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xreaderbooks · 2 years ago

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Paradise on Earth (18)

Chapter: 18. The Cross

Pair: JJ Maybank x Routledge! Reader

Word Count: 4.7k

Warnings: Language, mentions of sex, grave digging

Summary: All kinds of secrets are revealed in the island room

Links: Wattpad and AO3, Playlist

Chapter 17 - Series Masterlist - Navigation - Chapter 19

You had a headache. The events of last night had you tossing and turning. The illicit fight, the key is taken, you consoled Pope as best you could as he let his tears flow freely and the sobs wrack from his throat and into his crossed arms- you rubbed his back and let him rant. You feared he was close to his breaking point if he wasn’t already.

All of you had hardly slept, talking through the night about the new game plan- there was none- you were all sleeping in unintentional shifts, sprawled around the porch til daylight. You had all come to the conclusion that it was over, there was nothing left to be done even with Denmark Tanny’s diary.

The key was your only true lead.

That was until Sarah Cameron walked into your screened patio where you all lay like dead flies.

You whistled lowly at the sight of her, “Look what the cat dragged in.”

“Shouldn’t you be on Figure Eight with your little group of polo players?” John B taunted her. “Or did you break up with Topper?”

She smiled sarcastically at him, “We’re just friends.”

“It seems like you have a lot of friends, Sarah Cameron.” Your brother continued as she walked a little way from him between where JJ was leaning against the metal that attached the screen and Pope who was sitting on a recliner chair.

“Yeah, and it seems like you’ve got some of your own too,” She must have seen John B with the girl who had invited him to the bonfire. “I’m here for Pope.”

Pope gave her a confused face.

“I found the island room.”

The five of you instantly perked up, the words she had just spoken had revived you all with hope.

Immediately, the six of you hopped into the Twinkie and rode out to Tannyhill.

“Guys listen to this!” Pope calls for attention holding the stack of paper that were copies of the diary. “The diary says the cross holds the most holy relic in all of Christendom, the garment of the savior.”

“So wait, it’s saying there’s a holy garment inside the cross?” Kie peeks over his shoulder to look at the paper.

“Yeah, it says the garment is capable of healing the sick from any malady.”

That must be what Limberey was after this whole time, you thought, that delusional bitch.

“‘If only I may touch his garment, I shall be made well’" JJ quoted from who knows where. You side-eye him from your seat, the rest of your friends equally as bewildered by him. “What? I went to Sunday school.”

“That’s why Limberey is desperate to find it, she wants it to heal her,” You said. “What else does it say?”

“‘Many feel that we have sinned to steal such a sacred thing and God will strike his vengeance on us’” Pope recites.

“Thing is, God did have his vengeance...” Kie pursed her lips.

“He sent a hurricane to sink the ship, only Denmark survived,” Pope says solemnly.

~~~

Sarah directs you all around the mansion, guiding you all through several corridors to a room that you believe to remember is where Ward took his meetings. The room was completely different now, the fancy wallpaper was torn off, and a mural of a town was painted on the walls of the room.

“It’s the island room,” Sarah gave him a pleased smile. “It has to be.”

Pope walked into the room and written all over his features was pure awe “This has got to mean something.”

“This is a map of the whole island,” John B noted.

You take notice of historical Kildare Island landmarks, as do the others, they name the places the group has been to. Parcel 9, the lighthouse- JJ mentioned Rixon’s, and John B just pointed out the surf break at Mase. The boys determined that the drawing in Denmark's diary and his writing had matched that of the paintings on the wall.

“This has something to do with the key, right?” You ask, though at this point it was obvious it definitely did. You run your fingers across the torn edges of the wallpaper leftover and question Sarah, “How did you uncover it?”

“I didn’t, it was like this when I got home.”

“So then who did it?” Kie questions.

A voice came from the door you all had entered through not too long ago, you and the rest of the pogues jumped at the sound. It turned out to be Wheezie, she answered Kie, “It was the freaks.”

“What freaks are we talking about, Wheeze?” JJ recovered from being startled by her quicker than the rest of the group.

“That sick lady and her attack dog,” She said. You laughed at what she called Renfield, you sent the group an apologetic smile as Wheezie explained. “They showed up last night, and they wanted to talk to Rafe-”

“Pale blonde lady?”

“Crutches?”

“It’s gotta be Limberey.”

Pope, JJ, and Kie give out identifiers of the one person who could have known about this.

“What happened?” You asked, not wanting to wait any longer for the details.

“First, they searched the whole house looking for something, and then Rafe told me to go upstairs, but I didn’t wanna miss out so I listened through the grate, I heard Rafe show them this room and the paper ripping. They were talking about getting across the sand flamingo.”

“That’s code, that’s code for something!” JJ immediately theorized.

Pope dismissed him and clarified with Wheezie, “The cross of Santo Domingo?”

“Yeah that’s it, and they were talking about angels- a lot of angel talk, I don’t know.”

“Denmark’s famous last words!” You piece everything together. “He buried the real treasure at the foot of the angel.”

Pope snaps his finger, “We have to find the angel in the room!”

Everyone spreads out and starts to search for any sign of an angel, Wheezie said something that made you freeze, and a cold chill went down your spine.

“You know, I could never ask Rafe 'cause I know he’d be a dick about it but did you guys break up?” She spoke nonchalantly, “He’s been extra asshole-ish lately and I know there’s a lot going on-”

John B stood still, slowly turning his head to Wheezie. Sarah’s eyes looked like they were about to pop out of her head, “What did you just say?”

You couldn’t move, all thoughts of looking for the angel were gone, you could hear a pin drop in the room as everyone had stopped moving.

“Y/n and Rafe,” Her voice got quieter, just now realizing that she had said something she wasn’t supposed to. Heat rushed up from your neck to your cheeks, not from embarrassment but from shame, that same feeling you get when you're in elementary school and get sent into the principal's office you probably weren't in trouble but it felt like the end of the world. To make matters worse, she pulls out her phone and hands it to Sarah.

You didn’t want to know, you shut your eyes, this was a nightmare- it had to be some shitty nightmare that when you opened your eyes it would all be gone. Everyone was staring at the youngest Cameron’s phone, Kie looked disgusted, Pope couldn’t have hidden the betrayal on his face, and JJ… he was still upset with you so his current indifference toward you hadn’t changed.

“Guys-” You started.

“How could you?” John B practically shoved Wheezie’s phone in your face, you grabbed it and saw a picture, he tapped on it so they could see the date it was taken on the top. “How long?”

Your lips quivered, the tears welling in your eyes, “We weren't together.”

“And that’s supposed to make it better?” John B shouted at you. You flinched, John B hardly ever spoke to you like this, and if he did- you were right there with him. It stung, it felt like getting scolded by your favorite parent or favorite teacher who you never wanted to disappoint. John B was your brother, so fights were normal but it never felt like this.

You didn’t know what else to say, “I’m sorry.” It came out in a sob.

“He framed me for murder, Y/n, he jumps Pope like every other day with no regret!” John B mentions every way Rafe has wronged the group. “He almost killed his own sister!”

You look at the ceiling to stop any more tears from falling, but it was too late, when you blinked they fell. 3-4 at a time, came flooding out of your eyes, you took every word he yelled at you, you knew Kie and Pope had their own thoughts to chew you out but John B was giving it all to you that they didn’t need to.

“Hey, yo guys!” JJ called out to the group suddenly in front of a painting with a tree. “Come here, this humongous tree is still on Goat Island, you know what it’s called?”

John B is breathing heavily and still glaring at you as he walks over to JJ with a shake of his head, Pope glances over at you once- not meeting your eye.

“Angel Oak,” He responds.

JJ points to the center of the painting of the tree, “Look, there’s a keyhole. That means the cross is buried at the foot of the angel, that must be where he put it, we should go.”

Pope wastes no time rushing out of the room, the others going after him, you push Wheezies phone into her chest as you walk out.

“I didn’t know that you didn’t tell them!” She comes after you. “I’m sorry.”

You shook your head but you couldn’t find it in yourself to reassure her with a smile, you settled for just telling her it didn’t matter. “They were gonna find out one way or another.”

Surprisingly, they were still waiting for you in the Twinkie the sliding door left open for you. No one would speak to you, which was fine- you found it better that way. Pope gave John B directions, the tree was past Freedman’s church, a long road surrounded by trees and wetland.

“Shit,” John B cursed. “Tide’s coming in.”

The path turned muddy, there were tracks already imprinted in the dirt that Pope had pointed out. JJ who was in the passenger seat asked John B if they should risk it, “It’s a little dicey.”

“Well, clearly they made it,” Kie stated.

“In a two-wheel drive?” JJ clicked his tongue. “I don’t know about that.”

“Why are y’all acting like you’re not gonna do it anyways?” You dared to quip. “Like when have you ever done the safe thing?”

John B turned his head to give you a quick once over and JJ gave him a downward smile and they both shrugged, you didn’t take this as a sign of being on good terms, simply giving them the fuel they needed to do what they needed to do with no hesitation.

You, Pope, Kie, and Sarah held onto whatever you could as JJ talked John B through the speed he needed to get through the land without getting stuck. At a distance that was deemed safe enough to park, the Twinkie was stopped and the group piled out to where the Angel Oak tree was.

JJ began to ramble about gators, you weren’t entirely sure if it was to diffuse the tension that hung around the group now but it was working. You walked behind the rest of them, Sarah and John B a little ahead of you talking- bickering- more like, amongst themselves until she let a tree branch smack him in the face.

You snickered to yourself which earned you a sharp glare from your brother.

“John B-”

“Not now, Y/n.”

You sighed and came up behind Sarah and Kie who were hidden behind the cover of tall bushes. You heard Limberey’s dreamy voice go on about the significance of the garment, one touch and she will be healed. By the sound of the sarcasm dripping from Renfield’s voice, he doubted it.

There was a crane that dug through the roots of the tree, handled by a hired construction worker. He hit something hard that was covered by soil, and Limberey ordered him to stop. Rafe and Renfield dug with their hands and lifted a casket.

The pogues impatiently stood by as they opened it with a crowbar, the woman’s face fell in disappointment, “We must have missed something.”

She grabs ahold of her crutches and shouts out her new plans to go back to the island room and how it wasn’t over.

The coast was clear once they packed everything up, Rafe got into his range rover, and the construction worker hauled the crane on the back of his truck that was rigged up with something to hold it, Limberey right behind them.

Pope came out of hiding, and ran straight for the casket, “Cecilia Tanny, Denmark’s wife.”

It was empty, only dusty bones left.

“He wasn’t talking about the cross, he buried her at the foot of the angel.”

“The true treasure,” Kie breathed out.

How tragic, your heart clenched at truly devastating it all was- romantic even for all the wrong reasons. “Denmark was hung for burying his wife and they defiled her grave,” Pope reached in, searching for something in her ashen bones- a necklace with her name.

Sarah found something herself, a ring, “This must be from Denmark, her wedding ring.” She and John B shared a look.

“We can’t leave her like this.”

“We won’t,” John B reassured Pope.

You worked together to reseal the top of the wooden casket with nails from a toolbox in the Twinkie, the boys lifted and gently placed her in her resting place, and you all pushed the dirt back over it. Placing fresh flowers from around the area, on top of the spot.

“I just don’t get it,” Pope announces, “He hides his gold so no one finds it for 170 years and then he sends a message to his son, Robert, to come here to his mother’s grave- but the message never gets to him. Denmark wanted him to find the cross, I know we’re in the right spot, it just feels like-”

“Like we missed something?” JJ was looking up at the tree. “Guys, come here.”

Kie climbs up on the roof of the van and then onto the thick tree branch with JJ. “That looks like the painting from the island room.”

“It’s worth a shot right?” JJ reaches into the tree hollow, “There’s something in here.”

He begins to scream as if something inside was tugging him, he struggled to pull his arm out, and the four of you that were still on the ground instantly go to help him. You call his name and start climbing the van to reach him but his shouts were stopped by his laughter.

“Asshole,” You hop down from halfway up the Twinkie.

“I got all of you,” He chortles. “Wait, but seriously there’s something in here.”

He pulls out something metallic and thick, tossing it down to Pope before jumping from the tree to the ground and taking it from him. “Give it to the captain,” He observes before elongating it, “It’s a spyglass.”

“There’s something on the end,” You point out. “An inscription right there.”

“You’ve come this far, do not falter, the cross is on the Freedman’s altar,” Pope reads. “Freedman’s altar… the cross is at the church!”

~~~

Your luck appeared to have run out, the tide had risen and the path that was already made muddy from the water became worse. The road was gone, and John B hit the brakes before warning everyone to brace themselves, he and JJ debated if the Twinkie would make it or not; it did not.

About halfway there, John B hydroplanes and the Twinkie is stuck in the mud. Pope suggests you all walk from where you're at but John B refused to leave the Twinkie when the tide was still coming in.

“I can take my dad’s truck,” Kie begrudgingly suggests.

“Are you sure?” Pope asks.

“How much worse can it get, you know?”

“We’re gonna need something to pull her out with, there’s the winch at the Chateau,” JJ mentions. “That’s like two miles.”

“If you’re gonna do it, just go-” John B declares.

“Can- Can I go with?” You waver when you ask. JJ searches your eyes and glances at Kie as if he’s asking her permission, you almost roll your eyes at the action. She shrugs and encourages you with a tilt of her head.

You’d much rather deal with the asshole who was already giving you shit and your best friend who you could already hear in your head reprimanding you than face your brother, his ex, and the person who had been wronged time and time again by the person you had a secret affair with.

The three of you trekked through muddy waters until you reached the part of the road that had been untouched by the tide, and walked into town with half-soaked pants. The mission to Kie’s house went quickly, she snuck into her parent's house to steal the keys to the truck while you and JJ crouched outside the picket fence.

“You alright?”

You considered the question JJ asked you, it took you by surprise to say the least, you thought he was still upset- he probably still was but he cared. It increased the pace of your heart, you nodded, you didn’t think you were at the level yet with him to actually talk like everything was all good.

Kie tossed the keys at JJ the moment she came back, you rushed to get into her dad’s truck as JJ turned the car on and you were off to your next stop.

“This’ll only take a sec, it’s in the surf shack,” JJ told you both, running out the door- tripping, and falling onto the ground. You winced, he picked himself up and continued running.

“Why’d you do it?” Kie interrogated you the moment it was just the two of you. “Why him? That’s seriously so messed up Y/n, he’s a fucking psychopath.”

You understood the anger, you could take the judgment from Sarah and John B, and the puppy dog glances full of hurt by Pope who couldn’t believe you would betray his friendship. You could even handle the shit JJ gave you for fucking the guy he cannot stand and would probably kill if ever given the chance, but Kie?

“I know, Kiara, I know he is- it just happened.”

“Like what the hell was going through your head, honestly?” Her tone was full of condescension, “That’s just another thing he could hold over you. Did you seriously think we wouldn’t find out? Or that you could keep this from us forever? I’m your best friend!”

“Oh my god, shut the fuck up!” You blurted out without being able to stop yourself. “I know, I know, I know! He’s a psychopath, he sent John B to jail, he fucked the group up too many times to count- he’s a shitty fucking person but he loved me!”

You didn’t want to believe the words that you had shouted at her, but you said it, it was out.

“He was there, and he is obviously toxic as hell but I saw something in him that I thought…” This was going to be embarrassing to admit. “I thought I could help him be better, he acted like he could be like he would- but I guess I was just desperate to think so because of all the bullshit he fed me when we were alone.”

Kie held a bewildered expression, but she openly listened.

“It happened once, it was sort of a long time coming with what we had going on but we weren’t in a relationship- I genuinely meant to help him be better. Clearly, I failed, and everything went to shit but there’s your explanation Kiara. I don’t need one more person- much less you, telling me that I’m fucked up for doing what I did when I’ve already had this conversation with myself too many times to count.”

She frowned and nodded, “I’m sorry.”

You felt like a small weight had been lifted, one down- four more to go. With perfect timing, JJ was walking back but with a taller older figure behind him. Luke. Since when was he out of jail?

Kie walked out of the truck, “No, Immediately no.”

“Just get in the truck, Y/n get in the front passenger,” He instructed as he put the tools needed in the trunk.

Without a word, you walked out of the back cabin and went into the passenger seat as Luke slid into your old seat. He winked at you with a smile, you shivered with disgust, Kie argued with JJ.

“Guys!” You yelled for their attention. “The Twinkie is sinking, what the hell are we doing?”

~~~

JJ made Kie stop at a corner store near the marina where he was to drop his dad off, you and Kie sent each other expressions of distaste as Luke sat in the back, he was just as ADHD as JJ. He tapped on the back of your seats, making as much noise as possible for attention that you and Kie were not giving him.

“You’re a terrible father, you know that?” Kie spoke.

“Preach it to me,” He leaned back into his seat, finally stopping his incessant noise.

“You don’t deserve him,” You chimed. “Not an inch of how amazing he is.”

“He’s a thief is what he is.”

Ire burned through you, you had millions of words to describe how you wanted Luke Maybank to rot in hell.

“And what are you?” Kie retorted. “You’re just a wasted local salt who never did shit but get messed up and hustle people, not exactly impressive.”

“You sound just like your mama,” He told Kie. “She was just like that in high school, always thought she was better than everybody else. Kook princess- and looky here, you're just like her slumming it with the bad boys, and the princess of pogues here pretending she won’t grow up to be trash just like her daddy.”

Kie snapped and elbowed Luke in his nose, knocking him back, “Don’t talk about my family.”

Pride surged in you, you wanted to laugh, you’ve been wanting to do that for years, and although it was Kie who got the satisfaction, watching it happen felt just as good. JJ came not a minute after, handing him a 6-pack of beer, and getting in the back with him.

~~~

JJ practically dragged Luke out of the truck, you called his dad's attention, and you and Kie had your middle fingers up. He went to react but JJ turned him around telling him to go. You and Kie giggled, calming down after a minute.

“You think he’ll be okay?” You worried over JJ dropping his dad off.

“He’ll pretend to be, for sure.”

“I’m gonna go check on him in a minute,” You told her with a frown, she gave you a half smile.

After a couple of minutes, you walked along the dock over to where he stood, watching the boat his dad drifted off in.

He saw you and immediately engulfed you in a hug, you didn’t have time to process before wrapping your arms around his middle. You whispered into your hair, “I’m sorry baby, I’m so sorry.”

You felt droplets fall onto your shoulder, your arm went underneath his aviator jacket and traced the line of his spine with light tickles. Who knows what his dad’s final words were to him, how hurt he must feel.

“JJ,” You took a small step back from his arms, cradling his face in your hands. “It’s okay, you're gonna be okay, we’re okay.”

He shook his head and pulled you back in, clutching you tighter, “I didn’t mean to snap on you. I was just scared I’d lose you to that kook."

He squeezed you after a minute, "You know you’re my girl right?”

You just let him hold you, and tell you sweet nothings if that’s what made him feel better, nodding along as he kissed your temple. He seemed to hold himself up as you walked back with his arm around your shoulders.

~~~

“Oh look, the three tortoises are back!” You heard Pope comment through the open window of the truck. “Where the hell were you guys?”

You observed the three you left behind, John B lay in a weird position on his right- grimacing.

“Luke was at the Chateau,” JJ reached into the pickup bed grabbing what was needed.

“Great, while you guys were there having family time, John B got bit by a gator!”

“What?” You went over to him and ran your eyes over his body to see where he got bit. You saw blood smeared on the side of the Twinkie.

“What the hell happened?” Kie exclaimed. Immediately getting shouted at by Sarah, John B, and Pope. “I don’t why I’m being yelled at, I put my ass on the line.”

“You’re being yelled at because it was 20 minutes!”

“We got here as fast as we could!” You defended Kie.

Pope sent you a furious look, “Let’s not start on what you’ve been up to while everybody’s been put through hell!”

Words were said, voices were raised, and everyone was agitated. The five of you verbally fought amongst yourselves until JJ called out at the top of his voice for you all to stop.

“Seriously guys, I can’t take it anymore, alright- everyone just cut it out for a second.” He chuckles, leaning against a tree to steady himself, “Look, I just helped my dad leave this island for good like he’s not ever coming back. He’s straight up like the Spanish- just ‘Bon Voyage’”

Not the right language, you and Kie gave each other puzzled looks but everyone stayed silent nonetheless.

“All we got and I know for a fact all I got is you guys, okay? You’re it” He stared directly at you as he said it. “I’ve come too close to losing you, all of you. So, this blaming each other is some kook-ass bullshit, we don’t do that, we’re Pogues. Sorry, that was a lot right now… I didn’t mean to.” His hands were on his hips and he avoided everyone’s gaze after his speech.

The group looked as though to be in agreement, giving JJ a round of applause.

“That was the best freaking speech I’ve ever heard,” John B praised. “Also, you should think about getting a Rosetta Stone because your Spanish and French are flip-flopped.” JJ flipped him off.

Sarah raised her hand, “We should bon voyage out of here.”

JJ and John B attached the Twinkie to the back of Kie’s dad's truck, hauling it out of the water in no time and the pogues were off to the church.

~~~

Birds fluttered away from the door the boys had forced open. The church had been abandoned, long long ago, vines had grown through the cracks in the floorboards and around the windows.

Pope insisted the cross was here, and JJ joked about there being a secret button around the piano.

“How about we find obvious clues?” John B advises, but there wasn’t much to look for.

“It’s not an escape room,” Kie rolled her eyes.

Pope was on the verge of a break when John B doubted the cross was in the church. “No, no. There’s no way he would set us up on a freaking goose chase that would lead us to a church that has nothing in it.”

“Yes, I get it, I don’t know what to tell you, man.”

“The clues led us here, the cross is in this church,” Pope slumped down a pew. He fiddled with the spyglass and looked through it, pointing it at the ceiling. With a conspiratorial gaze at the wooden beams supporting the roof, Pope climbed on the walls through the termite-eaten holes.

You, JJ, Kie, Sarah, and John B warned him about the dangers of climbing, but he wasn’t listening. He ignored all of you and knocked on all the beams to hear if one of them was hollow.

You noticed a bee hive above his head, “Pope, just move slow- there’s a hive.”

Sarah left and came back with a crowbar to help Pope who was tearing up the wood on one of the beams that turned out to be hollow with his hands. With the metal in his hand, he tore all the pieces til it revealed the golden cross.

Cheers went all around, Sarah and Kie brought you into a group hug, and John B and JJ had their arms around each other. Pope accidentally dropped the crowbar from excitement, the glory of victory of short-lived as bees swarmed Pope. He slipped, holding himself on the supporting beam, the group worked in unison to move the pews and find anything that could break Pope’s fall.

Just as he landed, the cross came down after him.

~~~

Chapter 19

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petrichorium · 4 months ago

Note

i am barging in to demand (humbly request) the shanks/pluvi lore. specifically how you met. please. i just really wanna know your vision

I am always ready and eager to talk abt shuvi lore truly i hope ur ready for So Much Yappage here 🙏🏻

The basic gist of it is I’m a lighthouse keeper and I end up kinda saving his life when the red hair pirates wreck near my island bc they didn’t listen to me LMFAOOOOO but I’ll put a more detailed account under the cut 🫣 and talking abt this inspired me to make a lil moodboard for our slowburn while i still live on my island (for a timeline it takes about two yrs for him to finally wear me down enough that im like yeah sure ill fuck u, n then abt four more yrs of us in a steadily ramping up fwb until i finally do leave w him—which is a Fraught Decision and a Whole Thing i will not get into here LOL)

It's a year after shanks lost his arm and they left the east blue, uta's with them bc the vague "uta is canon but film red is an au" thing lets me do what i want and what i want is for her to be integral to me warming up to the whole crew LOL (i have aged her up a bit tho, she's 12 here; shanks is 28, im 32ish bc again i do what i want and what i want is to age myself up KJSHDBFJKH). Anyway again im a lighthouse keeper, there's a storm brewing and i see their ship in the distance so i call them up on their transponder snail..........

I think they're coming in from a scuffle tbh, kinda intending to make landing and lick their wounds as they wait out the storm. im like hey ur Too Late and Too Far and ur gonna wreck if u try to make landfall rn. they do not listen to me and attempt anyway. it's a mess, the ship's already pretty damaged and the crew tired and in the chaos uta ends up going over—shanks jumps in after her, one armed and all, and they r swiftly separated from the ship in the storm

uta's fine enough when they wash ashore right beneath my lighthouse and shes also Loud enough that i hear her over the wind so i make the trek out and take my little pulley-lift down the cliffs and like listen. nearly unconscious man i know was one of those pirates who didnt listen to me...... i would not have bothered. but little girl soaked and sobbing and terrified clinging to him........ would be cruel not to help. so i grumble and bitch and trudge over to throw his arm over my shoulders and Attempt (w uta's "help" which is more just her bawling and yanking on his shirt, and also his help which is a bit more useful but still Not Great) to lug him back to my lil lift.

Im in like. Work overalls and a pair of grungy waders and a big ol wool sweater and a coat thrown over—real waterman chic yk—just soaked to the bone bc it’s pouring and the seawater’s doing nobody any favors, cursing up a storm bc shanks is a big fucking man and I’m very much doing the heavy lifting. Anyway he’s half conscious and drops a uh...... clearly addled “you’re beautiful” and I’m like okay dude if ur awake enough to be pulling that bullshit ur awake enough to walk better than this cmon now……….

Anyway we make it to the lift up to the lighthouse w uta just absolutely inconsolable and shanks drifting in and out of consciousness. Im taking the moment to catch my breath and steadily get more and more pissed bc she’s called him captain enough times for me to know he’s definitely the one who just Blatantly Ignored my warnings And she’s called him Shanks enough times that I’ve finally put a finger on who he is—bc one of my responsibilities as lighthouse keeper is also to warn the island of who’s approaching so I keep tabs on the more Infamous pirates of which the red hairs are so I’m even more irate LMFAOOOOOO sooooo serious I am such a cranky spinster in this selfship (even tho again I’m only like. 32 JDNCKSNKDND)

Anyway. Once the lift brings us up to the lighthouse/keeper’s quarters I help shanks to the spare room and grab him some dry clothes and he’s Out by the time I’ve showered n gotten into my own. Uta’s a bit better esp once I get her showered and dried too, she hovers near him for the first lil bit and then is spooked enough by the storm and yk her unconscious father that she ventures back out to stay w me. To help calm her nerves I decide to call into town and see if the rest of the crew has popped up (bc i know the currents and know generally where a ship like that would end up)—im decent friends w the local bartender and shes like yeah they showed up n now theyre weathering out the storm. she puts me through to beckman and he talks to uta and then he n i kinda agree better to just wait until the storm passes and then theyll come take uta and shanks off my hands

it takes like a couple days!!! the lighthouse is abt thirty mins from town but the storm's so bad the route is too dangerous for a bit. shanks remains largely unconscious for most of that; i take care of uta and she n i rlly bond during this time, in fact i let her sleep w me bc shes too flighty to sleep well w shanks.

and then she lets her fleet of uncles into my house while im tending to the light and i come back to be jumpscared by beckman and im like wow this is awful gtfo of my house take ur captain with u i want all of u G O N E 😭😭😭 i am not a people person and i do not naturally get along w men esp not. the kinda men the red hair pirates are i fear so i am very curt and quick to send them off.

it takes shanks another day or so to sleep it off n then he wakes up to a disheveled crew and a wrecked ship w them all stuck for at least a month while the ship is repaired. He only has very hazy memories of me regarding the whole ordeal and it's one of the primary reasons he comes out of it A Bit Obsessed but v much nothing concrete.......

ofc when i finally venture into town beckman points me out and shanks approaches me very eagerly n offers to buy me a drink n im like :) no thank u i would rather not do that actually pls take ur arm off my shoulders and never speak to me again JSHIBFJHB idk........ it takes a couple of other interations && watching me w uta before his Full Infatuation sets in but within the week shanks is v much enraptured and also in denial abt the romantic aspect (in his head he just wants to be friends w me bc uta adores me and i saved him; its like a funky little challenge in his head LOL)

then it's two yrs of him finding every excuse to come back "for uta's sake, shes always asking after her favorite auntie" and slowly coming to realize hes into me and then starting to be Very Obvious about it until i again finally give in. its sweet, idk hes the kinda guy in my head who falls Hard but doesn't realize until hes in the thick of it, poor Beckman who saw the entire future the moment he started asking uta about me when he woke up LMFAOOOOOO

n e way there we go 🙂‍↕️ 🙂‍↕️ i hope it lives up to ur expectations JHADBFJHB

#ask.🌧#themultifandomnerd #TY FOR ASKING I love yapping abt this stuff #sorry this took so long LOL #ss.🌧 shuvi

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insomniac-dot-ink · 3 years ago

Text

Headlights Girl

Genre: Urban fantasy + wlw romance

Words: approx. 8k

Summary: The story of a girl with headlamps for eyes and the moth-girl she meets along the way.

My book 🌸 Ko-fi 🌸 Patreon

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

Most humans carry the night with them. Even during daylight hours, they can shut out the sun, turn off the light, recede into themselves and into that soft secret place behind their eyes.

Did you know certain animals don’t have eyelids? Gecko’s have nothing between them and the violent sun which wishes to cook the colors of their world. They have to use their tongue. Dust and sand and rain, can you imagine? I was obsessed with lizards as a kid.

I stacked up books on snakes and lizards and skinks. I traced the way that sand snakes crested across the dunes, sideways and wrong. I put glue on the pads of my hand and tried to climb the walls of my room— I didn’t even get one handhold up. I went to the zoo and peered into their cages, up on my tiptoes, trying not to smudge the glass or breath too hard. I tried make out their triangle heads and slow tongue-flicks, but they each shrank away deep into nooks and crannies of their cages. Most things do when I look at them.

Most humans carry the night with them, right there behind their eyelids is an entire world of darkness. I have something else inside me, not quite, not soft, not secret. They called me “headlights girl” in the newspapers.

There were even stranger kids born in the Age of Spirits. I checked. Every morning of fifth grade, I scanned the papers for mentions of “oddities” growing into anomalies.

A boy who could breath fire. A girl with leaves sprouting from her head. A kid with antennae that could taste the wind. There are stranger things than me in the age of beasts and magic. My father called it the “Epoch of Bastards,” sons and daughters of flickering fire elementals and wind ghosts who seduced half-asleep ladies from their beds.

He didn’t look at me much growing up. And I knew what he meant. I knew what he was getting at by calling it the Epoch of Bastards. Growing up, I played in my little puddle of carpet on the floor as he blustered in and out of rooms like gale force winds. He’d be looking for his keys or a left shoe or wallet since he was going out, out, out. I think I missed him at first, in the way you miss strangers you’ve never met.

Later, still on my puddle of carpet, still on my island, I would glare at him with that sour, acid taste in the back of my throat. Acrid, smoky, I would barely blink as he passed; he’d jump when he turned too quickly and accidentally fell into my path. Later still, I would begin to wish they were both like that—blustery and calling people names, gone more often than not.

It sometimes felt better than hearing my mom weep to herself on the couch. I wish she’d do it in her room or outside or anywhere else than that theatrical sobbing in the middle of the house, a naked heartbeat to the place. She spoke to her friends on the phone in that same watery voice, handkerchief in hand and sniffling, she spoke to them more than me.

What else am I supposed to do? This isn’t how it was supposed to be. She’d wail, just a bit, and then find a new thing to wail over. They could barely afford to send me to That School. They could barely afford the special doctor’s appointments for my eyes. They barely knew what to do with me.

Sometimes, I wanted to shout right back: It’s not like I didn’t want to be here either!

But she wasn’t talking to me.

School wasn’t much better. We weren’t the same, not really. None of us were the same age or had the same affliction. Plus, most everyone else stayed in dorms where they bonded with secrets and whispers and hiding from matrons. It wasn’t the same.

They called me The Lighthouse and Car Face and Nightlight. Sometimes they’d give me a few bucks to close my eyes so they could see my face. I did it. They’d laugh and reassure me I was as ugly as you’d think. Or beautiful. Or perfectly average-looking or I had a pig-nose or unibrow. I’d never seen anything but the blinding light of my own eyes in the mirror so I could never contradict them.

A boy with antlers handed me a twenty for a kiss in the 6th grade. I closed my eyes for that too. It was chapped and dry and he ran away with a screaming laugh afterward. There are stranger kids than me, I reminded myself. So why do I feel so much stranger than the rest of them?

I was 16 when I heel-toed my way down the stairs toward the front door. A duffel bag slung over my shoulder stuffed with loose clothes, change, a bath towel, three books with broken spines, all the tampons in the house, and a Swiss-army knife.

I hoped to stuff as many cheddar-cheese sandwiches in my sack as possible before the midnight bus came, but he was at the kitchen table. I don’t think either of us expected it, like running into your teacher at the mart and you’re both buying the same brand of toilet cleaner. There was a beer in front of his idle hands and he still wore his rumpled work shirt. He glanced at the bag on my shoulder for a long minute.

Finally, he sighed like I cut him off in traffic.

“Gimme a moment.”

My father leafed through a wad of cash he kept in a safe. He handed me almost three hundred bucks and we nodded at each other. At the time, I thought there was a kind of satisfaction to that nod, an endnote.

I was out the door before the midnight bus arrived.

Only three people were at the terminal. None of them looked at me with my pack and my knife stuffed in one hand and my eyes glowing. They did look at the glow, but not for long.

Remote and empty like maybe the world had ended and the last bits of if were nothing but strangers not making eye contact.

Finally, I watched the headlights of the midnight bus approach through dense summer night. I was struck by the thought that it was like looking at like, the glow of my eyes against its eyes. Can a bus be your father? Can your father be a man after all this time? Will your mother come looking for you?

I got on the bus and kicked my feet up against the seat in front of me. Scrunched into a ball, crossed my arms over my chest, and watched the trees turn into flickering bodies of shadow with each passing mile. ------------- My feet moved like tides. They tossed me against nameless city streets and toward empty forested slices of land. I stumbled into the painted deserts toward the west. I dipped my toes into the neon districts of the east with lights brighter than my own. I slept on benches and in kid’s treehouses and hunched my shoulders against brick walls of back alleys.

No one touched me. Maybe they’d approach now and then, but I’d open my eyes and they’d see nothing but heaven or devils or an absent lightning-God father that would smite them. I was the daughter of spirits after all.

I found my way to the ocean; beaches where other stragglers gathered and it was easy to stretch out on empty pieces of warm sand. I didn’t talk much by then, I didn’t like to; people stared whether I was speaking or screaming and clamping down on my jaw so hard it ached. Sometimes I get yelled at: Turn that off! No phone lights in here. You’re blinding me, bitch!

I’d never seen a movie in any theatres, but I could imagine what it’s like.

It was crowded, but I liked that ocean city, despite myself. It had pale buildings built into cliffs, narrow winding sidewalks where cars couldn’t fit, reckless bikers, and crushed seashell parking lots. I liked the tang of salt in the air and the way my hair crinkled from the ocean water as it sun-dried. I camp out on beaches and bummed cigarettes and hotdogs off strangers. I was good at taking care of myself once I got into a rhythm.

I had a tent by then and even an enormous sun umbrella to keep any prying eyes away. I still liked to sleep under the stars most nights though.

I often dreamed of sinking to the bottom of the ocean. I dreamed of descending on pointed ballerina-feet to the silted black bottom. I’d be weighted down through the cold and the silence to where no human being had ever been. I’d open my eyes there, open them all the way, lightning-bright, and unflinching. In my dreams, the salt didn’t even sting. I lit up the world, the whole untouched world of whales and fish and terror and maybe I’d do something good then. Maybe I’d do something good and bring the sun to places that had forgotten it.

I hated those dreams.

I met Mags on the beach after one of those dreams. Mags had one eye and twelve teeth and carried around nothing but string and scissors everywhere. She smelled like seawater and burning kelp, dank and crusted over. Her clothes were neat despite her leather-cracked skin and arms and neck covered in tattoos of shipwrecks. We ran into each other at some bum gathering and she cackled and pulled me aside.

“What’s your name?” Her voice was old creaking wood. I didn’t answer. “I could give you one.” She offered with a grin that was more empty space than anything.

“Nana.” I gritted out. “You want something?”

“Not sure. What do you want, kid?”

I glared openly, my beam of light slanting. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Come here.”

I didn’t know why I was chosen.

Mags liked me more than I deserved. I pocketed her last pair of socks when she wasn’t looking. She never mentioned it and dragged me down to the community showers to get clean with soap and shampoo. She took me to the soup and salad restaurant for something that wasn’t burnt or freeze-dried or from a convenience store. She cackled, she spat when she talked, people shot her looks as well.

I thought she was normal, not touched by the spirits, but she liked me more than most people and I didn’t know why.

“You like art, kid?”

I snorted. “No.”

“Why not? You broken?” Yeah. Probably.

“How am I supposed to know?” I snapped back.

“Lippy squirt. Come on, I’ll show you something worth your forked tongue.”

She heated the needle before she used it, red hot and untouchable. She dipped it into deep black inks, only black and sometimes red, she called them the only colors that matter. She shows me how to prick the skin and clean it. She showed me how to slowly, painstakingly etch images. I wasn’t sure I liked it, there was something so permanent and intentional about the act.

I watched her lessons though: stick and poke to her right foot, all over those fine little bones that must hurt, in and out, a little bloody.

It took her six hours to make a tiny shipwreck right above her big toe. It was a narrow schooner going under and I was the only witness. She made the waves come to life and crash against its sides and sometimes I forgot to blink. She didn’t seem to mind.

She washed another needle. She heated it red-hot. She dipped it in ink and handed it to me.

I still wasn’t sure I liked the permanence of it, but I told myself I was bored and it was something to do. I decided quickly I did like the bite of it, I liked the focus it took, and the ability to pull something from nothing.

I practiced all over my thighs first, there was enough meat there and it was easy enough to reach: a lizard design that looked like nothing but squiggles, a TV set playing static, a tiny smudged skink with its tongue out. I practiced designs in the sand and then on paper when Mags splurged on pen and paper.

Mags took me to the museum on Sundays. They were always free on Sundays.

Something stirred in my chest, even as the guards yelled at us about how flash photography wasn’t allowed in the museum. Even as I was shooed out of exhibits for ruining the paint. Still, an ache so old it rotted roared to life in my chest.

I stabbed in and out, gentle, a collection of stars right above my right knee. A winding sand snake on my wrist, and then finally, something good, something that gave people pause and reason to stare. I made it in the mirror: a ghost on my collarbone. Shadowed and intricate and yet simple, I put a ghost right above my collarbone and it bleeds more than any of the others.

That was a good year or so; one of the best I could remember.

I didn’t want to leave the ocean city though and Mags said she had to keep moving. She had places to be. She gave me a sloppy kiss on the cheek.

“You're a gem, kid. You’ll knock ‘em all to the pavement.”

I swallowed the lump in my throat. “You’ll be back?”

She cackled. “Wouldn’t miss it. You know me.” She winked as she turns to the bus, my second father. “You think I’ll miss your great becoming, kid? I’ll be back.”

I wanted to make her pinky-promise like I was a kid again begging one of the others to tell me if I’m beautiful when I close my eyes. I couldn’t do that; I waved as she tottered up the steps of the bus and was taken away with the tides of her own feet.

A had a moment of thinking it was the end then; I was ready to get back to my real normal. I was ready to disappear again. But even shipwrecks with no witnesses leave things left to be found.

------------ I got an apprenticeship. Technically, Mags talked them into it and I just followed up when I had nothing better to do.

I didn’t think I’d like it much, but couch surfing and camping out was the pastime of the especially young. And I’d lost my giant umbrella.

It was a small shop that smelled like bleach and dried flowers. A tattoo parlor in one of the steep arts districts neighbored by food trucks and beaded necklace shops.

Penguin Davies and Bitch-Annie ran it together. Davies walked like he’d never encountered land before, and Bitch-Annie had a throw-pillow embroidered with “If you don’t have anything nice to say then come sit next to me.”

Davies was covered in nothing but birds and dizzying M. C. Escher house-designs up and down his chest and arms. Bitch-Annie had topless mermaids and pinup girls across her shoulders and legs. She’d been asked to leave a number of stores before the children started staring or thinking thoughts.

Neither of them had ever met someone like me. It was not that type of town. I rankled at most their questions, a cat meeting a steel brush. Where are you from? What’s your family name? What kind of school did you go to? Is your sight better than other people you think?

I brushed off anything more personal than my favorite type of soda. Bitch-Annie called me “Shadow” probably as a joke, probably. Davies said I must be possessed by the ghost of some dead star: a blackhole that takes everything in and lets nothing out.

Neither of them let me touch a needle in those first six months. They had me practice on pig skin and trace designs and stand by their shoulders as they worked. I felt like a dental assistant except I was the hanging light shining into open mouths instead of anything with a pulse. I stood at their shoulder as they drew thick lines and thin dots and made hearts and wolves and names of dead lovers come to life.

They asked me to stand still and stop wiggling the light. I almost walked out several to find a new cliff to crash against, almost.

No one had ever expected anything of me before. They never expected me to show up somewhere or do something well. No one really cared if I went to school or if I did my homework, if I dressed well or went to bed on time. And no one kept any tabs on me at all after I took that first bus. That’s how I liked it.

I should’ve left, tattooing didn’t mean anything to me, not really. But Bitch-Annie stomped up to my attic-apartment one morning and threw pants at me.

“Get up, Shadow,” she barked. She was sterner than Mags, no hint of humor in her eyes. “I told you 9am so I expect 9am.”

“The fuck!?” I was eloquent in the mornings.

“Pants, shirt, shoes, and bra if you don’t want that desk idiot staring at something other than your eyes all day.”

“Are you serious?”

“Serious as a root canal. Mags swore up and down about what you. Let’s see some of that, up, up!”

I grumbled. I put on everything but the bra. No one ever expected me to be anywhere before and 9am shouldn’t have even been a concept much less a real thing. I told myself I hated it. I’d leave the next week. Or maybe the week after that or in just one more month. I kept a bus ticket under my pillow but every time the date arrived I shrugged and made myself busy.

There’d be no harm in having a savings too and seeing what all the fuss was about with having a dishwasher and a kitchen.

I wasn’t an artist of course. I didn’t understand what everyone else was seeing when they looked at the “old masters” paintings of water or war or lovers pulled apart. I didn’t feel anything in front of stain-glass windows in churches or mosaics on walls. Maybe there really was something wrong with me, my eyes. I didn’t let up though. I put on pants for it after all.

Penguin Davies hovered by my shoulder when I made my first real design.

“Mm.” He rumbled deep in his chest. He’d gone grey at an early age, had tired eyes and quick hands. The desk kid said he’d been in medical school once, a surgeon. It was hard to tell. Davies muttered a lot, stared off into space too much, and laughed like it was always a painful surprise

“Perfectionist,” he muttered at me as I start over on a crappy unicorn design. “That line was barely off. You’re being a perfectionist, Nana.”

I scowled over my shoulder and let the full weight of my light hit him across the face. “Got a problem with it?” I challenged. He chuckled darkly. His grin was crooked like a broken door handle. I tried to hide my work from him with my shoulder. “It’s not done yet.”

“It’s late.” The rest of the street was dark. I knew that.

“I said I’m not done yet! You can go home.”

“Hmm.” He scratched his grey beard.

“What?”

“Look at you. You know who makes the best artists, Nana?” He was always a bit of a philosopher. Maybe he used to study that before medicine.

“Yeah, yeah, shut up. I’m working on it.”

He gave my shoulder a light push. “The ones that don’t quit.”

They let me touch a needle gun after that. I told myself I’d only sign my new apartment lease as an experiment. I didn’t have to actually stay. I’d just run from the ink on paper and hope no one chased after girls with eyes that glow.

I didn’t break my lease. I drew suns and moons, trees and fireflies, hunks in speedos on tipsy college girls who swore they were sober and erotic vampires on the chests of men getting their first divorce. I had to give two refunds for a duck that turned out lopsided and a tattoo of someone’s dog which I swore really was that ugly to begin with.

There was one at the end of that next year though, another college girl with perfectly white piano-key teeth. She asked for a stick and poke, that was what I was best at anyway, she asked for a butterfly. Butterflies were easy, I could do the little ones in my sleep. She wanted one all across her back, she said I could make it look however I wanted. So I did. Wings like fringed shawls and straight heavy lines combined with wispy swirling ones. It was dark, black ink with red highlights and gray shadows under each wing to give it movement and flight.

I hid my smile when I finished and showed her the results in the mirror. She went to my bosses and jumped up and down. She pointed and babbled, ohmyspirits, the best thing I’ve ever seen! Fuck. I should pay you double! Where did you get this girl?

I held myself perfectly still and studied the ceiling until my eyes dried out.

I took the long way home that night. I stopped once, at the corner where the midnight bus arrived, and watched the the passengers trudge off. I didn’t expect to see Mags again so soon, not really, but sometimes I wanted to show her: Hey, maybe your work wasn’t all wasted. Maybe I did start to become.

---------------- “I’m getting you chocolate.” Annie spat, her thick arms flexing as she cleaned off the spotless counter. “I’m getting you fucking chocolate, Shadow, ‘less you tell me what flavor you actually like.”

I hung at the back of the shop next to the narrow window that faced the road. I let the sun warm my face in thick strips and watched the bicycles pass. “It’s not my birthday.”

“Tell us what your actual birthday is then, you sugar-toasted tart.”

I shrugged. “Not today.”

“Well happy fucking birthday. You’re turning two. You came to work for us two years ago today, washed up from the beach like a deranged feral cat, so this is your birthday now.”

I rolled my eyes which served to look like a flashlight given a shake. Annie spent another minute splashing disinfectant on anything that might have had even a passing conversation with a germ.

“You talk to Birdie?” She asked, but mischievously this time. I responded by setting my mouth in a hard line. “You’re turning twenty-something and you’re not even talking to Birdie, are ya?”

“I’m not telling you what I’m turning. It’s still not my birthday.” I dodged inelegantly.

“Birdie will give you a proper go-around. Even shadows like you must need a little rub now and then.”

“Go dunk your head, Annie.” I huffed.

“Afraid you’ll blind her in bed?”

I turned with a snarl. “I’ll start with you.”

“I’ve seen you flipping through those poetry books, every word about hands or mouths or rosebuds.” She gave me flat a once-over. “You’ve got a sweet tooth in you.”

I dragged myself over to the desk to snarl at her some more, but Annie was already putting her hand up and going toward the backroom.

“I’m getting you a chocolate cake either way.”

There must have been a proper way to get her to never look at my little leather poetry books again, the ones with watermarked pages, the spines broken-in, and words that oozed. No one had to know that I could read, much less that I read that.

The door dinged instead.

“Excuse me.” She walked in. Her. “Is someone, um, named Nana here?” I turned before I could stop myself. That was still my name. And it was still my work.

Twenty-something, curtains of straight black hair falling in her face, pinched nose, thin energetic lips, shorts that gave way to milk-dipped legs that never seemed to end. A slight girl in a university t-shirt. College kids came in often during their breaks, but this one was a bit different. My eyes dragged up and fish-hooked there.

Feathered tendrils sprouted from her head and reached toward the ceiling. Long and searching, a pearly green color that reminded you of leaves or plumage.

I knew within a moment where I’d heard of this: Antennae Girl. The newspapers ran our stories close together along with the boy that breathed fire and the girl with roots growing from her head. We were all born in the same year during the epoch of monsters and bastards.

I think she recognized me too.

We stopped like heartbeats seizing up before the ambulance could make it. A confused, unnatural silence. I glanced at the door and considered making a run for it.

She cleared her throat first.

“Someone said that Misty’s butterfly tattoo came from here?” She blinked once and I noticed how her feathered antennae seemed to twitch. I averted my eyes so I wouldn’t blind her. She took a step forward. “So are you . . . Nana?”

The door was right there.

“What do you want?” I had been spending too much time with Bitch-Annie.

“A tattoo?”

“What kind?”

“I don’t know yet.”

“Then why are you here?” I grunted. Footsteps came in from the back room. I was examining the smudged off-white tiles of the floor one by one.

“I wanted to . . . hey, you can look up if you want.” She said, curiously, softly. I didn’t look up. “I’m still figuring out the design.” She trudged on ahead.

“Fine.” I pivoted away. “But we’re busy. Come back later.”

A hand slapped across my shoulder. “This is Nana.” Annie stopped me from leaving. “Don’t let her eyes fool ya, it’s her personality that’s actually the problem. You saw her butterfly you said?”

“Yes!” She gushed. “It was gorgeous.”

“It was fine,” I corrected.

“It’s her birthday today.” Annie shared because she could and because she was a failed evil villain still trying to get her kicks in.

“Oh cool, happy Birthday.” A deep pause followed that could fill oceans. “You can look up. I don’t mind.” She repeated.

I opened my eyes wide and lifted my chin in one jerky motion. A beam of fluorescent headlights hit her across the face. “Is this what you want?” Venom dripped from my lips. This was why I tried not to talk too much.

The young woman squinted for a moment before covering her eyes and nodding. “I read about you,” she stated as if it was nothing. “I’m turning twenty-two this year . . . so I guess, you are too?”

“What?!” Delight filled Annie’s entire expression. “Hot damn! Twenty-two?” I groaned deeply. “Hey, you, girlie,” she addressed antennae-girl, “you want to come out for drinks tonight?”

I tried to protest as quickly as possible, but somehow didn’t summon the words quickly enough.

“Sure.” She agreed. ----------------------

The night was humid and clung to us like a second skin. I wandered through the hilly streets with Penguin Davies wobbling beside me. The desk kid—Daft Jeff, said Davies had some inner-ear problem that made it hard for him to keep his balance. Annie said he just didn’t belong on land— he couldn’t walk straight unless something was tilting and rolling under his feet.

Davies made his way up the hill, faltering and missing the musical beats of it. He refused to let me steady him and I refused to have him sing to me. It was apparently my birthday.

“Someone saw your design.” He noted on the downhill.

“Yeah. Some college girl.” I grumbled.

“What’d you think?” He asked in his usual mysterious way.

“She just wants a good look.” I returned in a neutral tone. “She read about me in the paper. All she wants to do is look.”

“She saw your design.” He paused. “And Jeff said she was like you.”

I blinked hard so the path ahead was eaten by shadow and Davies stumbled. “Not all of us have to be friends . . .” I said sourly and didn’t fill in the rest. “I’ve met kids with antlers and frog-hands before. I doesn’t mean anything.”

“Any of them come visit?”

“They’re smart enough not to.” I snark. “But the ones who manage to be pretty don’t have the brains to stay away.”

“Mm.” He made a soft sound. “What kind of tattoo do you think she’ll get?”

“How should I know? A heart or anchor or something dumb like that.” I walked on ahead. “Maybe I’ll give her a quote from some dead poet.”

“You like poetry.”

I huff dramatically, “Not what I mean. Girls like her don’t like my type of poetry, you know I’m saying.”

“What kind of girls?” Davies was patient. I hated that about him.

I stopped at the corner to let him catch up. “Don’t play dumb. Hot ones, college ones, getting a degree in money or music. They don’t watch over their shoulders enough or know when to stay away.” I scuffed my shoe on the ground. “Whatever.”

Davies was still thinking. I considered pushing him over. He finally spoke up again as we approach the bar, “That sea witch ever show up again?”

“Mags?” I snorted. “No. Why?”

“Cause I’m sure she’d like to see this.”

I didn’t say anything else as we reached the doorway. -------------------- The bar was loud. More people than I liked came to my “party.” I should have seen it coming. If the cliff city liked one thing it was an excuse to drink.

I crammed myself up against the bar and ordered a gin and tonic before the rest of the night crowd could arrive. Birdy was holding court at a corner table and waving at me. “There she is! Someone put a blanket over Nana, lights out, party up!”

Her puns usually left something to be desired. She sang “Blinded by the Light” every time she saw me for half a year.

I drank half my gin and tonic in the first gulp as a new stream of townies burst in. They arrived to buy me birthday beers and shout their opinions on the shitty new chain restaurant on 3rd street. I was almost tasting the bottom of my second glass when someone tapped on my shoulder.

I barely looked over.

The girl with sheets of black hair and a practiced-appearance stood before me—like she was at dress rehearsal and expected everyone else to know the lines as well. She carried a baby-blue bike helmet in one hand, and I noted there were two hand-drilled holes in the top.

“You.” I was tempted to shake her hand like I might make this a transactional hello and goodbye in short order.

“Hey.” She smiled, hesitant, like maybe the food on the fork might be too hot. “Nana, right?”

“Yep.” I sighed the word real long and heavy. “Listen, I really can’t give you a tattoo if you don’t know what you want.”

“No, no, I get it. But I want you to know . . . I didn’t know it was you.”

“Uh, okay. Though I’m pretty hard to miss over here.” I was looking at the dirty wine bottles stacked near the ceiling. Her antennae hang over both of us like fern fronds.

“No. I mean, when I saw the butterfly. That’s when I wanted to come here. Not after.”

“After what?” I was gonna make her say it.

“After I found that it was, well, you know, Headlights Girl.”

“Mm.” I was spending too much time with Davies. “You want something to drink?”

She sighed as well, real long and heavy. “Sure.” She took the seat next to me. “I’m Park by the way.”

“Park.” I rolled the name around in my mouth. “And you already know me.”

“I don’t think I do.” She laughed, sharp and bristly like something you can get cut on. “And I’ll have a beer. . . but only once you look up. Come on, I’m not like that.” I looked up. Her face was bright, round like the moon, her grin was sneaky and unearned. “There we go.”

She waved over the bartender Kipp and ordered her dark beer.

“It’s not really my birthday.” I informed her, dumbly. Every word felt dumb and clumsy all at once.

“Why not?” She was teasing. I knew that.

“That’s not how birthdays work.” I informed and wished I could backtrack into hostility again.

“Oh darn,” she winked. “And here I was about to make it my birthday too.”

“Uh, well,” I really should have left when I had the chance. “It’s not too late?”

“That’s the spirit!” She laughed, fuller this time and rounded. I looked her straight in the face and then quickly looked away again. Her grin was aimed at me, somehow, and seemed to reach high cupboards inside me you usually needed a stool for.

“Park,” I repeated the name and shifted in place. “So did you go to Haveryards or Simmons?” There were only two schools in the country for spirit bastards like us. Haveryards was close enough for me to get bussed to—an hour one way and then an hour home.

“Neither. I went to public and then Bakerville Uni.” She rapped on the counter. “Hey, you want another gin and tonic? Or I’ll mix you up something.” Her eyes flickered over everything. “I bartended my way through college so I can make a mean margarita.”

“Oh, Bakerville U., yeah. That ones close.” I stuttered a bit. She was leaning across the counter and trying to get Kipp’s attention a second time. My words were feeling dumber and dumber by the moment, perhaps losing all shape and meaning altogether. “That’s where you went?”

“How’d you guess?” She said playfully and pointed to her t-shirt. She finally got the bartender over. “Right, you want something hard? Vodka maybe? A mule?”

I scratched my chin. “ . . . I don’t care. I’m easy.”

She rolled her eyes and I knew she must feel me staring. “I can’t imagine shopping for you for today then.” She snickered and climbed over the counter. “Happy birthday, how about one chocolate mule for a free tattoo?”

“You wish.” I made a face. “You don’t even know what you want.”

“And you do?” She was still grinning, somehow. “I’ve decided I’m making you the equivalent of all the soda flavors mixed together at once. Close your eyes.”

I closed my eyes and I tried to turn off my thoughts. It was bright as knives inside my skull; I carry the daytime with me. Panic threatened to rise up (for no reason of course), but a soft hand brushed against mine, soft like sheets in fancy hotels and flower petals. I peaked and Park slid a full murky glass toward me.

“Drink up.”

It was sweet. It wasn’t even my birthday. I didn’t care. She called it a chocolate-mule-Park Special and maybe chocolate really was my favorite flavor. -------------- Park started coming around. She rode a sky-blue bike with a white basket and rusting hinges. I couldn’t imagine doing all the hills in the city without any gears, but she managed. She said she was figuring things out after graduating. She said she liked it here.

I grumbled when she came by. I complained like Annie when Wicker the cat visited: Get that thing away from me. I hate that. Smells awful. I’ve got allergies. Put that away, it’ll kill me.

I never said anything when Annie left fish heads out and bowls of milk of course.

Park smelled like sunscreen and breath mints. She had strong opinions on everything from street paving techniques to which sun hats went with which dresses. She invited me on walks. She invited me to help her change a flat tire. She invited me to the corner shop to help her pick out bottle can openers.

I said no. Sometimes I said no. I started to say yes.

“Look at this,” she liked to show me things. She liked to show me pictures of squirrels on her phone and weird pieces of glass she found. She liked to point out new restaurants (that I’d already been to) and play videos of funny traffic jams.

This time she held up a seashell. It was rounded and flat with a swirl in the center.

“I’m looking.” I said carefully.

“Watch how it catches light.” I shun my eyes on it and she moved it back and forth. There were bits of silver veins caught in the cracks of it.

“There’s tons of those.” At this point, I had valiantly refused to be impressed by even her cutest squirrel pictures.

“Ugh.” She pouted. “Are you kidding? I spent all morning looking for this.”

“They're right by the surf. I could find you five bigger ones than this before sunset.”

“Alright, hot-shot.” She jut her chin out and jabbed my shoulder. “Prove it.”

I said yes to that one. I left right after my shift ended with the sun setting in the waters like a stabbed orange bleeding out. I met Park by the parking lot with drooping palms trees lining the sides and lost flipflops everywhere.

“This is where you went wrong.” I announced. I couldn’t help it. “This is the tourist beach. You have to go somewhere real.”

“Alright, alright. You’ve already established you’re the hot-shot here. Lead the way.”

She followed me. I ignored how she lingered by my side. I ignored how her hand wrapped around my arm as she stopped us to look at a tiny horseshoe crab. Her hand was soft, like velvet, soft enough to smother something in my chest.

I found two seashells with streaks of silver and rainbow through them, both bigger than my palm. The sun was a flat line on the horizon before I could find a third and Park hooted.

“You said before sunset! It’s sunset, baby, pay up.” She called. “And you were so sure you were a better seashell hunter than me.” She tsked.

I scanned the ground more quickly. “It’s barely nighttime.” I pointed to the sky. “And I can keep looking. I have the built-in equipment for it.”

“Oh I know.” She planted herself on the soggy crusted sand and sat down in a heap. “But can you find why kids love the taste of not doing that? Take it easy. Take a seat.”

“So pushy.”

“You know me.” It was fond. It had only been a few months, but there was something fond there.

I ran a hand through my short choppy curls. “Fine.” I sat next to her, not too close. “It’s your loss.” We both looked out at the gently lapping waves, foaming and anemic. She let a long breath of air and for a moment I considered brushing her hair back. It was always in her face.

It was a quiet moment, bottled, and pitching toward something. Like the the moment where you miss a step on the stairs and the certainty of the fall was right there.

I was the one that scooted a little closer.

“I’m considering getting a storm cloud,” she commented off-handedly. “Can you do storm clouds?”

I made a sound of consideration. “Sure.” I glanced toward the opposite corner of the night sky. “I think I’ve seen one of those before. Big puffy wet things?”

“Kinda fluffy? You’re getting there.”

“I’ll see what I can do.” I’m smiling, which is alright since there’s no way she could see it. She’s silent for another moment longer.

“Or would you make fun of me if I got something like a butterfly? Like your other one.”

“A storm cloud butterfly?”

“No. The cloud would it’s own thing.” She chewed on her bottom lip, ragged and chapped. “I mean, I’ve been doodling some ideas. And tattoos should be personal, right? So I thought a storm cloud might be fitting. Kids used to pay me a couple dollars to predict the weather. It could be a memorial to childhood entrepreneurial spirit.”

I watched her speak and something beat inside my chest like a second animal. I wanted to be closer. I wanted to feel velvet again.

“Why?” I rasped after a moment.

“Uh, why did they pay me? It’s just something I can do. Whenever it's going to rain or storm or be sunny out. I dunno, I don’t know why the rest of you can’t sense it.”

“And you didn’t become a meteorologist?” I smiled a bit bitterly.

She made an indignant noise. “And you didn’t become a professional lighthouse?”

I choked on a laugh. “Not yet.” A quiet consumed us from both sides, I made sure my light didn’t crash into her. I made sure to look at anything but her. She’d have to squint if I did and cover her eyes and I’d be there, ready to run her over.

“Kids in my class paid me too.” I barely realized I started speaking. “They slipped me a couple bucks to close my eyes so they could see my face.”

“You got money for that?”

“There wasn’t always much to do. Teachers were quitting all the time and sometimes it was just the TV. I dunno, they paid me. Then they’d giggle and run away afterward.” My voice sounded automated like the announcer at an airport, informing travelers their flight was canceled. “They always said I had a pig nose or a unibrow or looked like the lead singer of that Minx girl band-- super hot, but you know, it didn’t matter.” The laugh that escaped was high, girlish in a grotesque way. “Since, you know, no one would ever see it.”

“Kids are fucked up.” Park contributed simply.

“Adults are too.” I sniffed. “Everyone wants a light show.”

“Oh.” She said slowly. “Is it . . . is it bad I wanted to meet you then? I mean, I wanted to see the art first, but I’d be lying if I said it wasn’t a factor.”

“No.” I said quickly. I lit up my own lap and empty hands. “Does it matter?”

“I never went to those schools,” she said hesitantly. “My parents fought them, said the schools were unfit. They shouldn’t be able to force us there. And that I wasn’t even dangerous since,” she gestured helplessly upward, “I just have these. So then, well, I never really met anyone else like me.”

“I mean, everyone’s different. It’s not . . . a big deal.”

“You’d think so,” she commented sardonically.

I folded up into myself like a complex origami piece. “Yeah, well, sometimes I wish I was dangerous. Actually dangerous.”

She giggled. “Didn’t you just say everyone’s different? I’d say everyone’s dangerous too. Just gotta find the niche.”

“Oh yeah,” I dared to turn toward her. “What’s yours then?”

“My danger niche? Hmm.” She was leaning now, pitching forward like a wave come to drown me. “I do have a few tricks up my sleeve I’ll admit.”

“You have a pair of wings hidden away?” I stopped breathing as her hand lifted up, strange and all at once. I wasn’t ready.

“Here.” Her skin was against mine. She cupped my cheek with one velvet-hand. It was heated cashmere, tiny feather-light hairs on her palm. “Feelers.” She whispered with a hesitancy there.

“Ah,” I was indulgent. I closed my eyes. I leaned in. “And you want to put a needle over these?” I put my hand over hers, loosely, so she could pull away if she wanted to. Tiny hairs pulsed there with some kind of life all their own.

“I wanted . . .” She paused and I peaked open my eyes. I could see every detail of her face, illuminated. “I dunno.” She finished. “I guess I just wanted whatever I saw there, before.”

“In the butterfly?”

“In the butterfly.” I turned toward the ocean, but my hand remained over hers. “I’m not sure how good it will be a second time. It’s not like I’m really an artist. . .”

“What did you want to be?” Soft.

“Who knows. I mean, I’m glad my parents didn’t try to fight the schools. Being there during the day was better than being home, listening to my mom crying all the time and my father exploding . . . They wouldn’t have wanted me home.”

Before the sunset, when I was walking over, I thought maybe we’d kiss that night. I thought I’d feel that first electric pulse and maybe we’d climb into the ocean and swim in circles, laugh until the moon rose. I thought maybe I’d get something out of my system and there wouldn’t be anything left to say or do.

I’d kiss Park, once, and she’d be satisfied. She’d understand. She’d go on her college path and I’d go on on mine.

But the words spilled out, unbidden. Park stayed in place, steady and unflinching. That made it worse, so much worse.

“My parents weren’t like yours.” There was an accusatory edge to it. Don’t you know? I wanted to shout. Don’t you know? Even without the eyes or the school bills or the bus.

“Hey,” she cradled my cheeks with both hands now and smeared the tears away from one eye. “Hey, listen, I know. Alright? I know.”

I scowled back at her feathered little feelers.

“It’s not about the damn antenna or head beams or anything else.” I tried to pull away. “Even the kid with the antler’s kissed me and I didn’t stop him. I ran away from home and my mom never came looking. It didn’t matter. It doesn’t matter! You wouldn’t even get it. You wouldn’t get it!” I squeeze my eyes closed. “You were wanted.”

Slowly, like an awkward animal burrowing into soft earth, she pressed her forehead to the crook of my neck. I could feel us both breathing in, strong and steady. She was lean and silky, and I swore I can feel her heartbeat hammering through my throat.

“I’m sorry.” She whispered. I inhaled her sunscreen scent. “I shouldn’t have said that. I don’t know. But I could.”

“Why are you here?” It was miserable and wet, I hated that my eyes were so different and yet still the same. Could still spill over like theirs. She took a long breath but didn’t move away.

“My last girlfriend broke up with me for being . . . sensitive and I thought maybe if I got a tattoo, I’d stop feeling so much. I’d prove something. I’d feel everything less, you know? It would hurt and then it wouldn’t.”

I took that in a parsec at time. “Are you,” I sniffed. “Are you alright?” Her legs and arms were plastered over mine. “You’re so soft, but, but I don’t want to,” I wipe at my face like it didn’t matter. “Hurt you.”

“I know.” Her face was still pressed to my neck and her lips fluttered across the hallow of my skin. “I didn’t want to hurt you either.”

A stillness settled into my bones. I glanced toward the moon, and it was like looking at like, a terrible moon to another moon. I gathered myself. I took a deep breath. I flattened.

“I shouldn’t have said all that.” My voice had dried up. “We led different lives.” It wasn’t her fault if she was wanted.

“No.”

“I wasn’t thinking . . .”

Her hand wrapped around my wrist. “I talk to Annie sometimes when you aren’t there.”

“Okay?”

“And Davies. And that front desk guy.”

“Daft Jeff. Yes.”

“They all say the same thing . . .” I blinked a couple times. “That I really should wait for you to give me the tattoo. You have a steady hand and an eye for detail.”

“Alright . . .”

“That someone taught you tattooing the right way. They wanted to show you the right way to do it.”

I snorted despite myself. “It’s not that hard. Mags was batty. Who knows why she showed me how to pick up a needle.”

“Don’t you see? They say they wouldn’t know what to do without you.” She was still there. She wasn’t moving, almost in my lap now. “You were wanted.”

“Park?” My voice cracked like a question.

“And you come with me to restaurants and help me buy bottle openers. You find shells for me and help me fix tires.” Her breath was hot and dragged across my cheek. “You are wanted.”

I blocked out her face, her voice, I turned on the sharp white sun inside and for a moment I imagine never opening my eyes back up again. Maybe I could make it night forever inside myself as well. Wouldn’t you rather have something quiet inside?

She wrapped herself around me, fully, one long arm at a time until it was cocoon. Soft. “Listen, sometimes the first people aren’t the right people. Sometimes your first relationship isn’t the right relationship. Sometimes you’re sure the world is one way, and like, always one way . . . and then it rains and the whole world is different again. You know? People pass.”

“My parents aren’t the weather.”

“But they’ll pass.” I should have pushed her off. But even against that, even those words— I liked being held, indulgent as chocolate and twice as guilty. “People sometimes feel forever, especially those kinds of people.” I was off again. “But it rains. And hey, I always know when it’s going to rain.”

I hiccupped; a smile found its way uninvited onto my face, unsure and just wobbly on its feet as Davies. I glanced down after a deep breath. Park grinned back at me and it reached the highest shelves of me all over again.

“So what happens when it rains again? Do you people like you pass?”

“Nah, not me. I don’t know how.” She winked. I didn’t notice that we’re lying flat now, stars and carpet of black above. “You can’t get rid of me. You haven’t given me that tattoo yet.”

The sound of shushing waves filled the midnight air and the moon looked down like that very first bus arriving to get me all those years ago. I wrapped my arms right back around her. She didn’t seem to mind that I was sticky or strange or sometimes kept tearing up all over again even after we’d stop saying anything worth tearing up over. ------------------

It happened. I felt like I should have been more prepared, brought flowers or poetry or earned it through honored warfare. But it happened. I was wearing ripped jeans, a spotty t-shirt and my breath smelled like coffee. We were looking for Park’s lost earring along an overgrown hill she usually biked along.

I found it, one shiny red dewdrop in all that green. Park pointed at some clouds that looked like my last “abstract” tattoo. We lay back in the grass and let the sky pass overhead. She giggled and touched my wrist, side by side. I let her.

“Summer’s almost over.” I mumbled it first.

“Yeah?”

“You find your next step then, college girl?” I tried to keep my tone light. She turned to be on her side.

“Maybe.”

“What do you want to do?”

“Oh, you know. This and that.”

“That does not sound like a college-girl plan.”

“Maybe I’ve got other plans. Maybe I’ve got other priorities, huh?”

“Ridiculous.” A playfully push her shoulder. “A lousy seaside town really isn’t priority material. There’s only one bookshop you know.”

“Two thank you very much. And that’s not my priority either.” Her voice wavered.

“Are you going to share with the class?”

“Is the class ready?” She whispered and I turned toward her as well now, taking in her perfect round face and question-mark mouth.

“I have been.” I matched her whisper. I tremor from my center outward and hopes she can’t tell.

“Do you know what they say about moths?”

“What?” I gave a breathy laugh. It wasn’t what I was expecting. “I’ve heard of them.”

“They tell your fortune.” She was grinning in that way that put out a stool and reached up. “I used to cry a lot growing up, because some kids said that moths are just evil butterflies. I was sensitive and ran all the way home. I threw myself at my mom’s feet and threw a fit about how moths were just evil butterflies. They were just ugly, wicked versions of a good thing.”

“Evil? Well, I suppose you are rather sinister when you haven’t eaten.”

“Shut up. I’m telling you something.” She put a hand on my shoulder. I inhaled deeply and turned over in place to face her. Only the shallow breeze kept us apart.

“I’m all ears . . . though maybe not as many as you.”

“You’re lucky you’re cute.”

“What can I say? The sun is adorable. I take after him.”

A finger ghosted over my cheek, tracing the arc of my cheekbone. “Well, you’re not so bad behind those headlights too. Some of us have good day vision you know. And good taste.”

I wished those words didn’t make my chest do funny things. “Thanks.”

“Do you want to hear what my mom said or not?”

“That you shouldn’t worry about evil butterflies?” I wiggled closer. “Because you’ll be really hot and funny and smart one day. So who cares if you’re evil?”

“Yeah, those were her exact words.”

“So?”

“So,” a firm hand took my chin. “Look at me.” I looked at her. I was glad she couldn’t see the flush in my cheeks in any way. “Moths show good fortunes she said.”

“Right. Lots and lots of good fortune.” I breathed, dumbly, of course. She was close and sweet and there was hair in her face. The fronds of her antennae tickle right past my ear.

“They can help you find good fortune. They’re good omens. You know why?” Park’s lips were barely moving as she spoke, hypnotic and unhurried.

“Why?”

“Because they follow the light.”

It happened all at once. Like every cheesy love poem or bad lyrics I wrote in my journals at night. It was every cracked-spine of a book using words like “rosebud lips” and every overdone song about people who find their way to each other.

I kissed her, leaning in with no life vest on or readied crash-landing position. She kissed me and my chest filled with her, breathless, drowning, soft as dreams and stranger than hope. I cradled her and she dragged me closer and closer until it was nothing but floods and brimming.

I’d been nothing before I think, I’d been an island that waits, a bus that leaves, a shadow that hides. And then I had been hers. ----------------- I was strolling home from work along the main road. The thin strip of sidewalk was streaked with bleached sunlight and the salt air was thick enough to burn throats. It was the long way home, but I was in the habit of going back to this corner.

The bus pulled up with little ceremony. It was an interstate one that crisscrossed over empty bellies of land. I stopped in place to watch, just in case, as I had many times before.

A silver head bobbed down the steps and planted herself on the concrete, unbelieving. She took an enormous noisy sniff of the air. “Not so bad!” She bellowed.

“Are you?” That wasn’t meant to be my first word. She was more stooped now and wearing shiny things on her wrist that clanked. She’d lost another tooth. “Mags.”

“Eh!” She yelled and waved frantically as if I hadn’t shot up another inch since I last saw her and started wearing clothes without holes in them. Her eyes sparkled as she tottered over. “So how’d you do, kid?”

“See for yourself.” I smiled. It was nice when the tides came back in. Mags gave me a thorough appraising. “Like this I guess.” I held up my hand. I wiggled my ring finger at her, heavy with a silver band and glittering opal.

“That’s my girl! Always knew you’d find your feet.” She cackled. “Am I too late to give you away, kid?”

I shook my head. She waddled over to me so I could take her hand. I took her home to show her my art and new tattoos, I showed her our terrible one-eyed kitten, Basket (Wicker’s son), and the little house we styled ourselves. I showed her our shoe closet and our queen bed, our messy kitchen and busted screen door. I showed her the moth tattoo over my heart, and Park showed her the matching lighthouse one over hers.

I tried to thank her, of course, I tried to say I owed her more than she knew for picking up an angry, dirty kid and seeing something in her. I owed her everything. But she just patted my hand and said that it’s not about our debts in life, kid. It’s about the becoming.

-----------

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huenjin · 4 years ago

Text

just wanna be loved.

pairing: hyunjin x reader | bff2l!au, pornstar!au, lawyer!au

word count: 4.512 words.

tw: pornstar!hyunjin, mentions of alcohol, nsfw content — dick piercing!hyunjin, dom!hyunjin, porn shooting [mutual masturbation, blow job], making out, office sex, blow job, hand job, mouth fucking, deep throating, a lil ball play, just a lil, facial, fingering, clitoral stimulation. establishment of fwb relationship !! reader is super heartless !! and hyunjin must be protected at all costs !!!

music rec: can you hold me | nf

note: pt ii. of the pornstar!hyunjin series. read pt i. here. it's finally here and it has a plot. thank you for convincing me to make this into a series, i'm grateful and i hope you enjoy this as much as i did writing. unedited, like every other work of mine.

hyunjin swears to god that he has been at the very brim of snapping at the next person he sees.

see, hyunjin is a very patient person, usually. very very patient. but with how you are ignoring his calls blatantly, his head spirals out of control. it is the pent up frustration of being forgotten even temporarily by you that gets him on the verge to snap.

and not even his hands moving frantically up and down his dick before the woman in front of him as she touches herself to the sight of a naked man masturbating �� lights hitting off the piercings to make the angles sharper as the camera pans out from his hands wrapped around his cock to the scene before them — is enough to get this anger to fuel down.

how dare you ignore him after everything that went down? after him saying he doesn't want to lose his friendship, after him saying you're the one person in his life that he cherishes the most?

his hand moves quicker and the woman crawls forward. her hand is still covering her core as her fingers plunge deep into her, the squelching sounds so loud to hyunjin's ears. she sticks her tongue out only to lick small stripes at the head of his cock, her tongue circling around his piercings.

hwang hyunjin is usually a calm person but the very thought of this woman not being you, is more than enough to anger him today.

the black hair he now dons is slick with sweat and sticks to his forehead. you should have noticed that. he storied it on instagram, for fuck's sake, just to get your attention and what does he get in return? nothing. usually, you would tease him over his poor scalp, or tell him that he looked good. this time, however, he gets dirty silence and he knows he is to be blamed.

hyunjin rubs his cock from the base as the woman wraps her lips around the head, tongue lapping every single drop of precum from that oozes out from him. not that porn ever subjected him to fantasise about the woman before him, his mind automatically shifts to you.

and god, were you beautiful that night under him. it's your breasts that come into his head first, the way your hands trailed over them and played with them before him. the way you begged for him. the way you were his even if it were just a night.

and that's enough to bring him close. you are enough to break down hyunjin completely and leave him defenseless. he ruts into his hand and the woman moves further down, taking hyunjin more as he gasps.

hyunjin signals at the director and he calls for a cut. the woman takes him out from his mouth and he comes undone in his hand. he spills all over his hand messily, spilling it on to his stomach and his thigh. the staff members rush into the scene — to help hyunjin clean himself up and to his co-star with a good amount of fake cum lube that she fills her mouth with for the next take.

maybe hyunjin did ruin a friendship. he should bear the consequences rightfully.

but not until he hears it from you. hyunjin needs to hear it directly from you.

that is what leads hyunjin to your law office — kim and chang — right after his shoot. the sun has set and he knows you would be done with work for the day hopefully, unless you took up even more pro bono cases to keep yourself busy. at least this is what hyunjin keeps saying in his head to justify you ignoring him.

he has been here before and he knows exactly where your office is. hyunjin used to brag once upon a time about being a very level headed person, about how he wants what he wants. that's what made him take this whole pornstar path as he studies law at the same time. he wants to work here in seoul's biggest law firm, with you. the path to that, however, is a tough one (and an expensive one) and he knows. but if there is one thing hyunjin knows, it is that time is a bitch.

and time is such a huge bitch that hwang hyunjin walks in to your office exactly when seo changbin, your boyfriend, breaks up with you.

(not that he wasn't expecting it. just that he hoped it were already done and that it was you dumping seo's shitty arse.)

"we can't do this anymore, y/n. you and i," he sighs, "we're not compatible. you're broken and—"

"hate to break in between," hyunjin clutches the wooden door of your office room tightly, anger seething through him as soon as he heard the word you and broken in the same sentence. "but, don't pin your inefficiency on the girl, man."

"excuse me?" seo changbin looks like he got slapped on his face. hyunjin's eyes flickers momentarily towards you — your delicate figure holding the wooden edges of your table in disbelief, and he knows you — you who would normally do a good job defending as a lawyer, would do a pathetic job right now defending your honour because you loved seo changbin once upon a time and your heart could never set you upto that again.

"i said what i said, dude," hyunjin walks in to the office completely. he leaves the door open, wider than before almost as if he is signaling changbin to walk out, that this is not his place for him to walk and do what he wants, that you are your own individual and you deserved so much better — someone who would love you for the most perfect being you are in his eyes (albeit that being not him as much as he wishes it could be).

changbin drifts his gaze from the man to you and asks, "were you dating someone else while you were with me?"

"hyunjin is not someone else, binnie," you bite your lower lip. "and no, i was not. this breakup involves just the two of us. we don't need a third person involved to ruin what we had. the two of us were enough to burn it down into ashes."

"i'll see you tomorrow then," changbin shuffles the balance on his feet, looking uncomfortably at you and shooting hyunjin a look filled with disgust. "are you looking at some pro bono cases and staying overtime? i told you—"

"you don't have a tag anymore to tell me anything, changbin. so drop it. i'll do what i have to do." your voice is ice cold and even hyunjin, a third person in this whole scene, feels the shudder run down his spine.

changbin drops his shoulders in defeat and merely mumbles, "let's get along well, y/n. we are colleagues after all," before leaving your office. you take a step back, chest steadily rising and falling and you lean against your office table, your grip on it strong.

and if there is one thing that can make him forget everything — his emotions, his well being, his sanity — it is you. the very sight of you hurting with all the built up emotions from what just happened makes hyunjin forget the anger of being forgotten.

all he wants to do at this point is be there for you.

he looks at your quivering figure, head down and he knows your eyes are probably brimming with the tears you are trying to hold back. your knuckles are pale at how hard you are holding the table and hyunjin hates how another man just hurt you right before him.

hyunjin carefully takes a step forward, mumbling, "do you want a hug?"

you nod, your head down and your gaze on your feet firm on the tiled floors of your office. you can hear the soft foot steps of your best friend getting louder with every millisecond before his arms wrap around your figure and he is pulling you into his warm chest, humming the tune you are so familiar with from him. his embrace is warm, and his big, strong arms seemed very protective when wrapped around your frail body. the world around you melts away as you squeezed him back, not wanting the moment to end.

and you sob. soft coughed up sobs that you tried so hard to hold it in but it was all useless. the minute hyunjin's arms wrapped around you, you let lose and unhinged. it was always like that.

because hyunjin was like an anchor to you. he was the anchor to steady your capsized boat in the storms. he didn't necessarily have to also be the lighthouse but for you, hyunjin being the anchor was more than enough right now.

"i'm not going to apologise for ignoring you, hwang," you mumble into his chest as hyunjin pats your head gently. you pull away after a second more and lean back against the table. you look down for a short while before turning back and grabbing the green bottle of soju, half empty, and chugging it down your esophagus.

hyunjin's eyes widen and he's about to stop you when you're all done and have slammed the bottle down on the table, cheeks heating up in the effect of what hyunjin would seem is the trick of the light.

hyunjin has seen you twice in the span of two weeks and both the times you were drunk, not to the level of passing out and waking up with a hangover — the two of you were not kids anymore for that — but still intoxicated enough to magnify every intense emotion you felt within you.

and if it were lust and validation the last time, this time it was the angst of putting up with a man trashy enough to now have the tag of your ex.

"can you get me—"

"use me."

"what?"

hyunjin bites his lower lip before tugging away at the dead skin in nervousness. he runs a hand through his black hair, on which your eyes unhelpfully linger for a second more than usual. he takes a step forward and repeats with strong affirmation, "use me, y/n. you're good at it. you're good at using people. that's what makes you an insanely good lawyer. you know who to keep close, who to get attached to and what to get from them. so i insist, use me as anything as you want. i'll be your best friend, your punch bag, your comfort, your drinking buddy, your anything. just—" he gulps, before locking his gaze with yours, eyes almost shining as if they held stars behind his irises. "just use me."

there is a small part in you that is deeply offended by the words that come from his mouth; by the words he so carelessly managed to throw around without bothering to think about how it would affect him. but the magnified, intense emotion to want to stop thinking, have the oxygen supply to your brain cut off for just a while to rid you of all the thoughts is higher.

"i—"

"do you not want to? of course i do understand—"

"shut up," you groan and the next thing your body prompts you to do is grab his wrist, pull him closer, turn around and pin him against your office desk as you kiss him, lips crashing against his and moving as if he was exactly what you needed after a rough day.

hyunjin doesn't exactly remember when and where things started going down the hill. you were his best friend. you are his best friend and yet best friends don't kiss. best friends don't fuck and for sure, best friends don't tell the other to use them only for them to knock the living lights out of them with a kiss that slips consciousness out of him.

hell be damned, he wasn't even sure if he was dreaming right now, but there was a raw emotion in the way you kissed him and in the way you leaned upwards slightly to curl your fingers in his hair and tug at it as you angled the kiss, lips moving against his in a separate emotion altogether.

best friends definitely do not do this.

you part your lips and feel hyunjin washing over like a wave of warmth, curling your toes, unfurling all your senses as the taste of him nearly silenced all thoughts. exactly as you wanted him and if his taste was what blocked everything, you needed more.

your whole body tingled, the feel of his frame leaning on yours further as his arms wrapped around yours feels nearly forbidden. you pull back, breath uneasy and gaze wavering at your best friend and you know he's what he is — insatiable as fuck. hyunjin pulls you in, claiming your mouth again, hungry and intense, until your knees almost give in. by the time you are aware of your own fingers, they had already slipped under his shirt, his skin smooth and radiating heat.

you pull back, chest rising frantically and you grip his white shirt tightly, yout hand soaking in the warmth of his body as you let go of his shirt and your fingers play with the edges of his pants.

"fuck my mouth," you say quickly, before kneeling down, unbuttoning his pants, looking upwards for a sign of approval and hyunjin's breath hitches. what ever would the porn he stars in account to when you are a whole fucking porn on legs?

"are you sure? i mean, i could give you an or—"

"later. stop overthinking everything," you sigh. "we'll do that later together. now can i or should i stop?"

hyunjin's hand moves down messily to unzip his pants and your lips curve upwards as you look at the man being reckless. he pulls his pants down in a rush along with his boxers only for his half erect cock to hit his stomach slightly before presenting itself to you.

when hyunjin fantasised about having your mouth wrapped around his cock earlier that day, he definitely didn't expect it this soon. but here you were, before him on your knees, taking his hardened dick in your hands as you spit on his shaft and move your hands over it slightly. it is probably the emotions and the feelings he holds for you that get him to harden and grow further in your grip and your eyes widen before you look away.

your thumb rubs against the frenum piercings — three consecutively to make a small ladder arrangement and you gasp. this must feel insane when he fucks your mouth — just as good as it did when he fucked you hard weeks back.

you look back up at him, hand moving around his shaft a little more rigidly and you tell him, "the black hair suits you better. fuck, you look like sex with that so, keep it," and you take his head into your mouth before hyunjin could say anything. he stutters, hand gripping the table tightly as you hollow your mouth and take him, tongue rolling against the metal balls on the underside of his cock.

"f-fuck," hyunjin gasps, head rolling back as you take more of him into your mouth, sucking on it lewdly. "your mouth feels so good, y/n, oh my—" and he moans so loud that you find yourself dampening your panties with your own arousal. hyunjin has pretty, pretty moans. it's deep, guttaral and makes you want to emit more of those from his pretty lips.

you take him out of your mouth, kissing the head, sucking at it with just your lips. you kiss him down his shaft, tongue lapping against the frenum piercings a little longer than you should and hyunjin knows by now for sure — you love his piercings.

"wow, you're getting harder," you gasp as you lick the precum from the head of his shaft before licking up from the base of his cock to the very top. you suck a little more of just his head, so delectable and angry, and hyunjin groans, hand finally leaving the table to hold your hair strongly.

"don't tease, y/n," and his voice is so strong that you can't help yourself but take him finally into your mouth, hollowing as much as you can as you slowly take him completely in your mouth and hyunjin releases a series of swear words laced with your name in the middle.

it's the sight of you in your formal shirt and pencil skirt, so prim and proper and yet you are taking him in your mouth, emitting such lewd sounds that it's pornographic. it's the way he feels you taking him in as deep as you can to get used to his length and girth. it's the way he see you slip your fingers secretly into your panties to rub your clit. it's the way you occasionally look at him from below, with tears in your eyes as you take him as deep as you can, choking on his cock.

if he were to pinpoint one, hyunjin could never. he would hold every single reason responsible for him to grip harder on your head and to thrust into your mouth just as you asked from him.

"you wanted this, right?" he groans, harshly, voice octaves deeper. "wanted my big fucking cock down your throat just to make you dumb and make you forget about everything. you wanted me to fuck your mouth so hard and to shoot my cum down your throat."

hyunjin's cock is heavy and warm on your tongue. he thrusts into your mouth and your right hand shovestwo fingers deep into your sopping core at the exact same time, trying to match his pace. the tears stream down from your face and all you can think is how good you feel being fucked like this, to have hyunjin's cock in your mouth. your jaw begins to ache from the constant task of fitting his fat girth into your mouth, but the feeling of him sliding against your tastebuds — the metal balls dragging against your wet tongue — and battering the back of your throat makes your eyes roll into the back of your head. hyunjin's grip on your hair is stronger to position your face and yet you release another moan, the vibrations rolling against his cock as his hips snaps forward to push his cock deeper.

the gags that leave your mouth is loud, the wet drippings leaking along with the sputtering afters of precum from the side of your mouth and staining your white shirt. your panties are soiled with how hard and fast you plunge your fingers in to bring you close.

"oh god," hyunjin's grip loosens on your hair for a bit before he continues thrusting into your mouth lightly. "god, i could fuck your mouth all night long and then fuck your cunt even harder." he grabs a fist full of your hair to hold you down before he goes back to thrusting harder into your mouth.

"eyes on me, baby. i'm going to shove my dick down your throat, okay?" he says. you quickly nod, your thumb rubbing your clit harshly and then he shoves you down his length and holds you still. you can feel his dick at the very back of your mouth as you choke on it, tears spilling messily down your face and ruining your makeup. hyunjin counts slowly, "five. four. three. two," and he slowly lets go, "one."

you gasp, breathing in as much air as you can as he takes his dick out, "that's my good girl. so good for me. now let me fuck your mouth again, oh good lord."

he holds your jaw with his other hand, pressing slightly in an attempt not to hurt you more as he holds your hair with the other. hyunjin angles your face up to look at him. your eyes are watery, makeup ruined and may the fury of the hells be with him, but he would sin and fornicate a twenty times more if this is the sight before him. you've ruined hyunjin for every other girl now and you don't even realise it.

hyunjin's hips begin to stutter soon, losing their tempo has he chased his orgasm. how ironic that he asked you to use him and yet here you were letting him use you in turn. his grip on your hair tightens as he feels it tightening in him. the room is filled with nothing but the sound of his balls slapping against your chin, muffled moans coming from your stuffed mouth and rapid panting from him.

hyunjin's breathing hitches and you remove your fingers from your cunt. it is sticky and coated with your arousal as you reach out to use the same hand to hold his balls. hyunjin gasps, holding your head a little stronger as you play with it when he fucks your mouth.

"fucking killing me," he grunts. "you're fucking killing me, y/n." you press your tongue flat as hyunjin finally drags his cock out. you gasp heavily, mouth sore and aching and vision blurry. however, all you can think is of rolling your numb tongue against his metal piercings and you do the very same, tugging at it occasionally.

“fuck, y/n!” he grunts out, trying to hold out a loud moan. his hips still surges forward to hit the bridge of your nose. you wrap your hands around his cock, feeling him become even more rigid in your grip. your rub his length as quick as you can till his dick quivers and hyunjin repeats under his breath, "i'm going to come, i'm going to come, i'm goi— fuck!"

hyunjin comes undone on your face. white spurts leaving his cock and coating your cheeks and your chin only to drop down onto your blouse and stain it further and it is a sight to behold. seeing you covered in his cum, almost like he was marking you, is enough to make him go hard again. your eyes are wide as he spurts his release on your face and the side of your neck and it's all so messy and hot that it has you leaving your mouth open unknowingly.

his brown eyes take in the sight of your swollen pink lips, cheeks tinged red and covered in tears and spit, and now his cum. hyunjin feels his cock twitch slightly as a pang of arousal shoots through his body again. but he has to ignore that. you are worn out and he needs to attend to your needs now that he knows you just gave him one mind blowing orgasm and in return hasn't had any.

hyunjin is about to lift you up when you hold his wrist, tongue jutting out to lick all the cum by the side of your lips, taking in as much as you can with your tongue and hyunjin gulps at the sight, his adam's apple bobbing oh so visibly.

"i have a proposition," you say. your voice almost sounds like something grating against the sand paper and hyunjin can't help but feel proud (as worried as he is). he listens to you as he squats down to maintain eye contact with you.

"oh?" he raises his eyebrows at you and you nod. hyunjin is trying his best to focus on you and your words and not how his come is on your face, marking you up to him as his.

"let's be friends with benefits."

and that was enough for him to focus back on your words. his feet is firm on the floor as he asks, "what?"

"it's a win-win situation, clearly. i need you for many reasons." you lift your hand up to count. "a) you're my best friend and i value this friendship a lot." hyunjin scoffs and you choose to ignore it as you continue, lifting another finger up, "b) you're the only one who has made me come and i need orgasms and validation. you give me both. we'll be exclusive and the minute you want to date someone, we break this off."

hyunjin feels his chest heavy. why are you making this so much harder? why are you jeopardizing everything? he doesn't know if this arrangement would be for the better or for the worse but after giving him the best orgasm he has had in a while and with all the oxytocin streaming in his blood veins, he knows his decision could account for all his miseries turning from unrequited love to rejection.

"and?"

"c) i haven't been able to explore much sexually, changbin being my first and everything and i want you to teach me as much as you know with your experience," you lift the third finger before closing them all and looking at him with nothing but hope.

"come again?"

"that's the plan," you laugh at your own joke to calm the uneasy tension in the room. "but it's true. that was the first time a guy has fucked my mouth or deep throated me and i fucking loved it."

hyunjin gulps visibly, his dick hardening and you look down at it. "you know you can say yes," you mumble as you desperately shift your gaze back at your best friend. "please? you could teach me how to come on my own."

"what's in it for me, y/n? every single point you said benefits you more than it does for me." hyunjin sits down, bringing his knees closer to him as he wraps his arms around it.

"you told me to use you. isn't that the whole point of using someone? i'll be benefited more than you will ever be. you can't go back on your words now."

hyunjin thinks the word heartless and yet again you were not. the proposition was seemingly harmless, but it sounded all like a big hazard signal to him because he has feelings for you that you are so clearly not aware of.

the thing with being so whipped for a person, to be so wrapped around their finger that all one can think of is them? you do anything for them, anything to make them happy. that's how stupid love makes one. that's how crazy love has made hyunjin, because as much as he is at a disadvantage, he can't help.

"alright. let's be friends with benefits."

and hyunjin knows that it is his heart that will break in the end. but at the very least, it will only be his.

#hyunjin smut #stray kids smut #skz smut #hwang hyunjin smut #kpop smut #hwang hyunjin #stray kids #skz #hyunjin x reader #hyunjin fic #hyunjin scenarios #hyunjin imagines #skz imagines #skz scenarios #stray kids imagines #stray kids scenarios #writings.rue

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studyingmoominvalley · 3 years ago

Text

My analysis of the Moominvalley (2019) season 2 soundtrack

I am skipping songs that are unnecessary, so I’m sorry First Day of My Life, you’re a bop but you just don’t mean shit. You’re happy and upbeat, my analysis is never like this.

Homesick by Cavetown:

Gotta love me some Cavetown, and Robbie’s songs pretty much always have a deeper meaning. SO LET’S LOOK IN!

“My, oh my, the sky's so much bigger than we thought/And I wanna see it all”. This can be from the perspective of someone who wishes to travel, who hasn’t seen the world as much as Snufkin has. So this is a Moomintroll song. He doesn’t know that much about the world, only getting it read to by his Pappa and his memoirs. But for someone as self-confident as Pappa, the world is possibly a lot more than what he lets on. And that is what Moomin wants to know. He wants to start his own adventure, and this is what the end of season 2 and what we have seen of season 3 seems to let on. However, as much as Moomin longs for adventure, he longs for home just as much. This topic is explored in Farewell Snorkmaiden. He has an attachment to anything related to his home or his Mamma that he just can’t start his own free life with Snorkmaiden. Just because he doesn’t want to let his friends go, doesn’t mean he’s ready to leave home. Just because he wants the world, doesn’t mean he’s ready to give up a part of it. He’s having so much fun adventuring, being his own Moomin. But he just can’t be away from home. He’s homesick, as the title suggests.

Something New by girl in red:

LET’S GO LESBIANS LET’S GO! I love me some girl in red too, but this is analysis time, not reviewing.

Moomin longs to travel south with Snufkin. I think pretty much almost all of these songs will be him longing to be free like Snufkin, but this is probably because he’s a gay fucking mess. Lil bitch. Anyway yeah. Moomin longs to travel south with Snufkin. He’s probably, like, trying to find him in the Winter or something because of lyrics like “We’ve only just started, so hold on”, “There’s no looking back now, I’ll stay here” and “I hope to be there someday”. He just wants to be where Snufkin is, see him, travel with him. But he thinks of a place that “looks like a fairytale”, which shows this is all an unrealistic fantasy he wishes to live out. Snufkin needs his alone time, Moomin is just being a gay bastard.

God damn it Made of Stone. I just can’t analyze you. You’re here to guilt trip Moomin, you made me sob in a fake out episode, I love you but there is just no story in you. You’re a sob story, and I love you for it.

Cloudy Eyes by New Ro

Such vibes. Anyway.

Moomin stop being gay. This is a Snufmin song, don’t change my mind, you can’t. Snufkin and Moomin are out of touch in their ways of life, Moomin being attached to home and Snufkin being a wanderer at heart, but yet their connection to each other is still so strong. Despite their differences, they can’t help being attracted to each other. Moomin feels like he’s himself, everything is good, when Snufkin is there with him. He hopes that Snufkin never stops returning to the valley, he hopes nothing changes within Snufkin or their relationship. He makes him feel free. And he wonders if this feeling can last forever.

Change Is Gonna Know My Name you fucking AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

How DARE you be so good in an episode with the WORST moment and WORST representation of Thingumy and Bob! HOW DARE YOU! Sniff better get a proper redemption. He better be friends with Stinky and be gay and do crime! YOU FAILED! YOU FAILED WHERE IT WAS SO EASY TO SUCCEED! GOD DAMN IT! Anyway if you got the hint we’re skipping this one.

Start Again by BOBBi

Gotta say I love this composer name. Lol Bobbie. GAWD DAMMIT BOBBIE. Anyways.

I don’t even need to say this is Snorkmaiden and Moomin, the show already tells us. But BEST FRIENDS?! WHAT IS GUTSY TELLING US?! So, maaaaaaaaybe…

At the end of the episode this is from, they imply a breakup, which is also implied with the use of “best friend” instead of “lover”. The song is about starting again, building up the foundation for them to live together and work on themselves. They don’t need to do this though. They’re picking out the relationship they don’t need and working on it because they feel they want it. The final chorus does prove my analysis a bit.

“Even if it's make believe/Even if I know you're gonna leave/Even if it makes me sad/You are my best friend, we can start again”. Snorkmaiden is aware that this relationship isn’t working. She knows that it won’t stay together and that Moomin is going to leave at some point. But she wants to give him a chance. She has the chance to salvage something that was broken and maybe just fix it into something platonic. He’s her best friend. They can start this again as a new friendship. A new home. They’re building a metaphorical home, a home for their romance to retire and their friendship to heal.

A Place To Call Home by jens

This song is so nice, it makes me happy.

This song is definitely about the lighthouse but I’m not boring am I? I’m pulling out Snufkin. Moominvalley has so many interesting things about it. Secrets, magic, strange people. He travels to and from this place so much that it feels like a place he can call home. Not his real home, but at least one that feels like home and somewhere he can stay for as long as he needs to. He even finds home in the Moomin family. They have their flaws, but it gives them charm. Especially Moomin. He’d rather not call anywhere else his home, this is his place to call home.

Cloudy by Vilma Alina

Fucking C L O U D Y! I love this soundtrack so much istg.

Yep. November in Moominvalley. Snufkin longing for the Moomin family, mainly Moomin. The world feels right with them around, but it feels wrong without them. Now he’s stuck with these weird ass people. But Toft is there too and we love them so I guess it isn’t too bad.

That’s my analysis! Now to wait for season 3!!!

#moomins #moominvalley #snufmin #analysis #soundtrack #yay I did it!#I can't wait for season 3 y'all #moominvalley season 2

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barnesandco · 5 years ago

Text

Seafarer

Loosely based on the following prompt by @drink-it-write-it :

“You said that I’d get to have you all weekend. Why can’t you just tell them you can’t go?”-“Because it’s my job, and it’s important.”-“And I’m not?”

Pairing: Bucky Barnes x Reader

Warnings: Angst, talk of groping.

A/N: I personally think this to be an embarrassing piece of work. Nothing more than an exercise in writing internal monologue, particularly of the sad variety. Sad both in terms of content, and quality. You have been warned.

“Sweetheart, open the door.” Bucky mutters, resting his forehead on the solid oak. He got back from his mission half an hour ago, and has spent that time standing at her doorstep, knocking, begging her to let him in. She’s pissed. Has every right to be, Bucky thinks to himself. He made her cry, after all. Left her crying.

“Go. Just go. Back to your apartment, the Compound, I don’t care. Why don’t you just go on another goddamn mission? You seem to love those.” She says, bitterness edging into her tone at his betrayal. Bucky swallows nervously, the lump in his throat becoming more prominent. He opens his mouth to answer, but his voice fails, leaving him gaping like a fish. He tries again.

“Darling, angel, doll-”

“Don’t call me that. You don’t get to call me any of that after abandoning me when I needed you. Go away.” Comes the watery reply, her voice breaking off at the end, like she’s holding back more tears. Of course she is. Any girl stuck with a heartless jerk like him is bound to cry. He knows he can’t leave her like this. Not again.

“I’m not going anywhere until we talk about this.”

“Well then, you’ll be waiting a while.”

“Baby, I-”

“I told you to quit it with the pet names. I won’t tell you again. Fuck off, Bucky.” She orders, voice trembling, heart in her throat and hand clenching the doorknob, as if she’s seconds away from opening it and saying it to his face. Not that she’s in any condition to - tears staining a tale of sorrow down her cheeks, bottom lip shaking and bitten red with the effort of containing her rage.

“I don’t-”

“Please.” She pleads, desperate now. She isn’t sure if she can resist his attempts to speak with her for much longer. Bucky sighs, defeated by the tormented request. It’s no use pushing further. They’re both too emotionally wound up to resolve their conflict reasonably. Why does he have to be the voice of reason? Screw reason.

Still, he turns and leaves, thundering down the stairs. All twelve flights of them. The elevator’s in perfect working condition, but he hates the damn things. There’s no escape route. Unhealthy for his neurotic claustrophobia, catastrophic for emergencies. Disaster waiting to happen.

Much like him and her, he supposes woefully. Their relationship has always been a stormy one. A hurricane. One that she is both the centre of, and a sanctuary from, which, now that he thinks about it, are one and the same thing. It’s calmest in the eye of the storm, right? Suddenly, Bucky isn’t so sure anymore. Doesn’t have to be, really, he’s a soldier, not a sailor. He wants to be a lover, though. A good one. That’s all he was trying to do, when shit hit the fan that day.

“Bucky? What are you doing here?” She says, putting her bag down slowly, in awe of the sight before her. He’s standing in the tiny kitchen of her tiny apartment, next to a dinner-table set for two. A candle-lit dinner table.

“Hi, sweetheart. Thought I’d surprise you.” He smiles sheepishly, coming closer to help her out of her coat. He bends down, unbuckles her shoes. She lets him, but his kindnesses don’t distract from the nightmarish nature of her time at work.

“You've… succeeded.” Her lip wobbles dangerously, like a child on the verge of a tantrum. Bucky picks up on it immediately. It’s only been six months, but he knows her like he knows every fire exit in the building - it’s imprinted into his mind.

“What’s wrong? You look upset.” He asks, rubbing her arms gently. She shakes her head.

“It’ll ruin the mood. I shouldn’t talk about it right now. Let’s just enjoy dinner. Which looks delicious, by the way.” She gestures towards the table, where he’s laid out a lasagna she would’ve inhaled by now if she weren’t so upset.

“Baby, I can see something’s off. Come on, just tell me.” Bucky persists, hand at the small of her back guiding her to the sofa in the adjacent room instead. There are more candles here, lights turned down low, roses in as many vases as they own between the two of them. Looking at all the effort he’s put into tonight’s the drop that makes the bucket run over. The first tears, glimmering in the firelight, roll down her cheeks, as she begins talking.

He should have listened to her, he thinks as he steps out into the September night, bracing himself against the chill that’s already starting to settle in. His every misery begins and ends with this sentiment - he should’ve listened to her. Not pressed the matter. She would have talked when she was ready to. But he didn’t, and as a consequence, is now on the streets of Queens without any idea what to do with himself.

It’s late. Not too late, of course, Bucky would never want to disturb her while she’s sleeping. Would have waited till morning anyway if he wasn’t so anxious about the fragile state of their relationship after the fight they had before he left. But he didn’t. He came here, as soon as formalities like debriefing and cleaning himself up were settled at a break-neck speed. The sun was setting, then. It’s gone now, leaving only darkness punctuated by lampposts, shop signs, and the headlights of oncoming cars. So really, not much darkness at all. It’s only ten, still early, especially for New York, the city that never sleeps. He knows he won’t be able to sleep either, not tonight. The sound of her sobs from that night will haunt him. He recalls the three simple words that started the spectacle that’s driven him out at this hour.

“I got fired.” She says finally, wiping her eyes with the tissue he hands her. New tears immediately replace those she just erased, and from then onwards, it’s a hopeless cause.

“What? Why?” He exclaims, shocked. More than shock, the vibrations of worry shake his system. For her, and on her behalf. She needs this job. Claims she does, anyhow. Bucky’s happy to provide her with anything she could ever ask for, he’s told her as much, but after much arguing, he has been made aware that that’s not how things work. At least not for her. She needs to stand on her own two feet, and if that means working herself to the bone, in addition to her post-graduate studies, then so be it.

“I slapped a patron. He came around the bar - it was a busy night - squeezed my ass and made some lewd comments. Nothing I haven’t heard before, been catcalled more than I can remember, but this was up close. And he touched me, which hasn’t happened before.” She explains, eyes downcast. His blood pressure skyrockets, and he sees red.

“I’m gonna kill him.” He snarls, immediately softening when her gaze turns to him, frightened. He thinks she’s afraid of him, although she would reassure him of the contrary, as she always does, if she was in any state of mind to do so. “I’m so sorry that happened to you.” He tries, gentle this time. She buries her face in his sweater, sobs into his chest. He can feel her chest shaking with the effort of her heaving cries. Bucky wraps his arms around her, heart in his throat at the pain he can physically feel through their points of contact. “Hey, hey, easy there. Calm down, sugar.” This was the wrong thing to say. She straightens up and faces him.

“Calm down? You know what the manager said?” She asks fiercely. Resumes her furious rant when he doesn’t say anything. “He lectured me about the whole the-customer-is-always-right spiel, and how we have to put up with this stuff - as if he’s ever been groped - and then yelled at me for scaring clients. Then he called me a- a dramatic bitch and said I shouldn’t bother to show up to work tomorrow.“ She counts off the three points on her fingers, voice cracking at the end, and closes her eyes and breathes. She turns back to him. "So you see, Bucky, I can’t calm down.”

He grimaces internally at the reminder of the hurt she had exhibited. All the hurt he ignored. No, he most definitely will not be sleeping tonight. There’s no point in going back to his place in Brooklyn, or the Compound, like she suggested. Everything comes back to her. It has to. She’s the moon, and he is the voyager dependent on her for the tides that guide him to shore. She is also the shore itself - a safe place, somewhere to call home and build a life. Not for long, if they can’t resolve this argument. Their latest one. At the moment, he has only the dirty, echoing subway station, and the trains within.

The platform emits the perennial scents of urine and alcohol, and the drunk stragglers responsible for both having taken up their regular spots in the provided area. Lighthouses that repel those who surround them instead of attract them. A strand of hair comes loose from behind Bucky’s ear as a train rushes out from the tunnel to his right; he tucks it in its place impatiently, ice-blue eyes scanning the platform. The brakes screech as the doors open and the soft, robotic voice inside announces the station to its passengers. He throws caution to the wind and enters the train. He doesn’t know where it’s going, but then, he doesn’t know where he’s going either. Doesn’t need to, as long as it takes him away from everything. He’s good at that. Running away. He ran away from Steve at the Triskelion and in Bucharest. He ran away from her when she needed him, because he thought she didn’t.

“What is it, Sam?” He answers the phone, worrying his lower lip between his teeth. Closes his eyes as his teammate delivers the blow. The Avengers are needed, somewhere in the world. Urgently so. “Do I have to? I’m in the middle of something.” He tells Sam, glancing over at her. She’s already figured it out. “Fine, fine. Yeah, I’m ready, give me a call when you get here.” Putting the phone down, he nervously runs his hands through his hair. “I- I have to go.” He says.

“Where?”

“Argentina. One week, tops. I’m sorry.” Bucky apologizes. It’s not enough to quell her concerns. Her pain. The torment he sees in her eyes. He wishes he could stay. Perhaps she’s better off without him, he considers.

“Stay. Please.” Clearly, she disagrees.

“I want to, doll, I really do. But they need me.”

“So do I.”

“Don’t do this to me.” He begs of her, because he can’t bear to see her like this. He’d give her the world if she asked, but at the moment, he can’t even give her the consolation she needs after a traumatic ordeal.

“Bucky, I don’t want to be the damsel in distress here, but I am in distress. I can’t cope with all the shit that went down today. That man- and ugh. Please, Bucky.” She’s pacing now, in front of the coffee table, and the tears are back in full force. Bucky averts his eyes.

“I wish I could, but Sam says-”

“Just tell him you can’t go. This one time.”

“I can’t do that. It’s my job, and it’s important.”

“And I’m not?”

Bucky thumps his head heavily against the window behind him. Closes his eyes against the onslaught of guilt and shame. He shouldn’t have left. Not then, with Sam, and not now, alone. He could have waited in the hallway. Instead he’s gotten on a train bound for nowhere, with nothing on his mind but the one person he can’t live without. Besides Steve, naturally. That punk is the bane of his existence, and Bucky wouldn’t want it any other way. They’re his people. The ones he needs to keep safe at all costs. Sam, too, occasionally, not that Bucky would ever tell him that. Evidently, he failed. He hurt her when he swore that he would be the one defending her from any such thing.

Now here he is, in a train under the city he calls home, but feeling more homesick than he ever has. He never thought he’d fall in love this quickly. Six months is all it took for him to hand his heart over to a woman who seems hell bent on throwing it back in his face. He doesn’t blame her for rejecting his soul, broken and bruised as it is. He does blame himself for thinking that any balm that soothes those scars would last forever. Their courtship was too good to be true. He ponders this, and her tear-streaked face, as the train carries him deeper into a direction he does not care to go. He does not care to go anywhere she isn’t, however, the more he tries to return to her, the further he seems to drift away. Lost at sea, never to be found.

Taglist: @buckyreaderrecs @mermaidxatxheart @corneliabarnes

#bucky barnes x reader #bucky x reader #bucky x reader angst #bucky barnes x reader angst #bucky x y/n #bucky x you #ayesha writes

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susoftjockau · 5 years ago

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Helping Hand - SU Soft Jock Fic

Summary: Steven always helped people, and college isn’t an exception to him noticing when others aren’t okay; a look into Steven’s first year before Connie got involved.

Trigger Warning: Mention of a toxic relationship.

Created by @borkthemork.

-----

There were definitive reasons for Steven to grow in popularity the way he did. One could argue that it came from the rumors that circulated around him, the jovial nature of himself as he partook in cheerleading—which was perceived as a forward move, or the fact he could connect to different cliques like a magnet with never-ending attraction. But there was one reason that rang true for the ones who met him on a personal level: that his empathy was of a lighthouse, guiding lost ships back to safer ground, to a safer place.

The football players were the ones who witnessed it the most. One, in particular, never forgot.

-----

A toxic relationship.

Those were the words Finnegan, a quarterback with a history of it, tried to avoid to the best of his abilities. He wasn’t dismissive of the concept—or the fact that it existed—but to him, it wasn’t supposed to give him clarity. It felt off, like the words fit like a puzzle piece but weren’t meant to in the slightest; that this whole thing wasn’t true, and that it was just his fault for perceiving it differently, seeing something that shouldn’t make him feel bad even if it did. His heart was burning. His mind attempted to repeat rejections and comments that could allow him to brush it off, but the two words still kept hustling themselves into the forefront.

It must’ve been from the fact that Steven Universe said those words. The two of them were huddled behind the bleachers, the nightly cold digging into their skins, and the after-party groups were shaking their way out of the fields and out of campus. His friends would be there, and the excessive buzzing from his phone kept him shaking over the roulette of what was to come if he answered: to listen to the worries of his entire crew (asking where he went so they could pick him up) or to be pulled into an argument over his lover and her cousin over the most stressful of things.

“It’s vibrating like crazy.” Even if the statement was obvious, both of them knew it was the cause of all this, the giant ruckus that set him frazzled and weak while he gripped his juice box.

“We’ll be fine, it’s just a phone, man.”

Steven frowned, looking back at the device. Finnegan kept drinking, hoping the vibrations could stop on its own. “But you’re not fine with it around, you’re shaking.”

“It’s just a stupid phone,” he reassured him.

Steven’s eyes softened. In the looming bleacher shadows and the gleam of the moon, there was something about it that reminded him of peace. He didn’t know if his vision was playing tricks on him, but it looked like the boy genuinely cared. “It’s okay to tell people if you aren’t fine, Finn.”

The phone kept going.

Steven didn’t look down this time, keeping his eyes on him. There wasn’t anything assertive about it, it was careful, etched with the glow in his eyes that told him full-out that, once again, that there was legitimate wanting to help. “Let’s turn off the phone.”

“No, I can’t do that to her.”

“It’s stressing you out.” Amid it all, there was no action from the cheerleader. No quick motion to grab his phone right from under his nose. Was it patience? Was it something else? “We’ll just turn it off for a few minutes,” he suggested, voice soft and mellow. “After a while, we can turn it back on. Are you okay with that?”

Bzzzt. Bzzzzt.

"Finn?"

The phone kept going. Buzzing and buzzing until Finn’s fingers pressed down on its buttons, clicking it into somber black.

The boy kept staring at its surface. Steven responded, voice akin to a tightrope. “How do you feel?”

Anxious. What else was he supposed to say? Everything about him was about to combust, and all he could do was just wheeze and bite back the tears, desperately attempting to wall up his countenance—only for it to break down entirely.

It hurt. The idea that one could bawl their eyes out with just a simple question; it sickened him to his stomach, curdling it to mush as he ebbed each wave of misery, hoping it could wash the sour taste on his tongue. There was an awful weight to it. Something about it made him feel weak, and he knew why.

Crying was a privilege to him, and he hated the way it dampened his cheeks.

“You need some rest.”

“No shit, man.” Finnegan couldn’t help but laugh into his sleeve, even if the boy right next to him kept his concern. His throat was sore, it was hard to breathe, but man did it feel nice to laugh, even if it was out of his own expense. “I’m just crying like a little bitch, and everything feels too much. I can’t handle this, y’know?”

Steven gave another nod. “Then I’ll keep you company until it passes.”

Finnegan continued to wheeze into his arm, the words clicking every time, the strain on his forehead amounting to a heavyweight. It was so quiet though; the anxiety was there but the anticipation of the phone buzz was slipping away as the boy next to him kept him focused on breathing. He would order in number count, Finnegan being rewarded a rub on the back in intervals until the tears took their sweet time. His nose burned in the aftermath.

It would go on for a while. There, concealed from public eyes, as he continued to sob and soil the ground—the reassurances of the cheerleader lulling him to whimpers.

How long has he cried? It must be a pathetic display to have someone see him like this, breaking down because of a phone ringing, because he couldn’t handle a lover who craved help and needed everything from him in the world. All of his words, his encouragement, his smile, his reassurances that he’ll never leave her, his presence when she needed physical love, his loyalty when she told him that he was wrong and she was right. Everything.

Wasn’t there an unfairness to keeping a lover unhappy? It had to be; it made his whole breakdown feel pathetic, like he was looking for something to be upset over. His words were excuses disguising the true blame that was on his chest like a target.

“It’s not your fault.” The comment came without question, but boy did the tears come back in full force. His eyes prickled with heat, a warm pair of arms taking him into a warm place as he dampened Steven’s shoulder. “It’s not your fault.”

They never made it to the after-party, but Finnegan believed that life gave him the chance to meet the campus darling by the name of Steven Universe. That if he never met him—who set him aside, asking him if he was all right under the pretense of a durian juice break—he would’ve kept believing something simple yet destructive: that it was fine.

#steven universe #su soft jock au #fic #before years

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boarix · 4 years ago

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Wraith in the Ruins: A Fallout 4 Story Part XIX

Harbinger

Trigger Warnings: canon violence/language/gun, drug and alcohol use.

Bloody Mess Warning!

Please Enjoy!

Infamy stared after Wraith and Radiance as if in a haze. With their back to Harkness, they were caught completely unaware when he tackled them to the ground. The large man seemed oblivious to his own injuries while providing the glowing one some of their own. He sobbed for breath as he pummeled Atom’s Assassin; striking them repeatedly about the head and face.

“This was you! I lost them…” his breath came in ragged gasps, “all because of you! I lost them both! They trusted me with their friends… my friends! YOU’VE KILLED THEM BOTH!” Exhausted, he fell off of the ghoul and groaned into the mud.

Infamy’s mind was elsewhere it seemed. They allowed the beating and after it was over they climbed to their feet and walked slowly to where Sun of Atom lay. Not bothering to avoid the grisly remains of Marie, they simply stepped on or through the piles of the young woman’s digestive tract: trailing loops of purple-grey small intestine behind them after it caught on their boot. They crouched over the sad and crumpled form of their fellow glowing one and placed a hand on his brow.

Harkness made an attempt to get to his feet but only succeeded in flopping over onto his back. Panting, he struggled to pull his shirt up and over his head before wadding it into a ball and pressing it to the worst of his multiple knife wounds. Looking around he saw what Infamy was doing and a sudden flare of hope stirred within him “Can you… I’ve seen glowing ones revive…”

“No. There isn’t enough brain left.” They rose to their feet and paced back to him, “His light has gone out in any case.” Placing their knuckles on their hips, Infamy leaned down to glare at him, “What do you mean I’ve killed them?” Sweeping a hand through the air, they gestured to the bodies lying in the muddied turf, “Do point out the general’s corpse. I know it may be hard considering how popular a hangout this area is for dead folks. Don’t see her? Hmm... Did you miss the part where that spectacular glowing creature swept Wraith away?”

“Fuck… you…”

“She took all my ferals too… that beautiful bitch!”

“Why are… you still here?! Fuck off already!”

They snorted in amusement then turned and leisurely walked to the shipping office. A moment later they returned with Wraith’s med kit and tossed it to a very surprised Harkness.

“What?! Why?”

“Where? When? Who?” laughing mockingly, they roughly pulled the cloak from one of their collective; shaking it so the body fell to lay face down with limbs askew. They then folded the garment into a makeshift cushion and sat on it, “Can’t have you expiring before my questions are answered. Now, can we? Hahaha!”

Harkness injected himself with Med-X then a stimpak. Rummaging in the bag, he also found a derma-fuse and a small bottle of disinfecting alcohol. Pouring some onto clean gauze, he winced as he wiped at the gash along his ribs. He popped his chin to the cloak’s former owner, “Guess I shouldn’t be surprised you’d treat a loyal follower like garbage.”

“Tch,” They waved a hand dismissingly, “their light has returned to Atom. The meat sack is unimportant. Besides, it’s hot and wet out here and I have a particular loathing for swamp ass.”

As Harkness did his best to mend himself he could feel the ghoul watching him. It annoyed the shit out of him, “What makes you think I’m going to answer any of your fucking…”

“Did you ever ask him?” Their lip curled in amusement, “Sun. Did you ever ask him about your light? Or, did you assume that you must have one. After all you are alive, right?” Their voice deepened and came as the lowest of whispers, “Are you alive, Harkness?”

“I will not play, Infamy.” His eyes mirrored the iron in his voice.

“You’ll play. After all, you’ve curiosity of your own to quench.” They brought a hand up under their chin, propped their arm on a knee and bat their eyes at him, “Don’t you want to know how I knew where you were? Hmmm? Don’t you want to know ‘why now’?”

“No. I figure… you heard Sunny… or one of you did. Why are you so interested in Wraith? What is she the Harbinger of?”

They made an indelicate noise and waved a hand dismissively, “It’s not her I’m interested in any longer. I imagine she was the Harbinger of Death for Sun of Atom…”

“NO!” Furious, Harkness pound his fist on the ground, “You fucking… uncaring monster! It can’t be as simple…”

“Wraith is up to Atom. Whether or not she’s ‘The Harbinger’ is up to the Mother of the Fog and I don’t pretend to know their Holy Plan. And I’d be careful thrashing about and opening your wounds, brother; you’ve only got so much of that red fluid left.”

“Red fluid?! It’s blood, you fuck! I am alive and I have blood!”

“I’m a monster, remember? I know nothing of blood as my veins are filled with ichor. Ha!”

Harkness struggled to his feet. Walking on unsteady legs, he went to Sun and with some difficulty, gathered the ghoul into his arms, “If anyone was Death’s Harbinger it was Marie.” He carried his small burden to the office and set about arranging him; folding him in his robes as if he was swaddling an infant.

“Marie…” Infamy watched from the doorway, their voice dripped with loathing, “complete buffoon. Utter garbage.”

“Well, you listened to her and came up here, so who’s the bigger idiot?”

“The trouble at Crater House, the loss of Kingsport Lighthouse and the babbling of High Confessor Tektus is why I came. Though, I suppose Marie’s whining about false prophets needed to be addressed as well… she did know the area…” They shrugged, “Oh, well. She’s not going to be spreading hysteria any longer and all those who followed her around will go back home and follow Atom instead. As they should.”

Harkness slammed his fists on the floor, “Oh, well? All’s well that ends well?!” He rushed the ghoul but couldn’t catch them and fell out of the door and landed on his knees, “People are dead! You killed and maimed people based on false information!”

They shrugged again, “They are not important. Who was that glowing one? Where did she come from? Does she speak? She seemed more than feral…”

“Go. Fuck. Yourself.”

“Would Wraith’s little boy know? Should I go and ask him? Oh, I like him. Very, very much.”

Harkness started to shake with rage, “If you set one rotten toenail in that settlement, MacCready will destroy you.”

They paused and a flicker of real fear crossed their face, “Oh… the sniper. If I’m not mistaken, he was a demon of Morningstar’s, at one point… Little Boy was no slouch in a fight either, and there are probably dogs, Dragoons and a super mutant…” They spun around; holding their arms out and twirling like a child, “I suppose I could just follow her… Although, that might be dangerous; wouldn’t want to get ensnared like Wraith.”

“I get the feeling, if she wanted you, she would have taken you.”

The ghoul’s eyes narrowed, “I am a Master of Infamy. A Necromancer! Atom’s Assassin, of course… well… hmm… perhaps you’re right. Oh, well. Maybe I’m not her type. That’s up to her, I suppose.” They blew Harkness a kiss and turned away toward the hole in the fence, “Try not to miss me, big boy.”

“For the last time; go fuck yourself!”

“Delighted to. I’ll be thinking of you!”

The loss of blood made Harkness’s journey back to Sanctuary a long one. He had left Sun’s remains along with most of his own gear, locked in one of the shipping company’s trailers. He went the long way around: avoiding the road and using a Stealth-boy to pass through the gate unseen. Nearly overwhelmed by exhaustion and grief, his invisibility wore off as he stood on the grass in between Wraith’s office and the clinic. Blinking into view, he looked back and forth, trying to prioritize.

As it happened, Danse had just glanced out the window and saw a vaguely familiar, very bloody man standing on the lawn. He assumed he was a member of the Minutemen and immediately went out to help, “Are you alright, soldier?”

“Oh. Hi, Danse. Glad to see…” Harkness trailed off as he lost consciousness and sagged into the other man’s arms.

“THIS IS TOTAL CRAP!”

A meeting had been called as soon as Harkness had regained consciousness. Bear, the Valentines, Danse, Curie, Cait, Lloyd, MacCready and Sofie had all gathered in Sanctuary’s Radio Freedom broadcast center. The leaders of Goodneighbor, Diamond City and The Castle were all listening in, and had been voicing their opinions on what to do next over the radio.

“MacCready, please stop yelling…” Sofie stood up to put her diminutive form between the sniper and the object of his ire.

“WHY DIDN’T YOU STOP HER?”

“How would I even begin to do that?” Harkness’s emotions were oscillating between anger and sadness and he would have very much liked to bellow back at him, but every time he took a deep, preparatory breath, he felt a sharp reminder that he’d been repeatedly stabbed. “I had just watched her literally rip another human being in half. With very little effort, might I add?” He looked unflinchingly into the other man’s eyes, “She and I weren’t super pals, but I was really starting to like her. I had begun to know her. I saw her when she went for Marie. Even before that glowing one took her, she had already gone feral. Her eyes were nothing but burning rage. If I had tried, she would have killed me too.”

“We are facing the fact that Wraith has now become… a potential threat… We cannot allow her to hurt anyone else.”

“No,” MacCready took a deep shuddering breath, “you can’t possibly believe that, Sofie.” He cast about in disbelief, looking for allies in the sad eyes of his friends. “I know she’s… gone a little… she’s always come back though! Hancock! Tell them! You’ve brought her back. Tell them how you…”

“That’s right,” Danse leaned forward eagerly, “aboard the Prydwen. Wraith told me that she had lost control,” He swallowed and closed his eyes, “and that it was you who…”

“No. I couldn’t. It wasn’t me…” Hancock was barely audible.

“We need to find her. If we can hold her somehow, maybe it’ll… wear off?” Piper’s question was pleading.

“We’ll mobilize the Hounds and the Dragoons.” Preston had been silent up to that point; unhappy to be the pro tem general, “Even Wraith can’t rip through metal. Can she?”

“I agree,” Nick Valentine had been standing in the doorway, facing away south, “We need to try…”

“And what then? How many people will she kill or injure in the effort to capture her?” Sanctuary’s head settler hated what she was saying even as she said it, “She’s surrounded by feral ghouls. One of whom is potentially the most powerful glowing one we have ever encountered. We have to find her, yes, but we should be considering…”

“YOU CAN’T BE THINKING OF KILLING THE PERSON WHO SAVED US!”

The ghoulett clenched her fists and tears stood out in her eyes, “You think I want her to be killed?!” She took several deep, shaking breaths, “We must think how she would feel knowing that people were hurt on her behalf. We must do what’s best for all…”

“WRAITH IS WHAT IS BEST FOR ALL!”

“MACCREADY!” Hancock’s voice crackled over the radio, “I’LL BE DAMNED IF I LET HER DIE!” Then, softer, “Robert… I don’t know if I can reach her but…” The deep breath he took was audible, “On the airship… I took some heavy-duty chems just to keep up with her. I was jacked on Psycho jet, Ultrajet and Buffout, but it still wasn’t enough to stop her. You wanna talk about rippin’ through metal?! She shrugged me off like I was a bloatfly! And when I kept at it she… she went for me like I was the enemy. The only way she made it back to the vertibird was cause she was chasin’ me. When the Prydwen blew, our ship got caught in the shockwave and we went down like a wet sack of shit. As soon as her feet were on the shore, she was off again; splashing after the BOS survivors around the airport… snarling.” He paused and cleared his throat, “Sorry, Danse. I know that’s gotta be rough to hear…”

“I… Please continue.”

“I was hurt pretty bad; Maxson got his licks in and the crash was rough. There was fire everywhere. Even the water was burning, but I still tried to go after her. She did one of her crazy judo throws though, and dropped my ass in the drink. I thought for sure she was gonna drown me. Deacon was tryin’ to pull her off me and she hit him so hard, I think I saw stars. He got up, bloody as hell, and was calling her… to her. He was sayin’, ‘Please stop! You’re going to kill us.’ and she just… it was like a switch got flipped. She blacked out and don’t remember a thing. Told everyone that I saved her but, it wasn’t me… it wasn’t me…”

Quiet descended as the group somberly digested the ghoul’s words. Harkness quickly put two and two together and came up with Harley = Deacon. He also decided that he very much needed to return to the Capital Wasteland as soon as possible.

“Shark cages,” Sturges’s unmistakable voice chimed in from the Castle radio, causing everyone to flinch at the broken silence, “at the Nahant Oceanological Society. They were strong enough to hold a great white, right?”

“Why on earth would anyone want to trap a big pale shark?”

“Waaay off subject, Lloyd!”

“I meant for Wraith, naturally. We find her and like Mayor Wright says, maybe whatever that feral did to her will wear off, cause last I checked, Deacon ain’t exactly local these days.”

“What about Infamy, Harkness? What further action can we expect from them?”

Wincing, he brought a hand up to rub the back of his neck, “Honestly, Danse, I don’t think they are going to be a threat to Wraith’s settlements any longer.”

“I call malarkey on that one.”

“No, Mayor Wright, I think the main force will already be on their way back to the Capital Wasteland. As for Atom’s Assassin… they seemed fascinated by Radiance and left to…”

“Can we please get back to Wraith?! Like, now!” MacCready’s patience was all but gone.

“What about the Glowing Sea? You said they headed south.”

“I don’t know, detective. I… they could be anywhere…” Harkness closed his eyes and shook his head.

“Okay,” MacCready clapped his hands together, “that’s close enough to a plan for me! Me, Danse and the Dragoons will suit up and stomp our way down to the Glowing-est Place on Earth while the Minutemen fetch us a cage to everyone’s favorite berserker in.”

“I’m goin’.” Bear stood and nodded at the group, “I’ll go get my hammer. Assuming we are leaving soon.”

“I shall go as well.” Curie lifted her chin and her eyes dared them all to contradict her.

“Curie, what about the syringer?”

“That’s a great idea, MacCready. Thinking like a true weapons master! You can load it with Pistol Whipped…”

“What is this? ‘Pistol Whipped’?”

“It’s what we’ve been callin’ that sleep aid you and Wraith were working on.”

“Of course, you’ll be going too, Nick.” Ellie clapped her hands together as if the choice was made.

Valentine gave his wife a stricken look, “I can’t very well leave you here…”

“You most certainly can! Wraith is my friend too, and I want the best detective in the Commonwealth out there looking for her.”

“You can wear my armor, Nicky; it’s a real classy chassis. I’ll put my people on it too. I gotta rearrange some things before I go runnin’ around, but in the meantime, I want to be notified as soon as anybody lays eyes on her, you feel me?”

Her voice was like a white-hot needle through Wraith’s head. Wordless, it was nevertheless meticulously specific. The instructions held a weight that was all but crushing. Pain surrounded and penetrated her whenever Radiance spoke, but in the voice’s absence there was only confusion and fear. She didn’t remember who she was or what she wanted. All that mattered was Her.

The Metro tunnels were dark, but somehow Wraith found her prey. She knew that everything living, apart from feral ghouls, must be destroyed. She swept through the raiders and monsters like a poisonous vapor. Unseen by most save for the moment of their death.

There are powerful fighters even amongst the raiders. And these grizzled veterans of turf wars and skirmishes over inter-gang pecking order posed a serious threat to Wraith. So reckless and lost, she took risks she might not have taken and wouldn’t retreat even when outnumbered. Were it not for Bear’s armor she would have been killed. As it was, the lack of self-preservation often resulted in injury.

After she cleared a location, Radiance would immediately come and find her. The glowing one held her in her arms, healing her wounds and filling her mind with a blazing light.

Following behind, Infamy tested the range of Radiance’s influence. Several times the ghoul came too close and the mental assault dropped them to their knees while they fought to keep their free will. The vast horde of ferals that had been gathered in the Glowing Sea, that Infamy had intended to set against the Minutemen, now swarmed around the glowing queen and did as she bade. Frustrated but determined, Atom’s Assassin persisted. They kept telling themselves that they should be powerful enough to pull ferals away and were growing fearful at their complete failure to do so.

While Deacon stared silently out the window of his Tenpenny Tower office, Harkness’s chin dropped low to his chest. He had finished his debriefing moments before and now in the ensuing silence the exhausted agent was in real danger of falling asleep.

“You called me ‘Deacon’.”

Harkness’s head snapped up, “Oh… Did I?”

“Yes.” Deacon sighed, “I guess it would be pointless to contradict you at this point, huh?” Turning, he crossed the room to his desk and after shuffling a few papers aside, picked up a holotape and held it out to Harkness. “Take a few days to recover before you start on this.”

After accepting the tape, Harkness continued to hold it out at arm’s length. Maintaining eye contact, he lifted a brow, “What’s this?”

“Your next OP.”

“What… what are you…?”

“This one should be a little more routine. That being said, I still want you…”

“What do you mean my next…?” He continued to hold the holotape out and away from himself. Now when Deacon interrupted him again, he bobbed his whole arm up and down as if using the device to punctuate his ire.

“You’re finished with your last mission. You debriefed me. I’ve been debriefed. I stand debriefed.” As Deacon spoke his volume increased as if he was trying to drown out Harkness’s arm waving, “I’m pants-less before you!”

“God DAMN it! What about Wraith?!”

“What about her? I’m sure the Commonwealth branch will be able to…”

“Don’t, boss…” Harkness lowered his arm and let the tape fall on to the floor before bringing hands up to his face. When he spoke his voice was muffled, “please don’t. Don’t pretend like you don’t care.”

“I don’t. Wraith is someone else’s problem. I can’t afford to be distracted by her.”

Harkness launched himself to his feet and rushed Deacon. He stopped just short of the other man so they stood nose to nose, “I think you fucking care quite a bit.”

The phrase sent Deacon’s mind back to a similar conversation he had had with Hancock and he chuckled humorlessly at the irony of it. “She… has a way of getting under your skin, doesn’t she?”

“I think she’s a pill.” Harkness sagged, turned and all but dragged himself back to the couch, “She’s violent, moody and… she cares deeply for her people. She puts her own safety at risk to help others. Strangers even. She’s very brave and is a brilliant, terrifying fighter.” He smiled helplessly up at the other man, “I don’t know whether I want to take a bullet for her or shake her.”

Deacon remained very still and silent as he tried to concoct a lie that would end the immediate conversation and put the subject of Wraith to bed. Even as he stewed, he knew that he didn’t want to ignore Wraith’s plight. “Even if I wanted to help…”

“Which, you do…”

“…what do you expect I’ll be able to do?” All trace of humor had fled from him and Deacon’s tone was almost accusatory. He returned to the window, and frowning at his reflection, resisted the urge to break the glass.

“Governor seems to think you’ll be able to snap her out of it.”

Deacon scoffed, “Ha! ‘Governor thinks…’” He shook his head, “The situation is different; this is not of her own doing. This ‘Radiance’ creature has her… entranced. This isn’t the berserker we all know and love. No. We’ll all turn to dust long before she calms and returns to her senses.”

“Since when have you adopted such a defeatist’s attitude? Why wouldn’t you go? Why not try?”

“You’ve only had a small taste of what she’s capable of… I definitely can’t fight her.”

“I’ve been wondering about that. Why is she so physically strong?”

Deacon frowned, “I don’t know… exactly…”

“So tell me vaguely.”

“Let’s say… she’s one failed step in the march toward the ultimate super soldier.”

“That’s a hell of a stumble.”

Deacon heard the creak of the sofa springs as Harkness rose and came to stand behind him. He could see the large man’s chest reflected in the window glass, and his arms as he crossed them over it. He let the silence drag out for as long as possible and when he finally spoke he let the full weight of his ire carry in his voice, “I’ll ask again; what do you expect me to do?”

“Retire and go back.”

Deacon spun about, his face a storm of anger, “I don’t get to do that.”

“I don’t see why not. Morningstar never meant for you to have to stay here.” He turned and went to sit at Deacon’s desk. “I’m thinking I’m your replacement. I’ve had enough of field work for now, and with everything you’ve set in place, this job could almost be easy.”

“Easy…?” Deacon’s mouth worked, but no sound came out.

“I know you can help them. Wraith needs you, Deacon.” He folded his arms behind his head and set his feet on top of the desk. “We don’t.”

“For the last time; what do you think I can do?!”

“Call her name.”

Hancock’s snores could be heard throughout the Old Statehouse. His feet were up on his desk and his head was tilted back over the top of his chair; the awkward angle accounting for the great volume of his log-sawing. And yet, his granddaughter was completely undisturbed. She was in what he called tree-frog mode: perched on his chest with limbs drawn in and chin tucked. He had one hand gently cupping her back and so the tiny infant was perfectly safe riding up and down with his deep, rhythmic breaths.

He was exhausted:

Several months had passed since the meeting and Wraith was still missing. The excursion to the Glowing Sea provided very little clues to her whereabouts. While there, Danse, as the ranking Minutemen officer, met with Mother Isolde and informed her of her daughter’s death. During the meeting she spoke on how a vast horde of feral ghouls had pass very near to the Crater and that they seemed to be moving northeast.

“Normally such a thing would be noted as odd but not concerning. This… even we at the Crater, Atom’s holy ground, couldn’t help but feel threatened.” She lowered her head and touched her finger tips to her temple.

“I am very sorry for your loss…”

“It is not only that… forgive me but I have been having headaches…”

Soon after, MacCready had parted ways with Danse and the rest of his squad to escort Valentine and Curie back to Sanctuary. Leaving almost as soon as he returned, he stopped in Goodneighbor to collect Hancock and the two set out to follow up on leads from the ghoul’s network. There had been witnesses that spoke of a mass exodus of raiders and other unsavory types, fleeing the Mass Pike tunnels and the various MTA stations around the city. Like rats leaving a sinking ship.

Hancock was most concerned about the reports coming in from Postal Square, “That’s part of the Blue Line. I know there’s blockages between there and the Third Rail but…”

When the duo finally found a raider to question, they couldn’t be sure how much of his terrified babbling was chem induced.

“It was a deathclaw! But, like a little one. Not a baby, just real small. Not real small, more like it was people sized. And the ferals! They were all runnin’ and hoppin’. Glowing ones everywhere! I had ta run and hop too. The voices in my head got LOUD! Oh my head, oh… Mayor Hancock… you packin’? You haulin’, man? Cause, I could need some Psycho, man. My arm skin tryin’ to crawl away from me, boss.”

“Sorry, pal. I’m light these days. It’ll be winter soon, why don’t you head over to Goodneighbor? So long as you mind yerself, you’ll do alright.”

“I don’t mind… don’t mind takin’ what I need from your dead…”

The raider never finished. As soon as he went for his knife, MacCready had pulled a sidearm and blew his brains out through his ear.

Danse returned to Sanctuary just before the first snow. His time spent in his power armor much improved his mobility and stamina as the support the suit provided proved to be a surprisingly efficient form of physical therapy. Despite this, he found himself at a trough in his mental recovery. The inability to find his friend and save her, like she had done so many times for him, was incredibly crushing. On several occasions, Curie would lose track of him and find him standing in one of Sanctuary’s fields in his power armor, having completely worn down a core. Calling to him repeatedly, she would stand in the cold until he regained his senses and followed her slowly home.

Strong’s reaction seemed to be the most out of character. The super mutant became strangely quiet and after he returned with the hounds from the glowing sea, took to picking up and carrying around any of the mutant canines that happened to be available. Cait overheard him whispering to Gracie, appearing to be reassuring himself by talking to her, “Alpha is still with Strong. Strong feels small human friend. Alpha won’t wear out like other humans. Alpha will come back. As soon as ghoul is dead…”

Martha Daisy Hancock had been born early. Fahrenheit had become gravely ill in her last trimester and Dr. Amari had called for Curie’s aid. Diagnosing her with pregnancy induced liver disease; she had been able to convince the mother of a dramatic course of action and thus, performed her first C-section to great success. In turn, Amari made the journey to Sanctuary a month and a half later to help deliver Ellie and Nick’s son, John Emiliano; whom everyone called “Jack”.

MacCready and Hancock had continued to scour the bowels of the ruins, going tunnel by tunnel, with little to no rest for the entire winter. The decision to abandon his search when Fahrenheit became sick nearly tore the ghoul in two. Now, he threw himself after every new rumor, no matter how vague, like a starving dog on a scrap of meat.

Now, not even bothering to knock, Fahrenheit opened the door to the mayor’s office and followed closely by MacCready, strode purposely to Hancock’s desk. She reached out, intending to take her daughter from the ghoul’s arms, but stopped herself after briefly considering the consequences. After all, they both were finally sleeping…

MacCready had no such compunctions and deftly plucked the baby from his arms. In almost the same motion, he substituted a small bag of beach sand and stepped back, grinning triumphantly.

“There’s no way…”

Hancock sat bolt-upright, “Oh!” Blinking owlishly he stared at them for a moment before looking down at the sack he was cradling gently in his arms. His mouth set in a scowl, he growled at MacCready, “You asshole.”

MacCready chuckled, “Aww, man, don’t curse in front of the kid!” His laugh turned into a pout, “I really thought that was gonna work… been carrying that stupid bag forever.”

Hancock’s face softened as soon as he heard him laugh. It had been a while since the young man had shown any inclination toward cheerfulness and it made the ghoul feel better to hear. “You’re lucky I love ya, stealing my baby…”

Fahrenheit loudly cleared her throat before turning to MacCready and holding her hands out expectantly. He in turn, backed away while sticking his lip out even further.

“Give me a few minutes! At least until she starts crying. I’ve hardly gotten a chance to hold her… since… well…”

She relented and went to set herself on Hancock’s couch. “Hancock, I just got off the radio with Garvey… General Garvey.”

Hancock immediately stood. His brow knit, he clenched his hands into fists and advanced on the door. When he spoke his voice shook with barley suppressed rage, “How could he? How dare he?”

Fahrenheit stood up as well and positioned herself in the doorway to block the mayor, “Where are you going?”

“I’m gonna go and give him a piece of my mind! That’s where!”

“Oh, no you’re not!” She pressed a hand to his chest and was a little surprised when he didn’t back down. Determined, she pushed harder and locked eyes with him, “If you go now you will say something hurtful to a man whom you greatly respect.”

“It wasn’t just him, Hancock. They had a meeting and decided to follow Wraith’s notes.”

Surprised, Hancock whirled on him, “So, you’re okay with them removing Wraith from command?!”

“I didn’t say that,” MacCready let an edge creep into his voice, “I said that it wasn’t all on Preston.”

“Oh! I see!” He threw his hands up, “So it’s okay because it was decided in fucking committee!”

“NO! It’s okay because Wraith essentially TOLD THEM TO DO IT!” MacCready’s eyes flashed at him.

“They simply made official what has been their reality for the past few months, and Preston will do a fine job of it. Despite his age, he has years of experience and has learned a great deal from his time with Wraith.”

“His age? Pretty sure he’s older then you…”

She shot MacCready a glare, “Be still.”

Hancock whirled from the doorway and uttering a guttural sob, surprised them both by beginning to cry. Filled with anger and grief he was barely able to speak, “I can’t stand that they’ve given up on her… that they are following her Will… that she’s… she’s…”

Martha began to cry even as her adoptive grandfather and MacCready passed her to Fahrenheit before wrapping his arms around Hancock.

“Don’t, man. She’s not dead!” His own voice thick with impending tears, he squeezed him tightly, “We will never give up!”

Fahrenheit made an attempt to calm the infant while frowning at them, “Queenie is adaptive and powerful. I share in MacCready’s optimism and am almost positive she’s still alive.” Returning to the couch, she offered her daughter a breast, leaned back and closed her eyes. Hancock wasn’t the only one who was exhausted. “We need a better plan. Something actionable.”

MacCready and Hancock politely turned their backs and went to seat themselves at the mayor’s bar, the former reaching over the counter to grab a bottle of whiskey. He poured two portions and was surprised when the ghoul declined. His concern grew when Hancock set his brow into the heal of his palm and muttered something about “headaches”.

“You’re like, the fifth person I’ve talked to today who has a headache.”

“Don’t worry ‘bout it. I just need some Mentats and I’ll be right as rain.”

MacCready, unconvinced, continued to frown at him, “You’re sure that’s best…”

Hancock chuckled, “Sez the man who just drank a fifth of whiskey.”

“Oh… right.” MacCready reached out and gently grabbed the back of Hancock’s head and pulling him in close, bumped their foreheads together much the same way Wraith would.

They stayed together this way for almost a minute before Hancock leaned away, smiling, “Ya know, I think that might’ve helped.”

Fahrenheit rolled her eyes at them, “Absolute mush.” She stood and patted her daughter on the back, “A plan, gentlemen; where do we go from here?”

“I got a idea, actually…”

“Well, be gentle with it. It’s in a strange place.”

“Ha ha.” Now it was MacCready’s turn to roll his eyes, “You remember that one vault that was down in Quincy Quarries?”

Hancock growled, “Yeah, I remember. There was a Vault-Tec scientist there who’d turned ghoul. The place is massive. Wraith tried to set up a whole settlement down there; it’s fully powered and everything. She gave up though. Folks told her it was like livin’ in someone else’s grave…”

“Exactly! It’s completely abandoned but probably fully provisioned and fortified. Not to mention the entrance is right in the middle of one of the most irradiated places in the Commonwealth.” He smiled and swept his hands out across the bar, as if revealing the answer to all the world’s problems, “I can’t imagine a more perfect place for a mass of feral ghouls to spend the winter.”

“That’s actually… hmm, that’s not bad.”

MacCready’s triumphant smile returned and he beamed at her, “Now I know she sealed it off, but…”

A sudden commotion in the stairwell outside interrupted him. They could hear raised voices and the thundering footsteps of several men running up the stairs.

Fahrenheit reached the door just as a Watch member had raised a fist to knock and narrowly avoided getting knuckled in the face, “Report!”

Staring stupidly for a moment, the ghoul shook himself, stammering awkwardly, “Cap… Cap’n Fahrenheit… Mayor Hancock… I… it’s bad!”

“Now what?!” Hancock pushed himself to his feet and quickly crossed the room.

“There’s some drifters going crazy! Two… two were in the Rail and…”

“Show me!”

It was bedlam in the streets of Goodneighbor. The Neighborhood watch fought to subdue residents who, only moments before had been calm and peaceful. MacCready and Hancock separated as soon as they were at ground-level. Each picked a target and rushing to help pin the snarling, apparently feral, ghouls without killing them.

“Knock them out if you can!” Fahrenheit stood on the balcony and called instruction to her subordinates. “On your three o’clock, Coach!”

“Then… oof… what?!” MacCready caught an elbow to the ribs, “You don’t have a jail here. Where… Ow! Goddamn it! This guy just bit me!”

At that moment, Magnolia, face pale as a ghost, rushed to Hancock’s side, “There’s a glowing one in the Rail! I think… I think… I think it’s Her!”

Thank you for reading! Like what you’ve read? Looking for more? Please see my master link: pinned post and tagged as Wraith in the Ruins. As always, any questions/concerns/comments please feel free to send me an ask. I look forward to hearing from you. =^..^=

#wraith in the ruins #fallout fanfic #fallout fan fiction #fallout 4 #fallout companions #john hancock #rj maccready #maccready #hancock

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artificialqueens · 4 years ago

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All I’ve Got To Keep Myself Sane, 3/8 (Jackie/Widow) - Juno

Chapter Summary: They reach Atlantic City, but more bizarre coincidences mean Jackie and Widow remain in each others’ pockets.

CW: References to homophobia, one drug use reference.

A/N: This chapter is still angsty, but also fluffy, still slow burn. There is also some POV change within the chapter. I hope you like chapter three. Thank you for your support so far with this fic!

It was almost six thirty as the sea came into view on the horizon, Atlantic City ahead of it. The sun was setting behind them, casting the sea into a million different colours, the sky on the horizon turning a faded blue.

Jackie had asked for energetic music to keep out her own thoughts for the rest of the drive. Widow had put on a band Jackie didn’t know called Glass Cloud, which had turned out to be heavy metal, and then had promptly fallen asleep again. How Widow slept with this cacophony going on was anyone’s guess.

Still, the heavy guitar and growls was better than thinking about Jan.

The smirk on her face as she’d answered the door this morning. Cheeks still flushed, pupils still dilated, hair still dishevelled. While that bitch scurried on the stairs behind her before sprinting into the kitchen, still pulling on her sweater.

Not an iota of shame for what Jan had been doing behind Jackie’s back – just an easy lie.

She’s just a friend. Just on my soccer team. Just having a sleepover.

Almost an exact repeat of what Jan had told her in New York, six months ago. Just a sleepover with a friend from theatre.

It had been the last straw. Jackie had screamed at Jan that it was over, for goodthis time, before driving herself to that same Wal-Mart she’d just slept in, and had spent the next hour sobbing and wondering if she was delusional, if she’d done the right thing.

She’d thought she was done crying. Widow had already proven her wrong there. Just saying Jan’s name had felt like a millstone dropping from her neck, as if she’d been carrying it too long. Now, she was simply mentally exhausted, not to mention physically from all this driving.

Jackie chanced a glance at Widow as they started on the winding streets of Atlantic City itself. She was turned away from Jackie to the passenger window, but her breathing told Jackie that she was still asleep.

Widow had slept almost the entire journey, come to think about it, only waking up when they had pulled into a stop. A good six hours. Why was she sleeping this much? Jackie wasn’t sure, and she didn’t want to chance waking her while the car was moving. Best to keep things as they were.

But Widow in sleep was no longer as peaceful as earlier. She’d twist, thrash against her seatbelt, making the occasional high-pitched whimpering noise at the top of her throat before settling, and then ten minutes later starting the same thing again.

Even now she was starting to protest again, noise starting again in her throat.

A stark contrast to the soothing persona who had pulled Jackie to her chest in a comforting hug when she’d broken down at revealing Jan’s name only about an hour ago.

Jackie pulled into a side street, right near the ocean, with a group of what looked like retirement apartments, and found a space to park. She turned off the engine, her limbs aching from driving for so long, and sighed at the view.

It was time to wake up her passenger, but it was getting harder and harder each time; Widow was definitely fast asleep, and Jackie had to properly shake her to make her flinch at all.

“Come on, wake up.”

Widow looked confused for a moment, then turned out the front window, her eyes widening as she took it in.

“The sea,” she murmured. “I can’t – I don’t think I’ve seen the sea since I was in senior year.”

Widow seemed utterly enraptured by the vast expanse of the Atlantic on the horizon, something Jackie couldn’t fathom having lived near it for so long. Jackie watched her stare silently out to it, an awed expression on her face.

“Where does your friend Crystal live?”

“She always says somewhere in Pleasantville. Hang on.” Widow reached into her bag, pulled out her phone, and tapped at the screen for her messages, swiping left on a missed-call notification as she did.

She read the message and let out a sigh.

“Shit.”

Widow closed the screen and leaned back in the seat, closing her eyes frustratedly.

“What’s wrong?”

“Nothing,” Widow muttered, “I just need to get a hotel. She’s out of town.”

“Where’s she gone?”

“Miami. Her girlfriend lives there. Some college skater girl she met when she went down in spring. Last weekend before class starts, right? Said she’s back tomorrow evening. I just need to stay somewhere for one night. Where are there hotels here? Any nearby?” Widow asked.

Jackie swallowed. “I’m sure there’s plenty around here.”

“I thought you’d know where things are in Atlantic City, since your grandma is here. You’re coming to visit her, right?”

“She – she lives up in Pleasantville too. Somewhere. I have her details on my phone.”

“What time is she expecting you?” Widow asked, fixing her eyes on Jackie’s, that same penetrating stare she seemed to put on at every turn.

She seemed to know when Jackie wasn’t saying everything, and it was becoming unnerving. Jackie sighed, scrabbling in her brain for an excuse, but finding that none came to the forefront of her mind. Widow saw straight through her, and Jackie was tired of hiding. Tired of keeping this up.

“She isn’t expecting me.”

Widow nodded. “I didn’t think she was.”

Jackie opened her mouth to reply, but found that her mind refused to conjure anything for her any more. She turned back to the horizon, looking out at the Atlantic stretching all around them. They were both silent for a few moments.

“Alright,” Widow sighed eventually, “well, if you don’t know any hotels in the area, I’ll look one up.” She opened up her phone again.

Jackie fought with what she was about to say, but there wasn’t really any point in hiding it now. She confessed, “I have a room already booked for the night.”

This time, Widow turned sharply to her, frowning.

“You’ve booked a hotel?” She asked Jackie.

“Yeah.”

Jackie had booked a Holiday Inn, right on the sea front. But I hadn’t expected to be alone.

Jackie held her tongue on that thought. She couldn’t think about that without Jan’s face swirling in front of her.

Widow’s expression flattened again, and she nodded. “Alright. You booked a room. Do you mind me being, you know, in the same hotel as you? Are you gonna tell me where it is, and then I can book myself a room too?”

“We can go now, if you want.”

“Sure.”

Widow’s eyes got bigger and bigger as Jackie drove, the Atlantic coming nearer to them, and honestly, Jackie was enjoying her marvelling at the sea.

The sound of seagulls overhead, the rushing noise of the waves, it was starting to come back to Jackie, even though this time she wouldn’t have anyone to share it with.

Parking at the hotel was pretty busy, but Jackie managed to find a space eventually. Looking out the front, the hotel overlooked the boardwalk, with the beach only a few metres beyond that. The boardwalk was still crawling with people, even though it was after seven o’ clock by now.

Jackie turned to her left, the northern side of the strip, watching the lighthouse in the distance turning slowly, the lights of the pier below stretching out from the land and towards the sea. On the right, tourists, students, and everyone else was gathered on the strip, coming off the beach as the sun dipped lower behind them, the first partygoers coming out, pre-drinking before hitting one of the clubs further inland, off the strip.

The sea was always a place Jackie associated with happiness. It reminded her of childhood, not because she ever came here as a kid; but because of the sense of fun and freedom it instilled in her.

Driving down from New York first thing this morning, Jackie had had visions in her head of sunrise over the Atlantic, foam lapping over her toes as she stretched her legs out on the sand. Jan’s head on her shoulder.

No. Can’t think about Jan.

It would have been utopia, if Jan had been in a position to come with her.

Honestly, Jackie didn’t want to think about what kind of position Jan had been in first thing this morning. But it certainly hadn’t been one where she could ditch, hop in the car and drive down to AC with her.

Instead of calm, clear waters and idyllic sandy scenes, now she was faced with a cold dip in the seas of reality.

Nothing was going as planned.

But nothing mattered any more.

Jackie’s thoughts were interrupted by Widow’s phone ringing. The inside of the car flooding back to her, Jackie watched as Widow picked the phone up, glanced at the number, and pressed it to her ear. “Hello.”

Widow’s eyes became glassy as she sat for a few seconds. Her posture stiffened, and she bit her lip.

“Hello, Uncle Richard.”

Jackie watched, silently, her heart aching for Widow as her face gradually changed from glassy to fearful, nodding, putting a knuckle to her mouth to chew.

“Okay. …. I said, okay. I’m totally fine.”

Another pause. Her eyes were filling with tears, but her voice somehow remained steady.

“I’m at Dahlia’s.”

What was going on?

Widow was now screwing her eyes shut tightly, her lip quivering, waving her free hand in front of her eyes, but it still didn’t stop a tear escaping her.

“No, she’s not. She’s straight.”

Her voice was quaking with emotion. Jackie’s hands shook as she watched Widow try to hold it together in front of her, the longest pause yet as she listened to her phone, gulping back her sadness.

“Okay. No, I’m fine.”

A choked gasp.

“Yeah. Yeah, I love you too.”

Widow’s voice trembled, but she put the phone down, and brushed her hands over her face, and took two or three deep breaths in, steadying herself.

“Widow,” Jackie wondered how to approach this, “I don’t think I’m the only person who needs to get something off their chest here.”

“It’s nothing.”

Widow’s face was obstinate, her jaw tensing, but Jackie refused to let this lie.

“You were just speaking to your uncle. You told him you were with Dahlia. Who I know is in Pennsylvania because you told me.”

“It’s nothing.”

“Don’t say it’s nothing! Come on, Widow. You don’t know me, so I can’t judge you.” Jackie repeated Widow’s own words to her, putting a hand on Widow’s shoulder, hoping for some sort of response.

But Widow barely noticed her words. Her lip trembled, her eyes filled with tears, staring out ahead.

“I thought he didn’t want to see me again!”

——

Widow’s heart thumped. The last twenty four hours, or mainly the first twelve of those, kept repeating round and round her head.

She hated being upset, especially in front of people she didn’t know well. But she hadn’t expected Uncle Richard to call her so soon. In fact, a small part of her hadn’t even expected to hear from him ever again.

And the words that he’d said to her reverberated round her head, echoing over and over again. Kind words. Apologetic words. Accepting words. The vague panic and dread she’d felt ever since she’d stormed out late last night, had come straight to the surface and were now falling away from her.

Was she doing the wrong thing?

“Widow?”

“What?” Widow came to with a start, the scene in front of her flooding back. The Atlantic City beach, just off the boardwalk. The vague sound of waves in the near distance. Jackie’s earnest face, full of concern, watching her every move.

The last thing Widow had expected when she’d first set foot in Jackie’s car was to be here on the beach with her in the evening, but some twists of fate seemed determined for them to remain in each others’ company, at least for now.

First, Crystal’s abysmal texting response. If she’d told Widow earlier that she was in Miami for the week, Widow could have booked a room earlier that day. But Crystal took at least three hours to reply; probably enjoying some weed and being with her girlfriend a bit too much to notice anything else. Not that Widow could blame her.

Then the hotel. It was almost fully booked – last weekend of summer, go figure – but once Widow was set up in her room, she’d come out to find Jackie locking up the room next to her. How had they ended up next to each other? Jackie had slipped out of her jeans into a skirt and a fresh shirt; Widow had finally gotten out of her stupid uniform altogether and opted for a pair of shorts and a band shirt (Metallica, she thought, but the label had faded so she couldn’t tell).

It had been Jackie’s idea to go to the beach (“The waves will carry our problems away!” Jackie had said with an ironic eyeroll), and although Widow had scoffed at Jackie’s somewhat sarcastic thought process, she’d always found the sea oddly mesmerising.

It was eight by the time they got there, and there were still plenty of people on the sand, but Jackie had found a quieter corner, and here they sat, leaning on their elbows on a towel Jackie had grabbed from the hotel room. Jackie hitched her skirt up, hoping for a little extra tan on her legs for the end of summer.

The ocean was as an immersive experience as Widow remembered. The hiss and roar of the ebb and flow of the tide, rushing away from them. The feeling of sand under her toes, and the tiny little grains getting stuck in the palms of her hands. The salty scent in the air, mingling with a vague lavender which she recognised by now as Jackie’s perfume.

“It’s peaceful,” Widow said, half to herself.

“What is?”

“The sea.”

Jackie snorted. “No it isn’t!”

It was Widow’s turn to roll her eyes. “You know what I mean.”

Jackie nudged her gently with her elbow. Widow gave her a nudge back. Suddenly they were both nudging each other over and over, like children.

The mood was slowly lightening between them; Widow feeling they weren’t quite strangers any more. They weren’t quite friends either, but when you’d comforted a twenty-six year old Canadian woman having a breakdown in the middle of nowhere on Route 76, some sort of sentimentality lingered.

“Widow, can you tell me why you told me you don’t have a home?” Jackie asked her suddenly, studying her face. “I get that you wanted to come here over that fortune, and your friend being here, but you must have lived somewhere before – this,” Jackie said, gesturing at them both, a huge simplification of what they were doing.

Jackie looked sincere, caring. If there was one thing Widow had learned, it was that Jackie wore her heart on her sleeve, and couldn’t have concealed an ulterior motive if she tried.

Damnit. Widow felt herself beginning to open at the seams at her sincerity.

“I moved to Pittsburgh to be with my uncle last year, after my mom passed away. He has a spare room, I paid him rent money, and he let me do my own thing. Only thing was …”

She sighed. “He knew I was gay; I told him back when I was nineteen. So he knows, and he says he’s fine with it. But he doesn’t want to know any more than that. If I mentioned it, there was some tension. Like he didn’t know what to say.”

Jackie nodded slowly, chewing her lip.

“My friend, Dahlia – she’s like, poker-straight, but when she was round my house last night … I dunno, maybe we were hugging a bit more or something. He told her she had to leave. He’s never told her that before.”

Widow took a shaky breath. “I guess all the tension got too much. I’m not proud of it, but I lost my temper. Called him every name I could think of. Dahlia ran away, back to her own house I guess. She wouldn’t reply to my messages. And I just – I just went upstairs, packed a bag, and went to my shift. At midnight. And after my shift, well, I didn’t really have a plan, except to get out of there.”

“Did he tell you to leave?” Jackie put a hand to her throat.

“He … actually, he didn’t. He was just,” Widow frowned, trying to remember his face. “He was totally silent, the whole time I yelled at him. Shocked, I guess. And he – he called me earlier because I didn’t come home. I just told him I was at Dahlia’s. That’s where I am anyway, normally.”

Jackie resumed her slow nod, her eyes glassy, thinking about something.

A lump had formed in Widow’s throat. She still felt ashamed for letting her temper go, but talking about it with Jackie now, she was starting to feel that she’d made the wrong decision altogether.

“He said he loved me,” she said, again the words seeming to come from her mouth without her having the chance to process them. “On the phone, I mean. And that he accepted me and we could talk later on it.”

Damnit. She was fighting back tears again. She looked up to the sky trying to stop herself crying.

“What was he like to live with?”

“He was …” Widow swallowed. “Other than that tension, he was okay. He always said how proud he was of me studying, and that an accounting qualification would mean I’d never be out of work again. He’s even got in touch with his accounts contacts, trying to get me a working placement for my final year of study.”

“It sounds as if he cares,” Jackie said gently. “Maybe he was still coming to terms with it. Some people take a bit longer. Maybe having that argument cleared the air. Made him realise how upset it made you, that he didn’t want to acknowledge your sexuality.”

Widow’s head had already made a similar connection. She knew she had a quick temper, but she also knew she had a quick cool down too. She’d cooled down almost instantly once she’d yelled at him, and now she felt a pang of remorse at everything she’d called him.

“Do you want to have a relationship with him, if he wants to?”

“I think so,” Widow muttered, “but I think we need to talk about it. Clear the air.”

“It’s your choice of course, but I think that’s a great step,” Jackie said gently.

She wore such a caring smile that it was all Widow could do to hold back her own emotion. Her head throbbed with exhaustion. She reached a hand into her bag, pulling out her cigarettes and extracting one.

Jackie wrapped an arm round Widow’s shoulder, gently pulling her towards her, and Widow leant her head onto Jackie, letting Jackie rub circles onto her arm. Her simple actions were making Widow feel oddly peaceful, her shoulder was warm and Jackie smelt faintly of lavender and some fruit-scented shampoo.

Eventually Widow had to sit forward, wipe her tears, take another drag at her cigarette. She felt like she was falling asleep again, Jackie making her feel like she was dreaming a little, and the beach was not the place to sleep.

“So, as you’ve sat on it for so long: tell me about Jan.” Widow prompted, blowing a smoke ring.

Jackie’s face switched almost instantly from concern to anger; her lips pursing into a thin line.

“Jan is – was – my girlfriend.”

Jackie surprised Widow when she reached her hand across her, taking the cigarette, and putting it to her lips, the tip glowing orange and crimson as Jackie took a drag.

“Was,” Widow nodded. “How long has she been a was, and not an is?”

Jackie exhaled a cloud of smoke, passed the cigarette back to Widow, and looked at her watch. “Oh, about ten hours.”

“Ten hours?” Widow cried, her jaw dropping. “Is that it? Holy shit.”

“I got three for the price of one this week,” Jackie spat, a sudden injection of vitriol in her voice as she held up her fingers, counting them down. “On Wednesday, I get told that my role is no longer being continued due to ‘restructuring’. Every sales rep’s favourite word.”

“Oh, God, Jackie –“

“Second,” Jackie said louder, putting another finger down, “my best friend Chelsea ditched me on Thursday, said she was sick, then she gets tagged in our friend Michelle’s insta story. She went out with Michelle all night, looking for men.”

“No!” Widow exclaimed.

“I confronted her on Friday morning. Said she can’t pull dudes with a lesbian hanging off her arm.” Jackie laughed bitterly.

Widow’s heart ached for her. “That sucks –“

“So, I told her where to go, and decided I’m gonna drive down to Pittsburgh on Saturday morning. Surprise my girlfriend, who I haven’t seen in three weeks, take her on a spontaneous trip. Booked us a hotel in AC. Planned a dirty weekend. I dunno,” Jackie continued her bitter laugh, “I thought that maybe a little bit of love would have helped, after this – fucking shit show of a week.”

The air was thick. Widow didn’t dare to shatter the tension with words. Jackie was barrelling through it, anyway, unable to stop more words spilling out of her.

“I drove through the night last night. I drove from New York to Pittsburgh. I got to Pittsburgh at half past five this morning. I slept in a fucking car park in my car for three hours. I turned up at her house. And all I can hear through the open window is – is –“

Jackie stopped, her mouth open, speechless, before putting her hands over her face. Despair wracked her body and Widow laid a hand on her back.

“I don’t know who she was, but I saw her in the back when Jan came to the door. Some tiny, muscular jock girl. And I heard Jan. She was fucking her. Behind my back, while I’m oblivious in New York.” Jackie’s tone rose in anger the longer she talked, until she was spitting the last few words like a cobra.

Widow simply rubbed Jackie’s back as she spoke, her whole body shaking with rage. But Jackie couldn’t keep it up for long, letting out a sigh and slumping forwards, her anger spent.

“I saw her in the back,” Jackie mumbled, her voice suddenly thick with sadness. “She was so pretty. Prettier than me.”

“That’s unlikely,” Widow scoffed, before feeling her face flushing with heat. Where had that come from?

But Jackie hadn’t noticed, staring into space. “What’s wrong with me?” She whispered, her voice cracking.

Widow leant her head onto Jackie’s shoulder, still rubbing her back. Jackie rested her head on top of Widow’s, hearing Jackie’s quiet sobs coming and then fading after a few minutes.

“So, Atlantic City was the end of the line,” Jackie whispered finally, raising her head with a sigh.

“You said you were visiting your grandma,” Widow muttered, lifting her head to face Jackie. “I thought the grandma was a cover up, for why you were really coming here.”

Jackie turned her face away, fixed her gaze on the line of the horizon.

“Why did you continue the trip here?” Widow pressed.

Jackie pursed her lips, pondering the question. “I guess I just … I didn’t want to go back just yet. I don’t want to get back to reality. Reality is painful right now. I mean,” she added with another bitter chuckle, “when I get back to New York, reality will mean that I’ll have no job in three months, my best friend is a bitch, and my girlfriend was cheating on me.”

Jackie gave a shrug. “Maybe seeing my grandma would cheer me up.”

All this talking was painful, but somehow, Widow found her head was feeling a little lighter, the black fog she always seemed to be in was letting her go. She lay back, resting on her head on the towel. A handful of clouds passed over them now against the slowly dying light of the sky, as the sun slowly set behind them.

Jackie lay beside her, tilting her head to one side. The scent of lavender and some fruity shampoo was making Widow feel like she was starting to dream again.

Widow sighed. “It’s been a weird fucking day,” she said eventually.

“Yeah, for sure,” Jackie murmured dreamily next to her.

Widow realised with a start that Jackie had slipped a hand into hers as they lay on the sand, interlacing their fingers, and that Widow had spent the last couple minutes running a thumb along Jackie’s.

When she stopped, Jackie hooked her own thumb over Widow’s and did the same thing in turn.

Such simple, peaceful intimacy.

Widow certainly felt like she was dreaming now, her skin tingling but her mind starting to float away.

The beach was starting to clear of people now as the air turned even colder. A few dog-walkers came here and there, and a few teenagers enjoying the last weekend of summer break before class started again. Other people around them simply minding their own business, letting Jackie and Widow float in their own hazy world.

Finally, Jackie rolled over onto her side to face Widow. “I’m getting a bit hungry. You want food?”

#rpdr fanfiction #jackie cox #widow von du #jackie x widow #angst #fluff #slow burn #lesbian au #black girl magic fic #diversity fic #all i’ve got to keep myself sane #aigtkms #s12 #juno #rare pair #tw homophobia #submission #tw drug use

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embaasan-blog · 8 years ago

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Skin Ch. 8 - Seeing Stars (Sousuke/Kouhai Fanfic)

Fandom: Notice Me Senpai Rating: Mature Summary: Sousuke and Hinata have always been inseparable - as two halves to a whole, they have shared everything - from the grief at their mother’s disappearance to the face that belongs to them both. But the two of them are starved for attention and when their elite school opens its gates to the first female student in its history, the two of them are drawn in by her girlish charm. Now piqued against each other, Sousuke is left tormented and grappling with promises he can no longer keep, while Hinata’s virtuous facade is slipping, to reveal an increasingly warped mind. Notes: I know I only put the last chapter up a couple of days ago but I wanted to get this out while I could... My weekends have been so busy lately! As always, enjoy this installment and if, like me, you prefer AO3 for reading, the story is also available there.

The world began to spin frantically with Sousuke at the center, bending his vision and turning the scene into a dizzying kaleidoscope. Everything was moving so slowly. Sprawled on her knees and clutching her own mouth was Kouhai-chan, trembling beneath the towering figure in front of her. Blood trickled from her fist and each tooth was dyed in streaks of crimson.

“Hinata!” Sousuke roared, pouncing at his brother.

The twins crashed into the nearest wall, spinning in the fray and becoming one. As they wrestled for dominance it became more difficult to tell them apart or determine which one had the edge over the other. Hinata was frail but impassioned, fighting back furiously with every last ounce of energy he had. The grin on his face was sadistic; his eyes were wide with unmasked hysteria; and his hair, now thin and lifeless, fell around his face chaotically, giving him the impression of a wild animal. Hinata was gone - so far gone that Sousuke hesitated as he tried to restrain him, wondering whether or not to hit back. That split-second hesitation was all Hinata had needed to fling his younger brother onto the ground, where he leaped onto him and began pummeling with all his might.

Sousuke could only defend himself. Every time he tried to raise his fist, he was gripped with guilt so consuming that images began to flash through his mind of the night that his father had broken his ribs.

“Stop this, Hinata!” he yelled, grabbing his brother’s wrists, “You’re insane!”

To his left, he saw Kouhai-chan stand, her face a mask of determination. She ran down the corridor towards the faculty room. Sousuke could hear footsteps and doors opening around them. The few people left in the school, unafraid of the incoming downpour, were coming to see what was going on.

“This is all your fault!” Hinata wailed. “I heard you! I know that you love her!”

Sousuke froze, letting Hinata slip from his grasp. He began to slap at Sousuke’s chest pathetically, a sob escaping his mouth.

“I just want to go back to normal,” Sousuke said calmly. His jaw was beginning to throb painfully.

“We can never go back to normal!” Hinata shrieked with frenzied eyes dancing all over Sousuke’s baffled face. “You betrayed me!”

Hinata grabbed Sousuke’s head and smashed it against the wooden floorboards. It rattled Sousuke’s brain and, half delirious, he had a vision that he was being beaten by himself. He vision wavered with the onset of pained tears, making Hinata appear like his own reflection in a dirty mirror. Nausea bubbled up in his stomach and his skull felt like it was being wrenched apart.

“Stop…” Sousuke croaked, twisting his body from beneath Hinata in agony.

Hinata cackled ominously. The sound of footsteps was getting louder now; there was a drove coming, from the direction of the faculty office, accompanied by orders to stay away.

“I know everything,” said the sinister whisper close to Sousuke’s ear. “Everything. If I can’t have her, nobody can. I’m going to kill that son of a bitch.”

Suddenly, someone was dragging Hinata by the collar, wrenching him away from Sousuke. His body became as rigid and pliable as a rag-doll, with his arms swinging limply by his sides in a show of perfect vulnerability. Small, mouse-like noises of protest emanated from his lips.

“Sousuke-kun, are you okay?” someone asked from behind him. He realized he was being lifted up by Haruka-sensei, whose palpable concern increased tenfold when Sousuke stared at him incoherently with bleary eyes. He was laughing bitterly and maniacally.

“I couldn’t hit him back,” he chortled. “I just froze up every time. Isn’t that pathetic?”

Viktor was emotionally drained. No, it was worse than that. He was emotionally exhausted. He was beginning to think it would be nice to never have to think or feel again: to let go of his humanity and become a shell. That afternoon had wormed its way into his head and left its scornful offspring to feed off his brain. Guilt and despair were sucking him dry. The sight of Sousuke, bloody and concussed, was returning to him again and again in bright, undulating flashes like a circling lighthouse beam, shining in through the windows of his eyes. Could he have stopped it from happening? He hadn’t looked passed Sousuke’s need for a confidant; instead of listening, he should have been taking action.

Maybe he wasn’t cut out to be a teacher after all.

He dropped his face into his hands, sighing wearily for the hundredth time. Through parted fingers, he could see Kyouya, blank and ashen-faced, clutching an unmoving pen poised on blank paper. Viktor’s heart fluttered with longing. All he wanted was to melt into his lean body and find comfort. Kyouya would tell him that he was a great teacher; that there was nothing anyone could have done to prevent what happened. He was a good man like that. How anyone could stifle their own emotions for the sake of others, even when they were equally as affected, was a mystery to Viktor, but the man in front of him was able to do it somehow. It was one of the reasons he loved him.

Viktor had been the first to arrive at the scene of the scuffle after Kouhai-chan burst in, tears streaming and face bloodied. Kyouya had ordered her to sit at his desk while Haruka fussed with her - at this point Viktor was already out in the corridor. Her voice carried through the hall after him, shrieking:

“For god’s sake, both of you! Help Sousuke-senpai!”

The first thing he had done was try to restrain Hinata as quickly as he could, but even with the perpetrator in his grasp, Viktor’s focus was jostled when he saw Sousuke. It was the sight of him, so unsteady on his feet, that had jarred Viktor once and for all. He felt pangs in his chest when he realized that his relationship with him had built to that of a bond between an uncle and nephew. Brave, chivalrous Sousuke, who hadn’t lifted a finger to Hinata and yet taken everything he had to give. It just wasn’t fair.

Hinata was now sat in the corner of the faculty room on a wooden chair with his palms held upright, humming to himself disconcertingly. His eyes were awfully focused on Kyouya for some reason. Viktor couldn’t look any longer; his thoughts were an scattered mess. Sousuke never mentioned that Hinata knew and yet… No, Viktor was going to trust his gut instinct this time: Hinata knew about the illicit relationship between Kyouya and Kouhai-chan. He had to know.

Haruka had hurried both Sousuke and Kouhai-chan to the infirmary before either of them could be spoken to. The former seemed to be suffering from a slight concussion, while the latter had only been hit once and had bitten the inside of his cheek so hard that she sprayed blood all over herself as a result. Apart from the slight bruise that was emerging along her cheekbone, she was more or less fine, and as soon as Haruka had cleaned her up she went about tending to Sousuke in a matronly manner while Viktor swallowed his own concern and ambled towards the faculty room where Kyouya had taken Hinata into detention.

“This is grounds for suspension, Hinata-kun,” Kyouya said wearily, putting his pen down and lying back in his chair.

“Mm,” Hinata responded, uninterested.

The two teachers exchanged anxious glances at each other.

“Is something happening at home?” Viktor asked with trepidation.

He knew that Sousuke-kun had moved out of the family home and in with his cousin. He had also alluded to some violence that had taken place which had debilitated him enough to see him miss months of archery training, but had begged Viktor not to get involved any further. They agreed that any information which was imparted would be taken as a friend speaking to another friend, rather than a student speaking to a teacher. Viktor began to regret that he had made this promise.

Hinata’s gaze drifted over Viktor’s jaded face for a moment, and then he shrugged.

“Nothing noteworthy,” he mumbled.

Viktor paused. “Sousuke-kun may have mentioned that he is no longer living with you and your father. That sounds pretty noteworthy to me.”

Hinata gritted his teeth. “It’s not noteworthy,” he responded condescendingly. “It’s all Sousuke’s fault.”

Kyouya gave him a puzzled look. He then sighed with finality, flexed his fingers and began hammering away at the computer keyboard in front of him.

“This is an elite school and your family are paying a lot of money for you to be here. Don’t think that this is going to excuse you from what you have done. Unfortunately I can’t punish you any more than I would punish anyone else for fighting, even if you did choose to pick on a girl. In fact, my actions are probably going to come under scrutiny considering your recent circumstances. I’m going to suspend you for the rest of the week and after that we will put you on a reduced timetable. I’m emailing your father now.”

Hinata stared out the window with a dead-eyed expression during Kyouya’s speech, honing in on the dark, wintry sky.

“That’s fine,” he responded dully.

The synthetic light of the faculty room made the boy’s skin appear translucent and his pupils had shriveled to half their normal size under its glare. Viktor shuddered.

Kouhai-chan lived in a modest apartment block, a short walk away from the school, which in turn was situated just on the outskirts of the city center. Although it appeared dingy from the outside, Sousuke felt himself shrouded in maternal warmth as soon as he entered. Her grandmother’s orderly shrine was situated against a windowless wall and her belongings still crowded the kitchen tops: antique teapots complete with floral tea bowls and ancient cookbooks, published long before Sousuke had even been born. Kouhai-chan headed straight for this area, flicking a switch on the wall and filling up the kettle, breathing a heavy sigh as she did so.

“Do you ever drink coffee?” she asked over her shoulder.

“Sometimes,” he responded, crouching in front of the television.

“I think now is the best time for it.”

Sousuke cradled his head in his hands while her back was turned, brushing his fingers through his dark hair. Everything was bathed in a gentle haze. He had hit his head far harder than he initially thought and Kouhai-chan had dragged him to her apartment to make sure that he didn’t fall asleep, which was exactly what he wanted to do in that moment. He was no longer seeing stars, but his mind felt hollow and soft like unmolded clay. It was frustrating.

He handed him a mug and he took it gratefully in both hands, bringing it to his lips and blowing at the rising steam.

“I’m sorry for making you come here,” she said softly, taking a seat next to him.

He felt the hairs stand up on his arms with her in such close proximity. His thoughts weren’t coherent but his body was reacting normally which was a small relief. The television played at a low volume, but for a while it was all either of them could hear as they drank the strong, hot coffee in silence.

“I’m sorry about Hinata,” Sousuke finally said.

When he looked at her, he saw the bruise that was darkening along her cheekbone where his brother had punched her. It was like a relic of her ties with the twins, just as much part of him as it was Hinata. He could have prevented it, he thought to himself. Stepping in and taking a beating just wasn’t good enough. He should have been there from the onset; he should have tracked Hinata’s movements.

“It’s not your fault,” she replied kindly.

“How can you say that? I’ve told you a million times, he’s my responsibility. I keep running away and hiding from the facts, but-”

“Listen, I can’t even make a connection between you and Hinata any more,” she interrupted suddenly. “Okay?”

He blinked at her, uncertainly. Seconds passed, only marred by the sound of raucous laughter emerging from the television.

“What do you mean?”

“I mean…” she paused. “I mean at first I saw you as two halves of one whole. Like yin and yang. I guess you get that a lot, but, you know, it’s hard not to look at it that way. At first, you both looked so similar, but…”

Her voice trailed off as she stared into her mug.

“He looks so insane now. And the two of you act so differently. I have so much reason to suspect you and hate you but you seem so sincere. Lost almost… like you don’t know what to do. Like you’re on a sinking ship or something. It’s just not fair. I got weird vibes from him at the beginning; most of the other guys don’t know how to take him either. And you blame yourself for that. How can you? You were both children when your mother left.”

Sousuke blinked. “He told you about that?”

“Soujiro did.”

Sousuke stared at the television screen thoughtfully. It was a lot to process; even though she had explained it as simply and specifically as she possibly could, he couldn’t seem to bolt it down. The information was like an insect buzzing around his head.

“Can I ask you a question?” he suddenly said, turning back to her.

She nodded.

“Why Kyouya-sensei?”

Kouhai-chan frowned slightly. “Well, it happened when you were off school. He was driving me home when I shut the café in the evenings and we got talking. I don’t know. Something just clicked. He’d touch my shoulder and I’d just want to shrivel up and die because I was so embarrassed. Then one day he just turned to me out of nowhere and told me to hurry up and graduate. You wouldn’t believe how many nights I lost sleep trying to work out what that meant. He was just there you know. That’s all I can ask.”

She sighed, placing the mug between them and folding her arms over her legs.

“I feel like I’m always waiting on people. Always chasing them. My friends at middle school forgot about me because I couldn’t spend time with them any more. I never knew my dad and I was always trying to track him down to build a relationship. With sensei everything was easy, apart from the whole having to keep it secret. He’d be the one waiting for me at night while I locked up. But to be perfectly honest, it’s just the same all over again except in reverse. I want someone in my life like my grandmother, someone that I can meet in the middle. Does that answer your question?”

He nodded and she smiled fondly at him.

“Now can I ask you one? Why were you off school for three weeks?”

“My dad found out I’d been skipping archery. I ended up with broken ribs.”

“Oh,” she breathed.

“It wasn’t a big deal. There’s nothing a doctor can do so you’ve just got to wait for them to heal by themselves.”

He laughed sardonically.

“I have a habit lately of getting beaten up by my family members,” he said. “I’m sorry you had to see it this time.”

Sousuke looked into his mug, which by now was drained of coffee with the exception of the milky dregs at the bottom. He swirled them around absentmindedly. Somehow hitting his head off the floorboards had crumbled the walls in his mind and he was talking honestly with her without minding much. Rather than shame, he felt deep down that he should feel ashamed, yet wasn’t. Suddenly a hand appeared in his line of vision, removing the mug from his grasp and placing it beside the one on the floor. Kouhai-chan moved closer, her eyes brimming with tears.

“I’m sorry,” she was whispering, her face fraught with the sudden realization, “I’m so sorry. I didn’t know.”

Sousuke was stunned as she crawled between his legs and pressed herself up against his chest, holding onto him tightly, as if she expected him to push her away. Feeling unsure of himself, he wrapped his arms around her slowly, murmuring into her hair.

“It’s okay,” he said, unable to hide the surprise in his voice. “I didn’t tell you.”

“You missed archery to watch the café for me,” she sobbed. Her voice was muffled by his chest.

He took the bruised side of her face in his hand tenderly, feeling like a bag of nerves but desperate to placate her somehow. She touched the back of his hand in response, relief mingled with her distress.

“I wouldn’t have had to do anything if it wasn't for Hinata, okay?”

She sniffed, gazing up into his eyes. The tracks of her tears could be traced all the way down to her delicately pointed chin. Where these tears were from, he couldn't be sure. All he knew was that he hated seeing her cry and twice in one day was killing him.

“Can I kiss you?” she asked suddenly.

Sousuke's face drained of colour as he looked down at her. He struggled to comprehend what she had said, yet understood the gravity of it right away. He found himself nodding, numbly.

Her tongue tasted metallic from the blood that she had washed away with mouthfuls of water in the infirmary and the gauze on her cheek as he stroked it peeled away under his hand. Normally one to channel strength and vitality, she was a trembling wreck in his arms, stroking his torso with shaking fingertips, giving herself to him entirely. So this was what kissing her felt like, he thought to himself, brushing her soft, parted lips with his own as she gave herself into the kiss. Her eyes were shut, with tear drops resting on her fluttering eyelashes like specks of glitter. Every once in a while, they would peer at each other uncertainly with furrowed eyebrows, and then return to kiss, letting it grow progressively deeper and more passionate.

Her fingertips were tracing his entire body. Up his arm, down to his stomach, and then resting on his thigh. He felt himself grow stiff as she grew closer and was faintly embarrassed, but she responded straight away, shyly stroking his cock through the fabric of his trousers.

He murmured her name and gently pushed her away.

“I don’t want to do this,” he said finally. “You deserve better.”

“I’m the one who decides what I deserve,” she said softly.

She wrapped her arms around his shoulder and rested her head on his. He could feel the gauze pricking his skin beneath his shirt.

“I like you,” he suddenly told her.

It was an unprompted confession, bound to tangle the mess of their shared situation even further, but he wanted to say it - at least once.

“I like you too, senpai,” she murmured, nuzzling into him. “I like you a lot. So let me stay like this for a while. Please.”

Her voice was oddly calm but imploring. He held onto her, in that quiet room, with the sound of the television set and raucous canned laughter breathing life into their solemn embrace. He closed his eyes, and leaned into her. Despite the contentedness he felt, something was gnawing at the back of his mind. Words, smashed to smithereens began to rearrange themselves in his head.

I’m going to kill that son of a bitch.

Hinata was sat beneath the maple tree; his gaunt face was dignified and opalescent in the glow of the moonlight. He gathered the crisp leaves that lay around him in droves with his hands and threw them towards the sky, absentmindedly humming to himself as he did so.

“You’re back late,” he said mistily, as Sousuke approached.

Sousuke stared down at Hinata, crossing his arms over his torso self-consciously. “Why are you out here?” he asked.

“Dad hit the roof,” his brother confessed, shrugging. “He’s such a hypocrite. Tell me, are we ever going to get around to raking these leaves like we always used to?”

“You said it yourself, nii-sama,” Sousuke responded softly, “we can’t go back to the way things were now.”

“But I’ve been thinking… why not? I can be good. You just have to stay away from her, that’s all.”

Sousuke shuddered. The air was far colder in the compound than it was outside, where Sousuke was perceived as an individual: an individual that could meet a sweet-tempered girl in the middle and lovingly held by her. Here he was cheek-to-cheek with the devil; the other half to a mercurial whole.

“Listen, Hinata,” Sousuke began, “there are some things that I can take from you as your brother. I’d still love you even if you robbed a bank. But this is too much. You've gone way too far this time.”

“What are you expecting me to do, Sousuke?” Hinata sighed wearily, “What do you even think I'm capable of? We're the mirror image of each other already, I don't need to peel of your skin and wear it to be you if she decides that you're the one she wants. It's far simpler than that; you've got to realize. Everybody treats me differently - everybody thinks I’m a monster and they always have. Even dad likes you better than he ever liked me and you singlehandedly smeared his name across the whole compound when you left. You were the only person who could overlook the part of me that went wrong, but that's clearly not the case any more.”

He laughed bitterly up at the stars as he rested his head against the trunk of the tree. Sousuke was deeply unsettled; his suspicions about Hinata had been right all along. People really had seen this coming and he had unknowingly condoned it the whole time.

“I can’t even remember why I liked her so much. There’s no method to it; it just is what it is. I can’t stop these things from happening any more. I can't hold back like I used to. There’s more than just me inside my mind and that cancerous thing goes on and off like a switch; one second I’m fine and the next I’m full of this uncontrollable rage. I don't even realize what I've done until I've done it. I guess what I’m trying to say is, this is me wanting you to stop me. I want you to lock me up and throw away the key. I’m a danger to myself and I’m a danger to you, too. And I’ll be honest, I don’t care for the girl even half as much as I care for you. You’ve always looked after me. It would kill me if I ever ended up hurting you.”

A long shadow was cast over Hinata’s face and Sousuke fancied that it was the shadow of the departed mother before he realized it was just the maple tree, in all its splendor, swaying gently in the night.

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