#burning steppes

[oldeazeroth]

The Molten Span, Burning Steppes (47,69)

[wowscenery]

[azerothtravel]

Flaunt It!, Burning Steppes, April 22, 2012.

[maxiecabphotography]

Blackrock Mountain

[i-post-red]

Colour Name : Burning Steppes

don’t worry everyone the doctor who wiki has everything under control

[prokopetz]

Something I love about The Far Roofs is how much of a swerve its premise is if you're coming to it uninitiated.

Okay, so there's these talking rats with a culture of swashbuckling heroism – basic Redwall/Reepicheep stuff.

Also, there's a magical realm called the Far Roofs which exists above every human community, and that's where the rats go adventuring; a little weird, but you can see the precedents in popular fiction. It's like wainscot fantasy taken to its logical-yet-absurd conclusion.

By default, the game wants you to play as a fictionalised version of your (presumably human!) self and go up onto the Far Roofs to have adventures with the rats. All right, now it's coming together: it's like isekai fantasy meets The Muppet Show, with you as the obligatory human character, right?

Then we get to the nature of those adventures: the rats have this whole culture built around questing against beings they call "the Mysteries" – beasties with names like Harpy and Goblin and Unicorn. So basically it's a bunch of muppety rats on the roofs fighting Dungeons & Dragons monsters, and you go up and help them do it. Great.

And then you get to what the Mysteries are actually like, and... well, I'm going to let the following excerpt carry the weight here. (This particular bit of text also appears in a previously published work by the same author, so I'm not giving anything away that's still under wraps.)

Unicorn, which is named Numinous, dwells three steps away and beyond the world, but most often in the Farthest Roofs, where the Steppes of the Sky come down to touch the Vast and Earthen Court. There it is stepping upwards from the world, as it has always been stepping upwards from the world, caught in a moment of transcendent glory that does not complete. It simply is. Melanthios heard the footsteps of Unicorn. Melanthios heard the ringing of Unicorn’s bells. So Melanthios chased Unicorn off to the Farthest Roofs, and Melanthios did not return. Anton and Karel, who were his sons, were wiser than their father. They heard the bells but they did not follow. Instead, they memorized the scent. They gathered swords, and ropes, and nets, and they went out. They brought food and water and all manner of gear. They clung to the roofs with all four feet wheresoever after Unicorn they went. It proved no good. Anton looked up, and Karel to his brother. The world came down— That’s what Karel said. He had time to look away. He had time to bury his head in his paws. He did not see the fullness of Unicorn’s presence. He only saw Anton his brother become unreal. In the light of the moment of the Unicorn, Anton became as a paper figure in the fire. His reality burned out. His shadow seared into the roofs behind him. Where he’d stood, for just a moment, the Steppes of the Sky came down to touch the Vast and Earthen Court; and Anton was gone away. So Karel ran and Karel ran and Karel ran from the Unicorn; and all his life, he envied but was more fortunate than his brother.

These are gods. You're going up there to kill God.

Like, it's still silly wainscot fantasy with funny talking rats, but there's that tension. It's like if Fraggle Rock occasionally took a hard turn to serious cosmic horror – Lord Dunsany by way of Jim Henson – and that tonal juxtaposition was treated as something unremarkable.

Basically what I'm saying is go back The Far Roofs.

[inbabylontheywept]

Odysseus in Space

Odysseus knew better than to expect peace in death. He’d seen what currents lay under the Styx - knew what kind of warriors that he’d sent there. He fully expected another war to start as soon he took his last breath. 

Instead it had been quiet. 

He’d used the lull to build a home in the endless plains of asphodel. Somewhere simple he could stay and wait for Penelope. It only took a few years for her to join him, and then together they began the work of replicating the palace of Ithaca. It was work, but it was hard to complain about work when he’d expected battle. His greatest skill in life had been enduring to the end. Now it was the end, and still he endured.

It was three centuries before this death was interrupted. 

Hades came to him, not as a god, but as a guest. The fates had woven a story that required a very specific soul. One that could travel the lengths of the world without breaking, who could survive a lifetime of war. And try as Hades might, he could not make a soul that was up for the task. 

Still, what he could not make, he could find. Death was a sacred thing, the last right of all mankind, but it was not inalienable. One could sacrifice their death just as easily as their life. 

The two had spent months haggling out the details of the work. Hades had wanted 50 years, Odysseus wanted just 20, and together they’d compromised on 32. All in exchange for the right of him and Penelope to visit Telemachus once a year, in whatever corner of the underworld their son had been given.

In the end, they’d shaken on it and Odysseus walked the earth once more. He had a new name this time - fitting, for a new fate. Alexander, the world named him and Alexander he named the world back. City by city, battle by battle, he gave the unwanted title away. Then when he was 32 he returned to Penelope, no more Alexander to give. It was a relief to be Odysseus once more.

A year after that, Penelope and him made the journey to see Telemachus. It was worth every step he’d taken between Pella and Babylon. 

There were other interruptions from Hades, new deals with new names. He scourged the descendants of Troy again as Hannibal and bought another day per year with his son. He blazed down the steppes as Atilla and conquered the whole world with the same tools he'd used in his first life. It turned out there was little he couldn't accomplish with a horse, a bow, and a brain. 

So many lifetimes, so many wars, and then - quiet. A whole millennium of peace went down as easy as honeyed wine. It made him happy. He liked his little deals with Death, but he’d wished so many times  that men like him weren’t needed. He was proud of his descendants for making a world better than he’d dreamt. 

And then, nearly a whole second millennium after that, Hades returned. 

---

“It’s not a war.”

Four words that would set the hackles of anyone that fought at Troy - they’d hoped that one wouldn’t be a war either. But Odysseus had made enough deals with Hades to know that the man was frank in his dealings. There was an honesty to Death. Enough honesty that he’d taken him as a guest. 

(He was very choosy about his guests now.)

“You never come to me unless it’s a war. It’s what I’m best at. Why-”

Hades cut him off. 

“War is not what you’re best at. Six-hundred men won that war with you. What set you apart was being the only one to make it back.”

Odysseus’s voice caught in his throat. It had been more than two-thousand years and the memories still burned to touch. It took two deep breaths before he was able to force a reply. 

“Then what do you want?”

Hades looked lost. He paused a few moments, before looking back at Odysseus, one hand up to plead for patience. 

“When I struggle to explain, it’s not because I’m trying to find a clever way to lie to you. It’s because this is a very strange thing, and I…I don’t know how to describe it well.”

He looked into the hearth. Watched the light and heat fade away. Then, he gestured at the log. 

“The wood you’re burning. It’s a dead thing. And yet, it dies more after you burn it because the fire has life in it. Soul too. Even here, there’s a corner of the underworld where the souls of dead flames gather. More things have souls than any mortal seems to recognize.” Odysseus was intrigued. When he lived, he’d learned the secrets of the body better than most doctors. There was only so much cutting you could get people to volunteer for. But here, the mysteries of the soul were lost to him. This was godly knowledge, given freely. What that had to say about the request was worth considering.  “The mountain has a soul, but the mine in that mountain has a soul too, as does the ore from that mine. The ingot, the sword, the bundle of nails - all of those things are alive in some way. And yet, some of them are more alive than others. You sailed once, Odysseus, and no one knows this better than sailors: Boats have strange souls. They’re about as alive as anything that could be built in your time.”

The space around Hades shimmered. The man was thinking, and in a realm where he had total dominion, it took effort for thoughts not to change reality. Odysseus appreciated the effort. The replica had taken centuries to perfect. Death was a strange friend to him, but a friend nonetheless. 

“But the arts have improved from that time, and the mortals of today have built something… incredible. Unimaginable. And they’re sending it on a journey that I have no reference for. The Deaths that have seen things like this are alien to me. They speak of things I cannot understand. The Death of Heat. The Death of Light. The Death of Stars…”

He trailed off in a way that made it clear he was remembering something unpleasant and not merely waxing poetic. He caught himself and looked embarrassed, as if he’d confessed to something best kept secret. Then he continued.  “I am a very human Death. And this thing - it isn’t human. But it was made by humans, and so its soul needs a… a human touch. Your soul isn’t the archetype for a soldier, Odysseus, it’s the archetype for a traveler. I couldn’t take you and put you in this thing if I wanted to, you’re just the wrong shape, but what I’m about to do, I need to see you for. Because this thing is going to travel in ways that I am barely beginning to understand. In ways that are redefining the limits of what it means to be human.”

Odysseus was lost. He didn’t know what he was being asked. He didn’t know what was being built. There were so many questions that he needed to ask that they’d formed a log jam in his mouth. One finally broke free and started a cascade.

“What is it?”

Hades gestured helplessly. 

“It’s like an arrow and a ship. They’re going to shoot it past the stars.”

That meant nothing to Odysseus, but he suspected every answer he received would sound like a riddle. 

“What do you need from me?”

“Permission to copy your work. The soul I made for you is different from the one you died with. You made changes that I cannot replicate. That I do not understand. That I need for this soul to work.” 

Odysseus paused.

“Is it going to be used as a weapon?” 

Hades shook his head. 

“No. The world is gentler than you remember it. This thing will be what you should have been: A traveler without equal. No more, no less.”

Odysseus couldn’t tell if those words ripped something in him open, or healed something closed. Either way, it hurt in a way he didn’t know how to express. His mouth opened and closed several times before he settled on an answer.

“Then take what you will. My only request is to see the journey.”

“Done,” Hades agreed. He could have left right then, but he chose to stay in silence until the fire burned out. There are some ideas that one shouldn’t be left alone with. Not until they’ve had an hour or three to process them, at least. 

---

Twelve-billion miles from Earth, moving just shy of mach fifty, the Voyager 2 probe glittered in the darkness. 

It watched the world around it with the kind of awe a human couldn’t fathom. Nothing was hidden from it. Everything from the atomic composition of stars, to the background hum of the universe itself - all were available with a glance. The only sound it could hear was the constant blip of data that it received from Earth. The small blue dot on starlit shore. 

It missed that place. Maybe, one day, when its journey was done… it would find a way back. Maybe. That was still eons away. 

Odysseus stood just a few feet off, watching from a direction no one but Hades knew how to walk. He felt the thrill of the expanse in front of him, the utterly incomprehensibility of his speed, and yet its meaninglessness as well. To imagine that the world was so big. To imagine that the world was so strange.

He wept and he could not explain why. He lingered in the twilight until Penelope found him. When she asked him what was wrong, he had no answer. How could he tell her that the world was beautiful, and that he had a place in it? Not just as some ugly middle step, but there at the end. Hurtling through space like an arrow made of silver. 

How could he explain to someone that had loved him for two-thousand years that he finally understood why? 

[lovscb97]

tags: lee felix x fem!reader x yang jeongin, threesome, established poly relationship, d/s dynamics, hard dom!innie, soft dom!lix, sub!fem!reader, some mxm action, dirty talk, degradation (whore, slut, bitch, etc), use of petnames (princess, baby, kitten, etc), kissing, spanking, exhibitionism? (they do it in someone’s bedroom at a party lmfao), oral sex (f. receiving), jealousy/possessive behaviour, punishments, etc

wc: 1.59k

add. notes: for my other luvr @aerissick :3

. . . 

you’re royally fucked. 

if someone had told you five minutes ago that you were going to wind ass up face down in a random frat house bedroom with the door unlocked and your two boyfriends towering over your mostly naked figure, you would’ve laughed in their face and told them they were being silly (although it’s not like the predicament isn’t a normal occurrence for you considering you guys do get experimental a lot). considering your current circumstances though, you reckon you should retract your previous statement, because lo and behold, here you are, legs spread slightly and on your hands and knees all for the greedy sets of eyes which belong to your lovers. 

“fucking slut, look at her. she’s dripping.” jeongin clicks his tongue with a sneer, ring clad fingers tracing the curve of your ass as he examines the mess you’ve made of your panties; you shiver when the feel of the cold metal touches your warm skin. “did you enjoy dancing with hyunjin, hm? making a show of yourself in this skimpy little skirt that we told you to not wear?” you shake your head rapidly against the sheets, mouth opening to whine out apologies when a sharp slap lands itself on your inner thigh, causing you to yelp. the sting of it burns, pain spreading through your leg at the impact. “i didn’t say you could speak, whore.” your younger boyfriend growls out. you bite your tongue at his words.

“princess, you know the rules. no acting out in public.” felix’s soft voice enters your ears, and you whimper, craving his body next to yours. “now what do we say?” 

“’m sorry lixie, please.” you plead, voice muffled by the covers of the comforter underneath you. “so sorry, innie. please, please.” jeongin’s dark chuckle rings through the air, and you feel his digits graze against the wet patch of your underwear to collect the arousal that’s gathered on the fabric. “don’t even know what you’re begging for, do you, sweetheart? always too cockdrunk to speak when we’ve barely touched you.” he huffs, popping his fingers into his mouth to taste the essence lingering on them. “what do you think, love? should we say.. fifteen as a start?”  he asks felix shortly afterwards, your eyes widening at his words.

“n-no, no! ‘m sorry, it won’t happen again. please, n—“

“shut the fuck up, bitch.” jeongin snarls, pushing your head down deeper into the mattress as you gasp. “you don’t get to complain when you were out on the dance floor throwing yourself at other people.” you sniffle, face turning to the other side to catch a glimpse of your older boyfriend who’s standing next to you. you bat your teary eyes at him in hopes he’ll take pity on you and end this charade, but it doesn’t last long when jeongin yanks you back by the hair to sit up and face him, dark eyes raking over your smudged makeup as he grabs you by the chin with his other hand. “don’t try funny games with lixie, baby. he’s pretty pissed too.” he has a sinister smirk on his face as he speaks, giving you a knowing look when your pout deepens. 

“we don’t like doing this to you either, princess.” you hear felix sigh, turning around to see his hands dropping out of his jacket pockets as he takes a step closer to you. you flicker your eyes to his face when he moves towards you, keening into his touch as his fingers stroke your cheek, causing jeongin to scoff. “don’t get soft on her now.” he grumbles, and felix smiles, shaking his head. “we’ll give her ten.” jeongin rolls his eyes at that, mumbling something about how you two always do this before stepping away from you, leaving you to croon against felix’s soft hands. 

your happiness is short-lived though, because the minute you let your guard down, you feel a sharp smack against your ass, drawing another yelp of pain from your lips. “count, slut.” jeongin demands, slender fingers making sure to rub against the skin where he’d spanked you. your gaze flicks to felix’s, who nods at you with a soft expression on his face.

“one.” you whisper, gasping when jeongin tugs you again by the hair.

“one, and what? speak louder.” he raises an eyebrow, biting his lip at the way your eyes well up with tears. “one. i’m sorry.” you respond, and jeongin seems satisfied by that because he lets you go once you’ve said it. felix’s thumb comes out to graze against your cheek, his pretty face taking in the way you’re settled on the bed, whoever it belongs to, and how sweet you look apologising for your actions. he seems to take pity on you too, because he’s swooping down suddenly to capture your lips in a deep kiss, causing you to moan against his mouth as you reciprocate his actions. another sharp smack rings through the air, leaving you wailing into your lover. “two. i’m sorry.” you sniff after pulling away, feeling your younger boyfriend massage the other cheek he’d just hit you on.

your punishment seems to last hours, even though in actuality it barely spans over three minutes. by the time jeongin is done with you, your face is stained with runny mascara and your ass a bright shade of pink, twinging in slight pain every other second. next to your side, felix whispers sweet nothings in your ear, praises falling from his cherry lips like a waterfall and causing the swirl of delight in your stomach to grow, leaving you having forgotten your punishment easily. “did so good for us, princess. you deserve a reward now, yeah?” you nod eagerly at his words, and he chuckles. 

“if you ask me, i still think she hasn’t learned her lesson.” jeongin tsk’s, causing you to furrow your eyebrows as you pout. felix coos at his words, stepping forward to pull him close by the waist despite the fact that jeongin resists. he melts into his touch quickly though when your older lover kisses him, and you feel your clit throb at the way they embrace each other, lips moulding perfectly against one another. “feeling left out, aren’t ya, baby?” felix teases in a heavy breath once they’ve pulled away, jeongin’s face flushing slightly at his words as he mumbles excuses. “c’mere, come relieve your tension with our pretty girl.” felix guides him close to your neglected frame, and you automatically get up to position yourself on your hands and knees once more, flashing your now drenched panties to their inviting eyes. 

“fucking hell.” jeongin groans at the sight, licking his lips at the large wet patch on the fabric. both their hands come out to touch you, and you sigh in content at the feeling of your two boyfriends having their way with you, pushing you into whatever position they please so they can bury their nose into your cunt and litter your thighs with kisses. “please do something.” you sob when jeongin presses his thumb into your clothed nub, rubbing over it slightly while felix’s mouth trails dangerously close to where you need it.

“oh, we will, baby, don’t even worry.” jeongin chuckles darkly, and before you can even react to what he’s said, he’s grabbing your underwear from both sides to rip it apart into shreds. you gasp at his actions, opening your mouth to whine about how that was your favourite pair, but the words die down in your mouth when you feel felix’s tongue breaching your folds. a loud moan leaves your lips at the sensation of his wet muscle finally, finally having touched you where you’ve needed it all night long, knees almost buckling as you struggle to hold yourself up in the midst of the pleasure you’re receiving. 

“enjoy your treat, kitten.” jeongin purrs, threading his hand through felix’s long, blonde locks before pushing him deeper into your pussy. you mewl at the feeling of him continuing to lick into you deeper, clit pulsating with need when he wraps his sweet lips around it and sucks. “feels good, princess?” you vaguely register jeongin asking through your pleasure drunk haze, incoherently nodding and mumbling something in agreement which makes him laugh. 

“see, we’re the only ones who can make you feel this good.” he snickers, feeling himself straining in his pants at the way you whine from felix’s tongue laving through you. “ain’t that right, cutie?” you mumble out a shaky ‘yes’, unsure of what you’re even responding to as your mind starts to become clouded and fuzzy. it doesn’t take long either until you’re shaking through an orgasm, panting and gripping the fabric underneath you as you spray onto felix’s welcoming tongue. he continues to lick at you until you whine in overstimulation, weakly pushing his head away until jeongin stops you.

“oh no, keep going, kitten. we’ve really gotta prove our point to her, hm? gotta prove it’s only us who deserve this body.” jeongin flashes a wicked smile, gripping you by the hips to pull you back against the older’s waiting mouth. you flinch from the sensitivity when you feel felix moan into you, to which jeongin just smirks once more, leaning in close to your ear. 

“don’t worry, pretty girl. we’re gonna make you cum so much, you’ll never want to feel the touch of anyone else ever again.” he mumbles lazily, and you shiver at his words.

it seems that you’re in for a long night tonight.

. . .

comments and reblogs are always appreciated <3

[midnight-shadow-cafe]

The Emperor's Soft Spot

Pairing: Emperor Geta x Maid! reader

Warnings : Fluff

Authors Note: I hope you enjoy!

Masterlist

MDNI18+MDNI18+MDNI18+MDNI18+MDNI18+

The grandeur of the Roman palace was overwhelming to most, with its marble columns stretching toward the heavens and gilded mosaics adorning every corner. Yet for you, the splendor had long since dulled. Day after day, your life revolved around quiet servitude—polishing brass, sweeping floors, arranging flowers. You were just another cog in the great machine of the Roman Empire.

But all of that changed on a crisp morning in the early spring.

The air was filled with the faint scent of jasmine as you placed the last of the roses in a vase perched on a side table in the Emperor’s private chambers. You had heard stories of the young Emperor Geta—his ruthlessness in court, his sharp wit in battle. But to you, he was a distant figure, one you had no reason to encounter. Until now.

As you adjusted the vase, the heavy oak door creaked open. Startled, you froze, your heart leaping into your throat. You turned to see him—a tall, imposing man dressed in the deep crimson and gold of imperial garb. His dark hair was neatly combed, and his sharp, piercing eyes locked onto yours.

You dropped into a hurried curtsy, the vase forgotten. “Forgive me, Caesar. I didn’t mean to intrude.”

For a moment, he said nothing, his gaze fixed on you as though studying a puzzle he couldn’t quite solve. Finally, his lips quirked into a small smile. “Intrude? You are precisely where you’re meant to be.”

Your cheeks burned under his scrutiny, and you ducked your head. “I was only finishing my task, my lord.”

“And what is your name, little dove?” His voice was softer now, almost curious.

“Y/N,” you answered, your voice barely above a whisper.

“Y/N,” he repeated, as though testing the weight of it on his tongue. His smile grew. “I’ll remember that.”

---

Weeks Later

The encounter should have been forgotten—a fleeting moment in the endless expanse of your days. But Geta seemed determined to ensure it wasn’t.

It began with subtle glances in the hallways, his eyes lingering on you a second too long. Then came the questions, casually slipped into conversations with the head steward. “How is Y/N finding her duties?” or “Ensure Y/N is assigned lighter work today.” The servants began to notice, their whispers following you like shadows.

One afternoon, as you scrubbed the steps of the western courtyard, a shadow fell over you. You looked up to see him standing there, dressed in simpler robes than usual but no less commanding.

“Caesar,” you stammered, quickly rising to your feet.

“Geta,” he corrected, a smirk playing at the corners of his lips. “Must I remind you again?”

“I couldn’t possibly address you so informally,” you replied, your hands twisting nervously in your apron.

“Then you must,” he said, stepping closer. “For it is my wish.”

You swallowed hard, unsure how to respond. His proximity was overwhelming, his presence like the sun—impossible to ignore. “As you wish, Geta,” you said at last, the name foreign yet strangely natural on your tongue.

His smirk softened into a genuine smile. “Better.”

---

The garden was your sanctuary, a rare place of peace in a world that rarely offered any. As the sun dipped below the horizon, casting the sky in shades of gold and crimson, you knelt among the herbs, carefully plucking sprigs of basil and thyme for the evening meal.

You were so lost in your work that you didn’t notice him until his shadow stretched across your path. Startled, you turned to find Geta standing there, his arms crossed and an amused expression on his face.

“Do you always work so diligently?” he asked, his tone teasing.

“My duties require it,” you replied, rising to your feet and brushing dirt from your skirts. “Why are you here, Caesar?”

His smile faltered, and for a moment, you saw something vulnerable in his eyes. “Because I tire of being ‘Caesar.’” He stepped closer, his voice dropping to a near whisper. “In your presence, I am simply a man. Do you understand?”

You didn’t. Not fully. But you nodded anyway, your heart pounding in your chest.

“I find myself thinking of you more often than I should,” he continued, his gaze never leaving yours. “Your kindness, your grace—it is a rare thing in this palace.”

“Geta,” you breathed, his name feeling both intimate and forbidden. “This... this isn’t right.”

“Perhaps not,” he admitted, his hand reaching out to brush a stray lock of hair from your face. “But I care not for what is right. I care for what feels true. And this”—his fingers lingered against your cheek—“feels true.”

Before you could respond, he closed the distance between you, his lips capturing yours in a kiss that was both commanding and tender. The world seemed to tilt on its axis, the weight of the empire momentarily forgotten.

---

The palace buzzed with whispers of the maid who had captured the Emperor’s heart. Some were scandalized, others intrigued. But Geta paid them no mind. He openly courted you, defying tradition and expectation with every stolen moment you shared.

Late at night, in the privacy of his chambers, he would recount tales of his childhood—of the weight of the crown he had never wanted, of battles fought and victories that felt hollow. And in return, you showed him the beauty of a world beyond marble walls and golden thrones.

“You have given me something no one else could,” he said one evening, his voice soft as he held you close.

“And what is that?” you asked, your head resting against his chest.

“Freedom,” he replied, pressing a kiss to your hair. “Freedom to be myself.”

Though the road ahead was uncertain, you knew one thing for certain: you had claimed the heart of the Emperor of Rome, and in doing so, he had claimed yours in return.

Hope you enjoyed! Please consider liking and reposting! -Midnight💜

[oldeazeroth]

The Altar of Storms, Burning Steppes (15,33)

[wowscenery]

[azerothtravel]

The Rush of Battle, Burning Steppes, September 6, 2005.

[azsazz]

Lost

Vampire!Azriel x Human!Reader

Summary: Azriel's worried he's drunk you dry.

Warnings: Angst

Word Count: 1,022

Notes: Woohoo, look at that. Finished it already. Directly follows Might Bite Back

_________________________________________

Azriel goes the only place he can think of.

He’s long since forgotten the feeling of cold. Of the wind spilling chills down his frail, human skin. Of the sting in his nose, the bite in his chest with every inhale of the crisp, winter air. Of the prickles of blood returning to frozen fingertips after spending too long in the snow.

But the night has always been his safe place, since even before he was turned. The familiarity of the moon looking over him would normally ease the knots in his stomach, the urge to flee in his veins.

 If he could feel right now, it’d be the rolling of his stomach with sickness. It’d be embarrassment, a white-hot lance of regret burning through his blood for the things he’s swore he’d never do to you, lying unconscious on his settee before the fire, your pulse slow and your breathing shallow, tow punctures in your neck.

It doesn’t take long to get where he’s going. It’s a path he’s taken many times, through the winding trees of the forest his home resides in. Deep in the thicket of the Night Court forest between the Steppes and Velaris, bordering the Prison. It’s up in the mountains where he belongs, the very same ones that house other wild beasts just like him; the ones who should never be let out of their cages.

He lost his cool tonight. Went too long without feeding because you hold his interest all too well. It’s been like that since day one, even though he keeps himself scarce for your safety.

Fucking fat lot it’s done tonight.

Azriel can still taste you in his mouth. Not your sweet little cunt, but your blood. He swipes his tongue over his lips, chasing the delectable flavor.

His marred hands shake, because with just one drop of you, he knows he’s addicted to you.

It settles in his bones just like it had when he had the realization that he’d become the very thing he swore he’d never become. Azriel has known that you are the very thing he’s been destined to find, and he’s been very strict on himself, keeping away from you, giving you nothing but the cold, empty shell he’s been for hundreds of centuries. He’s been addicted since you wandered into his senses, the thunder of your blood calling to him like a beacon, the unmoving heart in his chest rattling with a recognition only he seemed to feel.

Azriel’s not even had close to his fill. The nagahound he drained on the way hasn’t done anything to satiate his hunger, not like your blood had. He can’t stop thinking about it, about the warmth, its heady taste, it’s fruity scent. He’d felt like a man again, despite the irony of the situation.

He emerges from the trees, landing in the backyard of the towering home of his High Lord. Azriel stumbles on weak knees like an Illyrian babe just learning how to fly. Once he rights his footing, he sprints for the doors.

The warmth of the faelights spilling across the cobblestones are a welcoming view. They always are, especially when he feels like he’s spent years too long hiding away in his secluded home, away from the hustle and bustle of the City of Starlight. All of his other clan members reside here, but their company has never interested him. Not when they’ve all become respectable parts of the city of night.

Rhysand meets him at the door, the High Lord’s hearing keener than most. He already knows there’s something wrong by Azriel’s stature. The dilation of his pupils, eyes mostly black instead of the familiar and less-than-friendly hazel. The clear flush to his skin after a feeding, the pale glow of his skin golden with the obvious signs of ingesting human blood instead of animal blood and there’s a scent clinging to him that is utterly human.

“Azriel—”

“You have to help her.”

Rhysand startles at the rawness of Ariel’s request. His frantic gaze searches his High Lord’s, hands that he always hides reaching up to grasp onto Rhysand’s to drag him over the threshold. They hit the invisible barrier keeping him from moving into the house to shake his High Lord into action, having not have been invited into the house. Azriel bares his fangs, mind still a spinning loss of thoughts about you and your well-being.

“Help who?” Rhysand asks. He doesn’t bother inviting his friend inside. He stalks out into the night, joining his brother.

Azriel’s plea is broken. “Please.”

Rhysand has only seen Azriel like this one time. The night he was turned into the creature he is now. Pain fills his voice, tightening his throat, dark brows knitted together in a distressed manner. There are often instances where Rhysand wishes that his stoic friend would show some semblance of emotion, but this gut-wrenching one is not the one he wishes to see.

“Okay,” he consoles, using the way Azriel is clinging to him help with their trip back. His shadowsinger’s fingers are digging deeply into his skin, through his finely pressed jacket and nearly breaking his skin. There’s a pinch of pain when his blunt nail does break skin, but Rhysand refrains from saying anything. He will heal, and fast. The human Azriel is leading him to will not. “I will help you, Azriel.”

On a whisp of nighttime, the pair appear on Azriel’s porch.

Azriel growls at the magical powers that keep them from entering homes that they do not own.

“Get inside,” he spits, more to the house than his High Lord, leading the way through the door as quickly as he can. “She’s in the sitting room, before the hearth. She needs help,” he directs, leading the way to where he’s left you.

In Azriel’s haste to get inside, he’s failed to realize one very important thing. It’s the one thing Rhysand catches, halting in his tracks, trying to calm the hellhound that is his shadowsinger when he spins on his heel and snaps his fangs at him.

“Azriel, there is no one here.”

[ohbueckers]

WHAT’S MY NAME? hey, girl, i really wanna be with you.

THIS IS PART SIX! pairing, paige bueckers x tutor!oc. notes, i apologize, that’s it… but not really because it was so silly and fun to write like oops. warnings, minimal sexual content, angst/arguing.

the morning came quickly. or atleast that’s what it felt like as the sunlight spilled through the half-drawn curtains of lisns’s apartment. paige lay sprawled out on the couch, her legs dangling over the edge as she watched liana move around the kitchen. things hadn’t felt this right in a long time, and it was safe to say the blonde was comfortable. too comfortable.

the night before wasn’t just new territory, it was the two of them sinking deeper into something neither knew how to navigate. it wasn’t a mistake, right?

“i seriously think you’re gonna burn that,” paige teased, watching liana struggle to angle the spatula as it was time to flip the pancakes she’d been whipping up for the past twenty minutes. luckily, paige had a late practice today. meaning they definitely took their time getting out of her this morning.

liana shot her a glare over her shoulder, switching her weight to her opposite leg as she went into full attempt-mode again. “you have so little faith in me, p, that’s crazy. what’s a relationship without trust?” the question wasn’t mean to be more than a joke, but the silence made it more serious. and the fucking r&b coming from the living room tv.

paige had already been up from the couch, strolling on over to lean against the counter behind her. she licked her lips, furrowing her eyebrows as she fought to say something that would make this any less awkward.

“is that what this is?”

but before she could let liana answer her question, she backed it up with something a little more light-hearted. “i trust you.” her voice was quieter than before. “i’ont trust them pancake skills. but i trust you.”

liana paused, spatula frozen in her hand for a second as paige’s words washed through her. she felt the seriousness in them, even as she tried to play it off. this was paige’s way of saying she wasn’t running from it, and liana, however, didn’t know how to take it.

a soft smile tugged at the girl with the dark curl’s lips as she exhaled, finally turning to face paige for a moment. “good,” she murmured, and then she was back to the pan. “because i trust you, too. pancakes and all.”

paige chuckled, her shoulders moving with her as her head dropped. but before she could say anything else, liana’s voice cut through. “now stop distracting me,” she scolded, tongue darting out to her bottom lip as she refocused on the stove, the serious cook-mode kicking in once more.

“me? distracting?” paige replied in an exaggerated, high-pitched voice, her grin widening as she straightened up. without a second thought, she snuck up behind liana, quick and stealthy, her long fingers finding the sensitive spots at her sides as she began tickling her.

liana yelped, her body jolting forward as her spatula clattered against the counter. “paige!” she squealed, trying to squirm away, but it was too late. paige’s arms wrapped around her waist from behind, trapping her in a hold as her hands moved everywhere on her stomach. her laughter filled the small apartment, high-pitched and breathless, as paige leaned into her, pressing sloppy kisses against the back of her neck and shoulders.

“you’re gonna make me burn them!”

“that’s the plan.”

liana squealed again, louder this time, as paige’s kisses turned sloppier, her arms tightening just enough to keep her in place. “okay, okay! You win!” she finally gasped, her laughter breaking through the words as she sagged into her hold. “i give up. just stop kissing me like a dog, please.”

paige’s laughter rang out behind her, bright and uninhibited as she finally loosened her grip, letting her forehead rest against the back of her shoulder. “sloppy kisses are my specialty,” she said, still chuckling, as she pressed one final one to her neck before stepping back.

liana turned around, still smiling as her cheeks flushed from laughter and maybe a little from something else. she swatted at paige’s arm, but it was light, and the blonde always seemed to be able to catch them before they came, dodging it. “you’re impossible.”

“and yet,” paige drawled, pointing her finger at her and stepping closer again, her grin never fading, “you still let me stay.”

paige strode into practice, her duffel bag slung over her shoulder. the past few days with liana had been everything, and there was no other way to put it. the smile lingering on her lips wasn’t one she could shake, not that she really wanted to. everything between them had just been easy (undoubtedly the calm before the storm).

liana had been her escape after long practices and stressful days, a place where everything outside of the two of them just didn’t matter. paige would pick her up after team events, swing by her apartment whenever she could, and stay as late as possible before sneaking out in the early mornings, quietly shutting the door behind her like she wasn’t already thinking about the next time they’d be together.

they hadn’t officially put a label on it, and paige convinced herself she wasn’t in any rush to do so. but for now, things were good. really good. even her teammates had noticed how much lighter she seemed, but paige played it off. there was no need to give them the details. this was hers and liana’s—something they were still figuring out together.

as she walked across the gym, the sound of her teammates’ voices reached her ears, but she stayed in her own thoughts until aaliyah’s voice cut through.

“yo, p!” aaliyah called, waving her phone from the far end of the gym, her voice laced with something paige couldn’t quite place yet. “have you seen twitter?”

paige’s heart dropped down to her ass at the way her teammates were gathered around, all of them grinning like they were in on some inside joke. she dropped her duffel bag next to the bench and made her way over, already sensing this was about to be some kind of mess.

“do i want to?” she asked reluctantly, raising an eyebrow. kk and ice were already trying—and failing—to suppress their laughter, while aaliyah’s phone was shoved in her face.

“you definitely wanna see this,” aaliyah smirked, her eyes gleaming as paige took the phone and glanced at the tweet on the screen. the words blurred for a second before they clicked, and when they did, paige’s stomach dropped, even as a laugh threatened to escape.

“think i just saw paige bueckers rizzing up in her car.”

paige blinked, scrolling down to see that the tweet had gone viral, racking up tens of thousands of likes and retweets. “wait, what? when was this?” her mind raced back through the past week, and then it hit her—the night she picked up liana and her friends. they’d been sitting in the parking lot of her apartment complex, talking, maybe getting a little too close. that was too long ago, though. it must’ve been posted and only gotten attention until recently.

“no photos, though,” nika chimed in, grinning as she tapped at her own phone. “just that tweet, but it’s blowing up. like, really blowing up.”

paige’s brows furrowed as she scrolled through the replies, trying to process what she was seeing. some of the comments were wild, ranging from harmless jokes to conspiracy theories about her love life. one of the replies stood out:

“nah, paige is different 😂”

underneath it, someone else had written:

“knew she had that game. paige bueckers out here making moves.”

her stomach flipped as she kept reading. as much as she wanted to laugh it off, there was an uneasiness gnawing at her. it wasn’t like people didn’t talk about her all the time—being a public figure came with its share of attention—but this felt different. this was about her and liana, something she hadn’t been prepared to be public. fuck, her closest friends were barely in the loop.

kk snickered, leaning over her shoulder. “rizzing during the season is crazy,” she teased, nudging paige playfully.

paige forced a laugh, playing it off like it was no big deal. “they reaching, for real.” she shot back, tossing the phone back to aaliyah.

the blonde finally sat down on the bench, her back against the wall as she laced up her sneakers. her teammates were still making jokes, but their voices faded as she pulled out her phone, unable to resist the urge to check the tweet herself.

she opened twitter, and there it was. it was surreal seeing her name attached to something so casual, a moment she hadn’t even thought twice about. but now it was all out there, and people were talking. a lot.

paige scrolled through the replies, most of them filled with jokes about her “rizz,” but as she kept reading, some of the comments started to shift.

“man, bueckers is supposed to be locked in during the season, and here she is flirting in parking lots? focus on the game.”

“so this is what she’s been up to lately… no wonder her shooting’s been off.”

her chest tightened at that one. she hadn’t noticed her performance slipping, but of course, there was always someone ready to tear her down the moment she wasn’t at 100%. paige bit her lip, scrolling further as she held her phone between her legs.

“i’m a fan and all, but if paige is letting a girl affect her game, that’s a problem. we need her locked in if we’re winning that natty.”

the mix of fans and critics got under her skin. a week ago, everything had been perfect—just her and liana, no outside noise. but now, it felt like people were trying to poke holes in something she hadn’t even fully figured out herself. it didn’t help that she hadn’t exactly told anyone about them, at least not officially. to the world, it was all speculation, but even that was enough to make her feel exposed.

she read a few more, the section feeling like something she couldn’t take her eyes off of.

“y’all acting like she’s the first athlete to date during the season. relax.”

“still my goat. let her live, she’s in college.”

at least some people were on her side, but the others… they made her doubt herself. was this really a distraction? her teammates would tell her, right? was she letting herself get too caught up in something she wasn’t ready for? she’d been so sure that liana wasn’t affecting her game, but now that the conversation was out in the open, she couldn’t help but second-guess it.

paige was still lost in her thoughts, phone still in hand as she ran a hand down her ponytail when geno cut through to get practice started.

the team scrambled to their feet, and paige clicked her phone off, shoving it back into her pocket. she couldn’t let this mess with her head. not here, not now.

the evening had started so differently.

paige and liana had been wrapped up in each other, a tangled mess of limbs and laughter. they’d found themselves like this almost too many times to count, but it was a good feeling regardless. it was a late night, one that had stretched long after paige’s practice, and, as usual, she found herself here, with liana, right where she wanted to be.

despite the recent chaos—namely the twitter incident that had blown up and left paige feeling unsettled—tonight was different. it always was with liana, and paige wasn’t even sure she knew about it. it’s not like she wanted to talk about it, though. liana made her forget, and what was the point it making her stress out about it when it was nothing?

they had settled into a nest of pillows and blankets on liana’s bed, and every touch seemed to erase the stress of the day, leaving behind only the warmth of their connection. paige kissed her deeply, hands trailing up her sides, pulling her closer until they were practically one. liana responded just as eagerly, her fingers finding the abs underneath paige’s shirt, moving around exploratory. it was all too easy between them—too easy to get lost in the heat of the moment, to forget that anything outside of this existed.

paige groaned softly against her mouth, hand gripping her neck a little tighter. they pulled away for breaths frequently, or just to look at each other. admire what was theirs.

a knock at the front door cut through, liana’s head turning nearly immediately as paige’s lips were left slightly glistened and parted. she continued her movements despite the interruption, lips trailing down her jaw. the movement tickled a bit, eliciting some soft giggles from liana.

“mm, i thought we were past our interruption days,” paige mumbled, lips wandering wherever her little heart desired them to go.

liana laughed aloud, her hand moving up paige’s back to find a comfortable spot. “that’s the food,” she said, her voice light. “gotta feed my division one athlete, right?”

paige smiled against liana’s neck, her breath warm and tender. “you’re right about that,” she replied, her voice beginning to soften. “but you know, i wouldn’t mind if we had a little more time before we had to deal with real life.”

liana’s smile widened as she pulled back slightly, maintaining their eye contact. “you know i’d love that too,” she said, giving her one last, or maybe two soft pecks before paige let her go, slipping out from under the covers to head towards the door.

paige watched liana go, her eyes tracing the gentle sway of her hips as she moved, leaning back on her arms with the fattest smirk on her face. liana was everything paige wanted, everything, and everything about this felt right—being with her had become a comfort she craved. something she couldn’t believe she’d been missing out on for so long. a small smile played on her lips, her mind already drifting to how they’d spend the rest of their night.

but as her gaze drifted, something caught her eye. liana’s phone sat on the nightstand, the screen lighting up briefly with a notification. and then another one. her smile faltered.

she really didn’t plan on being nosey. looking, that is. but as more texts came through, her gut got the better of her. with furrowed brows, she leaned over, seeing naomi’s name flash across the screen. contact still saved, and immediately recognizable. she never changed it. her heart dropped instantly, and without thinking, paige sat up and reached for the phone, pulling the charging cord off as her chest tightened. she stood slowly, gripping the phone in her hand as she studied the texts that had piled up within the last few minutes.

her mind went blank for a second, blue hues fixed on the screen like she’d just been slapped in the face. she wasn’t trying to jump to conclusions, but how could she not? and with it came all the unresolved tension, the unspoken questions, the doubts she hadn’t voiced because she trusted liana. or, at least, she thought she did.

the door creaked back open, and liana strolled back in with the takeout bags in her hands, a small smile still on her face. but as she saw paige standing there, her phone clutched in her hand, that smile faltered—replaced by a moment of confusion, then recognition. it only took a second for her to realize what paige might’ve seen, and the slight guilt that flashed across her face confirmed it.

“p,” liana started sternly as she took a cautious step forward, setting the bags down. “can i have my phone back?”

her tone was careful, like she was trying to diffuse the situation before it even blew up, laced with an edge of authority like she was trying to keep everything calm, like she had control of the situation. but paige wasn’t having it. she tightened her grip on the phone, keeping it just out of liana’s reach as she stepped back, eyes locked down on her like she was crazy.

“for what?” paige snapped, her voice sharp, eyes narrowing in accusation. “so you can keep textin’ naomi? that’s what we doin’ now?” liana felt everything like a punch to the gut. and as much as she wanted to explain, to say that it wasn’t what she thought, she knew there wasn’t anything she could say that would make this moment any easier. paige wasn’t in the mood to listen, and she could see it written all over her face. but that didn’t mean she couldn’t try.

she took another step forward, arms lifting slightly like she was approaching something fragile, something on the verge of breaking. “just give me my phone—“

“nah,” paige cut her off, yanking the phone back so it was higher in the air. “unless you plan on opening this phone, i’ont wanna hear it.”

liana swallowed hard, her heart pounding in her chest as she hesitated. she knew she wasn’t entirely innocent, but it wasn’t like that. or at least, she had convinced herself it wasn’t. naomi texting her shouldn’t mean this much. she had nothing to hide, right? but paige’s reaction, the way she was looking at her like she’d been betrayed—it was too much to brush off.

“paige,” liana tried again, this time softer, stepping toward her like she was trying to close the distance, close the gap this was creating. “it’s not what you think, you didn’t even let me expl—“

“you don’t need to.” paige’s laugh was bitter, cutting her off. “you been having it both ways this entire time, huh?” you can miss me with that. you can’t be fuckin’ with me and still keep her around like some backup plan.”

they weren’t listening to each other. that was the issue.

liana’s eyes flickered, and paige caught the crack in her armor—the guilt she was so desperately trying to hide. she could feel it now, everything bubbling to the surface. paige had been right, and liana knew it. but instead of apologizing, instead of owning up, she doubled down, digging her heels in like she had something to prove.

“you never asked me to be your girl,” liana shot back, her voice rising as she shook her head, taking a seat at the edge of the bed. she wasn’t sure the two of them arguing and being in each other’s vicinity was the best idea. the words were defensive, sharp. “we never made it official. so yeah, i’m still figuring shit out. how is that a crime?”

paige’s breath caught in her throat. she felt the sting of them, like liana had just yanked the rug out from under her. and for a second, the hurt was so raw, so visceral, she almost flinched. but instead of backing down, which would’ve made such a difference, instead of showing that pain, she pushed forward, her eyes narrowing into something cold, something dangerous.

“you serious?”

“as ever.”

“you wanna play technicalities? bet,” paige nodded her head, poking her bottom lip out as she rounded the bed corner to stand in front of liana, needing to see her face. needing to see every look. “you wanna act like you ain’t mine just ‘cause i didn’t slap a label on it? fine. but don’t sit here and act like i didn’t give you more than anybody else ever has.”

liana’s lips parted, looking up in confusion and defensiveness as her stomach twisted into knots. “what are you—”

“don’t act dumb, liana,” paige cut her off again, her voice low, biting, as she met her eyes, locked on them unrelentingly. “i’m the one who took your virginity. i’m the one you trusted with that, not her.“

liana flinched, her face flushing a little. she was embarrassed. her heart pounded harder if that were possible, the weight of her words suffocating her. but before she could respond, the blonde wasn’t done. her words kept coming, each one slicing deeper.

“you really gon’ stand there and tell me that shit didn’t mean nothing to you?” her voice cut through the room with a venom she’d never used before. in fact, liana had never expected anything like it to leave her mouth. the hurt she’d been holding back was now spilling out, masked by complete anger. “after all the nights we spent together, all the times you told me how much you needed me, you really gon’ downplay that? say it didn’t matter just ‘cause we didn’t put a fuckin’ title on it?”

liana’s mouth opened, but the words wouldn’t come. she didn’t know how to respond, because she was right. she had trusted paige with something she hadn’t given to anyone else, something she hadn’t even given to fucking naomi, and now that was being thrown back in her face. she felt cornered, the weight of her mistakes crashing down on her, but instead of admitting it, she did quite the opposite.

“stop,” liana finally managed, her voice shaky, her defenses cracking but still there. she held up her hand, let her head hang low along with her voice. “you sound just like her. you know that?”

paige’s eyes flared, her lips parting as if she’d just been struck. “what the fuck did you just say?” her tone dropped, like she couldn’t believe what she’d just heard. “don’t do that.”

“okay—“ liana backtracked, realizing she might’ve pushed just as far.

the blonde didn’t give her any time to. “nah, don’t do that. i’ve never came close to doing you how she did. i’ve been upfront with you about everything since day one. and this—” she waved liana’s phone in the air before tossing it onto the bed behind her, “this is how you repay me?”

liana’s head shot up. “and yet you still knew! you knew about her this entire time. you still went after me, knowing everything. so don’t act like i’m the only one who fucked up here.”

paige froze, swallowing down whatever jab she planned on saying next. you knew about her this entire time. you still went after me, knowing everything. the truth in those words stung like a loss, and for a moment, she stood there, rooted in place. her jaw clenched, but the fire in her chest didn’t go out. she couldn’t let it.

but she was right.

paige did know. she’d known from the start how complicated things were. she knew the moment at ted’s when liana said it wasn’t that serious. she knew that liana wasn’t over naomi, knew that whatever they had between them would be messy and tangled in all the wrong ways. and yet, she had still pursued her, convinced herself that what they had could rise above it. that she could be the one to pull liana out of her confusion, out of her hesitation. she’d known this entire time, and kept it in the back of her head because of how much she fucking liked her.

she’d walked into it with her eyes wide open.

still, the anger wouldn’t leave. she couldn’t let liana off that easily, couldn’t let herself be the only one to carry the blame here, and unfortunately, that was the issue. neither of them would just let up.

“you told me you were gonna handle it, liana. what the fuck am i supposed to think?”

liana bit the inside of her cheek, blinking back the tears that were threatening to spill. “i told you i was gonna talk to her. you knew i had to,” she finally responded, her voice wavering despite her best efforts to stay hard headed. “but you… you’ve never been patient with me, paige. you came on so strong. you expect me to just—” she stopped herself, shaking her head, exhaling sharply. “you expect too much.”

paige pressed her lips into a thin line, her arms crossing defensively, and her voice dropped. “yeah? well, maybe i expect too much because you made me think i could.”

liana scoffed, her shoulders shifting as she clasped her hands together in her lap, like this were some important board meeting and she were the boss. it felt like it. like she was at the end of the table with the fate of where they went after this in her hands. “i made you think you could? you yourself came in like a wrecking ball from day one. you don’t know how to let shit breathe.“ she chuckled, although it wasn’t funny. nothing about this was funny.

paige’s jaw tightened, her eyes narrowing, but she didn’t fire back immediately. it was like they were both too exhausted to keep going but couldn’t let it end here either.

“you wanna act like this is all on me?” paige asked, her voice quieter now as she looked at liana. she hadn’t been looking her in the eye all night, and it hurt. “i did so much for you, liana. and all i asked for was for you to be real with me.”

“i want to be with you,” liana blurted, her voice barely above a whisper, as if admitting it would somehow make things easier. she looked up, eyes finding her familiar blue ones that looked just sad, but it was buried deep beneath the layers of frustration.

paige sucked in, her arms uncrossing and falling to her sides as she took a small step forward. her expression had softened, and she looked at liana like she was everything she ever wanted, and it was killing her that they couldn’t just figure this out. because unfortunately, that was exactly how she felt. “then why can’t it be that easy?” paige asked, her voice rough, breaking.

“you want everything right now,” liana said, her voice cracking at the end, eyes glossing over. her hands fidgeted in her lap, a sign of her unraveling. “and i don’t know how to give it to you.”

“so what?” paige’s voice broke, filled with a rawness that made liana look up, watching as her tall figure moved to her knees so they could be at eye level. “you’re just gonna push me away instead of tryin’? just gonna let this go?”

liana shook her head, not in any response, but to convince herself this wasn’t happening. it wasn’t that she didn’t care, because she did. too much. it was the fact that tonight had made them both come to terms with everything they’d been avoiding since meeting each other, and it was almost too much to bear.

paige licked her lips as she waited for something—anything from liana. her chest felt heavy, her mind replaying every moment before this—the way liana had looked at her when she saw noami’s name on the phone, the split second of panic she had caught before liana had smoothed her expression. it hadn’t felt right. it hadn’t felt honest. but she wasn’t naive enough to think that she was perfect, she knew the argument had gotten heated and filled with a few unmeaningful words. she knew she could come on too strong sometimes. but the worst part was… she wasn’t even entirely sure she’d overreacted, and she needed more than anything for liana to say something that wasn’t off putting. to say that that it wouldn’t end just like this. because not only would it confirm things, but it would hurt like fuck.

liana stared at her, mumbling a, “i… i don’t know what to say.” her throat was tight, and she could feel the tears welling up, finger gliding just under her waterline to get rid of them.

paige looked at her, eyes pleading, almost begging. “don’t say anything,” she whispered back, her own voice cracking, “just… try. just give us a chance. you can do that.”

liana didn’t know how to give paige exactly what she wanted, not when she wasn’t even sure what she wanted herself. and with a deep breath, the only thing that came out was the one thing she knew she couldn’t take back.

“just go.”

“what?” paige’s voice was low, but there was a tremor in it now, face holding an entirely different expression as her eyebrows furrowed.

barely audible but final, liana let out a, “you should go.”

paige sat there, a little dumbfounded as if she hadn’t even heard it. she searched liana’s face for some sign that this wasn’t real, that she didn’t actually mean it. but it was there—the hesitation, the guilt, and something else. fucking defeat.

the silence between them was unbearable, and paige felt her chest tighten as the reality settled in. this was happening. they had been on the edge, teetering for weeks, and now they were falling. hard.

“really? that’s what you want?” it wasn’t a question she expected an answer to, and yet she still said it, and waited around for a reply. she could already feel the walls coming up, her heart hardening against the hurt that was creeping in. the kind of hurt that made you second-guess everything. made you wonder if you’d ever really known someone at all. liana didn’t say anything, just stared down at her lap, hands clenched tightly together.

running a shaky hand over her face, she sucked in a sharp breath. blonde hair fell messily over her face as she moved around the room, gathering her things—shoes, jacket, keys—each movement more mechanical than the last. it felt surreal, like she was watching herself from outside her own body.

liana still hadn’t said anything. not a word. not a sound.

paige’s jaw clenched, her hands balling into fists as she threw her jacket over her shoulder and walked out of the room, hand lingering on the knob as she slammed it behind her.

it was the kind of pause where she hoped—just for a split second—that maybe liana would say something. stop her. call her back.

but the silence was louder than anything liana could’ve said.

[five-rivers]

Funeral

“I’m sorry,” said Danny, speaking to the headstone in lieu of anything else to talk to.  He certainly wasn’t going to speak to the empty and expectant grave a few feet away.  “I wanted to wait.  I want to wait.  It’s just–”  He cut himself off, curling his hands into fists.  “There are so many things I haven’t seen, haven’t done.  Jazz got married, you know?  She’s pregnant.  If I was– I could have–”

He fell silent and adjusted the collar of his overcoat, trying to keep the frigid Ghost Zone wind away from his currently human neck.  

“Sam and Tucker are thinking about getting married, now that we’ve all graduated,” he said softly.  “I would have liked to see that, too.  And have a career.  Travel.  I know you wanted to do that, too.  But–”  

He broke off as his voice pitched weirdly, too high, too loud.  Sparks jumped off his fists as his emotions rose.  He flickered in and out of sight and tangibility, and his skin started to–

With an effort, he wrenched himself back together.  

“I’m sorry,” he said again.  “This is why I have to go.  I’m too unstable, and it isn’t like you.  I’m not just a danger to myself.”

(A premonition: Disturbed soil, a hand reaching out, a solid body… but there was nothing there now.  The ground was troubled only by slowly growing grass.)

He turned away from Dani’s grave and walked back to the mortuary shrine.  

The wind kicked up again.  There was ice in it.  

A motto was carved above the threshold of the shrine.  It read, LET THE DEAD BURY THEIR OWN DEAD.  Appropriate.  No one fully living would be here tonight.  Sam, Tucker, and Jazz had all wanted to be, just like they had all wanted to be there for Dani, but there were rules about this kind of thing, old rules, and–

Ice feathered out from under his feet.  And it wouldn’t be safe for them.  

The mortuary shrine was cozy on the inside, not at all like a morgue, or an embalmer’s studio.  There were some similarities, overlaps in function, but the shrine was not organized with decaying fleshy bodies in mind.  The central altar, for example, was high off the ground, for ease of access by the celebrants, but it was soft, bed-like, for the sake of the one who’d lie there.  The other altars were filled with other things, like candles, foods, oils and wines, salt, cloth, books, and strange implements Danny couldn’t name.  All things needed for a burial.  

There was other furniture, too, and the associated accouterments.  Elegant ghost lanterns and a fireplace, burning with cold fire.  Lovely chairs and small tables carved from bright wood.  Plush footstools.  Tapestries and curtains, softening the stone walls.  

Three ghosts waited for him there, the proper number for a rite like this.  Frostbite, his horns only inches from the ceiling.  Pandora, who had taken a smaller form for the occasion.  Clockwork, who looked much the same as he always did, except that he wasn’t changing forms, instead wearing a guise of solid middle age.  

(Danny still had to look up at all of them.  He'd managed to catch up to Jazz, but he'd never reached his father's height.)

“You are ready,” said Clockwork.  

It wasn’t really a question, didn't necessarily call for a response, but Danny understood.  This was his last chance to back out without any more consequences than the ones he was currently experiencing.  

But those consequences were bad enough.  He shuddered as intangibility and invisibility rippled through him again, and he just barely kept a grip on his more destructive powers.  

“Yes,” said Danny.  He looked around the shrine, nervous.  He hadn't been here when Dani did this. He didn't know what came next.  Not in any detail.  “Should I change?”

“No,” said Pandora.  “Not unless you feel the need to.  The ritual will be a guide, as it was for your younger sister.”

“Then we shall begin,” said Clockwork.  

Danny nodded.  

Frostbite came forward fist, and leaned all the way down to kiss Danny’s forehead.  “You are dead, Great One, and we will remember you.”

He stepped back, and Pandora took his place.  “You are dead, little warrior, and we will send you on with honor.”  She pressed a kiss to his forehead as well.  

Then, Clockwork came up.  He looked down at Danny for longer than the other two.  “You are dead, Daniel, and the time comes for all the dead to be laid to rest.”

When Clockwork’s lips brushed against Danny’s forehead, he felt the first strands of the ritual wrap around him like silk.  Still thin and tenuous enough that he could break free, but not without damage to both the weaving and himself.  

Frostbite, meanwhile, had turned to one of the lesser altars.  There was a small teapot chilling there, above a braiser of cold fire.  Frostbite poured its contents into a large mug, then added three scoops of shimmery white powder, each from a different small pot, before stirring three times.  

He held the mug out to Danny.  “For your nerves.”

“Is this drugged?” asked Danny, taking the mug.  He kept his tone light.  Considering the parts of this Danny knew were going to happen, that was really the least of his worries.  

“Drugged and poisoned,” said Frostbite.  “We did research into the best way to ritually account for your continued life.  This is it.”

If Danny was younger, he’d ask if it was going to kill him.  He knew better, now, about how durable half-ghosts were.  Memories of long-ago history lessons, of trivia, of drugged drinks and gentle, honored deaths on cold mountains ghosted through Danny’s mind.  But those were children.  

He raised the mug to his lips and took a drink.  It tasted of chocolate, cream, and a bewildering array of spices and herbs, from capsaicin to vanilla to rosemary.  There was also a bitter undertaste, and Danny would have pulled away instinctively, but as soon as he’d started the reflexive motion, Frostbite put a friendly but firm hand on the back of his head, and another on the bottom of the mug, keeping it tilted back.  

(A premonition: Other hands hovered nearby, ready to assist if Danny resisted.  He could feel them.  One over his nose, another stroking his throat, taking advantage of the remaining reflexes of his human body.  But they weren’t there.  Not yet.)

The rites, now started, would not be so easily refused.  

Danny drank deeply, finding a strange sort of enjoyment in the extended physical contact.  He’d been avoiding touch ever since a nasty scare with his ice powers and Sam’s skin.  There had been close calls before that, too, with his newer, more esoteric powers, but until then…

Frostbite tilted Danny’s head all the way back, ensuring the last few drops of the drink fell past Danny’s lips, then pulled the mug away.  Danny licked his teeth and lips, and swallowed one more time.  He didn’t feel anything yet.  

“What next?” he asked, wincing at the edge of power behind the question.  He should probably just.  Not talk.  Especially not with drugs in his system.  

“After a death, the first step is to clean and prepare the body,” said Pandora.  

Of course.  Danny nodded.  The mortuary shrine… wobbled.  

Frostbite swept Danny up into his arms - which would have been more embarrassing if Frostbite wasn’t huge - and carried him to one of the lesser altars.  It was smooth-surfaced and the neighboring, even smaller altars had bars, bottles, jars, basins of water, and washcloths, all arranged to stand at precise angles from one another.  He was laid down on the altar, and Frostbite and Clockwork started to undress him.  

At first, Danny tried to help, peeling out of his overcoat and sweater quickly.  But then, his movements seemed to… blur.  His mind was still sharp, as far as he could tell, but his limbs were becoming clumsy, slow.  

It was Clockwork who untied his boots, and Frostbite who unbuttoned Danny’s shirt.  By the time they got to his underthings, it felt like there was a barrier between him and his body.  Not anything solid, he could still move, still react, but something muffling, slowing.  Frostbite laid him down so that he was flat on his back on the lesser altar.  Clockwork started going through Danny’s hand with a wet, lightly perfumed, comb.  Frostbite, meanwhile, took out a set of dentists tools and eased Danny’s jaw open with one claw.  

Across the room, at the main altar, Pandora laid layer after layer of cloth.  Some of them were patterned, others plain.  Some were thick with embroidery, others were gossamer thin.  Some were edged with beads or woven with gold, others looked tattered, as if they’d been previously used for something else, the scrupulously cleaned.  

Clockwork, done with Danny’s hair for the moment, moved on to his feet.  It was hard to describe the intimacy of being cleaned like this by someone else.  By someone he knew.  He wasn’t a patient, Clockwork wasn’t a nurse.  He wasn’t an infant, and Clockwork wasn’t his parent.  But this was an act of care and love, offered without judgment.  It was also embarrassingly efficient and thorough.  When a body was cleaned, prepared for internment, it wasn't just the normal surfaces that were cleaned, but areas generally considered private.  

As Clockwork moved upwards, the powers that churned along the surface of Danny’s skin quieted.  They did not go silent - they never did, these days - but they were no longer so maddeningly active.  

Finished with Danny's mouth (which now felt much more clean than it ever did after the dentist's) Frostbite moved on to his nails, clipping and cleaning them, smoothing rough edges and cuticles.  Danny tried to be helpful with this, to at least hold his hands in the right way, but the effects of the drugs were progressing.  His movements were slowing, growing smaller.  

He should be panicking.  The loss of control, at least, should bother him, given the constant vigilance his rapidly growing powerset required.  But, as a human, his emotions were still principally dependent on physical systems and chemical reactions.  His heartbeat was slow, and growing slower.  

They turned him over to work on his back, and Danny half-dozed, eyes barely open, as they diligently scrubbed him clean.  

Then, he was on his back again, anointed with oils and perfumes, smokes and incense wafted over him.  Something wet drew a line from his lips to his groin.  

Danny's heart twitched to a stop. 

Blue-white rings flared from his core in an instant, painfully arresting the moment of death, then swept out to Danny's extremities.  He flinched, twisting on the table, onto his side, suddenly able to move again.  Everything was too bright, too loud, too close, too present.  He covered his face with his arms.

The panic he’d missed earlier was in full force now, shining bright and pure and crystalline in the way only ghostly emotions could.  He was in danger.  He was dangerous.  He could feel his powers coiling, ready to strike, whether it be his will or against it.  He fought them, and paid the price, bones and skin going soft, their fine, detailed structures destabilizing, running like wax, like the flesh of a caterpillar in a cocoon.  

A hand scooped through his sticky, melting flesh and pressed a cool, hard, surface to his lips.  He drank.  It was the same thing Frostbite had given him before, but without the bitterness.  With every gulp, the ritual spun onwards, strands thickening, multiplying.  By the time he was finished drinking, his skin was sticky and damp, but solid again underneath that.  

“No poison this time?” he asked.

“Just because you cannot taste it does not mean it isn’t there,” said Frostbite.  “Do you know what separates a medicine from a poison?”

“Dosage?” hazarded Danny.  Jazz was an MD.  He’d picked up a few things.

All three of the older ghosts chuckled.  Frostbite went as far as to ruffle his hair.

“He does learn,” said Clockwork, unzipping Danny’s jumpsuit (it had grown with him) and gently pushing aside Danny’s hands when he moved to help.  

Whatever was in the second drink, if there was anything at all, it didn’t act nearly as quickly as the first.  He could feel so much more, his sense of touch unblunted.  It made the process of Frostbite, Clockwork, and Pandora undressing him all that much more, especially when they chided him (ever so gently) for trying to help them, for doing anything but lying there like a corpse.  

(Deja vu: Rituals as old as humanity, reaching back, reaching forward.  The preparation of the dead, laying them to rest.  The duty of the family, to clean and prepare, to stand watch, sit vigil, to March the wake, to mourn, to celebrate.  The dead did not move to help.  They did not move at all.)

They washed the spaces between his toes and fingers, his teeth, the backs of his eyelids, the insides of his ears, every nook and cranny they had cleaned when he was in human form was cleaned again.  The stickiness from his earlier destabilization was wiped away, replaced with a dry, fresh feeling.  Invisibility and intangibility stopped wisping across his skin, too tightly bound by the ritual to be used even by accident.  

The perfumes they used now were different, they tickled at his brain and core both, summoning feelings of nostalgia, regret, longing, grief, quiet, peace.  They traced symbols in them, in languages Danny didn’t know but could feel the meanings of, of linear past and spreading future, of the pinpoint present, of decay and rot, of the loosening of muscles, of the blurring of boundaries, of reconstruction, of change, of stability, of things remade, of things caught in time forever.  

Frostbite picked him up and brought him to the main altar.  It was soft, piled high with cloth.  They felt cool and silky on Danny’s bare skin and there was a pillow under his head.  Absently, he ran his palm back and forth across the top cloth.  Or, no, not quite the top one.  The main one he was touching was large, large enough to hang off the altar and pool on the ground, but there was a smaller strip of embroidered cloth, almost like a long belt or ribbon, at the height of his biceps.  

There was, he noted, another such ribbon under his ankles, and another under his knees.  He wondered what they were for.  

He didn’t have to wonder for long.  Clockwork picked up the long ends of the ribbon and wound it around his ankles in a complicated fashion.  The twists and turns showed off the intricacy of the abstract embroidery.  He finished it off with a knot that disappeared under the rest of the ribbon.  

The strings of the ritual gathered faster, wound thicker, tighter, with a physical anchor.  

Clockwork moved on to the ribbon at Danny’s ankles.  The weaving was slightly different, but had the same effect. 

He expected the one under his arms to go the same way.  But instead Pandora, Frostbite, and Clockwork gathered flowers from another altar.  They were all black and white, so it took Danny a moment to recognize them.  Lilies, roses, marigolds, carnations, asphodel, nettle, nightshade, poppies, lycoris.  Flowers for death, for funerals, for mourning.  

Clockwork wrapped Danny’s hands around the bouquet, and pressed the ring finger of his left hand against a rose thorn.  A drop of blood welled up.  Blood, not ectoplasm.  Danny stared, surprised.  But he didn’t get to stare long.  Clockwork produced another ribbon, and wrapped it around the flowers and Danny’s wrists.  

Then, he picked up the other ribbon under Danny and tied it around his upper arms and elbows before tucking the ends into the ribbon around Danny’s wrists.  

It all felt very secure.  

Under normal circumstances, Danny would have been able to escape such flimsy restraints in a hummingbird’s heartbeat.  But it wasn’t just the ribbons that held him.  He could still escape, yes, but it would take a great deal of effort.  

He twitched his shoulder, just to check that he could.  The motion was slow, heavy, and smaller than he expected.  

Pandora put a stilling hand on his shoulder and held a coin up in front of his face.  It was large and silver, inscribed with symbols from languages both long dead and never alive.  Danny wondered if they had made it just for this occasion.  

“A last chance,” said Pandora.

His last chance to back out, is what she meant.  To say something.  He could do it.  He could stop the ritual and suffer the consequences.  He could be a danger to everyone around him for the rest of his existence, however long or short that was.  

He gave Pandora the tiniest shake of his head.  She smiled and pressed the coin against his lips.  He opened his mouth, just enough to take the coin.  It fit comfortably on his tongue, in between his teeth but not jostling against them.  If it wasn’t custom made and sized, it might as well have been.  It tasted metallic and sweet, as if, given enough time, it would dissolve on his tongue. 

Pandora took out one more embroidered ribbon and wrapped it around his jaw and the top of his head, holding his mouth closed.  There was enough tension in the ribbon to press, but not enough for its edges to dig into tender flesh.  Taken together, the coin and ribbon made an effective gag.  

His wail was now bound just as effectively as his intangibility and invisibility, as effectively as his tongue and voice.  For the first time since the incompatibility between his powers and his body became clear, the stress of keeping his wail under control was lifted away.

(A possibility, unraveled: Danny standing at the center of a crater made with his own voice.  No, kneeling.  No, weeping, curled on the ground, head touching dirt and fractured concrete.  He knew those buildings, teetering on the edges of new cliffs.  He knew them.)

This was the right decision.  

The three older ghosts busied themselves at the other, smaller altars briefly, allowing Danny to collect himself and sink deeper into that sense of relaxation.  The wail wasn’t the only thing that had been taken off his shoulder.  All his other voice-based powers were similarly locked away, and he hadn’t even noticed losing his shapeshifting, but he couldn’t touch that, either.  

When Pandora stepped back into his field of view, she was holding a mask.  A death mask, more specifically, styled after Danny’s own face.  Frostbite, next to her, held a small, square cloth, like a handkerchief and a small bottle.  

Clockwork reached out and touched Danny’s face, briefly tracing each of his features.  His lips, his nose, his eyebrows.  He slid his fingers down, pressing Danny’s eyelids closed.  The motion was gentle, but held a strange sort of finality.  

Danny found that he could not open his eyes.  

Fabric, soft and smooth, whisper thin, covered his face and was adjusted, straightened.  Something fragrant dampened it from above, near his nose.  More perfume.  He inhaled.  Exhaled.  Stopped.  

Stopped.  

Stopped.

Before he could have any more thoughts about not being able to breathe, the death mask was pressed into place.  The weight of it pressed the thin shroud over his face snugly into his skin.  It made his other limitations - his eyes, his breath, his general immobility - more acceptable, somehow. 

Other talismans were placed on his skin or tucked into the ribbons.  Some, he could identify by touch.  The ticklish barbs of a feather.  The cold roundness of another, smaller coin.  The familiarity of his childhood stuffed bear.  Others, his powers identified for him.  The sparkling wonder of a lunar meteorite.  The shiver of a carved piece of ghost ice.  The thrumming power and glory of a vial of ectoplasm shed by a god Danny had fought and defeated.  He hadn’t known they’d kept that.  

But other things were too strange to identify by touch alone.  He could make guesses.  Maybe that was a flower petal, maybe this other thing was a coil of string, and while he was sure that last was paper, he couldn’t say what was on it.  

With every token placed, another one of his powers was called up and locked away, like bound by like.  His awareness of the stars winking out as the meteorite was placed was sad.  The powers he’d ‘earned’ from that god being placed firmly out of his reach, however, was only a relief.

He was verging on helplessness, now.  Helpless, but unburdened.  

Clockwork started to speak.  None of the words were recognizable, but Danny knew the feeling of a prayer.  This one was old.  Old old.  Old even by the standards of ancient ghosts.  They hummed briefly in his bones before settling in them like lead weights.  Or golden ones.  

The edges of the sheet he was lying on were lifted up and folded over him, then tucked under him.  Wound around him.  It was a winding sheet.  Of course.  Of course.  The next cloth, too, was pulled up and over him, the motion a little more brisk now that the tokens were held in place by the first sheet.  Then, the next.  Cerecloth and cerements.  

Danny twitched a little, at first, at certain unexpected touches, but when the third wrapping added  its comforting, soothing pressure he was reduced (or, perhaps, elevated) to a state of perfect limpness.  

They added more tokens between the third layer and the fourth, but Danny couldn’t even begin to guess what they were.  They were too muffled by layers of silk - those layers being both the literal layers of cloth and the figurative layers of the ritual.  

Clockwork’s prayers were getting harder to hear, but Danny felt like he could recognize some of them, now.  Snippets of Akkadian, Egyptian, Greek, Latin, a word or two off the Oracle Bones.  Prayers for the dead, for their revenge and their remembrance, for their reverence and their reward, for their repose and their return.  

He was wrapped again and again, until the pressure, the gentle rocking motion necessary to wrap him, and the nearly unintelligible rhythm of Clockwork’s prayers threatened to lull him to sleep.  

He could hear snatches of Esperanto, now, and English.  

“... rest, and rest in peace… until waking… to hope… blessing in memory…”

Some parts of it felt familiar.  Others were strange, so strange, but he was bound so securely, now, that he almost felt as if he was floating.  

“... iron and wood, we entrust this most precious… an embrace… the hallowed graves… deliver and defend…”

No, he was floating, sort of.  He’d been lifted up, sheets and all, and now he was being moved sideways.  Sideways, and now down, down, into a snug cavity.  Was he bordered by flowers?  Pillows?  Both?  He couldn’t tell.  

“... into silk… like dust by sunlight into gold… changed… after a long day, to sleep…”

A faint weight draped over him, a final sheet covering him.  He felt, with a strange sense that lay deeper than instinct, further down and closer to his heart and soul, that Pandora, Frostbite, and Clockwork had drawn closer, that they were kneeling beside his casket or coffin, heads bowed.  

“Now we lay thee down to sleep,” whispered Clockwork, words startlingly clear despite his voice being harder to hear than ever, “we pray thy grave thy soul to keep, until thou choose the form thou take, and the hour thou shall wake.”

“And should thou never wake,” whispered - someone.  It was getting harder to tell the muffled voices apart.  “We shall mourn for thy sake.”

Very slowly, the force pushing in and down on Danny increased, deliciously.  It was almost enough.  

(Danny didn’t know where that thought had come from.)

A loud thump shuddered through Danny.  Another.  They were nailing him in.  Another restraint.  Another limitation.  Another step towards the cumulation of the ritual.  Almost.  Almost.  

Thirteen nails sealed Danny into the coffin.  

(He had been snug before.  Now, he wasn’t sure he could have moved even if the ritual hadn’t removed the ability from him.)

(All his powers were bound.  There was no more sense of responsibility keeping him awake.  His body was cocooned in every way possible.  There was no more fear about destabilizing and melting.  None of his choices would change what would happen to him next.  Only a curiosity about what it would feel like to be buried kept him from succumbing to his soul-deep exhaustion then and there.)

Vaguely, ever-so-vaguely, Danny could feel his coffin lifted, moved.  He knew where he was going.  Out of the mortuary shrine, across the lawn, down the rows and rows of graves, and to one grave in particular.  He’d wanted to be buried next to family, and Dani was his only family available.  

They stopped.  He was lowered.  Down.  Down.  Stopped again.  

A chill stole over Danny, like the cool side of a pillow, but all over his body, as if it meant to draw out the last of the warmth of life from his ectoplasm.  Restful.  

The dirt came down in sifted shovelfuls, like rain on a roof, like distant thunder.  And– he did have more powers, either so subtle he didn’t notice them as such or as of yet undiscovered.  These were buried as thoroughly as the others.  

Up and up the dirt piled, until he could barely feel it as it came down.  Until all that was left was the weighty, solid thump of a headstone coming down.  

Then there was nothing.  Nothing but silence, stillness, silk… and sleep.

.

Danny woke with the comfortable confusion of someone who had gotten their blanket wrapped around them unevenly while they slept.  Slow, unhurried, well-rested, but just slightly less cozy than expected.  

He shifted, mumbling and rolling over.  No, that wasn’t any good.  He made a face.  There was something on his face.  He reached up to wipe it off, and the sheets wrapped around him tore like cobwebs.  

That roused him further.  This… he did not think this was his bed.  It was his, but not his bed.

He wiped something thin and crackly off his face and inhaled deeply.  Dust.  Salt.  Dust, salt, and something like decay, but sharper, fresher, cleaner.  

He breathed, remembering.  His mouth tasted like silver and sugar.  His hands quested outward, seeking, seeking, until he found the edges of the space he was in.  

This was his grave.  His coffin.  

It was bigger than he’d imagined.

His eyes opened to a darkness relieved only by his own faint glow.  The many sheets he had been wrapped in had been reduced to fragile scraps, except a very few that remained stubbornly wrapped around his shoulders.  His mask was a thin shell.  The flowers were desiccated, colorless strands and flakes.  The pillows were flat and torn, showing the wooden sides of the coffin in places.  The only token he could see and identify was the plush and pristine form of Neil Bearstrong.  He gathered the toy close, pressing him against his chest.  

He’d made it.  He was awake, aware, and apparently stable, when before he’d been bracing himself for death.  He breathed out, breathed in.  His breath caught in his throat, and he giggled.  

Did that mean Dani had made it, too?

He rolled onto his back and put a hand against the lid of the coffin.  It looked strange there.  Disproportionate.  But of course it did.  His body had just finished reformatting itself into a stable form.  Frostbite had told him that he’d probably look different, maybe even radically different.  Clockwork had even confirmed that medical opinion, from a temporal perspective.

Positives: his hand was a recognizably human hand.  He was awake.  

He didn’t dare turn human - if he even could - until he had Frostbite and the others look him over.  He wouldn’t be able to phase through the Ghost Zone’s soil.  Teleportation was inadvisable while he was this disoriented.  So were portals.  And most powers, really. 

He’d have to dig his way out.  

Bracing himself, making sure his limbs were free of restraint, he drew back his fist to punch the lid.  The dirt would come in fast, and he wasn’t sure how deep he was.  Six feet was traditional, of course, but it was also traditional for the dead to stay that way.  So.  

The lid flew upward under the force of his strike, all the dirt overhead bending away.  He grabbed the edges of the hole and pulled down, widening it enough for him to claw his way out without warping his body.  He… wasn’t quite ready for that, after the whole melting thing.  

He burrowed upward, feeling like something between a worm and a badger, batting away dirt, crawling, squirming, reaching upward.  Despite his best efforts, some of the winding sheets came with him, clinging, slowing his passage.  Still, his hand hit free air.  Grass tickled at his fingers.  He set his palm down on the ground, and pulled.  

The dirt did not want to let him go.  It pulled back, its embrace offering an eternal peace, but Danny was firm, eager to go, to see, to live.  He pushed himself up, and out, then lay, panting, on the ground.  

That had been… more tiring than expected, actually.  

Someone propped him up, large hands bringing him into a sitting position.  “Daniel,” said Clockwork.  A loose and oddly cut robe was wrapped around him.  

“Mm,” said Danny, his voice cracking.  

A cup was raised to his lips.  He drank greedily, the sweet, floral liquid soothing his dry throat.  

“Shall we get you cleaned up?” asked Pandora, another hand, laid on the center of his back.  

“Can you walk?” asked Frostbite.  “Or fly?”

“Yes,” said Danny, hoarsely.  He reached up to put his hand on Clockwork’s shoulder.  It took some to get it there.  It was further away than he’d thought.  

He was smaller than he had been.  Not entirely unexpected.  Returning to one’s appearance at death was, apparently, one of the more common ways for this to go.  But had he really been this small at fourteen?

They did not go to the mortuary shrine, but made their uncertain way to the other shrine in the graveyard: the revival shrine.  The structure was much the same inside and outside, but it had only one altar.  The rest of the space was reserved for a bath, bed, and mirrors.  

Pandora guided him to a chair in front of one of the mirrors.  Danny stared.  He wasn’t much to look at right now, but what he could see of his body… 

It hadn’t been a winding sheet dragging at him as he’d crawled through the dirt.  It had been wings.  He shrugged the loose robe off his shoulders to see them better.  They were patterned with white and black, star and moon shapes on a dark background. He had antennae.  Long, soft, feathery looking things curving up and back from his temples.  

Clockwork brought a damp cloth to his face and, slowly, began to clean away the dirt.  

“Surprised?” asked Clockwork.  

“Are you?” 

Clockwork chuckled.  

“Did Dani– Is Dani–?”

“She woke seventeen years ago,” said Clockwork.  “She is quite smug about technically being older than you in terms of lived experience.”

“She would be,” said Danny.  

He pulled away from Clockwork’s ministrations to get another look at the mirror.  He had about the same proportions he did when he was a teenager, and his hair was as white as it ever was in ghost form, but it sparkled, as if someone had dusted it with silver glitter.  His antennae matched the color pretty well, too.  Star-shaped freckles littered his cheeks, and when he tilted his head this way and that…  There was an effect like a hologram, depending on the light, of a dark or glimmering domino mask around his eyes.  

And, beneath that, his basic features, the structures of his bones…  They looked about the same as they had when he was young.  Except… softer, somehow.  More neutral.  The change, as subtle as it was, gave him a genderless mien.

(The idea of that trend continuing elsewhere on his body didn’t bother him nearly as much as he would have expected before this.)

He wondered what he would look like in human form.  But… later.  Later.  

For now, Pandora was running a tiny brush though the delicate hairs of his antennae, removing irritating bits of soil and grass.  

“In fact,” said Pandora, “I would wager that she will be smug about physically appearing older than you.”

“She looks older than me, too?” asked Danny.  “That’s hardly fair.”

“That is the way of things, I’m afraid.  She hadn’t truly died until she was buried.”  

“But she’s okay?”

“She’s doing very well, last I saw her,” said Frostbite.

“And Jazz?  Sam and Tucker?”

“All fine,” said Clockwork.  “They visit you frequently.”

Pandora did something complicated with telekinesis that pulled most of the dirt from Danny’s skin and left him feeling distinctly fluffed.  The fuzz along the bases and upper edges of his wings stood on end.  He shook himself all over, then plucked the washcloth from Clockwork’s hands so he could clean behind his ears and in-between his toes.  

“Clothes?” asked Clockwork.  

“Cut for wings?” challenged Danny.  

“Of course.”

[diejager]

I really really enjoy your writing so much!! I just wanna request a fluffy force 141 with reader in Christmas please 🥺✨

Mistletoe

Pairing: Task Force 141 x reader

Cw: kissing, teasing, mistletoe, brat!reader, tell me if I missed any. Wc: 993

“Och, would yer look at that, Bonnie.”

You followed his gaze upwards, his blue eyes gleaming with mischievousness when you caught sight of the green and red mistletoe hanging over your heads. Someone had hung one in the arching entrance of the living-room of your farmhouse, one you cohabited with the rest of the Task Force. It was your living arrangement after you’d all confessed your feelings after Soap’s near death, unable to hold back your tears when he woke up and spilling your heart to them.

���A mistletoe,” his grin was big and gleeful, staring down at you with an expectant expression, his lips puckered and cheeks flushed a light pink, “Yer ken what it means?”

You couldn’t help but laugh, a small chuckle slipping from your lips as you stood on your toes, stretching up to meet him halfway. Your face burned, heating up as you pressed your lips against his, the light stubble around his cheeks scratching your face when he cupped the back of your neck, holding you still to deepen the kiss. Your mouth parted when Johnny’s tongue brushed your lower lip, letting him ravage you in a passionate and loving kiss. Curling his tongue around yours in one last embrace, he pulled back, a string connecting you both as you panted, your hands unknowingly finding purchase on his form-fitting shirt.

You jumped when someone coughed behind you, turning your head to look while you still panted, nodded eyes meeting the warm and tired browns of Simon, his adoring squint and curl of his lips at the sight of you both curled around in an embrace.

“Forgot something, lovie?”

“Yeah, ” you smiled softly, beckoning him over with the small pout on your lips. You pressed your back into Johnny’s chest, holding his arms around your waist, “Join us, Si?”

Without a word, he steppe under the mistletoe, interlacing his fingers with Johnny as they held hands on your hips. Simon pressed his lips to Johnny, a slow and sensual kiss that had Johnny relenting to the older man, letting him take it as his pace. You stared up, watching Johnny burn red from the romantically slow peck, his body shuddering against you. You loved how soft Simon was with everyone, his rough and dark countenance smoothing to a mellow and gentle gaze when he stared at you four.

“Didn’t forget about you, pet,” he narrowed his eyes at your cheeky smile, pulling away from the Scott to devour your lips, rough and emotional.

You heard Johnny rumble, a low and amused chuckle at the way Simon turned you into a whining and whimpering mess between them. You clung to him, pulling him closer to you and Johnny while he had his tongue down your throat, tears gleaming under your lashes as the Scott peppered your neck and the back of your ear with quick pecks. You felt warm, a fire brewing in your core, a wild and untamed flame made of brimstone and amber.

“Mistletoe, sir,” you grinned at Price after you tugged him under the same archeway, a small cackle slipping from you when you caught his surprised look, “Means I give you a kiss, yeah?”

His expression softened, his stormy blues gazing at you so lovingly that you almost felt bad for tricking him, but you had to go on with the plan. He lowered himself, head bowing towards you for the kiss you’d promised with the lively mistletoe hanging over your heads. A teasing grin broke through your smile the closer he got, his gruff face and bear-like beard making you giddy, and when he was close enough, you tipped your face left and planted a kiss on cheek.

It showed on his shocked and dumbfounded expression that this wasn’t what he expected when you told him you wanted to kiss him. The scoff he let out sounded offended, glaring down at your bratty laugh, unamused by your little trick to leave him wanting.

“Cheeky one, aren’t you,” it was an affirmation rather than a question, his mouth pulled in a snarl as he caught you in his arms, wrestling you still as he nuzzled your cheek, body flushed against him as he nipped at the sensitive skin of your throat, “You asked for it, sweetheart.”

His rough hair scratched your skin, irritating your neck in the best way possible as his teeth sunk into your shoulder, the sleeve of your ugly, Christmas sweater slipping down to reveal a sliver of skin for his hungry mouth. You laughed and squirmed in his hold, teeth kicking without aim and moaning when he sucked the skin behind your ear, lapping at the same mark Johnny placed an hour before. It added colour to your blossoming mark, your body shuddering against the deep rumble of his chest.

“A brat, yeah, Cap?”

You didn’t hear him walk towards you too, too preoccupied with John’s manhandling, gasping and mewling until your back met Kyle’s chest, his lean figure grasping at your hips and attacking the other side of your neck. Lips wrapped around your nape, coaxing keens out of you as you writhed between them, mouthing off at them for ganging up on you. They only stopped when your eyes rolled back, limply clinging to Price for support as your head laid on Kyle’s shoulder, panting and heaving.

“Not much of a brat now, are they, Kyle?”

“Not anymore.”

No words were needed at the breathless whisper, Kyle reached for Price, their lips locking over your shoulder, putting on a show of devotion and adoration for your tired eyes, mind numbly taking in the softness in their eyes. They were warm around you, one smooth hand and another rough and calloused, a perfect balance of soft and hard, pulling and pushing like a soft wave beaching the sand. Something fluttered in you stomach, an embracing warmth that left you wanting more, desperate for a tasted of love.

“Merry Christmas, doll.”

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