#cannot recall every being this hooked on something let alone for so long

[sweetmage]

It's a blessing and a curse that I've become so Dragon Age obsessed that every other game I play becomes about Dragon Age.

Recently I've been playing Baldurs Gate 3 early access and within less than 48 hours I had already found a way to transplant my player character into the DA😆

Sometimes I regret not making this blog a general blog for similar games, but then I remember I can still show off my little OCs anyway because it's so easy to swap their worlds :)

I'm always making new Dragon Age OCs when I'm not even making Dragon Age OCs, I'm always playing Dragon Age even when I'm not.

[fanfalc-616]

The Rights Of A Nindroid

Chapter Thirteen- Variation One

(Prevoius chapter here)

(Discord Here)

This chapter was originally an RP with @ablackswansweet, and there are two versions- one from both character’s POV. I have Swan’s permission to post this.

Zane warily eyes the young adult who enters alongside Martha. Does she intend to hurt him to force him to do something?

“What do you want?” He questions, hating the resignation in his tone.

He really has begun to give up.

The blond seems oddly excited, considering the circumstances. It looks as though he’s barely containing himself as he comes up to Zane.

He leans into the nindroid’s personal space, studying him closely in a way that once again makes him feel like a studied lab rat.

"I want to learn how you work." The blond smiles deviously. He then grabs Zane’s face and moves it around to inspect it from different angles, and Zane tries to cover up his winces of pain as some of his exposed sensors are touched.

The blond takes a few notes in a notebook before returning to Martha’s side, still with an evil expression.

Zane tries to hide his sigh of relief when the teen leaves. It had taken a lot of impulse control to stop himself from attempting to bite the blond- being manhandled in such a way is a very unpleasant feeling.

“Haven’t you done that enough?” He protests, shifting in his bonds to the best of his ability. “With everything you’ve done to me, I doubt that any competent mechanic would need any more research.”

He glares at the two while he speaks, wishing he still had his faceplate- if only to better emphasize his look of displeasure.

The young man laughs a little, seemingly more to himself than to anyone around him. Yet once again, there’s still an almost cruel aura around him that puts Zane on edge.

"Thing is, Original, I'm not exactly a mechanic. I'm just really, really interested by your wires and gears. And how well they respond to… Certains stimuli," he says.

The teen takes a few more notes before looking to Martha, seeming to wait for approval. She gives it with a nod.

Zane doesn’t quite grasp what is happening until wires are hooked up to him, the blond still seeming to almost shake in his excitement.

He then steps in front of the control panel and looks back to Martha.

Zane feels a wave of unease take over him. Something about this situation is concerning him, and it’s more than the fact that they likely plan to hurt him.

They haven’t given any orders. They haven’t asked any questions. And yet it seems that they plan to hurt him anyway.

They claim that this is training, but at this particular moment, it seems as though this shaping up to be more torture than an attempt at teaching.

“To begin with, my name is Zane, not Original. Second, if you are so interested in ‘wires and gears’ perhaps a robotics course would be a more healthy outlet for you.”

He’s well aware that his words will make no difference, but he attempts to convince the teen to leave him alone anyway.

After a few moments, he adds, “Why are you doing this? I can assure you that I have never meant to cause harm on any innocents.” He glances over at Martha on the last words, noting her displeased expression.

“You can begin whenever you like.” She tells the blond, who hums in response.

"Hey, Original?" He calls out, waiting until Zane looks at him to continue. "You talk a lot."

The young man then pushes a button, and Zane finds himself squirming in his bonds at the uncomfortable feeling. This is far from the worst they have done or can do, but it is still not a pleasant feeling.

He watches as the blond writes something else down, and starts to try and reason with the teen, trying to convince him to stop. He even uses proper manners, but it still seems to have no effect.

When his requests to stop are left ignored, Zane decides to take a new track.

“I suppose I am talking a lot,” he admits, “but not nearly as much as an old friend of mine. Jay couldn’t stay quiet if his life depended on it.”

While starting up a friendly conversation might seem illogical, Zane hopes that it will perhaps give him some insight on the one hurting him. Information about the blond may give him an opportunity to convince him to stop- and perhaps small talk will help him prove that he is seintent.

"Heh, yeah. I had a guy like that in one of my foster homes." The blond smirks, seemingly at the way Zane is surprised. "Didn't end well for him either. No one like a constant source of useless noise, don't you agree?"

Zane isn’t quite sure why he finds him so humorous, but he chooses not to dwell on it, instead trying to find an appropriate response to the words.

"How is your old friend doing now?" The blond smirks as he turns up the voltage, staring Zane dead in the eyes.

Zane struggles to keep a hold of himself, gritting his teeth and trying to maintain the conversation.

And endless source of constant noise? That could be a way to describe it, but Zane has always been fond of Jay’s rambling.

“I haven’t seen him in a while- I’ve been a little…” He glances down at his chains, wincing. “... tied up.”

At this point, it’s likely that the blond has a game of his own if he’s still choosing to continue the small talk- and the large smirk on his face confirms it.

He pauses a moment before continuing. “I don’t think I caught your name, either. What do you go by?”

The blond wears a faux-surprised expression for a moment before answering. "My name's Kyle. He/him, I guess. But I don't think you're going to need to know that."

He returns to slowly upping the charge of the voltage, seeming to reveal in the uncomfortableness that he’s causing.

"Tell me about your other old friends.” Kyle still doesn’t look away. “You said you were dating, right ? How's it like ?" That menacing smile doesn’t fade, and while Zane isn’t quite sure where he’s going with this, surely playing along for the moment couldn’t hurt.

He forces any sign of pain down, attempting to keep up a polite and friendly facade even as the pain increases.

“It’s nice to meet you, Kyle.” He lies. “I don’t recall mentioning that I was in an active relationship, but I suppose that the background research you must’ve done would cover that.”

It is obvious that they know about his boyfriends- how else would they have known to show him what they did in the sensory manipulation?

The pain is still increasing, and it’s becoming harder and harder to pretend as though he’s not hurt.

His breathing has begun to grow heavy, and he’s sure that there are flickers of winces being shown, but he still does his best to maintain his friendly appearance.

"Yeah, I read your file before coming here. Big fan, by the way." Kyle still wears a cruel smile, but it starts to turn more menacing, an evil nature with more purpose. "Wonder how they feel about your self-sacrificing nature," he snarls.

But then he pauses, gritting his teeth. He seems to be trying to keep a hold on himself, but Zane isn’t quite sure what could have triggered it.

Unless… is it possible that his self destruct could have harmed more the way it did Martha?

Zane doesn’t have time to dwell on the thoughts, as he’s suddenly blasted with electricity, and he’s forced to bite back a cry of pain.

Thankfully, it’s only high for a few moments before Kyle lowers it, allowing Zane to regain his composure with a relieved sigh.

Kyle redirects the conversation again. "So, your old friends ?"

Zane decides to instead address the major concern of what may be a part of Kyle’s hostility.

“When I was fighting the Golden Master, I meant no harm to any innocent people. I was built to protect those who cannot protect themselves. I… I understand that in some ways, I have failed this function, but I do my best to help those in need.”

Breathe in, breathe out. Keep calm. He can’t let the pain overtake him- he’s begun to sense that that’s what Kyle wants.

He debates saying more, but chooses to remain silent, waiting for a hopefully diplomatic response.

Kyle sighs and gives him a sharp glare that confirms Zane’s hypothesis. It was likely that his sacrifice had-

He’s cut off from his thoughts by a spike of electricity, and it takes quite a bit of willpower to prevent himself from shouting out at the pain.

Unfortunately, it appears that his pained reaction pleases Kyle, who is now smiling again.

"You didn't answer my question, Original. How was life with your… Boyfriends ? Kai Smith, Jay Walker and Cole Brookstone, yeah ?" He smiles as he emphasises the last names, a menacing threat behind his words.

Zane feels everything in his body go rigid, and with his concentration now centered on the others, he knows that he is having more acute reactions to the pain.

He hates the small whimper that escapes him, but he ignores it in favor of speaking, addressing the underlying threat of his words.

“You do not touch them.” He snarls. “If you hurt them, I swear on the First Spinjitzu Master that I will hunt you down to the ends of the-“ Zane finds himself cut off with a cry of pain as the voltage is jammed up.

"Calm down. I didn't even actually threaten them yet," The blond mutters to himself. Thankfully, it’s not long before he lowers the voltage, and when he does Zane is able to breathe again.

But his panic is still running high. He had all but directly said that-

"If I wanted to truly use them as hostages, I'd tell you I know which shop they go to every two weeks to buy supplies and food, which is the one at the end of the main avenue."

The voltage begins to increase, and Zane wants to be listening, but he can only just make out his words, in too much pain to think straight.

"I'd tell you we have live feed of them almost every day and everywhere they go."

Zane hates the loud screams escaping him, but he can’t even focus on them, all of his attention forcefully grabbed by the pain and the threats, the way he threatens the ones he loves-

"Or… I'd tell you how one of them already got arrested once, and how easy it is to transfer prisoners or fake an accident."

Zane can feel the way his body is reaching the maximum limits of what it can handle, he can’t handle much more of this, this will kill him, he can’t possibly-

When the power is shut off, Zane finds himself sobbing, thankful that it’s gone, the pain is gone, but he still has fear running through him, fear of what could possibly happen to the ones he loves.

Kyle walks up to him, and Zane hates the fact that he flinches, and he hates even more the smile the teen wears when he does.

"Don't you dare threaten me or her ever again. Remember who holds the power here," the blond mutters in his ear before going back over to Martha, checking his notebook.

Zane doesn’t have it in him to be ashamed of how much he had screamed when the voltage was on maximum power- or at least, what had felt like it.

He wants to retort, to tell the boy that will protect his boyfriends to the death, to tell him that he is more than a machine, to tell him that he will threaten him again if he has to.

But he can’t find the words. He’s too tired to come up with proper sentences.

The part of him that spends too much time with Kai urges him to tell the teen a string of insulting curse words, but Zane ignores it.

When the two leave the room, Zane doesn’t even bother saying a farewell.

What’s the point in it, anyway?

[they-callme-ami]

Double Dutch. (aka the drunk! Elijah, Aurora, black!MC and Tobias fic)

Note: This story uses lots of AAVE (African American Vernacular English) and is mostly intended for a black audience--you can still read for funsies or whatever, but I better not hear some shit about it not being inclusive or using 'improper grammar'.

Tags: @what-do-you-mean-theyre-evil @tyrils-star @melaninnntae @indescribablybre @prism-goddess

It started innocently enough: you were helping Aurora wrap her hair, pinning it up and tying the scarf around it.  Elijah rolled into the living room in his pajamas. You three were the only ones at home since you three had worked later than Jackie, Bryce and Sienna and didn’t feel like going out that night.  But y’all weren’t opposed to chillin and talkin’ shit. 

It had been a long ass day. Ethan was getting on every damn nerve you had, either talking about his mom and their strained relationship or bugging you about your cases. The man just did not leave you alone, and normally it was cool--but today he needed to back the fuck up and stop talkin shit about Tobias. It was gettin old. Not only that, but you had your own intern to deal with--which is what you were going on about now.

“I’m telling you Elijah--I love Esme but that girl is too fuckin much!  She always stay talkin back to the other attendings, nearly started a fight with another intern, and even when she asks for my advice she don’t listen! Thinkin she know everything….fuckin stubborn headass..” You sigh while twisting your hair.  

“Uh-huh. Sounds like a familiar head-ass doctor I know.  You were on trial last year, stoopid!  I know your ass not talkin bout Esme.  She’s a breeze compared to Sothy… he barely knows how to do anythin--it's a damn miracle he graduated y’know.”

“And who’s fault is that Elijah--oh, excuse me, Oracle.”  Aurora smirked and laughed as Elijah could only sit there, ultimately taking the L.

As y’all were about to go in on each other, there was a knock at the door.

“Oh! Finally, must be the package I ordered.  I hope y’all are ready to see me strut the halls in my new---”  You open the door, only to see Tobias there in some sweats with some take out food and a paper bag.

“Not a package, but I’d love to see what you plan on struttin in.”  He teased and smirked.

“SHIT---Uh---why are you here so late---”  You had your bonnet on and a big ass t-shirt with some stains on it and some basketball shorts.  It was the first time he'd seen you so casual.

"Easy there firecracker, I didn't expect you to look--what are the kids saying--'beat and snatched' 24/7." He pecked your lips and walked in. 

“I invited him Y/N. Tobias, don't ever try and say that shit again and bring me my wings.”  Aurora smiled and laughed, seeming to not be phased by her boss seeing her in a scarf and acne cream dotting her face.  Was she just so tired from work she didn’t care?  Who were you kidding, this girl was a complete trip after a long day and was just sayin ‘fuck it’.

“Elijah, I got Tobias to grab you some of that shrimp scampi from that place downtown, and Y/N--he got you your favorite cause I told him and you his new boo thing.”  Aurora smirked with a wing in hand, and Elijah playfully gagged while Tobias handed out takeout containers and handed yours over. Yup, it was your favorite dish from your favorite place.  

“Now--I was invited for 3 reasons: A.) I have a car so I could do the food run and get y’all spoiled asses some good food.  B.)  I live 5 blocks away from the liquor store so--” He held up a bottle from the bag he had--Hennessy, cause of course he’d get the most stereotypical dr--”And C.) I had to pull a double shift so I’m tired and nice enough to share some college Ramsey stories with y’all.”

So there you were, sipping on your glass and laughing as Tobias was explaining how Ethan thought that ‘double dutch’ was some kind of dessert or innuendo for a threesome with exchange students.

“Wait wait---no no you gotta be kiddin me.  Fuckin 4.0 Med school GPA Ramsey--future head of Edenbrooks Diagnostics Team--thought double dutch was some kinda play on words?  I have to laugh…” Elinah snorts. You couldn’t help but burst into whoops and hollars, laughing and even Aurora couldn’t hide the smile on her face after she almost choked on her drink.

“Uh-huh.  Even after I told him what it was, he insisted that he had to see ‘it’.  I took him to my old neighborhood, and watched four 9 year old girls school him while he nearly fell flat on his face!”  Tobias laughed and smiled as he recalled the memory.  “For someone so fuckin smart--I swear to god he’s a dumbass.  Arrogant too, he never wanted to jump rope at the gym anymore.”

Something inside you flipped on.  You took a sip of Henny and smirked.  

“Well, I knew he had the fuckin long-ass neck of a giraffe, but clearly them legs ain’t doin him a favor either.”  Tobias nearly spat his drink and crumbled on the floor into laughter, Elijah slamming his hand on the table and laughing with him.  It was taking all of Aurora’s willpower to not laugh and act a fool.  “I mean, I know he ain’t got any rhythm either!  Mothafucka was clappin OFFBEAT during Donahue’s karaoke night, but I’m supposed to trust him to count how many heartbeats a patient has.”  You joke again, and Elijah was holding his sides.

“Fuck---he---Y/N shut the hell up!”  Tobias laughed and playfully pushed your shoulder.  “Pass me the damn bottle….y’all lemme tell you somethin worse than that--his cooking.  The man can’t stay on beat let alone beat a fuckin egg.  Y/N--tell ‘em bout the chicken.”

“He---He invited me home after work or somethin--and he wanted me to help him with this recipe he saw for chicken.  Y’all, it was the BLANDEST ass recipe I ever saw in my life.  I was terrified to eat whatever the fuck he was makin, it was so bad his dad even helped out and said how it needed some proper seasoning.  I had never seen an old man so disappointed in such an empty spice cabinet.  I had to leave.”  You snicker as you retell the story.  “Even worse?  He tried to bring me some leftovers afterwards and by god was that mothafucka dry as HELL---y’know what, lemme calm down cause I am not about to yell over some bland ass chicken.”  You chugged down the Henny and grabbed the bottle to pour another glass.

“Y’know….for someone who seemed real eager to stuff a chicken, he cannot seem to tell he got a stick stuffed far up his ass.  No wonder he walks around like an emotionally constipated man-baby.”  Aurora said with a straight face as she chugged her own drink.  You turned away, laughing and doing a spit take as Tobias slammed his fist on the table, snorting while Elijah simply was in awe at Aurora’s words. 

 “My first week there, I was assigned to Y/N and cause my auntie was makin me give her full on oral essays of every case I had, I missed out on one of ours and nearly let a patient die.  Now---his ass knows this.  He knows exactly who the fuck I am and who the fuck my aunt is.  And what did he do?  Chewed me out without a second thought.  I was *this* close to curb stomping his ass I swear--He even called Y/N amature after saving someone’s life because it ‘was sloppy’ and ‘wasn’t professional enough’.  And another thing--” 

You watched Aurora stand up, Henny in her hand, and just goin off on Ethan.  She was tearing into him, from him being able to get off the hook for punching Declan, verbally avicerating innocent interns, being all high and mighty--man, she hated his ass.  Elijah was just eating his scampi, vibing and Tobias was smiling like a proud parent, eating his burger. 

 “He gon have the nerve--the audacity--the CAUCASITY to assume that I’M trippin because I told him about Landry being all rude and dismissive of one of his black-female patients.  He nearly put ME on probation for helping deliver the baby properly when Landry prescribed her the wrong treatment for something cause neither of them will ever fuckin LISTEN and--”  You could not have been any more impressed.  You were just soaking it all in.  She finally sat back down and ate some of her wings.

Tobias sighs and grins.  “Damn. Elijah, you been real quiet...you wanna add your two cents?” he asks while Tobias took a big gulp and sat the glass back down.  He took a deep breath.

“No, no….I just want his long-neck-headass, mommy-didn’t-love-me-so-I’m-a-lil-bitch-headass, grudge-holding-grown-ass-man-headass, lemme-insult-my-interns-headass, pompous, privileged, irritating, high and oh so fuckin’ mighty ass to humble himself and learn to get his head and the stick he got outta his ass.  It ain’t cute to just bash everyone around you cause yo ass is feelin like Hamilton, ‘smartest in the room’ mofo.”  He said, all very calmly while finishing his drink.   You, Tobias and Aurora just exchanged a look….and broke out into a fit of laughs and smiling. 

A few drinks later and a hella amount of roasts later, you were cuddled up with Tobias while Elijah laid out on Aurora's lap. 

"Damn…..we really been up for hours now. Jackie and Sienna still out…" Elijah piped up and checked his phone. "They're at Bryce's place, having a 'girls night' with Keiki and sleepin over…..ooooo, Tobias should sleep over too!" He showed y'all a photo Sienna sent. 

"Uh-huh, you should! We can watch movies and... oh Elijah your hair is sooooo soft." Aurora smiled and was playfully twisting it. Seems like the drinks were finally hitting.  Tobias could tell too.

He managed to help Elijah back in his wheelchair and followed his directions to his room.  He came back out to you helping Aurora to her room.

"Byyyye boss. See ya at work! If you do stay over, y'all better be quiet while he rearrange them guts!" She poked you laughing as you rolled your eyes and got her in bed.  You walked back out, feeling tipsy yourself and plopped on the couch...with Tobias.

"Y'know….your friends definitely know how to go all in on a roast session. I found out shit about Ethan I didn't know till now."

"Mhmmmm….Henny is….is a miracle worker…" you slurred and laughed, laying up on him. "And yoooooouuu….are a fine-ass pillow." 

Before you succumbed to the exhaustion and hennessy, you felt Tobias's lips peck your cheek gently and his arms hold you tight against him.

The next day at work, you were taking your break and went outside to the courtyard...much to your surprise you found a few children--presumabley patients-- playing double dutch with some jump rope.

"Apples, peaches, pears, and plums

Tell me when your birthday comes! 1! 2! 3! 4!"

They were counting along as you hopped inside the rope, showing off a bit and laughing. Out of the corner of your eye, you saw Ethan walking towards the building.

"Hey, Ethan, wanna join? It may not be a dessert or two dutch girls--but it'll be fun!" You called out and teased while working the ropes. You could see his face turn red from where you were, and him muttering softly about Tobias. You couldn't help but laugh as you kept skipping and hopping away.

[brokenjardaantech]

Blue-tinted Red Walls (Chapter 8: Into No Man’s Land)

my entry for the @dbhau-bigbang. also part of the groom lake aftermath series.

summary:

In the past, Fadia and Reyes argued.

In the present, Connor finds a sanctuary from the most unexpected source.

In the past, Connie woke up.

also on ao3

content warning for your typical violence from both games. in short: guns and biotics and people getting wounded.

also, special thanks to @fanndamnedibals for drawing the amazing piece of art for this story. it’s really fucking cool.

---

Before

Fadia was greeted by a punch to her face. Her whole upper body swivelled from the inhuman force, but her lower body planted firmly on the floor still, and with a smooth swing, she stood straight as if the punch never occurred. 

‘What the fuck were you thinking?’ Reyes snarled. ‘Giving plans to Russia and China like that? What happened to me being in charge? What happened to androids being free? What happened -’

Fadia gave the other android a hard shove. ‘What else can I do?’ she yelled. ‘What do you understand about yourself? Do you even know what you’re capable of?’ A shake of her head. ‘Thanks to my father, CyberLife is now producing androids for the military for a price much cheaper than paying non-commissioned officers in the long run, and you think they won’t use it to secure their claim on the Arctic where all of earth’s thirium is? We need someone to keep them in check. China and Russia are the only answer.’

‘And enslaving more of us? More of my people? Pushing the world into war once more?’ the air crackled with static. ‘Have you ever considered anyone else apart from yourself?’

‘Watch your voice box, Reyes,’ Fadia took a step forward, her height letting her loom over the man. ‘You are standing here yelling at me because I care for my brother so cut the bullshit about me not caring. Look what caring did to you -’ indicated her metallic body - ‘to me -’ a wave of her arm - ‘and to the rest of the world. Listen,’ a thin layer of blue appeared between them, ‘just a quick walk around the garden. A farewell. Then I’ll go.’

‘“A farewell”? What is that supposed to mean?’

‘With luck, you won’t see me much for quite a long time. Years. A decade, even. There is something else that I’m… working on.’

‘Leaving a mess your own making behind now?’

‘My father made the mess!’ Fadia lit up. ‘And no, I’m not running away, but there are more important things to deal with right now. It will need my full attention, and I don’t want to leave without giving my brother closure.’ When Reyes’ hand moved towards the gun she knew was hidden underneath his shirt, she sighed. ‘Please. Do you want to see Scott asking where I am every day for the next ten years? Do you want him spending his days worrying about me?’

Reyes was still glaring at her, but at least he was not drawing his weapon. A few seconds of tense silence passed, and with a snap of his arm away from the gun, ‘What do you want to tell him?’ he said as he turned away from his creator, his expression filled with disgust. ‘I can… deliver the message for you.’

Fadia’s lips twitched downwards. ‘Must you?’

‘You wish to protect your brother, don’t you? Don’t you think he’ll be stressed out by your current state?’

‘My current -’

‘Your message,’ Reyes crowded into his creator’s personal space and managed to look imposing despite his height disadvantage, ‘or get the fuck out of here.’

Fadia looked at her first creation down her nose. ‘Tell him that I came to say hello and that it is perfectly normal from that point onwards if he cannot contact me. Tell him it may be years before he sees me again,’ a step back. The door swung open. ‘And it is your fault.’

‘Hold the fuck on -’

A crackle of blue, a flash of dark energy, a faint trail of dissipating tendrils. Sara Fadia Ryder was gone, leaving her creation standing at the door with a hand outreached hopelessly with nothing but thin air in his grasp.

o0o0o

Now

Streets unsafe for androids. Sanctuary at these coordinates. Will deliver supplies to said location as soon as possible. I’m sorry.

The world has become a blur. Hank’s house, receiving the message, decoding the message for Hank, changing into another set of clothes, getting into Hank’s car, and they are off to the docks before they even know what is happening. The androids led by Markus marched. People - androids - were killed. CyberLife is setting up ‘recycling centres’ to recall all androids in the city and around the country with the help of the police and military. They have to act now or they will be trapped by one of the many checkpoints popping up in the streets. Everything, as Hank says, has gone to shit.

Are you going to be fine? Connor texts. I doubt you will be carrying out your orders.

I told my men they have the choice to leave and everything will be on me. If they’re staying, they’re staying on my side. On the android’s side.

And their response?

They’re packing up right now and I’m making sure that nothing will get to them.

How about you?

Meet me there. Hopefully. Vouch for a fleshy human later, can you? I’ll be bringing whatever I can.

Absolutely.

Good.

They arrive at Ferndale after what seems like hours later, Hank stopping a few blocks away from the water in order to not arouse suspicion even though the area is deserted, but Connor’s scans reveal stray patches of evaporated thirium on the floor, which means that injured androids have been here… a few hours ago. 

Hank turns around. ‘Think I should stop here.’ He cocks his head at the area at large. ‘Go on. I won’t leave until you’re out of my sight.’

The image is not comforting enough. ‘Come with us,’ Connor begs. ‘We need you here.’

The human shakes his head. ‘I can’t. Someone has to keep up appearances at the precinct. Besides, Jeff seems to have something to say. I’ll give you an update later when he’s finished yelling at me.’

It makes sense in some ways. Splitting up, gathering information from both ends, and then creating a better plan to save all of them. Simple; at least, it should be. But he also has been with Hank for such a long time - most of his time on earth, really - that it will be strange to be alone with a much slower counterpart of himself in tow. It will be a challenge.

It is also their only chance.

‘I understand,’ he forces out of his voice box, and he opens the door and steps out of the car into the snow before walking around to help Connie get out. What surprises him, however, is that Hank steps out as well and draws Connor into a tight hug.

‘Come back,’ the human says, to me, he doesn’t say, but Connor hears it anyway, and he wraps his arms as much as he can around Hank’s body and squeezes, a silent ‘I will’ that he hopes that his partner understands. ‘I will fight like there is no tomorrow to go back to your side,’ Connor confesses as he catalogues everything there is about Hank, his smell, his proportion, his warmth, because it seems that things are going that way and he wants him to be the last thing he recalls when - when -

‘-nor, look at me.’

Hank’s hand is on his cheek already when Connor looks up. They are so close that Connor can distinguish the shape of each and every single one of the snowflakes in the human’s hair, his brows, his eyelashes, and he can feel every single valley and spur on Hank’s finger that uniquely corresponds to Hank as he brushes his thumb against where Connor’s cheekbone would be had he been human. ‘Most advanced prototype, remember?’ the human says, still holding Connor tight. ‘If there’s someone who can make it out alive, it’s you. I have faith in you.’

‘I -’ you shouldn’t. ‘All I’ve ever done is failing my missions.’

‘To save lives, I know,’ the hand on his cheek moves to the back of his neck. Connor shivers from the warmth. ‘No matter which colour we bleed.’

‘I -’

Thank you. For everything. For making me realise that I’m more than my programming. For being there even though you didn’t understand what was happening.

There is so much he wants to say but can’t due to the sheer amount of information filtering through his processors, but one thing is certain: they all advise him to throw caution to the wind. As if having the exact same thoughts, Hank leans his head forward at the same time, and they meet halfway through in a desperate kiss, a rough press of lips against lips that is all over too soon but conveying enough emotions to each other that they both deflate when they part, the tension in their body suddenly gone now that they are resigned to their fate. 

‘We’ll talk about this,’ Hank warns, but there is no malice in his tone. Come back alive.

Connor has to break their gaze and hook his head on the human’s shoulder or he’ll never get his words out. ‘You stay safe too.’

A large hand on his back, Connor’s thick, season-appropriate attire ridding him of the last human warmth he may get to feel. ‘I will.’

They finally pull apart. A hand that doesn’t belong to Hank brushes Connor’s arm, and that is when he remembers that Connie is here; as if seeing her expectant expression, Hank hugs her as well completely unaware of how close to tears the other android is. Connor moves to hold her hand. ‘Let’s go,’ he tells her, because someone has to be the more responsible one between the two, and they walk away hand in hand together towards the coordinates Louis gave them without a glance backwards.

oOoOo

Jericho. Cargo freighter. Abandoned ship. A sanctuary for deviants old and new, the latter far outnumbering the rest due to Markus’ actions. The bombs on stand by scattered around the place indicate that the freighter is rigged, but no one seems to care; there is a cluster of androids on one side where a holo is recycling the news, another on the other side checking and modding weapons on improvised benches, and another group sitting at a long table working on laptops still in their suitcases. No one seems to have noticed them, which is good considering his previous… reputation as a deviant hunter (even though he didn’t do a very good job at it); he can withstand cold looks and harsh words hauled at him, but Connie is innocent here, and he doesn't want her to suffer any more abuse.

He receives a notification from their intertwined hands that his sister’s internal temperature is falling below recommended levels, so he scans his surroundings, noting the broken grids and - there, a fire contained in a rusted metal barrel surrounded by a sitting area created from stacked-up crates. He spots what seems to be an improvised medical bay where broken androids are being repaired and thought of asking for some thirium for Connie, but from what he can see, the androids under repair are all in much worse shape than his sister, so all he does is giving Connie a quiet reassurance and… waits while he recalls what he just saw. Rupert. The Tracis. Other newly-deviated androids still in their uniform. It’s a miracle that he and Connie don't get spotted.

The drowsiness from the other side of the shallow interface plus the weight on his shoulder indicates that Connie has fallen asleep once more, and with no one to help take care of her, Connor can only sit there and do -

Wait.

His free hand reaches into his pocket and fishes out a coin. It is not the one he is familiar with, but it makes for a good replacement after only a few tries, and soon enough he has it spinning on the tips of his fingers despite the gloves and low temperature and is using it to ignore the dropping thirium level warning from his sister’s HUD. It can be that he is distracted. It can be Connie’s fatigue getting into him. It can be the flickering light from the fire creating shadows that were not there some time ago. It can be that he is in a bubble; to him, nothing else apart from Connie matters.

All he knows when he lets the coin fall onto his palm and looks up is that Markus has been sitting there in front of them for quite a long time. He tenses, knowing that his cover is blown, and he knows that his fate is in the deviant leader’s hands.

‘You deviated,’ the RK200 states. It is not a question.

‘How do you know?’

‘A human contact passed the news to me through an android he rescued and asked us to not view you with suspicion. He goes by the name Lee Aaron, but it is, of course, not his real name. I believe you’ll have the chance to thank him later in person.’

Connor really needs to give Louis a hug. ‘I see.’

Markus indicates Connie with a slight jerk of his head. ‘And this one?’

There is only one answer. ‘My sister.’

The deviant leader raises an eyebrow. ‘Do I even want to know?’

Connor thinks of his creator, the way she kicked them out, the way she doesn't seem to care about their lives, how she seems to be on their side but let them die for the last ten years. ‘Later. It’s a long story.’

Markus studies Connie for a few seconds. ‘It’s still early,’ he says. ‘You can still leave the country by bus before curfew starts. One of our people used to work in the state department, and I can have modified electronic passports delivered to you.’

[Thirium level: 37%] flashes in front of Connor’s HUD. ‘We are under no condition to travel,’ We, more like Connie, but I will not abandon her. ‘The military has set up multiple checkpoints around the city for temperature checks. I doubt it is safe for us to go outside now, but thank you, for offering.’

Jericho’s leader nods in understanding. ‘Is there anything you need? Biocomponents, blue blood, systems checks?’

[Thirium level: 37%]. So why is he hesitating? ‘My sister… her blue blood level is extremely low,’ he admits. ‘It is currently at thirty-seven per cent, far too little for her to function normally.’

Markus looks horrified. ‘rA9, Connor, why didn’t you tell someone when you came?’ he shoots up from his seat as if forgetting that he can remotely send a message to the medics to call for some thirium. ‘I’ll get some for you. Stay here.’

‘You don’t have to -’

‘You’re one of us now,’ a firm hand on Connor’s shoulder prevents him from standing up. ‘We help each other out whenever we can and right now your sister needs it. We’re rationing our supplies, but I think we can spare a bottle. It will last until Lee arrives.’

Connor lets out a breath he doesn’t know he has been holding and puts as much gratitude as he can into his voice as possible when he thanks Markus, but the other RK-series prototype merely waves and places a firm hand on his shoulder, silencing him and, through a shallow interface, telling him to rouse Connie first. He brushes a lock of her hair back into her beanie, and her eyes flutter open in confusion.

We are in Jericho, remember? he reminds her. Markus is getting you some thirium. You will feel better very soon.

Connie sends back a vague affirmative and takes off her beanie with a frown. ‘No hat,’ she mutters as she clumsily shoves the piece of cloth into her pocket. ‘Not anymore.’

Connor can pre-construct all the ways she can lose what little heat she generates. ‘It is to prevent you from losing body heat.’

She shakes her head, her braid falling apart. ‘No hat.’

An overwhelming wave of discomfort washes through him and yes, he would rather sacrifice his body heat to avoid the pain as well, so he lets it be for now and adds [Find a new hat for Connie] into his increasing list of optional tasks that, judging from the constant drone of the news from the floor above, he may or may not be able to finish in the near future. 

Markus returns with half a bottle of thirium and holds it in front of Connie, but all she does is staring at it instead of taking it; from their interface, Connor feels her processor (yes, somehow Ryder stripped all processing units but one from his sister’s body) straining itself to comprehend the other android’s action. ‘It’s for you,’ the deviant leader explains, and it is after an entire minute of processing that Connie slowly reaches out and takes the bottle with both hands. 

‘Thank you,’ she says. Then holds the bottle on her lap without doing anything else.

Connor accepts the link request. Is she alright? Markus asks. She seems… unwell.

Connor partitions part of his focus to the chat and diverts the rest to helping his sister. Sara Ryder modified her after retrieving my - the body, he says as he guides the bottle of thirium to Connie’s lips. Her processing power is incapable of computing large amounts of information. The liquid rolls and slides into Connie’s mouth. I intend to ask our creator about the full extent of the modification once this is over.

You didn’t ask her?

Connor recalls the power he felt radiating from Ryder. We could either leave unharmed or become dust rolling across the floor of her living room. We chose to live.

It is understandable, Markus nods. In reality, Connie seems to understand what the item in her hand is for and finally starts drinking without her brother’s aid. I’ve had… the displeasure of meeting her a few times. My… father - he doesn’t like her much. 

Connor thinks of the entire family, how Alec Ryder tried to flush his knowledge about his powers away, how Sara Ryder modified Connie and left her to suffer. A family trait, he replies, and it makes Markus chuckle. He opens his mouth as if to say something but seems to be distracted by something else. 

‘There are some issues I need to take care of,’ he said in the end. ‘Return the bottle to the med bay if you can.’

He leaves. A drop of thirium escapes Connie’s lips and rolls down her chin, and he wipes it away with the corner of his sleeve while adjusting his reception frequency into that matching the other androids’ channel just to find himself being flooded by information concentrating on ‘a human’, ‘supplies’, and, most disturbingly, ‘illegal weapons’.

He is an ally, Markus’ voice cuts through the chaos, and everything dies down. 

oOoOo

The precinct is still bustling with activity when Louis goes in under Hank’s request and in a bad way: the drizzle of rain before the wind picks up and a storm rolls in. He can tell that people are on edge from either the revolution or even civil war brewing at the horizon or, for those who have decided to stay, worrying about their loved one’s safety. One example is - Detective Gavin Reed, his nameplate reads - who is shouting into his phone with a voice loud enough for everyone to hear if he had been the only one talking. But right now, in the chaos of the office he rarely steps into, Louis can strain his ear and barely make out the details, his heart thumping from the familiar name on the call.

‘Cut that shit, Eli! You can’t tell me what to do!’ Reed yells. ‘You’ve got your duty, I’ve got mine, and right now I’m fucking staying in this motherfucking shithole. You understand me?’ An eye roll, then his eyes snap towards the direction of the entrance where a man who obviously doesn’t work in the force walks in. Everyone assumes that he is one of theirs, though, and he - probably Eli - manages to reach Reed without much resistance.

‘Gav, listen,’ he raises his hands in front of him as Reed pokes the screen of his phone so hard that Louis wouldn’t be surprised had it broken, ‘remember what I’ve told you? About me? Who I work for?’

‘What about -’ Louis can’t see Eli’s expression from this angle, but it must have shut Reed up. ‘Shit.’

‘Quite,’ Eli says drily. Then his voice softens. ‘Please, Gavin, I just want us to get out of this alive. Together.’

He tones out the rest of the conversation and instead focuses on the task at hand. An encrypted diary and a hollow statue. Shouldn’t be too hard, right?

Hank’s credentials are easy to guess, and he flinches when the evidence locker unfolds to reveal androids strung up like pieces of meat. He focuses on what he wants instead and quickly grabs both items Hank told him that can lead the FBI to Jericho because of course the first thing androids do after gaining sentience is worshipping a god and writing down the address of their secret hideout and -

‘What is a SWAT Captain doing here?’

He turns. Sees Eli standing at the door. Remembers the two empty spaces where the evidence he took should be. A flash of a long-forgotten memory: an interrupted project, a team gone missing, one last goodbye.

I know him.

‘I remember you,’ negotiate first, use force only when necessary. ‘You used to work with my sister. How did you get in here?’

‘Police departments around the world have… questionable security measures compared to the people I am working for,’ Eli - Ilya - Louis doesn’t know anymore - taps his watch. ‘Quite easy to break into, really. Now, what did you take?’

‘All evidence I’ve retrieved are under Lieutenant Hank Anderson’s orders,’ sorry, Hank. ‘You can ask him for confirmation.’

‘No need to be hostile,’ his tone is still condescending, and Louis feels his nerves tingle from both his emotions and the man in front of him. Fuck. Does that mean he’s like him as well? ‘If I were here for you, I would’ve subdued you a long time ago, wouldn’t I?’

Louis is still not convinced. ‘The hell do you want?’

‘I don’t have much time,’ Eli/Ilya takes out a… thing that seems to have materialised from his sleeve. ‘If you’re doing what I think you’re doing, you’ll need this later.’

Louis warily approaches the other man. ‘What does it do?’

‘It syncs with your nervous system. More specifically, the biotic nodes - both natural and artificial - in your entire body which are part of your nervous system. An amplifier, as we call it informally. Gives you a boost in a fight. Gets you out of tight places.’

‘How do I know you’re genuine?’

‘Me and your sister drifted apart a few years ago,’ hold on, a few years ago? Does it mean - ‘It doesn’t mean I want to hurt innocent people - android or human. I’d hardly want her to throw a fit after knowing that you died being shot at by the US military.’

But Louis isn’t quite listening anymore. ‘Hold on,’ he says even as he shoves the device into his pocket. ‘Anna is alive?’

‘We have little time left,’ the other man doesn’t seem to have heard his question. ‘It’s a matter of time for the FBI to find where the deviants are hiding. If you want to get to them, better do it quickly. Preferably armed.’

Louis gives Eli/Ilya one last sweep, memorising his features, his measurement, his clothing, everything that he can notice right now so that - ‘We’ll talk later.’

‘Get out alive first.’

He doesn’t allow himself to think as he methodically packs up, drives back home, refills the food and water dispensers for the cats in case he’ll be away for a long time, drives to the safehouse - deserted because not long ago the military just marched through and searched door to door for androids - to retrieve all the supplies he can carry - thirium, printers, guns, and finally brings himself to Jericho where he hopefully won’t get gunned down on his first step into the cargo freighter for being human. He taps into his powers - just in case - and hooks the amplifier over his ear.

He doesn’t know if it’s the energy or the power or just that there are so many androids in Jericho, but he manages to reach the heart of the freighter relatively undetected. Connor and his sister are probably among the clusters of androids downstairs, but first, he needs to have a word with the leader of the deviants.

‘Human.’

He gets surrounded by what must be a dozen androids in less than a second, the LEDs on their temples - for those who keep theirs, that is - spinning yellow while they communicate silently through their channels. He follows their line of sight and there it is, his borderline-illegal, modded-to-hell rifle that he gets away from carrying openly only because he is a SWAT Captain, and he starts regretting his decision to bring it out in the open to deter the military.

The androids in front of him part like Moses splitting the Red Sea in half, Markus emerging with quickened steps and standing in front of him in an instant. Piercing eyes - one blue, one green - scans him from head to toe despite Louis being pretty sure that it’s just for show, and when their eyes meet, he decides to slide the duffel bag containing the printers and thirium down his shoulder and holds it towards the deviant leader with straining arms. ‘I brought supplies,’ he explains, feeling dumb. ‘Scan my bags if you don’t believe me.’ 

Markus’ eyes don’t move but Louis feels him scanning the contents of his luggage anyway. He doesn’t move at all, but then two androids emerge from the crowd to take the bags downstairs. ‘You are expected,’ he says. Then, gesturing the rifle on his back and the other weapons Louis hid underneath his clothes, ‘Not very discreet, aren’t you?’

The other androids file away, their anxious chatter having nothing to do with what he knows will come. ‘It gets the message through without words,’ Louis replies as he fidgets with the strap of his rifle in front of his chest. ‘I’m on a time limit here.’

‘For what?’

‘The FBI is coming. You have about one hour and a half to evacuate.’

And then everything becomes a blur.

oOoOo

FBI. Evacuating Jericho. Blowing up Jericho. Staying in Jericho to defend the last evacuees. People leave in groups of no less than three, taking crates, supplies, and, sometimes, injured companions away from the failing cargo freighter. Some, like Lucy, volunteered to stay despite being recommended to leave first, and some left with the friends they had made during these few eventful days. Holding Connie tight against his side with her hand in his grip and the shallow interface between them the only thing keeping her functional, Connor is torn between sending her away to safety without him, going with her to their next sanctuary, or forcing her to stay with him and face the dangers of potential firefights and massacres. He can tell from her panicked shiver and the way she tugs herself underneath his arm that she does not want to go at all and neither does he, but he doesn’t know if he can live with it if she died because of him.

Someone kneels in front of him, and when his eyes focus, Louis’ face comes into view. ‘Josh is leading the last outbound group. The rest of us are staying in case the FBI came before all of us can go.’

‘So Connie can come with us?’

Louis checks his watch. ‘If you want her to be safe, no,’ he rearranges his limbs so that he is sitting cross-legged on the floor. ‘We’re expecting confrontation very soon, maybe in a few minutes. We need to move now or else we might risk getting her in the crossfire, glowy blue superpowers or no.’

He doesn’t move from where he’s sitting on the floor. Connor watches his sister pout and her eyes water, but to his surprise, she nearly slaps his arm around her shoulders away and stands up on her own. Louis stands up as well, adjusting the rifle on his back by its strap, and leads her away presumably to Markus’ lieutenant. It leaves a large gap in Connor’s mind. 

oOoOo

Louis feels the hair on the back of his neck stand up before the rumble even starts.

‘Hurry,’ he transfers Connor’s sister from his arm to Josh’s. ‘They’re coming.’

‘What?’ the android has the nerve to look confused. ‘But don’t we -’

‘Just go!’ he can feel the full weight of all the shit he’s stowed on his body as he takes a step back, all the spare ammo and the four pistols and the submachine gun he somehow manages to keep underneath his winter clothes. Here’s to hoping that his powers are enough to keep him afloat. ‘We’ll catch up with you.’

He runs, feeling the shift of the small packages of thirium he left for himself in case he is trapped and needs to fight his way through, and it’s about thirty seconds later that he nearly slams into Connor who just turned the corner. ‘They’re coming from all sides,’ he says as he reloads his pistol. ‘Markus is detonating the charge in the hold. We need to find an exit and jump in the river.’

‘And the others?’ Louis knows they shouldn’t be standing there but he needs to know. The implication of jumping into freezing water in winter… surprisingly doesn’t scare him as much as it should. ‘Are they jumping too?’

‘North is leading them. I’m just here to find you.’

He doesn’t exactly have a choice now, does he? ‘Lead the way.’

He pulls his scarf over his nose and runs.

oOoOo

‘Hostiles sighted. Preparing to engage.’

Louis is pulled behind one of those watertight doors before he even registers the movement, and the next thing he knows Connor is dashing out of cover and immediately gets shot. Letting his instincts take over his body, a shield of blue tendrils shoots out of his hand and fixes itself in front of the android before he rushes out while slinging his rifle onto his shoulder and drags him as far as he can away from the soldiers by walking backwards, and as he feels the fabric in his grip twist and bend, he wonders if the soldiers pick up his face with the built-in tech in their helmets. Their facelessness does give Louis an advantage, however, because he feels no qualms about creating a blue sphere of energy in his free hand and lobbing it towards the shield, causing it to explode in a boom of bright blue mist. He also forces himself to not think too much about the horrible screech of rusted metal before the corridor collapses behind him as he drags Connor into another empty room to examine the wound.

‘You alright?’ he asks. The wound on the android’s shoulder doesn’t seem to be bleeding, but he knows it is an illusion created by the many layers Connor is wearing right now; of all he knows, the android can be soaking his innermost shirt. ‘How long until your self-repair kicks in?’

‘A few seconds,’ Connor’s jaw is tight when he uses Louis’ shoulder as leverage to stand up. ‘It will not heal properly until I have sufficient thirium in my systems. We have to go.’

‘Will the water get in?’

‘Not if I give my chassis priority.’ Connor freezes for a blink of an eye, the only indicator that he is scanning his surroundings now that his LED is hidden beneath his beanie. ‘We are safe for now.’

Louis steps outside first this time, his protective barrier tinting his world blue. The corridor smells of static and the unique smell of a mix of his powers and rusted metal, and they don’t run this time, Louis needing to concentrate on always keeping his powers on hand so that he can react as quickly as possible in case they got ambushed again and Connor distracted by both constantly scanning their surroundings and mending the gaping hole on his shoulder. They run into a few stray pairs of soldiers on their way, but nothing cannot be taken care of by sneaking away or catching them unaware with a stasis field. 

He is almost frightened by how easily he accepts his powers as his main source of offence and defence and uses it on people with no regrets.

‘Connor! Lou! You’re alive!’

They round a corner and are greeted by Simon and North. Both of them appear unharmed and North doesn’t look too happy that Louis is there, but one look from Simon is enough to urge all of them to run towards the exit on their deck, hurdling over collapsed walls and doors and leaping over gaps on the floor as quickly and smoothly as they can to get out of the place as soon as possible - and to outrun the footsteps behind them.

North takes the risk to look backwards. ‘Markus!’

Before Louis can turn to greet him, he hears gunshots and a surprised groan from Markus as he turns and discovers the leader of the deviants on the floor with two bleeding wounds on his back. The lights hum and go out, and they are left with the dim, far-away lamps mounted on the soldiers’ rifles as their only source of light. The rumble of helicopters outside seems so close now.

‘Markus!’ comes the panicked cry from Simon, and Louis raises his arm just in time to push him back to let Connor do his job. ‘Stay back,’ Louis says. ‘Let us handle this.’

He lobs a sphere of blue towards the soldier shooting at the two androids as the prototype slings Markus’ arm around his shoulders and starts limping towards the exit, knocking them into the wall with a thrum that resonates in the entire corridor. From the light of their rifles, two more soldiers join their still-standing comrades, and he knows he needs to up his game to be able to fight them all at once; instead of suspending them in stasis fields or using the old-school spheres, he swings his arm upward with his palm to launch an unending chain of explosive tendrils that tears through the soldiers, lifting them off their feet and illuminating the rest of the corridor with blinding blue light. Their position exposed, Louis cuts off the shockwave chain and lets it fizzle and dissipate behind him and runs with the others towards the exit as he shrouds himself in blue to protect himself from the freezing water.

More gunshots and shells hitting the ground. A ‘Run! Quick! Come on!’ from Markus. Louis leaps.

Everything beyond his barrier goes dark.

o0o0o

Before

The remodelling was going well. The new programmes had all taken root in 51’s system, the body modifications were adapting to the original biocomponents and responding to the new system, and her vitals were steady if less satisfactory than what Ryder expected. Whatever. Her task was complete. This stage of her experiment was a success.

Deactivating the skin on her hand, she placed it on the other android’s shoulder and woke her up, 51’s skin rippling and flickering as the sudden increase in power usage. It stayed that way as she blinked her eyes open, and her mouth opened and closed as if she had something to say but couldn’t.

‘RK800, register name: Connie.’

51 - Connie - shivered.

Perfect.

---

the art!

link: https://www.deviantart.com/coakesam/art/DBHAUBB-2021-877769882

[calamityk8]

"My name is Barney Rolfe, and there is something wrong with my brain. I am admitting this to you with the full understanding and acknowledgement that what I am doing is absolutely not going to be fully understood; but perhaps in pieces it can reconcile the most fragmented and deranged parts of my psyche, or at least arrange them in a way that will relieve this incessant pressure that always haunts me. Whatever happens, well, at least I have tried to do something to explain this innate and incessant madness, which is more than most get a chance to do.

Okay, here goes.

Belatedly, I suppose, there were neurons misfiring to account for, some chemical mishap that perforce disengaged my social abilities to adapt and be of use to others. Panic and hysteria have ruled the contours of my experience for longer than this busted-up brain can recall. Looking back, well, I can gauge the horrific aspects of it, in the present. Of course hindsight’s a malignancy at this point. I have become this disease; it as all that I am: a sporadically hebetude-induced corollary on the razor’s edge of sanity’s rusty hook. Saying things like this doesn’t help. I know. It’s just hard to judge oneself from the outer limits of perspective’s gush and flow. Trapped in this insidious circle of discontent and maladjustment, I am oozing the sap of life’s lost lust.

I might have a way to put it, so let me.

Having severe systemic and constant depression and simply “being bummed” are two very distinct and different things. One is a disease; the other is just one of the myriad consequences of being alive. If someone has cancer you don’t tell them to, “buck up and get over it.” We don’t admonish a stroke victim to, “stop lying around, and get up and do something with yourself.” Even our advice for sufferers of the common cold is sympathetic, as cough-and-congestion victims aren’t told they are being “weak” or “soft” and should just “be happy because things could be a lot worse.” But, for some inane reason that is preconditioned into us by years of inhumane pseudoscience, diseases of the mind are linked to some weakness or lassitude of the individual, as if that person who is suffering from a disease such as depression or severe anxiety is somehow inept and is to be blamed for their troubles. As if it is within their control to get better by “just trying a bit harder at it.” It’s really a nonsensical viewpoint to take; but, alas, it is one of many such idiotic theories held by the masses.

Here — there is this too: you’ve got to fight this one alone. Other people can help you, but in the end it comes down to you fighting for your life all by your lonesome. This is a difficult thing to internalize, but once you do, in some wary way, a strand of hope will spring from this, as finagled and shoddy with trepidation as it may be. There will be a surge of selfhood guiding you, a reliance on the one person you can always count on: yourself. It is a scary thing, but like most scary things one finds as obstacles on the wayward path of one’s existence, extremely worthwhile to conquer. Just like any other terminal disease, depression kills; suicide is merely its mechanism.

This shouting in my head, it never seems to cease.

I am nervous and concise around others. I only laugh when it’s expected. Being alone has become my only comfort, though it too is getting to be unendurable. To guide me I take some small salvation in the long history of human endeavor to fight through the gnashing teeth of internal strife. According to Lecky’s History of European Morals, “A melancholy leading to desperation, and known to theologians under the name of ‘acedia,’ was not uncommon in monasteries, and most of the recorded instances of medieval suicides in Catholicism were by monks.” I dream through these trials and tribulations of ancients, attempting to stem the tide of my own demise with less troubling thoughts than the ones I’ve come to own: I am the angular distance of a star below the horizon; the dusty truth of eons of suffering through a terrible weight’s pressing down; sunken and lost; in old, forgotten times what they once called grevoushede. Grevoushede. Acedia. I breathe the words and balance the syllables on my tongue, unable to savor their taste or texture. I am a weightless pin pricked in the skein of an upside-down world I’ll never get close enough to know.

Who could ever fall in love with this raggedy bag of afflictions?

I trek through the ruins of my obsession, draped in sorrow’s mask, leaning on tiny tics and safe places to guide me. The cracking of my toes, one by one. Snapping all of my fingers back and forth. Clicking my tongue on the roof my mouth. Blinking an even number of times with one eye and then an odd number with the other. Popping my ears with my jaw. Smoothing my eyebrows down with my fingertips. An innumerable array of distractions that ease the arrhythmic pulse of thoughts that come but never go, blurring out my sight, and leaving me trembling, all filled-up with static but as empty inside as an ice cream shop in the freezing rain.

Woe is my middle name.

All of these little vacancies in my head surface and fill into the most chronic of all conditions. Possibilities go awry with suspicious and judgmental looks. Maybe I’ll put on some Dolly Parton and fall in love with a bookmark. These are thoughts that calm the deliriousness at it swarms. Exceptional circumstances to bow down to in this glut of terrors, this amassing of torturous routines: the bath mat must be lined up perfectly with the tiles, the showerhead at just the right angle, the curtain stretched just so, and the shower water, the god-damn shower water…always and forever just a touch too hot or too cold. The chores of being me, they never end.

The human senses can somehow even detect whether a television set is off or just on mute without looking. And everyone can tell the difference between boiling and room-temperature water being poured in much the same manner. But it is when these senses go astray, when they slip and frazzle and get pinched, that’s when one comes to know the real intensity of those senses’ powers. A daily trauma that haunts me wherever I go, my brain stuffed with the lint of leftover churning, dizzy and lopsided and playing alive, I ignore the impossibilities of being able to maintain a normal existence for as long as this sapped torpidity allows. The courage I need to muster just to leave my place and walk to get groceries is at most times an insurmountable obstacle, and so I stay in and worry and worry and worry about everything. Every object grows too precious to disturb as I put it on the pedestal of the postponed quenching of my desires. There is nothing I can do or think that will snap this spell of disenchantment that grips me tighter as it deepens this hole I am eternally residing in. Just making it home from the grocery store with a few shopping bags of food sometimes feels like the greatest accomplishment in the world. I should be doing other things with my time, I know: concentrating my efforts on more grand pleasures and goals. But these things of consequence, they are not for me. I lose so much more than I gain in these battles. Small, inconsequential, pyrrhic victories are the only ones I’ve known.

Hope is a bestial thing with daggers and fangs; I make up a thousand reasons to not have any of it bombard me as this disease attacks relentlessly. There are honestly times when I cannot even bring myself to lift a finger to scratch an itch. I’ve been prescribed a list of medications too long to register properly in the catacombs of my lingering doubt about the chemical cohesion of my wherewithal: Abilify, clomipramine, Lexapro, bupropion, Celexa, Cymbalta, Lithium, Xanax, Paxil, amitriptyline, Lamictal, and that grand old sturdy classic Prozac. Etcetetra. It seems that I am only etceteras: more and more of less and less. It’s all a wash. It was a messy chorus of boos from the cheap seats as I struggled through side effects and listened to the growing drone of a singularly horrible voice that wasn’t quite my own resounding in my skull: “You’re no good. You’re a lost cause. Stop whining; start winning. You’re no good. You are just no good,” over and over; nauseated at all times; woozy, delirious, insomnia-plagued and diarrhea-bound; garbling my words when forced to speak, fumbling through life like a doped-up zombie with no appetites, every little thing so impossibly far away.

The window washers will not sing for me. The faucets around here all look like dead swans. I sweep. I litter. I am unable to know for sure if anyone else ever feels the way I always do. I am ill with this ravenous beast that pesters and claws at and drapes itself over me, leaving me with the gumption of soon-to-be-roadkill sluggishly slouching across a busy highway. I yawn instead of moan. I burst into tears in the dark of crowded movie theaters just before the feature starts. I am normal. Really. I am sane — maybe even too much so. I do wish I could just go insane, but, sadly, I cannot quite contemplate how to accurately achieve this feat. My brain will not assuage nor relent with its ceaseless cracked and mangled disturbances.

The boring by-rote recitation of symptoms rattled off to every doctor who’d listen. They don’t know who I am, what I’ve suffered through, how I came to be this way that I am; and there’s no device by which I can properly explain it to them. It’s not like they can run a test, take some blood, or do a biopsy, and then figure out what’s wrong with me. It’s a hidden thing, deep within the walls of my pain, not on or off any scale they’ve ever invented. I am my own example. There are no answers to any of this. They used to take out parts of people’s brains, thinking it would relieve their suffering. But it just left folks lobotomized to a dull, vegetable state, unable to form words or dress themselves. Perhaps they were happy, though. Perhaps they were thankful for the big, empty space that now occupied what they’d formerly called living. Perhaps there was no person behind those dead eyes left to care. The disease wins yet again, as it always does.

Clinical diagnoses follow me with heavy clomps. “Heavy dysthymia with a robust anxiety level. Somatic cross-cutting, serious signs of high Altman-scale mania, repetitive and troubling thoughts bordering on multiple phobias and generalized panic. Personality Trait Facet Scores high on rigid perfectionism/grandiosity/anhedonia type, though scores lower across board than patient believes. Unusual and abnormal, but not psychotic at all.” As you can see, the weather inside my head is rather frightful, to say the least. I trudge through the murky terrain of my past with great regularity. I am muddy with it, soaked through from the storm of my memories, which are remembering themselves over and over and over again and again and again, until I do not rightly know what has happened or what is happening now. Who am I but this box of disturbing thoughts?

Madness in the family. A quirk in the genes being passed down just like Huntington’s or any other inherited affliction. This one’s just as deep in the bones, though not as noticeable, not as prominent in the makeup of one’s persona. My father was a brazen raver whose depression put the business end of a rifle under his chin to finally wreck its one final havoc on him as pulled the trigger in defeat; his father before him too came to an early funeral, though his disease’s weapons of choice were gasoline and matches, as he lay in immolation by the pumps of an empty gas station in the wee hours of his final night on earth. This dreary thing, it just goes and goes right on down the line. Shelter from it is inconstant at best. It is as if I am in hiding from my inheritance, from my own true self — a hibernation of sorts: falling in and out of a troubled sleep, groggy and drooling through another afternoon, I become obsessed with trifles. I organize the cups and plates on my shelves until they all perfectly line up. I become tempestuous at a single hair being out of place. I talk to myself constantly, mostly demeaning phrases and freshly coined derogatory slurs aimed at myself. I have been parked too long in my heart’s handicap spot. There is very little “me” left here to notice.

So, do not look at me lightly, with deferential judgement or pity’s hidden ire. My sorrows are so much smaller than you’d suppose. My shoes come untied just as much as yours do. I can be as brave and also as craven as most. I eat blackberries and put salted butter on my toast. There are no cures, only temporary stopgaps for relief of symptoms. I am not in control of the way that I feel. I will try. I do try. None of this is less than extremely difficult. I do not need nor crave your sympathy; I just want understanding. Perhaps, even after all this exegesis and other inexplicable explanatory notions are through, this is still too much to ask. In the end, casting aside whatever ideas anyone might get to having about me and my plight, I only return right back to where I began: my name is Barney Rolfe, and there is something wrong with my brain."

[mattzerella-sticks]

🌊What the Water Gave Him 🌊

Destiel-centric finale spec based on a post I made earlier, found here

Can be read on ao3 here

It was over. Chuck lost, Sam and Dean can live their lives how they want them. But their victory wasn't without losses. The biggest upset nearly taking Dean out of the game, happening so close to the final battle. Now he's on the other side, alive against all odds, but Sam knows he isn't happy. Not truly happy since the Empty stole his best friend.

But there's a chance they can save him. A slim chance. A risk that Dean's willing to take despite every logical nerve in Sam's body screaming at him to look for better options. That threading a needle this small is too dangerous. That they don't have to take on another big bad, not anymore. That they don't have to risk their lives anymore. Dean is far past the point of listening. Dead set on this mission, Sam can only watch.

And pray his brother proves him wrong.

           He stands along the water’s edge, gentle waves lapping the rocky shore. Barely licking at his boots while he gazes upon the beautiful, blue stretch of lake. Sun hanging low on the horizon, sky a far deeper color of orange than earlier.

           They’ve been at this for over an hour.

           Sam glances behind him, skin crawling as he sees nothing changed since last he looked. Jack stationed on one edge of the circle, Michael at the other. Dean between them, his eyes closed. Lying deathly still over the sigils scratched into the earth. His skin pale, and both hands tightly clasped around tan fabric folded over Dean’s lap.

           He hates this. What Dean’s doing. That Sam cannot help. And how it’s their only option.

           Jack saw this once before. A variation of it, actually. “When I killed Nick,” he said, handing out copies of photographs he printed out amongst their little group. “I found him in the middle of resurrecting Lucifer –“

           “If he just had a little more patience,” Dean sneered. “Chuck could’ve saved him a whole lot of effort, though I’d doubt it’d end any differently.” Adam nodded at Dean’s side, studying his copy with interest like Sam did. Trying to identify the scene Jack captured. Dean continued, not even addressing the image. “Do you think this can work?”

           “Given who we’re doing this for, no,” he admitted, “the spell Nick found would only open a portal to the Empty, wake Lucifer up. It would then be up to him to cross over, and with his amount of power that wouldn’t be difficult.” Jack then opened the book he brought, pushing it into the middle of the table. Pointing at an illustration. “But I think I can modify it. Although…”

           Sam set the photo down, facing Jack. “What is it Jack?”

           “I… well, it’d be very complicated,” he started, not meeting Sam’s gaze. “For it to work, me and Michael would need to use all of our power.”

           “To wake Cas? Jack, you did it before –“

           “When the Empty was asleep,” Jack said, “when they weren’t expecting it. When Cas hadn’t already ticked them off… they’ve already lost him once.”

           “And they won’t be keen on losing Cas again,” Dean added. A storm darkening his hooded stare. Sam watched him sink into his seat, memories from that awful night weighing on Dean. It haunted him, too. Finding Dean curled around himself the next morning, unresponsive, incoherently mumbling about their friend. Shoulder stained with dried blood. In time, he recovered as he always did. Sometimes though Sam feared he’d turn and there Dean would be. Shattered completely with no chance of putting those pieces together. Stuck in that helpless ball, trembling. Forever praying. That’s not the case now. No sign of careful fragility anymore, the storm passing. Back ramrod straight Dean carelessly flicked the photo away. “What else you need?”

           “Ingredients that we have here at the Bunker, I’m sure,” Jack continued, “a nice open space where we can perform the ritual. Something that belonged to Cas, that will resonate with his unique wavelength. And finally…” he trailed off near the end, faltering.

           “Jack,” Sam said, “What else?”

           “One of us would have to go in,” he told them, “but… there’s a chance they might not come back.” For the first second, there’s silence. The next –

           “Jack, there has to be –“

           “I’ll do it.”

           He whipped his head towards him, scowling at the grim determination of Dean’s face. Lips thinned in a small line. Brows bent aggressively. An expression that appeared whenever Dean grabbed onto the most idiotic, suicidal thought he had and stubbornly refused to surrender. He’d refuse any option other than what he decided. Arguing with him when he’s like that was impossible.

           Sam tried regardless.

           “There has to be another way,” Sam whispered, both men waiting as Jack and Michael recreated Nick’s sigil-work in the dirt. Leaning against Baby’s frame, drinking in silence. “Billie always threatened she’d throw us in there one day, why don’t we ask her –“

           “She’d never agree to it, Sammy. Too messy.” Dean wouldn’t look at Sam. Not since he exploded on Dean back at the Bunker. Called him selfish, that the last thing Cas wants is Dean endangering himself. His tantrum earned Sam a swift right hook he still has the bruise from, cheek mottled blue and green. Dean’s knuckles newly scabbed. “Billie plays by the universe’s rules… and we make our own.”

           “Yes, finally. Rules we fought so hard to make, I…” Sam sighed, “we were finished, Dean. No more big risks. We won. Facing the Empty… there’s no do-over button if you get stuck there.”

           “I’m okay with that.”

           “And yet you’re still doing this?”

           “It’s like I told you Sam,” he said, finally deigning Sam with a frigid glance. Steely resolve sharpening it, cutting through him. “Have been telling you. You don’t have a clue what’s really going on. If you knew… you’d see there’s no risk at all.”

           Sam’s temper flares now, pain edging his vision. “Then let me in, Dean. Tell me. Why are you so afraid of –“

           “I’m not afraid –“

           “You clearly are,” he hissed, “otherwise you wouldn’t be throwing yourself into another near-death experience instead of having a simple conversation with me.” Sam reels his anger back, softening. Pleading. “I want Cas here as much as you do, Dean. But there has to be another way.”

           Dean drained his bottle and then threw it. Far enough so when it exploded the glass wouldn’t touch them. “If it were Eileen stuck in there,” he said, “you’d know there wasn’t.”

           He paused. “Eileen? What’s that have to –“

           Jack called, saying they were ready. Dean stalked off towards them. Sam left behind in his confusion. “Do you have the anchor?”

           “Right here.” He showed Jack the trench coat, grip on it gentle like if he squeezed any tighter Dean might rip it. “Where do you want me?”

           Sam remembered Dean rambled on about its sturdiness. Boasting how he gassed the store clerk with half-truths to not draw suspicion when asking after ‘protective outerwear’. Buying it because he noticed a tear along the seam of Cas’s armpit. “I thought he’d stitch it up,” Dean laughed, whipping his purchase like a cape. Playing with it. Sam chuckled at his brother’s antics. “But he just shrugged and carried on like it was nothing. I asked him why he left it and he tells me that it’d be a waste of his grace.”

           “Then why didn’t you mend it for him?”

           “…What?”

           “Come on, Dean,” Sam said, “you’re a master with the needle. And I’m not talking about sewing gashes… do you recall the Luke Skywalker costume you made me from those stolen motel bed sheets?”

           Dean blushed, “I was just a kid then, Sammy…”

           “Still the best costume, better than any of those store-bought ones at school.”

           “Well… maybe I didn’t want to fix it,” he said, “that’s why. I mean… sure I could’ve. But then he’d rip it again and… it’s not like he can’t have another jacket! Cas needs a little more variety.”

           Sam snorted. “Yeah, because a slightly lighter brown is really crazy for him. What’s he even gonna do with it?”

           “Wear it?” Dean said, “Or… put it away, keep it here. Dude’s been living with us this long and how much stuff does he own? It might not be a huge change but it’s… it’s a start, Sam.”

           Dean was right in buying it. Ransacking Cas’s room, there wasn’t anything they could use for the spell save for the single, untouched trench coat hanging in his closet. As Sam leaves that memory, he realized too late the others began without him. Jack and Michael knelt like statues. His brother had left for the Empty.

           And he’s still there.

           Helpless while Dean pokes the bear in his cave. Sitting on the sidelines as he faces down an extraordinary being with limitless powers, like beating Chuck wasn’t pure luck. Like any of their efforts left a scratch on him. It was a group effort, what little remained of their family pitching in. Sending Chuck onto his next project. But this… it was just Dean. He was alone. And worse… Sam thinks his brother wanted it that way.

           If it were Eileen stuck in there, you’d know it wasn’t.

           When he wasn’t worrying about Dean, Sam mulled over his parting message. Trying to fit together the pieces Dean gave. He suspects it’s a simple picture. A niggling sense at the base of his skull tells Sam that the answer is clear. It always was. Except he looked past it, over and over, again and again. Never seeing the truth of it. Of Dean and Cas. Without either of them here, where he can observe them one more time – careful, in a way Sam hasn’t before – Sam doubts he will uncover much of anything.

           At least it distracts him from Dean. Until it doesn’t.

           Dean gasps, lurching forward. Coughing, spitting up bile and gagging on air. Michael collapses, exhausted. Jack almost follows but overcomes his dizziness. Sam, the only unaffected one, dashes towards. Rubs Dean’s back while he works through his nausea. How Dean lets him either shows he’s too woozy to know it’s him, or the earlier animosity was forgotten. As Dean claws at his shirt, gasping, repeating his name, Sam guesses the latter. “Yes, Dean?” he says, “What is it?”

           “Cas,” he says, voice hoarse and raw, “Where… where is he?”

           There weren’t any portals. Nor did a star shoot downwards from the sky. Their friend had not even blinked into existence with a smile and a familiar rumble.  “Cas,” Sam sighs, “Cas. Dean, I don’t think –“

           “Cas.”

           He scrambles to his feet, knocking Sam onto the ground. Dean runs across the shore and, when he reaches the lake, wades in. Fully dressed, madly waving the trench coat. Sam yells, but Dean ignores him. Hellbent on drowning himself.

           Except Sam misses it, again.

           Someone meets Dean halfway. Breaking through the lake’s surface, swimming to where the water rests above their waists. Drags his brother into a hug, spinning him. With raven hair, tanned skin, and blue eyes crinkled with joy and life and love. “Cas,” Sam says, “it’s… it worked?”

           “Of course it worked,” Jack says, “This is Dean and Cas.”

           Maybe Sam understands because of the off-hand way Jack spoke about the two men. Or, more likely, it’s when Cas – wrapped in the trench coat Dean bought him – sweeps Dean into his arms and kisses him. Dean melts under his touch, responding with an excitement that had been absent when Chuck left them alone for real. It doesn’t matter how. He finally gets it.

           Dean and Cas… they get their happy ending.

[garbagevanfleet]

Learn To Leave A Room (series)

PART TWO 

Pairing: Jake & female!Reader Warnings: general sexiness, but nothing too risque yet Summary: Balancing relationships is hard work - God forbid someone throw a wrench into it. Notes:  oh my god, im sorry guys. sexual tension is my favorite thing in the whole world. 

MASTERLIST

“I am not ashamed, the story goes. I swear I will learn to leave a room without touching every part of your face.” — Marcelo Hernandez Castillo, “How to Grow the Brightest Geranium,” published in Breakwater Review

“Obviously you have to talk to him.” 

Despite being nearly noon, it’s still too early for this conversation. Lucy has dragged you back to the diner, hoping to nurse your collective hangovers with some coffee and a greasy breakfast, but all you had really wanted to do was crawl into your own bed.

“You can’t just leave things like they are. I mean, he is still your boyfriend until you actually break up with him, right?” she tries again. You know she’s right. She’s always so insightful about these kinds of things, and hung-over you is a little annoyed by her sound logic. 

You had told her a very selective recounting of what had happened last night, leaving out anything to do with Jake. You weren’t ever planning on telling her the rest.

You and Lucy had stayed over at the Kiszka residence, cuddled up together on the couch, but you - very luckily - did not have to see anyone else before you had left. 

“I know. I will eventually,” you assure, staring down at the half-eaten cheeseburger you ordered and wondering if you can take another bite. You opt instead to pick at it with your fork. “Mostly I want him to have to think about it all for a while. Get in his own head.”

She giggles at you. “Mind games,” she says in the way of agreement. She’s silent for a moment as you watch her stir her milkshake with her straw. “I’m sorry he did that to you. I could tell that you didn’t want to invite him; I shouldn’t have pushed you.”

You shake your head at her. “It’s so not your fault. I think it’s good that I figured out who he really is early on. You know, before I actually got to like him.”

“You didn’t really like him?” Her tone is sheepish. 

You shake your head. “It was fun at first, but no. I will miss the regular sex though,” you add, making her laugh. 

“Well, I guess you’ll have to just kick him to the curb and get back out there. You’re going to find someone that’s going to treat you right.”

You nod in agreement and give her a thankful smile, but somehow you feel that you won’t be joining the dating scene for a while. 

+++

Mitch never does text you, so you decide you won’t either. It feels a little unresolved, but you’re honestly grateful to not have to deal with the confrontation. He had never left anything at your house, and you hadn’t taken more than one or two pictures together, so you forget about him pretty easily.

You do feel anxious off and on, but you don’t think it’s from the breakup. You can’t quite put your finger on it, but you pick up an extra-long shift at the cafe to fill your time. Fall is the start of the busy season for baristas, so you very infrequently have a moment to dwell on anything at work. 

After a long day of steaming and steeping, you cannot wait to get home and wash off. The most you ever feel like yourself is in the shower - it’s always a mental cleansing process just as much as a physical one. Soft music starts to play from the speaker on the bathroom counter as you connect your phone. 

You turn the water to the perfect temperature to warm you up from the walk home, and it feels borderline euphoric as you step under the spray. You let the water wash over you, but the second you close your eyes, you snap them back open with an anxious feeling. 

You try it again. You lean back, close your eyes... but to the same result. 

You stand and stare blankly at the shower wall. 

“Fuck,” you breathe. Every time you close your eyes, all you can see is Jake looking back at you from across the living room. 

The lights on his face, the contrast of his dark hair against the white door frame - you can even hear the music that was playing. All of it. It’s haunting you.

You rub the heels of your palms into your eyes, trying to will it away, but you can’t stop your brain from playing the image back to you. 

“Fuck,” you whisper again, a bit more desperately this time and slump against the cold shower wall. You stay there, staring at the tile in front of you until you realize that the issue isn’t going to go away. 

You give up and wash your hair, absent of the task. A slight annoyance slips over you because you can’t even enjoy the ritual with your mind so preoccupied. You take a deep breath and let your eyes slip closed as the warm water rinses the soap away. 

He’s waiting for you in the black, but this time you’re on the patio with him, watching him smoke his cigarette down to the filter. It’s only for a moment, but in that moment you can smell the smoke. Feel the leather of his jacket. Taste his skin. 

You remember the intensity in his eyes as you sucked his thumb into your mouth and you try to recall every little thing about how he looked at that moment. You groan at yourself, realizing just how stupid you are for ever letting yourself feel like this. 

When you step out of the shower, you promise yourself that you won’t think about it anymore, but you still do. You try to bargain with yourself. 

You won’t think about it again after tonight, you think, but you know it’s a lie.

You blow dry your hair in the mirror and stare at the spot on your neck that Mitch had left you with. It’s faded to the point that it’s nearly undetectable, but you can see it. You want to hate Mitch for it, but somewhere in the back of your mind, you’re acutely aware that if he hadn’t done that, you would have never had the time you did with Jake. The party would have just been normal and you would still have Mitch’s number saved in your phone. Jake was right, who knows how long you would have kept dating him, despite the lack of interest on your part. 

You lay down in bed with your warm pajamas on, your feet dangling off the side and your cell in your hands. Jake’s contact information is pulled up and you flip to the Messages tab. You’ve only ever messaged him a couple of times; once when he asked you about a song you had been playing that he wanted to know the name of, and once when Josh and him were coming to pick you and Lucy up and he was messaging that they were waiting outside. 

You lay the phone face down on your chest and stare up at your ceiling. Your heart is fluttering as you think about what would happen if you called him. Right now. 

It’s just a reckless idea - you’d never do it - but that doesn’t stop your eyes from flicking to the clock on your nightstand. 

It’s 11 pm. Would he even answer? What would you say if he did?

You roll your eyes at yourself, suddenly embarrassed at how stupid you’re being. The covers are chilly as you slip into them, but thankfully, they warm up quickly. You fall into a pleasant sleep, and even though you had sworn you wouldn’t dream about it, you still do. 

+++

You wake up to your phone notifying you of a message, but you ignore it for a few minutes, trying to force yourself back to sleep. It’s five minutes later that you realize it’s not happening, so you reach a hand over for your phone. 

Lucy   10:23 am

What are you up to tonight?

A smile finds your lips. She’s always had an uncanny way of knowing when you needed her, and some girl time was exactly what the doctor ordered, you think.

Absolutely nothing. Wanna hang? you reply. You crawl out of bed and allow yourself some time to stretch your muscles before you head for the bathroom. You’re brushing your teeth when you hear a new message come in. 

Lucy   10:41 am 

For sure

Movie at Josh’s. Pick you up around 5.  

Your heart jumps.

“Fuck,” you rasp, but your mouth is still full of toothpaste, and now your mirror is dotted with white speckles. You finish brushing frantically before texting back.

Maybe just a girl night?

Because your life is currently such a mess, you’re not at all surprised that Lucy takes nearly half an hour to respond.

You lunge for the phone the second you hear the notification sound, nearly dropping the Poptart that you’ve just finished toasting. 

 Lucy  11:10 am

Don’t be silly, I already got the movie 

You have no idea how that prevents you from just watching it alone with her, but you don’t want to make her suspicious, so you don’t press any further. 

The rest of your day is spent acting like a middle schooler. You are not ready to see Jake Kiszka again. What if he says something to you in front of Lucy? Explaining it to her would be a nightmare. What if he was just drunk and doesn’t actually have any interest at all?

You’re not positive you’ll see him, so you try to convince yourself that you probably won’t. It decidedly does not work.  

You pointedly try not to think about what you’re going to wear, but despite yourself, you already have an outfit picked out by the time 4 pm rolls around. You try to reason with yourself as you eye your makeup bag.

“It’s a movie,” you remind yourself into the mirror. “We are just watching a movie in the dark and you are not putting on makeup.”

You try to be firm, but you’re weak and you end up glaring at your reflection as you apply mascara. 

Lucy is late when she arrives to get you, but it doesn’t matter, because you still feel like you haven’t had enough time to worry about everything thoroughly. Feeling unprepared, you climb into her car. 

You try to calm yourself by listening to everything Lucy is going on about as she tells you about her week. You know that she can tell that you’re nervous because she starts talking about her cat - a subject that always makes you feel better.

She’s so used to being at the Kiszka house that when you get there, she doesn’t bother knocking. She just lets herself in and hangs her coat and scarf on a hook by the door.

“Babe,” she calls out into the house, and Josh emerges from the kitchen and sweeps her into an embrace. You try not to listen to their loved up talk, you don’t feel like you have the stomach for it with the state you’re in.   

Josh greets you with a polite hug. You smile back genuinely until you realize that you have no idea if Jake told him anything, and suddenly you have a whole new nightmare to explore in your head. You try to talk yourself through it as you follow them through the hall to the living room.

He didn’t give you the shit-eating grin that you would expect to receive if he did know something. You’re also pretty sure that he would tell Lucy, and Lucy would absolutely ask you about it. You breathe a relieved sigh as you settle in on the couch.

Sam is sitting the wrong way in a reclining chair, his long legs hanging off one of the arms. He looks so gangly that you can’t help but laugh at him and he gives you a cheesy smile back. 

Since the recliner is taken, you get cozy with Lucy sandwiched between you and Josh, and a fuzzy blanket across all your laps. You want to ask if Jake is going to be joining you guys, but you chicken out. What if Josh does know about what happened at the party, and by some miracle, he just didn’t tell Lucy? You don’t want to seem like you’re thinking about Jake - even though you absolutely are - so you just stay silent. 

You try to get into the movie. You and Lucy both love anything in the horror genre, but you’d already seen this one in theaters with her, and you try not to be annoyed that she’d pick a movie you’ve both already seen, presumably just so Josh could see it as well.

It’s considerably less scary the second time around, so about halfway through, you find yourself bored. You excuse yourself to use the restroom, mostly just so you can stretch your legs, as the couch isn’t that big and fitting three people on it is a squeeze. Lucy asks if you want them to pause the movie, but you wave her off, telling her you’ll be right back.

You head up the stairs and down the hallway, and you’re just about to turn the corner to the bathroom when the breath gets knocked out of you with a thump. It doesn’t hurt, but a shocked noise escapes your lips before you can stop it. A pair of hands find your hips instantly to help steady you. It takes you a second to realize that you’ve just slammed into Jake - face first - but as soon as you do, you hold your breath. You must have a horrified look on your face because he breathes a laugh.

“Fuck, I’m so sorry,” you squeak. “What are you doing here?”

Deliberately slow - like he’s trying to make sure you’ve got your balance back - he pulls his hands away. Through a disbelieving grin, he says, “Well, I live here. It’s more like ‘what are you doing here?’.”

You can feel your face turning pink. “Right. Lucy and I are here for a movie,” you explain. You haven’t made an effort to step back away from him, and you can’t bring yourself to yet. His hair is wet and slicked back, and you’re annoyed it looks so good on him - you always look like a drowned cat when you get out of the shower. 

He hums in understanding but doesn’t say anything else. He just raises his eyebrows at you expectantly. 

Just above a whisper, you chance, “Are we going to talk about it?”

He feigns consideration. 

“We could,” he says with a nod, his lips stretching out into a mischievous smirk. “Or we could pick up where we left off.”

You subtly pull the sleeves on your sweater down to your wrists in an effort to hide the goosebumps that are rising on your skin. You open your mouth, but you’re truly at a loss for words. You had a full week to think about this, but you realize you never got around to allowing yourself to figure out what you’d say to him. He gives you an ample amount of time to think of a response, but the only thing you can do is stare at his lips.

“What’s the matter?” he asks, his voice is like silk. It’s quiet, but commanding. A tone you’d use if you had someone's wrists cuffed to your headboard. “Where did all that confidence go?”

He didn’t have as much control the last time you were this close to him, but he definitely does now, and you can tell that this is exactly how he’s comfortable.

“Pretty sure my liver cleared it all out Saturday morning,” you reply, swallowing hard. The words had come out softer than you’d intended. He’s smug as he seems to give you a once over, and your chest tightens under his gaze. 

“That’s a shame.” 

You can smell his shampoo as he brushes past you - something minty and pleasant. The sharpness of it helps ground you a little, but as soon as he disappears down the stairs, you slip into the bathroom and slump against the closed door. The whole exchange only lasted a couple of minutes, but you’re left feeling exhausted. You consider staying in the bathroom forever - maybe setting up a nice nest of towels so you never have to see anyone for the rest of your life, but then you remember that you have your favorite kind of yogurt in your fridge at home, so you’ll have to come out eventually. Instead, you just stand in front of the sink and splash cold water against your face as you try to collect your thoughts. 

You don’t see him the rest of the evening, and for that, you’re simultaneously grateful and annoyed. Multiple times you think about marching back up to his room, but that's as far as you get. You still have no idea what you’d say or do once you got up there. 

Lucy takes you home after the movie, and she offers to stay the night, but you tell her you’re wiped and that you’re headed right to bed. You go to get out of her car, but she places her hand on yours where it’s rested on the center console. 

“Hey, so Josh and I were talking,” she starts, and your stomach tightens. You’re suddenly positive that she’s about to tell you that she knows everything, so you hold your breath. 

“About birthday plans. So he was thinking that since I’m going to be leaving in a week, he’s going to throw me a party at his house next Saturday,” she finishes excitedly. You smile at her, trying not to look scared. 

Lucy’s birthday is in early November, and every single year since you met, you’ve spent it together. This year, however, her parents surprised her with a trip abroad. You had been planning on having a nice dinner together just before she left, but you suppose that it is more efficient to just have a party with everyone.

 “That’s great,” you agree, squeezing her hand. 

“I’m so excited, I’m just hoping you can help us plan it all?” She gives you her best puppy eyes. “Since I’m going to be so busy packing and making sure I have everything together.”

You take a deep breath and nod in agreement. “Of course. You can count on me, Lu.”

She beams at you and leans in to give you a cramped car hug.

When you’re back in your room, you shoot Josh a message asking what he’d like you to be in charge of. Your body feels tight, so you head to the bathroom and draw yourself a bath, setting the water as hot as it will go. 

Josh K    9:38 pm

thinking probably cake 

You frown at your phone and shoot back,  just cake?

Josh K    9:41 pm

yah 

You set your phone down on the tile by the bathtub and roll your eyes. “Idiot,” you say out loud through a smile. You undress and sink into the water slowly, and it’s so hot that it turns your skin pink, but the slight pain is grounding. A message notification sounds from beside you, so you extend a wet hand to grab it.

Josh K    9:48 pm 

Lucy wants to do decorations herself n sam threatened suicide if he cant dj

You huff a laugh. What are you getting her for a present?, you send back.

Josh K    9:51 pm

secret :)

Josh K    9:52 pm

maybe just birthday sex 

You leave it at that, grateful that Lucy has someone so loving in her life. You think she deserves it, even if it does gross you out now and again. 

You spend the rest of your time in the bath willing yourself to relax and trying to figure out why the last three words Jake said to you upset you more than the entirety of your last interaction with Mitch.

PART THREE

Taglist: @myownparadise96   (message me to add yourself if you want!)

[undermounts]

Empire of Light—Chapter 3: A Most Dangerous Game

AO3 | Table of Contents  | Ashes and Embers | Playlist

Fic Summary: In the aftermath of the Battle of Ash, the party travels across Morella in search of allies to defeat the Empire of Ash, once and for all.

Chapter Summary: Aerin meets with his mother and the Lords of Whitetower to discuss the war effort while Iliana and Kade go searching for clues about the mysterious attacks.

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Aerin Valleros strode through the rose garden, the early morning breeze sliding through his curls like gentle fingers beneath his heavy crown. Dew and hints of frost clung to the serrated leaves of the manicured rose bushes, which were well-tended and enchanted to bloom year-round. The mornings were growing colder and the sun was rising later as the last, lingering dregs of summer faded away into the heart of autumn. 

It was strange, Aerin mused, the passage of time. These last few months felt as if they had crawled by at a snail’s pace, but also as if they had zipped by at record speed. He could not fathom how it was possible that only two months ago, he was held prisoner in the depths of the Khagan’s fortress, hidden in the snow-blasted peaks of the Frostwhisper Mountains of Vishanti. Then, he had been a prince with no crown, hands still stained with his brother’s blood, and haunted by the ghost of his mother.

But now… Now he was the King, with hands that were no less bloody, and he walked with the Queen Mother on his arm.

In another two months, they would be deep into the dead of winter, and it would not be a thin layer of frost that coated the gardens, but snow. Aerin could only speculate how much would change before then. Would his life even be recognizable? Would his kingdom?

Aerin’s mother, Rhiannon, walked beside him with her arm hooked beneath his, her fine-boned hand laid atop his forearm, and a dark veil concealing her face. She was dressed in the rich reds and golds of House Valleros, the perfect complement to Aerin’s midnight blue and silver tunic, which, ironically, were the colors of her family, House Archeron. 

While Baldur had taken after his father in looks, there was no doubt Aerin was his mother’s son. They had the same high cheekbones, straight nose—although Aerin’s now had a faint ridge from all the times it had been broken—and full lips. And thus, the veil that hid her royal visage. had been added to the Dowager Queen’s wardrobe. Without it, there was no way to pass her off as Lady Anielle, a royal advisor whose face was said to have been horribly burned in the explosions that took out the upper half of the palace. As far as the rest of the kingdom was concerned, Rhiannon Valleros was long gone.

Every time he, Captain Ristridin, or Rhiannon herself decided that the King was in need of her counsel, Aerin was faced with the small dilemma of deciding where they should meet. His quarters or his study offered sanctuary from prying eyes, but being alone with his estranged mother in such a small space left Aerin with a creeping feeling of vulnerability, as if allowing her into his quarters allowed her to know more about him than he would ever know about her. Because truthfully, all Aerin had ever known of his mother was nothing.

Aerin thought he had made peace with his mother’s disappearance. After all, he had taken part in orchestrating it. But if that was truly the case, then why did he feel so damned angry whenever she was around? So bitter?

Aerin did not have the answers he sought nor did he have the time to sort out and analyze his own feelings. So he preferred to meet with his mother in the gardens, trailed by attendants and members of the royal guard, even if the veil Rhiannon had to wear in public made him feel like he was part of a funeral procession. Like he was speaking with a ghost. 

If he could, Aerin would simply avoid the meetings altogether, but he could not deny that his mother’s advice about navigating the court was invaluable. 

His memory held true. No one was as skilled at courtly intrigue as Rhiannon, even if she was an outsider.

The Halfling Queen. 

Aerin had so many questions. About his mother, about their heritage, about where she had been all of these years… But unsurprisingly, Rhiannon had been less than forthcoming with her secrets.  All Aerin could get out of her was that yes—she was, in fact, a human descendant of wooly halflings, and yes, that meant he was as well, but no—she was not a true Archeron, at least not by blood. Any questions beyond that, Rhiannon had simply said, Another time, Aerin. We have more important issues to worry about.

Ah, yes. More important issues, like convincing the Lords of Whitetower to go to war. 

“We should be producing supplies, building weapons, and training our soldiers,” Aerin muttered as he and his mother meandered through the hedges beneath the cloudy sky. “Not wasting time convincing the men in charge that this war is real.”

“They say the battle begins long before the troops are even sent to the fields,” his mother mused, her long and graceful steps in sync with his. Even her voice was just as he remembered it—low, rich, and wise, with regalness he could only hope to emulate.

“Half of them don’t even believe the Empire is an imminent threat,” Aerin huffed, irritated. He reached out, plucked a leaf off of a nearby bush, and pressed the pad of his thumb into its frost-covered surface, feeling the small crystals of ice melt against his skin. “They are comforted by the victory at Cragheart and forget how close we were to defeat. And that was just a test. If Iliana hadn’t—”

Aerin cut himself off, his fingers curling around the leaf in his palm as he recalled the crater of destruction she had left on that battlefield. He’d visited Cragheart the day after the battle, once all the pyres had been constructed but before the mass funeral had been held, and was astonished by the ruin Iliana’s magic had left behind. He did not know precisely what the hells had happened to Iliana that day on the fields, only that it had left her changed. Well, he supposed none of his companions were the same people anymore.

“If it hadn’t been for them,” Aerin said vaguely, not trusting himself to speak of his friends without revealing some vulnerable part of himself, “we would have lost that battle.” He shook his head, fuming. “Have they already forgotten how many dead men filled the pyres?”

“I’d wager that they have not,” the Queen Mother replied from beneath her veil, and without looking, Aerin knew her gaze was boring into him. “But this is what happens when men are born into power but given no purpose. They’ve grown complacent, accustomed to peace. These lords grew up on stories of the fiefdom wars, of squashed rebellions. But they do not know how to get their own hands dirty. They would rather ignore the threat and hope it goes away on its own.”

“It won’t go away,” Aerin insisted, although he knew he needn’t try to convince his mother. “Why can’t they see that?”

Through the veil, his mother gave him a pitying look. He despised it.

“They do not want to,” she informed him, gently. Too gently. Aerin found himself wishing she would just be stern with him, like his old tutors were. Not like… not like she was still trying to be his mother. “They are scared, Aerin, and unlike you, they have never confronted the things they fear.”

“So they would let people die instead?” he retorted, his voice sharpening in response to her gentleness.

“Success belongs to everyone involved,” Rhiannon replied sagely, her tone cool and unruffled by Aerin’s bitterness. “But failure rests solely on those in charge.”

“They would let the fault be mine,” Aerin said dryly. “Why does that not surprise me?”

“They do not know you yet, Aerin,” she reminded him, and Aerin bit back the urge to snap, Neither do you.

But he ground his teeth, reining in the words before he could come to regret them.

“It remains to be seen what kintd of king you will be,” Rhiannon continued slowly, lowering her voice so that only he could hear her. “That is the case for all new rulers, not just those with your… past. They know not whether you will be a tyrant or a fool, someone who threatens what they have or someone they may take advantage of. Today, you must show them that you are neither.”

“If Father had been in charge—” Aerin’s breath hitched ever so slightly, and he disguised the hoarseness in his voice with a cough. “If Father had been in charge, they would have listened,” he said morosely. “Just as they had when he sent the standing army to Cragheart.”

“I would not be so sure,” the Queen murmured, shaking her head. “The Battle of Ash is an isolated incident, and the order to fight was a decree given in a state of emergency. Had the lords been given time, they would have fought your father until he gave them what they wanted.”

Aerin bristled, his lips thinning with displeasure as he echoed, “What they wanted?”

“The key to convincing them the war is worth their attention is learning what they desire. All men want for something,” she explained, thoughtfully drumming her fingers against his forearm. “If duty is not enough to spur them into action, perhaps a deal might.”

Aerin frowned, nose wrinkling. “We cannot afford to waste resources that should be dedicated to the war effort on convincing a bunch of lords to defend their own people.”

“We won’t have to,” Rhiannon stated confidently and Aerin glanced over at her with a single brow arched. “Some lords are more important to this cause than others,” she informed him. “Strike the tower at its base and the rest of the pieces will follow.”

Aerin pursed his lips pensively, mulling that over. His mother’s advice reminded Aerin of something he had told Iliana once, when they faced down Ristridin and his Thirteen in the poison fields. There’s thirteen of them, but only one leads.

He really was his mother’s son.

“You have… given me much to think about,” Aerin said at last, drawing them to a halt. Behind them, their retinue of attendants and guards paused as well. 

Aerin looked skyward, taking in the dim rays of sunlight that just barely streamed through the dense array of clouds. The time for his meeting was drawing near. He pulled away from his mother, inclining his head in a polite farewell. “I will consider all of this as I prepare to meet with the Council of Lords.”

Through the opaque veil, his mother’s face fell. The hand at her side twitched, as if she had intended to reach for him, then thought better of it. “Aerin, I want to tell you—”

“No need, my lady,” Aerin said swiftly, his stomach twisting in discomfort at the sudden tenderness that crept into her voice. “I have heard all that I need to hear for today.”

For once, Aerin was glad he had an audience. The nearby attendants and guards were perhaps the only thing saving him from whatever it was his mother had suddenly deemed was important enough to share with him. He stepped back, retreating toward the path that led to the palace. “Thank you for your counsel, Lady Anielle.”

His mother stared at him for a few moments, the shifting clouds stealing away the watery light that had allowed Aerin a glimpse at Rhiannon’s countenance. At last, she nodded, dipping into a low curtsy. “Of course, Your Majesty. I wish you luck with the lords.”

Aerin merely inclined his head, then turned on his heel and strode back toward the palace, leaving his mother behind. It was not until Aerin had cleared the rose gardens that he allowed himself to let out the heavy breath of relief he had not even realized he was holding. Some of the tension slackened in his shoulders now that he had put some distance between himself and the Queen Mother.

“You could stand to be kinder to your mother,” Ristridin mumbled beneath his breath as he fell into step beside Aerin, gravel crunching beneath their boots. “I know it must not be exactly easy having her back after all this time, but she wouldn’t have come if she didn’t care.”

Aerin seriously doubted that. He scowled slightly, glancing at Ristridin sidelong. He refused to believe she came simply out of the goodness of her heart or whatever sense of duty she still miraculously possessed toward guiding her only remaining son. There must have been some other reason why she had returned to Whitetower, a place she had despised so vehemently, she abandoned the city and her family. Aerin just had yet to figure out what that reason was.

He tilted his head, regarding Ristridin with an expression of innocent curiosity. “Have you ever contemplated getting married, Captain?”

Ristridin arched a dark brow. “Not recently. Why?”

“Perhaps you should,” Aerin replied as they stepped into the palace proper, nodding to the guards that were stationed by the doorway. “Then you could start a family of your own whose business you can stick your nose into.”

That startled a laugh out of the knight. Aerin glanced over at him once more, a small smile curling his lips as he watched the old man’s brows raise in amusement.

“Aye,” Ristridin chuckled, shaking his head as he followed Aerin back to his chambers. “I will consider it, Majesty. But let it be known that you are trouble enough.”

Read the rest of the chapter on AO3!

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[flowers-of-io]

Where Lost Things Go

Read it on AO3 here.

Spider’s Palace. Oh, what a lovely spot to spend the evening.

Ór pulls her hood over her face before walking in, all knives in place, Ghost hidden and gun loaded. Two Eliksni in spiky armour guard the door but let her through without a word. They seem more of a warning than actual threat. When she passes them, the airlock behind her shuts with a thud.

The room is all chaos and noise – dozens of voices in at least four languages, chairs shuffling against the metal floor, suspicious fluids being poured to and drank from dirty glasses. Runi chitters uncomfortably in the comms.

“Don’t drink anything here. I don’t want to reconstruct your blown-up stomach,” he warns. Ór only rolls her eyes.

She scans the swirling crowd: Eliksni and Awoken, and even some Cabal deserters, all squashed together in a brightly lit space, drinking, gambling and shouting over one another. She catches a sentence or two in Terran, and a pair of Dregs behind her speak Eliksni so fast she cannot make out the words. Suddenly, a tall Awoken woman in the corner spills her drink over a Legionary sharing the table with her and pulls out a knife.

The guards in spiky armour are beside her in split second. One punches her in the stomach and the other whips the knife from her hand. When they drag her out through the airlock, she is still throwing curses in a posh Reef dialect.

The Palace is a venue with no rules but one: absolutely no violence.

Ór makes her way through the room, eyes sweeping over every passing face. When she spots a table under one of the lamps, just by the bar, with only one seat taken, one corner of her lips moves slightly upwards. The Spider knows his clients remarkably well. A Vandal sitting there looks haggard even for an Eliksni, shreds of grey and violet cloth hanging from his lanky frame and a helmet that has certainly seen better days. She notices no House symbols on him, though the violet rags seem to be a remainder of Dusk attire.

She checks the knives again, then throws a bag of glimmer on the table in front of the Vandal and slips onto the other stool. He looks up and his eyes flicker aggressively yet curiously.

“Heard you liked Human card games,” she says.

The Vandal’s gaze flicks between her and the glimmer before he hisses in Terran with a distinct growly accent, “Yess… for what?”

“Twelve thousand,” Ór gestures to the bag. “In turn… I want information.”

His eyes narrow under the mask, “Information valuable.”

In response, she pulls out a sidearm from the holster and places it on the top of the glimmer pile. A nice piece, custom-made. Black market. Runi hisses in her ear.

“Tell me this isn’t your only gun. Ór. Ór, is this your only gun?!”

She ignores him and leans over the table. The Vandal ponders the offer for a moment, then nods. As he takes out a card deck and shuffles it, she hears Runi’s distressed whines over the comms.

“You know what? I take it back, all of it back. If you win this, I’m never gonna complain about you playing with Drifter again. Ever. But if you lose your only gun and get killed in this hellhole, I’m. Not. Rezzing. You.”

She gives him a reassuring mental nudge, at the same time doing maths in her head on how many knifes she could spare to get out of here alive.

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

 When she places her last card on the table, the Vandal’s eyes shine with disgruntlement but he says nothing. Runi, on the other hand, lets out a long, digital sigh of relief.

“Never pull something like this out again.” He sounds as if he was planning on buying Drifter flowers.

The Vandal gently pushes the bag of glimmer in her direction with his lower hand and folds the upper ones. Ór reaches for her sidearm and puts it back in the holster.

“Let’s talk,” she says, trying to look him straight in the eyes but lacking a pair to properly do so, “but not here.”

They slip through the back door she remembered from the first time she was here, into a trash alley full of empty crates and drained ether tanks. Her eyes sweep the area and when she is sure they are alone, she presses her luck.

“Velask,” she says, praying it’s the correct pronunciation, and pulls back her hood.

The Vandal, leaning his back against the wall with both pairs of arms crosses, flinches.

“I hear about you,” she continues in broken Eliksni, “Have no House. Once Dusk, but not like their doings. Want something different.”

She observes his figure as he is considering her words, left lower hand fidgeting with a knife by his belt.

“Who did you hear from?” He replies, mercifully using simple structures, “What do you want?”

“Just talk,” she shrugs. “Dusk hate humans. But you work for Reef people, no?”

“You are not of the Reef,” he narrows his eyes. “Terran. Light-child?”

Ór nods.

“Dusk fight Light-children. But not all Eliksni want to, yes?... And not all Light-children want to.” She pulls out one of her knives, takes it by the blade and reaches it out, the hilt pointing towards him. “They want peace.”

The Vandal stares at the knife, stunned, then glances at her, then back at the knife. After a long moment of silence, so deep Ór can almost hear her own heart thudding, he raises his upper arm and takes it.

“Why?” His voice is softer now. He is leaning against the wall again, seeming a lot more relaxed, and eyeing her curiously.

“Must know about Io. What happening there. What make your Whirlwind.”

He winces, but nods.

“We must fight. Together,” she presses on. “Alone we lose. Alone, there is Whirlwind again. Collapse again.”

The knife spins in his fingers. “Why’ve you come to me? I’m a bannerless mercenary. No fighter, no kell.”

“Your father fight for the Queen. After Cybele.”

“Long ago. Reef is chaos now,” he barks a laugh and gestures towards the door they have left through. “The Spider now rules it as much as the Queen.”

Ór observes him intently. She has to look up, he is towering over her even when slouched against the wall.

“No Queen,” she says slowly, “No kell. But you hear about House Light, no?”

“Misraaks,” he mutters, almost making it a question.

“Yes,” she smiles with relief. “Hear you look for him. As I do. Want peace like him.”

The Vandal holds her gaze. She cannot tell what his eyes express, but it is certainly not hostility.

“Meet me tomorrow.” He makes a slow, careful move with his lower hand, pulling out his own knife and handing it over to Ór. She takes it by the hilt and smiles again.

“Here?”

“Yes. And my friend.” He withdraws his hand just as slowly, then bows his head in a gesture the meaning of which is unknown to her. “My name is Iskaar.”

A silence falls, him waiting for her to reply, but she only nods. They share a long look, six blue eyes glowing dimly in the shadows, until Ór sheaths Iskaar’s knife by her belt and straightens up.

“Tomorrow, then.”

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

With her legs stretched out and back against a jagged rock, Ór is observing the evening—or at least what passes for it out here—settle over the Tangled Shore. In the Reef, day and night are a societal construct, and the only way she can distinguish one from the other is by lamps lighting up and turning off around Eliksni burrows. She watches from above as dozens of tiny lights vanish and darkness gradually takes reign over this scattering of junk and stone. Moaning of thick metal lines holding the shards of asteroids and wreckage together and distant gunfire are a constant hum she’s grown used to. It’s just how the Shore is – always torn apart and whimpering.

From her spot on a rock floating above the Cobble Ór spots an Awoken woman driving off on a Fallen Pike and a group of Dregs chasing her. A Cabal Legionary shoots one of them in the back and he plummets to the ground, his vehicle crashing and erupting with flames. The rest of the band dashes by undisturbed and in a moment it’s quiet again.

She loves this place.

It is chaotic, vast, and full of hideouts. Hunter-esque. But what appeals to her the most is the mere idea of a makeshift space built with hooks and cables and ship parts and rocks and Traveler knows what else, and the fact that someone could call it a home. It seems alive – ever growing, ever changing.

Runi materializes beside her.

“What’s the plan for tomorrow?”

“We’re meeting these two Eliksni, remember? From the bar?”

“Ah, yes…” he twitches his shell and Ór suspects he actually wanted to ask about something else. “You’re not telling the Vanguard, are you?”

She raises an eyebrow, “We’ve talked about this, right?”

“Yes, but… uh,” he sighs, “I don’t like doing things off the record.”

“But you said this plan was a good idea.”

“Mhm.”

“And you know what they would say.”

Ór respects the Vanguard. Sha admires how they carry the weight of the City on their own shoulders, steady and unmoveable like pillars of a temple, how they wiggle and bend but never break. They are not a pair of cowardly zealots blinded by the Light, as Drifter would put it. Zavala is scrupulous and protective, Ikora is clever and bold; together, they form a leadership she is willing to trust, a leadership under whose banner she would gladly march into a fight.

Yet there has always been something she couldn’t quite place, ever since she came to the Tower. For all their welcoming nods and words of encouragement, she has been flinching every time she saw Cyle run off, excited and proud, to report back at the courtyard; every time Shinon sat in an alcove reading a book borrowed from the Vanguard’s exclusive library. Always that needle of envious regret pinching her.

She knows what they would say.

Zavala wouldn’t even try to listen, he’d slam his fist and close the case before she could mutter a word. Ikora’s criticism would be gentler; she would draw her to one side and list all the flaws of her plan until Ór barely had the energy and equally little confidence to defend it. She can well recall the barely stifled weariness in Zavala’s eyes, she has seen Ikora’s hands shake, and she knows where that would be coming from. They were protective, they were worried, they needed to defend this City—this world—out of a sense of duty and genuine love for it. She could not act against that. She would not bear their contempt.

It is a weakness, maybe. Drifter would put it this way, she thinks, but again, he calls many things many names and she does not agree with most of them. To her, it’s a splinter stuck under her skin, painful and festering. A need of appreciation? A call for recognition? There are so many lives all around her, Titans building defences and Warlocks understanding things, fellow Hunters getting intel and cracking codes. Rivers of people overflowing her, a nameless pebble thrusted by the current. The Vanguard still refer to her as ‘a Guardian’.

Maybe that is also why she loves the Shore so much.

It is her own thing; because here, she is entirely on her own. No fireteam to save her hide, no voice in the comms telling her the correct path. When Drifter brought her here first, he just showed her around and that was it—now she musts fight her way alone. And it feels freeing, as much as the dread of the unknown is intoxicating.

Sleepiness creeps upon her as she watches lights below disappear one after another into the darkness of space. They must find cover; she wouldn’t like to be surprised by a Scorn patrol alone on an exposed rock, with her Ghost out.

“Come,” she rises to her feet and gestures at Runi, “have any idea of a spot for the night?”

“Couldn’t your new friend rent us a room?” He teases, and her lips quirk.

“I think he only accepts payment in handguns.”

[chaoticneutralwriter]

Twice Fallen

I implore thy loving kindness,

that even as thou didst stand beside thy dear Son as He hung upon the Cross,

so wilt thou also stand by me,

a poor sinner?

guardian demon! Jimin x reader

word count: 6.2k (the longest 6.2k of my life)

genre: angst, romance, comedy, supernatural, drama, slow-burn

Related Works: See Masterlist under Guardian Demon!Jimin

A/N: There’s a lot of Catholicism and religious things going on because well... Angels and demons LOL This is all a work of fiction inspired from real places so that’s my disclaimer here. Also it’s like...half edited xD Other than that....NAE PI TTAM NUNMUL

As the days went on, you become more riddled with an anxiousness that had overtaken every nerve in your body as a multitude of thoughts swirl around your head like an endless whirlpool. First and foremost of course, was the fact that you had exactly five days before you and your friend were due to fly out to attend the BTS concert. That alone was enough to put you in a loop, it had made you so restless that you had gone out of your way to ask co-workers if they could cover your shift — a needless attempt; you knew you were only trying to trick yourself into thinking those were your only first world problems. You shouldn’t have been as surprised when Emily had told you she had already agreed to take your shift once you came around to asking her.

“You asked me that like last week.” She had laughed good-naturedly, patting you on the shoulder in a sympathetic way. “Now I really think you need those days off if you’re starting to lose your memory like this.”

You really don’t have any memory of this though.

But it wasn’t hard to recall Jimin’s words of him promising you that he would make this trip work, no matter what. Not that you had doubted his abilities, but it’s never like you to leave everything up to one person (supernatural or not); you blame the many botched group projects in college you’ve been through for that. More so, you have come to realize, is that a small part of you had done it in hopes of being able to do something for Jimin that would repay even a fraction of what he’s doing for you. This was probably a small, insignificant thing in comparison but it was something you had some semblance of control over that didn’t necessarily require any otherworldly intervention. You should’ve known it was a losing battle from the start.

With that being said, any thoughts of the aforementioned guardian demon these days automatically leads you back to the conversation you had with Jungkook. It hasn’t faded since those three days ago, merely sitting on the back of your mind and only growing in size. You catch yourself spacing out a few times just thinking about all sorts of things that involve him.

Like maybe —  actually — giving up your soul to him.

….Yeah that was quite the conclusion you came to but you can almost pin point the exact moment when you did. It came to you when you had spilled your guts about Jimin to Jungkook on that rooftop garden; never having been able to put into words your honest thoughts about him until the other demon had practically cornered you into doing it. Despite the embarrassment threatening to consume you whole, it was eye opening for you in which you’ve accepted that the only way you can come close to repaying Jimin was to give up your life to him or at least promise it in due time and… you’re okay with that idea.

Weird and concerning, rightfully so but it’s like the half of you that thinks this is utterly mad and the other, more nihilistic side of you had come into terms with one another in the form of one sole agreement that if it had to be any demon, better it be him right?

As they say, you’re only here for a good time, not a long time.

You exhale through your nose in a quiet huff of laughter, subtle enough that the lady passing by behind you doesn’t pay you any notice as you’re restocking the jewellery racks. Today is one of those rare moments that you’re given a task out on the floor away from cash for once and though you’re elated at being able to do something else for a change, your thoughts don’t revolve around whether or not you can fit just one more pair of earrings on this already overstuffed looking hook.

Even if you had settled on the idea of giving your soul to Jimin, the most important question is how? Theoretically, it seems simple enough, at least what you’re picturing in your head — you tell him you want to do it, he says yes and then gets you to sign it away in agreement in whatever form the contract is (maybe something similar to your contract with him now but altered? Who knows). Or maybe in your complete lack of knowledge in demonology, it’s way more complex than that. You could technically ask Jungkook…

Would that even be a good idea? You’re not sure, especially not after the talk you had with him — keeping that ‘good’ head of yours in tact and whatnot. But then again, you’re not entirely sure what he meant by it anyways. You pause your train of thought until a heaving sigh escapes past your lips, your shoulder deflating as your lips purse into a thin line when you realize; you don’t even have any means to contact Jungkook. He’s more of an entity who comes and goes with nothing to tether him to this world, so he’s expressed he’s never had the need for things like a mobile device.

Which means your other option for getting any type of information on this would be from the main demon himself; Jimin.

Except for two things.

One: how does one broach the topic of forfeiting their own soul over to their guardian demon? You suppose it’s not exactly an ‘over dinner’ sort of conversation. The closest thing to a timing you had in mind would be after the concert; fitting in a way where you get your wish fulfilled and now you must pay the price owed.

However, that leads you to two; you don’t have a single clue where the guardian demon in question had gone off to. The last you saw of him was when he had walked you home those nights ago and from then, you haven’t heard from him since. You’ve tried shooting another text and hell, even pushed aside your anxiety and pride to call him for the first time ever, only to receive no response for either occasion; just radio silence. And it’s not even on the matter of telling him you’re willing to give your soul up for him — he still hasn’t told you what your flight, where your tickets or your hotel is!

You force yourself to breathe in deeply before exhaling slowly. Relax, you still technically have time, you try to reassure yourself. Not as much as you want for not knowing some important travel details, but enough that you’d still be able to set off without a hitch.

You trust Jimin.

He hasn’t let you down yet, nor do you think he will any time soon.

You’re confident.

-

Rome, Vatican City

A sigh involuntarily escapes the demon’s lips as he takes in the view in front of him, having not imagined that he would be here, of all places after so many years. The city is alive even if it is late into the night, the piazza lit up to cast a romantic glow on the cobble streets as crowds of people continue to stroll around in leisure. It should be no surprise though; the mild spring weather is well under way here, so much that Jimin thinks it might even be above seasonal. That doesn’t stop him from wearing the long, black overcoat over his airy chiffon button down shirt and the way it billows out behind him as he strides down this Italian street has people turning heads thinking he should be in Milan rather than here, much less how warm he must be feeling underneath it.

It pulls a small smile from him, a small distraction from his purpose here and a last ditch effort to put himself in a better mood before he has to put on a cloaking spell, hiding him from any mortal eyes. Before long, Jimin is upon the entrance to the grand circular plaza. In the centre of it, he spots the unmistakable shape of the Egyptian obelisk, the tall monument sticking out like a sore thumb amongst the Roman-Catholic structures surrounding it. Strangely enough, the more he stared at it, the more Jimin begins to feel in-like with the structure — a nameless fixture in history that eventually had its roots erased, “christianized” and erected by some old fart named Pope Sixtus V to celebrate the triumph of the Church over paganism.

Ugh.

At least it was a witness to St. Peter’s crucification (or so it was apparently said).

Jimin rolls his neck, a twitch in the muscle that had it stiffen uncomfortably before he exhales loudly through his nose.

Right.

He reminds himself to be mindful of where he is, of what he’s about to do. He may have a get out of jail free card but it won’t be nearly enough credentials to win any favours here. So Jimin steels himself, squaring his shoulders and with much more effort than he wants to admit, he begins to make his way across the plaza into a demon’s lion den. He takes care in keeping pace, steps unfaltering and gaze hardened in resolution. Jimin maneuvers inconspicuously through the lingering crowds of tourist and locals alike with the grace of a seasoned dancer but no matter how much he ducks and weaves, he cannot escape the burning sensation of being watched like an ant under a magnifying glass by the figures that seem to close in on him with every step he takes to the basilica.

All 140 of them.

And they all seem to whisper in their harrowing voices, the same obtrusive word in his ear.

Demon.

Jimin is clenching his jaw and fists by the time he reaches the grandiose staircase, his nails digging into his clammy palms until they leave deep crescent indents. A ragged exhales passes his lips, a breath he hadn’t realized he’d been holding until now and it makes him chastise himself. He passed the Apostolic Palace just fine, not even a single sign of getting smote. If he’s breaking out into a cold sweat from a little bit of verbal intimidation here, then what good is he by the time he has to go inside?

Jimin’s eyes slide up to take in the building that has become one of the most symbolic landmark in the religious world and the reason for his odd visit to a place he should be avoiding at all cost.

The Papal Basilica of St. Peter in the Vatican, or otherwise simply known as St. Peter’s Basilica.

Its dome shape roof looms above him, an imposing shadow even if it is lit by a multitude of beams of spotlights along its base and all around the facade — the lights only adding to its size. Doesn’t help that at either ends of the steps are the statues of St. Paul with his golden sword and St. Peter, the man himself, as if they’re there to personally greet all those who enter this holy space; whether with open arms or a strike of sword in His name, Jimin is not sure.

The basilica is closed to the public, the hours of which it is open has long since passed but despite that, Jimin waits, fixed in his spot as he simply stares unseeingly, a myriad of events all leading up to this very moment passing before his eyes.

-

“I’m only going to say this once, so you better listen.” Jungkook states sternly after he knocks back his drink. He places his glass down on the sleek black marble bar top a little too roughly. For once, Jimin refrains from commenting, not wanting to anger the young demon who no doubt, has zero tolerance for banter right now. As they say, let sleeping tigers lie. So Jimin straightens more in his seat, giving Jungkook his full attention.

“First, you must seek the one who has been given the keys of the kingdom of heaven by His Holiness — the gatekeeper, St. Peter, at the place where he is buried. He will be your witness and judge.”

-

With a deep inhale, Jimin lets the cloaking spell encase him like a thin, dark veil and after releasing his breath, he finally takes his first steps upwards towards the basilica. The closer he gets, the heavier his feet seems to feel as if a weight is pushing down on him but he persists until he reaches the tall iron gate of the entrance. If he cranes his neck, he can just make out the relief of St. Peter being handed the keys by Jesus carved into the stone, below the central window where no doubt the pope had made his appearance to the masses. For the first time in his life, Jimin feels immensely smaller as he stands in-between the columns, their height seemingly never-ending as if they are reaching heaven itself.

He vehemently tears his gaze away, teeth chewing at his bottom lip as he works to loosen his muscles that have gone tense. It’s like his own body has developed a mind of its own and is screaming at him to leave, get away. But he pushes those warnings aside and within a few strides, he finds himself passing the threshold and into the atrium. Even though it’s only the entrance hall, he can already feel the grandeur of the basilica from its high dome ceilings and archways. Within this singular space, it embodies the old and new in its walls as ancient inscriptions and plaques commemorating popes who had seen the construction of this holy building and in the fine marble floor as coat of arms. To the right at the end of the portico, is the statue of Emperor Constantine and to the left is Charlemagne, both on noble steeds carved out of white marble that seem like they’ll come to life at any moment.

Jimin’s jaw clench and unclenches, a nervous tick as he surveys his surroundings and with a sweep of his dark eyes, they land on a pair of bronze double doors.

-

“When you enter the atrium, you will find five bronze doors; The Door of Death, The Door of Good and Evil, The Door of the Sacraments, The Central Door, and The Holy Door. You must past through ‘The Holy Door’ to evoke the passage from sin to grace — to show your willingness to make peace with God, restore what has been damaged in yourself and reshape your heart.”

-

It’s not hard to figure out which door Jungkook was referring to. As he stops just before them, Jimin can see the pictures in each panel along the length of it, depicting various scenes of man’s sin and his redemption through God’s mercy. His eyes trail from the infamous disobedience of Adam and Eve to Christ’s Baptism in the Jordan. They linger on The Need for Forgiveness for a while longer than he intended.

Just how forgiving can God be? Jimin wonders.

For all the times he’s heard angels preach about His benevolence, can God extend that mercy to even a demon?

Well, Jimin huffs a quiet laugh under his breath, God had forgiven man after all and he thinks that’s a bit of a stretch.

The door is normally bricked up, opened once every twenty-five years to celebrate the Holy Year but it will prove to be no issue for Jimin. It’s not a matter of how he’s going to pass through the doorway, more so it’s what will happen when he does.

-

Jimin sees Jungkook’s lips quirk up in the slightest and he gets the feeling that the grimace he’s trying to hold back still showed on his face.

“I’m telling you now brother, this is the easiest part of the process and even then, I can’t tell you what will happen when you pass through those doors.”

“So am I supposed to feel enlightened then?”

“More like I actually don’t know. When you’re a blank slate being indoctrinated into this, you don’t feel anything other than the feeling of having your soul bared. But you,” Jungkook pauses to point an almost accusing finger in Jimin’s direction, “you’re a demon, so it’s either going to tickle or you’ll have your soul ripped to shreds.”

-

All he knows is that he’s willing, and that has to count for something. At least, that’s what he hopes. His thoughts unconsciously drift to you briefly, finding himself holding onto the image like a beacon of light in the darkness and with a swallow, he steps forward. Jimin doesn’t get a face full of metal, in fact, not even so much as a shockwave of resistance like he expected that for a split second, he’s bemused at how easily he passes through.

But then he feels it.

Something spears right through him, an invisible force so strong that it leaves him winded, knees nearly buckling and he all but finds himself stumbling through to the other side, right into the central nave. He forgets where he is for a moment, trying to gather his wits as he takes in deep breaths, trying to calm his thundering heart but it seems almost futile. True to Jungkook’s words, the moment he passed through those doors, something had torn away not just the cloaking spell he had placed on himself, but almost everything about his being — the glamour that he wore, the face that he stole, his magic, everything. He’s never felt so exposed but as he raises a trembling hand to his eyes, it seems nothing about him has changed.

Jimin balls his hand into a fist, hoping to lessen the tremors but when they don’t stop, he kisses his teeth, slightly perturbed. He shouldn’t complain, rather he should be thankful that he’s still in one piece. After all, he only just crossed the first hurdle. Without wanting to dawdle or waste time, he boldly begins to make his way.

The nave is a sight to behold, the space so high and open with its coloured marbles, gold trimmings and ornate detailing of heavenly imagery. No doubt in the day, the place would be filled with people from all around the world wanting to be able to bask in the awe of the architecture, built by the hands of arguably some of the greatest artists the world has ever known, that embodies all of the majesty, strength and beauty of God.

But now, devoid of any life, it is enveloped in an eerie silence that the soft footsteps of his loafers on the marble floors seem magnified, his only source of light was the moon streaming through pockets in the high domes, casting a cool blue haze on everything, making it seem all the more like Jimin had entered into a spiritual realm.

He passes by pillars with their niches filled with statues of saints who had founded religious orders and along the perimeter of the transept and above the arches, are the twenty eight figures of the Christian and human virtues, staring down at him, watching as he makes his way further into the the nave towards the place he must go. Jimin keeps to averting his gaze downward, determined to push away the incessant itch that has begun to crawl along his skin, heart still pounding like he’s ran a marathon rather than walk at a brisk pace like he is now and he fears that it will give him away in this quiet atmosphere, the sound so much more defeaning to his ears.

Sweat begins to form along his hairline and soon he finds himself short of breath. It makes him slow to almost a stop, light-headedness washing over him and he has to blink away the dark spots that appear in his vision, feeling sick to his stomach. When he looks next, it seems like the long hallway ahead of him had elongated but when he looks up, he’s actually only a few metres away from being directly under the impressive Baroque Canopy. No wonder his skin felt like it was burning from the inside while he’s getting chills at the same time.

Running a hand through his hair, he hastens once again.

-

“If, by some miracle, you find yourself inside, make your way to the end of the nave, pass the Canopy and St. Peter’s tomb, until you reach the top of the cruciform. There you will find ‘The Chapel of the Cathedra’ where you will kneel before his throne.”

“Why not his tomb?” Jimin couldn’t help but to ask. It made more sense to go see the man directly where he was supposedly buried.

“It’s symbolic because it’s a place where St. Peter had always sat, teaching and instructing the faithful of Rome. It’s only appropriate that is where you will ‘learn’ about those teachings with the guidance of the Holy Spirit.”

-

The altar, for lack of better words, is grandiose — it’s structure solely created to enclose the wooden throne of St. Peter, displaying it in a manner to show the significance and worship of the holy relic. The chair is a combination of the original acacia wood and gilded bronze done by Gian Lorenzo Bernini. It’s richly ornate with bas-relief, the base which it sat upon is made of black and white marble with four gigantic bronze statues, making the chair look as if it was suspended in golden clouds. On either sides, there are statues of saints from the Latin and Greek Church. At the crown are the gilt and stucco of Gloria with a host of angels among the rays of light and billowing clouds.

And right at the centre is a window of Bohemian glass, divided into twelve sections, representing the Twelve Apostles with a single dove against it — the symbol of the Holy Spirit, the soul of the Church.

Jimin stood, stuck at the very borders where the pews begin, overwhelmed with apprehension but shockingly, entranced as well. He would imagine the two windows situated on either side of the apse would let in brilliant streams of warm, golden light from the afternoon sun, giving the place an even more mystical look that would easily ensnare anyone into becoming a believer. Now though, with the light of the moon, it appears just as ghostly as the rest of the basilica — sombre yet still hauntingly beautiful. Jimin swallows once, running his tongue along his dry lips before he summons the strength to force his legs into motion.

They were by far the hardest steps he’d ever taken, his feet feeling like lead as he drags them one excruciating step at a time until he all but collapses onto his knees once he reaches the dark wooden prayer bench. His skin feels like it’s breaking out into hives, the itch becoming so unbearable at this point that he thinks he’ll go mad and resort to ripping away his skin himself. Every muscle in him is tense, any small movements causing them to twitch and spasm painfully and when he finally cranes his neck to look up at the altar, he hears his bones crack.

The fog in his head threatens to overwhelm him, stun him into a stupor until he can do nothing but slowly wither away into ashes. He fights to stay alert and with much effort, tries to remember Jungkook’s next words.

-

“From here, it’s pretty simple… If you can call it that.” Jungkook says a little too off-handedly, as if he was discussing how to change the battery to a remote. “You take Him into your heart and say His prayer.”

“….There are a lot of ‘prayers’.” Jimin deadpans. He may be a demon, but all demons are aware of the ridiculous amounts of prayers said in His name or in any of the other holiness, whether from being hissed out in angry fury by crossing paths with angels or in more unlucky cases, through exorcising.

Jimin’s only familiar with the sign of the cross, uttered to him by a man who couldn’t have picked a worser day to piss him off (he almost felt bad for the police who had to find him the following morning).

Jungkook flips his pretty raven locks out of his face, lazily reaching to pour himself another glass as he reclines back into his seat.

“You’ll know the one.”

-

The younger demon said he would know the prayer once he’s here but his mind is drawing blanks, unable to even begin searching for any hints. Through his hazy vision, the dove appears to have a halo of light surrounding it, pulsating as if it had life. He stares, fixated on that one point, waiting for who knows what. Just when the silence became too stifling, he hears a sound. It’s so soft that he can’t decipher it, much less if it was real or something he hallucinated in his delirious mind. It sounded like a whisper but he can’t make out any words, at least, not ones he recognizes.

It comes and goes, flowing like it’s being carried by an invisible breeze and before him, the dove seems to glow even brighter. It compels him to close his eyes and past a dry throat, he takes in a breath and from his lips, the first lines spills forth.

“Deus meus

ex toto corde poenitet me omnium meorum peccatorum…”

The words burn like a hot poker being pricked along his skin, a poison pouring from his own mouth as every line was another stabbing pain. Jimin speaks until his knuckles turn white from gripping the bench so tightly, nails digging into the wood and causing small cracks to form in the grain but still through gritted teeth, he continues the prayer faithfully.

“…. Ideo firmiter propono, adiuvante gratia Tua,

de cetero me non peccaturum peccandique occasiones proximas fugiturum.”

As he reaches the final verse, his once porcelain face is drained of any colour, marred by fissures and cracks, the flesh burnt at the edges like paper caught on fire with spidery veins snaking along the surface, revealing him for what he truly is underneath. His body shakes uncontrollably and with one last sharp inhale, he utters.

“Amen.”

-

“So I say the ‘prayer,’” Jimin reaffirms, resisting the urge to use air quotations. “And then that’s it? Done?”

Jungkook throws his head back with a laugh, his bunny teeth flashing as he tries to reel himself back in. He shakes his head, almost out of pity. Jimin doesn’t miss that, nor does he like it and his narrowing eyes prompts the younger demon to elaborate.

“You can very well be ‘done’ right on the spot, granted if you even make it that far — I’d honestly be very impressed if you do.”  Jungkook pauses to take a sip of his drink, smacking his lips a little when he swallows the dark liquid. “What’s more important is what comes after you say the prayer; if your will has yet to be broken, it will appear.”

“What will?”

“The Chalice.”

-

Jimin’s eyes, which had been shut tightly, snaps open with trepidation as they wildly scan before him. He tries to collect himself but only just as a gold shape catches his eyes. A hoarse chuckle escapes him unintentionally, the sound a mixture between disbelief and immense relief.

The chalice sits unassumingly on the ornate communion table a few steps in front of him, as if it had been there the entire time. It doesn’t shine with lustre nor is it bejewelled with any precious gems, Jimin was surprised that he had noticed it at all. But nevertheless, he’s relieved to see it there; the fruit of his labour thus far. He takes a moment to just breathe, inhaling and exhaling deeply, damp forehead pressing into the wooden prayer bench. His legs feel like stone, as if anchored down on the spot but he knows he has to eventually get up.

He’s so close.

Jimin grunts, hauling himself up on shaky arms by using the bench as leverage. He leans back heavily on it, limbs protesting as his eyes lock on the gold cup that was still there, beckoning him. He takes another minute to steady himself, running his tongue over his dry, cracked lips and once he’s sure he’s stable enough, he begins to make his way. He nearly falls over from that one step alone, arms flying back to catch himself on the prayer bench just in time. Shutting his eyes, it takes everything in him not to curse aloud, given where he is right now so Jimin settles in letting out a frustrated growl instead. Once the feeling passes, he clenches his teeth and tries again.

This time, Jimin manages, keeping his steps to a minimal with one arm clutching around his midsection as if to hold himself upright. It’s a slow process, feeling like he’s travelling at a snail’s pace but eventually, he limps his way there. When the table is within reach, his hands slams down onto the surface to brace himself, a loud bang reverberating throughout the basilica. The force of it disturbs the chalice slightly, causing it to slosh the liquid inside and spill over on the white tablecloth. Jimin recoils on instinct at the sight.

Up close, he can see the finer details of the cup; how dull and worn it actually looks as if it had been used for over centuries but despite the scratches and scuffs, it had withstood time.

But that’s not where the focus of his attention is.

-

Jungkook’s taken on a more morose demeanour, now only fiddling his half empty glass lost in his own thoughts —  or perhaps reminiscing, Jimin’s not sure. Suddenly, he breaks out into a smile that doesn’t quite reach his eyes as his gaze flits to meet Jimin’s.

“The Chalice will appear to only those who are deemed worthy. It is the final act you must do in order to prove your faith and commitment, to cleanse your soul and begin anew.”

A beat passes, wherein Jimin sits in turmoil with his own emotions. This entire ordeal was a lot to take in, the things Jungkook had told him sounding crazier than the last. Everything could go wrong so easily and so quickly that at some point, he questioned the validity of Jungkook’s method but shoot those doubts down when he reminds himself that not just anyone would know the particulars of this in such great detail.

“So do I baptize myself in the holy water? Get a new name and everything?” Jimin asks jokingly in an attempt to break the tension but even he hears the uncertainty straining his voice.

“You’re not going to anoint yourself with it.” Jungkook sighs, taking his glass in his hand if only to scrutinize it against the light. Then, he gestures it towards Jimin.


“You’re going to drink it.”

-

He stares unblinkingly into the pool of water inside the chalice, watching it as if at any second, he’ll see a vision within its depths. But all he sees is the faint glow of his irises reflected back at him —  two crimson drops that threaten to transform the pure water into blood.

Jungkook’s words continue to echo around in Jimin’s head, the audacity of it all never leaving.

Drink it, he says.

Of all the crazy things Jungkook had told him that night, that one takes the cake. It’s no myth that holy water to a demon is like arsenic to a human; a drop of it would greatly weaken even the strongest of demons, burning skin and bone like acid, anything more and you’ll be nothing but ashes.

So to go as far as to consume it.

A bead of sweat rolls down Jimin’s clenched jaw, a million thoughts running through his mind. A part of him admits he’s terrified of what will become of him should he choose to drink the holy water, this being the closest he’s ever been to staring death in the face. He’s lived without fear of anything for so long because he was the to be feared and even death didn’t scare him because he had nothing to lose.

Now, that’s all changed. Now, he has everything to lose.

The memories, the sounds, the scent, the warmth….

He doesn’t want to lose you.

Jimin draws in a shuddering breath, eyes slipping shut if only to escape to those feelings for a moment of reprieve. It brings a strange sense of comfort to him, a balm to his aching muscles and a moment of clarity to his hazy mind. He longs to go back to your little home, to catch just even a glimpse of your face but he’s here, a million miles away, battered, vulnerable and probably looking like every bit of vermin angels think demons are.

Yet by some miracle, he’s alive.

He’s alive when he should’ve been dead from the moment he walked through those doors.

Which means he has a chance.

Slowly, Jimin opens his eyes again, takes in his final moments and tentatively, he reaches for the cup.

-

“It’s supposed to be a painless process, which is why it’s foolproof — angels being ‘ethical’ and all that. But you’re a demon so if you die, you can’t blame me.” Jungkook disclaims, shooting back his drink and immediately begins to fill it up again. The younger had long opted to just have the bottle beside him rather than needing to wave the bartender down to ask for a refill every time. Jimin doesn’t complain as he too needed to refill constantly; he’s lost track of how many glasses he’s downed in order to swallow this hard pill the younger demon had just given him. They’re about halfway done with their second one.

“But now that you know, do you still want to go through with it?”

Jungkook’s pinned him with a hard stare, more serious than Jimin’s ever seen him but it’s with very good reasons.

He’d basically been told he has a fifty-fifty chance of killing himself in the process on three different occasions, willingly.

A humourless laugh passes through his full lips, wondering briefly if he should’ve taken his chances on the fellow he cancelled on. Then again, Jungkook’s someone he knows and trusts, so he thinks the odds are better, if only slightly. Jimin leans over and takes the bottle, pouring more liquor into his glass until it was about half full before placing it down on the bar counter.

Lifting his glass, he swirls it once and then holds it out towards Jungkook to toast.

“Then can I get an ‘amen’?”

Jungkook’s eyes widen, mouth dropping a little, completely appalled and Jimin is prepared to catch the other’s glass should it slip from his loosen grip. Thankfully, the younger demon snaps out of his shock before that happens, resting the crystal glass on the tops of his muscular thigh. Then, as Jimin’s words finally sink into him, Jungkook cocks his head, looks him dead in the eyes and says.

“You’re a crazy son of a bitch.”

Jimin can only laugh in response because he can’t disagree there before he brings the glass to his lips.

-

There’s a strong metallic taste that reaches his tongue first, one he can probably attribute to the old cup, but then comes the first sip.

The effect is immediate.

Jimin begins to choke violently, gasping and retching so hard that he doesn’t realize he’s dropped the chalice until he hears a resounding clang of metal hitting marble. The rest of its contents spews out, soaking the floor and table but he doesn’t have the mind to think if he was meant to drink everything because all he feels is the burning.

A white hot pain racks through every nerve in his body as if he’s being incinerated from the inside out. It makes him keel over, clawing at his throat until they leave deep red marks in their wake and a guttural, agonizing scream finally tears past his clenched teeth. Jimin writhes and convulses, eyes screwing shut and trying desperately to drown out this torture but his limbs feel like they’re being torn apart and his head is about to split open. He’s so out of his mind that above his own sounds of torment, the ringing in his ears begin to sound more like the notes of an organ being played.

He doesn't know how long he lays there, slowly suffocating to death but he can’t stand this any longer. With wild abandon, Jimin’s eyes shoot open, searching for something, anything, anyone, only to meet the serene gazes of the numerous saints and heavenly hosts painted into the stucco ceiling.

Please. He cries, pleads, begs.

Make it stop.

He feels his body seize before all strength leaves him, his hands falling limp to his side and his vision blurs until they can no longer see past the inky black tears that begin to stream from his eyes.

Everything falls silent.

And then he feels nothing.

[oberynmartell]

the rise | a rise of skywalker fix it fic

The icy mist has birthed a wetness to his clothes that has him shifting in discomfort, the loose fabric sticking to his arms and the small of his back. It had been a few moments since Ben Solo had first blinked back into consciousness, moaning softly in a vain attempt to expel the pain from his chest.

Sparks of pain shoot through him like bolts of the lightning that had imprisoned him there, and though his eyes remain closed Ben knows that had they been open, he would be able to see the true extent of his injuries. The fall was great, greater still with the cold chill of the air and the echo of Sidious' dark laughter.

But it seemed the strength of his soul was greater, and though his body was battered and broken, Ben remained.

And yet the pain was great, so awesomely, terribly great, that for a moment Ben felt paralyzed. As though he had been razed with flame and doused with icy water, as though he had been broken apart and stitched back together too many times to count. For it seemed that with the name of Ben Solo, the pain of the boy had returned.

He was no longer Kylo Ren, the infamous Supreme Leader, known across the galaxy as a man of no mercy, who could hide every emotion behind a helm of black steel. He was no longer able to mask his true expressions, his true self, as his grandfather once had. He was Ben Solo, son of Leia and Han, nephew of Luke, grandson of Padmé and Anakin. He was the blood of the Solos, the Nabberie's, the Organas. The last Skywalker. He could sit up.

Every instinct in his body was on edge, reaching for her. For Rey.

He groaned, thinking of her so far above, so far out of reach. Facing down Darth Sidious without aid, as his grandfather and his uncle once had.

Flashes of memory sparked through him, so crystal clear that it was as though his body had fallen back through time. The forests of Takodana, the weight of her body in his arms, the way she had resisted him, as though her mind was a barred trap. The way she had called to him, called his name, his true name, how her fingertips had brushed across his, so warm and smooth that even lightyears away he had been able to feel them.

Ben lets his head droop to the side, so tired that he could barely breathe. He can feel blood slip down his cheek from where his skin had split upon the bone of his brow, tongue tasting metal from the blood that seeped from his bruised lips into his mouth.

There was a dull humming in the air, a thrumming of the Force that made him lift his eyes.

The chasm he had been thrown into was dark as pitch, the mist too heavy and too dark to see through. He wondered what waited for him in the darkness, just out of sight, just out of reach. As far away from him as Rey.

“These are your finals steps, Ben.” says the voice of Obi-Wan Kenobi, so close that it seemed as though he stood just out of reach, as though his body was being hidden by the darkness. “Rise and take them.”

"Rise, Ben." calls Ahsoka Tano. At his side Ben's bloodied fingers twitch. He wonders when the pain will fade, when he will once again see the faces of his parents, when he will die.

"Rise." says Kanan. Ben can see Snoke's crimson throne room set aflame, the Imperial guards, the way he had fought at her side, had been so proud to fight beside her. How he had killed the man who had spent so many years delighting in the torture of him, the man who had hurt her. "Rise, Ben."

Ben's eyes clear as his gaze shifts into focus. He can see the stars above, twinkling and bright, as though the galaxy around them was not in danger of obliteration.

"The light..." says Ahsoka. Her voice is easy, clear, just as he has heard it a thousand times during his meditations. "Feel the light, Ben."

But this time, unlike so many times previous, Ben Solo does not turn away from her words. He does not push the light from his mind and focus on the mask, the bloody red of his sabre, the title that looms above him, just ever so slightly out of reach. He lets himself think of the light, as he is bid. He thinks of Rey, of his father, of his mother. Of his mistakes.

Another voice rises with the others, another notable figure Ben can hear but not see. "Every Jedi who ever lived, lives in you, Ben." says Qui-Gon Jinn, voice accented but no less familiar.

Ben breathes heavily. His shirt is torn, dark enough to mask the stain of blood that seeps into the fabric. "The force surrounds you, Ben." says another, somehow the most surprising of all of the voices. It is the one Ben has heard a thousand times, ten thousand times, a hundred thousand times. The voice he has listened to above all, trusted above all.

"Feel the force flowing through you, Ben." calls the voice of Anakin Skywalker, the voice of the fearsome Darth Vader. The voice of his grandfather, the man he has so fully trusted to lead him.

“Feel the Force, Ben.” says Anakin. His voice is light, tempered, not allowing the Sisyphean exertion Ben feels as he shifts upright to bleed into it.

“Feel it, Ben.” he says. “Let it life you.”

He clutches his belly, feeling warm blood slide through his fingers, bloodied bottom lip curled in rage as his thinks of Sidious so far above, alone with Rey. "Let it lift you." urges Anakin. "Rise. Rise. Rise, Ben."

Rey's vision swims with the tears she tries to will away. She turns to face the mouth of the chasm, squinting with determination, as though she could turn back time with dogged stubbornness alone. "Be with me." she murmurs, her eyes pressed tightly closed. She thinks of Luke, of Master Yoda, of all the Jedi she had always heard tales of.

She thinks of Ben most of all, the skills she had learned from him, of the things she had seen inside his mind, the pain, the sadness, the loneliness, how a man so vastly different from her somehow held a perfect mirror of her own mind.

"Be with me." she whispers.

Mist rose in swirls of icy fog, swarming the air with a deathly chill that raises the hair on the back of her arms as gooseflesh rushes down her skin. For a moment she had thought...

It was as though something called her attention there, pulled her to look upon it. But with a vast and sickening disappointment Rey she was met only with jagged rock and icy mist, too painful a reminder of the man she had watched fade away all too quickly within.

She swallowed down a sob, feeling as though her throat had been stuffed with rough-spun cotton, and turned to face the man at the forefront of the room. He laughed cruelly, his skin a sickly green hue, so creased with age that it seemed thin as paper.

But there! She’s sure of it now, for her instincts have not failed her yet. A vibration that sweeps through her, a niggling tickle, as the pull within her grows, as though a hook were pulling at the inside of her belly, urging her to turn back.

She turns in time to find a hand appearing at the ledge. Bloody fingers, long and thick, callused from so long wielding a blade. The voices at the forefront of his mind grow louder, near deafening, as the last Skywalker rises from the pit that had been thought strong enough to defeat him.

"We stand behind you, Ben." insists Qui-Gon Jinn, firm. Rey watches as Ben summons himself up to his full height, and though his face is bloodied and his gait is stuttered by a heavy limp, his expression has never been more resolute.

Rey fights a smile, a pleased tear rolling down her cheek. Pleasure bubbles within her as she finds the fall has not killed him after all, and she can feel warm relief surge in her belly and twist through her, and as Ben crosses the cave to stand at her side, his mind once more begins to swarm with voices— though now he is not the only to hear.

"Rise in the force." says Master Yoda. Rey's eyes widen as she tries to place the sound, her head swiveling to peer behind her in confusion, but when she meets Ben’s eyes, finding them calm and sincere, shw understands.

Ahead of them the gaunt face of Sidious has fallen at the sight of Ben's return and Rey cannot help but feel pleasure at the sight, at the heavy set of the mans brow and the downturn of his lip. She knows what will come next, and from the expression on his weathered face before them, she is not the only one.

Ben’s fingers twitch at his side. A vibration fills the room, the lightsaber that had been thrown clear across the chasm beginning to tremble where it lay.

"Rise." says Obi-Wan, Rey nearly flinching at the volume of his voice. It is as though he stands in the room, as though he understands what is to come, what they are to face.

All at once the chamber flies apart with sound, echoing with the ruckus sounds of battle. From the armada above that has been launched into actor to the bolts of lightning that fly from Palpatine's fingertips, the next voice that comes to her is nearly drowned out, and Rey strains to hear.

"Rise!" says Qui-Gon, shouting now.

Crags of black stone crash around them where they crumble under the violence of Sidious’ lightning. But they so not flinch, do now fall back and cower under the sheer violence. Ben stands tall at her side, trembling, injured, blood dripping from his brow like tears of ruby, but his eyes are angry and his anger is lethal.

Another voice now, a voice which has been at the back of Ben's mind for longer than he can recall. "In the heart of the Jedi lies their strength." says Kanan, voice is clear, powerful, ringing in their ears sharp as a bell. Rey lifts her blade, knees bent as she assumes the position Ben has been on the receiving end of more times than he can bear to think of.

He extends his hand to the side, feeling the vibration of the Force lance off the tips of his fingertips like pins and needles. A sabre flies into his open hand, the weight of cold metal familiar to Ben in a way nothing else had been since that night so long ago at the Temple.

With a flick of his wrist Ben deflects the violet bolts of lightning that Sidious had concentrated upon them, stepping in front of Rey in an effort to shield her from the attack, deflecting the jolts so they crash back into the wall beside their master.

"Rise." says Obi-Wan. Ben can feel his presence in the Force and, even without turning, he knows she can feel him too, can hear him, can hear the generations of Jedi that speak directly to them.

Ben Solo smirks, the same smile his father bad become infamous for, as Rey comes to stand at his side, wielding his grandfather's lightsabre with an ease that has warmth flooding Ben’s stomach in a way he can’t quite understand.

Palpatine is shaken, the creases of age in his cheeks deepening as his frown does, and Ben can only feel pride. Pride in Rey, pride in his mother, pride in his own abilities, pride in the Jedi that stand at their sides and lend their strength.

"Ben...” Luke Skywalker says to his nephew, voice echoing along the crags of black stone. “The force will be with you."

Rey staves off the next attack, gritting her teeth as she holds her own, boots digging into the sandy dirty beneath as she braces herself. She stalks closer, predatory, a sneer on her face as she staves off another attack. Ben follows her lead and together they come before Sidious' twisted throne.

Ben can feel it, the pull of the Force, the strength of the Jedi, the courage of his mother, the bravery of his father, the resilience of his grandfather, the outrage of the fallen Jedi. He can feel it all and infinitely more, can hear them speak and feel their energy, as though they stood at their sides like silent sentries.

Another voice has Ben's eyes burning, mouth twisting and when his mother speaks, her voice is as clear and bright as it had been the last time she spoke to him, as though she stood proud and brave just beside him, leading her own attacks on the man who had caused her so much pain. "Always." she says.

Into Ben solo's hand lands another saber, the activated blade bright as the silver-blue moonlight that slants in from above. Rey watches him, pride etched on her face as surprise fills her eyes. She laughs as Palpatine falters, spots of colour high on his lifeless cheeks.

"I am all the Sith." Sidious spits, seething, as though reminding himself of power he does not feel.

The last Skywalker lifts his gaze to meet the Emperor's clouded eyes. "And I," Ben Solo says from his place beside Rey, and lifts his mother's lightsaber. "Am all the Jedi."

They had been brought to him so that he might feed off their power, sap their strength and take it for himself. Their coming together had been meant to be their undoing.

But instead of weakening the world, as Sidious had so painstakingly planned, instead of remaking the world in his vision of cruelty and horror, they had only strengthen each other, had only worked together. They who were meant to give up their strength to regain his power, to be used to restore the legacy he had built upon the backs of a thousand dead Jedi.

But instead they stand together, the Last Skywalker and the Jedi from Jakku, two halves of the dyad that had been birthed by the Force and nurtured by fate, two halves of the same whole. And it is with their final blow, with three crossed sabres and a legion of Jedi at their back, that Sidious is finally fallen, finally destroyed in so complete a way that no come back could ever be possible.

Ben collapses, sapped of strength, and Rey is at his side. She rests a hand upon his shoulder, fingers spread as she once more demonstrates the true extent of her power, sealing every wound that dotted his body, every bruise that marred his skin and blurred his vision.

He’s overcome, unable to temper the pleasure and happiness and pure, unfiltered love that pours from him. And just as he opens his mouth to speak, he finds Rey has found something else to occupy his lips.

Her kiss is deep and tender, encompassing every emotion she cannot find the words to say, every meaning she hopes to convey. Her fingers brush across his bare cheek and she smiles as she finds the skin unmarred by the scar she had on e given him, her smile only widening as he pulls her closer, brings her into the comfort and protection of the ring of his arms.

Time passes in a way Ben doesn’t care to count, content to feel only her lips upon his, her palms on his cheeks, her hair soft as silk as it falls through his fingers, pulled loose from the buns he had so often seen her in by the exertion of the battle.

He watches her when she finally pulls away, memorising every inch of her face, every dark freckle splashed across her cheeks like constellations, every expression, every emotion that floods her eyes as she looks upon him.

“Will you come with me?” he asks softly, offering his hand and his whole hand too. “Will you join me?”

Rey swallows hard and just as Ben begins to feel the crushing weight of loneliness begin to press down upon him, her hand presses into his. “I will.” she says after a moment. Her hand is rough and firm from so many years working in the desserts of the hateful planet she would never again have to return to, so much smaller in his hand that he feels as though he might hurt her. “Ben’s hand...As I’ve always wanted to.”

[aurorxbanks]

hello my friends !!! it is i, chelly, once again to throw my babie at you all :~) i hope y’all will love miss aurora just as much as i do, bc she holds a special place in my heart and i’m really excited to have her here! i think she’s gonna adore all of y’alls muses so :~) please don’t be shy, hit me up, i’ll be around in an inbox near you soon too to plot and chat! okay, before i ramble too too much, here is her way too long bio. love youuu

             * : ･ﾟ･✧･ meet aurora marlowe banks ･✧･ﾟ･ : *

tw: ptsd, trauma, construction accident, panic attacks, hospitals

TL:DR: oof, i struggle with coming up with a too long, don’t read for miss aurora BUT at her core, she’s just this sweet child who grew up in a really close family in maine. the banks got thrown for quite the loop after her father suffered from a massive accident, leading to many medical complications and hardship for her family. she suffers from pstd and panic attacks as a result, but she’s been blessed with a strong support system too and she manages well enough, all things considered. at the hotel, she’s a vet tech and is in her final year of becoming a veterinarian at the university of illinois - chicago. so naturally, a huge animal lover but food is also her love language and those of her two favorite ways to bond with new people. she’s timid and shy, a little naive and gullible, but a truly amazing friend and someone who loves and cares with her entire being. a good little egg and i hope y’all will love her as much as i do.

wanted connects: bc i don’t want them to get lost in the novel abys ... i’d love for her to have some vet pals, or rlly just pals who work in the pet daycare with her! if you’re a fellow cook, she’s going to ask you what your favorite recipes are with a pen and pad in hand so ... get ready for that one! she’d love a running buddy, or someone who’d spur of the moment sign up with her for marathons and such so like, bring them on, she’s an early riser so will motivate you to go train with her at 6 am - you have been warned! she’s only ever been with a few people in her life sexually and romantically, but she is very very bisexual so having an ex partner or a once upon a time crush/unrequited love could be hella !!! oof i cannot see aurora hating anyone, but something of a frenemies situation could be angsty and fun. they first met bc aurora almost ran them over while she was rollerblading and changing her song so the phrase ‘don’t text and skate’ came to exist askdf i’ve also got it in my head that her sister natalie’s fc is alycia debnam carey and her sister winifred’s fc is katherine/josephine langford so ... okay  i’m just going on and on here huh okay i’ll shut up

now, onto the WAY too long biography i wrote for her ... but here we go :~)

tw: ptsd, trauma, construction accident, panic attacks, hospitals

*:･ﾟ･✧･ who am i?: the coastal town of kennebunkport maine, tucked into the southern half of the state, was what aurora called home for most of her life. it’s a tiny little town with a population just under four thousand people, but it was during the summers that the area would come to life. her father, artie, was an architect per his degree but was a contractor by trade so he was constantly finding work to further develop what was becoming more and more of a tourist attraction each summer. so he had gotten to know the people in the town well, was often working construction jobs as he had a relatively small crew, and that meant aurora and her mother emilia were always out and about. whether they were bringing artie a bagged lunch on his break, or going down by the shore to collect sea shells even if it was the winter season, they’d become quickly and easily acquainted with everyone. and aurora wasn’t their first daughter, either, she has two older sisters: natalie and winifred aka natty and winnie. both of whom are named after their grandmothers, but winifred will tell you she got the short stick but thank god for hocus pocus because winnie is far cuter. anyways. so for the three little ducklings to be following their mama emilia, the town knew the banks family well and they were very well liked. they spent a lot of time on the beach as soon as the weather was warm enough, but they also liked driving the rv out onto the sand when it was too cold, too. they’d wear gloves and bundle up and the big fluffy german shepherd named scout would frolic along with the girls chasing after him, too. aurora spent just as much time chasing after her two older sisters, too, just wanting to keep up with them whether it be in school, or at home, or wherever. artie and emilia were high school sweethearts, moving to kennebunkport after they got married, and they were just exceptionally close and in love, maintaining their family wasn’t difficult. aurora was always a little quieter than her sisters, shier and slower to jump into conversation about whatever book she was reading or joining in on the chalk drawing all over the sidewalks with the neighbors, but she was every bit as present as her sisters were, too. it was truly a community, and one that aurora didn’t ever realize that she was going to be needing as desperately as she did after the accident.

*:･ﾟ･✧･ a new reality: when she was ten, her father was in a massive accident on one of his worksites as he was building a new beach house on a newly developed property. which was more of a mansion, truly, and the landscaping was still being mulled over. it left for some interesting scaffolding, even fault in some spots, and it was one wrong step that left her father falling a few floors down onto a bed of hard gravel below. as a result, he was in the hospital for the better part of a year as he suffered from a severe head injury as well as a broken back that took too long to heal as he was especially susceptible to complications given his type one diabetes rendering him immunocompromised. needless to say, aurora and her family spent a lot of time in the hospital during that beyond difficult year. emilia, the champion mama that she is, kept it together as best she could but the banks were truly a broken family. what they were going through, the way in which three young girls were being tested, and the medical bills that stacked up quickly … it was honestly a miracle that they had any sort of sanity at all. as a sort of escape, aurora spent a lot of time in the children’s unit of the hospital, because she tried making friends with some of the other kids her age ( since being around her sisters all of the time was also difficult for her ). she was there often enough, and they’d play tag when the nurses weren’t looking, and would eat in the caf together on the good days, and there were a lot of wholesome memories that aurora got to make when she wasn’t by her dad’s side. there was, however, the heartbreaking nights where a nurse would stop by and take aurora aside, tell her that one of her friends at the hospital had passed, and it was never news that she stomached well. of course, how could any kid? but aurora feels everything, all of her emotions, with her entire being. a lot of it just became too much all at once, and that’s when her panic attacks began. when it all became too heavy, in the stark white halls of the hospital wings, aurora would find herself curled up in herself barely able to breathe let alone think … the nurses, the doctors, they were incredible of course, but truly it was being surrounded by her family once more that allowed for little aurora to center herself again.

it was a little over a month before artie came out of his coma, and it was an even longer and slower recovery than was expected. seeing her father in the hospital bed, unresponsive, unsure if she would ever get to talk to him or sit in his lap as he read her a story, wondering if he was going to get to see her play soccer in the fall on the a team … for a young kid, it was a lot. it was a lot of trauma for a long time. but artie did wake up, which was a miracle in his own right truthfully, but so was his recovery. it was a long ten months of intensive rehabilitation, repeated fMRIs, and pitfalls but god was it a well-needed moral boost for the banks family. and even though there was still so much work to be done toward artie’s full recovery, if there was to be one, at least he was alive. at least aurora still had her daddy, and that made all the difference. as head injuries can be difficult, and unpredictable, it was uncertain what brain functioning and part of his brain would be affected fully. and as aurora had come to find, her father’s personality, the frontal lobe? he was still that very same person she had known her entire life, and emilia wholeheartedly agreed. the main differences came from his body, as he couldn’t move in the same ways anymore, he had to essentially re-learn how to sit up, stand, walk, but he did. in conversation, the recall on certain words, phrases, experiences .. it comes and goes, some things are there and others need a hefty amount of prompting, but the banks will live with that over the alternative every day of the week. it’s been nearly ten years since, and artie has come such a long way. no longer working on-sight anymore, he still works alongside his partner in their architecture consulting business. so to put it lightly, the recovery was better than even the doctors had come to expect. but the trauma, well that has always lingered with aurora. all that she had seen, had heard, the beeping of the monitors that her father was hooked up to, the sterile scent of the sheets that would replace the bed her friends in the pediatric ward occupied … it still haunts her. every night before bed, and every morning when she’d wake, she’d have to make sure her parents were still there, alive, breathing, able to respond to her when she’d reach for their hand. if mama was napping and aurora couldn’t hear that faint snore, she’d have to check on her. if dad fell asleep at his desk from exhaustion, she’d poke him awake with a few tears in her eyes. and even if it’s been ten years, it’s still something she’s likely to do with whoever she’s living with. luckily, when the time came, her college roommate understood.

*:･ﾟ･✧･ years to come: just to make it through the recovery year, and the rehabilitation years that followed, aurora leaned heavily on her sisters. they were three little peas in a pod and aurora’s never been closer with anyone else in her life and she never will be. they were, and for the most part still are, iseparable. they’ve got a groupchat that’s active at any hour of the day, has been for the past decade, hell even before unlimited texting they were on aim - and aurora wouldn’t have it any other way honestly. the only reason she did decently in school is because of her sisters’ influence, as they’re a few years her senior. they always kept aurora in the right spirits, along the right path, and a lot of that probably came from emilia’s request but aurora didn’t mind. she wasn’t ever looked at as the annoying little sister, but as an equal, and she truly appreciated that and them more than she could ever express. their bond is unbreakable, and it’s been tested time and time again, but it’s where aurora’s strong sense of loyalty comes from. it’s also a huge contributor to her endless ability to care for others. which, that particular trait has been responsible in getting her heart broken on more than one occasion, as aurora was the type to fall hard and fast especially when it came to any beautiful person glancing her way in the halls. but again, she had her sisters to protect her, to nurture any broken hearts or help mend any rocky friendships that teenage girls can have. if she ever accidentally hurt someone else, or if she was the one who got crushed, that ability to feel every little thing with her entire being would do a number on her, but natty and winnie were always right by her side. artie and emilia give the world’s best hugs, and always know when something’s up with their daughter. it allowed for aurora to grow, to express herself fully, to feel accepted despite her niuances. she’s found it difficult at times to connect with people her own age considering her mature experiences, but she’s done her best and the people who truly care for her have remained, and others have faded into the background, and that’s okay. aurora knows that not everyone is meant  to be in your life forever, but those who are, are held closely to her heart.

*:･ﾟ･✧･ onward: it was a difficult enough decision for aurora to venture out beyond her small town in maine for the big city .. truth be told, she likely wouldn’t have if it weren’t for winnie having made the move first. natty, the eldest, attended colby college in order to stay close to the family and for awhile there, aurora likely dreamt of doing the very same. but winnie was offered decent aid northwestern university, and she really wanted the opportunity to branch out and get out of the small corner of the work that the banks had been occupying for so many years. and while aurora and natty were a little heartbroken, that only lasted for a few weeks, before they got on the same page as their very supportive parents and knew that it was going to be one of he best things for winnie. and for the last two years of her high school experience, without her sisters being in the same building or the same house, aurora started to grow more on her own. she liked being able to make the roadtrip with natty to visit winnie on the weekends, to see what life was like outside of their hometown. illinois was exciting, and chicago was rich in diversity, and it greatly attracted all three of them. aurora especially, and she was constantly in her guidance office discussing the different colleges in the area and degrees she could be going after. she was a particularly good student, got a lot of tutelage from her support system, and the sciences were her favorite. she even made her parents buy her a special set of goggles for her chem lab and yes, she got made fun of for it, but aurora didn’t care. the concept of medicine was attractive to her, considering all she had been through and where her interests led her, but she couldn’t bring herself to envisioning MD at the end of her title … working alongside a human population, it just felt a little too overwhelming for her, perhaps even triggering, but she still felt that pull. and her guidance counselor knew that, also knew how often aurora volunteered at the local animal shelters and fostered as many as she could ( or rather, as many as her parents would allow ) so the topic of veterinary school came up, as did the university of chicago and their program offerings … and honestly, it was like overnight, aurora had made her decision.

*:･ﾟ･✧･ decision day: just shy of her eighteenth birthday and aurora was already enrolled and committed to attend the college of veterinary medicine and the school of public health at the university of illinois-chicago. it’s a five year program that she’s just about ready to finish, with only her clinical hours to go, before she can officially call herself a vet. and it was just last summer that she finished her vet technician credentials to be able to practice as a vet tech legally and outside of the scope of the college’s intern hour requirements, which is how she got herself a free place to live at the malnati. because while aurora loves her school, she’s always had a tough enough time fitting in with classmates who are her age, with kids who just wanted to goof off and fuck around. because aurora’s never been that girl. she’s quiet, timid even, and it takes her awhile to warm up to people - especially new people. she got to live in her little slice of the world in maine where her family were her biggest supporters and the rest of the two just knew her. aurora rarely had to introduce herself to anyone, ever. so it was a whirlwind of a new experience, and she was lucky to have winnie in reasonable driving distance, but it still made it difficult for aurora. the party scene was never hers, in fact being in large groups of people can occasionally overwhelm her, so she tested it out a few times before deciding that it wasn’t gonna be for her. she didn't like how her panic attacks seemed to get worse if she was around far too many intoxicated people, so she decided against them for herself personally. aurora much prefers the, let’s go get sushi and then roam around the art gallery, type of weekends. so needless to say,  she stuck to the few good friends in her program, some outside of it too, and just lived. she would run 5ks to support local causes, attend street markets and festivals on the weekends, run around hopping from one train to the next to get to work and then back onto campus so she could afford everything. but in her last year, it’ll be more than nice to have the malnati as it’s one less bill and one stable job to maintain on her resume while she completes her degree.

*:･ﾟ･✧･ love languages: which - that honorable sushi mention up there? well, food is one of aurora’s love languages. once her dad was able to come home, the girls became avid chefs. emilia was always a good cook, but more than that she taught the girls all kinds of recipes and techniques and it just created this type of burning, lasting memory in aurora’s mind and honestly being in the kitchen is just her second happy place. the first? well anywhere she can be surrounded by animals - that’s her first happy place. because she’s the biggest animal lover, but she’s also a huge foodie. she doesn’t cook as much as she used to being in chicago, as she did back home in maine, but with the suites having pretty incredible appliances considering the size, she’s excited to get back into it. handwritten recipe cards fill a few binders that she’s put together, and nothing makes aurora feel more at home than her dad’s handwriting, cause he’d scrawl down whatever emilia would tell him to as she was cooking, and it’s just a little shaky from the brain injury but it’s perfect. it’s him. it’s her dad’s. and she really loves the little hearts that’re on every card that her mom would add at the end, so she’s excited to start using them again. which means that she will feed you, she will share tupperware and accept new recipe cards with a lot of excitement. but also now, getting to live in a place where she is able to take care of all these beautiful pets in such a glamorous daycare? well, aurora’s somewhere between heaven and heaven - cause she’s got this big heart that’s filled with floof balls, and gorgeous birds, and reptiles with textured skin - and don’t get her started on the cutest ferret that one of the guests has lodged at the daycare for weeks and she cannot get enough of. so she’s fully ready to make just about any excuse to show up and hang out with you and your pets, because she vehemently loves quality time and as this also being one of her love languages, she can never get enough.

*:･ﾟ･✧･ four wheels, two legs, a paintbrush: but amongst other things that aurora enjoys? she’s a big rollerblader, like actually owns inline skates and will use them to get around chicago if she pleases and 100% takes those very aesthetic tiktoks wearing her bellbottom jeans and hair all blown out … it’s one of the very few instances of aurora being vain, but she just enjoys it too much. very much into running, it’s the only other form of exercise she willingly participates in ( unless it’s swimming because of course she loves to do that ) and she swears one of these days her knees are gonna be the end of her but she keeps up with it anyways. she signs up for 5k’s without question and half marathons take a few extra moments of consideration but she’ll do those too - she’s determined to do her first marathon soon and she’s really looking forward to it. she’s also not very good at it, but she loves to paint. she’s gotten a lot of those ‘paint by number’ watercolors that she saw ads for on instagram for way too long before finally placing an order but she really loves those. she’s got a vintage polaroid camera from her grandmother’s closet that she is very protective over but she’s highkey in love with it. that one stays in its case in the trunk at the end of her bed, but she’s gotten a less sentimental polaroid to use as more of a decor piece on her dresser. and literally no one is surprised at this point, but she’s got a record player and a bunch of vinyls from her dad’s collection and her sisters make fun of her for being 'that bitch’ but she doesn’t care - it’s just all a part of what makes aurora authentically herself.

*:･ﾟ･✧･ empath: of which, she’s exceptionally kind. to a fault, mostly. she’s gullible and naive, which caused her to be manipulated growing up but she had support to get her out of those situations when she needed it. because aurora is trusting, and trustworthy, but she mostly wants to see the good in other people. but she’s also learned from the moments in her life that burned her, and she tends to keep to herself a bit, and is very slow on the open up, but she liked to have friends. very much a social person, actually, she’s just gotta get used to the new and exciting and feel people out before she’s her most honest self. which is a bit of a goofy, smiley, supportive gal who very clearly grew up in a tight knit family because she’s quick to pull people into her circle who want to be there, and who care enough about her to be there in the first place. her favorite people are good people, and all she ever tries to do is her best. once she’s open to someone, she’s with them 100% of the way and holds the people in her life very close to her heart. she feels with her entire heart and soul, whole body, and sometimes that can be emotionally exhausting and even physically draining so she may need to step back from time to time, but she’s still always gonna be there. aurora will talk through emotions and isn’t afraid of having the deep talks either, which is probably one of the things that makes her such a good friend. being in chicago, she’s a wide eyed gal with a big heart, whose experiences have shaped her, and she is unapologetically herself.

[orangeflavoryawp]

Jonsa - “A Violence Done Most Kindly”, Part 4

I’m just putting it out there that I have NOT tagged this story for Major Character Death, for those of you who read the ending to the last chapter.  I’m just saying.  And that’s all I’m saying.  So let’s get this show on the road.

A Violence Done Most Kindly

Chapter Four: Nooses

“Sansa has learned to read faces like Arya has learned the wearing of them.” -  Jon and Sansa.  Stark is a house of many winters.

Read it on Ao3 here.

Part 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 fin

* * *

Sometimes he sees the nooses swaying in the wind.  There are always bodies at the ends of them, but they are not always discernible.  They swing like dark, hooded shadows, catching flecks of snow so soft even that seems a betrayal in the midst of such brutality, such ardent death.

           Jon takes a long, slow breath, easing it out through unsteady lungs.  His hands spread over the balcony edge before him, looking out across the Riverlands, the long train of lords and their bannermen arriving from throughout the seven kingdoms for the summit – like a flood of ants.

           Beside him, Davos stands watching pensively.

           Jon remembers the smell of shit when those traitors died. That much he recalls.  The rope had snapped taut and their voices had choked out and their bodies had jerked their final release, an end without glory, without even the dignity of a clean corpse to burn.  Their filth had stained the wooden planks beneath their swinging feet for moons after.

           “Now I rest”, Thorne had said.  Jon wants to scoff at the words.  Men like them never rest but for the grave, and even that could not hold him.

           (He wants to die, he wants to live – sometimes the difference is hard to discern.)

           An anger suffuses him – sharp and ripe and fervent.  A familiar anger.

           Olly had looked upon him with hatred, even in the end, even with a rope at his throat.  And maybe the man Jon used to be would have staggered beneath such a stare, would have grieved this loss.  But Jon is not the man he used to be, and he startles at the realization that neither does he want to be that man again.

           “You’ll be fighting their battles forever.”

           Jon swallows tightly, eyes still over the plains.

           Jon knows who his people are, and he will not forget again. Alliser Thorne had that much right, at least.  You choose your enemy, and you stick with it, no matter the squalls.  You do not let the others into your home.  You do not lead them to your hearth.  You do not look outside.

           Fighting for others has only ever gotten him killed.

           So now, he will fight for his.

           Yes, Olly had looked upon him with hatred in the end.  And Jon had welcomed it.  He made sure, after cutting the rope himself, to turn and watch them struggle their last, watch them twitch out the final dregs of their pathetic, traitorous lives.

           Because it wasn’t hatred on Olly’s face anymore.  It was a pungent, grotesque fear.  A terror so engulfing his blue-tinted skin burgeoned with it, his bulging eyes swam with it.

           And it was right.

           “Do you ever wonder how things might have happened if I took up Stannis’ offer?”

           Jon’s question is unexpected in the silence, and Davos snaps his gaze to his king, a furrow lining his brow.  “Your Grace?”

           Jon sighs, gloved fingers curling over the cold rail.  “If I’d accepted the Stark name he promised to grant me?”

           A long silence blankets the space between them, and Jon sees the nooses swinging once more.  Shadows on the wind.

           Davos clears his throat.  “Begging your pardon, Your Grace, but I don’t think you take very well to things ‘granted’ to you.”

           Jon answers with a single raised brow, a glance out of the corner of his eye.

           Davos leans his weight to one leg, chest puffing out slightly. “I only mean that you… you’ve rather a talent for ‘taking’, Your Grace.”

           The anger alighting Jon’s tongue diffuses into a mild tartness, his throat flexing beneath his thick swallow.

           Davos inclines his head toward Jon, hands held at his back. “I don’t think you’d ever be happy with a name you hadn’t taken for yourself,” he explains, a faint smirk lighting his features.  “Your Grace,” he tacks on at the end – almost purposely.  

           Jon had taken his justice when he let those bastards swing. He’d taken his home when he shattered Ramsay’s jaw beneath his fists.  He’d taken his throne when the lords hailed him a hero.  He’d taken his sister when he wanted her.

           Perhaps there was wildling in him yet.

           Jon offers a barely-there smirk to his Hand before he’s turning swiftly back toward the hall behind him, his cloak billowing in his wake.

           The North is his.  Sansa is his.  And those are the only battles he wants to fight anymore.

           He knows who his enemies are.  He knows where the nooses lay –

           And Jon is not done taking.

           He stalks from the balcony, lips pressed into a thin, hard line.

           Perhaps he never came back wrong.  Perhaps what was wrong was a world that demanded he come back right.

           Given the chance, he’d swing the sword again – he’d let hang those bastards every time.

           He’d take what was his.

           (The nooses never stop swinging.)

* * *

When Tyrion Lannister exits the carriage in the middle of Riverrun’s main courtyard, Sansa is all of thirteen years old again. She’s floundering, alone in the enemy’s den, her innocence like crushed dragonfly wings dragging at the ends of her skirts through deadened grass.  She is a girl again.

And not in the way women sometimes wish to be girls again.

           Arya steps up beside her suddenly, but she is wearing Baelish’s face, and what should be comfort at her sister’s quiet presence instead hammers at her heart like slow-brimming terror.  It shudders beneath her skin like memory.

           “Lady Sansa,” Tyrion greets, something of fondness lining his voice, and Sansa feels sick suddenly.  He looks at her kindly, as he always has, and perhaps that’s where things begin to splinter.

           The most favorable of her husbands, to be sure, but on his chest rests the pin that announces him as Hand of the Queen, a conqueror intent on chaining the North as fervently as Cersei once had, as all the Southron kings and queens once had.  This is not a former husband she greets.  This is an adversary – wearing their shared past like false comfort.

           “My lord,” she answers with an inclination of her head, a practiced smile at her lips.  

           “Please, Sansa,” he urges.  “I believe I asked you to call me Tyrion the last time you addressed me so.”

           “And I believe the last time I addressed you so, you were still my husband,” she points out with a raised brow.

           Tyrion clears his throat, nodding as though to himself, and then offering a perfunctory greeting to the false Baelish, a strained smile at his lips. His eyes take in the courtyard around them.

           “I apologize for my brother’s absence,” Sansa says, grabbing his attention once more.  “His Grace is in talks with my uncle, the Lord Edmure, and Lord Robin Arryn of the Vale. He extends his welcome, however, as well as his thanks for you and your queen’s attendance at our peace summit.”

           “Yes, well, peace sounds absolutely refreshing at this point, my lady. There’s been enough death these last few years.”

           “Speaking of which,” Sansa begins, “where is your queen?”

           Tyrion’s lip quirks slightly at the unvoiced insult, taking note of Baelish’s own amused smile following the words.  “Daenerys will be here shortly.”

           “Arriving on dragon-back, I take it.  A good show of power.”

           “You’ll forgive her dramatics when you see what kind of queen she is, I’m sure. She’ll do much good for Westoros.”

           Sansa can only offer an acknowledging hum, her own thoughts on the matter kept tight behind pursed lips.

           Tyrion’s face shifts then, brows furrowed, a keen unrest overtaking him, and Sansa imagines he’s thinking of the last queen Westoros had known.

           She shrugs her furs closer around her shoulders, licking her lips.  “I can’t say I’m sorry for your loss, my lord, if I’m being honest” she says as quietly and kindly as possible.  

           He shakes his head, face pinching tight.  “Cersei was….she was…”  Words fail him suddenly, and Sansa thinks it’s the first time she’s ever witnessed such a thing.  He swallows whatever he had failed to say, offering a tight smile instead, pulled at the edges like a fish gutted on the hook.  He simply nods.

           Sansa’s eyes flutter to the floor, a grim remembrance shadowing her thoughts.

           Sisters can be terrible, wonderous things, after all.

           Sansa clears her throat, eyes glancing back up.  “Lord Baelish, I believe that is Lord Varys I see emerging from the last carriage.”

           “I do believe you’re right, my lady.”

           “I’m sure he’d like a visit from an old friend.  I’ll escort Lord Tyrion to his chambers myself.  You may leave me.”

           Arya nods in Baelish’s skin, offering a farewell before leaving the two.

           Tyrion watches her go with a wary look.  “I had heard he was working for the Starks now.”

           “An exaggeration, my lord.  Petyr Baelish works for no one but himself.  You and I both know that.”

           Tyrion looks back at her with an appraising look.  “And yet he seems to have your confidence.”

           “He has his uses.”  She lets a secret smirk cross her lips and does not bother to check it when Tyrion catches sight of it.  Truth can sometimes tempt the best of them, she reminds herself.  “Please, my lord, if you’ll follow me.”  She directs him through an archway at the end of the courtyard and then they’re making their way through the halls of her mother’s childhood home.  It does not escape her that Riverrun will soon be housing both Lannister men her mother had once held prisoner.  Sansa squares her shoulders, stalking through the corridors just a touch more forcefully.

           War makes strange bedfellows, in the end.  And she – they – cannot afford grudges of the past bleeding into the present.

           Her mother would forgive her, she knows.  Because her mother would have also honored guest right if it meant protection for the North, protection for her North.

           The pack survives, after all.

           “Your brother and his forces are to arrive any day now,” she tells him, breaking the quiet that’s overtaken them since they left the courtyard.

           Tyrion releases a short, almost anguished chuckle.  “So many happy reunions.  I daresay I should have brought more wine.”

           “You may yet need it.”

           “You know, I don’t recall you being quite this sardonic when we were married, my lady.”

      ��    “You hardly knew me when we were married.”

           Tyrion is silent at her back for many long moments, and then, “I would have liked to, if you’d let me.”

           Sansa stops, turning to him stiffly.  He almost stumbles into her, hands curling and uncurling nervously at his sides when he looks up to her.

           She keeps her gaze cool, her tone civil.  “You would do well not to mistake a child’s regard for romantic attachment, my lord.  I am not the girl you once thought to save.”

           Tyrion swallows thickly, hands held up as though in surrender, head shaking. “I meant no offense, my lady.  I only meant it in true friendship, please.”

           Sansa considers him for a moment, silent and pensive, and then she’s turning back without a word.  He follows instantly.  They make it all the way to his temporary chambers before either of them speaks again.

           It’s Sansa this time, motioning to the door with a graceful hand.  “Your chambers, my lord.”

           He nods, stepping toward it, hand on the knob, and then he stops, takes a deep breath, turns back to her.

           She watches him expectantly.

           “I worried for you, Sansa, when you’d disappeared after Joffrey’s wedding. Truly, I had.”

           “I believe that,” she says honestly.  

           His hand slips from the door handle as he turns fully to her.  “I would have protected you, if you’d stayed.”  There’s something fervent in his voice then, almost angry if she looks too closely at it.

           She wonders if she will ever escape the anger of entitled men, or if perhaps that has always been the end of any lady.

           “You could hardly protect yourself.”  She tries for indulgent, but it comes out more like disdain.

           Tyrion’s jaw works beneath his words.  “And yet here I am.”

           Sansa pulls a steadying breath through her lungs, her fingers itching for the hook and pin chain anchored around her throat.  “Yes, I suppose murder has its merits,” she says calmly, almost admirably, if it weren’t for the twitch of her lip signaling her scorn.

           Tyrion’s eyes widen, and he takes a step closer.  “What did you say?”

           It comes to her like a gentle hand brushing the hair from her neck, a tug at the laces binding her dress, a tender admonishment when she takes one too many lemon cakes.  “We all do what we must to survive,” she says lowly, a streak of accusation lining the declaration.

           Taking a deep breath, Tyrion tries for words.  “Sansa, what I’ve done – ”

           “I wasn’t talking about you.”

           Tyrion blinks at her, brows furrowed.

           (It comes to her with dark hair and dark eyes and dark humor.  It comes to her like the ache of scars.)

           “I was talking about Shae.”  She steadies the quake in her voice, chin lifting.  “I couldn’t care less for your despot of a father, but Shae was good to me. Shae was kind.  Shae deserved better than what you gave her.”

           Tyrion blanches at the words, eyes widening.  “How do you – ”

           “Bran knows what you did.  He tried to tell it to me.  I told him I didn’t want to know – not entirely.”

           Tyrion just stares at her, hardly breathing, his jaw clenching beneath his brewing words.

           As a girl, she hadn’t understood their relationship.  As a woman, she still doesn’t.  And perhaps that is the point.

           Tyrion wipes a hand down his face, drawing a ragged breath through his lungs. “Why?”

           He doesn’t have to specify further.  She understands all the same.

           Sansa looks off to the far wall, hands gripping themselves tightly before her. She will not shake.  She does not shake.  “I don’t want to know the details.  I think I might lose all civility toward you, otherwise, and I can’t afford that just now.  I just… I can’t.  Jon needs peace.  And I need – ”  She stops, breath catching, hands flexing in their hold.  “I need peace, as well.”

           Tyrion closes his eyes, face pained, hands bunched into fists at his side.  “Forgive me, my lady, but I – ”

           “I don’t,” she interrupts curtly, the words already lighting her tongue before she even realizes she’s given them air.  “I don’t forgive you, my lord, not for her.  In fact, I don’t know how you forgive yourself most days.”

           His eyes snap open to hers, a heated breath flaring his nostrils.  “You said your brother… ‘knows’.  What do you mean?”

           There’s a bit of the man she knew in him still, she finds.  

           “In time, my lord,” she says.  “Should your queen agree to accompany us back to Winterfell, perhaps you can ask him yourself.”

           She does not wait for his response.  She does not entertain the conversation further.  She simply turns from him, stalking back along the hall, low heels clacking in the silence.  She simply leaves him.

           (It comes to her like a lonely remorse – like the missing of someone you can never get back.)

           She cannot ask Bran further – she cannot.

           “We all do what we must to survive.”

           It’s the hardest lesson Shae ever taught her.

* * *

“Did you kill Cersei?”

Sansa’s eyes narrow at the question.

Jaime is haggard.  A remnant of a man.  His once brilliant blonde hair is dusted with grey and unattractively coarse, the lines on his face telling of years not worth recollection.  There’s a stiltedness to his stance, a ring of practiced disinterest to his words that betrays his hollowing grief.

But Sansa has learned to read faces like Arya has learned the wearing of them.

The words draw from her lips before she can collar them.  “No, I did not.”

Jaime clenches his jaw, his one good hand settled along the sword at his waist – a sword that draws her attention like a gale across still plains.

Widow’s Wail.

Sansa frowns. Such a foul name.  It has no place in the North – in her father’s court. Not even when it hails from Ice.

(Such a sword would never stand across from Ned Stark’s daughter, or the North knows no justice.)

Jaime nods – slowly, patronizingly, lips smacking with something of disdain.  “My sister always warned me not to treat with wolves.”

“Yes, well, your sister’s dead now, isn’t she?  So it matters little, I suppose.”  Sansa offers him little more than a blue-frost gaze, hands held at her back, head tilted slightly as she gauges the Kingslayer.

Jaime’s mouth dips into a harsh frown and he takes a step toward her.

Brienne pulls Oathkeeper half out its sheath in a motion of warning, an urge of temperance at her lady’s side.

Jaime flicks unsteady eyes at Brienne, and Sansa does not need to look back at her sworn shield to know the hurt that pulls at her features.  There is another conversation happening in this room – one she may never be privy to.

There is another war being fought.

Sansa closes her eyes, breathing deep.

She hasn’t the heart for this.  She hasn’t the heart for any of this.

“I didn’t kill your sister, but I would have,” she says on a voice far steadier than she expects, eyes flickering open to catch his.

Jaime glances to her with furrowed brows, all tense muscles and hardened angles.  All sharp grief.  He simply looks at her.  She almost looks away.

(Almost, but not quite.)

“Given the chance, I would have,” she tells him, more sure this time, voice hardly trembling, hands hardly curling and uncurling at her back, chest hardly heaving.

Something startlingly like a chuckle issues from his lips, and then he’s wiping his good hand over his mouth, shaking his head, and he looks like he’s about to cry, or break something – break her, maybe.

Brienne keeps Oathkeeper hovering half-unsheathed in the air.

And then his chuckle catches in his throat, a sharp bark of laughter bubbling up, and he’s turning round, taking in the hall, slowly circling back toward Sansa, his laughter spent and hollow and tear-laced now.  Jaime sniffs, brushing a hand under his nose.  When he looks back up at Sansa, there’s nothing of fury in his face. “No, you wouldn’t have,” he tells her surely.

Sansa’s mouth parts, her denial ready and scathing on her tongue.

Did he know what Cersei had done to her?  Did he know how she kept all she held precious at a knife’s edge?  Did he know how small and lonesome and wrong she had made her feel?  Did he know how she imagined winding her own bare hands around her golden neck and wringing her breathless?

Did he know?

Did he know how she had ruined her?

(How she had made her?)

Sansa stares at Jaime, spine tingling, nails digging half-moons into her bundled palms at her back.  She doesn’t trust her voice just yet.

Jaime nods, seemingly to himself, eyes drifting to the floor between them in the sparse room.  “No, you wouldn’t have, little dove.”  There is no doubt in his voice.

Sansa recoils at the moniker, her voice lodged in her throat.  She stumbles back a step, finding Brienne’s sure hand at her back, staying her.

She wants to spit at his feet.  Wants to kick his teeth in.  Wants to grab him by the collar and shake him and shake him and shake him until he could see.  

Until he could see.

She would have killed her.  She would have.

Sansa feels the tears rising without her bidding.

She would have, she tells herself.

She would have.

Her hands itch for his throat, for his face, for his eyes.

(She only needs him to see.)

Because she would have – she would have – she would have –

(She wouldn’t have.)

* * *

Sansa requests an audience with Olenna Tyrell the moment her forces arrive in Riverrun, and the two find themselves in Brynden’s solar that very evening, with the setting sun casting orange slants of light through the open windows beside them.

           Sansa folds her hands demurely before her, offering a soft smile in greeting.  Behind her on one side is the Blackfish, her sworn shield and Tully ally.  On the other side is Baelish, or at least, the face of him.  Olenna grants the false Baelish a single, appraising glance, but it isn’t enough to garner mention.  Instead, she offers her greetings, settling into the chair opposite Sansa with two Tyrell guards at her back.  Sansa barely notes their presence.

           “I had feared the worst for you when I heard of your marriage to the Bolton bastard.  I’m glad to see he’s gotten his due.”  Olenna fixes her skirts around her, leaning back with a comfort that irks Sansa, though she finds it difficult to place why.

           “Are you?” she asks, a single brow raised.

           “Of course, my dear girl.”

           “I am not your ‘dear girl’,” she answers back, face blank.  “I am a lady of my house and you will address me as such, my lady.”

           Olenna thrums her fingers along her armrest, an interested smirk playing at her lips.  “Very well, my lady.  Let us not dither about then, hmm?  Why have you summoned me thus?”

           “I have not ‘summoned’ – ”

           “For one who demands transparency, you’re awfully keen to deflect it, Lady Sansa.”

           Sansa purses her lips.  She likes Olenna Tyrell, she finds.  She always has, if she thinks too long about it.  But liking her has done nothing for her.  ‘Liking her’ has not changed the fact that she indirectly shouldered Sansa with the blame of Joffrey’s death, pinning her with Cersei’s ire, as though she hadn’t enough torment from that woman.  

           No, this could not stand.  But Sansa is not foolish enough to throw away a card worth playing simply because of honor.

           She’s seen what that does to those she holds dear.

           “I’ve called you here to negotiate your allegiance,” she says at length.

           Olenna rests her elbows along her armrests, folding her hands before her in a casual, disinterested manner Sansa has never been able to master.  She cocks her head with that familiar, nonchalant smirk.  “My allegiance, hmm?”

           Sansa nods.

           “And where do you propose it should be?”

           “With the North.”

           Olenna fairly nearly snorts, if a snort could sound lady-like. “It is a fool’s errand, this war of yours.  Old tales of even older threats.  Dust on the wind.  A falsity.”            “Then why are you even here?”

           Olenna considers her a moment, a wrinkled finger drawn over her lips in contemplation.  “Our people are tired of war.”  She is suddenly older and frailer than Sansa remembers, an intangible exhaustion writ across her face.

           Something softens in Sansa.  A memory, maybe. ��A fondness and recollection so far gone she’d thought it lost.  The taste of lemon cakes.  Olenna’s weathered hand in hers when she tugged her toward the garden – speak freely, child – and the tender caress she gave her cheek at Joffrey’s wedding.

           The caress that stole the vial of poison from her necklace – the ruse in her touch.

           Sansa’s face hardens at the remembrance.  Wolves aren’t the only ones who protect their own.  This she knows.  And she loved Margaery, more than she will ever be able to say aloud (because such affections outside of family have never ended well), and some part of her – the part that had watched her father’s head tumble down into the mud, and the part that had borne bruises like penance for a brother who never came, and the part that remembers Baelish’s kiss like a wounded animal remembers the lance – that part of her will always hold tight to her heart the memory of Joffrey choking on his own terror, face purple, eyes bulging, mouth gaping like a slaughtered boar.

           And even still –

           She had run into the hands of yet another terror.  Another manipulator.  Cersei, at least, had the decency not to hide her intentions.

           No, Sansa reminds herself.  Olenna had done her no favors.

           “The people are tired, and so am I,” Olenna sighs.

           Sansa watches her, mouth pursed tight.

           Olenna huffs, straightening in her seat.  “I’ve lost my granddaughter.  My son and my grandson.  House Tyrell ends with me.  But the Reach shall not – if I have anything to say about it.  And I have much to say, as you well know.”

           Sansa can’t help the slight smile that pulls at her lips, the chuckle that begs her tongue for release.  She shifts in her seat, hands unfolding to grasp at her armrests.  “I hoped as much.”

           A raised brow is her only response.

           Sansa cocks her head.  “If you truly desire peace for your kingdom, then your best interest rests in backing the North.”

           Olenna offers a rueful laugh.  “I fail to see why.”

           “You killed Joffrey.”

           A silence pervades the room.  But it lasts only a moment.  Olenna smooths over her skirts, deliberately not looking at Baelish (but Sansa doesn’t need such a cue, not when he already spilled his secrets like the blood he left on the snow floor of the godswood).  “History,” she states, calm and unmovable.  “I don’t see how that – ”

           “I’m sure Jaime and Tyrion Lannister would love to know the truth of his death.”

           Olenna only stares at her, bemused smirk securely planted across her face, eyes unblinking.

           Sansa takes a deep breath, releases it just as slowly. “Jaime Lannister may not be the man he was, perhaps not even the man he pretends to be, but he is surely a Lannister, and Lannisters always pay their debts, didn’t you know, Lady Olenna?”

           At her silence, Sansa continues.  “And Tyrion.  I’m sure he’d like to know who’s at fault for his trial, for the crime that nearly took his head and then took everything else from him.”

           “You think I care what those dolts think of me?”

           “No,” Sansa says, “But Tyrion is Hand of the Targaryen queen now, and even if she didn’t care about her Hand’s grievances, she surely couldn’t be seen denying him retribution when the truth comes out. And the Lannisters are practically at your door, I hear.  I highly doubt Jaime would call off his men at such news.”

           Olenna leans back in her seat, appraising Sansa with a quiet, tense deliberation.  Her arms move back to the armrests of her chair, insultingly plush beneath her tapping nails.  And then she huffs a laugh, short and deliberate.  “I fashioned you a bird, Lady Sansa, a little caged bird,” she laughs, biting it off with a resigned sigh.  “But you were a wolf all along.”

           “You had to have known I wouldn’t let such trespass lie.”

           Olenna shrugs as though it’s another conversation over lemon cakes and cheese, as though King’s Landing’s gardens are once again at their backs, as though Margaery is lingering just at her peripheral, popping a bite of sweet into her mouth with a look of mischief.

           Sansa’s chest aches suddenly, and oh, how she misses Margaery. How she always will.

           “Truthfully, I hadn’t expected you to live long enough for this conversation,” Olenna throws out casually.  

           Brynden doesn’t disguise his grunt of disapproval at her back, but Sansa looks at him with a glance of forbearance, her hand raised in a motion of calm.

           Olenna smiles at the display despite herself.  “You’ve found yourself quite the circle of swords.” She glances to Baelish, a steely glint to her eye now.  “Some more sharp than others.”  There’s something accusatory in her glare with the words, but Arya does not betray anything, keeping the perpetual smugness to Baelish’s face, hands held securely behind her.  “Be careful they do not find your back a more tempting target,” Olenna warns.

           Sansa doesn’t let the smile linger long.  “I shall keep that in mind, my lady.  And you?”

           Olenna offers her a dull gaze.  “And me?” she prompts.

           “Your allegiance – ”

           “Yes, yes, Highgarden shall fight with the North,” she waves away, already impatient to end the conversation.

           Lemon cakes and warm afternoons and a frail touch to her wrist.

           Sansa swallows tightly.  “I’m sorry,” she says, before thinking better of it – not even knowing what it is she’s sorry for.  Perhaps everything.  Perhaps nothing at all.  Perhaps for thinking that ‘sorry’ could ever be enough.

           Olenna eyes her quietly, shifting in her seat.  She shakes her head, hands drawing back together. “You aren’t.”

           Sansa almost refutes it, mouth open, but no words come.

           “And you shouldn’t be,” the other woman finishes, head cocked in something Sansa might have called fondness if she had known her better. Olenna flexes her fingers, mouth curving into a smile she hasn’t used in many years.  “Were you my granddaughter, I’d have been proud of you.”

           Something swells in Sansa – unnamable and out of grasp. Margaery always had kind eyes, even when they were narrowed in calculation, even when they were fixed to the crown, even when they shed no tears.

           She was always kind to her.  

           It’s the sort of kindness Sansa has always made excuses for – the sort of kindness that never looked for its own gain.

           Because what could the Rose of Highgarden have ever gained from a winter thorn?

           “Cersei is dead.”  It’s the only comfort Sansa can offer now, scant as it is.  Her mouth goes dry with the words.

           Olenna nods, looking out the window at their side, the faint lip of the sun barely discernable over the river’s gleaming horizon.  “And so is Margaery.  So are the rest of House Tyrell.  You can keep your paltry consolation, Lady Sansa, I’m much too old to care for it now.”

           They share a hard silence.  Nothing moves.  Nothing sounds.

           Sansa thinks she knows the weight of such grief.  She sees it in the direwolves she stitches along her handkerchiefs, and the dutiful, singularly focused way Arya sharpens Needle, and the dust-lined, unopened threshold of Robb’s rooms.

           Olenna blinks back at Sansa, a heavy breath pulled through her lungs, and her hand raises slightly, before lowering back to her armrest, as though she intended to pat Sansa’s hand, as though she meant some meager comfort in the midst of all this ugliness.

           Sansa watches the motion with steel-cut eyes, never betraying her sorrow.  “Let them rest,” Sansa whispers in what she hopes sounds like solace, soft and genuine.

           Olenna tilts her head, lips pinched tight.  A look of pitying disdain crosses her features. “Can you, my lady?”

           “I must,” she answers almost instantly, and she doesn’t think she’s ever said something so true, so needful.

           Nodding silently, Olenna grips her hands before her, looking back out the window, watching the dying glint of sunlight cast its shadow across the still rivers.

           The sun sets completely before either of them finds the will to part.

* * *

           Daenerys Targaryen is the last to arrive at Riverrun, her army of Unsullied shadowing the plains like a plague, her dragon’s beating wings blacking out the sun that crests the hills when she lands.  Dawn has never seemed so dark before.

           She’s beautiful, Jon discovers.  As beautiful as the rumors say, or maybe even more so.  But it’s the sort of beauty that feels vaguely untouchable – like the high branches of an old oak, the leaves glinting light off the winter sun in an iridescence that momentarily blinds.  And there’s a mournfulness to such unreachable beauty – for leaves come untethered from their branches all the same, after all, and winter will see them snow-laden and trodden beneath boots soon enough.  There is nothing enviable about beauty when it’s the lonely, distant sort.

           “May I present Daenerys Stormborn of House Targaryen,” Tyrion begins with a respectful gesture to the dragon queen now before them.

           Another woman at Daenerys’ side opens her mouth, as though to introduce her further, no doubt with the many titles Jon has grown weary of reading in their shared missives, but Euron Greyjoy interrupts her then, striding forward with a smug look and a hand hefting his belt up higher.  “Your queen,” he says with dramatic admonishment, before turning to Daenerys beside him with an exaggerated look of awe.  “As she is mine.”

           Daenerys suffers him a tolerant smile and a quick nod, before her attention returns to Jon.  “You must be Jon Snow.”  Her voice is clipped, her smile stiff.

           “You’ve been misinformed, Your Grace,” Sansa says beside him, before he can voice his own response.

           Jon shoots a glance at her, his brows furrowing.

           “This is King Jon of House Stark,” she corrects, her eyes shifting to Euron for only the briefest of moments, a glance so cursory it could hardly be called acknowledgement.  “As he always will be.”

           Tyrion gives Sansa a desperate look that she dutifully ignores.  Behind her, Brynden muffles his chuckle with a forced cough, a fist shadowing his smirk.  Daenerys flashes violet eyes at her, her smile so rigid, Jon wonders at how her face doesn’t crack beneath the force of it.

           “Lady Sansa, I presume,” she says, ignoring the correction of her address. “I’ve heard much.”  She glances to her Hand, and Tyrion clears his throat in response.  

           “Yes, well – ” he begins, before being cut off.

           “To the best of my knowledge, the Riverlands do not answer to any king,” Daenerys says, eyes flicking back toward Jon.  “Unless I’ve been misinformed of that as well,” she adds dryly, a challenge in her tone.

           Jon sighs, jaw working.  “No, they do not.”

           She lifts a single brow, lips drawn in a self-assured smile.

           Something tugs at the space between his ribs – coarse and impertinent.  “The North believes in independent autonomy. We recognize our allies as fellow sovereigns, not subjects.”

           Daenerys offers him a calculative gaze.  “Yes, I suppose you would.”  She purses her lips in thought.

           Stepping from behind her, a war-worn man inexplicably reminiscent of the North moves forward.  “Khaleesi,” he says, voice warm in its urging, “We’ve traveled far.  You should rest before the summit.”  He glances up to lock gazes with Jon.  “I’m sure our hosts are eager to have us settled.  We all need clear minds to garner peace.”

           Daenerys inclines her head to her advisor, the harshness bleeding from her features, a flicker of quiet acquiescence passing through her eyes. “Of course, Ser Jorah.  That is why we’re here, after all.”

           A silence suffused with apprehension blankets the courtyard, until Daenerys plasters another stiff smile upon her regal face, hands coming to wind together before her expectantly.

           Out of the corner of his eye, Jon can see the way Brynden nudges Edmure with an impatient elbow.  Edmure steps haltingly forward, hands held stiffly at the edges of his jerkin, as though he doesn’t know where to place them.  “Your Grace,” he greets, clearing his throat.  He stills momentarily when her violet gaze shifts toward his.  He licks his lips, standing straighter when he tells her, “Riverrun is the ancestral home of the Tullys, and as their ruling lord, I humbly offer you a welcomed stay.  Your chambers have already been prepared.”

           “How gracious of you,” Daenerys answers with perfect poise, an inclination of her head just low enough to be proper but never low enough to be servile. Her eyes flicker briefly to the Starks once more, before she follows Edmure Tully into the main hall off the courtyard, disappearing into shadow.

           Jon looks to Sansa beside him.  She looks resolutely back at him.

           She is the beauty of roots, he realizes.  And he knows now how to recognize the fleeting and the lasting.

           (Winter never takes the roots.)

           Come the next morning, the summit has officially commenced.  By the time introductions are made and seats are taken and all of Westeros’ lordships and sovereigns are gathered in the great hall, the sun is high in the sky and Jon’s patience has waned into a taut edginess. He takes a long, slow look about the hall.  It is a room full of enemies.  It is a room full of allies.

           Daenerys sits regally, glaring across the room at Jaime Lannister, who flicks imaginary lint from his tunic in his best show of nonchalance.  Lady Olenna scrutinizes the dragon queen behind a veil of disinterest.  Euron eyes the hall predatorily, fingers thrumming along his armrest when he catches sight of Theon at Sansa’s side, a knowing smirk lining the edges of his cruel mouth.  The Blackfish muffles his rumble of displeasure at the leer the Greyjoy sends his niece and Edmure Tully tugs on the ends of his jerkin, adjusting the fit as he straightens in his seat.  Robin Arryn looks positively bored next to a stout and attentive Lord Royce, with False-Baelish filling the seat between him and Sansa, and the lesser lords of the Stormlands and the other kingdoms, as well as his own Northern bannermen, Mormont and Glover included, pepper the remaining seats about the hall.

           Tyrion clears his throat beside his queen, and it begins.

           ‘A room full of enemies’ seems the more apt choice, Jon finds.  He sighs, fingers pinching the bridge of his nose.

           “You’ll be fighting their battles forever.”

           Amidst the rising voices and the flaring tempers and the perfectly veiled threats, Jon begins to understand something he hadn’t before.

           He glances to the dragon queen – all fire-lit ire and impossible demands and a curl to her lip like tempered madness – the beauty of impermanence marring her features.

           (He sees the bodies swaying in the wind, the dark crimson of his blood still caked beneath his betrayers’ fingernails.)

           Jon understands now that some nooses will always be self-made.

* * *

           {She likes to think it’s remorse that has him turning his head, but the reality is closer to indifference when he answers her, “Yes

Sansa stands swiftly, hands wringing together (if only not to wring him), her breath coming in short, shallow draws.  “This isn’t – Bran, you can’t…you can’t do this – you can’t just –”

           “It’s already done, sister.”

           She stops then, something aching in her at the endearment.  But it’s not enough.  It’s not enough to beg her forgiveness.  Her vision nearly goes white with the rage.  “I should have stopped this.”

           “There was never any stopping it.”

           Her mouth parts, her feet taking a step toward him without her knowledge. “Bran – ” She will never admit to begging, nor to the violent current thrumming through her palms, itching for his pale throat.

“Fire sows no seeds,” he tells her.}

[post-itpenny]

49 :3

Pinkie Promise

Progressing the storyline in the mafia Au, sorry how long this is.

Tagging @grotesquegabby because Billy and Ama are here.

Oof

It was in the morning that the news broke of a sixth victim being found. Body just as mutilated as the others.

Now it was evening, the streets not as crowded as usual as the city was on high alert. There was one figure that seemed to walk under the streetlights with confidence. The older woman wore a scarf over her head and a smile on her face as she carried a large tote bag of which a small dachshund rode in with a smile all his own.

Some smiled at the cute dog, most ignored both dog and owner. More than once the pair was stopped as someone asked to scratch the little dog’s ears. Finally they turned a corner down an alleyway. Shimmying up a fire escape and to a rooftop.

She picked a corner overlooking a conjunction of alleyways. A spot within the area the past several deaths had been and seemed idea for another victim. Magpie has done quite a bit homework.

She pulled the dog out of her bag along with a small stuffed toy and treats to entertain him. She scratched the dog’s ears and proceeded to pull out the different pieces of what was soon assembled as a sniper rifle.

“Now the boring part,” she chuckled as she scratched the dog’s ears again and settled in for what she was certain would be a long wait.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Maggie was quiet. Not her usual quiet that came with intense listening to the world around her, but more of a withdrawn quiet. William could not help but notice the redhead’s fire had seemed to have gone out. No more snark, no sass, no sneaking out, no sliding down banisters when she thought he wasn’t looking (he knew and he wasn’t happy), if the bags under her eyes were a clue she wasn’t sleeping. But for someone who seemed to be operating on a low battery he had never seen her on such high alert. Jumping at any and every sound.

William wasn’t quite sure what had gotten into her, but then the news broke of a sixth body being found and he couldn’t help but notice how pale Maggie became.

Ah, that explains it. Time for a talk then.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Atlas sat on a bench outside the library, swinging his legs as they hung in the air, toes just barely touching the concrete.

He was currently reading “The Hound of the Baskervilles,” a part of him enjoyed pretending he was with Watson and Sherlock on the case. Solving crimes with their intellect alone. Would that make him a traitor to the family?

“Heya short-stack, what are we reading today?”

Atlas looked up as his cousin Juno sat down. Ruffling his hair with a grin. “Sherlock again?”

“Yeah, he’s cool.”

Juno smiled, “well he must be if you like reading him so much. I’m here to pick you up since your dad had work ok?”

Atlas nodded as he hopped off the bench, tucking the book into his backpack. The two of them walked down the street. Turning into a small cafe instead of walking home like he was supposed to.

“We’re visiting,” Juno explained with a wink as the two of them were seated in a private room away from everyone else.

Atlas looked around in confusion before the answer came in a tiny “yip!” As a woman with a dog in her bag came strolling into the room.

Atlas gave a shout of delight as he hopped off his chair and ran to give his Aunt Magpie a hug. Getting caught up in a torrent of dog kisses as he did so.

Magpie chuckled at the sight, “looks like Trouble likes you. You may hold him if you wish.”

“His name is Trouble?”

“First day with me he chewed up a set of shoelaces and the leg of a chair. Yes, his name is Trouble.”

Juno ordered drinks as they all sat down. She and Atlas having lemonade and cookies as Magpie had her tea, something Juno recalled her always being near religious about.

“Business first,” Magpie declared. “I had no luck last night but they also didn’t have any new targets. I plan to stake out the same area again.”

Juno nodded, knowing her aunt knew what she was doing. “From what we could gather someone staged a lockdown drill and used the confusion to make sure their cell doors were tampered with. Not unlocked but easy to break out of.”

“Enough to fool a guard then.”

“There were several cell doors with the same issue. About twelve attempted to break out and only two made it. Taking nine guards with them.”

Magpie frowned, a dread filling her stomach at Juno’s information. She knew the sisters were bloodthirsty but…”

“All the more reason to get rid of them,” she sighed.

“Is this why everyone calls Maggie crazy?” Atlas asked. “Because it’s her family you’re talking about right? They wouldn’t hurt their family would they?”

The two women cringed, how could they tell him the truth?

Juno tried first, “well Maggie lived with us because they hurt their family. So yes they would hurt her.”

“Is Maggie crazy too?”

Magpie took hold of Atlas’ hand, being so heavily reminded this was a child in a world children shouldn’t be in. “Do you think she’s crazy?”

“No.”

“I don’t believe so either, I think she’s… rambunctious and definitely stubborn. But she would never hurt the people she’s supposed to care about. She would however do whatever she could to take care of them.”

With this the conversation ended, the three sitting in silence for a moment save for the slight snoring of the dog in Atlas’ lap. It was this that made them all giggle, a lighter conversation starting after.

“So has your brother gotten anywhere with that one boy?” Magpie casually asked, Juno grinning in response.

“Don’t think so, he’s been weird lately about it. Avoids the topic like the plague”

Atlas took a sip of lemonade, “maybe they hooked up.”

Both women choked on their drinks.

“A-Atlas!” Magpie coughed. “Where did you learn that?”

“Juno.”

There was silence then. If looks could kill, Juno would have been dead on the floor.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

There was a knock on William’s office door.

“Enter,” he called knowing fully well who it was.

Maggie slipped through the cracked open door, watching her boss with uncertainty. “You wanted to see me?”

William nodded with a hand extended to the chair in front of his desk. “Please have a seat.”

Maggie arched an eyebrow, of course she caught the change in his tone. Not his usual “everyone listen to me” tone but calmer. Naturally she didn’t trust it.

William rolled his eyes, sensing her uncertainty. “You’re not fired, I just need to speak with you, sit.”

“Speak about what then?” Maggie asked as she sat down.

William sat down as well with a sigh, “well…”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Magpie hugged her niece and nephew goodbye as they left the cafe.

“The next time you meet with that little D’Vitt girl and her brothers be sure to be polite.” Magpie instructed Atlas, “you would do well with friends your age.”

Atlas nodded, “are you gonna be ok? You have to stay out all night again?”

Magpie nodded as she knelt down with her pinky extended. “I used to make pinky promises with Maggie when she was your age. I never once broke one.”

Atlas nodded, locking pinkies with his aunt with a smile.”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

“So you are getting rid of me then.”

“No, no. I’m suggesting you take a vacation. I’ve already put too much money into you already to just toss you out.”

Maggie rolled her eyes, “I’m so relieved to know you value your employees as people. Truly, your kindness knows no bounds.”

The corner of Williams’s mouth twitched, there she was.

“Maggie dear you’re not well. I’ve read your file and I know why this is getting to you.”

Maggie turned away, pulling her boa tighter around her.

“I’m not criticizing you.” William insisted, “but you haven’t been sleeping, you’re not functioning at work. You shouldn’t have left the manor but what’s done is done.”

“I’ve been perfectly behaved-“

“Sliding down the banisters.”

“You can’t lie and say you’ve at least never wanted to do that.”

“Sneaking into the kitchens at three in the morning.”

“I was hungry.”

“You tried to have a Gila monster mailed here.”

“To surprise you! But I haven’t done anything lately, I’ve been perfectly behaved.”

“Maggie,” William sighed, “yes you have but you’re not yourself. A vacation wouldn’t hurt.”

“But what if-“

“Believe me I’m half tempted to go after your sisters myself-“

“No!”

William arched an eyebrow in surprise, Maggie turning bright red but holding her ground. “You’ve read files but you don’t know. You could shoot at them and they think it’s funny.”

“The Blackwood’s former hitwoman is out there.”

“And I hate that she is. You know if you send me away I’ll just be coming right back.”

“Then what do you want?”

“Let me just work, send me out all… all be fine.”

William arched an eyebrow, “if you’re at work I cannot guarantee your safety. What would happen if you’re caught out alone at night?”

Maggie turned pale, seeming to shrink a little in her chair.

Williams’s eyes light up, an idea popping into his head. “You want a job then? I’m certain Pierre would enjoy a break so why don’t you watch over Amaranthus for the rest of the day?”

“... you want me to babysit?”

“You do well with her, and my Angel is so well mannered.”

“Yeah, so what are you gonna do when she’s a teenager and wanting outside?”

“Don’t change the subject.”

“You’re avoiding the question.”

“It’s this or I’m sending you to Siberia.”

“Right! Got it! Ok!” Maggie shouted as she walked backwards out of the room pointing finger guns at her boss. “Yes sir! Your honor, your majesty! Big boss man! He whom I am blessed to share the same breathing space with!”

She continued on as she walked backwards out of the room. William wondering if having the old Maggie back was worth the headache he now had.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Magpie was set back up on the roof with her dog Trouble at her side. She was worried, worried about Juno who was following a lead tonight in enemy territory. Worried about Atlas who was more and more exposed to a world that was so unkind to children.

Magpie remembered the first night a small Maggie stayed with her. Being woken up constantly by the poor child screaming at night terrors. Acting near feral in her distrust of the world and need to survive. Magpie read the files but she knew she never could fully understand that certain kind of evil that could destroy a childhood so thoroughly.

But she could get rid of that evil for good.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

“You’re grumpy.”

Maggie looked up at the small child with angel wings that was standing over her. They were in Amaranthus’ room playing tea party at the child-sized table. Maggie with her knees to her chest frowning at a small tea cup.

“I am grumpy, but I’m allowed to be grumpy. I’m not having the best week.”

Amaranthus nodded, “you need a nap.”

The way she looked as she gave the order looked so similar to her father it took all of Maggie’s power to not laugh.

“Fine,” Maggie finally decided. Rolling out of the chair and onto the plush carpet. “I’ll nap here.”

“But that’s the floor.”

“Yup, want to take a nap too?”

Amaranthus paused before electing to curl up in an enormous pile of plushies with Mune the cat doing the same.

“Um,” Ama began, “after the nap we can play princesses some more right?”

Maggie smiled as she held up her hand with a pinky extended. “Pinky promise.”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

There was movement below Magpie’s perch.

They came dragging a man beaten and bloody but still alive down the alley.

Magpie observed as they chartered in hushed whispers. Noting how the way Zilla walked seemed so much like Maggie when she was moving for quick stealth. The way Faline’s smile was like a larger- twisted version of her baby sister’s.

They had gotten ahold of a rusty set of butcher knives. No doubt having been scavenged from some dumpster.

They stood over their victim arguing over who got to stab first.

There was a wizzing sound as something bit into Faline’s shoulder. Causing the large redhead to stand up screaming.

Magpie lined up another shot before something went wizzing by her head. A rusty knife.

Wow, what an arm.

Magpie ducked, pulling Trouble close to her side, the sound of the sisters cackling below in the alley.

Another knife came wizzing by as she quickly sat up again and fired off a shot, the silencer working its magic.

This shot snagged a dancing Zilla in the hip. The mad woman flinching in pain but giggling as she and her sister took off. The injured man scrambling to his feet and running in the opposite direction.

Magpie cursed and she pulled a handgun from her bag and scrambled down the fire escape. Trouble at her heels.

Magpie reaches the alley with gun drawn and ready, following the blood splatter on the ground till at last she found her target.

They were waiting for her.

Faline has the same hair as Maggie, but it was longer and matted. Her smile too wide to be natural. Zilla was tall with dark hair, her eyes held a hollow look to them.

Magpie kept her distance, gun trained on Faline’s head.

There was a clicking sound behind her, a gun being cocked.

Magpie turned around in surprise, “you bastard.”

Outside the alley all was quiet, a car sitting quietly in the street with its engine humming. Inside the alleyway arguing could be heard. The sound of someone cackling.

Bang!

Bang!

Bang!

There was the screech of tires as the car peeled away, followed by a small dog running away crying in freight.

Something damp and red splashed on its fur.

[laputaindefrenchgirl]

Goodbye, old friends.

Recently, I realized one thing : x-men (circa 2011-2019) was actually the Twilight of my twenties. One of those phenomena, which whirlwinds your soul, intellect and passion into a pivotal period of your life. In my case, my early twenties.

But, I’ll go back to the beginning : the x-men anime series in 1990s. I remember watching episodes in the morning, every wednesday, and first thing first, being fascinated by Professor X. Imagine! A leader living with a disability, bald yet still cool, with the most badass wheelchair known to humanity, and with one of the greatest super power ever. I was around five years old when I was watching, and completely hooked by this fantastic, well written, universe. As early as I can recall, Charles Xavier’s character gave me a sense of belonging, and safety (besides my family). This was someway proof that you can be unique, different, and right where you were supposed to be. 

The seeds were taking in my brain.

Then, x-men First Class came out in 2011 and this was a brutal slap to my big head. I’ll go with “Mutant and Proud” first. This mantra, repeated through the movie was exactly what I needed to hear. I always had and always will love myself, but to be proud of me has a total different meaning. I was nineteen, still a baby, and about to go through one of the toughest experience of my life, moral harassment in my college. This movie had an emotional impact on my vision of the world and myself. 

The world is mine to take, and I have to bloom in order to conquer it.

My perception of myself was at the same time accurate and yet sugar coated, nowadays for example it’s much more blurred but I guess it’s what adulting does to you. Charles Xavier, once again, embodied massively a part of me I could not ignore. And Erik, god, I was thinking he’s right too. But the biggest part of me was relating to Charles, for the following reasons. He knows he’s different, went through some abuse, and yet, he wants to make the world a better place. He believes in Humanity. He knows they can be the worst and the best. Having all this power, who could crush anyone, and not using it. He’s a good speaker (so am I, in my good days) and use his tools to make things happen, being subtle and sometimes not so. He’s still shielded from the dark things due to where he was born, and good money. He’s naive in that way, and kind of arrogant in believing, simply. He’s the believer. And that makes him one of the greatest, brightest, and powerful mutant in history.

He has this extraordinary friendship with Erik, and believes in him as his total equal. The way he opens up to him, gives him his trust (so does Erik tho), is extremely well depicted and human. As I was watching First Class, I was amazed that such friendship could exist (and dude, let’s not talk about the bromance). When the bullet went through Charles’ spine by accident, the way that suddenly he realizes he and Erik cannot draw their path, together. That’s so accurate to many, many life’s situations. You go until the point of non retour. When you trust someone with your entire self but hit the end, stop sign, and know you can’t keep going like that. I wonder what would have happen if they did not break up (call it what you want) in Cuba? Would have they have been able to compromise? 

If I was Charles, I would not have been able to. Maybe blinded by my bruised ego, brokenhearted, or simply hurt. Because once I dive in, I know I could drown if I make a mistake. That’s real life.

In Days of Future Past, the struggle is real. that scene in the plane, well, it questions lots of things. Magneto does not (want to?) comprehend that Charles gave up his powers in order to not feel pain, and be able to walk again. He’s so angry with Charles, calls him a coward for giving up, for not believing. Charles, well, he’s a mess. And he did really try but eventually, (he) it wasn’t enough. He was still grieving over the abandonment of his best friend and his sister. Being alone is terrifying. And of course, he’s angry too. This scene was super intense and well done because, let’s be honest, who wouldn’t for a minute mute your own pain in order to pretend? Charles is both despised for being a naive asshole, too kind hearted, and then for being a man who could not accept to be less physically than he was before the bullet. He loses hope, and again, that’s a very human thing to do. I loved this dynamic, because it made me wonder, wouldn’t i have done the same thing when I hated myself the most?

Throw away my wheelchair, disability, in order to be normal and not be looked as some kind of weird thing, in the best and worst ways. 

Eventually, Charles finds his faith, his hope again and is that leader, that light everyone crave and look after. There’s the ultimate question, layered under lots of FX and plots ; if you represent hope for the world, who are you hoping for?

To be that person is so hard to carry. Somedays, I feel that curse. I take out of it what’s best for me, and just try to be the best version of myself I can be. If not for me, then for you, and what will be there long after me. Such a selfish aura to be light but selfless to live for. Very strange to be.

Then Apocalypse, then Dark Phoenix, which is the last movie of the franchise with this excellent cast. I mean, seriously, x-men could not have had a better casting, especially Fassbender and McAvoy. Period.

In Dark Phoenix, Erik is settled in Genosha, and Charles being a tad too political in the lead of the x-men as a school and also an unity to save the world. He thinks his choices are the good ones, and some he takes by the beginning of the movie are clearly not. But he’s Charles Xavier, and he’s build an incredible school and done an amazing conversation between the public opinion and the mutants. So yes he’s been blinded by his ego, but always trying to what is best for his people, his family. Through the movie, his relationship with the others x-men has a change of dynamic to say the least, and in my opinion, Beast reaction towards Charles was extremely violent, like he took his grieve on him for all the fucking wrong reasons.

As I was watching DP, I related to Charles once again. I went through a complicated phase as recently. I’m basically, Audrey, the strong headed young woman who’s successful on what she goes for. Spoiler, I do not do everything perfectly, and am a mess on my days. But as Charles, I have this light, and people find hope in me, and I give them my best vibes and try as harder as I can. And for one thing I did, which wasn’t supported by people close to me, they tore me down as if my whole twenty six years of being who I am didn’t matter. It broke my heart. Just like Charles, I tried to make up, repair what I did supposedly wrong, but they didn’t care. For months, I lived through a very complicated situation where I was isolated and not supported, which was hurtful, lonely, hard to live through (end of the depressive note).

What I liked though, was the open ending of DP. Charles and Erik someway reunited (in a french café, so cliché ughh) and Erik’s the only one who’s saying, let me be there for you. Who knows, maybe Charles isolated himself by the end of movie because he couldn’t live with the guilt? Or maybe Beast and the others x-men didn’t forgive him? In both case, here again, that’s something I would totally do. It’s a silent scream. I’m too demanding, both to others and myself. Charles is both powerful and physically dependant to others. A strange but knowing combo, ready to explode anytime soon. I can tell ‘cause I’m pretty much the first to guilt-trip myself when I realize I did a wrong. The way Charles can’t seem to forgive himself when he gave away so much, is to me, very realistic.

As a kid, I dreamt by night that I had a superpower. I never truly defined which one, it wasn’t really about flying or becoming invisible. The more I grew, the more my love for life was growing, even through the bad days and the hurt, I had hope brighter days were ahead, still do. My power is to try to do my best when I know I also could do the worst. Too powerful to be loved rightfully, too weak to be the good person I should be.

I would finish this by saying x-men taught me to be kinder towards myself. To always try to reach potential, as an artist, a woman living with a disability, but most of all as a human. I will probably live most of my life feeling like a misfit, looked upon as a strange creature but knowing that, someday, things will change and people who are gifted to be different will be treated with equal respect.

Mutant and Proud. thank you so fucking much.

#audreytheartiste

[az-5-elimgarak]

#TeamWillow

Fictober19

Type: Fanfiction

Fandom: Homeland (TV Show)

Prompt #24: Patience... is not something I’m known for

Rating: G, No warnings apply

Characters: Peter Quinn, Willow (seizure response dog)

The story and the tags after the break-line. Lemme know if tagging bugs you. Or if you’d like to be tagged in the future. And thank you. ❤

The first time the mystery object brushes against the bottom of his jeans, it barely registers. Given how easily he gets distracted on an average day, he promptly dismisses it as another one of those sort-of-phantom-but-not-really-because-Andy-says-it-can’t-be sensations his affected side whomps up on occasion.

The truth is, he’s just too tired to look down. Fifteen years of covert operations, life in the shadow of days, weeks, even months of sleepless nights at a time, and he can honestly say he doesn’t remember himself feeling as worn to a frazzle as he does now.

Since he started on Prazosin the nightmares have gradually gone away. Not entirely, of course, but he hasn’t had one render him borderline catatonic in months. He’s been doing better. Not great - he’s not sure it’ll ever be ‘great’, or that it ever was, for that matter - but definitely better. 

It wasn’t until Kim asked him during one of their sessions if his being ‘busy’ - as in ‘How’s it going?’ ‘Um… Busy, I guess’ - was a good thing that he realized, to his utter astonishment, that it was. That amongst hundreds of briefings, debriefings, missions, drinking himself into a near-stupor between missions, he doesn’t remember a single day that was, simply, busy. And that, even though between his job and the neverending succession of therapy, physiotherapy, speech therapy, and every-other-fucking-kind-of-therapy-known-to-man, he sometimes feels thin, like butter scraped over too much bread (to quote Bilbo Baggins),  he wouldn’t trade a single moment of it for the world.

In fact, right now, following a night shift at the Center and a particularly grueling physiotherapy session, he’s going on thirty six hours without sleep. His brain, fretted and discombobulated on a good day, feels like it’s barely holding structural integrity, let alone that of coherent thought. He’d tried to reschedule the interview, even considered giving it up altogether, but, in his condition, passing on an opportunity like this just wasn’t an option.

He struggles to keep his eyes open, not to mention follow the questions that seem incessant - a slow, systematic torture that’s starting to make the infamous 2003 interrogation in an Iraqi prison look more and more like a walk in the park. 

“...currently involved in any illegal activity? Or were in the last year?”

Now this piques his interest. “Anyone ever answer ‘yes’?”

“I’m sorry, Mr Hayes. I know this is…” A bunch of meaningless, bureaucratic crap? “...tiresome. And may seem redundant.” No shit. “But I’m obligated to ask. And, if you’re hoping to be in the program, you need to answer.”

“I was not,” he concedes. Not in the *last* year. So not *really* a lie.

She’s right, he knows, this woman across the table whose name, for the life of him, he cannot recall. He needs this. In fact, he should’ve applied a lot sooner. Not just because having a seizure response dog may, at last, allow him to hold a legitimate driver’s license. And not just because it didn’t help his rehabilitation process when six months of work to improve the range of motion in his left arm went down the crapper following a nasty seizure-induced fall that shattered his left humerus in two places. But because if he doesn’t, one of these days the neighbor recruited to check on him several times a day will be too late. At which point, ironically, having survived being shot, stabbed, and gassed, he’ll finally meet his demise on the kitchen floor, drowned in his own drool.

“...the program is very intense, and, as such, can be quite demanding. Training takes time. Weeks. Months, in some cases. We can’t promise you quick results. But we guarantee that, provided you put in the due time and patience…”

Patience…  is not something I’m known for.  

Hot on the heels of the thought a wave of anxiety follows. He fucked it up. No, not past simple. He HAS BEEN fuckING it up, for as long as he can remember: every chance he was ever given, every iteration of ‘normal’ he ever had. What if…  

Breathe, Kim’s voice whirs in his head. He swallows, counting to three before gradually letting the air funnel out. Then again. And once more. Until the numbness washes away and he’s prickling all over. You haven’t fucked THIS one up. Yet. So… shuddup and fucking BREATHE. 

“...we highly advise those who eventually qualify make the necessary arrangements allowing them to actively participate in the process. Training an SRD is goal- and need-oriented. We can’t just tell a dog what to do when you have a seizure. And, as you probably know, seizures differ in frequency, type, and intensity. Once the training is complete, your SRD should not only be able to warn you of an upcoming seizure, but also provide assistance, or even call for help if necessary. So, obviously, the training cannot be done unless you’re a full participant for the entire duration of the program…”

There’s that same brushing sensation again. Except, this time it’s not against the sleeve of his jeans but lower, on top of his foot. And it’s not so much brushing as it is… stirring?

He looks down, eyes widening in awe. “Um… Miss…” What *was* her name?

“Yes?

“It’s… There’s a p-p-p…” A sure sign of his brain initiating the shutdown process.

“Problem? Look, I know this all sounds quite overwhelming. But I assure you, if you put in the necessary effort—”

“No. No. There’s a p-p-p…” he motions under the table, unable to stop grinning. “P-p.. small dog.”

With some effort, grabbing the side of the chair with his right hand, he shimmies away from the table. The ball of creamy-gold fluff on top of his sneaker stirs again, sleepily rearranging the tangle of chubby paws around his braced ankle.

“Oh my God, I’m so sorry. Judi! Judi! Why is there… I’m sorry, could you give me a minute? Judi! There’s a puppy in the reception room!”

“That’s alright. I don’t mind,” he tries, reassuringly.

“It’s not that, sir. Judi! I’m so sorry, they’re not supposed to be here. They’re not even house trained yet. Oh my God, did it…?”

Finally, the side door opens and, mumbling apologies, Judi - he presumes - rushes in. 

“Willow! My goodness, how’d you get in here, girl? I’m sorry, she’s a bit of a… here, lemme take her. Excuse me… Sir? Could you…? Your foot?”

“Oh. Sure.”

He moves further backwards. His foot, sliding from under the snuggly weight, causes the puppy to roll over with a soft, startled yelp.

The amusedly exasperated “There you are, you mischievous scamp” is followed by an abrupt “No! No! C’mere! Willow, you...! Oh, for God’s sake… I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. Sir… do you mind?”

Bending down, he awkwardly reaches with his right hand behind his left ankle where what appears to be the feistiest golden retriever in the history of the breed is engaged in an out-and-out battle of ‘catch-me-if-you-can-bitch’ with her irked-out-of-her-mind keeper. 

“Gotcha,” he smirks, deftly hooking his palm under the plush belly and emerging from under the table with a wriggling jumble of ears and limbs. 

Held in front of his smile-dimpled face, a fierce twinkly-brown stare locked with his steely-blue, Willow lets out the tiniest, most defiant squeal of part-bark, part growl, part something-too-adorable-to-not-have-a-name he’s ever heard. 

“Wow. Consider me scared,” he nods, genuinely impressed, tightening his grip as she wiggles harder, earning a narrow-eyed shake of his head. “You just don’t give up, do you?”

Something in his calm, measured tone renders her still for a moment. Moisture-sleek, pitch black nostrils flare. Once. Twice. And then, he feels her go limp in his palm, paws and earls slacking, head cocking puzzlingly to the side. 

He lowers his voice. “That’s more like it. Now: care to say hello like a proper lady?” 

Slowly, he moves his hand to his face until they’re nose to nose where, following a series of cautious sniffs, his gesture of good will is rewarded with a torrent of slobber so generous and enthusiastic, he’s forced to laughingly gather her to his chest instead. 

“There,” he whispers, cradling her in the stiff, motionless fold of his left elbow and soothingly running his newly freed hand from the top of her head to the tip of her shimmering tail. “It’s nice to meet your acquaintance, Miss Willow. I’m Noah,” he adds. 

And, for the first time since he was handed his new identity papers, the name he thought he'd never get used to folds on his tongue just right.

 ______________________

The woman across the desk blinks rapidly, as if trying to decide whether or not he’s joking, and, in case he’s not, which part of the protocol her job is outlined by should’ve prepared her for this.

“Mr Hayes, I’m sorry. But that’s - what you’re asking -  it’s out of the question. It just… doesn’t work like that. We don’t - we can’t… you don’t just choose an SRD. At this age, we don’t even know if they have the ability. And even if we did, pairing an epilepsy dog with a potential candidate is an intricate process. There are factors that—”

“That what? I mean, how compatible do we have to be? It’s not like I’m asking you for her  bone-marrow.”

She exhales in an attempt to regain her composure. “I realize that, sir. But, nevertheless, there are things to consider. Things that our specialists have been trained to take into consideration. I’m sorry. This is— unprecedented. The candidate can’t just walk in and choose a puppy. Which is why we usually…” shooting an accusatory glance in Judi’s direction, “...don’t even let the candidates see the dogs until one is assigned.”

“Fine. But how about a puppy choosing a candidate?” he quips, pointedly scratching behind the ears of the aforementioned puppy snuggled sleepily in the crook of his neck.

“A pu…? Mr Hayes, you can’t be serious.”

Quinn leans back, tilting his head so as to rest his cheek on top of the plush bundle. “Look. I understand. So, say she doesn’t have the… SRD gene, or whatever makes them qualify. Or we don’t… work together. It’s fine. I mean, it happens, right? Even with the “selection process”, it must happen on occasion. What do you do then?”

Finally back on familiar territory, Christie - it *is* Christie, isn’t it? - nods.

“Sir, we’re a private facility. One of the top in the world, as I’m sure you know. Candidates who choose our services are guaranteed a functioning SRD. Of course, like you say, it’s not an exact science, and some pairings don’t stick. Which is another reason why the selection process should be left to people who are qualified to perform it. But, if the pairing is unsuccessful, we offer a client a chance to repeat the process.”

“Which costs you money.”

“Yes. But that’s far from being our main concern. Like I said, the training program is quite demanding. Doing it twice is not in anyone’s best interest.”

Disregarding her last remark, Quinn presses on. “And the dogs? Those who don’t qualify?”

“Well, they are all purebred, so, we offer them up for sale to individuals or elite breeding houses.”

“There you go. I’ll make you a deal. I get Willow, right now—” Christie opens her mouth to protest but he raises a hand to stop her. “Just... hear me out. I get Willow. And, if it doesn’t work out, for whatever reason, I’ll pay for her. And I’ll pay to repeat the program.”

“Sir—”

“I fail to see the downside. I really do.”

“Well, for one, Willow is too young to be trained. Or even tested. It’ll be at least another six weeks.”

Quinn smiles.

It never ceases to strike him with awe how, sometimes, his fretted, disjointed, swiss-cheese of a brain just... snaps back. As if resetting to some kind of safe point, all of the stroke and sarin splintered parts shift and reshuffle, and, suddenly, every word he needs is just where it ought to be.

“Miss, I’ve applied for the program over six months ago, and have been on the waiting list for the past three. I was diagnosed with refractory epilepsy a year ago having tried every combination of anticonvulsants known to modern medicine; and a bunch of experimental ones. I’ve had two, three, sometimes up to five grand-mal seizures a month for almost two years now. I’m pretty damn sure I can wait six weeks.”

 __________________

With Christie excusing herself in order to run the ‘this is highly irregular, sir, it really is, but I’ll see what I can do’ deal by her supervisor, and Judi retreating back to the breeding chambers, the room has grown quiet at last. It’s just the two of them now: Quinn, slumped back in the chair, eyes closed,  and Willow, passed out on his chest, her wispy, feathery breaths tickling the side of his throat.

He feels himself melting away, losing cohesion. He could fall asleep like this, his cheek resting against the velvet of flopped ear, fingers buried deep in the thick of her fur. And, given the bargain he just made, he probably should. 

Whatever it takes, he thinks, his mind skidding down the slope of exhaustion. Whatever it takes. 

Like a pebble skipping across the lake of his memory, he’s suddenly at the Center, chatting with Jessie, last night’s admission: a fourteen-year old turned over to CPS by her case worker following a late night raid the DEA made on her fifth foster home in two years.

“Ok, I can tell you. But it’s like a total spoiler.”

He arched a skeptical brow. “#TeamLannister? A total spoiler?”

“Hey. It’s GoT, alright? Everything’s a spoiler.”

“Fine. Spoil away,” he sighed, tossing her a new set of bed sheets.

She went on to tell him a long, elaborate story of a big battle involving dwarves (or was it just one dwarf), dragons, “dragon-wasting” ballistas, some “BAMF” knight called  - he wants to say James(?) - and, well, a “buttload” of other spoilers of which he understood very little; and remembers even less. Not to mention the fact that he never did get the answer as to what #TeamLannister - printed in block letters across her t-shirt - means.

“Hey, we’re a team now.” He nuzzles the wisp of spikes just above Willow’s ear as she stirs and burrows deeper into his neck. “#TeamQuinn?” A snort. “Ok. #TeamHayes?” A sleepy whimper. “What? #TeamNoah?”

Suddenly, there’s Christie’s voice in his head again. “...provided you put in the due time and patience…”

Patience… is not what I’m known for, he remembers thinking. And he shakes his head, smiling. Not something Peter Quinn was known for. Nor “John”, or “David”, or “Nathan”, or any of them, for that matter. 

Noah Hayes, though? He chuckles. The jury’s still out.

Jolted awake by the bounce of his chest, Willow emerges from under his chin, big, droopy eyes blinking in sleepy daze. 

“Hey you,” he laughs, poking the tip of her nose with the tip of his.

And, as she scrambles higher, curling her head in the crook of his neck with a long, joyful sigh, he just knows: for as long as it takes, wherever this road leads, and whatever the cost - from now on, it’s #TeamWillow.

@valerafan2 @hidingupatreeorsomething @awariasuit @tenar-of-atuan @potter012 @johnlockismyreligion @boisinberryjamarama