w-andering-limbs

[k1tty5]

slab guy

[inthedayswhenlandswerefew]

North To The Future [Chapter 14: Strong Enough]

The year is now 2000. You are just beginning your veterinary practice in Juneau, Alaska. Aegon is a mysterious, troubled newcomer to town. You kind of hate him. You are also kind of obsessed with him. Falling for him might legitimately ruin your life…but can you help it? Oh, and there’s a serial killer on the loose known only as the Ice Fisher.

Chapter warnings: Language, alcoholism, addiction, murder, sexual content, violence, angsttttttttttt (but what else is new 🥰).

Word count: 5.3k.

Link to chapter list (and all my writing): HERE.

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Only 1 chapter left! The series finale will be very...eventful 💜

Ice clinks in Aegon’s rum and Coke, his fourth in an hour; lemon juice and crystalline sugar is a halo around your appletini. The sky is a watercolor painting blending from lavender to violet to indigo, clouded, moonless. Downstairs inside Ursa Minor, shadows grow longer, slanting across the red-brown hardwood floor: hands turn into claws, men into beasts, skeletal and reaching. If this was a movie or a book, you would be able to see the Northern Lights, just like you did the first time Aegon brought you up here. It would be a full-circle moment that would soften a goodbye with a homecoming. Instead, the sky offers no consolation, no hint of any grander design. Sometimes things just blink out of existence like an eviscerated star. Sometimes things are just over.

You stand together on the rooftop patio in a patch of snow that is only shin-deep, exhaling white fog that evaporates into the nightfall, drinking. You don’t speak, because speaking of the end will make it real. You don’t look at each other either. You gaze out over the channel, where dark waters ripple and boats bob in easy waves. When Aegon offers you his rum and Coke, at first you don’t understand; and then you realize he wants to trade.

“I thought you hated these,” you say as you pass Aegon your appletini, Dale’s newest addition to his repertoire. You taste the rum and Coke: solid, heavy, bitter, biting.

“Figured I shouldn’t miss my shot. How often does someone get the chance to enjoy an appletini with an Appletini?” He gives you a wry, off-balance smile as he sips it, saccharine and emerald green.

You down the rest of the rum and Coke, haul up your courage like a body from the silt of a lake. And then you ask him: “What if you went with Aemond?”

Aegon stares at you in disbelief, in betrayal. “What?”

“Back to Miami. What if you actually went?”

“Whose fucking side are you on?”

“No, really, think about it,” you plead. “They can afford to get you the best treatment, take you to the best doctors. You can go to rehab and then, maybe, maybe after you’re better—”

“You want me to go crawling back to my parents after—?!”

“Then don’t do it for your parents!” you shout, your breath short-lived mist in the Arctic wind. “Do it for Aemond and Helaena and Daeron, do it for yourself, do it for me. You’re young, you’re brilliant, it’s not too late for you to start over. You could stop running, you could make amends.”

“I killed three people. How can anyone make amends for that? Aemond lost an eye, he’s maimed for life. How could anyone make amends for what I’ve done? What would me being home do for anybody except serve as a constant reminder of the fact that I got to walk away without paying for my mistakes?”

“You’ve paid,” you say. “You’ve paid for six years.”

He shakes his head, peering into the channel. “I can’t go back.”

“You really think you can run for the rest of your life? You’re never going to get married, have children, own a house, file taxes, start a business, go back to school, keep the friends you’ve made? Aegon, think about it! You can’t even play in a band good enough to book a spot at a festival or a club without there being advertisements, magazine articles, Google search results. You can’t disappear, not in the world that exists now. You can’t disappear and have any life worth living.”

“I’ve made it this long. I’ll find a way.”

“You’ll die,” you tell him, cutting like glass, like the splinters of a broken window. “You can’t keep doing this or you’ll die. And what then?” What about me, Aegon? “What was this all for?”

“I can’t go back.” It’s an echo, mindless and reflexive, a survival instinct. There’s no reasoning with it. He drains the appletini and pitches the glass off the roof, out into the darkness.

You hear footsteps on the staircase, and again you are reminded of the night Aegon kissed you for the first time, the night he sang Everlong, the night under the Northern Lights. Then it had been Heather who interrupted you. Now it’s Kimmie. She bursts through the door, panting from the effort of scaling the steps in five-inch hot pink heels.

“She’s here,” Kimmie informs you and Aegon from the doorway, her face an exaggerated, childlike pool of sympathy, all soft edges and slick eyes. And then she hurries back downstairs.

Heather, sitting in the usual booth, is inundated by well-meaning spectators who offer sympathy, support, thinly-veiled prying so they don’t look quite so much like kids gawking at a zoo animal. They hug her and pat her back reassuringly; they buy her drinks. There is a small army of Sex On The Beaches on the table. Kimmie climbs nimbly into the booth, snuggles up beside Heather, and rests her head on her shoulder. Heather, for once, does not seem to regard this as an intrusion. Aemond, attempting not to encroach, is sipping a Caipirinha at the bar in his black Armani suit. Dale has apparently at last tired of Shania Twain songs. From the stereo drifts the wistful acoustic chords of Sheryl Crow’s Strong Enough.

You slide into the seat across from Heather and take her hands. Joyce is beside you, no book to be found. Brad and Rob are standing a few yards away, both drinking heavily, both murmuring in dazed, conspiratorial voices. “Guess the Hulk jokes aren’t so funny now…can you imagine…he did get kind of aggressive sometimes…the best quarterback Juneau’s seen in decades…but the boots…who would have guessed…?”

“I can’t stay long,” Heather sniffles. Her eyes are red, her face puffy from crying. “My parents are calling around trying to get a good lawyer. They’re in shock, they’re fucking devastated, we’re all just…just…” She crumbles into loud sobs, shoving a fistful of tissues against her nose.

“Shh,” Kimmie says, stroking Heather’s hair. “Shh, shh…”

“Heather,” you begin, not knowing how to put it delicately. “Were there any…you know…any signs? That Trent could be the Ice Fisher?”

She shrugs despondently. “You know how he is. He’s a dumbass sometimes. He gets angry…he says the wrong things…but he doesn’t kill people!” She starts crying again.

“He does fit the description,” Joyce says softly. “He’s big, he’s athletic.”

Kimmie marvels: “I can’t believe we spent all that time around him. We were totally clueless. Out in the woods with him? Hanging out together at night? Trent could have gotten any of us.”

Heather wails, mopping the tears from her face with the damp mass of tissues.

“So he’ll stay in custody?” Aegon asks Heather. “Until the trial?”

“That’s what the cops said. There’s no way he’s getting bail.” She shakes her head. “Chief Baker came to the house to talk to my parents about what was happening. What they had found in Trent’s apartment, what the next steps would be. He looked so sorry to have to deliver the news. That was nice of him, wasn’t it? He didn’t have to do that.” More sniffling, more tears snaking down her cheeks.

“Heather, please,” you say helplessly.

“I hate this,” she sobs. “I hate this!”

Kimmie holds her tighter. “Shh, shh. I know.”

“It’ll kill my parents. They were always so proud of Trent, they loved him so much…they still do, I mean, but now…now…”

“Did he say anything to you?” you ask Heather. “After he was arrested? He got a phone call, right? Did he confess, did he give a reason why? Did he say anything?”

“Yes.” She gazes across the table at you, eyes murky with bewildered, immutable horror. “He said he didn’t do it.”

~~~~~~~~~~

Heather, somewhat mollified by a number of Sex On The Beaches, asks Joyce to drive her home. As Aegon bids goodbye to Rob and Kimmie—a permanent goodbye, a remorseful one—you retreat to the bar to give him space. Brad must know about the transitory Kimmie-Aegon situation; he glares at him as he knocks back glass bottles of beer misty with condensation. Aegon is working on his sixth rum and Coke. He sways, he slurs, he blinks in slow motion.

“Can you believe it?” Dale asks as you sit next to Aemond, sliding you a fresh appletini. His bushy eyebrows are raised: incredulous, inquisitive. “Trent? Our very own hometown hero?”

“It’s disturbing, for sure. But he was prone to…outbursts.”

“Yes,” Dale says, a little vaguely. “I had noticed that.” He lumbers away to take orders. Ursa Minor is full of locals clamoring for gossip, theories, commentary, self-medication.

Aemond nips at his frosty Caipirinha, his eye fixed on Aegon. “He’s stalling.”

Why lie? There’s no shade of dishonestly that he can’t see through. “Yes.”

“It won’t work.”

You watch Aegon from across the room: the way he talks with his hands, the way he smiles crookedly beneath sad eyes, the way that lock of white-blond hair falls over his face. He’s leaving. He’s really leaving. “Show me more pictures from Miami.”

Aemond smirks. “Now you’re stalling too.” Regardless, he produces his wallet and starts leafing through a small stack of photographs. He plucks out the ones you haven’t seen yet with lithe and yet curiously dangerous hands. There are more images of Vhagar, several mansions and yachts, some of a young woman who must be Helaena—slight, delicate, intensely vulnerable—and a boy in his late-teens playing golf.

“Daeron?” you guess.

Aemond nods. “He’s the most balanced, the least damaged. He would have been Dad’s choice to inherit the leadership of the company if he was older. He’s the best of us.”

“I doubt that.” You sift through the photographs until one stuns you: an olive-skinned, black-haired man, perhaps thirty, with his arm around a woman’s shoulders. He wears a modest, strangely burdened smile, but his dark eyes are warm. “Who’s this? He’s gorgeous. And he actually looks Greek. Don’t tell me you have yet another brother. If so, I fear I might have allied myself with the wrong one.”

“Well, that’s obvious,” he says with just a dusting of sarcasm like flurries. “No, he’s Criston Cole. He’s been Dad’s bodyguard since before I was born.”

You squint at the photo. “How old is he?”

“He’s in his forties now. I know he looks younger.”

“And the woman is…his wife? Girlfriend?”

“My mother, actually.”

You raise an eyebrow. Aemond smiles bashfully, averts his gaze. “They share an affinity. He’s helped her immensely through Dad’s illness, through…well.” He gestures to Aegon with his glass. “Everything.”

“I mean…yeah. I’d probably find an excuse to fuck Criston too.”

Miraculously, this works: Aemond laughs, the first time you’ve ever heard him do it. It’s a joltingly beautiful sound. It’s like the earth waking up again at the end of winter. He gathers up the photographs, places them safely back into his wallet, sips his Caipirinha contemplatively. “You’re not stupid,” Aemond says. “You have to understand that there’s no way this ends with you and Aegon together.”

We were supposed to have two more months. And maybe I even dreamed of more than that.

Aemond continues: “He has to get better before it’s too late. He has to get sober. I can’t give him a new liver. Dad’s the only one in the family with Aegon’s blood type.”

You turn to him, bemused. “You’ve already thought about that.”

Aemond is annoyed, like you haven’t been keeping up. “Of course I have.” His BlackBerry beeps, and he slides it out of his pocket. He reads the onyx pixels on the screen, his eye widening. He reads them again. And then he says: “I need a phone. Immediately.”

“Okay, um, well there’s a payphone outside, and Dale has one behind the bar—”

Aemond flags down Dale, expresses that he has an emergency, is swiftly ushered to the phone. While he’s gone, Aegon makes his way back to you. He finishes his latest rum and Coke, bangs the glass down on the counter, kisses you with unaccustomed roughness, his calloused fingers cradling the arc of your jaw.

You tuck his unruly lock of hair behind his ear. “Aegon—”

“We have to leave now,” Aemond says. He’s reappeared, and he will not be ignored.

“Go buy a newspaper and jack off to the business section,” Aegon flings at him, bringing his lips to yours again, burning with dark rum.

Aemond grabs the neckline of his brother’s royal blue sweater and drags him away from you. Bar patrons glance over. You’re beginning to attract attention. “We have to leave. Now.”

“Okay, okay,” Aegon agrees; but there’s something flighty and devious in his eyes, like an animal too sly to be caged. The three of you walk back to Aegon’s apartment together, stepping in footprints already left in the snow. Each time Aegon staggers, you catch him and haul him upright again. You can’t even resent him for it. Soon you won’t be able to touch him at all.

Sunfyre is waiting when Aemond unlocks the door. He gives the golden retriever an absentminded pat on the head as he glides past him. Aegon lurches into the kitchen, where the mugs are still waiting on the counter for the hot chocolate he never made. And then he just stands there unsteadily under the goldenrod florescent lights. He’s run out of room to run. He’s a rat at the end of a maze, not an open door but a brick wall.

“Pack your things,” Aemond orders.

“No.”

With one powerful hand, Aemond shoves him against the refrigerator. Magnets—Las Vegas, Phoenix, Baltimore, San Francisco, Portland, Denver, Chicago, Dallas, San Diego, many more—go flying in every direction. “Pack your fucking things.”

“No,” Aegon repeats.

“Dad’s in the hospital,” Aemond says. “He was admitted this morning. It’s bad, he has a pulmonary embolism. He might be dying. I need to be there to handle things.”

“So go,” Aegon replies dismissively.

“Not alone.” His only eye is an icy blue, sharp and ferocious; but it’s heartbroken too. “Not without you.”

“I’m not going.”

“Aegon,” he implores, he begs. “Mom can’t make these decisions alone, Helaena doesn’t have the spine for it, Daeron’s too young, we need to be there!”

“You need to be there. Not me.”

“Pack your things,” Aemond says again.

“No.”

“Then you can leave as you are.” And he lunges for Aegon, closing the distance between them in a heartbeat. Sunfyre barks franticly.

“Aegon, no!” you shout, because you realize what he’s going to do. He grabs the green mug off the kitchen counter, shatters it against the stovetop, and wields a thick, five-inch-long shard of it like a dagger as Aemond grapples for him. Aegon’s arm is lightning in the air, striking blindly. The jagged sliver of the mug connects with Aemond’s face.

“What’s wrong with you?!” Aemond roars, touching his palm to his forehead and seeing the blood. “What’s your plan? To cut out my other eye too?!”

“No.” Aegon brings the shard to his own throat and starts slicing: not deep enough to kill, but deep enough to show he’s serious. A trickle of blood flows down his neck like a string of rubies.

“Stop!” you and Aemond shriek together. He gets to Aegon first. Aegon careens away from him until his back hits the wall. Aemond knocks the piece of the mug out of his grasp; it clatters over the hardwood floor like a rock skipped across water. Aegon slaps at his brother’s face ineffectually, then finally slams his elbow into Aemond’s nose. Blood rockets, blood flows like a river. With an open palm, Aegon smears it upwards into Aemond’s only remaining eye. Aemond screams in anguish and frustration, fumbling blindly for the kitchen sink. Then Aegon reaches for his brother.

You shout: “Aegon, don’t hurt him—!”

“I’m not.” As Aemond twists on the faucet and splashes water into his eye, Aegon thieves his few consequential possessions from Aemond’s pockets: his keys, his wallet, his cash. And then he retreats to the other side of the room. His message is clear. He doesn’t want to fight; he wants to run. He wants to start running and never stop. Sunfyre scurries over to him, claws clicking on the floor, examining Aegon like a fretful mother.

You yank a dishtowel out of a drawer and go to Aemond. “It’s me, it’s me,” you say gently when he flinches away. You help clear the blood from his eye, assess his nose. Not broken, but bleeding like hell. Aemond doesn’t even look angry. He looks exhausted, he looks hopeless. Aegon watches from across the small apartment, holding his belongings, clutching them to his chest, a coward and hating himself for it.

“Six years,” Aemond says, his voice clotted with scalding blood, with an ocean of time. “For six years I tried to find you and this is what I have to show for it. You didn’t miss me at all. Not even sometimes. Not even for a second.”

“I never said I didn’t miss you.”

“But you won’t come home.”

“No,” Aegon says, like an apology.

Aemond readjusts his suit, smooths his hair. He doesn’t seem aware of the blood still streaming from his nose, his forehead. “I have to go. I have to be there.”

“Then go, Aemond. That’s where you belong.”

He stares at Aegon with a vacantness that you can feel in your own bones: excavated marrow, howling void. “This isn’t over,” he says. “All I’ve ever done is live in your shadow. I don’t know how to stop.” And then he gets his green Louis Vuitton suitcase and vanishes through the apartment doorway. You bolt after him, chasing him out into the darkness, a starless night with a cold wind that slits into your lungs like needles.

“Aemond!” you call, and he stops. “Where are you going?”

“Home. The jet is waiting.”

“But you can’t walk to the airport from here. And I’ve had one too many appletinis to drive you.”

“I’ll call a cab from the bar. You do have cabs here in Juneau, I assume?”

“Yes. Two, I think.”

“That’ll do.” He stands in the weak beam of the streetlight, heaving in labored breaths. He wipes the blood still pouring from his nose with the back of one hand. “Good luck with him. You’ll need it.” And then he’s gone, his suitcase bumping over thickets of snow and ice.

Upstairs, Aegon is dragging his own suitcase—black, tattered, Samsonite—out from beneath his unmade bed. He opens it and starts throwing in clothes: band T-shirts, sweaters, jeans, flannel. Sunfyre, whimpering, crawls under the bed and stays there.

“Aegon—”

“If my father stabilizes, Aemond will come back. If he dies, Aemond will come back. He might try to bring my mother up here, or Helaena, or Daeron, or Criston, or the whole fucking family, who knows? I have to be long gone by the time he returns to Juneau.”

“Aegon, please, think about this—”

“I already have a guy lined up to buy the Nova…I think I still have his phone number…I don’t have enough cash yet, but I will once I’ve sold the car…” He’s mostly talking to himself. He’s not really in Juneau anymore; he’s in the future, he’s in the past.

“You don’t have to go—”

He says suddenly, looking at you: “Come with me.”

“Where?”

“Anywhere. Everywhere. We’ll do this together.”

And for a second, you almost say yes. You can see it in one of those flashes, brief and inescapable like lightning: sand, surf, wild children with white-blond hair. Then reality roars back in like a storm. “What, so I can drag you off the floor, clean up your messes? So I can have a front row seat to your self-destruction? So I can burn all the bridges behind us as I follow you into exile? There’s no place for me in a future like that. That’s not a future at all. It’s a cage. It’s a different kind of cage than the one I’m in here, but it’s a cage nonetheless.” Your voice isn’t harsh. Perhaps it would hurt him less if it was. You sound patient and sad and old, like you’ve already seen it all and returned as a ghost, wearing decades of regret instead of white sheets. “And you’ll drink away the money I make, or you’ll inject it into your arm, or you’ll buy pills with it, and I’ll resent you, at first just a little bit, and then more, each time stacking up like pennies in a jar, getting heavier and heavier until I can’t feel all those reasons why I fell in love with you, I can only feel the crushing goddamn weight.”

He can’t even tell you that it’s not true. He wants to, he wants to desperately, but he can’t.

“Tell me you’ll get better,” you say in a whisper thinner than a knife’s edge. “Tell me you’ll try, at least, that you’ll go to rehab, that you’ll face your past, that you’ll make amends. Give me something, anything to hold on to. Give me a reason to leave with you. Please, Aegon, please, just give me one fucking reason.”

“I’m not capable of what you’re asking for.”

“Then I can’t leave Juneau.”

“If you walk out that door, it’s over,” he says, his eyes glassy, tiny barren oceans. “I can’t wait. And I won’t be here tomorrow.”

“Maybe that’s for the best.”

“Then get out,” he hisses. “You want to go so bad? You want to get away from me, you want to start forgetting? Just get out. You don’t need to make polite excuses. You don’t need to placate me. I understand. I understand perfectly.” And he doesn’t hit you, but it feels like he does. “Go find some painfully ordinary Juneau boy that you won’t give a fuck about. Maybe he’ll be a logger, maybe he’ll work on a fishing boat, it doesn’t really matter, does it? You’ll play pool with him and you’ll stroll through Blockbuster together and you’ll let him order you beers you don’t want and sooner or later you’ll be lying underneath him, and he’ll be fucking you, and you’ll be amazed by how it’s possible to be so close to another human being and yet so far away. And you know what? The whole time you’ll be thinking about me.”

“Yes,” you answer, dripping with cold venom. “I’ll be wondering what morgue you ended up in.”

“Then get out,” he says again, he dares.

But you don’t turn to go. You don’t even move. Aegon’s gaze sweeps over you: face, down to your boots, back up to your eyes.

His lips curl up at the edges, not in a smile but something stinging, boastful, cruel. “I know what you want.”

Don’t touch me, you wish you could say, you wish you could stab him with like a blade, all the way to the hilt. I don’t want you to touch me. I don’t want you at all. But Aegon has learned every one of your languages, and he can read lies on you like scrawls of ink.

He crosses the room, buries a hand in your hair, holds you still as he skates the other into the front of your jeans. You cry out, opening your thighs for him, surrendering, ravenous. One last time. Yes, oh god, please, one last time. He yanks your jeans down to your ankles and unbuttons his own. Then he turns you to the wall. You brace yourself against it—a palm pressed to fraying wallpaper—as he slips into your wetness, becoming a fleeting visitor rather than one with you, a lover without a name, a face.

And you want it, yes, yes, there’s no ambiguity there, but still it’s agony, because it’s nothing like it was before. Aegon doesn’t whisper to you, doesn’t kiss you, doesn’t touch you anywhere that isn’t necessary. He makes you come, yes; but quickly and mechanically, like it’s a necessary task to be checked off a list, a patched roof, gasoline into his Nova. He doesn’t leave bruises on you, yes; but that doesn’t mean anything. He never left bruises on Kimmie either. When you reach back—instinctively, without thinking—to touch his face, his hair, he catches your hand and pins it to the wall. You could be anybody, and you will be: soon enough the girl standing in your place will be from Des Moines, Modesto, Scottsdale, Buffalo, Plano, Durham, Wichita, Knoxville, Fargo, Ann Arbor, Hartford. It doesn’t matter where she lives, because he won’t be there long. It doesn’t matter who she is, because that’s not why he wants her.

Aegon finishes with a shuddering gasp, is still for a moment, and then recedes from you. The sensation of abrupt emptiness is forlorn, sickening. I feel worse than I did before. How is that possible?

“Now get out,” he says, zipping up his jeans in the sepia florescent light. He can’t even look at you. He stares down at the floor instead, pretending to be scrutinizing something, a scuff or an indentation. You both know he doesn’t care about things like that. You both know he’s done with you. You dress yourself, grab your purse, and break out into the freezing darkness.

You go to Ursa Minor and clean yourself up in the bathroom, a tear-streaked ghost under stark white lights. Then you go to the usual booth. You don’t order anything, not even when Dale swings by to check in with you, his forehead crinkled with questions and worry. You don’t talk to the few locals who are currently drinking their January evening away. You just sit there, staring at the wall, not feeling time as it breathes through you: an invisible truth, a string that ties the past to the present like an anchor. Eventually, you get up and leave, climb into your Jeep, drive back to the place you’ve always called home.

You walk into the house, into the nightscape silence. Your purse drops off your shoulder and thumps against hardwood. And you stand there, not speaking, not seeing, just feeling the ionic bonds between your atoms being snipped, your veins and ligaments unweaving, pieces of you falling away until you vanish. You can feel yourself becoming transparent. The pigment of your eyes, your hair, your skin evaporates—boiled water from a tea kettle, steam off a bathroom mirror—and is replaced by the muted grayscale of Juneau. Your eyes are puddles of melted snow on asphalt, laced with salt and stray earth. Your hair is wisps of fog. Your skin is the Gastineau Channel, a silver-cold river deep with bones. It’s not that you can’t imagine a future. It’s that you’ve forgotten how to imagine anything at all.

“You’re home already?” Your mom steps out of the kitchen, drying her hands with a dishtowel. “Dad went to the Foodland. I found this neat new cookie recipe but we’re out of baking powder—”

You look at her, and she sees you, really sees you. And the totality of the understanding on her face is like you’re under a spotlight, like you’ve never had a secret and never will. “How did it happen?”

“He’s leaving Juneau. I can’t go with him, not the way he is now. That’s all.” You show her your palms, empty.

“Well, it’s not necessarily goodbye forever, is it? I mean, you can still stay in contact with him. Make phone calls, send letters…”

“There’s no point, Mom,” you say, with more despair than you intend to. “I’m not going anywhere.”

“Ladybug…” She hesitates, wringing the dishtowel. “Your dad and I…we want you to be happy. You know that, don’t you? And we like having you here. We love having you here, it’s the greatest gift we could have ever hoped for. But if you need to change things to be happy…if you need to see other places, experience different things…we would want you to do that. We would want you to do whatever it takes for you to feel that you’re truly living.”

You stare at her like she’s speaking a dead language: Egyptian hieroglyphs, Gothic, Illyrian. “Really?”

“Yes. Really.”

I could get out of Juneau. They would want me to. “But even if I did leave one day, I couldn’t go with Aegon.” Your voice breaks, your lips tremble. “He’s too damaged. He’s too much like Jesse.”

“Oh, ladybug,” your mom says, smiling with tears in her eyes. “Aegon isn’t like Jesse.”

Of course he’s like Jesse. He’s exactly like Jesse. And that’s why he’s going to end up dying the same way Jesse did. “He’s…not?”

“Well, he is, but he isn’t. Aegon is more defenseless, more gentle, more kind. Aegon would never hit you. There’s more good in him, I think. There’s more of a chance.”

You want to believe her. It shocks you how much; you’ve never wanted to believe in anything this badly. “So you think I should go with him.”

“That’s something you have to decide,” your mom says. “And only you. Because you’re the one who has to live with the choices you make. All I can tell you is that if you see potential in someone, even a glimmer of possibility, and you don’t try with every shred of yourself to make it work…you might regret it for the rest of your life.”

A question occurs to you that is so horrible you almost can’t bring yourself to ask it. “Do you regret being with Dad?”

“No, never,” she says, and the relief rolls through you. “But I think that if I had handled things differently with Jesse, he would still be alive. I had given up on him by then. I had stopped trying to help him, I had stopped believing him when he told me he wanted to change. I wasn’t there for him at the end. And I should have been. Because it really did seem like he was getting better.” She embraces you, warmth and unconditional harbor. “If you want to run after Aegon…if even the smallest part of you does…then I don’t want you to ignore that because of your love for me and Dad. We’ll be alright. Do you hear me? As long as you’re happy, we’ll be alright.”

“Okay.” You kiss her on both cheeks and hug her one last time, your arms slung around her neck, clinging to her like a child. “Okay, Mom. Thank you. Thank you so much. I love you.”

“I love you too, ladybug. Now go. Go, if that’s what you want.”

So you go. You snatch up your purse, bolt for the door, run through the frigid darkness to your Jeep. Dim gloomy streetlights flick by overhead as you drive, snow and ice and salt crunching beneath the tires. The channel is a glistening ribbon to the west, the mountains vast ancient shadows to the east. And you think about what you’ll tell Aegon, what perfect confession you’ll make; but the truth is, you won’t need to say anything at all. When he sees you, he’ll know.

You swerve to a haphazard stop under the streetlight outside Aegon’s apartment building. You dive out of your Jeep, sprint up the steps, rattle the spare key he once gave you in the door. It opens. So does the rest of your life.

Inside, Aegon’s apartment is silent and still. The refrigerator magnets have been collected from the floor like seashells from frothing surf. The battered green electric guitar is missing. His closet is bare; the blue mug has disappeared from the kitchen counter. There are pawprints in the dust on the hardwood floor. But there’s no Sunfyre, and there’s no Aegon either.

He’s gone. He’s just gone.

[hauntingofhouses]

Probably you have spoken about it earlier (sorry if so), but how do you think that Taigen will know Mizu's gender in the series? And how would you like it to happen? I would like it to be intentional, but regarding the amount of wounds Mizu constantly have, who knows...

Hello! :D And no I don't think I've ever written about it publicly on this blog, and to be honest I've never thought much about it.

To preface, I've not always been the type to properly sit down and theorise about future narrative decisions. When it comes to these things, I'm very "big picture" oriented, where I'd usually be fine with anything happening in the story as long as it touches on certain themes, remains in character, and adds something meaningful to our protagonists' arcs.

For example the only reason I came up with the Mizu's mom theory was because knowing exactly who Mizu's mother is (whether she is white, or royalty, or anything else), could, depending on the different posible outcomes, drastically alter Mizu's sense of identity and how she perceives herself, as well as morph the core themes and message of the overall story.

On the other hand, when it comes to the particulars of the inevitable gender reveal, I'm not picky at all, and I'm open to all the possibilities of how it would play out. This is because the outcome to all of it remains the same (in which Taigen finds out Mizu's gender), with only the process to get there differing, and in that regard, the question is then mostly on personal preference on tropes and avoiding cliches, and speculating future plot beats that would allow the gender reveal to happen in the first place.

Like you said, it could happen by way of Taigen trying to stitch Mizu up while she's unconscious or at least half-conscious, which would thus likely involve a big battle happening prior. A similar instance that comes to mind is Mizu's face off with Chiaki and the Four Fangs; iirc it's the only time Mizu is unconscious and vulnerable in front of Taigen. I'm not counting the time after they both fell out from Shindo and Fowler's fortress, because in that case, they'd both been completely KO'd. So anyway yeah, to get back on track, post-Four Fangs battle, if Ringo was not a factor, Taigen would've likely been the one to bring Mizu to safety and patch her up. From the framing of the scene, and Taigen's expression upon noticing Mizu look so vulnerable (because at this point he'd still believed Mizu to be nigh invincible, as we see from his daydream of him battling a giant Onryo in Episode 2), it's almost like the show was teasing us with the possibility of a gender reveal right there and then. But then of course, Ringo comes in and puts a stop to that happening (and thank God for that, because neither Taigen nor Mizu, on a narrative level, are ready for such a reveal yet).

Other than a Taigen-patching-Mizu-up scenario though, and outside of Mizu confessing to the truth herself, another possibility is that Taigen deduces the truth on his own. And this an idea that Ioana (@saessenach) and I were discussing, assuming a scenario where Taigen did not follow Mizu on the boat to London, but remains in Japan to do his own thing. In this scenario, all four of our protagonists are separated throughout Season 2 to have their own arcs: Mizu in London, Akemi in Edo, Ringo in Eiji's forge, and Taigen? Well, absolutely zero hints were given on where Taigen's going to go after S1, so everything's up in the air. The reason for this could be just some network/authorial reason whereby the writers are leaving it open because they themselves aren't sure what to do with Taigen.

Or, if they'd pre-planned everything early on, the complete lack of Taigen's presence at the end of the finale could itself be an indicator of where Taigen, and his arc, are going. What I mean is, Taigen in Season 2 might be a Wanderer, also known as a Ronin. Remember, he was disgraced and cast aside by his Lord, has lost his station and place in his Dojo, and him witnessing the "humiliating" death of the Shogun could be reason for Lady Itoh to want Taigen gone. He has nowhere to go. Plus, with him beginning on a journey of unlearning his prejudice and confronting his wrongdoings so he can properly change for the better (with the scene of him in Kohama in Ep7 being only his first steps), it's possible that his arc next season will be something along the lines of Zuko's from Zuko Alone in A:TLA. If you haven't watched A:TLA, what I'm referring to basically involves going from village to village, seeing that the status quo and society is cruel and unjust, trying to help people but having it kinda blow up in your face because of the fucked up status quo, and also facing the past you've been running from your whole life (through the form of flashbacks and introspection).

Thus, should a Taigen Alone arc really happen, it's possible that Taigen also gets wrapped up in some plot involving the black market dealers in these towns he visits, which would help tie in to the main story happening with Mizu and Akemi, because the white men (on Mizu's end) and the corrupt officials in the palace (on Akemi's end) both have ties to such black market dealers that Taigen may encounter. So it's possible that while investigating these people and tracking them down, Taigen gets wind of some rumours about the huge bounty on a half-breed blue-eyed girl. And, well, you can guess where it goes from there. Taigen deduces the truth, and when he reunites with Mizu later on, there'd be all this tension because now he knows. And this would be a very interesting outcome because this scenario wouldn't lend itself to a huge heat-of-the-moment argument that everyone's expecting, whereby Taigen finds out the truth while Mizu's right in front of him. Instead, in this case, Taigen finds out on his own, gets time to stew in the revelation, and likely drive himself mad in the process, and BOY THAT'D BE JUICY AS ALL HELL!

So basically, yeah, between the two scenarios I just presented, I'd favour the latter more, but I wouldn't mind the former either, or anything else the writers might throw our way.

However, I do still kind of hope Mizu could be the one to reveal the truth to Taigen herself, as I feel she should be allowed the choice in the matter, rather than having Taigen find out against her will. Plus, being the one to tell him herself would be such a huge step for her, signifying how she's opening up to people again, and would also be a big sign of some pre-established trust in their relationship.

BUT like I said, I'm not all too picky, and I also live for the drama, so, in conclusion: ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Also I just realised just how much I typed up, and I'm so sorry that I can never be concise with my words, but I hope it's still somewhat legible. 😭 Thank you so much for this question by the way! I love rambling about this show, and I'm grateful for any chance to ramble about it even more <3 <3

[bloodyproudpotterhead]

That whole reddit fiasco is seriously condescending and dismissive it gives me the ick. So I’m gonna write issues that I had with that finale.

Many of the things that he said just doesn’t make sense. The defense for Roy & Jamie weird behavior is “men are dumb” and “Keeley doesn’t need anyone”. You think we don’t know that Keeley doesn’t need anyone to feel complete? WE DO! The show never implied that she has problems being alone anyway. Also, you can’t fit the complexity of feminism and girlhood into one “girlboss” shape. That’s just reductive. The moment I read this, I knew that that part of storyline is written by men.

Another problem: Defending Jane behavior. Stalking your boyfriend’s friend? Shredding your boyfriend passport?? And to dismiss them as ‘quirky behavior’??? To me, that sounds like giving a pass to toxic, abusive relationships. 

Another one: To leave the ending of Ted & Michelle relationship as ambiguous? BIG NO. To even entertain the idea gives a bad taste in my mouth. This is the woman that begged him to sign the divorce paper, for christ’s sake. And they never built of the idea of them getting back together. They even introduce Dr. Jacob into the story. Was that truly necessary? Was the point to show that Michelle needs to be in another relationship to see Ted for who he really is? 

Also: Ted wasn’t at the wedding? Because he’s at Henry’s practice?? What even was that. You cannot actually tell me that they think this through. What, your kid can skip practice for 1 day to attend your best friend’s wedding?

Let’s even go to the boat guy: You cannot tell me this is the ending they plan for Rebecca from the start. If it did, why not build that narrative instead wasting your time introducing unnecessary new characters? Let us get to know the man better so we know that Rebecca will be taken care of by a man who truly knows her. 

Another issue: Henry. When did we ever see him actually missing his father? Because i feel like I missed that. Even that part of the story was told through other character, Dorothy, and not Henry himself. Why not have a scene where the kid express this himself? Even when he had problems at home, he can solve it himself (the bully story). 

Second to last: Ted himself. I don’t mind if their plan from the start was for him to have a Mary Poppins-like journey. What I had problems with is the way they build that theme. They’re too focusing on symbolism, they never truly build the narrative itself. If Ted was supposed to go back to Kansas from the start, why not show him what life he had and going to have there. This was never at any point shown or even hinted at. Also, Mary Poppins, unlike Ted, didn’t leave her hometown with a partner whose love for her has expired. They began Ted’s arc with showing him that his marriage is practically over that he needs to move an ocean away from her. That’s just saying to me that Ted desperately needs a new start (which they clearly displayed multiple times).

Lastly: The editing and the baiting. There are so many intentional edits and camera works and parallels that are meant to teased if not blatantly directed towards Ted & Rebecca. Why zoom in on the matchbook? The tiny soldiers?? Them talking at the hallway??? I can go on and on on this alone. Even to the opening scene of the finale. Just for shits and giggles for audiences who root for the two main leads? Honestly, that to me just felt cruel. Even if their intention was for them to be platonic soulmate, their words not mine, they never really addressed any of the elephant in the room anyway. The call, September 1991. So all I hear is them saying stuff and not following up on that. ALSO, to tease the idea of romcom MULTIPLE TIMES both on and off the show, even referring many times to Nora Ephron, only to laugh at your audience for believing in good old romance felt truly disrespectful to the late director. And as a long time fan of hers, I won’t let that slide. 

My point is: You can’t just patch bad writing with callbacks while ignoring a huge chunk of the character arcs you’ve built. That’s such a disservice to the beloved characters so many people have grown to love. 

And to say we take it personally? Excuse me, when your audience take your work personally, you should take it as a compliment because that means they connect with your work. So much for a show that preaches about being kind, I guess.

Anyway, I always feel sad and embarrassed when writers have to defend their decisions to their own audience. And that is what they/he did. You can elaborate on what you think happen post-finale to your audience, or even explain your intention, but when a big crowd of your audience question it, maybe you should take a look at the way you frame your story before you point fingers at them.

[daughter-of-fire-and-dreams]

#2 Bark

“All that bark, and this is all you can do?...”

The words barely sizzle if at all. An irony given how deep cutting they are. Every night is the same. I’m ‘alone’ in this white room, writing binary codes that more often than not become unreadable even to myself. I’m not a super computer after all, there is a limit to a Spoken mind. 

But for some reason, her words still don’t cut me. All I could attribute it to after some thought, would be because they don’t sound personal words aimed at me. But the detached reading of a script as she peers over my shoulder rather than looking at me. 

Why are you even here tonight?... Wasn’t our agreement that you’d entertain whoever tried to spy on me?...

But asking doesn’t give me an answer at all. Just silence. 

To be honest, she’s a mystery. But we’ve been together for as long as I remember since I was little. Sometimes I’d call her ‘mom’ to show that she was the closest thing to a second one in that category. Now that I’m older though, I still don’t know what to make of it. 

Her visits are just as ambiguous. Sometimes she’d be all smiles, tease me, or act as whimsically as possible while I minded my own business. And others, she’d be quiet and serious, staring off elsewhere as if being here wasn’t of her own accord. 

“I don’t want your help.” I stated flat out. And the answer feels as if I’m a little kid that just hit a bullseye on today’s classroom lesson. That’s the best way I can describe the expression she has when staring at me. 

Pride? For being refused? I’ll never get it. And a light thought inside my head whispers that I hate it. I hate being small. I hate being powerless. I hate everything. 

Why are you here? It’s not as if you can do anything either. You and your… golden stupid…

And then it clicks. The image of my companion in this shitty white space with just a patch of green for a tea party is blurred. So blurred that nothing stands out to me. 

“Who are you?” the words come out almost out of instinct despite knowing I won’t get an answer. 

But all she did was smile lowly again and, despite how ambiguous the colors and features are, I can sense a bit of guilt in it. 

“We already had our introductions long ago you know..” she told me, closing away a book I hadn’t noticed she’d been holding over her lap. 

It doesn’t make sense. Nothing ever does. Delaying my thoughts by thinking of her isn’t going to get me far. So I turn back to the blank space that I’ve adamantly tried to fill with 1’s and 0’s for what feels like a lifetime. And yet… I don’t think I’ve made any significant progress. The realization doesn’t bring despair to me for once, but a rush of exhaustion. 

“All this bark… And I still can’t get shit done..” I whispered under my breath, almost feeling as if my knees were ready to buckle after so long. 

“Want a hint?” she asked, showing some concern for once rather than her deadpan tone of a script. 

“You’re using anger as the only fuel… The moment you hesitate for a single second at your finish line, if you ever get to it. That’s when you’re going to lose everything.”

Beautiful. The best advice I could get that I’d spit at if I could… But I know she’s right… And I don’t know what to do to reach where I have to go. For once… I wish I could talk to someone about this outside of this room. But I can’t. 

I’m alone in this. Because it’s a boat meant to sink by smashing into the ice on purpose. 

[ghost-proofbaby]

For the directors commentary! In your list about Shire hinting at Mordor you made a note on number 11 that showed a difference in how Eddie/Steve treated Willow to show who she'd end up with. So I was wondering if you had a list in mind to show how you made the shift from Steve to Eddie?

yes!! i do!! at least, a mental one (the mordor hints was a list i kept updating as i went for myself lol). thank you for endulging me and my wildly over complicated mind, nonnie <3 long-winded list below the cut where i tried to put my thoughts and mental list to paper :-)

how quickly willow changed from thinking about steve to eddie! very early on in the story it becomes more of a chore/habit for her, constantly having to go "oh, no. i want steve"

as mentioned on the other post, her choice of book for the project! the entire laurie/jo dynamic vaguely mirrors them and i think at the core of how their relationship works, it's the same thing; both couples are better off friends. timing will never align for them and in the end, that's okay.

how they treat her on several occasions, actually. first of all, steve choosing to date around and talking about those girls to willow rather than ever admitting his feelings to her. eddie, on the opposite side of things, would never do this. once he has eyes on willow, that's it. he and steve actually are in the same thought boat of assuming she wouldn't want them, but the way they handle that is wildly different! steve clearly loses his mind a bit, and is aiming to make her jealous. but eddie accepts that and chooses to love her in whatever way he's allotted, for however long she'll have him.

the entire ordeal of steve not waiting for willow to go inside before driving off and eddie firmly always waiting!

the scene in the diner where eddie says willow looks at steve like her "favorite boy". i specifically highlighted and noted that speech when i wrote it because it's significant and just extreme foreshadowing. willow idealizes the ones she loves ferociously, putting them on pedestals left and right. she feels all those things sincerely, but for the idea of steve. once she feels that way about eddie, it becomes clear to her that really, he was the one she always looked at that way truly.

the way eddie cares to learn about willow as a person very intimately. steve was never a bad friend! let me make that clear. but the lover's lake memory where eddie asks her favorite food, for example, and the way willow offers the answer of her friends rather than herself, and eddie immediately is like "nope. i want to know about YOU." he continuously seeks out to challenge her to come into who she is as an individual. steve didn't, which in a friendly context, isn't a bad thing per se. but when you're in love with someone, it should be a major goal to see who they are as a person. steve never made that effort outright.

^^ also worth mentioning that in doing this and also letting her see bits of himself, eddie never gave willow a chance to create some idealized version of him to fall in love with. he was always so honest and giving towards her, that no idea she could have formulated would be able to be any better than what he already offered her.

in caring to learn about her as a person, he offers a security that makes her comfortable also revealing her past, which eddie clearly doesn't take casually. i mean, come on. he actively goes out of his way to recreate a happier memory of her parents with her, down to the same damn song. he's willing to take that time to see her wounds, and offer support as she heals them. he knows he can't 'fix her', but he can still stay by her side as she patches herself up.

eddie loves big. he's not a serial casual dater like steve. the way the two of them approach relationships is wildly different; steve has this certain casualty ingrained in it all from dating so many people, but for eddie? he's always been a more silent type that pines from a distance! eddie was the only one capable of giving such a mundane yet novel romance to willow like the books she likes. steve... just isn't there yet. he has a lot of working through his own issues before he gets there, and that's okay! willow is a bit too much for him, and he knows it, which is why he never says anything to her about his feelings.

the way they approach their love confessions. steve just springs it onto willow in a way, even goes so far as to still kiss her when he claims he knows that eddie is her choice. with eddie, he desperately is urging willow to come to the conclusion on her own, at her own pace, until it's inevitable that he has to say it. hell, he's even willing to walk away and let her have the guy he assumes she wants. he never holds expectations for her to return his love, where i think for steve, he does hold onto a sliver of hope that willow would choose him, even when he says the opposite. also, eddie doesn't kiss her after his confession. he lets her come to him. he lets her control the entire thing very willingly without being a bystander.

also, sidenote that didn't play into the story too much, but if the roles were reversed and steve was the fake boyfriend, i highly doubt he would have been so willing to let willow call off the deal. i believe it was chapter 30? after her fight with steve, all eddie cares about is making sure she's okay. if that means the deal is off, that's okay. he's still there for her. i don't think steve would be able to swallow his jealousy or pride so easily in this universe. (slightly ooc, i know! but in my mind palace of this one story specifically, that's how it works)

so, yeah, haha <3 i think the entirety of how we watch willow choose eddie from steve is more about super subtleties from the get go!

also worth mentioning to you all that the story was always eddie endgame. there was never a time in which this story would have ended with willow being with steve. this was always a love story with eddie munson, not steve harrington. and maybe one day i will write a proper steve fic, but the shire is not his time <3

thank you so much!! ily!!!!

[mellarkisa]

"Pope had finally arrived at the Chateau, having covered half the island on his old bicycle. He breathed in the place, letting the familiarity fill his lungs and the feeling of home fill his veins. He took the stairs two at a time, avoiding the creaking woods beneath his feet, years and years of knowledge of that house that made him aware of every crack in the old fish stall.

The empty room and the strange silence there reminded him that he should have sent a message on the Pogue's group chat, asking if anyone would be home. But he was so relieved when Heyward released him that he barely touched his phone, wanting to get away from the house and the grocery for at least a little while. After returning from the godforsaken island they affectionately called Poguelandia, guilt vibrated in his bones when Pope saw the state of his parents. Yvone was in real despair, hugging him violently with tears in her eyes asking him never to leave her again.

The most shocking thing, however, was how Heyward had acted, behind all his strong appearance, feeling guilty for having encouraged all the madness. Surprisingly, the only one to appease his parents' excessive attention on him was Cleo, who quickly became their responsibility. The more time passed, the more they became fond of the new pogue - from the help she gave at the store, to a few lunches she watched Yvone make, talking about the difference in food between the two countries. Despite being a constant presence in the Heywards household, Cleo had far more freedom than Pope did.

It was a "shit!" muttered that caught Pope's attention, the pronounced 't' could only belong to his friend from the Bahamas. He made his way to the back porch of John B's house, finding Cleo in one of the old beach chairs, deeper and patched up than recommended, her inseparable knife in one hand, a lock of her braided hair in her mouth and the other in her hand. Pope approached her, catching her attention, and she turned at the slightest noise, shrugging her shoulders when she saw that it was one of the pogues.

"Hey, where are the other people of this house?" he asked surveying the empty yard. Cleo shrugged her shoulders dismissively, "Well, Sarah and John B went on a date in their old boat, and I think JJ went to Kiara's rescue with something."

"Good." He replied falling into the empty chair next to her.

"They're always together. Always following each other." she commented referring to the two pairs, rolling her eyes as if she found it disgusting.

"They are." he agreed because there was nothing more to say. They fell into an uncomfortable silence. It was always like that with Cleo. She wasn't one to talk a lot or fill the silence - unlike Pope, social voids didn't make her nervous, and sometimes she didn't talk much even when the group was talking. Still, whenever she spoke, it was always assertive. Like a well-timed joke, a well-thought-out provocation, or a very clever argument.

Perhaps only he was uncomfortable with the silence. Pope flexed his hands, missing his cell phone, or a beer, or anything that could occupy him. Or he was turning into JJ, unable to sit still for more than five minutes. Man, he used to be more controlled.

Perhaps it was his friend's stupid energy hovering over him that made him utter the following words to the girl next to him: "Do you want help?"

"What!?" she turned her face to face him, a scowl of disbelief plastered on it, her brows raised. The words were barely out of her mouth and Pope couldn't believe he'd suggested it either.

Touch Cleo? For free? In her hair?

The whole thing was that with Cleo he couldn't cower, or she would eat him alive. And he didn't want to make a fool of himself. More. Boldly he repeated.

"Hm, d-do you want help? With the braids." He tilted his chin in hint at the mess of hair in her hands. An even more uncomfortable silence fell over them as Cleo watched him as if he was an unwanted insect. But then her dark eyes shifted between the braid on her fingers and him again.

It looked like she was considering.

She shrugged, one of those typical Cleo gestures, super nonchalant. "Hmph. Could be." she agreed. Pope was surprised as fuck, but masked his shock by moving his old chair closer to hers. Not too close, just close enough so he could reach her hair. He'd barely raised his hands when she turned menacingly to him, eyes narrowed and all, pointing the knife in his direction, throwing him into a recent déjà-vu the moment they'd met at the Costal Adventure.

"Don't fuck up my hair. You know how to do that, don't you?"

"Of course, just undo the braids, Cleo." He rolled his eyes, wanting to convey false confidence, because no, he had definitely never done that before in his life. But it shouldn't be difficult, since JJ was always braiding Kie's hair and unbraiding it for fun.

She bent down to turn on Big John's wobbly radio to some station and went back to her work. Pope started tentatively, with a half-hidden back strand. It was strange being close to Cleo like this, touching her like this, and the silence they fell into finally felt comfortable, welcome.

The two worked with concentration, and Pope was definitely slower and more careful, not wanting to tangle all her hair or tie it into a knot. Afternoon sunlight fell over the swamp, bathing them in shades of gold and orange, illuminating the locks of her hair under his fingers. Cleo's hair was dark and silky and soft, and the more he undid the strands, the more it came loose, forming little shapeless coils.

It was pretty as fuck if he was honest.

At some point, she was done with the front braids, and Pope had to search through the blanket of dark hair for the last braid still remaining, hidden and close to the back of her neck. There was a light brush of his knuckles against that patch of skin, and Cleo pulled away immediately, tensing her shoulders to avoid approaching. He mumbled an apology quickly, and she didn't say anything, stepping closer again and letting him finish the job. Maybe it was the light or maybe he was imagining things, but Pope thought he saw the skin on her arm slightly prickling. He carefully undid the braid as the girl hummed a song that played on the radio, and that was probably older than they were, under her breath.

"Done" he said when he finished undoing the last braid. It felt more than that, he knew the moment was coming to an end, and somehow something inside him didn't like that realization.

Cleo ran a hand through her hair, trying to contain the frizz and volume to no avail. He kind of liked her hair that way too. "I have to wash it." she explained, getting up. He nodded silently and she smirked, before heading towards the balcony. Before she went up the steps, the girl stopped, and it took a full 5 seconds to turn around.

Not that he was counting.

"You know, if you ever want to, I'll braid your hair. It would be nice." she offered, turning again and walking into the Chateau quickly, before she even heard his answer. Leaving him alone in the backyard, less lonely than when he arrived, but with a lot more thoughts."

[aerynwrites]

Our Love, For Eternity

King!Viktor x Fem!OC

A/N: here it is, part 1! I hope you all enjoy this part and the parts to follow! I’m excited for this project and hope you are too!

Word Count: 1.5k

Warnings: children having no filter, very subtle hints of angst, fluff, perhaps a smooch.

Zina always found the young prince peculiar. She’s only seen him a few times since she’s been old enough to accompany her mother throughout the castle. But she often found a pang of sympathy running through her. He was always playing by himself, and he looked…lonely.

One day she changes that. Wandering away from her mother in favor of her curiosity for the prince. He’s tinkering with something when she finds him. Yet another thing that makes him different from the other royal children.

“What is that?” Her voice is piercing in the otherwise silent garden. It’s the one place she’s seen him most, hiding amongst the bushes and flowers.

He jumps at her intrusion, golden eyes widening as they land on her. He pulls his contraption closer to him, eyeing her warily.

Zina doesn’t care, she plops down on the ground next to him anyways, fingers playing with the grass beneath her. “It looks cool, did you make it?”

Her words seem to finally reach the young boy and he unfurls himself slowly, holding out what Zina realizes is a toy boat, gently. “I’ve been working on it for weeks now,” the boy's accent surprises Zina, the lilted words intriguing her, “I’ve finally got it to work I think…I need to go down to the stream to test it.” His eyes fall then, a frown tugging at his lips. “My parents won’t let me go alone.”

Zina perks up immediately, “I can go with you!” She’s already standing up, motioning for him to follow, “let’s go!”

The boy stands much slower than Zina expected and she feels slight surprise when he grabs a small cane from the ground behind him. He leans on it heavily as he stands, boat tucked under his other arm. Zina’s brows pinch as she looks at him.

“What’s wrong with you?” She blurts, but there’s no malice behind her words, just genuine curiosity. The prince shies away anyways.

“I…my leg doesn’t work like it’s supposed to,” he offers slowly, avoiding her eyes.

Zina just smiles, “Then we’ll go slow! Also…” she trails off slightly looking back at the prince who seems happier at her easy acceptance. “What’s your name? My mom always just calls you ‘the prince’.”

The boy smiles, eyes crinkling at the corners, “Viktor.”

With a smile and a determined face Zina nudges him towards the exit. “Well let’s go, Viktor! We have a boat to test!”

Zina smiles at the memory as she sets the small boat back on the shelf after dusting beneath it. That day was the start of a lifelong friendship, even if it was difficult at times.

The boat had worked, much to both of their delights as they followed it down stream. That is until Viktor stumbled and fell onto the pebbled shore. Zina had immediately stopped to help him, but Viktor insisted she get the boat first, not wanting to lose his first working invention. She had obliged before coming back to him, brows drawing together in concern as she saw his skinned knees and scraped palms.

She also remembered the fear in her mothers eyes as she brought Viktor back to the servants quarters, not knowing where else to take him.

Zina knows now that her mother was fearful of punishment. Punishment for her daughter coming back with an injured prince. But nothing came. In fact, Zina remembers vividly the kindness the Queen gave her mother when she walked in on her patching up Viktor's injuries. She also remembers the kind way the Queen looked down at her. A soft-ness to her amber irises, so similar to Viktor’s.

“Thank you for looking after him.”

From then on Zina and Viktors friendship was allowed to flourish. The boat was just the first of many toys and inventions Viktor would go on to create. And he would always bring Zina along to test them. Over the years the collection grew, a display of Viktors great mind.

But the boat was always her favorite.

She sighs lightly, knowing the only attention the inventions receive anymore is her scheduled dusting. While the years brought more contraptions they also brought change. Change that made everything so different from how things used to be. The little boat floating down the stream with two children chasing after it feels like a lifetime ago…

“You’ve been staring at that boat an awful long time.”

The familiar accented voice caused Zina to jump slightly at the sudden break in silence. She turns away from the shelf, a hand over her heart as she faces the source.

Viktor stands in the doorway to his room, a small smile tugging at one side of his lips. His hand grips his cane tightly as he takes a few steps into the room. “I didn’t know my room was due to be cleaned today,” his eyes never leave Zina as he approaches her, and she tries in vain to shove away the nagging sense of anxiety nudging at the back of her mind.

This isn’t appropriate. He shouldn’t be here with a servant.

“I clean your room every Thursday, your majesty.” Zina’s voice is quiet but the teasing is still there as his official title rolls off her tongue.

Viktor rolls his eyes, “Not you too,” he practically groans, “You’re the one person I don’t want to call me that. Please.”

Zina scoffs, “You’re the King. What else would you have me call you?”

Viktor hums as he approaches her, the hand not holding the cane reaches up to wrap around her waist slowly, long fingers smoothing over the simple fabric of her dress. “My name would be nice,” he says simply, shrugging as he pulls her closer.

Zina sighs, casting a worried glance over his shoulder towards the door. “Viktor someone could walk in -“

He raises a brow, “Into the King’s quarters unannounced? Unlikely-“

“But not impossible,” Zina interjects, unaware of how her own hands have slid up to clutch gently at his shoulders.

Viktor smiles, “Then allow me one kiss and I’ll leave you alone.”

Zina sighs, rolling her eyes slightly but the smile never leaves her face as she complies with his wishes. She presses her lips to his gently, sighing when he returns the gesture. It’s a sweet, chaste thing, lasting no more than a few moments before Viktor pulls away, placing one last kiss to the corner of her lips.

“Thank you,” he says softly. “I miss you.”

Zina sighs then, pulling herself away from him fully now, eyes cast down to the floor. “I miss you to Vik, I just…” she takes a breath. “Things are different now. You know that.”

Viktor, despite knowing the truth behind her words, is ever insistent. “They don’t have to be,” his cane taps against the floor for emphasis, “I’m the King, I can do what pleases me-“

“Exactly. You’re the King,” her voice is soft as she reaches up to lightly touch the golden crown that sits nestled among his brown locks, “and I’m a servant. That’s all.”

Viktors eyes soften, “You're more than that to me,” his voice is so gentle, so soft, that Zina can practically feel the truth that seeps into it.

She nods, “I know Viktor,” she relents, finally looking back up to him, “You’re more than a king to me.”

He smiles at that, his free hand reaching out to grasp her hand in his own, giving it a gentle squeeze. Zina watches as his lips part to speak, but a distant shout of his name interrupts him. Jayce’s voice is booming in the otherwise silent castle and Zina smiles.

“You better go,” she says to Viktor, giving his hand one last squeeze before nudging him towards the door, “Before Lord Talis tears the castle apart.”

Viktor sighs, “Remind me why I made him Hand of the King again?”

Zina chuckles and shrugs, “Because he’s good at his job? You have to admit he’s better with the people and the advisors, and the parties-“

Viktor waves his hand impatiently, “Okay, you’ve made your point.” He sends the woman a genuine smile. “Will you come by after dinner?”

Despite everything in her mind telling her no, Zina smiles. “Always.”

Another call of his name, closer now, spurns the king into action. He presses a quick kiss to her cheek before finally turning and heading towards the door. “I’m coming!” He calls, exiting the room and letting the door click shut behind him.

Zina doesn’t move until the talking of his cane fades from earshot. The woman lets out a sigh then, eyes flicking back to the boat on the shelf. And she can’t help but wish everything was simple again.

Nothing is the same as it was, and her heart clenches in her chest at the thought of it. The past holds fond memories. Memories of laughter and friendship and romance. But now? The present and the future?

Zina can’t help but feel they holds nothing but uncertainty.

Taglist: @twistedstitcher27 @all-hallows-evie @ashotofspotchka

[majortuttle]

i don't know whether you're still taking beejhawk prompts but if so, i'd love to see something that takes place after the bus s4e6. they're all describing their first crushes and hawkeye never does and i think it would be fun for hawk to come out to bj with a little pronoun slip and if you don't do it, i will :) thank you for your service.

First off, I'll always take prompts and asks so we're golden! Second, I hope this scratches a small itch — I'm a little tired so I hope it tracks alright!

“The first time love conquered all,” BJ says, echoing the topic of their earlier conversation. “While Radar may have needed finding, you, sir, got skittish.”

“Skittish? What am I, a crab?”

BJ chuckles and leans back, resting his has against the window while keeping Hawkeye in sight, legs extended across the width of the bus to almost brush Hawkeye’s fatigue pants with his boot.

“C’mon, I’ll tell you mine if you tell me yours.”

“I feel like this is an elaborate ruse meant to give you another opportunity to gush about your beautiful wife.”

“I don’t need a ruse to sing Peg’s praises, you know that. C’mon. Spill. I want to know more about my favorite bunkmate.”

“Alright, first time love conquered all,” Hawkeye says, keeping his voice low for the benefit of their sleeping comrades. “Well, I was fifteen; young, gangly, and stupid. You know the type.”

“That I do.”

Hawkeye tongues a tender spot on the inside of his cheek as he rewrites the story in his mind — swapping names and locations on the fly because he can’t admit the truth, not here.

“She was a good friend of mine,” Hawkeye starts, before immediately having to clear his throat. “Best friend. We grew up together and I’d had feelings for some time, not that I knew how to go about expressing them, refer back to young and stupid.”

“Noted.”

“I thought I’d take her skating. Confess my love on the ice and if things went south, I’d skate to a thin patch and do myself in.”

"Naturally."

“We got out on the ice, and before I could get my bearings, I hear this cracking — you know, when a large enough sheet of ice starts to break, it almost sounds like a gunshot, it startles you so badly you forget to be scared — but when I figured out what was happening, I panicked, started rushing back to shore and s-she was right behind me, and then she was ahead of me, and my skate caught in this crack and I fell.”

Hawkeye stops himself, thinking back on the number of times he’s told this story in its entirety, not edited for the sake of concerned parents.

“Didn’t fall through the ice,” Hawkeye clarifies, meeting BJ’s worried face. “But the whole sheet buckled, and I was on my stomach just waiting for the water to take me when I looked up and . . .”

He closes his eyes, and he can still see Tommy, flushed and panting in that patchwork red coat of his, easing onto his belly like a seal, reaching out with one gloved hand, telling Hawkeye not to panic, that everything would be okay if Hawkeye could just slide a little further.

Just a little further, Hawk! You can do it!

“She saved me,” Hawkeye takes a deep breath, exhaling slowly in time with BJ’s own sigh of relief. “Smacked me upside the head when we got to shore for being so stupid and scaring her half to death, and then she kissed me. Wasn’t my first kiss, but it was the one that counted.”

“Sounds like a hell of a gal.” BJ praises, shoulders drooping like he's just escaped the gallows himself. “I'd love to meet her some day. She waiting for you back home?”

“Well, you can't, he actually died quite recently.”

The words practically fall out of Hawkeye’s mouth, unbidden and unwanted; and when Hawkeye realizes what he’s done, he doesn’t look to the gently surprised expression on BJ’s face, he turns to Potter and Burns resting behind them. Searching for any hint that the men might have heard him.

“. . . I’m sorry to hear that.”

Hawkeye whips his attention back to BJ so quickly he feels a vertebrae pop in his neck. BJ casts a look to their sleeping compatriots before he lifts up and shifts across the aisle onto the seat beside Hawkeye — or what little remains of it — before slowly, carefully, pulling Hawkeye’s hand into his own.

It takes far too long for Hawkeye to realize he’s being comforted.

“What was his name?” BJ asks.

“Tommy,” Hawkeye whispers, swallowing hard against the fear threatening to consume him, against the earnest sympathy plastered over BJ’s face. “Tommy Gillis. He died here. In Korea.”

BJ tightens his grip around Hawkeye’s hand, closes his eyes, and bows his head. Hawkeye can’t bring himself to do the same, consumed in the moment by this new Captain, Trapper’s replacement, fresh off the boat, commiserating over the loss of someone who’s mere memory is dangerous to Hawkeye.

“Are you praying?”

“Something like that.” BJ answers somberly. “The least I can do.”

“He died on my table,” Hawkeye admits, wincing at the tremor in his voice as he tries to shake some inhumanity out of Hunnicutt. “I couldn’t save him. I let him die.”

“I’m sure you did what you could.”

“You don’t know that. You weren’t there —”

Hawkeye’s lips are cracked and now they’re burning, a roundabout way to realize he’s crying.

“I wasn’t, but I know you.” BJ insists, not letting go even as Hawkeye tugs his hand away. “You’re a good man. A better surgeon. It couldn’t have been your fault. Tommy, would he have blamed you? Would he want you beating yourself up like this?”

Hawkeye turns his blurry gaze to their clasped hands and stifles a sob, only to immediately find himself in BJ’s arms; the larger man holding him tightly.

“When we get out of this,” BJ whispers, running his hand over Hawkeye’s back in soothing circles, “I’ll tell you a story of my own, okay? It’s a good one. I promise you’ll like it.”

“Yeah? Is it about Peg?” Hawkeye sniffs, wiping his face on BJ’s shoulder. “There’s only so much Peg my heart can handle —”

BJ chuckles dryly, giving Hawkeye a reassuring squeeze. “Peg's not in this one," he swears, resting his cheek against the crown of Hawkeye's head. "In fact, you could say there aren't any women at all."

[holylulusworld]

Deafening Silence

Summary: Steve and you are falling apart. Can you save your marriage?

Pairing: Nomad!Steve x fem!Reader

Characters: Bucky Barnes, Sharon Carter (mentioned), Tony Stark

Warnings: angst, language, unrequited love?, arguments, you and Steve go through a rough patch in your relationship, regrets, a hint of fluff, pissed reader, sadness

A/N: Not Endgame compliant. No one died, everyone is still alive and kicking.

Divider by @firefly-graphics​

Another cold night awaits you. Once upon a time you and Steve were undefeatable and, to be honest, sickening in love. Now you lie on the edge of the bed, try to not get too close to your husband as he always finds an excuse to not hold you in his arms any longer.

Tears well up to your eyes hearing him snore lightly next to you. Wondering if he’s losing sleep lately too but the way he peacefully sleeps tells you, he’s not letting his mind run wild.

“No sleep for me again, I guess,” silently leaving the bed you grasp one of his shirts to press it to your nose. It’s the only time you can catch his scent, so you take what you get. “Sleep well, Stevie. You don’t seem to have problems falling asleep.”

As so often lately, you walk out of the bedroom to grab a snack or watch nonsense on TV to take your mind of the problems right in front of you. Somewhere on the line you and Steve lost your love, or you lost Steve. You haven’t found out yet.

All you know is that the deafening silence between you and your husband is breaking you every day more.

“Can’t find sleep?” Bucky asks, watching you sit on one of the chairs in the kitchen. Steve invited his friend to sleep a few weeks at your guestroom as his apartment got blown up by one of New Hydra’s goons.

“I just-“ you bite your tongue, shaking your head every so lightly. You like Bucky, he’s your friend, but you can’t talk about Steve with him. He’s your husband’s best friend and would side with Steve over anyone. “Sometimes I got problems to fall asleep, is all,” you lie poorly.

“What about Steve?” searching your face Bucky nods silently. He can see your red-rimmed eyes and hear your tiny sighs whenever Steve ignores your present. “Maybe you want hot cocoa? I can make you some, doll.”

“No, it’s fine. I’ll just sit here for a while, ya know,” playing with your wedding band you don’t meet Bucky’s gaze, fearing he’ll see through your lie. “I just got a lot of things going on right now. We are back, work with Tony and the others again. Maybe we just need time to adapt.”

“If I can help, tell me so,” offering a cracked smile you nod, knowing you can’t take Bucky up to his offer. “You’re my friend too. How about we watch a movie and talk a bit?”

“I appreciate your offer, but I’m not in the mood to talk, Bucky,” sadly you are too tired and emotionally exhausted to even talk about the thing weighing heavy on your heart.

“Y/N,” walking toward Bucky places one hand onto your shoulder, squeezing it lightly. “Just talk to him, doll. Steve loves you and-“ you huff. It’s the first reaction he gets from you making clear you are hurt. 

“I don’t want to talk about it, him,” voice cracking you watch Bucky rummage in your kitchen to prepare cocoa for you. 

“You went through a lot together over the last years,” Bucky begins, eyes drifting toward you slumped in your chair. “Ultron, the accords, me,” you laugh when Bucky gives you a wink. “I know, I’m the most charming event rocking the boat but then there was the war between the Avengers, Thanos, the blip, and after that-”

“Steve told me he thought about going back to Peggy for a split-second, that life back then was easier and more-“ you try to find the right words but fail. “All I got was that he’s still a man out of time and that he’s sorry for considering going back.”

“Well, shit-“ Bucky grumbles. “I didn’t know, I swear. Here I stand, believing I know everything about my friend,” you shrug, watching Bucky prepare two mugs. “Did he at least apologize?”

“He did, more than once and I forgave, but never forgot,” sniffing you look at Bucky. “Since then, he started to distance himself from me. I feel like he regrets coming back to me, Bucky.” gasping you realize you just revealed your thoughts.

“Doll...”

“Please don’t tell him. I know Steve is a good man, but sometimes I think it would be easier for me if he just does what he has on his mind for months – file for divorce.”

“Anything from Steve?” watching Bucky check his phone you sigh deeply. Steve disappeared this morning, out of the blue. “Why didn’t he tell us about his mission? He always told me about his missions, confidential or not.”

“I got nothing either, doll,” grumbling Bucky sit on the couch, scrolling through his contacts. “Shall I call Tony or Natasha? Maybe they can fill us in why Stevie just grabbed a bag and left without telling us about his mission.”

“No,” biting your lower lip you wreck your brain. Maybe Steve did tell you about his mission? Lately, you are too lost in thoughts and self-doubts and barely listen if Steve finally talks to you. “I have work to do at the new tower. I will ask Tony if he can tell me about Steve’s whereabouts.”

“Okay,” wondering again Bucky looks at his phone, shaking his head at Steve’s message from last night. 

“Steve is not on a mission?” gaping at Tony you try to hide you can hear your heart pounding in your ears. “I thought he went on a mission last night. Did I confuse the date?”

“There is no mission for Capsicle,” Tony snickers. “According to my information, he took a week off. Said something about sorting things out. Honestly, I didn’t listen.”

“O-okay,” you swallow thickly, force a smile on your lips hurting your face. “I got it wrong then. I finished my reports. You should check on the sidenotes about the bank accounts. Maybe E.D.I.T.H. can check on the accounts later.”

“Y/N, is everything alright? You look a little shaken up or something,” Tony watches you fiddle with your phone, knowing something must be off with you and your husband. “Do you need my help? You know that you can tell me anything.”

“It’s nothing, really,” the lie rolls easily off your tongue, you are used to lying to yourself for months so why not lying to your friends too. “I just need some time off, Tony.”

Aimlessly walking the streets of New York, you doubt your husband once again.

Tony said he’s not on a mission. All of your friends don’t know where he could be and Bucky, well he said Steve didn’t tell him anything.

“Where are you Steve?” looking at your phone you sigh deeply. “Fine, we will do it the hard way. E.D.I.T.H., please use the tracking app we put on Steve’s phone. I need to find Captain America. It’s an emergency.”

“Tracing Captain Rogers’ phone,” E.D.I.T.H. replies. “Captain Rogers’ phone is not far away. He’s at a café, P.J. Clarke’s on 55th and 3rd, agent Rogers. Can I help you with anything else?”

“No, thank you,” walking faster you grip your phone tightly. Why is Steve at a café at that time of the day? He never disappeared only to take a day off and sip coffee.

If a heart can shatter, yours does in the very moment you arrive at the café only to see Steve sit at a table with Sharon Carter.

You haven’t seen her for years, but you must admit, she looks great as always.

“Stevie,” you whisper, hands clutched tightly to your chest when Sharon places her hand onto Steve’s on the table and he doesn’t move his hand away. He smiles, even chuckles at something the woman says. “A Carter again, how pathetic. Fuck that. Fuck fighting for our love if you refuse to even try.”

Unbeknownst you saw him with Sharon your husband tries to ask his friend for advice. Missing your pained expression and the tears run down your face when you storm off.

“Doll! Fuck I was worried about you. Tony called, asked if you are okay. He said Steve is not on a mission and that he took a week off,” Bucky watches you storm into your and Steve’s apartment. “Y/N, something wrong?”

“Everything is wrong, Bucky. But from now on, I’ll take my life back in my hands,” you quip. “I would appreciate it if you could get me my ‘I hate early mornings mug’, I want to take it with me,” walking toward your bedroom you ignore Bucky follows you.

“What do you mean by taking it with you?” while you get two suitcases out, Bucky tries to make you talk to him. “Do you want to go on a mission? Why so many suitcases?”

“Oh, Stevie was busy to take a week off while I was worried about him,” you quip, opening your drawer to grab random clothes, tossing Steve’s onto the floor. “Imagine my surprise when I traced his phone only to find him with another Carter.”

“Sharon?” humming you neatly fold your clothes to place them into the first suitcase. “Did he-?”

“No, but I guess Steve is just not man enough to file for divorce to be with her,” glaring at Bucky you make your way back toward the wardrobe to grab more clothes. “While I tried to save our marriage, Steve sits in a café and allowed that woman touch his hand. He smiled at her Bucky. I didn’t get a smile from him for months.”

“Doll, you can’t just leave without talking to him,” Bucky tries to stop you, but you made up your mind. Before you met Steve, you were wild, feisty, and stubborn but he tamed you and your free spirit. “Wait, let me call him.”

“I tried to call him this morning and after I saw him with that woman,” slamming the first suitcase shut you glare at Bucky. “He didn’t answer. It was his last chance to explain things to me, Bucky. Now I’m done waiting for Steve to tell me it is over, we are over.”

“What’s that?” looking at a neatly folded letter on your bed Steve feels his chest tightening. Your wedding band lies abandoned on the letter, but you are nowhere to be found.

“She saw you with Sharon yesterday. I guess taking off a week to meet up with an old flame and ignoring your wife called you about ten times wasn’t the smartest plan,” Bucky shrugs. “I called you too.”

“I need time to figure things out,” Steve sits on the bed, pressing the wedding band in his hand to his chest. “We went through a rough patch and I didn’t know how to fix things between Y/N and me.”

“Not talking to her and getting all cozy with Sharon was a great idea,” gritting the words out Bucky watches his friend unfold the letter with shaking fingers. “Steve.”

“I-I just didn’t know if Y/N still wants me after I admitted that I was tempted to go back to Peggy. She was distant for a few weeks and then, she almost clang to me. As if Y/N tried to fake she forgave me,” reading the letter Steve sniffles silently. “Oh, god she wants to file for divorce.”

“What?” grasping for the letter Bucky reads the last lines you wrote.

‘As you aren’t man enough to tell me that you don’t love me anymore, I will tell you it’s over. You don’t have to be the bad guy, Captain. The papers will reach you soon. Have a great life with Sharon…’

“Do you know where she went, Bucky?” jumping up Steve looks for his keys, already grasping for his phone to call you back. “Buck!”

“She came here, packed two suitcases, and left. I tried to stop her, but she didn’t listen, Steve. I don’t think Y/N will call you back.”

“Then I’ll have to find her, no matter what…”

“A whole month!” Steve waltzes into your apartment, panting heavily. His hair longer again, a thick beard framing his face he wraps you in a hug. “I was so worried, doll. How could you just leave without a trace?”

“Didn’t think you would miss me, Steven,” using his full name on purpose, you smirk as Steve flinches. “I believed Sharon would soothe the pain and fill the tiny gap I left in your life.”

“Y/N,” mumbling your name Steve pecks your hair while his hands run up and down your back. “I swear, I’m not with Sharon and I don’t want her, doll. When you saw me with her, I gave her something Peggy left for me. It was the first step to give up my past.”

“You held hands, and you smiled at her, Steven. Don’t lie to me,” you push against his chest, try anything to break out of his embrace. “I’m not stupid nor blind.”

“She grasped for my hand as I gave her the medallion Peggy left me. I smiled as she thanked me, and we remembered the last days with Peggy. Y/N, please believe me there is nothing between me and Sharon,” Steve desperately tries to not let you slip out of his embrace, but you fight him with all your strength.

“That’s the reason you take a week off and instead of having dinner with me, you meet up with that woman. Your former girlfriend,” you growl, pushing against Steve’s chest. “I tried to fix us, and you just ran off.”

“I wanted to clear my mind,” Steve mumbles. “I was afraid you are still mad at me for admitting that I thought about going back in time for Peggy for a second. I’m bad at admitting my feelings. I was afraid to lose you and handled it the wrong way.”

“Pushing me away to keep me was a great plan,” you give up fighting Steve’s strength, hating he’s so much stronger than you are once again. “You hurt me and now you come here and want me to do what?”

“Please come home, doll,” pecking your forehead Steve mumbles apologies against your skin. “Your husband is an idiot when it comes to feelings. I love you, love you so much. We need to work on our marriage but please don’t give up on us.”

“Like you did months ago?” cursing under your breath you glare at Steve when he tries to kiss you. “Fixing things between us won’t be that easy, Steve. You hurt me with your behavior. If you want me to come back, you’ll have to do more than coming here and looking like the man I’ve missed.”

“I’ve missed you too, doll,” pecking your lips Steve slides his fingers through your hair. “Please come home and I’ll do anything you want me to do. Tell me how to fix us.”

“Maybe Bucky can give you advice,” you smirk, breaking out of Steve’s embrace to walk into your living room. “He’s a man who can talk with a woman.”

“When did Bucky talk to you? Doll?” while you check on your phone Steve starts to pace your living room. “Did he touch my girl?”

“Why would your best friend touch me, Stevie?” you coo. “I mean, Sharon only touched your hand, right. There is no reason for me to be mad. What if Bucky did the same or Tony? Maybe Sam hugged me a bit longer than necessary.”

“I will kill them,” Steve balls his hands into fists, stares daggers into the picture of you and the team. “Tell me who dared to touch my wife,” nostrils flaring, chest heaving up and down Steve points at the picture. 

“See,” you walk toward your husband, placing your hand onto his heart before you meet his gaze. “That’s how I felt when you let that woman touch you. You gave her my smile while you ignored me.”

“I didn’t ignore you; it was just-“ sighing Steve hangs his head low. “I get it, doll and I’m sorry. If you give me a chance to prove that I can be the man you deserve, I’ll try to do so every day from now on…”

All works Tags

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[themadlostgirl]

Treasure Hunt

*Some wholesome fun with a little Panlix tension to garnish*

~~~

We had new toys on the island. New to me anyway.

The Lost Boys and I crowded around the beach and stared out at the ship anchored on the horizon. Pirates.

Where they had come from or why there were here was a mystery to us. But one thing was for certain, they were certain to be fun. Peter ordered all of us back to camp while he spoke to the captain. Not that most of us listened anyway. We stuck around hiding at the entrance to the jungle to see what would happen.

A single rowboat came ashore with a trio of men. One was covered head to toe in tattoos, one was short and portly with a bright red hat, and the third I had to assume was the captain. He had a tall, dark, and dangerous look about him that I’m sure plenty of tavern wenches falling all over themselves.

“Holy shit,” the boy next to me muttered softly, gaze locked on the captain.

“Snap out of it, Teddy,” I slapped the back of his head, “What would Sanjit think if he saw you drooling over someone else?”

“I think he would understand.” Teddy shrugged, “Come on, even you have to admit the man looks great.”

“He looks good, I will give him that,” I peered closer, “Does he have a hook for a hand?”

“Nice,” Teddy grinned wider. I slapped him again.

Peter and the captain talked and argued before the captain and his men got back into their boat and left for their ship. Peter turned around and addressed us hiding in the trees. “You can come out now you disobedient tree stumps,”

Half of the boys fled at having been found out while the rest of us emerged. “So what brings them here?” I asked first.

“Youth and revenge, not the first time I’ve come across that salty sailor. Have to say, he has a lot more backbone as a pirate than he did when I first met him.” Peter said. “Captain Hook he calls himself now. Sounds much more fun than leftenant Jones.”

“Is the revenge he craves against you?” Felix asked. “I could see him blaming his brother’s death on you.”

“No. He’s upset about that for sure, but apparently the Dark One killed his lover and cut off his hand. That’s who he wants to get revenge against. Figured he would have more than enough time staying here while he concocted something. Idiot doesn’t even have a way back. It’s clear he didn’t think any of this through.” Peter scoffed with a smile. “His idiocy is our gain. Tell me, what do pirates always have?”

“Drinking problems?”

“Yes, but not what I was looking for.”

“Big hats.”

“No.”

“Terrible songs!”

“Treasure!” Peter snapped, “They have treasure!”

“Oh...that makes more sense.” I nodded. “What is treasure to us? Not like we have any shops to purchase things from using any of their shiny baubles.”

“True. But it means a great deal more to them.” Peter grinned. “Tomorrow morning, we’re gonna go on a treasure hunt.”

When we got back to camp those of us that stuck around informed the others about what had happened with Peter and the pirates. Many of them were excited about the idea of a treasure hunt. By the time dawn broke the camp was abuzz with anticipation.

“Morning everyone,” Peter greeted his camp, “Last night your fearless leader, me, snuck aboard the pirate’s ship and stole their chest of treasure right out from under their nose.” The camp whooped with cheer. Peter held up his hand to silence the boys. “I have now hidden it somewhere on the island. First person to find it is King for the day. That is...if any of you flopping codfish can find it.”

The boys jeered and raced off in all directions to find the treasure. I had started to run off with them when I remembered I didn’t have a weapon. Knowing the boys they would get violent and try to steal the treasure from one another when it was found. I needed something to defend myself with. I turned around to head back to the now abandoned camp.

I ducked into my tent to find a suitable weapon when I heard voices in the camp. I poked my head out and saw Felix and Peter were the only ones still around. I understood why Peter was still here but why was Felix?

“How long do you think they’ll be out searching for the treasure?” Felix asked Peter.

“They’ll search all day and probably into the night before giving up.” Peter laughed, “The whole time they’re digging around dark caves and in rotten tree trunks the chest is safely buried by the mermaid lagoon. None of them are going near there and even if they do none of them will think to start digging.”

“Maybe I should go dig it up then,” Felix said, “Let myself be crowned king for the day.”

“Now where is the fun in that? Let them struggle for a good while first.” Peter looked around the camp and I quickly closed the flap of my tent. I don’t think he would be too happy about my eavesdropping. “It’s nice to have some peace and quiet around here for once. The noise can get grating at times.”

“I understand that better than most,” Felix’s voice answered. “Even rarer that our Lost Girl isn’t hanging about. Seems she sticks around you more than usual.”

“Do I detect a hint of jealousy, Felix?”

“You’re not funny.”

“I’m hilarious and she’s a good friend.” Peter said. “I still cannot believe that you and those other idiots thought that we were interested in one another. As if I would actually even want to be with her.”

Okay. Ouch. And incorrect! He was the one that assumed that I was confessing my love to him the night I came out to him and said he was okay trying to have a romantic relationship with me. We agreed it wouldn’t work out between us after I told him I was gay but this was needless slander. Got to keep up appearances for the boys I suppose. Can’t let them know he actually considered me at some point. However brief it may have been.

“Not your type, huh?” Felix joked.

“No…” Peter said, “Has a lot of traits I do like. She’s straightforward, bloodthirsty, knows how to have fun, doesn’t take any of my shit, which is refreshing,”

“What are you talking about? I don’t take any of your bullshit either.” Felix said, his voice rising a tad.

“I know, Felix, that’s part of the reason I like you too.”

The camp was silent.

“You know, makes you a good friend too, a great second in command.” Peter continued after a beat.

“Good to know,” Felix sighed. “I’m going to refill my canteen.”

“Felix--”

“What?” Felix snapped at him. The harshness in his tone made even me freeze and it wasn’t even directed at me.

“Nothing…” Peter’s steps receded, “I’m going to go watch the boys run in circles.”

“Yeah, you do that.” Felix muttered before trudging off.

I waited a few more minutes before poking my head out to make sure the coast was clear. That was something. Those two have more issues than I thought. If they could get a nudge in the right direction--no! No! I am not getting myself involved in their problems.

I grabbed the sword I had come to retrieve and fled the camp. At the very least I know where the treasure is now! I ran towards the mermaid lagoon. It was deserted of Lost Boys but I could see the ripple in the water of the mermaids lurking right below the the surface, waiting and hoping I would venture closer so they could pull me down and drown me. I only made that mistake once when I was very new on the island. They were very pretty and I thought maybe they would be friendly towards a girl. I was soon proven how very wrong I was when one of them pulled me under the water and the Lost Boys had to come in and rescue me before I drowned.

Scanning the sand I found a patch that looked like it had been pretty recently disturbed. I started digging with my hands until I felt the solid weight of wood. I dug around it until the very top was uncovered. How was I supposed to get it out by myself? It was firmly stuck in the ground and getting it free by myself would be near impossible.

Maybe I could just grab something to prove that I had found it and cover it back up. I dug my hand down into the sand for the latch and pried it open. Inside laid a wealth of gold coins, gems, jewelry, and other shiny baubles. I stuffed a handful of coins and gems in my pocket and slid a pair of shining, jewel encrusted bracelets onto my wrists. That should be enough. I closed the lid and covered the chest once more. I decided to mess with the boys while waiting for it to grow later and dropped random coins and jewels around the jungle so they would think they were heading in the right direction.

By the time night fell the boys had returned to camp despondent. Some holding up the coins and jewels I had strewn about with a small amount of disdain. Peter was back to his jovial self but looked confused at the boys holding coins. Surely he hadn’t let anything fall out when he stole the chest.

That was my cue. I strolled into the middle of the camp and raised my glittering wrists to the sky. “Bow before your queen!”

“What?” Peter gaped at me. “There’s no way you found the chest!”

“Oh but I did,” I dug into my pockets and tossed the remaining coins I had onto the ground. “That chest was so big and heavy though I couldn’t take the whole thing myself but I think this is sufficient enough evidence.”

“Wait, were you the one leaving coins and jewels all over the island?” one of the boys pointed at me, accusingly.

“Duh,” I rolled my eyes, “I needed to have my own fun.”

“Never let it be said that I’m not a man of my word,” Peter gave an exaggerated bow, “Our dear Lost Girl shall be Queen for the day...or at least for the rest of the night.”

Some of the boys cheered, a lot more of the jealous boys booed. I didn’t care. I basked in the attention and laughed with the others at the silly antics the boys did to entertain their “queen” like court jesters. It was all in good fun, Peter even fashioned me a crown of sticks and leaves.

I pulled him over to dance with me. “So,” I spoke up to be heard over the pounding music, “How long till the pirates find out you stole their treasure and come to hunt us down for taking it?”

“Who knows,” Peter shrugged, “it’s sure to be fun though.”

I laughed along with him as the night grew late and my night of queendom came to an end. The game would begin again tomorrow but with the chest in a new spot. Looks as if I’ll actually have to hunt for it this time. Not a problem, I liked a good challenge.

[slippinmickeys]

Out of the Little Grove (11/?)

Deciduous turned to conifer and conifer to scrub. Mulder’s body was increasingly sore every day as the ground they slept on gradually became permafrost, the tundra spreading out before them like the blanket on a rumpled bed.

How odd to find oneself in the first flush of realized love and be in the ceaseless, inescapable company of four near-strangers. Mulder would feel the overwhelming urge to taste Scully’s lips and find the only thing he was comfortable doing was reaching out to help her make her way over a slippery patch in a rocky stream. Twilight was the only time they felt they could take comfort with one another, pressed to each other’s side for warmth, furtive touches stolen in the darkest part of the night.

The mountains past which they would find the Icy Cape seemed no closer than they had been when they began their journey, with Captain Byers saying goodbye to his beloved Gulpie at a gentle turn in the Snake River, the boat secured and moored beneath the full boughs of a giant hemlock at the edge of a flood plain. Byers had insisted on joining their odd company of travelers, pulling a cache of air pistols out from under a hidden compartment in the Gulpie’s deck, saying that should they need the extra pair of hands, they could use as many gunmen as they could get. And so all six of them with their assortment of daemons had set out, trudging ever on over the frozen ground of the hilly Bering far north, and they did not see anything but roving bands of reindeer and the packs of wolves that hunted them.

The day was cloudy, making the cold the gray sort that creeped into your collar and sunk its icy nails into your neck, and Mulder knew that he wouldn’t be warm again until he was by the fire that night, with Scully pressed up against him. From beside him, he heard her intake of breath.

When he turned to her, she was squinting up into the sky. “Look,” she said and he followed her line of sight.

High above them, he could see the shape of a white bird wheeling high in the sky and then disappearing into a cloud bank.

“You know,” said Scully, bemused. “I swear I’ve seen that same bird once before, right at the beginning of our journey?”

“Have you?” Mulder asked, making sure to keep his voice light. He kept his eyes on the cloud bank, but saw nothing else.

An hour later, they crested the rise of the next slope, and it was Langly who saw it first: an odd shape on the horizon, to the west of the direction they were headed, and it was strange and intriguing enough that they opted to veer off course by several miles–wasting precious energy and time– in order to investigate it.

As they approached, it took Mulder a moment to recognize what he was seeing.

“Is that what I think it is?” Cass said, padding along silently beside him.

Spread out along the ground for at least fifty feet was a bunched up mass of fabric laced with the criss-cross of ropes, the material brownish yellow, but patched in a few places with brighter fabric, all of it stiff with frost. At one end above a large heavy iron ring was a massive basket tipped on its side, which had been what stuck up along the horizon and grabbed their attention.

“A balloon?” Scully said, a hint of wonder in her voice.

“Where’s the aëronaut?” Hendrick asked, stepping forward to sniff at the edge of the basket, a dubious look on his feline face.

“There,” said Frohike, pointing to a small brown lump about forty feet from where the great balloon went down. They approached the body without fear – it too was covered in a thin layer of frost and looked as weather-beaten as the balloon – the pilot, hunched up on its side so that his shoulder stuck up prominently at an odd angle – was long dead.

Scully leaned down and attempted to roll the remains over, but they were frozen to the earth.

“Not much left of him,” she said, peering into what remained of the man’s face. The skin was brown and leathered, the eye sockets as empty as an old well.

“Think the fall killed him?” Mulder asked, kneeling down next to her.

“No,” she said, bending down to get a closer look at the body. Though he was covered with a light layer of frost, something colorful and odd caught her eye. She reached a hand to the fallen man’s torso and pulled out what remained of an arrow that was fletched with bright green feathers.

She handed it to Mulder. “Witches, do you think?”

He rolled the smooth wooden shaft over in his fingers. “No,” he said after a moment, dropping the arrow to lay next to its victim. “Québécois.”

“How can you tell?” she asked, rising as well, her knees popping loudly as she stood.

“Witches wouldn’t use maple for the shaft of their arrows,” he said absently, looking assessingly at the balloon. “The wood has too much give and they consider it a sacred tree.”

“Do you think the Québécois are still nearby?” Byers asked, peering around with a worried look.

“I think they’re long gone,” said Mulder, not the least bit concerned.

He was less interested in how the aëronaut died and more interested in his mode of transportation. There was movement from inside the basket and a moment later Ulle nosed her way out of the recesses of the murk within it.  

“It appears to be in good working order,” the Bengal cat said quietly to Max. It was the first time Mulder could recall hearing her speak. “The equipment is all intact. It appears to have gone down gently.”

“You think it’s flyable?” Mulder asked.

Before anyone could respond, Scully stepped forward. “By whom, exactly?” she asked.

Max’s face twitched, and he sniffed, taking a step forward. “I could fly it,” he said. “Assuming the balloon itself hasn’t been damaged by the elements and that the drill is in working order.”

“The drill?” Scully asked.

“To access the gas necessary to fly,” he explained, smiling at her. “The north is riddled with ground-gas vents that leak hydrogen, though they’re most readily available near mines. Barring a naturally occurring vent, there are pockets close to the surface held in by the permafrost. If the drill is in working order, it should be easy enough to fill the balloon.”

Mulder thought just how much more quickly they could move in the balloon. How much distance he could put between himself and Alex Krycek.

“Check that the sandbags are filled evenly, if you would,” Max said to Frohike. “We’ll need the ballast to ascend. Would you two mind helping me to inspect the balloon itself? There’s a lot of material here.”

Mulder and Scully nodded.

“It’s frozen,” Langly pointed out.

“We’ll have to warm it,” Max said.

“I’ll build a fire,” Byers offered.

And with jobs assigned, all six of them put themselves readily to work, eager to see if they could use the conveyance and save themselves miles of frigid trekking. Scully discovered a cache of furs that would be necessary to keep them warm up in the frigid atmosphere of the Bering northland and Frohike and Langly worked at warming the balloon so that it could be checked for functionality.

By the time night fell, half of the balloon had been thawed out and checked and all of the rigging and instrumentation – built to withstand the freezing temperatures of the upper atmosphere – had proven to be in working order. The six humans and their daemons sat with their backs to the large basket of the balloon to block the wind, a roaring and cheerful fire in front of them. They were practically giddy with excitement over their find, and from his pocket, Frohike pulled out a flask of vodka. They passed it around to the coughing sputters of their blended collective, but each and every one of them was thankful for the warmth it provided. The mood around the fire that night was as close to jubilant as it had been since they started their journey in Nome.

Scully leaned against Mulder’s shoulder, smelling of sweet liquor. “I wish we were able to bury the aëronaut,” she said, looking at the dark shape of the man beyond the light of the fire. The dæmons did not like to go near him, knowing that his own dæmon had vanished into the ether upon his death, and were all crowded on the other sides of their people, keeping a human wall between themselves and the specter of their own future.

“There’s nothing to be done,” Frohike assured her. “Not this far north. Naught but to say a prayer for him.”

Mulder watched as everyone was silent, none of them but perhaps Scully, particularly religious. Scully yawned from beside him, exhausted from the day’s activity. She took another nip from Frohike’s flask and leaned over to hand it to Langly.

“Are you ready to sleep?” Mulder asked her quietly.

“Not quite yet,” she said, her eyes a little soft and muzzy. Mulder couldn’t remember if he’d ever seen her tipsy, much less drunk.

From across the fire, the four men who escorted them had begun arguing about some finer point of controversial Beringland law, and he felt Scully slip from his side and disappear beyond the reach of the firelight. Mulder thought that perhaps she’d merely gotten up to relieve herself, when Hendrick, who had been walking silently beside her, slipped back a few feet and said something in a low voice to Cass. Mulder could feel the thrill that ran up Cass’s spine and she turned to look at him significantly. He rose without another word and followed her as she trotted off with the cheetah.

Thirty yards past the edge of the firelight, he was about to call her name when Scully grabbed him by the sleeve, her mittened hand sliding down his jacket. Before he could turn to her, she had launched herself into his arms and was kissing him hungrily. He felt his body respond, and pulled her to him tightly. High above them the stars blazed and a streak of purple aurora shot across the sky.

He could hear a low feline sound from nearby and Scully pulled back from him sloppily, her lips glistening in the starlight.

“I miss you,” she said.

“Me too,” he mumbled, “but we’re going to freeze out here if we don’t get back to the fire.”

“I don’t care,” she said, grinning at him impishly and running her hand over the front of him. He could barely feel her hand for the layers he was wearing, but his body responded to her nonetheless.

“You might start caring if certain parts of my anatomy are frostbitten and rendered unusable.” Her smile widened and she reached for him again. “Dana Scully, I believe you might be drunk,” he went on, returning her grin, not really minding that she was getting handsy.

“I believe you might be right,” she said. “But I also feel, for the first time,” with this she began plucking at the cords that held the waist of his cold weather gear in place, “that we might just get out of this.”

“The balloon was a real find, I admit,” he said, knowing he should argue against what she seemed to have planned, but the blood was leaving his brain and rushing south and he found he had neither the words nor the willpower to continue to try to dissuade her.

“Yes,” she said, her tongue pressed to the back of her front teeth. He could feel several garments loosen. “A real find.”

There was a bark of laughter from around the fire in the distance and then Scully was there and everything else faded away.

XxXxXxXxXxX

“Hold it steady!” Max called out. “Right there!” Scully watched him as he rubbed his hands together, giddy.

“It’s a good vent,” he said to her, smiling.

They had everything loaded and stowed in the basket to Max’s exacting standards, keeping in mind balance and stability, and the great balloon was being quickly filled by a perfectly drilled vent – their first attempt. Scully was standing next to Max within the basket itself while Mulder, Frohike and Langly held the balloon tight. Byers was loosening the tops of several sandbags from which Max would release the contents as ballast when the balloon was filled and they were ready to fly. And from the looks of things, it wouldn't take long. The balloon itself was billowing out and up, the hydrogen it held pushing against the rope cords that crisscrossed the fabric as if they weighed nothing at all.

Max checked and rechecked the gauges in front of him and Scully glanced over as Mulder and the other men struggled to hold the balloon steady. Ulle looked on with cat-like stoicism and judgment, her tail flicking every so often.

A moment later, Hendrick raised himself up onto his hind legs, his front paws resting on the edge of the basket, peering out at the landscape.

“What is it?” Scully asked him.

“I thought I heard something,” her dæmon said. After a moment he lowered himself and walked over to Mia, saying something to her in low tones. The squirrel flicked her tail once and then ran easily up the ropes holding the still-inflating balloon and climbed the criss-crossed netting like she was born to do it. She made a full circuit of the circumference of the balloon and then came running back down.

“I hear it, too,” Scully heard her say to Hendrick. “Engine noise of some sort. But I see nothing. If there is something there, we’ll be in the air long before it gets here.”

Scully nevertheless felt a quick shot of nerves. From what Mulder had told her, Alex Krycek was relentless, and she imagined that by now he knew who he was hunting. The man would not rest until he’d caught Mulder.

There was a shout from the vent, and the men struggled with the ropes holding the balloon down.

“That’s it!” Max shouted. “Get in the basket, she’s ready to fly!”

Mulder, Frohike and Langly let go and the balloon shot straight up, lifting the basket two feet off the ground before setting it back down to earth, the ropes attached to it straining. The three men leapt over the side of the basket and tumbled to its floor and then Max released ballast and the balloon took off like a shot, sideways into the sky. Max gave a shout of delight though Byers and Langly looked a bit green around the gills.

“The winds are with us!” Max said, delighted.

He released more ballast and the balloon rocketed up and out toward the mountains in the distance, gravity pushing at the occupants and making Scully feel heavy and slow. Once they finally evened out, Scully chanced a look over the side at the ground below. It looked pale and washed out, small and big at the same time. She thought she saw the flash of sunlight reflecting off of something on the horizon before the balloon went through the clouds and she lost sight of it.

XxX

The luster had quickly come off the appeal of air travel. For one thing, it was duecedly boring — at least when traveling by foot you had a task, even though it was only putting one foot in front of the other. For another, it was cold. Far colder than it had been on the ground. They all huddled under the furs they had found with the balloon and even then Scully could feel the cold down to her bones. It struck her with a lethargy that didn’t seem to extend to the men. Nevertheless, Mulder, Frohike, Byers and Langly were all dozing, their dæmons tucked tightly up against them for warmth.

Scully rose with a tired ache, and thought perhaps movement might work some of it off. Max was fiddling with something on the far side of the basket, and she stretched and did a few squats and lunges just to give herself something to do.

They had been aloft for over a day and were in the midst of a cloud bank, the air surrounding them a swirling mass of frigid vapor. It was unnerving, perched in the basket high above the earth, but unable to tell where you were, and Scully had to fight off panic several times. She finally went to the bank of instruments and had a look over them, though she didn’t know what information any of them relayed. Hendrick kept making chuffing, cat-like noises.

“You’re making it worse,” she finally muttered to him. In response, he gave her a look of dignified scorn and leaned down to groom his paw.

“It’s all right,” came a nasally voice from beside her. Ulle jumped silently up onto the instrument panel and gave her a feline blink. Scully turned to Max, who was approaching from the other side. “It’s unnerving, I realize,” Max went on. “Not being able to see. But everything is in order.”

She smiled at him politely and they both turned to look out at the mass of grey.

“Where did you learn to fly?” Scully asked him. She glanced over at Mulder where he was huddled down next to Frohike under a pile of furs. Cass had turned herself into a mink and had curled herself around Mulder’s neck.

“Oh, it’s just something I picked up,” Max said with a smile.

Scully shivered and tried moving her arms and legs. There was just no getting warm up here.

“Get yourself back under the furs, Detective Scully,” Max said kindly. “It will be a long journey, but will feel longer still if you get a chill.”

From the other side of the basket, Scully noticed the white shape of Ondima’s head lift off the fur she and Langly had been dozing on, and a moment later she heard what had caught the small fox’s attention. There was the faintest rumble of an engine in the distance. Hendrick rose up immediately on his hind legs, front paws on the edge of the basket, and stared out alertly over the railing, his ears flicking this way and that.

“Max,” said Ulle, her tone a low warning.

The heightened animal senses of the basket’s various dæmons had alerted their humans, and all six people had roused themselves to awareness and were pushing themselves to their feet, each one spreading out around the basket in various directions, trying to pinpoint the location of the sound, which was growing steadily louder. Scully threw a look to Mulder and watched as mink Cassiana whispered something in Mulder’s ear and then changed into a white snowy owl, launching herself off his shoulder to disappear into the foggy opaqueness surrounding them.

“Could it be a-“ Byers began to say, but was brought to silence by a harsh shushing from Frohike. Mia flicked her puffy tail in fear and agitation from Byers’ shoulder.

A cold douse of liquid fear pooled in Scully’s belly as the engine noise grew louder, and she recognized it as a—

“Zeppelin!” came Cassiana’s sharp shout from behind them. “Fox! It’s a—“

Her next words were cut off by the sudden reverb of a gunshot, and Mulder grunted from beside Scully, who whirled around and watched in horror as the white shape of Cassiana suddenly stopped short in the sky and began falling toward the earth.

“Mulder!” Scully shouted, lunging for him.

He hissed as she reached his side, and he held onto the outside of his shoulder.

“We’re okay,” he said through gritted teeth, and a moment later Cass fluttered back up and over the side of the basket, changing into a tabby house cat so that she could lick at the wound to her shoulder — a bullet had grazed her and there was a small red gash on her fur which she bent her head to lick.

The engine noise was powerful now, and they could make out the dark, hulking mass of the zeppelin through the murk to the south.

Another gunshot rang out.

“Hold on!” shouted Max, and he released sand from one of the bags that acted as ballast and the balloon went lurching sideways higher up into the sky, all occupants of the great balloon’s basket stumbling for purchase.

They shot above the cloud bank and into the blazing sunshine high above the clouds, and if Scully didn’t think it could get any colder, she was wrong. Her exhalations a high thin vapor, she realized she was breathing more quickly and strenuously — the air here was thin and she felt as though she couldn’t catch her breath.

“Max!” Mulder shouted. The thin man was staring at the instruments in front of him.

“We need,” the man wheezed, pausing to take in a breath, “we need to catch the prevailing winds,” he said, “or we’ll never outrun them.”

Below them, the cloud cover spread out like a rumpled carpet as white as bleached bone. Scully could still hear the sound of the zeppelin’s engine above the winds and then its dark nose broke through the clouds as a whale breaks through the surface of the sea.

Fumbling a bit in the thin air, Byers was by her side, pulling out one of the air pistols that he’d brought from his ship. He squinted one eye and fired the quiet pistol several times at the rounded nose of the zeppelin, his arm wavering in the thin air.

The lack of oxygen must have been affecting her more than she thought – it hadn’t even occurred to her to fire her own weapon. She struggled to get at it under the bulk of her cold weather gear and fired off several rounds. She didn’t want to ignite the hydrogen in the great dirigible – the chances of it setting their own balloon ablaze were too great – but if they could blow a big enough hole in the side of it, the zeppelin would lose altitude nonetheless.

She could hear Frohike and Langly popping off shots of their own from the far end of the basket. The lumbering beast of a machine was turning in the air, pulling up level with them and she finally got a look at the great seal of the Magisterium painted across the immense drum of material pulled across the dirigible’s frame. She grabbed Byers’ arm and he turned to her, a look of surprise on his face. Scully pressed her weapon into the sea captain’s hand.

“Protect Mulder at all costs!” she hissed and turned to find her partner, who was bending down, trying to attend to his daemon.

Scully fell to her knees next to him.

“How bad is it?” she asked.

Mulder winced and grabbed at his own shoulder.

“Not bad, I don’t think,” he said, “but she won’t let me look at it.”

Cass, still in house cat form, hissed at the both of them to punctuate Mulder’s statement.

Scully looked over at Hendrick who nodded at her, and eased his way down to Cass’s level, speaking to her in low tones. Scully turned back to Mulder, who had pulled out his own weapon and was checking the rounds in the cylinder.

“You need to stay down,” she said, putting a staying hand on his arm.

“Scully,” he said, rising up onto his knee, “I’m not gonna-”

“Mulder,” she interrupted him, holding out a hand for his weapon. “You can’t let them see you. Stay. Down.”

He looked at her for a long moment, pulling his lips into his mouth before reluctantly handing over his pistol and nodding.

Satisfied that her partner would do as she asked, Scully rose and saw that the zeppelin had pulled up evenly with the balloon, keeping pace with it as the winds of the atmosphere blew it along. The air pistols that the gunmen were firing seemed to have little to no impact on the inflatable, and all of them had to dive down when gunfire strafed across the basket from the Magisterium’s ship.

“Everyone all right?” Scully called out when the shots had ended.

Scully caught the terrified eyes of each man as they nodded at her, but her gaze was pulled back to Max, who was leaning back against the basket at an awkward angle, his hand low to his abdomen. Ulle limply crawled into his lap.

“Max?” Scully said, and then army-crawled to the pilot to find that his lap was covered in a wash of blood. “Max!”

“It’s all right,” Max croaked, trying to smile at her, his blue eyes crinkling fondly behind small round spectacles.

“Mulder!” she shouted for help. “Frohike!”

She reached for the closest thing to hand to stem the bleeding, which was a small roll of fur one of them had been using as a scarf. She pressed it to his side.

Mulder scrambled to her and Frohike was there a moment later, but there was nothing to be done – Max’s breath was coming in short, gasping pants, he reached out a hand to Scully, who took it, holding it close. A moment later, his hand went limp in hers, and Scully watched, heartbroken, as Ulle dissipated into a cloud of smoke-like dust.

She whipped her head to Mulder, tears burning the corners of her eyes. “How will we fly?” she asked him desperately. When she turned to Frohike, hoping he might have an answer, she saw him holding a small white object in his thumbs and he closed his eyes, whispering into the thin air.

Before Scully could wonder just what exactly he was doing, there were several loud thumps and Scully felt the basket jerk slightly under them. When she rose to see what was happening, she saw four grappling hooks had been thrown over and secured to the great balloon’s basket, the ropes from them strung tight and leading to the zeppelin. Langly and Byers were shooting desperately with the air pistols, Scully’s own gun lying on the floor of the basket at Byers’ feet, clearly out of ammunition. After a moment, Scully finally saw what they were shooting at.

Crawling along the lines were black and brown-clad figures who had odd contraptions covering their faces and eyes, which must have been thin-air protection. Scully herself felt weaker every moment from the lack of oxygen. The little air pistol bullets seemed to ricochet off whatever thick leather body armor the Magisterium air troopers were wearing, and they kept crawling, growing ever closer to the balloon, their daemons perched on their backs, or crawling sure-footedly in front of them on the ropes, or in one case, with a hawk, swooping up and onto the side of the basket and keening out a high pitched cry. Byers stumbled backwards from the bird, Mia diving to hide behind him.

Scully whipped up Mulder’s gun and took careful aim, firing a blazing metal round into the body of the daemon, which exploded in a burst of feathers and bright fire and then, like Ulle, vanished in a sweep of dust. She watched as one of the men went limp on his rope and then fell, disappearing into the clouds below them.

Mulder gave a shout and Scully turned to see him pointing as a trooper and his ferret daemon reached the grappling hook and leapt over and into the basket. The ferret immediately dove at Ondima who gave a frightened yelp. Scully turned her weapon on the man, but the bullet she fired only knocked him momentarily back. The basket lurched beneath them and another man jumped aboard, his rat daemon perched on his shoulder. Krycek, she thought with dread.

From the corner of her eye she saw Cass, now wisely in the shape of a fossa, dive into the mix and land a powerful swipe to the ferret, knocking her away from Ondima. Scully raised her pistol and fired at Krycek, but missed when the man lurched sideways – Byers had hit him with a long wooden tool that Max had used to adjust parts of the balloon that were out of reach.

“The ropes!” she shouted at Byers, who looked dazed from the thin air and from felling the Magisterium man. “Cut the ropes from the grappling hooks!”

Byers nodded at her and Scully raised her weapon toward Krycek once again, but the basket swayed under her when another trooper leapt onto the basket’s edge and she lost her footing. The first air trooper – the one with the ferret daemon – was making a lunge for Mulder and Scully dove at him instead, her pistol knocked out of her hand when she collided into him with a grunt.

She kicked up with her foot and the trooper’s head went flying back, making a sickening sound – the best thing she’d heard all day – even as her vision blurred from lack of oxygen.

The air trooper who had been perched on the basket’s edge watching the proceedings jumped down and made a move for Mulder but was brought up short with a harsh word from Krycek.

“Take the woman,” Krycek shouted at the trooper, his rat dæmon clinging to his shoulder, whispering something in his ear. Krycek pointed at Mulder. “He no longer matters.”

“Scully!” Mulder shouted, and she was grabbed by the throat from behind. The balloon lurched once and began to descend as though it were losing air.

She could hear Langly and Frohike struggling with men on the other side of the basket while Byers was furiously cutting at the ropes of the grappling hooks. From beside her Hendrick was snarling, taking fully-clawed swats at the dæmons of the other two troopers, and then the arms around her neck went suddenly slack.

She whirled around to see the air trooper who had been holding her stumble backwards and fall over the side of the basket, a dark arrow with deep purple fletching sunk deep into his neck. Scully coughed, trying to take in precious air when everything around her went to chaos.

There were birds – raptors of every kind – swooping into and around the basket of the balloon, attacking the faces of the air troopers and ripping at their oxygen masks. From beside her, she heard a grunt and turned to watch Mulder go limp and fall to the floor of the basket after something struck him in the temple. She was just reaching for him when a great eagle with a stark white head went flying in between them to collide with a fresh trooper who had just jumped into the basket, the lines from the grappling hooks now taut and pointing straight upward to where the zeppelin hovered now high above them.  

Scully fell to her knees, unable to track what all was happening around her, her vision tunneling for a moment from lack of oxygen. Chaos, shouts, Hendrick desperately trying to claw his way across the bottom of the basket to get to Cass’s side.

She could barely think for the cold. She sank to the floor of the basket and watched as a wild wind blew into the zeppelin, turning it almost onto its side.

And then the basket shook and shook again. Suddenly, all the ropes connecting the balloon to the zeppelin snapped, one after the other. She could hear Frohike mutter something in quick succession, as though speaking to someone and then, startling her almost fully to rousing consciousness, a woman’s head and naked shoulders rose up over the side of the basket near her, the woman’s dark hair and violet eyes as wild as a furious storm. A witch, Scully thought.

“Hold fast,” the woman said to her, and the balloon stopped its wild descent and began skimming more evenly. Scully glanced to the skies around them and saw at least eight other women, all as fierce and wild as the one before her, each riding on a piece of cloud-pine, and each one holding a long rope attached to the balloon’s massive webbing. Against the gales and headwinds that had blown the zeppelin away from them, the witches tamed the great balloon into their control as though calming a wild stallion, and began pulling it steadily north.

Scully sunk down slowly to the floor of the basket, exhaustion and cold pulling at her as if she were a stone sinking into a river. She eased her way into Mulder’s still-prone side and pulled a great fur blanket up and over the both of them.

[roundtableknight]

Suptober Prompt 6: Cemetery Boys

Oh boy. I wasn’t expecting this one to be this long but I had so much story I cut because I realized this one could be a proper fic if I actually had the time (which I don’t but enough about that). Anyway! Thank you for all the notes and love on these prompts, they’re so fun to write. Enjoy <3

~

“Fuck, fuck, fuck,” Dean cursed as he made his way through the ice-tipped grass, stepping on the clearer patches that didn’t seem to render his socks completely soaked; Sam had been goading him to buy a pair of winter boats, but he didn’t see the need for them if his only two stops during the winter were his work at the mechanic repair shop and his apartment. He rarely came out here anyway, but that didn’t stop his toes from bitching at him. Well, the ones he could still feel. He sighed, looking up to where his destination lay, and then above that; he could never pick out individual constellations, but that didn’t stop him from losing his breath momentarily every time he got far enough away from the air pollution to see the night sky. 

It felt more appropriate to come here under the cover of darkness, that way no one would wonder why he didn’t come out more if he had someone here to see. 

“Hey mom,” Dean whispered, crouching in front of his mom’s headstone and knocking off some of the snow starting to accumulate around her engraved name and the flowers Sam had brought out a few days ago. He had questioned Sam’s ability to use any of his senses since the flowers were going to die by tomorrow, probably, and it was just a waste of money, but Sam had looked at him and said with a hint of guilt that they had forgotten to buy mom flowers for Mother’s day early that year (that had promptly shut the older Winchester right the fuck up). “I didn’t bring anything this time except my sorry ass,” Dean snorted, and stuffed his hands deeper into his pockets, not knowing how he survived this long if he couldn’t even remember to bring gloves in the 10 degree weather. 

Dean was always bad at these things; he wasn’t very outwardly emotional, or, not anymore. He couldn’t remember the last time he cried and always felt bad that he couldn’t scrounge up any sadness for his mom being gone for over twenty years except an empty vastness inside him, situated next to his heart. The only reason that was still beating was because of him still having Sammy around and Bobby with his job.

Looking back down at Mary’s grave, his body gave an involuntary shudder; for some reason he felt as if the temperature had just dropped an extra 10 degrees, and Dean really wasn’t in the mood to call in his health insurance to say he was admitted for frostbite to the hospital. That, and Bobby would chew his ass. Dean stood up, his knees creaking while the biting wind slowly meandered across the cemetery; he flexed his hands for a moment before whispering a last goodbye to his mom and turning back around, already dreaming of Baby’s heating. 

Or was, before he hit a very sturdy figure and was promptly knocked on his ass. 

“What the hell?!” Dean spluttered, seeing by the almost full moon the figure looked to be a man around his age, dressed only in a tee shirt and jeans with a trench coat over his person. The man squinted (or at least that's what it looked like to Dean, though he didn’t understand as it was literally 11 at night) and tilted his head.

“I don’t see a ‘hell’ you speak of, though a few weeks ago one was very prominent,” the man said, pausing as if thinking of what to say next, “and not very nice,” he concluded, none of which made any damn sense to Dean who was still ass over end on the cold grass. 

“A little personal space next time, bud, that’s all I’m asking.” Dean picked himself up off the ground and shuffled a few feet away from the man who still seemingly didn’t understand what Dean just said as he continued to stand very close to Dean. 

“My apologies,” the man stated, still standing there watching Dean like he had nothing better to do. Though if this man was standing in a cemetery in the middle of winter then Dean reasoned he probably didn’t have anything better to do. 

“It’s—” Dean sighed. “It’s fine.” He reasoned by the way the man looked as if he wouldn’t hurt a fly that he meant no harm. He had never met this man before here, though that meant nothing as Dean barely made it over here himself. “What are you doing here?” Dean asked, shucking off the partially melted snow off of his jeans. 

“Doing… here?” the man asked, as if he didn’t hear Dean properly. 

“Yeah, you know. Here—” Dean motioned around them at the various gravestones, “with all the decomposing corpses in December.” 

“Oh,” the man said, huffing out the word and allowing a puff of air to be visible. Dean suddenly remembered how cold it was and the lack of proper clothes the stranger wore. “I was just making sure everyone was doing okay.” 

“Everyone?” Dean looked around, but could only see him and the stranger. 

The aforementioned man nodded. “Yes, it’s very important that they are doing okay.” 

Okkkaayy, this man was not all there. He wondered if he should bring him into the hospital to see if he had a concussion or something, when the man’s head swung to the side, facing the cemetery plotted next to the forest. 

“It seems that I have to go, but it was very nice to meet you.” The man stuck out his hand, and Dean realized the man wasn’t wearing gloves either. Dean gingerly took his hand, surprised at their warmth and strength. 

“You too…” 

“Castiel,” the man said with pride. “Angel of Thursday.” 

“You do know it’s Wednesday today?”

Castiel tilted his head again, and damn if Dean didn’t think that wasn’t at least a little cute. “Yes, I do know that. Approximately 11:27pm, central standard ti—oh, 11:28pm now.” Dean checked for a watch or a phone the man could be looking at, but all Castiel was looking at was the forest again, his eyes slowly wandering up to the stars Dean had been gazing at earlier. “Canis Major and Minor, how nice to see you again.” 

“What?” Dean asked, causing Castiel to look back at him, his vivid blue eyes staring at Dean and his nose as red as Rudolphs. 

“Oh, do you not know about Major and Minor? They’re quite fascinating; Major was created roughly around 2.2 billion years ago. Such a fun project I was put on.” Dean blinked at that statement but let it slide; Castiel had said stranger things tonight. 

“Um, not much, actually,” Dean responded, not knowing why he didn’t hop back into his warm car and end this conversation yet. Maybe it was because Dean had been wanting to know more about the stars, or maybe it was the way Castiel seemed to be overjoyed to talk to someone and genuinely kind. 

“Would you like to hear more?” Castiel asked, seeming to forget about his needed presence in the forest, and that’s how Dean ended up staying in the cold for an extra forty-five minutes learning a crash course on different constellations and how hard they were to be created (“Orion was fun, but some weren’t too excited about my artistic wants being in the sky for some reason”) until Dean physically couldn’t be out in the cold any longer. 

Castiel seemed to notice too. “You’re cold,” he said, and reached out toward Dean, and before Dean could yell about personal space again Cas tapped on his temple and he felt a flush of heat go down his spine. 

“Umm.” Dean stared at Castiel, who didn’t look perturbed in the slightest. 

“It is getting late, isn’t it? I should let you go on your way.” Castiel shifted his feet, as if embarrassed to have kept so much of Dean’s time. 

“Yeah, I better... “ Dean’s voice faded off, not really knowing what to do. He wanted to know what Castiel did to him right now, he wanted to know why he was in this graveyard so late at night, and he wanted Castiel to continue to teach him about constellations and his improvised stories about the great lengths he went to create them. He was just about to say something embarrassing and needy when Castiel’ attention once more wavered toward the tree line. 

“I must go now, but thank you for allowing me your time.” Castiel smiled sheepishly at him, and Dean realized he really needed to get gloves so he could stay out here later next time. 

“No, my pleasure.” Castiel’s face heated up at that, and Dean cleared his throat. “And the name’s Dean.” 

“Dean,” Castiel whispered, and Dean almost shuddered at how it sounded from his mouth, like a prayer hoping to be answered. “I will see you later Dean.”

“Yes, yes of course.” Dean stuttered over his words, his own face flushed with how idiotic he was acting around Castiel. Castiel gave him another small smile that buried into his chest, finding that it started to fill the void left by his mother’s death, and waved to him before retreating toward the forest. 

Dean was about to turn around when he heard Castiel’s voice. 

“And Dean?” 

“Yeah?” Dean responded, seeing Castiel near the fence line, their voices carrying with the wind picking up. 

“I’ll make sure the flowers don’t die too soon.” Dean’s brain floundered over that statement, not realizing what it meant until he remembered the flowers at his mom’s grave. He didn’t even realize he had unfocused his vision until he looked to where Castiel had been standing and found the space empty. 

“Castiel!” Dean called out, but he knew he wouldn’t get an answer. He blew out a breath of air, going over the past events of the last hour. Flexing his feet after standing for so long, he found his socks were dry. “Okay, I can take finding a cute cemetery guy to talk constellations with, by I draw the line with now dry socks,” he mumbled under his breath. 

He looked at his mother’s grave one last time, the glistening of the snow turning the flowers an almost reflective substance, before making his way back to his car, thinking about the outline surrounding Castiel’s shoulders he had seen from the moon's light moments before he lost his focus. 

Maybe gloves and hand warmers next time. 

~

Fin

[not-all-dead]

angstpril day twenty-four: goodbyes

CW: depression, drug abuse/overdose, su*cide

fic under the cut

April 24th, 152

Su,

I know I haven’t written back to you in years. Coming up on ten if I’m remembering right. I want you to know how sorry I am for all that time lost. I’m sorry I wasn’t there, I’m sorry for ignoring you, I’m sorry for it all. Maybe… maybe soon I could come and visit.

Republic City’s been doing alright, though the triads are still a pain in the ass. Mom would’ve been able to handle them. She always could.

How are things in Zaofu? Your kids, and your husband, and you. And mom, how is mom. I should come and see her too. I hope you’re all well.

I’ll write again soon, I promise.

I love you.

Lin

April 24th, 152

Mom,

Don’t tell whoever’s reading this to shut up just yet. Please.

I haven’t written since you left, yes, but it’s better late than never, right?

Being Chief is harder than I’d expected. I’ve gotten better, but I feel like less than half the Chief you were. The triads are still assholes though crime rates have been going down slightly recently. It’s still a lot.

I’m sorry I wasn’t enough. I know I’ll never be enough. And I’m sorry for how I’ve acted over the past ten years. I should’ve at least tried, but I didn’t. I would like to try now, if you’d let me, though.

I miss you, mom. Republic City is lonely without you, especially now that I go to see Tenzin and Katara and Aang on the island less with all my work. I know it’s stupid to be saying this after living alone for a decade, but it’s still true. I really do miss you.

I love you.

Lin

April 24th, 152

Izumi,

How’s the never ending Firelord training? Your dad still hanging on to the throne? You’ll get up there someday, don’t worry. Might be a while from now, though.

Is your government as annoying as mine is? I swear, Tenzin rounded up a bunch of the biggest, richest idiots in the city for his council, I miss Aang’s old council. They actually did their jobs, or at least tried to. From what I can tell your father seems to have… a hint of competence within his government officials. I can’t imagine what the people you’re stuck training with are like, though.

I know this is out of the blue, but I just wanted to write. I’ve missed you, Izumi, you should visit soon.

I love you.

Lin

April 24th, 152

Kya,

I wonder where you are right now. I wonder what beautiful part of the world you’re visiting, who you get to meet next. Sometimes I wonder what it would’ve been like if I’d come with you. Sometimes I wish I had.

But it’s too late for that now. I hope you’re doing alright, that you’re not too lonely travelling on your own. I hope you’ve made friends along the way. I hope you write to me again soon. Maybe you’d like to come to Republic City for a while, to drop in on your old friend. Probably not.

Anyway, I just wanted to write to say that I miss you, Kya, and that I hope you’re happy, at least sometimes.

I love you.

Lin

Lin dragged herself out of bed on the twenty fifth. She’d taken the week off, using a few of her vacation days saved up from years of constant working. It was only Tuesday and she was already missing the distraction of work, but she knew she’d be distracted again soon enough.

She walked into her bathroom, going through the motions of getting ready for the day. She put on her only casual outfit that wasn’t basically underclothes, shoving the letters in her pocket. There was nothing else she needed from her apartment, so she headed down the hall and only paused for a second to look in the mirror. She couldn’t help but notice how tired she looked.

She sighed and looked away, slipping a pair of flats on before opening the door. She walked down to the front desk, handing the woman there the four letters, and went back to the stairwell. She stared blankly at the ground as she made her way down to the parking lot, only glancing up to locate her satomobile.

The drive to the dock went surprisingly quickly. She parked her sato and found a bench by the pier to sit on while she waited from the ferry to arrive. she felt her eyes glaze over as she watched the water, her mind staying oddly silent for once. She was shocked back into awareness when the ferry blew it’s horn, announcing its arrival at the mainland.

“Finally,” Lin muttered, standing and making her way towards the wooden dock.

She and a number of others waited for the ship to unload before walking up the ramp themselves. Lin walked up to the top deck, finding a place near the front to lean against the railing. When the boat started to move, wind whipped in her face and made her eyes water, but she didn’t move. She didn’t move until they’d made it all the way across to Air Temple Island.

She was the first one off of the boat when they got there, quickly starting on her way up the long patch to the temple. She kept up her brisk pace until the crested the final hill, coming to a complete stop just a hundred or so feet from the temple. She closed her eyes and let out a long sigh before continuing. This was the least she could do for them right now.

“Lin?” Tenzin’s voice came from the hall just as she stepped in.

“Tenzin,” she said, forcing a small smile onto her face.

“Are- are you alright?” he asked as she got closer, pulling him into a tight hug as soon as she could.

“I’m okay,” she mumbled into his chest, closing her eyes and breathing in his scent.

Tenzin wrapped his arms around Lin, unable to keep the worry from his mind. It was so unlike her to show up unannounced on a weekday, during work hours at that, and immediately be so… soft.

“Lin,” he said again, pulling back to look at her.

She met his eyes, this time not caring enough to put on a fake smile. He lifted his hand to cup her unscarred cheek, his eyebrows knitting together. She closed her eyes and leaned into his hand, letting out a heavy sigh.

“Hey,” he said quietly, stroking his thumb across her cheekbone.

“Talk to me,” he watched her intently as she opened her eyes again, reaching up and taking his hand from her cheek.

She shook her head and gave him a weak smile again, bringing her tired eyes to his.

“I’m alright, I promise,” she said, her voice barely more than a whisper.

Tenzin opened his mouth to protest when a voice behind him spoke.

“Lin?” Aang asked, emerging from an adjacent hallway.

“We weren’t expecting to see you this morning,” he said, a hint of concern in his voice.

Lin took a step back from Tenzin and looked at Aang, her smile drooping slightly. She sighed again and looked back at Tenzin before saying anything.

“I just wanted to see you all, it’s been so busy with work and all…” she trailed off, looking at the ground and then at Aang again.

“Actually, I should be getting back to work soon anyway. I asked for the morning off, but I don’t want to fall too far behind…” she fell silent again, ignoring the look that Aang and Tenzin gave each other.

“It was good to see you both,” she muttered, spinning on her heel.

“Lin, wait,” Aang called walking past Tenzin and putting a hand on her shoulder.

“Why don’t you stay here for a day, you deserve the time off,” he gently turned her back to them, squeezing her shoulder lightly.

She looked up at him, her breath catching at the warmth of his smile, but shook her head again.

“Thank you, but I need to get back,” she said, hesitating for a second when she went to turn around.

She looked at Tenzin from where she stood before suddenly rushing towards him, wrapping him in a tight hug. She hid her face in his chest for a long moment before pulling back and tracing a hand down his cheek.

“I love you,” she said, leaning up to kiss him with a softness that seemed almost desperate.

She pulled back all too soon and their eyes met, Lin’s empty aside from a painful guilt. She opened her mouth to say something and looked away, before shaking her head one last time and running down the path.

She ran until she was almost to the dock, her lungs just starting to ache with the effort. She stopped at the start of the dock, taking a few seconds to look up at the temple before going to the ferry that had just pulled up. She waited quietly as a slew of people got off the boat, keeping her head down as she got on alongside a few others.

She found a seat along the cold metal wall and took it, keeping her eyes on the floor the entirety of the ride. She didn’t realize how out of it she’d been until a new group of people were boarding the ferry, an elderly man asking for her seat. She got up and rushed out onto the dock before the ferry could take her back to the island, taking a moment to calm herself before walking up to where her satomobile was still parked.

She opened the door and sat heavily in the driver’s seat, taking in a deep breath and rubbing her hands over her face. She huffed and looked out at the harbour, turning the key in the ignition.

“I’m sorry,” she whispered to no one in particular before pulling out of the lot.

She drove back to her apartment in a daze, barely noticing her own movements as she waited at red lights and stopped for pedestrians. She felt out of her own body as she parked the sato, making her way up to the main floor of the apartment complex and then up to her own floor.

She opened the door and stepped in, realizing she’d forgotten to lock it on her way out, but not having the energy to care. She let it swing shut behind her and walked into her bedroom, grabbing her pen and the last piece of letter paper she’d left out the night before. She sat in the hard wooden chair and took a deep breath, thinking for a moment before beginning to write.

To anyone reading this;

I’m sorry you had to see me like this. I’m sorry you have to read this and I’m sorry you have to deal with whatever may come of my actions. But I’m not sorry for doing it.

Please don’t blame yourselves. Any of you. This is entirely my doing, and mine alone. You might think you could’ve done something to stop this from happening, but I promise you, it was inevitable.

I have one last request. Please, please don’t make this a big deal. I don’t want my face across the newspapers, I don’t want them to talk about me on the radio. I’d be happiest, and I know to you all it won’t be as easy, if it were as if I’d never existed.

I love you all so much. So, so much.

Lin

She stared at the words, willing herself to cry with no luck. After a long time sitting there, staring at nothing with completely dry eyes, she let out a heavy breath.

She pushed her chair back and folded the paper in half, leaving it on the desk. She then made her way to the bathroom, reaching up to open her medicine cabinet. Her eyes wandered over the various off the shelf and prescription medications from over the years, eventually landing on a vial of liquid morphine her doctor had given her a few weeks earlier for her bad hip. She still had yet to open it, convincing herself in her stubbornness that she didn’t really need it.

That’ll do the trick, she thought to herself, pulling it from its place on the shelf.

She screwed the cap off of the small bottle, swirling it around slightly and turning herself around. As soon as she caught sight of herself in the mirror, she lifted the bottle to her lips, downing the entire thing.

The taste was bitter in her mouth and she frowned at the sensation. She set the bottle down and gripped the edge of the sink, her body becoming heavy and tired. She blinked a few times in an attempt to clear her swimming vision, looking at herself in the mirror again.

Her pupils were smaller than she’d ever seen them, and she looked exhausted. She blinked again and pushed away from the sink, grabbing the wall against her dizziness as she moved towards the bathroom door.

Just… a little nap, she thought, squinting into her room from where she stood, practically all her weight resting on the doorframe.

She could feel her breath slowing as she pushed away from the wall, stumbling towards her bed. She barely made it, grabbing the footboard for support when she nearly fell. She used the support to lower herself to the floor, too tired to bother getting on the bed itself.

Her stomach began to ache and she hugged herself weakly, closing her eyes and leaning her head back against the footboard. She let herself relax there, the strength slipping from her arms and legs. The pain in her stomach was dull enough that she could ignore it, and she managed to drift into what was almost sleep. Her breathing was even but far too slow, and after not too long, it stopped altogether.

[bright-eyes-strawberry-lies]

The Weather In PJO (brought to you by gods and demigods)

*alternating colors for ease of reading

**page numbers look weird because they're copied/pasted from ebooks

“Overhead, a huge storm was brewing, with clouds blacker than I’d ever seen over the city. I figured maybe it was global warming or something, because the weather all across New York state had been weird since Christmas. We’d had massive snow storms, flooding, wildfires from lightning strikes. I wouldn’t have been surprised if this was a hurricane blowing in.” - TLT pg 33

“One night, a thunderstorm blew out the windows in my dorm room. A few days later, the biggest tornado ever spotted in the Hudson Valley touched down only fifty miles from Yancy Academy. One of the current events we studied in social studies class was the unusual number of small planes that had gone down in sudden squalls in the Atlantic that year.” - TLT pg 65

“Outside, it really was storming, the kind of storm that cracks trees and blows down houses. There was no horse or eagle on the beach, just lightning making false daylight, and twenty-foot waves pounding the dunes like artillery. [...] Long Island never sees hurricanes this early in the summer. But the ocean seemed to have forgotten.” - TLT pg 156

“There was a blinding flash, a jaw-rattling boom!, and our car exploded.” - TLT pg 176

“I was still in bed in cabin three. My body told me it was morning, but it was dark outside, and thunder rolled across the hills. A storm was brewing. I hadn’t dreamed that.” - TLT pg 491

“It started to rain. Volleyball players stopped their game and stared in stunned silence at the sky.

I had brought this storm to Half-Blood Hill. Zeus was punishing the whole camp because of me.” - TLT pg 520

“BOOOOOM!

The windows of the bus exploded as the passengers ran for cover. Lightning shredded a huge crater in the roof, but an angry wail from inside told me Mrs. Dodds was not yet dead.” - TLT pg 629

“The weather had completely changed. It was stormy, with heat lightning flashing out in the desert.” - TLT pg 988

“In the distance, Los Angeles was on fire, plumes of smoke rising from neighborhoods all over the city. There had been an earthquake, all right, and it was Hades’s fault.” - TLT pg 1191

“I was standing on a deserted street in some little beach town. It was the middle of the night. A storm was blowing. Wind and rain ripped at the palm trees along the sidewalk. Pink and yellow stucco buildings lined the street, their windows boarded up. A block away, past a line of hibiscus bushes, the ocean churned.” - SOM pg 10

“After a few more minutes, the dark splotches ahead of us came into focus. To the north, a huge mass of rock rose out of the sea-an island with cliffs at least a hundred feet tall. About half a mile south of that, the other patch of darkness was a storm brewing. The sky and sea boiled together in a roaring mass.” - SOM pg 598

“A storm raged that night, but it parted around Camp Half-Blood as storms usually did. Lightning flashed against the horizon, waves pounded the shore, but not a drop fell in our valley. We were protected again, thanks to the Fleece, sealed inside our magical borders.” - SOM pg 1045

“Sleet and snow pounded the highway. Annabeth, Thalia, and I hadn’t seen each other in months, but between the blizzard and the thought of what we were about to do, we were too nervous to talk much.” - TTC pg 11

“Old spirits are protecting the bad boat.”

“The Princess Andromeda?” I said. “Luke’s boat?”

“Yes. They make it hard to find. Protect it from Daddy’s storms. Otherwise he would smash it.” - TTC pg 210

“Clouds seemed to be swirling around its peak, as though the mountain was drawing them in, spinning them like a top. “What’s going on up there? A storm?”

Zoë didn’t answer. I got the feeling she knew exactly what the clouds meant, and she didn’t like it.” - TTC pg 751

“I will do my best to destroy his boat with storms, but he is making alliances with my enemies, the older spirits of the ocean. They will fight to protect him.” - TTC pg 886

“We were standing at the dining pavilion, just where we’d last spoken before I went on the quest. The wind was bitter cold, even with the camp’s magical weather protection. Snow fell lightly against the marble steps. I figured outside the camp borders, there must be a blizzard happening.”- TTC pg 915

“The wind whipped cold off the bay. In the south, San Francisco gleamed all white and beautiful, but in the north, over Mount Tamalpais, huge storm clouds swirled. The whole sky seemed like a black top spinning from the mountain where Atlas was imprisoned, and where the Titan palace of Mount Othrys was rising anew. It was hard to believe the tourists couldn’t see the supernatural storm brewing, but they didn’t give any hint that anything was wrong.

“It’s even worse,” Annabeth said, gazing to the north. “The storms have been bad all year, but that—” - BOTL pg 359

“I had no choice. I called to the sea. I reached inside myself and remembered the waves and the currents, the endless power of the ocean. And I let it loose in one horrible scream.

Afterward, I could never describe what happened. An explosion, a tidal wave, a whirlwind of power simultaneously catching me up and blasting me downward into the lava. Fire and water collided, superheated steam, and I shot upward from the heart of the volcano in a huge explosion, just one piece of flotsam thrown free by a million pounds of pressure. The last thing I remember before losing consciousness was flying, flying so high Zeus would never have forgiven me, and then beginning to fall, smoke and fire and water streaming from me. I was a comet hurtling toward the earth.” - BOTL pg 618/619

“Mrs. O’Leary howled. I patted her head, trying to comfort her as best I could. The earth rumbled—an earthquake that could probably be felt in every major city across the country—as the ancient Labyrinth collapsed. Somewhere, I hoped, the remains of the Titan’s strike force had been buried.” - BOTL pg 1005

“I remembered what Tyson had told me at the beginning of the summer. “The old sea gods?”

“Indeed. The battle came first to me, Percy. In fact, I cannot stay long. Even now the ocean is at war with itself. It is all I can do to keep hurricanes and typhoons from destroying your surface world, the fighting is so intense.” - BOTL pg 1066

“Then the entire sea grew dark in front of us, like an inky storm was rolling in. Thunder crackled, which should've been impossible underwater. A huge icy presence was approaching. I sensed a wave of fear roll through the armies below us.” - TLO pg 153

“I saw a bank of storm clouds rolling across the Midwest plains. Lightning flickered. Lines of tornadoes destroyed everything in their path— ripping up houses and trailers, tossing cars around like Matchbox toys. “Monumental floods," an announcer was saying. "Five states declared disaster areas as the freak storm system sweeps east, continuing its path of destruction." The cameras zoomed in on a column of storm bearing down on some Midwest city. I couldn't tell which one. Inside the storm I could see the giant—just small glimpses of his true form: a smoky arm, a dark clawed hand the size of a city block. His angry roar rolled across the plains like a nuclear blast.” - TLO pg 216-218

“Over the city, a thunderstorm boiled—a wall of absolute black with lightning streaking across the sky. A few blocks away, swarms of emergency vehicles gathered with their lights flashing. A column of dust rose from a mound of rubble, which I realized was a collapsed skyscraper. [...] Wind whipped her hair. The temperature was dropping rapidly, like ten degrees just since I'd been standing there.” - TLO pg 468-470

“She faltered as a mighty groan cut through the sky. A blast of lightning hit the center of the darkness. The entire city shook. The air glowed, and every hair on my body stood up. The blast was so powerful I knew it could only be one thing: Zeus's master bolt. It should have vaporized its target, but the dark cloud only staggered backward. A smoky fist appeared out of the clouds. It smashed another tower, and the whole thing collapsed like children's blocks.

The reporter screamed. People ran through the streets. Emergency lights flashed.” - TLO pg 470-471

“Listen to me!" I said. "Kronos's army is invading Manhattan.'"

"Don't you think we know that?" East asked. "I can feel his boats right now. They're almost across."

"Yep," Hudson agreed. "I got some filthy monsters crossing my waters too."

"So stop them," I said. "Drown them. Sink their boats."

"Why should we?" Hudson grumbled. "So they invade Olympus. What do we care?"

"Because I can pay you.” - TLO pg 654

“Water sprayed his face, stinging his eyes. The wind picked up, and Hyperion staggered backward.

"Percy!" Grover called in amazement. "How are you doing that?"

Doing what? I thought.

Then I looked down, and I realized I was standing in the middle of my own personal hurricane. Clouds of water vapor swirled around me, winds so powerful they buffeted Hyperion and flattened the grass in a twenty-yard radius. Enemy warriors threw javelins at me, but the storm knocked them aside.

"Sweet," I muttered. "But a little more!"

Lightning flickered around me. The clouds darkened and the rain swirled faster. I closed in on Hyperion and blew him off his feet.” - TLO pg 903-904

[artisqueer]

RetroBangBoy AU - My Time, Finale (ao3)

Word Count: 6.8k

Pairings: Jungkook x reader, OT7 x reader, ft namkook, namjin, taekook.

Warnings: Language, brief mentions of violence, death and alcohol.

“…oh yes, so pretty, Dear. Whoever receives this must be very special,” the old woman says as she wraps a small item for one of your classmates.

You peer over their shoulder to get a look. It’s a marbly bracelet. Each glass bead resembles a colorful beach stone, with one long pendant carved in the shape of a crescent moon. It's very pretty and must hold great significance. The classmate bows to the woman and turns around to leave.

Your eyes meet.

“Jungkook??”

His widened eyes match yours twice over.

Jungkook is on this trip too? But he’s a greaser…How did I not see this one coming!

  Field Observation #6: You are not doing a good job avoiding boy drama, Bighead.

 “Hi, big—I mean, Y/N…” Jungkook stammers. A camellia-hue blushes at his round cheeks as he moves aside for you to set your items on the counter. He drops his gaze down to his shoes and his long hair falls over his face.

The tone of surprise in your voice echoes in your ears. You cringe at yourself, hoping Jungkook didn’t notice and take offense. It just never occurred to you that Jungkook is the academic type. You round off the reasons in your head. He’s a greaser and rides in Joon’s motorcycle gang, you’ve never shared a class or seen him study, he’s always dressed like a punk and has skipped every school event ever, and, and… when you went on that date to the drive-in movie he never mentioned school. You get a flashback of him making out with the french fries and drinking two chocolate milkshakes. He had no interest in you at all.

Did he really keep this persona from you? That he’s so… cool?

The lady looks from you to Jungkook and back to you, very clearly enticed by the tension. You scramble out of the awkwardness, trying to make light talk. Jin made it so easy.

“How have you been? I didn’t see you on the bus earlier or else I would have—" you ramble on, quickly paying for your items.

“It’s OK. I tend to lay low. I was in the back…on the bus, I mean. Rode here with Tae, actually.” He rubs the back of his neck nervously.

The old woman slides a small card across the counter. “For the ring, Dear,” she gestures to the small ring in your hand and smiles at you both tenderly. “It’s from the future, so use it well.” She gives you a wink. (mood rings first appeared in 1970)

You tuck the small card into your jacket pocket along with your tangerines and slide the ring onto your middle finger. You both bow to the old woman and walk out of Yeongjusan House with your souvenirs in tow. Once outside, the ring changes color from amber to yellow.

“Oh, you rode with Tae? Is that…OK?” you pose curiously.

“What, because we’re into different subcultures?” he chuckles from behind his messy long hair. His voice is always so quiet speaking to you like if he used his full volume he could break something, or someone. “Pfft, Bighead really,” he continues, “I wonder how you even got nominated for this retreat.” He laughs as he runs away. You make to playfully hit his arm but miss as he pulls away with excellent reflexes, giggling behind his tiny travel bag while you gawk at the size of his arms. There’s no way. What do greasers, eat??? It’s like their muscles just pop out at the most inconvenient times, like right now.  

“I thought greasers and jocks hate each other. It’s kind of the point. Having different class backgrounds and all…” You kick some tall grass.

“That’s a stereotype, Bighead. Just because an ideology is popular in a group doesn’t mean we all believe it. Tae isn’t like most jocks, he’s…different.” Jungkook’s smile seems to be the only thing visible behind his shaggy rockabilly.

“So you guys are…friends?” You ask hesitantly.

“I guess,” he plays with his tattooed fingers. “He’s been helping me with a project, so we’ve been hanging out a lot lately. But,” he pouts, “my gang doesn’t really know.”

“About the project or Taehyung?”

“Well, both,” he laughs nervously, “it’s a bit complicated.” He rubs the back of his neck again, and you notice the pulsing veinery dancing from his knuckles up to his forearms. Damn.

He doesn’t seem ready to talk about it. You clear your throat and change the subject. “Well, we have half an hour before the next group activity. Want a tangerine? It’s grown locally! ” You chuck one to him and he catches it with both hands.

You settle on the hillside, a shady patch of grass overlooking the northern face of the island.

“So,” you say between peels of the tiny fruit, “what subject were you nominated for?”

“Physics. I don’t usually participate in school stuff,” he stares down his tangerine, “but I really want to see the caves.” He reaches in his pocket and pulls out a ribbon. You stop peeling to watch him gather his hair and tie it up. When did it get so long? Now you can finally see his big eyes.

“Huh? Caves?” you weren’t listening because you were distracted by his beautiful side profile. What is it with these nerds and their caves?

Jungkook returns your gaze. “Have you heard of the Bermuda Triangle?” he says with big round eyes sparkling. He gets up and approaches the flat rock next to you. With one swift motion, he jumps and lands on top of it, no hands. Core strength. He stretches his arms above his head and his shirt rides up a bit. From your position on the ground, a glimpse of the unobtrusive trail below his navel invites your mind to fantasies of a very different kind of field trip. He looks down at you sweetly, waiting for your reply.

You shake your head, “I’m more of a biologist. Educate me?”

He gestures for you to join him up on the rock. Though Jungkook made it look easy, the climb for you is much more grueling. He lifts you up with the strength of one arm until you’re shoulder to shoulder. You try to get breath into your lungs without seeming too obvious. Struggling, your nostrils flare and the wind picks up. It carries hints of his musk and sweat. You can’t help but inhale deeply until his fragrance fills you with assurance. Glancing down at your hand, you notice the ring is bluish-green but you can’t recall what the card said.

The bluish-green ocean on the horizon looks like the perfect backdrop for Jungkook’s physics lesson. He starts, “Eight years ago, ships started disappearing out in the western sea. First a small fishing boat, then a big cargo ship, it didn’t matter how big or how many people. They just, vanished. No bodies, no debris, no trace. No one could explain the missing wreckage, so the papers wrote about violent storms to give the families of the lost some closure, something to blame. Only, it would happen again, within the exact same coordinates…The Bermuda Triangle. I think I have a theory. It can be explained with physics, the magnetic field, more specifically. Some physicists believe there’s something special about the Bermuda Triangle’s location in the magnetic field. There are believed to be other places like Bermuda,” Jungkook looks from you to the coast, “and one of them is here.”

“You mean, the legend of the caves? Where the pirates disappeared? I thought it’s just a local myth…"

“There’s more to it than the legend.” He leans in and whispers, “The government’s studying it closely too.”

“What,” you chortle loudly, “the government is funding myth-busters?”

Jungkook’s face is serious af. “It’s not a myth, Bighead. The Republic of Korea started building a naval base here in 1933.” He points to the east. The tall glass building of the research facility can be seen from here, shimmering in unnatural contrast to everything else on the island. You squint.

  Field Observation #7: You definitely need specs..and to read more news.

 Jungkook continues, “They started planning a naval base on the island some years ago. Construction started in Gangjeong village right over there,” he points west to the ferry docks where you first arrived. “The base was designed to be a mixed military-commercial port so that it could handle ferries, cruise ships, and…warships and submarines.” 

“Why would they want a naval base here? It’s just a quiet little sanctuary…” you say as you both sit down on the rock.

He rests his arms over his knees. “That’s exactly what the local villagers said. They were strongly opposed to it. Many worried that the private lab was doing experiments hazardous to the environment. They organized many protests, but in the end, they could only slow down the process. The military moved in with force and built the complex anyway.”

“But that’s like, totally against everything this retreat is about. What about all these scientists working at the conservatory, aren’t they here to study wildlife and protect it?”

“Where do you think their funds come from, Y/N? The lab is backed by the military, which means everything they do is government research.”

“How do you know all this?”

“It’s the subject of my research.” He looks around again, the bun atop his head bobbing side to side. “That’s what Tae has been helping me with.”

“Jungkook, I don’t understand. What’s Tae helping you expose the lab for? What do you think they are hiding?” You stare down his side profile. He bites his bottom lip with his bunny teeth.

“It’d become very dangerous for you if you knew,” he reaches to fix your wind-tousled hair. “Trust me.”

  Field Observation #8: Don’t trust men, unless they are Jungkook.

 He gives you a warm, reassuring smile. “Let’s get going now, we don’t wanna miss the next activity.”

 ***

 The chaperones lead everyone down the hill for the next activity on schedule. The Butterfly House.

Jin has not returned yet, you’re starting to miss his chaotic antics. At the front of the crowd, Professor Choi is desperately trying to get the class’s attention. Several stern scientists are hovering on the side, waiting for silence so they can deliver the welcome introduction. Once it quiets down, two of the scientists give a run-through on the Butterfly House rules. Among them, it is expected that all students keep their touching to a minimum and especially, keep out of the restricted areas marked by red fence. Hunger strikes your tummy, and you wish Jin were here to cure it with his magic snack bag. A nudge to your rib sends you out of your daydream. You turn to your side. Jungkook has a giant butterfly resting on the tip of his nose. Its shimmery blue wings gently tilting up and down. Jungkook is still, afraid it will fly away. You giggle at the sight of him holding the breath in his cheeks.  

The class breaks off into groups to tour the facility.

“Good Afternoon, students. Welcome to our 30-by-15-meter glass atrium.” Your group leader reads off a script as student’s heads tilt back to observe the magnificent architecture above. “We are proud to receive you as guests of the first walk-through butterfly habitat in the eastern hemisphere. It first opened in 1957, so you are the first scholars to visit. Inside these walls, you will find some 500 free-flying butterflies of up to 25 different species. There are about 15,000 to 20,000 known species of butterflies found worldwide and many yet to be discovered. You may find swallowtails and birdwings, brightly colored, or camouflaged among the plants.  Some might be difficult to spot, as butterflies can be as small as 3 mm, but can also be as large as 304 mm….”

A small butterfly floats past the guide’s shoulder and rests on it. “Ah, a Sasakia charonda, the great purple emperor. Native to the Korean Peninsula, Japan, China, and northern Taiwan, and Vietnam. As we see, butterflies can be orange, white, black, and even purple. However, they cannot see how beautiful they look because butterflies can only see red, green, and yellow. The journey to becoming a butterfly is always an inspiring tale.” The guide struggles to find their place on the script.

You tilt your head back and stare in awe, the scale of technology here is incredible. Your biologist brain buzzes with millions of questions. How did they replicate a tropical rainforest like this in 1958? Are there places like this in Japan too, or perhaps the United States? The facility is lush with amazon trees and exotic plants. It’s so dense. Thousands of vines cover the floors and wrap around the trees. Layers of moss and countless species of flora and fauna lie in the shaded canopies. Vines dominating the taller trees cross overhead, reaching over through air to dominate the other side. Some climb so high they span the atrium’s glass ceiling, where the sunlight pours in strongest. An astonishing vision of Darwin’s theory of natural selection.

The guide has found their place in the script and begins reading. “There are, um, four cycles of the butterfly’s life. A butterfly starts out as an egg. Then it hatches into a caterpillar, called the larva. The larva goes into a cocoon called the pupa stage, and finally, emerges as an adult butterfly free to spread their wings and fly. We have a display with pupa ready to hatch, please follow me…” The students clamor excitedly after the guide, who disappears down the pathway in the thick greenery.

Yelps can be heard in the distance as students and chaperones alike encounter all sorts of buzzing insects. You duck below the low-hanging vines. One thing they forgot to mention is the climate control in here. Somehow, the air in the atrium is kept very humid to mimic that of the Amazon rainforest. After a while, the moisture in the air becomes nearly suffocating. Jungkook, however, seems to be doing just fine. Suddenly, he reaches for your hand and clasps it in his, clammy.

“Look, there’s Jin!” you almost yell. Your hands are torn apart as you run over to the fence. Jin is working on the other side in a glass office. His face is buried in an apparatus that looks something like an advanced microscope. Dozens of flasks, books, and petri dishes are strewn across the bench before him. He looks like he’s busy.

“This area’s off-limits. I don’t think we can interrupt him.” Jungkook tugs at your sleeve. You expel air and look back at Jungkook to find that the blue butterfly has returned. Right atop his head, it sits, flitting its wings as Jungkook scrunches his nose. The butterfly doesn’t budge.

“Looks like Morpho adonis.” The angelic voice comes from behind you.

Jungkook rolls his eyes with the butterfly still on his head.

“Jin! You looked really preoccupied. What are you working on over there?” you indicate the room guarded by the fence.

“Oh, just some plant cell assays. They think they discovered a new species of moss in a cavern, so I’m helping look at samples. It’s promising. I’m running the RNA against the ones from my own research. If it matches, the cave is likely the one they’ve been looking for, a habitable location for—well, uh it’s confidential. Sorry, you understand.” His smile is still so genuine even when he’s withholding secret government information.

Jungkook tenses at the mention of “caves”.

“Have you seen it?” he asks.

“Seen what?” Jin returns.

“The cave. Have you been there?” Jungkook’s hands are shaking a little, so you move closer by his side and take his hand.

Jin’s eyes follow the movements of your hands. Just like they did back at the library the first time you met.

“I haven’t, no.” He lies.

“Sorry Choco, I’ll have to join you again tomorrow. Professor Moon asked for my help and it seems like it's going to take the rest of the evening. I’m sure Jungkook will keep you company for dinner in my place?” He gives you another sweet smile, but it has a bitter undertone. Much like Namjoon, when he had seen you with Yoongi’s jacket on that weird day.

  Field Observation #9: Stop reading between the lines, they don’t like you like that.

 “Before you both go—Jungkook, I have something for you,” Jin rolls up the sleeves of his lab coat and steps back into the room before returning.

He holds his hands out and you both peer down at the delicate thing sitting in his palms.

“What is it?” Jungkook nudges.

“Juniperus shimpaku,” Jin beams, “a bonsai.”

You watch Jin place the small tree in Jungkook’s outstretched hands.

“Give it to Namjoon, as my peace offering. Tell him it grows near the sea, so it will prefer regular misting. The foliage is needle-like now because it’s young, but as it grows older it will get scalier. One of the best things about Shimpaku is its hard resinous wood…ideal for advanced sculptural techniques such as jin, shari and sabamiki.” Jin bursts into his signature windshield laugh.

This time you roll your eyes, but Jungkook giggles along.

“Uh, thanks I guess,” Jungkook accepts the gift. “But I don’t know why you don't give it to him yourself. Knowing Joon, he’s pretty old-fashioned. If you've pissed him off, he can be really petty and hold a grudge. He holds things in until it gets really heavy—”

At that moment, a loud engine bang is heard from outside the atrium. The glass walls shake and the birds in the trees fly away in droves of panic.

“What the hell was that?” you say, but nothing else happens. The disturbance was momentary. 

"Nothing to fear folks," one of the chaperones calls from a distance. "A small aircraft had to make an emergency landing nearby. Idiots over-estimated their weight capacity and ran out of gas. Carry on."

“Anyway,” Jin continues, “take good care of it until you can give it to him. Oh, and if you’re prone to Drosophila melanogaster with your regular houseplants, you might want to lay off drowning the soil...”

“Droso-whatagaster?” you both say.

“Fruit. Flies.” Jin sighs. “Now please, go before someone sees you here. I am restricted material!” He grins at you and waves you off.

On your way out, your hand finds Jungkook’s again. Less clammy than before.

“Thank you for visiting the Butterfly Habitat, we hope you’ll gain a greater appreciation for butterflies and their place in the world’s ecosystems. Before you leave though, remember to check your clothing for any hitchhikers and pose by the Heaven Lotus for a memorable photo!” the chaperones guide you out toward the Heaven Lotus, where Taehyung is snapping photos.

“Jungkook, are we still on for tomorrow?” Tae heavily eyes your locked hands before Jungkook lets it go. Jungkook nods. You both smile, ready for the flash. Click.

 ***

 Jungkook eats dinner with you at a Haenyeo House. Four bowls of jeonbokjuk (abalone porridge) to be exact. Afterward, you browse the framed black and white photos on the wall. They tell the story of the haenyeo (sea women), the island’s legendary sea divers. Since the 18th century, deep-sea diving for fish became the work of women until their workforce outnumbered the men. So much so, the island has become a semi-matriarchal society, where the head of the heterosexual household is the woman, not the man. You and Jungkook remark if that is possible here in 1958, then why not on the mainland? The villages here seems to be ahead of their time. Patriarchy and heteronormative standards are still dominant in most places and probably will be for many years to come. After digesting your abalone with more discourse about dismantling the patriarchy and capitalism, you and Jungkook go out on the beach.

The sun has already gone down, marking the first day of the retreat over. The only light source radiating from the campfires along the beach and the star-lit sky. The campfire nearest your sleeping tent is vacant. The question of sharing a tent crosses your mind.

“Arent you going to tent up with your assigned travel buddy?” you ask Jungkook.

“My what?” he sips from his flask then stares expectantly at you.

“Your travel…buddy??” It’s not a weird question, right?

“Where did you hear that? I can guarantee there's no travel buddy list,” he giggles into his flask.

“But, Jin said…” You reflect on the words as you stare into the fire.

Water shoots from Jungkook’s nose as he tumbles forward. “He said he was your assigned travel buddy?! Ahahaha—”

Apparently, there was no such thing. Jin made it up just to have a reason to be with you during the trip. What are you supposed to think now?

You’ve had a long first day, to say the least. Jungkook helps you relax. The night passes too quickly as you exchange stories under the stars. At some point, you pass out asleep and feel Jungkook place his jacket over your chest. He carries you into the tent. You roll over onto your stomach and splay like a starfish. Jungkook struggles to remove your shoes and get you into the sleeping bag. Then the darkness swallows you and you drift into a deep sleep. Whatever comes tomorrow can’t possibly top the day you’ve had.

 ***

 You wake the next morning to an empty tent and two layers of sleeping bag. The extra is not yours. Your back is stiff and you feel like your whole body has sunk two feet in the sand. After a little morning spruce, you find Jungkook having breakfast by the campfire. The bonsai tree sits on a rock in front of him and the souvenir bracelet rolls between his fingers.

“That’s a really nice souvenir!” you sit beside him.

“Thanks. It’s for, um, Namjoon actually. Ha ha. You think he’ll like it? Joon loves the sea but, he works so much. He’s studying part-time and can’t take advanced classes.” He scratches the back of his round head again.

“That’s lovely, Jungkook. I think he will definitely love it.” Jungkook is so sweet, you can’t help feel a little jealous after how aloof he was with you on your first date. “Oh, this is totally random but speaking of Namjoon, you haven’t heard anything from him, have you? Last time we spoke was kinda weird…I thought maybe he said someth—"

“Y/N. I have to tell you something,” he hesitates, lingering for permission.

“What is it?” you say. The morning wind on the beach is a little chilly. You fold your arms across your chest for some warmth.

“Do you remember that day? The day I was supposed to pick you up after work?” he fiddles with the bracelet.

Now it’s your turn to choke on your flask. Your stomach feels like it’s going to sink with all the emotions of that day returning. Jin completely avoided this conversation, but here goes Jungkook getting right into it.

“Yes, I remember it all too clearly,” you sigh. “I was on my way to the parking lot where I thought you were picking me up. I was walking by the court while the jocks were playing a game. Then the ball went out of bounds and hit me. I passed out and woke up after Yoongi, uh, resuscitated me. His hand was injured and he looked really mad. He still took me to Namjoon’s. Namjoon was acting all weird about it, but I still don't know why.”

“Well, that’s one version of it. But that’s not our version.” Jungkook explains.

“You see, I have um, I have a secret. The project I mentioned that Tae is helping me with, it’s a dangerous project. A few months ago, I discovered something while experimenting. I may have sort of opened a dimensional rift.” He waits anxiously for your response.

“What does that mean, Jungkook. You farted?”

“No! Haha. In quantum physics, there’s a theorem called the Casimir effect, it essentially says that if you conduct the right amount of energy through the right materials at the right time, you can open a door through space-time.”

“Time travel?” you question.

“Yes!!! Time travel.” He whispers. “I messed with it and got it right. That day you got hit with a basketball, it wasn’t the players' fault, it was me! Haha—.” He says it too happily for your taste.

“Hey!… I thought the jocks might have done it on purpose,” you pout.

“It was an accident, I swear to Namjoon! I haven't completely mastered control over this thing yet. That day I was running a bit late, so I thought, "why not?" . It worked obviously, but there was some, uh, glitching. It was not a clean jump. I injured some people when I jumped back, especially you. I'm really sorry. Only Yoongi and Namjoon knew about my jumping experiments then. Yoongi rushed there to stop me. It could have been a disaster, Y/N. But I figured out that I can do a cleaner jump if I have a stronger source of energy. The vacuum isn't it. ” his eyes are sparkly again.

You are quiet, thinking.

“So, let me see. You can travel through time using science, but you don’t have a good grip on the specifics yet. Yoongi, Jin, and basically everyone else knows about it now. You all got together while I was passed out and schemed a lie so I wouldn’t find out I got knocked by an experimental poltergeist. Am I understanding it correctly?”

He blinks. “That was easier than I thought.”

“Jungkook. You are so cool…”

He blushes, “I’d rather be dead than cool…”

“Since I’ve already been a victim of your jumping experiments. Can I know about the cave?”

Jungkook sighs. “I told you yesterday that the cave is like the Bermuda Triangle. Under ideal conditions, the cave can be a portal for time travel. The lab doesn’t know what conditions exactly, but I do. They aren’t up to anything good with it. If the lab got its hands on time portal capability, it would have the power to manipulate the past and future. Taehyung did some journalistic investigating on the lab. It's called Heaven, Inc. Before it got the military permission to colonize the island, they were just another underfunded private lab, doing shady work for shady leaders. Corrupt stuff. Tae discovered that the lab has already found the cave and they've closed it off. It’s not much time before they get the conditions right. Do you see why we have to intervene? Only we know about it. The cave would be weaponized. A weapon of dimensional shifting.”

“Jin can't know what he’s part of, right? I mean, he would never volunteer for something like that. He’s good…”

“I dunno, he definitely knows where the cave is. Tae and I have a plan. We’ll follow him to the cave and film it all. The video will be released to the papers and the government will have to shut down the complex.”

“That’s doesn’t sound like a good plan, Jungkook. It’s dangerous. They have the strictest enforcement here. What if they stop you?”

“Trust me, Y/N. They need a really big source of energy to open the portal. After my experiments, I think I figured out how it works, but I’ll need your help..." He looks at you with the same expression he’s had the whole time, “Can I kiss you?” Endearing and determined.

You are completely startled at the turn of confessions.“It's for science, right?” 

“For science,” he grins.

“Ok, I trust you.”

He lunges forward and kisses you passionately on the lips. Your eyes shut tight and butterflies erupt in your atrium. Not counting Yoongi’s resuscitation technique, this is your first real kiss. Jungkook’s hand comes up to hold your face. He brushes your cheek and lingers, savoring you as long as he can.

At last, you break. “Wow,” he pants, “thank you.”

“Hey?” you pant back, “this better earn us the Nobel Prize.”

 ***

 Taehyung joins you and Jungkook at 7 o’clock sharp, carrying several duffle bags. He sets them down and slicks back his hair. “The name’s Bond, James Bond,” he says with a deep voice. Jungkook ignores him, too deep in thought focusing on the surroundings. Tae turns to you for approval and flashes his adorable boxy smile. You are really about to embark on a covert operation with Taekook.

You squat behind the dense thicket, waiting. Jin passes by with a group of serious scientists. As usual, Jin looks too chippy first thing in the morning. He stands out like a sore thumb. The youngest in the group and the most enthusiastic. Still, he remains well-mannered and eagerly follows orders as they prep for their second day excavating the hidden site.

The three of you follow the group down to the north-facing coastline, staying out of view. The group you’re tailing disappears into a tunnel behind a glistening waterfall. You wait behind some big rocks. A branch cracks behind you and you spin around. Funny. You could swear you saw a glimpse of the big-breasted mathematician's ass hanging out of a tree. No way. You're probably still dazed from locking lips with Jungkook. There's no way Namjoon would ever be here. Then, Jin’s laughter emerges from the cave as he leads the group back out. He saunters past, delightedly chatting up the eldest scientist. You sigh. Poor Jin, he really believes this about some moss.

“Well, we found it.” Taehyung whispers. “That was easy.”

Too easy. An uneasy feeling settles in your stomach. Like right before you are about to lose something. You glance over to Jungkook who is contemplating the next move. Your lips are still tingling from his kiss. Was it real? During your first date, he seemed so aloof. Sure, he was always sweet and protective, but it didn’t mean anything. That’s just how Jungkook is.

 Yoongi’s old words ring in your ears,

“Listen, Dove, it’s just a random coincidence. It could have been anybody…”

Yoongi really meant it. He knew. They all knew.

 Taehyung holds the fence open for you and Jungkook to climb through. He leaves the duffle bags by the waterfall and only grabs the camera. He takes photos of the chain-link fence protecting the cave entrance. A sign reads “RESTRICTED ACCESS”. Inside, the cave is more like a tunnel. It's cold, dark, rocky, and slippery. Jungkook lights a match and asks you to stay while he explores the interior.

You stick with Taehyung as he takes more photos. “You knew about Jungkook’s experiments?” you probe.

“Sweetcheeks, I’ve always told you, haven’t I? I appreciate art.”

Jungkook runs back from the tunnel, excited. “Hey guys, come check this out!”

You both chase after him.

“Careful, it’s slippery in here!” he yells back through the darkness.

You reach a clearing lit by torches. There's a lot of industrial equipment. Looks like the scientists have come this far. Jungkook examines the mysterious gadgets laying around, one by one. Everything has the same logo, Heaven, Inc.

“Extensional tectonics,” Jungkook mumbles. He walks to the center of the clearing and looks at the wet floor. A man-made “X” marks the spot. “It’s here, inside the Manjjanggul Lava tube. This is the dimensional rift..."

In geology, a rift is a linear zone where the lithosphere is being pulled apart. They form over thousands of years, often at the central axis of most mid-ocean ridges. The new oceanic crust and lithosphere form at a divergent boundary between two tectonic plates. The Manjjanggul Lava tube tunnel is said to be one of the longest, measuring around 7.5 kilometers deep.

Extensional tectonics, as Jungkook said. The Manjjanggul Lava tube is the second Bermuda Triangle. Conditions just right for space-time travel, if supported with a powerful catalyst.

The kiss. The kiss was the energy. Jungkook is trying to manifest the kiss into the big energy he needs to open the portal. You must be…his catalyst.

A purple light begins forming in front of Jungkook as he stands still.

“Wait don't start yet, I need to get the video camera!” 

"Well Taehyung, I don't know how it starts only when it starts...and it's starting now!"

Tae runs to retrieve the equipment from outside.

You flinch as water drips on your head from lava rock on the ceiling. The walls of the cavern start vibrating on rhythms, like the pace of a butterfly’s wings or a human heartbeat. The ring on your finger blackens as a void opens within you, a creeping bad feeling. You push it down.

“What’s happening?” you move to the edge of the wall.

“It’s stopped. I felt stronger energy a few minutes ago. It’s gotten weaker for some reason…” he concentrates hard. “I don’t know what I’m doing wrong.”

“Jungkook—” you start to say. But Taehyung runs back.

“Has it worked yet? Did I miss anything?” he tosses the bags down and starts to assemble the video camera as quickly as he can.

“Wait, I feel something…” Jungkook plants his feet on the marking and holds his arms out in front of him like there’s an invisible wall there. An obscure purple cloud glows before him and the tunnel vibrates with more strength.

Tae starts filming. You flatten your bodies against the wall as more water drips from the shaking ceiling.

“I feel it.” Jungkook closes his eyes, eyebrows furrowed. He extends his arms farther out, pushing against the translucid wall. “It’s….happening…” he grunts as he puts all his might into the force. Blue and white hues emerge from the vortex developing at his hands. The walls of the cavern pulse even harder. You cling to the wall as you brace for the unknown.

Then, an echo of running footsteps down the tunnel gets louder. Indiscernible yelling and swearing as the heavy steps approach.

One deep voice penetrates the cave and spikes the walls harder than the supernatural force at Jungkook’s fingertips can.

“Stop!” Namjoon shouts.

“Choco! Get away from him!” Jin appears behind Joon. Your eyes nearly pop out of your head. Jungkook is not listening anymore. The force in his hands surges and cave walls begin to give way. Tae fumbles with the camera, desperately trying to capture the phenomenon as the tunnel shakes more violently.

Jimin approaches calmly, “I think we would all like to live, so let’s all hold hands and walk out of here in one piece…”

“I can’t leave,” Jungkook replies through the translucent shimmer. "We have to destroy this place."

Namjoon steps closer, cautious of the rocks beginning to crumble overhead.

“Jungkook, please. You are putting yourself in danger…” he pleads. The leader’s fear growing with each passing second until Namjoon breaks down and tears flow from his eyes. With that, the portal opens, rendering Jungkook helpless to its mystical aura.

Everyone is puzzled. Yoongi’s level voice is heard over the rumbling, “What just happened, why is it getting worse?” Jungkook doesn’t know, but his mesmerization with the portal overtakes him and he can’t hear the others anymore. A deep part of his conscious is already elsewhere, they’re losing him.

 Jungkook’s peaceful face shimmers with waves of violet and pink. His eyes wide open, soul entering into a new dimension while his body still hangs back. Grounded in something. Or someone.

Seokjin pulls you away, trying to get you out of the tunnel. Before he can get you very far, Namjoon grabs hold of your free arm. A massive pulse sends a long fissure across the floor, dividing the space in two. You’re being pulled in two directions, Jin on one side and Joon on the other. The tunnel begins to collapse. Hoseok yells for everyone to get out. You must pick a side or you'll die. 

A segment of lava rock falls, nearly crushing Taehyung who has dropped the camera. He runs to Jungkook but more rock falls, blocking him. You’re held on both sides. You look up from Namjoon’s chest. His cheeks are soaked in tears.

“You put everyone at risk,” he glares at Jin.

“Me?” Jin argues back, tugging you to himself. “Your greasers are to blame! You let Jungkook and Taehyung do something dangerous. They even brought Y/N to the cave. I made you all swear, did I not, to keep Y/N out of this! What Jungkook was doing was never safe! We had a choice to stop the lab from finding the portal key. I mocked up the plant samples to destroy the evidence and convince them this is not the place. No one was going to get hurt! But Jungkook, he made his choice. He chose to destroy the site altogether. He chose violence!”

You’re suddenly thrust away from the pair as Namjoon lunges toward Jin. He throws the first punch. Jin collides with the wall behind them. Joon makes for another hit but Jin headbutts him first, tackling the six-foot-tall man to the ground, which is now being pelted with falling lava rocks. You lose balance on the shaky floor and start to fall backward. Yoongi catches you in time and shields you from the debris, looking for a way out.

Was that true? Was Taekook’s plan all along to destroy the cave? Who is right? Who is trusted? You remember Jungkook's words. Trust me.

NamJin curse at one another as they wrestle to the ground. The leader of the greasers and the leader of the jocks. Peace was never an option, was it.

Suddenly, the pulsing hum stops and there is silence. From Yoongi’s embrace, you can still see Jungkook. One moment he is there, standing on the X mark. Namjoon reaches for him but in a moment that feels frozen, lasting longer than a moment should, a whirring noise slices through the cold air, then…Jungkook vanishes. ZAP.

All that’s left in Namjoon’s large hand, the moon bracelet. Only the sounds of heavy breathing and dripping water fill the void. Jin rises from the ground and catches his breath. He looks up at Namjoon in confusion. Still silence.

Namjoon is about to say something. Then ZAP… he vanishes through thin air. The bracelet drops to the wet ground and rolls toward you. What the fuck! Everyone looks at each other. What is happening?! A moment later, Yoongi follows. ZAP. Jimin. Taehyung. Hoseok. ZAP ZAP ZAP.

Only you and Jin are left.

 ***

 The following morning, your school formally announces the reported disappearance of six of its students, four of whom were not attending the retreat. Their names are printed in the paper, along with their photos.

Kim Namjoon. Min Yoongi. Jung Hoseok. Park Jimin. Kim Taehyung. Jeon Jungkook.

 All Heaven, Inc. facilities are shut down for further investigation. The remaining students are sent home early in the morning. Police recover the Heaven, Inc. lab equipment from the Manjjanggul Lava tube, but can't find a single trace of the missing students. Seokjin's father gets a lawyer for the other families and files a civil suit.

The long bus ride home is melancholic. You were up all night being questioned by the police, nothing you said was written down. The reporters will dismiss the truth and release their own narrative in a few months. 

The students had a secret party on a sailboat, they got drunk, had a dispute, forgot to tie it to the dock and drifted out in the middle of the night. No bodies were found. It was an accident. A simple mistake of rambunctious youth.

You and Seokjin remain quiet. Neither of you feel like talking. Six of your friends have just vanished. You fear the worst. You have endless questions. Where are they? Why did everyone but Jin jump? Did they make it through safe? Will they ever come back? What will their families do? The void inside only grows. Your racing mind exhausts and you lean your head on Jin’s shoulder. It’s big and sturdy and safe. Whatever happens from now on, at least you will have Jin by your side. You fall asleep.

 ***

 The sound of Professor Choi quietly nudging you awake causes you to jump, “Wake up, Dear. You are home.”

“Huh, what year is it?” You rub the sleep from your eyes and feel a cramp in your neck. There’s no other student left on the bus but you. The spot next to you empty, with all but a snack left on the seat. You pick up the wrapped choco pie and stare at it. No way. Did Jin get time warped? He couldn’t have he was with me…

“It’s 1958, Dear,” Choi laughs. “Don’t forget your belongings. I’ll leave you to it.” The professor walks off the bus.

 Jin got time-warped with the rest. This is not a dream. You are not dreaming.

 All seven of them...left you.

  Field Observation #10: It was a f*ckboy au after all. What did you expect, Bighead? 

 See you in 1985 :)