’

Nico wants to threaten Will or say something back but he doesn’t get the chance.

‘You make yourself an outcast.’ Will told him. His tone would have been accusing if his demeanour hadn’t  changed. He looked tired now, worn. Like someone that had seen hardship and wished it away.  ‘How will people ever accept you if you don’t let them know you?’ It was the first time Nico had ever seen something resembling anger on Will’s face. His eyes were hard and his ears red.

A bout of confusion hit Nico. ‘Who would want to ever be around me?’ His voice is quiet, as if he were truly asking himself that question because he couldn’t comprehend it.

‘Me.’ This time Will’s eyes look open and honest. And a little hurt.

Nico felt reprimanded.

‘I don’t understand.’ Nico whispered, looking confused.

‘Then learn.’ Will insisted.

‘…okay.’

Will huffed as if a weight had been taken from his shoulders. ‘Okay.’

[nicostolemybones]

Amber Valentine

Tw: minor character deaths (referenced), mentions of homophobia, ambiguous rejection (purposely left unanswered so the reader can choose which they want it to be)

Nico woke up. Nico didn't like that. He tried to sleep again but no, sleep was impossible, because today was a bad day and his brain hated him. He wanted compensation from life for waking him up today, on Valentine's day of all days.

He huffed, dreading the day more and more as the heavy weightlessness of sleep left his bones to be replaced with a dull ache. He didn't have the strength to get out of bed yet, and to be quite honest, he didn't really want to. 

So he opted to angrily stare at the ceiling like it personally offended him. The one time he wakes up before breakfast, and it's on the one day he wishes some kid would whack him round the head and put him in a coma for the day. He bet Will was already out on his morning run. He'd wake at the ass crack of dawn like a heathen and exercise like a heathen and glow like it didn't fucking give everyone a headache like a heathen.

But he was cute, so Nico forgave him.

Cute didn't really describe it. Will was a beautiful. Nico wondered what it would be like to wake up in the morning to the sight of Will sleeping beside him. He could imagine it- Will laying on his stomach with his head on his arms, golden blond hair fanning out onto the pillow, his skin glowing softly in the morning light. Nico wondered if Will had freckles on his back too, and if Will would let him paint them, like angel wings and constellations.

Stupid cute boy making him have emotions this early in the goddamn morning on the worst day of his life. Should be illegal. Nico forced himself out of bed and prepared for the day before opening the door- and the offending boy was stood nervously on his doorstep, freckles glowing a light yellow whilst his skin glowed soft amber. He had such a pretty smile and pretty eyes and Nico absolutely despised him for being so cute and making him blush in public by being so goddamn cute. 

"What do you want Solace? You see the sky? You see that giant orb of radiation and death? Yeah? Well that means it's way too fucking early to be awake."

"Nice to see our resident vampire is already in full brooding mode! That must mean you're awake enough for a hug!" Will beamed, and gods Nico couldn't breathe because… holy shit. His smile was so beautiful and he was glowing sunrise yellow and he had dimples okay and his nose was scrunched and Nico forgot how to breathe. He was so pretty.

"Don't you dare, Solace!"

"But hugs," Will pouted, his glow slowly turning sunset yellow as Nico tried to resist. Nico couldn't resist because his boyfriend looked like a kicked puppy and he gave good hugs. 

"Okay, fine, hugs," Nico relented with a sigh. Will's glow was back in full force, sunrise yellow with a warm amber undertone, and he was practically throwing himself at Nico, wrapping him up in a warm hug. Fuck, Nico was gonna die like this and go to Elysium, he couldn't function because the cute bastard was hugging him and he was warm and he smelled gorgeous, like lemons and antiseptic and cinnamon and sandalwood and sunshine and sweat and boy. Then Nico realised he hadn't been hugging back- he could tell by the way the heat from Will's glow changed slightly, nervous heat, that he was shifting back into a sunset hue, and that kickstarted Nico's brain to hug back, and Will's warmth grew comforting again. 

Nico didn't want Will to ever let go.

If he was honest, he was kinda touch starved. He may have been touch averse, but that didn't mean he didn't need affection from time to time, and Will's hugs made him feel safe and sentimental and fuzzy. And Will was taller than him so his face was met with a wall of muscle and fuck Nico could die because that was his man and he was a fucking snack. Between feeling sentimental and flustered, Nico felt overwhelmed- the touch starved side of him wanted to cry and the teenage side of him practically wanted to consume Will and the conflicting emotions were too much for him to process at once. 

He reluctantly let go, noticing Will's hesitation in the way his arms twitched as he let go, like his body didn't want to let go and Will had to fight it. Nico wanted to hug him again, but he knew if he hugged Will again he'd grow deeply uncomfortable and want to rip his flesh off. Sometimes physical contact was like that feeling when a bug flies into your face and you can still feel it twenty minutes after it's flew away. But ten times more intense and distressing to the point it made Nico want to scream and cry and rip his face off, but apparently, that isn't what physical contact felt like and Nico was being over dramatic so naturally everybody would pull him into hugs or headlocks and Nico would freeze or bolt. Except for Will. Will may have been very huggy, but he never tried to force Nico into physical contact. He didn't question it if Nico pushed him away sometimes and he didn't take it personally. 

"So uh…" Will began, his freckles a nervous pale amber, which Nico knew meant he was anxious. He didn't finish his sentence, picking at the bandage around his hand instead. 

"It's Valentine's day," Nico said quietly, and Will nodded awkwardly. 

"Yeah…"

"I already told you, I won't celebrate it."

"I know," Will said quickly, and the amber of his freckles was almost a dark chocolate gold, "I wanted to talk. Can we- can we go somewhere?" He looked just about ready to cry, and Nico's concern was able to quickly override his aversion to being seen. 

"You look terrified," Nico noted, and Will nodded, not moving. Nico started to walk, and Will followed him. Nico could feel the heat radiating off him, so Nico walked him to a far spot through the forest- walking helped anxiety by tricking your brain into thinking you were running away- fight or flight. And for a short while, Will seemed less anxious, but the closer they got to their favourite talking spot, the darker Will's glow got until he was a dark sunset orange. Sunrise colours were good- sunset ones were worrying. "Will?"

"I really wanna tell you something but I never talk about it and I'm scared to talk about it because I like running away from my feelings and I need to talk about it and I trust you the most to understand how I feel so can we talk about it?"

"Of course," Nico said gently, guiding Will to sit down. He looked on the verge of tears.

"I hate Valentine's day," Will said quietly, "I hate it so much."

"Glad we're on the same page," Nico said quietly, and he knew that Will would catch his meaning: I'll understand, you can tell me anything.

"You already know I'm from Austin, right? Well I come from a super nice area, y'know? My school had a gsa and the local church I went to as a kid was super accepting and had rainbow flags and funded a shelter for lgbt youths. My grandma was a lesbian and her wife made me my very first punk jacket when I was six. So uh… I grew up in a super nice place. So I knew quite young that I weren't straight, you know? I hadn't really had crushes yet but I remember we all used to play kiss chase at recess and I always wanted to kiss the girls and the boys. So I knew I wasn't straight. And I came out to my mom on Valentine's day because young me was making Valentine's day cards for all the boys in my class. Except for John. He was a cunt. I didn't like John. But anyways um- I ran downstairs and I yelled at the top of my lungs 'mama I'm gay!' And she looked really awkward and just replied 'that's nice, honey,' and I thought maybe she thought I was joking so I was like- 'no mama, I wanna kiss all the boys and all the girls,'- I didn't know what bi was, by the way- and she just gave me this really awkward look and said we'd talk about it later, and then she went to hang the washing. I didn't know if she was awkward because she didn't accept me or just the way I came out, and I still don't know and-..."

"Will?" He was crying by now, a sunset red undertone to his sunset amber glow, pushing the ball of his palms into his eyes to try and stop the tears.

"I never got to ask if she was okay with me being gay because a few minutes later I heard scary noises so I hid under the kitchen table and the scary noises sounded like a really big lion and I heard mama scream so I went out and I screamed because she was dead and bleeding and eaten and then it tried to eat me too but a goat man grabbed me and ran and took me to camp, and that's why I'm an all year round camper…"

"Will…" Nico began gently, before reaching out and holding him in a strong hug. "I wish I could tell you if your mom accepted you or not… and I wish I could make all your pain go away…"

"I always thought mama got killed because of me. Because if I didn't say I was gay she wouldn't have gone outside. So I didn't wanna tell anyone I liked boys ever in case they died, and I spent all these years so sure that she rejected me that day because she looked uncomfortable and sad and I felt like nobody loved me if my mama didn't love me and Valentine's day reminds me of all that and… it hurts… rejection hurts..."

"How long have you been holding all that in for," Nico asked softly, rubbing comforting circles on his back and gently carding his fingers through his hair. Will's hair was dry and floofy but it never seemed to knot. 

"Since forever," Will sniffled, "and I felt bad because I could never celebrate Valentine's day without being real sad and thinking about rejection."

"Please don't feel bad," Nico said softly, "it's okay. We never have to celebrate it, it reminds you of your trauma."

"I didn't think anyone would understand…"

"My mom died too," Nico said quietly, pulling away from Will so he wouldn't overwhelm himself too much. "I watched her die too. But it wasn't a monster, it was Zeus."

"I- I didn't know, I'm so sorry," Will whispered, and Nico shook his head.

"I lost a sister about two days before Christmas. Bianca. Which is why I got upset when you wanted me to wear the Christmas jumper. But- my point is I understand how it can ruin a holiday, and I want you to know that I understand, and you're not alone because I relate."

"I'm sorry," Will said quietly, "I'm really sorry." Will moved to hug Nico, but Nico gently pushed him away. As usual, Will didn't protest or try again.

"I hate Valentine's day because I was outed," Nico began after a deep breath. Will's glow was sunset orange and yellow with concern. "I was outed by Eros to Jason. I had a crush on Percy in the past, and Eros made me tell him. Jason, I mean. He shot me with an arrow and everything. I wasn't ready to come out- I hadn't accepted myself yet. I wasn't comfortable. When I was a kid being gay would have got me killed. And after Eros made me come out it felt like suddenly everyone knew. And I even accidentally outed myself to an entire Roman Legion thingy. Then when you made me come to the infirmary I felt obliged to tell Percy. All my life I'd seen myself as creepy, and everyone else thought I was creepy, so I felt like I had to tell him. Like he had a right to know. I still wasn't okay with myself and I didn't want anybody to know, and I still struggle sometimes with internalised homophobia. Or at least a fear of being outed or being seen or being attacked. I can't handle hearing slurs or judging looks or bigoted preachers without breaking down in tears because I didn't ask for this and it feels like I'm constantly being punished when I didn't even do anything wrong. I'll just be minding my own business and some asshole tries to ruin it, because somehow, people just know."

"I understand that," Will said softly, but Nico felt scared- Will had an angry sunset red undertone to a near white yellow sunset glow. He thought Will was mad at him for being a coward. "I'm gonna smash every last Cupid statue and heart card I see dotted around camp. You shouldn't have to have your triggers and your trauma shoved in your face any day."

"Will don't," Nico said softly, reaching for Will's hand, and a sunrise orange began to seep through the darker undertones, like he was trying to reassure Nico that it was alright. "They don't know, and I don't want to ruin their day. I was gonna stay in my cabin, but… I'm glad I'm out here with you. I feel safe here with you."

"I feel safe with you too," Will said softly, and his glow radiated a warm sunrise amber with yellow undertones- fondness, golden. 

"Maybe we should reclaim Valentine's day," Nico said quietly. "Make it ours. As a fuck you to all our trauma, y'know? Avoid all the traditions and just snog the fuck out of each other until we both turn blue then do whatever the fuck we want. We have each other now."

"So… celebrate Valentine's day to spite Valentine's day by making it our own? Not romantic, just spite?" Will seemed amused, a thin smile on his lips making one of his dimples prominent where the corner of his mouth turned upwards to form a lopsided smile. 

"I'm powered by spite and I'm tiny so yeah," Nico replied, bumping shoulders with Will. "Hey… maybe one day when you're ready for answers, I can summon your mom," he suggested gently.

"Maybe," Will replied softly, "I love you."

"Ti amo."

So they kissed, and they kissed until Will's glow was golden and bright and encompassing Nico in warm rays, and the shadows were dancing around Nico and holding Will close. They kissed until they felt fuzzy and hot, and they kissed until things would have got real awkward if they would have continued. When they pulled apart, Will's cheeks were a ruddy pink to the tips of his ears and blotchy, and Nico was sure he was puce. Fuck Cupid and fuck manticores too. Nothing could take this love away from them.

[snarkwriteswrasslin]

FFT: sweet boy; jungle boy

Notes:

So this was originally sent in to my asks on my main by @adampage​ and I had to post it here, give it it’s own lil space. Was really having fun writing this. Really do enjoy writing Jungle Boy, so maybe you guys will see him more on here? who knows..

Summary:

Bianca’s sister brings her along on the cruise. Where she meets Jack. And perhaps a cruise ship flirtation begins? Fluffy af.

Warnings:

uhh.. fluff. that’s it.

Pairing:

Jungle Boy x OFC, Bianca

“Wow… This is..”  Bianca trailed off mid-sentence, trying to find the right word to properly express herself in this situation. Her eyes darted around and by default, she found herself squishing a little closer to her older sister because there were just so many people. So.Many.

“Amazing, right? This is gonna be so much fun!” Allie hugged her younger sister tight, giggling as she did so. “ I’m so glad you decided to come with me instead of going to Cancun with Pip and the other girls from your dorm.” Allie released her sister from the hug and after spotting Butcher, Blade, and MJF, she made a beeline straight for them. She didn’t even realize that Bianca wasn’t with her until she was over where they were, talking to the three men.

Bianca took a deep breath as big brown eyes darted around the sheer mass of people milling around on the deck of the Norwegian Pearl. “It’s certainly something.” Bianca swallowed hard as she said it, trying to get her bearings and get used to the gentle swaying of the docked boat.

… This is going to be fun. You’re spending time with your sister. You’re on a cruise ship in the middle of the ocean… The thought was meant to be reassuring, but somehow, it also slightly freaked the 20-year-old brunette out also. She’d never been on a cruise ship before in her entire life.

This kind of stuff was Allie’s thing, not her own. Not that she wasn’t determined to enjoy the occasion and come away with memories from it, but she just.. Wasn’t the outgoing butterfly her older sister was.

Hence her, a college student trying to major in Early Childhood Education and her sister, the glamorous and badass professional wrestler that everyone knew from AEW. If she had the choice, she’d still choose her way hands down.

Not that she didn’t secretly envy her sister’s ability to win over crowds and get on television in front of millions of people every week, of course. She just knew that her even attempting it would lead to a mass panic attack on her part.

Somewhere in the time she’d been talking to her sister and managed to get lost in her own thoughts, her sister had taken off, making a beeline for friends of hers. It left Bianca to stand there, a hand in her hair and her nose wrinkled as she shuffled her feet awkwardly and her eyes darted around in the hopes of finding her sister. “Damn it, she always does this.” the words were muttered softly  just as someone crashed full force right into her back and she stumbled forward just a little bit.

The husky laugh had her stomach fluttering lazily and a pair of strong arms wrapped around her midsection keeping her from crashing to the deck. She turned around, swallowing hard as her eyes settled on him.

“I’m so sorry. So sorry.” Bianca said it in a rush and her stammered apology was met with his puzzled stare. JB chuckled, shaking his head. He let her go so that she could stand and raised his hand, dragging it through a wild mess of light brown curls. “You didn’t do anything though?”

“I should’ve been more aware of what was going on around me?” Bianca questioned, her eyes settling on his and almost immediately getting lost in the depth of them. JB found himself stepping just a little closer when he saw the breeze sort of swaying her. As his hand brushed her hip, she bit her lower lip and raised her hand, fingers tangling in the ends of long dark hair.

“It wasn’t your fault. Trust me.” JB insisted. No matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t just drag himself out of the depths of her eyes. The wind picked up just a little more and she swayed where she stood a little bit as a result. Before he could stop himself, his hand was gently gripping her hip and resting there lazily. “You’re not used to boats, are you?”

Bianca’s cheeks heated and she gave a soft laugh as she shook her head no. “I’m also not used to there being so many people. And naturally, my sister, she.. She basically hauled ass the second she spotted some of the guys she works with.”

“Your sister works with AEW?” JB studied her intently. No, she didn’t look familiar at all, he’d never seen her before in his life. But he just felt this.. Strong magnetic pull to her.

Bianca gave a soft laugh and nodded. “Allie.”

“Oh, Allie! That’s cool. I’m actually on the roster too. My name is Jack.” Jack chuckled as he found himself gazing intently at her lips. And then, alternately, her eyes and the dusting of pale freckles over the bridge of her nose. She was honestly, hands down, the prettiest girl he’d ever seen before in his life.  And he got this distinct feeling that maybe this one time, whatever he happened to feel just might be mutual. She certainly seemed to be staring right back, giggling quietly, blushing and fidgeting. Not to mention, he found himself realizing it, she keeps moving to stand closer to me with all these people around. Kinda like she feels safe.

That thought had a bit of a smile playing at his mouth.

“It’s nice to meet you, Jack. I’m Bianca.”

“Binx, there you are! I was wondering where you got off to. C’mon, I wanted you to meet the guys.” Allie appeared at her side suddenly, talking a mile a minute and laughing.

Bianca took a deep breath, her nose wrinkling. “Just a minute, I’m kinda talking?” Bianca muttered to her sister as she looked over at her, kind of trying to subtly nod towards Jack and hint that she’d really like to continue talking to him.

Allie glanced from Jungle Boy to her sister and back again, giving her sister hints of a teasing look. “Oh. Oh. I’m gonna go up to the bar with the guys and talk strategy. You two have fun. And Jack?”

“Yeah?” Jack met Allie’s gaze and he almost wanted to laugh when she eyed him and replied calmly, “Hurt my sister and I hurt you, kid.”

“Jesus, Allie, just goooooo!” Bianca was blushing almost scarlet red as she gaped at her older sister. Naturally, Allie was going to turn this into a big deal when it was merely two people talking to one another.

… oh, but I definitely wouldn’t mind if there was more to it than that… the thought settled lazily in her mind and wouldn’t be ignored or denied, no matter what she tried. As soon as Allie was out of sight, Bianca flashed a smile at Jack. “So, do you maybe wanna show me around, Jack? I’d really like that.”

Before he even got a word out, Marko and Joey were rushing towards him, hollering his name, laughing and shoving at each other and when they stopped beside him, at him. The two were already soaking wet, they’d obviously gone straight up to the topmost deck and dove into the pool. Joey shook out his hair and both JB and Bianca shared a look and wiped at themselves as water settled on their skin.

“There you are, buddy! We were lookin all over for you!” Joey stopped short, a teasing gleam in his eyes and a smirk on his face almost the second he realized that Jack wasn’t alone.

Apparently, the reason JB hadn’t been right behind them ready and raring to jump into the pool, was because he’d seen a girl and unlike usual, he’d struck up a conversation.

“Who’s your friend, Jack?” Joey asked the question not meaning any harm or anything whatsoever in asking it, but he got the distinct feeling that for whatever reason, Jack was not taking the question that way. And that Jack was maybe even a little wary and jealous because he’d asked it.

Jack didn’t know whether to clench his jaw and glare at Joey or chuckle and smile. He also didn’t know why he suddenly felt… Well, protective. Daresay even a little jealous and wary at Joey’s gazing at her and the questions he was asking, in the tone he was asking them in. He stepped closer to Bianca before he even realized it, standing behind her. The way he stood revealed that her head hit perfectly in the center of his chest and the thought had the slightest hint of a smirk tugging at his mouth.

Bianca glanced from man to man, her cheeks heating in a deep blush. She found herself sort of getting the sense that right now, for whatever reason, Jack was on edge and as a result, she felt herself getting a little edgy too and stepping closer to Jack as a result. The back of her head rested almost lazily against the center of his chest and she finally managed to speak up.

“I’m Bianca.”

“Yeah, I met her when Stunt was being a dick earlier and shoved at me when we were running past her. Kinda fell into her.” Jack uttered calmly, a quiet chuckle as soon as he’d said it.

Joey chuckled and nudged Marko. “Hey, let’s leave these two alone. We’ll see you later, right Jack?”

“Yeah, later.” JB answered, giving Marko a firm silencing look as soon as Marko went to open his mouth to say something.

After his friends walked away, Bianca turned to face him, staring up at him in curiosity. “Everything okay? You tensed up..”

JB chuckled. “Everything’s fine. C’mon. I believe I promised to show you around the ship?” he slipped an arm around her. Not only so they wouldn’t get separated in the large and growing crowd around them, but just because he… Wanted to. He needed to make one thing absolutely clear to the guys he worked with.. And to anyone else on the ship.

Yeah, maybe he was unofficially officially calling dibs on the petite brunette his arm was currently around.

They pushed through the crowd and Bianca spoke up, raising to tiptoe to whisper against his ear when he found somewhere to stop their walk. “Hey, if you wanna, we can go up to the top deck where the pool is… With your friends?”

JB mulled it over and shook his head, chuckling. “Nah. This is fine. This is better than fine, actually. Are you hungry? We can go find food..”

Bianca’s smile could’ve outshined the sun in his opinion and he reached out, smoothing brunette strands back behind her ear as the wind blew them into her eyes all over again. She gave a soft laugh and nodded, holding her fingers up just a few centimeters apart to indicate that she was maybe just a little hungry.

JB laughed and smiled at her. “Yeah, we’ll go find somethin’ to eat then.” they started to walk again, finding a relatively quieter restaurant on the deck and making their way inside, choosing a back of the room booth with a decent view of the ocean through its window.

They picked up the menus, scanning over the food choices quietly. There wasn’t any really heavy and uncomfortable tension in the silence. It felt nice to Bianca. To just sit across the booth from him in silence. That being said, she did realize that they could get to know each other better. He seemed to have the same idea, because he started to ask her questions about herself.

She’d answer, asking him questions in return, gaping when she realized that he’d been doing this essentially his whole life. JB wanted to kick himself when he asked her about college and she said something about being an elementary science teacher and he responded with something he had no doubt in his mind Janela would’ve said, immediately following with an apology, “Yeah, if you’d been my teacher I definitely would’ve paid more attention… Shit.. I’m sorry, that was so lame.”

“No, no.. You’re good. It’s flattering?” Bianca bit her lip as she felt herself blushing all over again, bold enough to meet his gaze and wink. “ I might have to watch your match tonight, actually. Just to see you in action.”

“Oh, I’d totally like that.” JB said it quick. Almost too eagerly. He almost wanted to choke himself just so he’d stop saying things off the top of his head, but he had a feeling that no matter how hard he tried to stop himself from doing it, he’d never be able to with Bianca. He felt relieved as soon as he realized she seemed to be having the same issue.

“Well then, in that case.. I’ll come watch you guys tonight. Ignore me if I yell something stupid that pertains to another sport, I’m… a goofball.” Bianca wanted to punch herself. There was a line between being a flirt and being an airhead and secretly, she was afraid she was blurring it at best and crossing it at worst.

JB laughed and shook his head. “Oh no, nope. I’m definitely going to remind you what you yelled later.”

“Nooo.” Bianca raised her hands to her face as she gave a soft giggle that made him smile even more. JB reached out, grabbing her hands and lowering them. And yeah, maybe he sort of held onto them a little longer. “Don’t do that.” he muttered it softly, not able to stop himself before it came rushing out. “Hides that pretty face.”

“Shhh. You need glasses, sir.”

JB swallowed hard at the teasing way she said Sir. He wouldn’t admit to it just yet, but hearing her say it like that.. Definitely stirred him up. He chuckled quietly and shook his head, leaning in a little. His hands still rested on top of her hands on the tabletop between them. “ No, I don’t actually.”

Bianca’s teeth snagged at her lower lip and his eyes darted down to it, the subtle movement calling even more attention to her mouth, not that he hadn’t been paying attention to it enough already.  She laughed softly and shook her head, disagreeing. “I think you do.”

“Nope.”

“Yep.”

[oneshallop]

Bear trap on AO3 - heavily inspired by damalur’s Fireproof

Anders had once taken her by the shoulders, shaken her so hard that her teeth had clacked. Do you feel nothing for the plight of our people? Does nothing touch you? Hawke had gripped those white-knuckled fingers and forced them back at the wrist until he had let her go.

His image arose now: a hunched grey form of a man, coarse hair hanging about the point of his chin. Anger had been their passion, and Hawke had borne the coldness after the fighting began, but the disgust was new.

Hawke kicked Varric’s door open and watched a flurry of paperwork implode upon her entry. “Whoops.”

Varric didn’t bother to look up from his desk. “Pick them up.”

“Mhm,” Hawke said agreeably. She marched straight over the mess to peer over his shoulder. “What have you got there?”

“Oh, just some letters. Mostly financial matters that need to be settled. You know what they say: you can run, but you can’t hide,” Varric said, laughing, but he angled the letters away so Hawke couldn’t read them.

Hawke didn’t call him out on it. She made herself comfortable by his hearth, flicking at the mess with her boots. Varric had a wide and varying circle of correspondence, but for him to pore over every word like that—only one person could have written that letter.

There were a number of responses that Hawke could’ve performed for him here. She could’ve been a responsible friend: Varric, buddy, why do you do this to yourself? Or, perhaps, a sarcastic joker: Letters? Something with a bit of bite, I hope. Maker, she could’ve even pulled a rarity out of her hat and been honest with him.

Instead, Hawke held her tongue and watched Varric.

Nearly the first thing Varric did after meeting anyone was to show his crossbow around. Hawke had long accepted this—she’d never been the monogamous type anyway. If she sought a bit of company, she would simply hang up her cloak and disappear for the night. It was without question that she would hand over a thousand of these anonymous tumbles for her friend, but it had never occurred to her to include said friend in the tumbles until the day of the ambush.

Hawke leaned back on her hands and stared up at the ceiling. “Letters,” she said. “Great.”

“Actually, considering we’re already on the subject—do you mind if I talk some points off you?”

Hawke stared at Varric, but it appeared that her friend was completely in earnest. Varric was a good liar, but she’d known him for a while now. She knew, for example, that he’d nearly knocked a glass out of the hands of a Comtesse while telling one of his tall tales. She also knew that in moments of true nervousness Varric would keep his thumbs completely still.

“It’s about credit held in wool markets across Rivain—”

“Since when do you own anything in Rivain?” Hawke interrupted.

“It’s for a client,” Varric said patiently. “As I was about to tell you. Can I keep talking?”

Varric didn’t take clients. If Hawke had a pint in her hand, she would’ve taken a swig: good job, Marian. Of course, that meant that Varric would have taken the matter on for personal reasons, and so she probably would’ve drunk for that as well.

Hawke waved a hand at Varric graciously. Go on, continue.

“My client wants to pull out. I know why. There’s been talk that the major houses of Nevarra and Antiva are planning to set up a bill of exchange—cut out the middle-man, so to speak—but I reckon that it’ll be a good idea to hold on for a little while longer.”

“Uh huh,” said Hawke. Although she’d never met Bianca, she wanted to. By all accounts she was both a remarkable woman and a smith beyond compare. Hawke didn’t know much about dwarven politics, but she knew her friend, and she knew the influence this woman had on him.

Hawke wanted to ask Bianca: do you know what you do to him?

She wanted to ask her: do you know what he means to me?

Meanwhile, Varric continued his spiel, either unaware or uncaring of her lapse in attention. “So, I was thinking that I might drop by Rinraver and check on the guilds there. It needs more of an in-person touch, you know? Some talk about the importance of the collaboration for both our houses. All the usual shit.”

“Yes,” said Hawke, who knew nothing about economics, let alone the affairs of entire merchant’s guilds. “Bonds. Houses. All that shit.” She wondered where he was leading with this.

“It’s a dangerous journey, Kirkwall to Ostwick. I’m going to need someone to watch my back.”

That shit-eating grin of his. Like a bear trap snapping shut on your ankle while you were knee-deep in dog crap.

“Maker’s saggy ball-sack,” Hawke said in disgust. “What do you need me there for?”

“Moral support?” Varric suggested. “Good company? An unending litany of complaints about the skies, the earth, and everything in between?”

“You’re so full of shit.”

Varric grinned back at her. “You know you love me.”

Firelight flickered over the broad planes of his face, burning amber across his cheeks and nose and leaving hollows everywhere else. Hawke would’ve gladly given an arm and a leg for Varric, anytime and anywhere—but for all the roguish layers he laid on, Varric would never veer away from the most central foci of his life. Hawke knew in her heart of hearts that Bianca was one of them.

“Eh,” Hawke said. “Like I said. You’re so full of shit.”

[artificialqueens]

Galactica, Chapter 65 (Group Fic) - TheDane/Veronica

A/N: Chapter 65 seems like a good time to tell you that there’s nothing we love more than talking to you guys about this story! We are both on tumblr (@theartificialdane and @veronicasanders) and we’d love to hear from you!! We also have other Galactica content there under the “galactica” and “galactica wardrobe” tags. XOXO!! Click here if you’re looking for previous chapters (or here if you’d rather read on AO3). 💫

Last Chapter: Bianca threw a wrench in the annual holiday party when she brought Courtney as her date, and Katya tried to (not) deal with her surprise pregnancy.

This Chapter: Miss Fame and the team work on the final lineup for the spring runway, and Katya figures some things out.

***

It was Violet’s luck that she was a light sleeper, the first note of her alarm barely ringing before she had grabbed her phone from under her pillow and turned it off.

There really wasn't a need for Violet to wake up at 6, for her to start her day so early since she couldn’t go to the gym because of her ankle, but habits were hard to break, and she liked how quiet the world was in the morning, how it felt like she was the only one awake.

She wasn’t hungover, had barely had a drink because of her crutches, but she had a feeling all of her coworkers would be wearing sunglasses and asking each other to shut up, the Friday after the Christmas party always an experience.

Sutan’s bedroom was dark, his curtains swallowing the ever present lights of Harlem, the man asleep next to her, his head resting on his pillow.

It took everything in Violet not to reach out and run her fingers through his hair.

She had been so annoyed with him last night, so uncomfortable in the beautiful red dress she had bought with his money, the simmering anger not leaving her until she had felt Sutan’s clever fingers undo the zipper on her back, skin against skin finally freeing her from the smoldering fire.

“Stop staring at me.” Violet froze, Sutan’s voice deep with sleep.

“I’m not.”

“Oh?” Sutan cracked an eye open, a smile playing on his lips as he reached out, grabbing her hip on top of her blanket. “Could have fooled me.”

“Well,” Violet smiled back, allowing him to pull her in, “Maybe I was. A little bit.”

***

As her alarm sounded, Courtney groaned, burying her head into Bianca’s neck. Bianca laughed, reaching over to hit snooze, giving them a few more precious minutes in bed before Courtney had to get up.

Bianca had never been much of a morning person, but she’d discovered that, in many ways, this was her favorite part of the day. When the world was dark and still, and they were curled together under the covers, naked and warm. She trailed her fingers up and down Courtney’s back, pressed a kiss to her temple.

“You okay, sunshine?” Bianca asked.

“Mmmhmm...I just don’t want to go to work.”

Bianca smiled, one hand settling into the curve of Courtney’s waist, enjoying the way they fit so perfectly together.

“Then don’t,” she stated, warming up to the idea of taking a day off, just the two of them. “Call in sick.”

“I wish,” Courtney scoffed, a deep sigh leaving her. “But I can’t, so…”

��Why not?”

“The day after a party? Everyone will think I have some crazy hangover.”

“Yeah, so?” Bianca laughed.

“Plus, I’m pretty sure Miss Fame is less than pleased with me right now. I don’t want to give her any reason to be annoyed. And there’s a big meeting to decide on the spring runway, and I have to-”

“Alright, alright...forget I suggested it,” Bianca said, holding up her hands in surrender. “I just really liked the idea of spending all day in bed with you.”

Courtney raised herself up on her elbow, gazing down at Bianca with a dreamy smile on her face.

“Maybe, um...can we do that tomorrow?”

“You’re on, angel,” Bianca said, reaching up to run her fingers through her hair.

“And...we still have about seven minutes before the alarm goes off again.” Courtney brushed her lips against Bianca’s neck, murmuring, “You wanna go back to sleep, or…?”

“Hmmm...” Bianca cocked her head, pretending to think. “I may have some other ideas…”

Courtney let out a delighted squeal as Bianca flipped her onto her back with a wicked grin.

***

Maxwell groaned as a loud clatter sounded through the design floor.

“Sorry!” Kiara whisper-shouted, quickly picking up the pair of scissors she had dropped. Trixie had gone to the department head meeting about 20 minutes ago, which meant that everyone had given up the pretense that they were working. Alexis had gone straight for the couch to take a nap as soon as the door had closed behind him, April still nursing a terrible-looking green smoothie at her desk. “Sorry everyone!”

“Don’t even think about it girl!” Bob smiled, his phone pressed between his shoulder and his ear, and Maxwell groaned again, sliding down so he could rest his head on his arms, Bob chatting away.

He loved his boyfriend, he really did, but there were few things more annoying than when Bob had managed to get into any tabloid, the perceived fame of it always going directly to his head. And of course, it was made even worse by his friends and family back home in Georgia playing right into it, acting as if it meant anything at all.

“Listen, I didn’t ask to be born fabulous, but it’s my cross to bear, and I’m-” Bob laughed, adding, “Exactly!”

“He’s really getting into it, huh?” Maxwell looked up to see Violet standing next to his desk, looking over at Bob, Jovan at her side holding three cups of coffee.

“Here,” Jovan smiled, giving one of them to Maxwell, the scent filling his nose.

“Oh god I love you,” Maxwell grinned, taking the liquid magic. It was probably not healthy to be on his third cup already, but he didn’t care.

“Love you too boo,” Jovan grinned, taking a seat on the edge of his desk, Violet doing the same, balancing her crutch so she could take her own cup. They didn’t talk, and Maxwell loved that, Violet fitting so nicely into their little boys club that he barely even thought about the fact that she was a girl and straight most days.

***

“Pearl! Pay attention!”

Pearl snapped out of it, the wheels of her chair squeaking as she moved, her eyes wide open at the commanding tone in Fame’s voice.

“Sorry!” Pearl sat up straight, Bendela hiding a snicker behind a sketchbook, her brown eyes clearly filled with delight over Pearl getting reprimanded.

“God,” Fame rolled her eyes, her hand on her hip, her outfit of the day a white cropped cashmere sweater and white linen high waisted pants, her blonde hair in a high delicate updo, a golden belt snug around her waist. “Did anyone come to work today?”

If they had been alone, Pearl would have opened her mouth to point out that she was the one who always arranged for the Christmas party to be on a Thursday, but they weren’t, so Pearl kept her mouth shut.

“Fame,” Raja’s voice was warm, and it apparently functioned just as intended, her tone a soothing balm on whatever had Fame into such a tizzy. “We’re almost done.”

If Pearl had to make an educated guess, she’d say it was probably the whole Courtney and Bianca thing, though it could be anything from her breakfast grapefruit not being ripe to morning traffic to a photographer catching a bad angle of her last night.

“You’re right,” Fame sat back down, sliding her chair over to Trixie. “So, fourth look. What do you have?”

“I was thinking about these pants?” Trixie held out a sketch, and Pearl folded her hands over her stomach, watching her best friend do his job exceptionally well.

Fame tapped her fingers against the table, french tips hitting the wood and Pearl made a mental note to see if she could sneak in a visit to Fame’s office, providing their boss with an orgasm before lunch a great Christmas gift to everyone in the company.

***

V-List Alert: BDR’s Latest Blonde Bombshell

[Pictured: A large photo of Bianca and Courtney kissing on the red carpet, along with a few smaller shots of them looking giggly and affectionate. And lastly, a grainy, low-res photo of them on the street after the event, kissing while a driver is opening the car door.]

Well, well, well…

Okay, so to begin with, let’s all admit that BDR showing up on a red carpet with some sweet young thing is nothing new. In fact, it would be strange if she didn’t. But the shameless PDA last night at Galactica’s annual Christmas party—both on and off the carpet—had us wondering...who the hell is the new paramour?

We did a bit of digging and strap in kids, cause it gets juicy…

Turns out that this little darling is named Courtney Jenek. Sound familiar? No? Yeah it shouldn’t. But she happens to have two very interesting connections to BDR: 1, apparently she’s friends with B’s baby sister, princess of the underground punk scene Adore Delano. And 2, even more hilariously, Lil Courtney here is the Executive Assistant to none other than Miss Fame of Galactica.

Wonder what the illustrious and brand-conscious Miss Fame thinks of her bestie using her staff in what appears to be an extremely filthy unprofessional way? And how’s it all gonna play out?

We can’t wait to watch this drama unfold…

***

As Courtney slipped on her coat and grabbed her bag to head downstairs for yet another coffee run, she glanced at her personal phone, laughing to herself when she saw the 17 missed calls from Morgan. She scrolled through the text messages in the elevator.

MORGAN: COURTNEYYYYYYYY!!!

MORGAN: OMG PICK UP

MORGAN: WERE YOU PLANNING TO TELL US YOU’RE FUCKING BIANCA DEL RIO?????

TYRA: She’s WHAT

ADORE: You guys didn’t know? ;)

TATIANNA: Yawn, old news :p

MORGAN: BITCH

MORGAN: COURTNEY I SWEAR TO GOD IF YOU DON’T PICK UP

MORGAN: COURTNEYCOURTNEYCOURTNEYCOURTNEYCOURTNEY

Courtney called her back, laughing some more when she picked up even before the first ring.

“You know I’m working, right?”

“I am going to murder you,” Morgan announced.

“Wow Morgan. A hate crime? I really thought more highly of you,” Courtney replied with a giggle.

“Omigod, shut up! How could you not have told me already?!”

“Well...I don’t know, I wasn’t sure what it was at first-” she said.

“It’s still fucking major!” Morgan laughed. “I guess it makes sense, though. God, you always chose the worst men.”

Courtney chuckled, nodding as she exited the elevator and headed for the coffee shop.

“So what did your parents say?”

“Uhhh...I haven’t exactly told them yet.”

“Courtney!”

“What? It’s not gonna be dramatic or anything, you know my brother’s gay.”

“Omigod, Court, you absolute idiot. You have to-”

“One sec.” Courtney lowered her phone to give the orders for the meeting, then went back to the phone. “Sorry, I’m on a coffee run.”

“Yeah, I heard. Listen, Courtney, you have to tell them! Do you really want them to find out that you’re dating a woman who’s almost twice your age from a fucking tabloid?”

“I don’t think my parents subscribe to American fashion blogs.”

“Did you even read the link I sent you?! Someone’s gonna send it to them, trust me.”

“Alright, alright, I’ll tell them,” Courtney told her with an eye roll. She really didn’t see the big deal though; telling her parents was the last thing on her list of worries at the moment.

“Also…” Morgan’s voice lowered, taking on a sing-song, teasing tone now that the business was out of the way, “When are we hanging out? ‘Cause you know I absolutely need all the sordid details.”

“Soon, I promise.”

“Tomorrow night?”

“I’m kind of busy tomorrow,” Courtney admitted.

“Busy getting railed, you mean?”

“Maybe…”

“Ha, you slag.”

***

Maybe she was avoiding going home. That was certainly possible. But on Friday, Katya just seemed to keep finding things to do to prepare for the next week of school. It would be their last week before winter break, so she knew that any kind of serious learning would be difficult. Rather than spend her time fighting with the kids to focus when they just weren’t capable of it, she planned as many fun projects as possible, and though a lot of them were old hat for her by now, the prep work never seemed to end.

Which is why, when Jasmine, the woman who ran the afterschool program, came to her door at almost 6:45, she was still there.

“Hey, I’m sorry to bother you…”

“It’s no bother, come on in,” Katya said, a big smile on her face, especially when she saw that Jasmine had Grace with her--one of Katya’s favorite students.

“You know we close at 6, and Grace’s mom is running late today,” Jasmine said. Her tone of voice was light and cheerful, but her eyes told Katya a different story--that this wasn’t the first time it had happened, and that she was likely furious. “I gotta get home, and Dani’s out with the flu, so...do you mind keeping her here until Leslie shows up? It should be soon, she texted me ten minutes ago that she’s on the way.”

“No problem. We’ll have a great time, won’t we Grace?”

The little girl nodded, skipping into the classroom happily.

“You’re a lifesaver,” Jasmine said. “Thank you!”

Katya turned to Grace, who had dumped her jacket and backpack on the rug and was already prowling around the book bins, likely looking for her favorite Junie B. Jones stories. Soon, the two of them were settled into bean bag chairs in the comfy zone, Katya reading a few chapters out loud to her before realizing that she was probably hungry and suggesting a snack. Grace was just finishing her juice box and goldfish crackers when her young mother, Leslie, came rushing inside, harried and out of breath, apologizing profusely.

“Mama!” Grace jumped up from her seat at the little table, knocking the chair over in her excitement to leap into her mom’s arms. She hugged her tightly, face buried in her neck, and Katya could see some of the tension in Leslie’s face melt away.

Katya stood up from her own seat, picking up the book they’d been reading.

“I’m gonna put this book in Grace’s backpack so that you can finish it together this weekend,” she said, and Leslie shot her a look of pure gratitude, nodding.

“Grace, can you say thank you to Mrs. Zamo?”

“Thank you Mrs. Zamo!” she echoed cheerfully, taking the backpack and her jacket as Leslie dropped a kiss to the top of her head.

“Honey, can you go wait for me on the bench for a minute?” she asked, tugging gently on one of her pigtails.

“Okay!”

As Grace skipped into the hallway to wait, Leslie turned to Katya, tears filling her eyes.

“I’m really so sorry about being late, I-”

“It’s okay,” Katya said, head tilted sympathetically. “I get it, things happen.”

“It’s been happening all week. I got this new job, and the hours are so tough and the commute is shit, but it’s an extra two dollars an hour and I can’t say no to that. But I just feel like...I feel like I can’t do anything right.”

“I understand,” Katya nodded, putting a hand on her arm. The truth was, though, she didn’t understand. Not really. She’d never been in a position where an extra two dollars an hour would make such a big difference in her life--not even when her dad cut her off. She’d always had money, and by the time her trust fund was depleted, she was living with Trixie, whose generous salary more than covered what they needed, her meager teacher’s salary mostly paying for fun extras, keeping them entertained and living their best lives, or just going in the bank.

She knew she was lucky, but until that moment, seeing the pain in Leslie’s eyes, the fear that she was failing at life and failing her child, maybe she didn’t understand just how lucky.

“I was sitting on the bus thinking about her waiting and waiting, wondering where I was.”

“Can I tell you something?” she asked softly. “Grace didn’t care that you were late, she was just happy to see you when you got here, because it’s really obvious what a good mom you are.”

“Sometimes I feel like the worst mom ever,” Leslie admitted, tears spilling down her cheeks.

“No way. Grace is an amazing kid. She’s smart and kind and enthusiastic--and it’s totally okay if you need some more help. That’s what all of us are here for. I can talk to Jasmine about maybe extending the hours next week, until you can get your schedule sorted. Or maybe Grace can go home with Joey’s mom...don’t you all live in the same building?”

Leslie nodded, a deep sigh leaving her. “Thanks, that’s a good idea. I...I’ll figure it out.”

“Okay. Just remember that you’re not in this alone, you know?” Katya handed over a box of tissues from her desk.

“Yeah. Thanks. Sorry, I-” Leslie wiped her eyes.

“Don’t be sorry,” Katya said, giving her a warm hug.

***

“Oh god!” Gigi groaned, pushing the door to the modeling apartment open, her shoulders aching, her fingertips numb. “Finally!” She dumped her bags down in the hallway, slumping against the wall.

She had been around the town with Sutan all day, shopping for what he called a model wardrobe, Gigi trying on several pairs of heels and flats, her new backpack and purse stuffed with a newly printed book and her brand new phone, their last stop of the day Gigi’s new gym that was just around the corner.

“Gigi?” Bimini popped her head out of the kitchen door, the golden rim around her eyes and her crimped hair clear indicators that meant she had been shooting, Bimini rarely bothering with removing hair and makeup on set. “Welcome home sweetie! How did it go?”

“I’m exhausted!” Gigi pushed out from the wall and kicked her sneakers off. “Who knew shopping could be that hard?”

Gigi heard Symone giggle, her friend sitting at the table and painting her nails, the apartment's newest arrival chopping vegetables for whatever vegan crock pot Bimini was cooking for everyone. They had someone new arrive every couple of days, most girls only staying for a night or two in the bunk beds in what Naomi had dubbed the summer camp room before they were shipped off again if they didn’t interest any of the agents.

“I told you, didn’t I?”

“I know,” Gigi groaned, dumping down in a chair to rest her aching feet, “but I thought you were kidding.” Symone had gone on the trip two weeks ago, her Instagram exploding with content now that she had a brand new phone to post with.

“Did he give you the drink speech too?”

She had eaten lunch with Sutan at an awkwardly fancy restaurant, three sets of cutlery surrounding her plate, her manager going through each set as well as her wine glasses, explaining it to her. Gigi’s mom had always insisted on good manners, but it hadn’t been anything like that.

“The ‘never leave your drink unattended’ one, I mean.”

“Mmh,” Gigi nodded. “The whole entire speech.”

She hoped it’d be unnecessary, but Sutan had run her through what he called the basic safety procedures like putting a hand or a napkin over her glass when she wasn’t paying attention, her manager drilling it into her skull that she shouldn’t accept poured drinks or opened bottles from strangers in clubs unless she saw the bartender prepare it.

“Is he seriously doing all that?” Naomi raised an eyebrow. “So far, all my agent has told me is that if I showed up in any tabloid looking messy, he’d drop my ass.”

Suddenly, Sutan’s mothering didn’t feel as smothering, the attention and assistance the man had poured over her nothing compared to the terrifying thought of being left basically on her own like Naomi.

***

At first, Katya wasn’t sure why she stopped at Macy’s on the way home. Especially now, on a Friday night during the holiday season, when the sales clerks were at their most frazzled.

She wandered around, unable to get Grace and Leslie out of her mind...and in particular, the look of pure joy on Grace’s face when her mother appeared in the doorway. Leslie was a single mom, and by the look of her, she was pretty young, but she had managed to raise an exceptional kid who was sure how much she was loved.

Why was Katya so afraid of having a baby? It was like she’d told Leslie--she wouldn’t be doing it alone. Not by a long shot. No, she was fortunate to have the most wonderful man in the universe by her side. And lord knew, Trixie would make up for any maternal instincts she may lack herself. And plenty of people, people much less capable and loving than her, had babies every day.

She stopped, looking around, realizing that she’d found herself in the baby department. Specifically, in front of a shelf full of tiny little infant shoes. She smiled to herself, knowing exactly what she needed.

When she arrived home, she was thrilled to see that Trixie had prepared dinner, heating up some leftover chicken and mashed potatoes and throwing together a salad--exactly what she was in the mood for.

She smiled when she saw him, announcing, “I brought you a present.”

Trixie’s face lit up, and for a split second she could imagine that exact same expression of joy on a tiny child, the thought making her insides warm as she handed him the little bag.

He looked inside, where the two tiny pink moccasin slippers sat in their plastic box, his head then snapping up to look at her with an expression of amazement.

“Kat, are you-” His eyes were bright with tears, hopeful but still a bit tentative.

She shrugged slightly, self-consciously, afraid to say what she’s been thinking out loud, but Trixie seemed to know anyway.

He rushed forward and swept her up into the biggest, tightest hug she’d ever had, repeating over and over how wonderful she was going to be. She took his face in her hands, kissing his tear-stained cheeks, finally sure that as a team, they could do it.

[neshabeingchildish]

Hensley & Char: Friends or Whatever || Part 6

I have to warn y’all, this chapter has some sadness in it. I tapped into 15 year old me and how I was trying to navigate what I thought back then was me being bi, which IF someone calls me bi, I am not opposed to the able, even being technically ace, but for that time and for my feelings/experience and the language I had access to, that’s what I was considering myself as, but nobody knew that (though I was rumored gay by several people in high school, despite never seeing me in any relationships and me only ever speaking about male crushes to others) LOL, yes, Mama used to have male crushes irl, when I was a kid. But, I tapped into some of myself, but made it more Charlotte-like and leaned on the gay. Idk how well it will or won’t resonate, but I hope that I at least did Charlotte justice in her experience with looking inward, though her results may be disappointing, I hope that they at least come across as realistic, if not relatable or understandable. @just-a-j-reallly @junknstu1f @henryharts I’m not in a rush for feedback, as I know everybody has things going on. Hopefully my tags work out. A lot of people never get notified of them.

Also, as a heads up, the next chapter, whenever that might come, might also be sad too. I’m so sorry. 

The Jasper Juxtaposition

They had been trying to get Jasper into the fold of their outfit for a while. Ray wasn’t having it. Even whenever Charlotte basically throw her pride into a burning bin, seeping with trash juice, to pretend that she was secretly dating Hensley, but that they couldn’t tell anyone because, “Charlotte’s not out of the closet.” At this point, Charlotte was very heavily debating this ruse. 

There was an element of “people shouldn’t lie/joke about being in the closet,” which she strongly and firmly believed in… But… She went along with it anyway, because as she did her backstory for this test on Jasper, she found that she comfortably created the guise. 

“I can say that I’ve been curious about my sexuality for a while, and seeing you out of the closet, living your best gay life inspired me to come to you for advice on how to navigate figuring it out and in the process, we fell for each other and started dating secretly.”

Hensley laughed in her face and said, “It’s Jasper, Char. You don’t have to say all of that. Just be like, “We’re gay together, Dude.” He’s gonna accept it and be super chill about it. I’m not convinced there’s a pile of homo rattling around in him, if we’re being honest. PLUS, he thinks we’re both hot. He’s gonna get a kick out of us kissing and stuff.”

“I’m not kissing you!” Charlotte squealed.

Hensley turned up her nose, “What? Ew. No! Of course not. Ugh. This incites disgust, to think of it.” She shook her head, “Kissing a straight girl… in the mouth? I don’t know where your mouth has been. On boys, probably. I don’t want boy kiss transfer.”

“You kissed Chloe all the time!” Charlotte argued, unsure of why that was her response instead of arguing that she didn’t want to kiss Hensley (and hadn’t been kissing any boys, unless you counted kissing Jack Swagawitz at camp… which… she didn’t), and furthermore…

“Chloe was different, though. I really liked her,” Hensley said.

“You went out with Bianca as soon as you had a window,” Charlotte muttered.

“You told me to go for it! What? Now, I gotta stop listening to my smarter half?”

They bickered up until the moment that Jasper came over for them to feed him the lie. Whoa, were they bad at lying together… Fortunately, it was Jasper. Who, Charlotte was very disturbed by his fascination with the thought of them kissing. “Jasper is fetishing us, and I don’t like it,” she told Hensley.

“He’s not fetishizing you. He’s fetishizing fake lesbian you. It’s different.”

“Yeah, but… He’s… fetishizing lesbians!”

“He’s a dude. Dudes do that,” Hensley said, waving a hand. Charlotte didn’t like that explanation and it was often Hensley’s excuse for a number of sexist and problematic things that happened on her watch. Maybe it was for the best that Jasper didn’t pass the test. Then she’d have a problematic Hensley, and ANOTHER problematic guy at work. Ray was alright. He was nice, enough, but he said stuff sometimes that made her uncomfortable and he didn’t really listen whenever she pointed these things out. (Something that she had no idea would get worse over time, but that’s another subject.

Currently, the subject is Jasper. 

It took a while before Jasper came on board with the team. It took a while before he was ready for this secret. From the time that Hensley and Charlotte “broke up” until then, there were a lot of adventures that Hensley and Char saw together that made them really close in a way that Charlotte and Jasper were not, and even that Jasper and Henry were not. And in a way, for Charlotte, it was a lot like the fabricated story that she had spun - their secret involvement and the connecting together that nobody knew about… Also, since then, she had really been thinking about how easy it was for her to think of that, and how… relatable it felt, how natural it was to even imagine herself, keeping that sort of secret because she couldn’t tell people that she maybe… well… she didn’t really think it was so much a maybe these days… liked girls. 

More specifically, she maybe (and this WAS still a maybe), liked Hensley. Her hopeless heroine who she helped on a daily basis, and loved being so close to, even when she complained and fussed at her about the things that she deserved to be fussed at about. She would probably NEVER let her live down almost getting killed by Jasper’s crazy ex girlfriend, and she was so tired of Hensley always coming to her to get her out of stuff that she warned her about prior to the decision - like when she tried to go to the dance with Chloe as Kid Danger and Bianca as herself… STUPID HENSLEY! Charlotte decided, right around Jasper Dunlop Day that she wasn’t doing this anymore. She was going to explore her options and see what felt right. 

She bought a project board, some cards, and a science journal and she set up, literally in her closet, a little experiment center. She decorated the board, and across the top, had lettered, “Am I Gay?” Her hypothesis?: “I might be gay.” Procedure: Well, she supposed, she had to talk to some people, go on some dates, maybe kiss somebody? She shuddered. The amount of germs in saliva was terrifying to her. In fact, whenever she kissed Jack, she had threatened, “If you slip me any tongue, I’ll slip my fist right into your ribcage!” Needless to say, he slipped her no tongue.

But, her “experimentation phase” generally was not very successful for a number of reasons. 

First and foremost… meeting people? She wasn’t a fan. She joined the Student Council as a means to help her with a bit of self diagnosed social anxiety, but cared a lot about issues, so that she genuinely stayed in it to do community stuff and be a helpful member of the club. She met cool people, too! It was one of her things away from Hensley and away from Jasper, and wasn’t primarily academic, so she held it close to her heart as something for herself and decided against using it, and the fine people she met in it as lab rats for her orientation exploration.

Then, there was the little problem of personal space and unnecessary touching. There were very few people that she allowed into her bubble. Her parents, Uncle Roscoe, Hensley, Jasper, Piper, and Ray, and even with Ray, she tensed up for the longest time whenever he entered her bubble without warning. Even with that select amount of people who could be in her bubble, the only people that could casually touch her were her parents and Hensley. Sometimes Piper, but Piper had the respect to not touch her for no good reason. Unlike Hensley, who she simply had to get used to the fact that the girl was simply GOING TO just stand close, throw her arm around her, hug her, pick her up, play with her hair, tug on her backpack, or whatever she felt like doing at the time, and saying, “You should get permission before touching people,” just became background noise for Hensley, after a while, so Charlotte simply stopped saying it and adjusted. 

Jasper still sometimes got elbowed. It just wasn’t the same thing when a dude just touched you casually, she had initially thought. Maybe that wasn’t it at all and she just didn’t mind girls touching her as much, because she liked them? But… in order to figure that out, she’d have to let people in her bubble and let people casually touch her and see how she felt about it. 

So often, when it looked like somebody was getting too close, she stepped away, creating the distance of comfort for her and also, very clearly letting them see where it was. To the point that everybody who knew her knew not to get too close and everybody in her extracurriculars always did stuff like, “Hey Charlotte, I’m gonna take this lint off of you, okay?” (to which, she’d tell them to show her where it was and get it herself) or “Hi, Charlotte, do you mind if I sit here, or is that too close for you?”(To which she’d tell them to go ahead, but she’d move over more). She’d have to start telling people that being near her was okay, if she wanted to see her reactions to boys and girls and others in her proximity… And nowadays, they didn’t even ask anymore.

Even Mitch Bilsky would take one look at her and say, “UGH. The only space is by the queen of “don’t stand so close to me?” He’d then still do it, and even purposefully make her squirm, but she would resolve to ignore him and he’d get bored and move along.

But, she didn’t have very many times to test this out, and had to eventually rule out trying to get close to people (or let them get close to her) to see if she might feel a little flutter or not. 

Lastly, in addition to not being a people person and not wanting anybody in her personal space, The Man Cave was a whole ass full time job to maintain. She began to wonder what happened to people who previously worked for Ray/Captain Man? Even the ones that were there when she got there, and ones that would pop in and out for little assignments… after a while, she just didn’t see them, and she either was assigned their jobs, or took it upon herself to do them for worry of things going terribly wrong if she didn’t. Things went wrong in general, and she often felt like if she didn’t step in whenever she did, they could be downright disastrous. This job basically became her life. She never signed up for another marathon after dropping out whenever she thought the Super Volcano would kill them. She still had StuCo, but that was school related and when push came to shove, she only forsook the Man Cave for educational purposes, unless it was an extreme emergency.

In fact, she completely gave up on testing it all out and just let it bother her beneath the surface. Her conclusion: I’m more confused than ever, but technically… going to consider myself in the closet.

Imagine if I was as comfortable with myself as Jasper is…

You couldn’t tell that boy nothing. He protested stupid Swellview laws, jumped into hero mode to get his own hero day, wore belly shirts to everyone’s chagrin, was willing to go to tremendous lengths - sometimes extremely embarrassing ones - to get girls, and he overshared weird facts about his body with great excitement that just let you know that he adored these things about himself… 

She couldn’t even with certainty say that she MIGHT like girls, which, she was sure that she absolutely did, but she could hardly admit it to herself, much less out loud. What if it hurt her? What if it affected how she was seen by people on college boards or in the job field, once she left Swellview. Sure… there were YEARS before this happened, but Charlotte had been thinking ahead since she was small, and the moment she felt an inkling that her feelings may be… counterculture, she began to research related laws and statistics. 

Swellview didn’t have a big Black population. In fact, the demographics indicated that there were a lot more lgbt citizens than there were people who weren’t white, period. So, in Swellview, perhaps it wouldn’t be anything to be open about her sexuality… but… what if it was different for her, like a lot of things were. It was often different for her as a girl to be accepted in some spaces, to be listened to, to be respected. And it was frequently double different for her as a Black girl. Even the “good” people made her feel things that she often didn’t want to complain about, because they ALREADY thought she was an angry girl, when she couldn’t think of very many instances in which her anger was not justified. Research told her that was a common issue for Black girls and women. She didn’t have enough around her to touch base with, and was frustrated that she had to consider all of these intersections to even consider whether she would be free enough to have a sexual identity. 

Even with her academic record, immaculate articulation, and non-threatening appearance, Charlotte didn’t have many friends and didn’t have the best reputation. She was a nerd, but also, unfriendly. A Black girl in a male dominant world, in a white dominant city, and to possibly also be gay… she just… she couldn’t just toss that out there and have it attached to her name without knowing, and she felt like a coward for feeling like that. 

What would be the big deal, Charlotte? If that’s who you are… what would be so wrong about that? People be gay all over Swellview… but then again… everyday, she would see people be able to freely do things that she previously thought she WOULD never do, but as she got older realized that she wouldn’t do certain things, because she COULD never do them… not without possibly losing something. Chances? Respect? Heck, in certain areas of the world, her life. But, thinking this hard about it and not coming up with anything to push her to believe that she was indeed a straight girl, despite all of the reasons that it would be SO easy, and she loved easy things, despite her knack for tackling hard things. Why wouldn’t she just accept that she was straight, if that would make all of this anguish and confusion go away? She could just tell herself that she was straight and get it over with and move on… IF she was indeed straight. And if she wasn’t, no matter how much “experimentation” and hypothesizing she did, nothing would make her feel those feelings that she sometimes felt around Hensley, for some boy. 

So… She just sat with it. In her closet. She didn’t experiment and she didn’t hypothesize. But, in her science journal that she had previously been writing all of these things in, she scratched out her conclusion and wrote. 

Conclusion: I’m gay. 

But, she tore the page out and wadded it up. Then, she felt bad, straightened it back out, and slid it back into it's space. She tucked her cards into it and stuffed it into a lock box where she kept keepsakes and stuff, locked it in and got rid of her project board in the Junk n Stuff dumpster. 

She had been handling Kid Danger’s secret for a couple of years now and planned to hold on to it forever. She had time to figure out what to do with her own.

Besides… by the time Jasper got in on the secret… Things changed a lot, anyway.

[symmetricalwitch]

    The corridor was dark. Kid could feel the small child attached to his leg as Bianca forced him to move forward. The trio continued in silence until Bianca’s voice spoke to him. “Stop right there.” The Grim Reaper did as he was told, planting his feet in their place. He heard the witch move from behind him, followed by a loud hiss of air as light spilled into the corridor. Kid squinted his eyes, and Adaya’s grip on his leg tightened. He moved one of his hands onto her head, twisting his body since his wrists were cuffed together.  “Alright, move,” Bianca demanded. Kid stepped into the well lit room, where Tadashi’s form was leaning against a mahogany desk. Kid hadn’t expected Tadashi to have a well established hideout. Tadashi’s piercing blue eyes were scanning over a sheet of paper, and Kid could see it was a file on Eibon. He finally looked up from it, a look of shock and amusement claiming his features as he saw the Shinigami. 

    “Well, well, well.” Tadashi pushed himself off the desk. “Hello. Grim Reaper. I didn’t expect you to be the pick of the litter.” The Kishin made his way towards Kid, whose own amber eyes never left his movement. “You look different without those stripes in your hair.” Kid raised an eyebrow in response, and Adaya snapped her head to look at Kid, letting out a loud gasp at the sight of Kid’s hair. 

    “Kiddo! Your stripes are gone!” She exclaimed, her eyes filled with confusion. Kid looked down at her, then back to Tadashi. 

    “What did you do?” He asked. 

    “Those chains around your wrists are engraved with a spell that strips away the power of whatever person they happen to be imprisoning. In this case, it’s you,” Tadashi grinned. “Congratulations! You’re human!” Kid swallowed, fear trickling up his spine. If he was human, he wouldn’t be able to protect Adaya should they try anything. 

    “I’m human…?” He whispered. 

    “Yep! Should’ve known you’d sacrifice yourself to protect your precious Meisters,” Tadashi smirked until his eyes fell on Adaya. Then he frowned. “Although, I didn’t anticipate a child accompanying you.” 

    “That makes two of us…” Kid replied. The child hugged Kid’s leg tighter, whimpering quietly. 

    “Sorry, Tadashi. We didn’t mean to grab her too.” Bianca stated, bowing a bit. Tadashi shrugged. 

    “It is of no consequence. All we need to know is where his team is heading to next,” he slipped off his suit jacket as he stepped in front of Kid. The Shinigami looked to him, raising an eyebrow. “Where are they heading, Reaper?” 

    “I can’t say,” Kid replied. 

    “That’s what I thought you’d say,” Tadashi confirmed. He drew his hand back in one swift motion and landed a hard slap with the back of his hand across Kid’s face. Kid’s body stumbled backward, nearly trampling over Adaya. She gasped and quickly let go of his leg, stepping away from him. Kid’s mind entered a panic without her being there. 

    “Kiddo…” Adaya whispered, looking at him. He looked back at her, a small stream of blood spilling from the corner of his lips. Kid knew the risk he was taking in keeping quiet; however, he also knew Tadashi wouldn’t hold back now that he was human. 

    “Kid, you can make this very easy or very hard. It’s your choice,” The kishin balled up his fist. Kid swallowed, the taste of copper filling his mouth as he looked away from Adaya and at Tadashi. The Reaper used the back of his hand to wipe the crimson liquid trickling down his chin. Then he pursed his lips together. The lives of his teammates were at risk, and Kid wasn’t about to budge on his decision. Tadashi took Kid’s silence as his answer, his lips curling into a malevolent smile. “Suit yourself.” Tadashi stated, allowing his fist to collide with Kid’s temple. The Grim Reaper fell onto the ground, and Bianca flinched when she heard the crunch that resulted from Tadashi’s blow. She had been underestimating his strength. 

    Kid’s head was swimming, and he blinked repeatedly as he tried to wipe the black dots away from his vision, but he was interrupted when Tadashi grabbed a fistful of his raven hair. Tadashi yanked Kid’s form to its feet. Kid could hardly find it in him to stand even with Tadashi’s help. He had really done some damage, and without his Reaper body, it could kill him. Much to Bianca and Kid’s horror, Tadashi brought his fist down onto the same temple. Kid let out a soft cry of pain as his legs gave away and he landed in a heap on the ground. 

    “Kiddo, no!” Adaya screamed, her little mind already fearing the worst as her soul perception let her watch Kid’s soul fade in and out. She was hiding behind Bianca’s legs, tears streaming down her face. Kid tried his best to look at her, to reassure her that he was okay, but the world was spinning too fast, and he couldn’t focus. 

    “Wow! You’re not even fighting back! What kind of leader doesn’t fight back to preserve the new world? Are you sure you’re cut out for that?” Tadashi asked as his fingers found their way back into Kid’s hair once more. He practically dangled the poor man in the air. 

    “I-I still have a lot to learn…” Kid groaned, trying to keep his sentences coherent. Tadashi rolled his eyes, releasing Kid’s hair and letting him pile up on the ground again. The Kishin drew back his leg and swung it forward, landing a heavy hit straight into Kid’s face. The Reaper’s head snapped back, a soft crunch filling Bianca and Adaya’s ears. That was enough to make Bianca look away. She didn’t want this, for Kid’s sake. She felt the conflict start a war within her stomach. Nonetheless, she remained in place to keep Adaya safe. The child had buried her head into the witch’s leg, mumbling something that she couldn’t quite make out. Her hand rested upon Adaya’s head, trying her best to offer her any comfort. 

    “At this rate, Kid, I don’t think you’ll make it,” Tadashi looked at Kid’s body as he lay on the floor, and a feeling of giddiness spread to the Kishin’s limbs. His mouth only grew wider as he smiled, the face of a true demon. “Where are they heading, Kid?” Part of Tadashi hoped he wouldn’t answer. He crouched down to look at Kid’s bloodied face, admiring his work. His nose was spilling blood at an alarming rate, possibly from the hematoma he had just given the Reaper. There was even a gash on Kid’s temple that leaked his crimson liquid onto the ground. Kid’s amber eyes looked to Tadashi’s blue ones, and he managed to turn away in response. “Look at me,” Tadashi said, grabbing Kid’s face. He planted his thumbs directly by Kid’s tear ducts, which were now moist with fresh tears from Tadashi’s pressure by his broken nose. His face was swelling, the underneath of his eyes a deep purple. “I won’t ask you again. Where are they going?” Kid only looked to him, gritting his teeth in pain. “Fine.” Then, Tadashi thrust his thumbs as hard as he could into Kid’s eye sockets. The Reaper screamed loudly as he felt blood trickle down his face and mix with the liquid that was already there. Soon, Kid’s world was dark, and Tadashi pushed Kid back onto the ground. 

    Adaya had torn her face away from Bianca’s leg when she heard Kid scream. She tried wiping her tears from her eyes, only for more to take their place. 

    “Kiddo, please… Just tell him…” She whimpered, sniffling afterward. Kid turned his head in her direction, now relying on his hearing. 

    “I can’t love…” he said weakly. Adaya forced herself to look away from Kid, his bloodied face making her stomach turn. “If I tell him, sissy and the others will be hurt.” He didn’t know that Adaya had looked away from him, but he offered her a smile despite the pain he felt. He was surprised he had lasted this long. 

    “You’re willing to risk your own life despite the fact they aren’t here to save you?” Tadashi scoffed. “That’s pathetic.” Tadashi folded his arms across his chest, and Kid turned his head in his direction. 

    “T-they are following orders…” he stated, trying to push himself into a sitting position, but the pain was too much for his human form to handle. So, he collapsed back onto the ground, groaning softly. 

    “What about the girl?” Bianca asked, her hand still resting atop Adaya’s head. Kid tried to look at her. 

    “They still won’t come… someone on our team knows Tadashi enough and said he wouldn’t hurt a child… they are under strict orders to stay away…” Kid responded. 

    “Well, that leaves more fun for me,” Tadashi grinned as he drew his leg back to land another kick on Kid. 

    “No!” Adaya shouted, yanking away from Bianca. The small girl flung herself on top of Kid, ignoring his cry of pain as her tear filled eyes looked up at Tadashi. The Kishin stopped, looking back at her. “Don’t hurt him anymore!” She looked away from Tadashi to wrap her arms around Kid as much as she could. His blood stained her clothes, but Adaya didn’t care. She had to keep him safe. “You can hurt me all you want… but, please… leave Kiddo alone…” The Kishin felt his chest tighten up, and the air around him seemed to grow thin. 

    “A-Adaya, please…” Kid’s hand weakly reached up, his fingers landing atop Adaya’s head, and she hugged him tighter. “It’s okay…” 

    “It’s not okay, Kiddo!” She screamed, burying her head into his chest. “You’re my best friend, and I can’t lose you!” She wept softly, nearly hyperventilating from her sobs. Bianca felt her own chest tighten, and she looked away. 

    Tadashi couldn’t hurt a child, not even emotionally. He couldn’t kill Kid in front of her no matter how much satisfaction it would bring him. There would be another time. Tadashi sighed. 

    “Take him and leave,” he stated bitterly. 

    “Really?” Adaya asked as she looked up. 

    “Tadashi, they are going to have to navigate through the desert. Kid won’t make it, and she will die out there too,” Bianca said. Tadashi threw his hands up. 

    “That’s not my problem anymore. Take the goddamn Reaper and go,” he repeated. 

    “But… but…” Adaya started. 

    “Go before I change my mind!” Tadashi shouted, and the girl shrank into Kid. He wanted to end Tadashi there for scaring her, but there was nothing he could do right now. Kid would have his time. Adaya scrambled to her feet. 

    “Come on, Kiddo,” she whispered, gently pulling on Kid’s hands. “I’ll lead you…” 

    “Thank you…” Kid managed to get to his feet, his legs shaking horribly. Adaya wrapped one of her fingers around Kid’s and led him towards the corridor in which they had entered. Once Tadashi was sure they were out of sight, he looked at Bianca. 

    “We have to relocate. I’m letting them know they are in the desert. We can’t be here when they arrive,” he stated, turning to his desk. Bianca nodded. 

    “I’ll let everyone know,” she said as she left the room. Tadashi gripped the edge of the desk in anger, daming himself for having a weakness. That child was going to be the cause of his demise.