#but I like the idea of them having some sort of Winter Ball

[stevieschrodinger]

Part One Part Six

Steve wakes with a start, yelping and then immediately panicking when the bed covers feel constricting – it passes almost immediately when he realizes where he is and what woke him.

“Hi Eddie,” Steve sighs, blinking the rest of the way awake. He rubs at his crusty eyes, the bedside clock glowing three forty seven at him. Great. “What’s up buddy?”

“Stee,” Eddie says quietly, like he somehow understands the sanctity of the middle of the night, “ow. Dead later,” and then he makes a noise like a fly buzzing. Or a bee. It’s a fair attempt at a gentle ‘bzzzz’ing noise.

Steve sighs, “okay buddy lets go.”

Eddie turns at the top of the stairs and goes down them on his butt, which Steve’s pretty sure he would find amusing if he wasn’t half asleep and half annoyed.

The ground outside is cold enough that Steve hisses when his bare foot hits it, and he does a silly hopping jog to follow Eddie onto the lawn. It is a bee, and it’s moving sluggish and confused on the grass. The weathers getting colder, the time of year plus...probably it’s old?

Steve knows fuck all about bees, but he’s pretty sure individual bees don’t live for that long, and that maybe they sort of hibernate in the winter? Or something? Isn’t that what all of that honey is for?

Maybe they could bring it into the warm and give it some sugar water or something, Steve’s pretty sure he’s heard that from someone, somewhere along the line, “okay little bee guy, here we go.” Steve uses a finger to encourage the fuzzy bee onto his hand.

Steve stands; there’s very faint, and probably first of the year, patches of frost on Eddie’s tent. It hasn’t formed anywhere else, so it’s probably not that bad yet, but still, it’s chilly enough that Steve hops back across the lawn with some urgency.

In the kitchen, Steve says, “here Eddie, you take him,” and transfers the bee into Eddie’s cupped hands. He mixes a tiny mount of sugar water in the bottom of a glass, with no idea at all if it’ll help or not. The bee should probably be asleep, right? Steve can’t remember ever seeing a bee at night, so he assumes they go to bed like sensible bees.

Steve drops a tiny bit of the sugary mixture onto Eddie’s palm, right in front of the bee’s face; he drinks it, so Steve does it again. “Okay, I think we should all try and get some sleep. Eddie, you want to sleep on the couch?”

“Sleep on the couch.”

“Yeah,” Steve rubs his arms, making ‘brrrr’ing noises and generally pretending he’s in arctic conditions. He points to the door, “cold outside. Warm here.”

Eddie cocks his head, but seems to get it, so Steve takes the bee, setting it dead center on a couch cushion, and goes back to bed.

Steve wakes again at a much more normal time; blinking at the nine thirty now on his clock and thinking that is way, way better. He wonders vaguely if the bee lived, but he doubts it. Eddie will probably be sad about it; like the bird.

If that was even sadness; if Eddie even understands the concept of death. Steve has no way to know what Eddie thinks about it.

He heads downstairs; vaguely planning his day. He needs a coffee and some breakfast, then get ready; they probably need some groceries. Working opposite shifts to Robin really sucks; he hasn’t seen her once yet this week. They talk on the phone though, and she swears she's working on Keith. He should check when he goes in later for a day they both have off so they can hang out; if such a thing even exists.

Maybe the kids will come over for a movie night; Steve does now have unfettered access to all the newest releases...and is it sad that Steve’s lonely enough that he wants to invite over that bunch of mongrels? Maybe, he’s not going to think to much about it.

Steve sets the coffee going then heads into the lounge; Eddie’s curled up into a tight ball, his spine bent at a really fucking weird angle and his tail wrapped around himself; Steve knows then that he’s never seen Eddie sleep before, because he’s definitely never seen whatever the hell is happening here. It’s like a cat. Or a snake, maybe. The way he’s all curled up tight on himself; makes Steve’s back hurt just looking at him.

At the other end of the couch is the sad, still, little body of the bee. Steve stares at it, listening to the faint noise from the kitchen; the coffee pot gurgles a little.

Eddie blinks awake, unwrapping himself.

“Morning Eddie.”

“Morning Stee,” Eddie blinks sadly at the bee, and then, very gently, leans over and nudges it with a claw tip, “dead?”

“Yeah buddy, I’m sorry. But at least he was comfortable, right? Warm and...sugared up.”

Eddie hums noncommittally, watching as Steve scoops up the bee and following him into the kitchen. Steve very nearly puts the bee in the trash can, but veers off at the last moment. It feels a little wrong, throwing the little dude out; he also doesn’t know what Eddie would thinks and feels vaguely like Eddie might...judge him.

Steve heads outside and deposits him in a plant pot instead. When he comes back in, Eddie’s raiding the fridge, “pear inied. Grapes inied. Celery inied.”

Steve sighs, “I know buddy, I’m sorry. I’ll go and get more, okay?” Steve goes out to the freezer in the garage and comes back with a whole bag of frozen peas, and that seems to completely make up for it. He pours Eddie a bowl of peas, and himself a bowl of cereal, sticking a spoon in both. He downs the coffee so he doesn’t have to make two trips.

“Couch, TV?”

Eddie nods, following Steve. Eddie turns on the TV since Steve’s hands are full, and they sit side by side on the couch, Eddie very carefully using his spoon.

“Called?”

“It’s a toothbrush.”

Eddie watches from his seat on the floor next to Steve; he’s high enough to easily lean his elbows on the counter top.

“Why?”

And ‘called?�� Steve can handle all day long, but ‘why?’ has rapidly become a tricky thing to navigate.

“To clean.” Steve grins big as he can, clicking his teeth together, “teeth.”

“Teeth,” Eddie snaps back, then turns to the mirror, clicking his teeth at himself. “Eddidie clean teeth?”

Steve snorts a laugh, and Eddie looks at him, tilting his head but smiling too. Steve figures that a solid ninety five percent of the time, Eddie’s just happy to be involved.

“Okay buddy I think I have…” Steve rummages in the cupboard under the sink, “ah ha!”

“Ah ha!”

“Here you go,” Steve unwraps the new toothbrush, really, really fucking glad it’s a different color to his own. “Steve’s is blue, Eddie’s is purple.”

“Purple.”

“You got it buddy,” Steve wets the bristles of both, and then puts the tiniest little dab of toothpaste on Eddie’s before putting the proper amount on his own.

“Here you go.” Steve hands it over, and then Starts brushing his teeth. Eddie holds his own brush, watching Steve closely in the mirror before attempting it himself. His movements are slow and cautious, be he definitely gets the idea.

Steve rinses his brush under the water, leaving it running as Eddie does the same. Eddie has no trouble dropping his toothbrush into the cup next to Steve’s.

Eddie explores the bath next; all this shit must have been here when Eddie spent a night in the tub, but Steve was beaten to hell and still a little fucking high on Russian truth serum when all that was going on, so he honestly doesn’t really remember much of those first couple of days. “Called?”

“Shampoo. It’s to clean hair,” Steve tugs on his hair to demonstrate, “hair.”

“Eddidie clean hair?”

“Uh. I mean, if you want to?”

Eddie gets the cap open, squeezing the bottle carefully and sniffing the hole, “good.”

Steve’s current shampoo smells like apples, and Steve realizes what’s going to happen just as it’s too late to stop Eddie from sticking his tongue out.

Eddie smacks his lips together, looking truly disgusted, “fucking gross.”

“Hey! Language!” Steve takes the bottle from a grinning Eddie. He looks so pleased with himself Steve can’t stay mad, “damn kids,” he sighs. Eddie definitely got that one from Max, the little reprobate. “Okay, if we’re going to do this, in the tub.”

Eddie points, “in?”

“Yup.”

Eddie manages it, hoisting himself up and the flicking his tail and sliding his ass over the edge, “Eddidie in tub.”

“You got it buddy,” Steve takes the shower head down, pointing it away from Eddie while it warms up, then moving it a little onto his tail, “feel okay?”

“Warm,” Eddie reaches out to feel the water, “good.”

“Okay, here we go then.”

Eddie sits patiently, head tilted back as Steve wets his hair down and then adds the shampoo. Eddie’s hair is thick, like, insanely thick, and it takes a bit for Steve to work the lather in. The individual strands are thick too, coarse and a little wiry. The back of Eddie’s scalp feels strange too, like his skull had ridges on it; lines that all join together right at the back of Eddie’s head. You’d never be able to see it through his hair.

Steve goes through half a bottle of conditioner on him, but Eddie sits patiently through all of it, flicking his fingers through the water, even when Steve combs it through and catches on snags, Eddie’s doesn’t complain at all. He tilts his head back easily when Steve directs him to, “okay, nearly finished.”

Once they’re done, Eddie climbs out of the bath and onto a towel, sitting on the floor while Steve dries his hair; he gets the idea and dries his arms and torso himself. Steve’s so used to looking at him that he doesn’t find the lack of belly button and nipples at all odd any more. Just looks normal. Looks like Eddie.

“Okay buddy, just let me grab a shower, and then you can help me write a grocery list,” Eddie follows Steve into the bedroom, watching as Steve grabs clothes before heading for his shower. Steve clicks the lock on just in case; Eddie’s not exactly worked out stuff like boundaries or personal space yet.

When Steve comes out, Eddie’s waiting patiently, sitting on the edge of Steve’s bed, wearing his yellow sweater.

Part Eight

[tomwaterbabies]

disneyland happenings

featuring varian and hugo. since thats what our costumes were

^(us trying to be very spooky) (there is a lot below btw lol)

someone asking if i (dressed as hugo) was from atlantis. surprisingly this only happened once

we went to kingdom hearts mickey first bc that was gonna be a popular one the rest of the night. the idea of varian in kingdom hearts is definitely really funny. i do not go here im just being honest

OH. new addition to the costume. i had olivia with me as a shoulder friend

met bruno from encanto who commented on her. we talked about our rodent friends he was very nice. he said he brought "all 200" of his rats with him and wanted to help feed them and knows mickey is a big mouse so maybe we could ask him. i said we could just steal some food. varian got mad

went over to see sid from toy story because he seemed like a mean little bitch. he was a mean little bitch. i may have said that his creations could use a little work but thats no reason for him to say "your mouse needs a little work" and "i hope you kept the receipt".... cunt

laughing about how mother gothel was no longer part of the characters to meet. "they killed her forever this time" etc etc

watching the parade and varian almost jumping out of his skin when mother gothel was in the parade. her ghost

we went to this thing called villain's grove which was a bunch of light and effects n stuff through their little forest area. it was mostly a cool immersive experience so most of the footage is on the Lights And Effects Themselves but here's a few of us that look cool lol. gay tunnel (maybe not) (that segment was themed after frollo)

met hans from frozen. we absolutely had no clue he was going to be there it was pretty funny. you may guess that my friend @kristoffs-lullaby (varian cosplayer) is a frozen enjoyer. so we hopped in line to see him

hans asked if varian's alchemy balls were some sort of magic or enchantment and you'll Never guess what varian responded with

though explaining its alchemy and science and all that didnt really make him feel better. he even asked if its something that would be in danger of bringing in an "eternal winter". varian did not like that :)

saw dr. doofenshmirtz (?) i didnt watch that show. he was pretty fun to meet though. i know some people dont like his creepy ass design, but i do, its fun and weird to me. he wanted to collaborate with me and varian since we're scientists. really funny to have him say "i'll have my people call your people". a possible strange message that rapunzel will get later /j

also encountered hades. though our friend @iammisswow was with us and so i had him focus on her since shes a big hercules fan. the visual was hugo getting this scary man's attention to be put on someone else by calling her out. it worked obviously. "oh SHE is a HUGE fan of hercules"

madam mim from sword in the stone didnt really have as big of a crowd so we actually talked with her a pretty good amount. shes SO fun. lots of discussion about magic vs science and how she thinks knowledge is stupid. you can imagine how we of all people felt when she said "KNOWLEDGE is not power, MAGIC is power". she also liked olivia (she thought she was a familiar)

meeting judge doom from roger rabbit was kind of scary LOL. very intimidating man. but his area had vats of chemicals and all that so you can imagine we had fun with that. WE can be trusted. obviously.

nervously just nodding our heads as judge doom tells us to come to him if we have any information regarding where "that rabbit is" (we are not doing that)

and also we saw ernesto de la cruz from coco. we were actually able to catch him right as he started performing which is rad but i dont actually have any interactions to tell u about here it was bad ass though

and, unbeknownst to Hugo (as in i also didnt know about this), varian had a surprise for him. he had a whole... horribly genuine and flustery spiel to say about messing around in his lab and all that and made something for hugo. which was a necklace with a piece of colored glass-like material (teal) in the shape of a heart. hugo handled that whole situation really well (lie)

ANYWAYS ! that's it. i've mentioned before but Disneyland Trips will be retired really soon since I'm not too fond of a lot of their wack shit right now, but wanted to share some of the last bit of enjoyable times to be had there before that happens

[impala-dreamer]

Keep Watching

A Supernatural Story

~The journey is a long one and Y/N is tired of waiting for some fun...~

Dean x F!Reader, Sam

1,248 Words

Warnings: NSFW. Masturbation. Voyeurism. Exhibitionism. Poor Sammy...

Impala-Dreamer’s Masterlist  ~  Patreon  ~ Published Works

Another mile marker flew by and Y/N was feeling the hours acutely.

She shuffled around in the backseat, trying to nap, trying to stretch, trying to keep herself from screaming as the hours wore on.

Morning turned to noon and the sun ticked on by, lighting up the crisp winter sky.

Dean was busy tapping his fingers along to Bad Company on the radio and Sam had somehow managed to fall asleep, his flannel balled up and tucked against the window as a pillow.

Y/N could barely sit still let alone fall asleep.

She was bored to pieces.

Every now and then, green eyes would meet hers in the rearview and Dean would smile softly and promise they’d be home soon.

It was a kind of a lie. Kansas was still half a day’s drive away and she was itching to be out of her clothes and into something comfy- like Dean’s bed.

They hadn’t even kissed since they left the Bunker. Too busy with the hunt and never without Sam. She was aching for him and the more she thought about it, the hotter she became. The hotter she became, the less bored she was, conjuring up all sorts of positions that she and Dean might find themselves once they got him.

Before she realized it, Y/N had her hands on her tits, slowly stroking her nipples through her shirt and bra until they were aching and hard. Fingers went along without her conscious mind and she moaned softly as she twisted through the fabrics.

Dean’s eyes flickered up to the mirror and went wide with shock.

“What are you doing?” he whispered, head nodding towards Sam.

She grinned and snared her bottom lip between her teeth. “He’s asleep,” she whispered back, uncaring as she tugged at the hem of her shirt. A flash of skin made Dean’s eyes grow wide and he swallowed hard. “Just drive…”

He shifted in his seat and the leather creaked. “You’re bad,” he mouthed.

Y/N pressed her tongue between her teeth and gave him a look that made his cock twitch.

“You have no idea,” she teased in response, pressing her shoulders against the seat and arching her back. With a quick movement, her shirt was up and gone, laying beside her on the long bench. Her nipples were hard and visible beneath the thin cotton of her gray bra and Dean couldn’t look away. His knuckles blanched on the steering wheel and he cleared his throat roughly.

“Goddamn, baby-”

Her eyes narrowed on his reflection and she sucked her teeth in disapproval. “Be quiet or you’ll wake him up,” she whispered.

Dean noted her librarian-esque tone and visibly shivered. His lips sealed shut and he nodded in reply, silently promising to keep himself silent.

Y/N gave him a wink. “Good boy.”

A lustful flutter of green eyes made the road blur a bit and Dean sucked in a quick breath, steadying the car. As he did, Y/N tugged at the cotton cups and dragged them down, exposing her breasts to the cool air. Her nipples ached and she pinched them hard, moaning just enough to drag Dean’s gaze back to the mirror.

“Fuck.” His lips moved without a sound; his pupils grew wide.

Y/N laughed softly under her breath. “Feels so good, Dean…” She tugged hard again. “Wish I had your lips on me.”

His mouth watered and his jeans grew exceedingly tight.

She hummed. “Love your big, juicy lips…” She palmed her tits and rubbed hard, eyes locked on his reflection. “Running all over my body…” Her hips rolled and she slumped down a bit. “Sucking hard… bruising me…”

Dean licked his lips automatically and peeked over his shoulder at her. She spread her legs wide and his balls ached. “Killin’ me,” he hissed.

Beside him, Sam stirred and Y/N cocked a brow.

“Be quiet and drive,” she warned, “or the show’s over.”

Dean’s head snapped back to center and he squirmed in his seat, his hands sliding over the worn wheel trying to find a comfortable spot. His body was buzzing, his attention constantly drawn to the rearview mirror.

He took a deep breath to calm himself, but Y/N wouldn’t allow it. She dropped one hand down her belly and popped the button on her jeans. The sound made Dean’s hips jerk forward and he exhaled a heavy but quiet groan.

“Keep watching, Dean,” she urged, slowly sliding her zipper down.

Green flashed in the mirror and he swallowed back a louder moan. “Dammit,” he breathed.

Y/N snagged the corner of her mouth under her right canine and slid her hand down into her jeans. She pressed her fingers against her damp panties and gasped. “Fuck.”

The car swerved an inch over the center line and Dean gave himself a little shake.

“Careful…” The caution in her voice was quickly pushed aside by pleasure and she huffed in a breath. She stared at the back of his head, at the soft flesh of his neck, the thickness of his shoulders. “God, I want you so much.” She snuck her fingers into her panties and tapped hard on her clit. Sparks erupted, flooding her system with lust. “Need to fuck you so bad, Dean…”

Right hand on the wheel, Dean adjusted himself with the left, pulling at his jeans, desperate for some room.

Y/N’s desperate but gentle moan hit his ears and he pushed his palm down over his erection, willing it to go away.

It refused.

He bit down hard on his bottom lip. Closed his eyes for a split second. Took a deep breath.

Y/N pushed a finger into her cunt and let out a noise that had Dean so wound up that he nearly drove into oncoming traffic.

“Jesus!” he grit, gripping the wheel tighter than ever.

Behind him, the leather was squeaking, springs bouncing as Y/N fucked herself in full view of Dean and the world beyond the old windows. He could tell she was close. He could hear it in the clipped breaths she took, in the way she choked on the air. He pushed down on his jeans again and rubbed quickly, just enough to push out a dribble of precum. The mess soaked into the denim and he looked up into the mirror.

Their eyes locked and Y/N’s jaw dropped in a soundless cry as she came; body jerking and eyes rolling back as the orgasm shot through her. It was quick and hard, spreading quickly through her.

Dean couldn’t keep himself quiet any longer and let out a rather loud “fuck”.

Next to him, Sam groaned in annoyance and lifted his head off of his makeshift pillow.

“Ya know,” he snit, “you could wait until we’re home.”

Y/N jolted upright and grabbed for her shirt, covering up in a flash.

Sam growled. “Or at least until I’m not sitting right here!”

Dean cleared his throat and shrugged at his brother. “Sometimes, ya just can’t wait, Sammy.”

Y/N gave a shy smile when Sam glared her way. “I was bored?”

Sam rolled his eyes and punched his flannel back into a ball. “You two are disgusting.” With a huff, he curled back towards the window and shut his eyes. “So gross.”

Dean and Y/N met once more in the rearview and he gave her a wink. “We’ll be home soon,” he lied again, “I promise.”

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[bg3daydream]

Rumors and Facts 3/3 (Solavellan Fanfiction)

Solas x Female Inquisitor Lavellan Fanfiction.

Summary: +18 (Rated explicit) Lavellan is tired of the rumors that she hears around Skyhold regarding her relationship with Solas, and with all the gossip surrounding her at the Winter Palace. It's nobody's busiess, and besides, she's done hiding.

There's 3 chapters, with chapters 1 and 3 containing smut, and there's fluff through the whole fic. Chapter 1 is set in Skyhold and chapters 2 and 3 are set in the Winter Palace.

Find chapter 1 and chapter 2 Masterlist of my fics / AO3

It was late at night when the ball was finally over. Most nobles left on their carriages but some important diplomats and the royal family would stay at the palace for the night. 

After the night events and the Inquisition’s work and help, they’d been invited to stay at the palace for the night, and they'd begin their journey back to Skyhold in the early morning. It'd take them days to reach it. 

As she’d planned, Lavellan walked with Solas into the room arranged for her. She’d thought he might say something about the Inquisitor keeping appearances, but he didn’t, taking the hand that she offered and walking with her into the room.

The only ones who saw them were a couple of elven servants anyway, and Lavellan thought that, after that night, she might have won their favor enough for them not to tell the Orlesian nobles about this.

Once the big doors of the room were closed, Lavellan turned around to wrap her arms around Solas’ shoulders and kiss his lips softly.

“We survived the night,” she said and Solas nodded with a small smile. “And some nobles even liked me.” She was still bewildered by it.

“I know you do not like it, but you played their Game nicely, vhenan.” Lavellan knew it was something good but still, she wasn't sure how she felt about it. “You won their support and their respect.”

“Let's hope it was worth it,” she sighed. She didn't want to think about it anymore. 

Lavellan reached to remove the hat that Solas had been wearing that night. He’d explained why and what it was when she’d asked, confused, but she doubted any orlesian had actually caught Solas’ jab, not that she’d say that to Solas. He probably was aware anyway and didn’t care.

She left the hat on top of a truck and then tugged at her high gloves to take them off, eager to be free of the uniform after the long night. Solas helped her slide the long gloves down her arms and hands, placing a kiss at the back of each hand as he freed them, and Lavellan couldn’t stop her smile at it.

She sat down on the truck to unbuckle and take off her high boots, while Solas watched her in silence. She felt some nervous yet excited twirls in her belly at the idea of undressing there in front of him. 

“Help me out of this,” she said as she got back up and unbuckled her leather belt, leaving it on top of the truck next to Solas’ hat.

She undid the knot on the blue, silky cloth that wrapped around her waist and shoulder like some sort of formal sash, and Solas helped her to unpin it and unwrap it from her body, dropping it next to her belt.

Solas reached for her jacket but stopped to remove his own gloves first, throwing them with the rest of the clothes.  Then, he began unbuttoning Lavellan’s uniform jacket. Once it was open, Lavellan took it off, throwing it to the quickly forming pile of clothes on top of the truck.

She was now wearing only her undershirt and the leather pants of the uniform. Lavellan took those off next, sliding them down her legs as gracefully as she could, conscious that Solas was watching her, and she threw them to the truck.

“Much better,” she said, her heart picking up its beat under Solas’ gaze.

He was still silent, and he reached for her thighs under the hem of her shirt, sliding his hands to her ass and quickly pulling her close to him to kiss her. Lavallen let out a sound of surprise against his lips at it, which turned into a moan when Solas grabbed her ass more firmly, pressing her hips to his.

Lavellan pulled back from the kiss and began to undo the buttons of Solas’ jacket until she could open it, and Solas helped her to take it off him, not caring where she threw it.

Once the jacket was out of the way, Lavellan kissed Solas’ lips softly before moving to place kisses along his jaw and neck. Whispering her name, Solas tilted his head for her to keep going, holding her to him with his hands on her hips. After a few more kisses across his neck, Solas leaned to claim her mouth again.

As they kissed, Lavellan slid a hand down Solas’ body, feeling his warmth under his shirt. She reached the waistband of his trousers and slipped her hand under it, pausing for a moment, but when Solas didn’t stop her, she kept going, reaching his already hardening cock. She wrapped her hand around it and Solas pulled back from the kiss to take in a sharp breath.

“Is this okay?” Lavellan asked and Solas nodded. The way he was looking at her, eyes dark with hunger and desire, ignited a fire in her lower belly. He was not stopping and pulling back this time, and it made her dizzy with want.

Lavellan slid her hand up and down his cock, stroking the length of him, and Solas shuddered, letting out a broken moan and kissing her deeply, almost making her lose her balance before she repositioned herself so she could keep going.

She tugged at his trousers and pants with her other hand to try to push them down his thighs for better access, and Solas let go of her hips to help her. The trousers fell down his thighs, getting trapped by his high boots, but neither of them made a move to take them off any further.

Lavellan went back to stroking him, feeling him twitch in her hand as he gasped. Solas’ hands fled again to her hips, his fingers digging into her flesh she kept going, and he kissed her deeply again.

Her touch was gentle at first but soon she picked her pace, and she felt herself getting wetter with each quiet moan that she drew out of him, like music to her ears, with each gasp and whispered ‘vhenan’ along with her name.

She wondered about making him finish like that or dropping to her knees and taking him into her mouth instead, but Solas stopped her before she could do either of those. His hand stilled hers and he pulled back from the kiss, breathing hard and leaning his forehead against hers.

“Ma’arlath, are you okay?” She whispered.

Solas’ forehead nudged hers as he nodded, silent and seemingly still trying to catch his breath. Lavellan reached to caress his head softly and Solas sighed, leaning into her and holding her close, almost as if he were melting into her.

Lavellan tugged at his shirt, silently asking him to take it off, and Solas complied, throwing it carelessly to the floor before he reached to take off his boots too, and he stepped out of his trousers.

Lavellan looked at him, naked in front of her, her desire growing. She placed her hands on his abdomen and slid them up his body, stroking warm skin and strong muscles, until she reached his shoulders, and she leaned to kiss his lips, pressing her body against his. 

Solas’ hands went to her ass, holding her to him, and he walked her backward until her legs hit the bed.  Lavellan sat down on it, scooting back until she reached the pillow. She was still wearing her undershirt and she removed it then, tossing it on the bed. She felt even warmer at the way Solas’ eyes roamed her naked body, with desire and hunger clear in them.

She lay down on the bed, reaching a hand to beckon Solas close, and he followed her, moving between her legs as she opened them for him, and leaning down to kiss her lips. Lavellan held to his shoulders, sighing into his mouth when she felt his hand caressing down her body, stopping at his thigh and grabbing it.

Lavellan wrapped her arms around him, pulling his body closer to hers and lifting her hips to brush her aching core against him. Solas’ breath caught on his throat but he pulled back, untangling her arms from him and looking down at her naked body.

His hands followed the trail of his eyes. He caressed his way to her chest, his fingers brushing her nipples, and when he cupped her breasts, Lavellan couldn’t help but arch her back to press them against his palms.

Solas kneaded her breast and then kept caressing her body until he reached her small clothes that still covered her sex. He hooked his fingers on the waistband and looked at Lavellan, so she lifted her hips for him to take them off. He did so, sneaking a kiss to her thigh, sucking on her flesh, smirking when it made Lavellan gasp and twitch.

Solas let go of her thigh and moved above her again. He gave her lips a brief kiss and then he began to move down her body. He kissed her jaw, a spot behind her ear, then the length of her neck, eliciting a sigh from her lips, that turned into a soft moan when he sucked on her flesh.

He kissed a path across her collarbone next, and kept going down, mouthing at her breasts. His tongue brushed over her nipple before sucking it into his mouth and Lavellan moaned, arching into him. Solas released her nipple and kept kissing down her body, trailing a path to her belly, and as he approached her core, Lavellan’s hips rocked with anticipation.

Solas moved lower on the bed until he was lying between her thighs, his face above her sex, so close that Lavellan could feel his warm breath over it, making her squirm and rock her hips again. He hooked his arms under her thighs, grabbing the side of her ass and lifting her hips closer as he lowered his mouth to her.

His tongue licked her wet folds slowly, almost as if he were taking his time to savor her, and Lavellan took in a sharp, shaky breath that turned into a soft moan when he circled her clit. His tongue kept caressing her nub, slowly and gently first, then picking his pace as soft moans fell from her lips. When he sucked it into his mouth, Lavellan moaned his name as her hips jerked and her hand flew to his head.

Solas didn’t seem to mind her hands pushing him into her, and he held her thighs open as he kept going. One of his hands caressed up her inner thigh until he reached her entrance and he slowly pushed a finger into her, making her gasp and moan. 

As her hips began to rock on his finger, Solas slipped in another, curling them up as he sucked on her clit, and Lavellan cried out, pushing his face closer with her hand on his head. Solas moaned into her and his tongue flicked her clit quickly as he sucked on it, so all she could do was moan and gasp for air.

“Solas…I…” Lavellan panted, trying to say she’d come if he kept going like that, which only seemed to spur him on, and he kept going until she was a panting, moaning mess, until she reached her climax, crying out as she came.

Her back arched and her thighs clamped around his head. Solas kept going as she rode her pleasure, slowing down when she began to relax, her moans turning into pants and her quivering thighs falling open.

Lavellan’s eyes were closed as she tried to catch her breath, still feeling the aftershocks of her pleasure, and she absentmindedly caressed Solas’ head. He was massaging her thighs gently, pulling back to look at her. She opened her eyes and the intensity with which he was looking at her made her feel flutters in her belly again.

“Come here, my love,” she whispered, cupping his face with one hand and reaching her other to him.

Solas nuzzled her thigh before he let go of it, and then he took his time to kiss a path up Lavellan’s body, making her smile and sigh in delight again. He hovered over her, smiling down at her in a way that made Lavellan’s heart flutter before he leaned down to capture her lips with his.

Their kisses were soft at first, sweet, but soon turned heated, and Lavellan felt her desire igniting again, her arousal growing whenever she felt his erection pressing against her as they kissed.

Lavellan slid her hand down Solas’ body, feeling him sigh into her mouth as she caressed his skin, going down until she could stroke the length of his member. Solas took in a shaky breath, pulling back from her lips. 

She stroke him once more before she let go of him to instead place her palms on his shoulders, pushing gently but firmly to make him roll onto his back, and Solas complied, dragging her with him with his hands on her hips, so she was straddling him while he lay on his back.

Solas looked at her above him, running his hands up and down her thighs and across her sides, up to cup her breasts and down to her hips again. His hungry eyes were drinking in her naked body in a way that made Lavellan feel like her skin was on fire, while his touch seemed to send electricity through her body.

Her hands were on his abdomen and she slid them down to his chest, feeling his heart beating fast as her own, then she kept going until she placed her hands at the sides of his head, leaning over him to kiss him. As they kissed, his hands caressed their way from her thighs to her ass, which Lavellan’d noticed by now how it seemed to be their preferred place, not that she’d complain.

Still kissing him, Lavellan reached down and between their bodies, taking hold of his member again and positioning herself in a way that she could rub him along her wet folds, shivering at the feeling, and Solas broke the kiss with a moan.

“Vhenan,” he breathed out in a shaky whisper when she rocked to brush against him again and again, her wetness coating his cock as she rubbed it along her folds.

Solas squirmed under her, his hips lifting to meet her as if he couldn’t help it, and his hands grabbed her ass more firmly, his fingers digging into her flesh. His desire for her ignited hers even more.

Lavellan lined him with her and slowly, she sank down into him, taking him in. She gasped for air, eyes closing as she moaned. She heard Solas’ moan too, in a way that made a shiver of pleasure run across her body, starting in her center where they were joined. 

She didn’t move at first, getting used to the feeling of him, savoring it. She felt him twitch and take in a shaky breath, but Solas didn’t urge her, didn’t move either. His hands moved from her ass to caress her thighs again, her hips, the sides of her body, the curve of her breasts, and Lavellan hummed at the feeling.

Soon, Lavellan began moving, rocking her hips slowly at first, enjoying the feeling of his cock sliding in and out of her. The sounds she was dragging out of him as she moved spurred her on and her hips picked their peace. She leaned down until she could kiss him, moaning into his mouth, and Solas wrapped an arm around her, pushing her body to hers, while his other hand went back to grab her ass.

The pleasure was building up with every drag of her hips, and Lavellan began moving faster, sitting back again and placing her hands on his chest to steady herself, moaning as she rode him.

His hands were on her hips, just holding to her, not trying to guide her movements or set her pace, but when she stopped for a moment with her cock buried inside her and her thighs quivering, Solas couldn’t help but push her hips down even closer to him. Lavellan cried out, grounding down on him and stilling for a moment, her head tilting back.

Solas sat up then, wrapping his arms around her to hold her to him and keep her on his lap. He buried his face on her neck, nuzzling and kissing her skin, and Lavellan’s hips began to rock again.

He trailed a path of kisses down her neckline, reaching her breasts, placing open-mouthed kisses over them. He took one of her nipples into his mouth, sucking gently, then caressing it with his tongue.  Lavellan moaned, placing a hand at the back of his head, holding him to her as she rocked her hips slowly. 

Solas buried his head in her chest, panting against her skin. He'd wrapped his arms tighter around her and he rolled them to lie her on her back with him above her. He leaned to kiss her deeply as he buried himself deep inside her again.  Lavellan moaned, arching into him and feeling Solas taking a sharp breath against her lips when she wrapped her legs around his hips, pushing him even closer. 

Solas kept kissing her as he moved, his hips thrusting into her rhythmically. His lips brushed from hers to her jaw, down to her neck.  The feeling of him panting against the skin of her neck, kissing it, his grunts and gasps in her ear, her whispered name falling from his lips, it all drove her crazy, heightening her pleasure.

Lavellan held to his shoulders, and her thighs pressed against his sides as her legs pushed him even deeper, moaning as his pace quickened.  

“Vhenan…” He moaned, claiming her mouth again, losing his rhythm for a moment.

Solas placed an arm next to her head, resting his weight on it so he could slide a hand down her body until his fingers reached her clit, rubbing it in deep circles. Lavellan cried out, her body jerking at the feeling, and she clutched at his shoulders, her fingers digging into his flesh, while her legs wrapped around him even tighter.

She couldn’t help her moans, her pleasure building up quickly with every deep thrust of his hips and every pass of his fingers over her clit, until she exploded. Lavellan cried out, holding Solas tighter to her, pushing him deep into her and keeping him there while her body shook as she came.

Solas moaned and groaned as she clenched around him, thrusting quickly and deeply inside her a few times more before he joined her in her pleasure. He buried his face on her neck, grunting and moaning as he came, his hips jerking with his release before he stilled.

Lavellan’s legs unwrapped from around him, falling to the sides of his body, exhausted. She shivered and sighed at the feeling of Solas’ breath on her neck as he panted and gasped, trying to catch his breath, while he let his body fall on top of hers.

She kept her arms around him, holding her to him, lifting one of her hands to caress his scalp. “Ma’arlath,” she cooed, her voice shaky and out of breath, and she leaned to kiss the top of his head.

Solas lifted his head from her neck and Lavellan felt her heart fluttering at the way he was looking at her, as if she was something precious to be cherished. “Ar lath ma, vhenan,” he whispered before he leaned to kiss her lips, and her words made Lavellan feel butterflies dancing in her belly just like the first time he told them to her.

Solas kissed her for a while, soft and sweet, unhurried, making Lavellan feel like she was melting, and she felt like she could spend the whole night like that, but eventually, Solas pulled back. He unwrapped her arms from around him and sat back on his heels, looking to the side.

Lavellan reached for him, fearing that this might be the moment when Solas decided to pull back from her and leave. “Don’t leave…” She asked, her voice small.

Solas took her hand and brought it to his lips, kissing the spot of the anchor. “I’m not leaving,” he reassured her, kissing her hand again for good measure, before he let go of it and moved to get up from the bed.

There’s a basin on top of a dresser, along with a pitcher of water and a small towel, for the Inquisitor’s morning ablutions. Solas poured the water into the basin and took it with him back to the bed, along with the towel, setting it on the bedside table.

Lavellan’d sat up on the bed to watch Solas, and he knelt next to her, pressing a quick kiss to her lips. “Lie down, my heart,” he told her softly. He sent a pulse of magic into the water to warm it and then dipped one end of the tower into it.

After wringing the towel, he brushed it gently across her inner thighs and between her legs, carefully cleaning her. Once he was content with it, he cleaned himself too, then used the dry end of the towel to dry their damp skin.

Once that was taken care of, Lavellan pulled at the sheets of the bed until she could get inside, and held them open for Solas, who climbed into the bed next to her. Lavellan moved to curl up to his side, resting one arm across his body to hold him and placing her head on his chest, which rose and fell with a content sigh as Solas wrapped his arms around her, holding her to him.

“Good night, my love, enjoy the Fade,” she whispered, and Solas pressed a kiss to the top of her head, nuzzling her hair.

“I’ll see you there, vhenan.”

*

Lavellan woke up when the sun was rising, filtering through the big window and hitting her eyes. She knew she should have woken up earlier, the Inquisition was supposed to start the journey back to Skyhold with the sunrise, but she didn’t want to move.

Solas’ back was pressed against her chest, her arms around him holding him close as she curled up with him. He was still asleep and probably still wandering the Fade. 

Lavellan didn’t remember slipping away from it or how it’d happened, but she remembered Solas finding her in her dreams, taking her with him to a castle lost to time but vibrant and alive in the Fade, explaining to her what it’d been while they both walked around it hand in hand.

She knew she should wake him, they had to get up and get ready, they were probably late…but she didn’t want to. She pressed a soft kiss to his shoulder and closed her eyes again, holding him tighter and resting her forehead against his back, and he snuggled back into her but didn't wake.

Not even a moment later, a loud knocking on the wooden door of the room made her open her eyes again, and Solas jerked awake, seeming alarmed for a moment, but relaxing when he realized they were still curled up together in her bed.

“Inquisitor Lavellan?” Came the voice of one of the servants from the other side of the door. “Lady Inquisitor?”

“Yes, yes I’m here,” her voice was raspy and Lavellan cleared her throat.

“Good morning, Lady Lavellan,” the voice said. “Josephine wanted to let you know she’ll be waiting for you with your advisors in the main hall.”

“Oh…okay, alright, thank you.” She was definitely late. “Please, tell her I’m on my way.”

“Of course, Inquisitor. I brought you breakfast, may I come in?”

“No!” Lavellan said it a little louder than she intended, and she hoped she’d locked the door.

“As you prefer, lady Inquisitor, I’ll leave the trail outside the door.”

“Thank you, thank you very much.”

Solas’d been running his hands over her naked body as she talked, and he buried his face on her neck, kissing it, but Lavellan forced herself to pull away and stop him.

“Don’t…we’re already late and I won’t get up if you keep going like that,” she complained, and Solas looked at her with a smile that had her almost taking back her words and forgetting her responsibilities.

“Good morning, vhenan.”

“Good morning, my love.” Lavellan allowed herself a small kiss to his lips before she pulled away, getting up and reaching out a hand to him. “Come on, we better get ready quickly.”

Solas took her hand and got up too, but then he tugged at her to pull her to him, wrapping his arms around her to hold her. Lavellan’s complaint died on her lips when he kissed her forehead sweetly, and she couldn’t help her smile.

“We’re late,” she said again as a reminder to them both. “But…tell me you’re staying in my tent tonight.” Her voice was quiet, uncertain.

Solas cupped her face, stroking her cheek with his thumb. He seemed pensive but he smiled, nodding. “Yes, my heart.”

Lavellan couldn’t help her grin or how her heart seemed to dance. Solas kissed her lips softly and then let go of her so they both could finally start getting ready.

*

When Lavellan walked into the hall, followed by Solas, all her advisors and companions that’d gone with her to the palace were there already. Josephine was talking to people, seeming to be giving indications, while the Iron Bull hovered near her, looking the part of an imposing bodyguard.

Leliana and Cullen were talking, and whatever it was about, Cullen seemed done with it. Lavellan worried it might be something serious, but as she walked near them, she heard that Leliana was telling him about the marriage proposals and invitations the Inquisition was already receiving regarding their commander. Poor Cullen.

When Dorian noticed them entering the hall, he looked at them with a smirk and an arched eyebrow, in a way that Lavellan was sure he knew how their night had gone. “Not a word,” she muttered to him and Dorian chuckled, shrugging innocently.

The Iron Bull noticed them too, and he smirked but didn’t say anything to them, instead, he leaned to whisper something to Josephine, who giggled, but she tried to disguise it as a cough, covering her mouth with her hand.

“Good morning, Inquisitor,” Josephine greeted her, back to her cordial smile and polite tone. "I hope you’ve rested well, I’m sure you were exhausted after the events of last night and there’s a long journey ahead of us.”

“Oh, yes, the events of last night sure exhausted her,” Dorian said, all serious except for a glimmer in his eyes. “I’m sure she slept heavenly.”

“I’m sure there wasn’t much sleeping…” the Iron Bull said, serious and matter of factly, as if he were talking business instead of teasing her, and Josephine cleared her throat while discreetly yet forcefully elbowing him on the ribs.

“How about you, Solas, did you sleep well?” Dorian kept his teasing and Lavellan felt like throwing something at him, it was bad enough he was teasing her, she didn’t want him involving Solas too.

He seemed unbothered, though, and he nodded. “Heavenly indeed,” he said, and he may appear cold and collected, but Lavellan felt a bit flustered by his words.

“Please, if I may have your attention,” Josephine redirected them back to business. “Everything is ready and it’s past time we left, so please follow me as we go to give our formal goodbyes.”

Everyone nodded, glad to have Josephine navigating them again through more of the Palace’s customs and etiquette.

*

Later that day, as they journeyed back to Skyhold, Lavellan rode her horse next to Solas’, keeping close to him, unbothered by who might see them and what they might think. 

Her relationship with Solas was worth more than the Inquisitor’s good name, which shouldn’t hold on whom she loved anyway, and she was not going to hide.  People could gossip and talk whatever they wanted. She had Solas’ love and her companions' friendship and support, and that was all that mattered to Lavellan anymore.

It might be crazy, with the big holes in the sky dropping demons, and with cultists and Corypheus trying to kill her, but in moments like this, Lavellan felt content, happy, and perhaps everything that had happened to her was worthy, if only for this.

*

NA:

I worked hard on this fic, it was out of my comfort zone, and I hope some of you can enjoy it, please check the other chapters if you missed them and thanks for taking the time to read this.

If you liked it, please let me know in a comment, and as always, reblogs are more than welcome.

I'm not usually a smut writer, it's not my thing, I'm usually a fluff, hurt/comfort person, but I don't know what Solavellan has done to me.

I know it was not written as safe sex and I apologize for it, imagine that it was, through magic or something, I'm not totally sure of how safe sex works in Thedas. I do know that there are contraceptive herbs, so feel free to imagine Josephine placing on the Inquisitor's breakfast trail, the old contraceptive tea used in almost every fantasy setting.

I hope they can have their happy ending, but I'll have to write it if they don't.

Excuse my English, it’s not my first language.

[theladyofbloodshed]

Hello!! I've seen your post about having a lot of prompts already but I needed to get this thought out of my head and I love your fics so... (tw for rape and pregnancy) idk if the timeline of acotar even works for this idea but imagine if nesta didn't get away from Tomas and when feyre and the ic come to nesta and Elain, Nesta's pregnant and showing. She refused to marry Tomas or anyone even if it would save her reputation. I'm just thinking of how it would change the mood of the ic meeting her for the first time. and also obvs change canon afterwards in some form.

Okay you brought me out of fic retirement with this idea, so thank you!

I went a slightly different route of Nesta already having a baby when they meet. 5000k words below the cut.

MAMA NESTA

An adolescence of poverty meant that Nesta found nothing odd in a missed cycle. By the second month of its absence, she found her hand drawn to her abdomen in abject fear. The thought of a child there – his child – repulsed her. On the third month, there was no denying the fact that she was with child although Nesta did in fact deny it. She deluded herself every morning as she dressed that if she did not think about it then it would not grow roots. It was the monster the corner of her vision that she refused to look at.

With Feyre’s brief return, the house was in chaos. Father’s insistence to throw a ball meant Nesta had frequent excuses to go into town to try and find an apothecary that might remove her problem. Asking for such a thing was impossible though when they lived in such a small place. Word would travel. And if Nesta claimed it was not for her then who else? Elain? Both of their reputations would be in tatters. She couldn't do that to her sister.

When her youngest sister returned to the land of faeries, Nesta could disguise her unwelcomed morning sickness as nerves for her wayward sibling’s wellbeing. And when her gowns grew tight around her stomach, she borrowed Elain’s floatier ones despite the ghastly colours, claiming the summer heat was stifling.

By September, Nesta could no longer hide her changing body from her family. The servants kept silent, likely due to a hefty purse from Father. He, of course, made no secret of his displeasure. She had removed herself from the trading table and due to her silence, she could not be hurriedly married off with a poor, unsuspecting man to raise the child as his own. How dare she ruin her value. Elain had fears for her engagement to Graysen – as though Nesta’s scandal would rub off on her. Plans were made to hurry their marriage despite the protests from his mother that Elain was a pretty girl but not good enough for her only son.

Books, which had always been a steadfast companion in her life, became her only comfort. It was claimed that Nesta had gone to visit a lost relative over the autumn and winter to give a reason for her absence from society. She remained indoors, haunting the top floor of the home like a ghost. The winter was bitter enough to not miss the outside air, but Nesta missed her sister. Elain withdrew from her, scared that a baby might grow in her own womb from contact with Nesta. So, books were her only company day by day.

Father had made arrangements. A healer who lived almost four hours away had been brought to the home in preparation for the birth. In his village, there was a couple who were unable to have their own children. She was glad for it. Nesta was not the mothering sort. Her own mother and grandmother had proved that the Archerons were not maternal. It would be a condemnation for both of them to remain together. The baby would return with the healer and Nesta could rejoin society in the spring with her dignity still intact. The pool for marriage would be somewhat diminished, but what did Nesta care? She never wanted a man to touch her again. If she spent her life as an old spinster, it would not be a life wasted.  

But when that bitterly cold night in January came and Nesta heard the boy cry for the first time, her heart shattered. She demanded the healer place her son in her arms. When Nesta brought him to her chest and his crying ebbed, she wept. He was perfect. From the crop of dark hair on his head to his ten tiny toes, he was perfect.

He was hers.

Only hers.

Father had been furious. Elain had wept too – not for the boy, but for what it could mean for her engagement to Graysen.

Nesta did not care an ounce. Not when her son was the most precious gift the world could give her.

***

The manor house was grand – as grand as mortal architecture could be. A navy roof swallowed the last of the weak light as the sun set early on the cold March evening. The curtains in the home were drawn with only thin cracks of light seeping out from the edges of the window panes. It paled in comparison to the spiralling towers of the Dawn Court or the homes of the Summer Court that looked as if they were carved from a shell. Not that Cassian would know anymore. After three centuries, there was still a public declaration in the Summer Court that he was a banned entity. It had been a mark of pride that he was the first to earn that title; now, however, it stung.

‘Stop tapping,’ Azriel murmured.

Cassian refrained from rolling his eyes. He was nervous. Rhys was nervous. Feyre was nervous. Azriel was calm and collected, as always. Even being beyond the wall, shielded amongst a thin copse of trees, couldn’t rock Azriel’s steady disposition.

Feyre had insisted that her sister would be able to chase away their household staff, claiming that Elain could convince anyone to do anything. Certainly, Feyre spoke of her middle sister with fondness. She spoke of her sweetness, her gentleness despite their hard upbringing. Indeed, a handful of them had left early, but it was still a waiting game.

‘I hate the mortal lands,’ grumbled Rhys.

‘You needed a place to meet the queens,’ Feyre reminded him. ‘This is the best place.’

‘I’m not entirely sure I want to meet your eldest sister.’

Nesta.

The selfish princess who’d sat idly by while Feyre hunted for them. The sister who’d been prepared to sit at home and preen while Feyre risked her life day after day. If Rhys managed to leash his rage then he’d be impressed. It would likely become a battle ground. When it came to Feyre, they all loved her, all wished they could change the life she’d been given – but for Rhys, it was more. It was difficult not to feel jealous over their mating bond. Although Feyre didn’t realise it yet, she would accept. Why wouldn’t she? He was lucky to call Rhys a brother. Feyre and him would share a beautiful life.

One of the curtains was pulled back and a face peered out as the last of the staff dribbled out of the front door. That was their cue then.

The two sisters welcomed them in a lounge. Welcomed being a generous word. Elain, with her darker hair and pale pink gown, tried to hide her trembling legs and agog eyes. The elder, Nesta, stood ramrod straight as though carved from ice. Her eyes darted frequently towards another doorway as though wanting to bolt, but she remained standing there. There were shadows beneath her eyes, but Cassian doubted she lost any sleep over Feyre.

‘These are my sisters, Nesta and Elain,’ Feyre introduced. ‘This is Rhysand, the high lord of the Night Court.’ Rhys gave a curt bow of the head. ‘And these two are Cassian and Azriel, Illyrians and part of the Night Court.’

‘Thank you for your hospitality and generosity,’ said Rhysand. He tried to smile but there was a strain to it. Elain tried to return it, but also failed.

‘The cook left dinner on the table. We should eat before it goes cold,’ said Nesta. Without waiting for any of them to agree, she strode off through the door behind them towards a cherry wood table where she stood at the head. A claim on her dominance, he supposed. This was her house, her den. Well, if she wanted to play, Cassian would meet her.

Elain took the seat to her sister’s left and trembled like a lamb in it. Feyre took the one on Nesta’s right so they filed in around the sides. The chairs weren’t built for wings. It was a struggle to fold them and try to fit so Cassian ended up perching on an inch of chair while his wings took up the majority of the space.

A spread had been put on, with poached salmon and dill and lemon, whipped potatoes, roast chicken with beets and turnips, a casserole with egg, game mate, and leeks. The three males dug in, used to slop in Illyria. The human food wasn’t bad – but it wasn’t good either. It was dry and lacking the flavours that magic brought with it. Feyre struggled to contain her displeasure.

‘Is there something wrong with our food?’ Nesta’s flat voice cut through the silence.

Feyre forced another mouthful down, gulping loudly. ‘No.’

‘So you can’t eat normal food anymore – or are you too good for it?’

A question and a challenge.

Rhys lay his fork down, ready to spring to Feyre’s defence.

‘I can eat, drink, fuck, and fight just as well as I did before. Better, even.’

Nesta gave a low laugh then stabbed her fork through a potato. Azriel was shifting in his seat, weighing up the opposition. Cassian was trying to hold back his laughter.

Rhys leaned forwards in his seat. ‘If you ever come to Prythian, you will discover why your food tastes so different.’

And this mortal – this insignificant mortal – looked down her nose at a damn high lord. ‘I have little interest in ever setting foot in your land, so I’ll have to take your word on it.’

‘Nesta, please,’ murmured Elain.

Who the fuck did she think she was? Rhys was the most powerful high lord in history. Feyre had saved all of their asses Under the Mountain and paid for it with her life.

He couldn’t stop himself from sneering at her. He knew the type. She thought herself better than all of them because she was born with a silver spoon in her mouth.

Her attention shifted to him. Steely grey eyes pinned him. ‘What are you looking at?’

Brows raised in disbelief, he said, ‘Someone who let her youngest sister risk her life every day in the woods while she did nothing. Someone who let a fourteen-year-old child go out into that forest, so close to the wall.’ He shook his head with disgust. ‘Your sister died – died to save my people. She is willing to do so again to protect you from war. So don’t expect me to sit here with my mouth shut while you sneer at her for a choice she did not get to make – and insult my people in the process.’

The sister didn’t bat an eyelash as she studied him then she turned away, dismissing him entirely because he’d always be a bottom-rung Illyrian bastard to people like her.

Elain swallowed as she looked to him. ‘It… It is very hard, you understand, to accept it.’ The ring on her finger was made of iron. It was a declaration that their kind was not welcome. ‘We are raised this way. We hear stories-’

Her words were cut off by the sudden cry of a baby.

Nesta turned bone white.

Cassian could feel the sudden drumming of her heart, the race of it – the fear.

For a few drawn-out seconds, nobody moved an inch as the baby’s cry rang out throughout the house. Then, with a clatter, Nesta’s chair hit the floor and she rushed from the room.

Her steps hurried up the stairs while they remained in a terse silence.

Elain had turned the colour of a beetroot.

‘A baby,’ Feyre whispered, looking accusingly at her sister.

‘I… I… We don’t speak of him really,’ she stammered out.

‘A baby,’ repeated Feyre. ‘Nesta’s? How old?’

He could feel the heat radiating from Elain’s cheeks.

‘Seven weeks. It’s a… It’s a disaster, Feyre. Father arranged for a healer all the way from Esterin to deliver the boy and there was a couple who would raise him. Nobody would know. Well, you know how Nesta can be. She refused. The moment he was born, she cancelled all plans, said he was her son and she would not give him away.’ Elain shook her head. ‘Father was furious. You know what it could mean for my engagement – for our whole family.’

Feyre sat back in her chair, eyes wide. ‘Nesta is a mother.’

The baby’s cries were slowing. Cassian could only imagine the misery a child would endure at the hands of that iron woman.

‘Father and her haven’t spoken since.’

‘Has he at least held the child? That’s his grandson.’

Elain seemed to shrink.

‘Have you?’

She stuttered again. ‘If Graysen’s family find out, my engagement will be ruined. The best thing I can do is plead ignorance.’

‘But the whole village must be whispering about her.’

Elain shook her head. ‘Father forbade her from leaving the house since the end of summer. We’ve said she’s away visiting family – and well, now she won’t give up the child, Father doesn’t know what to do with her. We had to remove half off the staff whose loyalties weren’t tested.’

‘Nesta hasn’t left the house since summer?’

‘She’s walked the grounds – but it’s too cold now anyway.’

Feyre’s eyebrows pinched together. ‘And she will just stay here? Her and the boy won’t ever leave the house like prisoners?’

Their food was abandoned. Elain still clutched her knife and fork as though needing a weapon against them still. The males knew to remain silent for this conversation.

‘She was pregnant when I came here,’ Feyre said slowly. ‘And the father?’

‘She didn’t speak a word of the baby until he couldn’t be denied. Do you truly think Nesta has uttered one word about the father?’

Feyre exhaled loudly as she slumped further down in the chair. ‘She didn’t speak to any boys in the village except Tomas Mandray.’ She gave a laugh. ‘Nesta wouldn’t sully herself with someone like Tomas.’

The laughter died on her face as she caught Elain’s eye.

‘She came home one day soaked from the rain with a torn dress and hiding her tears. You know what she is like, Feyre. She will not speak unless she wants to. There’s nobody as stubborn.’

‘Why didn’t you tell me?’

Elain made a choking noise. ‘You had gone. We didn’t know where. What was I to do?’

The sounds of Nesta’s steps echoing down the stairs hurried them into silence. They all pointedly avoided looking at Nesta as she entered. Her son was cradled with one arm against her chest. She was clever enough to know that she had been the topic of conversation, but she picked her chair up and settled back in her seat then resumed eating her cold dinner as if nothing had changed.

Cassian couldn’t help wondering how many meals she had eaten this way – a shameful secret bundled in her arms who she clearly loved. The boy was small, legs tucked up and face buried against her neck. Nesta could have had her problem taken away, her reputation could have been salvaged. But she had kept the boy despite the scorn. Despite his father. She kissed him between mouthfuls of food or nuzzled her nose against his dark hair.

‘Write your letter to the queens tonight. Tomorrow, Elain will go to the village to dispatch it. If the queens do come here,’ she said, casting a frozen glare at Cassian, ‘I’d suggest bracing yourselves for prejudices far deeper than ours. And contemplating how you plan to get us all out of this mess should things go sour.’

***

The desire to run wended through Nesta’s veins as their uncomfortable dinner came to an end. Faeries in her home. Near her son. She wanted to run with Oliver as far as her legs would take her to a place far away, where it was safe.

Elain, the wretch, offered tea to their guests though she didn’t know how to light the hob, so it was up to Nesta to boil a kettle with her son balancing against her chest. Those first couple of weeks had been terrifying. He was so small. And she had been so alone. He was still small, but less fragile than she first thought. Nesta wasn’t alone anymore either; she had all she needed. One day, her son would tire of her kisses, but now she could not resist kissing and touching him at every chance.

Her sister appeared in the doorway. Her ears were still a shock. More than that, all of Feyre was different. There was a sharpness to her face; an otherworldly sort of appearance that made Nesta want to look away.

‘Let me take that.’

She remained in the kitchen while Feyre carried the tray of tea, having no desire to be amongst them any longer than necessary. Once, she’d have kept a vigil at Elain’s side as her staunchest protector. Not anymore. Oliver was her priority. It was Oliver that she’d walk through the fires of hell for.

Silent and unnoticed, Feyre returned, making her jump.

‘Sorry.’ She took a step closer. ‘Can I hold him?’

Nesta’s back hit the wall. Her eyes went to Feyre’s ears, long and pointing. ‘You are a faerie.’

‘I’m your sister.’

‘And if you steal my son? Turn him into a changeling?’

Feyre’s face fell. ‘Elain said that she and father haven’t held him.’

‘And what? I was the topic of conversation for dinner?’

The frost grew between them. They had never been close, but last summer there had been a glimpse of what could have been between sisters. A life of misery had stolen it from them.

‘You don’t have to do this alone, Nesta,’ said Feyre softly. ‘I am your sister and I want to help. Maybe – after all of this is done – you could come to Velaris.’ At the curl of Nesta’s top lip, she continued, ‘I have money. Rhys pays me well. I could buy a home for you both somewhere here. You can spin a lie that his father died. That you were married.’

‘I need charity now, do I?’

Feyre retreated a step, hurt flashing across her face.

It was difficult to know which hands were truly reaching out to help. Which hands Nesta could hold onto or which she should slap away.

‘Sit down.’

Feyre regarded the chair for a long moment.

‘He’s fidgety. Sit down.’

Oliver fussed at first. He had never been in another pair of arms except her own – well, and the healer who’d guided him into the world and promptly handed him over before Nesta throttled him.

‘He’s so small,’ whispered Feyre.

‘He did not feel small on the way out of me.’

Her whole body felt like it would break in two. She’d never known a pain like it. And, thankfully, would not again.

When the high lord arrived in the doorway, Nesta took her son upstairs and locked the door. Elain could see them to bedrooms. He would need feeding before sleep. Their routine was coming together and Nesta would rather stick to it than make painful small talk with overgrown faeries while Elain pretended her nephew did not exist.

She thought of Feyre’s words. Not of Velaris, but a place she could call her own where nobody would see her as a scandal-hit unmarried woman. Instead, Nesta would be a tragic young woman whose husband had departed the world too soon. Their lives would be built on lies, but wouldn’t that be better for Oliver rather than condemning the boy for the sin of his mother?

‘You are the most beautiful thing in the world,’ Nesta said as she lay him on her bed. He raised his arms in the air, forming two little fists as he stretched. ‘But if you wake Mama three times again tonight, she’s going to be grumpy in the morning.’

Nesta couldn’t be Mother. She wanted to limit the associations to her own. It was too cold, too formal. She wanted her son to love her, to know that Nesta would always fight for him. She kissed each one of his tiny fingers.   

She lay him in the bassinette which was gifted by one of their servants who had passed it around their family for many years. It showed tell-tale signs of wear, but Nesta was grateful for the gift. Everything that Oliver had was donated by their loyal staff who felt sorry for the boy. Father wouldn’t let her spend a penny otherwise to protect Elain’s reputation.

‘If Graysen hasn’t married her yet, he won’t,’ she said aloud.

His mother remained dragging her feet, nitpicking the arrangements and offering more reasons to delay. If Graysen was the kind man that Elain proclaimed him to be then he would marry her without his mother’s whisperings dissuading him.

‘I will never be so overbearing, I promise,’ Nesta murmured to Oliver.

***

Being beyond the wall for such a length of time had succeeded in making Cassian jittery. He could only imagine how on edge Rhys was in the next room – or maybe not since he’d be sharing with Feyre. From Azriel’s stillness, his brother wasn’t asleep either. Cassian had counted the cracks in the ceiling paint – of which there were few – and began making plans for the snowball fight that would come in nine months since he was still reeling from the defeat in December.

The first time that the baby cried, Cassian lay alert. He counted the cries until Nesta’s feet landed on the floorboards. Five. The bedroom was above his. In the roof.

His opinion of her had shifted radically. To be unmarried with a son was a death sentence in Illyria. Perhaps it was less severe in the mortal lands, but Nesta was now a pariah to society. Feyre had been out of sorts as they wrote the letter to the queens, her mind with the sister prepared to face a lifetime of scorn to raise her son. It would have been easy for her to give away the child and resume a comfortable life. There was something admirable in it.

And as Cassian lay there in the dark, he could not help but think of his own mother, likely as scared and alone as Nesta was. Had she wanted to keep him? Was she relieved when they took him from her – until her own death came? Cassian would never have the chance to know. He didn’t even know her name. Didn’t know if his hazel eyes were shared with her or the unruliness of his hair came from hers.

It was still dark when the boy cried again.

He glanced across the room at Azriel who slept on his side, body rising and falling in a rhythm.

Madness seized Cassian as he padded silently from the room and up the stairs.

His knuckles grazed the door.

The sight that unfolded rendered him frozen.

Nesta’s hair was unbound, falling in a golden ribbon past her waist. Sleep still pinched at her face, making her eyes softer. She wore a cream nightgown with a blue, silken dressing gown over it. A single candle had been lit to cast the room in its glow. The boy was red in the face and held against her.

‘Oh. I thought you’d be Feyre.’

‘Just as beautiful,’ he replied.

She stared at him – and not with any sort of warmth.

With the danger of the door being slammed imminent, Cassian blurted, ‘Do you need help?’

She eyed him then asked, ‘Do you have a pair of breasts he can latch on to? If not, then no.’

The door was closed, but Cassian was faster. His foot jammed it from closing. That didn’t stop Nesta from ramming it at his bare foot a second time, making him wince.

‘Can I help you?’

‘We need nothing.’

Pride was difficult to overcome. He’d seen it enough in Illyria. People who’d rather starve than accept help.

‘What about a warm drink? It’s cold in here,’ he said, noticing that the attic was not particularly welcoming either. Although it was clean, with floral wallpaper adorning the walls, there were few possessions to be seen. There was a chill to the air too from the cold night. ‘Or I can light the fire downstairs and you can sit by it.’

‘There is a reading room at the back of the house.’

Cassian practically ran down the stairs to light the fire then, when the flames were taking to a larger log, he hurried to the stove and lit that too. He found the kettle they’d used yesterday and filled it with enough water for the both of them. He couldn’t say exactly why he was desperate to offer his help – but Cassian had ideas. He had a soft heart when it came to single mothers and bastard boys. She was Feyre’s sister too. And beautiful. In the same way that a venomous snake was beautiful.

They took their tea in silence as the first offerings of dawn slipped into the sky.

‘Why do you sleep in the attic? It’s hardly a place for a baby.’

Nesta cradled her son’s head against her body as she sipped at her tea. ‘When Oliver was born, he would not stop crying. It was colic. Very little sleep. For either of us. It’s quieter for the rest of the house if we’re up there. We’re down to two wake ups during the night. I can only dream of an uninterrupted sleep.’

His anger at Nesta for not doing more for Feyre was shifting to anger against Elain and the Archerons’ father for treating a new mother like a secret.

‘Come to Velaris,’ he said, meaning his words. ‘You will be safe. You’ll have a better life. Both of you.’

Her top lip curled into a sneer. ‘Mortals have never fared well in the lands of the fae. You will take my son. Turn him into something unnatural.’

He’d have laughed if her expression wasn’t so serious.

‘Something unnatural. Something like me, you mean?’

‘You have wings.’

‘True,’ he acknowledged, ‘but this is natural for my people.’

Nesta laughed, but it was bitter. 'You will sweep in and save us? Let us not pretend that a few hours ago you were ready to run me through with a sword to defend by sister's honour.'

Shame burnt through him.

'And now that you know I am a mother to be pitied, you can swallow your anger.'

He averted his eyes when the boy began fussing for a feed. He couldn’t imagine the haughty female he’d met at dinner bearing any skin, but a tired new mother who needed to feed her son did not care if Cassian was perturbed by her bare breast.

‘It is the same every morning,’ she said. ‘He wakes early. Wants to be held for an hour or so then decides he’s hungry and will sleep after.’

‘You don’t have to do it alone,’ he said, tracing the rim of his cup with a finger. ‘You would have Feyre in Velaris. Financial support too. A life without scorn.’

‘Again, we are mortal.’

The silence stretched on as the sky grew lighter. When Oliver was full, she cradled him against herself and rose from the chair.

‘Thank you for the tea.’

‘Nesta, war is coming. I wish we could avoid it, but it is coming. There is no place safer than Velaris.’

‘For you, maybe. Not for someone like me.’

[justporo]

Tokens of Appreciation

Astarion likes to bring you little gifts and presenting them to you in his overly dramatic way and little bit of playful banter (that he totally didn't make all up on his way home to you).

MASTERLIST | AO3

Author's Note: Written for the "Gifts" prompt of the BG3 Winter Holiday challenge. I like the idea of just showering a loved one with random gifts and being like "this made me think of you" - and also I imagine Astarion could be pretty cute and loving in a genuine relationship with doing stuff like this (albeit insufferably sassy, lol)

Pairing: Astarion/GN!Tav (You) Warnings: none Wordcount: 1,1k ~~~

Throughout winter time Astarion brought you presents. Little trinkets or a sweet treats (accompanied by him saying “a treat for my sweet” and a wink while you act like you’re going to have to throw up from his cheesiness), a single blossom of a flower besting the ice and the snow or maybe a bottle of wine the two of you could share together. It almost had the musings of a cat bringing its owner “gifts” - but you were happy that yours were much more delightful than what a feline predator would have brought in. He didn’t tell you where he would get these small tokens of appreciation - and you didn’t ask. That was part of the magic of this little game. Though, you had the distinct feeling that many of these weren’t acquired under explicitly lawfully good circumstances. But to the hells with that, you were a former thief and he a rogue, what else was new?

It had become a habit for him that whenever he went into the city to run some errands that he would grab a little something for you as well. You had dared to become accustomed to the sweet little gestures and were excited anytime you knew he’d return with a little surprise for you.

The vampire meanwhile had found he enjoyed this way of showing you a bit of admiration: a sign of thinking of you, making the time to grab something and show you some love - all without him having to give anything of himself up. Rather, it even gave him something as well: whenever he saw how your face started to beam with love and admiration, your eyes lighting up, he felt how his own chest felt lighter, warmer and a telltale smile stole onto his lips.

A naive fool might’ve called that love. Astarion counted himself among such fools when it came to you - if exclusively so.

And then he made a show of it each time too. Like when he brought you a flower that was magically frozen in a sphere of ice.

Astarion came into the kitchen where you had been preparing some dinner for yourself still fully clothed from going out. The way he’d sauntered into the room had already told you that he had a little something planned and was infinitely proud of himself - he was terribly predictable sometimes.

When he cleared his throat to get your attention you had obediently put down the vegetables you’d been currently cutting and turned around to him, leaning casually against the counter. The vampire had been waiting with a smug grin, his arms still by his sides so the cloak was fully covering his form.

“My sweet darling, I have something for you,” he said and leaned a little closer in a playful sort of way.

You immediately joined his little back and forth that you already were well accustomed to. Placing your hand on your chest as if asking ‘for me?’ you made a delighted “Oh?” and smiled at him.

With a swift movement the vampire sent one side of his cloak flying, revealing his hand under it which held a shiny sphere. Dexterously, he let the perfect, transparent sphere roll over his wrist and down his arm. And just before the ball fell to the ground he let it smoothly wander onto his other arm. With a quick shrug of his shoulder he made the shiny thing roll up and with a flick of his wrist he elegantly caught it and then offered it to you with a little bow.

“May I present to you, my love, a magically frozen blossom. The height of its existence forever caught in magically eternal ice. Beautiful if ice cold - almost like you, my dear,” he presented the gift to you, still in his little bow before you. You could see the twitch of his eyebrows and the corners of his mouth. Must’ve taken him the whole way home to come up with all of this.

You took the shiny sphere from him - immediately intrigued by its beauty and shininess. It was almost as if your history as a thief had permanently altered your brain to be drawn to shiny, glittery things; as if you had become a little magpie.

The sphere was merely cool in your hands, the ice encasing a wonderfully bright red blossom that immediately made you think of summertime. You turned the beautiful trinket in your hands admiring its beauty when, finally, Astarion’s words registered with you.

You pursed your lips and crossed your arms over your chest, still holding onto the icy sphere. The vampire grinned smugly at you - he’d been waiting for this moment.

“Astarion, dear, I did not just hear you call me frigid, did I?,” you had asked indignantly. The vampire grinned broader in response, putting even his fangs on display.

“Maybe I just called you cool, love,” he replied, sauntering over to where you were still leaning against the kitchen counter.

“Or - maybe,” you countered as Astarion leaned to you, placing one of his arms on the counter, “you just called me chilly.”

The vampire clicked his tongue and pouted: “My heart, you think so negatively of me. I would never dare to call you cold to your face.” He tried to stay serious but a smug grin crept onto his lips, making one corner of his mouth twitch. Meanwhile he leaned in a little closer. Seemingly he was convinced he’d soon be the winner of your little banter and would receive a kiss for all his efforts.

You though weren’t done playing.

“I’d hope so, Astarion. I really hope so. Because that would be so rich coming from a walking and talking corpse whose body heat can’t rise above room temperature”, you replied tongue in cheek as you stayed unimpressed by Astarion craning his neck to reach for you for a kiss.

When the vampire took in your words, he was taken aback. He stopped moving in, his eyes widened while his mouth had fallen open. Then his expression immediately changed into an amused and proud grin.

“My gods, dear,” Astarion said with a little chuckle, still grinning proudly at you.

“Alright,” he then said after staring at you for a bit longer, “I guess this burn has just proven that you’re anything but cold.”

You lifted your chin up and grinned triumphantly at him and Astarion quickly stole a little peck on your lips before he went back to the hallway to take off his cloak.

“Good! But if you’re still not convinced I can show you some heat later on”, you shouted after your vampire and were gifted with a genuine laugh.

Tag list: @spacebarbarianweird @sunfire-ancunin @tragedybunny @dependsonthedream @tallymonster @magazzne @micropoe10 @aoirohi @my-bunny-prince @lumienyx @fayeriess @darlingxdragon

[carolperkinsexgirlfriend]

Steddie Upside-Down AU Part 116

Part 1 Part 115

Steve’s counting the days until winter break. Something’s settled within him, now that things have been hashed out with Eddie, and he’s ditched his car and old house key. He wants to go home. But there’s a good week left of pretending to still care about schoolwork along with the rest of the seniors. 

High school, as always, is a powder keg Steve can’t wait to get out of – all it takes is a single lit match and the whole barrel’s going up in flames, taking all nearby bystanders down with it. Steve’s never been good at keeping his distance. 

Carol and Tommy used to be his crutches. They both know how to look out for the striking of the match, when to step back, and when to blow it out. They’d circle him like feral wolves protecting their fresh kill. 

Steve’s always been good at reading people’s moods, but never the room. And now that Carol’s on the fringes of the in-crowd, and Steve’s drop-kicked himself out entirely, all they’ve got left is Tommy, and he’s more likely to be holding the match.

Steve’s dressed down for gym for the first time in weeks, his doctor’s note apparently the only stay of execution he’d receive. He’s excited, is the thing. He’s not even particularly bothered by the looks the other guys are throwing him in the locker room, knows there are scars now that there weren’t the last time he was in here: most notably shiny pink burns speckled across his back.

It doesn’t matter. He wants to move.

Hargrove snorts. “I knew you were into some kinky shit, Harrington,” he drawls from across the locker room. “But this is sick, even for you.” 

Steve pulls his shirt down and slips his shoes on without untying them, ready to get out of there. It doesn’t stop Hargrove from calling after him.

“Is that what you let those freaks do when you were all tied up?”

Steve doesn’t mean to turn back, but he does, confusion taking over his higher brain functions. Hargrove’s smirking, a few of his cronies hanging on to his every word and laughing right along with him.

Hagan’s not laughing. His fists are bunched and he’s glaring at Steve, but Steve still knows him. Tommy has never been an angry guy. The anger’s always been a veneer, spread thin, to cover up something else. His hands are shaking right now, like he’s not sure whether to punch Steve or hug him. He’s sucking on his bottom lip like he wishes it was Steve’s.

Steve turns his back to him, and hears his laugh, a smack of skin. He doesn’t look back. 

There will probably always be a Steve that lives inside of him that misses Tommy Hagan. The same Steve that remembers being small in the backseat of his parent’s car and just wants the idea of them back. But, that’s the Steve of years ago from a simpler, shallower time. The Steve of now has people who love him enough to stay when things get hard.

Would Tommy ever have opened his home to Steve when he got kicked out? Would Tommy have ever walked through hell to get him back?

Soccer’s not a high-contact sport, but Hargrove sure does his best to make it one. 

Basketball skills don’t translate well to it, but there’s a certain level of athleticism that makes most hand-to-eye coordination tenible. None of which explains the way Hargrove’s foot keeps slipping when he tries to kick the ball and bashing into Steve’s shins. 

None of which explains the way his shoulder checks Steve’s with enough force to send him sprawling. Twice. 

And he keeps saying shit.

“I get why you’d let those two redheads fuck with you,” Hargrove calls, looking up and down Steve’s own body like he’s trying to picture something tawdry.  “Hell, Carol’s a tight piece of ass.”

He grins smamirly over at Hagan, either not noticing or simply not caring that Hagan’s face has dropped all its forced joviality. 

“But those kids? My sister?” he continues, still grinning like it’s funny. “What are you, some sort of pedophile?”

“I don’t know your sister, man,” Steve calls, disgust twisting in his stomach, knotting his intestines up in creative bows. 

Steve kick, kick, passes the ball around Hargrove’s weak defense, hoping Hargrove will follow the ball. He doesn’t. 

“Even worse, you let Munson in on that action?” he taunts, staring Steve down. 

Steve looks past him, watching his temporary teammate score an easy goal against a goalie who’s clearly never played a sport in his life. He doesn’t know what Hargrove’s on about, but engaging with vipers never leads anywhere good. 

It doesn’t stop him from spewing more poison. “I always knew you were a freak.” He says it like he’d rather fling a different word that starts with the letter F. 

The teacher blows his whistle at them, shouting complaints about lazing about and lollygagging, so they’re all three forced to run to the other side of the field and catch up with the rest of the game. That doesn’t stop Hargrove from running his mouth. 

“Hell, I heard all sorts of rumors about the three of you, back when you were the king. Carol, Tommy, and Steve, the inseparable trio.” Even through all the monologuing, he doesn’t even have the decency to be out of breath. 

Steve’s lived a far more sedentary life this past year, and he’s panting now, forehead tacky with sweat. But, there’s a certain level of athleticism it takes years to lose, so he still keeps up. 

“I know Carol was Tommy’s girl,” Hargrove continues, lunging around Steve to stop the ball, kicking it from foot to foot with coordinated ease. “But I heard you were taking it just as much as she was.” 

Hargrove feints left, right, scores a goal, running backward to get back on defense without turning his grinning face away from Steve’s. 

“Who would've thought King Steve was a fa–”

Tommy Hagan’s fist interrupts Hargrove’s little speech. It connects with a meaty thwack! with Hargrove’s jaw, hard enough to make his teeth clack together. 

So: powder keg, lit match, ka-boom!

“What the fuck were you just going to call me?” Hagan snarls. 

He swings again until Hargrove rolls them over and starts swinging back. Steve stares, stunned as the teacher blows his whistle and starts running. 

He can almost hear Eddie’s soapbox rant. Something about testosterone, and projection, and the homoeroticism of high school sportsball. 

Both boys are bloody and seething by the time they’re pulled apart and escorted to the principal’s office. 

He intercepts Carol at Barbara’s car after school to tell her what happened, unsurprised when she just laughs. 

“Serves him right,” she says grinning and peering into the parking lot like she might catch sight of his bloodied face. 

“Should we do something about the rumors?” he asks, whispering the last word like if someone hears it, they’ll immediately spew homophobic slurs in both of their directions.

Carol just waves her hand dismissively. “Nah, that’ll just fan the flames.” She wraps her hand around his waist and squeezes, fingers tucked proprietarily beneath his t-shirt. “Go home and this’ll all blow over by next week.”

He tells Eddie what happened on the way home.

Eddie cackles. “Of course it would happen in gym,” he says, grinning as he runs a vacant stop sign without even a rolling stop. “All that testosterone running through their bodies until they’ve just got to touch each other.”

Steve settles in to listen to his rant, delighted when he guessed most of the beats Eddie would hit just right. 

He should be surprised when Hargrove and Hagan are sitting next to each other at lunch the next day, laughing and shit-talking as if the whole school isn’t still atwitter about their all-out brawl the day before. 

He should be, but he’s not. Tommy and Carol have always been good at playing the game, and it looks like Tommy’s determined to stay on the board. 

Steve and Carol trade a commiserating lunch, and go back to their respective conversations. Tommy’s been given chance after chance to make a different choice, but he never does. Steve’s not about to light his own match for an old friend who’d never burn right along with him.

Steve counts down the days until he can go home, and stay there with Eddie, for weeks on end. Four, three, two, one. 

Home.

Part 117

[evil-winters]

disclaimer: you can enjoy a character as much as you want. you can also interpret media differently than i do. i am a random person on tumblr, i’m not here to have a crazy argument with you based on your opinions vs mine! okay, now on to the main point!

i am a rebecca chambers lover through and through. re0 is in fact in my top 5 resident evil games, because i enjoyed it thoroughly even if some of it is a little goofy admittedly.

however, when seeing people talk about rebecca chambers in relation to albert wesker…. i feel like people play up rebecca’s relevance when it comes down to her relation to wesker. and i do say this kindly, however… wesker doesn’t seem to have much of an opinion on rebecca in the first place (i think he even just dismisses william’s question about her in re0 because she’s “just a rookie”). and when he does shoot her, he does so while barely acknowledging her (it’s past 3am here so it’s possible he didn’t even acknowledge her AT ALL, i’m just not going to check right now) and only focusing on chris redfield.

that isn’t to say that you guys can’t have headcanons, or anything like that, but i do think some of you guys treat her relevance to him— and even to most of the games— as being more than it actually was.

rebecca chambers isn’t really relevant to the series outside of the 3 or 4 main medias she appears in. she’s not considered one of the series “main characters” because i personally don’t think she’e ever meant to be one. she serves her purpose in the series, and that’s good, but it’s not to the effect that the actual main characters to the series serve.

that’s all to say, i don’t think acting like she mattered to wesker in canon is really accurate, and could be considered misleading. you could say it’s a theory, yeah, or even a self-indulgent fantasy. i can’t argue if it’s one of those, but some of you treat the idea that she “means a lot” to wesker as some sort of fact, and it’s very strange. (given, i might not be fully understanding what some of you are trying to post about).

which is why the discourse about if wesker likes rebecca at all does still confuse me, because even with the knowledge of the easter egg— he never shows any interest in her! not even once. is she on his stars team? yeah, on the bravo section of it. the team that he never at all shows any care towards in the slightest, and doesn’t even make a big show out of trying to kill because he’s basically like “ok yeah they’ll just die on their own, but i’ll kill enrico to get the ball moving”. if anything i’d argue that he had more interest in enrico, since he does kill him himself— but that is a stretch since we barely see any interactions between them (much like rebecca and wesker).

anyways guys… again, please reread my disclaimer if you’d like to discuss this topic! i know i did say in my last post that my next post would be a headcanons list (specifically lgbt+ headcanons) but the horrors got to me, + my partner and i are discussing this topic because i’ve never a fandom so adamant that these two characters must mean something to each other. like trust guys i like headcanons and AUs and such (i am, after all, a big fan of the insane dynamic i think albert wesker and ethan winters could have), but there’s some things i see in this fandom be mentioned that, to my knowledge, have never happened in the series, even outside of this rebecca and wesker topic— i do enjoy good fandom engagement, but it’s so important to pay mind to what is canon in the series and what’s NOT canon in the series.

sigh. okay, signing out. it’s almost 4am. god forbid a girl have hobbies!

[idontplaytrack]

Can we get Janis asking reader (Regina’s sister) to spring fling or some other dance please??? Thank you!!

Betting on us like Vegas

Janis ‘Imi’ike x fem! reader

Warnings: coarse language, fluff

Janis struggles to ask reader to the Winter Ball, when the best way to do so has been right there all along.

Read other parts here!

“So…Winter Ball.” Regina sat before Janis on a barstool, pulling the brunette out of her thoughts.

“What about it?” Janis furrowed her brows together, confused.

“You’re going, right?”

“Duh.” Janis answered, “With y/n.”

“Asked her yet.”

Janis snorted, “Nope. Not a clue how.”

“One year coming up?”

“Yeah, why?”

“Kill two birds with one stone.” Regina suggested.

“Easy for you to say.” Janis bites back a scoff.

“Come on, ‘Imi’ike.” Regina lets out an exhale in amusement, “You probably know her better than I do now.”

“Oh, come on. Don’t say that.” Janis sighs, “I have a couple ideas, actually.”

“Well, you have three weeks starting today. A lot of work to do.”

“And…have you asked Cady yet?”

Regina chortled, “Yep. Two nights ago.”

“That soon?” Janis’ eyes went wide.

“Eh.” Regina shrugs, “Believe me, you’d need the three weeks. Outfit planning and coordination, hair, makeup, how to get there, how to get home, what you guys wanna do there, what to avoid—”

“Okay, okay. I get it.” Janis stops her. “Wouldn’t it be…awkward now that we live together? Where do I ask her?”

“Where do you wanna ask her?”

“I dunno.”

“God, Janis. Seriously?” Regina rolled her eyes, a little annoyed at the girl’s indecisiveness.

“I can’t do that here, can I? You and Cady are like pesky houseflies that we can never get rid of when we need to.”

“It’s a promposal. I’m not asking you to consummate the marriage.” Regina joked, “Relax.”

Janis scoffed, “Why is it always that with you?”

“I don’t know, I’m a bitch?” Regina continued, “Whatever way you choose to ask her to the ball, I’m sure she will love it.”

“You know, I thought Cady would’ve been a much earlier riser than you were.” Janis remarked, grabbing an apple from the fruit bowl on the island.

“Most of the times, yeah.” Regina confirmed, “She’s uh, tired.”

“See, you guys get it. So please stop with those jokes before it gets old.”

“I’ll try.” Regina shrugs, “Guess a part of me can’t believe my little sister’s all grown up now and in a relationship. Doing the things that one would do in a relationship. So I joke, but yeah I hear you.”

“Hey, does she get migraines a lot?”

“Uh…not before the whole thing with avoiding our mom started. I guess that stress triggered them. And now…it’s become more frequent. I mean, there’s also PMS. But I’m actually worried. If they don’t improve even when there’s less stressors to possibly trigger an episode, I’ll try an get her an appointment.”

Janis nodded, “Good call. She started having another one last night, made her so nauseous, I felt terrible.”

“That’s twice this month.”

“At least. God knows she doesn’t tell me everything.” Janis admits, “She seems to have some sort of ‘baseline’ headache all day.”

“All the more reason she needs an appointment.” Regina sighs. “I mean, I get it. Being in some sort of pain all day, everyday really makes you very irritated.”

“Can I show you something?”

“M’kay, what…?” The blonde asked carefully. Janis went over to the cupboard by the TV console and retrieve an embroidery piece.

“I was thinking to ask her with this. It’s not done yet, obviously but do you think—”

“I think, you can just ask her and she’ll say yes immediately. But Janis, this is your strength. You’re great at this, she’s always gushing about how good you are at it. I think it’ll be a nice touch. And she gets this nice art piece to keep and hang up afterwards.” Regina answered, “Honest. And those…are her favourite flowers so you’ve got that right. You’ve got nothing to worry about.”

"Ah, sometimes I just..." Janis hesitated, "Doubt myself."

"She loves you so much, she loves whatever you do. Remember that when you ever find yourself second-guessing." Regina said quietly.

Janis looked shock for a brief moment but nodded appreciatively. "Okay, I...am going to get started on breakfast before those two wake up. Any requests?"

"You're the chef, you decide." Janis laughs. Regina bites back a smile, masking it with a smirk.

"Waffles it is." Regina decided. "Are eggs okay or is she gonna spew?"

"Uh...not sure, honestly. She could be feeling better now."

————

"Good morning." Janis looked up from her phone and saw you walk towards her.

"Oh, not good." You groaned, sitting down next to her.

"Well, I'm sorry you're not feeling to great. But, you gotta eat your breakfast." Regina turned around to face you as she replied, placing a plate with waffles and cut up fruit in front of you.

"Hey!" Cady's voice rang through the room.

"Morning, baby." Regina gave her a quick smile, "Just in time. Breakfast's ready."

"God, I'm so sick of this." You grumbled to Janis, she rubs your back, "What is even triggering these migraines so frequently?"

Regina speedily answered with, "Stress."

You stabbed your fork into the waffles, eating a forkful of the syrupy goodness. Janis was about halfway done with hers, but of course, since she woke up way before you did.

Quietly, you got off the stool and walked over to the fridge to grab a Diet Coke and cracked it open. This drink was one of the few things that alleviated the ache for you, so they now have it stocked in the fridge for precisely that reason. It was Sunday so the four of you were pretty free to do whatever. After breakfast, Cady went on a walk, Janis washed the dishes while you dried them and Regina? She went around the apartment cleaning it.

"Hey." Regina stood next to you after awhile, "Tomorrow, I will make you an appointment with our regular doctor for your headaches and migraines just to be safe. You've been having them for quite awhile now so I'm worried, please just go, okay? I'll take you."

You glanced at her, "Okay. I will."

Regina nodded, relieved. Then she remembered something, "Oh, by the way...I found a yellow face mask under your bed while cleaning the place yesterday.”

"Oh, that's never been used. I got it in New York at the Drew Barrymore show. Just kept it. Guess it must've fell."

Now that the dishes were done, you just stood there with your sister to chat. Janis was in front of the fridge, picking out a drink for herself. Then, she makes her way to the living area to watch TV. "If you need to shut the curtains to help your migraines, please do. Anything else you need, tell us, okay?"

"I'm fine, Reg." "I'll always be worried about you, you're my sister."

“How’s your back pain been lately? Doing your PT exercises?” You retorted.

She laughs, “Weather’s getting cold, so it’s acting up more frequently. But yes, I’ve been doing the exercises.”

You hummed, tilting your head and pinching your temple, “God, I’m in hell.”

“Go lie down.” She nudged you. “Go. Close your curtains, no candles, no lights, no nothing. Just lay down and see if it helps.”

You groaned, dragging your feet towards your bedroom. “We have popsicles right?” Janis asked as you shut the door and curtains.

“Yes.” Regina confirmed.

“It’ll blow over after three days. We’ve picked up on a pattern.” Janis says.

“So tomorrow’s day three?”

Janis nods, “Yeah.” Eyes and hands still focused on her embroidery work.

“Okay. Anyway, me and Cady are meeting with Gretchen and Karen for dinner tonight. You wanna come?”

“y/n said she didn’t so I’d better just stay home with her. I want to finish this piece ASAP, too.”

“Okay.” Regina said back, “No worries.”

“She’ll need those popsicles if I remember day twos correctly. She will be throwin’ up tonight.”

“That means it peaks there?”

“I’d say so.” Janis shrugs. “Look at this.”

“I’m looking at it.” Regina sits down beside Janis. “What? There’s nothing wrong with it—”

Cady returns home at this moment, holding a box of donuts. “I bought donuts for the afternoon.” Cady beamed.

“That’s from the new place, no?” Janis asks.

“Uh-huh. The line’s finally short enough when I walked by so I decided to get some.” Cady sets down the box, “Why…is the house so quiet?”

“I told y/n to sleep off her migraine. She’s working on an embroidery project to ask y/n to the Ball. And I was waiting for you to get back, because I’m bored.”

The nap was a bust, but at least you woke up to a very dark apartment that kept your migraine’s pain level to a minimum. As usual, the nausea came back as it always does at this point of an episode. So you were miserable. But you knew it also meant that the pain was going to dissipate soon. As hungry as you were, you couldn’t be bothered to move. The door opens up as your mind started to drift. Janis peeked into the room, “Oh, hey, honey. How you feeling?”

“Tired. Of this.” You gestured vaguely. “Oh, and nauseous.”

Janis sat down and held onto your hand, giving it a squeeze, “I’m sorry, baby.”

You leaned and slowly plopped onto her lap. She chuckles, combing a hand through your hair and massaging your head.

“I’m hungry.” You muttered. “But I can’t— do we still have Zofran?”

“Yes. Do you want one?” She asks, still massaging your head.

You nod, “I’m gonna sit in the bathroom.”

“I’ll be right back, hm?”

Janis left to get the medication and very quickly returned. You were leaning against the sink countertop in the bathroom, watching the damn toilet bowl. “Here.” She hands the pill to you and you took it. You gave up waiting and just went out to the living room. Making a good decision by sitting in the couch seat right next to the trash can. “Lay on me, honey.” She says, easing your head onto her lap again.

“Can I ask you a question?”

“Mm, of course.” You nodded, playing with the rings on her fingers.

“You see that thing on the table?” She asks, carefully reaching forward to grab it, “I made this for you.“

You squinted at it, trying to read the words on it.

‘Will you go to the Winter Ball with me?’ It read. She’s sewn it on with thread in your favourite colours, the question surrounded by your favourite flowers.

“I also got you some flowers, been sitting here thinking about how to ask you…but I figured this was a good idea. Every moment I’ve spent with you, I’ve loved. But it’s the ones like these…peaceful moments, alone. Doing nothing, that I love the most. Because I get to soak in every little bit of it. Of you.”

You sniffled, covering your mouth with the back of your hand when you saw her hold onto the bouquet of daises. “That is so sweet, Jan— my god— Yes, of course. Of course I’ll go with you.” She set down the floors and cupped your face, pressing a tender kiss to your lips.

You sat upright, admiring the flowers, “These are so beautiful.”

“The most beautiful flowers for the most beautiful girl.” She slung an arm across your shoulder, pressing a kiss to your cheek as you removed a card from the bouquet. You kissed her back, then noticed this on the card, in her handwriting, there was this— lyrics from one your favourite songs. One that held great significance in your relationship milestones. This was the song playing when you were texting Janis for hours that one night. And made you realise you had to do something.

‘I’ll love you through all our phases.

If this is our chance to make it,

I’m betting on us like Vegas.’

🏷️ Tag list:

@ashecampos @auliisflower @cheesysoup-arlo @frogs00 @ludoesartandstuff @pda128

💭A/N:

Not my best work— I got distracted big time lol and I’m dealing with a bad backache, but here it is, anon! Hope you enjoy🫶🏼

[badsugargoodpoison]

upon the brow | prologue

soldier/warrior!bucky barnes x fem!soldier!reader

3.1k words • fantasy au (sort of)

Synopsis: You're one of King Fury's most trusted advisors and his most faithful guard. Bucky, known formerly as The Winter Soldier, is one of the most feared warriors in several realms, though to you, he's more man than legend. When a change in post lands you in the middle of a scheme against your new allegiance, Bucky himself emerges as an integral part of either your greatest betrayal or your proudest triumph.

Warnings: 18+ only please, minors do not interact! PAINFULLY SLOW SLOW BURN romance, world that is a blend of vaguely historical and modern fantasy/regency/sci-fi, probably some inaccurate vocabulary regarding royalty, military ranks, etc., will contain violence, injuries, etc. but this chapter is clear of most warnings ♡, lots o' angst and pining, mystery and espionage, fluff, and maybe a little spice (undecided)

A/N: This is... a labor of love, and this prologue really got away from me. Broadstrokes, it's friends to lovers. More specifically, it's childhood frenemies to friends, then to strangers, back to friends, and finally to lovers. I have no idea how many chapters it'll be or when updates will come, but I have a lot of it plotted and a couple more chapters nearly finished. Comments and reblogs are appreciated!

You'd never given much thought to marriage.

As a child, you knew nuptials as small, homely celebrations. Some of those to be wed wore dutifully mended pale dresses that were stained and frayed with age, and veils were spun or reworked to match. All clothing was handed down—worn for generations till the seams simply gave up—and wedding dresses were no exception. Others wore their best shirts, carefully pressed and patched, and the pants with the least holes. Backyards witnessed many of them, or sometimes the narrow wooden aisles of a local temple or a friend's garden. Nobody traveled very far, and neighbors were generally happy to pitch in with baked goods, tables, and flower arrangements.

Despite the aid of the village, weddings were typically more heard about than seen— accounts passed from mouth to mouth in afterthought from those in attendance. Marriage, to your young mind, was an agreement breathed between people, whispered in a warm, familiar space.

Once, you’d passed by a ceremony as you chased after a ball and saw a man press his forehead to his partner’s. She—adorned in a long cream dress and a slip of white lace tied around her head—had beamed up at him, eyes wet and shiny like crystals. You’d watched in awe as the man’s mouth moved and she leaned further into him, hands entwined and lashes fluttering shut. He pressed a kiss to her brow just as the afternoon sun flashed gold above them, casting heavy shadows from the wooden arch behind them and the gardenia shrubs framing them. They’d been illuminated in such warmth it had struck you dumb. That, to you, was marriage. That was a wedding.

As a teen, and subsequent young adult thrust into the rituals of higher courts and all their politics, you thought the few weddings you attended were beautiful in all their shiny, gauzy splendor, if a bit strange. You stood at the fringes of the crowd, idly admiring the flower choices, or the ceremonial robes of nobles and watched with slight envy as a flower girl passed, shyly scattering petals down the aisle.

But then, the ordeal felt sort of hollow.

In the high courts, marriages (and by extension, weddings) were mere tools. They were a means to wave flags and stake claims. They were contracts, not promises: the tangle of lives, titles, and property under the guise of some depth of feeling. They were ceremonial, like a crown—just something pretty to try on until apparently you found the right audience.

As you got older, it became harder to see their beauty at all. Sure, the decorations were breathtaking, the dresses were pretty, and the happy couple usually glowed with some unspoken pride, but it felt like a waste of time. A declaration of love in front of an audience was no more meaningful than any other time, and who were you to be called upon to witness the union? If the union were so precious, why should it require your validation?

In many ways, you were born to be a strategist. Stealth was key, and so was intelligence, and sometimes stoicism. Brutality of course, sometimes made itself known, and as you had been trained, you rose to meet it. Love, for you, was scarce. And when it made itself known, it was always behind closed doors.

Marriage, as it turns out, was very very far from your mind, and confusingly, very very close to the minds of your peers.

"What?"

"He's requested you," Nicholas says. One cold brown eye fixes on you. "Captain Barton needs allies, and nobody will bat an eye if he brings a guard or two of his own to the marriage. Commander Hill will take your place here."

You open your mouth, and then close it again without saying anything. Your eyes flick to the woman in question, waiting dutifully by the door. Technically, she outranks you. But Fury has never been a stickler for titles. You know where you stand, and who you answer to.

She's perfect for your role, and you'd smile if you weren't so confused.

"Respectfully, sir, I'm not just a guard." You keep your hands clasped behind your back and keep your feet planted. If you project strength, maybe you'll begin to feel it.

"No. You're not." Fury stares at you. His jaw is set.

"Won't my rank and my seat on your council raise suspicion?" You raise an eyebrow. "I've aided you in negotiations with their leaders, I've been at your side for years, aiding in discussions of trade and military borders. Will they not question my true motives? "

"Not if you do your job right." King Fury's eye shines with meaning.

Oh.

You're keenly aware, suddenly, that the informality you've enjoyed within the ranks of your military and amongst the nobles is a rarity. You've been spoiled: allowed to ask questions, and sometimes given answers. Another King might've had your head already. You suspect The King you'll be answering to shortly undoubtedly would've.

You take a deep breath. "When do we leave?"

"Dawn." Nicholas stands and smooths down the sleek leather of his outer robes. His eyepatch, also leather, swallows the light, and it appears a shadowy hole instead of flesh or fabric. He looks every bit the terrifying rebel leader he was once famed to be. "The wedding is the day following. Private Parker will also be accompanying you."

It's an interesting choice of partner and not one you would've guessed yourself, but you keep your surprise carefully hidden. Peter is an asset, despite his inexperience and clumsiness with court politics. Perhaps his boyish charm will add to your reputability.

"Outside of your duties to Barton, you will be folded into their ranks as they see fit. Your title may change—your uniform definitely will—but your station here will remain for you when and if it's deemed appropriate."

When Pierce is dealt with. That’s what he really wants to say. You can see it flickering in his face, the promise there. Your heart clenches. Every word he says sounds more and more like a death knell. An alliance may never happen. Assassination might be more likely. Either means a war where you will likely be billed as a traitor.

"Parker has already been briefed. He has also been explicitly instructed to answer to you and you only when it comes to matters outside of your new posts."

The room stills for a moment after Fury takes a step towards you. Someone bustles by the door to the throne room, heels thudding.

"Do you understand what I'm asking of you, Lieutenant?"

"Yes, sir." You keep your gaze down. Not in defiance, but in deference. You have no more questions for him.

"Good. I expect regular check-ins."

The weight there is hard to swallow, and you don't respond for a moment. Espionage has never been an inherent part of the job description, but it's never exactly off the table either.

"Of course."

"Be smart," is all he says, "You're dismissed."

"Your Highness." You bow, and exit the throne room on much shakier feet than you entered.

You have little to pack. It's a realization that hits you harder than perhaps it should. Besides your clothing, which makes for a sad heap of leather and linen at the bottom of your worn bag, you only have your armor, your weaponry, several books, and a single memento of home.

The small wooden lion is one of the last things you pack. Over the years its mane has chipped in places, and there's a dark stain on one of its paws—ink or blood, you can’t remember—but its weight is comforting in your palm, and you tuck it carefully into a small pocket inside your bag.

When it’s hidden away, your room seems to echo. You have no photos lining your chambers, no small knick knacks or souvenirs of your many journeys through the realms. It's a very small life you lay claim to.

You take the time to sharpen your throwing knives, painstakingly packing them between sheets of rough hide and thick wool. The process soothes a bit of the tightness in your chest.

When you finish, bag packed and travel cloak poised on a bedside chair, you wander from your chambers and down the flight of stairs and across the bridge to the barracks.

Peter swings his door open only a moment after you knock. Brown hair falls over his forehead in a messy swoop.

His eyes go wide as he recognizes you.

"Oh! Hey. I mean—" He gives you a jerky nod. "Lieutenant. Nice to see you here. Outside my room?"

You give him a small smile, though it tips up a little harder at one edge.

"I've told you you can call me by my given name, what, a dozen times before?"

"I—Yes. Sorry." He looks bashful, but you can see the itch to use your title again. "I just figured it might be, you know, better to be more formal for a while. So we don't offend anybody?"

You nod. "You're probably right. But we only just got this assignment and you've been using my rank for all eight months I've known you—five of which I've told you the same thing."

He cringes, and you're quick to reassure him.

"I'm teasing, Parker.” You pause. "And we should be more formal when we get to Lernaea. But in private, I beg of you, no formalities."

"Okay," he agrees, and his smile makes you smile. He's younger than you by a sizable enough gap, and it shows in these moments, where his vibrance pokes through the tough exterior he attempts to present while on duty.

"I just wanted to check in. To make good time I've sent for a stablehand to secure our luggage tonight. They should be here for yours within the hour. Do you have everything you need?"

"I think so, I just need to empty my vault in the armory."

"Good. Make sure you wear something warm tomorrow, the mountain pass will be cold."

He nods, then seems to think of something. "What's Captain Barton like? I've—I've never really met him. Shook his hand once but..."

Your brows furrow. That's news to you, but you can't leave the kid hanging.

"Oh, Clint's an asshole. But he's kind."

Peter's face scrunches up, and you laugh. "You'll like him, I swear."

He nods thoughtfully, and the question nearly bursts from you.

"Did he request you or was it by the King's assignment?" Round brown eyes blink back at you.

"I was told Captain Barton requested me."

Interesting. You bid Peter a good night and make your way back to your quarters. You'd been steeled for an elusive sleep, but the second your cheek hits the pillow, the world drops away.

You stand in a garden, surrounded by bushes you can't see over. Small again, you chase after a butterfly on clumsy legs. Your giggle floats after the tiny yellow creature as you flit from place to place in pursuit.

A mousy boy, little older than you, sits on a worn stone bench. His leather sketchbook lays open in his lap and his skinny, pale fingers make wobbly passes with a colored pencil. Blue: his favorite.

"Ugh," you whine, "It flew away."

You plop down next to him and expel a long-suffering sigh too weary for your age.

"Did you see it, Stevie?" You prod.

"Yeah." He doesn't look up. "Was pretty."

Wet grass tickles your feet as you sway your legs. Steve's pencil scratches against the page and birds chirp and squawk above your head. Their tiny bodies make loop-di-loops as they give chase to one another. The rest of the world might as well have fallen away. You like to pretend the garden is a bubble, that even though the walls are made of leaves and flowers, nothing can find you here.

The peace is broken by a voice.

"Steve!" It calls, detached, faceless, and then another boy slips into your cocoon through a gap in the shrubbery. He pants and slows from an awkward jog to a walk as he approaches.

Big blue eyes blink owlishly down at you, and you return the favor. You're still unsure what to make of him, even after months of observation.

He's Steve's friend, and Steve's your friend, so you see him plenty: you tag along on their adventures into town, and he traipses behind you as you and Steve forage in the nearby forests and fields for ingredients to sell the local herbalist for pocket-change. Still, he's strange. You've seen the way he can boast, all grandiose and bright when he's in front of other children, but any time he sees you, all the warmth seems to fall right out of him. He doesn't talk to you, not really: he just stares, or answers with quiet short mumbles when you ask him something.

Steve finally looks up from his page, where a dog is beginning to take shape.

"Hi Buck," he says, in that sweet voice of his. You frown. Sometimes, when you watch them together you feel ill. Every time Steve grants Bucky one of his best smiles, your stomach drops to make space for a sadness you loathe. You know what the feeling is: jealousy. You just don't know what to do about it. It's as embarrassing as it is painful—you don't want it.

"Hi Steve," Bucky rushes out and returns Steve's smile. He vibrates with excitement now that his gaze isn't on you. "You know that cat that was hanging around our house?"

Steve nods.

"Well, my Ma says we can keep her 'cause she showed up yesterday looking different and it turns out she's pregnant! So we can take care of her, and help her have the kittens, and then give them away."

Steve gasps at the news, warm blue eyes bright.

"Really?"

You stand from the bench and wander around the clearing. Fuschia azaleas call to you from a smaller shrub, and you pluck one so bright it's almost fluorescent.

Normally you'd give it to Steve, press it between the pages of his sketchbook to preserve it, or give it to his Mom if you venture to his home. She always smiles at you like you're important, and you always give her flowers because she is.

Bucky and Steve chatter away. When you slip through the hedges, no one calls after you.

"Gods, it's freezing."

Peter's lips are nearly purple, and though the colors you bear in allegiance to King Nicholas are purple and black, you decide it's not really his color.

You sigh. "You're lucky I'm an over-thinker."

The cloak you toss at him is all black, simple. You'd tucked it into your messenger bag on a whim, telling yourself it couldn't hurt to be cautious. Apparently, you'd been correct.

Peter throws it on with fervor and buttons the clasp at his neck with shaky fingers. He's already bundled up, stocky frame draped in thick wool and fleece-lined outer layers. His armor is sandwiched somewhere on his body, made of tough engineered leather, but no metal. Traveling in full garb would be unwise, despite the added protection—if you are to be attacked, your best bet is to run. The wilderness in these parts is unkind, but so is death.

Peter's breath comes in small puffs across the carriage. He closes his eyes and rubs his gloved hands together like he's praying. You eye him before returning to the pages in your lap.

The floor shifts slightly and tilts the papers along with them. You haven't got a lot of light to see them by—the morning is still blue and the mountainous landscape is dark and lifeless—but you want to know exactly what to expect.

If the blueprints and maps are accurate—which is doubtful, every kingdom has their secrets, and these pages are dated nearly five years ago—the palace is a fortress. It's tall, built up in curling towers, and the floorplans are deceptively open. Once past any space deemed more ceremonial, the hallways and passages unfurl like veins, branching endlessly. It'll be impossible to memorize them all, especially not without walking them yourself.

There are no signs of barracks, military posts, or stations, which is to be expected, but a small messy handwritten note indicates the belief that the military is kept largely underground, spread out like a maze under and around the farmlands to the South.

The entrance to the palace faces North, towards the city. When King Alexander's father took control, he renamed several of the surrounding towns. The capital city, built up by the King himself, was dubbed Alexandria in offering to his son. It was once just a village named Shelter. The irony sours your mood.

"Have you ever been? To Lernaea? Or met the King?" Peter asks, suddenly. He grips the edges of the cloak like it’ll blow away.

You nod, steady your breath as you trace over the rather poorly drawn outline of the city. Will any of it be recognizable?

"Yes. A few times. I accompanied Fury there as a mediator and guard when the peace talks began a few years ago. Of course, they never went anywhere, really, but we managed to placate them at least. Alexander was... unsettling."

Peter nods. His lashes cast soft shadows down his face in the meager light as he watches you. It makes you want to be forthcoming. You hope, wickedly, that it does the same to Alexander's people.

"I—" You pause, lick your lips, "Lived near the capital, knew it before it was Lernaea when it was nobody's land but the people who lived there. People pledged their allegiance to whatever Kingdom, whatever beliefs, they wanted, and everyone just... continued. It was—we were too poor to matter until they discovered we were nearly entirely self-sustaining. Lumber, livestock, farmlands, pockets of coal and iron ore… We bartered, traded, fed our neighbors, and watched each other's children.

"Then came the border disputes from the neighboring Kingdoms, but we never really heard about them. Every so often a few soldiers would march through and observe what we had, but they never spoke to us. The people who lived there didn't matter, the land did.

"When Clypé, the closest Kingdom—and the one least inclined to our land—fell, began to burn, we were forced to flee. The land was different when I saw it last. I'm sure it will have changed even more now."

The clip-clop sound of horseshoes against packed dirt reverberates for a moment. Peter's brows raise. His eyes are so wide they're almost comical, but they're shiny too, sad.

"Did you lose anybody?" He asks, softly.

You bite your lip. "Neighbors. I... My friends were already scattered. Most of them were recruited by the militias of neighboring lands. I haven't seen most of them in a long long time—I don't even know if they're alive."

Your fingers twist together. It's not entirely the truth, but it's not a lie either. All you have are stories, and at the end of the day, words mean very little. You peel at a cuticle a bit too roughly. Blood spots at your nail bed.

"They'd... fight for other kingdoms? Ones that were against their people?"

"It wasn't... strictly political. Joining a neighboring military gave people opportunities: pensions to send home, a stable job, food and board, community… It wasn't ideal, I guess, but it was a way out. Most people just… chose a duty they could live with. They chose something they could fight for, even if it wasn't the ruler they allied themselves with."

Peter stares at you, then looks down and runs a hand through his unkempt hair.

"That sounds kind of awful."

You laugh lightly. As a child, you'd thought the same, watched children your age set their sights on military uniforms and the power a sword seemed to grant them. Parents wept and hugged them tight, or gave them tight smiles. Some stared at the dirt under their feet as if it was to blame. You'd become stone-faced, angry, and cold when your friends mentioned it in passing. A month had passed in silence before you'd collapsed with the unfairness of it all.

If only they could see you now.

"Yeah. It kind of did. But it wasn't really overly dangerous until the war. Most people came back every six months or year or so to see their families."

Peter hums.

"Where are you from?" You ask, and shuffle the papers onto the bench next to you. You cross your arms and tilt your head back onto the wooden panels behind you. The carriage isn't exactly comfortable, but you've ridden in worse.

"Queen's Isle," he says.

"Mmm." You nod. "Good food. Kind of grey though, no?"

"You've been?"

"Yes. Passed through while visiting a friend nearby." Looking. You'd been looking for a friend, not visiting.

"You're very secretive," he says, after a moment, one eyebrow raised like he can see right through you. His head tilts like a curious dog.

"Yes."

"Do any of your friends have names?" The question is said lightly, meant to be teasing, but you take it like an elbow to the gut.

You turn out the window.

"No. Not anymore."

[melit0n]

Delicate Is The Flesh - Chapter 12

- Synopsis: On the brink of the bustling new city of Rosholt lies a forgotten palisade of abandoned homes, shops and streets that sit mummified after a chemical outbreak in the 70s, leaving the city uninhabitable.

Over the years however, the place has become a hotspot for urban explorers and crime junkies alike.

Whispers of reanimated bodies stalking the dead streets and brutal murders worm their way into your friend's ears and, having nothing to do on your Winter break, you reluctantly agree to go exploring the abandoned city with them.

What could go wrong, right?

- Chapters →

Prologue

Chapter 1: For Whom the Bell tolls

Chapter 2: Corvus and Krater

Chapter 3: Belly of the Beast

Chapter 4: Something forgotten

Chapter 5: Citrus and Cinnamon

Chapter 6: Mumbling Conscious

Chapter 7: Heavy is The Head that Mourns The Past

Chapter 8: Be Not Afraid

Chapter 9: Eye for an Eye

Chapter 10: Blood for Blood

Chapter 11: Do you Remember...

Chapter 12: Thirty Silver Pieces (you're already here!)

Interlude: In a Gloomy Wood, Astray

- Obsessive! Demon OC/Reader

- Word count (for chp): 13.6k

- Warnings (for chp): None.

- Ao3: https://archiveofourown.org/works/55444003/chapters/140685856

- Please note, this chapter contains formatting that doesn't translate into Tumblr well. To read it properly, if you are a reader who tends to stick to Tumblr, I suggest going onto Ao3.

- Masterlist.

Your leg twinges as you heave it up another step. More and more does it feel truly attached to a ball and chain; clasped too tight, with skin beginning to be rubbed raw. 

Walking is a painful affair in of itself; within those first few steps, you learnt that climbing them was a much, much harder task. Who knew such a small–well, not small–wound would cause you this much grief?

As you attempt to ascend the stairs, unfocused eyes trying their best to concentrate, the plaster particles almost look like snowflakes. If you tried hard enough, you’re sure you could imagine yourself climbing up a hill, buried in thick snow–though, not like it snows much anymore–and watching them dance before your eyes. It’s a fanciful idea, one you’re tempted to indulge in, but the pain in your leg keeps you torturously grounded. 

That, and the cold. You’re sure there’s some sort of icy storm raging on outside; the wind howls its way through the halls, a low moan of weathered agony, and even if only in short bursts, chills you to the bone.

Your mind tells you it’s a tribulation, but it keeps you alert. Keeps you aware of the light, limber footsteps that stumble along behind you.

You’re as slow as a snail on dried, brittle pavement, and as weary as a newborn fawn. 

The light, limber footsteps that you’re not so sure are just an echo of your own.

You’re sure if you didn’t have the rail and wall to support you, you’d be just as unsteady as one, too. 

Limping, still trying to figure out a technique that doesn’t make your entire lower leg throb, you can’t help but feel antsy. Can’t help but think that you should look over your shoulder, or scramble around on the ground for anything sharp, or heavy, enough to be a weapon.

Yet, you carry on; autonomous and slow. 

If you were honest, you’d say you’d be afraid of what you’d see. 

You haul your good leg up-

Afraid that those smooth, calculated footsteps belong to a recognizable face, with umber eyes and smooth, tanned olive skin. 

-And then the other.

Afraid that maybe you are an Orpheus, and this place your underworld. 

You readjust your grip on the handrail. 

There could be something. There could be nothing. 

Up another step, and you tell your cluttered brain–bouncing between eerily blank and laboriously loud–not to overthink things. 

To move forward, even if you ache. 

One foot up, and then the other. Doing your best to follow along with some sort of invisible lockstep routine; a mental encouragement to keep going, lest you’re left behind.

One foot up, and then the other. 

A pain ripples up your muscle, and you wait a few moments; leg dangling awkwardly in the air–a not so gracious flamingo. The imagery makes you smile, before another spasm turns it into a grimace. 

Just a couple more to go. 

…at least, if that cut of void isn’t there. After the last floor, with all its numbers and uncanny ghosts, a sense of incompleteness lingers. A sense that you’ve missed some sort of clue, one that was staring you right in your E/C eyes. 

You’re not entirely sure if you’re more confused, or angry–frustrated–with it all. Everything could be something, yet everything could be nothing. Those footsteps could be another wraith, or just the half-formed paranoid thoughts of your tired mind. Those numbers could be a code, or just that: numbers. 

You’ve been on edge for God knows how long, and you’re not sure if you could distinguish where the blade even ends, so far burrowed in your skin.

And there’s something on your hand. 

Instantaneously, you rip it off the bannister, a shiver crawling up your arm. You turn your eyes away from the hazy shapes of the staircase down to where you shake it frantically, attempting to rid your skin of the sensation of miniscule legs clambering over it. 

But it stays. 

You bring your chipped nails to it, scratching at the surface and feeling as crusted blood–you wish it were your own skin–flakes off with each itch. 

Burning, your hand, your entire arm, tingles; filled with rusted pins and needles that prick against the underside of your skin and jabs into your sinew. If not for the darkness, you’re sure you’d be able to see your arm bubbling. Rising and falling in dips as some creature crawls just underneath. 

Another pain in your leg, and you want to rip your extremities off. Find a shard of glass, blunt enough to hurt, and relieve yourself of the boiling, the crawling, underneath your skin. To stop your own bones from acting out against you, to make it all stop-

-Your hand pauses, palm settled on the abraded skin–nails still doing their best to dig in. 

What are you doing?

You exhale in quick huffs, a gale of wind trampling down the staircase. 

Haltingly, you draw your hand away from yourself–feeling your nails tug out of your skin–and stare at the vague structure of the handrail; one long, wooden snake, inching its way up the walls.

As your breathing evens out again–well, get’s as even as it can–you stiffly return to ascending the stairs. The mid-landing is only a bit above you now; just two more steps.

With a huff, you decide not to think about it too much. 

The next step hurts a bit less than the last. 

You won’t. 

One more to go. 

You’ve held onto your head for long enough–you won’t be losing it now. Not now, not ever. 

With a grunt of pain, you lug your leaden leg up onto the mid-landing, leaning backwards precariously as you still hang onto the handrail, before balancing yourself on the right wall. Your head stays bowed, eyes attached to the shape of your feet, illuminated in too bright, too cold moonlight.

The other footsteps have stopped. 

Maybe they are just your own. Maybe not. 

Using this as a well-deserved break, you take the chance to elevate your leg and wait for the pain to stop, mentally preparing for whatever you’ll see when you turn the corner. 

Unless your beloved playdate has added a secret, soon-to-be-revealed third option, there are only two possible outcomes: either you progress, or you don’t. Either you go through another floor, or you’ll have to look pure nothingness dead in the eye. 

You’re not sure what you’ll do if it turns out to be the latter. Spout the jumbled, dwindling list of numbers at it, maybe. 

Wearily, you raise your heavy head and step forth to behold whatever is there. 

Though dimly lit, you can easily distinguish the final set of stairs.

For a few moments, you simply stare at it, as if waiting for it to concede and show itself to be another illusion. 

It doesn’t, and between your nerves and your leg, you can’t decide whether it’s a fortunate or unfavourable outcome.

Still, you march onwards, using the walls and handrail to guide you. As you balance on your good leg, you’re once again quietly thankful for the invisible, numbing ice-pack that has settled itself on it. By now, it truly does feel numbed; if it weren’t for the pressure of your steps, and the occasional twitch of your ankle, you think you’d forget it was even there. Even if you think it leech-like, at this stage, you’d much rather it stick around and not leave you almost incapable of walking. 

The wind from upstairs certainly tries to topple you, though. A blade of it charges down from the floor above, all ice and shrapnel that cuts right through the dried, cardboard-like fabric of your clothes. Out in the open, all you can really do is stoop your head, eyes watering with the intensity.

It’s a true squall–unexpected, blizzard-like and as cold as a dead man. Harsh enough to make you want to curl into a small ball on the floor. Harsh enough that you wish to tuck your head in between your knees and wait out the storm–wait for someone to tap you on the shoulder and tell you that it’s all over. 

But, you don’t. Instead, you stand there, stiff as a permafrost corpse, latched onto the handrail and wondering just what type of tempest is billowing outside. And, as all things do, it ceases, leaving you halfway to an icicle, and puffing clouds of air into the musty atmosphere. 

The footsteps have stopped again. 

As you detach your hand from the rail, rubbing the two of them together in an attempt to gain back some heat, you wait for some sort of noise. Maybe the slip of feet and a familiar cry that would have you swivelling on your heels. 

Silence. 

Just the wind, and your own blood in your ears. 

You continue onwards. 

One of the steps, the eighth, you think, is broken–snapped in two like someone fell straight through–and you sigh exasperatedly as you lift your good leg up to the next one. 

You begin to count in your mind, putting almost all your weight onto your good leg and clinging onto the handrail.

One…

A second set of breathing–quick with anticipation and almost a clone of your own–joins you.

…two…

There’s someone here with you. You’re sure of it. 

…and three!

Leaning on the handrail, you finally lift yourself up the two steps–tripping on the next one up and coming close to falling onto the next floor. Once you’ve managed to stabilise yourself, no longer tripping over your own feet, you search the shadows for a wall to lean against, pressing your palm against it and waiting for the pain in your leg to subside, hunching over yourself with every twinge. 

This fucking sucks, you think, trying not to let the thought of twenty-one more floors, forty-two more flights of stairs, pop the thin balloon of your already fraying fortitude. 

At this stage, you’re tempted to sit down and check it over again; sure it must already be pulsing with puss and discoloured discharge–the result of some sort of fast working infection. You really, really hope you don’t need stitches. You’re determined to try not to re-open them–give yourself more cause for a painful, probably uneven home-suture session–but it seems inevitable. They’re only bite marks–from the jaws of some sort of Hellhound, as well–but they’re beginning to ache like something twisted and broken. 

Worse, you pray you don’t lose an actual leg over this. 

As it finally diminishes itself once more to a distant pang of pain, one you’re sure will pick back up the moment you place your foot down, you let your head droop and exhale a strained puff of air. It ascends in front of your eyes in a mist like cloud–an unshapen, crystallising spectre–and you swear you can see the particles freeze over. You’d thought you’d got at least a little used to the freezing Winter air here, but you guess not. Each inhale feels like it’s scorching the tissue of your throat–simultaneously drying your mouth and freezing your insides. It’s almost like you’re back outside; unbridled, city-smog air–car exhausts and something sour–floating in on the wind and mixing with the Earthy scent of attentive trees still stuck in a bygone era.

Your head begins to rise again. 

There’s something else, too; not strong nor light, but perfectly blended with the air, like it’s trying to pretend it’s meant to be there. 

Moonlight floods in like a pristine mountain stream; a white, untouchable square at the end of the hallway. The decrepit, ramshackle hallway with walls that barely seem to hold themselves upright. All the wallpaper from before–slowly building up with each floor–has been peeled, almost by hand, off of the walls; falling to the ground in tired strips and pooling together like a slithering mass of snakes. 

Placing your leg down, you squint into the darkness. The walls are barely even walls: it looks like they were never properly built. They’re merely a skeleton of rotten wood and the occasional pipe, followed in places by the odd block of concrete and dressed in a thin, gauze-like plaster that looks too fine to provide any sort of structure; silver tinged radiance passing through it like light does to skin.

Even the doors are missing; wide, gaping mouths to homes and bones, stomachs and livers, daydreams and night terrors. 

It’s oddly off putting. Without them, you feel even more exposed; watched and digested. 

From the corner of your eye, you already know the fate of the final apartment; a strong, dark oak door probably still fitted tight, and waiting, begging, to be opened. Despite yourself, with the mere mental mention of it, your hesitation rears its ugly, irritating head; itching for a distraction, just something else to do, before you attempt to fulfil your…duty. Perhaps fate is a better word. 

It makes your eyes search the carpetless floor, sights caught on each barely visible knot in the wood. Makes you scour over each pebble of rubble. 

Makes you want to stay there, back bent and legs aching, until the walls swallow you. 

Softly, you count in your head, closing your eyes and ignoring the fire, smouldering in your lungs, as you breathe deeply.

One.

In, and out. 

Two.

In, and out. 

Three, and as you pull your back straight–stooped over for just a little too long that has a pain lingering at the base of your spine and behind your shoulder blades–you block out the voice, tinny and muffled, and turn to face the last apartment: one hundred and…

Quickly, you blink away the sparks in your eyes as the blood rushes back to your head.

…one hundred and forty-four. 

At least, it should be.

Instead of the three gold numbers, a jumble–a truly indistinguishable mass–of numbers confronts your eyes: fours and ones and nines and sixes clumped together, like the limbs of a rotting body, on the face of the door. Maybe a consequence of your previous inability to decipher the numbers downstairs. Probably just another thing to remind you to be afraid. To make that frown stretch across your face and make your limbs twitch with a building twang of cowardice. With a reaction.

You determine not to give ‘it’ one. At least, not a visible one. No matter how many strange things you’ve seen, the abnormality still makes your heart thump, echoing itself in your bloodless fingers and stiff muscles.

Cautiously, you give a look to the surrounding hallway, watching the wounded walls for any moving shadows; clambering, whispering, inside the hollowed-out shell. The walls around the last apartment seem to be the only solid ones left; no light pierces through its skin. Other than that, from here, you can just about make out some furniture, fabric rotted down to its frame and doused in a fine layer of frost. The walls around the last apartment seem to be the only solid ones left.

No monsters, no shadows, and no footsteps. 

Swallowing, you keep your eyes to the hallway, not daring to let them inch to the stairwell. To search for the face you know so well. 

A small part of you wishes for someone to truly be there. For the footsteps to be a friend’s; for the wind crashing through it to be the voice of Jeanne and Noah, calling yours and Helen’s names. 

Like everything else, you bury it, turning back to the door and approaching it. If you squint, you can see your face reflected back, contorted, shortened and elongated, in the hundreds of numbers. It’s like an unnervingly still lump of bugs, quietly chittering. 

One swift movement, and they’d swarm. 

Promptly, you shake your two hands beside you–trying to bring some blood back into them–before bringing them up to your mouth, breathing warm air against them before wrapping them in your stiff sleeve. It doesn't do much; whatever warmth you gain dissipates from you, seeping out of your skin and hoodie the second you latch onto the doorknob.

Your eyes dart down to the gap under the door, watching for spectres, eyes, or wriggling, groping extremities. 

You’re not sure what to expect this time, but, as you build yourself up to opening the door, you tell yourself it doesn’t matter. All you need to do is interact with it for long enough–no matter how cordial it attempts to be, you are staying far, far away from it–and run. 

Because, if you don’t, then you’ve not only doomed yourself–whether that be to death or getting stuck as a wandering ghost–but you might as well be dooming Helen. Of all people, she is the last who deserves that fate. 

The longer you hold your hand there, the further the cold settles under your skin; hundreds of unmovable thorns just too deep to dig out. 

But, God-

You twist the knob.

-What if you only manage to get yourself out?

The door jams. You twist again. And again. No matter which way you jostle it, it refuses to budge. 

How is it fair that you are the one who lives? 

Then, as you withdraw your hand, it unexpectedly opens towards you, unlike the others, revealing…

Live, and carry on; walk away from all of your guilt and grief and simply live your life. 

…a stone wall.

You frown, blinking incredulously. 

…

You blink again.

Everything stays the same. No apartment magically appears, and your entry into it is still blocked. Blocked by a bulky wall of stones; a mixture of great grey slabs, large cobbles and smaller rocks, some jutting outwards, perhaps smoothed by the door, repeatedly slammed into them. Even eroded and crumbling–a small pebble falls to your feet as you think of it–they’re still intricately, precisely and carefully, placed, ensuring that it at least stays upright.

Though, you wouldn’t be surprised that, if with enough force–how thick is it? How far back does it go?–it’d collapse with a mighty exhale of dust: Jericho and Troy revisited. 

Glancing downwards, there isn’t even an inner doorknob, just the internal remains of the mechanism and a loose screw. 

Stupidly, your eyes move between the door and the wall, trying to spot any sort of sign for another trick, but you come up empty.

And you don’t have a clue on what to do.

Obviously, all the other final apartments were actually accessible–they were apartments–but, as far as you can tell, this looks completely and utterly blocked. The exterior walls around it still look stable; as far as you can tell, there’s no way you could brute force your way in. 

If the rules are still being upheld, then you need to figure out a way to do so. 

Surely it doesn’t expect you to start digging through the neighbouring walls?

Right?

Maybe…maybe this is another trick of the eye? Blinking didn’t help, so maybe you should try…closing the door again?

You doubt it’ll do anything, but it’s worth a shot.

Carefully, you shut the door, letting the doorknob’s latch slip back into its indent. 

For a few seconds, you wait, before hastily swinging the door open again. 

Still just rocks. 

You’re not entirely sure why you decide to try it again, but you do. 

And again. 

And again.

And again.

Each time you come out with the same result, but there’s still an inkling, a hope, that it’ll change. 

You need it to change. 

Open and close, open and close, open and close: nothing. 

Laboured breaths come out as smoke and mist dancing before your eyes as you stare, unblinking, at the wall before you. 

Has some sort of new rule been introduced? Some stupid, additional task–Maybe- maybe your hesitancy was right; maybe it does want you to explore the hallway before attempting the apartment.

Perhaps this is even a sign of each floor–each level–getting fundamentally harder. A sign that, no matter what, this will not be getting any easier.

Your arm raises from your side, the other with its hand still holding the doorknob.

The numbers downstairs were a warmup, a warning of what’s to come, even. A precaution that tells you that you now must properly use your intellect rather than just your legs. 

Spectral, your hand drifts just above the surface of the rocks, feeling the cold practically emanating off of their jagged surfaces. 

But why? Why change things now?

Gently, your hand settles on one of the thicker slabs; dark grey and shiny, as if damp.

You scoff, a breath of agitation and spite. Perhaps a better question would be ‘why not’. 

Even with your light touch, it jostles in its space, and you can tell that it’s loose. 

You're quietly grateful to the prospect of not having to run around so much, but using your brain–rattling and pulsing in your skull as if with its own heartbeat–sounds inconceivably worse. 

That it’s a weak link. 

While you’re in no way an idiot–would say the idiot to themselves, you think–the blood loss, the pain, the everything has you completely off kilter. Your mind and eyes and ears–everything is wrong. 

Your grip tightens around it. 

The blurred visions and decaying hallways, rotting under your touch, that threaten to swallow you whole. The things in the walls and the shadows that grin slimy, sordid smiles.

What if you were to…

Your thoughts indecisively jump between its states of unnerving quiet and as loud as a fair-ground; metal clanking, gears turning, people screaming–noises, noises, noises. Decisions, decisions, decisions.

Something whispers against the shell of your ear to smash your head against it. Let the age-old ragged rock split your skull and let you droop, limp and disgusting, to the floor beneath. 

The muscles in your neck ache; a twitch that trickles its way down to your forearm and fingers until the slab slides backwards in one impulsive push. 

On instinct, you step back, expecting a dusty collapse. At first, it sags somewhat, a few smaller stones clattering to the ground, but it manages to stay upright. 

The one you pushed meets the floor with a loud mechanical screech that you feel in your feet, a noise that makes you-

-that’s not right. 

Your legs meld themselves to the floor, eyes darting between the hallway and the blocked apartment, hands held awkwardly in front of you as if you were a child realising their mistake. 

That’s not right. 

Through your shoes, the floor hums beneath you as the walls rattle like ribs, shivering as something moves, slow and rusted and drowsy, through it. 

Your limbs loosen, shoulders falling in what you could only call utter despair.

The elevator. 

The elevator that, last you saw, was sitting crumpled, dying and dead in a broken and shattered jumble of itself, at the bottom of this building’s concrete trachea. 

You know the sound well, the mechanical clank and hum that always manages to penetrate through the thickest of walls, but when it’s paired with music, your heart jumps to your throat.

All you can pick out is a piano, high pitched and paired with a surprisingly upbeat melody. Steadily, steadily, steadily, it approaches–mixed with just enough subtle static, a noise that buzzes in your bones, to remind you of the man downstairs.

Obscured and muted, you begin to decipher its lyrics. 

“My love must be a kind of blind love…”

You hate this. You really, really hate this.

“...I can’t see anyone but you…”

The iced air stings your innards. 

“Sha-bop sha-bop!”

Move. Move and escape and get far, far away from here. 

“Sha-bop sha-bop!”

Don’t move. Move and you’re dead. Move, and that of which you cannot see will pounce.

“Sha-bop sha-bop!”

Move, and that of which you cannot see will pounce.

“Sha-bop sha-bop!”

Your heart pounds, quietly, harshly, against your chest. 

Unnerved–“Sha-bop sha-bop! Are the stars out–sha-bop-sha-bop!–tonight?”–you begin to feel an odd sense of betrayal. Something hollow–“Sha-bop sha-bop!”–that festers under your wound and makes an overwhelmed sob build in your chest.

It’s just like downstairs- 

“I don’t know if it’s cloudy or–sha-bop sha-bop!–bright…”

-‘the rules’ morphing before your very eyes. Eyes that flit around the hallway, legs and feet still steadfast–two crumbling pillars of a forgetting God’s temple–as the singer’s voices swell and approach. 

“...I only have eyes…for you…”

You want to say the foundation of this place is crumbling beneath your feet–“...dear.”–but you’re beginning to doubt it had any structure to it in the first place. 

“Sha-bop sha-bop!”

That ‘the rules’ are anything near stable.

“The moon may–sha-bop sha-bop!–be high…”

It almost makes you doubt that there were any to begin with. Not a list of do’s and don’ts, but instead just…just patterns for your brain to pick up; a habitual set of things that made you think you had any control of what was–is–happening. 

Another, “Sha-bop sha-bop!” and there’s a low metallic growl; the huff of a waning animal that sees only what those bloodless and foggy-eyed can see. 

“But I can’t see a thing–sha-bop sha-bop!–in the sky…I only have eyes…” 

Then, it hits you. 

“...for you.” 

There’s going to be something in that elevator. 

Closer, closer, closer the music rings. 

“I don’t know if…we’re in a garden…”

It sounds like a soft death knell; the hum of blinding, ghostly angels rumbling the cold wooden floor below you. 

“...Or on a crowded…avenue…”

Something in your leg–so numbed with the almost glacially cold air that you can barely tell which one–spasms, and it almost strikes you to bolt. You’ve been in an unknown, unthinkable situation practically since you woke up this morning, but now, when your small routine, your small amount of control, has been taken away from you, you begin to feel much, much more afraid. 

“Sha-bop sha-bop!”

Will there be something else you need to do? Interact with it longer?

“You are here…”

Do you need to get in the elevator with it?

What if-

“sha-bop sha-bop!”

-What if this is your way out? What if Helen is in there, scared and bruised, but alive?

“And so am I…sha-bop sha-bop!” Your legs inch you forward, a mechanical movement of crusted clothes, iron skin and steely bones with screws that creak with each step. “Maybe millions of people–sha-bop sha-bop!–go by…”

In mere seconds, your body manages to go on autopilot, “...But they all disappear…from view…” mind, neurons, muscles; the lot of it suddenly warm with anticipation, stumbling you down the hall and ignoring the way your lungs attempt to spasm. “And I only have eyes…” To warn you. To remind you that this song is loud and coming to an end. “...For you…sha-bop sha-bop!”

But there’s a chance, isn’t there? Small, blinding, and white; a speck at the end of the hall. A dead pixel in an old photograph. 

“Sha-bop sha-bop!”

You can get out. You will get out. 

“Sha-bop sha-bop!”

The familiar rattle of the elevator draws near as you face its silvery, tight-lipped facade; a strange, misshapen and shade-like figure of yourself split by its closed doors. 

The singer’s vocals start to fade. “Sha-bop sha-bop!”

If Helen is inside, your Helen, not another poor imitation, replacement, of her, you’ll hold her tight and promise to never leave her side again. 

“Sha-bop sha-bop!”

If she isn’t, then you’ll take that rusted, shaking box to wherever she is. You’ll endure one more monster for her if it means safety. If it means living.  

You can barely hear them now. “Sha-bop sha-bop!”

And you’ll fumble, blind as a deep-sea fish, far, far too close to the sun, through that rotting basement with her until you see those familiar, all too vibrant stars once more.

As quick as it came, the music finally stops. No more piano, no more reverberating voices. Just breathing, and the rattle of the elevator as it claws its way up the shaft. 

You almost begin to bounce on your feet in anticipation; easily growing restless as your nerves misfire and make the pounding in your leg pulse in your fingers. 

What if it skips this floor?

What if all your hope and suspense is for nothing?

Your eye twitches. You don’t think you’ve blinked in a while. 

It’s not an outcome you’d be entirely surprised with. So many ‘what if’s’, so little answers. 

It won’t, you tell yourself, straightening your back and trying so, so hard to look more confident than you feel.

It can’t. 

Despite your mental reassurance, your eyes flick upwards, searching for a familiar floor counter only to be greeted, unsurprisingly, with fading wallpaper. In the end, it does nothing to comfort you; doesn’t release even a kilogram of the stress aching to slam you, headfirst, onto the floor. 

Not knowing makes it worse. 

Your eyes stay there, picking up on each spot of grime. A moment’s, a second’s, distraction.

Though, looking back on it, there hasn’t been one before, so why would there be one now?

You think you’ve said that to yourself before. Asserted your mind on something that surely couldn’t deceive you before getting fooled not but a minute later. 

Slowly, your eyes fall back to the silver, salivating metal maw of the doors–centimetres away from you.

When did you get so close?

Your feet drag you backwards, a bead of cold sweat tracing the curve of your spine.

A pain ripples up from your ankle, settling in your hips and dripping into your other leg; an urge that you feel isn’t your own.

You glance to the stairwell. Could you make it? If you ran, could you? 

Would there be any point in it?

Ding.

The soft noise makes you jump. It reminds you of the call bell downstairs; such a kind, familiar sound ringing out in a place like this. It’s almost comical. 

You wait a few moments for the doors to open, tense with eyes flicking to the left and right of you; sure you can see movement in the corners of them.

Nothing happens. 

Your eyes slowly lower to the keypad, cream–maybe once white–with inky numbers rubbed away by oil and use. Perhaps now is when you’re meant to use those numbers? It’s only been, what, fifteen, twenty minutes? Almost all the sequence has drifted out of your mind: if this is where you’re meant to use them, you doubt-

-the door begins to open with a loud crunch; a gnawing and gnashing of decaying teeth.

The sound makes every joint in your body lock up; melded together by dread and overuse. It makes you feel entombed; body encased in marble and ivory, left with four small holes to breathe–only short breaths–and see. To just keep on living. 

It stalls for a moment, dim light inside it flickering like a stuttering heart–refusing to reveal what awaits–before resuming its slow opening.

Ink creeps in from the corners of your eyes, and from inside your tomb, you’re tempted to close them. If you do, maybe you really can pretend you’re in a bad dream. Or just a shadow at the end of the hall: on the outside, and looking in. 

Before you can, before the doors are even fully open, the moonlight catches on a familiar face. One that makes your heart stagger–agonisingly–in your chest; an unholy concoction of relief and liquid, searing, horror.

In a split second of dimness, where the elevator’s inner lights dance between blinding brilliance and deadly darkness, you become so sure that it’s just a shadow. 

The bones in your fingers ache.

That the smell is just the blood caked onto your clothes; matting your hair and staining your face the colour of life. 

Your head pounds something heavy; something woven with the promise of reward and eternal damnation. 

That it isn’t the corpse of your friend standing before you. Standing; hunched with melting flesh. Standing, drenched in red–unblinking, Atlantic blue eyes seeming to look everywhere, yet always at you.

Standing. Standing and real. 

Your chest tenses; gagging on air, stomach acid, and a past that determines to pour itself out of your throat. With your stomach having rid itself of all you’ve eaten, all you get is a sour, disappointing taste in your mouth, accented by tears soundlessly dripping down your cheeks.

This isn’t–this isn’t meant to happen. This isn’t right.

He’s never stepped out of your nightmares before. 

You’ve seen his face in passing, attached to people who will never know you, and heard his voice calling you in a crowded room, but he has stayed, mangled, bloodied and murdered inside your head. Forever frozen in a memory that refuses to go away. 

The blood glints in the sharp, yellow light. 

And now he isn’t. 

From a gaping hole, his intestines pool outwards–like a parasite that has grown too big for its host–in a tangle of organs. Pinkish and slimy. Indecipherable, crooked and wrong. It’s the same colour of the exposed ligaments, torn and stretched, on his shoulder, letting his arm droop, like the head of a hanged man. His neck, God, his neck, is in a similar state; twisted and unnatural–forever contorted towards you. Staring and unfocused. Blind and omnivident.

And standing. Standing and not sitting, uncomfortable and mangled as he always is in every dream and memory and nightmare. 

The pit of dread widens in your stomach.

Eyes marred by the light, you almost mistake it for a halo; flickering above his caved in head as his shadow stretches, pleading, towards the tips of your shoes. The sight of it, the inky double paired with someone who has been long dead, sends a boiling warmth, one of mercury and molten glass, inching its way through you. 

It scorches your insides and practically melts your tongue in your mouth; a jumble, a clump of sounds that can be barely classed as words tumbling out as you stare–unblinking and gaping. A mortal who’s begged to see the face of God one more time and feels as life drips out of them; burnt by a reverent sight that their eyes were not made to behold.

Slow step by slow step–a squelch and a creak and a crack–he steps forth. Emerging from his box of gasoline-colored light and into the hall. The hall of shadow and long dead things that refuse to relinquish their hold on life. 

You can feel the slide of his insides–the hobble of his shattered and broken feet–against the wood; reverberating. 

It’s not real.

You know it is. 

One of his eyes rolls upwards, before settling back, distantly eyeing something far off, and you realise with horror that he may be trying to blink.

He’s not real.

It has to be. 

Your lungs take in the cold air in short breaths, spasming each time as if they were filled to the brim, lest you freeze from the inside out.

Please, just leave. 

It has to be, otherwise you’ve truly and utterly lost your grip on it all. 

And in the darkness of the hall, with stars like eyes and a moon like a blinkered God, you know that you’d never be able to find it again. 

There’s still a warmth in your palm. Making its way through the cracks in your fingers, and drip, drip, dripping to the floor. Liquified frontal lobe and gore; something you desperately cling onto, even as it slips through your fingers. 

I’m sorry.

He stumbles somewhat, maybe on a crooked plank of wood, maybe on his own insides, and something rips. A damp sound, like the tear of wet fabric, and you don’t dare take your eyes off of his face, no matter how much you want to. 

I’m so sorry.

Over and over your brain echoes out the sound in your mind; a garish soundbite that glitches and bounces in your eardrums, enough to make your body try to purge itself again. 

You prepare for it. Let your stomach cramp. Let saliva build up in your mouth, but it never comes. The nausea, the panic, stays, deep and harsh–roots entangled in your viscera–and you fear it’ll stay like this forever. Twisted into your very being. 

Your mouth attempts to form words again. When you can't–why can't you speak?–your arms constrict around you, as if you could hold yourself upright. 

Instead, you wordlessly shake your head. A quiet, unseen, unheard plea. 

The closer he gets, the smell, the overwhelming scent of iron, sends your brain into overdrive; makes every bone in your fingers pulse, makes your spine tingle at its base and makes every old wound, faded but ever present, throb.

Finally, the whisper of syllables breach your mouth. “I’m-” You stop, breathless and attempting to find words; any words, “I didn’t- I couldn’t-” but still coming up empty. 

Every millimetre of your skin tells you that you’re back in that car. Back with legs bent, neck aching, and soul fluttering. 

But you’re not. 

“You’re not, I’m not- I’m-”

Instead, you’re here. 

And, inch by inch, his shadow eclipses you.

You think that may be just as bad. 

An arm’s length away. 

You stand and he stands. 

He drags his foot behind him.

Body limp as his own. 

Closer, now.

Breathe as he doesn’t. 

In what feels like seconds, he’s right in front of you. In what feels like hours, you finally give in to blinking, dry eyes staying shut without the motivation to open them again. Even closed, the tears still worm their way out. Wiggling down your face in damp lines that make your skin itch something horrible. 

You should move. You should really, really, move. But, the weight in your stomach makes you want to fall to the floor; sink past wood and concrete, drift by rows of mirrors, things in human body-suits, talking plaster cracks, right down to the dirt below. Descend through pools of underground water, reservoirs of oil and disintegrating clumps of fossils, until you hit bedrock. Until you melt into the Earth’s core. Until you become nothing and everything. 

In the least, you should make the effort, shouldn’t you? Thrash and make a bolt for the stairwell that will lead you to another floor of horrors.

Yet, your legs do nothing but shake beneath you. They feel like a dead-weight, and your head like a giant metal ball; hollow and constantly ringing with some half-remembered sound that, no matter what, you can’t rid yourself of. 

You’d call it an odd sense of acceptance. A gentle, meandering stroll towards the void, after hearing its call sing to you in the shell of your ear. 

You await the inevitable. Wait for the thing that’s been, for the last few hours–days, weeks, months–leering over your shoulder.

The thing that, at his hands, and his hands alone, is acceptable. Deserved. 

Knees buckling, your legs collapse from under you, and the fall feels endlessly long. 

You should’ve never made it out of that car in the first place.

Something cold wraps around your torso. Slips, makes space, between where your arms grip your sides to find your lower back, gripping delicately onto your waist and hauling you back upright with a snap of something damp. 

A sob wracks your body.

Once you're stable, another thing settles shakily on top of your head, softly urging your face into a rough, sticky shoulder. 

You know what it is. 

The urge to scream, to hit and punch–or grab and never let go–finds you when you take a wet inhale. A wet inhale of the loamy scent of dirt and petrichor; something that should be comforting, as should his embrace. As should he. Him, and his cheap cologne that he refused to stop wearing. Him, and his boney fingers that looked skeletal long before his funeral. 

Him. Him who was a part of you–same as Jeanne, Helen and Noah–who’s very existence does not matter to them; only that he was a cause, and you the results of the effect. 

You can’t bring yourself to unlatch your hands. You’re afraid where they’d wander–to the small of his back, or tracing his decomposed features–if you did. 

Gentle and jerky, he cards through your hair; fingernails scraping, sharply comforting, against your scalp.

All you can do is mumble apologies. Let out a string of regrets as reanimated muscles twitch against your cheek, and iron coats your lips.

It feels so wrong. Such a soothing gesture paired with the deadly quiet of a corpse. It’s a morbid thought, but you…you wish he were warm. Wish you could feel a pulse, a gentle ba-dump, ba-dump, ba-dump in his neck. Wish he were breathing, wish the blood on your cheek wasn’t frigid, wish the hand–how much has his skin rotted? Can you see his muscles? His bones?–atop your head was simply soft, not a callus from a day’s work on them, instead of shaky. 

It feels pitiable–this woeful wishing. 

Shaky to the point where he feels more puppet than cadaver; hands controlled by a novis conniver and their invisible strings.

You know you don’t deserve it. 

His chest twitches, you try not to think of the soft press of organs against you, and, in between your sobs, you swear you hear him murmur something. Maybe kind words of reassurance–said with that tone Helen always takes with you and spoken in the immemorial tongue that only the dead know. Maybe another ominous augury, like the ones you’ve been hearing all night. Maybe nothing.

So why are you still asking for it? 

Your dulled fingernails dig into your skin through the sleeve of your hoodie, and you fear it’s the only thing holding you back; a dull pain and a sharp grip that reminds you that your hands are not worthy. 

You still want it. 

His fingers jerk for a moment–an unnatural, undead clicking of dissolving bones–and you can’t help but try to tug away. It’s almost a moment of clarity–almost–when you feel the remains of his muscles lurch under his sodden clothes and paper-thin skin. A reminder that this thing is nowhere near a living person.

You’re unfit for any sort of absolution, but the glow of forgiveness–cold and iron and seraphic–is too bright to resist. 

But, then, his hand settles again–an icy cold draped over your scalp accompanied by a prickling of a thousand needles so sharp that it almost feels like the blazing warmth of Noah’s ever feverish skin–and you swear, twitchingly, that he is trying to pull you closer. 

You can’t say it. You won’t. Not aloud. 

And you decide you don’t like the fuzz of warmth that settles in your stomach at the idea that he wants you there. 

Please forgive me. 

That, perhaps, your warm, shaky breath, stuttering against where chipped points of bone rise out of his grey flesh, like hands clawing their way from the grave, is perhaps a comfort to him. 

It’s a lonely, horrid thought. Reminds you of how disgusting, how unseemly you are. 

Please. 

The hand at your waist tightens–brittle, shattered remains of his fingers clawing at the back of your hoodie, as if he could erode a space for himself in the dip of your back.

Please. Please, please, please, please-

Though, perhaps that’s your yearning for an undead pardoning speaking. 

-just say something.

Loudly, you take a stuttering inhale–brain throbbing with each sob and finally willing your body to collect itself–and cough at the scent of ash, littered with nicotine, so strong that it almost makes you feel fifteen again. So fetid that, with a choking, wet inhale, you’re sure you’ve taken in some of his blood; sticky and clotted and glimmering black as the eternal night that surrounds you. 

And it’s burning. Snot and gore and who knows what else collects at the back of your throat and makes each shortened breath sound like the long dead clack of brittle branches, cackling together in a frozen, winter wind. 

Something glints, a fool’s gold’s shine, at the back of your mind; flashing and neon yellow. Maybe some lucidity. 

With it, your fingers twitch, riddled with pins and needles from your harsh grip, with the need to claw at your throat. To scrape away the skin and muscle and bone and grasp, drag out, whatever miasma is clogging your airways. Yet, your arms are trapped; criss-crossed against your stomach like a crude symbol of protection, and utterly unmovable–an arm you’re sure you’re crushing snaked around your waist paired with a hand drawing tender shapes on your own.

And you can’t breathe.

You try to shift your head, give yourself a little more space to breathe, but his hand won’t budge. You don’t even know when the feather-like touch instead became a painful coddle; your nose practically crushed against what you can only describe to be what feels like the rough skin of a scar.

Again, you try to lift your head, neck muscles straining, but when you’re kept still, it only puts you into more of a panic. Makes your breaths come out muffled, sounding like the swaying scrape of something solid rather than air.

Against the rough skin of a scar that feels nothing like a bloody, half-dismembered crook of a shoulder.

You’re sure you gave up on yourself, tiredly pliant to whatever your fate was meant to be, but your body still begs for life. With it, with each desperate pull of your muscle, you remind yourself of where you are, and feel every kilogram–each crushing stone–of your utter stupidity. 

Against the rough skin of a scar, plastered onto a body that feels much, much too warm for a corpse. 

All these years, and you still gave in. Your bones are still just as pliant as when you broke them. 

Rushed, hot air fans against your suddenly too warm face; stagnant water, rotten food and ash.

In, and out. 

The only way you’re getting out of this is if you think. 

In, and out. 

Another panic attack will do you no good. 

In, and out. 

Arduously, you try to reconnect yourself with your numbed legs, feeling your way through the dead muscle and leper’s wounds that refuse to close to get them to move. 

All you manage is a slight shift.

You try your head again, doing your best to force it left and right if only to put your assailant off balance. Yet, it seems like you’re out of luck. Out of all of your flukes that have allowed you to continue on. All it does is press, and press and press–you think your nose is close to breaking.

Come on, fucking move. All you need is for your legs to move. Pathetically, you kick your feet out from under you–struggling like a fitful toddler held up in their parent’s arms–and searching for any joints–any extremities–you could hit. Anything that, with a harsh strike, would collapse for a moment. A second.

All you need is a second.

At the movement, the hand at your waist–too large and too sharp–clasps down with a vice grip, a cry of pain escaping you as something cracks inside your hand. You think it’s meant to placate you, force you to stay malleable and passive for a few moments longer, but all it does is send a much needed spike of adrenaline through you. Painful and laced with panic, it finally wakes up your legs; forces your hands to do anything other than grasp at yourself.

You just need to get your head free. Once you can see–once you can breathe properly–again, you’ll have a better chance. 

In your mad kicking, you hit something solid, maybe a leg, maybe a wall, but still; it doesn’t budge. No movement–not even a monstrous cry of pain.

You’re held captive, yet it feels like only you here. Only you, the stagnant air, and the odd grinding sound. Like someone is trying to dig their way out of the floor with nothing but their fingernails. 

Combined with your migraine, you think you may truly explode this time. Burst in crimson and intestines; splattered and rotten and slowly eaten, organ by organ, by the building itself. 

You know you shouldn’t waste your breath on muffled screams, but you can’t help it. It’s meant to feel like a release, but all you feel is that you’re losing a part of yourself. 

Maybe passersby will see your face in the wallpaper. 

In an instant, you can feel the wound on your leg open itself–and fuck does it hurt–but you don’t care. You just need to get out. 

And when hitting, punching, swinging your own body weight around gets you nowhere, you decide to bite.

It’s instinct more than anything else–a last resort–and you regret it the second your teeth sink in. You mentally prepare yourself for the spurt of blood, the taste of rotten skin and muscle, but you get nothing. Moreso like biting into a chunk of cooked meat rather than skin; tasteless and tough. 

You flinch at the sensation, but can’t help but dig in as your jaw aches from it. Wait until your lips meet scar before trying to tug away; maybe take a chunk of skin with you. Anything to get this thing to loosen its grip and-

-Your jaw pops as your back is slammed into the wall.

It knocks the wind out of you, too. Breathless, it takes mere moments for your body to become pliant again, head lolling downwards and eyes latching on to the swirls in the wood below you. You should be on the ground by now but, two hands, awkwardly hooked beneath your armpits, hold you upright.

As you dry heave–mouth simultaneously as arid as a prune and dripping with saliva that prepares you for bile that never comes–you want nothing more than to swat them away. To let yourself fall, light as a summer breeze and as heavy as a sinful heart, to the floor: finally crack your skull and let all the thick muck inside of you spill out. 

Gasping for air, eyes flickering closed–stay awake–you register shapes other than the knots in the wood, dark enough to be shadows.

Feet. 

Feet that aren’t your own.

It almost–almost–looks like a human foot in shape, and you’re sure it could be aside from its ink like skin and talons. Talons; four of them splayed across the floor, and followed by a fifth one peeking out from its heel. 

It reminds you of a bird of prey; a hawk, perched, and observing an open field. Posed for flight the moment it sees movement. 

Your breathing stutters when it taps one of them, clack, clack, clack, against the floor. Impatient. Entertained. 

It makes you feel like some sort of misbehaving child, rather than a lamb, moments away from the slice of a sanctimonious knife.  

Hesitantly, your eyes inch up, and up, following lanky–made of more pure muscle than fat–legs, still Stygian black, and shaped like the hind legs of a deer. Built for running. 

Built for being on all fours.

A terrified grimace paints your face a pallid colour as the imagery flashes to mind. 

Then, dark as the night and quick as a blink, you find the source of the scraping noise. 

A tail. 

Back and forth it swings, pitch black and thinning out to a hardened point. You’re only able to catch glimpses of it, but it looks…boney. Mottled with faded ivory, exposed ashen vertebrae click with each sway, like the chattering of teeth. The tip is like a section of snapped spine, snarled and shortened ribs still attached. 

It looks painful. Wrong. Pieces put together in a mockery of an extremity; too heavy and too long for its body.

Your eyes rise. You’re lifted from the ground slightly, at least, you think; you’ve lost feeling in your legs again–who knows if they’re touching the ground or not–but it clicks just how fucking tall this thing is.

Your head starts a half way up its torso, and as far as you can tell by its legs, this thing is hunched. Leaning down. 

You feel miniscule as sharpened hands, with what feels like a finger too many, drum against your back. Your eyes stay there, growing dry as you stare diligently at its stomach, unwilling to go any further.

Until you hear a chittering nose. Something between the rapid clicks of a bat and the interested chirps of a bird; muffled and static like. Out of habit, it makes your eyes flick upwards, attempting to find the source of the noise, and you immediately regret it.

Two conch-like horns protrude outwards from where its eyes should be, still in that same ashen, bone grey and blotched with off-white at the ends. They push backwards, before curling in on themselves with a sharp point; littered with chips and indents that you’re almost tempted to call carvings. 

And its mouth–God, its mouth–is the worst part; stretched wide, too wide, with slits at the end of it–like some crude Glasgow smile–and stuffed with teeth. Human molars and boar tusks and sharpened canines, all yellow or perfectly white, grinning at you like you’re an old, well loved toy pulled from the depths of the underneath of someone’s bed for the first time in years. 

You’re horrified to think of it, but underneath the sadistic smile-lines and the stomach-turning sight of flaps of diseased skin trying to heal around its horns–like the protrusions are parasitic growths rather than something natural–there might just be genuine joy there. You decide that that, is the most horrifying part. It’s nothing like the stiff, apathetic grin of the man downstairs–Hell, you think you’d even prefer that right now–but something imbued with authentic, unadulterated emotion. Something you’ve probably seen in the eyes of your friend, or in the twitch of a passersby’s face in the street. 

It’s human. At least, it’s trying to be. 

You feel like it’s had a long time–a lot of faces to mimic–to do so. 

Curled in on itself, it looms over you, almost unconfident on its own feet and merely centimetres away from your face. You expect a huff of warm air, some sort of experimental sniff, but no such thing comes. Instead, your nose is assaulted by the overwhelming stench of rotten something. Rotten something festering with maggots, no longer warm with its own body heat, but instead the beating sun. Skin still pulsing, but with the twitch of parasites instead of blood. 

There’s something chemical there, too. Like bleach; strong enough to make your throat itch. To make your mind buzz, neurons finally frying themselves at the smell–leaving your instincts unthought and unheard of, body as weak and limp as a dying deer. 

You’re staring right at the headlights, and, once again, you can’t bring yourself to move. 

With a crackling of bone, as if it hasn’t been moved in centuries, it tilts its head to the right: stiff and unnatural, as if it’s seen something make the movement, and is trying to copy the habit. 

Even without eyes, you know you’re being stared at. Observed. Every twitch of your face, every droop of your eyelids and every quickened ba-dump, ba-dump, ba-dump of your heart taken into account. 

It doesn’t lunge, doesn’t speak–you hope to everything holy that it can’t; you don’t even want to imagine what it would sound like if it could–and its grip on you doesn’t tighten. You simply…stare at each other, your skull feeling like it’s slowly caving it from the unbearable pressure of silence. Of a feeling of knowing.  

Every floor you’ve ascended, the monsters have gotten smarter. More aware of what they are. Where they are.Who you are. 

Even without speech, looking, and sounding, like a creature pulled up from Hell: all brimstone and stitched together cadavers–something simultaneously uncanny, somewhat human, even if in just general shape, and malevolent–you have no doubt that this thing is thinking. Contemplating you with a little more than hunger and sadism. 

It makes your brain pound in your skull, and limbs tremble as your muscles ebb between painfully taut and uncontrollably loose. 

This is different, somehow. Much, much worse than that which has come before. 

There’s a whisper by your ear, like words cut off by the tuning of a radio, and your eyes dart down to its mouth, but it’s still posed in a toothy grin. 

You wonder how they’d feel, tearing you asunder–ripping past muscle and skin. Too sharp to feel; too blunt to do anything but grind your skin between them. 

Breath picking up, quiet words, mumbled almost unshapen, spill from your mouth; “What do you want?”

It’s the same question you’ve asked before, each time hopeful for some sort of answer, but as it tilts its head back, bringing itself anything but millimetres more away from you, you feel you won’t be getting one.

Your head pounds; the incessant knock, knock, knock, of a firm hand against your skull. The scrape and clack of its tail.

Silence, joined by the warmth of your breaths, sits in the small space between you. You’re almost glad for it. Still, it leaves you in the dark; pawing between shadows for what on Earth you’re meant to do. Meant to say. 

For a moment, you swear its smile twitches downwards–maybe in frustration: perhaps you and your very possible concussion aren’t as amusing as it thought you would be–before settling back to as it was before. You swear you can see yourself reflected in some of the teeth; contorted and ripe for the picking.

What if…what if this is ‘it’?

Your eyebrows twitch inwards. 

It can’t be…right? There are thirty floors, thirty levels, thirty damn monsters for you to face. Thirty trials and who knows how many fucking riddles for you to decipher. No way this thing, the ‘boss’, so to speak, that you’ve spent your entire time here hearing about is on the ninth floor. 

Not yet. Not now. 

You should have more time–more keys and more questions to ask. 

Like clockwork, The Wall’s words come to the forefront of your mind: ‘It is a hungry thing that likes playing with its food.’ A cat batting its paws at a bird with already broken wings. A toddler flipping a beetle on its back for the sake of it. 

For all you know, your play-date is over, and it’s finally time for dinner. 

A feast you’re sure you won’t be making it out of.

Slowly, that lump lodges itself at the back of your throat, thick and chock full of nerves. Instead of hyperventilating, you’re left to holding your breath, bursts of air leaving your nose in half-sobs as tears well in your eyes. At your sides, your hands clench into fists, fingers twitching as your mind attempts to figure out the best course of action. 

If there even is one. 

You almost scream when one of its hands finally leaves you, your left shoulder drooping at the loss of support. It’s a momentary respite; it returns seconds later, instead to your face, rather than your armpit. Desperately, you try to lean away from it, finally starting to struggle again in its grip, but all it does is…trill, and follow your movements with its own: determined to still face you, no matter what. A cry of pain escapes you when it finally makes contact: skin hot enough to be a rampaging flame, all six blackened claws lifted inches away from your face and palm pressing against your cheek. You can hear your own skin sizzling; melting right off of the bone and dripping to the floor beneath you in clumps of nerves and muscle. No matter which way you turn, no matter how much you kick, it stays locked onto you. 

Tears still dribble their endless track when it finally lets its talons fall, digging into the thin skin at the corner of your eye and temple, pressing its thumb against the bottom of your jaw, and the memory of cobwebs of mould makes your wound twinge with pain.

It turns your face left and right, and all you can do is close your eyes–listen to the static in your own ears that sounds suspiciously similar to a mother shushing her baby and sob. 

You can’t disappear this time: can’t let your mind drift on a summer wind to some far-off memory, because the pain is real. Harrowingly so. Burning and aching and throbbing. 

You’ve been here before. 

You send a kick, a damn good one, to something solid, but it only makes the bones in your ankle tremble. 

Behind a steering wheel; eyes flicking to streetlights–whispering foreboding riddles in tongues only moths and the stars can understand to each car that passes by–and feeling metal crumple like a sheet of paper around you. 

With each small movement, your head pulses; it feels like something’s pressing on your eyes, easing for a few moments, if only to push down again, as if trying to pop them into your skull. Stare past your optic nerves and catch a glimpse of every failing neuron in your brain. 

You’re not suffocating this time–“Let me go-”–but it still feels like death. The way the static hisses in your mind sounds like a bell tolling, and the pawing claws of this thing, gliding over each inch of your face with the gentleness of a mapmaker, feels like the cold gasps of the grim reaper himself. 

If this thing were breathing, you’re sure you’d feel its hot breath on your face. But it isn’t. Even though its chest heaves in tandem with yours, it isn’t. 

Its forehead presses against yours, hand still cupping your left cheek, and you feel your heart finally attempt to jump out of your throat–stopped by that incessant lump of nerves that keeps anything coherent from coming out of your mouth. For a few moments, it stays there–you can feel the rub of some of its teeth against you–before you’re left to fall to the ground.

Your knees take the brunt of it, trembling hands grasping at fallen chips of plaster, entangled with sodden clumps of carpet, as you keep your eyes pinned to the floor, trying to exhume every blackened part of you through your throat. 

Your hands climb to your face, clawing and ripping at the charred skin with the little you have left of your nails. You almost try digging into your neck, try popping your head right off of your spine, before something finally registers in your mind. 

It let you go. 

You can still see its feet in front of you, can still faintly hear its tail swishing against the floor.

Slowly, you look up, not sure what to expect. 

Run. 

It’s just as it was: hunched. Watching. Arms hanging at its sides, drooping to just where its knees begin.

Run.

Your feet start to shift. Its smile is still there. 

Run. 

Jerkily, it nods its head to the right, and you react in an instant.

RUN. 

Clumsily, you scramble on the floor, shoes struggling to gain a grip, before you’re finally upright again, and darting down the hall. Your shadow guides you, an elongated, inky double-ganger that points you towards the staircase: a place that feels endlessly far away. 

A tingling sensation runs down your back, your skin itches, and you refuse to look behind you–or even listen for the second pair of footsteps that you know will follow yours. To listen for the agonising scrape of brittle bone against wood that you’re sure will be etched into your mind forever. 

You don’t know why it let you go, and, for now, you don’t care. You’ll use your head for something other than controlling your legs when you’re safe and sound and able to crawl out of your own skin on the next floor. 

The next floor where there will be something undoubtedly worse than this. 

If it can get worse than this.

Your hand latches on to the side of the crumbling entryway, swinging yourself to the right and into the stairwell, tap, tap, tapping up the steps with as much speed as possible. 

You’ll be home soon. Home, and in your bed with a mountain of homework to distract you for the next two weeks. 

Again, using your arm to swing yourself, you begin to make the turn onto the concrete mid-landing. 

You can do this. Just a few more-

…steps. 

All is quiet. Dead quiet. 

Numbness engulfs you, and all the pain of your legs ebb away. 

The void. 

The throbbing in your head persists, but the static, the chattering, and even the ringing in your ears, all become silent. 

It must not have disappeared. 

And it is terrifying. 

You can feel yourself breathing, can almost see the air–is it air?–in front of you contort, but it is utterly noiseless. Mute enough that you think your eardrums have finally burst, leaving you to the stillness of…Nothing.

You thought it would be comforting. Instead, you just feel disquieted. Unnerved. 

It’s like you’re somewhere–unknowingly looking at something–that no one is meant to see. Or, at least, something people haven’t seen, haven’t known, the face of in a very, very long time. 

You can’t help but feel it’s angry at you. Ageless ire surrounding you on all sides.

Immortal fingers tugging at your skin. It feels like it’s slipping off of your face, like damp fabric sliding from a washing line. 

Habitually, you try to bring your hands up to check, but they stay motionless at your sides; useless to affirm the feeling.

What is happening?

Along with it, the very essence of your being peels off you: wrung out of you through the blazing pores of your skin.

Maybe you’re dead. Maybe you’ve finally made your way to purgatory; slipped right past the gaps in the stairs and fallen, fallen, fallen. 

…

Still falling.

Skin still peeling itself off of your skull. Fat of your cheek, muscles, nerves, muscles, skin.

It’s not…agonising, just strange. Numb, and unnatural.

Your eyes grow wide as your eyelids are tugged off to the side, pulled thin like tulle. You’re not sure if it should hurt. You’re not sure whether you want it to.

All is quiet. Dead quiet.

Numbness stays with you, and all the pain in your legs is gone. You can’t see them anymore.

The throbbing in your head persists, persist, and there is nothing else.

There is a feeling somewhere in your body. Maybe fear, or maybe nothing.

You can’t feel yourself breathing, can’t see anything. It is utterly noiseless. Mute enough that you think your eardrums–drums–have finally burst, leaving you to the stillness of…Nothing. The place where all things that perish go.

You thought it would be comforting. Instead, you just feel disquieted. Unnerved. 

All the light you cannot see suffocates you. Angry and ancient. Your heart is still thumping, but it feels more so like a pulse around you, rather than your own organs. Like you’re inside someone else’s skin; your own falling off of your face.

…

Don’t you know that already?

All is quiet.

This feels familiar. A seconds old memory, realised years later.

Dead quiet.

Something to the left of your skull pops, just a dull weight, but, 

nothing happens.

Numbness engulfs–

–haven’t you already thought this?–

you.

you.

you.

All your organs feel, 

–are–

 full. 

Full of oil,

disease, 

Petroleum and waiting for a spark.

The throbbing, the migraine, 

the affliction, 

is all that is left of you.

you.

you.

Stay awake. 

Are you even lucid to begin with?

Come on, Y/N, 

sleep. You’ve earned it.

stay awake. 

You can’t slip now. 

You can’t let the rot get to you.

You’re still here. You’re still you.

you. 

you.

…

Aren’t you?

On your right, another thing pops, and you are–

flung,

flung,

flung, into something solid. Flat and wide, enough for what remains of your body to roll like a wave, clambering up the shore. 

The world is instantly much too loud. 

It’s like time and space have just collapsed and rebuilt itself around you; your body achingly slow to catch up. Air refuses to fill your lungs, some sharp liquid–maybe blood, maybe vomit–dribbling out of your heaving mouth as breath is rejected by your diaphragm before it can even become a breath. It feels too thick to even breathe; throat clogged with undying, divine mucus and lungs adapted to inhale space dust and coins, fallen between gaps of stairs. 

Blood pools in your ear, a harsh thrum to the already existing buzz of the world, and your body–at least the phantom of it–instinctively curls itself into a ball; dragging your leaden arms, muscles crying out as if they haven’t been used in years, from your sides and cupping them over your ears, too fearful to check your face. 

Your heart is back in your chest, but the pump–still so loud with the rest of the world temporarily blocked out–of it feels and sounds more like pure electricity weaving its way through your veins; the gentle wind rustling through undead tree’s leaves more so the misfiring of plane engines mere metres away from your ears-

-wind in the trees.

Your body pulls itself taut.

Wind through trees. Wind that isn't coming through a window, whistling down a hall. Wind that scrapes against your back; fresh and biting. Harsh and awakening.

Much too fast for your own good, wincing at what feels like your joints clicking back into place, you twist your head around, squinting–you feel as if you shouldn’t be able to do that–at the dimly lit world in front of you.

There’s darkness–nothing close to the suffocating night that still lingers on your skin–but trees. Trees and distant rooftops.

You’re outside. Outside and far, far from rock bottom.

How the fuck are you-?

-Your shoulder pops with your slight movement. It makes the nerves behind your eyes ache with a memory that isn’t yours.

Your chest stutters. 

But, are you really? How can you even be sure this isn't another illusion? God, it feels like tar on your frontal lobe to even begin to contemplate what on Earth you just experienced. Your brain barely feels like it’s been returned to your skull.

Haltingly, you turn onto your back, and instantly wishing you hadn’t. 

The sky is pitch black; cavernous and wide and hungry. Just like before, watching the eyes of things far older than you blink in tandem, you feel swallowed by an undeniable dread. A sister feeling to that of the fear you’ve felt for your entire time here.  

You’re alone, for now, but you can’t help but feel surrounded. Not compressed, that’s the only way you can describe what you felt in there, but…encircled. 

Achingly, you try to twist your head, still staying on your back. The world around you is flat, aside from a concrete protrusion; a shape all your senses tell you is a, or rather the, door to the roof. The door to the roof that's closed. Locked shut with a heavy chain.

Nowhere to run, and nowhere to hide. 

The revelation makes your legs twinge with what feels like a spear of Antarctic ice wedged into it, and begs you to get up. 

Thump. 

There’s something beneath you.

Thump, thump. 

It is right beneath you. 

Get up.

Thump.

Making…making its way towards the door, 

Thump.

Get-

-Before your neurons can scream at you any louder, you begin shifting yourself back upwards as the world spins around you; blood rushing to your head as hot as a spill of boiling water. 

Thump. 

All there is to look at is that damn door, but you swear down there's two–no, three–of them. More cunning doublegangers to send you reeling through more aches and pains, no doubt.

Thump. 

The world swirls like a spinning top before you; a nauseous blur of black, grey and distant lights. You’re damn sure you won't be able to walk, not in this state, not with your legs. You can't even focus on anything; it’s all too fucking dark. 

Thump. 

It’s still beneath you. And you still have nowhere to run, and nowhere to hide. 

Thump, thump.

Your breaths come out in harsh puffs; in through the cavities that remain of your nose, and out through your exposed trachea.

What are you meant to do? 

You need- you need something to lean on. You need stability. You need to focus, or you’re a dead man walking. 

Thump.

As you paw beside you for something to hold onto, you stagger backwards, heel hitting a wall; something that barely even rises up to the back of your knees. Desperately, your hands latch onto it as your body fails you, trying to focus your eyes on the door

Thump, thump. 

With each blink, the door furtively inches closer to you, backing away every other like a scared animal. You can barely tell if you’re metres or centimetres away from it. Either way, it barely feels like enough space. 

Thump.

Two long steps, and it’ll be upon you; you’re sure of it. 

Thump, thump.

Two long steps, and a few more, and it’ll be chasing you around and around and around. A cat, chasing its own tail. You, forever doomed no matter how far you run.

Your–thump–organs exhumed and consumed, Helen’s fate forever unknown, with nowhere to run, and nowhere to hide. 

In all the ceaseless shifting of your hands–the concrete feels like liquid between your fingers–a small pebble bounces off of the edge. Falling, falling–thump–falling, before striking the ground with a half-heard crack. 

It’s just enough for a thought to spark in your mind. One that wriggles its way up from your legs, through your trembling viscera all the way to the front of your mind.

A terrible, reckless thought, that may just be your saving grace. 

Hesitantly, you peel your eyes off of the rooftop’s door, peering down at the drop behind you and cringing at the sight. Barely, just barely can you see the pavement below–thump. Cracked and littered with unkempt grasses and weeds. 

You bring your eyes back, attempting to draw your mind away from the chance of freedom. In no way would you even have the chance of surviving that; one hundred metres or so of dull air followed by the deadliest crash landing you could imagine. 

Still, your eyes inch back. 

Thump. 

…What if you used the balconies?

You could easily break the glass doors–what’s a few more shards embedded into your skin?–and climb onto the floor below, though you’re not keen on meeting whatever hides on them. Or…

You swallow, thickly. 

…Or, you could climb down.

Thump. 

It’s almost here now. 

Either you face it, or take your chances with those ramshackle balconies. 

Thump.

Taking a breath, you turn from the rooftop’s door, facing the low barrier between you and a death drop’s amount of air. 

Don’t even think about it. The more you think about it, the worse it’ll be.

Squinting, you manage to find the first balcony; jittering as if a buzzing bug. It doesn’t look the best; iron turned brown with an infection of scarlet rust, and entwined with a few wisp-like, dead and dry as bone vines that failed to survive there. 

Focus, come on focus. Your head feels like a bowling ball–if you’re about to do this, you need to keep your senses sharp.

Thump.

The booming death knell sends you into action; hastily lifting a leg over the small concrete wall.

It’s just like rock climbing with Jeanne, you try to convince yourself. 

Once you have your other over, you sit comfortably, hands gripping the edge and leaning backwards; still dizzy. You’d much rather fall backwards than you would fall forwards.

You wince as your legs meet air. You were really, really hoping that you were close enough to feel the rail. It’s probably, what, one, two meters beneath you? You’ll need to hang off the damn wall to even reach it–or, maybe you could just drop onto the balcony’s floor?

Steeling yourself, you begin to turn around, lifting yourself up onto the wall and placing your knees upon the little space you have, wincing as your legs throb, before beginning to shuffle backwards.

She’s right there at the bottom, holding my rope: nothing to be afraid of.

Thump.

This has to be your best course of action. From there, you can easily begin to swing and traverse your way downwards; naught but fifteen–probably twenty–minutes of climbing. Practically nothing in the face of the time you’ve spent here, facing what you have. 

If you try hard enough, you can almost hear her: shouting a far off encouragement to you. Ground zero to the Empyrean. 

With a breath, you keep a tight grip on the ledge as you slowly lower yourself, stomach jumping as you feel your feet dangle yet again.

And then, after that, you can go find Helen. Go find Helen and take her–and Jeanne and Noah–far, far away from this place. 

Crack. 

Your body freezes, blunt fingernails digging into the concrete with all their might. 

Crack.

Panicked, you glance downwards, trying to decipher how far you are from the balcony’s floor, or, in the least, how close you are to the rail. 

Fuck.

You let out a frustrated whimper. 

Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck.

Moonlight shines through a gaping hole in the balcony’s floor; illuminating the one below it, messy with rubble.

Thump, crack.

Manic, your eyes glance at the surrounding others, searching for one that still has its damn fl-

-Crack.

You have to move. You have to. You can’t waste even a second here–you have to try the rail. Have to balance on the damn thing long enough to lower yourself, hang onto it, and then do the same for the next balcony. 

Another loud bang–is it throwing itself against the door?–and another painful crack of metal and concrete.

It’s all gonna be fine. 

Flies buzz around your head. You think they already know you’re rotting from the inside out. 

Stretching your feet to a point, you can just about feel the rail. Refusing to look down, you attempt to convince yourself it isn’t that far of a drop; that one wrong move means you’re an indistinguishable mass of death, bonded to the pavement. 

Crack.

You take a sharp, steadying inhale, although it doesn’t do much, as you feel your way around with your feet, taking a quick glance at what’s below you. The hole still gapes at you, begging for you to fall right through. 

You loosen a hand to let yourself drop–letting out a gasp of air as you do. The rail is just thick enough for the centre of your feet to lay flat. From there, all you have to do is balance.

All you have to do. What a strange statement to attach to such a deadly task. 

Your heart flutters as your sole almost sits securely on the bar. Just a couple more millimetres, and you’ll let go; balancing on the rail, before lowering yourself out of immediate danger. Just a couple more minutes, and you’ll be home free. Just a couple more-

-CRACK-

-But, suddenly, you’re weightless. Weightless, and watching the rooftop slip away from you. 

Everything but you, whatever you are, acts as if it is still metres above you; fingers posed as if still grasping at the ledge, and innards lurching. It’s a strange sensation–but, simultaneously, a familiar one; gravity attempting to push everything inside up and out of your throat in a bloody clump.

At first, you don’t even know you’re afraid. Just abuzz with the same fear that’s swaddled you for as long as you remember.

Then, gore-soaked, feeling nothing and everything, you realise what’s happening. 

Realise that you’re beginning to understand the dread Icarus felt as he fell–too close to the sun, and too far-gone to be saved. Falling, falling, falling after grasping for gold and warmth, and ending swathed, choked and held by Aegean currents. But he flew. And, for a few fleeting moments, you know what he felt. The weightlessness. The joy. For a few fleeting moments, you are a bird. 

For a few fleeting moments, nothing matters, the world is one gaping wound around you, and you are flying.

The fear relents, replaced by something you’re almost tempted to call peace. Some sort of acceptance that you don’t really know the name of.

But, of course, all good things must come to an end. Something–you’re pretty sure it’s your leg–hits a balcony, and you howl into the wind with pain as your bone snaps like a twig.

Next, it’s an arm: splintered with what feels like an iron bat to your elbow in mere moments, and you are horrified to know that this isn’t a dream. That the way your ribs puncture, sharp as a dagger and blunt as a stick piercing a water balloon, the skin and muscle around, is real. 

Stop.

This time, it’s somewhere in your upper chest–your collar bone. Dislodged and pressing against the bones in your shoulder with jagged edges that you’re sure is some sort of hellfire-hot knife.

The moon stares, a pale grin; an eye pushed upright with joy. 

Make it stop.

Something in your side opens–gapes wide and spills something dark, closer to tar than blood, and you scream as you feel the skin try to stitch itself back together.

Wail into the night–unheard and unnoticed–as your bones rearrange themselves. 

Everything is in the wrong place. There are holes in your muscle, skin that won’t take lining your organs, and bones collapsing in on your eyes. It’s agonising; burning and glacial cold. Air that won’t stay in your lungs. A heart pushing blood out of your very pores. 

Your jaw snaps, twists left with your neck, and your wails–or is it the wind?–begin to truly sound haunting. You can barely feel them leave your throat.

Please.

You’re not sure who you beg to. Maybe some sort of God. Maybe yourself. 

Bones. Muscles. Organs. Snap, rip, pierce, repeat.

Over, and over and over. Eternally. 

Whoever you pray to does not hear. 

Instead, they wait. 

And at the end of their waiting, your neck meets concrete, and finally, finally, it stops. 

There are no stars to greet you on the other side. 

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

‘Parkour!’ they say, as they immediately fall thirty stories. (Failed) James Bond era fr. 

I apologise that this one took a hot minute to get out! I was out of the country for a bit, then my laptop decided to go haywire on me. Since this is you guys’ first look at our main...thing of interest, I wanted to make sure this was exactly how I wanted it, too. 

In editing, I may or may not have also realised that I had free will to do what I wished with formatting, and played around with it for a while. Please let me know if there are any formatting issues!

Plus!! From here on out (minus the next), chapters are likely to get much longer, so I think I’ll just be aiming to update once a month now. Looking back, I’m amazed I managed to write those size chapters and edit them in under three weeks. I miss having that amount of free time, lol.

As always, thank you guys for reading!! I appreciate you lot so much.

+ Sidenote, I’m looking around for a beta reader/editor! If anybody has any experience with it, or knows where to possibly go looking (since a lot of Tumblr and Reddit spaces seem to be dead), give me a shout!

[hugsandchaos]

Dinotrux x Murder Drones still has me by the neck, so I want to start a small debate.

Which would win in a fight: A murder drone or a t-trux?

Because a murder drone’s small size combined with their speed could be an advantage, and they have a vast range of weapons. Claws, guns, RPGs, their acid tail, the list goes on! They also regrow and reattach limbs, which we saw in the first episode when N regrew his own head, in episode 3 when he and V put themselves back together, and in the final episode when J and V seemed to regrow their arms and legs in a matter of seconds.

However, their metal might be thinner and more easily bent and broken, not to mention their weight is probably not much compared to a t-trux, which means it wouldn’t take much to knock a murder drone off its feet or crush its insides.

Another thing we need to remember is that the murder drone would be heavily dependent on the weather. If it’s too warm, they might not stand much of a chance. If it’s cold, then they will be able to fight. If it’s a storm, especially a bad blizzard at night, they’d be at their highest advantage point not only because of the low temperatures helping them last longer, but also the harsh winds, snow, and darkness would make it harder for the t-trux to see the murder drone coming.

Remember, Copper 9 was basically in nuclear winter, and murder drones were built to survive the unbelievably intense and inhospitable storms that plagued the planet, and they’re nocturnal, so I’m very sure that storms and darkness aren’t a problem for our murder drone.

Oh, and let’s not forget the fact that they can fly. That’d give them a huge advantage to strike from above.

Going back to speed, the murder drone would have the advantage depending on if they’re flying or not. Walking and running might be too slow to escape a t-trux, but their wings would carry them to speeds above 100, which would definitely make them much faster.

Now let’s move on to the t-trux.

A t-trux’s engine is built for power, and as far as I know, it runs the hottest of all Dinotrux engines. T-trux are able to sniff out ore, which by extent could mean they might be able to smell metal. I know some might disagree with me on this, but in one of the episodes, Ty specified that he was getting a wiff of iron and “the slightest hint of magnesium”, so am I wrong for liking the idea he might be able to smell being made of metal as well if he tried?

Regardless, a t-trux would have the size and possibly strength advantage over a murder drone. Definitely the size, strength is a bit debatable since we don’t know if it’s a murder drone’s weight or strength that keeps them from being carried away by the strong winds of Copper 9. I’m guessing weight, which would make me rethink my previous statement about a murder drone being easily moved by a t-trux.

Moving on, dinotrux seem to have tougher external plating than drones, but I’m not entirely sure we could add “armor” to the list of advantages a t-trux has. N was able to dig his claws into a door that looked just as tough as a dinotrux and force it open. Not only that, but he played with one of his hands a little and spoke without any strain in his voice, suggesting it wasn’t much of a struggle. He also left claw marks in the walls during his attack.

Next, t-trux tails have some sort of weapon at the end. Ty has a wrecking ball, D-Structs had a wrecking mace before he lost that and got a chainsaw tail, and then Skrap-It made him his claw, and D-Stroy… I don’t know what that thing was, but it was spiny and definitely did some damage. So it looks like what kind of tail varies from t-trux to t-trux, but I wouldn’t be surprised if a wrecking ball was common.

However, going back to their size, it could also be a disadvantage because it’d make them a bigger and easier target, and if the murder drone were to escape through a small tunnel, they wouldn’t be able to follow.

What do you guys think?

[oneclickangel]

with a snap of the fingers.

day 6 already!! we're in the final stretch!!!!

for today, i went with a comfort unasked for yet welcomed ! and a wall of snow keeps us hidden kinda

this one is definitely more elaborate than my previous work ... bc this one's a fantasy au!! ive had this vivid image of paper cut and joe being a mage and a blacksmith respectively and them being kinda neighbors in a village. but it kinda extended to other characters too so you may see them here. also i used my actual name here bc paper cut doesnt sound like it'd fit in a fantasy setting 😭 and also his personality here is kinda inspired by a character named beryl from a game called sword of convallaria! here hes a really skilled mage whos kinda cocky but ultimately still a socially awkward dude who doesnt go out much. lol

if i have time, i'll expand on this au a little more! but for now, aside from what i said above, this au has sonetto as the "main character" or the hero who keeps coming back to the village from dungeon raiding (bc i cant see vertin doing it despite her technically being the protag in re99). kinda like dungeon meshi (<- read like 5 chapters of dunmeshi)

i love roguelikes so the idea of the hero reviving after dying in an always shuffling and changing dungeon appeals to me. so that happens to sonetto in this au

SORRY FOR THE WORD VOMIT i just enjoyed writing this a lot. anyways

Safar hates to admit it but he is very much snowed in.

Usually he wouldn’t mind the blizzard causing it - hell, sometimes he’d celebrate - but he needed to go out to get some potions from Sotheby across the village. It’s just misfortune after misfortune for him this winter season.

He can only mumble complaints under his breath as he instructs various (previously) inanimate objects to tidy up the place. It’s a rare occasion as he can be… quite the disorganized individual, despite having the convenience of magic literally at his fingertips. Though the process itself isn’t as magical, ironically enough.

Everything comes to a stop when he hears a banging on the door. His complaints double as he stomps over to the door. He quickly casts a translation spell, just to throw a warning to whatever monster threatens to break into his house.

“Get the hell out, you freaks! Do not piss me off!”

Instead of growling and howling, he is instead met with some coughs. Very humane coughs (or at least, humanoid). His temper subsides slightly at the possibility that annoying winter monsters finally got the hint after many, many years.

“I have no idea what you’re saying but it’s me, Joe! Y’know, the blacksmith next door?”

The big, tough guy next door? The sole source of all the sound pollution that made Safar soundproof his walls? Well, at least it’s a human. They’re supposed to be good at reasoning with other humans. At least, the mage hopes so.

Even then, it’s strange that the blacksmith is out there during a literal blizzard. Like it or not, the mage has to let the tough guy in, lest he dies out there. The snow-drenched blacksmith stumbles in, which helps with the mage’s attempt to open and close that front door as quickly as humanly possible.

“What the hell are you doing here?”

The host spouts the moment he slams the front door. It’s a genuine question asked sort of out of concern but the mage has to admit he didn’t want any kind of visitor, monster or not. Thankfully, his little inanimate servants managed to clean up the place in time for the unexpected visitor.

“I was on my way home but then the snow got super heavy and well. Your place is nearer and my balls are freezing.”

Safar can’t argue with that. He can interrogate where he was from once they settle down. And so the mage surrenders to his fate with a sigh, making his way towards his shelves flowing with ingredients of many varieties. Making the blacksmith feel right at home will be a piece of cake.

“I do not want to hear about your freezing balls. Sit down over there, I’ll make some tea. Or are you more of a coffee guy?”

Out of habit, the mage starts throwing out everything he’s not looking for. Joe is oblivious to this despite all the noise he’s making and simply enjoys himself on the very comfortable couch, right beside a very cozy fire.

“I’m fine with anything.”

The blacksmith begins to lay down on the couch. Safar knows well that Joe has the luxury of being a guest and it’s common courtesy for him to treat the guest well but he can’t help but think for someone so big and tough-looking, he sure as hell seems content to not put those muscles to use.

Well, whatever! He’s a mage for Pete’s sake! He has the convenience of using supernatural powers to aid him in his daily activities! And moving things around with magic is child’s play for the best mage in this village!

He proves this point by snapping his fingers, which drops a whole tea set (with cookies on the side) on the coffee table in front of Joe. The guest jumps from the sudden movement, though the self-pouring kettle remains unfazed.

“And anything you will get.”

The host smugly proclaims as he struts towards his guest. With another snap of his fingers, lanterns illuminate the living room. He looks around the room, pondering if there’s anything else that needs some finger-snapping. Ultimately, his gaze lands on the fireplace. He sneaks a glance at Joe.

“Is the fire warm enough?”

Increasing the heat of the fireplace requires more effort than just finger-snapping but the extent of it just consists of the inconvenience of having to grab an extra ingredient from his stuffed shelves. Yet Joe only smiles at the host, as warm as the flames that lick the smooth stone.

“Yeah. The perfect temperature actually.”

Safar’s smug smile turns into a genuine one. He has to admit – the guy’s energy is contagious. Having his mood lifted up slightly prompts him to join his guest near the fireplace as he quite literally lifts himself up off the floor, hovering in midair in a cross-legged sitting position. Joe pretends to not be impressed but the mage can tell he’s stealing glances.

It’s easy for the mage to forget certain tricks up his robe’s sleeves are unthinkable for other people, especially for a regular human such as Joe. Some think the mage can be a little too boastful for his own good but Joe isn’t part of that crowd - he deserves to be boastful. He’s the most skilled mage in the village! That much can be seen with the huge certificate that’s pinned up right above the fireplace. The words “BEST MAGE IN CHARLESTON VILLAGE” in the mayor’s crude handwriting swell with pride.

“...Reminds me of my forge back home.”

The blacksmith comments on the warmth of the fireplace, but it also alludes to the fact that he has a certificate in his workshop too - except it says “BEST (AND ONLY) BLACKSMITH IN CHARLESTON VILLAGE”. He always chooses to ignore the words in the parentheses.

Joe lets his eyes wander around the small establishment. It’s a simple little house, the only doors there being the front door and the bathroom door. Everything else is open-ended and connected, with only some half-walls partitioning specific rooms. The place is both tidy and messy. He doesn’t even have to try to feel right at home. Maybe he already is.

…Or not, because Safar is basically a stranger to him.

“Oh yeah, where were you going before the storm hit anyway? I thought you didn't go out of your smithy?”

Right when he thought to start up a conversation, the mage had that handled. Even the blacksmith himself forgot he was out and about still when the storm hit. He racks his brain at the interrogation.

“Sonetto just finished another dungeon run and managed to bring back some good metals for me to mess with and uh… I got excited.”

Safar can never understand Sonetto’s insistence on making her way down that cursed dungeon. But he supposes that strong sense of justice is the reason why she’s The Hero. Bestowed with powers of reincarnation, she’s basically immortal. He can’t help but feel a bit bad for her though.

He never understood why so many yearn for eternal life. Initially he believed that those people merely have an innate desire to be remembered forever which then translates into desire for immortality. Yet he doubts Sonetto is one of these people, despite being The Hero. She’s… really just a good person at heart.

The mage tries to illustrate the image of both Sonetto and Joe in the same room. Hm. A little too full of sunshine for his liking. But no doubt it’d be a delightful room to be in all the same.

“Probably should’ve stayed put then, dude. There’s a reason why people say patience is a virtue.”

The mage comments as a cup of tea makes its way towards him. He downs all of it in one gulp.

“Don’t remind me. I’m impatient as hell.”

The host has to give it to him, he is self-aware at the very least. Safar laughs at his response, Joe pouting at the former’s reaction. The mage then offers a sincere smile. “I get it. Why do you think I use magic for everything?”

He has to admit it too. The mage can be a very prideful person in front of others but behind that closed door, he yearns for a lazy life just as any tired person does.

“Lucky. All I got are these awesome muscles.”

Joe flexes his left arm, bicep bulging boastfully. The mage finds himself entranced by the display. It’s a reminder of his preferences for people to stare at. His gaze is a little too shameless.

“Like what you see, don’tcha?”

Blood rushes to Safar’s face almost immediately at his comment. He would respond but he knows the words that’d leave his lips will stutter. So instead he turns towards the fireplace, attempting to be enchanted by the flames’ dance instead.

“...This is nice. We never really had the time to get to know each other.”

To his relief, Joe changes the topic just as quickly as he was to tease Safar. The latter says nothing for a while.

“Yeah.”

Joe was definitely an uninvited guest but Safar would be lying if he says that his presence is not comforting. And for the time being, the blizzard outside will keep them hidden from the outside world for a little while. More than enough time to forge a friendship.

And it’ll be easy as snapping your magical fingers.

[possum-quesadilla]

Chapter two of Lonely Remnants, “I wish I'd find all the lonely remnants, Of you that left when your head cracked open”, is here! Short but wild. Surprisingly, no trigger warnings this time!

Here are the extras!

- The lyrics for this chapter’s title are from “Coma Baby” by Nicole Dollanganger, and is also the origin of the fic’s title! I won’t go in depth as to how this song relates to the story, as that would be spoilers!

- “Painstakingly, she babysat the demon as it rinsed off the worst of what was left, then she used a pile of different washcloths and hand towels to wipe when she could off his face.” - If I had a nickel for every time a scene like this happened in my Beetlejuice fics, I’d have at least two.

- “My real physical form before I took this body was a bucket full of black goo. I could show ya, but I’d have to be qui-” - It was going to say it would have to be quick, because it wouldn’t have much time to return to the body.

- “It certainly hated the noise and the heat, growling and reminding her over and over that it needed to stay cool. She just rolled her eyes and kept doing her best to get the rotten little beast dry.” - IF I HAD A NICKEL-

- “A photo taken mid-snowball fight, Lawrence with an impish grin as he wound up to throw a rather large ball of snow at an unsuspecting Lydia. Lawrence, apparently having not grown up with snowy winters, sat bundled up in blankets on the couch, a cup of hot cocoa in hand. He was red-faced and obviously still freezing, but he was still smiling so brightly as Adam leaned down to kiss the top of his snowflake-covered head.” - Lawrence got absolutely decimated by Lydia for sneaking up on her like that. His ass got pelted with so many snowballs that Emily, Barbara, and Adam had to drag him inside so his southern-born ass wouldn’t get frostbite.

- “(Lydia’s passion for the arts seemed to have died with her mother, she thought. Just the idea of picking up a camera now made her sick to her stomach.)” - GUYS DON’T WORRY SHE WILL REGAIN HER PASSION FOR PHOTOGRAPHY!!!

- “ “That’s me and my dad, Charles. He used to take you golfing every summer to bond with you, but you sucked at it.” The Shoggoth gave her a funny sort of look as she continued.” - It was not prepared for her to refer to it as Lawrence.

- “ “Emily…” the Shoggoth echoed, some strange pained look flickering through it’s eyes.” - Hmm. Interesting!

- “There was a pair of photos of a family escape room trip. All of them, photographed by the employees, standing with bright grins and excited thumbs up. Then, in the same setting, with all of them staring angrily at an anxiously grimacing Lawrence, who held a sign that read “We did not escape”.” - It was Lawrence’s fault they did not escape.

- “Clusters of photos of nature, of them all in camping gear, of Charles teaching Lawrence, Adam, and Lydia how to fish. Lawrence diving in to the lake and then coming back up with a large bass in his hands, to the slack-jawed Charles’ astonishment, and cheers from Lydia.” - A little bit of foreshadowing to Lawrence’s country roots! My boy used to wade through the Everglades barefoot and grab pythons and such without batting an eye.

- “Lawrence hunched over a campfire, arms outstretched and face twisted and shadowed in a ghoulish grin as he recounted some ghastly horror story that seemed to especially petrify his partners.” - He has always been very talented at scaring people :)

- “Pridefest in a nearby town, Lawrence having Lydia sat on his shoulders as she flew a transgender flag high and proud for him. Adam, Barbara, and Emily smiling and flocking to their sides, touting their own flags. (Charles had taken the picture, it was amateurish and shaky.)” - Lydia is mad, hence why the narration/she is calling him ‘amateurish’ and not mentioning him as much. Also, ha ha, Charles is the only cishet one! Loser /lh

- “Fourth of July, where Charles, Adam, and Barbara followed Lawrence extremely closely each year, but somehow still never caught him before he could set off the disastrous “Fat Dragon” fountain firework that was captured in a bright, blurry photo of all of them running and screaming from it after it had tipped over and shot in their direction.” - Based on true events from my own life. Also “Fat Dragon” is a reference to “The Babysitter”, a movie I have a love-hate relationship with.

- “He looked… very different. It was almost startling. His face was clean-shaven, his cheeks were sunken, his hair was long and unmanaged. His features were almost… softer. Certainly younger. Very different from the bold, loud, scruffy thirty-something she knew.” - It’s because he went on testosterone after this!

- “He wore tattered clothes and had fake blood smeared all over his face. A zombie. How ironic. She held up the photo, eliciting a strange, grating chuckle from the Shoggoth.” - The Shoggoth also sees the irony. It finds it very funny.

- “Lydia pushed the album aside to ensure a sudden deluge of tears didn’t ruin it’s pages. The Shoggoth flinched, brows furrowed in a sort of pained expression. “… y-… you alright, kiddo?” ” - Oh? What’s this? The freaky creature already showing signs of caring??

- “Lydia raised an eyebrow and tilted her head hard to one side. She could swear she saw Barbara flinch at the movement, but the pained expression was gone in a moment.” - That particular gesture reminded Barbara of Lawrence.

- “ “… is that why they never came to…. Visit?” She got the implication in an instant, it seemed, as Barbara solemnly nodded her head.” - By “visit” she means come pay for a gravesite.

- “It isn’t our story to tell, sweetheart. Especially not..” - She was going to say ‘while you’re so young’, as they had an agreement with Lawrence to have him tell Lydia what happened before he came to their town when she was older.

- “ “Oh my god, that explains the weird accent!” Her second mom nodded fervently, leaving the rag where it was as she went to make her way around the counter to Lydia. “He tried his best to hide it, but it always slipped out!” She lowered her voice in her best approximation of her brother’s own cadence as she mockingly drawled out, “now, pardon me, ma’am, but I do believe he did a right shit job of hidin’ it!” ” - Partially based on my own experience of being clocked immediately for my own stupid yeehaw accent, although mine is not from Louisiana. Lawrence hid it very well, but it came out on certain words like ‘pardon’, and he let it slip more in front of his loved ones.

- “All the while the Shoggoth hissed and shied away, but Barbara pursued it and demanded it get out of their home as she continued to hit it.” - Hehe, she wants it to leave but she’s not letting it leave

- “Lydia called, surging forward and going to grip the woman’s arm, but she was stoped by Adam suddenly returning to his senses and lifting her up under her armpits and trying to carry her away.” - Adam dad reflexes!!!

[oceanspray5]

I used to LOVE jelsa (jack frost/elsa) during the RotBFTD days and I still love that ship now. I was struck with an amazing locklyle headcanon so pls lemme know what you think of it:

AU where Lockwood is Jack and Lucy is Elsa.

Lockwood's parents died and he and Jess die a few years later cuz of something Lockwood does while playing against Jess's warning. Jessica tries to save him but they both ended up drowning in the lake (or something to that effect). Except Lockwood is revived as the spirit of winter. He doesn't know why he was "saved" and not Jessica when it was his fault she died. He concludes its his punishment for eternity is to go unseen and unheard by anyone. He's so very lonely and depressed but he has no one to turn to (i haven't decided who George is yet).

Meanwhile we have Lucy, youngest princess of a small kingdom ruled by dictators and frought with uprising. She is born with a gift that makes her monstrous to her family and they shut her away thinking it'll only harm their already horrible reputation.

There's two ways this AU can go:

1) Lucy grows up lonely and lost wishing she could have just one person who would understand what thats like. One day, locked in her room, Lockwood happens stumbles upon her window while also solitary and restless and stumbles upon her Perhaps its cuz they both want someone who understands them so badly that Lucy can see him and hear him and he can talk to her, but they finally find the one person in existence that makes their existence feel a little less bleak and a little more whole.

2) Lucy is forced to attend a ball or event of some sort that her family is trying to put on for show to appease the townsfolk and she can't avoid it. And one of her sisters provokes her into revealing her powers so the townspeople turn on her. The rest of the family use it as an opportunity to pretend they've been so busy "containing" Lucy all these years, it's why they've been unable to work on improving the conditions of the Kingdom. Lucy has to flee to save herself in a world she knows nothing about and she's being hunted and feeling worse than ever, feeling as equally cursed with her life as Lockwood does in his death.

They meet cuz Lockwood sees her running and, in the mood to cause some mischief, helps her out. She doesn't know he's there at first... But slowly she realizes something helped her escape and for the first time in his undead life Lockwood is seen by someone and Lucy is viewed as something other than a monster.

And then they realize they've both finally found a friend and maybe something more.

Anyway so... Thoughts? I'm so tempted to write something for this. Not a full AU, maybe just a oneshot? But the idea struck out of nowhere but I'd love to hear what you all think of the headcanon itself.

[lokistemptress]

Bruce Banner & Katherine G. Baudelaire head cannons - the clairvoyant

Mostly just getting to know Kat

some of it is nsfw, but it's mostly sfw

she's always been a huge smoker. she's not allowed to smoke in the lab of course, huge fire hazard. but she's always like "i'll just magically put it out' with like an eyeroll, but that's not the point. whenever she smokes (mostly anywhere in the compound, but mostly in the lab), bruce or tony will just pluck it form between her finger tips or lips.

all the mirrors in her house is covered with blankets and cloths. she hates mirrors cause sometimes when she sees her own reflection, she gets premonitions about her future and she never really wants to know.

aside from cigarette smoke, katherine also smells like roses or lavenders depending on the season (rose in spring-summer, lavender in autumn-winter)

she's a big fan of the 60s, loves the jewelry, the hair, the music. there's always some sort of 60s song playing in the background. 

while bruce sometimes has trouble handling his anger, katherine on the other hand can hardly control her sadness. she feels everyone's emotions more than they do, so sometimes she'll just randomly start crying and bruce will freak out every time, but katherine just carries on like nothing's happening. 

if i were to compare katherine to an already physical tv/movie character, i'd say she's most similar to penelope garcia from criminal minds. she also hates going by her full name and prefers kat or katy.

she has such a hard time falling asleep, to strange dreams that come true, to not liking the feeling of relaxation, i think she and bruce enjoy doing yoga or something calming together in the mornings. 

she carries a huge purse with some legal and some illegal pharmaceuticals "you never know what you're gonna need."  "kat this is weed..." "so?"  "we're grocery shopping!"

her powers are pretty similar to wanda's, but she doesn't need to get inside someone's head to know what they're thinking, she can feel it. her personal favorite power is clairvoyancy, which is the ability to touch an object or a person, and see thing's about it. this power more so affects the futuristic aspect, but she also does have the power os psychometry where she can see somthing/someone's past. 

her first time meeting bruce, they shook hands and she had a little moment where she saw them kiss. she still hasn't told him about that though. to her, it looked like a wedding but after discussing it with wanda, natasha, pepper, it's come to the conclusion it was more so a fantasy than reality (lie but whatever)

her other powers consist of mediumship, which helps her connect to her lost loved ones. all she needs is peace and quiet for this, which honestly she hardly ever gets. although once connecting with them, she can't hear or see them in the physical world, when she sleeps she usually dreams and can connect with them there. this is the one that takes the most energy from her because she never truly gets to rest, even when she's asleep.

it wasn't until later in her adult years did she realize she had the power of necromancy as well. now she doesn't like this power at all. when she was 24, her mother died during one of the new york attacks (i'm not calculating which one i'm too lazy), and she would cry about it so bad, that the energy would bring her mom 'back to life'. it scared her a lot, especially because bringing people back from the dead is never a good idea. 

she kinda got lost for a while, seeing her mom every night but she knew she had to quit when she kept hiding it from bruce, telling him he couldn't come over anymore because all she wanted was her mother. eventually, as all dead people do, they begin requesting you to join them. since then, she hasn't really used this power.

her divination power is most useful though. she's a very textbook witch. crystal balls, crystals, tarot cards. almost always can she properly hypothesize what will happen, where it will happen. she often uses it on herself to talk to her guides to help her make decisions. 

to tie into her divination, loki had a tiny infatuation with her for a while because of her alters to the gods. bruce shut that shit down real quick.

anyway, she also creates her own rune protections and has a bunch of tattoos (tiny ones) littered all over her body. she also has them drawn on her walls. sometimes when bruce is working in the lab, kat will just walk in with a marker and doodle a new rune on his hand. he does not wash them off ever.

sometimes if there are candles in a room, and kat walks in, all the lights in the room will turn off and the candles will flicker to life. 

sometimes when she's bored, she'll just create little energy balls in her hand and play with it. once, she was so caught up in her little purple magic that she hadn't notice bruce walk in, and accidentally shot the energy ball at him. 

Due to her extensive amount of powers, she tires herself out a lot, her only weakness (aside from bruce but like duh). sometimes after using her powers too much and not getting enough to sleep or eat or drink, she'll just collapse. bruce has never let her hit the ground.

she met bruce through tony stark, who had been her friend for years. her father was also kind of a mad scientists, and after thing's went a little wonky in her childhood years, she began to see dead people (which faded and came back when her mom died). aside from an accidental energy blast, he had no idea where the divination powers came from. she grew up a lot with tony after her father met with howard stark.

although bruce is only five years older, she calls him old man.

kat absolutely adores a nerdy man. as much as she loves tony, she thinks the quiet ones are the best. 

kat is definitely the freakiest of the bunch (aside from sigyn of course cause have u seen loki?). her first time with bruce was definitely vanilla, but ever since then she's taken a lot of control over the situation. i can just imagine him laying back with his mouth dropped open and eyes wide in shock at the absolute sinister shit she's got going down. 

she feels connected to the woods. when she and the avengers stopped off at clint bartons house, she and bruce talked about running off together, hiding out somewhere in the woods, building a home together. maybe kids were off the table, but they could find some other thing's to do.

although shield doesn't see her as a threat, a lot of citizens do, especially after everything that happened with wanda, they weren't sure they could trust if kat was still a good person.  

i think their favorite position is probably just cowgirl. i think they're favorite place to do it would probably be the couch or the bed. she won't push him to do it anywhere else, but he knows she's thinking about it.

i think the team walks in on them being touchy-feely the most out of the others. it especially happens in the lab, he's talking all his smart stuff and she's just leaning against the table to listen, he keeps stuttering cause her tits are practically spilling out of her low v neck top. she'll just cut him off with a kiss so he stops talking (although she loves when he yaps)

she's never ever been afraid of the hulk. which bruce doesn't really understand why she lacks fear, but i think she and hulk have a certain understanding of each other that bruce probably won't ever catch on to. 

she's kinda messy... she sleeps in her makeup, she always finds a stray bobby pin in her hair, there's glitter everywhere, books strewn on the floor, crystal alters are always a mess.

she shares a playlist with bruce, only soft calming music to keep them both grounded. 

huge fan of floor time. if bruce walks in to her apartment, she's definitely lying on the floor.

i think all her clothes are thrifted or hand made by herself. of course there are pieces she'll buy from like walmart or target or whatever. i also think she prefers wearing skirts and dresses more than pants. but her 'avengers'outfit has pants and she hates it so bad, but at least it's purple so she's fine with that.

whenever they find each other sleeping, they never wake each other up. usually she'll walk into his room in the compound and find him asleep on the bed or at the desk, or maybe in the lab. she won't wake him up if he's asleep in bed or on a couch, but being hunched over a desk or never comfortable. now with kat sleeping, she will sleep anywhere.

for some reason, i can also see her being diabetic. she gets so focused on her powers that she tends to neglect herself that she ate a ton of sugary foods, which was not good for her (i'd think around the time when her mom died, she was just trying to use the sugary foods to bring her mood up), and her blood pressure is always super high from stress.

bruce is absolutely terrified of hurting her, he's terrified of hurting anyone in general, but the thought of hurting her makes him wanna die, even if it hadn't ever happened, he still feels guilty about it. 

she likes to change his contact information in his phone, his wallpaper, basically anything that has to do with her. she'll see that his contact for her is like just 'katherine grace' or 'katherine b' and she immediately changes it. she changes his wallpaper a lot for him, almost every time he leaves his phone somewhere and she finds it, the next time he's picking it up he's like "hey that wasn't my background three minutes ago!"

i think for a long time before they actually dates, bruce called her 'katherine grace' or 'miss baudelaire' as a formality. of course she hated it and always insisted on him just calling her kat or literally anything but her full name. of course he still calls her katherine grace all the time (it's slowly growing on her)

she gives him random trinkets. like "here, this is for your protection, your spirtit guides told me you're being watched by a negative entity" and it's just a box full of herbs, flowers, and bones. he'll smile and nod, not really understanding, "thank you?"

i can also feel like she's not the best at being social. she hates going outside, every time she bumps into someone, she always gets a vision on them. since she hardly ever went outside, she's not really accustomed to thing's like metaphors, innuendos, hints, sarcasm. she just says things how it is, but that doesn't mean she doesn't understand that her being blunt may hurt people (because like i said, she feels everything, every mood shift) she's just not the best at articulating her words right to keep the peace.

with that being said, she's also such an open and honest person. sometimes, if she doesn't know how to explain what she's feeling, she can also touch whoever she's talking too, and they'll kinda get visions to and understand what's wrong. 

i feel like that happens a lot whenever she's really upset though, she'll just shut down. i also think their relationship was a lottttt of back and forth. "we shouldn't be doing this?"   "well why the hell not?" and then like twenty seconds later she's like "I'm sorry we shouldn't have done that" like OK GIRL PICK AND CHOOSE 

i think for work she's either a botanist or a teacher, before being a shield agent/avenger. she has such a big connection to kids and plants as well. she's very earthly. bruce was able to see her work with kids maybe once or twice. she's typically an extraction method to help people get out of places safely. kids trust her a lot cause she can be very gentle. i think animals trust her a lot too, especially birds.

anyway, back to the kids: so i think he probably realized he was in LOVE WITH HER (most definitely knew, but realized here) during age of ultron, once again ty clint for the home in the middle of nowhere, cause when kat was sitting on the floor, she was using her little magic to make the legos float and piece together while the kids watched and laughed. she even touched laura, smiling when she could feel the baby. "he's gonna grow big and strong, just like his daddy. probably a little annoying too." 

she's just so gentle.

but don't get me wrong, the penelope garcia wild side is there! she'll stay out and party all night if bruce lets her. but this mf is strong okay, i can imagine she's dancing with pepper, trying to get her out of her comfort zone a bit, even as the party has winded down. and then bruce and tony step in, tony wrapping an arm around pepper and guiding her away from you, while bruce just dips down and tosses you over his shoulder like nothing.

she loves all creatures, but her fear of frogs is so weird. like even a picture and she's in wide eye'd shock.

anway, i'm out of ideas now. what other thing's do you think they do together?